John David Washington Quotes
My mom had an encounter with the KKK when she was, I think, 7 years old in North Carolina. She snuck into a cross burning. I'm so lucky she didn't get caught, because I wouldn't be here.
Washington, John David. "John David Washington: 25 Things You Don't Know About Me." Us Weekly, American Media, Inc., 9 Aug. 2018.
Wilson, a history and government professor and college president before politics, was has been accused of being one of the most racist Presidents since Reconstruction. Prior to his Presidency, the Federal Government had been making steady progress in hiring African Americans. Under Wilson there was a wholesale firing of a large proportion of them. Some apologists argue that his League of Nations and other major aspirations required the votes and cooperation of Southern Senators who insisted that many of the blacks be terminated. At the same time, the KKK was near the zenith of its membership and political power and was an intimidating force. Wilson’s home state of New Jersey not only had a large KKK membership but there were lynching of Blacks in his own state and when Governor and President he never asked for any anti-lynching legislation.
Incredible as it seems today, no Black person had ever dined in the White House as a guest of the President. African American servants were common. And Abraham Lincoln had received many Black visitors as had Presidents after him. But no president had ever had a Black person to dine as a social equal. The photo, reproduced here, illustrates the parity. But that was the worst thing a President could do so far as Tillman and his fellow racists were concerned. They had, since the end of the Civil war, used violence and terrorism to murder, maim and/or intimidate the Negro population to remain in an economic and socially inferior position. In Tillman’s state over these decades they had more lynchings than legal executions and there were plenty of them. Newspapers over the South riled up the whites and there was a wave of terror to be sure that the President’s importune action would not be taken as an endorsement of the Negro’s right to any equality or even dignity. This dinner essentially wedded all the Blacks to the Republican Party and all the Southern Whites to the Democratic Party. This would remain the political situation for over 60 years until the Democrats passed the LBJ Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Republicans decided to solicit the Southern White racists who accepted the invitation and within a few years, there was a complete reversal of party loyalty of most Blacks and most Southern White Racists.
The KKK is the oldest of the White Supremicist Hate groups in America. Their self styled mission has been to protect the dominance of the white race. They have, over the years, been responsible for lynchings and other forms of murder and torture. Many Southern politicians in the 20th century were members of this group which in teh first half of the century was a major political force in Souithern States and Indiana. By the end of the 20th century there were almost no politicians who would jion the organization, and the attitude of most politicians, including those from the South, was rather nagetive towards the Klan. However, a few were rather insensitive to the evil nature of the Klan and would make jokes loke this one. Sessions, over his career, had several racist commens that he had made inclding this one. He called an attorney who defended Blacks accused of crimes a race traitor and referred to civil right groups as unAmerican. His appointment as Attorney General by Donald Trump was met with consternation by many biven his history of racial remarks.
After his speech was interrupted several times by Ku Klux Klansmen:
Buying furniture and equipment for Negro schools was perceived by the White Population as “squandering public funds”. Web returned with the Militia but no one would testify against the Klan. Huggins left the area and went to the North. The Klan did not kill him, but they accomplished their objective of intimidating all the local people Black and White so that Negro schools would not be furnished and getting rid of the only White who tried to improve Negro schools. The methods of terrorists have not changed much since then.
The FBI was trying to investigate the brutal murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi—Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, & James E. Chaney. However it was very difficult to get witnesses to provide information as the suspects and later defendants at trial were also members of the Klan—one of them was the Imperial Wizard of the Mississippi KKK. Other criminals were the Sheriff and his deputy.
John David Washington is an American actor, producer, and former American football running back. He played college football at Morehouse College and signed with the St. Louis Rams as an undrafted free agent in 2006. Professionally, Washington spent four years as the running back for the United Football League's Sacramento Mountain Lions.
