What president has actually done the most for black people

[BaggerofTea]

I agree.

Ulysses S. Grant is probably the only president in history to actually recognize white terrorism for what it is as only a danger to black ppl but America itself...might be why he hardly gets any recognition, knowing how America for much of its existence has been lenient towards white domestic terrorism.

This as well


It's between Ulysses grant and baines johnson. Imo

 

[Tommy Knocks]

Lincoln and JFK both killed for their assistance. Also LBJ.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

The bar is really fukking low no matter who you go with.

The only reason I put Lincoln over Grant is because Lincoln set the stage. Grant was able to work in a nation where about half the population thought Black folk should have rights. Lincoln managed to fight his way to the presidency as an abolitionist in a country where only 10-15% of the population was abolitionist, and then forced through the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery forever when a large majority didn't even support it yet. He moved the Overton Window more than any other president in history. If Lincoln doesn't do that, the Radical Republicans never take power, the 14th and 15th Amendments never happen, and Grant is never in the presidency to begin with.

Didn't black folks like JFK?

Yea and rfk

RFK >>>>>>> JFK. Like @brandy said, JFK is basically commended solely for doing the bare minimum that he was supposed to do. Whereas RFK grew up a ton in the next 5 years and by the time he was running for president was easily the most pro-Black candidate ever.

 

[saturn7]

Not really fair to put Lincoln on that list because he did the most by default. Even if ending slavery was not the primary goal of the war from the Union perspective, Lincoln eventually (with the help of Frederick Douglas and others) accepted that the Union couldn't be re-united with slavery still being allowed.

Other than that I'd say LBJ passed the most impactful legislation for Black folks in recent history.

 

[Child_Of_God]

LBJ since he passed the civil rights and voting act as well as affirmative action and Medicaid.

Many people will say Lincoln because he ended slavery but he only did so out of necessity because he wanted to cripple the south so the Union can win. He even said that if he could win the war without freeing a single slave than he would of done that.

 

[UpAndComing]

"I’ll have those n*****s voting Democratic for the next 200 years"

--- Lyndon B Johnson

 

[Neo. The Only. The One.]

You'd have to say Lincoln. Regardless of what the reasoning behind it was, he laid the groundwork for black ppl to experience the "freedoms" that we experience today.

If there wasn't a Lincoln, never would have been a civil rights bill or the first black president Obama.

 

[Neo. The Only. The One.]

The bar is really fukking low no matter who you go with.

The only reason I put Lincoln over Grant is because Lincoln set the stage. Grant was able to work in a nation where about half the population thought Black folk should have rights. Lincoln managed to fight his way to the presidency as an abolitionist in a country where only 10-15% of the population was abolitionist, and then forced through the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery forever when a large majority didn't even support it yet. He moved the Overton Window more than any other president in history. If Lincoln doesn't do that, the Radical Republicans never take power, the 14th and 15th Amendments never happen, and Grant is never in the presidency to begin with.






RFK >>>>>>> JFK. Like @brandy said, JFK is basically commended solely for doing the bare minimum that he was supposed to do. Whereas RFK grew up a ton in the next 5 years and by the time he was running for president was easily the most pro-Black candidate ever.

How you talking about RFK and he never became president tho

 

[Captain Crunch]

Abe freed them
Lyndon made them citizens

Abe didn't "free" us though
When the Proclamtion was issued, the South already seceded and didn't follow Lincoln.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

How you talking about RFK and he never became president tho

The guy I was quoting said that Black folk liked both JFK and RFK. I was pointing out that RFK was far more down than JFK was, he just got murked before he got the chance to show what he could do.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

LBJ since he passed the civil rights and voting act as well as affirmative action and Medicaid.

Many people will say Lincoln because he ended slavery but he only did so out of necessity because he wanted to cripple the south so the Union can win. He even said that if he could win the war without freeing a single slave than he would of done that.

Please don't repeat these dumbass Confederate revisionist talking points.

Lincoln was an abolitionist who wanted to free the slaves his entire adult life. The REASON that the South seceded in the first place was because the country had just elected an abolitionist president. They knew he didn't have the political power to free the slaves right away, but they thought he was about to set the wheels in motion that would end slavery forever (by banning runaway slave laws and refusing to allow new slave states and thus increasing the voting block of free states until they had enough power to abolish slavery).

That shyt you mention about "not a single slave" ALWAYS gets taken out of context. What Lincoln was saying was that his duty as president to preserve the union overruled his personal desire to end slavery. If he had to choose between preserving the union and ending slavery, he would choose to preserve the union. But if he could have both, he'd take both, and that's what he did. Look at the whole quote:

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.

Lincoln had been an abolitionist for at least 30 years at that point, that's a matter of indisputable historical record from both his public statements and personal letters. No White man in 1863 is going to claim he wants to free the slaves unless he means it, because it wasn't that popular a position. He had to get lucky as fukk to win the presidency with only 36% of the vote, and he had to keep assuring White people in the North that he wasn't going to destroy the country in his fight to end slavery, because not enough White people had a hardon for abolition like that. That's why he printed shyt like that letter.

But he put his money where his mouth was. Not just his history of promoting the abolitionist cause, not just the Emancipation Proclamation. He worked his ass off to force the 13th Amendment through Congress and end slavery forever. That didn't help the war effort. That didn't buy him any favors. In fact, he had to cash in every favor he had and straight paid off some Congressmen to get them to support the Amendment. But he did it because he believed in it.

You can say that Lincoln was racist (he was, though not as much as most White people of his day), but you can't say he didn't want to end slavery. Ending slavery was part of his entire political career.

Abe didn't "free" us though
When the Proclamtion was issued, the South already seceded and didn't follow Lincoln.

You do realize that Abe defeated the South and forced through the 13th Amendment, right?

 

[Captain Crunch]

You do realize that Abe defeated the South and forced through the 13th Amendment, right?

That's because the South lost, and it's not like he "freed" us. We started joining the Union, and that's why the North "won". Even then, Lincoln wanted to send us "back to Africa", which we wanted no part of. Lincoln isn't this great figure for us.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

A few more quotes for people who doubt Lincoln on this one.

“What natural right requires Kansas and Nebraska to be opened to Slavery? Is not slavery universally granted to be, in the abstract, a gross outrage on the law of nature? Have not all civilized nations, our own among them, made the Slave trade capital, and classed it with piracy and murder? Is it not held to be the great wrong of the world? - speech in Springfield, 1854

“My ancient faith teaches me that ‘all men are created equal;’ and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.” - speech in Peoria, 1854

“This declared indifference, but as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I can not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world---enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites---causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty---criticising the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest…. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,---to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. ... What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? … What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded. We can not, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the south. … The doctrine of self government is right---absolutely and eternally right---but it has no just application, as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such just application depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man. … [If] the negro is a man, is it not to that extent, a total destruction of self-government, to say that he too shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man … that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that ‘all men are created equal;’ and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another. … Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify it. … Let us turn slavery from its claims of ‘moral right,’ back upon its existing legal rights, and its arguments of ‘necessity.’ Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it; and there let it rest in peace. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south---let all Americans---let all lovers of liberty everywhere---join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving.” - speech in Peoria, 1854

“You know I dislike slavery…. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes, and unrewarded toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet. … You may remember, as I well do, that … there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. The sight was a continual torment to me; and I see it something like every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. … You ought … to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the constitution and the Union. I do oppose the extension of slavery, because my judgment and feelings so prompt me… The slave-breeders and slave-traders, are a small, odious and detested class, among you...” - personal letter to his friend Joshua Speed, 1855

You enquire where I now stand. That is a disputed point. I think I am a whig; but others say there are no whigs, and that I am an abolitionist. … I now do no more than oppose the extension of slavery. I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it, “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.” - personal letter to Joshua Speed, 1855

“Not even you are more anxious to prevent the extension of slavery than I …. Of their [No Nothing Party] principles I think little better than I do of those of the slavery extensionists. Indeed I do not perceive how any one professing to be sensitive to the wrongs of the negroes, can join in a league to degrade a class of white men.” - personal letter to abolitionist friend Owen Lovejoy, 1855

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided.” - speech after being nominated as the Republican candidate for Senate in 1858

“[The Democratic Party wants to] dehumanize the negro—to take away from him the right of ever striving to be a man … to make property, and nothing but property of the Negro in all the states of this Union. … That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles—right and wrong—throughout the world. … The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. … It is the same spirit that says, ‘You work and toil and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.’ No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.” - Senate race debate, 1858

“I have always hated slavery I think as much as any abolitionist...."

“It does not stop with the negro. … So I say in relation to the principle that all men are created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can. … Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man—this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position. … Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal. … I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.” - speech in Chicago in 1860

“You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. For this, neither has any just occasion to be angry with the other.” - statement as president-elect in 1860

“[I am] an anti-slavery man… For my part I think I shall not, in any event, retract the Emancipation Proclamation; nor, as executive, even return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the acts of Congress.” - letter in 1863 to General Banks on whether he'd be willing to retract the Emancipation Proclamation in exchange for the surrender of the South

“I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel." - letter to Kentucky newspaper editor in 1864

“I wish all men to be free. I wish the material prosperity of the already free which I feel sure the extinction of slavery would bring. I wish to see, in process of disappearing, that only thing which ever could bring this nation to civil war.” - letter to a colleague in 1864

"Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope -- fervently do we pray -- that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether" - Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address in 1865

“Whenever hear any one, arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” - speech to the Union Army, 1865

Lincoln still had racist personal feelings, as to be expected of a White man who had grown up in the early 1800s. Very few White men in his age were truly anti-racist. And sometimes he said things in public to placate people, because his own personal views were too radical for most. But there is little doubt that he cared more about the fate of Black folk than any president before him, and no doubt at all that he absolutely opposed slavery.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

That's because the South lost, and it's not like he "freed" us. We started joining the Union, and that's why the North "won". Even then, Lincoln wanted to send us "back to Africa", which we wanted no part of. Lincoln isn't this great figure for us.

Breh, the 13th Amendment was forced through Congress months before the North won. Lincoln made it his priority totally separate from the war effort. Him bribing Congressmen to vote to end slavery was irrelevant to the war effort, it was based on his own personal belief about how wrong slavery was and wanting to end it forever.

You can't doubt that he was anti-slavery. This is fukking obvious from the entire historical record. If you want you can say he's not a great figure, but he should get credit for his legitimate opinions. He was far, far more anti-slavery than any president who came before him.

And the "back to Africa" shyt was deaded long before that. Lincoln thought that at one time because he didn't believe that free black folk and white folk could live in harmony considering the history. But the first experiments didn't work out and he was told by Black people that they didn't support the idea, so he gave up on it years before he pushed through the 13th Amendment.

 

[BaggerofTea]

Breh, the 13th Amendment was forced through Congress months before the North won. Lincoln made it his priority totally separate from the war effort. Him bribing Congressmen to vote to end slavery was irrelevant to the war effort, it was based on his own personal belief about how wrong slavery was and wanting to end it forever.

You can't doubt that he was anti-slavery. This is fukking obvious from the entire historical record. If you want you can say he's not a great figure, but he should get credit for his legitimate opinions. He was far, far more anti-slavery than any president who came before him.

And the "back to Africa" shyt was deaded long before that. Lincoln thought that at one time because he didn't believe that free black folk and white folk could live in harmony considering the history. But the first experiments didn't work out and he was told by Black people that they didn't support the idea, so he gave up on it years before he pushed through the 13th Amendment.

My only thing is that he viewed the ending of slavery as a necessarily rather than moral conviction.

Ulysses Grant understand the need to crush white supremacy in order to live out the true American ideal