Blacks denied entry
I wanted to find a way to connect this week’s blog post with last weekend’s display of hateful bigotry: white supremacists violently protesting the removal of Confederate General Lee’s statue in Charlottesville, Virginia. Demanding that Confederate symbols remain is another way of saying “We approve of the Confederate stance that blacks should be enslaved; that they are subhuman.” Even if only the most racist of Americans would actually mouth those words today (like the white supremacists in Charlottesville), back in the 1950s and 1960s, whites spoke openly against blacks entering their communities–and thought they had good reason.