The ancestors of American blacks were taken from Africa approximately 300 years ago. Factories of slave dealers were created in Africa, who captured blacks in every possible way (by violence, soldering, deception), and shackled them in stocks or chains. Ships regularly arrived from the USA, on which blacks were driven into the holds, battened down and taken away into slavery.
By the way, the cost of one slave in the USA reached 2000 dollars, while in Africa he was bought from dealers for 400 liters of rum or 20 dollars. Slave traders explained the considerable value of blacks at that time by their high mortality rate on the way from Africa to America. In fact, according to historical sources, out of every ten blacks, only one often reached the shores of the United States. Between 1661 and 1774 alone, about a million living slaves were brought from Africa to the United States, and over nine million died along the way.
The ratio of blacks to whites in the USA
Since 1790, censuses have been regularly conducted in the United States every 10 years. I think that no one will be surprised by the fact that the absolute number of blacks is growing every year. If in 1790 there were 757,208 people, then at the time of the last census in 2000 there were already 37,104,248 blacks in the United States.
However, if you look at the relative figures, a rather interesting situation arises here. In 1790, the United States was 19.3% black and 80.7% white, and in 2000 the ratio of blacks to whites was 13 and 82%, respectively. Don't you notice the strangeness? The relative number of whites remains virtually unchanged and makes up about 80% of the population, while the relative number of blacks has decreased by almost a third over 200 years. Why? To answer this question, let's turn to genetics...
Gene migration
In the United States, the offspring of mixed marriages between whites and blacks belong to the black population. The frequency of the allele that controls the Rh factor in the white population of the United States is 0.028. In black African tribes, the frequency of this allele is 0.630. However, among the modern black population of the United States, whose ancestors were taken from Africa 300 years (about 10 generations) ago, the frequency of this allele is already 0.446. Thus, the flow of genes from the white population to the black population occurred at a rate of 3.6% per generation. As a result, after 10 generations, the share of genes of African ancestors is now 0.694 of the total number of genes of the modern black population of the United States. Or, in other words, American blacks inherited about 30% of their genes from the white population.
If things continue like this, then in 600 years the blacks of the United States will be no different from the whites. Moreover, the lower the percentage of Negro blood in a Negro, the more likely is inbreeding between him and a representative of the white race, so miscegenation can occur faster. Compare the likelihood of conceiving a child between a blue-black black slave of the 18th century and a white man with the likelihood of a relationship between a modern American mulatto woman and a white American raised on the principles of political correctness.
But I think it’s difficult to convince anyone with numbers and statistics. Therefore, let us turn to more obvious facts, namely, a comparison of the appearance of the population of Liberia and blacks in the United States.
Liberia, Liberia is a free country...
By the way, what do you know about such an African country as Liberia? Is it really only what is shown on TV in the news? That some rebels are fighting there, and the population is asking the United States to send troops there to maintain peace? Do you know why Liberians love and trust the United States so much that they ask them, and not, for example, the UN, to intervene in their internal problems?
Well, it's quite a long story, but I'll try to keep it short. Look at the picture of the Liberian flag. Doesn't he remind you of anything? ;-) And it was like this...
In 1816, a group of white Americans founded the American Colonization Society in the United States, which set itself the goal of solving the “Negro problem” by settling freed black slaves in Africa. In 1818, two representatives of the society were sent to Africa to find a place to settle, and in 1820, 88 black colonists, led by three white Americans, headed to the shores of Sierra Leone. Before leaving, they signed a document stating that a representative of the American Colonization Society would manage the future settlement. True, already in Africa, due to the outbreak of a malaria epidemic, 25 of these colonists died, including all three whites. Of the 63 blacks who survived, some remained in Sierra Leone (the capital of which, in memory of this, is called Freetown, that is, “the city of freedom”), and some founded their own settlement.
In 1824, the entire territory of this settlement was named Liberia (from the English liberty - freedom), and its capital - Monrovia in honor of US President James Monroe. About 5 thousand freed blacks from the United States, having learned about Liberia, went to live in this “land of freedom.”
In 1847, the Declaration of Independence was promulgated and a constitution was adopted. This is how the first independent state in Africa emerged, called the Republic of Liberia. English became the official language, and the Liberian dollar became the currency. True, many years later, English in Liberia turned into “Liberian English”, and the US dollar became the currency.
But I will not tell further the history of Liberia, although it is full of very interesting facts and curious events. In particular, I won’t say anything about the world’s largest merchant fleet, which sails under Liberian flags. About how the government of Liberia, secretly trading diamonds from Sierra Leone, almost destroyed the entire world diamond market. About how the American company “Firestone” bought several hundred hectares of Liberian territory, where until the Second World War (and perhaps still) slaves worked on plantations extracting rubber for car tires produced by “Firestone”. About how Ukraine sold weapons to Liberia, and what came of it. Perhaps I will tell all these stories some other time, but for now I will continue the story about the blacks.
Let's look at photographs of blacks in Liberia, in particular photographs of the descendants of former American slaves, and compare them with photographs of blacks living in the United States (hover your mouse over the photo to see the captions):
Due to a surge in Africa's birth rate, the world's population will reach nearly eleven billion by the end of the century. The majority will be black people.
Scientists from the University of Washington came to this conclusion. These figures significantly exceeded previous forecasts. It was expected that on a poor continent, where there is no full-fledged medicine, poor living and nutritional conditions, women would not give birth many times. But in fact, African women give birth to more than five children in their lifetime.
The current African population is about 1.1 billion and is currently expected to reach 4.2 billion by 2100—an increase of almost four times.
Professor Adrian Raftery, from the University of Washington, said: "The decline in fertility in Africa has slowed more than we previously predicted, and as a result the forecast shows that the African population will grow at a high rate."
Research shows that in 2050, one in three children born will be black. In other regions of the world, significant changes in the birth rate of the population are not expected. Europe will see a slight decline in birth rates, while other countries around the world could see a slight increase in population due to longer life expectancies.
Africa is considered the youngest continent. In Uganda, Mali, Nigeria, about 50% of the population is under the age of 14. They will start families and give birth to large numbers of children, knowing that there is a risk that many of them will not live to adulthood.
The high birth rate in Africa, coupled with negative living conditions, poverty and lack of sufficient food and water, will cause mass migration of the African population to other continents. Accordingly, children will be born there to parents of mixed races. The genetic predominance of black skin will accelerate the change in skin color of the entire population of the planet.
Such data shows that the world must reconsider population policies, expand girls' education, and take family planning measures to avoid rapid growth of the African population.
In the United States, they are already thinking about the future population of the country. White Americans will no longer make up the majority of the US population by 2043, according to the latest Census Bureau data. They will be displaced by the descendants of Latino immigrants and African Americans.
By 2060, the total number of US citizens will reach 420.3 million. At the same time, whites will make up 43% of citizens, Hispanics - 31%, African Americans - 14.7%, Asians -8%.
The beginning of the importation of slaves into the territory of the modern United States of America coincided with the entry of England into the era of colonial conquests,
The first permanent settlement of English colonists in America—James Town—was founded in 1607. Twelve years later, in 1619, the first ship bringing blacks landed on the shores of North America 2 .
The importation of blacks and the introduction of slavery were a consequence of the need for labor "in the south of North America, where large agricultural farms - tobacco, rice and other plantations - were established on lands distributed by the kings to their entourage. In the North, where the plantation economy, by virtue special economic and climatic conditions, was less common, slavery was never used on such a scale as in the South. However, in the northern states there were slaves, mainly domestic servants, agricultural laborers, etc.
The first blacks were brought to America as indentured laborers, but very soon the indenture system was officially replaced by the more profitable system of slavery. In 1641, in Massachusetts, the term of service for slaves was changed to life, and a law in 1661 in Virginia made maternal slavery hereditary for children. Similar laws enshrining slavery were passed in Maryland (1663), New York (1665), South (1682) and North Carolina (1715), etc.
So the blacks became slaves.
The black slaves imported to America were mostly residents of the western coast of Africa, a much smaller part belonged to the tribes of Central and Southern Africa, as well as North Africa and the island of Madagascar. Among them were blacks from the Fulbe, Wolof, Yoruba, Ibo, Ashanti, Fanti, Hausa, Dahomey, Bantu and others tribes 1 .
The black tribes of Africa were at different stages of social and economic development, had their own customs and spoke languages distributed among three main linguistic families - Bantu, Semitic-Hamitic and Sudanese 2 . Some tribes had slavery for prisoners of war and criminals, as well as economic (debt) slavery.
Until the end of the 17th century. The slave trade in the English colonies in America was a monopoly of the Royal African Company, but in 1698 this monopoly was eliminated, and the colonies received the right to independently engage in the slave trade. The slave trade took on even wider dimensions after 1713, when England achieved the right of asiento - the exclusive right to trade in black slaves. Blacks were caught, bought, goods were exchanged for them, they were loaded into the stinking holds of ships and taken to America. All of Africa has turned, in the words of K. Marx, into a “reserved hunting ground for blacks” 3 . Slave factories grew along the western coast of Africa from Cape Verde to the equator, where slaves were driven in batches, tied by the neck with ropes and chained. Here, in dirty, cramped barracks, they awaited the arrival of slave ships. Documents show that the 120-ton ship was loaded with at least 600 slaves. The blacks shackled were forced into the hold onto shelves, the distance between which was so small that each person had less space than in a coffin.
Slaves died in droves in the barracks of trading posts and during transportation. But although for every Negro who survived, there were often five who died on the road - suffocated from lack of air, died from illness, went crazy, or simply threw themselves into the sea, preferring death to slavery - slave traders received fabulous profits: the demand for Negroes was so great , and slaves were so cheap and paid for themselves so quickly. Negroes were so cheap that it was more profitable for planters to torture a slave in backbreaking work in a short time than to exploit him longer, but more carefully. The average life expectancy of a slave on plantations in some areas of the South did not exceed six or seven years.
Slavery developed slowly at first. Thus, in 1670, there were only about 2 thousand slaves in Virginia (about 5% of the total population). But by 1715, slaves made up about one-third of the population of Virginia, North and South Carolina and Maryland (46 thousand out of 123 thousand). As the plantation economy grew, there was a further increase in the import of slaves. According to the US Census Bureau, before January 1, 1808, when the importation of slaves was prohibited by law, about 400 thousand blacks were imported into the United States. From the beginning of the 19th century. by 1860 the number of slaves increased from 893 thousand to 4 million.
Despite the ban on the import of slaves in 1808, the slave trade did not stop. It existed in a hidden form until the official emancipation of blacks during the Civil War of 1861-1865. Blacks were now smuggled, which further increased the mortality rate during transportation. It is estimated that between 1808 and 1860 about half a million slaves were smuggled into the United States. In addition, the subject of trade was blacks, specially “raised” for sale in some slave states of the South (especially in South Carolina and Virginia).
Bourgeois racist historians like to contrast Indians with blacks - free hunters who died but did not submit to slave owners. From this it is concluded that slavery is the natural condition of the Negroes. However, the very premise of such a opposition is a falsification of history. “A Negro is a Negro, only under certain conditions does he become a slave,” wrote K. Marx 1 . Negroes were made slaves, but they were never submissive slaves. Often blacks started uprisings on ships. This is evidenced by a special type of insurance for shipowners to cover losses specifically in the event of a slave rebellion on the ship. But even on the plantations, where blacks brought from different parts of Africa lived, representatives of different tribes speaking different languages, slaves managed to overcome inter-tribal strife and unite in the fight against their common enemy - the planters. So, already in 1663 and 1687. Major conspiracies of blacks in Virginia were discovered, and in 1712 the garrison of New York with great difficulty managed to prevent the capture of the city by rebellious black slaves. During the period from 1663 to 1863, when Negro slavery was abolished, over 250 Negro uprisings and conspiracies 2 were recorded, including such large ones as the uprisings led by Cato (1739) in Stono (South Carolina), Gabriel, sometimes called named after the owner by Gabriel Prosser (1800), in Henrico (Virginia), Denmark Vesey (1822) in Charleston (South Carolina), and Nat Turner (1831) in Southampton (Virginia).
Black uprisings were brutally suppressed. But even these isolated outbursts of despair among the oppressed slaves made the planters tremble with fear. Almost every plantation had its own weapons depot, and groups of planters maintained security detachments that prowled the roads at night. “The entire social system in the southern states,” notes F. Foner, “was based on the direct suppression of blacks by force of arms” 1 .
Negro slaves expressed their protest in other forms, such as damage to tools, murder of overseers and owners, suicide, escape, etc. Escape required great courage and courage from the Negro, because if a runaway slave was caught, his ears were cut off , and sometimes, if he offered armed resistance, their hands or branded him with a hot iron. Nevertheless, blacks - men, women and even children - fled to the forests, to the Indians, to the North, where by the end of the 18th century. slavery was abolished (see below). According to G. Epteker 2, at least 60 thousand fugitives reached the northern states in the period from 1830 to 1860. The number of blacks who died on the road or were captured and executed by slave owners will never be known.
Escapes of slaves from plantations became especially widespread during the revolution of 1774-1783. Blacks played an important role in the struggle of the American colonies against English rule. George Washington, who for a long time hesitated to recruit blacks as soldiers, was forced to resort to this measure in 1776 due to the advance of the British and the general difficult situation in the country. According to some estimates, there were at least 5 thousand blacks in Washington’s army, many of whom distinguished themselves in the struggle: Crispus Attucks, Peter Salem, Austin Debney, James Armistead, Deborah Gennett and others. Negro veterans, released for military merit from the Rao- ties, increased the number of free blacks of the North and South. But the revolution of 1774-1783 did not resolve the issue of slavery and its abolition. The new constitution was essentially based on the recognition of slavery, as can be seen from a number of its articles 3 . Under pressure from slave owners, a nationwide fugitive slave law was passed in 1793. Other questions about slavery were left to the discretion of individual states. However, during and shortly after the Revolution, slavery was abolished in the northern and northwestern states.
The slave uprisings and their struggle for their emancipation not only sowed fear among the planters; they awakened the consciousness of Americans and contributed to the development of a broad democratic movement, which, together with the struggle of the blacks themselves, ultimately led to the abolition of slavery.
The earliest anti-slavery protests in North America date back to the late 17th century. Their authors - Quakers and representatives of some other religious sects - denied slavery as contrary to the principles of the Christian religion and morality. In 1775, America's first local anti-slavery society was formed in Philadelphia. One of the organizers of the society was Benjamin Franklin. In the 90s of the XVIII century. similar societies already existed in many states. But at the beginning of the 19th century. There is a certain decline in the movement for the liberation of blacks, and the illusion is widespread that after the prohibition of the importation of slaves, slavery must die out of its own accord. In reality, however, it happened differently.
The invention of the cotton gin (gin), which greatly accelerated the cleaning of cotton, caused the rise of cotton growing and significantly increased the demand for slaves, and the beginning of the industrial revolution in Europe, and then in the United States, further increased the demand for both cotton and slaves. The price of a slave rose from $300 in 1795 to $900 in 1849 and to $1,500 to $2,000 on the eve of the Civil War. The intensification of slave labor and the exploitation of slaves increased sharply.
All this led to a new aggravation of class contradictions, to a new rise in the liberation movement of blacks and their white allies. The wave of black uprisings that swept through the first half of the 19th century. the entire south of the United States, was also associated with the revolutionary movement of blacks in the West Indies at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. By the 30s of the 19th century. refers to the formation in the United States of a nationwide organized abolitionist movement (the movement of supporters of black liberation).
Prominent abolitionist leaders were William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Harrison (1805-1879) is credited with creating the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia in 1833 and a whole network of abolitionist societies, the number of which in the 50s of the 19th century. exceeded 2 thousand. The American Anti-Slavery Society united both white abolitionists and free blacks. The society's declaration, adopted at a convention in Philadelphia in December 1833, stated that slavery in which Americans held their fellow citizens was contrary to "the principles of natural justice, republican government and the Christian religion, undermines the welfare of the country and threatens the peace, union and liberties states." Further, a demand was put forward for the immediate liberation of blacks, without resettlement to Africa, by “convincing fellow citizens with arguments addressed to their reason and conscience” 1 .
The main demand contained in the declaration - the demand for the immediate release of slaves without ransom and without expatriation - was revolutionary. The weakness of the society's program lies in the lack of understanding of the real path to the liberation of blacks, in the refusal of political struggle and the overestimation of the role of moral exhortation and propaganda.
W.-L. For 34 years until 1865, Harrison published and edited the central organ of the abolitionists, the Liberator magazine, which denounced slavery and slave owners. The first issue of the magazine was published in 1831, the year of the slave rebellion led by Nat Turner.
Douglas (1817-1895), an illustrious black leader, was vice president of the Anti-Slavery Society. His mother is a black slave, his father is white; Douglas himself and his brothers and sisters were slaves. In 1838, Douglas fled to the North and became a remarkable public figure - a fighter for his people, for their political organization, a brilliant speaker and writer. Beginning in 1838, Douglas published the most popular newspaper before the Civil War, the North Star, later known as the Frederick Douglass' paper.
Abolitionism was not a homogeneous movement. Here, the struggle of farmers and workers against slavery, the activities of part of the northern industrial bourgeoisie interested in the elimination of slavery as economically unprofitable, and the sincere indignation of the liberal, democratically minded intelligentsia at the shame of slavery merged into a single democratic front. The most active abolitionists were the blacks themselves. There were serious disagreements between various currents in the abolitionist movement on many political issues, and, in particular, on the issue of the use of force in the fight against slavery - disagreements that later led to a split.
The activities of the abolitionists took place in an atmosphere of terror and persecution from the planters and their accomplices. Nuyasha had extraordinary courage to oppose slavery not only in the southern states, but also in the North. Thus, in 1837, prominent abolitionist I. Lovejoy was killed in the northern state of Illinois.
Among the abolitionists, the names of Wendell Phillips, Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose novel “Uncle Tom's Cabin” (1851) significantly contributed to the gathering of the forces of the abolitionists, and others should also be mentioned. American Marxists Joseph Weidemeyer, Friedrich Sorge, Adolf played a major role in the abolitionist movement Douay and others. Some of them fought during the Civil War in the ranks of the northerners.
A significant contribution to the development of the abolitionist movement was made by pamphlets and books by Negro abolitionists: the famous “Walker's Appeal”, 1829, which called slaves to an armed uprising, articles and open letters by G. Garnet, pamphlets by W. Nell, an appeal by F. Douglas “Claims of Negroes ethnologically concerned”, 1854 and others. W. W. Brown and D. Pennington traveled to cities in the USA and other countries, conducting propaganda against slavery and collecting funds, necessary for the fight.
One of the most remarkable figures of the abolitionist movement is the former slave Harriet Tubman, an active participant in the “secret road” (underground railway). The "Secret Road" was a chain of refuges for fugitive slaves on their way from the slave states to Canada. Thousands of blacks and whites took part in the work of the “secret road,” many of whom are known only by pseudonyms. Making trip after trip from the southern states to the North, G. Tubman personally freed over 300 blacks from slavery and inspired thousands to escape. In 1856, the planters announced a reward of 40 thousand dollars for the head of G. Tubman, but they failed to seize it. During the Civil War, G. Tubman fought in the northern troops and in partisan detachments.
By the middle of the 19th century. slavery has become obsolete. The invention of spinning machines and the introduction of various technical improvements increased labor productivity in industry and sharply increased the need for cotton. The labor of slaves, even under conditions of the most severe exploitation, remained unproductive; its productivity did not meet the new requirements of industry. The slavery system also hampered the development of capitalism in the United States and the formation of a single internal national market. The abolition of slavery thus became a necessary condition for the further development of capitalism. In addition, by denying all human rights to part of the people, the slavery system was a threat to the welfare and civil liberties of the entire American people and caused growing protest among blacks and a broad movement against slavery among various segments of the American population.
However, the planters were not going to voluntarily give up power. In 1820, as a result of the Missouri Compromise, they achieved the establishment of the boundary of slavery at 36°30" north latitude. In 1850, under pressure from the planters, Congress passed a new fugitive slave law, much more severe than the law of 1793. 1 J and in 1854, thanks to the Kansas and Nebraska Bill, which left the issue of slavery in a given new territory to the settlers themselves, any legal barriers to the spread of slavery throughout the United States were destroyed. However, all this in turn led to increased slave unrest and the growth of the abolitionist movement in the decade leading up to the Civil War.
The precursor to the Civil War in the United States was the Kansas Civil War, followed by John Brown's Rebellion (1859). Brown (1800-1859), a white farmer from Richmond (Ohio), a prominent abolitionist and leader of the "Secret Road", planned to make a campaign in Virginia, raise a general uprising of slaves and form a free state in the mountains of Maryland and Virginia as a base for the fight for freeing all slaves. On the night of October 16, 1859, Brown with a small detachment of 22 people (five of them blacks) moved to Harpers Ferry and captured the arsenal. However, John Brown's campaign turned out to be insufficiently prepared. Left without support, Brown's detachment was surrounded and defeated after a fierce battle. John Brown, severely wounded, was captured, charged with treason and inciting slaves to revolt, and sentenced to hang. In his last speech at the trial, Brown denied all the charges brought against him and pleaded guilty to only one - the intention to free slaves 2.
The execution of John Brown caused an explosion of indignation throughout the world, and brought closer the crisis that erupted in 1861. The first blow was dealt by the planters: in 1860, after the election of President A. Lincoln, a representative of the North, they announced the secession of a number of southern states from the Union , and at the beginning of 1861 they attacked the northern troops at Fort Sumter. Thus began the civil war between North and South.
In the civil war of 1861-1865. the tasks were the bourgeois-democratic transformation of society, the abolition of slavery and the transfer of political and economic power throughout the country into the hands of the industrialists of the North. In the article “The Civil War in North America,” K. Marx characterized the situation as follows: “The modern struggle between the South and the North is ... nothing more than a struggle between two social systems - the system of slavery and the system of free labor ... It can end only the victory of one of these systems” 3.
The war became protracted due to the indecisive policies of the government of Abraham Lincoln, which reflected the real contradictions of the forces confronted in the war, and at the same time the hesitations of the bourgeoisie. Lincoln saw the main goal of the war in preserving the union of states, in returning the 11 rebellious states of the South to the union, and not in the abolition of slavery. And only when the northerners suffered a series of defeats and the situation on the fronts became threatening, under pressure from the popular masses and with the enormous activity of the blacks themselves, Lincoln signed a law on the confiscation of slaves of rebel planters (August 6, 1861), on the prohibition of the extradition of fugitive slaves (March 31, 1862). g.) and on the release with ransom of blacks in the District of Columbia (April 16, 1862). And finally, on September 22, 1862, the historic Emancipation Proclamation was published, according to which, as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states, if the rebellion was not stopped, received freedom “from now on and forever.” On January 1, 1863, slaves, although only in the seceded states, received personal freedom.
After the victory of the northerners and the liberation of the blacks, the most important issue became the question of restructuring the entire political and economic life in the South, the question of reconstructing the South. In March 1865, the Bureau of freedmen, refugees and abandoned lands was established, headed by General O.-O. Howard. The Bureau's tasks included comprehensive assistance to freed blacks in new conditions. The bureau existed until 1868, and its activities had a great positive impact.
However, the blacks were released without ransom, but also without land and without means of subsistence. Large plantation landownership was not destroyed, the political power of slave owners was only shaken for a while, but not broken. And although the blacks themselves took part in the struggle for their liberation with arms in hand, although over 200 thousand blacks fought in the army of the northerners and 37 thousand of them died in this war, the blacks received neither real freedom, nor, moreover, equality. Having freed themselves from slavery to the planters, they fell into bondage to the same planters and were forced to work under enslaving conditions for their former masters as hired workers or tenants. “Slavery is abolished, long live slavery!” - this is how one of the reactionary figures of that era defined the situation.
After the assassination of Lincoln on April 14, 1865 and the coming to power of E. Johnson, who pursued a policy of concessions towards the planters, reaction in the southern states again raised its head. In 1865-1866, the so-called “Black codes” were introduced in various states of the South, essentially restoring the slavery of blacks. Typical, for example, are the laws passed in 1865 in the state of Mississippi 1 . Under these laws, blacks, under penalty of life imprisonment, were denied the right to marry whites, were prohibited from carrying weapons, blacks' civil liberties were curtailed, and their right to own land was limited. In almost all southern states, blacks' voting rights were contested, and blacks were virtually excluded from participation in political life. According to the Apprentice law, all blacks - teenagers under 18 years of age, without parents, or children of poor parents (poor minors), were given into the service of whites, who could forcibly keep them in service, return them in case of escape in court and subject to corporal punishment. Blacks were allowed only to the most difficult and dirty jobs. Many states had Vagrant laws, under which blacks who were not employed on a regular basis were declared vagrants, imprisoned and sent to convict brigades, or forcibly returned to work for their former planters. Vagrancy laws were applied extremely widely, and they were always given an interpretation that suited the planters. In the southern states, a system of indentured servitude flourished, the use of convict labor, who were often chained and had to perform road-building or other hard work carried out in a particular state. A “system of social isolation and segregation (separation) of blacks, a system of Jim Crowism 2 , was also established. This meant that blacks could settle only in certain, strictly limited areas, visit only certain and lower-class hotels, restaurants, theaters, and travel only in cars marked “for coloreds.” This meant thousands of small and large humiliations to which blacks are still subjected to one degree or another in modern America.
The result of a mass movement of protest by both blacks and white Republicans against the “black codes” and events in the US South was the approval by Congress of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery (1865), the 14th Amendment on the civil rights of blacks (1868) and the 15th Amendment. 1st Negro Suffrage Amendment (1870). In 1867-1868 Congress approved laws on the reconstruction of the South, according to which the southern states were divided into five military districts and a military dictatorship was introduced there, carried out by northern troops. The states elected their provisional authorities on the basis of universal suffrage (including blacks), and Confederates, former active participants in the rebellion, were deprived of the right to vote. Blacks found themselves elected to legislative bodies in a number of states. Thus, G. Epteker points out 1 that in the state of Mississippi after the elections of 1870 there were 30 blacks in the House of Representatives, and five in the Senate. “In 1866,” writes W. Foster about the South, “a decade of the most extensive democratic development of the states began, the like of which had never been seen before or since” 2 . During this period, a number of progressive bourgeois-democratic transformations were carried out: universal suffrage for men and new rights for women were established, a state school system and a system for providing for the elderly were created, civil equality was introduced, the “black codes” were abolished, etc.
But the main task of the revolution - the redistribution of land, the destruction of the plantation economy, and thereby the political and economic power and dominance of slave owners - was not solved. This made it possible for the reaction in the southern states to gather forces and go on the offensive. Numerous terrorist groups began to be created, committing murders, beatings and other acts of violence against blacks and their white allies and inciting racial hatred.
One such group was the Ku Klux Klan, organized in 1865 in Tennessee. The Ku Klux Klan 3 arose as a counter-revolutionary terrorist organization of slave owners to suppress and intimidate freed blacks. The Ku Klux Klan was a secret organization, its activities were surrounded by an atmosphere of mystery, and the ritual of Masonic lodges was adopted 4 . Dressed in the now traditional uniform - white robes with slits for the eyes and mouth, with a cross on the chest, on dark nights the “knights” of the Ku Klux Klan committed their bloody and dirty deeds - raids, arson, murders - and disappeared without a trace. They killed blacks and progressive white leaders and organized pogroms against blacks. One of the bloodiest pogroms occurred in 1866 in New Orleans.
The favorite method of the Ku Klux Klan was lynching. Lynching 1 - lynching, cruel and bloody reprisal without trial. Lynching is not just murder. It is accompanied by the most sophisticated sadistic torture and abuse of the victim, who is usually hanged or burned alive, doused with kerosene or pitch. Lynching was used by the planters to establish a regime of terror over the freed blacks. In 1871, the terror of the Ku Klux Klan reached such proportions that President W. Grant was forced to appoint an investigation and issue a law banning the Ku Klux Klan. After this, the Ku Klux Klan went underground, but its criminal activities did not stop.
Having achieved their goals and fearing a further deepening of the revolution, the bourgeoisie of the North made a deal with slave owners to organize a united front against the labor and farmer movement and the national liberation struggle of the black people. By the 80s of the XIX century. a conspiracy took shape between the capitalists of the North and the planters of the South, which in history is called the compromise, or betrayal, by Hayes - Tilden (1877). Hayes, the presidential candidate of the Republican Party, the party of the northern bourgeoisie, received the support of the planters and was elected president after promising to withdraw northern troops from the South. This compromise ended the reconstruction period.
Liberated blacks found themselves in extremely difficult conditions in the South. The American bourgeoisie “... tried, on the basis of “free” republican-democratic capitalism, to restore everything possible, to do everything possible and impossible for the most shameless and vile oppression of blacks... Isolation, callousness, lack of fresh air, some kind of prison for the “liberated” blacks - that’s what the American South is,” wrote V.I. Lenin 2.
Most blacks continued to work as sharecroppers in the cotton fields and on farms, often owned by their previous owners or their children. The sharecropping system that developed in the southern states after the Civil War left the tenant completely at the mercy of the landowner. The sharecropper had no property, no land, no means of production, no livestock, no money, nothing except labor. Sharecroppers lived in deep poverty, paying the planter half and sometimes two-thirds of the harvest for the right to use the land. At the same time, “black codes” were being restored everywhere in the southern states and laws were being introduced that, under one pretext or another, would deprive blacks of voting and civil rights. Segregation of blacks and whites is again established in public places, in schools, etc.
The US entry into the stage of imperialism was marked by an intensification of reaction in all areas of life. Anti-Negro protests and pogroms also became more frequent. The lynching curve went up sharply. At the same time, literary pogromists (Dixon, Page, etc.) spoke out, whose works contained direct calls for reprisals against blacks. The tried and tested ideological weapon of the slave owners was again put into use - the “theory” of white supremacy. The reactionary forces of capitalism found more and more new forms of enslavement of the black population, considering them as a source of super-profits. By 1915, the Ku Klux Klan was reorganized and turned into a weapon in the struggle of big capital and monopolies against the communists, the trade union movement, the black national liberation movement and against other progressive forces in America.
During the First World War, in order to justify the US entry into the imperialist massacre and to attract blacks into the army, the American bourgeoisie declared its goal to protect world civilization, culture and democracy from the German barbarians and promised the blacks to radically change their situation after the war. Many blacks were deceived by these promises. Over 400 thousand blacks served in the American army during the First World War. Hundreds of American blacks received the highest French, Belgian and American awards for bravery and courage. But when black soldiers began to understand the aggressive, unjust goals and essence of the First World War, they refused to sail overseas and serve as cannon fodder for the interests of the American imperialists. Thus, in August 1917, rebel soldiers of a black regiment in Houston (Texas) killed officers and refused to go to Europe. The uprising was brutally suppressed, many black soldiers were shot, and 200 soldiers were sentenced to long-term hard labor.
When the war ended and the black soldiers returned to America, nothing had changed for them. Negroes who had entered factories during the war were now fired. In connection with the post-war crisis, the situation of black farmers and agricultural laborers, in particular, deteriorated sharply. Many black soldiers who returned from the army were lynched because they dared to go out into the streets in military uniforms and with orders. Frightened by the ever-increasing anger of the black people, the American bourgeoisie switched to methods of direct violence and inspired in 1917 and 1919. mass black pogroms that swept across the country. The pogrom in St. Louis in the summer of 1917 was especially bloody. In 1919, real street battles took place in Chicago, where the rioters were repulsed by black workers and former soldiers.
The acute discontent and indignation of the black soldiers, the petty bourgeoisie and part of the workers and farm laborers was used by the adventurer Mark Garvey, who led the movement of blacks to return to Africa 1 . Garvey's reactionary utopian bourgeois-nationalist slogans - the creation of an African black empire, "Africa for Africans" - did not receive the support of the advanced part of the black people. It was soon discovered that Garvey had entered into an agreement with the Ku Klux Klan and secured its non-interference in its affairs by declaring his organization anti-communist. These revelations caused a mass exodus of blacks from Garvist organizations. After Garvey's arrest for fraud with public money, Garveyism gradually fades away. In the 1920s, the black nationalist movement weakened due to America's entry into the so-called "prosperity" period.
The crisis of 1929-1933, which unfolded on the basis of the general crisis of the capitalist economic system, put an end to illusions about the strength of American “prosperity” and caused a further intensification of the class struggle. In these years, with greater clarity than ever before in America, there is a demarcation between the forces of democracy and progress, on the one hand, and the forces of reaction and fascism, on the other. Numerous fascist and pro-fascist organizations and groups are appearing in the USA, the lynching curve is going up again (according to official data, in the 1920s 19-20 lynchings were recorded per year, in 1631 - 79, in 1934 - 84), there was the anti-lynching law was failed in the Senate due to the obstruction of southern senators (to remove lynching cases from the jurisdiction of individual state courts and transfer them to federal authorities and the federal court). But the 1930s were a period of growing unity and organization of the American working class, which it demonstrated in enormous mass strikes. This was a time of great political activity among the American proletariat and the progressive intelligentsia, especially in the election campaigns of 1932 and 1936, when the Communist Party of the USA nominated its candidates William Foster and the black communist James Ford.
In the 1930s, the nature of the black liberation movement changed. Until then, the liberation movement was led by the black bourgeoisie, which sought to direct it along a false, bourgeois-nationalist path. Now the leader of the movement is the black proletariat, which grew up as a result of the proletarianization of blacks and their movement to the industrial areas of the North during the First World War and after it.
For the first time in the broad labor movement of the 1930s, black workers felt part of the American working class. Their struggle against racial discrimination joined the common front of the struggle against capitalist slavery. That is why American workers responded so passionately to the trials in Scottsboro, Alabama, in 1931, and in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1937. In 1931, nine black men were sentenced to death in Scottsboro on false charges of raping white women. young men, the youngest of whom was thirteen years old, and the eldest had barely reached nineteen. The joint action of white and black workers, the protest of the public around the world forced the US Supreme Court to reconsider the case; seven young men were released, two were sentenced to prison, but their lives were saved.
In Atlanta, the black communist Angelo Herndon, who organized a joint demonstration of white and black unemployed people in 1932 and proclaimed the class solidarity of workers regardless of skin color, was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor under the sedition law introduced during the Civil War. A widespread protest campaign by workers in America and around the world forced the court to release Herndon on bail. In the shortest possible time, the amount required to pay the bail was collected in the form of voluntary donations. And in July 1937, the law under which Angelo Herndon was convicted was declared unconstitutional.
In 1936-1938, when the people were fighting in Spain against the fascist rebels, the Negro Committee for Assistance to Spanish Democracy was created. Many blacks fought in the ranks of the volunteers of the International Brigade. Some of them died heroic deaths in this struggle - Alonzo Watson, Oliver Lowe, Milton Herndon (brother of Angelo Herndon), etc.
During these years, the American Communist Party carried out a great deal of explanatory and organizational work among blacks, the only party that consistently defended the interests of the black people to the end. At the call of the Communist Party, a powerful demonstration was held on March 6, 1930, and a number of other demonstrations of white and black unemployed people. Communists involved black workers and sharecroppers in the strike movement, fought in trade unions against discrimination against blacks carried out by reactionary leaders, and led campaigns for the liberation of the Scottsboro boys and Angelo Herndon. Numerous books and pamphlets by American communists popularized the Communist Party's point of view on the Negro question 1 .
During the years of the so-called “New Deal,” blacks achieved some specific concessions from the government of F. D. Roosevelt, who attracted individual blacks to the government apparatus, albeit in minor positions. However, the Roosevelt government did not carry out any significant reforms - lynching and segregation were not legally prohibited, the poll tax, which exists in many states, and discrimination against blacks, etc. were not abolished.
Blacks took part in the Second World War; they hated fascism and its racist theories and understood that if there was no democracy for them now, then it would be even worse if fascism won. Of great importance was also the fact that the United States acted in the Second World War in the same camp with the Soviet Union - a country of freedom and equality of nations.
About 1 million blacks joined or were drafted into the US Army during this war. In the liberation struggle against fascism, blacks showed themselves to be excellent soldiers, many of them were awarded orders and medals for military valor. However, the policy of racial discrimination, segregation and Jim Crowism continued to be the official policy of the US ruling circles. Blacks were discriminated against even during conscription and service. They did military service in special units, they tried not to admit them to naval and flight schools, they tried not to give them special qualifications. Thus, of the 19 thousand blacks who served in the navy, over 4 thousand were used as cooks and waiters, and the rest in hard non-combatant work. In most cases, the so-called Negro aviation units also did auxiliary work. By the end of the Second World War, only 8,600 blacks had officer ranks (of which: 1 general and 34 colonels and lieutenant colonels; the highest rank of a black in the navy was lieutenant).
Discrimination against blacks especially intensified after the end of the Second World War due to the general offensive of reaction in the United States. On August 27, 1949, in Peekskill, near New York, a fascist provocation was committed against the black people and the solidarity of American workers. On this day, a gang of fascist hooligans attacked spectators who had gathered to listen to the songs of the wonderful black singer and progressive public figure Paul Robeson, and wanted to lynch him. Over the course of the whole evening, several dozen whites and blacks selflessly fought off the attacks of drunken thugs, who acted with the connivance of the police. However, the brazen attack of the American fascists did not intimidate the working people. Exactly a week later, on September 3, a Paul Robeson concert took place in Peekskill, which was attended by at least 25 thousand people. This was a great victory for the progressive people of the United States. The concert was guarded by special detachments of black and white volunteer workers who thwarted all attempts by hooligans to stop Robeson from singing.
1955-1956 marked by a new upsurge in the black struggle for freedom and equality. The national liberation movement of the black people is one of the most widespread democratic movements in modern America. As indicated in the draft resolution of the XVI Congress of the Communist Party of the USA 1, the current stage of development of the black liberation movement is characterized, in particular, by the increased role of the black urban population and the black proletariat, the strengthening of ties with the trade union movement, the transfer of the center of struggle to the South, to the citadel of racism, where in connection with industrialization, the number of workers has increased significantly and where, along with black workers, broad sections of the intelligentsia, priests, etc. are included in the struggle. The slogan “Achieve freedom by 1963” is now very popular among blacks. (i.e., the centennial anniversary of the liberation from slavery). Indicative facts are given, for example, in the article by Eslanda Robson 2. Negroes are intensifying their struggle in all spheres of life: moving from the ghetto to nearby “white” areas, despite the fierce resistance of the Ku Klux Klan, fighting stubbornly in trade unions, etc. Negro political figures began a campaign against racist congressmen, seeking their recall from Congress.
Blacks began to realize their political power. Nowadays, headed by priest M.-JI, is becoming increasingly widespread. King's movement to ensure that at least 5 million blacks from the southern states took part in the 1960 presidential elections. Blacks intend to exercise their political rights and force the government to abandon its policy of racial discrimination. Blacks also realized their great economic strength, successfully using it in economic boycotts. For example, blacks in Montgomery (Alabama) showed excellent endurance and organization, where for a year from December 1955 the population boycotted a bus company that discriminated against blacks. Rallies were held throughout the country in support of Montgomery blacks and funds were raised. Local authorities arrested and tried 90 boycott leaders, including all the city's black priests, on charges of conspiracy. But they failed to break or intimidate the blacks. The struggle ended in victory for the black population of Montgomery, who forced the bus company in December 1956 to abolish discriminatory practices and segregation. Similar boycotts were carried out in other cities in the South.
On May 17, 1954, as a result of many years of struggle by blacks and all democratic forces in the United States, as well as strong pressure from world public opinion, the US Supreme Court decided to prohibit racial segregation in public schools. However, the implementation of this decision was largely left to the blacks themselves.
In Washington and some cities in the states of Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky and others, notable successes have been achieved 3 . But in the deep South, reactionary local authorities refused to implement the decision of the Supreme Court, as a result of which an extremely tense situation was created in the southern states. Serious clashes occurred in a number of cities and federal troops were brought in to restore order.
Nevertheless, the blacks are determined to achieve their rights. This is evidenced, for example, by the grand demonstration that took place in Washington at the Lincoln Monument on May 17, 1957, on the third anniversary of the Supreme Court decision banning segregation. On this day, more than 50 thousand blacks came from all over the country to Washington to express their protest against anti-Negro terror in the southern states and to declare their solidarity with those fighting for civil rights and freedom.
The events that took place in September 1957 in Little Rock (Arkansas), where the racist governor Faubus tried to forcefully prevent nine black children from entering a school that previously accepted only whites, became known throughout the world. The actions of Faubus and the outrages of local Ku Klux Klansmen caused enormous indignation throughout the country. Federal troops were sent to Little Rock. For three months, black schoolchildren went to school under the guard of soldiers, bravely fighting their way through the ranks of brutal hooligans, and won a difficult victory.
On the side of American blacks are all the honest people of the United States and the whole world who understand that the struggle of American blacks for freedom and equality is part of the general struggle against imperialism, racism and colonial oppression that is going on all over the world.
US presidential candidate Donald Trump, in one of his regular speeches, touched upon the topic of the social status of the African-American population. Thus, he emphasized that African Americans live in poverty, and the schools that educate African American children are “no good.” Hillary Clinton, if she wins the presidential election, would rather provide jobs for refugees from the Middle East than for African Americans who “became refugees in their own country.”
Of course, Donald Trump's words are just words. In an attempt to gain the support of African American voters, Trump will continue to promise them better lives if he wins the election. But as far as the social status of the African-American population is concerned, there is no doubt about the truth of Mr. Trump’s words. African Americans are indeed a socially disadvantaged group of the American population - and this despite the fact that they are not immigrants, immigrants or refugees.
Despite the fact that in the United States the equality of the white and black populations is declared in every possible way, the socio-economic situation of African Americans remains virtually unchanged. Moreover, measures to “eliminate discrimination” are almost exclusively informational and propaganda in nature. For example, the use of the word “Negro” in the United States has come to be interpreted practically as a crime, as discrimination against blacks, but at the same time, millions of African Americans live in total poverty and the American authorities are not taking any steps to get them out of this state. You can make thousands of films with a positive black hero, introduce special tolerance courses into school curricula, even make a black president of the country - but in the absence of real measures to eliminate unemployment, improve the level of education, and increase wages, all these propaganda steps turn into just an empty shake of the air. There is no relationship between the black President Barack Obama and the millions of socially deprived people in American cities. Some experts speak of modern American policy towards the black population as “positive discrimination.” Now they prefer not to talk about discrimination against blacks in the United States, ignoring the very fact of the deepest social and economic problems that are associated with the situation of the African-American population of the country.
One of the most important manifestations of the true social status of African Americans in the United States is economic inequality. To this day, African Americans are, on average, much poorer than other ethnic and racial groups in the American population. This is due to the persistence of poverty in African American communities. Poverty is inherited, poverty persists, and becomes the most important obstacle to social mobility. Many African Americans have achieved success in the United States - they are present in politics, business, sports, and culture. But the majority of the country's African Americans remain much poorer than whites. Moreover, the poverty of the African-American population is growing, not decreasing. This is also facilitated by the specific development of the American economy. As the market's demand for unskilled labor declines, more and more African Americans without a normal education remain in the category of perpetual unemployed. If in 2000 the median income of an African-American household was 64% of the household income of white Americans, then eleven years later, in 2011, it was already 58% of the median income of a white household. That is, the income of the African-American population decreased by 6% on average. Over the four years from 2005 to 2009, the financial wealth gap between African Americans and whites widened. If in 2005 African Americans had eleven times less assets than whites, then in 2009 they had twenty times less assets.
Total poverty forces many African Americans to depend on social assistance from the government and charitable organizations. At the same time, it is worth dispelling the illusions of some Russians who believe that the amount of social assistance in the United States is very significant, and that the majority of African Americans live “on benefits.” This is nothing more than speculation. Ultimately, it is beneficial to the American leadership, since the full responsibility for the social and economic situation of the black population in this case is shifted from the state to the African Americans themselves - they say, the state does everything it can, pays benefits, and the blacks themselves are lazy and do not want work. In fact, approximately 14 million people in the United States receive free social assistance. Of these, 65% are children and adolescents. That is, two thirds of social assistance goes to helping children from low-income families. Strictly speaking, what else can children live on if not on benefits if their parents are either absent or unable to earn money? Most of the remaining 35% of social assistance recipients are women. Moreover, these are not only African-American women, but also white ones. There are even more whites - 38% versus 37% of African Americans. The remaining welfare recipients are from other racial and ethnic groups, including Hispanics, Asians, and Indians.
Economic inequality among African Americans is exacerbated by social inequality. At one time, the famous French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu wrote about three types of capital - economic, social and cultural. Social and cultural capital are no less important, since it is their possession that allows families to provide education and careers for their children. The African-American population of the United States, with rare exceptions, has minimal social and cultural capital. Today, over 70% of African American children are born outside of marriage. It is clear that most of them are then raised in single-parent families, where the only breadwinner is the mother. For comparison, only 25% of white children are born out of wedlock. Naturally, this circumstance alone has a huge impact on the social position of the African-American population, determining the future of the majority of children at the bottom of the social hierarchy of American society.
Social inequality between African Americans and whites is a natural consequence of discriminatory policies implemented in the first half of the twentieth century. After all, the abolition of segregation in the United States occurred only in the 1960s, and then thanks to an active social movement on the one hand, and a difficult international situation on the other hand. In a country that today is trying to present itself as a stronghold of world democracy, just a few decades ago there was officially confirmed inequality of rights for representatives of different races. Until now, white and black Americans consider themselves representatives of different social groups. African Americans have their own identity, which in some aspects not only does not intersect with the general American identity, but even contradicts it. Consider, for example, the massive spread of Islam among black Americans. To some extent, the adoption of Islam was seen by many African Americans as a way to emphasize their “otherness,” belonging not to the world of European culture associated with Christianity, but to the Afro-Arab world. However, the majority of African Americans still profess Christianity, although many of them belong to purely African-American church communities, which also practically do not intersect with the “white” world.
African-American culture is characterized by emphasizing the differences between African-Americans and whites. To a certain extent, we are dealing with “reverse racism.” Ideologists of African-American socio-political movements in the first half - mid-twentieth century. tried to develop their own concepts that explained the differences between blacks and whites and even some superiority of blacks over whites. Africans were prescribed greater sensuality and intuitiveness, unlike representatives of the Caucasian race. During the period of decolonization of the African continent, the ideas of “African exceptionalism” were raised on the shield by many politicians who came to power in African countries. These ideas, in particular, also imply a critical attitude towards the achievements of European civilization, which is viewed as less humane than the civilizations of the African continent. Of course, the inhabitants of African-American “ghettos” in the United States do not think about such lofty matters, but they draw the line of difference from whites quite clearly. For example, among African-American teenagers, the image of a high school student, a guy or girl who pores over textbooks and associates his future activities with mental work, is not popular.
Among African-American teenagers, another model of achieving success in life is more popular, which is associated, at best, with a sports or musical career, and at worst, simply with crime. Many African-American children, even those born capable, deliberately do not show diligence in their studies so as not to stand out from the general African-American environment and not come into conflict with other blacks. George Akerlof wrote about this, in particular, in his work “The Economics of Identity.” But if the white Akerlof could still be accused of bias, then what about the conclusions of another researcher - the Nigerian sociologist John Ogbu, who moved to the United States and got a job teaching at the University of Berkeley in California? Ogbu even coined the term “poor diligence syndrome,” which he uses to characterize the attitude of African-American children to school. Moreover, even children from high-status and wealthy African-American families who attend prestigious schools attended by representatives of a wide variety of racial and ethnic groups do not strive to study. “Positive discrimination” also played a role in consolidating this attitude towards learning - such children expect to enter colleges and universities with benefits that exist for African Americans, without making any special efforts. It turns out that if the children of the African-American intelligentsia think this way, then what about the children of the slums?
Economic and social inequality combine with social deprivation of the country's African-American population. As is known, the percentage of the black population is highest in the southern states, which were once strongholds of plantation slavery. There are still very large African-American populations in states such as South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana, which are considered the most “black” states in the United States. But an impressive number of African Americans also live in large cities across the country, primarily in New York. In areas where African Americans live densely, sociologists note a much worse standard of living than in areas where white Americans live. “Black neighborhoods” are essentially social ghettos in which total poverty caused by unemployment, street crime, drug addiction and drug trafficking, alcoholism, and prostitution flourish.
At one time, the American government tried to solve the problems of slums in which African Americans lived and began building new residential areas. However, high-rise neighborhoods inhabited by African Americans have become even worse ghettos than the old slums. Sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh notes that plans to improve the living standards of the African-American population have effectively failed. In residential areas where African Americans live, the main problems were: overcrowded apartments, poor and failing public utility infrastructure, and widespread poverty on the verge of poverty. Of course, new areas also have high levels of crime and drug addiction.
The social inequality of the African-American population is clearly manifested in the field of health care. Since most African Americans belong to lower social classes, they simply do not have the money to take care of their health. Plus, the lifestyle that African Americans lead does not at all contribute to improving health outcomes. The average life expectancy of African American men and women is 5-7 years lower than the average life expectancy of white Americans. Diseases such as diabetes and hypertension are much more common among African Americans. Over 30% of African American men and over 41% of women are obese, reflecting a poor quality and unhealthy diet. As for the level of AIDS prevalence among the African-American population, it is approaching the level of African countries. African Americans make up 48% of AIDS patients, despite the fact that in the general structure of the US population the share of African Americans is 12.6%. Needless to say, quality medical services are simply inaccessible for the vast majority of African Americans due to their high cost, and a culture of caring for one’s health has not been developed in African American ghettos. Despite the fact that African-American families have a fairly high birth rate, the crisis of family values in “black” America is much more pronounced. A huge number of children, as we noted above, are born out of wedlock; in fact, a typical African-American family is a mother and children or a grandmother, mother and children.
From time to time, real uprisings of African Americans break out in the United States, the reason for which, as a rule, is brutality shown by the police. As a rule, the state resolves the issues of suppressing such protests harshly and quickly, not hesitating to use military force, including bringing tanks into the streets of rebellious cities. At the same time, of course, the American authorities in such situations completely forget about the pseudo-democratic demagoguery used in relation to other countries. However, the forceful suppression of protests does not mean that the problem of social and economic inequality of African Americans can be solved in this way. On the contrary, the situation of the African-American population has an obvious tendency to gradually deteriorate, which will be especially noticeable years later, given the higher birth rate.
It would seem that the answer to this question is on the surface. In the 15th century, the first Europeans appeared in America - the conquistadors. And in the 16th-17th centuries, the active import of free labor from Africa began there, where local black princelings sold their fellow tribesmen into slavery for alcohol and weapons. However, already to the first conquistadors, local residents told about some ancient civilization that passed on its knowledge to subsequent generations.
Here is a documentary record made from the words of one Aztec sage by the Spanish monk Sahagún, who accompanied the conquistadors: “A long time ago, in a time that no one now remembers, a powerful people came here, who had great legislators, talented artists and wise thinkers. These people founded the state of Tomoankhan (literally translated from the Mayan language this means “Homeland of rains and fogs”). It is from this people that all the knowledge and art of which the Toltecs, Aztecs, Mayans and Zapotecs are proud come.” Later, other Spanish historians found in Aztec legends new references to the mysterious country of Olman (“The place where rubber is mined”) and its inhabitants, the Olmecs. But who then believed the ancient legends of “those eccentric Aztecs”?!
And only the completely accidental discovery by Mexican traveler Jose Melgar in the 19th century on the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico of a meter-long human head carved from basalt drew the attention of the scientific world to this part of Central America. Was there really a civilization that once existed here, in the wilds of impenetrable coastal jungles and mangrove forests? But Melgar’s find confirmed Aztec legends: this territory (currently the Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco) really has an extremely humid climate, and high-quality rubber is still mined here.
The prehistory of the states of Veracruz and Tabasco does not end with one basalt head. To date, six similar sculptures have been discovered there. All of them are huge - from 1.5 to 3 meters, carved from monolithic blocks of black basalt and are characterized by pronounced Negroid features: a short wide nose and thick lips. Therefore, blacks visited America even before the birth of the ancient Mayan culture, which is much older than the ancient Egyptian one. How did people of a distinctly African type get here in such distant antiquity? But these are sculptural portraits of specific people, as evidenced by the fact that facial features and expressions differ from each other. Some of them look openly, slightly smiling at the tips of their lips, others are preoccupied with something and sternly frown their stony eyebrows. Hence, another sensation: an African colony in ancient America? Meanwhile, archaeological discoveries in the southern states of Mexico continued to multiply. True, they were no longer so impressive, but no less valuable. These were figurines of jaguar people, various kinds of dwarfs and cripples with strange pear-shaped heads, richly decorated stone axes, all kinds of rings,
bracelets, brooches. And all this was found in the three archaeological sites of Tressapotos, Tuxtla and La Venta, located on the coast. And most importantly, they are all made from jade, which is almost never found in these parts.
The choice of material alone speaks volumes about the value of these finds. Montezuma himself, presenting gifts of gold to Cortes, said: “And to this I will add several pieces of jade, each of which is equal in value to a load of gold.” How rich a culture must have been, replete with products made from such valuable material!
So where did blacks come from in prehistoric America? Polish historian Lucian Znich makes an assumption, the essence of which boils down to the following: both African blacks and Negroid colonists in South America are representatives of the same people - the Atlanteans. After the destruction of Atlantis, most of them moved to Africa, and some, and, apparently, the most talented, part reached the American shores...
