Frank Coakley
Founder of Iota Phi Theta Fraternity
Morgan State University
September 19, 1963
Distinguished Member of the Morgan State University Alumni Community
Passed Away To The Eternal Garden Of Everlasting Peace
2/23/2021
Alpha Iota Omega Chapter

The Morgan State University Community and the community of Iota Phi Theta Fraternity brothers and sweethearts loss a pillar yesterday evening as Frank Coakley drew his final breath on this plane. However, because Frank Coakley cared so much for others and placed the needs of the many over the needs of the few. His life’s footprints will be forever etched on the steps of Hurt Gymnasium where Iota Phi Theta Fraternity Incorporated was founded but also his eternal footprints will be etched in communities across this planet. I’m sure that you will see a posts about his final earthly goodbye celebration soon. I just wanted to say in a very personal way thank you Frank Coakley for passing my way in assisting my growth in being a better man, a better me because every time you said Smoke with that smile it encouraged me to press the forward button.

Today I am remembering not the dream we almost all remember from August 28, 1963 but I am remembering what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of prior to speaking of the dream. Dr. King discussed the urgency of cashing that insufficient check in that speech. He became more adamant about cashing that check due Black Americans in the last 730 days of his life in his call for wealth redistribution and reparations. How are we still discussing this and not actually acting on implementing some form of reparations? Why do black men like Elder, and Walker seemingly deny King’s dream about reparations but say they honor Martin Luther King? Why do national political leaders say they honor Dr. King but refuse to mention the words reparations and Black Americans in the same sentence. Dr. King didn’t get murdered for his dream of an integrated society. He was murdered because he continued to demand the cashing of that insufficient check due us.

Ballad of Harry Moore
(Killed at Mims, Florida, on Christmas night, 1951)



Florida means land of flowers.
It was on Christmas night
In the state named for the flowers
Men came bearing dynamite.

Men came stealing through the orange groves
Bearing hate instead of love,
While the Star of Bethlehem
Was in the sky above.

Oh, memories of a Christmas evening
When Wise Men traveled from afar
Seeking out a lowly manger
Guided by a Holy Star!

Oh, memories of a Christmas evenin
When to Bethlehem there came
"Peace on earth, good will to men"--
Jesus was His name.

But they must've forgotten Jesus
Down in Florida that night
Stealing through the orange groves
Bearing hate and dynamite.

It was a little cottage,
A family, name of Moore.
In the windows wreaths of holly,
And a pine wreath on the door.

Christmas, 1951,
The family prayers were said
When father, mother, daughter,
And grandmother went to bed.

The father's name was Harry Moore.
The N.A.A.C.P.
Told him to carry out its work
That Negroes might be free.

So it was that Harry Moore
(So deeply did he care)
Sought the right for men to live
With their heads up everywhere.

Because of that, white killers,
Who like Negroes "in their place,"
Came stealing through the orange groves
On that night of dark disgrace.

It could not be in Jesus' name,
Beneath the bedroom floor,
On Christmas night the killers
Hid the bomb for Harry Moore.

It could not be in Jesus' name
The killers took his life,
Blew his home to pieces
And killed his faithful wife.

It could not be for the sake of love
They did this awful thing--
For when the bomb exploded
No hearts were heard to sing.

And certainly no angels cried,
"Peace on earth, good will to men"--
But around the world an echo hurled
A question: When?...When?....When?

When will men for sake of peace
And for democracy
Learn no bombs a man can make
Keep men from being free?

It seems that I hear Harry Moore.
From the earth his voice cries,
No bomb can kill the dreams I hold--
For freedom never dies!

I will not stop! I will not stop--
For freedom never dies!
I will not stop! I will not stop!
Freedom never dies!

So should you see our Harry Moore
Walking on a Christmas night,
Don't run and hide, you killers,
He has no dynamite.

In his heart is only love
For all the human race,
And all he wants is for every man
To have his rightful place.

And this he says, our Harry Moore,
As from the grave he cries:
No bomb can kill the dreams I hold
For freedom never dies!

Freedom never dies, I say!
Freedom never dies!
Langston Hughes

President Factual Note
Old Hickory & Hannah His Slave
Get His Face Off The $20.00 Bill
He Was Nobody’s American Hero
He Treated All Black People Like There Were Zeros

Andrew Jackson, Old Hickory, loved using the hickory whip on his slaves. In addition, it is said that Andrew Jackson fathered a child with one of his loyal female slaves "Hannah". Hannah, who believed Jackson was more father than a master. Right, your father owned you and could do with you as please and whipped you with a lash if he thought you were being insolent. Yeah, that's my kind of daddy. Her white daddy used her as his concubine. Hannah was simply property and was so subconsciously conditioned in her servitude to Andrew Jackson that she accepting whatever treatment befell her. Although, the paternity of Hannah's child could never be proven. I believe that it is most likely true and she was used as sexual property just as Sally Hemings was Thomas Jefferson's personal sexual property. Just how many these so-called leaders, or American founders treated our black ancestors as no less than cattle? Using cattle prods, or leather whips simply because they knew they could?

My daddy once told me this story: when he was a young man he was doing some work in the hot summer field of a white farmer. He was plowing that field with 2 mules. In the blazing heat this man came out and asked my dad to make sure he gave water to the mules. The man answered sternly when my dad asked for water, boy you know your kind can work without water but the mules need the water. That was the very last time my daddy worked the fields in Virginia. Virginia, the state which claims the name birthplace of presidents. I purposely shielded Jackson's face as he shielded just as he attempted to shield his deed. Another Black History Moment of truth.