- Mar 11, 2015
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Here are excerpts of an article about a discussion with a black man born in 1925. He had relatives who were slaves. He lived during apartheid and he is living now. And he does not like what he sees.
For many, the connection to the enslaved is more than history. It’s family.
By Courtland Milloy
August 27 at 6:34 PM
My dad, who is 94, occupies his days touching up old family photos, doing research on the family tree and otherwise just taking life “one day at a time,” as he likes to say.
Dad was born in 1924, in rural Crittenden County, Ark. Sheriff’s deputies would arrest black men on trumped-up charges and hire them out to work in mines and in the fields. He saw a boy who had been accused of stealing a soda tied to a wagon and whipped by the sheriff while being dragged through the streets of the black community.
His father was a dentist. In 1935, sheriff’s deputies entered the dental office and shot him to death for defying a racial code that prohibited black businesses from having white customers. White people suffering from toothaches wanted whatever dentist they could find. And his dad was killed for not turning them away, for taking payment that, according to white supremacist ideology, should have gone to a white dentist.
Now, in this country, he was seeing the same kind of racism that led to the creation of a system of enslavement. Self-avowed white supremacists have marched through the streets of several American cities and towns. The president has made statements that many of us now agree are racist. Others have tried to argue that they shouldn’t be held responsible for slavery because they weren’t alive.
But many of us have been alive throughout its legacy of Jim Crow laws, redlining, segregated schools and unequal treatment in the legal system. For those like my dad, that connection to our enslaved beginning is all too close. And as we talked about these things, he had one conclusion:
“I’m glad I’m on the other end of the life spectrum,” Dad said, “because I don’t want to go through that again.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...e3477e-c8ec-11e9-a1fe-ca46e8d573c0_story.html
For many, the connection to the enslaved is more than history. It’s family.
By Courtland Milloy
August 27 at 6:34 PM
My dad, who is 94, occupies his days touching up old family photos, doing research on the family tree and otherwise just taking life “one day at a time,” as he likes to say.
Dad was born in 1924, in rural Crittenden County, Ark. Sheriff’s deputies would arrest black men on trumped-up charges and hire them out to work in mines and in the fields. He saw a boy who had been accused of stealing a soda tied to a wagon and whipped by the sheriff while being dragged through the streets of the black community.
His father was a dentist. In 1935, sheriff’s deputies entered the dental office and shot him to death for defying a racial code that prohibited black businesses from having white customers. White people suffering from toothaches wanted whatever dentist they could find. And his dad was killed for not turning them away, for taking payment that, according to white supremacist ideology, should have gone to a white dentist.
Now, in this country, he was seeing the same kind of racism that led to the creation of a system of enslavement. Self-avowed white supremacists have marched through the streets of several American cities and towns. The president has made statements that many of us now agree are racist. Others have tried to argue that they shouldn’t be held responsible for slavery because they weren’t alive.
But many of us have been alive throughout its legacy of Jim Crow laws, redlining, segregated schools and unequal treatment in the legal system. For those like my dad, that connection to our enslaved beginning is all too close. And as we talked about these things, he had one conclusion:
“I’m glad I’m on the other end of the life spectrum,” Dad said, “because I don’t want to go through that again.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...e3477e-c8ec-11e9-a1fe-ca46e8d573c0_story.html