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<font size=3>Two notable birthdays today: Malcolm X & Ho Chi
Minh<br>
Much is written by them (and one can't really due justice to their lives
in any brief way)...but...<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor.
Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor.
You don't need anything else. </font>
<dl>
<dd><font size=2>Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, 1965<br><br></font>
</dl><font size=3>Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless
you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make
you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American.
</font>
<dl>
<dd><font size=2>Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, 1965<br>
<br><br></font>
</dl><font face="arial" size=3><b>It doesn't mean that I advocate
violence, but at the same time, I am not against using violence in
self-defense. I don't call it violence when it's self-defense, I call it
intelligence.</font><font face="arial" size=2> <br><br>
<hr>
</b></font><font size=3><br><br>
<br>
</font><pre>On Lynching And The Ku Klux Klan
By Ho Chi Minh (1924)
It is well known that the Black race is the most oppressed and the most
exploited of the human family. It is well known that the spread
of
capitalism and the discovery of the New World had as an immediate
result
the rebirth of slavery, which was for centuries a scourge for the
Negroes
and a bitter disgrace for mankind. What everyone does not perhaps know
is
that after sixty-five years of so-called emancipation, American Negroes
still endure atrocious moral and material sufferings, of which the
most cruel and horrible is the custom of lynching.
The word "lynching" comes from Lynch. Lynch was the
name
of a planter in Virginia, a landlord and judge. Availing himself of the
troubles of the War of Independence, he took the control of the whole
district into his hands. He inflicted the most savage punishment, without
trial or process of law,
on Loyalists and Tories. Thanks to the slave traders, the Ku Klux
Klan, and other secret societies, the illegal and barbarous practice of
lynching is spreading and continuing widely in the States of the
American
Union. It has become more inhuman since the emancipation of the Blacks,
and is especially directed at the latter....
From 1899 to 1919, 2,600 Blacks were lynched, including 51 women
and girls and ten former Great War soldiers.
Among 78 Blacks lynched in 1919, 11 were burned alive, three burned
after
having been killed, 31 shot, three tortured to death, one cut into
pieces, one drowned, and 11 put to death by various means.
Georgia heads the list with 22 victims, Mississippi follows with 12.
Both
have also three lynched soldiers to their credit. Of the 11
burned
alive, the first State has four and the second two. Out of 34
cases
of systematic, premeditated and organized lynching, it is still Georgia
that holds first place with five. Mississippi comes second with
three.
Among the charges brought against the victims of 1919, we note:
one
of having been a member of the League of Non Partisans (independent
farmers); one of having distributed revolutionary publications; one of
expressing his opinion on lynchings too freely; one of having
criticized
the clashes between Whites and Blacks in Chicago; one of having been
known as a leader of the cause of the Blacks; one for not getting out
of
the way and thus frightening a white child who was in a motorcar. In
1920, there were fifty lynchings, and in 1922 there were twenty-eight.
These crimes were all motivated by economic jealousy. Either the
Negroes in the area were more prosperous than the Whites, or the Black
workers would not let themselves be exploited thoroughly. In all
cases, the principle culprits were never troubled, for the simple
reason
that they were always incited, encouraged, spurred on, then protected
by
politicians, financiers, and authorities, and above all, by the
reactionary press....
The place of origin of the Ku Klux Klan is the Southern United States.
In
May, 1866 , after the Civil War, young people gathered together in
small
locality of the State of Tennessee to set up a club. A question
of
whiling away the time. This organization was given the name
"kuklos", a Greek word meaning "club". To
Americanize the word, it was changed into Ku Klux. Hence, for more
originality, Ku Klux Klan.
After big social upheavals, the public mind is naturally unsettled. It
becomes avid for new stimuli and inclined to mysticism. The KKK,
with its strange garb, its bizarre rituals, its mysteries, and its
secrecy, irresistibly attracted the curiosity of the Whites in the
Southern States and became very popular.
It consisted at first of only a group of snobs and idlers, without
political or social purpose. Cunning elements discovered in it a
force able to serve their political ambitions.
The victory of the Federal Government had just freed the Negroes and
made
them citizens. The agriculture of the South - deprived of its
Black
labor, was short of hands. Former landlords were exposed to
ruin. The Klansmen proclaimed the principle of the supremacy of
the
white race. Anti-Negro was their only policy. The agrarian and
slaveholding bourgeoisie saw in the Klan a useful agent, almost a
savior. They gave it all the help in their power. The
Klan's
methods ranged from intimidation to murder....
The Klan is for many reasons doomed to disappear. The Negroes,
having learned during the war that they are a force if united, are no
longer allowing their kinsmen to be beaten or murdered with
impunity. They are replying to each attempt at violence by the
Klan. In July 1919, in Washington, they stood up to the Klan and
a
wild mob. The battle raged in the capital for four days. In
August, they fought for five days against the Klan and the mob in
Chicago. Seven regiments were
mobilized to restore order. In September the government was obliged
to send
federal troops to Omaha to put down similar strife. In various
other States the Negroes
defend themselves no less energetically.
(Ho Chi Minh, 1924)
</pre><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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