Black Movements in America

Abstract

For nearly 400 years, Black Americans have been torn between two constructions of America: the Jeffersonian promise of a just republic and the nightmare of racial oppression. This text traces the emergence of Black political cultures in the United States from slave resistances in the 16th and 17th centuries to the civil rights movements of the late 20th century. Drawing on the historical record, it argues that Blacks have constructed both a culture of resistance and a culture of accommodation based on the radically different experiences of slaves and free Blacks. The author describes accommodation as informed by republicanism in the early American national period and an identification with the values, ideals and aspirations articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Alternatively, resistance was forged from a succession of quests: the return to Africa; escape and alliances with anti-colonial native American resistance; and eventually emigration.