There is an unlimited library of lessons in the lives and teachings of our ancestors, those who, as Seba Ptahhotep says in the Husia, “listened to the Divine”, spoke truth, did justice, and worked tirelessly to secure the well-being of our people and the world. So it is with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., awesome preacher, prophet and dream weaver whose martyrdom and sacrifice we commemorate this month.
Dimitris Christoulas was a retired pharmacist whose neighbors said had enormous dignity. At 77 years old, he looked forward to a comfortable old age. He had saved during his 35-year career and did not expect government to, at all, be involved in his pension.
Legendary Black Journalist took us to school every Sunday afternoon.
All across America a massive mobilization is in full force demanding justice in the horrific and unjustified death of Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman. It was a vigilante style killing aided and abetted by Florida’s wild, wild west “Stand Your Ground” law. The Trayvon Martin case has struck a nerve in Black America, not only because of the tragic and unnecessary death of a promising young African American man, but because this case is symbolic of a broader pattern of assault on young Black males throughout the country.
I have two nephews that I love with an amazing passion. Anyi, 28, is a Los Angeles based comedian, who kinda looks like me and acts like me. He is my absolute escort of choice when I am in Southern California. Armand, 25, is an Oakland-based aspiring writer, and a 2008 graduate of University of California, Santa Cruz. Both of these young men are well over 6’3″, but neither carries any extra weight. Both of them wear hoodies.
The savage and senseless murder of Trayvon Martin drives another nail in the coffin of “post-racial” confusion and double- talk about the devastating racial and racist reality of life and lived experience in U.S. society.
Forty years ago this month, ten thousand African Americans thronged to Gary, Indiana for the first National Black Political Convention. They gathered to develop a black agenda, and to influence 1972 presidential politics. One of the things on the agenda was the development of an independent black political party and to explore the notion of independent black politics.
March 10-12, 1972, an estimated 10,000 Black people converged on a small steel town in Indiana for one of the greatest gatherings in the history of Africans in America – the Gary National Black Political Convention. As I reflect on more than a half century on the frontlines of the Black Freedom Struggle, anyone who is intimately familiar with my work is aware that the Gary Black Political Convention was one of the defining moments for an emerging social/political activist from Youngstown, Ohio.
The senseless killing of young Trayvon Martin has reminded conscious Black men everywhere in this country of their tenuous existence. The “freedom” of George Zimmerman, Trayvon’s killer, reminds us of the imbalance of justice and the degree to which the “law” is slow to recognize our humanity.
By Gloria J. Browne-Marshall
Streets ran red with blood. It was the worse year of racial conflict in American history. The summer of 1919 was aptly named the Red Summer. That fateful summer race riots claimed the lives of hundreds of Blacks in cities and rural areas, alike.
Habari gani. On behalf of my friend, wife and companion in all things good and beautiful, Tiamoyo; the advocates and members of our organization, Us, the African American Cultural Center, and the National Association of Kawaida Organizations; Dr. Segun Shabaka, chair of New York NAKO…
The killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin has understandably sparked outrage across the nation. Considering how the Black youth was gunned down by a neighborhood watch captain as he innocently walked down a street has left people numb, bewildered and angry. It is a chilling example of the vulnerability of young Black men in this nation and the degree to which their lives are discounted in a society that has made being Black a criminal offense
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