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Voices from within the Veil
Voices from within the Veil:
African Americans and the Experience
of Democracy
Edited by
William H. Alexander,
Cassandra L. Newby-Alexander
and Charles H. Ford
Cover photograph: Female protestor carrying sign that says 'Justice,' Monroe,
NC, 1961, by Declan Haun ; courtesy of Chicago History Museum
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
Chapter One............................................................................................... 1
Interpretations of the Beginnings
Chapter Two
Early Struggles for Empowerment ........................................................ 73
“Their Hoped for Liberty”: Slaves and Bacon’s 1676 Rebellion .............. 75
Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie
40 Acres and a Mule: Black Folk and the Right to the Rectification
of Injustice............................................................................................... 170
Rodney Roberts
Epilogue.................................................................................................. 345
Index........................................................................................................ 365
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Fig. 3.1 Free black missionaries from Zion Baptist Church from
Portsmouth, Virginia to Liberia, ca. 1830
Fig. 3.2 Journey of a slave from the plantation to the battlefield
glorified the rights of freemen and to allow the new United States
eventually to embrace democratic ideals. American democracy today is
dominated by various elites that claim to be the tribunes of the people.
Looking back at Jamestown and its representations in this way will offer
insights on the future of democracy and our “liberal” and “conservative”
elites cloaked in populist imagery.
The centerpiece of the conference was a multi-disciplinary dialogue
among scholars on the issue of African American rights in this country.
Obviously at the conference’s core were discussions about the historical
significance and experiences of this minority group in America and how
the law has defined them separately from the general public. The very
idea of designating groups as minorities implies subordination and
marginalization from the general populace. Moreover, the ongoing and
permanent designation of African Americans as minorities, despite many
of them having a mixed heritage, has rendered them an unassimilated
faction whose rights and privileges must be circumscribed to protect
society from harm. This historical understanding of the role that
minorities in general have played in defining who is and who is not an
American underlies America’s true legacy as the world’s first democracy.
It is that history that continues to play a role in America’s international
and domestic policies regarding immigration, humanitarian funding and
intervention, and accessibility to technology, civil rights, wealth, and civic
enterprise.
Who are African Americans? Writer Ralph Ellison wrote in his 1947
book, The Invisible Man, about the story of a highly intelligent unnamed
hero who went to a southern black college and was eventually expelled by
the president, Dr. Bledsoe, who was seen as a great educator and leader of
his race. The hero was punished simply because he unwittingly took a
white donor through a black gin mill. After his expulsion, he traveled to
New York, bearing what he believed was a letter of recommendation from
Dr. Bledsoe, but it was actually a letter warning prospective employers
against him. The protagonist later worked in a factory, became a leader
among the Harlem communists, and had an epiphany after witnessing a
riot in New York. He realized that, throughout his life, his relations with
other people, black and white, had been illusory and invisible. His true
self was never visible because it was locked within his black skin. As long
as he allowed others to define him, he would always be invisible to others.
He finally understood, “When I discover who I am, I'll be free.”
Africans and their descendants have been defined, redefined,
pigeonholed, stereotyped, classified, segregated, and mythologized since
the establishment of African slavery in America. This process has been
Voices from within the Veil xv
the reason for continued conflict over assimilating African Americans into
the system. It is also this factor that has resulted in African Americans
defining and redefining themselves based on the changing definition of the
term, “American.” In fact, even today the debates over the relevancy and
use of the terms black, Afro-American, African American, Colored, and
Negro continue to rage with no sign of ending. It seems that many would
prefer to be classified simply as “American,” with the hope that that would
end the ongoing marginalization of African Americans in American
society. In his seminal 1903 book, The Souls of Black Folk, DuBois
remarked that blacks found themselves in a peculiar situation in America.
A double-consciousness evolved in which blacks felt a dual identity: one
as a black, the other as an American. For DuBois, these two souls were
destined to be unreconciled and warring because of the primacy of race in
American society and culture. The result for blacks would be the
emergence of a "self-conscious manhood." This double-consciousness
was certainly true of African American leaders in the past, and it continues
to be true. It is this conflict that creates tension and frustration today and
leads to a kind of self-hating duality in many African Americans, despite
the incredible achievements, contributions, and exploits of many over the
past four hundred years.
But all this still begs the question, are blacks nothing but the
definition that others have given to them? Are they murderers and
criminals, Sambos and Mammies, Jezebels and pickaninnies? Are they
thugs and hoochy mammas, pimps and drug dealers or are they simply
victims of a system beyond their control? These images, which have
dominated American culture and have been embedded over many
generations in illustrations, trade cards, newspapers, articles, movies,
television, advertisements, and record labels, still resonate throughout the
world as true images of African Americans. In fact, some of the most
derogative images of blacks as threats are the primary marketing tools for
black music entertainers, showcasing them as antisocial, angry people
whose behavior marginalizes them to the sidelines of American society.
These depictions of blacks in the culture of white America have
successfully commoditized a stereotyped black culture here and abroad. If
these images are untrue, then who are African Americans, and why are
these representations still a part of American society and culture?
Since the colonial period African Americans have been popularly
depicted in stereotypical form, whether it was to soothe the consciences of
white America about slavery or segregation, defacto and otherwise, or to
justify an inherently unequal system that, at best, meted out inconsistent
justice to African Americans. The Declaration of Independence revealed
xvi Introduction
the hypocrisy of how society viewed itself versus African Americans when
it included the passage, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all
men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain
inalienable rights . . . among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness,” with the understanding that these rights would only be applied
to whites. The 1789 Constitution would go further, declaring that blacks
were chattel and only three-fifths of a person. By the 1830s, the institution
of slavery had become well-entrenched, sustaining the unprecedented
prosperity of the new nation. However, this factor corresponded with the
emergence of the “American Dream” that characterized the United States
as a “Christian” nation whose values were steeped in Biblical principles,
and whose destiny was to spread democracy throughout the world. The
dichotomy of these ideals and slavery resulted in the emergence of
scientific racism and white paternalism, which sought to justify this
system of human exploitation with American idealism. Prior to this
period, when slavery was viewed as a “necessary evil” by most whites,
African Americans did not cover their hair with scarves or hats, nor did
they perceive their innate physical characteristics as inferior to those of
whites. With the entrenchment and expansion of slavery in America,
however, such writers as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Dew, Samuel
Cartwright, T. D. Rice, and George Fitzhugh began the process of
dehumanization by ridiculing even the noses, eyes, lips, hair, body
structure, skin complexion, and odor of African Americans. To these
essayists, everything associated with Africa was inferior and inadequate,
especially when compared to the European model. Thus, America
witnessed the birth of black stereotypes that were comforting to whites,
explaining and justifying slavery while simultaneously setting the example
of behavior for African Americans. In the eyes of slaveholders in
particular and white America in general, the image of slaves as "Sambos,"
childlike, docile, lazy, and dependent became the rule. Whites expected
and demanded a subservient deference from blacks, enslaved and free.
By the early twentieth century, blacks had learned to cooperate with
society’s “compromise policy” of Jim Crow, although this policy was off
to a shaky start as cities such as Atlanta, Georgia and Wilmington, North
Carolina were cast into the public’s eye with brutal race riots. Blacks and
whites were to work together, forming a bond of mutual cooperation in
which blacks would take their “rightful” place behind whites who were
obviously the leaders and models for achievement and progress. Some
among the black leadership, fearful of losing their position and favor
among whites, and of the violence that would certainly ensue, championed
accommodationism and peaceful co-existence as the antidote to mob rule.
Voices from within the Veil xvii
It was in the first half of the twentieth century that blacks learned what it
meant to be a “good Negro” and a “credit to their race.” And while there
were organizations in the early 1900s such as the Niagara Movement, the
NAACP, and the National Colored Women’s League, which decried
injustice as a national policy and demanded more than the insular world
that segregation afforded for blacks, their voices were temporarily muted
by the powerful thunder of those arguing for compromise, patience, and
moderation. Ironically, in the midst of those pressures, there emerged a
diversity of voices cascading from the 1920s through the Depression era
and World War II that refused to be silenced, advocating not only that
blacks should join forces and fight for a more powerful Africa (Pan-
Africanism), but that blacks should claim their rightful place in American
society. After all, what would America be without African Americans?
From America’s music to its religious practices and economy, African
Americans had left their indelible imprint.
In the April 1970 edition of Time magazine, Ralph Ellison wrote an
article, “What America Would Be Like Without Blacks,” in response to
the conservative reactions to a more radical civil rights initiative by
organizations such as SNCC and the Black Panthers. In the article, Ellison
said:
Since the beginning of the nation, white Americans have suffered from a
deep inner uncertainty as to who they really are. One of the ways that has
been used to simplify the answer has been to seize upon the presence of
black Americans and use them as a marker, a symbol of limits, a metaphor
for the “outsider.” Many whites could look at the social position of blacks
and feel that color formed an easy and reliable gauge for determining to
what extent one was or was not American. Perhaps that is why one of the
epithets that European immigrants learned when they got off the boat was
the term “nigger”—it made them feel instantly American. But this is
tricky magic. Despite his racial difference and social status, something
indisputably American about Negroes not only raised doubts about the
white man’s value system but aroused the troubling suspicion that
whatever else the true American is, he is also somehow black.2
From the beginning of the arrival of Africans into this nation, blacks
have grappled with the issue of self-identity. This was complicated by the
process of enslavement which occurred over a period of forty-odd years,
and it continued throughout the colonial and revolutionary years. And
even after free blacks had begun referring to themselves as Afro-
Americans because of their desire to reconnect with their African roots
during the antebellum period, those years brought with them self-loathing,
resulting in part from the creation of proslavery arguments that were thinly
xviii Introduction
Notes
1
W. E. B. DuBois, Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil (New York: Brace and
Company, 1920), 142.
2
“What America Would be like without Blacks,” Time Magazine, April 6, 1970.
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