By Germán Gómez
The path of the African-American communities in the United States had different stages and characteristics, but with a common feature: the struggle to survive and be included in society as equals. In a previous article we analyzed the implications of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, in these lines we propose to analyze the reactions produced by the war and the deepening of systematic racism.
December 24, 1865 was not just another Christmas Eve for the southern communities of the United States; it was the first Christmas after the war that had divided the country and that had been crucial in the imposition of the economic plans of the industrial North. The territory was still occupied by Union troops to guarantee order and the submission of the large plantation owners. In this context, a group of Confederate veterans founded in the state of Tennessee a group that defended the wounded southern pride, opposition to the federal government, but mainly resentment and revenge towards the African-American population: the Ku Klux Klan, better known as KKK.
The Klan
The characteristics and organization of the KKK were inspired by the Masonic lodges, they were secret organizations, verticalist, with a very marked internal hierarchy and with a wide spectrum of symbologies, the most recognized being the white attire with the pointy hood. The objective of the Klan was to recover the status quo[1] lost after the Civil War, and for this reason they had declared as enemies both the federal government and the African-American communities. The Klan’s growth was exponential, first among war veterans, but then spreading to law enforcement, liberal professionals and even wage earners who blamed their own exploitation on African-American communities. The group’s activities began by intimidating people who supported the federal government or ‘collaborated’ with black communities. But along with the growth of the organization and the creation of new affiliated groups in other cities, it quickly escalated into violence. The klan became a kind of anonymous guerrilla, murdering African Americans and burning down entire neighborhoods in their communities. By June 1867, eighteen months after its founding, the Ku Klux Klan was responsible for at least 197 murders and 548 violent assaults[2]. This caught the attention of the federal government, which began to take matters into its own hands… or so it pretended to appear. The states that had belonged to the Confederate side were still occupied by Union troops and the actions of the racist and xenophobic group served as an excuse for the North to sustain this occupation, so the Southern bourgeoisie – which had viewed the formation of the Klan with sympathy – began to call for its dissolution. But the KKK was a decentralized organization, there was no single leadership, each group had its own leadership, which made it difficult to control the whole racist movement that had been set up. The justice system began to investigate and accuse the whites who participated in the movement of being “terrorists”, however, no one was convicted and the only aim was to discourage the actions of the organization, since one of the reasons for the existence of the group was anonymity. This stopped the actions for a while.
The group never disappeared, it continues to exist to this day, although it had moments of rise and plateaus. One of the highest points in its history occurred in 1915, with the release of the film “The Birth of a Nation”[3] by D. W. Griffith, which is an ode to the creation and action of the Ku Klux Klan, romanticizing both the organization and its principles. The film received a great deal of press coverage and even the president of the time, Woodrow Wilson, appeared praising the film’s plot, although he later retracted it. It was during this stage that the already established racism intrinsic to the organization was joined by xenophobia against immigrants, first Italians, Russians and Japanese, and now Latinos. Years later, with the emergence of totalitarianism, they added fascist ideas that were outlining the organization until today, an appendix of the most rancid and conservative right wing of the United States.
“Justice” punishing the victim
However, this racist guerrilla attempt had one achievement: to reconstruct a part of the pre-war order expressed in what became popularly known as “Jim Crow Laws”[4]. Southern African-American communities were permanently exposed to racism and discrimination, both social and occupational. The Klan had only formalized this situation. The intervention of the government in an attempt to appease this situation was defined in clear favor of the white and racist majority, allowing the passing of bills that worsened even more the situation of the minorities. In all the states, both in the South and in the North – where racism was beginning to emerge and establish itself – bills that limited the rights of free people were passed. From the “anti-miscegenation” law that prohibited and prosecuted marriages between people of different ethnicities, to the laws enshrined in the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1871, which were supposed to guarantee equal rights for all people, but did not repeal the “black codes”[5] that regulated work, transportation and voting in formerly slave communities. The synthesis of these laws was expressed in the doctrine that would be in force for almost 100 years, known as “equal but separate”.
Between 1865 and 1954, the national government and all the states, with the excuse of guaranteeing the integrity of the persecuted communities, adopted a policy of racial segregation, which defined that all services provided, both by the state and by private companies, should have differentiated facilities: some for Caucasians[6] and others for people of African ethnicity. This was replicated in schools, hospitals, markets, neighborhoods, transportation, even bathrooms in squares for whites, with all the quality and safety regulations in force, and others for blacks, with abysmally inferior conditions. The only institution that remained unchanged was the armed forces and security forces, both federal and state, which prohibited the entry of “colored people” until World War II.
American society as a whole took this expression as the “natural” order of the country, which is why racism is so deeply rooted throughout the entire geography of the country and not limited only to the Confederate States.
The road to freedom… still a long way to go.
The violations of the rights of black people was systematic, the KKK was only one expression of it, because the various governments and the capitalist system never guaranteed them the conditions necessary for the freedom touted by Lincoln and the constitutional amendments. One of the fundamental pillars of the American economy is racism, because in this way they divide the working class, super-exploiting ethnic minorities as cheap labor but at the same time using them as scapegoats for social problems. In all of U.S. history, the African-American population has been blamed for unemployment and the growth of crime rates. This is why the creation of the Klan was not an isolated expression of those defeated by the war but a systematic and continuing issue up to the present day. The governments – federal and state – never made any effort to fight against it, in any case, they gave it a legal framework to sustain it.
Throughout history, most of white American society and politics have been condescending, justifying and legitimizing cases of police brutality and racist justice. As it happened in the resounding case of the “Scottsboro Boys”[7] , where nine black teenagers were unjustly accused and sentenced only because of the color of their skin. This year, George Floyd was choked to death by police officers. Charged with allegedly attempting to buy a product with a counterfeit bill, a misdemeanor, he suffered police brutality because of the color of his skin. The immense rebellion generated by his murder produced a rupture in this social structure.
The African American working people led the way with struggle and continue to do so today. Like Rosa Parks, who on her way home refused to get up from a “white” seat on the bus and started the revolt that would put an end to the segregationist doctrine. Or Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, who debated the model of struggle to be followed by black workers in the 60’s, up to the Black Lives Matters movement and the rebellion that arose from the assassination of George Floyd. A struggle that continues against the State and the capitalist system, which from its origins denied their most basic rights, lowering the value of their lives and denying them the longed-for freedom.
1] Status Quo, means the state of things, the established order.
2] William Du Bois, The Black Reconstruction of America 1860-1880.
[3] The Birth of a Nation, DW Griffith, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0004972/
4] “Jim Crow” was a very popular circus vaudeville character that negatively caricatured the black population, personified by the white actor Thomas Rice.
5] The black codes were the name given to the regulations for the sale and possession of slaves. With the end of the Civil War, they changed to the regulation of jobs and rights held by freedmen.
6] Caucasian is the name given to the ethnic group originating in Europe that is represented by its white skin color.
7] The Scottsboro Boys is the name given to the case of 9 African-American teenagers who were accused of raping two white girls, no evidence was ever presented against them, nor could the crime be proven, but they were sentenced to sentences ranging from 75 years in prison to being executed in the electric chair.