Publisher's New Analysis- Don’t drop your guards; it ain’t over yet
http://www.aframnews.com/html/interspire/articles/1399/1/Publishers-New-Analysis--Dont-drop-your-guards-it-aint-over-yet/Page1.html
Roy Douglas Malonson
Roy D. Malonson is publisher of the African-American News&Issues. By Roy Douglas Malonson
Published on 02/22/2010
As Black History Month comes to a close, I thought it might be time for a reminder that it’s not time to drop our guards. We have had the privilege of watching history unfold as Barack Hussein Obama was installed as the first Black president of the United States. Many thought we had finally overcome. But it’s not time to burn our picket signs. It ain’t over, yet.
Some White folks are not willing to take the election of a Black president lying down and they are g
As Black History Month comes to a close, I thought it might be time for a reminder that it’s not time to drop our guards. We have had the privilege of watching history unfold as Barack Hussein Obama was installed as the first Black president of the United States. Many thought we had finally overcome. But it’s not time to burn our picket signs. It ain’t over, yet.
A Black man in the White House is not proof that the battle against racism and discrimination has been won. The Boston Globe reports that the election of President Obama has caused increased threats against the president of the United States by 400 percent, as opposed to those against former president George W. Bush during his terms in office.
The Southern Poverty Law Institute says that White supremacist militia groups also increased by 35 percent, following the election. Memberships in groups like the Ku Klux Klan spiked after the election, as well. What message are they sending us? They’re saying, “it ain’t over, yet.”
Some White folks are not willing to take the election of a Black president lying down and they are going to do anything they can to remove what they consider to be a smudge on America’s history and turn the White House, White again. In the meantime, we have to be on our guards.
We cannot afford to fool ourselves into thinking that this milestone closes the door on the ugly era of racism in America. We cannot afford to let the well-wishers rock us to sleep, thinking that the ugly days of Jim Crow are behind us. They are not.
We have to remember the Reconstruction Era that followed slavery. For the first time, Blacks were afforded equal rights as Whites. Blacks could sleep in the same hotels, eat in the same restaurants, go to the same schools and even hold political office.
They could do these things because safeguards were put in place by the American Government to protect the rights of Blacks in the South. Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, outlawing racial terrorism, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875, outlawing racial discrimination in most public places. The Freedmen’s Bureau was established in an effort to provide Blacks with their promised 40 acres by giving confiscated southern plantation lands to Blacks. Congress also sent federal troops into the South to help Blacks register to vote. Things were beginning to look pretty good.
But a time came when both races began to think things were okay. They dropped their guard. And while they were “sleeping,” Andrew Johnson and other White elitists came in and switched things.
They broke up the Freedman’s Bureau and the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. And then, in 1877, the Republicans, who were supposedly organized to help Blacks, sold them out in order to win the White House. In exchange for the election of Republican president Rutherford B. Hayes, Republicans agreed to the Compromise of 1877, which called for the early withdrawal of federal troops from the South, ending the Reconstruction Era and ushering in Jim Crow, also known as Black Codes. Things were as bad as, if not worse than the days of slavery.
If you asked the Republicans why they sold us out, they will tell you they did it for the greater good, so that the whole nation could win. They did it again with the nomination of Barry Goldwater, who openly stated he was writing off the Black vote and was opposed to the Civil Rights Act the late President John F. Kennedy had drafted.
We can see this happening now. Democrats and Republicans alike, throw Blacks under the bus “for the greater good.” The election of a Black president for the first time in history has about as much meaning as the Reconstruction Era, unless we make it have meaning.
We must do what we have always had to do with well-meaning presidents and other politicians. We must hold them accountable.
Only two presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman, have willingly put their necks on the line for Blacks. U.S. presidents have always had to be pushed into a corner and forced to decide. The president is only as strong as the people behind him.
Unless we are willing to find history repeating itself, unless we are willing to find racist White folk at the end of Obama’s term waiting to turn back the hands of time again, we must wake up and man our battle stations.
We must be on the look out for racism trying to stick its ugly head out and over take us. We must not drop our guards.
A Black man in the White House is not proof that the battle against racism and discrimination has been won. The Boston Globe reports that the election of President Obama has caused increased threats against the president of the United States by 400 percent, as opposed to those against former president George W. Bush during his terms in office.
The Southern Poverty Law Institute says that White supremacist militia groups also increased by 35 percent, following the election. Memberships in groups like the Ku Klux Klan spiked after the election, as well. What message are they sending us? They’re saying, “it ain’t over, yet.”
Some White folks are not willing to take the election of a Black president lying down and they are going to do anything they can to remove what they consider to be a smudge on America’s history and turn the White House, White again. In the meantime, we have to be on our guards.
We cannot afford to fool ourselves into thinking that this milestone closes the door on the ugly era of racism in America. We cannot afford to let the well-wishers rock us to sleep, thinking that the ugly days of Jim Crow are behind us. They are not.
We have to remember the Reconstruction Era that followed slavery. For the first time, Blacks were afforded equal rights as Whites. Blacks could sleep in the same hotels, eat in the same restaurants, go to the same schools and even hold political office.
They could do these things because safeguards were put in place by the American Government to protect the rights of Blacks in the South. Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, outlawing racial terrorism, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875, outlawing racial discrimination in most public places. The Freedmen’s Bureau was established in an effort to provide Blacks with their promised 40 acres by giving confiscated southern plantation lands to Blacks. Congress also sent federal troops into the South to help Blacks register to vote. Things were beginning to look pretty good.
But a time came when both races began to think things were okay. They dropped their guard. And while they were “sleeping,” Andrew Johnson and other White elitists came in and switched things.
They broke up the Freedman’s Bureau and the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. And then, in 1877, the Republicans, who were supposedly organized to help Blacks, sold them out in order to win the White House. In exchange for the election of Republican president Rutherford B. Hayes, Republicans agreed to the Compromise of 1877, which called for the early withdrawal of federal troops from the South, ending the Reconstruction Era and ushering in Jim Crow, also known as Black Codes. Things were as bad as, if not worse than the days of slavery.
If you asked the Republicans why they sold us out, they will tell you they did it for the greater good, so that the whole nation could win. They did it again with the nomination of Barry Goldwater, who openly stated he was writing off the Black vote and was opposed to the Civil Rights Act the late President John F. Kennedy had drafted.
We can see this happening now. Democrats and Republicans alike, throw Blacks under the bus “for the greater good.” The election of a Black president for the first time in history has about as much meaning as the Reconstruction Era, unless we make it have meaning.
We must do what we have always had to do with well-meaning presidents and other politicians. We must hold them accountable.
Only two presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman, have willingly put their necks on the line for Blacks. U.S. presidents have always had to be pushed into a corner and forced to decide. The president is only as strong as the people behind him.
Unless we are willing to find history repeating itself, unless we are willing to find racist White folk at the end of Obama’s term waiting to turn back the hands of time again, we must wake up and man our battle stations.
We must be on the look out for racism trying to stick its ugly head out and over take us. We must not drop our guards.