Universally Speaking
Rahim Islam is a National Speaker and Writer, Convener of Philadelphia Community of Leaders, and President/CEO of Universal Companies, a community development and education management company headquartered in Philadelphia, PA. Follow Rahim Islam on FaceBook(Rahim Islam) & Twitter (@RahimIslamUC)
Rahim Islam
Let me begin this article by saying that on Memorial Day we pay tribute to all of the known and unknown soldiers that have given their lives in defense of America;we thank you.
I want to also pay a special tribute to all of our Black ancestors that fought and died in any of the American wars for they represent the highest level of loyalty, courage, commitment, and sincerity. In many cases they died for a different reason than their white counterparts and I will try to elaborate further during this article why I believe that the Black soldiers that died in America’s wars represent the highest level of HEROISM because they knew the hypocrisies of America yet they still served, fought, and died – we should never forget them.
Memorial Day is a very important day for America and for the democracy that it represents – it is the day for remembering the people who died while serving in the country’s armed forces.
Memorial Day shouldn’t be confused with Veterans Day, where America celebrates all participants of all United States military veterans.
All I ever knew about Memorial Day was – this was the time that our family would go to the park and to have a barbeque.
My father struggled most of his adult life with alcohol and drug addiction but one thing that he was most proud of was being a veteran of the Korean war.
Every Memorial Day, we would scout out our favorite place in the park to have the barbeque – all I remember is that I was the one charged with the responsibility of holding our spot in the park that began in the wee hours of the morning even before the sun would rise.
Many times those were very cold and challenging times for such a young person but once my father would return and the barbeque would begin, my sacrifice was all but forgotten.
My father never discussed his stay in Korea – it was a big secret.
It was only much later in my life that I came to understand the true importance of the Memorial Day holiday and its history.
Briefly, after the American Civil War in 1868, the nation started the practice of decorating the graves of the war dead with flowers which evolved into a nationally recognized holiday to honor all those who died fighting in America’s wars. In America, we underestimate the total consequences of war.
War usually results in significant deterioration of infrastructure and the ecosystem, a decrease in social spending, famine, large-scale emigration from the war zone, and often the mistreatment of prisoners of war or civilians.
Total war is warfare that is not restricted to purely legitimate military targets, and can result in massive civilian or other non-combatant casualties.
Wrapped inside of war and wars are our soldiers and they are our family members and for all of those that have died in serving America – we honor you.
As I think about this day, I’m reminded and urged to study more about both American and Black history which for so many of us we take for granted that we’re knowledgeable.
The truth of the matter for too many of us both Black and white, we don’t know our history.
Unfortunately, for the whites that are ignorant about American history it really doesn’t matter because their ignorance doesn’t impede their progress (whites control the majority of the nation’s resources and all of the nation’s institutions).
On the other hand, for Blacks being ignorant of their history feeds into the stereotype of white supremacy and Black inferiority and the fact that most Blacks have endured oppression in America from birth until death in spite of the fact that Blacks participated in all of America’s wars and in many cases gave a disproportionate number of lives in the process.
This ignorance significantly hampers Blacks ability to achieve justice today – Blacks have and continue to face a complete different outcome from whites.
Legally owned throughout their lives, enslaved Blacks created wealth that made economic growth possible in the US and helped to further America’s economic advantage.
As Americans, we must come to know where we come from, where we are today and where we go from here, and wars and our soldiers play a critical role now and going forward.
The question for the Black community is what the participation of Blacks in these wars was; what was their contribution; and what/how should Blacks be celebrating today given that America still owes the Black community greatly and refuses to even acknowledge it.
Blacks must look to the more substantive celebration versus the ceremonial celebration – there is a difference.
For the White community, they can truly have a ceremonial celebration because of the sacrifices of their family members, they truly enjoy the benefits of an American society while for many Blacks who paid the same price – their family members still struggle in America.
Like so many things that Americans today, especially the Black community, don’t understand and we celebrate these national holidays with very little knowledge of its importance and relevance.
These days should be used to hold America accountable (substantive) and should be spent learning and equipping ourselves about American wars and the thousands of unknown Black men who have died fighting for a cause that, in many aspects, has yet to be achieved.
We all must come to have a better appreciation and understanding of war and what our soldiers go through.
War isn’t pretty and the physical, financial and human causalities are just staggering.
War is a state of armed conflict between autonomous organizations or coalitions characterized by extreme collective aggression, destruction, and usually high mortality and because of this, there are many who don’t support wars of any kind.
In its brief history, America has been involved in a number of wars that only time and historians shall show whether the wars were justified or not, there are a few wars that are of great importance in the formation of America and the catapulting of America as the world super power it is today (i.e. American Revolution, Civil War, World War I and II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq, etc.). Obviously, this a very huge subject from many perspectives and I write this article only to introduce this subject to many who, like me, were never taught anything more than a barbeque.
Let’s examine a few of these wars and specifically the role that Blacks played:
• American Revolution – It is important to note that during this fight with England, America was at the height of its abuse and oppression of Black people with the American institution of slavery being one of the worst and longest in modern history and nearly 100 percent of the nearly 1.5 Million Black people were enslaved (it is estimated that nearly 25,000 Blacks were free).
The American Revolution was a political upheaval that took place between 1765 and 1783 during which rebel colonists in the 13 American colonies rejected the British monarchy and aristocracy, overthrew the authority of Great Britain, and founded the United States of America.
Blacks had a higher justification for participating in this war – GAINING FREEDOM.
For that reason, Blacks enlisted at higher rates than did whites.
Free blacks in the North and South fought on both sides of the Revolution and slaves were recruited to weaken those masters who supported the opposing cause.
A far larger number, free as well as the enslaved, tried to further their interests by siding with the patriots.
Prior to the revolution, many free Blacks supported the anti-British cause, most famously Crispus Attucks, believed to be the first person killed at the Boston Massacre.
Crispus Attucks is widely considered to be the first American casualty in the American Revolutionary War.
Little is known for certain about Attucks beyond that he, along with Samuel Gray and James Caldwell, died during the incident.
While the extent of his participation in events leading to the massacre is unclear, Attucks in the 18th century became an icon of the anti-slavery movement.
He was held up as the first martyr of the American Revolution along with the others killed.
In the early 19th century, as the abolitionist movement gained momentum in Boston, supporters lauded Attucks as an African American who played a heroic role in the history of the United States.
Revolutionary War was an important era for both free and slaved Blacks. Public officials that had not expressed their opinion on slavery now saw the hundreds of thousands of Blacks as an important tool in winning the war.
It is estimated that nearly 25,000 Blacks fought and died in this war.
With Blacks numbering nearly 20 percent of the total population in some of these colonies, both sides saw the importance of having Blacks, whether free or enslaved fighting for their cause.
Freedom was the principal motivation for the African American slave whether joining the Patriot or British army, especially after the James Somersett ruling.
James Somersett, a slave taken to England by his master Charles Steuart, had run away.
Recaptured and in chains in the hull of a ship bound for Jamaica, he sued for his freedom. In June 1772, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, held that slavery “is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law.”
As “the law of England” neither “allowed” nor “approved” of slavery, Mansfield ruled that “the Black must be discharged.”
Mansfield’s decision outlawed slavery only in England; it did not apply to the British colonies.
But that was immaterial to American slaves. In January 1773, the General Court in Boston received the first of three petitions in which slaves pleaded their freedom with the argument that Mansfield’s decision should indeed apply to the colonies, where they were “held in a state of slavery within a free and Christian country.”
The British governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, quickly saw the vulnerability of the South’s slaveholders.
In November 1775, he issued a proclamation promising freedom to any slave of a rebel who could make it to the British lines. Dunmore organized an “Ethiopian” brigade of about 300 African Americans, who saw action at the Battle of Great Bridge in December 9, 1775.
Dunmore and the British were soon expelled from Virginia, but the prospect of armed former slaves fighting alongside the British must have struck fear into plantation masters across the South.
• American Civil War – It is also important to note that during this period, America continued with the American institution of slavery for nearly 100 more years after the American Revolution where there appeared a “hint” of freedom for Black men who participated in the war against England.
Again, Blacks had a higher level for participating in this war – GAINING FREEDOM.
The American Civil War was a civil war fought from 1861 to 1865 to determine the survival of the Union or independence for the Confederacy.
Among the 34 states in January 1861, seven Southern slave states individually declared their secession (mainly around the issue of slavery) from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America.
The Confederacy, often simply called the South, grew to include eleven states, and although they claimed thirteen states and additional western territories, the Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by a foreign country.
The states that remained loyal and did not declare secession were known as the Union or the North.
The war had its origin in the fractious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories.
After four years of combat, which left more than 600,000 Union and Confederate soldiers dead and destroyed much of the South’s infrastructure, the Confederacy collapsed and slavery was abolished.
In the 1860 presidential election, Republicans, led by Abraham Lincoln, opposed the expansion of slavery into U.S. territories.
The Republican Party, dominant in the North, secured a majority of the electoral votes, and Lincoln was elected the first Republican president.
Before his inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven slave states with cotton based and enslave Black economies formed the Confederacy.
The first six states to secede had nearly 50 percent of Blacks enslaved. Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, a key fort held by Union troops in South Carolina. Lincoln called for every state to provide troops to retake the fort; consequently, four more slave states joined the Confederacy, bringing their total to eleven.
By the summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, and the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River.
In 1863, Robert E. Lee’s Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grant’s command of all Union armies in 1864.
In the Western Theater, William T. Sherman drove east to capture Atlanta and marched to the sea, destroying Confederate infrastructure along the way.
The Union marshaled the resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions, leading to the protracted siege of Petersburg.
The besieged Confederate army eventually abandoned Richmond, seeking to regroup at Appomattox Court House, though there they found themselves surrounded by union forces. This led to Lee’s surrender to Grant on April 9, 1865.
All Confederate generals surrendered by that summer.
While the military war had ended, and there was no insurgency, the political reintegration of the nation took another 12 years, known as the Reconstruction Era.
The war finally ended when a consensus was reached that Confederate nationalism and Black slavery was both dead.
The American Civil War was one of the earliest true industrial wars.
Railroads, the telegraph, steamships, and mass produced weapons were employed extensively.
The mobilization of civilian factories, mines, shipyards, banks, transportation and food supplies all foreshadowed the impact of industrialization in World War I.
It remains the deadliest war in American history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 750,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilian casualties.
One estimate of the death toll is that 10 percent of all Northern males 20–45 years old, and 30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18–40 died.
From 1861 to 1865 about 620,000 soldiers lost their lives.
I will dig a bit deeper into this in Part 2 next week.
