Was America Founded On White Supremacy?
Slavery came to these shores brought by the Spanish in the 1500s and later by the Dutch in 1619. Many United States presidents owned slaves. Thomas Jefferson was perhaps the most hypocritical for being a racist and yet having a relationship with a Black women named Sally Hemings. Jefferson once said, “I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in their endowments both of body and mind.” This racist narrative was denounced by one of the most devoted fighters in the war against white supremacy and slavery, Davis Walker.
David Walker wrote a strong response to Jefferson’s racism in the fall of 1829, when he wrote and published a pamphlet entitled, “Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World.” In the pamphlet, Walker denounced slavery and encouraged enslaved people to fight for their freedom in every way possible. In his Appeal, Walker offered a powerful vision that blended freedom, religion, human rights, and America’s creed which said we are all equal. Walker argued that slavery violated Christianity and the repeated use of the Declaration of Independence which promised freedom and equality. Walker pushed in every direction to distribute his pamphlet to free and enslaved people everywhere he could. Walker’s Appeal shocked racists and even some white abolitionists who knew nothing about what it was like to be a slave. However, his words sparked the freedom movement for immediate abolition of slavery. It also helped sparked the racist hordes in the South to begin looking for ways to separate from the North.
Walker blasted the hell out of Thomas Jefferson and white supremacy in America when he criticized Jefferson’s words, “I hope you will try to find out the meaning of this verse—its widest sense and all its bearings: whether you do or not, remember the whites do. This very verse, brethren, having emanated from Mr. Jefferson, a much greater philosopher the world never afforded, has in truth injured us more, and has been as great a barrier to our emancipation as anything that has ever been advanced against us. I pledge you my sacred word of honor, that Mr. Jefferson’s remarks respecting us, have sunk deep into the hearts of millions of the whites, and never will be removed this side of eternity.—For how can they, when we are confirming him every day, by our groveling submissions and treachery?”
White supremacy may be political and ideological belief that will last for eternity but one that must be fought at every turn. We cannot allow the crimes of this guilty land to be sugar coated and white washed for the purpose of misleading the population about the real history of America. We cannot allow those who do not want us to know the truth to minimize the significance of white supremacy. We cannot let the ignorant define our history by refusing to ignore the individuals who fought the dominate belief. If one is doing this they are overlooking on purpose the crimes of this guilty land to present a sanitized version of reality. There were always men and women that opposed the dominate view and that is where any discussion about slavery and white supremacy must begin. Those inclined to opt for the simplistic quote that supporters of slavery and racism were, “just men of their times” is a way to ignore the past and to keep racism alive. There were many above the times we will not ignore.
