After 250 years of free labor from African Americans resulting in the Civil War, would America corrects its original sin and address the issues of inequality and justice for its formerly enslaved Citizens?
The wheels of progress were in motion. In the wake of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, ending slavery (1865), the first Civil Rights Act in the History of America (1865) was enacted making any African person born in the United States a citizen. This led to the passage of the 14th amendment guaranteeing African Americans the right to citizenship and due process. Then congress passed the 15th Amendment, giving African American males the right vote. And the best kept secret was that white men in the south lost their right to vote.
African American wasted no time. The Reconstruction Act brought about Civil Rights, Education for all, distribution of lands, and economic opportunities in business and industry. The right to vote was the political empowerment of the African Americans. They were appointed to public office and elected positions. During the Reconstruction Period, (1865-1877), they established Religious institutions, and erected schools to educate their children, a human right that was previously denied slaves. Many of these churches and Historically Black Colleges and Universities are still existence today.
The quest for equality was essential for the growth and development of a people who had for so long been denied basic human rights. Surprisingly, these men and women once freed held no animosity towards their former owners. But the same could not be said of the former slave owners. They could not adjust to seeing African Americans as equals, leading to animosity and hostilities that would haunt this country for years to come. Many whites saw the empowerment of Black people as a serious threat to their power.
During this period of Reconstruction, America experience a rise in home grown terrorist groups seeking to end equal rights for all. The heavily armed Klan, headed by former Confederate generals used threats, beatings, rape and murder including lynchings, to intimidate and terrorize Black Americans.
The compromise of 1877 was the death of Reconstruction and the loss of protections for Africans when President Hayes withdrew the last Federal troops from the south. This act by President Hayes gave the South back to the former Slave owners. The nation made a u-turn and the effects are felt even today.
The case of 1896 Plessey V. Ferguson, upheld the “separate but equal” doctrine of racial segregation. This action was clearly white supremacy at its height and affected the lives of African Americans for the next seventy years, from 1896 until 1965-68. This criminal decision, is clearly a reason for reparations as everything was separate but nothing was equal. The state tax dollars that were allotted to white schools were at least twice as much as to black schools which were often held in one room run down sheds. Black teachers were paid a pittance what white teachers received, and black children were the recipients of second hand books that white schools no longer wanted.
The existence of legal second class citizenship for African Americans has had a lasting effect on our black children. The denial of these state/tax funded institutions of higher education to Black people, prevented two-five generations of African American from become doctors, lawyers, judges, engineers etc., resulting in a double digit income gap between white and black Americans. The separate but equal laws in America created separate neighborhoods and communities. Black people were often denied and/or deprived from owning land, the most important indicator of wealth accumulation, and because Insurance agencies refused to sell life or health insurance to African Americans, generations of our people were never able to pass on their life’s hard earn wealth.
The focus for Reparations should be on the government’s role of depriving generations of African Americans access to opportunities granted to others with our tax dollars. There was no segregated tax collection. We all paid the same taxes. Our tax dollars were used to deprive Africans from accumulating wealth. America must address this question of reparation for people of African Descent.
By Larry B. Seabrook