The Durham Manifesto
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver-Velez
So much of our history, as black Americans, is often lost, forgotten or obscured. Key moments of that history often take us to North Carolina, where struggles are still being led by groups like Moral Mondays, spearheaded by Rev. William Barber.
One such historical moment was the issuance of The Durham Manifesto, as a result of the October of 1942 Southern Conference on Race Relations, which was held in Durham, North Carolina.
As he opened the Southern Conference on Race Relations on October 20, 1942, sociologist Gordon B. Hancock compared the meeting of fifty-seven African-American professionals to the gatherings of revolutionaries two centuries before in Boston’s Faneuil Hall. “The matter handled in Faneuil Hall was delicate, but it was firmly handled and the world thereby was blessed,” he told those assembled at the North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University) in Durham. “So in this historic meeting today, whatever advance step we may make in race relations will rebound to the advantage of the South and nation no less than to the advancement of the Negro race.”
Hancock, a 57-year-old professor at Virginia Union University in Richmond and a nationally-syndicated columnist for African-American newspapers, had joined with several other prominent African-Americans from the South in calling the Durham meeting. They were concerned about the poor state of relations between blacks and whites in the South. Lynchings were still occurring. Black unemployment was high. And, as had happened during World War I, African-American soldiers were fighting for democracy overseas while facing segregation at home. In a December 1941 column titled “Interracial Hypertension”, Hancock had cautioned that “unless matters are speedily taken in hand and shaped according to some constructive plan, we shall probably lose many important gains in race relations that have been won through many years, through sweat and tears.” In a subsequent column, Hancock called for a “Southern Charter for Race Relations.” Such a document, Hancock wrote, would “set out specific demands such as the moral right to work for an honest living; the right to share equitably in the educational opportunities, without which [African-Americans] cannot function in a democracy; the right to vote for the mayors and governors, law makers and law enforcers, officials who control [African-Americans'] daily life, as well as for the President, who is powerless in local affairs.”
The gathering included many leading black southern educators and intellectuals, mostly male, but five women attended, including education pioneer
Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown.
What is changing is that sites that document history, have begun to include black history as part of the historical timeline of events, like this entry from the North Carolina Museum of History:
A committee headed by Charles S. Johnson of Fisk University issues a document that becomes known as the Durham Manifesto. It acknowledges that World War II has generated increased racial tensions. The statement demands complete voting rights for African Americans and an end to white primaries, evasions of the law, and intimidation. It insists on equal access to all jobs.
"
Southern Conference on Race Relations, Durham, N.C., October 20, 1942," is a link to the full digitized text.
Reading this, written over 70 years ago, says a lot about how far we have come, but also makes it clear that in some areas our issues are the same, and how far we still have to go. The voter ID laws of today, are the poll taxes they reference. The abuses of police power—same shit, different day.
POLITICAL AND CIVIL RIGHTS
1. We regard the ballot as a safeguard of democracy. Any discrimination
against citizens in the exercise of the voting privilege,
on account of race or poverty, is detrimental to the freedom
of these citizens and to the integrity of the State. We therefore
record ourselves as urging now:
a. The abolition of the poll tax as a prerequisite to voting.
b. The abolition of the white primary.
c. The abolition of all forms of discriminatory practices, evasions
of the law, and intimidations of citizens seeking to exercise their
right of franchise.
2. Exclusion of Negroes from jury service because of race has
been repeatedly declared unconstitutional. This practice we believe
can and should be discontinued now.
3. a. Civil rights include personal security against abuses of
police power by white officers of the law. These abuses, which include
wanton killings, and almost routine beatings of Negroes,
whether they be guilty or innocent of an offense, should be stopped
now, not only out of regard for the safety of Negroes, but of common
respect for the dignity and fundamental purpose of the law.
b. It is the opinion of this group that the employment of Negro police
will enlist the full support of Negro citizens in control of lawless elements
of their own group.
4. In the public carriers and terminals, where segregation of the
races is currently made mandatory by law as well as by established
custom, it is the duty of Negro and white citizens to insist that
these provisions be equal in kind and quality and in character of
maintenance.
5. Although there has been, over the years, a decline in lynchings,
the practice is still current in some areas of the South, and
substantially, even if indirectly, defended by resistance to Federal
legislation designed to discourage the practice. We ask that the
States discourage this fascistic expression by effective enforcement
of present or of new laws against this crime by apprehending and
punishing parties participating in this lawlessness.
If the States are unable, or unwilling to do this, we urge the support
of all American citizens who believe in law and order in securing
Federal legislation against lynching.
Duke University history professor Ray Gavins, wrote about this history last year in
Forgotten manifesto challenged white South, highlighting seven major issues addressed at the conference.
Groups then scrutinized seven issues: political and civil rights; industry and labor; service occupations; education; agriculture; armed forces; social welfare and health. When proceedings ended, Benjamin E. Mays, president of Morehouse College, recommended writing a statement “commensurate with the possibilities of the occasion.”
Accordingly, the body chose a sub-editorial committee, chaired by sociologist Charles S. Johnson of Fisk University, to write it.
The finished document judiciously stated blacks’ opposition to Jim Crow, plus their civic priorities, and challenged moderate and liberal whites to join them in pursuing equal citizenship and justice for all.
It announced: “We are fundamentally opposed to the principle and practice of compulsory segregation in our American society, whether of races or classes or creeds, however, we regard it as both sensible and timely to address ... current problems of racial discrimination and neglect.”
Its key demands included the right to vote; abolition of the poll tax, white primary, harassment of voters, and police abuses; a Federal anti-lynching law; Negro jury and government representation; fair employment of Negro police officers, defense workers, and workers’ right of collective bargaining; Social Security benefits for service and farm occupations; equalization of Teachers’ salaries, school facilities, and higher education opportunities; ending the segregated U.S. Military; and publicly-funded hospitals’ inclusion of Negro patients.
“The correction of these problems is not only a moral matter,” it concluded, “but a practical necessity in winning the war and in winning the peace.”
Segregation in neighborhoods, housing and education continues. Access to affordable health care is being still being blocked. Déjà vu all over again!
Most contemporary students of black history and sociology are familiar with names like those of W.E.B DuBois, and E. Franklin Frazier, and not with the work and history of Charles S. Johnson, who was a major voice in the black community of his time.
Charles Spurgeon Johnson, one of the leading 20th Century black sociologists, was born in Bristol, Virginia on July 24, 1893. After receiving his B.A. from Virginia Union University in Richmond, he studied sociology with the noted sociologist Robert E. Park at the University of Chicago where he earned a Ph.D. in 1917...
Surviving and being a witness to the race riots during the Red Summer of 1917, Johnson investigated the causes of the riots and produced an assessment for the Chicago Commission on Race Relations. His research ultimately became The Negro in Chicago, the first of numerous published 20th Century studies of the cause’s urban riots and their consequences. This highly acclaimed study led in 1921 to Dr. Johnson being appointed director of research for the National Urban League. In 1923 Johnson founded its professional magazine, Opportunity, and became its first editor. Opportunity published a wide variety of social science research and popular essays which revealed the impact Jim Crow on the African American community at that time.
In 1928, Dr. Johnson decided to move to Fisk University to continue his research and to become its first chairman of the newly established Department of Social Sciences. He viewed the move to a black institution as strengthening his scholarly work by enabling him to acquire more white philanthropic research funding. Upon receiving the funding he expected Johnson established the Fisk Institute of Race Relations, first "think tank" at a predominately black institution. In recognition of his efforts to place Fisk University on the academic map, the institution's board of trustees, in 1948, appointed him the first black president of Fisk University. Dr. Johnson served in this capacity, did further innovative research, and received many accolades and honors until his death in Nashville on October 27, 1956.
Interesting to note that Fisk, one of the nation's foremost HBCUs didn't have a black president until 1948.
We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. If we don't know our history, we can't understand where we are today, and where we still have to go.
We still have a long way to go.
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Hank Williams, the founder of the Platform Summit, talks about this year’s conference in Atlanta and the issues facing people of color and women in the tech industry and innovation economy. The Root: How One Man Hopes to Diversify the Tech Industry Through His ‘Platform’.
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When you think “tech,” chances are you don’t think black people, you probably don’t think brown people and you surely don’t think women.
This is a disturbing trend that Hank Williams, the founder of Platform, noticed about three years ago while he was living in the tech mecca of California’s Silicon Valley.
“I was part of a documentary that Soledad O’Brien did on the lack of diversity in Silicon Valley, and it was really the first time I’d ever thought really deeply about the issue,” the tech entrepreneur recalled to The Root.
“I lived in Silicon Valley ... for about three months, and during that time ... I never saw a black or Latino person sitting in a café or doing things that a local person would do,” he said. “There were a few Latino people working there, but basically there was no one.”
Of course, that wasn’t to say Williams was naive, but to see diversity so lacking in the heart of the industry was disheartening.
“I was aware that there weren’t a lot of black people ... in tech, but it’s a much more visceral experience to live in a place that’s the heart of Silicon Valley and the heart of the most important part of the economy and not see any people that look like you. My impetus [for launching Platform] was viewing that at the end of those three months,” he explained.
And so he created Platform in 2013 as an annual summit that highlights diversity issues and gathers a community of people working in technology, science, art and entrepreneurship with the goals of inspiring the next generation of innovators to participate in the tech industry and, more broadly, the innovation economy. It is also intended to be an area where people of color and women can have a collective voice.
Hank Williams
CNN
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After a string of recent good news on the courts proecting voter's right, some bad news. The Grio: Supreme Court allows Texas “poll tax” voter ID law.
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Texas has gotten the go-ahead from the Supreme Court to use its strict voter identification law in the November election.
The court’s action early Saturday comes even after a judge said the law was the equivalent of a poll tax and threatened to deprive many blacks and Latinos of the right to vote this year.
The high court acted two days before the start of early voting in Texas.
The move appears to be based on the justices’ view that changing the rules so close to an election would be confusing.
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The Williams sisters have ruled women’s tennis for years, but that hasn’t stopped their detractors from disrespecting them with insult after vile insult. The Root: This Isn’t New—Venus and Serena Have Endured Nasty Insults Throughout Their Careers.
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er the weekend, Russian tennis chief Shamil Tarpischev apologized for calling Venus and Serena Williams “the Williams Brothers”—the least funny insult in what has been a career filled with unfunny, sexist and racist insults for sisterly titans of professional women’s tennis.
Ever since the Williamses stepped onto the court back in the mid-1990s they’ve been bombarded with obnoxious comments that have had absolutely nothing to do with their game. Critics have attacked their race, gender, faces, bodies, personalities and hair.
This latest insult is further evidence that no matter how many number-one titles they’ve held, trophies they’ve hoisted or records they’ve broken, because they don’t look like their blonde, lithe and better-compensated competition, Maria Sharapova, some critics insist on taking their beef with the Williams sisters off the court and onto their bodies.
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Remember Bill O'Reilly told us there is no such thing as white privilege. Talking Point Memo: Twitter Users Mock White 'Culture Of Violence' In N.H. Pumpkin Fest Riots.
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People took to Twitter this weekend to mock the riots that broke out near a pumpkin festival in Keene, N.H. on Saturday and noted the difference between the way race was covered there compared to recent unrest in Ferguson, Mo.
The 24th Annual Pumpkin festival devolved into a riot that brought out cops, tear gas and pepper spray, according to the Associated Press. It even led to a statement from the New Hampshire governor's office.
Many on Twitter noted the people clashing with the police in Keene appeared to be white.
They compared the media coverage to that of the rioting that broke out in Ferguson following the shooting death of black unarmed teenager Michael Brown.
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In what may be the strangest ad of the 2014 midterm campaign, Cliven Bundy makes a comeback... Slate: Racist Rancher Cliven Bundy Challenges Eric Holder in Bizarre Campaign Ad.
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Lots of people abandoned him though when he started to spew racist drivel and even suggested that African Americans were better off as slaves. But now it seems he still has at least one supporter who is eager for his endorsement.
Bundy stars in an ad to support third party candidate Kamau Bakari, who is black. The video begins with a clip of Attorney General Eric Holder’s famous “nation of cowards” speech. Then we see Bundy and Bakari dressed in over-the-top cowboy gear in front of a horse. “Did he just call me a coward?” Bundy asks. ”No he called all white folks cowards,” Bakari replies. Then they start discussing political correctness and the whole thing keeps getting worse the second before they “dare” Holder to go to Nevada to talk about race.
“Cliven, you know that political correctness—that’s bad for America,” Bakari notes. “That's exactly right,” Bundy replies. “I know that black folks have had a hard time with, uhhhh, slavery.” Bakari then calls Bundy a “brave white man,” adding that he feels “ashamed when I hear black folks whining about ‘white folks this,’ ‘white folks that,’ always begging.” And then Bundy with the kicker: “It’s almost like black folks think white folks owe them something.” The only good thing is that, according to the Washington Post, Bakari—of the Independent American Party—has no chance of unseating Rep. Dina Titus, who is a Democrat.
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Voices and Soul
by Justice Putnam
Black Kos Poetry Editor
It is the parade of indolent progress. It is a parade of influence marching across islands and continents, a flotilla churning across oily-foamed seas and jet-set through nitrogen-acid skies. It is a procession of killers and victims stumbling across the black pavement at the corner of Main Street and International Blvd. It is a march of wardens ordering leg-irons and yokes to weigh down the hopes of our better angels, while assuring a cheap labor force for the Captains of Industry as they guide the Ships of State in a firing line just outside the Bay of Sugar and Blood.
Miss America pontificates from a platform behind the curtain on the NSA, It's A Small World Hay Ride Monster Truck, while flag waving black people bearing agitated pumpkins and chanting Justice for Mike at Sunday Prayer Meeting Football games have laser-sighted .50 calibers trained on their hearts and Souls.
The Oligarchs and the Generals ride in a bubble-top convertible, supplied by medical companies saving dollars and commonsense selling diluted milk powder and super-charged bacterial water to the victims of earthquakes, hurricanes, famine and pestilence.
It is the parade of indolent progress; it is a parade of influence marching across islands and continents.
Affekt Funereal / Affekt Jamboree
(as on TV)
Welcome to this
special edition
double cortege for
Galbraith, Kenneth—
Friedman, Milton—
ssstately cortege...
efffusively-shiny
like your kids teeth—
...such éclaircissement
on this beautiful morning
lustrum
(kids, that’s Latin, we mean to say
“wow”)
...directly behind the caskets—is that
—it’s the Macy’s Rat (in mid-air)...neat, real neat...
in front
the lead-coated horses don’t seem to mind the officers’
droppings...
is that a gigantic molar,
with worms popping out?
—such a variety of colors!
...look, some Teamsters
are in a tussle with some scab teletubby over on
23rd St. and Madison
...ok, now, now they’re under arrest...
if you look carefully you’ll see there’s two pre-funeral exercises for
Fukuyama, Francis—
Soros, George—
on 24th
—not, not as stately...
a delegation of mainstream poets!
and behind them, this year’s NPR security-clearance
float!...ooh...
ya, they’re rather new at this but...wait—
there’s a lone guerrilla girl
running through the crowd now
she’s
she’s managed to get the Cultural Studies delegation
to strip and
dress up as
squeegee-bearing babushkas it looks like
...it’s 20 degrees so, that’s rather—ok, she’s, she’s
under arrest now...
...those are neat, those little plastic thingies, aren’t they?...
The Bill Gates (My Charter) High School Marching Band!
The Steve Case (My Charter) High School Marching Band!
behind them
the post ’89, post-historical
acrobat academics
on mini-lawnmowers...
that’s smart...
The Yucky’s!
The Yucky’s, yeah, they’re an interesting group...
they do things like suppress that
Sidney Poitier
is the best American actor ever
...oh look, the Fahd ibn Abdel Aziz al-Saúd
float
...the F14’s behind him are real
...now, that’s smart!
...I think he just waved at me
...who’s that man with the Moocle grabbing his—
that’s Mister Modernist!
he’s been a regular at these events for over 90 years now
...Saga of The Blank Page float
a real favorite...
ooh, he just dropped his—wait
a babushka—her, her boot’s—
crkkkk...
oh, that’s, that’s not good...but
—did you know that
these are the first
100% soy
caskets
ever made?
some people have actually run up to nibble at them...
kids, if you’re watching this...
make sure you never think of any other social arrangement
other than one that
Militarily Has To Dominate Three Quarters of The World
-- Rodrigo Toscano
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