Lily White Racism: William Henry Lewis vs Calvin Coolidge

"Calvin Coolidge made little attempt to cultivate Negro opinion; indeed, he seemed largely unaware of the existence of Negroes."

From the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation Spring 2011 Newsletter:
By Bill Brooks, Former Development Director and current Executive Director of the Henry Sheldon Museum 

(The Coolidge Foundation) -- As the 1924 presidential election approached, two lead­ing African American Republican Party leaders, longtime as­sociates of President Calvin Coolidge, were divided on their endorsements. William Clarence Matthews (1877 – 1928) endorsed Calvin Coolidge and William Henry Lewis (1868-1949) endorsed the Democratic Party nominee John W. Davis of West Virginia.

Both gentlemen were from the south – Lewis was born in Berkley, Virginia, the son of former slaves, and Matthews was born in Selma, Alabama. Lewis attended Amherst College from 1888-1992, while Coolidge was there from 1891-1895; they overlapped during one academic year. Lewis went on to Har­vard Law School 1892-1894, where Matthews was later an un­dergraduate from 1901-1905. Both Lewis and Matthews were spectacular athletes. Lewis played football at both Amherst and Harvard and then coached at Harvard from 1895 to 1906, and he trained Matthews, who excelled in both football and base­ball. They were loyal Republicans, the party of Lincoln, as were most African Americans of the period. [During their lifetimes they were identified as “colored” or Negro,” but I have chosen to use the modern identification of African American.]

The issue that led to their contradictory presidential en­dorsements centered on the party platforms, or rather their interpretations of those platforms, and the candidates’ positions on the Ku Klux Klan. Lewis concluded that the Republican Par­ty platform was not strong enough in its criticism of the KKK and censured President Coolidge for not being more public in denouncing the Klan. 

He issued a fifteen page criticism of the Republican Party platform and the President on the issue of the KKK. Lewis endorsed the candidacy of John W. Davis of West Virginia based on the Davis renunciation of the KKK in a speech by Davis on August 21, 1924 at Sea Girt, New Jersey: “If any organization, no matter what it chooses to be called, whether it be KKK or any other name, raises the standard of racial and religious prejudices, or attempts to make racial ori­gins or religious beliefs the test of fitness for public office, it does violence to the spirit of American institutions and must be condemned by all those who believe in American ideals.”

 Read more: https://www.coolidgefoundation.org/blog/1924-election-conflicting-minority-endorsements/