African American Core Values: A Guide for Everyone pot

COMER, Founder and Chairman of the School Development Program at the Yale University School of Medicine's Child Study Center, and author of What I Learned In School: Reflections on Race

What Others are Saying about African American Core Values: A Guide for Everyone

"In what has obviously been a labor of love, Richard Rosenfield compiles a useful

compendium of folk wisdom which, while coming out of the African American

community, is of profound relevance to all Americans Reaching across the generations and spanning the range from academic to popular discourses, Rosenfield reproduces here one nugget of insight after the other All of our young people need to read and reflect upon this invaluable book."

GLENN C LOURY, Merton P Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences in the

Department of Economics at Brown University, and author of Race,

Incarceration, and American Values

"It was a great idea to edit such a book, and a major contribution."

JAMES P COMER, Founder and Chairman of the School Development

Program at the Yale University School of Medicine's Child Study Center, and

author of What I Learned In School: Reflections on Race, Child Development, and School Reform

African American Core Values: A Guide for Everyone serves as a poignant collection of hard-fought common sense values that every American no matter their color can benefit from The values of self-reliance, hard work, education, and the willingness to endure to overcome obstacles were once common in the black community It is books such as this one that can help bring these values back."

REVEREND JESSE LEE PETERSON, Founder and President of

Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, and author of From Rage to

Responsibility: Black Conservative Jesse Lee Peterson and America Today

"I was struck by the academic possibilities of this compilation Educators, counselors and scholars would find it very useful Having these ideas collected in one place and

accessible would be very convenient for those who are speaking to, or working with, young people."

JOHNNETTA B COLE, Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of

African Art, President Emerita of Spelman and Bennett Colleges, Chair of the

JBC Institute, and author of Gender Talk: The Struggle For Women's Equality in African American Communities

A great piece of work Every student, of every color, should read this It should be part of the social studies curriculum."

ANDREW D WASHTON, author of What Happens Next? Stories to Finish

for Intermediate Writers, Teachers College Press, Columbia University

African American Core Values

A Guide for Everyone

Compiled by

Richard M Rosenfield

Published by Richard M Rosenfield at Smashwords

AFRICAN AMERICAN CORE VALUES: A GUIDE FOR EVERYONE

Copyright 2012 by Richard M Rosenfield

Smashwords Edition

Thank you for downloading this ebook It remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied, or distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes If you enjoy it, please encourage your friends to acquire their own copy of the ebook or print edition Thank you for your support

All author royalties from this edition will be donated to a nonprofit organization

To the memory of my parents,

Samuel and Sylvia,

I appreciate all the library workers who made it possible for me to find books, especially

in the system of the New York Public Library

Many friends have supported my efforts by giving me articles and books, criticizing sections of the manuscript, and simply by asking how it was going I thank all of you, especially Ansell, Bernie, John, Jules, Maximo, Andrea and Paul

Years before publication I was lucky to receive feedback from Anne C Beal, Johnnetta

B Cole, Abigail Thernstrom, and Faye Wattleton Although these authors did not know

me, they graciously responded to my request for their opinions Their encouragement meant more to me than they could have known

Most helpful of all was the patience, feedback, encouragement, and love I received from Yael and Sam

Note on the Ebook Edition

I submitted the final text of the print edition of African American Core Values to the

publisher before recognizing that our national economy was seriously troubled

Considering the current hard economic times, sections in that edition, about African American economic progress, may impress some readers as overly positive To me, the message of the first edition remains valid: the core values that enabled African

Americans to advance, under conditions much worse than those seen today, continue to foster well-being and progress, for everyone The wisdom in African American literature

is timeless Consequently, this edition has only a few minor changes

This ebook does not contain the Name Index or citations for the quotes Please see the print edition for that information

Jewell Jackson McCabe

Here we are in the twenty-first century, with no generational plan for the cultural equity and creation of wealth that we are committed to

Nathan McCall, on middle-class black people who want to help:

Like me, they feel frustrated and so overwhelmed by the complex web of

problems facing African Americans that they don’t know where to begin

I searched for answers in books by African Americans They wrote that they were

making much more economic progress than the media indicated They identified a set of three core values that contributed to their success: marriage, education, and work These writers convinced me that if more young people believed in and lived by those values, more would avoid poverty and achieve well-being, and the movement to economic equality would broaden and accelerate

But in many homes, those values were not fully recognized or passed on Most of the parents I worked with were single mothers, grandparents, older sisters, foster parents, aunts, and uncles Many were spending all their time and energy just keeping a roof over everyone’s head and keeping their kids fed, clothed, in school, and out of trouble They tried their best to instill wholesome values, but it’s a difficult job They often were not as effective as they wanted to be

African American Core Values is a resource for black youth and the people who raise,

teach, and influence them It is a compilation of focused self-help quotations from approximately two hundred years of African American writing and speaking It guides young people, affirms their efforts, and warns of potential obstacles It also takes them through a major part of American history in the authentic, poignant voices of those who experienced and shaped that history

People other than African Americans can also benefit from these quotations Young people of all races experience many of the same challenges The insights in black

literature can help all teens and young adults avoid problems in life and take advantage of opportunities.

Adults of all races can benefit as well A theme that runs through the literature is that

African Americans feel misunderstood, misperceived Shelby Steele wrote of "white blindness." Ralph Ellison’s protagonist thought, "I am invisible….they see only my

surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and

anything except me." Miles Davis reacted to misperceptions by suggesting that white

people "read a book and learn something." I read and learned from former slaves to contemporary multimillionaires, from radicals to corporate presidents, from athletes and rap artists to Ivy League professors, from the revered elders to twelve-year-old Myesha They explained what they lived through as black people and what they value Their testimony helped me understand, and it can help anyone who is open to learning

I suggest that readers use these quotations as a first source, and then go to the writers and books that interest them Reading the original texts is the best way to understand and be inspired by black literature

Students can enhance their reading experience by searching for favorite quotations, writing or speaking about what their favorites mean to them, and deciding how they can act on those values

Some of the most impressive quotations come from women, but the majority are by men Throughout the centuries, relatively few black women have had the chance to write or be published, and, when they did, they often wrote novels.1

Marian Wright Edelman, JD

Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth represent the thousands of anonymous women whose voices were muted by slavery, segregation, and confining gender roles throughout history

In addition to hundreds of quotations from African Americans, a small number from white and non-Americans are included

I use the terms African American and black because it is my perception that today most

Americans of African descent use and prefer those words

Going against custom, I place speakers’ names before their statements I feel that reading

the quotation while knowing who expressed it sometimes makes its significance more impressive For instance, encouragement to vote from someone who fought and suffered

to gain voting rights has a special impact

Because the primary goal is economic, I present examples of African Americans who are successful and wealthy But no one on these pages says that money is the best thing in life or that it brings happiness Instead, men and women speak of the pleasures of living with one’s spouse and children, of learning and reading, of the sense of accomplishment that work gives them, and of the fulfillment they obtain from exercising individual

freedom

W E B Du Bois once asked, "Would America have been America without her Negro

people?" The quotations in this book make it clear that the creativity and productivity of black Americans have enriched this nation For me, an America without African

Americans would be a colder, poorer, duller place I hope that African Americans and people of other races find this compilation to be useful.

Introduction

African Americans have been using the core values of marriage, education, and work to climb the economic ladder and to enable their children to climb even higher As more people embrace these values, more are likely to succeed

Juan Williams

The good news is that there is a formula for getting out of poverty today The magical steps begin with finishing high school, but finishing college is much better Step number two is taking a job and holding it Step number three is marrying after finishing school and while you have a job And the final step to give yourself the best chance to avoid poverty is to have children only after you are twenty-one and married This formula applies to black people and white people alike

The poverty rate for any black man or woman who follows that formula is 6.4 percent

Dr Maya Angelou, on the importance of both parents raising their children:

This is critical, because more often than not, people who come from homes where two parents are present will be supported by the family, will receive more

education, will earn their degrees, will more than likely go on to become a part of the middle and upper-middle class And more than likely, those who come from the single-parent homes will not make it as far

Glenn C Loury, PhD

There is also good reason to think that the attitudes and values communicated to youngsters via the cultural milieu of their particular communities of origin—attitudes about work, family, and education—serve to promote group differences

in economic attainment in adulthood

Appreciating the progress African Americans have made requires knowing what they have overcome, and when From 1619 until 1865, when the Civil War ended, most of the Africans who were brought here and their descendants lived in slavery They supported others but did not have the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills for taking care of themselves in terms of managing finances or independently obtaining housing, food, and clothing

After emancipation, black Americans typically were sharecroppers, living and working

on isolated southern farms, in desperate poverty, without civil rights, and often without adequate nutrition, medical care, or schools

From the early 1900s until around 1970, the Great Migration brought millions of African Americans to the modern, urban, industrialized North These immigrants were separated from the support of family, friends, and their familiar way of living—a traumatic change They had to cope with northern-style discrimination, including segregation, unequal rights, and limited opportunities at school and work.

Roger Wilkins, JD, 1994

Blacks arrived on the North American continent in 1619 For almost 250 of the ensuing 375 years we had slavery or something very close to it And for a century after that we had Constitutionally sanctioned racial subordination We have had something other than slavery or legal racial subordination for only twenty-nine years

Debra J Dickerson, JD

By the migration’s end, America was a changed place: its northern cities teemed with hopeful blacks who were no longer serfs but were still far from equal Black America was changed as well; a century after the end of official slavery, five minutes past sharecropping, they were only half southern and less than a quarter rural Finally, they were also something like free

Thomas Sowell, PhD

The race as a whole has moved from a position of utter destitution—in money, knowledge, and rights—to a place alongside other groups emerging in the great struggles of life None have had to come from so far back to join their fellow Americans

Lorraine Hansberry’s "Mama" from A Raisin in the Sun:

When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is

Measuring shows that from seemingly endless oppression, that gave most black

Americans little chance to avoid being poor, 75.7 percent had risen above the poverty line

by 2006.2

Married couples gained the most, and many had become prosperous By 2003, 23.6 percent of African American married couples had an annual income between $50,000 and

$74,999, and an additional 29.9 percent had an annual income of $75,000 or more.3 By

2006, 92.9 percent of married-couple African American families were above the poverty line.4

Marriage enriches these couples by enabling them to bring in more than one paycheck while decreasing expenses such as housing costs At least as valuable, it is a way for a man and woman to go through life with an intimate friend and partner But most

important, from a developmental and educational viewpoint, it gives their children all the resources of two parents working together to raise them

Education also contributes to the progress By 2006, 80 percent of African Americans eighteen and older had graduated high school or gone further.5 This is close to the

graduation rate of the overall American population, 84.6 percent.6 All aspects of the education gap have not been eliminated, but African Americans are moving in the right

direction For today’s young people, schooling will pay off like never before The Census Bureau recently estimated that African American full-time workers with high school diplomas will earn $1,000,000 throughout their work lives Those with college degrees will earn $1,700,000, and those with advanced degrees $2,500,000.7

The progress and the opportunity for further gains are unprecedented Just a few decades ago, most African Americans were restricted to low-skilled jobs, such as laborers and maids Major corporations rarely hired black workers; when they did, it was only to interact with black consumers or to be "window dressing"—giving the false impression

of a diversified workforce Segregation kept black athletes out of major league sports

Now, billionaire Robert L Johnson is the founder of Black Entertainment

Television and the film company Our Stories He is the majority owner of the NBA Charlotte Bobcats, and also owns a hedge fund, a private equity firm, a hundred upscale hotels, gambling ventures, and banks; and he is a philanthropist.Oprah Winfrey rose from childhood poverty and abuse to become the Emmy Award–winning host of the highest-rated television talk show ever—and a

billionaire Ms Winfrey is an Academy Award–nominated actor, a magazine publisher, a book critic, and one of the most influential and generous people in the world

Until E Stanley O’Neal retired as Merrill Lynch chairman and CEO in 2007, he oversaw the investment of $1,600,000,000,000—yes, trillion—of people’s

money.8 O’Neal’s grandfather had been a slave

Kenneth Chenault is president and CEO of the world’s most prestigious credit card company, American Express

Ann M Fudge is chairman and CEO of international Young & Rubicam Brands and its largest division, Y&R Advertising

Richard Parsons was recently president and CEO of Time Warner, the world's largest media and entertainment conglomerate

Franklin Delano Raines recently served as chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae, the third-largest corporation in America

Ruth J Simmons, PhD, daughter of a janitor, is president of Ivy League Brown University

Shonda Rhimes, screenwriter, director, and producer, is the creator and executive producer of the Emmy and Golden Globe Award–winning television series

Grey’s Anatomy.

In addition to being a medical doctor, Mae Jemison is a chemical engineer and former astronaut

Benjamin S Carson, MD, is the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns

Hopkins Hospital His practice includes traumatic brain injuries, brain and spinal cord tumors, achondroplasia, neurological and congenital disorders,

craniosynostosis, epilepsy, and trigeminal neuralgia His research has generated over ninety neurosurgical publications

U.S Congressman John Conyers Jr has served as chairman of the House

Condoleezza Rice, PhD, is the current secretary of state

Black athletes have broken racial barriers and excelled at most sports, including Tiger Woods in golf and Venus and Serena Williams in tennis

And Barack Obama is the President of the United States of America

These are exceptional achievers, so the values of marriage, education, and work do not fully account for their success But as a group, they are very well-educated and

hardworking Public sources indicate that all but Ms Winfrey had married parents (although Dr Carson’s father left the family when his son was eight years old,

Congressman Rangel’s father left when his son was six, and President Obama’s father left when his son was two) Many single parents raise their children well, but, as Dr Angelou and others have seen, children raised by both parents are more likely to succeed

in school and the workplace

African Americans have been succeeding

Marriage, education, and work are self-help values They require confidence and faith in oneself, not in politicians or anyone else

Jim Brown

All that matters is to see more and more black people mobilized and working toward constructive self-help goals

If in my lifetime I can see that this idea really has taken hold, then I will have the

satisfaction of knowing that true freedom—as black men and as black Americans

—will finally be within our grasp

Johnnetta B Cole, PhD

I also know that when African Americans really want to do something, we are quite capable of figuring out the how No doubt, as more of us embrace the concept of self-help, we will come up with all kinds of variations on the theme

Of course, following through on the tried-and-true methods and developing new ones will, to some extent, hinge on being inspired with right and righteous

motivations

Bill Cosby, EdD and Alvin F Poussaint, MD

When African Americans are committed to something, they make it happen

A self-help strategy based on values may not seem potent because values are just ideas in someone’s mind But Reverend Martin Luther King Jr knew that ideas could strongly influence behavior He was fond of Victor Hugo’s insight: "There is no greater power on earth than an idea whose time has come."

Cornel West, PhD

Ideas can be used in such a way that it promotes the enhancement and

advancement of poor people in general, and Black people in particular

Lerone Bennett Jr.

The most urgent problem of the hour is ideological clarity In fact, strategic thinking of a depth and intensity unparalleled in our history has become a matter

of life and death

What are we doing

Why are we doing it?

Will what we are doing take us where we want to go?

And where do we want to go? Until we reach a tentative conclusion on this point, nothing real can be done

Oprah Winfrey

Our beliefs can move us forward in life—or they can hold us back

Instilling constructive values in young people will require more than a book because some of those who need guidance will not seek it Family members, friends, teachers, mentors, writers, musicians, and artists can be more active in bringing wholesome

messages to young people

Glenn C Loury, PhD, on advocating self-help:

There are truths which need to be spoken, and repeated, and reiterated—even when unpopular—until one’s fellows begin to listen, and consider, and finally accept

Knowing the backgrounds of these writers and speakers makes their words more

meaningful and vibrant The Biographical Notes contain information on every person who has three or more quotations included in this book Of course, fuller biographical information is available on the Internet and in books Three legendary historic figures who are quoted are Frederick Douglass, W E B Du Bois, and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr

As a teenaged slave, Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) was so rebellious that his "owner" hired a "slave breaker" to crush his spirit Young Frederick fought and defeated the man Although schooling was forbidden and learning to read was punishable by death,

Douglass became a reader He believed that reading was the key to his escape As a free man, Douglass hid fugitive slaves in his home and made powerful speeches that helped bring an end to the institution of slavery His 1852 Fourth of July speech should please anyone who enjoys hearing truth spoken to power.9 Frederick Douglass edited a

newspaper, The North Star, which pointed the way to freedom His words remain today,

still pointing in that direction

W E B Du Bois, PhD (1868–1963), was Afrocentric before the word existed He grew

up singing the songs of his Bantu great-grandmother and spent his final years in Ghana, where his body is buried From young adulthood until the age of ninety-five, Du Bois

fought for the rights of African Americans Alice Walker wrote that Du Bois showed a

"consistent delight in the beauty and spirit of black people." Dr Kwame Nkrumah,

President of Ghana, told the people of his nation, "We mourn the death of Dr William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, a great son of Africa.…He was an undaunted fighter for the emancipation of colonial and oppressed people.…a real friend and father to me.…a great African Patriot."

Du Bois’s confidence in black people is reflected in his writing

W E B Du Bois, PhD, 1920

Europe has never produced and never will in our day bring forth a single human soul who cannot be matched and over-matched in every line of human endeavor

by Asia and Africa

Before Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., PhD (1929–1968) became a civil rights leader,

it was not safe for Southern black people to drink from a "white" fountain, attempt to

register to vote, or join the NAACP Reverend Ralph Abernathy said that before King,

it was "peculiar for the Southern Negro to stand up and look a white man in the face as an equal." King played an important part in changing those conditions Along with voter registration workers, bus boycotters, sit-in participants, freedom riders, and freedom summer volunteers, he fought for access to public facilities, voting rights, and other civil rights Today, black Americans have access to public facilities, the right to vote, and substantial political power; it is hard to believe that there was a time of white fountains and fearful black people

The first time King’s house was bombed, his father, King Sr., advised him to moderate

his civil rights activities, saying, "It’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion." But the young reverend chose to continue fighting Today, black people all over America

experience less discrimination and greater opportunity because of this lion

In Part I, "Background," African Americans tell of the oppression they have experienced, the progress they have made, and their strategy of emphasizing opportunity to achieve further gains In "Self-Reliance," they assert that they are the people who are most

willing, able, and responsible for helping themselves

In Part II, the core values are presented in the sequence of marriage, education, and then work, in keeping with the natural progression of married parents producing children who

go to school and then to work

In Part III, "Obstacles," African Americans argue against factors that impede progress They discourage crime and drug use, recognize that conformity limits their individual freedom, and warn against passivity

is all that makes the present coherent, and further, that the past will remain

horrible for exactly as long as we refuse to assess it honestly

Thuvia Jones, student

If young Black people today better understood what came before them, it would

be easier for us to understand how far we’ve come and how to get where we’re going

Thomas Sowell, PhD

Neither Europeans, Asians, or Africans escaped the fate of being slaves or the guilt of being enslavers

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., PhD

Who are we? We are the descendants of slaves We are the offspring of noble men and women who were kidnapped from their native land and chained in ships like beasts We are the heirs of a great and exploited continent known as Africa We are the heirs of a past of rope, fire and murder I for one am not ashamed of this past My shame is for those who became so inhuman that they could inflict this torture upon us

Frederick Douglass characterized the slaveholders’ acts of injustice and cruelty as

"crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages."

John W Blassingame, PhD

Taken on board the ship, the naked Africans were shackled together on bare wooden boards in the hold, and packed so tightly that they could not sit upright.The foul and poisonous air of the hold, extreme heat, men lying for hours in their own defecation, with blood and mucus covering the floor, caused a great deal of sickness

A number of them went insane and many became so despondent that they gave up the will to live

Mary Gaffney, former slave

That was all the slave thought about, then: not being a slave Because slavery time was hell

Wallace Turnage, on being a teen slave punished for escaping:

So they brought me out and took me over to the whiping house And the man that

whiped asked my Master did he want me whiped, the old man said yes So they had my pants off and tied me in the ropes that was tied up against the wall So that the criminal might be clear the floor and could not look behind himself to see what they were doing to him.

So they tied the rope around my legs and arms And they had a strap there about two or three leathers thick and they hit me thirty lashes with that strap They would hit me Ten licks and then let me cool off a while and then give me Ten more Now when the man that whiped me had hit me Twenty licks he asked my Master would that do he said, give him ten more, and every lick took the skin off

Sojourner Truth, former slave

I know what it is to be taken in the barn and tied up and the blood drawn out of your bare back, and I tell you it would make you think about God Yes, and then I felt, O God, if I was you and you felt like I do, and asked me for help I would help you—now why won’t you help me?

Charlie Moses, former slave

He whipped us till some jus’ lay down to die

Mary Prince, former slave

I then saw my sisters led forth, and sold to different owners; so that we had not the sad satisfaction of being partners in bondage When the sale was over, my mother hugged and kissed us, and mourned over us, begging of us to keep up a good heart, and do our duty to our new masters It was a sad parting; one went one way, one another, and our poor mammy went home with nothing

I wish I could find words to tell you all I then felt and suffered The great God above alone knows the thoughts of the poor slave’s heart, and the bitter pains which follow such separations as these All that we love taken away from us—

Oh, it is sad, sad! And sore to be borne!

Sis Shackelford, former slave

Had a slave jail built at the crossroads with iron bars ‘cross the windows Soon as the coffle get there, they bring all the slaves from the jail two at a time and string

‘em along the chain back of the other po’ slaves Everybody in the villages come out—especially the wives and sweethearts and mothers—to see their sold-off children for the last time And when they start the chain a-clanking and step off down the line, they all just sing and shout and make all the noises they can, trying

to hide the sorrow in their hearts and cover up the cries and moaning of them they were leaving behind Oh, Lord!

Despite the viciousness, it was in the slaveholders’ interest to limit the physical harm to slaves and to keep their families intact

Sarah Debro, former slave

Marse Cain was good to his niggers He didn’t whip them like some owners did, but if they done mean, he sold them They knew this so they minded him One day Grandpappy sassed Miss Polly White, and she told him that if he didn’t behave hisself that she would put him in her pocket Grandpappy was a big man and I ask him how Miss Polly could do that He said she meant that she would sell him, then put the money in her pocket He never did sass Miss Polly no more

John W Blassingame, PhD

If only the actions of masters are considered, 67.6 percent of the slave unions were unbroken In other words, in spite of their callous attitudes, masters did not separate a majority of the slave couples

Howard Dodson

Indeed, a study of the 1850 and 1860 manuscript censuses suggests that a larger percentage of adult slaves compared with southern adult free whites were or had been married at the time of death

Although the slaveholders had weapons and power, many slaves rebelled and escaped Nat Turner led a fierce rebellion in Virginia in 1831 Harriet Tubman escaped, and then returned to the South and led slaves to freedom She also planned and executed a military raid with Union troops that freed more than seven hundred slaves.10

* * *Surely, slaves were buoyed by hopes of freedom, a benevolent freedom conducive to recovery from centuries of ordeal It is unfortunate that the freedom that came was so limited

W E B Du Bois, PhD

The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery

Patsy Moore, former slave

When freedom come, folks left home, out in the streets, crying, praying, singing, shouting, yelling, and knocking down everything Some shot off big guns Then come the calm It was sad then So many folks done dead, things tore up, and nowheres to go and nothing to eat, nothing to do It got squally Folks got sick, so hungry Some folks starved nearly to death Times got hard

Jake Goodridge, former slave

The Yankee soldiers give out news of Freedom They was shouting around I just stood around to see what they was gonna do next Didn’t nobody give me nothing

I didn’t know what to do next Didn’t nobody give me nothing I didn’t know what to do Everything going Tents all gone, no place to stay and nothin’ to eat That was the big freedom to us colored folks I got hungry and naked and cold many a time

Patsy Michener, former slave

They was turned out with nowhere to go and nothing to live on They had no experience in looking out for themselves and nothing to work with and no land

Pauli Murray wrote that as her grandfather, Robert G Fitzgerald, traveled in Virginia in

1866, he saw "straggling caravans of homeless Negroes still roaming the roads in search

of shelter, food and work"

They plodded along barefoot or with rags bound around their feet and ankles They wore odds and ends of cast-off clothing, faded and patched beyond

recognition Some had on sewed-up gunny sacks tied about the waist with cord.White men were determined that black men give them the same unquestioned obedience they had exacted before the war; black men were equally determined to

be "treated just like white men."

Mary Frances Berry, JD, PhD and John W Blassingame, PhD

Almost immediately after the war the planters turned to sharecropping

arrangements with black farmers

Generally penniless, they obtained advances on their wages or shares of the crop Since they were illiterate, the planters often overcharged and cheated them The result was perpetual debt, compulsion, violence, oppression, and de facto slavery

Dorothy Sterling

It was common practice, many testified, for employers to dismiss them without pay as they neared the end of their contract year

Henry Robinson

I know we been beat out of money direct and indirect You see, they got a chance

to do it all right, ‘cause they can overcharge us and I know it’s being done I made three bales again last year He said I owed $400 the beginning of the year Now you can’t dispute his word When I said "Suh?" he said "Don’t you dispute my word; the book says so." When the book says so and so you better pay it, or they will say "So, I’m a liar, eh?" You better take to the bushes too if you dispute him, for he will string you up for that

Mary Frances Berry, JD, PhD and John W Blassingame, PhD

Later this system was augmented by the convict lease system, in which planters either paid the fines of black prisoners or were permitted to work them until their sentences were served

Angela Y Davis

Through the convict lease system, black people were forced to play the same old roles carved out for them by slavery Men and women alike were arrested and

imprisoned at the slightest pretext—in order to be leased out by the authorities as convict laborers Whereas the slaveholders had recognized limits to the cruelty with which they exploited their "valuable" human property, no such cautions were necessary for the postwar planters who rented Black convicts for relatively short terms "In many cases sick convicts are made to toil until they drop dead in their tracks."

* * *Some of the emancipated slaves found ways to succeed Racist whites sometimes reacted

by lynching them

Pierce Harper, former slave

If they got so they made good money and had a good farm, the Klu Klux would come and murder ’em The government builded schoolhouses and the Klu Klux went to work and burned ’em down They’d go to the jails and take the colored men out and knock their brains out and break their necks and throw ’em in the river

There was a colored man they taken His name was Jim Freeman They taken him and destroyed his stuff and him ’cause he was making some money Hung him on

a tree in his front yard, right in front of his cabin

Ida B Wells-Barnett investigated lynchings and found that they were:

An excuse to get rid of Negroes who were acquiring wealth and property and thus keep the race terrorized and "keep the nigger down."

Much of the racist violence aimed to dominate and intimidate

Margaret Walker, PhD

Before I was ten I knew what it was to step off the sidewalk to let a white man pass; other wise he might knock me off I had had a sound thrashing by white boys while Negro men looked on helplessly My father was chased home one night at the point of a gun by a drunken policeman who resented seeing a fountain pen in a "nigger’s" pocket

Anonymous, seventy, on the death of her father, a blind musician:

A carload of young crackers from somewhere ran him down in front of our house They were just playing with him, but when he didn’t run, the one at the wheel got mad and ran right over him He didn’t die for a week, but he was out of his head I was twenty-one He died on my birthday

[He] was the only person I ever knew who thought I was sweet

Patrice Gaines

I was watching the news a couple of weeks later and saw that a Birmingham church had been bombed, killing four girls Three of them were fourteen years old, like me I imagined what it was like for them, sitting in Sunday school one moment and blown to death the next

David Bradley

In 1997, near a town called Independence, Virginia, two white men kidnapped a

black man named Garnett Paul Johnson, hung him on a cross, soaked him with gasoline, burned him to death, and then beheaded the body with a dull ax A year later, near a town called Jasper, Texas, three white men kidnapped a black man named James Byrd Jr., spray-painted him white, chained him to the bumper of a pickup, and dragged him until his body parts were distributed along two miles of country road.

Mamie Till-Mobley, 2003

Emmett Louis Till, my only son, my only child, was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered at the hands of white racists on August 28, 1955 That was so many years ago, yet it seems like only yesterday to a mother who needs no reminders.Hardly a moment goes by when I don’t think about Emmett

* * *Racists targeted civil rights workers

Stanley Crouch, on Robert Moses:

Moses would walk into the most dangerous of towns, calmly stride up to a door, and begin talking about registering to vote He would be arrested and beaten, then released He would wash up, check his teeth, his glasses, change clothes, and go back out to register people to vote

Taylor Branch

Four students and a white professor from Tougaloo College staged a sit-in at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Jackson It lasted for three hours, which gave converging reporters plenty of time to record the details A mob of young whites took turns slathering the demonstrators with ketchup, mustard, and sugar—a

scene graphically depicted in the next issue of Newsweek After dragging them off

the stools only to watch them return, the whites doused them with spray paint and then, growing annoyed, began sporadically to beat them The tormentors darted forward to pour salt into the professor’s head wound after someone clubbed him

to the floor

U.S Congressman John Lewis, on the 1965 Bloody Sunday march in Selma:

There was mayhem all around me I could see a young kid—a teenaged boy—sitting on the ground with a gaping cut in his head, the blood just gushing out Several women, including Mrs Boynton, were lying on the pavement and the grass medium People were weeping Some were vomiting from the tear gas Men

on horses were moving in all directions, purposely riding over the top of fallen people, bringing their animals’ hooves down on shoulders, stomachs, and legs

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., PhD, on Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth:

Back at Christmas 1956, Shuttlesworth’s home was bombed and completely demolished In the winter of 1956, his church, Bethel Baptist, was dynamited by racists, and later in 1957, Shuttlesworth and his wife were mobbed, beaten, and stabbed They were also jailed eight times, four times during the Freedom Rides

Unita Blackwell, civil rights activist

You couldn’t trust nobody because the police was the Klans The police was burning the cross in my yard

Have you ever been in a condition where there is no place you can

call for help?

"Cain’t you say yessir, nigger? Cain’t you say yessir, bitch?"

Then Ponder’s voice: "Yes, I can say yessir."

"Well, say it," the guard said

"I don’t know you well enough," Ponder retorted

And then Hamer heard the strokes "She kept screamin’, and they kept beatin’ her," said Hamer, "and finally she started prayin’ for ’em, and she asked God to have mercy on ’em because they didn’t know what they was doin’."

Some days later, a SNCC worker went to see Annelle Ponder in jail Her face was

so swollen that she could scarcely talk, the worker reported "She looked at me and was able to whisper one word: Freedom."

Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of civil rights activist Medgar Evers:

I know what it is like to be in court and watch the man accused of murdering your husband and witness the Governor of Mississippi walk in, sit down, shake hands and proudly slap the accused man on the back

Rosa Parks, on her reaction to the murder of Reverend King:

Mama and I wept quietly together

* * *African Americans have been stereotyped and segregated

Margaret Walker, PhD

In movie after movie black people, individually and collectively, were demeaned and dehumanized, portrayed as naked savages, animals, stupid clowns or

buffoons, and imbecilic servants, criminals, and children

As a child, reading the history books in the South, I was humiliated by some unhappy picture or reference to a Negro Such items made me burn all over

Shelby Steele, PhD

Black skin has more dehumanizing stereotypes associated with it than any other skin color in America, if not in the world When a black presents himself in an integrated situation, he knows that his skin alone may bring these stereotypes to life in the minds of those he meets and that he, as an individual, may be

diminished by his race before he has a chance to reveal a single aspect of his personality

Judge A Leon Higginbotham Jr., on the Supreme Court’s 1896 Plessy v Ferguson

decision upholding the "separate but equal" doctrine of segregation:

This single decision legitimized the worst forms of race discrimination, which then became the law of our nation for six decades

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., PhD

If you wanted to visit a church attended by white people, you would not be welcome

Mary McLeod Bethune, 1936

The cultural advantages of the concert, lectures and public discussions are closed

to him

Langston Hughes, 1946

At least a hundred times (making a conservative estimate) I have been refused service in public restaurants in strange cities

Coretta Scott King

Blacks were required to sit and stand at the rear of the buses, even if there were empty seats in the front section, which was reserved for whites Furthermore, blacks had to pay their fares at the front of the bus, get off and walk to the rear to reboard through the back door Drivers often pulled off and left them after they had paid their fares

Jo Ann Gibson Robinson

Old black men and women were even forced to get out of seats so that white school children could sit down

Juan Williams, on Birmingham, Alabama:

In 1962 the city closed sixty-eight parks, thirty-eight playgrounds, six swimming pools and four golf courses to avoid complying with a federal court order to desegregate public facilities

Langston Hughes, on "the beloved Juliette Derricotte":

Injured in a wreck on a Southern road, that cultured woman was denied hospital treatment at the nearest white hospital By the time a Negro hospital was found miles away, she was dead

Patricia J Williams, JD

When my sister was in the fourth grade, she was the only black child in the class One Valentine’s Day, when the teacher went out of the room, all her white

classmates ripped the valentines she had sent them and dumped them on her desk

It was so traumatic that my sister couldn’t speak again in that class, she refused to participate: so completely had they made her feel not part of that group

* * *Educational opportunities have been restricted

Mary Frances Berry, PhD and John W Blassingame, PhD

The blacks’ passion for education in the 1860s was equaled by the whites’ desire

to deny or limit the education they received During the early years of

Reconstruction, southern whites burned schools (thirty-seven in Tennessee in 1869) and regularly insulted and whipped white teachers of blacks.

Audrey Edwards and Craig K Polite, PhD

"Separate" school accommodations typically meant wretched ones for blacks It was not uncommon to find black schools overcrowded, housed in shanty shacks with no heat or running water, textbooks worn and outdated In 1930 the average expenditure per school-age child was $45 per white pupil and $14.95 per black pupil

Cornel West, PhD, said that with few exceptions, blacks were kept out of the elite white

universities until the late 1960s

* * *Black people have also faced discrimination in the workplace

Mary McLeod Bethune, letter to President Franklin D Roosevelt, 1937:

Our Country opens wide the door of opportunity to the youth of the world but slams it shut in the faces of its Negro citizenry

Whitney M Young Jr., Chicago, 1960s:

Bricklayers, electricians, plumbers, and heavy equipment operators are among America’s highest-paid workers Almost none of the union locals in these fields admits Negroes; some have admitted a token handful The most qualified Negro worker has practically no hope of finding a job without a union card in thousands

of communities and hundreds of occupational categories.…

Whatever grudging concessions the system was willing to make for European immigrants, it absolutely refused to grant them to the black man The earlier immigrants may have realized that their ten-hour day of ditch-digging or

sweatshop labor would not result in riches for themselves, but they had ample evidence that their efforts would pay off for their children They knew that the system was open-ended and that whatever they scraped together for a son’s education would pay off in his freedom, if not their own The black labored as hard, but he knew that he could only hope to bequeath his shovel to his son; he knew the system was closed, and that a black man dared not hope

Henry "Hank" Aaron

I remember sitting out on the back porch once when an airplane flew over, and I told Daddy I’d like to be a pilot when I grew up He said, "Ain’t no colored pilots." I said, okay, then, I’ll be a ballplayer He said, "Ain’t no colored

ballplayers."

Jackie Robinson

After two years at UCLA I decided to leave I was convinced that no amount of education would help a black man get a job

Larry Elder, JD, on a friend in employment recruiting:

She has clients that have told her not to send over black people: "Don't send me somebody black no matter how qualified I don't want them in my house."

* * *

In answering the call and serving our nation in wars, African Americans have suffered imprisonment, torture, lifelong injuries, and death, depriving their families of providers and loved ones

Mary McLeod Bethune

Negro women give their sons to their country with as much enthusiasm and loyalty as other women

Though severely wounded in the leg, Sergeant Rivers refused medical treatment and evacuation, took command of another tank, and advanced with his company in Guebling the next day Repeatedly refusing evacuation, Sergeant Rivers continued to direct his tank's fire at enemy positions through the morning of 19 November 1944 At dawn, Company A's tanks began to advance towards Bougaktroff, but were stopped by enemy fire Sergeant Rivers, joined by another tank, opened fire on the enemy tanks, covering

company A as they withdrew While doing so, Sergeant River's [sic] tank was hit, killing

him and wounding the crew

How has America responded to the patriotic military service of African Americans?

John Hope Franklin, PhD, on the conclusion of World War I:

Returning Negro soldiers were lynched by hanging and burning, even while still

in their military uniforms The Klan warned Negroes that they must respect the rights of the white race "in whose country they are permitted to reside." Racial conflicts swept the country, and neither federal nor state governments seemed interested in effective intervention

Fannie Lou Hamer

They would go in the service and go through all of that and come right out to be drowned in the river in Mississippi

Ned Cobb, aka Nate Shaw

I’ve had white people tell me, "This is white man’s country, white man’s

country." They don’t sing that to the colored man when it comes to war Then it’s

all our country, go fight for the country Go over there and risk his life for the

country and come back, he aint a bit more thought of than he was before the war

James Baldwin, on the African American World War II veteran:

You must put yourself in the skin of a man who is wearing the uniform of his country, is a candidate for death in its defense, and who is called a "nigger" by his comrades-in-arms and his officers; who is almost always given the hardest,

ugliest, most menial work to do; who knows that the white G.I has informed the Europeans that he is subhuman (so much for the American male's sexual

security); who does not dance at the U.S.O the night white soldiers dance there, and does not drink in the same bars white soldiers drink in; and who watches German prisoners of war being treated by Americans with more human dignity than he has ever received at their hands And who, at the same time, as a human

being, is far freer in a strange land than he has ever been at home Home! The

very word begins to have a despairing and diabolical ring You must consider what happens to this citizen, after all he has endured, when he returns—home: search, in his shoes, for a job, for a place to live; ride, in his skin, on segregated buses; see, with his eyes, the signs saying "White" and "Colored," and especially

the signs that say "White Ladies" and "Colored Women"; look into the eyes of his

wife; look into the eyes of his son; listen, with his ears, to political speeches, North and South; imagine yourself being told to "wait."

John Hope Franklin, PhD, referred to his brother, Buck Jr., who was traumatized by

discrimination in the United States Army in World War II:

He had been drafted by a segregated army and had served his country more

honorably than that country had served him

* * *With lethal violence, large numbers of whites have rioted against smaller numbers of African Americans Whites rioted against blacks in New York City in 1863, in East St Louis in 1917, Washington DC and Chicago in 1919, Detroit in 1943, and in other cities

at other times.12 Rioters killed between forty and three hundred African Americans in the prosperous, predominantly black Greenwood section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921.13

Brent Staples

By the time the Oklahoma National Guard marched into Greenwood, in the late morning of June 1, virtually all of black Tulsa had gone up in smoke and ash About 1,200 buildings were burned or looted or both For months afterward, black Tulsans would encounter white people on the streets wearing familiar clothing and jewelry looted from black homes

Debra J Dickerson, JD

Police and soldiers often took part in the riots

* * *The government has used the right of eminent domain to dismantle African American and other residential areas to make room for public projects Seneca Village, which existed in New York City from 1825 to 1857, was removed for the construction of a section of Central Park This was a biracial community, although predominantly black, including two churches and a school African American men who lost their land also lost their qualification for precious voting rights New York compensated homeowners for their property, but many residents felt that the compensation was inadequate and sued in state court.14

From 1932 to 1972, the United States Public Health Service passively observed over four hundred black men with syphilis while their health deteriorated The agency did not inform the men of the diagnosis, counsel them to avoid spreading the disease, or give them penicillin when it was found to be an effective treatment In 1974, the Health

Service responded to a class-action suit by providing cash awards to the seventy

survivors and to the heirs of the men who had died.15

State laws forbidding black and white people from marrying or having sex together were

in effect until 1967.16

The 1904 St Louis World’s Fair displayed pygmies brought from Africa In 1906, the Bronx Zoo in New York City displayed Ota Benga, a pygmy, in the monkey house.17

* * *African Americans have spent more time in slavery than in freedom Much of their time

in "freedom" was under conditions that severely restricted their social and economic advancement They have written that it also harmed their sense of hopefulness

In India, a baby bull elephant is tied by the leg to a tree He tries to free himself, can’t and eventually gives up A grown elephant is a massive creature, strong enough to uproot a tree, yet he can be restrained by a little rope tied to a sapling It

is the elephant’s mind, not the rope, that enslaves him

Derek S Hopson, PhD and Darlene Powell Hopson, PhD

When people are convinced they cannot succeed, no matter how hard they work and regardless of what they do, they usually stop trying Even minor obstacles become overwhelming They no longer feel in control of their destiny and accept

defeat This passive condition is called learned helplessness.

When he was a child, friends of Clarence Thomas often said:

The man ain’t goin’ let you do nothin’, why you even tryin’?

Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson

Racism was all around me, I thought, and I began to wonder what was the point of trying to work hard and do well if "Whitey" was just going to take it all away from me anyway

I was passive, expecting the government and politicians to create ways for me to succeed

Bill Cosby, EdD

And victims, we know, feel helpless and behave as if their destiny is completely

controlled by others Worse, a victim does not accept responsibility for himself or herself, blaming others for his or her predicaments and failures A victim’s

attitude is epitomized by the African-American student who fails a physics exam and blames it on the professor’s racism even though the student did not prepare for the examination

Louis W Sullivan, MD

The tragic truth is that the language of "victimization" is the true victimizer—a great crippler of young minds and spirits To teach young people that their lives are governed—not by their own actions, but by socio-economic forces or

government budgets or other mysterious and fiendish sources beyond their control

—is to teach our children negativism, resignation, passivity and despair

Derrick Bell

Drug-related crime, teenaged parenthood, and disrupted and disrupting family life all are manifestations of a despair that feeds on self

* * *What can be learned from this experience of oppression? African Americans have written

of their appreciation of the sweetness of freedom and of the need to make the most of it

Wallace Turnage, free man

The next morning I was up early and took a look at the rebels country with a thankful heart to think that I had made my escape with safety after such a long struggle; and had obtained that freedom which I desired so long I Now dreaded the gun, and handcuffs and pistols no more Nor the blewing of horns and the running of hounds; nor the threats of death from the rebel’s authority I could now speak my opinion to men of all grades and colors, and no one to question my right

to speak

Annette Gordon-Reed, of Peter Fossett, who became a caterer:

After his emancipation Fossett and his family, as did millions of other blacks, picked up their lives and went forward, taking with them the lessons of family loyalty, the importance of self-improvement, and faith There is no better lesson that we can learn from the lives of the enslaved If we want to be worthy of them,

we must learn it

Bill Cosby, EdD and Alvin F Poussaint, MD

It is important to understand the legacy of slavery, but it is even more important to transcend it, to break the psychological shackles that still bind us

Mamie Till-Mobley

We cannot afford the luxury of self-pity Our top priority now is to get on with the building process

Lauren Lake

Now, lastly, we’ve got to take this helplessness and this hopelessness and wrap it

up and put it into the dumpster

Orlando Patterson, PhD

Optimism, when justified, itself becomes a good part of the cure

Russell Simmons

I really believe the last generation removed the physical barriers of the struggle

Now it’s up to you to overcome the mental barriers The final struggle is the spiritual barriers in your mind And you can overcome the struggle by working

your hardest to take advantage of all the opportunity we have in this country

Thomas Sowell, PhD

Although blacks suffered in body and mind under slavery, they did not emerge as

a spiritually crushed people

Howard Dodson

Far from being mere victims of slavery, racism, and cultural oppression in the United States and the Americas, enslaved Africans and their descendants have been active, creative, thinking human beings who made their own histories and cultures during slavery and continue to do so today Wherever we look on the American political, cultural, social, or economic landscape in the 21st century, people of African descent are also involved in shaping America’s history, culture, and destiny

Shelby Steele, PhD

It was also imagination, courage, the exercise of free will, and a very definite genius that enabled blacks not only to survive victimization but also to create a great literature, utterly transform Western music, help shape the American

language, expand and deepen the world’s concept of democracy, influence

popular culture around the globe, and so on

A’Lelia Bundles

We are more than slave history

Bill Cosby, EdD and Alvin F Poussaint, MD

As history has shown, we are a resilient people We overcome

* * *The achievements began with the slaves surviving, fighting for their freedom in the Civil War, and producing the cotton that enriched Western nations.

President Abraham Lincoln, August 26, 1863

I know, as fully as one can know the opinions of others, that some of the

commanders of our armies in the field who have given us our most important successes believe the emancipation policy and the use of the colored troops

constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the Rebellion, and that at least one of these important successes could not have been achieved when it was but for the aid of black soldiers

And then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation

David Brion Davis, PhD, on the cotton the slaves produced:

It powered textile-manufacturing revolutions in both New England and Europe, and paid for American imports of everything from steel to capital

Orlando Patterson, PhD

But no one now doubts that New World slavery was a key factor in the rise of the West European economies

* * *Here is a small sample of African American high achievers:

Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806): mathematician, astronomer, compiler of

almanacs, inventor, writer

Patricia E Bath, MD (born 1949): ophthalmologist, inventor, co-founder of the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness

Romare Bearden (1911–1988): artist

Keith Black, MD (born 1957): neurosurgeon, chairman of the neurosurgery department and director of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Squire J Booker, PhD (born 1965 ): biochemist, molecular biologist

Sarah Breedlove, aka Madame C J Walker (1867–1919): entrepreneur, self-made millionaire, philanthropist

Edward William Brooke III (born 1919): U.S Senator, war veteran, lawyer, prosecutor of organized crime, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Ralph J Bunche, PhD (1904–1971): political scientist, educator, diplomat

George Washington Carver (1860–1943): agricultural chemist, agronomist,

experimenter, inventor

Shirley Chisholm (1924–2005): member of U.S House of Representatives

Mark Dean, PhD (born 1957): electrical engineer, computer scientist

Charles Drew, MD (1904–1950): surgeon, blood plasma researcher, organizer and director of World War II plasma programs in the United States and Great BritainEdward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899–1974): musician, composer,

bandleader

Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965): playwright

Matthew A Henson (1866–1965): arctic explorer, interpreter

Langston Hughes (1902–1967): author, poet

Bill T Jones (born 1952): artistic director, choreographer, dancer, author

Percy L Julian, PhD (1899–1975): organic chemist, researcher, inventor

Ernest Everett Just, PhD (1883–1941): zoologist, biologist, physiologist, research scientist

Lewis H Latimer (1848–1928): inventor

Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000): artist

Gerald Anderson Lawson (1940–2011): electronic engineer, video game console designer

Reginald Lewis, JD (1942–1993): lawyer, business leader, philanthropist

Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993): lawyer, NAACP counsel, U.S Supreme Court Justice

Jan Ernst Matzeliger (1852–1889): inventor

Elijah McCoy (1843–1929): inventor

Ronald McNair, PhD (1950–1986): laser physicist, researcher, astronaut

Garrett A Morgan (1877–1963): inventor

Melvin Van Peebles (born 1932): actor, director, screenwriter, producer,

playwright, composer, author

Norbert Rillieux, PhD (1806–1894): engineer, inventor

Faith Ringgold (born 1930): artist, author

Paul Robeson (1898–1976): athlete, actor, opera singer, lawyer, activist

Charles Henry Turner, PhD (1867–1923): zoologist, entomologist

Denzel Washington (born 1954): Academy Award–winning actor, director, authorMaxine Waters (born 1938): member of U.S House of Representatives

Daniel Hale Williams, MD (1858–1931): surgeon, founder of Provident Hospital, educator

August Wilson (1945–2005): playwright

Granville T Woods (1856–1910): inventor

Carter Woodson, PhD (1875–1950): historian, author, editor, publisher

This list barely mentions the African Americans who produced the massive, distinguished body of literature from which these quotations are taken And it would require more than

a book to describe the achievements of the musicians, dancers, actors, artists, and athletes who have transformed world culture by entertaining, comforting, and inspiring people everywhere

Nia Long

The crux of the matter, when it comes to sports, entertainment, and music, is that

we bring the culture to America

James Weldon Johnson, 1933

The only things artistic in America that have sprung from American soil,

permeated American life, and been universally acknowledged as distinctively American, had been the creations of the American Negro

John McWhorter, PhD

The facts here are simple: the popular music that all Americans cherish, sing, and dance to today would not exist if Africans had not been brought to this country.Our history must make clear the larger point; that without African slaves, there would have been no George Gershwin or Richard Rodgers to forge the American musical theater tradition; that the swing sound of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, sung to by Sinatra, would never have developed; that there would be no Elvis Presley, Beatles, or Rolling Stones; that the songs of Bob Dylan and Alanis Morissette and Kurt Cobain and Britney Spears would simply not exist

Mayor Unita Blackwell, Mississippi, 1999

I am the law I am over the slave owners that used to be over me I am their

mayor I’m the judge So it has changed

Ambassador Andrew Young, 1979

When I came to Atlanta the Klan ran Atlanta Now there’s a Black police chief, a Black mayor, the superintendent of schools is Black—there was a real transfer of power

Dirk Johnson, 1989, on police chiefs:

Today, blacks head departments in Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, New Orleans, Miami, Detroit, Baltimore, Atlanta, Newark, Houston, Memphis and, until recently, New York City

Dennis Kimbro, PhD and Napoleon Hill, 1991

Blacks are no longer denied access to the judicial process of impartial hearings, speedy trials, and jury by peers They are no longer denied access to public

schools and colleges due to race, nor are they denied access to the political arena

As of this writing, blacks now serve as chief executive officers in the largest of U.S cities—New York, Los Angeles, Newark, Cleveland, Kansas City, New Orleans, Seattle, Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta—as well as in the state

of Virginia

Ronald H Brown, 1990

Just to think a little more than 25 years ago, Fannie Lou Hamer, a Black woman from Ruleville, Miss., fought to get a single seat at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, N.J., and 25 years later, I am the chairman of that party

Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, on bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama:

At last, after thirteen long months, the boycotters had won It was terrible to watch women and children weep, hearing the news, and even more awful to see grown black men stand and cry until their whole bodies shook with bitter

memories of the past For now it was all over—all those years of inhuman

suffering, of brutality, arrests, and fines The worst part of all had been their own helplessness in the face of it all! But now it was over

Alice Walker

The fear that shrouded Mississippi in the sixties is largely gone "If Medgar could see what has happened in Mississippi in the last few years," said his widow, Myrlie Evers, "I think he’d be surprised and pleased."

Morgan Freeman, on the weakening of the Klan, 2004:

And the whole idea of it pretty much doesn’t exist anymore because the

Mississippi legal system broke them

Shelby Steele, PhD

There are no serious advocates of white supremacy in America today, because whites see this idea as morally repugnant If there is still the odd white bigot out there surviving past his time, there are millions of whites who only feel goodwill toward minorities

John McWhorter, PhD

Black History Month has now been prominently celebrated by schools and the

media annually for almost thirty years

Derek S Hopson, PhD and Darlene Powell Hopson, PhD

In both African-American and White circles, there has been an acceptance of interracial dating in recent years that is greater than at any other time in American history

Morgan Freeman

There are many interracial couples who move around the South just as freely as they do any place else, without any problems

William Julius Wilson, PhD

On the other hand, the state, instead of reinforcing the racial barriers that were created during the previous periods, has, in recent years, promoted racial equality

Dick Gregory

No country in the history of this planet has made the progress we made Race relations will never go back to what it was

U.S Congressman John Lewis

No one, but no one, who was born in America forty or fifty or sixty years ago and who grew up and came through what I came through, who witnessed the changes

I witnessed, can possibly say that America is not a far better place than it was We live in a different country than the one I grew up in

So many things are undeniably better

protection of minorities than any other society, white or black; offers more

opportunities to a greater number of black persons than any other society,

including all those of Africa; and has gone through a dramatic change in its attitude toward miscegenation over the past 25 years

Russell Simmons

You have to be able to see that America in the twenty-first century is still the

greatest place you could ever live

Chris Tucker

We are blessed here in America, but that brings a lot of responsibility

* * *Black Americans have also advanced in employment status and income

John McWhorter, PhD, wrote that compared to 1940 when only one of a hundred black people were middle class, by 2000 almost half of African Americans had reached the middle class

John McWhorter, PhD

No, things are not perfect—but let’s face it: There are millions and millions of people on earth who would kill for the lives of all but a few black Americans today, and there have been untold billions of people who have triumphed amidst conditions unspeakably worse

Benjamin Hooks

All the jobs that were closed when I was a boy are open

Audrey Edwards and Craig K Polite, PhD

Black baby boomers can now be found in positions of power and influence just about everywhere in the American workplace: in the boardrooms of major

corporations, at the heads of labor unions, in the halls of Congress and state legislatures, running major cities, on television commercials pitching everything from aspirin to hamburgers No other generation of African-Americans has come

so far so fast

Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson, 2000

The number of black-owned enterprises nearly doubled during the last decade—five times the rate of new business creation for the country as a whole

Glenn C Loury, PhD

Major universities throughout the country are constantly searching for qualified black candidates to hire as professors, or to admit to study Most state colleges and universities near black population centers have made a concerted effort to reach those in the inner city

A new middle class of well-educated and well-placed blacks has emerged, whose members can be found in technical, managerial, and professional positions

throughout the leading institutions of the nation Differences in earnings between young, well-educated black and white workers have diminished dramatically; and something approximating parity in economic status has been achieved for young, intact black families

President Barack Obama

Today not only is the city filled with black doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants, and other professionals, but blacks also occupy some of the highest management positions in corporate Chicago Blacks own restaurant chains, investment banks,

PR agencies, real estate investment trusts, and architectural firms They can afford

to live in neighborhoods of their choosing and send their children to the best private schools They are actively recruited to join civic boards and generously support all manner of charities

John McWhorter, PhD, on A Raisin in the Sun:

The institutionalized housing segregation so searingly depicted in Hansberry’s play is still occasionally encountered, but only marginally Much of it that

remains is due to self-segregation in the name of cultural fellowship by working and middle-class blacks themselves, a largely harmless phenomenon

Larry Elder, JD

Most of my friends who live in the Baldwin Hills and View Park areas of Los Angeles—which are predominantly black bourgeois areas—chose to live there because they want to live with other black people

Nathan McCall, on Prince George’s County, Maryland, one of many affluent black

suburbs:

The backdrop is $250,000 homes with manicured lawns—houses that are

sprinkled around a sprawling, well-tended community golf course and near

jogging trails that circle a scenic, man-made lake

Howard Dodson, 2003

Today, descendants of propertyless slaves hold billions of dollars in assets and an annual purchasing power greater than the national debt of many countries

* * *African Americans have called for taking greater advantage of opportunities

Booker T Washington, former slave, 1895

Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities

Nannie Helen Burroughs, early 1900s

In spite of race prejudice, America is brim full of opportunities Go after them!

Mary McLeod Bethune, 1941

We must guide and teach our brothers and fellow-men how to take advantage of what we do have

Shelby Steele, PhD

The focus continues to be unrelentingly on racism and black suffering Certainly those things still exist, but there’s an enormous amount of opportunity open to blacks, and we’re just not taking advantage of it as we should

Russell Simmons

For millions and millions of people overseas, no matter how hard they work, the opportunities just aren’t going to be there They’re going to work harder than most Americans and they’re still going to have to live on less than a dollar a day for the rest of their lives

That’s why it saddens me that as a community we still don’t take advantage of all the opportunity that’s available to us in this country It seems that our struggles have made many of us blind to that opportunity People can’t see that the

obstacles that blocked us a hundred or even fifty years ago are largely gone now.The opportunity is available to all of us

Ambassador Andrew Young

We struggled in the fifties to integrate the schools We struggled in the sixties to integrate the lunch counters and ballot boxes Now we’ve got to struggle in the eighties and nineties to integrate the money

* * *Taking advantage of opportunity includes correcting problems within the community

Reverend Jesse L Jackson

What faces us today is preventable It is within our power to change our behavior

bell hooks, PhD

The people wanted to project and talk about the enemy out there, the one they can scapegoat, rather than identify and confront the enemy within, the one we can control, challenge, and change

Thomas Sowell, PhD

More and more independent black scholars are coming to see the civil rights approach as having already done its work, and now needing to be superseded by new approaches to other serious problems of the black community—of which massive teenage pregnancy and violent crime are among the most devastating

Glenn C Loury, PhD

I do not underestimate the difficulty of the task, nor do I expect change to come overnight, but I nevertheless believe—I must believe—that the levels of gang violence, drug abuse, family instability, sexual promiscuity, sloth, indifference to responsibility, etc., can, through concerted effort at the propagation of alternative values, be changed

Bill Cosby, EdD

It’s not what they’re doing to us It’s what we’re not doing

Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson

As black people, we must recognize that our real battle is with ourselves, not with society

John H Johnson

"Whitey’s" not keeping blacks down He’s not keeping us from jobs or education

We have the power to make it in this society, and so we can’t blame the system for everything

Minister Louis Farrakhan

No one is holding you back it is you You are in your own way

He ain’t your trouble today You are your trouble today!

Larry Elder, JD

That rhetoric has got to stop, the constant search for the great white oppressor has got to stop

Toni Cade Bambara

It is so much easier to be out there than right here The revolution ain’t out there

* * *Solving problems requires the difficult process of self-criticism

Frederick Douglass

In pointing out errors and mistakes common among ourselves, I shall run the risk

of incurring displeasure; for no people with whom I am acquainted are less

tolerant of criticism than ourselves, especially from one of our own number We have been so long in the habit of tracing our failures and misfortunes to the views and acts of others that we seem, in some measure, to have lost the talent and disposition of seeing our own faults, or of "seeing ourselves as others see us." And yet no man can do a better service to another man than to correct his

mistakes, point out his hurtful errors, show him the path of truth, duty and safety

Reverend Jesse L Jackson

Many leaders who are black, and many white liberals, will object to my

discussing these things in public But the decadence in black communities—killing, destruction of our own businesses, violence in the schools—is already in the headlines; the only question is what we should do about it

It is time, I think, for us to stand up, admit to our failures and weaknesses and begin to strengthen ourselves

O'Shea Jackson, aka Ice Cube

Start dealing with some of these problems instead of sweeping them under the rug and always worrying about what white folks might think To me, we’re the first generation to deal with some of this stuff Why lie and deny that we’re in this condition, you know? Let it all hang out and start correcting our own problems by seeing that they’re so bad

Something is wrong with the value preferences, behavioral adaptations and

socialization practices of the Afro-American lower class; we know what their

historical causes were, but to spend more time arguing over who to blame is to play one’s fiddle while the city burns.

* * *Striving to take advantage of opportunities, Du Bois and others have advised against exaggerating the degree of prejudice that white people present

James P Comer, MD and Alvin F Poussaint, MD

It pays to study an incident or a situation before jumping to a conclusion and reacting Is the store clerk cold and aloof with you because you’re black or

because that’s his personality? Look around How does he treat white people?

community might be up to

Thomas Sowell, PhD

Yet what was peculiar about the West was not that it participated in the

worldwide evil of slavery, but that it later abolished that evil, not only in Western societies but also in other societies subject to western control or influence

Larry Elder, JD, 2002

It was the West that first began to reject slavery as inhumane Indeed, in parts of Africa and the Middle East—Chad, Mauritania, and the United Arab Emirates—slavery continues to this day!

Ned Cobb, aka Nate Shaw

Yes, all God’s dangers aint a white man

* * *

In contrast with their racist behavior, whites have been allies and friends of black

Americans This includes the white people who risked working with the Underground Railroad, John Brown and the men who fought and died with him, and the hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers who gave their lives in the war that ended slavery It includes Viola Liuzzo, civil rights activist and mother of five, who was murdered by the Klan in Alabama in 1965

John McWhorter, PhD

We mustn't forget that as far back as the late 1700s, the Quakers argued

vigorously for the abolition of slavery and invited blacks into their churches, and that starting in the 1830s, William Lloyd Garrison and other white abolitionists often put their lives in danger arguing against slavery, in the sincere belief that it was incompatible with both Christian teachings and the Constitution's appeal to the rights of man

And one searches in vain for any indication that founding white NAACP stalwarts like William English Walling, Joel Springarn, and Mary White Ovington were motivated by anything but a human revulsion at how blacks were treated in their time

Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, on the Montgomery bus boycott:

Despite white officials’ calls for white solidarity in fighting it, many whites saw the justice of the Negroes’ demands for better treatment on the transportation lines and wholeheartedly supported the boycott

Bayard Rustin

Because of the drama of the previous period, the movement received a great deal

of help from the mass media; almost every day for ten years newspapers all across the nation carried news of civil rights activity on their front pages

U.S Congressman John Lewis, on reporters who were attacked by mobs:

As bad as the violence was that summer, God knows what it would have been without the presence of the press

They all faced danger, especially the TV guys, who were easily identified and easy targets because of their equipment

Congressman Lewis, on white civil rights allies such as Jim Peck, Al Bigelow, and Jim

Lorraine Hansberry

Some of the first people who have died so far in this struggle have been white men

Fannie Lou Hamer

Even though they was aware they might die, they still came These are the things

we have to think about These are the things we can’t sweep under the rug And these are the things that still give me hope

Nannie Helen Burroughs

The American Negro has had and still has friends—in the North and in the South These friends not only pray, speak, write, influence others, but make

unbelievable, unpublished sacrifices and contributions for the advancement of the race—for their brothers in bonds

Vernon Jordan Jr., JD, wrote that the Rockefeller, Ford, Field, and Stern families

supported all the major civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, CORE, SNCC, and SCLC These families also contributed to the Voter Education Project, which helped southern blacks obtain the right to vote

Police officers of all races have given their lives to lower crime rates, protecting all Americans, including civil rights activists

Tananarive Due

Once, soon after a Southern federal judge had been killed with a letter bomb, the FBI called my father The agent told Dad that because of his activism, and

particularly his role representing black parents in a long-lasting federal

desegregation suit against Miami-Dade county schools, the FBI feared he might

be a target for the bomber, a homegrown terrorist Please, the agent said, be careful about opening unfamiliar mail—just in case.

Using DNA testing, unpaid lawyers of the Innocence Project have gotten more than 273 prisoners of all races exonerated, including people who were condemned to death.19Most white people have reacted to recent incidents of racist violence with revulsion

Orlando Patterson, PhD, on the murder of James Byrd, Jr.:

Although 55 percent of Jasper’s population is Euro-American, its mayor, its hospital administrator, the president of its chamber of commerce, the executive director of the East Texas Council of Government, and the past president of its school board are all Afro-Americans There was genuine outrage and disgust on the part of nearly all citizens at what had happened, and the Euro-American sheriff, Billy Rowles, had the full support and gratitude of both ethnic groups for his investigation and quick arrest of the culprits The co-owner of one of the town’s main restaurants spoke for most Euro-American citizens of Jasper when

she told the Dallas Morning News that, upon hearing the news of the lynching,

she gathered her Afro-American employees in her office and prayed with them "I asked God’s forgiveness that this happened, that it came from my race."

* * *

People of all races have supported African Americans striving for success in business and politics.

U.S Congressman William Gray, 1990

Half the black members of Congress represent mostly non-black constituents

U.S Congressman J C Watts, on representing a district 84 percent white:

There are plenty of white people ready and willing, even eager, to vote for a black candidate who shares their values, regardless of political party

Juan Williams, on Barack Obama becoming President:

There is no other nation in the world where a 75 percent majority electorate has elected as their supreme leader a man who identifies as one of that nation's

historically oppressed minorities

Audrey Edwards and Craig K Polite, PhD

Successful pioneering blacks have very often been assisted on their journey through new terrain by fair and sympathetic whites

When Ebony magazine was in its early stages, John H Johnson needed advice about

publishing He got it from one of the richest, most powerful men in the world, Henry R

Luce, the publisher of Time, Life, and Fortune All Johnson had to do was ask.

John H Johnson

He received me in a big office on one of the upper floors of the old Time-Life

Building He was uptight at first, not knowing what to expect and how to react But he warmed up quickly when I told him what I was trying to do and that I just

wanted exposure to Time-Life staffers who could tell me whether I was moving in

the right direction He pushed buttons, and editors and business experts came from everywhere With Luce’s blessing, I talked to experts in the New York office and returned to Chicago for discussions with his circulation and promotion departments

Chris Gardner, whose life is portrayed in the movie The Pursuit of Happyness, began

his journey toward wealth when he asked Bob Bridges: "What do you do?" "How do you

do that?" Mr Gardner learned, worked hard, and became a millionaire

When Earvin "Magic" Johnson asked Joe Smith of Elektra-Asylum Records and Peter

Guber of Sony Pictures, "How do I get into business?" he was put in touch with

Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz Ovitz mentored Johnson, helping him build his empire

Earl G Graves, founder and CEO of Black Enterprise magazine:

I have repeatedly noted that you and I cannot afford to rely on anyone else to help

us, but the fact is that at nearly every point in my life, I have found people—of all races—willing to step up and lend assistance when they believed that the cause was just and my goals were worthy

Ann Iverson, mother of NBA star Allen Iverson:

I worked for Amway, and they taught me to set goals so I could realize my

dreams Can you believe that—bunch of white people tellin’ me to set goals—but that was the best thing I could’ve had ’Cause all I had in the ’hood was people tellin’ me how to sell drugs I’ll be honest, it was white people who lifted me up

Pastor Eddie Spencer, who served time in Mississippi for attempted murders:

A young white catfish farmer came into the prison one day a week and taught me how to read

A lot of people see the autobiographical film "The Learning Tree," and they say,

"You should be angry with white people, and so forth." And I say, "Why should I

be angry with white people?" And they say, "Well I read your book and what you suffered in Kansas." And I say: "Well, that was Kansas Have you forgotten the fact that Marilyn Murphy gave me my first chance to shoot fashion at her store out in St Paul? Have you forgotten that Alex Lieberman gave me a chance at Vogue? How Gloria [Vanderbilt] presented herself in such a beautiful way? How

am I going to be mad at white people? I have no reasons whatsoever to be

concerned."

When fourteen-year-old Michael Carter mentioned that he was on dialysis and needed a

kidney transplant, his white teacher, Jane Smith, replied, "Well, I have two Do you

want one?" A few months later, Carter received one of Smith’s kidneys

Bebe Moore Campbell, on positive relationships between blacks and whites:

That’s the story that never gets told: how many of us really like each other,

respect each other

James P Comer, MD, on attending a predominantly white school:

I still remember that when we exchanged valentine cards in the second grade I got seventeen—the second highest total in the class

person, a White person who will not make direct eye contact with a Black person while speaking to him, a White person who enters a business office and assumes that the Black person she sees is a secretary or a janitor, a cab driver who refuses

to pick up a Black passenger, a White person who refuses to give directions to someone Black, and a White sales clerk who offers assistance to a White patron in line behind a Black patron

Neil DeGrasse Tyson, PhD, is the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American

Museum of Natural History When he began graduate studies in astrophysics, faculty and fellow students immediately encouraged him to join the department basketball team and

to leave the university to become a computer salesman or community college teacher

When combined with the dozens of times I have been stopped and questioned by the police for going to and from my office after hours, and the hundreds of times I

am followed by security guards in department stores, and the countless times people cross the street upon seeing me approach them on the sidewalk, I can summarize my life’s path by noting the following: in the perception of society,

my athletic talents are genetic; I am a likely mugger-rapist; my academic failures are expected; and my academic successes are attributed to others

To spend most of my life fighting these attitudes levies an emotional tax that constitutes a form of intellectual emasculation

* * *For some, the following insights have lessened the sting of these insults

Ben Carson, MD

Ultimately their prejudice is their problem Not yours

Sarah Parks, mother of Gordon

All whites don’t hate you, son And those that do are in such bad trouble with themselves they need pitying They’re not worth worrying about

Arthur Ashe Jr.

I don’t get huffy about snubs or insults If somebody seems to put the freeze on

me I just forget him I wouldn’t worry if he disliked bankers or cab drivers Why should I fret if he dislikes Negroes? What does it matter?

Reginald Lewis, JD, on reacting to racists who underestimate his business skill:

I don’t have anything to say to them Let them wallow in their own ignorance If it’s more convenient or more comfortable for them to think that way, then fine—

be my guest It’s not important what others think

Playthell Benjamin

Tell your children that racism and discrimination is a reflection of white folks’ fear of fair and open competition with us Explain that it wasn’t long ago that white men swore that no black man possessed the skill and courage necessary to win the heavyweight championship in the boxing ring, the finesse to play in the NBA, or the intelligence to play quarterback or manage a baseball team

James P Comer, MD

A positive sense of racial identity begins with answering the questions about race