A Brief History of Intolerance in America - Photo Essays
Take a little trip through some of our most foolish moments in historic bigotry
I excerpted a few, but please do hit the link. The essay deserves a full viewing.
1654
Peter Stuyvesant, director-general of New Netherland, tried to have Jewish refugees expelled, claiming they would “infect” the colony.
1844
Mormon founder Joseph Smith is murdered in an Illinois prison by a lynch mob. Soon after, many of his followers migrate to Utah.
In 1862, in the heat of the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant initiated one of the most blatant official episodes of anti-Semitism in 19th-century American history. In December of that year, Grant issued his infamous General Order No. 11, which expelled all Jews from Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi:
The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department [the “Department of the Tennessee,” an administrative district of the Union Army of occupation composed of Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi] within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.
1883
The Department of Interior declares many Native American rituals to be “offenses” punishable by jail sentences of up to 30 years
1915
The Ku Klux Klan reemerges on a national level to preach anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism; it amasses over 4 million members.
