#cleveland #capitalism #jimcrow

https://survivorliteracy.com/2026/03/22/the-contradictions-at-the-heart-of-the-american-revolution-part-xx-the-grover-cleveland-administration-first-term-conservatism-in-the-gilded-age-and-the-consolidation-of-a-new-inequality/

Well, ideologically and politically, they're not the same thing. And what Trump and his allies are doing is more akin to fascism than to Jim Crow.

But it is certainly true that the U.S. does have a long, sordid history of racist violence against its own citizens and immigrants that preceded fascism. And many of the policies implemented by Hitler were inspired by U.S. policies like forced sterilization, eugenics, Jim Crow.

The "Passing of the Great Race," by Madison Grant, an American lawyer, anthropologist, and one of the leaders of the American eugenics movement, wasn’t just a bestseller in the U.S., it was reportedly described by Adolf Hitler as his “bible.” Hitler even praised the U.S. for its eugenics program in Mein Kampf.

What may come as a surprise to many is that by the 1930s, California had carried out >1/3 of all U.S. sterilizations—more than any other state. Roughly 20,000 people were sterilized in state institutions between 1909 and 1979. It was a large-scale, state-sanctioned effort to control reproduction of those deemed "inferior" by those in power.

And in the aftermath of World War II, and the "defeat" of fascism, and the Nuremberg Trials, eugenics and forced sterilization of "undesirables" continued in the U.S., well into the 1970s in many states, mostly among Indigenous, Black, and Latina women.

#JimCrow #racism #eugenics #hitler #fascism #nazis #sexism

Today in Labor History March 21, 1965: 3,200 people began the third march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to protest racial violence. Earlier efforts to hold the march had failed when police attacked demonstrators and a minister was fatally beaten by a group of Selma whites. The five-day walk ended March 26, when 20,000 people joined the marchers in front of the Alabama state Capitol in Montgomery. This time they were defended by national guards and FBI agents. Soon after, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

#workingClass #LaborHistory #civilrights #MartinLutherKing #racism #JimCrow #fbi #votingrights #selma #montgomery #alabama #policebrutality #police #BlackMastodon

Today in Labor History March 5, 1879: The first group of black “exodusters” arrived in St. Louis aboard the steamer Colorado. They were heading to Kansas, which was considered the “promised land” for jobs. Many were fleeing harsh sharecropper contracts, pass laws, imprisonment and racist violence.
Tennessee cabinetmaker, "Pap" Singleton, who called himself the Father of the Colored Exodus, encouraged the migration by printing handbills. A steamboat strike later slowed the migration, reducing the exodus to a trickle by 1881.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #exodusters #racism #jimcrow #prison #diaspora #kkk #BlackMastodon

I got a #BlackHistoryMonth hint on my ancestry tree. My 4th great grandmother Elizabeth Jackson was black

She had an account at the Freedman's Savings Bank set up for newly emancipated former slaves by #Congress. False claims, mismanagement, and fraud by the bank's white officials led to its closure before the FDIC formed to secure deposits

Savings of the former slave account holders were destroyed and is one of the factors among MANY for hardship among black #Americans during the #JimCrow Era

Today in Labor History March 2, 1807: Congress abolished the African slave trade. The first American slave ship, Desire, sailed from Marblehead, Massachusetts, in 1637. After that, nearly 15 million Africans were transported as slaves to America. Overall, the African continent lost 50 million people to slavery and the deaths associated with it. Another 250,000 slaves continued to be illegally imported into the U.S. up until the Civil War.

The Thirteenth Amendment “prohibited” slavery throughout the USA, but with the following clause: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” Jim Crow laws in the past and racial profiling today result in large numbers of African Americans being incarcerated and subjected to legal slavery. Sometimes prisoners have even been rented out to plantations that had used chattel slaves in the past. But with the U.S. having both the world’s highest number of incarcerated people (2.1 million) and the highest incarceration rate (665 per 100,000), there are a lot of people from all ethnicities being subjected to legal slavery.

And on this same date in 1859: The Great Slave Auction began. The two-day event was the largest such auction in U.S. history. The auction was held at Ten Broeck Race Course, near Savannah, Georgia. They sold 429 men, women, children and infants. Prior to the sale, they housed the slaves in stables. Journalist Mortimer Thomson pretended to be a buyer. He then wrote a scathing article titled, “What Became of the Slaves on a Georgia Plantation.”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #slavery #civilwar #africa #abolition #africanamerican #BlackMastodon #racism #jimcrow #thirteenthamendment #prison