Watching Donald Trump force the President of the United States to produce a document proving his place of birth was painful, especially painful for black men. You see, we have always had to present our “papers,” whether the task is as simple as applying for a minimum-wage job, to proving that you are a college graduate or that you are something other than a racial stereotype.
I recall a situation where an African-American woman describes how her grandfather disappeared in 1899 and how he was found 22 days later by his brother, locked up in jail. Apparently he was stopped by authorities thrown in jail because he didn’t have his “papers”.
Once discovered, the jailed mans’ brother produced the required “papers,” but that wasn’t enough to release him. He came back to the jail with his brother’s white employer in tow. When the white employer arrived with the “papers” the man was released.
As a student home on break from Ithaca College, I remember going out to meet friends at Lost Horizon and the issue at that time the late 1970’s was African-Americans being denied entry to discos.
It was routine to have the identification that allowed entry last week not to be sufficient the following weekend.
Once you arrived you weren’t sure if you could get in, and if you were to meet someone there, forget it. Because one Saturday night your I.D. was acceptable, another night, not acceptable.
Or if you arrived with five people they would allow three entry and deny the others, saying “Sorry, you have the wrong I.D.”
We were so disturbed by the repeated incidents that we met with the Onondaga County Chapter of the NAACP and we were told by then-President Tommy Blunt, “We have more important things to do than get involved with going out to party.” It was not long after that meeting that the discriminatory practices employed at these discos became apparent to the entire community.
The moment of truth came when Channel 3 caught several discos discriminating against African-Americans with hidden cameras. Night Deposit and others were caught on camera but by then it was too late. We just stopped going out.
It became clear to many of us coming home on break from college that growing up in Syracuse and being black also meant knowing your place. Our “place” included which bars, nightclubs or discos we could go to, and which ones we could not. Fast forward to 1989: I started a newspaper.
As a newly-minted journalist and newspaper owner, I joined the local professional press organization.
After several years being a member I was honored to become president of the Syracuse Press Club. Here I was the smallest publisher in the market leading a prestigious organization. I was excited as I arrived at then Mayor Roy Bernardi’s office for a Press Conference with New York’s recently-elected Governor George Pataki.
At the Mayor’s office door, as members of the press filed by, I noticed that they asked everybody for identification. I saw Blockbuster Cards, a flash of a WSYR microphone and simply a nod and “go ahead” directed at people who had no visible identification.
As I made it to the door the flow suddenly stopped.
“Who are you?” said the towering police guard.
“I’m Ken Jackson,” and as I opened my wallet to produce several pieces of identification another Syracuse Press Club member recognized me and told the guard, “oh that’s Ken Jackson, president of the Syracuse Press Club.” I was then escorted in to meet the governor. By the way, the white reporter had no I.D.
