by Becky Little | August 2019
To understand what Abrams is up against in November, when she’ll compete against two Republican men in a red state that has only elected white men, it’s useful to look at the state’s history of white supremacy and how that legacy affects Georgians today. One county in particular shoulders an especially egregious past. The northern county of Forsyth, one of Georgia’s 10 most populous, leans heavily white and conservative. Its demographics are shaped by an event that happened in 1912, when white people forced out all 1,098 of Forsyth’s black residents, who comprised about 10 percent of the population at the time.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [History] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Defensiveness] [Racial Covenants] [Denial] [Housing] [Accountability] [Policing]
by Lindsey Bever | December 2014
In March 1944, deep in the Jim Crow South, police came for 14-year-old George Stinney Jr. His parents weren’t at home. His little sister was hiding in the family’s chicken coop behind the house in Alcolu, a segregated mill town in South Carolina, while officers handcuffed George and his older brother, Johnnie, and took them away.
Two young white girls had been found brutally murdered, beaten over the head with a railroad spike and dumped in a water-logged ditch. He and his little sister, who were black, were said to be last ones to see them alive. Authorities later released the older Stinney – and directed their attention toward George. On June 16, 1944, he was executed, becoming the youngest person in modern times to be put to death. On Wednesday, 70 years later, he was exonerated.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Systemic Racism] [Policing] [Prison System] [White Supremacy] [History] [Black Lives Matter] [White Privilege] [White Culture] [-ing While Black] [Denial] [Assumptions] [Accountability]
by Blackthen | August 2020
The details of the events that took place in New York City in the spring and summer of 1741 are recorded in numerous historic and later accounts, many of which contain contradictory information. According to nearly all accounts, a fire on March 18, 1741, at Fort George—then Lieutenant Governor George Clarke’s home—was the first in a series of fires in the city that may or may not have been set by slaves. The fires occurred at regular intervals and then with increased frequency until April 6, when four fires were set in a single day. Rumors raced across the city when a witness claimed to have seen a black man, identified as a slave named Cuffee, running from the scene of one of the fires.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [History] [Slavery] [Accountability] [Systemic Racism] [Policing] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Blindness] [Silencing POC] [Assumptions]
by Katie Gagliano | August 2020
…The shooting was captured on bystander video shared widely on social media. It shows at least five Lafayette Police officers approaching a Black man with what witnesses said was a knife in his hand walking away from police toward a convenience store. Video then shows officers open fire near the entrance of the convenience store and at least 10 shots can be heard.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Police Shootings] [Policing] [Systemic Racism] [-ing While Black] [Black Lives Matter] [Bystander Intervention] [Accountability]
by Dugan Arnett Globe Staff | August 2020
On March 11, 2018, island residents awoke to a startling act of hate. The front door of the African Meeting House — a nearly 200-year-old former church that now serves as a symbol of the island’s rich Black history — had been defiled with racist graffiti: “N—– LEAVE.” The crime made national news, shocking many who couldn’t fathom such overt bigotry in a place of rarefied tranquility. Residents quickly condemned the vandalism, while local officials, labeling the act a hate crime, vowed to seek justice. But justice hasn’t come.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Policing] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [White Supremacy] [White Blindness] [White Culture] [Accountability] [History] [Collective Action] [Silencing POC]
by Ta-Nehisi Coates | July 2015
Specifically, the host wished to know why I felt that white America’s progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence. Hearing this, I felt an old and indistinct sadness well up in me. The answer to this question is the record of the believers themselves. The answer is American history. …When Abraham Lincoln declared, in 1863, that the battle of Gettysburg must ensure “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” he was not merely being aspirational. At the onset of the Civil War, the United States of America had one of the highest rates of suffrage in the world. The question is not whether Lincoln truly meant “government of the people” but what our country has, throughout its history, taken the political term people to actually mean. In 1863 it did not mean your mother or your grandmother, and it did not mean you and me. As for now, it must be said that the elevation of the belief in being white was not achieved through wine tastings and ice-cream socials, but rather through the pillaging of life, liberty, labor, and land.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [History] [Systemic Racism] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [-ing While Black] [Policing] [White Blindness] [Slavery]
