🔎 Vicksburg Massacre: What Congress Found — and Tried to Bury
📝 Inside the Congressional investigation that exposed a coordinated assault on democracy.
First, I want to start by saying thank you to everyone who joined me for From Discord to Harmony: Charting America’s Path to Unity.
Your presence made the event so powerful — and if you missed any of it, you can still get the VIP package (lifetime access to all interviews) at danitajones.com.
As many of you know, I’ve been slowly working my way through the original Congressional Hearing transcripts surrounding the Vicksburg Massacre of 1874 — a pivotal but little-known event in American history.
What I’m sharing today comes directly from the Statement of Facts prepared by the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee, submitted after an official investigation into the events in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
The findings are chilling.
In short:
✅ White citizens in Vicksburg carefully planned to overthrow the legally elected government.
✅ Black officials and voters faced systematic intimidation, violence, and murder.
✅ Testimony showed that Black witnesses were terrified to testify — many had hidden in the woods for weeks out of fear for their lives.
✅ The committee found clear evidence of widespread conspiracy, not random unrest.
One line that stood out to me reads:
"To allow none but white men to be elected to office or hold office."
That was the goal of the "White Line" movement — and it feels hauntingly familiar today, as we witness efforts to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion in public life.
From the start, those fighting for democracy in Vicksburg faced overwhelming odds — not just social hostility, but organized, calculated violence aimed at erasing Black political power. Steven Niven and myself discuss this in my interview series From Discord to Harmony": Charting America’s Path to Unity.” Here’s a clip below.
But back to the Statement of Facts, yet, against this terror, there were voices of bravery. The widows of murdered Black leaders stood up. They testified. They risked everything to tell the truth.
Their courage reminds me that history isn’t just about what was lost — it's also about what was fought for, and is still worth fighting for.
Next Paid Subscriber Zoom:
🗓 Sunday, April 27th
⏰ 2 PM Pacific | 3 PM Mountain | 4 PM Central | 5 PM Eastern
If you're a paid subscriber, you’ll get the private Zoom link an hour before the zoom. We'll continue diving deeper into hidden histories, ways to take action today and thoughts from my series. I would love your feedback.
Coming up next for Paid Subscribers:
🔥 A full deep dive into the Statement of Facts section — with side-by-side analysis of how these tactics to suppress democracy echo into today.
Detailed screengrabs of the most damning findings
My breakdown of the committee’s conclusions
Reflections on what this teaches us about modern threats to democracy
→ Become a paid subscriber to get access to the full breakdown and future installments from the Congressional Hearings.
✍🏽 Learning the truths we were never taught. Acting on the truths we know now.
Thank you for being part of this journey.
Warmly,
Danita