Category: Black History

LIFE

On By thewriterfredIn Black History2 Comments

On May 13 of this year I turned seventy-eight, and a horrendous feeling of panic shot through my mind and body. I recognized that I was entering the twilight time of my existence here on earth. For the very first time I felt old. I wasn’t sure if I should stop all that I was still trying to accomplish and settle into a pastoral sense of comfort, and patiently wait for the great crossover. But it didn’t take long for me to jettison that attitude, and acknowledge it was not the years that counted, but the LIFE you have lived. With that transformation of thought, I began to examine those events, both good and bad; happy and sad that I have experienced.

I now recognize that I was blessed to have lived in one of the most exciting decades in this country’s history, and that was the 1960’s. LIFE became quite invigorating and full of promises as Black Americans and their supporters of all races, stood up and confronted evil directly in its face. I must admit my close friends and I living in Los Angeles, California did not join in the great civil rights fight that began as early as 1956 and continued to grow and expand throughout that decade, and into the next. After all we were in sunny California going to college, pledging into fraternities, and dating as many young girls as possible. What did we have in common with oppression in the South.

I can recall quite clearly when that attitude began to change in my thinking and behavior. It happened in June 1963 when Medgar Evers was shot down in his driveway, simply for advocating voting rights for my people who should have long ago enjoyed that privilege. It was also in the hot summer of 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama when Police Commissioner Eugene Bull Connors turned the dogs loose on Black men, women and children marching for equality. It was in 1965 on the Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama when white men (Highway Patrol) hired to protect Black marchers, instead beat them.

I began to recognize the nexus that joined all Black people throughout this country and that was a hatred for us, regardless where you lived, including California. That evil was as old as this country and as far wide as the from ocean to ocean. The evil became more intense as great leaders like Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., told us that we must fight back, granted through different means, but still a fight.

   

Then in February 1965, Black folks living in California on the West Coast, received the news that Malcolm X had been assassinated in New York on the East Coast. Living still in Los Angeles, my awareness continued to grow because I realized that the distances between the two coasts was minimal, and of no importance. Malcolm X. belonged to us, as well as Blacks throughout the entire country. That nexus grew stronger. I could relate to the late-great Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions singing “People get ready. There’s a train a coming. Picking up passengers from coast to coast” That was the train that had room for all of us to get on board and join in the struggle to fight the evil. My awareness was reaching the point of extreme intensity.

My next turning point that essentially sealed the deal for me, occurred on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated from a bullet fired by the evil that just doesn’t seem to die. I recognized then, no matter what you do in life as a career, a Black man must always be aware of the battle he confronts. Nothing should surpass our commitment to that struggle. I do not today, nor have I ever considered myself a leader, but when I read the Autobiography of Paul Robeson, one paragraph stuck with me. He wrote: “The primary quality that Black leadership must possess…is a single-minded dedication to their people’s welfare. Any individual Black man or woman, like any other person, may have many varied interests in life, but for the true leader all else must be subordinated to the interests of those whom they are leading.” I would change the word “leader” to any committed Black, and that clearly defines me in my seventy-eighth year.

That is why my temporary submission to age overwhelmed me, but only for a moment’s time. Then my commitment to LIFE and what it can be from this day on took control. My compilation of experiences, I believe, places me in a unique position to examine our past as Black folks, and suggest what our future should look like. That LIFE is now committed to using my knowledge of our history of struggle, oppression, victory, and courage to join forces with some very talented people to produce a movie on Black Wall Street and the evil that destroyed it on June 1, 1921. And that evil has lived long after its dastardly act, almost one hundred years ago.

With the election of Donald Trump that evil is now feeling encouraged that it has been re-energized and given new life. There is nothing great about what Trump and his ilk represent. I would imagine that class of Americans that practically idolize him, would find nothing wrong with the massacre and destruction that engulfed Black citizens back then. But I am willing to bet that Trump’s followers do not represent the majority of my fellow citizens, after all he lost the popular vote. We must all commit to stopping this evil’s momentum before it again gets out of control as it did in Tulsa in 1921.And that is why I am dedicating my time to put together a team to bring the story of Black Wall Street and its destruction (as I did in my novel, Fires of Greenwood: Tulsa Riot of 1921) to the big screen about the same time as the one-hundredth year of the dastardly act.

I have been blessed with a close friendship with Laurel Stradford, the great granddaughter of J. B. Stradford, the richest Black and a leader on Black Wall Street; and with one of this country’s top photographers out of New York, Adger Cowans, along with an additional team of colleagues, to produce this story. We are committed to telling that story our way. After all my years here on earth (my LIFE), I truly believe that is the way it should be done.

FINDING BLACKNESS

On By thewriterfredIn Black Culture, Black History, Black Literature, Blackness, History2 Comments

I have a friend who does an outstanding presentation to young Black American men. The title of his talk is, “What I would Tell You If I Were Your Father.” By the end of his talk, he is encouraging the young men that it is time to jettison the “Bling-Bling,” of all the superficial chains, rings, sagging pants, disrespectful and vulgar language for a new lifestyle. But unlike many other black leaders, he does not attack the young for their behavior, but instead tries to explain to them why they have a very negative mindset, one that is destructive and detrimental to their growth and demeaning to their culture. The basis of his approach is to reject the assumption made by many conservatives, both black and white, that the young black man’s behavior is of his own doing. That he is not the victim of centuries of an oppressive system, deliberately designed to destroy the black youth’s feelings of self-worth, of pride in who he is, and of the race and culture from which he comes.

But the conservatives are wrong. Two centuries of purposeful and vicious attacks on the most important principle in the growth for a healthy and positive young man, be it black or white or any other race, the belief in one’s self, is still being denied black youth in this country. But shame on us who have allowed this to happen. Shame on us who admire the negative portrayals of blacks in books, movies and on television. It is like we have come to the point that we get the same kind of enjoyment out of the negative images of the race, in the same manner that whites have gotten for over two hundred years. It is time for us to reverse this trend and change the paradigm. It is time for us to no longer be the exception, but instead to be exceptional. Let us begin to point out the great accomplishments of our race, and the exceptional men and women who have accelerated in their particular fields of endeavor. Let’s do something different for a change and take the high road, instead of settling for the ditch. We accomplish change by finding our blackness as a people and a culture. There is a war for the soul of our culture, and it calls for drastic steps from all who are concerned. Here are a few facts that we all can begin to share with our young; facts they need to know so they will know “they are somebody.”

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They NEED TO KNOW that Blacks excelled as jockeys soon after the Civil War. The first winner of the Kentucky Derby was Jimmy Winfield. In fact, 15 of the first twenty-eight Derbies were won by Black jockeys. And the greatest jockey in the history of the sport was Isaac Murphy who won three Kentucky Derby races and 44% of all his races throughout his career.

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They NEED TO KNOW that Jesse Owens embarrassed the German dictator Hitler who had claimed the German runners were invincible, but defeated them in the 100-yard-dash. In fact, Owens won four gold medals in the Olympics that year, proving that Black excellence was unstoppable.

lockebuncheaydavisThey NEED TO KNOW Black exceptionalism does not end with sports, but can be found in academic circles also. There is no question that Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois was the country’s most gifted scholar of the 20th Century. He was the first Black man to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University and was a historian, sociologists, philosopher, novelist and all around brilliant thinker. Dr. Alain Locke, also a philosopher, attained Phi Beta Kappa status and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University. He was the first Black Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and was known as the “Godfather of the Harlem Renaissance.” Jesse Fausett was the literary editor for Crisis Magazine during the Renaissance. She was the first Black female graduate from Cornell University and first Black woman to achieve Phi Beta Kappa status. Dr. Ralph Bunche became the first African American to win a Nobel Peace Prize for his work toward bringing peace in the Middle East in the late 1940’s. Dr. Angela Davis is an accomplished scholar who has taught at the University of California at Los Angeles and wrote many political tracts critical of the oppression Blacks have suffered in this country.

opptymagcrisismagladyThey NEED TO KNOW that Black Americans have been publishers since 1827 when Samuel Cornish and John Russwum published Freedom’s Journal. Frederick Douglass published North Star in 1847, Robert S. Abbott, the Chicago Defender in 1905 and Edwin Nathaniel Harleston, Pittsburgh Courier in 1907. Black Americans also published some very influential magazines. Dr. Du Bois was editor and publisher of the Crisis Magazine associated with the NAACP, Charles Johnson published Opportunity Magazine for the Urban League, John Johnson published Ebony and Jet, Earl Graves Black Enterprise and Edward Lewis, Clarence O. Smith, Cecil Hollingswroth and Johnathan Blount founded Essence Magazine, first published in 1970.

jb_stratfordluoullawilliamsThey NEED TO KNOW that Black Americans were successful entrepreneurs and that they can accomplish the same. They need to read about the great businessmen in 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma. Blacks had built a self-sustaining infra-structure of businesses, led by the great John Stradford, the richest man on Black Wall Street. He owned the most luxurious 54 room hotel and it was said that it matched for beauty, extravagance and comfort any hotel in the state of Oklahoma. Laurel Stradford, his great granddaughter is presently working on publication of his memoirs, and when they are released they should be required reading in every Black high school in this country. Other business men and women included O. W. Gurley who owned property in Tulsa, John and Loulla Williams and Dr. Andrew Jackson, all a part of the successful business class on Black Wall Street. Tulsa was not the only city where Black businesses flourished, just the most glaring example of success.

The NEED TO KNOW categories are extensive and I could go on for pages writing about successful Black Americans whom we must begin to share with our youth. I know there are many different organizations that are doing that very task as I write. But we must do more and I will continue to write about the successes either on this blog or through future novels and anthologies. Hopefully, you all will do your part and together we can help our young find their Blackness from a very different perspective than what they have received over generations, from a racially biased education system.