An Introduction Declaring…<em>Spectrum: A Journal On Black Men</em>

Abstract

It’s July in the year two thousand twelve (2012), just a few days away from the nation’s celebration of “Independence Day,” commemorating the signing of the historic Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Written by Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s third President, the document signifies the formal and public assertion of power by the thirteen colonies against British rule. Charging the King of Great Britain with illicit abuses and usurpations—that all seemed an attempt to establish an absolute tyranny—leaders of the original colonies declared their independence by severing ties with the British throne and promising to set new guardians of their future destiny. It is from this founding document, The Declaration of Independence, that these infamous words are drawn: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” In the late 1930s, Gunnar Myrdal, the renowned Swedish economist and Nobel Prize winner, led a team of researchers to conduct a Carnegie Corporation–funded study on race relations in America. In the report of findings, a massive 1,500-page book titled An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, Myrdal (1944) argues that much of American life is powerfully shaped by a widespread belief in an American Creed—the same “unalienable Rights” or ideals of liberty, equality, and justice referenced in The Declaration of Independence. The American Creed, he argued, seemed to serve as a common cause or ethos for a nation that otherwise was remarkably diverse and disparate. And despite this keen observation, Myrdal’s encyclopedic treatise points out the troubling and paradoxical coexistence of American liberal ideals and the deplorable sociopolitical situation of Blacks in America—what he called “the Negro Problem.” He noted “that White prejudice and discrimination keep the Negro low in standards of living, health, education, manners, and