IS “RACISM” A PRODUCT OF FACTIONALISM?
by Dr. Thomas E. Davis, Col., USA (Ret.), ©2016
(May 18, 2016) — This piece is not intended to be a dissertation on civil rights. However, this nation has had to deal with the problem of slavery since 1619.
History records that on one day in late summer of 1619, a single Dutch ship came up the James River and dropped anchor near the Jamestown colony. The only cargo was some 15 to 20 black Africans which the ship’s captain had wanted to sell. Had the colonists not decided to give these poor souls shelter, they would likely have been taken out into the Atlantic and thrown overboard, as was the practice of the day.
The question arises: were these people really slaves or indentured servants? In any event, the colonists took them into their settlements, if for no other reason than that it was the humane thing to do.
The practice of slavery gained a foothold in the New World. For 250 years, slavery was a bone of contention between the Northern and Southern colonies. By act of Congress, the African slave trade was banned on March 2, 1807 and became effective January 1, 1808. [For more information, see Ledbetter, Mark David (2010-04-12), America’s Forgotten History, Part 1: Foundations (Kindle Locations 587-588). Mark David Ledbetter. Kindle Edition.]
The Southern colonies were not industrialized, as was the North. The South was purely agrarian, its main crop being tobacco, which was highly labor-intensive. They relied entirely on slave labor to farm their lands and harvest the tobacco crops. Many landholders were extremely kind to their slaves and saw nothing wrong with the practice. Some landholders made efforts to educate the children of the slaves and to keep families together; others took no humane interest in these unfortunate people.
Cotton ultimately became the crop of choice in the South, and when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin to remove the seeds, the Southern landowners became extremely prosperous and were able to afford more slaves. The practice of slavery ultimately led to the Civil War, brother against brother, father against son and son against father.
Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not end the slavery problem. Lincoln was not a vindictive man. He was willing to forgive and forget; however, Southern Democrats were determined to keep slaves in order to work their lands. Andrew Johnson, himself the Democrat from Tennessee and Lincoln’s vice-president, attempted to carry out Lincoln’s reconstruction program. Because the Southern Democrats saw Johnson as a traitor to the Southern cause, they sought his impeachment, which came within one vote of success.
The XVth Amendment was ratified on February 3, 1870, giving black males the right to vote. However the Southern Democrats made sure that these new voters voted precisely as they were told. Any deviation by a black voter or a white dissident was dealt with harshly, either by a severe whipping or by hanging.
In December 1865, the Ku Klux Klan began innocuously, founded by six Confederate veterans as a social club. The social club evolved into the enforcement arm for the Southern Democrats to convince black voters of the proper way to vote. The Ku Klux Klan not only terrorized black voters, but also others who disagreed with them. They became so powerful and brutal that ultimately, in 1878, they were disbanded, not to reappear again until 1915.
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/kkk.htm
Racism is still alive and ever so active, particularly among black Democrats Charles Rangel, Sheila Jackson Lee, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Elijah Cummings, Keith Ellison and others. All of the aforementioned, with the exception of Sharpton, are members of Congress who find it necessary to have their own caucus, which this writer opines is just another needless faction.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/dgreenfield/sheila-jackson-lee-racist-and-moron/
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/03/19/Charlie-Rangel-The-Tea-Party-Are-Mean-Racists-Decedents-of-Slave-Owners
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