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Wow,this is scary,scary stuff.
I had no idea,esp about FDR. I'm rethinking my admiration for him.
At the same time,if he did that,why was he so popular among blacks?
He was popular among the poor, and the vast majority of Blacks were poor.
In the 1930s it was difficult for anyone living in a shack to vote for Hoover.
He was popular among the poor, and the vast majority of Blacks were poor.
In the 1930s it was difficult for anyone living in a shack to vote for Hoover.
Hoover had also blown the GOP's traditional advantage among blacks (in the North and West) by embracing a sort of early Southern Strategy in 1928. He pushed blacks aside thinking that he could make the South Republican.
Hoover had also blown the GOP's traditional advantage among blacks (in the North and West) by embracing a sort of early Southern Strategy in 1928. He pushed blacks aside thinking that he could make the South Republican.
You are right, the election of 1932 was the turning point for African Americans and the Republican Party. It has been a steady exodus from the GOP with a small blip in favor of Eisenhower.
I suppose the abandonment of the GOP in favor of FDR was because of all the free stuff that we are told he didn't out.
By the way, it would be interesting to compare and contrast southern Governors like Huey and Earl K. Long, with their southern counterparts. Huey, long while doing nothing to abolish segregation implemented policies that insured that African Americans received quality education, and healthcare, and abolished many of the obstacles to voting and for doing so was vehemently opposed by the likes of the KKK. His younger brother Earl fought to equalize the pay of all public school teachers, and like his brother did everything within his power to guarantee African Americans the right to vote.
Hoover had also blown the GOP's traditional advantage among blacks (in the North and West) by embracing a sort of early Southern Strategy in 1928. He pushed blacks aside thinking that he could make the South Republican.
To be honest, the Republicans themselves weren't doing themselves any favors in the prior years. At best, they paid lip service to civil rights and at worst they were apathetic or outright ignored it. Republican policies were far more favorable to the rich and middle class and didn't really benefit the poor during a period when most Blacks were impoverished. Choosing between the Republicans and the Democrats was a no brainer considering Republicans weren't doing much about civil rights and were too focused on policies that didn't benefit Blacks at all. Of course, none of this is applicable in the South since many Southern Democrats were psychotically racist and I think I have the right to call them psychotically racist since many of them advocated killing Blacks.
Its unclear to me after Abraham Lincoln what substantive accomplishments the Republican Party can claim when it comes to civil rights. I don't think having Book T. Washington "over for dinner" at the White House was a real, substantive accomplishment. I'd put having a black minister say a prayer at a political convention in the same category. Prior to World War II, the only civil rights action I'm aware of were attempts to get anti-lynching bills passed and they were always torpedoed by southerners in Congress. Whatever his other failings were, FDR, did create the Fair Employment Practices Commission. That's something that's more than just hot air.
IMO, World War II was really the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. Many, young men like my father left small towns to join the military. If my father ever saw a black person before he joined the Navy it was rare indeed in rural Idaho where he grew up. In the Navy, was a different experience. He observed firsthand the treatment that black people got. Segregation meant blacks were relegated to jobs like "steward" in the Navy where they cooked or waited on officers. There were also a few jobs for black sailors passing and storing ammunition on ships. My father occasionally would overhear southern officers talking about the blacks who waited on them "not acting right" and he got the education of his life about what racism was.
I think many sailors and soldiers had a similar experience. When they came home from the war, the world was a different place for them in so many ways. It was the beginning of a process that lead my father to college, law school, and ultimately a position as a judge. During the course of his career, he also served as pro bono legal counsel for the NAACP. The Navy taught him well about life.
Its unclear to me after Abraham Lincoln what substantive accomplishments the Republican Party can claim when it comes to civil rights. I don't think having Book T. Washington "over for dinner" at the White House was a real, substantive accomplishment. I'd put having a black minister say a prayer at a political convention in the same category. Prior to World War II, the only civil rights action I'm aware of were attempts to get anti-lynching bills passed and they were always torpedoed by southerners in Congress. Whatever his other failings were, FDR, did create the Fair Employment Practices Commission. That's something that's more than just hot air.
IMO, World War II was really the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. Many, young men like my father left small towns to join the military. If my father ever saw a black person before he joined the Navy it was rare indeed in rural Idaho where he grew up. In the Navy, was a different experience. He observed firsthand the treatment that black people got. Segregation meant blacks were relegated to jobs like "steward" in the Navy where they cooked or waited on officers. There were also a few jobs for black sailors passing and storing ammunition on ships. My father occasionally would overhear southern officers talking about the blacks who waited on them "not acting right" and he got the education of his life about what racism was.
I think many sailors and soldiers had a similar experience. When they came home from the war, the world was a different place for them in so many ways. It was the beginning of a process that lead my father to college, law school, and ultimately a position as a judge. During the course of his career, he also served as pro bono legal counsel for the NAACP. The Navy taught him well about life.
German POWs who were interned in the US had more rights than Black soldiers and were also treated better than Blacks. This obviously angered many Black soldiers. Mutinies and race riots were also quite rampant in the US military, Guam and Bamber Bridge being some of the most notorious examples of this. Blacks during the occupation of Japan were also disproportionately prosecuted for rape and were usually given extremely harsh sentences while Whites got off lightly or were never prosecuted.
.......... If my father ever saw a black person before he joined the Navy it was rare indeed in rural Idaho where he grew up. In the Navy, was a different experience..........
Even though I grew up in the deep south, I had never actually spoken to a Black person until 1963, when I joined the navy. Interestingly enough, the very first Black person I ever spoke to threatened to kick my a$$ if I picked a bunk above his. Things were tough in '63!
I rolled with the threat, picked another bunk and made friends with the Black kid in that tier. The next day we were separated into the various branches of the service.
In '63 the great majority of Blacks were, as you said, stewards or cooks, but they were beginning to break out into other occupations.
But I get the idea that all of this sticks in the craw of our friend, X14. If that's the case, X14, you would do well to let it go. The past serves us well if we can find the lessons to be learned, but serves us poorly if we imagine ourselves to be victims of that past.
The politicians you have named were dastardly individuals, to be sure. But they were products of their times just like us. Throw an egg at their statues or grave sites if that makes you feel better, but then let it go.
Even though I grew up in the deep south, I had never actually spoken to a Black person until 1963, when I joined the navy. Interestingly enough, the very first Black person I ever spoke to threatened to kick my a$$ if I picked a bunk above his. Things were tough in '63!
I rolled with the threat, picked another bunk and made friends with the Black kid in that tier. The next day we were separated into the various branches of the service.
In '63 the great majority of Blacks were, as you said, stewards or cooks, but they were beginning to break out into other occupations.
But I get the idea that all of this sticks in the craw of our friend, X14. If that's the case, X14, you would do well to let it go. The past serves us well if we can find the lessons to be learned, but serves us poorly if we imagine ourselves to be victims of that past.
The politicians you have named were dastardly individuals, to be sure. But they were products of their times just like us. Throw an egg at their statues or grave sites if that makes you feel better, but then let it go.
LOL. I don't know why you think all of this would stick in my craw. Believe me when I say this but I take a detached view of all of this. I just find if fascinating these individuals actually won elections on a single issue platform based on hatred which is why I asked whether their views were mainstream at the time since these politicians weren't exactly addressing more pertinent issues at the time. Also, I would never do something stupid like throw an egg or desecrate their graves, since these individuals were so far beyond my time that I can't really muster any true hatred for them. Besides, I think the election of Barack Obama is more than enough to show them that they lost.
Great thread -- getting back to the original question: were Ben Tillman, Coleman Blease et al. regarded as extreme racists even in their own time? Yes, they were -- they were popular demogogues in places like South Carolina and Mississippi, especially among poor white farmers and mill workers, but an embarrassment to the Senate, the nation and even established bases of southern social, political and economic power.
Open support for lynching and crude appeals to race hatred were generally diminishing after 1890 in the South, which is not to say that segregation and racism were diminishing -- in fact, they were growing stronger through the 1920s. But many southerners were embarrassed and ashamed of the violence that their system ultimately depended on and by World War I lynching had all but disappeared in many parts of the South, while continuing as a common feature in other parts, typically the poorest and most rural.
People like Tillman and Bilbo were political opportunists more than anything else -- they saw that extreme appeals to race hatred among lower-class whites could effectively overturn political establishments in various states, and the success of Tillman and Blease encouraged others elsewhere after them. Such people were definitely a source of national and even regional embarrassment, however, despite their strong local support, in much the same way that Minnesotans in general regard Michele Bachmann as an embarrassment, even though she won three elections.
I highly recommend to anyone interested in the history and psychology of southern racism a book published in 1941: The Mind of the South by W.J. Cash, a white southern newspaperman who spent ten years of his life on the effort to understand and explain this phenomenon and its consequences.
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