Racial Diversity

Modified: 2023-10-05 10:05 PM CDST

In Arkansas, diversity is more limited than it is in other parts of the country. At SAU, there are few, if any, Asian Americans, Native Americans, or Pacific Islanders. Our diversity is primarily along racial lines: African Americans and Non-Hispanic White Americans. There are also growing numbers of Hispanic Americans in Arkansas as well.

Racial Diversity6

• Slavery in History
  • Found in nearly all ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China
  • Flourished in Classic Greece and in Roman Empire
    • In Classic Greece, I wrote in my history text: Slaves abounded and most were owned by citizens but a few were property of the state. They had no rights and could be used for sex, beaten, or even killed with impunity. During the golden age, the price of slaves had dropped to such a low point that a majority of households owned at least one or two.
  • Slaves were still kept in Europe just before the "discovery" of the New World
• Post-Columbian Slavery (e.g., after 1492)
  • In the New World, slaves primarily worked on plantations. Others worked as household servants or provided sexual services.
  • Slaves were property and owning slaves indicated power and prestige
• The Triangle Trade
  • The three legs of the triangle were:
    • exporting goods to Africa and taking slaves as payment
    • selling slaves in North America buying goods (sugar, tobacco, and cotton)--this was the infamous "Middle Passage"
      • many slaves died on board the overpacked slave ships
    • selling those goods in Europe
• Slavery in the 13 English Colonies
  • Rebellions took place: Stono Rebellion in SC in 1739, NY Conspiracy Trials in 1740
• Slavery in the United States
  • Jamestown 1619
    • 1619 Project (NY Times series)
    • Controversial look at American history (you only get one FREE look at this link)
  • US Census counted African-Americans as 3/5 of a person
  • Whitney's Cotton Gin
    • Made cotton a profitable crop (aka "King Cotton)
  • Missouri Compromise (1820)
    • Missouri admitted as slave state, Maine as a free state
    • No slavery above 36° 30' line
  • Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
    • Abolished Missouri Compromise
    • Kansas admitted as a free state AFTER states had begun to secede
  • Dred Scott Decision (1857)
    • Supreme Court ruled that Scott and his wife, being of African descent, were not US citizens and, thus, not entitled to sue.
    • The case also finally undermined the Missouri Compromise
  • John Brown's Raid at Harper's Ferry (1859)
    • Spectacular failure
    • Did not incite slave revolt
    • Brown hanged
    • Drove wedge between North and South
• Civil War
  • Many causes, but slavery was central
  • Here's a quote I like:
    • It is interesting to read the difference between the two armies (Guelzo, 2013, pp. 160-161) :
      From the beginning of the war, Confederate armies had annexed large contingents of slaves—between 12,000 and 20,000 at Manassas Junction in 1861, and 'fifteen or twenty thousand’ on the Peninsula in 1862. By the time of the Gettysburg campaign, Thomas Caffey, an English born Confederate artilleryman, estimated ‘in our whole army there must be at least thirty thousand colored servants who do nothing but cook and wash.'..Add, then, to the 80,000 white soldiers that Lee commanded, the unnumbered corps of 10,000 to 30,000 black slaves who marched with the Army of Northern Virginia (and performed many of the noncombatant duties that, in the Army of the Potomac, were performed by ’those present for duty’)
    • Until I read Guelzo's book,Gettysburg, The Last Invasion,I had not realized how the Army of Northern Virginia differed so much from Army of the Potomac.
• Emancipation Proclamation
  • Only freed slaves "within the rebellious states"
  • Had great propaganda value
  • Helped recruit 200,000 African-American men to Federal Armies
• 13th Amendment
  • Passed on 31 January 1865
  • "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."
• Reconstruction (1865-1877)
  • Goals: reintegrate South and former slaves into the re-United States
  • Presidential Reconstruction
    • Lenient
    • Supported States' rights
    • Led to "Black Codes"
  • Radical Reconstruction
    • Response to Presidential
    • Established Five Military Districts
    • Required ratification of 14th Amendment
      • Section 1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
    • And ratification of 15th Amendment
      • The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
    • Led to White supremacist violence (Ku Klux Klan)
• Compromise of 1877
  • Ended Reconstruction
  • Made Rutherford B. Hayes president
• Jim Crow Laws (1877-1965)
  • A black male could not offer his hand (to shake hands) with a white male because it implied being socially equal. Obviously, a black male could not offer his hand or any other part of his body to a white woman, because he risked being accused of rape.
  • Blacks and whites were not supposed to eat together. If they did eat together, whites were to be served first, and some sort of partition was to be placed between them.
  • Under no circumstance was a black male to offer to light the cigarette of a white female -- that gesture implied intimacy.
  • Blacks were not allowed to show public affection toward one another in public, especially kissing, because it offended whites.
  • Jim Crow etiquette prescribed that blacks were introduced to whites, never whites to blacks. For example: "Mr. Peters (the white person), this is Charlie (the black person), that I spoke to you about."
  • Whites did not use courtesy titles of respect when referring to blacks, for example, Mr., Mrs., Miss., Sir, or Ma'am. Instead, blacks were called by their first names. Blacks had to use courtesy titles when referring to whites, and were not allowed to call them by their first names. (watch for this in video below, the civil rights workers in Mississippi in the early 1960s addressed African-Americans with honorifics and shook their hands)
  • If a black person rode in a car driven by a white person, the black person sat in the back seat, or the back of a truck.
  • White motorists had the right-of-way at all intersections.
  • Never assert or even intimate that a white person is lying.
  • Never impute dishonorable intentions to a white person.
  • Never suggest that a white person is from an inferior class.
  • Never lay claim to, or overly demonstrate, superior knowledge or intelligence.
  • Never curse a white person.
  • Never laugh derisively at a white person.
  • Never comment upon the appearance of a white female.
  • FYI, when I was 8 years old we drove from New Orleans to Washington DC. At a rest stop in Alabama I noticed water fountains outside labelled "colored." My 8 year old mind wondered what color the water coming out of those fountains might be..
• The Ghosts of Segregation--Shows recent photos of segregation's history
  • You should look at all of them
• Poll Taxes and Literacy Tests
  • The page above has links to Jim Crow literacy tests from several states.
• Discrimination method applied to African-American voters required them to pass a test to vote. A poll tax was another method to keep potential voters out; it required a payment for the right to exercise the franchise.
• Arkansas Times story about voting rights in the state
• Lynching
  • The extrajudicial killing, torture, and maiming of African-American victims
  • Common in all parts of the United States from 1877 to 1950
  • At least 4,400 victims during that period
• 1964 Civil Rights Act
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing. The Act prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and federally funded programs. It also strengthened the enforcement of voting rights and the desegregation of schools.
• Library of Congress: Exhibition--The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom
• Brown vs. Board of Education (1954)
  • abolished "separate but equal" schools and accommodations
• Interracial Marriage Legalized (1967)
• Martin Luther King assasination (1968)
  • FYI--I was a freshman in Baltimore when King was assasinated. My roommate Greg Estlund and I climbed into the cupola of Latrobe Hall at Johns Hopkins University to watch the fires burning in East Baltimore. The two of us had figured out how to get into the cupola of the building.



Latrobe Hall, Johns Hopkins University

• Riots Sparked by King Assasination
  • Riots in over 100 cities including:
    • Washington DC
    • Chicago
    • Baltimore
    • Kansas City
    • Detroit
    • New York City
    • Pittsburgh
    • Cincinnati
    • Trenton
    • Wilmington
    • Louisville
• Contemporary Slavery (Human Trafficking)
  • What is human trafficking?
    • "What trafficking really means is girls groomed and forced into sexual exploitation; men tricked into accepting risky job offers and trapped in forced labour in building sites, farms or factories; and women recruited to work in private homes only to be trapped, exploited and abused behind closed doors with no way out."
• Recent racial Issues in USA
  • Driving while black or brown (video)
    • FYI: My wife and I were driving two minivans back from Dallas one day; she drove ours and I was in a white rental van. I was in the left lane on I-30 in Texas doing a few miles over the 70 mph speed limit when I saw a parol car in the median. I dropped my speed to 70 and moved to the right lane. A few minutes later I saw that same patrol car in my rear mirror. I slowed down some more. After a few miles, he passed me and then moved just in front of me and slowed down to around 50 mph. I followed him for a while and then passed him. As soon as I pulled in front of him, doing maybe 60 to 65 mph his lights came on and he pulled me over. The stop lasted less than I minute and he gave me a warning (which I still keep in my office). He said I had failed to use my turn signal to re-enter the right lane before my tires had hit the dividing stripes between lanes. I'm sure he was profiling drug dealers. I always wonder what would have happened had I spoken to him in Spanish. While I was stopped, my wife had pulled over too. We proceeded home together after that. BTW, I never slow down any more when I see a patrol car and I'm usually never over 5 mph over the speed limit.
  • Systemic Racism
    • Videos depict:
      • Wealth Gap, Employment Discrimination, Housing Discrimination, Government Surveillance, Incarceration, Drug Arrests, Immigration Policy, and Infant Mortality.
    • Recent well-publicized victims:
      • George Floyd
      • Breonna Taylor
      • Ahmaud Arbery
• Census Data
  • Arkansas Census Quick Facts
    • Try interacting with the site above
  • 2000 Census Ancestry with Largest Population by County (Map)

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