tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/race-war-87049/articlesrace war – The Conversation2022-05-20T12:15:23Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1834552022-05-20T12:15:23Z2022-05-20T12:15:23ZAccused Buffalo mass shooter had threatened a shooting while in high school. Could more have been done to avert the tragedy?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464344/original/file-20220519-24-qopwtp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C0%2C6679%2C4466&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many mass shooters show signs of distress before their attack. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/active-shooter-taking-gun-in-classroom-ready-for-royalty-free-image/1353456796?adppopup=true">Smederevac via iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nearly a year before he was charged with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/14/nyregion/buffalo-shooting">shooting and killing 10 shoppers</a>, and wounding three more, at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store, a then-17-year-old student <a href="https://buffalonews.com/news/local/mass-shooter-accused-of-pure-evil-killing-of-10-in-buffalo-hate-crime-named-in/article_f9ef9bac-d3d9-11ec-9eaf-cbcafe308f9c.html#tracking-source=home-top-story">reportedly told his classmates</a> at Susquehanna Valley High School that he “wanted to do a shooting, either at a graduation ceremony, or sometime after.”</p>
<p>He also reportedly mentioned that he <a href="https://buffalonews.com/news/local/even-in-new-york-red-flags-dont-always-stop-shooters/article_c3cd8228-d5f0-11ec-b066-c35d9bde8ff7.html">wanted to do a murder-suicide</a> at the school, which is located in Broome County in New York.</p>
<p>A teacher reported the comment – made online – to a school resource officer. Since the perpetrator had been at home when he made the comment, it triggered a visit from state police, as opposed to the school resource officer, according to an <a href="https://buffalonews.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/broome-da-says-authorities-followed-the-law-with-gendrons-high-school-threat/article_f61ee8a6-d6dc-11ec-b33b-cf576d594f42.html">official account of the episode</a> published in the wake of the shooting in The Buffalo News.</p>
<p>“The State Police visited the home, talked to the student and persuaded him to undergo a mental health evaluation at Binghamton General Hospital,” the <a href="https://buffalonews.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/broome-da-says-authorities-followed-the-law-with-gendrons-high-school-threat/article_f61ee8a6-d6dc-11ec-b33b-cf576d594f42.html">article states</a>. “When a doctor evaluated (the perpetrator) as not dangerous – a key hurdle required in the <a href="https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/MHY/TBA9">Mental Hygiene Law</a> to hold someone against their will – he was returned home and allowed to graduate days later.”</p>
<p>The story is not unlike the dozens of stories that we, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hoHQX8MAAAAJ&hl=en">a forensic psychologist</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iS4HAEMAAAAJ&hl=en">a sociologist</a>, have collected in recent years in our effort to study the <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/library/publications/violence-project-how-stop-mass-shooting-epidemic">life histories</a> of mass shooters. It typifies what we believe is one of the biggest challenges that schools face when it comes to averting school shootings – and in the case of Buffalo, mass shootings in general. And that challenge is recognizing and acting upon warning signs that mass shooters almost always give well before they open fire. </p>
<h2>Patterns emerge among shooters</h2>
<p>With <a href="https://nij.gov/funding/awards/pages/award-detail.aspx?award=2018-75-CX-0023">funding</a> from the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, we have <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database/">built a database</a> of 180 mass public shootings that have taken place in the United States since 1966. A mass public shooting is <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44126.pdf">defined</a> as an event in which four or more victims are killed with a gun in a public place. The goal of this project is to use data to look for patterns in the lives of mass shooters. The purpose is to develop a better understanding of who they are and why they did what they did, in order to prevent future tragedies.</p>
<p>The findings, detailed in our 2021 book, “<a href="https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/violence-project_9781419752957/">The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic</a>,” show the person charged with the Buffalo shooting on May 14, 2022, shares many commonalities with other mass shooters. He was a young man – <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/guys-guns-men-vast-majority-americas-gun-violence/story?id=79125485">98% of mass shooters are men</a> – who targeted a retail establishment, which is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-mass-shootings-are-happening-at-grocery-stores-13-of-shooters-are-motivated-by-racial-hatred-criminologists-find-183098">most common location</a> for a mass public shooting in our database.</p>
<p>The majority of mass shooters – 80% – showed <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database-3/key-findings/">signs of a crisis</a>, as exhibited in their behavior, before the shooting. Much like the accused Buffalo shooter allegedly did, nearly half revealed their plans ahead of time, such as by posting on social media. Communication of intent to do harm is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.33073">most common among younger shooters</a>, like the accused Buffalo perpetrator, who is just 18. Over 30% of mass shooters were <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database-3/key-findings/">suicidal</a> prior to their shooting, and another 40% intended to die in the act, according to our database. A news report indicates that the Buffalo perpetrator <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/05/17/twisted-diary-of-alleged-buffalo-shooter-payton-gendron-reveals-his-online-radicalization/">considered taking his own life over a dozen times</a>. </p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10829053/Diary-white-supremacist-Buffalo-gunman-entries-doubled-racist-beliefs.html">online diary</a>, the accused Buffalo shooter detailed the white supremacist ideology he discovered in internet chat rooms. Our database shows that 18% of mass shootings are underlined by hate. </p>
<p>At the same time, like a quarter of all mass shooters, the accused Buffalo perpetrator developed an interest in past mass shootings. He reportedly <a href="https://abc7ny.com/buffalo-shooting-suspect-payton-gendron-conklin-new-york-tops-supermarket/11855987/">praised other mass shooters who were similarly inspired by racial hatred</a>, such as the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/religion-389bcc56019f268cb1056e37a517bd6c">2015 South Carolina church shooter</a>. And like 25% of perpetrators we’ve studied, he left behind a “<a href="https://nypost.com/2022/05/14/buffalo-shooter-payton-gendron-posted-white-supremacist-manifesto/">manifesto</a>” for the next generation of potential mass shooters to read.</p>
<p>Despite his contact with police and the hospital the year before, the perpetrator was still able to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/us/politics/legal-gun-purchase-mass-shooting.html">legally purchase guns</a>, like 63% of the other perpetrators we’ve studied.</p>
<h2>Toward prevention</h2>
<p>There is a US$3 billion <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/school-shootings-and-campus-safety-industry/">industry</a> in U.S. school safety focused almost entirely on hardening schools with active shooter drills, metal detectors and armed security.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464345/original/file-20220519-9568-c3hubb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="School children hide under their desks as part of a lockdown drill." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464345/original/file-20220519-9568-c3hubb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464345/original/file-20220519-9568-c3hubb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464345/original/file-20220519-9568-c3hubb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464345/original/file-20220519-9568-c3hubb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464345/original/file-20220519-9568-c3hubb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464345/original/file-20220519-9568-c3hubb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464345/original/file-20220519-9568-c3hubb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lockdown drills have become part of life for America’s schoolchildren.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kindergarten-student-hides-under-her-desk-during-a-news-photo/72547972?adppopup=true">Phil Mislinski/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In recent years, however, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/02/1095489487/trigger-points-mark-follman-how-to-stop-mass-shootings">behavioral threat assessment teams</a> – teams in schools that get troubled people help before they turn to violence – have been touted as key to bridging the gap between hard security and soft prevention. Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.33073">research</a> shows that even general threats of school violence, such as those made by the alleged Buffalo shooter, are a critical intervention point on the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/med-psych/9780190940164.003.0022">path to intended violence</a>.</p>
<p>While the accused Buffalo shooter was <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/accused-gunman-in-buffalo-shooting-was-investigated-for-threat-to-his-school/2022/05">evaluated and cleared</a> as not posing an immediate threat, ongoing support to prevent the threat of violence becoming real and imminent in the future – including after he graduated from school and when he was no longer under the school’s duty of care – was lacking. <a href="https://www.wxxinews.org/local-news/2022-05-18/broome-county-district-attorney-confirms-buffalo-shooting-suspect-talked-about-murder-suicide">Few mental health services are available</a> for young adults and children in Broome County, or nationwide, and there are <a href="https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp16X687061">many barriers</a> to accessing those that are available.</p>
<p>Additionally, more could have been done to ensure that a student expressing homicidal and suicidal thoughts didn’t have access to the guns they needed to perpetrate violence. For schools, this typically means educating parents and caregivers about the <a href="https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/child-consumer-safety/safe-storage/">merits of safe storage</a>. But once a student turns 18, <a href="https://rockinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/policy-solutions-public-mass-shootings.pdf">permissive gun laws</a> complicate these efforts. </p>
<p>In the wake of the Buffalo shooting, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced plans to pursue executive orders and laws that would require state police to seek court orders to keep guns away from people who might pose a threat to themselves or others, <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-05-18/after-buffalo-massacre-ny-governor-seeks-action-on-guns">according to U.S. News and World Report</a>. Our data shows that if these policies were in place and acted upon, it could potentially <a href="https://www.latimes.com/projects/if-gun-laws-were-enacted/">prevent the majority of mass shootings</a>.</p>
<p>In the end, we must learn from the lives of mass shooters and the long and tragic history of mass shootings in America to do everything possible to stop the next mass shooting before it occurs.</p>
<p><em>Portions of this article originally appeared in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/school-shooters-usually-show-these-signs-of-distress-long-before-they-open-fire-our-database-shows-111242">previous article published on Feb. 8, 2019</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183455/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Densley receives funding from the National Institute of Justice</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jillian Peterson receives funding from the National Institute of Justice</span></em></p>When young people plan a mass shooting, especially at a school, they typically reveal their plans in advance. Two scholars weigh in on whether the warning signs are being heeded in the right way.James Densley, Professor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University Jillian Peterson, Professor of Criminal Justice, Hamline University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1528672021-01-07T18:02:53Z2021-01-07T18:02:53ZUS Capitol protesters, egged on by Trump, are part of a long history of white supremacists hearing politicians’ words as encouragement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377628/original/file-20210107-16-rpdrh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C20%2C6639%2C4376&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Proud Boys outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, January 6, 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-proud-boys-outside-the-us-capitol-in-washington-dc-on-news-photo/1230463103?adppopup=true">(Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/For The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“President Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress incited a violent attack Wednesday against the government they lead,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/opinion/trump-capitol-dc-protests.html">The New York Times’ editorial board wrote</a> on Jan. 6, summing up much of the response to the incursion into the Capitol by rioting Trump supporters that day.</p>
<p>At a rally that morning, Donald Trump <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-01-06/news-analysis-trumps-violent-rhetoric-incites-supporters-capitol-takeover">had urged those supporters</a> to march on the Capitol, saying he would “never concede” and that they should show “the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.” </p>
<p>The Times was joined in laying the blame at Trump’s feet by many others, including <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/01/07/mitt-romney-riot-violence-reaction-capitol-certification-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/congress-certifies-electoral-college-vote/">Republican Sen. Mitt Romney</a>, who said what happened at the Capitol was “an insurrection incited by the president of the United States.”</p>
<p>Among the protesters at the Capitol were members of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/proud-boys-white-supremacist-group-law-enforcement-agencies">white supremacy groups, including the Proud Boys</a>. Their participation in the Jan. 6 events, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/insurrection-capitol-extremist-groups-invs/index.html">egged on by Trump</a>, reflects a long history in the U.S. of local, state and national political leaders encouraging white supremacist groups to challenge or overthrow democratic governments. </p>
<p>During Reconstruction, the post-Civil War period of forming interracial governments and reintegrating former Confederate states into the Union, white city and state leaders in the South tacitly encouraged violence against black voters by state militias and groups like the <a href="http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2934">Ku Klux Klan</a>. They did it in a way that allowed those leaders to look innocent of any crimes. </p>
<p>Those groups used that chaos to end federal power in their states and reestablish white-dominated Southern state governments. </p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-white-supremacists-protesting-to-reopen-the-us-economy-137044">white supremacists hope the political chaos they contribute to will lead to</a> <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674286078">race war</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-reopen-protesters-really-saying-137558">and the creation of their own white nation</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cartoon by Thomas Nast in an 1868 Harper’s Weekly, ‘This is a white man’s government,’ skewering Southern white supremacists fighting Reconstruction laws.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/98513794/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reconstruction violence</h2>
<p>Moments of changing social and political power in U.S. history have led to clashes – <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/this-nonviolent-stuffll-get-you-killed">often armed</a> – between white supremacists and interracial alliances over voting rights.</p>
<p>That history includes the period following the Civil War, when white supremacist organizations saw the postwar rule over Southern states of Radical Republicans and the federal government as illegitimate. They wanted to return to the prewar status quo of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/14301/slavery-by-another-name-by-douglas-a-blackmon/">slavery by another name</a> and white supremacist rule.</p>
<p>As a historian of <a href="https://networks.h-net.org/node/4113/discussions/157750/register-kentucky-historical-society-vol-115-no-1-now-available">protests and Reconstruction</a>, I study how those paramilitary groups or self-proclaimed “regulators” consequently spread fear and terror among black and white Republican voters with the support of the anti-black Democratic Party in Southern states. </p>
<p>They targeted elections and vowed to “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=U7hpAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA2101&lpg=PA2101&dq=%E2%80%9Ccarry+the+election+peaceably+if+we+can,+forcibly+if+we+must.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=vZU88x92mU&sig=ACfU3U34H7Xb-2aUHMGrMKULNiHBUi1D4w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjxyZvYgKrpAhXRKs0KHXiiCuUQ6AEwBXoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Ccarry%20the%20election%20peaceably%20if%20we%20can%2C%20forcibly%20if%20we%20must.%E2%80%9D&f=false">carry the election peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must</a>.” </p>
<p>Still, many courageous black and white voters <a href="https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/after_slavery_educator/unit_nine_documents/document_4">fought back</a> by forming political organizations, daring to vote and <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/reconstruction-era/black-south-carolinians-form-militia-protection-1874">assembling their own armed guards</a> to protect themselves.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335429/original/file-20200515-138610-f56wxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335429/original/file-20200515-138610-f56wxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335429/original/file-20200515-138610-f56wxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335429/original/file-20200515-138610-f56wxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335429/original/file-20200515-138610-f56wxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335429/original/file-20200515-138610-f56wxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335429/original/file-20200515-138610-f56wxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A leader of the Three Percenters militia movement, Matt Marshall, speaks at an anti-lockdown protest, April 19, 2020 in Olympia, Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/matt-marshall-of-the-right-wing-group-washington-state-news-photo/1210404370?adppopup=true">Getty/Karen Ducey</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>‘Gentlemen of property and standing’</h2>
<p>Then, as today, white supremacists received encouraging signals from powerful leaders. </p>
<p>In the 19th century, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gentlemen-Property-Standing-Anti-Abolition-Jacksonian/dp/0195013514">gentlemen of property and standing</a>” often led or indirectly supported anti-abolition mobs, slave patrols, lynch mobs or Klan attacks. </p>
<p>Federal investigators in Kentucky in 1867 found that “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/572671/pdf">many men of wealth and position</a>” rode with the armed groups. One witness in the federal investigation testified that “many of the most respectable men in the county belong in the ‘Lynch’ party.” Future South Carolina Governor and U.S. Senator “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman reflected on his participation in the <a href="http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/hamburg-massacre/">Hamburg massacre</a> of 1876, arguing that “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ben_Tillman_and_the_Reconstruction_of_Wh/dOA4CQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=having+the+whites+demonstrate+their+superiority+by+killing+as+many+as+was+justifiable&pg=PA67&printsec=frontcover">the leading men</a>” of the area wanted to teach black voters a lesson by “having the whites demonstrate their superiority by killing as many as was justifiable.” At least six black men were killed in the Hamburg attack on the black South Carolina militia by the <a href="http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/red-shirts/">Red Shirts</a>, a white rifle club.</p>
<p>White supremacists knew that they would not face consequences for their violence. </p>
<p>An agent of the federal <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/freedmens-bureau">Freedmen’s Bureau</a> – set up by Congress in 1865 to help former slaves and poor whites in the South – stated that the “<a href="https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/after_slavery_educator/unit_nine_documents/document_3">desperadoes</a>” received encouragement and were “screened from the hands of justice by citizens of boasted connections.” </p>
<p>President Ulysses S. Grant <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.2070020a/?sp=2&st=text">condemned</a> the Hamburg massacre, arguing that some claimed “the right to kill negroes and Republicans without fear of punishment and without loss of caste or reputation.” </p>
<p>Facing community pressure, and without the <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674743984">presence of the U.S. Army</a> to enforce laws, local sheriffs and judges refused or were unable to enforce federal laws. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Armed rioters shown in the aftermath of the multiracial Wilmington, North Carolina, government being overthrown by white supremacists in 1898.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/photos/?q=Wilmington,+N.C.+race+riot">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Witnesses were often afraid to challenge local leaders for fear of attack. The “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/572671/pdf">reign of terror</a>” was so complete that “men dare not report outrages and appear as witnesses.”</p>
<p>When the U.S. District Court in Kentucky brought charges against two men for lynching in 1871, prosecutors could not find witnesses willing to testify against the accused. The <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/sn82015463/">Frankfort Commonwealth</a> newspaper wrote, “He would be hung by a [mob] inside of twenty-four hours, and the dominant sentiment … would say ‘served him right.’”</p>
<h2>State militias</h2>
<p>As Southern states threw off federal military occupation and elected their own white-dominated governments, they no longer had to rely solely on white terror organizations to enforce their agenda. </p>
<p>Instead, these self-described “<a href="https://www.ncpedia.org/redeemer-democrats">redeemers</a>” formed state-funded militias that served similar functions of intimidation and voter suppression with the support of prominent citizens. </p>
<p>At political rallies and elections throughout the South, official Democratic militias paraded through towns and <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/For_Slavery_and_Union/D917BgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=democratic%20partisan%20militia">monitored polling stations</a> to threaten black and white Republican voters, proclaiming that “<a href="https://vtext.valdosta.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10428/1130/butler-joshua-w_almost-too-terrible-to-believe_history_thesis_2012.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">this is our country and we intend to protect it or die</a>.” </p>
<p>In 1870 the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84020086/">Louisville Commercial</a> newspaper argued, “We have, then, a militia for the State of Kentucky composed of members of one political party, and designed solely to operate against members of another political party. These militia are armed with State guns, are equipped from the State arsenal, and to a man are the enemies of the national government.” </p>
<p>By driving away Republican voters and claiming electoral victory, these Democratic leaders gained power through state-supported militia violence. </p>
<p>White militias and paramilitary groups also confiscated guns from black citizens who tried to protect themselves, claiming “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xvIYAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1057&lpg=PA1057&dq=%E2%80%9CWe+did+not+think+they+had+a+right+to+have+guns.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=30R_twS8pK&sig=ACfU3U2HxA-pbH0zCkMHuGweuTsTwmODWg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwicxtWNgKXpAhWCaM0KHbwYAMsQ6AEwAHoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CWe%20did%20not%20think%20they%20had%20a%20right%20to%20have%20guns.%E2%80%9D&f=false">We did not think they had a right to have guns</a>.” </p>
<p>White terror groups and their allies in law enforcement were especially hostile to politically active black Union veterans who returned home with their military weapons. Local sheriffs confiscated weapons and armed bands raided homes to destroy their guns. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In an 1874 Harper’s Weekly cartoon, ‘The Union as it was,’ Thomas Nast critiques violent white supremacist organizations for forcing African Americans into a position ‘worse than slavery.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2001696840/">Library of Congress/Thomas Nast from Harpers Weekly</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Guerrilla race war</h2>
<p>During Reconstruction, paramilitary groups and official Democratic militias found support from county sheriffs up to state governors who encouraged violence while maintaining their own innocence.</p>
<p>Today, white supremacists appear to interpret politicians’ remarks as support for their cause of a <a href="https://gizmodo.com/report-over-100-militant-groups-have-been-promoting-se-1843051231">new civil war</a> to create a white-dominated government. </p>
<p>These groups <a href="https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/extremists-are-using-facebook-to-organize-for-civil-war-amid-coronavirus">thrive on recent protests against stay-at-home orders</a>, especially the ones featuring <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/27/why-are-people-bringing-guns-anti-quarantine-protests-be-intimidating/">protesters with guns</a>, creating an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/us/coronavirus-businesses-lockdown-guns.html">intimidating spectacle</a> for those who support local and state government authority. </p>
<p>Beyond “<a href="https://belonging.berkeley.edu/blog-revisiting-dog-whistle-politics">dog whistle</a>” politics, as in the past, these statements – and the actions encouraged by them – can lead to real <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/us/massachusetts-bomb-jewish-nursing-home.html">violence</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/senate-democrats-demand-action-cdc-doj-curb-covid-19-racism-n1201491">hate crimes</a> against any who threaten supremacists’ concept of a white nation.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-a-history-of-white-supremacists-interpreting-government-leaders-words-as-encouragement-137873">article originally published</a> May 18, 2020.</em></p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon M. Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The protests that ended in the storming of the US Capitol included members of white supremacy groups, the latest example of such groups being encouraged by politicians to challenge government.Shannon M. Smith, Associate Professor of History, College of Saint Benedict & Saint John's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1383632020-07-02T14:49:36Z2020-07-02T14:49:36ZWhy does racism prevail? Leading scholars apply their minds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338333/original/file-20200528-51467-13z5520.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>All people belong to one biological species and there are no human “races”. So why does belief in race persist? It may be a scientific misconception, but it is real. It defines the lived experience of many people and determines how governments act and how people treat one another. How did race come to have this power and this durability? </p>
<p>A project was undertaken to address these very questions and to get at the heart of the “everydayness” of race in South Africa and elsewhere. Called the Effects of Race Project, it was started at the <a href="https://stias.ac.za/about/welcome/">Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study</a> in South Africa in 2013 as part of a broader project at the institute called <a href="https://stias.ac.za/ideas/themes/being-human-today/">Being Human Today</a>.</p>
<p>One of us (Jablonski) along with political sociologist Gerhard Maré organised and convened the <a href="https://stias.ac.za/2017/08/what-do-we-wish-to-change-with-regard-to-race-racism-and-racialism/">project</a>. Our goal was to create new scholarship that could eventually inform outlooks and policy on “race thinking”. </p>
<p>Seven years later, we wanted to present a brief summary of some of the outcomes of the project and why they matter. When we began the project, we couldn’t see exactly what the future held in store, but we knew that the poisons of race-thinking and racism were killing people. Temporary antidotes were no longer going to work. Soon, the toxic nature of race thinking and racism would be exposed and fully understood so that they could be expelled from the body of humanity. </p>
<h2>Act of discussion</h2>
<p>We gathered together <a href="https://stias.ac.za/ideas/projects/effects-of-race/">scholars</a> from South Africa, the US and Europe who had years of experience in thinking about race. They came from sociology, anthropology, geography, law, the humanities, and education. Some of them were anti-apartheid leaders and are still engaged in efforts to raise South Africans out of that chasm of injustice. </p>
<p>The group met for about two weeks each year from 2015 to 2017, in the cold of the winter in the Western Cape. At the beginning of our work we had little more than hope. We fully appreciated that race-thinking and racism were big and powerful topics that had defied and defeated many previous expectations. We also recognised that we needed to inspect common misconceptions about race and understand how these continued to exist in public policy ecosystems.</p>
<p>The perspectives on race and racism that each of us brought to the group were never the same, but we listened carefully and responded thoughtfully. Through successive discussions, we cultivated the mutual respect and trust that made it possible to venture into the most difficult and sensitive subjects at length without fear of judgment or reprisal. As one of our members, <a href="https://stias.ac.za/2015/08/future-must-suffocate-racism-stias-seminar-by-njabulo-ndebele/">Njabulo Ndebele</a>, put it one afternoon:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The elephant is in the room, and we are petting it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We mused over whether we were not just being indulgent academics, failing to respond practically to matters that affect the lives of ordinary people. But we then realised that much of what we accomplished was the act of discussion itself. Significant insights and realisations emerged from honest, probing discussions among trusted parties. The process was as important as the subject matter. </p>
<p>We realised people of all ages and sorts, and especially children and youth, who had long been segregated by the weight of the built environment, needed more opportunities to mix in formal and informal settings, and share their experiences, dreams, and aspirations. This was not a new insight, but the fact that all of us felt its impact, to our bones, made it profound. </p>
<p>Constructive discussion could disable the reflexivity that paralyses much of the discourse about race and racism in South Africa and make it possible for us to grow in our appreciation of common humanity.</p>
<h2>The questions that need to be asked</h2>
<p>Through our many discussions, we did not solve many problems, but the exercise of discussing the roots and manifestations of race-thinking gave us such discomfort about the status quo that we are obliged to look for transcendent and transformational alternatives. We cannot in all honesty claim that we met our goal of creating “new scholarship” that will inform public policy as we had stated at the beginning of this project. </p>
<p>The more we examined this age-old matter the more we realised that race-thinking in South Africa and elsewhere was embedded in the consciousness of societies, even more so those societies that are racially mixed. South Africa’s constitution does not command us to live in a race-neutral or colour-blind society. All that it does in the preamble to the constitution is to enjoin us to</p>
<blockquote>
<p>heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While our work does not provide solutions, it raises the questions that need to be asked, and provides some conceptual tools for understanding the complex dynamics of race in our society. We believe that we can be spared the absurdity of Sisyphus in Albert Camus’s essay The Myth of Sisyphus and instead be imbued with the determination to revolt and to overcome dependence on the futility of race. We hope that the sampling of our work will lead you to the same conclusion.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is the first in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=RaceSeries&sort=relevancy&language=en&date=all&date_from=&date_to=">series</a> of six by Jablonski and Pityana, Göran Therborn, George Chaplin, Kira Erwin, Kathryn Pillay and Njabulo Ndebele.</em> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338540/original/file-20200529-96699-18rjzg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338540/original/file-20200529-96699-18rjzg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338540/original/file-20200529-96699-18rjzg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338540/original/file-20200529-96699-18rjzg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338540/original/file-20200529-96699-18rjzg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338540/original/file-20200529-96699-18rjzg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338540/original/file-20200529-96699-18rjzg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338540/original/file-20200529-96699-18rjzg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>The next two articles will reflect race and the impact of othering and of language with Therborn’s thoughts on race and existential inequality and Chaplin and Jablonski discussing how the impoverished vocabulary of race contributes to the problem.</em> </p>
<p><em>The three edited volumes of essays published by African Sun Media in 2018 (<a href="https://stias.ac.za/ideas/publications/volume-11-the-effects-of-race/">The Effects of Race</a>, edited by Nina G. Jablonski and Gerhard Maré), 2019 (<a href="https://stias.ac.za/ideas/publications/stias-series-volume-13-race-in-education/">Race in Education</a>, edited by Gerhard Maré), and 2020 (<a href="https://stias.ac.za/ideas/publications/stias-series-volume-15-persistence-of-race/">Persistence of Race</a>, edited by Nina G. Jablonski), contain the complete representation of the project’s scholarship.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138363/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nina G. Jablonski receives funding from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Science Foundation (U.S.). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Barney Pityana is affiliated with The 70s Group, an independent gathering of South African political activists from the 1970s. It aims to contribute to informed political and economic thinking in society.</span></em></p>There are, scientifically, no human races. How did race come to have this power and this durability?Nina G. Jablonski, Evan Pugh University Professor of Anthropology, Penn StateBarney Pityana, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1378732020-05-18T13:01:07Z2020-05-18T13:01:07ZThere’s a history of white supremacists interpreting government leaders’ words as encouragement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377618/original/file-20210107-23-vom98g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=70%2C70%2C6569%2C4376&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Proud Boys outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC on Wednesday, January 6, 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-proud-boys-outside-the-us-capitol-in-washington-dc-on-news-photo/1230463103?adppopup=true">Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/For The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/03/26/white-supremacists-see-coronavirus-opportunity">White supremacist</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-white-supremacists-protesting-to-reopen-the-us-economy-137044">militia</a> organizations are <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/04/16/835343965/-a-perfect-storm-extremists-look-for-ways-to-exploit-coronavirus-pandemic">exploiting</a> the government’s chaotic response to the coronavirus for recruitment efforts. </p>
<p>Whatever his intention, these groups interpret President Donald Trump’s tweets to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/trump-s-liberate-tweets-extremists-see-call-arms-n1186561">“LIBERATE” states</a> and calling armed protesters “<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/01/echoing-praise-charlottesville-neo-nazis-trump-calls-armed-anti-lockdown-fanatics">very good people</a>” as support for their cause.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/extremists-are-using-facebook-to-organize-for-civil-war-amid-coronavirus">Recent research by the Tech Transparency Project into social media accounts of white supremacists</a>, a nonprofit that researches “the influence of the major technology platforms” on politics, policy and people’s lives, found that “some members of private … Facebook groups reacted to the president’s rhetoric (about lockdown protests) with memes of celebration.” </p>
<p>The white supremacists’ response reflects the United States’ history of local, state and national political leaders encouraging white supremacist groups to challenge or overthrow democratic governments. </p>
<p>During Reconstruction, the post-Civil War period of forming interracial governments and reintegrating former Confederate states into the Union, white city and state leaders in the South tacitly encouraged violence against black voters by state militias and groups like the <a href="http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2934">Ku Klux Klan</a>. They did it in a way that allowed those leaders to look innocent of any crimes. </p>
<p>Those groups used that chaos to end federal power in their states and reestablish white-dominated Southern state governments. </p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-white-supremacists-protesting-to-reopen-the-us-economy-137044">white supremacists hope the political chaos they contribute to will lead to</a> <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674286078">race war</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-reopen-protesters-really-saying-137558">and the creation of their own white nation</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cartoon by Thomas Nast in an 1868 Harper’s Weekly, ‘This is a white man’s government,’ skewering Southern white supremacists fighting Reconstruction laws.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/98513794/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reconstruction violence</h2>
<p>Moments of changing social and political power in U.S. history have led to clashes – <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/this-nonviolent-stuffll-get-you-killed">often armed</a> – between white supremacists and interracial alliances over voting rights.</p>
<p>That history includes the period following the Civil War, when white supremacist organizations saw the postwar rule over Southern states of Radical Republicans and the federal government as illegitimate. They wanted to return to the prewar status quo of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/14301/slavery-by-another-name-by-douglas-a-blackmon/">slavery by another name</a> and white supremacist rule.</p>
<p>As a historian of <a href="https://networks.h-net.org/node/4113/discussions/157750/register-kentucky-historical-society-vol-115-no-1-now-available">protests and Reconstruction</a>, I study how those paramilitary groups or self-proclaimed “regulators” consequently spread fear and terror among black and white Republican voters with the support of the anti-black Democratic Party in Southern states. </p>
<p>They targeted elections and vowed to “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=U7hpAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA2101&lpg=PA2101&dq=%E2%80%9Ccarry+the+election+peaceably+if+we+can,+forcibly+if+we+must.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=vZU88x92mU&sig=ACfU3U34H7Xb-2aUHMGrMKULNiHBUi1D4w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjxyZvYgKrpAhXRKs0KHXiiCuUQ6AEwBXoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Ccarry%20the%20election%20peaceably%20if%20we%20can%2C%20forcibly%20if%20we%20must.%E2%80%9D&f=false">carry the election peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must</a>.” </p>
<p>Still, many courageous black and white voters <a href="https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/after_slavery_educator/unit_nine_documents/document_4">fought back</a> by forming political organizations, daring to vote and <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/reconstruction-era/black-south-carolinians-form-militia-protection-1874">assembling their own armed guards</a> to protect themselves.</p>
<h2>‘Gentlemen of property and standing’</h2>
<p>Then, as today, white supremacists received encouraging signals from powerful leaders. </p>
<p>In the 19th century, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gentlemen-Property-Standing-Anti-Abolition-Jacksonian/dp/0195013514">gentlemen of property and standing</a>” often led or indirectly supported anti-abolition mobs, slave patrols, lynch mobs or Klan attacks. </p>
<p>Federal investigators in Kentucky in 1867 found that “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/572671/pdf">many men of wealth and position</a>” rode with the armed groups. One witness in the federal investigation testified that “many of the most respectable men in the county belong in the ‘Lynch’ party.” Future South Carolina Governor and U.S. Senator “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman reflected on his participation in the <a href="http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/hamburg-massacre/">Hamburg massacre</a> of 1876, arguing that “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ben_Tillman_and_the_Reconstruction_of_Wh/dOA4CQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=having+the+whites+demonstrate+their+superiority+by+killing+as+many+as+was+justifiable&pg=PA67&printsec=frontcover">the leading men</a>” of the area wanted to teach black voters a lesson by “having the whites demonstrate their superiority by killing as many as was justifiable.” At least six black men were killed in the Hamburg attack on the black South Carolina militia by the <a href="http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/red-shirts/">Red Shirts</a>, a white rifle club.</p>
<p>White supremacists knew that they would not face consequences for their violence. </p>
<p>An agent of the federal <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/freedmens-bureau">Freedmen’s Bureau</a> – set up by Congress in 1865 to help former slaves and poor whites in the South – stated that the “<a href="https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/after_slavery_educator/unit_nine_documents/document_3">desperadoes</a>” received encouragement and were “screened from the hands of justice by citizens of boasted connections.” </p>
<p>President Ulysses S. Grant <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.2070020a/?sp=2&st=text">condemned</a> the Hamburg massacre, arguing that some claimed “the right to kill negroes and Republicans without fear of punishment and without loss of caste or reputation.” </p>
<p>Facing community pressure, and without the <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674743984">presence of the U.S. Army</a> to enforce laws, local sheriffs and judges refused or were unable to enforce federal laws. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Armed rioters shown in the aftermath of the multiracial Wilmington, North Carolina, government being overthrown by white supremacists in 1898.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/photos/?q=Wilmington,+N.C.+race+riot">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Witnesses were often afraid to challenge local leaders for fear of attack. The “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/572671/pdf">reign of terror</a>” was so complete that “men dare not report outrages and appear as witnesses.”</p>
<p>When the U.S. District Court in Kentucky brought charges against two men for lynching in 1871, prosecutors could not find witnesses willing to testify against the accused. The <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/sn82015463/">Frankfort Commonwealth</a> newspaper wrote, “He would be hung by a [mob] inside of twenty-four hours, and the dominant sentiment … would say ‘served him right.’”</p>
<h2>State militias</h2>
<p>As Southern states threw off federal military occupation and elected their own white-dominated governments, they no longer had to rely solely on white terror organizations to enforce their agenda. </p>
<p>Instead, these self-described “<a href="https://www.ncpedia.org/redeemer-democrats">redeemers</a>” formed state-funded militias that served similar functions of intimidation and voter suppression with the support of prominent citizens. </p>
<p>At political rallies and elections throughout the South, official Democratic militias paraded through towns and <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/For_Slavery_and_Union/D917BgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=democratic%20partisan%20militia">monitored polling stations</a> to threaten black and white Republican voters, proclaiming that “<a href="https://vtext.valdosta.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10428/1130/butler-joshua-w_almost-too-terrible-to-believe_history_thesis_2012.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">this is our country and we intend to protect it or die</a>.” </p>
<p>In 1870 the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84020086/">Louisville Commercial</a> newspaper argued, “We have, then, a militia for the State of Kentucky composed of members of one political party, and designed solely to operate against members of another political party. These militia are armed with State guns, are equipped from the State arsenal, and to a man are the enemies of the national government.” </p>
<p>By driving away Republican voters and claiming electoral victory, these Democratic leaders gained power through state-supported militia violence. </p>
<p>White militias and paramilitary groups also confiscated guns from black citizens who tried to protect themselves, claiming “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xvIYAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1057&lpg=PA1057&dq=%E2%80%9CWe+did+not+think+they+had+a+right+to+have+guns.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=30R_twS8pK&sig=ACfU3U2HxA-pbH0zCkMHuGweuTsTwmODWg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwicxtWNgKXpAhWCaM0KHbwYAMsQ6AEwAHoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CWe%20did%20not%20think%20they%20had%20a%20right%20to%20have%20guns.%E2%80%9D&f=false">We did not think they had a right to have guns</a>.” </p>
<p>White terror groups and their allies in law enforcement were especially hostile to politically active black Union veterans who returned home with their military weapons. Local sheriffs confiscated weapons and armed bands raided homes to destroy their guns. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In an 1874 Harper’s Weekly cartoon, ‘The Union as it was,’ Thomas Nast critiques violent white supremacist organizations for forcing African Americans into a position ‘worse than slavery.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2001696840/">Library of Congress/Thomas Nast from Harpers Weekly</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Guerrilla race war</h2>
<p>During Reconstruction, paramilitary groups and official Democratic militias found support from county sheriffs up to state governors who encouraged violence while maintaining their own innocence.</p>
<p>Today, white supremacists appear to interpret politicians’ remarks as support for their cause of a <a href="https://gizmodo.com/report-over-100-militant-groups-have-been-promoting-se-1843051231">new civil war</a> to create a white-dominated government. </p>
<p>These groups <a href="https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/extremists-are-using-facebook-to-organize-for-civil-war-amid-coronavirus">thrive on recent protests against stay-at-home orders</a>, especially the ones featuring <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/27/why-are-people-bringing-guns-anti-quarantine-protests-be-intimidating/">protesters with guns</a>, creating an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/us/coronavirus-businesses-lockdown-guns.html">intimidating spectacle</a> for those who support local and state government authority. </p>
<p>Beyond “<a href="https://belonging.berkeley.edu/blog-revisiting-dog-whistle-politics">dog whistle</a>” politics, as in the past, these statements – and the actions encouraged by them – can lead to real <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/us/massachusetts-bomb-jewish-nursing-home.html">violence</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/senate-democrats-demand-action-cdc-doj-curb-covid-19-racism-n1201491">hate crimes</a> against any who threaten supremacists’ concept of a white nation.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon M. Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>White supremacists’ protests against COVID-19 lockdowns reflect the US history of political leaders encouraging white supremacist groups to challenge or overthrow democratic governments.Shannon M. Smith, Associate Professor of History, College of Saint Benedict & Saint John's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.