Asa Hutchinson Quotes
I think it's certainly important that we don't have symbols in our society that are offensive to a segment and that arouse racial division.
Hutchinson, Asa. "Remarks on Signing Act 141." Office of the Governor, State of Arkansas, 21 Mar. 2017.
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.
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.
At the Democratic convention of 1924, the party was split over a proposed resolution that would denounce the Ku Klux Klan by name. Bryan had an opportunity to denounce the Klan, but his dwindling political base in the south contained many Klansmen. After his speech he was mercilessly heckled by the crowd. Bryan claimed he had never been so humiliated in his life:
William Asa Hutchinson II (/ˈeɪsə/, AY-sə) is an American politician serving as the 46th and current Governor of Arkansas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the U.S. Attorney for the Fort Smith-based Western District of Arkansas (1982–1985), U.S. Representative for Arkansas's 3rd congressional district (1997–2001), Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (2001–2003) and the first Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security at the United States Department of Homeland Security (2003–2005).
