As the Times said later, "The Birmingham bombing holds a special place in civil rights history because of the randomness of its violence, the sacredness of its target, and the innocence of its victims."
As you can see in the newspaper on the right, the F.B.I. was called in immediately to investigate the bombing. You can't do better than that. Right? Right?
WRONG!
From Blanton's obituary in last Friday's NYT: "Mr. Blanton was a suspect in the church bombing early on but escaped justice for decades, thanks in part to interference by J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the F.B.I., who in 1964 derailed efforts by the bureau's Birmingham office to bring charges against him and three other men. Mr. Hoover was said to have blocked the case because he thought a successful prosecution was unlikely."
And who should know better than J. Edgar if success was likely or not, since Hoover had decided to repress "incriminating recordings made by the F.B.I. that implicated both Blanton and another man." (from the NY Times) The repressed evidence became known only in 1980, seventeen years after the bombing, and after Hoover had been dead eight years.
This is a terrible crime that roiled the entire country, and the F.B.I. at its highest level, decided not to pursue it -- even though they have evidence.
It seems to me the F.B.I. decided that killing black children by bombing their church was.... well, really not so terrible. Can this decision to repress evidence of a notorious and brutal crime be regarded in any other way?
If this is not white supremacy at work, then I don't know what is.
Even after the recordings became known in 1980, NOTHING HAPPENED until 1997, thirty-four years after the bombing, when a group of black ministers urged the U.S. Attorney in Birmingham to open a new investigation. FINALLY, in 2001, thirty-eight years after the bombing, Blanton was convicted and spent the rest of his life in prison.
So Thomas Blanton, a white man, lived free for 38 years thanks to the white supremacist heading the F.B.I. J. Edgar Hoover PROTECTED BLANTON by repressing evidence that he had participated in the murder four black girls.
And Samuel Brownridge, an innocent black man, spent 25 years in prison because no one in the "justice" system gave a damn if they had the wrong black man.
These two cases created a climate of fear for all black people. What did it mean to all of those who knew Samuel Brownridge was jailed on trumped-up evidence? It meant that they lived in fear that it could happen to them. What did it mean to the black people in the entire nation that the perpetrators of the heinous and infamous crime of the church bombing were jailed 38 years late? It meant that they lived in fear that their children could be murdered, and no one would care about finding the criminals.
I have been reluctant to label manifestations of racism as white supremacy unless it referred to the actions of people who call themselves white supremacists. But I think both these stories taken together are emblematic of a white supremacy that infests our entire "justice" system, a white supremacy working to instill fear in all black people.
I'm grateful to the New York Times, the most mainstream of mainstream news, for giving me the information so that I could understand our country more deeply.
Whew. Bloggelinis, this is heavy stuff, isn't it? At least we know there are some compassionate judges and lawyers dedicated to turning the system around.
No comments:
Post a Comment