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 21^st 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 20^th 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 101^st 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 20^th 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 19^th and 20^th 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.