February is Back History Month.
I am currently reading a book called “King: a Life” about
Martin Luther King Jr. He was, of course, a great leader of the civil rights
movement in the United States in the 1950s and 60s. It brought back some of the
other books I have read about the African-American struggles, primarily in the
20th century. It is a long and dark episode. King, for his part
trying to end discrimination through peaceful protest, had his house bombed
twice, was shot at, stabbed and eventually assassinated. His entire career
lasted just 13 years; he died at the age of 38.
There are many examples of brutality against
African-Americans during the 20th century as shown in the following
examples.
There was the destruction of the Black suburb of Tulsa,
Oklahoma in 1922, just because it seemed successful by the standards of the
day. Its attack was started by a single gunshot in downtown Tulsa by nobody
knows who, but of course, blamed on a black man.
In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was very powerful in Indiana
and some surrounding states. It’s target
was again people of colour plus immigrants and Jews. It practically ruled
Indiana when many of its state legislators and the Governor were members.
Just under 3,500 Black people were lynched in the US from the
end of the Civil War to the 1960s. The
last lynching was recorded in 1968.
When I was military exchange with the US Navy, I spent the
period 1974-75 in Charleston, South Carolina.
One Saturday night, there was a Klan demonstration near the edge of the
city complete with a burning cross. The
next day, the local paper reported on the event by essentially making fun of
it. But still, there were events to show that some things had not changed. A
USN Chief Petty Officer was retiring and selling his house. It was bought by a Black doctor. When other protests did not deter the sale,
the house was burned down.
During the year
there, my commanding officer was the first black admiral in the US Navy,
Rear-admiral Samuel L. Gravely. He was a fine officer with a good sense of
humour and a good leader. But even he had his problems. He did not take his
family to Charleston, so he lived in the Bachelor Officers Quarters. Each Sunday evening, he went out in civilian
dress to a local church and usually brought back friends for coffee. For the
first few weeks, he would be stopped at the main gate by the Marine guards and
given a hard time. This was followed by a phone call by Sam to the command duty
officer to get down to the main gate and “. . . tell this G.D. Marine who I am.” After a couple of months, a large picture of
Sam in uniform was posted at each position at the main gate. The Sunday night phone
calls ended. He eventually was promoted to Vice-Admiral and retired after being
a fleet commander. He proved he wasn’t a token choice. But that was the 1970’s
when things like the Civil Rights Act had been enacted.
The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s brought
more oppression as southern whites violently reacted. This soon spread to the northern states as
more blacks moved north for work and to escape the oppression in the south.
Between 1964 and 1991 four civil rights acts were made law
in the US. The first in 1964, aimed to end discrimination in schools,
employment and public accommodation. The others basically reinforced the first.
The result of all this was the virtual desegregation of the country.
The current President of the US, Donald Trump and his
administration seem to be trying to reverse this. He has fired black employees
including a number of coloured senior military officers. He has set out to treat Hispanics much the
same, including his efforts to deport a million people a year. His promotion of
a depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes is a fine example of his bias.
In Canada, we should not be smug about our attitudes. We
have had our share of discriminatory actions.
Our treatment of Indigenous people shows that we have our own biases.
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