Grant is super fascinating. I don’t know if anyone watched the three part history channel special on him but, if not, it’s well worth watching. His views on race definitely evolved over time and he was one of the strongest civics rights presidents we’ve ever had.
— His parents were abolitionists but he fell in love with the daughter of a plantation owner. His parents refused to come to the wedding.
— After he left the Army for the first time he struggled financially. His father in law gave him a slave and he was criticized by his neighbors for working in the field alongside his slave who he freed at the height of his economic troubles.
— During the war he had a high opinion of black soldiers fighting for the North. He also had a Native American General on his staff.
— After Lincoln was assassinated Grant was furious at Johnson for refusing to send troops to protect black Americans who were being killed in the South. As with the Tulsa Massacre, a lot of these incidents were called “riots” and he was having none of that, saying that American Citizens were being massacred and that the federal government had a responsibility to act.
— He didn’t really want to be President but knew that no one else was going to carry on Lincoln’s vision if he didn’t step up.
— Once in office he declared martial law and sent federal troops in to protect black Americans and to enforce reconstruction.
— He signed the naturalization act granting freed slaves citizenship, helped pass the 15th amendment and was in favor of women’s suffrage. His feeling was that we as a nation had not lived up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and that all citizens should have true equality.
— He firmed the DOJ and sent spies and more troops to break up the klan. He didn’t give a fuck of Ilan leaders ere prominent lawyers, mayors, etc. Prosecute them all he said.
— He appointed black Americans to federal positions.
— Frederick Douglass said Grant, even more than Lincoln, was the single strongest advocate for civil rights. “To Grant more than any other man the negro owes his enfranchisement and the Indian a humane policy. In the matter of protection of the freedman from violence his moral courage surpassed that of his party, hence his place at its head was given to timid men, and the country was allowed to drift, instead of stemming the current with stalwart arms.”
Douglass’s last point there highlights the true tragedy of the postwar period and pretty much leads in a straight line to the systemic racism that exists to this day. Gent remained a staunch advocate of civil rights his entire life but by his second term white Americans in both the North and the South were turning on him. Facing a backlash that would inevitably lead to openly racist politicians sweeping into office he had to ease off the gas. Grant, even more than Lincoln, had a vision for America with true equality for all Americans but white America wasn’t having it. After Grant institutionalized racism became the norm.
Adding insult to injury, Grant’s reputation was tarnished by the lost cause movement. Grant literally saved the Union and had a vision that rivaled the founding fathers for our country and he’s been written off by history as a corrupt drunk butcher.
Sorry for the sidebar about another dead white guy but Grant deserves credit for his record on civil rights and our current problems can be traced back to those critical years after emancipation when we as a national stood at a crossroads and chose the wrong fucking path.
