House Majority Leader Dick Armey recently wrote Kweisi Mfume, head of the NAACP, to request a meeting to discuss "racial McCarthyism" or political race baiting by the 90-year-old civil rights organization. "It has become an all-too-common practice to spread unfounded, racially charged falsehoods against Republicans for political advantage," wrote Armey in the letter. "If left unchallenged, this practice will continue to divide our nation, polarize our political parties, and do untold harm in the lives of real people who are unjustly accused of conspiracy against the civil rights of African Americans."

In the letter, he noted the NAACP's hate crimes ad against Bush during the presidential campaign, and how some black leaders likened the Florida voting controversy during the recount to the voting rights battles of Selma during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Armey raised some interesting points, and in his meeting with Mfume, he may want to talk about racial reconciliation, hold hands and sing Kumbaya. But Armey also sees the rain on the window. Ever since 1994, when the Republicans came into power in the House of Representatives, the GOP has lost seats in every congressional and Senate race.

Part of this comes down to the increase in the black vote, which has increased in every election since 1994. Conservatives like Armey see this increase as a result of racial McCarthyism by groups like the NAACP, which he feels have essentially branded the entire GOP racist. This in turn has caused most blacks to vote for the Democratic Party alternative, without even considering the GOP.

The NAACP went way over the line by directing its hate crimes ad against Bush. The ad basically said that Bush condoned the hate crime of James Byrd by failing to act, after Byrd was dragged to his death by three white racist.

But this isn't why blacks view the modern-day GOP with suspicion. If he wants to know the real reasons behind this, Armey needs only to look at the history of the Republican Party over the last 30 years.

At one time, the GOP was the party of blacks, as black voters religiously voted for the GOP. They were attracted to the parties' message of freedom, and self-help. While black voting for the GOP decreased after Roosevelt's "New Deal," blacks still held it in high regard.. In 1956, for example, Eisenhower received over 60 percent of the black vote nationally.

The picture finally changed when race become central to the Republican Parties ascendance to power, especially in the south, which is now the main region of power for the GOP.

Barry Goldwater began the trend in his 1964 presidential race against Lyndon Johnson. Realizing a large share of the black vote was going to Johnson, who was working on crafting the landmark 1964 Civil Rights bill, Goldwater came out against the legislation and for the old Southern white mantra of "states' rights."

The move helped him ride the wave of white backlash, and he carried the five Deep South states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, a feat unheard of for a Republican at the time. That same year, Strom Thurmond, the then-segregationist Democratic Senator from South Carolina, saw the writing on the wall, and he switched from the Democrat to the Republican Party.

"The Democrat Party has forsaken the people," said Thurmond, at the time. "It has become the party of minority groups, power-hungry union leaders, political bosses, and big businessmen looking for government contracts and favors."

Four years later in 1968, Nixon's "Southern Strategy" used tactics from the playbooks of Goldwater, the Dixiecrats and George Wallace, to capitalize on white fear and resentment, by labeling blacks as "welfare cheats," and "laggards." White backlash to the civil rights movement and LBJ's Great Society set in, and Nixon's "Southern Strategy helped fuelracial flames, and garner votes, at the same time writing off black voters.

"Substantial Negro support is not necessary to national Republican victory," said Kevin Phillips, the mastermind behind Nixon's Southern Strategy, at the time. "The GOP can build a winning coalition without Negro Votes. Indeed, Negro-Democratic mutual identification was a major source of Democratic loss, and Republican Party or (George Wallace's) American Independent Party profit, in many sections of the country."

Since then, some Republicans have played to these fears to gather white votes. Their game has ranged from the kickoff of Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign when he declared he "believed in states rights," in Philadelphia, Mississippi -- the site of the deaths of civil rights martyrs of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman -- to Vice President's Bush's 1988 Willie Horton ad campaign, which basically depicted all blacks of being criminals. Some of the GOP's race-baiting has been, perhaps, unintentional, and other times it has been blatant, but it has happened, and black people are familiar with this list of racial baggage.

While Armey may not want to hear about the recent history of his political party, it is nonetheless something he will have to address. If he can be honest, and if Mfume can be honest about the NAACP's recent actions, than maybe something can come out of the proposed meeting. But if not, they will be meeting for meeting's sake.

Lee Hubbard writes on national and urban affairs. He can be reached by e-mail at superle@hotmail.com for any questions and comments.