AN OKIE'S RACIAL RECKONINGS--it is finished aside from tinkering and proofing--probably won't be published

 

Copyright 12 April 2023-Hershel Parker

"Reckoning with a History Fraught with Violence and Injustice"

        In the Washington Post on 22 November 2021 Ken Burns wrote: "Being an American means reckoning with a history fraught with violence and injustice. Ignoring that reality in favor of mythology is not only wrong but also dangerous. The dark chapters of American history have just as much to teach us, if not more, than the glorious ones, and often the two are intertwined.”  Reckoning with history is precisely what I have been doing for almost three years, starting just after the murder of George Floyd. An Okie's Racial Reckonings is my private part of the national "history fraught with violence and injustice"--but sometimes tempered with understanding and what passes with us for glory.

 

AN OKIE'S RACIAL RECKONINGS

HERSHEL PARKER

        PREFACE

1     "GODDAMN OKIES"—HOW "OKIE" BECAME A HATE TERM

 

2   WHO THE OKIES REALLY WERE

 

  3   OLD FAMILY STORIES NONE OF US KNEW

4      RACIAL DOCUMENTS—In Wills, in Advts. for                               Runaways &c.

  5    CAROLINA KINFOLKS AND THE WAR ON THE                                       CHEROKEES 1758-1783

6      JEFFERSON, COCKE, INDIAN TREATIES, & THE SIMS SETTLERS

7      ERRATIC OBLIVIOUSNESS AT TRAP HILL: THE SIAMESE TWINS, THE ROARING RIVER BAPTISTS, THE UNIONISTS, THE REBEL GESTAPO, & THE SLAUGHTER OF YOUNG MEN BOUND FOR UNION LINES

8    1850s UTAH AS A MILITARY THEOCRACY: ROBBERIES, MURDERS, & THE ULTIMATE AMERICAN ATROCITY

9     SLAUGHTERING FAMILIES FOR PARLEY, BRIGHAM, & JESUS—BUT HOLDING SOME LITTLE CHILDREN FOR RANSOM

10    WHITES,  INDIANS,  & NEGROES—THE TRAJECTORY OF AN INNOCENT TEXAN, JESSE  SPARKS

11     ATROCITIES IGNORED (GRANT'S EXPULSION OF "JEWS & OTHER VAGRANTS") & ATROCITIES FABRICATED (COUSIN MILTON "SENTENCED TO BE HANGED")

12   FLETCHER HILL—ESCAPE HERO, PROMOTER OF VETERANS

13   CAPT. J. H. MATTHEWS, STAR WITNESS FOR THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU WHOSE LIES BECAME HISTORY

14    RECONSTRUCTION FOES: ALBION TOURGEE VS MONTFORD MCGEHEE

15    COUSIN WILLY SIMS CAUSES THE DANVILLE MASSACRE—& CAUSES JIM CROW?

16     AT WOUNDED KNEE: SHERMAN'S SHAME & DICK COSTNER'S GALLANTRY

17   A WHITE KENTUCKY MARTYR TO WHITE RACISM

18    THE GLENN-TUCKER LAWSUIT: CHOCTAW OPPRESSION OUTLASTING THE CONFEDERACY BY DECADES

19    ONE BAD COP & THE "LARGEST MURDER TRIAL IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES."

20  DOVEY COSTNER—BEING BLACK IN THE CAROLINAS, TEXAS, INDIAN TERRITORY, AND OKLAHOMA