Lack of Economic Wealth is not the Fault of Black Memphians

It bothers me to no end when I hear black Memphians speaking ill of the black community in Memphis for not building generational wealth and becoming somewhat self-sufficient like other large minority groups in the United States. I especially hate it when black middle-class people point their fingers at the personal spending habits of the black working class instead of analyzing the larger systems at play that lead these people to make poor decisions. Not only are these claims vacuous, insensitive and borderline anti-black, they blatantly ignore the history of state sectioned violence against black communities since reconstruction.

One of the most glaring examples of this injustice was the Memphis massacre of 1866 in which a mob made of mostly Irish immigrants would rape, murder and burn communities of former slaves. In these riots countless businesses, homes and other forms of capital were lost. The loss of capital meant a loss of wealth that could be passed through generations of the families that owned them. When the killing was over, no arrests were made and this indicated how committed the cities leadership would be to white supremacy for years to come.

Not only does this reveal a commitment to white supremacy, it shows that the cities leadership was directly invested in actively stripping black families of wealth. However, in the years come black people would press through the imminent threat of terror that came with being black in Memphis. Blacks from across the tri state area continued to flood into the city and build vibrant, thriving communities. Another tragedy struck black Memphis in 1892 when the owners of The People’s Grocery were lynched by an angry white mob simply because their store was becoming too successful. Again, no arrests were made concerning the murders of two innocent black men and the city’s leadership stood firm in their support of white economic supremacy. In

 1975, city leaders delivered another economic blow to black Memphis when they falsely accused Stax Records owner, Al Bell, of bank fraud forcing one of the largest black owned businesses in America to close their doors. Since Stax’s closing, the once vibrant community around it has experienced a systematically orchestrated economic decay and its legacy of black entrepreneurship is actively being erased by insensitive white developers.

Understanding the historical moment when it comes to issues of freedom and economic equality are central to crafting viable and sustainable solutions to these problems. When addressing the lack of generational wealth in the black community in Memphis, the city’s history of actively stripping wealth from its black citizens must be at the centerpiece of the conversation instead of personal spending habits.