Truman's Opposition to Interracial Marriage

by Liberty and Power

Historians have noted Eisenhower's personal dislike for the Brown decision. Although he pledged to enforce the ruling, Eisenhower confided to Earl Warren his revulsion at the prospect of black and white children of the opposite sex in the same classroom.

Harry Truman's long-time opposition to interracial marriage during the same period (and later) is less well known, however. When a reporter asked the former president in 1963 if he thought school integration would lead to intermarriage, he answered"I hope not. I don't believe in it. The Lord created it that way. You read your Bible and you'll find out."

The reporter then asked Truman if he would want his daughter to marry a black man if"she loved him." He responded"She won't love sombody that's not her color." (Chicago Daily Defender, September 12, 1963)

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Cory Reed Miller - 6/23/2005

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 - 7/14/2004

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.

mark safranski - 7/13/2004

It's generally erroneous to judge historical figures primarily by contemporary standards - anyone who at all reflected their own time reasonably well is going to be out of step with the attitudes of the historian's own era.

Truman and Eisenhower spent their formative years in the 19th world of rural America and came from a generation that went through vast social, political and economic changes. They also were of a generation that went through enormous privation - two major depressions and two world wars while growing up in households where the Civil War and Reconstruction were living memories for the adults. Taking care of oneself and one's own was a hard-bitten fact of life for people of that era, one that left little room for empathy for the plight of others.

While as adults Truman and Eisenhower separated their visceral prejudices to varying degrees from their official duties ( I'd argue that of the two, Truman did a better job setting aside his personal biases) it's asking a lot to have expected them to psychologically divest themselves of the visceral reactions in addition. I don't see very many of us accomplishing that same feat in our own lives, at least not without therapy.

Few people statistically speaking before the last 10-15 years, outside of the most self-conscious political radicals, ever accepted interracial marriage. Frederick Douglass' own family was scandalized by his second marriage and they were raised with radical precepts of equality. That many people accept it today, relatively speaking, is great progress for individual freedom but were engaging in unrealism to expect it from a mid-twentieth century, southern-born president 35 or 55 years ago.