If the Emancipation Proclamation that was signed by President Lincoln was truly meant to free Africans and their descendents from the horrors of living in this country as slaves or second-class citizens – it didn’t.
It didn’t because real freedom, which is a natural birthright, can’t be given to anyone by the signing and passing of a legal document, or bill. It also takes the removal of all the people, places, things and instruments used by one group of people to enslave another group of people. This did not happen with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Freedom, or being free here in the united states of America has always been a state of mind, a feeling of heart, a state of being. By not removing the very people who enforced slavery on others, and by not removing the very instruments used by those people to produce slaves and keep slavery alive for centuries in this country, that bill only stopped in practice legal slavery as it was at that time but did not grant real freedom to the Africans or their descendents.
This is partly because while slavery was made illegal, the most powerful instrument used by the slave owners and their supporters was not made illegal, and that was the death penalty and the threat of using it against the people in slavery in all of its different forms. Slavery would not have been able to endure as long as it did, nor would it have been as effective as it was in keeping millions of people living in fear for their lives and thus keeping them enslaved!
The death penalty was used as a fear tactic in some cases, and used to make an example of what will happen to someone in other cases. Especially if that person tried to escape from slavery, they would torture them first and make the other slaves watch. Then word of mouth would know what happened to so-and-so.
Those same powers created a living hell on earth for the slaves by giving them no right, human or other kind, no education, no hope, brain-washing, lies, hunger, brutal beatings, psychological torture, emotional stress, mental anguish, loss of family, corruption, no sense of self-worth, made to feel worthless, degradation, white supremacy, god, the bible, religion, greed, capitalism, politics, out-right violence, intimidation, hate, injustice, rape of women, men and children, child molestation, capitalist exploitation…and the list goes on and on…
This combination of factors was the main way to keep slavery alive, and Africans and their kin folk enslaved. While all of these things took place each and every day, the death penalty, in all its horrific and various forms, was right there as a reminder to the people.
As stated above, it wasn’t so much the fear of death per se, but it was the fear of the many different methods used, and the torture that came with it, that kept a whole population living in fear. Yet this fact wasn’t known only during slavery, it was also known afterwards during the time of reconstruction on through the Jim Crow era and up until today.
No people can be truly or totally free if they have to live in a state of constant fear. In every ghetto and place where poor Black people live today, they are living in fear of the police and the same power structure that their ancestors were afraid of! One who understands this will understand why the real legacy of slavery is still with us today.
I am a descendent of slaves, but not slavery. However, the exact fear that my ancestors had about being tortured before being murdered on the plantation that they were forced to live on against their will is the same fear that I have about being tortured before I am murdered on this modern-day plantation that I am forced to live on against my will.
Yet I am constantly being told that “times have changed.” At least back then the government and its employees told the truth, that yes, they tortured people, and they were damn proud of it! Today they claim not to torture anybody, but in every death chamber in this country the screams of the condemned and the ghosts of the past can be heard coming together as one voice to let the world know of their pain and inhumane treatment at the hands of the most powerful government on the face of the earth!
While this fear started in the 15th century, and was kept alive in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th and now 21st century, no one will ever be free as long as anyone is living in fear of being tortured and murdered in this country called america. Not one citizen will be free, even those who make their living and enjoy this historic crime against humanity are slaved to it now, just as my ancestors were slaves back then!
You see, the same governmental system that allowed this to happen to them is the same government system that is allowing this to happen to me. If they did that to them, and they are doing this to me, what will stop them from doing it to you?
Maybe they are already doing it to you, you just haven’t realized it yet, because after all you are part of the system.
In Struggle
From Death Row,
Kevin Cooper