African Americans, Theodore Roosevelt, and Gilded Age Patronage Battles

During the first term of his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt found himself involved in several public battles involving his appointment of African Americans to political office in the South. In 1902 he appointed William D. Crum as collector of customs for Charlestown, South Carolina. In 1903 he closed a Mississippi post office in retaliation when white townspeople persecuted their Black postmistress. In these cases, Black Americans lauded the president and his support for their rights. This paper examines these episodes in some detail as one phase of the Black freedom struggle in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Although Roosevelt was by no means a consistent civil rights advocate, the paper argues that in these instances Roosevelt helped keep open a “door of hope” for Black opportunity at a time when most white Democrats were trying to shut it completely. The paper draws on African American newspapers, political writings, and memoirs as well as Roosevelt sources to analyze these episodes. Thus, Black perspectives, stories, and agency are foregrounded in an attempt to make sense of the fate of African American rights at this fraught moment in American history.