Idea of progress

Idea of progress 2/4

We studied the notion of the idea of progress based on the stuggle of the black people in the USA over four centuries from the 17th to the 20th century. We can ask the following question : to what extent has their social and political situation progressed ?

The first africans who came to America, did not come of their own free will. Indeed, they were shipped to America and put in chains as soon as the first settlers established themselves in Virginia in 1619 and needed labourers to work on the cotton and tobacco fields and the plantations. The largest number of people mowed were part of a circuit called "triangular trade" which is located between Europe, the African coasts to the American coasts. The slaves did not have any liberty and were beaten and even killed if they tried to escape. They were treated very badly by most of the slaveowners and had to work from dusk until dawn every day.

Even when the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 and the Constitution was written some years later, by the Founding Fathers and the new laws of the Bill of Rights (an extension of the Declaration), the black people were still not considered as human beings and were treated like ‘Chattel’ (a personal possession, a piece of personal property). This is a paradox because the first claim of the constitution is ‘all men are created equal’.

Some of them, however, managed to escape to the Northern free states and underground networks were organized and some whites and free blacks of the north helped them to get free. This phenomenon has inspired many novelists who approach this theme and raise the stories of ancestors of their families or use archives.The revolt of the slaves and the political insight of many Americans led to the Civil War between the South (pro-slaves) and the North (anti-slaves) or between the Confederates and the Unionists.

The South wanted to secede that is why this war is also called the Secession War. It lasted from 1861 to 1865 and caused hundred of thousands of deaths and injuries. The Unionists won the war so the United states remained a federation. The Proclamation act was signed and the 13th Amendment of the Bill of Rights set the slaves free and slavery was abolished.

However, racism and inequality remained very fierce and even lynching were perpetrated by White people, who accused the African-americans of many crimes and offenses, even if they were accused wrongly and did not have a fair trial.

This situation lasted until the 1950ties, when the revolt against white domination began. Some actions were peaceful : marches, boycotts of segregated transport and factories, sitins (when people blocked roads, factories, restaurants by sitting on them).

The promient leaders were MLKing, famous for his striking speeches and Rosa Parks, the first woman to contest segregation on buses, who refused to give up her seat to a white person. In 1964/65 theses actions led to the Civils Rights act and the Voting Rights act in which segregation became prohibited in all public places such as transport, trains, buses, libraries and restaurants, and everybody could vote, even if there were still a lot of problems in Mississipi, Alabama and other states in the South.

Martin Luther King’s speech is the most famous one and is known all over the world. It is called ‘I have a dream’ and that is the sentence thats he repeats many times in his address. He gave his speech after a long march, with thousands of people. He addressed his speech at the Lincoln Memorial which is of course a highly symbolic place of power in the united states of America. When we listen to the recording we can hear many people cheering and applauding and they participate in the allocution. The dream of the preacher is a dream of equality : equality of rights and opportunities between the whites and the blacks. He dreams of ending racism and hate, especially in the south states such as Mississipi, Alabama and Georgia. He mentions his own family, his ‘little girls and boys’ and hope that one day they will be able to ‘hold hands’ and to live in peace together. As a protestant minister and believed in God, he used images of the bible and of religion in order to claim that brotherhood and community sharing should become possible. Unfortunately he was shot in 1968 but he is remembered and celebrated all over the world and in the USA there is a national holiday in November and he has a memorial in his name in Washinghton.

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