I often wondered just how deep did White hate go for Black excellence. And while I haven’t gotten to the full extent of it, having done research for the past two months, it is crystalized in my mind that they hated Us. I mean damn, if you take some time and look into the annals of history, you find that there are sooo many successful Black entrepreneurs. You see the success of a Maggie Walker, C.C. Spaulding, Dr. Aaron Moore, John Merrick, Walter Edwards, Granville T . Woods, Henry Boyd, Francois and Julien Lacroix, Jean Baptiste and Augustin Metoyer, Lucy McWorter, Henrietta S. Duterte, Elleanor Eldridge, CeCee Macarty, Marie Thereze Coincoin and so on. I can continue to list the names of Black male and female entrepreneurs in the annals of history. So many that it disgusts me to see just how under-represented and under-reported Black business history is and has been. What it does is make crystal clear just how much White America feared and despised Black people.

I said that I was going to be writing a series of stories to promote and uplift the Black community, and in particular the Black business community. See what was known about Slavery and Jim Crow doesn’t really begin to tell the detailed story about just how perverse and intentional White America was with belittling, devaluing, embarrassing, delegitimizing, suppressing, dehumanizing and disenfranchising Black people. Did you know that back during the Antebellum South days, because of the laws on the books that didn’t recognize Blacks as people and citizens of this country, if a Black slave invented something they could not get patent credit for it. The credit for the invention went to the White Slave owner. History has shown that Blacks invented many things that we use today. Maybe, just maybe some of the credit given to White men for creating inventions we consider revolutionary, doesn’t belong to them at all. Because of the system of suppression and oppression and enslavement, Blacks never got their full credit for the things they invented.

I think back to the free Blacks and the Slaves during Colonial times in the United States and I wonder how they really felt about having to scratch and claw for everything they earned. Having their dreams and creations taken away from them. To have credit given to a White man who didn’t do a damn thing and you have to accept it because the laws and customs of the country precluded you from having your say. You couldn’t go to court, you couldn’t testify, you couldn’t hold political office. None of the levers of control you operated, you were just along for the ride. And yet, with knowing all of this they persisted. Black men and women didn’t quit when they were stripped of everything. When racist and prejudiced Whites destroyed their businesses and homes, they didn’t quit. When the Slave master raped women and forced them to have their babies, they didn’t quit. Black people kept fighting and kept finding ways to succeed in a country designed to destroy them.

Take a look at what happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Atlanta, Georgia, Chicago, Illinois, Harlem, New York, Durham, North Carolina. These places were epicenters of Black business ingenuity and success. Places where Blacks built significant wealth and showed themselves to be equal to their White counterparts. And places where Whites, disgusted and outraged that Black entrepreneurs were maintaining, and in most cases, significantly growing their wealth, that they had to destroy the business community. They had to try to eradicate the Black businessman and businesswomen. In Tulsa they effectively destroyed the Greenwood district. Although, little by little the descendants of that once thriving Black business district are working to try and restore the lore and prestige of that hallowed land. The Black business district in Durham, known affectionately as Hayti, is still producing quality, sustained Black business and the descendants of their once sprawling, thriving business district are working to lift it back to similar stature. After the Atlanta race riots, the city leaders didn’t back down and Black business has continued to boom in Atlanta and expand. It is thriving and continues to be a place that many potential Black entrepreneurs come to get their foot in the door. All these places Whites tried to destroy because it ran counter to the narrative they were so skilled and persistent with delivering to the masses of this country. That narrative being that Blacks were ignorant, we aren’t intelligent enough to establish and run successful businesses. That we can’t be trusted and that we are animals, barbarians that need to be contained and controlled.

These are the words used to describe us when Slavery was brought to this country and kept in tact for hundreds of years. The same refrain was used post Slavery, during Reconstruction, when Whites didn’t want to integrate freed Blacks into the economic, social, and political mainstream of America. This narration was used to justify the need for Jim Crow Laws in the South and Segregation in the North. These reasons were used when the New Deal was being crafted, made law and excluded Blacks because of Southern insistence that Whites were superior to Blacks. This refrain was used during the Civil Rights Movement to explain why it was okay to allow police dogs to maim Black people. To explain why lynching Black people wasn’t a crime and why it was humane, because we were animals with no souls and we deserved this treatment. It is used today when Whites want to try and delegitimize the push by the Black Lives Matter Movement because we refused to protest in the manner they thought we should. Because they want to change the dynamics and don’t want to accept White talking points with little action.

Let me be clear here, notice I have not separated White groups in this writing. Because all iterations of the Republican and Democratic parties have been racist, prejudicial and demeaning to the Black community. Neither party has truly followed through on the promises of full equality for the Black community. Reparations is something that needs to happen. Look at history with a clear eye and you can see that, damn what these dumb asses say. Let that Booker T Washington mind set go. Proving your success doesn’t get you shit but more challenges if you’re Black. The race can’t continue to be ran when we’re starting a mile behind. Business equality still isn’t any closer to a reality than it was at the end of Slavery, and every era that followed. Consumer equality has never existed in this country, despite the half assed laws on the books that aren’t stringently enforced. I want this to be a clear message: History has never been fully, nor correctly told by White America or by the mainstream media of America. If you want to earn the trust of the Black community and want our support, start by fully supporting us. Give us an equal bite at the apple and level the playing field. Then, you might just stand a chance at earning back the trust that has been destroyed at your own hands.

Speak to me America.