Trump Supporter Defends Slavery (Full Context)

On Friday's episode of The Young Turks, Michael Shure shared his reporting from the Trump campaign trail with Cenk Uygur and John Iadarola. Shure said that his conversation with the 19-year-old college student was quite extensive, and, promised to share more of it so that viewers could understand the full context.

A version of American history prevelant in the South, and influential everywhere in the United States argues (among many other things) that slavery was a benevolent institution, that the Civil War was about "states rights" and not about slavery, that African Americans were not qualified to participate in self-governance (due to lack of education, or breeding, depending on the author) during the 19th century and during Jim Crow, and that African Americans were better off during Jim Crow than they are today. This did NOT originate with the Trump campaign or its supporters. It is, in fact, the narrative of history written by the victors in the war we sometimes referred to as "Reconstruction" (1865 to 1898) — a war that ended with the taking away of citizenship rights of African Americans in the South, and the installation of Jim Crow laws preventing Black citizenship up through the 1960's, and, many argue, up until today.