Sunday on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” former George W. Bush administration Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Republican Party still struggles with a “dark vein of intolerance,” when dealing with race issues.
When Stephanopoulos asked, “How about your own party’s experience with race? You are still a Republican, right? I know you voted for President Obama. A couple of years back you spoke out about the dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the Republican party on race. Is that what you still see?”
Powell said, “I still see it. I still see it in the Republican party, and I still see it in other parts of our country. You don’t have to be Republican to be touched by this dark vein. America is still going through this transformation from where we were just 50 or 60 years ago. You have to remember, it was only about 60 or 70 years ago that we still had poll taxes, that we still had literacy tests in order to vote. That the voting places were only open two days a month for African-Americans. So we’ve come a long way, but there’s a long way to go, and we have to change the hearts and minds of Americans, and I see progress, especially in the younger generation.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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