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Collection: Directories and Documents > Pamphlets

The Negro in California Before 1890 (PH 10-1)(1945) (55 pages)

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The Negro in California Before 1890 Dr. A. ODELL THURMAN Editor’s Note: Because Dr. Thurman wrote this thesis before the term “Black” was the accepted form, we have left the word, “Negro.” I believe that the fathers who formulated the Mayflower Compact, who drew up the Declaration of Independence, who framed the Constitution of the United States, and who later incorporated the Rights of Man amendments, had in mind the idea of Christian brotherhood of man, interpersonal relationships (free from oppression) and equal opportunity in the true meaning of democracy. Having experienced the absence or near absence of these fundamentals in the attitude and treatment of the Negro politically, economically, and socially, I have often asked myself why is he the scapegoat for every occurence? It is true that much of difficulty is a combination of psychohistoric-natural behavior, but I am convinced the greater portion is ignorant behavior. Little effort has been made in the United States to make history books and history taught in schools, below the college level, complete in approach to subjects covered. Never has the Negro been portrayed in school history for the magnificent part he has played in American civilization. Feeling that the Negro boys and girls could not possibly learn those facts necessary to make them proud of their racial heritage from the brief statement that “In 1619 twenty Negro slaves were brought by a Dutch merchant ship to Virginia” and “slavery was ended by the Civil War of 1861-65,” much work has been done by Negroes in the general field, in the hope that once the material is collected that those fair-minded historians of another day, at least, might see the need of telling their stories in its entirety: How the African background of these slaves was one of dignity and progress. How as slaves they fought for freedom, as did the Pilgrim Fathers under the kings of England, how they took their crafts and built the southern cities. How they have from the War of Independence to the present struggle fought in the name of whatever America was fighting for. How those individuals of black parentage have conceived and developed inventions and made discoveries that have filled the gaps in the forward march of American progress, 321.