Did blacks have the right to vote under FDR? Dean seems to think so!

[robbedvoter]

http://desmoinesregister.com/news/stories/c4789004/22668055.html


"What Franklin Roosevelt did was to get the Southern white working class to vote with the Southern African-American working class," said Dean, about the former Democratic president.

Uh, so what was the Civil rights movement about if everything was so perfect during FDR? :shrug:

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

1. There are MANY thing to criticize Dean about

This is not one of them.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

21. Well, this is what you get when politics is your 2nd or 3rd career

Fact is Dean is an ametuer, but apparently many find that oh so charming.

[depakid]

34. Do you ever resort to facts?

or is opinion, derision and distortion the best you've got? I mean please. Try somthing a little more substantive for a change. You might find it refreshing.

[Forkboy]

45. Your obvious hatred of the man renders your opinions of him moot

to nearly anyone who still thinks.

[Brian Sweat]

58. Kind of like the Dean supporters who attack Sharpton

for disparaging the swastika.

[Forkboy]

67. I guess

I didn't see that.

My point,and this covers all the candidates,is that certain people have done so much trashing of certain candidates that their opinion takes on an irrelevance and reflects poorly on their own choice.You took my comment and used it as a basis to attack Dean even though I mentioned no candidate and was reffering to a single poster.It shows a bitterness within you that is ugly and helps no one.

[Brian Sweat]

72. No, I didn't attack Dean.

I attacked Dean supporters who attacked Sharpton for disparaging the swastika. I do not equate Dean with some of his supporters who happen to be idiots.

[Forkboy]

74. lol

well that makes it clearer.

And your bitterness is still ugly.

[Brian Sweat]

79. My bitterness?

If you look down the thread you will see a post where I defend Dean on this issue.

But yes, I am bitter. It makes me sick when people go out of their way to attack people. Pretending like Sharpton disparaged Buddhist by portraying the swastika in a negative light is intellectually dishonest. In my opinion it is insulting to the people who fought the Nazis and the people who suffered under them.

I also think that the premise of this thread is either dishonest or based on ignorance. Dean made a valid point. The poster attacked him for it either because he or she didn't know that some black people in the south could vote before the civil rights struggle or because he or she wanted people to think this.

Also, I am not a Sharpton supporter.

[Forkboy]

83. But yet

in your first response to me you obviously DID go out of your way to attack someone.Did you make yourself sick?

I do remember the thread you're talking about now,and yes I agree it was in poor taste.

[Brian Sweat]

89. No,

I think my attack was valid.

[Forkboy]

134. Of course

all people do.

[mzmolly]

96. I think if you read my thread, you may feel differently?

I meant not to offend. I think Sharptons comment was in poor taste personally, after learning what I have.

[mzmolly]

95. Did you miss this story in the thread you criticize.

"The Dine (Dineh) also use the svastika, and boy let me tell you...


..what happened with some of their weavings my ex-inlaws used to sell.

The weavings in question were on display for sale at an art gallery run by the inlaws in Park City Utah. It is a common theme in Dine (Navajo) artwork to see the svastika, which is centuries old to them and represents the seasonal wheel. Anyway some couple from New York city came in to the gallery one day and just pitched a royal fit over the fact they were even visible. My mom in law calmly tried to explain the historical significance of the symbol to The T'aa Dine, but these irate folks would not be consoled. Just to diffuse the situation she agreed to take them off the wall (even if just until the nasty little couple had gone)."

Do me a favor, if you have to make a point about one of my threads, do so in the thread itself. In addition, I would ask that you leave me out of your arguments going forward.

[mzmolly]

91. I would be the Dean supporter in question.

I attacked no one. I asked if members of certain religious/cultural backrounds were offended by Sharpton's comments about the 'swastika.'

The overwhelming answer was NO.

However:

"The swastika is, in essence, an ancient tribal symbol. It is central to the religious lives of peoples as diverse as present-day Hindus and Hopi indians, as well as ancient peoples such as the Aryans, the Celts, and the Cretans."

As many who read my thread will know, the 'swastika' is a highly regarded ancient religious symbol revered among many cultures. The Nazi's hijacked that symbol, unfortunately.

http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa120699a.htm

[damnraddem]

81. Time for Dean, Kucinich, Sharpton, Mosley-Braun supporters to stop ...

attacking each other's candidates. The real enemies are: the Bushistas, the GOP, and the DLC.

[mzmolly]

102. Agreed!

I only wish the candidates would stop, but that's politics huh?

[Cha]

109. NO it's not...not at all!

[maha]

55. Since when is being a professional politician

an asset?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

60. Didn't hurt Bill Clinton.

In fact......

[Patriot_Spear]

2. Give me a break...

Bashing Dean is becoming even more popular than masturbation... geez.

[Khephra]

3. MORE

Popular. It is a form of masturbation for some.

[Patriot_Spear]

5. Thank you.

I have added the appropriate correction; you're dead right.

[MercutioATC]

6. Yes, but masturbation actually accomplishes something.

Seems that the Dean attacks aren't resulting in the desired outcome......

[Patriot_Spear]

8. It sure does flush out the assholes in our own party...

my two cents.

[Khephra]

9. We only raise more money, keep creeping up the polls

and drive some of the other candidates to doing actions that I once thought they were incapable of doing.

You would think they'd learn. Deanies are the Hulks of politics. Make us angry and we just get bigger and stronger.

[mzmolly]

4. Dean's response is best...

"I was explaining to you what I meant. Do you think that the other guys in the race would give any slack on that? No, they're saying, "He's a racist." . . . Politics unfortunately is a lot about people saying stuff about you that is not true,"~Howard Dean

[robbedvoter]

15. I am but a voter. Not saying he's racist. Just waiting to disown his

figure of speech - if it was nothing more. But he's now saying that C-flag stands for working class and backs and whites voted in harmony in the South during FDR - is his an improvement on the original stance?
I don't know how popular masturbation is, but this IS important to me.

[Patriot_Spear]

23. As a Southerner I'm here to tell you...

Dean is the only Democratic Candidate down here who stands a chance, other than Clark.

Deal with it- this Dean bashing bullshit only firms up my support for him.

[robbedvoter]

28. Not trying to shake your support. Just waiting for a clarification.

I was really hoping for better answers here. Masturbation doesn't help any.

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Padraig18]

51. Your clarification:

Read the entire article. :hi:

http://desmoinesregister.com/news/stories/c4789004/22668055.html

[TLM]

69. No you weren't... because answers have been given over and over...

that point out the dishonest nature of your spin... yet you're not intersted in the facts. You're interested in bashing.

[TLM]

68. You are spewing nothing but spin and lies....

DEan said he noted the c-flag in reference to working class whites in the south WHO VOTE REPUBLICAN.

You keep editing that and trying to spin it as if DEan was talking about all working class or all southerners...

And you try to mix that with his statment about FDR and the power that comes when these two groups, poor whites and poor blacks, vote together.

Let me know when you can come up with something truthful and factual.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

82. Now who's spinning? Dean's trying to deflect away from the dumb remark

by saying he'll do what FDR did. HAAAA!! Dean's attitude towards Medicare make it a little hard to believe he knows how to walk the walk.

[TLM]

90. Dean isn;t defelcting anything... he's shooting down spin.

You bashing twits attack Dean with crap, spin what Dean says, and outright lie... then when Dean points out the fact of what he said and explains why the attack is beseless crap, you accuse him of deflecting.

Dean has been saying that same thing about FDR bringing blacks and whites together for months. And that's exactly what he's doing, reaching out to the working class southern whites who have been voting republican for decades and getting screwed because of it.

And Dean's attitude towards medicare is to expand coverage by cutting the waste in the administration. You can continue to lie and take half of a decade old quote out of context to claim Dean wants to kill medicare, but your dishonst bullshit only serves to make your desperation that much more obvious.

[RetroLounge]

88. Quote From Dean. Now get over it.

"I want people with confederate flags on their trucks to put down those flags and vote Democratic--because the need for quality healthcare, jobs, and a good education knows no racial boundaries. We have working white families in the south voting for tax cuts for the richest 1% while their children remain with no health care. The dividing of working people by race has been a cornerstone of Republican politics for the last three decades--starting with Richard Nixon. For my fellow Democratic opponents to sink to this level is really tragic. The only way we're going to beat George Bush is if southern white working families and African American working families come together under the Democratic tent, as they did under FDR."

[TLM]

92. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh full quotes make attacks based on lies and spin harder

Stop using truth and facts... it makes it harder for CLark and Kerry supporters.

[Julien Sorel]

99. That's not what he said originally, of course.

Originally he said nothing about 'putting down the flag;' had he done so, this whole thing would be a non-issue.

[TLM]

125. The whole thing is a non-issue...

It is dishonest folks with an agenda who are trying to spin another meaning out of what Dean said... which is the same thing he's been saying for 10 months. He wants to reach out to those guys with the stars and bars in the window... the working class white southerners who have been voting republican for 3 decades, and bring them back into the party based on the goals that we all share regardless of the color of our skin.

The fact that you and others, who are just attacking Dean to try and prop up the losing campaigns of Clark and Kerry, is disgusting.

But sadly not at all surprising... I mean what else can you expect from someone who supports a war criminal for president? Certainly not honesty.

[LoZoccolo]

7. He never said everything was perfect during FDR.

Note to everyone else: it seems like Dean's doing something right if people have to do this kind of stuff to attack him.

[Hep]

10. Confusion

Dean Bashing has definitely jumped the shark.

[Cha]

110. Exactly! "jumping the shark" is a good description of

all the little nitpickers who should be worrying about their own choice of candidates.

[dsc]

11. News flash

quite a few did. None other than Huey Kingfish Long was elected Senator from Lousiana appealing to both blacks and poor whites. There were quite a few decendents of free blacks who also were grandfathered in with a right to vote, many northern blacks who had a right to vote, and a some number of people who would have been free blacks back in the 1860's but still alive in the 1930's. That is only 70 years after all.

[David Zephyr]

98. The Kingfish!

The man.

[onebigbadwulf]

12. um what?

I don't understand your question.


FDR was a good president he got elected by uniting the vote.

Blacks had the ability to vote since 1870 and all people by 1920.

FDR was electred president in 1932... so yes all blacks had the right to vote under FDR.

[Wellong]

13. Dean is right

I am no history buff, nor a supporter of Deans at this time. But he is right if memory serves me right. Some southern states allowed blacks the right to vote long before the civil rights movement.

Someone correct me if I am wrong.

[maha]

14. History Lesson.

African American men have had the RIGHT to vote since the 15th Amendment was ratified (and signed by President Ulysses S. Grant) in 1870. And, of course, women gained the right to vote with the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1919.

The Voting Rights Act of the 1960s did not GIVE the right to vote to African Americans, since they already had it. What it did was prohibit practices that had sprung up at state and local level that discouraged voting by blacks (e.g., literacy tests and poll taxes).

However, African Americans did vote in FDR's day when they could, and the statement by Dean is essentially correct.

[robbedvoter]

18. Ah, but were they able to exercise it? (thanks for the correction, BTW)

Because Dean said blacks actually voted with whites during FDR.
What I know is that even the army was segregated then - it took Truman to change that.

[Khephra]

20. Are blacks really able to vote these days?

FL 2000 says maybe not.

[robbedvoter]

24. To a somewhat larger degree than before 60's.

Point is, on matter of race, one doesn't want to go back to FDR. It took Truman to desegregate the army.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

26. That's right. And it took the Voting Rights Act to make it easier

for them to vote. If things were so peachy keen under FDR we wouldn't have needed the VRA.

[Hep]

35. That thing

that whizzed past you is Dean's point. His point wasn't that things were fine during FDR, but rather that he increased black voter turnout and got two very different groups of people to vote than same way.

You really need to step back and ask yourself if this should be the new talking point. It reeks. You guys hang on every word Dean says looking for fault, and this is the first time you bring it up? In August he said it seven times in four days and nothing from you people. All of a sudden it's the end of the freaking world. Calm down.

[TLM]

93. Hep, they only just got their meme orders from the Clark and Kerry crew

to push this one... that's why none of them mentioned it over the last 10 months Dean's been saying it.


It is called scraping the bottom of the barrel for attack fodder.

[TLM]

70. Once again you dishonst bashers... DEan didn;t say things were peachy

or perfect under FDR. Stop lying.


Dean said that when blacks and whites voted together it was very powerful. You can not deny this fact, so you lie about what DEan said to spin attacks.

It is ignorant and pathetic and sadly, all too typical of Clark and Kerry supporters.

[maha]

32. Yes, you can go back to FDR.

Dean wasn't talking about desegregation, but about the phenomenon of blacks and working class white men both voting for FDR.

[Cha]

113. Dean is doing just fine...thank you very much.

[maha]

30. Yes and no.

There probably were segregated polling places, but IMO that isn't what Dean was talking about. He wasn't referring to black and white people voting at the same facility, I don't think, but for the same candidates.

In FDR's day African Americans nearly always voted for Republicans and whites nearly always for Democrats, and that's the way it had been since 1870.

What I believe Dean meant is that in FDR's time, for the first time, both African Americans and southern working class whites voted for the same guy, which was FDR. This is historically accurate.

(Note to Governor Dean: Keep sentences VERY simple in the future.)

[JohnKleeb]

42. Youre right

Before FDR black voters went mostly republican because of Lincoln but FDR came along and that changed things.

[Name removed]

71. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[damnraddem]

84. It depended on the place.

And as in Florida in 2000, the barriers to exercising the right to vote did not have to be 100% effective to be effective in practice.

[roughsatori]

16. Dean did not say things were "so perfect" for Blacks during that time

You made that incorrect assumption.

In the first run FDR got 26% of the African-American vote. He improved that by his second run. Here is a link about the History the Republican Party wants you to forget about Blacks and voting:
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/3543

The Civil Rights movement was about much more then voting. The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 (I think off the top of my head). It is a complicated issue, particularly with poll taxes, being able to "spell" and other ways of "legally" preventing Blacks from exercising the "Right" to vote. But Dean's statement is accurate. (I support Kucinich.) I would recommend that you familiarize yourself with the Civil Rights movement and what it encompassed and still encompasses.

[damnraddem]

85. As a Dean supporter, I thank you for your comments.

And, yes, I do like Kucinich. I also think that Sharpton's and Mosley-Braun's presence in the race is important because of the things they say, the issues they raise. None of them are the enemy. To bash any of them is to serve the enemy.

[GainesT1958]

17. Only those in the South with the right "political connections"...

Could vote during the New Deal. What Dr. Dean maybe SHOULD have said was "working class whites in the South and blacks in the North." THat would have been the factually accurate description. Not to SLAM Dr. Dean on this--far from it; just to point out historical fact.

B-)

[DebbieCDC]

19. Voting Rights

Let's be clear here...African-Americans have had the right to vote since (I believe) sometime during Reconstruction (someone correct me if I'm wrong). However, in the south, they were in effect prevented from voting because of Jim Crow laws. Blacks in the northern states were to a certain extent able to exercise their voting rights. The Civil Rights movement was to get rid of Jim Crow in the south to allow ALL African-Americans to vote. So no everything wasn't perfect during FDR but that does not diminish the point Dean was making.

[robbedvoter]

22. The point that blacks and whites voted together during FDR?

How can the point stand if it's so historically inaccurate?

[dsc]

25. It isn't

FDR was able to get the Democratic black vote to rise from the 20% range to the 50% range. Remember that the civil war wasn't that long ago and in even more recent times to that Wilson was a racist in the White House. Blacks had plenty of good historic reasons to vote Republican in the early 1930's. By 1944, FDR got around half the black vote. That is Dean's point and it is historicly accurate.

Here is a link backing up the idea if not the percentages.

http://www.majorcox.com/columns/dole-96.htm

The 1932 election of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt ended Republican party ascendance. One of Roosevelt’s main accomplishments during this election was attracting the black vote to the Democratic Party away from the Republican Party. Since 1932 the Democratic Party has been, for the most part, the ideological home of the black vote. Ironically, as blacks gained influence within the national Democratic Party, support for GOP presidential candidates in the South increased. At the same time, Democrats continued to dominate congressional and local elections in the region, ushering in an era of split-level government.

[robbedvoter]

27. Black vote IN THE SOUTH? All two of them?

Sorry, I am confused.

[onebigbadwulf]

33. the

term "vote with" does not mean voting side by side, it refers to voting for the same candidate.


meaning: "I voted with Jim and chose FDR"

[maha]

36. Yes, you are confused.

Jim Crow wasn't uniform throughout the South, I don't believe. And I believe some blacks voted in spite of the poll taxes, because they could pay them. The point is that while large numbers of African Americans were disenfranchised by Jim Crow laws, not ALL of them were disenfranchised. And FDR picked up a lot of support among Southern blacks even though he was a Democrat. (The Dems in those days were the official party of the Ku Klux Klan.)

[dsc]

40. Then crack open a history book

or do some research. There were black free people in the South during the civil war. Decends of those people, who were citizens, would have been citizens entitled to vote under the very same grandfather clause that whites used to avoid the poll taxes and the literacy tests. In addition, there were some blacks who paid the taxes and or passed the literacy tests and did indeed vote. It was a huge number but if you do decide to actually find a history book you will find out there were some.

[TLM]

73. You're not confused.... simply dishonest and desperate to attack Dean.

First you ignorantly claim Balcks couldn't vote then lie and say Dean said thins were perfect.

Now that both of your attacks have been corrected with facts... you're confused?


Blacks were kept from voting in some parts of the south, but not everywhere... and in fact a lot fo the reason that the jim crow laws were put in place was specifacly because blacks were voting and having an effect.

But lets not let facts and truth get in the way of a good Clark Corps bash.

[Cha]

118. Thanks for spelling it out so beautifully!

It really is amazing... the disingenous lengths some will go to.

[Hep]

29. Blacks were republican up to that point anyway

One of the catalysts for the Wilmington Massacre in 1898 was the Black community helping the "party of lincoln" gain a foothold on their region.

[returnable]

43. I think the point robbedvoter is making...

...is that Dean said FDR got SOUTHERN whites to vote Democratic.

"What Franklin Roosevelt did was to get the Southern white working class to vote with the Southern African-American working class," said Dean.

Is that part true?

I mean, your post says FDR attracted the black vote. True enough.

But did he attract the southern white vote?

I dunno. I'm asking.

[Hep]

46. YES

southern whites VOTED DEMOCRAT. They massacred numerous blacks in Wilmington, NC in 1898 (in part) for swinging their area REPUBLICAN. Lincoln was a republican. Racist white men voted D. Hence Zell Miller, Robert Byrd. Jesse Helms and Strom were Democrats.

[returnable]

47. Oh, I know that part

about the Dem party being the traditional party of the Klan and all that in the South.

I was just wondering if FDR actually carried southern states.

[dsc]

53. The term solid South used to refer to Democrats

While FDR can't be given full credit he didn't lose any southern state during any of his four runs. But, admittedly, that can be said of pretty much any Democratic candidate between Lincoln and Truman.

[maha]

54. Democrats nearly always carried southern states then.

Check out the electoral map for 1932. It was nearly a Dem sweep.

http://www.presidentelect.org/e1932.html

[returnable]

57. Thanks for the answers. n/t

[dsc]

61. That is such a cool site

I looked at all four of FDR's races and only Maine and Vermnot voted against him all four times. Now those are reliable Democratic states.

[dsc]

49. They already were

but that clearly isn't Robbed Voter's point. Nor is it Dean's. The trick was getting both groups to do so and FDR did.

[returnable]

50. Understood

Thanks for the explanation :hi:

[robbedvoter]

63. No, I was questioning the ability of blacks in the South to vote -

Dem or...for the party of Lincoln, mebbe? Seems to me they were stopped by Jim Crow laws at the time

[TLM]

76. Jim crow laws were local laws... not all over the south.

In fact I think they were worst in missippi... but did not stop all blacks from voting in all of the south.

[damnraddem]

87. Southern whites voted overwhelmingly Democratic.

The Solid South still existed in FDR's day. The changes FDR made included drawing African-Americans to vote Democratic and giving active support to and getting it from labor, regardless of race.

[damnraddem]

86. Remember the history of the Democratic Party.

During the Civil War, it was the party of the Copperheads -- Northerners who opposed the war. After the War, it was the party of the southern whites: remember the Solid South? Even under FDR and afterward, it was the party of the Dixiecrats -- racist opponents of any and all civil rights for African-Americans. A major issue of the Civil Rights Movement was representation of southern African-Americans WITHIN the Democratic Party, with challenges to all-white Dixiecrat delegations from southern states to Democratic conventions. But from FDR on, African-Americans were increasingly finding ways to make inroads into the Democratic Party, and increasingly voting Democrat. Why? Because after the Civil War, the GOP became the party of big business and, despite progressive rumblings by Teddy Roosevelt and others, basically remained so and remains so. So here's the real message from Howard Dean: African-Americans, poor whites, anyone who doesn't profit big from the ascendancy of big business, has sought ways to gain through involvement with the Democratic Party, even when, as again today, it was largely in the hands of their bitter enemies. The issue is to take it out of those hands and fight for one's own interests.

[AP]

37. What does Dean mean when he says this:

"The only time we're ever going to make progress in this country is when black people and white people and brown people work together and put race aside."

Is he saying that black and brown people should stop asking their politicians to talk about race, if that means that it will help Democrats appeal to the pickup/confed flag people?

Dean needs to be more clear about this.

[AP]

38. Dean says other candidates called him racist?

"I was explaining to you what I meant. Do you think that the other guys in the race would give any slack on that? No, they're saying, "He's a racist." . . . Politics unfortunately is a lot about people saying stuff about you that is not true," he said.

This is from the same article linked above.

Who called Dean a racist?

[Hep]

44. Definitions

I'd like to see your definition of racist, just so we don't get into an "he didn't actually SAY it" argument.

I think if you're claiming that his platform is ANTI-BLACK, you're calling him racist. You're not saying he doesn't address rce, you're not saying he's abandoning minorities. You're saying he represents an ANTI-BLACK position. Is he not acually saying "you're racist"? Does he have to? We may line up on opposite sides of that one.

[Hep]

41. It's amazing

how confused some people can be about the most simple comments.

Dean isn't saying that everybody put race aside altogether. He's saying that we all need to unite in our message, that this country is moving in the wrong direction for all of us. We can talk about race when we have an administration that will listen.

[maha]

59. There will be racism as long as there is race.

When we all perceive that race is an artificial social construct, which it is, there won't be any more racism.

[TLM]

77. Oh jesus f-ing christ AP... welcome to my ignore file.

Yeah I guess when Dr. King said that he dreamed that people would be judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin he was just being a big racist too, right.

Disgusting.

[WilliamPitt]

94. You're making people with legitimate issues with Dean look bad

I really hope, in fact, that you are just trying to start shit with this. I hope the paralyzingly obvious meaning of Dean's words are not eluding you.

[AP]

106. Why is this an illegitimate issue?

I have lots of legitimate problems with Dean on the issue of race.

It's not just this, but it's this in the context with all the other issues.

I've been talking about race at DU since before Dean was ever an issue. I'm not going to stop now.

[AP]

108. And the context I'm putting this in, by the way,

is the '95 comment about thinking AA programs should consider clase not race, and in the context of his blunt talk about race in his conference call, which was about anti-male gender discrimination.

Read the smoke signals.

It's totally legitimate to ask if Deans saying that he wants to appeal to people who don't care about race by NOT talking about race to them, by pretending that race isn't an important issue, and by focusing on schools and health care instead.

[WilliamPitt]

111. A man who says people should come together regardless of race

does not deserve the kind of cannonballs you're firing.

[AP]

116. Progressive taxation and race. I've got the magnifying glass out.

I'll be looking at everything Dean says very closely.

[AP]

117. There are lots of ways to say we should come together...

and saying "black people and white people and brown people work together and put race aside" is one way. I'm not sure what he's saying when he says black and brown people should put race aside if they want to come together with white people.

If this were the only thing he ever said about race, I wouldn't even notice. But it isn't the only thing.

[WilliamPitt]

119. Oh crap

You say:

"black people and white people and brown people work together and put race aside" is one way. I'm not sure what he's saying when he says black and brown people should put race aside if they want to come together with white people.

He is not saying black people and brown people need to put race aside. He is saying black people and brown people and white people need to put race aside. You're leaving off the "white people" part deliberately.

I think you're just starting shit. This conversation is over.

[AP]

120. I thought you cared about language.

[WilliamPitt]

122. I care about language enough to note its abuse

or the use, shall we say, of selective editing/perception.

[AP]

124. Look back...I didn't selectively edit.

I pasted the whole quote, and I stated my interpretation of the quote. Furthermore, I said it's vague, and that he needs to elaborate (I think that's what I say in the first post you complained about).

It's a legitimate reading, given the context (the '95 AA quote, and his gender discrimination allegory for race, and his "weepy liberal" comment at Howard).

Do you think discussing and interpreting all those other things is "just starting shit"?

Do you think it's illegitimate to do a close reading of this quote which is informed by those other statements?

[AP]

128. Furthermore, if you have problems with me bringing this stuff up

or with the way I'm briging it up, maybe the first thing you should do is ask me to elaborate, or engage in a dialogue about it, rather than imply that I'm bringing up illegitimate issues, and say things like "oh crap" and say I'm abusing language.

I think these issues are extremely legitimate.

If I'm not making my arguments with sufficiend elloquence and refinement, I'd be happy to try to elaborate. My primary goal here has less to do with Dean, and has a lot to do with taking issues that have to do with race VERY seriously.

[TLM]

130. Will look at the polls... the more Dean moves ahead...

the more outrageous and desperate these attacks will get.


It is more than just starting shit... it is an agenda. Nobody could be stupid enough to really believe that saying blacks and whites should put aside their racial differences and focus instead on their shared goals as people, parents, and Americans to mean that Dean thinks those damn dirt people should stop whining about their silly race issues and get on board with whitey.

AP knows that his meme is full of shit, but he didn't come up with it. He's just repeating what he's been told to repeat.

Do you think it is a coincidence that the same crap is being spewed by Dean bashers all over today when Dean has been using the confederate flag decal line for 10 months? Even when the bashers were on Dean about saying he was the only guy talking to white audiences about race issues… they didn’t get all upset about the flag line. They didn’t get upset because they hadn’t been told to be upset yet. They were on a different meme then.


I think the very idea of Dean wining back the south by undermining Nixon’s southern strategy scares the hell out of some of these status quo politicians who have made a career out of playing the other side of that strategy. Dean is threatening to break the whole damn system that these guys depend on.

[JohnKleeb]

39. I thought LBJ did that

BTW thats why we need like a FDR economic platform. Yep I am a 16 year old New Dealer :D, New Deal rocks man. I think LBJ actually did that more so but yes under FDR blacks and whites alike went democratic mostly, btw we need an FDR like economic vision, and I think my guy has something like it. FDR is my biggest hero.

[Brian Sweat]

48. There is more to the South than Mississippi

Is it possible that Blacks were prevented from voting in small and medium sized towns, but were able to excercise the franchise in larger cities like Atlanta, New Orlean, Memphis and Houston?

[pansypoo53219]

52. they probably did in the north

now, down south, i would say less so.

[Padraig18]

56. Short answer: some were able to vote

In most major cities in the South, like Atlanta and New Orleans, e.g., Blacks who could pay the poll tax could vote, although most voted Republican until FDR. In many smaller, rural places, the were prevented from voting until the Voting Rights Act.

The South was not homogenous in it's denail of rights to Blacks; some places were worse than others.

[cosmicdot]

135. yes, not only the poll tax - but persons registered

"in their own handwriting without aid."

IOW ... one had to read and write, plus pay a poll tax

Many places, registration records were maintained by race.

Paper ballots were used ... I wonder how many Black votes were 'lost'?


"Most blacks wasn't aware about paying your tax. And then they made it so hard. You thought, "Oh, what do I have to do when I go register?" see, so many older people was so aware--if you could read and write you know you could go over there and register, but they didn't realize that. I had to work with a lot of them like that. You'd be surprised; they were just fearful.
http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/vbha/school/howlett.html
http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/vbha/school/school.html

[CMT]

62. FDR began the exodus of African-Americans from the party of

Lincoln to the Democratic party. Herbert Hoover won the African-American vote in 1932--even at the height of the depression. After four years of FDR the Democrats began regularly winning the black vote. It is true that more NOrthern negroes were able to vote than Southern blacks due to Jim Crow. Still, technically Dean is correct FDR was able to bridge the gap and win the votes of both Southern Whites and those blacks both in the South and North who were able to vote.

It is also true that blacks really didn't get a true right to vote until the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960's.

[dolstein]

100. "Dean is technically correct" - NOT!!!!

No. No he isn't. Not by a long shot. Blacks in the South did not vote in a significant numbers until 1960's, when the poll tax was abolished and the Voting Rights Act was enacted. Dean claimed that there was a multiracial coalition in the South for FDR's New Deal. But the fact is that (a) few Blacks voted in the South and (b) the reasons why whites voted for FDR had as much to do with long-standing hatred towards the Party of Lincoln than it did for support of FDR's New Deal policies. After all, these same voters also elected some of the staucnhest opponents of FDR's New Deal policies.

Sorry, but your semantic tap dance cannot obscure Dean's profound ignorance of this period in American politics. He should just admit his error and move on.

[dsc]

103. Then explain Huey long

or Rosewood. The fact is there were a number of blacks who voted in the south. Admittedly no where near the number today but certainly a number. That, and only that, is what Dean said.

[Scott Lee]

127. Amazing - some people go ballistic when Dean is right

Let's review.

The post that started this thread is titled "Did blacks have the right to vote under FDR? Dean seems to think so!" The author here implies that Blacks had no right to vote under FDR.

Blacks have had the right to vote in this country since the passage of the 15th amendment in 1870.

FDR was president six decades later.

Ergo, Blacks certainly did have the right to vote under FDR.

This is not a semantic dance. This is simply a fact.

Facts seem to scare the hell out of Dean Haters.

[w4rma]

133. FDR received ~65% of the black vote in 1940.

FDR was INITALLY elected with only ~23% of the black vote in 1932, he increased that percentage significantly through his immensely popular and successful New Deal and received ~65% of the black vote in 1940.

Behind the Backlash
White Working-Class Politics in Baltimore, 1940-1980
http://uncpress.unc.edu/chapters/durr_behind.html

[GOPBasher]

64. Officially yes,

but really no. They technically had the right to vote, but southern whites did underhanded things to prevent them from doing so. On this issue, though, Dean is right. The blacks that actually did vote went for FDR, and so did the whites. It wasn't until civil rights in the 60s that the south changed to Repukes.

[GOPBasher]

65. Officially yes,

but really no. They technically had the right to vote, but southern whites did underhanded things to prevent them from doing so. On this issue, though, Dean is right. The blacks that actually did vote went for FDR, and so did the whites. It wasn't until civil rights in the 60s that the south changed to Repukes.

[TLM]

66. LOL! Dean didn;t say things were perfect...

He simply pointed out that FDR had the right IDea to bring these folks together, and in fact that was such a powerful voting block that Nixon had to break it with the southern srategy... a tactic of using race as a wedge issue to divide these groups, as you seem to support.

Are you saying that NO blacks could vote during FDR's time as president?

[youngred]

75. Not that everything was perfect

but they DID technically have the right to vote.

fairly minor criticism to make...in fact rather silly actually

[Forkboy]

78. Another thread that shows

people look for what they want to see and then are shocked,SHOCKED,when they "see" it.

[damnraddem]

80. The right to vote was given by the 15th Amendment.

The Civil Rights Movement was, in part, about implementing the right. Most jurisdictions in the South had effectively blocked almost all African-Americans from voting. That was not monolithic, however; and African-Americans did vote in most northern jurisdictions.

[dolstein]

97. Yes, Dean is very ignorant when it comes to Southern politics

No matter how hard Dean's supporters around here may try to twist the facts, Southern blacks did not vote in appreciable numbers during the FDR era. And while FDR may be a hero to liberals, his efforts on civil rights were symbolic at best. I'd save the hero label for politicians like Harry Truman and Hubert Humphrey, and civil rights leaders like Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King and John Lewis.

In any event, Dean's ignorace of Southern political history only reinforces my view that Bush would destroy him in the South.

[Hep]

101. Would you mind refuting these articles?

You just make it sound like there wa a tepid resonse in the black community under FDR. Here is some stuff that I found. Would you address it for me?

The realignment crystallized under President Franklin Roosevelt. In 1932, FDR won just 23 percent of the black vote. Yet he swiftly bolstered his black support. Gestures such as consulting a "black cabinet" of unofficial African-American advisers surely helped, but more important were his economic relief programs. The Depression hit black Americans disproportionately hard, and FDR's relief programs, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Public Works Administration, gave them much-needed aid and jobs. A popular song among Depression-era blacks made it plain:

Roosevelt! You're my man!
When the time come I ain't got a cent
You buy my groceries
And pay my rent.
Mr. Roosevelt, you're my man!

http://www2.gol.com/users/coynerhm/party_of_lincoln.htm

Another historical thing that happen was that for the first time in the history of the U.S.A. the majority of black voters, who were allowed to vote, voted for a Democrat. Until this election, blacks had always voted for the party of Lincoln, the Republican Party, because it was under the Republican administration they received the right to vote. Democrats were dominant in the South, where lynching and segregation was a way of life. However, Roosevelt following his wife’s insistence, made sure blacks participated in the New Deal programs and received federal jobs. Roosevelt forever endeared blacks to Democratic Party.

http://www.kennesaw.edu/pols/3380/pres/1936.html

By the time of the 1936 presidential election, millions of black voters began switching from the Republicans to the Democrats because of their strong support for Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal economic programs.

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:AvTamS10UpIJ:www.africanamericans.com/BlackVotersandtheDemocraticParty.htm+black+vote+1936&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[Julien Sorel]

105. What's to refute?

Dolstein (as was Dean) was talking about Southern black voters; your links are talking about nationwide black voters. Apples and oranges.

[dsc]

114. Did your read the link

At last week's convention, Bush adviser Condoleezza Rice said the Alabama Republican Party of 1952 registered her father to vote when the Democrats wouldn't. That may be true, but in much of the deep South then the GOP was virtually nonexistent. In Georgia, writes the historian Taylor Branch, "Barry Goldwater had trouble drawing crowds to fill even barber shops.")

I believe 1952 is before 1960 and that Alabama is in the South. Am I wrong on one of those?

[Julien Sorel]

121. Did *you* read the links?

Most of them barely mention the South, and you dredged up some kind of anectdotal spew from Condi Rice that has nothing to do with the issue at hand except to support the point: Democrats did not enjoy black support in the South. If FDR did such a great job of aligning Southern black 'voters' to the Democratic Party, why would Rice's father have had to go to the Republicans to register?

Incredible.

[Hep]

131. He got all but 8 electoral votes

in 1936. I have to spell out that he dominated in the south? Or are you saying that blacks and whites only came together and voted D in parts outside the south?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

104. The Sad Fact Is That Most Of Our Candidates Will Get Destroyed In The

South and Border States.... There are a couple who could mitigate the damage....

The laws of political mathematics are immutable...

We have to learn to be competitive in these areas or find a new electorate....

Everything else is commentary....

[Cha]

115. Dean is out there learning and I have every

confidence in him!

[Scott Lee]

107. YES Blacks have had the right to vote - since 1870

Following the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the 14th Amendment was ratified on July 23, 1868 to provide citizenship rights to African Americans who had previously been denied such rights. The 15th Amendment, ratified on March 30, 1870, gave the new citizens the right to vote.

Please research the facts before your anti-Dean rants, so you don't come off looking like such a moron.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

112. They Had The Right To Vote

but many states employed poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests to prevent African Americans from exercising it....

That's kind of obvious.....

[Scott Lee]

123. So Dean was not wrong

Thanks for confirming that.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

129. I Haven't Followed This Particular Debate...

I'm just saying it's kind of obvious than many African Americans couldn't vote in the South until the Voting Rights Act...

[Julien Sorel]

126. Delete

[w4rma]

132. FDR received ~65% of the black vote in 1940.

FDR was INITALLY elected with only ~23% of the black vote in 1932, he increased that percentage significantly through his immensely popular and successful New Deal and received ~65% of the black vote in 1940.

Behind the Backlash
White Working-Class Politics in Baltimore, 1940-1980
http://uncpress.unc.edu/chapters/durr_behind.html