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The Civil Rights Act of
March 1, 1875
The following civil rights
legislation passed in 1875 was later declared unconstitutional by
the Supreme Court, and represents the last Congressional effort to
protect the civil rights of African-Americans for more than half a
century.
Whereas it is essential to just
government we recognize the equality of all men before the law,
and hold that it is the duty of government in its dealings with
the people to mete out equal and exact justice to all, of whatever
nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political; and
it being the appropriate object of legislation to enact great
fundamental principles into law: Therefore,
Be it enacted, That all persons
within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to
the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages,
facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or
water, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject
only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and
applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless
of any previous condition of servitude.
SEC. 2. That any person who
shall violate the foregoing section by denying to any citizen,
except for reasons by law applicable to citizens of every race and
color, and regardless of any previous condition of servitude, the
full enjoyment of any of the accommodations, advantages,
facilities, or privileges in said section enumerated, or by aiding
or inciting such denial, shall, for every such offense, forfeit
and _ ýïthe sum of five hundred dollars to the person aggrieved
thereby, . . . and shall also, for every such offense, be deemed
guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be
fined not less than five hundred nor more than one thousand
dollars, or shall be imprisoned not less than thirty days nor more
than one year . . .
SEC. 3. That the district and
circuit courts of the United States shall have exclusively of the
courts of the several States, cognizance of all crimes and
offenses against, and violations of, the provisions of this act .
. .
SEC. 4. That no citizen
possessing all other qualifications which are or may be prescribed
by law shall be disqualified for service as grand or petit juror
in any court of the United States, or of any State, on account of
race, color, or previous condition of servitude; and any officer
or other person charged with any duty in the selection or
summoning of jurors who shall exclude or fail to summon any
citizen for the cause aforesaid shall, on conviction thereof, be
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and be fined not more than five
thousand dollars.
SEC. 5. That all cases arising
under the provisions of this act ... shall be renewable by the
Supreme Court of the United States, without regard to the sum in
controversy ...
Source: US Statutes at
Large, Vol. XVIII, p. 335 ff.
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Sources:
Chapter VI. "The Instruction of Negroes." In Edgar W.
Knight..
A Documentary History of Education in the South before 1860. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina, 1953
Chapter 10 "Up From Slavery: Educational and
other Rights of Negroes." In Edgar W. Knight and Clifton L. Hall. Readings
in American Educational History. New York Appleton-Century-Crofts,
Inc., 1951. Many states had laws prohibiting
the education of blacks; here black youngsters are turned away at the
school door |
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Lyndon Baines Johnson Signs 1964 Civil
Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
was passed after increasing political pressure
and violence against African-Americans. The drive for its
passage was boosted by the assassination of JFK. This was the
most far-reaching legislation of its kind since
Reconstruction. It included 11 titles which dealt with voting
practices, segregation, provided financial aid to
desegregating schools, extended the life of the Civil Rights
Commission for four more years, outlawed federal funds for
educations institutions or programs practicing discrimination,
outlawed employment and union discrimination, required
gathering census data by race in some areas, prevented federal
courts from sending a civil rights case back to state or local
courts, established the Community Relations Service (CRS) to
arbitrate local race problems and provided right of jury trial
in any case that arose from any section of the act.—Civil
Rights Acts and Other Remedies
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The
Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L.
88-352, 78 Stat. 241,
enacted July 2, 1964) was a landmark piece of
legislation in the United States that outlawed
major forms of discrimination against African
Americans and women, including racial
segregation. It ended unequal application of
voter registration requirements and
racial segregation in schools, at the
workplace and by facilities that served the
general public ("public accommodations").
Powers given to
enforce the act were initially weak, but were
supplemented during later years. Congress asserted
its authority to legislate under several different
parts of the
United States Constitution, principally its
power to regulate
interstate commerce under
Article One (section 8), its duty to guarantee
all citizens
equal protection of the laws under the
Fourteenth Amendment and its duty to protect
voting rights under the
Fifteenth Amendment. The Act was signed into
law by
President
Lyndon B. Johnson, who would later sign the
landmark
Voting Rights Act into law.—Wikipedia
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Nina Simone—Go
to Hell
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Go to Hell
Lyrics by Nina Simone
If your mind lies
in the Devil's workshop
Evil-doin's your thrill
And trouble and mischief is all you live
for
You know damn well
That you'll go to hell (yeah)
You'll go to hell
Now you're living high and mighty
Rich off the fat of the land
Just don't dispose of your natural soul
'cos if you do you know damn well
That you'll go to hell (yes, you will)
You'll go to hell
Hell
Where your natural soul burns
Hell
Where you pay for your sins
Hell
Keep your children from doing wrong (if
you can)
'cos you know damn well
That they'll go to hell
They'll go to hell
Hell
Man, woman were created
Hell
To live for eternity
Hell
With an apple they ate from the tree of
hate
So you know damn well
Oh... they went to hell (yes, they did)
They went to hell
Some say that hell is below us
But I say it's right by my side
'cos you see evil in the morning
Evil in the evening, all the time
You know damn well
That we all must be in hell
We got to be in hell
We all must be in hell
We must be in hell. |
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Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.—WashingtonPost |
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Incognegro: A Memoir of
Exile and Apartheid
By Frank B. Wilderson, III
Wilderson, a professor,
writer and filmmaker from
the Midwest,
presents a gripping account
of his role in the downfall
of South African apartheid
as one of only two black
Americans in the African
National Congress (ANC).
After marrying a South
African law student, Wilderson reluctantly
returns with her to South
Africa in the early 1990s,
where he teaches
Johannesburg and Soweto
students, and soon joins the
military wing of the ANC.
Wilderson's stinging
portrait of Nelson Mandela
as a petulant elder eager to
accommodate his white
countrymen will jolt readers
who've accepted the
reverential treatment
usually accorded him. After
the assassination of
Mandela's rival, South
African Communist Party
leader Chris Hani, Mandela's
regime deems Wilderson's
public questions a threat to
national security; soon,
having lost his stomach for
the cause, he returns to
America.
Wilderson has a
distinct, powerful voice and
a strong story that shuffles
between the indignities of
Johannesburg life and his
early years in Minneapolis,
the precocious child of
academics who barely
tolerate his emerging
political consciousness.
Wilderson's observations
about love within and across
the color line and cultural
divides are as provocative
as his politics; despite
some distracting
digressions, this is a
riveting memoir of
apartheid's last days.—Publishers
Weekly
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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