“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure….”
Beads on a String-
America’s Racially Intertwined Biographical History
EY WADE
Dedicated
To those who do not cast their pearls to the swine.
Acknowledgement
Many thanks and appreciation to my (beads) daughters Ja Karra, Gillean, Mhia and my grandson Jett Parker Ellington Wade, without whom nothing in life matters.
SMASHWORDS EDITION PUBLISHED BY:
Copyright by Ey Wade. Wade-In Publications 2009
ISBN-10 0615277845
All rights reserved. This book is a work of creative non-fiction. All credit is given to those who have contributed.
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©Ey Wade 2009
ABOUT THE BOOK
This is an independent research and education project
Beads on a String-America’s Racially Intertwined Biographical History is a recording of America’s glorious multi-racial history, celebrated within one cover.
Beads on a String-America’s Racially Intertwined Biographical History lauds loudly the accomplishments of all races that helped make America the great country it has become.
It celebrates such people as Hiawatha, who fought for freedom of his people. It applauds Lonnie Johnson who invented the ‘Super Soaker’, Dalip Singh Saund a member of the United States House of Representatives and Rev. Rick Warren who blessed the 2008 Presidential Inauguration. Beads on a String continue with the recognition of others such as, Arpad G.C. Gerster who was one of the first surgeons in America, and Yamato Ichihashi, one of the first academics of Asian ancestry in the United States. Antonio Meucci invented the telephone, Michael Jackson entertained; Minoru Yamasaki second-generation Japanese-American architect designed the World Trade Center, and Amadeo Peter Giannini who founded the of Bank of Italy, which later became Bank of America.
Beads on a String-America’s Racially Intertwined Biographical History never stops celebrating our heritages from the naming of the country by Martin Waldseemuller to the elimination of overt racial discrimination, through education, entertainment and to the glorious day of racial, political and social unification with Barack Obama’s Presidential election.
Beads on a String-America’s Racially Intertwined Biographical History will be a great asset to the educational system as well as in the lives of people all over the world. With the election of Barack Obama as President, it is clear; America is ready for a change. That change should take effect within the history books.
The inauguration of President Obama ushered in a giant change in America.
Dr. Joseph Lowery former president of Southern Christian Leadership conference delivers the benediction as Barack Obama takes the oath as the 44th President of the United States of America.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure….”
CONTENTS
Quote- A. Philip Randolph "Salvation for a Race"
Introduction-The Purpose of this book
Quote- Dr John Henrik Clark
Chapter I-America
Quote- Carlos Bulosan "America is in the Heart"
The Naming of America
Discovery of America
The Formation of America
Reason for Colonization
Quote--John Hope Franklin
Chapter II-Slavery and Discrimination
Label My Race Human
The Beginning of Slavery in the United States
Quote-Charles Evan Hughes
Dred Scott Decision
Racial Discrimination
Chapter III-Voices of Change
The Civil Rights Movement /Organizations
Chapter IV-Biographies of Notable Contributors to America's Growth…
Activism and Abolitionism
Government Leaders
Scholars and Educators
Inventors/ Scientist
Artists, Architects, and Designers
Authors and Publishers
Business
Sports
Film, Television, Entertainment and Media
Videos
A Change Has Come
Yes, We Can
Martin Luther King
From Martin to Obama
Lift Every Voice
We Shall Over Come
Why We Are Proud
We Can Change the World
The Dreams of Generations
Rev. Rick
Warren
The
Inventor of the Super Soaker
Gone Too Soon/Heal the World
It's
a New Day
Chapter V-List of America's Contributors in All Areas
Bibliographies
Black Codes & Example
The Author
“Salvation for a race, nation or class must come from within. Freedom is never given; it is won.”
Asa
Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was a prominent
twentieth-century African-American civil rights leader and the
founder of both the March on Washington Movement and the Brotherhood
of Sleeping Car Porters, a landmark for labor and particularly for
African-American labor organizing.
The Purpose of This Book
As a homeschooling parent it came across the mind of my youngest daughter to ask about a history book which talks about all the races within its bounded pages. She is a born optimist and hates the way we as adults seem to enjoy racial profiling. I as the mother and her instructor in life wanted to give her what she wanted, but I could find none. So, as a home-school project we decided to write our own, Beads on a String-America’s Racially Intertwined Biographical History.
We chose to use Wikipedia as our “listed” resource because it was established by the people. People with interest in America's history, proud of their own heritage and who believed enough in themselves to gather and write about the people, organizations, and all fractions of society that helped to make America the great nation it has become and if anyone has a problem with it, they can go in and change history.
What better way, or so it seemed to us to celebrate America and it's freedoms than with a system established by the people with or without its faults and illusions. We believe in America and whenever we had doubt about the information we did go and check the information out at other sources and found Wikipedia to be pretty much correct on more information than not and the biggest factor was that it was so easy to use. I for one loved the way a ‘list’ of each race was simple to pull up and then research. And hey, I just wanted to see a history book that put everyone's contribution together and not separated by race or hyphenation.
America has had great contributors within every century working hard together and yet each race would like to pull out their certain pages and categorize them into their own history book. And we truly believe if someone has a problem with our choice they would have to deal with it or well, get over it. Our main focus is to try and eliminate the division of a great nation by a single line, the hyphenation.
America as a nation has many problems and yet what other country in the world can attest to the fact that people or dying to be here? There is a dream in their heart to be a part of this great nation and to live in the land of good and plenty as a member of one body. So why do we keep the line of separation as a constant reminder? The hyphenation, which line that separates all races and the word American.
The elimination of the hyphenation that is placed to distinguish White Americans from African (Black), Chinese, Arab, Indian, Japanese and every other race would be an immense triumph for Americans. That hyphenation continues to put a space between the races that are naturally born and the races that have chosen to become Americans. And we are that, Americans that have contributed enormously to the growth of the great United States. If each of our histories were celebrated everyday and our children were taught to value all histories, contributions, and differences we wouldn't have to wonder what Dr. King would think about us today. We live in different times and we now play on a different game field from or ancestors and we need different tactics to fight the causes of today. Beads on a String- America’s Racially Intertwined Biographical History chooses not to be about a certain color, but about a certain nation, America.
Why is all of the hyphenation and hating going on in America? Why is such a distinction made before we are labeled Americans? African (sorry I don't come from Africa.) Arab, Asian, Black, Chinese, Hispanic, Native. I don't see anything about White-American or European-American. Who made this 'hyphenation' up and why are we accepting a line that separates us? I feel that we as Americans are all equal and held together by a common thread. Like a treasured beaded necklace of different colors held together on a string, we are held together by our necessities and our circumstances and our humanity. Every color helps to make the necklace beautiful. We can never be a totally separate entity. Americans of all colors are so integrated that if we hurt one, we hurt all. Just like that necklace of treasured beads, leave one out and the gap is seen. Break the chain and many of us are lost.
We believe that there are no pure races in America. Once Africans loved and integrated with Native Americans and the White man brought the first boat of Black slaves to America and raped their women, the 'pure' races were put to an end because nine months later, some woman had the first mixed baby. This integration happened again and again within all races. We are such a mixed breed of people in America that it has become hard to distinguish one race from another just by looking in a face. Some Blacks were so light skinned that they married into the White race and no one knew and may never know. Light to White skinned babies were being born and no one knew if they were Black or White and it did not and does not matter because they were born into the human race. Once free, they became American citizens. As does anyone born into this country, or anyone that chooses to come into this country and become an American.
How many pure races are living America? From what we see, love among the races is flowing freely. Don't forget what happened to our fore-parents. Let us not repeat it. Let go of what happened in the past. I am not saying that there is not prejudice in the world. What I am saying is this, when we are fighting for a 'cause' we must remember we are fighting the system and not a person. We have to be diligent in collecting facts, have an unbreakable, unbeatable plan, and remember all of our foes may not be of one color. Pay attention to the present. What we consider 'small things' is happening daily in the schools; on the jobs; in the government. Pay attention so we don't step back in time. Stop trying to benefit from the past. Everyone that was involved in the mayhem and destruction of the families and the souls of the slaves are dead. We cannot charge nor punish them with anything and if we attack because of racial prejudice we may hurt our own. We take a chance of destroying an uncle, aunt, cousin, brother because roots run deep. We cannot change the past hurts, but we can change the present laws. The heart of man has to be dealt with by God. We should not dwell on the past. It stirs up hatred in young hearts that should only know peace. We know what happened to our fore-parents. Let us not repeat it.
It is time for America to let go of the past and heal itself. The grieving period should have been over and the healing started. But every year, old wounds are torn open by the words Black History Month. Why don't we teach the children about America's History with everyone included? To me it seems as if only a few Black people are pulled out of the closet, dusted off the shelves and paraded in front of America as if to say, 'this one wasn't worthless', this one wasn't stupid'. Why is the ‘black’ in capital letters? Is it to point out a person of color has a brain or is it to pronounce to the world we have pride? If there is so much pride in America for Native, African, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Iranian-Americans and other 'hyphened Americans, drop the hyphen and pull together and teach our children that every bead has a purpose and should be celebrated.
"The events which transpired five thousand years ago;
Five years ago or five minutes ago, have determined
what will happen five minutes from now; five years
From now or five thousand years from now.
All history is a current event."
John Henrik Clarke
(January 1, 1915 - July 16, 1998), born John Henry Clark, was a
Pan-Africanist American writer, historian, professor, and a pioneer
in the creation of Africana studies and professional institutions in
academia.
I.
America
"We in America understand the many imperfections of democracy and the malignant disease corroding its very heart. We must be united in the effort to make an America in which our people can find happiness. It is a great wrong that anyone in America, whether he be brown or white, should be illiterate or hungry or miserable."
Bulosan- "America is in the Heart"
Carlos
Sampayan Bulosan (born November 24, 1913) was a Filipino American
novelist and poet best-known for the semi-autobiographical America
Is in the Heart. As a progressive writer of labor struggles, he
was blacklisted by the FBI due to his labor organizing and socialist
writings. Denied a means to provide for his survival, his later years
were of hardship and flight. He died in Seattle suffering from an
advanced stage of bronchopneumonia. He is buried at Mount Pleasant
Cemetery on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. He died in Seattle,
Washington on September 13, 1956.
American Basics and Timeline
The United States of America (also known as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the U.S. of A., the States and America) is a country in North America that extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. It shares land borders with Canada and Mexico and a sea border with Russia and The Bahamas. The United States is a federal republic, with its capital is in Washington, D.C.
The present-day United States has an approximate population of over 309,000,000 and has been inhabited for at least 15,000 years by indigenous tribes. After European exploration and settlement in the 16th century, the English established their own colonies-and gained control of others that had been begun by other European nations-in the eastern portion of the continent in the 17th and early 18th centuries. On July 4, 1776, at war with Britain over fair governance, thirteen of these colonies declared their independence. In 1783, the war ended in British acceptance of the new nation. Since then, the United States of America has more than quadrupled in size: it now consists of 50 states and one federal district; it also has numerous overseas territories.
At first, the country was open to every person wishing to make a new start. Many came to America to escape war, poverty, famine, or religious persecution. Some came seeking fortune and others were brought against their will to work as slaves. These and other factors resulted in a large-scale influx of immigrants to the United States from around the world. With the huge growth of the population the federal government decided a monitoring system was needed.
In 1891, as part of the U.S. Treasury Department, the Office of Immigration was created and given authority over naturalization and moved to the U.S. Justice Department. (Today it is known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service.) In the same year, paupers, polygamists, the insane, and persons with contagious diseases were not allowed to enter the United States. 1892 Ellis Island opened. Between 1892 and 1953, more than 12 million immigrants were processed at this one facility.
Early immigration laws aimed to preserve the racial, religious, and ethnic composition of the United States, which was then largely European. The first immigration laws were aimed at nonwhites. In 1882, for example, the Chinese Exclusion Act suspended immigration from China for sixty years.
In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt negotiated an informal "gentlemen's agreement" with Japan, under which the United States promised to desegregate California schools-which had separated Japanese students from others-and in return, the Japanese government promised to stop the immigration of its citizens. Soon, however, Americans were complaining about European immigrants as well.
For example, a law passed by Congress in 1921, encouraged immigration from western European countries such as Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia because natives of these lands seemed more likely to assimilate. Meanwhile, the law discouraged immigration from eastern and southern Europe. This law, along with many other immigration laws in the 1800s and 1900s, was based on quotas; only a certain number of individuals with a given background or heritage could move to the United States. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 gave United States citizenship to Native Americans, in part because of an interest by many to see them merged with the American mainstream, and also because of the heroic service of many Native American veterans in the First World War.
In 1929, Congress passed the National Origins Act, which set an annual quota of 150,000 immigrants, only 30 percent of which could come from southern and Eastern Europe. After World War II, Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. This law allowed some of the people left homeless after the war to come to the United States. In 1952, President Harry Truman signed the McCarran-Walter Act, which revised the National Origins Act. People of all races would now be eligible for immigration into the United States. However, under this law, ideology became a criterion for admission. Both immigrants' and citizens' political beliefs were questioned during the "Red scare" of the 1950s, as the government sought to weed out people with even a marginally communist background. The McCarran-Walter Act was overturned in 1990 when Congress made it illegal for the U.S. government to deny people entry because of their beliefs, statements, or associations.
The Immigration Act of 1965 represented a major reform of all previous immigration laws. It abolished quotas that discriminated against nationalities, substituting an overall limit of 170,000 immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere and 120,000 immigrants from the Western Hemisphere. The effects of the 1965 law are still being felt today. Before 1965, the United States had been a safe haven from poverty and civil war.
By limiting the number of immigrants from Latin America, the Immigration Act of 1965 touched off a serious illegal immigration problem. The debate over restricting immigration reflects the many conflicting visions of America's national identity.
For example, 1996 Republican presidential candidate and frequent immigration critic Pat Buchanan wrote a column in which he asked, "When did we vote to rid America of her 'dominant European culture'?" He supplies the answer to his own question: "Never." Even though the underling racism of the statement could be discerned many Americans believed the same thing.
Opponents of restricting immigration also maintain that America is a nation of immigrants and that it has always been, and should continue to be, a safe haven for people seeking a better life. Every day thousands leave their homeland to come to the "land of the free and the home of the brave" so they can begin their own American Dream. They still believe in the inscription on the base of the Statue of Liberty.
"Give
me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me;
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
--The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus
Emma
Lazarus was an American poet born July 22, 1849 in New York City. She
is best known for writing "The New Colossus", a
sonnet written in 1883, which is now engraved on a bronze plaque on a
wall in the base of the Statue of Liberty. The sonnet was solicited
by William Maxwell Evarts as a donation to an auction, conducted by
the "Art Loan Fund Exhibition in Aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal
Fund for the Statue of Liberty" to raise funds to build the
pedestal. Her poem was placed on the Statue of Liberty in 1903.
The Naming of America
In our quest to learn about America's colorful history and to ascertain the inclusion of the contributions from every race that has made America the great nation it is, our biggest wonder was how this great country received its name. Why the great America wasn't called 'Columbus'? Should this nation not have been named after the person said to have discovered the new worlds? In actual fact, it has been. In 1507 the map maker Martin Waldseemuller named North and South America, after Amerigo Vespucci.
The phrase "united States of America" was first used officially in the Declaration of Independence, adopted on July 4, 1776. On November 15, 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the first of which stated "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America.'" The name was originally proposed by Thomas Paine. Why wasn't America named after Christopher Columbus? For a while the Americas were also known as Columbia, after Columbus, prompting the name District of Columbia for the land set aside as the U.S. capital. Columbia remained a popular name for the United States until the early 20th century, when it fell into relative disuse; it is still used poetically, and appears in various names and titles. Columbus Day is a holiday in the United States, and other countries in the Americas, commemorating Columbus' October 1492 landing.
Mundus Novus ("New World") was a Latin translation of a lost Italian letter sent from Lisbon to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. It describes a voyage to South America in 1501-1502. Mundus Novus was published in late 1502 or early 1503 and soon reprinted and distributed in numerous European countries. Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci delle isole nuovamente trovate in quattro suoi viaggi ("Letter of Amerigo Vespucci concerning the isles newly discovered on his four voyages"), known as Lettera al Soderini or just Lettera, was a letter in Italian addressed to Piero Soderini. Printed in 1504 or 1505, it claimed to be an account of four voyages to the Americas made by Vespucci between 1497 and 1504.
It was the publication and widespread circulation of the letters that led Martin Waldseemüller to name the new continent America on his world map of 1507 in Lorraine. Along with placing the name on the map Waldseemüller also published Vespucci's accounts of his travels in a book. A Latin translation was published by Waldseemüller in Cosmographiae Introductio, a book on cosmography and geography, as Quattuor Americi Vespucci navigationes ("Four Voyages of Amerigo Vespucci"). Vespucci used a Latinized form of his name, Americus Vespucius, in his Latin writings, which Waldseemüller used as a base for the new name, taking the feminine form America. This public revelation caused many people to believe Vespucci was trying to steal the credit of the discovery from Christopher Columbus. And just who was this Amerigo Vespucci?
Amerigo Vespucci born March 9, 1451 was born in Florence, Italy and was an Italian merchant, explorer and cartographer. He played a senior role in two voyages which explored the east coast of South America between 1499 and 1502. On the second of these voyages he discovered that South America extended much further south than previously known by Europeans. This convinced him that this land was part of a new continent, a bold contention at a time when other European explorers crossing the Atlantic Ocean thought they were reaching Asia.
Vespucci's real historical importance may well be more in his letters, whether he wrote them all or not, than in his discoveries. From these letters, the European public learned about the newly discovered continent of the Americas for the first time; its existence became known throughout Europe within a few years of the letters' publication. If Vespucci's claims are accurate he reached the mainland of the Americas shortly before Cabot, and at least 14 months before Columbus. In 1508 Spain gave Vespucci the responsibility for training pilots for ocean voyages. He died in Seville in 1512 from Malaria.
Reason for Colonization of the United States
The father of English colonization on the soil of the United States is Walter Raleigh. Raleigh's first colony was sent out in 1585 under Ralph Lane with one hundred and eight men, who settled on Roanoke Island; but after a year of hardships they were picked up and carried to England by Sir Francis Drake. Raleigh was disappointed at the failure of his colony and he determined to try again. In 1587 he sent a colony of one hundred and fifty, seventeen of whom were women, under John White, and soon after they landed at Roanoke, Virginia Dare was born. She was a grandchild of Governor White, and was the first English child born on the soil of the United States.
The only settlement of white men in the then United States was Saint Augustine (Florida), founded in 1565 by the Spaniard Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and at Santa Fé, New Mexico, settled in 1582 or later. Spanish control came to be exercised over Florida, West Florida, Texas, and a large part of the Southwest, including California. For the purposes of finding precious metals and of converting heathens to Catholicism, the Spanish colonies in the present United States were relatively unfruitful and thus were never fully developed.
The French established strongholds on the St. Lawrence River (Quebec and Montreal). England, Spain, and France-were the chief nations to establish colonies in the present United States, although others also took part, especially the Netherlands in the establishment of New Netherlands (explored by Henry Hudson), which became New York, and Sweden in a colony on the Delaware River.
The English settlements on the Atlantic seaboard developed in patterns more suitable to the New World and had greater religious freedom and economic opportunity. The first permanent English settlement was made at Jamestown (Virginia) in 1607. The first English settlements in Virginia were managed by a chartered commercial company, the Virginia Company; economic motives were paramount to the company in founding the settlements.
Britain's American colonies broke with the mother country in 1776 and were recognized as the new nation of the United States of America following the Treaty of Paris in 1783. During the 19th and 20th centuries, 37 new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the North American continent and acquired a number of overseas possessions. The two most traumatic experiences in the nation's history were the Civil War (1861-65) and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Buoyed by victories in World Wars I and II, the end of the Cold War 1991 and the destruction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers in 2001, and yet the US remains the world's most powerful nation state.
"My challenge," Franklin says, "was to weave into the fabric of American history enough of the presence of blacks so that the story of the United States could be told adequately and fairly."
John Hope Franklin
January
1915 – 25 March 2009) was a United States historian and past
president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians,
the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical
Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to
Freedom, first published in 1947, and continually updated. More than
three million copies have been sold. In 1995, he was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
II.
Slavery and Discrimination in America
“I
feel that we as Americans are all equal and held together by a common
thread. Like a treasured beaded necklace of different colors held
together on a string, we are held together by our necessities and our
circumstances and our humanity. Every color helps to make the
necklace beautiful. We can never be a totally separate entity!
Americans of all colors are so integrated that if we hurt one, we
hurt all. Just like that necklace of treasured beads, leave one out
and the gap is seen. Break the chain and many of us are lost.”
Ey Wade
I Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, One nation under God, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Label My "Race" Human
The label of race in America was used as a way for the proponents of slavery to continue using humans as free labor, to keep the poor poor and make the rich richer while integrating the idea in the mind of the Caucasian that their 'race' was superior to that of the Indians and the African. Only society makes a difference between people. There is nothing in the law of nature that makes one color of person superior to another despite the fact that cultural differences, language barrier, and the color of skin all fused together to form a case set against another group of people.
The different physical traits of African Americans and Indians became markers or symbols of their status differences. The concept of race was developed and established by a study and thesis paper that was written by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. It is amazing how the mere words of another person can effect and change the course of history, and the wealth, health and well being of another. Mere words, whether based on truth, personal beliefs or delusion can make or break a world, a nation, a life, mere words.
Blumenbach born May 11, 1752 was a German physiologist and anthropologist. His thesis paper written about the difference in people and titled On the Natural Varieties of Mankind was considered one of the most influential papers of his time and basically established the way different races are seen in the world today. The separation of the people by race was established in order to institute the separation by social and economic differences. The idea of the Caucasian race to be superior to other races has been spread across the entire world. How people have been accepted and treated within the context of a given society or culture has a direct impact on how they perform in that society. Racial beliefs constitute myths about the diversity in the human species and about the abilities and behavior of people placed into "racial" categories. The myths combined the perception of behavior and physical features together in the public mind, and blocked the ability to understand behavior is not a genetic determination of a person. Temperaments, dispositions, and personalities, regardless of genetic, are developed by the life we live.
Blumenbach's theory was based on his study of 60 human skulls, with these skulls Blumenbach divided humans into five races, Caucasian (white), Mongolian (yellow), Malayan (brown), Ethiopian (black), and American (red). Later in life Blumenbach was in Switzerland when he came across a beautiful Negro woman who caused him to do further anatomical research and come up with the belief that Africans were not inferior to the rest of mankind. Unfortunately these later ideas were far less influential than his earlier assertions with regard to the perceived relative qualities of the different so-called races.
He believed that like skin color, cranial profile, etc., went hand in hand with declarations of group character and aptitude. The "fairness" and relatively high brows of Caucasians were held to be apt physical expressions of a loftier mentality and a more generous spirit. The epicanthic folds around the eyes of Mongolians and their slightly sallow outer epidermal layer bespoke their supposedly crafty, literal-minded nature. The dark skin and relatively sloping craniums of Ethiopians were taken as proof of a closer genetic relations to the apes. Despite the fact the skin of chimpanzees and gorillas beneath the hair is whiter than the average Caucasian skin and orangutans and some monkey species have foreheads fully as vertical as the typical Englishman or German.
Blumenbach’s analysis sealed the fate of every race other than Caucasian as inferior. Looking over the list of the awesome people that have made America the fantastic country it is today, it is has been proven time and time again that the 'inferior' label placed on many races is false. Basically what it all boils down to is the fact one set of people decided they were better than another, used the unknown about the Indians and Africans' culture to foster the belief further and spurred the lies and discrimination to justify the psychological, and physical torture aimed at another group of people.
Blumenbach died January 22, 1840. His classification and the scientific concept of human races was widely accepted for about two hundred years, but in the late twentieth century, it came to light that Homo sapiens could not be divided into races or subspecies.
So where did the term Caucasian originate? The term Caucasian is sometimes used to refer to people whose ancestry can be traced back to Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Russia, and in certain areas of the Horn of Africa and Central Asia. In Europe (especially in Russia and the surrounding area), Caucasian usually refers exclusively to people who are from the Caucasus region or speak the Caucasian languages.
Usage of the term Caucasian as a racial classification declined in Europe in the 19th century because it did not allow for enough distinctions as required by the new forms of nationalism that were emerging. In The United Kingdom, Caucasian refers to people from the Caucasus. In Canada, the term Caucasian is known, but rarely used as a description of white people. In Australia and New Zealand, the term Caucasian is mainly used in police offender descriptions. In New Zealand, the terms more commonly used to describe white people are Pakeha, European New Zealander, or simply New Zealander.
In the United States, Caucasian has primarily been used as a distinction based on skin color, for a group commonly referred to as White Americans, as defined by the government and Census Bureau. A large segment of the Hispanic community in the United States can be scientifically categorized as Caucasoid, but may not be labeled as white (by themselves or others).
The question of a difference between the Caucasian race and white as a racial category in the United States has led to at least one set of major legal contradictions in the United States Supreme Court in the pre-Civil Rights era. In the case of Ozawa v. United States (1922), the court ruled that a law which extended U.S. citizenship only to whites did not apply to fair-skinned people from Japan, because: The term white person, as used in [the law], and in all the earlier naturalization laws, beginning in 1790, applies to such persons as were known in this country as white, in the racial sense, when it was first adopted, and is confined to persons of the Caucasian Race. A Japanese born in Japan, being clearly not a Caucasian cannot be made a citizen of the United States.
However a year later, the same court was faced with the trial of United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923), where they ruled that someone from the Indian subcontinent could not become a naturalized United States citizen, because they were not white. The Supreme Court conceded that anthropologists had classified Indians as Caucasians, and thus the same race as whites, as defined in Ozawa. However, it concluded that the average man knows perfectly well there are unmistakable and profound differences, and denied citizenship.
After Blumenbach's time, the term Caucasian no longer was associated with peoples from the Caucasus but continued to be used as a racial indicator. Wow, amazing how one person's opinion, a mere word shaped America. We are a nation that thrives on 'mere' words to shape our actions and thoughts...mere can almost be integrated into our name A-mer-i-ca.
“You may think that the Constitution is your security-it is nothing but a piece of paper. You may think that the statutes are your security-they are nothing but words in a book. You may think that elaborate mechanism of government is your security-it is nothing at all, unless you have sound and uncorrupted public opinion to give life to your Constitution, to give vitality to your statutes, to make efficient your government machinery."
Chief Justice, U.S.
Supreme Court, 1930-1941
(April
11, 1862 – August 27, 1948) was a lawyer and Republican politician
from the State of New York. He served as the 36th Governor of New
York (1907-1910), United States Secretary of State (1921-1925),
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
(1910-1916) and Chief Justice of the United States (1930-1941). He
was the Republican candidate in the 1916 U.S. Presidential election,
losing to Woodrow Wilson.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Slavery
‘…. Once it was established that Africans could not escape from bondage as easily as the Native American, were outstanding in their agricultural ability, hardier in physical strength (which made them able to withstand and survive diseases like malaria and yellow fever) than the Native American the single use of African slave trade and labor became an American institution. By the 19th century almost all slaves were blacks.”
No matter how great the nation of America is, it is a known fact it would not be the metropolis it is now without the use of chattel slaves or other kinds of unfree laborers, such as indentured servants. This used and often mistreated part of society whether descendants from native Americans, Africans, Chinese or Japanese and through strength and determination contributed enormously to our economic, scientific and physical growth.
The history of slavery in the United States began soon after Europeans first settled in the area (and so even before the founding of the United States), and officially ended with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. It is unclear whether the first Africans in North America were slaves. The first African slaves arrived in present day United States as part of the San Miguel de Gualdape colony (most likely located in the Winyah Bay area of present-day South Carolina), founded by Spanish explorer Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón in 1526.
The ill-fated colony was destroyed by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves revolted and fled the colony to find safety among the local Native Americans. De'Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly afterwards of an epidemic, and the colony was abandoned, leaving the escaped slaves behind on North American soil. In 1565 the colony of Saint Augustine in Florida became the first permanent European settlement in North America, and included an unknown number of African slaves considered the first African American born in the English colonies in North America.
The legend has been repeated endlessly that the first blacks in Virginia were "indentured servants," but there is no hint of this in the records. The legend was established because the word slave did not appear in Virginia's records until 1656, and laws defining the status of blacks began to appear casually in the 1660s. The inference was then made that blacks called servants must have had approximately the same status as white indentured servants. Such reasoning failed to notice that Englishmen, in the early seventeenth century, used the word servant when they meant slave in our sense, and, indeed, white Southerners invariably used servant until 1865 and beyond. Slave entered the Southern vocabulary as a technical word in trade, law and politics.
In 1619 the tobacco export business was going so well the colonists were able to afford two imports Africans and women from England, which would greatly contribute to their productivity and quality of life. The first twenty Negar slaves had arrived from the West Indies in a Dutch slave trader vessel that was running low on food and sold to the governor and a merchant in Jamestown, as reported by John Rolfe to John Smith back in London. Each woman cost 120 pounds of tobacco and the Africans were paid for in food and became indentured servants similar in legal position to many poor Englishmen who traded several years' labor in exchange for passage to America. The popular conception of a racial-based slave system did not develop until the 1680's.
Originally in the American colonies, 1600 to 1800, American Indians (Native Americans) and other groups, mostly white Europeans such as captured soldiers, minor criminals, etc., were used as slaves, following the arrival of the twenty Africans the face of American slavery began to change from the tawny Indian to the black moor African in the years between 1650 and 1750. Early on, indentured servants were most useful in the growing of indigo, rice, and tobacco; cotton was only a side crop. Nevertheless, it was clear that slaves were most economically viable in plantation-style agriculture. Once it was established that Africans could not escape from bondage as easily as the Native American, were outstanding in their agricultural ability, hardier in physical strength (which made them able to withstand and survive diseases like malaria and yellow fever) than the Native American the single use of African slave trade and labor became an American institution. By the 19th century almost all slaves were blacks.
During the British colonial period, slaves were used in mostly in the Southern colonies and to a lesser degree in the Northern colonies as well. While white and red labor was used initially, Africans were the final solution to the acute labor problem in the New World. One characteristic which set American slavery apart was its racial basis. In America, with only a few early and insignificant exceptions, all slaves were Africans, and almost all Africans were slaves. This period of transition caused tens of thousands of Native American Indian nations to be enslaved and relocated.
In the early years of the eighteenth century, the number of Native American slaves in areas such as the Carolinas may have been as much as half of the African slave population. During this transitional period, Africans and Native Americans shared the common experience of enslavement. In addition to working together in the fields, they lived together in communal living quarters, produced collective recipes for food and herbal remedies, shared myths and legends, and ultimately became lovers. The intermarriage of Africans and Native Americans was made possible by the larger number of African male slaves to females and the annihilation of Native American males by disease, enslavement, and prolonged wars with the colonists.
As Native American societies in the Southeast were primarily matrilineal, African males who married Native American women often became members of the wife's clan and citizens of the respective nation. As relationships grew, the lines of distinction began to blur. The depth and complexity of this intermixture is revealed in a 1740 slave code in South Carolina: all Negroes and Indians, mulattos or mustezoes who are now, or shall hereafter be in this province, and all their issue and offspring...shall be and they are hereby declared to be, and remain hereafter absolute slaves. Millions of Native Americans were also enslaved, particularly in South America.
With the success of tobacco planting, African Slavery was legalized in Virginia and Maryland, becoming the foundation of the Southern agrarian economy. By 1625, ten slaves were listed in the first census of Jamestown. The first public slave auction of 23 individuals, disgracefully, was held in Jamestown square itself in 1638.
Black freedmen would live in a legal limbo until the general emancipation in 1864, unable to stand witness in their own defense against the testimony of any Euro-American. The General Court dispositions that appear after 1640 seem to support this contention. Barbados was the first British possession to enact restrictive legislation governing slaves in 1644, and other colonial administrations, especially Virginia and Maryland, quickly adopted similar rules modeled on it. Whipping and branding, borrowed from Roman practice via the Iberian-American colonies, appeared early and with vicious audacity.
The general assembly of Virginia in 1662 passed an act which directly and consciously invoked Justinian code: partvs seqvitvr ventram, whereby a child born of a slave mother was also held to be a slave, regardless of its father's legal status. A few years later, the population of Africans in bondage in Virginia reached about 2,000, and another statute (1667) established compulsory life servitude, de addictio according to Roman code, for Negroes... slavery had become an official institution.
The transformation from indentured servitude (servants contracted to work for a set amount of time) to racial slavery didn't happen overnight. There are no laws regarding slavery early in Virginia's history. By 1640, the Virginia courts had sentenced at least one black servant to slavery. It wasn't until 1661 that a reference to slavery entered into Virginia law, and this law was directed at white servants -- at those who ran away with a black servant. Three servants working for a farmer named Hugh Gwyn ran away to Maryland. Two were white; one was black. They were captured in Maryland and returned to Jamestown, where the court sentenced all three to thirty lashes -- a severe punishment even by the standards of 17th-century Virginia. The two white men were sentenced to an additional four years of servitude, one more year for Gwyn followed by three more for the colony. But, in addition to the whipping, the black man, a man named John Punch, was ordered to "serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life here or elsewhere." John Punch no longer had hope for freedom.
Slavery as an Economy
Following the lead of Massachusetts and Connecticut, Virginia legalized slavery. The following year, the colony went one step further by stating that children born would be bonded or free according to the status of the mother. For centuries the issue of equal rights presented a major challenge to the state. Slavery spread quickly in the American colonies. Because replacements, whether black or white, were in limited supply and more costly, the Virginia plantation owners considered the advantages of the perpetual servitude policy exercised by Caribbean landowners.
The main basis of these laws was the provision that black slaves, and the children of slave women, would serve for life. This premise, combined with the natural population growth among the slaves, meant that slavery could survive and grow. In 1672 the king of England chartered the Royal African Company to bring the shiploads of slaves into trading centers like Jamestown, Hampton, and Yorktown. Many landowners began to grow increasingly dependent on slave labor for their livelihood, and legislatures responded accordingly by increasing stricter regulations on forced labor practices.
Although the number of African American slaves grew slowly, by the 1680s they had become essential to the economy of Virginia. During the 17th and 18th centuries, African American slaves lived in all of England's North American colonies. Before Great Britain prohibited its subjects from participating in the slave trade, between 600,000 and 650,000 Africans had been forcibly transported to North America.
The transformation had begun, but it wouldn't be until the Slave Codes of 1705 that the status of African Americans would be sealed. Some of the British colonies placed restrictions on the practice of slavery; others banned it completely, such as Rhode Island in 1774.
The economic value of plantation slavery was reinforced in 1793 with the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney, a device designed to separate cotton fibers from seedpods and the sometimes sticky seeds. The invention revolutionized the cotton-growing industry by increasing the quantity of cotton that could be processed in a day by tenfold. The result was explosive growth in the cotton industry, and a proportionate increase in the demand for slave labor in the South.
The consequent United States Civil War led to the end of chattel slavery in America. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 was a symbolic gesture that proclaimed freedom for slaves within the Confederacy. Feb. 1, 1865 - The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery, was adopted by the 38th Congress Between 1903 and 1944. "What replaced the Black Codes, Leon F. Litwack wrote, "was not racial integration but an informal code of exclusion and discrimination." Laws that came to be known collectively as the Black codes, ended officially in 2000.
The first major blow against the Jim Crow system of racial segregation was struck in 1954 by the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which declared segregation in the public schools unconstitutional. This began what is known as the "Civil Rights Movement" and began the end of the Jim Crow Laws.
Racial Discrimination
Dred Scott v. Sandford, (1856), also known as the "Dred Scott Case" or "Dred Scott Decision", was a lawsuit, pivotal in the history of the United States, decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1857 that ruled that people of African descent, whether or not they were slaves, could never be citizens of the United States, and that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. The decision for the court was written by Chief Justice Roger Taney. It enraged abolitionists. The polarization of the slavery debate is considered one of many factors leading to the American Civil War.
The parts of this decision dealing with the citizenship and rights of African-Americans were explicitly overturned by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Dred Scott was an enslaved man, purchased around 1833 by Dr. John Emerson. Emerson served for over three years at Fort Armstrong, Illinois. Illinois was a free state, and Scott was eligible to be freed under its constitution. In 1836, Emerson was relocated to Wisconsin Territory, now present day Minnesota, a free territory under the Missouri Compromise and the Wisconsin Enabling Act.
In October 1837, Emerson was moved to St. Louis, Missouri but left Scott and Scott's wife behind for several months, hiring them out. Hiring out Scott constituted slavery, and was clearly illegal under the Missouri Compromise, the Wisconsin Enabling Act, and the Northwest Ordinance. In February 1846, Scott tried to purchase his freedom from Irene Emerson, but she refused. In April 1846, he sued for his freedom, arguing that since he had been in both a free state and a free territory he had become legally free, and could not have afterwards reverted to being a slave.
The first case Scott brought was won on a technicality: Emerson could not prove to the court that she indeed owned Scott and his family. A judge ordered a second trial in December 1847; Emerson appealed the order for a second trial to the Supreme Court of Missouri, which ruled against her in June 1848. A new trial did not begin until January 1850, and the jury ruled Scott and his family were legally free. Emerson again appealed to the Supreme Court of Missouri. At this point, Emerson turned the responsibility of the case over to her brother, John F. A. Sandford of New York, who acted on her behalf. The Missouri Supreme Court reversed the lower court's decision, holding that Scott was still a slave. According to the Court, the drafters of the Constitution had viewed all African-Americans as "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." The Court also presented a parade of horribles, describing the feared results of granting Mr. Scott's petition: "It would give to persons of the negro race …the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased …the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went."
The Dred Scott decision of 1857, which asserted that slavery's presence in the Midwest was nominally lawful (when owners crossed into the free states), turned Northern public opinion against slavery. Legally, slaves within the United States remained enslaved until the final ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in December of 1865, eight months after the cessation of hostilities in the Civil War.
During the period between the surrender of the last Confederate troops on May 26, 1865 and the final ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment on December 6, 1865 (with final recognition of the amendment on December 18), but history remains unclear on the precise date upon which the last chattel slave was freed in the United States. Juneteenth (June 19, 1865) is celebrated in Texas, Oklahoma, and some other areas, and celebrates the date when news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached the last slaves at Galveston, Texas.
An 1867 federal law prohibited debt bondage or peonage, which still existed in the New Mexico Territory as a legacy of Spanish imperial rule. Between 1903 and 1944 the Supreme Court ruled on several cases involving debt bondage of Black Americans, declaring these arrangements unconstitutional.
Video2
Yes, We Can
Internment
“We were told these relocation camps were not for internment but for refuge. Had the W.R.A. really power to intern American citizens? Is it reasonable for Japanese Americans to be interned and Germans and Italians, not? Is not the very essence of our democracy that we are made up of all races and colors? We are all tied together by the idea of democracy. That is what all our boys are fighting and suffering for. If we cannot all stand before the law in equal liberty and freedom to live our lives regardless of race, creed, or color — then what price democracy?”
— Marion Weddell to Pres. Roosevelt, Dec. 23, l942
The United States Constitution in the 1850s reserved the right of naturalization for White immigrants to this country. Only two skin colors were recognized, White and Black. Since early Chinese immigrants were neither, some were allowed to become naturalized citizens, but most were not. Without citizenship, Chinese immigrants could not vote, hold government office or be employed by the state. Only those individuals who were "free, white and twenty-one" were able to become American citizens. In 1870 African Americans gained the right to citizenship. Individuals of Oriental Heritage were the only aliens ineligible for citizenship. They had no voice in determining their future. Designated as "aliens ineligible for citizenship," they were unable to own land or file mining claims.
Since Chinese immigrants could not testify in court against Whites, the only reasonable course of action was to avoid open confrontation and avoid direct competition with Whites. Since they were not allowed to become citizens of the United States their future in the country was uncertain, even though they paid taxes and contributed to the economy. Many raised vegetables and fruit sold door to door. Others were sharecroppers or tenant farmers, who leased land and paid the landlord part of their crop. Few Chinese Americans were able to become independent farmers and were prevented from owning land by local laws and restrictive covenants.
In 1848 with the agricultural industry of the West Coast and Hawaii facing a severe labor shortage the United States government pressured the government of Japan to relax their restrictions on Japanese laborers migrating to the United States. In 1850, with the achievement of statehood, California passed a number of laws officially discriminating against the Chinese population. California cities were empowered to expel or restrict the Chinese to segregated areas. Public agencies as well as corporations were prohibited from employing Chinese. In addition other federal, state or local laws or court decisions at various times prohibited the Chinese from; becoming citizens or voting, testifying in court against a white person, engaging in licensed business and professions, attending school with whites, and marrying whites. The Chinese race alone were required to pay special taxes and a major source of revenue for many cities, counties and the state of California came from these assessments against the Chinese.
By 1900 approximately 85,000 Japanese laborers were working the fields in Hawaii and California. Confronted by anti-Oriental public opinion and the demand by organized labor to exclude the Japanese, West Coast politicians reacted accordingly. In 1913 California passed the Alien Land Law barring aliens ineligible for Citizenship from ownership of land in California. Political parties in California adopted platforms which encompassed anti-Japanese declarations and the American Legion established a committee to promote alien land laws and to work for the removal of Japanese from competitive ventures.
At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor approximately 112,000 persons of Japanese descent were living in California, Arizona, and the coastal areas of Oregon and Washington. One third of them had come to the United States as immigrants before the Immigration Act of 1924 restricted Oriental immigration. Acceptance of Japanese immigrants the Issei 一世 (first generation born in Japan or Okinawa) as cheap labor by United States citizens, changed over the years to resentment, racial hatred, mistrust and discrimination. They had come to America in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century to work the mines; to help develop our nation's railroad system; to be fishermen, farmers and migrant agricultural laborers.
Although the Issei contributed greatly to the economic development of the United States they inherited the stereotype and distrust that West Coasters had previously directed against immigrants from China. As Japanese immigration increased the transfer of the yellow peril stereotype from the Chinese to the Japanese accelerated and fears of Oriental inundation on the West Coast were revived. By 1941 the Japanese American descendants (the second generation is Nisei (二世) and third is Sansei (三世) American citizens by birth) comprised two thirds of areas population of Japanese descent.
Immediately after Pearl Harbor, Japanese were excluded from various labor unions. Between December 8th and March 31st, anti-Japanese rage resulted in 36 cases of vigilantism, including seven murders. A great deal was made of the fact that immigrants born in Japan, but living for decades in the United States (the Issei), had not become U.S. citizens-proof of their continued loyalty to the Emperor. But no mention was made of the fact that long-standing American law forbade them from taking out U.S. citizenship -- a ban that was not lifted until 1952. A March 1942 national public opinion poll showed 93 percent in favor of evacuating alien Japanese. While 59 percent wanted to evacuate U.S. citizens of Japanese origin, only 25 percent disapproved. In February 1942, Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, Commanding General of the Western Defense Command, requested authorization from Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to evacuate "Japanese and other subversive persons" from the West Coast area.