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Race Relations, Class, and Voting Rights

The Perfect Storm

A dictionary definition of a “perfect storm” is “a detrimental or calamitous situation or event arising from the powerful combined effect of a unique set of circumstances.” Evidence shows that what we are now witnessing in America is a “perfect storm.”

Some time ago as I was watching video footage from the 1960s, I found myself calculating what must be the current age of the people I saw--the angry youth screaming venomous words of hatred and contempt when schools were being integrated; the sons of the men who murdered 14 year old Emmett Till; the little girl kicking a bleeding protester on the ground; little boys holding their fathers’ hands standing around the burning Klan cross; children being taught that Black people shouldn’t vote because they’ll take over the country or that school integration would lead to race-mixing and then white people would lose their majority status.

Many of these children would be in their sixties, many still in the workforce, many in high level managerial and political positions. All of these children would have lived through the dismantling of the Jim Crow system of legal discrimination which for them was the destruction of a way of existing, the loss of a high level of entitlement that automatically gave them first priority to jobs, political appointments, resources, slots on a college campus, etc.--a great loss of entitlement that their parents may have told them was attributable to minorities.

During the attempt to integrate Montgomery Alabama High School in April 1963. Photo by Flip Schulke.

So what happened when these adults came into their fifties prepared to take or retain their “rightful place” in seats of leadership, and their expectations were instead met with the loss of financial stability during the near collapse of the American economy, and shortly afterwards, the two things many were taught to be concerned about (race mixing and loss of political control) were manifested with the election of a mixed race President. And how did people who were taught as children that their entitlement to power, position, and jobs was being taken by minorities respond to the great shift in political power and the shift in the population? Just like their parents in the 60s and their ancestors after the Civil War, they responded with fear. And history teaches us that fear can produce very bad results. It is this perfect storm caused by the merger of economic and political loss that has created this season where ethnic, religious, and class disharmony now reigns.

History shows that fear today is producing the same types of reactions that fear produced in the 1950s and 60s when Jim Crow discrimination laws were being dismantled. Once again, fear over increases in Black political power has produced huge increases in gun sales to white men. Once again airways are filled with anything that can get middle and lower income people fearful enough to vote the return of full control to the ones who feel they are entitled to American power.

Fear—assisted and exacerbated by others who benefit-- is also re-energizing old organizations. When I was a child, there was the White Citizen’s Council which controlled communities. Made up of anyone who had political, economic, and legal power in a community, they could silence anyone whose employment or voting rights plans did not fit their agenda. The remnants of that organization created the Council of Conservative Citizens, the organization whose website Dylan Roof claims gave him the “truth” about African Americans constantly murdering white people that led him to massacre nine people in Charleston. This fear-mongering was legitimized by a Presidential candidate who tweeted an image that said 81% of white homicide victims were killed by blacks, when 85% of white homicide victims are killed by other whites. White supremacy groups have increased enrollment and have even created PACs to support candidates of choice.

And again as in their parent’s day, fear has drawn people to politicians who address their sense of loss in angry terms, politicians who reflect their desire to strike back at whomever they have been taught might be responsible for the “thing” (this advantage they cannot express in words) that they feel has been lost.

Reminiscent of the behavior in the 60s, this disturbing video shows a crowd of adult men, some screaming racial slurs, angrily surrounding and shoving around a young female student.

Click here for video and story:

This perfect storm, created by just the right set of economic and political circumstances, has called into question the very attributes for which America was respected by the rest of the world. Locally, little children of Mexican descent are in the schools crying in fear and young adults have no idea how to process this new, mean America that they didn’t even know still existed, and those of us from the last Jim Crow generation wonder if our hearts can even bear the terrible signs we see.

We are indeed in the midst of a storm and history teaches us that these cycles in the past have always resulted in some very deadly consequences. The resulting damages this time will be in proportion to how long the people can be manipulated through fear into dehumanizing their American neighbors.

This is a time in which we must all take responsibility for our own thoughts and actions, while speaking out against the destructiveness of others. Even in the darkest of times, goodness was eventually rewarded. Even with the worse behavior of many, there were some who retained their best.

“All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men [and women] to do nothing.”

“United we stand, divided we fall.” It is as simple as that.

I'm glad history matters to you!

Speaker, Author, Race Relations Strategist
History Matters Institute, A Division of the Scott Brown Group, LLC
www.cleoscottbrown.com

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Timeline: The Road from Free Man to Slavery to Freedman (1619 – 1865)

Free blacks in Richmond in 1865 (Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress Prints and Photo Division)

1619: First blacks in America; 20 arrive in Jamestown, VA; status of indentured servants.

1641: Massachusetts--first colony to give legal recognition to slavery followed by Connecticut, Virginia, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and South Carolina all by the end of the 1600s. Rhode Island and Pennsylvania recognized slavery in 1700, North Carolina in 1715, and Georgia in 1750.

1649: First legal protest of Blacks against being held beyond the number of years required of indentured servants. The 11 petitioners were freed.

1664: Maryland passed a law to prevent widespread intermarriage of English women and black men followed by Virginia, Massachusetts, North & South Carolina, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.

1770s: An estimated 5000 Black soldiers from all 13 colonies fought in integrated units in the American Revolution.

1700s: Slave revolts in New York, Massachusetts, South Carolina in an effort to obtain freedom for Blacks in the colonies.

1775: Enslaved and free blacks barred from the Continental army. After British army started accepting them, George Washington reversed the ban.

1776: The section in the Declaration of Independence denouncing slave trade was deleted.

1777 – 1827: Slavery barred in the northern states.

1787: Constitution approved with three clauses protecting slavery

1804: First of a succession of Black Laws passed to restrict the rights and movement of Blacks in the north which led to racial tension, race riots; Illinois, Indiana, & Oregon barred black settlers.

1807: Congress banned slave trade effective Jan 1, 1808.

1800s: Major slave rebellions in Virginia, Louisiana, South Carolina & Florida and on ships. Major increase in the Abolitionist Movement to end slavery and to rescue and assist people who had escaped slavery. The Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850 to deal with this issue. First national Black convention held (1830)

1820: Missouri Compromise prohibiting slavery north of the southern boundary of Missouri

1850s: Dred Scott decision opened northern territory to slavery & denied citizenship to American Blacks. Arkansas legislature required free Blacks to choose between enslavement or exile.

1860 - 1864: Abraham Lincoln elected; Civil War begins; Slavery abolished in Washington, DC. Emancipation Proclamation to free enslaved people with some exceptions (1863)

1865: Black troops helped close the Confederates last major port. Possessory titles to confiscated and abandoned lands were given to blacks in the south pending final action; Thirteenth Amendment passed which abolished slavery; Lincoln recommended voting rights for Black veterans and Blacks who were “very intelligent.” Three days later, President Lincoln is shot; new president (Johnson) reverses policy of distributing land to freedmen and the newly freed persons were left mostly to the mercy of former owners.

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About Cleo

Cleo Scott Brown, author of Witness to the Truth, speaks nationally on race relations, black history, and voting rights, helping audiences connect the past with the present. She has also lived her subject, and like her father, who is the central figure in her book, she believes that her experiences have been for a greater purpose. Learn more about Cleo here.