Commentary
Abdul Karim Bangura et al.*
Introduction
“President Harding’s soul was humanly right. He had a deep sense of human love. He desired to see all men free and happy. He prayed for that. He loved peace and justice.”
—Marcus Garvey, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey:
Or, Africa for the Africans (1967:51)
During the spring 2013 semester, a Howard University undergraduate student in my Introduction to Research in Political Science course brought up the topic that while she was conducting her first of two Historically Black College and University (HBCU) research projects, she came across my article titled “Barack Obama Is Not the First Black President,” which first appeared in The Patriotic Vanguard on November 13, 2008 (http://www.thepatrioticvanguard.com/article.php3?id_article =3352) and subsequently republished in more than a hundred media sources around the world. The student proceeded to say that she did not know that Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the “real first Black President” of the United States and lauded the evidence I presented to support my assertion. Other students joined the discussion and one asked the following poignant question: “But what did President Harding do for African Americans?” My response was that I had not done research on that aspect but that during my ongoing research for an essay on a linguistic analysis of Marcus Mosiah Garvey’s African-centered conceptualizations of Africa in his speeches and writings, I have come across many positive statements by him concerning Harding’s policies that he perceived to be pro-African American (as the quotation above indicates). I added that for Garvey, who was one of the most revolutionary and outspoken critics of United States Presidents and their policies, to hold Harding in such high regard, then Harding and his policies must have been good for our people. I then challenged the students in the class to conduct research on Harding’s pro-African American policies and state their findings in a two-page double-spaced typed paper for extra credit. I promised them that I will include their findings in an article and publish it under our names. The names of the students who took up the challenge appear at the end of this article.
There were many findings from the students’ research, but only some are presented in this article for the sake of brevity. The selected findings have been subsumed into the issue areas discussed in the following sections.
Indeed, during the 1920s, Harding became very popular among African Americans. Historically speaking, his short term as President might have been the most influential in the Black community, as he used his position as much as the American political system could allow him to help improve the condition of African Americans. It is therefore only fitting that he was raved by the African American community as one of the greatest people on earth
Harding was able to do more for African Americans than any other President before him because he was the first sitting senator (1915-1921) to be elected President and the first senator to be elected by a majority popular vote. During his time in the Senate, he was called the “harmonizer” because of his ability to bring people together.
The experience of growing up with the realities of a racially charged America, throwing its insecurities and prejudices at a person, was enough to possibly soften one’s heart, or, if not, at least be the catalyst to the introspection needed to make sound judgments and decisions in the face of blatant and unceasing discrimination. Harding chose the latter.
Anti-lynching
In the early 1920s, lynching seemed to be an everyday reality for African Americans, especially those in the South. The accelerated growth of the Ku Klux Klan after the release of Birth of a Nation made lynching a dark cloud that loomed over the lives of all African Americans. Many politicians, including Harding, saw this situation as evil and worked hard to end it. Harding also had to respond to the pressure by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to crack down on lynching.
As a result, Harding openly supported the famous Dryer Bill introduced in Congress in 1921. The goal of Congressman Leonidas Dryer’s bill was to provide equal protection in every state and to make lynching a punishable crime. Harding pushed very hard for the passage of the bill, arguing that the United States needed “to wipe the stain of barbaric lynching from the banners of a free and orderly, representative democracy.”
The bill was considered a blow to white supremacy in America. Although many African Americans and whites supported the anti-lynching law, Congress relentlessly tried to evade its passage. When Harding noticed this, he suggested a compromise by pushing for the creation of an interracial commission that would subsequently develop policies and encourage national support for the improvement of race relations. During this time, the Dyer Bill was still being moved in Congress. It was passed by the House of Representatives on January 26, 1922. However, the Judiciary Committee refused to support it. It was not until a special session of Congress was convened in October that the bill was passed on to the Senate. It was evident that the majority Republican Senate was willing to pass the bill that their President supported wholeheartedly. So the Democratic minority of the Senate planned a filibuster, which forced the Republican caucus to drop the Dyer Bill. Despite Harding’s failure to implement the anti-lynching law, his public support for equality for African Americans encouraged national support for race relations.
Social Welfare
In response to reports that indicated that about 80 percent of American women did not receive adequate prenatal care, Harding did the honors of supporting the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act with his signature on November 21, 1921. This act was the nation’s first national government social welfare program that was aimed at making sure all children’s illnesses were treated and that all children had access to a medical doctor. The law granted matching federal funds to states for maternal and child care.
The act affected African American women the most. Many of these women were in the beginning not fans of the law, as it allowed the government to enter their homes and check on their children. At the time, many of them saw the law as invasive; as they realized its benefits, they came to see it as Harding’s way of caring enough about children to use federal funds to ensure their wellbeing. In the long-run, the act helped over 3,000 minority children, benefiting the African American community immensely. Harding understood the importance of making sure that every child, no matter his/her race or ethnicity, had somewhat of an equal opportunity at a quality life.
Economy
In the midst of nationwide economic disparity, Harding was also in office during the Great Migration. It was impossible for him to ignore the millions of African Americans that relocated from the South to the North and West. In 1922, he enacted the Fordney-McCumber Tariff which raised American taxes to protect factories and farms. A goal of the tariff was to protect American goods and the Americans that produced these goods. The industrialization of the North alongside the increased African American population boosted Congress’ support for business.
As a result, many jobs were created for all Americans. With specific attention paid to factories and other industrial jobs, the North was booming with employment opportunities. These jobs were also made available to soldiers returning from World War I. Thus, another goal of the tariff was to make the United States as self-sufficient as it was before the war. Between 1921 and 1922, Harding lowered the unemployment rate from 11.7 percent to 6.7 percent.
Harding was also the first to contract a federal budget. He created the fiscal system with mechanisms that were similar to private business in order to regulate government spending.
Workers’ Rights
Harding thought that the 12-hour shifts were unfair, especially in terms of hard labor jobs such as mining or laying railroad tracks. The population that was most affected by the practice was the African American community. Harding worked tirelessly to ban the regulation and lessen the time to eight hours and a six-day workweek. He knew that the judge on the case was going to be Judge Elbert H. Garry, a man who owned a lot of shares in the steel industry, which means that the more workers slaved, the more money he earned. Despite these odds, Harding proceeded to try and make his vision of eight-hour shifts a reality.
In the end, Judge Garry ruled against Harding’s repeal and the 12-hour work days remained the law. Still, this was one more instance that Harding advocated for a right that would have benefited the African American community, even though he did not publicly state his main reason for pushing the repeal.
United States’ Occupation of Haiti
During his campaign for the presidency in 1920, Harding appealed to African Americans by speaking against the United States’ occupation of Haiti. He stated during one of his campaign speeches that “Practically all we know is that thousands of native Haitians have been killed by American Marines, and that many of our own gallant men have sacrificed their lives at the behest of an Executive department in order to establish laws drafted by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy.... I will not empower an Assistant Secretary of the Navy to draft a constitution for helpless neighbors in the West Indies and jam it down their throats at the point of bayonets borne by US Marines.”
Harding subsequently promised the ejection of troops from the West Indies. His encouraging words on the Haitian situation were the beginning of an initiative to end the United States’ control in South America that was implemented under the previous Wilson Administration.
Tangible Gestures
Along with the material aid Harding provided for African Americans, there were also tangible gestures that exemplified his belief in the equality for Africans. On October 21, 1921, he was invited to speak in Birmingham, Alabama for the city’s 50th anniversary. It was there that he was declared to be the first President to publicly speak out against the lynching of African Americans in the South. His speech not only shocked, but also quieted the room full of Southern Democrats. He began his speech by proclaiming that the Northern Migration of African Americans during post-World War I was damaging to the South’s economy, implying that African Americans were essential and of dire importance to the businesses of the United States.
Harding gave a touching tribute to African Americans who served in World War I, stating that he was told by an African American soldier that his Army experience made him realize, for the first time in his life, that the individual freedoms that the American flag represents also apply to African Americans. Harding did not stop there; he also called for equality of educational breaks for all Americans.
In the heart of the segregated South at a time when the Ku Klux Klan had its largest membership, Harding made the following statements to a mixed-raced audience: “Let the black man vote when he is fit to vote; prohibit the white man voting when he is unfit to vote” and “the black man should seek to be, and he should be encouraged to be, the best possible black man.” Pursuing this line of reason further, he also spoke of the need to eliminate limitations on opportunities for African Americans. He said: “We cannot go on, as we have gone for more than a half century, with one great section of our population, numbering as many people as the entire population of some significant countries of Europe, set off from real contribution to solving our national issues, because of a division on race lines.”
W. E. B. Du Bois summarized Harding’s speech as having three main demands for Blacks: that they have voting rights, education, and economic justice. Du Bois applauded Harding for taking a stand, despite the possible, most likely violent, repercussions of his words. Du Bois wrote that Harding “made a braver, clearer utterance than [any other President] ever dreamed of.”
Of course the white community was not nearly as thrilled as the African American community. Senator Harrison of Mississippi criticized Harding for trying to elevate the African American’s social status to that of a white man and Senator Watson of Georgia slammed Harding for planting “fatal germs in the minds of the black race.” Many believed that Harding was misleading the African American community and was dishonest about his intentions. They thought that his words were empty, but Harding proved true to his statements. In his speech, he spoke out against lynching; and even when he was no longer staring out at those African American faces in Birmingham, he stayed true to his beliefs. As mentioned earlier, he fully supported the Dyer Bill, a bill created by Congressman Leonidas Dyer’s to make lynching illegal and punishable by law.
Harding’s fight for African American suffrage is another example of his efforts to diminish prejudice against African Americans. On October 26, 1921, he called for the ending of a “lily-white” or all white Republican party. Although he admitted that the party will maintain white leadership, he also advocated that Republican leaders must not “inconsiderately wave aside [African Americans] who have hereto carried the party banner.” Additionally, he encouraged Southern states to allow African Americans to vote.
As a public show of his African American patronage, Harding appointed 140 African Americans to government offices, including the State Department, Treasury, Justice, Navy, Post Office, and Commerce. For example, his appointment of Walter L. Cohen of New Orleans, Louisiana as comptroller of customs was hailed by the New York Times as “one of the most lucrative federal offices” in the United States. When the politically powerful Klu Klux Klan tried to discourage Harding’s policies for African American suffrage and patronage, he publicly attacked the racist group for its anti-African American sentiments.
Harding continued to speak out about his belief in equality in all aspects, including culture, knowledge, importance, and spirituality. Twice during his campaign for presidency and once afterwards, Harding met with James Weldon Johnson of the NAACP, who advised him on race related issues.
Conclusion
Harding saw things that needed to be changed and tried to change them. He did not just try to look out for a certain group of Americans. He tried to improve the condition of all Americans, no matter their race or ethnicity. He was far from perfect, but he was unquestionably one of the most influential Presidents to the African American community to date.
Health care, education, welfare, employment, etc. are not solely African American issues; nonetheless, the history of African Americans in America is qualitatively and quantitatively different from the histories of all other groups, thereby making certain human and political issues hyper-sensitive within the context of the African American community. To not specifically address these issues and how they directly affect African Americans is a disservice to them and a manifestation of petty political concerns with campaigning, perks, charisma, and not policy and reformation. Harding helped to create a transient agenda-setting and electoral strategy that catered somewhat to people of low and middle socioeconomic statuses and people of color.
While history may not fully recognize it, in many ways, Harding showed himself to be the first Black President, both in his background and in his support of a very unpopular cause: equality for African Americans. Despite Obama’s appearance, he has yet to show the level of support even Harding showed during more challenging times, and this should certainly be considered when we proudly assert that “Obama is our first Black President.”
References
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URLs:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/harding-publicly-condemns-lynching
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-strange-presidency-of-warren-g-harding#axzz2PvOM2KBj
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http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1129
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*Et al. refers to those students who took up the challenge to explore the policies of President Harding: Aliece Hinton, Brandon Dean, Corbin Seward, Dara Jones, Edgar Reese, Victoria Phillips, Jeffrey Mullins, Kareem Farakhan El, Kevin Davenport, Talitha Halley, Mitchell Taylor, Brandon Faulkner, Jahmaal Gayle, Lindsey Ferguson, Raina Baker, Adrian Walton, Aja Kennedy, Andre Acloque, Anthony Driver Jr., Brittney Ewing, Grady Crosby III, Kailyn Stuckey, Keyana Hammonds, Khyla Bailey, Nyshaun Brown, Orlando White, Rasheed Goldring, Raven Taylor, and Zha’Mari Hurley.
Abdul Karim Bangura (photo) is a professor of Research Methodology and Political Science at Howard University. He is also a researcher-in-residence of Abrahamic Connections and Islamic Peace Studies at the Center for Global Peace in the School of International Service at American University. He holds a PhD in Political Science, a PhD in Development Economics, a PhD in Linguistics, a PhD in Computer Science, and a PhD in Mathematics. He is the author of 70 books and more than 600 scholarly articles. One of his recent books titled African Mathematics: From Bones to Computers (2012) is the winner of the prestigious Cecil B. Curry Book Award for 2012. Bangura is fluent in about a dozen African and six European languages, and studying to increase his proficiency in Arabic, Hebrew, and Hieroglyphics. He is the recipient of many teaching and other scholarly and community service awards. He is also a member of many scholarly organizations and has served as President and then United Nations Ambassador of the Association of Third World Studies.
President Warren Gamaliel Harding.
Editor’s Note: Listen to Professor Abdul Karim Bangura speak on Dr. Martin Luther in this Voice of America video clip:
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