Historical Injustices in American History
Life is not fair! Nature itself is known to tilt towards a particular population, area, or animals; thus, it discriminatory by itself. However, those kinds of injustices cannot be blamed on any single individual as they are beyond human control. In such cases, individuals have to learn how to live with prejudice or find alternative solutions—injustices resulting from human neglects or instigated by fellow human causes the greatest suffering. Injustice can be defined as the absence of fairness or justice. It is manifested through the occurrence of an event or words that seem to suggest biasedness towards something or someone, often in violation of fundamental human rights.
When the injustices become repetitive, and without regard for basic human rights, they spark a wave of action as the oppressed seek to voice the injustices meted on them. More specifically, historical injustice refers to the past biasedness committed by the people at the time against an individual or a particular population that continues to exhibit a lasting impact in modern times. The “Jim Crow” legislation was instituted in the South to restrict the blacks’ rights and freedoms following the enactment of the 14th and 15th Amendments, respectively, by the union (Zinn, 2012). The 14th AmendmentAmendment was consented in 1868 to allow any person born in the US or naturalized to become a citizen. The AmendmentAmendment was enacted to bring an end to the institution of slavery, which had lasted for centuries. They sought to hold the Blacks in captivity without regard to their rights. The Blacks in the South hence continued to live in poverty and under the suppression of the Whites. Public facilities were built separately for Whites and Blacks. The White Supremacists, such as the Ku Klux Kahn movement, targeted the African-Americans. The Blacks were subjected to voter literacy tests that would ensure they did not vote, despite the right to vote for every American citizen after the 14th AmendmentAmendment was enacted.
Police brutality towards African-Americans and other people of color is not something new in the US. The US is established as the land of the free, where equal rights and freedoms are provided for by the constitution (Zinn, 2012). However, the concept was dropped along the way as 5000 years of recorded history shows the complete opposite. Gerry Spence’s “Police State” documents the cases by the trial lawyer that highlighted how the prosecution team and the police sought to change the cause of justice by incriminating innocent individuals because they were of a particular race. In 1965, for instance, protesters protesting the shooting of a Black activist by the name of Jimmie Lee Jackson murdered in cold blood by a White police officer turned violent. The police acting on the directives of the Alabama Governor beat up the protesters and teargassed them, leading to what was later known as the “Bloody Sunday” (Spence, 2016).
The late 19th century and early 20th century were vital in the history of the United States of America. America was undergoing a rapid industrial development characterized by new inventions that increased production at minimal costs (Zinn, 2012). Consequently, vertical social mobility came into force. The rich continued to grow rich while the poor continued to get poorer. The belief in vertical social mobility became embedded in the US culture as people everywhere believed that opportunities were equal for everybody to be successful. Sadly, the reality was different from what the founding fathers had envisioned. It was particularly worse for African-Americans until the 1950s and ‘60s when the Civil Rights Movement began in response to the growing segregation in public places against Afro-Americans. Capitalism resulted from wage labor, market contracts, and the rule of law. Wage labor especially led to the exploitation of the poor by the rich. The rich paid less for a lot more labor, and consequently, they continued to grow rich. Slavery, widely practiced in the South, has been argued as an inevitable consequence of capitalism. Slaves accounted for almost a third of the population in the South and were the producers of tobacco, rice, and indigo working in large plantations.
The South was, without a doubt, the economic hub that helped spur the economic growth of the US (Zinn, 2012). The labor required to carry out agriculture and in the manufacturing sector was intense, and hence, slaves became indispensable. Legalized slavery was abolished in 1865. Until its abolishment, slavery had played a significant role in shaping the national economy of the union. Slaves were at the center of capitalism and later continued to shape the history of the United States. The children of the slaves also fought alongside Americans in the revolutionary war despite being marginalized and segregated against. Slavery was a necessary evil that helped position the US as a global economic giant.
The construction of the first transcontinental railroad began in the 1860s (Zinn, 2012). It was one of the most fraudulent dealings in the history of America. Built on sweat, dirty politics, and thievery designed by the two construction companies, the first transcontinental railroad brought a lot of suffering not only to the exploited workers but also to landowners. According to the Interstate Commerce Commission, over 22,000 construction workers died due to activities directly linked to the construction of the railroad. The two companies contracted to construct the railroad, the Central Pacific, and the Union Pacific devised twisting routes to loot the subsidies in the towns that the railroad passed through during the construction. Either, in addition to the millions of allocated land by the government for the construction, the companies acquired the property illegally. The ranchers in Bonneville lost millions of their grazing land to the railroad construction after being duped that the railroad was not going to interfere with their main economic activity (Norris, 2018). The Central Pacific was contracted to build the railroad starting from the West Coast heading east. The company spent approximately $200,000 to bribe government officials in Washington for illegal acquisition of 9 million acres of land for the construction. The company also exploited the Irish and Chinese immigrants’ workers who worked in harsh conditions and were paid little.
The other construction company, the Union Pacific, began construction from Nebraska in the East Coast heading West (Zinn, 2012). The company used its private entity, the Credit Mobilier Company, to steal from the government. The construction cost was estimated to be $44 million, but the company, through the entity, demanded $94 million. Individuals in Congress were allowed to buy shares in the company at a lower price on condition that they halted their investigations into the company’s corrupt dealings. The construction workers, mainly war veterans and Irish immigrants, worked under harsh conditions. The harsh working conditions resulted in hundreds of death of the construction workers who battled excess heat and cold as well as the red Indians who were fighting the invasion of their land.
The bankers financed the construction, and this allowed them to dictate the working relations. Corruption was openly allowed to happen because the federal government felt that the railroad’s benefits would outweigh the evils committed in its construction. Gold deposits had been discovered in the interior West, and there also lay expansive lands that could be used for settlements and agricultural purposes for the new immigrants. The railroad needed to be constructed to open the West Coast to the East Coast. Travelers traveling West had to journey by sea, taking almost six months, or they could risk traveling overland crossing mountains, plains, rivers, and deserts. The journey overland was, therefore, dangerous and risky. Traveling by sea through the Isthmus of Panama was relatively shorter but, the route was heavily infested with yellow fever and other diseases. The construction of the railroad was thus of greater importance. Besides, the construction of a transcontinental railroad was too expensive for the federal government; hence the bankers were called in to finance the project at their own cost.
Andrew Mellon is best known for his “Mellon Plan” presented to Congress in 1923 (Zinn, 2012). The Mellon plan proposed an unequal reduction of income taxes. This, he argued, would free up money to be re-invested in the economy, thus, leading to the creation of job opportunities. He was an intelligent economist and served as secretary of the treasury under the Harding administration and later under the Coolidge administration. His policy proposed reducing the income tax of the upper class by half while that of the lower class by 25%. Consequently, the rate of poverty among the lower class increased. The policy, however, ensured continued prosperity of the US economy until the Great Depression in 1929.
References
Norris, F. (2018). The octopus volume 1. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
Spence, G. (2016). Police state: How America’s cops get away with murder. St. Martin’s Griffin.
Zinn, H. (2012). A people’s history of the United States. eBookIt.com.