Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Jim Carmichael's avatar

My father ran against that Georgia candidate in the primary and won the popular vote but lost due to the County Unit System. He got out of politics, but lived long enough to take his three children to the first integrated meeting in the Marriott Hotel where the SCLC was meeting in 1964, with MLK speaking and Aretha Franklin singing. Thank God for Black Lives Matter since it has exposed the perpetual system of violence to which citizens of color are still subjected.

Expand full comment
TCinLA's avatar

Thanks for the great stuff on Harry Truman, my favorite president. Truman may have been racist earlier in his life, but he began to change from his experience in World War I, according to my great-grand-uncle, who was his battery 1st sergeant and then worked for him politically for the rest of his career (and introduced me to him when I was 14). The unit Truman was part of was in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, and they were in the part of the American Army that was right next to the French. They got to know the Harlem Hellfighters, who when they got to France were sent to fight with the French, where they established a magnificent record (while introducing the French to American jazz). My Uncle Jim told me they knew of those guys. Truman liked them because he came to like jazz piano, being a piano player himself. And then in the 1920s, when he was a County Judge there in Independence and ended up part of the Pendergast Machine in Kansas City, Tom Pendergast hated the KKK, and Truman went after them and broke them in Independence. At one time, according to my uncle, Truman was carrying a loaded pistol when he was driving in the rural areas outside of the town, because of the Klan.

So when he heard those stories that HCR related here after World War I, he knew what he was talking about when he referenced the "bigotry" after World War I, and that would have predisposed him to believe what he heard.

And then let's remember he was the one who desegregated the armed forces (which didn't really happen till 1951, when the demands of the battlefield in Korea finally overthrew segregated units).

Like I said, my favorite president. He was a self-taught - and pretty darned good - historian in his own right. I know because he gave me a pretty serious quiz on my knowledge of American history when I met him that summer of my 14th birthday, (which I passed).

Expand full comment
555 more comments...

No posts