Granting that it’s “a radical idea,” Buchanan writes, “Suppose we repealed the civil rights laws and fired all the bureaucrats enforcing these laws.”

Does anyone think hotels, motels and restaurants across Dixie, from D.C. to Texas, would stop serving black customers?” he continues. “Does anyone think there would again be signs sprouting up reading ‘whites’ and ‘colored’ on drinking foundations and restrooms?"

Well suppose that someone finally exiled Ole Pat to some stud farm; forever freeing us from his communiques?

Before I get to the real purpose of this post (involving another famous revisionist) I wish to take a short historical look at our nation's racist roots.

I need to put in some context for my discussion.

Around 1800, our system of slavery took a turn for the worse.

I wrote a long time ago about how some Southern Communities treated their slaves with a bit more consideration than their horses.

For instance, Blacks and Whites would worship together in the same church.

But following a 13 year struggle against the French, Haitians managed to throw off their yoke of slavery in 1804. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution

Quite a feat since such an uprising had never occurred before or after—at least one culminating in nation building.

And quite a feat when one considers the fact that Napoleon was at his peak as a European conqueror.

Fear of massive slavery uprisings swept through the Southern States.

In yesterdays NYT, I had the opportunity of reading a short history of a freed slave in South Carolina who went by the intriguing name of Denmark Vesey.

I am sure that I read of this historical figure in the past, but memories fade. And at first I confused him with Gabriel Prosser, who's rebellion was nixed by James Monroe in Virginia some 22 years prior to Vesey's demise.

Some interesting points appear in this article.

First, Vesey was born in the Caribbean (although Wiki notes the possibility of Africa as his origin) and he was purchased eventually by a South Carolinean.

Second, Vesey actually won a municipal lottery (!) as a slave (!) and pocketed some $1200 due to the largesse of his master (!). A good sum in those days.

Third, his slave master let him purchase his freedom for $600.

Fourth, his master's widow would not allow Mr. Vesey to purchase his own wife and kids.

I mean there is a Dickens' novel in all of this somewhere, would you not think?

Or better yet, something along the lines of a Dumas?

Anyway, as one might have predicted, Mr. Vesey became one pissed-off man.

So eventually he began planning a slave revolt that was to begin on Bastille Day (wow) in 1822.

He began his own slave revolt and was eventually hunted down and hung in 1824 with 35 others.

A great statue remembers Mr. Vesey and was presented to the public earlier this month.

IN SOUTH CAROLINA FOR CHRISSAKES!

Well some folks down there do not really cater to this statue.

The author of the NYT piece, Professor Egerton showed up to give a talk about Denmark Vesey:

More than a decade ago, while I was giving a talk on Vesey in Charleston, a member of the audience challenged my view that what Vesey wished to accomplish — the freedom for his friends and family — could be a good thing, on the grounds that he went about it the wrong way. “Why not work within the system for liberation,” the man asked, or even “stage a protest march?”

Although well intentioned, such questions reveal how far American society still has to travel before we reach a sophisticated understanding of the past. There was no “system” for Vesey to work within; his state had flatly banned private manumissions, or the freeing of slaves, in 1820. The only path to freedom was to sharpen a sword. Americans today can admire the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his 1963 nonviolent March on Washington, but his world was not Vesey’s, and we must understand that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/opinion/abolitionist-or-terrorist.html?nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20140226

WORKING WITHIN THE SYSTEM?

With my current attitude that Mr. Vesey and Mr. Prosser were freedom fighters; I would certainly concede them to be terrorists; just like John Brown.

Colonialists in the 1770's were certainly freedom fighters, but the Brits certainly beheld them as terrorists.

But enough of that!

THE RIGHT AND HONORABLE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

Last night's Jon Stewart's harrangue on Judge Napolitano is all over the web:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/jon-stewart-black-history-president-lincoln-daily-show_n_4853891.html?utm_hp_ref=media

It is rare to see a Northern Republican (the Party of Lincoln?) attack Abraham Lincoln.

There always have been and always will be grumblings from the South about THE WAR OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION. Even though the South fired on Ft. Sumter, Ft. Sumter did not fire on the South!

But this elitist from New Jersey stating that there was no reason for the Civil War, that slavery would have died its own death over time, that it would have been cheaper for President Lincoln to purchase all the slaves from Southern slaveholders, that....

Stewart does just fine covering all the cogent points.

I know it is not easy to put your feet in someone else's shoes.

I certainly gave up on ever attempting to get into Napolitano's shoes.

But damn, are some of these libertarians that frickin cold; that frickin ignorant or that frickin blind to not see the shallowness of their revisionism?

So we go back in our time machines witnessing James_Monroe

splitting up the families of slaves; and tell Mr. Prosser:

Just hang in there Gabriel; just hang in there another 64 years or 164 years and the powers that be will treat you and yours as human beings.

Just hang in there Denmark; just hang in there another 40 years or 140 years because everything is going to turn out just ducky!

Of course both were hung long before those dates came to pass!

Why in 172 years, Mr. Prosser could have played in the Masters!

These racist rants have certainly been present over the last four or five hundred years in America.

I just had been fooled that those days were long gone, especially after Jesse Helms finally died in an old age home.

You can still purchase your license plate in Georgia featuring the emblem of the Confederacy—plates most probably manufactured with the help of Black prisoners.

You can still be denied the right to vote as a Black Woman if you cannot put together certified copies of your birth certificate, Marriage license, DL along with affidavits of identity. 

Oh that's all I got today.

No reason to get into Nugent or Gibson or....whatever at this point.