Opposition to white supremacy breeds hostility
The white supremacists who protested in Charlottesville, Virginia have kindred spirits in each state of the union, especially Georgia. In Augusta, they include many who defend the John C. Calhoun Expressway, the Confederate Memorial on Broad Street, and those who are associated with the Masters Golf tournament.
On April 11, 2013, Salon.com posted an article captioned: The Masters presents a phony, sanitized South, which covered some history of the Masters Golf Tournament. The article stated, “The vaunted prestige of the Masters began with Robert Tyre Jones, Jr., one of the founders. After Babe Ruth, Bobby Jones was the brightest light in the Golden Age of American sports. What fans and sportswriters have always most loved about Jones was his insistence on remaining an amateur throughout a brief but brilliant career in which he would win a total of “13” majors”, including four in one calendar year, a feat that has never been duplicated. Yet, there’s just no getting around it; Jones presided over a racist golf club.” Indeed, the club’s cofounder, Clifford Roberts, was an outspoken racist who once said, “As long as I live, there will be nothing at the Masters besides Black caddies and white players.”
The article goes on to say, “In 1932, Jones and Roberts quietly tapped their wealthy friends to buy a 365-acre indigo plantation on the outside of Augusta for a mere $70,000. As if to make up for lost time, Jones and course designer Dr. Alister Mackenzie managed to have the 18 holes built in 76 days.
They paid their Black laborers 10 cents an hour, working them 10 hours a day, six days a week. One worker re-called, “With that foreman standing over you, it was like slavery again.”
Moreover, in the 1960s the Augusta National did not invite African-American golfer Charlie Sifford to compete in the Masters even though he had won the 1967 Greater Hartford Open and the 1969 Los Angeles Open. It was not until 1975 that African Americans were allowed to compete. Sifford wrote, “To my mind, the Masters was the worst redneck tournament in the country, run by people who openly discriminated against Blacks.”
That is why there is no difference between the white supremacist who overtly protest and those who covertly sponsor golf tournaments. Like the European Founding Fathers, they are against sharing power with any people of color. Hence, any attempt to change the present system of white supremacy will be met with hostility.
