In Part 1 of this two part series, I proffered the argument as to why those attacking our traditional American heroes – such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and many others – are misguided, ignorant of the true history of these people or are motivated by ulterior political motives.
I also explained in Part 1 why I have long supported relocating the monuments honoring members of the Confederate leadership – and other political leaders who aggressively fought against the movement for greater equality for our fellow Black citizens. Basic research reveals the folks are who have fought against racial equality and civil rights – and tangentially, women’s rights. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there was an overlap of people supporting abolition, the end of segregation and the voting rights of women.
If you look at history factually, you find that political the battle lines over racism are clear and compelling. The Republican Party was in the fore of both those movements – and the Democratic Party was in opposition. That is why virtually every abolitionist and suffragette were staunch Republicans – including Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman. John Brown, Susan B. Anthony … and the list goes on and on.
So, let’s say for the moment that we wanted to join with the left and end the honoring of the villains of civil rights – take down their statues and rename their namesakes. Where would we start?
A good start would be to move the statue of Democrat President Andrew Jackson from Lafayette Square across from the White House to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Yes, President Trump has praised the bastard, but he is looking at the romanticized history of Jackson due to his victory at the Battle of New Orleans. Jackson was an extreme white supremacist. Not only was he a slave owner, but he – unlike Washington and Jefferson – mistreated his slaves and took personal pleasure in whipping them. As a southern Democrat, he was a total defender of the evil institution.
Jackson was responsible for the forced relocation of Native Americans – including the tragic and deadly “Trail of Tears.” Some historians claim that Jackson personally murders slaves and Native Americans.
Despite his history of white supremacy, Democrats recognize him as the founder of the modern Democratic Party – and the ubiquitous Jackson Day Dinners are the Democrats’ counterpart of the Republican annual Lincoln Day Dinners. Perhaps Democrats could switch to Jefferson Day dinners. Ooops! He is also on the left’s hit list.
Jackson is honored with hundreds of statues and busts – and his name is on thousands of streets, schools and public buildings. In the spirit of the times, all of that should be changed.
Another President who should be dumped on the trash heap of history is Woodrow Wilson. He was a staunch white supremacist who blocked Negro admission to Princeton when he served as President of that institution of higher learning. He segregated the American military – with the help of a young Navy bureaucrat named Franklin Roosevelt.
He also segregated the Executive Branch of our national government – and imposed a photo requirement for job applications to be able to root out Black applicants. Under Wilson, the first movie played in the White House was “Birth of a Nation” – a racist movie that glorified the Ku Klux Klan. In fact, membership in the Klan sored because of his imprimatur. It was also during his administration that many of those southern statues were erected.
Like Jackson, Wilson is honored with thousand of statues, busts and monuments. In no small irony, the hard-core political left intelligentsia meet at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. You cannot make this stuff up.
Then there is President Franklin Roosevelt. Though less known, FDR was an ardent white supremacist. When running for governor of New York, he ordered his staff to prevent any Negroes from having photographs with him
His white supremacy was evident in his order to illegally and unconstitutionally incarcerate Japanese Americans during World II. He considered no such action against the White German or Italian Americans – even though we were at war with those nations, as well.
FDR’s entire New Deal was crafted by racists as a means of transferring jobs from Black workers to White workers during the Great Depression. One of the architects of the New Deal was one-time KKK member, Hugo Black – who FDR would later appoint to the Supreme Court. The NAACP dubbed the National Recovery Act (NRA) that Negro Riddance Act.
The effectiveness of Roosevelt’s racist policy was evident in the fact that Black unemployment – which had been comparable to White unemployment before the Depression – soared to more than 50 percent. White unemployment topped out around 17 percent. It is only during the Trump administration that inner-city Black unemployment has begun to rise out of Depression-era levels.
Roosevelt also refused to allow Blacks to participate in the alleged healing waters of the Warm Springs, George spa where he died. In one of my many speeches in the Black community, a man said that Roosevelt should not be held responsible for the condition in Georgia in the 1930s and 40s. That man was dumbfounded to learn that Roosevelt owned the spa – where he held his annual high society birthday party each year. The NAACP refused to attend because of the President’s racist policies.
Roosevelt and his congressional allies defeated Republican-sponsored anti-lynching legislation on three occasions.
Now just imagine how many statues, busts, memorials bear the likeness of FDR – and how many streets, schools and public buildings are named in his honor – not to mention that a lot of Black folks carry his moniker as a given name.
There are six Congressional office buildings in Washington — three for the Senate and three for the House. So, who are they named after? On the House side, we have the Cannon, the Longworth and the Rayburn House Office Buildings.
Those names seem safe from cancelation politics. The Cannon Building was named after longtime House Speaker Joseph Cannon — a Republican abolitionist who served as Secretary of the Interior under President Lincoln. House Speaker Nicholas Longworth was also a Republican abolitionist who came to political power as the Democratic Party was consolidating total control over the old Confederacy. He was President Teddy Roosevelt’s son-in-law. The Rayburn Building is named after Texas Congressman and House Speaker Sam Rayburn. Though a southern Democrat, Rayburn refused to sign the Southern Manifesto opposing school desegregation and worked with the Eisenhower administration to successfully pass the Republican-sponsored 1957 and 1960 Civil Rights Acts – the first since Reconstruction.
The Senate side has an issue. The three buildings housing Senate offices are the Russell, Dirksen and Hart Office Buildings. There is no problem with Democrat Senator Philip Hart, of Michigan. The honor for Illinois Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen is well deserved since he was the GOP leader of the Senate that broke the Democrat filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and was the author and introducer of the 1965 Voting Rights Act – which was passed by overwhelming Republican voters that overcame Democrat opposition.
The Russell Building, however, may need a name change. It is named after Georgia Democrat Senator Richard Russell – a staunch segregationist, who was the co-author of the Southern Manifesto.
While this commentary would turn into a book were I to give even a thumbnail biography of the many infamous figures deserving of a reduction in rank, their memorials are all over America – mostly erected by past Democrat administrations in southern states.
Most Black folks will recognize these names as a rollcall of racial infamy. There are such segregationist senators as Robert Byrd of West Virginia — the last member of Congress with a former KKK membership. He died in office in 2010, garnering great praise from Democrat leaders — including Hillary Clinton, who called Byrd her mentor.
Then there are those who signed the 1956 Southern Manifesto in opposition to the Republican push for civil rights legislation – which did pass in 1957. The list includes John Sparkman and Lister Hill (Alabama), William Fulbright and John McClellan (Arkansas), George Smathers and Spessard Holland (Florida), Walter George and Richard Russell (Georgia), Allen Ellender and Russell Long (Louisiana), James Eastland and John Stennis (Mississippi), Sam Ervin and Kerr Scott (North Carolina), Strom Thurmond and Olin Johnston (South Carolina) Price Daniel (Texas), and Harry Byrd and Willis Robertson (Virginia). All Democrats.
They were joined by 77 signers in the House – with only two Virginia Republicans among them. This represented almost 20 percent of the House membership and one-third of the Democrat majority.
The list of racist governors opposing racial integration in 1960 is a dark pantheon of racial infamy. George Wallace (who did not leave office until 1987), Lureen Wallace, Ross Barnett, Lester Maddox, Eugene Talmadge and scores of others, whose names and deeds have been lost to common history. Apart from the racist beliefs, the common thread is that they, too, are all Democrats.
If we look beyond the 1960s, we find a legion of federal and state Democrat legislators and governors fighting – mostly successfully – against Black rights at every level. They were able to maintain official segregation and unofficial violent oppression of Black Americans for almost 100 years after the Civil War. These include reprobates like “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman who gained fame and public office by bragging how he had murdered four Black union militiamen occupying Dixie after the Civil War. He served as both Governor and Senator for South Carolina – and his statue is a fixture on the grounds of the state’s Capitol Building.
And what about all those racist Democrat mayors – such as Richard J. Daley of Chicago, once said to be the most racist mayor in America and the specific target of Martin Luther King’s northern crusade. The Chicago Civic Center is one of the many places named after him.
And the beat goes on.
What is peculiar about this list is that virtually none of the statues, memorials and namings dedicated to these vicious racists have come under attack from the left – including the violent-prone Antifa and Black Lives Matter movements. And why no pushback against the more contemporary mayors who to this day preside over the de facto racism that has kept Blacks in our major cities segregated and impoverished? Why is that? Is it because they are ALL Democrats – and the radical political left in America is tied to – and in support of – the Democratic Party? Is it because addressing the true history of American racism would run contrary to the false narrative promoted by the contemporary Democratic Party and their cronies in the major news media? Methinks so. What do you think?
So, there ‘tis.