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Mary Lee Brady, Ph.D.

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Third Cut Page

James Roberts, born abt 1753

Many, if not most, men like James Roberts, William Lee and James Armistead Lafayette chose to return home to slavery status after serving honorably in the rebel armed forces for a very simple reason we ought to understand: their enslaved family members.  Such was the case that most men and women then and now have a belief system that puts God, family and self first, ... in that order.  

Slave owners like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson understood that most run-away slaves were usually young males and females unattached to family matters to bound them there.  But, the dilemma for them was that recognizing family formations and ties among slaves also entailed allowing propagation of Christian beliefs, ... recognizing their humanity and thus yearnings for human liberty.  By time of his death in 1799, George Washington apparently had a change of mind on the subject after witnessing explosive growth of slave imports, births, and dispersions since the revolution in name of liberty.  International traders in slaves were no longer restricted by British tariffs and quotas; and slave women were routinely impregnated by plantation studs to generate offspring.

Most slaves were routinely sold in the booming slave auction market-places such as Alexandria and Charleston that scattered individual slaves over thousands of miles in the new lands acquired in nearby Alabama, Florida and Georgia especially far away Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas, ... disrupting any possible Christian family stability.  While it is true that some slave owners like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were consciously opposed to selling slaves in the disruption of families, ... the vast majority of slave owners held no such considerations and and considered it bad business to past up financial gains afforded by selling slaves.  

It is silly to imagine George Washington having anyone other than William Lee as his bodyguard against friend or foe.  And, the notions that Molly Pitcher, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman though highly notable did not or could not have contributed as much or more than any one of several hundreds of companies of armed, trained, deployed and engaged young Black men in the revolutionary or civil war?  Yet, we know heroes (including John Wayne) are chosen by the literary arts, not generals or historians. 

 

Rhode Island had a lot of rich White men with a lot of reasons to want economic and political independence from the economy and power of King George and his fellow aristocratic friends that dominated and exploited the trade routes and goods traded in the British Empire, ... including the very lucrative whaling, fur and slave trades.  "Britania" ruled the waves, and with them out of the way, ... liberty was conceived to be possible for aspiring colonials in North America who did not hesitate to reason that arming former slaves and slaves was a practical means and method for achieving their goals.     

                                 Early America                 

Venturing out away from home and hearth always requires a certain degree of courage by men or women; but, the movement of young Black men via river, road and rail away from places of bondage has a uniquely different history.  

IllustrationChased and hunted like animals during the Abolition Era that raged from at least the Fugitive Slave Act of 1790 to outset of the Civil War in 1860, ... decisions to move required levels of courage that most slaves did not have.  By the time Congress passed the reinforced Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, ... slave runaways were considered a crisis situation although most of the annual 50,000 runaways were eventually caught and returned by law to lives as slaves.

                      Emancipation Patriots

But, keep in mind that among the four million men, women and children enslaved and shackled in the rebel confederacy of states determined to keep them so, there were nevertheless a lot of them and theirs who actively, if not reluctantly, ... supported the peculiar institution of chattel slavery.  In fact, it is all the more amazing that so very few movie and television programs ever mention functional Black men in the late great revolutionary and industrialized America that included young Black and White men in the stress and strains of war and labor (work)

We want it clearly understood that so-called Buffalo soldiers such as reflected in above picture were recruited and deployed in the once wild west after the Civil War until the post-Spanish American War.  They had no love lost for the Cherokee natives west of the Mississippi River who had both owned large numbers of slaves and served in the Confederate military forces. Hundreds of African-American soldiers had been massacred and scalped by the Cherokee soldiers in the battle at Fort Pillow Arkansas.  

                          Cherokee military history

Young men of African heritage who joined and served in military regiments deployed east and west of the Mississippi River following the Civil War learned the histories of their predecessors and passed it onto the men who worked on railways and wagon trains of livery goods and services between Saint Louis and points west.  Communications zones of free-men of color were free to tell what they had seen and heard about not only the geography west of the Mississippi River, but also people such as the Plains Indians, males and females, ... including those that were deemed to be dangerous and unfriendly to themselves or others such as White and Black traders and settlers. 

These men traveled over hundreds and thousands of square miles of unsettling lands and waters nothing like a few square blocks of modern urban ghetto squalor.  It stands to reason that people of African heritage in the Americas, Caribbean and Africa have never been monolithic in cause, color or even gender but writers usually are and reflect such in their world view of the past, present and future.

Even the best actors are unable to portray characterizations of people or persons they cannot imagine to have existed.  So, almost without exception when directors choose to use Black men for character roles in dangerous, dark, dirty and developing situations, ... the actor chosen will likely portray buffoonery and uncivil attitudes and behaviors made most popular during the Vietnam War by actors and writers opposed to and actively avoiding it.  Our problem with such is that young men of color are often discouraged via Hollywood and their mothers from aspiring for work and good wages where best opportunities and money are to be found for goodness sake such as the military, government and mineral extraction industries.

                          

William Thomas Frog Kyle Atkins worked for over 40 years as a coal miner in the bituminous coal fields of West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania.  His father born free in 1879 was a coal miner, ... and son of a coal miner grandfather and great grandfather, both born in slavery and leased by slaver owners to coal mining companies in Western Virginia.  William (Bill) Atkins entered the coal mines in Beckley West Virginia, working alongside his father and uncles when he was thirteen years of age.  It was the apprenticeship custom back then and there for men, Black and White, to take their sons into the coal mines to learn and earn their "State issued mining papers" that would qualify them to work for wages equal to other miners.  Miners earned more cash money than most other occupations available to Black men.  When he acquired employment in the Pittsburgh region in 1929 before beginning of the great economic depression, the Pinkerton Detective Agency hired by Pittsburgh Coal Company urged him (front-row, third from left) and other Black miners to organize a sportsmen's club and buy rifles to defend themselves against threats by the Ku Klux Klan organized agitation against them as strike-breakers.  Before World War II, union leaders called them "scabs, blacks"

Regardless of their official above ground color classification (Black, Colored, Mulatto, or White) coal miners looked the same underground  and were judged by contents of their "courage" and functional skills not skin color.  In fact, by end of the 19th century most states required training and certification of miners for the many tasks underground regardless of color, albeit, Ku-Klux-Klan organizers made strenuous efforts, including murder, to keep Black and White miners separate and unequal above and below ground. 

                       Coal Miner Communications

 

Amazing as it might seem, too few young writers are able to imagine communities having ever come into existence via soldiering and laboring of young men that mattered most, ... including abilities and desires to communicate effectively in understanding and using terms and descriptions of endeavors integrated.                          Many of us saw and heard Martin Luther King, Jr. live and up close attempt to inspire and motivate the millions of many and least souls in order to lead them toward "the promised land."  The fascinating fact about his ministry of propagating the good news is that so many among the least of us sought to emulate his examples in pursuit of goodness. 

In pure economic theory the multiplier effect of his ministry was astounding (at least five thousand to one):  in generating ministries like Jesse Jackson and thousands of others across the land and even overseas in places like South Africa.  And, these were not the pretentious priestly robed and flashy clothes types, with those famously practiced grins and smiles for Sunday morning collections and honorariums, ... but rather the kind like John Lewis and Nelson Mandela who were ready to give their lives for "the least of us" that ought not ever forget as they try to rationalize their real beneficiaries in comparison with others.

We saw the highly publicized others seek to outflank, outrun, and redefine King's sense of goodness to be less than their own reasoning about power based on color, ... not causes claimed such as enlightenment and education of mother and child to be-do better.  African-Americans have a long functional history in America.  It ought not be neglected by scholars seeking to rationalize various faiths, ideologies and mythologies including Christianity, Islam and most certainly make believe Hollywood versions of life not lived.   We think current silence with so many among the least of us gifted and talented is their absence of knowledge about the big picture of many men of righteous cause versus that of those organized on the basis of color (such as Black Caucus Foundations, Black Studies Departments and other non-movement entities that formally exist more so as testaments to verbalism of Malcolm X, ... than activism of Martin Luther King, Jr. who was first and always a Minister of the Good News that dominated his life, not skin color or search for power).

Our grave concern with newly empowered pulpits and politics is  their growing avoidance of local issues such as mother's clubs, baseball, marching bands, church leagues, schools and jobs that help inspire, motivate, educate and foster employment of young men to help raise up new and better generations.  The emphasis on national fame and identities have seemingly fostered alliances and focus on issues and causes of little or no knowledge and interests to people who learn and live in localized environments of families, churches, employment, geography, and neighbors.  Such ought not be generalized in the context of national this and that analysis, ... with staffing of ambitious talking heads oblivious of local matters pending a national leader to speak and be heard.  We fear such may be the case with both NAACP and Black Caucus entities in Washington, D.C. and state capitols, ... that census nothing local.                                

                                           Black Caucus Foundation

Dr. King's death in Memphis caused us to contemplate that travel, even for a child, is often dangerous and requires various degrees in virtues of:  courage, faith, hope and love to get up and onward for whatever the cause in pursuit of life, liberty and goodness/happiness.  Urban street-gang bangers, rioters and instigators who burned buildings and pillaged stores before and after his death did not value what he valued and ought not be remembered as such, certainly not as believers or civil rights proponents.  They certainly did not believe in the philosophy of life espoused by disciples like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in our long march to victory, ... a march that began many generations before King was conceived, born, lived and died as a believer in something far greater than he could measure or we can describe.  

                                Martin Luther King vs Malcolm X Movements

Our website seeks to expound King's view that rainbow of goodness spans geography and generations in all colors, and arcs toward justice, albeit many believers may not live and travel to see or become beneficiaries.  In the new age of visual arts that include movie, television and internet productions we suspect there is an urgent need for media producers to master new technologies in telling "movement" stories scholars have already researched and published such as that of Martin (MLK) and Malcolm X, ... keeping in mind that a movement is not functional without followers able and willing to march forth in the prescribed cause and route even when the leaders are lost. 

Standing up and making a dynamic speech to sitting or standing audiences is not a movement, ... unless they move to do something different or more than done before listening. Use of the term "movement" in the English language is about action that involves expenditure of energy described as physical work, ... whether in civil or military organizing.

Most desired movements, though often proclaimed to exist, ... never move anyone anywhere for any length of time, not even as long as the most important movements in life down the fallopian tube.  Movements that generate and help build lives useful and helpful to others ought not be generalized to include people who spoke often, like most priestly preachers, ... but moved no one to righteous action or functional reaction to bad attitudes and behaviors by others.

Theoretically, we could say MLK was a drum major for historic Black College inspiration, motivation and education of marching bands originated in 19th century to help motivate pursuit of goodness via a common cause in the philosophy of life given by Jesus.  We perceived Malcolm by contrast as a self-enlightened under-educated orator seeking recruitment of mostly urbanized young men of African heritage, ... organized on the basis of color and power, not a functional cause that can be classified as a successful movement.  In fact, a movement can only be judged successful or failed by successor generations.     

In our view their stories are somewhat reminiscent of the discourse between:

                                                                Erasmus and Luther

... both of whom were believers but not via same paths in pursuit of goodness: courage, faith, hope and love.  So, having read aforementioned discourse readers might want to read scholarly discourse below on Martin and Malcolm.  Which movements generated benefits you now have or aspire to gain?

        http://www.philosophy.uncc.edu/mleldrid/SAAP/CLT/DP02.htm

We think screen-writers and actors have not yet written a screen-play or characterized the discourse such as existed between Malcolm Little (Malcolm X) and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Both were born in same Christian Era generation, ... and baptized in same traditional faith inherited by believer fathers in the cause of raising up new and better generations.  Both lived in a real time and space of challenges and realities not really characterized by modern writers of African heritage, ... because so very few have a literary heritage and tradition of reading about prior generations of virtues and values that generated Malcolm and Martin.   And, so far as most popular media seems to portray, ... courage, faith, hope and love of the dynamic duo did not exist in the 18th and 19th centuries that generated and linked them in revolutionary changes.

                                                             Malcolm X

The fallacy of the consequent is that youth are conflicted with life experiences and thoughts by many otherwise gifted and talented minds with reasoning that does not join the life experiences of Malcolm X nor functional faith of men like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   When all is said and done, we believe it was Dr. King who helped define, organize and continue political and social revolutions among post-Civil War generations of people with African, European and Native American heritages.  

Indeed, King helped continue a heritage began long before he was born, ...  while Malcolm sought to overcome memories of racist American terrorism that destroyed his father and mother, and stagnated their generation based on color.  Malcolm believed the terrorism against his father originated from false religious beliefs historically effective in generating many minds of White men to turn against spreading Christian dogma of "justification by faith" preached by men like: 

                                                          John Wesley  

                                     And while Malcolm X had his dozens of ancestors surnamed "Little" in the Civil War struggle to end chattel slavery, ... Martin Luther King, Jr. had hundreds of one year enlistments by ancestors in the U.S. Colored Troop Regiments using the surname of "King."  King had all the significant advantages accrued by generations of goodness that afforded him benefits of functional families in a caring community of many that loved Jesus, education and baseball.  Young Malcolm, on the other hand and perhaps equally gifted was early in life stripped of not only a earthly father he adored but also all the opportunities to goodness in the face of hostile environments.  Dr. King's ideas of revolution were clearly not those of Malcolm Little (Malcolm X) and many others, ... who imagined political and social revolutions leading to perceived power and progression they did not have.                             

                                           IDEAS OF REVOLUTION

                                                     Prince Kojo

Marcus Garvey sought to conceive, give birth, nurture, inspire, motivate, educate and deploy a revolution based on color and economic relationships among people of African heritage.  In his mind, the revolution had to be political and social.  He was Roman Catholic and his first mass meeting in the United States occurred at Harlem based Saint Mark's Roman Catholic Church.  Garvey learned to his dismay that most African-American men of means had their own entities and interests within the greater establishment of White society, ... and wanted integration not separation.

 

His beliefs as a Christian believer were at conflict with experiences and observations of being Black in a world dominated by Whites so far as he knew.

Picture on above reflects Marcus Garvey's visit to the French colony of Dahomey (modern day Benin) with Prince Kojo in white suit. Garvey wanted him to join, support or lead a political and social revolution in Africa.  He quickly learned that African young men who had served in the military forces of France during World War I (1914-1918) and received honors and money for such, ... were not influenced or led by intellectuals like Kojo.                

Of course, Garvey would not have known about Kojo's world; just as factors later existed when the Republic of Liberia, under pressure from the United States Government and Firestone Rubber Corporation, ... announced that it would not allow Garvey's Black Star Shipping Line to land passengers in Liberia.  Yet, we can say that Marcus Garvey initiated a political and social revolution that generated Kwame N'Krumah and all the independence movements leading to African political independence some forty years after World War I.  Garvey did not live to see his movement bear fruit.

                 Universal Negro Improvement Association-UNIA  

Some say the spirit of Garvey was the driving influence in the life of Malcolm X, not Elijah Mohammed. As proponents of racial separation it was the worst that any of their opponents were ever able to say about either of them.  There is no evidence that Garvey, Mohammed or Malcolm ever advocated violence against Whites or Blacks in the America's or abroad.  Malcolm, as a non-scholar like Elijah Mohammed did not conduct scholarly research about power and privilege in Africa; nor did they understand the participation of people with African heritage in the American revolutionary war of 1775-1783. In fact, neither one had the benefit of scholarship endeavors in facts about revolutionary movements from the times and tribulations of Jesus and Mohammed through the era of 18th, 19th and 20th century movements that changed the world and people within it.                               

President John Adams, Washington's successor was distressed by emergence of the ante-bellum southern need and greed for new lands and more slaves but could not restrain it.  His successor Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner himself, was able in 1807 to push through the embargo against slave imports; but in effect it merely shifted imports to ports like Mobile Bay, Alabama.  Additionally the ban obviously helped generate growth of domestic breeding ( 5-10 year/mid-term investments) in slaves for growing markets in Virginia and other southern states. James Roberts and other men and women lived long enough to see and hear about the infamous "stud farms" to breed more slaves fathered by superior White men, ...but quite unlike Nazi Germany breeding programs a hundred years later that facilitated pregnancies by women of the master race. 

                                                       Slave Stud Farms

In such cases of slaves who served in the revolutionary forces, slave owners were granted property rights to emancipate them if they chose to do so, ... but the new federal government was not bound to issue them military warrants for free land grants issued to White veterans with estimated 300,000 enlistments spread over eight bloody and brutal years of combat movements over land, water, snow and ice. Most were motivated by revolutionary aspirations, hopes and promises of lands and waters to be taken from British loyalists and Native Americans. 

Older and more wiser men may well have been motivated by revolutionary ideals such as life, liberty and pursuit of happiness; but, younger and lesser men who volunteered in Washington's Army and Navy (like most non-conscript armies in human history) were mostly those with aspirations for an income and better opportunities to gain property and a wife (impossible without income in colonial life wherein White women were scarce) as a result of sacrifice and risking their lives.   

White revolution vets got a lot more than 40 acres and a mule sought by Black vets after the Civil War wherein most men and women of color rather than cause of liberty, ... had stayed put and tame as slaves and not served in the Union victory.  Frederick Douglass, who lost his only son in the fighting noted that personal liberty by non-combatant non-revolutionaries was reward enough.  In fact, initial half of the 200,000 total colored troop and sailor enlistments came from among approximately 500,000 free African-Americans in Canada and northern states, ... and the second half from four-million enslaved by confederate rebels:  who by year 1880 had reclassified virtually all of their remaining former slaves to functional status as serfs called share-croppers).                                     King George's Cousin William of Hesse-Kassel

In fact, by comparison most of the British employed Hessian soldiers captured by the American forces were offered opportunities by the new Congress to populate and farm free land across the Allegheny Mountains if they chose to remain in America and use their skills gained as German serf farmers and mechanics for aristocratic land-owners.  The good news for African-Americans is these German born young men for the most part knew their history and hated serfdom that made them pawns to European aristocrats.  Such men consequently were generally active in the movements against serfdom in places like Chicago, and had no love for plantation slavery practiced in America.  And, it was their grandsons that helped in the great fight to end chattel slavery.  We owe them a lot as brothers in Christ.                                                               Hessians In America

Major General John Fulton Reynolds (1820-1863) image on right is of very special interest in the American revolution story.  One of the Hessian prisoners allowed to stay in America around 1787 was the father of John Reynolds who fathered the Union savior at Gettysburg. Major General Reynolds was killed the first night of battle but had devised a famed "fishhook defense perimeter" that prevented a victory by Confederate General Robert E. Lee.  Lee's strategy was to invade and achieve a victory in the home-state of great anti-slavery Senator Thaddeus Stevens; thereby forcing President Abraham Lincoln to sue for peace and allow retention of slavery.

The Union victory at Gettysburg allowed President Lincoln to fully deploy the armed might of real freedom fighters (upwards of 200,000 U.S. Colored troops and sailors, ... organized, enlisted, equipped, trained, deployed and joined with the 900,000 White Union soldiers and sailors) necessary to overcome 600,000 rebels, emancipate four million slaves and return rebellious states to the United States.  All men of color were enlisted by and in regiments or sailing ships usually for a one year tour of duty, and with opportunities for reenlistment tours and more enlistment bonuses.  

It happened that way and it was the  Second American Revolution in which White men of German heritage such as Carl Shurtz portrayed in picture on the left, ... helped activate a political and social revolution that both saved the Union and ended chattel slavery in the United States.   Shurtz like Frederick Douglass was much more than an orator. He was also a gifted and able organizer of movements that functionally mattered in real revolutions as opposed to rhetoric by talking heads appealing to what masses may feel, ... rather than what young men, and young women also, are willing to do and be led to do in movements that bring about desired change for the better.  

The Civil War invoked the views of gifted and talented men like Shurtz as well as Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln that talking heads like Tavis Smiley and Cornel West ought to know much more about in telling stories they want known about empowerment, ... including acquisition and applications of it.  We think it is down-right un-Christian to suggest goodness manifested itself without good people, Black and White, hand in hand, marching to victory as Dr. King always practiced and proclaimed. Prior to Marcus Garvey, there were no claims or thoughts about "Black power or Black world."  Such thinking was alien even among migrants back to Africa, and liberated slaves in the British Empire who knew all to well what happened in post-independent Haiti on the basis of color rather than causes of independence.

Revolutions differ from insurrections and rebellions to the extent that we do not dare consider a revolution to have occurred until after the matters of insurrection and rebellion are ended and settled with the movement of power.  In the case of African-Americans in first half of the 19th century, ... it was very clear to men like Frederick Douglass and Reverend Henry Hyland Garnet that only a revolution could generate the change needed.  He correctly perceived that only an alliance with the Messianic Christian majority (such as Scotch-Irish Presbyterians) against the hated institutions of chattel slavery, ... could ever expect to win personal liberty for millions of enslaved souls.

Douglass was not a Nat Turner expecting and hoping for up-risings by poorly led untrained young men of various colors, who though courageous and brave would be no match for well-armed and led mobile young men of over-whelming force of laws and learning.  So, the Second American Revolution was not rooted in colors but common causes embraced and led by men like Abraham Lincoln in alliance with such as: Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany among hundreds of other literate and learned men of Black and White heritage who understood power differently than perceived by Black power advocates in the 1960s.                                                                       

                                                                                    Black Power

The beliefs of Malcolm X had a powerful influence on many young men and women of generation #66 who had interests in being more than the dominating society perceived them to be, ... because they were categorized and classified inferior and lesser Christians in virtues and values.  They knew far more about White Christians and Jews who denigrated them than those who embraced and honored them.  Few had any knowledge about Moslem slave traders and owners; nor ramifications of polygamy beyond life-times of the perpetrators (fathers and mothers).  

We saw and heard many aspirants espouse doctrines based on color, not cause such as the Christian mission movements and colonial government primary schools movements that had initiated and provided basic education for virtually all the leaders of Anglo-African independence.  We saw and heard many perceived leaders seeking uniformity among greatly despaired young men who had never learned to march straight or swim in lakes of knowledge about generations of goodness. 

Indeed, many such as Ron Karenga and Geronimo Pratt went to Tanzania expecting to find revolutionary Marxists but instead found Christian indoctrinated kind hearted ex-school teachers like Julius Nyerere. He, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Kwame N'Nkrumah and many others of African heritage, including authors of this site, ... was born in a generation that witnessed over 100 million people in Africa, America Asia, and Europe killed in the course of war. 

Nyerere's African socialism was not radical change envisioned by many Malcolm X fans who went to Tanzania (mainly to avoid military conscription during the Vietnam War), and when the draft was no longer a threat they came home as though from war to receive their glory.  With bits and pieces of what was seen and heard, ... some like Karenga imagined a lot more that what ever existed in Africa. 

We make this point to illustrate that skin color was only one of variables at issue with the would-be revolutionaries that admired Malcolm X.  We want youth of today to understand their very failed views about power resulted from a sheer lack of knowledge about non-violent movements beginning with that launched by Jesus of Nazareth.  Those of us who were inclined to embrace the movement doctrine of MLK generally rejected Malcolm as a non-believer in our chosen philosophy of life espoused by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

African-Americans like James H. Robinson, MD as first of the least of us in 1953 to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania's Jefferson Medical College, ... embraced Dr. Martin Luther King with Christian love and moral support by fellow physicians.  Our website has sought to generate special attention to Robinson Generations of gifted and talented offspring with the surname Robinson to help make our point that a greater purpose in their being may have long existed.

Men like him were highly incensed by  Malcolm's derogatory comments in 1963 about the death of President John F. Kennedy (who had recently espoused that racial segregation was morally wrong) ... angered many believers as evidence that Black Muslims did not share their aspirations for racial integration.  JFK was loved on Black College Campuses as the man who not only embraced their student initiated movements such as lunch-counter sit-In demonstrations and Cross-Roads Africa; but, also established the Peace Corps that widely recruited on their traditional Black College campuses. Most of these faculty and students perceived Malcolm X to be without functional organizing in pursuit of goodness.  Malcolm was viewed as a talented and perhaps even gifted man, like Elijah Mohammed, seeking power over "the least of us" urbanized populations in places like New York City, Detroit and Chicago.  But, the greatly esteemed Dean of Black Colleges and Universities was Dr. Benjamin Mays of Morehouse College. Keep in mind that in those days and nights of African-American college students in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, ... chapel  Every enlightened faculty member and student across some 123 traditional institutions up from slavery, ... heard and maybe believed that Martin Luther King, Jr. was May's prize pupil and designated hitter (like Jackie Robinson) for spreading good news among the poor.  Even Kwame N'Krumah who had graduated from a traditional Black College and had long established ties to many, ... invited King to Ghana for its independence day celebration with him in 1957. Our argument is that years before Malcolm's infamous remarks, many men of means had a lot of reasons to reject him.                                         Civil War Sailors and Soldiers

We personally rejected Malcolm's generalizations about "house-slaves and field hands" because it discouraged competent scholarship into lives of people whose ancestors (especially Black, Mulatto and White Civil War soldiers and sailors) helped "goodness" overcome the hated institution of chattel slavery.  Enlistments by the free-born, escaped slaves, house-slaves and field hands defy Malcolm's analogy of the past, ... however popular such might be with folks unenlightened in their personal ancestral history predating, during and after the Civil War during which 43,000 men of African heritage were killed in the fighting.  More than a hundred thousand more were hunted and murdered by ex-confederate veterans during 1866 after official war had ended; and, we ought not confuse this terrorism with Ku Klux Klan lynching that followed for many turbulent terror filled decades (1870-1960).  

                  Emancipation Patriots                       Susie King Taylor

We are concerned that insufficient numbers of scholars  are researching what was seen and heard by successful generations in the generation of goodness; ... and, thus have not given talented writers and actors information that can be used to inspire, motivate and educate the least of us (especially politicians, preachers, and teachers) in pursuit of life, liberty and goodness/happiness.  Too many are given to articulating "sound bites" from past voices rather than researching what can be published as a continuation of "the good news" for readers and writers to gain inspiration and knowledge about who and how the worst of conditions and times were overcome, ... or still to be, like polygamous life-styles.     In our lifetimes, the gospels were certainly overshadowed by writers like Margaret Mitchell's famous novel "Gone With the Wind" directed by Victor Fleming on left and Alice Walker's "The Color Purple" directed by Steven Spielberg.  Both literary triumphs reiterated illegitimacy of Black men as Americans or sources for generation of goodness, ... utterly excluding them and their seeds as patriots in cause of liberty to foster family formation and sustainment before and after American revolution and Civil War to secure it.  Such mass media are powerful instruments in molding political and social revolutions in attitudes and behaviors by any society.    Bridged with godless Hollywood movie moguls, Mitchell gleamed her thoughts about ante-bellum life-styles and slave plantations from 19th century southern writers like William Gilmore Simms  Simms certainly had helped rationalize a bloody rebellion against the United States to keep four million human beings in bondage.  Walker in turn imitated her fellow successful Sarah Lawrence College alumni Margaret Mitchell, ... in generating demonic attitudes and behaviors appealing to mass audiences and assuring generations of acceptance.    Alice Walker unknowingly, and perhaps regretfully, contributed to the California initiated public mindsets (three strikes and out laws) to re-incarcerate hordes of mostly drug dependent uneducated, unknown, unemployed, fatherless young Black men categorized and classified as godless and useless.  Both books and movies amply demonstrated power of the pen and images in shaping societal beliefs, ... when scholars fail to research and write about generations of belief that cannot be ignored and denied about the generation of functional goodness.  Our issue is that so many gifted and talented youth almost appear ashamed to acknowledge that many ancestral emancipators believed very strongly in a LIVING CHRIST (same Lord as good White folks, ... not slave owners. Most men of color who served in the Union Forces saw bodies and bravery of White men as well as Black who bled red blood and died believing in something?).  Circumcising, feminizing, generalizing,  or skipping over these beliefs thus avoids understanding who did what for who and why?                                                        President Barack Obama

Our theme on this page gives an update on what we have seen and heard during past three years by various groups challenging legitimacy or worthiness of  President Barack Obama.  He has been challenged as a non-believer, non-American and even his authenticity to be a Black man, ... as defined by amazing logic of men like Cornell West, and now Herman Cain.  We are not amused by the former pretending to be a philosopher of Christian  love; and offended by latter's embrace of economic ideology we have seen and heard before as extremely bad news beyond monetary profits:

(Property Interests versus "the least of us" lives, liberties and pursuit of happiness during and after slavery wherein millions of ex-slaves were reduced to living in serfdom, ... and dependency that rich and powerful would do the right thing in context of a born-again Christian beliefs to replace ante-bellum economic ideology that profitable ends justified the means to obtain).

We have seen and heard bad news of pretentious scholars in the tragic story of Liberia wherein many among the least of us born therein, both Christian and Non-Christian, ... chose the path of judging one another on the basis of caste and color rather than contents of character.  Believers are reminded about ancient statements such as: "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" ... and non-believers have doubted that any pursuit of goodness was generated in Africa by ex-slaves from Great Britain and the United States, ... such as the Joseph Roberts born of African and European heritage.  Barack Obama is not the first President we know of both African and European ancestral heritage. 

                               President John (Jerry) Rawlings (Republic of Ghana) 

President Joseph Jenkins Roberts  (Republic of Liberia), on left, born abt. 1809 in Norfolk, Virginia migrated to Liberia sometime after its founding by Reverend Lott Carey and others sponsored by the American Colonization Society with leaders such as George Washington's nephew Bushrod Washington and Francis Scott Key.  Their policy goals were to encourage emigration of emancipated/free Negroes out of the new United States to prevent them from contaminating people still enslaved with ideas of freedom and liberty.

                                   1810 Virginia Census 

We speculate that Roberts emigrated  because though he was fathered by a White man and not a slave, he was not treated like Whites: ... he was required to register and pay annual fees for himself and family as evidence that he and they were not slave property for which slave owners were required to pay taxes. And, as was the custom in ante-bellum years, free Negroes were always subjected to being arrested or kidnapped for sale as slaves to far-away places like Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and even Texas where slave prices were demanding and high. 

                              Roberts Generations

We believe Roberts, like Reverend Lott Carey  and many other men and women of African heritage, ... long ago determined the mission of spreading good news was about more than where they were born or found comfort and safety as preachers.  There are many stories that need be told to youth who wonder about matters such as their faith also applicable to "the least of us" in Africa, America, the Caribbean and Europe. Our point being made herein is that generations of goodness began long before it was easily and evidently obtained in America or Africa. We are dependent upon scholars to help youth understand how, when, where and why?  We have lessened our confidence in Professor Cornel West as a Christian scholar.  He appears to be unable to research and publish facts about the functional past of what we have seen and heard joining reasoning with our faith.  It would make him better qualified to offer functional advice to President Obama about matters such as functional activities to improve lives of functional men, rather than his flagrant generalizations about poverty and the poor of which there are many millions world-wide. In fact, we have good historical and self-evident reasons to be somewhat skeptical of professed believers like Cornel West and Tavis Smiley who amass wealth for themselves while claiming to have love and compassion for the poor.                         

                        Professed interest in poor people

The facts are that Malcolm did not know what he did not know about Africa or America, ... because he had neither seen or heard much about either other than his limited education, reading and exposure had afforded.  To his credit and likely cause of his assassination, Malcolm X did recognize the bad news generated by polygamy among people of African heritage.  Indeed, polygamy is a full-force brake on human progress and fundamental source of conflicts in any society. 

By quite a contrast, ... Cornel West was nurtured in the vicinity of Black negative image-makers (Hollywood); and was very much influenced by junior college level thinkers in the 1960s who rightfully rejected the negative portrayals and propagations by Hollywood. Their reasoning as color conscious rebels included mythical collective power none have ever had or pursued in the course of integrating African, American, Asian or European societies and institutions.

                                                             The power to earn, learn and be seen and heard that West now enjoys is the result of relatively stabilized family formations inherited as his moral worth.  It is a reality that most of his heroic models never embraced in functional movement matters a Governor or President has to make in obtaining and applying executive power affecting millions of functional families.  Here we are talking about real voltage that generates mathematically measureable change (not transformer explosions) versus pulpit type rhetoric of Tavis Smiley.  Smiley was nurtured in a Pentecostal fervor born of a place and time where a lot of folks have inherited traditions of hip-hopping over family realities in pursuit of individual happiness and salvation, not families.    

File:Jordan Lipofsky.jpgWe are reminded that both critics (like President Obama) likely enjoy the simple hip-hop-jump and shoot movements of  Basketball rather than the long and tiresome rigors of hard-ball, ... the All-American game. But, the differences are the President understands that off-court life is much more complex, ... because managers of millions of men and trillions of dollars don't throw hard-balls at waist-high talking heads (like Cornel West).  They throw down on him with blinding speed fast as one can say  Jackie Robinson.   Even the great gifted athlete Michael Jordan Air Jordan found hardball to be arduous and difficult in mastering, and quite unlike Robinson , ... Jordan has not grown old and gray with passions to help "the least of us" such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  So, how, when, where and how do super-stars in entertainment and sports help motivate boys struggling to become good men in pursuit of goodness versus challenges of "feeling and looking good" .... as too many thousands and even the tens of thousands imagine stars to be.                                          

There is nothing wrong with pay-as-you-go Friday-night sports and other entertainment fests or those great Sunday morning heavenly love songs by "singin sistahs & brothas"... Los Angeles Mass Choir but what else matters on Monday morning when the alarm clock rings, and Friday evening when the eagle flies? What is it and why do young men labor to raise up new and better generations in pursuit of goodness?  Did Mary raise Jesus without beginnings and benefits of Joseph, and other offspring in family formation? We share many critical concerns but not those conclusions ignoring facts about dysfunctional attitude, behavior, learning, and earning skills rooted in denigrated cultural values. President Obama cannot change what will take at least two generations of dynamic intentions focused on family formation and sustainment that professors like West ought to talk about, loud and clear.  Values based revolution of the poor to enlighten and educate "the least of us" to generate generations of goodness, not simply witness their decadence, ignorance & poverty.  Obama and the least of us exist in the absence of long-term and mid-term analogies by gifted and talented souls such as Cornell West imagines himself to be.  West is minus the rigors of functional concepts, doctrines, strategies, plans, programs and projects that generate headaches for guys who devote their lives doing so, not feel-good ego driven glorification. We think problems are far less about color and gender than inherited lack of cause in the faith that ended chattel slavery and lasted at least until the 1960s, ... when drug induced thinking generated a lot of west-coast nonsense rather than scientific minded observations.  As a result too many otherwise gifted and talented folks in academia (quite unlike Dr. Dubois) lack interests and knowledge about functional experiences in the society, especially labor and learning skills and endeavors of Black men as a means that mattered more than singing the blues.                                          Stormy Monday

End poverty of people (especially young mothers) who can not (or will not) value gainful labor and learning? We need not be rocket scientists to understand that good motherhood (like Mary) is the source of goodness in all matters that truly matter. Let hundreds of thousands of mentally ill adults and juveniles out of prisons? To do what?  To who?  How?  When?  Where?  President Obama and no one else has answers to such perplexing questions and West ought to stop pretending that he does.  Empowerment, now as always in the past, is a product of trust by believers in others to "do the right thing."  

Most imagined revolutionary movements for success, sex, love and power are fueled with hot-air from imitators of life like Gil Scott-Heron born in 1949 and Cornel West born in 1953 generation #66.  We dare not imagine they joined superior reasoning with the faith of fathers and mothers born in prior generations and fought the good fight to overcome the obstacles that gave substance to their potentials.  What is gained by who when educated minds are proclaimed and wasted as poets and professors of nothingness; ... espousing the rhetoric of revolution, not functions of change.

Our problem with them is that both are examples of many gifted and talented (ordained and not ordained) with African heritage talented linguistic heritage to tell stories that entertain audiences. And, like many gifted Africans they have done so without inspiring, motivating or educating "the least of us" in functional generation of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness to be helpful or useful in the cause they profess to embrace.   

To be sure, West is precisely the proof that gifted and talented babies of African heritage are born every day.  But the cultural weakness is that too many use their gifts to entertain rather than help "the least of us" grasp and understand functional definitions of brotherhood and community.  West has ignored context long-term laboring, learning and heavy lifting by fathers, mothers and others without artificial stimulants. He and his buddy Tavis Smiley are somewhat guilty of leaning on faith in nothingness rituals that more or less ignore the functional histories that launched world's longest lasting offensive for goodness sake.

Indeed, even if Obama had the power and passion to guarantee a daily job and minimum income for every father and mother living in poverty, ... there are no assurances that a lot of it will not be expended on frivolous feel good matters like polygamous pursuits, boys' baggy pants, girls' imported hair, women's body art, flashy jewelry, fatty foods and even hallucinating substances (including infamous ten percent tithes to pretentious preachers).  We dare suggest that preachers and teachers to future mothers need to be indoctrinated with a philosophy of life in pursuit of others lives, liberties and happiness that matters in the short-term, mid-term and long-term years of living, ... before going to heaven.

We urge the President to not swing at bad balls aimed at his head, ... rather than over home-plate.  West, like the rest of us, is witness to bad news seen and heard in our bedrooms, homes, churches, neighborhoods, and schools without ball-fields, functional labor attitudes and skills or even driver's licenses to help generate "boyz to men."  President Obama dares not try to rationalize or hip-hop over these blaring deficiencies in ghetto attitudes and behaviors, ... generated by at least five decades of decadence that men like Professor West deliberately avoid in addressing issues (like matriarchy and polygamy) that have re-enslaved millions of souls walking and talking in demeanors (pants down below waist) and tongues (rage raptures).  

As a Professor in an institution founded by hard-ball Presbyterians who helped end slavery, we suggest that West might better generate functional actions for change by writing books and pamphlets that help teach preachers that goodness occurs by generations of goodness among believers, ... not hip-hop nothingness pursuits that utterly die away with the flesh in a few years like Tupac Shapur.  Some unenlightened and uneducated fans reasoned that Shapur was the successor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  And, surely by now West and others realize here are no institutionalized endeavors existing because Malcolm X lived; ... but in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe movements inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr. are too numerous to count.  So we say to West and others who cite Malcolm and Martin as common cause, "What did you see and hear?" 

By contrast, Atlanta's adopted son Herman Cain, the otherwise typically brilliant Morehouse educated preacher of excellence, ... professes to be an "American" not an African-American like "the least of us" who might choose to embrace African roots because Christ asked that we do so?  Of all the people of earth since the first century goodness that conceptualized a new philosophy of life, ... those in America up from a past of chattel slavery ought to understand what happens when no one cares or knows about what exists in Africa.  Our challenge therein is not about color but our cause promised in prayers and pleadings of gifted and talented ancestral believers, plus men and women of means who mattered in opening doors for "the least of us." 

Arthur Fletcher

Or did Morehouse theology teachings change to reflect that of Cain, ... rather than Dr. King and a lot of past master republicans like Art Fletcher, son of a pragmatic military career soldier?  Cain, like Fletcher and other brothers on  the other side, ... perhaps dares to tell guys like Congressman Paul Ryan and other tea-party hooters what he, his daddy and daddy's daddy have seen in heard before he climbed to top of the mountain, because of affirmative attitudes always opposed by so-called conservatives, ... north, south, east and west! 

He can do the right thing, as fellow alumni Spike Lee might urge, and tell the truth to those otherwise uninformed folks on the right, ... like Michelle Bachman who at best learned her American history from other talking heads. John Wayne?  It is inconceivable to folks like her that men of African heritage in America fought and struggled for liberty just as her ancestors might have done. Did they? 

                                                       Morehouse College

Cain can help enlighten and educate others if he chooses not to forsake his basic Morehouse calling to be helpful and do no harm.  We wonder if Herman Cain has ever told his tea-party audiences that upwards of 48 of his ancestors fought in the Civil War to end slavery by private sector interests, who afterwards still did not want to pay them in cash but rather as share-croppers.  Nay, the name of the game is American hard-ball otherwise called "politics." 

"In an interview with Bloomberg view, Cain argued that he is a 'black American' rather than an 'African American' on account of being able to trace his ancestors within the US, describing Barack Obama as "more of an international...look, he was raised in Kenya, his mother was white from Kansas and her family had an influence on him, it’s true, but his dad was Kenyan". Interviewer Jeffrey Goldberg pointed out that Obama had spent 4 years of his childhood abroad, and that it was in Indonesia – not Kenya, at which point Cain revised his claim." [Wikipedia]

                                Barack Obama,Sr.   

Herman Cain's mastery of mathematics indicates that he likely also mastered probabilities and levels of difficulty associated with baseball learning curves wherein most first inning hitters strike out, and few make it beyond first base; but, those who do are rare indeed.  Because of opportunities in America, some people of African heritage have made it beyond the hitters box and even hit home runs like Oprah and Barack.

The greatest game to evolve in America has been baseball albeit a lot of anglophile oriented bid-whist and bridge enthusiasts might disagree as they partner up for endless matches of skills and luck of the draw.  And, of course it is easy to deny or denigrate someone or something never seen or heard, such as the father of Barack Obama whose generation of African scholars fathered not only President Barack Obama, ... but also many thousands of other gifted and talented young men and women we now know as fellow achievers in Africa, America and Europe (especially Great Britain and France)

We hope they all matter in striving to make life better for millions of "the least of us" that we care about because Christ asked that we do so.  We have a moral mandate from Jesus himself to care about Africans whether we know them or not, ... east, north, south and west all the way to the Solomon Islands experienced by President Kennedy who changed the immigration policies that allowed Barack Obama, Sr. to get into America. Herein, we urge Herman Cain to hold onto his Morehouse faith, not guys like Limbaugh who flunked every college course ever taken and never graduated from any institution of higher education or higher callings.

                            Kenya Music Seen and Heard

We were in Atlanta a few years ago attending the Trumpet Awards when Michelle Robinson Obama mounted the podium and proceeded to spell-bound the audience of achievers (Black and White) that likely included men like Herman Cain.  Women in the audience liked the way she looked, spoke, walked and used the language depicting a very high level of achievement, like Hillary Clinton, the Rice cousins and a lot of similar women like Johnnetta B. Cole critiquing every word and syllable.  

                                 Ambassador Susan Rice

Michelle's theme "Yes, we can" awe struck us all as something that Jackie Robinson or a lot of other Robinsons might likely have said that way.  A few seconds into her speech in the city that Morehouse College graduates and supporters helped build, ... and most older male listeners remembered those days when Jackie was at bat. Many doubted that he could or would do what we wanted him to do for "the least of us," ... proving wrong the radio wind-bags who often openly told listeners that "he is going to fail."                     

            Rush Limbaugh                       Barack the Magic Negro

There is not a dimes worth of difference between guys like Limbaugh and men and women of his type prejudice we have had to overcome during the 20th century.  Knocking a hitter out of the box is the part of the game but not all of it.  We hold that Barack and Michelle as Christian are of one flesh, and say it is self evident the Robinson genes have never failed us; and Herman Cain ought not repeat sound-bites from guys like Rush Limbaugh who would also want him to fail in getting the Republican Party nomination, getting elected and being successful. 

Certainly, Michelle has likely reminded  husband Barack Obama, Jr. about game of hard-ball brilliantly played by her most illustrious distant cousin:

Jack Roosevelt Robinson who not only avoided hard-balls thrown a hundred miles per hour at his head but consistently got up off dirt to make base hits that mattered in winning the great American game of power.   We want to emphasize that for whatever reason divine providence may have, there are gifted and talented births that have and can serve a greater purpose than their own glory.  The problem we have with many is that they do not see themselves as part of a line-up in a long-lasting game without beginnings or endings that we know of, ... other than Jesus of Nazareth whose philosophy of life so freely given is mostly about rules of engagement (how we play the game)

 

Even so, our beloved brother Jackie was not the first in line-up of all-stars in over-comin

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