“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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Mule Plowing Team/Brian Swartz/iStock by Getty Images |
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjUE9_5CMWekjaRypoy26T5DFo7eXp2hJmw6fgCrjvoaV46EqKthg0kmBgmlHXb_9Y2eQl8TfQEpLa5KLkw05HkyHv3nMh_7uaIftI16ryRowuVjcnd8bZB9nez22SkEPbBjSZWwKz9vJr/s320/Dont+go+to+the+Cemetary+Text.png)
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.
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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