The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-03-31
BY S. VAN VEEN.

THE wholesale kidnapping of tens Of thousands
l of the Negro people from the shores OF Africa
began in the fifteenth century. This Rdnap-
ping was accomplished with the most bestlal ter
Ter and brutality The Negroes were bodily
torn away from African villages, many OF which
-er- ON d high plane of culture and civilization
1t is not generally known that this people had
for centuries been engaged in the peaceful oc-
cupation of farming, weaving, ETC., and had de-
veloped arts and crafts to the highest degree.
In Ethiopia and Egypt, Negroes and Negroid
peoples reared the earliest civilizations recorded
by history. This knowledge has been hidden by
the white ruling class in order to keep up the
lie of "racial inferiority."
Beaten and driven, herded like cattle into
slave ships" thousands of men and women and
children died on the way and were thrown to
the sharks. Those that remained were sold into
slavery from which the murderous slave traders
and plantation owners grew immensely wealthy.
The "fine old south" was based on this slave
trade The lily white ladies and gentlemen of
the old south we're slave drivers and served hand
and foot by the Negroes. The famed southern
hospitality" was "hospitable" on the sweat and
blood of slaves and the government sought to
justify its crimes against the Negroes by the lie
of white superiority"
Two hundred years later, in 1865, the civil
war put an end to chattel slavery as an institu-
ton, but for all purposes the Negro people have
remained in condition of slavery up to the
present time.
All the brutal traditions of the old slave
traders, slave drivers and plantation owners
continue to exist. These have been used to
continue the subsection and partial enslavement
of the millions of Negro share-croppers and ten
ant farmers of the south and also to keep the
white and Negro workers all over the country
separated.
The Negro masses of the south are living in
a condition of serfdom practically tied to the
soil and forced to labor They are prevented
from leaving the farms just as in the old slave
days. They are forced by the threat of whip
ping and lynching as in the slave days, to &C
cept any condition that the white landlords and
overseers want to impose on them.
Before the civil war the government of the
United States stood behind chattel slavery
Since the civil war the government has stood
behind the continued serfdom of the Negro
nation in this country and behind all the name
less terror, persecution and 1ynching of the Ne
gro workers and farmers. The poison propa-
ganda of the slave drivers has been, and is, the
policy of the U. S. imperialist government
against an oppressed, appropriated national
tty. 1t is part of the schools churches, press
and movies It breaches and teaches and keeps
alive race hatred and the separation of the
white and Negro masses.
This is white chauvinism. And white chauvin-
ism means anything from the belief that white
person is better than a Negro, through every
step, to lyuchiJ,s
At this particular time, when millions of white
and Negro workers unemployed, starving
and herded into breadnes soup kitchens and
flop houses, the rulers of the country have in
creased the terror against the Negroes, north
and south. They are afraid that the starvation
of the masses will lead them to unite and this
is what they want to prevent This is why the
gnching mobS have been so busy in the south
in the past IA months This is the reason for
the framing of the Atlanta cases and the fog