What does "Democrat" really mean?

Democrat. The word should imply democracy, its fundamentals and ideologies. In reality it conjures up an image of wealthy liberal, progressive, socialist, blanket amnesty for illegals, back room deal making, Chicago thuggery and a host of other rather negative images.
How is it then that the Democrat Party fashioned an image of being the Party of the poor and oppressed? This being the same Democrat Party that embraced the KKK, supported the institution of slavery at the time of the Civil War (against the Republican president Lincon). Somewhere in the civil rights campaigns of the 1960's they managed to bamboozle enough minorities intop believing that they (the Democrats) were fighting for the minorities. In fact the Democrats were fighting for the minorities votes, the rights of minorities were a secondary byproduct. So long as there was a solid minority voting bloc supporting the Democrats, there was tacit support. However, over the next 50 years, it has transpired that the Democrats have done little to raise the economic status of those minorities, in favor of stringing them along to continue the voter base so desperately needed by a political party that wants to rewrite the Constitution of the United States to follow a more socialist agenda.