George Henry White Quotes
Treat him as a man; go into his home and learn of his social conditions; learn of his cares, his troubles, and his hopes for the future; gain his confidence; open the doors of industry to him; let the word “negro,” “colored,” and “black” be stricken from all the organizations enumerated in the federation of labor.
He was the only Black member of Congress at the time.
George Henry White, 1852-1918, U. S. Congressman (Republican, NC), Referring to American Blacks, Speech, House of Representatives, January 29, 1901
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Having endured centuries of near slavery and discrimination, 70,000 Irish people signed this petition urging American-Irish immigrants to understand the similar plight of African-Americans and to join together with abolitionists. Irish immigrants were nevertheless reluctant to join the abolition movement because the movement was often tied to anti-Catholicism and many feared that the emancipation of Blacks would increase competition for the low-paying jobs immigrants held.
At the time, the Southern segregationists were all Democrats and they blocked any Democratic attempt to pass any Civil Rights legislation. When he could not get a Civil Rights commitment from his own party, Powell turned to the Republicans and the President wrote this letter. In return, in November, Powell endorsed and supported Eisenhower instead of Stevenson, his own party’s nominee. Eisenhower could not get any legislation on Civil Rights as the Southern Democrats would always block it. When President Lyndon Johnson finally forced the 1963 Civil Rights Act through the Congress, the racist Southern Democrats cut a deal with Goldwater and the conservative Republicans, and switched parties. Since then the Civil Rights stance of the two parties reversed. The Democrats were thereafter pro Civil Rights and the Republicans, the party of Lincoln and Reconstruction, thereafter reversed their Civil Rights position and opposed progress in this area.
Before the civil rights act was passed, most labor unions will racist and discriminated against black workers. The United Auto Workers union was an exception and Reuther was a strong advocate of desegregation and equal rights.
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.
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.
This was an indirect slap at the Boy Scouts of America. At the time, racial segregation was legal and overtly practiced in the Southern States. The Boy Scouts could have been a great force for desegregation, but the leadership did not have that as a value for the organization. The Girl Scout leadership however saw the contradiction between segregation and the supposed values of America and their own organization. They were not only very active but very successful at desegregation at a time when they were atypical, and for most Americans, segregation was the norm.
This was a very unusual and enlightened position for a labor leader to take at the time when most labor organizations were as racist as the rest of white society. He did not make much significant progress in racially integrating organized labor but he did not suffer for the position he took either.
The Nixon "Southern Strategy" was that if the Republican Party made extensive efforts to appeal to minorities, given the previous decades of support of white supremacy, they would only be successful with a few, whereas if the Party went in the other direction and supported the Whites fighting against the Democratic initiated, racist hated, Civil Rights Act, they would get almost all the racist Southern Democrats, which were most white males and many white females. This racist policy enabled the Republicans to gain control of the Federal Government more often than not whereas before, it was very unusual.
George Henry White was an American attorney and politician, elected as a Republican U.S. Congressman from North Carolina's 2nd congressional district between 1897 and 1901. He later became a banker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and in Whitesboro, New Jersey, an African-American community he co-founded. White is the last African-American Congressman during the beginning of the Jim Crow era and the only African American to serve in Congress during his tenure.
