An African American and Latinx History of the United States

Some books about history become more relevant as time passes. This is the case with Professor Paul Ortiz’s book, “An African American and Latinx History of the United States.” Ortiz documents the ignored and hidden history of African American and Latinx leadership and participation in the American and international struggles for labor and human rights.

As the 2024 presidential election season gains momentum, and TV and radio talk shows, social media, and everyday pundits, as well as the candidates themselves, seem obsessed with the question of whether African Americans and Hispanics will vote for Trump or Biden, now is a good time to read and learn from Ortiz’s book. There is more than enough history in “An African American and Latinx History of the United States” for all Americans in 2024 to talk with each other and to demand that the candidates for president discuss exactly what was great about America in the past and what would make America a great country in the future. What does a vision for the future look like if it is grounded on a commitment to human rights around the world?

The book focuses on the organizing and leadership of African Americans and Latinx in the struggle to become full participants in the economic and political life of America. And Ortiz also tells the other side of the story of the ways white Americans have stood in the way of those aspirations. Before briefly discussing three ways I see the book as important and relevant for anti-racists watching the 2024 presidential election, I want to say something about Paul Ortiz.

Professor Paul Ortiz is an academic, a professor who previously taught at the University of Florida. There he did those things that a good university professor does to help students gain the skills of critical thinking and research based on collecting data. He was the Director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program. That program taught students to collect and use oral histories from people who have lived experiences to describe or have heard stories from previous generations.

During the summers he organized field trips for students to collect oral histories. In 2021, he led a group that went to Elaine, Arkansas. While Ortiz was there he not only used it as an opportunity for students to meet with individuals and collect their stories, but he also participated in a community meeting. He recently told me that the meeting with residents of Elaine was the best discussion he has participated in about the meaning and justification for reparation.

After the 2021 meeting, I talked to him over Zoom and asked him why the story of Elaine is important. You can view his answer on the Ending Racism USA website.

Ortiz is not only a professor, he is an activist. His experiences in the military and as an organizer are at the heart of his writing including “An African American and Latinx History of the United States.” As a young organizer in California he and his future wife went to jail together in support of agricultural workers. While he was at the University of Florida he was the president of the United Faculty of Florida at UF (FEA-AFL-CIO), the union that represents tenured and nontenure-track faculty.

There are three overlooked issues that strike me as particularly relevant during the 2024 presidential election. There are many other reasons that Ortiz’s 2018 book is relevant for us today, so I only offer these issues to illustrate the importance of bringing Black and Latinx history out of the shadows and into the center of what Americans know about American history.

First, Ortiz puts the experience of Blacks and Latinx people into the context of the Constitution and the Electoral College. In the first chapter he writes, “The Electoral College was a check on the rights of ordinary people to directly elect the president, as well as a guarantee that Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe would protect their fellow Virginia plantation owner’s interests for the first decades of the nation’s history.” For all of American history the Electoral College has been a “check on the rights of ordinary people” (p. 12). In 2024, both presidential candidates talk about the election process. Donald Trump worries about the security and truthfulness of election outcomes, Joe Biden says the election is about “saving democracy.” Both candidates’ campaigns overlook the role of the Electoral College in deciding who is president.

This is the third time Trump has run for president. The first two times he lost the popular vote. Yet, the system of the Electoral College allowed him to become president in 2016. Otiz’s exposure of the history of all the “checks on the rights of ordinary people” is a clear call for those who are anti-racist to address the ways that rights are denied, starting with reforming the Electoral College. Candidate Trump gives mixed messages about his views on the electoral system. This provides an opportunity for a serious national discussion about what kind of a process we want as Americans so that we elect the leaders we want. Candidate Biden's electioneering to save democracy also opens the door to national discussion about democracy. Does saving democracy include a commitment to fixing the Electoral College?

Second, Ortiz reminds us that African American and Latinx Americans have offered perspectives and ideas for America’s future that have been ignored and worse. A telling example is the struggles for workers and civil rights leading up to the 1960s. In his chapter “Emancipatory Internationalism vs. the American Century, 1945 to 1960s,” Ortiz describes how, after World War II, the interests of American global capitalism, using the power of the American military, captured the American government. African American and Latinx workers and leaders had a very different vision. They understood their struggle for human rights in America as part of an international struggle for global human rights and global economic prosperity. The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom is usually remembered in white history as if the message was only a desire for white and Black children to happily play together. But the dream was much bigger. In 1963, A. Philip Randolph helped organize the march. By then, he was a veteran human rights organizer. As early as 1924, “he pointed out the need for American Blacks to join with Blacks everywhere and present a solid front against the imperialists of every land” (p. 113).

Third, Ortiz’s book shows that throughout American history, whites have not been making history while African Americans and Latinx people were helpless bystanders. As one example, Ortiz describes the role of enslaved people in the success of the north in the Civil War. Over the years, Lincoln has become the “Great Emancipator.” However, it isn’t quite so. Without the actions of thousands of enslaved people, there would have been no emancipation. As the war started, there was a mass exodus of enslaved people from the south to the north. W.E.B. Du Bois called this the “first national general strike in US history” (p. 69). This refusal to live and work in the southern slave culture was decisive. As Ortiz explains, “Without the uprising of the plantation workers, the nation would have been permanently broken in two: they were not merely heroes – they were the saviors of the republic” (p. 69).

Yet, in the 2024 presidential campaign, each candidate argues that he “has done more for minority groups” than his opponent. The idea of white people doing things for minorities comes out of the historical myth of whites making history. More than that, it is based on a racist perspective that only whites can exercise power. The history that Ortiz describes is one where whites have done everything they could, including using appalling violence, to limit the participation of non-whites in American society. We need a presidential campaign where candidates talk about how they want to celebrate the contributions of all Americans, not just white people; a campaign where candidates talk about how they plan to work with, not on behalf of, non-whites.

This third issue is not only important to consider in light of the 2024 presidential campaign, but it is what I find to be the most compelling lesson we can learn from the book. Ortiz summarizes it best himself in the closing sentence. “An African American and Latinx history of the United States teaches us that the self-activity of the most oppressed is the key to liberty in the future of the Americas” (p. 184).