That one time when the USA was anti-racist

Banned Histories of Race in America

Did you know that Georgia was the last state to rejoin the Union after the Civil War? Did you know that eight months after rejoining, Georgia actually got kicked back out of the Union? That’s right. Guess why. Believe it or not, it was because Georgia was too racist. Really.

It all came about because of a bipartisan deal struck by both white democrats and white republicans in Georgia’s General Assembly. They had diplomatically reached across the aisle to expel 28 of their fellow members for being at least one-eighth Black.

Naturally, there were protests. White law enforcement in Camilla, GA responded to one of those protests by ambushing and murdering Black Georgians in what was called the Camilla Massacre. That’s when the US Congress voted to bar Georgia’s representatives from their seats and put the state under military occupation.