S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman on today's show , What American history can tell us about fascism as concerns rise over losing democracy. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. Since President Donald Trump's reelection , hundreds of scholars have warned that the U.S. is sliding towards authoritarianism. Some say the U.S. is no longer a democracy. They point to the erosion of civil liberties and free and fair elections. This isn't the first time the United States has confronted authoritarianism on its own soil , though scholars argue that U.S. authoritarianism can be traced back to the racist policies of the Jim Crow era. Joining me to unpack that history and what it means for the present is professor T.J. Talley. He is a professor of history at the University of San Diego. Professor , welcome back to Midday Edition.
S2: It is always such a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
S1: So glad to have you here. So , you know , broadly speaking , authoritarianism is defined as a system of government , right , where citizens obey rules even at the expense of their own personal freedoms.
S2: So one of the things I think that is really important is understanding that for black Americans , the United States has not always historically been a place of extreme freedom , right , or inclusion. And it's a very recent idea for us. I , in the 1930s especially , its sort of the height of Jim Crow laws. You have this moment where there is an existent Openly , proudly , structurally racist society in which Black Americans were clearly known as second class citizens. They were understood to have less rights under the law. They did not have the legal protections of jury voting. They didn't have the protection of the vote in the same way. And they lived in many ways under an authoritarian regime. They did not have full access to inclusion , and they were expected to just obey. And the consequences were severe. Hmm.
S1: Hmm. You know , and it's my understanding even that in the 1930s , Nazi Germany drew legal inspiration from Jim Crow , America's racial segregation laws. Tell me about that history.
S2: Yeah , it's one of those it's really difficult and hard to think about. But especially scholar James Whitman in his book Hitler's American Model , thinks about the fact that when the Nazis were drafting the Nuremberg Laws in the 19 early 1930s , 33. 34. They looked around for other examples that existed , to give them the legal weight , to make frameworks that racially singled out part of their population , and they settled on and looked at with a lot of positivity. American racial laws , especially in the Jim Crow South. Now , this does not mean I don't want to be very clear. This doesn't mean that the Nazi regime said , oh , you know , we're one and the same that the Nazi regime found much to dislike about the United States , particularly its imagining of liberal democracy and its claims of freedom , even if they were not immediately realized. But the point is , is that racial laws , including racial purity , the idea that one could inherit a lesser racial status. So the one drop rule that we're familiar with in the United States , Nazi legislators and legal theorists look towards the United States in multiple aims. They looked around the idea of eugenics , and they looked at the idea of sort of racial segregation and what could be possible. And in some instances , actually , the American examples were too extreme. So what we find is in some levels , for example , inheritance of blackness is a is seen as is too extreme of a rule when Nazi legal theorists are trying to determine if Jewish people can be included in the state. What we also have is in terms of there is a thriving and extant eugenics movement in the United States in the 1930s , in which some races were seen as better and superior , and this fell on fertile soil , um , when German legislators were trying to make their case. And again , I just want to be very careful when I say this in that there exists in the United States two simultaneous strains , right ? This idea of immense freedom and a long story and arc of inclusion. But for there's also this profound story in which people have a historic second class legal status. So black Americans , especially under Jim Crow , but also Filipinos , Native Americans , multiple people that had legally designated second class statuses that when the German state in the 30s looked around , they said this , we can work with this. Yeah.
S1: Yeah , yeah. I mean , and , you know , so so Nazi Germany implemented this , this racial anti-Semitism. Um , of course , anti-Semitism is the oldest form of hate , um , in the world. This racial anti-Semitism emerges out of , um , Jim Crow laws. Um , and of course , you know , this hate. We just saw it yesterday with another attack. anti-Semitic attack , you know , but it's this this is all something that you don't typically read in your textbooks , right ? Um , the the ideological connection between the United States and Nazi Germany.
S2: And this is the exact opposite of heroic. And I think one of the things that I that we often have to sit with is the fact that the United States is many things. It can be for many people , a beacon of freedom and an immense place of opportunity. But it also is a place in which incredible violence has occurred. Quotidian , everyday violence that marks that society. And when I often think about this in in the context historically of the United States , I think here is a place in which authoritarianism is not new for some , but the the sort of goals and core findings of the United States were this idea in which some people would have full access to freedom. And yes , we can imagine our historical ambit has been trying to enlarge that circle of freedom for more and more people. But that was not the lived experience for many of our ancestors. And and that reality is one that I think is very important for us to have to look at. If we pretend that the United States has always been blemish free , then we we impoverish ourselves and suddenly we have these rhetorics of , I don't know where this came from.
S3: This is not. Us.
S2: Us. And yet those of us who have descended from those who inhabited the violences of Jim Crow know in our own family stories the arbitrary punishments , the lack of basic human rights , the deprived of dignity , the structural legal systems that told you that you were less existed here. Um , and thinking about that sort of moment where we have a country that could engage in internment of certain populations and then legally support it. Um , I think also further , for me , as someone who works often in colonial history , when I worked on my first book in South African history , I found that in the late 19th century , the colonies that became the country of South Africa. Looked to Virginia and Mississippi and Louisiana for their voter exclusion laws. To prevent Africans from being able to vote or have representation.
S1: In apartheid South Africa.
S2: And apartheid grows directly out of this. So the apartheid regime choices are often founded in original borrowing from American states as well. And I think sometimes this can be deeply disheartening. Right. And in this moment where we're feeling the weight of everything , it's very easy to think , oh my goodness , then why must we just sit in all of this badness ? But I don't see it that way. I think when we sit in a history that is icky , for lack of a better word , right when we sit in that , it reminds us that cruelty is not novel , and it reminds us that violence is not original , and rather , that should embolden us to remember that just as now , there have been people at any point in our historical history that have looked around in this nation and said , oh , we don't like this. And yet we have these impulses within our country that must constantly be guarded against because it is not foreign to us. In fact , actually , it's constitutive of our nation. And other countries have seen and borrowed from it.
S1: Do you think it's hard to guard against it when that history is is missing from many history books ? Absolutely.
S2: You can't guard against something you don't know exists , right ? And I think that's actually something troubling in a variety of themes in this year , right , where we have taken away knowledge of negative histories we've taken away , or we've tried to remove knowledge of of anything scientific that may be worrisome to us or make us less comfortable , but we can't guard against or respond to things we don't know. And so we're constantly surprised. And yet , one of the most exhausting and wonderful parts about being a historian is the fact that we point out that things aren't new and that emboldens us to do work because our ancestors have already done that work.
S1: You know , when you think about the modern day legacy of of Jim Crow in that history , what parallels do you draw ? Mhm.
S2: So when I think about that legacy , I in terms of in 1935 , the United States was a parallel society in which some people had freedom and other people did not , and it was legally unquestioned by many. One of the things , though , that I see in that is my ancestors. Many people's ancestors worked day by day to challenge that and to claim belonging. And I think the parallels here is , are , are is the sense that we live in a society in which there is immense violence , and also we have the potential to work together in community to make something better and more. But also , we have to remember where we've come from. We can't pretend that this hasn't happened before , because if we operate in ignorance , we are in big trouble.
S1:
S2: So one of the things that's very common in the United States was this sense of , again , a tiered citizenship model. Right. And so the United States should exist for certain types of people , for certain types of racialized bodies. Um , and this rhetoric of like a particular American is what a real American is , existed simultaneously with the idea of an America that could open itself to lots of other people. And so our current debates , I think , reflect these different strains , too. There are certain people who are now beginning to say the quiet part out loud , which is that America is only for some people. And anti-immigration rhetoric easily lends itself to an exclusionary rhetoric that says that these people cannot or will not , should not belong. And that is as old as America itself. You know , we have in the 1850s , a party known as the no nothing Party , right ? A xenophobic party. That said , specifically , America can only be for a type of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. I used to joke with a friend that like the Know Nothings were so racist they were like , we can't even have Germans. Um , so the sense of , you know , Irish are too spicy for us. So this sense of this is a historical moment for us. How do we include people and recognize that sometimes that we already have within us this this tiered system , this tiered model that wants to say we get to belong and you don't. And that's really , I would argue , goes back to our initial legacy of colonization , the ability to take land from someone and then say that this is ours. But again , and this is the the dogged hopefulness of a historian is at the same time that that violent , exclusive rhetoric exists. There also exists a rhetorical framework that says , we can be more and we can include more and we can imagine more. And that's the same type of vision that led black Americans in the 1940s to fight for the United States against the Nazis , in what they articulated so beautifully as the double V campaign , victory abroad against Nazism , and victory at home , where we can also have inclusion. Right.
S1: Right. You know , I mean , it's often said that history doesn't repeat , but it rhymes. Mhm. Um , what does this , this history suggest ? Americans should be paying attention to as , you know , as , as , um , racism , the flames of it are stoked. Um , as , as state powers are expanded.
S2: We've got you. We represent you and we can do violence in your name. But rather , one of the lessons we can take from this is it is never too late to push back. It is never too late to work for what you believe is right. And it's never too late to try to reimagine what that looks like. Often there is an impoverishment of imagination , the sense that what we are imagining is only this. We can only be a state for certain kinds of people. This is how we've always done it. This is what this is. But really , the imagination of resistance is beautiful. What does community look like ? What does it mean for us to look around and say , we want to see each other in space United ? And I think those are moments. Going back to the 1930s , 40s , 50s , even the 60s and the civil rights movement , a challenge to say we have these ideals , we are existing in extreme violence , and we want to be more and better than this. And I think that is so depressing and hopeful at the same time. Mm.
S1: I've been speaking with TJ Talley. He is a professor of history at the University of San Diego. Professor , thank you so very much for your insight.
S2: It's always a pleasure being here , Jade.
S1: Still to come , we hear from San Diego trailblazer Dee Sanford about how San Diegans pushed past Jim Crow to open doors for others. We're back after the break. Welcome back. You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. On the show today , we've been unpacking our country's history of racial authoritarianism and how it connects to the present. Well , one window into history is through the eyes and ears of those who've lived it and through their direct descendants. Dee Sanford is a native San Diegan who graduated Lincoln High School and San Diego State University. She is now a board member for the Jackie Robinson YMCA and chair of the Martin Luther King Junior Human Dignity Award Breakfast. Dee Sanford joins me now. Dee , welcome.
S4: Thank you so much.
S1: So glad to have you here. So you grew up in San Diego during the civil rights movement. Your dad was involved in that movement.
S4: Um , not even ten years old. I don't think I'm trying to remember back , but I remember Harry Belafonte's wife came and Barbara Jordan came. So my father was the president of the NAACP in San Diego for a period of time. And then he was also president of the Southern Area Conference. So the Southern California. So we encountered a lot. But being born in San Diego in 1945 , I wasn't exposed to the same kinds of , um , overt racism that you would have been exposed to had I been born in the South. Mhm.
S1: Mhm. I mean , and to be clear , so people know what we're talking about here. The civil rights movement was that way out of that Jim Crow era in America , you know.
S4: Not so much separation. We had been separated for a variety of different reasons and then equal , but separate , which was a farce. But then I , being the first African-American woman in sales for Pacific Telephone and actually getting recruited from San Diego State University School of Business , my father advised me on assimilation , trying to be as much alike as I could be. So the dress , the conversation , the presentation of who I am , all of those things were important. So it would be easier for the culture to accept who I am , even though my skin was a different color.
S1: I want to go back to something you said , which was that you didn't necessarily experience how bad Jim Crow was because you were out here in California.
S4: My uncle , who just recently passed away. Theophilus Logan , told me that we could have ended up in Cincinnati. He and my father came to California together , to San Diego in , I think , 1940 from Oklahoma. Okay.
S1: Okay.
S4: Yeah , they were graduates of Langston. In fact , my my parents met at Langston University , and there was literally no opportunity for educated black men in Oklahoma. They could be teachers , perhaps in a segregated school. So they both came to California for greater opportunity , and they truly had greater opportunity here. The racism was covert versus overt , like it was in the South. There was no colored bathroom and white bathroom , no colored drinking faucet , no white. But the the hate and the racism then was still there. They just couldn't be overt with it. Mhm.
S1: Mhm. And it's just sometimes it's a question of which one is worse.
S4: Well you got there and you got embarrassed or you got your feelings hurt or you got called out of your name. But you who I can remember so many experiences that were so shocking because I was used to being accepted. I went to a school that had a lot of Latino kids , uh , black kids , a few white kids. Um , but I always grew up with other ethnicities where my older friends or friends from the South only grew up with black people , so they knew their place , if you will. I never had to learn my place , but I got told my place when I got to certain situations. Um , and then , uh , I just learned how to adapt and to not back down. Really , because I was a fighter. Indeed , I was a fighter. I learned a lot on this campus , as a matter of fact , because we were going through the now , the Black Power movement was very active when I was here at San Diego State in the early 70s.
S1: Tell me about that.
S4: Oh , that was the time I came here in 1971 , and the Black Power movement was really moving into full swing , and the Black Power movement really was an overt action on the part of African Americans to really step into position , to not be ashamed of who we were , but to celebrate who we were , celebrate the texture of our hair when we were wearing afros , and celebrate our our ethnicity , celebrate our heritage. When we took on African attire and wearing our dashiki and learning the dances and the foods. And I was so enthralled with that Professor Talley. Because he actually lived in Africa and learned Swahili and learns the Zulu language. So we were embracing those things during the 70s , and it was such an exciting time , but it really prepared me then for the opportunity to be proud of who I was. You remember the song of James Brown ? I'm black and I'm proud. Of course. Yeah. Well , we were we were chanting that song at that time. And so when , um , the telephone company came looking for a woman and an African-American because of the civil rights movement , and they had to start moving us into different positions. Uh , it wasn't known. It was known as affirmative action. Then it became known as dear. Diversity , equity and inclusion. Uh , that's a whole nother conversation. Yeah.
S1: Well , tell me more about your your experience working for the telephone company.
S4:
S1: You broke some glass ceilings for.
S4: Us ? Yeah , I almost hate to say glass ceilings because I could only go so high. It was a glass ceiling. Yeah. I came in as a first level manager. They recruited me from the School of Business here at San Diego State. It was interesting because I was recruited for one position , but after they interviewed me , I actually received a promotion. So I was the first black woman in sales corporate sales at Pacific Telephone. My manager was not prepared. And I'm going to tell you who my manager was. It was Major Garrett. And you know Major Garrett who is in the news. That was his father. His father was my first manager and he was not ready for me at all. So I , um , I had a lot of experiences , but there was an old saying that black people know you got to be twice as good to be thought of as half as good. And so I made it my business to be twice as good and three times as good. Be top salesperson. And still the strategy. Jade was that whatever you do , it's never good enough. That was the controlling strategy that I had to deal with at that particular time. So even though I was a top salesperson , I could never be eligible for the for the contest to win the contest , and they would actually set up situations where another person , a white man , could get the money. They were giving away significant money , but his sale fell through. I'll never forget it. And then I didn't even realize I was a top salesperson until a friend of mine , who was the secretary to the general manager ran across the sheet and she said , DD , you know about this ? I didn't even know. Wow.
S1: Wow.
S4: So I had to work my way through all of that. But I made a name for myself.
S1: In a way , for others.
S4: I made a name for myself in a way. Well , you know what ? I didn't have the power to open up the other doors , but I did a lot of mentoring. Right.
S1: Right. Right. But you have. You have no idea. Right.
S4: I really don't. Know.
S1: Know. But before I let you go today , I want to take a moment to look forward to next month's Martin Luther King Junior breakfast. Thank you. Um , it's on January 16th. I heard you've just selected the 2026 Human Dignity Award honorees.
S4: I nominated Doctor Leonard Thompson , who is the owner of Mandate Records , who is such a delightful young man and just so involved. And he has been doing the audio visual for us at the breakfast. And then the community nominated Reverend Walter Wells of Mount Erie Baptist Church. And for all of the work that he has done. So we have a young recipient , an older recipient. One of the things I just have to put this in because I'm so proud of it. I have been sharing that event since 1999. Wow. And I'm also a recipient of the Human Dignity Award. So it's it's significant to watch how it has grown over the years. We're going to be at the town and country at 630 in the morning , though we're expecting about 1800 people. So it's going to be big and people can go to the YMCA. And find information about the breakfast.
S1: That is that is wonderful. And I can't wait to hear more about the honoree at the breakfast. Yes.
S4: Yes.
S1:
S4: And this year I've invited Reece Greene , who is an actor , to come and reenact the I Have a Dream speech so that people get a flavor. He did a beautiful job this January. They really get the flavor of who Doctor King was and the impact that he had on people , because people have moved so far away. A lot of the work that he did is trying to be erased as as Brother Talley was talking about. So I'm hoping that they walk away with a full understanding of the contribution that was made and the groundwork that had been laid. And so , as he was saying , we can't allow that to be erased. We cannot. So it refreshes people on it to understand what the struggle really was. And Dan Cruz of the why he laughs at me. He because every year my my write up really centers around the fact that the struggle continues. It's not over. My all my years. I'll be I'm 80 now. All of the years I've been on the face of the earth , the struggle has continued. It's a shame that we're moving backwards now. But the struggle continues and the fight will continue.
S1: All right. I've been speaking with Dee Sanford. She is a board member for the Jackie Robinson YMCA and chair of the doctor Martin Luther King junior human dignity award breakfast. D thank you so much. And thanks for just being you.
S4: Thank you. Jade , anytime. I just have so much I'd love to say. I appreciate the opportunity to come to KPBS again.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
