Black Americans and the Worldwide Principles of Democracy
Anti-democratic authoritarianism is on the rise–both around the world and here at home. Sometimes it is easier to recognize overseas. That’s especially true at moments like this when Vladimir Putin’s military is killing civilians in
Ukraine to feed his ambitions for greater power and is crushing any effort at dissent or truth-telling in his native Russia.
threat. After all, we were formally denied our place in democratic government for most of the country’s first century. And in some parts of the country, we were violently locked out of real access to democracy—and to opportunity—for most of its second century.
rights in exchange for the sacrificing of my life?” he
wrote. “Is the kind of America I know worth defending?”
that other Black papers embraced. They adopted the
allies’ “V for Victory” slogan with a call for a double victory
over the enemies of democracy at home and abroad.
“not merely for the salvation of America, not merely to secure
the same degree of democracy for Black Americans that
white Americans have long enjoyed, but to establish precedent for a world-wide principle of free association among men of all races, creeds and colors. That’s the black man’s stake.”
and used that Big Lie to justify new assaults on Black
Americans’ access to democracy.
“willing to die for the America I know will someday become
a reality.”
sustained the civil rights movement after the war. It is the
same kind of faith and determination we must find to defend
American democracy and our place in it.
Way and Professor of the Practice in the Africana Studies
Department at the University of Pennsylvania where he teaches leadership. Jealous has decades of experience as a leader, coalition builder, campaigner for social justice and seasoned nonprofit executive. In 2008, he was chosen as the youngest- ever president and CEO of the NAACP. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and he has taught at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.
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