- Feb 9, 2001
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Is it too late for us to emulate our elders? Some of you have expressed that you don't care what your ancestors did, that it has no relevance today. But if our ancestors treated each other better than we treat each other today, and it advanced us as a people and helped us reap the better part of where we are today, why can't we take a look back to study how they successfully did that and copy their strategy and apply it today?
African Americans, Impact of the Great Depression
The Great Depression brought mass suffering to all regions of the country. National income dropped by 50 percent and unemployment rose to an estimated 25 percent of the total labor force. At the same time, twenty million Americans turned to public and private relief agencies for assistance. As the "Last Hired and the First Fired," African Americans entered the Depression long before the stock market crash in 1929, and they stayed there longer than other Americans. By 1933, African Americans found it all but impossible to find jobs of any kind in agriculture or industry.
As the number of rural blacks seeking jobs in cities escalated, urban black workers experienced increasing difficulties. Black urban unemployment reached well over 50 percent, more than twice the rate of whites. In southern cities, white workers rallied around such slogans as, "No Jobs for N*****s Until Every White Man Has a Job" and "N*****s, back to the cotton fields—city jobs are for white folks."
Following his inauguration, Roosevelt's attitude toward African Americans changed little. He not only opposed vital civil rights legislation like the anti-lynching bill, designed to make lynching a federal offense, but showed little interest in challenging even the most blatant manifestations of racial injustice in the proliferation of New Deal agencies.
Despite the rise of interracial alliances and the emergence of anti-racist movements among whites, African Americans developed their own strategies for social change and helped to create their own "new deal."
Very interesting read...see entire article here.
We know what to do. But don't and the question is why? We either don't know how to come together or don't want to, or think that it's possible to do today because of integration.
As we quickly approach an historic presidential election, one that follows 8 years under the leadership of a Black president, what do you think? And let's not share pretty words, that would be a waste of time. Let's keep it real. Are we not as smart or committed as our ancestors?
African Americans, Impact of the Great Depression
The Great Depression brought mass suffering to all regions of the country. National income dropped by 50 percent and unemployment rose to an estimated 25 percent of the total labor force. At the same time, twenty million Americans turned to public and private relief agencies for assistance. As the "Last Hired and the First Fired," African Americans entered the Depression long before the stock market crash in 1929, and they stayed there longer than other Americans. By 1933, African Americans found it all but impossible to find jobs of any kind in agriculture or industry.
As the number of rural blacks seeking jobs in cities escalated, urban black workers experienced increasing difficulties. Black urban unemployment reached well over 50 percent, more than twice the rate of whites. In southern cities, white workers rallied around such slogans as, "No Jobs for N*****s Until Every White Man Has a Job" and "N*****s, back to the cotton fields—city jobs are for white folks."
Following his inauguration, Roosevelt's attitude toward African Americans changed little. He not only opposed vital civil rights legislation like the anti-lynching bill, designed to make lynching a federal offense, but showed little interest in challenging even the most blatant manifestations of racial injustice in the proliferation of New Deal agencies.
Despite the rise of interracial alliances and the emergence of anti-racist movements among whites, African Americans developed their own strategies for social change and helped to create their own "new deal."
Very interesting read...see entire article here.
We know what to do. But don't and the question is why? We either don't know how to come together or don't want to, or think that it's possible to do today because of integration.
As we quickly approach an historic presidential election, one that follows 8 years under the leadership of a Black president, what do you think? And let's not share pretty words, that would be a waste of time. Let's keep it real. Are we not as smart or committed as our ancestors?