In the late 1950s when dad broke the color barrier to become one of the first black Baltimore firefighters, it afforded my mother, father, and their four children funds to move out of the projects to a suburban black community.

As a sixth grader, coming back to the city for occasional sleepovers at my cousin’s house in the projects was exciting.

During those visits Aunt Florine would send me to the corner store to purchase two cigarettes. “Tell Mr. [I can’t remember the name] to put it on my account.” The owner was Jewish, as were the owners of corner grocery stores all over the ghetto.

Over the years, the Jewish owners were replaced by Asians. Typically, the Asians opened early in the morning and closed late at night, and their huge families lived upstairs above their businesses.

Fueled by the likes of Sharpton, Jackson and other exploitative racial grievance pimps, blacks grew increasingly resentful of the Jewish and Asian store owners for supposedly exploiting our community.

Assaults and robberies became so frequent that fearful store-owners were forced to install bulletproof walls, separating them from their clientele. Purchases were made via a bulletproof lazy Susan. The shopping experience felt unsafe, unfriendly, and a bit humiliating being grouped with vicious lowlifes. I decided never to shop where there was a bulletproof wall between me and the merchant.

I never understood the logic of why I was suppose to hate the Jewish and Asian store owners. I thought, those people work their butts off enduring difficult and dangerous conditions to earn a living. They also provide a service. So, why hate them?

And, what was stopping blacks from following the example of the Jews and Asians; starting their own businesses in the hood? Please do not give me that America is racist crap. Annie Malone, a black businesswoman, among others, became a millionaire in the 1920s.

In Baltimore, my uncle owned a barber shop and was pastor of a large church. My grandfather was a tailor. My cousin Irma Curry was a Columbia Records artist and vocalist for Lionel Hampton and his Orchestra.

Though a housewife, my mom worked part-time as a domestic, a school custodian and took in ironing.

Dad was a firefighter and assistant pastor of a storefront church. On Saturdays, he and I sold bleach and starch from his station-wagon. “Bleach man! Bleach man…50 cents! Starch, 65!” I loved those Saturdays with dad.

So, what killed the independent entrepreneurial spirit that was once prominent in black America? What transformed many into bitter government-dependent welfare junkies? Answer: insidious Democrat welfare pushers and race pimps.

Democrat President Lyndon Johnson launched black America’s decline and the destruction of the black family with his 1964 War on Poverty; government welfare replacing dads.

The “Superfly” of race pimps is Rev. Al Sharpton. They say there ain’t no pimp like an old pimp, and Sharpton has been pimpin’ race for decades. Sharpton entered the national arena back in 1987 as spokesperson for Tawana Brawley who launched a hoax which sparked a racial firestorm.

Fearful of being punished for staying out over night, black 15 year old Brawley lied claiming 6 white men including state officials kidnapped, raped, used charcoal to cover her body with racial epithets and smeared her with feces. TV cameras broadcast Sharpton’s rantings against racist white America.

Even when the truth was revealed and the defendants sued and won, Sharpton never backed down from Brawley’s lie, nor has he apologized to this day. Sharpton and Brawley’s two attorneys were ordered to pay $345,000 in damages.

Grandmaster race pimp Sharpton exploited the 1991 Crown Heights riot in New York. A black child was accidentally killed by a car driven by a Jew, unleashing simmering tensions between blacks and their Jewish neighbors. Black rioters looted stores and beat Jews in the streets. A Jewish man and a man mistaken for a Jew were killed by mob members while others chanted, “Kill the Jews” and “get the Jews out.”

You would think a “reverend” would show up to attempt to end the violence. But no, Rev. Sharpton showed up to lead a march of 400 protesters chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets!” and “No justice, no peace!”

Sharpton and his associates in the racial grievance industry are masters of misdirection; getting blacks fired-up about fake enemies (Jews, Republicans, white America, black conservatives and a “white Hispanic”). Meanwhile, our once-proud and self-reliant black community is in a death spiral from its triple addictions to welfare, entitlements, and drugs.

With 73 percent of black kids born out-of-wedlock, black America must make an immediate about-face; back to embracing independence, entrepreneurship, education, hard work and dads in homes.

Only then will a majority of black Americans experience the dignity and pride that comes from personal achievement, earning your own money and making your own way. It is who we used to be.

Will the real black America please stand up!?