History Lesson Learned

A resolution was presented to the 232nd convention of the Episcopal Dioceses of Maryland calling the Church to pay reparations for participating in slavery. For some people, the mere mention of the word reparations brings a visceral response and it is clear that this is a touchy subject. At that time, I was not a fan of reparations. I know where the Diocese stands financially. I see the current status of the Church, and can guess its future. Why would we not want the money to be used for the Church’s future? I did not see a reason for this resolution and even voiced this opinion to the resolution’s authors. I had all my excuses to vote against the resolution lined up in a neat pile. I knew U.S. History. My ancestors did not own slaves. My family immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900’s from Holland. I grew up in Michigan, a free State when it joined the Union in 1837. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement ended segregation and made a clear path for equality. Affirmative action continues to make a level playing field between Caucasian’s and African Americans. That past bad stuff was over. Life was good or at least that was my understanding. When the resolution was presented at Convention someone shared their lack of support and a few people’s backs arched and heads shook in opposition to the resolution. There was a lot of quiet in the room but tension was palpable. Then someone stood up and said the word reparations means to repair a bad situation and, in this case, the situation was the PTSD of slavery that continues today. Well that got my attention. Up until hearing those words I never equated civil rights or infringement on civil rights with slavery. After all, didn’t the 13th amendment free the slaves more than 150 years ago? What if my recollection of history was not correct? This thought inspired a personal research project dealing with race relations, both past and present, not only within the Episcopal Church, but in the United States. What I have learned throughout this project is mind boggling to say the least.

My research began reading every book that I could about slavery, race relations, redress, and civil rights. There are, currently, 36 scholarly and peer reviewed publications on my reference list. Books like “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander, “The Half Has Never Been Told” by Edward Baptist, and “Slavery by Another Name” by Douglas Blackmon are just a few of the books that grace my list. I also recommend the book “Not in my Neighborhood” by Antero Pietila to understand the roots of Baltimore’s segregation. After beginning research, one thing stands out in a glaring way: our school history books have let us down. The “white” history books showed the brave and trusted side of the United States. The Declaration of Independence declared all men equal and the grace by which we made the decision was to form our own country. According to what I was taught, northern abolitionist fought to free the slaves as the Underground Railroad help slaves escape and the 13th Amendment established a free and equal society. What the books did not say was that slavery did not end after the 13th amendment’s ratification in December 1865. It took 100 years and the Civil Rights Movement until African Americans were given just the basic rights granted to Caucasians by the constitution. From 1865 to 1965, African Americans continued to be enslaved through black laws creating convict labor practices by which industries such as cotton, steel, indigo, and tobacco gain extreme wealth on the backs of innocent laborers. Southern plantation gentlemen, bereft of their cheap labor after the Civil War, demanded reparations for the loss of property for which the Federal Government complied. However, finding obliging field hands to accomplish the slave labor daily work quotas was difficult. Therefore, black laws were created to mirror cheap labor once accomplished by slavery. African American men would be arrested for any number of false claims and the local justice system would impose a hefty fine on the “convict”. A business owner would pay the fine and the “convict” would be leased to the him for a period of time. Inevitably, the “convict” would be fined for a new violation before his first sentence was complete and his service would continue. Killing a “convict”, while frowned upon, was not illegal and many African Americans did not survive their terms. The convict leasing system that occurred during the reconstruction period was the beginning of what is now known as the for-profit prison system continuing economic dependence on the status quo prison population.

My research expanded beyond written publications. Over the summer, I traveled to Birmingham and Montgomery Alabama. Birmingham was an unplanned city that gained its wealth on the backs of both slave and convict labor. Alabama gained wealth by leasing convicts to various businesses desiring cheap labor. U.S. Steel is one such company in Birmingham. Montgomery was home to one of several slave auction blocks as it had easy access to the Alabama river where slaves from the north were delivered to labor intense southern plantations. A couple blocks from the auction blocks is St. John’s Episcopal Church where Robert E Lee was a parishioner and where the Southern Bishops met to vote to separate from the Episcopal Church and create the Episcopal Church of the Confederate States of America.

I visited five museums: National Peace and Justice Museum sponsored by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI); The Legacy Museum (EJI); the Civil Rights Institute; the Holocaust Museum, and, the Museum of African American Heritage.

The National Peace and Justice Museum, also know as the Lynching Museum, is a sobering space. Walking among hanging objects depicting the number and names of people lynched in every county in the first 13 states, one is faced with the daunting reality that it was ok to lynch a human being for any reason. About 4,000 men, women, and children were lynched between 1877 and 1950. Maryland is not exempt from this reality with more than twenty lynchings held within our boarders. Lynching of African Americans was socially accepted and without need for viable reasons. It was only recently, December 26, 2018, when Congress unanimously passed a law that made lynching a federal crime. Although 200 resolutions were presented to Congress in the past, each was rejected.

When visiting the Legacy Museum, also in Montgomery, I learned that African Americans faced domestic travel restrictions within my life time. As portrayed in the movie “Green Book”, the publication listed “Negro” friendly restaurants and motels enabling African Americans to travel without fear of being lynched. Located on the spot that housed the slave auction block, it was ominous to imagine how people were walked from the nearby Alabama river to be sold away from their families.

The Civil Rights Institute, in Birmingham, is located across the street from the 16th Street Baptist Church where four young girls lost their lives to a KKK bomb in the 1960’s. Also, Kelly Ingram Park where young African American school children were punished with water canons for protesting. Among its various displays, is a depiction of the Caucasian and African American classrooms in the segregated south. It was striking to see a strong resemblance to a public school located in the west side of Baltimore today and that in my own neighborhood in Howard County. Not much has changed since segregation was outlawed. It appears that educational segregation continues today.

One might question why I would include the Holocaust Museum in a research project about slavery reparations. As a matter of fact, Hitler patterned much of his segregation strategies after the U.S. Jim Crow laws. Hitler applauded the U.S. for the way they handled separation of inferior races and our laws against miscegenation.There are two separate distinctions between what happened to the Jews in Europe during the Holocaust and what happened to African Americans from slavery to current day social standards. The first one is that the Jews’ had wealth and education prior to the holocaust and the African-Americans were denied the accumulation of wealth or education. The second is the fact that Hitler’s holocaust lasted twelve years and ended little more than seventy years ago. Whereas slavery of African-Americans began before this country was formed and racial restrictions continues today. Germany paid reparations to those effected by the holocaust and Austria followed suit. Holocaust reparations are easy for our minds to grasp because this travesty happened not too long ago. However, the injustice toward African Americans is part of this Country’s status quo and in our DNA. It is harder see the cause and rationalize the effect when it is all we have ever known.

Here are a few more personal things that I have learned since the start of my project. The Dutch were largely engulfed in the slave trade and a Dutch Frigate brought the first slaves to this land. While Michigan did not legalized slavery, they also did not make it illegal. As a French territory, slaves were moved into what is now the State of Michigan and slavery existed there until the 13th amendment was ratified. My ancestors were not as exempt from the slave trade as I had thought.

My travels and discoveries not only opened my mind’s eye to past sorrow and pain but also taught me that the pain continues. We are not a colorblind society no matter how much we pretend to be. Racism is not a historical element that resides in the past alone. It did not go away but simply went underground and came up in forms more socially accepted. Our society has painted the face of public enemy number one in our minds and has sold us a bag of fears that continues to cause new ways to keep people segregated and impoverished. According to Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, one in three African American young men will spend some time in the criminal justice system. This does not mean that African Americans commit more crimes than their Caucasian counterparts but it does show the inequality in the justice system. Society hides behind fear and, to be fair, crime is scary. It is easy for the media to paint the face of crime in our minds and we can justify correctional system’s racial bias by accepting this picture. But isn’t it just another way to keep the less accepted demographic out our mainstream America?

Although my project continues, I can now see and explain why we should call for reparations and equal justice within the United States. Perhaps a debt is owed to descendants of former slaves because slave labor resulted in slave owners’ wealth. Maybe a debt is owed because of the continued accumulation of wealth by convict leasing. However, doesn’t that way of thinking assign a monetary value, once again subjecting African Americans to the slave auction block. We cannot pay away the past. We can not “throw money” at a current situation and expect it to be fixed especially after hundreds of years of status quo. Rather, all citizens of the United States should repair the generational class system that has prioritized one race and subjugated all outliers by its socially accepted mores and norms. It is time that we did something to level the playing field, to even the score, to right this vessel we call America. Imagine if the money currently spent to arrest, convict, and sentence non violent offenders were used instead to create equal access to education, housing, and jobs. We could see a reduction in crime, drugs, and decrease the need for prisons. Instead of spending money on punishing people subservient to the power class, let’s empower all people. We should embrace the fact that we are not colorblind, acknowledge that we see our differences, and learn to love each other as part of one body in Christ.

I know it is scary to talk about money, debt, payment, sacrificial giving, etc. Put money aside for the moment. How do we level the playing field? How do we end and recover from generations of hatred? How do we stop the United States’ systemic racism? Having this conversation is necessary. The PTSD of slavery is evident and, to see it, one only needs to open their mind and walk in someone else’s shoes for a spell.