Reparation Chronicles

Thurgood Marshall: The speech that made history

Susan Anderson — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:07:11 -0700

As we wind down from this year’s July 4 holiday, I am thinking about a 20th century speech that shocked America, because it posed questions about the nation’s founding in equality and slavery.

It isn’t just Independence Day that brings the speech to mind; it’s also the new play, Thurgood, about Thurgood Marshall, starring Laurence Fishburne (pictured), that has traveled from Broadway to Los Angeles this summer.

Marshall was the first African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, from 1967 until 1991. That position came after an extraordinary career as a lawyer and chief counsel to the NAACP, leading the assault against the legal architecture of racial segregation. His most famous case was Brown v. the Board of Education, which outlawed “separate but equal” public accommodations.

I haven’t yet seen the play by George Stevens, Jr., so I don’t know if it covers the 1987 speech by Marshall in 1987 – on the occasion of the bicentennial of the United States Constitution.

But back then, the speech made headlines.

While others waved the flag and praised the U.S. Constitution, Marshall struck a critical tone. “Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound," he said. "To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today.”

The speech was controversial during its day. But its lasting value was demonstrated by its inclusion in the recently published American Heritage Book of Great American Speeches for Young People.

Thurgood Marshall was born 13 years after Frederick Douglass died. Like Douglass’ 1852 address, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?,” Marshall’s bicentennial speech reminded Americans that freedom didn’t begin at the founding of America.

I, for one, plan to attend the play to learn more about how, as the star of the play, Fishburne, put it, Marshall "used the law as his weapon, and he really changed the way things are."

Susan D. Anderson teaches, speaks and writes about African American history, politics and culture. She is the author of Nostalgia for a Trumpet: Poems of Memory and History, published by Northwestern University Press. She has been a Visiting Professor at Pitzer College, a contributor to the Los Angeles Times Sunday Opinion since 1999, and currently manages an archival program at the USC Libraries.

The U.S. Senate's slavery apology was a long time coming

Susan Anderson — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The apology from the United States Senate on slavery has re-opened the debate over reparations for African Americans. Believe it or not, this apology is the farthest the U.S. government has ever gone to acknowledge wrongdoing toward blacks, and it has a long history.

In 1997, white Ohio Rep. Tony Hall introduced a bill calling for an official apology for slavery to the descendants of U.S. slaves. The bill was sponsored by 12 white members of the House — six Republicans and six Democrats. It was modeled on the 1988 congressional resolution that apologized for the government's internment of Japanese Americans in military-run camps during World War II.

That's right, Congress has given many other people apologies. Not long after passing a 1988 reparations law on behalf of Japanese American survivors and descendants interned in military-run WWII camps, Congress issued a 1993 apology to Hawaii for overthrowing the sovereign kingdom of Hawaii in 1893.

Yet with Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House, the measure to apologize to blacks for slavery met overwhelming resistance. In 2003, Hall tried again. The bill went nowhere.

It even took until 2005 for the Senate to apologize for failing to oppose lynchings in the United States.

In the 20th century, 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced into Congress. None were passed. In fact, the Senate, dominated by Southern Democrats, repeatedly and vocally blocked anti-lynching legislation in the decades when white mob violence against blacks was commonplace.

In 2008, the year of the groundbreaking presidential campaign, perhaps inspired by the example of candidate Barack Obama, the momentum picked up for long overdue apologies.

Senator Sam Brownback’s measure to "offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States” for the government's "depredation" and "ill-conceived policies" toward them passed after four years of pressure from the American Indian community.

At the same time, by 2008, six states had issued formal apologies for slavery — Alabama, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Virginia.

And, Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, successfully got his bill apologizing for slavery passed by voice vote in the House. This time, 120 lawmakers were co-sponsors. The legislation apologized to black Americans for the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow" segregation.

Is the 2009 U.S. Senate apology too little, too late? Or is it the precursor to finally establishing a Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, as Rep. John Conyers has proposed every year since 1989?

We will see.

Making good on the promise

Susan Anderson — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

This is my last blog post for the Reparations Chronicles which gives me a chance to say thank you to TheLoop21.com for giving me the opportunity to write about not the news but about history, and how about how we as a nation are grappling with the wrongs of our past.

Here’s what I promised in my first post:

I’m not going to chase the news; instead, I’m going searching for what is unspoken in the news, our national dialogue…Yes, I’m going to explore the “R” word: reparations for centuries of slavery, white supremacy, inequality and Jim Crow…I’m not talking about… some kind of government check to African Americans to make their pain, and the embarrassment of whites, go away…reparations are going to be a good deal more complicated and comprehensive.

Over the last year, we were able to touch upon topics ranging from the 2008 presidential election and the hidden history of blacks in the White House, to the legacy of discrimination in arenas from the National Basketball Association to the automobile industry. We were able to examine the meaning of whiteness in a racially privileged society and talk about white activists taking a look at their own families’ past involvement in the slave trade.

If anything, I believe that the Reparations Chronicles showed us that history is full of surprises. Our series on unknown African American environmental pioneers is a case in point. And, unfortunately, there are still horrors, such as unsolved lynchings and white mob violence, which most Americans don’t know about.

Several posts showed that our government is reluctant to even apologize for its own actions in the enslavement and conquest of Native Americans, Hawaiians, African Americans and others. So, the rarity of redress to the Japanese Americans who suffered World War II internment camps shouldn’t be a surprise.

Mostly though, I tried to show that the struggle for reparations isn’t just some narrow, recent protest. It’s a fight that began long ago, during the American Revolution itself, when African Americans first petitioned the founders of the New Republic to live up to their creed. Through the Reparations Chronicles, I was privileged to relay stories of indomitable men and women who since and through the 21st century fought for justice and gave us an enduring legacy. That’s what I’ll take away from my blogging adventures, and I hope you will, too.

A solution: Restorative justice in South Africa

Susan Anderson — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

We hear a lot in the news about racial conflict, and a lot less about racial reconciliation. But from South Africa to South Central Los Angeles, there are communities engaging in what experts call “restorative justice" to resolve the wrongs of the past and present.

In the U.S., restorative justice has many applications. There are models that seek alternatives to the criminal justice system, and punitive measures that target African American males. There are models that provide opportunities for the victims of racially-motivated crimes to air their pain and receive compensation.

At the same time, restorative justice is a worldwide movement. The process of restorative justice includes dialogue, the admission of guilt and apologies by offenders, and reparations for victims. The goal is to stop the escalation of conflict, crime and violence, and restore and heal relationships and communities.

The most famous example of the restorative justice approach is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa formed in 1995, after the establishment of a government under President Nelson Mandela.

Fifty years of systematic racial oppression and separation under apartheid were scrutinized by three committees of the Commission. Masses of black South Africans came before the Commission to air their grievances and tell their stories. The experience was harrowing, and for some, healing.

White perpetrators of injustice and violence — and blacks involved in racial violence - were encouraged to come before the Commission. But, Commission Chair Tutu said,

"It is something of a pity that, by and large, the white community failed to take advantage of the Truth and Reconciliation process… Many of them carry a burden of a guilt which would havebeen assuaged had they actively embraced the opportunities offered by the Commission… Apart from the hurt that it causes to those who suffered, the denial by so many white South Africans even that they benefited from apartheid is a crippling, self-inflicted blow to their capacity to enjoy and appropriate the fruits of change."

For Americans, the lack of participation by whites in the Truth and Reconciliation process should be a warning. In a country where whites have benefited from the subjection of African Americans for centuries — much longer than the South African apartheid system, which took insidious inspiration from the U.S. segregation system — the only sure road to change is in white people taking responsibility, and leadership, in reconciliation efforts and reparations work.

Photo by g-hat at flickr.

Race has major role in NBA, sports history

Susan Anderson — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

It’s the middle of the NBA Finals, the championship battle between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Orlando Magic, and an opportunity to remember the fight against segregated professional basketball in America.

A lot of people are familiar with the old Negro Baseball Leagues, but how many have heard about the African American basketball teams known as “the Black Fives” — after the starting five players — or know about black basketball associations pre-dating the NBA?

Since the 1891 start of U.S. basketball, white-owned, professional sports leagues excluded black athletes. As in other areas of life, African Americans formed their own institutions, including professional basketball teams, to showcase their competitive talents, despite racism.

Harry Lew was the first African American to play professional basketball, for the white New England Basketball League in 1902. But most teams were segregated. From 1907 through the 1920s, black teams competed for “the Colored Basketball World Championship.” In the 1940s, a handful of black players were signed by white minor teams, and in 1948, Don Barksdale won a gold medal at the London Olympic Games as the first African-American player on a U.S. Olympic basketball team.

In the first half of the 20th century, separate leagues for African Americans, Jewish and Irish players competed against each other. One writer said in Philadelphia, home of outstanding Jewish teams, “the encounters between the 'Yids' and the 'Niggers' were legendary.” According to sports entrepreneur Claude Johnson, the New York Renaissance team in Harlem “won the inaugural World’s Professional Basketball Tournament championship in 1939 by beating America’s ten best white teams.”

Racial stereotypes weren’t limited to black players; Jewish players were especially singled out. “’The reason, I suspect, that basketball appeals to the Hebrew, with his Oriental background,’ wrote Paul Gallico, sports editor of the New York Daily News and one of the premier sportswriters of the 1930s, "is that the game places a premium on an alert, scheming mind, flashy trickiness, artful dodging and general smart-aleckness."

In 1950, the NBA officially broke the color line. Chuck Cooper of Duquesne University was the first black player drafted, by the Boston Celtics. Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, of the Harlem Globetrotters, and a graduate of Xavier University in New Orleans, was the first to sign an NBA contract, with the New York Knicks. And Earl Lloyd, a graduate of West Virginia State, became the first of this trio to play in an NBA contest, for the Washington Capitals.

The decision to destroy segregation in pro basketball didn’t come out of nowhere. The sheer, winning talent of the black players was evident. The World War II victory over Hitler made Americans more aware of the evil of homegrown racism. The momentum for change came from the decades-long crusade by African American sports writers for equal opportunity on the playing fields. Sports writers at black newspapers didn’t just cover sports; they publicly pressured professional league owners to live up to America’s principles of equality.

As fans follow the progress of this year’s NBA Finals, in a sport in which African Americans dominate, it’s good to remember basketball history, and what it took for the NBA to end racial exclusion.

Juneteenth: A true testament to humanity

Susan Anderson — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

This week, many of us are celebrating Juneteenth with picnics and public ceremonies. But Juneteenth isn’t just a time to drink red soda water and eat barbecue ribs and potato salad. For 144 years, it’s been a way for African Americans to join with others and remember the slavery our people endured, and their freedom movement.

Some call it Independence Day for blacks, echoing Frederick Douglass’ 1852 address, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me.

Juneteenth is named for the date June 19, 1865, when a Union fleet arrived in Galveston Harbor with General Gordon Granger and his troops to declare that the Emancipation Proclamation was in effect in Texas. The Emancipation Proclamation had been issued more than two years before, by President Abraham Lincoln, liberating slaves in the Confederacy as a key strategy in winning the Civil War.

In Galveston, General Granger pronounced: "The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer."

The lag in time between the proclamation and the news of it in Texas is a reminder of the difficulties of obtaining freedom. After the Emancipation Proclamation, liberation wasn’t automatic. Some slave masters used violence to resist the loss of their property. Illiterate slaves often heard the news of freedom through their own networks. Some stayed put. Others risked death to escape. Thousands fled to Union lines as the Union army moved across the South.

By 1867, the Freedmen’s Bureau organized a Juneteenth celebration in the Texas state capital of Austin which became an annual event. In 1872, two black church congregations bought the land for the 10-acre Emancipation Park, which still operates today near downtown Houston, and where Juneteenth is still celebrated every year. After years of lobbying, in 1979, Texas became the first and only state to pass legislation declaring Juneteenth a legal holiday.

As black Texans migrated to other states, they took the holiday with them. Juneteenth was part of the many popular observations of Emancipation by African Americans in the first decades of the 20th century. Starting with the Great Depression, the commemoration nearly disappeared. But since the Civil Rights Movement, new black consciousness, and an awareness of history, fueled the multiplication of Juneteenth celebrations in all 50 states. Now, it seems, Juneteenth is “a true testament to humanity,” the oldest national commemoration of slavery’s end in the United States.

Steps toward reparations for Tulsa riot survivors

Susan Anderson — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The long journey toward reparations for the survivors of the Tulsa, Oklahoma riot of 1921 is one step further since Congressman John Conyers introduced the John Hope Franklin Tulsa-Greenwood Race Riot Claims Accountability Act of 2009 in April. The bill is now in committee. And, in Los Angeles, on Sunday May 31, a documentary film, Before They Die, will screen to benefit the survivors of the Tulsa riot.

The Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa was considered America’s “black Wall Street,” with its theaters, hotels, restaurants, newspapers, professionals, businesses, even millionaires in the community of 15,000. The father of John Hope Franklin
was a prominent Greenwood attorney.

The Tulsa riot is considered the costliest episode of the reign of terror against African Americans in the early 20th century. The riot started after 19-year-old Dick Rowland possibly stepped on the foot of 17-year-old white elevator operator, Sarah Page, when he entered the elevator on May 31, 1921. Rowland was arrested for assault. A lynch mob formed. Newspapers urged mob action.

In 16 hours, up to 10,000 whites destroyed 35 square blocks, 1200 homes, six churches, a school and library, offices of dentists, doctors and lawyers and killed at least 300 blacks. The men deputized by the police department looted and burned. The state ordered airplanes to drop fire bombs on Greenwood in the first bombing of an American city by planes. Following the riots, 10,000 African Americans were homeless. Those who didn’t escape Tulsa were forced into “refugee” camps and had to carry green cards.

In 2001, the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 submitted its findings to the state. Commissioners were unanimous in supporting reparations including: direct payments to survivors and descendants; a scholarship fund; economic development in historic Greenwood, and a memorial to victims. The state of Oklahoma and city of Tulsa have done nothing.

Survivors have been trying to claim compensation for nearly 90 years. Immediately after the riots, the black community sued for more than $4 million in claims. All were denied. Today, the Tulsa Reparations Coalition and Harvard attorney Charles Ogletree are among those pursuing justice for the survivors.

Photo by imarcc at flickr.

Effects of the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot linger

Susan Anderson — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Last November, the month that Americans elected the first African American president, residents of Wilmington, N.C., dedicated a monument to the memory of a violent white take-over of the city in 1898. That was the year that white supremacists orchestrated what has been called “the only government overthrow recorded in U.S. history."

The coup d’ etat destroyed a legitimate government, along with the political cooperation of African American and white Republicans and Populists in Wilmington. (Watch a UNC-TV video discussion of it.)

After Reconstruction, Wilmington was a special target of the white supremacist Democratic Party which wanted to gain power and establish legalized segregation. For African Americans across the country, Wilmington was a symbol of pride. It was the largest and most important city in North Carolina. It had a black majority and a large affluent class. African Americans owned 10 of the city's 11 eating houses and 20 of its 22 barbershops. The black male literacy rate was higher than that of whites. And African Americans occupied many government positions.

The day before the 1898 municipal elections, Alfred Moore Waddell, leader of the Democrats, said in a speech, “Go to the polls tomorrow, and if you find the Negro out voting, tell him to leave the polls and if he refuses kill, shoot him down in his tracks." On Election Day, Nov. 8, Democrats won the election by stuffing ballot boxes and threatening black voters. On Nov. 9, a White Declaration of Independence was issued to the organization of leading African American civic and business leaders, the Committee of Colored Citizens. When the Committee failed to give in to the whites’ demands, an armed mob of 2,000 whites roamed the streets. The total of blacks killed ranges up to 100. No whites were killed. Republican and Populist elected officials — white and black — were forced to resign, and all black government employees were fired.

In 2000, the Wilmington Race Riot Commission was appointed by the North Carolina legislature to study the bloody events of 1898. The Commission’s mandate was to establish the historical record for the riot, whose history had been suppressed. In 2006, a 600-page report was released in which the Commission recommended compensation for descendants of African Americans who were killed, whose property was destroyed or stolen, or who were forced to flee Wilmington. Various bills have surfaced in the legislature to address the injustices of the past. So far, the North Carolina General Assembly has acknowledged and apologized for the Wilmington riots.

The North Carolina Conference of the NAACP is pursuing reparations for the descendants of the victims of the Wilmington Riot, and other forms of justice and reconciliation. In the words of NAACP state conference chairman, Rev. Dr. William Barber II, “You can’t get your present right, if you don’t properly deal with your past.”

Photo by Tony Crescibene at flickr.

The long history of blacks and the auto industry

Susan Anderson — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The auto industry is in trouble, but blacks who work in the auto sector of the economy, from factory workers to car dealers and parts suppliers, are under a greater threat. Plans by Congress and the Obama administration to rescue the car makers need to take the well-being of the black community into account. That would help shore up middle class stability, while also preserving a significant part of our national history.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, “The share of black workers (14.2 percent) in automotive industries is much higher than their overall share of the labor force (11.2 percent)…African-Americans earn much higher wages in the auto industry than in other parts of the economy, and the loss of these solid, middle-class jobs would be devastating.”

And it’s not just the workers on the line we’re talking about. USA Today reported that out of 60 black automotive suppliers (with annual sales of about $4 billion and 8,000 employees) five have shut down. Out of 800 auto dealers that closed recently, maybe 200 of them were minority owned.

The elevated numbers of blacks in the auto industry is the result of major historical events. As University of Pennsylvania Professor Thomas J. Sugrue writes in Driving While Black: The Car and Race Relations in Modern America, “Detroit, the Motor City, became one of the most important destinations for black migrants from the south because of its reputation as a major center of car production.”

But the doors of the auto industry were virtually closed to blacks in the early part of the 20th century. The corporations discriminated in hiring, and they were often backed by racist white workers. In 1935, corporate auto makers met their match when the militant United Auto Workers union was formed. The UAW was among the first major unions to organize black workers, even when white workers opposed it.

It took the 1930s union-led strikes, a 1940s threatened March on Washington, and WWII demands on industrial manufacturing to finally get the doors of the auto industry to open wide to African American employees. Even then, blacks were relegated to the lowest-paid and most dangerous jobs in the factories. From the 1950s to the 1960s, black organizations such as the Trade Union Leadership Council, NAACP and League of Revolutionary Black Workers, fought for more jobs and better conditions in the industry. Auto makers, wanting to avoid protests and lawsuits, increased opportunities for blacks.

For more than 60 years, blacks have contributed to the economy and benefited from their role in the auto industry. As Congress and the administration advance their plans for this sector, somebody needs to let them know, this is a part of the national heritage that can’t go down the tubes.

The Rosewood massacre: A nearly forgotten hate crime

Susan Anderson — Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Most people don’t know that for at least one hundred years in America the ambiguous term “race riot” actually meant mob attacks by whites against African American people and communities. The long term, national pattern of white violence against blacks is a powerful argument for reparations. Some individual state governments seem to agree.

This week, we’ll take a look at the Rosewood Massacre, and how Florida became the first state in the country to compensate survivors and their descendants for damages suffered from what we would consider today a massive hate crime.

It was less than four years after the Red Summer of 1919, so called because of the attacks against African Americans that had spread across the urban north, whites’ reactions to the migration of disenfranchised southern blacks. The Ku Klux Klan was on the march in Florida. In January, 1923, white, 22-year-old Fannie Taylor claimed a black man assaulted her in her home in Sumner, adjacent to Rosewood.

Within the next week, a white mob rampaged throughout Rosewood, killing six African Americans — two whites died — and burning all the buildings, homes, and churches in the small town. An all-white grand jury heard testimony, but found no one to prosecute. During the melee, blacks had fled any way they could. Rosewood disappeared. Although it received national attention in the white and black press, the terrible incident was soon forgotten.

In 1982, an investigative reporter at the St. Petersburg Times uncovered the Rosewood Massacre. That led to a 60 Minutes story the following year. By 1993, Rosewood survivors sued the state of Florida for failing to protect them and their families. The Speaker of the Florida legislature commissioned a scholarly report to evaluate the claims made by survivors.

Historians from Florida State University, Florida A&M University, and the University of Florida investigated the Rosewood Massacre, interviewing blacks and whites, and consulting the historical record. Their report, the "Documented History of the Incident which Occurred at Rosewood, Florida in January 1923" was completed in October 1993.

After much debate in the legislature and in public, in 1994, Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles signed into law an unprecedented $2.1 million bill compensating the survivors of the 1923 Rosewood massacre and their descendants. Individuals received up to $150,000 each, and a scholarship fund was established by the state education department.

By 1997, filmmaker John Singleton directed “Rosewood,” a fictionalized account. The best source for learning about the original vigilante violence, the few white townspeople who aided their African American neighbors, and the blacks who fought back in 1923, and years later, is Michael D'Orso’s book, Like Judgment Day: The Ruin and Redemption of a Town Called Rosewood.

Photo from PDub at flickr.