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A PUBLICATION OF THE CALVIN COOLIDGE PRESIDENTIAL FOUNDATION COOLIDGE November 2016 • volume 1 • issue 3 THE LITTLE KNOWN HISTORY OF COOLIDGE AND CIVIL RIGHTS BY KURT SCHMOKE A few years back I wrote a piece for the online magazine Politico.com in which I referenced President Calvin Coolidge as one of this country’s early civil rights pioneers. After my article was published I received a number of letters from people who were unaware of and surprised by President Coolidge’s record. Indeed, our nation’s thirtieth president played an im- portant role in advancing the cause of civil rights for African Americans during the fraught years of the 1920s. Like much about Calvin Coolidge’s administration, this story has long been glossed over. Yet the historical record testifies of Coolidge’s commitment to the ideal outlined in the Declaration of Independence: that all men Calvin Coolidge greets an African American are created equal. He worked in many man on the grounds of the White House in 1925 (Courtesy of the Library of Congress). quiet ways to advance that ideal during his six years in the White House. In the aftermath of the Civil War As a result of these actions, newly en- enslaved blacks were set free. Not only franchised African Americans joined the that, they were also empowered by Republican Party in droves. Their political amendments to the Constitution that influence in the South increased at aston- gave them citizenship rights, voting ishing rates: Mississippi appointed the rights, and the right to equal protection first two African Americans, Hiram R. and due process under the law. We tend Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, both Re- to forget this, but all of those protections publicans, to the United States Senate in were added to our governing document the 1870s (Senators were appointed by by a Republican Congress. Abraham state legislatures at the time). African Lincoln, the first Republican president, Americans were elected to offices up and issued the Emancipation Proclamation in down the ballot throughout the South. 1863, and helped enact the 13th Amend- They even held a majority of seats in the ment, which abolished slavery, although South Carolina Legislature for a period he was assassinated before it came into of time in the 1870s, taking their place as force in late 1865. heirs to the promise of freedom. Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation • CoolidgeFoundation.org • 802-672-3389 COOLIDGE QUARTERLY Unfortunately, the Compromise of 1877, which ensured the election of Rutherford B. Hayes to the White House, led to the effective revocation of those previously enacted rights. Union troops were withdrawn from the South as a consequence of the compromise, and the former Confederate states were left free to “redeem” themselves from the African American political and social empow- erment of the previous decade through the establishment of the Jim Crow seg- regation system. Black participation in Southern political life, which had reached impressive levels in the decade to 1877, gradually began to decline due to a campaign of terror and intimidation HEIRS TO LINCOLN carried out by racists. In the wake of this revanchist trend The Harding-Coolidge ticket receives the heav- enly benediction of the martyred President Abra- the Republican Party lost nearly all ham Lincoln, whose action in the Civil War saved power and influence in the South, but the Union and freed enslaved African Americans GOP presidents like Theodore Roos- (Courtesy of the Library of Congress). evelt made symbolic gestures to maintain the support of African Americans in the North. In 1901 Roosevelt invited his Southern politicians used even more friend Booker T. Washington, a pioneer inflammatory language. For instance, of African American improvement, to Mississippi Senator James K. Vardaman dine with the First Family at the White remarked that, as a result of Washington’s House. This was a revolutionary gesture. visit, the White House had become “so Despite the fact that African American saturated with the odor of nigger that the slave labor had constructed the Execu- rats had taken refuge in the stable.” tive Mansion nearly one-hundred years More than ten years later Woodrow earlier, no African American had ever Wilson, a man whom we acknowl- been invited to dine there with the presi- edge was a great president in many dent and his family. One day after the ways, outdid himself in promoting racist dinner the White House issued a press policies. He refused to support a law statement entitled “Booker T Washing- criminalizing lynching, even after thou- ton of Tuskegee, Alabama, dined with the sands of African American soldiers who President last evening.” had fought valiantly in the First World Northern newspapers posited that War came home facing harassment; some Roosevelt’s gesture signaled his inten- of those African American veterans were tion to govern on behalf of all the people, lynched in the late 1910s and early 1920s. including blacks. The Southern papers Wilson also actively moved to segregate were nowhere near as circumspect in the Federal civilian workforce. To make their reactions. For instance, the Memphis matters worse Wilson held a screen- Scimitar announced the meeting by ing at the White House of the film “The saying “the most damnable outrage which Klansmen,” also known as “The Birth of has ever been perpetrated by any citizen a Nation,” which glorifies the infamous of the United States was committed yes- white supremacist terrorist organization terday by the President.” the Ku Klux Klan. 2 THE LITTLE KNOWN HISTORY OF COOLIDGE AND CIVIL RIGHTS Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge’s efforts matched both his Coolidge succeeded Wilson in the presi- commitment to civil rights and to educa- dency. During his two years in the White tion as a means of social uplift for African House, Harding made a few laudatory Americans. Coolidge’s $500,000 foun- statements about African Americans, dation helped improve medical care and but did not go very far in attempting health outcomes for African Americans. to improve their plight. It was Calvin It also laid the groundwork for future Coolidge who, surveying the landscape of presidents to build upon, sending more the country, thought we could do better. Federal dollars to Howard. This enabled In particular, Coolidge recognized an the university to catalyze the creation of opportunity in historically black Howard a middle class in the African American University in Washington, D.C. Howard community. To this day Howard is con- University was founded in the years fol- sidered the “Harvard” of historically lowing the Civil War by members of the black universities, granting more PhDs to First Congregational Church of Wash- African Americans than any other higher ington, D.C., the house of worship the education institution in the country. Coolidges attended during their White Howard has produced an impressive House years. President Coolidge’s com- array of African American leaders in all mitment to self-improvement and self- areas of life, from Supreme Court Justice determination prompted him to call for Thurgood Marshall to Nobel Laureate a major appropriation for Howard in his Toni Morrison. Coolidge’s appropriation 1923 State of the Union message, the helped lay the groundwork for that im- first of his presidency. In that speech, pressive record. Coolidge said: “Already a considerable Beyond providing financial support sum is appropriated to give the negroes for Howard, Coolidge wanted to make a vocational training in agriculture. About bold statement about his commitment to half a million dollars is recommended for the equality of African Americans. In this medical courses at Howard University to spirit, on June 6, 1924, Coolidge went to help contribute to the education of 500 Howard University to deliver the spring colored doctors needed each year.” commencement address. President Calvin Coolidge delivers the commencement address to an open-air assembly at Howard University on June 6, 1924 (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress). Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation • CoolidgeFoundation.org • 802-672-3389 3 COOLIDGE QUARTERLY Coolidge began his address by refer- Many of America’s black veterans encing the sad history of slavery and the received honors from the French gov- importance of religious leaders in ending ernment, but their sacrifices and con- that wretched period tributions to their in American history. homeland were He highlighted “NUMBERED AMONG OUR met with disre- the importance of POPULATION ARE SOME gard when they small business in the 12,000,000 Colored PeoPle. sought a remedy African American UNDER OUR CONSTITUTION to their plight. In community, giving THEIR RIGHTS ARE JUST AS his Howard speech both legitimacy to SACRED AS THOSE OF ANY Coolidge acknowl- these businesspeople other Citizen. it is both a edged the patrio- and also recognizing PUBLIC AND A PRIVATE DUTY tism of African the vital role small to ProteCt those rights.” Americans, even in businesses played in the face of contrary the building of the President Calvin Coolidge, voices, who tried African American First Annual Message to to persuade them Congress on the State of the middle class. Then that they shouldn’t Union, December 6, 1923. he looked out at the fight for the United Howard graduates States. African and said the follow- Americans had not ing: failed their country, but their country had The nation has need of all that definitely failed them. can be contributed to it through As Coolidge’s speech continued, the best efforts of all its citizens. he praised Howard and the leadership The colored people have repeat- role its graduates played in America. He edly proved their devotion to the ended by returning to the theme of the high ideals of our country. They national crisis which the United States gave their services to the war was bound to encounter in the future: with the same patriotism and We cannot go out from this readiness that other citizens did.