Who Is More Racist?

Americans of African descent (not to mention other minorities) vote for Democrats by wide margins. I'm still in the process of learning why this is, but it seems to have something to do with an impression that many Republicans are borderline racist. In my lifetime I have heard many Democrats state, both implicitly and explicitly, that Republicans have racist tendencies. Democrats, on the other hand, have always stood up for the downtrodden. At least, so the narrative goes.

I even once worked with a guy who claimed that G. W. Bush was racist because he was slow to get help into New Orleans after Katrina, but the Gov was quick to get help to those affected by hurricane Andrew, completely forgetting that Andrew occuring under Clinton's watch and so can not be compared. Perhaps Bush was simply less competent than Clinton. Perhaps the state government of Louisiana was more difficult to work with. Perhaps Bush was actually sexist, and so feminine-name hurricanes get less attention than masculine-name hurricanes. Who knows? It's silly to blame this on racism.
The Republicans, on the other hand, tell a very different historical narrative. Lincoln (a Republican) freed the slaves. Eisenhower (a Republican) integrated the armed forces. It was George Wallace (a former Democrat) and Strom Thurmond (a former Democrat - much later turned Republican) that ran on racist platforms. It was Robert Byrd (a Democrat) that was once a member of the KKK. Rather than go on, I direct you to this blog post that explains the whole thing better than I can.
There are two very different stories being told here. My goal is not to tell which is right, but to expose my readers to different points of view so they may find out for themselves, or at least so they will have more patience with another who has been told something different.

P. S. Since writing this, I came across another blog post explaining in even more detail the Republican version of events.