Professor Sonia Jarvis told me she saw parallels between the struggle for passage of the 15th amendment in 1870 and the struggle for the Democratic nomination today. So I examined the issue.

Why did Susan B. Anthony form the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 and leave the abolutionist movement? Did it have anything to do with the passage of the 15th amendment giving black men the right to vote but ignoring the demands of white women who wanted the 15th amendment to include the word, “sex” and not only “race.” Of course it did. White women who were advocating for the vote were furious that Congress would allow black men to vote before white women. The woman’s suffrage movement split over the issue – Fraces W. Harper and Lucy Stone worked for passage of the 15th amendment while Elizabeth C. Stanton and Susan B. Anthony refused. Anthony “exclaimed disparingly that two million more men were now made tyrants over an equal number of women who had formerly been their equals” (Riegel 1962). After all white women were educated. How could they be denied the vote when black men, many of whom were not educated, did get the vote? It wasn’t until 50 years later that women in 1920 with the passage of the 19th amendment succeeded in getting the vote.

What parallel exists today? In the race for the Democratic nomination for President, Hillary Clinton proclaimed that Barack Obama is not experienced enough for the Presidency. How much difference is there between Hillary Clinton today and Susan B. Anthony in the 19th century? Both had a goal and that goal was more important than anything, even the right for black men to vote.

There is an another interesting historical fact - decades after the 15th amendment was passed, Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass renewed their friendship. Years later Susan B. Anthony spoke glowingly of Douglas’ efforts for woman’s suffarge at Douglass’ funeral.

1)Riegel, Robert. 1962 December. The Split of the Feminist Movement in 1869.” The Mississippi Historical Review, 49/3:485-496.

Higher Education and Minority Men

The American Council on Education has issued its annual report on minorities in higher education. In their latest report (2007), ACE announced that although more black students enrolled in college than previously, blacks continued to “trail whites in the % of 18- to 24-year-old high school graduates enrolled in college. 42.8% of all white 18 to 24 year olds enrolled in higher education while only 32.7% of blacks and 24.8% of Hispanics enrolled.

In addition, there is a dramatic difference between black men and women. Only 28% of black men 18 to 24 were enrolled in college while 37.1% of black women were enrolled. A similar trend exists for Hispanics – 20.7% of men and 29.5% of women.

The report concluded that there are contributing factors that lead to young black and Hispanic men failing to enroll in college. These factors include poverty conditions within which young black and Hispanic men live, preference for immigrants over black males in considering hiring, lack of jobs where most young black and Hispanic men live, poor quality of schools in black and Hispanic neighborhoods, high rate of imprisonment for young black men Hispanics, and welfare reforms that do not help black and Hispanic men get into the workforce.

Yet, there are solutions to these issues if this country’s educational and political leaders are willing to invest in those solutions. President Hrabowski from the University of Maryland, Baltimore Campus, has demonstrated that black and Hispanic men can be attracted to and be successful in college. Hrabowski’s success is dependent upon high school support for minorities including presenting students with college options in the 9th grade through 12th grade. Nicole Hurd at the University of North Carolina directs the National College Advisory Corps that recruits young people to help high school students plan their college searches in 18 high schools across the state. Her work is supported by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. There are other programs across the nation that have also been successful in helping minorities to attend college. But in order for these kinds of programs to be replicated across the nation, our educational and political leadership has to care; they have to make college access a priority.

What is it about affirmative action that makes people so angry? For hundreds of years, American minorities have not had the same rights as white men. Finally almost 500 years after Columbus landed, we got a law, the Civil Rights Law of 1964, which said we can not discriminate against race in employment. The term “affirmative action” was first used by President John F. Kennedy in creating the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1961 and required that projects receiving federal funds take “affirmative action” to ensure that employment decisions are free from racial discrimination.

Slowly, the idea of affirmative action evolved to encompass programs that actively sought to increase the participation of racial minorities. We went so far as to say that we can consider race when students apply to college. Minorities got extra points in admissions. Think about it. We were not saying – take minorities that were not qualified. We were saying take them if they were. What happens? Some white guy who scores higher on a test says he should have been chosen and the courts agree. The test is man made – a white man’s test actually if you look at the makeup of testing companies. But just because you score higher on a test doesn’t mean you will make a good lawyer, accountant, doctor, etc. That is the fallacy of testing. But the courts bought it and we have lost much of affirmative action.

Now we have retreated to – let’s provide affirmative action to the lower economic classes because that is race blind. Let’s consider class rather than race. The problem with that is that this country is not race blind. When I worked for NYS Division of Human Rights, I once asked an integrated group of middle-class, highly educated Division employees, how many had been discriminated in housing. Every minority raised their name; every white person did not. Blacks are discriminated against in this country even when they are middle- and upper class.

There are numerous statistics that state time and time again that this country discriminates against the race of a person. In this country, an August 2003 Bureau of Justice Statistics analysis shows that 32% of black males born in 2001 expect to spend time in prison over the course of their lifetime. That is up from 13.4 percent in 1974 and 29.4 percent in 1991. By contrast, 17.2% of Hispanics and 5.9% of whites born in 2001 are likely to end up in prison. There are a greater proportion of minorities in community colleges rather than four year colleges where whites dominant. There are four black CEOs in Fortune 500 companies. At this rate it will take a hundred years to get any form of equity.

Will they change the law? They already have. Affirmative action is dying. Will we go one step further and lose the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that bans discrimination in employment practices and public accommodations; the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which protects voting rights; and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which bans discrimination in the sale or rental of housing? I don’t know but I don’t think embracing class instead of race in programs to increase participation will resolve these difficult issues.

Our experiences are so different – white and black. It is hard to imagine that we can come together without far more understanding on the part of white people. Richard Wright in Black Boy (1993) wrote about two white waitresses he worked with every day – “They knew nothing of hate and fear….They lived on the surface of their days; their smiles were surface smiles, their tears were surface tears….We shared a common tongue but my language was a different language from theirs. It was a psychological distance that separated the races… For these poor ignorant white girls to have understood my life would have meant nothing short of a vast revolution in theirs” (319).