Zinn's "on Race" Traces Violence, Victories in Civil Rights Movement

Friday 12 August 2011
Eleanor J. Bader, Truthout | Book Review
http://truth-out.org/race/1313086585

"on Race" by Howard Zinn is the Truthout Progressive Pick of the Week. Receive it as a gift from Truthout for a minimum donation of $20.

"on Race"
by Howard Zinn, Introduction by Cornel West
Seven Stories Press, 2011, $14.95 paperback, 236 pages

Princeton professor Cornell West's tribute to the late Howard Zinn says it all: "Zinn was an activist intellectual who moved smoothly from the library to the street, from the office to the jail, from the lecture room to the political rally. Zinn had more influence and impact on the public than other intellectuals of his generation."

By all accounts, Zinn was a mensch, a man whose down-to-earth brilliance and rich sense of humor touched those he engaged, from students, to colleagues and comrades. His 2010 passing is still being mourned.

Fortunately, Zinn's 25 books and hundreds of articles and speeches provide a lasting testament to both his humanity and political savvy. In addition, Seven Stories Press, an independent book publisher based in New York City, has added to Zinn's legacy by releasing three new anthologies of his work - "on Race," "on History," and "on War." While many of the pieces in each collection were previously published, it is nevertheless exciting to read or reread Zinn's energizing words.

"on Race" begins with essays penned in the late 1950s and early '60s. As the white, Jewish chairman of the history department at Atlanta's Spelman College, the oldest historically black academy for women in the US, Zinn did not anticipate being a central player in the period's racial upheaval. But he was, and the 14 pieces in "on Race" bring the realities of segregation, and the moral outrage and rebellion it generated, into such vivid relief that readers will literally feel the era's passionate momentum. His stark descriptions offer a powerful rendering of what transpired and why. Never a dispassionate reporter, Zinn's account is the emotional outpouring of a participant.

Take "The Southern Mystique," penned in 1963. "The South is monstrous and marvelous at the same time. Every cliché ever uttered about the South, every stereotype attached to its people, white and Negro [sic], is true," he wrote. "Prejudice, discrimination, race hatred, are real problems, to the point of viciousness, even murder, but their mystery, for those who look hard is gone ... The most vicious thing about segregation - more deadly than its immediate denial of certain goods and services - is its perpetuation of the mystery of racial differences. Because there is not a magical and omnipotent dispeller of the mystery: it is contact. The Southern mystique vanishes when one sees whites and Negroes behave like human beings."

Zinn's upbeat spirit, his unwavering belief that progressive shifts are not just possible, but inevitable, is showcased in "A Quiet Case of Social Change," written in 1959. In it, he offers readers an inside peak at the desegregation of Atlanta's public libraries. Unlike lunch counter sit-ins, bus boycotts or demonstrations to contest bigotry, the campaign to desegregate city libraries was the result of dogged persistence.

In the first incident, Dr. Irene Dobbs Jackson, an African-American professor of French walked into the "white only" Carnegie Library and filled out a membership application, She was the first African-American to do so. Dr. Jackson's action was the start of a well-orchestrated campaign in which dozens of black people began to enter Carnegie and request books and articles. After being rebuffed - told that the materials could either be sent to a Negro reading room or perused in the dank basement of the Carnegie building, far from white eyes - these aspiring patrons let it be known that a lawsuit would be filed if the policy did not change.

In short order, the Library Board met and, at the behest of the mayor, city attorney and chief of police, extended library access to all city residents. Zinn notes that the shift "caused no great commotion. The director received a few angry letters. Dr. Jackson was kept awake one night by nasty telephone calls: "You that integratin' nigger? This is the KKK." And as she sat at the library table reading that first day, a man came by and slammed his books down hard on the table in voiceless protest. But the general reaction was an enormous silence. Lo and behold, this bolstered people's confidence in the power of community organizing; if people of all races could read and research together, what else might they achieve?

Zinn's optimism about multiracial unity is contagious. What's more, his homage to the many unheralded women and girls who, like Professor Jackson, buttressed the civil rights movement, is an important corrective to popular notions of male-led social activism. Similarly, he offers a critical appraisal of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson - too often championed for pushing legislation outlawing the most blatant expressions of prejudice - by pointing out how little they actually did to stymie racial hate mongering.

The Department of Justice comes in for particular criticism due to the agency's penchant for siding with police who claimed they were simply "maintaining order" when they attacked protesters.

Zinn recounts dozens of heinous abuses, among them:

•In July 1962, Mrs. Slater King, the pregnant wife of a prominent Georgia activist, drove to a jail in Mitchell County to deliver food to a young woman who had been arrested at a protest earlier that day. King's three children accompanied her. As she approached the jail a Deputy accosted her and told her to leave. "Mrs. King walked slowly to her car," Zinn writes. "A Deputy pointed her out, cursed her, threatened to arrest her if she didn't hurry.' She was subsequently kicked, hit on the head, and knocked unconscious."

•Several days later, a white Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee member, William Hansen, was jailed after leading a prayer session in Albany, Georgia. He was "beaten into senselessness as he sat on the floor reading. His jaw and several ribs were broken," Zinn continues. "Bleeding profusely from the mouth, he asked the jailer for medical aid and was told that was not within the jailer's jurisdiction."

•A Black attorney who went to check on Hansen was beaten by the Sheriff; he was so badly injured he required hospitalization.
All three incidents were reported to federal authorities, Zinn writes, but the government did nothing. Even worse, despite lip service about investigating the 1964 murder of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, the deaths went unsolved for 41 years.

"The civil rights movement illuminated the hypocrisy of the liberal promise," he concludes in "Solving the Race Problem." "It makes overt, and recorded on television for the world to see, an old daily fact of American life: that a Black person who protested his [sic] condition, or moved one step out of line, would be arrested, or beaten, or inundated with water hoses, or killed, and the government of the United States - the most powerful government in the world - would not act to save him." Secondly, it illustrated that white sympathizers would also be denied protection.

Zinn's rage is palpable as he slams government inaction and argues that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the subsequent Voting Rights Act of 1965 were small, if hard-won, victories to appease increasingly enraged people the world over.

"Will the hostility ever end?" Zinn asks. His answer: "Not until Black and white people discover together, the source of their long feud - an economic system which has deprived them and their children for centuries, to the benefit of, first, the Founding Fathers, and lately, the hundred or so giant corporations that hog the resources of this bountiful nation."

Here, here.

Zinn wasn't afraid to speak truth to power - whether it meant condemning capitalism or criticizing political elites. Heartfelt and thoughtful, "on Race" addresses both how far we've come and how far we've yet to go in achieving the colorblind society of which Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement dreamed. Lastly, the collection serves as a clear-eyed reminder that history is shaped by those who act.

Indeed, "on Race" is an inspiring celebration of community organizing and activism, a true championing of what el pueblo can do when we act together.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Eleanor J. Bader is a freelance writer, teacher and feminist activist from Brooklyn, New York. She writes for The Brooklyn Rail, ontheissuesmagazine.com, RHrealitycheck.org and other progressive blogs and publications.

Carlos Santana is Booed

Santana is Booed for Using Baseball's Civil Rights Game to Speak Out for Civil Rights


E of S Nation - Please pass along the link!

In struggle and sports

Dave Zirin
http://bit.ly/iuVl66

Major League Baseball’s annual Civil Rights Game was poised to be a migraine-inducing exercise in Orwellian irony. Forget about the fact that Civil Rights was to be honored in Atlanta, where fans root for a team called the Braves and cheer in unison with the ubiquitous "tomahawk chop."

Forget about the fact that the Braves have been embroiled in controversy since pitching coach Roger McDowell aimed violent, homophobic threats at several fans. Forget that this is a team that has done events with Focus on the Family, an organization that is to Civil Rights what Newt Gingrich is to marital fidelity.

The reason Atlanta was such a brutally awkward setting for a Sunday Civil Rights setting, was because Friday saw the Governor of Georgia, Nathan Deal, sign HR 87, a law that shreds the Civil Rights of the state’s Latino population. Modeled after Arizona’s horrific and unconstitutional SB 1070, HR 87 authorizes state and local police the federal powers to demand immigration papers from people they suspect to be undocumented. Those without papers on request will find themselves behind bars. Civil rights hero, Atlanta’s John Lewis has spoken out forcefully against the legislation saying “This is a recipe for discrimination. We’ve come too far to return to the dark past."

But there was Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, celebrating civil rights in the Georgia, and chortling excitedly about the 2011 All-Star game in Arizona. In the hands of Selig, irony becomes arsenic. Thank God that Commisioner Selig was stupid enough to choose the Civil Rights Game to honor, among others, the great musician Carlos Santana. Santana was supposed to be the Latino stand-in, a smiling symbol of baseball’s diversity. And maybe, he would even play a song!

But Bud picked the wrong Latino. Carlos Santana took the microphone and said that he was representing all immigrants. Then Santana added, "The people of Arizona, and the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves." In a perfect display of Gov. Nathan Deal’s Georgia, the cheers quickly turned to boos. Yes, Carlos Santana was booed on Civil Rights Day in Atlanta for talking about Civil Rights.

Then in the press box, Santana held an impromptu press conference where he let loose with an improvised speech to rival one of his virtuoso guitar solos. He said, "This law is not correct. It's a cruel law, actually, This is about fear. Stop shucking and jiving. People are afraid we're going to steal your job. No we aren't. You're not going to change sheets and clean toilets. I would invite all Latin people to do nothing for about two weeks so you can see who really, really is running the economy. Who cleans the sheets? Who cleans the toilets? Who babysits? I am here to give voice to the invisible."

He went on to say, "Most people at this point they are either afraid to really say what needs to be said, this is the United States the land of the free. If people want the immigration law to keep passing in every state then everybody should get out and just leave the American Indians here. This is about Civil Rights."

Where was Bud Selig during all this drama? It seems that Selig slunk out of a stadium backdoor in the 5th inning. If there is one thing Bud has become an expert at, it’s ducking his head when the issues of immigration, civil rights, and Major League Baseball collide. If Selig really gave a damn about Civil Rights, he would heed the words of Carlos Santana. He would move the 2011 All-Star Game out of Arizona. He would recognize that the sport of Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente and Curt Flood has an obligation to stand for something more than just using their memory to cover up the injustices of the present. If Bud Selig cared about Civil Rights, he would above all else, have to develop something resembling a spine. But if Bud is altogether unfamiliar with the concept of courage, he received one hell of an object lesson from Carlos Santana.

Dave Zirin is the author of “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) and just made the new documentary “Not Just a Game.” Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.

A Black President Doesn’t Mean Racism is gone

By Peter Phillips

Racial inequality remains problematic in the US. People of color continue to experience disproportionately high rates of poverty, unemployment, police profiling, repressive incarceration and school segregation.

According to a new Civil Rights report, “Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society: A 21st Century Challenge,” by Gary Orfield, schools in the US are currently 44% non-white, and minorities are rapidly emerging as the majority of public school students. Latinos and Blacks are the two largest minority groups. However, Black and Latino students attend schools more segregated today than during the civil rights era. Over fifty years after the US Supreme Court case: Brown VS Board of Education, schools remain separate and not equal. Orfield’s study shows that public schools is in the Western states, including California, suffer from the most severe segregation in the US, rather than schools in the southern states as many people believe.

This new form of segregation is primarily based on how urban areas are geographically organized—as Cornel West so passionately describes— into vanilla suburbs and chocolate cities.

Schools remain highly unequal, both in terms of money, and qualified teachers and curriculum. Unequal education leads to diminished access to colleges and future jobs. Non-white schools are segregated by poverty as well as race. These “chocolate” low-income public schools are where most of the nation’s drop-outs occur, leading to large numbers of virtually unemployable young people of color struggling to survive in a troubled economy.

Diminished opportunity for students of color invariably creates greater privileges for whites. White privilege is a concept that is challenging for many whites to accept. Whites like to think of themselves as hard working individuals whose achievements are due to deserved personal efforts. In many cases this is partly true; hard work in college often pays off in many ways. Nonetheless many whites find it difficult to accept that geographically and structurally based racism remains a significant barrier for many students of color. Whites often say racism is in the past, and we need not think about it today. Yet, inequality stares at us daily from the barrios, ghettos, and from behind prisons walls. Inequality continues in privileged universities as well.

An example of white privilege is how Sonoma State University (SSU) has recently achieved the status of having the whitest and likely richest student population of any public university in the California. Research shows, that beginning in the early 1990s, the SSU administration specifically sought to market the campus as a public ivy institution—offering an Ivy-League experience at a state college price. Part of this public ivy packaging was to advertise SSU as being in a destination wine country location with high physical and cultural amenities. These marketing efforts were principally designed to attract upper-income students to a Falcon Crest-like campus.

To achieve the desired outcome of becoming a wine-country public ivy, SSU’s administration implemented special admissions screening processes that used higher SAT-GPA indexes than the rest of the California State University (CSU) system. According to Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres in The Miner’s Canary, high SAT scores correlate directly to both race and income with little relationship to actual success in college.

SSU also conducted recruitment at predominately white upper-income public and private high schools throughout the west coast and Hawaii. Consequently, SSU freshmen students with family incomes over $150,000 have increased by 59 percent since 1994 and freshmen students from families with incomes below $50,000 declined by 21 percent (2007 dollars). The campus remained over three-quarters white during this fifteen-year period, while the rest of the CSU campuses significantly increased ethnic diversity.

We are at a time in society when a majority of the population has elected a black President of the United States. This presidency is a hugely symbolic achievement for race relations in the US. We must not, however, ignore the continuing disadvantages for people of color and the resulting advantages gained by whites. Institutional policies and de facto segregation contribute to continuing inequalities that require ongoing review, discussion and redress. Efforts against racism must continue if we are to truly attain the civil rights goal of equal opportunity for all.

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University. His recent research study Building a Public Ivy: Sonoma State University: 1994-2007, is on line at:

http://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/building-a-public-ivy/