Popular American History writers every weekend at this time. Offer Nicholas Patler discusses his book jim crow and the wilson administration. He describes policies during his term that segregated the federal workforce and the protests that followed. The university of virginia hosted this event in 2005. It is about one hour. Good afternoon. I would like to welcome you all to this annual eve librarys multicultural issues committee. Well go right into our program. And the introduction of the guests author. Nicholas patler is a resident of stanton, virginia. He holds a bachelor of science degree in government from liberty university, and a masters degree in liberal arts with a concentration in government from harvard university, division of coming education. He has written a number of articles for various publications including the journal of southern history as well as peace review, a journal of southern justice. His most unique article offers a unique per speggetive and nonviolent option for the palestinian conflict. His first book jim crowe and the administration protesting segregation in the early to the century was released in february of 2004 by the University Press of colorado. He is currently adapting a screenplay taken from the book in collaboration with director Charles Burnett and peggy trotterdamonbriefly. Based on the tragic life of early equal rights left lane trotter, a student of mu hat may gondy and mr. Patler is committed to seeking seclusions to nonviolent conflict through preasful means such as nonviolent direct actions. His hope is to be actively involved in teaching people in conflict situations how to use nonviolent actions to get results. To overthrow oppressive regimes and offer group status objectives. Without further adieu i present mr. Nicholas patler. [applause] thank you. That was wonderful. Its an honor to be here, a privilege and im so glad you all made time to come out and hear my preng. Im going to be talking about my book. Jim crowe and the wilson administration. With the election of wood drove wilson in 1912, the south was essentially swept back into power for the first time in 50 years. Not only did we have a southernborn president in the white house who had spent his formative years in the deep south, but some of the most volunteer siffrouse members of his cabinet would be from the south, including some of the assistants and underlynx as well. Wilsons own party now controlled congress with a majority of 167 in the house of representatives. And a majority of seven in the senate. And almost half of these would be southern democrats. Out of the total 27 house and senate committees, im sorry 24 out of the total 27 committees would be chaired by southerners and the vote casts for wilson surpassed the combined the totals for the bull Moose Teddy Roosevelt and howard taft. So there was definitely a change in the makeup of the government in 1912, a strong hold for southern power. With the south essentially in control of the government, a swarm of people from the south looking for jobs from a party out of power for so long came to washington. And when they came to washington, this new southern mindset in the federal government, what they saw shocked them. In the federal bureaucracy. On the eve of his election 12,000 africanamericans were working in the Nations Capital in almost every department as far asry and managerial positions. They were able to achieve this upward economic mobility which they had no opportunity for anywhere else in the private sector. They were able to achieve this by take field goal relatively color blind Civil Servant exam on even par with whites. No where else was this the case in the country, so it enabled them to really achieve economic status on an even par with whites. As i said, they were working in almost every type of position, supervisory, managerial positions, men as well as women working in some of these positions, so you can imagine once the south was back in power in washington, you can imagine that they did not like this. And almost immediately they launched a campaign to seg investigate africanamericans. But it went much further than segregation. They essentially reclassified them into lowerpaying positions with very limited opportunities for advancement, and in many cases they were harassed and terminated from their positions as well. So you can see things werent working out very well for africanamericans in government. The one last place they had in this country because every aspect of life especially in the south was severely occur tailed. They really as you know jim crowe dominated southern life. They had no room for economic advancement. They couldnt compete in the south and in many places in the north as well. And the main people that led these segregation efforts were albert burleson, a southerner in the post office department. William mack adieu in the and many of their underlings, and many of their assistants, and this policy was sanctioned and defended by president wood drove wilson, himself. Going back to civil war times never had a policy like this sanctioned by the president of the United States even though you had president s that catered to White Supremacy you never had any that overtly did that. This federal jim crowe manifested itself in many ways. Africanamericans were seg gre gated from rooms where blacks and whites had previously worked together as integrated teams, and in other places africanamericans were partitioned behind lockers. They were assigned least desireable jobs and forced into inferior work spaces and forced to use different rest rooms for the first time in the Washington Area white and colored signs started to appear. They were far from the workstations so they had to walk far where as whites, their restrooms were very close to their workstations. Some cases these were u. N. Sex facilities where males and females used this where as most southern whites would have been aghast considering it for themselves during this time period. They were required to sit at separate lunch tables in the cafeterias that were now labeled colored and white. In some cases they were forced into dining rooms altogether or makeshift dining rooms made in their locker rooms and dining areas. So as you see it we want much further than segregation. It was a Campaign Just to get rid of they will. Whites wanted the positions and especially southern whites and did not like what they saw, did not like the integrated environment. And the main complaint was they were shocked to see white ervisorses giving instructions to white female employees in these federal difficulties, and they couldnt use the argument in the south that was famous that africanamericans were inferior and that they needed to be separated from whites. The presence of so many africanamericans in the washington refuted that notion because they had competed with whilets on an even par and in fact in some of the recorded test scores that i found just sporadically listed on various papers throughout the country sometimes africanamericans that had high scores on Civil Servant examines in the country so its really refuted all the popular scientific studies of the day that claimed over and over africanamericans had low i. Q. s so now washington had to find a more defenseable argument. And that argument was we dont want white women working so close to black member. And of course that was just an excuse to get rid of them. But what my book is really about i was really amazed when this book was in its early stages. This was 40 years before the modern Civil Rights Movement. But it amazed me that tens of thousands of africanamericans and others rows up and protested the jim crowe policy being implemented. Men, women native americans professionals to laborers. They rows up in protest and launched a protest not seen since the abolitionist momentum and used a lot of messages that anticipated the modern Civil Rights Movement. And i want to try to go over sol of these methods with you because i think some of them were spore rat i can but most were strategic and launched on a collective level. That was Pretty Amazing this was the second decade of the to the century. A time when most people dont realize such a huge, mass collective movement against discrimination or racism of any kind occurred. So this was very unusual. Most historians have antibiotics gated africanamericans for being too divided over racial philosophies or personal jealousies, they just thought they were too divided and plus, the racism, this was a period of time when racism was at itself accident scene ith and most felt whatever africanamericans did during that time really didnt matter so they really hadnt looked at activism protest but i challenge that had notion and they did rise up and cairo deeply about the injustice that was going on in federal government. Even booker t. Washington came out from behind the shadows and overtly protested against the spread of federal segregation and discrimination in the federal bureaucracy in washington. To give you idea of sol of the methods they used. They used petitions. Mass meetings were held all over the country in 1913 and 19 14. They signed petitions hundreds, thousands of people signed these petitions and either had them hand delivered to president l son himself through a sympathetic congressman ore sent mail to the president or in some cases the petitions were actually printed in the newspapers all over the country and africanamericans and white sympathizeers added their names. One of the Amazing Things was one circulated by William Monroe trotter. William Monroe Trotter circulate ad petition in the first during the fall of 1913, the first about 1 1 2 months, circulated a petition in 34 states and managed to get 20,000 signatures, and this was a time when mass tech in a logical communication was still in its infancy. He was able to do it in 1 1 2 months and get 20,000 signatures. 34 newspaper accounts claimed over half of the signatures were from the deep south. So utterly disempowered southerners who were being crushed by racism during this time period rows up and were act thai participants in this protest. And ill talk a little more about southerners being in this protest as well. Africanamericans and white sympathizeers used the appeals of the press. The naacp sent letters to the press. Usually two or foursheeters, small newspapers with very limited space often printed the details and stories and protests and opinions and some even commented editorialy. The protesters used publicity campaigns which really overlaps the appeals in the press but it was different because the naacp and although called the National Independent political laying sent jim crowe details of what was going on in washington weash, pro did he see details. They were sending these to liberal white newspapers in white News Services across the country to try to get publicity for their cause. These were like the North CarolinaTimes Associated press and other newspapers. The protesters used letterwriting campaigns people from all over the nation wrote letters to Woodrow Wilson, cabinet members some of their assistants protesting against federal jim crowe. This was from east, west, north and south. And one interesting letterwriting campaign, i dont know if any of you are familiar with Cary Allen Cray who wrote the life of a federal black daughter. In her book she describes her grandmothers letterwriting campaign and her grandmother got everybody in the neighborhood to write letters protesting policy, and they joust sent these letters detail you to ask him to reverse the policy. If you could take a moment to explain why this world is at its venus, recognition for black achievement was something that was very rare. Africanamericans all over the country realized that blacks in the federal government had achieved some status and achieved it from competing with whites, and they were proud of what they achieved. They achieved upward economic mobilities and they were very dismayed when the federal government turned and crushed their aspirations. This is also a reason the federal employees were protesting. They were actually supplying details to organizations like the naacp keep them informed. Keeping them informed. Another thing the protesters used was lobbying. Again, they lobbied. William trot ore oswald, garrison who was the chairman of the naacp. The secretary of the naacp and protesters from all over the country really protested leaders and lobbied Public Officials at the local state, and National Level to enlist their support. And they did even during this time period, find lead eshes who were very simple to their cause. Of course not in the deep south but almost everybody else. And the Massachusetts Legislature sent an entire protest in literature. And one person whom they enlisted to support their cause was john fitzgerald, the Irish Catholic mayor of boston who was grandfather of future president john flt kennedy. He protested in letters and personal meetings with wilson at times. I thought that was pretty neat. And a message these early protesters used i really think was direct confrontation. Trotter, William Trotter led his delegation of protesters. They had met with wilson two times over the policy in the federal government. Once in november of 1913 around another time in november of 19 14. Let me back up a little bit and explain a little bit about William Trotter. They say hes the singly most neglected figure in africanAmerican History. Some of you may be familiar with minimum but only a few things here and there. Theres been one biography written about him in the 1960s and im afraid the biography doesnt end very well. I think its inaccurate. But the best way to help you understand William Trotter, is if you take the passion of martin king junior and combine it with the passion of malcolm x, he was a visionary. Ahead of his time, trying to do what Jesse Jackson and malcolm x and Martin Savidge martin king junior but he was ahead of his time. They he went to an allwhite hirke where he graduated as valedictorian and student body president and went to Harvard College and earned an award for academic achievement and i be deducted into the Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude. And his father had a lucrative real estate business so many expected him to fall back into that elite style and enjoy luxury and an elite life. But he turned his back on the elite life that beckened him and went into the most dangerous business an africanamerican business can go into at that time that was fighting against africanamerican equality and justice. His life was ang utter roller coaster ride of fighting racism. Ended up losing his wife to an influenza epidemic. He was ostracized by many other elite, africanamerican elite in boston. Dont get me wrong the elite in boston cared but couldnt understand trotters obsession with this call at the expense of everything, even family. He reevepbtly went broke and lost all his money but kept going, fighting, struggling. And he died prematurely at age 62 in 196 4. But i just wanted to put it in perspective. Anyway he met with wilson two times. Once in 1913 and the other in 1914. There was a woman with that i mean spoke to wilson with him about policy. This is federal discrimination had only been getting bad for several months. 4r son played dumb and said i didnt know things were so bad. Ill look into it. So he essentially promised them hed look into it. They knew he was bluffing but at least they got him on record. They left and things got worse over the next year. They managed to set up a second meeting with president wilson. This time the meeting got very heated. And wilson and trotter got into a major argument and over federal jim crowe. Wilson said he agreed with the policy, he sanctioned the policy and admitted he was defending the policy. This really made trotter mad. They went off on each other. Went back and forth. And essentially made national and international news. Newspapers from all over picked up the news. They couldnt believe a black man would stand in the white house and speak like this but a lot of newspapers were sympathetic to trotter. They said he had the right to speak to the president that way and europeans were really on his side. But what i want to do quickly is stop my talk here and i have actually written a screenplay on trotters life which has repeatedly been accepted by a director named Charles Burnett, and the lines were going to read from this scene are from the second meeting that trotter had with wilson. So if mr. Jordan would come up, please. And again, this is in the white house. Its november 12, 1914. Trotter is standing there with four or five members of his delegation Woodrow Wilson is seated at his desk and his irke irishcatholic secretary is taking notes. This is what happened mr. President we are here to renew our protest against africanamericans in the difficult of our national government. Jim crowe cannot only be found in these departments but it has spread since a year ago our meeting in which you promised to look into our complaints. We ask that you once and first of all abolish the mistreatment of africanamericans in the United States government. Segregation is an absurd arrangement and humiliation. People are free to use rest rooms in government buildings while blacks employed in this building are forbidden to use them. We are to be freed have you a new freedom for your white americans and slavery for your africanamericans . God forbid in my opinion as well as colleagues in my