It’s been 57 years since Medgar Evers was murdered in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi. The hot, hate-filled bullet that sheared through Medgar Evers body silenced Medgar Evers voice but not his ideals for reaching the goal of an humane society. Many men and women led the fight for civil rights in this nation. However, there was only one Medgar Evers, who sought and fought so relentless for the freedom of black Mississippians during an era when any black man fighting for human and social rights in that vile state festering with hatred and violence was sacrificing life and limb on a daily basis. Medgar Evers love a state that hated every drop of blood that ran through his black body. The majority of whites, from the White Citizen Councils to the Ku Klux Klan plotted almost daily on ways to silence his voice before it gained substantial national power. Each and every time Medgar Evers left his home, or NAACP office, or church, or meeting room, Medgar Evers was leaving with a target on his chest. Medgar Evers knew this but yet he continued to go out days, nights, weekends to press for black justice, black citizenship and voting rights for every black Mississippian.

Just a few children books I have read aloud to my daughter growing up and a new book that should be in every home to present the concept of anti racism. If this nation is ever going to be taken higher. It will be this generation and the coming generations who will do it. Sly Stone asked Americans to take this nation higher. It’s about time that we answered in the affirmative, yes! We wanna take this nation higher.

Marcus Garvey made this historic speech the day that he was incarcerated. When the Honorable Marcus Garvey was released from prison he was immediately deported 93 years ago December 2, 1927. Marcus Garvey never got to visit the shores of Africa nor did he ever return to the United States. His family still awaits the full pardon he deserves for his unjust prosecution.

The New Negro was the “essay” of the 1920s’ for blacks. The essay was supposed to begin the movement towards a different type of black man and black woman. It was alerting the nation that the shuffling along, smiling, and subservient Negro was no longer going to exist. The New Negro opened the world to the brilliance and excellence that thrived in the Negro Metropolis of Harlem. Today, as I continue to celebrate our black history I introduce the essay that exemplified what became to known as the Harlem Renaissance. This essay was written by the mercurial Alain Locke. The biography of Alain Locke was read aloud on The Black Man Read Aloud Hour Project in the Fall, 2017. This reading comes from the SURVEY JOURNAL, 1925.

Alain Locke (1886-1954) was born and raised in Philadelphia. He graduated from Harvard and continued his studies in Europe as the first African American Rhodes Scholar. After teaching English at Howard University for four years, he returned to Harvard in 1916 to begin work on a Ph.D. in philosophy, which he obtained in 1918. He rejoined the Howard faculty and taught there until his retirement in 1953. In 1925 he edited a special edition of the magazine Survey Graphic, devoted exclusively to the life of Harlem. He later expanded it into an anthology, The New Negro, which became the manifesto of the Harlem Renaissance, or as some critics prefer to call it, the New Negro Movement. In the essay provided here Locke captures the hope and optimism of a people who have discovered "a new vision of opportunity."

66 years ago today Alain Locke passed into glory. Alain Locke May have had peculiar ways but no person could ever question his intellectual brilliance.