Macky Sall Quotes

While there were many Americans who were not ready, the majority surprised most of the world, and even many who disagreed with his policies approved of him and liked him.

At the time, the Southern segregationists were all Democrats and they blocked any Democratic attempt to pass any Civil Rights legislation. When he could not get a Civil Rights commitment from his own party, Powell turned to the Republicans and the President wrote this letter. In return, in November, Powell endorsed and supported Eisenhower instead of Stevenson, his own party’s nominee. Eisenhower could not get any legislation on Civil Rights as the Southern Democrats would always block it. When President Lyndon Johnson finally forced the 1963 Civil Rights Act through the Congress, the racist Southern Democrats cut a deal with Goldwater and the conservative Republicans, and switched parties. Since then the Civil Rights stance of the two parties reversed. The Democrats were thereafter pro Civil Rights and the Republicans, the party of Lincoln and Reconstruction, thereafter reversed their Civil Rights position and opposed progress in this area.

The great contralto singer, Marian Anderson, an African American, had been refused by the Daughters of the American Revolution the use of Constitution Hall as a venue for her concert based on their White Performers Only policy. First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, resigned in protest from the DAR and she and the President asked Secretary Ickes to arrange a public concert at the Lincoln Memorial and he did. There was no Civil Rights Act at the time.

The Nixon "Southern Strategy" was that if the Republican Party made extensive efforts to appeal to minorities, given the previous decades of support of white supremacy, they would only be successful with a few, whereas if the Party went in the other direction and supported the Whites fighting against the Democratic initiated, racist hated, Civil Rights Act, they would get almost all the racist Southern Democrats, which were most white males and many white females. This racist policy enabled the Republicans to gain control of the Federal Government more often than not whereas before, it was very unusual.

This was a very courageous speech for the President to give. Senator Hubert Humphrey had proposed civil rights legislation. At the time most of the racial conservative members of Congress were Democrats and not Republicans as they would become after Civil Rights legislation actually passed in 1964. There was little possibility that the civil rights law would pass as the Southern Democrats could filibuster it in the Senate. None the less Truman supported the legislation and the principle of equal rights despite the fact that he was a Southerner and he knew he would lose the support of the conservative wing of his party.

Arkansas Governor Faubus ordered the national guard to prevent Black students from integrating Central High School in Little Rock. President Eisenhower was a man of action and not rhetoric and his lack of firm public statements overlooked an opportunity to use the Presidential “bully pulpit” and exercise his moral leadership and authority. Armstrong was irate at Eisenhower for appearing to do nothing and say nothing. See {615852}. When Eisenhower did enforce the court order and used Federal troops, Armstrong sent him this congratulatory telegram. His reference to walking into the schools was in support of many who suggested that the best thing the President could have done was to personally take one of the Black students by the hand and walk into the school with him or her. With the mood of the Southern racists, such an act was potentially very risky for the President and it is not known whether of not the President and his staff ever considered such an act.

At the time segregation was legal, Southern Blacks could not vote, racism was rampant, and a Black President seemed impossible.

This was an indirect slap at the Boy Scouts of America. At the time, racial segregation was legal and overtly practiced in the Southern States. The Boy Scouts could have been a great force for desegregation, but the leadership did not have that as a value for the organization. The Girl Scout leadership however saw the contradiction between segregation and the supposed values of America and their own organization. They were not only very active but very successful at desegregation at a time when they were atypical, and for most Americans, segregation was the norm.