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20th Century Racism in the 21st Century
The Legacy of Racism in the Southern Region of the United States of America
II. Historical background
The South has a special history that differentiates it from the
rest of the U.S. Slavery was widespread and more deeply rooted,
since the plantation economy was based on slave labor. It became
part of a culture immortalized and romanticized in Hollywood
films like "Gone with the Wind."
Slavery gave southern state institutions a more oppressive and
brutal character. Local law enforcements first duty in this
region was to capture runaway slaves. Even though slavery was
abolished over 150 years ago, a system of laws known as "Jim
Crow" perpetuated a relationship of colonizers and the colonized
between ruling class Whites and Blacks until the civil rights
struggle of the 1950s and 60s.
The South is also home to the nations first organized hate
group, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). In some Southern states, for
decades membership in the KKK was the key to a successful
political career. Many elected officials and law enforcement
personnel belonged to the group.
Public lynchings were another hallmark of Southern life.
According to the World Council of Churches, between 1889 and
1940, 3,833 lynchings took place in the United States: 80 percent
of the victims were African Americans. Historians estimate that
between 85-90 percent of lynchings nationwide took place in the
South, often with the complicity of local law enforcement.4
These factors have made racial hate and institutional
discrimination more deep-rooted in southern culture.While laws
and state structures changed dramatically following the civil
rights struggle of the 1950s and 60s, culture dies hard. It was
not until November 2000, that Alabamans finally voted in favor of
repealing a constitutional ban on interracial marriage.5 In the
year 2000, thousands of whites still marched in the streets of
the South in defense of the Confederate flag, a symbol of
oppression and slavery for African Americans. Racism is masked in
the mantle of a historical "cultural heritage" movement.
The vestiges of brutality, white supremacy and impunity are still
evident. Just 19 years ago, in March, 1981, two klansmen
kidnapped and lynched a young African American in the streets of
Mobile, Alabama. Nineteen-year-old Michael Donald was walking to
the store to buy a pack of cigarettes when he was attacked, his
throat slit and he was hung from a tree. The two klansmen were
members of the United Klansmen of America -- a group that once had
41 chapters in 12 states. In this case, they were caught and
convicted. Other prominent cases from the civil rights era remain
unresolved.
3Scott, Jerome and Kaltz-Fishman, Walda, "The Southern Strategy:
Then and Now Freedom is Through the South," Working Paper,
Institute for the Elimination of Poverty & Genocide.
'According to EM Beck, co-author of Festival of Violence: An
analysis of Southern Lynchings this figure is a "guesstimate"
since lynchings were underreported nationally.
5And even then, nearly 41 percent still voted in favor of keeping
the ban.
 
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