In some communities in the South, Pre-Civil Rights Period of the 60’s, some blacks celebrated June 19 (Juneteenth) more than July 4. It was not due to lack of patriotism because they volunteered for military duty. It was because the original Constitution only gave rights to white males. Constitution amendments have been required for all other groups, including white women, to have rights granted white males. Poor white men were not included because they were considered not knowledgeable and not able to make informed decision, thus the Electoral College.
There was also a question; “Was the leadership of the colonies fearful that if they did not become independent from England that slavery may be abolished?” In 1706 a British court decision, Smith vs Brown and Cooper, ruled that as soon as a Negro comes to England he becomes free and in 1772 the British court in the Somersett Case ruled that no slave can forcibly be removed from Great Britain because slavery did not exist under English Law in England and Wales. Thousands of slaves in England and Wales were freed as a result. (Canada is an English subject and gives clarity to why the “Underground Railroad” went to Canada. Once in Canada, slaves from the United States became free.) There was a willingness to fight to protect slavery as evident by the country entering a Civil War (April 12, 1861 – April 9, 1865) after gaining independence from England. The Confederate States fought (treason) to preserve slavery but lost. One of the best indicators that the “White Male Privilege and Political and Economic Power” are systemic (institutionalized) in the US political and economic structure is contained in a statement by President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln stated: “I am not, nor have I ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, - That I am not and never has been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold political office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” Implied in Lincoln’s statement is the notion that Blacks had no men and White men had the power (right) to assign themselves to the position of superior using no criteria other than race. Some southern slave owners took their slaves to Texas after the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation thinking that the Union army did not have the manpower to come to Texas, because of its size, to enforce the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. However, on June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with an army regiment, informed everyone that the enslaved were now free. At the close of the Civil War, the country entered a period called “Reconstruction”. In response, Jim Crow laws were passed to keep blacks in bondage using suppressive laws and denying blacks opportunities in education, housing, business, health services and employment. Senator James K. Vardaman of Mississippi, said that educating the black man “simply rendered him unfit for the work which the white man had prescribed, and which he will be forced to perform…the only effect is to spoil a good field hand and make an insolent cook”. Jim Crow laws remained the order of the day until the “Civil Rights” period that exposed the US treatment of its black citizens to the world and the false claim of “freedom and liberty for all” which resulted in the Voting Rights Act, the War on Poverty, desegregation of public facilities, Affirmative Action. etc. The “Push Back” to the gains from the Civil Rights activities came in the form of the Reagan “Southern Political Strategy”. Reagan kicked off his campaign for President in Philadelphia, Mississippi where several civil right workers were killed during the voters’ right campaign. The Reagan Campaign’s clear message to the former Confederate states was that we will help you turn back the “gains” blacks acquired during the Civil Rights Period, if you become Republicans. Thus, you had attacks on affirmative action, voting rights, etc. States that had said they would never vote for the party of Lincoln all started voting for the party of Lincoln. They are all now red states. (Remember recent revelation of a private conversation Reagan had with Nixon where he called UN representatives from Africa, monkeys and that they were uncomfortable wearing shoes.) The Southern Strategy worked, but, the “powers to be” were caught off guard by the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States of America. The youth started to show their potential voting power with their turnout for Obama. Was the election of Donald Trump a reaction to the election of President Obama? There are indications that it was. Senator McConnell has teamed with President Trump to get rid of everything that (had) has President Obama’s name on it. He did not allow the Senate to vote on President Obama’s nominees for Federal Judges. Most recently McConnell lied that no pandemic plan was left and later had to admit that was not true. Not sure McConnell is a Trump fan but Trump is good at carrying his anti-civil rights (white male privilege) and pro-states’ rights agenda? What will be the US response to the “Black Lives Matter Movement”? 
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