It has always been a common knowledge that African-Americans are recipients of racial discrimination. While the white race was considered to be the superior race, the Blacks or Negroes were considered to be the inferior ones.
The African-Americans wanted to have equal treatment by everyone in every aspect. They believed that they were also capable of doing the things that any white man could do and they deserved to be treated fairly.
Since they believed that they should be given privilege to enjoy having an identity that was recognized internationally, they founded an organization that will ensure the improvement of their condition.
Although they had become a subject of permeative discrimination by the military when they fought in WWI, the battle from which they had been part of was the same battle that inspired them to establish an organization that encouraged national self-determination. They wanted the redemption of Africa; freedom for the black race.
Despite the discriminative treatment that they received from the white Americans, they still considered the United States as their fatherland. They believed that the fault of their country would be their fault as well; the blemish of their nation was mirrored in its people, and their being part of the American nation only meant that they also bore the same blemish.
They fought for their country despite their feeling of resentment and bitterness for the way they were treated in the past. The Negroes felt betrayed by their own country, for despite their determination to truly be a part of it, they felt they had been treated like dirt, looked down, and degraded; and because of this, they saw America as a shameful land.
W.E.B. Du Bois, the founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and also the father of pan-Africanism, cited in detail the reasons why the Black community felt betrayed.
He pointed out that from as early as the time of the Civil War, the Negroes had been subject to “pervasive discrimination” by the military (Du Bois 135). He was speaking in behalf of all the Negroes when he wrote:
[…] for America and her highest ideals, we fought in far-off hope; for the dominant southern oligarchy entrenched in Washington, we fought in bitter resignation. For the America that represents and gloats in lynching, disfranchisement, caste, brutality and devilish insult – for this, in the hateful upturning and mixing of things, we were forced by vindictive fate to fight also. […] We stand to look America squarely in the face and call a spade a spade. We sing: This country of ours, despite all its better souls have done and dreamed, is yet a shameful land. (135-136).
Du Bois made explicit description of the Negroes’ sufferings in the hands of their own countrymen. He described how Negroes were put to death by lynching or hanging without any lawful trial, and condemned the act as being barbaric. According to him, “[…] lynching is barbarism of a degree of contemptible nastiness unparalleled in human history”. (136).
He also mentioned the act of disfranchisement by the same country which they continued to live in and serve. Taking the rights of citizenship away from every black, according to him was the same as robbing someone of protection; protection of black against white, protection of poor against rich. He accused America of lying since according to him, it called itself democratic yet it deliberately took its citizens’ freedom away.
The fact that America never really intended for the Negroes to be educated as its people declared that the blacks cannot be educated; moreover, that the race which they considered inferior “threaten them with degeneracy”, (136) was both hypocritical and selfish gesture.
According to Du Bois, the Negroes were cheated in their own country:
It steals from us.
It organizes industry to cheat us. It cheats us out of our land; it cheats us out of our labor. It confiscates our savings. It reduces our wages. It raises our rent. It steals our profit. It taxes us without representation. It keeps us consistently and universally poor, and then feeds us on charity and derides our poverty. (136).
And finally, according to Du Bois, America was insulting the Black community by organizing a nationwide propaganda, which made it impossible for Negroes to live a normal life in a community without having to feel their inferiority to the white race. To reside, work, travel, play or be educated had become impossible for them to do without any fear of being rejected because of their color.
The African-Americans fought for their country and for the rest of the American allies during WWI; ironically, they came home to fight against the same nation, whom they defended; this time they were fighting a battle of races, seeking justice for having been treated in a manner which none of them deserved.
Works Cited
Du Bois, W.E.B. Returning Soldiers. The Crisis. May 19, 1919.
Jacques-Garvey, Amy. Speech Delivered at Liberty Hall, New York City. August 21, 1921. Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. New York, 1923-1925. vol. 2. pp. 93-97.
Roark, James L. Patricia Cline Cohen, Sarah Stage, et. al. The American Promise: A History of the United States from 1865. 1998. vol. 2. pp. 135-140.
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