Recently, I had the occasion to watch an interview with Ken Burns, American historian and producer of many riveting documentaries. During this exchange, he stated the following: “You can’t know where you are or where you’re going if you don’t know where you have been.”
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t heard some variation of this before. “History repeats itself,” my dad often said before launching into his admonition of, “You only have to look at the Greeks and Romans to know that great civilizations reach their peak and then begin to decline.”
Said he very bluntly, “They seemingly have nowhere else to go.” My father, in addition to being a labor union president was also a student of history. Thus when I heard Mr. Burns speak, I was intrigued by his take and began to consider what I believe is a major part of the dilemma we face today on the political front, failing to remember our history.
Those with a much better grasp of our nation’s annals than I have delineated know the occasions when our country has been at war with itself. Of course we all learned about the Civil War in school, whatever limited version may have been taught. Additionally, we know our country was birthed by the Revolutionary War. But how many of us know there was only one successful “coup” in our country’s history? Until I began to write this piece and started to do some digging, I certainly didn’t.
First, it is necessary to differentiate between a coup and a revolution. The latter is brought about by a large group of people working to achieve social, economic, and/ or political change. A coup, however, in layman’s terms, is the overthrow of a lawful government by illegal means.
Read the last sentence again and note the italicized words. Our country has seen one successful coup, and that was in 1898 in Wilmington, N.C. A group of white rebels (today they would be called white supremacists) joined forces with area militias to oust “duly elected” black leaders, and, as a result, black political and economic power in a city considered to be ahead of its time was decimated for nearly 100 years. As I read the information I had found in my research, I began to make certain connections to the attempted coup of January 6.
Let me interrupt here and make a point that I find very disturbing, yet understandable, depending upon your political bias. I have encountered several people who try to trivialize January 6 and summarily dismiss the notion that our democracy was at risk. They refer to a “handful of people” and “just a bunch of morons.”
When questioned more closely, they revert to questions rather than answers. “Well, what about Antifa?” seems to be one of the more popular. So again, I did some digging and this is what I found. Between 1994 and 2020 there were 893 incidents that were categorized as terrorist-generated. Fifty-seven percent of those were white supremacist groups, 25% were radical left-wing groups, predominantly Antifa-related, and the remainder were those with other motives. All this said, let me be very clear: I do not accept, much less advocate, violence from either end of the spectrum. We are simply better than that.
And so the overriding question is this: was January 6 an attempted coup? Did our politics go over the edge of disagreement and careen into the realm of the unlawful and illegal? And even greater than this question is, was that event due to spontaneity or rather a premeditated conspiracy?
Sadly, as more information comes to light, it would appear that the latter is the case. Emails and texts reveal that the idea of the seizure of voting machines by the military was considered and would have been put into action had not cooler heads prevailed. It’s common knowledge, too, that pressure was exerted to come up with votes, and conversely, some election officials sought to toss votes away. Any or all of these would have resulted in the “ousting of duly elected leaders,” much like what happened in Wilmington 100-plus years ago.
Surely it becomes apparent that we must not let January 6 become a training exercise for further attempts to negate what we are so lucky to have, flaws and all. Is our government perfect? Not by a long shot, another phrase my Dad would use. Is there any other country where I’d rather live? It never entered my mind until that horrific day as I watched our Capitol being ransacked, learning later that people lost their lives. That was the day I silently looked up and said to my father, “Perhaps you were right all along.”
Now I pray for the sake of my daughters and granddaughters that he was wrong. Only time and the urgency felt by so many of us will tell. Silence is not an option.
Carol Lucas is a retired high school teacher and a Lady’s Island resident.
