This is a collection of resources on the long and terrible history of racial violence against black people in the US. Originally a twitter thread, starting here, by Professor Walter D Greason. I have added a couple more links, for specific instances mentioned by other people, as I’ve remembered them.
There is a lot–A LOT–of deeply disturbing imagery in these links and videos. This is what white people have done, and continue to do, to black people in this country, without remorse–indeed, feeling morally justified and protected by law–for centuries.
(Note: I’m including some links at the end, regarding racial violence toward other groups)
I will continue to update this as I learn more.
Charles Deslonde: the German Coast uprising, 1811
Nat Turner’s Insurrection, 1831–retaliation and aftermath
The true story of Anarcha, Lucy and Betsie – the medical violence of J Marion Sims, 1845 to 1849
Please note that people are still arguing whether it was unethical for a doctor to operate on human beings who couldn’t consent to it, repeatedly and without anesthesia, or if this should be forgiven due to the medical advances that came from these operations.¹
Christiana, Pennsylvania Riot, 1851
The 1919 Chicago Race Riots
Ida B. Wells’ Southern Horrors and The Red Record.
The lynching of Jesse Washington, 1916
East St Louis Race Riots, 1917
The lynching of Mary Turner, 1918
The Red Summer: the Race Riots of 1919 (the second link is for a play list in youtube)
The massacre of Elaine, AR, September 30, 1919
Tulsa Race Riots, 1921 (also, this thread on twitter)
Rosewood Massacre, 1923 ((video starts with trailer for a movie, keep watching)
The murder of Emmett Till, 1955
Lynching Photography: 1882 through 1968
Birmingham Church burning, 1963, and the murders of Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins and Denise McNair–we will continue saying their names.
An Analysis of Lynching:
The Ku Klux Klan, a secret history (Please note: “The Klan is the oldest terrorist organization in the United States”)
The Klan in the 1920s: the effects of WWI
Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment–by the US Public Health Service–from 1932 to 1972.
Lynching in America: Targeting Black Veterans (from the Civil War to the years immediately after WWII)
Democracy Abroad, Jim Crow at Home: Charlottesville’s Veterans of WWI
The systemic rape of black women and girls by white men: from Jim Crow to the Civil Righs Movement.
(And even today, black girls as young as 10 as presented as ‘grown up’ and ‘sexy’ by media)
White Citizens Councils, wherein local governments kept tabs of ‘civil right sympathizers’ whom they terrorised. Mississippi, 1956 – 1977
Forced Busing in Boston, and the resulting riots, 1974 (link to a playlist in youtube)
The killing of Michael Brown, and the riots in Ferguson 2014
Ava DuVernay’s 13th — prison industrial complex in the US, today. Every day.
Current mapping of police violence in the US–2016 and 2017
Seggreggation in public policy
The Black Laws of Oregon, 1844 to 1857, which basically is a precursor to current racism (Portland 2016, “The Whitest City in America” and 2017, “I hope everyone I stabbed, died”)
Robert Moses: racist city planning, almost a hundred years on.
The reseggreggation of education
Statues of Confederate Traitors: the real story behind them.
Sundown Towns: from the mid 1800s to today, targeting mostly Black people, but also Chinese, Mexicans, Japanese, etc.
Violence against other groups:
Lincoln orders the largest mass execution in US history: 38 Dakota warriors + 2, in Mankato, MN, on December 26, 1862, in the aftermath of the Dakota War of 1862
The massacre at Wounded Knee, 1890
Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879 to 1918 – keep in mind this brutality has been whitewashed and erased; at least 200 Indian children died at the hands of the masters of the school.
Lynching of six Italians in New Orleans, 1891
Bellhingham Riots, 1907
The ‘modern eugenics’ movement, 1920s
Mexican ‘repatriation’ (1920s to 1930s)
Incarceration of Japanese American, 1942
Puerto Rican women as guinea pigs for oral contraceptives, 1956
Violence against Water Protectors at Standing Rock (there are running legal costs, we can help here).
Joe Arpaio: genocide against Latinos (the Wikipedia link to the ‘controversies’)
The historic rate of violence against Native Americans (via Rewire)
Donald Trump’s criminal neglect of Puerto Rico, 2017 and ongoing
Separation of children as young as months old from parents seeking asylum, 2018
Indefinite detention of families, 2018
~ * ~
¹ The erasure of these three victims of prolonged, repeated torture, to focus on the man who used them, brings to mind the unlawful use of Henrietta Lacks’ cervical cancer cells–to this day–without her consent.
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