Harry Truman is trending on Twitter.
On this day in history, 1948, Truman desegregated the US Armed Forces.
Almost exactly one year earlier, he was the first president to address the NAACP. He said then:
We must not tolerate such limitations on the freedom of any of our people and on their enjoyment of basic rights which every citizen in a truly democratic society must possess. Every man should have the right to a decent home, the right to an education, the right to adequate medical care, the right to a worthwhile job, the right to an equal share in making the public decisions through the ballot, and the right to a fair trial in a fair court. We must insure that these rights -- on equal terms -- are enjoyed by every citizen. To these principles, I pledge my full and continued support.
Many of our people still suffer the indignity of insult, the harrowing fear of intimidation, and, I regret to say, the threat of physical injury and mob violence. Prejudice and intolerance in which these evils are rooted still exist. The conscience of our nation, and the legal machinery which enforces it, have not yet secured to each citizen full freedom from fear.
We cannot wait another decade or another generation to remedy these evils. We must work, as never before, to cure them now.
That was sixty years ago this week. Today Donald Trump tweeted (yeah) a ban on transgender soldiers, not acknowledging the 7000 soldiers this will affect, nor informing his generals of the decision beforehand. How far we have fallen.
