“I once told a tale about a young man who had a basket full of puppies. He was going down the street trying to sell them and he stopped at a lady’s house and asked her, ‘Madam, would you like to have a puppy?’ She asked, ‘How much are they?’ ‘Twenty-five cents.’ She looked at them and said, ‘They beautiful, but no. I reckon not.’
“So he went home and the next morning the woman called and said, ‘Son, have you got any more of those puppies?’ ‘Yes, mmm.’ She said, ‘How much did you say they are?’ ‘Fifty cents.’ She said, ‘Why are they 50 cents today when yesterday you said they were a quarter?’ He said, “Their eyes are open.” So the gist of the story is the Negro in the South will not be sold for a quarter anymore. The eyes of southern black peoples are now wide open.” ​

E.D. Nixon was the originator​ of the ​Montgomery Alabama 1955-1956 Bus Boycott. He was the founding force behind the organization The Montgomery Improvement Association. While others may have received the plateaus​. It was the vision of E.D. Nixon who served the citizens up with the plan of boycotting the municipal buses of Montgomery, Alabama. It was E.D. Nixon who choose Rosa Parks as the person to stand behind as once she refused to relinquish her seat on the bus on December 1, 1955. It was E.D. Nixon who​ called the ministers to get their support for the mass meeting that was held on December 5, 1955. One thing that I wish Dr. Martin Luther King Jr had done was to allow E.D. Nixon to travel with him to Oslo, Norway when he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

In history, the name E.D. Nixon isn't well known but in reality, our civil rights history would've been quite different had not E.D. Nixon not been in Montgomery, Alabama fighting for the rights of black people. When the 10th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott was celebrated in 1965 the city leaders, the civil rights leaders didn't invite E.D. Nixon to participate. That was an enormous mistake, one that never should have occurred. However, today The Black Blogger celebrates the life accomplishments of Edgar Daniel Nixon this month that shines a light on historic figures of black history.

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 the Harlem Renaissance 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."

W.E.B Du Bois, a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) through most of his life was a staunch integrationist.  In 1934 however he advanced the argument that since integration would not happen in the nation any time soon, African Americans had to take steps to develop their own economic and political resources independent of white help and support.  Du Bois gave this speech on June 26, 1934 as he resigned from the NAACP. This morning’s Project Uplift Literacy, In Their Words My Voice again revisits the words of W.E.B. DuBois one of the greatest intellectual freedom warriors that this nation ever produced no matter his/her color or creed.

So, after being solely an integrationist for his entire life DuBois finally came to the conclusion that America would never allow any for of equality in this country. Twenty years later the Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal was unconstitutional in the historic Brown decision. Still 66 years later the nation is operating as two America’s although the inequity is economic in many ways. There still is a racial inequity between whites and blacks. 86 years after this speech an unequal Nation within a prosperous Nation is defined by color, education and wealth. Celebrating the birthday of W.E. B DuBois 152 years today.