African American History Moment
The Black Blogger
Ida Belle Wells-Barnett

Ida Wells-Barnett unmasked the atrocities of white mob lynch violence directed at our African American ancestors. She also took a stand in 1893 against the complete and utter injustice that occurred in 1865, when our just freed African Americans ancestors were left to fend for themselves with not a dollar of wealth or an inch of land. That’s why America continue to breath injustice and divisiveness in this nation. America didn’t do the black man or woman right and that failure continues to haunt this nation today.
#reparationsisntagiftitsarightnowthing

If this was picking season in the south during enslavement in southern states like Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Virginia, and the Carolinas then our African American ancestors were even stronger than I could even imagine. I still don't understand why in the hell we didn't get 160 acres and 20 damn mules each. It's hot as all hell and our ancestors did the work in those plantation rows in this heat without no relief in sight, with an overseer handling the whip and no damn air conditioning or ice to cool off? The hell with 40 acres and a mule for reparations just back that new Mercedes SUV to those vaults In Fort Knox and start handingout gold bricks to the descendants of those enslaved African Americans,America. This nation owes us for forcing our ancestors to endure 341 years of straight up blazing hell. They lived in shotgun shacks without electricity or cooling systems and had to run from the Klan as well? Really back up SUV's we need to get paid in gold!

“About thirty-two years ago on a January night, eight cowards—and that’s exactly what they were, eight cowards—came to this jurisdiction in the middle of the night and committed what we think is one of the most horrible and heinous crimes that’s ever been committed in America. Eight people armed with big gallons of gasoline and guns and meanness in their hearts showed up in this jurisdiction for one thing—to stop people from voting. They were not only going to stop people’s right to vote, but they were going to stop the man who was trying to help them.”

Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore
1998 The Murder Of Vernon Dahmer
January 11, 1966

When ever you feel that your vote doesn’t count, or the system is jaded and voting simply doesn’t matter, or the line is simply way too long to bother. I ask that you as an African American citizen of this country think about a man who sacrificed everything for each of us to enjoy that right to vote Vernon Dahmer Sr.

Mr. Dahmer lived for 58 years and never had the chance to cast a single vote in his lifetime. Yet he spent his entire adult life working for the rights of African American Mississippians to enjoy the rights of citizenship. To Vernon Dahmer the right to vote was essential to being able to control one’s own destiny. Just when he seemed to have gained that right and won the fight in 1965 when President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Bill. The White Knights of the Mississippi Klan snatched that right away from him along with his life. That happened just 54 years ago.

It wasn’t that long ago that our right to vote was being denied by assassination and mob terrorism. Today’s post asks one question to those of us in our communities who refuse to vote. Was Vernon Dahmer’s ultimate sacrifice simply a total waste of effort? Was the blood he spilled to ensure we all had that right to vote only a blip that causes indifference today? So whenever you have a chance to make a difference in your communities by voting. Don’t ignore the chance learn all you can about the issues that effect you personally and your community as a whole and vote. The spirit and soul of Vernon Dahmer Sr. is watching over each of us.

In America 34% of the population is over the age of 50. For white Americans, the most common age was 58, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau. That’s why today’s blog post is so on point. Because many white Americans will say when they discuss or confronted with the issue of reparations for African Americans, they will say well I didn’t own no slaves. Well did you know that for more than a century after the supposed last African American slave was freed. The African American was denied his/her civil rights right into the early part of the 1970s’? This means white Americans continued to benefit economic from the oppression that denied these constitutional rights. They benefited from educational opportunities, employment opportunities as well social and civic opportunities. The institutions that are the foundation of wealth building in this nation benefited as well. So the argument that you didn’t own any slaves holds no water when the oppression of the constitutional rights of African Americans continued long after the passage of the 13th Amendment passed in 1865. Let’s look at the 14th Amendment today. It was intended to secure equal protection under the law for every American. It was specifically written to protect the rights of the recently freed African Americans but from the Compromise of 1877 until as late as the early 1970s’ that signature right of protecting citizenship rights was ignored by a majority of states in this country. These states had to be forced by the federal government and the federal judiciary to adhere to protecting our rights. So, when the most common age for white Americans in 2018 is 58 years of age. The argument I didn’t own any slaves is paper thin and the paper is soaking wet. It cannot bear any pressure because it will tear apart with the littlest of effort. Yes, it has been time and time again that without slavery, American capitalism would’ve have grown to make the American economy the most powerful economy on the planet. Also, you can also make the argument that all that cheap and free labor derived from vagrancy laws, convict leading, peonage, sharecropping, and the other acts of oppression during the denial of our constitutional rights created additional wealth building throughout America. Why reparations, how about the denial of our constitutional rights. Especially the 14th Amendment.