White terrorists overthrew the US government

Michael Harriott is a senior writer at The Root. He describes himself as a “master race-baiter.” He tweeted a thread in response to the nasty guy saying there would be a coup if he was ousted. The media thought that was a silly idea. It isn’t. Harriott’s thread shows how strong supremacy is and how nasty people will be to preserve their position in the hierarchy.

The thread is long, so this will be more of a summary than a series of quotes. Though I’ll start with a quote:

Racial terrorism is actually normal in American history but I believe we talk about in the wrong way. These are not isolated incidents, nor are they rare.

This is the story of how a national campaign by white terrorists overthrew the US government.

There have been four race wars in this country. The first was the genocide of the natives. The second was the Civil War. Harriott never gets around to mentioning the fourth (backlash to the civil rights era?). This thread is all about the third. It happened between the Civil War and the Jim Crow era.

At the time Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana were more than 40% black. South Carolina and Mississippi were majority black. In many of these states 90% of black eligible voters were registered to vote. Their right to vote was protected by Union soldiers.

With their vote black people elected black people to Congress. And to state legislatures. And to city and county councils.

White people didn’t like this. The solution: murder. Or maybe massacre. To prevent black people from voting.

238 in New Orleans at the 1866 Louisiana Constitutional Convention.

Maybe up to 200 in St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana before the 1868 election.

Maybe up to 300 in Opelousas, Louisiana also in 1868.

Maybe up to 1300 in Pulaski, Tennessee that same year.

About 1500 killed across South Carolina.

One of the things you must remember is that in many of these state, the Union soldiers in charge of upholding the law were black.

Can you imagine how salty white confederates must have been to fight for white supremacy and then have negroes lording over them as a reminder?

Not to mention the fact that these black people were now controlling politics. Remember, in many of these states, black people were OUTVOTING these traiterous-ass white supremacists.

Some of them decided to overthrow the government.

Harriott details more violence.

A plan in Laurens County, SC to stuff the ballot box failed. The backlash resulted in a mass murder. There was the Kirk-Holden War in North Carolina between the army and the KKK. That included impeaching Governor Holden.

In Arkansas the Klan, also in a war against the state militia, assassinated black candidates.

In Georgia the black elected legislators were expelled, many killed. The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that blacks had no right to office because their veins held African blood. Vigilante bands roamed Georgia killing blacks who looked like they might want to vote.

The American government went to war with the KKK in 1871. The KKK won.

So why do I say the KKK won?

Is it a bit extreme to say they "overthrew the government?"

Well, not only did these terrorists use violence to oust democratically elected candidates from office but they changed the course of history.

In the 1876 election, racist Democrats cheated so bad that the Electoral College was basically disbanded.

For instance, SC stuffed the ballot box so bad that 101 percent of eligible voters were represented. In Fla and Georgia, they just created their own ballots. Some of the Southern states just REFUSED to give Republicans their electoral votes, regardless of the results.

Instead, Congress decided to let a 15-member group go into a back room and decide what to do (It's a little more complicated than this, but not really. They LITERALLY let some white men decide who would be president because of this racial terrorism).

And Rutherford B Hayes was declared the winner 185 electoral votes to Tilden's 184.

As part of the compromise that put Hayes in the White House he pulled Union troops out of the South. With those troops out of the way the South instituted Jim Crow. And because of that compromise Jim Crow and its violence would continue for almost a century.

It got mentioned along the way that these racists were Democrats. At the time the Republicans were the good guys. In 1948 Harry Truman integrated the armed forces. Racists Southern Democrats hated that and by 1964 almost all Southern Democrats switched to the GOP. Which then used its Southern Strategy to help Nixon get elected.

So when Republicans talk about how Democrats used to be racists, they are partially correct. But I don't think of them as Democrats or Republicans, I just refer to them as "Racist Whites."

Since the beginning of this country, they have never been on the side of Democracy.

And these incidents have nothing to do with hate.

I’m puzzled by that statement. To black people and other outsiders all this looks very much like hate. There isn’t much difference between hate and terrorism. But going on…

They are an orchestrated terrorist campaign to keep power. Whether its voter suppression or mass murder, they've done it before and they are still doing it.

And that, my friend, is called "white supremacy"