Vantage Point Articles

Now that the political pundits, analysts and campaign consultants have had their say, I thought it was time to offer a perspective on the debacle suffered by the Democrats during the recent mid-term elections. Let’s get right to it. In the face of a calculated and relentless assault by Republicans on Barack Obama, a President with a dismal approval rating, Democratic candidates panicked and frantically ran away from the President and his/their “record” over the past six years.

January 1, 2014 marked the 210th Anniversary of the Haitian Revolution, one of the greatest events in human history. Never before had an enslaved people rebelled against their slave masters to declare their independence and establish a nation. Inspired by the exhortations and sacrifice of the spiritual priest Boukman and ably led by Toussaint Louverture, Jean Jacques Dessalines, Henri Christophe and Alexandre Petion, this is precisely what the enslaved Africans of Haiti achieved. They crushed the military forces of Napoleon Bonaparte at the pinnacle of his power and established the world’s first Black Republic!

January 1, 2014 marked the 210th Anniversary of the Haitian Revolution, one of the greatest events in human history. Never before had an enslaved people rebelled against their slave masters to declare their independence and establish a nation. Inspired by the exhortations and sacrifice of the spiritual priest Boukman and ably led by Toussaint Louverture, Jean Jacques Dessalines, Henri Christophe and Alexandre Petion, this is precisely what the enslaved Africans of Haiti achieved. They crushed the military forces of Napoleon Bonaparte at the pinnacle of his power and established the world’s first Black Republic!

Each year during the Fourth of July holiday season, I inevitably turn my attention to Frederick Douglass’ extraordinary July 5, 1852 oration in Rochester, New York, in which he denounced the hypocrisy of a nation that celebrated its “independence” while millions of sons and daughters of Africa were held in bondage as slaves. He declared: “What to the American slave is your Fourth of July?

April 4th will be forty-six years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down on a balcony in Memphis. Black America and people of goodwill in the nation and the world were stricken by grief, frustration and anger at the murder of this great man of justice and peace. Indeed, rebellions erupted in urban centers across the nation by people who could not fathom how an apostle of non-violence could be struck down so viciously and violently. It was clear that America was at yet another cross-road in the quest to achieve racial, economic and social justice.

February 21st marks the 49th anniversary of the assassination of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Omawale, “our Black Shining Prince,” Malcolm X. This year is also fifty years since Malcolm delivered The Ballot or the Bullet speech. Brother Malcolm made numerous speeches, and it is hard to imagine one that was not inspirational, informational and powerful.

After months of a relative lull, immigration policy reform appears to be on the front burner again. With President Obama emphasizing it in his State of the Union Address and Speaker Boehner and the Republican Party leadership adopting Principles, the stage appears to be set for passage of legislation this year.

As Chairman of Freedom, Inc. in Youngstown, Ohio, a community based, Pan Africanist organization, I was privileged to be among a small group of activists/organizers who launched the mobilization to hold the first African Liberation Day (ALD) in the U.S. in 1972.