by W. T. WHITNEY
PHOTO/Tony Webster CC BY 2.0
When white people shed exculpatory myths and acknowledge the truth about slavery, they’ve arrived at what descendants of enslaved people know about only too well. But they need not stop there. They could test the proposition that historical memory contributes to undermining racial oppression.
Members of a small family group – myself included – showed up September 25, 2017 at the Freedom House Museum in Alexandria, Virginia. The museum tells the story of the wealth–producing Franklin & Armfield slave – trading firm. The building where it’s located served as the firm’s headquarters and “slave pen.” We were there because we are kin to the firm’s owners, Isaac Franklin and John Armfield.
There we spoke of our “grief for the terrible suffering of enslaved people once imprisoned here.” We affirmed commitment to justice and racial equality and condemned the “silence of generations” in our own family. A Washington Post story on the visit was vague about our future plans. Indeed, they aren’t well formed.
We were on a truth-telling mission with modest ambitions. To talk about family is one thing, but to understand the societal realities that gave rise to racial oppression is another. That requires systematic inquiry. The approach of so-called scientific socialists of the 19th century is on tap.
Evaluation of realities evident through facts, data, the historical record, and first-hand observations leads to methodology for changing society. That’s a process allowing people to change their own history. Here we sift through some relevant realities and commentary.
Historians are rethinking slavery. Harvard University historian Sven Beckert writes that, “While their works differ, often significantly, all insist that slavery was a key part of American capitalism—especially during the 19th century, the moment when the institution became inextricable from the expansion of modern industry—and to the development of the United States as a whole.”
And, “That legacy is still with us today. The great inequalities, both domestically and internationally, that characterize the world we live in are at least partly the result of capitalism’s long and violent history.” Beckett’s own Empire of Cotton: A Global History joined this new wave of slavery studies.
The realities of oppression following slavery’s end are clear, among them: exploitation of black farmers, convict leasing, lynching, Jim Crow, denial of political rights, and genocidal massacres. Southern elites did profit from the labor of black farmers and of rented-out convicts, as they did with slavery. But, so far, direct linkage between the other offenses and capitalism is less well-defined.
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