“Outside agitators” — That was the phrase used by people like George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama (and presidential candidate) or Gov. Ross Barnett of Mississippi and his Lt. Gov. Paul Johnson, Jr., who famously stood in the doorway of the University of Mississippi to stop the entry of student James Meredith.
I grew up in the deep South world of Georgia and Mississippi during those years when people who joined the civil rights campaigns of the sixties were all considered “outsiders” who caused the trouble. Some of those “agitators” included a white Detroit housewife, three students (two white and one black), and a white Unitarian minister, all of whom were murdered.
It took 41 years before the students’ murderers were brought to justice. No one was ever charged for killing Rev. Reeb. It took three trials to convict anyone of harming Viola Liuzzo, and then the charges were violating civil rights, not murder.
People like John Lewis, Dr. King and so many other protestors who were native sons and daughters were injured, killed, jailed and assailed as the “instigators” of violence.
John Lewis belonged to a group called the “Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.” The name proclaimed their commitment to use non-violent action to confront the violent system of government and enforcement that protected discrimination and the casual slaughter of U.S. citizens.
Now over 50 years later, I hear our own president using this language, calling the largely peaceful protestors in Portland, Chicago and elsewhere “agitators and anarchists.” He is sending in unmarked military personnel, sporting camouflage uniforms but no identification — such brave soldiers that they need to be anonymous. They are snatching protestors off the streets into unmarked vehicles, destination unknown.
This is reminiscent of the worst sordid efforts by totalitarian governments across the globe to erase their opposition. The president claims he intends to expand this action to anywhere he doesn’t like the fact that protestors are still voicing their opposition to racial injustice. (He let it slip that he picks his targets by whether there are Democratic leaders.)
When there have been armed demonstrators threatening governors for trying to save their lives with COVID-related restrictions like masks there was not a word from the White House, no action at all. If anything, the president’s behavior is fostering anarchy — defined as the refusal to support any government at all.
Believers in democracy are driven to feel that this government in no way has their interests at heart. Those who fear true democracy misguidedly destroy the very institutions, laws and regulations that protect themselves.
The hard truth is that all of us are diminished and often directly harmed by the racism and injustice long protected in this country, frequently in the name of “freedom.” Discrimination against people of color has been used to create both a buffer and a scapegoat so that white people can be underpaid and held down because there is always another group to blame or to use as a threat.
Too many people of color have lost their lives or had their lives radically diminished by this system. And many white people have not understood that they, too, are being used and constrained to advance the interests of a few.
I tell you what, I am personally getting very agitated. Far from an “outsider,” I am an “insider:” white, financially stable, educationally privileged. And I am agitated beyond belief. A large group of mothers has formed a circle around the protestors in Portland. They are chanting and singing “The mothers are here — feds don’t come near.” They are singing for all of us.
The best song I’ve heard this year is “Change” by Mavis Staples. Check it out. “Gotta change around here. X is the letter, blue is the color, one is the number, now is the time for a change around here.”
We are so past due.
Judith J. Wagner is a resident of Northfield.