Heather Cox Richardson

[PsiPhiGrrrl]

@anon15383236

In 1946 it was NAACP leader White who brought the story of World War II veteran Isaac Woodard, blinded by a police officers after talking back to a bus driver, to President Harry S. Truman. Afterward, Truman convened the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, directly asking its members to find ways to use the federal government to strengthen the civil rights of racial and religious minorities in the country.

More on the effort to address systemic racism in the military is covered here:

Fighting for racial equality in the military

@anon15383236

Walling warned that either the North must revive the spirit of Lincoln and the abolitionists and commit to “absolute political and social equality” or the white supremacist violence of the South would spread across the whole nation. “The day these methods become general in the North every hope of political democracy will be dead, other weaker races and classes will be persecuted in the North as in the South, public education will undergo an eclipse, and American civilization will await either a rapid degeneration or another profounder and more revolutionary civil war….”

This has long ceased being an issue defined by region in the US. However, the struggle for equality and democracy continues as those who support White supremacy and fascism are using legislation as well as mob violence to achieve their goals. We are seeing too many things that Waller predicted coming to pass - not only for BIPOC, but also for other marginalized groups.