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A lot of posters seem to have fallen into the notion that the image young black kid with sagging pants standing on a corner represents all or even a majority of blacks. That's as foolish as someone who things the image of a poor white person in a trailer park represents most white Americans.
If things keep going the way they are economically, most of us are going to be living in a ghetto or trailer park.
All major urban areas in the country had a "black business district" based in part due to segregation and the refusal of greater society to allow black citizens the freedom to open businesses wherever they want or liv wherever they wanted to live.
IMO nothing in general can be "learned" from these documentaries or a study of 20th century ethnic neighborhoods (black people were not the only group to have these business districts, many other discriminated against immigrant communities did as well including the Irish, Italian, Polish, German, Hungarian, Syrian, etc. the list goes on and on).
If one wants to do an in-depth study, which is something that I am always doing as 20th century segregation is a VERY interested topic to me in regards to my hometown, one will find that this sort of segregation and ethnic enclaves were based in part on protecting the ethnic community and on intervention of local/state/federal government into ethnic neighborhoods.
For instance, in my hometown black people lived all over the city prior to the 1930s. My family has lived in this area for over 150 years so I have traced the locations/districts they lived in and reviewed census data showing their neighbors and their ethnic origins. Where I'm from black people mostly lived around German and Irish immigrants, later on the Polish and Jewish immigrants. There were businesses owners of all these groups in the neighborhood but usually there were pockets of blacks, Germans, Irish, Polish, Jewish, etc.
In the 1930s our area was one of the first to get a housing authority in the country. They demolished the old neighborhood with all of the mixing of ethnic backgrounds. In its place, they built public housing and zoned it for "negroes only" so only black people could live in the new public housing. The Germans moved north of he neighborhood and established a solid German neighborhood. The Irish and Poles moved to other neighborhoods and established their seperate communities. The Jews stayed in the vicinity of the old neighborhood on the fringe with the Germans as many were German Jews (some Russian as well) They established businesses that served Germans, Jews and black Americans.
More public housing was built on another side of town (the Hungarian side) that was deemed "white." The new neighborhood the Poles moved also had some public housing built for "whites." Back then public housing was seen as superior, it had indoor plumbing, electricity and was new and clean compared to old 19th century homes that people were living in. So black and whites moved into public housing. Germans moved further outside of the city for the most part, those who did not move into public housing. Black Americans took over the old German business district and created a black business district.
Post WW2 more Germans moved to the burbs as did the Irish. By the 1960s the Poles started to move out of the city. The black people moved into the former German and Irish and Pole homes, which were newer and better than the old ones in their neighborhood. Public housing was deemed to be for poverty stricken people and restrictions were lifted on incomes needed for public housing and it became in disrepair. During this time, the black business district was booming in our area but due to a lack of "quality" housing, the government developed a plan to build more new, public housing in the 1960s. One of the new developments was built after the demolishing of a portion of the black business district. It was taken over by imminent domain. Due to such a large influx of poverty stricken black people in the black area, black citizens who were middle class began to move out of the black neighborhood due to wanting a better neighborhood and environment. As a result, more and more of the black businesses closed down. There was also some civil unrest in our city with our branch of the BPP and a police officer was killed so within a few years the entire black business district was demolished and is now of a by-gone era.
Today the neighborhood surrounding the old black commercial district is still heavily black. There are (let me count...4 public housing locations within a 5 mile radius and the majority of the neighborhood are considered poverty stricken as a result. Black people are still moving out of that area who are not public housing resident or low income apartment residents (there are 4-5 low income apartment communities as well in the area).
So IMO, black business districts for the most part were created by a lack of opportunity for black people. I have "learned" that government played a mighty hand in their creation and demise. Also that like all other demographics, when given the ability to better themselves how they see fit, black people will move up and move out like other depressed communities did in the past. Due to redlining and other discriminatory housing practices in urban areas, black people could not flee inner cities when the Poles and Germans and Irish did since many suburban communities were "white only" even in northern and western states (I am from Ohio). They also could not obtain mortgages due to racial discrimination. In the 1970s and 1980s those opportunities opened up and that is when the final blow was dealt to black commercial districts.
In a nut shell, self-contained communities were a tool of control by local governments over their ethnic populations, including black Americans, who were limited for decades beyond those of other ethnic groups like the Germans and Poles and Irish.
Though many black people look back fondly on this era, and I can understand the appeal as you see black people doing for black people, one has to understand that the only reason why it was that way was because they had no other choices.
Today people have choices and IMO in regards to black businesses, black Americans need to look outside of black neighborhoods and create businesses that serve a greater amount of the population in more profitable neighborhoods.
An example of a group who did and still does this are Jews. As stated, they were business owners in my families old neighborhood and in the black neighborhood. When they were allowed, they moved out of the neighborhood and took the money they used form those businesses (customers were black, German, Jew, Pole, Irish, Latino, and Arab) and put it into their cultural institutions and formed JCCs and Hebrew schools and they educated their families and grew their economic condition.
IMO black people today need to do the same thing and quit looking back on the black business district as being something to implement today. Today we need a global business community and we need our black business owners to take a percentage of their profits/income and give that back to the organizations of their choosing that serve black American goals and cultural institutions. Also to invest in their families and the education of their children. That is the way to be commercially successful today.
ETA: There are less than 1000 Jews left living in the city I live in and I have watched documentaries similar to the ones the OP is showing in regards to the Jewish community here (and the Germans and the Polish and the Irish and the Syrian/Lebanese who, like black Americans were the last ethnic enclave in our area to go "downhill."). The older Jewish persons look back fondly on "the old neighborhood." The miss their community as they are dispersed now in various suburban areas. Their local Temple in the city became a black American church and they now take some of the grandkids of the people who were interviewed to "the old neighborhood" (which is majority poor and black now due to low income housing communities being built after the demolishing of the single family homes in the area) to give them tours of the the temple due to the church keeping all of the beautiful old Hebrew stained glass. There were 2 temples in our city and none now. There is no longer a Jewish business district nor a German business district. We still have a Polish business district, but there are few Polish businesses and it is a "Polish" business district in name only because it used to be the neighborhood with the highest concentration of Poles in our area.
Last edited by residinghere2007; 03-04-2016 at 10:26 AM..
I can't emphasize this point enough, there was no such thing as a "self-contained" African American community. That was the facade that laid at the foundation of the principle of separate but equal. "See the negro, has is own night clubs, his own movie theaters, his own restaurants, and other businesses to fulfill their needs, there is no reason to integrate ours…"
But the truth remains that those black enclaves were just as dependent upon the larger economy as any other, because black owned businesses absolutely depended upon the salaries earned by African Americans who worked outside of those communities!
North, south, east or west, major industries that employed African Americans did not locate to black communities. Railroads the employ thousands of Pullman porters, Red Caps, stationary engineers did not put their stations and marshaling yards in black communities. Ford, GM, Kaiser nor any other industry put their assembly lines in the black community.
White people who employed maids, cooks, nannies, porters, chauffeurs, and gardeners did not live in the black community nor did they place their hotels and restaurants in the black community. Teachers, lawyers, and postal workers may have worked in offices and schools in the black community but their livelihood was dependent upon forces outside of it. These were the people who constituted the black middle class, they were the ones who made black small business's in the black community possible.
Now if anyone believes that in the 50's and 60's barber shops, hair salons, funeral parlors, small clothing stores, a laundry, or small grocery store could sustain the economy of a small community, with minimal political influence, if any political influence at all is a "self-contained" community, they are sadly mistaken.
What they did to some of these communities, was to build freeways through the middle of them, forcing people out and destroying the neighborhood.
This also occurred all over the country and was something that affected my hometown as well. The old diverse neighborhood was first replaced by public housing, then even the public housing was razed to build an interstate.
But as stated, all ethnic communities were affected by this, not just black Americans. Usually anytime there was a "public works" project aimed at "modernization" or "improvement" that meant that some poor to working class neighborhood would be declared a "slum" and then it would be taken over by the government and "developed" into something else.
FWIW, I lived for a long time in metro Atlanta. Within the city of Atlanta people are surprised to know that statistically there are NO poor white people in the city! To me that is shocking considering I grew up around a lot of poor people of all varieties, a majority of whom were white. I used to wonder in Atlanta where all the poor white people were.
I found out back in the 1980s, the city declared one of the last poor white neighborhoods a "slum" and then "re-developed" it and due to their investment and relocation of the poor white residents, the neighborhood was gentrified into an upper income community today (Cabbagetown).
FWIW, I do not take the position that all government projects or developments were necessarily all that bad. In Cabbagetown there was raw sewage in the street and the entire area didn't have indoor plumbing even in the 1980s so IMO that area was in desperate need of some attention. Same can be said in my hometown in regards to the formerly, naturally integrated neighborhoods. I have pictures that people took prior to the demolishing of that neighborhood and many of the dwellings were indeed slum ridden by he looks of it (though I'm sure they just took pictures of the worst of the worst). There was also a lack of adequate sewage and trash pickup in that area, disease was rampant, and it was not fully electrified and government officials felt that public housing would be a great gift to the community. IMO the biggest mistake in their actions was to deem places "white" or "negro." This essentially ruined an integrated area and was unnecessary. However, it must be noted that this was done at the behest of both black and white community members.
I can't emphasize this point enough, there was no such thing as a "self-contained" African American community. That was the facade that laid at the foundation of the principle of separate but equal. "See the negro, has is own night clubs, his own movie theaters, his own restaurants, and other businesses to fulfill their needs, there is no reason to integrate ours…"
But the truth remains that those black enclaves were just as dependent upon the larger economy as any other, because black owned businesses absolutely depended upon the salaries earned by African Americans who worked outside of those communities!
North, south, east or west, major industries that employed African Americans did not locate to black communities. Railroads the employ thousands of Pullman porters, Red Caps, stationary engineers did not put their stations and marshaling yards in black communities. Ford, GM, Kaiser nor any other industry put their assembly lines in the black community.
White people who employed maids, cooks, nannies, porters, chauffeurs, and gardeners did not live in the black community nor did they place their hotels and restaurants in the black community. Teachers, lawyers, and postal workers may have worked in offices and schools in the black community but their livelihood was dependent upon forces outside of it. These were the people who constituted the black middle class, they were the ones who made black small business's in the black community possible.
Now if anyone believes that in the 50's and 60's barber shops, hair salons, funeral parlors, small clothing stores, a laundry, or small grocery store could sustain the economy of a small community, with minimal political influence, if any political influence at all is a "self-contained" community, they are sadly mistaken.
I agree with the bold. I think people place too much emphasis on commercial districts of ethnic neighborhoods even today with the "how dollars circulate in the ______ community" stuff. Most black people have never worked for a black organization and as you stated, literally black areas have never been completely "self sustained" as they have always relied on outside community influences for employment and income.
There are 45 million African Americans in the U.S. that would require a hell of a lot of street corners!
It also requires more jail cells. You know what exactly what types of blacks I'm referring to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheWiseWino
Oh, wait let's see there was the Executive Order 8802 that prohibited racial discrimination in employment by defense contractors and the establishment of the Committee on Fair Employment which by the played no small part in the African American migration to the north and west and was the basis for real development of the African American middle class.
Then there was Executive Order 9981 that eliminated discrimination in the military which provided economic opportunities for African Americans to pursue steady careers in the U.S. military.
Of course the politicians finally appointed Supreme Court Justices who actually believed in justice so that in 1954 the Court reversed Plessy v Ferguson that began the end to defacto segregation and to enforce that ruling the politicians used the U.S. Marshall's Service, the National Guard and the 101st Airborne to enforce it (see Central High School, Universities of Mississippi and Alabama).
Finally the politicians passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Empowered by these laws and policies African Americans joined the local, state and national government which assisted in pushing programs like the Head Start, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, the Model Cities Program, and the "Philadelphia Plan" that forced the integration of the building trade unions who worked on federal construction programs, all of which provided employment for African Americans further sustaining the economic growth of African Americans.
The response, by opponents a steady undercutting of enforcement, and funding under the banner of "small government" and state control. So by this point, obstructionist have completely obliterated or totally eliminated such programs, and then.......
The government can't fix the infrastructure for people to get to work but you expect them to help you with their little programs? What they are really doing is making sure you keep them in office, nothing more.
They were never going to work because the people who create them don't know what they are doing and people who rely on them don't learn anything. No one benefits from affirmative action. NO ONE. You aren't capable of doing the job and you have no motivation or desire to improve because you have been handicapped from the start.
You have all of these programs and blacks up in the government rank yet many blacks are still struggling, and it's the obstructionist fault, not the blacks because they're so helpless anyway. They need the government help because they can't do anything. Gee...I wonder who the real racist are? The one that makes you accountable for your own choices or the one who don't think highly of you and need to bring you to heel.
There are 45 million African Americans in the U.S. that would require a hell of a lot of street corners!
Oh, wait let's see there was the Executive Order 8802 that prohibited racial discrimination in employment by defense contractors and the establishment of the Committee on Fair Employment which by the played no small part in the African American migration to the north and west and was the basis for real development of the African American middle class.
Then there was Executive Order 9981 that eliminated discrimination in the military which provided economic opportunities for African Americans to pursue steady careers in the U.S. military.
Of course the politicians finally appointed Supreme Court Justices who actually believed in justice so that in 1954 the Court reversed Plessy v Ferguson that began the end to defacto segregation and to enforce that ruling the politicians used the U.S. Marshall's Service, the National Guard and the 101st Airborne to enforce it (see Central High School, Universities of Mississippi and Alabama).
Finally the politicians passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Empowered by these laws and policies African Americans joined the local, state and national government which assisted in pushing programs like the Head Start, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, the Model Cities Program, and the "Philadelphia Plan" that forced the integration of the building trade unions who worked on federal construction programs, all of which provided employment for African Americans further sustaining the economic growth of African Americans.
The response, by opponents a steady undercutting of enforcement, and funding under the banner of "small government" and state control. So by this point, obstructionist have completely obliterated or totally eliminated such programs, and then as a in the ultimate hypocrisy sit back and crow about how the programs didn't work!
Well as I pointed out, despite such nonsense the vast majority of African Americans pull up their pants and go to work each and every day, yet we still have to listen to clueless, or just out and out racist white folks claim that 45 million African Americans sit on street corners every day!
If I thought it was worth my time, I would write about study, after study, after controlled study that have conclusively proven that racial discrimination is still very much a fact of life in the private sector of the American economy. But why bother when too many white folks have pat excuses for its existence.
Have a nice day.
Stop making sense! Just stop.
No ... wait ... WiseWino? Please don't stop. Nothing is better than this. ( is it? )
What they did to some of these communities, was to build freeways through the middle of them, forcing people out and destroying the neighborhood.
Look at the map of I-75 through Columbus OH. It makes a big curve just east of downtown so that it avoid cutting into Bexley, a city made up of upper class, Jewish families at the time the interstate was built. The areas that the road did cut through were poorer, mostly black neighborhoods. It is amazing what can be done in the name of civic progress to destroy community.
It had nothing to do with segregation (which is wrong) and everything to do with culture; back then the children came from married parents with a father at home, and no entitlement attitudes.
They also had a 'no hopes' attitude. I lived back then in the South. My parents never questioned why some black persons might what to be more than maids and gardeners. I could have lived like the movie, "The Help" yet choose to do something more with my life than act silly and be catered to for simple domestic choirs.
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