With All Deliberate Speed ...
October 5 and November 2, 2020
Our November 2nd conversation will occur on the day before the election, so, towards the end of our meeting, we plan to spend some time considering the election's potential consequences for people of color.
In an attempt to get out the vote, especially among young voters, the six-time Grammy award-winning artist , Will.i.am, and his group, Black Eyed Peas, teamed up with Academy Award winner Jennifer Hudson to release The Love. The project features an array of activists, including family members of George Floyd, Jacob Blake, and other victims of police violence. The video has already recorded nearly 30 million views since it was released last week. It is an independent artistic project of Black Eyed Peas and Jennifer Hudson. No input or funds came from the Biden campaign.
Please take a look at the video here. (4:14)
With All Deliberate Speed is being addressed over two sessions. Material has been added since the October 5 meeting.
We shared information last time on the Kerner Commission, a group convened in 1968 to study racial unrest . Added, is an overview of another commission: Harry Truman's Committee on Civil Rights. Charged with assessing the racial situation nationwide and proposing solutions to a broad range of civil rights problems, they released their report, "To Secure These Rights," in October 1947. Scroll down to read about the commission and its report.
INTRODUCTION
For the first 6 sessions, we offered background readings and videos as starting points for discussions of some of the "whats" of racial discrimination and systemic racism. We always ended up with the same question: "why, after so many years, do the same things keep happening?"
Similarly, there is a lesson that connects these "whats" : White Americans need to look into ourselves to understand our history. Until we feel its weight, until we feel the shame, anything we offer is cutting down weeds and not digging out the roots. We created the problem; perpetuated "the lie"; and leaned hard against change while congratulating ourselves, knowing that "with all deliberate speed," meaningful change is very unlikely.
If it is not this time, there will be a time when the patience and love of the African American community, after 60 years, 160 years, 260 and 360 years, will end. How much more room is there on the bookshelves of our libraries for one more unread report from another ignored Commission?
Leaders of the African American community have been telling us this for generations, but we have not listened:
James Baldwin (1963) There is no reason a black man should be expected to be more patient, more forbearing, more far sighted, than whites; indeed, quite the contrary.
MLK (1967) It cannot be taken for granted that Negroes will adhere to nonviolence under any and all conditions. When there is rocklike intransigence or sophisticated manipulation that mocks the empty-handed petitioner, rage replaces reason.
Will we listen this time? Will we stop and hear what is being said before offering something just to assuage our fear, guilt and shame? Will the protests of the past 5 months extinguish without meaningful reform? Will these 5 months be that last time African Americans' magnanimity rescues America?
Contextual Material
Reflections on how long African Americans have been waiting for respect and full equality, revisiting many moments when promises were not kept and hopes dashed.
There is nothing in the 14th and 15th amendments, the legal guarantees of our full citizenship rights, which says that the constitution is to be enforced "gradually'"where Negroes are concerned. "Gradualism" is a mighty long road. It stretches back 100 long and weary years, and looking forward it has no end.
... Here I Stand , Paul Robeson, 1958
...But if some of the principles of Montgomery could be applied to educational integration, slow but lasting progress is likely to result. And, indeed, slow progress is all that can be hoped for.
(Click on the title above to read the entire June 14, 1956, article.)
The Atlantic July 23, 2020 by Ibram Kendi
...with all deliberate speed.
"In 1955, the Supreme Court of the United States determined that segregation should be ended as soon as possible, but the Court also recognized that it would be difficult for communities to deal with the change and that there were many institutional, political, and social circumstances to be worked out. The Court struggled with how to phrase the order to desegregate schools and what kind of time frames should be attached to the order. The NAACP advocated for schools to be desegregated "forthwith," which implies a quick timetable. However, Justice Warren adopted the advice of Justice Frankfurter and chose other language."
For more information on the first real test of Brown v. Board, go to the Hidden History page (here) and read about the Little Rock 9.
A Change Is Gonna Come.pdfTwelve years from Obama’s victory speech, and 56 years from the song’s writing, “A Change” was sung on the national stage again at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Why is it taking so long?
Why is it taking so long?
It cannot be taken for granted that Negroes will adhere to nonviolence under any and all conditions. When there is rocklike intransigence or sophisticated manipulation that mocks the empty-handed petitioner, rage replaces reason.
... Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967
There is no reason a black man should be expected to be more patient, more forbearing, more far sighted, than whites; indeed, quite the contrary.
... James Baldwin, 1963
I know of no greater misfortunes to individuals than an overconfidence in their own perfections, and I know of fewer that can happen to a nation greater than an overconfidence in the perfection of its government.
... Frederick Douglass, 1866
Click on the graphic, left, to directly access Jill Lepore's New Yorker article or read the PDF below.
The History of the “Riot” Report | The New Yorker.pdfAfter the riots of 1967, this commission seemed to be making real progress
Listen to this report !!
Click on the photo (above) then click on the audio (10:19)
It's from 2017 but still important...
For more on the Kerner Commission's 1968 report - context, conclusions, and what happened as a result, go to Hidden History.
Harry S. Truman was involved in early efforts to address racial injustice and close the gap between America's democratic promises and the reality of persistent systemic racism. His President's Committee on Civil Rights was established by Executive Order 9808 on December 5, 1946, to strengthen and safeguard the rights of the American people. The Government's policy, announced in the same order, was that civil rights were guaranteed by the Constitution and essential to domestic tranquility, national security, the general welfare, and the continued existence of our free institutions. The advisory committee was chaired by Charles E. Wilson. The final report of the committee was published in 1947 as a one-hundred-and-seventy-eight page document entitled To Secure These Rights.
"The text of the report spells out in detail the liberal vision for expansion of civil rights in the years after World War II. The report's emphasis on the duty of the federal government to protect individuals from racial discrimination contained the basis of the liberal credo for decades to come."
"The thirty-four recommendations that appear in the report established the agenda for civil rights reforms for a generation to come. In addition to attacking disenfranchisement and advocating the strengthening of federal law enforcement machinery against racial crimes such as lynching, the document proposed to dismantle segregation throughout American society. It condemned racial separation in housing, interstate transportation, pubic accommodations, the military, and employment. Most remarkable of all was the stand it took against school segregation.* In challenging Jim Crow, the PCCR took aim at the ideology of white supremacy itself. 'The separate but equal doctrine,' the report chided, 'is inconsistent with the fundamental equalitarianism of the American way of life in that it marks groups with the brand of inferior status...There is no adequate defense of segregation.' Seven years later, in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court would reach the same conclusion in its historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling."
-- excerpts from To Secure These Rights, edited and with an Introduction by Steven F. Lawson, The Bedford Series in History and Culture, 2004
*Note that there is still no federal anti-lynching law; housing and schools continue to be segregated; and voter suppression is widespread.
To view the text of the complete report, click on the image above. To see the original charts and graphs, click here.
Truman gained the support of many African Americans. He was the first president to address the NAACP, appointed a number of Black individuals to government offices, spoke out consistently on civli rights issues and adopted a strong civil rights plank in his 1948 platform, but he was not able to convince the Congress or the white population to make real progress. He did, however, by Executive Order, integrate the military and undo Woodrow Wilson's segregation of the Civil Service. He lifted their spirits and hopes, but Black Americans are still waiting for many of the reforms outlined in "To Secure These Rights."
As he was leaving the Presidency, Truman received this expression of gratitude from Roy Wilkins of the NAACP.
Click on the image (left) to access the Wilkins letter (January 12, 1953) and Truman's response (January 14, 1953).