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1. “I’m a single white man from South Carolina,” an aggrieved Lindsey Graham declared last week.
Note: Graham’s Senate seat has never been occupied by anyone *but* a white man.
Before Graham, it was held for almost 50 years by Strom Thurmond.
Note: Graham’s Senate seat has never been occupied by anyone *but* a white man.
Before Graham, it was held for almost 50 years by Strom Thurmond.
2. “The Southern white man does more for the negro than any other man in any part of the country,” Thurmond declared in opposing the 1957 Civil Rights Act.
Running for president 9 years earlier, Thurmond had this to say (from @CrespinoJoe's great biography):
Running for president 9 years earlier, Thurmond had this to say (from @CrespinoJoe's great biography):
3. Coleman Blease (who held the seat, 1925-31) called African Americans “apes and baboons” and championed lynching.
"To hell with the Constitution," Blease shouted, if it "steps between me and the defense of the virtues of white women."
"To hell with the Constitution," Blease shouted, if it "steps between me and the defense of the virtues of white women."
4. Ben Tillman, likewise a defender of lynching, rode a toxic set of ideas about white manhood first to the SC governorship and then the US Senate (1895-1918), as detailed in @skantrow's excellent Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy.
5. Speaking of Reconstruction: Sen. Matthew C, Butler (1877-95) called it a period of “negro supremacy,” a “carnival of debauchery, corruption, and crime.”
Tillman and Butler joined in the 1876 Hamburg Massacre, part of white men's terror campaign to end Reconstruction in SC.
Tillman and Butler joined in the 1876 Hamburg Massacre, part of white men's terror campaign to end Reconstruction in SC.
6. From 1832-43 and 1845-50, the seat was held by John C. Calhoun, who termed slavery a "positive good."
"Ours is the government of the white man," he said in 1848, opposing the addition of Mexican citizens to the US body politic, after war between the 2 countries.
"Ours is the government of the white man," he said in 1848, opposing the addition of Mexican citizens to the US body politic, after war between the 2 countries.
7. Now, was Lindsey Graham defending slavery or lynching? Of course not.
But in appealing to white men’s sense of grievance and entitlement, he was invoking ideas with a long and malign history – perhaps nowhere more so than in his native South Carolina. /x
But in appealing to white men’s sense of grievance and entitlement, he was invoking ideas with a long and malign history – perhaps nowhere more so than in his native South Carolina. /x
