Black Republicans

* Bishop Carlton T. Pearson, in “There’s No Better Time Than Now to be a Black Republican” (Commentary, Sept. 17), makes a historically barren case for African American support of George W. Bush and the Republican Party.

Pearson mentions Gen. Colin Powell’s rousing speech at the Republican convention but forgets that had Democratic President Harry Truman not integrated the armed forces in 1952, Powell’s Army career would have gone nowhere. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dreams were realized by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, who was responsible for the Civil Rights Law of 1964. It was the Democratic administrations of Johnson and Jimmy Carter that spearheaded the effort to integrate our schools in accordance with Brown vs. Board of Education. The Republicans in Congress fought them every inch of the way.

The face of leadership of the Clinton-Gore White House has been the face of diversity, the face of equal opportunity. I believe Pearson underestimates the intelligence of his fellow African Americans.

JOAN L. DENSON

Los Angeles