Thursday, February 28, 2008

'Pitchfork Ben' Tillman Still Honored in S.C.

The majority of Southerners still refuse to recognize the grotesque crimes of their forefathers, both during slavery and during the 100 years of institutionalized race-hatred following slavery's official end -- there is strong opposition to a resolution introduced recently by a South Carolina Representative to remove the statue of "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman from the State House grounds.

Tillman was a notorious racist, governor of South Carolina (founder of Clemson) and U.S. Senator. In an 1892 speech, he famously pledged to lead the lynch mob against any black man accused of raping a white woman.

As a young man he was one of a number of leaders of private militias that kept blacks and Republicans from voting in the 1876 election that effectively ended Reconstruction in South Carolina. He never stopped boasting of his violent participation in making the election a fraud.

As governor, Tillman had two goals: white supremacy and the unity of the Democratic Party, which was critical to maintaining white supremacy.

To accomplish his goal of white supremacy he led the state constitutional convention that introduced restrictions to voting -- literacy, education and 'understanding' provisions -- along with a poll tax, that reduced the number of black voters to 5,500 compared to 50,000 whites in a state with a majority black population. (The provisions also disenfranchised many poor whites, whose only compensation was the law's blind eye to the murder of more prosperous blacks. Lynching was used to drive black families off the land they owned.)

Those who want to keep the statue say that a plaque that "simply tells the truth" is all that's necessary. "History is what it is and there's an argument that you can't change it (by removing the statue)." That's a fine rationalization for leaving things the way they are -- no need for a 'truth commission' in America. That's all ancient history.