This article was originally published on Fair Observer.
Anti-black racism in the United States continues to be a problem over half a century since the abolition of Jim Crow laws. These laws enforced segregation between black and white Americans in public places.
Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination in employment and banned race-based segregation, as well as sporadic efforts by successive US governments to tackle racial inequalities, racism still looms large in 21st-century America.
Even if it is not a national trend, minorities in the US continue to receive discriminatory treatment from law enforcement officials and face major obstacles in securing housing, health care and quality education, as well as experiencing irregularities in the justice system. To make matters worse, things have escalated under President Donald Trump.
Some scholars talk about the existence of structural racism in the US, and there are statistics that corroborate this. In 2018, a poll by NBC News/SurveyMonkey found that a majority of Americans believe racism is a major issue in the United States. According to the poll, 64% said “racism remains a major problem” in society. This is while 45% of Americans believe race relations are getting worse.
In 2017, a poll by Quinnipiac University scholars found that more than six in 10 Americans say the “level of hatred and prejudice in the United States has increased since Trump was elected president.”
In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to Akil Houston, a filmmaker, social critic and an associate professor of cultural and media studies at Ohio University, about racial inequality, the politics of race and the portrayal of African-Americans in the media.
The transcript has been edited for clarity.
Kourosh Ziabari: The election of Barack Obama as the president of the United States in November 2008 was a turning point for the nation and for African-Americans. How do you evaluate his performance in terms of challenging and bridging the divide between black Americans and the rest of society?
Akil Houston: I don’t wholeheartedly agree with the premise of this question. Symbolically, sure. The election of Barack Obama did not change the material conditions for black America. Yes, his election was inspirational, for US citizens who longed for evidence to support their belief in meritocracy or for those who misguidedly felt his win signaled the dawning of a post-racial country.
The Obama presidency was not remarkably different than any other concerning key issues impacting African Americans. I would argue — as others have — it would be, and was in some instances, more damaging to have a black man speaking from the platform of the presidency reinforcing the myth that racial inequality in the United States is the burden of black America — the question also gestures toward this.
In a 2016 interview with The Atlantic, Barack Obama highlighted what would be a common theme in his approach to race when he said:
“[A]s a general matter, my view would be that if you want to get at African American poverty, the income gap, wealth gap, achievement gap, that the most important thing is to make sure that the society as a whole does right by people who are poor, are working class, are aspiring to a better life for their kids. Higher minimum wages, full-employment programs, early-childhood education: Those kinds of programs are, by design, universal, but by definition, because they are helping folks who are in the worst economic situations, are most likely to disproportionately impact and benefit African Americans.”
This perspective does not focus on racism as the key factor in the divide, nor does it offer any specific remedies for black America. In fact, as many historians, journalists and those from the “alternative” or “radical left” and progressive camps argued, conditions worsened during his presidency. While the obstructionist role Republicans took during his tenure cannot be undervalued, the administration took a position of non-position on racial matters.
Ziabari: President Donald Trump is openly called a racist by many of his detractors, including journalists and academics. His views on minorities and immigrants are well known to those who follow US politics. Has life become particularly difficult for African-Americans under President Trump in terms of opportunities and civil liberties?
Houston: While the current administration’s use of dog-whistle tactics may create the impression that these are recent trends, anti-black resentment has been rising since the Obama White House years. Acts of terror, from church shootings, instances of police brutality and the deaths of people like Tamir Rice, Tanisha Anderson, Sandra Bland and far too many more, demonstrate that living while black continues to be challenging regardless of who sits in the White House.
Long before this administration, there has been a historical pattern of intense resistance to African-American enfranchisement. This racial resentment typically peaks after periods of significant inclusion efforts, for instance, in response to reconstruction in the 1860s, the human rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s and most recently as a response to the presidency of Barack Obama in 2009. This political moment is consistent with this historical pattern.
Ziabari: One of the major grievances of black Americans about how they are treated pertains to the law enforcement and the justice system in the United States. It’s said that African-American wrongdoers and felons receive harsher sentences than white Americans when they commit the same crimes. Is this assertion demonstrable by facts and figures?
Houston: Yes. The book Slavery By Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and perhaps more reader-friendly for a lay audience is the book Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. These books are a small sampling of the many books, peer-review scholarship that provides history, context and empirical data regarding incarceration, sentencing and the historic disparity within the US justice system.
Ziabari: How are black Americans depicted in mainstream media in the United States? Is the portrayal realistic, fair and objective?
Houston: This is a broad question and there are a number of variables to consider. For instance, things like overall representation, context of representation and in what forms, must be taken into account. While there are more images of African-Americans than in previous eras, African-Americans continue to be underrepresented as subject area experts — outside of sports and race — in broadcast news content and overrepresented in comedies, sports and reality-TV programming.
Ziabari: Some scholars argue that the decline in incomes and socioeconomic inequality that black and brown Americans experience today mean nothing has changed and improved significantly for African-Americans five decades after the abolition of Jim Crow laws. Do you agree?
Houston: Empirical data supports this statement. While I wouldn’t paint the African-American experience with a broad generalized brush, or state nothing has changed at all, there are still significant gaps between various groups based on race and gender. The National Urban League’s State of Black America annual report noted in 2017 that fewer black Americans are dropping out of high school and more are earning associate’s degrees. However, racial disparities still plague other areas of life.
Ziabari: An article in the American Journal of Public Health in 2004 noted that over 886,000 lives could have been saved if black Americans received the same care as whites. This is in reference to the number of African-Americans who died between 1991 to 2000 due to the lack of medical insurance, inadequate insurance, poor service and other factors. Is discrimination against African-Americans in the health sector so serious today?
Houston: I would preface my response by first saying: It is essential to be mindful that anti-discrimination laws do not operate exclusively on behalf of black people. While the adage that if white America has a cough, black America has the flu rings true, these disparities in health care impact the entire nation. Health care is as much a class issue as it is a race issue. The continuing debate on affordable health care and how the government will address treatment for pre-existing conditions and infant mortality rates in the African-American and Latino communities, coupled with the fact that people of color often complain that their physicians do not listen or misdiagnose them, provide ample evidence that these factors are present today.
Ziabari: How are African-American artists using arts and culture to reflect on the discrimination and inequalities they face today?
Houston: When I see this question, I wonder why it is posed as if it is the sole province of marginalized groups like African-Americans. Most often these same questions are not raised with white artists and their work and how it reflects on the discrimination and inequalities of society.
As the scholar bell hooks once pointed out, ironically, more than any other group, white artists are able to produce cultural products like film and music without being subjected to a constant demand that their work engage or challenge systems of domination based on race, class and gender. As a result, it is often these works that are the most problematic. Yes, there are some artists who engage these issues as there have always been. Artists continue to engage the complexities of life. Regardless if it is the work of playwright Suzan Lori Parks, conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas, or singer and actress Janelle Monae, artists continue to push the boundaries of creativity by exploring these issues of the day.
Ziabari: How do you think African-Americans can debunk the myths about their community and enjoy greater social, economic and educational opportunities? Is it through political activism that they should overcome discrimination and difficulties?
Houston: This question assumes that some act or role by African-Americans is the salve to the nation’s centuries-old racial quagmire and doesn’t address the centrality of American racism in explaining sustained black-white disparity. Throughout US history, African-Americans have attempted all matters of redress, from enlisting in the armed services, the ballot, respectability politics, civil disobedience and other forms of dissent. From the nadir of the Civil War to the present, this has been consistent for African-American activists and their allies.
In 1968, the late writer James Baldwin was asked a similar question by Esquire magazine. His response was that, if “the American black man [and women too] is going to become a free person in this country, the people of this country have to give up something. If they don’t give it up, it will be taken from them.” I would argue that the “give up” portion has to do with the assumption that the promise of a just and truly democratic society is the responsibility of the marginalized. As Baldwin cautioned then, and I would echo now the responsibility is in large measure on white citizens who can influence the national conversation and the behavior of their families and friends in ways that marginalized groups cannot.
Ziabari: As a university professor, do you think black students feel unrestricted and also enthusiastic about engaging and interacting with students of other races, especially white students, or do racial gaps keep them apart and make their collaboration challenging?
Houston: Given the racial climate in the United States, one would be hard-pressed to find black students who didn’t feel some level of anxiety about interacting with other student populations. However, black students like other student populations are generally open to collaboration if the university is sincere in its commitment to foster an inclusive, welcoming learning environment.
Also, it is important, again, to note that black students are a diverse group. If there is a real interest in solutions, the first step is to stop thinking of black students as a monolith. These students have different worldviews, politics, goals and various identities that distinguish them from other generations of black students and each other. I would argue some faculty have these challenges around collaboration. The university campus is in many ways a microcosm of the larger US. Rather than expecting marginalized students to be the ones to shift, more progressive schools have found ways to institutionalize diversity efforts and change the way they engage these student populations.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
The soundtrack of the 1970s still speaks to us. Life, as many had known it, was rapidly changing back then. A generation had found its revolutionary voice and was confronting oppression domestically and abroad. Disenchantment with status quo Americanism had sparked the nation’s social consciousness. And from the center of this whirlwind emerged a cry for deep justice.
A singer captured the ethos of the age: “What’s going on?” he asked.
War, social decay, and racial unrest conspired against a generation. Too many mothers were crying, too many brothers dying. “We don’t need to escalate,” he urged. Please stop judging and punishing picket signs with brutality. “We’ve got to find a way to bring some lovin’ here today.”
Fast-forward almost 40 years and Marvin Gaye’s music feels as timely as ever.
Where’s the “Lovin’ Here Today”?
At its core, the Gospel is a story about a loving God who reconciles humanity into loving relationships with Himself, themselves, and each other. Justice fits into the story as Christ rights the wrongs that prevent those relationships. Worship as both music and lifestyle should reflect this. But does it?
In a world marked by wars, genocide, street gangs and terror thugs, ethnocentrism, generational poverty, famine, AIDS, substandard housing and education, rampant materialism, religious hatred, and environmental degradation, where’s the lovin’ in our church music? The kind of lovin’ that rights wrongs and reconciles relationships?
The songs that typically rank as the “most popular” in mainstream evangelical churches today are filled with beautiful expressions of God’s holiness and love. But they seem to lack a consistent emphasis on worship that moves beyond a personal experience to include a clear declaration of the social-justice dimension of God’s activity in the world.
Sadly, too often our church music is directed inward as a distorted, selfish facsimile of worship. We long for God to meet personal needs and mediate justice on our own behalf, radically reducing our songs to individualized laundry lists of wants. Consider these popular contemporary worship song lyrics:
• “Every time I turn around there will be blessings on blessings, blessings on blessings / The favor of the Lord rests upon me, in my hands I have more than enough” (from Blessings on Blessings from Anthony Brown & group therAPy)
• “I’m gon’ praise Him, praise Him ’til I’m gone / When the praises go up, the blessings come down / It seems like blessings keep falling in my lap” (from “Blessings,” by Chance the Rapper featuring Jamila Woods)
• “I can feel [the ‘presence,’ ‘spirit,’ and ‘power’ of the Lord] / And
I’m gonna get my blessing right now” (from “The Presence of the Lord is Here,” by Byron Cage).
• “I can feel [the ‘presence,’ ‘spirit,’ and ‘power’ of the Lord] / And
I’m gonna get my blessing right now” (from “The Presence of the Lord is Here,” by Byron Cage).
•“In my life I’m soaked in blessing / And in heaven there’s a great
reward / … I’ve got Jesus, Jesus / He calls me for His own / And He lifts me, lifts me / Above the world I know” (from “God Is in the House,” by Hillsong United).
•“(I got the) anointing / (Got God’s) favor / (And we’re still)
standing / I want it all back / Man give me my stuff back / Give me my stuff back / … I want it all / … I want that” (from “I Want it All Back,” by Tye Tribbett).
Contrast those with the three recorded songs that accompanied Jesus’ birth. While the melodies have been lost to time, the lyrics reverberate through history.
The first, a spontaneous soulful utterance by a pregnant virgin, marveled about the Mighty One who miraculously conceived His child within her. “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:52-53). What of the Rolls Royce-driving, private jet-flying, multiple mansion-dwelling, high fashion-wearing preachers and modern Christian subculture profiteers? What about the good life to which their songs and sermons aspire? What fills them?
The second, a choir song performed by heaven’s finest angels for an audience of outcast shepherds, proclaimed: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14). The peace of which they sang is shalom, and favor refers to “the year of the Lord’s favor” embraced within Christ’s mission (Luke 4:18-19, quoting Isaiah 61). More than the absence of strife, shalom is what the Prince of Peace came to reestablish: The interdependency of vibrant communities; the vitality of healthy bodies; the manifold mysteries of parental love; and the majesty of the cosmos. The condition of sin robs shalom, but Jesus’ justice restores it. When the most affluent people in recorded history attempt to co-opt Jesus’ favor as a rationale to get more stuff, we cheapen everything the gospel represents.
The third song, by an old man long past his prime, declared Jesus, “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” He then explained the lyrics to Jesus’ parents: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Luke 2:32, 34-35). Not much touchy feely hoopla here either.
Not one of these songs celebrates the themes that predominate our weekly worship services. No mention of “me,” except in the context of calling and responsibility beyond oneself. No focus on “blessing,” except as it relates to our ability, empowered by God, to bless others. No pursuit of personal comfort; rather, the promise of a sword to pierce one’s soul.
Indeed, the soundtrack that accompanied heaven’s lyric — the Word made flesh and dwelling among us — bears little resemblance to popular songs we sing in our churches. When that timeless Word “moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14, The Message) his manner of doing so invited shame and ridicule, not material bounty. He lived among us as a child of poverty (born in a barn); political refugee (in Egypt); social pariah (survivor of unmarried pregnancy, a capital crime); ghetto immigrant (“What good comes from Nazareth?”); and blue-collar subject (carpenter) of an imperialistic colonizer (Rome). He was a friend of prostitutes (such as the woman who anointed his feet with perfume), crooked bureaucrats (tax collectors like Matthew and Zacchaeus), and terrorists (including his disciple Simon, the Zealot, a card-carrying member of a first-century Palestinian terror organization).
If He actually showed up to one of our stylized worship experiences, He may well sing a different tune, one that sounds more like the warning He gave through the Old Testament prophet Amos:
“I can’t stand your religious meetings. I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice — oceans of it. I want fairness — rivers of it. That’s what I want. That’s all I want” (Amos 5:21-24, The Message).
Taking Amos at his word, if all God wants is oceans of justice rather than egocentric noise, then the needs of a broken world must reclaim center stage from personal blessings during corporate worship experiences. Notwithstanding the public repentance for neglecting the poor by high-profile leaders like Bill Hybels and Rick Warren, many churches remain mute on such issues and have abandoned prophetic moments in lieu of religious protocol.
What to Do?
How can worship leaders help navigate oceans of justice within congregational gatherings? First, in the music and expressions of worship we embrace; and second, by facilitating worship as lifestyle, not just musical ritual.
Marvin Gaye’s opus reminds us that music ennobles ideas, emotes passion, and defines eras. Because we feel it, music penetrates hearts and stimulates a response. Combine inspired notes with well-crafted lyrics and the results can be liberating. Or lethal.
In Call and Response, a 2008 documentary about sex trafficking, Dr. Cornel West describes music’s power to accentuate and ultimately eradicate injustice:
“Music is about helping folk … by getting them to dance. Getting them to move. Getting them to think. Getting them to reflect. Getting them to be themselves, to somehow break out of the conventional self that they are.”
As musicians use that power to draw attention to injustices, people cannot help but get involved, West contends, because “justice is what love looks like in public.”
Historically, some denominational traditions have embraced justice-oriented hymns and music (e.g., Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance and “O Healing River“), and Native Peoples have more than most (e.g., “Every Part of this Earth,” words by Chief Seattle). CCM pioneer Keith Green was an anomaly among evangelicals through the ’70s and early ’80s with songs like “Asleep in the Light,” which challenged: “Open up, and give yourself away / You’ve seen the need, you hear the cry, so how can you delay.” But increasingly music ministers across traditions are giving voice to justice within worship services (e.g., Jason Upton’s “Poverty,” Brian McLaren’s “A Revolution of Hope,” and Aaron Niequist‘s “Love Can Change the World”).
Jesus’ mission — Good News for the poor, sight for the blind, and liberty for the oppressed — requires the courage to break free from convention, perceive the new things God is doing in our midst, and zealously pursue them.
How We Get There
1. Refocus. Reductionist Western worship is possible because we have lost a sense of awe and reverence for Who God is, fashioning instead a God in our own image. Mark Labberton in his book, The Dangerous Act of Worship, writes:
The God we seek is the God we want, not the God who is. We fashion a god who blesses without obligation, who lets us feel his presence without living his life, who stands with us and never against us, who gives us what we want, when we want it.
Rather than appealing to God on account of his character — a holy, righteous, just, and mighty God — we have become gods unto ourselves, presupposing long before we encounter His presence what He needs to do on our behalf and prejudging what matters most. Let’s refocus on Who really matters.
2. Repent. The failure to incorporate laments for justice into corporate worship underscores a much deeper problem. Fundamentally we misunderstand what worship really is. Worship is neither the rhythmic pursuit of a euphoric high nor the somber embrace of silent reflection. Such either/or myopia forgets that Jesus describes true worshipers as those who worship “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23).
Paul elaborates that “our spiritual act of worship” requires offering our very selves as “living sacrifices” (Romans 12:1-2). First century Romans familiar with ritual sacrifices understood that phrase to be a contradiction. One did not sacrifice living bulls, for example. The peril of potential impaling demanded that sacrifices be dead first. Yet God invites worshipers to voluntarily self-sacrifice. Paul continues: “Do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world” — white picket fences, trendy fashions, and such — “but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Where our will conforms to the world’s patterns and trumps God’s will, let’s repent for rejecting true worship.
3. Remember. The holy God we revere is also our righteous king who exacts justice on behalf of his people. Moses and Miriam remembered in Exodus 15 when they praised Yahweh for demonstrating justice in his dealings with Pharaoh and liberating his people. Hannah remembered when she thanked God for his justice on her behalf (1 Samuel 2). King David remembered when he declared, “The Lord reigns!” and embraced a heavenly King who ruled above him and all other powers, whose eternal justice and righteousness are irrevocable. Let’s also remember that our “Lord loves justice” (Isaiah 61:8).
4. Reconnect. No longer should worship gatherings embrace the first part of the Great Commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength,” at the expense of the second part, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Let’s reconnect His love in a coherent whole.
5. Realign. Justice and worship at their core both deal with power and the abuses of power. By emphasizing God’s kingship, his rule over all creation, and his impeccable character, we intentionally create space for the Most High to address the fallen powers in our churches, states, nation, and world. Let’s realign our congregations under God’s power as work within us rather than the abusive power structures dominating the world.
6. Rediscover. As we identify and proclaim the laments of the marginalized with a deep understanding that their cries are our cries, we will begin to see our perspectives shift and the power of God move in ways that we never would have imagined.
Let’s rediscover the unleashed, all-powerful God, not our tempered and tame God in a box. Like Aslan of Narnia, He may not be safe, but “He is good.”
A Connecticut teenager who says she was mocked and shamed for not standing up during the Pledge of Allegiance filed a federal lawsuit this week against her teacher and the school board.
The unnamed 14-year-old student said she and other students remained seated as part of a “peaceful and nondisruptive” protest over racial discrimination against black people in her lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court.
The Waterbury Arts Magnet School teacher brought another teacher into the classroom to lecture the students on their “supposed lack of patriotism” while praising others who stood, according to the lawsuit.
The student’s attorney, John Williams, said the teacher “went way overboard,” and his actions violated her First Amendment rights.
“As long as they are not being disruptive, they are entitled to freely express political views,” he said.
Williams told the Republican-American the student’s mother reached out to him after attempts to resolve the issue with school administrators failed.
He said the student has been “frightened and intimidated” as a result of the teacher’s actions.
Williams said they’re seeking an injunction to stop the teacher’s behavior and get undisclosed damages.
A message left at the school district’s superintendent’s office Thursday was not immediately returned.
Now 50 years later, sportswear manufacturer Puma has launched a commemorative line of footwear to celebrate Tommie Smith’s bravery and the impact of his actions.
When African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos famously raised their fists from the medal-winners podium at the Olympic Games in Mexico City, October 1968, many saw this as a “black power” salute. Smith always said it was a “human rights salute,” but regardless, he and Carlos were expelled from Mexico City for failure to represent the Olympic ideal. Smith, who won the gold medal and set a new world record in that race, never competed again.
Now 50 years later, sportswear manufacturer Puma has launched a commemorative line of footwear to celebrate Smith’s bravery and the impact of his actions. The centerpiece of the line is a casual suede shoe virtually identical to the one Smith held in his unraised left hand in 1968, with profits from shoe sales going to charities supporting equality.
Puma’s anniversary campaign comes just over a month after rival footwear company Nike featured NFL player Colin Kaepernick in its own campaign celebrating the 30th anniversary of Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan. Kaepernick spent much of 2017 using his status as a professional football player to raise awareness of human rights issues – specifically, racial injustice and police brutality in the US. While Smith raised a fist during the national anthem, Kaepernick took a knee. Like Smith, Kaepernick’s high-profile protest may have ended his career: he has been unemployed since the end of the 2017 season. Appropriately, Kaepernick’s tagline in the Nike campaign is: “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”
While both Kaepernick and Smith demonstrated that they are willing to sacrifice everything fighting for what they believe, could the same be said of Nike and Puma? Are these companies also willing to put principles ahead of profits and risk everything to take a stand on highly divisive social issues? No, of course they aren’t.
Nike and Puma, and other companies that take a stand on controversial social issues leverage the interest in these social movements to generate profits. Few companies understand how to create customer and brand value better than Nike and Puma. They have gauged their customers’ sentiment and are using this to forge new corporate social opportunities. From entry into new markets, engaging new customers or increasing brand awareness, the business case behind social opportunities increasing profits can be very strong.
What makes campaigns like this controversial is the human element. Nike is taking a stand on racism and social division because the company has decided that’s what its consumers and employees care about. Many may not remember that Nike celebrated the 25th anniversary of its “Just Do It” slogan only five years ago. Under the title “Possibilities”, this anniversary campaign challenged people to set goals and to do things they’d never done before, with a video that featured famous and everyday athletes doing extraordinary things narrated by Bradley Cooper. Racism and social injustice were problems in 2013, too, of course: George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing black teenager Trayvon Martin just a month before Nike’s campaign launched.
While Nike’s 30th anniversary of the campaign includes a similar montage of famous and everyday athletes, the tone is very different. Kaepernick is the narrator, and the theme is that they all “leverage the power of sport to move the world forward”. Times change. Opportunities change.
This doesn’t make these companies evil or hypocritical. It’s about opportunity. Starbucks has benefited from its partnership with Conservation International through which it works with rural farmers in developing countries that grow and sell fair trade coffee. Tesla has become a US$50 billion company thanks to changing consumer sentiment around electric cars and generous government subsidies. Walmart has also benefited from changing sentiment and government subsidies, investing more in on-site solar facilities than any other US company in the past few years. And it’s very clear about why: “At Walmart, renewable energy is about our customers and helping them save money so they can live better.”
Few companies in recent history have been more socially-driven than Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. When Unilever acquired the brand in 2000, questions hung over whether Ben & Jerry’s would become more like Unilever or whether Unilever would become more like Ben & Jerry’s. Today, few large companies are more socially progressive than Unilever: the Unilever behemoth has indeed become more like the tiny company it acquired. It should be noted that in the 18 years since it acquired Ben & Jerry’s, Unilever’s stock price has outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 2.5% per year. Social and environmental principles sell products well.
Why would we negatively judge companies that capitalize from human-centered social issues? Companies survive and thrive by capitalizing on business opportunities. Certainly, there are risks for the companies: they may have misread the business case and these investments may end up hurting in the long-run. All companies occasionally make bad investments. But that’s not their expectation. Nike, Puma, Unilever and others who tie their fortunes, short or long-term, to social movements believe they are acting in the best interests of their stakeholders while seizing an opportunity to make their companies better. If a consequence is that society becomes a better place as a result, then that’s OK too.
From the late-nineteenth century to the present, the most popular stories of Appalachia have been simplistic tales of white mountaineers. Those stories have infused everything from culture to politics and media. Despite importantcounter–examples, these stories continue to be the starting place for most Americans’ understanding of Appalachia — one that erases a complex history of race, racism and Black resistance. Placing Black people in Appalachia’s history is not simply a matter of recognizing diversity. Rather, it forces a different angle, a truer way of seeing the region and its relationship to the South and the United States.
If Black people have been difficult to see in Appalachian history, Black women have been virtually invisible. They can be hard to find in institutional archives that, until the 1970s, did not preserve the history of Black Appalachians with any consistency. And they have been marginalized in a region defined historically by its relationship to whiteness and embodied by white men.
Mary Rice Farris, a Black woman who lived her whole life in Madison County, Kentucky, where the knobby hills meet the bluegrass, worked much of her life to demand that Black Appalachia be seen and heard. Her story, preserved in oral history interviews and other documents at the Berea College Special Collections and Archives, reveals the intersections between African American, Appalachian and women’s history, and how one Black woman from Appalachia fought for Black civil rights and economic justice.
Slavery and Emancipation in Appalachia
In 1914, Mary White, a Black midwife, caught Mary Rice Farris at her birth. Mary White was a former slave who built an illustrious career after Emancipation. Calling her generation the “second after slavery,” Farris narrated her historically Black community’s history through the story of Mary White.
White was born in 1835 to the enslaved couple Metilda Elder and Mitchell Walker. The man who owned the family sold infant Mary White to slave owner Wash Mopkin.
When White was 11 years old, Mopkin sold her for $14 to Durke White, who placed her in a cabin behind his house before “he took her to the big house as his mistress,” according to Farris.
Farris used the coded language of her day — “took her … as his mistress” — that made clear the reality of the stealing Black women’s bodies. This white man bought a girl named Mary and raped her. She bore two children, raised them and kept Durke’s house. Historian Shannon Eaves has called this confluence of reproductive, domestic and emotional labor “sexual servitude.”
Durke died at the hands of “night riders,” the term given to vigilante groups. Farris guessed that they disliked how he carried on with a Black woman. White ended up in another slave cabin on the estate of Robert Cochran. He soon “took her as his mistress” and “after slavery, kept her on as his mistress,” according to Farris.
In 1880, White headed her own household and raised her eight children. At some point in the late nineteenth century, Robert died, leaving his estate to Mary White and her children.
At that point White fashioned a new identity, one staked on freedom. She chose her own profession, adopted a little rat terrier she named Ruth (her “constant companion”), and placed a white picket fence around her house.
White entered a nursing program at Berea College, where in 1855 the abolitionist John G. Fee had organized an interracial community and opened the doors of the college to Black and white students. Carter G. Woodson is among the most celebrated alumnus. “An intellectual pioneer in Appalachian studies,” as Cynthia Greenlee recently argued, Woodson, who hailed from West Virginia, would go on to attend the University of Chicago and Harvard.
White also had an illustrious career. She graduated and became a midwife in the region. According to Farris, “Most all of the Black and many of the white babies in and around southern Madison County and around Berea were delivered by Mary White.”
Embodying a story of resistance and resilience, White delivered babies and cared for families up until the day before her death in 1924, when Farris was ten years old.
The Second Generation Since Slavery
Mary Farris. Photo courtesy of the family.
White’s story was evidence of what Black women could do and achieve despite a state of deprivation, as Farris called slavery. Growing up during the nadir, when white southerners restricted Black civil rights and terrorized Black communities, Farris would face a different kind of deprivation.
As a child Farris grew up near Berea College’s campus and knew that community leaders like Mary White had been educated there. She desired what it had to offer. But in 1904 Governor J. C. W. Beckham had signed the Day Law, “An Act to Prohibit White and Colored Persons from Attending the Same School.” She would attend the Lincoln Institute, an all-Black boarding school created in the aftermath of the Day Law.
Farris remembered, “I walked through (Berea) as a little girl, barefooted and dusty, and sold blackberries and bought me some cheese and crackers and sat on that campus and watched those girls, hopping and skipping, and looked at those buildings and wished and prayed that I might be able to prepare myself for a better life. But I wasn’t able to because I couldn’t go there because of the Day Law.”
Neither could her own children. And her husband, Moss, could not get a job there, even though he was as qualified, often times more, than the poor white people who were hired.
Farris married the farmer Moss G. Farris and had four children with him. She helped her husband in the tobacco fields and, when her family needed more income, worked as a hotel maid, a packager at a munitions factory and as a cosmetics saleswoman.
Farris emerged as a leader in the First Baptist Church of Berea, where she served in a variety of capacities and became a well-known speaker throughout Kentucky and Ohio. She joined and was elected vice president of Church Women United of Madison County, an inclusive Christian women’s movement that worked to improve the lives of women and children.
Understanding the importance of political power in the quest for full civil rights, Farris rose in the ranks of the Republican Party of Madison County and became the area coordinator, running the local polling booth. She became so well known in Madison County that white politicians began courting her for endorsements. Her granddaughter, Ms. Cheryl Farris, recalls watching her grandmother go head-to-head with politicians at her dining room table. “She could talk to anyone,” she said.
By the late 1960s, she sought full-time work that brought together her interests in politics and improving her community.
The Struggle for Civil and Human Rights
“All my life done political and community work,” Farris wrote in a 1967 application for a job in a War on Poverty program. “The people have been deprived of what they should have received, and I would like to see that something is done for them.” Like many middle-aged Black women across the country, she saw federal resources as a right of citizenship, a way to enact freedom.
War on Poverty programs relied on networks that women like Farris had been building for years. Farris used the too-often scant resources to expand programs in her community: cultural and social programs for African American youth, information sessions on welfare for poor people and events for senior citizens. She helped to organize a library of 2500 books for local kids to use. She took one group of youth for a tour at Berea College, where African American students were finally admitted, and she took others to Frankfort, the capital of the state, for protest marches.
In February 1968, Farris took her political skills to a new arena when she went to the heart of Appalachia to confront Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Congressman Carl D. Perkins.
Vortex was the first stop on Kennedy’s eight-stop tour of eastern Kentucky. On the verge of announcing his presidential campaign, Kennedy was there to document the effectiveness of President Johnson’s War on Poverty programs and whether citizens had “enough to eat.”
Farris arrived at a one-room schoolhouse in Vortex. Inside, almost solely white people crowded the building. They were there to testify about their lives, to tell an Appalachian story before powerful white men who seemed to care.
Farris was prepared to tell a story of Appalachia, too. A story of Black Appalachia — and Black America — at an event that recreated the story of Appalachian whiteness, a cornerstone myth of white America.
Congressman Carl D. Perkins, who represented the eastern Kentucky district, joined Kennedy. Both men gushed about how much they loved and admired the people of Appalachia, and when they said “people,” they meant “white.” They are the “best people in the world,” Perkins exclaimed, before identifying himself as one of them. “We love our country.”
Five other people besides Farris testified that day — two white men, three white women, all of them identified by the conveners as Mr. and Mrs. except for Farris, despite her decades-long marriage.
Farris testified last, and her words packed a punch. “I am Mary Rice Farris, representative of a delegation of Madison County,” she began.
Perkins’ embrace of white Appalachia wasn’t simply semantics but had real consequences in policy decisions. The War on Poverty programs in Appalachia flowed mainly to white people in Appalachia, despite the fact that Black people were disproportionately poor and, of the impoverished population, were the poorest. Farris noted this when she pointed out that white communities throughout Appalachia had begun to get food stamps, which allowed people access to a wider range of foods, while Black communities continued to have access only to commodities food programs, in which foodstuff was rotting or full of worms.
Farris then articulated the connection between racism, injustice and poverty:
(Why are we) spending $70 million dollars a day in Vietnam, plus loss of life, when (there) are millions of people in our area hungry, without homes and decent housing, or without clothing. And we would also like to know why the Negro is having to fight for a decent place in society as a rightful citizen? Why we, as American Negroes, are having to fight and speak out for a right to take decent responsibility in this great nation?
Her line of questions raised the hackles of Perkins, who refused to address her by name, instead referring to her as “this lady here.”
Kennedy and Perkins stalled and blurted out hollow statements.
Farris asserted, “I want an answer.” While they could not answer, that wasn’t the point; her statement underscored that the crises of the moment would demand an answer. And by her presence, she insisted on telling a story of Black Appalachia.
With Eyes Open to the Future
Farris continued community work when she returned home. In 1969, she attended the White House Conference on Food and Nutrition, and she supervised the emergency food and medical services of the Kentucky River Foothills Development Council in the late ’60s.
She also joined the board of the prominent reform organization Council of the Southern Mountains. For most of its history, it had ignored the needs of Black Appalachians. Farris was part of a group of leaders who led efforts to make the council more inclusive, including establishing a Black Appalachian Commission that, in the words of one of its members, Jack Guillebeaux, “was the first recognition of the fact that the plight of black people is an integral part of the definition of Appalachia and its problems.”
Farris wrote of the new Council, “It has condemned second-class citizenship and deepened its fellowship with all the people. I have confidence and hope that the Council now has a new opportunity to serve Appalachia in the coming years with eyes open to the future.”
Farris’s reference to the “future” was no coincidence. The common perception of Appalachia as a white enclave and a place of nostalgia had erased the complex histories of Black men and women and had led to a false history of Appalachia. She understood how incomplete histories cut off paths to the future. Lacking a true history, policymakers and activists would continue to ignore the experiences of Black Appalachians. The council’s transformation signaled the possibility for new understandings of the region and a new frontier in the struggle for democracy.
We remain far from Mary Farris’s future. Stories like hers continue to be erased every time Appalachia is cast as a region of poor whites. Bringing her story to light, and others like it, is necessary in order to fully reckon with our history and to imagine paths toward a more just future in Appalachia
In 2016 the Richmond-Madison County branch of the NAACP recognized Mary Rice Farris for her commitment to civil rights, nearly forty years after her death. Her legacy continues, and her words — spoken in 1973 as the backlash to the Civil Rights Movement gathered steam — still carry power today: “Because we still have people … who would like very much to put us back. Of course, that will never happen. We’ll never stand for that.”
Jessica Wilkerson is an assistant professor of history and Southern studies at the University of Mississippi. She is currently completing her first book, To Live Here, You Have to Fight: How Women Led Appalachian Movements for Social Justice (forthcoming, University of Illinois Press).
