The attempted state takeover of a Mason, Tenn. town is a
reminder that America has a long history of
taking over Black towns.
In what was described as “akin
to a hostile takeover,” Tennessee Comptroller Jason Mumpower
ordered the town of Mason to forfeit its
charter or face a state takeover. The
predominantly Black town had been under white
control for over a century until 2016 when its
white officials resigned due to financial
mismanagement and Black elected officials
stepped in. Now that the town is controlled by
Black people, Mumpower has pointed to 20 years
of fiscal mismanagement as a reason for the
threatened takeover, as America
Has a History of Taking Over Black Towns. A takeover would provide Mumpower with
veto power over any town expense greater than
$100, and block local officials from spending
to improve their community.
While the state comptroller has backtracked from his takeover plans, Black
residents believe his attempted oversight move
was racially motivated. “It definitely has to
do with that because nothing was done when it
was all whites running the town. It was just
during the Black administration,” Mason Vice
Mayor Virginia Rivers said.
Making matters worse, and more to the
point, Mason sits on prime real estate. And
the white Republicans running Tennessee must
see a goldmine. After all, Ford Motor Company
is building a
$5.6 billion electric truck and battery
facility a few miles from Mason, a huge
investment for the state. “In my opinion, it
most definitely relates to the Ford company
coming to our area,” Rivers added.
What almost happened in Mason smacks of
the colonization move that took place in Michigan a decade ago, when a law allowed
then-Governor Rick Snyder to appoint emergency
managers to run financially troubled towns,
cities and school districts with almost
absolute authority. It was no accident that
all of the cities targeted under the law -
which stripped local officials of their power,
city
workers of their benefits and local Black
citizens of their democracy - were
majority-Black municipalities. Remember the Flint
water crisis, when a decision to change that city’s
water supply led to the mass poisoning of its
children? That was the result of an emergency
manager, and that was
not by chance.
These more recent events are part of a centuries-old
tactic of land grabs and power moves to remove
Black people from their land - in a nation
built on stolen land.
Have you heard of the drowned
towns? These are the historically Black towns
that were destroyed
and flooded to make way for parks, lakes and
reservoirs (Viewers of Atlanta’s season 3 premiere
last week heard about a such a town in the
episode’s opening minutes). There are Black
communities - where our ancestors were
buried in cemeteries - that are now buried
under a lake, like a lost city of Atlantis.
In New York, an entire thriving Black
community was destroyed to make way for
Central Park. Established in 1825, Seneca
Village had 50 homes, three Black churches
and a school, and half of the Black people
there owned their property - five times higher
than the average rate of homeownership in New
York City at the time. But in 1857, it was all
torn down. While some residents fought the
decision, it was all for naught, as the city
put its full weight behind the park. Through
eminent domain, Seneca Village landowners were
paid $700 on average, all of their memories
erased.
When Black people own prime real estate,
white society has found a way to steal it.
When a Black family owned a prime beachfront
property in Southern California known as Bruce’s
Beach, the first
Black resort on the west coast, the Manhattan
Beach city council seized the land after the
family suffered harassment and arson attempts
from the Ku Klux Klan. That land was returned
to the descendants of that family only
recently but think of the damage that was
already done in the meantime - the loss of
intergenerational wealth.
Throughout history, an effective means of
taking over Black communities was genocide.
The massacres of Black Wall Street in Tulsa,
Okla., and Rosewood, Fla., are but two
examples of prosperous Black communities
burned down to the ground. People were lynched
and forced to flee the angry, jealous
white mobs who thought Black folks should not
own pianos. And let’s not forget the white
business elites who benefited from the genocide,
pillaging and plundering, and were able to
expand their business into the Black side of
town, unimpeded.
Over the past century, Black families
lost 12
million acres of land, through greedy business
practices and the legal system, through racism
and white domestic terrorism. The millions of
Black people who fled the South to the North
were like African refugees in America escaping
racial violence and white supremacy. Most
dispossessed Black rural landowners were
stripped of their land through deed
of title. White developers and speculators have
taken advantage of the communal land ownership
of Black communities (such as the
Gullah-Geechee people, where land is passed
down through heirs property with no written
documents and no clear
title or will and have simply stolen land from under
their feet.
And in cities, vibrant Black communities
were decimated and Black
homes seized by eminent domain when the
interstate highways were built.
Meanwhile, Mason, Tenn., must use
$227,000 in American
Rescue Plan funds to eliminate the debt that
white officials created years ago, with no
assistance from the comptroller’s office or
anyone else, as Vice Mayor Rivers noted.
“These funds could’ve been used to help
the city of Mason move forward in other areas.
I hear that the
Ford company is concerned about Mason but I have seen nothing
from them to help Mason,” Rivers said. “They
are receiving billions of free dollars for
that industry. They could easily have donated
Mason $600,000 or more to help us so we can
also enjoy the benefits of them being our
neighbor. Don’t tell me you are concerned
about your neighbors and you are not being
neighborly.”
Mason may have dodged the bullet, but other Black towns in
America will surely come under fire because
they always have.
This commentary is also posted on TheGrio
