Dear Black People,

I see your silence. I hear your survival. I have fought myself enough, I have no choice but to write this letter to you. Afterwards, maybe, just maybe, I  will be able to sleep. The illness will leave my body, I  will be able to breathe properly.

First, a word. RECONSTRUCTION. By definition, if something is reconstructed, it must have been torn down, broken, pushed toward obliteration,  or destroyed. Yes, that would be us. Yet, we use the word RECONSTRUCTION  to talk about an Era, a time in history or memory. Yet, in each RECONSTRUCTION that has taken place in the United States, it lived and died because of how WE, BLACK PEOPLE were treated during those times.

Simply stated, when WE, BLACK  PEOPLE,  endeavored to DECONSTRUCT the hypocrisy of this nation to the point of receiving our just due,  the enemy of WE, BLACK PEOPLE, revolted, refused to acknowledge our progress and made haste, to put us in a PLACE that made this enemy feel comfortable again.

According to a book by Dr William Barber, we are embarking upon a "Third Reconstruction" and each one has been and continues to be about WE, BLACK PEOPLE.

THE FIRST RECONSTRUCTION

It was 1875. WE, BLACK PEOPLE, worked for decades to gain access into the political system to be recognized as free, citizens,  citizens with the right to participate as a citizen in all ways human beings exercise their citizenship. OUR EFFORTS were met with things like the "grandfather clause" that said if your grand father did not vote, you can not vote. 4 million recently emancipated people whose grandfather's were ENSLAVED would be denied the right to vote and so would their progeny. This was but one  method used to stop WE, BLACK PEOPLE, from reconstructing the United States into including "ALL people". They used literacy, or the lack of access to deny access.

THE SECOND RECONSTRUCTION

It begins in 1954 with the Brown v Board of Education school desegregation of public schools case, and with the 1955 murder of Emmett Till. Progress for WE, BLACK PEOPLE, was seen as OUR being just as good as white people so for every action toward BLACK PROGRESS during this time, we were attacked and many were violently killed. Killed for exercising our rights to be citizens of a PLACE, to exist as human beings in a SPACE.

They used violence when trickery about our lack of intelligence,  our inability to read and write, proved false. Since they are educating themselves we can't use the 1875 method of disfranchisment so they killed us from 1955 with Till to 1968 with Dr. King.

THE THIRD RECONSTRUCTION

With Black excellence on display from the White house daily, the tactics used against WE, BLACK PEOPLE, are being implemented against  Muslims and Mexicans, but don't you dare think that this IS NOT ABOUT YOU TOO.

Privatization of prisons, destruction of public schools.... 1875 it was Slavery and Emancipation. Majority Black men in prison and will take the place of migrant workers in fields, sound like enslavement to me.

1955 Desegregation of public education.... now the destruction of schools that must accept everyone by law.... Privatization and states rights sounds like RESEGREGATION OF EDUCATION to me.

To keep a plain, same games, same hateful players, our reality is hidden in the layers of our history, of our forcing this nation to live up to what it says it is.... all the while building while the enemy destroys.... generationally!

Peace,
Jolivette Anderson-Douoning