Long before the Atlantic slave trade, the African continent was home to numerous area empires and tribal kingdoms besides “Egypt”. Why do you think you’ve heard of “Timbuktu”? Tripoli? Dating back to 2500 BCE or earlier, Punt was a wealthy trading partner with ancient Egypt. There may have been slave trade within the Mali Empire as early as 1200 CE. The kingdom was strong into 1610, when its then leader died and control went to his 3 sons. The empire was broken into smaller areas, but the three leaders devolved their empires into fighting, and a further breakdown into tribalism signified the end of the African united empires. Islam was the preferred, but not the only, religion in the region. In the mid-1700s and beyond, the north Atlantic slave trade kept the many smaller tribes at war with each other to provide captives. This continued well into the 19th century. The United States was not the first, or only country that banned slavery. England (Great Britain) abolished slavery in 1807, France in 1843. Great Britain abolished the slave trade in India, the West Indies, and its other provinces by 1843. The United States did not.
The United States of America did not yet exist as a separate nation, but enslavement of native Americans and to a greater extent, black people was an accepted practice in several territories or states in 1776. When the fledgling nation was writing and implementing its constitution, the question of how to count the enslaved arose. The northern states wanted to abolish the practice, but the southern states were dependent on slave labor. The slave-holding states wanted their slaves counted as persons for census purposes (more power through more representatives), but the north did not (for the same reasons). In an attempt to abolish slavery, the north wanted to not count the slaves at all — if they were treated as property how could they be counted as people? The compromise was the 3/5 language of the Constitution (native people were not counted at all), not overturned until the 14th amendment in 1868. Also note that in the early 1800s the Native American population was being decimated by southern states’ desires for their land for farming cotton — which would then further expand slavery. The “trail of tears” was as a result of Andrew Jackson’s blatant disregard for the native people, since before he became president.
There were free black men, not nearly as many as those who were slaves, but enough to garner “fear” and jealousy from the whites in the new United States. Most of the north objected to slavery as an institution, but that didn’t mean the people wanted black people among the whites. Oregon tried to make itself an all white territory to attract settlers there. It banned free non-white men, and later freed slaves, from its territory in 1844 (also 1849, 1857 — which weren’t overturned until 1922). When Oregon entered the Union in 1859 — it did so as a “whites-only” state. The original state constitution banned slavery, but also excluded nonwhites from living there. It became a haven for KKK and white supremacists, even until today. It is still the most ‘white’ state by census figures. Virginia statues in late 1600 to early 1700s had such statutes as – If a slave dies while being ‘corrected’ there was no crime; cannot rape a black woman because they’re so promiscuous anyway. The enslaved were not ‘content’ or ‘happy’ with their lot in life. The slave owners had decided they were ‘the master race’. Through the 1850s ads were placed for recapture and return of runaway slaves.
The slaves were freed by executive order, the Emancipation Proclamation, issued Sep 22, 1862, effective Jan 1, 1863. Not until 2 1/2 yrs later, on June 19, 1865 did slaves in Galveston, TX get word they were free, and the civil war was over. Other towns in Texas that had kept the Emancipation order secret were not notified of their freedom or the war’s end until many days later. June 19th became known as Juneteenth or Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day. Though not a Federal holiday, only 4 states still don’t recognize the date – Hawaii, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana
The slaves are no longer held in bondage, but are they free? Do they have liberty?
After Lincoln was killed, Andrew Johnson was president, followed by Ulysses Grant. Many former slaves went to Kansas. Many stayed in Mississippi and other southern states. Democratic power in the south moved to protect whites from growing black representation. By 1868, during the McKinley presidency, blacks were driven out of Wilmington, NC with Jim Crow laws and violence. May 1896 Plessy v Ferguson, the shameful separate but equal decision, was handed down from the Supreme Court. When The Clansman, a stage play, was released in Atlanta there was an increased number of false accusations by white women of rape by black men — and it caused riots. During this time frame, Booker T Washington said work within the “system”, but WEB Du Bois said demand your rights. The Birth of a Nation, published in 1915, increased awareness and public perception of the KKK.
In East St. Louis, Missouri Feb, 1917 – Over 400 African-American workers were hired to replace striking workers at American Ore Company. Racial tensions increased until May 28th where striking workers had complained to the mayor about the back immigrants. A rumor about a black man robbing a white man led to a white mob rampaging and attacking any black person they found. They even pulled people from public transportation and beat them. The mayor did nothing to reassure the white workers about union representation or address their other grievances. On July 2, a white mob attacked and killed numerous black people. They set fire to black residences, forcing the inhabitants to either burn to death or face gun fire as they exited the burning structures. Murder by lynching was done in other parts of the city. One hundred or more black people were killed and over 6,000 were burned out of their homes. The National Guard finally restored order, but several law enforcement officers and national guard soldiers were later charged with the equivalent of ‘dereliction of duty’ for their failure to protect the black residents or stop the white residents. A demonstration organized by the NAACP was held in New York City protesting the ongoing racism. On July 28 nearly 10,000 black people walked down Fifth Avenue to bring attention to the horrors of Jim Crow laws and racism.
In 1917 Houston – black soldiers of a WW1 battalion were assigned to guard construction of what was to become Camp Logan. This was during Jim Crow and rampant racism. The soldiers rebelled and were tried, convicted, and hung. Summer, 1919 – murder in Elaine, Arkansas former WWI soldiers, became sharecroppers because they couldn’t find other work. Robert Hill sharecropper in Arkansas started a union, which didn’t set well with the whites of the town. The whites attacked, solders were sent in to quell the violence, but the soldiers attacked the surrendering blacks… It was a massacre of the black men (see video below). There’s been an attempt to have those soldiers pardoned.
1904 St Louis World’s Fair – the barely understood ‘science’ of genetics and evolution resulted in display of Africans and Pygmies as the closest “missing link” between the advanced “Nordic” type people and monkeys. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY6Zrol5QEk this is a product of the Discovery Institute, just so you know.) The Eugenics movement went on through the 1920s, morphed from genetic superiority into the equivalent of “classism”. Now whites were also being considered in terms of worthiness to parent and IQ tests were performed for entertainment and for military draftees in 1917. During this same period, southern whites (still recovering from failed reconstruction) were becoming known for lazy, slovenly behavior — no one knew then about sanitation and hookworm. By 1920, Madison Grant (leading preservationist of flora) wrote tome (The Passing of the Great Race) of the white man losing his place in America because of so much eastern and southern European immigration; he invented the ‘Nordic’ phraseology of ‘white’ race, as most recently evolved — who should not mate with more primitive Mediterranean, Asiatic, Jew, Negro, etc. White and Negro were already prevented from inter-racial marriage but what about those other “inferiors”? The Supreme Court decision Buck vs Bell in 1927 was that the state statute of compulsory sterilization of ‘unfit’ people was not unconstitutional. Finally in mid-1926 through November 1927, scientists began to speak in unison that genetic ‘inheritability’ was “malleable”; and eugenics gradually fell to the wayside. This begins the great depression (1929) and the realization that poverty is not biological.
Black people overcame immense odds to found working class areas where they could live, entertain, and work without constantly being harassed and facing discrimination. It seemed that every time a black area of town became too well off (or too “uppity”), the whites of the town would “put the n—rs their place”. Just a few of the incidents include Tulsa, OK – 1921 – an area called Greenwood, just outside Tulsa, where its downtown had become known as ‘black wall street’ was burnt to the ground, and some 300 or more residents were murdered by white mobs. The city of Tulsa deputized members of the lynch mob, a disastrous decision.
Rosewood, FL – 1923 – small town of black people burned to the ground by white mob and women and children fled to the woods in their night clothes. Columbia, TN – 1946 – black founded small town burned to the ground by white mob.
Unfortunately, through the 1930s, 27 U.S. states and Adolph Hitler embraced the old eugenics dogma and ideals, allowing forced sterilizations of the “feeble-minded”, institutionalized or not. The case in 1934 of Anne Cooper Hewitt – heiress — who sued both surgeons and her mother, Marian – for sterilizing her without her consent — to prevent her from inheriting her late father’s estate (it would pass to her mother if Anne died childless) was the nail in the coffin of the public acquiescence in the “classic” eugenics movement. Realize that during this time the concern was the ‘mongrelization’ of America. Poor white and poor black people often lived in the same general area or neighborhood. This is further discussed in Nancy Isenberg’s book ‘White Trash‘. The eugenics movement slowly morphed more generally into the “nurture” argument, i.e., would this particular person make a ‘desirable’ parent. By the end of the 1930s, over 30K Americans had been unwillingly sterilized. By the time of the revocation of the last of the eugenics laws in the 1970s, over 60K people had been sterilized — over 30% were African American women and about 14.5% were white women, all without a high school education.
Combine the civil war and its aftermath, the eugenics craze, and the unsanitary conditions in the south causing rampant hookworm infections — and you get many white southerners who are willing to look down on anyone in an attempt to make themselves feel superior. Poor southern whites went from being known as “waste people” to “white trash” https://youtu.be/_cPII2l-K4s. Remember To Kill A Mockingbird — and how Atticus Finch is derided. The fight against hookworm in the south raged well into the 1940s. It wasn’t until 1985 that hookworm had been eliminated in the south, thanks to wider adoption of indoor plumbing and better access to cheaper but still healthy, food. I’m not sure the south has completely overcome its early “lazy, shiftless” moniker, even today.
Beginning as early as 1910, restrictive covenants in housing had been adopted almost nationwide. They were in Minneapolis, MN area (They were in Baltimore City and County, MD — I know from personal experience in a real property law office.) and gov’t redlining formed lending policies for property. The Federal District Court for Minnesota upheld the practice. At 1909 Prospect Park the first black family, Arthur Lee, moved in July, 1931. Mr. Lee was a WW1 vet but was harassed constantly trying to get him to move. He lasted 2 years before succumbing to the pressure to sell, and moved out in 1934. A memorial placard is possibly still on the property.
Following WWII, returning soldiers were able to get home loans under the new GI Bill. The federal agency overseeing the program developed area maps based on desirability — that’s where the red-line term comes from. The least desirable areas on those maps (non-white housing) were designated in red. Black servicemen had more difficulty obtaining loans, partly due to lack of banking “relationships” and partly because of the red-lined areas of the desirability maps.
Don’t forget trailer parks in 1950s where poor whites often congregated (formerly white trash became synonymous with trailer trash); limited by zoning laws and property rights limitations… Mobile, AL to AZ where “trailer trash” became equated to squatters. But the poor whites were “still better than” the blacks (in their own minds). Also discussed in an (IMO excellent) opinion piece describing racism more in terms of a caste system (we do say things like “low class” as a derogatory term) in the U.S.
The Green Book wasn’t just a movie. It was first published to only cover metropolitan New York in about 1936. Response was so overwhelming, it soon went to nationwide coverage. The “negro traveler” had a better chance to avoid “embarrassment” or worse (sundown towns) with the help of this handy guide. Except during World War II, the Green Book guide was published annually until 1967 (too many great links in this piece to miss).
Are black people free yet (in our narrative time line)? Do they have liberty or justice, here in the late 1940s – early 1950s? None of “them” could still be affected by slavery… could they? They just need work hard, to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. They can live and work, eat and shop where they want; they can pass businesses and inherited wealth on to their children; they can vote… can’t they? They are just lazy (aren’t they)?
We’re coming up on the Civil Rights movement, and we surely want to mention how so much of the white backlash is actually supported by religion… especially the Christian bible. Another post, coming soon.
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