A reader sends this segregation-era image from The Yazoo City Herald, reproduced in the September 24, 1955, edition of The Afro American, a black newspaper. It is a full-page advertisement that the White Citizens Council of that Mississippi town took out in their local paper, listing the names and addresses of people who had signed a petition calling for the desegregation of local schools. According to The Afro American:

Many signers have been penalized by loss of employment. J.H. White, a plumbing contractor listed above, lost two construction jobs, was refused plumbing supplies by a wholesale house, and his grocer told him a loaf of bread would cost him a dollar. He plans to move elsewhere.

Petitions are public documents by definition. Still, the idea that donor lists cannot be employed by bad people seeking to destroy people’s livelihood for supporting the “wrong” cause has a history in this country. It did not start with the people who drove Brendan Eich out of Mozilla for supporting traditional marriage. It started at least as far back as the people who drove plumber J.H. White out of work in Yazoo City for supporting desegregation. There is a clear line between the fates of J.H. White and Brendan Eich, and between Yazoo City and Silicon Valley.