Victor H. Green Quotes

Southerners and some others wanted to discriminate and fought civil rights legislation. The excuse they gave for opposition was that the Federal Government was usurping the power of the states to determine what civil rights people of the state would have. Shellabarger made it clear that the civil rights bill would not require ANY rights to be given. It just required that if the states granted rights, they could not discriminate by race as to those rights. But the states were free to decide which rights all citizens of the state would have. See {623473} .

This was the first major civil rights speech. He had previously in his political career tread carefully in the civil rights arena. The Southerners had disproportionate control over the Congressional committee chairmanships and they could hold up his entire legislative agenda. JFK’s father was a right wing fascist who supported Hitler earlier and always advised against pushing civil rights.

The case was Shelley v. Kraemer where the Supreme Court outlawed discriminatory restrictive covenants A restrictive covenant was a condition that was written into the deed on a piece of property. Even if the owner of the home did not want to discriminate, the previous owners who wrote the restrictive covenant into the deed (or his relatives and heirs) could sue and invalidate the sale. In many cases, insurance would not sell title insurance or banks would not give mortgages for a Black or a Jew where there was a covenant in the deed, even if the covenant was more than 100 years old. Homeowner associations would also enforce the covenants which were originally written into all the deeds of the development. Once the supreme court ruled that restrictive covenants were unconstitutional, no court would enforce any of these lawsuits. It was one of the fastest steps forward in the history of Civil Rights since the day after the court decision racists could no longer enforce the covenants that were in tens of millions of deeds in America.

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.

Christian had just briefed the President about the riots in many cities after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Christian had expressed surprise that the Blacks were so violent.

Vladimir Lenin. In their quest for world revolution, the Russian Communists had more problems with arguments in the United States whose reforms and economy had produced a very high standard of living. They knew that to effect a revolution, they had to reach the middle class and the intellectuals. They had little economically to attack America with but they were able to attack the United States morally. Even though segregation was legal in America at that time, many Americans thought it immoral. Most of the rest of the world did also. So that was one of the attack points. Since the communists opposed U. S. racial segregation, many Southern segregationists used a perverted logic and accused everyone who opposed segregation of being a communist. In addition to racial segregation, the Communists attacked other forms of discrimination such as anti-Catholic, anti-Asian, and anti-Semitic (See {638737} ) behavior.

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.”

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".

The Quakers were in the forefront of not only the abolition of slavery but of the integration of the races.

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 issue of slavery which had been suppressed in Congress for the first decades of the nation broke out when Missouri statehood was considered. By previous agreement, slavery was not even discussed in Congress but the time period elapsed. Tallmadge not only proposed that no more slaves could come into Missouri {613176} but most shocking to the Southerners was that every person born in the new state would be free at the age of 25. In a generation, there would be no more slavery in Missouri and there would be no economic compensation for slave owners at all. The House of Representatives accepted the amendment, but it failed in the Senate. At that time, Senators were not elected by voters but were appointed by the state legislators and the Southern slave states had a disproportionate share of the senate from a population point of view. But what this quotation shows clearly that a majority of the country in 1819 were opposed to slavery and were willing to end it without compensation.

This was actually a very courageous statement for an American politician running for national office. As a result of the pressure of this statement President Franklin Roosevelt allowed Black enlistment in the Army Air Forces.

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.