Politicization of Civil Rights

The Politicization of Civil Rights Moshe Pols-101

Politicization of Civil Rights

To most people, the Civil Rights Movement means equality for blacks and whites. However, over the years, the Civil Rights movement has been a politicized movement for the push of candidates and parties on all sides. They played a role with the southern states seceding from the USA, and the Civil War. Many people don't know that for a long time in fact blacks did play important roles through many important times, and weren't just mere slaves, as most think today. The reason for such a political polarization on the issue, for a wide multitude of reasons. This paper will sort through the beginning of America to more modern times to show how different political parties and policies shaped the civil rights movement and made it take almost 200 years for equality to start taking a foothold from the founding of America. Many seem to think America was founded only by white men wearing wigs. I found looking through history books over years, and looking at paintings of many of the important founders, and in turn the black founders. I will only point out a few and their accomplishments as they are so numerous: Peter Salem, a black hero at the battle of bunker hill, and saved scores of american lives that day. Reverend Jonas Clark and Prince Estabrook were both important in the Battle of Lexington, with the shot heard around the world. He called his congregation to the mixed church, and then rallied his black and white patriots, to fight the british. 150 Americans fought, with 18 dead. Prince Estabrook was also known as one of the first black men to fight in the revolution. Prince Whipple. If you look at either paintings of Washington crossing the Delaware or the Marquis de Lafayette you will see him there. Possible to even say he alone was the man who won the revolutionary war. He fought alongside Washington in the revolution. And was a double agent for the revolutionaries, in order to give bad intel to the British, and give the good intel to Washington and the patriots. (Beck, 2010) So now you can see that in fact African-Americans did in fact play a role in the founding of America. So why then was the three-fifths clause implemented in the founding documents of laws in the newly founded United States. Well we can look at what Frederick Douglas said, The Constitution is a great anti-slavery document. Douglass rejects interpretations based on anything other than the text of the document. He excludes the framers' intentions and personal views, as well as the text of any document that was from the same time period or origins. "I repeat, the paper itself, and only the paper itself, with its own plainly written purposes, is the Constitution. It must stand or fall, flourish or fade, on its own individual and self-declared character and objects. Again, where would be the advantage of a written Constitution, if, instead of seeking its meaning in its words, we had to seek them in the secret intentions of individuals who may have had something to do with writing the paper? What will the people of America a hundred years hence care about the intentions of the scriveners who wrote the Constitution?" (Douglas, 1860) Douglass goes on to address the specific parts of the Constitution that others have claimed to be "pro-slavery." Why would Frederick Douglas say that? Lets Look into Frederick Douglas' life to find out why and what he said. In 1838, he escaped slavery and ended up in New York. He falls in with a lot of anti-slavery people, and the Massachusetts anti-slavery society hears his testimony. They in turn ask him to speak for them, while at the same time the antislavery society is saying that the constitution needs to be overthrown as it is a slave owners

Politicization of Civil Rights

document, the founders put slavery in it and etc. Well when the Massachusetts Anti-slavery society wanted to pay him, he decided maybe he should learn and study the constitution on his own. Frederick studied not just constitution, but also all the debates, and the other documents around it as well. Finally when he finished, and came to the conclusion it in fact was a great antislavery document. So how is the three-fifths clause anti-slavery? Frederick read the convention notes of all the anti-slavery founders, James Wilson, Luther Martin, and more. But at the time there were also three heavily pro-slavery states in the south, South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina. And basically the constitution states you get 1 representative to the house of congress for every 30,000. This was important because in some of those states there were more slaves than there were white people. So the north argued that no only for every 30,000 free people do you get 1 member of congress. This was put in as incentive to free the slaves. However interestingly enough the south considered them property and not people. Well Luther Martin and others, basically said, You count every 30,000 pieces of property then we get 1 member of congress. Then we will start counting cows, chairs, and etc. And every 30,000 pieces of property we have we will add one anti-slavery member to congress. So eventually they compromised and settled on the three-fifths clause to only count three-fifths of the slave population and not individual slaves, so for every 50,000 slaves they got one member of congress, which in turn cut the pro-slavery members of congress in half. To make it harder to get a pro-slavery congress. (Beck, 2010) The three-fifths clause played an incredibly important role into the demise of slavery, as eventually the north gets a large representation in government, which in turn gets more electorates for the electoral college. This in conjunction with with the banning of the importation of slaves in 1808. This began to tip the balance of power into the hands of the North. However slavery still continued due to the fact that States had power over the federal government in this area. Eventually, this upset of power in the south. Led to the south seceding from the United States over President Lincoln being elected. Primarily because they had fewer electoral votes in the slave states. So the civil war ensued with brother killing brother, and even seeing witness to free black men taking up arms with the north. And on January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the executive order known as the Emancipation Proclamation. Which immediately freed all slaves in the rebelling states applying to most of the slaves in America. But the order did not outlaw slavery itself. This bill was signed not just to make ending slavery a central goal, it also helped keep Europe from intervening to assist the Confederacy. Europe was already by this time anti-slavery, which is the reason why they didn't want to intervene. It also angered the northern democrats which between the north and south made it seem like a race war. After the war ended in april of 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was created abolishing slavery passed in 1865. Subsequently the Fourteenth Amendment was passed in june of 1865 to grant citizenship to the freed slaves. On february of 1869, the fifteenth amendment was passed guaranteeing that no American would be denied the right to vote because of their race. For many, however, this right wouldn't last long due to voter intimidation, literacy tests, and poll taxes. The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1865 by veteran confederates and democrats, and were a secret vigilante group seeking white supremacy threatening to kill any white or black Republican. They created a lot of voter intimidation to keep the republican voters from voting in the Democratic south. Because now the slaves had been freed and were able to vote, and the blacks outnumbered white democratic voters. While the KKK was unorganized mostly, and leadership ran mostly at the local level, groups like the KKK had popped up all over the south. They were effective as the south slowly regained democratic control in the 1870's. In the 1880's blacks were still elected to local office,

Politicization of Civil Rights

however voter registration laws, and electoral rules became more restrictive forcing many blacks and poor whites from voting. Between 1890-1910 laws were passed in ten former confederate states to reduce black and poor whites from voting by instituting literacy tests, poll taxes, comprehension tests, record keeping, and residency requirements. In the 1870's when Democrats started regaining control of the south. The democrats started to segregate the south, in public schools, public places, and public transportation. The democrats were able to do this via the separate but equal laws that came to be known as Jim Crow laws. The civil rights act of 1875 was introduced by Republicans Charles Sumner and Benjamin F. Butler to combat Jim Crow laws early on. It was created to give complete equality to blacks and whites in all public accommodations such as inns and pubs, transportation, and places of recreation. However the bill had no effect as it was overturned by the supreme court in 1883 ruling the bill unconstitutional in some aspects by saying, Congress was not afforded control over private persons or corporations. With white southern Democrats forming a solid resistance in Congress with power out of scale to their benefit to the percentage of population they represented due to the newly freed black population. No other civil rights bill was able to be passed for many years. However civil rights began back peddling shortly afterwards. The Mississippi plan was devised by democrats to overthrow the Republican party in the state of Mississippi. Using threats of violence and suppression or purchase of the black vote. It was successful, and later adopted by democrats in South Carolina. In 1876 the first Jim Crow laws were passed by southern democrats, implementing racial segregation in the south. In 1896 the supreme court case Plessy v Fergusson stated the separate but equal laws were constitutionally sound. The worst blow to the progress which had been done was in 1914. When the newly elected democratic president Woodrow Wilson, orders re-segregation of federal work places and employment after nearly 50 years of integration. Furthermore he fired all the black employees of the federal government. On March 21, 1915, Woodrow Wilson even held a private screening of the infamous KKK movie, The Birth of a Nation, which was based off the best selling book at the time, the Clansman (Beck, 2010, p. 49). And he even had the gaul to say after the movie was finished, a major endorsement, It is like writing history with lightning. He even is quoted as also saying, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true. Fast forward to 1964, and the Civil Rights movement is in full swing. Lyndon Johnson is now President after Kennedy's Assassination. Personally I don't like LBJ for many reasons, however the biggest ones had to do with him being such a derogatory person, and such a big racist. He even has been reported to peeing on the leg of a secret service agent. When the agent instinctively jumped back in horror and disgust, LBJ said, That's all right, son. It's my Prerogative. (Beck, 2010. p.75). In addition, LBJ biographer Robert Caro stated that prior to 1957, Johnson, had never supported civil rights legislationany civil rights legislation. In the Senate and House alike, his record was an unbroken one of votes against every civil rights bill that had ever come to a vote: against voting rights bills; against bills that would have struck at job discrimination and at segregation in other areas of American life; even against bills that would have protected blacks from lynching. (Beck, 2010 p.76) The lynching bill he is referring to is the Civil Rights bill of 1957, Eisenhower tried to push. However then Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson, removed the essential anti-lynching clause. As if his actions in politics weren't already bad enough, he was so bad to his longtime black limo chauffeur, Robert Parker, that in Parkers autobiography of his serving in the LBJ years. Johnson, called me boy, n**ger, or chief, never by my name . . . Whenever I was late, no matter what the reason, Johnson called me a lazy, good-for-nothing n**ger . . . I was afraid of him because of the pain

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and humiliation he could inflict at a moments notice. (Beck, 2010 p.76). Now why would a man as racist, and derogatory as LBJ support Civil Rights of all things? I believe Johnson can answer this question in his own words, I'll have them N**gers voting Democratic for two hundred years. (Beck, 2010 p.74) How would it do this? Simple by making him look like their savior, even when he appointed a black Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall. As Johnson said to a young staffer, When I appoint a ni**er to the court, I want everyone to know he is a n**ger. (Beck, 2010 p.78) We can find more quotes like these, but by now you get my point. So in 1964 LBJ signed the Civil Rights act of 1964, which desegregated the entire country. However there were still issues, as it still had schools with only white people, and blacks were still discriminated against. But the main goals of the bill were to guarantee, and even further enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Shortly afterwards, there were still issues with voting rights. So the Voting Rights act of 1965 came about. It was passed in the senate on May 26, 1965, after a successful Cloture vote on March 23. It was then passed in the house on July 9. Finally signed by LBJ on August 6.

1) Barton, D. (2004). Setting the record straight: American history in black & white . (1 ed.). WallBuilder Press. 2) Beck, G. (Performer) (2010). Glenn beck: Black founders Part 1[Web].

Politicization of Civil Rights 3) 4)

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Retrieved from http://youtu.be/inoWGGeqdmo Beck, G. (Performer) (2010). Glenn beck: Black founders Part 2[Web]. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/FY8o1I3jDUU Beck, G. (Performer) (2010). Glenn beck: Black founders Part 3[Web]. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/SujAcgdDeM4 5) Beck, G. (2010). Broke: The plan to restore our trust, truth and treasure. (1 ed., Vol. 1). New York, NY: First Threshold Editions/Mercury Radio Arts. Patterson, T. (2011). We the people. (9 ed.). McGraw-Hill. Douglas, F. (1860, March 26). The constitution of the united states: Is it pro-slavery or antislavery?. Retrieved from http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1128