The ongoing narrative
of blacks in America encompasses a vast scope of issues that must be evaluated
in order to effectively understand the plights, progressions, and regressions
that have befallen upon the race throughout history. These topics range from economic
and political matters, to social and cultural subject matters as well. An
imperative dynamic that must be explored in this narrative is the relationship
between black Americans and the federal government in the period directly
succeeding the Civil War in 1865, to well over a century later in 1990.
Authoritative government policies throughout this period have served to aid in
the advancement of blacks and provide unprecedented opportunities for their
political and economic involvement as well as their overall status of welfare
and social integration and pursuit of civic equality, but have also imposed
doctrines and legislative decrees that would only hinder fight for racial
equality. History shows that progressive racial policies have not been
independent of the perseverance of black spearheads or those who fought
aggressively to maintain them using various resources, nor have oppressive
policies been implemented without black opposition or vehement challengers. The
fight for black equality in America represents a series varied response to the
federal government’s attitude towards racial affairs by black Americans as they
accommodated and resisted accordingly as to whatever method appeared to be the
most effective to their struggle for equality.
The end of the American Civil War in
1865 brought with it an essential need for a structural restoration of civil
proceedings as well as a clear proclamation of a course of action in regards to
what the “new” United States of America meant and how its institutions would be
established and upheld moving forward. Not only was there now a task of
identifying an appropriate governing and renovation of the economically
dismantled former Confederate states and to whom was to commence in leading
this process, but there now existed the question of what the freedom actually
meant in regards to the 4 million freedmen spread throughout the states but
mostly concentrated in the South. The definition of freedom varied greatly
amongst blacks themselves, white citizens and governmental authorities. The
most directly impactful product of emancipation was the sudden bestowment of
the right of suffrage for black men. Eric Foner describes the coming of black
suffrage as “a sense of millennial possibility second only to emancipation
itself” (Foner, 129). Blacks, in this period, were generally proactive in
participating in the political process. They engulfed themselves in the
acquisition of historical and civil knowledge and took advantage of all mediums
for acquiring information. Black Americans partook in a period of jubilee where
not only could they cast a ballot, but they had the opportunity to be self
determined individuals in control of their familial affairs and were able to
openly choose what ideologies and philosophical dogmata to adhere to and those
to reject. The access to the ballots for black men as well as many other
socio-economic opportunities were quickly diminished, however, due to Andrew
Johnson’s Presidential Reconstruction policies. With congress on leave, Johnson
proceeded to enforce his own system of reconstruction, an arrangement where former
Confederate legislators were essentially given pardons and were able to reclaim
lost properties provided that they pledged their allegiance to the United
States and paid necessary restitution fees. Presidential Reconstruction would
result in the leadership of the South being placed back in the hands of the
same white, elite class whose main objectives were to uphold an economy and
social society driven by the fruits of cheap, black labor. Immediately, systems
were put in place in the South to once again compel blacks to work and to limit
the amount of freedom afforded to them. Black Codes throughout the South made
it virtually impossible for blacks to work without being contracted by white property
owners and could be arrested under charges of vagrancy if they could not show
proof of contractual work obligation. The ability to acquire land was
restricted to those citizens deemed as skilled laborers, which translated into
white landowners with the ability to develop and certify skilled trades. Blacks
were systematically forced out of the judicial system and could neither
participate on juries with whites nor testify against white citizens leading to
highly disproportionate black conviction rates and indictments oftentimes made
from falsified reports. New forms of child apprenticeships also became
prevalent where former slaveholders could, under their discretion, take a black
child to work for them for undisclosed periods of time and in return for
relatively unattainable profit returns. Black Codes aimed to reestablish the
ideologically racist slave system that had been the standard in the South’s
economical and social system before the Civil War and Lincoln’s order for
emancipation.
In response to Black Codes,
opposition to such legislative policies grew feverishly coming from not only
Republicans and Radicals in the North, but from organized blacks as well.
Blacks had organized themselves into informative coalitions of activists and
awareness mediums, rallying for changes to government and a ratification of
Johnson’s method of reconstruction. 1867’s Military Reconstruction Acts were
brought about by the actions of black organizers collaborating with white
Republicans demanding congress to intervene and enforce more civil legislation.
Once delegates were appointed to throughout the South, allowing for the ability
for blacks to access the ballots, blacks would further organize and create
unions that served to provide for accessible black establishments. These
coalitions utilized the political system to create school systems, churches,
orphanages and other progressive institutions for black Americans. This period
also saw rise to perhaps the most impactful change in America’s racial
narrative as black began to hold office in not only local government, but on
the state and federal level as well. With black participation in elected
offices, legislative policies would gradually focus more on race relations,
education, and economic policies in regards to the black population and the
preservation and improvement of civic entitlements.
The rise of white vigilantism would,
however, become a key element of the demise of the continuity of a constructive
Reconstruction. In 1866, the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, led primarily by
former Confederate officer Nathan Bedford Forest, ignited a wildfire that
spread from Tennessee throughout the rest of the South. White Southerners
infuriated by the political and social enhancements of blacks and what they saw
to be a destruction of an ideal Southern society, expressed their opposition
through organized violent acts of political terrorism. Vigilantes would attack
leaders of the new founded coalitions, black and white, and would incite fear
into the hearts of anyone who sympathized with the plight of blacks and their
fight for equality. Acts carried out by the Klan and similar vigilante groups
were barbaric in nature with their outright bulldozing methods used to
assassinate and attack black and Radical organizers, critically diminishing
black political involvement both in voting and in creating and maintaining
necessary establishments required for black progression. The extensive
pervasiveness of Southern violence and corruption would transform the
perception in which the rest of the nation viewed the South. A sense of
Northern indifference would commence as the South was once again viewed as a
burden in need of restoration and by the helm of a worldwide depression in
1873, more Americans began to adhere to the “right man ideology”, a philosophy
that identified an elitist, capitalist driven white upper-class as the
appropriate sect to be in charge of effectively running the nation and
restoring stability. The Republican Party, which in many ways served as an
effective avenue for black enfranchisement, transformed its platforms and
ideologies to focus on capital and economical development driven by the elite once
again diminishing the push for racial equality to the status of an
afterthought. This period of redemption saw the rise of sharecropping as the
standard for Southern economical systems. The sharecropping system would
constrict black laborers to unbreakable contracts with landowners with little
to no profit return for the farmers. Anti-enticement legislators ensured that
blacks would be kept under the control of wealthy landowners and be provided
limited chances for economic enfranchisement or upward mobility.
The Redemption movement did not
diminish the determination of blacks and their fight for equality; rather, this
period was met with tenacious resiliency by the oppressed race. Blacks
continued to vote during Redemption and exhausted all attempts to hold and
attain public offices. Some would choose to emigrate westward in an attempt to
escape from the harsh realities of Southern life, but those who stayed and
fought back would organize and further utilize the political system to their
advantage. One such prominent organization was the National Association of
Colored Women’s Clubs. This group of female activists led movements that would
initiate the creation of necessary institutions and black owned businesses and
provide for the social welfare of blacks throughout society, morally and
legally. The NACW would prove to be a key catalyst for the emergence of an
identifiable black middle class. Fraternal institutions would also materialize
further creating a socially stratified dynamic within black culture. Blacks
would also take advantage of the gradual tensions and eventual breaking away of
large portions of the Democratic Party that would lead to the undermining
unified white authority. The dismantlement of the Democratic Party created
opportunities for blacks to engaged in biracial political coalitions. These
newfound political groups, more specifically the Readjuster Party, strived for
the protection of rights for the working class and black Americans and opposed
corrupt and oppressive governmental policies and proceedings such as the
Virginia Board of Public Works imbalanced control of national infrastructural
projects. In North Carolina, blacks further exploited the prospects brought on
by political empowerment by taking control of regional affairs especially in
areas which a high black population such as the Eastern 2nd
District. Populist organizers fused with black Republicans and drastically
reformed state legislature dealing with high interest rates, regulations
regarding the appointment of local representatives; effectively decentralizing
political control and developed regional constituent governance.
The astounding levels of black
progression was once again met by racist opposition as the 1890s saw a
reigniting of Redemption paradigms and campaigns for white supremacism. Racially
driven massacres and violent terrorism directly responded to continued black
political engagement and leadership. The phenomenon of lynching evolved from a
local rarity to an impending threat to all blacks and their sympathizers
throughout the South and, perhaps more alarmingly, in the early 1890s, the
cultural tolerability and prevalence of spectacle lynching reached peak
frequency. Southern whites turned to bouts of mob violence and openly conducted
murders at alarming rates, perversely attempting to redeem the “white man’s
rule”. Debates within black culture would ensue regarding how to address and
respond to the now highly agitated level of racial tension and outright
violence. Some of black America’s most prolific figures during this time with
contrasting views were Ida B. Wells, Booker T Washington and W.E.B. Dubois.
Wells was a journalist who daringly took documented accounts of lynching
occurrences and overall racial violence and injustices. Wells expressed her philosophy of the need
for blacks to defend themselves and to not succumb to racial terrorism without
fighting against it, “…every Afro American should ponder as well, is that a
Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it
should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give” (Wells 1892).
Ida B Wells represented the black collective that believed self-defense was to
be the primary response to racial violence.
Booker T Washington was a prominent propagator of blacks taking an
accommodationist role in society, adhering to the racially stratified
hierarchal system that white America essentially wanted, and urged for the
black race to put aside their fallacious fantasies of a rapid acquisition of
racial equality and commit themselves to developing efficient skills and trades
necessary to provide America’s economic system with a reliable backbone of a
strong working class, “The wisest among my race understand that the agitation
of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in
the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of
severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing… The opportunity
to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the
opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-house” (Washington 1895).
Washington’s appeal for compromise would create stark debates and differing
responses from black America as many, including Du Bois, who viewed accommodation
as a malignant paradox that would only serve to reiterate and enforce white supremacism
and set back the progress made by blacks even further, “As a result of this
tender of the palm-branch, what has been the return? In these years there have
occurred:
1. The
disfranchisement of the Negro.
2. The legal creation
of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro.
3. The steady
withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training of the Negro” (Du
Bois 31).
Faced with the an oppressive society
under Jim Crow, a resurgence of violent white terrorists groups, and a high
demand for northern labor due to the staggering European immigration because of
World War I, the early 1900s saw an unprecedented amount of black Americans
migrating to the North. An estimated 500,000 blacks moved northward between
1915 and 1918 followed by another 700,000 following during the 1920s (Arnesen
iii). Automobile industries in cities like Detroit and meat packing facilities
in Chicago enticed the generally economically deprived black populous to
relocate to a land of guaranteed economic opportunity and the promise of the
chance of social mobility. This flood of migrants in pursuit of a better
standard of living was met with issues and hindrances. Blacks were subjugated
to urban “ghettoization” standards where they were forced to live in poor, under
maintained communities as well as opposition from white unions who attempted at
every level to discourage companies from hiring blacks whom they believed would
take their jobs. New migrants were also initially denied membership from
organizations that would aid to secure their worker rights such as the American
Federation of Labor and were victims of riots and terrorist attacks in their
communities in an attempt to drive them out. Blacks would take advantage of the
wartime climate and unionized on their own in vital industries of the decade.
Black women, specifically, had leverage in regards to how effectively they
could strike or protest unfair working conditions as their husbands and male
family members were typically off to war, thus, they were being paid a
government stipend allowing them to sacrifice wages in efforts to advocate for
better working and living conditions, domestically.
Later on in the years after the
Great Depression of 1929 and before the Second World War, black Americans’
would find themselves even more economically plighted then their white citizens
because of limited welfare institutions for their communities. President Hoover
opted to take a laissez-faire approach to the economy and appealed to white
southerners to join the Republican Party; one which would now alienate from
black political engagement and affairs. Hoover went as far as to appoint
prominent racist judge John Parker to the Supreme Court which would further
block litigations aligned with black enfranchisement. Franklin Roosevelt’s New
Deal would further disenfranchise blacks despite its nature of social welfare.
Agricultural Adjustment Acts would limit the types and quantity of crops grown
and credit landowners heftily as black farmers would be left to fend for
themselves and be forced out of the workforce. Blacks once again turned to
political empowerment to aid to their betterment collaborating with labor
organizations engulfed under communist umbrellas where intra-racial coalitions
lobbied for the betterment of the proletariat and equality for all creeds and
colors. These radical affiliations eventually led to the taking over of the
NAACP by the black working class, focusing on impartiality in regards to class
and for the mobilization of the working class. Communist associations would
create venues for black institutions until the gradual decline of membership
that came with the stigma of the Red Scare after World War II where communist
affiliation was socially and politically demonized.
The widely accessible mediums of
television and radio brought exposure to racism in America and led to much
criticism by other nations leading to new methods of protest to be utilized by
blacks. Eventually, pivotal accomplishments such as the desegregation of the
military and the established precedent of ‘separate but equal’ being
unconstitutional would be achieved through legislative and judicial policies.
The fight for equality would take on new identities as Black Power became the
mantra for the freedom struggle. Blacks chose whether to align with Ghandian
non-violence and the pursuit of excellence through education and
enfranchisement under leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., or to take ‘by
any means’ approach combatting oppression, as was the case with groups such as
the Black Panther Party. These various means, however, were systematically
attacked federally through policies such as the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program
and misaligning smear campaigns of the effectiveness and fairness of
affirmative action. Blacks combatted
this by attempting to collaborate through a representative black coalition,
unifying without uniformity. The National Black Convention event in Indiana
would lead to more participation of blacks in political arenas but still shed
light on the vast differences of issues amongst localities.
The
1980s would bring forth a new challenge to black Americans imposed by federal
government. With the election of Ronald Reagan came the establishment of a “New
Right” a moral agenda aimed to counteract the counterculture legacy of the
1960s. Spending attributed to welfare, healthcare and education was
astronomically rerouted to military budgets and what would become known as the
War on Drugs and the hyperactive growth of America’s prison system. Strict laws
were enforced on not only drug dealers but users as well with the 1980s seeing
a boom of arrests and incarcerations due to possession alone. Focus was shifted
to punitive responses to drug use rather than treatment and communities with
high parentages of users and dealers were targeted heavily. Being black in
America, especially in urban areas, could be enough legal motivation for
lawfully justified searches and seizers at the discretion of law enforcement.
Black men filled prisons and were permanently marked by criminal records
disqualifying them from being full participants in the workforce and from
political engagement; essentially creating a subclass of the population that
could still be exploited for economic gain.
The
struggle for black equality has always been a tandem of progression and
regression hallmarked by the innovation and fearlessness of a dignified few of certain
historical eras, and by the workhorse mentality and mobilization efforts of a
mass of determined human beings constantly fighting for the recognition and establishment
of rights they believe are self evident and humanly entitled to. The federal
government is the crucial component to exploit and manipulate in order for
civil rights to be established and to set the course for social and cultural
recognition to shadow. Black Americans have used, and continue to use, this same
system that has imposed oppressive policies that have seemed unable to be
conquered, to establish equality and set precedents in order to guarantee the
advancement of their decedents and the progression of humankind and social
consciousness as a whole. It is not without these direct challenges and acts of
resiliency, that cultural, social or political standards can ever be
transformed.
Works
Cited
Arnesen,
Eric. Black Protest and the Great Migration: A Brief History with Documents.
Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003. Print.
Du
Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. Unabridged ed. New York: Dover
Publications, Inc, 1994. Print.
Foner,
Eric. Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction. New York:
Vintage, 2005. Print.
Washington,
Booker T. "Atlanta Exposition Speech." Cotton States and
International Exposition. Georgia, Atlanta. 09 Feb. 2015. Speech.
Wells,
Ida B., Miss. "Southern Horrors. Lynch Law in All Its Phases." New
York Age (1892): n. pag. Print.
