The Silent Violence Of The South

In sundown towns, Black folks were relatively free to roam during the day.

Sometimes, the founders and leaders of sundown towns would try to rationalize their treatment of people by talking about the menace of crime that followed Black folks.

That’s the kind of danger that Black people in the American South have historically had to contend with ― and this treatment did not stop with the passing of the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.

But for American people whose skin was kissed by the sun, there have always been other forms of violence as well.

But the most pervasive form of violence in the South was what I like to call silent viciousness.

My cousins and I would run wild in the country those summers, but every time a white person would visit my grandmother’s house, we would have to be quiet and, as my grandmother would say, “act like we had some sense.” If ever we were in a store and came across white people, even ones we did not know, we had to call them “Mr.” or “Miss.” Noticing that we didn’t extend the same courtesy to Black folks, I once asked my grandmother why we had to do that.

See, somewhere around 1865, after the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, white folks ― sensing they no longer wielded quite as much power as they used to ― created Black codes.

“Black people know that if things are upset too much, if they speak out too loudly, physical violence is not far behind.”.

Black folks were in a subservient position, and white people continued their reign of terror.

There are many ways the American South communicates to Black folks that we are only tolerated, not welcomed.

Despite all this, Black people in the South were still expected to treat white people with deference, and most Black folks quietly went along.

Black people know that if things are upset too much, if they speak out too loudly, physical violence is not far behind.

We have focused so much on police killings, and other forms of overt violence that permeate Black American city life, that we have lost sight of the silent viciousness that colors every waking moment of Black life in the rural South

Sundown towns, Black codes and the silent violence of the South still exist