Chapter 17

Chapter 17: "Or Does It Explode?"

443-47:
1. Why does Zinn say that the "black revolt of the 1950s and 1960s" should not have been a surprise? Because the black people had been oppressed and considered lesser than their white counterparts for years on end, during slavery and in the many years after its abolishment. Hughes' poem is saying that the continuous oppression of the black people had exploded, which is one of the possible results of oppression, as oppression is what causes "a dream deferred". Hughes' poem is an example of the hidden messages artists and musicians would convey in their art as a way of expressiong their opinions in a society where being outspoken could result in serious consequences.
2. Poets normally would pen their opinions clearly and openly, and many black poets wrote about memories that demonstrated the mistreatment of blacks, the rising pride of the young black community, and how the white poets were "silent", though most "had used their pens to protest in other cases of injustice".
3. The black people mostly took on a complacent demeanor that concealed the "resentment, anger, energy." that arouse in poems, in hopes for a better tomorrow.
4. Unrest was gradually building in the black community, against the "white South" that said for blacks to know their "place" and the police and lynch mobs that forced blacks to stay silent.
5. The Communist party attracted many blacks due to the party's ability to have blacks and whites working together in equality and due to its involvement with race equality. Not all blacks supported the party - the NAACP and liberals thought that the Community party exploited focusing on race equality "for its own purpose". Zinn points out that there are two truths concerning the Communist party: one, most white allies to the blacks had ulterior motices and two, the black Communists were respected by other blacks because they managed to achieve various things despite the obstacles all black people faced.

48-51:
1. Zinn gives examples of how the black Communists were viewed as dangerous since they were radical and active, and how even important black figures who didn't support Communism, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, supported black Communists. This "Black Militance" was less abundant later on during WWII, despite the contradiction that the U.S. "denounced racism, and...maintained segregation in armed forces...kept blacks in low-paying jobs." But it was becoming harder to so blatantly discriminate after the war, as Asian and African immigrants made the U.S. their home.
2. Because the United States was more internationally involved than ever before, the need for racial equality was important for appearance to other nations, to dedicate all existing talent and money to important causes, and to keep the morale of blacks in the armed forces. Truman passed laws that, while didn't completely dissipate discrimination from all aspects of life, did stop lynching, voting discrimination, and was a start of the end of racial discrimination in jobs.
3. In order to achieve more racial equality, laws that had always been in place but rarely enforced were brought to attention and actions such as preventing blacks from voting in the South were declared unconstitutional. "Seperate But Equal" was done away with and integration was to be done "with all deliberate speed" - which resulted in segregatrion continuing even ten years after integration was to begin. By the late 1950s and into the 1960s, rebellion began. According to Zinn, the blacks in the North were more shocked at the open "insurrections" of the Southern blacks - as those in the South had "deep memory of slavery", more so than the North.
4. To fight segregation on public buses, and in response to Rosa Parks' refusal to obey the Montgomery law for segregation on buses, Montgomery blacks boycotted bus lines. The white segregationist reaction was violent and homes and churches were bombed and boycott leaders sent to jail. By Novemeber 1956, however, segregation on local bus lines was outlawed. This protest began the protests for racial justice in the South.

52-55
1. Method to gain racial equality varied, and while Martin Luther Jr. believed in nonviolence and stressed that many of the people who discriminated against blacks only did so out of a learned practice rather than hatred, others believed that there were situations in which nonviolence was not an option to gain the equality they wanted. This mindset led to the Klan "being challenged with its own tactic of violence,", though many southern blacks continued nonviolent protests such as sit-ins in restaurants where they were refused service.
2. Despite violent opposition, sit-ins became increasingly popular, sometimes even including some white participants, until blacks were allowed to sit at lunch counters in various areas, like Greensboro, by the end of 1960. There was then attempts to introduce integration of interstate travel (only local bus line segregation had been outlawed and enforced by the government - Presidents were often worried of stepping on toes of Southern white leaders and so approached racial issues slowly and cautiously) into the South by northern whites and blacks traveling together; the buses were intercepted in South Carolina, riders beaten, while authorities did nothing to stop the violence. Violence and imprisonment against integrated riders occurred often when these trips were attempted and, when the Department of Justice was asked for protection, they declined with the promise to investigate if anything were to happen.
3. The violence against the Freedom Riders was becoming internationally known and, in order to gain Mississippi police protection, it was allowed for them to be unconstitutionally held in jail in Jackson, Mississippi. Blacks in the deep south were becoming less subservient, thanks to the growing racial equality movement, and the new younger generation was learning to not be silent, to speak out for their rights.
4. Violence and jail imprisonment rose as black men and women registered to vote and protested racism.

56-59:
1. In Mississippi, violence was particularly bad, to the point that locals testified about the dangers of the violence and that the national government had "legal power to give protection against such violence.". The national government's repeated failure to provide protection of blacks against violence, and its tendency to create laws to discourage racism only to ignore or not enforce them, led to dissatisfaction. Congress only truly enforced voting rights due to the world focus on the situation.
2. The federal government wanted to appease the black community and calm the revolts so, though it allowed for marches and protests, went to lengths to ensure gatherings were moderate in mood.
3. The government continued to attempt to keep blacks calm and their protests in moderation, but violence and bombings against blacks continued and riots in response to violence, to unemployment rates, to shootings and murders and rampages, could not be held back.
4. By 1966, nonviolence protesting in the South was actually more effective than violent response, because it shed the South segregationists in a bad light and garnered national opposition against the segregationists actions and values.

60-63:
1. In 1967, riots continued in ghettos, and it was said that the 'typical rioter' was high school aged, normally no longer in school, and either had no job or was working and underpaid. The government dealt with this by observing and isssuing a report on the matter under the belief that a strongly, calmly worded report would "have a soothing effect". But among the rebelling blacks, there was a new way of thinking, of distrusting 'the system', 'the man', to take liberties rather than be given them under paternalistic condescension, to take pride in race.
2. This was around the time that the Black Panthers began, under the belief in nonviolent protest would get blacks nowhere and guns and extreme behavior were necessary to get freedom. Congress passed bills to not only try and minimize violence against blacks and the depriving blacks of civil rights from blacks but to also control riots instigated in or by the black community.
3. Martin Luther King tried to discourage the violent riots, believing that even though they expressed a deep rebellious feeling that nonviolent protests needed to also project in order to get the message across, riots were "self-defeating". King's assassination was the first of many killings of blacks, violence that wasn't being prevented by the courts despite the civil rights laws that now existed.
4. While there were various random bouts of violence against blacks spawned from racism, there was also a surprising case of FBI and police pre-planned violence against the Black Panters, which ended with the killing of the Black Panther leader. Zinn brings up queries concerning if the government as a whole was attempting to eradicate the more militant of the black rebels that would not be calmed into moderate actions.

64-67:
1. The respect and support the black community as a whole had for the Black Panthers, Zinn proposes, possibly scared the government, due to the ability the Black Panthers were steadily gaining to affect black focus - which was in danger of shifting from voting to class differences and issues that still persisted. If class issues became the primary focus, then it endangered the upper class from being attacked by blacks and whites of the lower class. In federal response to the organization of black workers for 'revolutionary change', "black capitalism" was brought to attention and leaders of revolutionary groups were offered positions and loans that would be favorable for their organizations, and "Nixon set up an Office of Minority Business Enterprise".
2. There were attempts to improve black education and to help black businesses, which were only earning "0.3 percent of all business income". Black people were becoming more common in the media and all its sources in this time frame as there were moves for changes in the economic world and also in the submissiveness of black women to male supremacy.
3. The government continued to try and contain 'explosive upsurge' as blacks began to land executive and politically important positions - though it was said that "Whites almost always retain economic power.". By this point, there had been leaps and bounds on the racial front: blacks and whites could ride buses together, more schools were intermixed, blacks could go to hotels and restaurants, more blacks could continue on to universities and medical and law school. However, unemployment rates among blacks and especially among poor blacks were rising, and with it violence, crime, and drugs. The end result in 1977 was that there was a newly emerged, black middle class, though it was very small and vastly 'richer' than the lower class. That black middle class was still far worse off than the white middle class, and incredibly underpaid.
4. Though slavery had always been considered a problem of the South, as civil rights were passed and enforced, it allowed for blacks to become an obstacle for the poor whites, as blacks tried to move in white neighborhoods and get the few available jobs. Even in the North there were violent riots against the initial mixing of whites and blacks in school, which was attempted by busing white children to black schools and black children to white schools. The black population, Zinn points out, was condemned to the ghettos, but was also split into the poor and middle class, all while fighting whites against racial equality and the conflicted government. But an even great note of interest was that, as the 1970s began, black and white were slowly joinging together in unions as unemployment increased and the employee was mistreated and underpaid.