The DISH

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Vol. 11 Issue 31…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…August 3, 2008

Intuit's Vibe

"Wake Up Everybody"

By Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes

Wake up everybody no more sleepin' in bed

No more backward thinkin' time for thinkin' ahead

The world has changed so very much

From what it used to be

There is so much hatred, war and poverty

Wake up all the teachers time to teach a new way

Maybe then they'll listen to what you have to say

'Cause they're the ones who's coming up

And the world is in their hands

When you teach the children

Teach them the very best you can.

The world won't get no better

If we just let it be

The world won't get no better

We gotta change it yeah

Just you and me

Wake up all the doctors make the old people well

They're the ones who suffer and catch all the hell

But they don't have so very long before the Judgement Day

So won't you make them happy

before they pass away

Wake up all the builders time to build a new land

I know we can do it if we all lend a hand

The only thing we have to do is put it in our mind

Surely things will work out; they do it every time

The world won't get no better

If we just let it be

The world won't get no better

We gotta change it, yeah - -Just you and me

Bit of History

The Wilmington, North Carolina Riot (1898)

By John Burl Smith

It is obvious that the historian must not be biased by any prejudices and party tenets. Those writers who consider historical events as an arsenal of weapons for the conduct of their party feuds are not historians but propagandists and apologists. They are not eager to acquire knowledge but to justify the program of their parties . . .They usurp the name of history for their writings as a blind in order to deceive the incredulous. Austrian economist and historian, Ludwig von Mises

Preceding more prominently publicized attacks on black communities by white mobs in Atlanta, Georgia, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Rosewood, Florida, the riot in Wilmington, North Carolina was a coup d'etat that replaced the city's duly elected officeholders with white supremacists and banished blacks from the town. Unparalleled in U.S. history, the legislature of North Carolina created the Wilmington Race Riot Commission in 2000. Introduced by Rep. Thomas Wright and the late Sen. Luther Jordan, their legislation created a 13-member commission to initiate and review research by the Office of Archives and History in the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.

During Reconstruction after the Civil War, the white gentry and business classes merged across the South and began a reign of terror to reinforce white supremacy. The Republican party as a whole mirrored the description of William Jennings Bryan in his 1890 addresses to blacks on "bloc voting" for Republicans. "It seems to me strange that this party, which claims to love the colored man so well, fails to show its affection in any material degree. In the northern States there are 621,000 colored men. In many instances they hold the balance of power, but nobody ever heard of a colored man going to Congress from the north. The Republican party has taken the Negro for thirty years to an office door and then tied him on the outside. The Negro has bestowed presidents on the Republican party---and the Republican party has given to the Negro janitor ships in return."

However, in Wilmington, North Carolina, the rise of black political power through alliances between Republicans and Populists created a grassroots political movement that led to a dramatic shift in power during the 1880s. Beginning with the elections of 1894 and in 1896, white supremacy candidates used intimidation and voter fraud to gain power. Democrats stuffed ballot boxes and intimidated black voters to beat the splintering Republican coalition on Nov. 8, 1898.

A Committee of Twenty-five (white men) was formed, and on Nov. 9, they prepared resolutions called the White Declaration of Independence. They presented the demands to leading black political and business leaders, known as the Committee of Colored Citizens (CCC). A pivotal demand to the CCC was that the community ousts newspaper editor Alex Manly, who published an article in the Record, the city's only African American newspaper quoting white supremacist, Col. Alfred M. Waddell, who said, "We will not live under these intolerable conditions. No society can stand it. We intend to change it, if we have to choke the current of the Cape Fear River with carcasses." The CCC had until 7:30 a.m. on Nov. 10^th to respond. At 9 AM, a group of white men marched to the Record's printing office and burned the newspaper building to the ground.

A mob of up to 2,000 whites, inflamed by weeks of propaganda in newspapers and meetings of hate-filled rhetoric, roamed the streets, armed with rifles and rapid fire machine guns, killing or wounding black men, women and children. After three days of carnage, an estimated sixty to 100 blacks were dead. There was no white fatality. The Republican mayor, board of aldermen, and chief of police were forced to resign. The Committee of Twenty-Five replaced them and fired all black municipal employees.

LeRae Umfleet, a key researcher, found details at the Bellamy Mansion of a court challenge of the Nov. 8, 1898 victory by John D. Bellamy, Jr. brought by Republican congressional candidate Oliver Dockery. Trial testimony offered insight into the riot and the period preceding the political campaign. Umfleet was able to document the tense atmosphere of violence and conspiracy to overthrow the duly elected government. She unearthed the composition of the "Secret Nine," a group of white businessmen who orchestrated activities of two white supremacist groups, the Red Shirts and the "White Government Union" clubs. Both groups regularly marched through black neighborhoods brandishing weapons. Umfleet secured letters from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., sent to Pres. William McKinley from blacks and others asking for protection and assistance before and after the riot.

The economic impact of the riot and banishment of Wilmington's large and prospering black community was a shift in the city's demographics. Afterwards, most blacks fled or were forced to leave Wilmington. The report debunks the myth that the 1898 Wilmington race riot was necessary to end government corruption and that the aim of the riot was not to reestablish white supremacy and drive blacks from the town. Dr. Jeffrey Crow, deputy secretary of the N.C. Office of Archives and History said, "This research demonstrates unequivocally that the Wilmington Race riot was not a spontaneous event, but was directed by white businessmen and Democratic leaders to regain control of Wilmington." (Sources: www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/1898-wrrc/ and www.ncculture.com)

Comments from the Bat Cave

A slave descendant, the Dark Knight - Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is not wealthy like the movie cape crusader. Since his clan is not among the nouveau-riche, he must acquire funds to finance his various missions, i.e., swimming, movies, Six Flags, etc. When presented with a paid assignment, he jumped at the opportunity to earn a bit of cheddar (cash) and worked diligently at the task without questioning his compensation. After a day of manual labor, he tallied his earnings and realized the compensation fell far short of satisfying his wishes for "mad cheddar." Having earned less than the cost of a video game, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro exclaimed, "I'm being ripped off!"

News You Use

Banished

Associate Arts Professor Marco Williams is a film-maker and educator. Co-director and Co-producer of the award winning and nationally acclaimed, seminal documentary "Two Towns of Jasper," Williams wrote, directed and produced the award winning nationally and internationally acclaimed documentary, "In Search of Our Fathers." His films have been featured on PBS' P.O.V. and Frontline, as well as, exhibited at film festivals throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

"Banished" is Williams' penetrating and sobering documentary that raises the question of responsibility for past wrongs and what is involved in righting them. "Banished" is the story of forced expulsion by whites of blacks from their homes and land in the troubled and violent decades after the Civil War. Leave or die" was the ultimatum for four families Williams follows back to the places their ancestor fled with only their lives. Leaving places like Forsyth County, Georgia, Pierce City, Missouri and Washington County, Indiana, their harassing and terrifying journeys, though on smaller scales, mirror the night flights of thousands of black families during the dreadful period from the 1890s through the 1940s.

Banished aims the lens of history from the victims' point of view, rather than from the perpetrators'. Such incidents in history books are told by whites, who are sympathetic to the racist views of southerners and saw the fight to preserve slavery as heroic. Moreover, they saw the South as put upon by Reconstruction, making the South's treatment while attempting to elevate blacks out of the mire of poverty, harsh and excessive. Blacks, on the other hand, who viewed "Banished" offered the following comments:

Thank God for DVR. I missed "Banished" when it ran on PBS' Independent Lens during Black History Month this year, but I recorded it and finally watched this weekend. Everyone should see this documentary that investigates a little-known period of ethnic cleansing in the United States: Roughly 1860 to 1920, when several counties and cities across the United States, purged their black residents through violence and intimidation.

This is not just a film about racism. Underneath the searing past and present racism uncovered by the film is the reality of property ownership in America. While the ethnic purges left psychic scars on the black victims and the towns they left, most of which remain all-white to this day, it also robbed black families of their wealth-wealth that could have been passed on for generations. It is telling to watch one family stand in the middle of land once owned by their black ancestors in Forsyth County, Georgia, surrounded by McMansions and pricey developments."

"As I watched "Banished," a story recently told to me by my mother remained in the back of my mind. In the early 1900s, my mother's paternal grandfather Jake (my great-grandfather) wanted very much to acquire land for his family in Talladega County, Alabama. It was very difficult for blacks to buy land, particularly where he desired-many acres not far from the only highway. Jake saved his money and entrusted it to a kind white man who went to purchase the land for him. It was quite an accomplishment, but the family continued to live in fear of being banished from their home. My grandfather and his siblings recall their father often sitting up all night on the front porch with his shotgun to protect his family and his livelihood. Most of my great-grandfather's land remained in the family for nearly a century. Some of it is still in the family. On my father's side, my aunt's family still farms the 300+ acres that my great-great-grandfather, born a slave, was able to purchase. In fact, the family has been on the land so long that the road that runs past the farmland, once a dusty rural route, now bears our name. Land and property mean something. In this society, they are symbols of work and life achievement, and they are wealth and power."

"Watching "Banished" changed my position on reparations. I have long been ambivalent on the issue of "reparations for slavery," thinking of reparations as just checks in the mail to all black people to make things whole. But now I understand more fully. There are many methods of reparations, as you will hear "Banished" filmmaker Marco Williams say in the clip below. There are public apologies, monuments and money, for instance. In the case of descendants of banished families, there is a clear way to quantify what was lost and who lost it. The victims of this documented terror and thievery should be compensated. Hear what the descendants of banished families and current residents think of reparations."

"Banished" should be required viewing; it is available via Netflix or online at www.pbs.org. To learn more, visit www.twotownsofjasper.com/. Email comments to marco.williams@nyu.edu

Venue for an Artist

Time Will Tell

By Joseph Nyerere

I have been hearing this Barack Obama jam for months now. Obama be jamming sweeter than Bob Marley in Trench Town.

Ok! I heard it. Right now I'm going to make it clear where I stand. I am a race man, which means that I understand where African people stand in America, and my agenda, until I die, is to be on the battlefield with Black Word and reparation out my mouth. Cause culture is a weapon, mightier than the bomb. Ask "Black" folks sitting in church on Sunday; ask about The Word. Ask the brothers who say, "Word... word... word!" What are they saying? They are saying: in the beginning was The Word...WORD! WORD!

So keep playing those chords from culture and speaking poems, blue bombs and rocket soul sounds from the Souls of Black Folks. Say it loud for the ancestors that have gone before us. Say it for the cotton pickers. Say the sound of the whip lash. Say it loud: I'm Black and I'm proud.

I see it every day; I've always seen it. My eyes do not deceive me. Whether Obama sees it or not is not the question, nor is it the answer to the question: where are Africans today?

I understand where Obama is coming from, but I don't want my back to be ridden for what Obama thinks is best to get him elected. Obama can't mesh my grand momma's whip-lash-back pain and marks with America's deception. Obama's election is not going to change African people in America's position in America. I don't believe in America that way, and I am not proud of America that way.

I do not agree with America's stand on international relations, on warring the world, and its stand as empire and hegemony. And the form of government needs overhauling big time so that it works for the people. As of now, the government does not work for the people. Obama is not going to fix anything that is leaking.

This voting stuff in representative-only format is a joke on the people. Representative forms of government need to be overhauled, and Obama will not even suggest such an idea. Majority rule is and has always been tyrannical. I want a more direct participation format such that the people have a more direct say in what decisions are made about what happens in the people's lives.

Obama will go along with the power and monied class around the world. You can bet on it! Will a Democratic president with black sweet icing on the presidential election cake make a difference? NO! Obama will carry out the US plan as defined by the power elite of Corporation America.

Obama is as American as apple pie when it comes to carrying out the planned agenda. Make no mistake about that brothers and sisters. I want any African who has heard Obama say one thing that he intends to do to improve the lives of Africans in America: just name one thing, and I will give you ten things that he has promised to do for Israel (and they are not even Americans).

Hood Notes

Apology for Slavery

The US government has apologized to Japanese-Americans that were subjected to interment during WWII and it has compensated victims of this injustice. According the 1952 reparations agreement between West Germany and Israel, West Germany was to pay Israel for the slave labor and persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, and to compensate for Jewish property that was stolen by the Nazis. In addition, while the US has never been blamed for the WWII Jewish Holocaust, it has historically aided the Jewish nation to the tune of billions of dollars annually.

However, the US government has not apologized for enslaving Africans and subjecting black Americans to Jim Crow segregation, which did not legally end until the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Based on the rhetoric from whites, conservatives and liberals, compensation (reparation) is a non-starter, since all the victims and perpetrators of these heinous acts are dead. There is no recognition of the lingering socioeconomic and political affects of slavery and Jim Crow Segregation.

Over the past year, five states, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Alabama and New Jersey, have issued expressions of regret or apologized for slavery. On Tuesday, July 29, 2008, the US House of Representatives finally passed a non-binding resolution apologizing for slavery and Jim Crow segregation. One of the resolution's chief sponsors, US Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), who represents a majority black district, hopes the apology will begin a dialogue about race.

On his web site, Cohen offers the following statement: "Slavery might have ended a hundred forty years ago, but its horrors still echo through the ages. For the first hundred years after it ended, our nation lived under a code of "equal justice" that was anything but equal, and never resembled justice. While the Brown vs. the Board of Education decision, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and most of all, the leadership of a great American such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. might have officially done away with that, the stench of inequality still lingers today.

I have sponsored a bill in the House of Representatives that calls upon the United States government to officially apologize for slavery and for the segregation era that followed it. It is my sincere hope that by doing so, we may open a new dialogue on race in this nation. You don't treat a wound by ignoring it as it festers. You treat it by addressing it acknowledging it and facing it. Sometimes the medicine is bitter, but we end up the better for it.

Only when we can let go of the petty hatreds of the past can we create the "more perfect union" that the Founding Fathers spoke of."

Disgruntled wants to know: Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has been highly critical of his Democratic opponent Senator Barack Obama, especially on foreign policy and energy. This week McCain unveiled his energy policy and lambasted Obama, calling him "Dr. No," for opposing some of his choices. McCain wants the federal government to encourage people to buy more fuel-efficient cars and force automakers to increase the fuel efficiency of the vehicles they produce. McCain favors suspending the federal gas tax and lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling. He would also like to see the US produce more nuclear energy, which is not a sound alternative given the problem of storing its lethal waste. It is obvious, except to those wedded to big oil, fossil fuel is not the most efficient energy source; it is a costly pollutant whose continued use imperils the biosphere. Not only that, the US is evidently more than willing to go to war to secure it. To wean itself off oil, the US should be investing in clean, renewable alternatives, such as solar, wind, non-food bio-fuels, conservation, etc. Obviously, a McCain administration will not cut the US-big oil umbilical cord. Under the circumstances, what makes McCain's suggestions regarding US energy independence sane?

Disgruntled feels: Stuck! After the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), whites fled inner cities en masse to avoid school desegregation; they did not want their children attending schools with black children. Aided by local, state and federal government policies that made white flight possible, many cities became majority black. Thanks to banks' redlining, federal housing and other federal and state programs that decreased investment in inner cities decay and neglect set in. Middle-class minded blacks chased whites to the suburbs and even further away for the city, leaving behind the decay and crime in search of better living conditions, higher property values and positive middle-class role models for their progeny. Now, of course, the trend of white migration has reversed. Rather than leaving the city, whites are moving back in and reclaiming the neighborhoods they previously deserted. With gas prices so high and unlikely to ever return to the dollar a gallon days of yore, it makes economic sense to live close to where one works. Unfortunately, while the Census Bureau has recorded a net inflow of whites to inner cities, blacks remain stuck in suburbia and beyond, commuting long distances to work, living on credit cards and upside down on the mortgages of their rapidly depreciating McMansions, while the neighborhoods they escaped in search of the "good life" have become prime real estate in the gentrification games of the 21^st century.

Disgruntled says: According to the US Treasury Department, the published national debt, which does not include unfunded liabilities, i.e, Social Security and Medicare, increased by nearly four (4) trillion dollars from January 2001 to July 2008. When the Bush administration finally vacates the Oval Office and ends its irresponsible reign of spending on credit that figure will be well over four trillion, making the public national debt more than 10 trillion dollars. Obviously, baby boomers will not be the ones to repay this colossal sum; it will be left to our great, great grandchildren and their offspring to satisfy this outstanding obligation, unless the country defaults. Of course, with another George W. Bush cowboy-type in the White House, it would come as no surprise if the nation went to war against the countries holding worthless US paper as another way of settling its debt. In addition to being a criminal enterprise, breaking national and international laws, the Bush administration has presided over the most fiscally irresponsible government in the nation's history.