Woodrow Wilson: The Reality
The truth about Woodrow Wilson, and what he represented.
There are still those who hail Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States, as a great man.
Those who know history, appreciate the enormous backwards step his Presidency was in relation to
human rights.
Wilson’s history is quite interesting.
His father, Reverend Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson, was originally from Steubenville, Ohio, where his grandfather published a newspaper, The Western Herald and Gazette, that was pro-tariff and abolitionist.
Reverend Wilson was so pro slavery he and his wife moved South in 1851. He bought property, owned slaves and set up a Sunday school for them. This is an examples of how Christianity was used to promote and maintain slavery.
Thomas Woodrow was born in 1856 and often mentioned his earliest memory was of standing beside Robert E. Lee and hearing that Abraham Lincoln had been elected President, aware that war was coming.
He and his family were supporters of the Confederacy, and wounded soldiers were cared for at his father’s Church.
Despite being a slow learner, Woodrow became an academic, achieving the Presidency of Princeton University from 1902 – 1910. He actively discouraged blacks from even applying for admission.
Princeton, a University in New Jersey, did not admit its first black student until the 1940s.
When Wilson was elected President of the United States 1912 -1920 he allowed his cabinet officials to establish official segregation in most federal government offices, in some departments for the first time
since 1863, setting back racial equality fifty years, and planting the seeds of its perpetuation.
Wilson and his cabinet members fired many black Republican office holders but as a sop, appointed a
few black Democrats to such posts, making it seem the blacks were fired for being Republicans.
W. E. B. Du Bois, a leader of the NAACP, had campaigned for Wilson. In 1918 he was offered an Army commission in charge of dealing with race relations; DuBois accepted, but he failed his Army physical
and did not serve.
Wilson’s courting of DuBois was to misdirect, so that Black leaders, as Marcus Garvey, would not have
an ‘easy’ target.
Dubois did not realise he was being ‘played.’
Wilson was a supporter of segregation, and worked hard to ensure that wherever the ‘wall’ had been knocked down, he would replace it. His administration imposed full racial segregation in Washington D.C. and hounded from office considerable numbers of black federal employees.
When a delegation of blacks protested these actions, Wilson told them that “Segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen.”
In 1914, he told the New York Times, “If the colored people made a mistake in voting for me, they ought to correct it.”
Woodrow Wilson’s History of the American People explained the Ku Klux Klan of the late 1860s as the natural outgrowth of Reconstruction, a lawless reaction to a lawless period.
Wilson noted that the Klan “began to attempt by intimidation what they were not allowed to attempt by the ballot or by any ordered course of public action.”
Wilson’s work contributed to the intellectual/historical justification for the racist policies/reactions of the 20th century American South.
His words were used in the early film; The Birth of a Nation. 
“The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation… until at last there
sprung into existence a Great Ku Klux Klan a vertiable empire of the South, to protect
the Southern country.”
Wilson’s wife, Edith, was unapologetic racist.
Wilson was anti-immigrant, and wrote much on the subject. However, after he entered politics in 1910, he Wilson worked to integrate immigrants into the Democratic party, into the army, and into American life, clearly an astute political move.
He lied to Irish-Americans to gain their support for America’s involvement on the side of the British in WWI.
However, his contempt for them so great, he refused to meet Éamon de Valera, the President of Dáil Éireann (the revolutionary Irish Republic), during the latter’s 1919 visit to the United States.
Among his achievements was the first effective draft in 1917. imposition of an income tax, enacting the first federal drug prohibition, taking Federal control of the railroads, and the democratic election of Senators took place.
He also suppressed anti-war movements
Wilson spoke for National women’s suffrage, very late in his Second term. It came after years of pressure, protest, and publicity. Far from being a supporter of Women’s rights, he had been a barrier. That the
franchise was extended to women during his administration is not something he can actually take credit for.
Although considered by many historians one of the ‘best’ American Presidents, his record needs to be analysed in relation to his stand on human rights.
Liked it
An informative and well written article. I should me more informed and I enjoyed your history lesson.
history is a passion of mine. Wilson set back the civil rights movement remarkably. To think, in 1900 that blacks had more
rights in America then they did from 1918 to 1967
I too love history. This was a very interesting piece, I something, that I never imagined.
I always tend to go after that odd remark; i.e. when one reads something and a statement about how things were ‘better’ in 19890..
Great job. It should be also noted tat when Wilson screened the film “Birth of a nation” in the Whitehouse, he was quoted saying “It is like writing History with lightning. The sad part is this is all so terribly true.”
People should know the truth about these ‘great’ men
This was written is such a biased manner … this is garbage. This sort of writing should be banned because most people are too stupid to search for the REAL truth and they’ll believe crap like this …
Dear someone who does NOT know history; every word can be verified.
If this was for a more scholarly journal there would be a page of footnotes.
Wilson was a racist. He supported the Ku Klux Klan. This is on record. He did look up to Robert E. Lee; of that there is no question.
No black were allowed to attend Princeton during his tenure; fact.
Segregation was reestabled; fact.
One of the quotes is from the 1914 New York Times, a very easily verifiable quote.
His words were used in Birth of a Nation, you can verify this.
He did refuse to meet with Eamon de Valera.
He did speak for women’s suffrage late in his Second term; after years
of pressure. Any history of the Women’s Movement in America will clearly portray this.
His standing as one of the best has begun to slip, and I suspect,
within ten years he will have fallen farther.
I do not know what image you have of Wilson, but I assure you,
these are facts, and you can verify them.
A lot of feminists have been saying this for years, because history is there. Ignore it
Wilson was a racist, so was his wife. And they were not ashamed of it. Just before he left office he granted suffrage to women. And this was due to great pressure and the fact that after WWI when he was so busy babbling about democracy in Europe…
You’ll always find someone who holds to the official High School History Book that was published in year naught as the unquestioned truth.
This was poorly written with spelling and grammatical errors. There was some good information and opinions though.
duly noted Stephen…and corrected
Woodrow Wiloson is a racist,and people should know so it won’t happen again.
When he left office, Black people were in a worse position in 1920 then they had been in 1865; in some cases, at 1860 level. People must know exactly who and what he was.
It is strange he was so anti-Irish when he himself was the son of Irish immigrants. makes no sense to me.
Wilson is one of those people who tried to cast himself as what he aspired to. He was a very slow learner, so spent more time than the average person and because he needed to be seen as an intellectual, became one.
With his past I think he would imagine himself descendent of English nobility
I think you meant that his father was an \”anti-abolitionist\”. He was against abolishing slavery. Right? Great info!
His father was anti-abolitionist, yes, but moved South so he could own slaves. He was pro slavery.
Did he not segregate the armed forces? I thought I heard somewhere that before his tenure that blacks and whites fought together but that he did away with that. Please verify if you can.
The American Military was segregated during the War of 1812 and remained segregated until 1948. Blacks and Whites fought together during the French & Indian and Revolutionary War.
The Armed forces were segregated before Wilson arrived
Scary to think that we are still building schools in his name.He should be exposed for the hater that he was.
It’s funny; US Grant did more for Civil Rights than any other President save LBJ…yet both of them are virtually ignored by the Black community. And this character who set Civil Rights back to Pre-Lincoln days, is a hero.
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that is because we are not taught real history but a type of aparthied \\\”bantu\\\” education and not given all of history to evaluate. we were taught in most black inner city schools that john brown was \\\”crazy\\\”, this is in our history books and it takes independent study to realize that he was not.
The burden on a history teacher is enormous. They don’t just teach history; they are often major propaganda machines. For example, the Africans brought Jamestown in 1619 weren’t sold as slaves, they were sold as indentured servants, and were freed and part of the community in five years.
Two of the most powerful slave rebellions before the ‘Revolutionary’ war were in NYC.
Is there ANY history book out there that is simply a list of facts? What history is all about is the interpretation of facts, and I just hate it when the textbook’s author tries to include some of his/her “analysis” in with the text. I was trained on Pageant’s AP Edition and even this book, despite its clarity in wording and overall truthfulness, still interpreted facts to a degree that one could say was almost biased
My point is that in order to remove the biases from textbooks and History education in general. We have to let the student decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong. If a fact seems unsavory to the publisher, they should include it anyway because it is, indeed, a fact. The same applies to history teachers. If something is known to be fact… teach it!
Whether or not Wilson was a racist should be left up to the student to decide, keeping in mind that all of his racial injustices are FACT, that they DID happen.
Therefore, as a student, I propose a thesis statement regarding Woodrow Wilson. It includes no analysis, only facts. It is simply my opinion based upon fact:
Although Woodrow Wilson may have indeed been one of the most earnest progressives of his time with his practical (and unfortunately not enacted) resolution of WWI, he demonstrates that even the greatest of us have a dark side, as his policies arguably did the most to rid the country of racial equality, civil liberties, and justice since the presidency of Andrew Johnson.
When studying American History it is more useful to read a text published in the U.K. for U.K. students, (and vice versa). For example, Oliver Cromwell. Absolutely despised by the Irish, a long list of atrocities, yet, in an American Text he seems quite alright.
If you have to study the Ming Dynasty or the History of Uzbekistan, you have no vested interest in proving/disproving.
Giving a student the raw facts without opinion is the correct method. Let the reader draw the conclusion.
With Wilson, who wrote so prolifically, who gave so many speeches, one doesn’t have to guess what his opinions were.
As a ‘progressive’ his purview was rather limited.
Love the ‘ ‘ around ‘progressive’
WWI, for America was more on the level of the US’s first incursion into Iraq under Daddy Bush. It was a very short successful visit. The hype was enormous and Wilson was hailed in parts of Europe…ya know…”the Yanks are coming” . So America, saving the day; saving Europe from the Hun, single handedly winning WWI; well, Wilson was the President so obtained almost divine status.
A. Fool….great info….interesting twist on your comment on LBJ being as doing more for civil rights….. 7 years earlier a civil rights bill was introduced by Pres Eisenhower and LBJ was the primary blocker (see 1957 Civil rights act)….thus the one who blocked it somehow became the hero of civil rights. History has a way of changing unless you go back to the original writings doesn\’t it. Thanks for the great piece.
Politicians change their stands based on their electorate. One year they can be anti, the next year pro, and it’s like…hey, public, that was Then this is NOW…so all one can do is go by actions. 1964 is where it all happened, and he was Pres. So…he actually did something. Wilson made some ‘progressive’ speeches before he became Pres.
When you learn more about the progressive movement, the more you see that the movement is full of academic elites and marxists. Why is that? Margret Sanger, Wilson, G.B. Shaw, Marx himself. Goverments who established marxism, ( USSR, China, CUBA, Vietnam and the others ) have murdered more of thier own citizens in peace time ( over 100 million ) than any other political movement in the history of the planet. Why do some still attempt to pursue this type of Government? How do they justify programs that will lead to communism?
Not communism at all; the persons you mentioned outside of Shaw and Marx were not at all in that ‘eglatarian’ idea. Wilson was very much into the Class system. Wilson was called progressive but I don’t think anything he did of his own, (not being impelled) would be called ‘progressive’.
“It’s funny; US Grant did more for Civil Rights than any other President save LBJ…”
Not entirely accurate. Johnson was a real flip-flopper on the civil rights issue. While he gets the credit for the Civil Rights Bill he signed as president, as a senator, he fought Truman’s civil rights bill and fought to weaken the 1957 Civil Rights bill of President Eisenhower. Johnson’s motives were most likely aimed at his Southern constituents and not an expression of personal bigotry. Nevertheless, what he did in practice is was counts and his history of acquiescence to segregationists and white supremacists should not be overlooked.
Eisenhower was the most forward thinking president on the civil rights issue since Lincoln. A passion which largely stemmed from his military service with the first integrated regiments. It was Eisenhower who was the first president to work on desegregation and Civil Rights in earnest.
I agree with you Ben, but here’s the rub; Johnson signed. Hence that’s who gets the credit. He was politic, he’d do what got votes, please who he needed to please.
Eisenhower had a black soldier dressed as a butler be his aide-de-camp, did send in the federal troops to desegregate.
The Navy was integrated before Wilson’s Presidency.
Nope. Wasn’t until 1940 and Thomas Darden’s effots.
—In the latter 1940s, Darden headed the “Special Programs Unit”, a naval unit intended to address the continuing role of African Americans in the U.S. Navy. Darden advocated integrating Black personnel into the U.S. Navy—
—–No legal restrictions regarding the enlistment of blacks were placed on the Navy because of its chronic shortage of manpower. The law of 1792, which generally prohibited enlistment of blacks in the Army became the United States Army’s official policy until 1862. The only exception to this Army policy was Louisiana, which gained an exemption at the time of its purchase through a treaty provision, which allowed it to opt out of the operation of any law, which ran counter to its traditions and customs. Louisiana permitted the existence of separate black militia units which drew its enlistees from freed blacks.
The Louisiana Battalion of Free Men of Color and a unit of black soldiers from Santo Domingo offered their services and were accepted by General Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans, a victory that was achieved after the war was officially over.
This is a reply to those few who are puzzled by Wilson’s ambivalence toward the Irish.
There are the Catholic Irish and then there are the Presbyterian and Methodist Ulster Scots who call themselves “Scotch-Irish” over here. Wilson’s people were the Ulster-Scots. The bulk of the Irish immigrants in America in Wilson’s time were Catholics derived from those who fled the Orange terror in Ulster at and after the time of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 as well as those who fled the Irish Famine (mostly Catholic) a decade later. The animosity between these two tribes continues to this day.
Since Wilson appears to certainly be a man of his class and times, I’d speculate that Wilson’s altitude toward the Catholic Irish is best summarized by one of Nast’s cartoons in The Harper’s Weekly published when Wilson was just 18 and possibly at Princeton. The hat, the coat and the simian appearance are typical of Nast’s portrayal of the Irish in this period. Nast’s portrayal of the black man is atypical of his style.
http://cartoons.osu.edu/nast/images/ignorant_vote50.jpg
Excellent point James. Today people are unaware of the extreme prejudice against Irish Catholics. Wilson was clearly a man of great prejudice. He was also a politician who knew the use of people.
Lyndon Baines Johnson was also a racist and as the Senate Majority Leader opposed the passage of the original 1957 civil rights bill which had some legal teeth in it. He actually referred that bill to the senate committee where his racist friends took out the legal enforcement language which would have punished his southern segregationist friends. Then when he is president, still a racists southerner, he signs the civil rights act of 1965 (not without the overwhelming support of republicans) with modest support from his own party. He did it to get the black vote. This is the same reason he supported medicare, medicaid, and welfare because he knew it would buy the votes of a racial groulp.
The point, I think, is that here is a man, Wilson; considered one of the ‘Best’ American Presidents, who was a very prejudiced class conscious bigot; yet somehow, at the time, no one noticed.
On the other side, here is Johnson, not considered very important, racist, yet got the most important civil rights legislation passed.
GET A LIFE, OH MY GOSH, YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT FREAKING WOODROW WILSON.
Not Talking, giving references and proofs that he was a racist, that he gave support to the Ku Klux Klan. I could have continued the article, indicating how the end of WWI he negotiated led inexorably to WWII.
