Was President Theodore Roosevelt a Proponent of Civil Rights?

Was the Rough Rider President Theodore Roosevelt a proponent of civil rights? Unfortunately, in politics, as in relationships, often the answer is complicated.

For more interesting videos, please click to subscribe to our YouTube Channel:

Our blog contains our Amazon book links:

© Copyright 2022

We reflect on:
• How the Rough Rider regiment recruited both Harvard Ivy League patricians and North Dakota Rough Rider cowboys to fight in the Spanish-American War, participating in the charge up San Juan Hill with the black Buffalo soldiers.
• How Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt became President when William McKinley was assassinated.
• How his White House dinner with Booker T Washington was condemned by the Southern Press and Congressmen.
• How the Roosevelt Administration tried, and failed, in their efforts to combat peonage, or the convict labor system, which was comparable to the Nazi work camps in their brutality and mortality rates.
• Relationship between Theodore Roosevelt and WEB Du Bois, founder of the NAACP.
• How Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft were close associates when Taft was Secretary of War in his cabinet, but turned bitter rivals when Roosevelt campaigned against him as the candidate for the Progressive Bull Moose Party in 1912, which enabled Woodrow Wilson to be elected President.
• How the minor civil rights gestures of the Roosevelt Administration were overshadowed by the tragic Brownsville Affair, involving the black Buffalo soldier regiment.
• Whether Theodore Roosevelt’s statue should have been removed from the entrance to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
• Theodore Roosevelt’s autobiography, and biographies by Henry Pringle and Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Bully Pulpit.
• WEB Du Bois’ Autobiography, and his biography by David Levering Lewis.
• Up From Slavery, Booker T Washington’s autobiography.

Please support our efforts, be a patron, at:
Patrons can participate in online Zoom discussions of draft presentations we prepare for future YouTube videos.

As Socrates teaches us, the examined life is a life worth living. We would be fools if we did not desire to learn from our multitude of friends whose words live in the works of the classics that have survived from past centuries and millennia. The Stoic and moral philosophers of Greece and Rome saw philosophy as an evangelical enterprise, seeking to spread the joy of living a godly life for its own sake.

Our projects include:
Studying the teachings of the ancient and modern stoic and moral philosophers on how to better lead a godly life.
Studying ancient and modern history to learn moral lessons and learn how we can successfully live a life of faith in trying times, including civil rights and social gospel history.
Studying issues of morality in the Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Jewish traditions.

Everyone should join and participate in their local church. However, my internet persona is purposefully obscure so that I can be respectful of all genuine Judeo-Christian traditions, I do not wish to be disrespectfully polemical.
This is original content based on research by Bruce Strom and his blogs. Images in the Public Domain, many from Wikipedia, some from the National Archives, are selected to provide illustration. When images of the actual topic or event are not available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.

All events are portrayed in historical context and for educational purposes. No images or content are primarily intended to shock and disgust. The ancient world was a warrior culture out of necessity, to learn from the distant past we should not only judge them from our modern perspective but also from their own ancient perspective on their own terms.