President Taft Supports 'Lily-White' Movement, Purging Black Republicans from Southern Offices

President William Howard Taft, seeking to rebuild the Republican Party in the white South, supported the 'lily-white' movement that purged Black officials from Republican Party positions throughout the South. Taft appointed fewer Black men to federal positions than any president since before the Civil War. His policy of appeasing Southern white racism while withdrawing support from Black Republicans represented another step in the federal government's abandonment of Black political rights that had been underway since 1877.