Woodrow Wilson — was the prominent American scholar who served as president of Princeton University from to , as governor of New Jersey from to , and as the 28th president of the United States from to While Wilson's tenure is often noted for progressive achievement, his time in office was one of unprecedented regression in racial equality, with his presidency serving as the lowest point of the nadir of American race relations.
Several historians have spotlighted examples in the public record of Wilson's racist policies and political appointments, such as the segregationists in his Cabinet. Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born and raised in the American South by parents who supported the Confederacy. His father, Joseph Wilson , supported slavery and served as a chaplain with the Confederate States Army. Joseph became a minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, and the family lived there until While it is unclear whether the Wilsons ever owned slaves, the Presbyterian Church, as part of the compensation for his father's services as a pastor, provided slaves to attend to the Wilson family.
According to Wilson, his earliest memory was of playing in his front yard as a three year old, hearing a passerby announce with disgust that Abraham Lincoln had been elected president , and that a war was coming. Wilson was an apologist for slavery and the southern redemption movement ; he was also one of the nation's foremost promoters of lost cause mythology.
Prior to entering politics, Wilson was one of the most highly regarded academics in America. Wilson's published works and area of scholarship focused on American history.
Though this fact received less attention both during and after Wilson's academic career, much of his writings are overtly sympathetic towards slavery, the confederacy and redeemer movements. One of Wilson's books, History of the American People , includes such observations and was used as source material for The Birth of a Nation , a film that portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as a benevolent force.
