The minority question: Some thoughts on identity, justice and the politics of incorporation in Nigeria (3) (Contined from last week)

In 1776, the founding fathers of the United States of America echoed these words in their Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to […]

In 1776, the founding fathers of the United States of America echoed these words in their Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.  
The future and dreams of the black people were not really written into the vision of the Declaration of Independence. Not many freed slaves knew what to do with their freedom or where to go as freed men and women. It is to the credit and the resilience of the human spirit that black people managed to climb out of misery. Most of the stories are well known, but we owe people like the great Booker T Washington and Alex Healey in their monumental works, Up From Slavery and Roots for drawing attention to the nature of these struggles.
The context may be different but I believe that it is important for us even here in Nigeria to appreciate the significance of this resilience of the human spirit. It is important that we understand that redeeming oneself from years and years of historical injustice and oppressions takes more than mere hope. Along with oppression and domination come the policies of exclusion which systematically and gradually engender such ills as, poverty, illiteracy, disability, misery and squalor. The victims are denied an opportunity to rise beyond their conditions. Often the larger society blames them for lack of willingness to work hard. The victim often simply accepts his or her condition and sometimes they simply surrender to God.
It often requires individuals and institutions to help ignite a consciousness and a moral revulsion against the extant conditions. In the case of the United States of America, we cannot speak about the struggle for human rights without looking at the records of people like Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young, Louis Farrakhan, Malcolm X and a host of others. Nor can we forget such laudable institutions like Southern Baptist Leadership Conference, SBLC, National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, NAACP, Black Panthers and so on. In the area of Arts, Music, History and Literature, the contributions of black writers, actors and musicians shaped the history of the black people. The emergence of what is now known as the History Month served to draw the attention of young black Americans to the reality that their past was not just the bleak story of slavery and oppression, but that many overcame these difficulties and excelled.
Human struggles are not enough by themselves because how the government and some of its institutions act, is important for the outcomes. Here, the actions or inactions of particular individuals can shape the end results of struggle. For example, in the case of human rights and liberties, all the good intentions in the Constitution can only come to be if the society has lawyers and a judiciary dedicated to justice. No Constitution or document can be self-activating. By themselves, the sacred books cannot make us holy. They require our decision to act in one-way or the other. Thus, all the wonderful provisions in our Constitutions will remain so unless they are triggered by the dynamism of human experience and action especially by those of us who believe that the realities do not mirror the ideals of the Constitution. The American experience in the dynamism of a nation’s Constitution is instructive as suffering and injustice are often used as reference points for changing history.
For example, within a space of five years, three historic amendments were made to the American Constitution, a development which significantly changed the course of human rights and dignity for the black person. The urgency of these amendments was based on the tone of the Gettysburg speech three years earlier. The amendments brought by these changes targeted three key areas, freedom, citizenship and the right to vote.
The 13th amendment came in 1865 and it stated: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction
The 14th Amendment followed another three years later and it stated: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The 15th Amendment read: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude.
The message here is very clear. We can see clearly a linear progression in the struggle for justice evidence in the sequence between the bold, courageous, visionary and altruistic intentions of government and the response of the Legislative arms of government which literally fell into line by enacting legislation to meet these noble intentions seeking to extend human dignity. Other organisations and associations, what today we might call Civil Society groups, took the cue and what followed was a determined battle to roll back the wagons of evil that had crushed the hopes, dreams and ambitions of black people. The history of this struggle is long, but the source of fascinating inquiry. We will choose just a three cases to make our point.
What Americans referred then and now as Jim Crow laws were a series of degrading, dehumanising and restrictive laws which institutionalized the exclusion of the black people from participating in public life. Black people continued to struggle against their fate, depending more on the goodwill of slave masters for the occasional extension of the frontier of freedom. It was not until 1892 that the most spectacular and historic challenge to injustice of racism took place.
At the time, a cluster of laws had been made forbidding black men and women from using the same facilities as white people, from toilets to buses and other public utilities. However, in 1892, in New Orleans, a man named Homer Plessy (who incidentally was only 1/8 black) deliberately bought a ticket for the Whites Only coach, and refused to give up his seat to a white man in a train. In doing this, he knew he was breaking a state law which required any black person to give up his or her seat to a white person once they entered the train or the bus as the case may be.
Mr Plessy argued that by requiring him to give up his seat to a white man, the law presumed the superiority of a white man over him. His lawyers argued that the law therefore violated the equal protection promised by 14th amendment. After four years of legal tussle, with the Louisiana Supreme Court upholding the decision of the lower court, Mr Plessy took his case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of the United States of America finally heard the case and, upholding the decision of the Louisiana Supreme Court, ruled 8-1 against Mr Plessy. However, the dissenting Judge, Justice Marshal Harlan stated that in his view: Our Constitution is colour blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.
On the surface, this looked like a major setback, but the NAACP did not give up. It was determined to continue with the struggle and therefore, the dissenting judgment of Justice Harlan was seen as a demonstration of the fact that there was still a flicker of hope in the Supreme Court. Mr. Marshall moved on with even greater confidence as we see with the next and final case.
Black people knew early enough that not just any kind of education would do in their struggle for liberation. They realized that Law was what they needed since the Judiciary would remain their best hope in securing their rights. They knew that their future laid in the Law and the Judiciary and for them to attack the cancer of injustice, they needed to have access to the best Legal education. They saw through the hypocrisy of those who wanted to offer black people only a second-class education which would deny them a chance to compete.  Although it is impossible to go over this story in detail, it is necessary to pay respect and give honour to the name, stature and story of the legendary Thurgood Marshall.
Born in Baltimore on July 2, 1902 and studied Law in the famous Lincoln University in Pennsylvania where the famous Nnamdi Azikiwe and Kwame Nkrumah also studied. After his graduation, he was denied a place in Maryland Law School despite being from that State. He went on to Howard University where he sharpened his interest in civil rights Law. His attempt at starting his own Law firm did not quite succeed and he later teamed up with his famous teacher to take on a case involving a black man who had also been denied admission to the same Maryland Law School where he himself had been turned down on grounds of colour. Mr Marshall argued that since the Black Law Schools were inherently inferior, they flew in the face of the principle of separate but equal. This case further opened up new opportunities for black people especially in the field of Law.
Marshall’s next landmark case was the history making case that finally came to be known as Murray vs. Pearson. Donald Gaines Murray was a young brilliant man who wanted to be a lawyer. He applied to the Maryland Law school but was denied admission on the basis of his colour. The matter went to court. In the course of his ruling, the judge ordered Mr. Raymond Pearson to personally appear before him. He then ordered Mr. Pearson to admit Mr. Murray. Mr. Pearson appealed the judgment, but the Court of Appeals of Maryland upheld the judgment and Mr. Murray was thus admitted into the School. This celebrated case was not only a victory for human rights, but it opened the gates of opportunity for black men and women to read Law.
The next famous case taken by Mr. Marshall was that of Brown vs. Board of Education. It was actually a class action suit filed by thirteen parents concerning their twenty children. Not only were schools segregated, the conditions in black schools were appalling. Many black children had to travel longer distances, going pass white schools that were close to them but which they could not be admitted.
The NAACP applied its usual strategy of provoking reactions from state authorities to act against them when it encouraged Oliver Brown a poor welder to deliberately attempt to register his daughter in the nearest white school.  He did and this was what sparked off the court case.
Again, Marshall rose to the occasion and won the case at the Supreme Court. This was after the District Court had ruled in favour of the school authorities citing the separate but equal clause. But Marshall argued that the psychological harm done to black children by segregation was so serious that it scarred them for life and reinforced a sense of inferiority complex in them. The Chief Justice of the United States, Justice Earl Warren, in his judgment, wrote that: To separate black children from others of similar age and qualification solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. By this judgment, the Supreme Court reversed itself and argued that separate but equal had no place in public education or elsewhere in America. Separate and equal stamped a badge of inferiority on black children. The wider benefits of this case resonated across the United States of America and laid the foundation for the access to quality education by black children.
I have tried to illustrate that first, individuals and institutions do make a difference. In saying this, I am suggesting that we can rid our society of injustice if we learn some of the lessons from the civil rights movement in the United States of America. Education is the key to the future of any individual, community or nation. Indeed, the struggle for the Midwest would probably never have been won if the people did not have the quality and caliber of educated men to stake their claims. This is why I have spoken out against the much-touted Almajiri educational system that is being bandied as a response to the crisis in the northern states of Nigeria. Let me now turn my attention briefly to the issues of the struggle leading to the birth of the Midwest region.

To be continued next week

Draft Text of a lecture delivered on the occasion of the 1st Dennis Osadebay Memorial Lecture at Nnebisi Hall, Grand Hotel, Asaba, Delta State, on May 31st, 2014 by Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, Catholic Diocese of Sokoto.