[Warning: Some language may be offensive]

Harry Truman's journey to signing Executive Order No. 9981 involved overcoming his deeply ingrained racial prejudices. Initially, he wasn't a champion of Black Americans, but his transformation from a segregationist to a civil rights advocate was truly astonishing.

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Born on May 8, 1884, nearly two decades after the Civil War's end, Truman grew up in a segregated town in Missouri, once a pro-slavery state. Both sides of his family were connected to slavery, with grandparents who owned slaves. His mother, Martha Ellen Young, held a strong dislike for President Abraham Lincoln.

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Truman's upbringing shaped his perspective, influenced by his mother's beliefs and the prevailing views of the South regarding the War Between the States and Reconstruction. He spent his early years in Missouri, where segregation was accepted without much questioning, and, again, his grandparents from both sides had owned slaves.

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Living in this former slave state, the small-town rural environment was marked by segregation and subordination for many citizens. Black residents faced segregation in their living arrangements, schooling, and access to stores. In his early letters, young Harry Truman openly acknowledged his prejudices against Black and Asian Americans, reflecting on his background and views at that time.

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In a June 22, 1911 love letter to his future wife, Bess Wallace, 27 year old Truman, serving as a corporal in the Missouri National Guard, penned a letter to his future wife, Bess Wallace.

“I think one man is just as good as another so long as he’s honest and decent and not a nigger or a Chinaman…”

https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/truman-papers/correspondence-harry-s-truman-bess-wallace-1910-1919/june-22-1911

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Truman's transformation, from farm boy raised by Confederate sympathizers to U.S. president who signed the order to desegregate the armed forces is vividly traceable in his letters and memoirs.

“ I am strongly of the opinion that negros (sic) ought to be in Africa, yellow men in Asia and white men in Europe and America.” Truman wrote in the same 1911 letter to his future wife.

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From the same letter:

“Uncle Will says that the Lord made a white man from dust, a nigger from mud, and then threw what was left and it came down a Chinaman. He does hate Chinese and Japs. So do I. It is race prejudice I guess. But I am strongly of the opinion that negroes ought to be in Africa, yellow men in Asia, and white men in Europe and America.”

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During Truman's tenure as a U.S. Senator, he composed a letter to his daughter, Margaret, dated April 7, 1937. In the letter, he recounted a dinner at the White House with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, unfortunately using a derogatory name to refer to the black waitstaff.

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“They gave a real good meal at the taxpayers[’] expense — tomato soup, fillet of flounder, roast turkey, string beans, pineapple salad, chocolate ice cream and cake, candy and little cafe noir afterwards.”

“All these things were in courses, deftly placed and removed by an army of coons..”

https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/truman-papers/correspondence-harry-s-truman-margaret-truman-1927-1964/april-7-1937?documentid=NA&pagenumber=1

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@Deglassco

Argh……

@Deglassco

I deleted several half-written sentences after that argh because they pointed to my own past experience. Didn’t want to draw focus to that. I totally agree with you, no sugar-coating. I heard plenty of that language and more in high school in Nashville. It was an integrated school. I had just been moved there from a lily-white town in the northeast. On the upside, I never would have interacted with that many Black folks if we hadn’t moved. On the down side…