This document provides a summary of a lecture on progress and poverty in the African American community from the 1970s to 1990s. It discusses the evidence of racial inequities despite civil rights legislation and the myth of integration. It then focuses on James Baldwin's analysis of the unsolved Atlanta Child Murders case in the late 1970s/early 1980s as devastating proof that integration did not bring about real progress for African Americans and failed to protect vulnerable black youth.

1. PROGRESS & POVERTY
AFAM B201 – Intro to African American Studies
November 20, 2014 – Najmah Thomas, Ph.D.

2. Introduction
 Recap 11.18.21
 CRA (Civil Rights Acts)
 Black Power
Womanism
 Progress & Poverty
 Background – 1970s-90s
 The Evidence of Things Not Seen

3. 11.18.21 Recap - Civil Rights
Acts
 “It was never government action
alone…”:
CRA 1957 – voting rights; Civil Rights
Division
CRA 1960 – protect voting rights
24th Amendment – no poll tax
CRA 1964 – EEOC - Commission on Civil
Rights, federally assisted program non-discrimination;
$ and TA for Department of
Ed desegregation
Voting Rights Act of 1965 – federal
examiners, no literacy tests

4. 11.18.21 Recap - Black Power
 A Movement Within the Civil Rights
Movement:
 Spectrum of ‘hate/violence’ to ‘self-defense’
Malcolm X views pre/post Mecca
S. Carmichael: self-worth, self-love, self-respect

5. 11.18.21 Recap - Womanism
 Blackness and womanhood:
Black Power = male-centered
White feminism/feminists
 A. Walker ‘womanism’ – alternative political
identity

6. Progress and Poverty -
Background
Progress Poverty
 Black Middle Class
 Political
Appointments
 Sports &
Entertainment
 Black Underclass
 Undeserving Poor
 Police Brutality

7. The Evidence of Things Not
Seen
1. The Thesis
2. The Case
3. The Evidence

8. The Evidence of Things Not
Seen
 James Baldwin – ‘soul witness’:
 Born 1924 Harlem, NY
 Go Tell It on the Mountain, The Fire Next Time
 Emigrated to France, died 1987
 Significance of the title:
 Hebrews 11:1
 ‘Double entendre’
 Faith in humanity, No real progress
 Trial evidence covered up the truth

9. The Thesis
The ‘Atlanta Child Murders’ is
devastating proof of the myth
of integration.
“A writer is always listening to what is not being
said…” –p95

10. The Case
 Atlanta, GA
 1979-80
 Black Administration
 22 months, 28 murders
 All Black children:
 except 2 Black men
 all boys, except 2 Black girls
 Wayne Bertram Williams
 23 year old Black male
 Arrested and convicted…

11. The Evidence - integration
 Integration is a myth:
 Black people didn’t ask for integration (p22)
 White people don’t hate Black people (p22)
 Integration left captives in the ghetto (p23, pp25-
26; pp35-36, pp56-57)
 Atlanta’s Black Administration = cosmetic
progress (p26, p38-39)

12. The Evidence – devastation
 Fail the youth, fail the future (p17):
 “Sorriness” - dilemma of the Black American male
(p19)
 Boyhood/manhood/emasculation (p21)
 Emmett Till (p48)

13. The Evidence – devastation
 Wealth, not money, is power:
 Poor children, poor children (p8, p49; p62-64,
p69)
 No wealth, no power (p38, p62-63)
 Men cannot live by profit alone (p31)
 Undeserving poor (p32)

14. The Evidence – Williams
 Rockers and mirrors…(p72-73)
 The numbers (p4, p12, p14, p98)
 The pattern (p99, p110-111)
 The FBI screw-up (p15, p107-108)
 The fibers (p97, p107)
 The defense (p106, p109, p114, p118-119)

15. The Verdict (according to
Baldwin)
“The present social and political apparatus
cannot serve human need.” p124
“This is the only nation under heaven that
contains the universe…that can hope to begin to
liberate-mankind...”
“I know this sounds remote now, and that I will
not live to see anything resembling this hope
come to pass. Yet, I know that I have seen it – in
fire and blood and anguish, true, but I have
seen it.”