Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

For years through the Jim Crow years, Whites murdered many Blacks with impunity if they were perceived to be uppity or to try and obtain their Constitutionally Protected rights. Most took place in the South. The Negroes were typically tortured, mutilated, burned and hung from trees where they would be left for days as the major purpose was to strike terror in the Southern Black population. The Southern State and local governments never opposed the policy via oratory, legislation of law enforcement. The Federal Government did not interfere either. And much of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover actually enabled the White Citizen’s Councils and the Klu Klux Klan. The NAACP began an anti-lynching campaign and Ms. Holiday was a one-woman public exposure campaign centered around this song. The anthem itself was written by a New York City schoolteacher named Abel Meeropol, using the pen name, Lewis Allan. It reached millions of Americans and Holiday fans the world over. To view some of the historical scenes described in the song, see http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html

He was trying to calm many Americans who were upset that a young Black man who was accused of a minor misdemeanor of selling loose cigarettes (not whole packs) was being arrested by 5 white New York City police officers who thought that he was not cooperating forced him to the ground with one using a “choke hold” that was against Police Department regulations. The video, taken by a citizen, showed the arrested man crying to the police several times that he could not breathe when the pressure was placed by the officer with the choke hold. He man was choked to death. The coroner declared the death a homicide. However, the Staten Island district attorney presented the case to the Grand Jury in such a way that the jury found no reason to indict any of the police officers for any crime. Staten Island is a borough of New York far smaller and more suburban than the rest of New York System and more than half of all the white New York City police officers lived in the only conservative borough of New York where they were a major political force in the election of the borough district attorney. The President told the public that the Justice Department would investigate the case to determine if the victim’s civil rights had been violated.

In the 1930s African Americans who traveled were subject to countless humiliations whenever the sought hotels, rooming houses, restaurants and other accommodations. Gas stations would not allow them to use bathrooms and they were reduced to using open fields. Traveling and vacationing was, for Blacks, humiliating. Wikipedia: “Green reviewed hotels and restaurants that did business with African Americans during the time of Jim Crow laws and racial segregation in the United States. He printed 15,000 copies each year. In the 1930s, Green began his work by compiling data on stores in the New York area that accepted black travelers, and published his first guide in 1936. Similar guides had been published for Jewish travelers, who sometimes faced discrimination. Green's guide was so popular that he immediately began to expand its coverage the next year to other US destinations, adding hotel and restaurants as well.”

This was a very courageous speech for the President to give. Senator Hubert Humphrey had proposed civil rights legislation. At the time most of the racial conservative members of Congress were Democrats and not Republicans as they would become after Civil Rights legislation actually passed in 1964. There was little possibility that the civil rights law would pass as the Southern Democrats could filibuster it in the Senate. None the less Truman supported the legislation and the principle of equal rights despite the fact that he was a Southerner and he knew he would lose the support of the conservative wing of his party.

The issue of slavery which had been suppressed in Congress for the first decades of the nation broke out when Missouri statehood was considered. By previous agreement, slavery was not even discussed in Congress but the time period elapsed. Tallmadge not only proposed that no more slaves could come into Missouri {613176} but most shocking to the Southerners was that every person born in the new state would be free at the age of 25. In a generation, there would be no more slavery in Missouri and there would be no economic compensation for slave owners at all. The House of Representatives accepted the amendment, but it failed in the Senate. At that time, Senators were not elected by voters but were appointed by the state legislators and the Southern slave states had a disproportionate share of the senate from a population point of view. But what this quotation shows clearly that a majority of the country in 1819 were opposed to slavery and were willing to end it without compensation.

This was actually a very courageous statement for an American politician running for national office. As a result of the pressure of this statement President Franklin Roosevelt allowed Black enlistment in the Army Air Forces.

Wilson, a history and government professor and college president before politics, was has been accused of being one of the most racist Presidents since Reconstruction. Prior to his Presidency, the Federal Government had been making steady progress in hiring African Americans. Under Wilson there was a wholesale firing of a large proportion of them. Some apologists argue that his League of Nations and other major aspirations required the votes and cooperation of Southern Senators who insisted that many of the blacks be terminated. At the same time, the KKK was near the zenith of its membership and political power and was an intimidating force. Wilson’s home state of New Jersey not only had a large KKK membership but there were lynching of Blacks in his own state and when Governor and President he never asked for any anti-lynching legislation.

Lieber was assigned by President Lincoln to study the then international laws of war and prepare a manual for the guidance of union troops in the Civil War. Lincoln then issued the document as a general order. This statement was critical in inhibiting the South from making good on their threat to enslave any Black Union Soldier Captured and to execute any Union Black soldier who was a runaway slave from the South. Lincoln threatened to retaliate and also to hold senior Confederate officers accountable for following these rules. General Sherman and other Union Senior Officers executed a few Confederate soldiers who violated rules of the order and the “illegal” practices stopped, and with few exceptions the senior officers of both sides followed Lieber’s rules. These rules, with few modifications, governed U. S. military policies and rules through the Second World War.

Before the civil rights act was passed, most labor unions will racist and discriminated against black workers. The United Auto Workers union was an exception and Reuther was a strong advocate of desegregation and equal rights.

The case was Shelley v. Kraemer where the Supreme Court outlawed discriminatory restrictive covenants A restrictive covenant was a condition that was written into the deed on a piece of property. Even if the owner of the home did not want to discriminate, the previous owners who wrote the restrictive covenant into the deed (or his relatives and heirs) could sue and invalidate the sale. In many cases, insurance would not sell title insurance or banks would not give mortgages for a Black or a Jew where there was a covenant in the deed, even if the covenant was more than 100 years old. Homeowner associations would also enforce the covenants which were originally written into all the deeds of the development. Once the supreme court ruled that restrictive covenants were unconstitutional, no court would enforce any of these lawsuits. It was one of the fastest steps forward in the history of Civil Rights since the day after the court decision racists could no longer enforce the covenants that were in tens of millions of deeds in America.

Humphrey was the Mayor of Minneapolis then.

This was the first named Civil Rights Act passed in the United States. It was passed over the veto of President Andrew Johnson, a Southerner, who tried to thwart Congress’s efforts at Reconstruction.

In the 1940’s equality and Civil Rights was a good wedge issue for Republicans because the most racist members of Congress were Democrats even though there were many Democrats who advocated strong civil rights. In 1964, there was a party realignment after the Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. After that the most racist members of Congress and the political established switched to the Republican Party and this caused the Republicans to publicly soft pedal civil rights issues. It now became a wedge issue for the democrats, and very few national Republican figures would make such a statement as it would be misinterpreted by the racial right wing of the party.

Lincoln had instituted the first draft in American History and it was terribly resented by many Americans. The draft laws allowed the wealthy and upper middle class to avoid service by paying a $300 fee of hiring a substitute just like in the Vietnam War the upper classes could get College Draft deferments. The mob led mostly by poor Irish, began by protesting the draft; then they attacked the mansions and houses of the wealthy; and then they went after Blacks. The Irish poor feared large numbers of Negroes coming out of slavery and competing for their jobs and lowering the prevailing wages. Blacks were beaten and lynched and 5,000 almost half of the then Negro population were driven to Brooklyn, New Jersey and the New York suburbs. It was the worst riot in United States History.

William Z. Foster, the 1928 communist presidential candidate, was arrested because his party’s leaflet contained this “inflammatory” slogan.