How did the Blacks gain political power from slavery
Introduction
Political power captures and takes many different forms. It is the accountability to exercise voting rights, the power to situate aspirants or candidates into office who stand for and represent aspirations and concerns of all citizens, not only those with political influence and money. Political power is also about education i.e. acquiring knowledge on how to educate and train ourselves on matters that concern us. People should always be ready to engage themselves in political discussions with each other, be able to comprehend and identify with these political discussions and if it is needed they can also thrust aside the rhetoric and get to the basis of that particular issue.
How Black people gained political power from slavery
The appointment of President Barrack Obama is changing America’s alignment of race in ways and manners that have not yet been quantified politically. However from a viewpoint of Black political headship, this signals a clear-cut that shows the shifting of the guard. Youthful Black leaders are now card carrying democrat that can (eyeball) or glare at whomever they want. Ever since the remonstration and protest movement of the 1960’s, a literature ocean exists now on America politics and the lives of black people. What was on one occasion an extremely ignored subject of interest by the social scientists, political scientists and economists, has now flourished into a segregated field of study (Theorore 67). There is so much debate and controversy on the reasons regarding slave trade abolition and the consequent progressive slave system abolition in the New World. Several people have disputed that in Britain, it was due to the influence/power of the Christian /moral arguments lay on the table by the movement abolitionist that was led by William Wilberforce, the great and powerful parliamentarian.
The Black Power movement influence on blacks gain on political powers from slavery.
The Black Power movement was implemented from the movement of civil rights that had gained momentum steadily during the 1950s and 1960s. Even if it was not an official movement, the movement marked a defining moment in black-white associations in the United States and it also changed how blacks perceived themselves (Carmichael, Stokely & Hamilton 28). The Black Power movement was heartened by several proactive and positive forces that intended to help black people realize full equal opportunities with whites. Some however, saw it as a militant and combative movement that was at times violent and a group whose major goal was to impel a block between blacks and whites.
The Black Power movement was an intricate occurrence that came to pass at a time when culture and society was being transformed all over the United States of America, and its heritage and legacy mirrors that complexity. The movement instilled a racial pride sense and self-esteem in black people (Carmichael, Stokely & Hamilton 28). Blacks were advised that it was upon them to improve and build up their lives. Advocates in Black Power movement encouraged them to join or even form blacks’ political parties that can offer a formidable supremacy base and provide an establishment for actual socioeconomic advancement.
For decades, the movement’s officials believed that the blacks were trying to aim at white ethics and ideals on what they ought to be. But now was the time for blacks to lay down their own schedules and agenda, putting their aspirations and needs as the first priority. The very first step was to replace the term (Negro), it was a word that was associated with many years of black slavery (Van Deburg & William 89).
The movement produced several positive developments. In all probability the most remarkable and striking of these developments was the influence on the black culture. For once, the black people in the United States were persuaded to acknowledge the African heritage. Universities and colleges came up with black studies departments and black studies programs. Blacks who were raised believing that they descended from a diffident people now recognized that African culture was as diverse and rich as any other; they were also encouraged about being proud of their heritage (Carmichael, Stokely & Hamilton 15).
The Black Arts movement emerged in the same era and was seen by some as being connected to the movement of Black Power. It blossomed in the 1960s and 1970s. Young black authors, poets, and visual artists established their voices and they shared these voices with everyone else. Unlike the earlier black movements on arts e.g., the Harlem Renaissance, the new movement above all, focused on the black audience.
The similar spirit of ethnic unity and pride that enabled the Black Power movement to be so dynamic is the same that made it problematic and to some, harmful and dangerous. A number of blacks and many whites identified the movement as a black pro-autonomy organization determined to segregate whites and blacks, ruining the imperative work done by the civil rights movement.
There is no doubt that advocates of the Black Power movement had pressing and valid concerns. Nevertheless, blacks were still racism and political power victims, whether they paid highly for a mortgage, being paid less than their white job affiliates or if they faced brutality at the hands of their white racists. But the resolutions that some of the Black Power leaders promoted, generated new problems. Some, for instance, recommended that blacks should be given paramilitary schooling and carry guns to guard themselves. To these advocates, the guns were solely for self defense and not for violence, but it was frightening when one thought of fortified citizens walking out there in the streets.
The movement however, had a great impact on the ways that were used to help the blacks gain their political power from slavery (Carmichael, Stokely & Hamilton 44). It helped in the provision of some of the rudiments and elements that were at the moment essential for whites and blacks and it also helped the two groups in getting a fuller perception and understanding of each other. This brought the blacks nearer to the acquisition of their political power in America.
The black’s reconstruction
Slaves were freed by Emancipation Proclamation in 1863; they ushered in a period of south, black political power. Unfortunately, the white historians focused largely on whites after the Reconstruction, paying no attention to the huge achievements made by blacks. These white historians belittled the black’s reconstruction and saw it as a mistake, particularly because these black Americans, achieved some political powers in the areas of their earlier bondage within no time (McCartney 94)
The Reconstruction history became a major means by which the whites, in South and North, maneuvered historical reminiscences so that they can reify racialism on post-slavery. The expression Black Reconstruction referred to the activities and actions of the white and black Americans in the era that came to be just after the Civil War. It involved the political, economic, and social bodies’ transformation in a way that was consistent with the Thirteenth to Fifteenth amendments that jointly recognized and established black equality and freedom.
Several historians describe Black Reconstruction as the span of the years since 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation year, which made extensive black military partaking possible in the Civil War through 1877, the national political power agreement year to do away with federal troops that were South America (McCartney 57).
However, considerable political and other additional Reconstruction activities by the blacks continued at the state and local levels beyond 1877. One can be able to trace the Black Reconstruction beginnings to the service of a few 160,000 earlier slaves and 40,000 free blacks who were Union soldiers in the Civil War. These soldiers did not only provide the essential manpower to the victory in the North, but they also staked an irrefutable claim that was to be transformed from a slavery state into a full citizenship after the civil war. Some of these earlier soldiers became vital to the interracial civic, black and political organizations that were in the South (McCartney 97).
This story is apparent, for instance, in the Abraham Galloway experience, he was born a slave near Wilmington in North Carolina. He was inspired by the ideas and writings of David Walker. He was a free black man who was from Wilmington too. Galloway returned to the United States when the civil war began. He served in the union intelligence service as a spy in Eastern side of Carolina. In the recruition of other blacks in the Union army, Abraham Galloway was perceived as a natural leader and was included as a member in the group of delegation of blacks who met President Abraham Lincoln on the matters of black suffrage. He started local and state chapters of the Equivalent Rights League.
These leagues acted as civic and political and associations all over the country, fighting for equivalent political, civil, and social rights for the black citizens. They also stood for, black schools, churches, other organizations and the burgeoning black American civil life frame work. The blacks in America were the majority in the United States House of Representatives for many years, and these blacks also served as Speakers of this House for four years and that was from 1874-1876. (Van Deburg & William 34) Through the blacks’ construction, Galloway helped in the blacks in gaining their political powers from slavery.
Blacks also saw major political achievement in Louisiana, where P. B. S. Pinchback, Oscar J. Dunn, and Caesar Antoine served as deputy governors of the Reconstruction period. Pinchback also served as the first black governor in America for a short-lived period. In Mississippi, the blacks held positions as deputy governors, state secretaries, and administrators of education. John R. Lynch was a House Speaker and was afterward appointed to Congress. Twenty-two blacks worked in the Congress as a due to the Reconstruction, and more than six hundred blacks worked as state legislatures in the South. There was also a feel of Black political power on the local level; this is where blacks held many positions, such as, peace justices, county commissioners, city aldermen, and. Sheriffs (Van Deburg & William 78).
Obstacles faced by blacks under different periods as they tried to acquire their political powers.
Studies indicate that the black’s struggles in the United States have been a battle for inclusion in the political power process, which the blacks were excluded from on economic ground basis. The history of blacks’ inclusion in the political power process in the American culture indicates how economics has always been the root basis for action (Theodore 76). In the beginning, Blacks were debarred from the political power process since White Americans oppressed the slave industry for profit and their economy was based on the slavocracy gains (Theorore). In this present era of highly developed technology, blacks are either inexplicably displaced from the work force, or are commonly found in most insolvent part of industry. Racial oppression and Class exploitation of the blacks are on going because they are incorporated into the political and economic structure of America capitalism at the lowly level of every class.
The review of the blacks struggle in the politics of the Americans is a manifestation of economy changes. Observation states that blacks are at last becoming powerful politically. But every developed nation with a racially or ethnically diverse populace has a universal pecking order of political power. All other power simulations e.g. the freedoms of press, speech, and assembly are like window dressings of democracy politically, that may possibly boost up patriotism, but there is utility lack for the minority group to rule such influence (Charles 64)
Conclusion
It is evident that electoral competition in the midst of White factions has created Black leaders opportunities to win legitimate political empowerment and shun subordination. When the electoral competition among the White Americans does not exist, Black votes are unable to find their electoral power, leading to the extra-electoral policies rise. Keiser’s leadership dynamic theory explains the present Black separatism appeal and messianism at the national and local levels. In a methodical survey of the meaning and manifestations of Black political Power in America, John McCartney scrutinize the Black Power Movement ideology and situates it in the context of both black and Western political contemplation. Eight decades done the line, the black political power has extensively improved. America has a black man for the president and this shows the results of the efforts made by the movements that were established to bring about these differences.
Work cited.
Carmichael, Stokely, and Charles V. Hamilton. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America. New York: Vintage Books. 1967
Cross, Theorore. The Black Power Imperative. New York: Faulkner. 1984.
Van Deburg, William, L. New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. 1992.
John T. McCartney, Black power ideologies: an essay in African-American political thought .1993
