The conversation about abasement and murder of black Americans has to start somewhere, so let’s say 1868. Of course, there were tens of thousands of atrocities in the 250-plus years before that, but 1868 is the year the 14th Amendment was ratified and former slaves became U.S. citizens.
It took two more years and the 15th Amendment to cede Black male citizens the right to vote. Immediately, white Southerners stepped-up terrorizing and killing Black people because they exercised their rights, voted, held office, and got involved with education––all previously illegal and considered a threat to white privilege.
Leading the domestic terrorism was the Ku Klux Klan. Civil Rights Acts were passed in 1870 and 1871 to protect Black citizens. Trials in South Carolina were conducted with largely Black juries convicting white assassins. Faced with the possibility of punishment, the heat was turned down and a relative period of Black freedom and protection ensued for about six years. By 1877 Reconstruction was over, Jim Crow laws started being enacted, and the lynching of Black Americans returned to prominence for nearly 90 years.
In 1937 a New York poet and songwriter, Abel Meeropal, wrote “Strange Fruit.” Billie Holiday made the haunting lyrics popular––“Southern trees bear strange fruit/Blood on the leaves and blood at the root …”––memorializing thousands of Black men left hanging from trees throughout the South because those men were still considered a threat by white people.
The modern civil rights movement kicked off in 1955 when 14-year-old Chicagoan, Emmett Till, was beaten beyond recognition in Money, Mississippi. Lynched because a white woman accused him of disrespecting her in her family’s store. She held her ground during the trial of her murderer husband and his brother, but years later recanted and admitted perjury. She lied. Till had done nothing. She simply considered him a threat. Unsurprisingly, the guilty brothers were acquitted. The Montgomery Bus Boycott followed, we got introduced to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and nonviolent, legal protest flooded the country for the next ten years.
The 1964 Civil Rights and 1965 Voting Rights Acts laid waste to Jim Crow, but emotions that spur discrimination and overt attempts to discredit Black Americans persist into today’s politics. On April 20, speaking on NBC’s “Today,” former president George W. Bush asserted that part of today’s Republican Party is “not exactly my vision.” He called one faction of the party “isolationist, protectionist, and to a certain extent, nativist.” He was referring to the faction that includes Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA), thankfully failed, Anglo-Saxon caucus and his adversity to recent attempts to limit voting rights for minority citizens.
The idea that the 2020 election was stolen from Republicans with voter fraud and illegal ballots has been roundly dismissed by stalwart Republicans including former Attorney General William Barr, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, former presidential nominee and current senator, Mitt Romney, Rep. Liz Chaney, and Pres. Bush to name only a sliver of a long list of Republicans supporting the 2020 election as fair and unequivocally won by Joe Biden.
Thousands of Donald Trump’s supporters, with all evidence to the contrary, still think the election was stolen. They are the people who occupied and engaged in insurrection at the Capitol on January 6. They claimed to be law-abiding patriots, but killed one police officer, took the eye of another, cut fingers off a third, stabbed one with a metal stake, beat other officers with poles on which hung Pro-Trump and American flags, stalked then Republican Vice President Mike Pence in order to hang him, and ravaged the building with millions of dollars of destruction and tons of disrespect.
If that weren’t enough the COVID cases among Capitol police have spiked in the weeks following the insurrection. The occupiers claimed to be patriots exercising their civic rights, but when confronted with arrest and consequences, they falsely accused Black Lives Matter sympathizers posing as Trump supporters who staged the insurrection. Over 300 of these “patriots” have been arrested, with perhaps 300 more to follow. One guilty plea with the promise to cooperate is already in the books.
Blame for destruction of property and personal injury was also pointed at the BLM protesters last summer in Minnesota, Oregon, and Wisconsin. The truth is that an overwhelming majority of Black Americans and those who join them in their protests have a philosophical through-line directly to MLK and, by association, to Gandhi. They believe protest is the only way to achieve social justice and change, and that it is imperative protest be nonviolent.
On April 20, conservative commentator, Tucker Carlson, incorrectly contended on his program that “for nearly a year BLM was bringing looting, burning, and murder to American streets.” Mr. Carlson could not possibly be more wrong. The “Washington Post” reviewed all damages and violence connected with BLM protests and found that there was nearly no injury or damage done by the marchers. In 7,305 BLM sponsored events violence and damage were nearly nil and 97.6% of damage done was done by neither police nor BLM, rather caused by disruptive action directed at BLM.
I am not contending that all Black Americans are angels. I am not contending all white folks are racist. I am contending that all Black citizens are not a threat and need to be treated as if their lives matter.
Randy Wood says
You should tell the real facts not the propaganda the Democrats want to push. The one officer died of natural causes not from being beaten. Shame on you for spreading flashoods.
Terry Donnelly says
Mr. Wood. I’m quite sure that Officer Sitnik would not have died on Jan. 7 of two massive strokes if he had not been beaten, sprayed with toxic material, and crushed by a throng of rioters. The cause of death was indeed listed as “natural causes.” But for the extreme stress put on Officer Sitnik’s body by the insurrectionists, he would likely be alive today. We may yet get to see that theory tested in court.
Lee Harper says
I concur with you Mr. Wood.
Mike Stevens says
I don’t think I have ever seen so much bull$#!t strung together in one place! I must say that it’s an impressive amount of lies and spin and misinformation, even for you! Although you conveniently left out the fascist group antifa while you were glowingly defending the good people stealing TVs and starting fires. You also conveniently left out that more white people are killed by police then blacks, and that the number each year of blacks shot by police is in the single digits to the low 20s. And the fact that black on black crime is the VAST majority of black murder each year. You must be double dipping, getting paid by the left leaning MCJ and CNN, or maybe even by the Democrat party for triple dipping. If you are not, you are being taken. The left pays millions to those that can sling together propaganda the way you can
Lee Harper says
I totally agree with you.
Evelyn anderson says
Thats a lot of bull. Just democrap propaganda. Shame on printing lies
Lee Harper says
👍👍
Jerry Schulz says
Perhaps a few more facts are in order…The KKK was founded by Southerners who opposed the Republicans efforts with Reconstruction and getting the Blacks the rights and privileges they deserved. The KKK were considered white supremacists, and they were Democrates. One of the most prominent leader of the clan was Robert Byrd, a Democrat US Senator. In the 60’s he worked hard with many other Democrates and lobbied against the Civil Rights Act. Thankfully, the CRA passed with substantial Repu lican support.
Lee Harper says
Actually very true.
Terry Donnelly says
Jerry, Your facts about KKK being founded by Democrats is accurate as is the fact that Robert Byrd, George Wallace, Orville Faubus, and a host of other 1950s and ’60s Democrats were segregationists. What you need to check is their political philosophy. Those people were extreme conservatives in the Democratic Party just as people like Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsay were liberals in the Republican Party. From 1900 to 1968 there was as much, if not more, liberal/conservative division within parties than between them. Teddy Roosevelt was a liberal Republican and Woodrow Wilson was a conservative Democrat. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican but initiated a variety of taxes, including the first income tax. The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order and considered a liberal act. Today, Abe’s presidency would have been considered Democratic. Just like we no longer have Federalists, Jeffersonian Democratic Republicans, or Whigs, the people who were members of those parties when the Klan was formed, or even when votes on the Civil Rights Act were taken cannot be looked at as defining the parties today. I’m comfortable with my liberalism and its through-line to Washington, Hamilton, Jay, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, and on into the modern progressives. An argument that Klan members are the forefathers of Democrats today is an argument that needs no further study to be debunked than to go back to David Duke’s endorsement of Donald Trump. The study and history of political science is fascinating. Perhaps you should look into that.
chris ahern says
This “letter” from” Comrade” Donnelly is pure Communist propaganda that should
NOT pollute our Mesquite Citizen Journal, and our community members who
enjoy reading our usually unbiased local information. How sad to be subjected
to to these EXTREME Left Wing exaggerations and lies !!! Please keep twisted
radical thoughts OUT of our Journal !
Lee Harper says
I agree.
Gary Lapple says
It is just more hatred being spewed by a marxist fool. Hateful words are all the left has.
Robert Larson says
Well done. Thank you for telling the truth. We need change, now.
Terry Hadley says
Your article is definitely slanted toward the left. You fail to mention that those southerners opposed to giving rights to blacks were democrats and also opposed the 14th amendment. Republicans pushed through the amendments and voting laws and the 10964 civil rights laws. Make your points but be fair in your reporting of events.
David Petrillo says
The southern Democrats of the years before 1970 are now the southern Republicans. Google Nixon’s Southern Policy for further information. The current head of the KKK is a Republican who supported Trump. Lincoln could never get elected by the current Republicans because his policies were against the bigotry and racism and white supremacy of the current Republicans. Nice try though but completely wrong.
Terry Hadley says
Senator Bird was a democrat. Nothing more needs be said
Terry Donnelly says
Mr. Hadley, Please read my reply to Jerry Schulz above. It deals with what you discuss here. Time has changed the nature of the parties and although what you write is true of Democrat and Republican labels, the people involved need to be studied as liberal and conservative in political philosophy rather than a particular political party. Mr. Petrillo’s comments are also correct.
Gary Lapple says
I agree that the nature of the parties has changed.
The R’s have become liberal and the D’d are Marxists.
All sanity and respect for The Constitution is gone.
Bob Gollwitzer says
Don’t anyone remember that a Republican (Lincoln) freed the slaves?
Terry Donnelly says
Mr. Gollwitzer, Please see my reply to Mr Schulz above about this very subject.
Gary says
Mr.Donnelly; What is the ratio of blacks to whites that are incarcerated currently?
Terry Donnelly says
Latest data from 2010 census lists Black incarceration at 2,306/100,000 and white at 450/100,000. If you think these data make some comment about the relative value of Black lives to white lives, or use it as a talking point to say Blacks are more of a threat, any look into how those people got there and the length of time Blacks stay in prison compared to whites will dash any hope of making a case that Black folks are more dangerous than whites.
Jimmy Wike says
Mr Donnelly’s statement that officer Sitnik would not have died had the protest not occurred is very dishonest. Mr D to my knowledge is not a medical expert and has not examined the body. He is presenting pure opinion as fact to make a point and neither he nor any of us know with certainty if the death was the result of the events that transpired. He’s generally very articulate and doesn’t have to sink to that level to bolster his opinion.
Gary Lapple says
How far back in history do we go to address old grievances? My family is germanic, the Romans help them as slaves should I sue Italy?
Here are some facts:
The Democrat Party formed the KKK.
The Democrat Party formed Jim Crow laws.
The location of the Trump Rally was 45 minute walk from The Capitol. The Rally was taking place when the insurrection (by leftists) started. The Trump supporters were not at The Capitol when the door were breached.
It is the left that keeps pushing the race narrative when the obvious truth is the vast majority of American do not care what someone skin color is, we care about how they act as fellow citizens.
The left’s greatest tool is hatred and fear, same tools Satan uses every day.
I’d suggest if the left stops hating, stops living in fear (plan-demic), and we turn back to God things would get better. The media says hate your neighbor, The Bible says LOVE. Your neighbor is not the problem.
John Thompson says
TERRY, WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING ?????