A curiosity about the South, for people who live here

[AFK]

FWIW, there IS some pretty ugly and OUT IN THE OPEN racism here in the North.  Even here in liberal New England.  The Native American and refugee immigrant populations in these parts can attest to that.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Well yeah, the cops still work over the Native Americans at Plymouth on Thanksgiving, but Plymouth is tourist $$$.

Down here they do it for sport.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm much more interested in the political and cultural implications of secession and/or conquest & occupation of a failed secessionist state by the state it attempted to secede from than I am in making sure we all agree that the KKK were dicks.

I was talking about the effects felt by the occupying state.  Nobody invades anyone without being somehow influenced by the occupied state.  The response I received was a "poisoned well" argument...IE, that the implied argument was bigoted, therefore the argument as stated is invalid, regardless of what was stated and how.

I fail to see how this is different from the normal forms of political correctness.  If we are to have a discussion, then all points of view must be considered in broad daylight.  If, on the other hand, GA gets to make strawman cracks about my supposed disgust for due process, but legitimate observations are "automatically" bigoted, then there is no discussion.  It is instead preaching...Get in the choirbox or get out of the church, so to speak.

OK, I gotcha. I missed that part of it because the noise to signal ration ITT was getting a little squirrely. And yeah, I agree that that influence runs both ways. So essentially what we ended up with was a South that was so resentful that they took the one facet of their defeat that they could still exert any measure of control over (slavery/race issues) and took it to extremes, and a North that ended up absorbing too much of the bad meme that they created with their military victory.

...And added to their own bad signal.  The North had its own "issues"...In fact, given that the various parts of the nation were isolated by distance prior to civil war, each major region had its own "America".  The North's was basically blatant brigandry and plutocracy, the South was aristocracy oriented, and the West was psychotic.

The North's influence on the South was muted, because it took several generations for the South to get over their butthurt (it still hasn't, at least entirely).  The South's influence was HUGE, vastly out of proportion to their relative populations...And they had a more infectious meme:  America for REAL Americans, which spread so fast that the "know-nothings" and other "nativist" groups were brawling in New York city within 15 years.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And if GA is trolling, it's brilliant. But everyone seems to be latching onto the KKK comment (which was a total red herring) and letting that obscure the discussion about the several valid points that were raised. I'm much more interested in the political and cultural implications of secession and/or conquest & occupation of a failed secessionist state by the state it attempted to secede from than I am in making sure we all agree that the KKK were dicks.

This.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

And if GA is trolling, it's brilliant. But everyone seems to be latching onto the KKK comment (which was a total red herring) and letting that obscure the discussion about the several valid points that were raised. I'm much more interested in the political and cultural implications of secession and/or conquest & occupation of a failed secessionist state by the state it attempted to secede from than I am in making sure we all agree that the KKK were dicks.

This.

Gimme a sec on that Nathan Bedford Forrest stuff.

Is it appropriate for this thread, or should I start another?

[Phox]

I've been trying for a couple days to come up with something to add to this thread. I really don't have much except that my experience in Nashville, Atlanta, Kentucky, and the Carolinas can't be characterized with a single meme. Nashville is where I've been most recently. I've never run into a bad crowd in Nashville, though most of my excursions have been to museums, Centennial Park, and universities and other such places. People seemed genuinely friendly and open regardless of race or perceived otherness. My stay in Atlanta was brief, but similar. I can't really comment on being a kid in North Carolina, because my father was a Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, and I was also 4. Living this close to Kentucky, however, I've noticed that regardless of race, most people are "Others". In certain places, distrust is palpable.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Okay, we agreed that wikipedia is not a good source, but I'm going to use it as a starting point, with better sources to follow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest

He was the first "grand wizard" of the KKK.

Also here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAkkk.htm

The first branch of the Ku Klux Klan was established in Pulaski, Tennessee, in May, 1866. A year later a general organization of local Klans was established in Nashville in April, 1867. Most of the leaders were former members of the Confederate Army and the first Grand Wizard was Nathan Forrest, an outstanding general during the American Civil War. During the next two years Klansmen wearing masks, white cardboard hats and draped in white sheets, tortured and killed black Americans and sympathetic whites. Immigrants, who they blamed for the election of Radical Republicans, were also targets of their hatred. Between 1868 and 1870 the Ku Klux Klan played an important role in restoring white rule in North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia.

You'll also note that the terrorism was immediate.

Also here:

http://www.history.com/topics/ku-klux-klan

Founding of the Ku Klux Klan

A group including many former Confederate veterans founded the first branch of the Ku Klux Klan as a social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866. The first two words of the organization's name supposedly derived from the Greek word "kyklos," meaning circle. In the summer of 1867, local branches of the Klan met in a general organizing convention and established what they called an "Invisible Empire of the South." Leading Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest was chosen as the first leader, or "grand wizard," of the Klan; he presided over a hierarchy of grand dragons, grand titans and grand cyclopses.

Immediate terrorism:

From 1867 onward, African-American participation in public life in the South became one of the most radical aspects of Reconstruction, as blacks won election to southern state governments and even to the U.S. Congress. For its part, the Ku Klux Klan dedicated itself to an underground campaign of violence against Republican leaders and voters (both black and white) in an effort to reverse the policies of Radical Reconstruction and restore white supremacy in the South. They were joined in this struggle by similar organizations such as the Knights of the White Camelia (launched in Louisiana in 1867) and the White Brotherhood. At least 10 percent of the black legislators elected during the 1867-1868 constitutional conventions became victims of violence during Reconstruction, including seven who were killed. White Republicans (derided as "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags") and black institutions such as schools and churches—symbols of black autonomy—were also targets for Klan attacks.

By 1870, the Ku Klux Klan had branches in nearly every southern state. Even at its height, the Klan did not boast a well-organized structure or clear leadership. Local Klan members–often wearing masks and dressed in the organization's signature long white robes and hoods–usually carried out their attacks at night, acting on their own but in support of the common goals of defeating Radical Reconstruction and restoring white supremacy in the South. Klan activity flourished particularly in the regions of the South where blacks were a minority or a small majority of the population, and was relatively limited in others. Among the most notorious zones of Klan activity was South Carolina, where in January 1871 500 masked men attacked the Union county jail and lynched eight black prisoners.

As for NBF's racial outlook:

"That's a good thing; that's a damn good thing. We can use that to keep the niggers in their place."
- NBF, in reference to the KKK (disputed)



Interesting.  Before the war:

He had relatively enlightened ideas about slavery, describing it in 1856 as a "moral and political evil" even as he criticized abolitionists for trying to hurry along God's plan.

But also:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2004/winter/a-different-kind-of-hero

The severest of the criticism of Forrest — subjects studiously avoided by today's neo-Confederate activists — centers on three indisputable facts:

    Forrest was a Memphis slave trader who acquired fabulous wealth before the war;
    He commanded the troops who carried out an 1864 massacre of mostly black prisoners; and
    He led violent resistance to Reconstruction as the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

As Hurst points out, friendly Forrest biographers have attempted to describe him as a kindly slave trader, a man who cared for his charges and always avoided separating families.

But a Civil War newspaper account described whippings in which four slaves held the victim stretched out in the air while Forrest personally administered the bullwhip. Women were allegedly stripped naked and whipped with a leather thong dipped in salt water.

Might just be media bias:  Papers were even more notorious then than now.

But (from the same link):

Such accounts were later backed up by former slaves who described terrifying brutality and the break-up of their families.

Forrest despised blacks who fought for the Union, and was accused by one Union general of personally shooting a captured free mulatto who was a servant of a Federal officer. A Confederate cavalryman once recounted how Forrest "cussed [him] out" for failing to execute a captured black Union soldier.

But it was the slaughter of Union forces at Fort Pillow, Tenn., that was the most damning episode of all.

After surrounding the fort, Forrest demanded surrender from the 580 men within or, he said, "I cannot be responsible for the fate of your command."

While this demand was being negotiated under the white flag, Forrest illegally improved his position, according to later Union allegations. In any event, the Union commander refused to surrender, and soon Forrest's men were pouring over the ramparts.

"The slaughter was awful," a Confederate sergeant later wrote his family. "I with several others tried to stop the butchery and at one time partially succeeded, but Gen. Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs, and the carnage continued."

More on terrorism:

Although he repeatedly denied membership — even lying to Congress — Forrest in fact led the Klan through one of its most violent and successful periods, when robed terrorists succeeded in rolling back Reconstruction. He even told one newspaper reporter that while he was no member, he "intend[ed]" to kill radical Republicans. He added that he could raise 40,000 men in four days.

Forrest sympathizers have long claimed that he disbanded the Klan when it became violent. In fact, it had been extremely violent for years under Forrest, and was only disbanded when its work was essentially done — blacks and Republicans had been terrified into not voting — and when it came under intense criticism.

In fact, he only "disbanded" the Klan when asked to by a sympathetic politician by the name of Bedlow, who wanted to let the heat die down a bit.

More upon request.

[AFK]

I've been trying for a couple days to come up with something to add to this thread. I really don't have much except that my experience in Nashville, Atlanta, Kentucky, and the Carolinas can't be characterized with a single meme. Nashville is where I've been most recently. I've never run into a bad crowd in Nashville, though most of my excursions have been to museums, Centennial Park, and universities and other such places. People seemed genuinely friendly and open regardless of race or perceived otherness. My stay in Atlanta was brief, but similar. I can't really comment on being a kid in North Carolina, because my father was a Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, and I was also 4. Living this close to Kentucky, however, I've noticed that regardless of race, most people are "Others". In certain places, distrust is palpable.

I know people don't like the simple "racism is everywhere" statement, but, well racism IS everywhere and seems to be an engrained trait of humanity.  And it morphs and takes on other flavors, bigotry, religious intolerance. 


Basically, one set of people who think another set of people's reality grids aren't just wrong, they are EVIL wrong. 

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I've been trying for a couple days to come up with something to add to this thread. I really don't have much except that my experience in Nashville, Atlanta, Kentucky, and the Carolinas can't be characterized with a single meme. Nashville is where I've been most recently. I've never run into a bad crowd in Nashville, though most of my excursions have been to museums, Centennial Park, and universities and other such places. People seemed genuinely friendly and open regardless of race or perceived otherness. My stay in Atlanta was brief, but similar. I can't really comment on being a kid in North Carolina, because my father was a Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, and I was also 4. Living this close to Kentucky, however, I've noticed that regardless of race, most people are "Others". In certain places, distrust is palpable.

Outsiders can receive a cold reception. It depends on what it looks like you're up to. If they think you're there to upset their social balance, they won't have anything to do with you. The South is funny that way. As long as you just keep everything nice and quiet, nobody gets hurt. They don't like it when you go rocking the boat. Or when you look like you might rock the boat. Or when there's been a lot of boat-rocking lately and you don't look familiar. And if you're black, well, the best way to make sure you don't rock the boat is to use you as an anchor. That's how the South has been forever. They don't like change. Never have, and probably never will. And, oddly enough, sending an army right through the deepest part of the South to burn the change into them only made them hate it even more.

Okay, we agreed that wikipedia is not a good source, but I'm going to use it as a starting point, with better sources to follow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest

He was the first "grand wizard" of the KKK.

Also here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAkkk.htm

The first branch of the Ku Klux Klan was established in Pulaski, Tennessee, in May, 1866. A year later a general organization of local Klans was established in Nashville in April, 1867. Most of the leaders were former members of the Confederate Army and the first Grand Wizard was Nathan Forrest, an outstanding general during the American Civil War. During the next two years Klansmen wearing masks, white cardboard hats and draped in white sheets, tortured and killed black Americans and sympathetic whites. Immigrants, who they blamed for the election of Radical Republicans, were also targets of their hatred. Between 1868 and 1870 the Ku Klux Klan played an important role in restoring white rule in North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia.

You'll also note that the terrorism was immediate.

Also here:

http://www.history.com/topics/ku-klux-klan

Founding of the Ku Klux Klan

A group including many former Confederate veterans founded the first branch of the Ku Klux Klan as a social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866. The first two words of the organization's name supposedly derived from the Greek word "kyklos," meaning circle. In the summer of 1867, local branches of the Klan met in a general organizing convention and established what they called an "Invisible Empire of the South." Leading Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest was chosen as the first leader, or "grand wizard," of the Klan; he presided over a hierarchy of grand dragons, grand titans and grand cyclopses.

Immediate terrorism:

From 1867 onward, African-American participation in public life in the South became one of the most radical aspects of Reconstruction, as blacks won election to southern state governments and even to the U.S. Congress. For its part, the Ku Klux Klan dedicated itself to an underground campaign of violence against Republican leaders and voters (both black and white) in an effort to reverse the policies of Radical Reconstruction and restore white supremacy in the South. They were joined in this struggle by similar organizations such as the Knights of the White Camelia (launched in Louisiana in 1867) and the White Brotherhood. At least 10 percent of the black legislators elected during the 1867-1868 constitutional conventions became victims of violence during Reconstruction, including seven who were killed. White Republicans (derided as "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags") and black institutions such as schools and churches—symbols of black autonomy—were also targets for Klan attacks.

By 1870, the Ku Klux Klan had branches in nearly every southern state. Even at its height, the Klan did not boast a well-organized structure or clear leadership. Local Klan members–often wearing masks and dressed in the organization's signature long white robes and hoods–usually carried out their attacks at night, acting on their own but in support of the common goals of defeating Radical Reconstruction and restoring white supremacy in the South. Klan activity flourished particularly in the regions of the South where blacks were a minority or a small majority of the population, and was relatively limited in others. Among the most notorious zones of Klan activity was South Carolina, where in January 1871 500 masked men attacked the Union county jail and lynched eight black prisoners.

As for NBF's racial outlook:

"That's a good thing; that's a damn good thing. We can use that to keep the niggers in their place."
- NBF, in reference to the KKK (disputed)



Interesting.  Before the war:

He had relatively enlightened ideas about slavery, describing it in 1856 as a "moral and political evil" even as he criticized abolitionists for trying to hurry along God's plan.

But also:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2004/winter/a-different-kind-of-hero

The severest of the criticism of Forrest — subjects studiously avoided by today's neo-Confederate activists — centers on three indisputable facts:

    Forrest was a Memphis slave trader who acquired fabulous wealth before the war;
    He commanded the troops who carried out an 1864 massacre of mostly black prisoners; and
    He led violent resistance to Reconstruction as the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

As Hurst points out, friendly Forrest biographers have attempted to describe him as a kindly slave trader, a man who cared for his charges and always avoided separating families.

But a Civil War newspaper account described whippings in which four slaves held the victim stretched out in the air while Forrest personally administered the bullwhip. Women were allegedly stripped naked and whipped with a leather thong dipped in salt water.

Might just be media bias:  Papers were even more notorious then than now.

But (from the same link):

Such accounts were later backed up by former slaves who described terrifying brutality and the break-up of their families.

Forrest despised blacks who fought for the Union, and was accused by one Union general of personally shooting a captured free mulatto who was a servant of a Federal officer. A Confederate cavalryman once recounted how Forrest "cussed [him] out" for failing to execute a captured black Union soldier.

But it was the slaughter of Union forces at Fort Pillow, Tenn., that was the most damning episode of all.

After surrounding the fort, Forrest demanded surrender from the 580 men within or, he said, "I cannot be responsible for the fate of your command."

While this demand was being negotiated under the white flag, Forrest illegally improved his position, according to later Union allegations. In any event, the Union commander refused to surrender, and soon Forrest's men were pouring over the ramparts.

"The slaughter was awful," a Confederate sergeant later wrote his family. "I with several others tried to stop the butchery and at one time partially succeeded, but Gen. Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs, and the carnage continued."

More on terrorism:

Although he repeatedly denied membership — even lying to Congress — Forrest in fact led the Klan through one of its most violent and successful periods, when robed terrorists succeeded in rolling back Reconstruction. He even told one newspaper reporter that while he was no member, he "intend[ed]" to kill radical Republicans. He added that he could raise 40,000 men in four days.

Forrest sympathizers have long claimed that he disbanded the Klan when it became violent. In fact, it had been extremely violent for years under Forrest, and was only disbanded when its work was essentially done — blacks and Republicans had been terrified into not voting — and when it came under intense criticism.

In fact, he only "disbanded" the Klan when asked to by a sympathetic politician by the name of Bedlow, who wanted to let the heat die down a bit.

More upon request.

Anyone who thinks Nathan Bedford Forrest was anything but an asshole and a terrorist has some serious learning problems.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Anyone who thinks Nathan Bedford Forrest was anything but an asshole and a terrorist has some serious learning problems.

Or simply never read about him.  It HAS been 150 years, just about.

But the facts are:

1.  The KKK was NOT a "social organization", it was a terrorist organization that did some charity work for Quality People on the side (confederate widows, etc), and

2.  The KKK was terrorist from the word go, and

3.  The KKK was a direct result of the war and the occupation.  Ignoring it is to basically not talk about the post-war period.

4.  It's not "knee-jerking" if it's the truth.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I've been trying for a couple days to come up with something to add to this thread. I really don't have much except that my experience in Nashville, Atlanta, Kentucky, and the Carolinas can't be characterized with a single meme. Nashville is where I've been most recently. I've never run into a bad crowd in Nashville, though most of my excursions have been to museums, Centennial Park, and universities and other such places. People seemed genuinely friendly and open regardless of race or perceived otherness. My stay in Atlanta was brief, but similar. I can't really comment on being a kid in North Carolina, because my father was a Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, and I was also 4. Living this close to Kentucky, however, I've noticed that regardless of race, most people are "Others". In certain places, distrust is palpable.

Nashville has a bigass music industry. And yeah, it's a closed-minded music industry in a lot of ways, but it's still a music industry and that tends to help for some reason.

And Tennessee has Graceland. Shrine to a guy who started as an R&B singer for white girls. Tennessee can't afford to be as blatantly fucked as parts of Kentucky.

[Phox]

I've been trying for a couple days to come up with something to add to this thread. I really don't have much except that my experience in Nashville, Atlanta, Kentucky, and the Carolinas can't be characterized with a single meme. Nashville is where I've been most recently. I've never run into a bad crowd in Nashville, though most of my excursions have been to museums, Centennial Park, and universities and other such places. People seemed genuinely friendly and open regardless of race or perceived otherness. My stay in Atlanta was brief, but similar. I can't really comment on being a kid in North Carolina, because my father was a Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, and I was also 4. Living this close to Kentucky, however, I've noticed that regardless of race, most people are "Others". In certain places, distrust is palpable.

I know people don't like the simple "racism is everywhere" statement, but, well racism IS everywhere and seems to be an engrained trait of humanity.  And it morphs and takes on other flavors, bigotry, religious intolerance. 


Basically, one set of people who think another set of people's reality grids aren't just wrong, they are EVIL wrong.

Oh, yeah, RWHN, I wasn't saying that. I was saying that It's not like I went south and immediately I was in a den of racists and bigots. I also noted that in most places. I wasn't really in a position to see the everyday sorts of racism that certainly occur. In regards to Kentucky, I didn't really finish that thought. Some people, for instance, are regarded as more "suspicious" than others. Unaccompanied women or women in groups, for instance. I can't say if this might not also be the case with Black people, but I suspect sometimes it is. I also note that there is definite fascination with the Confederate flag in southern Illinois and in Kentucky, noticeably more than I saw in the Carolina or Georgia, but... then again, I see a lot more of the people here than I did there as well.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Anyone who thinks Nathan Bedford Forrest was anything but an asshole and a terrorist has some serious learning problems.

Or simply never read about him.  It HAS been 150 years, just about.

But the facts are:

1.  The KKK was NOT a "social organization", it was a terrorist organization that did some charity work for Quality People on the side (confederate widows, etc), and

2.  The KKK was terrorist from the word go, and

3.  The KKK was a direct result of the war and the occupation.  Ignoring it is to basically not talk about the post-war period.

4.  It's not "knee-jerking" if it's the truth.

This.

It's not like NBF was an aberration.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Anyone who thinks Nathan Bedford Forrest was anything but an asshole and a terrorist has some serious learning problems.

Or simply never read about him.  It HAS been 150 years, just about.

But the facts are:

1.  The KKK was NOT a "social organization", it was a terrorist organization that did some charity work for Quality People on the side (confederate widows, etc), and

2.  The KKK was terrorist from the word go, and

3.  The KKK was a direct result of the war and the occupation.  Ignoring it is to basically not talk about the post-war period.

4.  It's not "knee-jerking" if it's the truth.

This.

It's not like NBF was an aberration.

GA will be along to tell us what horrible Americans we are in 3...2...1...

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Anyone who thinks Nathan Bedford Forrest was anything but an asshole and a terrorist has some serious learning problems.

Or simply never read about him.  It HAS been 150 years, just about.

But the facts are:

1.  The KKK was NOT a "social organization", it was a terrorist organization that did some charity work for Quality People on the side (confederate widows, etc), and

2.  The KKK was terrorist from the word go, and

3.  The KKK was a direct result of the war and the occupation.  Ignoring it is to basically not talk about the post-war period.

4.  It's not "knee-jerking" if it's the truth.

This.

It's not like NBF was an aberration.

GA will be along to tell us what horrible Americans we are in 3...2...1...

Yeah. And how the Klan is rilly, rilly like the Shriners.