The Dark History of White Reaction to Black Protest

As we observe what I will call the Trumpian conservative and white moderate reaction to the current Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and movement, it helps to contextualize historically the nature of that reaction. When we do, we find that conservative and moderate white reaction is persistently critical of, and unresponsive to, black civil rights and social justice movements. At its worst, such white reaction has amplified the original historical dehumanizing offense against African Americans. In more modern history, the reaction has consistently sought both to deny the claims of black protest and to distort the public impression of social justice movements by identifying them with their worst, excessive manifestations.

What is historically notable about current BLM protests, though not entirely unique, is the level of white acknowledgment and support, but this active sympathetic support comes largely from liberal and left-leaning white people. Outspoken critical reaction, as has been historically usual, arises from the conservative right and from often self-identified moderates.

Of course, the first reaction to black protest, against the original crime of slavery itself — to what might be broadly described as the abolitionist movement — was the Civil War itself, for which the ideological front was “states’ rights.” Famous leaders of that reaction in…