Thread by @jsmian

1) Few Americans truly understand the racial schism separating white and black citizens.

Let us consider America's biography.

THREAD 2/3 👇

2) The Reconstruction Act of 1867 granted voting rights to African Americans following the Civil War.

Newly enfranchised blacks gained a political voice for the first time in US history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even to Congress.

3) Then came the Compromise of 1877, an agreement brokered by Congress and the Supreme Court to settle the result of the disputed 1876 election.

4) Republican Rutherford Hayes would become president if he promised to withdraw federal troops in the South and end Reconstruction.

5) It was the presence of federal troops that ensured the implementation of Reconstruction measures and held back violence and political suppression of blacks by those intent on restoring white supremacist rule.

6) “They are to be returned to a condition of serfdom. An era of second slavery,” said Reconstruction-era governor Ames of Mississippi.

“The political death of the negro will forever release the nation from the weariness from such political outbreaks.”

7) Thus began the intentional purging of black people as eligible voters.

All 11 former Confederate states rewrote their constitutions to include provisions restricting voting rights with poll taxes, literacy tests, and felon disenfranchisement.

8) From about 1900 to 1965, most black Americans were not allowed to vote in the South.

10) When the Reconstruction-era ended, lynchings unleashed terror on the black population and were largely tolerated by state and federal officials.

11) The ratio of black lynching victims to white lynching victims increased to more than 17 to 1 after 1900, from 6 to 1 before.

In 99 percent of lynching cases the perpetrators escaped punishment.

12) Throughout this campaign of racial terrorism, Congress considered nearly 200 anti-lynching bills but failed to enact any legislation.

Black lives literally did not matter.

13) Southern states protested federal interference in local affairs and passed their own anti-lynching laws to demonstrate federal legislation was unnecessary but refused to enforce them.

Lynching is still not a federal crime.

14) The second "political outbreak" was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This banned poll taxes, literacy tests, and other measures that effectively prevented black Americans from voting.

15) "Negroes will end up pissing in the aisles of the Senate," President Johnson told his aide.

He called it the "n***er bill."

Democrats made up two-thirds of the "no" vote.

16) By the middle of 1966, over half a million Southern blacks had registered to vote, and by 1968, almost four hundred black people had been elected to office.

As African Americans joined the Democratic Party, many white southerners began to defect to the Republicans.

17) What followed next to suppress the black population is discussed in the first thread of this series.

https://twitter.com/jsmian/status/1317523421136379904?s=20

18) Traveling forward in time, Barack Obama swept to victory in 2008 as America’s first black president.

This was the third "political outbreak."

19) Achieving the once unthinkable prospect of having a black president in the White House reduced the perception of racism.

But it entrenched racial resentment, as it overturned the country’s implicit racial hierarchy.

20) In June 2013, the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in the Shelby County v. Holder case gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

21) States with a history of voting discrimination no longer needed to approve their elections or voting laws changes with the federal government.

22) In her dissent, Justice Ruth Ginsburg said Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy and the nation’s commitment to justice had been “disserved.”

John Lewis said that the Supreme Court “stuck a dagger into the heart of the Voting Rights Act.”

23) The Shelby County decision led to new laws restricting voting throughout the country, including registration restrictions, early voting cutbacks, and strict photo ID requirements that millions of citizens don’t have.

This, by design, makes voting harder for people of color.

24) In North Carolina, Republican lawmakers requested racial breakdowns of different voting methods, then crafted a bill that would “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision,” a federal judge wrote.

25) The 2016 election was the first presidential contest in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act.

States with new voting restrictions had 70 percent of the electoral votes needed to win the election.

The stage was set for a new era of white hegemony.

Tomorrow, I’ll post the final thread of this series.

America’s biography has profound implications for the election.

10 days to go!