By Vincent L. Hall
We ain’t goin’ back! – Harris/Welz Campaign, 2024
We ain’t goin’ back! – Harris/Welz Campaign, 2024
Jesus brought Black people to America, and we have been catching hell ever since.
Not Jesus, our chosen Lord and Savior…it was literally the Jesus of Lubeck.
Jesus of Lubeck was the first British slave ship to reach the Americas. In fact, between 1562 and 1567, Britain’s very first slave trader, John Hawkins, profited so greatly from the slave trade, that he arrested the Queen’s attention. And the rest, as they say, is Black history.
It is blatantly apparent that some of us are historically limited. I hope to explain in 700 words or less how racism has kept African Americans in a fighting posture for 400 years.
The “Slave Catchers” created a working model of law enforcement officers as we know them today. The concept was attributed to Robert Peel in England circa 1812 and reached the continental United States soon after.
The first American implementation of Peel’s “community policing” happened as a response to slave revolts by Nat Turner and John Brown. These freedom fighters took the risk of opposing evil and like so many others “made the ultimate sacrifice.
The Black Codes – President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated five days after the Civil War, and Vice President Andrew Johnson assumed the balance of his term.
A Southerner, Johnson wanted to readmit the Southern states into the Union as quickly as possible. He appointed military governors who held complete power in the former Confederate states until new civilian governments could be organized.
Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau right before the end of the war, but the newly emancipated slaves were last on Johnson’s list. By 1870, a quarter million black children and adults attended more than 4,000 of these schools in the South.
South Carolina created an answer to what they saw as a breach of their state’s rights… They created the Black Codes.
South Carolina’s Black Code applied only to “persons of color,” (octoroons) defined as including anyone with more than one-eighth Negro blood. The Black Codes negatively affected civil rights, labor contracts, vagrancy, apprenticeships, courts, crimes, and punishment. It rescinded the 2nd Amendment Right of “coloreds” to bear arms and required the enforcement of local, state, and national policing agencies.
“Jim Crow” was the late 1800s phase of militarized martial law and official oppression for Negroes. Jim Crow was a slang term and “code” for Black people when “Nigger” became taboo for official use. Jim Crow established different rules and laws for Blacks and Whites and was based on the theory and practice of white supremacy.
After Reconstruction and the depression-racked 1890s, racism appealed to Whites who feared losing their jobs to Blacks. Sound familiar? Politicians singled out Blacks to win the favor and votes of poor Whites.
Some newspapers allegedly beefed up the bias of White readers by amping up or making up Black crimes. (Fox News didn’t invent racism in media, they just perfected the process!)
By 1914, Texas had six entire towns in which Blacks could not live or work in after dark. Signs bearing the warning “Whites Only” or “Colored” became the tapes- try and texture of the South. Alabama Police Commissioner Bull Connor of the 1960s became the poster boy for outward racism in policing.
After all, it takes somebody with a badge to enforce laws, whether just or unjust! Civil Rights/AA/DEI
Since Jim Crow, we have been engaged in a colder version of the war for our dignity called the civil rights struggle. We won significant victories in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
But in 2024, we are witnessing encum-brances at the voting booth, a total denial and “whitewashing” of history, and a significant assault on Affirmative Action, aka DEI.
Donald Trump boldly proclaims that a vote for him will Make America Great Again.
The MAGA movement fondly remembers the maximum enjoyment of White privilege.
So, if you don’t care to re- visit government blatantly racist policies and you refuse to go back to Sundown Towns, reckless eyeballing charges, lynching, or guessing how many jellybeans are in a bowl as a requirement for voting; you have a singular choice for president in 2024 and Trump ain’t it!
Those of us who understand Black history from the Jesus of Lubeck to Jim Crow and beyond will be voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
We ain’t goin’ back!
A long-time Texas Metro News columnist, Dallas native Vincent L. Hall is an author, writer, award-winning writer, and a lifelong Drapetomaniac.
