Another Atrocity That the History Books Won't Tell You About

This type of story makes me angry first, and then it makes me cry... Anger that any society could wholeheartedly endorse such behavior (as white society did) even after other cases like this were exposed for the shameful lie that they were.

Then I cry for the loss of innocence, the loss of hope, and the loss of life, life that didn't need to be lost, life that was never allowed to grow into it's full potential....

That's not all that I feel when I hear a story such as this one. There's a mix of horror and hurt when I think that so many whites to this day will deny such things as this (or Rosewood) ever happened,  or that blacks were ever anything more than common laborers and drunks, that they never did and never could amount to anything . When blacks did rise to the status of whites, without any help from them, everything the blacks  had was destroyed and/or taken away, like The Black Wall Street in the neighborhood of Greenwood, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There's so much that black folks had that the government and white society made sure they didn't keep; it was as if (IMO) whites were intimidated by the intellect of the blacks, who they were  told in the beginning were no better than animals. Why do you think it was such a crime initially to teach a black person to read? It was because (IMO) they knew that blacks were people who were just as intelligent as they were, and would rise to the station (and above) of white society. After all, no one objected if you tried to  teach a dog to read, did they?

Here's a video of another atrocity that I came across today.  Pay particular attention to  the age  of one of the accused, and where they said he was that night. How was he accused, let alone  convicted? Because the whites wanted some black person to be guilty, despite what they knew to be the truth.
                               
  Groveland, Florida in 1949



Video posted on YouTube by Truth and Edutainment on April 23, 2017.  For more of their videos, click on the name.
To read about Rosewood, Florida or the Black Wall Street, simply click on the names in the post.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed in this blog are strictly those of the blog author, and in no way express the views of YouTube, Blogger, Google or any other entity (i.e. news services) whose content and/or services may have been accessed for use in this blog. 

Jul. 29, 1910: Slocum Massacre in Texas

Another small town (like Rosewood) in the South (like in Florida); this time in Slocum, Texas, that a lot of us are just learning about. Massacred blacks, murdered for nothing more than being black. This is what we're heading for, if you can call it 'heading'. What we're actually doing is going backwards, and it's not voluntary. We're not choosing to return to a time when a young boy can get lynched for looking at a white woman, but that's exactly the way this country is headed. 14 year old boys will be kidnapped off the street, and their killers will be acquitted. (Sound familiar?) Wrap your head around this little known black history fact:                                                                                                                       Descendants of the Slocum Massacre victims                                                                                                                      attending a Texas House ceremony in 2011

On July 29, 1910, citizens in the small, predominately African American town of Slocum, Texas were massacred.

That morning, hundreds of white citizens from the surrounding community converged on Slocum. Over the following days terror reigned for the African American citizens as individuals were gunned down working fields and seeking shelter in their homes.

Even those who tried to leave town were not safe. Many bodies were found shot in the woods, with their travel packs at their sides. While there has never been a clear figure of how many died, estimates range from 8 to 25. Many suspect the toll was much higher.

This was one of many towns, such as Rosewood and Tulsa, where a successful, self-sufficient African American community was the subject of a terrorist attack designed to maintain economic white supremacy.

In each town, the incident that sparked the attack was relatively insignificant and often fabricated. In Slocum, there were various trigger incidents such as a disputed debt between a well-regarded black citizen and a white citizen as well as anger from some whites when an African American man was put in charge of local road improvements.

The aftermath? As E.R. Bills explains in The Dissident Voice:

[After the massacre], the personal holdings of many Slocum area Anglo citizens fortuitously increased.

The abandoned African-American properties were absorbed or repurposed as the now majority white population saw fit. The standard southern Anglo-centric world order was restored, and this order has endured, even to the present day.

According to recent demographic statistics, most of the communities around Slocum have an African-American population that ranges between 20-25%. Grapeland’s is 35%, Rusk’s is 30% and Palestine’s and Alto’s is 25%. Slocum’s African-American population is just under 7%.

Today, Slocum is still an unincorporated community and that’s probably wise. If there was an elected civic leader or assembly in Slocum, they might be asked to apologize for the massacre or explain why there are no placards acknowledging the event or the American citizens who were slaughtered there and covered up in unmarked graves in the woods and creek bottoms.

To learn more, read the following articles and book by E. R. Bills:

• “A Forgotten Slaughter of African-Americans in Texas: The Slocum Massacre” in Dissident Voice
• “Town’s 1910 racial strife a nearly forgotten piece of Texas past” in the Statesman
• The 1910 Slocum Massacre: An Act of Genocide in East Texas, a book from History Press