In Honor of Black History Month and President's Day

I bring you a history of Presidential racism.

Richard Nixon:

"In previous tapes released by the National Archives, Nixon told Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, "Henry, let's leave the niggers to Bill and we'll take care of the rest of the world" while working on his first presidential address to Congress. Nixon repeatedly referred to blacks as "niggers" and "jigaboos" in other conversations with Kissinger. Nixon later complained to Erlichman that Great Society programs were a waste "because blacks were genetically inferior to whites."

Ronald Reagan:

"One of the things I remember about Mr. Reagan's 1980 presidential run was that his first major appearance in the general election campaign was in Philadelphia, Miss., which just happened to be the place where three civil rights workers ? Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney ? were murdered in 1964.
During that appearance, Mr. Reagan told his audience, "I believe in states' rights."

How about this for an imaginative use of "codewords" to inflame the racists.
"Cadillac Queens.Over a period of about five years, Reagan told the story of the "Chicago welfare queen" who had 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards, and collected benefits for "four nonexisting deceased husbands," bilking the government out of "over $150,000." The real welfare recipient to whom Reagan referred was actually convicted for using two different aliases to collect $8,000. Reagan continued to use the story after he was told it was false"

Woodrow Wilson:

It was Inauguration Day, and in the judgment of one later historian, "the atmosphere in the nation's capital bore ominous signs for Negroes." Washington rang with happy Rebel Yells, while bands all over town played 'Dixie.' Indeed, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who swore in the newly elected Southern president, was himself a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. Meanwhile, "an unidentified associate of the new Chief Executive warned that since the South ran the nation, Negroes should expect to be treated as a servile race." ------ This is not an alternate world scenario imagining the results of a Strom Thurmond victory in the 1948 election; it is the real March 4, 1913, the day Woodrow Wilson of Virginia moved into the White House.

"Woodrow Wilson was a staunch white supremacist.
While president of Princeton University, Wilson discouraged blacks from even applying for admission.

When a delegation of blacks protested his discriminatory 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 New York Times that "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.” [30]. In short, Wilson accepted the Southern version of Reconstruction with Southern whites being victimized.

George Washington:

"Not only did Washington have slaves, he did little to free them during his lifetime. As the country's first president, he also did not do anything to abolish the institution of slavery. "