BETRAYAL

CUSP NOT NADIR The term "nadir" has been used by some historians to characterize the period of black American life from Reconstruction Period, 1877 through the 1930's. Perhaps it was most prominently used by Dr. Rayford W. Logan, author of THE BETRAYAL OF THE NEGRO (1954, 1997), noted historian of Howard University. Nadir means lowest social point , the absolute bottom. I disagree. "Cusp" is a better term than "nadir," for the interim post Reconstruction Period, up until the civil rights litigation period began at the NAACP under Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall of the 1930s. To me, chattel slavery would be the "nadir" or lowest point of the African American experience. After Reconstruction, 1865-1873, African Americans were for eight years on the "cusp" of freedom—betwixt and between—by reason of white privileged racist retrenchment in all fields, after the post-Civil War Amendments, 13-15, had promised and had proclaimed liberty, justice, equality for black people particularly. But these new laws were never interpreted nor enforced as purposely enacted to benefit black freedmen and freed women. The law itself, having been suborned, was violated, was corrupted by venal politicians for reconciliation of white adversaries at the expense of black patriotism. Jim Crow laws with “separate but equal” disparities overwhelmed the nation, whether government, family, private, religion, academic, society. I am still reading Dr. Logan’s epic work. Yet, I quote from it in progress to authenticate my perspective: “Part I of this book has traced the Negro’s descent toward the nadir from 1877 to the turn of the century. Part II will portray the attitudes towards this descent as expressed especially in Northern newspapers and magazines. No attempt will be made to determine the extent to which these attitudes helped to mold events , but it will be clear that, on the whole, attitudes endorsed the policies and approved the events that steadily reduced the Negro to a subordinate place in American life.” P.159 He says “nadir”. I say “cusp.” He says we have been reducing since 1877. I say that we have been rising.