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This is important. It also forces us to consider the millions of Black Americans who'd be alive if their ancestors hadn't been among 10000s lynched or worked to death after the war, let alone enslavement deaths. Maybe ~500 descendants each in 100 yrs. 1/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/opinion/confederate-monuments-racism.html
Imagine what that would mean for our politics today, if there were 10 or 20 million more Black Americans in the South & beyond. Likewise, consider the millions of descendants of white Southerners, whose very existence is due to their traitorous ancestors going unpunished. 2/
Some have repented and are trying to make amends, of course, but most who vote are advancing the same authoritarian social and political projects that their ancestors fought for and enforced through mass terrorism. 3/
As long as we're doing counterfactuals, imagine if Republicans hadn't given up on Reconstruction in the face of white terrorism, Black Southerners weren't disenfranchised, & no Great Migration. Black voters might've kept Reps committed to civil rights. 4/ https://www.amazon.com/Reconstruction-Updated-Unfinished-Revolution-1863-1877/dp/0062354515
But you should read the experts on this: @keneshiagrant on the Great Migration by Black Southerners reshaped local politics in Northern cities, driven from the South by a combination of white Southern terrorism & racial-economic deprivation. https://www.amazon.com/Great-Migration-Democratic-Party-Realignment/dp/1439917469 5/
And you should read Schickler of Northern unions partnering w/ Black workers & voters to realign the Democratic Party in those cities, producing a huge split w/in the party's regional factions on race, & ultimately realigning whites into the Rep party. https://www.amazon.com/Racial-Realignment-Transformation-International-Perspectives/dp/0691153884 6/
And you should read Acharya, @matt_blackwell, & @maya_sen on persistent voting legacies of local Black enslavement on political behavior among white Southerners today. https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Roots-Southern-Princeton-Political/dp/0691203725/ 7/
And you should read @jhacova on how white supremacist violence in the South still affects Black voting behavior today. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ff18/e9d5a66b297c8a034c6411b842dae3b15d18.pdf 8/
And you should read @meganfrancis on early 20th century civil rights organizing around anti-lynching efforts & its impact on American political development & law. https://www.amazon.com/Civil-Rights-Making-Modern-American/dp/1107697972/ 7/
And you should read @wccubbison, @IsmailWhitePhD, & Keele on Black voter disenfranchisement in Louisiana. …https://06bf1286-4cf1-4788-aadf-bbb300a7a12e.filesusr.com/ugd/3a8c0a_0991c16bf3864af991fd67ddc44978c6.pdf 8/
OK, that's a start. Anyway, when we think of monuments & unimaginably violent Confederate/Jim Crow legacies, the *absence* of 10+ millions of Black lives & the *presence* of 10+ millions of white lives in the South, West, & beyond are also central to our politics *today*. /end
