Today’s episode is entitled “We Got What We Wanted”. The 3rd in a 3 part series.
Key Points:

• New Voting Laws have been passed since the last presidential election which many feel restrict voting rights
  
  
• Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves– and the only way they could do that is by not voting.
  
  
• Although Voting is very important, nothing will affect your life more than the choices that you make.
  
  

Resources:
Selma Mayor: 'An Awesome Time For Our City' : NPR

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-03-26/biden-slams-georgia-voting-law-as-an-atrocity

Today’s episode is entitled “Struggling For Voting Rights”. The 2nd in a 3 part series.
Key Points:

• The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. However many Black Women still could not vote due to Jim Crow
  
  
• Opelousas Massacre that took place in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana killed 250 Black people to suppress turnout among Black voters
  
  
• March 7, 1965, Bloody Sunday, Up to 600 activists set out in Alabama to march from Selma to Montgomery to protest for Black voting rights. But when the marchers reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, they encountered White state troopers, who attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas.
  
  

Resources:

Why the Women's Rights Movement Split Over the 15th Amendment (US National Park Service)

https://virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=NPO19230110.2.98&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN--------

George Mason and Slavery | Fourth Estate

How White Suffragists Excluded Black Women In Their Fight For The Right To Vote – WABE

Why did Black Americans have to fight so hard for the right to vote?
Key Points:

• In March 1857, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision against Dred Scott. In an opinion written by Chief Justice Roger Taney, the Court ruled that people of African descent "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States".
  
  
• In 1890, Mississippi held a convention to write a new state constitution to replace the one in force since Reconstruction. The white leaders of the convention were clear about their intentions. “We came here to exclude the Negro,” declared the convention president.
  
  
• Mississippi cut the percentage of black voting-age men registered to vote from more than 90 percent during Reconstruction to less than 6 percent in 1892.
  
  

Resources:
The Supreme Court . The Court and Democracy . Biographies of the Robes . Roger Taney | PBS

Civil Rights Act of 1875 | United States [1875] | Britannica

Plessy v. Ferguson: Separate But Equal Doctrine - HISTORY

Brown v. Board of Education | Case, 1954, Definition, Decision, Facts, & Impact | Britannica

Does this group truly represent the interest of Black Americans?
Key Points:

• BLM gained national attention after the August 9, 2014 police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown and the subsequent protests and unrest in Ferguson, Missouri..
  
  
• BLM GNF had given $21.7 million to 30 organizations, 23 of which are “led by Black LGBTQIA folks and/or directly serve these communities.
  
  
• Is the BLM movement focusing on the issues that matter the most to Black Americans?
  
  

Resources:
Democratic leaders clash with Black Lives Matter activists over 'defund the police'

BLACK LIVES MATTER 2020 IMPACT REPORT

Black Americans Earn 30% Less Than White Americans, While Black Households Have Just One-Eighth Wealth Of White Households

Black workers in the US private sector | McKinsey

About - Black Lives Matter

Why do Blacks squander so much of their money? Do Blacks need to change their values?
Key Points:

• Black American buying power is at 1.1 Trillion; and yet only 2 cents of every dollar blacks spend in this country goes to black-owned businesses.
  
  
• Blacks on the average are six times more likely than Whites to buy a Mercedes, and the average income of a Black who buys a Jaguar is about one-third less than that of a White purchaser of the luxury vehicle.
  
  
• A 2013 study revealed that Black churches have collected more than $420 billion in tithes and donations nationwide since 1980, an average of $252 million a week.
  
  

Resources:
The Fed - Recent Trends in Wealth-Holding by Race and Ethnicity: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances

Even Though MC Hammer Ran Through $70M In About Five Years, He Says He 'Wouldn't Change One Thing' - AfroTech

How Do Black People Spend Their Money? — The Racial Wealth Gap

The Pawn Queen: Woulard, Byron: 9780982937518: Books - Amazon

Why is there so much anger in the Black Community toward law enforcement? What is the root cause of this anger? Is it justified?

Key Points:

• Most Americans have high confidence in police, except for black Americans. With a 1.5 percentage point margin of error, 56 percent of black Americans said they had a great deal or fair amount of confidence in police, compared to the 78 percent of white Americans who said the same.
  
  
• Monmouth’s study found the majority of black Americans — 87 percent — believe that police are more likely to use excessive force against black people, a sentiment white Americans agreed with, though not by an overwhelming margin; 49 percent of white Americans said police were more likely to use excessive force against black people, while 39 percent felt the use of force wasn’t tied to race.
  
  

Resources:

Amid Protests, Majorities Across Racial and Ethnic Groups Express Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement

Former deputy Zachary Wester sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for drug planting

Former Biscayne Park Police Chief Sentenced for Conspiracy to Deprive Persons of Civil Rights by Ordering Officers to Make False Arrests | USAO-SDFL | Department of Justice

Are the police actually targeting Black people? Why do so many traffic stops conclude with the Black person getting killed? What’s the solution?


Key Points:

• Statistical data does not support the claim that Blacks are being targeted by the police.
  
  
• The number of blacks arrested by violent crime category in 2019: Murder—4,078, Rape—4,427, Robbery—29,677, Aggravated Assault—91,164. In this one year alone, there were 3 times as many blacks raped, 21 times as many robbed, and 65 times as many violently assaulted as there were blacks killed by police in the six years reported combined.
  
  
• There is an old proverb that says “Where there is no vision, the people perish”
  
  

Resources:
Race Crazy: BLM, 1619, and the Progressive Racism Movement
by Charles Love
Julie Tate, Jennifer Jenkins, and Steven Rich, “946 people have been shot and killed by police in the past year,” Washington Post, Updated June 3, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/

Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Table 43: Arrests by Race and Ethnicity,” 2019. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/table-43

Should full assimilation into American society be a greater priority for Black Americans than the overzealous pursuit of cultural acceptance?

Key Points:

• Are upper and middle-class Black Americans afraid of their own people, the large black underclass? 
  
  
• Before we can achieve any major improvement in the social and educational status of Blacks, they must develop a frank process of self-examination to replace the current unwillingness to look objectively at destructive behavioral norms.  
  
  
• Values count more than race in today’s economic picture
  
  

Resources:

Resources / Publications / Young Children / May 2018 / Addressing the African American Achievement Gap: Three Leading Educators Issue a Call to Action