Roland S. Martin: Herman Cain denies GOP's horrible history with blacks

Roland S. Martin is a syndicated columnist and author of "The First: President Barack Obama's Road to the White House." He is a commentator for TV One cable network and host/managing editor of its Sunday morning news show, "Washington Watch with Roland Martin."

You would think that a black man born and raised in Georgia, who was a teenager during the civil rights movement, would understand the transition of African-Americans from voting overwhelmingly Republican to strongly supporting the Democratic Party.

But the GOP presidential candidate clearly didn't have the common sense that he often speaks of having when he went on CNN's "The Situation Room" and accused many African-Americans of being brainwashed to vote Democratic.

"Many African-Americans have been brainwashed into not being open-minded, not even considering a conservative point of view," Cain said. "I have received some of that same vitriol simply because I am running for the Republican nomination as a conservative.

"So it's just brainwashing and people not being open-minded, pure and simple."...

The policies of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman, who desegregated the military, led more African-Americans to vote for the Democrats. Still, Dwight Eisenhower got 39 percent of the black vote when he ran for re-election in 1956; and Vice President Richard Nixon received 31 percent against the eventual winner, Sen. John F. Kennedy.

The shift became more noticeable in 1964, when the Republican Party nominated Sen. Barry Goldwater as its presidential nominee. It was Goldwater's ardent stance against the Civil Rights Act that led President Lyndon Johnson to garner 94 percent of the black vote....