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Hip-Hop Became the Sound of Freedom
▲ 100 r/BlackHistory+2 crossposts

Hip-Hop Became the Sound of Freedom

In the 1960s, construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway destroyed housing and divided Black-majority neighborhoods in New York City. This, along with government and business disinvestment, set the stage for the rise of gangs in the city. Amidst the urban decay, block parties were a popular way for Black youth to find something to enjoy in the ghetto. On a sweltering Saturday night in August 1973, an otherwise ordinary end-of-summer party in the Bronx became the site of something extraordinary. The party was hosted by DJ Kool Herc who debuted a new technique he’d developed that extended the dance breaks in songs, allowing dancers to show off their skills longer and keep the crowd hyped. Since there was no singing during these breaks, Herc’s friend, Coke La Rock, would get on the mic and call out the names of the dancers, motivating them to show off their moves while he freestyled rhymes to keep the party going.

Two years later, when police shot and killed an unarmed Black man, his death inspired his friend Afrika Bambaataa to redirect his energies toward nonviolence. Bambaataa had just entered a UNICEF essay contest and won a trip to Nigeria, an experience that motivated him to create a community of positivity and Black empowerment in NYC. He began collaborating with other DJs and MCs to create an alternative to gang life with a group he called the Zulu Nation, which spread peace and unity through breakdancing competitions in the Bronx.

When singer Silvia Robinson went to one of these parties in 1979, she was inspired to recruit several MCs to record what became the first commercial rap song, “Rapper’s Delight.” The music of DJs and rappers became known as “hip-hop” as it rapidly spread the voices of urban Blacks across America, with the lyrics conveying the truth of life in the ghetto. Born in oppression, hip-hop became the sound of freedom. By 2017, hip-hop proclaimed its endurance by becoming America’s most popular music genre, and in 2023, fifty years after hip-hop’s birth, DJ Kool Herc was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Recommended reading: Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation by Jeff Chang and D.J. Kool Herc

Hip-Hop Became the Sound of Freedom

u/BlackHistorySnippets — 7 days ago
▲ 13 r/BlackHistory+1 crossposts

Congress Prevents Democracy in America’s Capital

On January 8, 1867, African American men obtained the right to vote in Washington, D.C. after Congress overrode the veto of President Andrew Johnson. Because the District of Columbia was not a state, the right to vote was limited to local elections and not in federal elections. As the rapidly growing Black population exercised their power of self-rule in the District, Congress responded in 1874 by replacing D.C.’s elected government with three presidentially appointed commissioners. As Sen. John Tyler Morgan of Alabama explained, after “the negroes came into this district,” it became necessary to “deny the right of suffrage entirely to every human being…[to] burn down the barn to get rid of the rats.” A newspaper wrote in 1878 that D.C.’s “present form of alien government is about as bad as to be devised. But a system which gives the control of the district to ignorant and depraved Negroes is still worse.”

In 1961, Congress gave the District three electoral votes, enabling residents to vote for president while still not having representation in Congress. Then, in 1973, Congress enacted the District of Columbia Home Rule Act returning local control to Washington residents 99 years after removing democracy from the District. Although the Act allowed the city council to pass criminal laws, it required continued reliance on federal prosecutors to enforce them with no control over who served as prosecutor.

In 2019, when the District decided to reduce sentencing ranges for felons found in possession of a firearm, the U.S. Attorney’s office announced it would begin to prosecute such cases in federal court where sentencing ranges were twice as long. Analysis shows that prosecutors selectively enforced this policy only in predominantly Black neighborhoods resulting in 97 percent of those charged being Black.

Recommended reading: Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital by Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove

Congress Prevents Democracy in America’s Capital

u/BlackHistorySnippets — 10 days ago
▲ 53 r/BlackHistory+1 crossposts

The Great Migration Led Black Americans to Freedom

After the Civil War, a new generation of Black Southerners was born who would not experience slavery. Born free, yet not truly free because of Black Codes that created a segregated society, relegating Black people to second-class citizenship. At the same time, a new generation of White Southerners inherited legal and social supremacy over their Black neighbors, though without the ownership interest their slaveholding ancestors had held. Without the incentive to protect their property, White hostility toward Black people grew increasingly violent.

Facing brutal labor conditions for little or no pay, Jim Crow segregation, voter suppression, and the constant threat of lynching, young Black Americans began searching for a way out. That opportunity emerged during WWI, when reduced immigration from Europe created labor shortages in the North. In February 1916, the Chicago Defender reported that several hundred Black migrants had recently left Selma, Alabama; one explained simply that “treatment doesn’t warrant staying.” Their migration was a response to an economic and social order hostile to their existence. They wanted freedom, so they did what the Pilgrims had done under British tyranny: they left. Through that act, they declared their independence.

Over six decades, more than six million Black Americans left the eleven former Confederate states and settled across the US. In 1910, 90% of Black Americans lived in the South; by 1970, 47% lived in the North and West. This rapid migration transformed America’s social and economic landscape. Although Black migrants moved to every state, more than two-thirds settled in roughly a dozen major cities, creating the critical mass that helped shape African American identity in the arts, business, churches, and politics. Despite anti-Black hostility and discrimination, Black workers earned higher wages than they had in the South, helping reduce the share of Black families living below the poverty line from 87% in 1940 to 30% by 1970.

Recommended reading: The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

The Great Migration Led Black Americans to Freedom

u/BlackHistorySnippets — 14 days ago
▲ 129 r/BlackHistory+1 crossposts

Racist Toys Normalized White Supremacy for Children

Toys often reflect the social and political context of the time, thus toys of the late 1800s had racist themes like “Old Aunt Chloe, the Negro Washerwoman” who was described as “faithful at her toil.” In the 1890s, a popular game called “Pickaninny Toy Target” featured Black children who fell into the mouth of an alligator when the target was hit: “Three little darkies, what a jolly crew. An alligator swallowed one then there was two.”

In 1921, the “Alabama Coon Jigger”, which was a wind-up figurine of a Black man dancing, was in the Sears catalog and sold over 8 million units. Toys like “The Negro Porter Pushes His Cart (1921)” and the game “Tip the Bell Boy (1929)” where the players shoot a ball at a Black bell boy, reinforced in children what Blacks were supposed to be like. The 1924 Sears catalog had the “Aunt Jemima Doll with Ma-Ma voice” dressed in a “costume of floral pattern cotton material with large white apron and collar; also red bandanna” who made “delicious pancakes [while] taking care of other dollies.” The idea that a White girl would own a Black doll to care for her White dolls showed Whites’ fondness for subservient Black domestic labor.

Long after the Civil War, these nationally available toys illustrate that White culture desired continued control of Black behavior by normalizing White supremacy through childhood play. Portraying violence against Blacks as entertainment was a casual demonstration of White power as White children were encouraged to enjoy assaulting Black bodies. Through the selling and buying of subservient Black figurines, White consumers kept the nostalgia of slavery alive for their children. The informal culture of play also included jump rope chants with one of the best-known chants, documented in every US state, being “Eney, meeny, miny, mo / Catch a nigger by the toe / If he hollers let him go / Eney, meeny, miny, mo.”

Recommended reading: Raising Racists: The Socialization of White Children in the Jim Crow South, Kristina DuRocher, University Press of Kentucky, 2011.

Racist Toys Normalized White Supremacy for Children

u/BlackHistorySnippets — 17 days ago
▲ 41 r/BlackHistory+1 crossposts

Forgotten Wisdom From the Red Summer of 1919

The Red Summer of 1919 was a period of White-on-Black race riots in dozens of American cities. The riots in Chicago resulted in the deaths of twenty-three Black and fifteen White people and injured hundreds. In the aftermath, the governor of Illinois established the Chicago Commission on Race Relations to investigate the riots and make recommendations to prevent their reoccurrence. Below is an excerpt from the commission’s 1922 report:

“The relation of whites and Negroes in the United States is our most grave and perplexing domestic problem. Many white Americans, while technically recognizing Negroes as citizens, cannot bring themselves to feel that they should participate in government as freely as other citizens. It is important for our white citizens always to remember that the Negroes alone of all our immigrants came to America against their will by the special compelling invitation of the whites; that the institution of slavery was introduced, expanded, and maintained in the United States by the white people and for their own benefit; and that they likewise created the conditions that followed emancipation. Our Negro problem, therefore, is not of the Negro’s making. No group in our population is less responsible for its existence. Centuries of the Negro slave trade and of slavery as an institution have created, and are often deemed to justify, the deep-seated prejudice against Negroes. The great body of anti-Negro public opinion, preserved in the literature and traditions of the white race during the long, unhappy progress of the Negro from savagery through slavery to citizenship, has exercised a persistent and powerful effect, both conscious and unconscious, upon the thinking and the behavior of the white group generally.

Racial misunderstanding has been fostered by the ignorance and indifference of many white citizens concerning the marvelous industry and courage shown by the Negroes and the success they have achieved in their fifty-nine years of freedom. It is of the first importance that old prejudices against the Negroes, based upon their misfortunes and not on their faults, be supplanted with respect, encouragement, and co-operation, and with a recognition of their heroic struggles for self-improvement and of their worthy achievements as loyal American citizens. The past is of value only as it aids in understanding the present; and an understanding of the facts of the problem…is the first step toward its solution.”

Recommended reading: Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America by Cameron McWhirter

Forgotten Wisdom From the Red Summer of 1919

u/BlackHistorySnippets — 21 days ago
▲ 17 r/BlackHistory

Failing Infrastructure Disproportionately Affects Black Communities

Sixteen years after Brown v. Board, federal courts finally forced schools in Jackson, Mississippi to desegregate, which led to White families fleeing the city, shrinking the city’s tax base and the public funding of infrastructure maintenance. For decades, statewide elected officials who decide how to spend state and federal money have been White, while Jackson’s residents, over 80% of whom are Black, have lived with regularly contaminated water. In 2022, Jackson went months without any water at all due to a failed water treatment plant resulting from fifty years of disinvestment by White politicians.

From 2003 to 2009, severe financial mismanagement by the mayor of Flint, Michigan led to the governor of Michigan exercising his emergency power to appoint an administrator to run Flint, usurping its citizens’ democratic right to elect their leader. The governor’s appointed administrators made severe budget cuts including the decision in 2013 to stop pumping treated water from Detroit and instead use water from the Flint River to supply its residents. When the city failed to treat the water properly, lead started leaching into the water supply. Despite repeated complaints from residents of bad-tasting, murky, and foul-smelling water, officials insisted the water was safe.

Flint’s residents, over 56% of whom are Black, suffered nearly two years until the federal government intervened to begin correcting the problem. The Michigan Civil Rights Commission concluded that the response to the Flint water crisis was “the result of systemic racism that was built into the foundation and growth of Flint, its industry and the suburban area surrounding it.” In August 2020, Michigan agreed to pay Flint residents $600 million for failing to protect them from lead poisoning. In December 2022, Congress allocated $600 million for repairs to Jackson’s water system and the problems are still not fixed.

Recommended viewing: How Jackson, Mississippi's water crisis is a sign of larger racial inequities

Failing Infrastructure Disproportionately Affects Black Communities

u/BlackHistorySnippets — 23 days ago
▲ 68 r/BlackHistory+2 crossposts

Rosenwald Schools Transformed a Generation of African Americans

Julius Rosenwald was born in Springfield, Illinois in 1862, and raised by his Jewish immigrant parents in their home across the street from where Abraham Lincoln had been raised. He later moved to Chicago where he became a successful businessman, rising to become president of Sears Roebuck in 1908. In the late 1800s, Black shoppers in the South were victims of price gouging and were denied access to quality products in White-owned stores. After Congress passed the Rural Free Delivery Act in 1893, Sears began delivering catalogs directly to rural families, enabling Black customers to order products that local stores refused to sell to them. The catalog’s affordable guitars launched the careers of B.B. King and Muddy Waters, and more importantly, provided dignity and equal consumer opportunities for millions of African Americans.

Rabbi Emil Hirsch, who led Rosenwald’s synagogue, was a co-founder of the NAACP in 1909 alongside W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells. In 1910, Rosenwald read Booker T. Washington’s autobiography, learning how education transformed Washington’s life after he was freed from slavery and inspired him to start Tuskegee Institute. A year later, they met through a mutual friend, and Washington invited Rosenwald to join Tuskegee’s board. Their shared commitment to improving the lives of African Americans inspired them to establish schools for Black children throughout the rural South. Rosenwald funded half the costs, while each local Black community contributed the rest through cash, land, and labor. This partnership resulted in the construction of 4,977 Rosenwald schools across 15 states between 1912 and 1932, educating more than 700,000 students.

A 2009 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that during their existence, Rosenwald schools were the single most significant contributor in narrowing the educational gap between Black and White communities in the South. The schools’ impact helped drive the Great Migration, as educated Black workers sought better job prospects in the North, while those who stayed in the South saw their wages rise by 35% relative to Whites. The collaboration between Washington and Rosenwald shows how improving school quality and access can substantially increase productivity in deprived areas within a single generation.

Recommended reading: A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools That Changed America by Andrew Feiler

Rosenwald Schools Transformed a Generation of African Americans

u/BlackHistorySnippets — 28 days ago
▲ 70 r/BlackHistory

Black is Beautiful

In Toni Morrison’s 1970 novel The Bluest Eye, Claudia is a Black girl living in 1940s Ohio who has internalized a deep-seated sense of self-hatred because she does not match society’s beauty standards, which are socially constructed on White superiority. Because she lacks the qualities valued by the community, she has a low sense of self-worth, which manifests as anger and defiance in response to rejection. She destroys a White doll and refuses to admire Shirley Temple, resenting the idea that she should admire that which resembles nothing of herself. Claudia’s rejection of societal values allows her to show compassion for Pecola, another Black girl who suffers immensely from believing she will always be ugly.

In March 1965, Hugh Hefner challenged the dominant culture’s beauty standards by choosing Jennifer Jackson as the first Black Playboy centerfold, an extraordinary move given that, for decades, Black women had been portrayed in media almost exclusively as maids. Nevertheless, high profile recognition of Black beauty remained scarce. Vogue magazine, the standard-bearer for women’s beauty for the previous 82 years, finally featured a Black woman, Beverly Johnson, on its cover in 1974. The Miss America pageant, which began in 1921, had a rule stating that contestants had to be “of the white race.” Even after removing this rule in the late 1960s, state pageants continued to exclude Black participants. It wasn’t until 1984 that Vanessa Williams became the first Black woman to win Miss America.

In the 1980s, just south of Ms. Morrison’s hometown in Ohio, Victoria’s Secret began selling lingerie nationwide through its mail-order catalog, generating more than $100 billion over the next four decades. Yet, it didn’t feature a Black woman on its cover until Tyra Banks in 1997. Similarly, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, first published in 1964, was the magazine’s best-selling issue every year, yet it didn’t feature a Black woman on its cover until Ms. Banks in 1997. People magazine first named a Black woman, Halle Berry, as the World’s Most Beautiful Woman in 2003 and has only done so twice more with Beyoncé in 2012 and Lupita Nyong’o in 2014.

Recommended reading: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Black is Beautiful - Black History Snippets

u/BlackHistorySnippets — 1 month ago
▲ 54 r/USHistory

Federal Government Buries Black Town Under Lake

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In September 1912, an 18-year-old White woman’s body was found near the Black community of Oscarville in northeastern Forsyth County, Georgia and five Black suspects were arrested. Rob Edwards was lynched by a mob of Whites; Ernest Knox and Oscar Daniel were tried and found guilty of rape by all-White juries, sentenced to death, then hanged in the Cumming town square in front of 8,000 White people. (The noose was displayed in the county courthouse until 1987.) White men called “Night Riders” began terrorizing Blacks throughout the county, telling them to leave or be killed. Everything the fleeing Black refugees left behind was plundered by Whites who also burned down the abandoned churches. Over several weeks, more than 1,000 Blacks were murdered or run out of Forsyth County.

Most Black landowners who were forced to leave couldn’t sell their land before leaving and were never allowed back to sell their land. Consequently, White residents were able to simply take their land titles via adverse possession without having to buy the land. The racial cleansing was so effective, no Blacks would live in the county for the next eighty years. During the Jim Crow era, there were no signs indicating whether a public facility was for “Whites” or “Coloreds” because Blacks were never in the county.

In the process of constructing the Buford Dam during the 1950s, the federal government acquired 56,000 acres of land, including Oscarville, forever submerging the formerly vibrant Black town under Lake Lanier, named for a Confederate soldier. On January 17, 1987, Rev Hosea Williams led a civil rights march through Cumming in honor of Rev Martin Luther King, Jr. The fifty marchers were turned back by a mob of thousands of violent Whites who spat and threw rocks while shouting, “Go home, niggers!” Several Whites were arrested for carrying concealed firearms. No descendant of the banished Blacks of Forsyth County has ever received compensation for the land stolen from their ancestors through violence and the legal system. Today, Forsyth County is the wealthiest county in Georgia.

Recommended reading: Blood at the Root by Patrick Phillips

Federal Government Buries Black Town Under Lake

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u/BlackHistorySnippets — 1 month ago
▲ 12 r/BlackHistory

Federal Government Buries Black Town Under Lake

https://preview.redd.it/k6ktp8mmvzch1.jpg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1c99929aadb6daaab69dee30b94984f19e85ca7c

In September 1912, an 18-year-old White woman’s body was found near the Black community of Oscarville in northeastern Forsyth County, Georgia and five Black suspects were arrested. Rob Edwards was lynched by a mob of Whites; Ernest Knox and Oscar Daniel were tried and found guilty of rape by all-White juries, sentenced to death, then hanged in the Cumming town square in front of 8,000 White people. (The noose was displayed in the county courthouse until 1987.) White men called “Night Riders” began terrorizing Blacks throughout the county, telling them to leave or be killed. Everything the fleeing Black refugees left behind was plundered by Whites who also burned down the abandoned churches. Over several weeks, more than 1,000 Blacks were murdered or run out of Forsyth County.

Most Black landowners who were forced to leave couldn’t sell their land before leaving and were never allowed back to sell their land. Consequently, White residents were able to simply take their land titles via adverse possession without having to buy the land. The racial cleansing was so effective, no Blacks would live in the county for the next eighty years. During the Jim Crow era, there were no signs indicating whether a public facility was for “Whites” or “Coloreds” because Blacks were never in the county.

In the process of constructing the Buford Dam during the 1950s, the federal government acquired 56,000 acres of land, including Oscarville, forever submerging the formerly vibrant Black town under Lake Lanier, named for a Confederate soldier. On January 17, 1987, Rev Hosea Williams led a civil rights march through Cumming in honor of Rev Martin Luther King, Jr. The fifty marchers were turned back by a mob of thousands of violent Whites who spat and threw rocks while shouting, “Go home, niggers!” Several Whites were arrested for carrying concealed firearms. No descendant of the banished Blacks of Forsyth County has ever received compensation for the land stolen from their ancestors through violence and the legal system. Today, Forsyth County is the wealthiest county in Georgia.

Recommended reading: Blood at the Root by Patrick Phillips

Federal Government Buries Black Town Under Lake

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u/BlackHistorySnippets — 1 month ago
▲ 14 r/BlackHistory

The High Price of Haiti’s Independence

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Just 28 years after the US won its independence from Britain, Haiti won its freedom from France after a 12-year war that cost over 200,000 Haitian lives. France and the US sought to ensure the failure of the first Black-led country in the New World by blocking trade with the island. Haiti had been France’s richest colony, and its loss, and war costs, forced Napoleon to sell the Louisiana Territory to the US. The US refused to recognize Haiti’s independence because slaveowners didn’t want Black diplomats coming to America to spread the message of freedom for all. One senator said a devastating plague would be less harmful to the US than recognizing a free Haiti.

In 1825, the King of France sent twelve warships to Haiti to demand reparations for their losses 21 years earlier, forcing Haiti to pay more than twice what the US paid France for the Louisiana Territory, and to pay the debt with predatory loans. This “double debt” crippled Haiti’s finances and created a culture of corruption. Thirty years later, US demand for fertilizer was so great that Congress sent the Navy to seize Haiti’s island of Navassa, taking billions of today’s dollars’ worth of guano for US farmers. The US Marines occupied Haiti during WWI, installing puppet governments and forcing Haitians to work without pay while torturing and killing dissidents; 15,000 Haitians were killed during the 19-year occupation. The US also took control of Haiti’s central bank and guaranteed its loans from National City Bank (now Citibank), which expropriated 40% of the country’s revenues over the next decade.

The US withdrew from Haiti in 1934, but continued political and economic control until 1947, when the reparations debt was finally paid off, leaving a lasting legacy of poverty, underdevelopment, and corruption. In the following decades, the US continued to prop up governments and even reoccupied Haiti from 1994-97. Reparations payments over 122 years devastated Haiti’s finances and caused permanent underfunding of infrastructure, education, and healthcare. Since gaining independence 221 years ago, the Haitian people have been continually punished by France and the US for the crime of not wanting to be enslaved.

Recommended reading: Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

The High Price of Haiti’s Independence

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u/BlackHistorySnippets — 1 month ago
▲ 1 r/USHistory

Which America Endures?

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In July 1776, the United States of America was founded by a group of White men who desired to become self-governing, independent, and free from outside oppression. The Supreme Court later wrote that “the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this [Declaration of Independence].”

In July 1868, the 14th Amendment was officially adopted into the Constitution, granting citizenship to Black people born in the US. America was willing to sacrifice 750,000 lives over the question of slavery but unwilling to give up the wealth it had accumulated under slavery. Consequently, the four million newly freed slaves were left destitute. America’s leaders, who had been influenced by the rise of scientific justifications for White racial superiority, could not tolerate the idea that citizenship for Blacks made them equal to Whites. So they passed laws making Blacks second-class citizens to remind them that they could serve society but not share its power. When laws were not enough, KKK terrorism made up the difference.

In July 1964, the Civil Rights Act ended the apartheid era by making Black citizenship equal to White citizenship. Although the expression of White supremacy through separate but equal systems was no longer legal, systems that produced racialized results continued to operate. America made no attempt to close the value gap widened by Jim Crow, and reforms that appeared to be race-neutral produced racialized outcomes that are the current manifestation of White superiority. While Black citizens are now eligible for positions of power, only five states have had a Black governor, only nine states have had a Black senator, and only one percent of Fortune 500 company CEOs have been Black. America was willing to give up a token amount of power but unwilling to give up the wealth it had accumulated under Jim Crow. Systems built with structuralized racism were designed to endure, and because they were never eliminated, they have adapted to changing times. Where mobs once carried ropes, modern enforcers carry badges. Where poll taxes once disenfranchised Black voters, voter ID laws produce the same effect. Where housing segregation was once enforced by law, freeways have cemented racial separation.

The concept of racial superiority was invented by White people to justify exploiting Black people for political and economic advantage. It is a foundational feature of America’s history, and it is still effectively accomplishing what it was intended to do by accruing benefits for White people at the expense of Black people. The inability to achieve racial equality thus far shouldn’t be viewed as a failure, but rather as the successful operation of the original design. The struggles for equal opportunity and equal protection under the law are never over, they are never won. In July 2026, which America will be celebrated?

Recommended reading: The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist

Which America Endures? - Black History Snippets

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u/BlackHistorySnippets — 2 months ago
▲ 2 r/BlackHistory

Which America Endures?

https://preview.redd.it/yolh1dv587bh1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4532988c583f8f65824abaaac1621dd7ad38b788

In July 1776, the United States of America was founded by a group of White men who desired to become self-governing, independent, and free from outside oppression. The Supreme Court later wrote that “the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this [Declaration of Independence].”

In July 1868, the 14th Amendment was officially adopted into the Constitution, granting citizenship to Black people born in the US. America was willing to sacrifice 750,000 lives over the question of slavery but unwilling to give up the wealth it had accumulated under slavery. Consequently, the four million newly freed slaves were left destitute. America’s leaders, who had been influenced by the rise of scientific justifications for White racial superiority, could not tolerate the idea that citizenship for Blacks made them equal to Whites. So they passed laws making Blacks second-class citizens to remind them that they could serve society but not share its power. When laws were not enough, KKK terrorism made up the difference.

In July 1964, the Civil Rights Act ended the apartheid era by making Black citizenship equal to White citizenship. Although the expression of White supremacy through separate but equal systems was no longer legal, systems that produced racialized results continued to operate. America made no attempt to close the value gap widened by Jim Crow, and reforms that appeared to be race-neutral produced racialized outcomes that are the current manifestation of White superiority. While Black citizens are now eligible for positions of power, only five states have had a Black governor, only nine states have had a Black senator, and only one percent of Fortune 500 company CEOs have been Black. America was willing to give up a token amount of power but unwilling to give up the wealth it had accumulated under Jim Crow. Systems built with structuralized racism were designed to endure, and because they were never eliminated, they have adapted to changing times. Where mobs once carried ropes, modern enforcers carry badges. Where poll taxes once disenfranchised Black voters, voter ID laws produce the same effect. Where housing segregation was once enforced by law, freeways have cemented racial separation.

The concept of racial superiority was invented by White people to justify exploiting Black people for political and economic advantage. It is a foundational feature of America’s history, and it is still effectively accomplishing what it was intended to do by accruing benefits for White people at the expense of Black people. The inability to achieve racial equality thus far shouldn’t be viewed as a failure, but rather as the successful operation of the original design. The struggles for equal opportunity and equal protection under the law are never over, they are never won. In July 2026, which America will be celebrated?

Recommended reading: The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist

Which America Endures? - Black History Snippets

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u/BlackHistorySnippets — 2 months ago
▲ 0 r/USHistory

American Liberty Was Built on Slavery

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President Thomas Jefferson believed it best to deport all Blacks back to Africa and replace them with more White laborers from Europe. Why? “Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.” In 1775, British statesman Edmund Burke observed that “these [white] people of the southern colonies are much more strongly attached to liberty, than those to the northward [because of their] vast multitude of slaves.” Slaveholders, he asserted, were “by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom.” South Carolina lawyer Timothy Ford said, “Liberty is a principle which naturally and spontaneously contrasts with slavery. In no country on earth can the line of distinction ever be marked so boldly. Here, there is a standing subject of comparison. The constant example of slavery stimulates a free man to avoid being confounded with the blacks. Slavery, so far from being inconsistent, has, in fact, a tendency to stimulate and perpetuate the spirit of liberty.” Knowing what they had done to Africans by enslaving them, America’s revolutionaries would never allow the same to happen to them.

In 1860, Alabama statesman William L. Yancey explained the foundations of American democracy to a Northern audience. “Your fathers and my fathers built this government on two ideas: the first is that the white race is the citizen, and the master race, and the white man is the equal of every other white man. The second idea is that the Negro is the inferior race.” Initially, plantations relied on large numbers of White indentured servants who were poor and landless. As in England, this created issues of inequality and social control, which had been exposed in Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676. English leaders were concerned about the risks posed by an unruly lower class to republican government. In America, slavery solved this problem. When Black slaves replaced the White lower class, America achieved a society in which most of the poor were safely held in bondage.

Regarding free Black people, President James Madison said the “objections to a thorough incorporation of the two people are, with most of the whites, insuperable.” America’s original sin has proven remarkably resistant to the laws of man. Will racism ever disappear just by making it illegal? America’s foundational document, the Declaration of Independence, proclaims that all people have unalienable natural rights, but it doesn’t demand they all be treated as brothers and sisters.

Recommended reading: America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America by Jim Wallis

American Liberty Was Built on Slavery

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u/BlackHistorySnippets — 2 months ago
▲ 36 r/BlackHistory

American Liberty Was Built on Slavery

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President Thomas Jefferson believed it best to deport all Blacks back to Africa and replace them with more White laborers from Europe. Why? “Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.” In 1775, British statesman Edmund Burke observed that “these [white] people of the southern colonies are much more strongly attached to liberty, than those to the northward [because of their] vast multitude of slaves.” Slaveholders, he asserted, were “by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom.” South Carolina lawyer Timothy Ford said, “Liberty is a principle which naturally and spontaneously contrasts with slavery. In no country on earth can the line of distinction ever be marked so boldly. Here, there is a standing subject of comparison. The constant example of slavery stimulates a free man to avoid being confounded with the blacks. Slavery, so far from being inconsistent, has, in fact, a tendency to stimulate and perpetuate the spirit of liberty.” Knowing what they had done to Africans by enslaving them, America’s revolutionaries would never allow the same to happen to them.

In 1860, Alabama statesman William L. Yancey explained the foundations of American democracy to a Northern audience. “Your fathers and my fathers built this government on two ideas: the first is that the white race is the citizen, and the master race, and the white man is the equal of every other white man. The second idea is that the Negro is the inferior race.” Initially, plantations relied on large numbers of White indentured servants who were poor and landless. As in England, this created issues of inequality and social control, which had been exposed in Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676. English leaders were concerned about the risks posed by an unruly lower class to republican government. In America, slavery solved this problem. When Black slaves replaced the White lower class, America achieved a society in which most of the poor were safely held in bondage.

Regarding free Black people, President James Madison said the “objections to a thorough incorporation of the two people are, with most of the whites, insuperable.” America’s original sin has proven remarkably resistant to the laws of man. Will racism ever disappear just by making it illegal? America’s foundational document, the Declaration of Independence, proclaims that all people have unalienable natural rights, but it doesn’t demand they all be treated as brothers and sisters.

Recommended reading: America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America by Jim Wallis

American Liberty Was Built on Slavery

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u/BlackHistorySnippets — 2 months ago
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Born in America, Not American

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The idea of jus soli, “right of the soil,” or birthright citizenship, had been part of English common law for centuries, which may explain why there is no definition of citizenship in the US Constitution. In 1790, Congress clarified for immigrants that only a “free white person” could become a citizen. Then, in 1857, the US Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that no Black person could ever be a citizen, creating a racialized, hereditary underclass of rights-impaired people. Free Blacks had no legal status, and some Whites called for them to be sent back to Africa. Although America claimed to be the “land of liberty,” many looked to Haiti, where Black people had the rights and privileges of citizens, with most Whites believing free Black people would be happier in a Black-led country. Yet free Blacks insisted that the land of their birth was their only home. For them, citizenship answered the question, “Where are you from?”

The sacrificial military service of Blacks in the Civil War inspired Congress to pass the 14th Amendment, which granted citizenship to all people born in the United States. In 1866, White mobs massacred 46 Black people in Memphis and 34 in New Orleans, sparking national outrage and the rapid ratification of the 14th Amendment by 22 states. However, Southern states refused to make Blacks equal citizens. In response, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts in 1867, requiring Southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment in order to be readmitted to the US. The Acts also granted Black men the right to vote and hold elected office. With Black participation in the political process, the amendment was ratified in 1868.

But Whites continued to violently oppose Black civil rights, so Congress passed the Enforcement Acts of 1870-71, which asserted the power of the federal government to protect the rights of citizens. However, legal challenges undermined the 14th Amendment, reestablishing the primacy of states’ rights and allowing racial segregation. Ultimately, Congress left Black Americans as second-class citizens under the Compromise of 1877. Amid calls to “take back our country,” the descendants of the formerly enslaved say today, “I, too, am America.”

Recommended reading: Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post–Civil War America by Garrett Epps

Born in America, Not American - Black History Snippets

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u/BlackHistorySnippets — 2 months ago
▲ 5 r/BlackHistory

Born in America, Not American

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The idea of jus soli, “right of the soil,” or birthright citizenship, had been part of English common law for centuries, which may explain why there is no definition of citizenship in the US Constitution. In 1790, Congress clarified for immigrants that only a “free white person” could become a citizen. Then, in 1857, the US Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that no Black person could ever be a citizen, creating a racialized, hereditary underclass of rights-impaired people. Free Blacks had no legal status, and some Whites called for them to be sent back to Africa. Although America claimed to be the “land of liberty,” many looked to Haiti, where Black people had the rights and privileges of citizens, with most Whites believing free Black people would be happier in a Black-led country. Yet free Blacks insisted that the land of their birth was their only home. For them, citizenship answered the question, “Where are you from?”

The sacrificial military service of Blacks in the Civil War inspired Congress to pass the 14th Amendment, which granted citizenship to all people born in the United States. In 1866, White mobs massacred 46 Black people in Memphis and 34 in New Orleans, sparking national outrage and the rapid ratification of the 14th Amendment by 22 states. However, Southern states refused to make Blacks equal citizens. In response, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts in 1867, requiring Southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment in order to be readmitted to the US. The Acts also granted Black men the right to vote and hold elected office. With Black participation in the political process, the amendment was ratified in 1868.

But Whites continued to violently oppose Black civil rights, so Congress passed the Enforcement Acts of 1870-71, which asserted the power of the federal government to protect the rights of citizens. However, legal challenges undermined the 14th Amendment, reestablishing the primacy of states’ rights and allowing racial segregation. Ultimately, Congress left Black Americans as second-class citizens under the Compromise of 1877. Amid calls to “take back our country,” the descendants of the formerly enslaved say today, “I, too, am America.”

Recommended reading: Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post–Civil War America by Garrett Epps

Born in America, Not American - Black History Snippets

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u/BlackHistorySnippets — 2 months ago
▲ 11 r/BlackHistory

Slavery by Another Name: Debt Peonage

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Before 1865, behavioral correction for slaves was enforced by White slaveowners on private plantations. After the Civil War, the public judicial system punished lawbreakers. To cut prison costs and return free Blacks to their unequal position in society, White businessmen paid convicted defendants’ fines and had them sign contracts to imprison them on their property to work without pay until the debt was repaid. Before the war, only rich landowners could afford to purchase a slave, whereas this new slavery enabled more landowners to rent low-cost forced labor.

They were subjected to exceedingly violent abuse as obtaining replacements was just a matter of returning to the court to obtain a new slave; there were no consequences if anyone died on the job. Former sheriff John W. Pace was the largest purchaser of convicts from the Tallapoosa County, Ala., courthouse when federal prosecutors began investigating him for enslaving Blacks. In May 1903, Mr Pace pleaded guilty to eleven counts of peonage. He appealed on the grounds that the victims did not owe him money, and even if they were slaves, there was no federal statute against owning slaves. President Theodore Roosevelt pardoned Mr Pace in April 1906 even as Mr Pace continued to hold slaves, as did thousands of other White men over the next 35 years.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt knew America’s mistreatment of Blacks would be exploited by its enemies. Five days after the attack, the US Attorney General issued Circular No. 3591 directing all federal prosecutors to prioritize prosecution of slavery cases. In March 1943, the federal government convicted a White farmer and his daughter in Beeville, Tex., of holding a Black man as a slave for years, demonstrating the federal government’s commitment to finally ending slavery. In 1948 and 1951, Congress rewrote the US criminal code to explicitly make slavery illegal, ending over eighty years of the federal government’s perpetuation of the enslavement of millions of African Americans after the Civil War failed to free all Blacks from slavery.

Recommended reading: Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon

Slavery by Another Name: Debt Peonage

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The 15th Amendment’s Unfulfilled Promise

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Ratified in 1870, the 15th Amendment declared that voting rights could not be denied based on race. Congress then passed the Enforcement Act of 1870, which imposed criminal penalties for obstructing the right to vote, as well as the Force Act of 1871, which authorized federal oversight of elections. As a result, in the former Confederate states, where newly enfranchised Black citizens sometimes constituted a majority or nearly a majority of voters, hundreds of thousands of recently freed slaves registered to vote.

For the first time in American history, Black candidates were elected to state, local, and federal offices, enabling them to meaningfully participate in government. However, just seven years later, when federal troops left the South, White citizens used violence and fraud to prevent Black citizens from voting, despite their constitutional right to do so. After regaining control of state legislatures in the South, Whites used gerrymandering, poll taxes, literacy tests, and Whites-only primaries to maintain political supremacy, resulting in the almost complete exclusion of Blacks from politics by 1910.

Although the 15th Amendment granted Black Americans the right to vote, White Americans still created obstacles to voting and found ways to minimize the impact of Black votes. Section 2 of the amendment anticipated this resistance, giving Congress the power to enforce it through legislation. Nearly a century later, Congress exercised this power by passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Over the next five decades, Black voter turnout increased significantly, even surpassing White voter turnout for the first time in 2012. However, just one year later (and again in 2021, 2023, and 2026), the US Supreme Court weakened the VRA’s ability to uphold the 15th Amendment, resulting in a decline in Black voter participation.

Recommended reading: Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America by Ari Berman

The 15th Amendment’s Unfulfilled Promise

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u/BlackHistorySnippets — 2 months ago