In my April 11 blog, I talked about the codes of conduct of Asians and so-called Black people. While in our modern age it would appear that very few Black people operate under a strong code of conduct the way other people groups do, this wasn’t always the case. I touched on successful Black communities that prospered in less than one generation following slavery such as those in Rosewood, Florida and in Tulsa, Oklahoma who at the time operated under a strong code of conduct. But going back farther even beyond the Transatlantic Slave Trade, many Black people operated under a very strong God-given code of conduct.

In 70 AD, just following the destruction of the temple in Israel, many Israelites were scattered throughout Africa, ending up in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Congo while other Israelites were carried off as slaves into a variety of parts of Europe including Spain and Portugal.

While in these foreign lands, most Israelites kept to themselves and upheld the code of conduct they were given in scripture to not intermarry with other nations and to strictly conduct business with one another.

In his book, The Jews of Spain and Portugal and the Inquisition, author Frederic David Mocatta states that Israelites living in the 6th century Iberian Peninsula, France and other parts of Europe held to a strong code of conduct, mainly interacting and trading with one another, and building up wealthy and prosperous communities.

Mocatta suggests that these same Israelites welcomed the Moors who invaded Europe and allied with them as their (Moors) presence meant they were no longer hunted down by the Goths or coerced into converting into Catholic-based Christianity. Allegedly the Moors were much more lenient in allowing Israelites to practice their religion with little to no persecution.

Fast forward to the 18th century, 1711 to be exact, a British man by the name of William “Willie” Lynch taught white slave owners how to train their slaves to operate in a completely backwards manner, and gave slave owners specific instructions for how to teach Black slaves to operate off code in a way that greatly benefited white slave owners. A promise that Willie Lynch gave to white slave owners was that if they followed his method, they would only have to train their slaves once and from there, the slaves would train each other and their offspring perpetually.

What’s interesting is that when slaves were finally freed roughly 150 years later, they continued operating under the Willie Lynch training. There is no record of this slave training ever having been reversed or broken. For those who have read Willie Lynch’s speech that contains his instructions to slave owners, most would realize that the promised results are alive and well in many Black people in the 21st century.