know your black history: slave revolts on land – the 1st confrontation with the top 1%

In the fight against chattel slavery from 1500 to 1865, the first battle-lines were drawn when the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788.  Forty percent of the framers of the Constitution were slaveholders. Twelve of the first 16 presidents were slaveholders. Eight of the first 16 presidents held slaves while in office. The “three-fifths compromise” included in the Articles of Confederation meant Southern slaveholders gained unequaled power over congressional representation, the presidency and the Supreme Court.  By 1860, for the first time the majority of Americans were pitted against the top 1%, who attempted to exert control over nearly everything. Who were the top 1% in 1860? In a population of 31 million U.S. citizens there were 393,000 slaveholders and their families, who held nearly 4 million slaves.

By Nick Douglas, AFROPUNK Contributor

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The parallels of the people in bondage today is just as scary as 1860. In the U.S. today, African-Americans and Hispanics make up 30% of the population. Yet 58% of the 2.3 million Americans imprisoned today are black or Hispanic.  Approximately 10 million people, 3.2 % of the population is under correctional control (probation or court supervision) which means that many of these people of color are disenfranchised, due to felony convictions and/or have their civil rights severely curtailed. This gives today’s top 1% an inordinate power at the ballot box just like during slavery when slaves counted as three-fifths of a person (with no rights to vote) and Jim Crow when people of color were disenfranchised in the South.

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In the 1700s and 1800s slaveholders called on state and local authorities to organize patrols and militias to keep order among slaves, catch runaway slaves and quell rebellions. They offloaded the cost, danger and responsibility for controlling their slaves onto their communities.

The top 1% today offloads the cost of their criminal behavior. The public has been made to pay for bank bailouts, Wall Street bailouts, environmental crimes, and tax breaks that benefit the 1%.

After the Nat Turner Slave Rebellion in 1831 one-third of all legislation passed in the U.S. was to control and restrict the behavior of slaves and free people of color. For the first time many states moved to disenfranchise free people of color, who had previously enjoyed the right to vote..

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Attempts to disenfranchise people of color today include requiring state IDs and driver’s licenses for voting and taking away venues to obtain IDs, like closing DMVs in black neighborhoods.

When movements like Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street expose issues of continued social injustice and income inequality their large protests today are met with punitive actions by local and state government. Local vagrancy legislation has been used against Occupy Wall Street protestors camped out in financial districts as they protested the abuses of financial institution. Black Lives Matter protests have been severely limited by locally enforced curfew restrictions.

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In 1861 slaveholders, then 1% of Americans, called on the rest of America to fight and die to enforce their rights. Five-hundred thousand Americans died fighting over the issue of slavery. This does not include the many thousands of casualties, veterans who lost limbs and were permanently disabled. Many slaveholders were compelled to serve in the Civil War because the South was in such dire need of soldiers.

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For America’s current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan only 1% of current congress members and senators have children enlisted or who have served in the military. Few of the top 1% serve in the military.

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It is estimated that labor stolen from slavery, Jim Crow and discrimination that followed generated wealth of nearly $24 trillion in the U.S. During slavery, slaveholders claimed that it was the natural order of things for slavery to exist because slaves were “inferior.”

Today the richest 1% control more wealth than the bottom 90% of Americans. The top 1% opposes paying a living wage because they profit from cheap labor. The 1% move their businesses offshore, when they cannot maintain high profits from cheap labor, and receive tax breaks, because they have influenced legislation to reward this behavior. The top 1% tell the majority of Americans that this is how capitalism is supposed to operate.

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In 2014, 31,000 people, 1% of the richest 1% of Americans spent some $1.1 billion in political contributions to influence legislators in their favor. This is not just a U.S. problem. Worldwide there are 85 individuals that control more wealth than bottom 3.5 billion!.

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During slavery, newspapers reflected the interests of the slaveholding 1%. News about slave rebellions, slave escapes and slave and abolitionist activity was underreported, suppressed, and distorted to try to create popular support for the continuation of slavery. Present-day news coverage of anti-war protests against the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, Black Live Matters and Occupy Wall Street have been underreported, suppressed and distorted to try to continue the status quo of income inequality and social injustice.

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Today the top 1% try to distort the recognition by the majority of Americans that income inequality and social injustice have reached record proportions and have become detrimental to society by saying that pointing out these facts are “class warfare.” During slavery the top 1% justified slavery by saying slaves were “a lower class of human being” that deserved to be enslaved and that freeing slaves would be detrimental to the slaves and society as a whole.

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When we know our black history and American history more fully, we see that, just like during slavery, today the fearful 1% are struggling to use every avenue available to them to continue the status quo. It took persistent day-to-day determination by the majority of Americans to dismantle the entrenched evil of slavery. It will take the same determination to resolve the issues of continued social injustice and income inequality.

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* Nick Douglas is the author of Finding Octave: The Untold Story of Two Creole Families and Slavery in Louisiana. The book is available on amazon.com and those wishing to contact the author can contact him at www.findingoctave.tumblr.com.