Civil Rights
- Dr. Dickey agreed with Booker T. Washington’s slow, gradual pace toward racial equality. When discussing the militancy he encountered in Cleveland, Ohio at the American Council of Human Rights, he was disturbed at the militancy he witnessed. He was frustrated that “they didn’t want to take the hard, slow, lasting way; they wanted to pass a law.” He spoke frequently about racial equality being about familiarity and acceptance. It could not be forced. He recounted a story of travelling to New York and eating at an integrated restaurant where he would be seated in the main dining room but have to wait an hour before being waited on, another hour to be served, then his food arriving so salted as to be inedible, then having to pay double what white customers were charged. He ended, “That’s the way the North is integrated!”
- Dr. Dickey believed building relationships was the answer to ending discrimination. “I never thought it necessary for me to bring some high-powered lawyer down from New York to sue the City of Taylor…Just talked to the men I know and we have always gotten everything that I think we deserve.” Like Booker T. Washington, Dickey felt racial equity would come naturally once the races got to know one another. He said, “I have never thought that it was necessary to bring somebody in from Dallas, some professional “race-uplifter” to get lights or streets or anything like that.” He would be “ashamed of myself if somebody can come down here from New York and do more with the white people in Taylor than I could.”
- Dr. Dickey discussed some of the hardliners that he had met in Cleveland. Most “talked about what we got to fight for, what we got to go to court for, and it looks like nobody ever thought about going back to your communities and trying to persuade your communities, where you know folks and they know you, to let you participate a little further in the life.” Booker T. Washington had used a similar technique. When he needed something for Tuskegee, he would personally visit supporters both in the South and the North to discuss how they could help each other. He exchanged ideas with Andrew Carnegie and other captains of industry. More importantly, he spoke with President Theodore Roosevelt regarding issues important to African Americans and to advise the President on racial affairs. Both Dickey nor Washington believed uncompromising demands were ineffective.
- In regards to segregation, Dr. Dickey believed white people would simply grow tired of the inconvenience. He pointed out that most Jim Crow laws were “silly.” Whites got on buses first, then Negroes climbed over them to ride in the back. Why didn’t they just let black riders on the bus first? “Only recently Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby, Secretary of the Department of Welfare, has said that race discrimination costs the United States from $15,000,000,000 to $30,000,000,000 per year. Well, how many citizens get that much satisfaction out of discrimination? Just like anything else extravagant and foolish, it will slowly die a natural death.”
- Dr. Dickey participated in multiple professional organizations - The Lone Star Medical Association, The Southwest Medical and Dental Association, Tuberculosis Society, National Negro Chamber of Commerce - each of which was the colored version of a white organization. He hoped that one day the white doctors would invite the colored doctors to join them in collaboration. “The white doctors in Missouri, Arkansas and Florida have already taken in the Negro doctors. What’s more, after they did, they saw that the roof didn’t fall in. These advancements usually catch on from state to neighboring state. And its probably just a matter of time until the same things happens here.”
- Dr. Dickey referred to the Citizen of the Year award as “Democracy in action; it is Democracy such as we dream of and never expect to witness. It is the type of thing that perhaps the Totalitarian Nations will hate to hear. Perhaps America doesn’t realize, really, what her problem is. Her greatest problem, I imagine, is attempting to lead the world toward Democracy and having this Negro Problem on her hands here at home… Democracy is a thing of the heart. It is like religion, you can’t make a man have religion or pay him to have religion, it’s just something he feels. I believe in Democracy, and I think it is the most beautiful scheme of things…I am not impatient because the Negro does not share fully in it. I realize so well that day by day we grow into this thing and that year by year the Negro is sharing a little bit more and a little bit more.” Like Booker T. Washington, Dr. Dickey believed one of the primary struggles for African Americans has been to “prepare ourselves better for democracy, and to persuade white people not to put stumbling blocks in our path.”
- Though Dr. Dickey promoted gradualism, he thought the best progress made recently had been regaining the right to “vote in local affairs. “It gives us that fundament thing – protection before the law. Until we got the vote, no one paid much attention to the fact that a Negro had been beaten up. But it’s different now that we have some voice in the election of the people who make and enforce the laws. The ballot is the Negro’s open-sesame to the future. Too, the right to trial by mixed juries is another big advance.”
- One manner in which Booker T. Washington and Dr. James Lee Dickey were most similar was in their public humility. Both dressed humbly, neither lived lavishly, and each tended to be self-deprecating. Dr. Dickey asked in his acceptance speech if he looked sick because people were only this nice in a person’s obituary! Both of them beguiled whites by praising them before asking for assistance and they both presented their ideas as though the white community would benefit from the change even more than the Negroes.
- During his speeches and interviews, Dr. Dickey made several pointed remarks that revealed his distaste for WEB Du Bois. When remarking about the militant stance of the speakers in Cleveland, he emphasized scathingly that they wanted to fight and go to court, both of which echo Du Bois’ rhetoric. Again Dr. Dickey pointed out that he would never consider bringing in some “professional race-uplifter” from Dallas or a lawyer from New York to sue the city of Taylor. When he praised Democracy, he said that a Negro awarded by white people would be a “thing Totalitarian nations will hate to hear.” Considering that Du Bois had taken a shine to communism for several years, Dr. Dickey had distanced himself from DuBois’ way of thinking.