Oct 06 2008
The NAACP Is Bored Again
DURHAM (AP) — About a dozen people marched in Durham, seeking reparations for those who died in riots in Wilmington in 1898.
The march to the courthouse Sunday is one of 13 marches across the state leading to the annual conference of the North Carolina NAACP in Raleigh.
Marchers want state legislators to pay the descendants of those harmed in an insurrection that led to the deaths of at least 14 black people.
Wow, an entire 12 people showed up. Sounds like the public is fully behind this rallying cry. LOL!
This isn’t about justice; it’s about giving certain people other peoples’ money for doing nothing. Just another example of how the NAACP is a joke no longer relevant.
The Wilmington Massacre has a rest of the story quality to it… it was primarily in response to a Republican/black/farmer coalition taking control of the government for the first time since reconstruction. Determined not to let such a “travesty” happen again, the NC Democrat Party waged a campaign of horrendous violence and intimidation against black voters that culminated in the Wilmington Massacre.
It worked, of course, as blacks feared for their lives and weren’t able to safely vote again for another 60 years. Wilmington’s black US Congressman was forced to flee north. And since that time, Republicans have only been elected governor or been elected to lead the state house twice in over 100 years. They haven’t led the state senate since Reconstruction.
Meanwhile, two organizers of the massacre, Democrat muckity-mucks Charles Aycock and Furnifold Simmons, went on to lucrative post-massacre careers. Aycock was elected governor as a Democrat. Simmons was an old-school southern political boss who practically ruled N.C. for 30 years while simultaneously holding a seat in the U.S. Senate. As a Democrat, of course.
So here’s my compromise: If we’re going to give money to descendants of people killed in the riot, fine. As long as those responsible are forced to pay. I think the NC Democrat Party ought to pony up a big number, don’t you?
LOL! People killed by racist rioters are SO FUNNY.
Perhaps the public is busier trying to figure out how to get out from under this financial disaster. Particularly the minorities who were targeted by predatory lending institutions. Another possibility is that, as the march was held on a Sunday, folk were busy with church and post-church activities. I canvass on Sundays and I have found this to be the case.
In the meantime, you might consider avoiding making (putatively humorous) political hay over people who were killed in riots. And you know very well that the Democratic Party of the 1890s (through the 1960s) was the party of white segregationists. And you also know that is not the case anymore. If you don’t know that, you have no business advertising yourself “[Our] political road for the Carolinas”.
The issue of reparations is one thing. It is worth debating. It worth debating honestly. The issue of reparations for people who were harmed in documented and demonstrable ways is a separate issue, also worth debating. It is separate from the issue of (your perspective on) the relevance of the NAACP.
If you are interested in a civil rights group that you might deem less irrelevant and “LOL” worthy, I recommend ColorofChange.org . I am a proud (white) member of that organization.
(As a final thought, I recommend you have a march on the irrelevance of the NAACP, or civil rights issues in general. See if you can get 12 folks to show up in 13 locations across the state and demonstrate their public support for “black folk chilling out already”, or whatever precisely your position is.)
You sound like a Democrat. How much money will YOU be ponying up for the cause?
Julianne - “Perhaps the public is busier trying to figure out how to get out from under this financial disaster. Particularly the minorities who were targeted by predatory lending institutions.”
You mean the lenders instructed to do so by the Democrats in Congress, like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd?