Lillian Smith Quotes
Segregation is evil; there is no pattern of life which can dehumanize men as can the way of segregation.
She was one of the first prominent white southerners to denounce racial segregation.
Lillian Smith, 1897-1966, Writer, Reformer, & Political Activist, Acceptance speech for the Charles S. Johnson Award, Fisk University, 1966
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[This was the first Abolition appeal written by a Black Man. It was published in Boston and despite the fact that it was very critical of whites, was very popular going through two more printings within the next two years.]
He was not only an atheist himself, but he was a major opponent of organized religion which he regarded as one or the major initiators and drivers of slavery, segregation and discrimination. For this reason he was critical of Martin Luther King—{583307}. His irreligiosity had always prevented his gaining much support from his fellow African Americans even though a great writer like H. L. Menken considered Schuyler, "the best writer in America".
Billy Sunday was the most famous preacher of the day. Unlike the vast majority of white preachers, he not only preached to black audiences but exuded an atmosphere of friendliness and comfort around Blacks that amazed most. Most Black leaders thought Sunday was very good for race relations, but there were some clergy like Grimke who criticized him. Sunday was castigated by many racist whites for preaching to Blacks, but he did not go as far as to condemn or preach against racism and the discrimination of the day and he would not preach to an integrated audience. Grimke, in contrast, preached to an integrated congregation and was one of the few white clergy who did in the South. (Washington DC was then a southern, segregated city.) See {585415} for another critique of Sunday.
Forrest went on to be the first National Leader of the Terrorist Organzation.
After attending a Lincoln speech, Booth said to Lewis Powell, one of his band of conspirators, “Now, by God, I’ll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make.”
Booth was the younger son of a very prominent Northern family of actors. His older brother was considered the greatest American actor, and the rest of the family were abolitionists and vehement Union supporters. They found young John’s views reprehensible.
Jones, like many religious leaders at the time was an inveterate racist. He not only branded anyone advocating against segregation as “in opposition to God”. Jones also solicited the support of the Ku Klux Klan, and like many clerics would never condemn the KKK beatings, tortures, lynchings and murders.
His solution was not to change the prejudice or improve the opportunity for Blacks but to have complete separation of the races. See {625687}.
For years through the Jim Crow years, Whites murdered many Blacks with impunity if they were perceived to be uppity or to try and obtain their Constitutionally Protected rights. Most took place in the South. The Negroes were typically tortured, mutilated, burned and hung from trees where they would be left for days as the major purpose was to strike terror in the Southern Black population. The Southern State and local governments never opposed the policy via oratory, legislation of law enforcement. The Federal Government did not interfere either. And much of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover actually enabled the White Citizen’s Councils and the Klu Klux Klan. The NAACP began an anti-lynching campaign and Ms. Holiday was a one-woman public exposure campaign centered around this song. The anthem itself was written by a New York City schoolteacher named Abel Meeropol, using the pen name, Lewis Allan. It reached millions of Americans and Holiday fans the world over. To view some of the historical scenes described in the song, see http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html
The President often referred to this statement as an example of his wife’s acumen. She had been born to a Southern plantation and inherited the land and the slaves. Her view, and his, were typical of the Southern point of view in early America.
The law enforcement officers were the ones who broke the law when they beat and brutalized the peaceful civil rights marchers. The “white niggers” refer to the white marchers including clergy.
Virginia never did recognize interracial marriage in its own. A Supreme Court ruling invalidated their law.
The Birth of a Nation was screened at the Woodrow Wilson White House as Wilson was the most racist president since Andrew Johnson. The editorial was persuasive to Boston liberals who were not prepared to impose censorship even to prevent racist propaganda from having an audience.
In the 1930s African Americans who traveled were subject to countless humiliations whenever the sought hotels, rooming houses, restaurants and other accommodations. Gas stations would not allow them to use bathrooms and they were reduced to using open fields. Traveling and vacationing was, for Blacks, humiliating. Wikipedia: “Green reviewed hotels and restaurants that did business with African Americans during the time of Jim Crow laws and racial segregation in the United States. He printed 15,000 copies each year. In the 1930s, Green began his work by compiling data on stores in the New York area that accepted black travelers, and published his first guide in 1936. Similar guides had been published for Jewish travelers, who sometimes faced discrimination. Green's guide was so popular that he immediately began to expand its coverage the next year to other US destinations, adding hotel and restaurants as well.”
Lillian Eugenia Smith was a writer and social critic of the Southern United States, known most prominently for her best-selling novel Strange Fruit (1944). A white woman who openly embraced controversial positions on matters of race and gender equality, she was a southern liberal unafraid to criticize segregation and work toward the dismantling of Jim Crow laws, at a time when such actions virtually guaranteed social ostracism.
