In 2020 the Proud Boys vandalized a D.C.-area Black church. A judge granted the church the Proud Boys’ name and any proceeds from merchandise featuring the group’s logo and name. But racism will always be met with resistance. Here’s how history shows us that.
In 1912, Charlotta Bass was a prominent journalist and writer. When she exposed KKK members’ plans to frame Black activists, the Klan sued, but lost in court. When they tried to scare Bass in her office later, she pulled a gun on them. The cowards fled.
In 1966, white terrorists thought they had a plan. Mississippi Klansmen murdered Ben White, a Black farmer, thinking the senseless death would lure MLK to the state, where they could assassinate him. White’s son, Jesse, then sued the Klan and won. Decades later, his father’s killers were even sent to prison.
When the KKK shot five Chattanooga women, an all-white jury didn’t care. But Fannie Mae Crumsey, Viola Ellison, Lela Mae Evans, Katherine Johnson, and Opal Lee Jackson did. They sued and won over half a million dollars in damages. The Klan was also barred from being violent in Chattanooga.
An anti-Black political environment can be exhausting and is meant to make us feel helpless, but as long as we remember that we deserve justice and liberation, there are always ways to seek it. Do not fall for the lie that we must ever accept anything less than our freedom.