"THE LOST CAUSE IS NEVER LOST IN AMERICAN HISTORY."

 “THE LOST CAUSE IS NEVER LOST IN AMERICAN HISTORY”

Yesterday marked the 159th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth.  Today marks the opening of the first criminal trial of a former President, Donald Trump.  These two events are part of many streams that flow into the river of the struggle between equality and white supremacy in American history.  In 1865, Holy Week began with the surrender of the Confederacy at Appomattox on Palm Sunday,  and it ended with the murder of Lincoln on Good Friday.  

The Civil War ended with the hope of the idea of equality gaining some traction in our history, but those who believed in white supremacy began almost immediately to work for a re-interpretation of the Civil War, naming it the “War Between the States.” Black Codes were instituted in the South, seeking to re-establish slavery by another name.  Radical Republicans established a time of Reconstruction, seeking to enshrine the idea of equality in the institutions of the South (and the North, which is where the problems escalated).  There were fierce battles, especially in the South, in the period of Reconstruction, and eventually in 1877, white supremacy won out.  

    By 1890 the idea of equality had been “buked and scorned,” with the rubric being the racist idea that people classified as “Black” were not able to handle power, that they were not yet ready for equality (would they ever be?).  For more info on this period, see Eric Foner’s “Reconstruction,” David Blight’s “Race and Reunion,”  the NYT “1619 Project,” and a booklet that I wrote in 1996 called “A Twice Told Tale: Race in America.”

By the end of the 19th century, white supremacy had been re-established as the spirit and law of the land, with SCOTUS putting the finishing touches on it in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson’s “separate but equal.”  Many call it the Jim Crow era, but I prefer Doug Blackmon’s idea of “neo-slavery,” because that’s what I lived and experienced growing up in the 1950’s and 1960’s in the segregated South of the Mississippi River Delta.  Through a long struggle and witness, through courageous actions of many people, especially those classified as “Black,”  a new revolution began, culminating in the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965.  These two laws effectively ended neo-slavery in the South.

Yet, like the reaction to Reconstruction, the powerful idea of white supremacy did not yield to the end of neo-slavery, because the roots of white supremacy are deep and complex in American history.  Nikole-Hannah Jones wrote a fine article on this in NYT Magazine of March 17, and she called it the whitewashing of the civil rights movement.  Here is the link to that article. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/13/magazine/civil-rights-affirmative-action-colorblind.html.   While it is a fine article, she leaves out two important pieces:  Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy of 1968 and 1972, and the rise of George Wallace as a viable presidential candidate in1972.  Both of these white men understood the power of the grievances of white people in regard to race, even though the system of race was designed to favor those of us who are classified as “white.”  Nixon pitched his campaign to the white Southernness that is in all of us classified as “white” in the USA.  Wallace was even less subtle than Nixon:  the USA belongs to white people.

Donald Trump understands this force also, and he has made it a centerpiece of his campaign – the grievance of white people, especially men, is a driving force for Trump and his base.  Part of its appeal is the coming change in demographics in USA:  the time is coming soon when there will be no majority racial group in the country.  This inevitable demographic tidal wave makes those of us who are classified as “white” exceedingly anxious.  Who will we be if our “whiteness” doesn’t grant automatic status.  Part of the appeal is that it flows out of the long and persistent strain of white racism in American history – it is deeply rooted and doubly difficult to eradicate.

The jury selection for the Trump trial has begun, and it is part of a fascinating and scary storyline in current American history.  Can the wannabe dictator survive the substantial criminal cases against him and move back to power?  It will be up to us to insist that Donald Trump never gets close to the Oval office again.