Anita you aren't paying attention. Modern opinion obviously can't  
effect what happened in the past. But it can influence how what  
happened is reported and it can change history. Was it not Walter  
Plecker, Registrar of VA Dept. of Vital Statistics, who almost single  
handedly eliminated all of Virginia's Indians by deciding that they  
were Negro? And was that not racist? And was it not someone effecting  
the past, as he destroyed birth certificates and had new ones  
created? There are lots of examples of revisionist history rewriting  
what happened. And most people accept what they see on TV or read in  
the paper as truth. They do not have the skills or the inclination to  
go do research and check the "facts" that have been presented.

The point is that Virginia and Virginia history do not and did not  
exist in a vacuum. We are, and our ancestors were, a part of the  
society around them. That extra-judicial executions were sanctioned  
in parts of the USA and not others is significant. And the why is  
significant. If all that mattered was what happened in Virginia, then  
slavery might well still be legal. Because it was not Virginians who  
ended it. If all that mattered in terms of civil rights was what  
happened in Virginia then why do the Virginia SOLs include Brown v  
the Board of Education, or Plessy v Fergusson, or Dr. Martin Luther  
King (who did little in our state), or Rosa Parks (after all her  
actions took place in Birmingham, AL).

Of course as all of North America was at one time "Virginia" anything  
that happened or happens in the USA and Canada is relevant to  
Virginia history. Like certain factions in the Muslim world who will  
not rest until Al Andalus is recaptured from the Spanish, so too  
should true Virginians not rest until the rest of North America  
returns to the Virginia fold.

James Brothers, RPA
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On Jun 26, 2007, at 14:38, Anita Wills wrote:

> I have a hard time envisioning how those who espouse hate today,  
> influenced those in the past. I mean that would be quite a feat  
> wouldn't it? I would argue the opposite, that some of those with  
> hate speech take their cue from events of the past.  Free Speech is  
> one thing, but when people (usually someone deranged), acts on that  
> speech, you can be held liable. This is what happened with a young  
> man was lynched (I believe in the 1970's), and his mother sued the  
> KKK (I believe it was in Alabama). Also there was a case of an  
> Ethopian, who was beat to death with a bat in Washington State, by  
> a skinhead.  I believe his family also sued the KKK.
>
> The difference between recent events, and history , is that there  
> are laws in place now. There were no laws, or ineffective laws to  
> deal with the lynchings of the past. This topic is about historical  
> events, and not recent events, and that is the point I attempted to  
> make to Lylye. However, there are those on the list who have  
> objectives other than History.
>
> Anita