Regarding Betty’s post earlier regarding the Seminole swamp things petulant, overtly racist, and illegal behavior regarding shipping immigrants around the country to prove I don’t know what, long time friend of the blog Greg Boggis reminds me of this:
fter three days on a Greyhound bus, Lela Mae Williams was just an hour from her destination—Hyannis, Mass.—when she asked the bus driver to pull over. She needed to change into her finest clothes. She had been promised the Kennedy family would be waiting for her.
It was late on a Wednesday afternoon, nearly 60 years ago, when that Greyhound bus from Little Rock, Ark., pulled into Hyannis. It slowed to a stop near the summer home of President John F. Kennedy and his family. When the doors opened, Lela Mae and her nine youngest children stepped onto the pavement.
Reporters’ microphones pointed at her, their cameras trained on her family. The photographs in the next day’s newspaper show Lela Mae looking immaculate. In an elegant black dress, a triple string of pearls and a white hat, she was dressed to start a new life.
“She was going to have a job, and she was going to be able to support her family,” one of Lela Mae’s daughters, Betty Williams, remembered in a recent interview. Before coming north to Massachusetts, Lela Mae had been promised a good job, good housing and a presidential welcome.
But President Kennedy was not there to meet her. And there was no job or permanent housing waiting for her in Hyannis. Instead, Lela Mae and the others were unwitting pawns in a segregationist game.
“It was one of the most inhuman things I have ever seen,” recalled Margaret Moseley, a longtime civil rights activist in Hyannis, in a televised interview a few years before her death.
Fuming over the civil rights movement, Southern segregationists had concocted a way to retaliate against Northern liberals. In 1962, they tricked about 200 African Americans from the South into moving north. The idea was simple: When large numbers of African Americans showed up on Northern doorsteps, Northerners would not be able to accommodate them. They would not want them, and their hypocrisy would be exposed.
The Reverse Freedom Rides have largely disappeared from the country’s collective memory. The scheme almost never appears in history books and is little-known even in Hyannis, the primary target of the ploy. But some hear echoes of that segregationist past in America’s present. And for the families that came to the North based on a lie, the journey has cast an enduring shadow on their lives.
Look, there is a simple reason Republicans don’t want history about the Civil Rights movement taught in schools. It’s because they don’t want the kids seeing pictures from the sixties of gram and gramps shouting obscenities at African Americans at the lunch counter. All these rightwing fucksticks, including Sunshine Benito, all think that they are the good people, that if WWII happened today it would be them fighting the Nazis and no they aren’t racist, they’d be on the good side of the civil war. No they wouldn’t. They’re the same motherfuckers who protested the Irish wave, the Chinese wave, the Jewish and Italian waves, etc. The only reason they didn’t protest the initial Cuban waves is because those were the moneyed fascists fleeing here.
Fuck them all.
prostratedragon
Thank you for posting this story. Tear-provoking as it is, best to remember that the devils who do this want hearts to be broken. They have none, so why should anyone else?
Odie Hugh Manatee
Fuck’em, With rusty farm implements. Vigorously. With gusto.
All.
geg6
Yep.
gwangung
Fuck, yes.
SiubhanDuinne
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
FelonyGovt
I’m just so glad the people of Martha’s Vineyard didn’t take the bait. They stepped up and modeled how good people should behave.
Honus
I read about this earlier today and my reaction was “what kind of person does this? And for what purpose?”
I contrast this with the story of the Vietnamese taken in by West Virginians. My cardiologist was one. When we met he told me he didn’t become a cardiologist until he was almost 40 because he finished med school the week Saigon fell. He had to come to the US as a refugee and go through med school all over again. He told me when they fled Vietnam his family was taken in in a place called Clarksburg West Virginia. I laughed and told him “I’m from Clarksburg West Virginia” that was a very proud day for me, and we became good friends. And it’s good to have your cardiologist be your friend.
I hope DeSantis is proud of himself.
gene108
What I don’t get about white people is a bunch of their ancestors immigrated to the USA after the Civil War. Yet they’ve wrapped themselves up in Lost Cause mythology even though their ancestors had nothing to do with it.
Ron Desantis’s maternal great-great grandparents immigrated here in the first couple of decades of the 20th century. Yet he’s all in on teaching Lost Cause mythology in the schools.
zhena gogolia
@gene108: racism
Josie
It’s terribly important to these people to be better than somebody and/or to win the votes of people who want to be better than somebody.
Lyrebird
@gene108: I don’t get it either. Glad the people of Hyannis back then and the people of MV now showed more humanity than these dictator governors.
HinTN
It’s ALWAYS about them what has versus them what don’t.
Thanks for posting this!
Albatrossity
A good read on the topic
C Stars
It’s just cruel. It’s middle-school bullying by middle-aged men with too much power and no conscience.
HinTN
@Honus:
Of course he is, for all the wrong reasons. He’s a fuckstick.
Peale
Yeah. I’m surprised they didn’t alert the local wingnuts (and there would be a few) that the immigrants were coming so that they’d show up to protest them at the other end. That’s what they did in 2014 with the children when Obama tried to move them from overcrowded facilities. Made sure that they needed to be moved in the middle of the night. If anyone remembers that embarrassment that the GOP paid 0 price for.
What ICE is mad about is that Venezuelans are have been excluded from their “send them all to Mexico” policy and that that exemption is set to expire this month. I’m guessing Venezuelan asylum seekers will be the new “Syrian refugees are coming to your neighborhood” of the next 2 months. Would be great if this would backfire on them as well, but again, they have never paid any price for picking on non-voters.
In the end, I’m not surprised that they did this. And just like with the Syrian refugees, the blue states will take them in. I’m just surprised that they forgot that the point of this is to cause a riot on the other end of the line.
Honus
@Lyrebird: the people of Hyannis and MV took care of the people the racist scum exploited because it really isn’t that hard. DeSantis projected his racism and cruelty on the citizens of MV, expecting them to be revolted and reject brown refugees and immigrants. Instead they took care of them and it wasn’t difficult, and that kindness is it’s own reward. Something cruel, bigoted racist pigs like Ron DeSantis will never understand.
Laura Too
Thank you, John. I knew nothing about this. I will be spending a bit of time educating myself. It is all so heartbreaking.
Sure Lurkalot
@Albatrossity: I agree with No More Mister here (usually his Debbie Downer gets to me). Abbott and DeSantis want to show white liberals are hypocrites. The actual human beings transported mean nothing to them, less than nothing actually. I am beyond angry. They worship a set of cells but feel free to treat real human beings as trash. And crow about it. Get votes for it. And our media questions whether it’s savvy strategy.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
NY AG James May Sue Trump Soon—And His Kids—After Reportedly Rejecting Settlement Offer
Ella in New Mexico
I have every confidence that these morally vacant assholes will be taken care of by Karma, if not by their own internal cognitive dissonance that will never let them have a moment of joy.
And, based on news reports, the kind and generous communities who are welcoming these people will add to the Fuckers continued miserable existence. Which is on one hand cool, but on the other hand, their internal misery is exactly WHY they continue to do cruel and unecessary things in order to gain and maintain their power.
So, I guess what we shoudl do is rejoice for the good done by the people and places that are welcoming these folks, and, I dunno, pray for the enlightenment/healing of the wounded POS’s these Fuckers are?
Ksmiami
There are no good Republicans. Over and over Ad nauseum
hueyplong
The only thing that will bother DeSantis about these reverse freedom rider stories is that people will realize he didn’t think of the plan himself but merely recycled an old one.
Tony G
@HinTN: Because of this act of cruelty, DeSantis will get more support from the white, non-Hispanic Floridians who elected him in the first place, and it may very well earn him a nomination for president in the white-supremacist Republican Party. But, I hope that this will repel any Latinos/Latinas who have been foolishly contemplating voting Republican. I’ve about had it with the “white race” at this point. When my father emigrated from Italy as a small child in 1919 his family was not considered “white” — he became an honorary “white man” decades later. My wife and sons are not “white”. Maybe there’s a way that I can cancel my “white” identity card.
Ksmiami
@Ella in New Mexico: I want their states to fucking collapse, I want them penniless and defrauded by Crypto thieves and I want their pseudo churches and PACs investigated and taxed into oblivion and then I want their kids to stop talking to them so they can live out their miserable little existence away from polite company alone – fuck the GOP
Leto
Repeated, for all eternity.
Soprano2
What’s interesting to me about this is that normally they would be sympathetic to people fleeing from Maduro and Venezuela, because socialism. It’s strange that they picked these particular people to pull this stunt with.
Unemployment is so low I’m sure the new states will welcome the workers.
Dan B
@Tony G: When we left Jim Crow Arkansas my parents tried to welcome black families to our little town in Ohio because the Welcome Wagon would not. These black families didn’t stay long. Degrees of racism – and they’re all discouraging.
Tony G
@Ksmiami: The post-Dobbs abortion bans in states like Texas and Florida might finally have that effect. This is no longer the nineteenth century. A modern economy depends upon an educated workforce, and about half the people in any profession you can think of are women. What woman in her right mind will move to a state like Florida or Texas to have her life and health jeopardized by “pro-life” Christian-fascists? How many women who live in those states will decide to pick up and move to a state that respects their rights? Actions will have consequences, I hope.
El Muneco
@Ksmiami: Even in the reddest of states, 30-40% of the citizens are good people who are on our side. Calls for indiscriminate destruction, or even “kick them out” hurts all these innocents. Shooting the hostages is something the bad guys do.
EmanG
Roger that.
Tony G
@Soprano2: With increasingly rare exceptions, the Republican Party is a party of white supremacy. Dark skinned people must be shunned and abused. It’s just that simple now.
prostratedragon
Alex Wagner on MSNBC is doing feature now that includes a review of that historical cruel stunt. She also has some interviews with today’s largely darker victims.
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: People who grew up in the North and have no association whatsoever with the Confederacy like to wave that flag around, if they’re the right sort of fuckstick.
Leto
New January 6th audio released from zello walkie talkie app today by Jan6th committee
I don’t know if this was already posted as school is keeping me super busy and I can’t follow the daytime threads. But I hope they identify these fucksticks.
Tony G
@El Muneco: I don’t want to destroy the economies of those states, but if they’re determined to destroy their own economies I will not stand in their way. In all of these horrendous “red states” (not only the ones that used to be part of the Confederate States of America) the majority of white people support the fascist leaders. If they want a government the follows a nineteenth century ideology, they can get a nineteenth century economy. Good luck assholes.
HumboldtBlue
A passenger traveling with Ted Cruz on a flight just dropped a “I thought we were traveling to Cancún” bomb is his heartless, fuckwit ass.
Tony G
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, that’s right. As far as I’m concerned, brandishing the Confederate flag is no different from waving a swastika flag. There is no reasoning with these people. They deserve nothing but contempt.
Ksmiami
@El Muneco: the Republicans are destroying their own states… they don’t deserve federal largesse as it only keeps them afloat and doesn’t actually help the innocent victims see Mississippi and the Jackson water crisis.
NotMax
Human trafficking is a crime.
Period. Full stop.
Jager
Does anybody have an idea what is going on at America Airlines? On our last trip, the crew told us there are no longer any international flights originating in LA or anywhere else in California, they all start in Dallas, Today AA announced they are closing their base in San Francisco, 400 Flight Attendants, can either quit or move to Dallas. Nothing about the pilots, but that will be another announcement. My wife who is an AA retiree, says they want to get rid of all the senior FAs and replace them with low-pay new hires. LA and SF are huge international markets…why would the MBA assholes want to do this?
HumboldtBlue
@Ksmiami:
Stop it, you know better. There are plenty of Juicers who live in deep red states, with Betty being their queen and Subaru Dianne being their enforcer and muscle, so just stop with “wipe out the red states, they’ve asked for it” bullshit.
They live in states where voter suppression, a distinct hate of the Federal government and an open willingness to use any tactic to keep the poor, black, brown, and any of the ‘others,’ from participating or profiting in society are in power. There are far more of us than them, and many of US live in red states controlled by these assholes.
The good folks in these states regularly remind us blue-nosed-super-majoritarians of that, so do something to help Texans and Floridians turn blue. They’re not lost causes.
Brachiator
The Civil Rights era story gets absolutely right the smug, delusional assumption behind Jim Crow white supremacy
And this is the kind of vile hypocrisy that DeSantis and others want to hide by censoring school textbooks.
And it is shameful that these dopes are trying to duplicate this evil by exploiting immigrants.
different-church-lady
If we had a functional press, DeSantis would be in a gigantic frying pan at the moment.
livewyre
@HumboldtBlue: When the first thing someone asks is who needs hurting the most – whatever they’re going through, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Maybe we can call it an emotional red state.
kalakal
@HumboldtBlue: Hear, hear. DeathSantis squeaked his governership, 40,000 votes in a state of over 21 million people.There are are a hell of a lot of us here who want him out and it’s not a futile hope. Better to win Florida and other Red States than destroy them
Ksmiami
@HumboldtBlue: I live in Texas. We try, we fight, but if the leadership wants the 18th century back, they should bear the economic consequences of those decisions… and despite the many Dems in cities, the rural white voters seem to always come out ahead despite their shitty policies and politicians.
Ksmiami
@HumboldtBlue: I’m not saying wipe out the red states. I think the GOP Leaders of my state and FL should actually be allowed to truly experience the hell they are making through their antiquarian and inhumane policies. No sugar coating it, no federal funds for bs crisis pregnancy centers or federal military installations- you want racism and misogyny and a return to the good ole days, turn in your iPhones and your penicillin motherfuckers-
Ksmiami
@Tony G: exactly- they’re doing an awfully good job at making these states unliveable all on their own. Eventually things fall apart. Like our electric grid
Betsy
Just one quibble, Cole. Sunshine Benito does NOT think he’s a good person. Sociopaths don’t need that view of themselves.
We normal people need to think of ourselves as basically good, or at least acting out of decent motives — we can’t imagine someone not needing to feel like a decent person, or someone who cannot feel sleepless at night about a bad act.
That’s where we consistently underestimate sociopaths at our peril.
They are unrestrained by any need to have decent motives. They don’t mind being evil.
The rest of us can barely imagine such a mindset.
different-church-lady
@Betsy:
Spot on.
What I can’t figure out is — What is it about the mood of this country lately where significant amounts of people find sociopaths attractive?
Betsy
@Honus: So well said. Very perceptive of their shriveled, sorry, unworthy psychology.
As with student loan forgiveness- they can’t imagine someone who just paid off their loan feeling glad that another won’t have to do the same. These turdwaffles can’t imagine feeling warm and fuzzy about someone else’s gain.
The whole world is an up-dog/down-dog, zero-sum hierarchy. Kinda like in the old slave states, where your status literally depended on how many other people you could control, and how many people (white or black) had to answer to you. This has not changed.
Betsy
@different-church-lady: Same question is on my mind.
I’ve been studying up on sociopathy for a few years now – matching public figures to its characteristics, trying to see if it has explanatory value.
Sociopathy is decidedly ascendant. I hope not for long.
Betsy
@HumboldtBlue: There was a word for people with that mindset before the Civil War — Copperheads. I have NO patience with it; it’s ignorant at best and low-level treachery at worst.
How many Union families lost a soldier to fight against exactly this?!
Have people never heard the message of the Gettysburg Address?!
Betsy
@Ksmiami: Those are not “THEIR” states!
Not in numbers, not in law, and not in the principles this nation stands for!!!
James E Powell
@NotMax:
Nothing is a crime if Republicans do it. The majority of white voters agree.
HeartlandLiberal
I want to thank John for bringing this bit of history to light. I lived as a teen in Birmingham through the sixties and the Civil Rights Movement. Yet I did NOT KNOW this bit of history.
I would encourage all of you to visit the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham, Alabama, if you ever visit. It is one of the best, most focused museums we have ever experienced. It is right across the street west of Kelly Ingram park, where the Civil Rights activists assembled to march against the police dogs. Today you can walk through statues of those dogs lunging into the pathway, a very fitting memorial.
http://civildiscourse-historyblog.com/blog/2019/2/4/visualizing-the-civil-rights-movement-kelly-ingram-park-birmingham-al
brantl
These shitbirds aren’t going to be happy until they have guano’ed the entire country. That should be a rotating tag line.
mardam
“The Reverse Freedom Rides have largely disappeared from the country’s collective memory. The scheme almost never appears in history books….”
Well, of course. that might make some white person feel uncomfortable.