Critical Evaluation: Black Fire
the fire that burns can also heal
2008-04-07
By DeAngelo Starnes

Forty years ago, Black fire burned over a hundred and twenty cities upon the news Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis.  It might be a bit unfair to say that King’s assassination was the cause of the riots, or rebellions, in the immediate aftermath.  Black folks had been pissed off living the remnants of slavery for years.
    
The post-King assassination riots were preceded by the Watts riot in 1965 and the long hot summer of 1967.  The 1967 riots, or rebellions, in particular, were wide-ranging, as they occurred in 126 cities with those occurring in Newark and Detroit being the most notorious.  The King-influenced and organized nonviolent demonstrations transformed into spontaneous demonstrations of disorganized violent chaos.  Consequently, the government, believing it had acceded to Black demand for equality with the Civil Rights of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, determined its understanding of threat of Black anger and alienation was incomplete.  After all, as influential as he was, King had been unable to quell these moments.  With the riots costing a lot of money, not to mention lives, President Lyndon Johnson created the Kerner Commission to examine the causes of the riots.  Not surprisingly, the Commission concluded, “[W]hite racism [was] essentially responsible for the explosive mixture that has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II.”  It recommended a massive program of wealth redistribution, including job creation, a higher minimum wage, increased welfare benefits and spending on education, training, and housing. 
    
The Commission’s report was released a few weeks prior to King’s assassination.  Ironically, the report was widely criticized for pointing the finger at white society for the ills of the Black community.  However, the post-King assassination riots put an exclamation point on the Report’s findings and conclusions.  In over 120 cities nationwide, Black fire again raged in response to the inequities and injustice African Americans experienced.  Places like Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Kansas City saw the most damage.  The 1968 Black Fire left 46 dead, 2,600 injured, and 21,000 arrested in addition to monetary damages estimated at $65 million dollars, which equates to $385 million today. 
    
The result created a two-pronged answer by the federal government, as initiated by Richard Nixon.  First, Nixon emphasized that he would “restore” law and order to the cities.  He posited that a growing Black militancy created the riots (as opposed to the effects of white racism).  Second, he utilized affirmative action in employment and education to open opportunities in order to eliminate the frustration leading to the riots. 
    
Nixon’s law and order program got off to a rousing start as embodied by the success of the FBI’s COINTELPRO dismantling of groups and programs that undertook the task to uplift the Black community.  The theme has survived each presidency since and can arguably be said to be responsible for the ever-growing prison-industrial complex we see today. 
    
The affirmative action program helped open doors for more Black people to get better jobs and education, which aided the expansion of the Black middle class.  That moment was brief with white males going to court whining about “reverse racism.”  As “affirmative action” became a dirty word, the programs lost more and more vitality. 
    
Another end to this brief moment (I’ve termed it the Black Power/Black Sellout Era) occurred with the election of Ronald Reagan.  Reagan rode into Washington on the horse of white resentment.  Consistent with his theme that government was bad for you, he slashed spending on Medicare/Medicaid, job training, college financial aid, public transportation subsidies, and school lunch and after-school programs. 
    
The areas where Black Fire raged went unrepaired and under-renovated resulting in mass white and Black flight.  The money started pouring into those areas after traffic problems increased daily commutes to work.  Gentrification followed as whites moved back into the cities displacing Black families that had lived in these areas for many years.
    
The question begs “Have the conditions that led to the riots improved?  As stated previously, the Black middle class has grown.  African Americans have occupied executive positions of Fortune 500 companies and high political office.   There are more Black faces on television and the movies, though not nearly enough.  Some of the highest paid athletes and entertainers are Black (although the check-writers remain white. and who has the greater amount of wealth?)
    
Nevertheless, the following statistics still remain.  Blacks are three times more likely to be in deep poverty than whites.  African American families have about one-fifth of the wealth that white families have.  African Americans are three times more likely to go to prison than college.  They are seven times more likely to be sentenced than white defendants with longer sentences and a higher likelihood of receiving the death penalty when charged with a capital crime.  Funding in schools where African American children attend is ten times less than that received in white schools.  Blacks continue to be victims of racial profiling and police brutality.  Unemployment is higher among African Americans than white Americans.  Black families continue to pay higher interest rates on mortgages.  In the last two elections, Black voters have had their voting rights suppressed to insidious schemes such as caging. 
     
So progress?  Some, but still a long way to go.  One of the disappointments I felt from the Million Man March aftermath was that, rather than using that moment of mass Black Positive Energy to uplift our community and reverse and eliminate the conditions which led to the Black Fire, we went back into me-ism.  Even to this day, we spend more time blaming rather than doing.  It’s understood blame is necessary to understand the root of the problem.  But we have to take the next step of effectuating self-determination.  It has been proven that white resentment trumps white guilt.  It’s been shown they won’t accept collective blame. Therefore, it’s illogical to expect anything more than a band-aid solution.
    
More activism is necessary with an emphasis on being proactive rather than reactive.  Demand for intra-group responsibility and accountability is critical.  Just as the Black Fire created ashes, a Black Phoenix can rise from those ashes.  We just have to do it.

DeAngelo Starnes is an attorney and cultural critic based in Denver.  He covered the final season of the Wire for EbonyJet.com. Critical Evaluation is his new regular column.