Reflections on MLK Day 2014

"We Will Not Get There with You" Lecture by D. Brooms
Monday, January 21, 2014

I'm giving a lecture on Dr. King and wanted to share two thoughts (both inspired by today's NBA games):

1) The reality is that we live in a time (and a nation) where amnesia is more powerful than memory. Even during today's NBA game between Brooklyn and New York, to which I was listening to via audio stream, I cringed (again) as I heard a commentator summarize MLK's entire body of work with the oft-quoted, worn out, completely out of context statement: "He dreamed that we would live in a nation that you could be judged by the content of your character..." How many times will this line be repeated and folks completely ignore the entirety of his speech? Mass incarcerations... stop and frisk... Oscar Grant... Reka Boyd... Trayvon Martin... and so many others... How about this part of the speech?:

"But one hundred years later, the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land..."

2) The upcoming game of New Orleans at Memphis provides a great point of reality given the histories of these two cities. For New Orleans, many current and former residents are still being "Katrina-ed" since 2006-- people have been dislocated for years and this has impacted the educational opportunities along with the social, cultural, and political realities of so many people. And, for Memphis, the state of affairs are still at a critical level. Memphis: 27% poverty rate... 42% child poverty... 11-12% unemployment... These are realities of our time. We STILL need the poor people's campaign because clearly the "war on poverty" has turned into and resulted in a "war on the poor"...

As Dr. King argued, "When a nation becomes obsessed with the guns of war it loses its social perspective; programs of social uplift suffer."

Clearly, for many of the folks making decisions, it has not gotten dark "enough" so that they can see the light. Let the trumpets sound so that the amnesia is lifted, the willful forgetting is too cold, and the winds of default, denial and neglect are uprooted.

African American Monument - Savannah, GA

I spent a week participating in a research program studying African American history and culture in Savannah and the surrounding areas-- in particular, the sea islands. There will be many more photos and posts coming in the next few weeks as I continue to process. I decided to start with this image that pays tribute to the Africans who were stolen from their lands and enslaved in the Americas. By and large, Africans were brought to this region of the country for cotton and rice cultivation; on the sea islands, they also harvested indigo.
The program that I participated in was conducted and coordinated through the Georgia Historical Society. Their work is incredible and I encourage everyone that travels to Savannah to PLEASE take a moment and appreciate what they do. They are instrumental in the retelling of U.S. History and they work to bridge the gaps of revisionist accounts of the past. The GHS has an historical marker program, which provides residents and tourists alike with significant information about Georgia's history. In the revisionist accounts, the cruelties and inhumanity of African enslavement would be omitted. We need institutions such as GHS so that we get a more robust understanding of our past; this, undoubtedly, will provide us with a greater appreciation for the present. I am still completely unsure how we can ever move forward if we're unwilling to look at the past. We cannot and ought not move away from African enslavement, but in fact move toward it.

Point of note: There is NO such thing as a "good" slave master/owner. You cannot possibly be "good" while holding another human being in captivity... this is a conundrum.

Inscription on African American Monument:

"We were stolen, sold and bought together from the African
Continent. We got on the slave ships together, we lay back to belly in
the holds of the slave ships in each other's excrement and urine
together. Sometimes died together and our lifeless bodies thrown
overboard together. Today we are standing up together with faith
and even some joy."           -- Maya Angelou

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Ms. Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a towering public figure during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She led a campaign against segregation on the local railway in Memphis, she wrote articles on civil rights for local newspapers, and led a campaign for racial equality in the United States Army during the First World War. Ms. Wells-Barnett was a trailblazer indeed and her fight for Black freedom and dignity brought her face-to-face with many personal challenges. She lost her job as a teacher after criticizing the Memphis Board of Education for underfunding African American schools, her printing press was destroyed after she wrote articles condemning the lynching of Blacks, and she was threatened with treason after distributing anti-lynching buttons during the First World War (see Fradin and Fradin 2001). What Ms. Wells-Barnett understood was that there were issues that needed to be addressed and she used her various vantage point make keen and incisive observations in order that her voice be heard. In one of her many publications on lynching she wrote, “It is with no pleasure I have dipped my hands in the corruption here exposed. Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so” (Wells 1892: 5). Throughout her civil rights career, Ms. Wells-Barnett campaigned against racial violence in the United States and argued that the country’s national crime was lynching (Wells-Barnett 1900). She argued that the main aim of lynching was to intimidate Blacks from becoming involved in politics and therefore maintaining white power in the South. Ms. Wells-Barnett formed the Negro Fellowship League, was a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was an editor of several major Black newspapers, established the first Black women’s suffrage club (Alpha Suffrage Club), and pursued political office in Illinois (see Peebles-Wilkins and Francis 1990).

Fradin, Dennis Brindell and Judith Bloom Fradin. 2001. Ida B. Wells: Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. Houghton Mifflin.

Peebles-Wilkins, Wilma and E. Aracelis Francis. 1990. “Two Outstanding Black Women in Social Welfare History: Mary Church Terrell and Ida B. Wells-Barnett.” Affilia, 5 (4): 87-100.

Wells-Barnett, Ida B. 1892. Southern Horror: Lynch Laws in All Its Phases.

Wells-Barnett, Ida B. 1900. “Lynch Law in America.” Accessed from: http://www.sojust.net/speeches/ida_wells_lynch_law.html

Wells-Barnett, Ida B. 1901. Lynching and the Excuse for It.

MLK Remembered

Today, we celebrate MLK Day throughout the United States. Please take time to appreciate what he offered.

MLK Speech on Vietnam

George Washington Carver Recognition Day

George Washington Carver Recognition Day
January 5, 1943

Today, I hope we take a moment to recognize and appreciate the brilliance of Dr. George Washington Carver, who died on this day in 1943. Dr. Carver was an agricultural scientist; he headed the agricultural department of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and was one of the most prominent scientist of his day. In 1935, Dr. Carver was specially appointed to the Department of Agriculture by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to address the southern farming crisis. Dr. Carver was awarded the Roosevelt Medal in 1939 for saving Southern agriculture, which was later instrumental in feeding the United States during World War II.

African American Readings... Short List

Below is a short list of African American Readings... I am most interested in non-fiction writing. I have plenty more ideas but hoping people can learn from this list and offer suggestions as well.

Ani, Marimba – Yurugu: An African-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior

Baldwin, James – The Fire Next Time; Nobody Knows My Name

Carmichael, Stokeley – Black Power

Crawford, Vikki – Women of the civil Rights Movement

Davis, Angela – Women, Race & Class

Diop, Cheikh Anta - The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality

DuBois, W.E.B. - The Souls of Black Folks

Fanon, Franz - Wretched of the Earth; Black Skin, White Masks

Giddens, Paula – When and Where I Enter

Hill-Collins, Patricia – Black Feminist Thought

Holsaert, Faith S. (ed) – Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC

hooks, bell – Black Looks; Killing Rage

King Jr., Martin – Where Do We Go From Here?; Letter From a Birmingham Jail

Paton, Alan – Cry, the Beloved Country

Pattillo-Beals, Melba – Warriors Don’t Cry

Tatum, Beverly – Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together at the Cafeteria Table?

van Sertima, Ivan – They Came Before Columbus
Welsing, Francis Cress- The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors

West, Cornell – Race Matters

Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean – Black Venus: Sexualized Savages, Primal Fears, and Primitive Narratives in French

Woodson, Carter G. – The Miseducation of the Negro

X, Malcolm – By Any Means Necessary; The Ballot or the Bullet