Why Reconstruction Matters

By ERIC FONER 

MARCH 28, 2015

nytimes.com 

THE surrender of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House, 150 years ago next month, effectively ended the Civil War. Preoccupied with the challenges of our own time, Americans will probably devote little attention to the sesquicentennial of Reconstruction, the turbulent era that followed the conflict. This is unfortunate, for if any historical period deserves the label “relevant,” it is Reconstruction.

Issues that agitate American politics today — access to citizenship and voting rights, the relative powers of the national and state governments, the relationship between political and economic democracy, the proper response to terrorism — all of these are Reconstruction questions. But that era has long been misunderstood.

Reconstruction refers to the period, generally dated from 1865 to 1877, during which the nation’s laws and Constitution were rewritten to guarantee the basic rights of the former slaves, and biracial governments came to power throughout the defeated Confederacy. For decades, these years were widely seen as the nadir in the saga of American democracy. According to this view, Radical Republicans in Congress, bent on punishing defeated Confederates, established corrupt Southern governments presided over by carpetbaggers (unscrupulous Northerners who ventured south to reap the spoils of office), scalawags (Southern whites who supported the new regimes) and freed African-Americans, unfit to exercise democratic rights. The heroes of the story were the self-styled Redeemers, who restored white supremacy to the South.

A caricature of President Andrew Johnson’s 1866 veto of a bill to create the Freedmen’s Bureau.

This portrait, which received scholarly expression in the early-20th-century works of William A. Dunning and his students at Columbia University, was popularized by the 1915 film “Birth of A Nation” and by Claude Bowers’s 1929 best-selling history, “The Tragic Era.” It provided an intellectual foundation for the system of segregation and black disenfranchisement that followed Reconstruction. Any effort to restore the rights of Southern blacks, it implied, would lead to a repeat of the alleged horrors of Reconstruction.

HISTORIANS have long since rejected this lurid account, although it retains a stubborn hold on the popular imagination. Today, scholars believe that if the era was “tragic,” it was not because Reconstruction was attempted but because it failed.

Reconstruction actually began in December 1863, when Abraham Lincoln announced a plan to establish governments in the South loyal to the Union. Lincoln granted amnesty to most Confederates so long as they accepted the abolition of slavery, but said nothing about rights for freed blacks. Rather than a blueprint for the postwar South, this was a war measure, an effort to detach whites from the Confederacy. On Reconstruction, as on other questions, Lincoln’s ideas evolved. At the end of his life, he called for limited black suffrage in the postwar South, singling out the “very intelligent” (prewar free blacks) and “those who serve our cause as soldiers” as most worthy.

Lincoln did not live to preside over Reconstruction. That task fell to his successor, Andrew Johnson. 

Once lionized as a heroic defender of the Constitution against Radical Republicans, Johnson today is viewed by historians as one of the worst presidents to occupy the White House. He was incorrigibly racist, unwilling to listen to criticism and unable to work with Congress. Johnson set up new Southern governments controlled by ex-Confederates. They quickly enacted the Black Codes, laws that severely limited the freed people’s rights and sought, through vagrancy regulations, to force them back to work on the plantations. But these measures aroused bitter protests among blacks, and convinced Northerners that the white South was trying to restore slavery in all but name.

There followed a momentous political clash, the struggle between Johnson and the Republican majority (not just the Radicals) in Congress. Over Johnson’s veto, Congress enacted one of the most important laws in American history, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, still on the books today. It affirmed the citizenship of everyone born in the United States, regardless of race (except Indians, still considered members of tribal sovereignties). This principle, birthright citizenship, is increasingly rare in today’s world and deeply contested in our own contemporary politics, because it applies to the American-born children of undocumented immigrants.

The act went on to mandate that all citizens enjoy basic civil rights in the same manner “enjoyed by white persons.” Johnson’s veto message denounced the law for what today is called reverse discrimination: “The distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race.” Indeed, in the idea that expanding the rights of nonwhites somehow punishes the white majority, the ghost of Andrew Johnson still haunts our discussions of race.

Soon after, Congress incorporated birthright citizenship and legal equality into the Constitution via the 14th Amendment. In recent decades, the courts have used this amendment to expand the legal rights of numerous groups — most recently, gay men and women. As the Republican editor George William Curtis wrote, the 14th Amendment changed a Constitution “for white men” to one “for mankind.” It also marked a significant change in the federal balance of power, empowering the national government to protect the rights of citizens against violations by the states.

In 1867 Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, again over Johnson’s veto. These set in motion the establishment of new governments in the South, empowered Southern black men to vote and temporarily barred several thousand leading Confederates from the ballot. Soon after, the 15th Amendment extended black male suffrage to the entire nation.

The Reconstruction Acts inaugurated the period of Radical Reconstruction, when a politically mobilized black community, with its white allies, brought the Republican Party to power throughout the South. For the first time, African-Americans voted in large numbers and held public office at every level of government. It was a remarkable, unprecedented effort to build an interracial democracy on the ashes of slavery.

Most offices remained in the hands of white Republicans. But the advent of African-Americans in positions of political power aroused bitter hostility from Reconstruction’s opponents. They spread another myth — that the new officials were propertyless, illiterate and incompetent. As late as 1947, the Southern historian E. Merton Coulter wrote that of the various aspects of Reconstruction, black officeholding was “longest to be remembered, shuddered at, and execrated.”

There was corruption in the postwar South, although given the scandals of New York’s Tweed Ring and President Ulysses S. Grant’s administration, black suffrage could hardly be blamed. In fact, the new governments had a solid record of accomplishment. They established the South’s first state-funded public school systems, sought to strengthen the bargaining power of plantation laborers, made taxation more equitable and outlawed racial discrimination in transportation and public accommodations. They offered aid to railroads and other enterprises in the hope of creating a New South whose economic expansion would benefit black and white alike.

Reconstruction also made possible the consolidation of black families, so often divided by sale during slavery, and the establishment of the independent black church as the core institution of the emerging black community. But the failure to respond to the former slaves’ desire for land left most with no choice but to work for their former owners.

It was not economic dependency, however, but widespread violence, coupled with a Northern retreat from the ideal of equality, that doomed Reconstruction. The Ku Klux Klan and kindred groups began a campaign of murder, assault and arson that can only be described as homegrown American terrorism. Meanwhile, as the Northern Republican Party became more conservative, Reconstruction came to be seen as a misguided attempt to uplift the lower classes of society.

One by one, the Reconstruction governments fell. As a result of a bargain after the disputed presidential election of 1876, the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes assumed the Oval Office and disavowed further national efforts to enforce the rights of black citizens, while white Democrats controlled the South.

By the turn of the century, with the acquiescence of the Supreme Court, a comprehensive system of racial, political and economic inequality, summarized in the phrase Jim Crow, had come into being across the South. At the same time, the supposed horrors of Reconstruction were invoked as far away as South Africa and Australia to demonstrate the necessity of excluding nonwhite peoples from political rights. This is why W.E.B. Du Bois, in his great 1935 work “Black Reconstruction in America,” saw the end of Reconstruction as a tragedy for democracy, not just in the United States but around the globe.

While violated with impunity, however, the 14th and 15th Amendments remained on the books. Decades later they would provide the legal basis for the civil rights revolution, sometimes called the Second Reconstruction.

Citizenship, rights, democracy — as long as these remain contested, so will the necessity of an accurate understanding of Reconstruction. More than most historical subjects, how we think about this era truly matters, for it forces us to think about what kind of society we wish America to be.

-----------------------------

Eric Foner is a professor of history at Columbia University and the author of “Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad,” “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution” and “A Short History of Reconstruction.”

Afghan girls learn what it's like to be visible to the world

"One girl can be silenced, but a nation of girls telling their stories becomes free."

Through the Superhero Project and blogging Afghan girls learn what it's like to be visible to the world.

by Roya Mahboob
Salon-- March 8, 2015

A classroom of girls in Afghanistan.

Shortly after I started my first company in Afghanistan in 2010, my business partner, Francesco Rulli, and I began to construct Internet classrooms in girls schools in Herat and Kabul. Since that time, we have connected 55,000 students in our networks and directly trained 7,900 in our classrooms. Now we continue the work with my new nonprofit Digital Citizen Fund.

In our classrooms the girls learn how to use the computer, the Internet, email and social media at the same time that they begin to explore ways to express themselves through writing, drawing, and photography. On the computer, they learn where they can have a voice; through writing and art they learn how to have a voice.

The girls write about their experiences, their fears and their hopes. At first they share their blogs only with each other, and then they begin to share their stories online with the world, often under pseudonyms. In order to speak of their true feelings, many still have to remain anonymous. It is still dangerous for girls to talk openly in Afghanistan. A few short years ago, Malala, a young woman from Pakistan, was shot for expressing herself online. Instead of remaining quiet, more women and girls must speak out. One girl can be silenced, but a nation of girls telling their stories becomes free.

The drawings in the slide show below represent a small sampling from the Superhero Project, in which the girls invent their own superheroes. Currently in Afghanistan most heroes are soldiers who have survived warfare and killed many people. The Superhero Project encourages girls to imagine the kind of heroes who can lead them and their families toward a more peaceful future. In the act of drawing, the girls learn that hope is the product of a courageous imagination.

What is true of the Superhero Project is also true of the photographs. By taking pictures, the girls learn to envision the world, not as it is presented to them, but as they see it. Their photos are displayed as posters on walls along the streets outside their schools and shared on the Internet through our Web-sharing site, Artistic Street. The world sees what they see and begins to know something of what it is like to be a girl in Afghanistan, and for the first time many of the girls come to know what it is like to be visible to the world.

Editors' Note:

Weeks after the official end of U.S. military combat operations in Afghanistan, we traveled to Kabul and Herat where Roya could no longer go. Roya was forced to leave Afghanistan last year because of the security situation. We visited the schools where Roya had established IT classrooms and talked with many of the girls who spoke of a future in which they would share power with men. We collected blogs, drawings and photographs from the girls and have selected a few for this gallery.

Elizabeth Brown
Jason Brown

Blog I
"The Rights of Women in Afghanistan"
Rohiyda Hassanzada افغانستان در زنانحقوق
The only ones who can read this article have a clean mind from fresh rain and have a heart with the depth of the sea.
What kind of creature is a woman? Who are women? Women are emotional, kind and filled with pity. And in some places people call women angels. The wings of these angels are burned by the depth of their emotion and pity. In Afghanistan no one cares about women and no one pays attention to them. Having a daughter is a dishonor for parents. They don't let their daughters go to school, and they burn the wishes of the girls. In Afghan society, girls don't have the opportunity to speak of their desires. Always people strangle the girls' voices. Oh God! What did we do to them that they do such cruel things to us? Oh God, why do they always strangle our wishes and burn our desires. What did we do that they don't respect us? Is this freedom? Is this the world that I left my mother's womb for? If I had known they would do these cruel things to me, I would never have come to this world. They don't understand what women can do, and they don't understand that the world won't go on without us. The continuation of the world comes from the blessings of women. I ask you who gave birth to Einstein, Souqrat, Aflatoon, Aristotle, and others? Who were their first teachers? Women, who gave them warm hugs. Their lives grew from this early stage when their mothers took their small fingers and introduced the world to them. Oh God, who can tell Afghan society of these questions? As I take up the pen, I ask you to give the pen to other Afghan women so they can ask that our rights not be devastated. We, the Afghan women, will put our hands together and attend to all stages of life, such as politics, economics, sports, culture and religion. We will be beside the men to promote our country. We don't hear the whispering of some people. We aren't less than men. Under our veil we have hope and power. This is an Afghan woman's speech.
باشند داشته دریا عمق از دلی و باران از طراوتی سفید افکار از جنسی تا بخوانند را مقاله این میتوانندتنهاکسانی ها جاه بعضی در و میباشد دلسوز و احساساتی,مهربان موجودی زن کیست؟ زن میدانید؟ موجودی نوع چه را زنانشما سوختانده اش دلسوزانه و عمیق احساسات را فرشته این پر و بال است,و فرشته زن میگویند و میکنند خطاب فرشته رازنان دختر را,داشتن دختر داشتن نمیشود قایل ارزش ٓانان به کسی نمیباشند برخوردار خاصی اهمیت از افغانستان دراست.زنان افغان جامعه در میزنند.دختران ٓاتش را شان پاک ٓارزوهای نمیگذارند مکتب به را خود میدانند,دختران بزرگ ننگ یکرا
کرده گناهی چه ما ٓاخه است بس دیگر کی به !تا خدایا است ٓاویخته دار به بیانشان همیشه باشند داشته بیان ٓارادی توانندنمی ٓاتش را ما ٓارزوهای بزنند دار به را ما های صدا همیشه باید چرا میشود,خدایا! برخورد ظالمانه اینقدر ما با کهبودیم مادرم شکم به دیدنش بخاطر که دنیای بود این ٓازادی شد هم این ٓاخه نمیشوند قایل ارزش ما به که کردیم گناهی چهبزنند,ما این کردم نمی تالش دیدنش برای گاه هیچ میکنند رفتار وحشیانه اینقدر من به که است دنیای چنین میدانستم اگر میزدملگد میکنند رفتار وحشیانه اینقدر من به که است دنیای چنین میدانستم اگر میزدم لگد مادرم شکم به دیدنش بخاطر که دنیایبود کرد پیشرفت دنیا نمیشود بدون که دانند نمی داریم توانای چقدر ما که داند نمی ٓانان کردم نمی تالش دیدنش برای گاههیچ را وغیره مثل:انشتین,سقراط,افالطون,ارسطو بزرگان بگوید خودتان است زن مهربان قلب برکت از دنیا های پیشرفتتمام ٓانان گرمش ٓاغوش و مهربانش دستان له که زنی ٓان بود زن ایشان دبیرستان اولین بود؟ کی اینان دبیرستان کرد؟ تربیتکی با را ٓانان و گرفت را شان کوچک انگشتان طن که میباشد شان نخست های پله از ایشان های پیشرفت تمام و کرد تربیترا دیگر زنان هم تو میخواهم گرفتم قلم به دست که من برساند افغان جامعه گوش به کی را اینان کرد.خدایا! معرفیزندگی عرصه تمام در و داده هم دست به دست افغان زنان ما کنند پایمال را ما حقوق که نمیدهیم اجازه ما کنی قلم به دست راافغان و پسشرفته افغانستان یک بسوی شانه به شانه مردان با و میگذاریم قدم سیاسی,اجتماعی,اقتصادی,ورزشی,فرهنگی,دینیها این پشت و نداریم مردان از کمی هیچ ما بدهیم گوش مردم از یعضی فکری کهنه سخنان به اینکه بدون میکنیم حرکتٓاباد ٓامدم میدان به چون افغانیم غیرت ندانی گر افغان زنان ما شعار است این و است نهفته توانای و امید هزاران ماچادری
میدانیم

Blog II
"Mines and Their Results"
Sediqheh Rezaei
Mines are things that destroy the lives of men, women, and children in Afghanistan. People are just as afraid when they hear about a mine as they are when they hear about resurrection day. In fact, when enemies attack or mines explode, it is a resurrection day as we see our dear friends, relatives, neighbors, and other people of our country killed by bombs and mines. One meaning of "mine" is "problem" because it causes many miseries like homelessness and disability. The second meaning is "explosion." When the mines explode, people become so afraid. But why should our sinless people feel such fear? Why should they see their relatives killed in front of their eyes? What is their sin? Why can't these people have a comfortable life? It is their right to have a good and comfortable life with their families without hearing explosions. The third meaning of "mine" is "despair" because mines cause our people to emigrate to other countries. The voices of bombs and mines make them hopeless about their own country.
Allah orders all Muslims to not be harmful, so there are many people in this country who are trying to make us safe. But still there is pain in my heart because of the mines. The fourth meaning of "mine" is "chaos." Chaos destroys our homes. Our homes are the only places where we are calm. May God help us have hope to be patient, to be powerful, and to try to make peace, calmness, and improvements in our country. I hope for a country that is far from murder, war and terror. I hope to see an independent and flourishing Afghanistan in the future.
هایش دگرگونی وماین
افغان کودک و جوان ,مرد,پیر, زن همچون گناهان بی از بسیاری رفتن بین از باعث که است ای منفجره موادماین اندامشان بر ای لرزه میشنوند را ماین نام مردم میاورد.وقتی میان به بدبختی و ویرانی خود با باشد که هرجاییمیشود,در و خانه به میکنند منفجر را ماین این که دشمنانی و ماین وقتی است طور همان ,ٓاری شده برپا قیامت گویا که میایدپدید غوطه خون در همه افغان اطفال و زنان و مردان و جوانان و- میاید وجود به قیامت هم باز میکنند تجاوز ما ملت وکشور عزیزانمان از بسیاری شدن کشته و ها ماین این انفجار با بلکه ببینی را ٓان مردی وقتی که نیست این تنها ,قیامت میشوندور وجود به دشمنانمان توسط که است ها ماین اینها تمام سبب و میبینیم خود چشم با را قیامت میباشند وجودمان از عضویکه متشکل که است مشکالت تمام منشا که مشکل میگوییم خاطری به مشکل یعنی میم (اول شده گرفته کلمه چهار از ماینمیٓاید میشود منفجر وقتی یعنی است شده گرفته انفجار از که الف میباشد,دوم شدن خانمان بی و معلولیت عذاب بدبختی ویرانیاز چه؟و خاطر چرا؟به میاید وجود به افغانستان گناه بی مردم قلب در ای دلهره و ترس خراش گوش و بلند صدای این شنیدنبا شاهد کی به تا باشد داشته وجود هایشان قلب در دلهره و ترس این افغانستان ی دیده رنج و دیده ستم مردم ؟این کی بهتا ٓارام گی زنده یک نمیتوانند انان ٓایا چیست میزنند,گناهشان پرپر شان چشم پیش که باشند خود عزیزان از بسیاری شدنکشته گی زنده به عزیزانشان کنار در رفاه و ارامش به نمیتوانند انان ,ٓایا باشند داشته انفجاری مهمات و صالح نوع هر از دورو نصیب را ارامش این ما وطنان هم روزی اینکه ارزوی به و کند گی زنده رفاه در که است انسانی هر حق این بدهندادامه
به را بدبختی یک ٓان حرف هر که نیست شدنی تمام دارد همراه خود با ماین این که هایی بدبختی به توصیف بازهمشوند,اما از دارد,یاس همراه به ناامیدی و یاس خود با میگردد اغاز جنگ و میاید ماین وقتی زیرا یاس معنای ی,که سوم میاوردمیان ناامید وطن از دیگر میشنوند را جنگ و ,تفنگ ماین نام مردم وقتی ؟زیرا وطن از یاس گفتیم ,چرا وطن از ,یاس گیزنده که تا میکنند تحمل را خواری و ذلت ٓانقدر و میکنند مهاجرت همسایه کشورهای اینقدر که است خاطر همینمیگردند,به که فرمودند خداوند هم باز ,اما بنهانند بالین بر سر ٓارامش به و نشنوند را ولوله و ماین صدای شده هم دقیقه یک اگرحتی و افراد هم باز امنیتی بی همه این وجود نکند,با غلبه وجودتان بر نگذارید و نکنید همراه خود با را ناامیدی و یاس وقتهیچ را ٓارامش و امنیت این کودکانشان و اینده های نسل تا میکوشند کشور امنیت و رفاه راه در که هستند گناهی بیاشخاص دختر یک ومن مردم این دل دردهای بازهم گردد,اما همه نصیب امید و برود بین از ناامیدی این اینکه امید به شوندنصیب
نابسامانی از که میفهمیم میرسیم ن حرف به ,وقتی دارد هم دیگری های ظلم ماین این زیرا است نرسیده پایان به هستمافغان ارامش احساس که است جایی تنها که یشان کاشانه و خانه رفتن بین از یا و گشتن در به در یعنی است,نابسامانی شدهگرفته افغانان فغان و اه ؟ایا ندارد پایان اندوه و غم این دیگر ایا میگردند دور عزیزانشان از میشوند مهاجر و میگردند اوارهمیکنند دیگر و ماند خواهد برویشان میشود فغان برداریم را الفش افغان از اگر میگویند که اسم این ؟ای ماند خواهد پایانبی میخیزند برپا و نمیکنند تحمل را اشوب و جنگ این دیدهدیگر ستم مظلوم مردم این نه دیگر .نه ماند خواهد صدا بیفغانشان و صلح در و دهیم پایان خونریزی و جنگ این به تا کنی یاری را ما که میخواهیم تو از خداوندا متعال خداوند یاری بهو ازاد. و اباد افغانستان ارزوی امید
 به و دهیم ادامه گی ه زند بهارامش

Blog III
"Role of Women in Society"
Women are an important part of society. Women always try to fulfill their wishes, even though they have many problems. Violence against women and war in Afghanistan have kept women from being able to have an education. I am a woman trying to have a good future. I am an Afghan girl telling you about the many problems women face in my country. Even though I face problems as a woman in my society, I continue my education because I wish to serve my people in the future by being a doctor. People in my family and other people want to hold me back when I try for my education, but I ignore such problems because I want to be successful.
. جامعه در زناننقش
مشکالت دارای جامعه در اینکه با میگردند,ٓانان محسوب جامعه یک مهم اساسی هایشاخه
از یکیزنان
در پی در پی های جنگو
زنان علیهخشونت
میکنند, فراوانی کوشش و تالش خویش های ٓارزوهای به رسیدن برایهمواره
و روشن های ٓاینده داشتن برای همواره که است زن حالیکه بمانند,در عقب تعلیم و درس از زنان قشر تا شد باعث کشوراین
. میکنند زیادی تالش ترروشن
ٓانان گی زنده تهدید باعث که بزنند ناپذیری جبران کارهای به دست زنان تا میبشود باعث مشکالت اینگاهی
دختر یک عنوان به سرگذاشته,من پشت را زیادی خونینهای
پیجنگ در پی های دهه که است کشوریمیگردد,افغانستان
که حالی میکنند,در نرم پنجه و دست ٓان با کشور این در زنان که میگویم سخن زیادی مشکالت از افغانی ی جامعه درافغان
راهم سد که زیادی مشکالت نمیکنم,با دریغ کوششی و تالش گونه هر از ٓان برای که است زیادی ٓارزوهای از مملووجودم
میدهم ادامه خویش تعلیم و درس به هم باز داردوجود
بتوانم و باشم خویش ی جامعهرای
ب خدمت مسدر بتوانم نزدیک های ٓاینده در که اینست من ٓارزوهای ازیکی
چند کنم,هر خدمت سرزمینم مردم تمام و اطفال و پیر اشخاص برای بتوانم باشم,و خود کشور و جامعه برایموفق
دکتریک
و اذیت مهمتر همه از وممانعتفامیل
همچون مشکالتی با گاهی و داده ادامه خویش درس به مشکل هزاران با روز طولدر
برایم تنها و نداشته نظر در را مشکالت و باشم موفق میخواهم و نگردیده مایوس هم باز ولی میگردم رو روبه مردمٓازار
است. مهم کوششم و تالش وموفقیتم

Blog IV
"My Childish World"
Now I am grown and far from my childish time. I remember those times when my only wish was to have beautiful toys and colorful food. My hands were safe in my parents' hands. I went to the bazaar with my parents. I begged them to buy something for me. When I was sick, they took care of me and gave me gifts. I became older and they sent me to another home, which was a school. Yes, my second home was school, and my kind teacher introduced herself as a second mother to me. I learned the alphabet there. How enjoyable this time was. I grew and grew. My thoughts changed yearly. The sweet times of childhood passed. As children, we have an angel that cares about us. A mother and father encourage their children to have success. Then we enter another time when we must solve our problems ourselves. Childhood is the best time of life, before we know pain.
من ی کودکانهدنیای
و رنگارنگ های خوراکی خوردن ٓارزویم تنها که دور,دورانی بسیار ام کودکی شیرین دوران از و ام شده بزرگ دیگرحال تا بود محفوظ مادرم و پدرم دستان در کوچکم دستان که .دورانی بخیر ایام ٓان بود.یاد زیبا های بازی اسبابداشتن خودو های گیری بهانه با من میبردندو بازار به فراوان شوق با ,مرا زند زمین به مرا جمعیت ازدحام و ها ناهمواریمبادا صد با مرا میشدم مریض زمانی میشدم.تا ٓان خواستار و میکردم دراز سویی هر به را دستم خویش ی بچگانه هایشیطنت میخوراندند. من به زیاد های جایزه ی وعده و متفاوت های بهانه با را هایم دارو و میکردند مراقبت نعمت وناز از تر متفاوت خیلی که ,محیطی کردند دیگر کانونی ی روانه خانواده گرم کانون از مرا و و شدم تر بزرگ که زمانیتا پر دستان و میکرد خطاب من دوم مادر را خویش مهربانم معلم که جایی بود مکتب همان محیط ٓان بود,ٓاری ام کاشانه وخانه دوران. ٓان بود گذر زود چه و میٓاموختاندند من به را گی زنده الفبای که بود,جایی من نوازشگرمهرش
و است گذرا کودکی شیرین دوران قبل,ولی ی دوره از تر متفاوت افکاری با بزرگتر و بزرگتر من و میگذشت روز بهروز زیاد تالش جدید چیزهای یادگیری برای و هستند مراقبمان لحظه به لحظه مان گی زنده ی فرشته دو که دورانی میگذردزود میدهند. سوق ها موفقیت سوی به را فرزندانشان خویش دریغ بی های تالش با که هستند مادر و ,پدرمینمایند به رو تری زیاد مشکالت با که شد خواهیم دورانی وارد ٓان بعداز دانست باید را ٓان است,قدر نشدنی تکرار کودکیدوران باید که است این و میشتابند مان یاری به کمتر نماییم حل را خویش مشکالت خودمان اینکه برای هم والدین و میشویمرو شیرین من نظر به نماییم تالش خویش اهداف به رسیدن برای و بایستیم پایمان برسر تا بگیریم یادخودمان تکرار گیمان زنده در دوران این دیگر باری کاش و رهاییم هایی غم تمام از که دوران است کودکی دوران,دورانترین میشد..

[Roya Mahboob is the founder and CEO of Afghan Citadel Software Co., EdyEdy LLC and a member of 2013 Time 100 Most Influential People in the World. Roya is an executive director and board member of the Women's Annex Foundation, and is a member of the 2014 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards and Civic Innovators. Further, Roya is part of different advisory boards such as Jelly and Global Thinkers Forum.]

Lighter-skinned Black and Latino People Look Smarter to White People

White Colorism: lighter-skinned Black and Latino people look smarter to white people

Perhaps reflecting a desire to emphasize the enduring power of rigidly constructed racial categories, sociology has tended to downplay the importance of within-category variation in skin tone. Similarly, in popular media, “colorism,” or discrimination based on skin lightness, is rarely mentioned.

When colorism is discussed, it is almost exclusively framed in terms of intraracial “black-on-black” discrimination. In line with arguments highlighting the centrality of white racism, the present paper contends that it is important for researchers to give unique attention to white colorism.

Using data from the 2012 American National Election Study, an example is presented on white interviewers’ perceptions of minority respondent skin tone and intelligence (N = 223). Results from ordinal logistic regression analyses indicate that African American and Latino respondents with the lightest skin are several times more likely to be seen by whites as intelligent compared with those with the darkest skin.

The article below concludes that a full accounting of white hegemony requires an acknowledgment of both white racism and white colorism.

white colorism

Harlem Oral Histories: Love Thru Struggle

Thanx to the Hard Work of the115th Street Branch of the NYC Public Library...

 A People's History of Harlem: 

A Harlem Neighborhood Oral History Project

 Charles E. Wilson

Click Here for AUDIO: http://oralhistory.nypl.org/interviews/charles-wilson-40caaa
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A People's History of Harlem: A Harlem Neighborhood Oral History Project

David White

Click Here for AUDIO: http://oralhistory.nypl.org/interviews/david-white-3e032u

Note: sound quality is not that great... but Brother David is a great Griot!
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A People's History of Harlem: A Harlem Neighborhood Oral History Project

Sam Anderson

 

Click Here for AUDIO: http://oralhistory.nypl.org/interviews/sam-anderson-5frky3

VENEZUELA REVOLUTION- US HELLBENT ON DESTROYING IT

February 02, 2015- counterpunch.com

The Same Old Dirty Tactics

Venezuela: a Coup in Real Time

by EVA GOLINGER

 

There is a coup underway in Venezuela. The pieces are all falling into place like a bad CIA movie. At every turn a new traitor is revealed, a betrayal is born, full of promises to reveal the smoking gun that will justify the unjustifiable. Infiltrations are rampant, rumors spread like wildfire, and the panic mentality threatens to overcome logic. Headlines scream danger, crisis and imminent demise, while the usual suspects declare covert war on a people whose only crime is being gatekeeper to the largest pot of black gold in the world.

This week, as the New York Times showcased an editorial degrading and ridiculing Venezuelan President Maduro, labeling him “erratic and despotic” (“Mr. Maduro in his Labyrinth”, NYT January 26, 2015), another newspaper across the Atlantic headlined a hack piece accusing the President of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, and the most powerful political figure in the country after Maduro, of being a narcotics kingpin (“The head of security of the number two Chavista defects to the U.S. and accuses him of drug trafficking”, ABC, January 27, 2015). The accusations stem from a former Venezuelan presidential guard officer, Leasmy Salazar, who served under President Chavez and was recruited by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), now becoming the new “golden child” in Washington’s war on Venezuela.

Leasmy Salazar

Two days later, the New York Times ran a front-page piece shaming the Venezuelan economy and oil industry, and predicting its downfall (“Oil Cash Waning, Venezuelan Shelves Lie Bare”, Jan. 29, 2015, NYT). Blaring omissions from the article include mention of the hundreds of tons of food and other consumer products that have been hoarded or sold as contraband by private distributors and businesses in order to create shortages, panic, discontent with the government and justify outrageous price hikes. Further, multiple ongoing measures taken by the government to overcome the economic difficulties were barely mentioned and completed disregarded.

Simultaneously, an absurdly sensationalist and misleading headline ran in several U.S. papers, in print and online, linking Venezuela to nuclear weapons and a plan to bomb New York City (“U.S. Scientist Jailed for Trying to Help Venezuela Build Bombs”, Jan. 30, 2015, NPR). While the headline leads readers to believe Venezuela was directly involved in a terrorist plan against the U.S., the actual text of the article makes clear that no Venezuelans were involved at all. The whole charade was an entrapment set up by the FBI, whose officers posed as Venezuelan officials to capture a disgruntled nuclear physicist who once worked at Los Alamos and had no Venezuela connection.

That same day, State Department spokeswoman Jan Psaki condemned the alleged “criminalization of political dissent” in Venezuela, when asked by a reporter about fugitive Venezuelan general Antonio Rivero’s arrival in New York to plea for support from the United Nations Working Committee on Arbitrary Detention. Rivero fled an arrest warrant in Venezuela after his involvement in violent anti-government protests that lead to the deaths of over 40 people, mainly government supporters and state security forces, last February. His arrival in the U.S. coincided with Salazar’s, evidencing a coordinated effort to debilitate Venezuela’s Armed Forces by publicly showcasing two high profile military officers – both former Chavez loyalists – that have been turned against their government and are actively seeking foreign intervention against their own country.

These examples are just a snapshot of increasing, systematic negative and distorted coverage of Venezuelan affairs in U.S. media, painting an exaggeratedly dismal picture of the country’s current situation and portraying the government as incompetent, dictatorial and criminal. While this type of coordinated media campaign against Venezuela is not new – media consistently portrayed former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, elected president four times by overwhelming majorities, as a tyrannical dictator destroying the country – it is clearly intensifying at a rapid, and concerning, pace.

The New York Times has a shameful history when it comes to Venezuela. The Editorial Board blissfully applauded the violent coup d’etat in April 2002 that ousted President Chavez and resulted in the death of over 100 civilians. When Chavez was returned to power by his millions of supporters and loyal Armed Forces two days later, the Times didn’t recant it’s previous blunder, rather it arrogantly implored Chavez to “govern responsibly”, claiming he had brought the coup on himself. But the fact that the Times has now begun a persistent, direct campaign against the Venezuelan government with one-sided, distorted and clearly aggressive articles – editorials, blogs, opinion, and news – indicates that Washington has placed Venezuela on the regime change fast track.

The timing of Leamsy Salazar’s arrival in Washington as an alleged DEA collaborator, and his public exposure, is not coincidental. This February marks one year since anti-government protests violently tried to force President Maduro’s resignation, and opposition groups are currently trying to gain momentum to reignite demonstrations.

The leaders of the protests, Leopoldo López and María Corina Machado, have both been lauded by The New York Times and other ‘respected’ outlets as “freedom fighters”, “true democrats”, and as the Times recently referred to Machado, “an inspiring challenger”. Even President Obama called for Lopez’s release from prison (he was detained and is on trial for his role in the violent uprisings) during a speech last September at an event in the United Nations. These influential voices willfully omit Lopez’s and Machado’s involvement and leadership of violent, undemocratic and even criminal acts. Both were involved in the 2002 coup against Chavez. Both have illegally received foreign funding for political activities slated to overthrow their government, and both led the lethal protests against Maduro last year, publicly calling for his ouster through illegal means.

Leopoldo López at a recent antigovernment demo.

María Corina Machado with Pres Bush in 2002.

The utilization of a figure such as Salazar who was known to anyone close to Chavez as one of his loyal guards, as a force to discredit and attack the government and its leaders is an old-school intelligence tactic, and a very effective one. Infiltrate, recruit, and neutralize the adversary from within or by one of its own – a painful, shocking betrayal that creates distrust and fear amongst the ranks. While no evidence has surfaced to back Salazar’s outrageous claims against Diosdado Cabello, the headline makes for a sensational story and another mark against Venezuela in public opinion. It also caused a stir within the Venezuelan military and may result in further betrayals from officers who could support a coup against the government. Salazar’s unsubstantiated allegations also aim at neutralizing one of Venezuela’s most powerful political figures, and attempt to create internal divisions, intrigue and distrust.

The most effective tactics the FBI used against the Black Panther Party and other radical movements for change in the United States were infiltration, coercion and psychological warfare.
By inserting agents into these organizations, or recruiting from within, that were able to gain access and trust at the highest levels, the FBI was able to destroy these movements from the inside, breaking them down psychologically and neutralizing them politically. These clandestine tactics and strategies are thoroughly documented and evidenced in FBI and other US government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and published in in Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall’s excellent book, “Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement” (South End Press, 1990).

Venezuela is suffering from the sudden and dramatic plummet in oil prices. The country’s oil-dependent economy has severely contracted and the government is taking measures to reorganize the budget and guarantee access to basic services and goods, but people are still experiencing difficulties. Unlike the dismal portrayal in The New York Times, Venezuelans are not starving, homeless or suffering from mass unemployment, as countries such as Greece and Spain have experienced under austerity policies. Despite certain shortages – some caused by currency controls and others by intentional hoarding, sabotage or contraband – 95% of Venezuelans consume three meals per day, an amount that has doubled since the 1990s. The unemployment rate is under 6% and housing is subsidized by the state.

Nevertheless, making Venezuela’s economy scream is without a doubt a rapidly intensifying strategy executed by foreign interests and their Venezuelan counterparts, and it’s very effective.

As shortages continue and access to dollars becomes increasingly difficult, chaos and panic ensue. This social discontent is capitalized on by U.S. agencies and anti-government forces in Venezuela pushing for regime change. A very similar strategy was used in Chile to overthrow socialist President Salvador Allende. First the economy was destroyed, then mass discontent grew and the military moved to oust Allende, backed by Washington at every stage. Lest we forget the result: a brutal dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet that tortured, assassinated, disappeared and forced into exile tens of thousands of people. Not exactly a model to replicate.

This year President Obama approved a special State Department fund of $5 million to support anti-government groups in Venezuela. Additionally, the congressionally-funded National Endowment for Democracy is financing Venezuelan opposition groups with over $1.2 million and aiding efforts to undermine Maduro’s government. There is little doubt that millions more for regime change in Venezuela are being funneled through other channels that are not subject to public scrutiny.

President Maduro has denounced these ongoing attacks against his government and has directly called on President Obama to cease efforts to harm Venezuela. Recently, all 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations, members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), publicly expressed support for Maduro and condemned ongoing U.S. interference in Venezuela. Latin America firmly rejects any attempts to erode democracy in the region and will not stand for another US-backed coup. It’s time Washington listen to the hemisphere and stop employing the same dirty tactics against its neighbors.

Eva Golinger is the author of The Chavez Code. She can be reached through her blog.

FERGUSON: The Black Persistence of Rebellion Against All Odds

In Ferguson

By Darryl Pinckney, The New York Review of Books | Op-Ed

Protesters of the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, join with participants in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day march in St. Louis, January 19, 2015. (Photo: Whitney Curtis / The New York Times)

Saturday, 24 January 2015 --Forty years ago, in the days of "white flight" from American cities to the suburbs, Ferguson, Missouri was a "sundowner town" - black people did not drive through it at night because they knew they would be harassed by the white police force. Ferguson is now 65 percent black and low-income, but its police force is still predominantly white and working-class, approximately 53 white officers and three black officers. Although black people no longer sneak through town, the police treat young black men as either trespassers or ex- and future prisoners. The hip-hop artist T-Dubb-O said that black males throughout the St. Louis area know how old they are from the tone of the police. "When you're 8 or 9, it's, 'yo, where are you going?' and when it's 'get down on the ground,' you know you've turned 15."

The St. Louis city limits encompass a small area, and Ferguson is one of 90 incorporated municipalities that immediately surround the "Gateway to the West," each with its own mayor or manager. These local authorities raise money in significant part from fines levied against motorists. A police officer citing someone for a petty infraction is in reality a municipal worker trying to get paid. In addition to the municipalities, suburban St. Louis has a county government, with a council and a county executive. The outgoing county executive, Charlie A. Dooley, is black and a Democrat.

Voter turnout in Ferguson itself is low, but the remainder of North County (one of the four sections of St. Louis County) outvotes St. Louis city. (The city has a population of around 300,000; the county nearly 1 million.) Hazel Erby, the only black member of the seven-member county council, said that the city manager of Ferguson and its city council appoint the chief of police, and therefore voting is critical, but the complicated structure of municipal government is one reason many people have been uninterested in local politics.

A North County resident of middle-class University City for almost 50 years, Erby said that she hadn't discussed what Ferguson was like with her children when they were teenagers 20 years ago. Her son and two daughters told her not long ago, "We did, Mom." Her district, which she has represented for 10 years, is made up of 38 municipalities, including Ferguson. She said that she never had "that conversation" with her son about how to compose himself when confronted by the police, but her husband recently told her, "I did."

For the first time in U.S. history, more poor people live in the suburbs than in the cities. In St. Louis County, the "Delmar Divide" (at Delmar Boulevard) separates the mostly white South County from North County, where the black towns are. The Ferguson police do not live in Ferguson, and some even live outside the county, in rural areas.

A county council member's stipend of $11,500 is not enough to live on, but because of her husband's support Erby has been able to be active in her hometown's politics. She founded the Fannie Lou Hamer Democratic Coalition, a group of 34 black elected officials who endorsed the Republican candidate for county executive in the last election. She was feeling betrayed by the state Democratic leadership over issues such as their failure to help a black high school in her district keep its accreditation or support a bill she sponsored that would give minority contractors in St. Louis County a share of construction business.

Fannie Lou Hamer was a civil rights organizer who caught the nation's attention when her Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party attempted to unseat the all-white regular delegation at the Democratic National Convention in 1964. The daughter of sharecroppers, Hamer brought a folk eloquence to her testimony before the party's credentials committee about the campaign of intimidation and violence that was daily life for black people in the South. Erby said the trouble she has had in politics has come more from her being a woman than from her being black, serving alongside white businessmen and attorneys who mistake her good manners for weakness.

In the run-up to the Aug. 5 primary in St. Louis, the white Democratic candidate for county executive, Steve Stenger, joined with the prosecutor of 23 years, Bob McCulloch, who was up for re-election, in saying that they would clean up North County and they did not need the black vote. They won, if not by much. Erby speculates that the arrogance of their position created a sense of "empowerment" among the police that may have contributed to the tragic events of Aug. 9, when a white police officer shot an unarmed black teenager, whose body was then left untended for 4 1/2 hours in the street.

People engaged in the movement that has grown in protest against Darren Wilson's killing of Michael Brown on Aug. 9 often invoke Martin Luther King Jr.'s name. 

Cornel West & Rev. Osagyefo Sekou

Through Cornel West, I met Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, the pastor "for formation and justice" at the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain, Boston. A native of St. Louis, Sekou is currently a fellow at the Martin Luther King Papers Project at Stanford and was in residence there when the Brown killing happened. Six days later, Sekou was in St. Louis to support the young who are, as he sees them, the leaders in the Ferguson protest. Also associated with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a group that has done peace work in Israel, Sekou told me that the movement that has coalesced around Ferguson looks especially to Bayard Rustin and Ella Baker, a gay guy and a woman, because as civil rights figures of the 1960s they "incarnate a theology of resistance of the historically othered."

Rustin, who was a liability in the eyes of traditional black leaders, put emphasis on building coalitions among black groups, white liberals, labor unions and religious progressives. Ella Baker's long career as an organizer took her from tenants' rights in the 1930s and voter registration for the NAACP in the 1940s to setting up the offices of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the late 1950s and then to urging the youth of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the early 1960s to broaden their goals beyond lunch-counter integration. She warned them not to let themselves be controlled by established civil rights organizations, arguing that strong people didn't need strong leaders. She was also ambivalent about nonviolence.

The story of the Aug. 9 police killing of Michael Brown had stayed in the news because people had refused to leave the streets. Sekou stressed that although the protest was one of the broadest coalitions in ages, the protesters themselves were largely young, black, queer, poor, working-class, "unchurched" or secular and women. We were about 10 miles from Ferguson on the largely white South Side, in MoKaBe's Coffeehouse, an informal meeting place for organizers, journalists and protesters owned by a courageous white woman. It was Monday morning, Nov. 24, and the St. Louis police were no doubt preparing for the announcement of the grand jury's decision. Since the summer the police had been raiding safe houses and churches where organizers were known to work from. Sekou had already been arrested three times. The Ferguson movement gathers mostly under an umbrella group, the Don't Shoot Coalition. It includes tested groups, such as the Organization for Black Struggle, founded in 1980. Four years ago, Montague Simmons left an investment brokerage firm to become OBS head. Two very beautiful young black women, one with a crown of braids, stopped at Sekou's table for hugs.

Brittany Ferrell & Alexis Templeton of Millennial Activists United

"Young people will not bow down," he said of them, and introduced Brittany Ferrell and Alexis Templeton. They started Millennial Activists United in the days after Michael Brown's death. In a British documentary about the Ferguson protest, Ferrell and Templeton can be heard discussing how they were going to "change the narrative" of one evening's action, reminding their peers not to drink, not to play music and to stay focused. In photographs and news footage, Templeton is the young black woman with a bullhorn, emblematic of protest at the Ferguson Police Department.

Sekou - everyone was calling him simply "Sekou" - observed that as of the 107th day of protests in Ferguson, these young people had sustained the second-longest civil rights campaign in postwar U.S. history. "Ferguson has worn out my shoes." They were a third of their way to equaling the Montgomery Bus Boycott in its duration. The young knew the history, he went on, and to know your history is to become politicized. But in Sekou's view, too much black political capital has been spent in electoral politics. Elections are thermometers, social movements the thermostats, he said, echoing King. They set the agenda, whereas elections merely monitor them.

To Sekou, it matters how we define political participation. "If it's only the ballot box, then we're finished." He sees voting as "an insider strategy," one without much relevance to a town like Ferguson, where two-thirds of the adult population have arrest warrants out against them. Things don't come down to the vote, they come down to the level of harassment as people get ready to vote, he added. Sekou ventured that given the little black people have got for it, voting fits the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and each time expecting a different result.

Then, too, the young are distant from "the prosperity theology" of an already beleaguered black church, Sekou continued. Its social safety net - by which it offers a place to go, food, education, adult guidance and prayer - is not something they have grown up with; it's another pillar many young black people have had to do without, like having fathers in jail. Black churches "have become hostile to youth." But this also means that the young are remote from the politics of respectability and black piety. At previous meetings about Ferguson, the young booed, for different reasons, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and NAACP President Cornell William Brooks. But perhaps the most crucial factor in what Sekou called the "holy trinity of disfranchisement and dispossession" is the economic catastrophe of the past decade and the ongoing deindustrialization of urban centers.

For Sekou, Obama traffics in the language of the movement while betraying it. "Shame on him." I wanted to say that Clarence Thomas is the race traitor, not Obama. Sekou is 43 years old, a short, dark, charismatic man with thick, long dreadlocks like those of early reggae stars. He rejected what he called the Beltway strategy of appeasing forces on the right of center in favor of what he sees as the political possibility that has come from the street. He, like the young he counsels, feels that the system hasn't worked and now needs to be born again. The young demonstrating in Ferguson had faced tear gas and assault rifles. "There isn't any political terrain for them to engage in other than putting their bodies on the line."

Older people were going out of their way to defer to the young in the Ferguson movement, just as I would hear the sort of white people who had no reason to chastise themselves confess to being beneficiaries of "white privilege." But while Sekou pointed to the young adults who have, he said, discovered something extraordinary in themselves, it was clear what he himself stood for in their eyes. They trusted him and he showed them the affection and approval they needed.

"We are," he said, "at a critical moment in American democracy whereby the blood of Michael Brown has wiped away the veneer and at the same time seeded a great revolution. In a situation like St. Louis, where there has been a cowardly elite, an ineffectual black church and a dominant liberal class afraid of black rage and public discourse about white anxiety, we have to repent for not being here."

Sekou sees the Ferguson movement and the Don't Shoot Coalition as an answer to the call made at the National Hip-Hop Political Convention of 2004 against police brutality. But this was not the hip-hop culture that celebrated Malcolm X as the black man who refused to turn the other cheek. If anything, Sekou was talking more like the radicalized, antiwar Martin Luther King Jr., whom people tend to forget. The important differences were "attitudinal," not generational, Sekou said. He identified what he thought was the real issue at stake in Brown's murder: "What do you fundamentally believe about black people?"

Hey hey ho ho
These killer cops have got to go.

Few in the chanting, placard-carrying crowd across from the police department on South Florissant Road in Ferguson that evening of Nov. 24 expected the grand jury to hand down an indictment. Many expressed the feeling that whereas a grand jury usually takes from five to 10 days in its deliberations, this one used up three months so that everyone could say they'd been thorough before arriving at the decision that they had been going to make in the first place: to protect the police. The uncertainty all day long about the time when the announcement would be made was taken as further indication of Bob McCulloch's manipulation of the whole process. Local news stations were reporting that the prosecutor wanted to wait to make the grand jury's findings public until after schoolchildren were home.

But the darkness played into McCulloch's hands as well. The upscale, white shopping centers like Frontenac Plaza were guarded by police before McCulloch addressed the press. There was no police protection in the strip malls where blacks shopped along West Florissant Avenue, which had been a main trouble spot over the summer. These facts suggest that the authorities wanted the nation and the world - the international press waited in parking lots behind the protesters - to see what a lawless community young black Ferguson would be without a firm hand.

The police came out of their Ferguson station gradually, a few at a time, in blue riot helmets and wielding transparent shields. I heard people say that even after a sensational case like Brown's, the police killing of black youth was going on as if unchecked, in the murder of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, who had an air gun on a playground, in the murder of 28-year-old Akai Gurley in a darkened stairway of a Brooklyn housing project. I heard someone say that we should not forget Eric Garner, killed by Staten Island police last July. (In early December, a grand jury declined to indict the officer who choked Garner to death though the choking had been caught on video.)

I saw Templeton leading the chant-dancing in the crowd, the young black woman with the bullhorn, and a blond youth chant-danced back at her in response.

But it was not a party. Solemn young faces peered out from hoodies and more and more handkerchiefs over mouths and noses. I saw masks. The glow of phones was everywhere. The revolution will not be televised, but it will be tweeted, Keiller MacDuff, Sekou's tireless volunteer communications director, told me people were saying. The night of the grand jury's announcement, the Ferguson movement did seem to move with the speed of Twitter, but I pressed with others around a car radio in front of the police station. Templeton shifted her bullhorn and helped Leslie McSpadden, Brown's mother, up onto the car where we were listening. The group on top of the car held on to her. She had been told the outcome already. As she broke down, it was clear to the crowd what the decision was. I stopped trying to hear what McCulloch was saying as McSpadden said to the line of policemen in front of the station, "It's not right."

"We're going to barbecue tonight," I heard from somewhere behind me.

While Sekou was giving a television interview in the parking lot across from the police station, where the crowd had begun to press angrily against the police line, we heard gunfire. Sekou swept me along with Keiller MacDuff - she's from New Zealand - and three young white volunteers from Faith and Reconciliation. More gunfire sounded behind us as we reached the Wellspring Church, where Sekou had been a guest before, and we were buzzed in. Sekou and one of the volunteers decided they'd no choice but to get his car parked on the other side of the police station.

From the steps of the church, I heard glass breaking and saw hundreds of people fleeing down South Florissant. The women in charge of the church in the Wellspring pastor's absence had instructions to lock the doors, turn off the lights and not admit anyone else. MacDuff was offended that no more protesters would be let in, because there were young people falling in the street, cowering under the church wall.

In the church sanctuary, we watched on a laptop the violence a few hundred yards away. Citizen journalists who streamed what they saw live from their smartphones and iPads had stayed on the street. They have a mixed reputation. Some can say inflammatory things and put protesters in danger or become aggressive, while others understand what it means to have such power in your pocket. People around the world have been glued to live streams from Ferguson ever since the killing. The police have targeted live streamers, who can save lives by keeping the spotlight on police activity when traditional media have pulled back from hot spots. A white girl appeared at my shoulder to watch also. I didn't realize at first that she'd pulled off a gas mask.

As we left the church, once again, Sekou included me in his group, though there was really no room for me in the car. Out on West Florissant, I saw black youths running out of Walgreens, their legs pumping like marionettes'. I didn't see them carrying anything, but that does not mean they hadn't entered the drugstore with the intention of grabbing stuff. A young white volunteer was at the wheel and black youths shouted from the meridian at the driver's window at every stoplight.

Sekou refused to go inside the MSNBC compound on West Florissant to do an interview if we, his people, couldn't come in, too. At the sound of gunfire, the MSNBC guards dropped to the pavement with us. Sekou didn't wait to be turned down by MSNBC again, and walked us to a parking lot in the rear where we remained for two hours, hiding in the dark behind a brick shed. I recall a fire truck coming at one point, but it went away, maybe driven off by gunfire. Buildings burned on either side of us, huge boxes of acrid flame, and what really confused me was the honking. It sounded like a football victory at times. Except for the gunfire.

I was afraid of what the police helicopters with searchlights might mistake us for. And then I was wary of two black youths who seemed to be loping in our direction. They weren't loping, they were making their way along the sides of the parking lot, looking for shelter from the smoke and overhead buzzing. The one with dreadlocks turned out to be a grandson of a pastor whom Sekou knew. I had to ask myself, When did I become afraid of black youth? How had I, a black man, internalized white fear?
Eventually, a loudspeaker voice told people they had to move onto the sidewalk or else they would be subject to arrest. They had to disperse; they needed to get out of the street. They had to get back into their cars. It had taken the police a while to take back territory. "Riots are the voice of the unheard," Sekou said, quoting King. I heard many deplore the attacks on black businesses, but those felt random. Glass smashed along a route of panic and retreat. The feeling was that young rioters weren't after mobile phones; they wanted to burn police cars.

In the days since, people have been blocking highways, shutting down shopping malls, lying in the streets and walking out of classrooms around the world. Hands up; don't shoot. The Missouri National Guard stood behind the line of Ferguson police at the station on Florissant the next night and the night after that, the temperature dropping and the crowd thinning. But nonviolent direct action has won out as the defining tactic of the Ferguson movement.

I felt a bond with everyone in St. Louis I talked to about what was happening, and that in itself seemed odd. I met people who had been moved somehow to come and bear witness: the young rabbi from Newton, Mass.; the black single mother who works downtown as a food scientist; the white women of a certain age up from their lesbian commune in Arkansas; the black taxi driver who got from his dispatcher, before it was on Twitter, which highways had been blocked; the white middle-aged clergyman from Illinois who normally worked in hospital trauma units; the Japanese-born campaign director of the Right to Vote Initiative who was beaten up a lot as a kid in New Jersey in the 1970s because white neighbors thought his family was Vietnamese; the owner of MoKaBe's Coffeehouse who opened for business Tuesday morning after having been tear gassed twice Monday night.

"Just for the record, I am so over being tear gassed," Sekou said. "That's what tear gas is, it's just tacky." This from the man who when the police returned Tuesday night got everyone in the coffeehouse to lock arms and told the police that he knew they weren't getting everything they wanted either. He'd read their contract. "This is about a heartbeat," he told them. He got the people inside MoKaBe's to strike their breasts.

The police went away.
Back up back up
We want freedom freedom
All these racist ass cops
We don't need 'em need 'em.

Following the release of the grand jury testimony, many have argued that McCulloch acted more like a defense attorney than a prosecutor. There have been mutterings about his own history, and a possible connection between the Michael Brown case and McCulloch's personal tragedy of his police officer father having been killed by a black suspect back in 1964. But what in some ways was even more troubling was Wilson's ABC interview on the evening after the verdict, for which he seemed to have been well-coached, including the galling statement that his conscience was clear. An attorney for Brown's family observed that this was a poor response to his having taken the life of a young man. In his testimony, Wilson "deployed," as Sekou called it, every racist trope in order to assert that he was in fear of his life. Brown, Wilson said, looked "like a demon."

After the Civil War, thousands of black men were on the roads, looking for new starts, but mostly looking for loved ones sold away. Vagrancy laws were passed that said if you couldn't say where you lived or worked you could be picked up and put on the chain gang. America has always felt the necessity of keeping its black male population under control. Behind every failure to make the police accountable in such killings is an almost gloating confidence that the majority of white Americans support the idea that the police are the thin blue line between them and social chaos. Indeed, part of the problem in several such cases has been the alarmist phone calls from third parties to police dispatchers, reporting any situation involving a black male in a stereotypical and therefore usually false fashion - the police aren't the only ones to engage in racial profiling. If you are a black man, be careful what you shop for in Walmart.

There is a chance that the federal government may vigorously investigate the Michael Brown case. "Please help us fight these monsters," the hip-hop artist Tef Poe asked the president in a recent open letter. But for decades Congress resisted passing any legislation making lynching illegal. The Congress we have now is not going to convene hearings on our police culture or pass a comprehensive public works bill.

Yet the Ferguson movement has promised that the situation cannot go back to normal, to the way things have been. Everybody knows what racism is. The problems needn't be explained over and over. They can't be deflected by saying that Michael Brown took some cigars from a store, that he broke the law and therefore it was proper to kill him with six bullets, although he had no weapon. This is the kind of thinking that racism hides behind. Ferguson feels like a turning point. For so many, Brown's death was the last straw. Black youth are fed up with being branded criminals at birth.

Ferguson was the country stepping back in time or exposing the fact that change hasn't happened where most needed, that most of us don't live in the age of Obama.

"It's a myth that we're a fair society," Sekou said. "We have to take that needle out of our arms."

 

Darryl Pinckney

Darryl Pinckney's new book is Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy.