Truman integrated armed services and other letters to the editors

Truman integrated armed services

One correction from Sunday, Nov. 11, letters column, "Check history to see who fostered racism." It was Democrat Harry Truman who integrated the armed services, not Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.

DR. GEORGE A. MILLER, Ooltewah


Christians equally guilty of atrocities

Regarding the letter "Bring punishment to the wrongdoer" (Nov. 8):

While I, likewise, do not condone the events of 9/11 (both of them), I would suggest that the writer set his Bible down for a while and pick up some history books.

The sad fact is that the people of the Middle East hate us. The other sad fact is that we gave them a reason to. From roughly 1095 to 1291, Christian armies attacked the Mideast in what is known as the Holy Crusades. These wars were not about saving souls, or connecting people. The Christian armies saw it as a way to get rich off the misery of others by raping, killing and looting. In other words, by breaking at least three or four commandments of a supposedly just and loving God.

It would seem that it is all right for Christians to commit atrocities, but not others. We don't like the payback. Perhaps the writer will find that the sword of vengeance is capable of being swung in both directions.

JIM PARRISH


Republicans fostered racism

I am writing in regard to the letter "Check history to see who fostered racism" (Nov. 11). As a teacher of history I always find it heartening to see someone using it to support a position, but as the old saying goes, a little bit of knowledge is dangerous.

At its inception the Republican Party was the purveyor of civil rights and would remain so until the party became the bastion of conservatism in the early 1900s. Between 1910 and the end of World War II, neither party gave much attention to civil rights or the plight of black America in general. Harry Truman, not Eisenhower, integrated the military, causing the creation of a conservative, anti-integration wing called the "Dixiecrats" for the 1948 election. The resulting split in conservative votes allowed Truman to be re-elected.

Wallace may have blocked the door, but Kennedy (a Democrat) sent troops to open it and Johnson (another Democrat and Southern to boot) did more for civil rights than any president before him. Because of that, the Democrats lost the South to Nixon's "Southern Strategy." Southern racists, opposed to civil rights, flooded into the Republican Party creating "the Solid South" and a conservative mainstay.

BILL WARD, Red Bank

Upcoming Events