ARCHIVES OF EDITORIALS

 

June 23, 2005

Long overdue

Many whites in America are in denial about their responsibility for the consequences of the racial oppression imposed against blacks. The common opinion is that slavery ended in 1865. Since whites living today had nothing to do with slavery, they reason, then whites cannot be held accountable for the present circumstances confronting blacks.

This notion would be valid if after emancipation the former slaves became full-fledged citizens of the United States and able to enjoy the rights and privileges of every other citizen. However, that was not the intention of the plantation owners. Slaves were set loose as stateless, indigent vagabonds.

Not until the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was certified in 1868 did former slaves even become U.S. citizens. However, the U.S. Supreme court ruled in 1896 in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson that blacks could be discriminated against as long as the circumstances or accommodations were “separate but equal.” This remained the law of the land until it was overturned in 1954 by Brown v. Board of Education.

Plessy enabled the South to establish a pattern of racial discrimination that was the equivalent of apartheid in South Africa. In this country it was referred to as Jim Crow. As in South Africa, the inferior status of blacks was maintained by violence. In the U.S. it was lynching or the threat of lynching.

According to records maintained at Tuskegee University, between 1882 and 1968 4,743 people were killed by lynching. Most victims were black and most were in the South. A lynching is not merely the violent resolution of a dispute between two or more people. Rather, it is the murder of someone, usually with racial implications, without due process of law, but with the approval of the local community.

Lynchings were usually gruesome murders. Victims were hanged from trees or bridges. Often they were set on fire. Sometimes their bodies were left up until they rotted as a warning to other blacks who might have the temerity to transgress the limitations that whites have imposed.

A common reason for running afoul of the authorities was for blacks to attempt to register to vote. The 15th Amendment to the US Constitution established in 1870 that no state could deny or abridge the right of a citizen to vote because of race or previous condition of servitude. However, it was not until passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the federal government had the authority to intervene to assure that blacks had unfettered access to the polls in the South.

Any African American who is 60 years of age or older lived when apartheid was rampant in the South. Many experienced the indignity of separate drinking fountains and rejection from restaurants, public swimming pools and movies. Many have experienced racial discrimination in employment and promotion opportunities.

The strategy in the 1950s was to have the Congress pass an anti-lynching law to remove the threat of harm. Every effort failed. Although slavery officially ended in 1865, whites of this generation in America are still responsible for the pattern of racially abusive policies designed to subjugate blacks.

It is appropriate for the U.S. Senate to issue an apology for its consistent failure to pass an anti-lynch law to protect the constitutional rights of the nation’s citizens of African descent.

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