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In my state (Minnesota)? I wrote a paper on the 1920 Duluth lynchings, and from my research there are only about a half a dozen (depending on your sources) in my state's history, and only that one white-on-black lynching that occurred in Duluth.
Which is why I will never, ever in no uncertain terms ever feel a shred of guilt with America's history in this arena as a white man.
My loyalty anyway is first and foremost to the state my ancestors helped create as one of the best in America (Minnesota), without any history whatsoever of slavery and a very limited racially intolerant one as well.
I can certainly understand why you would not feel any personal "guilt," and "guilt" isn't really the issue, especially with regard to "America's history."
What is important--the reason we make ourselves aware of history--is to understand accurately how we've gotten where we are, what factors of the past continue to impact us in the present? How does it affect perceived options?
When I was working in military intelligence, it was very often an eye-opener to go back a bit in the history of American relations with other countries to see who had gripes against the US and why--and to understand what it did to current relationship attempts.
When does a doctor attempt a diagnosis and treatment without knowing as much as possible about his patient's medical history?
Location: East St. Paul 651 forever (or North St. Paul) .
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk
I can certainly understand why you would not feel any personal "guilt," and "guilt" isn't really the issue, especially with regard to "America's history."
What is important--the reason we make ourselves aware of history--is to understand accurately how we've gotten where we are, what factors of the past continue to impact us in the present? How does it affect perceived options?
When I was working in military intelligence, it was very often an eye-opener to go back a bit in the history of American relations with other countries to see who had gripes against the US and why--and to understand what it did to current relationship attempts.
When does a doctor attempt a diagnosis and treatment without knowing as much as possible about his patient's medical history?
I have no obligation to that, either. I'm an isolationist, and am entirely against America's now-imperialist regime, from both the left and the right. You could almost label me a pacifist, in general concept. My state actually sent one of the first brigades into the Civil War though, which also contributes to my beliefs.
I believe in states' rights, and am very much against an overly oppressive federal government.
In short I don't believe that any wrongdoing that occurred outside of my state's boundaries is of any obligation to me whatsoever, for the most part, morally or otherwise.
The last lynching to have occurred in the USA is said to have happened in the 1980s.
If you consider the James Byrd incident hate crime of 1998 to be a lynching then it would be 1998.
I consider that a lynching and I am sad to say it happened in my state of Texas. It makes me feel physically ill to think of such evil in the world. I think people lynch others to send a message to other people and because hate fills their black disgusting hearts.
I think your comment about "democrats" and lynching is probably accurate. The problem is most of the most people never had the belief system that I would impute to a modern day democrat.
Republicans today do want to gloss over the flip that occurred in both parties during the 20th century.
But here is a Wikipedia exerpt that demonstrates the flip that began in Mississippi during the 60s which is typical of the southeast's change from staunchly Democrat to staunchly Republican. It is not because all the old Democrats died out and there were suddenly a lot of Republicans born there. Those particular individuals merely discovered that the Republican party was receptive to the predjudices they already held.
Quote:
The Mississippi Republican Party would grow in supporters with the popularity
of then President Dwight D. Eisenhower and on September 24, 1960, Republican
presidential candidate Richard Nixon campaigned in the state, the first time a
presidential candidate had appeared in the state in more than a century.
During the 1964 Republican National Convention Mississippi delegates would
help nominate Barry Goldwater for President. Goldwater would go on to win 87
percent of the vote in Mississippi in the 1964 Presidential Election, the first
time a Republican would win the state since the Reconstruction Era. Only once
since 1956 has a non-Republican presidential candidate won the state of
Mississippi, Jimmy Carter in the 1976 Presidential Election.
In 1963, Rubel Phillips became the first Republican nominee for governor in
80 years, challenging then-Lt. Gov. Paul Johnson, Jr. and garnering 38 percent
of the vote. Phillips ran again in 1967 against John Bell Williams but lost
again, this time earning 29 percent of the vote. In 1991, for the first time in
over a century a Republican would become the Governor of Mississippi, when Kirk
Fordice would earn 50.8 percent of the popular vote, defeating Democrat Ray
Mabus.
Increasingly alienated by their own party's attacks on segregation, yet
still averse to a Republican Party that seemed little better, Mississippi's
white voters by 1960 found themselves adrift in presidential politics.
That year, they spurned both the Democrat John Kennedy and Eisenhower's
Republican Vice President Richard Nixon in favor of a ticket of unpledged
electors who eventually cast the state's votes for U. S. Senator Harry
Byrd of Virginia.
In the mid-sixties, however, two ironically related developments – the
emergence of Goldwater Republicanism and congressional passage of the
Voting Rights Act – paved the way for a permanent realignment of Mississippi
presidential politics around the conventional two-party system. Goldwater's
opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act endeared him to defenders of
segregation, but his appeal in Mississippi transcended race. Goldwater's
brand of social and political conservatism, including an aggressive
anti-communism stance, resonated with the traditional sensibilities of
many white voters. While Goldwater suffered a disastrous thrashing by
Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 election, he won 87.1 percent of
Mississippi's votes and exposed the state to a version of Republicanism
that would later bear fruit in its reincarnation under Ronald
Reagan.
I consider that a lynching and I am sad to say it happened in my state of Texas. It makes me feel physically ill to think of such evil in the world. I think people lynch others to send a message to other people and because hate fills their black disgusting hearts.
Not all lynchings were based upon the color of one's skin. For example, there was this brief article that appeared in the New York Times on July 1, 1899:
Reported Lynching in Alaska
VICTORIA, June 30 - Arrivals from Dawson bring news of reported lynching at Cape Nome. A German, whose name is not given, stole $3,000 in gold dust from a miner's cabin. He was arrested by a number of miners, to whom he confessed the robbery, and the committee hanged him. --- Reported Lynching in Alaska. - View Article - NYTimes.com
I am reasonably certain that there were more than a few lynchings in Texas over horses, cattle, or other property loss.
True. Have seen a photo from 1880s Wyoming captioned "one rope, two heads." Cattle rustlers vs posse. Cattle rustlers lost.
In the lightweight History channel series on the Old West they commented,(using actual historians of the period), on the commonality of lynching when the law system was far removed or slow in arriving.
So we have to go back some 58 years to find an example of perverted justice in the most classic sense, and nearly 50 years to find a case in whch the instigators were not quickly identified and prosecuted.
I'm not sure of your point. Fifty-eight years is not that long, and "identified and prosecuted" is not the same thing as "convicted."
That's within living memory. Hell, it's within my living memory. I personally remember very well other incidents in which local law enforcement worked in collusion with homicidal racists to terrorize black people in the South:
The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed on Sunday, September 15, 1963 as an act of white supremacist terrorism. The explosion at the African-American church, which killed four girls, marked a turning point in the United States 1960s Civil Rights Movement and contributed to support for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and following years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. The Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government did nothing to enforce them. The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.
....
The Birmingham, Alabama, Police Commissioner, Bull Connor, together with Police Sergeant Tom Cook (an avid Ku Klux Klan supporter), organized violence against the Freedom Riders with local Ku Klux Klan chapters. The pair made plans to bring the Ride to an end in Alabama. They assured Gary Thomas Rowe, an FBI informer and member of Eastview Klavern #13 (the most violent Klan group in Alabama), that the mob would have fifteen minutes to attack the Freedom Riders without any arrests being made. The plan was to allow an initial assault in Anniston with a final assault taking place in Birmingham.
There are a lot of people my age who remember this, both black and white--and I've learned in the last few years that a lot of those white people--still living and voting today--remain "unreconstructed."
Folks, this thread was moved by another Mod from the Politics forum to the History forum. I know it's difficult to keep politics out of a topic like this one, but please try. We're not here to discuss Republicans versus Democrats.
Reply to the questions presented in the opening post. Thanks.
.
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It has always been incredible to me that "good Christian folk" could attend those things as though they were festive events.
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