One of the most repetitious yet bemusing moments that repeats itself in my courses occurs after I cover the indispensable contributions of Civil Rights attorney Charles Hamilton Houston’s fight for racial equality. Despite common misconceptions, Houston, not his protégé Thurgood Marshall, matters most mightily in the buildup to the historic Brown v. Board of Education (1954 & 1955) decision. The Supreme Court decision began the process of ending racial segregation in American schools.
The historical record indicates that in the decade following Brown, American institutions (schools, businesses, colleges, etc.) took small steps toward relinquishing many of the vestiges of American-style apartheid. Unfortunately, for the sake of truth, the damage done to Black America’s economic infrastructure as a result of desegregation is rarely discussed. The historical record indicates that Civil Rights leaders shortsightedness relegated Black America to economic subservience.
The consequences of moderate Civil Rights leaders’ decision to exclude Nationalist voices calling for economic self-reliance are impacting us to this moment.
One needs to look no further than the present economic plight of many Blacks for verification of this assertion. The dire economic prospects of a significant portion of Black America demonstrate how important it is for Black America to possess the ability to employ themselves by circulating the dollar amongst themselves. Consider for a moment that recent U.S. Census data indicates that 973,209 millennial Black men have no reported income. I am confident that with the damage that the Black Male brand has undergone over the past decades, many will shake their head at this information and say, “the brothers have got to do better.” Yet this is not a problem exclusive to Black men. The same Census data reports that the plight of millennial Black women is not much better as 707,625 of them are in the same predicament.
The above data would not be as devastating if America were not a Capitalist nation. Even the Wu-Tang Clan told all within earshot that Cash Rules Everything Around Me (C.R.E.A.M). There is no room for a reasonable debate that within Capitalist America, those who possess money wield absolute power over the economically marginalized.
What makes this reality more dangerous for Black men is the relatively standard demand that others expect them to occupy the role of the primary provider in their household. If financial stability is a prerequisite to having a family, the absence of a reliable, substantial income has banished 973,209 millennial Black males to the realm of being inconsequential in Black America’s advancement. Let’s be honest about this matter; the inability of the aforementioned Black men to access capital through “legitimate” means weakens Black America today. It curtails its future potential because Black family’s matter mightily.
When one considers the myriad obstacles, particularly previous entanglement with the American criminal justice system, that stand between Black men and gainful employment, it is time that Black America busies itself developing entrepreneurs and small business owners. The historical record indicates that any reliance on Whites to employ the “hardcore unemployable” in our midst is bound to fail miserably. Turn inward, my people, develop businesses and patronize them as if your life depends on it because it does.
James Thomas Jones III, Ph.D.
©Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2021