The following is Blog number thirty-eight and is part of the ongoing Racial Reconciliation in America Series. It is entitled: Race in America – How White Men Have Offended The Black Man.

RACIAL RECONCILIATION

RACE IN AMERICA – HOW WHITE MEN HAVE OFFENDED THE BLACK MAN

It was President Kennedy who first coined the phrase: “Affirmative Action.” President Lyndon B. Johnson, in league with Martin Luther King Jr., and other stalwart change agents, who challenged the nation to engage in a War on Poverty, moved the ball forward! Then, it was President Richard M. Nixon, who attempted to move the ball forward even further, through the implementation of the “Affirmative Action Program.”

These efforts were Post Jim Crow Law policies that were created to thwart a perceived impending Black male anarchy coming out of freedom movements of the 1960’s. From the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover to President Richard M. Nixon there was anxiety that “Black Panther Party gun carrying Revolutionaries” were a threat to the civility of the nation.

We contend that the philosophy and momentum of Malcom X and the message of self-preservation within Black Muslim Theology struck fear in the heart of Hoover and Nixon.

The many riots in cities all across the land post-MLK assassination gave cause to fear a Black uprising that would become uncontrollable. Certainly, the “War on Poverty” and “Affirmative Action” policies were an outgrowth of this fear and they were both good ideas. We contend that the initial goal of these programs was to change the lot of the Black male in America, and thus the Black family.

We contend further that the orchestrated failures relative to policy implementation, by White men, who felt threatened by both polices, particularly “Affirmative Action” has in our judgment left this nation in great peril, socially. As the plight of the Black male continues to deteriorate, we will not be at all surprised if there is a return to the kind of Black male self-preservation efforts of the Sixties. The current level of hatred and violence toward Black men and boys has grown not retreated. Indeed, not since the late Sixties have racial tensions been at current levels.

The aforementioned public policies were good policies. They were properly focused; yes they were and they were working, perhaps too well and too rapidly. That is what led to their demise.

Flawed implementation is what caused these two programs to become failures; if goal achievement is any measurement of success. America remains a race-focused society; is not colorblind as some might like to declare. Over the past forty-years, the marginalization, of the Affirmative Action policy to change the state of Black-America; combined with its challenges to White privilege, have furthered the divisions between the races.

Anybody ever heard the phrase: “Forty Acres and a Mule?” It actually is a true story of 1865. All programs since the first failed program of restoration of the Black Family have gone the same as this promise!

[http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2010/summer/slave-pension.html  “Land Allocation Efforts Stymied by the Johnson Administration. In the late stages of the Civil War and in its aftermath, the federal government (primarily Republicans) tried to relieve destitution among freedpeople and help them gain economic independence through attempts to allocate land. These efforts, both military and legislative, help explain why African Americans thought that compensation was attainable.

Special Field Orders No. 15, issued by Gen. William T. Sherman in January 1865, promised 40 acres of abandoned and confiscated land in South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida (largely the Sea Islands and coastal lands that had previously belonged to Confederates) to freedpeople.

Sherman also decided to loan mules to former slaves who settled the land. But these efforts were rolled back by President Andrew Johnson's Amnesty Proclamation of May 29, 1865. By the latter part of 1865, thousands of freedpeople were abruptly evicted from land that had been distributed to them through Special Field Orders No. 15.

Circular No. 15 issued by the Freedmen's Bureau on September 12, 1865, coupled with Johnson's presidential pardons, provided for restoration of land to former owners. With the exception of a small number who had legal land titles, freedpeople were removed from the land as a result of President Johnson's restoration program.”]