{"id":28972,"date":"2020-02-24T11:57:54","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T16:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/civil-liberties\/auto-draft"},"modified":"2023-02-27T17:15:17","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T22:15:17","slug":"honoring-black-history-month-means-respecting-the-foundation-that-it-stands-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/racial-justice\/honoring-black-history-month-means-respecting-the-foundation-that-it-stands-on","title":{"rendered":"Honoring Black History Month Means Respecting the Foundation That it Stands On"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"metadata":[],"class_list":["post-28972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":{"header_layout":"standard","color_scheme":false,"header_image":28991,"mobile_header_image":null,"description":"Celebrating Black History Month means celebrating those who act in defense of human dignity.","authors":[1735],"components":[{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"

Black History Month is meant to be a celebration of the achievements of Black Americans, in spite of our country\u2019s history of blatant, intentional racism. Despite that intention, the American narrative surrounding the enslaving of Black Americans has always attempted to rewrite our past, generating a kinder, gentler image of slavery. <\/p>

President Trump and his appointees are the embodiment of that attempt to rewrite Black history. Recently, President Trump and his appointee, Philadelphia U. S. Attorney William McSwain, mocked the history that serves as the foundation for Black History Month. While a kinder interpretation of their actions might say that their understanding of past and current U.S. history is limited, their distortion of Black history during this month brings to mind an Orwellian warning \u2014 who controls the past controls the future, and who controls the present controls the past.  <\/em><\/p>

For example, U.S. Attorney McSwain spoke this month in defense of the Trump administration\u2019s anti-immigrant policies. During his remarks to about 500 people, McSwain compared so-called sanctuary cities<\/a>, which have policies designed to protect immigrant communities, to the Southern secessionists who enslaved Black Americans: <\/p>

\u201cWhat an amazing concept \u2013 one that would have elated those who opposed the desegregation of lunch counters in the Deep South, or those who told Rosa Parks to go to the back of the bus, or those who stood in the schoolhouse doorway to prevent African American children from entering. <\/p>

And this concept would have absolutely thrilled Southern slave owners. A sanctuary from federal law, where they could continue their practice of human bondage \u2026 The secessionists who defied federal authority during our nation\u2019s Civil War are gone but not forgotten. They did not fight in vain. No, their spirit lives on, right here in Philadelphia, in the Cradle of Liberty. Their spirit lives on in the hearts and minds of those who declare Philadelphia a \u2018sanctuary city.\u2019\u201d<\/p>

McSwain is attempting to compare the slaveholders who defied federal authorities when they seceded from the Union to local governments that decline to collaborate with federal immigration authorities in the deportation and detention of their community members. But McSwain\u2019s focus on \u201cobeying the law\u201d crumbles under even a minimum amount of scrutiny. <\/p>

\u201cObeying the law\u201d leaves out the fact that slavery was legal in America in both colonial and post-Constitutional days for almost a quarter millennium \u2013 246 years. To those who say America did not begin until the Constitution was ratified, realize that America had a chance to reject the colonial notion of slavery. Instead, our founding fathers doubled down and gave specific protections to slave owners in the Constitution. Separate but equal was law in America for 89 years after the civil war. Those who opposed the desegregation of lunch counters weren\u2019t mad at a social convention that prevented them from living regular life. They protested the fact that it was statutorily legal to segregate lunch counters under federal law for decades \u2013 just as it was legal to segregate travel, education, and all other forms of Black existence. <\/p>

McSwain\u2019s logic sees no difference between the students who sat at lunch counters to protest segregation and those who wanted to disobey the law when segregation was outlawed. It finds no difference between those who worked with Harriet Tubman on the underground railroad and those who wanted to keep slavery once the war ended. This logic divorces morality from the analysis. It can, and has, justified atrocities.  <\/p>

The commonality that links enslaving people with the immigrant justice movement is that in both cases people acted in defense of human dignity, against policies that rejected that dignity for people with Black and brown skin. McSwain\u2019s faulty logic is a vile contradiction to the true principles of Black History Month. The man who appointed McSwain went even further.  <\/p>

During the State of the Union speech at the very beginning of Black History Month, President Trump gave Rush Limbaugh the Medal of Freedom. That medal is intended to recognize an \u201cespecially meritorious contribution to (1) the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.\" <\/p>

Trump said that Limbaugh fit that criteria because of his voice on important issues. A few quotes from that same voice include:<\/p>