On The Occasion of The
Century Old Atlanta Massacre

One hundred years ago this weekend (September 22-26, 1906) in Atlanta, Georgia, a massacre of two dozen Black people and the wounding of many more occurred. And over this weekend, a group of Black and white citizens of Atlanta gathered at the grave site of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.,  to remember that atrocity.

Ms. Saudia Muwwakil led that remembrance celebration because she said that this atrocity, one in a long line of American atrocities, has been swept under the American historical rug and forgotten. But she and others felt that it should not be forgotten or ignored as if it did not occur or that it is best forgotten.

A hundred years ago, Atlanta considered itself a city of racial tolerance and tranquility, but in the swift wagging of a segregationist politician's tongue and a newspaper article fueling his tongue, the rumor was spread that a group of Black men had attacked a white woman, and that stirred white men to riot in the streets and go into Black middle class neighborhoods; they pulled Black men out of their homes, and killed and hanged over two dozen and terrorized any Black person they saw; a bootblack and a disabled man were killed on their way home; Black men were pulled out of their homes by raging white mobs; one Black man was shot so brutally that at seeing it, a white woman had a heart attack and died; Black men were hanged, pushed off bridges, and generally massacred. In that melee a white sheriff deputy was killed when Black men fought back with gunfire. This was America's rough and ready justice administered from time to time.

Ms. Muwwakil, a native of Atlanta, said she had heard nothing of this massacre from  textbooks or any other source when she was in school. It is, she said, as if the city has amnesia. That is not just Atlanta, but it is also an American amnesia that needs correcting. She has started tours of the area and is doing research to unearth the precise details of this Atlanta Massacre.

I applaud Ms. Muwwakil for her brave heart in seeking out this tragic truth of Atlanta's shame; it is America's shame; one that many think is best dealt with by ignoring and hiding. But that is a mistaken and misguided belief. When we fail to see these horrible acts that deliberate amnesia will embolden others to act as brutal, and these acts will occur over and over again.  And each time they will be looked upon as an aberration. But to unearth them and see this dark shadow that is throughout our history will show us who we are and give us an opportunity to correct a deadly character flaw in the fabric of this nation.

Thankfully there were a few whites in Atlanta over this last weekend who stood with her in unearthing the tragic and shameful truths of this nation's character. And by looking at and examining this 100 year old act, she and those who stood with her are saying that they are willing to look at who America was then and be informed of who and what America is now. A failure to do that is dishonest and that dishonesty will fuel a repetition of this  disgraceful event.

How hard it is for Americans, especially white Americans, to actually look at themselves in an honest and factual light! Maybe that is because the history of America is not as glorious as Neocons, who now control the social agenda and minds of most Americans, depict it. The Neocons and supremacists' history of America is consistently a history of memory, as Elliot J. Gorn tells us; a history of memory is by and large a history of amnesia to its inglorious aspects, and that is not a history at all.  A true history examines all events, circumstances, situations, etc., of that past, warts and all; how else can a history be rightly judged?

The Atlanta Massacre is a recurring theme of US history for those who look closely, but it is a theme most Americans pretend does not exist--and many younger Americans do not really know that it does exist! We are, to use Reagan's imagination, "a shinning city set upon a hill" that is without significant spots; at least without spots we will acknowledge to ourselves. But Reagan's imagination is not fact. The facts are that America has spots similar and more hideous than the Atlanta Massacre of Blacks. Those spots are a dark shadow that travels with us wherever we go--whether home or abroad. A careful study of our history beyond standardized history books that airbrush that shadow away will evince a thread of dark and dastardly deeds, genocide,  and rough "justice" that have occurred time and time again throughout the nation. Those events may constitute a national pathology that needs treatment; keeping them hidden is not the therapy that heals a people or a nation. Excuses and astonishment at the recurrence of these pathological acts are not a therapy. That will only cause this pathological behavior to  metastasize itself and exist as a state of American normality.

When the atrocities of Vietnam, Mi Lai, Abu Ghraib, and others in Iraq and elsewhere were publicized, Americans generally reacted as though they were astonished, and many may have been. But President Bush gave them moral cover/spin to assuage their conscience, as this nation violated international law, human decency, and standard morality. It is this type of cover for wrong-doing that kills a conscience's ability to guide the moral actions of a people. And when the moral actions of a people are guided by a numbed conscience anything is acceptable. One without a healthy conscience thinks that because a wrong can be justified through some system of flawed or cogent logic, that justification mutes the wrongness of an act. Then such a one will invade a nation and people without cause and bomb and kill the people under the umbrella of flawed logic.

That is the the dark nature of America that follows us.  In the case of Iraq, President Bush and his minions functioned as the segregationist politician of the Atlanta Massacre, and our mass media, as pit bulls, rushed to echoing their spin as if it were fact--spreading the rumor. Our military functioned as the white mob that killed Iraqis indiscriminately. And as was the case in Atlanta, so is the case in Iraq: the rumor was a lie!

Americans by and large do not see or want to see their dark nature, so lie after lie is concocted to justify the dark shadow that has been and remains a part of our character. Stanley Elkins, Slavery: A Crisis For The American Intellectual, once wrote of the crisis of conscience American intellectuals struggled with trying to justify and live with slavery. One can train the conscience to live with a situation as adverse as slavery and the holocaust, but after a while the conscience can no longer be assuaged, it will become numbed and dead. And when it dies, there is no longer any moral guidance to one's actions. As this is true of a person, it is also true of a nation.

When Americans ignore the dark side of their nature they become amnesiacs toward their strangeness, and the complex of lies that helps them live with who they are becomes their truth. Is that what has happened to this nation? While other nations and people acknowledge their wrongs, America tries, unsuccessfully I might add, to act as if that dark side of it character is not there, has never been there, and will never come again. But it always comes and reveals itself. A man with an abuse problem will continue his abusive behavior unless he is treated; likewise is a nation. America needs a reconciliation commission that it can come to grip with its dark side that it often denies.

This dark side of America has revealed itself a thousand times in this country and around the world so that America has become a by-word around the world for disrespect and an object of  hatred. We tell ourselves, and many of us believe it, that they hate us because we are rich, but that is the wrong answer to the right question: "Why have they done this to us?" The world sees the sinister nature that lurks within us, but at home we believe our own propaganda; here we tell ourselves that we are a good people without flaws that need addressing, but that is because we have not carefully studied our history and present behavior beyond our self-serving spin. We have looked at a history of memory that paints us as the good guy and the world as the bad guy that we have to occupy with military and financial strangled holds for our own safety.

And when Gibbs Magazine or any other publication prints that this nation has sins and needs to see those sins before there can be repentance, we get ugly letters of ignorance telling us that we are stirring up strife, that we are  unpatriotic, that we should forget the injustices that have occurred, and just  move on. Of course, such an argument is poorly thought out and immature. The past has tentacles in the present; the things we write about are injustices of the past that have morphed into a form of invisibility to most as they continue into the present. And for those who say that we should forget about them and let them be, such absurdity is self-serving and imprudence. What fools we would be as a people to "Just let it be." As a magazine that write an uncommon truth, we are to do even as the prophets of old did: Cry that truth aloud and spare not. Americans write on their buildings and libraries and court houses, The truth will set us free; yet we seemingly want a concocted and manufactured truth; a truth that is glorious even when such a truth cannot be found. That is not the way of this publication; we will write the truth even though many may howl!

To ignore the dark nature of America will not cause it to vanish. That nature will recur until Americans learn to look at themselves and see that there are problems with their nature and behavior toward others upon this planet that need acknowledging and changing. And as long as the American nature is treated as if it is not there, I will receive immature notes and letters because we are brave enough to say that there are real problems with this nation's nature that needs treatment. And be assured, amnesia is not therapy.

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