The Division Of Human Rights Investigates Complaints Of Discrimination Based On: Fill & Download for Free

Two lawsuits filed last week by federal regulators suggest that if employers act unilaterally to exclude all job applicants who have criminal records, without regard to recent guidelines laid out by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, they could be opening themselves up to charges of race discrimination. Employers can’t turn away potential employees simply because of a long-ago conviction for mortgage fraud, for instance, if they are hoping to work in an auto warehouse, or a drug charge if they are applying to be a store cashier.In complaints filed in federal courts in Illinois and South Carolina, the EEOC says that discount retailer Dollar General DG +0%Corp. and a U.S. division of German automaker BMW, turned away new hires based on criminal background checks, when they should have considered each applicant individually and evaluated whether his or her past arrest or crime had any bearing on the job for which they applied. The EEOC is charging that the hiring policies at both companies had the effect of discriminating against black applicants, in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars employers from discriminating based on race.More than two thirds (69%) of employers run criminal background checks on all of their potential employees according to a 2012 survey by the Society of Human Resource Management. At the same time, the number of Americans with criminal records has escalated dramatically in recent years. According to the 2013 testimony of a Justice Department official, a startling one in three Americans has some sort of criminal record, which often includes an arrest that didn’t lead to a conviction, a conviction that didn’t result in jail time or a conviction for a non-violent crime. Yet often these records are swept into over-broad background checks that then exclude applicants from jobs.When it comes to incarceration rates, black men are imprisoned at six times the rate of white men, according to 2011 figures gathered by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.Last year a unit of PepsiCo settled discrimination charges brought by the EEOC, agreeing to pay a $3.1 million fine and to change its screening policy after it was charged with discriminating against African-Americans by using criminal background checks, in some cases barring applicants who had been arrested but not convicted. Shortly after the Pepsi settlement the EEOC issued the new guidelines.While the guidelines sanction the use of background checks, they remind employers they must use a three-pronged test laid out by the Supreme Court in a landmark 1975 ruling called Green v. Missouri Pacific Railroad: Employers must consider the nature of the crime, its relation to the potential job, and the time that has passed since the offense. The EEOC guidelines also say that employers must give applicants the chance to explain the circumstances of their criminal records, including information about whether they already proved they could do the same sort of work for which they’re applying, and whether they had gotten rehabilitation services or other training.In the BMW case, employees had been working for a company that staffed a BMW warehouse. When BMW switched companies, the staff had to re-apply and 69 African-Americans were excluded because they failed the criminal background check. One who lost her job had been working for BMW for 14 years but had a 1990 misdemeanor assault conviction for which she had paid a $137 fine, according to the complaint. The suit says that many of the workers who didn’t get rehired “had been working at the BMW facility for several years without incident.”According to the suit, 55% of the plant workers were African-Americans but 80% of those who didn’t get their jobs back were black.In an email statement, BMW spokesman Kenn Sparks said, “We cannot comment on the specifics of the EEOC complaint because of the pending litigation. However, BMW believes that it has complied with the letter and spirit of the law and will defend itself against the EEOC’s allegations of race discrimination.”In the suit against Dolgencorp., which does business as Dollar General, the EEOC is challenging a policy that requires applicants to go through a background check after they have gotten a job offer. As many employers do, the security check company, General Information Systems, put together a matrix where certain combinations of offenses and time frames would mean that Dollar General would take back its job offer. Like BMW’s policy, Dollar General’s didn’t allow individual applicants to argue that they were fit to do the job, despite their criminal record. The EEOC notes that 10% of black applicants had their offers taken back while only 7% of nonblack applicants did.“Dollar General’s criminal background check process is structured to foster a safe and healthy environment for its employees, its customers, and to protect its assets in a lawful, reasonable and non-discriminatory manner,” Dollar General said in a statement.This morning my colleague Daniel Fisher published an opinion piece about the EEOC case by two partners in the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm Jones, Day. The authors are Michael Carvin, who worked as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Justice Department under President Reagan and Eric Dreiband, General Counsel of the EEOC under President George W. Bush. The piece argues that employers should be able to do broad criminal background checks and shouldn’t be blamed for racial inequalities that are built into the system. “[D]ue to factors wholly beyond any employer’s control, there are statistical differences in the rate of criminal convictions between various races,” they write. They also argue that a private employer should be able to “exclude risky criminals from its workforce because employers may be ultimately liable, under principles of vicarious liability, for the work-related misconduct of their employees.” They call the EEOC’s policy a “Catch 22.” Employers “must either hire criminals or risk an EEOC investigation and class action lawsuit.”But there are several problems with Carvin and Dreiband’s argument. If someone was charged with murder or larceny but never brought to trial, he still has a criminal record. What if he is innocent? Is he a criminal who deserves to be barred from a job? To be sure, there are also people who were found guilty and served time for their crimes. But once they’ve paid their debt to society, do we want to keep them permanently unemployed, particularly if their prior offense has nothing to do with the job they want? Should there be no second chances? And what about arrests or convictions for crimes like prostitution, drug possession and trespassing? Should those all be bars to employment? The EEOC guidelines make it clear that if there’s a rational reason to exclude someone with a criminal record, that is entirely legal. For instance, someone who was convicted of stealing could legally be barred from a sales position.Sally Friedman, legal director at the Legal Action Center, a national law and policy group that fights discrimination against people with a history of drug abuse, HIV/AIDS and criminal records, notes that there are tens of millions of people with criminal records, and employers routinely deny them jobs without looking beyond the mere fact that they have some sort of criminal record. But, says Friedman, “at the same time we want these people to stay out of prison, we want them on the tax rolls, we want them to take care of their families, and yet we won’t give them a job. The law simply requires that we look at these people as individuals.” Friedman adds that it’s extremely rare for employers to be held liable for so-called “negligent hiring,” if an employee commits a crime on the job, especially if the employer did the individual assessment required by the EEOC in its guidelines.Whether you agree with Carvin and Dreiband or with Friedman, the fact is that the government is cracking down on employers who use background checks without looking at whether the criminal record has any relevance to the job and without giving the applicant a chance to show that she or he is fit to do the work. “Employers are going to have to start looking at more legal and fair ways to evaluate job applicants with criminal records,” says Friedman. “This litigation makes it clear that broad-brush practices that automatically exclude thousands of qualified applicants will not be tolerated.”

In the spring of 1941, hundreds of thousands of whites were employed in industries mobilizing for the possible entry of the United States into World War II. Black labor leader A. Philip Randolph threatened a mass march on Washington unless blacks were hired equally for those jobs, stating: “It is time to wake up Washington as it has never been shocked before.” To prevent the march, which many feared would result in race riots and international embarrassment, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order that banned discrimination in defense industries. His Executive Order 8802, June 25, 1941, established the Committee on Fair Employment Practices (known as FEPC) to receive and investigate discrimination complaints and take appropriate steps to redress valid grievances.The fight against fascism during World War II brought to the forefront the contradictions between America’s ideals of democracy and equality and its treatment of racial minorities. Throughout the war, the NAACP and other civil rights organizations worked to end discrimination in the armed forces. During this time African Americans became more assertive in their demands for equality in civilian life as well. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), an interracial organization founded to seek change through nonviolent means, conducted the first sit-ins to challenge the South’s Jim Crow laws.After the war, and with the onset of the Cold War, segregation and inequality within the U.S. were brought into sharp focus on the world stage, prompting federal and judicial action. President Harry Truman appointed a special committee to investigate racial conditions that detailed a civil rights agenda in its report, To Secure These Rights. Truman later issued an executive order that abolished racial discrimination in the military. The NAACP won important Supreme Court victories and mobilized a mass lobby of organizations to press Congress to pass civil rights legislation. African Americans achieved notable firsts—Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball, and civil rights activists Bayard Rustin and George Houser led black and white riders on a “Journey of Reconciliation” to challenge racial segregation on interstate buses.A Mass Protest MarchIn this letter, labor leader A. Philip Randolph suggests to Walter White “a mass March on Washington” by thousands of African Americans to protest discrimination in defense industries and the armed forces. On June 18, 1941, A. Philip Randolph and Walter White met at the White House with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of War Robert Paterson, and other government officials. On June 25, the threat of the march prompted President Roosevelt to sign Executive Order 8802, which banned discrimination in defense industries receiving government contracts. The Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) was established to investigate and monitor hiring.A. Philip Randolph to NAACP Secretary Walter White, March 18, 1941. Facsimile. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (050.01.00) Courtesy of the NAACPBookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomA. Philip Randolph Challenges President Franklin RooseveltCivil rights leader and labor activist A. Philip Randolph (1889–1979) relates an Oval Office encounter in 1941 with President Franklin D. Roosevelt that resulted in Roosevelt issuing Executive Order 8802, which banned discrimination in government and defense industry employment. The excerpt was included in A. Philip Randolph’s 50th Anniversary, a satellite news feed produced by the Labor Institute of Public Affairs (AFL-CIO), caWatch the videoExecutive Order 8802As a lawyer in the Roosevelt administration, Joseph Rauh worked with A. Philip Randolph in drafting Executive Order 8802, the first presidential directive on civil rights since Reconstruction. This advertisement cites the section of the order banning discrimination. Rauh added the words “national origin” to include ethnicity in the list of attributes. It was the first time the concept appeared in American public law. While engaged in private practice, Rauh extensively volunteered his service in drafting civil rights bills.National Refugee Service, Inc., Employment Division. Executive Order 8802. Advertisement, 1941. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (051.00.00) Courtesy of the NAACPBookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomJapanese American Kenje Ogata Fighting during War World IIKenje Ogata (1919−2012) felt called to serve his country after the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and enlisted in the Army the very next day. Despite being a trained pilot, he was denied entry into the Army Air Corps because he was Japanese American. After two years of fighting for a chance to join the corps, Ogata finally gained a spot on a flight crew—not as a pilot, but as a turret gunner. His Library of Congress Veterans History Project collection includes this poignant letter to his wife describing his passion for service as well as his love for her.“I don’t know if you can fully appreciate how I feel after 2 years of fighting to get an even break, trying to get an equal chance—without being judged purely from looks. A flood of memories come whirling back—to the time when I enlisted, when I thought of going to fight for my country—being turned down for the Air Corps because of my racial origin—that awful nauseated feeling in my whole soul at the impact of that refusal.”1 of 2Lt. Col. Knapp awarding Air Medal to Kenje Ogata. Photograph, ca. 1944. Kenje Ogata Collection, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress (052.01.00)Kenje Ogata to Wilma Ogata, February 25, 1944. Holograph letter. Kenje Ogata Collection, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress (052.02.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomNAACP Washington Bureau OpensThe NAACP opened a Washington Bureau in 1942 to serve as a legislative arm and national policy office. Walter White was the bureau’s first director. The NAACP Washington Bureau assumed responsibility for tracking and influencing federal legislation, monitoring government agencies administering federal regulations and programs, testifying before Congress, and working with other organizations with similar objectives.Purpose of the NAACP Washington Bureau. Memorandum, 1942. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (053.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomJames Farmer Founder of the Congress of Racial EqualityJames L. Farmer (1920–1999), civil rights activist and educator, grew up in Texas. His father was one of the first African Americans to earn a Ph.D. and his mother was a teacher. He graduated from Wiley College at the age of eighteen and studied for the ministry at Howard University. While at Howard, he became a part-time secretary for the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). In 1942, Farmer cofounded the FOR-affiliated Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and, in 1943, used nonviolent direct action tactics to integrate a Chicago restaurant.Farmer later worked in a drive to organize Southern unions for FOR and as the NAACP’s program director under Roy Wilkins. In 1961, Farmer became CORE’s first national director and initiated Freedom Rides into the Deep South. As director, he organized new branches and led voter registration projects and desegregation protests throughout the country. Farmer left CORE in 1966 to direct a national adult literacy project.Walter Albertin. James Farmer. Photograph, 1963. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (055.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomThe Congress of Racial EqualityThe Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was organized by a group of students on the campus of the University of Chicago in 1942. Many of the students were members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a Christian pacifist organization. CORE experimented with nonviolent direct action methods to tackle racial problems. In 1943, CORE conducted a sit-in at a Chicago restaurant and, in 1947, launched the first Freedom Ride into the South. From 1949 to 1953, CORE members successfully used picket lines and sit-ins to break segregation at lunch counters in St. Louis. In 1961, CORE again set out on Freedom Rides. After launching the Voter Education Project (VEP) in 1962, CORE’s focus shifted to voter registration.Congress of Racial Equality. CORE Action Discipline, n.d. Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (054.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomThe Fair Employment Practices CommitteeThe Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) was authorized to investigate complaints of job discrimination based on race, color, creed, or national origin in defense industries receiving government contracts and to require antidiscrimination clauses in defense contracts. The FEPC held hearings but lacked punitive powers. In 1943 President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9346 establishing a new FEPC in the Office of Emergency Management. The 1943 FEPC’s jurisdiction included all government contractors. Its authority was expected to encompass discrimination in labor union membership and employment. The FEPC expired in 1946.The Committee on Fair Employment Practices. FEPC: How It Operates. The Committee on Fair Employment Practices, 1944. Pamphlet. Washington D.C.: A. Philip Randolph Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (056.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomNational Council for a Permanent FEPCAnna Arnold Hedgeman was the executive secretary of the National Council for a Permanent FEPC, established by A. Philip Randolph in 1943. With the end of the war, a conference was called to plan a nationwide strategy for bringing a permanent FEPC bill to the floor of Congress quickly. The Senate, dominated by Southern Democrats, successfully filibustered the bill in 1946. Subsequent bills to establish the FEPC as a permanent federal agency were blocked by the Senate in 1950 and 1952. In altered form, the idea of an FEPC evolved into the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.National Council for a Permanent FEPC. Digest of Findings from a Working Conference of Local Councils held September 12 and 13, 1945, in Washington, D.C., by the National Council for a Permanent FEPC. Page 2. Anna Arnold Hedgeman Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (058.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom“Saving the Race”The Texas Democratic Party contended that a political party was a private association that could freely select its membership. This strategy was upheld by the Supreme Court in Grovey v. Townsend (1935). In United States v. Classic (1941), however, the court conversely held that a primary was an integral part of the electoral process, not a private activity. Inspired by this decision, Thurgood Marshall decided to launch a new attack on the white primary. His client, Lonnie E. Smith, was a black dentist from Houston who had been denied the right to vote in the 1940 primary by Judge S. E. Allwright. On April 3, 1944, in Smith v. Allwright, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Smith declaring the white primary void as a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment.Thurgood Marshall’s “Saving the Race” Memorandum to the NAACP legal staff, November 17, 1941. Memorandum. Page 2. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (059.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomAfrican American Ellis Ross Fighting during World War IIServing with the Quartermaster Corps in the European and North African Theaters in World War II, Master Sergeant Ellis Ross (1910−1996) used his camera to document the sights and sounds of his military experience. His Library of Congress Veterans History Project collection contains 278 original photographs; here, he poses with comrades in various locations in Austria, Italy, and France.Ellis Ross. Snapshot photographs, ca. 1944−1945. Ellis Ross Collection, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress (061.01.00, 061.02.00, 061.03.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomTuskegee Airman Lee Archer Interviewed by Camille O. Cosby in 2002Tuskegee Airman Lee Archer (1919–2010) recalls an army study that tried to prove African Americans could not be pilots during World War II in an interview conducted by Camille O. Cosby (b. 1945) for the National Visionary Leadership Project in 2002.National Visionary Leadership Collection (AFC 2004/007), American Folklife CenterWatch the videoU.S. Senator Edward Brooke (R-MA) Interviewed by Renee Poussaint in 2001U.S. Senator Edward Brooke (1919–2015) (R-MA) explains the segregation he faced in the army during World War II in an interview conducted by Renee Poussaint for the National Visionary Leadership Project in 2001.National Visionary Leadership Collection (AFC 2004/007), American Folklife CenterWatch the videoJackie Robinson Breaking the “Color Line”When Jackie Robinson (1919–1972) began his rookie season with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, he became the first African American to play major league baseball in the twentieth century, breaking down the “color line” in effect since 1876. In this letter to Ralph Norton, a fellow alumnus of Pasadena Junior College, Robinson reports on his historic debut, the appointment of the Dodgers’ manager, and the welfare of his wife and infant son.“Well Ralph outside of baseball everything is O.K. My wife and baby are fine and we now have an apartment even though we have to share it with the owner. Our new manager is really a contrast to Leo Durocher. He doesn’t have much to say but he knows baseball. Well Ralph I hope to see you for a while in St. Louis. It’s pretty tough getting away from the mobs at the park but I hope to see you soon. Sincerely, Jack Robinson”Jackie Robinson to Ralph Norton, May 5, 1947. Autograph letter. Page 2. Jackie Robinson Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (063.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomJackie Robinson’s First Year in Major League BaseballIn 1947, Jackie Robinson (1919–1972) became the first African American to play baseball on a major league team in the modern era. After the season ended, he answered reporters' questions in this interview from the Library’s Bob Wolff Collection.Courtesy of Bob Wolff Collection, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound DivisionListen to the audio“Major Leaguer: Jackie Robinson of the National League’s Brooklyn Dodgers”The Harlem-based New York Amsterdam News was an influential African American newspaper that provided some of the best coverage of civil rights after World War II. Jackie Robinson’s career was widely covered by the newspaper. On April 15, 1947, he debuted as the first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers and as major league baseball’s first modern-era African American player. The landmark event was captured in this exuberant front page photograph.New York Amsterdam News, National Edition, April 19, 1947. Newspaper Section, Serial and Government Publications Division, Library of Congress (064.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom“Rookie of the Year”The Harlem-based New York Amsterdam News was an influential African American newspaper that provided some of the best coverage of civil rights after World War II. Jackie Robinson’s career was widely covered by the newspaper. September 23, 1947 was Jackie Robinson Day, celebrating his selection as Rookie of the Year by Major League Baseball.New York Amsterdam News, National Edition, September 27, 1947. Page 2. Newspaper Section, Serial and Government Publications Division, Library of Congress (64.01.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomLawyer and U.S. Assistant Attorney General Roger Wilkins Interviewed by Renee Poussaint in 2007Lawyer and U.S. Assistant Attorney General Roger Wilkins (b. 1932) describes his hero, Jackie Robinson, in an interview conducted by Renee Poussaint for the National Visionary Leadership Project in 2007.National Visionary Leadership Collection (AFC 2004/007), American Folklife CenterWatch the videoMorgan v. Virginia, 1946On July 16, 1944, Irene Morgan refused to surrender her seat to white passengers and move to the back of a Greyhound bus while traveling from Gloucester County, Virginia, to Baltimore, Maryland. She was arrested and convicted in the Virginia courts for violating a state statute requiring racial segregation on all public vehicles. The NAACP appealed her case to the Supreme Court. On June 3, 1946, by a 6-to-1 decision, the court ruled that the Virginia statute was unconstitutional when applied to passengers on interstate motor vehicles because it put an undue burden on interstate commerce.NAACP Secretary Walter White soliciting funds to support the litigation of Morgan v. Virginia, May 20, 1946. Typed letter. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (062.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomActivist and Organizer Bayard RustinBorn into a Quaker family in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Bayard Rustin served as race relations secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) from 1941 to 1953. During that same period he was a youth organizer for A. Philip Randolph’s proposed 1941 March on Washington and became the first field secretary of CORE. He planned and participated in the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, the first Freedom Ride into the South. Rustin was an advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., and an organizer of the Montgomery bus boycott and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He also organized the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage, the 1958 and 1959 Youth Marches for Integrated Schools, and the 1963 March on Washington.Bayard Rustin (1912–1987). Photograph, ca. 1950. Bayard Rustin Papers, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (066.00.00) Courtesy of Walter NaegleBookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomThe Journey of ReconciliationTo test the Supreme Court’s decision in Morgan v. Virginia banning segregation in interstate travel, Bayard Rustin of FOR and George Houser of CORE planned and participated in the Journey of Reconciliation. Sixteen black and white men left Washington, D.C., on a bus and train trip through the upper South. In North Carolina, three people, including Rustin, were arrested and sentenced to serve on a prison chain gang. Rustin wrote an article about his experience for the New York Post, which led to the abolition of chain gangs in North Carolina. The Journey of Reconciliation served as a model for the Montgomery bus boycott and the Freedom Rides of 1961.1 of 2George M. Houser and Bayard Rustin. Journey of Reconciliation. Typescript, 1948. Page 2. Bayard Rustin Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (067.00.00) Courtesy of Walter NaegleThe Journey of Reconciliation—first “Freedom Ride”—standing outside office of Attorney S. W. Robinson, Richmond, Virginia. Photograph, 1947. Bayard Rustin Papers, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (068.00.00) Courtesy of Walter NaegleBookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomTo Secure These RightsOn December 5, 1946, President Truman signed Executive Order 9808 creating the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. The fifteen-member committee’s task was to determine how current law enforcement and federal, state, and local governments could be “improved to safeguard the civil rights of people.” The committee released its report, To Secure These Rights, on October 29, 1947. Among the recommendations were an antilynching law, the abolition of the poll tax, a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), the desegregation of the military, and laws to enforce fair housing, education, health care, and employment.To Secure These Rights: A Brief Summary of the Report of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1947. Pamphlet. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (284.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomShelley v. Kraemer, 1948For more than twenty years the NAACP initiated lawsuits to nullify restrictive covenants with little success. In 1945, J. D. Shelley, a black man, purchased a home in St. Louis covered by a restrictive covenant. Louis Kraemer, a white neighbor, obtained an injunction in the Missouri Supreme Court to bar occupancy. The NAACP appealed Shelley v. Kraemer along with similar cases from Detroit and Washington, D.C., to the U.S. Supreme Court. On May 3, 1948, the court affirmed in Shelley v. Kraemer the right of individuals to make restrictive covenants, but held that the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause prohibited state courts from enforcing the contracts.George L. Vaughn to Thurgood Marshall concerning Shelley v. Kraemer, January 13, 1947. Typed letter. Page 2. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (070.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomDemocratic Platform, 1948Minneapolis mayor Hubert Humphrey (1911–1978) urged the Democratic Party to “get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights” in a speech before the 1948 Democratic National Convention. He joined Joseph Rauh in drafting a civil rights plank for the party platform. When President Truman inserted the plank, Southern delegates walked out and formed the States’ Rights or “Dixiecrat” Party with Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as its candidate. In November Truman carried seventy-seven percent of the black vote, helping him to win reelection.Democratic Platform, 1948. Pamphlet. Joseph Rauh Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (071.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomExecutive Orders 9980 and 9981On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman issued two executive orders. Executive Order 9980 instituted fair employment practices in the civilian agencies of the federal government. Executive Order 9981 directed the armed forces to provide “equality of treatment and opportunity for all personnel without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin” and established a presidential committee chaired by former Solicitor General Charles Fahy to monitor compliance.1 of 2Executive Order 9980, July 26, 1948. Typed document. Page 2. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (072.00.00)Executive Order 9981, July 26, 1948. Typed document. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (073.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomKorean War Veteran Samuel Tucker Interviewed by Bill Tressler in 2007Korean War veteran Samuel Tucker (b. 1932) describes fighting for freedom overseas and being denied those same rights at home in an interview conducted by Bill Tressler for the Veterans History Project in 2007.Veterans History Project Collection (AFC 2001/001), American Folklife CenterWatch the videoKorean War Veteran Bill Saunders Interviewed by Kieran Walsh Taylor in 2011Korean War veteran Bill Saunders (b. 1935) discusses the blatant racial prejudice he and other comrades faced while serving the country in the armed forces in the Korean War in an interview conducted by Kieran Walsh Taylor for the Civil Rights History Project in 2011.Civil Rights History Project Collection (AFC2010/039), American Folklife CenterWatch the videoJoseph L. Rauh Civil Rights LawyerJoseph L. Rauh (1911–1992), the son of a factory owner, grew up in Cincinnati. He graduated from Harvard College and was first in his class from Harvard Law School. From 1935 to 1942, he clerked for Supreme Court Justices Benjamin Cardozo and Felix Frankfurter, his former professor, and also worked as counsel to several New Deal agencies. In 1947 he opened a law office and helped found the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA).Walter Reuther hired Rauh as Washington counsel for the United Automobile Workers in 1948. By the mid-1950s, he was a leading civil rights attorney and political advisor. Rauh served as an NAACP board member, general counsel for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and chairman of the ADA. He was a delegate to all the Democratic National Conventions from 1948 to 1972, and remained active in politics until his death.Joseph L. Rauh, Jr. Photograph, between 1950 and 1960. NAACP Records, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (074.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomCivil Rights Map of America, 1949This 1949 map divides the states into three major categories: states with “discrimination for race or color forbidden by law;” states with “segregation of white and colored enforced by law (or permitted);” and states with “no legislation” related to civil rights. The map further describes the types of discrimination allowed in each state: “travel, hotels, resorts, theaters, public schools, state and private colleges, private and public employment, civil service, health and welfare facilities, insurance,” and “public or state-aided housing.”The Founding of Leadership Conference on Civil RightsIn October 1949 the NAACP’s National Emergency Rights Committee invited sixty advocacy organizations to unite in a National Emergency Civil Rights Mobilization that would organize a conference and mass lobby for a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) and other civil rights proposals. For three days (January 15–17, 1950), more than 4,000 delegates representing the NAACP, labor, religious, and civil liberties groups descended on Congress to urge passage of the bills. They also agreed to form a Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a coalition to lobby for civil rights laws and monitor their compliance.NAACP Acting Secretary Roy Wilkins to Officers of Branches, State Conferences, Youth Councils and College Chapters, October 21, 1949. Memorandum. Page 2. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (075.00.00)Bookmark this item: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how's the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”David Foster Wallace, Kenyon College, 21 May 2005There are many reasons a majority of Americans believe statues honoring Confederate leaders should remain. Most of these answers are in some way connected to the failure of Reconstruction in the postwar era, the resultant flourishing of the Lost Cause mythology, and white America’s general reluctance to confront its past meaningfully.This is admittedly a lot to dig into. Let’s get started.I. Causes of the Civil WarThe main cause of the American Civil War was slavery. Anything else rates as a distant second. We know this because the Confederates were kind enough to tell us this themselves. For example, here’s a transcript of “the Cornerstone Speech” (emphasis mine):Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind — from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics; their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just — but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.The Cornerstone Speech was delivered by Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederacy, in Savannah, Georgia, about a month after he’d been sworn into that office, and less than a month before the rebels assaulted Federal troops at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.Let’s also consider the “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union,” which contains this gem (emphasis mine):The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.When reading this document, it may sound reasonable: the states are defying federal law, therefore other states have no obligation to the federal government. It is, however, decidedly unreasonable given the historical context. Specifically, in 1832, South Carolina refused to accept the validity of a tariff and refused to apply it under a pseudolegal concept called “nullification.” This provoked a major crisis, one that only subsided not when the federal government threatened to use force to apply the tariff, but rather, when the tariff was lowered. South Carolina never repudiated the doctrine of nullification, and so, this complaint in its declaration of secession is hypocritical garbage. South Carolina gave no care to the principle of states’ rights, it simply wanted its interests to completely dominate the Union’s. When this did not happen, South Carolina threw a fit and rebelled.Claiming the American Civil War was about anything other than slavery is therefore neatly countered by the statements and actions put forth by the rebels themselves. It is also demonstrated by statements made by the Union — most notably, the Gettysburg Address — and actions taken by it and within it. These actions, by the way, were not all pro-liberation: the draft riots in New York City of 13–16 July 1863, wherein the non-black underclasses[1] of the city attacked the black population, fearing that a hospitable environment for freedmen, as they believed was being created by the war itself, would lead to their own replacement with black labor.So why are we discussing the causes of the Civil War in a discussion on why a majority of Americans in the twenty-first century believe statues commemorating rebels should stay standing? We need to point this out because modern American society is vehemently opposed, at least nominally, to slavery. To defend the continued standing of these statues in their current positions therefore requires squaring a circle: the people represented by those statues were willing to kill to maintain the institution of slavery, which very few modern Americans would view as a defensible position. Indeed, that they did kill to maintain the institution of slavery and the structures of white supremacy constitutes, for the overwhelming majority of those represented, the overwhelming share of their legacy to the country.[2]There are, in general, three ways of squaring the circle:Claiming that the Civil War was not about slavery.Claiming that slavery wasn’t so bad.Claiming that taking down the statues would be an example of historical negationism, or that it would lead via the “slippery slope,” to historical negationism.[3]Since, as demonstrated in the rest of this section,[4] the first two require historical illiteracy, whether intentional or not, in order to understand why the arguments for the monuments persist, we must understand why historical illiteracy regarding the Civil War is as prevalent as it is within the United States.Part II: The Myth of the Good SlaveownerThe most pernicious of the defenses cited in the first answer is the claim that slavery wasn't that bad. This argument is trotted out on a regular basis, albeit in different words: "X may have been a slaveowner, but he always treated his slaves well and even had provisions in his will to free them after his death." The argument is therefore that there were "good" slaveowners and "bad" slaveowners, and yes, the bad slaveowners were terrible people, but the good slaveowners were simply good people who happened to own slaves, and why should we be so awful about their slaveholding? I mean, you can't expect people to just go against the standards of their time, can you?It isn't hard to see where it came from, either: slaveowners themselves. A "good" slaveowner might occasionally feel a pang of guilt about their slaveowning - and posthumous manumission is clear evidence of this - but they could always comfort themselves by saying that at least they weren't that bad slaveowner down the road, and besides, what would happen to the slaves were they to just be freed all willy-nilly?This is a nonsense argument, and the disingenuousness of the claim has been in the popular consciousness since, at the very latest, the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852. Indeed, much of the controversy regarding Uncle Tom's Cabin stemmed not from its depiction of Legree, the text's depiction of a "bad" slaveowner,[5] but rather, from its condemnation of even the "good" slaveowners and its unsparing attack on slavery as a whole.In particular, at one point, following being sold and ripped away from his wife and children by a "good" slaveowner named Shelby, the titular character becomes the possession of St. Clare. St. Clare treats Tom kindly, and St. Clare's young daughter, Eva, loves Tom like she would a member of the family. Tom's situation at this point in the novel is relatively comfortable among the "good" slaveowning set. Eva then dies of disease, her father subsequently stabbed outside a tavern, and because St. Clare's desire to free Tom is ignored, Tom ends up with Legree.The text portrays St. Clare sympathetically, but it still condemns him: he may personally treat Tom well and he may have no animus towards black people, but his own participation in the system is, in the end, directly responsible for Tom's suffering and eventual death at the hands of Legree. The "good" slaveowner does little-to-no physical harm to his slaves directly,[6] but by participating in the system in the first place, facilitates — even unwillingly — the violence of others towards slaves.This is why Uncle Tom's Cabin caused a furor. Had Uncle Tom's Cabin merely been a condemnation of the "bad" slaveowner, it may have briefly seized the public's attention, but then rapidly faded from it. However, Uncle Tom's Cabin condemns even the so-called "good" slaveowners, and for that, the slaveowning South had to create a response. Thus, an entire genre of literature, "anti-Tom literature" arose in the antebellum South. The anti-Tom books have all faded from popular consciousness, but Uncle Tom's Cabin has not — this even despite Uncle Tom's Cabin not being an especially good book[7] — to the point where, even a century after publication, the plot was assumed to be sufficiently generally familiar to an American audience that an idiosyncratic adaptation of the novel in Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I could be assumed by the authors to reliably generate laughs. It still does.Of course, there's another reason why counters to Uncle Tom's Cabin's argument are usually rejected today: they rely on explicit white supremacy. This was obviously true of anti-Tom literature, which invariably asserted slavery's necessity in view of the supposed inferiority of blacks. It has also been true of every popular counter since: D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation depicts blacks as subhuman, and the depiction of blacks in Gone With the Wind ascribes humanity only to subservient blacks — the blacks who aren't subservient to the white population are depicted as rapists whose murder is thoroughly justified. The argument for why "good" slaveowners existed is therefore not "no, Harriet, they didn't participate in and facilitate an inherently violent system," but rather "slavery was necessary due to the inferiority of the black population." No other argument has had anywhere near the same success in sticking in the popular consciousness as the one borne from white supremacy.Having said all this, it is a misuse of language as it is colloquially used to describe anyone putting forth this argument as a "white supremacist." We generally reserve that term for people who consciously believe that "white" people are superior and would intentionally structure society in accordance with this belief. This is not currently a popular position within American discourse (although it is growing in strength); however, this does not change the fact that the myth of the good slaveowner is rooted in white supremacy, and defense of Confederate monuments to "good" slaveowners is therefore incurably poisoned by white supremacy.This itself raises another question: how does white supremacy, including coded and unintentional, so frequently go unquestioned within American discourse?Part III: Southern Victory via ReconstructionFollowing July of 1863, with the capture of Vicksburg and Lee's defeat at Gettysburg, the question was no longer if the Confederacy would fall, but rather, when. This meant serious thought had to be given to how the states in rebellion would be reintegrated into the Union. This proved a matter of some controversy. Northern Democrats, who themselves had ranged in position from complete opposition to the war to tepid support for it, generally advocated an extremely lenient reintegration process — but following the 1864 elections, the Democrats would lose most of their representation, with Republicans "waving the bloody shirt" and blaming them, mostly successfully, for having created the conditions for the war in the first place. This led to the primary players in the question of reintegration being all Republicans. At the time of the end of the Civil War, there were two factions in the Republican Party.The Moderates, among whose numbers were President Abraham Lincoln and Vice-President Andrew Johnson, believed representatives and senators from former Confederate states could be seated in Congress after a lenient set of conditions were met: acceptance of the Thirteenth Amendment,[8] a proviso in the state constitution banning slavery, and ten percent of the state's population to swear an oath of loyalty to the federal government. The Radicals, who dominated the legislative branch, wanted much stricter conditions, among them, for a majority of the state's population to swear said oath of loyalty. Either way, both sides were convinced Reconstruction was required, and that acceptance of the rebellion without any change was unacceptable.Lincoln initially, by virtue of being commander in chief of the armed forces and putting the former rebellion under military occupation, steered a Moderate course. Historians are split on whether or not Lincoln would have been successful in this had he lived. Lincoln's prestige was high after the war, and he may have had the popularity and statesmanship required to sell the public and the legislative branch on his proposals. We will never know, however, because within days of the war's end, Lincoln was assassinated and was succeeded by Andrew Johnson.Andrew Johnson was not a popular politician. He had gotten the job of vice-president mostly by virtue of having been a southerner, thus allowing the Republican party to run as the "National Union Party" in the 1864 election and secure the support of pro-war Democrats. He was not particularly skilled, nor was he particularly charismatic, and, having had very little to do with the Union's victory, had none of Lincoln's credit to trade on. Thus, he was in a poor position to see his Moderate goals enacted, and unequipped to navigate to a better position. However, as he was still president following Lincoln's assassination, which meant he was far from powerless.The result was a series of increasingly nasty battles between Johnson and the Radicals in Congress. This eventually culminated in Johnson's impeachment in 1868, his trial on the Senate floor, and his acquittal by a single vote. These squabbles diverted attention and energy away from the actual process of Reconstruction. Some of this ended with the election of a Radical Republican, Ulysses S. Grant, to the presidency in 1868. Unfortunately for the Radicals, this came with its own set of problems: the Grant administration is generally viewed by historians as being among the most corrupt in presidential history.[9] The corruption of the Grant administration caused a fight in the Republican party, one sufficiently bitter that, in 1870, a sizeable group bolted the party and put up its own candidate for election, Horace Greeley, in 1872.[10]Partly as a result of all this infighting, by the time of the 1876 election, the appetite in the north for continuing Reconstruction was essentially gone. The 1876 election proved to be among the most controversial in US history, with Democrat Samuel J. Tilden winning the popular vote and, by all rights, the electoral college only to have it stolen out from under him.[11] In exchange for Democrats conceding the election, Republicans would pull all remaining federal troops from the former Confederacy and end Reconstruction.This was a disaster. Everyone knew what it would mean, and nobody in a position to do anything about it gave anything approximating a shit.What is commonly taught regarding Reconstruction in the US education system is, putting it politely, garbage. It is frequently taught that the Reconstruction era governments were hopelessly corrupt, incurably inefficient, and just generally terrible. None of this, as it so happens, is true.[12] What did happen with these Reconstruction Era governments is that the previously powerful in the former Confederate states were disenfranchised, while those who had been enslaved were suddenly allowed to have a hand in determining their own government. In other words, local and state governments began to see significant black representation, and black senators and representatives were elected to the federal government.Of course, the titanic change in social structure did lead to serious problems of governance - not so much from the governments, but from the governed. In 1866,[13] a group of former Confederate officers formed the Ku Klux Klan in Tennessee. Initially, the Klan was a social organization; however, this soon changed and the Klan's purpose in life was giving voice and action to the resentment felt by the newly disenfranchised former rebels. This, of course, euphemistically refers to the fact that the Klan was a terrorist organization, which murdered, assaulted, and, to be redundant, terrorized the black population.Thus, while blacks went to the polls for the first time in 1867, they were still under-represented there, a state of affairs that would continue into the early 1870's, when the federal government finally enacted legislation making the Klan's terrorism, and deprivation of civil rights more generally, a federal offense. Between this and dedicated police work by the military, the Klan had essentially disappeared by the mid-1870's. However, the Klan's systematic extralegal disenfranchisement of the black community and the steady re-enfranchisement of former rebels[14] allowed the former structures of power to reassert themselves, and start legally disenfranchising the black population.This was ongoing during the tail end of Reconstruction, so the effects of withdrawal of federal troops from former Confederate states were known by all well in advance of the Compromise of 1877. Thus, exclusively blaming the South for the failure of Reconstruction to create an equitable society and stamp out the virus of white supremacy is intellectually dishonest twaddle: the North barely had an interest in redressing the evils of the previous ninety years of slavery within the United States. Of course, this isn't surprising: white supremacy as an ideology had pretty well taken root north of the Mason-Dixon Line, just as it had south of it.This once again goes back to the myth of the good slaveholder. We usually think of states north of the Mason-Dixon Line as having been "free states." When discussing the Missouri Compromise of 1820, we talk about how the admission of Missouri as a slave state threatened to wreck the precious balance between free states and slave states in the Union. The problem with this view is that the "free states" weren't. In 1820, slavery was still legal in New York, and would remain so until 4 July 1827.[15] As another example, New Jersey kept slavery legal in some form until 1865.And even more to the point, even though the "free states" were generally quite inhospitable to slavery as an institution, slavery was good business for them all the same. New York City grew rich from exporting southern cotton, and Massachusetts' textile mills desperately depended on it. When one makes a deal with the devil, one has to either ignore the devil's actions or else justify them, and since white superiority was already a required system in the northern states — how else could the abysmal treatment of the Amerindian population otherwise be justified? — the belief in the inherent, natural, and appropriate supremacy of white people over nonwhites (but especially over blacks) was essentially de rigeur.[16]This is why Reconstruction failed, and indeed, had no chance of success. Yes, the most popular campfire songs among the Union included "Battle Hymn of the Republic,"[17] "Battle Cry of Freedom"[18] and "John Brown's Body"[19], but only the most egregious offenses against the black population could be condemned, for the northern states were frequently just as guilty of everything else, and indirectly culpable for those offenses.Part IV: Early Historical RevisionismThe overwhelming majority of monuments glorifying rebels were not built until the twentieth century. As has been pointed out time and time again, plenty of former rebels did not want statues erected in their honor, most famously Robert E. Lee. The first large wave of monument building began approximately in 1900 and hit its peak in 1910. This was also one of the nastiest periods of anti-black violence in American history: for the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first two of the twentieth, between fifty and one hundred black people in the South were lynched per year. It also came after the 1896 Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson made segregation legal within the United States. Every means was used to keep the black population down.This included the statues.As pointed out by current GOP senator Ben Sasse,[20] monuments to the Confederacy and to Confederates were not infrequently erected on the sites where black men had been lynched. To be clear: after murdering innocent black men and frequently mutilating their corpses, the local white population would erect statues glorifying those who had killed to keep slavery legal on the site, statues of figures such as Nathan Bedford Forrest, likely the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.[21] These statues were deliberately designed to be as offensive as possible as a means of declaring white power over black people. George Orwell discussed a similar phenomenon in fascism. Orwell pointed out that, yes, the goosestepping looked ridiculous, but in intentionally adopting ridiculous gestures and then forbidding people to laugh, the state was demonstrating its own power. The same principle was in effect here: the most outrageous and intolerable things were done, with objection forbidden, to demonstrate power.This isn't usually discussed, and once again, it's not hard to understand why: broad sections of white America were broadly culpable. The Ku Klux Klan was re-founded in 1915, but where the original incarnation of the Klan was a regional organization determined to restore the antebellum social order in the former Confederacy — an aim that was mostly accomplished — the second incarnation of the Klan was a national organization that was virulently anti-black, anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, and antisemitic. Within a decade of its second founding, the Ku Klux Klan had 15% of the nation's eligible population in its rolls (and just under 5% of the population, period), coming out to just under 5 million people. Explicit white supremacy as the basis for governance was popular in wide sections of the country. And frankly, the reason the second incarnation of the Klan had fallen from favor by the late 1920's had virtually nothing to do with the Klan's aims, but rather, with their means. The constant in American political thought is that if things are quiet — which violence most assuredly is not — then things are fine. Get rid of the violent goons of the Klan, and things are fine, no need to address the entire system that naturally spawned the Klan on three separate occasions.[22]The statues were not the only example of white supremacy being forced into the historical record. As discussed back in Part I, the primary cause of the Civil War was slavery. This was, again, announced proudly by the belligerents themselves. However, within twenty years of the Thirteenth Amendment, this became a matter of some embarrassment for the former Confederates: it turns out that, when nobody is a slaveholder, killing several hundred thousand people to keep black people in bondage appears indefensible to the population at large. And so, we end up seeing such nonsense as "states' rights" as the cause of the Civil War, even though the only particular right the rebels had really cared about was the right to own slaves. This garbage started shortly after the Civil War — former Confederate President Jefferson Davis in his self-aggrandizing The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government was an early example — and soon predominated the record such that by the 1890's, Lincoln's former secretaries had to resuscitate Lincoln's reputation.[23] Rather than frame the Confederacy as a rebellion that fired the first shots of the war so that they could keep black people in slavery, the dominant trend in historiography of the conflict for the following century was to frame the Confederacy as a glorious last stand for freedom, a "Lost Cause" whose leaders embodied greatness of spirit. Similarly, the Dunning School — which grew from Columbia University — dominated the view of Reconstruction, painting it in the most starkly negative terms, including the maligning of black participation in governance. Until the "Neoabolitionists" of the 1960's came to the scene, these and other similar views were the dominant narrative of Civil War historiography.It is difficult to overstate just how much influence Lost Cause mythology has had on the American perception of the Civil War, and how much effect it has had on race relations within the country. The most obvious effects have been on popular media. D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation in 1915 was the first blockbuster film in American history. Its climax involves a group of Klan horsemen riding frantically to rescue a white woman from the evil clutches of a Reconstruction governor, who is presumably voted out of office the following day when the Klan bars the black population from the polls. That this film was a product of its culture should be obvious — art is rarely created ex nihilo, and art produced as a specifically capitalist endeavor as studio films must reflect the culture that gave rise to them.[24] However, The Birth of a Nation also deeply reinforced the culture from which it was born. Griffith's film is often, rightly, cited as a masterpiece of cinema, to the point where virtually every film made since has been influenced by it either directly or indirectly. It is not exaggeration to say film audiences had never seen anything remotely like it, which also means that whatever tropes it employs that would strike a twenty-first century audience as melodramatic cliche would have been fresh, original, and insidiously persuasive to the audiences of 1915. The founder of the second incarnation of the Klan would go on to say that he did not believe the Klan could have been re-founded had The Birth of a Nation not been made.The Birth of a Nation, however, is a three hour silent movie[25] and is, outside of film schools, generally not viewed today. That said, for most people, the cinematic images they have of the Civil War still come from this Lost Cause/Dunning School view, because of Gone With the Wind.Gone With the Wind was published in 1936 and was an instant bestseller. Polls still place it as the second favorite book of American readers after only the Bible, and for a time, it was at the top of of the US all-time bestseller list.[26] Its film adaptation was one of the most hotly anticipated films of all time, and would subsequently go on to be the most successful film in box-office history.[27] It is still a popular film, and it still sees periodic cinema re-release.And it is undeniably a text of white supremacy. Even when the black characters are granted virtues, said virtues tend to stem from white people all the same — Mammy (who the film doesn’t even give an actual name!) is generally a moral center of the proceedings, but is always clear that her judgement is guided entirely by “Miss Ellen,” her master. This is the film people generally think of when asked for cinema depicting the March through Georgia or Reconstruction. Even now, when white supremacy as a doctrine of thought is disavowed by polite society, the image we have of Reconstruction is in no small part shaped by white supremacy.[28]Part V: Leaving the Roots of the WeedThe second wave of statue building came during the Civil Rights Movement. Again, this was a weaponization of history designed to intimidate the black population into staying silent; however, this time, it didn’t work. Timing had quite a bit to do with it: while white supremacy was a “respectable” doctrine in the 1910’s and 1920’s, it could not be anything of the sort in a post-Auschwitz world. The Nazis essentially single-handedly destroyed the respectability of “racial science,” and without some greater justification for white supremacy — and in a modernist and postmodernist world, said justification could never be religion — it could not be espoused respectably, which meant systems that required supporters to explicitly espouse white supremacist beliefs simply could not survive.This is not to downplay the efforts of those people who actively campaigned against segregation and voter suppression, because those people were indeed brave. They frequently risked their lives in the struggle, and sometimes lost them. However, unlike half a century before, the federal government was willing to step in on behalf of the protesters. The Supreme Court ruled against segregation in Brown v Board of Education in 1954 and against anti-miscegenation statutes in Loving v Virginia in 1967, among others. President Dwight D. Eisienhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to integrate Little Rock Central High School in 1957. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi when the state refused to do so.[29]Similarly, this is not to say white supremacy disappeared. It didn’t. Many of white supremacy’s most obvious reinforcing structures were dismantled through the end of segregation and the enactment of various anti-discrimination and civil rights statutes, but white supremacy is still a pervasive element of mainstream American culture. Remember, hungover high school history teachers will still put Gone With the Wind on instead of teaching, without commenting on the text and its underlying assumptions. History textbooks routinely still present the Dunning School interpretation of Reconstruction without criticism[30] and will even go so far as to label slaves as migrant workers from Africa. And yes, this stuff has an effect. It’s close to thirty years since Do the Right Thing came out in theaters, and we’re still arguing if Mookie did the right thing by smashing the window of Sal’s Pizzeria, and not asking why Radio Raheem had to die. Hell, we’re still actually killing Radio Raheem in the streets, filming it, and letting those responsible go.[31]And so, we get to the crux of the matter: white supremacy runs deep, and America never really dealt with it. At every obvious opportunity to do so, the country has combated the worst and most obvious excesses without actually bothering to interrogate the deeper psychology of the matter. Because of white supremacy, we end up with apparent nonsense like “the Civil War was not about slavery” being taught in schools. Because of white supremacy, we end up with people viewing the nature of a cause people killed for as being incidental to whether or not they should be honored. Because of white supremacy, we don’t recognize monuments to the Confederacy as inherently historically revisionist. Because of white supremacy, we cannot accept their removal as a needed correction to a grossly distorted record. Because of white supremacy, we can somehow talk of slavery as a “mistake,” when we would recognize this as a disgusting statement coming from any other analogous circumstance.[32] And because of white supremacy, the only way we seem to be able to keep monuments of our “mistakes” is not through monuments to the oppressed, but rather, through monuments to the oppressors.[1] Primarily the Irish. The application of the term “white” here would be ahistorical, because while Irish-Americans are considered white now, they were most decidedly not considered white at the time of the Civil War, and indeed, not until the twentieth century.[2] Nobody would remember Thomas Jackson were it not for the Civil War. He was a competent junior officer during the Mexican-American War, but how many statues of first lieutenants of that conflict who died prior to 1861 have been erected in the years since? Indeed, Jackson is more commonly referred to by his nickname, Stonewall, which came during the Civil War.[3] As we shall see, this third claim is usually heavily reliant on the first or the second claim, but I’ve listed it here separately because it sometimes manages to skirt that issue.[4] For a thorough treatment of the subject, I recommend Battle Cry of Freedom, by James M. McPherson, Oxford University Press, 1988.[5] Legree's background is a transplanted northerner, which helps the novel’s argument significantly. Had Legree been a southerner, it would have come across as a purely regional attack.[6]Uncle Tom's Cabin is a melodrama written by a white woman in the first half of the nineteenth century. That it provides little insight into the psychological states of black slaves is therefore understandable.[7] Again, it's a melodrama with little psychological insight into its characters. It is very much of a kind with all sorts of disposable literature from the nineteenth century (or today, for that matter), except in theme. For a more substantial treatment of Uncle Tom’s Cabin's failing's as a novel, please refer to George Orwell's essay "Good Bad Books."[8] The Thirteenth Amendment mostly bans slavery within the United States. It does not, however, ban it outright, so it is technically legal, from a constitutional perspective, for a convicted prisoner to be sold.[9] Grant himself was generally not implicated in the corruption, and by most accounts was an honest man. However, he was also a deeply trusting man and created an environment in which corruption flourished.[10] Greeley, despite also being nominated by the Democrats, did not do well in the election of 1872. This meant that his death in between the casting of the popular vote and the voting of the electoral college did not change the outcome of the election. One wonders what would have happened had Grant died in between the two votes.[11] There were "irregularities" in some of the ballots. In order to win the election, Tilden only had to receive one of the disputed electoral votes, and Republican Rutherford B. Hayes had to win all of them. The commission that was supposed to impartially decide the apportionment of the votes ended up being composed of eight Republicans and seven Democrats — that the vote went according to party lines should not be a surprise, and that this was partisan nonsense has never really been meaningfully disputed.[12] For a more thorough treatment on the topic, James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Taught Me is an excellent resource.[13] The Klan was possibly founded in December of 1865. The history of the first Ku Klux Klan relies on poorly-kept records.[14] The re-enfranchisement of former rebels was extensive, to the point where Alexander H. Stephens, he of the Cornerstone Speech and the Vice Presidency of the Confederacy, would go on to be Georgia's Eight District's representative in the House from 1873 to 1882, when he resigned to take the office of Governor of Georgia.[15] Gradual abolition was passed in New York in 1799, with all children of slaves born after that time being technically free — except they were legally indentured until their mid-to-late twenties.[16] This is another attitude called out in Uncle Tom's Cabin. St. Clare's northern relatives are antislavery in sentiment, but also take the superiority of whites over blacks as obvious and natural.[17] "In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea / With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me / As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free"[18] "We are bringing to our numbers the loyal, true and brave / Shouting The battle cry of freedom / For although he may be poor, he shall never be a slave"[19] A song glorifying a failed attempt to create a republic of freed slaves within territory that would later attempt to secede.[20] A statement made on Facebook here, for example: Senator Ben Sasse[21] The leader of the Ku Klux Klan is the "Grand Wizard." His direct underlings are "Grand Dragons." Local cells are led by an "Exalted Cyclops." This sounds like it's out of a crappy Dungeons & Dragons campaign, but it's mostly designed to echo esoteric mystery cults, which use these sorts of naming practices to create a sense of grandeur. However, the Klan's "grandeur," much like the Third Reich's "theatricality," is inherently fragile. Thus, Nazis dancing in a swastika formation in The Producers generates a laugh, even though that's barely an exaggeration of actual Nazi pageantry, and Superman battling a Grand Wizard on a radio program can get children of Klan members cheering.[22] As reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of Klan chapters in the United States grew by over 100% in 2015, suggesting we may be looking at a fourth iteration of the Klan.[23] Without John Hay and John Nicolay's biography, there is little chance Lincoln would enjoy the exalted position he currently holds in reckonings of American presidents.[24] Yes, I’m cribbing from the Frankfurt School here.[25] There is no definite length of the film besides to say it is twelve reels long. At the time the film was released, manual cranking of the projector was still the norm, so depending on the vigor of the projectionist and the speed at which the accompanist played the recommended score, the film could come it at wildly different run times.[26] It displaced Ben-Hur: A Story of the Christ, which had displaced Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Note that Uncle Tom and Ben-Hur are both stridently anti-slavery, and were dwarfed in popularity by a book that took the complete opposite tack.[27] Adjusting for inflation, it is still the most successful film in box-office history, beating Avatar by close to half a billion dollars.[28] This is actually a common phenomenon. As another example, mental images of the Nazis are often shaped by Triumph des Willens, the 1935 propaganda film the Nazis themselves produced.[29] Local law enforcement were involved in the murders. The FBI was able to claim jurisdiction based on the 1870 Enforcement Act, discussed obliquely in Part III.[30] Again, Lies My Teacher Told Me.[31] The death of Eric Garner, involving an illegal chokehold death, is the most obvious parallel. It is not the only one.[32] Imagine someone calling Dachau a “mistake.” Doesn’t sound right, does it?