Individuals and groups have often accused the U.S. government of denying their rights, and some of those accusations were irrefutable—as in the century between Appomattox and Selma, when the rights of Black Americans were denied throughout the South with the connivance of Washington. In 1861, the Confederacy declared the government in Washington illegitimate and fired the first shots of the Civil War, not because any rights had been taken away from southern states—not even the right to hold human beings in bondage—but because they hated and feared Abraham Lincoln and his Republican Party. Residents undergo training in nonviolent resistance, which demands courage, wisdom, and restraint; they bring food to those hiding at home, escort children to school, and stand watch outside; they blow whistles and send out alerts on encrypted chats to signal the presence of ICE vehicles, and follow them; they try to de-escalate confrontations (sometimes with the opposite result), provide medical aid to the injured, and shame masked agents in military gear who seem poorly trained and undisciplined compared with the civilians.
Author: George Packer
Published at: 2026-01-27 22:21:04
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