Even when you take all the precautions to avoid infection this COVID 19 virus can sneak up like a black mamba and strike a deadly bite. Our black communities cannot and shouldn’t ease up because just because American states are opening up doesn’t mitigate the awesome medical dangers that COVID 19 presents. Each day the medical professionals are identifying new ways that this deadly virus is affecting the human body. So please don’t allow yourself to be pulled into a false sense of security. The current wave of infections are not peaking and the second wave maybe even more deadly. As Dr Bright said this week America could be facing the darkest winter in its entire history. While cotton masks cannot protect you totally from infection it can save others you come in contact with your love ones especially from infection. Keep a bottle of hand sanitizer handy and use it liberally. This is one enemy that is surely silent but damn deadly.

Many young people today don’t know the name Diane Nash and her importance to the struggle for civil rights for African Americans. Why? Because they simply don’t get the education needed to fully comprehend the young warriors who braved the horrid conditions of southern Jim Crow in the 1960s’. Diane Nash was a fearless defender of civil rights who was trained in the methodology of direct nonviolence by Reverend James Lawson in Nashville, Tennessee. Diane Nash, Chicago born was a student at the historic Fisk University when she made the conscious decision to fight the forces of segregation and hatred that enveloped southern blacks by racist white Americans. She started the lunch counter sit-ins in Nashville and then was one of the students who attended the 1960 meeting at Shaw University for the formation of the organization Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Diane Nash was committed to sacrifice and determination of nonviolence as the tool she choose to fight southern oppression of southern blacks. When the initial Freedom Bus Riders were attacked in Alabama. It was Diane Nash who fearlessly volunteered to schedule other riders including herself to replace them. The young people of this generation should learn of the exploits and warrior mentality of Diane Nash. You when I think of a warrior mentality I don’t think of a professional athlete who is paid tens of millions of dollars to ply his trade. I think of SNCC workers like Diane Nash who were paid as little as 15 dollars a month to go directly into the belly of the beast of hateful racism with their lives on the line to fight not for individual honor but for the rights of the communities black residents to secure basic rights of dignity and freedom with their lives on the line. That’s the panther mentality that Diane Nash had when she was only two decades old. She choose to sacrifice it all for the needs of the many over her own personal needs. Saluting another SNCC voice today on my black blog.

I hate COVID 19 but honestly if COVID 19 can significantly cut the cost of getting a college education in this nation then, well? How can universities think that charging full price for what is essentially a created on the fly solution in educating students, well? If universities think that filling dormitory rooms up and continuing ZOOM instruction at before COVID 19 prices, well? The best thing that could happen now at universities in this nation is streamlining college course study so more emphasis is placed on developing pathways to core study courses then on making students pass 2 years of class study on required courses, just to fill coffers of the university. I could see and we should see more alignment with state community colleges. These community colleges will be free for all students to satisfy those basic college requirements. Then upon graduating from these community colleges incoming juniors could move directly into their majors at the university of their choice. This could and should significantly cut the cost of a college education. In addition most community college courses would be online except for those students defined and identified as needing direct instruction due to learning difficulties. The end of brick and mortar universities demanding full price, exorbitant high prices is just around the corner. It took a pandemic to speed up the process but its coming.

As I continue to celebrate the magnificent warriors of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee today I bring to the forefront the incomparable Fannie Lou Hamer . Mrs. Hamer was the symbolic head of a movement in Mississippi that almost allowed a fledgling group of political activists to bring an entire national political party to its knees in 1964. Sharecropper oppressed and not with the sophistication or the educational background of many of the civil rights leaders of the time. Not one civil rights leader could measure her inner fortitude or determination to secure equality for our people. Fearless, and bound with a spiritual prowess to face death without blinking. This black woman epitomized the words black power. She was captivated by the legion of young SNCC workers who came south to educate and enlighten southern blacks on the rights due them by a Constitution that many were ignorant of. These young men and women woke a mighty warrior that guided them into the battle for dignity and human rights in this nation. So, as I continue to highlight the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s powerful voices on my blog. Let me say this to everyone in Fannie Lou Hamer’s own words, we ain’t free until everyone is free. The battle continues still in the nation and the world to secure absolute equality in all phases of life. Thank God for the magnificence that embodied Fannie Lou Hamer.

Just thinking? I know the importance of reopening universities but my concern this morning is centered on HBCU’S. The opening of dormitories with an unknown virus and how it is mutating without a known vaccine. What if you child comes down with the virus while staying in a dormitory at an HBCU? What if you child dies. Are you going to hold that HBCU responsible for your child’s death? Or, are simply going to say that is the nature of society right now. That some people, even younger people will die but what is most important is that HBCU’S collect the necessary student revenue and fill up those dormitory rooms to survive economically. Yes, there will be some elements of face to face teaching in these universities in the fall according to HBCU presidents. However, until universal testing, some type of preventive medicine is available are you willing to have your child be a guinea pig to decisions made in capsule of misinformation? Will you pursue legal actions against the HBCU in the event your child is a victim to a flawed reopening this fall?