Originally published in People’s Tribune, Vol.24 no.5, May 1997

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Part of the RBG Troy Anthony Davis End the Racist-Classist Death Penalty Studies Collection
Anti-Black violence:
How it’s used to control America
People’s Tribune, Vol.24 no.5, May 1997
The history of violence against African Americans in this country is so horrific as to be almost
beyond belief. But it happened, and it’s still happening. The recent attack in Chicago on Lenard
Clark, a 13-year-old black youth who was beaten into a coma by three white youths for straying
into their neighborhood, is a case in point.
And of course, even more barbaric acts have been committed. Since 1859, over 5,000 African
Americans have been lynched in this country. Blacks have also been tortured to death with
blowtorches, dragged to death behind cars, and doused with gasoline and set afire in public
spectacles. The case of Emmett Till comes to mind; in 1955, the 14-year-old Till was abducted,
brutally beaten, shot in the head and dumped in the Tallahatchie River near Greenwood,
Mississippi, for allegedly whistling at a white woman.
And the lynchings continue, in one form or another, to this day. In perhaps no other country on
earth do skin color and nationality constitute such explosive material.
Anti-Black violence:
How it’s used to control America People’s Tribune, Vol.24 no.5, May 1997

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While African Americans have suffered more or less continually from an ongoing nightmare of
segregation, discrimination and violence, there have been periods when things seemed to
improve somewhat—as a result, for example, of the modern civil rights movement—and periods
when things got worse. For about the past 20 years, it seems, things have been getting steadily
worse. We are now in the midst of a reign of terror against people of color generally, and against
the African American in particular.
There are reasons why this is happening now, and reasons why this violence—or more
specifically, the ideology of white supremacy it represents—has profound implications for the
future of all of us. There is also cause to hope that the day is at hand when we can put white
supremacy and racial violence behind us once and for all. If we don’t, there is little hope for
building a new society free of poverty and repression.
Outside the South, Chicago has been the scene of some of the worst racial episodes in the
country’s history. A lot was symbolized by the recent beating of Lenard Clark in Chicago’s
Bridgeport neighborhood.
The location itself was symbolic. Bridgeport has a long history of anti-black violence. It is
perhaps the most segregated neighborhood in a city that has been described as the most
segregated in America. Bridgeport, where the roots of the politically powerful Daley family are,
is also the historic seat of mayoral power and patronage in Chicago, a city that epitomizes how
this country’s ruling class has used racial politics to divide the people. (It’s said that the late
mayor, Richard J. Daley, had the Stevenson and Dan Ryan expressways built where they are to
act as a barrier between Bridgeport-Canaryville and nearby black neighborhoods. And up until
1982, a locked iron gate at 42nd Street made access to Bridgeport impossible from the black
Fuller Park neighborhood.)
Bridgeport, a once-booming industrial area, also exemplifies what is happening to America’s
industrial working class as aging plants shut down, replaced by modern, automated factories
which are often located in other countries.
That there is a campaign of terror under way against the African American population is
undeniable. There has been a general increase in hate crimes since the 1980s, including an
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How it’s used to control America People’s Tribune, Vol.24 no.5, May 1997

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ongoing assault on the black population, and working-class blacks in particular, by the police.
Consider, too, the suicides of young black men in Southern jails; the black church burnings; and
black police officers being beaten and shot by white officers. Couple this with all the media
propaganda about blacks and crime, blacks and welfare, and blacks and child abuse, which has
helped foment an anti-black hysteria. Add to it the anti-affirmative action proposals that were
considered last year in 35 states, plus the California anti-affirmative action initiative which was
approved by voters last year and thus far has been upheld by the courts.
Throughout this country’s history, the capitalists have used white supremacy to control the white
worker, and thus control the country. This has been especially true since the Civil War
The role that white supremacy plays in the politics of America is bound up with the historical
role of the South. The South became a colony of the North after the Civil War, and the forms of
political control of the South flowed from the historical forms of control of the black slave—
segregation, brutality and terror.
The capitalists used the ideology of white supremacy and the granting of petty privileges to
whites to get the white workers to unite with the ruling elite. The inability of whites to unite with
the black worker kept the working class as a whole powerless. This method of control has been
extended from the South to the whole country.
At the same time, the capitalists use the South as an economic and political reserve against
Northern labor. The control of Congress by right-wing Southern politicians and the lower wages
and living standards of the South make it impossible for Northern workers to realize their
democratic aspirations or win their economic struggles.
In the 1870s, Wall Street consolidated its control of its first colony, the South, and through the
South, the country. This process was marked by a reign of terror against the blacks and the use of
white supremacy to tie the whites to the ruling class. Today, a similar process is under way as a
group of now-global financiers, led by the United States, moves to turn the entire world into one
big investment colony. To do this, they must lower the standard of living of workers in the
industrial countries, including that of most U.S. workers. They must ultimately impose some
Anti-Black violence:
How it’s used to control America People’s Tribune, Vol.24 no.5, May 1997

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kind of worldwide fascism. This is at the root of the resurgence of white supremacy and anti-
black violence that we see today. It’s a divide-and-conquer strategy.
But this is not the 1870s. For one thing, over the last 50 years the black worker has been
economically (if not socially) integrated into the urban working class, and the black capitalist
into the capitalist class. This is a material basis for working- class unity. Even more significant,
today the combination of labor-replacing electronic technology and a global economy mean that
a new class of permanently unemployed, destitute people is being created in our country. They
are of every color and nationality, and they are economically united. With no hope of being able
to buy the things they need to have decent lives, they have no choice but to fight for a new,
cooperative society in which the necessities of life are distributed according to need.
But they must be politically united around a strategy for victory. The role of revolutionaries is to
give them this strategy. If the workers are not united around a program of class unity across the
color line, most of us will suffer grinding poverty under the rule of a police state.
The economic unity of the rising new class of poor eliminates the material basis for the ideology
of white supremacy that has held the U.S. working class back. A number of whites in Bridgeport
have publicly said that Lenard Clark’s attackers do not represent them. Bridgeport’s workers and
the black workers in the surrounding neighborhoods have more in common with one another
than they do with any capitalist, white or black.
Chicago has been the site of profound working class struggles, including the fight for the eight-
hour day, which led to the Haymarket massacre and the birth of May 1 as an international
working class holiday. It will no doubt be the site of history- making struggles again, as the
African Americans are at last liberated in the process of the liberation of the entire working class.
This article originated in the PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE (Online Edition), Vol. 24 No. 5 / May, 1997; P.O.
Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654, pt@noc.org or WWW: http://www.mcs.com/~jdav/league.html For free
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Anti-Black violence:
How it’s used to control America People’s Tribune, Vol.24 no.5, May 1997