re: #298 Decatur Deb

Basically, nobody in 1864 was ready for fair, just democratic rule. Maybe not in 1944, either.

Deb, I luv ya, but I gotta point out that a whole shitload of Americans in 1864 and 1944 and in fact to this day would have given damn near anything, and sometimes gave everything, reaching and hoping and praying for “fair, just democratic rule.” The trouble was that these people weren’t “white.”

And before you tell me about the psychology of the zeitgeist or whatever, let me point out that in Louisiana in the early 1890s there were more than 120,000 black voters. After the Jim Crow state constitution passed in, I think, 1898, there were 1,300 black voters.