By The Numbers – Jim Crow II

So last week we had a pleasant surprise when we discovered a president that had a 10 rating according to yours truly and the folks of the times. If I ever get a chance to visit his burial site, I will make sure to have a copy of Sam and Dave’s “Im A Soul Man,” to leave as a tribute. Chester A. Arthur… Rest in peace bro. The next president we are going to talk about is named Benjamin Harrison. He served from 1889 -1893. This period is seventeen years after the Reconstruction and seventy-five years before the next Civil Rights Act would be signed into law. According to the official lynching counter, Tuskegee Institute, close to 3500 black people would be meeting our maker with twig branches in their hair. Another approximately 1300 white folks would be seeing the pearly gates reading a Jet and eating Skittles. White folks who were charged with aiding and abetting blacks were usually hung from the same tree, unless you are an orthodox racist… they believe you shouldn’t hang a white man from the same tree as a black man… Racist: Now hot diggity dog… you know you can’t hang that white man next to a “n-word. Folks will get to thinking we be equal or something… He got to be at least two or three hog lengths away!!” Yep, some of them were that serious about their hatred of black folks. Anyway, let’s get into part two of “By The Numbers – Jim Crow”. Our criteria;
10 – You can sit next to the table and watch while we play a couple of hands of bid whisk.
9 – You are able to use the word “Bro” in front of us.”
8 – You can bring something to the barbecue and we’ll put it on the table with the other food.
7 – We will wave at you if we see you on the street.
6 – We won’t side-eye or sass if you bring a watermelon to our family dinner.
5 – You can leave with a little bit of your dignity after saying “My Nigga.”
4 – If we hear you calling for help, we will call the police after we have charged our phone.
3 – We will count to three before we let the dogs out if you come to our house.
2 – We won’t pee on your statue during daylight hours.
1 – Faque Off!!

Benjamin Harrison – 8
Elected 1889 – 1893
You can bring something to the barbecue and we’ll put it on the table with the other food.

Benjamin was the 23rd president of the United States. He was a Republican and the last of the Civil War generals that was voted into office. Everyone else except Grover Cleveland had been a general officer in the Civil War after Lincoln’s assassination. Benjamin only stood 5’6 inches, and was nicked named “Little Ben.” Only James Madison was shorter at 5’4. Now, before we get into race politics, I’m going to have to talk about the “Curse of Tippecanoe.” I am hesitant because I don’t want to end up in the Bureau Of Prisons, FCI “Wegotyoazznow.”
NSA: “Yep.. that that nigra used the words death and president in the same sentence… talking all that shat huh… bring that moe in here and make sure he’s butt hole naked when we interrogate his revolutionary azz!”
Anyway, the things you do for your readers… So Benjamin’s grandfather was a member of the group of presidents who went into office on a year ending in a “0.” These are the presidents elected in these years that died in office from 1840 -1960. William Henry Harrison (1840), Abraham Lincoln (1860), James A Garfield (1880), William McKinley (1900), Warren G. Harding (1920), Franklin D. Roosevelt (1940), and John F Kennedy (1960). So it all started when William H. Harrison was a commander in the military. At the battle of Tippecanoe, he defeated two of the Native Americans’ greatest warriors, Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa. It was Tenskwatawa that put the ugly mouth on him and said ” I hope you die at your greatest moment with an arrow and a tomahawk sticking out yo back!!”
NSA: That’s it!! That’s what we were looking for!! Go pick that n-word up!!
Okay, he didn’t say that. All we know is there was a curse or to be more precise, there is an urban legend that says there is a curse.
NSA: Naw nigra…
So those are seven of the eight presidents who died in office. Zachery Taylor is the eighth president who died in office, but he didn’t fit the pattern. He died in office in 1850, but was not elected in a year that begin with a “0.” The pattern falls apart after the Kennedy assassination. Ronald Reagan and George Bush both were elected in years that ended in “0,” but did not die in office. Right now our current president Joe Biden is the latest to fit the profile.
NSA: Call em back.. the boys upstairs say that’s not enough… the nigra wiggled out that one..”
Anywho, I thought that was some interesting stuff. So Harrison’s grandfather was one of the Tippecanoe presidents and was the first one to die which was attributed to the curse.
NSA: You keep pushing nigra… say the word die again… I dare you!!
When Harrison became president he supported a proposed bill that would ensure that elections were fair. The bill was called the Federal Elections Bill (FEB)and was written by noteworthy abolitionists, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and Senator George Hoar. Now mind you the 15th Amendment to the Constitution already gave African Americans the right to vote, but those tricky Southerners kept coming up with ways around it like literacy tests and poll taxes. There were towns in the south that had populations that were 75% black but had a white sheriff and mayor. When the bill came to the floor of the Senate it was filibustered and eventually defeated. That was in 1890. There wouldn’t be another voting rights bill until 1920… that would be defeated too… I’m shocked! The filibuster was the tool used to delay or stop impending legislation by talking a moe to death. The senator filibustering would go to the lectern and talk for hours until someone said faque it, you got it. I’ll never understand the power of the filibuster. If I don’t believe in something you can talk until you are blue in the face and I’m going to still hold my ground. The filibuster is only used in the Senate now, as it was discarded in the House of Representatives in 1842. Anyway, even with Harrison’s support the FEB was defeated. In 1892 Harrison went before Congress to speak out against the lynching of African-Americans in the South. He said, “The frequent lynching of colored people is without the excuse…that the accused have an undue influence over courts and juries.” So what he exactly meant by saying that is beyond me, but the racist didn’t like it… which means I love it. For history’s sake, it would have been a lot clearer if he would have just said, “You know what your rat asses are doing down there, hanging black folks for no reason at all and you should stop that scandalous shat!!” That’s not being presidential, but it is being real. Like many of the Republican presidents before him, he lacked the support of Congress and without their support Civil Rights reforms were impossible. So as I mentioned earlier, Harrison was the last of the Civil War generals to be elected to the presidency. He was stationed in Indianapolis and after he left office, he returned there, where he died in 1901.

Arthur: How far we got to go Enslavia? We have been driving all night!
Enslavia: I figure three state trooper pullovers, two nigra’s go around the back, a couple of “by gawd nigra,”, and one hanging on the side… I’d say we’re almost there… just a few more burning crosses to go…

William McKinley – 8
Elected 1897 – 1901
You can bring something to the barbecue and we’ll put it on the table with the other food.

Mckinley was the last president to hold office that served in the Civil War. He went in as a Private and came out as a Captain. His commanding officer was also a future president, Rutherford B. “Backstabbing” Hayes. Hayes was the one who pulled the troops out and had us singing “Mammy” for the next 75 years. Anywho Mckinley was not anything like Hayes. Mckinley came from a family of abolitionists. I heard his mamma and daddy even ate chitlins on occasion. Okay, I didn’t hear that, but they were abolitionists. They raised their kid to be abolitionists too and it’s a good thing. During his administration, there were several race riots in the country along with numerous lynchings in the South. In the last year of his administration, there were 106 lynchings in the South. In New York, a man named Arthur Harris stabbed to death a white undercover agent named Robert Thrope, who he said was hitting on his girlfriend. Thrope said he thought the girl was out there on it if you know what I mean. Well, Harris didn’t take kindly to Thrope calling his girlfriend a “hoe” and went to whipping it. So Thrope saw that a moe was more serious than a heart attack, and after Harris sent a few fists bouncing off Thropes dome, he figured ain’t no way he was gonna whip this nigra with hands, so he pulled out his billy. Whack, whack, whack, and Harris was like, “Ima have to cut something..” So Harris ended up killing Thrope and then fled to DC. On the day of Thrope’s funeral, white folks began feeling some kinda way and a rumor started circulating that black folks were whipping white folks’ asses down in Hell’s Kitchen. That shat turned into… Racist: “They done rape a white woman in Hell’s Kitchen ya’ll!!” For four days, some 10,000 young whites, the city police among them, attacked virtually every black they encountered, leaving scores of both races injured and one black man dead. Harris was later captured and sentenced to life in prison with some of the biggest, most funkiest, bearded white boys you can imagine. White inmate: “Yo name is Toby!!” Anyway, you know that shat didn’t happen down south because if they would have seen a black man swinging on a white cop… HOT DIGGITY DOG!!! There was another instance of back sass during Mckinley’s administration that happened in New Orleans… with deadly consequences! A black dude named Robert Charles killed another white cop while fleeing several others. This was down south and you know how this is gonna end. While a mob started chasing Charles, another mob started burning black homes and attacking other black folks. In the meantime, Charles had been cornered in a house and refused commands to come out and surrender. When he refused, the mob started shooting into the house. Now I don’t know what the heck or who the heck Charles was, but he returned fire and I mean “HE RETURNED FIRE!!” Charles killed seven of those folks before they got to him and set the house on fire forcing him to come out. Well, you know what happened then. They shot him down like a dog. After all was said and done, besides burning the houses down of innocent blacks, the white mob had killed at least twenty-seven other blacks. So I didn’t see any historical records that indicated if Mckinley said one thing or another about the incidents, although, in his other public speeches, his view on the plight of African Americans was well known. The one thing I admire about Mckinley was that he was the first commander to allow African Americans to fight in a foreign war, the Spanish American War. That was a high honor then, especially when you figure they didn’t want African Americans in the Army at all. It recognized the value that he put in these men. Sorry… my brown brothers… this was back in the day… Anywho, Mckinley was elected to a second term, but remember what we were talking about a while ago? Yep, they found him with an arrow and tomahawk in his back… okay no they didn’t. He died in September 1901 when a crazy man shot him in the head while he was standing in a receiving line shaking hands at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition He died 8 days later… and according to conspirators, a victim of the “Curse of Tippecanoe.”

Home Sweet Home

Racist Cop: Boy didn’t you see that stop sign back there?
Arthur: Suh I was paying close attention and I didn’t see any stop sign… I was traveling under the…
Racist Cop: Boy!! Don’t you back-sass me!! You telling me you didn’t see that big fiery cross burning on the corner?!!
Arthur: Yes suh… but I thought that meant to slow down and be respectful…
Racist Cop: NO BOY!! THAT MEANS STOP AND TURN AROUND!! NOW LET ME SEE YO PAPERS!!
2nd Racist Cop: (Whispering…) They don’t have to show papers now… you gotta ask em for a license…
Racist Cop: Let me see yo license boy!! (He snatches it out of Arthur’s hand) Where is yo massa’s signature!!??
2nd Racist Cop: (Whispering…) He don’t need that nowadays.. he is free to go anywhere he wants in this gawd-fearing land…
Racist Cop: Okay… Boy, I want you to get out of that car… and then I want you to come over here and smack me across my lips!!
Arthur: NO SUH!! NO SUH!! PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME GET OUT AND SMACK YOU ACROSS YO LIPS!!
Racist Cop: BOY ARE YOU REFUSING TO DO WHAT A GAWD-FEARING LEGAL DEPUTY OF THE STATE OF ALABAMA IS ORDERING YOU TO DO!! I TOLD YOU TO GET OUT OF THAT DAMN CAR AND SMACK ME ACROSS MY @!!##@ LIPS!!
Arthur: NO SUH!! NO SUH!! PLEASE SUH!!
Enslavia: (Waking up from sleep…) What in the world!!?? Did you stop at that burning cross and turn around?
Arthur: No Enslavia!! I slowed down and was being respectful!!
Enslavia: I see… Officer, can I have a word with you? ( Enslavia gets out of the car and walks over to the cop… after a few minutes she walks back and gets back in. The cops get into their car and drive off…)
Arthur: I’m never coming back down here!! Neva !! Eva!! What the hell did you tell him!!
Enslavia: I told him you was a black heathen from the North and the rules up there were a bit more lax. Up there a burning cross means slow down and be respectful… a swinging body means stop and turn around…
Arthur: I swear… I swear… I swear…
Enslavia: Stop yo mumbling… we ain’t got that much further…

Theodore Roosevelt – 1 ( Used to be a 6)
Elected 1901 -1909
Faque Off!!

“I talk softly but carry a big stick!!” If you heard that saying, it came from Teddy Roosevelt (TR). TR is an enigma to me. At his basest level, he believed that white men of European ancestry were innately superior, however, he felt that “inferior races” could rise up from their lower stations… not as high as white folks.. but nevertheless rise up. He thought that inferior races could learn positive traits from the master race and thus assumed racial mobility was within the bonds of human control… oh massa!! You know something I feel like a demerit is coming on. Anywho, because of this idea that individuals were responsible for their own fates and achievements, he often did things that uplifted individuals as opposed to racial recognition. For instance he invited Booker T Washington to dine with him, just weeks after his inauguration and less than 40 years after the Civil War. Inviting a black man to have dinner at the White House while they were still smelling the scent of burning wood in Atlanta was poking the South right in the eyeball. He also defended Minnie Cox, the country’s first African American female postmaster, after she was driven out of Indianola, Mississippi, because of the color of her skin. He appointed Black Americans to prominent positions, such as his nomination of Dr. William Crum as a customs collector in Charleston, South Carolina, which drew considerable political opposition. I think we talked about that before. Custom collectors worked the docks collecting money from cargo being shipped into the US. Having a black man telling white men to “Put that shat over there like I told you…!!” used to be a hanging offense down in that neck of the woods. Still, TR response was the door or opportunity should not be closed on any man regardless of his race or color. That was when it came to individuals. As a race, he believe blacks on the whole were inferior. He told Henry Cabot Lodge, that “the great majority of Negroes in the South are wholly unfit for the suffrage” and that giving them voting rights could “reduce parts of the South to the level of Haiti.” Oh massa!! He believed that black men made poor soldiers and he lied about them running away under fire at the Battle of San Juan Hill. You do know who the black men who were fighting at San Juan were, don’t you? He was talking about the “Buffalo Soldiers!!” One of the most bravest and revered Infantry and Calvery divisions in American history!! They had been fighting in the US Army since 1866 and 26 black Buffalo soldiers were killed on the slopes of San Juan Hill fighting to the death because America told them to!! Oh massa!! You know something… I’m lowering his ranking. Now while I’m not gonna call the president a racist, I am going to say he was a bigot of the 10th degree with side-mouth clusters. Now if you thought he was tough on African Americans.. dig this… “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.” – Teddy Roosevelt 1886. Wait a minute… I’m changing this moe to a 1!! TR also had something to say about eugenics. That’s that Hitler stuff about procreation. Only the fittest and best should procreate… the white folks. Yep, TR backed that shat.
“Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce,” he wrote in 1913. “Some day we will realize that the prime duty, the inescapable duty of the good citizen of the right type is to leave his or her blood behind him in the world; and that we have no business to permit the perpetuation of citizens of the wrong type.” – Teddy “It’s a White World And You Just Live In It” Roosevelt, 1913. Did I say he was a bigot? Naw.. this is a bonafide 8th Degree Racist with Hanging Rope and Broken Arrow Insignia!! I once watched a PBS series about the Roosevelts. I admired the part about Teddy and use to think he was one of our greatest. After researching about who the man really was, I might go downstairs and set my TV on fire… okay no I’m not… but I am going to tear up my TV guide.
So this completes part two of “By The Numbers – Jim Crow” Check us out next week when we will be exploring “By The Numbers – The Panic”

Thanks for reading ©Hill1News