The news is recently filled with images of protests triggered by the murders of black teens by white police. However, reports about the similarities between these happenings and the Civil Rights protests 50 years ago are tightly controlled and focused on fantasies of reconciliation without retribution. It’s as if we’re suddenly all supposed to wake up one shiny day and just get along as if all of the oppression and violence and murder never happened.

One way this is accomplished is by narrowing the scope of the Civil Rights movement to a tight focus on Martin Luther King Jr. and his peaceful marching hand-in-hand with wonderful white folks who were part of the solution. I’ve no interest in diminishing King or his accomplishments or the philosophy of non-violence, but why is Malcolm X marginalized by comparison? How come Huey Newton is a footnote? Why have most Americans never heard of Robert Franklin Williams? Here’s the Wiki…

Robert Franklin Williams (February 26, 1925 – October 15, 1996) was an American civil rights leader and author, best known for serving as president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP in the 1950s and early 1960s. At a time when racial tension was high and official abuses were rampant, Williams was a key figure in promoting armed black self-defense in the United States.

Williams helped gain gubernatorial pardons for two African-American boys convicted for molestation in the controversial Kissing Case of 1958. He also succeeded in integrating the public library and the public swimming pool in Monroe. He obtained a charter from the National Rifle Association and set up a rifle club, which became active defending blacks from Ku Klux Klan nightriders. He used the NAACP to support Freedom Riders who came to Monroe in the summer of 1961. That year he and his wife were forced to leave the United States to avoid prosecution for kidnapping, on charges trumped up during violence related to white opposition to the Freedom Ride. The kidnapping charges came after a white couple sought shelter in Williams’ home when they were confronted by black protesters while driving through Monroe’s black community. A self-professed Black Nationalist, Williams lived in both Cuba and The People’s Republic of China during his exile.

Williams’ book Negroes with Guns (1962) details his experience with violent racism and his disagreement with the pacifist wing of the Civil Rights Movement. The text was widely influential; Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton cited it as a major inspiration. Rosa Parks gave the eulogy at Williams’ funeral in 1996, praising him for “his courage and for his commitment to freedom”, and concluding that “The sacrifices he made, and what he did, should go down in history and never be forgotten.”

In this 1961 interview during Williams’ exile in Dar Es Salaam, Williams outlines his philosophy and tells the story of his remarkable life and times.

Was casting about for some weirdness to post here when I got into a quick chat with Chris Charbonneau on Facebook. A few quick clicks around on his page uncovered a paranormal phenomenon that I wasn’t familiar with: It’s a story about America’s haunted history of racism and violence that may have resulted in an actual haunting at an abandoned bridge in Texas involving a mysterious tragedy that took place one dark night back in 1967.

Here’s the back story from the Goatman’s Bridge site…

Goatman’s Bridge Hunting the Goat Man
November 15th 1967: police discover an abandoned car beside Old Alton Bridge, five miles south of Denton, Texas. A rash of mysterious disappearances are becoming alarmingly routine on a chilling stretch of road that is known by locals as “the Goatman’s bridge.”

Constructed in 1884, the bridge connected Lewisville to Alton. The turn of the century brought a black goat farmer and his family to a residence just North of the bridge, and a few short years later, Oscar Washburn was known as a dependable, honest businessman. North Texans endearingly began to call him the Goat man. But the success of a black man was still unwelcome, and Klansmen in the local government turned to violence after he displayed a sign on Alton Bridge: “this way to the Goat man’s”

One night in August 1938, with their headlights off, Klansmen crossed the bridge, dragged the Goat man from his family, and lynched him over the side. Peering over into the water, his murderers saw a rope, but not his body. In a panic, the Klansman returned to the Washburn residence, and killed his family in cold blood.

Since the disappearance of the Goat man there have been many strange sightings on and near Old Alton Bridge. Some say his spirit still haunts these woods. Locals tell the story and follow it with a warning: those who cross the bridge with no headlights will be met on the other side by the Goat man.

Here’s a short documentary about the Old Alton Bridge and the spirit of the centaur that guards it…

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more occult posts.

This week: Ken gets all nerdy about the Star Wars Episode VII cast announcement, The KKK gets all neighbourly and then sleeps with a gay black guy, Bees are little bastards!, Balls of purity, More fascism in the UK, Dem Vampire Ants be all up in my yard, E.T.’s sordid past, Locke and load, and Trippin’ in Italy.

Personnel – Joe Nolan, Frater Isla, and Ken Eakins

Links

• STAR WARS Ep VII CAST ANNOUNCED!!! – Link
• KKK Starts Neighborhood Watch Link
• Ken’s Fascist Corner: KKK Grand Dragon’s gay black man past. – Link
• Worst place to be stung by a bee Link
• Purity Balls Link
• Ken’s Fascist Corner: EDL march in Brighton turns ugly…who saw that one coming? – Link
• Dracula Ants Discovered in Madagascar Link
• Atari’s Shame Unearthed Link
• Locke film review Link
• The Trip is back

Interlude

• Ugly Duckling – Left Behind