When Will the Witch Hunts End?
We're 40 years past '1984.' And yet...
Welcome back to the This Day In Esoteric Political History newsletter. Each week, a member of our team (or a friend of the show) gathers together bits of America’s past and attempts to find a throughline that might add a little understanding to our current moment.
Today, you’re in the steady hands of This Day historian—and New York Times reviewed author!—Kellie Carter Jackson.
Here’s what happened over the week ahead in American history…
June 6
1719: The first enslaved Africans—approximately 600—are brought to Louisiana from the Senegambia region
1856: Incumbent President Franklin Pierce fails to receive his party’s nomination, as the Democrats put forward James Buchanan instead
1944: Operation Overlord, also known as D-Day, begins
1950: Qian Xuesen is detained and accused of being a Communist. He was ultimately deported to China, where he launched their space program.
June 7
1776: The Lee Resolution is presented to the Continental Congress, proposing independence for the American colonies
1866: Chief Seattle, a prominent Native American leader, dies
1939: King George VI becomes the first British monarch to visit the US
1965: The Supreme Court's decision in Griswold v. Connecticut (7-2) overrules a law banning the use of contraception by married couples
June 8
1789: James Madison introduces a proposed Bill of Rights
1949: George Orwell’s “1984” is published
1968: James Earl Ray is arrested in London for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
1988: Neo-nazi David Duke announces his intention to seek the Democratic nomination for President in 1988.
June 9
1954: Joseph Welch asks US Senator Joseph McCarthy "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" during hearings on whether communism has infiltrated the U.S. armed forces
June 10
1692: The first victim of the Salem witch trials, Bridget Bishop, is hanged for witchcraft in the colony of Massachusetts
1801: Tripoli declares war on the US for refusing tribute, leading to the First Barbary War
1845: Andrew Jackson's African Grey parrot "Poll" is removed from his funeral for swearing
1940: Marcus Garvey dies in London
June 11
1963 : Alabama Governor George Wallace tries to block two black students from entering a building at the University of Alabama
June 12
1987: President Ronald Reagan delivers a famous speech in West Berlin, urging the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall"
2018: The Singapore Summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump takes place
In which we take the above collection of events and find themes, throughlines, rabbit holes and more.
In 1949, Geroge Orwell published his classic and dystopian novel 1984, which delves into a repressive government where there is constant surveillance. The colloquial phrase “Big Brother is watching” came to characterize an overall feeling of hyper political and public scrutiny.
In the novel, war, totalitarianism, propaganda, and distrust have corrupted society. But in many instances, truth can be stranger than fiction. Throughout history, we need not imagine the consequences of a world based on repression. We see these themes play out again and again in real life. This week’s connecting the dots has all the elements of witch hunts—like a literal witch hunt in 1692 when the first victim of the Salem witch trials, Bridget Bishop, was hanged. About 78% of the people accused of witchcraft were women. Puritan leaders believed that women were inherently sinful and therefore easy prey for the devil.
When Marcus Garvey created the Universal Negro Improvement Association, the FBI was adamant that outspoken or militant Black leadership was a threat to the country. The government surveilled Garvey for years and even hired the FBI’s first Black agent to serve as an informant to help undermine and dismantle the UNIA. They succeeded.
In 1950, Qian Xuesen was arrested and accused of being a Communist. Xuesen was a genius and a gifted aerospace engineer. He worked as a full professor at MIT and then at Caltech where he cofounded NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. During the Red Scare, he was suspected of having Communist ties despite having no evidence and ample protests among his colleagues to dismiss any charges. He spent years on house arrest and was eventually deported to China.
It was not until 1954 that Joseph McCarthy’s own witch hunts began to collapse when Army lawyer Joseph Welch called McCarthy out for taking his tactics too far. “Have you no sense of decency, sir?" was a question that needn’t be posed to McCarthy alone. In every case mentioned above the powers that targeted women, Black leaders, or alleged communists were wrong. What does it mean in this country when the first person to be executed for witchcraft is a woman? What does it mean when the first Black FBI agent is hired purely to spy on Black leaders pursuing political and civil rights? What does it mean when a brilliant Chinese aeronautical engineer is deported to prevent him from being a face and mind behind the world’s greatest space and rocket programs? Ultimately, George Orwell is writing about control. His work reminds us that repression, surveillance, censorship, and witch hunts are never the ingredients for a progressive society.
— Kellie Carter Jackson
A Little More Esoterica
If you live in Mass., Atlanta, D.C., or Baltimore, it’s not too late to see Kellie in person on her book tour for We Refuse. Jody & family caught her Wednesday night in Brooklyn.
In between episodes we’re posting more quick thoughts and reactions to historical moments on Instagram and YouTube. Today, Jody took a moment to consider the way D-Day has become a regular time on the calendar to take stock of how America is approaching war, peace, and international relations.
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