African Presence 1492-1992: Schomburg Exhibit

Resistance

For the enslaved African, resistance began at the point of captivity. The very necessity of chains, shackles and whips was an acknowledgment by the slave traders of the fighting spirit of African men and women. Resistance to slavery and racial oppression found various forms of expression, but the central theme throughout the 500-year history of Africans in this hemisphere has been the struggle for freedom, identity and dignity.

In addition to individual acts of resistance, Africans and their descendants organized slave ship rebellions and established independent maroon communities such as Surinam's "Bush Negroes," Jamaica's Blue Mountain Maroons, St. Vincent's Bank Caribs, and the independent African state of Palmares in Brazil. Equally important in the history of slave resistance is the Underground Railroad in the United States. Revolution led to the establishment of Haiti, the first black republic in this hemisphere.

Just as Africans resisted enslavement, they continued to struggle for human and civil rights after slavery. Civil Rights and Black Power movements called international attention to Jim Crow, lynchings, colonialism and neocolonialism, racism and class oppression.

Historically, throughout the hemisphere, the involvement of blacks in military activity has been prompted not only by patriotism but also by the implicit or explicit promise of freedom and opportunity once the conflict was won. More frequently than not these promise were not met. Blacks in South America assumed an extremely active role in the 19-century wars of independence - so active a role that in the case of the Paraguayan war, the black population was virtually eliminated. In the United States, African-American servicemen waged "double victory" campaigns during every war from the War of Independence to the Vietnam War and the War in the Persian Gulf. While pursuing national war goals, they have had to simultaneously fight for freedom at home.

Throughout the hemisphere, consumer prices are rising, (real) wages are being driven downward, unemployment is escalating, working conditions are deteriorating, and trade unions and grassroots organizations are being subjected to heightened repression. Meanwhile, crime and violence are increasing, while social services and benefits are being drastically reduced. National economies struggle to pay off unpayable debts, while austerity measures impose the greatest hardship on the poor. Possessing few material resources and relying heavily on the family, community and social organizations as resources, African Americans continue to survive, persevere, and carry on the struggle for freedom and justice for all.