Of Times and Race: Essays Inspired by John F. Marszalek

8. Confronting Race in American History

147 8. CONFRONTING RACE IN AMERICAN HISTORY edna greene medford in the acclaimed 1903 collection of essays, the souls of black Folk, the eminent African American scholar W. E. B. Du Bois suggested that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.”1 The pronouncement should have surprised no one; it was not as if some new condition had befallen black people. Du Bois was simply acknowledging an immutable fact: the influence of race in American history. The “problem” was a long-standing one; it predated the nation’s founding and grew in complexity with shifting economic and political currents. As Du Bois recognized, the great challenge of America was (and still is) its struggle to reconcile the promise of its founding principles with the seemingly irreconcilable realities of race. Of course, even in a homogeneous society, certain groups experience exclusion and discrimination (as in the case of the Harijan or Dalit population—the so-called untouchables —in India or the Hmong people in Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia).While the United States has avoided such caste-based distinctions , racial differences have been an especially vexing problem for the nation. It was so almost from the very beginning of European settlement. Race surfaced as a central factor in America’s history as a consequence of the presence of three supposedly distinct racial groups on the North American continent. Although the white majority was ethnically diverse, a population of primarily English origin was able to impose its cultural and institutional will on the rest. European economic interests and racial/ cultural biases precluded a similar assimilation of minorities of color. An unrelenting quest for Native Americans’ lands, and the decision to exploit African labor to cultivate it, encouraged the creation of a national identity founded on whiteness.2 edna greene medford 148 In order to achieve a homogeneous society, nonwhites were excluded from the body politic.3 In the case of Native peoples, the task was fairly easily accomplished. They were declared members of “sovereign” nations, treaties advantageous to Europeans were signed, and disagreements that could not be resolved through negotiation were settled through wars. The outcome of such conflicts generally involved the Native peoples ceding their valuable lands. Eventually, confinement on reservations physically removed them to the periphery of American society while making them wards of the federal government. The African presence created a different, thornier problem. Indispensable as laborers, they necessitated a system that would keep them subordinate without compromising American ideals. Slavery offered a powerful and seemingly sustainable solution. It ensured that most Africans and their descendants would be perpetually “bound to service.” By classifying black men and women as property, white Americans were able to deny them legal standing in the society and prevent them from enjoying the rights and privileges most Americans took for granted. The free born and the freed would be treated similarly. African Americans, even free blacks, were seen as “a species apart” and possessing, in the words of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in the United States Supreme Court decision Scott v. Sandford, “no rights which white men were bound to respect.”4 Legislation circumscribed many aspects of their lives; in its absence, custom kept black people segregated, impoverished, socially ostracized, and politically impotent. When conflict over the expansion of slavery divided the nation and erupted into war in 1861, black men stood at the ready to preserve national union and win their freedom. Congress and President Lincoln declined their offer, insisting that this was a white man’s war. But as the conflict dragged on, the president realized the necessity of emancipating the Confederacy’s enslaved population and arming it. For the rest of the war, black men served honorably, despite disparate treatment and concerns that they would be unable to confront white men on the battlefield.5 For a fleeting moment after emancipation and Union victory, black men and women looked forward to the promise of a new beginning in which the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would apply equally to them. The Reconstruction amendments granted them citizenship and the right to vote. Through self-help, philanthropy, and federal government assistance (in the form of the Freedmen’s Bureau), Confronting Race in American History 149 African Americans seized the opportunity to educate themselves and their children. They acquired land for farming...