Prometheus 6   

Conceptual roots

Why America Needs Us To Be Black
by Earl Dunovant
copyright © 1994

July 4th is celebrated as the birthday of the United States of America. Though it is the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it is not the day America was born. America was born August 20, 1619. That's the day British pirates landed a Dutch ship on the shores near Jamestown, Virginia. That's the day pirates sold the first 20 Africans to British colonists, setting the North American continent on a course that has since shaped the world.

One hundred fifty seven years later, after considerable wrangling to make slavery legally, religiously. . . automatically. . . acceptable, after artisans, metal workers, laborers, cooks, and servants built the landscape and economy of this nation, after the well-being of the majority was insured by labor of the last tribe of Africa, a nation was declared to be born based on the words of Thomas Jefferson - "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"

Noble words from a slaveowner, a man whose livelihood depended on depriving the Children of Africa of those rights.

America has never lived up to that statement. The nature of America, of Americans, a mere generation ago was much the same as it was in 1776 - a place and a people that allowed you to go as far as your abilities would take you, as long as you weren't an Amerind or African. And it's not very different now. It can't be. Less than 40 years have passed since Freedom Summer, when civil rights activists tried to influence America. The summer that saw the Federal government mobilize to find two missing white civil rights workers (that a Black one was missing was, I'm convinced, incidental. No ever one searched for the many, many Blacks that vanished before that day. . .). They dragged a lake in search of their bodies, and found instead nine Children of Africa that had been lynched and disposed of. Ultimately, two of the co-conspirators turned in the others. Ultimately, 19 men were implicated, including the locals in charge of law enforcement. Ultimately, the sovereign state of Mississippi refused to press charges for murder.

Many of these men are still alive, as are many of those who plotted with them. The college students and workers in their mid- to late-twenties who rioted and were willing to kill to maintain segregation, the government officials assigned to track and report the location of civil rights workers to local officials who were known Klan members, the FBI agents who stood and watched as Blacks were mercilessly brutalized. . . almost all these people are still alive.

Their children, who likely share the same values, will be alive even longer.

America treats us as outcasts, seems to see us as unfit to share in the wealth we helped create. Yet we were here as long as you were, America. We worked as hard as . . . no, harder than . . . any other to make this nation what it is. We were abused and denied, but we were never destroyed.

America asked the world for its tired, its poor, its wretched of spirit. . . and turned its back on its own. Yet there has been some improvement because we would not relent. We will never give up on our rightful claim. We have been good for America, and not merely by giving our labor to her. Every moral improvement America has made has been in response to the efforts of the Children of Africa. Every truly new cultural movement in America has its roots in the activities of the Children of Africa. Every group that seeks to end its unequal treatment under the present system compares it's movement to, and models its movement after, the Civil Rights movement of the Children of Africa.

I say to you America, if you wish to continue to grow wiser and stronger, you need us. We are the measure of your honor. If you are ever to live up to your credo, if America is ever to be what it claims to be, white America must move beyond its attitude toward the Children of Africa. All the efforts to make us merely black white people reflect a fear of advancement to morality. And without morality, your power bids fair to destroy the world. Like it or not, you need us proud, you need us strong. America must learn to accept the diversity in its midst before it finds itself unable to deal with the diverse world it lives in. Immigrants seek to become a part of America - they can't help it in this effort. No, the only people in America that can goad her to greater openness are the Children of Africa.