Black Interests

Memorial Day: Slavery The Longest War In America!

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Sgt. Earl K. Bell U. S. Army (Military Police)
Bell H_Brother Edit
PFC William Sterling Bell U. S. Marines

“If an American Black man works as a butler in the home of a poor white man,  the weak economic position of of the “Boss” will reflect itself in the overall appearance  of the black butler.  If the “Boss” suddenly becomes wealthy, naturally the butler will also make more money and become wealthy, too.  He will wear better clothes, he will eat better food, and perhaps house his family in a better community and his children may have access to better schools.  A casual observer will think this black butler has made great material progress.  But has he?  His position has not really changed.  He is still a servant and the white man is still his boss”.

On February 29, 1965 the above statement was given to A. Peter Bailey by Malcolm X. Bailey was the editor of The Organization of Afro-American Unity News Letter. Malcolm X was assassinated the next day February 30, 1965.

How could someone say, ’there has been no progress?’  Simply, the black man in 2021 makes the half salary of a white man–if you are black and looking for an “Even Playing Field” you won’t find it in America!

As we remember black soldiers on this Memorial Day lets remember those who fought on every battlefield that an American white soldier fought on defending America, but once the black soldier returned home it was the same old song.  They returned to the back of the bus, to homes on the wrong side of the tracks, they were spat on and hung from the nearest tree, while still in their military uniforms.  Never forget “Black Wall Street, Emit Till, Jimmie Lee Jackson, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and the list goes on and on. Let us forgive, but not forget.

TIME MAGAZINE by Mathew Taub July 28, 2020

For Corporal Rupert Trimmingham, it came as no surprise that he’d have to eat inside the lunchroom’s kitchen, he was invisible to the diners enjoying table service. This was 1944, and the deep south. Trimingham and eight other Black soldiers were en route from Louisana’s Camp Claiborne to Arizona’s Fort Huachuca and, as he later wrote, he knew the only boss was “Old Jim Crow”.

But what Trimmingham and his companions saw as they looked out at the lunchroom from inside that kitchen defied even their expectations. About two dozen German prisoners of war who entered with their American guards sat at the same tables, had their meals served, talked, smoked, in fact had quite a swell time. In a April 1944 letter to Yank, a weekly Army Magazine, Trimmingham asked the obvious: “Are these men” Nazi troops who’d been captured while fighting on Hitler’s behalf—swored enemies of this country? Then why are they treated better than we are?”

Nineteen years after Corporal Trimmingham encountered white U. S. soldiers dinning and entertaining Nazi German prisoners. My younger brother Earl “Bull” Bell a Military Police staff sergeant in the U. S. Army had a racist encounter in downtown Mannheim, Germany in 1963. He had served two hitches in Germany , was the country’s heavyweight boxing champion, first string fullback on the Army football team, ping pong champion, and served as a platoon supply sergeant in Nuremberg from 1966 until his overseas tour ended in August 1968. Along this military journey he was noticing racial bias in promotions and in disciplinary actions.

BULL & HEAVY BAG
Earl “Bull” Bell a- knockout artist and Heavyweight Champion in Nuremberg, Germany (1963)

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