{"id":3532,"date":"2022-09-16T00:29:09","date_gmt":"2022-09-16T00:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=3532"},"modified":"2022-09-16T00:29:09","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T00:29:09","slug":"desantis-flew-immigrants-to-marthas-vineyard-echoing-a-racist-stunt-from-exactly-60-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=3532","title":{"rendered":"DeSantis Flew Immigrants to Martha\u2019s Vineyard, Echoing a Racist Stunt From Exactly 60 Years Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Kate Storey<\/a><\/p>\n

\"desantis_mv_immigrants_r.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Yesterday, close to 50 undocumented immigrants arrived on the tiny island of Martha\u2019s Vineyard. When they landed at the airport, they had a brochure for the Martha\u2019s Vineyard Community Center, so they walked the two miles to get there, having had nearly no food or water all day, according to The Cape Cod Times. The two planes left from Texas but many of the immigrants were originally from Venezuela.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to take credit.<\/p>\n

“Yes, Florida can confirm the two planes with illegal immigrants that arrived in Martha\u2019s Vineyard today were part of the state\u2019s relocation program to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations,” the governor\u2019s communications director, Taryn Fenske, told FoxNews.com. She went on to say it was done in response to \u201cthe Biden administration\u2019s open border policies.\u201d Fox News ran the story under a banner on its homepage: \u201cEXCLUSIVE: DeSantis flying illegal immigrants to swanky hideaway for the rich and famous.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was 60 years ago when this corner of Massachusetts was the center of a similarly cruel stunt. It is a little-told chapter of history called in the media at the time \u201cthe Reverse Freedom Rides.\u201d In the summer of 1962, a group of white segregationists and supremacists known as the White Citizens Council passed out leaflets and placed want ads in Southern newspapers to recruit Black families with the promise of jobs up north\u2014and, in particular, in Hyannis, where then-President John F. Kennedy spent summers with his family. The ads read: \u201cPresident Kennedy\u2019s brother assures you a grand reception to Massachusetts. Good jobs, housing, etc. are promised.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deceptive and inhumane plan was a response to the heroic Freedom Rides the year before. Civil rights activists rode buses into the segregated South, and a year later the White Citizens Council sent busloads of Black riders up to the North.<\/p>\n

“For many years, certain politicians, educators and certain religious leaders have used the white people of the South as a whipping boy, to put it mildly, to further their own ends and their political campaigns,” said Amis Guthridge, one of the White Citizens Council organizers, in footage unearthed by NPR\u2019s Gabrielle Emanuel in 2020. “We’re going to find out if people like Ted Kennedy\u2026 and the Kennedys, all of them, really do have an interest in the Negro people, really do have a love for the Negro.”<\/p>\n

Many of the 53 people who arrived at Hyannis\u2014including 33 children\u2014were sent to the Cape Cod Community College, where they were given food and bedding collected by the Cape Cod chapter of the NAACP. \u201cIt was one of the most inhumane things I have seen in my years of social action work,\u201d local Cape activist Margaret Mosley said in a 1994 interview.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, the undocumented immigrants flown to Martha\u2019s Vineyard were taken to nearby churches for a place to sleep after being given pizza, salad, and soup by local volunteers. One man told the Vineyard Gazette that they were promised housing and jobs when they arrived. \u201cRepublicans who call themselves Christians have been plotting for some time to use human lives\u2014men, women, and children\u2014as a political pawns,\u201d Massachusetts Rep. Dylan Fernandes tweeted last night. \u201cIt is evil and inhumane.\u201d<\/p>\n

When busloads of families were sent to Hyannis, the White Citizens Council made sure the media covered the whole event\u2014reporters were there waiting when the buses pulled up to Hyannis Main Street. The public cruelty was the point. And right after the plane arrived last night in Martha\u2019s Vineyard, where President Obama has spent his summers, DeSantis\u2019s communication\u2019s director said in her statement to FoxNews.com, “As you may know, in this past legislative session the Florida legislature appropriated $12 million to implement a program to facilitate the transport of illegal immigrants from this state consistent with federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n

The parallels playing out after six decades are jarring. And this time, the cruelty is state-sponsored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Kate Storey Yesterday, close to 50 undocumented immigrants arrived on the tiny island of Martha\u2019s Vineyard. When they landed at the airport, they had a brochure for the Martha\u2019s Vineyard Community Center, so they walked the two miles to get there, having had nearly no food or water all day, according to The Cape […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3532"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3534,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3532\/revisions\/3534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}