Currently this area of South Carolina appears to be the focal point of a number of campaigns which I believe are designed to lure African Americans into the fold of "reconciliation" and unity with the religious and political Right, by fomenting hatred of Islam and gays.  Will those  who have been subjected to horrific prejudice and discrimination in the past choose to demonize others?  

The shootings in Orangeburg took place when police fired into a crowd of protesting students following the refusal by the owner of the town's only bowling alley to admit black students.  A description of the events can be read in this article by Jack Bass, author of the book  The Orangeburg Massacre.  Two websites documenting the event, including photos and testimony, can be accessed at: http://www.orangeburgmassacre1968.com/ and http://www.orangeburgmassacre.com/.

At least one other "Islam Rising" billboard is outside the town on Interstate 26 and I saw three of the  American Family Association signs on my route through town.  Also, over the last couple of years, I have noticed several of the National Black Republican Association signs including one  with a huge picture of Rush Limbaugh and the words "Limbaugh, Saving the Soul of America."  Other NBRA billboards (view at their website) echo the organization's claims that bigotry against African Americans is a product of the Democratic Party and that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a life-long Republican.  The website features David Barton and Glenn Beck, just above the section "The Global Warming Hoax."

An extensive narrative claiming that Democrats/liberals are the source of bigotry in America is marketed by David Barton, Christian nationalist pseudo-historian who is currently a regular guest of Glenn Beck on Fox News and Glenn Beck U. (See the latest in Chris Rodda's ongoing series debunking Barton's Christian nationalist history claims.) The NBRA describes the KKK as the "terrorist arm of the Democratic Party" taken from David Barton's media. While some of the history is correct, the implication is that today's Republicans and right wing conservative Christians are the heirs of abolitionists and the Civil Rights movement, while today's Democrats are heirs to bigots and racists.

Notice that there is no mention in this media of the "Southern Strategy" through which many "Dixiecrats," including George Wallace followers, were wooed to the Republican party creating a significant realignment and a block of red states below the Mason Dixon line. Nor do they mention Ronald Reagan's "states' rights" speech given in Philadelphia, Mississippi, site of the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers.  Native Southerners of my era know the coded use of the term states' rights. Early in Reagan's Philadelphia speech he told the crowd that he knew they were about 90 percent Democrats and that he had been a Democrat himself most of his life.

Christian Action Network debuted their "Islam Rising" movie  in the Congressional Cannon Caucus Room on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. on Saturday, May 1, 2010, prior to the "Mayday, A Cry to God for our Nation in Distress" which could be viewed on webcast compliments of the American Family Association.  The Mayday event was centered on the "Reclaiming the Seven Mountains" campaign to take Christian dominion over media, education, family, religion, government, arts and entertainment, and business.  The event featured a who's who of the apostles and prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and an array of other Religious Right leaders including... David Barton.

Leading  NAR prophet Lou Engle was unable to attend because he was in Uganda stirring up anti-gay fervor at his "The Call Uganda" event along with Apostle Julius Oyet and David Bahati. Richard Bartholomew has written about the anti-gay tirades of Martin Mawyer, head of the Christian Action Network (CAN), and the division on this issue between CAN and some other anti-Islam campaigners including Geert Wilders, who is the topic of the film and pulled out of its scheduled LA premier. The full title is "Islam Rising: Geert Wilders' Warning to the West."

The American Family Association signs advertise their website www.afa.net which is currently headlining a call to impeach Judge Vaughan Walker (who overturned California's Proposition Eight) and a call to place "In God We Trust" in every American classroom.  Other prominent issues of the AFA include a call by Bryan Fischer, head of issues analysis for the organization, that no more mosques be allowed to be built in this country. Fischer has previously called for all Muslims to be deported from the U.S. and expelled from the U.S. military. (Interestingly the website has recently posted an article by another writer with a logical argument warning that if the Constitution can be circumvented so that mosques can be outlawed, this could be also be used against other religious institutions.)

The former California director for the AFA was Scott Lively, coauthor of The Pink Swastika, a primary source of the now widespread revisionist history that the Nazis were gay and that acceptance of homosexuality in societies will lead to a similar catastrophe. Lively led the AFA California in launching the "California Campaign to Take Back the Schools" to stop the "homosexualization of American public schools."

Lively is also one of the many American right wing evangelists who presented seminars in Uganda preceding the draconian anti-gay legislation. After a conference in 2009, Lively claimed to have "delivered a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda."

The AFA  is led by founder Donald Wildmon and his son Tim.  The AFA supported ministries include TeaPartyDay.com and also advertises The American Heritage Series. The trailer to the series states, "Join historian David Barton and experience the untold story of our nation's history."  

For a taste of the American Heritage Series see this video clip featuring David Barton explaining the history of bigotry against African Americans to Matthew and Laurie Crouch. In the series Barton claims the resistance to freedom and rights for African Americans throughout U.S. history is a partisan project of the Democratic party, and in this segment describes the roots of the KKK.

"The Klan was started in 1866 by Democrats to whack Republicans."

Barton does indeed reveal some of the little known and fascinating history of African American leaders from the Revolutionary War through Reconstruction.  He individually names the African Americans who were elected and served in Congress and the tragic reversal of black voting rights when Reconstruction was abandoned. In an incredible "sin of omission" Barton implies that today's Democratic party is the heir of the Democrats who fought emancipation of the slaves and the Civil Rights movement. Again, there is no mention of the modern realignment of the Dixiecrats.

This series, along with other media Barton has produced to lure African Americans to the political Right, contradicts the material being produced by the Providence Foundation, where Barton serves as a director.  (Co-founder Stephen McDowell of the Providence Foundation also serves on Barton's Wallbuilders board.) The Providence Foundation publishes America's Providential History, which romanticizes the Confederacy and demonizes Reconstruction.  

"After the war an ungodly, radical Republican element gained control of Congress. They wanted to centralize power and shape the nation according to their philosophy.  In order to do this, they had to remove the force of Calvinism in America, which was centered in the South at this time, and rid the South, which was opposed to centralization of its political power. They used their post-war control of Congress to reconstruct the South, pass the Fourteenth Amendment, and in many ways accomplish their goals.  This explains the strong bias against the Republican Party in the South up to recent times."

- Mark A. Beliles and Stephen K. McDowell, American's Providential History,
p. 243

The 14th Amendment is attacked as a destruction of state powers (also described as "states rights" or "popular sovereignty"), and a cause of the growth of federal government. Barton and his associates appear to be reaching out to minority communities and "reconciliation" minded charismatics with one version of history, and to white fundamentalists with another.   (See my article Rushdoony and Theocratic Libertarians on Slavery and Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare Glossary to see the meaning of "identificational repentance" and "reconciliation" with ethnic and racial minorities in this context.)

Barton was an advisor on the Texas School Board of Education committee which made sweeping changes to the curriculum guidelines for history, but dropped their attempts to rename the slave trade as the "Atlantic triangular trade." See People for the American Way's publication on Barton's outreach to African Americans and Hispanics, and ongoing coverage of the Texas Freedom Network of the Texas curriculum debacle. TFN's current headline articles include on another of the Texas SBOE advisors, Peter Marshall, and his following quote,

"When it comes to the reality of Islam in America, can a good or devout Muslim be a good American? No. The answer, my friends, is a flat `no!' The only Muslim that could possibly be a good American is a Muslim that is non-practicing, or one that is in the process of repudiating Islam. Why? Because Islam is completely incompatible with either Christianity or patriotic Americanism."

Matthew Crouch, seen in the American Heritage Series, is the son of  Trinity Broadcast Network founders Paul and Jan Crouch,  and heads the Hollywood production company Gener8Xion Entertainment. Coincidentally, Matthew Crouch is the "Honorary Consul of Uganda in California," as listed on an official Ugandan website. Crouch was invited by President Yoweri Museveni in 2005 to establish a film industry in Uganda and promised government support.  The president and his wife Janet have worked closely for over a decade with American charismatic ministries including being featured in several of the "Transformation" movies produced by George Otis, Jr., including a film starring Apostle Julius Oyet, who was recognized by the Ugandan Parliament when the anti-gay bill was first introduced.  

The charismatic movement to which Matthew Crouch, David Barton, and many other Religious Right leaders belong, is loudly advertising its commitment to racial reconciliation and healing, but apparently this campaign requires demonization of other religions and gays to produce the required unity among believers.  Hopefully those who have known suffering at the hands of bigotry and prejudice will not fall for this transparent and hateful ploy.

[Authors note: Just noticed this article about an angry anti-Islam protest led by Flip Benham outside a Connecticut mosque.]