Sociology of Race and Ethic Relations

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Chapter 7

The Making of African Americans in a White America

Slavery

The U.S. has the eighth largest Black population in the world
Slavery began in 1619 with 20 Africans in Jamestown as indentured servants

Slavery

1660’s British colonies passed laws
Blacks became slaves for life
Interracial marriage was forbidden
Children of slaves bore the status of the mother regardless of father’s race

Slave Codes

Legal & protected by the US Constitution as interpreted by the US Supreme Court
Slavery in US rested on 5 central conditions:
Slavery was for life
Status was inherited
Slaves were considered mere property

Slave Codes

Slaves were denied rights
Coercion was used to maintain the system
1 Could not marry or meet with a free Black
2. Marriage between slaves not legally recognized

Slave Codes

3. Slave could not legally buy or sell anything except by special arrangement
4. Slave could not possess weapons or liquor
5. Slave could not quarrel with or use abusive language toward Whites

Slave Codes

6. Slave could not possess property, except as allowed by his or her owner
7. Slave could make no will, nor could he or she inherit anything
8. Slave could not make a contract or hire him or herself out

Slave Codes

9. Slave couldn’t leave plantation without a pass of his/her destination/time of return
10. No one, including Whites, was to teach a slave to read or write
Or to give a slave a book, including the Bible
11. Slave could not gamble
12. Slave had to obey established curfews

Slave Codes

13. Slave could not testify in court except against another slave
Rules varied by state and were not always enforced
Violations dealt with in a variety of ways
Mutilation and branding
Imprisonment was rare; most were whipped

Slave Codes

Owner immune from prosecution for physical abuse
Slavery and its justifying ideology emerged out of Western Colonialism
Ideology of slavery & slave codes were invented primarily to:
Maintain the subjugation of Africans

Slave Codes

Most slaves were from Northwestern African societies and were diverse in:
language
kinship systems
economic systems
political systems

African Americans and Africa

Survival of African culture documented in:
Folklore
Religion
Language
Music
Afrocentric perspective

Attack on Slavery

Slavery as an institution was vulnerable to outside opinion
Abolitionists
Whites and free Blacks who opposed slavery
Did not believe in racial equality; i.e., Abraham Lincoln

Attack on Slavery

Spoke out against slavery and the harm to the nation
Slaves revolted
Between 40,000 and 100,000 escaped from South
Fugitive slave acts provided for return, even those who reached free states

Attack on Slavery

Not all attempted to escape because failure meant death
Resisted through passive resistance
Feigned clumsiness or illness
Pretended not to understand, see, or hear
Ridiculed Whites with mocking subtle humor that owners did not comprehend

Slavery’s Aftermath

The period of reconstruction 1867-1877
Military Governors
Black participation in the political process
Fifteenth Amendment ratified 1870
The emergence of segregation laws (Jim Crow)

Slavery’s Aftermath

Supreme court decisions and segregation
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Williams v. Mississippi (1898)
White primary elections

Reparations For Slavery

Slavery Reparation
Refers to the act of making amends for the injustice of slavery
What form should reparation take?
Corporations that benefit from slavery and financial compensation
An official apology

Reparations For Slavery

Financial compensation
Congressman John Conyers (Detroit)
Commission to study appropriate remedies
Absence of an official apology angers many African Americans
Attitudes divided along racial lines on government cash payments

Reparations For Slavery

Private companies that still exist benefited from slavery
Railroads; Insurance Companies
Most African Americans and some citizens disappointed by:
Unwillingness to debate issue in Washington, D.C.

The Challenge of Black Leadership

Booker T. Washington
Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama
Politics of Accommodation
Approach to White supremacy
Forgo social equality until Whites saw Blacks were deserving
Essential theme was compromise

The Challenge of Black Leadership

Self help and economic self determination
Congratulated by President Grover Cleveland
Organization became the Urban League
W.E.B. DuBois
Born to a free family in Massachusetts
First African-American to receive a Doctorate from Harvard

The Challenge of Black Leadership

Racism as the problem of Whites
Advocated the policy of the talented
tenth
Most outspoken critic of Booker T. Washington
Organization became the NAACP
The Politics of Accommodation

Niagara Movement

DuBois criticized Washington’s influence in Washington, D.C.
Washington’s power being used to stifle African Americans
Who spoke out against the politics of accommodation

Niagara Movement

Washington caused the transfer of funds from academic programs to vocational education
Washington’s statements encouraged Whites to place the burden of the Black’s problems
On the Blacks themselves
DuBois advocated theory of the talented tenth as alternative

Niagara Movement

Privileged Blacks, 1/10th must serve the other 9/10th of the Black population
African American education should be academic to improve their positions
Invited 29 Blacks for strategy session near Niagara Falls

Niagara Movement

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 1909
Consisted of Blacks and Whites
Founded by the leaders of the Niagara Movement
Marked the merging of White liberalism and Black militancy

Reemergence of Black Protest

World War II signaled improved economic conditions for Whites and Blacks
Efforts by Blacks to contribute to the war effort at home hampered by discrimination
Philip Randolph
Threatened march on Washington in 1941
Roosevelt responded by issuing executive order

Reemergence of Black Protest

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
Founded to fight discrimination with nonviolent direct action
Restrictive Covenant
Declared unconstitutional in 1948
Military desegregated by President Truman in 1948

The Civil Rights Movement

Desegregation of public schools
De jure segregation
NAACP - Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas, US Supreme Court decision
Marked the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement
James Meredith (1962) University of Mississippi

Civil Disobedience

Belief that people have the right to disobey the law under certain circumstances
Widely used by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Active non violent resistance to evil
Win friendship and understanding of opponents

Civil Disobedience

Attack forces of evil rather than people doing evil
Accept suffering without retaliation
Refusing to hate the opponent
Acting with the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice

Urban Violence and Oppression

Explaining Violence
Riff-Raff/Rotten Apple Theory
Riot participants were mostly unemployed youth with criminal records
Discredited the rioters and left the barrel of apples, White society, untouched

Urban Violence and Oppression

Relative Deprivation
Conscious feeling of negative discrepancy
Between legitimate expectations & present actualities
Rising Expectations
Refers to the increasing sense of frustration that legitimate needs are being blocked

Black Power

Born not of Black but of White violence
Phrase frightened Whites and offended Blacks
Stokely Carmichael
Black Panther Party
Founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California in October 1966

The Religious Force

Black leaders emerged from the pulpits
Religion always a source of political change and spiritual strength
From slavery to the present
Most African Americans are overwhelmingly Protestant

The New Immigration

New immigration trends from Africa and the Caribbean
Diverse group of young immigrants as students, to join relatives and as refugees
Experience the same problems of transitioning into a new society
Experienced by other-immigrants