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My great grandfather was a farmer; he had a grocery cart (he would sell produce in town to white and black residents and to the local hotel/restaurants). He also grew and sold corn, cotton and (I think) soybeans crops and had livestock.
And Black people can still do this today. In fact, because of Jim Crow being struck down, and the freedom to buy land wherever a person wants, buying land is easier. A Black person willing to work for it can buy land for farming in any state. In fact, in some places homesteading is still an option. You just need to have a plan and learn your craft. No, it isn't easy. However, it can be done.
And Black people can still do this today. In fact, because of Jim Crow being struck down, and the freedom to buy land wherever a person wants, buying land is easier. A Black person willing to work for it can buy land for farming in any state. In fact, in some places homesteading is still an option. You just need to have a plan and learn your craft. No, it isn't easy. However, it can be done.
But we don't.
My great grandfather was able to navigate 1920s Jim Crow, lynch happy, Klan controlled Mississippi to make financial gains and give his progeny an advantage. So what stops us now? With ALL of the ways in which it is easier for us to build wealth in 2017, why are we not doing it?
There is never just one thing happening. Several new things happened in the decade after the Civil Rights Act was passed, only one of which being a result of the CRA:
1. The Vietnam War
2. The War on Drugs (aka The War on Young Black Men)
3. Third Wave Feminism ("A woman needs a man the way a fish needs as bicycle")
4. Black women gaining broad eligibility to the 1939 Aid to Dependent Children Act (the only result of the CRA).
5. The end of American global economic domination.
Agreed...the decline of the black nuclear family is multifaceted....and a very complex issue.
My great grandfather was able to navigate 1920s Jim Crow, lynch happy, Klan controlled Mississippi to make financial gains and give his progeny an advantage. So what stops us now? With ALL of the ways in which it is easier for us to build wealth in 2017, why are we not doing it?
What stopped all the other blacks around him then? Why think it's any different?
What stopped all the other blacks around him then? Why think it's any different?
Many did just as well and even better from what I have been told by older family members.
Edit: Asked my mother about this....she stated that most owned their on land and there weren't really very many sharecroppers in their rural community and the Klan left them alone (for the most part) because those blacks were viewed as respectable.
How do Whites lose their identity when Blacks move in? I live in a mix community and have never imposed my culture on any of my White neighbors so I'm not understanding this at all.
Me either and I am white and have black families in my neighborhood as well as Hispanics. We are all people. Great neighborhood.
Many did just as well and even better from what I have been told by older family members.
Edit: Asked my mother about this....she stated that most owned their on land and there weren't really very many sharecroppers in their rural community and the Klan left them alone (for the most part) because those blacks were viewed as respectable.
I think there were probably more local factors likely involved than that, just as there were more factors at work that made Greenwood and Archer the "Black Wall Street."
Being "respectable" did not give anyone immunity from the KKK.
I think there were probably more local factors likely involved than that, just as there were more factors at work that made Greenwood and Archer the "Black Wall Street."
Being "respectable" did not give anyone immunity from the KKK.
There is never just one thing going on.
I do not disagree that there were likely other factors involved. That side of my family is related to a prominent family in the area but I am not sure if that would have protected my ancestors or a whole community.
I will dig for more of an explanation from older family members.
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