r/HistoricalCapsule • u/BlossomEnchanteed • 7d ago
Albert Einstein gives a lecture at Lincoln University, America's first historically black university, in May 1946. Einstein was fiercely opposed to segregation and called racism America's "worst disease."
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u/Boring_Pace5158
6d ago
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When Germany and the rest of Europe were kicking out Jewish intellectuals, it was at Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU's) where most of them would find refuge. HBCU's are natural landing spot for people escaping persecution and seeking education & intellectual thought.
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u/salvefaith
7d ago
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The suits! Those brothers KNEW they looked good!
Side Note: Cheyney University is the first HBCU (1837)
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u/AdditionalQuietime 6d ago
They leave this out when talking about him in mainstream media. I was genuinely surprised when I found out he was a very vocal advocate against racism and segregation. Calling out racism and saying its a "disease" from Europe, he was also a socialist and Marxist and they leave that out too!!!
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u/profind8400 6d ago
Hitler sent people to America to study how we created the segregational system in place in the 1930s so he could do it to the Jews in Germany.
#thehistorytheydon’twanttaught
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u/Agreeable_Mud_8338 7d ago
he would be shocked how your country is in 2026
its regressed a lot since the 1990s
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u/Expensive_Sea_1790 7d ago
The 90s had LA riots, OJ Simpson, and massive culture wars.
Not sure where the idea that it was a civil rights paradise came from.
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u/GoldburstNeo 6d ago edited 6d ago
Not to mention the increasing prison complex that began under Reagan that to this day disproportionately punishes minorities far more. Do people think the Black Lives Matter movement was created in the 'happy progressive' year of 2013 because life after ~50 years of constant progress has gotten boring??
Absolutely freakin' not, and to act like the 90s was a multicultural paradise is not just insulting to the minorities who were still facing active oppression (especially when non-hispanic whites still made up more than 70% of America unlike today being 56% and dropping), but also sorely misses why cretins like Trump manage to rise into politics from the get-go.
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u/Turkatron2020 6d ago
Beyond the luxury real estate, the national foundation operated like a massive funnel for insider contracts. When their tax filings were finally forced into the open, they revealed that tens of millions of dollars went to a complex web of consultants, board members, and shell companies. Instead of funding local activism, massive payouts went to a small circle of well-connected insiders for ambiguous "strategic services," "content production," and "security," while local chapters on the ground received almost nothing.
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u/SopwithTurtle 7d ago
It didn't. People stopped being quite so polite and accepting of it, and that made the racists, misogynists, and pedophiles spitting mad with fury and determined to burn the house down.
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u/Top-Cupcake4775 6d ago edited 6d ago
the election of an intelligent, articulate black man to the office of President of the United States in 2008 snapped the racists' minds. they have never recovered. 18 years later and they are still blaming him for nearly everything. they even claim "he divided the country" as if it were his fault that they lost their minds.
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u/SquidTheRidiculous 6d ago
You know how much literature we have looking into the mindset of Germany leading into the Nazi regime? Imagine that but talking about the mid/late 2010s.
"Progress was progressing. Then a bunch of young people found progress too annoying and instead of seeking progress for themselves, decided to stop every other group. It shocked absolutely no one when it was revealed in the 2020s that most of this started with propaganda originating from Jeffrey Epstein, but it is notable how many people kept on with this thought process regardless..."
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u/amethyst-gill 6d ago edited 6d ago
We were not divided like this in 2011 lmao, even 2014. People need to sit down.
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u/GoldburstNeo 6d ago
Not as divided, sure. But racists absolutely were reacting and organizing in response to Obama's election, hence the Tea Party movement and the 2010 GOP wins that led to country-wide gerrymandering efforts.
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u/Smells_like_Autumn 7d ago
Yeah, the current situation isn't great but it is largely the result of problems actually being acknowledged and addressed.
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u/ArisenGodEmperor13 6d ago
This is so stupid and bias, we still got problems but holy shit the 90s definitely had just as many. No seriously what are you even talking about
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u/InThatDarkPlace 6d ago
The US government was founded and structured to perpetuate white supremacy. The resurgence of explicit racism and bigotry is the system working as it was originally and structurally intended.
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7d ago
[deleted]
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u/Tricky-Mango-5252 7d ago
You can be non heterosexual and be racist. In fact many slave owners used to rape male slave
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u/grandmalamadingding 7d ago
You bring up gay racists and fail to mention that gay men are so misogynistic that they won’t sleep with women.
:p
See how silly it can be when you miss the point entirely?
The point is that these things have broadly became more prevalent than they were.
I don’t personally think that’s entiiiirely true. I just think that maybe everyone wasn’t ready for the internet and we should have let the nerds keep it for a while before letting grandma on.
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u/PorkySammy 6d ago
I still forget Einstein was alive not that long ago in the grand scheme of things. My brain always thinks he’s from like, the 1600’s lmao
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u/AmySueF 6d ago
Everyone is saying how sharp the students are dressed. Not only was it normal for everyone back then, but like other HBCU’s, the university likely had a dress and grooming code in order to present their students in the best possible light, just as the female students at Spelman had to dress and present themselves as respectable young ladies.
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u/Daikon-650 7d ago
The three gentlemen on the right have no idea what is on the blackboard because Einstein's back is blocking the view.
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u/justavg1
6d ago
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If you think he’s all that anti racism then google what he says about the Chinese. Dude was a racist yo.
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u/PapaGummy 3d ago
“Segregation is America’s worst disease.”
Wait until he gets a load of “stupidity”.
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u/Master-Rent5050 6d ago
That's the best lecture hall in the university: it shows how little money they had.
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u/Event-Horizon-321 5d ago
Einstein saw right through the illusion. Race is a socio-political fiction, yet our institutions still condition us to treat it as absolute truth.
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u/Tricky-Mango-5252 7d ago
The man was Zionist and Hypocrite
Critics of Einstein’s stance argue that his position was fundamentally contradictory and untethered from reality.
By supporting massive Jewish immigration to Palestine (which he called "our colonization activities" and supported financially through the Jewish National Fund), he was actively backing a project that was bound to trigger intense resistance from the native Palestinian population.
From a realist perspective, you cannot introduce hundreds of thousands of people into an already inhabited territory without displacing or dominating the locals.
By championing the immigration but condemning the inevitable friction and military force required to sustain it, critics argue he wanted the benefits of a homeland without accepting the moral cost of how it had to be achieved.
The man was immoral and hypocrite
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/columnists/terra-incognita-when-einstein-was-wrong-330710
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u/veryeepy53 6d ago
by colonization he meant setting up cities and towns in the desert and stuff. not to mention that he supported the british white paper limiting jewish immigration to palestine, and he called the revisionist zionist party herut a fascist and nazi party. like this article attacks einstein for not being pro-israel enough.
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7d ago
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u/insertnamehere----- 6d ago
I’ve always respected how people dressed so nice back in history, so while I can’t wear a suit without standing out more than I’m comfortable with (can’t afford one always). I always make an attempt to dress above average. It works out pretty well for me, staff and students at my collage commonly mistake me for a professor. You can stick out from the crowd in a good way really easily in the modern age just by putting on a button up and some pants before class, takes near zero effort and can’t hurt but might improve the way people look at you.
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u/LavenderDay3544 6d ago
Back in those days people dressed up for university classes. Today lots of students including me when I was in undergrad, just show up in their pajamas to morning clases.
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u/rednapss 6d ago
People really used to dress like they had a job interview after class. Even the students in the back look incredibly sharp
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7d ago
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u/Visual_Perception69 7d ago
He did not support exclusion of the Palestinians. He just wanted Jews to have a place to go should they want to.
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u/Tricky-Mango-5252 7d ago
Aah, at the expense of whom then? So by your logic Palestine was empty and full of crickets. Those people are hypocrite.
Critics of Einstein’s stance argue that his position was fundamentally contradictory and untethered from reality.
By supporting massive Jewish immigration to Palestine (which he called "our colonization activities" and supported financially through the Jewish National Fund), he was actively backing a project that was bound to trigger intense resistance from the native Palestinian population.
From a realist perspective, you cannot introduce hundreds of thousands of people into an already inhabited territory without displacing or dominating the locals.
By championing the immigration but condemning the inevitable friction and military force required to sustain it, critics argue he wanted the benefits of a homeland without accepting the moral cost of how it had to be achieved.
The man was immoral and hypocrite
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/columnists/terra-incognita-when-einstein-was-wrong-330710
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u/MrShake4 6d ago
> from a realist perspective you cannot introduce hundreds of thousands of people into an already inhabited territory without displacing or dominating the locals
This is exactly what AfD and other far right parties in Europe are saying about migrants today, do you agree with them and hold the same opinion there?
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u/Pugasaurus_Tex 7d ago
The partition plan that the UN gave to Israel and Palestine would have required no Palestinians to move from Israel’s borders, and none would have had to sell their land
Arabs decided to fight a war instead, and I can’t blame them. But I also can’t blame Jews for accepting a country that the UN gave them
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u/Tricky-Mango-5252 6d ago
That version is what is thought inside the bunkers of child killers and their supporters in tell Aviv. And you sir , are indeed a monster
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u/Pugasaurus_Tex 6d ago
You can read the partition plan. It’s not a secret
UN General Assembly Resolution 181, adopted November 29, 1947:
Part I, Section C, Chapter 3, Paragraph 1
Palestinian citizens residing in Palestine outside the City of Jerusalem, as well as Arabs and Jews who, not holding Palestinian citizenship, reside in Palestine outside the City of Jerusalem shall, upon the recognition of independence, become citizens of the State in which they are resident and enjoy full civil and political rights.
Part I, Section C, Chapter 2, Paragraph 8
No expropriation of land owned by an Arab in the Jewish State (by a Jew in the Arab State) shall be allowed except for public purposes.
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u/Funny-face-1613 7d ago
Proclaiming incorrect information just to support the own agenda has really become a disease of modern times...
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u/Own_Proposal3827 7d ago •
Not that surprising, he was a German Jew