Famed New York Times columnist and cable news political analyst Charles Blow’s bombshell 2021 bestseller “The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto” challenged Black America with a bold strategy for greater political and social power: Reverse the Great Migration.
Blow, who also authored the acclaimed memoir-turned-opera “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” posited that by returning to the states from which many Black Americans escaped between 1910 and 1970, they could gain the type of power that would lessen the oppression many continue to feel in northern and midwestern cities.
Now, “The Devil You Know” has inspired the new HBO Original documentary airing on HBO and Max, “South To Black Power,” directed by Sam Pollard and Llewellyn Smith. Blow, who is featured in the film, recently spoke to the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.
Blow shared that he was moved to write the book “partly from a lingering exhaustion with dealing with the oppression of Black people as expressed particularly for me, in the killings of Black people, particularly Black men, that I was covering at the time and have been covering for about a decade.”
He was also inspired after reading a book describing how Vermont’s political climate was radically altered by the intentional relocation of multitudes of liberals. States Blow, “What helped was that a writer simply wrote about it and made the case. I thought, I can do that.”
In addition to historians and political activists who have themselves migrated to the South, “South To Black Power” features Blow’s old friends, siblings, mother, and one of his sons, Taj; all are grappling with how to increase Black political power.
Blow is careful to point out that he understands America has come a long way in race relations, and that not all Whites are racist. However, his message is that this is a fight for Black people only.
“I think allyship is beautiful when it works, but history teaches us allies get weary. They overlap on certain issues and diverge on others. I don’t want to have to be in the posture for the rest of my life, or for the rest of…existence in this country, of begging allies to stay engaged.”
Blow is encouraged by states such as Georgia, where already significant numbers of Blacks are impacting politics. “Georgia in 2020 is a proof of concept. Black people led the coalition that elected two senators.”
Blow was also inspired by America’s history. Between the end of the Civil War and 1900, there were over 1,500 Black men elected to state legislatures. “The amount of power they were able to wield was extraordinary,” Blow stated.
“Louisiana called the Constitutional Convention of 1868. It had all sorts of things like protections for property ownership, and possession, and a directive for integrated public schools—in 1868!”
This begs a question. The power Blacks then wielded brought on the terror campaign against them by racist Whites, which drove so many Blacks to flee the South. Won’t history repeat itself?
“The architecture of policing in major southern cities [today] is completely different from what allowed that sort of terror,” Blow explained. Still, he’s aware there’s bound to be backlash and agrees a reverse migration may not be for everyone.
“Fear can never be the governing factor,” he said. “Anyone who’s afraid, stay put. If you want power, you have to be engaged in the fight to acquire it. It’s perfectly okay for people to say I don’t want to fight; I don’t want power. But there are others of us who do.”
Blow also agrees that there is a role to play for Black political and fraternal organizations. “Major civil rights organizations have been watching this happen but haven’t engaged. One of the great things about the Great Migration was that organizations like the Urban League were literally at the train station giving out pamphlets. This is needed.”
Blow also feels that there is a lack of action by politicians. “Where are the southern mayors? You have a whole city of people moving. There isn’t one billboard anywhere saying, ‘Welcome.’ There are no TV ads, no radio ads that say, ‘Come on down.’”
Regarding Black journalists, Blow said, “I want more people to be actively engaged on the advocacy side of this. Robert Abbott of the Chicago Defender…was actively engaged in wooing Black people to Chicago. That was part of what made it clear to people that this was something that you could do—and that it would be good for you.”
Blow states in the film, “I relish the idea of breaking the system altogether to create a system in which Republicans simply cannot win without courting everyone in the electorate, including Black people, and one in which Democrats cannot take you for granted.”
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