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Aug. 6, 2020

"Let My People Vote" Martin Luther King Jr.

In June 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote an poignant editorial to the New York​ Amsterdam News asking for the immediate passage of the voting rights bill. The bill had been passed by the US Senate by not yet by the House of Representatives. The House eventually passed the Voting Rights Bill. So on August 6, 1965, The Voting Rights Bill was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson with Dr. King and a number of civil rights activists in attendance​. Today, 55 years later to celebrate that occasion I will read the letter that King wrote along with a brief note on the bill. Remembering that the 15th Amendment to the Constitution which was ratified in 1870 which supposedly gave the freed African Americans the vote in this nation had been virtually ignored for nearly a century in this nation. In 2020, it is no longer let my people vote as Dr. King implored in 1965.
Now, the mantra​ has become literally begging African Americans to come use that sacred right of the vote. On November 3, 2020 Black people get out and vote as spirit of Dr. King beckons you to the polling booths.

Aug. 5, 2020

CIRCA 2014

Peace, Love, Life let Freedom Ring from the streets of Dayton, Ohio to the Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas from the streets of Gilroy, California to that treacherous street in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, from the streets of San Jose, California , from banks of the shores in Virginia Beach, Virginia, we must let freedom ring and stop the madness of this gun violence. We need to stop the sales of tech9’s, stop the sales of small killing weapons and raise up the love and understanding that we don't own the air we breathe. We must not give in to violence but fight to give each man a true chance for freedom and for a right to breathe. Yes, you cannot eliminate struggle from mankind but you can balance the scales of justice do that struggle can be overcome with individual and group effort. Struggle need never be an ongoing plight of everyday life. Let live, let love, and live to your means and please, please let’s not demean humanity.

Aug. 5, 2020

Who Are We My African American Descendents?


Donald Trump and Bill Clinton made absolute fools of themselves recently. Trump in saying his contributions to African American uplift out measured John Lewis, and Bill Clinton in downplaying the importance of Kwame Ture in his role in the black freedom struggle. The funny thing is I bet a majority of Black Americans couldn’t tell you the importance of John Lewis before he died. How many know that Kwame Ture changed his name from Stokely Carmichael to honor two African leaders? Many African Americans couldn’t tell you the importance of Elijah Cummings, John Conyers, or Ron Dellums before they died. So when I see posts from African Americans up in arms about Trump’s discussion regarding John Lewis’s legacy or importance. I wonder why we expect Trump to be aware of a civil rights activist like a John Lewis when many of us young or old and if asked to identify John, Ron, Elijah, or John couldn’t pick them either. We aren’t responsible for Trump’s awareness only our own. Remember this during Trump first month as being President. Trump insinuated that Frederick Douglass was still alive. I am not a follower of Trump but I am a realist. You know the names Sandra Bland, George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown all murdered by an unjust group of corrupt law officers but do we know the names Sammy Younge, Bobby Hutton, Bunchy Carter, John Huggins, Fred Hampton, James Chaney, Fred Hampton, and Mark Clark all murdered by the same system but in cause of delivering black freedom. Until we encourage knowledge of our own historical contributors we cannot expect whites folks to follow or promote them either. I am not even going further back in our history in pull names like Ella Baker, Ida Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer, Mary Bethune, Nannie Helen Burroughs , John Lynch, Pinchback, Vernon Dahmer Sr., Harry and Harriet Moore, Paul Robeson, Edward Brooke, Robert Smalls, Richard Hatcher, Ralph Bunche, Alan Locke, Langston and Zora, Robert Brown Elliott, Maynard Jackson, Benjamin O. Davis, William H. Carney, Blanche Bruce, Richard Cain, Robert Vann, Robert Abbott, and all the many other names and faces that contributed to our still being here today. So, don’t press Trump when we are just as guilty and identifying our historical African American heroes and explaining their importance except maybe when that someone dies, or it’s February of course......can you identify these heroes? If not, then you are as guilty as Trump In downplaying their importance.

Aug. 3, 2020

August 3, 1857 "Frederick Douglass - Speaking At A Celebration Of West India Emancipation"

THE BLACKMAN WHO READS ALOUD

163 years ago Frederick Douglass spoke the absolute truth to a nation that was mired in the sins of institutional slavery. Fast forward to today the nation is mired in the sins caused by that sinful system. Will this nation finally make right what was horribly wrong with that system?​

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows​ or with both”

Looking back as we look ahead. If the American Decendents of Slavery think that this nation will easily give in to the payment of reparations without a mass effort of civil disobedience or civil direct action confronting the forces who control the economic systems of this nation. Then they are paddling up torrid river crushed by relentless rain and wind without the benefit of a paddle. The battle for reparation will be more difficult than the battle for our civil and social rights. You see those rights came without a price for controlling institutions to pay. That is simply not the case as it relates to reparations. That battle will be hard-fought and it will require an undue amount of perseverance. Frederick Douglass said it clearly the is no struggle there is no progress. My only wish is that Mr. Douglass and Mr. Garnet had fought as hard for reparations as they fought for the abolition of slavery in the United States. Yet, way too many of our ancestors were victims of ignorance caused by the enslavement of 246 years to understand that they truly had economic rights that were sacred and that needed to be honored and not ignored.​

Aug. 2, 2020

James Baldwin's Letter To His Nephew January 1, 1963 The Blackman's Read Aloud Hour

On the centennial anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation​, James Baldwin wrote this letter to his then 15-year-old nephew it is a letter that every American should read no matter their color or creed. Its contents are still relevant today 57 years after it was first published in Jame Baldwin's powerful book The Fire Next Time. We all must understand the savagery​ and senselessness of racism and bigotry​. Otherwise, we're doomed continuing to repeat the insanity of racial hatred in a nation that should be longing for peace and tranquility.

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