Obama’s biracial heritage, his immigrant, Kenyan father, and his suitability as a presidential candidate give many so-called “native” blacks pause because his history does not parallel that of most people of African descent born in the United States. To my utter dismay, some have argued that only a black candidate whose ancestors were enslaved in America, or who experienced the pain associated with our nation’s racial past, can genuinely grasp what it means to be black in America and represent the political interests of black Americans.

This is a narrow-minded and divisive notion. At a time when black Americans, whether by birth or by choice, should channel our collective political capital into a formidable voting block, we continue to waste time arguing about which of us are “really” black. Although most people of African descent in America have ancestors who were enslaved people, some do not; although Obama’s family were spared from American slavery and aspects of de jure and de facto segregation, this does not mean that he or non-U.S. blacks are unfamiliar with white supremacy and racism.

Many black immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, and South America know the sting of racism and white supremacy all too well. Unfortunately, they are also painfully aware of what it is like to have longstanding American blacks view them with suspicion and judge them with a sense of superiority. Many ancestors of recent black immigrants were not enslaved in the U.S., but they were enslaved on European plantations in East and West Africa, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, or oppressed as subjects in a colonial regimes predicated upon white supremacy. They may not have experienced Jim Crow in the U.S., but they experienced pain and suffering wrought by indirect rule, white settler domination and/or Apartheid-like conditions.

How are black immigrants less “black” or less worthy of kinship with black Americans? It is absurd to suggest that black immigrants are unable to fathom the pain of racism, and the legacy of slavery and white supremacy. It saddens and angers me that Obama is subjected to such scrutiny, particularly from blacks who remain inexplicably eager and delighted to support white candidates who have often bamboozled us with rhetoric, symbolism over substance, and empty promises since we got off the boat.

Like Obama, whose mother is white, few American blacks can argue with certainty that they do not have white ancestors. Does this make most of us less black? In the American context, in addition to ancestry, blackness has been most often defined by culture, consciousness, and custom, rather than skin color. Walter White, Lena Horne, and Adam Clayton Power, Jr. come to mind. The more relevant question is why any of this should matter. Since when did having slave ancestors or two black parents become a requisite for being black or political office? Surely the larger numbers of blacks who support Sen. Hillary Clinton, the latest presidential offering from the Clinton dynasty, are not holding her to that standard. Who has the authority to determine who is black and who is not? Do black Americans have a monopoly on blackness and suffering? Black immigrants and their children are often the targets of some of the most egregious crimes against black people in America. Remember Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo? Some of America’s greatest black leaders had or have immigrant roots; Marcus Garvey, Stokely Carmichael, and Colin Powell to name a few. Many black immigrants are often just as powerless and as excluded from the promise of America as black Americans. We should build bridges to cure these ills, not burn them.

A bevy of black scholars, religious leaders, and critics have dissected Obama’s every move; they wait, it seems, for him to engage in behaviors that are…I suppose…“pseudo black?” Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree and Arizona State University professor Michael Mitchell have come to his defense. They have noted that Obama’s record, particularly as it relates to civil rights, is consistent with the voting patterns of the majority of African Americans.
His record, however, is apparently of marginal consequence to many in the black establishment. Indeed, a politician such as Obama is sometimes kicked out of the club if he demonstrates broad appeal. Then again, if a black candidate does not show broad appeal, there will never be a black president. It might also do us well to remember, therefore, that Obama is running for president of the United States, not African America as it is narrowly defined by those whose notions of blackness lack nuance, strategic intelligience and Pan-Africanist consciousness. Moreover, if black people do not vote for qualified, like-minded black candidates, the likelihood of an African American ascending to the presidency is highly unlikely. I am not suggesting that we all like or vote for Obama, but we should not allow the issue of his authenticity to undermine him or his stated responsibility to black communities.

In the end, the fate of immigrant and American blacks are interconnected. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. recognized the universality of the struggle for freedom, self-esteem and self-determination of black people around the world. As columnist Marjorie Valbrun has argued, “What were our protests against South African apartheid about if not this very principle? If American blacks can view black South Africans thousands of miles away as brothers in need of their support, why are they having such a hard time seeing Obama as one of their own?” In the end, whether Obama deserves our vote based upon his talent, training, promise and experience are all legitimate questions. Whether he is black enough is not.

Arizona Informant Newspaper
Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Dr. Matthew C. Whitaker is Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University in Tempe. He is also an affiliate faculty in African and African American Studies and the School of Justice and Social Inquiry at ASU. He is co-owner and CEO of The Whitaker Group, L.L.C., a consulting firm specializing in diversity and educational curriculum and instruction training.

]]> 2006-12-16T22:14:01-07:00 http://www.drmatthewwhitaker.com/weblog/entry/desegregating-the-valley-of-the-sun-phillips-v-phoenix-union-high-schools/ Scholarly Archives POPULAR opinion has always held that Phoenix, Arizona, has offered newcomers opportunities to enjoy freedom from the racial tensions and antagonisms of more densely populated cities. Celebrated Western poetry, novels, and films bear witness to this fact. Generally, however, Phoenix’s race relations have mirrored those in most American cities: segregated and unequal by custom and by law. Historically, people who migrated to Phoenix, particularly white and black Americans, brought with them cultural attitudes about race that they attempted to adapt and negotiate after establishing themselves in the city. They modified their concepts of race and ethnicity only insofar as these concepts would continue to validate their preconceived notions. Like the majority of whites in American cities, Phoenix’s founders and ruling white elite supported systematic cam-paigns to create a flourishing community “run by Anglos, for Anglos.” Many of the city’s founders, in fact, were white, had Southern roots, and harbored the same anti-black, anti-Indian, anti-Latino, and anti-Jewish attitudes that dominated race relations in the Reconstruction and Jim Crow South. Phoenix was incorporated in 1870. Surrounded by a series of upper Sonoran Desert mountain ranges, such as South Mountain, Camelback Mountain, and the Estella, Supersti- tion, and San Tan Mountains, “The Valley,” as it has come to be called, soon became a Western outpost of white supremacy and racial inequality. The white male founders of Phoenix quickly imported mecha- nisms from states such as Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, which formed the gestalt of a racial caste system, defining race relations and socioeconomic mobility in Phoenix through-out the twentieth century.

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Most celebrations and commemorations of Women’s History Month focus on the aspirations and accomplishmets of distingushed women who have made their mark at the national and internationa levels. Many who celebrate and participate in Women’s History Month activities will surely invoke names such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojouner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty Friedan, Dolores Huerta, Gloria Steinem, Tonita Pena and other well known women. Yet, despite their immeasurable and unmistakable contribution to Arizona, America and the world, Arizona women usually do not receive the recognition they deserve, even in Arizona itself. I believe, therefore, that we must all pause to acknowledge the intellienge, courage, determination, creativity and compassion that Arizona women have demonstrated, often against overwhelming odds, throughout this state’s history.

Inspired by a passion for freedom, self-determination and equality, women in Arizona have helped shaped this state from its infancy. Beginning in 1897, Elizabeth Hudson Smith of Wickenburg emerged as one of the wealthiest (black) entrepreneurs in the southwest. In 1909, Sharlot Hall became the Territorial Historian and the first woman to hold territorial office. Due largely to the grass roots activism of Arizona suffragists, the state was among the first to extend the franchise to women in 1912. Two years later, Francis Willard Munds of Yavapai County became the second woman in America to be elected to a state senate. Arizona women formed model mutual aid and philanthropic societies during the Great Depression and World Wars I and II, to ameliorate the social and financial stresses of economic devastation and war. Of particular note are the women who served as pistons of the region’s Civil Rights Movement: Opal Ellis, Thomasena Grigsby, Fran Waldman, Madge Copland, Ruth Finn, Eleanor Ragsdale and many others. These tenacious women led the way in securing victories for racial justice in Phoenix, sometimes in advance of national milestones in civil rights.

Their activism, the wisdom of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner, the fortitude of Arizona only black legislator, Leah Landrum Taylor, the confidence of our three female governors, Rose Mofford (1987-1991), Jane Dee Hull (1997-2003) and Janet Napolitano (2003-present), the heroism of Army Pfc. Lori Piestewa, the selflessness of nationally know activists, educators and philanthropists such as Betty and Jean Fairfax, and the literary accomplishments of celebrated writers such as Jewell Rhodes and Stella Pope Duarte, have all helped make Arizona one of the most dynamic states in the U.S., and the U.S. one the most promising nations in the world. Their legacy should inspire all of us to do whatever we can to demonstrate our appreciation by bearing the torch of freedom, progress and prosperity that they set ablaze.

Dr. Matthew C. Whitaker, a Phoenician native, is Assistant Professor of History at Arizona State University in Tempe. He is also an affiliate faculty in African and African American Studies and the School of Justice and Social Inquiry at ASU. He is also Co-Owner and CEO of The Whitaker Group, L.L.C., a consulting firm specializing in diversity and educational curriculum and instruction training.

Copyright © The Arizona Republic. All rights reserved.

• Lets_Recognize_Arizonas_Traiblazing_Women.doc

Before the Ragsdales arrived in Phoenix in 1946, white supremacy, racism and racial segregation was already firmly established in the city. Race and racism in Phoenix, as Paul Murray intoned, “was the atmosphere one breathed from day to day, the pervasive irritant, the chronic allergy, the vague apprehension which made one uncomfortable and jumpy.” Indeed, although Phoenix’s racial etiquette was less violent than that of its southern counterparts, white supremacy, segregation, and economic inequality existed in the city from its birth. De jure segregation was implemented in the Arizona Territory in 1864, when an anti-miscegenation law prohibiting marriages between “Whites, Negroes, Mulattos, and Mongolians” was passed. The law was amended in 1877 to include American Indians. Children of such marriages possessed no legal rights of inheritance. John “Jack” Swilling, a former Confederate soldier and deserter, is credited with laying the city’s foundation, and it was former Arizona Governor Benjamin B. Moeur, who spoke for many Arizonan’s when he proclaimed in 1909 that “I for one, won’t send my children to school with the niggers, and I will fight sending them until I die!” That same year the territorial legislature passed a law allowing Arizona schools districts to segregate students of African descent from pupils of European ancestry.

Reflecting local bigotry, Ku Klux Klan chapters were organized around the valley in 1917 to intimidate and terrorize “uppity” black people, Jews, and other “un-American agitators”. Furthermore, by 1926 the meticulously constructed Phoenix residential PalmCroft District, and its Euro-American homeowners, created and maintained restrictive covenants limiting the sale of PalmCroft real estate to whites only. People of color were relegated to the area of the city south of Van Buren Street, and black Phoenicians and other people of color were segregated from whites in parks, swimming pools, theatres, grocery stores, restaurants, hotels and cemeteries. The resulting economic, social, and political isolation people of color experienced amplified not only the malignant socio-economic effects of institutional racism, but the negative effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s, and demobilization after World War II in the 1940s. Being the last to be hired and the first to be fired affected black Phoenicians in many of the same ways in which it affected American Americans at large. The majority of black Phoenicians attended separate and unequal schools; worked in low-wage, non-managerial, labor-intensive occupations; lived in geographically segregated, substandard housing, often amidst deprivation and squalor; and suffered physically as a result of there being few health care providers who administered to the black community. Longtime resident John Barber believed that Phoenix “wasn’t much different than in the South. The difference here was that they didn’t lynch you.” Phoenix, in fact, was referred to by many blacks as “the Mississippi of the West”.

Lincoln Ragsdale recalled that when he and Eleanor arrived, racism and racial segregation was so insidious that “the only bathrooms [blacks] could use downtown were [in] Phoenix City Hall, the bus station, the train station and the County Building”. Legendary Arizona politician and publisher, Cloves Campbell, Sr., who worked with Ragsdale as a young man, remembered that African Americans were frequently greeted by signs in local eateries proclaiming the “right to refuse anybody service.” “Well, you know what that meant,” Campbell exclaimed: “Nigga don’t come in here.” Blacks were not the only targets for racist policies and practices. African Americans and Mexican Americans who attempted to do nothing more than purchase a soda or an ice cream cone from local drug stores, were often turned away by signs that read “no Negroes, Mexicans or dogs allowed.” Jewish attorney Herbert Finn, and his family, became targets of anti-Semitic attacks, racist remarks, and terrorist activity when he spoke out against white supremacy and racial segregation. His daughter, Judge Elizabeth Finn, recalls her family receiving bomb threats, and on one occasion a letter addressed to her father denouncing him in the foulest terms as Jew sympathizing with Blacks.

The Ragsdales, and other black western activists, though isolated from the Civil Rights Movement in the American South, were not strangers to these kinds of attitudes or the requisite activism required to fight them. They were roused by years of racial discrimination, World War II, and America’s promise of democracy. They were buoyed by the burgeoning postwar broad-mindedness of local white leaders and Jewish activists such as Finn, attorney William P. Mahoney, and activist Fran Waldman, and sustained by the camaraderie of Mexican American leaders such as community activist Grace Gill-Olivarez and businessman Manuel Pena. Armed with their experiences, hope, and passion, and aided by an interracial group of sympathetic leaders, the Ragsdales often led the way in securing victories for racial and economic justice in Phoenix.

For example, in 1953 restrictive covenants and racial segregation in the “Valley of the Sun” found a cunning adversary in Eleanor Ragsdale. She used her knowledge of the real estate market, and exploited the retrograde color consciousness of many whites. As a real estate broker, she found a home on West Thomas Road, far from the African American enclaves in South Phoenix, that she wanted to purchase. When she was not permitted to purchase the home because she was black, she and Lincoln circumvented the restrictive covenant which barred them. Eleanor had a white friend purchase the home, and when the contract was still in escrow the friend transferred the title to the Ragsdales. When they arrived to move into their new home, Lincoln Ragsdale remembered, the realtors “wouldn’t let me in.” “Within a month of their move,” Lincoln Ragsdale recalled, three members of a neighborhood “improvement” committee told him that his family would not “be happy here.” The committee offered to buy the Ragsdale home if the family would move. The Ragsdales refused to sell. On another occasion, the family awoke to find the word “nigger” spray-painted on their white block home in “two-foot-high black letters.” Lincoln refused to remove the racial epitaph from his wall because he “wanted to make sure that the white folks knew where the Nigga lived.” By demonstrating their determination and courage, the Ragsdales transformed the humiliation of white despotism into a declaration of dignity. In the process, they alerted their neighbors of their distinction and self-respect.

Also in 1953, the Ragsdales helped black attorney and legislator, Hayzel B. Daniels, along with Herbert Finn and William Mahoney, desegregate Phoenix high schools one year before the landmark Brown v. Topeka Board of Education decision of 1954. Lincoln Ragsdale, along with black activist, Reverend George B. Brooks, led the way in desegregating many of Phoenix’s most influential corporations, including Valley National Bank (now Chase/Back One), Motorola, Sperry Rank, and General Electric, as early as 1962. In 1963, Lincoln Ragsdale positioned himself as one of the cornerstones of the political Citizens Action Committee (ACT) campaign that wrested Phoenix city government out of the hands of an elite group of white male leaders. The Ragsdale’s were clever and potent, and their history illuminates the omnipresence of racial inequality in Phoenix during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Their story also demonstrates that no lacuna in effective African American leadership existed in the city.

Despite the advances that activist such as the Ragsdales helped engender, as late as 1960 de facto segregation continued to be one of the primary obstacles to black progress in the wake of Brown. The Phoenix Urban League reported that at least 95 percent of black Phoenicians continued to live South of Van Buren Street in the “worst housing areas in the city.” The Ragsdale’s were among a handful of wealthy black families who managed to secure housing north of McDowell Street. In 1960, a Phoenician resident noted that in South Phoenix “in almost every instance in education, employment, and housing, the minority-group members are suffering some degree of deprivation; less schooling, less employment, and more crowded housing.” Despite the passage of a public accommodations bill in Arizona in 1964 (and the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act at the national level), and the success of black families such as the Ragsdales, the effects of racial prejudice, substandard schooling, unskilled low-paying jobs, and discriminatory real estate patterns, led to persistent black isolation, concentrated poverty, militancy, and rioting in the streets of Phoenix by 1967.

Although these constituted major setbacks, the Ragsdales and their fellow activists continued fight and win victories for racialized justice and socio-economic progress into the 1990s, and in doing so they helped destroy generations of barriers to equal opportunity and racial equality. They helped transform the city and, arguably, the nation through their trailblazing and torch bearing leadership. Race Work tells the story of this remarkable pair, two of the most influential black activists of the post–World War II American West, and through their story, supplies a missing chapter in the history of the U.S., the Civil Rights Movement, race relations, African Americans, and the American West. I explore the Ragsdales’ family history and how their familial traditions of entrepreneurship, professionalism, activism, and “race work” helped form their identities and place them in a position to help desegregate Phoenix. Race Work, the first sustained account of white supremacy and black resistance in Phoenix, also uses the lives of the Ragsdales to examine themes of domination, resistance, interracial coalition building, gender, and place against the backdrop of the civil rights and post–civil rights eras.

More importantly, Race Work illuminates the hope that is imbedded in our ability to address the exigencies of class and race effectively when we choose to. As affluent leaders, it would have been easy for the Ragsdales to turn their backs on the poor, and as “successful” black people, it would have been convenient and perhaps profitable for them to adopt the prevailing “color-blind” ethos of most of their white counterparts. They did not. They repudiated racial and economic subjugation, and helped point the moral compass of the Phoenician community in the direction of equality, peace and prosperity. Whenever they witnessed de jure and de facto segregation, and racial and economic inequality, they lent their name, resources, and political influence to activists and organizations that worked to eliminate it. Many problems remain to be sure, and the Ragsdales were not without faults, but they rose to the occasion, and because of their efforts, and the work of their class and race conscious comrades, the Valley of the Sun became a much brighter place.

Dr. Matthew C. Whitaker, a Phoenician native, is Assistant Professor of History at Arizona State University in Tempe. He is also an affiliate faculty in African and African American Studies and the School of Justice and Social Inquiry at ASU. He is also Co-Owner and CEO of The Whitaker Group, L.L.C., a consulting firm specializing in diversity and educational curriculum and instruction training.

Professor Whitaker will read excerpts from, and sign copies of, Race Work: The Rise of Civil Rights in the Urban West, at the Phoenix Public Library-Burton Barr Central Affiliate at 1221 N. Central Avenue in Phoenix, on Tuesday, October 25 at 7:00pm, and Changing Hands Bookstore at 6428 S. McClintock Drive, on Tuesday, November 8 at 7:00pm.

Copyright © The Arizona Republic. All rights reserved.

• Arizonas_Reckoning_with_Race.doc

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This episode not only reminds us that stereotypes and “good-old-boyism” have long histories in America, it demonstrates that the deliberate use of “racially coded” tactics is sewn into our political fabric. Every president has embraced the Southern strategy. Some, such as Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson, despite personal prejudices, rose above the rest and acted their conscience on matters of race. Most have not. When Ronald Reagan began his first campaign in Philadelphia, Miss., at a fairground used by the Ku Klux Klan, he said nothing of the murder of civil rights martyrs Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney nearby in 1964, but he proclaimed his support of “states’ rights.” Reagan never used blatant racist language. He didn’t have to. His conjuring of “states’ rights” was a subtle and effective affirmation of White privilege.

Presidential discourses on race, particularly on the right, have been characterized by unpermissive “color-blindness,” resistance to racial redress policies, and subtle manipulation of White racial fears. As November approaches, Americans must be mindful of the past and the extent to which our candidates employ or repudiate the Southern Strategy. With the proliferation of global terrorism, we must also be aware of another flourishing strategy that exploits some of our deepest anxieties: the “Fear Factor.” The expanded and real threat to our national security holds the potential to scare us into voting for the candidate who more effectively exploits our fears and desires to be “safe.” Like the Southern Strategy, the Fear Factor promises “security” and “stability” and exploits our dread of losing both. The costs of living in fear? The Southern Strategy perpetuates racial inequality and tensions. The Fear Factor jeopardizes our civil liberties and personal freedom. Politicians benefit from fear, but most of us grow further apart, less safe and less autonomous because of it. While John Kerry and George Bush debate about who can make us safer, we must consider that the “winner” may emerge based upon our fears rather than our confidence. This is scary.

Dr. Matthew C. Whitaker, a Phoenician native, is Assistant Professor of History at Arizona State University in Tempe. He is also an affiliate faculty in African and African American Studies and the School of Justice and Social Inquiry at ASU. He is also Co-Owner and CEO of The Whitaker Group, L.L.C., a consulting firm specializing in diversity and educational curriculum and instruction training.

Copyright© The Arizona Republic. All rights reserved.

• Politicians_Will_Exploit_Bias_Fears.doc

Why then do blacks offer almost unqualified and often uncritical support of the Democratic Party? Is it that most blacks are “closet conservatives,” afraid of being labeled sell-outs, as a dear Republican friend of mine suggested? Is it because the Democratic establishment wields a Voldermort type power over our psyches? No. It is, in part, because most blacks do not subscribe to the dominant white Republican paradigm of conservatism. Black people have a conservative tradition that is independent of white conservatism, and the kind of neo-conservative cronism practiced by a small cadre of black Republican propagandists. Should the Republican Party become more progressive and inclusive, particularly to many conservative African-Americans who are more sympathetic, given our history and life, to civil liberties, universal health care, all-day kindergarten, public education, after school learning and service programs, affirmative action, and hate crime legislation, many blacks would be more inclined to join their ranks.

Many of my conservative white counterparts, however, practically refuse to acknowledge that race matters at all, and that economic inequality must be attacked, or that we must implement and maintain mechanisms and institutions that curb the kind of greed, avarice and bigotry that has exploited people at the margins for generations. Too often white Republicans insist upon framing “conservative” issues, and if we don’t go along, we’re out (can you say Colin Powell?). If we won’t be J.C. Watts, Armstrong Williams, or Alan Keys (does anyone take Keys any more seriously than they do Al Sharpton?), we are marked with a Scarlet Letter “L” for “Liberal.” As if being “Liberal” is somehow inherently reprehensible. If we denounce the Confederate Flag as a symbol of white supremacy, we are called divisive. If we speak out about racial and economic inequality, we are called confrontational “prophets of victimization” and doom. We’re told repeatedly to simply “get over it,” as if we haven’t tried for hundreds of years. For most black people this kind of attitude is unacceptable and counterproductive.

Until the Republican Party embraces our brand of progressive conservatism, like the Radical Republicans did during Reconstruction, its mantra of “compassionate conservatism” will ring hollow in our ears, and the Democratic Party (which has “tokenized” and insulted us with paternalistic rhetoric and actions too), will again hold a virtual monopoly on our votes in November (if only by default). Until a leader or party emerges that speaks truth to power and privilege along class and race lines, and the need for conservatism marked by moral clarity, conviction, and inclusion, I will continue to challenge both parties to recognize that conservatism and progressivism are not competing values.

Dr. Matthew C. Whitaker, a Phoenician native, is Assistant Professor of History at Arizona State University in Tempe. He is also an affiliate faculty in African and African American Studies and the School of Justice and Social Inquiry at ASU. He is also Co-Owner and CEO of The Whitaker Group, L.L.C., a consulting firm specializing in diversity and educational curriculum and instruction training.

Copyright© The Arizona Republic. All rights reserved.

• To_Reach_Blacks_GOP_Must.doc

America’s capricious policy toward its abandoned child has only intensified Liberia’s growing pains. The United States failed to recognize its offspring until 1862. The majority of European nations did so by 1855. When America finally acknowledged Liberia, it did so out of self-interest. Liberia boasted a fortune of resources and foodstuffs such as coffee, cotton, grains, ivory, palm oil, rice, spices, and sugar, and it served as a hub for discarded Africans who had been rescued by the U.S. Navy from slave vessels operating illegally off the African coast.

Between 1862 and 1980, America refused to aid the Liberian government in its efforts to suppress massive uprisings from indigenous village-states that deplored the dominion of Black American emigrants and their descendants. In 1980, however, it was America that endorsed Samuel K. Doe, one of Liberia’s most brutal leaders, believing incorrectly that he epitomized “new indigenous leadership in the face of 100 years of Americo-Liberian hegemony.” The Doe regime collapsed in 1990, and again, America refused to send in peacekeepers, even after a quarter-million Liberians had perished. Initially, the United States also refused to back the Nigerian-led Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) peacekeeping mission in the country. Since then, Levitt argues, the United States “has further bastardized Liberia by adopting a policy of relative disengagement.” Bill Clinton was the first U.S. president to visit Africa, but his administration did almost nothing to help end Liberia’s bloody civil war or aid in the nation’s rebuilding.

It is time for the United States to end its enduring policy of indecision and neglect toward Liberia. Given the history between the United States and Liberia, and the urgency of the moment, the Bush administration should lead a U.N.- and African Union-approved peacekeeping force in Liberia, composed of detachments from the United States and the Economic Community of West African States.

The ferocious conflict in Liberia must end, and the United States must aid in this effort. President Bush’s appeal to Liberian President Charles Taylor to resign immediately was commendable, but it must be followed by a real commitment to enforce and maintain the peace. If the United States fails to act, the enduring plight in Liberia and its surrounding states may become more unstable and uncontrollable. Liberia, through Taylor, has been linked to Libya and networks such as al-Qaida. We can ill afford to aid in the creation of more collapsed African states such as Somalia and Sudan. Our benign neglect will only make other African nations prime targets for training grounds and laundering havens for terrorist networks.

There is no easy answer or quick fix when it comes to Liberian intervention. The United States will have to commit substantial resources to this effort. It has, however, a moral duty to act, based upon, among other things, its historical delinquency in supporting its forsaken progeny.

Dr. Matthew C. Whitaker, a Phoenician native, is Assistant Professor of History at Arizona State University in Tempe. He is also an affiliate faculty in African and African American Studies and the School of Justice and Social Inquiry at ASU. He is also Co-Owner and CEO of The Whitaker Group, L.L.C., a consulting firm specializing in diversity and educational curriculum and instruction training.

Copyright© The Arizona Republic. All rights reserved.

• Liberia_is_Americas_Creation.doc

“Conflicto Creativo” examina las vidas de Lincoln y Eleanor Ragsdale y sus esfuerzos de liderazgo duranteel punto mas alto del movimento derechos civiles en Phoenix, Arizona. Entre 1953 y 1965, a través de su liderazgo y su trabajo de colaboración entre las razas, ellos ayurdaron a atacar la discrminación de raza destruir la segregación “de jure” en Phoenix.

Race was the atmosphere one breathed from day to day, the pervasive irritant, the chronic allergy, the vague apprehension which made one uncomfortable
and jumpy. We knew the race problem was like a deadly snake coiled and ready to strike, and that one avoided its dangers only by never-ending watchfulness.

BETWEEN 1953 AND 1965, fired with a passion for racial equality, Lincoln and Eleanor Ragsdale drew upon an arsenal of social-justice weapons in the battle for civil rights in Phoenix, Arizona. They helped dismantle an apartheid-like system in what is presently the sixth largest city in the U. S. The Ragsdales
and other western activists, though geographically isolated from the Civil Rights movement in the American South, were not strangers to white supremacy and black resistance. They were roused by years of racial discrimination, World War II, and America’s promise of democracy, and sustained by a swelling
African American population. They were also buoyed by the burgeoning postwar liberalism of a number of white western leaders. Armed with their experiences, hope, and passion, and aided by sympathetic white Phoenicians, the Ragsdales led the way in securing victories for racial justice in Phoenix.

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Local African American leaders such as Opal Ellis, Hazel B. Daniels, Lincoln and Eleanor Ragsdale, George Brooks and Clovis Campbell Sr., played tremendous roles in Phoenix by promoting racial healing and a multiracial American democracy through non-violent social change. These activists were armed with hope and a passion justice, and they were aided by sympathetic white Phoenicians such as Herbert L. Ely, William P. Mahoney, Fran Waldman and other people of color, such as Manuel Pena.

The Ragsdales, through their work in the Greater Phoenix Council for Civil Unity (GPCCU), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and through intense networking, dialogue and non-violent protest, played a critical role in calling upon Phoenix’s public and private sector to abandon their discriminatory practices. The leadership of Hazel B. Daniels helped desegregate Phoenician schools in 1953, one year before the landmark 1954 Brown v. Topeka Board of Education school desegregation ruling.

Lincoln Ragsdale’s bold and confrontational leadership exploited the uniquely fluid racial relations in the West, to fashion a career that was both unabashed and creative, when many of his Southern contemporaries were under constant threat of terrorism and a more violent version of massive white resistance.

Between 1954 and 1970, America’s civil rights movement peaked. Through an aggressive coalition of organizations and agencies, such as Phoenix’s Human Relations Commission, activists fought de jure and de facto racial segregation. They continued to attack segregation in the courts, and through “direct
action protests” such as “sit-ins,” boycotts and other forms of civil disobedience.

In the face of this onslaught and despite persistent white resistance, legal segregation and disfranchisement collapsed. Although racism remained and African Americans and other people of colored lagged behind their white counterparts economically and politically, these groups experienced
unprecedented improvements in their socio-economic mobility.

The activism that defined the black freedom struggle also inspired white women and various people of color and other marginalized groups, to adopt many of the same strategies to combat discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability and others.

In Arizona, Chicanos such as Alfredo Gutierrez in Phoenix, promoted curriculums in colleges and universities, including Arizona State University, that addressed their heritage. Mexican American leaders such as Cesar Chavez, who was born in Yuma, Ariz., worked for the economic advancement of Mexican
American migrant workers through the United Farm Workers.

American Indians also emerged as a powerful political force during the late 1960s. They organized to address problems such as high unemployment, low life expectancy, high suicide rates, and economic and political marginalization.

The determination and the spirit of black civil rights leaders, the strength of their organizations, the trust of their constituents, the dedication of their partners and those who adopted their strategies, pressured private institutions and governmental leaders, agencies and courts, to render decisions that systematically undermined generations of inequality.

These changes provided for the advancement and diversification of educational institutions, electoral politics, the arts and the nation’s social consciousness. Many challenges still lay before us, but as our history has shown, much can be accomplished at the federal, state and local level through hard work and coalition building in the pursuit of true social, economic and political equality.