Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Presidency Woodrow Wilsons Legacy

CSPAN3 The Presidency Woodrow Wilsons Legacy On Race July 12, 2024

Where is he . What are you doing in the back . For anyone who has not heard of john milton hooper, shame on you. He wrote an awardwinning biography of Woodrow Wilson, and he has been enormously hopeful to us over the years, appearing many times, but also helping us unpack some of the difficult issues around Woodrow Wilson. The subject of todays conversation. So, in 1978, when the Wilson Center was 10 years old, we were charged by congress with creating a Hubert Humphrey fellowship in social and political thought. Good idea. The idea was that a quote, distinguished scholar, statesman, or cultural figure would deliver a lecture honoring humphreys legacy, which makes sense since he was a founding father of this place, as well as Vice President , senator, and dedicated public servant. And at times like this, when the mood in washington is so grim, he was always optimistic. Something i remember and cherish. Its taken us a few years, but we are very proud today to host the Hubert H Humphrey memorial excerpt and have a pointed and incredibly distinguished scholar, dr. Jonathan holloway as our first humphrey fellow. Another very special guest this afternoon is Hubert Humphreys nice, anne howard, who is here with her husband dennis, and who has built her impressive career working at the department of congress, several universities, and her own Government Relations firm. She is also writing a book called sibling citizens about uncle hubert and her sister. I have my own back story about Hubert Humphrey. I have to tell this one. This was even before the Wilson Center existed. It was 1964. The year that Johnson Humphrey ticket won the presidency in a landslide. I had worked in washington that summer as a College Intern at what was called the Young Democrats of america. That fall, i was cohead of the Young Democrats at smith college. We, in all of our uppityness, invited the democratic candidate for Vice President , senator Hubert Humphrey, to visit the smith campus. And he did. And i have got proof. [laughter] we were unable to enlarge this, but hey, you can all see it perfectly. [laughter] here it says Johnson Humphrey. Here he is. Like that. And little face there is not forest gump, it is someone who used to be called janie lakes. So, after that amazing experience, i was invited to attend Johnson Humphrey inauguration, including the inaugural ball. Think about that, as a college kid. Which came just before my winter exams. In a fit of responsibility, i turned down the invitation so that i could study more. I was sad to miss the festivities, but i did pretty well that semester, and it was a down payment on my political career a few decades later. So back to the humphrey lecture. A a few month ago, lonnie bunch, who some of you know and all of you know of, who was the amazingly creative founder of the africanamerican museum just down the road and is the new secretary of the smithsonian institution, recommended the perfect person. I visited with him, and he said this is the person perfect person, dr. Jonathan holloway. Dr. Holloway spent nearly two decades at yale and was dean of the college. He also served as the head of calhoun college, now renamed grace hopper college. And was a professor of African American studies at yale. He joined northwestern as provost and professor of history and africanamerican studies three years ago. In the time since dr. Holloway agreed to join us today, he has been appointed president of rutgers university. You can applaud. [applause] which is a small college, about 20 miles down the road from princeton, where Woodrow Wilson spent the last 20 years of his academic career. Clearly this is a very high honor, and we all congratulate you. Dr. Holloways acclaimed research on black intellectual history make same, as i said, the perfect person to address todays difficult subject, Woodrow Wilson and race. Over the decades the Wilson Center has not shied away from this topic, and we are well aware it continues to be controversial. But we will all learn something today. I know that i will, and i am really delighted that you have agreed to talk about Woodrow Wilson. Following dr. Holloways lecture, distinguished fellow blair ruble, who is right in the front row, will moderate a discussion with him. Blair ruble, previously our Vice President for programs, also founded and directed our institute for advanced russian studies. Blair now works on our sustainability project and is the author of a fantastic book, a seriously good book on the history of washington dc, entitled washington street, a biography. Please welcome rutgers president elect and our humphreys lecturer and follow, dr. Jonathan holloway. [applause] dr. Holloway thank you for that introduction. Thank you for finding your way here. I mean, this is not the simplest room to get into. I was given directions on three occasions and i was still sitting down like, which way am i going. Thank you all for coming here. Thank you president harman, your honor. Thank you to blair in advance for asking very easy questions. Thank you to casey for guiding me here in so many ways. For those who got here earlier, please know i extend great thanks to the tech team. Had quite a journey for 45 minutes for this accompanying powerpoint deck. And i must say, thank you, i John Milton Cooper for coming. This really makes no sense that i am up here and he is not. So, he really is the expert. I am something of opposer on of a poser on this occasion. I am honored to have been asked to be the 2020 humphrey fellow in social and clinical thought. Funny story about how i came to stand before you today. When i received the letter, i knew there would be some serious challenges about finding a time that would work, because microbial calendar is already a mess. I was considering putting my name in the hat for the rutgers position you just heard about. I did not know how that would come became my life. And because i was asked to speak in february, a uniquely busy time for africanamerican historians. I was prepared to decline the invitation, in fact. In fact, always dumb suggested i should decline the invitation. Until i saw that lonnie bunch had nominated me. She is not here but i will say, well played. She is one of my longestserving mentors, dating back to my second year in graduate school. That was likely enough to make me determined to find a date that would work. Further cementing my need to be here is that northwestern invited lonnie to serve as our Commencement Speaker last year. She accepted the invitation and a few months later was appointed secretary of the smithsonian. We quietly scrambled to get a backup speaker in case lonnie withdrew. To her credit she gave an amazing commencement address. Gave the address for days after starting as secretary of these missoni and. The smithsonian. Instead of saying hello, she said the only reason i came here is because of you. Flattering, absolutely. Maybe something else, certainly. I already knew i owed her for many things. I have to say that when i saw on the letter that he invited me, and that he started with his reading with what i just told you, i felt a little at the godfather making clear that one day, who knows when, i would be asked a favor. And here i am. [laughter] the title of this talk as you see is history written and lighting, racial memories and the making of a nation. The main title of the talk is symbolic of what was functional. The symbolic aspect is a reference to a quote described it to wilson about his opinion of dw griffiths controversial 1915 film, the birth of a nation. The functional aspect of the title is a reference to the method of his talk itself. I was asked to speak about wilson and race. I took this to be an intentionally brought invitation that i could shape in any number of ways. Taking the invitation to heart, i decided to offer a sweep of the 20th century of the United States through a series of lightning strikes, as it were. A quick investigation revealed much larger political, culture that collectively tell us who we are as a people. This talk is certainly about wilson, but it more accurately about wilsons legacy as seen through a racial lens. It explores the way in which wilsons racial possibility shaped discourses, whose impact could be felt across the 20th century and continues to reverberate into the 21st. I will be limiting these lightning strikes to a geography that runs along i95 and is about 3. 5 hours from beginning to end. Not my talk, just a geography. The distance between princeton, new jersey and washington dc. We start in princeton in the early 1900s, moved to washington for a bit, before returning to a contemporary princeton, and once more to d. C. For a framing consideration. Part one, princeton, writing safe spaces into history. Woodrow wilson was born in virginia. He studied law at the university of virginia before switching to palooka science at johns hopkins. He taught before returning to princeton in 1890. 12 years later the Princeton Trustees appointed him president. A position he held until 1910. Wilsons record as princetons president is a precursor of sorts to his time in the white house. Wilson came into office as a reformer. He was determined to expand the size of the faculty, establish a graduate school, and reorganize the undergraduate experience while breaking up the universitys clubs because their leaders of ran counter to his pursuit of discipline. On these measures, his record is mixed. He remade the curriculum, creating a much richer economic environment and the process. He successfully grew the faculty and established models that remain in place today. However, the graduate School College was built while he was president , but its shaping contours were not what he intended. His efforts to reorganize housing to remake the eating club system, something any successful princeton president have also failed to do. They are too powerful to outmaneuver. Taking everything into consideration, wilson is appropriately hailed as one of the most important figures in princetons history. He accelerated the schools pace as it moved towards academic excellence, and at least signaled an intention to make the university a place of progressive reform. Theres little ambiguity about wilsons views on blacks on campus. Pardon me, what . No. Yes. [laughter] [inaudible] dr. Holloway i should have warned you i use black slides. Where were we. There is little ambiguity concerning wilsons view on blacks on campus. In a letter to john rogers, the assistant secretary of the university, wilson wrote, the whole temporary and tradition of the place is such that no need is ever applied for admissions, and seems unlikely the question will ever seem practical reform. Five years leader wilson translated his philosophy into a more practical form when he responded directly to macarthur sullivan, an africanamerican applicant. It is altogether inadvisable for a colored man to enter princeton. Someone intent on splitting hairs might say wilson was not denying blacks into princeton, not like what we would see in the height of the Civil Rights Movement when he denied entrance to the mercy of alabama. Wilsons performances in these two quotes wewre a were a commitment to something more we have wilson quietly rewriting princetons history and in the second, we find him ensuring princeton would remain a safe space for white students because of his own act of erasure. Rewriting history. Wilson had been part of princetons dna since his undergraduate years. While policy was deeply involved in student organizations like the debating society, football, and baseball, most critical is the fact he was managing editor of the student newspaper. Put another way, he knew princetons social fabric and was aware of the topics of the day. His engagement with the school continued when he returned to the campus in 1890 to teach courses in clinical economy. Political economy. It strains the imagination to think wilson did not know about Abraham Parker denny, james monroe bulger, and Irvin Williams Langston Brown street, all africanamerican students who received masters degrees at the Princeton Theological Seminary soon after he joined the faculty. If you read back further, you see wilsons willful blindness extended to his undergraduate years, since james mccosh, princetons president , welcomed the occasional black student into his philosophy lectures in the 1870s. Then alumni wrote letters of protest and five students declared they would withdraw unless he removed a black student from the lecture. He refused to budge and the students withdrew. Four eventually returned. Wilson was a sophomore at princeton during this. A black presence at princeton was not unknown to him. It is clear that wilson was committed to a vision of princeton that wrote lack students out of its history. In 2016, a princeton archivist said it best. Quote, the act of remembering and forgetting princetons africanamerican alumni had consequences, as generations of prince tony and came to see themselves as generations of princetonians came to see them it was wilsons princeton that came to predominate not only in memory, but in practice. What was motivating wilson to tell a story wilson was not the kind of racist to us about violence as a way of controlling resumed black impulses. His racism was more genteel and reflected his sensibility not advisable to bring the races together because it would be unfair to blacks, as they would not be able to keep up with a new, more rigorous princeton he was creating. Even placing that belief to the side, wilson appeared intent to build a princeton that was more come to bow to the increasing number of southern white students who were returning to princeton after the madness of the war of northern aggression, and the racial expand mentation. Although southern whites were more familiar with africanamericans than northern, they were unprepared to accept them in social educational circles. Wilsons paternalism led him to believe blacks could not keep up, another reading suggests they were a threat to him. Keeping princeton white meant it would remain a safe space for students who held tightly to their presumptions that what was a normative was removed instead of an expression of a natural hierarchy. Washington, d. C. Ideology, policy, and absolution. Wilson in order to run for the governorship of new jersey. He was elected that fall, carried forth on electorate who supported his antitrust and anticorruption ideas. Wilson was put into power by political machinery that believed it could control him. Within months of being put in office he forged his own path with reforms that hurt the democratic palooka machine. Political leaders took note and in short order, wilson was being considered as a potential candidate for the u. S. President. Wilson of course won the 1912 election, carried into office by those who supported his new freedom domestic agenda. His agenda was an expansion of his reformist ideology that earned him the Governors Office two years earlier. A commitment to breakup trust, perfect reform the banking system, and conserve National Natural resources. There is nothing about no viable candidate could have that as an agenda. But wilson pledged his willingness and desire to deal with blacks fairly and justly. More specifically he vowed that he would be a president of the whole nation. He also pulled a bishop he said africanamericans could call on him for absolute fairness. My earnest wish is to see justice done to them in every manner. My sympathy with them is longstanding. These promises earned wilson an endorsement he needed from these black leaders as well as prominent figures. One believed wilson to be a scholar of fairness who would not seek further means of jim crow insult. However, black leaders like the new jersey machine before them, soon understood wilsons promises would either not be kept or would be interpreted in a way substantially different than what they thought. To these figures, wilsons new freedom agenda felt much like an older agenda keeping blacks in their social and political place. In retrospect, the indication that wilson would not make new reforms for africanamericans was there all along. His promise to the bishop was a case in point. When wilson said my wishes to see justice done in every matter and not merely grudging justice, it became evidence that wilson was true to his word. He spoke of fairness and a sympathy that emerge from familiarity, but fairness on whose grounds, and what was the nature of his racial familiarity. Answers to these questions are found in wilsons background. The administration he formed as president , and a broad view dissensions between the races he had already expressed at princeton. Wilson was the first southerner elected president since the civil war. While geography is not destiny, it informs a worldview. Wilson grew up in georgia and was involved in a system resisting the northern occupation of the south. It viewed reconstruction as a radical overstepping of federal authority, and was determined to restore southern racial fairness to wilson meant local customs and practices should be preserved to maintain the status quo. Northern cap or baggers carpetbaggers that allowed black men the right to vote were to be resisted at every turn. Fairness for southerners like wilson was not the kind of fairness black leaders sought. On the issue of familiarity, wilson was like any other white southerner. He came of age around black folk who interacted with him on a daily basis. But they were not peertopeer. He grew up in an environment with black servants. They were in a way familiar to him, but this familiarity was articulated through a racial hierarchy that insisted blacks belonged on a lower rung of societys letter. Ladder. Wilson was known for tel

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