Democrats Change Name of Dinner To Honor Racist Harry Truman

Daily Caller ^ | 7/13/15 | Patrick Howley

[markomalley]

The Missouri Democratic Party is changing the name of its annual “Jefferson-Jackson” fundraising dinner, deleting the names of slave-owning party heroes Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. The party will instead honor avowed racist Harry Truman.

Though the state party denied that the name change was due to racial issues, Democratic state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, who has called for the name to be changed, said that it was probably due to race. Every state Democratic party holds an early-summer Jefferson-Jackson fundraising dinner. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently attended the dinners in Arkansas and Virginia.

But the Missouri party’s decision to instead name the dinner for Harry Truman might not have been the most racially savvy choice.

“I think one man is just as good as another so long as he’s honest and decent and not a nigger or a Chinaman,” Truman wrote as a 27-year old in 1911. “Uncle Will says that the Lord made a white man from dust, a nigger from mud, then He threw up what was left and it came down a Chinaman.”

“[Uncle Will] does hate Chinese and Japs,” Truman wrote. “So do I. It is race prejudice, I guess. But I am strongly of the opinion Negroes ought to be in Africa, yellow men in Asia and white men in Europe and America.”

Though Truman nearly lost the 1948 Democratic nomination when Southern Democrats walked out of the convention due to Truman’s mildly progressive racial policies at the time, his personal beliefs were pretty firmly racist.

As a U.S. senator, Truman told his daughter in a letter that the White House waitstaff was comprised of “an army of coons.”

[MasterGunner01]

As I recall, the 1920s was the high water mark of the KKK. The KKK was not confined to the South. In fact, they had large followings in Northern states. Many people who should have known better were swept up in what they thought the clan represented. After they got in, they discovered what a thug, terrorist organization it was and got out. I expect that HST was one of those, because he became a huge foe of the KKK.

[nascarnation]

In 1925, half the members of the Indiana legislature were Klan affiliated.

[MasterGunner01]

You’re very correct about KKK activities in a conservative state such as Indiana in 1925. It was similar for Illinois as well. The illegal, thuggish, and terrorist activities of the KKK that saw their numbers dwindle until they became a fringe group.

[BeadCounter]

Why does Truman get a pass for being a member of the KKK?

I think some sources say he paid membership of about $15 to the Klan, never went to a meeting of there's, they may have been a bit like a Fraternal organization. It's definitely worth researching, I never knew he had said the things this article does.

[Verginius Rufus]

Truman made his share of mistakes but the country was lucky to have him rather than Henry Wallace as Vice President when FDR died. Wallace dealing with the Soviets would have been like Obama dealing with radical Islam (see no evil, speak no evil). Stalin would probably have taken Greece and the Communists might have come to power in Italy and France. At best the western zones of Germany would have been neutral, and perhaps the Soviets would have gotten an occupation zone in Japan.