Sunday, October 29, 2017

James Madison’s Lessons in Racism - The New York Times

The historian Noah Feldman - author of the forthcoming Three Lives of James Madison - Genius, Partisan, President - has a very interesting take on Madison. Apt for our age he espoused freedom for slaves, but compromised due to economic pressures, including his own. - gwc
James Madison’s Lessons in Racism - The New York Times



by Noah Feldman

When we think about the framers of the Constitution and how they handled the issue of race, we conjure up the extremes: the hypocrites and the heroes. At one end is Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that “all men are created equal” but believed Africans were inferior and fathered children with an enslaved woman. At the other end is Alexander Hamilton, who, at least as depicted by admirers like the biographer Ron Chernow and the playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda, was an ardent abolitionist.
This framing, however, is simplistic and misleading. It is simplistic because it overlooks harder-to-categorize positions like that of James Madison, the lead drafter of the Constitution, who genuinely rejected the idea of racial inferiority yet still failed to put his beliefs in equality and liberty into practice. And it is misleading because it implies that as long as we avoid having racist attitudes, we can succeed in avoiding racist policies. We think that if we’re not Jefferson, we must be Hamilton. But this is not the case.
In this respect, Madison is the founding father who can teach Americans the most about our present contradictions on race. Madison insisted that enslaved Africans were entitled to a right to liberty and proposed that Congress purchase all the slaves in the United States and set them free. Yet not only did he hold slaves on his plantation in Virginia and fail to free them upon his death, but he also originated the notorious three-fifths compromise in the Constitution, which counted a slave as three-fifths of a person for purposes of legislative representation.

Friday, October 13, 2017

Roy Moore Led Charge Against Removing Segregation From Alabama Constitution – Talking Points Memo

Roy Moore Led Charge Against Removing Segregation From Alabama Constitution – Talking Points Memo

By CAMERON JOSEPH Published OCTOBER 13, 2017 6:00 AM

Alabama’s state constitution still contains the following language:
“Separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race.”

In 2004, a bipartisan coalition of Alabama leaders moved to eliminate sections of the state constitution mandating school segregation and poll taxes. They assumed it’d be an easy feat — until Roy Moore got involved.

Democrats and Republicans led by then-Gov. Bob Riley (R) worked together on an amendment to remove language in the state constitution mandating “separate schools for white and colored children” and allowing poll taxes, Jim Crow-era requirements that people to pay to vote that disenfranchised most black people.


The changes were purely symbolic — all of the state constitutional language had already been struck down by state and federal courts — but civil rights and business leaders saw it as a way to heal old wounds and make the state more attractive to big business.

The opposite happened instead, and Moore’s fierce opposition likely made the difference.

“He had a huge impact. It was a measure that was set to pass without much opposition and then because he got involved it changed the dynamic completely,” said Susan Kennedy of the Alabama Education Association, the state public teachers’ lobby that supported the amendment.