Thursday, May 14, 2015

On the Black Vote in the 1944 Presidential Election

It went to FDR but it should have gone to Dewey. a) Dewey appointed a black man to the New York Supreme Court (when he was the Governor there). b) Dewey opposed the poll tax (Roosevelt refused to). c) Dewey favored and endorsed an anti-lynching bill (FDR never did). And d) Dewey called for a Congressional inquiry to investigate "segregation and discrimination (a practice that was started by another progressive and Roosevelt hero, Woodrow Wilson) against Negroes who are in our armed forces."..................................................................................................So, why did the black vote ultimately go to the incumbent? According to historians, Kirk Porter and Donald Johnson, it probably had to do with the fact that Hillman's pro-FDR PAC descended on the inner-cities of America and handed out thousands and thousands of pamphlets and exhorted the black folks to vote for Roosevelt (promising the sun, the moon, and the sky, no doubt). The typical FDR way, in other words.

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