Transcripts For CSPAN3 1940s Black Voter Suppression 20171127

I teach in the History Program here. I also am the director of the project on slavery, race, and reconciliation. Institutions endeavor to not only understand a particular history, but the obligations that that history has had for us. It is my pleasure today to introduce our speakers in order of their appearance. First up this morning is professor Tracy Campbell of the university of kentucky. Professor campbell received his ba from the university of kentucky and phd at duke university. History ofmarkable teaching and scholarship. , here arriving at kentucky taught at mars hill and union colleges. Since he has been at kentucky, he has been recognized not only for his scholarship but especially for his skill as a classroom teacher. He is the author of numerous articles and five major books, including most recently, his 2013 study of the gateway arch in st. Louis, which he tellingly calls a biography. Perhaps directly related to our symposium today is his history of Election Fraud in american political tradition. 17722004. This is a book that we need to take up today. It is not for the first time or even the second time. At present, he is hard at work subtitledry of 1942, americas year of peril, the meaning of which will become clear to us today. Voting rights under stress, soldiers, and race in the 1942 election. Our second panelist is a Pulitzer Prizewinning author, hank klibanoff. A professor of journalism at him or university. A native of alabama and graduate of Washington University in st. Louis and university at northwestern. He joined the faculty at emory after more than three decades working as a journalist and editor at the nations most distinguished newspapers. Among them, the boston globe, philadelphia inquirer, and atlantis journalconstitution. The 2007 book he coauthored with his fellow journalist won the Pulitzer Prize for history that year. The New York Times describes the race to beat as a richly textured and balanced narrative that reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the news media as well as the personal and contingent factors, the sudden subtle negotiations, missed opportunities, and sometimes heroic efforts that influenced coverage. No doubt this book needs to be , read or reread today. In recent years, he has directed the georgia civil rights cold cases project which enlists is emory undergraduates in investigating the history of the jim crow era in georgia by investigating unsolved or unpunished racially motivated crimes murders that happened in that state. His talk today reflects the work of his journalistic career and leadership of the cold case project. The whites only primaries last gasp and how it played out on the unyielding soil of georgia. Please join me in welcoming this morning for their insights and reflections on the history of voting in the United States professor campbell. , [applause] dr. Campbell thank you, woody, for the very kind introduction. Thank you to the university of the south for inviting me and for such a timely and remarkable gathering and to you, for your kind hospitality. For making the trains run on time. We really appreciate it. I am going to talk about a snapshot this morning. I think it is a pretty revealing snapshot of the United States in a particular year and at a particular moment. The premise for my paper is pretty straightforward. If you want to understand some of the realities of Voting Rights, i think it is useful to observe those rights when the country is under the greatest stress and when its survival is on the line. Just as individuals or families can undergo stress or trauma, so can countries. Those moments expose a persons or a countrys inherent strengths and flaws quite like nothing else. Things tend to rise to the surface under that kind of pressure. In the 20th century, that stress was never greater than the year following the attack on pearl harbor. And americas entry into world war ii, which is of course 1942. The way the country debated Voting Rights that year, in wartime, and conducted a national election. I think if we look at the context of it, it tells us a good deal about the fragile nature of american democracy and the way in which the 15th amendment was negated. For millions of people at a crucial moment. There is a collective narrative about 1942. I think we sometimes read history backward. We know we are going to win the war, so we gloss over some things. But if we are going to look at 1942, i think it is helpful to try and understand it on its own terms. The collective narrative, which is symbolized by this portrait, kind of goes like this. After a little early panic and worry, the nation came together, built a massive production miracle, we cast partisan and sectional differences aside. Once the allies turned back the japanese at midway and landed in north africa, ultimate victory was in sight. At home and abroad, we came together. Unity was the common theme. By in tom brokaws words the greatest generation any , society has ever produced. I think if were going to understand 1942, we also have to see a different reality. This is a series of paintings by done in 1942 in reaction to pearl harbor. He called about eight of these paintings, america in peril, 1942. This was similar to other themes that were possible. This was a time when the federal government was selling insurance andcies against attack people as far inland as indiana are buying these policies to make sure they were protected against any kind of foreign attack. At a time in which some in the government worried we might lose the war or that areas along both coasts or well inland could be subject to many more attacks, at a time in which one former president called on the nation to give president roosevelt dictatorial powers, this is a time when they a large contingent in congress wanted to make sure the work was not used toas expand Voting Rights. That is what i want to focus on. I want to focus on two moments that happens in the fall of 1942 that i think are particularly instructive. One occurred in september. As congress considered an issue that seemed a rather straightforward matter without any old terrier political motives, with the upcoming election approaching, congress debated a bill that would allow soldiers serving away from home to vote via absentee ballot. By this time in september, over 4 million americans were serving in the military, and almost all of them would not be home in their precinct to vote on election day. At a time in which democracy at time was at stake, what better way to display its enduring charter then by allowing those putting their lives on the line to vote for their leaders . Legislators facing reelection were anxious to support the measure which had the support of veteran groups and families of soldiers. Yet, when the representative of the Third District of tennessee, not far from here, inserted an amendment that waived the poll tax requirement for soldiers from 8 southern states, this exposed one of the underlying fault lines of american politics. If the poll tax could be waived in this one, specific circumstance some worried it , could be used as a wedge and outlaw in other elections. That was a threat to many white southerners who felt elections were purely local affairs and such intrusions by congress were unconstitutional. Representative sam hobbs of alabama described the soldier voting bill as an attack on our southern way of life and White Supremacy. They actually said these things. If there is one thing about the 1940s, they just said it. There is no code. There was no trying to say what actually meant. And you will see what i mean in a few minutes. He said it was an attempt to cater to the soldier vote at the expense of the foundation of our democracy. Since reconstruction, poll taxes were among some of the most effective ways, along with violence and literacy tests and the white primaries, of keeping africanamericans from voting. Here is a particular poll tax receipt from texas. I believe it is 1. 75. Most in the 1940s were between 1 or 2. They were cumulative. If you missed a primary or special election, you had to make up for it the third time. You could never get by without paying for it. They were still in effect in the states. Kept about 11 Million People from voting. Is estimated that 3 of africanamericans in the south were registered to vote. Poll taxes also kept poor whites from voting. About 66 of adults voted in nontax states in 1940. The idea of representative democracy. Fewer voted in the taxed states. A historian notes in 1940, georgias edward cox had been 5187ed to his seat by votes, while a Washington State representative won his state with 147,000. Through their iron grip on Voting Rights, southern democrats were elected time and time again. Here is a cartoon about the poll tax. If you can make out some of the figures, they might look familiar, because this was dr. Seuss. He was a cartoonist that worked a lot with a periodical called pm. Through their iron grip on Voting Rights, southern democrats were elected time and time again. Their subsequent seniority met with meant chairmanships on crucial committee. In 1942, as we go to war, southerners chaired seven of the 10 most powerful chair senate committees, including agricultural appropriations, commerce, foreign relations, and rules. No one in the house was more opposed to this amended soldier voting act than mississippis john rankin. In waving the poll tax the sawterm representative dangerous elements approaching. He said this was part of a longrange, communistic programming to change our form of government. That it would take out of the hands of white americans the ability to control the vote and give it to irresponsible parties trying to stir up trouble. Rankins argument against the bill failed to win over a majority of his house colleagues, who passed the bill on september 9. But an outraged rankin called the bill nothing more than a scheme to abolish state government. He added the next step will be to abolish congress. I remind you, they actually said this. [laughter] dr. Campbell the Senate Passed a bill on a voice vote. Senators tom connolly of texas and lester hill of alabama said in the process of approving the measure, the senate had ruptured constitutional processes. Opponents of the bill understood the political implications of denying soldiers the right to vote and were reluctant to wage a fullscale filibuster. They had to take their medicine at this particular moment. President roosevelt signed it into law on which required the september 16, war and Navy Departments to distribute postal cards to members of the armed forces who can then request a ballot from their state. This cumbersome process really meant it was too late to be fully operational on election day coming up in just 48 days. The poll tax debate is not quite over. I will get to it in just a moment. If we go to the election itself, the Roosevelt Administration in the fall of 1942 has reason to worry. In a previous Congressional Election in world war i in 1918, republicans won five senate seats and 25 house seats to take control of both houses. Throughout 1942 voters were , frustrated with a lot of things. The slow pace of the war, gas and food rationing, higher taxes, and congressional inaction on inflation. Congress had moved swiftly earlier in the year to give themselves pensions, which produced another widespread outcry and quick reversal weeks later. While f. D. R. Himself may not have been on the ballot, it was becoming a referendum of sorts as to his handling and the administrations handling of the war. Some worried f. D. R. Might use his wartime powers to cancel the election altogether. With all that was at stake, life magazine predicted the elections might be among the most fateful in u. S. History. A gallup poll taken on the eve of the 1942 election showed americans favored democrats about 52 to 48. But on election night, republicans shocked many observers by picking up 43 house seats, nine senate seat making it the greatest gain by the Opposition Party in midterm elections since 1918. You can see the majorities in both houses, how they shrunk, particularly in the house where 267165 spread was changed to just a bare 222209 margin. With a switch of just seven democrats in the house, republicans could defeat any administration measure. Consequently, the power of the reactionary southern block increased. House members like john rankin and martin deese were elected to their house seats without any opposition. Among the newly elected senators was mississippis james o. Eastland, a wealthy plantation owner who had become one of the leading opponents of Voting Rights for the next 30 years. He was among eight southern democrats in the senate who won their general election without facing any opposition. The results of the 1942 elections were often interpreted in sweeping terms. The Chicago Tribune which hated roosevelt, said, the people of this land had turned back the most terrible threat, which confronted them in their national history. , no one can say in the retrospect of history exactly when one Political Movement dies and another is born, but anyone who lookedat the election last week and see that Franklin Roosevelts new deal was sick. The success would combine the Electoral College vote up 321 votes spelled potential disaster for f. D. R. Or anyone else who might be thinking of running on the democratic ticket in 1944. I think interpreting the election in sweeping terms misses another point. The election witnessed the lowest turnout, 33. 9 for a congressional race in the 20th century. Lower than even the 2014 Congressional Election. Although the soldier voting act of 1942 was passed in september, allowing soldiers to vote, only 28,000 actually could vote. Less than 1 of those serving overseas. So interpreting what the American People thought or felt about 1942 is hard to get at from the election results. Regardless of the turnout, the election had immediate consequences. Two remaining agencies from the new deal, the wpa and the ccc, were quickly abolished. Efforts to expand Social Security and medical insurance were thwarted. The political winds were not necessarily reflected in the election. I think this hides underlying impulses. For example, in a poll taken by Fortune Magazine in november, the outlines for what some people hoped for after the war provides a glimpse that i do not think a lot of americans understand. 74 of americans polled said they thought the government should collect enough taxes after the war to provide medical care for anyone who needed it. Three out of four. 67 wanted the government to provide jobs for people if they were willing and able to work in case of a recession. Astonishing, 31. 9 said after the war they wanted a law limiting the amount of money people could earn. Roosevelt was proposing a 25,000 limit on incomes in 1942. That was also very popular. When asked if you think some form of socialism would be a good thing or a bad thing, 25 said it would be good, 34 were not quite sure yet. That is one moment. The second moment when Voting Rights are exposed came after the election. When the senate convened to consider a house bill sponsored by a california democrat that died in 1941 but had sponsored this bill many months before hand to end all taxes altogether in federal elections. Although the bill faced opposition by southern republicans, it passed the house. But when it came to the senate, it faced a filibuster. This time after the election without soldiers involved, southerners are ready to launch a filibuster. The filibuster was led by many people, including Theodore Bilbo of mississippi and Richard Russell of georgia. Together with other in southern senators, they brought the senate to a standstill for seven days in november 1942. Endless quorum calls were demanded as well as complete readings of the journal. Bilbo made it clear if this full tax bill passes, the next step will be an effort to remove the education qualifications. When that is done, he said we , will have no way of preventing negros from voting. Richard russell defended reconstruction and the history of Race Relations in his state, saying any fairminded man who studies the history of the last 75 years would commend the south on the great work we have done. , professor, he would not consider you to be a fairminded man in this respect. Here is another cartoon by dr. Seuss about Theodore Bilbo. The impasse in the senate reached a dramatic moment on saturday, november 14 when and the majority leader called for a quorum and ordered when some southerners left the hall, their arrest. One of those missing and was deeply offended was tennessees kenneth mckellar, saying being called a filibusterer holds no terror for me, adding he would work to his last breath to defeat this iniquitous measure. When barkley asserted southerners flied the chambers resembled the israelites fleeing egypt mckellar said, our , socalled leader is leading us straight into the Republican Party. Barkley responded by saying this bills passage would disenfranchise 200,000 white people. Poor tenant farmers will think a long time before paying 1. 50 for that right when the money might be needed to put shoes on their barefoot children. The majority leader cost with effort caused mckellar to withdraw his name from a letter he had signed, along with several other senators, urging president roosevelt to nominate barkley to the Supreme Court with a seat justice opened by burns resignation. The southern filibusterers knew their actions may be seen as must by many but not from their constituents. Senator george north of nebraska spoke out. An angry response came to him from Charles Simons of austin, texas. He said, you must not have very much to do except sticking your nose into the home affairs of states which have proven capable of running their own business as your home state. He urged senator norris to cease expending your energies on things that do not affect you. We can get along without your help. The sponsors of the poll tax bill hoped the delaying tactics of a small minority of senators just days after American Forces had landed in north africa might produce such outrage to intimidate them, but if anyone doubted the strength of the southern blot, they needed to look no further than mississippi, who claimed we intend to keep control of our state and make sure it always remains in the domination of the saxon supremacy. On november 23, the senate failed to invoke closure. The poll tax bill was killed. Barkley fumed against the tax he claimed with a hangover from feudalism. It failed because too many southerners opposed the bill and too many others were reluctant to limit senate debate. Walter white of the naacp was clear. He said america is tasting the bitter fruits of a new succession, a rebellion against Constitutional Government by a handful of outlaws who have successfully defied the will of the people and a majority of the United States senate. Of all quotes, this is my favorite. In reaction to that, Theodore Bilbo boasted, i am as much a soldier in the preservation of the american way and the american scheme of government as the boys who are fighting and dying. Aunching the filibuster made him as patriotic and heroic as the boys fighting. As the filibuster indicated, black Voting Rights remained nonexistent in 1942. The military remained segregated. We know about blood supplies that were segregated. Although discrimination in hiring practices were supposed to have been eliminated, little had really changed. During the congressional debate, representative lewis ludlow of indiana said, what a travesty. We are sending negros by the thousands to die and fight for freedom while telling them they shall have no part of freedom at home. The g. O. P. I november triumph in the aftermath of the poll tax filibuster gave its party hope that political winds were changing. The new Republican Party chair understood the southern block constituted a formidable slice of the roosevelt coalition. With the evidence supplied by the filibuster, they knew these crucial players, for them, race trumped everything. For anyone looking at evidence of the increasing dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party from one of its own, they need look no further than alabama governor frank dixon, an outspoken critic of the party and the president , a nephew of thomas dixon, author of the klansmen, which birth of a nation was based on. At the core of his righteous anger was the threat to White Supremacy that had played out over the preceding months over the poll tax. In defending them dixon drew his , line in the sand and said the federal government is tampering with the one thing that we cannot permit. Will not permit. Whatever the price to ourselves. He said the social structure of the south has been built and can only endure on the principles of segregation. He said, it implies separation of the races, and then he talked about the politics of it. He said, our problem in alabama is different than the problem in any other section of the world. Our Negro Population approaches 40 of the total. This percentage means the balance of power. In many alabama counties, there is four to five to one. He said, either white men control them, or there will be repetition of the ruin of the south. The newspaper known as the afroamerican noted for dixon, segregation was dearer than the four freedoms that the president said were at the heart of world war ii. Six years later, dixon gave the keynote address at the states rights convection or the dixiecrats, a block of four than southern democrats who had bolted over civil rights. Actions did not occur in a vacuum in 1948. Their indignation had been fed many times on many occasions and was on open display for us in so i think, in conclusion i want to do something different. I want to ask a question that i think historians need to ask. Students need to ask us. It is a two word question. So what . What is the relevance . Why is it significant . In 1942, the 15th amendment was nonexistent for millions of americans. Allow me to provide just one small example. In another decade, norman green might have been considered a hero for what you did on an alabama bus in october of 1942 just as the soldier vote bill was being debated. Instead, she was lucky she did not die. She was an army nurse stationed in Tuskegee Veterans Administration hospital. She had volunteered for overseas duty serving the United States military personnel. She wanted to go shopping in montgomery, alabama. When she tried to board a public bus, she was instructed to leave. When she refused, she was arrested. She was put in a police van her, four officers beat broke her nose, and then arrested her for disorderly conduct. She was later released when authorities learned she was in the military. There were no charges filed against those who assaulted her, not even an apology. The incident provoked randolph to write to bankhead of alabama, protesting the brutal assault. He hoped that the senator would use his authority to bring the culprits to justice. Bankhead, who had urged George Marshall not to bring any africanamerican soldiers to the south did not respond. He did not respond because he did not have to respond. He could ignore such assaults and the daily humiliations and injustices endured by alabamas africanamerican citizens whose nearly one million residents comprised over a third of the states population without any worry of paying for it on election day. In fact, he won reelection. He was one of those eight southern senators who won without any opposition. His silence, coupled with the inaction against the authorities taxmonstrates why the poll was so central in maintaining the power and policies of people like bankhead, russell, and why the filibuster led him to compare his actions to the boys dying on guadalcanal. But to those fighting for civil rights in 1942 such as hancock and Benjamin Mays and charles s johnson, they understood as keenly as bilbo how this poll tax was needed for the maintenance. On october 20, just days after former greens assault and norma, warmer green arrest, they would other africanamerican leaders met interim to discuss racial issues in the south. A manifesto came out of this, a dismissed or forgotten document who discussed that discussed how the war had sharpened Racial Disparities in the United States and the south. The first item on their agenda , not surprisingly was the , matter of voting. We regard the ballot as a safeguard of democracy, and called for the abolition of the poll tax and all forms of discriminatory practices, division of the law and intimidation of citizens seeking to exercise their right to franchise. They said in an hour of national peril, an effort is being made to defeat the negroes first and axis powers later. Considering the context of what was going on in 1942, though civil rights leaders who met in the room understood that Voting Rights 70 years after the 15th amendment were a foundational demand that did not exist in large parts of the nation. Thank you. [applause] dont make me follow him. That was great. Thank you for this conference and to all who participated, i think this is fantastic. I am honored to be a part of it. Look at this place, i noticed that when tracy came down, i was having a big breakfast and he got a cup of coffee and soup. Dont you need more fuel . He looked at me like do you know me that well that you can ask this . A few minutes later, gloria comes down and eat breakfast. She is in a hurry. He says its ok gloria, take your time. Watch your digestive system, or Something Like that. I am hank klibanoff. I teach this georgia civil rights cold cases project that youre going to see now. Im told that i now control this. That me show you one thing. This is the website of the georgia civil rights cold cases project. It is only undergraduate students the law school has recently approached me with big plans. Hank we examined these unsolved punished racially motivated murders. They took place in georgia from world war ii to the late 1960s and through the prism of these cases we examined georgia history, southern history and by ultimate extension, national history. Each of these cases represent something different. We have the james frazer case, this man was killed in 1958 for driving a 1958 chevrolet impala. You know the narrative that can go with that. I want go into that now. Man hall,f young , killed in 1962. Killed in macon. This becomes an example of police overreaction, poor Police Training and so on. We have quite a few cases where there is an intersection that we are developing more on having to do with the medical neglect that often accompanied the brutality cases. Cases in which professional physicians who had an opportunity to extend or save the lives of African Americans who were the subject of brutality failed to do so and sometimes refuse to do so. I want to be clear, this is a project not aimed at who did it. We know who did it in most cases. In most cases, they are all dead. We are examining the why. There are some big themes that we do everything we are talking about here and things we have talked about in the past conference and things we will talk about in future conferences. If the students come away thinking that they know more about who did it, i dont think that does them much good. Today we will talk about the case of isaiah nixon. An africanamerican men, a farmer in Montgomery County, georgia. I will show it to you on a map. It was about three hours south of atlanta. He was a father of 6, 28 years old, a georgia voter and a member of the naacp. But his story has roots in two other men i want you to meet. On the left is a man named lonnie smith. An africanamerican man living in texas and wanted to vote in the Democratic Party primary. This is in the early 1940s. He was willing to sue the United States Supreme Court to win the right to vote in the Democratic Party primary. This is particularly for students that wont get the significance of that, the south was a total bulwark of Democratic Party devotees. The only Republican Party members were African Americans and a few strange birds we grew up within the south. My kind of birds i might add. The thing that a southern Democratic Party accolade would say to an africanamerican you dont need to vote in the democratic primary. We let you vote in the big election. The general election. That is when the final decision is made so you will get your site in the final election. The africanamericans were smart enough to say that the general election is irrelevant. All the decisions are made in the primary. So lonnie went to the Supreme Court and said you are not a private club and for the purposes of electing state officeholders, you cannot exclude africanamerican voters. They say we are private. No you are not when you are collecting state officials. They struck down the texas law and this was april, 1934, this was seemingly the law of land except in georgia which seems to want to resist all of these decisions. Mississippi and alabama have resistances. They look at their law, they think it might be vulnerable and they might underline the word really, really a private club to try to established that we are different. Establish that we are different. A man named primus king, a barber goes to the Muscogee County courthouse to vote. When he walked in, a detective grabbed him and said what you think youre doing . He said youre not voting here today. He found himself a lawyer and the white lawyer said to questions do you really want to sue the Democratic Party . Do you know what youre doing . He did. He took the case forward and he wins his case, forcing Muscogee County in the state of georgia to allow blacks to vote. This causes anonymous in enormous consternation in georgia. Two stories that come about, some say that they are apocryphal. I am checking this on one. The other is in the congressional record when asked how are we going to stop them from voting and he gives a speech which means how the only way to stop them from voting now is the night before. When jean talmage the three term governor of georgia when he is asked by the exalted cyclops of the ku klux klan what will we do . Now they can vote. Purportedly, ive not completely confirmed he writes on a piece , of paper pistols. He hands that to the exalted cyclops. That was the atmosphere in the early 1940s. The Supreme Court decision on that comes down. The Supreme Court doesnt decide that the fifth circuit of a courageous when federal judge in georgia uphold kings power to vote. It gets upheld by the fifth u. S. Circuit court of appeals. The Supreme Court doesnt hear it they hand on the decision that they will not hear it in april 1946 just before a georgia gubernatorial election. In which eugene town which is seeking a fourth term. Populace, the red gallas is of the corn leghorn of our time. Having started as a populist who is fundamentally supportive of the new deal, he has fallen off that wagon pretty seriously. He is campaigning solely on a white supremacist platform. I would like to go to hear lets give you a sound of what old gene sounded like. I want to thank this crowd for coming out and stating plainly that talmadge is the only candidate in this race who is championing the restoration of a white democratic primary in georgia. That is the truth and the whole truth. What do my opponents say . They say that it is the law and negros will vote in the primary. This year, next wednesday, i say to all those here that some of the negros will vote. The viewer the better. But i pledge this, if i am the vote in theey wont primary for the next four years. Hank that was in georgia. Eugene talmadge is running, he wins his fourth term. Some of you know the story after that, it is entertaining. He was a fully besotted man. Gene was suffering from deep alcoholism. In december of 1946, before two things can happen, he dies. The two things that did not happen, the feds who were swarming the state trying to find enough evidence to charge him with Voter Suppression of black votes are unable to bring enough evidence and indict him before he dies. The other thing he is able to do before he dies is take the oath of office. It throws georgia into this turmoil because they dont have a governor, it is the first time in 1946 that georgia has elected a Lieutenant Governor. The Lieutenant Governor says we just went through the whole process of establishing succession in the state. I become the governor now. The incoming governor said im not giving up the governors office, not until we figure out what this will be. They are both claiming it. The talmadge forces are very wiley. They knew that he was ill. They got enough people to cast writein votes for genes son herman. Herman came in a close second. The legislature runs into session and says by our rights, Herman Talmadge ought to be governor. So three people are running for claiming to be governor. There is some fantastic footage on youtube, if you want to see this. Hermann talmage takes control of the Governors Mansion and the state capital and says i want to thank governor arnold for his fine service to the state and i have called in the state Highway Patrol and they have returned him to his home where we wish him the best of luck. It does get settled by the state Supreme Court which says the Lieutenant Governor is correct. He will be the governor and we will set a special election in 1948. Now we will focus on what happened in 1948. As you know, 1948 is a very critical time. You have harry truman running for election in his own right for the first time. He has lost the support of the right because of the dixiecrats. He seems to be in danger of losing the entire south. Because of Henry Wallaces breakaway, you have the left breaking away from him, he doesnt seem to have a chance. On top of all of this, what did he do . He becomes the first president of the United States to speak to the naacp. He does it on the steps of the lincoln memorial. There is a little sound here. It is my deep conviction that we have reached a turning point in the long history of our countrys efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all of our citizens. Recent events in the United States and abroad have made us realize that it is more important today than ever before to ensure that all americans enjoyed his rights enjoy these rights. When i say all americans, i mean all americans. That is what passed for clearcoat back then. Code back then. As we know, harry truman does get elected. How does this play out in georgia . They are going to resist. They have been part of the walkout of the democratic convention. Lets go back to isaiah nixon. What my students do, here is their textbook, 234 pages of documents that we have gotten through the fbi freedom of information act request. It is a lot of federal memos, a lot of backandforth, you develop a narrative and what you find out a lot more from here than you did from the news clips at the time it wasnt that widely covered what happens to isaiah nixon in 1948 when he is voting in the governors race. The naacp in Montgomery County was only two years old. It was growing there, one record said there was 84 black members of the naacp in a county of 3000 people total. That was after one year, that was pretty helpful for them. I have decided that they will be supporting Herman Hermann talmadge is running against them. Also, melvin thompson. They decided to gather at the polling place, as they are gathered, a group of black men on that morning, the sherriff elect sees them over. And summons one of them over. A man named john harris. John harris had won them over. They talk and john harris goes back to this gaggle of black men waiting to go to vote. The black men say john, what did claude say to you . He said if i know what is good for me, i wont vote today. They said what did you say to him . I told him that i came here to vote. And i reckon that is what im going to do. He went ahead and voted. So did carter, a father of 10 children. So did isaiah nixon, all three of them voted. John harris suffered from a threat. Carter was stopped on the side of the road and so brutally beaten he gets medical care and within a very short. Within a short time, he has picked up his entire family and moves them to philadelphia, pennsylvania. Then there is isaiah nixon. He was back at his farm later in the day having voted. Yet taken his wagon, he had he had taken his wagon. His mother that owned the farm that they farmed begged him not to go, she knew what would happen. He said i have to do this. Later that day, two white men show up at his farm and said they wanted to talk to him. They had guns. Isaiah nixon knew them, he had grown up with them. Those of us who grew up in the southern culture could understand this. They had dinner at his table. They played with him and now they showed up with guns and asked if he voted. He said i did. Who did you vote for . I voted for that thompson guy. They said come go with us, lets go for a ride. He said i am not going for a ride. He said i wont do it, he knew that meant he would be beaten. When he steps back, jim johnson shoots him three times. Isaiah nixons wife stood on the porch and yelled fall, isaiah, fall and he wouldnt, or he couldnt. He falls to the ground, ultimately, just the gravity of his dead weight. Weeks from just having given birth to their youngest child. Sally drags him up into the farm house, put him to bed and we know all of this from two primary sources. One is his daughter, dorothy. She was six years old at the time and saw it all, we found her. I brought her to every commit with our students emory to meet with our students. She is wonderful, mesmerizing. She is very honest about what she doesnt remember. The other source we have is some newspaper clips at the time. There is this. Dover carter after he is beaten up, he gets care and goes to the hospital where isaiah nixon is. He had to go to counties away two counties away. Lawrence county, that was the nearest hospital that would s. Cept black he hears the whole story from isaiah nixon about what happened. He gets in his car and drives to the atlanta fbi office and talks and talks and tells him everything he knows about what his own experience the day before and what he heard from isaiah nixon. There becomes this terrific document that delineates everything that happened. Isaiah nixon, on his second day in the hospital, dies in claxton. The sheriff is very clear not the sheriff elect, the current sheriff that will soon go out of office. He says there was no doubt that it was because he voted. Isaiah nixons family is traumatized. Who would not be . They get discovered by the pittsburgh courier. Those of you who know the history of the black press know that that is not nothing. When you are discovered by the pittsburgh courier this is the newspaper that won black support for entry into ww2. One could argue without the pittsburgh courier, Jackie Robinson would not have made it into based all. They played a monumental role in these things. When they adopted a family and build a crusade, it was huge. They find the nixon family and begin writing about them. The family buries isaiah nixon and then they flee. They flee to jacksonville, florida. The family says we did not flee, we were not in a hurry. But they were afraid, there was no other way to describe why they had to get out of there. So we bring dorothy next to the class and nixon to the class and i want my students to go down there and do the research and do what they can. Only three of them can go on the particular day. We go to the courthouse and we do a lot of searching. This man named james harris shows up, i prearranged this. He shows us how to get to the cemetery where isaiah nixon is buried. The family has not been able to find the burial site for 67 years. They cant find the headstone. Others have gone there before to look for it. The family has been coming back for years and cant find it, there is this whole in their heart, no place they can stop to pay tribute and homage and respect to isaiah nixon. We go there and meet mr. Harris, james harris. The first question is in all these fbi records, there is a man who voted that day named john harris. He says that was my daddy. He tells a fascinating story. It is layered with complications because he liked to the sheriff elect. He says we do not take that as a threat, we took it as a warning that something was going down today. It gets a little bit complicated, here the students are in the courthouse looking up records and theyre looking at old copies of the montgomery monitor, the weekly newspaper, it avails nothing because they do not cover the story. This is when a professor nearly dies on the spot. You can see the letter is not fully open and i st. Lucie say lucy, get down from there. Mr. Harris shows us how to get to the cemetery. It is 17 miles outside of the county seat and three miles on a dirt road. We are killing time, nobody has found the rave site and 67 years and i said mr. Harris, your dad was buried here, right . He said yes. I happened to have my iphone on. Im not going to plate for you now, we would have to used the sound. We would have to boost the sound. As mr. Harris is taking me to his daddys gravesite and you hear all to the side, one of my students says i found it we keep walking. Mr. Harris is taking us to his fathers gravesite. Then you hear my student stutter. Biology major, wants to be a large animal that. I think i found mr. Nixons gravesite. Off to the side, she had seen a headstone that had been there forever. And she says, what she had not noticed, what the family never noticed was that there was a slab of cement that came off the headstone. By the fan by the time the family felt it was safe to come back to the state it had been , overgrown in grass there was much, it was under some leo leaves, it has been discovered and as she stood there, the wind had blown the leaves. She could see and i and an s. She knew he died september 10. Pretty soon we are all on our hands and knees. I had a bottle of water in my car and were edging it and trying to your without. We call his daughte clear it out. We call his daughter on facetime. She know how to use it knew how to use it. Dorothy had gone on to nursing and got her masters in nursing and had been a psychiatric nurse all her life. It was against the odds. That was november 20 of 2015 in january, dorothy was able to come up to the grave. She waited until the season was over so she went to everyone of her daughters games. For the first time, she saw her fathers grave sites and she was six years old. She bent down and touched his name and burst into tears and buried her face in her sons chest as anyone would. Then she had some remarks to make. There is sound on this. This is a three minute story and then i will conclude. She will start to speak. The sound will get better. I had never seen this they , they found everything they could about my dad. [indiscernible] their faces will always be in my mind. I heard the video that hank sent. And then i heard it was amazing. They worked hard enough to find his grace, also been visited the site they visited the site. It just shows you what a group of students they are. To even want to do this. I saw them all on their knees trying to clear it off. Somebody found a bottle of water. Thank you all for the amount of information that you found. I know you still have a lot to share with me. It is phenomenal. The whole thing is surreal. Yes it is. When you first called me, i had a lot of anger. I still have a lot of anger. And i think i told you all i did. After talking to your group, some of that was released. I want to let you know now that it is alleviated. Thank you all for that. I can resolve this and settle it, looking at this, it is unreal. I cant say anymore. All that is coming to my mind is thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hank she has now replaced the headstone with this. Two final thoughts. We did have a video person there, we did not have time. I needed to get this up on our website quickly. The wall street journal was there, they had a story coming up and i have a daughter who does film editing. I called up in boston and said i am shipping you my iphone, can you help me edit . We posted on the website vimeo. It had her name. She calls me later and says dad i got a call from a man who says i am the nephew of the man who killed him. Who can i call . She says dad, you got me to deep in. He was calling because he knew he said he lives in jacksonville. He said he knew none of this. He is broken about it, he is brokenhearted by what his uncles did and he wanted to apologize. Last february, some students and someone i am working with at the public Radio Station went down and met with him. He did apologize. I did say that we dont teach who did it. This is about Students Learning a lot, the two men who killed him pleaded selfdefense. They say he pulled a gun on us. He did not. The reliability of the selfdefense alibi, the tendency of juries to see black criminality why was this still allwhite juries . There were a lot of different themes that come into play here, the concentration of rural power and at the time. Judicial conflict of interest the judge who saw the trial, it is pervasive with academic opportunities and pathways. Thank you for your attention. [applause] we have time for some questions, starting in the back, here. I have a methodological question. He said he used as your primary sources fbi files and newspaper documents. Where do you get the names in the first place . How do you find who to go looking for . The fbi documents will contain a lot of names. Hank that is one way. If you go deeper, one of the most Amazing Things that has happened to academic researchers is the digitization of the records. My students were going through microfilm. That helps. Dover carter, i met with his 10 kids who moved to philadelphia. I met with six of them. They are all in their 70s and 80s and recently we went to the Family Reunion down there. They all give you names. I have met james harris when i said to dorothy my student want to go to the cemetery. She said you have to talk to james harris. James harris is fascinating to us. He gave us a lot of names. I called a guy who was an attorney in athens. Where my heart races is with the prospect that some somewhere somewhere out there, there is a Court Reporter doing whatever she did and i had this idea that even though she has long since dead, she had a big closet of all her notes from cases. She turned over the court there was no transcript called up because there was no appeal. But that she then turned over the Court Reporting business to her daughter and then her daughter did it to her daughter and somewhere down in Montgomery County is a home that has an attic full of these handwritten or punched tape transcripts of the case that we will still someday find to get the testimony. I need to knock on about 3000 more homes. I want to say that those are two of the most powerful presentations at a conference ive ever seen. Im really grateful and impressed. Im grateful to the conference for not having me follow. Those were amazing, i have a question for each of you. Tracy, the question for you is about political incentives. You said that they introduced the poll tax in tennessee and it was berkeley who was against the bill that filibuster from tennessee. That is not exactly who you predicted to take us positions those positions. Is that because they had National Aspirations . It doesnt seem like they would be the most obvious people. It is hard to talk about motivation, i would say with barkley, he wanted fairness. He did not wanted to make it about race. Want to make it about race. You cant paint with a broad brush also the politicians and think they are all Theodore Bilbos or Richard Russell. You cant make this into a white or black thing. It is a lot more complicated. I want to ask you about the fbi, hank. One of the interesting things about world war ii they would not have been any federal investigation. I wanted to know how seriously the fbi took this. You will get mixed reviews on this. If you look at the pressure to do more, it seems to come out of washington doj. This is from an assistant attorney general. It is being handled out of the savanna Office Rather than the atlanta office, that can make a difference. There seems to be one u. S. Assistant attorney who says we should not get involved in this because we will really mess up the state prosecution. If we big foot, it will backfire. That may have been his cover, he later does something that is hurtful. Let me also say that the storylines about dover carter and isaiah nixon make their way in a memo about conspiracy because the same people who beat up dover carter and a couple of others who are all related the memo that those of two uber goes up to hoover says that this should be reviewed together to make it more important at the federal level. Hoover deletes the word conspiracy. He says you can go with the murder case but we are not doing this together. I am very quick to say that i have Great Respect for my students, these are undergrads. They plan to be large animal vets. I will say that the student it has changed her life. She sent me her personal essay. She got an sat score in the 99th percentile. I dont think i answered all of the question there, but anyway. The senator of tennessee ran for president unsuccessfully. He was a chief sponsor of the 1957 first civil rights act. He had a very consistent history in this regard. Maybe he thought it was the right thing to do. Sometimes is not just political implications. We were talking about reconstruction and his amendments, sometimes representative moxie comes down to good faith democracy comes down to good faith. When we have to do this ourselves, the right thing may not be what some people would want but sometimes it is good faith. A question for professor campbell. Do you have any information on the volume of the soldier vote in 1944 . Professor campbell i have been working on 1942. It was not great, lets put it that way. It was a little bigger than 42. It is easy to look up. One last thing, when the fbi and the doj are sending memos that say now that it is over, we want you to ascertain if it was a bona fide trial. Based on the interviews with people including the judge, it turns out the assistant attorney in savannah says it was a bona fide trial. I have known this judge all my life, he is an honorable man, he would not allow a miscarriage of justice. They all withdraw. The feds withdraw completely. A student of mine has found the speeches the judge was giving at that time on behalf of gene and then Herman Talmadge. We have some work to do. I am glad you mentioned the pittsburgh courier. I write a column covering the Supreme Court in major legal issues for the black press, writ large. So thank you for that. The question i have is about the response from the white community. When the med grabbers murder evers trialmedgar was reopened the third time, i was approached with a question by the media do you think we should let this lie . Why reopen these old wounds . What general response have you received from these White Communities that live in these counties and have the children that are the children of those who perpetrated these crimes living in the same county with the children who are the victims of the crime . What have you seen to be the response . I worked on a project with people like jerry mitchell. Beforehand, we came across that more and more in those cases than ours. Several things come to mind, it is the most difficult thing for many of these families. Those who did not from those towns move from those towns the woman said i saw the men who killed my daddy every day. We had to still live here. On the james fraser case, the guy killed in 19 could he ate for driving the nice car, his sister talked about how she was a waitress in a restaurant near the courthouse. The sheriff and those guys would come in there every day and she would serve coffee to the men who killed her daddy. Some people could move, but some could not. For African American perspective, this was daily torture. There was a white editor of a newspaper down in franklin county, mississippi who says why are you looking into this . That was a long time ago, we get along with our colored people now. All you will do is stir them up. You did not ask her the benefit of what i think about that, but i will tell you, doug jones who prosecuted the two Birmingham Church murderers they had not been prosecuted in 1977, and the fourth one died. Some people would ask him about this. He said are you telling me that if 40 years from now, the marines find Osama Bin Laden live in a cave, and he is been drywall and a skeleton and living are you going to say, poor guy . Can we not just let be guys let bygones be bygones . Why would your response be any different to any of these other guys . I said we are a very contentious nation, we are a nation of 50 sovereigns. Whether in fact or in practice we have different laws for , everything. Whether it is drivers licenses, hunting seasons, we have different laws governing everything, we are contentious. The one thing every state agrees on is that there is no statute of limitations on murder. We are unanimous on that. We are unanimous in our belief that no one who ever commits murder should ever go to sleep tonight without worrying that the next day there could be a knock on their door and they could be discovered for a murder that had long since been forgotten. Whether you are for it or against it, that is the way it is right now. I say that to say to people that we are in agreement in that. It is the examination of these cases that leads to the payment of that price. Every civil rights case that has been read prosecuted has been because of a journalist. The friend of mine who do this at syracuse law it is true. After this initiative was developed in 2007, he was asked if he had a list of these cases. Is that i will get you one. He goes to the law center and this list was never intended for big National Publication and it is a messy list. They have three kids in the Justice Department they have adopted a list who had the three students killed at South Carolina state in orange break in 1968. They had it written as it were killed in orangeburg, georgia. Two have two in georgia and in monroe, louisiana. Thank you for this presentation. I have a missile at methodological question as well. I am struck by a question about how difficult it can be to find these sorts of cases. The first thing i thought was you could talk to any black person over the age of 70 to find these cases. I am wondering about the tension between these cases as individual being framed as individual instances of violence. The tension between our propensity to think of individual victims and individual perpetrators. The tension between that and larger institutional, political realities. This appears in the context of jim crow and pervasive racial violence. I was wondering how you navigate that dynamic in the project . It is tricky but it is doable. From one perspective, a lot of it has to do with i talked this for several years with a professor of African American studies. He has gone to northwestern. I am teaching at back on my own. It is heavily a writing course. We are teaching how to write. If you are writing about James Brazier and you only write about James Brazier and you pick up leon, African Americans who were killed for driving nice cars, you are missing the points. That becomes something the have to study and incorporate into their papers. From the other side, from the side of the perpetrator, i dont know what possessed me for the first part the first class maybe the second class, this is an exercise, we gave this one group the lyrics to a bob dylan song. Only a pawn in their game, which medgbout the maker ever killing, in which he is portraying him as a pawn of the white elite. I remember very clearly when William Bradford hughley went into mississippi and interviewed two lawyers. He says that these lawyers could not care less about milo and brian, they have done their job. They have done the job they wanted them to do. I am not trying to paint it as entirely that but i want them to know that everyone represents something much larger than themselves. We are sorting through the difficulty of understanding why jim and john johnson who grew up with isaiah nixon jim referred to him as his best friend, pulled a gun out and killed him. They were bad drinkers. Maybe they were drunk that day. We are not fully understanding it but we are in pursuit of it. Does that come close to answering . I would like to thank our panelists for two very powerful and memorable presentations this morning. I have learned so my, i thank you for that i have learned so much, so thank you for that. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] visit our website, www. Cspan. Org history. American history tv, at www. Cspan. Org history. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies. And is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Next on the presidency, joe wiegand gives life to Theodore Roosevelt in a portrayal. Before the Lincoln Group in the district of columbia. He recounts the 26th president s life and times, including his unexpected ascension to the white house after William Mckinleys assassination. This is just over an hour. I am john elliff, president of the Lincoln Group of the district of columbia