Why Do We Need Assault Weapons, Again?

There’s a lot of debate about whether the 2nd Amendment guarantees the right to own AR-15s and other assault weapons; a federal appeals court upheld Maryland’s ban, but this is not settled law.

A separate question is why people need assault weapons in the first place. The answer given by gun rights advocates is that they are necessary to defend against tyranny.

There are a few things to say about this.

This is not supported by the 2nd Amendment. 

While an individual right to gun ownership has been affirmed by the Heller decision, there is nothing in the Constitution to justify the “defense against tyranny” argument. The purpose of militias as set out in Article 1, section 8 is “to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions."

So the 2nd Amendment, created to ensure the maintenance of a well-regulated militia, was designed with suppressing insurrections in mind, not fermenting them.

Not that citizens have ever had much luck taking arms against their own government, no matter the number of weapons involved. I have more to say about this in a 2014 post comparing the importance of the 1st and 2nd amendments.

Many gun owners would not recognize tyranny if it bit them in the ass. 

We have a president who calls the press “the enemy of the people,” goes out of his way to condemn peaceful protest (Kapernick et all) and equivocates in the face of Nazis and Klansmen, yet none of his supporters seem to recognize this as a slippery slope to any kind of tyranny. The reason for this is that tyrannical, illiberal regimes do not rise up by sending jackbooted thugs to VFW meetings and county fairs; they use patriotism, populism and demagoguery to exploit cultural capital and set groups against each other, making core supporters feel protected and free.

Most Germans in the Nazi era did not feel tyrannized; they stood by as others bore the brunt of oppression. Meanwhile the basic protections of civil society and a free press were pulled out from under them. Oh, and they had guns (Nazi gun laws deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns). They had them, but had no desire to use them, because the Nazi party was widely popular.

What are you gonna do, really? 

Let's say your worst fears come true. Red Dawn paratroopers. Blue-helmeted UN invaders. The Khmer Rouge (of course, the Khmer Rouge went after liberals, intellectuals, artists and urbanites, which ought to make you wonder why despots find these type of people—not NRA types—so threatening). In your apocalyptic scenario, did we lose the military, or are they on the side of the patriots? If the regime has military support, you’re toast. If not, then what's your Bushmaster for? Do the tyrants have air power? Can they simply obliterate you, the way Germany obliterated Warsaw? What’s your game plan, man?? Hide in the bunker until smoked out, or blown up? Is this how you preserve freedom?

Here's a better idea. Fight for transparency, equal protections, science-based policy, good government and constitutional rights (beyond weaponry), and against corruption, oligarchy, money in politics, vote suppression and illiberalism. Time and energy much better spent, and no chance of accidentally shooting yourself in the foot.

Decrying Religious Tests While Pushing Doctrine

I disagree with senator Feinstein and other Democrats for questioning judicial nominee Amy Barrett about her Catholic faith, which does constitute a kind of religious test for public office. Judges should not be subject to grilling about their religious convictions (or lack thereof) as an indication of how they will interpret and uphold the law.

I have to say though, it would help matters if conservative bishops would not threaten to deny communion to Catholic lawmakers seeking in good faith to do their jobs. It’s hypocritical to decry religious tests on the one hand and then, on the other, hold believers’ souls for ransom if they refuse to toe a particular doctrinal line.

How the Right Embraces Climate Change

If you believe the science, and even the least sensationalistic predictions of what global warming will do in the 21st century, then you also believe that people on all points of the political spectrum will eventually come to accept the reality of human-caused climate change.

The questions is, how do conservatives get there? After years of denial, hostility and obstruction, how will those on the right manage to fold this particular piece of reality into their worldview?

I think a clue to this process can be seen in the evolution of the right’s thinking about the Iraq War. Back in the 2000s, of course, opposition to our invasion, occupation and mismanagement of Iraq was central to the politics of the left and a core point of division between red and blue. Those who opposed the war were, to many Bush supporters, unpatriotic, terrorist-loving traitors. To Democrats, the war was an immoral, unnecessary war of choice spilling horrific amounts of blood and treasure, while doing nothing to prevent the spread of terrorism. These contrasting narratives largely defined the 2004 (Bush-Kerry) presidential election.

Today, in 2017, we have a conservative, populist president who campaigned on retroactive opposition to the Iraq War (even claiming—falsely—he was against it from the beginning), voted into office by legions of former Bush supporters who now seem to feel about Iraq largely the way Kerry supporters did 13 years ago. How does this happen?

Selective memory and a re-ordering of the significance of events to support a revised narrative. Today, the populist right has embraced the idea that Iraq was part of a globalist political philosophy that runs through mainstream Republican and Democratic thinking. Iraq, they believe, stains Democrats as much as Republicans.

The primary evidence is the bipartisan “yes” vote in Congress in October 2002 authorizing military action against Saddam Hussein. Forgotten is the mountain of false and distorted intelligence put out by the Bush administration at the time to convince Congress that Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction; the subsequent opposition to the war by mainstream Democratic politicians; the extreme unlikelihood that the war ever would have happened with a Democrat in the White House in 2003; and—most importantly—the strong grassroots opposition to the war among leftists and moderates which began in the run-up to the invasion and only strengthened as the war progressed, and the failure of the grassroots right to pull their support, even after no WMDs were found and Bush’s “mission accomplished” turned into a quagmire.

So how does this work for climate change? Via the Future Right’s downplaying of Al Gore and left-wing environmental activism, Obama’s support of climate accords and those on the left (and moderate right) supporting policies like a carbon tax, and instead putting the focus on the forces of globalization and the political elite’s failure to act for reasons of economic self-interest. “Look at all the money given to Democrat [sic] politicians back in the twenty-teens by [insert carbon-emitting multinational],” they’ll say. It will be a much harder sell, given the very clear history of the right standing in the way of progress on climate, but I think they will try to pull it off.

Some might say it doesn’t matter how conservatives get there, as long as they get there. Let them have their own version of history, if that helps. But the problem, as with Iraq, is how much damage is done before they make that leap—and in this case, much of it may be irreversible.

How can the Current Left help them along? By doing what they can to de-politicize the climate debate. The fate of our planet (and species) should not be a political shibboleth, and if the right will cling fiercely (for now) to climate change denial as a cultural and philosophical touchstone, the left must try to loosen that grip by not using environmentalism as a political bludgeon.

The ACLU and Holding the Line on Speech Protections

In the wake of the violence in Charlottesville this week, some are calling on the ACLU to rethink its historic commitment to defending free speech across the political spectrum, regardless of the unpopularity or offensiveness of the message. The best way to ensure an equal voice for disenfranchised groups, it is argued, is for the ACLU to consider power dynamics and historical context when choosing whose First Amendment rights to defend.

I have a hard time with this position. It’s untenable to ask the ACLU to choose which political speech is worth protecting under the law and which isn’t. Free speech is not like housing or education or health care, where law and policy can be doctored to level the playing field; it’s the fundamental bedrock of democracy and civil society.

Even the perception that legal means are being used to amplify some people’s speech and suppress others’ (whether aimed right or left) is politically destabilizing and promotes radicalization. The alt-right, while not members of a historically disenfranchised group, already see themselves as marginalized victims of a liberal establishment. It’s important for the ACLU to maintain its historic stance as nonpartisan defender of civil rights.

Then there is the generalized erosion of public space, leaving us with fewer and fewer neutral forums for demonstration and debate. With private entities such as Twitter and Google blocking content as they please, now is not the time to weaken or bifurcate speech rights.

We should instead focus on, and support, all the ACLU does to promote freedom of expression, voting rights, criminal justice reform, religious freedom and the separation of church and state.

Suburbs From KOP to Voorhees Embrace New ‘Main Streets’ —But Not Cherry Hill

Michaelle Bond’s article in the Inquirer about citified “main streets” coming to the suburbs has everything you’d expect: interviews with developers and city planners, somewhat silly-sounding quotes from random members of the public, and the hint of snark (all that astroturf!) usually found in the Inky's coverage of anything suburban.

Really, though, what’s happening in King of Prussia, Exton and elsewhere is better than what came before (in the recent past) and better than any contemporary alternatives if one accepts the inevitability of growth. The article’s observation that these complexes “cost open space” overlooks the notion that these high-density projects gobble far less land than traditional housing tracts and shopping centers.

It also reminds me, yet again, of how tremendously stupid Cherry Hill was to reject a similar (and at the time, ahead of the curve) proposal to redevelop the Garden State Park property on Rt. 70 along pedestrian and transit-friendly lines. Not only was the tract perfectly situated to give the sprawly township the semblance of a town center, it lies adjacent to a (woefully underused) passenger train station, on NJ Transit’s Atlantic City Line.

I was working for a newspaper in Haddonfield at the time development of the land was being debated (2005-06) and remember then-mayor Bernie Platt trumpeting the approved plan as “mixed-use,” a politician-speak mangling of that term if there ever was one. True mixed-use developments are dense and pedestrian friendly; the only thing “mixed use” about today’s Garden State Park is that one can drive to the grocery store, drive to the restaurant, or drive to the townhouse—or risk life and limb dodging SUVs while walking across a sea of asphalt.

Garden State Park: A sea of sprawl... and a train station.

Appropriation is Not Necessarily Exploitation

I wrote this in response to a friend's Facebook call for comments on a New York Times piece, "In Defense of Cultural Appropriation."

I think much of 20th century social progress was abetted, if not in some cases directly driven, by what many today dismissively call “cultural appropriation.”

This more or less began in the '20s with nascent integration in jazz, and really picked up steam after the war, as the nation gradually grew to understand African-American culture as more than just inferior or quaint.

Remember, as recently as the turn of the last century, W.E.B. Du Bois had to plead for cultural relevance and respect on the basis of “the American fairy tales and folklore [being] Indian and African.” How far we have come since then, with mainstreaming and universal acceptance of art forms rooted in black culture as quintessentially American.

Especially, and somewhat ironically, in the South—a cultural cauldron in ways going far beyond the violence and victories of Civil Rights. What we call R&B, Rock & Roll—even folk, country and gospel music—was the result of many decades (centuries, really) of cultural cross-pollination, often driven, now as ever, by talented young people more interested in inspiration than labels and boundaries.

It’s true Elvis was seen as a white guy who could sound black, and had his first hit with an Arthur Crudup blues song. It’s also true that Chuck Berry was considered a black guy who could sound white, and had his first hit with a reworking of a western swing fiddle tune first recorded by Bob Wills.

Throw into the mix influences criss-crossing the pond—most importantly the effect of American music on young Britons in the 50s and 60s, which subsequently awakened young white America to this nation’s full musical heritage—and the positive effect this had on the fortunes of a generation of black musicians—and the picture becomes even more complicated. (At the risk of sounding unfashionably uncynical, it's been a long time since pop music appropriation equaled exploitation, despite what Jesse Williams may believe.)

Art does not fit into the neat boundaries proposed by academicians, and never will.

The Arguments Against Abortion Are Truly Out of This World

Of all the arguments against abortion, the one I find most ridiculous is the “if my mom had an abortion, I wouldn’t be here” reasoning.

So what? If my mom had a headache the night I was conceived, I wouldn’t be here either.

My mom had a miscarriage in 1968. If she had carried the baby to term and had given birth in ’69, it’s certain I would not be here, because my parents would not have wanted another child so soon. So I owe my life to the early termination of a pregnancy.

But again, why does any of that matter? A million things could have happened to prevent my existing. It's futile to dwell on the what-haves, near-misses and might-have-beens. Once I emerged into the world, I became a person—not in some Platonic, image-of-God way, but by my importance to family, community and society. By joining the whirl (and whorl) of existence.

I also find offensive the idea that parents of special-needs children have some special right to comment on the morality of abortion. The dynamic is the same whether the child is born healthy or sick, conventionally formed or not; once in the world, the infant joins the community of man. There is no cosmic symbolism to the birth of a special-needs child; this child is loved for who they are, like any other child.

Worst of all is the notion that mothers who sacrifice their lives on behalf of an unborn child are nobler, more saintly, than the rest. There is a Catholic saint, Gianna Beretta Molla, who was canonized for her refusal to save her life by having surgery that would, as an unintended consequence, end the life of her first-term fetus. She eventually died after giving birth, leaving behind a husband and four children.

Here we have a sacrifice on behalf of an idea—that of the inviolability of a zygote implanted on the placenta—taking precedence over the prerogatives of the born. Her choice was truly not “of this world” because it put a theory of personhood above the actuality of personhood, and turned the suffering of the body into a signifier of a higher cause (what could be more Catholic than that!). The mother-to-be becomes mortal vessel for the divine spark. Perhaps this is best understood as the dehumanization of a woman as tradeoff for the humanization of the embryo.

Believing that people are formed in the word and by the world means believing that the world matters; it is not just a symbol or staging ground for some higher or future purpose. Each one of us is here because of a series of dynamics, adaptations and choices stretching back millions of years; not random, but beautiful. This includes the choice of whether and how our parents decided to get pregnant and have a baby.

Campus Free Speech and Snowflakes

In his much-discussed Times piece, “What Snowflakes Get Right About Free Speech,” Ulrich Baer cites the philosopher Jean-François Lyotard to bolster his claim that some speech should be banned on college campuses because it has a chilling effect on marginalized groups.

“Lyotard," he writes, "shifted attention away from the content of free speech to the way certain topics restrict speech as a public good."

Essentially this is an argument about legitimization. Giving Holocaust deniers an equal voice with Holocaust survivors elevates their position while diminishing those of the people bearing witness to personal and collective suffering.

I understand this argument but do not believe it follows that censoring viewpoints from a university campus is necessary to “ensure the conditions of free speech for a greater group of people.”

Baer’s argument that students curious abut the views of Richard Spencer or Ann Coulter can simply can go to the Internet undermines the central logic of campus free speech—that airing ideas in a university setting brings perspective (and tools for refutation) that are not available to someone browsing Reddit.

I would argue that the high profile of figures like Spencer is a result of, rather than threat to, the gains of traditionally disenfranchised groups in recent decades. Unfortunately for bigots, the genie is out of the battle; no amount of rhetoric will prevent members of Hillel at Auburn from participating in debate as fully recognized members of the community.

Maybe We're All 'Snowflakes' Now...

Baer thinks giving the Ann Coulters of the world a platform necessarily forces some groups “to defend their human worth.” But Coulter herself, who like many on the Right suffer from a victimhood complex making them feel as if they are the ones being denied (ethnic or cultural) rights, speaks in these same terms.

So perhaps the paradigm shift effected by identity politics has changed the terms of discourse—even for racists—from notions of inherent superiority to those of ethnic nationalism and cultural integrity. This too is odious, but the politics-based debates of today do not foreclose the possibility of disenfranchised groups maintaining a voice in the same way that pseudo-scientific, mytho-folkloric and religion-based arguments of the past did.

From the Right: A Vision of 'Communitarian Conservatism'

Interesting things are happening on the Right, such as a movement to take what’s seen as the positive elements of Trumpism to formulate a new conservatism opposed to both the neoliberal consensus founded by Ronald Reagan and free-market fundamentalism.

Julius Krein, thirty-something founder and editor of American Affairs, promotes a kind of economic nationalism he calls communitarian conservatism. It’s built around the idea of “grounding the economy in society”—as in, the structures and relationships of a stable, functioning community (he's vague on this point, maybe by design)—rather than the ideology of think-tank intellectuals.

This includes more government intervention in some situations. Regulation is not always bad, he says, if balanced by strong democratic institutions and accountability. He’s highly critical of free trade. 

Paraphrasing Krein: the Right reflexively celebrates capitalism without thinking of how modern capitalism is different from Adam Smith or the founding fathers, or how “corporate cartels” are harmful to classical free-market principals. 

Krein even hints that socialized healthcare may be an inevitability: “The idea that the only health care is free market health care is basically impossible and doesn’t make any sense.”

But he’s no Bernie Sanders in a suit. The racism and xenophobia of Trumpism clearly does not bother him. He is generally dismissive of such concerns or even sympathetic where he sees the result as helping to define society and strengthen its boundaries.

This is where you start to get the unsettling feeling that this vision, an intellectual projection of values at the core of Jacksonian communalism, could slide into something like National Socialism.

Klein outlines his views in a podcast from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. It's worth a listen for anyone interested in trends across the political spectrum.

http://wws.princeton.edu/news-and-events/news/item/politics-polls-35-future-conservatism-trump-era

Enough With the 'False Flag' Bullshit

I really hate the throwing around of the term “false flag.” I’ve heard it applied to the Boston bombing, Newtown—a lot—and now, the Syria gas attacks.

In addition to being ignorant and cynical in a teenager-at-the-breakfast-table sort of way, it is an egregious insult to the soldiers and first responders who deal with foreign and domestic horrors on the ground, journalists who risk their lives reporting violence, and of course the grieving loved ones of innocent victims of terrorism and mass shootings.

Does the Alex Jones crowd really believe their vast conspiracies involve inconsolable parents, sheriffs and police officers, GIs and guardsmen, journalists, community witnesses, local and federal investigators, lawyers, psychologists, social workers, etc, etc—with not one whistleblower among the vast legions of deep state lackeys ever spilling the “truth” about what really happened?

Do these keyword-banging paranoiacs, safe in their suburban homes, understand what it is to have their families, neighborhoods or towns rocked by violence of the sort perpetrated in Syria and Newtown?

It’s easy, when you’re comfortable and safe, to flippantly dismiss the sufferings and labors of those who do the hard work of propping up civilization.

But who cares, amirite? You’ve got some guns locked away in that cabinet over there. 

Seriously though, enough with the false flag bullshit.

Is Viktor Orbán a Bellwether for the U.S.?

Hungary's Viktor Orbán is providing the world with a particularly stark example of how a populist leader with authoritarian tendencies can lead a modern bureaucratic state away from openness, free discourse and the checks and balances of civil society. 

Orbán, who praises “ethnic homogeneity,” is seeking to shut down Budapest’s highly regarded Central European University.

This really is one of those “which side are you on?” signifiers. Do you support liberal democracy or the illiberal state? In the name of security and identity, should America become more like Russia and Turkey? (They are democracies, after all!)

This is where all the Nazi talk in recent years from both the Left and the Right is revealed as stupid and distracting. If you believe in plurality, openness and accountability, a free press, research independence and government checks on oligarchy… then a slide toward Viktor Orbán’s Hungary is what you should fear.

MOVE Bombing: Cops Forced to Act Like Soldiers

It’s been announced that the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission has approved a marker for the site of the 1985 MOVE bombing in West Philadelphia. A statement from the Jubilee School, sponsor of the monument, states the dropping of explosives on a rooftop bunker during an armed standoff “paved the way for government assistance to, and tolerance of, police brutality.”

There should be a historical marker about MOVE. I’m troubled though by the framing of those terrible events as an extreme instance of police brutality. It’s better to talk about MOVE alongside groups like the Branch Davidians or Symbionese Liberation Army—radical movements occupying heavily-armed compounds that became sites of showdowns with law enforcement.

In all these cases police were put in the position of having to conduct essentially a military operation against people hunkered down with an arsenal of weapons. MOVE had already shot and killed a Philadelphia police officer in an earlier standoff. The decisions made by the police were terrible but the options before them were also terrible.

These things always seem to end in fire. In Waco, better trained and equipped ATF agents could not stop the carnage. The difference with MOVE was it occurred in the middle of a densely-populated city neighborhood.

If we’re going to allow private citizens to hoard weapons then police need training in urban warfare. It’s the unintended consequence of Second Amendment fundamentalism.

Behind ISIS Attacks, a Hatred of Urbanism

The car-through-a-crowd mode of terrorist attack, used to such monstrous effect in Nice, Berlin, Brussels and now London, seems chillingly appropriate to the Islamist agenda and worldview.

Far-right, ultraconservative groups like ISIS have a particular hatred of cities, those wicked seats of diversity, cosmopolitanism and tolerance. Even worse is what is symbolized by the promenade, the public gathering space, long a symbol of openness and urban comity. Here people come to relax, to mix and mingle, to revel in the beauty of nature, architecture, and each other; to see and be seen.

Ultraconservatives hate all of this. Theirs is a world of enforced modesty, rigid social conduct and single-minded attendance to a particular religious and cultural view. Diversity, whether of thought, dress or manner, is to be condemned, even attacked.

So to be able to drive a truck into the heart of a public gathering area—a plaza, a promenade, a busy pedestrian walkway—especially one where people are enjoying all the best of what urban life has to offer—must be especially satisfying to them

I see the same sentiments at work in the minds of some on the far right in America. When Adam Purinton shot two Indian immigrants in a bar in Olathe, KS last month, he was probably angry about more than just immigration policy. He felt a visceral hatred of the whole scene, so much so that his bigotry erupted into murderous anger; a loathing of the very idea that foreign men could be relaxing and enjoying themselves on the patio of a bar on a warm evening.

There’s a fear operating of a type similar to the deep-seated loathing of integration in the Old South, the idea of men and women of different races simply enjoying each other’s company. What else could account for the segregation of parks, movie theaters, restaurants, pools? Downtowns, especially, needed to be strictly controlled. Civil rights activists knew what they were doing when they infiltrated lunch counters and public plazas, popular stages of civic engagement. (That these downtowns were subsequently abandoned by the middle class for suburban strip malls, bereft of public space, accessible only by car and isolated by acres of asphalt, is no accident.)

Hatred of cities as dens of vice and loose morals is as old as cities themselves. Of course, plenty of vice and loose morals can be found in the hinterlands as well. The very existence of a stable, functional multicultural city represents, for some, cognitive dissonance they can’t easily tolerate, a living breathing affront to notions of what constitutes “proper” society, and what their ideology teaches them ought to succeed. No wonder they lash out.

Letting it be All About Trump Did Not Help Hillary

My thoughts on Shaun King’s “Why the Democratic Party seems to have no earthly idea why it is so damn unpopular,” which got a lot of play on social media a couple of weeks ago.

From a branding standpoint, Hillary’s problem is a good reflection of the Democratic party’s problem. In the last weeks before the election, in a swing state, we in Pennsylvania were treated to a deluge of ads attacking Trump for his outrageous behavior and statements. Problem is, everyone had already made up their mind by then whether they cared about his comments about women etc. and how it would affect their vote.

What we should have seen were profiles of all the good work Hillary has done over her decades in public life. The work on behalf of children and families. (For the swing vote in a heavily Catholic state) her efforts to make abortion, as she once put it, “safe and rare” through better health care options. What she did for New York after 9-11.

Democrats do a poor job of driving the narrative. This has been true at least  since Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America in ’94. Democrats support universal healthcare—hell, they passed a pretty well-known law instituting it in 2010—and minimum wage, immigration reform, alternative energy, marijuana decriminalization, and end to fracking (very prominently on the state level in PA, NY and elsewhere)… for King to say mainstream Dems are not part of these battles is not true. 

An Unhappy Valentine's in Afghanistan

This Valentine’s Day we were greeted with a story of two young lovers dragged out of a police station and shot to death in rural Afghanistan. The angry mob included members of the young woman’s own family.

Her crime? Trying to elope with her true love after being married to a different man against her will. Villagers were tipped off that she might be up to something when she was spotted walking by herself —a no-no for females — which lead to her arrest on suspicion of of adultery.

The tendency among many Westerners will be to conflate these so-called “honor killings” with the religion of Islam—to see this as yet another example of the hateful intolerance displayed by religious radicals.

But this is not that. In fact, it was those who forced the woman to marry against her will who violated Islamic law. This tragedy is a consequence of the twin ills of rural ignorance and ineffective civil order. The local police, whose ability and desire to enforce laws on the books is tenuous at best, allowed mob rule to prevail. The locals, hidebound by prejudice and traditions soured by decades of war, capo rule and general lawlessness, did their best impression of Europe in the Dark Ages.

This activity is not sanctioned or driven by any religious authority. The sins are more indirect—perpetuating unequal power structures across society, and an overall tolerance of the very low status of women.

Beating Back Progress in 1890s North Carolina

Holy forgotten history, Batman! In 1890s North Carolina, the Fusion coalition brought together white farmers desperate for economic reform with disenfranchised Republicans and blacks to forge a new movement countering the entrenched (conservative) Democratic Party elite. The movement won big victories, instituted educational and political reform and elevated African-Americans to elected office, including George S. White, the last black U.S. Congressman of the Jim Crow era-- this decades after Reconstruction.

So what happened? The Democrats marshaled the forces of white supremacy and race fear to regain power, warning of race mixing and "negro domination."

Blacks were disenfranchised and the racial narrative was aggressively reasserted. It was after the Fusion period that many of the Confederate Memorials seen today were erected across the state, part of a successful effort to obliterate a past that included widespread Union sentiment in N.C. during the Civil War (Google "Red Strings").

Entrenched racism overwhelmed the economic motivations that, for a time, saw diverse Tar Heels make common cause. North Carolina would not elect another black member of Congress until... wait for it... 1992.

Lessons From History

The information above was gleaned from Timothy Tyson’s Blood Done Sign My Name.

Americans should be made better aware of the post-Reconstruction period in the South for many reasons, but especially to counter entrenched right-wing narratives about the meaning of the Civil War and Reconstruction. As imperfect as it was, Reconstruction successfully laid the groundwork for black enfranchisement and political agency in the South, to the extent that these gains had to be overturned through calculated demagoguery and reactionary violence.

This counterrevolution is perhaps most starkly witnessed in North Carolina; look no further than the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898.