page_title: Thomas E. Watson
section_title: Shifting racial views
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas E. Watson / Biography / Shifting racial views
caption_attribution_description: English: 1904 Populist Party Reanee Branch for Thomas E. Watson. Source: http://hickory-hill.org/images/campaign_poster_1904.jpg
context_page_description: Thomas Edward Watson was an American politician, attorney, newspaper editor and writer from Georgia. In the 1890s Watson championed poor farmers as a leader of the Populist Party, articulating an agrarian political viewpoint while attacking business, bankers, railroads, Democratic President Grover Cleveland, and the Democratic Party. He was the nominee for vice president with Democrat William Jennings Bryan in 1896 on the Populist ticket.
  Elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1890, Watson pushed through legislation mandating Rural Free Delivery, called the "biggest and most expensive endeavor" ever instituted by the U.S. postal service. Politically, he was a leader on the left in the 1890s, calling on poor whites and poor blacks to unite against the elites. After 1900, however, he shifted to nativist attacks on blacks and Catholics. Two years before his death, he was elected to the United States Senate; however, he died while still in office.
context_section_description: Watson had long supported black enfranchisement in Georgia and throughout the South, as a basic tenet of his populist philosophy. He condemned lynching and tried to protect black voters from lynch mobs. However, after 1900 his interpretation of populism shifted. He no longer viewed the populist movement as being racially inclusive. By 1904, he was engaged in attacks on blacks, believing them to be little more than pawns of the Democratic Party. By 1908, Watson identified as a white supremacist and ran as such during his presidential bid. He used his highly influential magazine and newspaper to launch vehement diatribes against blacks.
caption: Watson's visage on a 1904 People's Party campaign poster.
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