Being a successful foundational Black American of 2020 is nothing new. Black Americans have contributed our conservativeness to the United States , for hundreds of years, we built and shaped the energy of this country.
The first Black leaders in America were sent to Africa, which crippled & stalled the leadership system. The American Colonization Society (ACS) was created by European colonizers in 1816. This was a effort by the white elites to remove all the free intellects within the area, mixed them in with native Africans in Liberia. The ACS lasted till 1964. It founded Liberia, sending 13,000 blacks there from the 1820s onwards. Among ACS supporters: White slave owners, who saw free blacks as a threat to slavery, both as possible troublemakers and as living examples that gave lie to the idea that blacks were fit only to be slaves.
Its important to understand why the leaders who escaped slavery such as Nat turner , and Harriet Tubman get talked about so much. Because white Americans removed the real threats of America from the country. Blacks who could read and write in the south was a serious threat on the influence of blacks enslaved. Whites, who feared free black labour, and feared the rise of Black Excellence. White abolitionists and majority blacks were against the ACS: they saw blacks as having a rightful, equal place in American society.
President Lincoln was an opportunist, and also an ACS supporter. In 1862 he still believed in ethnic cleansing. But by the time he gave the Gettysburg Address in 1863 he believed in a multiracial society, only because of the failed attempts to send blacks to Panama and Haiti.
As early as the 1890s, black Americans such as W.E.B. Du Bois, began to trace black culture in the United States to Africa. Jubilee Singers introduced Negro spirituals to white Americans. and the American Negro Academy, organized in 1897, promoted African American literature, arts, music, and history. These are just the beginnings of the con-structure of real Black America.
Black mothers matter, and these mothers were determined to live and work as wives within a traditional household modeled largely on those of a criminal society. By 1900, most Black American women worked from morning to night in the cotton fields alongside their family. When the mother got home in the evening, She would still be cleaning, cooking, washing, and taking care of her husband. Black American women were unified in the early 1900’s. Whether it was a local church, or a meeting group. They had a reform agenda, pushing for Black rights, anti-lynching legislation, suffrage for women, and the availability of higher education for Blacks.
The Black Women’s Club Movement, was created by a group of black local leaders. It pre-dates the NAACP, it was created as a means of destroying Jim Crow. The Naacp got their idea & concepts from the earliest Black Women leadership groups. From 1900-1919 you can make an argument that the elite blacks were creating a black renaissance era. How did we have a better blueprint 100 years ago on what to do , then 2020? Yes it has been a regression as far as ownership. But what can we learn from the black elite of 100 years ago, just 35 years removed from holocaust slavery?
Jack Johnson was heavyweight champ from 1910-1915, the only reason he lost the title, because he was broke and he threw the fight, he never did get his promised money or a rematch. They had to hustle the title from jack Johnson via extortion. First Black Heavyweight champion ever.
Annie Malone was the first woman millionaire in America. Her parents were slaves, she also dropped out of high school. She would become a millionaire business owner from the years 1902-1930. She is the first female millionaire in America that nobody ever likes to talk about.
Madam Cj walker, her parents were slaves, the simple fact that she could become the second female millionaire in America when her parents couldn’t read or write should inspire every black person ever. She became wealthy in 1915. Her neighbors was Rockefeller himself. Cj Walker did great things as a leader, one of those incidents, was a time she had put money up, save Fredrick Douglas house from going into foreclosure. She mysteriously died in her prime in 1919, during a time she was making big moves donating to NAACP and putting pressure on the president with letters from her organizations.
Noble drew Ali, is another important figure, that helped shape Black America from the years 1915-1929, Ali would unite blacks with knowledge wisdom and understanding of self. During a time when blacks were finally coming to knowledge of history. The first leader historian of black America. Ali strength was the wisdom that he gave his people for 15 years. He would also die a mysterious death.
The Great migration happen during 1915, when blacks fled the south due to violence and lynchings. Marcus Garvey – in 1916, Garvey had two million Followers, in today’s world that’s 20 million followers. He had a movement without YouTube, without TV or radio or social media. During Garvey’s Harlem Renaissance years Black Americans came to Mexico to escape the land of lynching and legal segregation, and an African American farm commune near Ensenada that was founded in 1917 lasted until 1960.
The NAACP to combat lynching a, they created the “ Silent protest of 1917”. These Harlem blacks, all 8000 Of them, walked silently during the streets of Harlem, this is what a real protest looked like. The movement for black pride found its cultural expression in the Harlem Renaissance, the first self-conscious, artistic movement in Black American history. During the 1920s, Harlem became the capital of black America, attracting black intellectuals and artists from across the country and the Caribbean.
These are the leadership skills, that created the black American families that exist today. Even with leadership setback in the early 1800’s ,after slavery ended black leadership picked up tremendously. The blueprint was needed, for blacks in 2020, to have the family values that we hold today.
