Ujima Gazzette

The Black Church’s Reckoning

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 21:42:14 GMT

Billion-Dollar Sanctuaries, Bankrupt Communities

Every Sunday morning across America, millions of dollars flow through the collection plates of Black churches. Tithes, offerings, building funds, special collections—the financial power moving through Black sanctuaries is staggering. For over a century, the Black Church has been the wealthiest institution in Black America, accumulating resources that dwarf those of any other Black-led organization.

Yet when we survey the landscape of Black economic power today, a painful question emerges: where did all that money go? The Catholic Church owns hospital systems serving millions. They operate universities, maintain vast real estate holdings, and provide cradle-to-grave services for their communities. Meanwhile, Black churches with comparable collective resources have built bigger sanctuaries, purchased luxury cars for pastors, and funded elaborate conferences while our communities remain economically dependent on institutions that don’t serve our interests.

The accumulated Sunday collections across decades could have capitalized multiple Black-owned banks providing affordable lending to our communities. Instead, Black families still deposit their money in banks that redline our neighborhoods and deny our loan applications.

That same money could have established, revived or maintained Black-owned insurance companies offering life insurance, health coverage, and property insurance tailored to our community’s needs. Instead, we pay premiums to companies with no investment in the Black community’s stability. Black churches could have become mortgage bankers, providing home loans to members at fair rates, building Black homeownership and generational wealth. Instead, predatory lenders extracted wealth from our communities while churches watched from sanctuary windows.

The educational crisis is even more damning. Historically Black Colleges and Universities struggle financially while producing the majority of Black doctors, lawyers, engineers, and educators who serve our communities. These institutions teeter on the edge of closure, cutting programs and turning away qualified students who cannot afford tuition. Yet if Black churches had committed even ten percent of their collections to HBCU endowments and scholarships over the past fifty years, every qualified Black student could attend an HBCU tuition-free. Instead, our children graduate with crushing debt from predominantly white institutions where they face isolation and discrimination, or they don’t attend college at all because they cannot afford it and churches offer no support beyond prayers for their success.

The Catholic Church understood something fundamental: institutional power requires institutional investment. They built schools, hospitals, universities, and social services that made them indispensable to their communities. Black churches built elaborate worship spaces and asked for more donations. When our people get sick, we go to hospitals owned by Catholic or secular systems with no particular commitment to Black health outcomes. When our elderly need care, we place them in facilities with no connection to our community or culture. The Black Church had the resources to build all of this but chose not to.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth about tax exemption: it’s supposed to be earned through public service, not granted for holding worship services. The Catholic Church, for all its flaws, operates as a comprehensive social service provider—hospitals, schools, shelters, adoption services, addiction treatment, mental health care, job training. They serve their communities in material, measurable ways that justify their tax-exempt status.

What do Black churches provide beyond Sunday services? Food pantries and youth programs are valuable but hardly proportional to the resources collected. If Black churches want tax exemption, they should earn it the way other religious institutions do—by becoming irreplaceable providers of essential community services.

Imagine if every major Black church operated a community health clinic. If regional church coalitions owned hospitals in Black neighborhoods. If denominational bodies ran accredited schools and universities. If church-owned housing corporations provided affordable homes to members. If church-sponsored credit unions offered fair financial services. This infrastructure would justify tax exemption because it would represent genuine public service proportional to the enormous resources churches collect and accumulate.

Now, as the consequences of the crack epidemic continue devastating our communities—with survivors aging without resources, families still fractured, and gentrification displacing those who held on through the worst years—the Black community is calling on churches to finally use their accumulated wealth for justice.

Filing comprehensive lawsuits against federal and state governments for reparations requires millions of dollars for legal teams, expert witnesses, economic analysis, and sustained litigation through multiple court levels. This is exactly the kind of investment the Black Church should have been making all along. Using collective resources to fight institutional battles on behalf of the community.

But the sad reality is that most Black churches have no tradition of this kind of institutional investment. They’re structured to receive, not to deploy capital strategically. Pastors live comfortably while members struggle. Buildings expand while communities contract.

The disconnect between resources collected and impact delivered is profound and inexcusable. If the Black Church cannot mobilize its considerable financial power now, when survivors of the crack epidemic need legal representation and our case for reparations is strongest, then it must accept that it has failed its fundamental mission. The Church stood as witness to our suffering during the epidemic—burying victims, counseling families, holding communities together through sheer spiritual force. Now it must stand as financier of our justice. Not with symbolic donations or modest contributions, but with the full weight of its accumulated wealth deployed in a coordinated legal campaign.

This is the Church’s moment to transform from collection institution to investment institution, from resource accumulation to resource deployment, from spiritual comfort provider to material justice warrior. Anything less is continued failure dressed in Sunday morning respectability.

The Umoja Group’s mission is to bring entities together to create solutions for the problems facing the Black community, resulting in socio-economic empowerment!

The Black Church’s Moral Imperative

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 02:49:26 GMT

Financing Justice for the Crack Epidemic

The Black Church stood as sanctuary when our communities burned. Pastors buried young men cut down by violence. Church mothers raised grandchildren whose parents were imprisoned. Fellowship halls became food banks when jobs disappeared. Prayer circles held together families torn apart by mass incarceration.

The Black Church witnessed every dimension of suffering during the crack epidemic, from the first wave of addiction through the mass incarceration that followed, to today’s gentrification displacing survivors. Church pews emptied as fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters disappeared into the prison system under draconian sentencing laws that treated crack cocaine 100 times more harshly than powder cocaine. The Church watched property values collapse in neighborhoods surrounding sanctuaries built with generations of tithes and offerings.

Ministers counseled wives whose husbands received decades for nonviolent offenses while white communities received treatment for similar drug problems. Sunday school classes shrank as families fled neighborhoods labeled drug zones. Church budgets were strained supporting members who lost jobs, homes, and hope. The epidemic didn’t just attack individuals—it assaulted the very fabric of Black communal life that the Church anchored for centuries.

The damage was comprehensive and calculable. Hundreds of thousands of Black men and women were imprisoned, most for nonviolent offenses, their wages lost, their families impoverished, their futures destroyed. Children grew up without parents, creating trauma that churches tried to heal through youth programs and mentorship while watching resources stretch impossibly thin. Elderly members died without family care because their children were incarcerated and their grandchildren were overwhelmed.

Small businesses that tithed faithfully closed their doors as foot traffic disappeared and customers were imprisoned or fled. In Compton, property that represented generational wealth—often the only significant asset Black families possessed—lost value overnight, destroying equity that would have funded college educations, business ventures, and retirement security. Marriage rates collapsed as potential partners were addicted to the powerfully destructive drug or incarcerated, leaving single mothers to raise children in poverty.

Mental health crises multiplied with no resources to address them. And churches, those pillars of Black community strength, watched their membership age, their neighborhoods destabilize, and their influence wane as the epidemic scattered their congregations. This happened because federal and state governments chose criminalization over treatment, punishment over compassion, and incarceration over investment.

Now the Black Church faces its defining moment. Every Sunday, millions of dollars flow through collection plates, building funds, and tithes across thousands of congregations. Some churches have massive reserves. Others maintain significant weekly revenues. Collectively, the Black Church possesses enormous financial capacity.

Yet while the Church preaches liberation, practices charity, and promises spiritual deliverance, the question must be asked: where is that financial power when our people need material justice?

The Black Church cannot claim moral authority while allowing the greatest assault on Black communities in a generation to go unanswered in the courts where justice must be won. Lawsuits against federal and state governments for reparations require significant resources—expert witnesses, economic analysis, years of litigation, appeals through multiple court levels. Legal foundations and civil rights organizations lack the capital to sustain this fight alone. But the Black Church, if it pooled resources across denominations, could finance a comprehensive legal campaign that includes constitutional challenges based on 14th Amendment equal protection violations, class action lawsuits quantifying economic damages, and legislative advocacy for federal and state reparations bills.

This is the Church’s moment to lead, not follow. To invest, not just collect. To demand justice, not simply pray for it. The commitment to Black people that churches proclaim every Sunday must translate into unprecedented financial commitment to this legal battle. Denominational bodies should establish reparations litigation funds. Mega-churches should pledge millions. Small congregations should contribute what they can to a unified war chest.

The AME, AME Zion, CME, National Baptist Convention, COGIC, and every historically Black denomination should coordinate resources and strategy. This requires sacrifice—redirecting building funds, postponing expansions, reducing pastoral compensation if necessary—but what greater purpose could church resources serve than securing justice for the devastation the Church witnessed and tried to heal?

The survivors sitting in pews today, the families still struggling with intergenerational trauma, the communities facing displacement—they need more than prayer. They need the Church to put its money where its mission is. The Black Church must finance this fight completely, boldly, and immediately, or reconcile itself to being remembered as the institution that had resources but lacked resolve when justice demanded both.

The Umoja Group’s mission is to bring entities together to create solutions for the problems facing the Black community, resulting in socio-economic empowerment!

Black Organizations Must Unite Now

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 02:49:17 GMT

Pooling Resources for Crack Epidemic Reparations

The crack cocaine epidemic wasn’t a tragedy that befell Black communities—it was an assault perpetrated by government policy at every level. Between 1985 and 1995, federal and state governments collaborated in the systematic destruction of Black neighborhoods through the War on Drugs, implementing sentencing laws that treated crack cocaine 100 times more harshly than powder cocaine despite being the same drug.

The result was catastrophic: hundreds of thousands of Black men and women imprisoned for decades, families shattered across generations, property values decimated as neighborhoods were labeled drug zones, businesses closed and jobs vanished, children raised without parents creating intergenerational trauma that persists today, and community institutions that provided stability and opportunity collapsed entirely.

The economic damage alone runs into the billions—lost wages from mass incarceration, destroyed home equity, eliminated business revenue, and interrupted wealth transfer that would have benefited subsequent generations.

But the social and psychological damage defies easy calculation. How do you measure the cost of a child growing up without their father? An elderly woman dying without family care? A young man whose potential was buried in a prison cell for a nonviolent offense? And now, adding insult to this generational injury, gentrification displaces the very families who survived the worst years, ensuring they won’t benefit from neighborhood recovery they waited decades to see.

The legal and moral case for reparations is ironclad. Both federal and state governments violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under law through discriminatory enforcement that targeted Black Americans while treating similar drug problems in white communities as public health issues requiring compassion and treatment. The federal government created the legal architecture for mass incarceration and, at minimum through willful negligence, allowed drug trafficking to flourish while prioritizing Cold War objectives.

California amplified this destruction through aggressive prosecution, militarized policing specifically in Black neighborhoods, and state sentencing enhancements that multiplied prison terms.

When Black communities begged for help, they received handcuffs instead of treatment, police instead of social services, prisons instead of opportunity. This wasn’t accident or oversight—it was sustained, coordinated policy.

Precedent for reparations exists: the government compensated Japanese Americans for internment, victims of forced sterilization, and those harmed by radiation experiments. The survivors of the crack epidemic deserve no less. Both governments profited enormously through expanded law enforcement budgets, asset seizures, private prison contracts, and ultimately higher tax revenues from gentrified neighborhoods built on the ruins of destroyed Black communities.

But here’s the hard truth: reparations won’t happen through good intentions or moral appeals alone. Black organizations must pool their resources now to make this happen. The NAACP, National Urban League, Black church denominations, community organizations, legal foundations, professional associations, and HBCUs must create a unified reparations coalition with shared funding, coordinated strategy, and sustained pressure.

We need legal teams filing constitutional challenges and building class action cases. We need economists quantifying damages with precision that courts cannot ignore. We need lobbyists drafting legislation at state and federal levels and mobilizing political support. We need communications professionals running public education campaigns that refuse to let this history be sanitized or forgotten. We need organizers mobilizing survivors and their families to testify, protest, and demand accountability. This requires millions in pooled resources, but Black organizations collectively have the capacity if we prioritize this cause.

The alternative is watching survivors age and die while their children inherit poverty and their grandchildren face displacement from communities their families built. Time is our enemy now. Every year we wait, more witnesses pass away, more evidence fades, and more families lose their remaining connections to these neighborhoods. Black organizational leadership must answer this moment with the same courage and coordination that won us the Civil Rights Act. The debt is owed. The case is solid. All that’s missing is unified action. Will we demand what we’re owed, or will we let this injustice join the long list of crimes against Black America that went unaddressed? The choice, and the responsibility, is ours.

The Umoja Group’s mission is to bring entities together to create solutions for the problems facing the Black community, resulting in socio-economic empowerment!

The Worst Story Ever Told” Number 19 Vol.1

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 01:37:17 GMT

Seven Days of Terror and Murder in Florida

By: Rene Childress

Our next “Worst Story Ever Told brings us to a small hamlet just outside of Gainesville, Florida. It was a settlement established by most accounts in 1847 near Cedar Key, a hush away from the Gulf of Mexico. Its name RoseWood arises from the ruby rich redness of the cedar trees growing in and around this area.

After the end of slavery the newly freed African-Americans were employed in pencil factories, turpentine mills and sawmills. These were in addition to the cotton and citrus farming jobs. This settlement would grow to several hundred inhabitants both Black and White.

By the beginning of the last decade of the nineteenth century this once verdant forest had become denuded from over-lumbering. The sawmills and pencil factories were shuttered. As a result of these shutterings most of the White residents of Rosewood moved on to the exclusively White “Sundown” Town of Sumner.

This in turn developed Rosewood into an almost exclusively black hamlet. It would eventually grow to more than three hundred souls. So much so that it required its own United States Post Office and railway depot. It was never incorporated like many settlements of former slaves trying to live unmolested amongst themselves away from the evergrinding stench of White Supremacy.

The early twentieth century community of Rosewood finds itself surrounded by hostile White neighbors on all sides. It had to endure Governor Napoleon Bonaparte Broward’s suggestion that Florida’s Black population be relocated out of the state during his 1905-1909 term.

Lynchings continued unabated or prosecuted all around them. They lived under a constant shadow of rape, murder and torture. It always rich to see Whites complain about the need to protect ”White Womanhood” when most of the raping done in the south was done by good christian White men against defenseless African-American women.

There are no recorded incidents of Black people killing a White person and arguing over souvenirs of the remains of their victims. There is not a single incident of a Black mob castrating a White man anywhere in this country. Yet it was one of the first things the White mobs turned to.

These atrocities were commonplace among the White monsters that roamed the “Good Old South” in places like the areas around Cedar Key.

Our current story begins not in Rosewood rather it originates in all White Sumner. It is January 1,1923. Frances ”Fannie” Taylor is beaten by her White lover while her husband is at work. She realizes that she needed a story to justify her wounds received during this beating to her husband. She decided to use the tried and true trope that an unidentified “black beast” broke into her house and assaulted her.

She may not have wittingly known that she was to ignite a firestorm that would not be quenched for several days. This does not matter what transpires is a horrific episode that changes the lives and outcomes of generations of the inhabitants of Rosewood. This story has many twists and turns. It has many tellings both official and colloquial.

The press including the national press like UPI and New York Times stoked the flames by printing mistruths and rumors spread by local officials and Klansman (Sometimes they are the same source). The official records claim only 6 deaths. The folks of Rosewood claim significantly higher numbers.

They report that there is a mass grave with 27 bodies entombed. The Chicago Defender reports the rape and strangulation of two African-American women that are not included in the so-called official tally.

Here is what we do know. Around the same time of Frances Taylor’s dastardly lie about being assaulted an African-American prisoner named Jesse Hunter had escaped from a nearby chain gang. He quickly became the raison d’etre for the White mobs that would gather from all over the State of Florida and beyond. The pretext of hunting for the escaped convict gave the Klan and its fellow travelers cover for their deeds, Women were raped.

One gentleman named Aaron Carrier was drugged behind a car all the way to the town of Sumner. The town blacksmith Samuel Carter was taken to the woods where he was tortured. He was then shot in the face. His body was then strung up in the trees. His body was found riddled with bullets.

One of the mob scenes developed at the home of Sylvester Carrier. He had gathered several of his extended family and neighbors to make a stand against the coming maelstrom. The Whites arrived at his home demanding that he come out. A gun battle ensued. It lasted all day well into the next morning.

The house was not overrun. The mob lost its will to continue after several of them were shot and killed. In the exchange Sylvester Carrier and Sarah Carrier were both killed. Several of the children were wounded. One child was shot in the eye. The children that were not wounded spirited themselves away into the woods and swamps.

The Whites would lick their wounds for about a day. They returned with a vengeance. For the next 5 days they burned houses, churches and any structure that belonged to any African-American. They beat and killed any black person unlucky enough to be found. They set fire to houses with inhabitants still inside and shot them as they tried to escape the flames.

The only structure left standing was the one White owned house of John Wright the local general store owner. The folks from Rosewood hid in the woods for days on end. Many were in their night clothes because they were accosted in the middle of the night. They eventually made it to other towns where they were able to gain shelter.

For years after this pogrom the story was hidden from view. Neither the African-Americans or Whites would utter a word about the mayhem put upon the Hamlet of Rosewood. The town of Rosewood ceased to exist.

The property of the inhabitants was confiscated for taxes. Again another story where generational damage was done to the well being of African-American heritage. This story has a modicum of reckoning that occurred in 1994.

The Florida State legislature agreed that it failed to protect its citizens in Rosewood. They eventually agreed on a measly one point five million dollar settlement. The average payout amounted to a little over a hundred dollars. While this was an official acknowledgement it was a slap in the face considering the generational harm meted out to the families of Rosewood.” Let Us Not Forget”

OVER 100 STUDENT AND YOUTH LEADERS ORGANIZE MAJOR COMPLETE REPRATIONS N’DABA/SUMMIT

Sat, 28 Sep 2024 19:19:28 GMT

For Immediate Release

September 26, 2024, Atlanta, Georgia– The National Reparations Institute along with 100 student and youth leaders will convene a National N’Daba (Great Gathering) Reparations Summit on Friday and Saturday November 1-2nd, 2024, at the Atlanta University Center. This year’s fourth annual National N’Daba (Great Gathering) will include a diverse and evolving group of committee members, presenters and youth advocates within the existing Complete Reparations Movement.

Recent events have catapulted the long, complicated, and often brutal history of the treatment of Blacks in America to the forefront. As a result of the historic and current impact on Black Americans’ inability to achieve and maintain equality in this country, the time is now for not only a discussion on complete reparations, but a custom model and application of the National Reparations Declaration led by youth organizers and experienced leaders.

This year our youth and attendees will benefit from this national N’Daba/Summit on complete reparations in five ways:

• The practice and strategy of functional unity and co-leadership within the existing complete

reparations movement.

• A diverse cross-section of the nation’s leading Black students, Black youth, and Black scholars

reflecting diverse theological, political, philosophical, and ideologies will participate.

• The “Collective Culture Model” will be instituted to ground us in the actual process and methodology of securing complete reparations. Select committees in education and culture, economics and investments, state and land acquisition, public and mental health, and public policy and legislation will be established.

• The introduction, organization and implementation of local organizing committees for complete

reparations will be incorporated.

• Training on organizing sustainability and wellness for co-leadership of trauma-based work.

Please prepare yourself to participate in this year’s N’Daba (Great Gathering) to ensure the long-term educational, economic, cultural, political success and sustainability for the masses of Blacks in America for the remainder of the 21st century. Register as a student, individual or as an organization at nationalreparationsinstitute.org. Email us at info@nationalreparationsinstitute.org, or call us at (470) 471-8693

THe Worst Story Ever Told” No. 18, Vol. 1

Mon, 23 Sep 2024 01:42:18 GMT

The terrorizing of African-American Christianity on the altar of American White Supremacy.

By: Rene Childress

The White Slavocracy established itself on these shores in 1619 with a bible in its hand. They shoved that same bible down the throats of their newly enslaved charges. It was used to maintain their hold on to the property relations that became a cornerstone of American culture and psyche.

The white enslavers didn’t realize the message of uplift and perseverance in Christianity would galvanize and shape itself into a resistance against tyranny. The same message that encouraged the Israelites to rebel against the Pharaohs and the Christians against the Romans inspired black slaves to resist the reign of slavery. Once the slaves began gathering to worship, a kernel of hope and determination for a better future burst forth from their loins.

It offered redemption and solace. Slaves began to believe that they did indeed have souls and value beyond the monetary constraints of slavery. This conundrum would make the Black church a target of racial terror again and again well into the twenty first century. Literally hundreds upon hundreds of Black churches have been destroyed and vandalized over the centuries.

The first recorded attacks on Black Churches occurred at Emanuel African Episcopal Church in Charleston South Carolina. The very first Black Church founded in the Southern United States. The year was 1816.

The church quickly became a place where slaves could gather and worship freely and pray for the end of their oppressive conditions under white slavery. The White officials of Charleston took offense that their property would seek solace and the promise of a future without the lash and rape. In its infancy the good White officials decided to disrupt and raid the church taking into custody more than 140 individuals.

They were subsequently forced to pay fines and endure lashes.The church was harrassed twice more in the the years 1820 and 1821 with similar results. Finally in 1822 a White mob torched the church and executed 35 men.

The parishioners of Mother Emanuel would meet in secret like the christians during the Roman Empire.( It is interesting to note that Christianity was considered a subversive philosophy by the Romans.) Sounds familiar. Mother Emanuel would not be rebuilt until after the end of the Civil War.

This was to become the harbinger of a future filled with tears and terror for Black Christians across the whole of America both north and south. Hundreds and hundreds of Black Churches would fall under the weight of this reign of tyranny. Starting in 1825 the Black Christians were endlessly put upon and their churches were torched.

Between the years of 1825 and 1850 the Black Philadelphia community would suffer six separate desecrations of their places of worship. In 1829 the White racist citizens of Cincinnati tore through the Black sections destroying churches, schools and black places of business. The burning and destruction of Black Churches was initially a truly Northern occurrence because during the pre-Civil War era Southern whites didn’t allow Blacks to have organized relations of any sort for fear of rebellion and retribution that might come from such.

So it would become a national pandemic that would arise to keep both free Black people and enslaved Black people under the control of the greater White populace. Churches offered a separate place not in the purview or supervision of the Whites where Blacks could express themselves unmolested.

This scourge of Black Church desecration would flow down through the ages. More than eight hundred Black churches have been destroyed over a two hundred and forty year period. Starting in 1822 and continuing well into the twenty-first century.

In one period stretching from 1990 to 1999 over 487 Black Churches were targets of arson. Not all were successful. The ”Roll Call” includes churches large and small, famous and nondescript, urban and rural. It would encompass places like the great cities of Philadelphia and New York to the hills, valleys and dales of the rural hinterland.

No place was too small or too large. It was an American experience. The list is too voluminous to share in this humble and limited space. I will share a few examples across the centuries to illustrate the breadth and depth of this unspeakable thing:

1866 First Baptist Church Petersburg,Virginia

1868 Union Missionary Baptist Church Jefferson, Texas

1909 Carswell Baptist Church Millen, Georgia

1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma 17 Churches

1949 Birmingham, Alabama( Parsonage dynamited)

1955 St,James AME Lake City, South Carolina

1957 Allen Temple, Bessemer, Alabama

1958 Bethel Baptist Church Birmingham,Alabama

1962 St.Matthew”s Baptist Church, Macon,Georgia

1972 Carterville Baptist Church Reston,Virginia

1979 Second Wilson Church of Chester, Chester,South Carolina.

1993 Rocky Point Missionary Baptist Church Pike County, Miss

2008 Macedonia Church of God In Christ, Springfield ,Massachusetts

2019 Mount Pleasant Baptist Church Opelousas, Louisiana

This is just a brief snapshot and is by no means the total number of churches that have been destroyed. This characteristic of American White Supremacy grew so dramatically that the Clinton Administration was forced to establish the National Church Arson Task Force (NCATF). The result was the investigation of 297 acts of arson in 1996, 208 incidents in 1997 and 114 in 1998.

The numbers began to dramatically decrease under the scrutiny of the Federal Government. The local governments were either complicit or severely disinterested in solving these local crimes. The twenty-first century has had its share of Church burnings and mayhem. The pace has slowed but arsonists have still been active as late 2019.

We continue to bury our heads in the sands of platitudes and slogans while there are amongst our fellow citizens, a growing monster whose thirst and hunger can only be quenched by racial terrorism. Let us remember how we got here. It was the original sin of slavery and all that it entailed.

Down through the ages we have beaten back the vestiges of slavery and “Jim Crow”. It periodically raises its head. We as a nation have chosen most times to beat back this monster.

Let us not kid ourselves, we are in one of those times. Let us go forward and protect all places of worship. State and local governments must do a better job at enforcing the laws of their states when it comes to protecting its Black Citizens and their institutions. This has been a truly awful story to write. It almost seems unimaginable that the sanctity of churches could be an issue in a so-called Civil Nation. “LET’S NOT FORGET”

“The Worst Stories Ever Told” No.17, Vol. 1

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 16:28:09 GMT

White Mobs Rampage through Black Beaumont Community

By: Rene Childress

As we continue on our journey through the historical animus of American racial hatred one recurring theme constantly raises its hideous head. The white racists continually feel the need to hold all black people accountable for perceived wrongs committed by any black individuals against white people, real or imagined. The truly greatest perceived atrocity is always the sullying of White womanhood. On more than one occasion whole communities have been destroyed and uprooted by unsubstantiated rumors of some white woman being “ravaged” by some “Black Beast”.

This continuing historical caricature brings us to Beaumont , Texas in the Summer of 1943. Beaumont is located on the shores of the Neches River as it races toward the Gulf of Mexico. The flames of” World War ll” have engulfed the entire world.

The whole country has been mobilized. Industry is churning to keep up with the war effort. President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 outlawing discrimination in employment in the defense industries. The city of Beaumont benefits from defense contracts as the local Pennsylvania Shipyard swells into the largest shipyard in the country, eventually consisting of over 8500 souls.

The city of Beaumont and its adjacent Pennsylvania Shipyard become the nexus for several competing forces. The first of these competing forces is the competition for good paying jobs at the shipyard. These formerly white male only jobs were suddenly jobs for anyone who could do the work.

The white workers felt put upon because now they are forced to work alongside and compete with people below their “station”. The second competing force was that the infrastructure of the city couldn't keep up with the swelling numbers of both Black and white workers seeking employment in the shipyard and adjacent industries.

The local transportation is always overcrowded. Mind you it is still segregated. The colored section always shrinks as more white riders get on the bus forcing blacks to stand crowded together or walk to work.

One incident that demonstrates the absurdity of this competition occurred when a black military policeman Charles J. Reco was shot multiple times and was clubbed because his knees were in the white section of the bus.

The third competing force was the need for housing that was exacerbated by whites' continued imposition of segregated facilities. There were altercations without end. The population of Beaumont grew from 59000 in 1940 to more than 85000 in 1943.

This cauldron of competing racial strife spills over into sustained deadly violence on June 15,1943. There is a white woman who claims she has been raped by a black man. Word of this incident spreads quickly around the shipyard’s white workers. The white workers decide it their duty to take up the white woman’s honor and confront all the black workers at the yard. The mob eventually ballooned into 2000 hooligans looking for revenge.

They began attacking any black person they came upon. A rumor spread among the crowd that the authorities had the rapist under arrest. The crowd marched on the jailhouse gathering numbers as they went.

By the time this amoeba of white racists reach the jail house it has morphed into four thousand blood thirsty miscreants. The white woman could not identify any of the blacks in the lockup as her assailant. The crowd turns their anger towards the black sections of town.

They destroy over a one hundred homes. Black shipyard workers are forced to stay away from work until the National Guard is able to quell the fury of the mobs.The official numbers are three dead and fifty injured. The unofficial numbers are much higher.

Injuries are said to be in the hundreds. And the death toll is more than twenty five.No one is ever held accountable for the destruction to the homes and businesses destroyed by the mob. No one is ever charged for any deaths that occurred during this conflagration.

We see this again and again the ugliness of white racialism. IT HAS CONTINUED. IT STILL CASTS ITS SHADOW ACROSS GENERATIONS AND DECADES.

“Let Us Not Forget”

The Worst Story Ever Told,Number 16, Volume 1

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 17:28:42 GMT

“Thousands Flee For Their Lives From Murderous White Mobs in East St.Louis”

By: Rene Childress

I want to apologize for the recent lull in presenting these stories. Life always interjects itself into our human condition. I lost a dear friend and his children needed my counsel. This work is my passion and I want to continue on. So we begin again.

Our current Worst Story brings us to southern Illinois. A place called East Saint Louis ,Illinois. It is a small industrialized town just above the “Cotton Curtain”.

It was one of the way stations for black people attempting to escape the horrendous yoke of southern “White Supremacy” and its violent terrorist regime.

East Saint Louis is just 6 hours by car from Mississippi the hell hole that was and in some ways still one of the great bastions of racial animus. As the twentieth century began to turn over, blacks gave up on their places of birth and tradition as places where they could thrive and safely raise their families. They began migrating to other parts of the country where they hoped the shadow of the lash and the burden of unending terror would give way to the daylight of democracy and prosperity. These former slaves ventured far and wide in the search for better, more secure lives for themselves and their progeny.

It is 1917. The world is on fire in the throes of “The Great War”(WW1). Large numbers of the industrial cities in the Northern and Midwestern sections of the country were flush with job opportunities created because of the demand for U.S, goods and foodstuffs.

These cities had mostly unionized workforces. The entry of the United States into the European conflict created a labor shortage just as the need for war material began to escalate precipitously. These union jobs had always been white male jobs. The corporations who ran these industries saw an opportunity to replace their unionized workforce with a more pliant workforce of Blacks attempting to flee the indentured South.

Many of these corporations sent recruiters to the south promising jobs and transportation to welcoming communities where they could prosper and be secure from the terror that was the South.

Two thousand a week became the flow of African-Americans arriving in the fair city of East St. Louis during the spring of 1917. The economic pressure of these new migrating Americans would become a pressure cooker stirred by unscrupulous union officials and greedy corporate owners in the struggle against and for ever cheaper labor.

This cauldron eventually boiled over into one of the “ Worst Stories Ever Told” the “East St. Louis Race Riot” or as the NAACP called it “The East St. Louis Massacre”. This horrendous set of events began May 28,1917 after a union meeting of three thousand members descended on the City Fathers decrying the use of non union black workers to foster lower wages by recalcitrant Corporation owners.

This group eventually morphed into a lawless mob attacking any black person they came upon. Governor Frank Lowden called out the Illinois National Guard. They quelled this initial violence. The beast of racial animus having tasted the sweet taste of terror would not continue to be pent up without a true and forceful response from law enforcement.

This effort was not forthcoming not from local, state or federal authorities. As a consequence of this lack of will to do what needed to be done. The beast roared back consuming the whole of East St, Louis and its surrounding towns. It started July 1,1917 with several cars of white citizens driving through the African-American communities shooting into homes and cars. When an unmarked car carrying white detectives approached the African-American it was mistaken for white terrorists returning for another round of violence.

Several men from this community had armed themselves and were attempting to defend their homes. The two detectives were inadvertently shot and killed. Rumors spread far and wide. The thirst for blood and revenge would not be quenched until the entire African-American community would be purged from the city of East St. Louis.

The entire African-American populace was put upon. Women, men and children were murdered in their homes. Their houses were set ablaze. They were shot to pieces as they attempted to flee the flames. They were taken from trolley cars and beaten. White women took special relish in beating and disrobing African-American women trying to seek safety.

This carnival of mayhem raged for three days. It wasn’t until July 5,1917. Even after the national guard was called in, the violence continued. The guard had orders not to shoot the white law breakers and terrorists. There were rumors that several of the guard members joined in the frivolity of chasing people from their homes.

By the time some sense of calm returned to the streets of East S.Louis over six thousand souls had been displaced. Thousands had been attacked. Over two hundred were murdered. Over three hundred structures owned by African-American were destroyed.

There are witness reports of African-American women being stoned to death,while their infants were shot in the head. In the aftermath of these events thirty-five people were charged. Remarkably,twenty-five blacks were charged and convicted of serious crimes requiring prison. Unremarkably there were only ten whites who were charged and only five were ever convicted.

With all the atrocities and terror meted out by the white community of East St.Louis only five were ever held accountable. Two of the convicted whites were charged for murder because the bullet they used to kill a black man passed through his body killing a fellow white rioter. Other than a plaque commemorating these events the African-American population of East St.Louis has never had justice. This community lost their lives and their livelihoods. Their losses were and are devastating and generational. The State of Illinois owes them recompense for its failure to protect all of its citizens. This is truly a “Worst Story Ever Told”.

LET US NOT FORGET !

The Worst Stories Ever Told” Number 15,Vol.1

Sun, 28 Jul 2024 02:48:27 GMT

White Mobs in North Platte Chase African- Americanst out of Town.

By: Rene Childress

As we continue on our journey through this maelstrom of racial animus we find ourselves in the small far flung hamlet of North Platte, Nebraska. It is probably a hot muggy day. North Platte is where the North Platte river and the South Platte river converge and become the Platte river.

The summers are always muggy due to the moisture arising from this confluence of the two rivers. This Township was founded in 1866. It was initially the western end of the Union Pacific Railway.

It became cattle country and later an agricultural community. It also became a magnet for former slaves fleeing the horrible conditions of the oppressive southern regime of “Jim Crow”. By 1929 there were several hundred African-Americans residing in North Platte. Estimates from newspaper clippings at the time put the number between two and three hundred.

What cascades down on these poor wretched descendants of former slaves who are only looking for a safe haven to raise their families is simply unfathomable. Yet is just one more incident in a constant march toward incivility and brigandage.

It is July 13,1929. There has been a shooting.One Louis “Slim” Seeman has an altercation with two sheriff’s deputies. The altercation arises from an earlier date when Deputy Ed Green declares that Mr. Seeman is a public nuisance and must stay away from North Platte or be arrested.

Mr. Seeman didn’t stay away. He was confronted by two deputies. A gun fight ensued and deputy Green was shot.

Word went out and white mobs began to form all over town. One such group was able to corner Seeman at his chicken coop. It was shellacked with gasoline and set ablaze.

The record is sketchy he was either torched inside the coop or he was lynched. The good people of North Platte decided that all the African-Americans should pay for Seeman’s transgression. The mobs began beating and accosting any black person they came upon.

They began driving the African-American populace out of “Their Town”. The sheriff only half heartedly tried to quell the growing racial storm. Homes were broken into and ransacked. People were told they had to be out of town by 3:00 P.M.

Seeing that there was not going to be any relief or succor from law enforcement Black citizens began fleeing for their lives taking only what they could carry. They left by train. They left by automobiles and trucks. They left by horse and buggy. Many left on foot following the train tracks toward Omaha. Associated Press reported

“The first act of near violence was reported when four men captured a negro Saturday night ‘took him for a ride’ to the city limits and then ran him out of town, firing revolvers at his heel.” By sunrise July 14,1929 North Platte became an all White Town.

It is still to this day a virtually all White Town. The governor of Nebraska at that time Arthur Weaver tried to get local officials to allow blacks into North Platte. He found no takers. The local law enforcement refused to offer protection for anyone wanting to return.

There were only four arrests for unlawful assembly. Three were acquitted. One was never tried. We again see the state and local authorities are once again found wanton or unenthusiastic about pursuing justice for aggrieved African -Amnercains.

They lost everything. They had to start all over again. Generational foundations were continually being stripped from these people where they tried to start a new life. The State of Nebraska has not seen fit to address this or other grievances perpetrated in their fine state. We must keep these stories fresh. Let Us Not Forget

The Worst Story Ever Told, Number 14,Vol. 1

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 14:10:44 GMT

Two African-American Married Couples Are Shot Over Sixty Times In Walton County, Georgia

By: Rene Childress

Our current journey takes us to 1946 Georgia. World War II is over. Many of the African -American soldiers that have spent years in far off places fighting against tyranny and fascism are returning home. They believed like their fellow soldiers that they were fighting for democracy. Just like their forefathers returning from World War I ,they believed their efforts to overthrow the worst racist regimes in Europe and Asia would be the democratic elixir that would cure the hateful minds and hearts of their fellow americans. They believed that their efforts for strangers would win them those same rights and benefits back home. They were disappointed just like the African-American veterans returning from World War I.

The problem facing these returning veterans of World War II is that there was a continuing racial autocracy that was the lifeblood of southern culture and political tradition. White Southerners were not ready for their former property to be their equals. Not in politics, not in economic stature, not in culture would they allow their chattel to rise in status that would challenge their hegemony over the “Old South”. To understand the background that would bring us to the current “Worst Story Ever Told” certain facts need to be understood. In April 1946 the United States Supreme Court ruled that white only primaries were unconstitutional.

In the South including Georgia whomever won the Democratic primary was a shoe in to win the general election. So it became incumbent upon those interested in being elected to control who would vote in primaries. Quoting Time Magazine’s description of the 1946 electoral landscape of Georgia “ Gene Talmadge’s campaign had ripped the thin gauze of decency from the body of his state. Last week the nation saw the running sores beneath it.” Future Governor Talmadge’s campaign was filled with racist and violent vitriol. He even claimed that as a youth he beat and flogged sharecroppers who worked on his family’ farm.

He campaigned on the vile religion of “States Rights”. He campaigned against the interference from the Federal Government overreach. Elections were supposed to be run by states as they saw fit. This of course meant that blacks would not be allowed to vote.

Future Governor Talmadge ‘s need to cull rural votes drives the events we will be observing in this episode. We find ourselves observing the plight of two couples looking for work as sharecroppers. They are George Dorsey age 28 and his wife Mae Dorsey age 25 and Dorsey’s pregnant sister Dorothy Malcolm age 20 and her husband Roger Malcolm. Roger Dorsey is a returning veteran who spent five years in the South Pacific. The two couples were hired by J. Loy Harrison in early July.

Their fate takes a turn for the worse on a warm July 14th evening. The Malcolms Roger and Dorothy get accosted by a white farmer, Barnett Hester. They are told for some unknown reason that they must leave Hester’s property in an area popularly referred to as “Hester Town”. The Malcolms are in the middle of a rural area on foot about an hour east of Atlanta. Angry words are exchanged. Threats were made. Roger Malcolm and Barnett Hester get into a tussle. At some point Malcolm stabbed Barnett with an ice pick. Barnett’s relatives hold Roger for the authorities. Walton County Sheriff’s deputies Lewis Howard and C.J. Sorrells arrest Malcolm and take him to the county jailhouse. He is held for 11 days for attempted murder.

Based on a much later investigation it appears that two days after the Malcolm arrest there is a confluence of several white men meeting in Towler’s Woods near Monroe, Georgia. It is believed that the lynching of Roger Malcolm is hatched at this conclave. Future investigators believed during this moment that Malcolm’s fate was decided.

The conspiracy needed a lot of things to fall in place. First the judge of record has to reduce the charges and lower the bail to get Malcolm out into the open where he could be readily available to be kidnapped and murdered without openly involving the local law enforcement agencies. The first domino to fall was the lowering of the charges and reducing the bail to 600 hundred dollars. The second part of the scheme was to put in play someone to come up with the bail.

This was the sharecropping employer J Loy Harrison, a known Klan leader. He conveniently shows up on July 25, 1946 with the bail money with Mrs, Malcolm and the Dorsey couple in tow. Out of the goodness of his Klan heart he posts the bail to allow Malcolm to be free awaiting a trial he will never live to see. The next part of the scheme is to transport these two couples to a secluded area. J.Loy Harrison for some unknown reason takes a rarely used rural road on the return trip to his farm. He is unable to give a rational explanation why he drove out of the way down this rarely used road. Our group comes upon the entrance to the Moore’s Ford Bridge. Our group is met by several white armed men without masks on.

Based on the retelling of events by Harrison the mob is led by a “tall dignified looking man of about 65, wearing a broad-brimmed hat”. The men seized Roger Malcolm from the vehicle saying “we want that nigger”. According to Harrison the men pointed to Roger Dorsey and said “ We want you,too, Charlie”.

As they begin to drag the two men to the woods one of the women begins calling out the marauders by name entreating for mercy. Someone in the group yells “Git them bitches. Bring them over here. They know too much”. All four are led to the woods and are shot a total of sixty times. Their bodies are literally torn to pieces. Mr. Harrison claims that he cannot recognize any of his unmasked neighbors. The very same neighbors that one of the victims was able to call out by name. He claims that they let him go after the well dressed leader stepped in and told him to go on his way. After the mob sated their blood lust they unceremoniously tossed the bullet riddled bodies into a nearby riverbed .

The discovery of this grisly crime drew national attention and outrage. The current Governor at the time of lynching was Governor Ellis Arnall. He was a progressive Democrat that pushed for civil rights reform in his first term, while his opponent Eugene Talmadge referred to him as a “nigger lover”. Governor Arnall offered a 10,000 dollar reward for evidence leading to arrest and conviction, there were no takers.

President Turman involved the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI interviewed almost 3000 thousand people. They issued one hundred Grand Jury subpoenas. They were rebuffed at every turn. The entire town and surrounding areas’ people were either complicit or afraid to come forward, including the African-American community. The word has gone out if you talk you know what is going to happen to you and yours. The entire community kept its silence to this very day with only one exception. Clinton Adams who was ten years old at the time came forward after nearly 40 years. During a 2017 interview with Atlanta Journal Constitution he and a friend happened upon this lynching scene, stated “[We thought] we was gonna see them get beat up”. “It wasn’t funny after that”.

Again and again these stories end with the rupture and destruction of Black lives and no consequences for the perpetrators of these events. Lawlessnes ran unabated when it came to putting “Niggers” in their place. It is rich that we see today the cry for “Law and Order" from the same elements continually attempting to dismantle the civil rights we gained during the last sixty years. Are they not the same ones that have opened their arms to accept the modern day white supremacists. No one was ever arrested. No one was ever convicted. The community all knew who the villains were. The state and local authorities were complicit or maleficent or both. The families of these dead still cry out to this day for justice. “Let Us Not Forget”

The Worst Story Ever Told” No.13, Vol.1

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 17:26:17 GMT

“The True Racist Bombing Capital of the American South”

By: Rene Childress

If we only cast our eyes on the bombing violence of Birmingham we will miss the history of the city with perhaps the most virulent and despicable and rabid racist acts imaginable. As rabid as they were, the racist bombers of Birmingham were amateurs compared to the bombers that rocked Dallas for decades.

We will continue our journey to the Cosmopolitan city known as Dallas. The odyssey we are about to embark on requires not to look at just one incident or one period. It requires us to take a look at a thirty to forty year period to capture the true depravity of how African-Amercans in and around Dallas were continually terrorized and deprived of the ability to live their lives and own property. Can you imagine a time when to live without fear of dynamite in the hands of white terrorists being nonexistent? The bomb became the calling card of some white folks in Dallas. None were ever convicted. It appears that “good white people'' stood by and allowed it to happen. You can bet if the homes of white people were being bombed there would have been arrests.

I am again getting ahead of the story. We need to look back to the Texas origin story to understand why such vitriol exists toward the descendants of former slaves. Texas was formerly a state in the United States of Mexico(Estados Unidos Mexicanos). It began its trajectory toward becoming a bastion of people owning almost from its inception. The nature of cotton farming at the time and its lack of knowledge about fertilizing and crop rotation simply wore out the soil. The greed for wealth drove white Southerners to continually look for new fertile land to replace their over cropped and less productive soil. They began to turn their gaze toward the verdant lands just across the border into Mexico. Two problems existed with the move to Mexico. First it was land in another country. Secondly slavery had been outlawed in Mexico. This however didn’t stop the avaricious march of the southern slave owners.

They began encroaching on the lands nearest to them and moved further west. The geography of the Mexican nation allowed for these encroachments to go unchecked for years. There were no railroads. There was no telegraph. The southerners relied on the fact that there was no formal government close at hand. They began moving their chattel to the new “Promised Land”. As early as 1819 there were reports of African-American slaves being in Texas. The Mexican government in attempts to control its territory and its laws ran afoul of the slave owners occupying its eastern flank.

The current history of the Alamo and the fight for Texas independence is all a myth in service to the spread of slavery. The new white Texans wanted to keep their slaves and the free land stolen from Mexico. They sued for independence to preserve their right to enslave people. The Texans upon independence established themselves as a slaveholding nation from inception. They even for a time were secretly receiving African slaves directly from Africa and Cuba which was supposed to be illegal at the time. Its appetite was so ravenous for slave labor that by 1860 on the cusp of the Civil War the number of slaves swelled to one third of the population of Texas.

Slavery in Texas took on a special more insidious nature. Instead of it being a planter class phenomena it became more widespread and more hideous. Quoting a nineteenth century Belgian geologist visiting Texas that I found in the recently rereleased book “The Accommodation'' he observed “For every large old plantation of one or two hundred slaves, there are fifty small farms of ten or twenty slaves.These are the newly rich,the new slave masters who find pleasure in owning other men”. They became more invested in slavery and as a consequence more incensed when they lost their property(the slaves). Unlike the white farmers in the rest of the south these Texans felt a real loss. They were so undone as a result of the Civil War they refused to give up their slaves until six months after the war was over. They tried in every way to keep that free labor under their control.

Fast forward to twentieth century Dallas. This relationship between the descendants of former white slave owners and the descendants of slaves has always been contentious and horrendous. The story of Dallas is one of continual terror being rained down on the African-American Community in and around Dallas. By 1923 one out of every three eligible white males in Dallas was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. They became so vicious that the National Klan headquarters in Atlanta unsuccessfully tried to tone down their actions. Just two examples of this viciousness are enough to turn your stomach. They kidnapped an elevator operator who worked at the Adolphus hotel from his home. He was taken out to a secluded area where they proceeded to tear his back apart with a cowhide whip. Then, using acid proceeded to etch “KKK” on his forehead. They then dropped him off in the lobby of the Adolphus hotel. His crime was”having relations” with a white woman. The other horrendous act that disturbed the national office was the kidnapping and castration of an African-American physician for the same offense of relations with a white woman.

The Dallas Klan and white citizenry were unmoved by orders from Atlanta Klan headquarters. They continued on unabated.The lynch rope, murder and bombing became the tools to keep blacks in their place. Dallas became a cowardly craven warren of racial terrorists. The bombing of black people’s homes and businesses became a very popular way for whites to show their brotherly love for their “Niggers”.

The first victim of the bombing campaign that would stretch out over a thirty year period began in 1922. A Mr. James Lewis had just moved into a recently built home. He had been warned by his new white neighbors that he should not move in. His house was destroyed. No one was ever charged or convicted. Mr. Lewis was never compensated for his loss. The next poor soul that was allowed to be victimized by the “Good People '' of Dallas refusing to address the racist elements in their midst was Miss Kate Garrett. Trying to live the American dream she purchased a home too close to the all white“Old South Dallas” neighborhood. Her home was dynamited November 6,1927 a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Thankfully no one was home . No one was ever charged or convicted. She lost her home. Miss Garrett was never compensated. This was just the beginning of a consistent program to keep the African-American community from rising to middle class and property owning status. During the 1930’s there were intermittent explosions all around Dallas. The bombings are tied to black workers trying to unionize.

Beginning in 1940 the worst spree of “ Terrorists” bombings began anew.

October 1,1940

October 24,1940

October 26,1940

December 3,1940

December 21,1940

January 13,1941 in the morning

January 13,1941 early afternoon

January 17,1941

February 3, 1941

February 11,1941

March 6,1941

April 14,1941

May 8, 1941

All these listed crimes were never resolved. No one was ever charged or convicted. None of these property owners were ever compensated for the loss of their homes. The lack of legal protection only exacerbated this racist terror. Dallas continued to be a center of racial animus into the 1950's. Early into the year of 1950 the bombing campaign re-energized itself. The first packaged dynamite to be ignited was at the home of a Mr.Horace Bonner. His house was demolished.

On April 3,1950 a second bomb occurred at the home of Garland Mathis just two blocks from Bonner residence. Continuing the campaign of bombing included the June 8,1950 destruction of Mr. Robert Shelton only hours after his family had moved into their new home. On July 8 ,1950 an unoccupied house in South Dallas was totally destroyed by a dynamite mechanism.

The bombings expanded to include the attempted bombing of Mrs.Birdie Mae Sharp. SHE WAS AT HOME AT THE TIME. She was able to interrupt the would-be bombers. She ran them off with her pistol in hand. Police officers responding to shots fired arrived in time to defuse the bomb. There were a total of thirteen bombings of African-American homes in and around Dallas proper during the 1950-51 period.

There were no convictions.

There was never a hint of compensation from the city or the state. Good people lost their homes because of their skin color. Dallas was and continues to be a segregated town. Every Dallasite knows what neighborhood they are assigned to live based on their skin color even to this day. All those lost homes and resultant generational wealth have created a giant chasm in the outcomes of black and white Dallasites.

To this day this story of Dallas remains hidden in the myth that the white people of Dallas were better than their crude cousins in Birmingham,Alabama and Way Cross, Georgia and Little Rock, Arkansas and Jacksonville, Florida. This is a story worth repeating over and over again. Until the state of Texas and the city of Dallas come to grips with this history we will truly never have a free and democratic multiracial society.

Compensation and recognition are the balm that will heal these wounds. “ Let us Not Forget”

“The Worst Story Ever Told” No. 12, Vol.1, (A series)

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 17:23:12 GMT

White Supremacist Butchers Black parishioners At Mother Emmanuel

By: Rene Childress

We Americans have always held places of worship as somehow above the fray. They are sanctuaries of repose and worship. This has never been extended to Jewish or African-American worshipers. The African-American church in particular has been a consistent and favorite target for white supremacist violence in America.

Our current story is about Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina. A church that is the oldest African-American church in the deep south. It was founded in 1814. Its history includes it being the worship see of Denmark Vessey.

In the aftermath of the lynching of Denmark Vessey the church was burned downed. The reason for his hanging and the burning of the church was the supposed uprising that was to occur on June 17,1822. This has become an anniversary to remember its founding members and its first church structure. The church was rebuilt.

In 1834 the congregation along with all the other black christians in Charleston were not permitted to worship together. They had to resort to how the old christians did in Roman times they had to meet in secret. Only after the union armies occupied Charleston were black christians able to worship in the open again. So much for following the good book. Slavery was king and white racism was the succor of white christians. Excuse me, I digress.

Fast forward to June 17,2023. We find ourselves observing a warm humid day. The expected temperatures are to reach into the high nineties,the humidity is already at 70% by 9:00 am.The parishioners are finishing up their weekly bible study. They have a young visitor in their midst. He is a stranger. Being good christian folks they accept the young man’s entreaty to join in their service. Unbeknownst to the congregants they had allowed a white supremacist terrorist to gather with them. I will not use his name.

He is a young white male with dish water blond hair. As the meeting is breaking up he proceeds to shoot 10 people multiple times with hollow point bullets. He initially takes aim at an 87 year old grandmother Mrs Suzie Jackson. Her Grandson 26 year old TYwanza Sanders attempts to shield his grandmother and becomes the first victim of this racist fiend.

He continues shooting and reloading multiple times until he is out of bullets. A few survive by playing dead as they lie among their fellow worshipers. They are witness to the foul racist diatribe that proceed from his spittle filled mouth. He exclaimed “I have to do it.You rape our women and you’re taking our country and you have to go”. He tells the dying and wounded congregants “Y’all want something to pray about? I’ll give you something to pray about”.

He escapes the whole incident with such precision and forethought it only takes a matter of minutes for the whole episode to unfold. He planned it down to every detail including making sure that South Carolina state senator Rev. Clementa C. Pickney was there. He made sure to attack this historical church and congregation on the 193rd anniversary of the supposed still born Denmark Vessey uprising. He left nine dead and one grievously wounded in his wake. He left a community forever reminded about their lack of safety in a society that still harbors and nurtures fiends of this kind.

We find ourselves again witnessing another outrage of innocents being brutalized simply because of their skin pigment. How does a twenty something white kid born in the twenty first century come to believe that it is his duty to protect white womanhood from the” marauding black beasts” that roam the countryside looking for white women to ravage. How does he believe that these African- Americans are not part of this country and have been here since 1619. His words belay the mantra that are on all white supremacists’ “go to” about how to make America great again. How do we continue to see these words and eventual actions they bring about and not see that the problem is America not addressing the question of race. It is always just under the surface.

This assassin was caught and convicted. Gee thanks. A lot of good it will do for the families of those killed. A lot of good it will do for the parishioners of Mother Emanuel who will never be able to enter their tabernacle and not feel uneasy as they go to worship. A lot of good that will do for the greater African-American population at large.

The answer is we need to expose our children, all of them both black and white to the horrors that were our past and try to show them a different future. If we keep hiding the truth from them we will keep getting the same results. Prevention is the only balm that will heal our national wounds. Another worst story that did not have to happen. “Let Us Not Forget”

The Worst Story Ever Told N.11, Vol. 1

Sat, 29 Jun 2024 00:05:39 GMT

”Black Folks Are Run Out of Catcher, Arkansas.”

By: Rene Childress

This next episode is from a family story passed down through generations in my family. Part of my family tree has roots that stretch back to a small “Cotton Town '' in Arkansas called of all things Cotton Plant, Arkansas.

This is one of the many stories that our elders would speak about in hushed tones. Our story does not begin or end in the town of Cotton Plant which has its own terrible stories. It begins about two hundred miles west of my family ancestral seat.

It takes place along a sediment filled bottomland outcropping that the Arkansas river left behind as it changed course. This became good fertile farmland. It also had another distinction that would eventually cause its residents to become fodder for the never ending racial violence that has plagued African-Americans even to this day.

Starting from before the end of slavery it is an area that is almost exclusively African-American. After Emancipation the former slaves began their new lives in this area as property owners and farmers. They became shopkeepers and tradesmen. They cared for and raised their families. They wed their lovers. They baptized their children.They buried their loved ones. They lived their lives. This all would meet a cataclysmic destiny with the evil proclivities of white American racism.

It is December 1923. Three days after Christmas. A tornado of racial animus descends upon this little community of forty or so black families that disrupts their lives for generations.

A twenty five year old white woman named Effie Latimer is found shot in the back with a shotgun. She has reportedly also been outraged by several men (Outraged is the euphemism used in polite southern Christian terms to describe the act of rape). She was discovered by one of her fellow neighbors fighting against the grip of death's embrace.

Shortly before her slipping into this embrace it is reported that she awoke long enough to name one of her attackers. She names a local black man from the black settlement around Catcher. This gentleman’s name was William Betts (aka “Son”).

He is apprehended forthwith by the local authorities. As the case progresses two more arrests occur. These arrests include a man named Charles Spurgeon Rucks and a thirteen year old named John Henry Clay.

While these persons are in custody Mr Rucks was taken into the woods to be interrogated by a deputy sheriff named W.A. Bushmaier. They return from this little foray in the woods with the Deputy Sheriff claiming that Rucks had confessed in his presence to the crime. We don’t know what transpired in the woods.

What truth could be found in the isolation of the woods. God only knows. But you can bet there were some torture or other nefarious goings on that occurred.

The fever of the lynch rope is always just under the surface awaiting a chance to rear its ugly illegal head. All it needed was the germ of the suspicion of a black man violating a white woman. The conditions were perfect for a pogrom.

Mobs began to swell looking for vengeance. They rampaged through the streets of Catcher demanding that the “Niggers” be turned over. To the lynch mob’s dismay the men had been transferred to a more secure location.

One had been transferred to the lock-up in Fort Smith which had a more secure facility. The other two were shipped to Little Rock for safekeeping. This riled the mob to no end. Their thirst for vengeance could not be quenched at either jail lockup. So they turned their ire on the rest of the black populace of Catcher.

The date of December 30th 1923 marks the beginning crescendo of unspeakable attacks on any black person that white mobs came upon. They burned homes. They destroyed the markers in a black graveyard. They ransacked black businesses.

We may never know the number of victims that were murdered. Rumors abound that many people were slaughtered and thrown into the rapid flowing Arkansas River. The 65 year old father of Mr. Rucker was executed by” Special Deputy Sheriff” Frederick Creekmore (deputized to control the mob violence) . Circumstances of the killing were never investigated.

The African-American community of Catcher ran for their lives. The legal officials were in league with the terrorists. No one was coming to help.

Leaving was the only option to save their families. One group of eleven men decided to gather at one homestead armed against the mobs. Being confronted with this armed resistance, the mob let the Governor, Thomas McRae and the Arkansas National Guard displace and arrest the defendants.

The people that were trying to protect themselves were eventually charged and convicted of “Night Riding” a 1909 law meant to curtail lynching and the Ku Klux Klan. (How Rich)

The way this story ends is no one is ever convicted for the murders, property destruction,beatings and terrorizing that forces these people from their homes. The Van Buren Press-Argus reported that the pogrom induced march out of Catcher “continued until that settlement was strictly a white settlement”.

The eleven so-called Night Riders were eventually freed by the Arkansas State Supreme Court after a year in prison. Upon their release,they were greeted by a decimated community. While they were incarcerated the entire community had been forced off their land by white hooligans backed up by both the state and local law enforcement.

To this day the state of Arkansas has not seen fit to forthrightly address the theft of these people’s property and livelihoods. Again as in similar stories we have been visiting white property owners seemed to increase their holdings as black people were forced to flee. There never has been a single attempt to make these families whole.

African-Americans playing by the rules were once again victimized by the ugly proclivities of some of our white citizens. It is up to us who believe in the American Dream to keep these stories ever present so that we can truly say “Never Again”

The Worst Story Ever Told No.10,Vol. 1

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 15:58:09 GMT

“Racist Massacre at Tops Supermarket “

By: Rene Childress

We will be continuing on our journey through the maelstrom that is the plight of African-Americans in post Civil War America. I say this because the elements that plunged this Nation into the thunderclap of civil war have not been resolved. The descendants of former slaves are still to this day being brutally victimized simply because of the color of their skin. We can look back over more than a hundred and fifty years and we cannot find a decade of our history where there is not a mass murder or the lynching of African-Americans.

So to keep our conversation cogent with this premise, I have chosen to look into the twenty-first century. Our current episode takes us to the city of Buffalo, New York.

It is a warm 79 degree spring day. The skies are partly cloudy. It is a regular Saturday afternoon around 2:30 PM.

The date is May 14, 2022. The staccato of gunfire shatters the solemnity of this warm spring day. Four customers at the “Tops Friendly Market “ are summarily executed in the parking lot as they were entering and exiting their vehicles in the parking lot.

Their assailant turns his attention to the store and the occupants inside. He enters the store and begins hunting down and shooting the customers in the store all the while mouthing racial slurs against African-Americans. The final toll is thirteen shot, 10 dead. All the dead are African-Americans.

He is armed with an AR-style rifle. It has been illegally modified to accept high capacity magazines. He has written on one of his weapons the racial slur “Nigger”. He is finally subdued by the Buffalo police after his shooting spree. He leaves in his wake ten people that will never be in the bosom of their family and friends.

They are: Celestine Chaney a 65 year old grandmother of nine and a greatgrand-mother of nine who along with her sister were at the “Tops’ market looking for small dessert cups, Andre MacNeil 53 years old was at “Tops'' buying a birthday cake for his three year old son, Katherine Massey 72 years old a community minded block club member Matriarch was dropped off by one of her relatives to do her Saturday shopping, Ruth Whitfield 86 years old was also dropped off to do some shopping after coming from her daily visit to her husband of 68 years who has been confined to a nursing home, Roberta Drury 32 years old was at “Tops” to shop for the family of her adoptive brother who is recovering from Leukemia, Aaron Salter 55 years old, a respected pillar of the community a retired Buffalo P.D. lieutenant lost his life confronting the heavily armed assailant, Heyward Patterson 67 years old, a driver was picking up groceries for a client when he was gunned down, Pearl Young 77 years old a mother, grandmother and church mother was dropped off at “Tops'' after attending Saturday service to pick up a few things for Sunday dinner, Margus Morrison 52 years old was making a quick stop by “Tops” to stock up on some goodies for the weekly family movie night, Geraldine Talley 62 years old the mother of three stopped by “Tops” to get some luncheon meats for sandwiches.

They are all at different ages and stages in their lives. They all had different lives and outcomes and experiences. The two things they had in common on this tragic day was their skin color and their assailant.

I will not use the assailants name. His description is a white male. He is 18 years of age. He lives over two hundred miles away from Buffalo in almost exclusively white township.

He traveled three and a half hours twice to Buffalo. One trip was to conduct surveillance looking for the best killing field. The second time to carry out his heinous and cowardly deed.

This young man is a product of our country refusing to address the institutional and cultural realities held over from slavery and its resultant segregation. America has not truly had a come to Jesus moment like the Germans. They don’t hide their racial atrocities. There are monuments large and small all over Germany indeed all over Europe exposing what happened during the rise of Fascism and Holocaust. The Germans teach their children never again.

Our current approach is to stick our children’s heads in the sand and complain that these “Worst Stories Ever Told” are unfit for childrens’ ears. Some among us feel white children will believe they are guilty for their ancestors’ actions. How ridiculous.

We should seize the narrative and tell them that right alongside the white nationalist there were also the true forefathers and torchbearers of democracy.

Our true story is that America has always been a beacon for freedom. We have also always had an undercurrent that has consistently been undemocratic and racist. It continually raises its head through the generations. We can only ensure that this beacon burns brightly by highlighting our ugly underbelly not by ignoring it. On to the next story.

The Worst Stories Ever Told” Number 9, Vol. 1

Mon, 10 Jun 2024 18:37:20 GMT

Slaughter in a South Texas Hamlet

By: Rene Childress

Our current journey returns us to the beginnings of the Twentieth Century. We find ourselves observing the Hamlet of Slocum, Texas. This sleepy little community of the descendants of former slaves that have coalesced into a cultural and economic entity where several of these former slaves have become property owners and shopkeepers.

They stay to themselves because to do otherwise is to expose themselves to the white terrorists that are running amok through the countryside. Several of these Slocum inhabitants have been prospering unmolested for about a twenty year period. The enclave is predominantly African-American.

This community will find itself engulfed in a maelstrom of racist murder and rape.

The backstory to our current look back is that the area surrounding Slocum has been a hotbed of racial violence against blacks. Our current episode begins on July 29,1910. The previous six months leading up to this date were freighted with “executions of African-Americans by white mobs on allegations with no trials or due process.

Everyone was on edge because any black person could be next.

It is a hot summer muggy morning. Two men square off regarding a debt. One is a white farmer named Reddin Alvord. The other gentleman is an African-american named Marsh Holley, a local black businessman.

Mr Alvord was supposedly attempting to collect a debt. They have a disagreement about the debt and repayment arrangements. Mr. Holley disagrees about the arrangement that Mr. Alvord was suing for. An argument ensues.

Mr Alvord decided that this uppity “Nigger “ needed to be taught a lesson. He shot and killed Mr. Holley. Once Mr. Alvord realized what he had done he returned to his side of town and began complaining that the “Niggers” are riled up and are planning to attack any whites in revenge for his killing of Mr Holley.

A mob begins to stir. White riders are sent to the surrounding white towns in Anderson and Houston counties to fuel the already growing racial maelstrom. As this orgy of bloodlust continues to build we meet another actor in this unfolding drama.

His name is Jim Spurger. He was said to be a prominent white citizen around the adjacent white communities surrounding Slocum. Before the events of July 29, 1910, he had been agitating against the fact that the local road construction company building new roads had decided to hire an African-American to recruit workers for the coming roadwork. He believed that this was a job best awarded to a white man.

He saw his chance to correct this power imbalance by whipping up his fellow citizens into a murderous frenzy.

What finally transpires is the wholesale rape and murder of the inhabitants of Slocum. People's homes were burned. Men, women and children were gunned down with the relish and joviality of a carnival.

These people were chased into the woods and hunted like game. Many families were found slaughtered strewn among the wilds with their belongings. They were shot and left to be carrion for the buzzards and wild things.

The numbers of people killed vary because the white press tried to whitewash the deeds of those terrible two days of carnage, officially claiming the death toll somewhere between eight and twenty-two were murdered. The real death toll was more than two hundred.

The real story of the days’ events is best told by Sheriff Black while addressing the press On July 31,1910 when he said it would be “difficult to find out how many were killed” because they had been “scattered all over the woods”. He further told the New York Times “Men were going about killing Negroes as fast as they could find them” He further stated “These Negroes have done no wrong that I can discover”.

In the days and months following these awful events there was a sham trial where seven indictments were summarily dismissed.

In the aftermath of this carnage these former slaves were scattered to the fore winds never to return. Slocum went from being a majority black hamlet to today where the black population is only 7%. Their properties were stolen. They have never been compensated for their losses.

This yet another example of black people being robbed and deprived of generational wealth that comes with property ownership. This loss of property coincided with several of Slocum’s white residents mysteriously increasing their personal property ownership.

We must continue to address these outrages. There is a direct through line to where we find the status of African-Americans rooted in how we can correct and compensate and advance this experiment called the United States. We have continually been denied the tools needed to create and maintain generational health and wealth.

“ Let us Not Forget”

“The Worst Story Ever Told” Number 8, Vol 1

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 15:24:00 GMT

Two more unpunished Murders In Birmingham, Alabama.

By: Rene Childress

In this story we will examine one of the most awful and dastardly accounts of racial depravity recorded in a string of horrendous actions occurring in Alabama during the movement to secure civil rights for African-Americans.

We find ourselves on a late fall Sunday morning . It is September 15, 1963. It is a warm sunny day by all accounts. We see four little black girls named Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair and Carol Robertson preparing to go to Sunday School.

They are getting their hair done. They have wiped off their shoes. They have picked out their garments for the day.

These were the days that little girls wore frilly little gloves and patent leather shoes. Sunday school was not just a worship service for young people, it was a social gathering place for young people in the Lord to meet and enjoy each other's company.

Neither they nor their families would think that this would be their last day on this earth. Their tortuous deaths that day would be the cymbal sounding around the world that things have to change. Of course I am referring to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

That day was like any other Sunday. There were two hundred expected attendees for Sunday service. The children always go a little early to attend Sunday School. These children going to learn about the Lord were literally torn to shreds by a bomb placed in the basement. Four were killed and twenty-two were wounded.

This is where the current story begins There are two other murders that day that were committed by avowed white racists. This is the story of two forgotten young African-American boys who were dismissively shot and killed as if they were targets on a shooting range.

Their names are Virgil Ware and Johnny Robinson. These two young boys lost their lives during the aftermath of the 16th Street Church bombing. We will first look at the murder of Johnny Robinson.

He was with a group of his friends when they were confronted by a carload of white people displaying confederate flags, yelling racial insults and throwing debris at them. The teens obviously took offense and began throwing the trash back at them. What occurs next is horrendous.

A police cruiser appears and the children decide to run away. An officer who is in the backseat of the car sticks his shotgun out the window and fires at the kids. He strikes and kills Johnny Robinson in the back.

The officer who shoots Johnny in the back is a 48 year old man named Jack Parker. He is a well known outspoken white supremacist. He is never charged with the shooting of a young teen for throwing some debris back at the whites who threw it at him.

Johnny Robinson was taken forever from his family”s bosom. Jack Parker continued to live into old age unmolested or unrepentant for his actions this fateful day.

The other young person that was stolen from his family was 13 year old Virgil Ware. He started out the day leaving home riding on the handlebar of his brother’s bicycle. They were on their way to the junkyard looking for parts to fix his bike.

They are unaware of the bombing that had taken place. They crossed paths with some white teenagers who had spent the morning at the headquarters of the “National States Rights Party” . These two white teens decided to meander through the neighborhood together.

These young white supremacists named Larry Joe Sims and Michael Lee Farley are on the hunt for some “Niggers”. They come across Virgil and his brother. Sims shot Virgil in the face.

He later claimed he was firing into the ground to scare them. Sims was eventually charged with first degree murder. He was ultimately convicted of second degree manslaughter.

Farley confessed to second degree manslaughter. The judge sentenced them to two seven months in prison. The sentences were later changed to two years probation. Again another African-American family was victimized by white justice.

These two youngsters were just collateral damage among the carnage of this horrible day. Two more on a long list of losses. Let us remember them. This was the worst day for all the African-American families of Birmingham.

They knew that they can’t protect their children from their fellow white citizens.They live with gun happy police officers. They live with terrorists with nicknames like “Dynamite Bob '' (Robert Chambliss)the progenitor of at least 21 bombings including the 16thStreet Baptist Church. The community of Birmingham has for several years received the distinction of being nicknamed Bombingham.

This is another terrible story. Another reason we can’t simply move on!

The worst Story Ever Told Number 6,Vol.1

Sat, 01 Jun 2024 19:53:29 GMT

James Byrd is Drugged to Tathers By White Supremacist Trio

By Rene Childress

I have been purposely carrying you with me as we crisscross our historical timeline. I have been using stories from our past and more current eras. By using this vehicle I had hoped to dissuade those of you who have bought into the notion that racism is somehow a thing of the past and we need to quit addressing it and simply move on.

Racism is alive and well as these stories continue to demonstrate. There are many of us who would like to believe that the ugly and miserable effects of racism have somehow magically disappeared. The statistics of poverty and poor education outcomes and lack of health care are somehow the result of black people being lazy and recalcitrant.

They are really the results of the continuing systematic and cultural racism that is a foot in the United States of America. There are those among us that believe Affirmative Action is no longer necessary (many are the same people that opposed it originally by the way) because we have achieved a race neutral society, a truly colorblind nirvana. These good citizens refuse to see the monsters that walk amongst us and cast a wide shadow that frighten and concern a black person or family that becomes stranded by the side of the road.

Our current story begins as the twentieth century slips into the ether of time and begins the dawning of the new century. It is June 7,1998 we find ourselves on a lonely road just outside Jasper,Texas. We see James Byrd walking down the road on his way home. We see a pickup truck ambling along with three young white men who are out for a good time.

They happen upon James Byrd striking out for home. The young men are members of the community of Jasper. They are white. This is important for this story.

It is their whiteness that is the essence of the story. It is their whiteness that has blinded them so much that they cannot see the humanness of James Byrd that they are about to strip him of. They cannot see the pain and suffering that their actions are about to cause his family and community.

The trio, Shawn Berry, Lawrence Brewer and John King, spy Mr. Byrd walking along the road on his way home. A plan quickly arises that this is an opportunity to sate their unsatisfied bloodlust against their desired victims of choice: a lowly black person out alone.

Shawn Berry offers to give Mr. Byrd a ride home . Mr. Byrd gets in the back of the pickup truck because he knows Shawn Berry from around town and assumes he was friendly. He is never seen again alive.

A witness put him in the back of the pickup truck. What occurred following his accepting this ride home would once again shock the nation. Maybe the nation needs to no longer claim to be so shocked because these events have occurred continually without abatement across all the decades of the last century.

I dare you to find a decade where these ghastly stories do not arise.

James Byrd after accepting a ride from these three young men is put upon in the most horrendous and inhumane ways imaginable. He had his face painted black. He was beaten. He was kicked. He was defecated on. He was urinated on. He was spat on. He was finally bound to the back of a pickup truck and dragged to death.

The autopsy report suggests that he was still alive as they drug him along the road. Death occurred when his head hit a culvert along the road separating his head and one arm from the rest of his body. After their orgy of racism they dropped his tattered body off in front of a cemetery.

They continued on with the rest of their day. Even stopping by a barbecue. In this case law enforcement acted swiftly and responsibly. All three men were eventually tried and convicted.

The Byrd family truly gets no solace from the fact that the murderers were caught. They would rather have their son, brother and father in their family bosom. Why does this keep happening?

We have seen enough of these cases to understand that this is a systematic problem that requires systematic solutions. We need to tell our children that racism is wrong. We need to teach them the truth about how these things came about.

Why would three young white men at the closing of the twentieth century be repeating the crimes that their ancestors were carrying out during the dawn of twentieth century and before. Is it in their DNA? I think not. It is in the DNA of the culture and the society that shaped them. I do not believe that God makes evil people. I believe that evil and racist people are made by the environmental triggers that surround them as they mature.

The Worst Story Ever Told(A series) Number 5 Vol.1”

Sat, 25 May 2024 18:04:00 GMT

Murder of the Walker Family

By Rene Childress

By the beginning of the twentieth century some African-Americans had begun to accumulate land as independent farmers. They began to compete with the more well established white farmers. Many of them began to prosper and would not work for impoverishing wages. They were looked upon as uppity “Niggers”.

This is where we find ourselves for our next episode of “The Worst Story Ever Told”.

We find ourselves in the “Grand Old Bluegrass State” of Kentucky. During the beginning of early planting season in1908 poor white farmers in Fulton County,Kentucky and Lake and Obion counties became a bastion of Klu Klux Klan activity. They initially organized in opposition to the Western Tennessee Land Company which had purchased a majority of the Reelfoot Lake with plans to use it for cotton planting.

The family owned farmers were opposed to the introduction of corporate farms that would put them out of the cotton business. The locals who had been using this lake for fishing and cultivating around its verdant soil shoulders would no longer have access to this free entity.

The night riders in their zeal to keep this land in local use decided that they would not only keep Western Tennessee Land Company off this land. They decided that their uppity “Nigger” problem could be addressed as well. Thus began a reign of terror stretching from southeast Kentucky through the western Tennessee. There were numerous beatings,burnings and lynchings aimed at driving the African-americans from their lands.

By the Dawn of the twentieth century a Mr.David Walker had acquired 22 acres outside the hamlet of Hickman. He worked this farm with his wife and family. The Walker family included five children of varied ages including an infant in arms.

One day, Mr. Walker came into conflict with a white male while conducting business in Hickman. This altercation did not go unnoticed by the Kluxers. They arrived at his home in short order.

Fifty white sheeted and armed men presented themselves to the doorstep of the Walker domicile demanding that Mr. Walker had to go with them. He refused to cede to their demands. The cowardly menagerie of outlaws proceeded to torch the Walker homeplace with coal oil.

Walker came out in hopes of saving his family. The mob laughed and cursed him as they riddled his body with bullets. Hearing her husband's entreaties the wife rushed out with her baby in her arms hoping against hope that maybe seeing an infant might cull their blood lust. She was grossly mistaken about any sense of humanity in this craven crowd of cowards.

They opened fire upon her personage, ripping her and her young child to shreds. As the flames of fire began to lick and crackle three more of the Walker children rushed from the burning house to be met with a fusillade of gunfire. The final Walker child, the eldest son, was coaxed to come out by the mob.

He refused to come out, understanding that it would be better to be consumed by flames than being delivered into the hands of men known for sadistic and depraved proclivities. Several hundred black families were driven out of their properties never to be allowed to return or be compensated for their losses. The murderers of the Walker family were never charged or convicted as was the custom of whites killing blacks in our history.

Another story in a long litany of stories that we should not forget. I believe we should take up the confederate slogan “Lest We forget “ and give it a new life truth about the real South and not the Antebellum Fairy Tales of the benevolent plantation life.

“The Worst Story Ever Told” Number 7, Vol.

Sat, 25 May 2024 18:00:10 GMT

The Klan Massacre of Ocoee African-Americans

By Rene Childress

We are returning to the early part of the twentieth century that has become my pattern to continue tying past white racial perdition that has continually been meted out to African-American in the United States well into the twentieth-first century. We will focus our attention on the small Hamlet of Ocoee Florida in Orange County, Florida.

Since the turn of the century there were several successful black farmers that have attained property and are prospering as independent farmers. The Klan has reinvented itself as a modern version of its former self as a terrorist paramilitary force in this part of Florida. The rosters of the Klan are laden heavily with law enforcement officers.

The best way to view this horrible racial orgy is to examine some of the main characters and see how their outcomes materialized.

The first characters we want to observe are Mose Norman and July Perry, two prosperous African-American farmers residing around the Ocoee Hamlet. They are part of a group that were attempting to register African-Americans to vote.

They actively persuaded 78 black citizens to register to vote. They even paid the poll tax for the souls that didn’t have the funds to qualify for election rolls.

Fast forward to the November 1st, 1920 election. The streets around the town square are filled daily with Ku Klux Klan demonstrations denouncing blacks being allowed to vote. There are open threats to anyone black or white that attempt to aid blacks in their attempt to exercise their rights as citizens to vote in a national election.

Both Norman and Perry are anathema to what white Southerners want to see and hear from their black neighbors. On election day Norman presents himself to the local polling officials. He is turned away. Several other black voters are also turned away.

The polling officials claim that he and the other blacks are not on the roll. Norman knows that they are registered to vote including paying the poll tax. Unperturbed he gets into his car and drives to see his friend who is a federal judge for the Southern District of Florida.

Judge Cheney instructs Mose Norman to return to the polling station and get the names of all the officials that are refusing him the exercise of his right to vote. The poll workers refuse his entreaties. A mob begins to gather and forces him to flee.

Norman seeks safe harbor with his friend July Perry.

The mob grows and is whipped into a frenzy by Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Salisbury who is a leading light of the reconstituted Ku Klux Klan. The mob moves from house to house in the black section of town searching for Norman.

They arrive at the Perry house, They demand that July Perry come out and answer for the actions of his friend Norman. He refuses and a gun battle ensues.

Perry's wife and daughter were wounded. Perry surrendered to protect his family and was taken into custody. It turns out that Norman had left the Perry household. He has never been heard of again in Florida.

Mr. Perry was removed from the custody of the legal authorities and lynched within eyesight of Judge Cheney’s house. His wounded wife and daughter were transported to Tampa to keep them safe from Klan activity in and around Ocoee.

What transpires next is the wholesale terror of beatings and killings and burnings meted out to the black people of Ocoee. It is so complete and awful that the Ocoee black part of town becomes empty out of its entire black population. The Ku Klux Klan and its fellow travelers burn down over thirty homes,two churches and a Masonic Lodge.

Every Black family in Ocoee was forced to flee for their lives,hiding in the forest and wilds. By the 1930’s Ocoee became an all white Sundown town. There is not a single African-American residing in Ocoee for the next sixty years. All the black property owners lost their property because the government refused to protect its citizens from Klan activity.

The other character we observe is Lt. Col. Samuel Salisbury, a West Point Graduate. During this pogrom he is a former police chief from Tampa, a leading member of the American Legion, a member of the Masonic tradition and a leading member of the Ku Klux Klan.

He is wounded when trying to capture Mose Norman. He survives his wounds and later serves two terms as mayor of the town that he helped empty out of its African-American inhabitants. He not only survives, he spends the rest of his life being a beacon of White Supremacy in this part of Florida.

The good old boy Colonel lives to age 84 becoming a grandfather and great-grandfather never having paid for the misery he helped foist upon his fellow black Americans. He and his fellow white citizens take control of all the properties that were left behind without ever providing just compensation.

What does justice look like for the displaced, murdered and disenfranchised citizens of Ocoee ?

How do we address the failures of the state and local governments that continually lament about bad actors and claim the moral high ground while serving African-Americans platitudes that it wasn’t us?

That it happened in the past. We need to move on. The problem is the mass murder and lynching continues on into the twenty-first century. Our journey continues.

“The Worst Story Ever Told” Number 4,Vol.1

Fri, 17 May 2024 19:51:42 GMT

Ben Chester White Murdered in Natchez Mississippi.

By Rene Childress

The Ben Chester White story starts with some members of the Ku Klux Klan hatching a hair brained scheme to murder the Late Martin Luther King Jr. It is June 1966. The United States Congress in 1965 had passed the Voting Rights Act making it a federal crime to deny United States citizens the right to vote because of race.

The ballot box was still being denied to African-american by extra-judicial means mainly through intimidation, terror and murder. The country is in turmoil. All over the South,African-americans are trying to register to vote.

They are being frightened off by their fellow white citizens. There are fire bombings. There are kidnappings. There are beatings. There is a carnival-like atmosphere in most Southern towns where law enforcement has turned a blind eye to the enforcement of the 1965 Voting Rights Bill.

A movement begins to rise among those disenfranchised by the lack of access to the ballot box. This movement had many leaders and adherents. One was a former U.S Air Force veteran named James Meredith.

He decided to make a personal commitment to this struggle by establishing his “March Against Fear”. He started his solitary march from Memphis Tennessee to Jackson on June 6,1966. A day after he started his trek he was shot by a sniper. This so shocked the Civil Rights community that it motivated thousands including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to finish the march for him.

The “March”s continuing gave rise to the idea that if our Natchez Klan conspirators could somehow duplicate the killing of another black person it would draw the movement to Natchez bringing Dr.King with it.

As the march winded its way from Memphis to Jackson the trio of Claude Fuller, James Jones and Ernest Avant put their scheme into effect. They found an easy mark in Ben Chester White a 66 year old unassuming black farm caretaker. He worked on this farm his whole life, a farm where his grandparents worked as slaves.

He was known to his community as a decent religious Deacon who could recite complete bible verses. He was always helpful to everyone he came into contact with. This attribute would lead to his undoing.

Our Klan trio approached Mr. White on June 10, 1966 early in the afternoon with a ridiculous story that they were looking for a lost dog and enlisted his help. They convinced him to get in a vehicle with them. They offered him two dollars and a cold soda to go along with them.

They took him to Homochito National Forest. Ben Chester White’s body was found two days later in a creek riddled with bullets. His remains were so shot up that he was almost unrecognizable.

Martin Luther King and the march did not come to Natchez as our Klan trio would hope for. Avants and Jones were eventually tried for murder in the state court, A jury acquitted Avants while Jones’ case ended in a mistrial. Fuller was never charged.

They all lived long lives unmolested for their roles in the killing of Mr. White. Fuller and Jones died without ever having to answer for this murder in this life. Avants would eventually be convicted in a Federal trial in 2003. He was sentenced to life in prison. He served only one year as he died in 2004.

In 1966 the White family joined a long unending list of families that share the anguish of having a loved one ripped from their familial bosom simply because of the color of their skin. This story was brought to my attention by a friend at our local watering hole Dr Michael Jackson. He was from Natchez and knew Mr White as a good man that everyone in their community respected. Again another story we need to remember and bring forward so that we don’t forget.

The Worst Stories Ever Told(A series) Number 3, Volume 1

Mon, 13 May 2024 18:41:07 GMT

“Niggers get off the sidewalk down here”

By Rene Childress

Before we continue on our journey in this endeavor to bring continued exposure to the horrible way African-American have been treated in this country, I need to do some attribution in general to all the people that have accumulated and maintained the records that I will be using. They are legion.

They are the African-American press, the NAACP, Historical Black Colleges and University libraries, the Bilbrew Library in Los Angeles and individuals of all races who saw something untoward that came forward and said something. I am attempting to assuage any concerns about plagiarism. My goal is not self-aggrandizement, it is simply to shine another light on an age-weary problem that we have still not come to grips with. Any emotional or familial descriptions used in these stories will be my attempt to add humanity to an inhumane episode. Please allow my artistic indulgence.

During the returning years after the Great War (World War 1) of the last century many African-American returning from service to their country were put upon by angry white mobs. Many whites were concerned that the returning “coloreds” would not remember their station in the racial hierarchy of America. This was especially true in the “Old South”.

This is the story of Cllinton Briggs, late of Star City,Arkansas. The 1910 Census recorded him as working on a farm owned by Alex Dutton. Draft records show that Clinton Briggs registered for the draft on June 5,1917.

He was called up and served until December 17,1918. He was discharged with an” Honorable Discharge”. He was the recipient of the World War 1 Victory Medal and the World War 1 Victory Lapel Button. Upon returning to the United States he resumed residence in his hometown Star, Arkansas. He returned to working for Alex Dutton (Mr Alex).

Lincoln county (the county that governs Star City) records show that a Mr Clinton Briggs married a Ms, Cora Goude on March 15, 1919. Mr. and Mrs. Briggs could not see that their marriage would be short and tragic. If they could have seen into the future would they have made different choices.

The new Mrs Briggs would carry the unimaginable terror and loss for the rest of her life. Excuse me, I am getting ahead of the story. The four or five months of marriage came to a crashing conclusion on an early September afternoon in downtown Star City. The encounter that would send the Briggs family to unmitigated horror started when Mr Briggs moved out of the way of a white couple walking down the sidewalk.

The white woman brushed up against Mr Briggs complaining that “Niggers get off the sidewalk down here”. Mr Briggs retorted” this is a free man’s country”.

The male companion immediately seized him with the help of other bystanders. An automobile was acquired by the growing mob. He was driven out of town never to be seen alive again.

His body was later found tied to a tree. His body had been mutilated with several bullet wounds. He had been hung with an automobile chain.

His newlywed wife would never get to hear the voice of her husband again in this life. They would never grow old together. They would never play with their young children. She would instead carry the scar of this nightmare of the worst thing that could happen to her young life. Cora Briggs calls us from the past to remember her pain. It is the pain that we must remember as a nation as we go forward. Let this pain be a guiding light for how we treat all our citizens.

The Worst Stories Ever Told (a Series) Number 2.Volume 1

Sun, 05 May 2024 20:29:49 GMT

Dexter Wade, Killed by Jackson Police Cruiser and Buried

By Rene Childress

Let us imagine for the moment that we are the mother of a 37 year old son who lives near you and who visits you almost everyday. He visits you as usual on March 5,2024. He kids you and makes you laugh as is his normal way with you. You go about your day as usual. You go to bed this day believing that it is just another ordinary day.

You wake up the next day believing you would see your child again. He doesn’t come by or call. You think he will eventually come by as usual.

You wait and wait for a couple of days. Nothing happens. You start to worry. You contact all his friends and family members to see if anyone has seen or heard from him.

Finally in desperation you contact the authorities on March 13, 2024. They take your report. They tell you they have not had contact with him.

Unbeknownst to you they had been notified that your son was involved in an accident involving an off duty police officer driving an official police vehicle. Your son was hit walking down Interstate 55 when he was struck by a police vehicle. Five days before you reported your beloved son was missing a “Jackson Coroner's” investigator identified your son's body by using his fingerprints. They notified the police to contact you and your family. This did not happen.

What actually happened to you and your son is the continuing story of how America continues to refuse to accept African-Americans as human beings that are worthy of value. Your son’s body was held in the county morgue for months before finally being interned in an unmarked grave in a paupers field.

No one ever called you, Your grief was almost unbearable. Your family was devastated. Your child was missing. The authorities kept turning you away with excuses about maybe he was just on a journey away from Mississippi without notifying his family. They never tell you that your son is dead. They never tell you how your son is killed.

Only after a national news agency picks up this story does the truth begin to emerge about the death of your son. After the national media begins to shine a light on this case you begin to hear the horrendous story about the last days of your child’s life. You find out that he was struck by a police car on Interstate 55 by an off duty police officer.

Once you know that your child is dead the police begin a coverup to explain their obvious attempt to provide cover for the off duty officer responsible for your son’s untimely death at age 37. They fill the airways with how they were unable to identify your son and therefore they couldn’t contact his next of kin. They don’t tell the media or you that the Jackson Coroner had notified them on March 9th that the coroner’s office had identified him through his fingerprints.

They continue to claim he had no ID on his broken body. We now know that their story was full of lies and misrepresentations. After much wrangling and court orders you were able to claim your son’s remains. You demand an autopsy.

The first thing we find out from the exhumed remains is that in your son’s back pocket is a wallet that contains a Mississippi official state ID card, a credit card with his name on it and a medical ID card. How hard would it have been to identify him from these documents? The autopsy also finds that he has a missing amputated leg. Why was his leg amputated? What were they trying to hide by separating his leg from the rest of his body? These are all the answers I know you wanted answered.

This is a true story of heartbreak and depravity that continues in this country. The man who lost his life that fatal day Dexter Wade late of Mississippi. His family, the Dexter family, are one more family in a long unending story about the tortuous path that the sons and daughters of slavery have traversed in this “ Land of the free and the home of the Brave”.

The Worst Stories Ever Told In America

Fri, 26 Apr 2024 00:14:03 GMT

Mrs Mary Turner of Brooks County Georgia

By: Rene Childress

I am well along in the eightieth decade of my life being in this place we all call the United States of America. I have been a concerned and active participant in the struggle to combat how we African-Americans have been treated and perceived by the ruling power structure that controls our existence and well being. Since the first arrival on these shores in 1619 we have had to accept and contend with the most horrendous conditions known to humankind. We have been exposed to chattel slavery, rape, torture,murder and psychological cultural assassination. We and our children carry this burden in our spirit and our psyche. We still to this day believe that the closer we are to the White rapist genes that permeate all of us we are somehow better off than those of us that are further removed from the accursed progenitors of our misery.

I want to give life to the stories that some of our White brethren want to forget. It is just as important as the Europeans refusing to let their history of Anti-Semitism become an after-thought. It is just as important that we remember our history and the slings and arrows of racism that color our past and present. With this as my opening statement I want to initiate a series of historical episodes that can be easily found on the internet if you will follow me on this journey.

It will chill your soul. It will bring tears to your eyes. It will surely enrage you that these things occurred in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

It is my hope that by bringing these historical events forward to our current generation we can say to our children this was who we were not who we can be.

My first story of “The Worst Story Ever Told”is the story of Mrs Mary Turner of Brooks County Georgia. She was a black woman who was eight months pregnant. Her husband Hayes Turner was lynched with several other black men after the murder of a white farmer name Hampton Smith. The police found and confronted the confessed killer Sidney Johnson.

Police officers killed Mr.Johnson in a shootout.

The blood lust of the white population was not sated with the killing of Mr. Johnson. The white community wanted to send a message to all the black people in their community that they would not allow the spilling of white blood by a black person without a wide community response. They decided that Hayes Turner who had been known to not accept racial umbrage willfully became a target. He was accused of being a part of a conspiracy to commit the murder of Hampton Smith. He was summarily lynched.

Hayes Turner’s pregnant wife Mary grieving the loss of her husband began complaining to the authorities about the death of her husband. The whites in her county decided she had forgotten her place. A white mob drugged her from her home.

On May 19 1918 Mary Turner was hung from a tree near the Folsom County Bridge. She was eight months pregnant. She was hung upside down. She was bound by her feet. She was set on fire with gasoline splashed all over her. One of her tormentors took a large butcher knife and gutted her, allowing her unborn child to come briefly into existence only to have its head crushed beneath the foot of a member of the mob.

As the case in so many of these stories we are about to traverse. No one was ever prosecuted. This is my first in this series. It will not be the last. I will attempt to use both past and present stories to show that this thing continues and we need to continue to expose and fight to change who we are as a country.

SINGING AMERICA: BLACK RESILIENCE

Sat, 17 Feb 2024 19:43:53 GMT

CALLS ON THE BLACK COMMUNITY TO TELL OUR STORIES TO OUR FAMILIES, FRIENDS AND COMMUNITY DURING FEBRUARY

As a US female citizen of African descent, I have suffered heart breaking oppression ever since I was old enough to leave the sanctity of my parent’s home. Traumatic implications of this experience remain continuous. comprehensive, compound and complex. Yet, I have learned not to be intimidated by oppressive dominant societal practices that existed, and still exist, since the genesis of my people's arrival on these shores.

I know that the perceived genesis of Black Americans in this country was, and often still is, that of servitude and submission. However, I am equally confident that it did not define my ancestors just as it does not define who my people are today. Most importantly, I am convinced this is why we are experiencing cruel attempts, yesterday, today, and even tomorrow, to keep my people in our places. It is more than inspiring to see Black Americans manifesting in real time the scripture found in (Romans 12:2).

WE WILL NOT CONFORM TO THIS WORLD.

WE ARE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF OUR MINDS.

I am persuaded that the African American struggle in this country, is the price we pay for being a model of deliverance, through the power of the Creator, the name of Christ.

One of the most challenging questions I have studied in the Bible is extracted from Psalms chapter 137.

"HOW CAN WE SING A SONG IN THIS STRANGE LAND."

Black Americans are answering this question. We have flourished in this country from slavery until today. The struggle for our liberation has been incredibly horrific. Yet we have never ceased to sing our songs of victory.

Historical, as well as, contemporary scenarios of savagery, threaten to cloud perspectives with hopelessness, relegating only the testimonials of W.E.B. Du Bois’ “Talented Tenth” to tell the story of overcoming. Yet, as I listen to the everyday struggles of many echelons of Black Americans, I hear a universal story of victory. This does not mean that we are unaffected by the nightmares of oppression. What it does mean is that we are not deterred. Our songs are varied as our collective chords harmoniously inspire unconditional joy, fortitude, and hope reflecting the profound power of our African and African American culture.

Regardless of systemically levied oppressive attempts to strip and/or challenge every vestige of our self-respect and safety, we have courageously participated as citizens of these United States of America. Our ancestors, enslaved on their voyage to America, sang the songs of Moses in his instruction for oppressed people.

We have been singing these songs of resilience ever since, exemplifying our resolve that has existed in our community from then until now. I, along with others, have concluded that collectively African Americans, never internalized a subservient role. Although we yielded, we never did and never will succumb to oppression. It was, and often still is, a mask used to protect our descendants even today.

As our story of United States citizenship metaphorically evolves, we realize it was the tribe of Judah that went into exile more than 400 years ago in these United States of America. The month of February is particularly dedicated to remembering such through a sampling of African American songs/stories of resilience.

During this period, we especially remember Moses’ command, not to forget the songs that were sung by us and to us as we represent our ancestry flourishing in the pit of hell, beginning with slavery and haunting us even today. Our story of resilience, sung universally and individually, is why we continue to grow in strength and power as a people of perseverance, endurance, and success.

Our history as African Americans represents a harmonious and powerful song flavored with oppression as a function of displacement, tyranny, rape, murder and so much more. We will keep singing until the storm of racial hatred, and bigotry perpetrated upon our people, as well as all people of these United States of America, is dissipated.

Remember, nothing could stop the Tribe of Judah from bringing forth human salvation through the person of Jesus the Christ during their oppression by Rome. As well, nothing can stop us from bringing forth the salvation of this country in the Name of Christ!

THIS IS OUR STORY. THIS IS OUR SONG. WE TOO SING AMERICA.

HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH AND BEYOND (365/24/7)

Blessings,

“It Feels Like We’re Profiting Off Of Black Death”: Tulsa Residents See Civil Rights Tourism But No Reparations

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 05:31:29 GMT

One hundred years have passed since the Tulsa massacre, but little has been done to make amends or improve the lives of Black residents, whose fate can be decided by their zip code.

TULSA, Oklahoma — Just feet from the highway that divides Black and white Tulsa stands a shrine to Black resiliency.

A century ago, Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church was the only Black house of worship left standing in the city after a white mob descended on the Greenwood district, a prosperous neighborhood dubbed Black Wall Street, razing 35 square blocks of businesses and homes, and killing as many as 300 people.

This past week, on a cold and rainy Memorial Day morning, 100 years to the day since the campaign of terror began , a crowd gathered along the church’s southern rampart for an interfaith service dedicating a new prayer wall honoring victims of the 1921 massacre. The crowd included a mix of national civil rights leaders and politicians who had come to town for the official anniversary commemorations.

“It’s hard for me to smile today,” said Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware over the hum of the traffic on I-244. “I feel this ground today, but I also see a highway that went through a city. So we are here to remember, to mourn, and to rebuild equitably.”

But missing from the crowd were the three survivors of the attack who are still alive: Hughes Van Ellis, 100, known around town as “Uncle Red”; his 107-year-old sister, Viola Fletcher (“Mother Fletcher”); and Lessie Benningfield Randle (“Mother Randle”), 106.

Instead, Van Ellis and Fletcher were just half a mile away at another memorial event, receiving bouquets of flowers and medals in a more somber ceremony organized by local activists where people wept as they honored those who were killed in the massacre and whose names are still unknown.

This is how Memorial Day weekend went in Tulsa — two conflicting groups hosting centennial events. One, the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, well funded and connected to state Republican leadership; the other, the Black Wall Street Legacy Festival, run by survivors and descendants pushing for justice for the three surviving elders in the form of reparations.

“In the case of Tulsa, they’ve had 100 years to make amends,” said Dreisen Heath, a researcher and advocate on racial justice at Human Rights Watch who authored an influential 2020 HRW report on the need for reparations in Tulsa, “and putting on events in celebration of continued loss is not the answer.”

There is division in Tulsa — Black and white, north and south, electeds and activists — but there is also righteous anger. Survivors and activists are furious not only at the continued absence of any reparations, but also at what has been a century of underinvestment in Black communities. This neglect has had painful and very real implications for Black Tulsans, whose health and wealth can be determined by their zip code. All the while, they say, some local and state officials have been seeking to promote the Tulsa anniversary as a rebranding opportunity, pushing a form of civil rights tourism in the city that belies legislative antagonism to the Black Lives Matter movement.

“To this day, I can barely afford my everyday needs,” Fletcher told a congressional hearing last month . “All the while the city of Tulsa have unjustly used the names and stories of victims like me to enrich itself and its white allies through the $30 million raised by the Tulsa Centennial Commission while I continue to live in poverty.”

The division between commemorations this past weekend can be traced back to 2015, when state lawmakers established the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission to plan for the 100th anniversary. In the six years since, the group raised over $30 million from Oklahoma’s philanthropic and corporate elite. But community leaders in north Tulsa lost faith in the commission as it became clear that the bulk of that money raised, $20 million, would go to building a museum on the other side of the highway. No money had been set aside for compensating survivors and descendants despite decades of calls for reparations. In the week leading up to the centennial, the commission partnered with a PGA tournament at Tulsa’s Southern Hills Country Club. The club, which effectively banned Black members for decades , is invitation-only with a membership fee that has been reported to cost up to tens of thousands of dollars .

For many in north Tulsa, this was just the latest slight by officials who have never taken responsibility for the state’s role in the 1921 massacre. If they were going to properly honor the remaining survivors before they died, community leaders decided they had to host their own events.

“We felt left out of the centennial,” said Greg Robinson, a north Tulsa community activist. He helped organize the Legacy Festival because the official commission didn’t seem interested in the local events that the community had been running for years.

“Sometimes great things are created out of stressful situations,” he said.

Like many cities in the US, Tulsa’s neighborhoods are still divided along largely racial lines and the disparities between its mostly Black north and white south are stark. The median income in one south Tulsa zip code is roughly $81,000. In one area on the north side, that figure drops to $25,000. Similarly, the life expectancy in one northern zip code is 12 years lower than one in south Tulsa. Black Tulsans represent 15% of the total population, but just 5% of small business owners. They are also far less likely than white Tulsans to own their own homes.

“You don’t see the investment in north Tulsa that you see in south Tulsa and other parts of the city,” said Latasha Woods, who moved to mostly white Midtown Tulsa to get her daughter, Keyaireah Smith, now 19 and just finishing her first year at Oklahoma State University, into a better high school.

Woods said she was happy with the national attention her city was getting due to the anniversary, but was concerned that nothing would change when the spotlight shifted away once again.

“I think it’s good what’s going on right now, but I think when everything dies down, everything will go back to being the same,” she said. “Because it’s been so long, they had so many opportunities to provide this community with what they need.”

Politics has also stirred division in Tulsa and across Oklahoma. Frustrations started to bubble over last year, when then-president Donald Trump announced that he would hold his first rally during the pandemic in the city on Juneteenth, a holiday recognizing Black liberation from slavery. Black leaders were furious that Republican Mayor G. T. Bynum had agreed to give a platform to a president who had made numerous overtures to white supremacists on Juneteenth of all days. Eventually, the rally was pushed back a day, but still Black leaders in Tulsa felt that the mayor had displayed a complete disregard for the city's Black community.

“Our mayor allowed that to happen,” said Tiffany Crutcher, the lead organizer of Legacy Festival, who rose to national prominence after her twin brother, Terence, was shot and killed by a Tulsa police officer in 2015. She now runs the Terence Crutcher Foundation out of the Greenwood Cultural Center, located across the street from Vernon AME Church.

Since the Trump rally, Mayor Bynum, who sits on the centennial commission, has continued to insist that reparations — which many in north Tulsa saw as key for any centennial remembrance — would divide the city.

“That’s when we started to say, ‘You know what? No, we’re not going to allow it,’” said Crutcher. “We’re not going to allow our history to be controlled yet again by what controlled and decimated Greenwood.”

The mayor wasn’t the only member of the commission who frustrated north Tulsans for not centering — or worse, working against — Black voices. Last month, Oklahoma’s Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, was kicked off the commission after he signed a bill banning the teaching of critical race theory in schools, a law that educators say limits their ability to talk freely about the massacre, its causes, and its consequences. Stitt also signed legislation in April that grants immunity for some drivers who hit protesters with a vehicle if they are blocking the road, after a driver hit three Black Lives Matter demonstrators last year, paralyzing one .

Sen. James Lankford, one of two Republican senators representing Oklahoma in Congress, also faced calls for his removal from the commission after playing a central role in spreading racist myths of voter fraud and questioning the results of the 2020 presidential election. Lankford had refused to acknowledge that Joe Biden had legitimately been elected until after the Capitol insurrection. Lankford ultimately stepped down from the commission last week, calling it too partisan.

Stevie “Dr. View” Johnson, a community organizer and executive producer of Fire in Little Africa, a hip-hop collective created for the centennial, said Oklahoma politicians were more interested in turning the city into a civil rights tourism destination, akin to the Alabama cities of Selma or Montgomery, than in caring for Black residents.

“It feels like we’re profiting off of Black death,” said Johnson. “If the funds were going to the place where it needed to go, I would have no problem with it — that is our history, these are our stories. But because that hasn't been addressed, it just really makes me sick to my stomach.”

Instead, Crutcher, the lead Legacy Festival organizer, said she and others wanted to reclaim the narrative — and the power — for Black Tulsans.

“It was all a matter of who controls the history, who controls the stories,” she said, “and we wanted to make sure that we didn’t allow other people to water down our history.”

Crutcher and other Black community leaders decided to create a festival centered on survivors and descendants, and calling for reparations. With the backing of organizations including Human Rights Watch, Equal Justice Initiative, the Black Wall Street Times, and Justice for Greenwood, they held anniversary marches and luncheons for survivors. Legacy Festival also hosted panels focused on racial justice, white supremacy in 2021, and the need for reparations, with appearances from civil rights attorney Ben Crump, racial justice advocate and Insecure actor Kendrick Sampson, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas.

The two jewels of the state-sponsored commission’s centennial events were supposed to be the opening of Greenwood Rising, a $20 million museum about the massacre, and the Remember and Rise event, which was to feature voting rights activist Stacey Abrams speaking and singer John Legend performing on Memorial Day.

But ultimately the commission failed to deliver either.

At 8 p.m. on Friday night of the holiday weekend, construction workers were still working on the museum’s entrance, hurriedly preparing for a commission-run dedication ceremony on Wednesday. But Greenwood Rising is still behind schedule due to construction issues and won’t open fully until at least July, according to a publicist for the museum.

The museum is also mired in controversy. One survivor, Mother Randle, has sent a cease-and-desist letter to stop its association with her. North Tulsans and descendants have been furious that the money was spent on building a new museum on the mostly white side of the interstate instead of expanding Greenwood Cultural Center, a long-standing community center just north of the highway. The proceeds from the museum will also not be allocated to survivors or descendants.

“Museums are not going to give us back what my family had lost out on all of these years,” said Valerie Walker, whose grandfather Harry Gamble Jr. was a toddler during the riots and whose family left Tulsa in the years after the riots.

“You owe people what you took from them,” said Walker. “Sometimes money is the only thing that cures things.”

Centennial weekend was the first visit to Tulsa for Walker’s 24-year-old granddaughter, Tiara Sank, who was keen to see the neighborhood she’d heard so many stories about over the years from her grandmother. Sank is a nursing student in Texas, but she wonders if her dreams may have been bigger if the massacre hadn’t devastated her family

“I always wondered if we would have kept that going, what happened in Greenwood, what could I have been?” said Sank. “If that’s how we were living back then, what could we have become? What if I could become a doctor or even had my own medical facility? Or even something greater than that?”

Abrams and Legend ultimately pulled out of the Memorial Day concert after speaking with Black Tulsans and learning that survivors and descendants were frustrated with organizers and were not participating. The head of the commission, state Sen. Kevin Matthews, has said the concert fell apart after survivors, who had never agreed to be part of the event, demanded $50 million in reparations. The survivors’ lawyer and others in the meetings denied his claims.

Matthews, who is a descendant himself, said he’s not against the state and federal governments paying reparations, but that his commission raised money from corporations and foundations specifically for a museum. He believes such a venue is an important first step on the road to doing right by Black Tulsans.

“When Jews had the Holocaust, they built a museum to the tell the story. When Hiroshima happened, the Japanese built a museum to tell the story. So that’s what we’re doing,” said Matthews. “You start with telling the story so that you have a narrative to build from.”

Matthews, who represents north Tulsa, said he understood the frustrations with his commission and what it was and wasn’t able to achieve. But as a Democrat in one of the most Republican states in the country, and one of just two Black senators in Oklahoma, he’s used to reining in his vision of what is possible.

“I get criticized for working with white Republicans. Although there are some policies I disagree with and some that are egregious to my community, the fact is us Democrats are in a super minority,” he said.

“We have to have a long-term strategy,” Matthews said. “We have to play chess, not checkers.”

For many Black Tulsans, though, the effective implosion of the state-sponsored commission was a fitting turn for an effort they saw as misguided.

“John Legend is not from Tulsa and I mean no disrespect to him and what he does, but I support my own,” said Melisha Calvert, a north Tulsa native, who had come down to the Legacy Festival with her daughter, Langstyn, a 10-year-old dancer who got to perform at a studio in Greenwood during the festival. “I really want to see my own hit the stage. We have a lot of richness here. We have a lot of great artists here, so let's celebrate them.”

For Calvert and others, this was a chance to spotlight what was good about her community.

“I was born and raised here in north Tulsa. I see the hardships, but I also see what's coming up,“ she said. “North Tulsa gets a lot of negative attention, but we have a lot of positiveness that nobody recognizes. That’s what we’re seeing this weekend.”

One of the shining examples of what locals love about north Tulsa was on display this holiday weekend. Fire in Little Africa, a collective of more than 60 hip-hop artists from Oklahoma, released an album Friday through Motown Records for the centennial. The music tells the story of Black Wall Street before the massacre, imagines a world where the tragedy didn’t happen, and wrestles with its traumatic aftermath.

Artists recorded the album in March 2020 in the days before pandemic lockdown, mostly at the Greenwood Cultural Center, a community space filled with art, tales from survivors, and local foundations. The collective’s name comes from a news photo from 1921 showing Greenwood on fire with the words “Little Africa on fire” scrawled across it.

“Dr. View” Johnson, the collective organizer, said that, unlike some, his group wanted to tell the authentic story of what is happening in their city. “You have people in positions of power, white and black, who are allowing the optics, the respectability politics, to get in the way of what's happening,” he said.

On Saturday night, in a haze of golden sunset, hundreds of Black people — many of whom were longtime north Tulsa residents and descendants of massacre victims — pulled up lawn chairs in what is normally an empty field next to a University of Oklahoma-Tulsa’s parking lot for the first performance of Fire in Little Africa.

As old friends hugged each other and children played freely in the crowds, people danced in “Black Lives Matter'' and “Black Wall Street” T-shirts. The lines were long for the trucks offering brisket and ribs, and local vendors selling shea butter, candles, and clothing were enjoying a busy trade.

“For me to be back here on Greenwood actually selling a product that I had made — knowing what Black Wall Street means and what it was — is like coming full circle,” said Mai Cazenave, whose Enlighten Candle Company stall had been so busy she’d already sold out three-quarters of her stock. “Today has been all about my ancestors and honoring my ancestors.”

Honoring ancestors for Cazenave and others in attendance meant celebrating what is still good about north Tulsa. Much was lost 100 years ago and never rebuilt, but locals wanted the world to see that this is still a proud community, still a center of Black excellence.

As the sun sank beyond the horizon, rapper St. Domonick addressed the crowd before performing his track “Reparations.”

“They can’t kill us,” he declared. “We’re still here.”

Tea Cakes, With Black History Origins, Offer Connection to Future

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 05:31:24 GMT

Mrs. Robinson's Tea Cakes makes telling African American stories and history a sweet experience!

Please don’t offer Etha Robinson a chocolate chip cookie. Or an Oreo. Or a gingersnap.

Not even with a cold glass of milk.

Robinson, a baker who teaches biology at Dorsey High School, is committed to a cookie of a different sort, one with a past that is dear to her heart--and a bountiful future.

“We grew up on tea cakes,” said Robinson, who was born in Yazoo City, Miss., and now lives in Los Angeles. “They were a gift of love. If something has served you well, you never abandon it.”

What you do, Robinson said, is build on it.

The owner of Mrs. Bethune’s Tea Cakes, Robinson sells decorative tins filled with miniature versions of the cookies that are believed to have their beginnings in slavery. In a venture with the National Council of Negro Women, the tea cakes are offered as a fund-raising tool for churches and schools nationwide--much like Girl Scout cookies or candy is sold.

Even as Robinson promotes the product, at the heart of her pitch is history.

On special days, she takes tea cakes to her students and explains their beginnings. But to a generation of older African Americans with Southern roots--and to some Southern whites as well--no explanation is needed.

“There’s lots of tea cake memories” among people who haven’t had the cookie since leaving Mississippi, Louisiana or Georgia, she said.

Culinary historians say the cookie may have been slaves’ version of the English tea cake. With very little provisions, those enslaved Africans took what was available and made their own version.

Tea cakes became a treasure--comfort food that became a special treat during the holidays.

On the back of the Mrs. Bethune’s Tea Cakes tin, Maya Angelou shares her tea cake memory:

“When I was a lonely, scared and scarred eight year old, Mrs. Bertha Flowers, a lean, Black teacher invited me to her house and made tea cakes. The aroma of the freshly baked cookies merged with the rich sound of her voice as she read to me.”

For Robinson, lessons abound in this history, in the ability to take what one has--even if it is very little--and turn it into something treasured and valued, something remembered fondly.

But the problem, Robinson said, is that tea cakes are an all-too-distant memory for many who grew up eating them.

“With families migrating to the North, many traditions and foods of the South were left behind,” she said. “We put the tea cake on the back burner.”

The challenge now, Robinson said, is not to discard this past because of its connection to slavery, but to “take it to the next level.” Robinson is convinced that tea cakes can become as popular as bagels or tortillas--ethnic foods everyone can enjoy. And she pushes the idea with a passion.

“I used to think she was crazy,” said Robinson’s sister Helen. “But it really is time for the tea cakes. This is a way to start teaching kids history.”

And the cookies taste good.

After years of selling them as Mrs. Robinson’s Tea Cakes, Robinson attracted support from a group of investors in 1996 and began packaging the cookies in tins that bear the image of Mary McLeod Bethune. She then entered an agreement with the National Council of Negro Women, and dubbed the cookies Mrs. Bethune’s Tea Cakes.

The marriage of Bethune’s image and the cookie seemed natural, she said.

Bethune, a daughter of slaves who went on to become an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, founded Bethune Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Fla., in 1904, with “five girls, faith in God and $1.50,” the tin reads.

“Mrs. Bethune believed in helping people,” Robinson said. “She also believed in people helping themselves.”

Dwayne Sims, who heads a nonprofit organization in the Washington, D.C., area, used the cookies to teach a group of girls about Bethune and the tea cakes and how to manage money.

“They’ll start learning these entrepreneurial skills,” Sims said.

Sims has also served the cakes in a series of “Tea Times,” which serve as fund-raisers for women’s shelters.

“They love them,” he said. “It reminds them of what their grandmothers used to make,” he said.

At the African Marketplace Boutique in the Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw Plaza shopping center, sales manager Ursaline Bryant said

response to the tea cakes “has been wonderful. There’s a mix of people, those who already know about tea cakes and then there’s a lot of people that we’re introducing them to.”

The tea cakes are also available at the shopping center’s Robinsons-May store and at a Hallmark shop in the Ladera Shopping Center.

Robinson learned to make tea cakes the way many people did, by listening and watching, she said. Recipes were usually not written down.

For her the kitchen was like a laboratory. But Robinson was not content to master the old Southern standbys: collard greens and cornbread, okra and corn. She had to experiment.

“I tell people all the time, that’s why I don’t cook today because Etha was always in there messing up stuff,” her sister said laughing.

But those days in Yazoo City taught Robinson lasting lessons about food and self-sufficiency. The lessons were impressed upon her each time she watched her mother make preserves or swap collard greens for a neighbor’s beans.

“We used to can all summer,” she said. “We picked berries, peaches, and we made fresh jam. That’s power, when you’re able to provide and do for yourselves.

“We didn’t take those abilities and turn them into laundries, canneries and sewing factories. We left that behind and looked for jobs.”

Today Robinson has a basement pantry filled with jars of jam that she preserved herself. They are gifts that she hands out to people who have helped in her tea cake venture.

Over the years, the business has required a huge investment of time and money, but her philosophy is rooted in the lives of those historical figures she admires, such as Bethune and abolitionist Sojourner Truth.

“Dreams always cost you,” Robinson said. “If you believe in them you have to make the sacrifice.”

Food To Celebrate Freedom: Tea Cakes For Juneteenth!

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 05:31:22 GMT

This is a subtitle for your new post

Think of Etha Robinson as the Johnny Appleseed of pastry. Her mission, rather than planting apple trees, is to plant the idea of reviving the tea cake, a little cookie that has a lot of historical significance packed into it.

"There's an old saying," Robinson offers as she unpacks a china plate from the bag she's brought to our interview. "If you don't progress, you'll regress." She places a batch of golden cookies on the plate. "So my thing is, is we can revitalize the tea cake, and allow our young people to know about the heritage that their ancestors provided for them, then it's our responsibility to build upon what we were given."

And what better time to do that than on Juneteenth? It's the holiday celebrated in black communities around the country (and in recent years, around the globe) that marks the date — June 19, 1865 — when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas finally got word that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed. The government had sent Army couriers from Washington to all slave-holding states to read the Proclamation aloud to all, but Texas was a long way away. By the time Major General Gordon Granger arrived at the Port of Galveston to spread the news of emancipation, two and a half years had passed. The occasion was commemorated with church services, communal picnics and parades--a tradition that continues to this day in many places.

The humble tea cake was often part of the celebration. It was, Etha Robinson says, a rustic approximation of the delicate pastries consumed in front parlors when white women entertained visitors. "Supposedly, tea cakes were made about 200 years ago, in response to the European tea cake, which was actually a cupcake," Robinson explains. Kitchens in the big houses had luxuries like sugar and butter. "At the time of slavery, our folks didn't have refined sugar for the most part. The used molasses, or things of that nature. They didn't often have butter, so they used lard. And eggs, sometimes. And baking powder. Maybe a little nutmeg, if they had any. That was pretty much it."

"Supposedly, tea cakes were made about 200 years ago. Slaves used the ingredients they had: molasses instead of sugar, lard instead of butter," says Etha Robinson.

Karen Grigsby Bates

"So basically," she continues, "it was a sugar cookie recipe, with spices. And if you had it, vanilla. A lot of things we take for granted now were considered luxuries at the time."

But the tea cake was more than a cookie. It's many Southerners' equivalent of author Marcel Proust's madeleine: a small cookie on the surface of things, but laden with emotional resonance. "We like to say it's more than a cookie," she says, "it's an experience." And she wants tea cakes to be as closely associated with black American culture as tortillas are with Latino culture and bagels with Jewish heritage.

Tea cakes aren't much to look at. If they're hand made, they're often not perfectly shaped (well, mine weren't!). But like the Italian hazelnut cookie called Brutti ma Buoni ("ugly but good"), the heavenly part is inside. As Robinson lifts the lid of a commemorative tin containing freshly baked tea cakes, the seductive scent of butter, vanilla and almond waft up. Biting into one of Robinson's tea cakes, I discover they're tender, not crisp, and a perfect synthesis of their ingredients. I could eat these forever.

"I had tea cakes growing up," Etha Robinson smiles. "we were poor, but we were not poor in thinking." Growing up in Yazoo City, Mississippi, Robinson says her mother and grandmother made tea cakes regularly. They'd be on hand in the kitchen for little hands to snatch en route to the back yard. "They had them in old lard cans or glass jars," she says.

And because they were hand-friendly (unlike banana pudding or a fruit cobbler), tea cakes often traveled. "We didn't have regular lunch boxes, so you packed some tea cakes, some fried chicken — if you were lucky — and some light bread," she say. "So that would be our snack when we were traveling on the Greyhound bus!" No reason they can't be brought aboard today's planes. Especially when many people think it feels like riding the bus.

We like to say it's more than a cookie; it's an experience."

Etha Robinson speaking about tea cakes

Robinson says she often brings tea cakes with her when she lectures high school students (she's a retired biology teacher) and she's teaching them about their own heritage. "If they look back in their family history, somebody made tea cakes. Big Mama, Aunt Corine, somebody. So it's not so much about the cookie itself, it's about making a connection." And it's reviving a piece of Afro-culinary history that has long lain dormant. "During the Great Migration, we lost a lot of the things we did in the South," Robinson observes.

This particular tradition is easy to revive. "I would suggest you Google 'tea cakes,'" Robinson says, "there are a variety of tea cake recipes on the internet." She pauses. "Of course, I'm not going to divulge my secret recipe!" Robinson hopes to market that at some point in African-American museum gift shops, as she once did in Los Angeles. In the meanwhile, she's compiling a Tea Cake anthology; she has been collecting vintage tea cake recipes and the stories behind them in anticipation of publishing a book sometime in the next couple of years.

Till then, there's the internet. I found a simple tea cake recipe from Jocelyn Delk Adams. Her Grandbaby Cakes blog begat a cook book last year of the same name. Adams' Southern Tea Cakes Recipe yielded a lusciously tender cookie. (I substituted a teaspoon of almond extract for one of the two vanilla extracts the recipe called for, and added a bit of nutmeg. Worked great.)

So to celebrate Juneteenth, make some tea cakes, and call or visit Big Mama or Aunt Corine and them. And rejoice in your family ties.

Reviving the tea cake of Juneteenth parties past

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 04:57:39 GMT

Like all holidays worth celebrating, the African-American emancipation day known as Juneteenth centers on food.

Juneteenth , which takes place each year on June 19th, celebrates the day in 1865 that the slaves of Texas learned they were free. Though President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, the news didn’t take hold in Texas until Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston to enforce it two years later.

This year, Juneteenth celebrations will take place across the country, where there’s a growing a push to have Congress declare Juneteenth a national day of observance. ( Learn about the nationwide movement to observe Juneteenth as a celebration of hope .)

But some Juneteenth cooks harbor a more modest goal: restoring tea cake to the holiday table.

“It was one of the basic pastries the slaves used,” says Etha Robinson, a 73-year-old retired Los Angeles science teacher and chairperson of the National Juneteenth Tea Cake Commission . “It was a simple cookie. The recipe was passed on by mouth.”

Red foods—watermelon, red velvet cake, and the cream-ish flavored soda, Big Red—have famously been a traditional part of the meal. According to the Rev. Dr. Ronald Myers, head of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation , this tradition can be traced to the first celebration held at the Texas governor’s mansion. African-American foodways scholar Frederick Douglass Opie says it may come from the bright red hibiscus iced tea often drunk at slave celebrations. Still others say the red represents the blood spilled to achieve freedom.

Blonde and fragile, the tea cake is the opposite of a red food. It has sugar, but it is not a sugar cookie. It often has nutmeg or citrus, but it is not a snickerdoodle.

“It was almost like eating a cake-like cookie,” recalls 66-year-old Austin, Texas resident Elbert Mackey, who executed a decade-long quest called “ The Tea Cake Project ” to recreate his Aunt Maggie’s recipe, which he shares with The Plate below. “If you would taste one, you would know. It was just something, you know, ‘wow.’ It had a lot of ‘wow’ to it.”

Tea cake is an integral part of African-American food culture. Made from cupboard ingredients —lard or butter, sugar or molasses, flour—the tea cake likely represents the effort of enslaved Africans to reproduce the fluffy confections they were asked to create for their European masters.

Tea cake has kept generations of children quiet in church, old timers say, or happy while working. Reliable, gentle, familiar, Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods may be the most lovable character in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God .

Advocates say featuring tea cake at Juneteenth is one way to maintain their place in the culture.

“People are just coming back into learning how to make a tea cake and putting it into the menu for Juneteenth, but we’ve always had it as part of our celebration,” says Bernadette Phifer, curator of Austin’s George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center . The museum’s core permanent exhibit focuses on Juneteenth. “The elders would talk about tea cakes,” Phifer says, “that when they were little girls they used to get tea cakes for Juneteenth and it was special.”

It’s that older generation that largely has kept tea cake alive. In San Antonio, Texas, 81-year-old Gloria Price Bryant spreads the gospel of tea cake by making dozens and dozens for funerals and bereavement dinners at her church. Bryant believes the pastry has fallen out of favor because it’s “a pain in the butt to make.” You have to get a feel for it.

“You can’t bake tea cakes from a recipe. You have to watch someone do it,” says Bryant, who made several 300-mile trips home to learn at her mother’s hand. “You have to get that dough just right. It’s almost like pie dough.”

The tea cake commission’s Robinson hopes not only to return the sweet to every Juneteenth table, but to spread its fame to the population at large. She waits for the day, she says, when tea cake is a symbol of African-American culture the way bagels represent Jewish heritage and tortillas represent Latino heritage. She would also like to see tea cake become as economically successful as these foods.

“The tortilla is a multi-billion dollar industry,” says Robinson, who in the 1990s collaborated with the National Council of Negro Women on a commercial product called “Mrs. Bethune’s Tea Cakes.” “I’d like to see some jobs created behind the tea cake.”

Aunt Maggie’s Old-Fashioned Tea Cakes

Contributed by Elbert Mackey, Author of The Tea Cake Round-Up .

Makes 1 Dozen

½ cup margarine, softened

½ cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar, packed

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon evaporated milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

Beat margarine at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add the sugars, beating well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition. Add vanilla extract and milk, beating until blended.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt; gradually add flour mixture to shortening mixture, beating at low speed until blended after each addition.

Wrap dough in plastic wrap, and chill for 1 hour.

Roll dough to ¼-inch thickness on floured surface. Cut out cookies with a 2 ½-inch round cutter and place 1-inch apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

Bake at 325◦ for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are brown; let stand on baking sheet 5 minutes. Remove to wire rack to cool.

Enjoy!

Michele Kayal is the co-founder of American Food Roots . Follow her on Twitter @hyphenatedchef .