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14 The pauses in Apostle Claver Kamau-Imani’s presentation are punctuated with the quiet exhalations of the audience: A series of gasps, wow’s and Amen’s.
The crowd raises their hands when asked and occasionally try to finish his sentences for him when he stops for a particularly long time. They’re clearly feeling the message.
But this is not a rally for Kamau-Imani’s ministry at his Corinthian Christian Empowerment Center. It’s a meeting of the Bastrop County Republican Women’s Club, a boot camp put on by his political group, RagingElephants.org, in the side room at Cedar’s Grill in Bastrop last Thursday evening.
The RagingElephants.org website promises “aggressive and offensive” activities, a theme Kamau-Imani drew upon in his talk.
“Welcome to the fight,” he told the group. “It will not be San Jacinto, over in 15 minutes.”
Four times in his introduction, Kamau-Imani told his audience of 25 that they are “here for a work session,” and explained that the work they, and RagingElephants.org, would be doing is getting constitutional conservatives elected at every level of government.
RagingElephants.org proposes to do that by identifying and converting what Kamau-Imani calls “hidden conservatives. Those camouflaged by race or neighborhood.” In order to continue winning elections, he argued, the GOP has to work to recruit racial minorities.
Kamau-Imani told the crowd that many African-Americans hold conservative beliefs on issues like immigration, gun control and abortion. Yet the numbers show they vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Aiming his laser pointer at a bar graph showing the racial composition of the Republican party, Kamau-Imani called it “inexcusable and shameful,” and told his audience, “Nobody in the establishment is doing anything about it.”
Kamau-Imani credits his father with instilling his taste for anti-establishment political activism. His father — a lifelong Democrat — is a former president of the NAACP in Beaumont. Kamau-Imani says his father was “instrumental” in the redistricting that allowed minority candidates to be elected to city and statewide offices.
Kamau-Imani said his political conversion happened in the mid-1990s; he points specifically to one moment when he was channel-surfing and came across the national convention of the Libertarian Party on C-SPAN.
“That was the first time I really listened to what people were saying from the podium,” he said.
After that he went looking for party platforms and realized his beliefs on economic issues and social concerns were more aligned with those of the Republicans.
When he moved back to Houston, he began attending local Republican meetings, where he was more often than not the only non-white person in the room. That experience, he said, led him to begin RagingElephants.org in late 2008, to find and convert others like him – African-Americans he believes might be conservatives and not even know it.
RagingElephants.org seeks to do that in two ways. They’re expanding a billboard campaign that puts signs reading “Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican,” in heavily African-American areas and are putting up web ads reading “GOP is the new Black.” The audience applauded after Kamau-Imani showed them two television commercials RagingElephants.org is hoping to run on national cable networks.
They’re also taking their message directly to their target audience, through telephone polling. The polls ask African-American voters questions about the issues and identifies those who hold conservative beliefs on some of them. Then, RagingElephants.org will have that person’s name and information in a database, ready to be accessed when one of the issues comes up in a local campaign.
Last Thursday, however, Kamau-Imani was preaching to the choir, carrying his message not to those he’s trying to convert but to those who will help him with that mission. The ‘Amens’ and affirmations continued throughout the presentation, when he talked about the links between liberalism and tyranny, about the kind of candidates his organization wants to help put in office and about the steps Republicans must take to have a chance at winning elections in the next 50 years.
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Is this what can be called an UNPAID political ad????
I am a middle class white female and I am thrilled that Raging Elephants exists. I thank you for this article. It is fair and unbiased. As a Replublican, I say it is time for people of every race to take a good look at what they hold dear and vote with their hearts before this country is turned into “Of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation.”
And no. I don’t think this is an unpaid political ad.
Let’s see, Mississippi wants KKK founder Nathan Forest on their license plate, and REPUBLICAN Governor Barbour doesn’t have a problem with that. And this is just the latest incident from the Repub camp that doesn’t quite fit the “Big Tent” image that they try to portrait.
As a Conservative Hispanic Female I am glad to hear there are people taking action. @Carlos- It is not ILLEGAL nor against the Law to have such expressions on License plates. Though you may disagree it is their right none the less. As it is for such organizations as LULAC, Black Panthers, and La Raza to preach rhetoric of discrimination and racism. And what “Big Tent” image is the Republican party trying to portray?
It is about time someone spoke up to remind everyone that Martin Luther King was a Republican. I am sure he would be right there with the raging elephants cutting services for the poor and minorities while continuing to give money to more worthy institutions like NASCAR or the military. He would no doubt be condemning that socialist community organizer Obama for all that he has done to set back all the work that King started. He loved political groups that touted the fact that they needed to be “aggressive and offensive especially ones that put rage in their name. He would have no doubt been there at the Glenn Beck rally with Sarah Palin rather than at the nearby rally with Al Sharpton and certainly wouldn’t have been at the Colbert/Stewart Rally To Restore Sanity. Goodness knows he was never about cooperation and trying to be reasonable.
Maybe you could also put up signs saying that Malcolm X would have been a conservative republican! He was all about rage! As an added bonus he was a Sunni Muslim so that would likely help convert some of those bleeding heart liberals over to our side.
Apostle Claver came to my area and spoke to a group of about 40 people, a mostly white crowd consisting of Tea Party patriots, and GOP members. I had heard of the Raging Elephants and Apostle Claver and was interested in hearing his view point.
Neither I nor the crowd were disappointed. He is a very dynamic speaker and his message is one I hope spreads far and fast. He presents accurate facts and drives them home in a way is rarely encountered. He speaks as a black man to the white crowd and puts a very different slant on the reasons blacks go to Democrats rather than the Republicans. Part of the reason is so obvious no one is seeing it, African -American or any racial group don’t gravitate to a group that looks different than they do, regardless of the similarities of beliefs. The GOP has failed to appeal to the visual proponents of the message they need to convey. This is an interesting fact and in this day of mass communications, it is hard to understand why it has been either overlooked or ignored. I do remember when Bush was president he openly acknowledged he wouldn’t be attending certain functions sponsored by the black community because they weren’t going to vote for him anyway.
Well, he certainly made a poor judgement call on that one, as well as many others.
The crowd of listeners responded positively to this man who held our attention and made a convincing case for the need to join with him if the GOP has a serious chance of replacing Obama in the next election.
“A series of gasps, wow’s and Amen’s.”
Eric: As a fellow journalist, I am disappointed that you would descend to poetic license as a lede. I was at the meeting. There were no gasps, wow’s or Amen’s spoken by the audience.
In other words, you led with fiction for what was supposed to be factual reporting.
@Hans – Politifact has debunked the myth that MLK was a Republican, specifically addressing the claims made by Mr. Kamau-Imani. You can read their analysis here: http://politifact.com/texas/statements/2011/jan/17/raging-elephants/houston-group-says-martin-luther-king-jr-was-repub/
Martin Luther King Jr. was neither a Democrat nor a Republican. He worked with leaders of both parties to improve the lives of many Americans. Unfortunately, such bipartisanship is unheard of today and we are all the poorer for it.
Howard,interestingly enough, I was at one of these bootcamps last summer, and there were indeed VERY MANY gasps, wows, amens, and even, wait for it, applause. Hmmm. Wonder whose account I’m going to go with… Anyway, all that aside, I believe I will be attending the one tomorrow in Providence. Poetic license notwithstanding, that is a city with a nice ring to it’s name.
Hans, here is a group promoting unity, helping white folks and black folks understand that we really are the same at heart, for all the divisiveness promoted by all those groups who hope to gain an advantage out of us all NOT realizing our kinship. As I see (and understand) your appreciation for sarcastic rhetoric, I will amend your commentary to make it clear that neither Al Sharpton, nor Malcolm X, nor all their
outspoken colleagues have a divisive nature, or ever attempt to further widen the gap betwixt races, religions, or socio-economic groups. No one is entitled to special benefits at another’s expense, you see, just because they are in a so-called minority grouping. The groupings are artificial: we are pretty much all the same at the end of the day, as they say. Same hopes, desires, passions, beliefs, joys, fears, loves–these persist across any artificial boundaries.
I believe that is all that is being pointed out by Raging Elephants… And that we all should work together to promote the government that will protect and represent us equally and in kind, without respect to the color of the skin or hair, or the language we
speak, or
…oops, got disconnected for a bit.Was saying,
We need to begin working together to elect the government that represents us equally and without dividing us (and therefore our attention, and our effectiveness) into rival camps of color, or language, or financial demographic. We need to stop allowing ourselves to be distracted from what the real and important issues are, stop falling for the “labels”, and realize WE ALL ON THE SAME TEAM! It isn’t really about what group I’m in, is it; rather it is about abiding by the provisions of our Constitution and electing those who will do the same. The balancing aspects of conservativism aren’t just for white folks, or rich folks-all “groups”can benefit from balanced government that sticks to governing and stops trying to control, or be involved in, every little aspect of our lives, and sucking up more and more of our hard-earned dollars to do it.
Our country is in trouble–what are we doing about it?
I am so excited to learn of your organization and I DEFINITELY think your mission is long overdue. The democrat party has used minorities to fund their organizations for decades, claiming they have their best interest at heart and it has honestly been sad to witness. Republicans have for too long stood by while democrats painted us as mean and greedy and misled the minorities. Specifically, it is disgusting how far this administration has attempted to divide or country, all for political gain. I am very proud to see someone stand up with the facts and begin to unite, not divide. I would love to help in anyway!!!
When I tell people that Martin Luther King was a Republican, I am often called a racist … hate baiter … and a Liar.
I am thankful that you began this mission. Please know my thoughts, and my prayers are with you.
Everyone seems to be missing one tiny tidbit of information that is somewhat relevant to this discussion – History!
I wouldn’t doubt King was a Republican, but I doubt he would be a Republican today. If anyone remembers, the South used to be a solid Democratic bloc. Literally overnight, the South jumped sides and became solid Republican when Democratic President Lyndon Johnson secured passage of the Civil Rights Act in the early 60s.
At least that’s the way I remember it.
To me the reasons for the switch are obvious, but I have no desire to get into that particular argument. It was what it was. So the argument of whether King was a Republican or not cannot be compared with today’s party affiliations.
Do something that few others do: Check out the truth from history. It was the FIRST Republican president, Abe Lincoln, who freed the slaves. The first Black members of Congress were assigned by Republicans during Reconstruction. It was the Democrats who resisted by enacting Jim Crow laws forcing Blacks into a second-class place in America. There are more Black Republicans in office today in Texas than Black Democrats EVER. Democrats undercut freedom and true equality while Republicans support these principles.