January 6th, 2021 is similar to Atlanta 1906 and Wilmington, NC 1898
Welcome to my freemium newsletter by me, King Williams. A documentary filmmaker, journalist, podcast host, and author based in Atlanta, Georgia. This is a newsletter covering the hidden connections of Atlanta to everything else.
…what have you got to lose? - Donald Trump, former US President - 2016
One year ago today.
One year ago today, several thousand people aided by an environment of chaos fueled by the former US President, saw the US Capitol was taken over temporarily by terrorists.
The connection of January 6th to other historic events
On November 10th, 1898 arguably the first successful Black Mecca in the United States was destroyed. This destruction came during the 1898 election, with circumstances eerily similar to the US during the November 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection.
1. The original Black Mecca - Wilmington, North Carolina was destroyed
On November 10th, 1898 arguably the first successful Black Mecca in the United States was destroyed. This destruction came during the 1898 election, with circumstances eerily similar to the US during the November 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection.
Before Black Wall Street in 1921, there was Wilmington, NC in 1898
The 1898 Wilmington, NC insurrection which saw a bi-racial Republican-led (the parties switched over time—read my article on this) coalition of newly elected members in a tight election be overthrown violently by racist white conservatives and radicals of the Democratic Party (again, the parties switched bases over time). As a result, that insurrection was successful and the white mob burned down a large section of Wilmington, North Carolina, and then removed any knowledge of the event. It was subsequently reframed and was for almost 100 years taught as an outright lie in the North Carolina history books.
November 10th, 1898 - Wilmington, North Carolina
The biggest comparison occurring with the January 6th attempted coup echoes the only successful insurrection in US history in which occurred in Wilmington, North Carolina on November 10th and 11th in 1898. Wilmington then, like the US of late 2020/January 6th, 2021 were incidents of how an ongoing news media cycle of false reports paired with false reports of election fraud led to a direct insurrection.
In that incident, a biracial coalition of Radical Republicans and Black Republicans in Wilmington, the largest city in North Carolina at the time was attacked by a mob of white southern Democrats. Wilmington was one of the few places in the entire US that were actively involved in the political process of electing local black leadership after the compromise of 1877. This success of Wilmington’s bi-racial coalition of African Americans and the white Populist Party was so threatening that nearly the entire Black community was destroyed after winning their election in November of 1898.
2. Atlanta, Georgia - 1906 The Georgia Governor’s race
Another parallel to the 2020 election, is the 1906 Georgia Gubernatorial race. In that race, Hoke Smith versus Clark Howell is an example of how mass media purposely aided in spreading misinformation, ignited a culture war that lead to violence. In that case, the violence was the 1906 Atlanta racial massacre which occurred in September of 1906.
From my September 2021 newsletter - The 115th anniversary of the 1906 Atlanta Racial Massacre:
The 1906 Georgia gubernatorial race between Hoke Smith and Clark Howell is a prime example of what happens when candidates weaponize media and inflame racial rhetoric. Both men were editors of the two of the largest newspapers in Atlanta, The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution. This allowed for newspapers at the time in particular the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Constitution to publish unconfirmed and outright false stories regarding Black men committing crimes, especially those accusing them of raping White women.
It must be noted that both men, Hoke Smith the former publisher of the Atlanta Journal, and Clark Howell, then the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, allowed their publications to be launching points for their campaigns as well as deliberate engines of falsehoods. Both men campaigned on racialized rhetoric including solving ‘Atlanta crime’, Black male criminality and taking away the right to vote for Black voters. This includes a now tried and true method of ‘us vs them’ politics referring to the ‘us’ as non-Atlanta residents, it was the original Georgia vs Atlanta culture wars.
Another parallel is how eventual winners, used more explicit cues of racism and populism to secure a white vote. Hoke Smith then in 1906, like Trump in 2015/6 sought the support of populists who could aid in drumming up support for their candidacies. For Hoke Smith, this was an ardent white supremacist and segregationist, Thomas E. Watson, for Trump it was Steve Bannon. Smith campaigned on explicitly disenfranchising Black men as well as the overt racial politics of the day. For Trump it was a border wall, stopping illegal immigration, and bringing back jobs. Smith won in 1906, he got to work, but unlike Trump, he was successful in his goals.
In the process, the ensuing 1906 Atlanta racial massacre, played well for Smith, dozens of Black people (mostly men) were dead, as well as the loss of an economic and residential base helped to put Black Atlantan’s ‘back in their place’. That event caused the fundamental residential shift in Atlanta moving further southwest and the black business community moving from Decatur Street to North Avenue Auburn Ave. In the process, the event was swept under the rug and never included in the history books.
Again, from my September 2021 newsletter - The 115th anniversary of the 1906 Atlanta Racial Massacre:
The 1906 Racial Massacre and the response to it were to the formation of what we now know as Atlanta today. The immediate national and international coverage left Atlanta with a literal black eye. The official report on the riot was written by the Chamber of Commerce, then eschewed largely from the history books by white Atlantans. As a result, Atlanta’s White business and social elites worked with Atlanta’s Black business and social elite to form a de facto shadow board of governance. This governance would be known as ‘the Atlanta Way of doing things’, becoming the way in which Atlanta has made itself be the hub of racial progress in the south. This governance did everything it could to keep Atlanta out of the national spotlight regarding racial strife and civil rights issues.
White resentment
This current version of white resentment politics has become most associated with the modern-day American conservative movement and the Republican Party, but this backlash has existed much longer. Resentment is often in times of economic competition or uncertainty as well as threats to the established (white-dominated) political and social order. The throughline in both the attempted US Capitol coup on January 6th, 2021, and the 1898 Wilmington, NC massacre is the role of white resentment, violence, and the ensuing coverups. These acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing are often accompanied by the suppression of these historic events. And when not completely suppressed, having the narrative rewritten to justify the murderous actions.
What will happen next?
Unfortunately due to the Republican Party’s insistence in putting partisanship and their loyalty to Trump over the country that they purport to love, not much. But this is historically consistent. The Republican Party is doing something that is historically typical, after any white mob violence three things usually occur: 1) denial, 2) dismissal, and 3) discrediting. This is often followed by a reframing of the narrative often making the perpetrators the victims and heroes. It’s an old trope dating back to the era of ‘the lost cause’ in the 1800s that came after the Civil War.
From my May 2020 newsletter: The first Memorial Day, Confederate women, and the erasure of Black History
What emerged after the Civil War, was a strategic social reframing of the war with much input from various women and memorial associations throughout the south.
Through these associations, the notion of southern aristocracy, the myth of the lost cause, the reframing of the root cause of slavery away by using the framework of ‘states rights’, popularizing the use of terms like ‘the war between the states’ instead of the Civil War, and the creation of Seg (segregation) Academies, to name a few.
What was key throughout all of these organizations and initiatives was a strategic removal or downplaying of the role of Black Americans during the war. These actions led to early versions of constructing ideologies of southern pride, masculinity, and the early stages of Confederate monuments to be placed around the south.
It shouldn’t be surprising that the GOP is attempting to re-write the narrative on January 6th in real-time. Nor should it be that they are attempting to act as if it didn’t happen. But what should be of concern is how the Democratic Party has been relatively inept at making a dent in public opinion on how they are making sure punishments are being dolled out. And of those punishments, that they are actually substantive.
And this lack of seeming aggression against the coup or its supporters. Add in the lack of any move to stop the current GOP-led voter suppression initiatives, efforts to ban the teaching of correct history, or their current gerrymandering schemes, are recipes for disaster. The Dems are letting the second coup happen in front of them.
But more importantly unsuccessful coups are often followed by successful ones unless something drastic happens to stop them. The time is to act now before it’s too late.