Speaker 1: And now watch move my mic back.
Speaker 2: You're like that.
Speaker 3: You can strike waters from headquarters behind him.
Speaker 1: And so if you're just tuning into Civic Cipher, I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Ramsey's job.
Speaker 4: He is job. I am Q ruler And thank you
Speaker 4: guys for tuning in with us today.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And we still that's more show if we just stick
Speaker 1: around for so dude, just that we are going to
Speaker 1: be talking about a report published in twenty two by
Speaker 1: the University of Michigan Law School Go.
Speaker 2: Blue, Oh yeah, the motor right.
Speaker 1: And this report is about race and wrongful convictions in
Speaker 1: the United States. And you probably already know where we're
Speaker 1: going with this, but.
Speaker 4: Sadly, but search research was not necessary research at all.
Speaker 1: But but some people need data and and we're going
Speaker 1: to do our best to go through at least some
Speaker 1: of it. We're also going to be talking about black codes,
Speaker 1: the Black codes for our way Black History fact and
Speaker 1: please google both of these, the black codes and the
Speaker 1: race and roll full convictions thing. But first and foremost,
Speaker 1: let's discuss B A B A how to become a
Speaker 1: better ally. This is sponsored by Major Threads, so for
Speaker 1: the finest in athletic men'swear check out major Threads dot
Speaker 1: com and today's BABA is that we want you to
Speaker 1: visit stop aa pihete dot org For those that don't know,
Speaker 1: AAPI stands for Asian American and Pacific Islander Stop aap
Speaker 1: I hate dot org.
Speaker 2: We've been dealing with a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: In our community and I got an email recently from
Speaker 1: you knowubscribe to on our civic side for email address
Speaker 1: and social media and stuff. We subscribe to.
Speaker 5: Some of the civil rights efforts that are particularly focused
Speaker 5: on the Asian American and Pacific Islander community so that
Speaker 5: we can stand in solidarity and support them as best
Speaker 5: we can.
Speaker 1: We recognize that they may not have the same level
Speaker 1: of show in the same space that we do, and
Speaker 1: so we try to share this with our brothers and
Speaker 1: sisters who may need this platform in this forum. And
Speaker 1: so I want to read something to you from them
Speaker 1: that they send over to us. It says, with your help,
Speaker 1: you the listener, Stop AAPI hate has been able to
Speaker 1: not only win concrete policy changes on behalf of our communities,
Speaker 1: but also grow our team to expand all areas of
Speaker 1: our work at nationwide. With this growth comes bigger ambitions
Speaker 1: and we're excited to fill you in on what we
Speaker 1: have planned for this year. And some of the things
Speaker 1: that they're planning on is community safety initiatives, data and researching,
Speaker 1: this is education. Equity is a big thing for them,
Speaker 1: community capacity, and of course civil rights. And so again,
Speaker 1: Stop aap I hate dot org is where you can
Speaker 1: make a donation and support our AAPI brothers and sisters
Speaker 1: who do the same as we do, and we're happy
Speaker 1: to share.
Speaker 2: We have the time with them.
Speaker 4: We have to create organizations to combat hate, crazy against
Speaker 4: massive groups of people that we love buy other massive
Speaker 4: groups of people.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: All right, so race and wrongful convictions in the US. Again,
Speaker 1: this is from Alert. This is from the University of
Speaker 1: Michigan Law School. You can check this out at law
Speaker 1: dot u mitch dot edu and get the.
Speaker 2: The real.
Speaker 1: Nuts and bolts of it. We're just going to kind
Speaker 1: of do a surface level overview because obviously this could
Speaker 1: use a full on academic level examination, which is not
Speaker 1: something that we have the ability to provide today given
Speaker 1: our time access.
Speaker 4: Except it really doesn't need one.
Speaker 1: Sure, But you know, you know the reason for this,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad you said that the reason for this
Speaker 1: is because so for some reason, these algorithms just got me.
Speaker 1: They got me figured out. They're always showing me stuff
Speaker 1: that happened to black people, mostly by white people in
Speaker 1: this country, and you know the sources and the histories
Speaker 1: and all this sort of stuff behind it. But you'd
Speaker 1: maybe you wouldn't be surprised to know, but a lot
Speaker 1: of the presenters of these information are white folks. Their
Speaker 1: allies are people who are like, listen, man, listen, listen up,
Speaker 1: other white folks. These black people ain't just making this up.
Speaker 1: We did this, check it out, you know. And I
Speaker 1: love that because they use their voice to bring some
Speaker 1: attention to stuff that doesn't you know, it doesn't affect
Speaker 1: their lives. They're just helping out, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: They in fact, if they didn't do it, they probably
Speaker 1: be better off, just because the world was this country
Speaker 1: especially was designed to kind of center them their feelings,
Speaker 1: their finances, their futures, etc.
Speaker 4: So they'd have to really have to do gymnastics sometimes
Speaker 4: to present information to people who are doing those same
Speaker 4: gymnastics to deny these things that are obviously true. And
Speaker 4: I think that's why they go so far out of
Speaker 4: their way, even though it doesn't, even though it doesn't
Speaker 4: have an impact on their daily lives. They're just decent,
Speaker 4: empathetic human beings that see this obvious truth. So they
Speaker 4: have to use straightforward, black and white data to present
Speaker 4: to those who love to deny that all this stuff
Speaker 4: is even happening in the first place, even though it's
Speaker 4: happening in four k.
Speaker 2: K ultra hd.
Speaker 1: Well, this is this is part of the reason why
Speaker 1: these this data and these numbers are important. So I
Speaker 1: don't imagine that you listening to us do the show
Speaker 1: every week. I don't imagine that you are the sort
Speaker 1: of person who listens to tell yourself in your own
Speaker 1: mind that we're making this stuff up. You know, you're
Speaker 1: probably listening because I believe, on some level, you believe
Speaker 1: that you can become a better ally, a better supporter.
Speaker 1: I make this show because I feel like I'm doing
Speaker 1: the most good with the gifts and the skills that
Speaker 1: I have, And I can promise you that if the
Speaker 1: tables were turned, I would do what it is that
Speaker 1: you are doing for your people, whoever those people might be.
Speaker 1: You know, I say it all the time on the show,
Speaker 1: I say it in real life.
Speaker 2: I love you. I love.
Speaker 1: I don't even know who you are, I can't even
Speaker 1: see you, but I do I believe that whoever our
Speaker 1: common creator is, that source of consciousness has sprung us
Speaker 1: both into existence, and we're traveling this path more or
Speaker 1: less together. And there's no reason for me to have
Speaker 1: an adversarial position, opinion, or posture or anything like that
Speaker 1: towards you. If I can support you, I can, and
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like that's the best way to be.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to be any different. So I
Speaker 1: appreciate everybody allowing me my truth and to be able
Speaker 1: to walk this walk. I appreciate all the programmers who
Speaker 1: air this show around the country and help me try
Speaker 1: to make a better, you know, country for all of
Speaker 1: us here. And one more little brick in that wall
Speaker 1: is providing this data. So again we're going to read
Speaker 1: some statistics from this study, Race and Wrongful Convictions in
Speaker 1: the US twenty twenty two. The first one that I
Speaker 1: found that I thought was interesting is that, Okay, it
Speaker 1: goes like this. Black people are thirteen point six percent
Speaker 1: of the American population, but fifty three percent of the
Speaker 1: thirty two hundred exonerations listed in the National Registry of exonerations.
Speaker 1: Judging from exonerations, innocent black Americans are seven times more
Speaker 1: likely than white Americans to be falsely convicted of serious crimes.
Speaker 2: We see this racial.
Speaker 1: Disparity in varying degrees for all major crime categories except
Speaker 1: white collar crime. Of course, right, I left that last
Speaker 1: part in there because I know you have something to
Speaker 1: say about it.
Speaker 4: But yeah, the type of crimes that people that already
Speaker 4: have means commit, they're treated with so much grace and empathy.
Speaker 4: You know, they slap on the wrist if you will.
Speaker 4: And the nature of these people already having good lives
Speaker 4: mean they can't be bad people. They just made a mistake.
Speaker 4: The nature of you poor people, though, is criminal.
Speaker 1: That's something that I learned from Brian Stevenson. Please look
Speaker 1: up Brian Stevenson's very easy name to remember. Brian Stephenson.
Speaker 1: He's a person that founded and runs the Equal Justice Initiative.
Speaker 1: They made a movie about him called Just Cause. It
Speaker 1: stars Michael B.
Speaker 2: Jordan.
Speaker 1: If you needed another reason to watch the movie anyway,
Speaker 1: Brian Stephenson says that we have a criminal justice system
Speaker 1: in this country that treats you better if you're rich
Speaker 1: and guilty. Then if you're poor and innocent.
Speaker 2: Amen, So.
Speaker 1: We will examine that a bit more here. And this
Speaker 1: is just statistic number one, So I want to reread
Speaker 1: this to you. Black people are thirteen point six percent
Speaker 1: of the American population with fifty three percent of the
Speaker 1: thirty two hundred exonerations listed in the National Registry of Exonerations.
Speaker 1: And then black people are seven times more likely than
Speaker 1: white Americans to be falsely convicted of serious crimes. I
Speaker 1: want to ask a question, please, what does that say
Speaker 1: about the notion in this country that you are innocent
Speaker 1: until proven guilty.
Speaker 4: That by the nature of looking like you ramses that
Speaker 4: that isn't true, and that myself when I wrote that
Speaker 4: into law, we're not thinking of you even as a person,
Speaker 4: not as a man, but more like property, more like cattle.
Speaker 4: So these unalienable rights that all men were due, I
Speaker 4: wasn't talking about you. I actually did not consider you
Speaker 4: a full person at the time, so I never thought
Speaker 4: these laws would apply to you. And since now you
Speaker 4: are considered a man, and since I did write these
Speaker 4: not having you in mind, I'll create this separate system
Speaker 4: that can show people what I meant to say.
Speaker 2: I love that you said that can I take it
Speaker 2: a step further. Please, So what's this? You know those people.
Speaker 1: When race comes up and they're like, ah, man, you know, man,
Speaker 1: I feel like we're just doing better than ever before,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously Obama was in office. I just I
Speaker 1: feel like everybody's the same, man. You know, everybody's the same.
Speaker 1: We're just we're in this together. Why can't we just
Speaker 1: all be just just let it go, man, and just
Speaker 1: you know everybody, you know, those people you know you listening,
Speaker 1: you know to I know you know those people too, right. Unfortunately, Yes,
Speaker 1: And what we're looking at here again, this is the
Speaker 1: first statistic. What we're looking at here is the disconnect
Speaker 1: that those people have, the separate, detached reality that those
Speaker 1: people have. They really have fully bought into the fact
Speaker 1: that this is a fantasy land for everyone. Now, I
Speaker 1: will not say that in this country no opportunity exists
Speaker 1: for black people, because obviously there are individuals who are successful,
Speaker 1: you know. But if we're taking communities and we're looking
Speaker 1: at community outcomes by the numbers, and then indeed we
Speaker 1: draw lines to the sources of the ailments of those communities,
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about black codes. A little bit
Speaker 1: later in the show, So stick around for that. Black
Speaker 1: codes is definitely one of them. And that's a precursor
Speaker 1: that affected everything up into political disenfranchisement that still plagues
Speaker 1: this country today. And that's something that affected redlining, which
Speaker 1: was the largest injustice in terms of wealth distribution in
Speaker 1: this country. And then you know, black neighborhoods, white neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: black schools, white schools, et cetera. And then, of course,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, this country because of the
Speaker 1: framework that was put in place by that redlining that
Speaker 1: was done by the Federal Housing Administration. Legally, federal government said,
Speaker 1: don't give loans to these people in these communities and
Speaker 1: give it all to the white foes black people in
Speaker 1: black communities, but give it all to his white foe,
Speaker 1: allowing white people to buy homes and then transfer that
Speaker 1: wealth on, you know, and then black people of course
Speaker 1: did not get as much. Of course there were individuals
Speaker 1: that did, but as much, you know, in terms of communities. Obviously,
Speaker 1: black communities are very poor relative to white communities. And then,
Speaker 1: of course in two thousand and eight, when you know
Speaker 1: the Wall Street bet on, you know, the subprime mortgages
Speaker 1: or whatever, and then that went belly up, and then
Speaker 1: I forget the statistic, but suffice it to say that
Speaker 1: more black people lost more wealth than white people did
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. And so there's this constant
Speaker 1: game of catchup. And it's not all about money. We
Speaker 1: haven't talked about policing. We haven't talked about environmental racism.
Speaker 1: We haven't talked about the lot okay, we haven't talked
Speaker 1: about the unfair distribution of the GI bill, which I
Speaker 1: guess technically falls underneath money. We haven't talked about land theft.
Speaker 1: We haven't talked about any of those things yet. But
Speaker 1: those people that say, man, you know, it's all equal. Man,
Speaker 1: we're all the same, you know, they're ignoring the head start.
Speaker 1: They're they're they're allowed to see the world as being uh,
Speaker 1: this sort of fantasy land, and they think that somehow
Speaker 1: black people are just like kind of woe as me.
Speaker 1: I was born black and therefore I can't do anything.
Speaker 1: And there's like, well, there's a little bit more to
Speaker 1: the story than that.
Speaker 4: There's an economy to it, though, right, because well, part
Speaker 4: of that is a self denial. When you're a person
Speaker 4: that benefits from that system, there's a guilt that sets
Speaker 4: in if.
Speaker 2: You accept lose. That's a good point.
Speaker 4: So you don't want to accept it as true because
Speaker 4: then you think, well, that makes me a bad person
Speaker 4: from having benefited from this very corrupt system. So let's
Speaker 4: just act like it's not really that corrupt, man, Like,
Speaker 4: come on, man, it's the greatest show man on you
Speaker 4: on the radio, and I saw you on billboards. Man,
Speaker 4: It's it's not that tough for you, bro, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. It's the scene of oneself and things
Speaker 4: that are corrupt that causes them to deny that they're corrupt.
Speaker 4: That's why so many people and this is just my hypothesis.
Speaker 4: I this hasn't been proven true by any data or research,
Speaker 4: but I think that's why so many people that I
Speaker 4: know reach out to me to defend some despicable people
Speaker 4: that I speak out against on my social media because
Speaker 4: they have some things in common with that person. They're
Speaker 4: not reaching out to me to defend that person. They
Speaker 4: don't know them. They're reaching out to me to defend themselves.
Speaker 4: That's a great point, man, I kind of think and
Speaker 4: behave like that, and I'm not that bad. Let me,
Speaker 4: let me reach out and defend and I use him
Speaker 4: as a proxy gameable qualities of this despicable person because
Speaker 4: the use the elected official as a proxy.
Speaker 2: Correct, Right?
Speaker 4: So, I think you know it's people seeing some of
Speaker 4: themselves in this system. That guilt that sets in makes
Speaker 4: them want to believe. Man, maybe it's maybe it's not
Speaker 4: that bad.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for listening today, Because it is that bad.
Speaker 1: It can be better and it is improving and it
Speaker 1: will be better. But we deal with the real on
Speaker 1: this show as we see it based on our lived experience.
Speaker 1: Let's move on. Okay, there's another statistic for you. For
Speaker 1: both murder and sexual assault, there are preliminary investigative issues
Speaker 1: that increase the number of innocent black suspects for murder,
Speaker 1: the homicide rate in the black community for rape, the
Speaker 1: difficulty of cross racial eyewitness identification. For both crimes, misconduct,
Speaker 1: discrimination and racism amplify these initial racial discrepancies. For drug crimes,
Speaker 1: here we go. The preliminary sorting that increases the number
Speaker 1: of convictions of innocent black suspects is racial profiling. I
Speaker 1: think that's a mouthful right there. I want to read
Speaker 1: it again.
Speaker 4: Please.
Speaker 1: For drug crimes, the preliminary sorting that increases the number
Speaker 1: of convictions of innocent black suspects is racial profiling. In addition,
Speaker 1: the Registry lists seventeen group exonerations, including twenty nine hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy five additional wrongfully convicted defendants, many of whom
Speaker 1: were deliberately framed and convicted of fabricated drug crimes in
Speaker 1: large scale police scandals. The overwhelming majority are black. Now,
Speaker 1: these are stories that we cover on this show and
Speaker 1: don't think is just in what I know. We did
Speaker 1: one in Mississippi. I know we did one in Louisiana
Speaker 1: where the police were framing black people that like it
Speaker 1: was flagrant they were doing out in the open.
Speaker 4: It's kind of flagrant everywhere.
Speaker 2: But it's also it's also California. It's everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, liberal places, you know, conservative places too, and of
Speaker 1: course you're going to find that in the South, but
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of to be expected.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I got.
Speaker 4: Pulled over and searched for looking at an officer on
Speaker 4: King Day in Detroit, Michigan. We don't have to go
Speaker 4: to the Deep South. We don't have to go to
Speaker 4: the peak of Maga on Liver NOI and six miles
Speaker 4: in Detroit, Michigan. I was driving down the street. There
Speaker 4: was an officer. I looked at him. He saw me
Speaker 4: look at him. He got in his car. You turned,
Speaker 4: pulled me over, put my face on the hood of
Speaker 4: his car, and frixed me.
Speaker 2: For nothing.
Speaker 4: Didn't accuse me of anything, didn't tell me I was
Speaker 4: speeding nothing. Get out of the car, slam my hood
Speaker 4: on a hip, slid my face on the hood of
Speaker 4: his car, and searched me. Finished searching me, then searched
Speaker 4: my car, took my seats out, left them out, took
Speaker 4: all my things out, left them on the street, got
Speaker 4: back in his car and drove away. Told me to
Speaker 4: have a nice day, King Day two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: Dang, Yeah, well, you know what, that's a story that
Speaker 1: I know that I and a lot of other people
Speaker 1: who look like me are familiar with. I remember, I
Speaker 1: got pulled out of my car for no reason. They
Speaker 1: were looking for someone else in a bright yellow Dodge Neon,
Speaker 1: I guess because they made a ton of those.
Speaker 2: They didn't.
Speaker 1: I had the car custom painted, but back when I
Speaker 1: was in college in the fast and furious days, that's
Speaker 1: why I had a doctor and it was yellow.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I got to pull it out of my car.
Speaker 2: That's why you had a Dodge Neon. That's not why
Speaker 2: it was yellow. We can talk about that all the fast,
Speaker 2: fast and furious days every painting cars.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not fast and furious now because you don't
Speaker 4: have a yellow you don't have.
Speaker 2: A bright yellow, fast and furious car.
Speaker 1: Anyway, real quick, I do want to give a shout
Speaker 1: out to w NUC ninety six point seven FM in Detroit,
Speaker 1: Michigan for carrying civic cipher and airing us twice a
Speaker 1: week motown. Indeed, all right, let's move on another statistic here.
Speaker 1: Innocent black people are about seven and a half times
Speaker 1: more likely to be convicted of murder than innocent white people.
Speaker 1: That applies equally to those who are sentenced to death
Speaker 1: and those who are not.
Speaker 2: How about that you're going to die.
Speaker 1: And you're seven and a half times more likely to
Speaker 1: be convicted of murder.
Speaker 2: Innocent.
Speaker 1: If you're innocent, you're seven and a half times more
Speaker 1: likely to be convicted of murder than white people.
Speaker 2: So if you're.
Speaker 4: Two times more, I mean for their one is your two, right, yep,
Speaker 4: So that would be one hundred percent more if you're
Speaker 4: seven times more, Yes, it's about almost four hundred percent
Speaker 4: more likely. I want to say it in a statistic
Speaker 4: that will make people's jaws drop. You're about four hundred percent. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's a lot more likely. Seven sounds like a small number.
Speaker 4: It's not seven times all right. This is the other
Speaker 4: half of that. In addition, black people who are convicted
Speaker 4: of murder are about eighty percent more likely to be
Speaker 4: innocent than other convicted murderers.
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing. Another point that Brian Stevenson makes
Speaker 1: is that you know, in this country, uh, historically, this
Speaker 1: country has been unkind to black people. That is a given. Nobody,
Speaker 1: even people that don't love CRT or indeed American history,
Speaker 1: have to see that, right, They don't know this country
Speaker 1: has been that.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, it's but the idea that those people have
Speaker 4: to be delusional people exist.
Speaker 1: We're talking about people who are sensible and subscribe to
Speaker 1: at least the common narrative of the country, whether or
Speaker 1: not it's taught in school.
Speaker 4: That we used to have Remember that, adults, you know,
Speaker 4: but remember that when there were reasonable adults who agreed
Speaker 4: about the common history of our country. Fair enough, we
Speaker 4: no longer live in those times. That's what it remind
Speaker 4: you of that. We so so here we are this
Speaker 4: on our show. We are no longer in those times.
Speaker 4: We don't agree about what's true anymore. You're not wrong,
Speaker 4: you're not wrong.
Speaker 1: So how about this for those of us who still
Speaker 1: do recognize that there is a history in this country
Speaker 1: that was built on the back of the African slave
Speaker 1: that was not considered human, as you so eloquently stated.
Speaker 1: Fast forward, Now we have a system that is disproportionately
Speaker 1: executing innocent black men. And Brian Stevenson made a comparison,
Speaker 1: what if we lived in the nation state in the
Speaker 1: world where the nation state of Germany was disproportionately executing
Speaker 1: human beings who were Jewish? What would you do? Would
Speaker 1: that be unconscionable to you? And yet there is a
Speaker 1: stunning silence when we quote the statistic to you. Does
Speaker 1: it bother you that innocent black men are being executed
Speaker 1: at eighty at what does it say? Eighty percent more
Speaker 1: likely to be innocent than other convicted murderers? Think about that.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't upset you, why not, I'll move on
Speaker 1: the convictions that led to murder exonerations. With black defendants,
Speaker 1: we're almost fifty percent more likely to include misconduct by
Speaker 1: police officers than those with white defendants. In addition, on average,
Speaker 1: black murder exgneries spend three years longer in prison before
Speaker 1: release than white murder ex hogneries. In other words, the
Speaker 1: police are twice as likely to or sorry, fifty percent
Speaker 1: more likely to interfere to make you look more guilty,
Speaker 1: and you'll be in prison longer before you get out
Speaker 1: as being exonerated. Those police officers are more likely to
Speaker 1: break the law, break the law. That's what makes you
Speaker 1: look guilty.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 4: I want to put this so kindly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, now, innocent black people are almost eight
Speaker 1: times more likely than white people to be falsely convicted
Speaker 1: of rape. A prisoner serving time for sexual assault is
Speaker 1: more than three times more likely to be innocent if
Speaker 1: he is black than if he is white. And then, finally,
Speaker 1: assaults on white women by black men are a small
Speaker 1: minority of all sexual assaults in the United States, but
Speaker 1: nearly half of all sexual assaults with I witnessed misidentifications
Speaker 1: that lead to exoneration. So there's the cold hard facts,
Speaker 1: despite what you may have thought growing up. And now
Speaker 1: it's time for the way black history fact.
Speaker 2: So we can spend some time with this one, but
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do some reading first, all right.
Speaker 1: Today's way black History fact is sponsored by the Black
Speaker 1: Information Network Daily podcast. You can find that at iHeart
Speaker 1: dot com or bei news dot com. And this comes
Speaker 1: from history dot com.
Speaker 2: Talking about Black Codes. So I'll start.
Speaker 1: Black codes were restrictive laws designed to limit the freedom
Speaker 1: of African Americans and ensure their availability as a cheap
Speaker 1: labor force after slavery was abolished during the Civil War
Speaker 1: through the Union victory. Sorry, though the Union victory had
Speaker 1: given some four million enslaved people their freedom, the question
Speaker 1: of freed black people's status in the post war South
Speaker 1: was still very much unresolved. Under Black Codes, many states
Speaker 1: required black people to sign yearly labor contracts.
Speaker 2: If they refused, they.
Speaker 1: Risked being arrested, fined, and forced into unpaid labor.
Speaker 2: How about that?
Speaker 1: So, for those that don't know, slavery didn't disappear, it
Speaker 1: became the penitentiary in short, and that is a verifiable
Speaker 1: thing that you can do the research yourself, but I
Speaker 1: will continue to read here. Outrage over Black Codes helped
Speaker 1: undermine support for President Andrew Johnson and the Republican Party.
Speaker 2: At the time.
Speaker 1: In April eighteen sixty five, as the Civil War drew
Speaker 1: to a close, Lincoln shocked many by proposing limited suffrage
Speaker 1: for African Americans in the South. He was assassinated days later, however,
Speaker 1: and his successor, Andrew Johnson, would be the one to
Speaker 1: preside over the beginning of reconstruction. Johnson, a former senator
Speaker 1: from Tennessee, a man who had remained loyal to the
Speaker 1: Union during the war, was a firm supporter of states rights.
Speaker 2: That means the racist folks.
Speaker 1: Firm supporter of states rights and believed the federal government
Speaker 1: had no say in issues such as voting requirements at
Speaker 1: the state level. All right, So let's get to the
Speaker 1: passage of the Black Codes, all right. Even as a
Speaker 1: former sorry, even as former enslaved people fought to assert
Speaker 1: their independence and gain economic autonomy. During the earliest years
Speaker 1: of reconstruction, white land owners acted to control the labor
Speaker 1: force through a system similar to the one that existed
Speaker 1: that had existed during slavery. To that end, in late
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five, Mississippi and South Carolina enacted the first
Speaker 1: Black Codes. Mississippi's law required black people to have written
Speaker 1: evidence of employment for the coming year. Each January they
Speaker 1: left before the end of the contract, they would be
Speaker 1: forced to forfeit earlier wages and were subject to arrest.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 1: So what that means is that if you did not
Speaker 1: have a job with a contract, then you were subject
Speaker 1: to arrest.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So that meant that you could be underpaid, because obviously
Speaker 1: stage rights, you could be cheated, you could be overworked
Speaker 1: and not paid at all or whatever. And it was
Speaker 1: just a way of getting that labor force back really
Speaker 1: cheap or for free, okay, all right. In South Carolina,
Speaker 1: a law prohibited black people from holding any occupation other
Speaker 1: than farmer or servant unless they paid an annual tax
Speaker 1: of ten dollars to one hundred dollars. Remember there's a
Speaker 1: lot of money back in the day. This provision hit
Speaker 1: free black people already living in Charleston and former slave
Speaker 1: artisans especially hard. In both states, black people were giving
Speaker 1: heavy were given heavy penalties for vagrancy, including force plantation
Speaker 1: labor in some air in some cases, so that meant
Speaker 1: that you can't have a job other than being a
Speaker 1: farmer or a servant, right, meaning that you have to
Speaker 1: take those wages. You cannot rise to do better for
Speaker 1: yourself or indeed for your especially for your community. If
Speaker 1: you did, you were subject to a heavy tax for
Speaker 1: working as something other than a servant or a pharmer.
Speaker 1: And if you did not have a job, as in Mississippi,
Speaker 1: you were giving given heavy penalties for vagrancy, including forced labor.
Speaker 1: So that is what we like to cause, slavery, all right,
Speaker 1: limits on black freedom.
Speaker 2: Okay, here we go.
Speaker 1: Under Johnson's reconstruction policies, nearly all the Southern states would
Speaker 1: enact their own own Black Codes in eighteen sixty five
Speaker 1: and eighteen sixty six. While the codes granted certain freedoms
Speaker 1: to African Americans, including the right to buy and own property, marry,
Speaker 1: make contracts, and testify in court only in cases involving
Speaker 1: people of their own race, meaning that if white people
Speaker 1: beat you up, raped you, stole from you whatever, you
Speaker 1: cannot testify against them. Let's see, their primary purpose was
Speaker 1: to restrict black people's labor and activity. Some states limited
Speaker 1: the type of property that black people could own, while
Speaker 1: virtually all the former Confederate states passed strict vagrancy in
Speaker 1: labor contract laws as well as so called anti enticement
Speaker 1: measures designed to punish anyone who offered higher wages to
Speaker 1: a black laborer already under contract. Black people who broke
Speaker 1: labor contracts were subject to arrest, beating, and forced labor
Speaker 1: and apprenticeship laws forced many miners little kid miners, either
Speaker 1: orphans or those whose parents were deemed unable to support
Speaker 1: them by a judge, which happened way more frequently than
Speaker 1: you know, so that the state could possess the bodies
Speaker 1: of black children and force them into labor, as well
Speaker 1: into unpaid labor for white planters. Passed by a political
Speaker 1: system in which black people effectively had no voice, the
Speaker 1: Black Codes were enforced by all white police and state
Speaker 1: militia forces, often made up of Confederate veterans of the
Speaker 1: Civil War across the South, all right, and the impact
Speaker 1: of the Black Codes, all right. The restrictive nature of
Speaker 1: the Codes and widespread black resistance to their enforcement enraged
Speaker 1: many in the North, who argued that the codes violated
Speaker 1: the fundamental principles of free labor ideology. After passing the
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Act over Johnson's veto, Republicans in Congress effectively
Speaker 1: took control of reconstruction. Their Reconstruction Act of eighteen sixty
Speaker 1: seven required Southern States to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, with
Speaker 1: which granted equal protection under the Constitution, to form enslaved people,
Speaker 1: and enact several male suffrage sorry enact universal male suffrage.
Speaker 1: I got marbles in my mouth today before they could
Speaker 1: rejoin the Union. By eighteen seventy seven, when the last
Speaker 1: Federal soldiers left the South and reconstruction drew to a close,
Speaker 1: black people had seen little improvement in their economic and
Speaker 1: social status, and the vigorous efforts of white supremacist forces
Speaker 1: throughout the region had undone the political gains they had made.
Speaker 1: Discrimination would continue in the America. In America, and with
Speaker 1: the rise of Jim Crow, laws that would inspire the
Speaker 1: Civil rights movement to come let's be honest nearly one
Speaker 1: hundred years later. So basically, black people were rounded up,
Speaker 1: arrested and put into prisons later penitentiaries, and then that
Speaker 1: labor was leased to farmers, so police had an incentive
Speaker 1: to round up black bodies so that the state could
Speaker 1: make money off of them by leasing the farmers at
Speaker 1: low rages wages. Also during this time, this is when
Speaker 1: the birth of the klu Klux Klan took place. To
Speaker 1: protect the chastity of white women, but also let's be
Speaker 1: honest to protect financial interest of white male landowners and
Speaker 1: that ladies and gentlemen, in short, is the black codes.
Speaker 1: So with that said, I'd like to thank you all
Speaker 1: for listening again to this episode of Civic Cipher. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Rams's job.
Speaker 2: He is Rams' job.
Speaker 4: I am your mentally and emotionally exhausted.
Speaker 2: Friend.
Speaker 4: You got it, And thank you guys for tuning in
Speaker 4: the Civic sigh for a game. We appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, let's see what do we do?
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Speaker 2: And until next week, y'all, peace.
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