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As history seeks to repeat itself, remember Clinton

 
Casper 2021-10-19 00:18:16 

That is Clinton, Mississippi, not the man, as in President Clinton nor his wife Hillary.


The Clinton Riot began on September 4, 1875, in the small town of Clinton, Mississippi at a Republican rally to introduce the party’s candidates who were running for political office in the upcoming November elections. The immediate death toll included five blacks and three white men. Over the next several days, an estimated fifty blacks were killed in the massacre that followed.

Over 1,500 black Republicans and their families gathered on the grounds of the former Moss Hill plantation for a barbecue and political rally. Approximately 100 whites also attended, including a few Democrats from the nearby town of Raymond. In an effort to keep the political rally peaceful, alcoholic beverages and weapons were banned, and both a Democratic and Republican candidate were invited to speak.



Judge Amos R. Johnston, the white Democratic state senate candidate, gave the opening speech with no problems from the predominantly black crowd. However, the Republican speaker and editor of the Jackson Times, Captain H.T. Fisher, was interrupted during his speech when a white Democrat in the audience called him a liar. Shortly afterwards, shots were fired, and the crowd frantically ran in all directions to get away from the danger. When the gunfire ended, a total of five blacks, including two children, and three whites were dead, and nearly thirty others were wounded. It was reported that a white man fired the first shot, but other rumors contended that armed black Republicans started the riot.

Later that night, white militia associated with the Mississippi Democratic party were called in from Jackson, Vicksburg, and the surrounding area for assistance against armed blacks. The militia group, who called themselves Modoc after an Indian tribe in California, began a manhunt for blacks in Clinton. The following days were marked by violence and bloodshed as the white mob indiscriminately shot and killed nearly fifty blacks in Clinton and the surrounding area.


Note: The Democrats of the 1870s are now the Republicans of the 2020s.

Learn more here: The Clinton Riot of 1875: From Riot to Massacre.


Clinton served as the inauguration of the infamous Mississippi Plan, a plan devised by the Mississippi Democratic Party to regain political control of the state by any means necessary. Despite countless requests for federal assistance by Governor Ames and citizens like Sarah Dickey, President Grant declared that “the whole public are tired out with these annual, autumnal outbreaks in the South,” and he adopted a policy of non-intervention with respect to Clinton and the rest of the former Confederacy.


Does any of the above sounds familiar in 2021?

When you read some of the stories in the above link, you can get to understand why some White people, mostly on the Right, are beside themselves and do not want to hear about Critical Race Theory, nor even have anything to do with issues of race, especially in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder, the prominence of the Black Live Matter movement and, for them, the encouraging rise in their minds of Trumpism.