Long comment, not well organized.
Born 1944 in crossroads cotton picking town in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. Reared on stories of the glories of Robert E. Lee, the bravery of our boys, the damnyankees burned our plantations, "the idea that little black boys should go to school with our little white girls is the damndest lie the Devil ever put on earth." Left at age 18, have gone back from time to time for funerals.
28 years a soldier, Vietnam vet; had a few jobs after retiring from the Army; now fully retired and have time to think about things.
As a college student in Alabama I marched behind the likes of King, Lewis, Abernathy, Jackson in Selma, Birmingham, Montgomery. Not much opportunity for civil disobedience in the Army, but, since retiring in 1995 have worked for several non-profits in affordable housing, education, equal treatment, . . . .
We are a racist nation, always have been, always will be. A certain segment of this country hates black people, always have, always will. A certain segment of this country believes deep down in their souls that there really are fixed, immutable differences between the "races" that makes black people mentally and socially inherently inferior to whites "They can't be trusted; they are not like us; we associate with them only if we have to; no, I will not go to a ##### doctor."
I have many cousins in Mississippi and Louisiana as well as in-laws in Alabama and Georgia. Visiting in their homes is EXACTLY LIKE being in the home where I was reared in the 1950's with grandparents and their generation, all born in 1890's, all steeped in moonlight and magnolias and faithful ol' mammies rocking the babies. My cousins' children and grandchildren all attended and graduated from all-white "segregation academies" (although they called them "schools" ) , pledged all-white sororities and fraternities at Ole Miss or LSU or Bama -- and they are exactly like their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, g-g-grandparents, and Confederate Colonel g-g-g-granddaddies.
Google the term "segregation academy" and read the results. When the federal government got around to enforcing Brown v. Board of Education, throughout the south states and local government reacted by forming private, "Christian academies" -- schools open only to white children. By claiming religious affiliations, they skirted federal equal opportunity requirements. Some failed, some are still open but struggling, while many are thriving and are well-established in their communities as the go-to school for white kids. Public schools are 99.9% black while state and local governments manage to funnel most education money to the "academies."
Read these books.
The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of Regional Identity, by James Cobb, 1994.
Cobb's work was echoed and updated by W. Ralph Eubanks in his Jan 2026 work -- read this: When It's Darkness On The Delta: How America's Richest Soil Became It's Poorest Land.
Jelani Cobb, a black woman writer, worked for the New Yorker for years. She has collected her writings on race for 2012 through 2025 in a new book Three Or More Is A Riot. Read it. Her writing goes from Travon Martin to Donald Trump.
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