 Let me begin, I'm not going to read from his book just because I want to keep things moving as fast as we can. David Gottschalk received his B.A. from the University of South Carolina and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1992. He's written a number of articles, of course in the book, Vail Visions, which are in purchase here. In 1996, the Atlanta Race Riot and the Reshaping of American Race Relations, that was published in 2005. For 16 years, he has been a professor of history at Chickensburg University in Pennsylvania. When we were conceiving of this symposium, we knew that we wanted to talk about Roosevelt and race. The famous, of course, we're having invited Booker D. Washington to dine with him in the White House in October of 1901, which led to an unbelievable storm of protest from throughout the American South. And he's usually regarded as a sort of advocate of civil rights and a friend of the African-Americans by our members. But then in 1906, a Brownsville incident, which occurred in South Texas, really soured a lot of African-Americans and others. Respect for the question of Roosevelt and race, it's a complicated issue involving Roosevelt's series of race, social Darwinism, his advocacy of greater reproduction amongst the Anglo-Saxons that is concerned about what he called race suicide, and the view that Native Americans and a lot of other people's interests in the rich and complicated areas in Roosevelt studies to the Roosevelt race, and now we have one of the nations leading experts on a race to help us through this, please welcome David Gonsha. Good afternoon. My participation in Theodore Roosevelt's symposium is one of the highlights of my scholarly career. I have long admired the work of Theodore Roosevelt Center and its efforts to deepen our understanding of one of America's most important presidents. After a record-breaking play back east, the cool rain here in Dickinson feels like paradise on earth. Now, if someone can only point me to the foul and obsessed that TR uncovered in the decoders more than a century ago, as I approach middle age, forget about being like Michael Jordan, I want the energy of TR. Today's talk is going to focus on two themes. First, I will explore some of Roosevelt's key ideas regarding race, and I will also discuss the role that TR's career and his presidency played in shaping American race relations and influencing African Americans at a turning point in American history. As Clay suggested, two opposing thoughts and impulses guide in Roosevelt's ideas and actions on racial issues. On the one hand, he subscribed many of the worst stereotypes of his era. As late as 1886 Roosevelt announced, I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are bad Indians, but I believe that nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely in the case of the 10th. In 1900 he wrote privately regarding the superstition and fear of the negro-darkie, but a few generations removed from the wildest savagery. On the other hand, Roosevelt's sense of fairness moderated this racism, especially in his dealings with individuals on individual issues and regarding individual people of color. At least as president, TR appears to have sincerely sought to ensure his vision of a square deal for both Native Americans and for African Americans. He frequently promised to treat everyone of whatever color on his merits as a man, giving him no more and no less than he shows himself worthy to have. At the nature of American race relations, Roosevelt's promises of fairness initially brought great hope to African Americans. During his first term, many blacks enthusiastically cheer his symbolic nods to the principles of racial justice, little more than a month after assuming office in 1901, the president broke a long-standing racial barrier by inviting Booker T. Washington to die at the White House. Between 1901 and 1904, Roosevelt also made a number of highly publicized black political appointments and he issued two widely circulated statements that attacked lynching. Between 1905 and 1908, however, African American attitudes towards the president shifted dramatically. Roosevelt increasingly courted white southerners. Worse of all, his prejudice against African Americans as a group played a major role in his decision to dishonorably discharge 167 black soldiers on unsubstantiated charges that a small number of them may have shot up the town of Brownsville, Texas. In November 1906, a black minister in Harlem spoke for many African Americans across the country and declared, Roosevelt, quote, once enshrined in our hearts as a Moses, is now enshrouded in our scorn as a Judas. These bitter disappointments underscored for many civil rights activists the profound contradictions in Roosevelt's racial policies. Many became convinced that true racial justice could not be divvied out on an individual basis to individual blacks as Theodore Roosevelt wanted to do. Individual African Americans could receive a square deal only if the nation directly confronted the very social inequalities that prevented the masses of African Americans from voting and enjoying the same opportunities as whites. Racism against any African American threatened all members of the race including its highest achievers and its most respected strivers. TR used the term race in many different ways. One of Roosevelt's notions of race focused primarily on perceived differences of color. This notion corresponds very closely to our contemporary usage of the term. Thus he divided the population of the Americans into white Caucasians, quote, red Indians, blacker colored people of African descent, and yellow Asians. TR also used the term race to refer to nations and believed that there was an American race, a French race, a German race, and most famously a Japanese race. In Roosevelt's mind, the citizens of nations shared a common history, a common culture, common physical traits, and common allegiances. Roosevelt linked these notions of race very closely with his concept of civilization. Like other social Darwinists, he ranked races in nations according to what he perceived to be ascending stages of development. At the bottom of the ladder were societies that were still mired in a state of savagery, marked by disorderly violence and an utter lack of self-restraint. Civilization represented the pinnacle of development for him, an orderly and efficient society governed by manly leaders like Roosevelt himself who possessed the necessary courage, the strength, and the self-nustry to defend their families and societies from threats posed by less developed races in his mind. For Roosevelt, white Americans and Europeans represented the pinnacle of civilization. Africans and their descendants represented the most savage. Roosevelt did not believe, however, that racial differences were permanent, that they would last forever. Over decades, centuries, in some cases millennia, historical developments and slowly evolving social and cultural changes he argued had the potential for civilizing even so-called savage races and nations. In the winning end of the rest, Roosevelt argued that the movement of settlers across the North American continent and their conquest of Native Americans transformed a motley collection of Europeans into a superior American race. Much like Roosevelt's time in the Dakotas, the Indian wars had toughened men's bodies, he believed, strengthened their minds and disciplined their characters. In his historical works, Roosevelt frequently described the Indians that settlers encountered along the frontier as, quote, lazy, treacherous, cruel, dirty, savage, bloodthirsty, and he often described in his quote, ravishers of white women. The alleged savagery of the Indians and their alleged failure to intensively settle and domesticate America's what he called waste spaces before it was used more productively by whites nullified any of their legal claims to the land. By 1901, Roosevelt believed, however, that Native people no longer posed a racial threat as President Roosevelt considerably softened the rhetoric that he used in reference to Native Americans. He promoted the Americanization of Indians and their assimilation into larger society, which would obviously become a very controversial strategy through intermarriage with whites and the weakening of tribal royalties. He supported the division of Indian lands into individual law firms as, quote, a mighty pulverizing engine to break up the tribal mountains. The occasional ideal of congressional legislation ended expanding the access of Native Americans to land claims and grants. The, quote, one historian in land disputes with powerful whites, Indians during TRS presidency often received, quote, a raw deal rather than a square deal that Roosevelt promised. Among Roosevelt's most significant achievements in the arena of Indian policy were civil service reforms that enhanced the quality of Indian service commissioners and bureaucrats. In contrast to his goal of rapidly assimilating Indians into society, however, Roosevelt viewed blacks as occupying a space outside the larger American nation and race. As late as the early 1900s, the president privately described the presence of blacks in America as, quote, a terrible problem. Their full assimilation, he believed, might take thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of years, 200,000 years, he said in one private comment. At the same time, TR acknowledged the achievements and potential promise of a small minority within the race, and he stressed the importance of rewarding sober and hardworking African Americans and empowering them to become stewards of their race to help civilize the masses. TR assumed the presidency in 1901 just as racism was peaking among white Americans and just as race relations were approaching their neighbor. At the turn of the century, popular writers eagerly promoted viciously stereotype portrayals of African Americans, leading academics at schools like Harvard and Yale, openly proclaimed the inferiority of nonwhite people. Southern states passed law after law disfranchising African Americans and segregating them into separate and unequal schools, neighborhoods, and railcars. Between 1900 and 1910, white mobs lynched close to 1,000 African Americans and anti-black massacres exploded across the United States in cities like Atlanta, New York, and Springfield, Illinois. The brutality of lynching often describes description. I'm sure many of you are familiar with one case in Georgia, for example, of a mob lynching a pregnant woman. The crowd while they were lynching her carved up her abdomen pulled the fetus out and stomped on it, lynching mob sometimes numbered in the thousands, with families bringing young children, and with observers occasionally taking body parts home as souvenirs. Southerners defended lynching as a necessary evil to control the alleged sexual savagery of black men and to punish the awful crimes of poor black beast rapists. In reality, only a small minority of lynchings even involved accusations of black on white assaults. Instead, racial violence functioned primarily as a weapon to maintain white dominance. Lynching encouraged both black men and black women to avoid the sorts of conflicts with whites that might lead to no lynching. Any argument with a boss, any argument with a landowner, or any perceived slight on a street or sidewalk could escalate out of control and end in the most horrific torture and death imaginable. Contrary to many of our stereotypes, mob violence also enjoyed wide support among all classes of southerners at the turn of the century. The opponents of lynching often remained silent or were hounded out of the region. Despite these setbacks, however, African-Americans glimpsed some times of progress and hope at the dawn of the 20th century, and they placed great hope in Roosevelt's elevation to the presidency. Literacy rates and property ownership had risen dramatically since slavery. A select group of African-Americans had achieved a measure of welcome prosperity by owning their own land, by building businesses, and by becoming ministers and teachers. A rising generation of college alumni anticipated in the words of one recent graduate a, quote, intellectual awakening that would soon usher in a golden age throughout the South. Roosevelt's repeated promises to ensure the fair treatment of all African-Americans dovetail closely with many long-standing civil rights strategies. And obviously one of the most famous African-Americans during this period was Booker T. Washington. Washington hoped that African-Americans might earn their respective rights by achieving material success and by living sober, hard-working, self-disciplined lives. Washington's life in many ways was a testament to this strategy. He famously lifted himself up from slavery to become one of the most powerful black men in the United States, largely by winning the trust of influential whites such as Roosevelt. In contrast to Washington, W. B. Du Bois argued that black intellectual and artistic achievements held out the greatest promise for debunking white stereotypes. And this image of Du Bois that was published in The Voice of the Negro in September 1905 is one of my favorite images of Du Bois because it stresses in many ways his emphasis on thought and intellect, but at the same time it reveals the deep sadness that he often, that those who know him well, often described him as possessing people in his soul. And some of this sadness came from the snubs that he repeatedly received, despite his achievements from warrants. He was also deeply burdened by the death of his young son, probably from tainted drinking water at a time when many black neighborhoods didn't have access to safe running water in Atlanta, Georgia. Roosevelt's pledge of a swear deal for every American proved attractive to these civil rights strategists and many others who embraced the pursuit of black respectability as the surest path to racial equality. One of the greatest sources of black pride during the era was the heroism of black troops displayed during the Spanish American War. Trillion accounts of the taking of San Juan Heights and Cuba force related the Roosevelt myth to epic proportions, but stories of military heroism in Cuba also exhilarated African Americans. They embraced the buffalo soldiers who fought there as shining examples of black courage, capability, and manliness. Rayford Logan, the leading black historian of his time, later noted, had little at the turn of the century, quote, to help sustain our faith in ourselves, except the pride that we took in the 9th and 10th Calvary, the 24th and 25th Infantry. Many Negro homes had prints of the famous charge of the colored troops up San Juan Hill. They were our Ralph Routh Punch, our Marion Anderson, our Joe Lewis, and our Jackie Robinson. And here are some examples of the prints and photographs that gave African Americans such a strong sense of pride during such a disappointing time period for them in many ways. Here's another one, some of our brave colored troops who helped to free Cuba. Less than a month after assuming office of president in the wake of William McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt broke the long-standing color barrier by inviting Booker T. Washington to die with his family at the White House. In response, black men and women effusively praised the president and showered him with letters of gratitude for this racial first. In addition, Washington, having been recognized by Roosevelt, emerged from the dinner as a political power broker who continued to advise TR and then president Taff on racial issues for the next 11 years. The fallout from this dinner, however, also taught TR the unforgettable lessons regarding the potentially lethal costs of speaking out on racial issues, especially the issues of segregation, hate letters and even packages with dead apostles leading Booker T. Washington poured into the White House from the south. Mississippi Politico James K. Gardner derided Roosevelt as, quote, a coon-flavored misogynist and a rank Negro files. Senator Beth Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina fumed that Southerners would have to lynch over 1,000 African-Americans to impress upon the black race the determination of whites to maintain their dominance. Here's an interesting slide. It's from the Atlantic Constitution, which was in many ways a much more conservative newspaper at the time and relatively moderate on racial issues. It's necessary, but at the same time, this gives you a clear sense of the motives of white anger at what had happened. And you'll see in the headline, it seems innocent enough, Negro guests entertained by Roosevelt, President Hasbrook of T. Washington at the White House for dinner. But then it mentions that all Roosevelt family present at the table, and that was a clear sign to white readers in the south that Theodore Roosevelt had endangered his daughter, Alice, who was 17 years old at the time, and his wife, Eda, had endangered them by bringing a black man to dinner, something that even many white leaders of the NAACP didn't do during this period because it raised so much controversy because so many whites in the south argued that black men were sexually aggressive and were out to rape white women. Then again, we have Washington was in an evening dress stressing that Roosevelt was accepting Washington as equal at his dinner table rather than emphasizing his servile role to Roosevelt and to other whites. Following the Booker T. Washington and his great criticism, the president skirted many issues of vital importance to black civil rights activists, including the matters of Jim Crow segregation and disenfranchisement. During his presidency, Roosevelt continued the Republican Party's movement away from naming African-Americans to public office in the south. A policy that William and Kennelly could be done in 1898 after initially placing a number of African-Americans in office there. During Roosevelt's first 16 months as president, for example, only 13 of approximately 3,000 political appointments went to African-Americans. The vast majority of these were for low-level positions. At the same time, however, the president did make occasional attacks on lynching and he defended a number of black office holders in the south and these two actions really won the support of African-Americans. In 1902, for example, Roosevelt was caught off guard at the first public opposition that he encountered from white Southerners when he appointed Republican William D. Crum in the highly visible position of collector of the port of Charleston in South Carolina. For nearly three years, Roosevelt braved slanders and congressional obstruction digging in his heels and announcing a domestic corollary to the famous open-door policy in China. He pledged to defend Crum and oppose the dictate that, quote, the door of hope, the door of opportunity is to be shut upon all men no matter how worthy, purely on the grounds of color. He refused to allow whites to do that, he was saying, and finally, Roosevelt won Senate approval of William Crum three years later in 1905. In 1903, Roosevelt came to the defense of still another African-American office holder after, that year, he shuttered the post office in Indianola, Mississippi with local whites issuing violent threats that implied that postmistress, many cogs, a prosperous pillar of her community would be lynched if she remained in the position. In the face of fanatical criticism from white Southern extremists, Roosevelt calmly refused to accept her resignation after these threats or to reopen the post office until her appointment officially expired in 1904. In the wake of the Crum and the Cox affairs, one black minister praised Roosevelt, quote, having come alive, flood into every artery of the Negro in this country. T.R.'s opposition to mob justice and its occasional denunciations of lynchings also pardoned African-Americans. During his first term as president, Roosevelt issued two widely circulated statements against lynching. In both, he vilified violence as a savage, uncivilized attack on American institutions and also as a threat to law and order. In 1904, then, African-Americans enthusiastically supported Roosevelt's wildly successful re-election bid even though the president generally stayed clear of the issues of disenfranchisement and integration. In the elections aftermath, black commentators and publications continued to hail Roosevelt as a second Lincoln, and I've chosen this picture obviously not because of the picture itself which didn't show up very well when I copied it from a microfilm, but what's striking is below President Roosevelt, this was published by the voice of the Negro leading black magazine that was in many ways the most radical black magazine and the most popular black magazine of its time. But what's striking is that it describes the four election campaigning for Roosevelt as the greatest statesman America has had for two generations. And obviously what this is a reference to is a reference to Lincoln. And to say that Roosevelt was like the great emancipator and to link him with the great emancipator it's hard to imagine a greater piece of praise. After the election, Roosevelt appeared on the cover of the magazine and this honor was generally reserved only for African Americans and only for white civil rights advocates. Then you'll see in this final cartoon founded the voice of the Negro Roosevelt appears as a slayer of racism under the square deal and the open door. And you'll remember he had announced his policy of not shutting the door on African American rights. And it's striking that in this if you look at it very closely and I'm sure you can't see it too well Al Parker appears as a midget and a white southerner and a part of him appears as an unmanly woman in it. Following his 1905 inauguration however, Roosevelt increasingly turned his attention away from racial issues seeking instead to heal the divisions between the south and north and to cultivate southern white support for the Republican Party. During a tour of the south in 1905 he made a pilgrimage to his mother's family mansion in Roswell, Georgia where he reminded the white audience that his blood was quote half southern and half northern. Then in the fall of 1906 African Americans criticized the president's inaction during a series of brutal assaults against African Americans in Atlanta that would result in more than 25 black deaths and this took place right in the center of downtown Atlanta if you've been to Atlanta it's right in the convention district the hotel district near the hominy and also near the also near the center of the city and what's striking again is that this at this time was really believed to be the capital of New South the simple possibility for African Americans and it was there that white moms targeted not the criminal class of African Americans but they instead targeted those African Americans who were striving who were following the Washington's advice and saving money or following the advice of W. B. Du Bois and going to schools black businesses were targeted by the rioters as more of the black universities throughout Atlanta TR's critics noted in the wake of the riot the president who had threatened military intervention in the 1902 coal strike now looked on in silence as whites continued to massacre innocent African Americans in one of the greatest symbols of the New South that November black voters and their white allies nevertheless were one of many groups who helped the Republicans gain six seats in the Senate and successfully fined off a democratic challenge to their majority in the House of Representatives then in an immediate interim after the 1906 election the Roosevelt administration announced the dishonorable discharge of all 167 members of the all black 25th regiment that was stationed just outside of Brownsville, Texas local whites there claimed that members of the regiment had shot and killed a white bartender and injured a policeman it was less fair actually who actually committed the crime there's no doubt obviously that somebody was killed and somebody was injured in the past Roosevelt had expressed suspicions regarding the so called tendency among African Americans as a race to shield their own criminals and to place racial royalties above their duties as citizens these prejudices strengthened TR's belief that the refusal of soldiers to admit knowledge of attacks they were probably ignorant of who was responsible was evidence of their collective conspiracy in 1972 the U.S. Army would carry out a second investigation and that investigation would conclude that the soldiers were absolutely innocent of any wrongdoing as demonstrated in this supplement to a very famous black newspaper The Rich in the Planet Roosevelt's decision in the Brownsville affair was especially galling for African Americans you'll remember they had taken great pride in the heroic service of the 25th infantry first in Cuba and then in the Philippines many of the soldiers had more than 20 years experience in the military and looked forward to retiring with pensions Roosevelt's actions prevented them from collecting their retirement money that they had counted on Roosevelt himself later acknowledged that at least some of the soldiers were quote absolutely innocent of having anything to do with the raid or having any knowledge of it the reaction of African Americans to Roosevelt's decision was swift and it was unprecedented quote the Negroes are depleting the dictionary of adjectives and their denunciation of the president in one black journalist in a private letter another one described Roosevelt's decision as the mistake of his life Charles W. Anderson an ally of Roosevelt and Robert T. Washington noted that more radical African Americans were making the most of the timing of the decision's announcement the latest it had been until just after an election in which African Americans had supported many of Roosevelt's congressional and discriminatory candidates Roosevelt's reaction to black and white critics of his decision revealed him at his very worst as a president they raged during a confrontation with Senator Joseph Foreaker over the Brownsville decision Roosevelt erupted quote it is my business and the business of nobody else it is not the business of Congress if they pass a resolution to his safety these men I will veto it if they pass it over my veto I will pay no attention to it to ignore Congress even if it led to his impeachment and in many ways the cartoons expressing black anger towards the decision again this is a voice of the Negro again and those of you who remember the Buster Brown radio show or Buster Brown comic books will really appreciate it but we see a portrait of Roosevelt as Buster Brown in many ways his childish his stubbornness and he's being addressed by his mother here who represents the United States and she says I consider it most unjust and unworthy of you Buster to treat your color soldiers that way but you see mother it pleases tie that's the point the dog representing racial prejudice and we have a nice stack of white soldiers here and African American soldiers over to the right are represented being knocked down another striking one is you'll remember that Roosevelt had promised African Americans that would insure them an open door and this represents the open door as being an open door to racial exclusion and racial inequality on the outside of the door instead of letting them in to larger America and to any sort of justice in December 1906 Roosevelt included an extended discussion of race relations in his annual message to Congress he began by announcing lynching in no uncertain terms but then he effectively emphasized the role of African Americans in causing racial violence the greatest cause of lynching he said is a perpetuation by black men of the hideous crime of rape the most abominable in all the category of crimes even worse than murder in a statement that Baldwin revealed that it triggered his Brownsville decision Roosevelt castigated black southerners for having yet to learn quote not to harbor their criminals but to assist the officers in bringing them to justice this alleged black tendency not white lynching not mob law was the larger crime and it provoked quote such atrocious offenses as the one of Atlanta T. Thomas Fortune editorialized in his New York age quote the president's word on the subject of lynching will prove one of the most mischievous ever made by an American in the high office Kelly Miller an ally over to Washington characterized the president's speech as quote the most serious official blow that our race has ever received and we'll see in this last cartoon the growing bitterness of many black observers towards Roosevelt he's in the past the cartoon saying had been a protective spirit for African Americans but now he's become one of the black man's greatest burden and his cartoons also comparing Roosevelt to his former enemies in the south Tillman and Vardeman who you'll remember had been so critical of his invitation of Booker T. Washington to dinner and who represented for African Americans they're the greatest enemies of racial justice Booker T. Washington's reputation as a race leader suffered greatly as a result of the simmering black anger first towards Roosevelt and then toward president William Howard Taff who was TR's hand-picked successor even many of Washington's closest allies held a partially responsible as his role as as an official advisor to Roosevelt for both the Brownsville decision and TR statements on lynching and black crime delegates at the June 1907 leading of the African American Council an organization that has long been controlled by Washington publicly denounced the educators quote, a Jews to this race Taff disappointed African Americans even more than Roosevelt after winning office the new president dramatically curtailed black appointments in the south and he actually fired many of the people who had been appointed by McKinley or Roosevelt otherwise Taff implemented a hands off approach to the south besides trying to encourage the growth of white Republicans who discriminated against African Americans there continued racial violence and growing anger over civil rights would help set the stage then both for the dramatic decline of Booker T. Washington's power and authority and the emergence of the NAACP as the nation's leading civil rights organization in 1910 the rise of the NAACP reflected a growing awareness among African Americans that black Americans could secure a square deal only by winning the basic legal and constitutional rights whose importance Roosevelt often downplayed the organization focused much of its early attention on issuing court challenges against disfranchisement and segregation its publicity bureau sought to undermine the sorts of racial prejudices that helped encourage Roosevelt's disastrous Brownstone decision by 1908 African Americans recognized all too well Roosevelt's failings as a leader on racial issues yet many also understood that the same forces constricting their freedoms in the south also limited TR's options had disfranchisement for example not so severely per black political power had Southern Democrats not so viciously attacked TR so early in its presidency Roosevelt's more progressive impulses made more fully flowered what is of course our questions that as historians we can never fully answer we do know however as Catholic Dalton has pointed out that Roosevelt's racial ideas continued to evolve during the 1910's after World War I the unequivocally praised all black troops for their courage and battle instead TR promised an interracial audience quote I will do everything I can to aid to bring about to bring nearer the day when justice the square deal will be given as between the black man and the white man as Roosevelt increasingly distanced himself from the prejudice of his past the phrase quote square deal assumed dramatically new means in commemoration of TR's past in 1919 an anonymous writer for the NAACP affiliated crisis an organization that had grown up an immediate aftermath of growing anger at Roosevelt summed up the bittersweet legacies of Roosevelt's presidency for African Americans quote a great man has died and the whole world stands shocked and mourning we have lost a friend he had his fault of the head not of the heart and even when we suffered we were more agreed because he had hurt us than because of the hurt itself thank you again for honoring me and the invitation to the university