Category Archives: Selma & Civil Rights

Varieties of Racism: the Carolina Confederate Flag Campaign

The feelings associated with this argument can run high. On August 14, 2017, a Confederate memorial statue at the courthouse in Durham was pulled down by protesters. Some of the same protesters moved on to Alamance County, and on the night of August 19, 2017 approached the Confederate statue in front of its “historic” courthouse.

The Confederate Memorial in Alamance County NC: Bigger, taller, well-guarded; still standing.
They had no luck there. The Alamance statue is much taller, much larger, and looms much higher over the courthouse square. It was also guarded by many ACTBAC sympathizers, not to mention police and sheriff’s deputies. After a several hour standoff, the protesters and anti-protesters dissipated in the dark.

Not long thereafter, yard signs began appearing on a scattering of Alamance lawns, calling for protection of such monuments as history.

So far, NC hasn’t seen a repeat of the August 12, 2017 Charlottesville VA violence over racial symbols. But as the “mega flags” proliferate, the waters are still stirring.

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Selma, the Day before Memphis & MLK’s Murder; A Look at my last visit

On April 4, many eyes will be on Memphis, Tennessee, remembering what happened there 50 years ago, I’ll be among  those. But I’ll be doing it from Alabama, just down the street from the still blindingly all-white state capital in Montgomery. That’s where the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church still stands. There in 1955 Dr. King … Continue reading Selma, the Day before Memphis & MLK’s Murder; A Look at my last visit →

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For King Day: Selma, Alabama — Protecting King, Protecting Obama

The Secret Service has to secure similar events every week, sometimes every day. So maybe this was a piece of cake for them. Compared to their skill, our mornings walks near Dr. King now seem utterly, almost comically amateurish.

But even so, somehow we came through it. Dr. King wasn’t called on to preach at our funerals. Instead, we lasted long enough to hear others preaching at his.

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The Deaths Of Racism, And Racism In Deaths

Helena then beckoned us through an opening in the low wall, into what seemed an empty field.
This plot was meant to be added to the cemetery (since UVA professors keep stubbornly falling short of immortality). But when archaeologists tested the ground, they discovered that it too was full of unmarked, and previously unknown graves.

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A Quaker Race Riot – Comments & Response

White supremacy was an explicit part of the KKK “Kreed.” And this outlook continues.
Another such group, the “outing” of which shocked me at the time (early 1960s), was the Democratic party in many southern states. Alabama, for instance. The party there featured this emblem on its slates of candidates: a rooster and the motto: “White Supremacy for the Right.” Not much doubt there.
And while the Alabama Dems have changed (now mostly black, they have dumped the rooster), their place has been taken by others; many others. Here is a selected list:
ACTBAC NC, Traditionalist Workers Party, Proud Boys, Vanguard America, Identity Evropa, Generation Identitaire, Traditionalist Youth Movement, National Socialists, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Council of Conservative Citizens, the League of the South.
I don’t hesitate to call these “white supremacist” groups.
And they are not distant abstractions to me.
One of them, ACTBAC [Alamance County Taking Back Alamance County], is centered in the rural community of Snow Camp NC. The Friends meeting I attend is also in Snow Camp. A few months back, ACTBAC organized a pro-Confederate rally in Chapel Hill (in the next county east) in “defense” of a Confederate statue on the UNC campus. They have organized many such rallies.

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