By 1976, "there was a sprawling proliferation of pro-Rhodesian organizations in the United States," University of Houston historian Gerald Horne writes "The transatlantic question of race was the essential glue that held the lobby together." In the United States, where the civil rights movement was winning historic victories, white supremacists saw the viciously racist Rhodesian government as a victory worth celebrating. In 1965, white natives led by a man named Ian Smith declared independence from Britain, and founded a country named Rhodesia, named after Cecil Rhodes (the British imperialist who led the colonization of the area). It was a terribly racist country, akin to apartheid South Africa, and became a sort of cause celebre for white supremacists in the 1960s and 1970s - one they still mythologize today.Īfter the area was colonized by the British in the late 1890s, a racial caste system quickly emerged in what would become Rhodesia, where white people controlled the commanding political heights, as well as most of the land, while black people served as peasants. Rhodesia used to be where today's Zimbabwe is. Here's a guide to what those flags mean - and why a man who appears to have committed a vicious hate crime would sport them on his jacket. That would be apartheid South Africa, which you might be aware of, and Rhodesia, which is a little less known. We know that not just from his actions: the above photo of Roof, identified by the Charleston Post and Courier, shows him wearing a jacket with the flags of two avowedly racist nations. Attorney General Bill Barr directed the Bureau of Prisons to reinstate the federal death penalty last July, but the Supreme Court agreed to put that plan on hold in December.Dylann Storm Roof, the 21-year-old man suspected of walking into a historically black church and massacring nine parishioners, is in all likelihood a white supremacist. The federal government has not executed a convict since 2003. He was sentenced to nine consecutive life sentences and three consecutive 30-year sentences for those counts. According to one transcript, Roof told a psychologist working for his defense team that his death penalty wouldn’t be carried out because he’d “be rescued by white nationalists after they took over the government.”Īfter his conviction on federal charges, Roof pleaded guilty in April 2017 to state murder and attempted murder charges in the killings. Roof’s mental state was explored in detail in documents from Roof’s competency hearings and videos of three prison visits by his family that were released in May 2017. I have not shed a tear for the innocent people I killed.” I do not regret what I did,” Roof wrote in the journal. Prosecutors presented evidence in court of chilling writings from a jailhouse journal he wrote after the attack. “Anything you heard from my lawyers in the last phase, I ask you to forget it,” he said. (Photo by Randall Hill - Pool/Getty Images) Randall Hill/Pool/Getty Imagesĭylann Roof jury: Death penalty for Charleston church shooter Roof is charged with murdering nine worshippers at a historic black church in Charleston last month. He represented himself at the penalty phase of the trial, telling jurors that “there’s nothing wrong with me psychologically” and to disregard his attorneys’ previous arguments during the trial.ĬHARLESTON, SC - JULY 16: Dylann Roof (R), 21, listens to proceeding with assistant defense attorney William Maguire during a hearing at the Judicial Center Jin Charleston, South Carolina. Roof, an avowed white supremacist, was convicted of federal murder and hate crimes charges, and he was sentenced to death in January 2017. “Roof’s crime was tragic, but this Court can have no confidence in the jury’s verdict,” the attorneys wrote. The trial court, the attorneys said, was in a “rush to move the case along” and prevented the jurors from hearing evidence surrounding Roof’s competency hearings in which five experts found him to be “delusional.” The attorneys argued that Roof was allowed to represent himself at his capital trial despite being mentally incompetent and “disconnected from reality.” In a 321-page motion filed with the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the attorneys wrote that the federal trial court “clearly erred in finding Roof competent to stand trial and sentencing, and it violated his due process rights by holding inadequate competency hearings.” The argument about Roof’s mental stability came as his attorneys asked a federal appeals court to overturn his 2017 death penalty conviction for the 2015 massacre at Mother Emanuel AME Church. Dylann Roof was convicted of killing nine people at a historic African American church in Charleston, South Carolina.
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