Sometime ago, I purchased "Jim Crow and the Wilson Administration: Protesting Federal Segregation in the Early Twentieth Century," by Nicholas Patler It is about the resistance to Woodrow Wilson implementation of segregation in employment by the Federal government.
What I really liked about this book is the preface. I haven't had time to read the book yet, but will.
Patler in the preface to the book describes his attendance at a history session about Woodrow Wilson where the historians really didn't want to deal with Wilson's racism. Patler writes that the audience members "referred to the inconsistency between Wilson's ardent defense of individual freedom and equality at home and abroad the the poor treatment of blacks in America ..."
Patler reveals that the historians in the conference were really fans of Wilson rather than historians.
Patler writes:
"I did not hear a good explanation that day. Although Dr. Link admitted that this attitude was 'a blemish on the Wilson administration," it seemed the speakers in general tiptoed around the topic, and the consensus was, in so many words, 'Why focus on this negative aspect of the Wilson years when he accomplished so many positive things?'"Patler's mentions in his preface that in his investigations he discovered:
"Not only were African Americans segregated en masse in federal departments, but in many cases they were harassed, downgraded, and terminated as well."
There is this video of him talking on C-Span about Woodrow Wilson
https://www.c-span.org/person/?nicholaspatler
Yet, Princeton University decided that Wilson still needed to be honored as some type of hero.
This was the general environment of the early 20th century in which the Arlington Confederate Monument went up.
Posts
