*Segregation, redlining, exclusion and other discriminatory factors have always been effective tools used by government and private institutions to establish inequality as a part of our society.
Since the times of the American Civil War this has been the narrative of the country as the years that proceeded it inflicted untold hardship and suffering on black Americans as families and individuals were stripped of their wealth, land, and properties which in effect most probably led to the plight of black Americans even in today’s America.
Statistics show that today, even though blacks account for about 13% of the total population of the US, they own an insignificant 3% of the total wealth of the nation. Another stat shows that the average wealth of white American Americans is $171,000 while it is only $17,000 for black Americans.
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The Tragic Tale of Elmore Bolling
One tragic story reveals just how ugly and terrible the issue of dispossession affected black people; the tale of the Bolling family. Elmore Bolling, also known as Buddy, was perhaps the richest person in Lowndesboro, Alabama the only problem was that he was black. Mr. Bolling owned and leased his plantation, where he grew sugar cane, cotton, and corn. The plantation had a general store, a gas station, and a catering business. Business was very good for him and his family as he also owned a small fleet of trucks that transported and delivered livestock and several other goods between Lowendesboro and Montgomery. Elmore Bolling used his wealth to better the lives of other black people in his community as he had about 40 employees of whom all were black.
In December 1947, a group of white men showed up on highway 80, just outside the Bolling property, where Buddy and his wife Betha Mae and 7 kids lived. A disagreement was initiated by these men about a road he had helped lay, and as it ensued, they murdered Buddy by shooting at him seven times, after which his family rushed out to find his lifeless body in a ditch.
Everyone knew the perpetrators of the crime because the men didn’t even bother to conceal their identities by hiding their faces, but there was no justice for Buddy and his family, someone later told the story to a newspaper and was quoted to have said: “He was too successful to be a Negro.” Before and even immediately after his death the Bolling family was worth $40,000 and $5000 in assets (equivalent to $500,000 today). But after he died in a matter of months white creditors alleged that they had been owed and took all the money the family realized from the sale of his assets including their trucks and livestock. The Bollings soon became impoverished which led to the children dropping out of school and Mrs. Bertha taking up a job at a dry cleaner. Despite all their woes they eventually left Lowndes County as they were afraid they might meet the same fate as Bolling.
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But there are movements today like the 1619 Project that is seeking to bring to the fore these dire issues with the aim of educating folks about them and maybe causing a shift in the narrative as is today. The 1619 project is an initiative started by The New York Times that was created to observe the 400th anniversary of the origin of American slavery. The program’s objective is targeted at putting the facts of the situation out thereby educating people about the history of the country, showing how the date 1619 is to the nation’s history, educating people on the consequences of the inhumane practice of slavery and highlighting the contributions of Black Americans in America and its identity as we know it today.
Other black families suffered a similar fate to that of Elmore Bolling’s acts like this had political backing and several and even though legal slavery came to an end in 1865, giving way for hope for former slaves, even as the 1865-1870 Reconstruction Amendments established birthright citizenship, effectively granting citizen status and equal rights to black people, including the right of black men to vote.
Other events saw Gen. William Sherman issuing an order in January of 1865 to allocate several hundreds of acres of white-owned land along the coasts of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina for settlement by black families who were entitled to own 40-acre plots. Consequently, the Freedmen’s Bureau was established by Congress to transition from slavery to freedom, and another financial program like the Freedman’s Savings Bank was also established to help 4 million former slaves gain financial freedom.
This great policies wouldn’t come to fruition because after the assassination of President Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson reversed Sherman’s order, his speech which reads “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a country for white men” showed the reality of the times and heralded tragedies to come. In 1872, The Freedman’s Bureau was dissolved and 1 million dollars deposited by black people were gone as they were giving as loans to white companies and investors.
These stories and events, as well as several others embedded in our nation’s history, are responsible for the situation as we know it as generations of black families are still affected by the domino effects of these events. You can read more about these events and learn more about the 1619 Project at the New York Times.
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