THREAD — what history tells us
It’s a short book. But one of the most consequential in American history. Haunting.
And I keep going back to it now.
The Strange Career of Jim Crow, by C. Vann Woodward
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And it’s scary as hell to say it, but the moment we’re in, and the next 2 years at least, greatly resemble the moment that the progress of Reconstruction hung in the balance.
(Let’s be clear about how dangerous ‘22 is. With a new round of districting
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primaries and a mid-term, some of the very extremists who fomented the insurrection could gain MORE power)
Strange Career is about how the Reconstruction era became the Jim Crow era, which lasted close to a century.
And it’s primary lesson could not be more clear:
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“The South’s adoption of extreme racism was due not so much to a conversion as it was to a relaxation of the opposition. All the elements of fear, jealousy, hatred & fanaticism had long been present, as they are present in various degrees of intensity in society. What enabled...”
“...them to rise to dominance was not so much cleverness or ingenuity as it was a general weakening and discrediting of the numerous forces that had hitherto kept them in check”
In the wake of that “relaxation,” dedicated extreme forces took over, locking Jim Crow into place
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