“Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.” — George Washington Carver

BORN A SLAVE AT THE TAIL END OF THE CIVIL WAR, George Washington Carver was raised by Moses Carver and his wife. As former slave owners turned benevolent guardians, they saw to it that the baby was raised properly and received an education.

One of the early influences on young George was one of his first teachers, Mariah Watkins, who told him: “You must learn all you can, then go back out into the world and give your learning back to the people.” Carver took the words to heart, and he lived a remarkable life of great accomplishment.

History is filled with many who have achieved success by following three basic rules of life, each of which transcends race and color: Work hard, stay out of trouble, and never stop learning.

It is without argument that the damage of slavery was both severe and reprehensible. Once freedom was attained, and paid for in blood, those newly freed expectedly acted in divergent ways.

After the Civil War, a large number preferred to live among their own, trying, with mixed results, to get away from oppression and the ugliness of racism, in some cases through the establishment of self-segregated communities. The earliest such community was the short-lived Fort Moses, Florida (1738-39), in then Spanish-held territory, whose demise was hastened by an attack by Georgia colonists. The exact number of communities founded as all-black settlements is difficult to ascertain, one website listed 140, but the record was not complete.

Towns founded on the premise of self-segregation were created by a wide variety of people, for widely differing reasons. Unfortunately, for an equally varying number of reasons, few survive today. As the New York Times reported, “Many of the towns were quite successful, but they were eventually undone by factors including the Depression, Jim Crow laws, intimidation by whites and urbanization. Today, 13 of those original towns still exist in Oklahoma, and they all still have all-black or overwhelmingly black populations.”

Violence against these communities was all too common. Tulsa’s Greenwood District, once known as the “Black Wall Street,” and Rosewood, Florida, stand out as extreme examples.

In “Encyclopedia of the Great Plains,” David Wishart describes all-black towns and their abandonment: “The all-black towns were, for the most part, small agricultural centers that gave nearby African-American farmers a market for their cotton and other crops. The Depression devastated these towns, and residents moved west or migrated to metropolises where jobs might be found.”

And then there were the black sections of major cities, many of them highly financially viable, such as Los Angeles’ Central Avenue, aka “The Avenue.” If a young woman strolled down The Avenue in its heyday she would have found the usual markets, restaurants, clubs, furniture, clothing stores — all that was needed for a sustainable community, and almost all were black-owned.

The Dunbar Hotel (originally the Somerville Hotel) was a must-stop for affluent blacks and performers of the day. It was founded in 1928 by John and Vada Somerville, both graduates of the University of Southern California’s School of Dentistry — a rare accomplishment for blacks at the turn of the century, as well as being an admirable accomplishment for anyone today.

The Somervilles followed the three basic rules of life I mentioned earlier: work hard, stay out of trouble and never stop learning. W.E.B. DuBois described the Dunbar thusly:

“It was a hotel — a jewel done with loving hands. … It was full of sunshine and low voices and the sound of human laughter and running water. … And we entered a beautiful new inn with a soul. … Funny that a hotel so impressed — but it was so unexpected, so startling, so beautiful.”

Laura Mae Gross headed west to Los Angeles from Alabama in 1944. Though her husband was murdered 10 years later, the 35-year-old mother opened a local hangout for jazz musicians. In 1964 she moved crosstown to the famed Atlantic Club, before moving again to establish Babe’s and Ricky’s Inn. Over the years performers at her establishments included B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, Lowell Fulsom, Little Milton, Albert King, Johnny Otis, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Big Mama Thornton, Little Esther Phillips, Count Basie, Albert Collins, Ike and Tina Turner, Eric Clapton, Bobby “Blue” Bland, John Lee Hooker, Keb’ Mo and many others.

Laura Mae Goss did not make excuses; she did what needed to be done, succeeding through determination and hard work. Babe’s and Ricky’s was the last of its kind. Let’s hope Laura Mae, who died in 2009 at 89, was not.

Many factors have contributed to the destruction of once-strong black communities, but one rarely mentioned is that once the barriers of racism were knocked down and the doors were opened for blacks to shop, dine and have an evening out in areas previously off limits, their money — once spent in places like The Avenue — was now spent in white-owned establishments. Without reciprocity from the white communities, the writing was on the wall: an era was ending.

The question now faced in these deteriorating enclaves across the country is, how to respond to the adversity. Wil the advice of past black leaders be heeded, or will a new class of leaders be followed?

Of course, charlatans abounded even in the early part of the 20th century. Booker T. Washington, who was instrumental in the founding of the Tuskegee Institute at the age of 25, expressed doubt as to the sincerity of some black “leaders”:

“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”

Not mentioned by Mr. Washington are those who benefited politically by keeping racism and grievances alive while making false claims. Oftentimes votes are far more valued then money.

Unfortunately, today’s leaders too often are exactly the people to whom he referred — though they are now not limited by race.

Those who have attained success despite adversity should be the leaders not just of black communities, but of all communities.

No government program is an assurance of financial success, nor can any law end individual racism. What needs to be realized is that the helping hand extended is one of opportunity, not perpetuity. The destructive cycles of quitting school, teen pregnancy, having children while not married, drugs, gangs, petty crimes and failing to support children must come to an end.

All of these are choices, and all are made by a minority within the minority. They are also wrong choices, rightfully condemned by the majority within the same minority.

What needs encouragement are the right choices, which begins when viability is withheld from those George Washington Carver would call the “excuse-makers.”

Dennis Lund is a mechanical engineer who lived in Benicia for more than 20 years.