Beyond the Cotton Field: How 'Racist'
Was Pre-Civil-Rights-Era America, Really?
American Thinker,
by
Selwyn Duke
Original Article
Posted By: rememberwhen,
11/2/2025 3:29:35 PM
The story of George Franklin Grant, a dentist, academic, and recreational golfer, is interesting.
This isn’t just because he, a Harvard professor, invented a wood-composite golf tee in 1899.
It’s that under many Americans’ conception of history, he shouldn’t even have existed.
You see, Grant was a successful black man in the U.S. almost 100 years before the civil-rights era or the birth of affirmative action.
Yes, you read that right. Grant was admitted to Harvard Dental School in 1868 and then became Harvard University’s first black faculty member in 1871.
Grant wasn’t alone, either (except in his golf-invention exploits).
By 1920, there were 3,560 black physicians in America, a figure including 65 black women.
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
BarryNo 11/2/2025 4:01:31 PM (No. 2025158)
Honestly, it was bad. My father (white republican) collected funds for Martin Luther King. That man had a lot of support among regular people, black and white, but if you got noticed, you risked everything! Talk about being canceled! Anyone in "white society" discovered helping MLK, lost their jobs and many had the Klan come for a late night visit, with burning crosses and to make an example of you. The North Won the Civil War, but then the South infiltrated and took over, starting with Woodrow Wilson.
Except for John Kennedy, every Democrat in the 20th Century was a backer of Jim Crow and the Klan. It wasn't until JFK's convention as the Democrat Presidential Nominee, that the Klan leadership lost its standing invitation to speak at Democrat Conventions.
It was a dangerous time to love freedom.
11 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
BarryNo 11/2/2025 4:09:00 PM (No. 2025159)
African American and European Americans had two distinct cultures, side by side. There was no mixing. That was strongly frowned upon. Both were successful and frankly, the African Americans had a more solid family structure than whites. I can recall some sociologist who was invited on to one of the late night talk shows in the sixties who was terrified because by his calculations, black would outnumber whites by the mid 1980s and also have equivalent financial status. It terrified him. Of course, we didn't have the Welfare state we have now, nor abortion, nor Islam, nor the drug problem. All of which descended on the black community over the next decade and 'solved the problem'.
8 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
DVC 11/2/2025 5:25:07 PM (No. 2025174)
LBJ started the steep downward spiral of American blacks with the creation of welfare, which required there to be no man in the house. So, they conformed to get free stuff, and once you're enslaved by free stuff, crime and drugs and societal degradation accelerates.
LBJ was extremely racist, and he was successful in creating the trap of government handouts which too many happily grabbed with both hands, giving up freedom and much of their humanity.
They willingly enslaved themselves to the dole.
13 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
bgarrett 11/2/2025 6:15:52 PM (No. 2025182)
who bought the first african slave sold in America? right. another african man. who owned the most slaves in louisiana? right again. another african man
9 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
red1066 11/2/2025 8:48:58 PM (No. 2025227)
There was also the story of a black woman in Charleston S.C. who before the Civil War managed to acquire several ships. Then used those ships during the Civil War to make a fortune. She made so much money, that when each of her sons married, she gave each son $500,000 as a wedding gift.
3 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
JimBob 11/2/2025 8:57:51 PM (No. 2025231)
I'm with #3.
In his book 'Basic Economics', Thomas Sowell stated that broken families are the surest indicator of poverty, Before the 'Great Society' welfare laws were passed, blacks had a higher rate of intact families than the whites, and were gaining on the whites financially.
I believe that Lyin' Lyndon Johnson, racist that he was, pushed through the welfare laws believing that it would break up black families so they could get 'free stuff', and they would then be dependent on the Federal government for generations to come. My understanding is that, discussing the welfare laws, Johnson said "I'll have those [Enwords] voting Democrat for the next Two Hundred Years!"
5 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 11/2/2025 9:32:00 PM (No. 2025252)
If things were so bad back then why are the black songs of the time much more melodic, beautiful, and tales of love, as compared to the ghetto crap of today where they sing about “capping cops,” pimping yo ho, and discordant thumping garbage. The truth is in the music.
4 people like this.
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Comments:
A totally politically incorrect story that sets out inconvenient facts about how destructive the civil rights movement has been to our country and blacks in particular.