The Persistence of White Supremacy (Part 2 of 4)

The Constitution of the United States and the formation of Congress could only be secured by compromises with white supremacy. These compromises allowed less populous slave holding states to enhance their political power by counting every five slaves as three people, thereby embedding white supremacy into the foundation of America. From 1788 until 1861, America engaged in the fool’s errand of maintaining a middle ground between establishing freedom for all and keeping Black people as slaves. The contradiction was exposed when northern voters were able to deny southern slave holders the ability to expand slavery into newly acquired territories. In response, racists rejected the results of the democratic system and attempted to destroy the American Union by seceding from it. They used disinformation to distort the cause of the Civil War and the rationale for fighting it. They argued that the federal government was unnecessarily infringing on states rights and had instigated the war. They used this false grievance to radicalize and enlist southern citizens (particularly those that didn’t own any slaves) to the cause of the confederacy.

The Confederates argued that their heritage and their culture was under attack while Union forces fought on the basis that secession was insurrection. The North never recognized the confederacy as a separate nation and labeled them traitors. Although the real reason the Civil War was fought was because white supremacists wanted to preserve slavery, it was never explicitly acknowledged by either the North or the South. In the end, white supremacy was defeated on the battlefield. The Civil War managed to end slavery in America, but it did not make Black people free legally, politically, or culturally.

One would think that the adoption of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution would make it clear that white supremacy was not legally acceptable. Though these amendments outlawed slavery, they did not eradicate white supremacy. In the minds of most White Americans (in the North and the South) Black people were inferior to them and they were unwilling to acknowledge that the full American dream was meant for all people including Black people.  This was proven out by the end of reconstruction and the institution of Jim Crow laws which consigned Black people to second class citizenship. Black people might not be slaves but they were not equal to Whites. Thus, Jim Crow embedded white supremacy into the legal structure of America. The infamous Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case established that facilities for Whites and Blacks could remain separate as long as they were “equal.” Time would reveal that in a society based on white supremacy would never have separate and equal facilities. In fact, it was a logical fallacy to assume that anything separate could be equal given the social attitudes. Black people, frustrated by their subjugation under Jim Crow were eventually able to prove that white supremacy was legally inconsistent with the American experiment. Legal scholars in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), led by trailblazers like Thurgood Marshall worked tirelessly to deconstruct the legal structure of white Ssupremacy case by case. The Civil Rights movement applied socioeconomic pressure on governments and businesses which forced them to integrate businesses and schools. This culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. In 1968 the Civil Rights Act was expanded to outlaw discrimination in concerning the sale, rental, or financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and sex. The Civil Rights movement essentially ended in 1970. In its aftermath, moral and/or political leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and Huey Newton were either assassinated or marginalized. None of the Civil Rights laws explicitly addressed white supremacy as an ideology, but instead dealt with the identifiable legal symptoms of it. Thus, white supremacy was defeated legally but continued to persist as a cultural and political ideology.