WWRL -- Sharpton rally -- 8/19/95

Morris Powell:

"Good morning, family. We know we still got our work cut out for us. When they removed the vendors off 125th Street, the black stores started going out of business like dominoes. We got a problem with the store at the 272 West 125th Street, Freddy's. They're trying to drive a black man out of business that been in business close to 25 years on 125th Street. I have his presence(?) here today, Brother Shange, who has a music store there on 125th Street. Next door is Freddy's, at 272 West 125th Street.

They think they gonna drive this man out of business, they gotta be out of their minds. We are not gonna stand idly by and let a Jewish person come in Black Harlem and methodically drive black people out of business up and down 125th Street. If we stand for that, we'll stand for anything. Which we've been doing. But I think we got a better -- as long as we got a gentleman like Brother Granddad here, Brother Watchman, Brother Garrett, Carol Taylor, myself, and some others, we ain't gonna take no wooden nickels. We gonna see that this cracker suffer. You know, the excuse that they use in drivin' this brother out of business is that they want the space in Black Harlem.

Can you imagine a black person with a store in a Jewish community gonna drive a Jewish businessman out of business, sayin' that they need the space, after the Jew had been established in this Jewish community for twenty-five years. Do you think Jewish peoples will stand for that? So, why is it expected for us to go for that? You'll be hearin' more about this. Reverend Sharpton is on it. We had made contact with these crackers, and we ain't expecting much out of 'em, and we gonna let 'em know they really haven't seen how we feel about anything yet, but we gonna show 'em.

The Buy Black Steerin' Committee gotta standard flyer now. What we want is pretty long, I'm not gonna go through it right now. But next Saturday, I have copies for everybody. I'm gonna get a thousand copies made, I'm gonna keep 'em constantly made and pass 'em out everywhere I go, because we're gonna have to organize our black stores so that our black stores and our black vendors will have some type of unity.

The problem was, the last time, was that the enemy played the black stores against the black vendors, and that was a bad move. But that was because we didn't have them all organized under one umbrella, because if we had 'em all organized under one umbrella, then we would've looked at all our interests as the same. We would do it different this time. We would organize all the black stores throughout the length and breadth of Harlem. And, we'll re-sign up our vendors, those that have let this -- sold themselves out on 116th Street and Lenox -- they're welcome to come back because they ain't gonna have no choice, because we'll be the only show in town anyway."

Complete Transcripts of the Following Broadcasts


Return to News ArchivesBack to Top