Monroe Trotter
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/portrait/wp_african.html
Monday, November 24, 2014
Woodrow Wilson
Throughout the week, whenever Woodrow Wilson is brought up, he was always recognized as a progressive. Although he did create many new labor and anti-trust laws, I don't think he was a complete forward thinker. It was emphasized that he was against African Americans, their progress in human rights, and believed they were lower than the rest of the American population. I understand he did many great things for our country, but I think it should be taken into account that he was very racist and heavily supported segregation. On one occasion, when the African American Army Major Monroe Trotter confronted Wilson confronted the president regarding his allowance of government offices to be segregated, Wilson replied, "segregation was caused by friction between the colored and white clerks, and not done to injure or humiliate the colored clerks, but to avoid friction". While I understand segregation and discrimination towards African Americans to this day has not completely disappeared from American society, if one is regarded as a progressive, wouldn't they at least value human rights?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/portrait/wp_african.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/portrait/wp_african.html
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One interesting thing to note is that the US Military was not desegregated until 1948. Had Wilson been progressive enough to allow the equal treatment of blacks and other minorities in the US Military during World War I, just imagine what the result could have been in terms of the 1960's Civil Rights movement and other such movements.
ReplyDeleteI see where you are coming from, but since Wilson was a Virginian in the wake of the Civil War, anti-black sentiment was very extreme. He was ingrained at a young age of the white man being superior to the black man. I don't advocate this type of discrimination, but its necessary to take this into consideration.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post Kaya! I think it's good to do some reflection after learning about Wilson!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Varun on this one. It's really difficult to change something so indoctrinated in him. This is sorta like religion in a way. Typically people stay the same religion that they were born into. This is not always the case, but this is normally what happens. It is hard to change mindsets once you are in a certain environment, and it's really easy for us to be critical about what seems obvious to us now. Of course, like Varun says, this doesn't justify anything, but it helps us understand him better if we look at it objectively.
In addition to what you were saying though Kaya, another place where Wilson was a bit inconsistent with his progressivism was with his women's rights policies. For his first term he was known to be a bit harsh because he told the women that he would advocate for their rights yet he would imprison them when they spoke out against him. He continued this until his second term when he decided on passing a women's suffrage amendment after WWI. See this link below:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-woodrow-wilson-speaks-in-favor-of-female-suffrage
Like you were saying, it's good to note that Wilson was not always as progressive as we always like to paint him. Thanks again for the post Kaya!
One thing to note is that, like the documentaries showed, Wilson came to office on promises of reform and progress internally, but soon had a war thrown on his plate. Oftentimes in war, all non-war problems take a backseat to the obvious foreign need. This was amplified because Wilson was unprepared and unpracticed for a large scale war, so he wasn't used to having to deal externally with Europe and internally with social issues. For instance, I've heard that Wilson was close to passing women's suffrage on the eve of the war, but when it broke out, he put it on hold. This happening isn't special to America. For instance, the question of Irish independence from Britain and "Home Rule" was being brought up a lot. However, when the Great War broke out, Britain restricted the movement for independence in order to better fight the war.
ReplyDeleteThat was a long-winded way of saying that Wilson sometimes had his reasons as to why he wasn't always so progressive.
Great thinking Kaya! It's great to look at things from several perspectives. I do agree that Wilson did not address all aspects of social reform possible, but I think it is necessary to take into account the context of his presidential policies. Like Josh, I think the Great War influenced his policies and where he could focus most of his attention. In my opinion, this somewhat pardons his racist attitudes.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, Wilson's anti-black policies weren't nearly as perhaps the Jim Crow laws. The extent of his racist proclamations can be roughly exemplified by his actions in 1913 at the beginning of his presidency. He promoted segregation in the national postal service, and it wasn't even his own idea: he was coaxed into the idea by his postmaster general and treasury secretary.
Although Wilson maintained some generally racist policies, the war was at the forefront of his mind, leading him to be distracted from domestic progressivism.
Sources: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345274/progressive-racism-paul-rahe
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