When the KKK Murdered My Childhood Friend | Robert Reich

As the shortest kid in school, I was an easy target for bullies. When I was about eight, I befriended a kind teenager who looked out for me. 60 years ago, he was murdered by the Klan for registering Black voters in Mississippi. Let me tell you about my friend, Mickey.

[flea]

My best friend in 1985 was found hanging from a tree in Concord, CA by wanna be Klans men. His murder was ruled as a suicide, and no one ever was caught, still till this day for his murder. Cigarette burns on his face and hands? But, he committed suicide??? He was obviously Black, and was gay. NAACP, the gay community, everyone came out in protest. It was rumored that one of the men was connected to the local police department. Timothy Lee is his name, and he would have been 62 this year. It's such a long story... There's people in California now demanding his case be reopened.

[DJ-xpbs]

The fact none of them served more than 6 years is disgusting

[abba]

Don’t even call this bullying. Call it hatred and call it evil

[LightsOn]

I am a 71 yo white woman. I grew up in Alabama and witnessed horrific acts. My best friend called me one day crying because she had found a KKK uniform in her father’s closet. He was a mason and touted as a town leader. Now I cringe every time I hear the word Mason. I left at 18 and only returned for my mom’s funeral and a couple others. I refused to bring my children there as I did not want them to be exposed to such hatred. When my Mom died the 6 grandchildren were to be pallbearers. my older sister refused to allow my niece, whom my Mom loved, fill that role because she is gay. She did this even though our younger gay sister, now deceased, was brutally beaten and raped and the cops refused to arrest her attacker because she “deserved” it. My older sister now denies our sister was gay. I rarely speak to her now or any of my remaining siblings as they are all Trump supporters, self proclaimed “Christians” and tout his rhetoric against immigrants and people of color. With Trump and Gov Ivy it keeps getting worse. I don’t try to reason with them anymore as it is useless. just try to live my life with love and acceptance and be an example and hope that love will win out in the end.❤

[riochime]

The fact that this man isn’t even this old and has a story like this is terrifying.

[monkeyking]

It is sickening how many people think this is "just history" and not happening today

[aileenpi]

Bullies and self righteous racists are the worse.

[smileyfacism]

This isn't bullying, this is pure fucking evil. This stuff isn't just history, the wounds are still fresh, not even healed into scars. It's still happening right now.

Thanks for getting your story out there Mr. Reich.

[somestuffithoughtyoumightl]

We mistakenly believe that bullies will disappear after our school days, but they don’t disappear, they seek out jobs as adults that enable them to continue to take out their fears and self loathing on others.

[The-Central-Scrutinizer]

Professor Reich I too have lost a childhood friend to white supremacists for being Asian back in the 1980s. RIP Jay Won Park. Your memory lives on through me and those who did that horrible thing to you got swift justice.

[yahshua]

It’s crazy that people will watch something like this and continue to deny that racism of any kind exists in our country. We still have family and friends that lived through these rough times and can tell their stories. Thank you for sharing yours!

[lorenfranz]

I just looked up Michael Schwerner, who was murdered on June 21, 1964, along with James Chaney and Andrew Goodman. This happened just three days shy of 60 years ago. I'm so sorry for your loss!

[sovelissskirata]

"And when they came for me there was no one left to speak on my behalf."

There's a reason why we need to stand up to bullies.

[railrodemike]

I still remember my father running a klan member off our property in 1963 after the klan member asked my father to join the klan. My father dispized Nazis and the KKK. A week later the klan guy and a cop were standing on our doorstep 900PM on a Sunday night. We had just arrived from my grandparents that lived in the Witchta Mountains 25 miles away. The klan member accused me age 12 of breaking into his store and stealing pop and candy on a friday night. My mother asked the cop into our home. She dialed the phone and called my grandparents. She then ordered the cop to ask my grandfather where I had been the past week. Grandpa told the cop I had been visting with them all that week and just left earlier that evening for my parents' home. The cop angry shoved passed the klan member member in his car and died away. My father then told the klan member to get off his property again.

[ifergot]

Im tired of how these child-like adults have brought their hate into the world. It's not that hard to be nice to someone. It's a basic manner you are taught as a child. Treat others you would like to be treated.

[RichardPepperman-kkyb]

I met a man who was a WWIi veteran. He served in Italy and France, with an American Tank Company. In 1945 he was assigned as a guard to take German POWs to the United States via ship, and then to a prisoner of war camp in Georgia, by train.
When the train was South of Maryland he could no longer use the bathroom or water fountain that the German soldiers could use. He was a Black American.

Thank You Mr Reich.

[Stanley-pxbt]

I was born in 1968 to a black father and a white mother. I was born after the civil rights movement, so the level of racism I have experienced was far less severe than the racism experienced at the height of the civil rights movement and before. I often think about those brave warriors like Mickey, who put their lives on the line and even died to make the world a better place. I salute Mickey, a true hero.

[michaelgeist]

See also "Mississippi Burning." Anyone who claims racism isn't a problem anymore is ignoring this story. It wasn't so long ago.
I wish we had more like Robert.

[kennethcohagen]

In 1997 I took my wife to meet my good friends and on to see Washington D.C. along the way we stopped every night when the sun was setting to have dinner while avoiding the sun. One night after we ate we went back to the car, but when we came to the restaurant’s door there was a lady helping her elderly mother who was using a walker enter the restaurant. My wife hurried to open the first set of doors for them, as I grabbed the second set. The lady’s jaw dropped and she had such a huge look of Surprise on her face you would have thought I had handed here a million dollars. Then it dawned on me that we were in the South and we were a white couple holding the door open for black people. We don’t see a lot of that prejudice in Arizona. Sure, it’s here too, but not to the extent it is in other parts of the country. Since then my health has not been the greatest. I use a cane sometimes because of back pain. And the last time I took my wife’s car to the dealership a young, beautiful, black girl held the door open for me. I smiled and thanked her, and I don’t know if I had a shocked look on my face but the turn around was nice to see. Very nice indeed!

[DrGlynnWix]

The thing that blows my mind is that people think this was "so long ago" and "over now", but these people raised the people running most state governments. These people are the grandparents of so much of the current population. To think none of their grandkids are like this is crazy.