Detroit's Agony - ABC Primetime Special November 8th, 1990

[Richard]

We are just having a discussion and not throwing arrows.

Agreed the slamming of freeways through cities destroyed a lot of tight knit African American enclaves,which also contained German,Irish,and other immigrants,the building of the Brewster projects also took 15 acres of Black bottom.

The mindset also at the time and sense these areas were considered low income with older housing stock,outside of the freeways cities were also looking at renewal.

The Sojourner Truth housing project was also built to clear the rest of Blackbottom out,that was actually Mrs Roosevelt who made that decision.

There was 350 African American businesses in Black-bottom at the time,O am not sure but it appears as though a majority moved over to 12th street.

They did not just all fade away and actually today Detroit is 5th in the country in the amount of African American owned businesses,considering the other cities above have populations over 1 million,it still holds true.

I cannot think of the name of the city in the south,it still retains its African American community like blackbottom had back then,it’s school graduation rate remains 98%,with 85% going on to collage and top end careers.

I am not pointing fingers or anything it,I do not know what to call it,maybe boggles my mind ?

I deal with alot of African American businesses,I have some good African American friends that are in their late 70s - 80s that grew up in all of that turmoil and even worse,in the south.

But yet they became multi millionaires and they started out with the crap jobs,numbers runners,drivers for the girls,running bootleg but yet they preserved and made it.

The African American that invented peanut butter,17 years old and wants to get a education,so he walks 1200 miles from Florida to the Carolinas at a time when he could very well have been lynched had he been caught,gets a job at the university as a janitor,studies off of the books,they noticed and allowed him to get a degree and he invents everything peanut outside of the shell.

I agree with there has been past history of racism,un even odds,deck stacked against or what ever one calls it,everybody that I know in business no matter what the odds or skin color that wanted to succeed,did so and does.

Even if one is white,or Bieze or Asian or what ever,if one was not born with a silver spoon,it’s a uphill battle full of its ups and downs and disappointments,sucesses and failures.

I do not buy this whole,the white man keeps me down approach,and because of the past I am at a disadvantage,the ones throughout history that took the approach of nobody is going to keep me down,or the only way they can is if I let them.

We have to remember history while not destroying it,the good or the bad,otherwise future generations will know little about it,but it seems as people like to use it as a crutch.

There are people out there that like us to be at each other’s throats,it’s power plays, just as there are people out there that cannot stand it when others succeed and will do anything to keep others down,it’s just the way it is.

I just think we spend to much time in the past and not allowing to move forward,we know what happened and we need to always discuss it so it does not happen again.

In my humble uneducated opinion where Detroit’s concerned,it needs to get over all of this past and move on,to constantly relive it is not helping,do not forget it but yesterday is history,tomorrow is the future.

I do not know much about mayor Young,outside of what I read here and other research,but he seemed to like stoking the flames with division and blame game,as a mayor,all of that should have been irrelevant,I just think he could gone a lot further had he gone down a different path.

But it does not really matter at this point,we cannot go back and change it,maybe learn from it and decide if that is the best way to move the city forward,judging from current choice of leadership,I am thinking most have learned from the past and are moving forward.