CHAPTER THREE€¦ · Web viewOften they focused on public policy, such as slavery, segregation,...
Transcript of CHAPTER THREE€¦ · Web viewOften they focused on public policy, such as slavery, segregation,...
Oct. 9Dec. 14, 2011
Today Dec. 9 P.B. Pinchback first black governor. Preface
On FebruaryIn February 18, 1776, George Washington took time from his duties
as commander of the Continental Army to write a letter to a poet. Even
considering theduring the slower pace of life in the eighteenth18th 18th century, ,
when horseback washorses were the fastest mode type of transportation and quill
pens were the standard tools of written communication, Washington was a busya
busy man. man. The previous June he had been namedHe was commander of an a
revolutionary army that barely existed,existed. He army that, in truth, did not yet
exist. As he was working to create and train the army and coordinate its efforts with
coordinated multiple militias operated byfrom the 13 British colonies that would
become the U.S. and he led the effort to the various colonies, Washington
simultaneously oversaw the siege of Boston – —attempting to drive out the drive
British troops occupying the cityout of Boston.
Yet the conventions of civility and gentlemanly behavior dictated that he
respondrequired that hehim to answer the to the poet who, who had sent him a letter,
sent enclosing a poem that extolledpraising Washington Washington’s virtues,
praised his service to his people and called and calling on the gods on the gods to
honorto help him Washington with success in the struggle for freedom. An
gentleman aristocrat like Washington was expected tomust simply must expexpress
thanks for such a gift. But Washington’s letter answer went beyond the minimum
requirements of polite society to offer expansiveand praised the letter writer praise of
hispoet fown to the poet for her “great poetical Talents.” He went further still
byand inviting her to visit him ifif she were ever near his army headquarters.
The most surprising aspect of the Washington’s letter was who it went to, ,
however, was not its generosity of spirit, but its recipient – —Phillis Wheatley,
America’s first published poet of African descent, a woman who had been freed
from slavery about two2 years earlier.
At the time, Tthere was no United States did not yet exist. Our Declaration of
Independence and Constitution had not been written. The Constitution had been
neither written nor ratified. The Declaration of Independence had not even been
written. Centuries of debate over the power of presidents and the status of
African Americans under the Constitution had not yet begun. And Yet, George
Washington, one of the most well-known and most powerful residents of the
coloniesresidents people in North America, a man who owned hundreds of slaves
and would become the nation’sour first president, could communicate in
respectfrespectul, warmth and dignity with a former slave.
PP Mount Vernon
.
The exchangeThere certainly was a wide difference in their both transcends
and illuminates their disparities of power and social station. But the incident
illustrates the It also underscores the humanity of Washington and Wheatley – —
and. The incident also emblematically symbolizes the complicated interactions of the
personalities, perspectives and human experience of the dozens ofmore than 40
presidents who would succeed follow Washington and the millions of African
Americans who would seek aidhelp, understanding, acknowledgmentrecognition,
respect and redress justice from them.
The relationships between the our presidents and African Americans have
been varied and complex – —as the documents in this volume amply demonstrate..
Often, as would be expected, these documents focused on they focused on matters of
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public policy, such as slavery, segregation, protection of African Americans
fromagainst racial violence, and efforts to guarantee voting rights and other civil
liberties. Sometimes the encounterstheir relationships carried had personal
overtones elements as well, such as Abraham Lincoln’s meetings with Frederick
Douglass, a former slave who became a respected educator and leader of the anti-
slavery movement in the 1800s. Or or John F. Kennedy’s phoneKennedy’s phone
call of support to Coretta Scott King when her husband, civil rights leader
Martin Luther King Jr., was in jail.
Like all of us, presidents have always been products of their times and the
societies in which they were born and raised. Some—even early presidents such as
Washington, were deeply ambivalent about slavery although they owned slaves.
While it is well-known that certain presidents legally owned other human beings, the
slave-owning status of others is not well-remembered. For example, Ulysses Grant,
the victorious commander of the Union Army that ended slavery, owned slaves
before our Civil War. But as president, Grant sent soldiers to the South to protect
black citizens from white racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
Before and . even after the Constitution was amended to officially abolish
slavery, the personal attitudes of presidents varied widely. Some , ones who brought
their slaves to the White House—which was built partly by slave labor—to/ Some
were from ooutspokenutright enemies of slavery to ones who brought their slaves to
the White House—a building, by the way, constructed in part with slave
labor.slavery. For example, Abraham Lincoln always opposed slavery but his
successor, Andrew Johnson, was a blatant racist. Bill Clinton’s relationship with
African Americans was so close that members of the Congressional Black Caucus
jokingly referred to him as the “first black president.”
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A number of presidents owned slaves, including some presidents not widely
recognized as slave owners. For ezample, Ulysses S. Grant, for example, triuthe
victyoriousmphant leader of the Union Army that ended slavery by defeating the
Confederacy, owned slaves before the our Civil W war. But as president, he also sent
federal army troops to the South to protect black citizens from the depredations
ofwhite racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Woodrow Wilson, our president during
World War I, who came to the White House nearly a half century after Emancipation,
never owned slaves. But when he was a boy in Georgia, his family had the
useused of slaves who were owned by the church for whichwhere Wilson’s father
was a minister. As president, Wilson authorized a significantallowedencouraged
greater expansion of racial segregation in federal offices and had a testy exchange
in the Oval Office with African American leader William Monroe Trotter when
Trotter confronted him on that issuegovernment jobs.
Some presidents, such as Andrew Johnson, were unabashed were openly racists
and white supremacists, and some brought their slaves with them to the White House.
OtherSeveral presidents became the focus subject of rumors and scandals for
their personal connectionrelationshipss with African Americans – —whether real or
imputedonly hinted – —with African Americans. Thomas Jefferson, one of the
authors of our Declaration of Independence, had a three-decade sexual relationship
with one of hishis slave s, Sally Hemings, that was widely rumored at the time but
heatedly denied. Not until into t the late 1990s when did DNA evidence prove that
Jefferson was the father of most if not all 6 of Hemings’s children. finally made
Jefferson’s parentage of Hemings’s children virtually undeniable. During the 1920
presidential campaign, political enemies of Warren Harding G. Harding became
thewas the subject of claims by his political enemniesclaimed that focus of scandal
when it was alleged during the 1920 presidential campaign that he had African
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American ancestors. The evidence was dubious doubtfulat best, but Harding’s
Harding refusal refused to flatly absolutely deny it. deny the assertion has given it a
long life. Considering the history of the Jefferson-Hemings debate, who can say that
the claim about Harding’s lineage will never be proven true?
Some presidents, such as William McKinley and Wilson, remained willfully
silent in the face ofwhen there were brutal lynchings and mob violence against
African American citizens. Some presidents, such as Kennedy and Dwight
Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy, had to be pushed by events to take assertive
strong action in to defense ofdefend African Americans’ civil rights. Eisenhower,
for example, had serious reservations doubts about the a U.S. Supreme Court’s
Court landmark school desegregation decision in 1954that made racial segregation
illegal in public schools. Even so, he sent , but when the authority of federal courts
was challenged in Little Rock in 1957, he sent federal troops to enforce court
orders requiring the integration of black and white schoolchildren. Others, such as
Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson, presidents aggressively pursued pushed federal
government action to eliminate against racial discrimination and to guarantee the
rights of black citizens – —even when it was arguably tomay have beenwas to their
political disadvantage.
And the election of Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 as the first African
American president opened an entirely new chapter in this our national saga. The
election of the son of a black Kenyan father who left the family when he was 2 and a
white American woman
shines light on bothon both the progress the United States has made in race
relations and our continuing racial divide—as reflected in the 2008 campaign and so
far during his administration—that still challenges the country.
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Memorizing facts and dates doesn’t bring history to life. Two other things do.
The first is stories about people, stories that provide perspective on the facts and add
human faces and voices to history. The incident about George Washington and the
poet Phyllis Wheatley is such a story. The second way to bring history to life is
visiting the places where history happened, like 9th fort or the castle or the
presidential XX palace here in Kaunas.
I can’t transport you this afternoon to the places I’ll talk about—although I will
show you some pictures. But I will tell you some stories. In the next part of this
lecture I will talk about 5 presidents, look at a sample of their race-related official
actions and tell you about an incident related to their personal attitudes or interactions
with black Americans.
PPP Timeline
Then the last part of this lecture will talk about how Barack Obama got to the White
House and how his race may or may not affect his success in winning reelection in 13
months. After that, I’ll be happy to answer your questions.
PP Book Cover
My lecture is drawn from research done by Professor Stephen Jones of Central
Michigan University and myself for a book to be published this month, Presidents
and Black America: A Documentary History. Dr. Jones teaches history and, like
myself, is a former newspaper journalist.
PP Photos of presidents – Washington to Bush
What do you notice? All white, all male. All of Western European ancestry.
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Although slavery would be one of the dominant political issues of America’s
first 90 years as an independent country, and, and although race would be one of the
dominant political issues of the next 146 years—and still is—neither ofneither of our
2 foundational documents even mentioned the word.
PP Book Cover
My lecture is drawn from research done by Professor Stephen Jones of Central
Michigan University and myself for a book to be published this fall, Presidents and
Black America: A Documentary History. Dr. Jones teaches history and, like myself, is
a former newspaper journalist.PP Declaration
The Declaration of Independence of 1776 is a statement of faith in self-
government, a statement of principles. It says, “We hold these truths to be self-
evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rigrights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.” The words make no exception, at least for men. All is all, or is all not
all?
The Constitution of 1787 failed to address slavery by name. At least three
major provisions were written to deal with the reality of slavery, but none used the
word or clearly recognized the presence of slaves in American society. Under those
provisions, Congress could not ban the importation of more slaves into the U.S. for
20 years. Runaway slaves—who were simply called persons “held to service or
labor”—would have to be returned to their masters. And only three-fifths of slaves –
who were called “all other persons”—could be counted to determine states’
representation in Congress.
James Monroe
PP Monroe
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Before becoming president, James Monroe served as governor of George
Washington’s home state of Virginia, in the South. As governor, he faced slave
uprisings including one that included a plan to burn the state’s capital city, murder
slave owners and kidnap Monroe himself. The uprising increased white fears that
American slaves might follow the violent, revolutionary example of slaves in the
French Caribbean colony of Haiti After authorities learned of the plan, about 100
slaves were arrested and twenty to thirty were executed. As at least a partial solution
to such unrest, Monroe wanted to relocate or deport rebellious slaves, and perhaps
free African Americans as well, to remote U.S. territories or overseas.
On the official side, President Monroe worried that smugglers and pirates were
illegally importing slaves into the South. In a speech, he described the slave trade,
piracy and smuggling “enterprises” off the Florida and Texas coasts. He signed
legislation that authorized the navy to seize slave ships and bring criminal charges
again violators. That law also required safe removal of their human cargo from the
ships and appointment of agents in Africa to receive the freed slaves
PP Monroe plantation
On the personal side, before, during and after his presidency, James Monroe
traded in slaves for his plantations. He inherited his first slave, Ralph, in 1774, and at
one time owned more than 75. In a letter written while he was Virginia’s governor,
Monroe offered to sell “2 girls who are with their good mother at the mountain” so he
could pay his debts. He treated it a business matter despite personal doubts about the
morality and sustainability of slavery. After his presidency, he described selling
slaves in Virginia and Kentucky “in satisfaction of debts contracted in the public
service.” When he died, he left more than fifty slaves to his children.
While government records are incomplete, these statistics illustrate Monroe’s
reported holdings at some key dates in his career.
8
PP Monroe slaveholdings
1774: 1
1790, the year he was elected to the U.S. Senate: 9
1799, the year he became governor and& confronted his first slave
insurrection: 21
1810, while a member of the Virginia Assembly: 49
1820, the year he was reelected president: 25
1830, after his presidency: 70
Abraham Lincoln
PP Abe and Mary
PP Secession map
The election of anti-slavery candidate Abraham Lincoln in 1860 triggered the
secession—the withdrawal—of 11 southern states from the Union and the start of a
bloody 4-year civil war. Lincoln saw his duty as saving and reuniting the country, and
he saw elimination of slavery as one way to reach that goal.
Lincoln never believed in the social equality of the races, but his attitude
toward political rights did change over time. As an indication of his thinking about
race just 2 years before he ran for president, Lincoln said: “I am not, nor ever have
been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the
white and black races-- I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or
jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white
people. In addition, there is a physical difference between the races which I believe
will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political
equality. While they remain together there must be the position of superior and
inferior, and I am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”
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PP proclamation Signing drawing
Yet as president, history remembers Lincoln for signing the Emancipation
Proclamation on New Year’s Day 1863. The previous night, New Year’s Eve,
African Americans—free and slave—gathered in prayer and hope. With the stroke of
his pen, Lincoln transformed the North’s war effort from a fight solely to preserve the
Union into a fight also to end slavery. With that, the complexion of the Civil War
changed.
proclamation Lincoln’s action generated celebrations among abolitionists and
blacks in a war-weary North and worsened anti-Lincoln hatred among many whites in
the South.
The document reflects a mix of practical political and military considerations—
such as continuation of slavery in several states that did not secede—and moral
considerations. One key provision allowed Blacks to enlist in the Union Army, a
move long advocated by black leaders including abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who
wrote, “Let the slaves and free colored people be called into service and formed into a
liberating army to march into the South and raise the banner of Emancipation among
the slaves.” By the end of the war, close to 200,000 had served as soldiers and sailors.
Never before were blacks and whites in the United States legally entitled to equal
treatment, even if that equality was limited to military law and not always applied
evenly. For example, black soldiers were initially paid less than white ones.
On the personal side, the president’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, was the target
of false criticism from northerners who felt she was sympathetic to the South because
some of her relatives were loyal to the Confederacy. Her volunteer work as a nurse
for injured Union soldiers countered that criticism. On one occasion, she sent her
husband a letter supporting a group that helped escaped slaves. She told the president
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that the group’s founder, former slave Elizabeth Keckley, “says the immense number
of escaped slaves in Washington are suffering intensely, many without bed covering
& having to use any bit of carpeting to cover themselves. Many are dying.” Mary
Todd Lincoln donated $200 to the organization for blankets, saying, “I am sure you
will not object. The cause of humanity requires it.”
, the post-Civil War period in which state and society in the former Confederacy were
brought back into the union, at least politically and economically—if not socially. His
frequent himself in
.
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John F. Kennedy, 1961-1963
PP JFK and King
We will now jump ahead almost a century to the presidency Jof John Kennedy.
Kennedy was a naval hero of in World War II who came to the White House with a
strong background in foreign policy, driven by the Cold War for world influence. He
saw the competition between the United States and Soviet Union as the most
dangerous and most important challenge that the nation faced. Although he was
certainly aware of the growing movement to end segregation and generally
sympathized with demands for civil rights protection, Kennedy’s attention was
primarily on the world stage.
But foreign and domestic issued proved to be connected. For example, an inter-
racial group of Freedom Riders who traveled across the South to challenge
segregation was attacked and beaten in Alabama. When photos of a bus in flames
shocked the nation, Kennedy worried aboutworried about the damage to America’s
international image. As civil rights protests spread, the issue increasingly was
portrayed in terms of world diplomacy and Cold War ideology. Segregationists
charged that outside agitators and communists provoked the protests. And the Soviets
used photos of racial oppression to undermine American influence abroad,
particularly in the newly independent nations of Africa.
In the summer of 1963, the governor of Alabama tried physically to block two
black students from enrolling in in the University of Alabama, a state
universitycollege. Kennedy put the Alabama National Guard under federal control to
prevent violence. Thate same eveningnight, he made a speech to the American people
about civil rights, calling it a moral issue “as old as the scriptures and as clear as the
Constitutionand urging all citizens to help find a solution.”
Here is part of Kennedy psaid:
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Today we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the
rights of all who wish to be free. When Americans are sent to Viet-Nam or
West Berlin, we do not ask for whites only. It ought to be possible, therefore,
for American students of any color to attend any public institution without
having to be backed up by troops.
It ought to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive equal
service in places such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores,
without being forced to resort to demonstrationse in the street, and it ought to
be possible for American citizens of any color to vote in a free election
without interference or fear of reprisal.
We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the
scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.
On the personal side, Kennedy and his advisors often tried for political reasons to
keep some distance between themselves and Martin Luther King Jr. before he became
president. However, a small show of support for King during the 1960 campaign
played a significant role in getting Kennedy elected. Less than three weeks before the
election, King was arrested at a civil rights demonstration in Georgia. At first,
Kennedy and his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, ignored the issue. But as
King remained in jail, Kennedy’s civil rights advisor persuaded him to make a
telephone call of support to King’s wife.
Kennedy’s brother, Robert, who was also his campaign manager, was initially
angry when he found out about the call because he feared it could alienate white
Democrats in the South who hated King and were uncomfortable with Kennedy’s
Catholicism. But when Robert Kennedy discovered that King was being denied bail,
h he called the judge and persuaded himthe a judge to release King. At a triumphant
rally at the Atlanta churchAtlanta church where King’s father, was minister– the
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father declared his support for Kennedy despite his Catholicism because “he has the
moral courage to stand up for what he knows is right.” That produced a surge in black
voter supportvotes for Kennedy that helped tip the balance in theone of the closest
U.S. presidential elections of the twentieth century.in our history.
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Ronald Reagan January 20, 1981–January 20, 1989
PP Reagan
Thirty-five years after World War II ended, Ronald Reagan’s presidency
signaled the nation’s philosophical shift to the right, He had been an Hollywood actor
and president of the actor’s union and a Democrat, but as his views became more
conservative, he later switchedchangedbecame a Republican and becamewas elected
governor of California.
He announced his 1980 presidential candidacy in the same Mississippi county
where white supremacists had murdered 3 civil rights workers in 1964. Aa black
Washington Post columnist William Raspberry described Reagan’s appearance there
as “bitter symbolism for black Americans.”
After defeating Democratic President Jimmy Carter, heReagan headed an
administration that opposed affirmative action, advocated economic policies that
favored the rich“trickle-down economics” – a philosophy in which benefits to the
wealthy trickle down to the poorand and pushed to reducecut government funding for
social services that benefited the poor.
His actions position on race-related issues and events sometimes appeared
contradictory. On one hand, he put an African American in his Cabinet, signed a
crucial voting rights law and ordered his agencies to help establish 60,000 new
minority-owned businesses within ten10 years.
.
On the other hand, he opposed creating a national holiday to honor the
assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., although he signed the law
after Congress passed it. But oneOne of the most prominentprincipal conflicts
involved the question of whether the U.S. should impose economic sanctions on
15
South Africa. As you recall, South Africa had a black-majority population but was
ruled by the white minority under a white supremacists system called apartheid. The
president nReagan opposed sanctions and the U.S. abstained from a 1984 UN
Security Council resolution condemning apartheid. Instead, he favored what was
calledso-called “constructive engagement” to persuade the South African government
to modify its policies. However, Congress passed a sanctions law, which Reagan
vetoed, arguing . on the grounds
His veto message said, “Apartheid is an affront to human rights and
human dignity. Normal and friendly relations cannot exist between the United States
and South Africa until it becomes a dead policy. But while we vigorously support the
purpose of this legislation, declaring economic warfare against the people of South
Africa would be destructive not only of their efforts to peacefully end apartheid, but
aof the opportunity to replace it with a free society. The punitive sanctions are
targeted directly at the labor intensive industries upon which the victimized peoples
depend for their very survival. Black workers—the first victims of apartheid—would
become the first victims of American sanctions.”
After Congress overrode the veto, however, the presidentReagan ordered his
administration to carry out the sanctions law.
PP Reagan football
On the personal side, Reagan grew up in small communities in Illinois, in the
American Midwest. As a football player (American) in college, he experienced one of
his most memorable encounters with racism. During a 1931 overnight stop in his
hometown, Reagan accompanied his coach so the team could get rooms, and the hotel
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manager told them, “I can take everybody but your two colored boys” –meaning
Blacks-- and told them no hotel in town would allow them to stay there.
The coach suggested the team sleep on the bus, but Reagan offered his parents’
home. “Why don’t you tell those two fellows there isn’t enough room in the hotel for
everybody so we’ll have to break up the team; then put me and them in a cab and
send us to my house,” Reagan told the coach.1 Reagan and his two black teammates
slept at his parents’ house.
Reagan remained close friends with one of them, William Burghardt. He often
wrote to Burgie,himBurghardt as he called him,, and sentincluding this letter sent
during the 1980 campaign:
Dear Burgie:
It was good to hear from you, and I thank you from the bottom of my
heart for your generous contribution. Believe me, it will help and I’ll do
my best to see tyou never have reason to regret it.
I’ve always thought that our particular group in those few years at
college were kind of special to the coach. Maybe, someplace along the
line, or trail, we’ll get to your neighborhood, and we’ll cross paths again.
It would be good to see you. In the meantime, have a good New Year
and take care of yourself. I hope to see you one day soon.
Best regards,
Dutch
George W. Bush, 2001-2009
PP Bush, Powell & Rice
17
During his eight8 years in the White House, George W. Bush’s relationship with
African Americans was strained by his commitment to economically and socially
conservative policies. His vision of smaller government and lower taxes meant less
money for social programs, On the one hand, he signed legislation to extend the
Voting Rights Act, appointed Blacks to his Cabinet and other high posts and launched
a major program of financial support to combat the AIDS epidemic in Africa—all
important measures that appealed to African Americans.
On the other hand, his social conservatism prompted many Blacks to question
his commitment to civil rights. And many people—not just African Americans—
interpreted his economic policies were interpreted by many—and not just African
Americans—asas benefiting helping the rich at the expense of the middle class and
poor, something that worked to the disadvantage of bBlacks who were represented
disproportionately in the nation’s lower income levels.
Perhaps theTheBush’s biggest race-related controversy came in 2005 when
Hurricane Katrina swept across the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into the U.S. coast
at New Orleans. The storm devastated the city, which had a majority black
population, as well as much of coastal Louisiana and Mississippi,. It leavingleft
more than 1,800 people dead and thousands more stranded— on rooftops of flooded
homes and in neighborhoods that were cut off fromwithout food, power and drinkable
water. To many,Many people felt the government’s response to the disaster seemed
was slow and inadequate. As relief efforts struggled forward, the nation world
witnessedwatched an stream of heartbreaking television and Internet images of
people sufferingsuffering victims. Most peoplevictims in those images were—or
appeared to be—African American,s people trapped in the poorest flooded
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neighborhoods. As frustration grew, critics charged that the response was weak
because the victims were poor and black.
At a press conference in New Orleans, a reporter asked the president about
“comments that there was a racial component to some of the people that were left
behind and left without help.” Bush responded, “My attitude is this: The storm didn’t
discriminate, and neither will the recovery effort. When those Coast Guard
chopperhelicopters were pulling people off roofs, they didn’t check the color of a
person’s skin. They wanted to save lives.
And in his memoir, Bush wrote, “I am deeply insulted by the suggestion that
we allowed American citizens to suffer because they were black. I was raised to
believe that racism was one of the greatest evils of society. It broke my heart to see
minority children shuffled through the school system, so I had based my domestic
policy initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act, on ending the soft bigotry of low
expectations. I faced a lot of criticism as president. I didn’t like hearing people claim
I lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But
the suggestion that I was a racist because of the response to Katrina represented an
all-time low. I told Laura at the time that itIt was the worst moment of my
presidency.”
Bush’s proedecessor, Bill Clinton, spent much of his own presidency
reminding America of how much remained to be done for racial equity and
understanding, but the presidency of George W. Bush demonstrated how far America
had come., as this personal story shows. On
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On the personal side, one measure of that dramatic change was the people Bush
selected as secretary of state—the equivalent of your foreign minister—Colin Powell
and Condoleezza Rice. It is the most senior post in the cabinet and fourth in the line
of presidential succession.
Before Powell, no African American had served as secretary of state. In his
memoir, Bush said hisit was easy to se selection oflect Powell, who had headed the
Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff in the his father’s administration of Bush’s father,
was easy. “I believed ColinPowell could be the second coming of George Marshall, a
soldier turned statesman,” he wrote. When Powell left the Cabinet, Bush replaced the
firsthim with the second African American secretary of state, Condoleezza with the
second, Rice, who was his national security advisor. It was a choice based not just
only on Rice’s deep knowledge in foreign relations but on a personal rapport that had
few parallels between white presidents and black officials in their administrations.our
history.
As Bush described it, “After six years together in the White House and on the
campaign, I had grown very close to Condi Rice. She could read my mind and my
moods. We shared a vision of the world, and she wasn’t afraid to let me know when
she disagreed with me.”2
W. Bush 2001-1009 ##
There are many more stories about presidents and race to be told. Some are
shameful, some and some are inspiring. The official ones, the big ones, are easy to
find in the history books. But the personal stories are often overlooked or forgotten.
Before moving to the Obama presidency, I will end this part of my talk with one of
my favorite little-known stories about a president.
PP McKinley
20
It’s about President William McKinley who traveled to Buffalo, New York, in
1901 to visit the Pan-American Exposition—like a world’s fair. As he shook hands
with members of the public, an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz fired a .32-caliber
revolver and hit the president twice. An African American waiter who was present,
James “Big Ben” Parker, fought with the assassin. Parker later described the event,
saying, “My fist shot out and I hit the man on the nose and fell upon him, grasping
him about the throat,” preventing the assassin from firing a third shot. During the next
few days, the press praised Parker. The Colored American magazine said, “And what
a hero ‘our black man,’ Parker, proved himself to be.” Poet George Newell Lovejoy
wrote,
Say not that his skin was as hue of the night,
Speak not of his color, but measure him right
In the scale of humanity, for, he was
A Man, every inch of him, truly, because
He answered to Duty, and quickly and well,
The assassin was convicted the same month and executed, but Parker was soon
forgotten. As one newspaper wrote, “When the roll of witnesses was called in the
courtroom the ‘hero’s’ name was not there. White men claimed all the credit, and
only the names of white men were remembered.”
XXX
PP Obama poster
21
So how did Barack Obama get to the White House? As a child after his father left
abandoned the family, Obama lived in Indonesia with his mother and in Hawaii with
his grandmother. After college graduation, Obama moved to Chicago to become a
community organizer in a poor neighborhood. He later wrote, “I saw that the
problems people faced weren’t simply local in nature—that the decision to close a
steel mill was made by distant executives. The lack of textbooks and computers in
schools could be traced to the skewed priorities of politicians a thousand miles away,
and when a child turns to violence, there’s a hole in his heart no government could
ever fill.”
After law school, heHe worked at a civil rights law firm and began a political
career by winning a seat in the Illinois legislature. In 2004, he received national
international attention when he deliveredgave the keynote address at the Democratic
National Convention. In that speech, he expressed thanks for the diversity of his
heritage and his awareness that his parents’ dreams live on in his two daughters. He
described the plight of people he had met, such as displaced factory workers and a
woman with good grades, ambition and motivation who couldn’t afford college.
That same year, he won a Senate election against a conservative black
Republican. It was the nation’s first Senate contest between two black major-party
nominees.
He announced his presidential campaign in Springfield, Illinois, the city where
Abraham Lincoln practiced law. In describing what he called “this improbable quest”
for the White House, Obama’s speech focused on change as it and issues, including
poverty, protection of workers, child care, the economy, alternative fuels, the war in
Iraq and affordable college education.
It was not the first time an African American politician ran for a major-party
nomination for president. Representative Shirley Chisholm of New York, Reverend
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Jesse Jackson, former senator Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois., Rev. Al Sharpton and
former Ambassador Alan Keyes had done so, with varying amounts of energy and all
without success.
PP 3 DEMS
Not surprisingly, race and gender came up in thehat became thea three-way
Democratic contest among Obama, Senator Hillary Clinton and former Senator John
Edwards, who isboth white. AIn fact, one prominent Clinton supporter remarked, “If
Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” referring to his lack of
experience.
During the debates and onOn the campaign trail, questions arose about
Obama’s race and Clinton’s gender. During one debate, Obama said he did not blame
the press for asking questions about race because race remains a factor in American
society. Here are a couple of excerpts from a debate held on the Martin Luther King
Jr.’s holiday.
In response to a question, Senator Clinton said, “What's most important is that
Senator Obama and I agree completely that neither race nor gender should be a part
of this campaign. It is Dr. King’s birthday. The three of us are here in large measure
because his dreams have been realized: John is a son of a factroory worker and has
become an extraordinary success; Senator ObamaSenator hasObama has such an
inspirational and profound story to tell America and the world; I, as a woman and m
also a beneficiary of the civil rights movement and the women's movement and the
human rights movement.”
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When it was Obama’s turn to answer that question, he said: “We are in a
defining moment in our history. We’ve got a nation at war, our planet is in peril and
the economy is putting an enormous strain on working families all across the country.
Now, race has always been an issue in our politics and in this country, but one of the
premises of my campaign and of the Democratic Party—and I know that John and
Hillary have always been committed to racial equality—is that we can’t solve these
challenges unless we can come together as a people.”
PP Obama McCain
John McCain, a moderately conservative senator and Vietnam War prisoner of war
from Arizona, won the Republican nomination. For his running-mate, he chose a little
known governor from Alaska named Sarah Palin. I don’t know all the reasons he
chose Palin, but I have no doubt that her gender, her youth and her ultra-conservative
philosophy were major factors. It proved to be a major political mistake when her
inexperience, lack of understanding of key issues, especially foreign policy and
difficulty dealing with the press, quickly became evidentobvious. Palin was not the
only reason for McCain’s defeat, however. He was burdened with the growing
unpopularity, cost and death toll of the 2 wars that fellow Republican George W.
Bush began, first in in Afghanistan and then in Iran. When George W. Bush became
president, he inherited a budget surplus from Bill Clinton. When Bush’s term was
near an end and fellow Republican McCain was running, the nation was burdened
within a recession and other economicwith woes--high unemployment, rising debt,
Wall Street scandals and deindustrialization. That economic turmoil and the desire for
change certainly benefited Obama as well. And I suspect some voters felt they could
show a lack of racism by voting for a black candidate.
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Barack Obama’s inaugural address acknowledged the problems confronting the
country but asserted that the search for answers would benefit from the diversity of
the American people. Standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, he said:
Our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of
Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers. We are shaped by
every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth. And because we
have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that
dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old
hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the
world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America
must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
I watched the inauguration ceremony on a big-screen TV at my university’s
International Center. Most of the people watching with me were international
students, and there was a high level of excitement in the crowdaudience. I doubt
there would have been as much excitement if John McCain were being sworn in as
president.
Since Obama has been in office, race has remained a sensitive topic on the
political landscape, and an. An undercurrent of bias sometimes comes to the surface.
For example, one prominent white politician insisted, “I’m blacker than Barack
Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little
Laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived.” Conservative
political commentator Rush Limbaugh told a radio audience that Obama was
“behaving like an African colonial despot,” called him an “angry black man” and
played a song, “Barack, the Magic Negro,” to the tune of “Puff, the Magic Dragon.”
25
There are many more stories to be told. Some are shameful and some are
inspiring. The official ones, the big ones, are easy to find in the history books.
Among them are three constitutional amendments at the end of and right after the
Civil War that did what:
CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, President Harry Truman’s order to racially integrate the U.S.
military in, ADD MORE
And there are many less-known personal stories about race and the presidents,
such as A &B. I’ll end this part of my talk with one of my favorites. It involved
President William McKinley, who took office in YEAR. McKinley traveled to
Buffalo, New York, in 1901 on an official visit to the Pan-American Exposition—like
a world’s fair. As he shook hands with member of the public, an anarchist named
Leon Czolgosz fired a .32-caliber revolver, hitting the president twice. An African
American waiter who was present, James “Big Ben” Parker, fought with the assassin.
Parker later described the event, saying, “My fist shot out and I hit the man on the
nose and fell upon him, grasping him about the throat,” thus preventing Czolgosz
from firing a third time. Over the next few days, the press praised Parker’s heroism.
The Colored American magazine said, “And what a hero ‘our black man,’ Parker,
proved himself to be.” Poet George Newell Lovejoy wrote,
Say not that his skin was as hue of the night,
Speak not of his color, but measure him right
In the scale of humanity, for, lot he was
A Man, every inch of him, truly, because
He answered to Duty, and quickly and well,
When he smote to the dust the sly demon of hell.3
And poet Lena Doolin Mason lauded him,
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September sixth, in Music Hall,
With thousands, thousands in it,
McKinley fell, from the assassin’s ball,
And the Negro, he got in it.
He knocked the murderer to the floor,
He struck his nose, the blood did flow;
He held him fast, all nearby saw,
When for the right, the Negro in it.
The assassin was convicted the same month and executed, but Parker was soon
forgotten. As one newspaper wrote, “When the roll of witnesses was called in the
courtroom the ‘hero’s’ name was not there. White men claimed all the credit, and
only the names of white men were remembered.”##
What role with race play in the 2012 election? As some of you know, overOver
the past two years the ultra-conservative wing of the Republican party has gained
power, media attention and voter interest. Calling itself the Tea Party movement—a
reference to an anti-British incident during our colonial period—it aggressively
opposes taxes, government spending and many social services that our societywe
traditionally provideprovides to the American people. Some elements of the
movement are also intensively anti-immigration. Their leaders appear uninterested in
the American tradition of compromise and consensus.
Tea Party activists are overwhelmingly white, although a wealthy black corporate
executive, Herman Cain, is running for the Republican presidential nomination and
courtingseeking their support. Meanwhile, the demographics of America and its
communities are changing as our population is becomes more diverse. The 2010
Census found that in 4 of our 50 states, more than half the residents are not white.
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That’s also true in 13 of the 40 largest metropolitan areas. Overall, racial and ethnic
minorities are 36 percent of our population.
PP Tea Party
Tea Party leaders deny allegations of racism, but a number of incidents
demonstrate that racial hatred is part of some members’ character. For example, black
elected officials have reported that Tea Party activists used shouted racial slurs toat
them. MembersActivists have distributed posters showing President Obama as a
jungle savage?. An informal New York Daily News poll asked its readers whether
they believe racism is to blame for the Tea Party's attacks on Obama. An
overwhelming 75% of those surveyed agreed that racism is a factor in the Tea Party's
disapproval of the president.
Last year, one of America’s oldest and largest civil rights groups, the NAACP,
adopted a statement asking "all people of good will to repudiate the racism of the Tea
Partiesy, and to oppose its drive to push our country back to the pre-civil rights era."
Tea Party leaders respond to such criticism by blaming a small fringe within their
movement.
On Election Day 2012, however, I do not think President Obama’s race will be
the determining factor in whether he wins a second term, and there’s little he can do
about the voters who will oppose him simply because he is black. His greater
problems will be the state of the economy, the national budget and the status of the
wars abroad. The next 13 months will certainly be interesting.
28
Let me end this part of the lecture with President Obama’s answer when a radio journalist
asked, “What are your thoughts about the fact that black leadership is grumbling, and the fact that
people are concerned with you being the first African American President, and they thought that
there would be a little bit more compassion for black issues?” He responded,
Of course there’s grumbling, because we just went through the worst economic crisis since the
Great Depression. Everybody is concerned about unemployment, everybody’s concerned about
businesses not hiring, everybody’s concerned about their home values declining. And in each
of these areas, African Americans have been disproportionately affected.
The only thing I cannot do is pass laws that say I’m just helping black folks. I’m the
president of the entire United States. What I can do is make sure that I am passing laws that
help all people, particularly those who are most vulnerable and most in need. That in turn is
going to help lift up the African American community.
In assembling the documents for this book, we have sought to illustrate as much as possible
the wide range of personalities, views, contributions and faults to be found among the forty-three
men who have held the office of president of the United States. (Grover Cleveland’s separated
terms make Obama the forty-third president, but his presidency the forty-fourth.) We have
emphasized documents that illuminate the thinking and attitudes that guided presidents in their
dealing with African Americans. But we have also sought as much as possible – —given the vast
array of possible selections and the limitations of space in each presidential chapter – —to include
the voices of African Americans themselves as they attempted to influence presidential decision
making or as they reflected on their encounters with the chief executives. Some of those are
relatively well known, such as Trotter’s exchange with Wilson at the White House or King’s urgent
telegram to Kennedy after the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama,
killed four young black girls. Others have received less attention, such as Paul Jennings’s memoir of
his White House service with James Madison or the transcript of an Oval Office conversation
between Franklin Roosevelt and A. Philip Randolph and Walter White, who were pressing FDR
Roosevelt to desegregate the military.
Whenever possible, we rely on original sources. Collections of presidential papers available
through the Library of Congress, presidential libraries and a number of university and historical
society libraries were essential to our research,. So were the many volumes of the Public Papers of
29
the Presidents of the United States series published by the Government Printing Office in
Washington, D.C., and the multiple volumes of James Daniel Richardson’s A Compilation of the
Messages and Papers of the Presidents.
Our research also was enriched by the earlier work of documentary historians. They include
Herbert A. Aptheker (A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States); Ira Berlin,
Barbara J. Fields, Thavolia Glymph, Joseph P. Reidy and Leslie S. Rowland (Freedom: A
Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-–1867); Albert P. Blaustein and Robert L. Zangrando
(Civil Rights and African Americans: A Documentary History); Herb Boyd (Autobiography of a
People: Three Centuries of African American History Told by Those Who Lived It); John H. Bracey
Jr., August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, editors (The Afro-Americans: Selected Documents); Henry
Steele Commager (Documents of American History); Anthony J. Cooper (The Black Experience
1865-–1978: A Documentary Reader); George Ducas and Charles Van Doren (Great Documents in
Black American History); Leslie H. Fishel Jr. and Benjamin Quarles, editors (The Black American:
A Brief Documentary History); Walter L. Fleming (Documentary History of Reconstruction:
Political, Military, Social, Religious, Educational and Industrial, 1865-–1906); Philip S. Foner (The
Voice of Black America: Major Speeches by Negroes in the United States, 1797-–1971); Thomas R.
Frazier (Afro-American History: Primary Sources); Leon Friedman, editor (The Civil Rights
Reader: Basic Documents in the Civil Rights Movement); Robert P. Green Jr. (Equal Protection and
the African American Constitutional Experience: A Documentary History); Thomas C. Holt and
Elsa Barkley Brown (Major Problems in African-American History); Gilbert Osofsky (The Burden
of Race: A Documentary History of Negro-White Relations in America); Willie Lee Rose, editor (A
Documentary History of Slavery in North America); James P. Shenton (The Reconstruction: A
Documentary History of the South After the War, 1865-–1877); and J. F. Watts and Fred L. Israel
(Presidential Documents: The Speeches, Proclamations and Policies That Have Shaped the Nation
from Washington to Clinton). We retain documents' documents’ original spelling and punctuation
wherever possible. Where appropriate, we add in brackets additional information such as first
names, titles and party affiliations of people mentioned only by last name.
Acknowledgments
Our deep gratitude goes to Jennifer Hoewe, a journalism graduate student at Michigan State
University, who was an invaluable and diligent research assistant on this project.
30
We also thank a number of distinguished scholars, authors, librarians and other experts who
graciously assisted our research, reviewed drafts of some chapters, recommended documents and
provided other invaluable guidance. In alphabetical order, they include Kenneth Ackerman (author,
Washington, D.C.); .), William Anderson (former director, Michigan Department of History, Arts
and Culture); ), Charles W. Calhoun (East Carolina University); ), Kelly Cobble (Adams National
Historic Park); ), Cynthia A. Conides (Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society); ), Tom
Culbertson (Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center); ), John Fierst (Central Michigan University);
), Baylor Reinhart (Ash Lawn-Highland); ), Matthew Schaefer (Herbert Hoover Presidential
Library); ), Brooks Simpson (Arizona State University); ), Melvin Small (Wayne State University);
), Elbert B. Smith (University of Maryland) and Julian E. Zelizer (Princeton University). Of course,
any errors are ours, not theirs.
31
1 Reagan, An American Life, 52.2 Bush, Decision Points, 90.3 George Newell Lovejoy, “Jim Parker,” Buffalo Evening News, October 14, 1901, 2.