I was reading in the post about his dislike of Jefferson, and the responder said "One example is when Roosevelt criticizes Benton and Jefferson both for their personal hypocrisies concerning the treatment of people of color. Roosevelt writes: "Like [Jefferson], [Benton] failed to see the curious absurdity of supporting black slavery, and yet claiming universal suffrage for whites as a divine right ..."" Could someone give me a more in-depth explanation of his views on the matter and any political action he took regarding equal rights?
Roosevelt's views on race were complicated but on the whole they were progressive for the period (haha). He did support black civil rights. However he spent a good bit of time in North Dakota, and while he was there he became convinced that the local Native Americans were as a group worthless. He went so far as to claim, in an essay about the Dawes Severalty Act, that the American government had more often than not been too soft on Indians. Roosevelt was an enthusiastic imperialist however he didn't explicitly cite white biological supremacy as a justification for imperialism.