“In the first half of the 20th century life for a Black American was vastly different from today. Harlem in the 1920s was a place where many whites, including many white celebrities, frequented. And it was not only for the entertainment places like the Cotton Club and so on, but places where they met with the black elite of that time. Back then, no one worried about being mugged. I was a grocery delivery boy in that area. On Saturday nights, I’d work until midnight and then I’d walk home. I weighed about 100 pounds soaking wet, yet no one ever bothered me, no policeman ever stopped me. This notion that you have to be afraid of the cops, they’re out to get you and so forth, there was nothing of that sort.” [1]
HISTORY
The Civil War, a bloody fight against the freedom of the Black man and the Anti-Slavery Republican Party, lodged by the Democratic Party over owning human property, the Negro, had ended…
As the dust settled and the hard-fought emancipation for the Black man in America was solidified, the bold Anti-Slavery Republican Party did not stop in their endeavors they went on to fight for the Civil Rights 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments guaranteeing that regardless of color all men were afforded the opportunity to experience the American Dream. Based on character, personal abilities, and work ethic. A person residing in the United States of America could dare to be anything.
Life in the Black community in the south, still under harsh Democratic control of now former slave owners was not easy. The military had to be sent in to enforce the Reconstruction Era and to ensure that freedom was tangible. The laws had changed, but the hearts of many in the south had not.[2] And yet, despite those extreme difficulties the Black community began to build.
Throughout America Black Americans worked hard to make something of themselves and their families. We had a strong belief in God, men held several jobs to support their families, they were married to their wives, and the mothers thrived in the homes or held jobs of their own, and the children were raised by both parents. We were self-made small business owners, scientists, doctors, nurses, laborers, and dreamers. Black Americans were thriving, we held political offices, we owned universities, and we had pride in our community.
Black history is laden with great men like Benjamin Banneker, born a free Black on a tobacco plantation who was so brilliant he was one of seven chosen to layout the District of Columbia. Richard Allen, born a slave, he led his slave owner to Christ and then purchased his freedom. When all others fled Mr. Allen, stepped in to assist as Philadelphia was under siege due to yellow-fever, he served as a medic side by side Dr. Benjamin Rush.[3] Men of great caliber like, Booker T. Washington, a man who believed that “the best interests of black people in the post-Reconstruction era (1865-1877) could be realized through education in the crafts and industrial skills and the cultivation of the virtues of patience, enterprise, and thrift.” [4] In a speech in 1895, Washington “called on both African Americans and whites to cast down your bucket where you are and urged the whites to employ the masses of Black laborers…he called on Blacks to cease agitating for political and social rights and to concentrate instead on working to improve their economic conditions.” [5]
The Reconstruction Era ended and the military went home. Once again, the Democratic Party swooped in to ensure that the Black community knew its proper place. Black code laws, Jim Crow, segregation, separate but equal all became familiar terms. The KKK was lynching young Black men and would leave them hanging in the town square for all to see. And yet, the Black man pushed on. In 1913 Democrat Woodrow Wilson, took office his policies were harsh towards the Black community and many of the advances and freedoms we had obtained were stifled and shut down.[6] Not long after the Great Depression hit the nation, and as the economy swayed and dipped the Black family was hit the hardest.[7] The Black community had been fighting to overcome for decades, fighting for freedoms promised by the Civil Rights Amendments, fighting to take our rightful place in whatever area we had put our hands to and now a Great Depression.
To the rescue, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, benefits, entitlements, and welfare for all who wanted it. The tale is the government would knock on the doors of families within the Black community telling them welfare was what they needed to survive. But we were proud and we worked hard for what we had…but the time came and many fell prey to the promise.
By the 1960’s, the Great Depression was a distant memory to many but the Black community still felt the sting, the Southern Democrats had become increasingly angry and vicious with racist hatred. And yet, despite it all the Black community was a solid unit – families were intact,[8] we owned our homes, we worked hard for our money, we were educated, we sat under the ministries of powerful Black preachers, our culture of music and dance was infiltrating the white culture, our streets were safe (when the KKK wasn’t active), we served in the military and we served within our communities. However, as with any depressed group the time came when we as a people had enough, enter in the Civil Rights Movement.
As the city streets filled with protesters, peacefully marching under the helm of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. some, who desired a more radical shift submitted to the leading of Malcolm X and any means necessary. Regardless, of the leader all involved desired a similar fundamental goal - equality. The once bold Republican Party had lost its bite, tethered to a man who was against the civil rights bill, Barry Goldwater. The Black community felt betrayed, they were tired of the struggle and many believed that the New Deal had helped them. Years had gone by and the strong alliance between the Black community and the now silent Republican party was waning. Democrats in government appeared to be assisting like John F Kennedy, Jr who helped activist Martin Luther King, Jr. get released from prison after a protest, right before his presidential election, garnering Black votes.
Despite that we still had strong political activists who spoke out like Malcolm X in his speech "The Ballot or the Bullet,” delivered on April 3, 1964, at Cory Methodist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, “you put them (Democrats) first and they put you last, cause you’re a chump, you’re a political chump,”[9] He was assassinated 9 months later in February of 1965. MLK, Jr. was assassinated in 1968.
Amidst the confusion and frustration of the times the former slave owner, the founder of the KKK and black code laws, the party of entitlements and emotional promises became the party of the Black community. Even though the Civil Rights Bill was protested by the Democratic Party and only passed because of the Republican Party, it was a Democrat who signed it into policy…and by 1975 the world of the Black community could only be described as decimated.
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