The "Chitlin Culture" and Its Origins.

[Sharif662]

Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk

It the case of my family, that independence began on the sharecrop plantation. My great-great grandfather began working off-season in the local sawmill near the plantation and my great-great grandmother began selling pies to the white women in town, both to earn the extra money to pay off their commissary store debt and save the money to make the move.

It's an open question of why the other sharecroppers--both black and white--did not do the same thing. This question goes back to the Europeans who did not make the move to the Americas two hundred years before and the blacks who did not make the move northward fifty years later. It's just as relevant when considering why some black people gather the gumption to join the military or decide to study harder and stay clean enough to leave the inner city.

Those people who make the decision to move and the will to make it happen are always a minority. How do we expand that minority, or at least, how do we find a way to discover those people?

Or are they like butterflies breaking from a cocoon? Is the struggle to break free necessary for them to gain the strength to fly?

People are in different situations and perspectives of their life. Most Black people didn't migrate due to various reasons such as homeownership, family ties, entrepreneurship, education, & personal lifestyles. The migration overall was a movement towards urban life especially those who remain in the south.

Thinking of both branches of my family: My maternal branch have a handful of uncles & aunts migrate to the midwest & west while the rest live in Mississippi or other southern states. Yet my paternal branch is exclusively in southern states. I recall my great grandparents being farmers/laborers & even a bootlegger .

[motownnative]

Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk

It the case of my family, that independence began on the sharecrop plantation. My great-great grandfather began working off-season in the local sawmill near the plantation and my great-great grandmother began selling pies to the white women in town, both to earn the extra money to pay off their commissary store debt and save the money to make the move.

It's an open question of why the other sharecroppers--both black and white--did not do the same thing. This question goes back to the Europeans who did not make the move to the Americas two hundred years before and the blacks who did not make the move northward fifty years later. It's just as relevant when considering why some black people gather the gumption to join the military or decide to study harder and stay clean enough to leave the inner city.

Those people who make the decision to move and the will to make it happen are always a minority. How do we expand that minority, or at least, how do we find a way to discover those people?

Or are they like butterflies breaking from a cocoon? Is the struggle to break free necessary for them to gain the strength to fly?

I think it comes down to pride and the type of person that never stops striving for a better life for themselves or their family.

I live in WV where blacks only make up 5-8% of the population. I don't see the "Chitlin Culture" as described in this thread. Even though I live in a poor state. I am in my 50's and what I read in the quotes below mirror my own personal experience.

This article may help describe what I am seeing. Many ambitious blacks migrated here from the deep south when the coal mines flourished. They would get paid the same as a white man if they did the same job. Unfortunately, there was discrimination, and many blacks were relegated to lower paying jobs in the mines with less opportunity for advancement. Many broke societal barriers regardless, as can be seen from the article below.

Many blacks left the state when the mines became more automated resulting in mass layoffs. Quite a few succeeded after leaving though. Here are some perspectives from those who stayed. Many don't realize how many blacks have been tied to the success/failures of the coal mines. It's portrayed in the media as a rural white issue. That isn't the whole story.

Regardless of financial position and living in a state that is one of the worst for poverty; their pride, emphasis on family and community involvement has been a driver for personal accomplishment. That's what matters IMO. Even with many of the mines shut down, they are still the same self-respecting people. No one can take that away from them.

An article from the black perspective:

By the 1950s, African Americans made up 24 percent of McDowell’s population, compared with 6 percent statewide. Locals came to refer to the area as “the Free State of McDowell.” Black doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs also flocked to the county, drawn to the promise of a better life. Even in the Jim Crow era, unions in the area were integrated, blacks in West Virginia enjoyed voting rights, and local political leadership included many people of color.

“Everybody had money,” says Clif Moore, a current state delegate for McDowell who was born in the county in 1949. “It was sort of like little New York. Like a little Manhattan. Everything was popping.”

Still, families who’ve lived here for generations say they’re reluctant to leave. They praise the region’s physical beauty, close-knit family life and friendly Southern manners. “It’s a different kind of black folk here. … They dress differently, they talk differently, they carry themselves differently. They have a little arrogance about them,” says Moore with a grin.

https://www.reniquaallen.com/writing...oal-al-jazeera