I lived in poverty but poverty did not live in me. I learned not to have a poverty mentality. I am not defined by my circumstances. Marcus Garvey said that we must emancipate ourselves from mental slavery. It’s very challenging to change someone’s mindset if they have a closed mind.
I spent over a year researching why the poverty cycle exists. I chose a public forum to share my personal experience, lessons learned, and pathways out of poverty. Over the years, I received guidance from my parents, teachers, pastors, trusted mentors and friends. I learned to have faith and did the work to transition from absolute poverty to abundance. I learned to have a vision, strategy and tactic.
I studied the history of people who did not want me and other people of color to succeed. I took a painful journey back in time to study our country’s history. Many racist ideologists were not left back in time. These ideologists are embedded in systemic and institutional racism. Others hold on to individual racism. I studied the history of my brave ancestors who fought a tireless fight for social justice and racial equality. I shared my experiences as a child growing up during the Civil Rights Era. The civil rights activists became my teachers. They were killed, bombed, beaten, bitten by dogs, had high pressure water hoses turned on them, and suffered other violence, yet they continued to fight. I vowed that I would never let their difficult work be in vain.
History is repeating itself. I grew up during a time of protest, racism and civil unrest. It has been over 52 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. There is still protest, racism and civil unrest. In one of the wealthiest countries in the nation, we are still fighting for social justice and racial equality. Young people of all races are the new freedom fighters. We have made some progress over the years, however, there are too many people left behind. These people are the working poor or people living in poverty.
There is an element of racism in how people view those living in poverty and receiving government assistance. These stereotypes may not be based on reality. There are many economically distressed areas, wage and skill gaps, debts, housing costs, and financial illiteracy that keeps people trapped. There is a saying that how we look at people is how we treat them. How these people are viewed must change.
I was excited to learn that there are many organizations and task forces devoted to fighting the plight of the poor. In spite of their good deeds, many of these organizations are not well known. During my career, I participated in various task forces and initiatives to help with the plight of the poor. At the beginning there was a lot of energy. Unfortunately, after a few months, interest was lost, understaffed or not funded. The programs were forgotten.
I watched many You Tube videos of black economists and leaders speaking but did not see any evidence that they used their bright ideas to help people struggling. I watched self- serving videos of younger black people who achieved the American dream, yet they seemed to berate those who are still struggling. They spent time being critical but did not offer sound guidance on how to lift others up. Based on their following, it appears they were rewarded by receiving overwhelming support from white America. It is my hope that they will use their energy and bright minds to develop programs to mentor and guide struggling poor people.
Discussion of racism is not a preferred topic in our society but truth is more important than silver and gold. I discovered that when people don’t talk, they hope the topic will go away. According to the Isis Papers by Frances Cress Welsing, a black psychiatrist, people operate in a system of praying and hoping that chains would be replaced with laws. According to Dr. Welsing “ No person who classify themselves as whyte should presume to tell any Black person ( or other non-whyte person) what racism is or is not, until they have read completely Kenneth O’Reilley’s Racial Matters: The FBI’s Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972).”
I followed the works of Jane Elliott for years. She is a diversity educator and anti-racism activist. She spent decades trying to help people understand racism. As a teacher in 1968, the day after Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated; she conducted a Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes exercise with her young white third grade students. She wanted them to understand why racism felt like. She split her students in two groups based on eye color. The group she told was superior dominated the other group. The other group felt inferior. The children agreed that discrimination shouldn’t happen based on eye color. Her experiment proved that racism was learned. There are many people who offer their expertise to combat racism but many refuse to listen because they don’t want to hear it.
People love to talk about the violence in the United States yet refuse to understand why and be change agents. Poverty is everyone’s business. People from all political parties, economic classes, races, gender, and age should be involved in decision making. We should advocate for changes in our policies, accountability and delivery for those living in poverty. Anger, despondency and daily despair are the emotions behind the violence.
Every research study I read supports the theory that childhood exposure to poverty and violence increases the likelihood to engage in violent behavior. In some circumstances, the brain chemistry is altered. Brutality at a young age releases the natural power to survive. Children learn they can give as much violence as they can take. These children grow up and the cycle continues. People who have never lived in poverty may not understand the challenges this population is faced with on a daily basis. Over time, despair wears a person down.
It has been a long time since 1619 when black people were brought to this country and forced to work as enslaved people. According to the book The Negro Pilgrimage in America by C. Eric Lincoln, slavery ended on paper with the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Even though President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation two and a half years earlier, it was not until June 19, 1865 that the slaves in Texas were free. Federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to take control of the state. An annual celebration called Juneteenth honors the end of slavery in the United States.
According to Lincoln, black people became citizens of the United States on July 28, 1868 with the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In previous years, black men fought during the American Revolution, the Civil War, were slaughtered at Fort Pillow but were not even citizens.
When Confederate troops captured black Union soldiers, they were rarely treated as prisoners of war. If they were not killed on the spot, they were taken as slaves. On April 12, 1864, General Nathan Forrest and his Confederate troops captured the Union stronghold at Fort Pillow, approximately forty miles north of my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. Half the garrison consisted of black troops and the rebels ruthlessly killed every black soldier they saw. At the end of the war, approximately 200,000 black men had served in the Union Army and more than 38,000 had given their lives. The civil war ended on April 9, 1865. By the end of the civil war, there were approximately one hundred and fifty all black regiments in the Union Army.
After black people became citizens, the South moved to re-shackle black people with a series of “Black Codes.” The Codes established a system of social, economic and political controls aimed at placing black people in a position below that of any white person. The codes dealt with labor contracts, migration, vagrancy, civil and legal rights. People without lawful employment were declared vagrants. The Black Codes implied that black people were to be a supporting caste, both economically and psychologically.
Black people had difficulty earning a living. The Freedman’s Bureau Act, was created in 1865 by President Lincoln, to aid former slaves with food, housing, education, healthcare and employment. It also provided for the assignment of confiscated Southern land to black people. After President Lincoln’s assassination, President Andrew Johnson vetoed this act in 1866 and restored the land to white ex-Confederates. He believed that the Freedman act encroached on state’s rights and would prevent freed slaves from becoming independent by offering too much assistance. It didn’t matter that black people had been enslaved for two hundred and forty six years.
During my childhood in the 1960’s I lived under racist Jim Crow laws. White supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and The White Citizens Council were opposed to the civil rights movement and used violence and murder to suppress black people. The hatred of white bigots influenced the masses of other white people. The White Citizens Council was founded by white supremacy businessmen in Mississippi in 1954 to oppose racial integration of public schools and voter registration of black people. The name was changed to the Citizens Council two years later and organizations grew across the South. In 1985, this council evolved into the Council of Conservative Citizens and it continues to exist today. The truth is that there will always be racists.
Poverty is solvable. Tackle the systems, policies and practices that keep people trapped. Government leaders should ensure that all people have dignified work, education and healthcare. We have voting power. We should elect people in these positions without known racist attitudes toward people of different colors. They represent us, research their political positions, funding, and voting records.
To prevail over poverty, we have to be knowledgeable, change our mindsets and take action. When we are armed with the truth, we have the power to overcome any obstacle.
References
C.Eric Lincoln. November 1967. The Negro Pilgrimage In America. Bantam Pathfinder Books.
Council of Conservative Citizens. Wikipedia. Accessed September 1, 2020.
Frances Cress Welsing. December 1, 2004. The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Color. C.W. Publishing.
Jane Elliot. “Blue Eyes Brown Eyes: The Jane Elliott Experiment.” Website. Accessed September 1, 2020.