Lessons From the Past
"Seventy-one years ago this month -- in January 1948 -- a black, 17-year-old high school dropout left home.
The last grade he had completed was the 9th grade.
He had
no skills, little experience, and not a lot of maturity.
Yet he was able to find jobs to support himself, to a far greater extent than someone similar can find jobs today.
I know because I was that black 17-year-old.
And, decades later, I did research on economic conditions back then.
Back in 1948, the unemployment rate for 17-year-old black males was just under 10 percent, and no higher than the unemployment rate among white male 17-year-olds.
How could that be, when we have for decades gotten used to seeing unemployment rates for teenage males that have been some multiple of what it was then -- and with black teenage unemployment often twice as high, or higher, than white teenage unemployment?
Many people automatically assume that racism explains the large difference in unemployment rates between black and white teenagers today.
Was there no racism in 1948?
No sane person who was alive in 1948 could believe that.
Racism was worse -- and of course there was no Civil Rights Act of 1964 then.
...As a black teenager, I was lucky enough to be looking for jobs
when the minimum wage law was rendered ineffective by inflation.
I was also lucky enough to have gone through New York schools at a time
when they still had high educational standards.
Decades later, when examining the math textbook used by some young relatives of mine, who were living where I grew up in Harlem, I discovered that the math they were being taught in the 11th grade was less than what I had been taught in the 9th grade..."
Read on!
