On the extreme Southern border, Brownsville, TX emerged from Stone Age & stoned Jefferson DAVIS

[UTUSN]

Yes, the war against slavery reached way down there, the tip of Texas at the mouth of the "Rio Grande"/Rio Bravo in Spanish. Well, not the fighting part except for the "last" little battle, which occurred after Appomatox because the news wasn't there yet.

Anyway, Brownsville was a wild west Confederate town, booming with cotton and wool, making blankets for soldiers of both sides.

Skip ahead about 40 years. There was a fort there in Brownsville, near but not at the mouth of the river, named Fort Brown. A (battalion?) of Black soldiers arrived from Kansas in 1906, with distinguished combat history (in the Philippines?) to be stationed there. The townspeople, being hysterical the way today's wingnuts and Salem's fundamentalists were, hated the Black soldiers, and there supposedly was an incident where a Black soldier, White woman, blah blah.

So a "riot" was held, supposedly by the Black soldiers shooting up the town. The locals did their ruckus thing, squeaky wheel getting the desired grease all the way to D.C. There were congressional hearings, multiple investigations until the desired outcome became the outcome: That the Black soldiers were who shot up the town.

Eventually, President Teddy with the desired outcome, Dishonorably Discharged all of the Black soldiers.

Previously, Blacks had been aligned with the then Repuke Party that had fought a war to free them. President Teddy was pals with Black leaders and had frequently hosted them at the White House, casting kibitzers to the wind. After the Discharges, Blacks realigned themselves away from the Repuke Party into the Democratic Party, an evolution of political import, yes now counter-intuitive since the then Democratic Party was Southern/KKk/all-that.

Modern histories say that the Black soldiers were framed by the townspeople, who staged the "riot" themselves. Time passed until our nemesis Tricky Dick did the erase thing on the Discharges.

*********Skip ahead. Some time ago, Brownsville's leftover offspring of White Supremacists put a historical marker in a City public park - a big ROCK, yes just a big ROCK, with a plaque on it, commemorating Jefferson DAVIS, who had NO connection there, never set foot there, unlike the generals of both sides who had gotten their first taste of war in the war on Mexico.

So five years ago, a young Mexican-American fellow of awakened conscience started a petition agitation to remove the rock outta there. It's taken five years, and now it's finally outta there. The city fathers (townspeople) voted yesterday to cast the first stone, and then they moved it out in the dead of last night.

But about the rock: The White Supremacists being Stone Age couldn’t imagine a monument more primitive than a rock. The funny part is that the ownership of the rock is yet to be decided, Feds or City. The plaque is separate, so wherever the rock goes, is warehouse space really going to be devoted to a ROCK? Not even the moon rocks are that distinguishable from their fellow rocks.

***********QUOTE*********

https://www.brownsvilleherald.com/2020/06/17/city-removes-jefferson-davis-memorial-washington-park/

City removes Jefferson Davis Memorial from Washington Park

***********UNQUOTE******

[underpants]

1. Another story I'd never heard

Like the coup that overthrew the Mayor of Wilmington NC.

[UTUSN]

2. Regale us with it!

[underpants]

3. 1898 - Biracial Fusionist city government

The white press in Wilmington originally described the event as a race riot caused by blacks. However, over time, with more facts publicized, the event has come to be seen as a coup d'état, the violent overthrow of a duly elected government, by a group of white supremacists. Multiple causes brought it about.[1][7][8][9][10][11][12] It is claimed to be the only such incident in American history,[13][14] (other late Reconstruction Era violence did not result in a direct 'coup' or removal and replacement of elected officials by unelected individuals).

The coup occurred after the state's white Southern Democrats conspired and led a mob of 2,000 white men to overthrow the legitimately-elected local Fusionist government. They expelled opposition black and white political leaders from the city, destroyed the property and businesses of black citizens built up since the Civil War, including the only black newspaper in the city, and killed an estimated 60 to more than 300 people.[15][16][17][18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1898

[UTUSN]

5. Ah, yes, "the Black rapist" of White women -

"African-American men were sexually attacking white women" ...

I kept reading and reading through all the economics and such until finally, there it was, the original canard!

[Grins]

4. I forgot that story.

It was in Edmond Morris’ book “Theodore Rex”* about Teddy.

Teddy was probably the first president since Lincoln (?) to have a black in the White House. But the shit hit the fan in DC after he dined with Booker T. Washington. A meeting was one thing. Dinner? All hell broke loose from southern politicians and press.

Probably should read up on that again.

* Highly recommend. The opening chapter about the country’s rising anarchy still holds true today, a big, big, and looming threat and Teddy knew it.

[UTUSN]

6. Thanks, will take the tip.