Majyd Aziz
SLAVE. Nigger. Negro. Colored. Black. African American. The 400 years journey commenced when the first Africans were transported by ship to the United States. These four centuries included severe hardships, loss of dignity, and took an immense toll on this race. Although slave labor was a driving force behind American Capitalism, a time came in the 19th Century when finally the States in the North decided to end slavery but faced strong resistance from the Southern States.
This long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people led to the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865, fought between Northern States known as the Union and Southern States called the Confederacy. On 01 January 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that freed millions of slaves. The Proclamation commanded that millions of slaves in rebel-controlled areas ‘shall be then, thenceforth, and forever free.’ It ensued into the passage and ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments in the US Constitution.
The 13th Amendment, ratified on 06 December 1865, stated that ‘neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction’. The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including former slaves—and guaranteed all citizens ‘equal protection of the laws.’ The 15th Amendment, ratified February 3, 1870, declared that the ‘right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude’.
Slavery was legally abolished, the black community got the right to vote, and granted equal protection. However, segregation and racial discrimination continued in many respects. A seminal event occurred in December 1955 when Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat in the bus to a white person in Montgomery, Alabama. This led to the Montgomery bus boycott that was a political and social protest campaign against racial segregation in the public transit system of the city culminating in a United States Supreme Court decision that declared unconstitutional the Alabama and Montgomery laws of segregated buses.
Prior to the bus boycott, Jim Crow laws mandated the racial segregation of the Montgomery Bus Line. As a result, African Americans were not hired as drivers, forced to ride in the back of the bus, and frequently ordered to surrender seats to white people even though blacks made up 75% of passengers. ‘Jim Crow’ came to be a derogatory term for African Americans, and in the late 19th century it became the identifier for laws that reinstated white supremacy in the American South after Reconstruction. The demeaning character symbolically rationalized segregation and denial of equal opportunity.
On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that banned discrimination based on ‘race, color, religion, sex or national origin’ in employment practices and public accommodations. The bill authorized the Attorney General to file lawsuits to enforce the new law. It also nullified state and local laws that required such discrimination.
Despite the promulgation of this historical Act, the implementation was not in spirit. Hence, in 1967 riots broke out in black neighborhoods in more than 100 U.S. cities. These riots began in Detroit, where a large black middle class had begun to develop among those African Americans who worked at unionized jobs in the automotive industry. These workers complained of persisting racist practices, limiting jobs they could have and few opportunities for promotion.
On 04 April 1968, the charismatic African American, Dr Martin Luther King, was assassinated by a white man. He was not only a leader in the civil rights movement, but also an advocate for non-violence. He pursued direct engagement with the political system as opposed to the separatist ideas of Black Nationalism. His murder led to anger and disillusionment, and most blacks decided that only violent resistance to white supremacy would send the right message. The civil riots of 1968 were a turning point. The assassination and riots radicalized most of the blacks and ensued into the Black Power movement.
At the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on 28 August 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial, Dr King addressed over 250,000 marchers. His speech, ‘I have a dream’ was a defining moment of the civil rights movement and among the most iconic speeches in American history. Towards the end of his speech, he said ‘I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’. He ended his speech with the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’
The brutal murder of George Floyd by a redneck policeman with a Ku Klux Klan mindset intensified the conviction of racism in the soul of many African Americans as well as Asians, Native Americans and Latinos in USA. Riots broke out across America and huge protests held all over the world. Presidential contender Joe Biden called Floyd’s death as a ‘wake-up call for our nation’ and accused President Donald Trump of turning the US into a ‘battlefield driven by old resentments and fresh fears’.
The question still needs to be answered whether, even after George Floyd, the dark clouds of racism would fritter away and the first three words of the US Constitution, ‘We the people’ would really come to mean all Americans, regardless of race, color, creed or belief. Meanwhile, ‘We Shall Overcome’, the gospel song that became a protest song and a key anthem of the civil rights movement continues to be sung at protest marches: ‘We shall overcome . . . we shall overcome some day. . . We are not afraid, TODAY’.
—The writer is ex-President Employers Federation of Pakistan
Twitter: MajydAziz
