“I Am a Man” . . . “Fight the Power” . . . “No Justice, No Peace” . . . “I Have a Dream” . . . “We Shall Overcome” . . . “Can’t We All Just Get Along” . . . “I am Trayvon” . . . “I Can’t Breathe” . . . “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!” . . . “Black Lives Matter”.
Now, generations after “I Am a Man,” people-of-color are now
chanting “Black Lives Matter” and saying “No” to the National Anthem. Why? It’s
a question with its answers deeply imbedded in the bowels of American history.
Answers, America either refuses to acknowledge (or perhaps wishes to forget) or
have willfully turned a blind eye to. Unfortunately, my family, like so many
others, are a part of that history (shameful as it is) and choose not to
forget. That shameful Pandora box reopened—for all the misery and evils to be
uncovered—when I went back to a place from my childhood (Metter, Georgia) and
reacquainted myself with relatives I hadn’t seen in twenty years.
Black Lives Matter Protesters/iStock by Getty Images |
Former mayor of Atlanta, Andrew Young, in his foreword within
Walter White’s autobiography “A
Man Called White: The Autobiography of Walter White” noted that there was a
time in US history where law enforcement was in synergy in the
murder-by-lynching of people-of-color.[i]
They ignored, enabled, and encouraged murder directed against blacks, and anyone
(whites included) who supported Black civil rights.[ii]
Today, those who quietly, or actively support “Black Lives Matter” like
Kaepernick, have not forgotten this; nor the Negrophobia, Negro laws, or the treatment
of Blacks before, during, and since this time.
The year was 1917. Woodrow Wilson was president and
Nathaniel Harris, a confederate army veteran, was the Governor of Georgia. Fifty-four
years had passed since slaves were emancipated but blacks lived in trying, if
not, disparaging times. People of color faced obstacles from all directions; from
the federal to state and local governments; from within all branches of the judicial
system; in public transportation, accommodations, education, housing, and
employment; as well as navigating all forms of bigotry and hate from their very
own countrymen—white, US citizens. “It was an awful time,” she told me.
During this time, President Wilson (pledging allegiance to the “Negro” cause
during his presidential campaign) alienated the very black voters that
supported his presidency by following the South’s practice of race segregation
in the federal government; all while promoting democratic liberties and human
rights abroad. Many blacks were demoted,
denied employment, or lost their jobs as a result. The 18-million-dollar
block-buster movie of the era “Birth
of a Nation,” with its incendiary and racist propaganda, vilified blacks and
glorified the Ku Klux Klan; prompting the Klan’s resurgence and legitimizing
their existence (keeping blacks in their place); setting the tone for the terrorizing
of blacks for decades to come. Race riots were common; and the East
St. Louis, Missouri Race Riot, on July 2nd, was one of the bloodiest race riots of the year. Black men, women, and children were beaten, shot to death, and lynched as their businesses and homes were burned by a mob of white citizens. Six-thousand blacks fled the city and policemen and the national guard were cited for either turning their heads or participating in the attacks.[iii]
Black men and boys (females as well), for financial gain, were constantly
targeted and charged with petty or trumped-up charges by local and state law
enforcement to supply businesses and private citizens with cheap labor. Often aided
by the courts, they were sentenced to work as convict laborers or
laborers in the debt peonage system. Black newspapers and magazines
reported the laborers’ plight, grievances, as well as the emotional and
physical pain and suffering endured while trapped within the two systems; such
as the case of four black minors, all under the age of fifteen, reportedly made
Alabama state prisoners for allegedly stealing a bicycle.[iv]
Black women and girls were criminally assaulted by white men, with little
recourse; their voices and rights muted as their attackers were seldom
prosecuted. Black men, women and children were murdered-by-lynching for the
smallest infractions; including frightening a white person just by their
presence as in the reported case of a Starksville, Mississippi man lynched
because a white woman was frightened by seeing him approach her.[v]
Despite the horrific circumstances and seemingly unsurmountable challenges of the time, my family had amassed a sizeable amount of land in Emanuel (now Candler) County Georgia. The family had obtained the American dream of the time: 40 acres and a mule.
Despite the horrific circumstances and seemingly unsurmountable challenges of the time, my family had amassed a sizeable amount of land in Emanuel (now Candler) County Georgia. The family had obtained the American dream of the time: 40 acres and a mule.
Mule Plowing Team/Brian Swartz/iStock by Getty Images |
I asked my cousin what happened afterwards as all we see in
the lynching annals is that Uncle Clax was lynched for murder on December 15. She
told me, “From my understanding Clax killed that man—might a killed two or
three others—he got away and went home.” When uncle Clax returned to the farm
and told what had happened, a mob had formed. They took him and lynched him (with
no rights to a trial) as that was the typical punishment for killing a white
person (justified or not) during the day. As he hung, the enraged mob riddled
his body with bullets. I asked my cousin what happened afterwards and she
clasped her hands and held her head down, “They told me they drug him through
Metter [for all to see]. . . . After they drug him for so long, it was one
white man that told them [the mob] if they didn’t untie that man from that [buggy]
and give him back to his people—because he was already dead—that he would start
shooting. So they finally untied him and gave him to his people. . . . While
they were having the funeral, those white people went to the grave and they
meant to kill the whole family. They were hidden in the woods. And this other
white man that made them untie [Clax] went to the church and told [the family],
‘Don’t y’all go to the cemetery because they plan to kill all of y’all.’”
The family took heed to the warning and took the necessary
precautions; scouting the area and waiting until the following morning to bury
uncle Clax. To save the family from further harm, granddaddy Henry and his
brother, uncle Benjamin Dekle, changed the family’s name to uncle Benjamin’s
wife’s maiden name and left the area (as so many blacks did when their lives
were in jeopardy) as there was no protection from the local authorities as they
were often known to be, as Mayor Young indicated, in synergy in the
murder-by-lynching of blacks. And although tax-paying citizens, and above all else,
US citizens, they were afforded no protection or rights from the local
authorities or government, and had little-to-no recourse at the state and
federal levels; they were on their own. A once hard-working and proud family
forced to leave decades of hard work and prosperity behind because their lives
were not as important as the man’s whose skin tone lacked pigmentation. I
listened to my cousin talk about the hard life the family endured afterwards
and the bitterness that evolved as a result, and I understood, in its purest
form, why the ‘Black Lives Mater” movement exists: For far too long black lives
have been dispensable to white America. And although great strides have been
made in the lives of blacks since the lynching of uncle Clax, one must
recognize that although the evils, ills, biases and prejudices of yesteryears
have been abated in some areas, they still run deep and rampant in others.
Black Lives Matter Protesters/iStock by Getty Images |
Author, R.L. Byrd
Part of the Project H.U.S.H initiative. To find out more, visit www.richardleonbyrd.com/Project HUSH
Links:
[i] White, Walter. "Foreword by Andrew Young." Foreword. A Man Called White, the Autobiography of Walter White. Athens, GA: U of Georgia, 1995. ix-x. Print.
[iii] Wang,
Tabitah C. "East St. Louis Race Riot: July 2, 1917 | The Black Past:
Remembered and Reclaimed." East
St. Louis
Race Riot: July 2, 1917 | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed.
BlackPast.org, n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2016.
[iv] DuBois,
W.E. Burghardt, ed. "Crime." The Crisis Jan. 1913: 118. The
Crisis. Google Books.
Web. 8 Aug. 2016.
[v] DuBois,
W.E. Burghardt, ed. "Courts." The Crisis May 1912: 11. The Crisis. Google Books. Web. 8 Aug. 2016.
[vi] "Lynching Comes Close on Killing in Metter: Negro Who
Shot Three White Men Riddled with Bullets by Mob." Newspapers.com.
The Atlanta Constitution, n.d. Web. 08 Sept. 2016. 16 Dec 1917, Page 7
- The Atlanta Constitution at Newspapers.com