Paul Horton, who teaches history at the University of Chicago Lab School, took his son on a visit to the Delta.
There they went to historical exhibits that were reminders if a brutal past. Reminders of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, racial subjugation, and resistance to oppression. You won’t read this in the textbooks.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There are Klansmen in my school district. There are viewpoints that make a person cringe. But, they are oh, so religious. Sigh.
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When my grandfather, a superintendent of schools in rural Alabama, fired the high school principal who was a Klan leader, a cross was burned on his front lawn, and later a school mysteriously burned down.
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These guys are everywhere in the townships. Their presence is felt in their voting. It is tiresome.
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That’s how it is around in my rural MO county, especially the oh, so religious.
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Nothing is much scarier than a person whose smugness emboldens him/her to selfishly spread hatred while smiling all the way to the bank.
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“Parents teach your children well”……. any progress we make toward a more just and equal society is slow and only comes in fits and starts.
Seems sometimes that we have only been moving backward since the Reagan years.
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Absolutely backwards since Reagan. Sad.
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I think we have made great progress on some fronts, especially for the LGBT community.
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OIt was a pleasure to read your Labor Day weekend ‘gift’ of Horton’s writing.
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Sad that the dominant culture writes revisionist interpretations of history, never noting their own hypocrisies and injustices, and trying to justify their oppression of the weaker and helpless. The only book in, and of, history that is objective and does not gloss over the flaws of a culture, or all cultures, is the Bible (honest about the flaws and injustices of all).
Today, the revisionist sect of the materialists and atheist do the same with their interpretations of history. For instance, they will write about the Civil Rights Movement or Constitional framers and deliberately neglect to state that it was the faith, beliefs and biblical principles of the stakeholders that created, catalyzed and brought to fruition to positive changes created. Rosa Parks sat on the bus because she knew God is no respecter of persons, that God is a shelter for the oppressed and that her faith motivated her to stand up against injustice, ex. racism.
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Have you heard of Paul Jehle? He is a minister in Massachusetts that preaches on the Biblical basis of the Constitution.
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=42008162272
Plymouth Rock Foundation was incorporated in 1970 “to make more widely known and understood the Pilgrim principles and characteristics – their devotion to God and the Bible, to freedom and to tolerance, and their embodiment of courage, brotherhood, and individual moral character.”
He guides the “Forefathers Monument Tour”
Located on a hill in historic Plymouth, this hidden gem is the largest solid free standing granite monument in our country.
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“The only book in, and of, history. . . ”
Well, I must be in god’s presence. This Mr. Lapworth cat has read all the books from all times from everywhere and declared that the bible is the only one that “is objective”.
Damn, I’m impressed, I didn’t think that god cat (or is that catdog?) really gives a sh!t about those measly humans. All Hail Rick, All Hail Rick, All Hail Rick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxSgdVHWJoE
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The Klan is a big group of hypocrites, claiming the “Bible” (not the one I read), and raciism at the same time. God explicitly states all thru the OT that one is not to discriminate based on race, income, social status; that no bias or favoritism is allowed; that one loves their neighbor as themself, etc. “Love does no harm to its neighbor”, no matter what ethnicity!
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Phew. Imagine if God had explicitly stated that we *should* discriminate. Because then we’d all have to go around doing that. Close call there.
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FLERP, there are self-evident attributes of God that are axiomatic (though denied by skeptics and atheists), such as perfect justice, goodness, etc. Therefore, knowing the God is thus, we can infer that he does not discriminate or respect persons (actually, all are guilty and sinful before him, and need salvation), and therefore humans should neither be respecters, but love all equally (something we all fail to do). Jesus warned us that even sinners love their own cliques (groups) but that his followers should love all peoples equally, as their own selves.
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“therefore humans should neither be respecters, but love all equally (something we all fail to do).”
I’m sorry, Rick, but I just can’t be with someone I don’t respect. It’s not you, it’s me.
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Duane, why all the diaturibe and folly. Yes, I’ve read all the major religious books and only the Bible has perfect prophetic accuracy. Why, because “cat” claims “I know the beginning from the end…the word I speak shall come to pass…I declare and bring it into existence..etc” Don’t be impressed with me, I’m just the messenger, and you are free to reject the message, but realize “the fool has said in their heart, No God”, not the intellectual. Be impressed with Him who rose from the grave after 3 days dead (has any other man done this)? Again, email me Duane if you want real dialogue, not slander.
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Sorry, Rick, no need for those conversations. As I tell the JW’s that come around here, especially in the summertime when I have time, that we can talk for hours and it will be just talking past one another and nothing productive can come of it. Stick with your beliefs but to use the bible to justify your actions will get a similar response from me, much the same as those who bow down before the gods of numerology get the same treatment.
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If anybody reads this later, I forgot to link the “Elaine Massacre” in the article. Just google “Elaine Massacre.” Elaine is a town in southern Phillips County, Arkansas.
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A good read. History. Pat
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The South is often maligned as the epicenter of racism. Racism and other forms of hatred are pandemic all over this Earth and have been from day one (or whatever day man made his entrance). I lived in norther Illinois in the mid eighties. The story there was that Wisconsin had the highest Klan membership in the country.
I don’t expect racism to abate any time soon. People just seem to need something or someone to hate.
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Ms. Cartwheel. In the slave states of this country, slavery was institutionalized and codified into a permanent caste relationship. This is not to say that master/slave relationships did not have their own variation. So, with all due respect, the historical slave state south should be ‘maligned’ and whatever racism remains, wherever, must also be ‘maligned’.
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john a,
My intent was not to excuse the past, simply to remind others that racism shows its ugly face when individuals feel threatened by their proximity to people unlike themselves. Look at Boston during forced busing to integrate schools. Look how the Irish were reviled when they came to our shores and the Cuban refugees came to Florida. Hispanic/Latino people are often treated as vermin even though they are often the only people willing to work certain jobs. Native Americans were subjected innumerable atrocities from the time Europeans came to their shores. Our own government was complicit in so much of that. The list and the shame go on and on and will continue. Many people dislike others out of fear, greed, or other self interests. They rear their children to do the same. Conversely many other people have no feelings against others.
The master – slave relationship was a reprehensible one. It was sadly an egregious economic solution to labor needs. It seems to me that way back in the days of Moses, things were pretty much the same. Slavery is still in practice in many areas of the world. I suspect there’s plenty of it here in the good old USA. What happened in the South was deplorable. It needs to be documented. It does not however need to define the present. The Klan and other people of their ilk are out there. Some of them are just hiding in plain sight – in places far from the Mason Dixon line.
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