My general ignorance of our own sordid history continues to astonish me.

[kairos12]

https://www.britannica.com/event/Wilmington-coup-and-massacre

snip:
Wilmington coup and massacre, political coup and massacre in which the multiracial Fusionist (Republican and Populist) city government of Wilmington, North Carolina, was violently overthrown on November 10, 1898, and as many as 60 Black Americans were killed in a premeditated murder spree that was the culmination of an organized months-long statewide campaign by white supremacists to eliminate African American participation in government and permanently disenfranchise Black citizens of North Carolina. The coup followed on the heels of an election for the county, state, and federal governments that restored a Democratic majority in the state legislature, which set about enacting Jim Crow legislation that disenfranchised Black people in North Carolina for many decades to come.

The fact I was unaware of this event is appalling.

Need to do better.

[Elessar Zappa]

1. It's hard to know about every despicable event in our history.

Don’t be down on yourself, life is about continuous learning and enlightenment. I barely heard about the incident about a year ago.

[underpants]

2. I didn't know about Tulsa until maybe 12-15 years ago

Wilmington I learned about maybe 10 years ago.

Danville - 5 years ago
The Danville Massacre, also known as the Danville Riot, was a deadly assault on African Americans at a Danville, Virginia market November 3, 1883 and continued for several days after with violent attacks continuing until after the election. The shooting took place during tensions between white supremacists and members of the Readjuster Party.[1] Four African Americans and one white man were killed. A local investigation faulted the African Americans and a U.S. Senate investigation faulted the white supremacists.[2][3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danville_Massacre

Downtown demonstrations began in earnest on June 10, 1963, known now as “Bloody Monday.” That afternoon, a small group of protesters picketed city hall. The police turned fire hoses on them and beat them with clubs before arresting them. Refusing to bow down to racist violence, a larger group of protesters led by Rev. Campbell marched to the city jail where they sang Freedom Songs and prayed.
https://snccdigital.org/events/protests-danville-virginia/

[AllaN01Bear]

24. never heard about tulsa untill a sis and read it on du.

[CrispyQ]

29. I found out about Tulsa on DU, too.

And other topics never spoken of in school that should have been.

[AllaN01Bear]

37. its fascinating how in school we are told one thing but the minute we leave school we find out its totaly different, no?

[soldierant]

58. Which is why

James W. Loewen wrote "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong." Every high school student should have a copy ... though I don't see that happening any time soon.

[underpants]

44. Same here. I heard a story on NPR

about the same time.

[Niagara]

42. I didn't know about Tulsa until I read about it on DU.

I wasn't taught about it in any of my history classes or at any grade in school.

[underpants]

43. I think about the same time I heard a story on NPR

that was because they think the mass grave is in the middle of the river.

[Niagara]

47. ...

[PufPuf23]

57. Like others, learned of Tulsa at DU.

History should not be forgotten nor ignored and is often twisted by the "Winners".

[ismnotwasm]

3. I agree

There is so much of it, so much.

[tinymontgomery]

4. I didn't know

I didn't know till about 2 years ago when we went up and walked around the city. Went into a book store and started seeing
all these books about the take over after the election.

[Farmer-Rick]

5. They are still trying to hide it from you today

So, don't blame yourself. Just keep digging.

These horrible murder sprees, that governments turn a blind eye to, are always hidden and kept secret from the general public. The perpetrators know normal people will be horrified. It slowly leaks out eventually.

[John Shaft]

6. America has a lot to be ashamed of

where it concerns the treatment of Native Americans (and that includes all indigenous people from the North Pole all the way down to the bottom of South America) Blacks, Browns, the Poor, and anyone is not a Christian White person.

Slavery, racism, and genocide are the original sins of America. Slavery and racism still inform our institutions; in fact, slavery is still enshrined and codified in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, reserved for prisoners. Racism is to the point of ridiculousness - you can almost count on it as an unthinking assumption.

[Butterflylady]

8. Could it be that

Karma has caught up with our country. Are we having going to pay for what our ancestors did?

[Ponietz]

11. Anybody familiar with the Opium War understands why our streets are saturated with fentanyl

[John Shaft]

13. A grim assessment

But time will tell.

[malaise]

35. And it's ongoing

Rec

[MLAA]

7. You are not alone.

[70sEraVet]

9. I had the same reaction a couple of years ago after moving to rural TN

and realizing what the 'separate but equal' school systems really were like in the South. I became good friends with a local black man (he sadly passed last spring), who was the same age as me, and the one-room schoolhouse was still standing that he attended grades 1-8. The school never had running water until the day it closed, and one of the two outhouses were still behind the schoolhouse. The old coal pile was still visible outside, and my friend explained that in winter, two of the oldest boys would be assigned the chore of coming to school an hour early to load coal in the stove and light it, so the building would be warmed in time for the start of school.
All this, while a big 'white' school, with modern bathrooms, heating system, cafeteria, and teachers for each grade, stood a short distance away.
People who enjoyed the benefits of a racist system, don't like to talk about it.

[elleng]

10. Ditto

[Biophilic]

12. Yeah, I hear ya.

Sometimes I get so frustrated and discouraged I want to just give it up. And, I was a history major in college. Loved it. Now I know most was BS. I grew up in a so called liberal northern university town. Didn’t know housing was segregated until 1994 when I rented a house from the guy who first broke the boundaries. That house should have had an historic marker.

[appalachiablue]

32. Racial covenants for housing discrimination are still on the books across the country, NPR, 2021

- Racial covenants, a relic of the past, are still on the books across the country, NPR, Nov. 17, 2021.

.. While most of the covenants throughout the country were written to keep Blacks from moving into certain neighborhoods — unless they were servants — many targeted other ethnic and religious groups, such as Asian Americans and Jews, records show.

In this moment of racial reckoning, keeping the covenants on the books perpetuates segregation and is an affront to people who are living in homes and neighborhoods where they have not been wanted, some say. The challenge now is figuring out how to bury the hatred without erasing history. In some instances, trying to remove a covenant — or its racially charged language — is a bureaucratic nightmare; in other cases, it can be politically unpopular.

.. It's impossible to know exactly how many racially restrictive covenants remain on the books throughout the U.S., though Winling and others who study the issue estimate there are millions. The more than 3,000 counties throughout the U.S. maintain land records, and each has a different way of recording and searching for them. Some counties, such as San Diego County and Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, have digitized their records, making it easier to find the outlawed covenants. But in most counties, property records are still paper documents that sit in file cabinets and on shelves.

In Cook County, Illinois, for instance, finding one deed with a covenant means poring through ledgers in the windowless basement room of the county recorder's office in downtown Chicago. It's a painstaking process that can take hours to yield one result. Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough, whose office houses all county deeds, said she has known about racial covenants in property records since the 1970s, when she first saw one while selling real estate in suburban Chicago. She called them "straight-up wrong."...
https://www.npr.org/2021/11/17/1049052531/racial-covenants-housing-discrimination

[Biophilic]

38. Good grief. Thanks for the additional information.

I have a friend who likes to admit that she likes living in her own little bubble. I often try to push her out at least a little. Seems like I have some pushing out to do myself.

[hibbing]

14. A People's History of the United States

This book by Howard Zinn really opened my eyes decades ago.

Peace

[Poiuyt]

23. This

[mountain grammy]

25. +1000. Me too

[llmart]

40. Same here.

Right from the beginning of the book I was intrigued and disgusted with what passed for American History class when I was in high school.

[Raine]

15. Native Americans were treated pretty badly here in California

with the founding of the missions etc. It's pretty well known though, learned about it in school. Most of the cruelty was done when California belonged to Spain, so I guess that's why it's not hidden.

[bluesbassman]

28. It went on long after Spain controlled it.

The northern tribes were especially vulnerable as they were largely peaceful and agrarian. My ex’s grandfather was literally kidnapped off of the rancheria he was born on in the early 1900’s near Healdsburg and sent to Southern California to be a houseboy. Very common practice. Other NA children were sent to “indian schools” that were little more than forced labor camps and also served to break up and disperse the tribes.

The Indigenous People of California faired just as poorly under US rule as they did under Spain.

[Raine]

36. Very true. We know more about what Spain did to them here in California

then what was done under United States control, you have to dig more for that info.

[Merlot]

30. I hate seeing those missions which are now sanitized tourist attractions

They're all over California.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

50. Every Native American tribe was treated badly

There were no exceptions. Or, rather there are no exceptions, because the mistreatment is ongoing.

One only needs to see the conditions of Plains tribes in the Dakotas for all the evidence necessary.

[PufPuf23]

55. Genocide in northwestern California : when our worlds cried

Here is a link to a book that can be rented online to read; the book goes into detail (like identifies individual perpetuators) for the extreme northwest of California.

https://archive.org/details/genocideinnorthw00nort/mode/2up

Here is a link to wiki California Genocide. There is a list of NA massacre in California post 1848. Over 90% of NA in California were killed by the Spanish and American settlers / miners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_genocide

[Raine]

56. Thanks for the info & the link. 🙂 nt

[Voltaire2]

16. Yeah. When you first encounter this bit of history

it is stunning. It resets your perspective on who we are as a nation. If you dig into the details and the era, your view on the entire post civil war era, right up until now can be entirely reframed.

[et tu]

19. and this is what is reported

think about all the barbarism that has been committed and not published
big blue tsunami~ gotv

[Lonestarblue]

17. Part of the problem with the teaching of history, and other subjects, in public school is trying to compress hundreds of

years of history into a year of study. Currently, most schools teach US History in Grade 8 and again in Grade 10. Some schools do break it up by teaching US History up to the Civil War and another course after the Civil War. We have repetitive curriculum standards from grade to grade rather than teaching less but focusing on the events that have shaped our lives and country. We do the same in mathematics, cramming so much content into each grade so that many students do not master the concepts that prepare them for higher math.

[Voltaire2]

51. Sure, there could be more history courses. But that ain't the problem.

They still would be highly restricted in taught content as Texas and Florida would continue to keep the bar real low on what gets printed in history textbooks for the entire country, as they have for a very long time.

[Martin Eden]

18. If today's "conservatives" have their way ...

... that history will be flushed down the Orwellian memory hole.

[AllaN01Bear]

20. this

https://abc7chicago.com/history-of-violence-at-capitol-has-anyone-stormed-before-past-in-capital-dc-chaos-insurrection-siege/9454766/
this is the stuff that the rs want to bury and blame on others and us. i always learn something on du.

[LoisB]

21. Don't be hard on yourself.

So many atrocities, so little (life) time.

[AllaN01Bear]

22. ca foregin miners tax

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Miners%27_Tax_Act_of_1850

[Voltaire2]

52. Followed by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1924

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act
Soon followed of course by the 'internment' of all Japanese ancestry people living on the west coast in WWII.

I don't know about you, but everywhere I look back at who are, I see a lot of really bad shit.

[Bluethroughu]

60. And IF IT WAS DONE BEFORE, THERE IS PRECEDENT!

Scary. Ugly. Real.

[Sneederbunk]

26. Wilmington's Lie by Zucchino is the book to read

[TheRickles]

27. I've lived most of my life in MA, but visited Wilmington a few years ago to visit relatives who had moved there.

Like you, I was shocked to learn about what had happened there. But to Wilmington's credit, there are many signs and posters and statues in the downtown area describing what happened. That really impressed me, and hopefully it can be a model for other places as well.

[demosincebirth]

31. If you are white you haven't lived through it.

Last edited Mon Jan 8, 2024, 02:10 PM - Edit history (1)

I’m eighty five years old and first generation Mexican American and I’ve seen it and experienced it.

[sop]

33. I had never heard of the 1923 Rosewood Massacre till the movie 'Rosewood' came out in 1997.

Years ago, while at the University of Florida, we would drive west out of Gainesville on weekends to visit Cedar Key on the Gulf coast, passing through the abandoned town of Rosewood. All that was left of Rosewood was a small historical roadside marker (full of bullet holes), with a brief inscription commemorating one of Florida's darkest racial incidents.

Rosewood was once a prosperous farming community in north-central Florida, known as a haven for land-owning Black Americans. In 1923 the town was destroyed by an angry white mob after someone accused a black man of attacking a white woman. Dozens of residents were murdered and black residents were forced to abandon their farms and flee for their lives.

After the movie came out I asked some locals about the massacre, but no one even knew about it. The Gainesville Sun published several stories about similar lynching incidents in surrounding towns; apparently North Florida was a Klan stronghold at the time. This is sort of history never taught in schools.

[Scruffy1]

34. Teaching American history at public school level has always been a joke.

I remember my high school books back in the 60's. They could have all been entitled "How Great We Are". Even today most popular history books fit that mold. I remember Howard Zinn being pilloried by academics for "A Peoples History of the United States". In a way it reminds me of the latest attacks that worked on the President of Harvard. Anybody who thinks education is immune to political pressure and endowment money is wrong. Maybe she erred by not realizing she was dealing with evil cretins who can only understand yes or no and didn't just tell them what they wanted to hear, but make no mistake, her real crime was being black. Jared Kushner's father paid a million bucks to get his son into Harvard and the Shrub was "legacy". Now we see the big attack on DEI in order to preserve "white privelage." This whole thing about these "exclusive" private schools is bullshit anyway. The juatice who wrote mosy of Roe versus Wade was a William Mitchel night school grad from Saint Paul. Compare his legal reasoning to Alitos and you will see a political hack in Alito. 2000 years of precident and common sense down the drain.

[AllaN01Bear]

39. a peoples history of the united states. by howard zim a free ebook.

https://files.libcom.org/files/A%20People%27s%20History%20of%20the%20Unite%20-%20Howard%20Zinn.pdf

[Scalded Nun]

41. This has been the plan behind the dismantling of our public education system for the last 60+ years

[Permanut]

45. It's all been very confusing, ever since Columbus discovered America..

Just to be clear:

[westen]

46. This kind of thing should be aired on TV during Black History month. All Americans should know about this kind of

thing. Air Americas dirty laundry. Get the stink out.

[efhmc]

48. Reading "Bury My heart at Wounded Knee " which was published in 1970.

Started it ages ago but could not finish it. Too revealing.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

49. David Zucchino won the 2021 General Non-Fiction Pulitzer

For his book, Wilmington's Lie, which was about this very event.

[byronius]

53. 'Prequel' by Rachel Maddow is blowing my mind right now.

Such a powerful book, full of things I’ve never read before — and I read a lot of history.

Gotta struggle to raise my bar.

[enid602]

54. Gaza

I never knew much about conditions in Gaza until this go round. I don’t think the media ever covered them,

[Bluethroughu]

59. Yep, when I read about that about a couple decades ago...

I'M ALMOST 50. I was heart broken we were not taught about the reconstruction area completely, it was both siderism as they are trying to reinvent the last decade and a half the same way.

There is one party working against our Constitution and Democracy,
The let in burn party.

[RocRizzo55]

61. Which is why the history curriculum needs to be changed

to include the entire "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. Though I was not taught this in school, (it wasn't even published then) i did have a more progressive lot of teachers who taught alternatives to the establishment history, as well as the establishment's take.
It also would be a great thing if educators would use the Zinn Education Project's materials, when teaching American History.
Here's the link: https://www.zinnedproject.org/
Yes, some of you are going to tell me that it's communist, socialist, or anti-American, but it really is not. Zinn's book goes all the way back to 1492, up to the war on terrorism in its latest edition.
Zinn would be proud to see that others are carrying on his work.
TL;DR: Here's the Wikipedia link stuff about the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People%27s_History_of_the_United_States