SENIOR ESSAY Th^ Psychological Effects of Slavery On The Black Man Prior to and Following the Passing of the Emancipation Pro clamation• Submitted in Partial Requirement for the Bachelor of Divinity (B.D.) degree or Ma.ster of Divinity degree By William H. Walker, // April 8, 1971 Interdehominational Theological Center Atlanta, Oeorgia OUTLINE Introduction A. The African In American History B. The African The Myth of Small Understanding C. Comments On The Africans* Accomplishments 7/hil in Slavery D. Slavery Dehumanization Quotes from Frederick Douglass Re-claiming Humanity E. Slavery in the "20th.” Century Personal Views Quotes from John Oliver Killens P. The Emancipation Proclamation Its Purpose In This Paper Its Original Purpose Review of Earlier Attempts to Free the Negro Bibliogra,phy Introiuction The essence of the following essay centers around the implications and the effects of myths shout the Africans in .America as sla.ves. The Caucasians are the authors and the perpetuators of these myths. African-Americans are a much written about people these days, but there have been very few writings written for the purpose of throwing off all of the myths that have circulated for centuries about black people. The primary question is why is it that the African-American has suddenly become the center of attraction for 20th. century writers. Is the world demanding the African-American to teach it something that it has not been taught previously? Is the world coming alive to the psychological needs of a people that it has denied for years? Is the world, especially America,, now willin,g to admit that it has' held a race of people at bay for hundreds of years by circulating lies about them? Whatever the problem or its answer may be, the eyes of the world are being re¬ focused on the African-American. While talking about myths on people there will also be a. discussion of the effects of slavery on the Africans who were brought to America. Slavery had several effects on his life, but none were so damaging as those which damaged the mind of him. Here is where the core of this essay will be centered, in the psychological effects of slavery. I A. The Africa.n In American History- One of the major drawbacks to the image that black people in this country have of themselves as a race is the fact that we are not covered to any appreciable degree in the pages of American history. As I studied, both in high school and in college, I remember very few instances when the black American was mentioned as a man. He was usually pictured, if at all, as a slave only. American textbooks are quite unreliable when it comes to discussions of the actual contributions made by the black m.an to this culture. When reflecting back on the past I am amazed at the small amount of data I have deen able to collect on the progress of my people in this country. Is it because our forefathers were too ^ lazy to get off their haunches and do something for the good of the culture, or is it because the contributions of our African ancestors were deliberately overlooked by the compilers of American history. Why did this happen? Pound within the solution to this question is perhaps the origin of many "myths" which were taught by the culture about the black American. One such myth, that comes into play at this point, is that "we black Americans have no ability to do anything worthwhile for the good of this culture." Charles Frazer captured my present mood when in 1965 he wrote: Those were dark days for the black man when he was rounded up on the coast of the African y 2 continent, driven by the lash like dumb cattle into ships, forced into the galleys below, and chained to the oars and forced to row himself into bondage. But this was nothing new in the conduct of the white man toward his defenseless brother. Centuries before, the Romans practiced the same outrage upon their own until the commoners won equality and citizenship through the assembly. I What a way to start life anew, in a new dwelling place. Frazer's simimation is appreciable because it shows, among other things, who were thought to be in relations to other people who were the victims of the white man's captivity in centuries before. The Romans enslaved their inferior, with the Roman nobility constantly reminding Roman peasants that they were peasants, and that as such they had no place in Roman CTAlture. At the same time Frazer is showing me myself because a man's self-image is shaped in part by his present culture and by his heritage- in that culture, "like dumb animals," is an attitude which continues to linger within the culture. It is one of those "mytho¬ logical concepts" that managed to survive beyond the days of black involuntary servitude. These character¬ izations were used to say that we were slow to move, non-enthusiastic, stubborn, and sluggish’. Consequently, if white America was to gain anything from us we had to be beaten before we would move. Thus the reference to the lash. It is an instrument designed to get faster movement out of the slow. B. The African B'lyth of Sma,ll Understanding ^Charles Frazer, White Man Black Man, 1st ed (New York: Exposition Press’^ Inc., 1965), 21. 3. I reraemlDer when I worked for a white family in my home town, when I was a student in junior high school. The mother in the family often complained about not being able to make me understand what it was she wanted me to do. Therefore, she relied on her danghter to instruct me in my chores for the day. Prom the ex¬ pression on her face and from the tone of her voice she was depicting me as a non-understander. I can not speak for all other young black students who worked for white families in that day, in one way or another, but I can say that I felt that this woman was referring to some statement she had heard somewhere about Negroes, or either to something she had experienced with some Negroes in general. Because we carry the label of laziness, slowness, and uneducableness there was to be forever some communication difficulties between the two races involved. There is where I first felt the psychological effects of "myths'* taught about our race. The actions of the entire Negro people were being summarized in the implications behind this person's faulty characterization I felt the sting of Charles Frazer's "lash." It is out of this type of background that I chose to write this essay. Those held-over-from-slavery myths have damaged the African-American community because, probably, at one time we accepted them and held them as truths. Fortunately, not all of us made that dreadful error. Some of us knew the place for our people was not in slave quarters. #e knew that we were neither 4 lazy, nor stupid, nor non-understanding, just like tha,t. have always had something at stake in life and we fought to protect that stake, using whatever means that was necessary, even if it were momentary stupidity. Classic examples of black people during the time of slavery, as well as in our current struggle, are Harriet B. Tubman, Nat Turner, Martin 1. King, Jr., Elijah Muhammad and the entire Nation of Islam in Amreica, Malcolm X, and others. Plowever, this essay speaks not to these individuals, but to that which each of them directed their fight, namely faulty characteris¬ tics of their being. C. Comments On The Africans Accomplishments While in. Slavery * Charles Frazer, writing o.n the issues sur¬ rounding the achieveme.nts of the African slave, says that: Almost immediately upon their unwanted arrival in this country, trees and forest, hills and valleys, began to yield to the strong arm and might of the slaves from the Dark Continent. They felled the trees, rolled thellogs, and ploughed the new ground. They planted the corn and picked the cotton and sang their songs, sometimes under the lash of the mounted over¬ seer, while the master of the big house feasted on the fat of the lamb, drank his wine, and nursed his gout. 2 Spacious mansions rose on many plantations, built by the brain, brawn, and muscle of the black journeyman. 3 ^Ibid. ^Ibid. 5. The African-American is not to be applaued for ving served as the slave, the hard-working, well- dicated, unpayed servant. Our ancestors would have en much better off, when you look back on the kind of rson slavery produced, had we not been forced to wrap at particular yoke around our necks. The problem comes in when you turn through the ges of American history and find that the educational stem has left us at the slave level. Our progress, nee we were emancipated, has not been, as yet, brought bear on the minds of the people, both black and white, o pass through the educational structure yearly. To lustrate this, one simply has to get the history books at he used in high school or in college. Can you recall ything written on the major contributions of the ricans, serving as more than someone else's chattal operty, in this culture? As this pattern of education rsist it can be interpretated a.s leveling a grave cusation againat the black man via an age old trick, at being to present the view of him as never ntributing anything to the culture.