The African American Saga from Enslavement to Life in a Colorblind Society: Or, Racism without Race

Abstract

76 The African American Saga from Enslavement to Life in a Colorblind Society: Or, Racism without Race By Yolanda Abel & LeRoy Johnson In early twenty-first-century America, discussions about past, present, and future race relations—especially between Black and White Americans, but increasingly between Whites and Latinos/ as—are charged with passion and lack of historical analysis, and, of course, are loaded with fears about the results of the evolving demographic makeup of this society. In order to understand the increasingly complex and mutable nature of our society's racial landscape, we must examine and analyze the genesis and evolution of African Americans' protracted struggle to obtain full citizenship rights in the United States.1 The Civil Rights Movement for the purpose of this paper has been divided into two parts: (1) the first phase of the Civil Rights Movement, or the period of Reconstruction, from 1865 to 1877, and (2) the second phase of the Movement, or the period of Brown v. Board of Education, from 1954 to 1965.2 Secondly, this short review is designed to be a practical guide for those who would like to teach about the Civil Rights Movement. Placing the development of African Americans' quest for equal rights in its historical context is the only way to make sense of this historic movement. If one attempts to teach such a topic without placing it in its proper historical context, one presents a facile rendition of one of the most important sociopolitical, legal, and economic developments in our history. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, our students will have little chance of grasping how much progress took place in our history. Though we still live in a very racially pernicious society, monumental progress was achieved from the Civil War (1861-1865) to the 1970s, when the reactionary forces opposing the Civil Rights Movement gathered enough political momentum to organize a formidable political and legal challenge to this movement. Moreover, without context, our students—and even their teachers—may view this movement as simply a bygone period in our history, when it is still part and parcel of the American sociopolitical, economic, and legal landscape. Both opposition to affirmative action and the treacherous concept of a colorblind society are nothing more than racism without mentioning the color and history of the victims of centuries old racial oppression. In short, without a historical analysis of the civil rights saga of African Americans, young people will relax their political and intellectual guard and become unable and unwilling to understand dialectical connections between past and contemporary racism in our society. Students and teachers must understand the history of the Civil Rights Movement; if not, others who would like to deny the rights of full citizenship to African Americans and other people of color will continue the nefarious effects of racism in this society. During this first period (Reconstruction, 1865-1877) a number of important changes made to the Constitution of the United States improved the political, if not the social and economic, situation of African Americans. Already, and prior to the beginning of Reconstruction, President Lincoln had decreed the Emancipation Proclamation (enacted on January 1,1863), an act that freed slaves in the rebellious states. It is true that the act left slavery intact in the states loyal to the Union and in localities of Southern states where the authorities remained loyal to the federal government, (i.e., the forty eight counties of Virginia which eventually became West Virginia; seven counties in eastern Virginia, including the cities of Portsmouth and Norfolk; and thirteen parishes in Louisiana, including the city of New Orleans).3 Nevertheless, while the Emancipation Proclamation was intended more to cripple the economy of the South, it freed all but 800,000 of the 4 million slaves in the United States (1860 census). However, it was during Reconstruction (the historical term used to describe the process undertaken by the federal government to literally reconstruct the political and socioeconomic institutions of the states that rebelled) that laws were passed to protect the humanity of African Americans.4 Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment (passed in January 1865 and ratified in December) while the Civil War was nearing its end...