Black
people are oppressed and exploited in the United States. It is the
responsibility of all people of good will, white and Black, to speak out
against this. racist terror on the basis of knowledge and logic. Therefore,
the main thing Afro-American Studies is designed to provide is the knowledge
and logic needed to under- stand and defend Black people, and in this way
make a contribution to the entire society.
Afro-American
Studies, as a field, is a partisan activity, an enterprise in which the
objective is not merely to understand the world but also to help make it
better. For example, people study agriculture in order to increase food
production. This is a positive goal for all of society, and it is given
support from all aspects of society in recognition of this fact. People
study Afro-American Studies because the Black community must be healed if
the United States is to survive. In this sense ' Afro-American Studies is
not only for the Black community, but, more profoundly, Afro- American
Studies is for the entire United States.
In
this last chapter, we are raising two basic questions: What should you have,
learned by reading this text? and Where do you go next? Beginning to answer
these questions is the task of this chapter.
SUMMARY
The
Afro-American experience is rooted in the everyday activities of a people
trying to survive. This consists of how Black people lead their lives under
brutal forms of oppression and how they produce resistance against the
racist domination they face. This is the fundamental dialectical rhythm of
history - the struggle to survive and the struggle to transform history.
The
key aspect of society is political economy because this is how a society
takes care of its needs (e.g., food, clothing, housing, -health care,
etc.). Also, it is this aspect that defines class conflict and class
struggle. In fact, given certain class relations, people usually focus on
survival. However, there comes a time when chances for survival can't be
improved unless there is a change in the class character of society. This
is the turning point - when people no longer focus on survival, but take
history into their own hands.
A
good example of this is a personal statement from a Black woman who joined
the Black liberation movement in Mississippi.
Mrs. Johnnie Mae Walker was a community organizer
for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
|
My
name is Johnnie Mae Walker and I live in Hattiesburg Mississippi. I
have lived here all my life. I was born in Forrest County, on May
31, 1934. I've
been a rebel all my days. It started when I first realized that the
white man was doing me wrong. It was picking cotton that did it to
me - all day in the sun, getting up at 3:30 in the morning and going
until 8:30 at night - and all for two dollars a day. That was when I
began to hate the white man. Maybe I don't really hate him but I
can't think of another word. Then
when I was eighteen I thought I was really getting up in the world.
The big day came when I went out on a maid's job. I worked at that
job harder than I ever worked at anything in my life trying to keep
it. And then the big pay day came and I got twelve dollars. (I had
one child, Carolyn, so three dollars went to the baby sitter.) I
quit because I wasn't satisfied. That twelve dollars disgusted me. I
wished I hadn't worked a day in my life. I
followed this routine of getting a job and quitting, getting a job
and quitting, until 1963 when the movement came to Hattiesburg. This
is the time that I fully realized that what I had felt all along was
right. We are being treated unjustly working hard and not getting
paid hardly enough even to survive. This is wrong. I knew it but I
did not know how it could be better, how it could be changed. And I
did not know what I, personally, could do about it. I
still don't know exactly what to do, but I do know how to begin. We
have to stop hating. The reason I hated the white man was because he
was on top of the system. It was the system that I hated. The system
kept us from going to school and getting a good education, kept us
from eating well, and having clothes which is important for our
children. I
stopped hating and started understanding., That was my first step
toward freedom. One
Monday night I went to a mass meeting. While I was sitting there Bob Moses began to talk and he asked a
simple question: "What have you to fear? Death? They've been
killing you all along. Job? What job? You don't have a job. You
don't make enough to even feed your families well:' That is when I
began thinking: "He's right. If I'm going to die, I'm going to
die for something. The Negro has never been free." The
COPO called a Freedom Day on January 22, 1964 and I was one of Since
that time I've tried to register thirteen times. The registrar
failed me every time but I know I'm qualified. I quit school when I
was twelve at the end of the fifth grade because I hated that rotten
school. It was a cold crummy joint - nothing but a run down wooden
shack. And the teachers were brutal; they called you stupid and beat
you if you didn't understand. But my education didn't stop. I read
and studied on my own and took correspondence courses. I
realized that working for the movement would cause sacrifice. But I
am the sole supporter of my two children so I tried to keep my job
as a presser in a dry cleaning store. But the day came when I had to
make a decision: Would I
"uncle tom" to keep that job, that survival ticket, or
should I stand up for freedom? What did I really owe my children? I
made up my mind. I went with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic
Party to Washington, D.C. When my employer found out, I had no job.
Today is February 4, 1965. The lights were turned off two days ago,
the heat goes off tomorrow and the phone gets cut off in a week but
the hell with it. Somehow we'll make out. We borrowed an extension
cord and ran it over to the house next door. They can't keep us down
anymore. Now I work full time for the movement and I'll be with the movement until the day I die. This is one job I don't intent to quit. My goal is not freedom for the Negro but freedom for all men. |
All
of the Afro-American experience is not reducible to class, though all of
it is conditioned by class. Race, nationality, and consciousness exist
independently, each with its own "substance and logic of
development." But, the main factor that influences more than any
other the nature of every other aspect of society is class. This is the
most controversial issue in all the social sciences and humanities. ,
Afro-American
history can be theoretically summed up as a dynamic process of historical
periodization. This consists of three periods of social cohesion (slavery,
rural life, urban life) and three periods of social disruption
(emancipation, migration, crisis). All aspects of the Afro-American
experience fall into this historical paradigm. With this paradigm it is
possible to make great progress in theoretical discourse and empirical
research. Without such a basis for intellectual unity, there would be
confusion and rampant individualism. The role of intellectuals is to make
the world easier to understand and therefore easier to change. This
requires unity, the opposite of intellectual
"do-you-own-thing-ism!"
Every
event, person, movement, organization, book, even concepts and language
itself must be understood in relationship to all other aspects of society
and in terms of historical context.
With
a paradigm of unity, and with this method, all knowledge of the Black
experience can be synthesized as part of a cumulative process. You must,
however, be warned against relying on this paradigm to replace research
for detailed information. Each aspect of society must be studied on its
own terms, because each thing is unique and has its own identity. But,
there is this larger pattern, and it is this pattern that. helps put all
of the historical detail into a coherent picture.
THE
FUTURE
Black
people in the, United States have been at times very optimistic, and at
other times very pessimistic about the future. Of course, this reflects a
rational response to the shifting winds of racism. Black people have been
quite human in an inhumane condition. At an earlier point in history
(generally before the 20th century), Africa was a reasonable goal in times
of trouble. If it got bad enough in the United States, then Black people
could always go back to Africa and try to make a life there. But this is
no longer possible since the system that oppresses Black people is
world-wide. Just as Black people used to think that getting out of the
South would put them closer to freedom, few now think that. The only place
to go is outer space, and with the current development of "star wars,
technology" that is actually not a real possibility either. There is
no utopia in which to find a refuge. In fact, the actual meaning of the
word, utopia is "nowhere," so in this sense there never has been
any place to go for ultimate happiness.
The
good life is not found, but is made by human beings. The future is
produced through collective human action. The critical issues are: Who
will do it? What is it? How will they do it? In each case, why will they
do it? And, of course, when will it be done? We have been concerned with
summing up the historical record and the contemporary conditions of life.
These questions about the future you will have to answer through how you
lead your life, and how you influence others to lead their lives.
This
text stops here, but you must go on. We will leave you with one last
thought from the Afro-American poet laureate Langston Hughes:
Let
America be America again.
Let
it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain.
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed -
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O,
let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with-no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's
never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say
who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek -
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I
am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in, that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold!
Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men!
Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I
am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, worried, hungry, mean -
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today - O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet
I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In that Old World-while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home -
For I'm the one-who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
A
dream -
Still beckoning to me!
O,
let America be America again -
The land that never has been yet -
And yet must be -
The land where every man is free.
The land that's mine -
The poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME -
Who. made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure,
call me any ugly name you choose -
The steel of freedom does not stain.
For those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again, America!
O,
yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath -
American will be!
An ever-living seed,
Its dream
Lies deep in the heart of me.
We,
the people, must redeem
Our land, the
mines, the plants, the rivers,
The mountains and the endless plain -
All, all the stretch of these great green states -
And make America again!
