Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

Jessie Helms was his young assistant who drafted this race baiting ad. There are two vicious but subtle aspects to this kind of attach ads. First, not that the ad does not address the problem of white men working along side of blacks. It only refers to wives and daughter. This interracial sex innuendo played on and increased the fear of whites that Blacks would commonly rape white women. The second nasty aspect of the ad is the specific attack on the opponent. Instead of saying that he favored desegregation, the phrase “mingling of the races” was used which implied that Graham was in favor of biracial intermarriage and children—again another sex innuendo. When integration of the workforce finally occurred in the South, there was no increase in Black men sexually assaulting white women. There has been a substantial increase in racial intermarriage however as racial bigotry has diminished in America.

Lincoln had instituted the first draft in American History and it was terribly resented by many Americans. The draft laws allowed the wealthy and upper middle class to avoid service by paying a $300 fee of hiring a substitute just like in the Vietnam War the upper classes could get College Draft deferments. The mob led mostly by poor Irish, began by protesting the draft; then they attacked the mansions and houses of the wealthy; and then they went after Blacks. The Irish poor feared large numbers of Negroes coming out of slavery and competing for their jobs and lowering the prevailing wages. Blacks were beaten and lynched and 5,000 almost half of the then Negro population were driven to Brooklyn, New Jersey and the New York suburbs. It was the worst riot in United States History.

Buying furniture and equipment for Negro schools was perceived by the White Population as “squandering public funds”. Web returned with the Militia but no one would testify against the Klan. Huggins left the area and went to the North. The Klan did not kill him, but they accomplished their objective of intimidating all the local people Black and White so that Negro schools would not be furnished and getting rid of the only White who tried to improve Negro schools. The methods of terrorists have not changed much since then.

Wilson, a history and government professor and college president before politics, was has been accused of being one of the most racist Presidents since Reconstruction. Prior to his Presidency, the Federal Government had been making steady progress in hiring African Americans. Under Wilson there was a wholesale firing of a large proportion of them. Some apologists argue that his League of Nations and other major aspirations required the votes and cooperation of Southern Senators who insisted that many of the blacks be terminated. At the same time, the KKK was near the zenith of its membership and political power and was an intimidating force. Wilson’s home state of New Jersey not only had a large KKK membership but there were lynching of Blacks in his own state and when Governor and President he never asked for any anti-lynching legislation.

Blacks were fighting and dying in WWII. They were equal when they were under fire, but otherwise not. The war was against fascist protagonists whose creed was inequality while the allies were upholding freedom and equality. But making that aspiration a reality was difficult.

Smith, an extreme racist, was so rabid that MacGregor was supporting the Civil Rights Bill, he followed him off the House floor to make this statement. MacGregor jokingly told Smith that he was wrong. He had 17 Negroes in his District.

Nixon, in his second attempt to win the Presidency was told by a small group of Southern Republican politicians that his support was wavering in the South. They had already left the Democratic Party in reaction to the Passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They were concerned because in order to try and capture some of the more liberal anti-war Democrats, Nixon had been making speeches advocating the vigerous enforcement of of civil rights and improving the lot of the Negro. But Nixon could not afford to lose his political base inb the south. Hence the promise which did not keep very long after he was elected President. Nixon was not a strong civil rights President, but he was totally without principles and had no political idiology he would sacrifice any of his political capital for. So once he was elected, he didn't want to offend the centerists whose support he needed for his legislatrive program so he did pay lip service to the prinicples of equality when he himself was anti-Black, andti-Semitic and prejudiced in many areas including against intelelctuals.

The first sentence is inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC. The last two sentences are rarely quoted.

There was violence but ironically in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, it was not the civil rights leaders who were murdered but 4 little girls.