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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 23, 1978)
Portland Observer Section II Thursday, February 23, 1978 Page 5 The first Black Senator and Congressmen Back row: Honorable Robert C. DeLarge, South Carolina Honorable Jefferson H. Long, Georgia Front row: Honorable Benjamin S. Turner, Alabama Senator H. R. Revels, Mississippi Honorable Josiah T. Walls, Florida Honorable Jose;>h H. Rainy, South Carolina Honorable R. Brown Elliot, South Carolina by Charles V. Hamilton The struggle for political equality A Beginning In 1880, a former Confederate Colonel. W.F. Foster, was run ning for a seat in the Alabama legislature on the Democratic Party ticket. His district includ ed Macon County (Tuskegee) which was approximately 80 per cent Black, and the Black citizens were registered voters. Thus, Mr. Foster desperately needed Black political support. He went to a local Black political leader, a Republican named Mr. Lewis Adams and the two men bargain ed and struck an agreement: if Adams would persuade the Blacks to vote for Foster, Foster, in return, once elected, would push for a state appropriation to establish a school for Black peo ple in Macon County. Tuskegee Institute Adams delivered: Footer was elected on the strength of the Black votes, and he kept his end of the bargain. The Alabama legislature appropriated the sum of $2,000 per year to pay teach ers' salaries. Adams wrote to Hampton Institute in Virginia seeking a person to come and set up a school in Macon County. The Principal of Hampton Institute recommended one of his best teachers, Booker T. Washington. Thus, out of the Black political power of Tuskegee (Macon County), Alabama, there deve loped a major Black school - Tuskegee Institute. This was not an isolated inci dent in the post-Civil War years. In many instances, the recently emancipated Blacks engaged in local political action for purposes of exacting benefits for masses of people, not just for a handful of individuals. In 1887, Black vot- ters outnumbered white voters in five Southern states (Alaba ma, Florida, Louisiana. Missis sippi, and South Carolina), and the racial voter registration fi gures were close in Georgia (95,168 Blacks, 96,333 whites). Politics was used effectively by the Blacks during this period. Southern state constitutions were rewritten establishing a public school system for all - interracial school systems! Ldui- siana law explicitly stated: "There shall be no separate schools or institutions of learning established exclusively for any race by the state of Louisiana.” Imprisonment for debt was abolished in South Carolina. Black people ran for and were elected to office at the local, state and national levels. Two Black U.S. Senators came out of Mis sissippi (Hiram Revels: 1870-71, and B.K. Bruce: 1875-81). Strong civil rights measures were adopt ed in Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina. The Blacks who entered politics during that period were representative of the broad spectrum of talent and integrity. Some were college trained (ten of the twenty-two who served in Congress had attended college; six were law yers); some could hardly read and write. Some were impeccab ly honest; others were hardly of suspect character. In all, the record made by the Blacks in the Reconstruction governm ents was one far superior to what followed after 1890. The American Betrayal This country's Bicentennial should have been an occasion for profound reflection on the his tory of racial contradictions. At no time in the history of this country has this society faced squarely the inconsistency be tween its pronouncement and its practices regarding Black people. During the American Revolu tion, when Americans were pro claiming their freedom from En gland, Black slaves were remind ing the country of this blatant dichotomy. Petitions were sent to the legislatures of several states. On July 4th, 1852, Fred erick Douglas reminded a Ro chester, New York audience that the Declaration of Independence had a different meaning for Black people: “Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declar ation of Independence, extended to us?...What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the years, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the con stant victim. To him your cele bration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling van ity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your de nunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence: your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your serm ons and thanksgiving, with all your reli gious parade and solemnity; are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypo crisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.” The experiment in American political democracy begun after the Civil War was more than many white Americans could stand. It was clear to many white racists and to the vested economic interests that if newly freed Blacks could continue in their course of political participa tion -- allying with many poor Southern whites -- this country could eventually move toward a level of political and economic equality never before exper ienced in any modern society. Populist Movement its state constitution to exclude Thus, as early as 1876, North the Blacks from political partici ern economic interests began to pation. The voter registration pull out of the South, leaving the books were wiped clean and all precariously existing Blacks at citizens were required to regis the mercy of southern whites ter under rules and regulations determined through hook, crook, that clearly discrim inated violence and chicanery to subdue against Blacks. Literacy tests the Blacks. The Ku Klux Kian were required, and these were movement flourished, virtually administered in a racially discri unchecked. minatory manner. Poll taxes For a brief time, the Populist were instituted that imposed an Movement forged an alliance be economic burden on all poor tween Blacks and whites. In people, but especially on Blacks. selected places such as St. Louis Party primaries were closed to and Kansas in 1892, Tom Watson Blacks. “Grandfather clauses" of Georgia wrote, regarding were instituted, which, in effect, Black and white farmers: “You stated that if one's forebearers are kept apart that you may be voted prior to 1863 or 1870 one separately fleeced of your earn could register rather simply. ings. You are made to hate each Otherwise, stringent tests had to other because upon that hatred is be passed. Obviously, few if any rested the keystone of the arch of Blacks could qualify under the financial despotism which en first criteria - their parents and slaves you both.” Without ques grandparents were slaves prior tion, the potential for a viable to the date stipulated. lower class political alliance existed, but it never really ma terialized. As Southern Blacks Seeking A New Life became more politically impor This was one of America's tant, whites felt threatened, and most hypocritical periods. Men they combined to begin to dis mouthed the cliches of demo franchise the Blacks. Populist cracy and political freedom, and Tom Watson made a switch, all the while looked the other allying with the lily white wing way or pretended not to under of the Republican Party. In stand the violations of democracy South Carolina, the Populists, taking place. And this was under the leadership of “Pitch- proceeding at precisely that time fork” Ben Tillman, turned when the country was welcoming against the Blacks. to its shores millions of European Beginning in 1890, one South immigrants coming to this coun ern state after another revised try seeking a new life of political Dr. Charles V. Hamilton, President of the Metro politan Applied Research Center and Professor of Government at Columbia University, is one of the na tion’s foremost experts on black politics. Dr. Hamilton is the author of a number of books and with Stoke- ly Carmichael was co-author of "Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America.” His articles have appeared in Ebony. Black World. New York Times Magazine, Black Scholar. Phylon and Journal of Negro Education.
