A Summer of Trails, 1903 and A River of Anger: Douglas Blackmon Reading Quotes

Kaveena Bullock

Professor Young

AFAM 2100: The New Jim Crow

19 March 2017

A Summer of Trails, 1903

1.    “At the same time, black preachers and African Americans who had established some silver of financial security grew fearful of the rising temperature around them. They had learned through bloody experience the dangers of challenging the status quo of white domination, and also that in the inflexible rituals of Southern racial interaction men such as themselves were expected to prostrate themselves before whites as proof that they gave no credence to the inquiries demanded by President Roosevelt and Judge Jones” (Blackmon, page 225).

·      This is an important quote because it displays how important the black church and black preachers were during this time. It must have been a difficult situation to be in as leaders for black people but also trying not to trigger white people around them. Preachers in a church are supposed to be strong leaders but even they became fearful of the rise of racism even more. Even though they may have been fearful, the black preachers still had to stand strong for black people being killed and discriminated against even though slavery was “over” for blacks.

2.    “The Civil Rights Act of 1866, passed in the wake of the war to formalize the ending of slavery, simply declared all persons born in the United States to be full-fledged citizens with the right to vote regardless of race or previous ‘condition of slavery or involuntary servitude.’ But it did not clearly state that the holding of statues was a crime, and the disparate treatment of former slaves was made only a misdemeanor, carrying a maximum penalty of one year in jail” (Blackmon, page 227).

·      The Civil Rights Act of 1866 is similar to the other acts such as the Thirteenth Amendment where it states certain laws on paper that sound nice but has loopholes. However, the reason why this quote stood out to me was because the maximum sentence the mistreatment of former slaves was only one year in jail. The significance of this quote is to show how these different acts and laws that were being passed did not specify the law enough.

3.    “Later statues in the 1870s made segregated accommodations, schools, and anti-black-voting measures illegal, but actually weakened the minimum penalty for violations. In 1883, the U.S. Supreme Court declared even those laws unconstitutional, ruling that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments, approved in 1869 to abolish slavery and establish black citizenship, didn’t authorize Congress to pass such enforcement laws” (Blackmon, page 227).

·      This quote seems to show some progress when it comes to having equality for blacks but the last line stands out the most. Although these different laws may be illegal, Congress did not pass such enforcement laws. This means that even the freedmen were still trapped under laws that did not protect them nor did it give them equality.

4.    "In the rare instance that a black man or woman received a day in court, attorneys simply ridicules the very idea of a black man being treated respectfully and anyone who appeared willing to do so" (Blackmon, page 229).

·      A black man or woman does not receive the same equal civil protection that a white person has, even until this day. Having court rights are something that white people had, so black men and women should have the same rights. Although blacks were making progress, this displayed how whites saw them even more. If blacks could be respected inside a courtroom with their own case, there was no opportunity to receive respect outside the courtroom.

5.    “’God forbid that the time will ever come in this country when you are helpless and distressed and have been the victim of oppression when you will be denied that protection of the law to which you appeal and to which every law, abiding human being is entitled among all civilized people.’ Jones told the jury” (Blackmon, page 232).

·      I found this quote by Judge Jones to be ironic since he is saying this to a jury about what blacks were dealing with at the time. Three key words he uses in his statement are "helpless", "distressed" and "the victim of oppression". These keywords are a small glimpse of what black people were going thru and how they felt at the time. Another key phrase in this quote is "denied that protection of the law…" This is important because it is an unsettling fear that the law cannot protect you even though that is what they are there for.

A River of Anger

1.    “A frenzied mob in Scottsboro, Alabama, gunned down the town sheriff in front of his family as he refused to turn over a black teenager who had allegedly ‘attempted criminal assault’ on a nineteen-year-old white girl. Once the sheriff was dead, the black man was seized from his cell and hanged from a telegraph pole that night” (Blackmon, page 234).

·      The significance of this quote seems obvious but the main point of this quote was how the black man was set free only to be captured and hung in the same day. This one killing is a symbol for blacks. The minute black people or a black person is "free" they have captured again. If black couldn't count on the sheriffs and law enforcements to kill them and capture them, they could always count on every other racist white person simply living in the same area.

2.    "Human slaves had been freed many times before from the Israelites to the Romans, to Africans in the vast British Empire as recently as 1834. But no society in human history had attempted to instantly transform a vast and entrenched slave class into immediate full and equal citizenship" (Blackmon, page 235).

·      The reason why I chose this quote was because it showed how dedicated and serious blacks and others were about ending slavery entirely. In other countries slaves were free but there was still some kind of captivity among those people. Blacks did not want to go half way with slavery but wanted complete freedom. It is inspirational that in our human history, there has never been a fight for immediate equal citizenship and cease of slavery. It also demonstrates how much blacks endured since they were making history and immediate citizenship and equality have never been done. It emphasizes the importance rights being passed and a number of blacks that were killed in order to fight for future freedom.

3.    “The big nostrils, flat nose, massive jaw, protruding lip and kinky hair will register their animal marks over the proudest intellect and the rarest beauty of any other race. The rule that had no exception was that one drop of Negro blood makes a Negro” (Blackmon, page 237).

·      The way I interpreted this quote was that just because a black person had one drop of blood of black DNA, that does not make them black. Their intelligence and rare beauty, which is what truly makes a “Negro” a “negro”.

4.    “At a meeting of the state medical association in Georgia, one physician presented a paper that purported a document the close similarities between a long list of black features, skin, mouth, lips, chin, hair, nose, nostrils, ears, and navel, and those of the horse, cow, dog, and other barnyard animals. From that claimed evidence, Dr. E. C. Ferguson extrapolated that the ‘negro’ is monkey-like; has no sympathy for his fellow-man; has no regard for the truth, and when the truth would answer his purpose the best, he will lie…and seek subsistence as best they can, growing up like an animal” (Blackmon, 239).

·      Black people are always compared to being animals and monkeys. This quote is important to me and the significance is where stereotypes come from and how scary it is how much they stick into others minds. Of course, if a person makes a list of nose, eyes, ears and mouth, all mammals have those features. To compare blacks to barnyard animals and that they have similar features is upsetting. A white person has the exact same features because they are human beings, just like black people. However, white people did not view blacks as human beings but as animals. It is also interesting to hear this doctor claim that a black person does not have sympathy for their fellow man demonstrates their mindset. If a black person did not have sympathy for their fellow man and seem so "animal-like", wouldn't a black person rebel on a white person, kill a white people, and act as if they were in the wild? Instead, black people were under the hand of a white master and taking it. It's disgusting that people thought like this and still think like this but it shows how one person's words can stick through generations.

5.    “The emancipation act that had ended the Civil War had transmogrified into ‘a race feud,’ he said. ‘Not a single Southern legislature stood ready to admit a Negro under any conditions, to the polls; not a single Southern legislature believed free Negro labor was possible without a system of restrictions that took all its freedoms away; there was scarcely a white man in the South who did not honestly regard Emancipation as a crime, and its practical nullification as a duty” (Blackmon, page 245).

·      There were no white Southerners that believed a black person could work for free without a system that did not keep them in captivity. I interpreted this as in order for “Negro” labor to work was to have a system that keeps them as another form of slaves. After all the work blacks fought for and the passing different acts, they still did not matter to the white Southerners. It put black people in a stuck state of what is considered free for them and when would they ever become free. I thought this quote was important because having a system that takes away someone’s freedoms is not the only way to have labor. I believe they had other ways of creating a new system so blacks could have their freedom but they white people wanted to keep blacks under the hand of another form of slavery.