BCT Editorial – 6/16/05

This page was last updated on June 16, 2005.

Long overdue; Editorial; Beaver County Times; June 16, 2005.

This idea of apologizing for something you had nothing to do with is silly.

See if you can figure out two facts the editorial fails to note. I’ll tell you at the end.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“The U.S. Senate had a lot to apologize for.

“On Monday, that chamber issued an apology for its sad past of not standing up to the lynchings that took place in the United States between 1882 and 1968.

“The Associated Press reports seven presidents petitioned Congress to end lynchings. Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in the first half of the 20th century. The House passed three anti-lynching measures between 1920 and 1940, but the Senate passed none.

“The numbers are sobering.

“Between 1882 and 1968, 4,743 people were lynched in the United States, the AP reports. That’s an average of 55 lynchings a year, or one a week, somewhere in America.

“The years between 1889 and 1898, when the tyranny of Jim Crow laws was spreading across the South, were particularly vicious. In his book ‘Bowling Alone,’ Robert Putnam reports that there was an average of one lynching every other day somewhere in America between 1889 and 1898. That’s an average 182.5 lynchings a year.

“All but four states had lynchings from 1882 to 1968, and Mississippi led the way with 581 documented incidents.

“This was mob violence. This was racial and religious terrorism. (Three out of four victims were black, and many of the remaining victims were foreigners, quite often Catholic and southern European.) This was societal-sanctioned hatred. This was accepted as commonplace well into the 20th century.

“This dark side of American history should sober present-day nationalists and their fellow travelers who mistake themselves to be patriots. The my-country-right-or-wrong crowd betrays the ideals that were laid down at our nation’s foundation. We can never live up to these ideals but must strive to achieve them.

“This constant quest to achieve the unachievable - the need to right the wrong, or at least attempt to do so - is what makes the United States the great nation that it is. However, the minute we blind ourselves to our past, the instant that we become smug and self-satisfied with the present, we endanger that tradition - and the future.

“The great thing about America is that it is not the same country that it was 200 years ago, 100 years ago or even 50 years ago. That’s because the United States is a nation that has achieved greatness on many levels by constantly growing, changing and adapting.

“True patriots recognize the wrongs and try to right them for the betterment of future generations of Americans. Nationalists fantasize about an idealized past that never was and try to impose it on the present and future.

“In America today, nationalism is on the rise and patriotism is on the wane. As has happened so often in the past, we are at a crossroads. Which way will we turn?”

[RWC] Did you notice what the author failed to note?

First, you won’t find the word “filibuster.” The editorial failed to note a minority – primarily Southern Democrats – filibustered anti-lynching legislation at least three times, in 1922, 1935, and 1938. Had the anti-lynching legislation come up for a vote, it would have passed. Yet another wonderful example of the filibuster’s illustrious heritage. For the record, the Times hasn’t published any explicitly pro-filibuster editorials recently. The Post-Gazette did.

Second, you won’t find mention of Democrats though it was Democrats who did the filibustering. To be clear, I don’t accuse all Democrats of being racists. I’m just pointing out that Democrat senators filibustered anti-lynching legislation at least three times. I could be wrong, but I suspect “Republican” would have been liberally spread through the editorial had Republican senators been the filibusterers. Indeed, MSNBC even tried to dump the blame on Republicans by referring to the filibustering Democrats as “Southern conservatives.”¹

1. Senate apologizes for inaction on lynchings; MSNBC News Services; June 13, 2005.