Klan to March Tomorrow
African Burial Grounds Monument in New York
The final phone call that I made from my office before leaving for vacation was a consultation with a white pastor who will be preaching on the subject of race. I suggested certain resources for him that included examples of the persistence of racism in the United States of America. While driving last night I began to ask myself if many whites could really understand what it means for an African American to travel through the south. Thoughts of the past often travel through ones mind- reminders of the dangers that many of my ancestors faced as they passed through cities and towns uncertain of their safety. It was not just the south, however. Other states, too, were filled with "Sundown Towns"- towns and communities from Maine to California that, according to historian and scholar James Loewen, kept out African Americans by force law or custom. Loewen found more than 440 such towns in my home state of Illinois.
Perhaps, I thought, I was just being too sensitive and too serious. After all I am on vacation. Also, so much has changed for the better, hasn't it? There is the candidacy of Barack Obama for the presidency of the United States of America and many municipalities throughout the land have African Americans at the helm. So too, did the U.S. House of Representatives issue an apology this past week for slavery and Jim Crow.
As I pulled into my hotel last night in Decatur, Alabama and turned on the local television station I saw an African American woman anchoring the nightly news program-- the story- Klan To March.Tomorrow! They will be able to march and they will be able to burn a cross- all legally. It was the perfect illustration of our nation's schizophrenia regarding race, racism, and white supremacy. It does make perfect sense, however, that when an oppressed people make progress those who experience privilege feel threatened. The Klan (KKK) founded by veterans of the Confederate Army has existed since 1865- the year the 13th amendment was ratified abolishing slavery.
That apology for slavery and Jim Crow (which has come years after the apologies for to Japanese Americans for their internment during World War II and to Hawaiians for the overthrow of their government), I should mention, was done by voice vote which means that the many politicians that voted for it were not required, in any substantive way, to go on the record condemning our nation's racist legacy. It should also be mentioned that the congressman who sponsored it is white, is in a tight race and that the majority of his district is African American. I'm not saying... I'm just saying, "It should be mentioned". The apology, by the way, does not in any way address the issue of reparations or redress.
It is really not about "the south" I guess. Similar feelings of angst were with me recently in New York City as I left my group of fellow travelers so that I could visit the African Burial grounds where the bones of 419 persons of African descent are interred. These persons were enslaved in a colonial project and to this day their legacy- their very bones cry out for justice. It is, also, not about the Klan and their presence or persistence.
For me it is about committing to working toward racial justice and equality in the "here and now" but acknowledging that in order to accomplish this we must continually recollect or "re-collect". Just as the bones of these ancients were re interred near one of the world's most powerful economic engines. (It is believed by many that during the 17th and 18th Centuries, New York/New Amsterdam was second to only Charleston, South Carolina in the slave trade). So, too, must we re-collect and retell their memories and ours, their stories and ours, their experiences and ours. Each march of the Klan must be met with a greater march for racial equality and justice- not just in D.C. in 1963 but in places like Alabama and Jena, Louisiana today. Each night ride of terror and lighted cross be met with a greater "Freedom Ride". It must be so- not only for ourselves but also in the apt words found on the monument at New York's African Burial Ground....
"For all those who were lost, for all those who were stolen, for all those who were left behind, for all those who were not forgotten."