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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBlack Lives Matter Comes to Vidor--Yes, Vidor
Vidor is a small town between Beaumont and the Louisiana border that we will not stop in. It has an active KKK chapter. This amazes me
Link to tweet
So when word started to circulate that a Black Lives Matter rally was being planned in Vidor, many people on social media thought it was a trapand expressed skepticism the events supposed planner, 23-year-old Maddy Malone, even existed. (She does.) To black folks with knowledge of the region, who had been told never to stop in Vidor, the idea seemed insane. A civil rights rally in Vidor is the punchline to a joke, not a thing that could happen in this world. Cmon.
Yet on Saturday, there they were, some 150 to 200 people standing in the sun, in the draining humidity and heat of Southeast Texas, to come together in love and unity and to bind together under God, as Malone told the crowd. My generation is reaching to break the cycle. They heard from a number of speakers, including Cooper, who is the head of the Beaumont chapter of the NAACP, but also young Vidorians like Malone.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about the Vidor rally was the demographic mix of attendees. There were a good number of African American marchers, but the crowd was predominantly white. Many were young people in their teens and twenties, like Maddy. But there were also middle-aged white women with homemade T-shirts and hats bearing slogans like I cant breathe handing out chilled water and snack packs. A white mother bore a sign that said she had been radicalized by Floyds calls for his mama as he was losing consciousness. After the event, a well-built white man with an American flag and an airborne infantry pin on his baseball cap came up to thank Malone for putting the event together. There was a guy in a Pittsburgh Steelers jersey. (Theres always a guy in a Steelers jersey.)
gademocrat7
(10,659 posts)Luz
(772 posts)but those east texas roots run deep in others. Same 'ol same 'ol.
New Breed Leader
(624 posts)"Can't Truss It"
rownesheck
(2,343 posts)We moved from there about 5 years ago. My wife's job was offering transfers and I told her to please take it if they offered one to her. So glad to get out of that whole southeast Texas area.
I was in high school there in the early to mid 90s and there was a fucking klan march down main street because President Clinton was trying to integrate the public housing project. I commented to my wife yesterday that in 28 years the town went from a klan march to a George Floyd peace march.
That town, and whole area out there still have a LONG way to go before being decent, but I guess it's a start.
Cirque du So-What
(25,944 posts)was in reference to country music star George Jones being from there. I was unaware of the entreched KKK.