Not all wronged blacks had ally in NAACP

“[In 1958 in Monroe, North Carolina] two Negro boys aged seven and nine were playing house with a group of white kids their age….  One of the white girls and one of the Negro boys kissed. The little girl told her parents. Joined by his neighbors, the girl’s father went looking for the boy and his family with a gun. Both boys were arrested and sent to reform school indefinitely. As head of the local chapter of the NAACP, Robert Williams…  called in the national office. There followed a classic case of alienation between the Negro middle class and the Negro poor….

“Since the boys were deemed illegitimate, the national office had reservations about  involvement in their case, feeling that the boys’  families just weren’t the type of Negroes to shine a national limelight on….

“But an English reporter got wind of the case and decided to visit the boys in reform school. She brought along their mothers, and the photo of their reunion was shown in newspapers around the world. Demonstrations in support of the boys were held in Paris, Rome, Vienna and Rotterdam. … Fifteen thousand signatures demanding their release were… sent to President Eisenhower and [Gov. Luther Hodges]. The boys were released on February 13, 1959.”

— From “Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America” by Hugh Pearson (1994)

When Ike criticized Robert E. Lee, South rose again

“When President Eisenhower and Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery jocularly agreed that Generals Lee and Meade should have been ‘sacked’  for their blunders at Gettysburg, they committed themselves irrevocably to battle….

” ‘President Eisenhower,’ sputtered the Shelby, N.C. Star, ‘must have lost his mind.’

“[But] the Raleigh, N.C. News and Observer argued that Lee’s own view of his performance at Gettysburg was at variance with the ‘Southern Oratory’ used to defend it…. Lee himself had conceded afterwards: ‘It is I who have lost this fight.’

“It was, as North Carolina’s Durham Herald noted, ‘one of those tempests in a teapot in which Americans delight to engage. It gives them a chance to argue without having to decide, to debate without some vital result depending on the outcome.’ ”

— From Time magazine, May 27, 1957

Here’s a more recent view of Lee and Ike.

Ike invites Congressman under his umbrella

“Last week [President Eisenhower] flew to Charlotte, N.C. for ceremonies commemorating the signing of the Mecklenburg Declaration…. The trip’s real purpose was to assist Charles R. Jonas, 49, who is up for re-election as North Carolina’s sole Republican Congressman.

“Without any open endorsements or overt politicking, Ike managed to give Jonas his beaming blessing. The President, said a G.O.P. strategist, ‘is like a man with an umbrella—everyone wants to stand under it with him.’ ”

— From Time magazine, May 31, 1954

Jonas won a second term and served 10 terms in all before retiring.