by Travis Mateer
When a tornado destroyed downtown Waco in 1953, many in the black community saw it was an act of divine retribution for the horrific lynching of Jesse Washington. Here’s former Texas Governor, Rick Perry, discussing this act of community-supported violence:
Even today, we Texans struggle to talk about what happened to Jesse Washington. We don’t want to believe that our great state could ever have been the scene of such unimaginable horror.
But it is an episode in our history that we cannot ignore. It is an episode we have an obligation to transcend.
Here in Missoula, the black man pictured above was euthanized by the Sheriff’s Office on January 5th, 2020, just two days after being assaulted inside the homeless shelter that once employed me. I’ve written dozens of articles trying to understand how this could happen in a liberal community like Missoula, but, over 4 years later, I’m still stumped. It doesn’t help that this same Sheriff’s Office shot and killed the one man allegedly responsible for putting Sean Stevenson into a coma two weeks after I posted this footage of him acting threatening near the Poverello Center:
Our local officials in Missoula do NOT want to discuss the cases of two dead black men because the inconvenient manner of their deaths BY the Sheriff’s Office undermines EVERYTHING our woke leaders claim to care about.
Yesterday my article about Mayor Davis’ disingenuous culture of curiosity branding effort was published at Western Montana News, so check it out. If Mayor Davis ever gets curious enough to delve into why Sean was euthanized and Johnny executed, I’m available and ready to help.
Next week I’m going to publish a speculative post about the FBI, white supremacy, and the ideological overlap between a tech billionaire and some curious intellectuals that you won’t want to miss, so stay tuned. If you’d like to help support my local reporting with implications that reach FAR beyond this humble valley, Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) is the way to do it. Any little bit helps.
Thanks for reading!