Thread by @ibramxk

Cecil Rhodes was born #OTD in 1853. Rhodes, a British imperialist whose brutal rule killed and dispossessed millions in southern Africa, inspired White American supremacists, such as the Charleston church shooter and the propagator of “anti-racist is code for anti-White.” A 🧵1/

Rhodes was born on July 5, 1853 in Hertfordshire, England. From 1890 to 1896, he was the Prime Minister of England's Cape Colony, what is now South Africa. He also organized and owned De Beers Consolidated Mines, which had a market share of 90% of the world’s diamonds by 1891. 2/

Rhodes’s company routinely subjected African miners to exploitative and fatal working conditions, practices that aligned with Rhodes's belief that "nine-tenths of [Africans] will have to spend their lives in daily labour... the sooner that is brought home to them, the better." 3/

Rhodes considered it God’s will for him to “paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible.” In 1889, he granted a charter to the British South Africa Company, giving it authority to colonize modern-day Zimbabwe and Zambia. The colony became known as Rhodesia. 4/

In Rhodesia and the Cape Colony, the government brutally dispossessed the indigenous African population. A series of laws passed under Rhodes in both colonies prevented African people from land ownership, civic participation, and high-wage labor. 5/

When Rhodes died in 1902, he left a legacy of White supremacy. The racist legislation he put in place tilled the ground for the apartheid system that officially began in South Africa in 1948. The colonies of Rhodesia did not gain independence from British rule until 1980. 6/

People have been organizing against Rhodes's legacy. The Rhodes Must Fall campaign removed a Rhodes statue at the University of Cape Town in 2015. Another campaign is afoot to rename Rhodes University. But the Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford remains coveted around the world. 7/

Rhodesia has now become popular among White supremacists. Merchandise circulates online with slogans such as “Make Zimbabwe Rhodesia Again”. This celebration of Rhodesia is emblematic of the White supremacist desire for a colonial, White ethno-state. 8/

In 2015, Dylann Roof murdered nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina. Roof had a White supremacist website named The Last Rhodesian and posted photos of himself wearing the Rhodesian flag. 9/

Residing in Roof’s hometown was another admirer of Rhodesia, the late Bob Whitaker. He authored an online screed in 2006 called "The Mantra" that rallied White supremacists worldwide. Its most famous line is a GOP talking point: “anti-racist is a code word for anti-White.” 10/10