Some progress for African Americans, but more is needed
Esser weighs African American progress over the past twenty-five years and considers the challenge posed by a new generation of African Americans. He thinks that while African Americans have made some progress, they have much more ground to make up, a difficult task given the disaffection and disinterest of black youth.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with George Esser, June-August 1990. Interview L-0035. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- GEORGE ESSER:
-
But there are some black leaders in the east, but they do not tend to
carry nearly as much clout, not to control nearly as many votes, nor to
be venturesome. There is a lot more protection of turf, in terms of jobs
and the school system and the community action agencies, the government,
on the part of the blacks in the east than there is, let's
say, in Durham or Greensboro or Winston or Charlotte. Well, the black
political present in North Carolina is just like—twenty-five
years ago, I remember, I got a call at the Fund one day from Arthur
Tyler, [unclear] Tyler, in Rocky Mount,
and he said, "George, I'm ready to negotiate about
jobs in the department store but I want to talk to one person and they
want to send thirty-five in here." And I
said, "Well, Arthur, you've got to talk to the
thirty-five because they don't trust any one
person."
- FRANCES WEAVER:
-
I see, I see.
- GEORGE ESSER:
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And that's pretty much true today. And there is nobody, with
the possible exception of Jesse Jackson, who can turn out the black
vote. A lot of going to depend in November on whether the black vote
really turns out for Harvey Gantt.
- FRANCES WEAVER:
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Yes, whether he can do it.
- GEORGE ESSER:
-
You don't have the overt hostility as much in the college
campuses as you did in, say, the late '60s and early '70s.
But you can go to occasions, college campus or in a black community,
where you feel uncomfortable. There is still hostility to the prevailing
society, hostility to the barriers to opportunity. And this is
particularly true among the younger ones, men and women. I think that we
have made tremendous progress in the last thirty years, but I think
we've got a long way to go.
- FRANCES WEAVER:
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And that's one thing they don't want to hear from
us, is "look how far we've come."
- GEORGE ESSER:
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That's right. No, as a matter of fact, we are now at a time in
history where young blacks do not remember the conditions of the
'50s and early '60s.
- FRANCES WEAVER:
-
That's true. They don't know what it was like to
live under segregation, legal segregation.
- GEORGE ESSER:
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And they don't understand—those civil rights
leaders who made a name for themselves in the late '50s and '60s are not
well known to the young black generation
unless they have continued to provide leadership.
- FRANCES WEAVER:
-
Yes, true.
- GEORGE ESSER:
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And I don't say, we were talking about Nathan a few minutes
ago, I don't say that Nathan is a great civil rights leader,
but Nathan is a very good bridge between the prevailing white political
and business structure in North Carolina generally and
the….
- FRANCES WEAVER:
-
The essential man, I mean, an essential to the whole process.
- GEORGE ESSER:
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And to the black community. And he is well respected in the community
that is probably not, you know, the community that is most hostile to
white society. But he is well respected in that community, and so I
think that it's important for there to be somebody who can
have that sort of access to both centers of power and centers of
hostility.