Good Morning Gentle Readers,
John Salter, a former professor at Tougaloo College, once wrote,
No one knows what kind of massive racist retaliation would have been directed against grass-roots black people had the black community not had a healthy measure of firearms within it.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the original purpose of gun control was rooted in racism, but you get my drift.
In debating what would become 42 USC Sec 1983, today's federal civil rights statute, Representative Butler explained,
This provision seemed to your committee to be necessary, because they had observed that, before these midnight marauders [the KKK] made attacks upon peaceful citizens, there were very many instances in the South where the sheriff of the county had preceded them and taken away the arms of their victims. This was especially noticeable in Union County, where all the Negro population were disarmed by the sheriff only a few months ago under the order of the judge...; and then, the sheriff having disarmed the citizens, the five hundred masked men rode at nights and murdered and otherwise maltreated the ten persons who were in jail in that county.
[1464 H.R. REP. No. 37, 41st Cong., 3rd Sess. p. 7-8 (20 Feb. 1871)]
Whole Content of Their Character speech here. Letter from Birmingham Jail is here.
As Ever,
TWC
tip of the glass to Oleg Volk (photo credit)
Photo Credit (unless otherwise noted): ©TWC, all rights reserved
