Woodrow Wilson’s Legacy

PAW’s interview of A. Scott Berg ’71 on his new biography of Woodrow Wilson 1879 (Princetonians, Sept. 18) was flawed to the point of being shameful. Nowhere does PAW explore with Mr. Berg Wilson’s white supremacism that resulted in the expulsion of blacks from federal service and the imposition of segregation in all levels and offices of the federal government (and indeed Washington, D.C., itself). That Wilson himself was a racist is undisputed, but his presidency ushered in an era of racism and white supremacy that set us back decades and against which we continue to struggle. 

At least Mr. Berg gratuitously inserted this understatement of the year in one of his answers: “Sadly, his thinking seldom included African-Americans.” 

Has PAW ever exposed the immense disservice to the nation that Wilson’s white supremacism wrought upon us? If not, now would be a good time to balance one more laudatory article about Wilson with an article about the shameful legacy Princeton would like us to ignore.