One More River to Cross

‘One More River to Cross“
By: Charles Lawrence

Author’s Argument:
In this article Lawrence argues that African Americans were emotionally and physically affected by segregation. African American student’s education was affected by the segregation, and forced them to view themselves as inferior.

Quotes:

1. “The third is that the institution of segregation is organic and self-perpetuating. Once established it will not be eliminated by mere removal of public sanction but must be affirmatively destroyed.”

• This quote is saying that segregation is self-sustaining, meaning once it starts it continues on its own. Once segregation is established it cannot be gotten rid of by just saying it’s gone or has to stop but it must be directly taken care of and destroyed.

2. “That the purpose of the institution of segregation has always been to stigmatize and subordinate rather than to simply separate is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that whites in the antebellum South had no aversion to commingling with African Americans so long as the institution of slavery made their superior status clear.”

• This quote is a statement about the true purpose of segregation. It says that segregation was never meant to just separate people, it was meant to condemn a certain race and put them at a lower status. The quote gives the example of the South, and how segregation was meant to separate whites and African Americans, but it was ok for them to commingle when it was in the form of a slave and slave owner because the class and status differences were made very clear. So as long as in the situation it was made very clear the superiority of the whites, then it was ok for each race to be together at the same place and same time.

3. “Many African American schools that existed within the segregated school systems of the South were in fact superior to their white counterparts. It is ironic that most of these schools achieved their excellence as a direct result of the discrimination inherent in a segregated society, in that the best African American professionals were forced into teaching by their virtual exclusion from other fields.”

• This quote stood out the most to me in this article. Segregation was meant to not only separate, but as I said before, make a clear point to condemn and undermine a certain race. This would mean overall that whites viewed themselves as superior to African Americans and they made it known that they were of a higher status. So it is in fact ironic that the African American schools were better then the white schools because segregation forced very intelligent African Americans out of their original professions and into teaching. So if the purpose of segregation was to essentially prove white superiority, it did exactly the opposite in this case and made the African Americans better then the whites.

Questions/Comments:

This article was interesting but very long and drawn out. I do believe our country is still in a slightly less severe state of segregation and discrimination. I don’t believe it will ever end until some day, some how people learn that we are all equal. We are all made up of the same things, and the color of our packaging is the least important thing. It is in fact just skin, nothing more, and nothing to hate eachother over.