Race, Power & Equality Poli 110J 8.1 the shadow of fear ever hung.

Race, Power & EqualityPoli 110J 8.1

“the shadow of fear ever hung”

The Role of the Church

• “given the peculiar circumstances of the black man’s environment [his religious institutions] were the one expression of his higher life.” (130)– Aesthetic– Spiritual– Philosophical– Economic & social

• “Three things characterize the religion of the slave” from which the black church descends– The Preacher– The Music– The Frenzy

The Preacher

• “A leader, a politician, an orator, a ‘boss’, an intriguer, an idealist.” (129)

• Descended from the Medicine Man/Priest– The chief could not survive enslavement, but the

Priest could

• Christianized by exposure & convenience• Center of the church organization

The Music

• “The most original and beautiful expression of human life and longing yet born on American soil” (129)

• “The articulate message of the slave to the world” (169)

• “a faith in the ultimate justice of things” (175)• “Of death the Negro showed little fear, but

talked of it familiarly and even fondly” (173)

The Music

• “They tell us in these eager days that life was joyous to the black slave, careless and happy…” But these songs are “the music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment, they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world…” (169)

The Frenzy

• “When the Spirit of the Lord passed by, and, seizing the devotee, made him mad with supernatural joy” (129)

• “Old as religion, as Delphi and Endor”• “Many generations firmly believed that

without this visible manifestation of the God there could be no true communion with the invisible.” (130)

Du Bois on the church

• The church is historically the core institution of black society in America– It predates even the mongamic black household– It remains the center of black society and

economy– It is also the ethical and political center of black

communities

Problems

• Historically, especially in the South, the church has served not to undermine but to reinforce the oppression of blacks

• “Nothing suited [the slave’s] condition better than the doctrines of passive submission embodied in the newly learned Christianity”

• Deep religious fatalism– “Children we shall all be free/When the Lord shall

appear!” (134-135)

Problems

• Transformation of the African into the slave– “Courtesy became humility, moral strength

degenerated into submission, and the exquisite native appreciation of the beautiful became an infinite capacity for dumb suffering.”

– Losing faith in this world, the slave looked to the next

– Marxist criticism of class & religion as applied to race

The Enslaving Power of Ideas

• Example: “The Coming of John”– John is happy in Altamaha, plays with the Judge’s

boy• “One never sees in the North such cordial and and

intimate relations between white and black as are everyday occurrences with us [Southerners].” (158)

– Goes away to school, sees wider world, advances himself.

– Now wants to be addressed not by his first name, but as Mister.

The Enslaving Power of Ideas

• On return to Altamaha, is denounced by others as “stuck up.”

• In church, when he argues that church & sectarian concerns should be replaced in black life with a focus on unity, on racial and social issues, he is “held up to scorn and scathing denunciation for trampling on the true Religion.” (161)

The Enslaving Power of Ideas

• Thus for Du Bois the structure & beliefs of black society, especially in the South, are complicit in the oppression of black people

• As in Marcuse, even though the beliefs and desires are sincere, the are tools of the oppressing group– Consider the Judge: “I like the colored people, and

sympathize with all their reasonable aspirations, but you and I both know, John, that in this country the Negro must remain subordinate.” (162)

Transcending the Veil

• Through Truth– “I sit with Shakespeare and he flinches not”– How does work out for John?• One cannot remain in the world of Truth, the world of

Fact must at some point be reckoned with.

Transcending the Veil

• In Death– John– Burghardt Gomer Du Bois: 1897-1899

• Died of diphtheria in Atlanta, could have been saved.• “He knew no color-line, poor dear, and the Veil, though it

shadowed him, had not yet darkened half his sun.”• “Not dead, not dead, but escaped; not bond, but free.”• “Well sped, my boy, before the world had dubbed your

ambition insolence, had held your ideals unattainable, and taught you to cringe and bow. Better far this nameless void that stops my life than a sea of sorrow for you.”

Transcending the Veil

• “Sleep, then, child,--sleep till I sleep and waken to a baby voice and the ceaseless patter of little feet—above the Veil.”

• “I shall die in my bonds.”– Behind the Veil, life is a chain– Despite the death of his son, Du Bois asks only

that he and his people be treated as human beings, having access to the same world as whites. He lives in the hope that blacks and whites will one day be able to live in equality.

Emmet Till, 1941-1955

Emmet Till

• Born in Chicago, visiting family (sharecroppers)in Money, Mississippi.

• Mamie Carthan Till, mother, was worried that Emmet would not understand the differences between Chicago and the Mississippi Delta– “Mind your manners.”– Tensions on the rise after Brown v. Board of

Education (1954)– The permanent awareness of existing within an

actively hostile majority

Emmet Till

• Facts uncertain• At local grocery store, Till probably dared by

friends to flirt with Carolyn Bryant, a 21 year-old white woman.– Whistled? (most probable)– Grabbed hand, asked for date?– Said, “Bye, baby.” on leaving?

Emmet Till

• One of friends runs off to tell Emmet’s cousin, Wheeler Parker, Jr.– Advised to get away fast– Parker on Till: “"He loved pranks, he loved fun, he

loved jokes... in Mississippi, people didn't think the same jokes were funny." “

– All Delta natives know what can happen• The permanent threat of violence is a fact of life

Emmet Till

• Word spreads quickly among town’s whites• Bryant’s husband vows to “teach the boy a

lesson”• At 12:30am, the Bryants & two other men

drive to house of Rev. Wright, where Till was staying, take him away in the back of a pickup

Emmet Till

• Taken to a shed• Beaten, skull fractured• Eye gouged out• Shot in the head• Wrapped in barded wire, bound to 70 lb.

cotton gin fan, dumped in rive

Emmet Till

• Mother demanded open casket funeral

Emmet Till

• NAACP leader Medgar Evars arrives to help investigate in face of police indifference• Murdered in Mississippi, June 12, 1963 by rifle shot to the

head

• At trial, positive identification of jurors, other black witnesses not even called

• All white jury acquits Bryants, others, in 67 minutes– "If we hadn't stopped to drink pop, it wouldn't

have taken us too long.”

Emmet Till

• After trial, Bryant admits to murder– Wanted to scare Till by pistol whipping, but Till

remained defiant. Seeing lack of fear, Bryant determined to make an example of him.