a shocking number of old-school american outlaws were intensely community-minded, and their reputations at the time were often very positive among the people. a big part of the reason their legacies are so negative is because the government was able to control the narrative after they died, focusing on the fact that the things they did were illegal, rather than on what they actually did.
Jesse James was literally a confederate sympathizer please people
i literally CANNOT and WILL NEVER get over that one Sad Pic with the story of how a girl and a guy were on a motorcycle and he noticed a wall in front of them so he stopped to let her off and then he drove into the wall and died
IT WAS A CAR NOT A MOTORCYCLE IM. STILL LAUGIHMG YHOUGH
This reminds me of that one story where the 4 year old keys the car so the dad smacks his son’s hands off with a wrench then finds out the kid scratched “I love you” into the car