“Hurricane of Racism”: Racial Terror in Jacksonville, from Recent Shooting to 1960 Ax Handle Saturday

As the Jacksonville community mourns the loss of three people killed Saturday in a racist shooting, more details are emerging about the white supremacist who went to a Dollar General store looking to target Black people before killing himself. Authorities say he left behind a suicide note and other writings outlining his racist ideology. The 21-year-old gunman had legally bought the two weapons he used in the shooting, including an AR-15-style rifle marked with swastikas. The shooting occurred as thousands gathered in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to mark the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Activists in Jacksonville had also been preparing commemorations of Ax Handle Saturday, when a white mob led by the Ku Klux Klan violently attacked Black civil rights protesters on August 27, 1960. “This hurricane of racism that we’ve been dealing with in the Jacksonville community is not new,” says Jacksonville-based historian and civil rights leader Rodney Hurst, who helped lead desegregation protests in the city during the 1960s.

As the Jacksonville community mourns the loss of three people killed Saturday in a racist shooting, more details are emerging about the white supremacist who went to a Dollar General store looking to target Black people before killing himself. Authorities say he left behind a suicide note and other writings outlining his racist ideology. The 21-year-old gunman had legally bought the two weapons he used in the shooting, including an AR-15-style rifle marked with swastikas. The shooting occurred as thousands gathered in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to mark the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” speech. Activists in Jacksonville had also been preparing commemorations of Ax Handle Saturday, when a white mob led by the Ku Klux Klan violently attacked Black civil rights protesters on August 27, 1960. “This hurricane of racism that we've been dealing with in the Jacksonville community is not new,” says Jacksonville-based historian and civil rights leader Rodney Hurst, who helped lead desegregation protests in the city during the 1960s.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

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