Thread by @michaelharriot

I’ve written about this before and it’s crazy how little this is talked about.

A (kinda short) thread

propublica.org/article/trains…

MOST towns are segregated historically segregated by race. But the boundaries aren’t arbitrary. In many places, actual physical barriers that were CONSTRUCTED to segregate places by race.
In some racial lines formed around already existing obstructions.

For instance, in the 1800s, towns sprang up around railroad stops. Most trains were noisy steam-powered engines that used coal. As the towns grew, it was a privilege to live downwind or in an area where buildings absorbed some of the sound & funneled the spot away from your home.

People think Jim Crow sprang up in the South mmediately after slavery. it didn’t. And the first Jim Crow laws didn’t segregate residential areas. White Southerners were accustomed to living among Blacks. Plus railroads were not common in the south until after Reconstruction

But in the North,
railroads & residential segregation went hand in hand. Even when Black people could afford to live wherever they wanted, neighborhood covenants prevented them from moving to desirable areas. So MOST Black neighborhoods were

“On the wrong side of the tracks”

That phrase didn’t become popular when railroads became popular, it grew in the 1920s, when JIM CROW became popular. But after Brown v Board, small towns with 2 high schools had to close one. You know they weren’t sending white kids to the black school

So a LOT of Black kids had to “cross the tracks” to attend school.

If you know me, you know I HATE to call it Brown v Board because that SCOTUS decision was actually 5 combined cases, the first of which (chronologically & alphabetically) was Briggs v Elliot
Why was it a case?

Because Black kids drowned going to school in Clarendon county.

In a district that was 75% Black, the white school had 33 buses, the white kids had zero. Some walked 9 miles & crossed a reservoir to get to school. And if the water was high, 1 occasionally drowned

But the Black parents didn’t ask for a bus. They BOUGHT THEIR OWN. When that one broke, they asked the district to replace it.

Thee schools were basically stealing the Black taxpayers money & giving it to white kids

To be fair, that was way back in 1948. Things have changed.

You know who else had to do that?

Me.

My hometown was build on the Black Creek. In the 1930s, they dug a ravine to keep downtown from flooding. To this day, Black people live Bren the ditch & the railroad track

So when they closed the all Black high school in 1984, everyone in my neighborhood had two choices. They could walk 2 miles to school or they could jump the ditch and go .5 miles

But that ain’t the most common obstacle. more common than railroad tracks, rivers and ravines is ROADS

Highways &6 pathways have killed more Black Wall Streets than all the torches & pitchforks combined (it’s what killed the ORIGINAL Black Wall Street.” web.archive.org/web/2020050122…

A partial list includes Durham, Little Rock, Birmingham, Richmond, Detroit, and every prosperous Black neighborhood

How?

latimes.com/homeless-housi…

https://t.co/DbGzjO6vVE

Well, using eminent domain, the government can take your land. And when the interstate system sprang up, the new Deal had given white people land in these places called suburbs.

(Black ppl were not allowed because of redlining and Jim Crow and racial covenants)

The interstate system was created 2 years after Brown, how could small towns justify 2 schools?

Just take m Black people’s land & use it to build roads. AND since Black people couldn’t vote, white people WERE THE GOVERNMENT. that’s how all white suburbs got access to cities

It wasn’t always a highway, though. In Detroit they just built a wall

nbcnews.com/specials/detro…

Now here is the point of this.

Whenever I hear the narrative about Black people don’t value education, or that we need to go to school to better ourselves, I always want to ask one question:

How do you know?

How do you know what “the Black community” values if Black Americans have never had the option of a real education to value?

Majority Black districts get about $2000 less per student than white districts
edbuild.org/content/23-bil…

The RICHEST Black districts get less funding than the poorest a lack students. White schools have better paid teaches and the libraries literally have more books.

And here’s the thing:

MOST Black children attend these schools

Of course a racist will inevitably respond with something about me playing the victims. Why do I think they’re racist?

Because THIS IS NOT WHITE PEOPLE’S MONEY!

Black people pay taxes too.

In a country whose railroads, real estate, towns & roads are built around whiteness…

Is it too much to ask for you to stop stealing EVERYTHING?

Or has that train already left the station?