In the years after World War I, blacks began to migrate to the North and its imagined freedoms in great numbers - 'Russian' came to mean a black who had rushed from the South.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It comes down to this: black people were stripped of our identities when we were brought here, and it's been a quest since then to define who we are.
In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.
I had a minor in Russian history, and this was at the time when the big Cold War was going on.
North as well as South, the Negroes have emerged from slavery into a serfdom of poverty and restricted rights.
Negroland is my name for a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty. Children in Negroland were warned that few Negroes enjoyed privilege or plenty and that most whites would be glad to see them returned to indigence, deference and subservience.
As a result of America's efforts to realize the ideals of equality and freedom, blacks in America are now the freest and richest black people anywhere on the face of the earth including all of the nations that are ruled by blacks.
When President Kennedy was elected, many black Americans, like so many Americans, were captivated by his youth and energy and promise and were especially hopeful that he might move the country in a new direction on civil rights.
It is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.
As I was growing up, you know, I'm a white Jewish American born to Holocaust parents. My father fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and my mother's family had fled the czars of Russia before that.
Russians not only vehemently despise blacks, they believe Africa begins at the Ukraine border.