Preface

This book is an attempt to describe and analyze constitutionally sanctioned violence against blacks and violent suppression of black resistancethe outgrowth of a government policy based on essentially racist, not legal, concernsthroughout the American experience.

Black people have been a disquieting presence in America since the arrival of the first twenty Africans at Jamestown in 1619. To most blacks, their status, usually as slaves until 1865 and as second-class citizens thereafter, has been unacceptable; to some, it has been intolerable. Before 1865, in addition to aiding in the suppression of slave revolts, the national government ignored or approvedon constitutional groundswhite mob violence directed at blacks and their few white supporters even when local officials participated in the violence. Those blacks who did not become involved in conspiracy and rebellion before the Civil War were not necessarily docile; they lived in the grip of a system of violent control institutionalized under the Constitution. The years since Reconstruction, when blacks became nominally free, are littered with incidences of white riots against blacks, burnings of black homes and churches, and lynchings, while federal and local law enforcement agencies stood idly by. And while federal law enforcement disregarded white violence, pleading lack of jurisdiction under the Constitution, it endorsed and contributed to rigorous campaigns of surveillance and control of rebellious blacks, using constitutional military force against them with impunity.

Whether its policy was action or inaction, the national government has used the Constitution in such a way as to make law the instrument for maintaining a racist status quo. Some legal theorists might describe the American political system as one in which law represents the will of the majority while providing room for the protection of minority rights, but this is not an accurate description of the system in operation. Though the Bill of Rights, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Fourteenth Amendment purport to protect individuals in their lives, liberties, and property, these ringing phrases have in fact afforded little protection to black people as a group. Law and the Contitution in the United States have been a reflection of the will of the white majority that white people have, and shall keep, superior economic, political, social, and military power, while black people shall be the permanent mudsills of American society.

The upsurge in racial intimidation and violence in recent years led me to believe that a new edition of this book would be timely and useful. My general conclusionthat the implementation of the law by federal executive branch officials perpetuated racial subordinationremains valid today. Millions of African-Americans, whose lives have improved enormously due to the social and economic changes of the last several years, nonetheless are at disproportionate risk of police abuse. They also remain largely unprotected by their government from racially motivated violence perpetrated by groups and individuals. New victims of racial violence have added their names to the rolls of those injured or killed because they were black. In most instances todays assailants, as yesterdays, have escaped with little or no punishment for their deeds. The Rodney King incident in Los Angeles in 1991, the Michael Griffith murder in Howard Beach in 1986, the murder of Yusef Hawkins in Bensonhurst in 1989, and the shooting of National Urban League President Vernon Jordan in 1980 are only the most widely publicized examples of a familiar story.

Throughout the country increases in bigotry, racial intimidation, and violence have been documented by the United States Department of Justice, Community Relations Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation as well as by private groups such as Klanwatch. Experts agree that the crimes are probably underreported. Many victims do not report their abuse to police, and police prefer not to identify incidents as racially motivated.