Yes, I do join you in calling for justice.
Again, another brilliant piece with a great balance of sensitivities and depraved cruelty — though balance is not the right word. But those words I am searching for. The narrative must be rewritten.
There are many obstacles to it. First is the We. When I read “We must indict”, I know that this is the main issue. The “we” meaning you and I and your readers is not the “we” who committed the atrocities for power and maintained political power through these actions, and through current actions. There are two other “we” groups that are inactive or oppositional to this rewriting and the call for justice. And “we” must band together and do these trials anyway against those two other “we” group, like mock trials for YouTube courtrooms of public opinion.
The first group that is not us is the complicit “we”, the historical liberal whites. They for a large center in the nation, and they are being fought over now for their votes in the next election. This group still does not strongly condemn the insurrectionists, their leader, and his sea of supporters. But they can be convinced if strong voices are unbendable of the decent who are calling for justice and are raised, our voices, to counteract the violent shouting ones dominating the media landscape and controlling the narrative, that of Trump and supremacists. We may mock him, but the media focus on him even in his depravity, rather than seeking solutions for the homeless, the forgotten, the poor. He has the mike because he seized it. That is what the lynchings are, a seizing of the mike and the loudspeaker, a dominant voice of political control making a show of their strength by the excess of their depraved slaughtering, that has never been tried or seen justice.
That is the part of narrative I am locating, those weaknesses you directly address so eloquently. But misconceptions still remain that need clarification, which I why I look to pieces like this to find them and see what I’m missing. The whole picture, the environment the lynchings take place in, the connections to political power, including the absence of actions, are critical. After all, those white men who organized these murderers did so routinely and without apprehension or hesitation they would face justice.
When they did face justice, from a national demand for it like in the Emmitt Till trial, the murderers were only in a show trial, a dog and pony show to appease the public sensibilities of liberal whites. Afterwards, the next news cycle. Mr. Till’s murderers were quickly acquitted, and the atmosphere was slightly changed locally by embarrassed, which was quickly eclipsed by the murderers admitting they did kill him and are now off, free from double jeopardy and then the white supremacists organized the next murder. That is how we find the murderers in the Greensboro mass lynching/massacre of 1979 also getting acquitted. The Klan and the Nazis teamed up with help from the police who provided a map to the site where black Americans were organizing politically. Five murderers were picked chosen to stand trial from the pack and then acquitted. They were falsely held to account in a civil suit that followed, by a civil verdict is not even half justice.
But these are not white men without support. The white community is one they grew up, mentally structured their white thoughts and empowered their actions, validating them. The crowds that showed up, like the 8 or 11 thousand at Lloyd Werner’s lynching, were approvers, supporters, neighbors. It them who voted for DeSantis to bury black American history. And they will vote next year the same way in the general election.
Lastly, we cannot forget the congress and presidents. How long did this period last? “Formally” as a use to repress white and black political opposition to white power, from 1834 to 1981. Maybe longer, but I stop there for the sake of sanity, at the trial of the white organized murderers who kill for Michael Donald, where for the first time a real and fair verdict was returned by the jury. That is not a short period, but an unbroken chain, a strengthen web of political unity that would not be bowed by wavering and weak liberals (from their perspective of how they see the northeastern elite). And they may be right. The only thing liberals seem to do is mock them, poke fun of them and dismiss them.
Justice must be done, and the narrative rewritten. Your brave confrontation with this critical issue and your profound personal recognition on the innocent men and women murdered on those sacred unmarked sites are deeply rooted and show a real connection we must all make. Thank you for visiting them and paying homage to them. I’m glad they are heard and it inspires me to do more for them like you have been doing, to restore and honor their humanity.