Community, Culture, and Economic Development, Second Edition by Meredith Ramsay

Author:Meredith Ramsay [Ramsay, Meredith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Regional Planning, Public Policy, City Planning & Urban Development, Political Science, American Government, Local
ISBN: 9781438448879
Google: XJ-7CMjgshUC
Goodreads: 24684391
Publisher: SUNY Press
Published: 2013-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Black Community

The black people have it made. They

live in fine housing and work only

six months a year.26

Older members of the black community in Crisfield reported that conditions for African Americans had deteriorated unbelievably in the last few decades. By far the largest social class was the poor. These were the seasonal workers, the laborers, the elderly, and the unemployed. The economic status of Crisfield’s black working class was largely tied to the seafood industry, and, as the catch in the bay declined, poverty and desperation increased. Many women still found seasonal work in the crab picking houses, but in ever dwindling numbers, and black men were desperate for work. “Social Services can’t support everybody in town who needs a living,” one black minister stated. Some people found employment outside of the county, but for most, this was not a realistic option. Jobs were scarce in the entire lower shore region. Furthermore, Somerset County had no public transportation. Increasingly, blacks were sustained by underground economies in drugs and theft, but, so were some in the white community, including the chief of police, who later was convicted on three counts of theft.27

There were no black-owned businesses in the county, except a few beer parlors and snack bars. The entrepreneurial spirit that had characterized the community of free blacks during earlier historical periods had long since been extinguished because of the unavailability of investment capital and credit to African Americans. The middle class was made up largely of professionals serving the black community, preachers, and educators employed in the county school system. Those who had government jobs with the state or the county enjoyed a level of economic security that was unknown to anyone else in the black community.

Obviously there was room for improvement in the conditions of life for Crisfield’s African American population. Spokespersons for various groups in the black community consistently disclosed a range of suppressed policy concerns. Two such issues deserve exploration. First, even a minimal public transportation system would have brought gainful employment within reach of significant numbers of people, black and white, wanting jobs. But the ruling elites, whether seafood packers or growers, had no interest in transporting “their” labor pool out of the county for higher wages.28 And second, as desirable as public housing was in the eyes of both races in Crisfield, most people would have preferred owning their own homes to living as public dependents under the supervision of a white “overseer.”

This issue warrants elaboration. Black home ownership had diminished inexorably over the decades in Crisfield, as elsewhere in Somerset County. Black people’s homes had been seized, one by one, for nonpayment of property taxes. An entire black neighborhood, called “Turf,” was razed in the 1970s to make room for an industrial park that was never developed.29 Today, Turf is an open field, full of high grass. “They demolished a viable community there,” Councilor Brown lamented. “Like a fool, I went along with it at the time, convincing people to give up their homes, to my everlasting regret.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.