Part Three
Charles Hamilton Houston Day
The Blackman Who Reads Aloud Hour Project
Charles Hamilton Houston Powerful Words To His Son

In December 1949, two months before Dr. Houston died of heart failure he made a historic recording detailing a message he wanted to give to his 4-year-old son and the couple whose home he was convalescing​ from his illness, an illness he never recovered from.

In this recording which is the only recorded voice of Charles Hamilton Houston, he talks about the influence that the Scottsboro boys had on international human rights of oppressed peoples of the world. The words of Charles Houston are so powerful and reveal the impact that the Scottsboro Boys also had on his life. It is another example of the historical legacy of how we as black people got over and overcame injustice in this nation.

The marvelous words of Charles Hamilton Houston spoken by The Blackman Who Reads Aloud Hour Project on this Charles Houston birthday.

The Blackman Read Aloud Hour Project
Celebrating The Birthday Charles Hamilton Houston
September 3, 1895

“The problem of the twenty-first century will be the problem of ignoring the history of color.”
Nathaniel Jones


Charlie Houston . . . started all of this. . . . There is not a movement that I have come across in civil rights or civil liberties that Charlie Houston didn’t have a hand in back in those days when it was rough.
Late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall

“A lawyer’s either a social engineer or he’s a parasite on society.”
Charles Hamilton Houston

(1) serving as ‘the mouthpiece of the weak and a sentinel guarding against wrong’; (2) ‘guiding antagonistic and group forces into channels where they will not clash’; (3) ensuring that the ‘course of change is . . . orderly with a minimum of human loss and suffering’; and (4) recognizing that the ‘written constitution and inertia against . . . amendment give the lawyer a ​wide room for experimentation.
Charles Hamilton Houston
​
The truth is today, be good, be decent, be honorable and self-sacrificing and you will not always be happy. You will often be desperately unhappy . . . . but with the death of your happiness may easily come increased . . . satisfaction and fulfillment for other people -- strangers, unborn babies, uncreated worlds. If this is not sufficient incentive, never try. . . .
WEB DuBois

In a Jim Crow segregated capital of the United States, Washington DC on September 3, 1895, a baby boy was born, Charles Hamilton Houston. His father was William Houston was the son of a former slave, was a practicing attorney while his mother Mary was a seamstress. Who would have known that this black baby boy would grow up to be the architect of the systemic plan that dismantled Jim Crow? Yes, 124 years ago today Charles Hamilton Houston was born. There will be no banners flying high in the sky celebrating the life of this magnificent black man. Well, there will probably be celebrations at the Howard University Law School where Dr. Houston plied his trade and built an army of young black attorneys that were fortified with his knowledge and expertise to take down all the vestiges of a horrendous system that kept black Americans tethered to a life of second-class citizenship and no inalienable rights in a nation forged supposedly by democratic principles of justice and freedom. Oh, there also will most likely be a celebration at the National Offices of the NAACP where Dr. Charles Hamilton Houston structured the legal foundations that swept this nation into acknowledging that it could not continue to oppress black Americans without impunity in local. state, and federal institutions. Dr. Houston set the plans in place to bring Jim Crow down to its knees. He established the methodology of action in meetings over the years with black leadership that attacked with ferocity those forces that were bent on keeping black Americans in a subservient position of power. So on this day when many of our black communities will go on with their daily activities without even thinking about the man who was responsible for the majority of educational, political, civil, social, and economic gains we enjoy today. I, The Blackman Who Reads Aloud will dive into the life of one, Charles Hamilton Houston, by reading an intellectual paper written by Florence Roisman from the Indiana University Law School. In addition, I will also read the final recorded words of Charles Hamilton Houston that directed towards his young son prior to his death in 1950. We, and I mean we in every sense of the word, every living and breathing American owes a debt of gratitude to this incredible warrior of justice. Just look around as you travel today on journeys in this nation and you will see the impact of Charles Hamilton Houston, Esquire. I know it's easy to marvel at the accomplishments of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, Roy Wilkens, Ella Baker, Dorothy Height, Mary Bethune, James Farmer, Whitney Young, and Adam Clayton Powell among others but in reality, the man standing behind those all those black leaders in relative obscurity with immense power and determination was Charles Hamilton Houston. We should all honor his name today.

The Blackman Who Reads Aloud Project
Dr. Martin Luther King
11 Critical Points On Labor and Union Power

Finally, I conclude my readings with these 11 excerpts that Dr. Martin Luther King made regarding labor and unions from 1961-1968. Listen carefully and you will see how Dr. King moved along the pendulum of hope and equality from civil rights to the need for true economic equality. The battle for economic​ equality would be a big struggle because it was when the powers actually had to sacrifice something tangible.