No They Didn’t…

Yep, Ima say it… what in the thirteen colonies of Lipton is going on up there in Boston? This week they unveiled a tribute statue to Martin Luther King Jr and his wife that had no faces… just a couple of arms and hands. Supporters were quick to point out that it was a representation of the time when Martin and Coretta embraced after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Detractors say it reminds them of something they wouldn’t turn their back on if they found themselves walking down a dark alley late at night. So the statue has sparked a lot of controversy since its unveiling, especially in the black community. The artist of the work is named Hank Willis Thomas. Thomas who is black is well known in the art world for his conceptual visions involving pop culture, identity, and history was chosen as one of five finalists in the proposal for the MLK Memorial at Boston Commons. Now when you think of a memorial to someone, then you usually think there would be some type of likeness to that person at the memorial so you know who they are referring to. I mean if I go to a memorial for George Washington, I would expect to see more than a statue of his neck and index finger. Well, not unless I go to Britain. They are not that fond of the leader of a bunch of farmers, Blacks and Native Americans who whipped the finest army in Europe at the time like they caught them in the Massa’s bedroom stealing the Misses’ panties… I could see putting up some bullshat to the American general…
Wadsworth: Well Sir Hatedatmofo, that’s a really jolly memorial you got there of Washingmachine.. I say old chap.. isn’t that his fingernail…
Sir: By golly, it is my dear fellow. It’s a 10’ft replica of his fingernail at the battle of Concord. We chose an American chap by the name of “Ig Noe Rant” to do it. He beat out four other artists… “Kray Zee Azfuk”, wanted to do a pair… but we just couldn’t… “R.U Kedding” had an eyeball… “Wat Helno” showed us a kidney and “Neega Pleez” proposed a 15ft blank wall that he called “Yo Imagination.”
Wadsworth: Here.. here… well done…!! well done..!! That ought to show the old buggers!!!
Out of the 5 accepted proposals for the Martin Luther King Memorial in Boston, not one had a likeness of the King’s as the focal point of the memorial. Now I don’t want to… in da greens, but it’s no secret that Boston is problematic when it comes to race relations.

Walk Away…

Between 1820 and 1930 more than 4.5 million Irishmen and women came to immigrate to the United States. By 1840 almost half of the immigrants in the United States were Irish. Now I want to give you an idea of the circumstances that faced the Irish as compared with the life of slaves. W.E.B Dubois wrote pre-civil war that “Freed slaves were poor by American standards, but not as poor as the Irish peasants.” The Irish were considered the “N-word” of 19th-century Europe. They arrived in America on unused cargo ships returning to the states, slept in the cargo hold on straw thrown on the floor, and ate whatever they brought with them. Of course, even if this was a pitiful way to come to the US, it didn’t even hold a candle to the way we arrived in chains, slept on the floor, and ate whatever they gave us… mostly rotten meat and vegetables. That’s why even today when I’m offered sauerkraut, I have to think for a minute… “Should I throw hands? Are they trying to say sumpin…?” Anywho, notwithstanding the fact that slaves were considered valuable property, the mortality rate for us reaching America was 9%, that’s nine people died for every one hundred they brought here. For the Irish, it was 19%, almost 20 out of every one hundred died before reaching America! There was no incentive to get them here… Once they got here, it was on and poppin’. You see most of the men and women that came from Ireland came from rural communities. They were uneducated and unsophisticated and were usually dropped off from the cargo ships in the most cosmopolitan cities of the New World… in places like Boston and New York. Because of their educational and social status, they took jobs others did not want. If it called for brawns rather than brains… get an Irishmen to do it. Meanwhile, blacks are walking around there talking about “Look at dat pitiful shat… I ain’t neva seen no white man do that… I wonda if I could get him to come ova heh and shine my shoes?” Well not if you wanted to keep yo foot.. they were still white men… Anywho.. so yeah, they took the jobs that no one else wanted and after a time they started to hate on you know who. It was the only time period in pre-civil war American history that a free black man could be considered equal or better to any white man north of the Mason-Dixon line.. when the white man was Irish.

Me Tarzan… You Toby…

So you got that dynamic up North where they was hating on a brother like a mofo and being treated any kind of way… to them saying “foruk” this and deciding to go to the South where they knew their skin color “Trumped” everything. So while there was a significant number of black folks in the North, when they went down South, it was like being in a Tarzan movie… there were millions of blacks and all of them were regarded as being little more than beasts. In the South the communities were agricultural, the same setting they came from. They thrived there. They created great plantations and immense wealth in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. They took advantage of the fact that their whiteness and their willingness to take advantage of the enslaved population entitled them to bridge any religious or cultural differences with the “real white man.” Yep… I’m just hating… “talking about the real white man…. they were all white…” Anywho, though it is not taught in school, the immigration of significant numbers of Irishmen to the South and the subsequent restructuring of the southern economy is called “The Second Slavery.” That’s right… they got an era named after them. Although the brutality in the South was harsh toward slaves, it went to unparalleled levels during the Second Slavery. Irish overseers were known for their savagery and cruelty. It was like they took out everything that had happened to them since coming to America on us. Never again would they be judged as a second-class citizen. Standing on the bodies of thousands of black men, women and children they carved out a place in their new homes.

Wait… What???

Although the majority of Irish immigrants still lived in the North, more than 20,000 fought for the Confederacy. Six Confederate generals were Irish-born. Including Patrick Cleburne, who was known as the Stonewall Jackson of the west. Both Cleburne and Stonewall got their asses shot off… Cleburne at the Battle of Franklin leading his men in a charge and Jackson at Chancellorsville, when his troops mistook him for a nigra stealing watermelons and shot his ass off… okay.. that’s not what’s in the history books.. but it was dark.. so who’s to say… Anywho, if you are a regular reader of Hill1News, I often used the word “yahoo!”, in my articles. It’s the closest I can get to the infamous “rebel yell,’ which was first heard at the 1st Bull Run by Stonewall Jackson’s Irish troops as he gave the order to attack the 14th New York guns on Henry Hill.
Jackson: “Men… I want you to run up that hill into that cannon fire and machine guns… and attack those men!!”
Men: “Wait… What?”
Jackson: “I said attack those men up there…”
Men: “Those men up there with the 25 cannons and 10 Gatling guns???”
Jackson: “Yep… Do it with yo chest!”
Sgt: “Men you heard the general!! Let’s go!!”
“BOOM!! BOOM!! BOOM!! RATATAT TAT!! BOOM!! RATATAT TAT!! BOOM!! BOOM!!”
Men: “Yahoo!!” (BOOM!! BOOM!!) “Dayum!!” (RATATAT TAT!! )”Yah…” (BOOM!! BOOM!!) “Yahoo!!” (BOOM!! BOOM!!) Fuq!!! (RATATAT TAT!! ) “Yahoo!!”
General: “Jackson is that yo men up there hollering like that!! Are you sure yo men okay?!!?”
Jackson: “Uhh.. yes sir… and I’ve never been more proud sir… Excuse me, sir… I think that’s part of Private Patrick that just landed over there… I’m sure he will be looking for that when he gets back…”
Okay, I ain’t saying what they were exactly hollering for… I mean I didn’t write the history books.. I’ll let you make up our own mind… but yeah the rebel yell is thought to have originated with Irish troops at 1st Bull Run. Anywho as we all know the war was eventually won by the North and the immense wealth built up by the Irish plantation owners was destroyed. However, they did come away with a new status.. equal footing as a bonafide white citizen.

Not Yet

Meanwhile up north, the plight of their status had not changed all that much. They were still considered second-class whites. So after the war, it was getting ready to go down. With the enactment of the Jim Crow laws down south, millions of blacks left and headed north. This cause a problem because these black folks were competitors for jobs and housing. Even before the war, the tensions between Blacks and the Irish were palpable. In 1863 one of the worst race riots in American history took place in New York between Blacks and Irish. It was called the New York Draft Riot of 1863. So what happened was that Lincoln called for people to be drafted for service in the Civil War. The ranks of enlisted men mostly came from those lowest on the social ladder. That meant the Irish would be disproportionately represented in such a draft. Their anger was mostly aimed at Blacks. You see at this time Blacks were not allowed to enlist in the service. The Irishmen feared that after they were sent off to war we would take their jobs and yes… be walking around with white Irish women. Somebody was gonna hafta die!! Although the aftermath of the riot resulted in more black casualties, we gave as good as we got, and a significant number of Irish men were also injured in the protest. Even so, the harm caused in the Black community was immense, and homes and businesses were burned, including an orphanage that was totally destroyed. When Manhattan was first settled and because of its location near the water and docks, it was not viewed as a prime location for residences. So as time went on and more blacks came to New York, they were steered to Manhattan, as were the Irish. Yes, black folks at one time lived exclusively in Manhattan. After the Draft Race Riots of 1863, blacks began to move from Manhattan and settle in Brooklyn. They had already begun moving out before the war when they numbered around 16,000. By 1860, their number had dropped to around 12,000, and after the riot further still. Only 200 miles separated Boston Irishmen from New York Irishmen… and far less than that separated their bigotry and racism toward black men.

Right In The Azz…

While most history books talk about the civil rights battles going on in the South, one of the most vicious and heartbreaking trials was being waged in Boston. Turn on the TV in ’60s and all you heard was them racists down south vowing to never let one colored footstep inside of a school where white children were being taught. People like Strom Thurmond and George Wallace were the torchbearers for the slogan, “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” – George Wallace. Of course, they shot George Wallace in the ass and he took that shat back later in life…but anywho the same thing was going on in Boston. In 1965, the Massachusetts General Court passed the Racial Imbalance Act (RIA), outlawing segregation in public schools and defining segregated schools as those with a student body comprised of more than fifty percent of a particular racial group. Now although at the time Boston was whiter than a bag of Uncle Ben’s Rice, there still were blacks living there and that court order meant blacks would have to be moved to white schools and visa versa. It started in 1962 when JFK ordered that all schools and housing getting federal allocations would have to desegregate. After the passage of the RIA, the Boston School Committee which oversaw school integration refused to enact a busing plan to implement integration. They said it was not what the white folks wanted… okay.. they didn’t say white folks.. they said it was not what the “families” wanted. The Boston School Board said “Oh Yeah?,” then they started withholding state funds from the schools that were not in compliance. The Boston Committee took their case all the way up to the Supremes.. not Diana Ross.. but to the Supreme Court. The court threw that shat out like it was Nancy Pelosi at a Trump birthday party. Still, the Committee undermined the ruling, by letting white children transfer and neglecting black children who were to transfer… ie taking white children out of black schools, but leaving the black children there. Anyway, the NAACP said “FTS” and went to the Supremes again in 1972. It would be 1974 before the court would find the plan the committee used to desegregate was in violation of the RIA and ordered that 17,000 students be transferred immediately. They would have to bus these children to vacant seats to achieve desegregation.. that total included white and black children. This was called Phase I. In Phase II more than 24,000 children would have to be bused. Phase II was to be implemented by January 1975.

Get Some… Bring Some…

Between September 1974 through the fall of 1976, at least 40 riots occurred in the city. On September 12, 1974, 79 of 80 schools were bused without incident with South Boston High School being the lone exception and through October 10, there were 149 arrests (40 percent occurring at South Boston High alone), 129 injuries, and $50,000 in property damage. On October 15, an interracial stabbing at Hyde Park High School led to a riot that injured 8, and at South Boston High on December 11, a non-fatal interracial stabbing led to a riotous crowd of 1,800 to 2,500 whites hurling projectiles at police while white students fled the facility and black students remained. In another instance at South Boston High, State Senator William Bulger, State Representative Raymond Flynn, and Boston City Councilor Louise Day Hicks made their way to the school, and Hicks spoke through a bullhorn to the crowd and urged them to allow the black students still in South Boston High to leave in peace, which they did, while the police made only 3 arrests, the injured numbered 25 (including 14 police), and the rioters badly damaged 6 police vehicles. On May 3, the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) organized an anti-racism march in South Boston, where 250 PLP marchers attacked 20 to 30 South Boston youths, who were talking shat…. and over 1,000 South Boston residents responded, with the police making 8 arrests (including 3 people from New York City) and the injured numbered 10. On July 27, 1975, a group of black bible salesmen from South Carolina went swimming on Carson Beach, and in response, hundreds of white male and female bathers gathered with pipes and sticks and chased the bible salesmen from the beach on foot with the mob destroying their car and the police making two arrests. The following Sunday, August 3, a taxicab with a black driver and three Hispanic passengers were subjected to projectiles from passersby as they drove past the beach. In response, on August 10, black community leaders organized a protest march and picnic at the beach where 800 police and a crowd of whites from South Boston were on hand. 2,000 blacks and 4,000 whites fought and lobbed projectiles at each other for over 2 hours until police closed the beach after 40 injuries and 10 arrests… As I said there were 40 incidents involving race during this period including 2 stabbings not associated with the desegregation plan.. so we are not going to be able to cover them all… I just wanted you to know that Boston is the northern Confederate capital. The plan took ten years to implement. It influenced Boston politics and contributed to demographic shifts in Boston’s school-age population, leading to a decline in public school enrollment and white flight to the suburbs. This was only forty years ago.

You Be The Judge

So before I end this article, I want to say not all Irish Americans are prejudiced, racist, or bigoted… not even most. One of the finest men I ever met was an Irish American. As a matter of fact, it was an Irish American that put forth the first Civil Rights Bill nearly 100 years after the Civil War… which still stands watch over us to this day… Im talking about John F. Kennedy… and I’m talking about Robert Kennedy who took the mantle and like his brother was slain on the altar of bigotry, racism, and divisiveness. Unfortunately, these are not the kinds of men I am talking about in this article. There are those who want nothing more than to see it all burndown… So a lot of people think that the reason Boston chose that design was because ” they liked it..” It had nothing to do with the memorial not having the likeness of Martin and Coretta King, two black people as the main focal point of the memorial. It doesn’t have anything to do with not having any of the proposed memorials having the likeness of Martin and Coretta incorporated into them. It doesn’t have anything to do with just last year the city declaring racism a public health crisis. Nothing to do with two centuries of animosity against blacks by Irish immigrants, nothing to do with a 40-year battle against integration in which hundreds died and hundreds more were injured… nothing to do with the second slavery… no it’s all in their minds… to believe that the city of Boston does not want a statue or a memorial with the face of any black person peering over the city as a tribute to mankind’s shared destiny… Well, I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Thanks for reading Hill1News.



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