The Reverend Al Sharpton’s eulogy for George Floyd asked white America to take their knees off our necks. Our family history provides at least five disturbing examples of a knee being placed on our necks with the purpose of trying to control and destroy us. My sister, Okella Trice, who is our family genealogist, has documented how white America placed their knees on the necks of our family. Her research shows how, in each generation, our ancestors embraced the American entrepreneurial spirit and built businesses -- even communities. Each time the knee of vicious white destruction wiped out our families’...
Given the events since the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, I reviewed a set of ideas that were in my files. I had summarized my thinking with hopes to develop the analysis I had outlined. I can’t find a date for these notes, but I most likely made them in the mid-1980s. At that time, I had focused a lot on urban policy. In my edited notes below, I am suggesting that violence and protest are as American as apple pie, and another American tradition is that violence breeds counter-violence and protest. Where we stand after the...
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