On November 15, 1965, Douglas Turner Ward debuted as a playwright with a satire called: Happy Ending-A Day of Absence. Set in a small southern community, this play highlighted southern whites' dependence on the industrial and economic contributions of African Americans by having them disappear for a day from the marketplace. In the play, which, by the way, had no white actors, “whites” were confused, frustrated, even desperate because they realized that while thy wielded all the power, they were nothing without the hard work and spending of the African Americans they treated so badly.
The play, of course, also revealed an attitude of “shuffler rebellion” among blacks, very similar to a joke, not from this play, but set in the South. In the joke, two racist whites came to their favorite diner one afternoon, and declared to the black waiter that they had confessed Christ the night before during a revival. They promised to never kick him again when he served them. “In that cas' massa, I'm gwine stop peeing in y'alls coffee, too.
Almost exactly 42-years after the debut of Ward's play-Nov. 2, 2007-Warren Ballentine, Rev. Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders are allegedly calling for a one day boycott-a real day of absence from the marketplace.
Let's put this proposal in historical perspective. It is not new, and the boycott is not enough!
According to Kevin Williams, a North Carolina-based supporter of Sharpton and a catalyst that triggered much of the response throughout the south to the Jena 6 fiasco: “Black people alone spend 2 billion dollars a day in the United States and we are only approximately 12% of the population. 2 billion dollars a day, lining the pockets of
companies that have shown no interest in our interests. We are living in the new civil rights movement. We cannot allow the march in Jena to be only an event. It must be a movement. In the 1950s, the bus boycott was only supposed to be for a few
days or weeks. It ended up being over a year. The goal was for fair treatment and bus integration. Our parents and grandparents sacrificed and showed that with faith and
strength, they could show corporate America the power of the community to demand fair treatment. As we know, those buses were integrated. This is not about color. This is about class, The middle class and poor people in this country are not treated as the Declaration of Independence says we should be treated. It states that "all men are created equal". Clearly the governing class of the United States disagrees with that document.
What can we learn from both the figurative and the actual “Day of Absence?”
Numerous lessons loom clearly in Ward's play, and the joke based in the Jim Crow South, but larger lessons can be discovered in the facts of reality.
For example, “...in 1900 the total wealth of black America, $700 million, amounted to less than that of the nation's first billion-dollar corporation, United States Steel, organized in 1961, according to Dr. Juilette E.K. Walker in her book The History of Black Business in America.
Ninety-two years later, on Sept. 14, 1992 , activist, broadcaster and writer, Tony Brown, speaking to a gathering of intellectuals in an annual Heritage Foundation lecture said the following: “ ...we have to change our attitudes. To hold on to the way we are doing things seems contradictory, because the way we are doing things is not working. This country is not working; some of its parts do not add up right.
We have too much wealth and too much brain power to be in the position we are in. Our problem is not racial. Our problem, fundamentally, is economic. And when we solve the economic part of this equation, the race part of it will take care of itself, because people who are equal have the right to be with one another or they have the option not to be with one another. People who are poor don't have any options at all. If you elect to live in a white neighborhood, and you can afford it, fine. But, if you can't afford it, it doesn't matter where you want to live; it doesn't matter how many laws are on the books. The black community holds 350 conventions each summer. We spend $16 billion in hotels owned by whites, discussing white racism and black poverty. The entire foreign aid budget of America is only $16 billion, which is one percent of the GNP. Middle-class members of the black community come here to Washington every September 15th to the Congressional Black Caucus legislative weekend. In five days we spend one-half billion dollars. We spend $100 million a day at the Hilton Hotel and other white firms. At the midnight fashion show, which is the best attended event, we are sitting at $10,000 tables, the first 5,000 of them who could get in. Another 5,000 are in the next room watching on television. We are wearing $10,000 dresses, eating buffalo wings, drinking Scotch whiskey, and doing the Electric Slide.
