Comments on: Whites and Blacks in a United Front https://hankeringforhistory.com/whites-and-blacks-in-a-united-front/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=whites-and-blacks-in-a-united-front Hanker: To have a strong, often restless desire, in this case for--you guessed it--history! Fri, 20 Sep 2013 15:47:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.5 By: billgncs https://hankeringforhistory.com/whites-and-blacks-in-a-united-front/#comment-870 Fri, 20 Sep 2013 15:47:00 +0000 https://hankeringforhistory.com/?p=15371#comment-870 I was born in South Carolina, and my mother ( from the north ) had a housekeeper who would come once a week. She would always ask her to have a cup of coffee and sit on the porch and chat, but Clara would never sit on the front porch with my mother, only on the back steps.
For me it hit home reading about Hank Aaron in “I had a Hammer”. As a young boy he is sitting on the steps talking to his father. Dad I’m gonna be an airplane pilot. He exclaims. Ain’t no black pilots his dad says. They go on and on.
With shock, I realized this conversation occurred the year I was born.

]]> By: JackAfter6 https://hankeringforhistory.com/whites-and-blacks-in-a-united-front/#comment-869 Thu, 19 Sep 2013 16:01:00 +0000 https://hankeringforhistory.com/?p=15371#comment-869 Thank you for presenting this summary of Memphis history surrounding a period of time famous for its economic misery. I wonder if you could elaborate briefly on a few points however?

Without leaping onto my soapbox concerning the longstanding and rampant corruption that have attended every single union organization ever, why—if wages were so low and working conditions so unfit—would whites even want these undesirable jobs? The idea that a business can “exploit” its workers by paying less than a “living wage” or by “forcing” them to work in unsafe conditions is a mystery to me. Do the company foremen roust the poor slaves from their hovels and with the crack of the whip set them to their odious tasks? Also, I wonder whether you consider the manifestly destructive nature of union methods—essentially using force and threats to completely shut a business down during a strike—to be a necessary evil, as in that perhaps the ends justify the means? Sure unions put business out of business permanently (Hostess et al.) from time to time; sure they reward employee longevity rather than ability or attitude, and yes, they do impose their liberal brand of politics using vast sums of money withheld by force from their own union members. All these things unions do and worse but it’s all worth it you know, because where else is unskilled labor going to be worth $25.00/hour plus free healthcare plus a pension after 20 years?

[“Sorry,” says Jack, stepping down from his soapbox that he inadvertently found himself on top of.]

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