A 1970 memo by now-Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), then a junior White House aide, has some blunt advice for superiors worried about the Nixon administration’s rocky relations with African-Americans.
”We generally think all white, ignore black. We fail to maintain basic contact with the black community. Such disregard may be politically useful. But it ignores a President’s responsibility to govern blacks as well as whites. And, of course, a black — as does anyone — resents being disregarded,” Mr. Alexander tells his boss, senior adviser to the president Bryce Harlow.
The memo, released Friday by the Nixon Library, goes on to list “SYMBOLS OF ANTAGONISM TOWARDS BLACKS,” starting with one key point: Then Vice President Spiro Agnew. “Perhaps he could avoid antagonizing blacks,” Mr. Alexander suggests.
Proposed solutions from Mr. Alexander include: “MAKE BLACK MORE VISIBLE AROUND WHITE HOUSE” (hire more African-Americans), “THINK BLACK” (“White House staffers do not “think black” when solving problems”) and one simple question: “Social events and Presidential ceremonies – Are blacks included?”
His penultimate point, “ELECT BLACK REPUBLICANS,” includes proposals to “pick one (at best two) Congressional seats for 1972 and begin to groom candidates, finance them, help them get properly districted seats.”
During Reconstruction, there were as many as seven African-American Republicans in the House of Representatives. But the plan to target two congressional seats in 1972 didn’t work out — no African-American Republicans were elected to the House of Representatives that year, though Sen. Edward Brooke was re-elected in Massachusetts.
It was 1994 before two African-American Republicans were elected to the House. The 112th Congress will also include two African-American Republicans.
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