Today, I celebrate the birthday of Baltimore-born Thurgood Marshall. I do this by reenacting the words Thurgood Marshall spoke before the highest court in the land demanding that blacks be given the equality that every citizen of this nation deserved. In 2019, when the nation's school still are experiencing some of those same deficiencies that were prevalent in 1953. I find it appropriate to bring Justice Marshall's words on that fateful day in December 1953. Last week, as well as this week the words that separated the nation regarding school segregation are still on the headlines of online news sites. You hear the candidates talking about busing yet ignoring the real basis of the argument, our children of color and economic deprivation are still receiving a second-class education in a so-called first-classed nation.

I'm sure that Thurgood Marshall would be thoroughly disgusted not only with the discussion but also with the fact that no meaningful solution to this ever-present problem has been presented. No legion of yellow buses will solve the problems confronting America's public system today. Nor will the economic privatization of the public urban schools deliver the solution either. Until this nation decides that children are valued more than military drones and tanks will America begin to solve the issues present in our urban schools today.

Thurgood Marshall felt that if whites and black children were educated together in an equal atmosphere of learning environments. The racial walls that separated each of them would tumble down and equality of all would be built up. However, Thurgood Marshall couldn't foresee that white and black middle-class families would leave in mass away from those urban enclaves. Now, we have urban school systems clustered with the most struggling elements of society forced into dilapidated schools with minimal resources. So, on the 111th birthday of Thurgood Marshall let me revisit his argument to the US Supreme Court that was successful but the reality of the implementation of a fully integrated society has been and continues to be an abject failure.

Post From 2017
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Sixty-five years ago on a brisk fall morning, December 8, 1953, the course of American History was changed as a team of legalese from the National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People (NAACP) approached the doors of the highest court in the land. At issue the doctrine of separate but equal between the races of black and white in this nation. The doctrine was established in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, 1896 which mandated that segregation of the races was the law of the land.

This doctrine, however, was being challenged by Oliver Brown and the NAACP against the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas. You see the segregation of the public schools was not only within the bounds of the laws of this nation but it had been legally endorsed by the highest courts and laws in the land. So from Beacon Hill to Stone Mountain Georgia, from the Nation’s Capitol to the ex-capitol of Dixie, from Dallas to Detroit, from every molehill and township of the supposed democratic symbol of freedom of the world segregation ran supreme and bigotry festered every second of every day in the United States of America.

Until this day, December 8, 1953, when a tall lanky attorney from Baltimore City, Maryland who was raised in the bastion of segregation stepped before the jurists of the Supreme Court and made his plea for the abolishment of segregation in all public schools in this country. What follows are today’s in their words my voice, the late, great, dynamic, and honorable former Justice of the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall, who on that day represented every black person in the United States who were suffering, or had suffered by this vicious mandate of injustice.

Had Medgar Evers lived he would have been celebrating his 94th Birthday today, July 2, 2019, but Medgar Evers was murdered in his driveway in Jackson, Mississippi on June 12, 1963. Today, as I celebrate Medgar Evers Day on the Black Blogger's website. I attempt to bring my words along with those of Medgar Evers to create a picture of the greatness that embodied Medgar Evers.

We sometimes in the black community look for the fantasy-driven powerful black leader in our movies. Whether that leader is the Black Panther or John Shaft that character symbolizes a man who fearlessly confronts the oppressive enemy and overcomes any obstacle to bring a sense of justice to the black community. Well, Medgar Evers was anybody's fantasy. Medgar Evers was truly an American Hero who stood face to face with the enemies of the black communities and refused to back down one iota.

The only way Medgar Evers would be silenced was if the powers of white supremacy made an unrighteous decision to murder him. Otherwise, Medgar Evers was in the battle for the long haul. Medgar Evers wouldn't give in, or be chased out of the state of his birth because of threats of harm. You see Medgar Evers had a dream that every resident of Mississippi no matter their color would be treated as equal citizens. So, this man of determination with a will and want to make that goal a reality set forth on his mission.

Today, on my blog I ask you to not forget Medgar Evers. Please don't allow that hate-filled bullet silence Medgar's life mission. Two incredibly powerful men of American heroism celebrate July 2nd as their birthdates, Medgar Evers and Thurgood Marshall. Each man attempted to deliver a better more equal society to this nation. One man had his voice silenced in a driveway in Jackson. Mississippi. The other lived a long life filled with momentous judicial accomplishments. So on my blog, I will celebrate both Medgar and Thurgood and sing to the rafters "job well done".​

First a little background on the race riot that occurred on September 22nd and continued until September 25, 1906, in Atlanta, Georgia. More than 40 black souls were murdered during that 3-day​ rampage by white mobs on black citizens in Atlanta. After reading a background piece on the Atlanta Race Riot. I will read Dr. W.E.B. Dubois's famous​ poem "The Litany of Atlanta". Dubois experienced the race riot personally and it changed his life exponentially​. It was the race riot that many feel motivated DuBois to move north. In addition to DuBois, Walter White then about 13 years old viewed the race riot from his parent's balcony. Both men ended up working for civil rights for the African Americans with the NAACP​.

Point-Counter Point
Booker T. Washington vs. John Hope
1895/1896

In our black educational history, few colleges or universities have the prowess of Morehouse College in Atlanta Georgia or Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. When you think of black educational leaders in the late 19th and 20th centuries Booker T. Washington, was the famed Wizard of Tuskegee, he founded Tuskegee and build an institution that was nationally known. While John Hope was selected to be the very first African American president of Morehouse College on June 30, 1906.

Today, in honor and recognition of that momentous selection. I go back a couple of years to a blog post I created. The post was the divergence of views that these two educational leaders had related to how blacks should proceed related to the struggle for civil and social rights. I have selected two speeches from Washington and Hope on opposite poles given one year apart. While Booker T. Washington's speech in September of 1895 is renowned in American history, The Atlanta Compromise. John Hope's rebuttal speech given in the winter of 1896 is now as well known, Equality Is What We Seek.

While Booker T. Washington felt that economic progress superseded any attempts at social or civil rights for African Americans. John Hope felt that the most important battle for African Americans was the struggle for full civil and social rights. It was point-counterpoint for two educational titans in the late 19th century. Today on 123rd year after Dr. John Hope became the first African American President of Morehouse College I revisit and bring to my audience these counter thoughts on how our ancestors should've battled against the bigotry and oppression that was confronting them in America.

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Today is the 78th birthday of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) who lived a life of passion, determination, perseverance, and dedication to the cause of international black people's progress. Once identified by J. Edgar Hoover as "the most dangerous man in America", also identified by the sitting United States President as an enemy of the state. Stokely whose every move was cataloged by surveillance agents of the FBI, CIA, and the Defense Department simply because on June 16, 1966, Stokely Carmichael awoke a black nation of young movers and shakers with these two words, black power. I celebrate the date of Stokely Carmichael's birth by revisiting that day with the words of his impassioned plea that shook not only Black America but the very foundations of White America. Let us honor Stokely's memory by continuing the fight for true international civil rights for all peoples of color.​

BLACK POWER SPEECH
Greenwood, Mississippi
Meredith March Against Fear

On June 16, 1966, Stokely Carmichael changed the course of the American Civil Rights Movement for African Americans in the muggy evening air in Greenwood, Mississippi with two powerful words, Black Power.

"Those two words embolden the youths in America's black communities to thrust themselves into a new militancy.
Those two words implied that no longer would our communities wait for a change.
Those two words demanded change."

So, when this new black militancy arrived a generation of black men and women began renewed systematic battle that was launched by local, state and federal government forces to disrupt those calls for change. Stokely Carmichael was at the head of these new agents of change. Stokely had been a non-violent advocate for civil rights freedom now he was demanding that change must come at any cost. It was those two words that identified Stokely Carmichael as Public Enemy Number by every white agency of black suppression. The racial lines had been clearly drawn the mechanisms of law enforcement sought to destroy not only Stokely Carmichael but also every entity that aligned with this newly minted philosophy.

America's urban areas became battlegrounds as well as areas that saw an influx of ​guns and drugs delivered by a government that conjured up methods of destruction that literally erased complete black communities. These strategies cause widespread death, incarceration, increased poverty, and delivered blows to our communities still being felt 53 years later. Two words put the fear into the white establishment that an empowered people would force positive changes in black communities. Those positive changes that Carmichael envisioned still are unattainable today. Yet we hope that power in blackness will be achieved.