Previously, I took the view that there were three periods of Reconstruction on the South. The First Reconstruction began in 1865 at Appomattox and ended in 1877 with the withdrawal of the last Reconstruction soldiers from Dixie. The Second Reconstruction began in 1954 with Brown v Board of Education and ended in 1972 when George Wallace forced Richard Nixon to embrace an anti-busing position, something I previously outlined here. The Third Reconstruction began in 2015 with the Charleston Church shooting and is going on to this day, having picked up considerable steam in the past few months. However, the more I study, the more I am convinced that there are actually four Reconstruction periods. The first two Reconstructions remain unchanged, but I now realize that there was a Third Reconstruction during the 1990s, beginning in 1991 and ending in 2001. What I previously considered the Third Reconstruction is actually the Fourth Reconstruction (our present situation).
The true Third Reconstruction began in 1991, one of the most important years in human history. It is this year that the Soviet Union fell and Marxists had to abandon their economic focus and shift fully to the Culture War – embracing anti-racism (anti-Western civilization), feminism (anti-masculinity) and the alphabet soup identities (anti-procreation). It was also that year that, with the fall of the Soviet Union, globalism was left unchallenged . In the U.S., 1991 would also see the emergence of the Clinton takeover of the Democratic Party, completing the transformation of what was the pro-worker, pro-Dixie, virtually Christian Democratic Party of my grandfather to a party that was willing to sell out workers for free trade and celebrate infanticide. And, more directly related to Dixie, it was this same year the NAACP issued a proclamation condemning the use of the Confederate flag.
Part of the reason I didn’t think the 1990s constituted the Third Reconstruction was how idyllic that time period appeared to be when I was growing up. It was a world where the Old South still lived, Confederate flags were commonplace, and we still had men like M.E. Bradford with us. “Unreconstructed” was a compliment in those days. But, as I have studied the era with clearer eyes, I realize things were not as rosy as they appeared to be. It was a decade of several significant terrorist attacks, a ton of racial tension, and horrific school shootings just to name a few. It was also a time when the Republican Party began to win elections, outside the presidency, with some consistency in Dixie. While a surface level critique would suggest that this was simply the result of the national Democratic Party moving leftward and that Dixie just replaced conservative Democrats with conservative Republicans, the truth is much more complicated as there was a distinct difference between the conservative Democrats of Dixie’s past and the conservative Republicans of the 1990s onward. The former was a conservatism of a particular people and their preservation, the latter was a conservatism of corporate profits and military spending.
It was during the 1990s that these newly elected Republicans began to dole out the incentives to come to Dixie, under the auspices of “creating jobs” and being “pro-business.” It worked for a while, but with this job growth came new people that did not share our values. Until the 1980s, virtually the entire native population of Dixie could claim membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans or the United Daughters of the Confederacy, now we’re being pushed out by newcomers to such a point that we joke if Atlanta is even still in the South, and how in Florida the farther south you go, the further “north” you get.
Moreover, it was also during this time that colleges and universities began to be completely taken over en masse. Southern universities were known for their conservatism, particularly Ole Miss and Auburn. This is why universities in the North and the West Coast burned with radicalism in the 1960s, and Dixie was able to escape relatively untouched. But, there was a takeover that really picked up steam in the 1990s that began to subvert the culture of Dixie, as university after university fell to the Left, especially in the history departments where a narrative of Dixian guilt could be implanted into the minds of a whole generation of Southerners.
As part of this shift came the first mainstream, public attacks on Confederate iconography. Sure, we took some causalities, like the changing of the Georgia state flag, but for the most part, we were victorious on these fronts. Take for example the changing of the Georgia state flag. It was changed, but changing it, and doing so in the manner in which it was done, cost Roy Barnes his job and we ended up replacing his “Denny’s placemat” with a flag based on the First National. When the Third Reconstruction ended in 2001 with the events of 9/11, the Empire shifted its focus abroad and the Democrats, fearing another backlash as they had in Georgia, stopped with the open attacks on the South.
It looks as if we had escaped another Reconstruction relatively intact, and this time with far less open fighting than had been done to end the previous two Reconstructions. What victories our enemies did gain were hard fought and often Pyrrhic in nature, as it normally came with major concessions and ended up drawing more people into the pro-Southern movement. Plus, the lessons of the Soviet Union were still fresh in everyone’s mind – great empires could still fall. If Ukraine could be free, then why not Dixie? It would appear that if there was a planned Third Reconstruction, it backfired spectacularly, only convincing more of us of our nationhood. It felt as if the real issue was the aftermath of the events of 9/11, i.e. the surge in U.S. patriotism, a sense of the “America United” and the subsequent disaster in the Middle East that paved the way for Obama.
Now I see that what occurred in the 1990s helped create the political climate of today and what victories we did gain was merely an illusion. We lost because we allowed the subtle subversion of our culture to take place, the fruits of which are being felt today. I liken what happened during the 1990s to AIDS. When the body is first infected with the HIV virus, the person will have flu like symptoms for two weeks before they recover. That’s when the virus is working its way into the body. Years later, the problems really start as the immune system has been ravished. And, such is the case with Dixie (along with the rest of America). The battles we were fighting were small potatoes compared to what had gone on before, but it was even more destructive in many ways as it destroyed the long-term ability for Dixie to push back.
When future historians write about how efficient the Fourth Reconstruction was, I think the events of the 1990s will be seen as particularly important. Yes, I know the history of the Fourth Reconstruction has yet to be completed, but it isn’t looking good and that they were able to push things this far is remarkable and frankly frightening. It would have been unthinkable at any point in the past and it didn’t come out of the blue, it was simply the 1990s baring fruit. It was the era when we were promised that in exchange for assimilation, we could become wealthy. Far too many of our people took it, especially the politically well-connected. Due to the problems of that decade, Dixie was unable to produce a new generation of leadership to guide her during tough times, and boy are these ever tough times. The 1990s may have looked great at the time, but good times don’t forge strong men – were living through that now. The good news is that tough times do forge strong men.
Keep the faith. We’re not dead yet.
-By Harmonica
O I’m a good old rebel, now that’s just what I am. For this “fair land of freedom” I do not care at all. I’m glad I fit against it, I only wish we’d won, And I don’t want no pardon for anything I done.
I grew up in the 80-90’s and believe me a lot was happening that has never been talked about, I am glad to see others starting to take note. I grew up in Baton Rouge and watched the decline snowball. We Southerners dont even live there anymore. The last hold outs being St. George who is only holding out because they fought for their own municipality and broke away from BR, who tried every dirty trick to force them to stay and continued to be robbed. Baton Rouge went from a small sleepy Southern Collage town to a overcrowded African/Yankee slum during the 90’s. Now companies from all over the world use it as a model to study “Diversity”. LSU is full blown Marxist teacher lounge trash with half the students being yankees, a hell of a lot of forigeners and yankee squatters pretending to be Southerners, who it is obvious are not after talking to them for 60 seconds. All surrounded by african slums, squatting down in crumbling, rotting homes left over from my grandfather’s time and the G.I. bill, pushed right up next to yankee built apartment blocks meant to shove as many poor college students in to each square foot as possible and of course the countless Federal housing projects. Every day murder, drugs (namely herion and meth), corrupt cops and courts…. Its just a shit hole now. My grandfather taught at LSU, now he would be ashamed. He went from nobody even bothered to lock their doors, to we had to buy big dogs for the yard because people from the Soviet style housing project apartment blocks the Federal government built in our sleepy neighborhoods would jump our fence to steal and break in the house. My mom’s friend, an old lady, was beaten to death on her porch for no reason, we were no longer even allowed to ride our bikes after awhile and we fell asleep to gun shots every night. All that change in the length of one childhood. My teachers were super racist, not all but even the ones who were not could never hope to give me a Southerner’s education, they were Africans teaching out of yankee books.
Which brings me to the thing that I feel is always left out in our disscusions, and a major part of this phase of Reconstruction you are beginning to identify, the horrors of desegregation and those hell holes they shoved us into. Generations of Southern mothers with no help or resources, working all day scrambling all night to try and keep us from going to the worst of the indoctrination camps. A Federal Judge for a school board and the 9th circut if we did not like it. I rode a bus 2 hours, each way, just to be subjected to the worst, most destructive “education” in the country at the hands of people who were taught everyday in school and out to hate us and that we should hate ourselves too. The whole time not a voice to counter them? Where were our people? We felt so abandoned, and I guess we were. That to me is the core of the evil that happened during this era of Reconstruction, and you are correct, it was meant break us and make us unable to help our people when we came of age. It worked. It was violence on a scale that is hard to understand for a lot of people, my schoolmates, 90% violent aficans with leather African medallions around their necks and malcom X hats on their heads, us having to go everywhere in groups, if you were ever alone you got jumped, or worse. The countless black power rallies in the gym, lead by speakers from Southern University, the all black collage in Baton Rouge, with us all in a group by the exit because at some point they always got excited and started as a mob towards us. The teachers would try and run us out, sometimes they were successful, sometimes not and we had to fight. We fought every day, every single day and you were always outnumbered. Everybody joined gangs, you had to. Meanwhile my peoples flag was banned, in our own home, its not like I ever heard from any of them anyway, no counter to the poision they were teaching. Baton Rouge schools were rated worst in the country year after year and we had zero control of them or choice of where to go. Federal thugs would arrest your patents if you stopped going. They were glatatoir pits, not schools. Through out the entire 1990’s phrases we heard like, “per capita murder capital of the world” is just a phrase, mere words, the reality of our life in Baton Rouge was far worse. I am very lucky to be alive, I did not bother planning for the future because I assumed I would be dead like so many of my friends were and we all shared that mentality. That time is something that must be folded into our history, to expand our understanding and gain a lot of “lessons learned”, it was so impactful on our people that I am not sure the scope of it could ever be quantified. Those schools were hell. Our Southern mothers went through hell fighting those Federal Judges and their “schools”, yet it never seems to be brought up. Why? Every time homeschooling and vouchers get brought up online I always point out they have the South to thank for that even exsiting, it was a hard fight. Those mothers deserve some statues.
My last point is this, and is one I bring up often here and other places. What good was all of that if we just homeschool with the same yankee curriculum? Why do we not still have our own codified and unified homeschool curriculum, written by us, truely us, just for us? Our people, our history, written from our view, just for us? That could have saved so many of us then, to at least have something to balance the lies. It has to be plug and play, reading lists wont cut it, we as a people are at the end of our rope. We dont have the time, resources or thanks to those schools, the good old-fashioned know how. It must be something our streched thin people can easily log into and go from A to B, it has to be that simple. That fight was for nothing if we let yankees or their carpetbagging transplants write our story. The damage has been done, with each generation we have a chance to reverse that, to learn to feel pride rather than the yankee curriculum of shame and self loathing. We need capable men, our men, not squatters, Africans, Mexicans, Yankees, Jews or aliens from outer space. No matter their intentions they could never give us a Southern education, that takes true Southerners who have shared our long journey. Without truly gaining the education our Southern mothers fought so hard to one day have for us, a truly Southern education written with a true Southerner’s understanding, then it will all have been for nothing.
If you do delve further into this era that you have discovered and rightly identified, I have a feeling you will find those schools to be the largest vein of material you could ever ask for. Federal tyranny was not confined to our schools there was much, much more. I dont know where you will find it though, its not like our people were writing it down. You wont see any movies of the week about us and what we were being subjected to.
Really good article, you are certainly on to something here. If you decide to look harder, I can tell you from experience that Baton Rouge is a fine place to start. There is also a lot of bussiness data you can draw from there, I was not joking when I said that all of the business world wide use Baton Rouge as a case study on “diversifying” environments. I hope the murder of our home and sacrifices of our mothers will not have been for nothing. There are lessons to be learned from it and counter measures to be developed. Thank you again, keep on writing sir.
@Michael…
I read your tragic biographical report on your life as a Southern youth in Baton Rouge to my wife.
For whatever it is worth, my wife and I underwent the same thing in different parts of Dixie in the 1960s and early 70s.
My school in Raleigh, North Carolina was, after many court battles, finally integrated in 1971, and it became a rough unruly place with double size classes. Fortunately my daddy had the money and they sent me to the very best Christian private school the next year.
My wife, from the Black Belt in Southeastern Alabama was not so fortunate – her daddy a near-do-well trucker who could not, and or would not, provide the money, so my wife wound up in school as one of a very few White Girls in a school, because, in the span of one year, all the White kids abandoned the public school and went to one private .
Really, as a child we underwent all of this in an unquestioning way, though, since then, I consider it a damn scandal that our parents and grandparents allowed this to happen to us.
I consider it a damn scandal that it still goes on today, and, though I do not wish to discomfort the site-managers here at Identity Dixie, I am ready, and have long been ready, to carry a gun and set this matter, and many other matters, to right.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of our fellow Southerners are scared out of their wits, and when you think such a thing, much less say it, they get bug-eyed and whisper behind you’re back about what an ‘extremist’ you are.
For whatever it is worth – I consider my fellow Southerners ‘the extremists’ … extremely slack and unworthy to be called ‘Southerners’, but, then again, they don’t call themselves that anymore, but, just ‘Americans’.
If you think like me, it’s a hard time to be alive, because you remember when Southerners had such a strong sense of self, what was right, and some guts.
Today, I ashamed of my fellow Southerners, as a group – absolutely ashamed.
I do not respect cowardice, because it means that thing like what you underwent in Baton Rouge, a horror far beyond what any Southern child ought endure, will continue to be the rule.
No child left behind, is what I say – no Southern Child, that is.
My sincerest condolences to you for having been born into a group of political no-accounts.
If you don’t hate it, I hate it for you.
Michael, you wrote:
I have a good friend, Tom – one of the ‘straightest shooters’ you could ever have the good fortune to be friends with – who, throughout the initial phases of the Obama presidency, would get worked up about some something or other Obama was doing or saying and go on these tirades about why “someone doesn’t do something about that sumbitch [meaning Obama]!!!” One day, after having been subjected to Tom’s harangues on the subject as many times as I could take without saying anything in response, I simply asked, “Tom, why don’t YOU do something about him?” To which he basically answered, ‘uh, uh, well, uh, because well, uh.’ I simply replied, “thought so.” Point made.
Likewise, I ask you, Michael, why don’t YOU write a codified, unified homeschool curriculum, of, by, and for our people? I’ve written such curriculums before (for my own kids), and can assure you that it’s hard work, that involves a LOT scholarly research. If you’re not especially a scholar, then it is doubly hard. I didn’t like Obama either (in reference back to my friend, Tom), but I also knew he couldn’t have done shit without the support of Congress, if you know what I mean.
@Mr. Morris…
I agree with your urging Michael to be pro-active for our people and culture, but, I would remind you that what you are suggesting is not only an overwhelming huge endeavour, you must have the proper intellectual background to do such a thing.
Most people don’t have that, nor the time and energy, so maybe we ought encourage Michael to begin a Southern Homeschool Movement on social media that will raise consciousness, and then lead to raising the funds that will allow Michael and his board to find those who could do this.
In the end, we have to get very organized, well-financed, and set about the business of doing these things.
I have been busy on my end, some of my activities well known to those here.
God be with you and yours!
It’s worth mentioning that in Mississippi the Rebel Flag was banned from Ole Miss games during the 90’s.
Did the industrialization of Southern local economies by American corporations have any impact on local populations and culture?
it’s right in the article, although perhaps this industrialization kinda started during the 2nd Reconstruction. by the time of the 3rd one, the low taxes Republicans brought in industry from overtaxed and overunionized blue states; which did cause a sorta economic boom in the South, specially in the states with lotsa sun and real estate.
however, the GOP also brought lotsa carpetbaggers, Mexicans, yellows, bindis and other spicy flavors: either as underpaid managers handling stuff for overpaid Yanks in Wall Street that shun Southerners, or underpaid black and Mexican labor that competed with the white Southern working class. the wealth for upper and middle class Southerners was worth it to them in the short run; although the influx of graduate Yanks and foreigners driving up prices meant these gains got lost as the economy got expensive again – but not to worry, just spin the credit wheel. meanwhile the Southern working class lost union influence which could have helped keep most of the wealth in the territory, as opposed to keeping it to carpetbaggers/foreigners and degenerate urbanites. meanwhile the relations between the races became ever more unstable, as by comparison blacks and browns got some jobs, better gibs, and Clinton gave them tons of credit. the Reps all-encompassing answer was “cut taxes”, without noticing that the spending kept increasing and in disfavor of the local white/rural Southern populations.
and that’s not even counting the terrible cultural and social atmosphere Southern whites suffered as (dis)integration became the norm, as explained in the small memoir above about Baton Rouge childhood. this decay was perhaps fueled and was fueled by the economic insufficiency of poor traditional Southern whites that became frustrated and just lost their traditions, changing church for fentanyl; and the concurrent temporary worldly affluence of the suburban and urban Southerners that just ditched everything and became Americans that eat Chick-fil-A and watch Nascar and SEC football. both trends harmed the Southern ethnic consciousness tremendously, to the point that after 9/11 the Yank cowboy Dubya put on his best accent and convinced many Southerners to die in the sands of Iraq and the hills of Afghanistan for the sake of military worship. since then Southerners are Americans pretty much, at least to my outsider view. who knows if the events since that black church shooting will awake enough of them, others seem to run for the hills more than ever and kneel to the colored and/or foreign. a lot needs to be done, from the urgent saving of symbols to the continued diffusion of Southern values and ethnoconsciousness.
Yes, and the author talks about the capture of higher education. I am wondering if industrialization itself had an impact on the culture of the local people. Did it erode their virtues of independence, or were such virtues already absent?