This weekend the st. paul ame church in jacksonville held a nd vigil for victims of this weekend s racist mass shooting in jacksonville by this man with the swastikas on his gun. i should tell you that is the same congregation, the same ame congregation that gave shelter to black men and women and kids who were hunted by the ax handle wielding mobs this same weekend 63 years ago in jacksonville in 1960. this same weekend neo-nazis spread anti-semitic flyers attacking jews again in macon, georgia. also this weekend neo-nazi group turned out in a show of force in woburn, massachusetts to menace and intimidate immigrant families living there. we are a week out from a man with a history of far right to postings on social media shooting and killing a woman in san bernadino, california because she flew a pride flag
Contain themselves and it turned into just a free for all. and, yes, the naacp youth council was set upon, airman second class alton yates was cracked across the skull. they also just went after everybody who was black in wh downtown jacksonville that day including women and kids and men who had nothing to do with the demonstration at all who were just passersby. this photo appeared in life magazine at the time. you see that young man bloodied and dazed. he actually was not an activist. he had not been part of the lunch counter sit-ins at all. his name was charlie griffin. he was just a high school junior, just a bystander. but they went after him, too. and with images like this coming out of jacksonville, you can see why this explosion of racist violence on august 27th in
Person they could find in jacksonville that day and that night and the night after. ax handle saturday. this weekend on saturday in washington, d.c. there was a big commemoration of the 60th at anniversary of the march on washington. 60 years since a quarter million americans came to washington to press peacefully for civil rights. march on washington is of course one of the red letter, most important days in american history. it s just a moral apex moment for this country that still would be remembered as such even if it hadn t provided the setting for one of the most important and beloved speeches in the modern world. the i have a dream speech from martin luther king. but as that 60th anniversary of the march on washington was celebrated this weekend and today in washington, in jacksonville this weekend they were also marking the
Anniversary of ax handle saturday. both of those anniversaries coincided with today s news with a young white man with swastikas etched on his ar-15 heading into a black neighborhood dollar store in jacksonville, florida and opening fire. at least according to one local official the young man told white people they should leave the store that he was about to shoot up. and then he kept shooting specifically at black people. he killed two young african a american men and an african american woman before police say he then shot himself. local authorities announced just tonight that they are finishing up going through the various racist manifestos that he left behind so they can get those released to the public in the interest of transparency. do we really need those released to the public? i do not know. we will get some expert help on
I tend to think we might easilyh release the manifestos to experts who can analyze them and decode without circulating them publicly and get sort of the best of both options. the jacksonville sheriff has said publicly that he doesn t think the shooter was part of a larger group. that he acted alone. as you mentioned obviously thern is a lot we still don t know here. i wanted to ask you about this sort of lone wolf idea because you ve written a lot about this and i feel like your take on this is important for people to absorb at a popular level. sure. if the shooter did espouse white supremacist beliefs can you explain why it might be dangerous or even wrong to dismiss that as a lone wolf event based on the fact that he acted a is a single person when he went out shooting? absolutely. this is why we need the manifesto. when we consume stories of this violence as a lone wolf,