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posted by: Bill Woolsey (reply) post date: 06.23.05 (5:53 pm) I attended church in the south during the sixties and I never once heard from the pulpit that it was O.K. to murder civil rights workers. I was pretty young. Maybe I missed that sermon. posted by: rightwatch (reply) post date: 06.24.05 (1:15 am) Bill: Nothing I wrote said that this was openly preached. I said the culture was such that people refused to convict these killers. Surely you are not denying that during the period in question, up until the 70s perhaps, that Sourthern juries refused regularly refused to convict Klansman and the like. That is well documented. The police refused to help in the prosecution, etc. It is true that some churches were openly advocating violence in defense of whtie Christian Southern culture -- that is is pretty clear from the conviction of a minister for his part in these murders. And it is known that many fundamentalist ministers were active in the Klan and the Klan was militantly violent. Others were indirectly, and perhaps inadvertantly involved, through the preaching of messages about how “race mixing” was destroying the country, how removal of Jim Crow laws was a “communist” plot to overthrow America and such rubbish. posted by: Bill Woolsey (reply) post date: 06.24.05 (5:55 am) No doubt all of this happened in some places and at some times, but I wasn't aware of any of it going on in Orlando, Florida in the late sixties. Perhaps there were some big local trials where juries exonerated Klansmen for murdering black people. I just missed them. I don't exactly remember when I started following current events--maybe fifth grade? I went to my first integrated public school in 1969--it was eight grade. The year before, the teachers were reassigned and I had my first black teacher. That same year, there was some kind of "choice" program where parents could move their children to schools where the other race predominated. No black kids showed up at my junior high school. Then came forced bussing. The forced integration was controversial. I think most white people opposed it. I didn't know or hear about anyone joining the Ku Klux Klan, acts of violence against local black people, or trials regarding these matters where those accused got off the hook. The southern conservative view that I remember was support for racial segregation, a view that civil rights protesters should go to jail for breaking the law, and a notion that the Federal govenment should stay out of it. The Klan had a reputation for being a bunch of ignorant rednecks. I'm not sure what went on in those little country Baptist and Pentecostal churches where the preachers, who never graduated from college, much less seminary, shouted hellfire and damnation. I never went to one. (Are you assuming that all southern churches are like that?) I grew up in Orlando, but now live in Charleston, South Carolina. I have been here for nearly 20 years. Maybe affluent and educated Charlestonians were putting on the white sheets in 1968. I'll ask some of my friends who are older and lived around here during that time. I am no expert on the history of southern politics, but I do understand that the blacks were disenfranchised, and the white only Democratic party was divided between populists and conservatives. Both supported racial segregation, keeping blacks from voting, and didn't want the federal government intefering. I suspect that I was pretty much insulated from the "populist" attitudes--a political tendency that was in power during some places and some periods of Southern history. Lester Maddox and George Wallace were "populists." My parents, the southern side of my extended family, our neighbors, and our family friends were "conservatives." Of course, I became a libertarian and support equality under the law for all people. I understand that slavery and compulsory racial segregation were terribly wrong. While I do think people should be polite, lynching rude people is way too extreme. Really, I think something more, and even worse, was going on there. There is evidence that black people who were "too" successful would be harrassed and even murdered by envious poor white folk. As I met various black people who didn't fit traditional stereotypes, my vestigal racism melted away. There was the articulate intellectual in my history class, then my rather geeky, sci-fi-loving roommate at Virginia Tech, and then finally four years teacing at a small black college.... The League of the South is a very marginal group. Still, I find that many white southerners are inclined to downplay the negative aspects of southern history, something groups like the League take to an exaggerated degree. I have never met anyone who supports lynchings or favors a return to slavery, or even compulsory segregation. I have met plenty of white people who believe that black folks are for the most part a rather inferior lot. It is an oddly abstract view, combined with affection, and even respect, for particular black people. And certainly a willingness to treat the black people they meet on a day to day basis in the properly polite southern way. Now, I haven't run into a lot of black people that were racist--but then, they are southerners too and wouldn't be rude to my face, would they? Still, I think it is that aspect of the southern experience--willingness to get along one-on-one that is what the League of the South had in mind in the statement that bothered you so much. What bothers me about it is that in the old days, young white people would not be polite to their elders. Some ignorant young redneck calling some respectable elderly black man "boy." How rude. How contrary to southern values. How can these League of the South people forget that? OK, slavery and lynchings were really worse. Odd what can be especially offensive. posted by: rightwatch (reply) post date: 06.24.05 (7:07 am) First growing up in Florida is a tad different. Most of the very racist actions took place in George, Missiissippi and Alabama. In Florida perhaps some in the panhandle proper. In addition this went on predominantly until around 1968. You are taking an area where such activity was far less likely to occur and extrapolatinjg to the whole south. As the material I posted indicated it was predominantly in five states and Florida wasn’t one of them. You also say you didn’t hear of cases where whites got off for killing. I posted a link to the site on the “Mississippi Burning” trilal where that happened repeatedly. Killen was the only one convicted and only because he was just tried recently. All those who did the actual murders got off. I do agree with you that evidence shows that “black people who were ‘too’ successful would be harassed and even murdered by envious poor white folk.” There is a lot to back that up. I do think the League of the South is a fringe group and doesn’t represent most Southerners. I knew many Southerners myself over the years. Now it may be that most no longer favor lynching, a return to slavery (except the Reconstructionists) and compulosry segregation. But what does the League want? That really is our topic? And when they talk about Southern culture they don’t mean these attitudes you discuss at all. As they say they won’t allow blacks to have power over whites in the sense of controlling or running Southern institutions. How will that be accomplished except by force? posted by: Bill Woolsey (reply) post date: 06.25.05 (3:05 am) Most Southerners don't live in Mississippi, Alabama, or Georgia, much less the rural parts of those states. I do think that the lynchings over the years and extra-legal murder of civil rights workers, both native "troublemakers" and outside agitators, was a problem in other states too. It just wasn't universal. Isn't there a pattern that it occured in the most backward parts of the south? My Mother's family was from the Florida panhandle and had relatives all along the gulf coast to Texas. I never heard them celebrate lynching or support the Ku Klux Klan. And they weren't even wealthy or educated! Most of my contact with them was in the sixties. They did support segregation and oppose the civil rights movement. It seemed to me that your article painted with too broad of a brush. Until and unless you find some evidence that the Leaque of the South does support extra legal murder for political reasons, you shouldn't make this odd argument that somehow they must because they support "southern values." People got away with murder, so all Southerners must have supported those murders, so murdering people must be part of southern culture, so if the League of the South supports "souther culture," it must support murder. As for how they could possibly prevent black southerners from controlling this "anglo-celtic Christian southern culture" they celebrate, majority vote would do it. Part of their concern appeares to be hispanic immigration, so immigration controls might be part of the agenda. I'm not hopeful, but limiting government, so that even in those areas where nonwhites have a majority they can't govern culture in private institutions would be a third, more libertarian approach. If you think about some of Hoppe's writing, perhaps there is a good bit of common ground between his approach and Woods. As odd as this sounds, I really think part of what the League of the South is referring to there is that the white majority shouldn't give in to the black minority on flying the confederate battle flag. Even if black people see it as a sign of oppression, white people shouldn't do the polite thing and refrain from flying it. White people shouldn't let black people control "our" southern culture. You see, "the flag" is a big issue with those folks. Well, maybe I'll look into the League of the South more closely. It appears that the state chair of the South Carolina LP is working with those folks. The next convention is less than a year away. Oh, well. posted by: newbie (reply) post date: 06.27.05 (11:14 am) Rothbard said the South was good. Nuff said. Anyone who disagress is a neocon. posted by: rightwatch (reply) post date: 02.24.07 (2:45 am) Bill: You seem to think that lynching was widespread. It was not. It did happen in other states, no denial of that. But it did not happen often. It was primarily a Southern issue, particularly in the deep South. The farther out fron the deep South one gets the less prevalent the lynchings. Any history on lynching can verify this. |
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