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There's a very big gulf between the black civil rights leadership in America and the black middle class in America. The black middle class are conservative. Many of those minorities can be persuaded to be members of the Republican Party.

You can't say the Negro left the Republican Party; the Negro feels he was evicted from the Republican Party.

For longer than I've been involved in the political process, the Republican establishment has claimed to want to provide an alternative for the black community, yet party elite refuse to show up for the game.

The Democratic Party has taken the black community for granted and said, 'This is the most loyal constituency we have. They're not going anywhere.' But the Republican Party has said, 'That's the most loyal constituency Democrats have. They're not going anywhere. We've got to win without them.'

Sure, there's a chunk of African-Americans out there who associate the Republican Party with racism, frankly particularly in the Deep South. It's an unfair perception, but it exists. Over a period time, that perception will die away if Republicans are focusing on issues that happen to impact African-Americans.

You can get elected to Congress without ever talking to black voters at all, and I think that's bad for the party.

There really has not been a strong Republican message to either the poor or the African American community at large.

I have often said one of the reasons more blacks don't support Republicans is because they don't trust the GOP establishment.

The Republican Party just isn't held in high repute in the black community. Under Bill Brock we were reaching out to broaden the base of the party. We have to go back to that.