In this week’s readings, none stood out to me so much as the words of Henry McNeal Turner, and his argument for emigrating to Africa. His perspective was one I had not really considered in the great argument from previous chapters for/against African emigration. A great deal of his argument was rooted in pessimism for the future of America. Honestly, he was right. Turner argues that “until we have black men in the seat of power, respected, honored, beloved, feared,hated and reverenced, our young men will never rise…” (Sernett 290). One might argue that, with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, Turner’s prophesy was disproven. Though it would be lovely to believe it so, it seems this aspect of his ideas of America’s future still remains to be seen. Sure, Obama was elected president. But in his administration he was belittled and overruled and reviled by white members of our own government, to the point where party lines seemed to be a convenient excuse for putting America’s first black president back in his place.In this week’s readings, none stood out to me so much as the words of Henry McNeal Turner, and his argument for emigrating to Africa. His perspective was one I had not really considered in the great argument from previous chapters for/against African emigration. A great deal of his argument was rooted in pessimism for the future of America. Honestly, he was right. Turner argues that “until we have black men in the seat of power, respected, honored, beloved, feared,hated and reverenced, our young men will never rise…” (Sernett 290). One might argue that, with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, Turner’s prophesy was disproven. Though it would be lovely to believe it so, it seems this aspect of his ideas of America’s future still remains to be seen. Sure, Obama was elected president. But in his administration he was belittled and overruled and reviled by white members of our own government, to the point where party lines seemed to be a convenient excuse for putting America’s first black president back in his place.

Turner’s argument also seems more reasonable and multifaceted than my initial impression of the ACS led me to believe. I thought that the ideals of the ACS were rooted in the idea that black Americans were not truly Americans (an idea I assumed was propagated by white Americans), and that the plan was to emigrate every black person “back” to Africa (regardless of their not really having been raised there). Turner’s points prove this impression otherwise, at least from his account of ACS’s ideals. In fact, Turner is comfortable in his status as an American, and wishes that his America recognized him as a true citizen, rather than second-class. He refutes the idea that #NotAllWhiteAmericans are bad, since even the pervasive idea that the North was “the good side” was a false narrative when considering how complicit the North was in the subjugation of black Americans. Turner also does not wish for all the black Americans to emigrate to Africa at once. It’s his idea that even a small amount of black Americans could start a viable civilization in Africa. The fact that he uses the example of emptying the penitentiaries to build a civilization really struck home for me, especially considering how pervasive the school-to-prison pipeline is to this day, and the fact that black Americans continue to be jailed at disproportionate rates compared to the relatively insignificant (and, in some cases, nonexistent) crimes they commit.

And now, in an occasion that I am unreasonably excited about, I will post a photo of Henry McNeal Turner.

That’s right. Not a painting or sketch. A PHOTOGRAPH.