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Perspectives

The Politics of Racism

For a century, between the Civil War and the Vietnam War, racism dominated politics in the Deep South. Politicians commonly used racial hatred, intimidation and fear to garner and maintain power. It was the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan, whose violence was aimed at African Americans and their sympathizers. The Klan terrorized the South with cross-burnings, arsons, hangings, bombings, kidnappings, and other forms of intimidation to keep blacks “in their place.”

Key Facts:

  • Huey Long championed programs that uplifted the poor, benefiting African Americans with education, healthcare, and economic relief.
  • Long defied the Ku Klux Klan, dismissing their threats and publicly condemning their influence in Louisiana politics.
  • He supported abolishing the poll tax, despite racist attacks accusing him of pandering to black voters.
  • Huey faced racist smear campaigns but remained focused on helping the disenfranchised regardless of race.

I’m for the poor man — all poor men, black and white, they all gotta have a chance. They gotta have a home, a job, and a decent education for their children. ‘Every man a king’ — that’s my slogan.

Huey Long (T. Harry Williams, Huey Long, p. 706)

Into that dangerous climate of hatred marched Huey Long, a friend of the poor, regardless of color. African Americans loved Huey because his programs for the poor helped them immensely. Before Huey Long, politicians neither cared about blacks, nor dared to help them for fear of retribution from the Klan.

A poor African American boy in Depression-era Louisiana.

A poor African American boy in Depression-era Louisiana. ~ Courtesy of LSU Libraries Special Collections.

To the outrage of the Klan and its sympathizers, Huey Long’s programs to uplift the poor meant that African Americans received public education, healthcare, tax exemptions, and the opportunity to vote free of charge (although the vast majority were still blocked from voting by local "Jim Crow" laws), among other benefits aimed at freeing the disenfranchised from the shackles of poverty. Black ministers even organized Share Our Wealth clubs among their congregations with Long’s blessing, a radical inclusion in 1930s America.

A man without personal racial prejudice, Huey Long had a different kind of problem with racism. Discrimination toward blacks was widespread among the voters, and sometimes a central issue in his opponents' campaigns. The powerful Ku Klux Klan always opposed Huey and tried to pressure others to vote against him. Especially damaging were opponents' newspaper cartoons of Huey with his arms around black folks, promising them schools and economic benefits.

In 1934, the Klan’s “imperial klonvocation” in Atlanta denounced Huey Long for having “an un-American attitude” toward “authority.” When the organization’s leader vowed to campaign against Long, Huey responded from the Senate press gallery, “Quote me as saying that that Imperial bastard will never set foot in Louisiana,” and suggested that the man risked receiving a taste of the Klan’s own treatment by leaving the state with “his toes turned up.”

In a cartoon from a broadsheet sponsored by "thousands of Louisiana white patriots", Huey Long is criticized for advancing programs that benefited African Americans. The text of the broadsheet focuses on the dangers of abolishing the poll tax and refers to black voters as the "mongrel vote".

In a cartoon from a broadsheet sponsored by "thousands of Louisiana white patriots", Huey Long is criticized for advancing programs that benefited African Americans. The text of the broadsheet focuses on the dangers of abolishing the poll tax and refers to black voters as the "mongrel vote". ~ Courtesy of the State Library of Louisiana.