# How radical would the idea of racial equality be in Abraham Lincoln's time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 7, 2015, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455 "2015-07-07T07:38:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455/21 "2015-07-08T17:49:52Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > ::Facepalm:: :rolleyes::dubious::mad: ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455/22 "2015-07-08T17:49:56Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > How is that racist? They were a band, they got paid. “Colored music” was all the rage. Today we call it "Jazz and Blues’. The term is certainly no longer Politically Correct, but it was fairly progressive in 1930’s. > > How many musicians are Black today? Are we racists as we expect them to sing and dance for us? :rolleyes: You are if you’re all like, “Hey! Colored musician! Put down your sandwich and entertain me this instant! Dance boy!” ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2015, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455/23 "2015-07-08T17:59:03Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > You are if you’re all like, “Hey! Colored musician! Put down your sandwich and entertain me this instant! Dance boy!” Does a **1930’s** sign that adverts “colored music” (meaning Jazz and Blues) indicate that in the slightest? ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2015, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455/24 "2015-07-08T18:29:05Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > How is that racist? They were a band, they got paid. “Colored music” was all the rage. Today we call it "Jazz and Blues’. The term is certainly no longer Politically Correct, but it was fairly progressive in 1930’s. > > How many musicians are Black today? Are we racists as we expect them to sing and dance for us? :rolleyes: Back in the 30s, the black musicians wouldn’t have been allowed to attend those very clubs they were hired to play in. Jim Crow was the norm then. Today, those black musicians can eat where they want, drink where they want, stay in any hotel they like. They couldn’t do that in the “progressive” 1930s. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2015, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455/25 "2015-07-08T18:45:08Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Back in the 30s, the black musicians wouldn’t have been allowed to attend those very clubs they were hired to play in. Jim Crow was the norm then. Today, those black musicians can eat where they want, drink where they want, stay in any hotel they like. They couldn’t do that in the “progressive” 1930s. In some places, yes. Lots more racism back then, even among well meaning dudes. But what has that to do with "'I’ve seen some movies where northerners would still expect blacks to sing and dance for them. Here in Kansas City one famous ballroom advertised it’s large “colored” band into the 1930’s." We\* still \*expect musicians and entertainers to sing and dance for us- that’s what their job is. “Colored music” simply meant Jazz & Blues (almost always played by Black musicians, sure). There’s nothing racist about hiring entertainers or advertising what kind of music it is. Certainly you’d expect quite a bit more racism in the 1930’s then, but this is hardly and example of it. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2015, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455/26 "2015-07-08T18:57:09Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > _Blazing Saddles_ had a scene with a similar theme and it was made in the 1970’s. And it took place in the 1870s. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2015, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455/27 "2015-07-09T19:19:58Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > :rolleyes::dubious::mad: :eek:😕:dubious::smack: ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455/28 "2015-07-11T06:10:47Z")
Actually, in the 20’s and 30’s, it was “Race music”. I have heard that, as late as the 1870’s, the educated opinion was that whites were the only true humans; others were some lesser species which, with some effort, could be made to speak and act as human. Do not know how wide-spread that idea was or if it was centered in Europe or the Americas. Against that background, any thought of equality would be exceedingly rare. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455/29 "2015-07-11T19:20:40Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > Actually, in the 20’s and 30’s, it was “Race music”. > > I have heard that, as late as the 1870’s, the educated opinion was that whites were the only true humans; others were some lesser species which, with some effort, could be made to speak and act as human. > Do not know how wide-spread that idea was or if it was centered in Europe or the Americas. > > Against that background, any thought of equality would be exceedingly rare. I’d like to see a cite for that. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455/30 "2015-07-11T20:30:42Z")
So would I - as I said, I had heard this - probably 30-40 years ago. I do not remember where aside from a printed source and I do not read stuff from outlandish sources (unless for giggle value, such as the Pit). ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2015, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455/31 "2015-07-11T22:33:47Z")
A quick Wiki on “Scientific Racism” > **[Scientific racism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism)** > > Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority. Before the mid-20th century, scientific racism received credence throughout the scientific community, but it is no longer considered scientific. The division of humankind into biologically distinct groups, and the attribution of specific traits both physical and mental Scientific rac... Voltaire had some interesting ideas. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2015, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455/32 "2015-07-12T11:12:50Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Most Northern abolitionists were racist and regarded blacks as inferior. As late as the 1840’s largely-abolitionist New England enacted criminal penalties for miscegenation. > > The notable exception was [John](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jso1YRQnpCI) [Brown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSSn3NddwFQ), the great abolitionist whom Ralph W. Emerson compared to the Christ. John Brown is an excellent example of how rare a belief in true equality was in mid-19th-C America. Unlike, say, the Massachssetts abolitionist leaders, Brown “put his money where his mouth was,” by founding New Elba, a farmer’s colony in the Adirondack region of New York State where blacks and whites lived as true equals in all respects. This was _radical_. (Brown was a terrible farmer, and the soil at New Elba was of poor quality, so the settlement failed after a couple of years – but as an experiment in neighbors respecting each other fully regardless of race, it was way ahead of its time.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2015, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455/33 "2015-07-12T18:10:42Z")
I think the question betrays itself. Does “anyone” include blacks? Because I’m sure that there were plenty of blacks who viewed themselves as equal to whites. They might not have had the opportunity to voice that opinion, but they still quite sincerely held it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-radical-would-the-idea-of-racial-equality-be-in-abraham-lincolns-time/724455.md?page=1)