Historical Sources & Notes

Sources & Notes:

Colonization and Laws Establishing Racial-Caste & Slavery

Colonization & Early Slave-Trade

“Whatever foundation there may have been in natural reason for slavery, in the opinion of the nations of antiquity, the Roman legislators, or the Asiatic races, there does not appear to have been, in their judgment, any arguments, from the same source, establishing such differences between mankind that some races were liable to that chattel condition, and others naturally exempt. The law of nations, in their conception of it, regarded all men as equally capable of becoming property. The modern law of nations, as exhibited in the practice of modern European states, must be considered not only to have varied from the ancient rule, in asserting a right of dominion in Christians over infidels, but to have been farther modified, since the geographical discoveries of the fifteenth century, and during the establishment of civilized dominion and municipal law in America, by the introduction of a distinction founded on race or descent, and applied according to physical structure (p. 164).”

Hurd, John Codman. “Chapter IV: Establishment of Municipal Laws in the Colonies;–The Subject Continued. Of Principles of Universal Jurisprudence, Relating to the Freedom and its Opposites, Entering into the Common Law of England.” The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States, Vol 1. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.; New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1858. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/lawfreedombondag01hurdrich/page/164

“Sir John Hawkins’s celebrated voyage took place in 1562, but probably not until 1631 did a regular chartered company undertake to carry on the trade. This company was unsuccessful, and was eventually succeeded by the ‘Company of Royal Adventurers trading to Africa,’ chartered by Charles II in 1662, and including the Queen Dowager and the Duke of York. The company contracted to supply the West Indies with three thousand slaves annually; but contraband trade, misconduct, and war so reduced it that in 1672 it surrendered its charter to another company for £34,000. This new corporation, charted by Charles II as the ‘Royal African Company, proved more successful than its predecessors, and carried on a growing trade for a quarter of a century (p. 2).”

“…signing of the Assiento…1713.
The Assiento was a treaty between England and Spain by which the latter granted the former a monopoly of the Spanish colonial slave-trade for thirty years, and England engaged to supply the colonies within that time with at least 144,000 slaves…
It is stated that, in twenty years from 1713 to 1733, fifteen thousand slaves were annually imported into American…of whom one-third to one-half went to Spanish colonies (p. 3).”

Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870. New York, Longmans, 1904. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/suppressionofafr01dubouoft

“Most obviously, 1619 was not the first time Africans could be found in an English Atlantic colony, and it certainly wasn’t the first time people of African descent made their mark and imposed their will on the land that would someday be part of the United States. As early as May 1616, blacks from the West Indies were already at work in Bermuda providing expert knowledge about the cultivation of tobacco. There is also suggestive evidence that scores of Africans plundered from the Spanish were aboard a fleet under the command of Sir Francis Drake when he arrived at Roanoke Island in 1586. In 1526, enslaved Africans were part of a Spanish expedition to establish an outpost on the North American coast in present-day South Carolina.”

“Privileging that date and the Chesapeake region effectively erases the memory of many more African peoples than it memorializes. The ‘from-this-point-forward’ and ‘in-this-place’ narrative arc silences the memory of the more than 500,000 African men, women, and children who had already crossed the Atlantic against their will, aided and abetted Europeans in their endeavors, provided expertise and guidance in a range of enterprises, suffered, died, and – most importantly – endured. That Sir John Hawkins was behind four slave-trading expeditions during the 1560s suggests the degree to which England may have been more invested in African slavery than we typically recall. Tens of thousands of English men and women had meaningful contact with African peoples throughout the Atlantic world before Jamestown.”

Guasco, Michael. “The Misguided Focus on 1619 as the Beginning of Slavery in the U.S. Damages Our Understanding of American History.” Smithsonian.com. Smithsonian Institution, Sept., 13 2017, https://smithsonianmag.com/history/misguided-focus-1619-beginning-slavery-us-damages-our-understanding-american-history-180964873/

Thompsell, Angela. “Timeline of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.” ThoughtCo, June 19, 2019, https://thoughtco.com/trans-atlantic-slave-trade-timeline-4156303

Slave Codes

“The proof of this lies clearly written in the slave codes. Slaves were not considered men. They had no right of petition. They were ‘devisable like any other chattel.’ They could own nothing; they could make no contracts; they could hold no property, nor traffic in property; they could not hire out; they could not legally marry nor constitute families; they could not control their children; they could not appeal from their master; they could be punished at will. They could not testify in court; they could be imprisoned by their owners, and the criminal offense of assault and battery could not be committed on the person of a slave. The ‘willful, malicious and deliberate murder’ of a slave was punishable by death, but such a crime was practically impossible of proof. The slave owed to his master and all his family a respect ‘without bounds, and an absolute obedience.’ This authority could be transmitted to others. A slave could not sue his master; had no right of redemption; no right to education or religion; a promise made to a slave by his master had no force nor validity. Children followed the condition of the slave mother. The slave could have no access to the judiciary. A slave might be condemned to death for striking any white person. (p. 10).”

Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880. New York, Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1935. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/blackreconstruc00dubo

Slave Laws (pp. 222-311)

Hurd, John Codman. “Chapter VI: The Establishment of Municipal Law in the Colonies;–The Subject Continued. Local Legislation Determining Conditions of Freedom of Bondage.” The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States, Vol 1. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.; New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1858. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/lawfreedombondag01hurdrich/page/228

“The racialized caste system of American slavery that originated in the British colonies was unique in many respects from the forms of slavery that existed in other parts of the world. In the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, for example, slavery was a class category or form of indentured servitude–an ‘accident’ of individual status that could befall anyone and could be overcome after a completed term of labor or assimilation into the dominant culture.

American slavery began as such a system. When the first Africans were brought to the British colonies in 1619 on a ship that docked in Jamestown, Virginia, they held the legal status of ‘servant.’ But as the region’s economic system became increasingly dependent on forced labor, and as racial prejudice became more ingrained in the social culture, the institution of American slavery developed as a permanent, hereditary status centrally tied to race (p. 12)”

“Slavery in America: The Montgomery Slave Trade.” Equal Justice Initiative, 2018. https://eji.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/slavery-in-america-report.pdf

Slavery, the Slave-Trade & Wealth Built by Slavery

Educational Timeline of Slavery

Draper, Sharon. “Timeline of Slavery in America 1501-1865.” Retrieved from Sharondraper.com, November 25, 2019. https://sharondraper.com/timeline.pdf

Continuation of Slave-Trade

“That the slave-trade was the very life of the colonies had, by 1700, become an almost unquestioned axiom in British practical economics. The colonists themselves declared slaves ‘the strength and sinews of this western world,’ and the lack of them ‘the grand obstruction’ here, as the settlements ‘cannot subsist without supplies of them’ (p. 4).”

“Activity of the Slave-Trade, 1820-1850. The enhanced price of slaves throughout the American slave market, brought about by the new industrial development and laws against the slave-trade, was the irresistible temptation that drew American capital and enterprise into the traffic. In the United States, in spite of the large interstate traffic, the average price of slaves rose from about $325 in 1840, to $360 in 1850, and to $500 in 1860. Brazil and Cuba offered similar inducements to smugglers, and the American flag was ready to protect such pirates. As a result the American slave-trade finally came to be carried on principally by Unites States capital, in United States ships, officered by United States citizens, and under the United States flag.

Executive reports repeatedly acknowledged this fact. (p.162)”.

“Responsibility of the Government. Not only did the government thus negatively favor the slave-trade, but also many conscious, positive acts must be attributed to a spirit hostile to the proper enforcement of the slave-trade laws. (p.161).”

Southern Economy

“With cash crops of tobacco, cotton and sugar cane, America’s southern states became the economic engine…
If the Confederacy had been a separate nation, it would have ranked as the fourth richest in the world at the start of the Civil War. The slave economy had been very good to American prosperity. By the start of the war, the South was producing 75 percent of the world’s cotton and creating more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River valley than anywhere in the nation. Slaves represented Southern planters’ most significant investment—and the bulk of their wealth.”

Timmons, Greg. “How Slavery Became the Economic Engine of the South.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, March 6, 2018. https://history.com/news/slavery-profitable-southern-economy

Corbett, P. Scott, et al. “The Economics of Cotton – U.S. History.” OpenStax, December 30, 2014. https://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/12-1-the-economics-of-cotton

Cawthon, William. “Was the South Poor Before the War?” Abbeville Institute, May 26, 2017. https://abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/was-the-south-poor-before-the-war/

“Economy of the Confederate States of America.” Wikipedia, October 17, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America

“The continual rise in the price of raw cotton begins at last to seriously react upon the cotton factories, their consumption of cotton being now 25 per cent less than the full consumption. This result has been brought about by a daily lessening rate of production, many mills working only four or three days per week, part of the machinery being stopped, both in those establishments where short time has been commenced and in those which are still running full time, and some mills being temporarily altogether closed. …
A larger basis for the reproduction and maintenance of the toiling millions had then to be adopted. The second pivot of English industry was the slave-grown cotton of the United States. The present American crisis forces them to enlarge their field of supply and emancipate cotton from slave-breeding and slave-consuming oligarchies. As long as the English cotton manufacturers depended on slave grown cotton, it could be truthfully asserted that they rested on a twofold slavery, the indirect slavery of the white man in England and the direct slavery of the black man on the other side of the Atlantic.”

Marx, Karl. “The British Cotton Trade.” New-York Daily Tribune, October 14, 1861. Marxists.org, https://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/10/14.htm

Presidents who owned slaves

“…of the first twelve [US Presidents], only John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams never owned slaves, although two of the others (Martin Van Buren and William Henry Harrison) did not own slaves while serving as president…”

“List of Presidents of the United States Who Owned Slaves.” Wikipedia, November, 15 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_who_owned_slaves

Corporations that profited from slavery

Contributor, ABS. “15 Major Corporations You Never Knew Profited from Slavery.” Atlanta Black Star, February 2, 2019. https://atlantablackstar.com/2013/08/26/17-major-companies-never-knew-benefited-slavery/

“List of Countries by GDP (nominal).” Wikipedia, November 4, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

“List of Countries by GDP (PPP).” Wikipedia, October 26, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)

Civil War, Reconstruction, Black Codes & Neo-Slavery (sharecropping, debt-peonage, convict leasing)

Compromise of 1877

“In 1876 came the bargain between Big Business and the South (p. 691).”

“Negotiations were entered into and conferences held. On the 26th of February, 1876, there were three conferences. The outcome was an agreement. The Republicans guaranteed that Mr. Hayes, when he became President, would by non-interference and the withdrawal of troops allow the planter-capitalists, under the name Democrats to control South Carolina and Louisiana…This meant that Southern landholders and capitalists would be put in complete control of disfranchised black labor (p. 692).”

“The revolution of 1876 was, in fine, a victory for which the South has every right to hang its head. After enslaving the Negro for two and one-half centuries, it turned on his emancipation to beat a beaten man, to trade in slaves, and to kill the defenseless; to break the spirit of the black man and humiliate him into hopelessness; to establish a new dictatorship of property in the South through the color line. It was a triumph of men who in their effort to replace equality with caste and to build inordinate wealth on a foundation of abject poverty have succeeded in killing democracy, art and religion (p. 707).”

“The Compromise of 1876 effectively ended the Reconstruction era. Southern Democrats’ promises to protect civil and political rights of blacks were not kept, and the end of federal interference in southern affairs led to widespread disenfranchisement of blacks voters. From the late 1870s onward, southern legislatures passed a series of laws requiring the separation of whites from ‘persons of color’ on public transportation, in schools, parks, restaurants, theaters and other locations. Known as the ‘Jim Crow laws’ (after a popular minstrel act developed in the antebellum years), these segregationist statutes governed life in the South through the middle of the next century, ending only after the hard-won successes of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.”

Editors, History.com. “Compromise of 1877.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, March 17, 2011. https://history.com/topics/us-presidents/compromise-of-1877

Black Codes

“The original [black] codes favored by the Southern legislatures were an astonishing affront to emancipation and dealt with vagrancy, apprenticeship, labor contracts, migration, civil and legal rights. In all cases, there was plain and indisputable attempt…to make the Negroes slaves in everything but name (p. 167).”

Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. “Looking Backward (p. 167-180).” Black Reconstruction. New York, Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1935. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/blackreconstruc00dubo

McPherson, Edward. “Legislation Respecting Freedmen (p. 29-44).” The Political History of the United States of America During the Period of Reconstitution. Washington, DC, Philp & Solomons, 1871. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/politicalhistory00lcmcph/page/28

Reconstruction & Neo-Slavery

“It must be remembered and never forgotten that the civil war in the South which overthrew Reconstitution was a determined effort to reduce black labor as nearly as possible to a condition of unlimited exploitation and build a new class of capitalists on this foundation. The wage of the Negro worker, despite the war amendments, was reduced to be reduced to the level of bare subsistence by taxation, peonage, caste and every method of discrimination. This program had to be carried out in open defiance of the clear letter of the law. (p. 670).”

“Carl Schurz said: ‘Some planters held back their former slaves on their plantations by brute force. Armed bands…patrolled…to drive back Negroes wandering about. Dead bodies…were found on and near highways and byways. Gruesome reports came from the hospitals– …ears had been slashed…lacerated… A veritable reign of terror prevailed.’ (p. 671).

“It was the policy of the state to keep the Negro laborer poor…to force him into peonage and unpaid toil.

In a report by Hon. Charles W. Russell…:
‘I have no doubt…the chief support of peonage is the peculiar system of State laws…to compel services on part of the working man. From the usual condition…peonage is but a step at most. In fact, it is difficult to draw a distinction between the condition of a man who remains…against his will, because the state has passed a certain law under which he can be arrested and returns to work…and actual threats of force under the same law.’

The editor of the Macon, Georgia, Telegraph…:
‘…we have been holding back the Negro to keep him from getting beyond the white man. Our idea has been that the Negro should be kept poor.’ (p. 696).

“Above all, crime was used in the South as a source of income for the state. An English traveler wrote in 1871:
‘…there is no regular penitentiary at all, but an organized system of letting out the prisoners for profit. … They pay $25,000 a year…their money is clear profit to the state. The lessees work the prisoners both on estates and in mines, and apparently maintain severe discipline in their own way, and make a good thing of it. Colonel P , who is not very mealy-mouthed, admits that he left the concern because he could not stand the inhumanity of it. Another partner in the concern talked with great glee of the money he had made out of the convicts. This does seem simply a return to another form of slavery.’
…
… Since 1876 Negroes have been arrested on the slightest provocation and given long sentences or fines which they were compelled to work out. The resulting peonage of criminals extended into every Southern state and led to the most revolting situations.’

A Southern white woman writes:
‘In some states where convict labor is sold to the highest bidder the cruel treatment of the helpless human chattel in the hands of guards is such as no tongue can tell nor pen picture. Prison inspectors find convicts herded together, irrespective of age; confined at night in shackles; housed sometimes, as has been found, in old box cars; packed almost as closely as sardines in a box. During the day all are worked under armed guards, who stand ready to shoot down any who may attempt to escape from this hell upon earth—the modern American bastile. Should one escape, the bloodhounds, trained for the purpose, are put upon his track, and the chances are that he will be brought back, severely flogged and put in double shackles, or worse.’ (p.698)”.

“‘Of all the degrading positions, to our mind, that of the whipping boss in the Georgia penitentiary system is the worst…

He stands over his pinioned victim and applies the lash on the naked, quivering flesh of a fellowman. Plies it hard enough to lacerate the flesh and send the blood coursing down the bruised back and sides from the gaping and whip-cord cuts; and just think of the mercilessness, the inhumanity, the bestiality of the sentiment that can drive the lash deeper and deeper through the cuts and gashes on the body of a human being, white or black…just as a cool, calculating business for a very niggardly stipend.’ Hundreds of Southern fortunes have been amassed by this enslavement of criminals. (p. 699).”

“… In considerable parts of all the Gulf States, and especially in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, the Negroes on the plantations in the back-country districts are still held at forced labor practically without wages (p. 103).”

“To-day the following economic classes are plainly differentiated among these Negroes [Dougherty County, Georgia].

A ‘submerged tenth’ of croppers, with a few paupers; forty per cent who are metayers and thirty-nine per cent of semi-metayers and wage-laborers. There are left five per cent of money-renters and six per cent of freeholders,––the “Upper Ten” of the land (p. 106).”

“…croppers are entirely without capital, even in the limited sense of food or money to keep them from seed-time to harvest… Thus we have a laborer without capital and without wages…

Above the croppers come the great mass of the black population who work the land on their own responsibility, paying rent in cotton and supported by the crop-mortgage system. But with the carrying out of the crop-lien system, the deterioration of the land, and the slavery of debt, the position of the metayers has sunk to a dead level of practically unrewarded toil. … every economic advantage of the price of cotton in market and of the strivings of the tenant has been taken advantage of by the landlords and merchants, and swallowed up in rent and interest (p. 107).”

“The average metayer pays from twenty to thirty per cent of his crop in rent. The result of such rack-rent can only be evil,––abuse and neglect of the soil, deterioration in the character of the laborers, and a widespread sense of injustice (pp. 107-108).”

“A degree above these we may place those laborers who receive money wages for their work (p. 108).”

“Fully ninety-four per cent have struggled for land and failed, and half of them sit in hopeless serfdom (p. 110).”

Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. “Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece.” The Souls of Black Folk. Oxford University Press, 2007.

Jim Crow, Segregation & Redlining

Jim Crow & Segregation

“First, there was a systematic disfranchisement of the Negro. He was kept from voting by force, by economic intimidation, by salvation for him in political lines but that he must depend entirely upon thrift and the good will of his white employers…To make assurance doubly sure, the ‘White Primary’ system was built on top of this, by which the ‘Democratic’ party confined its membership to white voters of all parties. The ‘White Primary’ was made by law and public pressure the real voting arena practically all Southern states.
…
…In no other civilized and modern land has so great a group of people, most of whom were able to read and write, been allowed so small a voice in their government…In the former slave states…excepting Missouri, there are no Negro state officials; no Negro members of legislatures; no judges on the bench and usually no jurors. There are no colored county officials of any sort. In the towns and cities, there are no colored administrative officers, no members of the city councils, no magistrates, no constables and very seldom even a policeman. In this way, at least eight million Negroes are left without effective voice in government, naked to the worst elements of the community. (p. 694)”

“…it was never mere race separation. It was always domination of blacks by white officials, white police and laws and ordinances made by white men…colored schools were controlled by white officials who decided how much or rather how little should be spent upon them…what could be taught and what textbooks used and the sort of subservient teachers they wanted. In travel, separation compelled colored passengers to pay first-class fare for second or third-class accommodation, and to endure on the street cars and trains discrimination of all sorts. Ghettos were built up in nearly all Southerns cities… Little attention was paid to lighting, sewerage and paving in these quarters.
…
Besides this a determined psychology of caste was built up. In every possible way it was impressed and advertised that the white was superior and Negro an inferior race…The most educated and deserving black man was compelled in many public places to occupy a place beneath the lowest and least deserving of all the whites. Public institutions, like parks and libraries, either denied all accommodation to the blacks or gave them inferior facilities.

A distinguished white Southerner said in 1885:
‘Is the freedman a free man? No.’ (p. 695).”

“The effect of caste on the moral integrity… has thus been widely disastrous…
…
On this and in spite of this comes an extraordinary record of accomplishment, a record so contradictory of what one might easily expect that many people and even the Negroes themselves are deceived by it. The real question is not so much what the Negro has done in spite of caste, as what he might have accomplished with reasonable encouragement (p. 702).”

Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. Black Reconstruction. New York, Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1935. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/blackreconstruc00dubo

“The turn of the century saw states across the south ratcheting up Jim Crow laws, affecting every section of daily life. Segregated waiting rooms in professional offices were required, as well as water fountains, restrooms, building entrances, elevators, cemeteries, even amusement-park cashier windows. Laws forbade African Americans from living in white neighborhoods. Segregation was enforced for public pools, phone booths, hospitals, asylums, jails and residential homes for the elderly and handicapped. Some states required separate textbooks black and white students. New Orleans mandated the segregation of prostitutes according to race. In Atlanta, African Americans in court were given a different Bible from whites to swear on. Marriage and cohabitation between whites and blacks was strictly forbidden in most southern states. It was not uncommon to see signs posted at town and city limits warning African Americans that they were not welcome there.”

History.com , Editors. “Jim Crow Laws.” History.com. A&E Television Networks. February 28, 2018. https://history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/jim-crow-laws

Redlining

Rothstein, Richard. The Color of Law: a Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. Liveright Publishing Corporation, a Division of W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.

Baradaran, Mehrsa. The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017.

“Visualizing the Hidden Histories of Race and Privilege in Minneapolis.” Mapping Prejudice, 2019. https://mappingprejudice.org/

Mapping Inequality. Redlining in New Deal America. Digital Scholarship Lab, 2019. https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=5/39.1/-94.58

Orenstein, Bruce, et. al. “The Plunder of Black Wealth in Chicago: New Findings on the Lasting Toll of Predatory Housing Contracts.” Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University, 2019. https://fhcci.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Plunder-of-Black-Wealth-Chicago-Report-2019.pdf

Parmenides of YouTubes. Playlist: The Real News Network on Redlining. Various Videos: 1. “Racial Inequality Is Rooted in Denial of Home Land”; 2. “The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap (1/3)”; 3. “The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap (2/3)”; 4. “The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap (3/3)”; 5. “The Forgotten History of How the Government Segregated America: Part 1”; 6. “How Government Policy; Created White Wealth and Concentrated African American Poverty: Part 2”; 7. “Billions Stolen From Black; Families by Predatory Lending”; 8. “Corporations Reap Billions from Mass Incarceration”; 9. “Financial Deregulation & Racist Housing Policy Brought Us 2007 Meltdown, with More to Come (Pt 1/3)”; 10. “Financial Deregulation & Racist Housing Policy Brought Us 2007 Meltdown, with More to Come (Pt 2/3)”; 11. “Financial Deregulation & Racist Housing Policy Brought Us 2007 Meltdown, with More to Come (Pt 3/3)”. The Real News Network. YouTube, 2019. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfTO1P2xImrOVw5f535UHO4Aq3KZinzq8

Great Northward Migration

Editors, History.com Editors. “Great Migration.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, March 4, 2010. https://history.com/topics/black-history/great-migration

Graph showing the percentage of the African-American population living in the American South, 1790–2010. Wikipedia, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)#/media/File:Percentage_of_African_American_population_living_in_the_American_South.png

The Great Migration shown by changes in the African-American share of populations of major U.S. cities, 1910-40 and 1940-70. Wikipedia, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)#/media/File:GreatMigration1910to1970-UrbanPopulation.png

McCarthyism & COINTELPRO

McCarthyism*

(*includes broad reference to anti-communism, Red Scare, etc.)

Targeted Communist Party (and affiliated–including black leaders) in violation of First Amendment.

Alien Registration Act (or Smith Act), 18 U.S.C. § 2385 (1940)
Yates v. United States, 54 U.S. 298 (1957)
Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969)
Communist Control Act of 1954, 50 U.S.C. § 841 et seq. (1954)
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (or McCarran-Walter Act), 8 U.S.C. ch. 12 (1952)
Espionage Act of 1917, 18 U.S.C. § 792 et seq. (1917)
Foreign Agents Registration Act, 22 U.S.C § 611 et seq. (1938)
Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, 50 U.S.C. § 781 et seq. (1950)

History.com , Editors. “Red Scare.” History.com. A&E Television Networks. June 2010. https://history.com/topics/cold-war/red-scare

“McCarthyism.” Wikipedia, November 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism#Victims_of_McCarthyism

Merv GriffinShow. “Martin Luther King Interview- Vietnam/Communism (Merv Griffin Show 1967).” YouTube. August 31, 2012. https://youtube.com/watch?v=gBPIyqCbZl0#t=06m32s

COINTELPRO*

(*includes broad reference to police, military intelligence operations):

“GOALS
1. Prevent…coalition
2. Prevent…rise of a ‘messiah’…Malcolm X might have been [was assassinated]…Martin Luther King [was later assassinated], Stokely Carmichael [left country]…King could be a real contender…should he abandon his…‘obedience’ to ‘white, liberal doctrines’…Carmichael has the necessary charisma to be a real threat in this way.
3. Prevent violence…pinpoint…and…neutralize them…
4. Prevent…from gaining respectability, by discrediting them to three separate segments of the community…[1] responsible Negro[es]…[2] white[s]…responsible…and…‘liberals’….[3] the followers of the movement. This last area requires…different tactics…
5. …prevent the long-range growth…among youth (p. 69-70, Black Extremists Part 01 of 23).”

“TARGETS
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM)
Nation of Islam (NOI) (p. 70, Black Extremists Part 01 of 23).”

FBI. Counterintelligence Program. FBI Records: The Vault. https://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro

For CIA documents see: CIA. Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room. https://cia.gov/library/readingroom/

Assassination of Fred Hampton and connections to other targeting; Panther 21; 1969 UCLA Shootings; Geronimo Pratt; LAPD: Targeting of Panthers; Assata Shakur and BLA; Rainbow Coalition (Fred Hampton); Malcolm X Assassination and connections to other targeting.

Parmenides of YouTubes. “The Story of a Young Panther | Tupac Shakur | Part 2.” YouTube. 2019. Contains influence or elements from: “Black Panther, Author, Activist Jamal Joseph Talks About Tupac Shakur and Afeni Shakur” (AllHipHopTV, 2016); “The Black Panthers Originals Truth Uncensored: Black Lives Matter, KKK & More | Sway’s Universe” (Sway’s Universe, 2016); “Race, Gender & Class Issues in America with Noam Chomsky and Kathleen Cleaver” (C-SPAN 2, 1997); “2Pac High School Senior Interview” (1988); The FBI War on Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders (John Potash, 2008; interview by underyourskin, 2010); “Sekou Odinga on Truth About Tupac” (TruthAboutTupac Movement, 2016); Biggie and Tupac (Nick Broomfield, 2002); “’The Vlad Couch’ Ft. Mopreme Shakur (Episode 18) Full Interview” (djvlad, 2015); “2Pac Live Interview with Tanya Hart” (1992); “Reality Asserts Itself–Eddie Conway 12 Parts” (The Real News Network, 2014); “Reality Asserts Itself–David Cay Johnston 4 Parts” (The Real News Network, 2014). https://youtube.com/watch?v=Vi3noSYk3xw

Black organizations targeted list:

Nation of Islam (NOI), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Black Panther Party (BPP), Black Liberation Army (BLA), National Negro Congress (NNC), Civil Rights Congress (CRC), Black Guerrilla Family (BGF), Communist Party (CP), Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU). [note: does not stand as fully comprehensive list.]

Mass Incarceration, Criminalization, Drug War, Police Violence & the Death Penalty

Statistics on Mass Incarceration

“There are 2.2 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails—a 500% increase over the last 40 years. Changes in law and policy, not changes in crime rates, explain most of this increase.”

“Overall, African Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, they are more likely to face stiff sentences. Black men are six times as likely to be incarcerated as white men…”

“Criminal Justice Facts.” Retrieved from The Sentencing Project, November 15, 2019. https://sentencingproject.org/criminal-justice-facts/

“By creating and perpetuating policies that allow such racial disparities to exist in its criminal justice system, the United States is in violation of its obligations under Article 2 and Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to ensure that all its citizens—regardless of race are treated equally under the law. The Sentencing Project notes that the Committee has specifically asked the U.S. government to address the racial disparities in its criminal justice system in paragraph 4 of its List of Issues. We welcome this opportunity to provide the Committee with an accurate portrait of the current racial disparity in the U.S. criminal justice system (p. 2).”

“Report of The Sentencing Project to the United Nations Human Rights Committee Regarding Racial Disparities in the United States Criminal Justice System.” The Sentencing Project, August 2013. https://sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Race-and-Justice-Shadow-Report-ICCPR.pdf

“African Americans are incarcerated in state prisons across the country at more than five times the rate of whites, and at least ten times the rate in five states.”

Nellis, Ashley. “The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons.” The Sentencing Project, June 14, 2016. https://sentencingproject.org/publications/color-of-justice-racial-and-ethnic-disparity-in-state-prisons/

“Drug Sentencing Disparities:
…
African Americans and whites use drugs at similar rates, but the imprisonment rate of African Americans for drug charges is almost 6 times that of whites…”

“Effects of Incarceration:
A criminal record can reduce the likelihood of a callback or job offer by nearly 50 percent. The negative impact of a criminal record is twice as large for African American applicants.
Infectious diseases are highly concentrated in corrections facilities: 15% of jail inmates and 22% of prisoners – compared to 5% of the general population – reported ever having tuberculosis, Hepatitis B and C, HIV/AIDS, or other STDs.”

“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet.” Retrieved from NAACP, November 15, 2019. https://naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/

“The USA stands virtually alone in the world in incarcerating thousands of prisoners in long-term or indefinite solitary confinement, defined by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment as ‘the physical and social isolation of individuals who are confined to their cells for 22 to 24 hours a day’. More than 40 US states are believed to operate ‘super-maximum security’ units or prisons, collectively housing at least 25,000 prisoners. This number does not include the many thousands of other prisoners serving shorter periods in punishment or administrative segregation cells –estimated to be approximately 80,000 on any given day.”

“Entombed: Isolation in the US Federal Prision System.” Amnesty International, July 2014. Retrieved from https://amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/amr510402014en.pdf

Schwartz, John. 2013. “Herman Wallace, Freed After 41 Years in Solitary, Dies at 71.” The New York Times. October 5, 2013. https://nytimes.com/2013/10/05/us/herman-wallace-held-41-years-in-solitary-dies-at-71.html?module=inline

List search of ACLU cases of 587 results for “cruel, inhuman, and degrading conditions”: Contributors, ACLU. Search ACLU: Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Conditions. American Civil Liberties Union, 2019, https://aclu.org/search/%20?f%5B0%5D=field_issues%3A94

War on Drugs

“ John Ehrlichman…unlocked for me one of the great mysteries of modern American history: How did the United States entangle itself in a policy of drug prohibition that has yielded so much misery and so few good results? …it was Ehrlichman’s boss, Richard Nixon, who declared the first ‘war on drugs’ and set the country on the wildly punitive and counterproductive path it still pursues.
…campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. … We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Baum, Dan. “Report: Legalize It All.” Harper’s Magazine, March 31, 2016. https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

“Dark Alliance was a series written by California-based reporter Webb and published in the San Jose Mercury News in 1996. In it, he claimed the Contra rebels in Nicaragua were shipping cocaine into the US. which was then flooding Compton and South-Central Los Angeles in the mid-Eighties after being turned into crack – a relatively new and highly addictive substance sold in ‘rocks’ that could be smoked. Webb also said the CIA was aware that proceeds from the sales of those drugs were being funneled back to help fund the Contras.”

Hannaford, Alex. “The CIA, the Drug Dealers, and the Tragedy of Gary Webb.” The Telegraph. March 21, 2015. https://telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/11485819/kill-messenger-gary-webb-true-story.html

Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance the CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. New York: Seven Stories, 2015.

Sterling, Eric.. “U.S. Drug Policy: U.S. Drug Policy Has Failed to Reduce Either the Overall Quantities of Drugs Produced and Delivered or the Number of Seriously Addicted Drug Abusers in the United States.” Institute for Policy Studies. November 1, 1999. https://ips-dc.org/us_drug_policy/

Holloway, Lynette. “5 Policies That Prove The War On Drugs Targeted Black People.” News One, March 26, 2016. https://newsone.com/3391639/5-policies-that-prove-the-war-on-drugs-targeted-black-people/

Head, Tom. “A Short History of the 20th Century War on Drugs.” ThoughtCo, January 22, 2018. https://thoughtco.com/history-of-the-war-on-drugs-721152

Death Penalty

“In states across the country, African Americans are disproportionately represented on death row and among those who have been executed. Black people make up 13 percent of the population, but they make up 42 percent of death row and 35 percent of those executed.”

“NAACP Death Penalty Fact Sheet.” NAACP, January 17, 2017. https://naacp.org/latest/naacp-death-penalty-fact-sheet/

“The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides.” Death Penalty Information Center, June 4, 1998. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/dpic-reports/in-depth/the-death-penalty-in-black-and-white-who-lives-who-dies-who-decides

Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972)

Gregg v. Georgia, 428 US 153 (1976)

Police killings and targeting

[Note: Due the nature of police and intelligence in the US, as well as data collection, the numbers on police killing are incomplete; the same inaccuracy can be directly linked, or also exists, with homicides and other crimes perpetrated by and against blacks. Instances of unsolved, unreported, framing/set-ups, corruption, informants, agents, those undercover, instigated attacks, etc., play a role.]

“Data collected by the Washington Post on the use of lethal force by police officers since 2015 indicate that, relative to the portion of the population, Blacks are over-represented among all those killed by police under all circumstances.”

Beer, Todd. “POLICE KILLING OF BLACKS: Data for 2015, 2016, 2017, and First Half of 2018 – Sociology Toolbox.” The Society Pages, March 1, 2018. https://thesocietypages.org/toolbox/police-killing-of-blacks/

“Death by Police is Now the 6th Leading Cause of Death Among Young Men.” The Real News Network, August 8, 2019. https://therealnews.com/stories/death-by-police-is-now-the-6th-leading-cause-of-death-among-young-men

Juzwiak, Rich and AlexJuzwiak, Rich, and Aleksander Chan. “Unarmed People of Color Killed by Police, 1999-2014.” Gawker, December 8, 2014. https://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999-2014-1666672349

“On this episode of The Police Accountability Report, we tell a harrowing tale of a firsthand experience with drug dealing cops reveals the long and troubling history of police selling narcotics, and calls into question the idea that police corruption is limited to a few bad actors.”

“Calling BS on the ‘Bad Apples’ Theory of Police Misconduct.” Police Accountability Report. The Real News Network, September 4, 2019. https://therealnews.com/stories/calling-bs-on-the-bad-apples-theory-of-police-misconduct

Police Accountability Report. The Real News Network. Accessed November 15, 2019. https://therealnews.com/police-accountability-report

“Even before Rafael Perez’s allegations surfaced, the L.A.P.D. was conducting an internal investigation into suspicious activity among some Rampart CRASH officers. As of May, 2001, the Rampart investigation resulted in 58 officers being brought before an internal administrative board. Of these, 12 were suspended, seven have resigned, and five were terminated. There are critics, however, who believe that the L.A.P.D. leadership was not truly interested in getting to the bottom of the Rampart scandal. Detective Russell Poole claims that in the early stages of the investigation, crucial leads were ignored. Others note that administrative decisions taken after the scandal erupted discouraged officers with critical information from coming forward.”

“Rampart Scandal – Cover Up?.” L.A.P.D. Blues | FRONTLINE. Retrieved from PBS, November 15, 2019. https://pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/lapd/scandal/coverup.html

L.A.P.D. Blues | FRONTLINE. PBS. Accessed November 15, 2019. https://pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/lapd/bare.html

Central Park 5, story see:
Burns, Ken, et al., directors. The Central Park Five. Sundance Selects, 2012.

Kalief Browder, story see:
Furst, Jenner, director. Time: The Kalief Browder Story. Viacom Entertainment Group, 2017.

Poverty, Homelessness, Wealth & Income Disparities

Weath & income gap

“Wealth Inequality.” Inequality.org. Institute for Policy Studies. Retrieved December 6, 2019. https://inequality.org/facts/wealth-inequality/.

“Income Inequality.” Inequality.org. Institute for Policy Studies. Retrieved December 6, 2019. https://inequality.org/facts/wealth-inequality/.

Racial wealth and income gap

“Racial Economic Inequality.” Inequality.org. Institute for Policy Studies. Retrieved December 8, 2019. https://inequality.org/facts/racial-inequality/#racial-wealth-divide.

McCarthy, Niall. “Racial Wealth Inequality In The U.S. Is Rampant [Infographic].” Forbes, September 15, 2017. https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/09/14/racial-wealth-inequality-in-the-u-s-is-rampant-infographic/#6240590334e8.

Darity, William, Darrick Hamilton, Mark Paul, Alan Aja, Anne Price, Antonio Moore, and Caterina Chiopris. “What We Get Wrong About Closing the Racial Wealth Gap.” Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, April 2018. https://socialequity.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/what-we-get-wrong.pdf.

Poverty

“Writing during the economic boom of the 1960s and 1970s, scholar Sidney Wilhelm argued that African Americans were being made obsolete as workers by new technologies and automation. He wrote: ‘With the onset of automation the negro moves out of his historical state of oppression into one of uselessness. Increasingly, he is not so much economically exploited as he is irrelevant …The dominant whites no longer need to exploit the black minority: as automation proceeds, it will be easier for the former to disregard the latter. In short, White America, by a more perfect application of mechanization and a vigorous reliance upon automation, disposes of the negro; consequently, the negro transforms from an exploited labor force into an outcast.’”

Lusane, Clarence. “Excerpted from: Clarence Lusane, Persisting Disparities: Globalization and the Economic Status of African Americans , 2 Howard Law Journal 431-450, 436-439 , 450 (Spring 1999) (118 Footnotes) .” Retrieved from Race, Racism and the Law, November 16, 2019. https://racism.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1145:economic06-2

“…the poverty and unemployment rate among Black Americans has been at least double that of Whites over the last 40 years despite an overall decline (see Figure 1) and Blacks represent only 1.4 percent of the top 1 percent of households by income even though they comprise 13.6 percent of the US population. At the same time, research also clearly shows implicit prejudice is widespread in the US and related to negative health outcomes among African Americans like psychiatric symptoms, stress and cigarette smoking and a greater risk of heart attacks.”

“The Curse of Slavery Has Left an Intergenerational Legacy of Trauma and Poor Health for African Americans.” USAPP, March 11, 2019. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2019/03/08/the-curse-of-slavery-has-left-an-intergenerational-legacy-of-trauma-and-poor-health-for-african-americans/.

Nosek, Brian A., et al. “Pervasiveness and Correlates of Implicit Attitudes and Stereotypes.” European Review of Social Psychology 18, no. 1 (2007): 36–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463280701489053.

US Census Bureau. https://census.gov/en.html.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. US Department of Labor. https://bls.gov/home.htm

Morrison, Aaron. “College Tuition Increase: Racial Diversity Drops As Costs Go Up, Study Finds.” International Business Times, April 23, 2015. https://ibtimes.com/college-tuition-increase-racial-diversity-drops-costs-go-study-finds-1894494

Huelsman, Mark. “A 50-State Look at Rising College Prices and the New American Student.” Demos, February 22, 2018. https://demos.org/research/unaffordable-era-50-state-look-rising-college-prices-and-new-american-student

Scott-Clayton, Judith, and Jing Li. “Black-White Disparity in Student Loan Debt More than Triples after Graduation.” Brookings, October 20, 2016. https://brookings.edu/research/black-white-disparity-in-student-loan-debt-more-than-triples-after-graduation/

Homelessness

“Most minority groups in the United States experience homelessness at higher rates than Whites, and therefore make up a disproportionate share of the homeless population. African Americans make up 13 percent of the general population, but more than 40 percent of the homeless population.”

Racial Inequalities in Homelessness, by the Numbers. National Alliance to End Homelessness, June 4, 2018. https://endhomelessness.org/resource/racial-inequalities-homelessness-numbers/

Medical, Health, Crime & Death Rate Disparities

Death Rates

Murphy, Sherry L., Jiaquan Xu, Kenneth D. Kochanek, and Elizabeth Arias. “Mortality in the United States, 2017.” NCHS Data Brief, no 328. Hyattsville, MD, National Center for Health Statistics, 2018. https://cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db328-h.pdf

Ibid., and Curtin, Sally C. “Deaths: Final Data for 2015.” National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 66, No. 6, November 27, 2017. https://cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_06.pdf

Ibid. Supplemental Technical Notes for Internet Tables I–4 Through I–12. Age-adjusted death rates by race and sex, p. 26. https://.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_06_tables.pdf

Homicide/Crime Rates

“Compared to the national average, the homicide rate was 54% lower for whites, 14% lower for Hispanics, and 267% higher for blacks. Put another way, the homicide rate among African-Americans is nearly quadruple that of the national average.”

Berezow, Alex. “African-American Homicide Rate Nearly Quadruple the National Average.” American Council on Science and Health, August 10, 2017. https://acsh.org/news/2017/08/10/african-american-homicide-rate-nearly-quadruple-national-average-11680

QuickStats: Age-Adjusted Rates for Homicides, by Race/Ethnicity, United States, 1999–2015. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2017;66:839. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6631a9External

Krivo, Lauren J., and Julie A. Phillips. “Social Fact: The Homicide Divide.” The Society Pages, August 2, 2013. https://thesocietypages.org/specials/sf-homicide-divide/

Crime in the U.S. FBI: UCR. FBI, July 15, 2010. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/

Sex trafficking, kidnapping, missing children and government experiments

“In 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice reported that 40 percent of all sex trafficking victims were Black.”

Davis, Joyce E. “Dirty Secret: Online Sex Trafficking of Black Girls [EBONY Special Report].” EBONY, January 27, 2015. https://ebony.com/news/dirty-secret-online-sex-trafficking-of-black-girls-987/

Gordon, Taylor. “5 Unethical Medical Experiments That Used Black People As Guinea Pigs.” Atlanta Black Star, December 2, 2014. https://atlantablackstar.com/2014/12/02/5-unethical-medical-experiments-that-used-black-people-as-guinea-pigs/

Staples, Marissa. “African American Human Trafficking Statistics Will Astound You!” The Voice of Black Cincinnati, March 20, 2019. https://thevoiceofblackcincinnati.com/african-american-human-trafficking/

Union, Gabrielle. “Gabrielle Union: How Gender And Racial Disparities In Human Trafficking Affect Women And Girls Of Color.” Essence, January 26, 2017. https://essence.com/culture/gabrielle-union-op-ed-human-trafficking-women-girls-color/

Investigation Discovery. “The Atlanta Child Murders | Six Theories.” YouTube, 2019. https://youtube.com/watch?v=rI8Xawx_KtE

* White (Includes Hispanic)

Missing Persons Statistics, Missing Minorities, Adults and Children. Black and Missing Foundation. Retrieved December 8, 2019. http://blackandmissinginc.com/cdad/stats.htm.

“Robert Lowery, who leads the center, told ABC News that roughly 800,000 Americans go missing each year.
‘About 60% of the reports that we see here in the U.S. that go in those databases are people of color,’ he said. ‘I think it really breaks a lot of commonly held thoughts on who are really the missing children in the U.S.’”

Brown, Jasmine, and Steve Osunsami. “Families of Missing Black Americans Fight for Media, Police to Focus on Their Loved Ones’ Cases.” ABC News, July 23, 2019. https://abcnews.go.com/US/families-missing-black-americans-fight-media-police-focus/story?id=64509892.

“Remarkably, black women who are 25 to 54 and not in jail outnumber black men in that category by 1.5 million, according to an Upshot analysis. For every 100 black women in this age group living outside of jail, there are only 83 black men. Among whites, the equivalent number is 99, nearly parity.”

Wolfers, Justin, David Leonhardt, and Kevin Quealy. “1.5 Million Missing Black Men.” The New York Times, April 20, 2015. https://nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/upshot/missing-black-men.html.

“According to the Census Bureau, there were 7.046 million black men 25 to 54 who were not incarcerated in 2010 and 8.503 million black women in this category. The difference between these two figures leads to our headline of 1.5 million missing black men.”

Wolfers, Justin, David Leonhardt, and Kevin Quealy. “The Methodology: 1.5 Million Missing Black Men.” The New York Times, April 20, 2015. https://nytimes.com/2015/04/21/upshot/the-methodology-1-5-million-missing-black-men.html.

Environmental impacts

“Statistics
…individuals who live close to noxious industrial facilities and waste sites were 66% more likely to be hospitalized for asthma. Significantly, these same individuals were 13% more likely to be people of color.
…more than half of the people who live within 1.86 miles of toxic waste facilities in the United States are people of color.
…11.2% of African American children… re poisoned by lead, compared with 2.3% of white children.
Three out of five African Americans live in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste sites.”

Kayla Reed “Environmental Justice.” NCCJ, May 30, 2018. https://nccj.org/environmental-justice

Reed, Kayla, Blake Strode, Amanda Colón-Smith, and Leah Clyburn. “Environmental Racism in St. Louis.” Environmental Clinic at Washington University School of Law, 2019. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6367937/2097-STL-EnvirRacism-Report-04-Web.pdf

Bullard, Robert & Mohai, Paul & Saha, Robin & Wright, Beverly. “Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: Why Race Still Matters After All of These Years.” Environmental Law (Northwestern School of Law) 38, January 2008. https://researchgate.net/publication/265109133_Toxic_Wastes_and_Race_at_Twenty_Why_Race_Still_Matters_After_All_of_These_Years

Medical and health impacts

“Diabetes is 60% more common in black Americans than in white Americans. Blacks are up to 2.5 times more likely to suffer a limb amputation and up to 5.6 times more likely to suffer kidney disease than other people with diabetes.
…three times more likely to die of asthma than white Americans.
Deaths from lung scarring …are 16 times more common among blacks than among whites.
…black men are 50% more likely than white men to get lung cancer.
Strokes kill 4 times more 35- to 54-year-old black Americans than white Americans. Blacks have nearly twice the first-time stroke risk of whites.
…develop high blood pressure earlier in life… than whites. Nearly 42% of black men and more than 45% of black women aged 20 and older have high blood pressure.
…black men have a 40% higher cancer death rate than white men. African-American women have a 20% higher cancer death rate than white women.”

DeNoon, Daniel J. “Why 7 Deadly Diseases Strike Blacks Most.” Retrieved from WebMD, November 16, 2019. https://webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/features/why-7-deadly-diseases-strike-blacks-most#1

Orsi, Jennifer M., Helen Margellos-Anast, and Steven Whitman. “Black–White Health Disparities in the United States and Chicago: A 15-Year Progress Analysis.” American Journal of Public Health 100, no. 2 (2010): 349–56. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2009.165407

“Research exploring historical trauma looks at how the trauma of these events is ‘embodied’ or held personally and passed down over generations, such that even family members who have not directly experienced the trauma can feel the effects of the events generations later (Walters et al., 2011). Individual trauma then becomes collective, as it affects a significant portion of the community and becomes compounded. Multiple historically traumatic events occur over generations and join an overarching legacy of assaults. The impact of these ongoing traumas has effects on a person’s brain and body, increasing their vulnerability to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other mental health disorders (Walters et al, 2011; Yehuda et al, 1998). This higher stress vulnerability may impair a person’s ability to cope effectively with current stressors as they arise.”

Andrasik, Michele. “Historical Trauma and the Health and Wellbeing of Communities of Color.” HIV Vaccine Trials Network. Accessed November 22, 2019. https://hvtn.org/en/community/community-compass/vol18-issue1/historical-trauma.html.

“Health Disparities Experienced by Black or African Americans–United States.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, January 14, 2005. https://cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5401a1.htm

“African Americans.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, October 4, 2016. https://cdc.gov/nchhstp/healthdisparities/africanamericans.html

“Black Americans: What Black Americans Need to Know About Heart Disease–You May Know That Heart Disease Is the #1 Killer in the United States. But Did You Know That the Risks Are Even Higher for Black Americans?” Close the Gap. Retrieved from Your Heart Health, Boston Scientific, November 16, 2019. https://your-heart-health.com/en-US/heart-disease-facts/black-americans.html

Carpenter, Zoë. “What’s Killing America’s Black Infants?” The Nation, February 15, 2017. https://thenation.com/article/whats-killing-americas-black-infants/

Social Programs, Identity Politics, Voting, Sub-Urbanization & Gentrification

Social programs negative impact on black families

Welfare

“American welfare policy historically targeted poor black families.”
…African-American children…four times as likely as white children to be in poverty.”
My research indicates that this didn’t happen by chance.”

Carten, Alma. “The Racist Roots of Welfare Reform.” The New Republic, August 22, 2016. https://newrepublic.com/article/136200/racist-roots-welfare-reform

“Nearly Half of Black Children Live with a Solo Mom.” Pew Research Center, April 26, 2018. https://pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/27/about-one-third-of-u-s-children-are-living-with-an-unmarried-parent/ft_18-04-11_unmarriedparents_race/

Bernstein, Nina. “Side Effect of Welfare Law: The No-Parent Family.” The New York Times, July 29, 2002. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/2002/07/29/159301.html?pageNumber=1

Moffitt, Robert A. “4, The Effect of Welfare on Marriage and Fertility.” Welfare, The Family, and Reproductive Behavior: Research Perspectives. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1998. https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK230345/

Child Support

“The percentage of Black children living in custodial parent families is just over 50%”

Parker, Wayne. 2017. “Key Facts About Child Support in America.” LiveAbout, March 2, 2017. https://liveabout.com/quick-facts-child-support-in-america-1270020

“‘Twenty percent of the people in this system shouldn’t be in there because they’re too poor,’ says David J. Pate…government, according to Pate, is owed $115 billion in child support, but 70% of that money is owed by Americans who make less than $10,000 a year.
…something can be done. A state can decide whether to award child support to the custodial parent or keep the money. If a mother is on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, he or she is not necessarily entitled to any or all of the child support paid by the non-custodial parent. That money goes to the government. Sitten says the money non-custodial parents pay does not go to the state unless a custodial parent was receiving TANF.
…activists like Turetsky insists it’s not that simple. ‘Jail is appropriate for someone who is actively hiding assets, not appropriate for someone who couldn’t pay the order in the first place,’
…problem with alternative-to-incarceration programs run by the state, Pate says, is that they are a conflict of interest. ‘It’s a government program,’ says Pate. The children, he says, aren’t generally the beneficiaries of child support. ‘They’re not getting the money—the government is.’
…Pate sees these programs are a band-aid, rather than attacking the real problem. ‘We need to think a lot more creatively about how we deal with race and poverty in America.’”

Meyerson, Collier. 2016. “How Our Racist Child Support Laws Hurt Poor, Black Fathers the Most.” Splinter. August 10, 2016. https://splinternews.com/how-our-racist-child-support-laws-hurt-poor-black-fath-1793861034

Child Protective Services

“…research has documented the overrepresentation of… African-Americans… Additionally, numerous studies have shown that racial disparities occur at various, decision points in the child welfare continuum…”

“Racial Disproportionality and Disparity in Child Welfare.” Child Welfare Information Gateway. US Department of Health & Human Services: Children’s Bureau, November 2016, https://childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/racial_disproportionality.pdf

Redleaf, Diane. 2019. “After the Hotline Call: It’s Too Easy for Innocent Parents to Get Caught up in the Child-Protection System, and Too Difficult to Then Get out Unscathed.” The Atlantic, January 27, 2019. https://theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/problem-child-protective-services/580771/

Roberts, Dorothy, and Lisa Sangoi. 2018. “Black Families Matter: How the Child Welfare System Punishes Poor Families of Color.” The Appeal. March 26, 2018. https://theappeal.org/black-families-matter-how-the-child-welfare-system-punishes-poor-families-of-color-33ad20e2882e/

Identity Politics

“Political domestication and political illiteracy play a major role in this ongoing debacle. Token and opportunistic Negroes are used to draw in the African/black vote. Once drawn in, these voters are contained through an endless stream of hollow promises, to keep them locked in the two-party electoral game. The election of Barack Obama was a perfect example – one of the Democratic Party’s most successful experiments.”

Comissiong, Solomon. “The Dangerous Game of Identity Politics: How the Black Community Continues to Vote Against Their Interests.” Black Agenda Report, December 16, 2015. https://blackagendareport.com/black_identity_politics

“Even 44% of Democrats agree that their party ‘is pickled in identity politics and victimology.’”

“51% See Democrats as Party of ‘Identity Politics and Victimology.’” Rasmussen Reports, June 25, 2018. http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/june_2018/51_see_democrats_as_party_of_identity_politics_and_victimology

Kumar, Rashmee. “How Identity Politics Has Divided the Left: An Interview With Asad Haider.” The Intercept, May 27, 2018. https://theintercept.com/2018/05/27/identity-politics-book-asad-haider/

Immigration

“Among its findings, the Commission notes that the illegal workers are estimated to account for as much as one-third of total immigrants in the United States, and that illegal immigration has tended to increase the supply of low-skilled, low-wage labor available. The Commission found also that about six in 10 adult black males have a high school diploma or less, and are disproportionately employed in the low-skilled labor market in likely competition with immigrants. Evidence for negative effects of such competition ranged from modest to significant, according to the experts who testified, but even those experts who viewed the effects as modest overall found significant effects in occupations such as meatpacking and construction.”

“The impact of illegal immigration on the wages and employment opportunities of black workers: A briefing.” United States Commission of Civil Rights, 2010. https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1756&context=key_workplace

Gun Control

See mass incarceration; US Constitution.

Abortion

“In America today, the average black woman is almost five times more likely to have an abortion than the average white woman…even if we control for pregnancy, black babies are still more than three times more likely to be aborted than their white counterparts.”

Abort 73. Abortion and Race. Abort73.Com / Abortion Unfiltered, 2018, https://abort73.com/abortion/abortion_and_race/

“Induced abortion is the leading cause of death in the United States and accounts for a disturbing 61 percent of deaths of African Americans.”

Williams, Thomas D. “Report: Abortion Accounts for 61% of Black Deaths in America.” Breitbart, 4 Aug. 2018, https://breitbart.com/politics/2018/08/04/report-abortion-accounts-for-61-of-black-deaths-in-america/

Studnicki, James, et al. Induced Abortion, Mortality, and the Conduct of Science. Open Journal of Preventive Medicine, Scientific Research Publishing, June 13, 2016, https://scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=67433

Suburbanization

Capps, Kriston. “How the Federal Government Built White Suburbia.” CityLab, September 2, 2015. https://citylab.com/equity/2015/09/how-the-federal-government-built-white-suburbia/403321/

Zuegel, Devon Marisa. “How We Subsidize Suburbia.” The American Conservative, October 20, 2017. https://theamericanconservative.com/urbs/we-have-always-subsidized-suburbia/

Gentrification

“Gentrification–the displacement of Black and brown urban residents by more affluent whites–is a function of the same forces that emptied the cities of much of their white populations, generations ago: the movement of capital. Capital wants the cities back, and clears spaces for whites.”

Kimberley, Margaret. “Gentrification and the Death of Black Communities.” Common Dreams, May 29, 2015. https://commondreams.org/views/2015/05/29/gentrification-and-death-black-communities

Anti-black propaganda and media

Donaldson, Leigh. “When the Media Misrepresents Black Men, the Effects Are Felt in the Real World.” The Guardian, August 12, 2015. https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/12/media-misrepresents-black-men-effects-felt-real-world

Jardim, Suzane. “Recognizing Racist Stereotypes in U.S. Media.” Medium, July 26, 2016. https://medium.com/@suzanejardim/reconhecendo-esteriótipos-racistas-internacionais-b00f80861fc9

Staff, Hatewatch. “The Biggest Lie in the White Supremacist Propaganda Playbook: Unraveling the Truth About ‘Black-on-White Crime’.” Southern Poverty Law Center, June 14, 2018. https://splcenter.org/20180614/biggest-lie-white-supremacist-propaganda-playbook-unraveling-truth-about-‘black-white-crime.

“Media Representations and Impact on the Lives of Black Men and Boys.” The Opportunity Agenda, October 2011. https://racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/Media-Impact-onLives-of-Black-Men-and-Boys-OppAgenda.pdf

Voting

Barton, David. “The History of Black Voting Rights.” Retrieved from Free Republic, February 5, 2004. http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1072053/posts

Soffen, Kim. “How Racial Gerrymandering Deprives Black People of Political Power.” The Washington Post, June 9, 2016. https://washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/09/how-a-widespread-practice-to-politically-empower-african-americans-might-actually-harm-them/.

Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013)

Liss-Schultz, Nina. “Millions of Americans Don’t Have the Right to Vote Because of Felony Convictions.” Mother Jones, June 24, 2017. https://motherjones.com/crime-justice/2014/02/felony-convictions-voting-rights-black-american-african-disenfranchisement/.

“The 2020 census will once again count incarcerated people, most of whom do not have the right to vote, as residents of the communities in which they are imprisoned rather than as residents of their home communities — a practice known as “prison gerrymandering.” This gives an advantage in representation to communities where prisons are located.”

Paschal, Olivia. “Prison Gerrymandering’ Could Inflate Population Counts During 2020 Census.” Truthout, November 25, 2019. https://truthout.org/articles/prison-gerrymandering-could-inflate-population-counts-during-2020-census/.

US Laws, Legislations, Documents, Lawsuits & the Courts

Declaration of Independence

“…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”

Jefferson, Thomas. “Declaration of Independence.” 1776. Retrieved from Constitution Society, November 25, 2019. https://constitution.org/us_doi.pdf

Constitution

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction (Amend. XIII, § 1).”

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws (Amend. XIV, § 1).”

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude (Amend. XV, § 1).”

“The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation (Amend. XIII-XV, Various Sections).”

“US Constitution.” Various Sections. 1787- . Retrieved from National Constitution Center, November 25, 2019. https://constitutioncenter.org/media/files/constitution.pdf

Emancipation Proclamation

“…all persons held as slaves within any State..shall be then, thenceforward, and forever, free…”

Lincoln, Abraham. “Emancipation Proclamation.” 1862. Retrieved from National Constitution Center, November 25, 2019. https://constitutioncenter.org/media/files/ep_miniposter.pdf

Civil Rights Legislation & Supreme Court

House of Representatives , United States. “Constitutional Amendments and Major Civil Rights Acts of Congress Referenced in Black Americans in Congress.” Retrieved from History, Art & Archives, 2019, https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-Data/Constitutional-Amendments-and-Legislation/

“List of landmark African-American legislation.” Wikipedia, November 9, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landmark_African-American_legislation

Head, Tom. “These Are the 10 Most Racist Supreme Court Rulings in US History.” ThoughtCo, June 21, 2019. https://thoughtco.com/racist-supreme-court-rulings-721615

“List of Landmark African-American Legislation.” Wikipedia, September 3, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landmark_African-American_legislation#Federal_court_and_court_decisions

(NAACP), “APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II.” Appeal to the World. 1947. Retrieved from Internet Archive, https://ia800601.us.archive.org/9/items/NAACP-Appeal-to-the-World/appeal_to_the_world.pdf

Also, see above under Civil Rights Legislation including following:

42 U.S. Code § 1985 (or 1981-);
18 U.S. Code § 1091;
18 U.S. Code § 241;
etc.

Lawsuits

“A powerful group of civil rights and class-action lawyers who have won billions of dollars in court is preparing a lawsuit seeking reparations for American blacks descended from slaves.
The project, called the Reparations Assessment Group, was confirmed by Harvard law professor Charles J. Ogletree and appears to be the most serious effort yet to get American blacks compensated for more than 240 years of legalized slavery. Lawsuits and legislation dating back to the mid-1800s have gone nowhere.
…
Ogletree said the group, which includes famed attorney Johnnie Cochran, first met in July and will hold its fourth meeting in Washington D.C. later this month.”

Shepard, Paul. “Lawyers Plan Slave Reparations Suit .” The Washington Post, November 4, 2000. https://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20001104/aponline231414_000.htm.

DeClamecy, Dree, Stan Wilson, and Eric Philips . “Famed Attorney Johnnie Cochran Dead.” CNN, March 30, 2005. https://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/29/cochran.obit/.

“On Tuesday, May 22, 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States docketed a petition filed by Deadria Farmer-Paellmann — the descendant of Africans enslaved in South Carolina — asking the Court to hear a case against 17 major financial institutions for their role in financing, underwriting and supporting slavery. At issue is whether statues of limitations should be tolled to permit slave descendants to bring actions for restitution against the corporations that allegedly earned profits enslaving Africans in violation of Northern antislavery laws. The case is entitled, Farmer-Paellmann v. Brown & Williamson, No. 06-1533. The defendants in the action include: FleetBoston Financial Corporation, Aetna Inc., JP Morgan Chase Manhattan Bank, New York Life Insurance Co., Lehman Bros, AIG, and Brown Brothers Harriman.”

Redd, Rea Andrew. “Slave Descendant Takes Reparations Case to United States Supreme Court.” Civil War Librarian , October 5, 2007. https://civilwarlibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/10/slave-descendant-takes-reparations-case.html.

“The Supreme Court denied the plaintiffs’ petition in October 2007, declining to hear the case.”

“Slavery Reparations Lawsuit (Re USA).” Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, February 18, 2014. https://business-humanrights.org/en/slavery-reparations-lawsuit-re-usa.

Deadria Farmer-Paellman v. Brown & Williamson, et al, 128 S.Ct. 92 (2007).

“Slave Reparations Case Oral Arguments.” C-SPAN, September 27, 2006. https://c-span.org/video/?194842-1/slave-reparations-case-oral-arguments

Re African-American Slave Descendants Litigation, 471 F.3d 754 (2006).

Cato v. United States, 70 F.3d 1103 (9th Cir. 1995); Leeke v. Timmerman, 454 U.S. 83 (1981)

International Law, , Petitions, Genocide, Apartheid, Colonization & the UN

Historic petitions of black Americans to UN

We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro People:

Patterson, William L. We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro People. Civil Rights Congress, 1951. International Publishers, 1970. Retrieved from Internet Archive, https://ia801206.us.archive.org/18/items/We-Charge-Genocide-1970/We-Charge-Genocide-1970.pdf

A Petition to the United Nations on Behalf of 13 Million Oppressed Negro Citizens of the United States of America:

(NNC), National Negro Congress. National Negro Congress Petition To the United Nations: A Petition to the United Nations on Behalf of 13 Million Oppressed Negro Citizens of the United States of America. June 6, 1946. Retrieved from Internet Archive, https://ia800803.us.archive.org/4/items/NNC-Petition-UN-1946/NNC-Petition-UN-1946.pdf

Appeal to the World: A Statement on the Denial of Human Rights to Minorities in the Case of Citizens of Negro Descent in the United States of America and an Appeal to the United Nations for Redress:

(NAACP), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Appeal to the World: A Statement on the Denial of Human Rights to Minorities in the Case of Citizens of Negro Descent in the United States of America and an Appeal to the United Nations for Redress. 1947. Retrieved from Internet Archive, https://ia800601.us.archive.org/9/items/NAACP-Appeal-to-the-World/appeal_to_the_world.pdf

Malcolm X and UN:

“All the nations that signed the charter of the UN came up with the Declaration of Human Rights and anyone who classifies his grievances under the label of ‘human rights’ violations, those grievances can then be brought into the United Nations and be discussed by people all over the world. …
So one of the first steps that we became involved in, those of us who got into the Organization of Afro American Unity, was to come up with a program that would make our grievances international and make the world see that our problem was no longer a Negro problem or an American problem but a human problem. A problem for humanity and a problem which should be attacked by all elements of humanity. A problem that was so complex that it was impossible for Uncle Sam to solve it himself and therefore we want to get into a body or conference with people who are in such positions that they can help us get some kind of adjustment for this situation before it gets so explosive that no one can handle it.”

“Not Just an American Problem, But a World Problem .” Speech by Malcolm X, February 16, 1965. Retrieved from Malcolm X Files Blogspot, 2019. http://malcolmxfiles.blogspot.com/2013/07/not-just-american-problem-but-world.html

International Treaties, Conventions, Covenants & Procedures

Genocide Convention

ARTICLE 1.

The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.

ARTICLE 2.

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy,
in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

ARTICLE 3.

The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.

UN. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. 1948. Retrieved from UN Treaty Collection, November 25, 2019. https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1951/01/19510112%2008-12%20PM/Ch_IV_1p.pdf

Covenant on Civil & Political Rights

UN. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 1966. Retrieved from UN Treaty Collection, November 25, 2019. https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1976/03/19760323%2006-17%20AM/Ch_IV_04.pdf

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

UN. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. 1966. Retrieved from UN Treaty Collection, November 25, 2019. https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1969/03/19690312%2008-49%20AM/Ch_IV_2p.pdf

Remaining UN documents not contained in outline or above available online at:
https://treaties.un.org/Pages/CTCTreaties.aspx?id=4&subid=A

Human Rights Council Procedures and FAQ:
https://ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/ComplaintProcedure/Pages/FAQ.aspx

World Conference Against Racism, Durban 2001:

“We acknowledge that slavery and the slave trade, including the transatlantic slave trade, were appalling tragedies in the history of humanity not only because of their abhorrent barbarism but also in terms of their magnitude, organized nature and especially their negation of the essence of the victims, and further acknowledge that slavery and the slave trade are a crime against humanity and should always have been so, especially the transatlantic slave trade and are among the major sources and manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, and that Africans and people of African descent, Asians and people of Asian descent and indigenous peoples were victims of these acts and continue to be victims of their consequences (p. 6)”

UN. World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. 2001. https://un.org/en/durbanreview2009/pdf/DDPA_full_text.pdf

Colonization, its expression in forms of violence and disregard for black lives: segregation, genocide and other violations of human rights; and the UN’s acknowledged duty to prevent such acts and reoccurrences as those that those of African descent have been continuously and are presently suffering in the US.

“We recognize that colonialism has led to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, and that Africans and people of African descent, and people of Asian descent and indigenous peoples were victims of colonialism and continue to be victims of its consequences. We acknowledge the suffering caused by colonialism and affirm that, wherever and whenever it occurred, it must be condemned and its reoccurrence prevented. …

We recognize that apartheid and genocide in terms of international law constitute crimes against humanity and are major sources and manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, and acknowledge the untold evil and suffering caused by these acts and affirm that wherever and whenever they occurred, they must be condemned and their recurrence prevented (p. 7)”

“We acknowledge and profoundly regret the massive human suffering and the tragic plight of millions of men, women and children caused by slavery, the slave trade, the transatlantic slave trade, apartheid, colonialism and genocide, and call upon States concerned to honour the memory of the victims of past tragedies and affirm that, wherever and whenever these occurred, they must be condemned and their recurrence prevented. … (p. 17).”

UN. World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. 2001. https://un.org/en/durbanreview2009/pdf/DDPA_full_text.pdf

“…on the individual level, on the plane of human rights, what is fascism if not colonialism when rooted in a traditionally colonialist country? (p. 48)”

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. 1963. Grove Press, New York, 2004. Retrieved from Internet Archive, 2019. https://archive.org/details/WretchedOfTheEarthFrantzOmarFanon/page/n55

Relevant arguments were made in a supplementary report that provided a legal analysis of genocide with regard to the inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in Canada. It covers state responsibility and specific intent with regard to colonialism and genocide, as well as systemic and structural violence that has taken place over extremely prolonged periods of time (centuries).

“Supplementary Report: A Legal Analysis of Genocide.” National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, 2019. https://mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Supplementary-Report_Genocide.pdf

Sources of Nazi and South Africa ideas and relations to US

Relates through use of laws; ideas about race and supremacy; racial terrorism, mass violence and murder; use of paramilitary forces to take over; anti-communism; support by big business; ideas about colonization; etc.

“…an array of evidence to support the likelihood ‘that the Nuremberg Laws themselves reflect direct American influence.’ … No other country, not even South Africa, possessed a comparably developed set of relevant laws.
…
…‘smoking gun’ is the transcript of June 5, 1934, conference of leading German lawyers gathered to exchange ideas about how best to operationalize a racist regime. …the most extreme…were especially drawn to American legal codes based on white supremacy.”

Katznelson, Ira. “What America Taught the Nazis.” The Atlantic, October 3, 2017. https://theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/what-america-taught-the-nazis/540630/.

Pauwels, Jacques R. “Profits Über Alles! American Corporations and Hitler.” Global Research, June 7, 2019. https://globalresearch.ca/profits-ber-alles-american-corporations-and-hitler/4607?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles.

Blog, Washington’s. “Secret History: The U.S. Supported and Inspired the Nazis.” Global Research, March 26, 2018. https://globalresearch.ca/secret-history-the-u-s-supported-and-inspired-the-nazis/5439236?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles.

Black, Edwin. “Eugenics and the Nazis — the California Connection.” SFGate, January 15, 2012. https://sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the-Nazis-the-California-2549771.php.

Stoddard, Lothrop. The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under Man. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922. Retrieved from Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/revoltagainstciv00stoduoft/page/n7

Hotz, H, and JC Nott. The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races. Philadelphia, JB Lippincott & Co., 1856. Retrieved from Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/moralintellectua00gobi_1/page/n8

Evrie, JH Van. White Supremacy and Negro Subordination. New York, Van Evrie, Horton & Co., 1868. Retrieved from Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/whitesupremacyne00vane/page/n6

“Gerald Horne – US Was Model for South African Apartheid.” Black Agenda Radio Commentaries. SoundCloud. Retrieved December 6, 2019. https://soundcloud.com/user-887995524-149532189/us-was-model-for-south-african-apartheid.

Failure to ratify UN treaty on genocide; on question of guilt

“Ultimately, the question is whether such discrimination and violence constitutes genocide, However contentious this question may seem, the US government has essentially already answered it. Although president Harry Truman endorsed the UN Genocide Convention in 1948, the US Senate withheld ratification until the late 1980s. Among the central concerns raised by senators during the nearly 40 intervening years prior to ratification and implementation was the potential liability that could be incurred by the US government for its polices against African Americans. As early as 1950, the US Senate registered concerns that the Genocide Convention could be used as a tool to advance the civil rights struggle of African Americans (LeBlanc, 1991, p. 236). Senators, such as Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond, along with lobby groups, such as the Liberty Lobby and Eagle Forum, subsequently warned that ratification could lead to prosecutions of American citizens participating in lynchings and that government itself could be held accountable for committing genocide against African Americans (LeBlanc, 1991, p. 236; Right Wing Watch, 2010). These opponents repeatedly claimed that ratification would threaten Jim Crow laws and undermine states’ rights. When the Senate finally voted in 1986 to ratify the treaty, it was with addition of various ‘reservations’ and ‘understandings’ that immunized America’s racial policies toward African Americans. These reservations allowed the United States to exempt itself from the World Court jurisdiction in any genocide cases that might be filed by victims of Jim Crow policies (LeBlanc, 1991; Tumulty, 1986). These ‘understandings’ specifically included an interpretation of genocide that would not include ‘lynchings, race riots or any form of segregation’ (Cooper, 2008, p. 4; Power, 2002, p. 68).”

Cooper, Allan D. “From Slavery to Genocide: The Fallacy of Debt in Reparations Discourse.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 43, no. 2, 2012, pp. 107–126. JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/23215202

Report of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent on its mission to the United States of America

“9. Despite substantial changes since the end of the enforcement of Jim Crow and the fight for civil rights, a systemic ideology of racism ensuring the domination of one group over another continues to impact negatively on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of African Americans today (p. 4).”

“68. Despite the positive measures, the Working Group remains extremely concerned about the human rights situation of African Americans. In particular, the legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge, as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent. Contemporary police killings and the trauma that they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching. Impunity for State violence has resulted in the current human rights crisis and must be addressed as a matter of urgency (p. 16).”

“94. The Working Group encourages Congress to pass H.R. 40 — the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act — which would establish a commission to examine enslavement and racial discrimination in the colonies and the United States from 1619 to the present and to recommend appropriate remedies. The Working Group urges the United States to consider seriously applying analogous elements contained in the Caribbean Community’s Ten-Point Action Plan on Reparations, which includes a formal apology, health initiatives, educational opportunities, an African knowledge programme, psychological rehabilitation, technology transfer and financial support, and debt cancellation (p. 20).”

Council, Human Rights. Report of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent on its mission to the United States of America. Thirty-third session. Agenda item 9. Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance, follow-up to and implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. August 18, 2016. Retrieved from Center for Constitutional Rights, November 25, 2019. https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/09/UNWGEPAD_FinalReport_20160915.pdf

Reparations & Movements for Reparations

Cost of reparations, article

“When totaling Marketti’s estimates along with restitution costs for racial injustice since the end of slavery, reparations could range from $9 to $17.1 trillion.”

Myers, Kristin. “Slavery Reparations Could Carry a $17 Trillion Price Tag.” Yahoo! Finance. Yahoo!, June 27, 2019. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/40-acres-and-a-mule-reparations-in-2019-190018747.html

Close wealth disparity

Darity, William. “The Case For Reparations.” The Crisis, September, 2019. https://thecrisismagazine.com/single-post/2019/09/09/The-Case-For-Reparations

American Descendants of Slavery

Moore, Antonio, and Yvette Carnell . The Roadmap to Reparations. #ADOS, 2019, https://ados101.com/roadmap-to-reparations

Moore, Antonio, and Yvette Carnell. Black Agenda. #ADOS, 2019, https://ados101.com/black-agenda

Dr. Claud Anderson

Anderson, Claud. PowerNomics: The National Plan to Empower Black America. PowerNomics Corp. of America, 2001.

Anderson, Claud. A Black History Reader: 101 Questions You Never Thought to Ask. PowerNomics, 2017.

Anderson, Claud. Black Labor, White Wealth: the Search for Power and Economic Justice. Duncan Et Duncan, 1994.

Anderson, Claud. Articles, 2019, https://harvestinstitute.org/Articles.html

Caribbean Community’s Ten-Point Action Plan on Reparations

Reparations Commission, Caricom. “10-Point Reparation Plan.” Caribbean Reparations Commission, 2013. Retrieved from Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies, 9, no.5, August 2016, https://jpanafrican.org/docs/vol9no5/9.5-13-TenPoint.pdf

N’COBRA on reparations

National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America. “HR 40 Primer Seize The Time.” Retrieved from Ncobra Online, 2018, https://ncobraonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/HR40-Primer-1.pdf

NAARC on reparations

National African American Reparations Commission. “Preliminary Reparations Program: A Document for Review, Revision and Adoption as a platform to Guide the Struggle for Reparations for People of African Descent in the US.” Retrieved from Institute of the Black World 21st Century, 2017, https://ibw21.org/docs/naarc/NAARC_Preliminary_Reparations_Program.pdf

HR 40 Bill

“Since 1989, Conyers’…has repeatedly introduced–HR. 40–a bill that would establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery in the U.S. and its early colonies, and recommend appropriate remedies.”

Owens, Donna. “Veteran Congressman Still Pushing for Reparations in a Divided America.” NBCNews.com, February 20, 2017. https://nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/rep-john-conyers-still-pushing-reparations-divided-america-n723151.