Domestic Counterinsurgency: How Counterinsurgency Tactics Combined With Laws Were Deployed Against Blacks Throughout U.S. History

Long before the United States engaged in counterinsurgency overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States engaged in counterinsurgency domestically against blacks. The history of America is a history of enduring conflict between black insurgents and white counterinsurgents. This conflict began centuries ago with the forced transport of enslaved blacks to America’s shores. From the beginning, whites employed all levers of national power including laws to suppress black resistance.

The laws became counterinsurgency weapons launched against blacks in an internal conflict lasting generations.