This is Democracy – Episode 213: Civil War By Other Means

[00:00:00] Intro: This is Democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next.

[00:00:26] Jeremi: Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy. This week we are going to discuss the legacies of the Civil War and other elements of our past that deeply influence our current difficulties with democracy in the United States. How does understanding the Civil War and its legacies help us to better understand our current predicament, and how does it help us to think about.

New measures and mechanisms for addressing the needs of our democracy today. That will be the subject of our conversation. It happens to be the subject of my new book, Civil War by Other Means, America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. This book has just been published. I spent many years working on it, and I am very happy that today we get to talk about it in this episode, and we’ll have maybe one more episode on it for our podcast.

And, uh, I’m even happier. Uh, That Mr. Zachary Siri is going to serve as the interviewer. We’re gonna turn things around today and he is going to interview me, and in fact, a number of our loyal listeners have emailed me and texted me to ask that we do this. So, Zachary, are you ready to play this role? Uh, yes.

[00:01:41] Zachary: H how hard can it be?

[00:01:42] Jeremi: Oh, . Oh, I think you relish the opportunity to put me in the hot seat. Before we do that though, Zachary is of course going to read an original poem for us today. And before he reads this poem, I must reveal to our audience that Zachary is now the Austin Youth Poet Laureate, which is to say he has been selected as the youth to, uh, manifest and represent the possibilities of poetry to our entire community.

Zachary, this is a big honor. One that’s richly deserved is all of our listeners to your poetry. No. And, uh, I just want you to know how proud I am of you. Congratulations. Thank you. How does it feel? It feels good.

[00:02:26] Zachary: Yeah. Lots of work to do still. So

[00:02:29] Jeremi: what,

what kind of work?

[00:02:30] Zachary: Well, more poems to write. Yes. More work in the community.

[00:02:34] Jeremi: Is that right? Well, let’s see what you can do. What’s the title of today’s poem?

[00:02:38] Zachary: Every season goes,

[00:02:40] Jeremi: Let’s hear.

[00:02:41] Zachary: At moments when the orchards bloom, the harvest mixed with bullets and the apples bruised, fall down bloodied mountains. Make them into cider. Make them into cider. But don’t think that in a lean to, in a forest far from us, you will escape the pole of memory.

When the orchards bloom, when winter wind pulls them back again to bareness, we must each time when every season goes Once again, remember it was the winter of our discontent. Then it was the spring that ended many springs for many the last they’d ever see, and even in April, it was fall in April, 1865, it was all falling.

They were fallen. It was the summer of our wildest misjudgments. At moments when the orchards bloom, do not think you have to wait. Do not think that a century. Hence, you must stay chain to enchanted with the lying ghosts. There are cherry trees budding somewhere else, other orchards, other dreams. Do not think you have won because only sometimes you find a cannon ball in your pink carnations because only sometimes you remember the truth.

It was the winter of our discontent, but it was also the summer we disappeared. This was the spring to end all springs, but on top of the hills barren, overlooking a scorched earth, scorched people marching to a promised land. We were somehow for them invisible. Others saw as far too clearly, and at moments when the orchards bloom.

Do not think in vain of leaving or hold dearly to how the world seemed when you were five and supposed the world to end at a coffin and held history to be somehow in Apple. You could never taste.

[00:04:38] Jeremi: I, I really love the range of, uh, emotions in that poem. Zachary, what is that poem about?

[00:04:45] Zachary: I think this poem was really about the ways in which the history of the Civil War in particular, um, but also all of American history are all around us.

Um, even when orchards are blooming and they seem hidden or, or the violence can seem so far away. Uh, but that at the same time, there is hope in uncovering that history and recognizing that history and in choosing to remember.

[00:05:05] Jeremi: Right. And how an autumn of discontent can become a summer of possibility. I love that, Zachary.

Well, the floor is yours. You, you can ask the questions, uh, of me, and, and I hope our listeners will enjoy this conversation and, and we’ll buy the book too. Civil War by Other Means, America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. Zachary, tell us what we should think about.

[00:05:26] Zachary: My first question has to deal, uh, directly with the first two chapters of your book, uh, which, uh, take place, uh, in April, 1865, uh, which comes up directly in the poem I just read.

Uh, in particular, uh, of course the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. Um, and. My question for you is that many scholars before you and including yourself have chosen, uh, to focus and, and to write extensively on the North’s reverence for Lincoln after his death and his sort of semi martyred him, uh, particularly that famous funeral train from Washington to Springfield.

Uh, but in your new book, you posted a sort of parallel murderdom, uh, for his assassin, John Wilkes booth in the south. Uh, what does this insight. Tell us about the early years of reconstruction and do you see this dual martyrdom as somehow continuing to this

day?

[00:06:17] Jeremi: It’s a great question, Zachary, and you’re absolutely right.

Um, Lincoln’s assassination makes him a saint in the memory and iconography, uh, for many people in the North and, and other parts of the country. Uh, but what I wasn’t aware of until I did this research and until you helped me with this research, Were the ways in which, uh, there was a parallel martyrdom for John Will’s booth.

Um, he was seen as a, a great hero by many, uh, not just in the South, not just in the former Confederacy. And this took many forms. There were all sorts of newspapers in Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, elsewhere, that wrote after the assassination of this is a conspiracy. By Republicans that they had killed Lincoln and Blaine booth, or more commonly, the conspiracy was that Lincoln was about to unleash a worse set of crimes, and the Booth knew about this and were stopping him from doing that.

Uh, one way or another, the blame was placed on the victim Lincoln. rather than on the assassin. And there were many, many articles, many of which we quote in the book, uh, that discuss, um, the, uh, ways in which Booth is seen as a hero, uh, by Confederate supporters. Why is he seen as a hero? Not just cuz he killed Lincoln, but because he’s seen his standing up to Yankee power to, uh, Union Power.

What does this tell us? Uh, I write in the book about how this captures. A very different sensibility, not just an anger at losing on the battlefield, but a determination to continue the struggle and to continue to support individuals, uh, who will stand up against what is still seen by millions of Americans as illegitimate union power in the South.

And the, the real deeper point, I think, is that you have two. Diametrically opposed visions of democracy. A Northern Republican vision, which is not inclusive of everyone, but believes that a larger democracy with more participants, particularly former slaves participating in some way will be a better democracy, uh, in part because it will limit the power of former Confederates.

And you have former Confederates and many sympathizers. Who sympathize with Booth and believe that a smaller democracy with less participation is necessary to protect their power. And in that sense, Lincoln is a threat even in his death to the power of many southern whites and their supporters, including in places like New York and Boost is standing up in their eyes for protecting their power and limiting.

Intimidating bullying, those who would try to expand democracy and therefore dilute the power of these existing groups. So they’re competing visions of democracy and they’re competing over the question of who has say and who doesn’t.

[00:09:17] Zachary: Hmm. Now one of your chapters in the new book that I think is, is, is, is the most groundbreaking, if you will, or at least for me.

Uh, one of the most fascinating in eye opening and coincidentally the one that I gotta help the most with, uh, when it came to the research, quite a coincidence there. Yeah. Is, is, is is your chapter on confederate exiles in Mexico, uh, and their root through Texas, including here in Austin, to the court of the French imposed Mexican emperor, uh, Maximilian.

The first. . Um, and I, I know from helping you with a lot of this research that most of this, the writing on this topic has been, uh, sort of triumphalist confederate biography. Um, what made these exiles stand out to you as historical figures, uh, worthy of inclusion in this

right study?

[00:10:02] Jeremi: Well, and, and these are figures who are mostly ignored. Um, Right. I was talking to a close friend who has written. One of the most used textbooks in the United States, and uh, he said he has to now rewrite part of the textbook because these, these individuals are not mentioned at all and they turn out to be pretty important, uh, and important for a number of reasons that I’ll get to in a second.

Let’s just first talk about who they are. These are, uh, Confederate military leaders. Many of them had civilian jobs before. They’re not like Robert E. Lee. They’re not people who were trained as professional military officers. They’re judges, uh, local business people, often large slave owners.

[00:10:40] Zachary: Law enforcement.

[00:10:41] Jeremi: Law enforcement in many cases, absolutely local law enforcement. And, uh, at after Appt, They refuse to surrender. Uh, usually in our textbooks, we tell the story, The Civil War ends at Appomattox, and then begrudgingly all of these Confederate leaders lay down their arms or at least go home with their arms, but they leave the battlefield.

That’s true for many, but certainly not for all. Um, there are upwards of 50,000 of these individuals who go to Mexico. There’s an even larger number they go to. , others who go elsewhere. The individuals I focus on are generals in the Confederate Army. People like Joseph Shelby, John Bankhead, Magruder, and Alexander Watkins, Terrell.

Uh, and these are individuals who decide that they’re gonna go to Mexico and bring their soldiers with them voluntarily. If the soldiers wanna come, they’re also gonna bring their slaves with them to Mexico, and they’re gonna join forces with Emperor max million. And it’s worth saying something about Emperor Max million.

He is appointed, he’s a relative of Louis Napoleon, the nephew of Napoleon, who had sold the Louisiana territory to the United States. And uh, Louis, Napoleon. Has decided that he wants to take back the French Empire in North America, and he wants to begin in Mexico by installing max million, who’s actually an Austrian relative of his.

So he installs this emperor who is fighting a civil war. In Mexico, uh, against the Mexican Republicans under Benito Juez, who have actually had support from Lincoln and others. These confederates join the Napoleon Allied Imperial Monarchical government in Mexico. Why do they do this? Uh, they want to keep their slaves.

Mexico does not have slavery, but it allows them to create indentured servant contracts, 20 year labor contracts or so. With their slaves, forcing them to work basically without pay for 20 years. They provide them with land and also there’s the hope, this is what they say. And I quote and describe in the book, these exiles believe that by going to Mexico, they’ll be able to reorganize and then fight again and take back their territory, uh, in the American South, uh, and else.

So they join Max Million’s Army. They become officers in his army. So that is the textbook definition of treason to join a foreign army. They’ve already succeeded with someone called treason. Now they’re joining, uh, a foreign army. Uh, what what makes them so important, Zachary, is not only that they do this, it shows us the resistance, the level of desire not to surrender.

But when Max Million loses, when he’s assassinated by, uh, Benito Juez and his government collapses, and Napoleon takes his forces back to France, uh, and Juarez becomes the, the Republican government becomes the government of, uh, Mexico. These exiles mostly return to the United States. And they declare themselves heroes, and they’re pardoned by President Andrew Johnson, who succeeds Lincoln after his assassination.

Many of these exiles then become people of power in the South. Because they’re seen as heroes. They’re seen as stalwart defenders of the Southern Way, even though they were really treasonous men who refused to follow the law and joined a foreign army. One of them who I profile in particular, Alexander Watkins Terrell, he comes back to Texas, gets elected to the state legislature, becomes a democratic leader in the state legislature.

He writes the legislation to create the University of Texas at Austin, our sponsor for this podcast, uh, that in 1880. And he also writes the voting laws in Texas. And, uh, the voting laws he creates remain on the books through the mid 20th century. Guess who doesn’t get to vote under these voting laws? He also creates the white primary, uh, from the late 19th century through 1944 until a Supreme Court decision.

In 1944, the uh, Democratic Party in Texas, which is the only party really that has any chance of getting people elected at that time, uh, has a primary for its candidates every election year, and it does not allow non-whites to vote in its primary. So even though some non-whites can vote in the general election, they can’t vote in the primary.

Uh, and the argument was that it was that, that the Democratic party was a private entity, so it didn’t have to let everyone vote. So, uh, until 1944, thanks to Alexander Watkin Terrell, this former exile, treason, this individual who comes back because the laws he wrote. Uh, non-white people don’t even get to choose the candidates who run for office in Texas.

So why is this important? These exiles, um, they come back and remain powerful individuals. They set the course of part of our nation, uh, because they’re pardoned and cuz people wanted to move on. Yeah. Rather than prosecute them for their crimes.

[00:15:44] Zachary: And now we have a county in Texas named after terrell.

[00:15:47] Jeremi: That’s correct. And we have many things. Uh, there, there were statues to many of these figures. Uh, there still are some in some areas, but there were many statues of them around the country until recently.

[00:15:57] Zachary: Right. And, and they, they came to represent the United States. Uh, Terrell was, uh, Ambassador plu Potentate or something like that, to, uh, the Ottoman empire?

[00:16:06] Jeremi: That’s correct. He was appointed by Democratic President Grover Cleveland for his work on behalf of the Democratic Party. Uh, he was appointed to be ambassador to, uh, the Ottoman Empire.

[00:16:17] Zachary: Yeah. Well, uh, on, on that note, I I, I did wanna ask, I think the book takes a very, sort of Texas approach to understanding the Civil War, which is, is is rather unique, uh, considering that Texas, in terms of population and, and, and maybe in terms of where the major battles were fought, uh, is often, uh, Left out of major histories of this period.

Um, one of the aspects of this history, this Texas perspective on the Civil War, I think is that connection to the Mexican resistance to French rule. And I did wanna ask, do you see in some way this history of Mexican resistance to max million as this sort of parallel story to the end of the Civil War?

Uh, not only helpful in understanding reconstruction, but also maybe as a sort of counterexample of what could have happened if the promises of reconstruction had been.

[00:17:04] Jeremi: Such a smart questions, Zachary, and I think it’s spot on. Um, and I don’t think it occurred to me until I was really into the writing, uh, for those who haven’t written a book, and I hope everyone listening will write book soon.

Uh, you learn a lot as you’re writing the book. It’s not as if you do the research and then write, you write and continue researching. Uh, and it became clear to me. That this was not a story of only one side. This was a story with many sides to it. So just as I have a chapter that profiles the courageous, uh, African Americans, many former slaves who joined the Union Army, and the enormous difference that they make, uh, their legacy is also a part of our legacy.

Uh, there is the legacy of those on the other side of the border, so to speak. Uh, Mexican Republicans around Benito Juez and others who were trying. They’re Republican counterparts, some of them black and white on the northern side of the border, these in Mexico. These Republicans were trying to create a more democratic society, a more representative society.

They were trying to reappropriate land resources. They were trying to create, uh, freedoms and protections for individual liberties. In Mexico, a and they had a kindred spirit in Abraham Lincoln, Bonita Juez and Abraham Lincoln had quite a correspondence. I quote some of it. Uh, many of our listeners might be interested.

You can look it up online and read. Lincoln could not give a lot of support to the Republicans in Mexico cuz he was fighting a civil war here, but he did where he could. give them support and, and encouragement and what they represented, as you said so well Zachary, was that this was a moment of possibility for a more participatory democracy on both sides of the Rio Grande.

And it didn’t happen on our side because of the resistance and insufficient commitment. Uh, by northern, uh, Republicans and resistance from Southern Democrats in the United States and others. And it didn’t happen in Mexico because of the violence and confusion, but in some ways, the Mexicans did achieve more than we did in this period.

You could argue that they had a system that actually had, uh, a wider measure of land ownership and political participation than in the United States, or, or at least in parts of the United States, thanks to their revolution. , which went further than the victory of the union did in the Civil War.

[00:19:21] Zachary: Interesting.

Hmm. Uh, and, and you mentioned in, in your answer there, the, uh, importance of African American soldiers in the Union Army. And I, I did wanna ask the, uh, about this exactly, because I think it’s often lost in our discussion of reconstruction, is, is not just the critical role that African American soldiers played in the union, victory on.

And in the Confederate defeat. But, uh, the critical role they played after reconstruction in occupying the south in many cases, occupying their own hometowns home, home states. My question for you is, uh, how important, uh, were these soldiers in, in shaping reconstruction in the South? Um, and what role?

African American soldiers play in at least, uh, bringing some semblance of economic and social mobility to communities of, uh, formerly enslaved people.

[00:20:12] Jeremi: So the transformation of, uh, thousands of slaves, not only into free citizens, but now into Union Soldiers, was one of the most radical, disorienting changes that I think we’ve ever seen in North America.

And that’s not to say it was sufficient, uh, but it is to say nonetheless it was radical and disorienting. Uh, just imagine, uh, if you are a white plantation owner, uh, in the 1850s and sixties, uh, you have these individuals on your plantation who you view as subhuman. And everyone around you in your circle views them as subhuman.

Of course, that’s horrible, but that’s the reality of what people thought. And then very soon, within a matter of months during the Civil War, they become individuals who not only have a claim no longer to be slaves, but they are carrying muskets and wearing a union. Uniform. And by the end of the war, as you said so correctly, Zachary, they’re in the, they’re the role of police of occupiers, and in many cases they’re holding white prisoners.

One of the things that triggered John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Lincoln was witnessing, uh, African American soldiers in the Union Army guarding white prisoners of war in Washington dc This was the world turned upside down. For him and for so many others. These African American soldiers went through an extraordinary transformation.

Most of them were illiterate when they entered the Union Army. They became literate in the Union Army. They gained a wage for the first time. I show in the book a few photos of these African American soldiers, and you can see in the photos the pride they have in being slaves. No. And now not just being citizens, but actually being wage earners.

And this was the Republican vision. Free labor, free soil free men, all men should be able to work, own land and earn a wage, right? Freedom through wage ownership, ownership. And they, um, these, these former slaves also become, uh, not just the force for union enforcement in the South in many areas, but they become the basis for an entirely new.

Uh, running businesses, uh, running churches, of course, and in many cases trying to buy land, though that’s often a difficult thing for them to do, and that’s one of the areas where there’s the most resistance to their, to their influence. Um, it changes the texture of what the United States is fundamentally, and it’s, it’s a, it’s an enormous victory.

Few other societies have gone through that kind of transformation as rapidly as we did. It explains on the one hand, the rise of a vibrant civil rights activism in American history, in American society that has never been lost. It also explains, um, the strong resistance, violent resistance to these changes occurring at that.

and that’s also never been lost. Look at the violence today, the violence against change within our society.

[00:23:16] Zachary: Hmm hmm. But also I think it’s a reminder of the critical role, um, that, uh, government institutions like the military can play in, in promoting social and economic mobility, not just within a context of, of the Civil War, but also throughout American history and, and to this day.

[00:23:32] Jeremi: Right on. I mean, I think it’s, uh, undeniable. That the institution, over time, that has done more, uh, as being the cutting edge, the leading spear for civil rights change has been the US Army. That doesn’t mean the US Army has been free from racism. It hasn’t been free from that. That doesn’t mean it has always treated different groups fairly, and it doesn’t mean it has been enlightened in all cases.

It has not. But time and again at critical moments, it has been the army. That is the first place that new groups who have been excluded can break into American society, and it’s for a very obvious reason in times of war and other kinds of conflict. The US army needs bodies and they need those bodies to be trained.

Sustainable and self-supporting, which is to mean that they need to be trained and educated. They need to earn money and they need to be able to govern themselves in a sense. So this is true definitely during the Civil War. That’s what the Emancipation Proclamation is all about. Lincoln bringing in this, uh, former slave force into the Union Army to provide more labor for the union cause it’s what happens in World War.

With African American soldiers, Jewish soldiers, so many Jews, uh, become Americanized. Henry Kissinger is one of them. I wrote a whole book on him years ago. They become Americanized and get their first opportunity as full Americans, or close to full Americans in the US Army. They, they’re eating ham for Uncle Sam.

Uh, and in a sense, the African American soldiers, the former slaves in many cases, um, they are fighting to end slavery. And to give themselves, uh, a chance in American society. And the army is the only place they can do.

[00:25:19] Zachary: But how did the, the United States military, but also the United States government fail these soldiers and these communities?

I mean, it’s heartbreaking to read in your book about, uh, the, uh, long thought for successes. Of African American soldiers and their families. Uh, and then to read, uh, in, in the following chapters about, uh, the, uh, so-called Memphis Riot and, and the Colfax Massacre, Um, this violence, uh, against not just African American soldiers, but uh, relatively new and relatively prosperous African American communities throughout the south, but also in the north, uh, was met with very little resistance from the federal government.

Um, and, and, and. Uh, especially, um, in the years of following reconstruction. And why, why is this, why do you think the United States military and the United States government failed them?

[00:26:09] Jeremi: It’s the crucial question to ask, and I think these communities were failed, right? By the federal government. I think you’re, you’re, you’re spot on in your question.

And I describe in the book, uh, what happens in Memphis, for example, in 1866 in Colfax, Louisiana in 1873. Uh, these are two of many cases. we’re local communities of, uh, white citizens, and they’re not just white, uh, local locals. Uh, these include local sheriffs, local judges. They violently attack African American communities not only to steal their land, raping mass rapes of women and children forced humiliation.

Torture. Uh, and I’m only scratching the surface here. I mean, true cruelty. Uh, in the worst sense of the word. And, and, and, and why is that? Why are they doing this? Because they feel so threatened by these communities. And it’s a way of bullying. It’s not just doing something to those in Memphis, this African American community that is, that is devastated.

Uh, it’s not taking over the government in Colfax, which is what happens. It’s a coup, uh, against an African American local government. Um, it’s not just about that. It’s about sending a message to so many others. It’s about intimidation. It’s about bullying, It’s about asserting white male privilege. That’s what we have to call it.

White male privilege. Why does the federal government fail to stop this? For a variety of reasons. I talk about in the book, and I’m not the only one to write about this. Uh, I think there are a couple things that have to be said. First of all, it’s really hard, really hard to stop this. Why is it hard to stop this?

Cuz so many people are complicit. So many people are responsible for the violence, the rapes, uh, but so many others just wanna look. that don’t wanna do anything about it. And many of those who wanna look away, and I talk about this in detail in the book, are Northern Republicans who don’t like what’s happen.

But they don’t want to get involved. They wanna spend their money in other things. They’re tired of fighting. They wanna go west. They want to go west. They wanna invest their money in the West to make money in the railroads. Uh, Richard White has written a wonderful book about the history of railroads, and there’s so much money to be made in the short run, at least at this time.

And that’s what attracts people in the north. They don’t wanna deal with this. They wanna look away. They’re tired of it, they’re exhausted from it. Um, second, the federal government’s not equipped to do this. Uh, Ulysses Grant, or I talk a lot about in the book invents. This new thing called the Justice Department, which we didn’t have.

We had an attorney general, but not a justice department. We have to invent institutions. There was no fbi. We have to invent federal institutions. At one point, the federal government through congressional action, despite Andrew Johnson, President Johnson’s uh, resistance working through the army, the Congress creates military districts in the South and it creates military tribunals to supersede local courts that are refusing to prosecute crimes against African Americans.

So the government tries. Our listeners have to remember, this is a very different federal government from the one we have today. It doesn’t have the institutional basis for this, and if there’s ever a case to be made, Zachary for why we need government. It is this. If you don’t have government institutions to enforce the law fairly across the whole nation, you will give cover.

To those in local communities who want to simply use power to maintain their control. And that’s a big part of what happens. So it’s Northern Republican interest in other things and, uh, frustration and, uh, a decision not to invest in this. It’s a decision to pull the US army out. And it’s a fundamental recognition of how hard this is.

It would’ve taken a much larger commitment and it would’ve taken leadership from the north to really continue this effort to enforce the law in parts of the country that were dead set against enforcing the law as such. And I think one important takeaway here, um, is that, and it’s really where the title of the book comes from, Zachary.

The War doesn’t end when the traditional battles are over. You’ve gotta maintain the commit. Long after the war has ended at Appomattox. If you want to achieve what the war is about, it’s very easy and very common to win the war and lose the.

[00:30:27] Zachary: Yeah, yeah. But, but amidst this, uh, this horror, there is, um, and, and you talk about this in the, in the book extensively a, a remarkable resistance and, and, and flowering of African American communities, uh, across the country.

And, and you title this chapter, Citizens, Um, how do these courageous individuals offer in alternative citizenship an alternative to this sort of willingness to look away of Northern Republicans that you see as having. Fundamentally failed to keep these promises that they made.

[00:30:59] Jeremi: I, I think it’s the, one of the most remarkable parts of the stories, Zachary, and it has so much to teach us today.

Former slaves and many of their white supporters, they recognize that citizenship is essential. And what does citizenship mean? It means participation. You cannot change the system if you don’t get in. And make a difference from within the system. You cannot just fight it from without. You probably have to do a bit of both.

And they are committed to working their way into the system. And in the early years after APTs, a very large number of African Americans who I talk about in the book, are elected to Congress. There’s one in the Senate, they’re African Americans elected to state legislatures, especially in the south. And they are working through the system to make their voices heard.

They’re also building their own communities. This is the predecessor to the Booker t Washington Vision, uh, which we don’t appreciate today, cuz separate doesn’t seem equal to us. And of course it’s not. But Booker t Washington, who lived through this period, what he recognized was you have to see citizenship by building your own institutions that can work with the existing institutions, your own businesses, your own local governments, some cases your own protection forces, your own police, and the African American community that I talk about in the book and many of their white supporters.

There remarkably stalwart, determined and courageous in their efforts. Uh, there are stories, countless stories of African Americans walking three, four miles to vote waiting in line for hours and hours. Um, and of course this doesn’t solve the problem, but it makes a huge difference. It also sets a legacy in a model for later activists.

Look, let’s be clear about it. If you read about this and write about it as I. You come away realizing that the most important thing we can learn for today is wherever we have an opportunity to participate. We have to participate. We have to force our way to the table. If you’re being excluded from being at the table, and these communities do this with remarkable bravery, it should also be said.

Uh, that African American women are, are often providing all of the support for this to happen. That becomes a story all the way through the history of civil rights in the United States, providing the organizational skills, providing the communication, providing the food and clothing. Um, so there really is a community commitment.

Uh, and anyone, these, these are grants words actually witnessing this. Anyone who doubts the desire for democracy among minorities, Actually looked at what they’re doing.

[00:33:32] Zachary: Yeah. Yeah. And, and on that note of, of, of what we can take from this period, uh, and, and, and why it matters. Um, you, you, you begin your book, um, with the insurrection on January 6th, 2021, uh, and the first confederate battle flag in the capital rotunda.

Um, and, and why that? Why does that moment, uh, begin your book and, and, and is that in some ways a continuation of this civil war by other means?

[00:34:00] Jeremi: Well, I, I wanted to sink in for everyone that as many confederate flags as were flown by the Confederacy and then by its apologist, uh, thereafter, And by people you know who love the Dukes of Hazard and other things where, you know, confederate flags become part of our iconography.

There was never a confederate flag in the capital of the United States until January 6th, 2021, when it was forced in by a group of insurrectionists trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power. That’s extraordinary. That tells us how threatening, dangerous, and damaging the events of January 6th, 2021 were.

My point in starting there is that this history, Is not only background, it’s foreground to our world. Uh, and I show in the book not just the Confederate flag and uh, talk about Kevin Cfri, the person who carried it in there. And there’s an interesting story there for people to read and in the book, uh, but also the galls that was created on the Capital Mall, which was basically a hangman’s setup.

To hang Mike Pence, and it was to do the most 19th century of crimes to lynch someone. Those crimes continue through the 20th century too, but it is a quintessential 19th century post civil war crime to lynch a black man who’s violated the law here. They wanted to lynch the vice president of the United States.

Uh, why do I open with this? Because this shows us clearly, Undeniably that the arguments, the rhetoric, the techniques of the 1870s are alive and well. And they’re alive and well because we haven’t been to get them out of our institutions. Most Americans are not repeating the attitudes of the 1870s, but our institutions have provided continued home and protection and have allowed.

Some people to pursue and use those attitudes to weaponize them. And someone like Donald Trump comes along and he empowers that. He encourages that. Uh, and our institutions have not gotten rid of it. Um, the Germans have been thinking about this for a long time. We could learn from the Germans. Susan Naiman, who we had on our podcast, wrote a wonderful book about this.

Even if we have changed our attitudes, our institutions carry old attitudes in them and they require reform to get those old attitudes out. And if those attitudes are allowed to remain in those institutions, they will be deployed by others. What does it mean to say those attitudes are still in there? It is to say that the institutions protect certain kinds of behavior and haven’t done enough to prevent those kinds of behavior.

What did we see on January 6th, 2021, that paramilitary violence. Was occurring in our society and organized in our society by the proud boys and others. What did we see on January 6th, 2021? People would deploy symbols that we had allowed to linger in our society, like the confederate flag that will mobilize hate.

What did we see on January 6th, 2021 that, uh, demagogue was still accepted and treated as normal by some parts of our institutions. I’m not arguing, uh, for any kind of purge. What I am arguing for is just the. Is a serious recognition, a diagnosis of the ways in which the past, some of the darkest and most dangerous parts of our past are alive and well in our practices, in our institutions normalized in our behavior.

And I’m not for any kind of, um, assignment of guilt to any individual because of what happened in the past, but I am for, uh, assessing our institutions and how they can be reformed. So those elements from the past are not allowed to continue to leech onto them like viruses or like cancerous tumors. And we could start with something like voting.

Why is it, And I’m sure we’ll talk about this on our next podcast, episode part two, but why is it that we are in some ways the largest, we think greatest democracy in the world, but yet, um, we are a country that has some of the most, uh, limited protections for voting. , Why is that? Why is that, that’s an inheritance from this moment, and why have we not changed that?

That’s one of many examples that I’m sure you’ll wanna ask me about next time, Zachary,

[00:38:22] Zachary: Certainly. And, and I hope all of our listeners will join us next time, uh, as we explore this fascinating history, uh, in even more depth. Um, and then hopefully, uh, come up with some, if not solutions, at least paths towards solutions.

Uh, So thank you for joining us,

[00:38:38] Jeremi: but before we close, Zachry, hold on. You didn’t have a chance to say what you thought of our, uh, discussion and anything you disagreed with or you want to add to, Cuz I know you have thoughts on many of the things I talked about.

[00:38:49] Zachary: Well, I, I think that your, your, your history is, is, is certainly, uh, very valuable to, to all of us and I think every American should and, and must interact with this history if they are to think critically about how.

How they are and how they act as, as citizens. Um, and I think it’s a, it’s a crucial point about our democracy is that, uh, it’s, it’s fluid and, and changing in that, uh, we’re responsible at every moment, not just for trying to fix it for the future, but, uh, remembering the mistakes of the past. Uh, and, and in some ways this is the mistake of American history, if you will.

I think a mistake is too weak of a term. This is that moment in history. When the American Democratic Project seems almost a fever dream, and I, I think that it’s important for all of us to take ourselves back to that moment and, uh, be willing to, to, to see our country in that light if only

for a moment.

[00:39:47] Jeremi: Well, and it echoes so much of your poem as well. That’s really, really wonderful. Zachary. It is such a privilege for me to be able to talk about this with you. For our listeners, uh, I hope people will take a look at the book, Uh, Civil War By Other Means, America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy A and Zachary, you’re, you’re willing to do part two next week?

[00:40:06] Zachary: Yep.

[00:40:07] Jeremi: You’ve got more questions,

[00:40:08] Zachary: Many more .

[00:40:09] Jeremi: Oh, I’m sure you do. Thank you Zachary, for being such a wonderful partner. Congratulations again on being, uh, Austin Youth poet laureate,

[00:40:17] Zachary: and congratulations on the book.

[00:40:19] Jeremi: Thank you and thank you, most of all to our listeners for joining us for this week of this is Democracy.

[00:40:33] Outro: This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts Its Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris Kini. Stay tuned for a new episode every week. You can find this is Democracy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

See you next time.