<![CDATA[BRANDON J. SUTTON

<![CDATA[BRANDON J. SUTTON - Blog]]>Wed, 30 Sep 2026 16:03:11 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[A History That Knew My Name]]>Wed, 30 Sep 2026 22:01:16 GMThttps://www.brandonjsutton.com/blog/a-history-that-knew-my-name

“You can’t understand most of the important things from a distance... You have to get close.”[1]
- Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

_____

“If anything happens to me, just know I did not resist arrest or lynch myself.”

That is what I half-jokingly told my cousins before departing for Montgomery, Alabama—a state with a long history of racism and injustice toward individuals who look like me. Alabama, like much of the Deep South, is often associated more with Black pain and suffering than with Black defiance and freedom.

That is how I viewed Alabama—until I went.

Now, I cannot stop thinking about Montgomery and the history held within it.

What began as a work trip became a pilgrimage. I came to see Montgomery as a Mecca. It is not simply the “Cradle of the Confederacy.” It is a place of Black pride, resistance, endurance, and liberation.

You have to get close to see it.
_____

When I first learned we were going, I asked myself: Why Montgomery?

Once I arrived in Montgomery, it did not take long for me to understand why.
The city felt different. The air felt different, but in a good way. I could feel the weight of the history and the presence of the ancestors. As we moved through Montgomery, I realized that I was standing on holy ground and that this trip would be unlike anything I had experienced before.

Part of our time together would be spent visiting the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Sites: the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, and Montgomery Square. Together, these four spaces tell a 400-year story of Black suffering, resistance, and liberation—from enslavement and racial terror to mass incarceration and the modern civil rights movement.

Our first stop was the Legacy Museum.

As soon as you walk inside, you are taken aboard a slave ship. You hear the roaring water. You read about and witness the horrors of the Middle Passage. The experience is an immediate gut punch.

From there, you walk through the plantation. You hear the stories of people who endured the whip and the chain. You hear songs of sorrow and survival. You continue through the nadir of American race relations, racial terror lynchings, and Jim Crow. Toward the end of the museum, you enter a section dedicated to mass incarceration.

Whenever I visit museums like this, I see myself somewhere in the exhibits.

But this one hit differently.

One immersive feature allows visitors to hear the stories of incarcerated people. You sit as though you are visiting someone in prison. You pick up the phone, look through the screen, and listen as they tell you their story.

In that moment, I remembered just how close I had come to being on the other side of that screen.

This history knew my name.
_____

Tears welled in my eyes as I was instantly taken back to 2018.

That year, I was arrested for a crime I did not commit—a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison. I spent a weekend in jail and 14 months on house arrest. My daughter was temporarily removed from my home, and I lived in uncertainty for nearly four years while on pretrial release.

During my weekend in jail, I met men who had accepted their fate because they could not afford bail. Even a short period of incarceration can result in job loss, housing instability, debt, and family separation. Those men had no real choice but to give in to a system designed to destroy them.

As Michelle Alexander said in The New Jim Crow:

“Today’s lynching is a felony charge. Today’s lynching is incarceration.”[2]

My felony charge left me dangling in the wind for nearly four years.

The noose of public shame and embarrassment tightened around me. I was unemployed, with no money or healthcare, as my mental health deteriorated. I was left dangling, my fate uncertain.

I was offered a plea deal twice.

Take five years of probation, accept a reduced charge, and try to move on with your life. That is essentially what they offered me.

I refused.

The final offer came one day before they dropped the charge against me. They were willing to let me plead guilty to a crime they knew I did not commit. But that is how the system works for too many Black Americans. It is not designed simply to determine guilt or innocence. It is designed to punish. To control. And, as the exception written into the Thirteenth Amendment reminds us, to enslave.

Even after the charge was dropped, the punishment remained. I was left with tens of thousands of dollars in debt and years of lost time. I wore an ankle monitor for 14 months. Although it was removed six years ago, sometimes I can still feel it around my leg.

I survived—but barely.
_____

Ultimately, that is what I took away from the Legacy Sites: survival.

I saw myself in those exhibits because they reminded me that Black men and women who came before me survived horrors I cannot imagine.

We survived the Middle Passage.

We survived slavery.

We survived lynchings and Jim Crow.

We survived the war on drugs.

We are surviving mass incarceration, police brutality, the erasure of our history, and renewed racial hostility.

But Montgomery also reminded me that survival is not the whole story.

We did not only survive. We resisted. We organized. We built communities. We created culture and influenced every aspect of American society. In the middle of pain and despair, we found ways to make joy, art, music, faith, family, and freedom.

Montgomery is filled with evidence of what was done to us, but it is also filled with evidence of what we did in response. That is what I could not see from a distance.

I went to Alabama expecting to encounter history.

Instead, I encountered a history that knew my name.

______________________________________________________________________________

Publisher’s Note

Brandon J. Sutton is a U.S. history professor at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) and the author of three books, most recently Musings of a Black Man in Trump’s America. He holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Applied Social Science in Political Science from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, as well as a Master of Divinity from Liberty University.

This essay reflects the author’s personal experiences, analysis, historical interpretation, and moral judgment. References to institutions, policies, and events are presented within the context of personal narrative and political critique and are informed by publicly available information, historical scholarship, and contemporary commentary. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the positions of any employer, educational institution, or organization with which he is affiliated.

[1] [1] Stevenson, Bryan. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. Spiegel & Grau, 2014, p. 14.

[2] Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press, 2012, p. 164.

]]><![CDATA[Black Deconstruction]]>Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:58:25 GMThttps://www.brandonjsutton.com/blog/black-deconstruction

“The people that built their heaven on your land are telling you yours is in the sky”
- Nina Simone

After completing seminary, I left the church.

I left because the church had lied to me.

The church told me I had to pay to receive a blessing from God.

The church told me to condemn people who love differently than I do.

The church taught me that it was acceptable to judge and disparage people who worship differently than I do.

The church told me that listening to secular music, having premarital sex, or drinking alcohol guaranteed me a one-way ticket to hell.

The church taught me to fear the very God it claimed loved me unconditionally.
Yes, I left the church.

And in leaving the church, I grew closer to God.

_____

My decision to walk away from the church was not made lightly. In undergrad, I took religion courses that challenged my thinking, but I continued to follow a faith that did not attempt to answer the questions those courses raised.

Over time, I began noticing things I could no longer ignore. I watched pastors prioritize fame and fortune while people in their congregations struggled to make ends meet. The income inequality between pastors and parishioners made me question what I had been taught about giving and receiving God’s blessings.

I’ve written two Christian devotionals and attended seminary. In seminary, I learned that some biblical scholars do not believe every biblical story should be taken literally and that some biblical stories share similarities with older stories from the ancient Near East. I had been taught to accept one way of reading the Bible, so learning that there were other ways to understand it raised even more questions for me.

Ultimately, witnessing the silence—or outright support—of prominent churches in response to Donald Trump and his policies pushed me to begin deconstructing and breaking free from the toxic theology I had inherited.
_____

The more I questioned what I had been taught about God, the more I wanted to understand where those teachings came from.

Christianity did not begin with Europe, nor was it unknown to Africa before transatlantic slave trafficking. Christianity had existed in parts of Africa for centuries. Yet for many enslaved Africans brought to the Americas, Christianity was imposed through a distorted and racist lens.

One of the clearest examples is the Slave Bible, a heavily redacted version of the King James Bible created for enslaved people. It excluded most of the Old Testament—including much of the story of the Exodus—and approximately half of the New Testament. Passages about freedom and equality were removed, while verses demanding obedience were retained. One such passage was Ephesians 6:5: “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.”

Enslaved people and their descendants were taught to worship a white savior—one who seemed to uphold the whip while ignoring the cries of the whipped.

Even after emancipation and the growth of independent Black churches, some lessons inherited from oppressive Christianity remained.
_____

It should then come as no surprise that I began to question how much of the Christianity I had been taught was shaped by whiteness.

Black deconstruction is the process of separating the god of the oppressors from the God of the oppressed. It requires a critical reexamination of biblical texts and an understanding that the Bible has historically been weaponized in the service of white supremacy.

Deconstruction is a difficult concept for some to comprehend because it requires you to reexamine things you were taught by people you loved and trusted—people who may have been wrong or misguided. That can lead to an existential crisis. For some, it may feel easier to remain comfortable with what they know than to confront a hard truth.

It’s important to highlight that deconstruction does not equate to deconversion. Deconstruction asks you to read the text critically and understand scripture for yourself, while deconversion is leaving Christianity altogether. For some, deconstruction has led to deconversion, but that is not the case for me.

I still believe in God, but the God I believe in is a God of love, not cruelty or condemnation.

Call me an apostate, but I believe God is on the side of those experiencing genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Call me a nonbeliever, but I believe God is on the side of the immigrant.

Call me a sinner, but I believe God is on the side of those feeding children and families.

Call me a heretic, but I believe God is on the side of those expanding healthcare, not taking it away.

Call me a false prophet, but I believe God is on the side of the marginalized, regardless of race, sexual orientation, or gender.

I would rather worship the God of the oppressed than the god of the oppressors.
_____

The purpose of this essay is not to convince anyone to deconstruct, walk away from God, or abandon their faith. We are all on our own spiritual journeys, and what you need from God in this season of your life may be different from what I need from God in mine.

I only hope this essay compels you to ask yourself one question:

Which God are you serving—the God of the oppressed or the god of the oppressor?

]]><![CDATA[From One to Eighteen: Kohen Wiley, Nolan Wells, and the Theft of Black Childhood]]>Fri, 17 Jul 2026 13:26:54 GMThttps://www.brandonjsutton.com/blog/from-one-to-eighteen-kohen-wiley-nolan-wells-and-the-theft-of-black-childhood

America has long denied Black children the right to be children.

During slavery, Black children were treated not as sons and daughters but as property, their worth calculated in the labor they could eventually produce or the price they could fetch at auction. Today, they are no longer bought and sold, but they are still too often viewed through suspicion—perceived as older, more dangerous, and more deserving of punishment than their white peers.
Racism robs Black children of their childhood.
_____

I look back on my childhood with nostalgia.

I am one of seven children, and my mom is one of sixteen, so my childhood is filled with memories of fun and family—cookouts, birthdays, trips to Disney World, Sunday dinners, and endless games of hide-and-seek with my cousins.

That is not to say things were easy. My mom struggled at times as a single mother. She took on a second job at one point, we struggled with reliable transportation, and sometimes the lights or water were turned off.

I do not remember experiencing overt racism in my earliest years, though that may say more about childhood innocence than reality. Racism often operates like a shadow. Children may not always recognize it, but it is always there, waiting to reveal itself.

And too often, when that shadow reveals itself to Black children, the consequences are deadly.

_____

That shadow revealed itself to one-year-old Kohen Wiley on June 14, 2026, when he was shot and killed by a police officer in Senatobia, Mississippi.

I want you to sit with that for a moment.

A one-year-old Black child was shot and killed by police.

Officers were responding to an alleged shoplifting incident at a Walmart when they fired on a vehicle they claimed was fleeing the scene. Police said the driver steered toward officers, forcing them to shoot. Kohen's mother disputes that account. Vellesiya Wiley says she held her baby up to show officers that a child was in the vehicle before they fired.

One of those bullets struck Kohen in the ribcage and killed him.

The item allegedly stolen: diapers.
_____

A few weeks later, roughly 300 miles away on Horn Island, Mississippi, 18-year-old Nolan Wells encountered that same shadow.

Wells went missing and was later found dead on the island. His “friends” told investigators they left him behind because he wanted to stay to talk to a girl and would return on another friend's boat.

A Mississippi grand jury declined to indict anyone in connection with Nolan's death, finding no credible evidence of criminal conduct. The grand jury concluded that the circumstances surrounding his death were consistent with drowning.

But questions remain.

Both the state medical examiner and an independent pathologist hired by Nolan's family classified his cause and manner of death as undetermined. The state autopsy also found no water in Nolan's lungs, airways, or stomach and documented bruising on the back of his head. The cause of that bruising remains uncertain.

Nolan's family continues to question what happened to their son and has called for further investigation.
Because Wells was Black and his “friends” were white, race has undeniably shaped the public discourse around the case. Some have been quick to dismiss suspicions of foul play, while others argue the circumstances deserve much closer scrutiny and investigation.

Whether you believe this was a tragic accident or believe questions remain unanswered, race has influenced how many people interpret what happened.
_____

America's treatment of Black children is evident not only in the headlines, but in the data.

Black infants die at more than twice the rate of white infants.

Black students are significantly more likely than their white peers to be suspended or expelled before reaching adolescence.

Research consistently shows that Black children are perceived as older, less innocent, and more threatening than white children of the same age.

Black youth are five times more likely to be arrested or committed to juvenile detention than their white peers.

Instead of being allowed to grow, make mistakes, and simply be children, Black youth are too often viewed as problems to be managed, punished, or feared.

That is how fourteen-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton could be chased down and killed by a convenience store owner.

His killer, who claimed fear, was later acquitted.

It is why the killing of Trayvon Martin continues to resonate more than a decade later.

It is why the deaths of Black children so often become debates before they become tragedies.

It is why we know the names George Stinney, Emmett Till, Latasha Harlins, Jordan Davis, and Tamir Rice—not because they lived long lives, but because the shadow of racism robbed them of the chance to grow up.

And now, unfortunately, the names Kohen Wiley and Nolan Wells remind us that the questions surrounding Black childhood and who gets the chance to grow into adulthood remain painfully present.

_____

Childhood should be a season of discovery, birthday parties, cartoons, and believing the world is fundamentally safe.

Black children are often denied that innocence.

From one to eighteen, Black children deserve the same thing every child deserves—the chance to simply be children and the chance to grow into adulthood.

]]><![CDATA[The Price of the Ballot: Martyrs, Memory, and the Modern Assault on Voting Rights]]>Thu, 30 Apr 2026 21:56:29 GMThttps://www.brandonjsutton.com/blog/the-price-of-the-ballot-martyrs-memory-and-the-modern-assault-on-voting-rights

The United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, who has spent much of his legal career narrowing the scope of the 1965 Voting Rights Act has continued that trajectory in the Courts 6–3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, further weakening protections long used to safeguard Black voting power and representation.

The ruling holds that race-conscious districting designed to ensure minority representation is unconstitutional. At the same time, the Court has previously permitted partisan gerrymandering. In the American South, where race and party affiliation are deeply intertwined, this dual framework will predictably diminish Black political representation on all levels of government.

Immediately after the ruling, Florida advanced a congressional map projected to reduce Democratic-held seats. Alabama and Louisiana signaled plans to redraw maps that will certainly eliminate Black congressional districts. In Tennessee, Senator Marsha Blackburn urged state legislators to eliminate Democratic representation in Memphis, a majority-Black city.

Regardless of how the majority frames its reasoning, this decision effectively undermines a law that Congress has reauthorized repeatedly and that has long served as a cornerstone of Black suffrage. From a critical perspective, the ruling can be read as prioritizing partisan entrenchment over equitable representation for Black voters.

For deeper analysis of this decision’s implications for Black voters, representation and American democracy, see the recent work of Adam Serwer (Voters Can Be Disenfranchised Now), Elie Mystal (The Supreme Court Has Completed Its Quest to Kill the Voting Rights Act), and Sherrilyn Ifill (SCOTUS Drops The Other Shoe on the Voting Rights Act).

This moment is not without precedent.

The right to vote for Black Americans was not granted cleanly through legislation alone, it was fought for and in many cases, paid for in blood.

For this essay, I want to highlight some of the men and women whose bodies were beaten and broken in the struggle to make the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a reality. These individuals were martyrs in the fight for fair and equal political participation—sacrifices this court has disparaged and disregarded in their Callais ruling.

Benjamin F. Randolph, a Black state senator and advocate for Black voting rights in South Carolina, was assassinated in 1868 by white supremacists.

George W. Ashburn, a white Republican who supported Black suffrage, was assassinated in 1868 by the Ku Klux Klan.

Octavius Catto, a Black educator and civil rights activist, was one of many Black men killed on Election Day in Philadelphia in 1871 to suppress Black voters.

The Colfax Massacre in 1873 saw more than 100 Black men killed by white supremacists while defending a courthouse after a disputed election—one of the deadliest attacks on Black voting rights in U.S. history.

The Hamburg Massacre in 1876 similarly resulted in the deaths of Black citizens by white supremacist groups seeking to suppress Black political participation.

Harry T. Moore, an NAACP leader in Florida who organized voter registration drives, was killed in a 1951 bombing of his home alongside his wife, Harriette V. Moore—among the first martyrs of the modern Civil Rights Movement.

Herbert Lee was murdered in Mississippi in 1961 for assisting voter registration efforts alongside SNCC organizers.

Medgar Evers, NAACP field secretary in Mississippi, led voter registration efforts before being assassinated outside his home in 1963.

James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered in 1964 during Freedom Summer in Mississippi for their work registering Black voters.

Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot by Alabama state troopers during a peaceful protest in Marion, Alabama, in 1965. His death helped catalyze the Selma-to-Montgomery marches.

Viola Liuzzo, a white ally from Michigan, was murdered by Klansmen in 1965 while transporting marchers during the Selma campaign.

The Selma to Montgomery marches were met with brutal violence—most notably “Bloody Sunday,” when state troopers attacked peaceful demonstrators advocating for voting rights.

These are only some of the named individuals who gave their lives for voting rights. They stand alongside the tens of thousands of Union soldiers whose deaths helped secure the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and the countless unnamed individuals who were lynched, beaten, or disappeared in the fight for Black suffrage and equal rights.

Decisions like Callais raise fundamental questions about how seriously this history is treated in contemporary jurisprudence. Based on this Court’s recent voting rights rulings affecting Black Americans, one could reasonably conclude that this history carries little weight. The Court’s approach appears to prioritize preserving white political power structures over the protection of Black voting rights.
The ramifications of this ruling will unfold over time. To paraphrase W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Americans fought for the right to vote, stood briefly in that freedom, and are now being pushed back toward Jim Crow.

Yet, the history of these martyrs reminds us that regression is never permanent. Even in setback, there is opportunity—not only to defend rights that have been gained, but to build a more just and equitable society. The struggle continues, and the next battle, like so many before it—will be fought at the ballot box this November.

Publisher’s Note
Brandon J. Sutton is a U.S. History professor at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC). He holds a B.S. and Master of Applied Social Science in Political Science from Florida A&M University, as well as a Master of Divinity from Liberty University.
The views expressed in this essay are those of the author and are intended as analysis and interpretation based on publicly available information, historical scholarship, and contemporary commentary. This piece reflects opinion and should not be construed as a statement of objective fact regarding the intent of any individual or institution.

]]><![CDATA[Before It Watched Everyone, It Watched Black America: How surveillance of Black Americans became the blueprint for modern state monitoring]]>Mon, 23 Feb 2026 17:13:54 GMThttps://www.brandonjsutton.com/blog/before-it-watched-everyone-it-watched-black-america-how-surveillance-of-black-americans-became-the-blueprint-for-modern-state-monitoring

“Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order [...] and the like.”
— William O. Douglas, Points of Rebellion

Surveillance and the Seeds of Power
When a government begins surveilling its citizens, it is often only a matter of time before civil liberties erode. Surveillance has long been a defining feature of authoritarian systems. Historically, such governments tend to fear dissent and rely on monitoring populations to maintain control.

Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has intensified immigration enforcement, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has invested heavily in surveillance technology.

Civil-liberties advocates warn that such systems can capture data on U.S. citizens, including activists and critics. Officials maintain these tools are designed to identify dangerous individuals. Yet history shows surveillance infrastructures, once built, rarely remain confined to their original purpose.

When Surveillance Becomes Personal
In a reported encounter in Maine, an ICE agent allegedly photographed a legal observer’s vehicle and said it was being entered into a database, referring to the individual as a “domestic terrorist.” Public confirmation of that statement has not been issued, but the allegation has circulated widely and raised concerns among civil-liberties observers about how surveillance labels may be applied.

Separate court filings in an ongoing case state that Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen, was shot multiple times by federal agents during an enforcement operation in Chicago after reportedly being flagged through monitoring tied to social-media activity. Martinez is suing the federal government. Authorities dispute aspects of the claims, and the litigation is ongoing.

During a congressional hearing, acting ICE director Todd Lyons testified that the agency does not maintain a database of citizens protesting ICE. Still, cases like Martinez’s raise broader questions about how individuals come to be flagged, categorized, and tracked.

Nothing New Under the American Sun
These developments are not historically unprecedented. Many of today’s surveillance practices echo earlier systems used within the United States. Numerous tactics now debated publicly today—monitoring movement, gathering personal data, and tracking associations have precedents stretching back centuries.

Black Americans, for example, were subjected to extensive monitoring from slavery through the Jim Crow era. Enslaved people were watched by overseers and informants tasked with preventing revolts. After emancipation, surveillance persisted through laws and policies that regulated Black movement, labor, and political organizing.

Prominent Black leaders were frequently targeted. The government closely monitored Marcus Garvey, an early precursor to the monitoring of Black activists, who was eventually deported following years of investigation tied to his Black activism and political messaging.

COINTELPRO and the Criminalization of Dissent
During the 1960s, the FBI conducted COINTELPRO, a covert counterintelligence program aimed at infiltrating and disrupting Black political movements. Nearly every Black leader, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and organization was being surveilled by the FBI. One of its most prominent targets was Fred Hampton, chairman of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party.

Hampton built a multiracial coalition of working-class activists to challenge poverty, racism, and police brutality. To FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, that organizing made him dangerous. Hoover’s FBI labeled him a potential “Black Messiah” and authorized extensive surveillance.

An informant inside Hampton’s organization provided authorities with a detailed floor plan of his apartment and allegedly drugged him before a police raid. On December 4, 1969, officers fired nearly 100 shots, killing Hampton and fellow Panther Mark Clark. According to Akua Njeri, who was beside him that night, she heard an officer say after the shooting that “he’s probably gonna make it,” which was followed by one gunshot to the head. “He’s good and dead now.” Hampton was 21 years old.

Surveillance in this case did not merely observe events. It helped set them in motion. This is not new. This is not rare. This is not accidental.

From Then to Now
After the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014 following the police killing of Michael Brown, federal authorities again increased monitoring of activists. Subsequent reporting revealed intelligence assessments using categories such as “Black Identity Extremists,” which civil-rights organizations argued risked conflating protest activity with terrorism.

Following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, watchdog groups documented expanded digital tracking of demonstrations and online speech. The technologies were new. The logic — monitor first, justify later — was not.

The Pattern History Reveals
The surveillance apparatus built to monitor Black Americans did not disappear; it became a blueprint later applied to other groups the state considered disruptive or disposable.

Surveillance rarely remains limited to its initial targets. Systems justified for one purpose often expand into others. Tools built for immigration enforcement can be used for protest monitoring. Technologies developed for national security can be repurposed for domestic intelligence.
When abuses directed at one group go unchallenged, those same mechanisms often broaden to include others.

All Eyes, Everywhere
The real danger of surveillance is not simply that someone may be watching. It is that power, once given the ability to watch, seldom chooses to look away.

What begins as a tool of control against the few often becomes a mechanism of control over the many. And history suggests that when the state keeps its eyes on the people, freedom is usually the first thing it loses sight of.

Publisher’s Note
Professor Brandon J. Sutton teaches U.S. History at the Community College of Baltimore County. Professor Sutton graduated from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in political science and holds a Master of Divinity degree from Liberty University.
This essay reflects the author’s analysis, historical interpretation, and moral judgment based on publicly available reporting, historical scholarship, and patterns of state violence in the United States. Descriptions of institutions, policies, and events are offered in the context of political critique and protected opinion.

]]><![CDATA[Lift Every Voice: From Negro History Week to Black History Month (1926–2026)]]>Mon, 02 Feb 2026 17:30:43 GMThttps://www.brandonjsutton.com/blog/lift-every-voice-from-negro-history-week-to-black-history-month-1926-2026

Lift every voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
— James Weldon Johnson

Black History Did Not Begin 100 Years Ago
This year marks 100 years of commemorating Black history in the United States. Now, before the comments start rolling in, let’s be clear: Black history does not begin in 1926, 1619, or anywhere close to the invention of the cotton gin. Black history stretches back thousands of years.

You cannot tell the story of human civilization without Africa, which is called the Motherland for a reason. You cannot seriously discuss innovation, science, kings and queens, empires, global wealth, religion, or exploration without acknowledging Africa’s central role. To try would be like telling the story of basketball and leaving out Michael Jordan.

Erasure Was a Feature, Not a Bug
Before the 20th century, the history of Africa and people of African descent was largely ignored, distorted, or minimized in colonized societies, especially in the United States. That absence was not accidental.

As Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey famously warned, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.” A tree without roots cannot survive.

Enslaved Africans brought to the Americas were deliberately stripped of their roots, names, languages, and cultural practices. This was a documented strategy used throughout the Americas and the Caribbean to dehumanize people and weaken collective identity. If you erase a people’s history long enough, you can convince the world and sometimes even them that they never contributed anything worth remembering.

Telling the Truth Anyway
One thing people of African descent have consistently done well; often out of necessity, is identify the lies of the powerful and document the truth anyway. Historians and intellectuals such as George Washington Williams, Arturo Schomburg, Anna Julia Cooper, Charles Seifert, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Carter G. Woodson dedicated their lives to researching, preserving, and elevating Black history in the face of open hostility and institutional indifference.

Carter G. Woodson and the Case for Honest History
In 1926, Carter G. Woodson, through the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, announced the creation of Negro History Week, observed during the second week of February. The timing was intentional, aligning with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln—two figures whose lives shaped the nation’s struggle over slavery and freedom.

Woodson was clear about the purpose:

This is the meaning of Negro History Week. It is not so much a Negro History Week as a History Week. We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history… What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice.

Woodson was not asking for symbolic celebrations or shallow praise. His argument was simple and radical: Black history belongs in the story of human civilization because it is part of that story. In that sense, Black History Month is not separate from American or World history, it is corrective American and World history.

From a Week to a World
As time passed, Negro History Week gained national recognition. In 1969, students at Kent State University proposed expanding it into a month-long observance. The first official Black History Month was celebrated there in 1970.

Six years later, in 1976, during the U.S. Bicentennial, President Gerald Ford formally recognized Black History Month and urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

Since then, observances of Black History Month or similar commemorations have spread beyond the United States to parts of Europe, the Caribbean, Africa, and Latin America, bringing Woodson’s dream of global recognition closer to reality.

History Is Being Edited Again
Today, the struggle to tell Black history accurately continues.

Across the United States, debates over curriculum, books, and historical interpretation have intensified. Some states and federal agencies have reduced or eliminated Black History Month programming. Books by Black authors have been challenged or removed from school libraries, while discussions of race, inequality, and systemic discrimination are increasingly framed as “controversial” rather than factual.
Whether described as “educational reform” or “anti-indoctrination,” the outcome is familiar: a narrowing of the story. History, once again, is being edited for comfort.

Why Black History Still Matters
When Black history is minimized, everyone loses. Because Black history is not only a story of suffering though it includes slavery, Jim Crow, and racial terror, it is also a story of resilience, resistance, and world-shaping culture.

Out of oppression emerged music, art, political strategy, intellectual traditions, and social movements that have profoundly shaped the United States and influenced the globe. Black history teaches us how people resist cruelty, challenge inequality, and insist on dignity under the worst conditions imaginable. That history of resistance is not optional. It is essential.

Learn It. Share It. Defend It.
So, this Black History Month, and beyond, make it a point to learn widely and deeply.
Learn about Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution.
Learn about General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the real-life inspiration behind The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.
Study Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Marcus Garvey.
Read Phillis Wheatley, Audre Lorde, and Maya Angelou.
Learn from the organizing brilliance of A. Philip Randolph, Ella Baker, and Bayard Rustin.
Listen closely to Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, James Baldwin, and Fred Hampton.

And embrace the music, art, and culture Black creators continue to give the world, often without proper credit, but never without impact.

Because a people who know their history are far harder to erase and much harder to lie to.

A Historian’s Starter Library
As a history professor and Black man—I want to share some of my favorite Black history resources.

Film & Television·       Eyes on the Prize
·       The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
·       Black in Latin America
·       Freedom Summer
·       13th
·       Malcolm X
·       Selma
·       Rustin
·       Sinners

Books·       The Coming
·       The Black Count
·       The Black Russian
·       The Black Jacobins
·       Stamped from the Beginning
·       The 1619 Project
·       The Warmth of Other Suns
·       The Autobiography of Malcolm X
·       The Dead Are Arising
·       The New Jim Crow

Learn it. Share it. Defend it.

Publisher’s Note
Professor Brandon J. Sutton teaches U.S. History at the Community College of Baltimore County. He is a graduate of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science, and he holds a Master of Divinity from Liberty University.

This essay reflects the author’s scholarly analysis, historical interpretation, and moral judgment, informed by publicly available records, established historical research, and documented patterns in American political and social history. Any characterizations of institutions, policies, or events are offered for purposes of historical inquiry, political critique, and protected opinion, and are not intended as statements of fact beyond the cited historical record.

Citation: Figure 1. Black History Month an Overview, 2021, https://ap-lbc.com/black-history-month-an-overview/. Copyright 2021 by NA.

]]><![CDATA[America’s Favorite Mask: ICE, White Supremacy, and the American Tradition of State Terror]]>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 16:34:05 GMThttps://www.brandonjsutton.com/blog/americas-favorite-mask-ice-white-supremacy-and-the-american-tradition-of-state-terror

ICE Is Not an Aberration — It Is an American Tradition

The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency housed within the Department of Homeland Security. It is a relatively young agency, created in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Under President Donald Trump, ICE expanded into a paramilitary operation that has abused immigrants and non-immigrants alike and has been involved in fatal encounters, including the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Those shootings, along with numerous documented incidents of intimidation and terror, have led some observers to compare ICE to the Gestapo—the secret police of Nazi Germany that terrorized, abused, and murdered targeted groups with the full backing of the state.

While there are surface-level similarities between ICE and the Gestapo, that comparison ultimately obscures more than it reveals. It suggests that ICE represents something foreign to American values, an outside corruption rather than a homegrown institution. That framing is comforting, but it is wrong. Especially when we remember that Nazi officials themselves studied Jim Crow America when designing their system of persecution.

What ICE is doing is not new. It is not imported authoritarianism. It is the continuation of a long American tradition of state-assisted terror.

State Terror After the Civil War

To understand ICE, one must understand America after the Civil War—a war fought over the institution of slavery. After Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and the ascension of Andrew Johnson to the presidency, the fragile hope for a more equitable nation quickly collapsed. Johnson issued more than 13,000 pardons and amnesty proclamations to former Confederates, including a sweeping Christmas Day pardon in 1868 that absolved all insurrectionists, Confederate President Jefferson Davis included.

Those pardons were not acts of reconciliation; they were acts of restoration. They restored power to the very people who had waged war to preserve human bondage.

Many of those pardoned Confederates went on to form or join the first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan. Among them was Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and the Klan’s first Grand Wizard.

The KKK terrorized, intimidated, and murdered Black Americans to suppress civil rights and restore white supremacy in the South. These masked men functioned much like the slave patrols of antebellum America—where modern American policing has its roots—operating outside meaningful judicial oversight while controlling nearly every aspect of Black life. They were supported by Southern lawmakers and granted effective immunity to kidnap, abuse, and kill Black Americans.

Although the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 helped suppress the Klan’s first incarnation, its defeat was temporary. As Reconstruction ended and Jim Crow became the law of the land, the Klan reemerged, joined by other racial terror organizations that again flourished in American society. Many of the men hiding behind those hoods were police officers, judges, prosecutors, and business leaders, people determined to enforce a racial caste system at any cost.

This history matters because it reveals a pattern: when white supremacy is threatened, the American state does not retreat, it reorganizes.

ICE as a Modern Instrument of State Terror

ICE operates in ways that closely resemble the Klan: masked agents carrying out the will of the state while shielded by broad legal protections and limited accountability. In a bitter historical irony, it is the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 that the Trump administration has attempted to invoke against protesters.

Under Trump, ICE became heavily funded and heavily armed, with a mission that functionally centered on terrorizing targeted communities. The agency lowered hiring standards and expanded recruitment, prioritizing individuals willing to use force against those labeled as threats. The predictable result has been an institution marked by cruelty, indifference to human suffering, and a casual disregard for the lives it disrupts or destroys.

Whatever the personal motivations of individual agents, the institution itself is what matters. In practice, ICE enforces policies that preserve racial hierarchy, criminalize migration, and define entire communities as enemies of the state. This is not a bug of the system; it is the system working as designed.

When Standing Against White Supremacy Becomes a Death Sentence

Much of the public outrage surrounding the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti stems from the fact that they were white Americans. Yet American history is filled with examples of white people who were killed because they opposed white supremacy. John Brown: one of the most consequential figures in American history, was executed by the state for attempting to arm enslaved people in an effort to end slavery.

William Lewis Moore, Rev. Bruce Klunder, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Rev. James Reeb, and Viola Liuzzo were all white martyrs of the civil rights movement. More recently, anti-racist activist Heather Heyer was murdered while protesting neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Good and Pretti were publicly described by federal officials during the Trump administration as “domestic terrorists.” Anyone, regardless of race or gender, who challenges white supremacy is treated as an enemy of the state and framed as deserving punishment.

History teaches us that whiteness does not protect those who refuse to obey it.

Black Americans and the Reality of American Fascism

This kind of terror is not foreign to America. Black Americans are the only group that has lived continuously under American state repression and therefore understands firsthand what it means to be targeted, surveilled, kidnapped, jailed, and killed by government authorities.

Too often, the deaths of Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement are met with little or no outrage outside the Black community. When a Black person is killed by police, officials and media outlets immediately search for justifications. They disparage the victim’s character. They claim fear.

That is what was done to 12-year-old Tamir Rice, killed by an Ohio police officer while playing in a park. That is what was done to John Crawford III, killed while shopping in Walmart. That is what was done to Walter Scott and Philando Castile, who were killed during separate traffic stops. That is what was done to Breonna Taylor, killed in her own home. That is what was done to Eric Garner and George Floyd, whose lives were taken in public view.

These were not accidents. They were killings carried out by agents of the state, and they were treated as acceptable collateral damage.

A Nation Without Accountability

There is rarely accountability for those who kill other Americans in service of white supremacy. History makes this plain. Slaveholders were not punished. Confederates were not meaningfully punished. Lynchers during Jim Crow were not punished. Police officers who brutalize and kill Black Americans are rarely punished.

Kyle Rittenhouse was celebrated in right-wing media and political circles after being found not guilty in the fatal shootings of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber. By contrast, Dylann Roof, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for murdering nine Black parishioners during Bible study was reportedly provided food by police following his arrest, a detail that underscored the stark disparities in how violence is treated depending on who commits it and who suffers from it.

Even participants in the January 6th Insurrection were later granted leniency, pardons, or political protection by the same man who incited the attack.

Calls to “reform” ICE misunderstand the moment entirely. Reform assumes the institution is broken. ICE is not broken; it is functioning exactly as intended. Abolition does not mean chaos; it means refusing to maintain an institution built to terrorize, dehumanize, and destroy. ICE must be abolished, and agents who have committed crimes must be prosecuted. You cannot reform hate. You must eliminate it.

And still, history tells us not to expect justice. America has never lacked evidence of its cruelty—only the will to confront it. The question is not whether ICE reflects American values. The question is how much longer this country will continue to pretend otherwise.

Publisher’s Note

Professor Brandon J. Sutton teaches U.S. History at the Community College of Baltimore County. Professor Sutton graduated from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in political science and holds a Master of Divinity degree from Liberty University.

This essay reflects the author’s analysis, historical interpretation, and moral judgment based on publicly available reporting, historical scholarship, and patterns of state violence in the United States. Descriptions of institutions, policies, and events are offered in the context of political critique and protected opinion.

Citation: Figure 1. Ice = KKK, by Andrea Arroyo, 2026, https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/ice-kkk/. Copyright 2026 by Andrea Arroyo.

]]><![CDATA[In Defense of the Democratic Party]]>Wed, 05 Nov 2025 16:55:26 GMThttps://www.brandonjsutton.com/blog/in-defense-of-the-democratic-party

The Misplaced Blame Game

The narratives around the Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) have gotten so absurd that they’ve forced me—someone currently frustrated with the party—to defend it. Somehow, in an era where Donald Trump and Republicans control the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court, it’s the Democratic Party that has become the primary destination for everyone’s frustrations, grievances, and anger.

“In a moment when Republicans control nearly every lever of power, Democrats are somehow blamed for everything wrong in the country.”

If you’re upset that Bernie Sanders (who is not a Democrat) couldn’t beat Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden in a Democratic primary, blame the DNC. If Republicans adjourn the House and shut down the government, blame the Democrats. Groceries, healthcare, and rent too high? Blame the Democrats. ICE agents terrorizing communities? Blame the Democrats.

Depending on your ideological lens, Democrats are either all-powerful political masterminds or hopelessly weak and ineffective.

Yes, Democrats Have Fallen Short

None of this is to say the Democratic Party is without fault or has fully risen to meet this moment. Merrick Garland should have held Trump accountable for his countless crimes long before the 2024 election. Democrats failed to eliminate gerrymandering, strengthen voting rights, and pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Many Democrats did not speak out early enough against the genocide in Palestine. And the current Democratic resistance, led by Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, has been uneven at best.

“Democrats aren’t unpopular because Americans hate them — they’re unpopular because many Democrats are frustrated with their own party.”

A recent poll showed the party’s favorability at 28%, driven in no small part by disillusionment from its own base.

The GOP’s Collapse Goes Ignored

Lost in all the noise about Democratic shortcomings is the near-total collapse of the Republican Party as a governing institution. The GOP has become a right-wing authoritarian movement where the rule of law is optional, and power is the only goal. Trump has remade the party in his image, and they’ve embraced it.

“Republicans can’t govern — and no one expects them to.”

They can’t solve the nation’s problems, yet they escape real accountability. Meanwhile, Democrats are expected not only to govern, but to save democracy while doing it.

The Reality: Democrats Keep Winning

And yet, reports of the Democratic Party’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Just five years ago, Joe Biden won 81 million votes—the most in American history. In 2024, Kamala Harris received 75 million, only two million fewer than Trump.

Recent Democratic victories include:

·       Recapturing the Virginia governor’s mansion
·       Expanding control of the Virginia House of Delegates
·       Retaining New Jersey’s governor’s office
·       Zohran Mamdani winning NYC’s mayoral race
·       Winning statewide in Georgia for the first time in 20 years
·       Flipping seats in Mississippi, ending the GOP super-majority
·       Holding the Pennsylvania Supreme Court
·       Passing California’s Prop 50 to counter Republican gerrymandering

“When Democrats fight, they win.”

Democrats are also refusing to help Republicans raise insurance costs on millions of Americans — choosing principle over politics despite the pain it causes.

Imperfect, But The Only Pro-Democracy Party We Have

Democrats are far from perfect. The party needs new leaders, bold ideas, and a message rooted in freedom, diversity, and shared prosperity. But there is one critical truth:

“Democrats aren’t perfect — but they aren’t fascists.”

That matters.
Building the Party We Deserve

So, let’s focus on what matters: electing leaders willing to fight for every one of us — regardless of race, background, gender, or identity. Leaders who will speak truth and act boldly. If we want a Democratic Party capable of meeting this moment, then it’s on us to build it.

And the recent election results make one thing clear:
“If we build the movement and fight like it matters, we win.”

]]><![CDATA[The Punishment of Black Youth: When Black Children Aren’t Allowed to Be Children]]>Thu, 25 Sep 2025 22:02:31 GMThttps://www.brandonjsutton.com/blog/the-punishment-of-black-youth-when-black-children-arent-allowed-to-be-children

To be born Black in America is to inherit a stereotype that hangs around our neck like a noose—tightening with every misstep, every choice, every breath. From the moment we enter this world, our innocence is doubted, our futures diminished. And for those who survive the earliest inequities, childhood itself is put on trial.

This truth resurfaced recently when the Republican-led House of Representatives, with Democratic support, passed a series of DC Crime Bills. Among them is a measure that would allow children as young as 14 to be tried as adults for certain offenses. Lawmakers claim this protects public safety, but history shows us otherwise: policies like these only reinforce a long legacy of criminalizing Black youth.

The age of 14 carries a haunting weight in Black history. On June 16, 1944, George Stinney Jr. became the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century. Convicted in just ten minutes by an all-white jury, Stinney, who was 90 pounds, had to sit on books to reach the electric chair and was put to death for a crime he did not commit. He was 14.

A decade later, another 14-year-old boy, Emmett Till, was lynched in Mississippi. Unlike Stinney, Till was not killed by the state, but it was the state’s silence, its racist courts, and its indifference that allowed his murderers to walk free. Till, who would be 84 today, never had the chance to live beyond boyhood.

The message has always been clear: Black children are denied the grace of innocence. Black girls are often viewed as less in need of care and more sexually mature than their peers. Black boys are perceived as older, angrier, more threatening even when they are the same size or age as white boys. Hairstyles, clothing, and music—mere expressions of youth, are treated as markers of criminality when they belong to Black children.

The numbers are staggering. According to the National Center for Juvenile Justice:

Black youth are placed in juvenile facilities at nearly five times the rate of white youth.
Though they make up only 15% of the nation’s youth, they account for 46% of those incarcerated.
In every state with at least 5,000 Black youth, they are at least 2.5 times more likely to be in custody than their white peers.

And in Washington, D.C., a city known as Chocolate City, who do we think will face the brunt of these new laws?

Shame on the lawmakers, Republican and Democrat alike, who have ignored the devastating lessons of the 1994 Crime Bill. Instead of investing in schools, health care, and safe communities, they reach again for punishment and prison cells. Instead of offering our children care, they offer cages.

If America truly cared about its youth, it would nurture them, not condemn them. But for Black children, childhood has always been conditional, innocence always revocable. The noose of stereotype and suspicion has never loosened, only changed shape. And until this country chooses to see Black children as children, that noose will continue to tighten, one generation at a time.

]]><![CDATA[Charlie Kirk and the Politics of Tragedy]]>Thu, 11 Sep 2025 15:13:30 GMThttps://www.brandonjsutton.com/blog/charlie-kirk-and-the-politics-of-tragedy

Former Representative Rahm Emanuel once said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” He meant that moments of crisis provide political opportunities. After the violent assassination of right-wing podcaster Charlie Kirk, the Trump movement wasted no time turning tragedy into strategy, using it to inflame division and accelerate the country’s drift toward authoritarianism.

Democrats, from Barack Obama on down, quickly condemned the shooting. But their denouncements didn’t matter to Republicans intent on weaponizing grief. Within hours, right-wing commentators, lawmakers, and Trump himself blamed “the radical left.” On the House floor, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna shouted at Democrats, “Y’all caused this.” Rep. Nancy Mace piled on: “Democrats own what happened today.” At the time of this writing, no one has been arrested, and no motive has been established.

The Trump family quickly joined in. Eric Trump went on television claiming bullets were “only going one way.” On Truth Social, his father declared that the left’s rhetoric was directly responsible for Kirk’s murder: “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”

Trump then recounted examples of violence against conservatives: Rep. Steve Scalise’s shooting, an alleged assassination attempt against himself, and Kirk’s killing. Conveniently missing from his list were the shooting of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, the January 6th insurrection he incited, the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, the attempted kidnapping of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and the arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home. Selective outrage is the point: violence is intolerable only when it targets his side.

The truth is, Trump has long seen political violence as a tool, not a threat. From January 6th to his recent fantasies about invading Chicago “Apocalypse Now” style, he has encouraged violence when it benefits him. Kirk’s death is not being used to heal or unify it is being exploited to rally his base, silence dissent, and advance authoritarian goals.

But this is bigger than Trump. America has always been a violent nation—founded on stolen land, built on slavery, expanded through conquest, and sustained by force. At home, we tolerate mass shootings as routine; abroad, we use military might to advance our interests. Violence, in many ways, is as American as apple pie.

The country now faces a choice: keep walking the path of division and bloodshed, or elect leaders willing to lower the temperature, build bridges, and bring people together. History suggests which road America usually takes. The question now is whether it has the courage to choose differently.

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