Page "Warren G. Harding" Paragraph 82

Notably in an age of severe racial intolerance during the 1920s, President Harding did not hold any racial animosity, according to historian Carl S. Anthony.

In a speech on October 26, 1921, given in segregated Birmingham, Alabama Harding advocated civil rights for African Americans ; the first President to openly advocate black political, educational, and economic equality during the 20th century.

Harding went further and viewed the race problem as a national and international issue and desired that the sectionalism of the Solid South and black membership of the Republican party be broken up.

Harding, however, openly stated that he was not for black social equality in terms of racial mixing or miscegenation.

Harding also spoke on the Great Migration, believing that blacks migrating to the north and west to find employment had actually tempered race relations between blacks and whites.