The Fascist States of the American South — 1895–1966

“…even after the civil war, between roughly 1895 and 1966, there wasn’t a single southern state in the US — not one — that functioned as a democracy.” —

– (Quote from Law Professor — Friend)

There is no lie here in the statement above. A law professor colleague wrote that. I told him I agree.

For African Americans, the South, where most of us lived at that time, was a fascist republic of states. None of the states were democratic or operated as democracies.

Florida. Mississippi. Alabama. Louisiana. Tennessee. South Carolina. North Carolina. Georgia. Texas. Virginia. Arkansas. Kentucky.

African Americans had no rights that those states recognized. African Americans had no civil rights or voting rights. They were non-citizens. In some, they were not even considered human beings.

They were in constant danger for their lives for any or no reason, and many lost their lives. Even in Washington D.C., the nation’s capital, Jim Crow ruled the lives of African Americans.

Our children do not get taught these salient facts in grade school. They get taught nonsense. No wonder they are at times confused and easy to lead.

They stand for the “Pledge of Allegiance.” They are mostly convinced slowly and methodically that America made a few mistakes but mostly, America is good and perhaps, great. I am not debating America’s goodness or greatness. I am just stating the facts. Like Charles Dickens once wrote: “Just the facts.”

I stood for the pledge. I was never told this history. I was mostly lied to when I was in grade school.

My father and others told me this history. I was given books to read that slowly dripped this history into my being. Sometimes, my anger is intense when I learn how much of a lie I have been told about what happened.

My mother, who was born in South Carolina, does not say much about the time. I think it is just too much to re-visit emotionally. My father, born in Baltimore, mostly suppressed it as well. Yes, Baltimore is the South, if you are wondering.

Even more disturbing than my friend’s statement is that these states in the South broke off from the union and tried to basically overthrow the government. They went to war to maintain the enslavement of African people. They went to war for white supremacy.

Then, they lost, and yet, few went to prison. And ultimately, all of them re-entered the union as states, and they established fascist states in America at the expense of African Americans. They operated anti-democracies. Democracies for some of the people.

And people actually argue about reparations. The only thing about reparations that should be in dispute is what form the reparations should be when they are implemented.

In effect, by 1890, these fascist states in the South, “reached a consensus about how to resolve growing racial tensions,” and it was Jim Crow. Most African Americans still “lived in the South, and” this “dominant” racial attitude was the South’s “religious and moral creed.”

Overall, whites all across America feared African Americans, but in the South, the state and the police power of that state had the law behind it. Everything was separate. Cemeteries were racially segregated, as were movie houses and even the ticket counters.

If there were white customers in post offices or banks, African Americans had to wait for them to be served first. It was a ridiculous, stupid system. It is hard to believe it even existed, yet it did. It is even harder to believe people think something that depraved can be fixed in such a short period of time and especially so with millions of participants still living.

I did not ask my friend why he picked 1895 as the date when this all begins. I know the answer. He could have selected an earlier date. In 1896, the Plessy decision effectively announces the beginning of Jim Crow in America. Yet, well before that date, America’s legal racial apartheid is in full bloom.

In 1870, Virginia passed one of the first Reconstruction era Jim Crow laws. It was a destructive choice: white children and black children were legally mandated to attend separate schools. The system then accelerated.

Between 1890–1908, Southern states took away African American voting rights and issued new constitutions. Every state and some in the North passed Jim Crow laws.

As quickly as African Americans became citizens; their rights were stripped much quicker.

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Our American history is white-washed (no pun intended). Some states like Florida are making it illegal today to teach actual history. Florida is fascist today, in part, at least

Few children, in America, are taught that President Woodrow Wilson was a rabid racial segregationist who turned the federal government into a Jim Crow government in the workspace.

In addition, one of America’s most famous presidents — Franklin Roosevelt, cut a dirty deal with southern lawmakers during the New Deal period, to deny African Americans their full rights to economic benefits. People respect these men. Wilson and Roosevelt are American heroes to most people.

Do you often wonder why James Baldwin said Black people in America are in a rage?

The quote from my friend sent me into a temporary rage. Luckily, I had this space to make sense of it and not go out of my mind.

Thanks for reading —

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