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I'm arguing they weren't ordinary. Compare him, to say Calvin Coolidge. Or Theodore Roosevelt, among others.
Compare him to Theodore Bilbo or William L Scott or Coleman Blease. Wilson was a champion of civil rights compared to them.
"Birth of a Nation", regardless of the racist content of it.. Even today is still often considered one of the top-100 films. No doubt more due to the history of the film and the censorship issues it brought up than the actual content of the film. "Deep Throat" isn't remembered as a classic movie because of the plot, but it's without question one of the top 10-ish most important films ever made.
I don't see any reason to hang Wilson in effigy. Should the fact of his views be buried? Absolutely not. But it's important to understand the times and that what is PC now wasn't then.
Woodrow Wilson was born in the South before the Civil War. He moved up North to New Jersey and became President of Princeton University and later Governor of New Jersey
I am not going to defend him but his racism was a product of his times. I would not advocate naming new buildings and monuments after him but it strikes me as PC to try to change buildings already with his name. Especially when he was President of Princeton.
The real problem I have by far with Wilson is what you said in your last sentence. His behavior both during WW1 and also at the Peace Conference. And what he did had consequences for WW2 as well.
Is it not time to recall that Wilson's progressive left expressed the same adventurism and aggressive contempt for boundaries, both personal and transnational, that the Socialist German Workers Party leader had for Europe and Africa, and later that BO has for Libya and Syria?
Jackson has been falling of his pedestal for more than a decade as greater attention has been focused on his economic short-sight, his shameless cronyism, the vulgarity of his sycophants, and his betrayal of the Native tribes. Perhaps now it's Wilson's turn.
Compare him to Theodore Bilbo or William L Scott or Coleman Blease. Wilson was a champion of civil rights compared to them.
"Birth of a Nation", regardless of the racist content of it.. Even today is still often considered one of the top-100 films. No doubt more due to the history of the film and the censorship issues it brought up than the actual content of the film. "Deep Throat" isn't remembered as a classic movie because of the plot, but it's without question one of the top 10-ish most important films ever made.
I don't see any reason to hang Wilson in effigy. Should the fact of his views be buried? Absolutely not. But it's important to understand the times and that what is PC now wasn't then.
Wilson's and Sangers' championing of Eugenics Science had the same progressives chanting that its dissidents hated science, and it had a direct bearing on Big Government-funded public health policy well into the early 1980s.
Wilson was venerated among the progressives because he was one of them. He implemented their policies and they held him up as a success for that reason. That's why he is, or was, on their lists of great presidents.
Now he has become inconvenient and is being thrown over the side. Hopefully he won't land on Jackson and Jefferson.
Thank you, Linda, for bringing this article to our attention. I think that bringing a "face" to a discussion is just so much more interesting and enlightening than just discussing facts alone.
Wilson's racism has long been common knowledge among historians, but it seems that the Princeton students may make it common knowledge among the general public.
Ii sincerely doubt it because the current issue isn't being framed around Wilson's racist beliefs and actions but rather the great bugaboo students protesting in the name of so-called "political correctness" as if when young people discover the imperfect facts of the past they don't find reason to call it into question.
Against the backdrop of the recent protests by Princeton University students to have Woodrow Wilson's name removed from campus buildings (Wilson was president of Princeton before he was Governor of New Jersey and later POTUS), I found this article about the personal consequences of Wilson's election to the presidency had on one black individual and his family: What Woodrow Wilson Cost My Grandfather. It's all well and good to read and/or discuss the results of historical events in the abstract, but when you put faces and names to the results, those results finally become "real".
Wilson's racism has long been common knowledge among historians, but it seems that the Princeton students may make it common knowledge among the general public. I don't know if Wilson's name should be removed from the Princeton campus, but I do think that we should look at Wilson as he really was and not the Wilson of myth. Somehow Wilson has managed to keep a spotless reputation among the public when, in fact, he committed bigger sins than other Presidents who have been mercilessly raked over the coals. His racism is one sin, but a bigger one, IMO, was his maneuvering the US into WW I.
A Harvard history professor once wrote that history is written in such a way as to not make the decedents of Europeans feel guilty.
I am not sure how true that is, though I think it was interesting that it was coming from a Harvard Professor and he is a descendent of Europeans.
History, regardless of the country one is talking about, is always written in a way as to not make the descendants of the victors feel guilty.
History, regardless of what country it is, is always written in a 1 dimensional, superficial way.
History, regardless of what country it is, is filled to the brim with pain, oppression suffering and death.
The only way to know history and therefore understand how any country has evolved, is to read history from the point of view of the minorities of said country.
If you want to know American History, you simply have to read it from varying points of view: American Women's points of view, Americans of African descent's points of view, First Nation/Native American points of view, Americans of Chicano or Latino or Hispanic descent's points of view, American's of Asian descent's points of view and (more recently... maybe the last 50-60 years or so ?) Americans who self identify as LGBTQ. This is how to truly know history. It is not hard, but it is time consuming and full of so much pain and suffering that I doubt most want to know it.
Having said all that, if one wants to know the truth of history, it isn't hard to find. We live in an age of information. If one seeks the truth, they will know the truth.
As for Woodrow Wilson's name on a school? Personally, I have never understood why any historical figure or group of people who have caused so many so much hardship have their names on any school or street or public building, etc. Unless one is Gandhi, we should not glorify those who have caused massive harm to others (either internally in the U.S. or externally). Eventually these names will go in a history book where they belong, but until then we'll continue to battle it out because of the ignorance, lack of compassion and historical knowledge in our country.
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