Race and Liberty in America by Jonathan Bean

Author:Jonathan Bean
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780813173627
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky

Voice against Lynching (1937, 1940)

Hamilton Fish

Hamilton Fish (1888–1991) was best known as an anti–New Dealer (FDR mocked his opposition as “Martin, Barton, and Fish”). However, he was arguably one of the most important civil rights advocates in Congress from the 1920s to the 1940s. Fish took part in all three successful efforts by House Republicans, and a growing number of northern Democrats, to pass antilynching bills (1922, 1937, 1940), only to have them die at the hand of Democratic filibusters in the Senate.

Fish’s interest in civil rights stemmed partly from his family history: his great-grandfather helped to abolish slavery in New York, and his grandfather certified ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. During World War I, Fish volunteered to serve as an officer with the “Fighting 369th,” a colored unit better known as the “Harlem Hellfighters.” Fish’s wartime experience made him passionate about civil rights.

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Fish denounced Roosevelt for his poor civil rights record. Before he spoke on the floor for civil rights legislation, white southern Democrats hurled “racial slurs and hate-inspired invectives” at the New York congressman.3 Defenders of FDR often blame his poor record on the need to work with southern Democrats. However, even in his home state, FDR refused to encourage redistricting to allow African American representatives from Harlem. Nor did he speak out for mass repatriation of Jews from Nazi Germany, as Fish did repeatedly. Later, FDR accused Fish of delaying the call-up of troops with his amendment to ban discrimination in the military, but Fish stood firm and the amendment passed when he forced members of Congress to record their votes (the initial voice vote was against nondiscrimination).

In his memoir, Fish recalled: “While President Franklin Roosevelt told the American people that they had to fight a world war to protect democracy in Europe, he refused to support my efforts to extend the blessings of democracy to American blacks. Sadly, American blacks were learning what the people of Eastern Europe were to learn later: Roosevelt’s lofty promises about freedom and democracy were empty. He never had any intention of fulfilling those promises, because his interest was not in defending principles, but in political aggrandizement; and when it served his cause to say one thing and do another, that is precisely what he did.”4

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