"We do it for George."
What’s the big deal with Trump’s attacks on Jack Smith, Judge Chutkan, and former members of Trump's administration who have testified against him before a grand jury and who will repeat that testimony in open court? Maybe this true story will explain why Trump’s attacks are dangerous – warning: This is a LONG story.
I was born (1944) and reared in rural south Mississippi where cotton and Jim Crow were king. Blacks “knew their place” and they knew the cost of getting out of their place. In 1954-55 our community was trying to decide how to deal with the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education. One Sunday, from the pulpit, our pastor proclaimed, “the idea that Blacks are the equal of White people is the damndest lie Satan has ever devised.” While the congregation said “Amen,” I – even at 10 years old – was not comfortable with that proclamation. In 1962, at age 18, I packed up, headed for a small liberal arts college in Alabama, graduated in 1967, left Mississippi and Alabama and never looked back.
One of the jobs that paid for my college was as the nighttime DJ on a local radio station – I came on the air at 7, read news and weather, did commercials, and played records until midnight, signed the station off, and headed back to my dorm room.
The station’s studio was on the 3rd floor of a bank building. The bank employed a night watchman who roamed around the building, checking for locked doors and windows, lights turned off, and the like. A few times on most nights he would come into the studio, listen to the news and weather, talk with me while a record played. He was a large man, carried an Army .45 on his hip and a blackjack in his hip pocket. I suspected he was a Klansman and, after a couple of months, he told me he was a “Kluxer.”
In late March 1965, all the news was about the Selma to Montgomery march. My night watchman friend was fixated on the march, especially on the “outside agitators” and “Northen n####rs” who had invaded Alabama and were “stirring up the local n####rs.” On March 25, 1965, Viola Liuzzo -- a lady from Michigan who had come to Selma and Montgomery to help with logistics for the march – was driving a group from Montgomery back to Selma when she caught the attention of the local Klan because she was a white woman driving a carload of Blacks. Three local Klansmen followed her car, pulled up beside her, and killed her with two shots to the head.
The next night, after I read the hourly news -- which was all about the murder -- the watchman, who was listening intently, told me “We did that for George.”
Puzzled, I asked him: “You mean George Wallace, the governor?”
“Yeah, for George. You see, George is Governor, he wears a suit, makes speeches, and he can’t do what needs to be done to get rid of the outside agitators and the n####rs, so, we do it for him. We listen to George.”
Two weeks later I was reading a Birmingham newspaper with photos of a group of white men attacking a group of Black demonstrators. There, among the attacking group, was my night watchman friend, beating a young Black man with his blackjack.
Yesterday, while watching a video clip of Trump’s attacks on Jack Smith and Judge Chutkan, I suddenly recalled these events from 58 years ago and I felt a chill all over me. The Klan was doing for George Wallace what he, because of his position, could not do. George Wallace is gone. Trump has picked up Wallace's mantle and there are a lot of night watchmen out there with weapons far more deadly than a blackjack.
= new reply since forum marked as read
put it, Amaryllis. 
Well done! VERY well done.
So Descriptively written.. I felt like I was there, AOG.
at "We did it for the Traitor". 
Rec this 100 times.
While that guy was beating black civil rights activist and popping off at the mouth to you -
A young black man from Talladega was training in the first class of Green Berets - as an army Captain. He gave that Kluxer the freedom to say and think what he wanted.
I hope that gives you a smile.
That Kluxer got that Freedom from my dad.