Some many good points that are all true it’s hard to touch on them all.

But first the good news: You’re not going to be killed. That’s a lot of work for these people and they don’t think like you. Their threats are copious, but their violence is spontaneous and continual. After the threats you received, they probably went to make a good dozen more. Why?

Well, because I’m beginning to think they didn’t lose the Civil War. I mean did they? The Reconstruction era last technically 11 years. But during that time, when black Americans down South were getting elected to Congress and other local positions for the first time in big numbers, massacres, violence and killings were going on.

Then in 1876, the “North” decided Reconstruction was over and just too difficult. Black American soldiers (National Guard) controlling the peace in the South were killed along with a black politician fairly elected, shot in the back of his head execution-style while kneeling. The leader of this read shirt militia of Hamburg massacres was later reward with a seat in the U.S. Senate for 24 years, Senator Tillman.

There were many militias back then, not just one KKK. They were many “rifle clubs” back then. That was the “natural order” of the South, and when the “North” withdrew, in defeat, became the order again for the next 90 years. Texas built a new state constitution that made many strict rules that controlled the movement of blacks, including labor laws forcing them to work 6 days a week, handing over half their crops to the land owner; garnished their wages by subtracting rent and food; installed a curfew on ‘negroes.’

Worse, if one of them was not found working (there were no sick days or holidays for them), a white could say they were violating the state contractual law and put in a chain gang formed by a loophole in the 13th amendment that made them slaves when prisoners. So white allegations (lies) were common, accusing black Americans as “lazy” which allowed white lawman to instantly believe whatever (false) allegation was made and put the ‘negro’ in a chain gang to build roads. This went on throughout the South for decades. False allegations of laziness and petty crimes were a way to get free black American labor to build the roads.

Texas founded to protect slavery as the Mexicans were going to eliminate it—nothing to do with the Alamo; they founded the state on not allowing any free black to lie there and would kick out any free black they found, unlike the rest of the South that actually had small population of free blacks. Texas happily joined the Confederate States of America.

Did you catch the name of their Country they formed in 1861? The last word was America. Not the Union States of America (where I was born) but the CS of A. They formed a country and declared their Independence in 1861 the same way the Northerners did in 1776. The USA was at war with a *Country*, not itself. The South, or CS of A, was fighting for their Freedom, not yours, you Yankee. Their *Country* was defeated and occupied. The occupiers withdrew in 1876. They went back to their old way of life.

Sharecropping was slavecropping. Most slave owners had 20-50 slaves during “real” slavery, meaning they were outnumbered in rural areas on farms everyday. So threatening slaves was universal, conditioning for the slave, followed sometimes by whippings. The whites thus were always vastly outnumbered, and threats was a “natural” reflex for the overseers.

Senator Eastland of Mississippi was one of the last Senators that owned a plantation with slavecroppers where he “generously” allowed black Americans to live in the decrepit shacks for free in exchange to picking cotton and shopping at the company store. He garnished their wages of course and charge large interest on the payday loans. (Not directly, he had overseers do it for it). The year was 1961. These are facts. He refused to quite the Political Party when pressured by other senators who defected to the GOP in 1964. He couldn’t be moved or persuaded. He gave his endorsement to Jimmy Carter in 1976.

You and I don’t get it, because we’re from the US of A, not the CS of A. If I hadn’t moved to the South for grad school in Mississippi and saw the state flag had the Confederate flag in it where I was often called a Yankee, I probably wouldn’t have gotten it either. When I moved to South Carolina for more grad school and sat across the street from the state capitol staring at the confederate flag flying on top the capitol building, I probably wouldn’t understand to this day the different country they live in and control.

The Confederates didn’t lose their war, they won again. They agreed to an uneasy truce: pretend we are united, call for American unity, and play along. It worked for a while very nicely. From 1901-1928 not a single black American was elected to federal government. No black American voted in Mississippi until 1965. Ask Bennie Thompson, head of the January 6th committee. He was two years out of college when elected in 1968 and worked his way up to Congressman. You think you get threats. He gets them like speeding tickets had out at the Daytona 500 on each lap for cars exceeding 65 miles an our. They probably pour into inbox and voicemail. Welcome to his world.



Thanks again for your insights and provoking discussion (and not civil war).