Black History Month feels different this year. And we can’t let victimhood get in the way

Author and commentator Shelby Steele once wrote that “a black conservative is a black who dissents from the victimization explanation of black fate when it is offered as a totalism—when it is made the main theme of group identity and the raison d’être of group politics.” I first read those words back in 1999, right before I moved to the South Side of Chicago and began my work there.

I have often thought about those words because they struck a nerve deep within me. Growing up in Tennessee in the countryside, I never saw any of this victimization among my people. My mother and uncles were proud, God-fearing people who worked every day to provide. What they earned was theirs, and this simple reality filled their lives with meaning.

It was not until I grew up, went off to college, and became a young adult that I began hearing about this victimization mindset. We can’t do this, we can’t be that because of The Man. I resisted that mentality back then and I resist it even more today.

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Another Black History Month is upon us now and, no matter your thoughts on this symbolism, something feels different these days. The hold that victimhood had on us for so long seems to be weakening, and I pray that is true. That is why I wanted to share a story with you that I heard as a child that shows the trueness of our people’s spirit and what our victim mentality robbed us of.

It was only a few years after the end of the Civil War in 1870 that three men on their way home from church decided to board a trolley in Louisville, Kentucky. They paid their fare and took their seats. If they had been White, the trolley would have continued onto its next stop without incident. But Robert Fox, an elderly mortician, and his brother and business partner, Samuel, along with their employee, Horace Pearce, were black.

A White passenger, John Russell, ordered them off the trolley and was backed up by the white driver.

However, Robert replied that they had paid the same fare and had the right to ride.

Robert and his two men were not alone. Nearby, in front of the church they had just left, over 300 blacks stood, waiting to see what would happened. They all had been part of the Black community’s efforts to test the legality of the streetcar companies’ segregation policies.

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The trolley driver sent out a call to other trolley drivers for assistance. Soon, a gang of white drivers surrounded the three black men and the violence began. The blacks were beaten and had rocks thrown at them. They were dragged off the trolley into the street.

Some Blacks from the crowd in front of the church broke away and began throwing hardened mud at the white drivers. This distraction allowed Robert and his two men to re-board the trolley where they stood steadfast.

The Black crowd yelled their support and told them not to budge from the trolley.

The superintendent of the Central Passenger Company arrived at the scene and told the three black men that he would return their fare if they departed the trolley. Robert said, no.

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None of the other trolleys in the city were moving. Everything was at a standstill. The simple protest of these three men along with their supporters who refused to accept a lesser status had upset the social order of that time.

But when the police officers arrived, Robert and his two men were of no match. They were arrested, charged with disorderly conduct, and sent to jail.

Robert and his partners were not allow, as black men, to testify in the state court. They were fined $5.

However, Robert refused to take this as the last word. He decided to sue the Central Passenger Railroad Company for denial of access and he filed his suit in the U.S. district court in Louisville, where testimony by Blacks would be allowed. Robert Fox won his case and was awarded $15.

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Jubilant, the Black community began testing their right to ride. However, the local whites did not respect the federal decision and fought back. In return, the blacks committed themselves to non-violent resistance during their protests, setting the stage for the sit-ins that would take place during the modern civil rights movement nearly 80 years later.

The White riders threw a black passenger out of the window, beat up a black man trying to board a trolley, and drivers often ran the trolley off the tracks when blacks refused to get off.

Everything reached a head when a black teenager named Carey Duncan refused to leave his trolley. Whites gathered around and rocked the trolley back and forth, trying to upend it. Duncan held onto his seat for dear life as he listened to the white hatred calling for his death.

By now blacks had gathered into the street and the police feared that a riot was about to explode. They arrested Duncan and charged him with disorderly conduct. The whites? No charges.

The Mayor of Louisville realized that this issue had to be addressed and he finally agreed to give into the protestors’ demands: blacks were now allowed to ride the trolleys without restrictions.

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I tell this story because these are the kinds of people that I come from. They lived in a time where whites said, “We must keep the ex-slave in a position of inferiority. We must pass such laws as will make him feel his inferiority.” Those blacks refused that.

That is why the words of Shelby Steele mean so much to me. His words uphold that tradition of strength that I aspire to every day. We have overcome far too much to allow victimhood rob us of everything.

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