By The Numbers – The Panic

In our last installment of “By The Numbers- Jim Crow II”, we ended with Theodore “It’s a White World And You Just Live In It” Roosevelt. His term ended in 1909. This week’s installment, “The Panic,” will bring us into the bitter years as America heads toward the Great Depression. It all started with the Panic of 1907 when a group of investors tried to corner the copper market. The New York Stock Exchange lost 50% of its value from the year before and folks started pulling their money out of the banks. When a lot of folks pull their dough out of the banks at the same time, they call that a run. You do know that if everybody went to your bank on the same day and tried to get their money, the bank would not be able to give everyone their hard-earned mula? That’s because most of it has been invested and they don’t have physical possession of it.
Bank: I’m sorry sir, but most of our money was tied up in stocks and the market crashed, so we don’t have yo money… we lost it…
You: Oh… I see… Baby, go out to the buggy and get my pistols… they getting ready to have a situation…
So that type of stuff was happening all over the country. Folks wanted their money! In response, the government wrote the Federal Reserve Act (FRA). So the FRA gave the federal government the ability to print its own money. Now the Constitution forbade individual states from printing money which could have solved the problem, so the banks got around it by printing their own notes under the National Banks Act Of 1863. That didn’t work out that well. Under that system, folks were counterfeiting left and right! To combat counterfeiting they all started printing on paper authorized by the government using the same basic design, but it was too little too late. The FRA stopped that circus and that’s why you now have those federal notes in yo wallets and pocketbooks now… aka dollar bills. Yep, before 1913 you could have been walking around with money that had the face of a rabbit on it because that was the bank owner’s daughter’s favorite animal. Anyway, the “Panic,” and the ensuing “Great Depression,” was hard on white folks. If it was hard on white folks, you know what that meant for us.
Massa Sharecropper: Robert you know I lost everything in that bank run… Ima needs to get those chicken toes back I gave you yesterday…
Robert: Massa my family needs those chicken toes! We don’t have anything to eat!! What am I gonna do?!!
Massa Sharecropper: I’m sorry Robert, but I got to think about my own family… I’ll tell you what… you can keep the toenails… Black Joe said he boiled some creek water, added some hay and chicken toenails… well he said that’s some mighty fine eating…
Robert: You talking about the Black Joe they hung yesterday for stealing that picture of a cow from the library?
Massa Sharecropper: Don’t know what got into that boy… darndest thing… he tried to cook that picture and set the whole library on fire… anyway.. no more back sass, bring my chicken toes up to the big house… I’m afraid Ima need those toenails too!!
Poor Robert… Anyways a lot of the history books don’t mention the fact that through the 1920s America didn’t have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out, instead, they call it the “Roaring Twenties.” Anywho were are going to start just before the bottom fell out with the administration of William H. Taft. His inaugural address set the stage for what type of country he was going to run and who was going to be doing the running. First 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!!

William H. Taft – 3
Elected 1909 -1913
We will count to three before we let the dogs out if you come to our house.

So we are not going to go line by line through Taft’s entire inaugural address but just talk about the relevant portions. From a historical perspective, it was one of the shortest, but too lengthy to discuss for our purposes. The statements in bold are just my interpretation of what he really means.
“I look forward with hope to increasing the already good feeling between the South and the other sections of the country. (This is another way of saying let bygones be bygones. We don’t mind burying the hatchet and if you like, we can bury it in the nigras back.) My chief purpose is not to effect a change in the electoral vote of the Southern States. That is a secondary consideration. ( Ya’ll can go on hanging them folks as long as you vote for my party.) What I look forward to is an increase in the tolerance of political views of all kinds and their advocacy throughout the South, and the existence of a respectable political opposition in every State; even more than this, to an increased feeling on the part of all the people in the South that this Government is their Government, and that its officers in their states are their officers.” (Now while we understand you feeling some kinda way about them folks, we just want ya’ll to refrain from hanging them in front of the courthouse. Technically the 15th Amendment says they are American citizens too. However, we feel you and if your officers want to hang them in front of the saloon, then we can look at that as respectable political opposition…)
The consideration of this question can not, however, be complete and full without reference to the negro race, its progress, and its present condition. (I see a lot of ya’ll clapping.. so Ima keep talking about them.”
“The thirteenth amendment secured them freedom; the fourteenth amendment due process of law, protection of property, and the pursuit of happiness; and the fifteenth amendment attempted to secure the negro against any deprivation of the privilege to vote because he was a negro. The thirteenth and fourteenth amendments have been generally enforced and have secured the objects for which they are intended. While the fifteenth amendment has not been generally observed in the past, it ought to be observed, and the tendency of Southern legislation today is toward the enactment of electoral qualifications which shall square with that amendment.“(Wink, Wink..)
“Hence it is clear to all that the domination of an ignorant, irresponsible element can be prevented by constitutional laws which shall exclude from voting both negroes and whites not having education or other qualifications thought to be necessary for a proper electorate. The danger of the control of an ignorant electorate has therefore passed. With this change, the interest which many of the Southern white citizens take in the welfare of the negroes has increased.” ( So we got some nigra lovers out there. Now they must be crazy. Ima tell you right now … We watching you. We watching you and we watching yo nigras… and if we have to get you… we gonna get them too.)
“The colored men must base their hope on the results of their own industry, self-restraint, thrift, and business success, as well as upon the aid and comfort and sympathy which they may receive from their white neighbors of the South.” (For those Negra’s that want to be a credit to their race… they must remember Luke 12: 47-48 “That servant, who knew his lord’s will, and did not prepare, nor do what he wanted, will be beaten with many stripes.” However, if you prepare … and do your lords will… then everybody, and I mean everybody will get a slice of watermelon on Sundays…)
“There is in the South a stronger feeling than ever among the intelligent well-to-do, and influential element in favor of the industrial education of the negro and the encouragement of the race to make themselves useful members of the community. The progress which the negro has made in the last fifty years, from slavery, when its statistics are reviewed, is marvelous, and it furnishes every reason to hope that in the next twenty-five years a still greater improvement in his condition as a productive member of society, on the farm, and in the shop, and in other occupations may come.” ( From now on… we gonna teach “you” how to operate the cotton gin… it’s not gonna be a white man’s job anymore! Now a lot of you know how to count to ten… in the next 25 years we gonna teach ya’ll how to count to “ONE HUNDRED”!! That’s right!! It will be nigra’s that will tell the massa how many bales of cotton ya’ll picked!! Not only that… in the next 50 years there’s talk that nigra men might be able to smile at white women!! (BANG !! BANG!! BANG!!) Umm.. sorry… I meant that nigra men might be able to smile… BANG!)
So there is a lot more to Taft’s bigoted inaugural speech but we have to move on. You can read it in its entirety here. It’s not that much longer, but basically, Taft is defending the South’s right to deter blacks and poor whites from voting. Although poor whites were among our most racist foes, some were also among our greatest friends. We were treated the same and we voted the same.

Oh My…

Private: Turn right here driver… this is the address.
Driver: Suh I don’t suggest you get out in this neighborhood… Black folks in this…
Private: Shut up!! I am an officer of the law and I intend to go in there and make an arrest… If anybody gets in my way they’ll pay for it dearly! Now wait right here, I’ll be right back!!
Driver: Okay boss… but I think you might…
Private: Didn’t I tell you to shut up!!
Driver: Okay boss…
Private: (Knock! Knock! Knock!) I know you are in there!! Come out or I’m coming in!!
Man: We don’t want any trouble… What do you want?
Private: I am an officer of the law and I come for Enslavia N. Youno I’Amdeeazz!!… and if I don’t get her Ima whip yo azz and make you cry!!
Man: Well she ain’t here… so go away!
Private: I warned you!! (Private kicks the door open and runs into the house, where he sees three of the biggest, most muscular, bearded baldheaded black men he ever saw in his life!) Now Ima tells you right now.. if you don’t produce I’Amdeeazz … (Private points at one of the men)… Ima start by whipping “YO AZZ”!!!… cause you the “UGLIEST”!! Now where is she!!??
Man: Little man.. that’s a mighty big mouth you have there… I wonder will it still work after I twist yo head off and put it on top of the dresser…
Private: As long as you put it on the dresser in yo Mamma’s room…
Man: “IMA BOUT TO FAQUE YOU UPPP!!”
Private: Well get to working MR. CLEAN!!! I got something for you “RIGHT HERE”!!… right… here…?
(Meanwhile…)
Driver: I hope Private is okay… I tried to tell him he left his gun on the seat…

Oh my…..

Woodrow Wilson
Elected 1913 – 1921
Faque Off!! (“I mean all the way off to Faque Off Mountain!!”)

Many of us know about Woodrow ( Dead Man Walking) Wilson. He was the most racist post-civil war president this country has ever produced. Now if you look up his biography in your standard history book, you will see that he was the founder of the League of Nations, the precursor of the United Nations. He also was a champion against monopolies and fought against child labor, and lead our nation in the first world war. What they don’t say is that he was a BIG TIME SEGREGATIONIST! He used to be president of Princeton before he went into politics, and while there he wrote a textbook praising the Confederacy. I mean he wrote a gushing I love ya’ll to death and ain’t nobody can make me change my mind textbook. In it, he idolizes the Ku Klux Klan. As president, he segregated all branches of the federal government. To Wilson, every black man was a “dead man walking.”
So I talked about Wilson’s textbook briefly, but I want to expound on it. It was a 5 volume racist rant about the Confederacy and the “Lost Cause.” Now Ima bout to close my blinds because Ima gets real with it. So we all know about the Confederacy and how they got their asses whipped and we made them cry… but we don’t know that much about the “Lost Cause.” So the Lost Cause was an attempt to put the Confederate ass whipping in the best possible light. “Yeah they whipped our ass and made us cry… but at least we didn’t cry in front of mamma and daddy…” The term was coined by Edward Pollard, another racist who also wrote a book. That ideology spread through literature, art and other forms of entertainment. Lily of the Fields:” Oh Rhett… the darkies are coming and they gonna violate the womanhood!! Rhett: Fear not those heathens dear Lily, for the white manhood of the civilization shall save you and your pure breath..” That’s right.. the Lost Cause was about saving white women from black men! When TV became commonplace, that ideology spread across generations. It’s why we have the bullshat we have today. Southern sympathizers teaching generations of Americans their version of history. It’s only been within the last 20 years that America is waking up to the fact that the Confederates were traitors and their history is not one of honor, but of treason and scandal. Anywho… when Wilson was elected, he was the first Southerner since Reconstruction to be elected to office. Reconstruction had ended almost 40 years earlier. He and his band of cabinet racists immediately started to segregate the government. Yes there were protest… men like W.E.B Dubois and William Monroe Trotter tried to reason with Wilson. Hundreds of jobs in the black community were at stake. Remember Washington had a very large black population, as many of us came to Washington after the Civil War because of jobs and security. As a matter of fact, Wilson angrily threw Trotter out of his office after one exchange… Wilson: The next time I see you boy, you gonna have a bird nest on yo head..” Anyway, not only was a physical racial partition put up in the places of government employment, but he also targeted jobs, with the better-paying jobs being reserved for whites. Remember the movie called Hidden Figures with the three black women mathematicians at NASA and how one of them had to go to the laboratory on the other side of the base? A lot of you might think that she had to go on the other side of the base because of Jim Crow.. naw.. that was some of Wilson’s bullshit.. yeah I said it. Jim Crow were state laws. See how they protect him… even today? Now that picture I have at the beginning of this piece showing the Ku Klux Klan marching down Pennsylvania Ave in Washington DC was during Wilson’s administration. Afterward their racist parade, their membership took off, blessed by “Dead Man Walking” Wilson and his showing of DW Griffith’s “Birth Of A Nation,” in a private showing at the White House. I know a lot of you already know about “Birth Of A Nation,” and the blatant race-mongering and “Lost Cause” ideology espoused by its little dick creator DW Griffith… (yeah I’m getting ugly with it…) anywho, I’m not gonna get into Griffith other than to say every July 23 when I think about it, Ima moonwalk and drink margaritas. One more thing… I’m canceling Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick… I wish HAL would have got yo ass… So anyway, Wilson’s legacy is finally being addressed. In 2020 Monmouth University renamed its Woodrow Wilson Hall and Princeton, where he was once the president, changed the “Woodrow Wilson School Of Public And International Affairs,” to the Obama School of Enlightenment And Hood Strategies.” Okay no they didn’t… but they did take his name off the building saying that Wilson’s racist thinking and policies make him an inappropriate namesake for a school or college whose scholars, students, and alumni must stand firmly against racism in all its forms. So that wraps up our piece on Woodrow Wilson. I have only touched the surface of the deep bigotry and racism this Wilson possessed. The only thing left to be said is I hope it is sunny next February 3rd.

On A Positive Note

Driver: Now take a sip of this Private… slowly… there you go…
Private: Where am I… what happened.. how did I get here…
Driver: Well when I heard you hollering and saw them throwing your things out the window… I knew you were in trouble…
Private: What!!? Wait!!? Saw them throwing what things out the window?? Was it my gun?
Driver: Now you just calm down… It wasn’t your gun… it was your bullets… but you don’t have to worry… the doctors say many men go on to lead very active lives without their bullets… Now it might be a while before you can cross your legs again… but…
Private: WHAT!!?? NURSE!! NURSE!!

Warren G. Harding
Elected 1921 -1923
You are able to use the word “Bro” in front of us.

I guess many of you noticed that Warren didn’t serve his full term in office. He died of a heart attack in August 1923. However, while he was in office, he was passionate about Civil Rights and Women’s Rights. One of the first things he did in his administration was go down to Alabama to give an anti-lynching speech. The country had just gone through the Red Summer which occurred during Wilson’s term in 1919 where there were attacks on blacks in at least 26 cities across the US. I guess Alabama didn’t get the memo that the Red Summer was over. In 1920 the NAACP estimated that a least two African Americans were being lynched every week. Now we all remember when President Obama’s birth became an issue during his first campaign. Well, Harding had the problem. Them folks went way… way… way below the belt and said that one of Harding’s great-great-grandfathers was a native of the West Indies. Only a white man can be president! Straight up…!! Harding told them he was from white “pioneer stock.” Anyway, they wanted him for his stance on lynching and his support on one of the many bills introduced into Congress during the last 50 years at the time. There were over 200 anti-lynching bills put forth between the end of the Civil War and now. The only one that passed was in 2022, a hundred and fifty-seven years later, “The Emmett Till AntiLynching Act.” Even in 2022, three people voted against it. Who votes against not lynching somebody? If I answer that, ya’ll are going to say I’m feeling some kinda way… They also tried to say Harding was a member of the Ku Klux Klan… Really? In 1987, historian Wyn Wade published The Fiery Cross, in which a former Ku Klux Klan member claimed to have witnessed Harding’s initiation into the Klan on the White House lawn. Yeah, I believe they lit a ten-foot-tall fiery cross on the White House lawn and initiated the president into the KKK surrounded by guys dressed in sheets and pillowcases and no one saw it. Who wouldn’t believe that? Yeah right… Scholars have thoroughly examined the allegations and they’re like telling people to “Stop taking that shat…” Anyway, like I said Harding died in 1923, but he was able to see a little bit of prosperity during the post-WWI Roaring Twenties. In the next six years after the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the US and then the World would go into an economic depression that would last 10 years. It was the Great Depression and the lives of tens of millions of black American citizens would change forever.

Next Week: ” By The Numbers – The Panic II”

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