Lessons from the Civil Rights Movement: Reflections on the Long Movement for Black Liberation from Atlanta to Amsterdam
Publish Date: October 2016
Contributors
Mitchell Esajas
2016 John Lewis Fellowship
Civil Rights , Justice , Racism
The Netherlands
“The home of the brave and land of the free” was built on the genocide of Indigenous people and centuries of enslavement, dehumanization and racialized violence on African people.
The Tradition of Destroying the Black Body
In the first week of the program many people in the US, and many people around the world, were shook by the murders of two black men by the police, their names were Alton Sterling and Philando Castille. Castille was held up for an alleged broken taillight and Sterling for selling cd’s in front of a store, both men were brutally shot by policemen. The murders were caught on camera, the horrific images sparked nationwide and global protest against the murder of young black men. Although it was heartbreaking and shocking to see the videos of these men getting shot I could not be surprised. In his seminal book ‘Between the World and Me” Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote:
“In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body – it is heritage. Enslavement was not merely the antiseptic borrowing of labour – it is not so easy to get a human being to commit their body against its own elemental interest.” (1)
Indeed, “the home of the brave and land of the free” was built on the genocide of Indigenous people and centuries of enslavement, dehumanization and racialized violence on African people. In a speech given at the Democratic National Convention, the First Lady Michelle Obama confirmed that even the White House was built by enslaved Africans. (2) During the program we learned how the US became an economic power house based on the profits of slave labor and how a system of white supremacy was developed to legitimize and maintain a social, cultural, political order which privileged people racialized as white whilst dehumanizing millions of people racialized as black, brown and native-American people. The system of white supremacy consisted of an ideology based on the belief that people racialized as white were superior to other “races” on the one hand. On the other hand it consisted of social, cultural, political structures to enforce this ideologies in the everyday lives of people and government of the country. During the era of slavery, so called Black Codes limited the freedom of enslaved Africans, after emancipation African-Americans people were considered only 3/5ths a human being and after Reconstruction the Jim Crow system was introduced which trapped masses African-Americans in a position of second class citizenship and lower levels of the societal ladder.
Whiteness in Europe
In Europe, especially in the Netherlands, people often tend to deflect debates about racism by stating “we don’t do race, that is something they do in the United States or South Africa”
When discussing white supremacy and racism the focus often tends to stay stuck on the African-American experience. In the Fellowship the focus was on the Civil Rights Movement from the perspective of Atlanta. Being a black European, born and bred in Amsterdam from parents who migrated from the former Dutch colony Surinam and roots in the African continent I’d like to broaden the scope. In fact, I’d argue that white supremacy and racism were invented in Europe, yet subsequently refined and implemented in the United States. In Europe, especially in the Netherlands, people often tend to deflect debates about racism by stating “we don’t do race, that is something they do in the United States or South Africa”. A fellow Anthropology graduate student even told me once: “the concept of race has been rejected for a long time in the Dutch scholarly society” after telling me to stop whining or move because I questioned the racist Dutch Saint Nicolas tradition. The Dutch tend to deny or downplay the existence of racism and forget their own history of colonialism and slavery. (3) In her seminal book “White Innocence”, Gloria Wekker, the only black professor in the Netherlands, described the dominant self-image of the Dutch as follows:
“With the title White Innocence, I am invoking an important and apparently satisfying way in which the Dutch think of themselves, as being a small, but just, ethical nation; color-blind, thus free of racism; as being inherently on the moral and ethical high ground, thus a guiding light to other folks and nations.”
Several reports by organizations such as the Dutch Institute for Human Rights and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) confirmed that racism continues to reproduce structural inequality in the Netherlands, especially in the case of people of African descent
Indeed, “race” and racism have been a taboo for a long time in the Dutch public discourse, although it’s starting to change due to activism of black and brown communities. The Dutch were major players in the trans-Atlantic human traffic in enslaved Africans and the colonized several parts of the world including New York, major parts of Brazil, several islands in the Carribbean, several coastal parts of Southern and Western Africa and several territories in Asia such as Indonesia. In fact, the first 20 Africans who were ever brought to the United States crossed the ocean on a Dutch warship in 1619 and set foot in Jamestown, Virginia. (4) Just like the United States, the Dutch abolished slavery in 1863, however, they maintained many of their colonial territories such as Indonesia until 1947 and 1975 after periods of decolonial struggle. Although slavery was abolished a long time ago and most colonial gained independence “racism” continued to be an issue, but it became a taboo because of the atrocities of the Second World War which were legitimized by the white supremacist and racist ideology of the nazi’s. Did this mean that racism and white supremacy immediately disappear? No, several reports by organizations such as the Dutch Institute for Human Rights and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) confirmed that racism continues to reproduce structural inequality in the Netherlands, especially in the case of people of African descent:
“The Committee is concerned about the increase in discrimination, including racial profiling and stigmatization, faced by people of African descent.” (5)
The Birth of a Movement for Black Lives in the Netherlands
At the beginning of the Fellowship I thought a social movement had been born in the Netherlands against racism and the national Dutch blackface tradition Saint Nicolas in which millions of white Dutch people dress up in blackface. (6) However, after the program I question whether this can already be called a real “movement”. Throughout the years myself and many of my friends and fellow activists have participated in actions and advocacy to change the tradition. Some of us have been arrested, some of us have been prosecuted, jailed and physically, verbally and digitally violated. We have been inspired by the Civil Rights Movement and organized several nonviolent direct actions such as the “Freedom Ride to Meppel” where hundreds of people demonstrated against the national blackface tradition during the annual national Saint Nicolas parade (see video). (7) Much like the Civil Rights Movement we have been able to bring attention to race related injustices in Dutch society by getting into “good trouble, as John Lewis calls it. This has created space to break the taboo and the silence around racism in Dutch society and placed it on the political agenda. Much work still needs to be done, the spirit of resistance has grown but I learned that we need to organize, mobilize and strategize seriously before we can called it a real “movement”.
A Tradition of Resistance: The Struggle for Freedom
The Civil Rights Movement did not operate and arise in a vacuum, it was the result of decades of organized resistance, strategic planning and social, political and cultural developments
In an archive in Amsterdam I found evidence of correspondence between a Surinamese anti- colonial organizer Otto Huiswoud, W.E.B. duBois and Langston Hughes who were part of the movements in the United States.
In 2012 every 28 hours a black man, woman or child was killed by someone employed by the US government including the police.
The New Jim Crow and the #BlackLivesMatter Movement
African-American males are sentenced an average of 20 to 50 times higher longer prison than white males of the same drug crime.
#BlackLivesMatter was co-founded was created by three black women, of whom two are queer, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman who murdered the 17 year old Trayvon Martin in 2013.
Marching with #BlackLivesMatter Atlanta
The violent deaths of many young black man and women have sparked the birth a 21st century movement in the United States. It is commonly known as the #BlackLivesMatter movement. #BlackLivesMatter was co-founded was created by three black women, of whom two are queer, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman who murdered the 17 year old Trayvon Martin in 2013. (16) It is important to note that they do not claim to be a movement yet:
“Black Lives Matter is a chapter-based national organization working for the validity of Black life. We are working to (re)build the Black liberation movement.” (17)
I marched and protested in the same streets Dr. King and hundreds of thousands of other people have marched for four days in a row.
#BlackLivesMatter is part of a larger liberation movement which is still in its infancy but can and must be seen in the context of a long history of resistance and struggle for black liberation.
After days of protest the mayor of Atlanta and the police chief agreed to meet with leaders of the movement. (19) This is where a few point of improvement of the #BlackLivesMatter movement became visible. During the Fellowship several lecturers raised some critical point about #BlackLivesMatter. John Eaves, chair of the Fulton Country Board of Commissioners, for example stated it became clear that the protestors did not fully understand how to turn their protest into concrete demands for policy changes and at which level of government to advocate for these changes. (20) To other the concrete goals and objectives weren’t clear and they raised the question how #BlackLivesMatter wanted to achieve change without a solid structure. (21) This was reflected in a situation in which it was unclear who the spokesperson of the Atlanta chapter of #BlackLivesMatter was. After days of protest the mayor met with several local “leaders” and representatives of activist organizations, one person claimed to be the leader of “#BlackLivesMatter of Greater Atlanta” but he was denounced by the national #BlackLivesMatter network as another grassroots network called “#BlackLivesMatter Atlanta” was the official chapter of the national network. A week after the Fellowship, however, the movement for Black Lives, a collective of 50 organizations representing black communities around the US, launched an expansive and coherent vision and agenda which echoes many of the objectives and vision of previous movements including the modern Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panther Party and other organizations who have been part of the long struggle for black freedom. This shows that #BlackLivesMatter is part of a larger liberation movement which is still in its infancy but can and must be seen in the context of a long history of resistance and struggle for black liberation.
Lessons from the Modern Civil Rights Movement For the #BlackLivesMatter Movement
The oppression of black communities face today are intimately tied to a global system of neoliberal capitalism and white supremacy
One of the criticisms on #BlackLivesMatter was that it seemed to be focused on police brutality which is extremely important but sis not the “root cause” of the problem.
1. From protest to policy transformation
One of the major strengths of the Civil Rights Movement was that its goals and objectives were concrete, they strived to achieve equality and justice for black people through the establishment of Civil Rights such as the right to vote, the desegregation of schools, public transport and other public facilities and equal access to jobs and housing. Based on these demand they developed strategies and tactics to realize these objectives through the organizational structures and networks which they had built up. #BlackLivesMatter and the movement for Black Lives, recently launched its vision and agenda with concrete objectives and policy changes. One of the criticisms on #BlackLivesMatter was that it seemed to be focused on police brutality which is extremely important but sis not the “root cause” of the problem. Police brutality is merely a manifestation of the systems of white supremacy, neoliberal capitalism and other intersecting systems of oppression. Fighting police brutality alone will not absolve the underlying systems and structures which continue to devalue and dehumanize black people, people of color and (white) working class people. To achieve black liberation and for our basic human rights to be respected the organizing principles of the neoliberal capitalist system which inherently feeds of a global and national “racial caste” of black and non-white people must be addressed. Similarly, the upcoming “movement” in the Netherlands seems to be focused on the blackface tradition. To truly achieve change and transformation we need to broaden our perspective and develop a comprehensive vision and agenda focused on the root causes of the problem and not just one of its manifestations.
2. Education is the passport to the future
Inspired by this Fellowship and the Martin Luther King Jr. archive at Morehouse college specifically I aim to set up the first black archive in Amsterdam which can function as a center of exchange and learning for black grassroots activists and scholar- activists.
3. International Solidarity
The third lesson we can learn from the Civil Rights Movement is the international solidarity they build with other oppressed people across the world. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the movement realized that the struggle for freedom of African-Americans was related to the struggle for freedom of black people and other oppressed people who suffered from the systems of white supremacy, colonialism and capitalism across the world. Martin Luther King Jr. visited the inauguration of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, the first African country to gain political independence from the British empire in 1957 and connected the Civil Rights Movement to the struggle for independence in Africa in his “A birth of a new nation” speech.23 A few years later he wrote in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”:
“I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea.”
On the same day that the judge ruled that all charges against police officers in the Freddy Gray case in Baltimore were dropped, a Dutch judge ruled that the police officer who shot an unarmed 21 year old black youth in the Hague in June 2016 would not face charges either.
Malcolm X visited several African countries and became an outspoken advocate for pan-Africanism, realizing that the system of oppression of African-Americans was connected to the oppression of Africans worldwide. Just like the movements of resistance and decolonization were connected worldwide. As Dr. Livingstone argued during his presentation on #BlackLivesMatter in a global perspective, white supremacy is a global system and is not just about police brutality. In the US hundreds of black people die at the hands of the police annually in the United States. In Brazil every 23 minutes a black youth is killed, over the past decade 8 000 people, mostly black people, were murdered by the police according to research of Human Rights Watch. (24) Although it happens on a smaller scale racial profiling is a problem in Europe as well. Amnesty International published a report about ethnic profiling in the Netherlands and the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) stated in its report on Afrophobia in the European Union that racial profiling affects black communities across Europe. (25) (26) On the same day that the judge ruled that all charges against police officers in the Freddy Gray case in Baltimore were dropped, a Dutch judge ruled that the police officer who shot an unarmed 21 year old black youth in the Hague in June 2016 would not face charges either. His name was Mitchel Winters. A year earlier the police choked a black man to death on video, this led to a massive uprising in the Hague. His name was Mitch Henriquez. (27)
Besides police brutality, many people of African descent are faced with poverty, environmental racism, a lack of quality education and other human rights violations based on the global system of neoliberal capitalism and white supremacy. Do the lives matter of black miners who risk their lives digging for Coltan which are necessary for the smartphones which allow us to tweet #BlackLivesMatter? Do the lives of black children and poor peasants who farm cocoa for the chocolate we eat? (28) Do the lives matter of black youth in the favelas who face similar state violence by militarized police as the militarized police squads who took over protesters after the uprising in Baltimore after the killing of Freddie Gray? All of these black lives should matter. Many people across the world realize that. After the killing of Sterling and Castille there were massive demonstrations in Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Cape Town and Johannesburg. On the question why he participated in the demonstration in Cape Town, Mone, A South African student said: “ We are lamenting the same pain we are feeling with them. We are here to send the message that black lives matter everywhere in the world. ”(29) (30)
Gladly, the movement for Black Lives seem to realize this as well in their recently launched vision. To complicate our thinking even further, many other communities of color and even working class whites face similar issues of oppression albeit in different ways. During the program we learned how Native-American and Latinx communities face similar and related issues within the US and over the past years the international community has been shook by the large number of refugees, mostly black and brown people, who die anonymously or live in inhumane conditions, after fleeing their homes in the “global Soith”. By gaining more understanding of the complex ways in which these systems of oppression operate globally, nationally and locally we should be able to mobilize and strategize on global, national and local levels as well to formulate substantial concrete demands and mobilize people around the world to transform these systems so all people can live their lives and realize their full potential.
References:
- http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/tanehisiRcoatesRbetweenRtheRworldRandRme/397619/
- http://www.politifact.com/truthRoRmeter/statements/2016/jul/25/michelleRobama/michelleRobamaRcorrectR whiteRhouseRwasRbuiltRslave/
- Gloria Wekker, White Innocence: paradoxes of colonialism and race. Duke University press 2016
- http://www.history.com/topics/blackRhistory/slavery
- CERD (2015), Concluding observations on the nineteenth to twenty-first periodic reports of the Netherlands. Adopted by the Committee at its eighty-seventh session (3-28 August 2015).
- http://stopblackface.com/beyondRblackfaceRemancipationRthroughRtheRstruggleRagainstRblackRpeteRandRdutchRracism/
- Several video’s of the Freedom Ride to Meppel and other demonstrations are on the website StopBlackface.com: http://stopblackface.com/stopblackfaceRtv/
- Dr. SimsRAlvarado K. Lecture “The Quest for Freedom: From the American RevolutionRPost Reconstruction”, John Lewis Fellowship on Thursday July 7th 2016
- Littleton, L.M. (2016) Lecture “Malcolm X, Human Rights and Coalition Building, John Lewis Fellowship on Thursday July 14th 2016
- https://socialhistory.org/en/today/11R05/blackRbolshevik
- Due to limitations in the number of words for this essay I have not explained every element of the overview and limited the explanation of three lessons from the overview.
- https://mxgm.org/operationRghettoRstormR2012RannualRreportRonRtheRextrajudicialRkillingRofR313RblackR people/
- https://www.theguardian.com/usRnews/2015/dec/31/theRcountedRpoliceRkillingsR2015RyoungRblackRmen
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steveRmariotti/theRnewRjimRcrowRaRmustre_b_3679076.html
- Taylor, K. Y. (2016). From# BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Haymarket Books. P.11R12
- http://www.politico.com/magazine/politico50/2015/aliciaRgarzaRpatrisseRcullorsRopalRtometi
- http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/
- I have written about my experiences in a blog on the website of StopBlackface.com: http://stopblackface.com/mitchellsRhumanityRinRactionRjohnRlewisRfellowshipRblog/
- http://www.vibe.com/2016/07/mayorRkasimRreedRmeetsRwithRblackRlivesRmatterRleaders/
- http://www.atlisready.black/demands/
- http://news.wabe.org/post/blackRlivesRmatterRdisavowsRatlantaRpresidentRsirRmaejor
- http://www.thekingcenter.org/kingRphilosophy
- http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/the_birth_of_a_new_nation/index.html
- https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/07/goodRcopsRareRafraid/tollRuncheckedRpoliceRviolenceRrioRdeR janeiro
- https://www.amnesty.nl/etnischprofileren
- http://www.enarReu.org/LaunchRofRENARRsR2014R15RShadowRReportRonRAfrophobiaRinRtheREuropeanRUnion
- http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/profitsRandRlossRminingRandRhumanRrightsRinRkatangaR democraticRrepublicRofRtheRcongo?page=2
- http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/16/chocolateRexplainer/
- http://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/400RmensenRbijRblackRlivesRmatterRprotestRopRdeRdam~a4337084/
This essay was written as part of the
2016 john lewis fellows' reflective essays.
IMAGES
VIDEO