1. THE MAKING OF AFRICAN AMERICANS IN A WHITE AMERICA
CHAPTER 7

2. Slavery US has the eighth largest Black population in the world
Slavery began in 1619 with 20 Africans in Jamestown as indentured servants
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

3. Slave Codes
Both contemporary institutional and individual racism, central in today’s conflicts, have their origins in the institution of slavery
Legal and 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
Slaves were denied rights
Coercion was used to maintain the system

4. 1 Could not marry or meet with a free Black
2. Marriage between slaves not legally recognized
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
6. Slave could not possess property (including money), except as allowed by his or her owner

5. 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
9. Slave could not leave a plantation without a pass noting his or her destination and time of return
10. No one, including Whites, was to teach a slave (and in some areas even a free Black) to read or write or to give a slave a book, including the Bible

6. 12. Slave had to obey established curfews
11. Slave could not gamble
12. Slave had to obey established curfews
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
Owner immune from prosecution for physical abuse

7. Slavery and its justifying ideology emerged out of Western Colonialism
Most slaves were from Northwestern African societies and were diverse in:
language
kinship systems
economic systems
political systems
Slavery and its justifying ideology emerged out of Western Colonialism
Ideology of slavery and the slave codes were invented primarily to maintain the subjugation of Africans

8. African Americans and Africa
Survival of African culture documented in:
Folklore
Religion
Language
Music
Afrocentric perspective
Argues that some aspects of African culture, such as art forms, have so permeated Western culture that we mistakenly believe origins are European

9. 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
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

10. 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
Destroyed farm implements and committed similar acts of sabotage

11. 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)
Supreme court decisions and segregation
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Williams v. Mississippi (1898)
White primary elections

12. Reparations For Slavery
Slavery Reparation
Refers to the act of making amends for the injustice of slavery
What form should reparation take?
An official apology
Financial compensation
Corporations that benefit from slavery and financial compensation
Congressman John Conyers (Detroit)
Commission to study appropriate remedies

13. Absence of an official apology angers many African Americans
In 1990’s, documentation emerged that private companies that still exist benefited from slavery
Railroads
Insurance Companies
Attitudes divided along racial lines on government cash payments
Most African Americans and some citizens disappointed by unwillingness to debate issue in Washington, D.C.

14. 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
Self help and economic self determination
Congratulated by President Grover Cleveland
Organization became the Urban League

15. W.E.B. DuBois Born to a free family in Massachusetts
First African-American to receive a Doctorate from Harvard
Niagara Movement
Racism as the problem of Whites
Advocated the policy of the talented tenth
Most outspoken critic of Booker T. Washington
Organization became the NAACP

16. 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
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

17. DuBois advocated theory of the talented tenth as alternative
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
Encountered difficulty gaining financial support and recruiting of prominent people

18. 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

19. 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
President Roosevelt responded by issuing executive order
Fair Employment Practices Commission set precedent for federal intervention in job discrimination

20. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) 1942
Founded to fight discrimination with nonviolent direct action
Restrictive Covenant
A private contract entered into by neighborhood property owners stipulating that property could not be sold or rented to certain minority groups
Declared unconstitutional in 1948
Military desegregated by President Truman in 1948

21. The Civil Rights Movement
Desegregation of public schools.
De jure segregation
Segregation that results from children being assigned to schools specifically to maintain racially separate schools
NAACP - Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas, and U. S. Supreme Court decision
Marked the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement
James Meredith (1962) University of Mississippi

22. Civil Disobedience
Based on the 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
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

23. 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
Relative Deprivation
The conscious feeling of a negative discrepancy between legitimate expectations and present actualities
Rising Expectations
Refers to the increasing sense of frustration that legitimate needs are being blocked

24. Black Power Born not of Black but of White violence
Phrase frightened Whites and offended Blacks
Black leaders feared Whites would retaliate more violently
Stokely Carmichael
Rejected the goal of assimilation in favor of solidarity
Black Panther Party
Founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California in October 1966

25. The Religious Force Black leaders emerged from the pulpits
Churches served as the basis for community organization in neighborhoods abandoned by businesses and even government
Religion always a source of political change and spiritual strength from slavery to the present
Most African Americans are overwhelmingly Protestant
The Nation of Islam, or Black Muslims, has attracted a large number of followers and received the most attention

26. QUESTIONS

27. In what ways were slaves defined as property?

28. Discuss the institution of slavery based on the sociological perspectives of symbolic interaction, conflict theory, and functionalism?

29. If civil disobedience is nonviolent, why is so much violence associated with it?

30. Describe the importance of the conflict between DuBois and Washington regarding academic and vocational programs and what it meant for the future of African Americans.

31. Why has religion proved to be a force for both unity and disunity among African Americans?

32. Growing numbers of Blacks are immigrating to the United States from the Caribbean and the African continent. What impact may this have on what it means to be Black or African American in the United States? What would the social construction of race say about this development?

33. Throughout their history in America, the people known as African Americans today have had other titles of identification. They were Negroes, then Colored, Black during the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, and now African American. America has many immigrants from Africa, some of whom are White, and can also be called African American. What does this mean to the descendants of American slaves? What title can they develop that will distinguish them from immigrant African Americans, Black or White?