If racist white bigots did not come out in mass to obstruct Ruby Bridges, a precious six-year-old black girl, from attending school and necessitating an armed escort, we would never know her name.

The reason artwork exists, which memorializes this shameful day when the failure of American humanity was laid bare, is that throngs of violent cowards came to a school to intimidate a black child. Ruby was six years old, and white people thought the best use of their time was harassing her and hurling insults at her. I want to know who these people are.

I want to understand why they thought this was a good use of their time. I want to hear first-hand accounts from them or their family members about the time their relative(s) dropped everything they were doing to intimidate a little black girl. If we must learn about Ruby, then we need to give names to the nameless mobs of snarling white faces spitting venom at black people who want to live their lives free of scorn and hate.

A mob of angry white people created Ruby Bridges. They have been able to exist anonymously for far too long. This perk of whiteness and a tenet of white supremacy is the ability to terrorize marginalized groups of people and escape accountability. However, we know who they are. Historians know who they are. Their children and grandchildren know who they are. I want the rest of us to be part of this cabal. I want my grandchildren’s grandchildren to know who they are like they will know who Ruby is.

I am not seeking to be punitive by identifying the individuals who volunteered to join mobs for the purpose of terrorizing black people. I do believe we should not be judged by the worst thing we do (even if it is using your body to harass and hurl racial slurs at a six-year-old girl). That period or moment of weakness should not define our lives.

I want to know if they acknowledge the harm they caused. If they have repented and atoned for their hateful deeds.

We hear accounts of people in the death chamber asking for forgiveness before they are put to death. Some even comment that they hope their death will bring peace and tranquility to their victim’s surviving loved ones.

Nurses and other medical professionals are saddled with deathbed confessions. However, these proclamations are selfish and are only used to assuage their guilt before dying. Perhaps, to make it to heaven. They are doing nothing to repair the injury they caused to their victims or those who loved their victims.

Bigotry is a pernicious form of violence.

Murder is black and white. Everyone understands that you do not have a right to take another person’s life unless certain criteria are met. There is a clear set of laws that support this point.

Our morality forbids killing an innocent person. The consequences of murder are clear: the absence of that person from Earth. We can see grief from the victim's family and loved ones. The results of the murderer's actions are pronounced and overt.

The harms inflicted by racism and bigotry are also pronounced and overt.

Due to the imbalance of power, victims of such hate are not free to vocalize their pain. We are told to hold it in. We are taught to suppress our emotions. We are always cautioned not to allow them to see the anguish they caused. Perpetual admonishments are deployed to stifle our anger. We are forbidden to retaliate after we have been wronged. We must avoid saying a choice word that could escalate the situation.

We are told to ignore the bigot. To pay them no attention because the racist has some quality or affliction that has made them more prone to spill this bile. The victim is forced into a paradoxical purgatory where they must recognize the humanity of their harasser while they actively continue to deny the victim’s human dignity.

These well-intended maxims are force multipliers of the bigotry they just experienced. We are telling the victim to suppress normal human reactions. To be angry is to be human. Pain is part of the human condition. Crying is a natural human reaction to many forms of stimuli.

We are unknowingly or subconsciously proving the bigot correct by denying the survivor’s humanity. When we tell someone not to access the full range of human emotions and reactions, we stifle their humanity. This is an injury in itself.

Racism and all forms of bigotry are violence.

Power dynamics allow the bigot to spew whatever racist dreck his feeble mind can conceive and restrains the person who has to deal with this torrent of hate from responding in kind.

Toni Morrison has described the true nature of racism as a distraction. Racism does not allow the target to focus on what they had intended to do at that very moment when their world is interrupted by the cruelty of a monster masquerading as a human being.

Your mind wanders after the initial sting of the vitriol has been dulled. In my experience, I always wonder what is wrong with them. I know I should not be concerned for such a contemptuous rodent, but I am puzzled by how their life is so pathetic that the only thing going for them is the color of their skin. For them, their whiteness is the most marketable asset they have, and I find that pathetic. Accordingly, I feel pity for my assailant.

Perhaps this is internalized helplessness or a vestige of white supremacy that has been imbued within me. I do not know the answer, but at least I can ask the question.

I must admit that crashing my fist, foot, elbow, knee, or any object that is near me into the bigot's face is more than a passing fancy. Any time a slur is hurled, it is an invitation for violence. If a straight man goes to a gay bar and hurls a slur, they will leave with teeth missing. If a white man walks into a black barbershop and hurls a slur, he is going to get stomped out.

Racism and all forms of bigotry are violent, and the natural reaction to violence is violence.

Anyone who tells you differently is lying and trying to avoid accountability for hateful actions.

Furthermore, there is no such thing as microaggressions; there are just aggressions. There is no such thing as a micromurder, microhomeinvasion, or microassault. Notice that we try to minimize the violence associated with this unwanted, unwarranted, and unwise bigoted intrusion upon our peace.

I reject it.

The people who made up these mobs are violent predators who preyed upon marginalized groups because they know the system they created, supported, and perpetuated would reluctantly hold them to account if it was forced to.

Justice is not constrained by time or social mores. Justice does not bend to the capricious nature of racism. Justice does not surrender its agency to white supremacy. You might be able to evade justice and accountability while you were living, but as the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice, your atrocities will be unearthed, and even in death, you will be held to account for your wickedness.

The animals pictured above are known. Someone knows the name of every one of these criminals who are standing around three black men who were put to death for a nonexistent crime. I want to know what went through their minds to pose for a photograph in front of the desecrated bodies of these three black men. I want to know if these beasts participated in the lynching of these three black men in Duluth, MN.

Sadly, I know they were never held to account for the terror and evil they unleashed upon the world. Yet, I want to know how they spoke to their loved ones about this event. Did they brag to their grandchildren about lynching three niggers? Did they go on to have a life of violence? Were any of them domestic abusers?

We are all entitled to know if they ever asked for forgiveness for this atrocity. Did they atone for their actions? What words did they use to describe the lynching?

For those who might not have been an active participant in the lynching, did they still associate with those who were? Did they continue like nothing happened, or did they move on and renounce their friendship with those murderers?

These men had children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren who are alive today. They have family members who are alive today. Justice demands that we get the answers we deserve. Our fidelity to the laws of this land requires that these monsters be held to account even in death.

The dead cry for us to prosecute those who killed them, and we do. We find the person who committed the crime and hold them to account. We avenge the dead by punishing the living.

Why can’t the converse also be true? Nothing bars us who are alive from holding the dead to account for crimes they committed but were never charged with because we actively worked to protect white bodies from harming black bodies.

A name has value. That is why we posthumously pardon people for racist crimes like the black boxer Jack Johnson. We clear people’s names, even when they are no longer alive because we acknowledge the import of an unsullied name.

Why doesn’t the same principle apply to those who committed terrible acts while they were alive but were never held to account?

That is why we must indict the dead.

Jerry Jones never mentioned this ugly incident in his autobiography. He only talked about his racist conduct when it was forced in his face. Jerry has never atoned for this sin. He has never repented for the violence he caused. The harm he inflicted. The trauma he induced.

However, we know about Jerry. What about the rest of the terrorists in the picture?

Were they proud of their actions at the time? Are they still proud of them? Would they do this again for eternity? Did they ever stop to contemplate the harm they were causing to fellow students who were doing the same thing they were doing: attending school? One black woman remarked that so many white people spit on her that she had to wring her dress out and spit just came pouring out.

Spitting on another human being is violence.

Who are these menaces? Jerry Jones knows everyone in this photo. Historians know everyone in this photo. Why hasn’t someone gone to their door and interviewed them? If not them, what about their children? Did they ever confess to their children they were part of an angry mob to bar black kids from attending the same school they went to? If not, ask the kid why do you think your mother or father hid this from you.

James Brock is the rodent pictured in the first photo dumping acid into the swimming pool. Did this man have any sense of shame? Is he proud of his actions? Did he ever brag to his friends, family, and loved ones about his conduct on this day? Did he make amends for his actions on this day? Did he honestly believe that black people swimming in a pool spoils the water? If he did, does he still believe this, and who told him this? Did he tell his children this lie? How do his friends and family feel when confronted with this picture today?

There is a reason the myth that black people don’t know how to swim persists today: because of trauma and terror like this.

I am curious about what the response will be when these bigots are outed. Their names are forever displayed for future generations to research and judge.

I know that some white people have condemned their relatives' criminal ways. Yet, most of these people do not have any direct connection to that blood relative. Condemnation of bad behavior is easy when the person you are condemning is an abstraction; when there is no proximity to the person, the act loses some meaning.

I think we will get a lot of qualifications and equivocation about their loved one’s terrorism. They will try to dismiss it as being appropriate for the time period. They will swear that this photo is not indicative of who they are. That they are/were not racist.

I am willing to concede this point if they show me the receipts. If they can produce black friends to vouch for them, I will chalk it up to a bad day or a lapse in judgment. I want to see pictures of black people sitting around their tables and sharing meals with them. Or hear directly from black people who have invited them to their homes to fellowship.

If none of the conditions have been met, then your loved one was an unrepentant bigot, and I don’t want to hear they voted for Obama in 2008 because I am going to ask…did they vote for Trump…and that is when it will get ugly.

Let us start making these bigots famous.