Classic Black America (1919-1968) Mega Thread

[IllmaticDelta]

Versuz who? Battling within the music has always been in the DNA

 

[cole phelps]

 

[cole phelps]

 

[tuckgod]

A little-known episode in American history has been snatched from oblivion by Tulane University Professor Lance Hill. He has documented the pivotal events of the civil rights movement in his book, The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement published by the University of North Carolina Press.

Hill makes it clear that the civil rights movement would have been wiped out in the south by the Ku Klux Klan if it had not been for the Deacons. Before the rise of the Deacons for Defense and Justice (their full name), the prevailing ideology of the movement was a product of the white liberals in the north who had no concept of the terrorism the Klan could unleash.

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Campaign (SCLC -- Martin Luther King's organization) were all proponents of meeting violence with pacifism. Jesse Jackson, then an aide to King, drank so deeply from this pacifistic well, that he is still (along with most of the black leadership in the US) anti self-defense and a supporter of gun control.

Some argued that if Ghandi could throw off British colonialism in India with a pacifistic strategy, it should work in the U.S. Hill points out that the British were ruling from afar and the English working class had no direct investment in maintenance of the empire. But in the south, everything was up close and personal. The Klan was part of a community, many of whom felt directly threatened by the elimination of segregation's two sets of laws -- one for blacks, the other for whites.

By the way, although Hill does not deal with the biblical aspect of segregation, it was very clearly a set of laws in conflict with Scripture. Exodus 12:49 requires that the same law apply to everybody alike. And in spite of the name, Deacons, the black self-defense group did not engage in any theological debates over whether the use of lethal force in self defense is biblical.

The Deacons first emerged as a visible self-defense force in Jonesboro, LA. From the very beginning the Deacons represented a new force in the civil rights movement -- leadership had passed from white northern liberals (and blacks who bought into that liberalism) to southern working class blacks who lived in the very communities where the Deacons were active.

The spring and summer of 1964 was a time of growing anti-segregation demonstrations in Jonesboro. The Klan responded at one point with a menacing parade through the black section of town – led by the chief of police. The Deacons informed the chief that if that happened again, "there would be some killing going on." The Klan never did that again.

Cross burning ended suddenly the night that a cross was set on fire in front of a clergyman's house. Shots rang out aimed at the Klan as the torch touched the cross. The Klan departed and never repeated that trick.

Hill found that the Deacons did not take just anybody into their ranks for this rather "high octane" volunteer work. They screened the applicants to make sure they were getting men who could handle the pressure and not go off half cocked.

During a desegregation effort at the Jonesboro High School, the authorities brought up fire trucks and prepared to hose the black students attempting to enter the school. The Deacons pulled up and four men publicly loaded shotguns and then made it plain that the lead was for the firemen if they turned the hoses on. The firemen wisely beat a retreat.

This was a very significant event. This was a self-defense effort in the spirit of the American War for Independence. The government was attempting to exercise illegitimate power (enforcing an unbiblical law which by this time also violated federal law) and it was repulsed by the use of community force -- by the militia, if you will.

The Deacons were in the great tradition of American freedom -- liberty is not given by tyrants and thugs, it is wrested from their hands by force.

Jonesboro saw one more exercise of defensive force before the Klan was finally convinced that they could not intimidate the black community. When Deacon Elmo Jacobs was driving a carload of white civil rights workers, they were fired upon and took a load of buckshot in the door of Jacobs' car. Jacobs returned fire and the Klan attack ended immediately -- and for good.

In Bogalusa, LA, Hill found that the police made no attempt to stop the attacks and in fact took pains to arrest blacks who had armed themselves in self defense. In other words, gun control was simply a tool of people control and had nothing to do with fighting crime. Had crime control been the concern, plenty of opportunities had come and gone to arrest the Klan.

FBI agent Frank Hicks warned Bogalusa blacks that any self-defense shooting by a black -- of a white -- would result in an arrest for murder. He did not explain where the FBI had any legal or constitutional authority for such a move, but the Deacons were not interested in a scholarly debate. They simply told Hicks that self defense is a constitutional right. Hicks got the message.

A lethal moment in Bogalusa shocked the Klan into the realization that blacks were no longer chattel punching bags. During a 1965 summer desegregation demonstration, white hecklers turned violent and threw a brick which struck Hattie Mae Hill. The white mob surrounded the car the Deacons were using to attempt an evacuation of the terrified girl.

As the mob threatened to break into the car, Deacon Henry Austin shouted that he had a gun. Then he fired a warning shot from his .38 into the air. The mob kept closing in. Austin then fired almost point blank into the chest of Alton Crowe who was in the front of the mob. While Crowe survived, the fun of beating up on blacks died that afternoon in Bogalusa.

All the white liberals in the north and their black allies, with all their clucking that defensive violence would only provoke more violence, had failed to get the feds to enforce their civil rights laws. Henry Austin and the Deacons succeeded. After all, if the police and the National Guard had not been mobilized, there might have been harm to Klansmen.

The battle raged for another year or so, but the Jonesboro and Bogalusa resistance efforts proved to be the turning point. Klan meetings became more likely to involve admiration of a colleague's tooth than to plot a terrorist act that might get Klansmen killed.

Addendum:

Second Amendment attorney Don Kates showed this column to a friend of his who is a Yale law professor in 2005. In the 1960's, he was an eye witness to the effectiveness of the Deacons for Defense, as this note to Don Kates states.

Don:

I was in New Orleans in August 1965, working as a just-graduated law student with the black law firm (Collins, Douglas, & Elie) who represented CORE. When I and a few other whites went to Bogalusa to help the bogalusa Voters League stage a protest march there, we were met outside of town by the Deacons and escorted to the BVL staging area by a black man in a pickup truck equipped with a shotgun prominently displayed, and although we were followed by whites who knew what we were there for, they did not stop our truck, presumably because they knew we were armed. We proceeded with the march amid much heckling, threats, and verbal abuse by the crowds of whites lining the route but the Deacons maintained order while the local police stood by brandishing weapons that could have been used against us rather than against the mob. I shall never forget the pride, courage, and hospitality displayed by the black community there, threatened by their townsmen but protected by their own Deacons. I have no doubt that their weapons had something to do with it

Just what I needed to read on this fine Monday morning that the good Lord made.

 

[cole phelps]

 

[IllmaticDelta]

 

[Po pimp]

Great post. Our history is so rich

 

[Ake1725]

.

 

[Ake1725]

This rapping shyt goes way back
Butterbeans and Susie 1924

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Abyssinian Baptist Church

The Abyssinian Baptist Church is a Baptist megachurch located at 132 West 138th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Lenox Avenue in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, USA.

Founded in 1809, its present building was built in 1922–23 and was designed by Charles W. Bolton & Son in Gothic Revival and Tudor Revival styles – it has also been described as "Collegiate Gothic".[1] It features stained glass windows and marble furnishings.

During the 20th century, prominent ministers of the church included Adam Clayton Powell Sr. and Adam Clayton Powell Jr.[2][3] Over the years, the church has served as a place for African American spirituality, politics and community.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the future prominent German theologian, anti-Nazi activist and martyr, arrived in New York in 1930 - then a young student doing postgraduate study at the Union Theological Seminary. Frank Fisher, a black fellow-seminarian, introduced Bonhoeffer to the Abyssinian Church, where Bonhoeffer taught Sunday school and formed a lifelong love for African-American spirituals, a collection of which he took back to Germany. He heard Adam Clayton Powell Sr. preach the Gospel of Social Justice, and became sensitive to not only social injustices experienced by minorities but also the ineptitude of the church to bring about integration.[12] It was there that Bonhoeffer began to see things "from below" — from the perspective of those who suffer oppression. He observed, "Here one can truly speak and hear about sin and grace and the love of God...the Black Christ is preached with rapturous passion and vision." Later Bonhoeffer referred to his impressions abroad as the point at which he "turned from phraseology to reality."[13] - themes which were on Bonhoeffer's return to Germany manifested in his outspoken opposition to the Nazi regime and especially to its persecution of the Jews, and for which Bonhoeffer eventually paid with his life.


Bob Gore, Abyssinian Baptist Church Photographer on the left and Dr. Eric Williams, Curator of Religion National Museum Of African American History and Culture at NMAAHC in Washington, DC after a meeting at NMAAHC
By 1930, the church had 13,000 members, making it the largest African-American church in New York City, and the largest Baptist congregation in the world.[3] Powell handed the reins of the church to his son Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in 1937. Powell became the first black Congressman from New York City, and served 14 terms in the United States House of Representatives.[1][2] Powell's "charisma, power, and notoriety", as well as his "spellbinding" preaching[1] were the driving force behind the church's significant influence in the African American community at the time.

 

[cole phelps]

Freedom House Ambulance Service was the first emergency medical service in the United States to be staffed by paramedics with medical training beyond basic first aid.[1][2] Founded in 1967 to serve the predominantly black Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the majority of its staff were African-American.[3][4] Freedom House Ambulance Service broke medical ground by training its personnel to previously unheard of standards of emergency medical care for patients en route to hospitals.[3][5][6] The paramedic training and ambulance design standards pioneered in the Freedom House Ambulance Service would set the standard for emergency care nationally and even internationally.[2][5] Despite its successes, the ambulance service was closed eight years after it began operating.[5]

Background
Prior to the mid 1960s, ambulance service in the US was typically provided by either the police or a local funeral home.[2][5] Such services provided, at most, basic first aid and rapid transportation to a hospital.[2][5][4] In police-operated ambulances, the ambulance crew would typically load the patient into the back of a police van, and rush to the hospital.[2] The U.S. medical system had yet to incorporate advances in emergency care made in battlefield medicine. Suburbanization in the U.S. following World War II led to more car accidents and more injuries far from hospitals, exacerbating this lack of medical care provided en route to hospitals.[6]

In 1966, the National Academy of Sciences published a white paper titled "Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society."[6] The paper stated that up to 50,000 deaths each year were the result of inadequate ambulance crews and lack of suitable hospitals within range, drawing attention to the need for improved pre-hospital care.[2] The severity of the situation in Pittsburgh was brought home when the former Governor of Pennsylvania and former mayor of Pittsburgh, David L. Lawrence, suffered a heart attack and was transported to a local hospital by police.[6][3] Lawrence had no brain activity when he arrived at the hospital and died after being removed from life support,[6] a death that could have been avoidable with adequate pre-hospital care, in the view of the physician who treated him, Peter Safar.[6]

In Pittsburgh, the city police handled ambulance service within the city, transporting patients via paddy wagon while funeral homes provided ambulance service in the suburbs.[5][4] Wait times were often longer for service in predominantly black neighborhoods,[4] especially in the economically depressed Hill District.[2] Additionally, tension between police and the community made many reluctant to call the police.[2]

Inception
The program received its initial funding from Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty and the Maurice Falk Fund.[3][2][5] The Falk Fund was headed by Phil Hallen, a former ambulance driver, who was seeking to improve responses to medical emergencies as well as create employment opportunities for African-American men in Pittsburgh.[2][6][7]

Upon hearing that Hallen was working to improve ambulance service in Pittsburgh, Safar reached out to him.[5] Safar's daughter had died of an asthma attack following transportation to the hospital without provision of care en route,[5] and he had previously worked on emergency pre-hospital care, including the development of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and advocating its use by laypeople.[5] He offered his ideas on how a new standard of care could be provided by the new ambulance service.[2][5] His ideas included intense paramedic training and improved ambulance design.[2][5]

Hallen contacted Freedom House Enterprises to help recruit paramedics for the new ambulance service.[5] At that time, Freedom House Enterprises worked on civil rights projects including voter registration and organizing NAACP meetings as well as offering job training and assistance with job searches to black Pittsburghers.[2][5][6] Freedom House agreed to partner on the ambulance program.

Recruitment and Training
The first cohort of Freedom House Ambulance Service recruits consisted of 25 men recruited from The Hill District, a low income, predominantly black neighborhood.[1] At the time, local media referred to residents of the neighborhood as the "unemployables,"[5] and the recruits included men who had suffered long-term unemployment.[3] Half of the recruits had not graduated high school.[3] Some had criminal records, including felonies. The recruits also included veterans of the Vietnam War.[5][6]

Dr. Peter Safar designed and implemented the paramedics' training,[6] a 32-week,[5] 300 hour[2] course that included anatomy, physiology, CPR, advanced first aid, nursing, and defensive driving.[2] Those who had not completed high school were helped in completing their GEDs.[6][3]

Dr. Safar worked with Drs. Ron Stewart and Paul Paris to create a training curriculum that would soon shape paramedicine across the globe. Dr. Safar would soon meet a young and ambitious Nancy Caroline who while completing her medical schooling, would assist Safar, Stewart and Paris in compiling the new curriculum for Freedom House's paramedics. Stewart and Paris were also in the process of attempting to create a place that people in the Pittsburgh region could come to study emergency medicine.

 

[cole phelps]

Operation and Legacy
The Freedom House Ambulance Service program began in 1967,[6] and started officially operating in 1968 with two ambulances.[5][1]

Prior to receiving their own ambulances, the Freedom House paramedics were pressed into service to help people injured during the King assassination riots in 1968, riding along with police on ambulance duty.[6] The city contracted Freedom House Ambulance Service to handle emergency transportation in the downtown area and some predominantly black neighborhoods.[2]

They came to be known for the high standard of care they provided and were frequently requested by callers over the police.[3] Freedom House Ambulance Service responded to almost 5,800 in their first year,[2][1] and transported more than 4,600 patients, primarily in African-American neighborhoods in Pittsburgh.[1] According to data collected by Dr. Safar, the paramedics saved 200 lives in their first year of operations.[2] Where slow service to black neighborhoods by the police had been a point of tension,[2] the Freedom House paramedics had a response time of less than ten minutes in most neighborhoods.[5]

In 1975, Dr. Nancy Caroline became the medical director of Freedom House upon being recruited by Dr. Safar.[5] She arranged ongoing training for the paramedics in such unprecedented areas as intubation, cardiac care, and I.V. drug administration.[3][5][6] The training Dr. Caroline provided would become the basis for the first paramedic curriculum, written by Caroline and adopted by the federal government in 1975.[5][2] The data and studies conducted by Caroline shaped EMS practices for Magen David Adom.[3]

The Freedom House paramedics' relationships with the communities they served also aided in their effectiveness. According to one documentary maker to who chronicled their history:

Freedom House [paramedics] had compassion for the community..They told me when you walk into a person’s home, you’re a guest. That’s the No. 1 thing they brought to the table: They cared. They addressed everybody by their names. They respected them and asked permission before providing treatment.[6]

During a deadly surge in heroin use, the paramedics were able to contact local drug dealers and provide information on identifying signs of an overdose. The paramedics also notified them that they would provide medical assistance in case of emergencies without legal repercussions for those who sold or used the drugs.[3] This effort was followed by a dramatic drop in fatal overdoses in the city.[3]

The Freedom House Ambulance Service became a model across the U.S. and internationally.[2] Freedom House was awarded a major grant to develop the first national standards for paramedics.[5] Miami, Los Angeles, and Jacksonville would all follow the Freedom House model.[5] Additionally, the ambulance designed by Dr. Safar and proved through use by the Freedom House paramedics were adopted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as the official standard.[3]

Despite these successes, the Freedom House paramedics faced racism from hospital staff, patients and discrimination by the city government. The paramedics were sometimes assumed by hospital staff to be orderlies and were asked to mop the floor.[2] White patients were often surprised by or resentful of black paramedics,[3] and would sometimes refuse to be touched or helped by them.[2]

Conflict with the Mayor
Opponent of the Freedom House Ambulance Service, Peter F. Flaherty became Mayor in 1970.[5] The mayor opposed public/private partnerships, believing services paid for by the city should be directly overseen by it.[5] Phil Hallen of the Falk Fund stated that he believed racism was also a factor in Flaherty's opposition to the service.[2] Op-eds printed at the time accused the mayor of trying to eliminate the ambulance service to pander to the police union.[5] Dr. Safar echoed this view, stating “racial prejudices with white police officers eager to maintain control of ambulances city-wide” were the cause of efforts to end Freedom House's ambulance services in the city.[5]

Freedom House Ambulance Service's request to expand their contract with the city to cover additional parts of the city was denied by the mayor, despite their strong record.[6][5] This denied them the chance to serve more affluent neighborhoods in which they would likely have been more able to collect the fees they charged for ambulance service.[5] During Flaherty's time as Mayor, the city began providing payment for the ambulance contract late,[5] and cut its portion of the ambulance service's operating budget by 50%.[2] [5]

The Mayor also signed an ordinance barring the use of ambulance sirens in the downtown area, with noise complaints given as the reason.[5][2][3] This slowed the paramedics when transporting patients to hospitals as well as their response time, allowing the police to reach more calls before them.[5]

In 1974, the Mayor announced plans for a citywide ambulance system to be staffed by police officers trained as paramedics.[5] Faced with resistance from city council member Eugene DePasquale, the mayor agreed to fund the Freedom House Ambulance Service contract for one more year.[5] At the end of the year, the Mayor then announced the creation of a citywide ambulance service to be staffed by non-police paramedics and the end of the contract with Freedom House.[2][5]

Closure of Freedom House Ambulance Service
The Freedom House Ambulance Service closed on Oct. 15, 1975.[5]

All of the paramedics initially hired to staff the new city ambulance service which succeeded it were white.[5][2] Then the previous medical director of the Freedom House Ambulance Service, Nancy Caroline, accepted a position as medical director of the new city ambulance service on the conditions that the Freedom House paramedics and dispatchers also be hired and that Freedom House ambulance crews be kept together.[5]

While the Freedom House paramedics were hired, their crews were broken up, in violation of the agreement.[5] Those with criminal records were fired.[6] Pass/fail exams were instituted, covering materials the Freedom House paramedics had not been taught, resulting in the dismissal of many.[5][6] Most of those remaining were reassigned to non-medical or non-essential work.[2] Many were placed in positions overseen by white employees with less experience.[6] Of the 26 Freedom House employees who joined the city ambulance service, only half remained a year later.[5] Ultimately, only five remained with the city ambulance service, and only one was promoted into a leadership position.[6] In the late 90s, 98% of Pittsburgh’s paramedic program were white.[2]

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Black Power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, California.[7][8][9] The party was active in the United States between 1966 and 1982, with chapters in many major cities and international chapters in Britain and Algeria.[10][11] Upon its inception the Black Panther Party's core practice was its open carry armed citizens' patrols ("copwatching") to monitor the behavior of officers of the Oakland Police Department and challenge police brutality in the city.

 

[Sankofa Alwayz]

How tf did I missed this?


IN

The greatness of my people knows no bounds

 

[Sankofa Alwayz]

Negro Elite
Tokenism
Hot Summer
The Streets
Police Brutality

This documentary was ahead of its time

Just like one of the comments said, ain’t nothing new under the Sun.