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... e a loss of self-control and a disregard for custom and good taste. " The size of the smaller Negro brain shows how inferior Negroes are. The deficiencies of the Negro brain can be blamed because "its physical growth" is "halted abruptly at puberty. " Puberty is the moment in which the Negro body and brain cease to develop. It seems odd to consider that the brain will stop developing at such an early period in ones life, preventing further enlargement and development of the intellectual properties of the brain. At this stage the brain possesses the process of perception, memory, and motor responses. It is after puberty where critical thinking, comprehension of complex situations and "ability to appreciate logical, aesthetic and moral situations" occur.
But even though mental processes could no longer be developed, the Negro had sexual and animal instincts that developed and were not harmed. A Negro's inferiority does not reveal itself just in his low intelligence and deficient brain size. His outward physical features also establish his inferiority through racist ideas reinforced by Darwinism. "The anatomy of the Negro exhibits a much closer approach to the anthropoid apes than does any other race. " Here is another theory that demonstrates how blacks are less civilized and developed than any other race. These "scientists" tried to prove the theory by relating each of the Negro's physical traits to those of apes. They determined that the hair of blacks relates closely to that of apes. The mucous membranes in the mouth; gums, tongue, and lips, closely resembled that of apes.
Black skin pigmentation was, of course, used to establish a closer comparison between the two. Cobb also recognized the distinct characteristics of the sexual organs of blacks of both sexes as more like apes than any other race. The arms and legs of blacks were longer and slimmer than white's indicating a similarity to apes. Blacks were physically shorter than whites as well. Scientific racists acquired all kinds of "scientific" evidence to make an understanding of black inferiority.
The point though was to establish a line in which segregation and discrimination could be seen as proper and legitimate. Unsophisticated Americans accepted most of the theories stated here without protest. Mostly because they wanted to believe such scientific reasoning would make segregation appropriate and legal. "The scientists wanted only segregation, and a benevolent segregation at that" the scientists established Negro inferiority and urged "that whites and Negroes be socially segregated in order to remain biologically segregated. " Extreme racists were still not happy and they felt that American policy against immigration and blacks was misguided. In order to retrieve more popularity for their movement, scientists turned to intellectual-historical racism as a source of exploring topics and evidence not yet discovered. To get more popularity for the movement, James Sayers tried to encourage the white population to appreciate their own race and despise any mixing of races. "His purpose was to inspire the whites to greater appreciation of their racial heritage and thereby block the impending amalgamation of the races. " By seizing the prevalent culture and ideas of the unsophisticated white Americans, Sayers was able to legitimize the Jim Crows laws of segregation. Politicians also used this movement to develop Jim Crow legislation through their own racist motives.
They accepted and promoted the ideas and evidence provided by biologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians. "It was not that Southern politicians needed any support from learned circles to sustain their own doctrines, but they found that such intellectual endorsement of their own racist theories facilitated acceptance of their views and policies. " Southern politicians used the opinions of scientists to help with the approval of legislation of Jim Crow laws. The approval also helped in legislating immigration which was one of the major concerns of racists and isolationist Americans who wanted to segregate from the rest of the world. Disfranchisement was applied to America to reconcile North and South differences after the war. Disfranchisement developed literacy tests, poll tax, property qualifications, grandfather clauses, and the good character clause. "In part disfranchisement was also presented as a progressive reform, the sure means of purging Southern elections of the corruption that disgraced them. " Disfranchisement was pretty successful in restraining blacks from voting. This process also proceeded to cause violent cases on and before election days. Thomas Dixon, a minister, wrote many novels based on what he saw around him.
In 1905 he wrote The Clansman, it "acquainted the American public with ideas of historical and intellectual racism" and was the basis for the motion picture entitled The Birth of a Nation. The novel constructed the idea that blacks are immoral and corrupt beasts that needed to be taken care of by any means be it segregation laws, slaughtering them, or sending them back to Africa. All historical devices used by racists came down to one conclusion: the role of blacks in American history was a negative impact upon the greatness of America and the white race. These historical racists viewed slavery as something that was positive for blacks. "When viewed in this light, slavery was neither a convenience for whites, an exploitation of Negroes, nor even a tyranny born of necessity. " Slavery was, instead, a positive good that helped blacks live in American society and took them away from the savagery that existed in their home land of Africa.
It presented slave owners the good feeling of giving blacks the ability to give in to their primitive and savage instincts. Historical racists used means in which to prove historically the inferiority of the black race. They used white ethnocentrism to get whites to appreciate their race and cause racism. Politicians used intellectual ideology to produce legitimate legislation for immigration and segregation. Disfranchisement was used to stop blacks from voting in the South.
Historical novels were written portraying blacks as savages that needed to be civilized into the American culture. Slavery was claimed to be useful and positive in civilizing blacks and establishing the role of blacks in American history as an inferior being compared to all others. Religious racism was also instituted to ensure that even under God, blacks were inferior to all other beings. The scientific racism that has been established was, for awhile, never obliterated by any churches in America. It can be assumed that the churches in America supported the expressions stated by scientists. Churches ignored the concepts that were established by scientists to prove inferiority of blacks.
When churches did finally establish a position, it did not support the equality of blacks. The first concept of segregation supported by churches was given by Reverend William Montgomery Brown who declared that the races should not mix. "The object of racial policy, he said, is the maintenance of racial purity among whites. Amalgamation must be avoided at all costs because it thwarts God's plant white man was protected by a law of nature, 'a deeply-rooted, God-implanted instinct' of racial prejudice" God created the races different for the purpose of white superiority. Sexual mingling between the races would make a mockery of His creation. Reverend Brown believed segregation was a good thing but he did not feel it was necessary to create legislative laws to do so, because to believe that the races were equal would be a sin. It was believed by many religious racists that the inequality that was present was by the will of God.
The beauty of this idea for racists was that there was no real confirmation of it. God ordained the distinction of certain races to be superior and others inferior. Racists believed that God had created whites as the soul supreme being on earth. "God has created in order that they may fulfill separate and distinct missions in the cultivation and civilization of the world. " Such a vague interpretation was accepted as clear evidence of black inferiority. It was believed that the way in which current situations had developed in America was a clear sign of the intentions of God. God had predestined the role of races when he created them. Other religionists needed clearer evidence of biblical authority of racial inequality.
They tried finding biblical authority by using the story that black inferiority was a result of a curse provided by God towards blacks. God placed the curse through Noah towards the descendants of Ham. The marks of this curse were, of course, black skin, physical inferiority, and mental incapacity. There was no escape of this curse.
God's rapture and displeasure of them resulted in the inferiority and inequality of the race. Blacks no longer had the hope or divine right to be worthy of living in a white man's civilization. And yet, these two ideas still have not elaborated on the role of God in creating inequality of the races. They did not answer questions that were asked of other races beyond white and black. Fundamental religion was its own proof.
These ideas influenced popular opinion and were accepted as truths based on biblical authority and natural order. Others, like Congressman William Lankford, believed that the inequality of the races and white superiority came from the moment God created man. God created man in his own image; "a part of God himself; a Caucasian, a white man, and God gave that first white man dominion over all things, and told him to reach to the bottom of the sea and up to the highest skies and understand and know the mysteries of all time and space, and that first man, a white man, went forth to solve, understand, conquer, and know the universe in which he had been placed. " Lankford's idea was accepted with the notion of black skin being a curse. But they did not accept that the curse was from descendants of Noah and thus Adam, the very first white man. They justified the curse by stating that there was not any biblical reference that blacks descended from Noah or Adam. Extremists of religious racism felt that blacks were not even humans and that God created only white civilization.
Charles Carroll was one of spokesman of these extreme anti-Negro groups who used religion to promote his hate and preference of segregation and inequality. "God had created the Negro not as man, as Homo sapiens, but as an ape, the highest apes to be sure, but an ape nevertheless. Adam (man), he declared, had been created in the white image of God as the final act, the crowning glory, of creation. " Carroll claimed that blacks were pre-human animals while other races: American Indians, Mongolians, and Malayans, who were also inhuman animals, developed as the offspring of man's "unholy mating with apes (Negroes). Carroll was such an extremist that he tried rearranging the whole history of the Bible to make his ideas more convincing. He claims the role of the serpent in the Garden of Eden was actually a black man who tempted Eve.
He believes the interpretation in the Bible was misinterpreted throughout the years. He asserted that this misinterpretation answers many questions including how the "serpent" spoke to Eve. "Responsibility for the fall of man, however, was only the first of Negro's sins. " Cain's wife was black and amalgamation of man and beat resulted in God's intervention at Sodom and Gomorrah and then the Flood. "At the time of the Flood, Noah and his family were the only pure whites left on earth, so God determined to eliminate the hordes of soulless mongrels and give man a new opportunity. Among the beasts on the Ark, however, were a pair of Negroes, and amalgamation commenced soon after the Flood. " God's final intervention was to send Jesus to redeem the world of amalgamation. Carroll most likely only carried his thoughts to other radicals and extremists, but it is possible that American racist laymen also accepted these ideals as fact.
It may also be a possible ideology of the Ku Klux Klan who used Christian religion as a fundamental element of their group. They could use the idea of a white loving God and a black hating God as a suggestion for white superiority and black inferiority. In terms of religious racism, there is plenty of information provided to swerve the belief of slavery as a "positive good", segregation as the will of God, and inequality as a work of God during Creation. As I have provided, there are many ideas and beliefs in which the laws of segregation and inequality were favored.
I have traced the path of the creation of segregation through the black codes and the Jim Crow laws throughout the states. I have also determined that the defense of segregation came through many different points. The United States Supreme Court made many influential decisions that resulted in defending the motives of segregation and thus inequality of the races. Social racism was used to promote white superiority by stating that the black race has evolved more slowly, that their apparent flaws are hereditary and cannot be escaped, and that the black race is actually a savage animal. Scientific racism established the idea the certain traits of the black race were inferior to the white race. Scientists adopted the idea that blacks were mentally incompetent because of their smaller skulls.
They also believed that blacks were animals because they resembled neoteric apes. Religious racists tried to find a Biblical authority to prove white superiority and hence black inferiority. They claimed that the inequality that was present in society was the will of God and should not be tampered with. Extremists pointed out that God did not want the mixing of the races and intervened on world through punishment. They also claimed that blacks were animals and that sexual relations with man (whites) was a great sin. Another point extremists stated was the idea that a black man was the one who tempted Eve and thus brought the fall of man.
It shall be noted that these ideas were used to promote racist ideology and not technically for the cause they were trying to perceive. I feel that those arguing the standpoint of religion were not trying to please God more than they were trying to please the racist people. Scientists seemed asinine in their work finding the inferiority of blacks through smaller skulls and brains rather than the capacity in which that brain can hold. The United States Supreme Court is much harder to determine.
Their place is to proceed by upholding the Constitution of the United States. Of course racial feelings could be involved in their decisions but it can be clearly seen that they are upholding the Constitution whether they believed segregation was right or not. These ideas can and have been fought against with great success. One of the great fighters against black mental deficiency was W.
E. B. DuBois, who wrote at great lengths about intelligent and intellectual black people. African Americans have become a staple of this country. There are business leaders, religious leaders, teachers, administrators, and statesmen who have helped this country become great and will continue to do so endlessly.
Bibliography: Woodward, C. Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), 22 - 23. Sprigle, Ray.
In The Land of Jim Crow. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1949), 14. Clark, Frank. "Congressman Frank Clark Praises Segregation, 1908. " Major Problems in the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. Ed. Leon Fink (Lexington, MA: D.
C. Heath & Company, 1993), 221. Konvitz, Milton. "The Extent and Character of Legally-Enforced Segregation. " Journal of Negro Education. Vol. 20, No. 3 (Summer, 1951), 431. v McPherson, James. "Abolitionists and the Civil Rights Act of 1875. " Journal of American History.
Vol. 52, No. 3 (December 1965), 510. Newby, Idus. Jim Crow's Defense. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965), 143. Better, A. D. "Some Effects of the 'Separate But Equal' Doctrine of Education. " Journal of Negro Education. Vol. 20, No. 2 (Spring, 1951), 140 - 141.
Kilpatrick, James Jackson. The Southern Case for School Segregation. (Crowell-Collier Press, 1962), 51. Newby, 9. Newby, 10. Newby, 27.
Newby, 30. Stoddard, Lothrop. The Revolt Against Civilization. (New York: Scribner's, 1922), 48. Cobb, W. Montague. "The Physical Constitution of the American Negro. " Journal of Negro Education. Vol. 3, No. 3 (July 1934), 348.
Newby. 39. Newby, 39. Newby, 40. Newby, 42. Cobb, 358 - 378.
Newby, 50. Newby, 62. Woodward, 74. Woodward, 83. Newby, 69. Newby, 71.
Newby, 88. Hofstadter, Richard. Social Darwinism in American Thought. (New York: Braziller, 1955), 166. Hill, John. Negro, National Asset or Liability. (New York: Literary Associates, 1930), 54 - 60. Newby, 92.
Newby, 93 - 95.
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