In Mississippi, on September 25, 1961, an African American “farmer
named Herbert Lee, the father of nine, an NAACP member who braved the terror to
attend voter meetings and drive [Bob] Moses around the country, was shot dead
in broad daylight, by a state legislator named E.H. Hurst” (Gitlin, p. 141).
Injustices committed during the early Civil Rights Movement are suffocating,
terrifying, oppressive episodes in recent US history that most people,
particularly those outside of the African American community, would prefer to
forget. But history presents valuable lessons that are obviated by forgetting.
Humans are the same biological animals whether we are discussing humans of the
10th Century, the 20th Century or the 21st
Century. Though there has been significant social evolution over the past 1000
years, we still retain qualities, behavioral and biological, that can instruct
us about who we are and how we will respond in a given situation.
In Mississippi of 1961, elected officials like E.H. Hurst
set examples, as political leaders, concerning racism and suppression. These
examples emboldened other racists to commit hate crimes as well. As a
presidential candidate, Donald Trump also set an example. By now we are all
familiar enough with Trump’s prejudiced comments against minorities and
physical assaults against women, that a litany is unnecessary. Enough progress
has been made during the ensuing 56 years between Hurst’s and Trump’s examples
that our elected officials no longer shoot targeted minorities in cold blood (they
leave that to the police). We have socially evolved enough that opportunists
like Trump employ only racist language to obtain office. The instructive similarity
between 1961 and 2017 is that the examples politicians set have material
consequences in society.
The Southern Poverty Law Center documented “what has become a national outbreak of hate, as white
supremacists celebrate Donald Trump’s victory. In the ten days following the
election, there were almost 900 reports of harassment and intimidation from
across the nation. Many harassers invoked Trump’s name during assaults, making
it clear that the outbreak of hate stemmed in large part from his electoral
success.” Here are some examples:
A
Sudanese-American family in Iowa City, Iowa...found a note
attached to their door that read, “You can all go home now. We don’t want
niggers and terrorists here. #trump.”
In Tuscola
County, Mich., a Latino family was shocked to find a wall of boxes scrawled
with “Trump,” “Take America Back,” and “Mexicans suck.”
While a
Chinese-American high school student was getting gas, a white man approached
her to say, “Can’t wait for Trump to deport you or I will deport you myself,
dyke yellow bitch.”
On the Las
Vegas Strip, a white man punched two black men and attempted to assault a black
woman. After the attack, he chanted “Donald Trump!” and “White Power!”
In Sarasota,
Florida, a 75-year-old gay man was ripped from his car and beaten by an
assailant who told him, “You know my new president says we can kill all you
faggots now.”
In Minneapolis,
middle-school boys leaned out of a school bus to yell, “Grab her by the pussy!”
to a man walking with a female colleague.
In Albuquerque, New
Mexico, a woman caught a stranger trying to take the “I’m With Her” bumper
sticker off of her car. When confronted, the perpetrator asked her if she was a
Jew because she “looked like one.” “Get ready for your next exodus lady,” they
told her, “because we’re about to clean out this country.”
The report is at https://www.splcenter.org/20161129/ten-days-after-harassment-and-intimidation-aftermath-election
History never repeats itself verbatim. It is unlikely that
we will see an exact replica of Civil Rights Era reactionary injustice. But the
evidence is clear that Donald Trump’s hate speech against women and minorities
has emboldened a profoundly ignorant segment of the US to expand upon his
language with acts of hatred. Interestingly, there is also a historical
parallel among political organizations between 1961 and 2017. The anonymous
racists of the 1961 Ku Klux Klan are mirrored in 2017 by the anonymous trolls
of the Alt Right who perform cowardly, incognito attacks, like their
predecessors.
The day that this writing was penned, there occurred the
largest demonstration in US history: The Women's March for America. The Washington Post estimated that the
march had more than a million attendees nation-wide. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/womens-march-on-washington-a-sea-of-pink-hatted-protesters-vow-to-resist-donald-trump/2017/01/21/ae4def62-dfdf-11e6-acdf-14da832ae861_story.html?utm_term=.8af24a6c399b Internationally, the conservative estimate by
reputable news agencies is that 2 million people in 75 nations joined the million
US women’s protesters https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/21/protests-around-world-show-solidarity-with-womens-march-on-washington#top
Demonstrations are a fine and positive expression of vision. But they are not enough.
Professor Todd Gitlin, whose book is quoted at the beginning of this article,
spoke to NPR a week before the event. He used the example of Tea
Party demonstrators, who turned protest into permanent organizations and
elected representatives to Washington. Gitlin indicated that the progressive,
anti-Trump demonstrators should do the same. If we are going to turn the tide
against Trump-inspired hatred, we need to follow Gitlin’s suggestions.
Individual commitment to organizing, not just protesting, is the answer. The
author of this article, for one, will be contacting the website of the Women’s March for America. He will chose a partner organization with whom to volunteer, as soon as this is posted. Here is the link to their national website’s list of partners:
Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties. Years of Hope, Days of Rage.
New York: Bantam Books, 1987.
