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RACISM EXISTS

If only black Americans would disappear than there would be no racism. 

Both white and black Americans deny it because it's ugly, ignorant, and deadly. Racism exists today as strong as it did yesterday, and, from all indications, will be amongst us tomorrow. We do not have to traverse back into centuries past to point at examples of the daily racism that face every person associated with any ethnic group outside of being white. 

The Majority        The Victims

Rosewood, Florida    Tulsa, Oklahoma     Paint Rock, Alabama    

Money, Mississippi     New York City    Jasper, Texas 

Racism is not an old problem, but a current one. We, the citizens of the United States of America, do not know each other, and many do not have a problem with that. They don't want to know. Centuries ago Thomas Jefferson wrote extensively expressing his doubts that there could ever be trust between the former slave and former master. Jefferson pointed to the years of abuse associated with slavery, and suggested, even then, that it would be best that the two groups separate. A century later Abraham Lincoln came to the same conclusion.  The basis for racial friction is that most white Americans see themselves as being somehow special as a birthright. Around the world the "ugly American" has leaves the stench of racism wherever he does business or pleasure. These from the U.S., when traveling abroad, do so with the expectation to find all the modern convinces they enjoy in their homeland, and, with great arrogance, expect the people of the world to all speak English because most white Americans speak only one language. 

TEXAS LYNCHING

Having a master mentality in a nation of no slaves is the foundation for racism. Many Americans rise each morning with a sense of superiority based upon the color, or lack thereof, of their skin. The privileged status allows them to lie, spin, slant, twist, distort, and corrupt with impunity. In the workplace they can lay claim to your idea, earn the bonus for the work you did, and take off early for nine rounds of golf. Within the criminal justice system they imprison without guilt, or possibility of parole. The elected racist sponsors laws that fill their pockets while reducing welfare benefits. The racist educator promotes SLANTED HISTORY.

DENY   DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY   DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY

Listed here are incidents of racism in America that can not be denied, but will be denied. You might observe a fairly common ingredient outside of the obvious race issue. That is the issue of abused authority. From the student placed in charge when the teacher leaves the room to the policeman on the beat some folks just can not handle authority. It goes IMMEDIATELY to their heads. To them authority is a license to be abusive, to bully, and certainly to lie as they see fit.

DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY

On September 14, 1874, 3,500 armed White Leaguers assembled in New Orleans, and demanded that  Republican Gov. William Kellog resign. Opposing the White League were 3,600 policemen and black militia troops under the command of ex-Confederate General James Longstreet. Supported by two Gattling guns and a battery of artillery, Longstreet's force formed a battle line from Jackson Square to Canal Street, guarding the Customs House, in which the governor and other Republican officials had taken refuge. The White Leaguers charged the line, captured Longstreet, and pushed his men to the river, where they either surrendered or fled. The attackers occupied the city hall, statehouse, and arsenal. Total casualties in the one-hour fight that has become known as the Battle of Liberty Place were 38 killed and 79 wounded.

The white supremacists deposed Kellog, installed John McEnery as governor, and ran the state government for three days. By the end of that time, Grant, alarmed at the armed insurrection, had ordered federal troops to New Orleans. Upon the arrival of the U.S. Army, the White Leaguers withdrew, Kellog was reinstated as governor, and Longstreet was released. It was obvious that without the presence of the federal military, Louisiana's carpetbag government could not be sustained.

Fascinating Fact:  Longstreet was vilified for leading black troops against his former soldiers. "It was with the greatest difficulty", said one White League officer, "that I prevented the men from firing particularly at Longstreet."

In 1898, 101 black Americans were lynched or murdered in the United States. 

Racial conflict flared in many large cities early in the 20th century, including Harlem (1900), Atlanta (1906), Springfield, IL (1908), East St. Louis (1917), Chester and Philadelphia, PA (1917), Houston, TX (1917) and Chicago (1917). Rumors and random acts of violence triggered the riots, which fed on pent-up racial hostility. World War I provided employment and a united effort focused outside the U.S. but post-war readjustment, competition for jobs, fear and suspicion sparked new violence during the "Red Summer" of 1919. From May 10 to September 30, over 25 riots rocked cities from Texas to Illinois, Nebraska to Georgia.

The bloody East St. Louis riot of 1917 left the black community feeling vulnerable. When the U.S. House of Representatives refused to investigate the violence, the NAACP organized a mass "Silent Protest Parade" to pressure officials to stop lynching and other violence against black Americans. On July 28, over 10,000 blacks marched silently down Fifth Avenue in New York City to the beat of muffled drums.

On the afternoon of July 27, 1919, Eugene Williams, a black youth, drowned of exhaustion off the 29th Street beach in Chicago. A stone throwing melee between blacks and whites on the beach prevented the boy from coming ashore safely. After clinging to a railroad tie for a lengthy period, he drowned when he no longer had the strength to hold on. This was the finding of the Cook County Coroner's Office after an inquest was held into the cause of death. But false reports that he had been stoned to death led to five days of rioting in Chicago that claimed the lives of a total of 23 blacks and 15 whites, with 291 wounded and maimed.

The Coroner's Office spent 70 day sessions and 20 night sessions on inquest work and in examining 450 witnesses. Those findings, reported in the Coroner's Report of 1919 are followed by his recommendations to deal with the festering social and economic conditions that were the precipitating factors leading to the riots.

Sources:
  Hoffman, Peter M.  The Race Riots. Published as the: Cook County 
    (Ill.). Coroner's Office. Biennial Report 1918-1919 and Official 
    Record of Inquests on the Victims of the Race Riots of July and 
    August, 1919.

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Acted out racism is never pretty. This photo is not pretty either. 

                Omaha, Nebraska lynching victim 

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"Red Summer." This was the year of the "Red Summer," with 26 race riots between the months of April and October. These included disturbances in the following areas:

            1919

May 10         		Charleston, South Carolina.
July 13        		Gregg and Longview counties, Texas.
July 19-23		Washington, D. C.
July 27			Chicago.
October 1-3    		Elaine and Phillips counties, Alabama.

Lynchings. Seventy-six black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1919.

Established by the NAACP in 1916 to develop an effective program to stamp out lynching, the Anti-lynching Committee developed legislative and public awareness campaigns. In 1919 the NAACP published Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918. This report indicated that 3,224 people were lynched in the thirty-year period. Of these, 702 were white and 2,522 black. Among the justifications given for the lynching were petty offenses such as "using offensive language, refusal to give up land, illicit distilling."

The Committee also compiled lynching statistics in 1921. It took full-page advertisements on November 23, 1922, in The New York Times, The Atlanta Constitution, and several other leading newspapers entitled "The Shame of America," with the subheading "3436 People Lynched 1889 to 1922."

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, the fiery journalist, lecturer and civil rights militant, is best known for her tireless crusade against lynching and her fearless efforts to expose violence against blacks. Catapulted emotionally into the cause after two of her friends were lynched in Tennessee, and after the destruction of her printing presses, Wells-Barnett never stopped fighting for justice. She encouraged church groups and women's clubs to be more aggressive in demanding political and civil rights and helped to create a number of national organizations--including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People--that would strengthen awareness of racial issues.

New York 1935. In Harlem, police arrested a 16-year-old Negro for a minor theft. Rumors spread that they killed him in a department store basement. Commission report: "The existence of intense hostility on the part of the law-abiding element among the colored people toward the police is proof positive that there is something seriously wrong in the attitudes of the officers toward the people whom they are there to serve and to aid and not to browbeat or abuse."

DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY

At its headquarters, 69 Fifth Avenue, New York City, the NAACP flew a flag to report lynching, until, in 1938, when the threat of losing its lease forced the association to discontinue the practice.

The racist never wants to acknowledge their racism. Never could figure out why.

DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY

New York 1943. In Harlem, a white policeman shot Negro soldier Robert Bandy in the left shoulder. The policeman had been arresting a Negro woman when Bandy intervened to defend her. Bandy struck the policeman, then turned away and refused an order to halt. Rumors spread that he was shot dead in the back, in the presence of his mother. The New Republic: "New York had another riot in 1935. Mayor LaGuardia appointed a bi-racial commission which held hearings and submitted a report which included recommendations that might have prevented, or at least made less likely and less destructive, the riot of August 1, 1943. But unfortunately, the report was never made public and most of its recommendations were unheeded."

In 1943 racial tensions erupted in Detroit, Michigan, after blacks and whites who had migrated to the area began competing for housing and employment in wartime industries. Because the United States was engaged in World War II (1939-1945), some theorized that agents of the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan, and their allies) incited the rioting in an attempt to reduce U.S. military production. Of course violence directed against black Americans preceded Hitler's Nazi Germany by centuries.

Steel-helmeted Federal troops backing their commands with rifles and machine guns enforced calm today in riot-torn sections of war-busy Detroit where 23 persons—20 of them Negroes—were killed and 700 injured in racial fighting.

DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY    DENY

Acknowledging a problem is the first step toward solution. Many citizens of the United States assume an opinion that racism is the exception rather than the rule of human interaction in this land of the free. Not true. Racism, for this discussion meaning those who actively take positions based upon race with the intention to undermine the positive efforts of others, is commonplace in all that is the culture of the United States of America. Racial prejudice, for this discussion meaning those who conclude solely upon the race of another, is also a daily bread found on all of our tables. The English language has many words to define racial attitudes, but, if it is a defense, racism is not now, or has it ever been, restricted to the shores of the U.S.A.

Freedom Riders sit by their bus which had been burned by a white mob in Anniston, Alabama. Several of the riders were beaten by the mob. Freedom Riders began traveling through the South in 1961 to try to desegregate Southern bus stations.

Hate knows no territorial boundaries. Bosnia represents hatred. Kosovo represents hatred. Rwanda represents hatred. Across the globe their are constant conflicts based upon the hate held in one stranger for another stranger. Hate based upon ethnic background, geographical regions, and most absurd, GOD. World history reflects the human weakness of hate, and the destruction it brings about. The millions of Jews murdered during World War II is certainly a pronounced testament to hatred, but there are also the 1500 Polish officers murdered by the Soviets that demonstrate the absence of boundaries when it comes to hatred. For as far back as the written word there is great evidence of race hate.

Acknowledgement brings with it a responsibility to do something about it. To do nothing is passive acceptance that nothing can be done. There is no need to delve into the history books to find examples of race hate. Everyday in Chicago, Illinois (long heralded as the most racially divided city in the U.S.A.) many ethnically identified people experience race hate; not just black people. But, let it be quickly added, black men, above all else, are the targets of the greatest hate. By speaking out against race hate its impact can be reduced, and there is more that you, and I, can do.

Education, true and honest, remains the most effective weapon against hate. Hate, most often, is based upon ignorance. An ignorance that creates mistrust that, in turn, fans the flames of hate. Integration, although it carries its own set of problems, does bring down the walls of ignorance. In the U.S.A. it's against the law to discriminate publicly, but when you scan the faces of the patrons of Chicago restaurants you see a variety of ethnic groups, but seldom do you see them sitting together. Integration goes beyond the merging of neighborhoods, but its true communications between the races. Back in the 1950s we saw integration differently, but it goes beyond simply living next door. I've friends in suburban comminutes that have lived there for over a score of years and still their next door neighbors do not speak. That's not integration. So maybe the answer does lie in the work place, the public accommodations, and other gathering spots to bring about some meaningful exchange, but first, and foremost, there must be an acceptance that no race has any greater favor with GOD than another.

Dudley Randall

Ballad of Birmingham

(1969)
(On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963)

"Mother dear, may I go downtown
Instead of out to play,
And march the streets of Birmingham
In a Freedom March today?"

"No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Aren't good for a little child."

"But, mother, I won't be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free."

"No, baby, no, you may not go,
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children's choir."

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know that her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.

She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
"O, here's the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?"

                 FOUR LITTLE GIRLS

Addie Mae Collins   Denise McNair    Carole Robertson    Cynthia Wesley

4/18/49 - 9/15/63    11-17-51- 9/15/63    4/24/49 - 9/15/63    4/30/49 - 9/15/63

Where would they be now? What contributions could they have made? What cures have gone undiscovered?

The racist is a COWARD that shoots from ambush, sets fires while no one is watching, places the bomb, and lies to cover up their acts.

Whites murdering blacks remains commonplace in the home of the brave. From 1879, when federal troops left the south to today black people are in constant fear of death. Many deny, as do those that kill deny, but denial doesn't change a thing. If a black man stops a police officer to ask for directions he'll most likely be directed to jail, or worst, and the worst can be pretty bad.

FIGHT RACISM WITH EDUCATION

Reportedly the last word said to Isaih Shoals was NIGGER, before he became one of the murdered students at Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999. Having successfully battled an inherent heart ailment this young man was yet another victim of the hatred that lives in the hearts of many, many white Americans for black men; regardless of their achievements or successes.

STOP THE HATE

STOP THE HATE

At the root of racism is the forbidden subject. The mixing of the races. From the first time an African woman was taken as a slave there was rape, and certainly not black African slaves raping their female counterparts. No it was the white man who raped with impunity. Despite great pressures not to do so there are numerous incidents of children born to white women and fathered by black men as there are stories, and a great deal of evidence, of white men taking black women to bed. True to the hypocritical methodology of the United States our history may be filled with proof of race mixing; but it remains greatly discouraged by most of the majority.

Despite its roots racism is very much a part of day to day life in the U.S.A. Let us consider these examples of American Racism:

Rosewood, Florida    Tulsa, Oklahoma     Paint Rock, Alabama    

Money, Mississippi     New York City          Jasper, Texas         

The fear of white women mating with a black men remains America's Greatest Fear, and excuse for unchecked violence against both.

Denial remains the great force against equality. Many black people are actually embarrassed by the racism directed at them as if it is there fault that they are targeted by racist beliefs. The vast majority of white Americans remain apathetic to what happens to those around them. They hide in the recreation rooms hoping that the ugliness of America will pass by their home as the pestilence spared the Jews of Egypt. Our politicians continue their speeches about a nation that does not exist, and, although black Americans represent the 5th largest consumer group in the world, economic racism keeps blacks at the bottom of the income scale.

Heroes

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