The Promise

‍Former President Barack Obama said during the dedication of his presidential center in Chicago on June 18, that America’s Founders fell “terribly short” of the Declaration of Independence’s promise. I disagree. 

‍Let’s go back 250 years. At the time slavery had a long history going back thousands of years. The strong enslaved the weak, one ethnic group enslaves another, one tribe enslaves another. For ages this situation was accepted, certainly by the slave owners who typically constituted the ruling class. It was a simple reflection of one group’s mastery, economy, intellect, achievement and power over another’s. If not accepted, slavery was ignored, condoned or tolerated. The concept of individual rights and equality lay in the future. It was just the way it was. Even so, the Declaration made a statement that included a promise, that “All men have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

‍During this time, the last part of the 18th century, enlightened people began to recognize the injustice and evils of slavery. They began to write about it and argue for correction. The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America set it to writing declaring that “..all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”. So was documented the promise of the end of slavery in the USA.

‍In the 19th century through the efforts of William Wilberforce, the British Empire abolished slavery in most of its empire, first in the Slave Trade act of 1807 and then in the Slavery Abolition act of 1833. This was the first major country in the history of civilization to abolish slavery. The USA was the second.

‍As a result of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln’s efforts, the USA abolished slavery by means of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. It was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865. The 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States and provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.". After the loss of six hundred thousand American lives, this was the second major event in the abolition of slavery in the USA.

‍Abolition of slavery is one thing; abolition of racism is another. For the next hundred years “Jim Crow” ran rampant. You couldn’t be a slave but you must sit in the back of the bus. You couldn’t be a slave but you couldn’t pee in the same bathroom with a white. You couldn’t be a slave but you couldn’t vote for a black man. You couldn’t be a slave but you could still be hung from a tree. Racism was alive and well in the Democratic south. Slowly, slowly things began to change. The hard-line racists, born and bred to look down on blacks as inferior, began to die. The churches and good people saw and objected to the dichotomy that you couldn’t be slave but yet you were not equal as the Declaration of Independence demanded. Then came Rosa Parks and Dr Martin Luther King. It was the early 60s, some sixty years ago.

‍Dr King was a brilliant man. He recognized that now was the time. It was the early 60s. Now was the time to awaken the American conscience to the inequality of the black man. Now was the time to fulfill the ultimate promise of the Declaration of Independence. Now was the time to make the black man fully equal to the white man in the public arena. And Dr King did just that. He dug deep into the American conscience and exposed that nascent desire to perfect the Declaration and make all men truly equal before the law. He did this without violence. He did this with the cooperation and support of the white ruling class, Democrats and Republicans, and with the sometimes-grudging acceptance of white citizens. The Voting Rights Act of august 6, 1965, was the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, this Act is considered to be the most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever enacted in the country and perhaps the world.

‍We left the 60s with the black man fully equal in law and in the public arena. Voting rights, education, civil rights – all were now mandated by United States law. The ruling class in this country, elected by an overwhelmingly white population, now made the black man equal in law. The full promise of the Declaration was achieved. Jim Crow was dead by law but not quite dead in the private arena.

Sixty years have passed. The heavy lifting resulting in the Voting Rights Act and all that it mandates was accomplished. Heads were smashed, dogs were unleashed, people were killed but it happened. The white majority sixty years ago mandated that “The black man is equal in the law.”. Three generations have since grown up. Most of the old-line hard racists have died. Their children and the great majority of white people now accept the black man as an equal member of society and present few racial barriers to success. The USA is no longer a racist country. We all want the black man to succeed, to contribute to the economy, to pay taxes and to be treated as an equal.

 America’s founders made a promise. That promise has been kept.

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