The Chilling Effect of Repression

As we reflect on the previous period and consider prospects for the future, looking back 100 years — instead of 25 — may be more helpful in examining North Carolina in particular, and the South in general. Nov. 10th, 1998, marks the 100th anniversary of the Wilmington Massacre — a coup d’état in Wilmington, North Carolina, that was the culmination of a state-wide white supremacist campaign to end a government led by a multi-racial progressive coalition. Untold numbers were killed, houses and businesses were burned to the ground, and thousands were forced to flee the city. This atrocity elicited no response from the federal government and closed a chapter on the revolutionary Reconstruction period in the South. A subtle — or not-so-subtle — chilling effect would hang over the state for many decades, and serve as a barrier to active resistance to Jim Crow.

It should be remembered, however, that 1898 was also the year of the ascendancy of a new imperial giant on the world scene, as the U.S. government began to assert its dominance in Cuba, the Philippines, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Oppression at home; expansion and oppression abroad. This is the backdrop for the last century of our history, and the repressive responses that followed to the labor movement, civil rights movement, and other efforts for social change in this super-exploited region.

In many respects, the South is almost unrecognizable from 1973. The growth of cities and continuing shifts in the economy have dramatically altered the landscape. The integration of schools and the increase in the number of black elected officials also make for a different picture. This is the portrait of the “New South” that liberals and even the so-called “New Democrats” are so fond of.

Yet just beneath the surface is a growing fire that may result in a political explosion sooner than we think. This is the social dynamite we face: thousands without a safety net forced on workfare; plenty of jobs but precious few at a living wage; over 95% of the workforce [in North Carolina] without the protection of a union privatization and downsizing as part of the globalization of capital; a growing Latino population that is coming under attack; and the criminalization of black youth accompanied by the construction of more prisons.

Activists across the South are organizing and mobilizing in resistance to all of these assaults. In some areas, the movement may be poised to go on the offensive. In this climate, we should be alert to the potential for repression in response to change such Southern reaction reared its head in November, 1979, when the Klan massacred anti-racist and labor activists in Greensboro. More than any temporary effect it had on the movement, it exposed the historic complicity of the government, the owners of capital, and fascists to destroy movements for social change. It was this alliance that spied on and tried to derail the civil rights movement, creating COINTELPRO to destroy the black liberation movement.

The conflicting forces are staggering. On the one hand, there is a frightening momentum towards fascism: the killing of James Byrd in Texas and Mathew Shepard in Wyoming; Giuliani’s police riot at the Million Youth March in New York; not to mention fascists organizing in the military and the burning of black churches. As Iraq and the former Yugoslavia command attention, we should never lose sight of Wilmington and Greensboro.

On the positive side is the growing coalition of forces challenging the effects of welfare reform, organizing public employees, building the Labor Party, strengthening the Black Radical Congress, and uniting African-American and Latino workers.

The extent to which progressive forces rally around these efforts — and their ultimate success — will have a tremendous impact on whether or not we go into the next century the way we entered this one.