Negro Quotes
At the time, American racism was rampant, and about 150 Blacks were lynched each year with no punishment for the murderers. The heavyweight boxing champion of the world was a major hero, and the thought of a Black possibly winning the title was unthinkable.
Nott, a Southerner who owned slaves, was not only an apologist for slavery as this quotation illustrates, but also wrote on his theories of race. Nott was one of the writers about race that Darwin singled out as being completely wrong in 1871: The Descent of Man.
The President had frequent stag (men only) dinners of national notables. At this dinner, the Chief Justice was seated close to the attorney who was representing the Southern segregationists in the Brown v Board of Education case that was before the court. Warren had objected to being in such close proximity to one party to a case before the court. Eisenhower, had taken Warren aside to smooth any bad feelings and thinking Warren might be distressed by the attorney’s racist and segregationist views tried to explain the Southern point of view. Although Eisenhower was not a racist or segregationist himself, he had worked closely with Southerners his whole career, and thought he understood them. Warren was so surprised by the President’s insensitive remark, that he noted it and revealed it in his memoirs.
In his travels to the Americas Darwin saw some free Blacks but mostly slaves. He thought very highly of Blacks and was an inveterate opponent of slavery.
This quotation illustrates the degree or irrationality that Southerners practiced in considering racial matters. Lee was stating what virtually all Southern “Gentlemen” believed. Here was a class of people who had hardly worked at day in their lives opining on the work attitudes of the class of people who did most of all the work in the South. The Southern Whites not only expected the Negro slave to do the work, but to be enthusiastic about working. And it never even occurred to Lee and most of the other whites that Negro lack of “disposition” to work was the result of the fact that they were forced to work with the benefits going to someone else. It was a character flaw in Blacks, if they were not enthusiastic and disposed to work when forced to. One of the few ways a slave could register his/her protest was to beat the system now and then and do as little work as possible. Free Blacks in the North were among the hardest and most enthusiastic working people in America—certainly moreso than the Southern white gentlemen.
Under the previous Republican administrations, virulent and overt racists were not generally appointed especially as they were generally then Democrats. However, when Woodrow Wilson was elected president, he not only appointed many overt racists but he himself may have been one of the most racist Presidents every to inhabit the white House. He fired almost all the Blacks who held positions in the Federal government.
Realizing that as a mulatto she was subject to claims of slavery in New Mexico, she tool the precaution of getting this affidavit to protect her freedom. An interesting side note is that she states that she is “not bound by marriage or slavery.” For a woman the state of marriage meant the loss of most of her civil rights and was even then put in a similar category to slavery.
Nixon, in his second attempt to win the Presidency was told by a small group of Southern Republican politicians that his support was wavering in the South. They had already left the Democratic Party in reaction to the Passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They were concerned because in order to try and capture some of the more liberal anti-war Democrats, Nixon had been making speeches advocating the vigerous enforcement of of civil rights and improving the lot of the Negro. But Nixon could not afford to lose his political base inb the south. Hence the promise which did not keep very long after he was elected President. Nixon was not a strong civil rights President, but he was totally without principles and had no political idiology he would sacrifice any of his political capital for. So once he was elected, he didn't want to offend the centerists whose support he needed for his legislatrive program so he did pay lip service to the prinicples of equality when he himself was anti-Black, andti-Semitic and prejudiced in many areas including against intelelctuals.
