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Jul 13, 2004 Truman's Opposition to Interracial Marriage



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Cory Reed Miller - 6/22/2005 THis is what I am talking about...me being an interracial male, I am very upset that a "leader" of this wonderful country can be so in the dark with an issue this big, and this guy was supposed to be a "good" President...Truman states "I hope not. I don't believe in it. The Lord created it that way. You read your bible and you will find out" refering to intermarriage..HELLO HARRY.....it is stated that Moses himself married a Ethopian woman (I highly doubt she was fair complected), and Jesus looked down upon Aaron and Miriam for speaking against Moses for his actions...Numbers 12 v.1 to be specfic...unreal...I think the issue with this is people being uneducated, and being taught by their elders...I truly believe that this is a learned charateristic....sorrry for the language..but the more I read, and watch the History Channel the more I start to scratch my head on how these jerks became so powerful....LOVE ALL PEOPLE!!!!

mark safranski - 7/13/2004 David,



Personnel decisions as Ike made are relevant I agree. I think the difference is that Truman took more significant political risks than Ike on race, given his election campaign and the response of Southern Democrats. He took chances with desgregation and supporting anti-lynching and civil rights legislation that the far more popular FDR and Ike did not.



Pat wrote:

"While it's true that judging standards like race across time is difficult, isn't it a bit of a cop out to say it's impossible?"



I'm not saying it's impossible I'm saying that historians should be careful not to sloppily apply contemporary standards to previous historical periods. The Romans would look pretty barbarous measured against the Bill of Rights. So would the Athenians. Next to the Persians, Scythians or Celts however, we understand why the Greco-Roman world had undeniable cultural appeal and potency in it's time and afterward.



To measure the past by the standards of modernity instead of in context would present a misleading picture to the reader or the student.

Pat Lynch - 7/13/2004 While it's true that judging standards like race across time is difficult, isn't it a bit of a cop out to say it's impossible? There are plenty of core values we evaluate in writings. Smith is someone I know is liberal on trade and markets and that has hardly changed. Aren't you essentially arguing a form of relativism that makes history irrelevant

David T. Beito - 7/13/2004 I agree with you for the most part. Policy is the important thing, not personal opinion I was not trying to judge Truman only note that his personal attitudes were not so different from Ike.



I am no fan of Eisenhower's civil rights record but it is hard to say if Truman would have done any better. I don't believe that he ever criticized Ike's civil rights record as too timid, for example. In fact, the 1963 article indicates some sympathy for the Southern position.



Ike, after all, did some things that Truman never dared to do such as integrate public facilities in DC and appoint blacks to his presidential staff as well to a assistant secretary job in the cabinet (the highest position ever for blacks in the federal government). He also speeded up integration of the armed forces and was hopping mad when LBJ watered down the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Still, he was somewhat slow to move on hot button issues and a case can be made that he was building on Truman's record.