Civil Rights for Black Americans
Johnny Lake, BS
We still celebrate the Civil Rights
movement as some momentous time long ago in the history of America, as if the
goals had been accomplished. This is ironic because the struggle for civil
rights for all people continues today.
The African American experience serves as
a primary example of the struggle for civil rights. The attempt to integrate
the African-American into society was an effort of exceptional social, legal,
political, economic, educational and historical note. The former black slaves
had never, in the entire historical record, been freely or willingly allowed to
participate in the society they helped build.
Abraham Lincoln, in serious trouble with a
tenacious Southern Confederate Army intent on winning the Great War Between the
States, was forced to break the legal bonds of the slave. No longer could the
law be used to enslave the black American. For example, during the time of
slavery, a judge who heard the case of a Negro claiming his freedom operated
with an interesting incentive. If he turned the Negro free he received a fee of
five dollars. If he sent the Negro into slavery, whether slave or free, he
would receive a fee of ten dollars.
The Emancipation Proclamation ended the
legal basis for enslavement of Americans who were black, but only in the states
that had succeeded from the Union. Lincoln broke the backbone of the
Confederate war effort when he issued the Proclamation and ensured the loyalty
of the border slave states that, though supporting the War against the South,
still continued to own slaves. And the now-free Negro served as a most inspired
soldier fighting for the Union to destroy slavery. Laws against slavery ended
but a new situation took its place.
The newly freed African-American found
himself in a situation where he was not welcomed or accepted as free or as an
American, in the North or the South. The society of America had been
constructed around and upon the backs of the black American slave. Law, science,
philosophy, business, medicine, social practice and religion had, over
generations, acted to rationalize and support the subjection and slavery.
Despite the end of the legal basis for slavery, the role of the
African-American had become engraved in American society. It would not be
changed easily.
The now-free African-Americans were almost
immediately regulated to a perpetual second-class citizenship in a legal and
social apartheid equal to the practices in South Africa. This social apartheid
began shortly after the Civil War and continued unchanged for almost 100 years.
America continued to operate on the basis of a society of race inequality. To
change would mean drastically changing American society.
The Civil Rights Movement continues and represents another great Civil War in American society and it is fought in an attempt to “create a more perfect Union,” a Union dedicated to freedom and justice for all people, and not exclusion, exploitation and injustice. This battle has been joined by many, many Americans seeking to make true the words of Abraham Lincoln, “Four-score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men [women] are created equal.” And we continue to struggle.
Johnny Lake, BS grew up in Tennessee and was one of the
children "integrated" into white schools. In addition, he has an
extensive family history dating back to 1798 on his father's side and 1741 on
his mother's side. Johnny studied history throughout high school and college
and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Willamette University in Salem Oregon.
Currently he is pursuing a doctorate in education at the University of Oregon.
He can be reached through his web site at