I look forward to reading the task force report. Hoping @USNavy is also looking to rename anything honoring former SECNAV Josephus Daniels, a white supremacist who was one of the principal architects of the Wilmington massacre of 1898. 1/ https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/02/03/navy-task-force-calls-changing-ship-names-honor-confederacy.html?fbclid=IwAR3JfqICpAVtqb533PpIm0XEcAuZJxGO17BgfgBwMhW7ons9xK6agEMlVbM

Daniels, a newspaper editor from Raleigh, NC, was a behind-the-scenes kingmaker. Along w/Furnifold Simmons, then between his time representing NC in the House and then in the US Senate, Daniels conspired to incite violence to terrorize & disfranchise African Americans in NC...2/

and to replace a lawfully elected Black/white coalition government in the town of Wilmington with white supremacists. Daniels regularly printed racist editorial cartoons and pieces in his paper, the Raleigh News & Observer, but in the fall of 1898 he went further, 3/

race-baiting with inflammatory articles about the "threat" of Black men to the delicate flower of Southern womanhood. The articles eventually targeted Alexander Manly, the editor of Wilmington's African American newspaper the Record, for particular violence. 4/

Manly had published an editorial responding to a pro-lynching article written earlier by Rebecca Felton of Georgia. In it, he suggested that consensual relationships between Black men & white women were possible. 5/ https://exhibits.lib.unc.edu/exhibits/show/1898/primary/editorial

In response, Daniels cherry-picked bits from the text of the Record editorial, reprinting them in his own editorial in a manner that would deliberately inflame white sentiment against Manly. 6/ https://exhibits.lib.unc.edu/exhibits/show/1898/primary/editorial

The violence that followed later that fall is described in detail in this retrospective printed a few years ago by Daniels' own newspaper, the Raleigh News & Observer. Manly escaped w/his life, but 7/ https://media2.newsobserver.com/content/media/2010/5/3/ghostsof1898.pdf

white supremacist mobs murdered as many as sixty African American residents of Wilmington. Up to three thousand more—including women, children, and the elderly—fled to the swamps & graveyards around the city in fear for their lives. Many chose not to return. 8/

City government officials, "black-and-tan" Republicans, were frog-marched to the depot, put on a train, & told not to return. White supremacist Democrats then installed themselves as replacements. 9/

A decade and change later, Daniels' behind-the-scenes work helped get his friend Woodrow Wilson elected president. Wilson used his position to establish Jim Crow hiring & management practices in the federal government, erasing some of the gains made for African Americans 10/

during Reconstruction. He appointed Daniels as Secretary of the Navy to reward him. Quietly, leaving as little paper trail as possible, Daniels reinforced existing Jim Crow recruiting and management practices in the Navy. He worked to prevent 11/

the nomination of a young Black man to the naval academy from succeeding. He reassured the mothers of white sailors that their sons would not have to take orders from Black sailors. The few Black men who managed to enlist were assigned in "servant" ratings— 12/

such as mess attendant, sailors who served officers' food. Although Josephus Daniels gets some credit for opening Navy enlistment to women (& it should be noted that there's a possibility that the idea was suggested to him by a young woman), but only to WHITE women. 13/

So: Uncle Joe needs to go. When his legacy is taught in naval history classes, it needs to be taught accurately & completely. Including his white supremacist beliefs & actions, & his role in racist practices in recruiting & assignment policy. Full truth & accountability. 14/end