Gore's support for voting rights
Gore believes that much of the reason his stance on civil rights, especially voting rights, did not raise greater opposition in Tennessee was Crump's use of the black vote in Memphis.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Albert Gore, October 24, 1976. Interview A-0321-2. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JAMES B. GARDNER:
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I understand that in that '57 legislation one of your primary interests
had been voting rights legislation. Wouldn't that have been an important
difference? Rather than broad civil rights support,
your emphasis, I understand, was on voting rights, which was a shade
different. It didn't involve quite the challenge to Southern society
that some people suspected.
- ALBERT GORE:
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Well, it did in some states. It didn't in Tennessee because . . . well,
Crump had built his power on black votes, on controlled black votes. But
blacks were voting in many parts of Tennessee, in most parts of
Tennessee. Many of them at that time were still voting Republican. But
voting rights was a defensible position. You could feasibly go before
most any audience and defend the right to vote, which I did.
- JAMES B. GARDNER:
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Was Tennessee that much more moderate than other Southern states?
- ALBERT GORE:
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Yes, it was.
- JAMES B. GARDNER:
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How do you account for the moderation?
- ALBERT GORE:
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Well, largely because of the prominence of Crump. He had built his power
on the black vote. Maybe it was extreme: there were stories of him
hauling them from Mississippi and voting, some of them, thirteen times.
But here was the most influential political leader in the state building
his power on the black vote. If Memphis could do it why couldn't
Nashville do it? Why couldn't they vote in Carthage, Tennessee, in the
Democratic primary? For a long time we had one man here, one black who
voted in the Democratic primary. But over a period of years . . .