What C. L. Bryant finds in the Tea Party movement is a reason to keep pushing the message of limited government and personal responsibility in communities that have been deprived of both by liberal elites.

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In case you missed it, institutional liberalism wants you to think the Tea Party is racist.  From the fake spitting incident involving black congressman John Lewis (D-GA) to the NAACP’s recent race-baiting resolution, George Soros and his affiliates are hell bent on destroying the limited government movement.    

The newest initiative of leftwing billionaire George Soros is TeaPartyTracker.org, a website dedicated to exposing “extremism” within the Tea Party movement.  Participants include Soros-funded entities like Think Progress (the advocacy arm of the Center for American Progress), Media Matters and New Left Media.  Of course, the NAACP is also a named partner. 

To date, the most interesting segment on the site is a collection of photos from various Tea Party rallies.  Examples of what passes for “extremist” rhetoric to liberals include signs that say, “Pay Your Own Mortgage,” “Obama Bin Lyin,’” and “Socialism: Trickle Up Poverty.”  Curiously, no one on the site disputes the claims of these slogans.  In addition, if this is outrageous, where were these groups when liberal protestors were parading around pictures of George W. Bush dressed as Hitler? 

The website’s logo is “A Watched Teapot Never Boils,” apparently expressing the belief that an up-close-and-personal look at the Tea Party will cause it to lose steam.     

That isn’t the experience of C. L. Bryant.  What he finds in the Tea Party movement is a reason to keep pushing the message of limited government and personal responsibility in communities that have been deprived of both by liberal elites.   

Bryant is a black pastor and one-time chapter president for the NAACP.   He was also a self-professed “Democratic radical.”  During his time in the pulpit, Bryant migrated to more conservative positions regarding welfare and other policies long seen as Democratic bridges to the black community.  Having traveled those bridges for decades, Bryant came to see them more as walls caging in black Americans.  With the explosion of the Tea Party movement, Bryant’s break with his liberal past was complete. 

So he began to speak out.  First, in the pulpit, then at Tea Party rallies.  He took heat from his congregation.  He also met resistance from long-time friends who saw his new brand of activism as a threat to their carefully created positions as power brokers between individual black Americans and the liberal political establishment.  Eventually, some of his church elders told him to tone down the rhetoric or step down from his position.   

Bryant chose to resign.  Free to speak his mind, he helped create an explosive new documentary called “Runaway Slave.”  The film follows Bryant as he visits historic stops along the Underground Railroad, the secret passageway to freedom for runaway slaves.  After nearly a half century of federal programs promising to lift up the black community in exchange for 95% support at the polls, Bryant asks his community, “Are we now ‘free at last?’” 

The answer is a resounding no.  The soul-crushing dependency on government fostered by the NAACP and George Soros is on display daily in the old slave port of New Orleans, LA.  In Bryant’s telling, the plight of thousands in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina is a direct result of being told to look first, last and always at the federal government for help. 

Another city that comes in for criticism is Atlanta, GA.  Citing statistics from BlackDemographics.com, Bryant highlights a reality brought about by replacing “personal” with “government” before responsibility.  In Atlanta, only 30% of black households are headed by married couples, while single mothers head almost 28%.  The dysfunction this creates was warned about at least as far back as Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s seminal report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. 

Bryant takes a very strong stand in “Runaway Slave,” asking fellow members of the black community if they are ready to get off the “liberal plantation” they’ve been chained to by self-described black liberal elites. “Run away from tyranny!” Bryant shouts throughout the movie’s trailer. 

He could just as well be saying the same thing about breaking the bonds to the network of liberal institutions vying to keep black Americans tethered to government-controlled servitude.