Category: Ku Klux Klan

ANARCHY AND DEMOCRATS

Contents

A group of people in white clothes marching down the street.Anarchy has plagued our nation throughout its history. Anarchy has been primarily associated with the Democrat Party and the political left. The notable exceptions were the abolitionists marauding western territories prior to the Civil War, the non-violent mid-twentieth century civil rights movement led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., MLK, and the 2021 Capital Riot. In the twenty-first century, the left supports one of the left’s most violent group of anarchists, ANTIFA, and the 2020 riots associated with Black Lives Matter, BLM, protests following the death of George Floyd. The left leaning groups involved in this association include much of the Democrat Party and self-proclaimed communists, socialists, progressives, liberals, moderates, and most activists in our unions, education systems, the mainstream news media, and entertainment industries. In my opinion, the verbal abuse, directed against the Republican Party, especially conservatives and those who support the Make America Great Again agenda as well as social conservatives and Biblical Christians, who support the Biblical church and family and oppose abortion as murder, illegal protests at the homes of conservative Supreme Court Justices, and targeting these Justices and their families during daily activities, are all forms of anarchism often employed by anarchists. When Democrats, mainstream media personalities, educators, and entertainment celebrities on the left fail to condemn verbal abuse, violence, and lawlessness, encourage confrontation perpetrated by those on the left, they become de facto progressive anarchists, organizers, and provocateurs who promote anarchy.

Discussing anarchy requires clear understanding of three terms. The Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary provides definitions of the terms relevant to this discussion of anarchy and Democrats. Anarchy is defined as a state of lawlessness or political disorder; ¦ the absence or denial of any authority or established order; or the absence of order. Anarchist is defined as a person who rebels against any authority, established order, or ruling power; believes in, advocates, or promotes anarchism or anarchy; or uses violent means to overthrow the established order.Anarchism is defined as the advocacy or practice of anarchistic principles. Various connotations of these terms will be relevant throughout this discussion.

Unfortunately, human beings are prone to violence to settle disagreements or dissatisfaction with their current situation beginning with the Biblical Cain and Abel. Our founding generation was not immune to this defect in humanity. John Jay, First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, SCOTUS, only wrote four of the 85 Federalist Papers because he suffered a severe and debilitating broken leg during a New York City riot between supporters and opponents of ratification of our Constitution. Consequently, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton wrote most of the Federalist Papers supporting ratification.

Democrats, Slavery, Civil War, Lincoln’s Assassination, and Reconstruction

The issue of slavery and civil rights have been one of our greatest sources of controversy, anarchy, violence, and division throughout our history as a nation. In the years preceding the Civil War, congress sought to maintain a Senatorial balance between slave and free states as western territories sought statehood. The abolitionist John Brown promoted anarchy and led a group of mercenary anarchists that attacked pro slavery communities in the Kansas territories; and later, 1859, attacked and occupied the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry attempting to arm a slave insurrection. He failed, was hung for treason, but stirred emotion on both sides of the slavery issue. Within two years, the nation was at war over slavery.

In my opinion, the Democrat Party was on the wrong side of the slavery issue and civil rights movement from the founding of the party in the 1830’s. Democrats supported slavery in the South and started the Civil war with the attack on Fort Sumter in 1861. The cost of that act of violence to United States citizens was over 600,000 deaths and an untold number of disabled veterans on both sides of the war. Although it is impossible to know, the assignation of President Lincoln probably precluded the opportunity for both reconstruction and reconciliation with the former Southern slave states. In the North, radical Republicans gained power in the US Congress and bought retribution against the White southerners who brought war to the nation.

Historically, the assignation of President Lincoln had a profound impact on the arc of race relations and civil rights in our nation. Lincoln’s reconstruction plan sought reconciliation with the South which should have changed the way southern Whites viewed and treated former slaves who became freedmen. A conciliatory Reconstruction plan that did not deny thousands of former Confederate soldiers the right to vote while giving the vote to freedmen may have had future benefits. Balancing the ratio of freedmen and Whites for non-elected positions of authority in government may not have stirred such resentment among Whites toward Blacks. Without President Lincoln’s leadership, the punitive Radical Reconstruction Plan sent Yankee carpetbaggers into the south with northern financing for reconstruction of all segments of the economy and re-education regarding former slaves. Southerners were denied good financing rates for reconstruction projects. Southerners who had opposed the war, scallywags, considered traitors by most southern Whites, were given positions of authority in state and local governments and better financing for their reconstruction efforts. While only 30% of the White population of the South and 1% of the Confederate soldiers owned slaves prior to the Civil War, the punitive measure of placing freedmen in unelected positions of authority over Whites created anger and animosity. From the southern perspective, placing inferior humans in positions of authority was an unimaginable insult because freedmen were previously property that any White, and some Blacks, could buy and own just a few years prior. This punitive Reconstruction policy may have been the strongest factor contributing to the Jim Crow laws enacted after the Democrat Party regained control of the South. The advantages given the carpetbaggers and scallywags made them reviled groups; and they suffered retribution after the Yankees left the south at the end of Reconstruction hastened by a national economic depression. Fewer carpetbaggers, more equitable reconstruction financing, less reliance on and financing for scallywags may have reduced resentment of the Yankees, eased the pain associated with their war loss, and reduced the racism that rose in the South after Reconstruction.

With 20-20 hindsight, reconstruction of the infrastructure, economy, and culture of an enemy defeated in war should be based on reconciliation and understanding not revenge and retribution. Based on our experience following the Civil War, the revenge and retribution model gave us 100 years of Jim Crow, racial animosity, violence, anarchy, White supremacists, and the KKK. The same model following WWI brought a Middle East that remains tumultuous to this day and WWII in less than 30 years. After WWII, the victors, primarily the United States, followed a more understanding and reconciliatory model with the Marshall Plan to rebuilt West Germany and Western Europe and a similar plan for Japan. Both of those WWII enemies are now allies.

Democrats, Anarchy, White Supremacists, the KKK, and Jim Crow

According to Democrats are the party of the KKK, many prominent Democrat Party officials were members of the KKK and Jim Crow advocates at some time in their careers until the culmination of the 1960’s Civil Rights era. During the Jim Crow era, Southern Democrats passed poll taxes and literacy tests in their states to prevent African Americans from voting to elect Republicans to Congress. West Virginia Democrat, US Senate president pro temp, and KKK Exalted Cyclops Robert Byrd retired in 2010.  Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo became the voice of anarchy and racism in America.  In 1938, he tried to amend the federal work-relief bill in the Senate with a provision to deport 12 million Black Americans to Liberia. That same year, Bilbo voiced his opposition to a federal anti-lynching bill, stating:

If you succeed in the passage of this bill, you will open the floodgates of hell in the South.  Passage of the measure [will bring] the blood of the raped and outraged daughters of Dixie, as well as the blood of the perpetrators of these crimes that the red-blooded Anglo-Saxon White Southern men will not tolerate.

Another influential KKK member of this group was US Senator and later US Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black who served the court 1937-1971. As a Senator, Black led Filibuster efforts along with Senator Bilbo against federal anti-lynch legislation, thus promoting anarchy. The vast majority of those listed in Ku Klux Klan members in United States politics were members of the Democrat Party. During the 1948 Presidential campaign, Senator Strom Thurmond promoted anarchy when he said the following in a speech met with loud cheers by his assembled supporters:

“I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there’s not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.”

White supremacist and the KKK controlled every level of government in the South and at least the U.S. Senate through the filibuster. White supremacists and the KKK were also active in other industrial regions and large cities in the nation. After passage of Civil Rights legislation, overt White supremacy in Southern government at all levels and other industrial areas and big cities took two to three decades to subside.

White Supremacist Race Riots and Massacres

The Pure History List of Race Riots in the United States is exhaustive with many Wikipedia links providing details of the linked riots. Some of the more impactful race massacres and riots are chronicled below. Prior to 1900, most rumored, suspected, or accused transgressions of a Black citizen against White citizens resulted in White supremacist mob attacks against Blacks. The anarchy included lynchings of accused Blacks, mob attacks on Black communities, homes, and businesses which were often burned, and killing Blacks in their communities which often escalated to massacres.

In 1863, a Detroit nonwhite man was falsely accused of sexually assaulting a two White girls. When a White lynch mob was kept away from the accused, they began setting Black neighborhoods ablaze leaving 200 Black Detroiters homeless.

What started as a minor confrontation between White police officers and Black Union Army soldiers led to a massacre in 1866 in Memphis, Tennessee. A mob of White men attacked and destroyed Black neighborhoods, leveling 90 homes, four churches and twelve schools. Several Black women were raped, and 48 people died, all but two of them Black.

The 1866 New Orleans race riot started when Black freedmen along with some former Union soldiers marched to protest newly-legislated Black Codes were attacked by a mob of Democrats. The Democratic mob included policemen from the New Orleans Police Department and former Confederate soldiers.  Shots were fired killing 44 mostly Black people. As a result of this riot, martial law was reinstated; and the First Reconstruction Act was passed in 1867.

In 1887, a few thousand local sugarcane workers in Thibodaux, Louisiana, mostly African Americans, started a three-week labor strike. Strikers demanded increased wages, more consistent pay periods, and payment in US currency instead of special tickets that could only be redeemed at company stores. A state judge who had once owned slaves, put Thibodaux under martial law and declared that African American residents could not leave the city without special passes. The Judge formed a vigilante group to keep the strikers in Thibodaux. When the strikers fired on the vigilante group and killed two of them, mass violence began. For three days, the vigilantes attacked the strikers and their families, executing them on the spot or in the nearby woods. According to official numbers, 35 people died. Historians later estimated that the White vigilantes killed 300 African Americans in this racial massacre.

Wilmington, NC Insurection,1898, After Black newsman was elected Mayor, White supremacist led 2,000 Whites in a riot that ended in re-election of the previous White Mayor. 6-100 Blacks died.

After 1900, African Americans began arming themselves to protect their individual citizens and communities from the anarchy and violence of White supremacists. The inevitable result was an increase in the number of race riots, death, and property destruction in both Black and White communities.

In what would later be known as the Atlanta Massacre, violence broke out on September 22, 1906, when four Black men were falsely accused of raping a white woman. Nearly 2,000 white men took to the streets and killed approximately 100 Black residents.

In 1917, an East St. Louis, Missouri white mob killed nearly 50 people, mostly Black, and drove approximately 6,000 African Americans from the city in retaliation for African American residents arming and protecting themselves after a white man drove through their neighborhoods shooting into Black homes.

When the US entered World War I in 1917, the Third Battalion of the 24th Infantry Regiment, maned exclusively by African American soldiers, began training in New Mexico. The Battalion was transferred to Houston, Texas where racist tensions over their presence began. When the Houston police violently arrested an African American woman, Battalion soldiers became involved in protecting the woman and violence ensued. Police shot one of the African American soldiers three times but did not kill him. Soldiers of the battalion raided their camp arms room, secured weapons, and marched into town. Once there, the battalion exchanged gunfire with police and fired at civilian buildings. The gun battle lasted throughout the night. 19 people died of gunshot wounds. Leaders of the battalion were court-martialed in the largest such trial in US history. Their attorneys claimed Houston racism, unsuccessfully, as their defense. Nineteen men received death sentences and were hanged. Sixty-three others received sentences of life in prison.

In the Red Summer of 1919, over three dozen cities in the United States suffered race riots including Elaine, Arkansas; Annapolis, Maryland; Syracuse; New York; Washington D.C.; Baltimore, Maryland; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Chicago, Illinois. Thousands of African Americans were driven out of their homes, and more than 250 African Americans were killed in at least 25 riots. The most serious was the Chicago Race Riot lasting13 days. A Black teenager was stoned by a group of White youths for being on an unofficially segregated beach and drowned in Lake Michigan. Police refusal to arrent the White perpetrator, identified by witnesses, started a week the rioting between gangs of Black and White Chicagoans. 15 White and 23 Black people were killed, 537 people injured, and 1,000 Black family’s homes were burned down.

In Rosewood, Florida on January 1, 1923, a White woman claimed she was assaulted by a Black man. Consequently, White supremacist mobs killed of up to 150 Black Americans. One of the first was a local blacksmith, Sam Carter, whose tortured and mutilated body was strung up in a tree for all to see.

The Tulsa Race Massacre and Black Wall Street

The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre was the worst examples of White supremacy led by the KKK in our history. After WWI, the south saw a rise in violent White supremacist racism, a resurgence of the KKK, and anarchy as the Supreme Court began to reverse Jim Crow laws. By 1919, tensions between the races escalated as lynchings increased throughout the South and race riots occurred in some Northern cities. Armed Blacks from the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma began to show up at courthouses to prevent White lynch mobs from killing Blacks. The main street of the Greenwood District was known as Black Wall Street. According to Michelle Place, executive director of the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum.

It wasn’t long before the affluent African Americans [of the Greenwood District] attracted the attention of local White residents, who resented the upscale lifestyle of people they deemed to be an inferior race.

I think the word jealousy is certainly appropriate during this time¦. If you have particularly poor Whites who are looking at this prosperous community who have large homes, fine furniture, crystals, china, linens, etc., the reaction is ˜they don’t deserve that.

When a young Black man was accused of sexually assaulting a young White girl, 75 armed Black men went to the court to help the sheriff guard the accused. They were confronted 1500 armed White men and retreated to Greenwood. This confrontation was followed by the Tulsa Race Massacre, anarchy, which lasted over 18 hours from May 31 to June 1, 1921. On June 1, thousands of White anarchists poured into the Greenwood District, looting and burning homes and businesses over an area of 35 city blocks. 1,256 houses were burned; 215 others were looted but not torched. Two newspapers, a school, a library, a hospital, churches, hotels, stores, and many other Black-owned businesses were among the buildings destroyed or damaged by fire. In 2001, the report of the Race Riot Commission concluded that property losses were about $2 million at the time with present value losses estimated as high as $200 million. Between 100 and 300 Greenwood District Blacks were killed and more than 8,000 were made homeless over those 18 hours.

Unfortunately, after the anarchy of the Tulsa Race Massacre, perpetrated by the KKK and other White supremacists, most of whom were Democrats, the sheriff concluded that no sexual assault had occurred and all charges against the young Black man were dropped. The Tulsa Race Massacre remains one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history.

A detailed Tulsa Race Massacre web search provides ample evidence that Tulsa newspapers catering to the White population fanned the flames of anger among White supremacists in the greater Tulsa area. The search also shows that Oklahoma government at every level failed to protect the Greenwood District from anarchy and   racially motivated looters and arsonists. After Martial Law was declared, the first Oklahoma National Guard units were sent to protect unaffected White neighborhoods. Concurrently, armed White mobs, anarchists, roamed the Greenwood District looting, burning, and killing Blacks throughout a 35-block area of the community. Fire crews refused to fight fires. law officers and guardsmen participated in the looting and carnage, disarmed or shot Blacks trying to protect Black property and citizens, and marched them to areas where they could no longer protect their people or property. Obviously, Oklahoma Democrats supported anarchy in the state and the Greenwood district of Tulsa.

Although T. D.  Evans was a Republican Tulsa Mayor from 1920-1922 when the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre occurred, five of the six proceeding mayors were Democrats including his predecessor. The Tulsa city bureaucracy was still dominated by Democrat appointees many of whom were Klansmen. At the time of the massacre, the Tulsa KKK had over 3,000 members including two future Democrat mayors, at least 40 law officers, 30 firefighters, three county judges, 10 county court clerks, and 10 insurance agents.

In state government, Democrat J.B.A. Robertson, Governor of Oklahoma in 1921 said, A lyncher is a worse menace to a democratic form of government than a Bolshevik who goes about waving a red flag and throwing bombs. Since armed Blacks from The Greenwood District had to protect jailed Blacks from Tulsa area lynch mobs, it is difficult to believe that the actions of the Robertson administration matched his words. No Republican was an Oklahoma Governor between 1907, when the state elected its first governor, and 1963. The state did not elect a Republican Lt Governor until 1990. In 1921, Republicans had a 67% House of Representatives majority for the first time in state history, while the Democrat Party had a 61% Senate majority. Prior to the 1921 legislative session, the Democrat Party controlled both Houses of the Oklahoma legislature with at least a 73% majority in the House and a 71% majority in the Senate. The Democrat Party regained control of both Houses of the state legislature for at least the next three legislative sessions following the Tulsa Race Massacre.

During the Jim Crow era, anarchy and smaller race riots occurred in many Southern cities and some Northern cities like Detroit and Chicago. Several conclusions are possible regarding the state of racism, White supremacy, and the prevalence of the KKK in the Jim Crow era South based on the evidence surrounding the Tulsa Race Massacre. First, Tulsa was not the exception but rather the rule related to the control of government at every level by the Democrat Party, White supremacists, and the KKK in the South. Second, led by Southern Democrat Party members, Jim Crow laws, anarchy, and mob violence including lynching was supported at every level of Southern government including Southern Democrat Senators who filibustered against Federal anti-lynch laws. Finally, White supremacy anarchists led by the KKK perpetrated violence, led lynch mobs, marched in their white robes and hoods through the streets of the South, and burned crosses to intimidate any who opposed them. Although the Tulsa Race Massacre was unique in its scope, White supremacists led lynch mobs and burned houses, churches, and other Black community buildings throughout the South. All the while, leaders of the Southern Democrat Party were silent and refused to stop or confront White supremacy, racism, anarchy, and violence.

Race Riots After the Tulsa Race Massacre until the 1970’s

The Tulsa Race Massacre apparently resulted in a dramatic change in the way African Americans responded to racism, White supremacists, and real or perceived law enforcement or legal system racism. After Tulsa the nation-wide African American community seems to respond to violence or real or perceived racism with violence and anarchy. Race riots are often the result.

The Detroit Race Riot of 1943 was the culmination of several years of increasing racial tensions in the city:   As the WWII Arsenal of Democracy in 1943, the Detroit defense industry was attracting African American workers in large numbers. Detroit, like most U.S. cities at the time was segregated. Consequently, the 200,000 Black residents were forced to live in small, subdivided apartments that often-housed multiple families in 60 square blocks on Detroit’s east side. When the city constructed a Black housing project in a White neighborhood adjacent to a Black neighborhood in 1942, over one thousand Whites supremacists, some armed, lit a cross on fire and angrily picketed the arrival of their African American neighbors. A mob of more than one thousand Whites, including KKK members, some armed, lit a cross on fire and angrily picketed the arrival of their African American neighbors. Racism was also prevalent in Detroit factories. In June of 1943, when some Black factory workers were promoted, white workers slowed or halted production and refused to work beside Black workers in protest. Racial animosity related to both housing and factory tensions soon spilled onto Detroit streets reaching the boiling point in June of 1943. 100,000 Black and White Detroit citizens assembled in Belle Isle City Park when Black and White youth gangs began fights which police controlled by midnight. Two rumors escalated the violence the next day. African Americans in Black Bottom were told that Whites had thrown a black woman and her baby off the Belle Isle Bridge. They formed a furious mob looting White businesses and attacking White individuals. Nearby, an angry mob of Whites were told that Black men had raped a White woman. The White mob attacked Blacks as they exited from city buses on their way to work. As word of both incidents spread, so did the violence. Gangs of each skin color roamed the streets looting, burning, and assaulting people of the other race. After several hours of violence, the Detroit Mayor finally asked President Roosevelt to send U.S. troops to stop the carnage. Nine Whites and 25 African Americans were killed in the Riots of 1943. No White individuals were killed by police, but 17 African Americans died at the hands of police. 675 people were reportedly injured, with damages amounting to two million dollars.

After the US took Guam during World War II in 1944, The African American Marine 25th Depot Company was stationed near the city of Agana. White Marines tried to prevent African American Marines from entering the city for months. Before Christmas, a white Marine fatally shot an African American Marine in a quarrel over a local woman. Although the white Marine was court-martialed, the African American Marines were still outraged. On Christmas Eve, nine African American Marines visited Agana when White Marines opened fire on them. Eight of the African American Marines made it back to their base, gathered reinforcements, and returned to rescue the one who remained in Agana. After learning their friend was safe, they returned peacefully to base. On Christmas day, White Marines attacked the African Americans Marines resulting in a day-long firefight and killing enlisted men in the African American camps. Eventually, the attacks stopped, and many of the people responsible for the violence received court-martials.

The 1965 Watts Riot started when an African American on parole for robbery was arrested for DUI. His family came to the scene of the arrest bringing a Black crowd with them. A Black woman, who the crowd incorrectly thought was pregnant, spat at the police and was roughly arrested. The incident triggered the six-day riot. 34 people died, 1032 were injured, and property damage exceeded $40 million.

The 1967 Newark riot started when two White police officers arrested and beat a Black taxi driver for a minor traffic violation. Rumors that the taxi driver had been killed started five days of rioting destroying much of the district. 26 died and 1,500 were injured.

The Detroit Riots of 1967 began with an early morning police raid of an illegal night club in the Black neighborhood of Virginia Park on July 23. 85 Black party goers were arrested. A crowd grew while police waited for vehicles to transport the accused patrons. The Black crowd began throwing bottles at the police cars still in the area. When a police car was damaged, the police left the area; and the Black crowds began looting area businesses owned or operated by Whites who commuted to the Detroit suburbs. Around 6:30 A.M., the looting turned to burning and soon spread to a 100-block area despite a force of 300 state polices officers. By the time the bloodshed, burning and looting ended after five days, 43 people were dead, 342 injured, most were Black rioters. 1,700 stores were looted, 1,400 buildings were burned, causing roughly $50 million in property damage, 5,000 people were left homeless, and 7,000 National Guard and U.S. Army troops had been called into service. At the time, the 1967 Detroit Riots were among the most violent and destructive riots in U.S. history. A commission later determined that the racism that plagued Detroit for nearly 100 years contributed to the anger in the African American community and the resulting riots.

The Civil Rights Movement

By the 1950’s, Republicans and African American Civil Rights leaders led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began actively pursuing national civil rights legislation. Republican President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 which was the first major civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. Though the civil rights bill passed Congress, Democrat opponents of the act were able to remove or weaken several provisions significantly watering down its immediate impact. During the debate over the law, South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, a Jim Crow Democrat, conducted the longest one-person filibuster in Senate history.  The Act allowed federal prosecution of anyone who tried to prevent someone from voting, created a commission to investigate voter fraud, and created a civil rights division in the U.S. Justice Department.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act passed Congress with strong Republican support and 36% of the Democrats. 64% of Democrats opposed the legislation. This Civil Rights Act ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. This Act also banned segregation at all places of public accommodation, including courthouses, parks, restaurants, theaters, sports arenas, and hotels. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act barred discrimination by employers and labor unions and created an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with the power to file lawsuits on behalf of aggrieved workers. Bill Clinton’s political mentor, Democratic Senator William Fulbright, filibustered the bill for 83 days. Senator Al Gore Sr. voted against the Civil Rights Act and lost his seat as a result.

Two additional Civil Rights acts were signed into law by President Johnson. Both were spear headed by Congressional Republicans to overcome Southern Democrat Senate Filibusters. The 1965 Voting Rights Act banned all voter literacy tests, provided federal examiners in certain voting jurisdictions, and allowed the attorney general to contest state and local poll taxes which were later declared unconstitutional. The 1968 Fair Housing Act became law just days after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination. It prevented housing discrimination based on race, sex, national origin, and religion. It was also the last legislation enacted during the civil rights era.

Unfortunately, the full benefits of these three landmark Civil Rights Laws would not be fully realized for two to three decades.

Democratic Support of Anarchy from 1970 to 2000

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. King in 1968 was followed by 7 days of riots in 125 cities resulting in 46 deaths and 2600 injuries nationwide.

  • In Washington, D.C. 1200 buildings were destroyed resulting in $27 million in damage.
  • In Chicago, 11 died, 500 were injured, and 200 buildings were damaged costing $10 million.
  • In Baltimore, 6 died, 700 were injured, and $12 million in property damage resulted.
  • In Kansas City, 6 died and 20 were injured.
  • In Cincinnati a Black jewelry store owner accidently killed his wife defending their store from Black robbers and rumors spread that the woman was killed by White policemen. Two were killed, 70 buildings were burned resulting in $3 million in damages.
  • In Trenton, 200 buildings were burned resulting in $2.5 million in damages. Police and firefighters were attacked while responding to false alarms. In Pittsburg, 100 businesses were damaged or burned causing $600,000 in damages.
  • Lesser riots occurred in Louisville, Wilmington, Detroit, and New York.

In virtually all the cities affected by the anarchy of the 1968 MLK riots, Black communities suffered long term adverse economic impacts. The cities suffered from emigration of White citizens to the suburbs and irreversible loss of tax revenue and their economic activity.

In 1971, a Camden, New Jersey, police officer beat Rafael Gonzales to death when he felt threatened by Gonzales during a routine traffic stop. Hispanic residents took to the streets to demand action against the officer after he was not charged with any wrongdoing. Although Camden officials gave in and charged the officer, they let him stay on the job and did not really punish him. Outraged, Camden Hispanics took to the streets again on August 20, 1971. For three days, rioters looted stores and destroyed buildings. A lack of cohesion in the police force led to multiple incidents of police violence. In the end, police arrested 90 people. Eventually, the officer responsible for the death of Rafael Gonzalez was suspended.

The 1980 Miami Race Riot lasted 4 days, caused 18 deaths, 10 Black and 8 White, 300 injured, and 100 million dollars in damages to property in the city through arson and looting.  It required the National Guard to restore order. The riot started after six White Metro-Dade police officers were acquitted by a White male jury of the cover up and murder of Arthur McDuffie, a Black insurance salesman, former Marine, and father of two. McDuffie waws stopped for a routine traffic violation and beaten to death with flashlights.

The 1991 Brooklyn, Crown Heights riots started when a Jewish man driving in a rabbinic motorcade crashed his car into two African American children. African American residents attacked the driver and his passengers, beating him severely. After one of the African American children died because of the crash, African Americans started riots against the Jewish residents. For three days, the riots raged with African Americans and Caribbean-Americans attacking Jewish houses and stores killing one Jewish man. People who did not even live in Crown Heights came to take part in the violence. Among the rioters was Reverend Al Sharpton, who spread anti-Semitic propaganda and organized marches during the riots. The riots remain one of the worst acts of anti-Semitism in US history.

The 1992 Los Angeles Race Riot started after the acquittal of four white police officers who were filmed beating up a black motorist Rodney King who was on probation for a robbery conviction, driving under the influence, and resisted arrest. The riot lasted 2 Days, caused 63 deaths, injured more than 2,300, included thousands of fires, and caused a minimum of $1 billion in property damage. During the riot, White truck driver, Reginald Denny, was pulled from the cab of his vehicle, beaten, and smashed in the head with a cinder block. He was rescued by people from the neighborhood who had been watching the event unfold on television. The trial acquittal set off riots in Atlanta, Las Vegas, New York, San Francisco and San Jose. To end the riot, the California Governor deployed 6,000 guardsmen. President George Bush also dispatched 3,000“4,000 army troops and marines, along with 1,000 riot-trained federal law officers, to help restore order.   In a television interview during the riot, Rodney King, famously asked, Can’t we all get along? Koreatown, situated just to the north of South-Central LA, was disproportionately damaged.

Democratic Support of Anarchy from 2000 to 2022

The 2001 Cincinnati Race Riots lasted 4 days. During the riots, 70 people were injured, White motorists were pulled from their cars and beaten, store and bank windows were smashed, businesses were robbed, over 900 were arrested, and total losses and property damage was estimated at $3.6 million. The riots were a culmination of long-standing racial tension in Cincinnati which peaked when a young African American, Timothy Thomas, was killed by a Cincinnati police officer.

Austin Hsu’s 2018 article discussed the 2014 Ferguson Race Riots, which lasted 10 days. The riots started after a White policeman shoot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed young African American who resisted arrest. In Ferguson, 17 buildings were damaged so badly they were deemed “unsafe structures.” The value of buildings destroyed in the Ferguson area was nearly $4.6 million. Four months after the Michael Brown incident, extra St. Louis County Law Enforcement costs were $4 million. Ferguson suffered from periodic riots on month and year anniversaries of the shooting for nearly two years. One of the worst was after the Missouri grand jury decided not to indict the policer officer on any criminal charges.  Many of those waiting outside the Ferguson Police Department grew violent after they learned that the policeman would not be charged. Multiple buildings were torched, and protesters hurled rocks at parked police cars. National Guard and reinforced law enforcement presence in the area, effectively bringing the protests to a stop.

Circumstances surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown by a white male Ferguson police officer are still disputed by the African American community in Ferguson. According to the policeman, Brown attacked him in his police vehicle for control of his service pistol, until the officer fired his pistol. Dorian Johnson, a friend of Brown and accused fellow petty criminal, said that the policeman initiated the confrontation by grabbing Brown by the neck through the patrol car window, threatening him and then shooting at him. At this point, Johnson ran and hide behind a car, and the policeman pursued Brown. According to the officer, Brown stopped, turned around, and charged him. The policeman shot and killed the charging Brown in self-defense. Johnson contradicted this account, stating that Brown turned around with his hands raised after being shot in the back. The policeman fired twelve shots, including two during the car struggle. Brown was struck six times in the front of his body not in the back as Johnson claimed..

“Hands up, don’t shoot”, or simply “hands up”, is a slogan and gesture originating from the incident and was seen in demonstrations in Ferguson and throughout the United States. The gesture became a rallying cry against police violence. On March 4, 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice, under the direction of African American Attorney General, Eric Holder, issued a report on the shooting, which said, “There is no witness who has stated that Brown had his hands up in surrender whose statement is otherwise consistent with the physical evidence” and “our investigation did not reveal any eyewitness who stated that Brown said, ‘don’t shoot’.” Consequently, Hands Up, Don’t Shoot! Is Built on a Lie. The news media, national civil rights leaders, and Democrat politicians reported on the lie without critical investigation fomenting further violence, anarchy, and destruction by African Americans in Ferguson and around the nation. The narrative and speculation regarding widespread police violence against African Americans was more important than the truth and facts concerning the Michael Brown shooting.

The 2015 Baltimore Race Riots started after the arrest and police transport injury which eventually caused the death of Freddie Grey. Protests and rioting increased as Grey’s condition worsened and peaked after his death and funeral. During the 16 days of peaceful protests and rioting, 113 police officers were injured, and two civilians were shot, 486 people were arrested, and 350 businesses were damaged or looted.  There were also 150 vehicle fires, including police cars and vans.  Two people were shot and one injured by fire, but there were no fatalities. The cost of building destruction alone was estimated at $9 million. Thousands of police and Maryland National Guard troops deployed to end the anarchy costing millions more.

The 2016 Charlotte Race Riots lasted three days. The anarchy started when bystanders falsely claimed that Keith Lamont Scott was unarmed and shot by a White policeman. Actually, Scott was a violent felon armed with a handgun not registered in his name, The riots resulted in the death of one protester killed by another protester and sixteen police officers were injured. The riots cost Charlotte and North Carolina $4.6 million including police overtime, national guard deployment costs, and the destruction of public property. That number does not include any private property damage.

During the 2020 George Floyd BLM Race Riots at least 25 people were killed and the destruction cost our nation between $1 and $2 billion. Consequently, the cumulative national cost of the 2020 BLM riots was the most expensive year in United States history. The major BLM riots are detailed below.

  • The death of George Floyd sparked a summer of BLM protests and riots in cities around the country. On May 25, 2020, police were called to investigate suspected use of a counterfeit $20 bill by Floyd. Floyd was sitting in a car with two other passengers. Police officers forcibly removed Floyd from the car, handcuffed him, and attempted to place him in a police vehicle. When he resisted placement in the vehicle, he was thrown to the ground where a White Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds[ causing Floyd’s death. Floyd’s death was ruled a homicide. In addition to fentanyl and methamphetamine, the toxicology report from the autopsy showed that Floyd also had cannabinoids in his system when he died. Floyd also had heart disease, hypertension, and an asymptomatic sickle cell trait,  The medical examiner listed Floyd’s death as a homicide and noted the amount of fentanyl in Floyd’s blood was pretty high and could be a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances.  His death was caused by the police subdual and restraint in the setting of severe hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, and methamphetamine and fentanyl intoxication, officials from the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner wrote.  The 2020 Minneapolis George Floyd riots cost the Twin Cities an estimated $500 million in damages including $4.8 million to temporarily rent an office building and adapt it to replace the police station burned to the ground by rioters. The mostly peaceful rioters damaged more than 1,500 businesses. Fire department responses were limited due to fear that firefighters could not be protected from rioters.
  • In New York City, Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood mobs rampaged down sidewalks, smashing numerous luxury shop windows to steal merchandise. The looters cost stores tens of millions of dollars in stolen merchandise and damages. A BLM leader and trained Marxist said that the stores were all insured, and the stolen goods were a form of reparations. Police angered protester for use of a tactic called kittling, corralling protesters who had made their way onto the Manhattan Bridge and blocking off both ends of the bridge allowing police to control and arrest the looters and those who became or had been violent.
  • In ROCHESTER, NY, BLM protests were sparked after the death of a 41-year-old black man, Daniel Prude. Prude’s family called police because he was naked in the street and high on phencyclidine, Prude was vomiting and spitting at police who placed a spit hood on his head and forced him to the ground. In less than three minutes he stopped breathing but was revived. A week after is arrest, he died in the hospital. The autopsy report called the death a homicide and listed excited delirium and intoxication by PCP, as contributing factors. A grand jury did not charge the police officers involved. Protests and riots broke out around police headquarters and in spread to many residential areas.
  • The Portland OR BLM riots lasted 100 consecutive days and included vandalism, chaos and, at times, violence.  President Trump deployed federal law enforcement agents to stop attacks on a federal courthouse and other U.S. property. During the clashes, rioters broke windows, set small fires, punctured police car tires with spikes, shined lasers in officers’ eyes, and pelted them with rocks and frozen water bottles. One night, and man was dragged out of his car and beaten by nine or 10 people. When police arrived, the man was unconscious. Fortunately, he recovered. Trump supporter Aaron “Jay” Danielson, 39, was fatally shot as he walked on a sidewalk. Michael Forest Reinoehl, the suspected shooter, was killed by a law enforcement task force sent to arrest him outside Lacey, WA.
  • Chicago “Car caravans” of looters made their way into Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, Gold Coast, Irving North neighborhoods, and neighboring commercial districts for several hours. Police made more than 100 arrests and 13 officers were injured, including one who was struck in the head with a bottle. The “pure criminality” included occupants in a vehicle who opened fire on police who were arresting a man they spotted carrying a cash register. Videos of the vandalism showed huge crowds of people smashing their way into businesses and streaming out of the broken windows and doors with clothes and other merchandise.
  • In Kenosha WI, protests erupted in August following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man shot multiple times. Blake scuffled with three officers who yelled, “Drop the knife! Drop the knife!” before the gunfire erupted. Crowds destroyed dozens of buildings and set more than 30 fires in downtown Kenosha. In one instance, a Kenosha car dealership reportedly sustained $1.5 million in damage during one night of riots. Damage blamed on rioting in Kenosha exceeded $50 million. Kyle Rittenhouse was charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the killing of two protesters and attempted intentional homicide in the wounding of a third. Rittenhouse claimed that he was defending himself against rioters and was acquitted of all charges.
  • Philadelphia following the October officer-involved shooting of Walter Wallace Jr., an armed Black man reportedly with a mental health history. Wallace’s family has said he was experiencing a mental health crisis when police were called. Officers who arrived at the scene fired 14 shots after Wallace advanced toward the officers despite their orders that he drop the knife he carried. More than a thousand people took to the streets following the shooting, ransacking a Walmart and Foot Locker stores, as well as smaller businesses. Hundreds were arrested, and dozens of police and law enforcement vehicles were damaged during the riots. Meanwhile, more than 50 police officers were injured, including a sergeant who was “intentionally run over” by a pick-up truck driver.

Thankfully, our nation has not experienced major riots of any kind since the George Floyd, BLM, race riots of 2020. Perhaps, the 25 or more lives lost and the billions of dollars the riots cost our nation taught us a valuable lesson. We can only hope.

Final Thoughts

In my opinion, the Democrat Party has been the party of anarchy from its inception. The party supported slavery, Jim Crow, and all forms of violence against African Americans until the reluctant acceptance of the 1960’s civil rights legislation by most White Southern Democrat leaders in the late twentieth century. Then, the Democrat Party miraculously became the party of the assassinated MLK and African Americans despite past abuse by Democrats. The Democrat Party’s metamorphosis from supporters of violence and anarchy perpetrated against African Americans to supporters of violence and anarchy perpetrated by African Americans is remarkable to me. Democrats justify this support because of past slavery, Jim Crow, violent White racism, perceived and real law enforcement racism, perceived and real systemic racism in the judicial system, education, economic opportunities, and claimed White privilege, the precepts of Critical Race Theory.

It saddens me when Democrats, national news correspondents and pundits, and African American Civil Rights leaders like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Attorney Ben Crump rush to every city where a Black person is killed of badly injured by police, especially if the police involved are White, and claim racism and police brutality before the facts of the case are known.  These leaders usually incite the Black community to protests which often become violent despite calls for peace. These riots are usually started by BLM activists, members of ANTIFA, or bad apples simply caught up in the moment. In most police encounters with Black people, if the offender simply followed this simple advice, Comply, don’t die, they would not suffer at the hands of police.

Each new situation like those described above has the potential to make another racist old or young white man. Two polar opposite responses to jury verdicts should explain my reasoning. After four White police officers were acquitted in the Rodney King beating criminal trial, the African American community erupted in arson, racial violence, anarchy, and murder against innocent White people and Korean businesses in Koreatown. The end result was the second most costly riots in our history. Sadly, race riots also occurred in other cities around the nation. In contrast, after O. J. Simpson was acquitted in the murder of two White people, his former girlfriend and her new boyfriend, not severely beating them, the White community did not erupt in race riots, violence, or anarchy in the LA area or around the country. Every time African American leaders, Democrats, and the news media rush to microphones, cry systemic racism, and call police officers racists when a Black person is killed or severely injured in a police encounter before the facts are known, the Black community loses respect. This is especially true if the Black person resisted arrest, refused to surrender a weapon, or attacked the police. If the Black community starts protests and the protests devolve into rioting, most carnage destroys or severely damages Black businesses and sections of the city involved which rarely recover economically.

In contrast to the entire anarchy narrative above, the Republican Party and conservatism, including Ultra-MAGA folks who all understand that the United States was built on the foundation of our nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage, the traditional family, religious liberty, human rights and the end of slavery, free, fair, and honest elections, small government, states’ rights, capitalism, strong borders, national sovereignty, and a strong national defense. We support the rule of law, the Constitution, and equal opportunities for all because all Life Matters. Black Lives Matter; White Lives Matter; Asian Lives Matter; Native American Lives Matter; Unborn Lives Matter; and Old People’s Lives Matter. In my opinion, it is still time to put America First and Make America Great Again. One can be ideologically Ultra-MAGA without a 2016 or 2024 primary vote for Trump. We’ve never worn white hoods and robes or burned crosses to intimidate our political foes or led mobs to lynch Black people. Contrary to current Democrat, progressive, and news media prognostications, racism and anarchy is the ugly past of the Democratic Party not the current Republican Party and all its supporters.

A woman with blonde hair and pink highlights.For the What’a bouters who will spout January 6, the behavior of the Capital Rioters was abhorrent to me causing me to jump off the Trump Train when it happened. It is important to recall that four of the Capital Police who died committed suicide and the fifth officer died of multiple strokes. Ashli Babbitt was the only person killed during the Capital Riot. Based on at least one video, she did not appear to me to pose a real threat as claimed, but she was still shot to death by a capital policeman. Babbitt was an Air Force veteran who served 12 years on active duty with deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar. When she was killed, she was a member of the Air National Guard serving in the WDC Capital Guardian unit. Why is she dead?

It is time to say to America, Y’all come back now, hear! or Can’t we all just get along?

Join the fray. All of the America ˜s Crossroad Posts are listed by categories in the BLOG CONTENTS tab.  If you decide to read a few, please leave comments about your Patriot Visions, start or join the conversation, and share the Posts with friends and political frienimies.