Three Centuries of Historical Vignettes
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Slavery as an Institution, c 1700
- Beginnings of Slavery in America. Slavery came to English America little more than ten
years after its initial settlement, but the institution of slavery did not become a dominant
arrangement for labor until about 1700. In fact, initially natives and whites as well as blacks
were enslaved. It was, however, the development of the institutions supporting slavery that set
off the predominance of Africans as slaves.
- Badge of Blackness. Slavery initially failed because slaves fled their masters and disappeared
into a continent of immigrants. The enslavement of Africans succeeded because institutions
could be established based on skin color -- the badge of blackness. In the American South
after the establishment of the institutions of slavery, whites were assumed free unless proven
otherwise and blacks were assumed slaves unless proved otherwise. This assumptions allowed
enforcement of the property arrangements of slavery.
- The institutions of support. Slavery worked because it was supported by a code that
regulated the behavior of owners and slaves. The slave codes regulated behavior to a degree
that the relationship of master and slave was not open to choice but dictated by laws and social
practices grounded in the Southern community.
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The Slave Quarters, c 1830
Slavery was not just a system of laws; it was also a rhetorical practice. There were ways of
talking about slavery -- among the slaveowners, among the slaves, and in the interaction between
owner and slave -- that kept the slaves in chains. But there was also a rhetoric which undermined
slavery.
- Rhetoric of an Oppressed People. Those in the slave quarter had a well developed oral
culture. Prohibited in many cases from writing, they developed ways of talking about their
condition and how to deal with it that prepared each generation for the struggle of slavery.
Three rhetorics could be heard in the slave quarter:
- How to survive. One rhetoric stressed how to survive as a slave. It taught the
practices that would avoid the physical and mental terror that maintained the property
relationship. It contained proper methods of resistance -- stealing for example -- but
warned against the dangers of escape or confrontation.
- Myth of Freedom. Another rhetoric identified the land of freedom. To many slaves
that land beckoned to the north. But the dream of freedom included other visions as
well: manumission by a kindly owner, purchase by a kind benefactor, even an end to the
institution of slavery.
- History and ahistoricism of Slavery. Another rhetoric told of the African homeland,
the horror of the middle passage, the heroes of the family and plantation. These
histories of African America did not include, however, a narrative of slavery. Thus,
slavery was ignored.
- Rhetoric of the Oppressor. The slave owner did not talk about slavery as cruel, but had a
distinct rhetoric of slavery that allowed him/her to see the virtue in slave-holding.
- Responsibility. That rhetoric talked of the slaveowners responsibility to the slave. The
code condemned physical cruelty except in response to crime (and remember that laws
of the time were cruel to free criminals as well as enslaved). But primarily it viewed the
African as inferior to the white and defined the "white man's burden" to civilize and
"improve" the lives of slaves, particularly their Christianization.
- Support. This ethic of responsibility was justified with all the powers of reasoning.
"Science" of the time supported the inferiority of the African race. A favorite support
was the Bible's verses on the responsibilities of masters and slaves.
- Happiness. One of the strongest elements of this rhetoric was the "Myth of the Happy
Slave." Like all people, slaves found humor, affection, and even joy in elements of their
lives. Such was, of course, in spite of, more than because of, slavery. Slave owners
reveled in such celebratory enjoyment and believed it showed the happiness of their
slaves.
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After the Civil War amendments to the Constitution, no human could legally own another. The
institution of slavery was dead and the fundamental relationship of slavery had to change. With it,
the rhetoric which justified slavery had to change. But could the former slave owners construct
an alternative rhetoric to maintain their superiority in new institutions?
- Reconstructing the rhetoric of domination. To do so they would need to adapt toward a
new rhetoric of domination.
- Replacing Ownership. Sharecropping was developed as an economic institution. This
allowed continued dependency of the freedmen on their former owners.
- Replacing Rhetoric of Responsibility. The rhetoric of responsibility began to melt away.
The relationship between races was now marked by competition. The elevation of
former slaves to political power and the disenfranchisement of those supporting the
Confederacy strengthened this sense of racial competition. But the rhetoric of white
superiority continued.
- Terror as a mechanism of control. The white power structure also developed new
methods of physical attack to terrorize former slaves into subjugation.
- The white power structure developed a new code promoting racial separation. The Jim
Crow laws established American apartheid.
- Developing Black Institutions. Meanwhile, former slaves were being educated and acquiring
power in their society. They were stressing the need to develop institutions of their own.
- "Separate but Equal." These arrangements reached stability in segregation rather than
integration. These arrangements were authorized by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson
which declared acceptance of "separate but equal." In fact, Plessy authorized separation and
did not ensure equality.
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- The Immigrant Experience. In the industrial era, waves of immigrants reached American
shores. Industries were concentrated in the cities of the North. Here the immigrants settled
first in ghettos, areas of the city with horrible housing conditions, but close cultural
relationships. A ghetto might start as a German ghetto, filled with German immigrants. By the
second or third generation, Germans would move out of the ghetto, assimilated into the
general population, and the ghetto would become a ghetto of Polish Jews. Two or three
generations later, the ghetto may have become the home of Puerto Rican. Thus, a pattern of
community settlement followed by assimilation marked the immigrant experience.
- The Black Migration. In the early 20th century, African Americans from the South became
another immigrant group to Northern cities. They were, of course, domestic and not foreign
immigrants, but the pattern of community settlement characterized their journey. But this
migration turned out to be different:
- Echoes of Slavery. When the second and third generation arrived, these immigrants had
difficulty assimilating. The Badge of Blackness remained as a barrier to assimilation.
- Echoes of Reconstruction. Like all groups, however, the migrants developed their own
institutions in their communities. Churches were at the center of these institutions.
Many migrants joined labor unions and came to control many in service industries. The
Black Arts flourished in many of the cities providing the Harlem Renaissance.
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Twentieth Century Wars, c 1944
The twentieth century was a century of warfare. Two World Wars, a global Cold War, and many
smaller conflicts marred the century. Three effects of these wars, however, helped to shape the
Civil Rights Movement.
- Nationalism. The wars organized American culture to think of itself as a national culture.
The nation went to war, not sections of the country or states. One thought of themselves as
Americans during wars, not as Southerners or Northerners or Westerners. Wars also served to
enhance the status and power of the federal government in relationship to the states. Thus, a
consciousness of national issues was live.
- Fighting for Ideals. The wars of the 20th century taught Americans to fight for ideals. World
War I was to "Make the World Safe for Democracy" and "The War to End all Wars." World
War II was to restore freedom to Europe and to stop Japanese "enslavement" of their
neighbors. The Cold War was a fight for "freedom" and against communism. Americans were
used to fighting for ideals.
- Elevation of Expectations. The wars increased economic activity. Jobs in defense industries
and the need for every possible source of manpower to staff defense industries gave all
Americans a glimpse of material prosperity. When the war ended and women and minorities
were displaced from war jobs, they felt the demotion. They had glimpsed a better world and
were less likely to retreat to their previous status.
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- Separate but interlocked. The races were not totally separated in the South. Rather they
were interlocked in an elaborate social code that reinforced a hierarchy of social position.
Symbols of separateness such as separate waiting rooms, eating establishments, and water
fountains stressed separation even as facilities existed side by side. There was then a kind of
falsehood in separation: the races existed side by side but with symbols of their difference. No
one ever escaped the symbols of racial inferiority.
- Echoes of Slavery. Just as there had been in slavery, there were different rhetorics with which
those of African ancestry lived their daily lives.
- A rhetoric of their place. One rhetoric performed the social code of segregation. It
taught blacks how to observe the social code to keep themselves from trouble. Those
who violated the code were condemned for that violation and raised as those who
deserved the things that happened to them.
- A rhetoric of revolt. The other rhetoric spoke of equality and rejected racial inferiority.
It sought to end segregation by confronting the code.
- Echoes of Reconstruction. African Americans in the segregated South had institutions of
their communities. Primary among these were the Black Church. But there were also places
where the communities gathered to interact with each other and celebrate their communities.
These institutions provided places to base movements for change.
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The Black Ghetto, c 1965
- Third Generation from Immigration. In the pattern of immigration, the generation in the
ghettos of the cities in the 1960s was the generation that should have assimilated into broader
culture.
- Echoes of Slavery. But despite the relative prosperity of the time, the Black Badge kept that
movement into the mainstream from happening.
- Echoes of Reconstruction. Like other immigrant groups, the African American migrants
from the South had created their institutions in the ghetto. These non-governmental
institutions provided pivots around which organization could occur in the ghettos.
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