Mary Lee Brady, Ph.D.

Now, we hope more preachers and teachers know that a lot of young Black men died in the battles at Vicksburg, Mississippi to shut the river down to rebel shipping. 

It was victories therein that would empower  U.S. Grant to be appointed by Abraham Lincoln as commander who would ultimately defeat the confederacy  in spring of 1865.

However, the spring offensives most African-Americans are more likely to not relate with the blood sacrifice of Jesus are those very ones that epitomize:

...what ought never to be forgotten such as "The Battles in and around Vicksburg" within which "Latter Day Romans" assembled to kill thousands of would-be saviors for "the least of us" including pretentious preachers of the worst kind awaiting a Pentecostal moment to enlighten them in the darkness of ante-bellum slavery. 

Indeed, the story of "Pentacost" has excited millions to sit and wait for others like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to die for their empowerment.  And Jesus wept for them all who heard the words, not the calling to action.

                           African-American-history.htm

Preachers to youth ought to pilgrimage there at least once in their life-times to try and understand that Easter was beginning of a spring offensive to save "the least of us," nor was it the last one on which men and women too suffered and died to help save new born, born again and unborn bodies and souls.

Of the 17,000 Union Army young men killed and buried as a result of the furious Vicksburg battles to save "the least of us" ... about 40 percent were African-Americans.  Scholars ought to remind preachers and teachers that salvation, beginning with Jesus, our salvation has often been paid for with more blood of believers than Sunday morning tears and testimonies.           

We were pleasantly surprised to learn there were some 304 enlistments using the surname of West among the approximately  200,000 U.S. Colored Troops and Sailors voluntarily enlisted in the great cause joined by men of missionary zeal like :

                           Samuel_C._Armstrong#Educator.

                                                    Flournoy-Jones Generations

The rights, privileges and benefits African-Americans now have and value were never in pursuit of the success, sex, love and power thoughts of would-be brilliant Black power advocates.  We recall and remember well the color-based ambitions of Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Rap Brown, Bobby Seal, Huey Newton and a host of other wannabes who somehow West has envisioned to be model attitudes and behaviors for "the least of us."  The fallacy of the consequent about these men is that none ever embraced or experienced physical labor and never included such long-held doctrine in their stated ambitions to help the poor. And, with few exceptions, the young men who flocked to their so-called revolutionary banners emerged from matriarchal family structures wherein men at labor doing anything even in military services, ... were deemed to be inferior. Ante-Bellum attitudes imitated and imported from deep south slave plantations where superior people did not labor for anyone?

For those of us with ancestors that actively embraced men like Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Adam Clayton Powell and other leaders, civilian and military, in the long march to liberty, equality and integration, ... it is inconceivable to imagine that any gains for anyone were acquired by means and methods advocated by the kind of men West seems to admire.

Their (and apparently his) notion of empowerment completely contradict what we have and seen and heard not just about Jesus but also those who tried to keep the faith of their own fathers.   Black Panthers were never the faithful, however noble their intentions and pursuit of power have been imagined to be, ... not unlike the White Citizens Councils we well remember.

 Cornel is an excellent example of a lost generation of Black scholars sputtering loudly but failing to gain altitude to uplift payloads of generation #67  they generated, failed and neglected to load securely on fail-safe rockets of Christian enlightenment, education and enterprising attitudes and behaviors.  Almost without question, it was their eggs and sperm that procreated the people Cornel is right to be concerned about but apparently has no solutions other than criticism of President Barack Obama for not being a revolutionary about it. Our thoughts are he and others like him should use their superior intellectual abilities to organize, like King did, available Black scholars and talented students to help secure and uplift the new birth mother and child.  Use African Studies Departments to do this first, in localities like Princeton and Trenton where they are, ... rather than shooting blank barbs about young and old men in places like Trenton State Prison who are at best not employable and most likely mentally ill or semi-illiterate. 

West ought to know, if he is truly an activist believer, ... Martin Luther King's dream of heaven on earth was built on the philosophy "suffer-the-little-children" not men suffering in prison as did even John The Baptist and many thousands of other Jews, both good and bad.  

The social media tagline of "Black America" has never been or hoped for by men and women who mattered most in the liberation and security for people of African heritage.  Commentator Tavis Smiley and many other pundits have built their careers and fortunes on supposition that such exists. 

In the temples of despair, doom and often the dammed via drugs, prisons and polygamy, ... there are millions of people who view themselves trapped in a "Black America" not of their own making, or desires made popular by Eliza Mohammed's Nation of Islam 

In fact, the term "Black America" originated among writers in the 1970s following riots in 1968 and outputs described in:

                                         The Kerner Commision Report

We make this point as a critical assessment of writers and actors who dare imagine young Black men of past integration endeavors in the military and industry, ... as somehow akin to and communicating with thoughts and language common among "the very least of us" found in modern day living conditions of South Central Los Angeles or similar raptures in places like Harlem albeit certain similarities may exist or at a point in time such as the 1920s held in common attributes such as a love of music.   

Self described Black scholars at a minimum are being very well paid beyond the dreams of any in previous generations, and unlike most non-Black scholars they have freedom of disguise and visits (undetected without Pentecostal celebration, praise and shouting led by robed men), ... into neighborhoods where unknown potentially gifted and talented children are likely born in poverty.  Indeed, birth-rooms are the "Upper Rooms" Christian scholars ought to regularly census and evaluate rather than imaginary initiatives by preachers.  It is a time and place for action plans and programs by volunteer young women to learn about and address motherhood despair and health, ... when she is most likely receptive to helping hands about her life as a mother especially financial assistance and other benefits available.

                             African-American Births

The obstacle course is a very well organized public welfare structure at federal, state and county level that discourages private interventions as once existed via the 200,000 Colored Women's Clubs.  There was a time when activist club-women like Rosa Parks and Western Pennsylvania mothers  helped finance Dr. King's movement.              

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