rebel ancestors

[hla...@triad.rr.com]

Best I can tell I have two direct rebel ancestors, both great-greats.
Both survived the war.

Then on the Lawson side I have four collaterals, all distant uncles.
One died at Antietam and another in camp, I believe, and the other two
survived. On my mother's side there are numberous collaterals, of whom
most died in the war--AFAIK.

This is not a complete census of my rebel ancestors, because there are
lines I haven't checked out yet. There is probably nothing special about
this; most folk with Georgia roots like mine could say the same thing,
because the participation rate was so high.

I didn't learn about any of these growing up, because the important
history in my family had to do with the boll weevil, the depression, and
WWII.

Anything before WWI just wasn't a topic of family discussion. I didn't
even learn that our county was in Sherman's path in his march to the
sea. Nary a Sherman depredation yarn.

HL

[A.Lu...@who-knows-where.com]

There must have been a lot of lynchings during your parents' day. Were
they discussed in later years or was that something you were supposed
to pretend never happened? How about Klan meetings?

[Hugh Lawson]

A.Lu...@who-knows-where.com writes:


> There must have been a lot of lynchings during your parents' day. Were
> they discussed in later years or was that something you were supposed
> to pretend never happened? How about Klan meetings?

The last recorded lynching occurred in our county in 1915, the year both
my parents were born. Afaik lynching was publicly discussed, but it
was not a topic of family conversation. Best I can recall, I have
encountered discussion of lynching only as a historical subject.

Here is an article on lynchings in Georgia:

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2717

The last KKK rally in our community I know of occurred early in 1948, in
our community I mean. You can read about it by googling "Ku Klux" and
Swainsboro (my home town). You can see how this event has been used in
historical works by looking at Google->Books.

I heard at the time that it had happened, but for some reason
I didn't witness it. I was 9 years old when the rally occurred. Thus I
missed my best chance to see KKKs all dressed up in their robes. I have
never seen any, except on TV.

Somebody taught me that the KKK was a bad thing, to be disapproved of by
respectable people, but aside from schoolteachers I can't recall who
they were. There had to be some white people who favored the KKK, but I
never heard anybody avow this.

I've studied the 1948 KKK rally as best I can, and will be happy to
share my findings if there is interest.

I received no family indoctrination on the KKK that I can recall.

Lynching and the KKK loom so large in the US "national" imagination of
the southern region that it may seem strage to non-southerners that
these subjects played so little part in my own awareness. If questions
occur about this, I'll try to answer them.

HL

[A.Lu...@who-knows-where.com]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:54:18 -0400, Hugh Lawson <hu.l...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Interesting. Do you happen to know if the 1948 KKK rally was somehow
associated with Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats?

It is always worth noting that in its heyday in the 1920s the KKK was
stronger in Indiana than ever was in any Southern state.

[Hugh Lawson]

A.Lu...@who-knows-where.com writes:


> Interesting. Do you happen to know if the 1948 KKK rally was somehow
> associated with Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats?

I believe the rally was a rehearsal effort by the KKK to try to favor
the election of Herman Talmadge, by intimidating blacks in places where
they had been voting. Talmadge was committed to restoring white
supremacy, then threatened since 1946, when large numbers of Georgia
blacks started registering and voting in the Democratic primary after a
federal district judge in Columbus, Ga, threw out the white Democratic
primary.

In this context white supremacy meant somehow reinstituting the white
primary.

In the cities and in quite a few rural counties, blacks had mounted
successful voter-registration drives, and had voted in Democratic
primaries in 1946. Emanuel County (county seat Swainsboro) was one of
those rural counties. In fact, as far as I can tell, blacks voted in some
numbers continuously after that in this county.

The KKK was re-energized after WWII, due to the emergence of Atlanta
physician Samuel Green as a competent leader, and the rising intensity of
civil-rights issues.

> It is always worth noting that in its heyday in the 1920s the KKK was
> stronger in Indiana than ever was in any Southern state.

I wish I could find somebody who'd talk about this. As you'll see from
the photos on the web, the KKK had their rally on the courthouse square,
burned a cross, and all that. This was no merely local event, for many
participants arriving in autos asked directions to the ball park, where
the KKK organized their parade. They surely got permission from
somebody to demonstrate on the court square.

Some unknown (to me) local sent in a report of the event, which was
printed in the New York Times. It may have been Milton Beckerman, then
editor of the local weekly. Beckerman denounced the KKK in the paper,
and called upon the city to pass a parade ordinance, to establish power
to deny a permit. The city council did so, and then denied the KKK a
permit for a subsequent parade.

The public rationale for this was that becoming a haven for the KKK
would be bad for local efforts to modernize the economy, attract jobs,
and so on.

At the time ( I was 9 years old!) I had no understanding of what was
going on, but since then, I have rethought some of the experiences I
had. Things were definitely effervescent.

The big mystery is, how did those blacks get registered to vote? They
had to have white support to make this happen.

HL

[Hugh Lawson]

A.Lu...@who-knows-where.com writes:


> It is always worth noting that in its heyday in the 1920s the KKK was
> stronger in Indiana than ever was in any Southern state.

The twenties KKK was anti-Catholic, antisemitic, and antiblack,
enveloping this in nationalistic super-patriotism. It had nationwide
membership.

I have experimenting with googling KKK plus (say) Long Island,
Massachusetts, and so on. Apparently there were even KKK events in
Canada.

I believe the most important KKK story in the post-WWII era is that
moderate spokesmen in the south succeeded in depriving it of
respectability. Several states attacked its clandestine nature by
passing laws against being masked in public.

An example:

GEORGIA Code Title 16 - Crimes and Offenses,16-11-38.

(a) A person is
guilty of a misdemeanor when he wears a mask, hood, or device by which
any portion of the face is so hidden, concealed, or covered as to
conceal the identity of the wearer and is upon any public way or public
property or upon the private property of another without the written
permission of the owner or occupier of the property to do so.

(b) This Code section shall not apply to: (1) A person wearing a
traditional holiday costume on the occasion of the holiday; (2) A person
lawfully engaged in trade and employment or in a sporting activity where
a mask is worn for the purpose of ensuring the physical safety of the
wearer, or because of the nature of the occupation, trade, or
profession, or sporting activity; (3) A person using a mask in a
theatrical production including use in Mardi gras celebrations and
masquerade balls; or (4) A person wearing a gas mask prescribed in
emergency management drills and exercises or emergencies.