Sunny Day..
Black kids going… out to play..
On their way to…
Where the racist be…
Can you tell me what the faqck.
Are they doing on Sesame Street…
Now if you know anything about Hill1News, you know there is no way this blog is going to let this Fracka-Nacka, Top Shelf, Dirty Confederate, First Degree, Alabama Red, Hot Creek Racist Bull Crap slide. When you start publicly humiliating black children, then it time for somebody to pull out a can of 100 percent Whip Ass Extra Strength TM, the oil you can only get from the private parts of Mighty Joe Young, King Of The Beast !! So you got to be a bad mfer to have a can of that … Yeah I said it!
So when Sesame Street came out in 1969, I was already in elementary school smelling my underarms. Back in them days when you started to smell your underarms you was a man… nowadays when young folks see a couple of hairs on the face, it’s time to sit in the living room and tell yo mama you ain’t eating no more of that shat!! Then after you have gained your weight back from not eating cause a man don’t eat that shat… cause a man buys what he eats… and you didn’t think about summer being over and ain’t nobody wanting their lawns cut any more… so now you slink in the kitchen and asks mama what she cooking? She says spaghetti… you tell her she makes the best spaghetti you ever tasted… nobody makes spaghetti like you!! (true story…) anywho.. So yeah I was kinda too old to enjoy Sesame street when it first debuted. However I had a two year old brother and he loved Sesame Street. I used to sit and watch it with him… and to tell you the truth some of the songs they sang was aight.. It was the first show I saw where kids of all ethnicities were represented. It was something new after watching most of the back actors on TV being portrayed as stereotypes like Amos N Andy and the Lil Rascals. Don’t get me wrong, as a small kid growing up, I enjoyed those shows.. it’s only when you got older that you saw what they are doing… inventing inferior role models. Anyway I’m getting off subject.. let’s get back to the puppet racist on Sesame Street.
The last place you would think that a racist would sling the color bag is at Sesame Street. But this summer one reared their ugly fake head right in the land of Big Bird. Throwing high fives at white children while throwing stank shade at black children. It should be no surprise though, throughout our 500 years as second class citizens, public places of entertainment have always been the primary scene of segregation. Just a little over 50 years ago we could even go into theme parks. I’m from DC and as a kid mom and dad would take us to Glen Echo Park (GEP.) This was in the early sixties. Little did I know in 1960 the straight up ghetto came out of the black DC community… aimed directly at Glen Echo. Here was a city more than 55 percent black that had an amusement park right down the street that no black people could enjoy. Baltimore had a similar uprising at Gwynn Oak Park. Anywho, the desegregation train was pulling into towns and cities all across America. It started in 1948 when the Armed Services integrated and went forward with protest and the sit ins of the late 50’s. I never did see the why black people would target white establishment where food was served. Malcolm X once said something to the effect “I’m not eating in no place they don’t want me to be in..” I agree.. Racist: ” Oh you want to eat here boy.. right? Lester pour this nigra a cup of bacon and eggs..” So yeah, around this time, DC folks was hollering to be let in Glen Echo. Lead by the brothers and sister of Howard University, who called themselves the “Non-violent Action Group” or NAG, they started with sit ins at lunch counters, department stores and restaurants in Virginia. After they hung a couple of them, they went back to DC and turned their attention to Glen Echo… just kidding… anywho, it was in the summer of 1960, when a student named Laurence Henry led a couple dozen NAG member right up to the gates of GEP. Now they weren’t alone, because in 1960 you could get it kicked real good out there in them woods where GEP was.. ain’t nobody was looking. They were assisted by some white folks from none other than Chevy Chase. Yep.. Star Bucks, Neiman Marcus and Cartier Chevy Chase… So what they did was throw it in GEP face.. ” How you gonna take public funds and tell black folks if you want entertainment go down to the Potomac River and watch the tide come in… and stop calling me Otis!!”
Laurence Henry (R) and Frank Collins (L)
So when they arrived, besides the NAG members and the Chevy Chase crew, they had a couple of high school students with them. They sent them up there first… and when they were turned away, Laurence and the rest of them bum rushed the gate. They ran to the carousel where they were confronted by ” Deputy Fife,”.. a state-deputized security guard named Frank Collins. Their encounter was captured by a local reporter.. here is a partial transcript of that recording:
Frank Collins (FC): Are you white or colored?
Laurence Henry (LH) : Am I white or colored?
FC: That’s correct. That’s what I want to know. Can I ask your race?
LH: My race? I belong to the human race.
FC: All right. This park is segregated.
LH: I don’t understand what you mean.
FC: It’s strictly for white people.
LH: It’s strictly for white persons?
FC: Uh-hum. It has been for years…
LH: You’re telling me that because my skin is black I cannot come into your park?
FC: Not because your skin is black. I asked you what your race was.
LH: I would like to know why I cannot come into your park.
FC: Because the park is segregated. It is private property.
LH: Just what class of people do you allow to come in here?
FC: White people.
LH: So you’re saying you exclude the American Negro?
FC: That’s right.
LH: Who is a citizen of the United States?
FC: That’s right.
LH: I see.
Of course when they didn’t leave, they were arrested. Now I don’t know about you, but when he asked me was I white.. I would have said yeah.. I’m white, here’s my Brylcreem… Anywho they were released and decided to picket the park instead. They were joined by the Chevy Chase folks and other residents of DC. After a few days of picketing, counter protesters showed up. They were led by George Norman Rockwell of the American Nazi Party. So we just finished whipping they azz 15 years ago in WWII. Now they up in here trying to say who is an American or not. Knowing me, I would have went home and put on that old Army uniform and pulled out that old Nazi helmet souvenir with the swastika on it I got off the dude I shot in the back… Me: “Yeah!! Who’s your daddy now!!” I guess then this story would have been called.. “Damn… They Didn’t Even Give My Man A Handkerchief To Put Over His Eyes… ” Anywho, so yeah they showed up and while there was no reported violence, they did say there was a lot of name calling and bottle throwing.
On September 11, 1960 the protesters left and vowed they would be back for as long as it took. The Chevy Chase folks took it to another level when they brought in the Attorney General… Robert Kennedy in February of 1961. Kennedy threatened to have the federal government revoke the lease upon which the trolley ran. The trolley was how folks got there. It worked. On March 14, 1961, the park announced it would open its doors to any patron, regardless of skin color. Now I don’t know if my experience was the norm, but when my family went there, I could swear it was less than 50 people at the park, where there used to be hundreds. Did whites stop coming after blacks were allowed…? I couldn’t tell you. I do know that in 1968 they closed it down. In 1971 the National Park Service took it over and its been running ever since. Remember when I told you how Laurence and his friends were arrested when they entered the park in 1960? The arrest was brought all the way up to the Supreme Court and they reverse it, saying that the state of Maryland had unconstitutionally used its police power to help a private business enforce its racial exclusionary policy. Today more than 350,000 people visit the park annually… that carousel where Laurence Henry and his friends were arrested.. is still there.
So yeah, it’s no surprise that there is still racism in American amusement parks. They were not built for blacks to enjoy. Glen Echo has been there since 1898 and in 65 years, through two world wars, narry one afro wearing, chicken and biscuit eating brother had ever step on its land until Henry did in 1960. The family who had to endure the BS at Sesame Street is just one of a long line of African Americans that have endured the institutionalized racism at American theme parts… but this time it going to cost $25 million. The family is taking them to court and they just might win.
Thanks for reading Hill1News.
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