Thread by @ThabitiAnyabwil

#OnThisDayInBlackHistory (1869) TN governor W.C. Brownlow declares martial law in 9 counties in Middle and West TN in Ku Klux Klan crisis. "Klansmen attacked, whipped, and murdered black men and women whenever they found their activities offensive...." tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/ku-klu…

Normally I post these w/o comment. But yesterday's news about an AL editor calling for the return of the KKK makes this historical tidbit more than timely. You see, the Klan has always made its meteoric returns after sizable public gains in American life.
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The Klan began, as the link provided recounts, in the early years following the Civil War and during Reconstruction. Styling themselves as protectors of white communities and ways of life and of the Constitution, they ran local campaigns of terror all across the South.
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The suggestion of its revival is little more than the suggestion of a return to anti-Black terrorism of lynchings, murders, harassment, cross burnings and the like. That such a suggestion can be made and publicly defended is, in some sense, a measure of progress or lack of it.
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It wasn't long before the Klan gained the endorsement of some Christian pastors and churches. So racial hatred and white supremacy gained religious fervor and fuel. For many, there was no contradiction b/t the two. Just as there had been no contradiction in slaveholding.
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The myth that the Klan only existed among back woods types is just that--a myth. Klansmen wore suits in businesses, badges in law enforcement, and made the country's laws. It was respectable among many. It was, like racism itself, pernicious. That's why vigilance is necessary.
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If we're thinking, "That was the past and it's not around today." Or, "That could never happen today," then we're wrong. The return of white supremacist groups can and is happening. Their hateful existence threatens the existence of everyone they hate.
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Anyone spending more energy arguing against me or others sounding the alarm instead of arguing against the return of such groups is at the least misdirecting their energies and quite possibly contributing to the fog of misinformation that allows the rise of groups.
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Or worse. I fear some professing Christians have been influenced by white nationalism than they know. They cry "Marxism, Marxism" while using some of the same tropes and arguments of white nationalism itself. Another reason the alarm needs sounding.
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Some will want that last tweet unpacked. Perhaps in a blog post later. But the evangelical JOCs (Justice Optional Christians) who always attack the so-called SJWs but never seem to attach racism or racists are part of the problem.
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If you feel implicated by the last 2 tweets, ask yourself why. A hit dog hollers. Spare me all the feigned concern about the unity of the church or criticisms about word choice. If you're on the Lord's side, simply denounce racism and help create a climate where it cannot thrive.

#OnThisDayInBlackHistory, when the Klan forced a governor to declare martial law and newspaper editors call for the Klan's return, I'm not here for any preening, fragility, whataboutism, bothsidesism, conservative virtue signaling, or the like. Miss me with all of that.
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After years of decline, the Klan made a comeback in the 1950s and 60s as Civil Rights gains were being made. It's like the Klan is the alter ego of America's positive myths about itself. Each time the myths get challenged by *inclusion* the Klan comes to reassert white dominance.

*attack