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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

27

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.