An African American and Latinx History of the United States

by Paul Ortiz

  120. Vijay Prashad, “Powder Keg: the Rage in Urban America,” Counterpunch, September 2, 2016, http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/02/powder-keg-the-rage-in-urban-america/.

  121. James Brown and Vanessa Brown, interviewed by Paul Ortiz, December 10, 2016, SPOHP.

  EPILOGUE: A NEW ORIGIN NARRATIVE OF AMERICAN HISTORY

  1. Carlos Fuentes, “Land of Jekyll and Hyde,” Nation, March 22, 1986, 337.

  2. King, “Beyond Vietnam.”

  3. “Discurso de Evo Morales al asumir la presidencia de Bolivia,” January 22, 2006, http://www.democraciasur.com/documentos/BoliviaEvoMoralesAsuncionPres.htm (accessed August 22, 2015).

  4. For a discussion of the Black Workers for Justice and Farm Labor Organizing Committee’s “Juneteenth” commemoration, see chapter 8.

  5. William Darity Jr., “Forty Acres and a Mule in the 21st Century,” Social Science Quarterly 89, no. 3 (September 2008): 656–64; William Darity Jr. and Dania Frank, “The Economics of Reparations,” American Economic Review 93, no. 2 (May 2003): 326–29; William Darity Jr. and Samuel L. Myers Jr., Persistent Disparity: Race and Economic Inequality in the United States Since 1945 (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1998).

  6. Darrick Hamilton and William Darity Jr., “Can ‘Baby Bonds’ Eliminate the Racial Wealth Gap in Putative Post-Racial America?,” Review of Black Political Economy 37 (2010): 215.

  7. Lake Research Partners, Hunger in America’s Classrooms: Share Our Strength’s Teachers Report (Washington, DC: Share Our Strength, 2013), 3; Yang Jiang, Maribel R. Granja, and Heather Koball, Basic Facts About Low-Income Children: Children Under 3 Years, 2015 (New York: National Center for Children in Poverty, Columbia University School of Public Health, 2017), 1.

  8. Martinez, De Colores Means All of Us, 48.

  INDEX

  Please note that page numbers are not accurate for the e-book edition.

  Act of Chapultepec. See Chapultepec Conference

  Acuña, Rodolfo, 141

  Adams, Charles Francis, Jr., 92

  Adams, John, 30

  Adams, John Quincy, 36–38, 43–44

  Adams-Onis Treaty, 39

  African Americans: activist traditions, 13–14, 36–38, 43, 81–82, 106–7, 114–15, 244n31; discrimination against/suppression of, 18, 54, 58–59, 84, 128–29; 215n3; and the election of Obama, 177; financial racism/poverty, 56, 123, 125–26, 130–31, 151, 169; and Latinx heritage, 161; leadership role of women, 221n29; and Mexican independence, 45, 97; post–Civil War gains, 89–90; “quasi-free Blacks,” 205n72; role in Northern success during Civil War, 66–67, 69–70, 186; terms used to refer to, 9–10; understandings of emancipatory internationalism/ racial capitalism, 40, 63, 72–73, 80, 87–88, 103–6, 113–14, 200n12, 206–7n87, 228n27. Seealso antislavery activism and resistance; civil rights movement; Jim Crow/Juan Crow segregation; Ku Klux Klan; labor organizing/ unions; mass incarceration; slavery/ enslaved people

  African Communities League. See Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League

  African Methodist Episcopal Church. See Christian Recorder

  “The African Roots of War” (Du Bois), 103

  African Slavery in America (Paine), 15

  Afro-American (Baltimore): demands for public relief during the Great Depression, 133; on Hoover’s imperialist policies, 115–16; on size of urban slums, 126–27; tribute to Máximo Gómez, 30; on US investments in the Global South, 111

  Afro-Mexicans, 10

  agribusiness: and the Associated Farmers of California, 133; and the Bracero Program, 141; and farm consolidation, 235n19; “guest worker” programs, 151–52; and theft of African American–owned farmland, 236n36 agricultural workers: disenfranchisement and impoverishment of, 57; exclusion from New Deal protections, 141–42; exploitation and terrorizing of, 5, 120–22, 131–32, 153; Mexican, support from Mexican consulate, 245n39; organizing/ unionizing by, 9, 132, 152–55, 162, 164, 172, 235n19. See also Chávez, César; Huerta, Dolores; labor organizing/unions; the National Farm Workers’ Association (NFWA); United Farm Workers

  Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), 153

  Alexander, Leon, 138–39

  Allen, Richard, 27, 51

  Amaru, Tupac, II (José Noguera), 12

  “America First” construct, 1. See also American Century; neoliberalism

  American Anti-Imperialist League, 113

  American Anti-Slavery Society, 48, 72

  American Century, 146–47

  American exceptionalism: as myth, 7–8, 185–86; and need for a new origin narrative, 7; viewing history multiple perspectives, 187–89. See also slavery/ enslaved people

  American Federation of Labor, 132

  American Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 84

  American Jewish Congress, brief in Méndez v. Westminster, 147

  American Revolution: emancipation petitions by African Americans, 18; Morelos’s referencing of, as model, 34–35; and the preservation of slavery, 12, 14–21, 61–62; role of African Americans in the military, 14–17

  American Social History Project, 120

  Amsterdam News: coverage of US efforts to undermine the Chapultepec Conference, 145; support for Sandino in, 114

  Anderson, Benedict, 206–7n87

  Anderson, Carol, 167

  anti-apartheid movement, 161

  anti-Mexican Vagrancy Law (“Greaser Act”), 57

  antislavery activism and resistance: by African Americans in the North, 26–30, 52, 59; as common, 202–3n36; diverse approaches to, 24–27, 61; and J. Q. Adams’s view of Latin American rebellions as, 37; by Native Americans, Indigenous peoples, 13, 36–38, 43–45; participation of in the Mexican War for Independence, 34; revolts and rebellions, 21–22, 49; role of slaves in success of the Northern armies, 66–67, 69–70, 186; runaways, escapees, 13–15, 18, 25–26, 40, 48–49, 60–61; and the Underground Railroad, 27, 40, 43, 49, 60; See also racial capitalism; slavery/ enslaved people

  Anti-Slavery Standard, on celebrations of emancipation in Key West, 86

  Árbenz, Jacobo, 149–50

  Arizona, legalized racism in, 180–81, 216n25

  Arkansas, violence against African American workers in, 131

  Arredondo, Gabriela F., 120

  Artrell, William, 88

  Asian Americans, 177–78

  Associated Farmers of California (AFC), 133

  Attucks, Crispus, 17

  Bacon, David, 179

  Bahamas: low-wage workers from, 242n125; Underground Railroad line, 43

  Baltimore, Maryland: efforts on behalf of Cuban liberation, 78–80; punishment of free Blacks in, 25, 206n78; slavery and the slave trade in, 22–24; Underground Railroad in, 24; vagrancy statutes, 206n78

  Banks, Nathaniel P., 83

  banks, US, role in racial imperialism, 103–5, 115

  Barber, William, II, 183

  Barrera, Mario, 125–26

  Bastidas, Micaela, 12

  Bates, Daisy and L. C., 148

  Beckert, Sven, 207n96

  Benitez, Lucas, 170

  Benson, Genevieve Payne, 60

  Bilbo, Theodore, 148

  Black Lives Matter activism, 183

  Black Panthers, 159–60

  Black Republican (New Orleans), demand for global scope to Reconstruction, 74–75

  Black Seminoles, 60. See also Seminole Wars

  Blaine, John J., 104–5

  Bolívar, Simón, 14, 28, 80, 109, 116

  Bolivia: Morales’s leadership of, 187; US economic exploitation of, 114

  Border Odyssey: Travels Along the U.S./Mexico Divide (Thompson), 2

  Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Act, 170

  Bowser, William, 22

  Boyd, Leroy, 140–41

  Bracero Program, 141, 152–53

  Bradford, Richard H., 83

  Brent, William, 40–41

  British West Indies, emancipation in, 40, 43

  Brodess, Eliza Ann, 24

  “broken
windows” policing, 180

  Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids, 147

  Brown, Earl, 140

  Brown, Edmund, 157–58

  Brown, James, 184

  Browne, Junius, 67

  Burch, J. Henri, 81–82

  Burciaga, Jose, 122

  Burns, Anthony, 61

  “Bury Me in a Free Land” (Watkins), 29

  California: anti-Mexican Vagrancy Law, 57; contempt for slavery in, 50; Fifteenth Amendment celebrations, 220n9; “foreign miner’s tax,” 57; state-sanctioned discrimination in, 57–58. See also agribusiness; agricultural workers; Mexican Americans

  Calleja, Félix María, 34

  “Call to Rebellion” (Garnet), 45–46

  Camarillo, Albert, 58

  Camp, Jordan, 167

  Canada: Underground Railroad in, 49; White’s escape to, 63–64

  cannery workers, 138

  Canty, Hattie, 182

  capitalism. See corporations/corporate imperialism

  Caribbean peoples/workers. See specific Caribbean nations

  Carleton, Guy, 19

  Carnegie, Andrew, 225–26n95

  Case Farm strike, North Carolina, 172

  Cash, Bob, 164

  Central America, US imperialism in, 105, 107–8, 185–86. See also Latin America; Mexico; and specific Central American nations

  Central Park Five, 169

  Césaire, Aimé, 10

  Chapultepec Conference: Act of Chapultepec, 145–48; Haitian resolution against discrimination, 144; purposes, 143–44; US government perspective on, 143–45

  Charleston, South Carolina: Charleston Bagging and Manufacturing Company strike, 134–35, 137; Vesey’s insurrectionary plot, 21–22

  Chase, Charlotte, 154

  Chateau Ste. Michelle vineyard, 162, 164

  Chávez, César, 152–54

  Chavez, Dennis, 147

  Chicago Defender: on Latin-American ethnology, 1–2; on US corporate control over Puerto Rico, 101–2

  Chicano, use of term, 9

  “A Chicano in Philadelphia” (Romero), 7

  Chinese people: discrimination/violence against immigrant workers, 57, 59, 92, 118, 121; and the Great American Strike, 173; in Key West, 86, 88–89; workers’ strikes, newspaper coverage, 109

  Christian Recorder (AME Church): on the Cuban revolution, 6; on expansion of liberty, 72; explanation for the coming of the Civil War, 63; on Mexican resistance to the French invasion, 64–65; opposition to disbanding the American Anti-Slavery Society, 72

  Cigar Makers International Union, 224n70

  civil rights movement: and Black Lives Matter activism, 183; importance of Act of Chapultepec, 148; Rainbow Coalitions, 159–60; support for grape boycott, 154

  Civil War: Black troops and spies, 66; and celebration of emancipation in Key West, 86; emancipatory internationalism following, 71–74; importance of African Americans to Northern success, 66–67, 69; importance of exodus of slaves from plantations, 68–69; and Mexican struggles against the French, 48, 64–66; origins for, Douglass’s understanding, 2–3; Southern efforts to recruit slaves as soldiers, 219n65

  class conflict: paternalist and scientific rationales for, 119; as tool for insuring cheap labor, 58, 118

  Clements, George P., 123

  Coalition of Immokalee Workers, 170

  Coker, Daniel, 27

  Colombia: abolition of slavery in, 29–30; US exploitation of workers in, 114

  colonialism/US imperialism: and the exploitation of people of color, 94; and focus on power of Wall Street and US banks, 115; interconnections with racism/Jim Crow laws, 232n79; in Latin America, 103–5, 107–8, 170, 185–86; role of US banks, 103–5, 115; slavery as form of, 3. See also corporations/corporate imperialism; specific Latin American and Caribbean nations

  Colored American: on blockade of Veracruz by US and France, 45; on importance of slavery to US government, 5; on Seminole Wars, 45

  Colored Farmers Alliance, 91

  Colored Labor Day, 137–38

  Colored National Convention, New Orleans, 76

  Communism, fear of: and anti-union rhetoric/actions, 137, 139, 141; as rationale for corporate imperialism, 149; as rationale for wage inequality, 150; the “Red Scare,” 128

  Concepción, Gilberto, 101–2

  Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 138–39

  Conlin, Erin, 242n125

  Connally, Tom, 143–45

  consumer boycotts, 154

  Convention of Colored Men, Louisiana, 82

  convict leasing/labor. See mass incarceration; vagrancy statutes

  Coolidge, Calvin, 105–6

  corporations/corporate imperialism: and the Act of Chapultepec, 146–47; and the Associated Farmers of California, 133; bailouts and awards of public monies, 168; and the consolidation of corporate power, 118–20; cotton production, 41–42; role of the military in sustaining, 103–5, 111–12, 5164; slavery/racial inequality as fundamental to, 31–32, 58. See also slavery/enslaved people

  Costa Rica, US economic exploitation of, 114

  Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), 162

  Cox, Oliver Cromwell: on the authoritarian nature of agribusiness, 121–22; on race prejudice, 132; on the racial inequality inherent corporate capitalism, 58

  Coy, Ed, 95

  craft unions, 126

  Crania Americana (Morton), 59

  Crenshaw, Kimberlé, 10–11

  Crisis (NAACP): “The African Roots of War,” 103; exposé of the US occupation of Haiti, 111

  Cuba: Cuba nationalist movement, 220n19, 228n27; fears of US invasion, 99–101; markers of self-identity in, 9; slave trade in, 39; US control over, 113; US efforts to extend slavery into, 207–8n99

  Cuban Anti-Slavery Committee: Garnet’s address at, 77–78; meeting with Grant, 82–83; offices and organizing activities, 78–79; role of women, 221n29; strategy expansion, 81; support for “white” Cuban rebels, 84–85

  Cuban Junta: activities in the US, 81–82; diversity of opinions in, 221n16; informational publications, 77

  Cuban solidarity movement: and African American abolition/Reconstruction efforts, 73–75, 81–82; early activities related to, 75–76; and Fifteenth Amendment celebrations, 220n9; larger purpose, recognition of by African Americans, 80; rapid expansion of in the US, 80–81; response to death of General Maceó, 97–98; resurgence of in Key West, Florida, 86–87; significant features of, 84–85

  Cuban War for Liberation: as anticolonial insurrection, 30; and emancipation struggles, 49–50, 66; and the murder of General Maceó, 96–97; role of women, 99; and US government support for Spain, 83

  Culinary Workers Union Local 226 (Las Vegas, Nevada), 181–82

  Daniels, Josephus, 103

  Darity, William, 188

  Dawes Act, 121

  Dean, James, 88, 91

  Decatur (slave ship), 22

  Declaration of Independence, third draft, 15

  Delany, Martin, 47, 50

  delousing procedures, protests against, 122

  Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), 164

  deportation: and immigration restrictions, as form of labor control, 123, 153, 179; of Mexican and Mexican-American workers, 132, 141; as punishment for earning higher wages, 179; as response to efforts to unionize, 119. See also DREAM activists/Dream Defenders

  Derrick, W.B., 72

  Deslondes, Charles, 21

  Dessalines, Jean-Jacques, 21

  Díaz, Junot, 9

  Diaz, Sonja Marie, 173

  Dillard, C., 97

  domestic workers: exclusion from New Deal protections, 142; strikes and actions by, 122, 135, 136

  Dominican Republic: markers of self-identity in, 9; US invasion and occupation, 9, 103, 114, 143

  Douglass, Frederick: on antislavery efforts following the Civil War, 72, 186; on emancipation in the British West Indies, 40; experience of slavery in Baltimore, 22–23; on the Haitian Revolution, 30; on; on the importance of exodus of slaves from plant
ations, 68–69; on the invasion of Mexico, 46–48; on origins of the Civil War, 2–4; understanding of emancipatory internationalism, 52; understanding of market value as slave, 51

  Down These Mean Streets (Thomas), 160–61

  Drayton, William, 14

  DREAM activists/Dream Defenders, 182–83

  Dubois, Laurent, 207n93

  Du Bois, W. E. B.: “The African Roots of War,” 103; on disenfranchisement of workers, 120; on exodus of slaves from plantations, 68–69; The Gift of Black Folk, 114–15; and the Niagara Movement, 102; on Reconstruction and its subsequent defeat, 94, 104; on white response to success by Black farmers, 123

  Dunmore, Lord, 14–15

  Dupont, Charles F., 88, 224n73

  Durazo, María Elena, 174–75

  Durham, North Carolina, Hayti community, 204n49

  Eastland, James Oliver, 148

  Elaine, Arkansas, massacre, 131

  El Clamor Público (Los Angeles): anti-filibuster articles, 50; pre–Civil War challenges to slavery/white supremacy, 56; on US conception of freedom, 5

  Electoral College, 19

  Elevator (San Francisco), on the Cuban struggle, 80

  el gran paro Estadounidense. See Great American Strike

  El Jornalero (Key West), 87

  Elliot, Robert, 75–76

  El Malcriado (UFWOC): educational workshops, 11; on King assassination, 4–5

  emancipatory internationalism: and the American Civil War, 71–72; Douglass’s promotion of, 46–47; and expanded multiracial understandings, 160–62; Garnet’s promotion of, 77–78; and the Great American Strike, 172–73; and international antislavery/freedom struggles, 20–21, 39–40, 105, 115–17; Morelos’s vision, 34–36; reflections of in the African American press, 27–31, 40, 108–11, 232n79; and resistance to racial capitalism, 112–13; roots and characteristics, 6–7, 13–14, 102. See also specific Caribbean and Latin American nations

  Equal Justice Initiative, 180

  Equator (Key West), 87

  Erving, George William, 37–38

  Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917–1918, 128

  Factories in the Field (McWilliams), 132

  Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), 140–41, 147–48

  Farmer, James, 154

  Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), 162, 171

  farmworkers. See agricultural workers