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THREAD: When white supremacists stormed the Capitol waving confederate flags, they followed a long history of racial terror and state sanctioned violence. Erasure of this domestic terrorism has upheld white supremacy and will do so until we confront it.
Black political participation and economic independence has been a threat to white supremacy and met with racial violence & repression since Reconstruction. State sanctioned violence & white vigilantism have long been a tool of social & political control. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/opinion/capitol-attack-racism-america.html
After an election in 1873, white militias in Colfax, Louisiana stormed the courthouse and killed between 60-150 Black residents. Claiming massive voter fraud and deceit, the mob violently overthrew the government and installed white supremacist leaders. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1873-colfax-massacre-crippled-reconstruction-180958746/
In 1898, a 400-person mob in Wilmington, NC set fire to the city’s Black newspaper and murdered 60 people to overthrow the local government alliance between Black and white voters. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/wilmington-massacre/536457/
Across the state, white mobs staged violent coups, installed white supremacist-led governments and destroyed Black newspapers to ensure their erasure from history. In every city, they claimed election fraud and deceit to wage campaigns of local terror and reclaim control.
The 1921 Tulsa massacre remains the most horrific act of racial terror and violence in US history. Hundreds of Black people were killed in the attack and what was once the wealthiest Black community, Black Wall Street, was burned to the ground by white mobs.
White mobs stormed Black neighborhoods in Tulsa, murdered residents, looted businesses, and bombed the neighborhoods from private planes. City government and the National Guard conspired with the white mob and armed citizens. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/opinion/tulsa-race-riot-massacre-graves.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
Victims were buried in unmarked graves, & records were destroyed to erase the massacre from historical record & memory. Survivors were silenced, and later investigators were threatened. If referenced at all, the massacre was framed as a race riot, neutralizing the racial terror.
100 years later, the Tulsa massacre still haunts the city that remains largely segregated. As with many acts of racial terror and massacres, its history is still being recovered and reparations have never been made. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/09/28/feature/they-was-killing-black-people/
