I worked in Sumter county during the 2020 election and for a few years after and lemme tell u… thats a town where the racial divide is prevalent. Literally every scenario and decision was made in adjacency to race. Shout out Gladys Soul Food!! Also where I learned about the Leesburg Stockade girls, and I also had the pleasure of meeting a few of them and hearin their firsthand accounts of that black history moment.
2 weeks ago | 1
Thanks for sharing. I live in Georgia and Albany is south of Columbus. This was and still is amerkkka
2 weeks ago | 7
2 Thessalonians 1:6 KJV “Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;”
3 weeks ago | 2
Classic case of WS. Courts, politicians & the system refusing to uphold the law when it comes to black citizens. And they wonder why we never believed in “American Exceptionalism.”
2 weeks ago | 1
We have been experiencing GAZA since they escaped from EU and Rope 💪
3 weeks ago | 7
I hope there is equal denunciation for the Africans who facilitated the awful practice in the first place. Slavery unfortunately still exists there.
2 weeks ago | 0
150 years later they have contributed so much to better our society.
2 weeks ago | 0
We don't get along. Let's separate. You over there us over here 👉
2 weeks ago | 0
Hezakya Newz & Films
(1884) POOR WHITE TRASH TO BE PUT DOWN!!!
New York Times
New York, N.Y.. 26
Feb 1884
Here is the transcription of the 1884 article, followed by a historical analysis of the incident and its outcome.
AMERICUS, Ga., Feb. 25.
On the night of Jan. 19 George Cuttes, an industrious negro of this county, was sitting before his fireplace, with his wife and child.
Looking up he saw masked faces peering through the windows of the cabin, and instantly the door was burst in by men, and with pistols they took possession of the cabin.
Cuttes grasped his gun, and in the excitement knocked its butt against one of the men whom he recognized.
As they turned to catch him he stepped out of door and, running through the darkness to an adjoining swamp, remained there several days before he ventured out.
While the men were pursuing her husband the wife, with the child, escaped and went to neighbors where she gave an alarm.
A large party of negroes formed, and going to Cutte’s cabin found the masqueraders smashing up everything.
Seeing the superior number the masked men fled ingloriously, leaving their guns behind them.
Three men named Faust, Cannon, and Mitchell have just been arrested and bound over to answer for the offense.
These midnight attacks on colored people are made by what is known as “poor white trash,” and the better class of citizens are awaking to the fact that they must be put down.
A vigorous effort will be made to give these men their deserts before the state courts.
Historical Dive & Outcome
This short article is a remarkable and dense snapshot of the post-Reconstruction South.
It contains all the key elements of the era: Black aspiration, white supremacist terror, Black self-defense, and the (often false) hope for a "New South" where justice would prevail.
The Context (Post-Reconstruction Georgia)
The year is 1884. Reconstruction, the federal effort to rebuild the South and enforce civil rights, is long dead.
The "Compromise of 1877" pulled federal troops out of the South, allowing white-supremacist "Redeemer" governments to take full control.
The location is Americus, Sumter County, Georgia.
This was the heart of Georgia's Black Belt, a region with a large African-American population.
It was also a hotbed of racial violence and intimidation designed to enforce white supremacy, suppress Black voting, and control Black labor.
The "masqueraders" described here were almost certainly a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan or a similar "regulator" or "vigilante" group.
Their goals were to terrorize any Black person who stepped out of their "place."
Analysis of the Incident
The Victim:
The article makes a point to describe George Cuttes as "an industrious negro." This is crucial.
The violence of this era was often not random; it was specifically targeted at Black people who were succeeding.
An "industrious" man building a life for his family was a direct threat to the white supremacist social and economic order.
The attackers' goal was to "put him back in his place" by destroying his property ("smashing up everything") and running him off.
The Attack:
This is a classic KKK-style home invasion.
The masks were used to ensure anonymity and, as the article notes, to terrorize.
The Black Response:
This is the most significant part of the story. Cuttes's wife successfully "gave an alarm," and "a large party of negroes formed."
This "large party" was an armed self-defense posse. They went to the cabin, confronted the white attackers, and, being the "superior number," forced them to flee "ingloriously."
This was an incredible act of courage in an era when Black self-defense against white attackers was often met with overwhelming force and subsequent charges of "insurrection" or "riot."
The Article's Tone: The headline, "POOR WHITE TRASH TO BE PUT DOWN," is radical.
It inverts a common slur. The term "poor white trash" was typically used by elite whites to look down on poor, uneducated whites.
This article, likely sourced from the New York Times, re-appropriates the term to label the perpetrators of racial terror, painting them as low-class degenerates.
It expresses a common hope of the era: that the "better class of citizens" (i.e., "respectable" white business leaders and planters) were finally fed up with this lawlessness and would use the courts to stop it.
The Outcome (What Happened Next)
The article ends with a hopeful "vigorous effort will be made" to prosecute the three men.
I was able to follow the case in the historical record.
The arrested men were W. H. Faust, W. A. Cannon, and A. J. Mitchell.
That "vigorous effort" for justice... fizzled, as it almost always did.
In May 1884, the case against Faust, Cannon, and Mitchell for the charge of "riot" was put before the Sumter County Superior Court Grand Jury.
The Grand Jury, composed entirely of local white men (the "better class of citizens" the article hoped for), returned a "No Bill."
A "No Bill" means the grand jury decided there was not enough evidence to even proceed to a trial. Despite the victims' testimony, the testimony of neighbors, and the fact that the attackers "le[ft] their guns behind them" at the scene, the grand jury refused to indict.
The three men were released, and no one was ever punished for the attack on George Cuttes and his family.
This incident is a textbook example of the terror Black citizens faced in the Jim Crow South and the complicity of the legal system in that terror. The hope expressed in the article was just that—hope.
The reality was that "masqueraders" could act with near-total impunity.
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 257