The "Neo-Philadelphia Negro" Series - Part III - Politics, Policy, Pathology, Hope & Racial Consciousness Fusion In A "Mission Accomplished City"

Retracing The Steps Of WEB DuBois - What Makes The Negro In Philly Tick?

I set out to find the latest edition of "The Final Call".  I knew that I had to go find a Black market district where members of the Nation of Islam are likely to have a store.   I chose to go to 52nd and Market Street in order to locate such a place.

On my walk up 52nd Street I saw a book store and went in.

"Are you a police officer?", asked the woman in the book store on 52nd Street.
"No I am not a police man nor am I with the FBI COINTELPRO program either".

"I saw you walk by and then come back.  I thought that you were the police.  That's how we got turned from Gods in to Niggas." she said.

"Why did this woman call me a Nigga?" I thought.

As I looked around the store I saw what she was talking about.   There was a book with that title.

Unfortunately they did not carry the "Final Call" but they did have several local and community oriented newspapers that I picked up for my research.

Mural Of Garvey & Malcolm	Obama and Marley	Obama and The Underground Rail Road
Anti-Capitalism	The Black Family Mural

HTML Tables

No Final Call to be found anywhere.
There were three Muslim clothing stores in the area.
All of them had (what appeared to be) Black American females "in cover".   Each of them had a large library of Islamic books.  None of them were "Nation Of Islam" store fronts and thus none of them carried the FC.

I asked a man with a street corner table where I could find a paper.  He pointed me to a man who sells pies at the corner of 52nd and Lancaster.

The Black Star News - Politics Of The People

The Black Star News appears to be a community newspaper that gives a voice to local politicians in the Black community.

The edition pictured above is a few weeks old.  The Pennsylvania Democratic primary has passed.  Mayor Nutter won the primary which in Philly means that he will be reelected as the city has a Democratic voting base of about 85%.  Former Mayor Street - who last year called his Democratic counterpart Nutter a bad name might choose to run as an independent in the general election.

The more interesting story in the paper, however, was the review of 3 City Council candidates.  The interesting part of the story is that the journalists heralded these three as a fresh young faces in city politics to correct the failures of the old guard.   The untold story of the situation is that:

• The Old Guard are Black Democrats
• The Fresh Faces who need to correct the damage are Black Democrats

As the story goes elsewhere - so is the case in Philadelphia - the Black voting base is not partitioned among political parties.  Indeed the Democrats hold a monopoly majority in our community.   The Black voting base is typically divided into Progressive Democratic factions.  Typically the "Civil Rights Old Guard" versus the "Young Upstart Progressive Activists" who believe that it is time for a change.  They believe that they have more "EFFECTIVE PROGRESSIVE" policies to anoint upon the city.  They are smarter and more educated than the last crop of progressives.

I was bothered by what I saw regarding the economic conditions within the neighborhoods of West and SouthWest Philly where I traveled.  While there are a few new shopping centers to service the demands from the community - the Black community remains largely economically stagnant.  There exists little ORGANIC economic development streaming up from the community.  These developments have simply brought "ShopRite", "Lowes" and "Target" into da'hood.  

When we look at the condition of the housing stock and the ownership of the store fronts in the main strips through the communities non-Blacks largely own these businesses as well.

The Black elected leadership who represent these communities are for the most part lack the power to alter the fate of the community.  In this cash strapped city they can only voice their concerns that the people in their districts are not receiving their "fair share".  Real POWER comes when there is organic productivity radiating out of a community and the representatives work to defend these resources from appropriation outward to communities that don't have the same productive base.

I am forced to conclude that the young upstarts will have the very same problems that the old guard have - absent the ability to leverage the community resources (and key "human resource development institutions) to build up a base of power - they will merely be members of the Philadelphia City Council that are commonly fighting over resources in a city pond that is at the low water mark.