re: How Do White People From Alabama Feel About "Selma" Here?

There's no overcomplicating it. This is a fact: Statements and questions likes this

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Why did white people in the past act that way?

Why was it so difficult for them to listen to and grant what King and others were asking for? 

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by how white people treated black people. 

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show that you have an untrue, simplistic vision of history - basically that it was the good underdog black people fighting for justice against evil white racists. Or something like that.

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I am asking how you see your own history or how your view of the past in Alabama is affected by how white people treated black people. 

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This is a question that can't be answered. Our past is not affected by the way white people treated black people. It's affected by the way everyone treated everyone.

I am not angry. I am letting you know your question is stated from a place of extreme ignorance. You need a lot of education that I can't give you on a message board. As mentioned, read authors from the time period. Reconstruction would be a good place to start.

I thought you were raised on an Israeli Kibbutzim?

Thank you, Genro. Now I know that you have no idea what you are talking about - OR (which would be more troubling), you are working from some kind of revisionist history.

If you are saying that whites did not have the power to change things for the better, then there is nothing that I can say to you. You don't even know where to start. Or, that blacks could have changed things in any other way. Yes, whites were dominant and blacks were without power. That is basic.

Were there other factors at work? Of course. There always are. But to ignore the major issue to focus on minors is to completely miss the point. It is like saying that the Civil War was about State's Rights and not about slavery - partial truth that does more to reveal one's bias than it does to accurately portray what happened.

I am not going to get into a pissing match with you regarding credentials on Southern history in regard to race relations. I'm good. I do, however, like to hear how white people see their history on this issue. Always stuff to learn there.

I was born and raised in Selma and live here to this day. My family has been here for 100 years and my wife's family has been here before Selma was even founded. We call those people river diggers. I will try to answer the OP's question as honestly as I can. If anyone does any research of Selma past after the Civil War on throught the 1960's, Selma was WAYY ahead of its time trying to help educated the black population. There were at least 3 HBC here and two still exist. This is in a town of less than 20,000, you don't find that in city's of 100k +. People think blacks before 1960 were just beaten and lynched for looking at white folks the wrong way. That's not even close to correct. They had their side of town and we had our side of town. That's the way BOTH sides wanted it at that time. Relations in Selma were much better than the avg southern town until the 1960's. Then one day they decided to meet here and have a march for right to vote. Every old man that was around my grandparents age basically told the blacks who worked for them to go march but when all the media and freedom fighters return home, you still have to live here. It became the Ferguson of that time. Outside agitators CAME to this town, were not born here. That alone gave the local residents and Selma itself huge black eye. They came from the hills of north Alabama, TN, and Georgia, Ky, mostly places were you don't come into contact with blacks but for some reason have a hatred for something you nothing about. White folks in Selma have been a minority for over 160 years. We know how to get along with the blacks and they know how to get along with us.
As far as how I feel about what white people did in the past it's pretty simple. You have a huge population of uneducated people that want the right to vote. Can't read to write and all of the sudden you can have a huge impact on law and govt even though you cant read or understand how it even works. Please watch the silent movie Birth of a Nation to better understand what happens when you instantly thrust unqualified people into positions of power and authority. It's like allowing millions of illegals in the US to instantly become US citizens. It can break you financially as a nation, state, city, town whatever. That was the main reason most whites didn't want them to have that power without knowing what to do with it. Give a child a handgun in a small room and see how quickly everyone else that's in that room begins to sweat and panic. Now, should they have been more proactive after the civil war to help educate the newly freed population. ABSOFREAKINLUTELY. Remember we are just coming off a war were many young southern men died fighting to protect the confederacy, the south was reeling all because an outside influence that just whipped our arse is now further opening the wound and telling us how we needed to reconstruct and run our lives. I'm sure most white blamed it on the blacks for being a main cause for all of this death and destruction and times for the blacks were actually worse right after the War than before. This mistrust and hatred continued till the World Wars. As a stated above Selma was a community that was WAAY ahead of the game in assisting blacks with a proper education during this time. We also understood it would take 50 plus years to educate a generation, get that generation to influence the next generation to see the value in an education and finally have enough educated generations that you begin to educate yourselves without the assistance of white people. This takes TIME. When we finally reach the threshold were we are all educated equally, have the same goals for our families and finances, we can all strive together to better our surroundings and evolve together as a whole.

I appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective. It is enlightening. Thank you. Sincerely.

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Selma was a city WAAY ahead of the game in assisting blacks with a proper education during this time.

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Yet, 100 years after emancipation they still were not qualified to vote? Or, were too stupid? Then, how good was that education?

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We also understood it would take 50 plus years to educate a generation, get that generation to influence the next generation to see the value in an education and finally have enough educated generations that you begin to educate yourselves without the assistance of white people. This takes TIME. When we finally reach the threshold were we are all educated equally, have the same goals for our families and finances, we can all strive together to better our surroundings and evolve together as a whole.

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So, they could not be guaranteed to vote the way that the white citizenry would want them too? Is that what you mean? The thing about democracy or a democratice republic, it that you might not always get your way. You can't stack the deck to only have your values affirmed and call it a free country.

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Please watch the silent movie Birth of a Nation...

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Oh. Now I get it.

Thanks for the comment, 14caratgoldjones.

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90+% of lynchings were in direct response to a murder or rape

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Doesn't excuse it in the least.

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Mention slavery but ignore that less than 5% of whites owned slaves and were dirt poor themselves

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Even poor white people typically had a higher station in life than a black person.

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blacks owned slaves

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Extremely uncommon.

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You don't have to come out and say white Southerners were evil racists, just give a few bare facts out of context and voila.

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I don't think all white southerners were evil racists, but they damn sure weren't saints.

Tbird, I'm not talking about right or wrong or who's guilty in the past.

I'm just talking about how certain institutions - the media & Hollywood, the dept of education - intentionally give an incomplete story. The result is we have a bullshite oversimplified good v. bad narrative.

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Yet, 100 years after emancipation they still were not qualified to vote?
Alabama and other Southern states had black Senators within a few years of emancipation

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Because of Reconstruction and those evil Federal troops. Then, when Reconstruction ended, of course, those black senators were no more. Suddenly, black people became too stupid to vote again.

You are playing both sides.

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genro

You didn't look anything up. Read Booker T Washington, former slave. His thoughts on lynchings and whatnot will open your eyes.

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I have read Booker T. Washington. "Up From Slavery." I like him a lot and like his perspective much better than W.E.B. Dubois, if I had to choose. His call for self-sufficiency and personal responsibility is much needed today.

He and George Washington Carver did a great job at Tuskegee, too. Lots of educated black farmers.

I am not a fan of lynching black people in history, though. I really do believe in due process of law. It seems quite American. BTW's views would really have no affect on me one way or the other. I agree with the Constitution.