History
We start by tracing the early experience of African Americans in 1619 and overview how racial views from Europe influenced the early structures of governance from the colonies through the founding of the United States to the end of the nineteenth century.
We begin with the arrival of the first African slaves on the North American shores in 1619 and continue through the resurgence of white supremacy in the early twenty-first century. While the history section is, for now, complete, we will continuously update the website.
We hope this historical overview is a first step toward creating a more just and democratic society. As communities organize to advocate for more economic opportunity, community-based policing, and fair access to health care and education, we all benefit from understanding the systems that contributed to the inequalities and biases experienced today.
1980: Criminal Justice Inequity
Until the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act, the sentencing disparity between crack (a concentrated form of cocaine used more by black urban populations) and powdered cocaine (used more by suburban white populations) was 100:1. That is, defendants convicted of possessing five grams of crack might receive a minimum five-year mandatory sentence while defendants convicted of possessing five hundred grams of powdered cocaine might face the same sentence.
1986: Education’s Re-Segregation
While Brown vs. Board of Education had ostensibly desegregated schools, the segregation existing in residential neighborhoods meant that educational institutions would, on the whole, remain disproportionately black or white. As reported by Bonilla-Silva (2018), researchers noted “a trend beginning in 1986 toward a resegregation of U.S. schools. As a consequence of resegregation during the decade of the 1990s, U.S. schools were more segregated in the 2000-2001 school year than in 1970.”