Reflections in Black, Travails of Blacks in America
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Selma, Alabama during the 1950s and 1960s was a typical little Southern town like hundreds of other small racist cities and towns throughout Alabama and the South. As had been the case in other Southern cities, Selma had in place a rigidly oppressive system of segregation and discrimination against blacks. Selma differed from other small Southern cities only in that many whites migrating to the area descended from people from older and more established Southern states. These whites possessed a degree of wealth and class that whites in other Alabama counties did not have. The notion of an old Southern aristocracy seemed to have much more substance in Selma than it did in other Southern cities. Because of the city’s location on fertile land along the Alabama River, Selma became a center for trade and commerce. Many whites migrating to Selma became wealthy if they were not already rich when they arrived. Although, the attitudes of racial superiority and the segregationist views of whites coming to Dallas country were compatible to those of whites in other Alabama counties, their superior wealth, education and position softened their image on race. Also, their social, political and economic distance from blacks did not present as much of a threat to them as it did to poor whites. Their power and influence allowed them to call the shots from behind the scene in relative anonymity. Wealthy whites were able to dictate the course of events without openly getting involved. William Rufus King, who became one of two Alabama Senators before the Civil War and who in 1862, was elected to the Vice-Presidency, was one of the wealthy. King supported slavery, but he was a strong advocate for the Union. He frequently clashed with those who wanted to secede from the Union as the debate over slavery and states’ rights ensued. Historians assert that there was never the fervor and support in Dallas County for leaving the Union that existed in other Alabama counties because of the control that the landed aristocracy exerted. As the clash between the North and the South became more imminent, however, residents of Dallas County, including the white elite, became more willing to engage in the fight for their way of life. Before the Civil War, several factories had sprung up in and around Selma. Selma could lay claim to the largest arsenal of munitions arsenal and supply depot in the South. This made Selma a prime target of the Union Army. In March 1865, Union Soldiers, led by General J. H. Wilson marched into Selma and drove Confederate forces, under the command of controversial General Nathan Bedford Forest, out of Dallas County, destroying much of Dallas County’s industry in the process.
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About the Book
This book is not intended to be another history of blacks in America, although I have explored the history of blacks to make my point. This book was conceived and written to sound the alarm that blacks in America, despite modest gains, continue to languish in a perpetual state of despair. The time is fast running out for blacks to take control of our destiny. The status of blacks after 400 years of slavery and segregation stands in stark contrast to the status of white European immigrants and others that migrate to America and become first-class citizens by virtue of their white skin the minute they enter the country while blacks flounder in the abyss of second-class citizenship. These immigrants come to America having contributed nothing to the building and well being of the country. Blacks meanwhile have worked their fingers to the bones to build America, fought in every war from the Revolutionary War to the war in Kosovo, yet blacks receive no respect. I explore how blacks have continuously fallen victim to the barren rhetoric of equality, and at each juncture of our history in this country we have been disappointed and defrauded. After the Civil War blacks were given the ballot only to be sold out by the national government when it made a deal with former Confederates to remove national troops protecting the rights of blacks to vote and live as "free" men and women. The removing of federal troops from the South essentially opened the door to the virtual re-enslavement of blacks. I maintain that because white America continues to hold the social, political and economic power in this country, it possesses all of the necessary power to completely re-enslave blacks. Blacks still exist in America at the will of the white majority. During the writing of this book, I have drawn liberally from my experiences of growing up in the racially oppressive atmosphere of Selma, Alabama. I have attempted to use Selma as a microcosm to present and display the ills of a racist and sick society. I have endeavored to show how slavery and segregation created mistrust and division among blacks throughout America that continue to afflict us today. Despite the injustices and humiliations visited upon the black people of Selma, Alabama, the lives of those of us who grew up there and suffered the degradation of racism and discrimination, are only important when viewed in the greater context of the injustices experienced by millions of black people all over America. If such injustices had occurred to only those blacks born and reared in Selma, Alabama, these injustices would not have been necessarily be noteworthy. The treatment blacks suffered in Selma becomes important only when considered in the context of the severe toll the white supremacy system has exacted from blacks for generations in every corner of America. I examine how blacks in America have been compelled to conduct one civil rights campaign after another to secure rights that others secure as a matter of birth. I contend that each civil rights movement has been characterized by begging and pleading with white America for human rights that are only the Creator’s to dispense. Since blacks were brought to America in shackles, white America has dictated the nature and extent of the rights to which blacks were entitled. It has become crystal clear to me that no people have ever achieved its freedom by begging and pleading with its oppressor. The cost of freedom has always been paid for in the blood of both the oppressed and the oppressor. The freedom of blacks will cost no less. As long as whites hold sway to the freedom of blacks in this country, blacks will remain essentially slaves. Finally, I take a glimpse at how from the "peculiar institution" of slavery to legal segregation to today, blacks have allowed members of a small black bourgeois class to dictate the course of black existence in America. Blacks have long been victimized by the so-called "talented tenth" of the black population. This black bourgeois elite has sold out blacks at every step of journey through a dark and troubled history in America. The time has come for blacks to reject the stagnant leadership of this group of integrationists and white appeasers in favor of new, aggressive and progressive leadership. To continue on the course that we have traveled will lead to our continued dependency on white America for our survival. The institutions of slavery and segregation have fostered a mistrust and suspicion among blacks so destructive that blacks are unable or unwilling to come together and work to avoid certain destruction. Ultimately, if blacks in America do not possess the collective will to overcome generations of mistrust and suspicions of each other and work together to change our predicament, we deserve the contempt of white America and whatever morsels that fall from its table.
About the Author
Leon Mann, Jr. became interested in race-relations in the United States in 1972 while stationed with the U. S. Air Force at Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base near Kansas City, Missouri. It was at Richards-Gebaur that he became a U. S. Air Force race-relations instructor. As a result of racial turmoil on U. S. Navy ships between African American and white sailors and a riot by African American airmen at Travis Air Force, base, California, the Department of Defense created race-relations seminars and required that all Department of Defense personnel, both civilian and military, attend fourteen hours of race-relations education. Mr. Mann was among the first race-relations instructors in the U. S. Air Force. Upon retiring from the U. S. Air Force, Mr. Mann worked for the Alabama Department of Human Resources Equal Employment Opportunity Office as an Equal Employment Opportunity Analyst. He investigated numerous complaints of discrimination during the two years he was employed with the agency. Mr. Mann left the Department of Human Resources in 1988 to work as a Probation and Parole Office with the Alabama Department of Probations and Paroles. While employed with the Department of probations and Paroles, Mr. Mann conducted an untold number of pre-sentence investigations for the court. He retired from the State of Alabama in 1998. Mr. Mann has an Undergraduate Degree in Criminal Justice and a Masters Degree in Counseling and Human Development, both received from Troy State University in Montgomery, Alabama. Mr. Mann graduated from the Department of Defense’s Race-relations Institute in 1972. He also graduated from the Academic Instructors School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama in 1975.