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“Uppity,” That’s Racist for “Kill”

Started by Ben · 8 months ago

US Representative Lynn Westmoreland, a Republican from Georgia, made a very bald appeal to racists to unite against Obama. This wasn’t a private statement caught on a mic he didn’t realize was on. This was a statement for the record, to reporters, in the halls of the ... Continue reading »

11 comments

  • Kansas Evans

    10 months ago

    Saw this on the SNCC listserve, and I'm posting this to my listserve.
    reply
  • Benjamin T. Greenberg

    10 months ago

    Thanks for spreading it around. I'm glad to have discovered your blog via your comment.
    reply
  • suzel

    10 months ago

    I posted the following part on other blogs. I think is important that people understand!
    *********************

    that is from the hungryblues.net site:

    I suppose this might seem hyperbolic to some. It is a factual, historically accurate statement.

    When I interviewed the children of Samuel O’Quinn, an African American man who was shot dead by a sniper at the gate to his property in Centreville, MS in 1959, they said that the main problem their father had with whites was that he was well educated and successful.

    Samuel O’Quinn was a graduate of the Tuskegee Institute—”the highest form of education you could get” at that time, if you were Black, Rance O’Quinn emphasized.

    “My mother and father gave away a fortune,” Rance O’Quinn continued. “They gave money to every cause, the building of every church. They bought the bus for the kids to go to school and paid the bus driver to take children to school.”

    “That’s why he was hated,” added Phalba O’Quinn Plummer. “They said he was biggity. They would say ‘uppity’ and ‘biggity.’ ‘Biggity’ means too big for his britches.”

    Five years after Samuel O’Quinn was murdered, in April 1964, his eldest son, Clarence, was attacked on the Centreville Post Office steps by Chief of Police Bill Ivey. “You damn uppity nigger, you think you own the town,” Ivey said, as he beat O’Quinn with other whites looking on.
    reply
  • Benjamin T. Greenberg

    10 months ago

    Thanks, suzel. I hope it has some effect...
    reply
  • David Tvaroha

    10 months ago

    I'm glad you shared this story. It's more information for us white Northerners who are trying to understand all of this with an objective view.
    reply
  • Go Saints!

    9 months ago

    come on is this true? it just sounds like this is a made up story here, the Obamas do seem snobby
    reply
  • Benjamin T. Greenberg

    9 months ago

    reply
  • Shaula

    9 months ago

    Just when I think I can't be surprised, or appalled, any further.

    Excellent article and excellent documentation/fortification, Benjamin.
    reply
  • Benjamin T. Greenberg

    9 months ago

    Thanks, Shaula. And I'm delighted to discover via your comment that you are blogging again.
    reply
  • Jeff (no, the other one)

    8 months ago

    Ben, I suppose you may have seen this by now: http://www.oanow.com/oan/news/local/article/two...

    It's just one more thing to watch. I know you recall Winston DeRoyal Carter. Smiths Station is just up the road from Tuskegee, so we're talking about the same neck of the woods.
    reply
  • Ben

    8 months ago

    No, Jeff, I had not heard about this incident with crosses and a noose in Alabama! Thanks for bringing it to my attention. It is very disturbing.
    reply

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