Does the racist views of past political leaders....

[Fountain79]

still lessen their message and place in history? I look at another Roosevelt as an example Theodore. He was a champion for conservation in the United States and lead many reformists policies that improved the lives of many people in the late 19th and early 20th century. Still he was a racist and wouldn't survive a Washington minute in a modern campaign. Should his racism overshadow his accomplishment?

[whistle]

1. No, but it should not be swept under the rug either, should receive

...equal time and print in history so future scholars and students can see the facts and let their own consciences judge.

[stillcool]

2. For me?...Yes...

we humans all own our assets and defects...the 'message' is of the person, no? I don't know about you but I'm sick of false gods being cranked out of Madison Ave. every election cycle.

[Fountain79]

8. I'm not talking about current politcal situations...

I'm talking about past leaders such as Roosevelt.

[baldguy]

3. Booker T. Washington became the first Black man

to dine as a guest at the White House in 1901. Oscar S. Straus became the first Jew appointed as a Cabinet Secretary.

TR's views on race were extremely liberal for his time.

[Fountain79]

4. Perhaps it is better to judge a person's views based on the

prism of the time?

[MikeNearMcChord]

6. Very true. Remember Abraham Lincoln was not

a believer in the equality of the races and and at one point wanted to send African-Americans to Liberia or to Central America, the same with Ulysses S. Grant. Look at Women's sufferage, how many "progressives" supported it? Women had to fight for the right to vote. How many progressives of the early century would feel about Gays and Lesbians? I do not apply 21st standards to those who lived and died before that time.

[Fountain79]

7. At the same time...

how many of the Women's sufferage leaders used blacks as a wedge for their cause?

[nealmhughes]

5. Yep.

Check out my friend Dr. Robert V. Riser's new book when it comes off the press soon (LSU Press). I edited it.

TR was trounced in the South after his dinner. It destroyed a growing Republican Party in the South and led directly to a Lily White Republican Party in the South and the entrenchment of voting restrictions by state constitutional methods (Grandfather clauses, Poll Taxes and Literacy Tests) and Oliver W. Holmes went along with it in the Supreme Court...

A lot of patronage jobs went to African-Americans before that in the South such as customs and postal and other federal custodial jobs. They dried up when the Lily Whites came to power as the dominant wing of the Republican Party in the South.

His dinner and defense of his right to dine with whom he pleased destroyed any hope of a two party South for 50 years. Instead the South was a one party Bourbon white supreme party until Jim Crow died. Then the die hards met Strom and Goldwater...