Obama Presidency: Restitution
for Centuries of Colonialism and a New Beginning.
It is no longer a news that Barack Hussein Obama won another
four year term to US presidency; similarly, it is no longer a news that Gov. Mitt
Romney- the Conservative flag bearer in the 2012 US presidential elections lost
in both electoral and popular votes, the worst outing for any Republican
candidate in decades.
It is no longer a news that the right wing political class
represented by the white supremacists, powerful economic group, culture and
religion extremists wished Obama lost, and the power “lent” him four years ago could
return to their “rightful owners”; even, when this group knew that their flag
bearer was no match to Democratic political machine anchored and managed by the
best political strategist America has ever seen in a century.
However, the recently conducted US presidential elections
will continue to generate debate, research, book-writing, commentary for a long
time to come, even, when the principal actor- Barack Obama leaves Oval
Office in 2016.
As a scholar and a
historian not as a politician (because I’m not one), I see the 2012 presidential elections beyond replacing
White-House-occupant or a change-of-government from blue to red or red to blue,
which comes in every four years of American life; but I see the election as a
closure to several centuries of injustice and maltreatment, which began in 1503
when Spanish Slave traders brought the first batch of Africans as slaves to
America, a move that created direct slave shipment from African lands in to Americas
and Caribbean in 1518. Also, I see the
presidential elections as a new development of unfolding extra-ordinary events
that will soon come up and shape the most powerful country of 21st
century. But more important, Obama second coming will be a-wound-healing
exercise among all the racial groups that have complaints against another in the
most culturally diversified country ever known in human history.
America from 1503 to
1807
European explorer, Christopher Columbus in 1492 discovered a
vast land on the western side of Atlantic- this vast land of “large,
continuous, discrete masses of land” from the tip end of Argentina on the south
Atlantic to the Arctic Circle in the north is known as America today. This geographical region (the North and the
South America continents) consist of 35 independent countries, hundreds of
Islands and territories with thousands of streams, water courses, lakes, canals,
rivers, seas; and prominently, the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.America’s landmass is about 42,549,000 sq. kilometers (about 16, 430,000 sq. miles); a home to about 900 million people of which United States accounts for a third; this landmass is third in size after Asia and Africa, but second in population after Asia, when or if, northern and southern continents are combined.
This geographical region has played a major role in human civilization
in the last six-and-a-half centuries. Beginning with slave trade, America has
become a home to over 20-30 million Africans minus several thousand who died
during the Trans-Atlantic-Slave-Trade because of inhuman treatment, sickness
and long travel across the ocean. The slaves and their descendants over the
years provided cheap-or-give-away-labor required to build the modern America.
However, we may say at this point that
the impact of slave labor was felt more in Brazil and the
thirteen British North American colonies
from Georgia to Massachusetts Bay (now Massachusetts)- the precursor to
the modern day United States.
As United States expanded in size and population, so too,
the demand for labor increased; and at the same time, opposition to slavery on
the rise with several civil rights groups leading the cause. The powerful
economic interests and their allied-Southern politicians fought against the
abolition of slave trade, not until federal government intervened and abolished
the trade and its associated activities in 1807. What followed after slave
trade abolition became another eye sore in American history.
From Jim Crow 1876 to
1965 Civil Rights Emancipation
Another historic chapter began in the U.S. in 1876, which nearly
eclipsed the 1860-1865 Civil War. Change, as we know, is always met with
resistance; history is replete with how people fight, resist and always
obstruct change. But since change always comes with a powerful and irresistible
force, which opposition can barely withstand and repel, change always triumphs.
This was the case with the abolition of slave trade in United States- because the
force of change was greater than the force of resistance; change prevailed,
though, not without a price.
Some of the prices America paid for abolition of slave trade
were: American Civil War 1861-65, and most unfortunate of them all, was the
assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865.
Even as the fight against slavery was won politically, the
fight shifted to another realm of racial segregation and discrimination; from
1876 onward, all southern states (the former confederate) enacted race-toned
laws that legitimized the Black Codes of 1860-1866.
These racial laws otherwise known as Jim Crow focused on segregation and discrimination against the
blacks, the colored and the poor whites:
·
At public schools
·
Public places
·
Public transportation
·
Segregation of restrooms/restaurants and
drinking fountains for whites and blacks
·
Segregation in the military.
·
Losing of voting rights.
The southern conservative whites with their Democratic
Redeemer took this measure shortly after the Civil War to maintain the fragile
unity between the southern states and the Union.
Blacks, colored, poor whites became immediate victims of Jim
Crow laws- which in practical sense limited, or deprived them of their
fundamental human rights. States like Alabama,
Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma
pursued these laws with vigor and through the combination of poll taxes, literacy,
comprehension test, residency and record keeping test- thousands of blacks,
colored and poor whites were disfranchised.
What effect did these laws have on the target audience? Records
show that between 1896 and 1904, black voters were completely eliminated from
voter rolls in North Carolina, black progressive growth stunted; within a
decade of disfranchisement, “the white supremacy campaign has erased the image
of the black middle class from the minds of white North Carolinians.”
Legal battles and Fireworks against Jim Crow
Laws.
A traumatized nation, which was just recovering from a five-year
civil war, and shock from Lincoln’s assassination was preparing to enter in to
another phase of moral burden and social dislocation of certain segments of the
society. Jim Crow laws became de jure in the southern states; even the popular
declaration “all men are created equal” by Abraham Lincoln could not dissuade
the Jim Crow fanatics from pursuing their segregation laws.
Thanks to the Civil Right Acts of 1875 introduced by Charles
Sumner and Benjamin Butler, which gave a little respite to the blacks, colored,
and the poor whites; unfortunately, the Supreme Court in its verdict of 1883
rolled back the benefits of the Act when it said, “the Act was unconstitutional
in some respect.”
Although, there was no significant legislation from the Congress
to alter or to change the Jim Crow laws for almost a century (1876-1965); the
courts of the land became the best routes used by Civil Rights groups to create
far-reaching changes to Jim Crow laws.
The first litmus test was the 1892 Louisiana Separate Accommodation Laws, which Civil Rights Group challenged
in Plessy v. Ferguson; though, the Supreme Court ruled
that “separate but, equal facilities were constitutional,” for another
58 years blacks, colored, had to contend
with various forms of discriminatory laws, which always kindled and
prompted legal battles in the court of the land.
Civil Rights Movement-National
Association of Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
A prominent Civil Rights movement in United States is the National
Association of Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); the
organization was founded on February 12, 1909 with the mission:
to
ensure the political, education, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate
racial hatred and racial discrimination.
NAACP founding members included, but not limited to: W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Archibald
Grimke, Henry Moscowitz, Mary White
Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard, William English Walling, Florence Kelley,
and Charles Edward Russell. NAACP had friends among whites (even its first president,
Moorfield Storey was a white man), political leaders across party lines, corporate organizations, media and the intellectuals,
such as Albert Einstein, who in a correspondence to Du Bois in 1946 called
racism “America’s worst disease.”
Some of the early fight against discriminatory laws and
practices by NAACP were:
·
NAACP organized protest against President
Woodrow Wilson’s introduction of racial segregation in Federal
offices, hiring, and employment
·
The 1915
Grandfather Clause challenged in
court
·
The 1917
Buchanan v. Warley
·
NAACP created more media attention to the
lynching of the blacks, and called for its abolition.
·
The 1919
Elaine Race Riot at Phillips County, Arkansas.
·
The 1923
Moore v. Dempsey from the Elaine
Race Riot.
·
The most significant court case of NAACP was the
1954 Brown v. Board of Education (Kansas). In its unanimous ruling, the
Supreme Court declared “state sponsored segregation of elementary school is
unconstitutional.”
Energized by the court ruling, NAACP called for the
abolition of school segregation in the south- a move that led to more protests
that changed and shaped America’s racial outlook forever.
Martin Luther King, Rosa
Parks- the Change Agents of 20th century America.
Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) was an African-American Baptist
clergyman, a powerful public speaker, a moral barometer who adopted non-violent,
civil disobedience to draw government’s attention to the plight of the blacks,
colored and the poor whites. Following
the unfair treatment suffered by an African-American lady, Rosa Parks who
refused to vacate her seat on bus to a white man at Montgomery, Alabama, Martin
Luther King and NAACP organized bus boycott for 381 days in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa Parks’ action ignited already tensed
atmosphere as blacks, colored and whites demonstrated violently in several
cities across America.
The protests and demonstrations were reminiscent of civil
war fought 100 years earlier; to prevent loss of life and property, and to calm
the frayed nerves, the federal government took far-reaching positive steps to
abolish all racial laws. In some cases, the federal government used force to implement
race-free laws as done in Little Rock, Arkansas on September 25, 1957, when
President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent 1,000 troops from the active-duty 101st
Airborne Division to escort and to protect African-American students as they returned
to school in a racially charged environment in 1957.
Although, Arkansas governor, Orval Faubus was not happy with
the federal government action, the Little Rock Central High School- the center
of racial politics (of segregation and desegregation) was closed for the rest
of the academic year; but because the change train was moving at a fast speed,
which no one could hold up, Little Rock Central School was re-opened in the
fall of 1959, more significantly, racial integration commenced, and fully
implemented in the entire state of Arkansas.
Civil Rights of 1964
and Voting Rights of 1965.
The journey to national healing by one people, one nation
was about reaching its climax, when the nation was struck by another tragedy-the
assassination of President J. F. Kennedy. America did not allow this tragedy
derailed its restoration course; rather, it used the trial time to heal and to
sooth as the Congress passed one of the most prodigious legislations of 20th
century, an all-inclusive Civil Rights Act of 1964, and later the 1965 Voting
Rights. Features of the legislation include:
·
Outlawed discrimination based on: race, color,
religion, national origin in motels, hotels, restrooms, and theaters.
·
Prohibited state and municipal governments from
denying access to public facilities on grounds of race, color, religion, or
national origin.
·
Encouraged desegregation in public schools
authorized US Attorney-General to file suit to enforce it.
·
Prevents discrimination by agencies that receive
federal funds, if the agencies found violating Title V, such agencies will lose
federal funding.
From 1965 to 2012
Obama Presidency and Beyond.
America history is that of mixed blessings express by
various people or (culture) and events at different times. Such as:
·
The 1776 declaration of independence
by Thirteen North American British colonies,
·
The 1789 adoption of Federal Constitution, and
·
The election of the first president, George
Washington
·
Abolition of Slave trade in 1807 and its
associated activities
·
Monroe Doctrine
·
The Louisiana Purchase
·
Texas defeat, and Union membership
·
The 1860-1865 Civil War
·
The industrial Revolution in America-powered by
steam and later, fuel engines
·
The east-west railway construction the engine of
industrial growth
·
The scientific and medical Revolution:
telephone, telegraph, penicillin invention
·
The Jim Crow Laws.
·
The beginning of muckraking journalism, which
exposed the corrupt practices of late 19th and 20th
American billionaires and corporate establishments.
·
The
establishment of NAACP
·
The gathering storm to World War One.
·
Increased opposition to segregation and
discrimination laws.
·
The 1919 Women Voting Rights law
·
The 1920s and 1930s Great Depression
·
The gathering storm to World War Two
·
Rooseveltism and the New Deal.
·
Post
World War Two, Korean War
·
Discontentment to the segregation laws and the follow-up
protests in America
·
J. F. Kennedy/Lyndon Johnson managing the worst
civil disturbance in America.
·
America’s Culture and Social Revolution of mid
sixties
·
The 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the 1965 Voting
Rights Act.
·
Clouds in the land: assassinations of Senator
Robert “Bobby” Kennedy; and Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968.
·
Reagan/Bush Doctrine, America the only power
after the fall of U.S.S.R.
·
Clintonian era and the infusion of youthful
vigor in to America’s presidency.
·
George Bush Jr., managing the World and Terrorism.
·
Obama presidency, a break from the past seeking
a new frontier.
Average
African-American will say or tell that his or (her) citizenship of the most
powerful nation on the earth as of today began in 1965, four hundred and
sixty-two years after the first slaves stepped in to America. We should remember that unlike other guests on
this side of Atlantic Ocean, Africans came not as free guests, but rather, as people
in chains of which Maulana Karenga said:
Song we would never hear! Histories we would
never know! Art we would never see! Because European had the capacity to
destroy, and didn’t have the moral restraint not to.
African-American history has significantly leaped forward
within the past forty-seven years; more African-Americans have been elected in
to public offices of: mayor, state parliaments, governorship, the congress, and
more recently, to Oval Office. While the
journey to this point has not been smooth, it suggests that there are still
much to be done.
The forward movement of the larger America society now and
in the future will continue to be determined by the progressive coalition of
(blacks, colored, whites, and other minorities) built in early 1950’s to fight
the in-equalities in the national polity; surprisingly, this coalition has
grown beyond what it was sixty years ago, and has changed in outlook as the recent
presidential elections showed.
Granted, a lot has been achieved within the past
four-and-half decades, but more ground need to be covered. As President Obama
begins his second term, the new congress comes in, stay-on and in-coming state governors
and their parliaments swing into action; Americans and international observers
will be watching as events begin to unfold
between now and year 2016.
