“Welcome to the knowledge,” said my friend John, after I learned that the man who endowed my university was a slaver – that is, when I learned that I personally and directly benefitted from slavery

What I used to think
- My family is from northern Wisconsin, where they didn’t have slaves, so I had not benefitted from slavery so therefore it had nothing to do with me. (I was wrong.)
- White privilege didn’t apply to me because I have never gotten a job or gotten into a school because of connections. (I was wrong.)
- Our country is a country of opportunity for everyone. All you have to do is study and work hard. (I was wrong.)
- Just don’t sass the police and you’ll be fine. (I was wrong.)
- There is no such thing as systemic racism. Our country is just. (I was wrong.)
A Little League baseball team in Youngstown, Ohio, won the city championship. The coaches, unthinkingly, decided to celebrate with a team picnic at a municipal pool. When the team arrived at the gate, a lifeguard stopped one of the Little League players from entering. It was Al Bright, the only black player on the team. His parents had not been able to attend the picnic, and the coaches and some of the other parents tried to persuade the pool officials to let the little boy in, to no avail. The only thing the lifeguards were willing to do was to let them set a blanket for him outside the fence and let people bring him food. He was given little choice and had to watch his teammates splash in the water and chase each other on the pool deck while he sat alone on the outside.
“From time to time, one or another of the players or adults came out and sat with him….”
It took an hour or so for a team official to finally convince the lifeguards “that they should at least allow the child into the pool for a few minutes.” The supervisor agreed to let the Little Leaguer in, but only if everyone else got out of the water, and only if Al followed the rules they set for him.
First, everyone–meaning his teammates, the parents, all the white people–had to get out of the water. Once everyone cleared out, “Al was led to the pool and placed in a small rubber raft,” Watkins wrote. A lifeguard got into the water and pushed the raft with Al in it for a single turn around the pool, as a hundred or so teammates, coaches, parents and onlookers watched from the sidelines.
After the “agonizing few minutes” that it took to complete the circle, Al was then “escorted to his assigned spot” on the other side of the fence. During his short time in the raft, as it glided on the surface, the lifeguard warned him over and over again of one important thing. “Just don’t touch the water,” the lifeguard said as he pushed the rubber float. “Whatever you do, don’t touch the water.”
Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson
What I have learned
- George Floyd. Jay Anderson. Elijah McClain. Alvin Cole. Philando Castile. Ahmaud Arbery. Dontre Hamilton. Tamir Rice. Rayshard Brooks. Sandra Bland. Freddie Gray. Eric Garner. And the list goes on and on and on.
- Redlining
- Sundown towns
- Black vets couldn’t get the GI Bill
- Unions would not admit Black people
- My own city – my own house – had restrictive covenants. That is, it used to be illegal for me to sell my house to a Black person. (Or a Jewish one.)
- The FHA would not lend to Black people: “He notes that the Federal Housing Administration, which was established in 1934, furthered the segregation efforts by refusing to insure mortgages in and near African-American neighborhoods — a policy known as “redlining.” At the same time, the FHA was subsidizing builders who were mass-producing entire subdivisions for whites — with the requirement that none of the homes be sold to African-Americans.”
- Black women have a higher rate of maternal mortality than white women, even when you hold all other factors, like education, income, and general health, constant.
- “Black suspects are more than twice as likely to be killed by police than are persons of other racial or ethnic groups; even when there are no other obvious circumstances during the encounter that would make the use of deadly force reasonable.” (Columbia Law School)
- “Police in the United States kill far more people than do police in other advanced industrial democracies….Black women and men and American Indian and Alaska Native women and men are significantly more likely than white women and men to be killed by police. Latino men are also more likely to be killed by police than are white men.” (National Academy of Science)
- Mass murder and destruction of Black properties and neighborhoods.
- Lynching was not just an isolated event in our history that happened to handful of people. (Even that would be bad.) Thousands – THOUSANDS – of Black people were tortured and murdered by crowds of people who took picnics to watch.
My great-great grandfather Anthony P. Crawford was born in January, 1865 and owned by Ben and Rebecca Crawford in Abbeville, South Carolina.
My great-great grandfather Anthony P. Crawford was born in January, 1865 and owned by Ben and Rebecca Crawford in Abbeville, South Carolina.
He walked 14 miles roundtrip to and from school each day and proved to be quite a scholar. When Anthony finished school he was a laborer for Ben Crawford until Thomas Crawford, Anthony’s father, died in 1893 and deeded some land to Anthony, who was the only one of nine siblings able to sign his own name.
Anthony Crawford was lynched in 1916 in Abbeville, SC by a crowd estimated to be between 200 and 400 blood-thirsty white people. His crime you might ask? Cursing a white man for offering him a low price for the cotton seed he was trying to sell and being too rich for a Negro.
His ordeal lasted all day. His body was beaten and dragged through town to show other Negroes what would happen to them if they got “insolent.” Finally, he was taken to the county fair grounds and strung up to a tree and riddled with bullets. Although we have heard his body was thrown on someone’s lawn, we have yet to locate his grave.
The family was ordered to vacate their land, wind up business and get out of town. They did just that.
My great-great grandfather stated early in life, “The day a white man hits me is the day I die.” And he did. But he left an example of hard work and determination.
He still lives in all of us. Many of us still attend AME Churches and we have been told that we have “that arrogant Crawford way.” But we know that those murderers were NOT successful in breaking up the Crawfords. We still stand today proud and close and live our lives as he would’ve wanted us to. We will not stop looking for each other until the last Crawford is accounted for, and we can stand on his land and look toward heaven and pray that he knows we are together again.
American Black Holocaust Museum
What I want
I want our country to live up to its promise.
I want justice and fairness for everyone.
What I will do
Even though it scares me, I will march in protests.
It scares me because WE BLOCK TRAFFIC.
AND WE SHOUT.
But – what do I, a middle-class white woman, really have to fear? That the police tell me to get out of the street? That I might be tear gassed? That I might be arrested?
I’m white.
They’re not going to kill me.
I need to use my power to help others.
Even though it scares me, I will speak up when I see injustice.
What’s the worst that can happen to me? That a white guy I don’t even know gets mad at me? What’s he going to do? Hit me?
Not going to happen.
And this doesn’t scare me at all – I will vote vote vote for candidates who support racial justice and equity and are against the death penalty and want to end police brutality and who want to invest in schools and who believe in voting rights.
What will you do?