Our Challenge Ahead: Creating Black Wealth – The Third Reconstruction

Educate, organize and mobilize: The date of our Voter Empowerment Summit is still tentative so I’ll not elaborate on it beyond what has been said.  However, our challenge going forward hasn’t changed and I’ll continue to address it and outline action initiatives.  Community empowerment is our goal and everything that we address is designed with that in mind.  Because of the difficulty of our road ahead, I’ll continue to address the areas that require aggressive attention with the hope that public feedback and support will help focus and galvanize our efforts.

I recently saw Selma and found it very educational and emotionally provocative.  I highly recommend it for anyone and everyone that find our status quo unacceptable.  Most of you probably know that Selma addresses the struggle by Blacks to secure their voting rights, the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King and the deadly violent resistance encounter from white racists.  In Selma, death and determination underscored the essence of our struggle for voting rights.  However, Selma concluded with the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  The Voting Rights Act was the crown jewel of the Second Reconstruction.   

As I’ve written in the past, the era of the Second Reconstruction ended in June 2013 when the Roberts Court gutted the pre-clearance provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  However, during the era of the Second Reconstruction, the Black vote enabled the descendants of former slaves to make unbelievable progress and gains that were unthinkable 50 years ago.  Of course electing a Black President is the crown jewel of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  I believe that educational gains and other political gains combine to put Black leadership in a unique position of power.

But by the ending the Second Reconstruction, the enemies of Dr. King, voting rights and Black people, have demonstrated their intentions of rolling back the clock on Black progress as far and as fast as they can.  They continue to show their determination to enforce the Doctrine of Exclusion and relegate Black people to a permanent underclass, outside of the reach of the “American Dream.”  Of course the Doctrine of Exclusion called upon white people to enforce a system that confined Black people and their descendants to a permanent underclass of noncompetitive, uncompensated, managed workforce that existed solely for the well being and wealth creation of white people.  The Doctrine of Exclusion began to evolve around 1650 and thereafter.  However its embrace appears to be alive and well today.

Denying Blacks the right to vote has always been a guiding principle of the Doctrine of Exclusion.  When Blacks gain the right to vote after the Civil War during the First Reconstruction, there was an immediate backlash white racist supporter of the Doctrine of Exclusion.  They curbed Black voting rights and enacted Jim Crow laws that stayed with us until around 1954, the end of the First Reconstruction. 

Today the efforts to enforce the Doctrine of Exclusion are being led by conservative Republicans nationwide.  However, all ten states of the former Confederacy states of the south are united as their anchor.  And I suppose that you’ve guessed it, voter suppression is their weapon of choice.  Voter ID is the crown jewel of voter suppression but there are many, many other components too numerous to mention.  Voter suppression efforts are having great success and that means that the pursuit by Blacks of the American Dream and wealth creation are becoming more and more difficult to attain.

At the end of the day, Black people have to make a considered decision to resist those that are turning back the clock or to accept being relegated to second-class citizenship.  Thankfully North Carolina has more than 600 organized Black elected officials that have chosen to become the resistance.  For them to succeed it is necessary for all of us that agree with them to become active in promoting and supporting strategies and activities that will lead to defeating voter suppression and acquiring Black wealth.  I suggest that the resistance coalesce under the banner of the Third Reconstruction and to that end, going forward; I will be addressing voting, jobs and economic empowerment as resistance components of the Third Reconstruction. 

Lastly, as more details of the summit are formalized and more information on the strategies of the Black elected officials is made available, we will provide updates.  The summit will be free and open to the public.

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Peter Grear, Esq. writes for Greater Diversity News with a primary focus on politics and economics.  To support our efforts, to marry our politics and economics, please “Like” and follow us at www.facebook.com/VoteYourEconomics.  “Share” our articles and your ideas and comments on Facebook or at our website www.GreaterDiversity.com.  Comments can also be sent to [email protected]. Finally, please ask all of your Facebook “Friends” to follow our above-referenced recommendations.  •