Theodore G. Bilbo Quotes

Our clear goal must be the advancement of the white race and separation of the white and black races.

There is no middle ground on the question of interracial marriage. A person either favors or condemns such unions. The Negroes and negrophiles in the United States today who are waging the campaign for complete racial equality must be assumed to favor the amalgamation of the races unless they have openly stated their opposition.

The Mongol is not inferior to the Nordic in intelligence, as is the Negro, but represents such a divergent type that the mixture between Nordics and Chinese or Japanese is not a good one. The overflow of these Asiatics into our Pacific Coast might have Mongolized the States there had not the American laboring man taken alarm and secured legislation forbidding their immigration.

Although the race problem may seem to lie dormant at times, it continually exists, lives on and on and sometimes rages with all the fury of a jungle beast. It gnaws at the very vitals of our existence, in time it will sap our strength and destroy the greatness of our American way of life unless solved properly and permanently.

If social equality should be granted and intermarriage should become a matter of individual taste, then the pride of race and the sense of blood superiority which has heretofore protected the Southern whites would be destroyed.

It is one of the peculiar phases of Anglo-Saxon conceit to refuse to believe that every black man does not want to be white.

Democratic ideals among an homogeneous population of Nordic blood, as in England or America, is one thing, but it is quite another for the white man to share his blood with, or entrust his ideals to, brown, yellow, black or red men. This is suicide pure and simple, and the first victim of this amazing folly will be the white man himself

The black herring of intermarriage has been dragged too often across the trail to justice. 'Would you want your sister to marry a nigger?' is still the question that is supposed to stun any white man who sponsors rights for Negroes. It stirs Negroes to ironic laughter, although on all levels they recognize the white man's fear of intermarriage as deep seated…

There is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

What right do white racist, who believe their race is superior, have for complaining about black racists, who see something special in their own race? What right do black racists, who see a special character in their race, have for complaining about white racists?

The collective memory of race relations in the United States overlooks and omits the reality of mixed race. There existed a squeamishness, a disgust, a denouncement of “race mixing” that sparked riots, instituted legal prohibitions, and constructed categories, each of which insist upon the genealogical separation of black, white, and red.

The Southern Negro is not an incurably ignorant ape. The Southern white masses are not biologically degenerate.

When I came here, there were two groups of United Church Women, one black and one white.

If white America is ready to extend complete democratic rights to colored people, there will be no race, no racial tension and no racial prejudice on either side, but we can be sure that any movement 'back to normalcy' in race relations will be bitterly resisted by colored people. It is now up to white America to make its choice...

Stated briefly, the problem confronting the colored peoples of the world is how to live in freedom, peace and security without being invaded, subjugated, expropriated, persecuted and humiliated by Caucasians justifying their actions by the myth of racial superiority..

The destinies of the two races, in this country, are indissolubly linked together, and the interests of both require that the common government of all shall not permit the seeds of race hate to be planted under sanction of law.

I am for the negro against the crocodile, but for the white man against the negro.

Race has no place in American life or law.

So far as this particular negro is personally concerned, he may be dismissed as beneath contempt. There is a far graver side to the matter. This negro is regarded as a leader; he both reflects the sentiments of his race, and his utterance react upon his followers with an effect that was made sufficiently plain by the "vigorous applause" with which his slander was greeted by the negroes in the gallery. As the blatant mouthing of a mere negro, White's utterances are not worth notice; as a fresh manifestation of negroism, of what the negro's attitude is toward the white man, now and always, its significance should not be allowed to escape us.

All that is needed to make us the finest race on Earth is to engraft upon us the negro element, which Providence has placed by our side on this continent.... The white people of America are dying for want of fresh blood ... until church and state and society recognize not only the propriety but the necessity of the marriage of white and black.... in short, until the great truth shall be declared in our public documents and announced in the messages of our Presidents, that it is desirable that the white man shall marry the black woman and the white woman the black man.

The intelligence and ability of a colored person are in pretty direct proportion to the amount of white blood he has, and ... most of the positions of leadership, influence, and prominence in the Negro race are held not by real Negroes but by Mulattoes, many of whom have very little Negro blood... .

In eighteen states in this white man's country and also in the District of Columbia, where the Nation's Capitol is located, intermarriage of the races is permitted by law. This fact is a national shame, or should I say crime, against the white race of America, and I pray God that these states and the Congress of the United States … will do something about this situation before it is too late

The Negro wants a revision of the concept of race and of racism. Discriminations in industry, labor unions, education, the Jim Crow pattern for the Army and Navy are based upon fascist racism …. There will have to be education on the subject of race. We shall have to learn that the doctrine of racism has no scientific foundations ...

One of the things that makes a Negro unpleasant to white folk is the fact that he suffers from their injustice. He is thus a standing rebuke to them.

Some days ago you doubtless read reports published in the newspapers of the country of the opening of a local United Service Organizations unit in Washington for service men and women, regardless of color. The stories published at the time noted the presence at the opening of outstanding officials and semi-officials of the United States, and indicated that they joined with others of both races in singing such songs as Let Me Call You Sweetheart. No member of this House has greater respect for our leaders than I, but one can be pardoned if he questions the wisdom of such officials participating in these festivities. I unhesitatingly brand that affair as a distinct disservice to the Negro race—one to which our sanction should not be given. Whatever the intent of those responsible for the creation of this particular U. S. O. unit, its continued operation can result only in the intensification of the race problem, with which we of the South must constantly struggle. The race problem is grave enough without deliberately aggravating it by promoting the intermingling of Negroes and whites on such occasions