[itsinthebag]

Black people must pool their capital in order to help themselves. They must establish retail sales organizations throughout their communities and also must go into light manufacturing where retail selling has already produced an outlet for the products light manufacturing can produce. This will enable blacks to help solve their own problems. . . .

Black folks did that in Tulsa, OK in 1921. The dollar circulated in the community 26 times before leaving. Blacks owned and operated every conceivable legitimate business imaginable. The community was highly prosperous until white envious rednecks burned the community down, killing hundreds. Anyone else know about this story? I saw a documentary about it on TV. You can do a google search and read about it. Extremely interesting.

Also, I read this book some years ago. I think it was called "The Blue Book". I can't seem to find it anywhere now. But it was amazing. It was written in 1907. In it were biographies of Black folks in every endeavor you can think of it: banking, science, education, inventions, entertaiment, sports, business, agriculture, oil business, you name it. The book profiled highly successul blacks in these fields. There was one picture of a family of black bankers standing in front of their bank. They looked awesome. The book was full of success stories.

There were a lot of "black Tulsas" across America in the earlier 1900s to 1920s. When President Roosevelt came into office and introduced the "New Deal", seems like black folks haven't been the same since. Now the "black leaders" march down the streets arm in arm shouting "jobs, justice and peace".

My mother grew up on a farm in Fredericksburg, Virginia during the depression. Her father was a blacksmith and farmer. They were poor, but her father would never have considered accepting welfare. He worked hard to support his large family and they were happy, and NEVER without food. They just didn't have much money, but they helped feed the city folks in Richmond. My mother vividly remembers their yard being packed with the cars of the city folks who came to get something to eat on Sundays. My mother's father was a hard-working man who had a strong work ethic. They were poor and black, but believed that no one owed them anything.

[itsinthebag]

bump

[Luke Skyfreeper]

Do you think the book might be:

Colored People’s Blue Book and Business Directory of Chicago, Illinois 1905. Chicago: Celebrity, 1905. Call # F89621.N318.

?

[Luke Skyfreeper]

Black folks did that in Tulsa, OK in 1921. The dollar circulated in the community 26 times before leaving. Blacks owned and operated every conceivable legitimate business imaginable. The community was highly prosperous until white envious rednecks burned the community down, killing hundreds. Anyone else know about this story? I saw a documentary about it on TV. You can do a google search and read about it. Extremely interesting.

Unbelievable. What's also unbelievable is that everybody in America doesn't know this story.

[Luke Skyfreeper]

Possibly also relevant:

Black's Blue Book,
F.S. Black

Names, addresses and phone numbers of colored homes with a telephone : also a classified list of colored business and professional people with other useful information.

• Publisher: Chicago : Black's Blue Book Co., ©1923.

[autoresponder]

I posted a comment on a FR thread last night referring to the higher education interests of blacks before FDR in the 1930s and 1940s.

Also the higher Republican voting levels then among blacks compared to now.

More blacks in business then.

FDR and LBJ introduced the "New Plantation", especially in large urban areas.

The rest is history.

Criminal agenda of the democrat party.

[autoresponder]

I guess we would have been considered "poor" too when I was a kid in south Florida.

My father had a plant nursery and small landscaping service and also "truck-farmed" winter vegetables.

My older brother raised 50 hens for eggs and Sunday dinners in a coop he built in the back yard.

My mother made my sister dresses from print chicken feed sacks.

Ny brother and I raised $1-$4 heifer and bull (temporarily bulls!) calves from dairies up for milk cows and freezer steers for sale.

I worked after HS classes days plus Saturdays at a grocery store and made more tips as a bagboy then 3 others combined.

I raised coconut trees and Royal Poinsiana trees which my mother sold from a sign out front of our home; made as much from that as my father's nursery did.

I bought my own used Plymouth convertible in HS. Red. Of course.

My parents finally went into real estate and we started making much more income.

Someone forgot to tell us we were "poor" I reckon.

Or were we.