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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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The people in control of Southern politics today haven't even any illusions of being great wealth removed from the masses, or even desiring to be. There may be a psychological problem that they are better than the lower classes. I think they are of the people - they are not just looking down to help the people. The only thing they can be superior to is the blacks, they are so low down among the people.

Take a man like old Gene Talmadge. He was the lowest type of cracker. I'm no judge of Theodore Bilbo, as I didn't know him so well, but he might have been like that also. For them there is a psychological basis of having no real superiority of any kind. I don't think they must feel superior to someone, but I do think it's natural for them to enjoy the sense of superiority to some things and the Negro is the only thing they can be superior to. They wouldn't recognize that themselves. Nobody could. The men who dominate over the women in a family don't realize that they're getting the same kind of satisfaction in making somebody step around. They don't realize it and think they're doing it for the best interest of all concerned. It's almost impossible for a domineering personality to get the grace to recognize that he is domineering. If they recognize it, perhaps they'll see it isn't so good and will repent of





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