What Woodrow Wilson Cost My Grandfather
As the historian Eric S. Yellin of the University of Richmond documents in his powerful book “Racism in the Nation’s Service,” my grandfather’s demotion was part of a systematic purge of the federal government; with Wilson’s approval, in a few short years virtually all blacks had been removed from management responsibilities, moved to menial jobs or simply dismissed.
.. What is most striking is his sense of humiliation; after all, he had spent his career in a time and place where, whatever was happening in the South, African-Americans were able to get ahead. And then, suddenly, with Wilson’s election, that all changed.