If you had difficulty observing more than an occasional African American face among delegates attending the Republican National Convention this week in St. Paul, there is a reason.

According to a roster of black delegates compiled by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, there are only 36 black delegates attending this week's convention, a 78.4 percent decline from the 167 black delegates at the 2004 Republican convention. At 1.5 percent of the delegation, this is the lowest black representation at a GOP convention in 40 years.

By contrast, the recently concluded Democratic National Convention in Denver drew a record 1,079 African American delegates, representing 24.3 percent of the total count.

It's easy to dismiss the different participation rates by noting that the overwhelming majority of African Americans vote Democratic. That is true. But to stop the analysis there ignores some important history and, more important, today's political reality.

For years, blacks were solid Republicans. Even as late as 1960, when John F. Kennedy barely defeated Richard M. Nixon, the GOP received 32 percent of the black vote.

But when Republicans selected ultra-conservative Barry Goldwater as their presidential candidate in 1964, black support for the party dropped to 6 percent and has never exceeded 15 percent since that time.

Not only did the party change, but so did the type of African Americans they pushed to the forefront.

Former Massachusetts Sen. Edward Brooke, former Assistant Secretary of Labor Arthur Fletcher, and former Secretary of Transportation William Coleman were Republicans, but they retained credibility in the black community because they were firm supporters of affirmative action and other social programs.

Beginning with Ronald Reagan, it appeared that any black Republican hoping to rise in the party was required to denounce affirmative action, even in cases where they had personally benefited from race-sensitive programs.

I always find it amusing that it's acceptable that every other interest group in the United States is expected to look out after their own best interest. Yet, when African Americans do the same thing, they are often called racists and dismissed as being obsessed with color.

Case in point: When I have referred to the NAACP Legislative Report Card in this column, invariably I have received at least one e-mail, usually more, saying elected officials shouldn't cave in to the NAACP.

Yet, the same judgment is not rendered against other groups that seek to look after their interests. Hundreds of organizations issue annual report cards showing how members of Congress did or did not support their favorite legislation.

Among them: the National Education Association, the Heritage Foundation, the ACLU, Citizens for Tax Justice, the American Geriatrics Society, Americans for Better Immigration, and Americans for the Arts Action Fund.

It is a given that the respective groups know what's in their best interest. Often, however, African Americans are held to a different standard.

The NAACP has been issuing a civil rights report card since 1914. When it comes out, there are often efforts to discredit it, as though the NAACP doesn't know what's good for black people.

If you read the last report card for the complete session of Congress (the 109th), you might learn why Republicans have such a difficult time attracting African Americans.

In the 109th Congress, 25 Democrats in the Senate received an A from the nation's oldest civil rights organization, 15 earned a B, and two got C's. None was graded D or F.

By contrast, no Republican senator earned an A or B. One, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, earned a C, and another, Mike DeWine of Ohio, was given a D. The other 54 Republicans who served the full session earned F's.

There was a similar pattern in the House, where 133 Democrats earned A's, 41 got B's, 15 received C's, and 19 brought up the rear with D's. Among Republicans, none earned as high as a C. Three received the highest grade of D and 211 got F's.

(The totals in both chambers do not add up to 535 because some members served only partial terms and others were independents.)

As I pointed out in an earlier column, over 11 grading periods, John McCain received an F each time; he got an Incomplete the two times he ran for president and was often absent from the Senate.

His highest score was 50 percent (1985-86), his second-highest was 40 percent (1997-98). The other nine times, he supported the NAACP 30 percent of the time or less.

More significant, McCain's support of the NAACP has grown worse in recent years. Though he now apologizes for voting against making the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday, he has expressed support for a Ward Connerly-backed initiative that would ban affirmative action in Arizona.

African Americans would like nothing better than to have a genuine choice between Democrats and Republicans. However, despite kinder and gentler words, the GOP's modern record on civil rights does not match the rhetoric.