By Michael Thorburn
Simon Fraser University

1. Introduction[1][2]

During slavery you had two Negroes. You had the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negro usually lived close to his master. He dressed like his master. He wore his master’s second-hand clothes. He ate food that his master left on the table. And he lived in his master’s house—probably in the basement or the attic—but he still lived in the master’s house. But then you had another Negro out in the field. The house Negro was in the minority. The masses—the field Negroes were the masses. They were in the majority. When the master got sick, they prayed that he’d die. If his house caught on fire, they’d pray for a wind to come along and fan the breeze. If someone came to the house Negro and said, “Let’s go, let’s separate,” naturally that Uncle Tom would say, “Go where? What could I do without boss? Where would I live? How would I dress? Who would look out for me?” That’s the house Negro. But if you went to the field Negro and said, “Let’s go, let’s separate,” he wouldn’t even ask you where or how. He’d say, “Yes, let’s go.” And that one ended right there.

So now you have a twentieth-century-type of house Negro. A twentieth-century Uncle Tom. He’s just as much an Uncle Tom today as Uncle Tom was 100 and 200 years ago. Only he’s a modern Uncle Tom. That Uncle Tom wore a handkerchief around his head. This Uncle Tom wears a top hat. He’s sharp. He dresses just like you do. He speaks the same phraseology, the same language. He tries to speak it better than you do. He speaks with the same accents, same diction. And when you say, “your army,” he says, “our army.” He hasn’t got anybody to defend him, but anytime you say “we” he says “we.” “Our president,” “our government,” “our Senate,” “our congressmen,” “our this and our that.” And he hasn’t even got a seat in that “our” even at the end of the line. So this is the twentieth-century Negro. Whenever you say “you,” the personal pronoun in the singular or in the plural, he uses it right along with you. When you say you’re in trouble, he says, “Yes, we’re in trouble.”[3]

Throughout American history, there has been tension within black thought vis-à-vis the most effective strategies of resistance to address societal inequality. Non-violent resistance movements have been widely adopted based on the position that reform pursued through violent means will only exacerbate “racial” tensions. Others have viewed reform pursued through non-violence as tacit approval of the same social order responsible for the institution of slavery. Still others have held a more revolutionary position and viewed reform itself as insufficient. Those proponents of violence have often labeled non-violent resisters with pejoratives, such as “Uncle Tom” or “house negro.”[4] Indeed, similar iterations of the Uncle Tom epithet—most common in the labeling black individuals who fail to fulfill stereotypical roles as attempting to “act white”—are contemptuously used to this day. In considering these antagonistic positions in the advocacy of violence versus non-violence as a means of effective resistance, I will argue that the tension, which is very much entrenched in black discourse in America, is based on a false dichotomy. The divide between proponents of activism through either violent or passive resistance means, and their interaction with the American state and with white society, can be more fruitfully explored and categorized using the concept of “honour” as an analytical tool.

At the heart of the concept of honour is the idea that a person, or a group, is entitled to respect.[5] Why does honour matter? Put simply, as Kwame Appiah has posited, humanity has been, and always will be, an honour hungry species.[6] The population of the United States is no different. One way to begin to understand why honour matters, especially with regard to ethics, is to recognize the link between honour and respect. Respect and self-respect are deeply sought after affirmations in a broad range of human interactions.[7] While the psychology of honour, as expressed by Appiah, is connected with “walking tall and looking the world in the eye,” the psychology of humiliation, in opposition, is physically manifested in the “curving the spine and lowering the eyes.”[8] Thus, the psychology of respect and honour may be seen to be at the heart of all struggle for civil equality. The history of racial relations in the United States provides an opportunity to analyze “interracial” interactions between a majority and dominant group deeming itself to be superior to minority groups deemed inferior. Although this dynamic has been studied and analysed over the years from a wide range of perspectives and disciplinary foci, bringing to the fore the simple concept of ‘honour’, can provide a tool for offering fresh historical perspective and insights into the resistance struggles of the present.

According to Appiah, an honour code requires specific behaviour of people of certain identities.[9] With different identities, such as those primarily ascribed to gender or “race,” come different demands. People who respect a particular code of honour belong to a shared “world”, irrespective of whether they share an identity.[10] In this paper, I will argue that the United States Constitution, written by mercantile elites and white planters and inspired by the enlightenment concepts of liberty, essentially formed an honour code for American society — mainly, the creation of a national identity. The institution of slavery, lasting until the enactment of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments (1860s) and the Jim Crow era that followed for a century thereafter, ensured that the honour code established in the Constitution would be in tension with itself, between honour based in racism and democratic ideals. Although during the Civil War slavery was abolished and broader civil rights ostensibly established for all citizens, the reactionary response to these constitutional changes, largely by whites in the “defeated” confederate states, prevented the extension of full recognition to the former slaves and their descendants. Through the 20^th century, the Civil Rights Movement, then, was an attempt by black Americans, supported by some non-black sympathizers, at gaining de facto citizenship and equal membership within the code.

Far from monolithic, the movement for civil rights for black Americans included divergent groups with a spectrum of philosophies. Two ideologically divergent figures, which I will focus on in this paper, are Robert F. Williams, an advocate of “armed self-reliance,” and Martin Luther King Jr., an advocate of passive resistance, vis-à-vis the established American honour code.

I will begin by providing the conceptual framework that is required for an analysis of the concept of the “honour code” as forwarded by Appiah. Next, I will provide a broad overview of “racial” history before established civil rights movements in order to make a “membership-based” argument to establish that the American Constitution (hereinafter “the Constitution”) did implicitly incorporate an honour code for the benefit of a segment of American society. Following that, I will analyse the respective ideologies and experiences of Robert Williams (hereinafter “Williams”) and Martin Luther King Jr. (hereinafter “King”) with regard to the power structure of the American South and the aforementioned American honour code. Finally, in an Afterword, I will postulate on the lessons to be gained from the analysis of the honour code in history, and how these lessons might be applied to the “racial” tensions that have plagued America throughout the past year.

1. Conceptual Framework: Honour and Respect

If one wants to determine whether a given social order has a concern with honour, he or she must look first to see whether people within that society think that everyone, regardless of race, class or identity has a right to be treated with respect.[11] That being said, it is likely that almost every social order will have some acknowledgement of honour and respect. However, much can be gained from analyzing those groups or individuals who do not gain honour or respect within a particular social order. But before I stray too far — the concept of ‘respect’ must be further broken down. In this regard, Philosopher Stephen Darwall provides useful distinctions between two fundamentally different ways a person may be respected: ‘appraisal’ respect, and ‘recognition’ respect.[12]

‘Recognition respect’ involves treating someone in a way that gives appropriate weight to some fact or aspect about him or her. Such respect may even be extended by ordinary people to a rich or politically powerful group with whom their economic interests might otherwise be in conflict. In other words, one group may respect recognizes another’s power given the stabilizing dynamics within the same social order.[13] The same ‘recognition’ of power can be applied to relationships between individuals, as well as people’s interactions with the law, and other social institutions; each can be the object of this kind of mutual respect.[14] As a result, recognition respect does not rest upon any notion of relative rankings. To the contrary, people can have a variety of emotions, both positive and negative, towards someone who garners recognition respect. This kind of respect commonly manifests itself as deference. One might consider the respect that is given to judges. Judges command recognition respect by virtue of requiring others to constrain their own behaviour while they are in court, a power that is ‘recognized’ by all who take part in the proceedings of a trial. An example of recognition respect within American “race” relations could be black peoples’ often pragmatic deference to white police officers, even where racist attitudes and practices are displayed.

In contrast, appraisal respect, according to Darwall, involves judging a person positively according to a standard, relative to other people. As such, appraisal respect brings into focus the idea of virtue.[15] Unlike recognition respect, one may have appraisal respect for someone without being compelled to act a certain way in that person’s presence. Appraisal respect involves the positive appraisal of a person’s integrity or as an individual engaged in a specific pursuit.[16] Darwall provides an example of how both recognition and appraisal respect are connected: if one determines that someone is not worthy of appraisal respect because he or she is dishonest, then that the person who made the assessment is also committed to recognition respect for considerations of honesty.[17] An example of appraisal respect could be an individual who views a particular athlete with respect because of the athlete’s presumed talents. Such respect has no power to compel the individual to act in any way, in contrast to the previous examples.

These two kinds of respect distinguished by Darwall correspond to two kinds of honour delineated by Appiah: ‘competitive honour’, and ‘peer honour’. The former, similar to appraisal respect, is conferred in degrees. That is to say, people are accorded it by others in varying extents. The latter, in comparison, is not bestowed in degrees. Rather, it governs relations among those of equal status; one either has peer honour, or she does not. Peer honour, thus, is not the respect accorded to people in general. Peer honour rather lays the contours of respect within a particular social group, which forms an honour code.[18] Simply put, respect can be understood as given on a person-to-person basis, whereas honour governs the relations of a group. An honour code normalizes how people of certain identities within a society can gain the right to respect, how they can lose it.[19]

A key point here is that both recognition respect and appraisal respect can be distributed by respective honour codes without any regard for morality.[20] Indeed, certain honour codes can require people of certain identities to do things that are, in actuality, immoral and despicable. In this context, the honour code created within the legal framework of the American Constitution which gradually took its form within social life implicitly proscribed behaviours and expectations which, by contemporary assessment, were demonstrably racist. The lynching of black Americans, which continued in the United States from the slavery era well into the 20^th century, is an example of this. Indeed, the Klu Klux Klan, which perpetrated acts of violence against blacks, was established on the basis of an ‘honour code’ of ex-veterans of the Confederacy protecting the honour of “widows and orphans.”

‘Respect’ and ‘honour’ thus far understood are further illuminated by their symbiotic link to the concept of ‘esteem’. Brennan & Petit explicate ‘esteem’ as an expanded form of appraisal respect and competitive honour, which involves evaluating others by a series of categories.[21] This ranking considers the positive asset of approbation and the negative liability of disapprobation within civil society.[22] Brennan & Petit go on to consider the forces of esteem through market-style economics analysis. While the marketization of esteem provides a fruitful quantitative extension of an honour-based analysis, it is not within the scope of this paper, which is limited to the forms of respect and honour as described by Darwall and Appiah.

From the basic concepts outlined here I have drawn two more conceptual tools, the complex forms of honour and respect, which will be utilized in later sections. However, before an analysis is possible, the initial claim that the American Constitution (1789) formed an honour code must be explored. The following section will provide a historical overview and then a ‘membership-based’ argument to demonstrate that the American Constitution created an honour code.

III. US Constitution as an Honour Code

The Constitution as drafted in 1789, in effect, set the original contours for membership within American society. Although the constitution embedded a novel commitment to ‘liberty’ and incipient democracy which challenged traditional European class structures, the drafters themselves, being literate white men of property, implicitly enshrined their self-interests and values. Since distinct segments of the population were outwardly excluded from citizenship, participatory rights, public forms of participation, and norms were codified within American civil society without any application to, or input from, black Americans, among other excluded groups. Even within its 18^th century context, the Declaration of Independence was a revolutionary accomplishment, but it did not prompt its beneficiaries to use its text in challenging institutionalized inequality. However visionary the framers may have been, the ideals of participatory democracy and equality, which have evolved in the following 200 years, was probably beyond the scope of their vision. Their impetus within the historical context was rather grounded in rational self-preservation; their honour code was implicitly exclusive.

In 1791, ten amendments, collectively known as the Bill of Rights, were ratified and embodied in the Constitution.[23] These amendments guaranteed certain basic protections for citizens, including freedom of speech, religion and the press,[24] the right to bear and keep arms,[25] the right against cruel and unusual punishment,[26] among others. While the vast majority of blacks were excluded from rights entirely, there were provisions that referred to slaves, most of whom resided in the southern states.[27] Article I, Section 2 deemed each slave to be three-fifths of a human in census data for the purposes of increasing Southern states’ representation in Congress.[28] Additionally, Article IV, Section 2 stated that free states could not protect slaves.[29] The provisions culminated in Dred Scott v Sanford, a case that featured a slave who attempted to sue his owners for freedom while in a state that prohibited slavery. The decision resulted in striking down existing federal legislation that regulated slavery. In a 7-2 decision, Chief Justice Taney determined that no black person could sue in America because, free or enslaved, they were non-citizens who, without citizenship, possessed no standing in court.

The American Civil War, which followed shortly after Dred Scott, was largely fought over the legality of the declared secession of the confederate states.[30] However, midway through the war, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address linked the war to the abolition of slavery.[31] After the South ultimately surrendered in 1865, the Reconstruction era began. The Articles related to slavery were repealed and replaced with the Thirteenth Amendment, which formally abolished the practice of slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which (ostensibly) extended citizenship and equal protection under the law to black Americans.[32] However, the remnants of slavery and power dynamics—essentially a retrenchment of the old honour code—remained in the states of the former confederacy. In the South, Reconstruction gave way to Jim Crow, which legally mandated segregation on the basis of “race.”[33] “Separate but equal,” as it was coined, was formalized in the decision in Plessy v Ferguson (1896) and remained standard judicial doctrine until Brown v Board of Education of Topeka in 1954.[34]

In theory, “separate but equal” could be seen to be grounded in an iteration of the Aristotelian principle of formal equality; the idea that things that are alike should be treated alike, while things that are unalike should be treated unalike, proportionate to their unlikeness.[35] However, in practice, this approach amounted to the entrenchment of discriminatory policies, systems of “racial etiquette” established by the old master-slave relations, and thus, a hierarchy of citizenship.

It is important to note that when ‘citizenship’ is conferred it implies a sense of mutual obligation. Citizens hold themselves responsible, and are, in turn, held responsible by their fellow citizens. [36] It is from this mutual responsibility that the possibility of self-respect and peer honour arises. However, when citizenship is exclusive, as was the case throughout much of the history of the United States, there is a dual impact: those who are not categorized as citizens, the out-group, will not be accorded the opportunity to develop positive recognition respect or peer honour.[37] Further, those who are citizens will not be held accountable for their treatment of the excluded groups. With regard to the contours of the American experience, the Constitution created an honour code that excluded blacks and other marginalized groups (e.g. native Americans, non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants) from developing a normalized American identity, and implicitly allowed white Americans, particularly in the South, bad behaviour in their interactions with blacks.

It could be questioned that why, within the United States, long-labeled a “nation of immigrants,” black Americans did not simply become a part of the honour code after a number of generations like so many other groups, initially excluded but who usually integrated within a generation to become, by and large participatory citizens within the United States. Here I would state that the usual story of immigration does not apply to the descendants of African slaves, who have not had the privilege of becoming “white” over time.[38] For black Americans the route to the honour code could not follow the contours set out by the white immigrant. Rather, it had to come from a struggle for civil rights.

All honour takes place within a particular culture. People are, naturally, concerned with the vulnerability of their respective cultures.[39] This means that any changes to the honour code may be responded to in the same way as perceived threats to the survival of their culture: groups are likely to take measures to maintain their status.

In the context of honour codes, people seeking to maintain their right to respect tend to be reluctant to challenge issues of morality which may even affront their personal ethics (e.g. around racial discrimination) if such opposition seems to run counter to code of honour of the larger group in which they require participation. That is to say, individuals who gain appraisal respect and peer honour from the broader society’s honour code are likely to support the maintenance of the status quo so as to not risk their personal status.[40]

This tendency is especially relevant to this analysis, noting that honour codes that are incompatible with morality seem to arise more frequently than those which are compatible.[41] In the American context, a white person who challenged institutions on the basis that they perpetuated immorality or discrimination risked alienating his or her membership within the honour code and falling into disrepute within their respective communities. White abolitionists in the 19^th century and desegregationists in the 20^th century southern USA, for example, risked reprisal if not ostracism from their white communities. This social dynamic supports the idea that the white public, in the century of Jim Crow (1860s-1960s) had little disposition for reforming the discriminatory status quo. Challenges to the “separate but equal” social framework would be most likely arise from those who were excluded from full membership since their status within the honour code could not be at risk if they were not privy to it.

In summary, the foregoing discussion around the historical exclusion of black Americans from equal participation and enjoyment of constitutional rights feeds into the larger claim that the Constitution entrenched an exclusionary honour code into American society. The section that follows will introduce and discuss the experiences of King and Williams, and their respective challenges to the southern white power structure. It will speak to both men’s experiences engaging with and challenging the social honour codes of their era. Additionally, I will reintroduce the “house negro” “field negro” dichotomy presented at the outset in comparison to an analysis based on Appiah’s “honour code” construct.

1. Civil Rights Era

The Civil Rights Era, which began after Brown v Board of Education, marked a watershed moment in American “race” relations. The period represented the first moment in which sizeable black populations challenged the status quo through public political activism since the Reconstruction era. The shift towards a willingness to challenge Jim Crow is, of course, relevant to an honour analysis. It reveals a purposive effort by the historical out-group, black Americans, to gain membership as full citizens.[42]As mentioned, those who were challenging the system did not share a uniform ideology; there were a number of divergent philosophies.

Before I discuss King and Williams, I must address a question that may arise: Why focus on Williams? It may be argued that the historical importance of individuals like Malcolm X or Black Panther Huey Newton, provide a better contrast to that of King. To that question I would reply, my interest in Williams is based on the premise that he like King—but not in the same manner—sought to expand the American honour code rather than erecting (as Malcolm X arguably advocated) an exclusionary black honour code. Second, I am focusing on Williams precisely because he was forgotten by history. Williams’s omission from mainstream civil rights history, in itself, presents another opportunity by which to analyse the role of honour.

Martin Luther King, who became active in the mid-1950s in nonviolent resistance and eventually was recognized for his efforts with the Nobel Peace Prize, remains one of the most respected figures of the 20^th century. Williams and King have similar biographies. Each rose quickly within their respective endeavours: King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Williams became head of the local NAACP branch in Monroe, North Carolina, wherein he grew membership from basically just him, to over three hundred members.[43] Robert F Williams, in contrast, is often unremembered for his contributions although he was a part of a long tradition of those in the Civil Rights movement who believed it was just to answer aggression with force.[44]

What is particularly interesting to note from the contemporary perspective wherein the bearing of arms is a civil right enshrined in the US constitution and held to be sacrosanct by conservatives, is that Civil Rights advocates like Williams who sought “progressive” reforms believed that self-defence, grounded in the Second Amendment, was a fundamental right. Thus, this belief in Second Amendment Rights by powerful and influential elements in the black Civil Rights movement is often submerged within the dominant non-violent narrative of the modern civil rights movement.[45]

Williams’s family had a tradition of political activism and the use of firearms. Williams’s grandmother, a former slave, gave him his first shotgun, a Reconstruction era relic that was used by his grandfather.[46] As an 11-year-old in Monroe, North Carolina, Williams first experienced the physical force of Jim Crow in witnessing a local police officer beating a black woman in public.[47] Direct experience within the Southern power structures made Williams aware that whites functioned as the “superior” race.[48] Though his experience serving as a Marine in the Second World War contributed to his realization that notions of “racial” superiority were illusory.[49] Williams was honourably discharged from the service, but served at least one stint in the brig for insubordination, or, in his words, “refusing to be a nigger.”[50] His experiences in family, community and growing international awareness melded into an ideology that Williams would come to coin as “armed self-reliance” — the idea that invoking the Second Amendment in order to defend one’s self against aggression was a right which all United States citizens, irrespective of colour, could invoke. Indeed, Williams argued that self-defence was part of the “American tradition.”[51]

In contrast, King’s pacifist ideology was predicated on Christian ideals and inspired by Gandhi. He stated that hate was always tragic, and it was as injurious to the hater as it was to the hated.[52] King advocated for black Americans to work towards equal citizenship through non-violence instead of “second-class methods.”[53] King stated that if change were pursued through violent means, unborn generations would live in a perpetual state of bitterness.[54] In order to ameliorate the discriminatory issues that plagued black Americans throughout US history, King advocated for passive resistance advanced by supporters of all races in the Civil Rights Movement. His goal, to make “brotherhood the condition, not the dream of man,” was grounded in idealism.[55] That being said, King also stated that the principle of self-defence was not fully prohibited, even by Gandhi. King viewed active resistance acceptable for those who were unable to master pure non-violence. The inference was, however, that exceptions must be made for the human imperfections of those needing to defend themselves through violent means.

It is important to assess whether Williams and King, in their different approaching to the Civil Rights struggle accepted, or sought acceptance to, the same code, or whether their ideologies envisaged something entirely different.  In this regard it needs to be reiterated that honour entails entitlement to respect according to the codes of their honour world.

Based on the historical evidence, I would claim that Williams respected, and aspired to be a part of, the American honour code, so long as it was ridden of its historical exclusionary tendencies. His desegregationist efforts were aimed at gaining black Americans membership into the honour code by using methods that were grounded in the Constitution-based values of the full citizen, including the Right to Bear Arms to defend personal liberties. In essence, his ideology was deeply conservative, in that it viewed the reading and upholding of the text of the Constitution as one of the most important tools for responding to institutionalized racism of the South. In the case of King’s position vis- à-vis the received honour code embedded in the existing constitution, one could argue that rather than respecting existing American honour code; King’s movement actually sought to rebuild it entirely. King’s ideology seems to capture elements of American idealism, which are present within the Declaration of Independence, but also stretches towards transcendent notions of common humanity.

1. Application

This section will trace the interaction of King and Williams’s ideologies with the southern white power structure of their era, and how their approaches related to the American honour code. As previously stated, King advocated a new honour code entirely, and Williams sought inclusion into the traditional honour code—one ridden of its racist tendencies. However, neither man was successful in his efforts.

Strategy

Williams’s worldview resulted in the belief that the stranglehold of oppression could not be solely loosened by pleas to public conscience.[56] In this regard, he viewed self-defence as the only viable option for progress, as in the dire situation blacks faced in the American South in the 1950s liberation and survival were becoming infused into the same goal. Notably, Williams stated “when the Negro uses force in self-defence, he does not forfeit support—he may even win it, by the courage and self-respect it reflects.”[57] This stance reflects the realities of Williams’s upbringing within the South, as well as his implicit acceptance of an American honour code. Williams frequently noted that non-violence was “utterly inconsistent with the American tradition,” especially in the states of the former confederacy.[58] Within the American South, the protection of a reputation for toughness is highly important and perceived insults, especially by blacks to white women, were generally viewed as intolerable.[59] White southerners are noted as not approving of violence in the abstract, but approving of it for protection of self, family, possessions, and responding to affronts.[60] In this regard, Williams’s ideology around self-defence and retributory justice parallels that of the white Southerner, only deprived of the racist impetus.

            In contrast, King viewed the prescription for social justice resting not in the use of force, but rather within an accurate diagnosis of the disease: America’s problem was, in his view, racism. He viewed that “redemption” could be achieved through a society of brotherhood, possible through a humble acknowledgement of guilt and an honest knowledge of self.[61] King recognized the responsibly of the average white person in eradicating segregation from American society. He stated that the average citizen had to resist the urges that had been implanted within the American psyche to seize upon an exclusive villain: America versus Britain during the revolution, the North against the South during the civil war, black against white within the Jim Crow South—and even the “house negro” versus the “field negro”. King essentially sought to end the perpetual dualisms. Instead, he encouraged the average citizen to rise up against his own municipal, state and national governments to demand that the necessary reforms be instituted to protect citizens of all races.[62]

It is worth nothing that, on face value, the “house negro,” “field negro” in this context. It was originally thought that the individual who imitates the behaviour of the “old master” was, in fact, the “house negro” or Uncle Tom. Ironically, throughout the analysis it has become more and more apparent that those who advocate for the right to self-defence are acting most similarly to that of the former “master.” In this regard, the dualism is inverted: It is the non-violent individual who, in actuality, is acting without attempting to emulate. Of course, the relationship between those who advocated for self-defence and those who advocated for passive resistance is far more complex than a simple dualism. Both positions protested against the existing legal system in the United States, and neither was complacent with the segregationist system, which existed primarily in the American South.

On White America’s Role

King and Williams had different views on white America’s role in the movement for desegregation. Their differing views on white America’s role provide insights into each of their respective stances on the broader American honour code. Williams separated the average white American from the Southern white power structure, stating, “the majority of white people in the United States have literally no idea of the violence with which the Negroes in the South are treated daily—nay, hourly.”[63] The statement shows that Williams did not view the “average white American” as responsible for initiating change to the discriminatory Southern structures. In this regard, Williams may have confined the “racist honour” of the South to the south, and the ideal-based peer honour to the rest of the nation. It appears that Williams originally thought that the average white American may be sympathetic with individuals who sought to defend themselves on the basis of constitutionally protected rights. While this belief been a prudent attempt to ally his cause with sympathetic white liberals, it nonetheless reveals an attempt at providing peer honour to the broader honour code and, to a degree, seeking recognition respect in return.

In contrast, King viewed the “average white American” as possessing responsibilities within the desegregation efforts. King stated that all white Americans were complicit in Southern racism if they did not stand against it.[64] King stated, “the white man cannot ignore the Negro’s problem, because he is part of the Negro and the Negro is part of him.” Further, “the Negro’s agony diminishes the white man, and the Negro’s salvation enlarges the white man.”[65] In this regard, by stating that all white American are complicit within the Southern system, King was posing a direct challenge to the American honour code. While the distinction between King and William’s stances appears tenuous prima facie—i.e. they are both appealing to ideals—it becomes apparent in view of their respective ideologies. The fact that Williams confined the direct blame of segregation to the South suggests that he did not want to cast blame on the broader code so as to avoid being excluded from potential membership. Further, the fact that he thought he would be respected by the white majority for his use of Second Amendment-inspired self-defence, suggests that he was seeking peer honour. In contrast, King’s statement went beyond the traditional American honour code and towards a new form of recognition entirely by virtue of appealing to non-violence-based ideals.

King raised an example to further illustrate the “ambivalence of white America,” or, for our purposes, the American honour code.[66]. He points out that culture of the South was made to appear noble by ignoring slavery just as the American pioneer narrative glorified the pushing aside, if not the wiping out, native Americans..[67] King viewed American history as two centuries of continuous indoctrination, which resulted in the separation of people according to a “mythically superior and inferior” status, while the democratic spirit of equality was evoked as a national ideal. The “schizophrenic duality of conduct” was noted as being timeless throughout American history. In this regard, King is, again, challenging the viability of an American honour code that refuses to acknowledge the larger issue of racism. In this regard, King was arguing that a new code was needed.

Williams and MLK Experience with the State

King and Williams had distinct positions on the American state. Like generations before him, Williams was cautious not to step over the boundary between self-defence and political violence. Williams posited that group advancement was only possible if self-defence was mixed into moral suasion rooted in American ideals—mainly ideals found within the Constitution—and dependant on coalitions with white progressives.[68] Williams’s attempts to form coalitions with white progressives ultimately failed because his “armed self-reliance” ideology isolated his cause from blacks as well as from whites. In performing an analysis of the honour code, it must be stressed why Williams, who was acting within his constitutional rights, did not garner support from the American honour code which he was often acting within.

Williams experience within the southern structure is best described through an anecdote: After identifying Williams and his NAACP chapter picketing segregated swimming pool in 1960, white individuals began protesting on local roads. A large group of white southerners stopped Williams and some students while driving to the picket line. The protestors began throwing rocks on top of Williams’s car and chanting, “Kill the niggers! Pour gasoline on the niggers! We aren’t having any integration here! We’re not going to swim with niggers!”[69] Armed with two pistols and a rifle, which were legal in North Carolina, Williams and two students in the vehicle readied their weapons as a warning to the mob. Ultimately a city councillor forced the police to let Williams drive away, as the group was leaving they witnessed a very old white man in the crowd was screaming and crying, “God damn, God damn, what is this God damn country coming to that the niggers have got guns, the niggers are armed and the police can’t even arrest them!”[70]

Relating the anecdote back to honour, Williams’s actions, again, were in line with half of the American honour code. As Appiah notes: “A man of honor must be ready to defend his honor—to risk his life, in fact, to ensure that he gets the respect that is his due.”[71] In many ways, Williams’s willingness to defend himself should have garnered him respect from those who advocated for a rights-based honour code. However, it did not. Ultimately Williams’s actions resulted in him being removed from his leadership position within the Monroe Chapter of the NAACP, but not before delivering a speech wherein he declared “I WILL NOT CRAWL” at the nation-wide convention. This began the process of the national media, and the US government, becoming aware of the movement for “armed self-reliance.”

Appiah notes that when the printing press and popular media focused on the “tradition” of duelling in the 19^th century it had the effect of weakening the practice.[72] In Williams’s case, the national attention that was given ultimately weakened his attempts at reforming the American honour code even though his actions were within his legal rights. In the early 1960s Williams was considered to be a threat not only to white society in Monroe, but also to the entire nation. The FBI labeled him murderer, a schizophrenic and a domestic terrorist although there was no evidence to suggest that any of the three charges had were based on any factual evidence. Ultimately he was forced to flee to Canada and then fly to Cuba.^[73] It is essential to question that if any alleged offences by Williams and subsequent actins taken against him were grounded in a genuinely application of law or if they were due to the ideological threat that the potential of black Americans invoking “armed self-reliance” posed for the existing power structures of the day. One could well argue that the exclusion of Williams was grounded in southern refusal to include him in the honour code.

When Williams was in exile, the Black Power movement came into shape in the USA. It formed what might be called a counter-majoritarian honour world — that is, an honour world that stands in opposition to larger honour world. Before the end of his tragically short life, King himself became more sympathetic with many of the Black Power advocates who became disenchanted with the inconsistencies in the militaristic posture of the United States government, who applauded nonviolence for those in the Civil Rights movement yet sent black individuals to fight in Vietnam. King argued that Black Power was the psychological reaction to the indoctrination that led to the creation of the perfect slave.[74] He argued that the black American must be grasped by a new realization of his dignity and worth by standing up amid a system of oppression while developing an unassailable sense of his own value. In simple terms,, he advocated for black Americans to no longer be shameful for being black.[75] A firm sense of self-esteem, courtesy of psychological freedom was viewed as the most powerful weapon against the “long night of physical slavery.”[76]

Although King stated that Black power was an understandable as a response to a white power structure that never completely committed itself to true equality for black Americans, he stated that it nonetheless carries the seeds of its own doom.[77] King stated that in a multiracial society—which was increasingly becoming the new American reality—no group could make it alone. To succeed in a pluralistic society, black Americans needed to be organized but strength of organization would only be effective when consolidated through constructive alliances with the majority group.[78] The cooperation of “Negro and white” based on the solid ground of honest conscience and proper self-interest was viewed as the solution by democratic means to alter basic institutions. The isolation of black Americans, as advocated by the Black Power movement, was viewed as making such a goal impossible.[79] This can be viewed as King’s attempted espousal of the values of his own honour code.

King noted that throughout American history, laws affirming black rights have consistently been circumvented by ingenious evasions, which render them void in practice.[80] He points out that laws that are complex and which affect the whole population—draft laws, income-tax laws, traffic laws—managed to work even though they are deeply unpopular, and yet laws passed for the benefit for black America are so weakly enforced that “it is a mockery to call them laws.”[81] In this regard, King is highlighting the effect of the state in facilitating the racist component of peer honour within the code. Fully-fledged black membership was often denied by the practices of the state itself.

King noted the tension that has occurred throughout American was the struggle between idealism and racism. By the 1960s, he viewed that the United States had strayed too far into the direction of racism, and away from idealism. He stated that the nation’s pillars were grounded in the insights of the nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage, primarily the values that all men are brothers and heir to a legacy of dignity and worth.[82] While the racism that was present within the segregated nation of his era created a moral and spiritual crisis he remained confident that the nation could, in fact, return to its idealistic beginnings.

It is apparent that King’s honour code was unrealized. Williams attempt at bringing black citizens into the American honour code was also unfulfilled. Ultimately King’s vision continues to be celebrated to this day, and yet the American honour code seemingly remains as it has been over the past 200 years: fractured.

Williams, in comparison, ultimately returned to the United States from exile in the late 1970s, facing no charges. Speaking at his funeral in Monroe in 1995, Rosa Parks stated that those who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Alabama admired Williams “for his courage and his commitment to freedom. The work that he did should go down in history and never be forgotten.”[83] The fate of both men reveals that neither was successful in wholly changing the American honour code.

1. Conclusion

Michael Walzer notes, “the denial of membership is always the first of a long train of abuses.”[84] This rings especially true throughout the American experience. The Framers of the Constitution of the United States crafted an honour code, which came to permeate American society. The original honour code, while revolutionary for its recognition of the rights of many, was crafted with a fatal flaw — the affirmation of slavery. From this, I have argued, the American honour code was internally contradictory; on one hand, all men were celebrated as equal under God, and on the other, black Americans were recorded as three-fifths of persons. This internal tension is what led to what some viewed as the ambivalence of the American state: The Civil War, the Reconstruction era, and the Jim Crow period each further entrenched the initial divide that was set by the Framers of the Constitution.

The various movements within the Civil Rights Era were attempts at altering the societal position of black Americans. I have framed this in terms of attempting to achieve “full citizenship,” and to gain recognition respect within the American honour code. Robert Williams, an advocate of “armed self-reliance” and Martin Luther King Jr, a proponent of passive resistance, were the focal point of this paper’s honour analysis. I concluded that each man sought a different end vis-à-vis the American code. Williams sought black acceptance within the existing ideals; this was proven by his frequent justification of self-defence on the basis of the Second Amendment. King, in comparison, seemed to be seeking to craft a new honour code altogether — one that focused less on specific rights within the Constitution and more on the spirit of the document. I have argued that the documents I have had available to me suggest that King sought a transcendental honour code that was based in non-violence and the dignity of all people.

Ultimately, both men were not successful in altering the American honour code to respective ideologies. Williams’s overreliance on the Second Amendment ostracized him from mainstream American society, thus reducing whatever competitive honour he may have possessed, and forced him into exile in Cuba. King’s honour code has, in many ways, been submerged into the American honour code. This is evident from the fact that he is personally revered and the lessons of his role in the Civil Rights Movement is taught as one of the most important moments of US history. However, King sought for the racism of the past to be recognized, acknowledged, and addressed in order to eradicate the discriminatory bug that has plagued America through its existence. This, evidentially, did not happen. The American honour code has, for better and for worse, maintained its original structure.

Afterword

Appiah notes the duel was once one of literally getting away with murder.[85] The standard pattern was such that, if one was killed in a duel, the other individual would disappear abroad and wait to see if a prosecution was brought. If one was not charged, they could return home and continue on with their life. If one was prosecuted, and you had behaved properly, you could present the fact to a jury of your peers, wherein the judge was likely to be sympathetic, and the jury was likely to acquit you if he was not.[86]

A similar pattern has emerged within the modern day exclusionary side of the American honour code. Whether Michael Brown in Ferguson,[87] Eric Garner in New York,[88] or Tamir Rice in Cleveland,[89] the utilization of the Grand Jury appears to circumvent the need to punish state actors for the killing black of men. The duel, which was of course also driven by honour, eventually came to fall. However it is naïve to argue that the United States Constitution—a document viewed with near-religious reverence—will come to fall in the new future. This means that white Americans must either accept black Americans into the code, thereby extending recognition respect and peer honour, or a new honour code must be crafted altogether, as King argued for. If neither is possible, then it seems as if the black American will continue to possess second-class citizenship and lesser worth of life within United States’ society.

While the past year has, as mentioned, been replete with evidence that the American honour code is retaining its exclusionary structure, recent developments may point towards a turning point. Two events, the deaths of Walter Scott in Charleston[90] and Freddie Gray in Baltimore,[91] have resulted in charges being laid against the officers involved. In both cases, a clear majority of public opinion rests on the side of both of the deceased.[92] In other words, the prosecution of state officials in these circumstances may reveal a greater respect of the dignity of the victims by government structures, as well as the general American public. Whatever may result from the legal proceedings, the incidences over the past year may have contributed to a new sense of awareness among the broader public of the extent that “racial” inequality is entrenched—and thus needs to be ameliorated—within American society. This means that, as a result of the aforementioned losses of life that have occurred at the hands of the state, a paradox has emerged: For black Americans, a chance to be accepted into the code as full citizens may be more feasible now than at any time in recent memory.

Honour has clearly had a deeply insidious impact on United States history. However, I would like to close by stating that honour, purged of its prejudice, is well suited to turn private moral sentiments into public norms.[93] Understanding the role of honour and respect has the power to bind the private and public together. With the right understanding, honour can develop from individual convictions to the formation of associations and campaigns. Thus, it should be apparent that honour, properly utilized, could be an engine for dialogue and social interaction between people, and ourselves.[94] It all starts with recognizing the ubiquity of honour. From there, it can be promoted as a tool for empowerment to create a more just world. As Appiah announced so eloquently — we may think we have finished with honour, but honour isn’t finished with us.[95]

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

LEGISLATION

US Const amend I.

US Const amend II.

US Const amend VIII.

US Const amend VIX.

US Const art I, § 2.

US Const art IV, § 2.

JURISPRUDENCE

Dred Scott v Sanford, 60 US 393 (1856); 60 US 393 (How).

Plessy v Ferguson, 163 U.S.537 (1896); 16 S. Ct. 1138.

Brown v Board of Education of Topeka 347 U.S. 483 (1954)

SECONDARY MATERIALS

Appiah, Kwame. The Honor Code (New York: WW Norton & Company, 2010).

Aristotle. Nichomachean Ethics (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co, 1999).

Brennan, Geoffery & Philip Pettit. The Economy of Esteem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

Cohen, Robert. Black Crusader (United States of America: Radical Books, 2008) at 28.

Darwall, Stephen L. “Two Kinds of Respect” (1977) 88 Ethics 36.

Dewan, Shaila & Richard Oppel Jr. “In Tamir Rice Case, Many Errors by Cleveland Police, Then a Fatal One” New York Times (22 January 2015), <online: www.nytimes.com>.

The Editorial Board. “The Walter Scott Murder” New York Times (8 April 2015), online: <www.nytimes.com>.

The Editors. “The Unnecessary Death of Eric Garner” National Review (4 December 2014), online: <www.nationalreview.com>.

Fantz, Ashley & Greg Botelho. “What we know, don’t know about Freddie Gray’s death” CNN (29 April 2015), online: <www.cnn.com>.

Frankovic, Kathy. “Unlike Ferguson, the shooting of Walter Scott finds racial agreement” YouGov US (15 April 2015), online: <www.today.yougov.com>.

Healy, Jack. “Ferguson, Still Tense, Grows Calmer” New York Times (26 November 2014), online: <www.nytimes.com>.

History.Com Staff, “The US Constitution” History (2009), online: History.com <http://www.history.com>.

Johnson, Nicholas. Negroes and the Gun (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2014)

King Jr, Martin Luther. Where do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967).

Lincoln, Abraham. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008).

Nisbett, Richard & Dov Cohen. Culture of Honour (Boulder, CO: 1996).

Pew Research Center. “Multiple Causes Seen for Baltimore Unrest: Most Say it Was the ‘Right Decision’ to Charge Police Officers” Pew Research Center (4 May 2015), online: <www.people-press.org>;

Stewart, Frank Henderson. Honor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

Tyson, Timothy. Radio Free Dixie (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).

Walzer, Michael. Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983).

Williams, Robert F. Negroes with Guns (New York: Marzani & Munsell, 2013).

X, Malcolm. “The Race Problem” (African Students Association and NAACP Campus Chapter, delivered at Michigan State University, 23 January 1963), [unpublished].

[1] *I will not capitalize “black” throughout the paper. This is due to stylistic, not political, considerations — with the frequent use of the terms “black” and “white”, capitalizing one and not the other appears awkward.

[2] * My spelling of “honour” will be in accordance with Canadian English. This normally would go without saying, but the work I cite extensively from, The Honor Code, spells “honour” in American English.

[3] Malcolm X, “The Race Problem” (African Students Association and NAACP Campus Chapter, delivered at Michigan State University, 23 January 1963), [unpublished].

[4] Ibid.

[5] Kwame Appiah, The Honor Code (New York: WW Norton & Company, 2010) at 13 [Appiah, Honor Code]; Frank Henderson Stewart, Honor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) at 63 [Stewart, Honor]; Stephen L Darwall “Two Kinds of Respect” (1977) 88 Ethics 36 at 38 [Darwall, “Two Kinds of Respect”].

[6] Geoffery Brennan & Philip Pettit, The Economy of Esteem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) at 1 [Brennan & Pettit, Economy of Esteem].

[7] Appiah, Honor Code, supra note 5 at XV.

[8] Ibid at XVII.

[9] I realize that ‘identity’ is slippery concept. In this context, identity is in reference to a majority, who has a monopoly on honour, casting social divisions based on whether groups are granted respect or not. See Stewart, Honor, supra note 5 at 146.

[10] Appiah, Honor Code, supra note 5 at 176.

[11] Appiah, Honor Code, supra note 5 at 175.

[12] Appiah, Honor Code, supra note 5 at 13; Darwall, “Two Kinds of Respect”, supra note 5 at 47.

[13] Appiah, Honor Code, supra note 5 at 13; Darwall, “Two Kinds of Respect”, supra note 5 at 36.

[14] Brennan & Pettit, Economy of Esteem, supra note 6 at 38.

[15] Brennan & Pettit, Economy of Esteem, supra note 6 at 44; Stewart, Honor, supra note 5 at 145.

[16] Darwall, “Two Kinds of Respect”, supra note 5 at 44.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Appiah, Honor Code, supra note 5 at 20.

[19] Ibid at 175.

[20] Appiah references the “Gentlemenly Duel” took place in the 19^th C is an example of an “honour world,” as well as a code, at play. See Appiah, Honor Code, supra note 5 at 1.

[21] Categories include location, level, dimensions, ideals, public, comparators, and access of rational agents. See Brennan & Pettit, Economy of Esteem, supra note 6 at 34.

[22] Brennan & Pettit, Economy of Esteem, supra note 6 at 3; Stewart, Honor, supra note 5 at 23.

[23] History.Com Staff, “The US Constitution” History (2009), online: History.com <http://www.history.com>.

[24] US Const amend I.

[25] US Const amend II.

[26] US Const amend VIII.

[28] This became known as the “three-fifths compromise.” See US Const art I, § 2.

[29] US Const art IV, § 2.

[30] 60 US 393 (1856); 60 US 393 (How).

[31] Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008).

[32] US Const amend VIX.

[33] The period also saw the rise of “sharecropping”: the system where labourers with no land of their own worked on farm plots owned by others, and at the end of the season landowners paid workers a share of the crop.

[34] 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

[35] Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co, 1999).

[36] Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983) at 279 [Walzer, Spheres].

[37] Appiah, Honor Code, supra note 5 at 191.

[38] Kwame Appiah, The Ethics of Identity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005) at 130.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Appiah, Honor Code, supra note 5 at 180.

[41] Ibid at 182.

[42] “Full citizenship” simply means practical citizenship. As mentioned, the post-Civil War Constitution recognized black Americans as full citizens de jure, but in practice they were second-class citizens.

[43] Nicholas Johnson, Negroes and the Gun (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2014) at 17 [Johnson, the Gun].

[44] Ibid.

[45] Ibid at 20.

[46] Timothy Tyson, Radio Free Dixie (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).

[47] Robert Cohen, Black Crusader (United States of America: Radical Books, 2008) at 28.

[48] Supra note 48 at 27.

[49] Ibid.

[50] Johnson, the Gun, supra note 43 at 18.

[51] Robert Williams, Negroes with Guns (New York: Marzani & Munsell, 2013) at 110 [Williams, Guns].

[52] Ibid at 9.

[53] Ibid.

[54] Martin Luther King Jr, Where do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967) at 26 [King, Chaos or Community?].

[55] Ibid.

[56] Williams, Guns, supra note 51 at 110.

[57] Johnson, the Gun, supra note 43 at 13.

[58] Williams, Guns, supra note 51 at 21.

[59] Richard Nisbett & Dov Cohen, Culture of Honour (Boulder, CO: 1996) at 82.

[60] Ibid.

[61] King, Chaos or Community?, supra note 54, at 83.

[62] Ibid.

[63] Williams, Guns, supra note 51 at 41.

[64] King, Chaos or Community?, supra note 54, at 101.

[65] Ibid.

[66] Ibid at 80.

[67] Ibid.

[68] Johnson, the Gun, supra note 43 at 24.

[69] Williams, Guns, supra note 51 at 46.

[70] Ibid.

[71] Appiah, Honor Code, supra note 5 at 19.

[72] Ibid.

[73] Ibid at 220.

[74] King, Chaos or Community?, supra note 54, at 40.

[75] Ibid at 41.

[76] Ibid at 43.

[77] Ibid.

[78] Ibid at 50.

[79] Ibid at 52.

[80] King, Chaos or Community?, supra note 54, at 82.

[81] Ibid.

[82] Ibid.

[83] Supra note 46.

[84] Walzer, Spheres, supra note 37 at 62.

[85] Appiah, Honor Code, supra note 5 at 22.

[86] Ibid.

[87] On August 9, 2014, after being suspected of stealing cigarillos from a local convenience store, Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Missouri. On November 24, 2014, a St. Louis grand jury decided not indict Wilson. See Jack Healy, “Ferguson, Still Tense, Grows Calmer” New York Times (26 November 2014), online: <www.nytimes.com>.

[88] On July 17, 2014, in Staten Island, Garner was put in a chokehold and ultimately killed by police officer Daniel Pantaleo after selling cigarettes illegally. On December 3, 2014, a grand jury decided not to indict Pantaleo. See The Editors, “The Unnecessary Death of Eric Garner” National Review (4 December 2014), online: <www.nationalreview.com>.

[89] On November 22, 2014, Tamir Rice—a 12-year-old African-American—was shot and killed by police officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback while playing with a toy gun. The case is being investigated on an ongoing basis; the results will be presented to a grand jury. See Shaila Dewan & Richard Oppel Jr, “In Tamir Rice Case, Many Errors by Cleveland Police, Then a Fatal One” New York Times (22 January 2015), <online: www.nytimes.com>.

[90] On April 4, 2015, in South Carolina, Scott was pulled over for a daytime traffic stop as a result of a non-functioning brake light. Scott fled on foot, and police officer Michael Slager shot him multiple times in the back. Slager’s report of the incident was contradicted by video evidence. Slager now faces murder charges. See The Editorial Board, “The Walter Scott Murder” New York Times (8 April 2015), online: <www.nytimes.com>.

[91] On April 12, 2015, in Maryland, Gray was arrested by Baltimore police for allegedly possessing an “illegal switchblade.” While being transported in a police van, Gray fell into a coma and was taken to a trauma centre. On April 19, 2015 Gray died due to his spine splitting while in police custody. The Baltimore District Attorney has filed charges against the 6 officers involved, and labeled Gray’s death a homicide. See Ashley Fantz & Greg Botelho, “What we know, don’t know about Freddie Gray’s death” CNN (29 April 2015), online: <www.cnn.com>.

[92] Pew Research Center, “Multiple Causes Seen for Baltimore Unrest: Most Say it Was the ‘Right Decision’ to Charge Police Officers” Pew Research Center (4 May 2015), online: <www.people-press.org>; Kathy Frankovic, “Unlike Ferguson, the shooting of Walter Scott finds racial agreement” YouGov US (15 April 2015), online: <www.today.yougov.com>.

[93] Appiah, Honor Code, supra note 5 at 178.

[94] Appiah, Honor Code, supra note 5 at 179.

[95] Appiah, Honor Code, supra note 5 at XVIII.