About 'tuscaloosa doctors'|Part II Day 223: September 30, 2010 ("we don't talk about race in Alabama," but we do in Tuscaloosa!)
President Barack Obama is not the President of Black America, but he is the President of the United States of America. Contrary to rhetoric from some political pundits, and some Black leaders across the country, blacks did not start losing jobs in historic numbers under Obama's reign. Affirmative Action in the 70's did not disarm Economic Inaction/ Employment Traction for many Blacks Pre-Obama Louis Uchitelle wrote in The New York Times(July 12, 2003) that, "Unemployment among blacks is rising at a faster pace than in any similar period since the mid-1970's, and the jobs lost have been mostly in manufacturing, where the pay for blacks has historically been higher than in many other fields. Nearly 2.6 million jobs have disappeared over all during the last 28 months, which began with a brief recession that has faded into a weak recovery. Nearly 90 percent of those lost jobs were in manufacturing, according to government data, with blacks hit disproportionately harder than whites." President George W. Bush was the Commander-in-Chief during this era. My family moved to Birmingham in 1967. My father worked at U.S. Steel for many years, and my mother remained at home taking care of my eight other male siblings. According to the Encyclopedia of Alabama: Birmingham Iron and Steel Companies, "Birmingham owes its 1871 founding to the geological uniqueness of the Jones Valley, the only place on Earth where large deposits of the three raw materials needed to make iron-coal, iron ore, and limestone-existed close together. Named for the industrial heart of Great Britain, Birmingham prospered and grew as the iron, coal, and steel industry expanded. But labor issues, economic constraints imposed by northern owners, and eventual overseas competition hampered development, and Birmingham never evolved into the world-class steel-making center that its founders envisioned." How did Blacks fare during Birmingham's steel-making heyday? The Encyclopedia of Alabama reported that, "the companies kept labor costs low by employing black workers, who came from depressed agricultural areas and supplied cheap labor. And the coal used to fire the furnaces was largely mined by forced convict labor leased to the companies at very low rates by the state and county governments." After the "Magic" began to fade, Blacks had to find clearer water to wade The Encyclopedia of Alabama also reported that, "The new Alabama city boomed so quickly that it came to be known as the "Magic City", and later known as the "Pittsburgh of the South", after the Pennsylvania center of iron and steel production. Today, Birmingham is home to one of the nation's largest banking centers as well as world-class medical facilities. The University of Alabama at Birmingham, (where I received my B.A. degree in Journalism), is Birmingham's largest employer with 18,750 employees. Approximately 68.8 percent of the workforce in Birmingham is employed in healthcare, retail trade, manufacturing, and administrative support positions. Birmingham's hallmark attraction is the towering statue of Vulcan that overlooks the city from the top of Red Mountain. Italian sculptor Guiseppe Moretti constructed Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metal-working, in 1904 to serve as a fitting symbol of the industrial city for the St. Louis World's Fair. In 2004, after a four-year renovation, Vulcan Park re-opened to the public and welcomed more than 100,000 visitors in its first year." I drove my mother to Vulcan Park last weekend, and this was the first time she had ever visited Vulcan Park in her lifetime. It was also my first time visiting this landmark in my lifetime, and it was truly a "magical" experience. President Obama is not the Governor of Alabama President Obama can not change much of the economic paths for many citizens in Alabama's Black Belt. The governor and state elected leaders must create this economic relief. The Encyclopedia of Alabama wrote that, " much has changed in employment opportunities for many Black residents in Birmingham because of many medical and healthcare jobs in Birmingham, and Birmingham being home to one of the largest banking centers in the U.S., Alabama's Black Belt's is still in need of economic surgery." John Archibald and Jeff Hansen wrote in The Birmingham News Special Report(May 12, 2002) that, "A person growing up in Wilcox County can expect to live about 69 years if he stays put in the Black belt. That's a shorter life span than one could expect in Sri Lanka, Iran or Mexico, and full six-years less than a resident of Birmingham's suburban Shelby County." Incidentally, Janell Ross wrote in The Huffington Post(Feb. 27, 2013) that, "On Wednesday, Shelby County will ask the Supreme Court to overturn Section Five of the Voting Rights Act, a measure that civil rights advocates have called the "hammer" and "heart" of federal efforts to protect minority voting rights from a constantly-evolving series of suppressive tactics." Alabama: A Third World state in a global economy It was further reported in The Encyclopedia of Alabama that, "A child in the Black Belt is more likely to be born out of wedlock, more likely to come home to poverty, and more likely to die in the first year of life. A man in the Black belt is more likely to drop out of school in the 9th grade, leave the mother of his children, and die of heart disease. Eight of the Black belt counties Wilcox, Perry, Greene, Macon, Sumter, Lowndes, Dallas and Bullock are among the 100 poorest counties in the U.S. according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Sixty-four percent of residents in the Black Belt in Alabama are Black, and 35 percent are white. A place where more than 6 out of every 10 people are Black, where doctors and hospitals are so scarce that pregnant women and sick residents must travel up to 30 miles to the nearest health clinic. They'd find a region where there is no local bus service, where as many as a quarter of all households have no car. A countryside where the infant death rates during parts of the 1990's surpassed those in Panama and Uruguay, the percentage of birth to teenage mothers was higher than in Uganda and Indonesia." However, some good news evolved from these startling statistics in the Black Belt. Archibald and Hansen wrote, "Thanks to millions of dollars in incentives and tax breaks for carmakers, the State of Alabama lured more potential jobs to the fringes of the Black Belt than many in the area dreamed of. Two international car making giants are investing more than a billion dollars at the edge of the Black Belt, building and expanding plans that will employ 6,000 people. Their suppliers will add 17,300 more jobs. As Mercedes-Benz expands its Tuscaloosa County plant with a $600 million addition, and Hyundai lays plans to build a billion-dollar plant in Montgomery County, the state seems to have a chance to break the Black belt's 10-decade decline." Maybe we shall overcome someday. |
Image of tuscaloosa doctors
tuscaloosa doctors Image 1
tuscaloosa doctors Image 2
tuscaloosa doctors Image 3
tuscaloosa doctors Image 4
tuscaloosa doctors Image 5
Related blog with tuscaloosa doctors
- talesofthenewworld.blogspot.com/.... So much so that the owl came close to calling her home. The doctors told me to lie to my mother and say that Dr. Webb has ...
- rainesreport.blogspot.com/... before seeking his own medical attention. I saw Governor Bentley, my former doctor and Tuscaloosa native, standing side by side with President Obama promising Tuscaloosa would...
- thephantomcountry.blogspot.com/...real it seems, flew a Phantom. Ray is a resident of Tuscaloosa. Ray is both a doctor and a sick man, conducting on these pages a precarious...
- xover-exchange.livejournal.com/...distant afterwards. + As they’re passing Tuscaloosa, a phone starts ringing in the..., when he hears Amy continue, “Oh, Doctor. I wasn’t expecting you to call. How...
- mystorylives.blogspot.com/Note to readers: Tuscaloosa Bypass, a new chapbook by poet Cecele Kraus..." Labor was long and hard. The doctors kindly gave my mother two ...
- gafromga.wordpress.com/... tickets to the Alabama game and we are heading to Tuscaloosa this afternoon.” Knowing he is a HUGE Alabama fan and I’m a HUGE Georgia...
- rmwyatt.wordpress.com/...: Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 3:30 a.m. TUSCALOOSA | A gentleman, trailblazer, and “old school” educator...he wanted to. “He had a doctor’s appointment Tuesday at 11 a.m., but I couldn...
- thebarleybunch.blogspot.com/... to look at houses in Tuscaloosa/Northport this weekend. We are ... of a new place: church, doctor, dentist, hair stylist (including mani...
- feedingtherich.blogspot.com/...Initiative, Just Us, Tuscaloosa Education Network, and One Tuscaloosa––is having this conversation...people from the community: A male African American doctor; a white male college student from the New College...
- waldenswimmer.blogspot.com/...that he was, of course, such as eyewitnesses, the birth certificate, the doctor's recollections, all kinds of stuff along with the published...
Related Video with tuscaloosa doctors
tuscaloosa doctors Video 1
tuscaloosa doctors Video 2
tuscaloosa doctors Video 3
0 개의 댓글:
댓글 쓰기