♫ Harry Belafonte — A Tribute ♫

Posted on April 26, 2023 by jilldennison under Social commentary, Bits 'n Pieces, Tributes, Racism & Bigotry, music, History

I was truly saddened by the news of Harry Belafonte’s death for he was a great musician, but more than that, he was a great human being, one of a kind. I know I can’t possibly cover all the things Mr. Belafonte did in his lifetime in a single post, but let me hit just a few highlights, and then you can listen to his voice of silk.

Belafonte almost single-handedly ignited a craze for Caribbean music with hit records like Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) and Jamaica Farewell. His album Calypso, which included both those songs, reached the top of the Billboard album chart shortly after its release in 1956 and stayed there for 31 weeks. It was said to be the first album by a single artist to sell more than a million copies.

Mr. Belafonte was equally successful as a concert attraction: Handsome and charismatic, he held audiences spellbound with dramatic interpretations of a repertoire that encompassed folk traditions from all over the world — rollicking calypsos like Matilda, work songs like Lead Man Holler, tender ballads like Scarlet Ribbons. By 1959 he was the most highly paid Black performer in history, with fat contracts for appearances in Las Vegas, at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles and at the Palace in New York.

While his music was his claim to fame, Harry Belafonte’s contributions to the Civil Rights movement were legendary. From the New York Times …

Early in his career, he befriended the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and became not just a lifelong friend but also an ardent supporter of Dr. King and the quest for racial equality he personified. He put up much of the seed money to help start the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was one of the principal fund-raisers for that organization and Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

He provided money to bail Dr. King and other civil rights activists out of jail. He took part in the March on Washington in 1963. His spacious apartment on West End Avenue in Manhattan became Dr. King’s home away from home. And he quietly maintained an insurance policy on Dr. King’s life, with the King family as the beneficiary, and donated his own money to make sure that the family was taken care of after Dr. King was assassinated in 1968.

In 1957, he had a role in the movie Island in the Sun, in which his character had a brief romance with a white woman played by Joan Fontaine, to the outrage of the racist South. A bill was even introduced in the South Carolina Legislature that would have fined any theater showing the film! Even as late as 1968-1969, his television appearances with white actresses Julie Andrews and Petula Clark drew viewers’ rage.

In the 1980s, he helped organize a cultural boycott of South Africa as well as the Live Aid concert and the all-star recording We Are the World, both of which raised money to fight famine in Africa. He never stopped his political activism, and became more outspoken as time went by. In 2013, he referred to the Koch brothers, the wealthy industrialists known for their support of conservative causes, as “white supremacists” and compared them to the Ku Klux Klan. Fully appropriate in my view. And when Donald Trump came onto the 2016 stage, Mr. Belafonte called him “feckless and immature.”

“Mr. Trump asks us what we have to lose, and we must answer: Only the dream, only everything.”

I could go on, but instead I suggest you read the full NYT article (link above) and for now let’s listen to some of Harry Belafonte’s music, shall we?

Now About Our Vice-President …

Posted on March 3, 2023 by jilldennison under Election 2020, Global Issues, History, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, voting rights

Vice President Kamala Harris isn’t front-and-center in the news very often, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t working. Like President Biden, she quietly goes about her job rather than spend her time on a media blitz trying to keep her face on everyone’s news feed as some politicians do on a daily basis. And, like the president, she is often the subject of criticism.

Donna Brazile, a political analyst who I have long admired, is a professor and contributor to ABC News, and she has written a thoughtful assessment of VP Harris that I found enlightening. Certainly we all hope that President Biden remains hale and hearty throughout his presidency, but regardless of age, things sometimes happen to the human body, so we need to know more about the person who would step into his shoes if he were to die or become unable to fulfill his duties. Ms. Brazile gives us a bit of insight into Kamala Harris and her path to the vice presidency.

The Excellence of Kamala Harris Is Hiding in Plain Sight

Donna Brazile

02 March 2023

Vice President Kamala Harris occupies an office that can be the butt of jokes and criticism. The only duties of the vice president spelled out in the Constitution are to cast tiebreaking votes in the Senate and to become president if the office becomes vacant.

I’ve never run for government office, but as a Black woman who has spent my life working in politics — including as manager of Vice President Al Gore’s unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2000 — I know what it’s like to be underestimated, over-scrutinized and unfairly criticized, just as Ms. Harris has been. Yet I’ve never been under such a glaring spotlight as hers.

I have watched politicians up close for decades. And‌ I have known Vice President Harris for years and urged Joe Biden to make her his running mate in 2020. I ‌believe that the criticism of her is unrelated to her performance as vice president and fails to account for the role she plays in the White House.

As a consequential and successful vice president himself for eight years under Barack Obama, President Biden has a keen understanding of the job he once held and he has tasked Vice President Harris with major responsibilities. She has done an outstanding job and her record in two years stands up to that of her predecessors. Has she solved every problem? No, but name me one vice president who has.

We should think about our expectations for the vice presidency. It was only starting with the presidency of Jimmy Carter, and the role Vice President Walter Mondale played in foreign and domestic policy, that the job became more than a ceremonial position. Vice President Harris ranks third in breaking Senate ties (and first in the first two years in office), after John C. Calhoun and John Adams. While some claim that her duties breaking ties in the Senate have limited her scope of influence, the reality is that Ms. Harris regularly traveled the country to meet with Americans even as she cast the tiebreaking vote on key legislation to better the lives of the American people, including the Inflation Reduction Act.

To advance President Biden’s objective to strengthen America’s foreign alliances, Ms. Harris has met (mostly in person) with more than 100 world leaders to repair damage to our international relationships caused by Donald Trump. At the Munich Security Conference in February she announced that the Biden administration has formally concluded that Russia is guilty of “crimes against humanity” in its war against Ukraine and warned China not to assist Russia in its invasion. Through public-private partnerships, she helped raise over $4.2 billion to address the root cause of migration from Central America.

Ms. Harris has pushed for federal legislation to secure voting rights, worked to expand access to the child tax and earned-income tax credits, is co-leader of the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, was an integral part of the White House’s push to get Americans vaccinated against Covid, and is the chair of the National Space Council.

Questions have been raised about the fitness of just about every vice president to move into the Oval Office should the president die or is unable to continue serving for another reason. Mr. Biden knew what he was doing when he selected Ms. Harris to be his vice president and had confidence that she would be up to the task of succeeding him if necessary. I hope that never happens, but if tragedy strikes, Mr. Biden’s judgment will be proven correct.

Ms. Harris has more experience in elected office than several past presidents and vice presidents — a successful record beginning in 2004 as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general and including four years as U.S. senator. By contrast, Presidents Trump, Dwight Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant, Herbert Hoover and Zachary Taylor never held elected office before becoming president. Many other presidents had fewer years in elected office than Ms. Harris has had.

Ms. Harris has been derided by some as an affirmative-action hire, perhaps because Mr. Biden pledged to select a female running mate when he campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination.

On many occasions when people of color and women have climbed the career ladder we’ve heard criticism that they advanced only because of their race and/or gender. This was the case last year during the confirmation process for Ketanji Brown Jackson, a brilliant and extraordinarily qualified jurist who is the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

For too many Americans, the idea that nonwhites and women actually got their jobs because of their qualifications, experience and talents is hard to believe. Maybe that’s because for most of American history, white men were the only people considered for high-level jobs in what amounted to affirmative action for them.

And as the first woman, African American and Asian American to serve as vice president, Ms. Harris has arguably faced greater — and a different type — of scrutiny than previous vice presidents.

The clothes and shoes she wears, the role of her spouse (Doug Emhoff, America’s first second gentleman), the way she sometimes laughs, her cooking skills and staff turnover in her office have all drawn greater attention than her predecessors experienced.

Mr. Emhoff summarized the challenges confronting his wife in a 2021 interview. “She has faced challenges as a groundbreaker her whole career,” he said. “When you’re breaking barriers, there’s breaking involved and breaking means you might get cut sometimes, but that’s OK.”

Vice President Harris is fulfilling the dream of the empowerment of Black women advanced by the Rev. Willie T. Barrow, a Black woman who was a field organizer for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a co-chair of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition and supporter of his presidential campaigns.

Ms. Barrow, who was an inspiration to me when I was a young member of the staff on Mr. Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign, died at age 90 in 2015. She was a mentor to Mr. Obama before he entered the White House but didn’t live long enough to see Ms. Harris become vice president.

Ms. Barrow never received the accolades and fame she deserved for her work because the most visible leadership roles in the civil rights movement, government and elsewhere were reserved for men. But I have no doubt that she and other Black female civil rights pioneers paved the way for Ms. Harris to climb to the second-highest office in our government.

Vice President Harris stands on the steely, unbowed shoulders of Black women like Willie Barrow and others who broke barriers before her. It shouldn’t be so hard for a leader like Ms. Harris, so visible in the office she holds, to get some credit where credit is due.

Black History Month: John Lewis — The Last Of The True Heroes

Posted on February 23, 2023 by jilldennison under Black History Month, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, Tributes

On the night of July 17, 2020, a breaking news flash crossed my screen that took my breath, caused me to utter aloud, “NO!”, and broke my heart. Congressman John Lewis had died. Even today, reading about him, thinking about all that he stood for and all that he accomplished can bring a tear to my eye. Today’s post is a reprise of the one I wrote on that night and published the following morning. He was a man who I certainly think is deserving of being remembered for a very long time.

There are few people alive today who deserve the title ‘hero’ in every sense of the word. John Lewis was one such person.

When President Obama awarded John Lewis the Medal of Freedom in 2011, he said …

“Generations from now, when parents teach their children what is meant by courage, the story of John Lewis will come to mind — an American who knew that change could not wait for some other person or some other time; whose life is a lesson in the fierce urgency of now.”

John Robert Lewis was born in Troy, Alabama, on Feb. 21, 1940, one of 10 children of Eddie and Willie Mae Lewis. According to “March,” his three-part autobiography in graphic novel form, he dreamed from a young age of being a preacher. He was in charge of taking care of his family’s chickens and would practice sermons on them: “I preached to my chickens just about every night.” But life had other plans for young John Lewis.

John Lewis was the last of the most relevant civil rights leaders from the 1950s and 1960s. In 1955, Lewis first heard Martin Luther King, Jr. on the radio, and, when the Montgomery Bus Boycott (led by King) began later that year, Lewis closely followed the news about it. Lewis would later meet Rosa Parks when he was 17 and met King for the first time when he was 18. By the time he came of age, his path was chosen.

I could not possibly list all of Mr. Lewis’ accomplishments in this single post, but I would like to highlight a few.

As a student at American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee, Lewis first became a part of the Civil Rights Movement, organizing sit-ins at segregated lunch counters that eventually led to the desegregation of Nashville’s lunch counters.

Lewis was arrested and jailed many times in the nonviolent movement to desegregate the downtown area of the city. He was also instrumental in organizing bus boycotts and other nonviolent protests in the fight for voter and racial equality.

In 1961, Lewis became one of the 13 original Freedom Riders. There were seven whites and six blacks who were determined to ride from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans in an integrated fashion. At that time, several states of the old Confederacy still enforced laws prohibiting black and white riders from sitting next to each other on public transportation. The Freedom Ride was initiated to pressure the federal government to enforce the Supreme Court decision in Boynton v Virginia (1960) that declared segregated interstate bus travel to be unconstitutional.

In the South, Lewis and other nonviolent Freedom Riders were beaten by angry mobs, arrested at times and taken to jail. At 21 years old, Lewis was the first of the Freedom Riders to be assaulted while in Rock Hill, South Carolina. He tried to enter a whites-only waiting room and two white men attacked him, injuring his face and kicking him in the ribs. Nevertheless, only two weeks later Lewis joined a Freedom Ride that was bound for Jackson.

“We were determined not to let any act of violence keep us from our goal. We knew our lives could be threatened, but we had made up our minds not to turn back.”

Lewis was also imprisoned for forty days in the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Sunflower County, Mississippi, after participating in a Freedom Riders activity in that state. But John Lewis was not a quitter.

In Birmingham, the Riders were mercilessly beaten, and in Montgomery, an angry mob met the bus, and Lewis was hit in the head with a wooden crate.

“It was very violent. I thought I was going to die. I was left lying at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery unconscious.”

In February 2009, forty-eight years after he had been bloodied in a Greyhound station during a Freedom Ride, Lewis received an apology on national television from a white southerner, former Klansman Elwin Wilson.

In 1963, Lewis was named one of the “Big Six” leaders who were organizing the March on Washington, the occasion of Dr. King’s celebrated “I Have a Dream” speech. Lewis also spoke at the March. Discussing the occasion, historian Howard Zinn wrote:

“At the great Washington March of 1963, the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), John Lewis, speaking to the same enormous crowd that heard Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech, was prepared to ask the right question: ‘Which side is the federal government on?’ That sentence was eliminated from his speech by organizers of the March to avoid offending the Kennedy Administration. But Lewis and his fellow SNCC workers had experienced, again and again, the strange passivity of the national government in the face of Southern violence.”

In 1965, at age 25, Lewis marched with Dr. Martin Luther King from Selma to Montgomery, and was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, where he was beaten by police and knocked unconscious. When the marchers stopped to pray, the police discharged tear gas and mounted troopers charged the demonstrators, beating them with night sticks. Lewis’s skull was fractured, but he escaped across the bridge to Brown Chapel, the movement’s headquarter church in Selma. Before Lewis could be taken to the hospital, he appeared before the television cameras calling on President Johnson to intervene in Alabama. Lewis still bore the scars on his head from the incident.

In 1986, John Lewis was elected to the House of Representatives from Georgia’s fifth district, a seat he would win and hold until his death last night. He was reelected 16 times, dropping below 70 percent of the vote in the general election only once. In 1994, he defeated Republican Dale Dixon by a 38-point margin, 69%–31%. He ran unopposed in 1996, from 2004 to 2008, in 2014, and again in 2018.

Throughout his 34 years in Congress he fought for human rights, for civil rights … for your rights and mine … for our children’s and grandchildren’s. He spoke out loud and clear in favour of LGBT rights, national health insurance, gun regulation, and has often been called “the conscience of Congress.”

“My overarching duty as I declared during that 1986 campaign and during every campaign since then, has been to uphold and apply to our entire society the principles which formed the foundation of the movement to which I have devoted my entire life.”

Coming from another, that might be considered just political rhetoric, but from John Lewis, truer words were never spoken. He not only talked the talk, but he walked the walk for his entire life. The world is a little darker place today without John Lewis in it. RIP John Lewis … you are missed already.

The Legacy Of MLK — 55 Years Later

Posted on January 17, 2023 by jilldennison under education, History, Law and justice, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, voting rights

Sunday would have marked the 94^th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, had he not been gunned down at the age of 39. He was alive fewer years than he’s been dead, but his name and his work have not been forgotten. Even young people who were not born until long after his murder know the legacy of Dr. King.

Yes, his legacy lives on, and yet …

Duante Wright, age 20
George Floyd, age 46
Breonna Taylor, age 26
Atatiana Jefferson, age 28
Botham Jean, age 26
Philando Castile, age 32
Alton Sterling, age 37
Freddie Gray, age 25
Tamir Rice, age 12
Michael Brown, age 18

SAY THEIR NAMES!!!

These are but a few of the Black Americans who were killed by police, some while sleeping in their own beds, others playing in a park or stopped for a routine traffic violation. Killed for the crime of being Black. All were unarmed. Many of them I have written about previously. Today … we are no better as a nation than we were on April 4^th, 1968, the day that Dr. King was gunned down by a white ‘man’, James Earl Ray, at 6:01 p.m. on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee.

Even today, we have lawmakers doing everything in their power to disenfranchise Black people. Even today, there are ever-growing groups in this nation who believe, or claim to believe, that the only “true Americans” are white Christians. Even today, Black people are shunned by some, are considered to be of lesser intelligence. Here’s a video clip from a 1964 CBS News program Face the Nation where Dan Rather asks Dr. King a question … and the answer is prophetic.

And as Mr. Rather says in a portion of his latest newsletter …

The record shows that in the decades that followed, the grim scenario Dr. King lamented in our exchange largely came to pass. In 1968, Richard Nixon used dog whistle appeals to racism in his euphemistic “Southern Strategy” to win the White House. In the ensuing years, what had been a “Solid South” for Democrats tracing back to the Civil War became a wall of red states that helped propel Republicans to power. From Ronald Reagan’s demonizing “welfare queens” to George H.W. Bush’s Willie Horton ad, Republicans had concocted a playbook of racist appeals in order to win the white vote. With Trump, dog whistles became bullhorns.

Make no mistake, if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, he would be stigmatized as ‘woke’ and attacked accordingly.

Everything Dr. King stood for is under attack in America today. You can see it in efforts to disenfranchise voters. You can find it in the whitewashing of history and the demonization of so-called “critical race theory.” Whether it’s the banning of books, attacks on labor rights, or the death knell of affirmative action, an America of ideas, engagement, and reckoning with our past is under siege. In the sneers at “wokeness,” one finds an effort by the privileged to hold onto the positions of power they feel they are owed. It is an insult to everything Dr. King hoped to achieve.

A significant proportion of today’s Republican Party has been taken over by performative hatred, lies, and reactionary attempts to undermine American democracy. This dynamic presents new and unique challenges to our journey toward justice. Dr. King would have been fearless in denouncing these forces of hatred and autocracy.

Yesterday I posted my annual tribute to Dr. King, including a portion of his “I Have a Dream” speech. Given the lack of true progress in the 55 years since his assassination, I sadly predict that his dream will never be realized in this country. You can legislate equality and justice for all, but you cannot control how people think, and laws are only as good as the ability and willingness to enforce them.

Today there is a growing movement to stop teaching about Dr. Martin Luther King in the schools, to stop teaching about the racism that led to his works, his activism. Will people in 50 more years even know who he was, let alone what he stood for, what he did? Not if some of the current politicians have their way — they would sooner erase his name from the history books. Dr. King spent and ultimately gave his life trying to bring the people of this nation out of the darkness, but today there are those who prefer that darkness, who prefer to live in a privileged white world, who have no humanity.

Honouring Dr. Martin Luther King …

Posted on January 16, 2023 by jilldennison under History, Holidays, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, Tributes, voting rights

Today is Martin Luther King Day, a federal holiday in the United States to honour one of the greatest men who ever lived in this country. I first wrote this tribute to Dr. King in 2017, and each year I reprise it, with slight changes or minor additions, for I find that it still says exactly what I wish to say. Given the increase in racism in the United States in recent years, I think the above quote seems more apt today than ever before. Over the past year, we have seen many efforts to ban the teaching of historical racism in our schools on the grounds that it might “make white children feel bad”. BULLSHIT!!! There is more than enough blame to go ’round for the racism in this nation and we ALL must bear our share. So please, take just a minute to, if nothing else, listen once again to Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. In these troubled times, it is good to be reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream. More than ever, I wish we had a few Dr. Martin Luther Kings fighting for equality and justice for all today.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that.”

“That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on 15 January 1929. He would have been 94 years old yesterday, had he lived. On this day, we celebrate not only his life, but also his legacy. Martin Luther King Day celebrates not only Dr. King, but the movement he inspired and all those who helped move forward the notion of equal rights for ALL people, all those who worked tirelessly during the civil rights era of the 1960s, as well as those who are continuing the good fight even in this, the year 2023. Dr. King’s fight lives on, even though we have moved further away than before from his dream.

Dr. King, along with President John F. Kennedy, was the most moving speaker I have ever heard. To this day, I cannot listen to his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech without tears filling my eyes. If you haven’t heard it for a while, take a few minutes to watch/listen … I promise it will be worth your time.

This post is both a commemoration and a plea for us to carry on the work that was only begun, not yet finished, more than five decades ago. Today we should remember some of the great heroes of the civil rights movement, those who worked tirelessly, some who gave their lives, that we could all live in peace and harmony someday: Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Nelson Mandela, Nina Simone, Mary McLeod Bethune, Lena Horne, Marva Collins, Rosa Parks, W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, Roy Innes, Medgar Evers, Stepen Bantu Biko, Booker T. Washington, John Lewis, Percy Julian, Marcus Garvey, Desmond Tutu, E.D. Nixon, James Meredith, and so many more. I am willing to bet there are some on this list of whom you’ve never heard, or perhaps recognize the name but not the accomplishments. If you’re interested, you can find brief biographies of each of these and more at Biography.com .

Yet, while we celebrate the achievements of Dr. King and the others, there is still much to be done. Just look around you, read the news each day. Think about these statistics:

More than one in five black families live in households that are food insecure, compared to one in ten white families

Almost four in ten black children live in a household in poverty, nearly twice the rate of other racial groups

Among prime-age adults (ages 25 to 54), about one in five black men are not in the labor force, nearly twice the rate of other racial groups

Although blacks and whites use marijuana at approximately the same rate, blacks are over 3 and a half times more likely to get arrested for marijuana possession

For every dollar earned by a white worker, a black worker only makes 74 cents

Black families are twice as likely as whites to live in substandard housing conditions

Black college graduates now have twice the amount of debt as white college graduates

The likelihood of a black woman born in 2001 being imprisoned over the course of her lifetime is one in 18, compared to 1 in 111 for a white woman

Similarly, the likelihood of a black man being imprisoned is 1 in 3, compared to 1 in 17 for a white man

Of black children born into the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution, about half of them will still be there as adults, compared to less than one-quarter of white children

Data courtesy of the Brookings Institute – for charts and supporting details of above date, please click on link.

And of course the above data does not even touch upon the recent spate of hate crimes, racial profiling, and police shootings against African-Americans. There is still much of Dr. King’s work to be accomplished. But who is left to do this work? Most of the leaders of yore are long since gone. There are still noble and courageous people out there carrying on the programs and works of Dr. King and the others, but their voices are perhaps not as loud, and there are none so charismatic as the late Dr. King.

In the current environment of racial divisiveness, we need more than ever to carry on what Dr. King only started. Instead, the past several years have found our nation backtracking on civil and human rights in a number of areas, ranging from discriminatory travel bans against Muslims to turning a federal blind eye to intentionally racially discriminatory state voter-suppression schemes, to opposing protections for transgender people, to parents demanding a re-write of our history to salve their own consciences. I think Dr. King would be appalled if he returned to visit today.

In a speech on April 12^th, 1850, then-Senator and future President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis said:

“This Government was not founded by negroes nor for negroes, but by white men for white men.” [1]

That was wrong then, it is wrong today, and it will always be wrong. That is what Dr. Martin Luther King fought against, that is what I rail and sometimes rant against, that is why we need activists and groups dedicated to fighting for equality for all people … today, tomorrow, and forever.

Here is a bit of trivia you may not know about Dr. King …

King’s birth name was Michael, not Martin.
The civil rights leader was born Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929. In 1934, however, his father, a pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, traveled to Germany and became inspired by the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther. As a result, King Sr. changed his own name as well as that of his 5-year-old son.
King entered college at the age of 15.
King was such a gifted student that he skipped grades nine and 12 before enrolling in 1944 at Morehouse College, the alma mater of his father and maternal grandfather. Although he was the son, grandson and great-grandson of Baptist ministers, King did not intend to follow the family vocation until Morehouse president Benjamin E. Mays, a noted theologian, convinced him otherwise. King was ordained before graduating college with a degree in sociology.
King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was not his first at the Lincoln Memorial.
Six years before his iconic oration at the March on Washington, King was among the civil rights leaders who spoke in the shadow of the Great Emancipator during the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom on May 17, 1957. Before a crowd estimated at between 15,000 and 30,000, King delivered his first national address on the topic of voting rights. His speech, in which he urged America to “give us the ballot,” drew strong reviews and positioned him at the forefront of the civil rights leadership.
King was imprisoned nearly 30 times.
According to the King Center, the civil rights leader went to jail 29 times. He was arrested for acts of civil disobedience and on trumped-up charges, such as when he was jailed in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1956 for driving 30 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone.
King narrowly escaped an assassination attempt a decade before his death.
On September 20, 1958, King was in Harlem signing copies of his new book, “Stride Toward Freedom,” in Blumstein’s department store when he was approached by Izola Ware Curry. The woman asked if he was Martin Luther King Jr. After he said yes, Curry said, “I’ve been looking for you for five years,” and she plunged a seven-inch letter opener into his chest. The tip of the blade came to rest alongside his aorta, and King underwent hours of delicate emergency surgery. Surgeons later told King that just one sneeze could have punctured the aorta and killed him. From his hospital bed where he convalesced for weeks, King issued a statement affirming his nonviolent principles and saying he felt no ill will toward his mentally ill attacker.
King’s mother was also slain by a bullet.
On June 30, 1974, as 69-year-old Alberta Williams King played the organ at a Sunday service inside Ebenezer Baptist Church, Marcus Wayne Chenault Jr. rose from the front pew, drew two pistols and began to fire shots. One of the bullets struck and killed King, who died steps from where her son had preached nonviolence. The deranged gunman said that Christians were his enemy and that although he had received divine instructions to kill King’s father, who was in the congregation, he killed King’s mother instead because she was closer. The shooting also left a church deacon dead. Chenault received a death penalty sentence that was later changed to life imprisonment, in part due to the King family’s opposition to capital punishment.

Dr. King fought and ultimately gave his life for the values I believe in, the values that should define this nation, though they often do not. Dr. Martin Luther King was a hero of his time … thank you, Dr. King, for all you did, for the values you gave this nation, and for the hope you instilled in us all that your dream will someday come true.

[1] (Kendi, 2016)

Note: Our friend TokyoSand has written a post with ideas for how each of us can help carry on Dr. King’s legacy … I hope you’ll pay her a visit!

A Real Life Star Trek Hero Nichelle Nichols passes away

Posted on August 1, 2022 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, education, History, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary, Tributes

Yesterday, I read with sadness of the death of Nichelle Nichols who played Lieutenant Nyota Uhura in the long-running Star Trek series. But she was so much more than just an actress. She was instrumental in helping break the colour barrier, especially for women, not only in the entertainment field, but also within the ranks of NASA! There is much I did not know about Ms. Nichols, but our friend Keith has written an excellent tribute to her and I see no reason for me to reinvent the wheel! Thank you, Keith!

musingsofanoldfart

The following is an encore post to someone who deserves an encore – Nichelle Nichols – who passed away yesterday at the age of 89.

After the first season of the original“Star Trek”television series, African-American actress Nichelle Nichols was speaking with a prominent public figure about her role as Lt. Uhura. The public figure noted “Star Trek” was the only show he watched regularly with his children. Nichols told the man she was leaving the show, but he encouraged her to reconsider, which she did. He said you are a role model showing Blacks and Whites that there is a place for women of color in key roles in the future .His name was Martin Luther King.

She took that inspiration seriously and did far more than I ever knew until a recent documentary enlightened me. The Scyfy network has written an important piece called “NICHELLE NICHOLS’ NASA…

View original post 417 more words

Black History Month: A Very Noble Man … Mr. Dabney Montgomery

Posted on February 12, 2022 by jilldennison under Black History Month, History, Law and justice, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, Tributes

In today’s environment, it would be easy to focus during Black History Month on the wrongs that have been done throughout our history and continue even today against Black Americans. Certainly it is important to bring those stories to light, especially these days when some are trying to hide those parts of the nation’s history. But to limit my posts to only those would be wrong, for there are so many true heroes throughout our history who deserve to be recognized, to be noted. I first wrote this post on September 6th 2016, three days after the death of Mr. Dabney Montgomery, but last night I read it again and I think Mr. Montgomery deserves another spotlight, another round of applause. So, without further ado, please allow me to tell you about Mr. Dabney Montgomery …

The Tuskegee Airmen was a group of African-American military fighter and bomber pilots, as well as navigators, bombardiers, mechanics, instructors, crew chiefs, nurses, cooks and other support personnel, who fought in World War II. Officially, they formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Forces. Mr. Montgomery was a member of this group, serving as a ground crewman until the end of the war in 1945.

When he returned to his home in Selma, Alabama, after the war, Jim Crow laws and segregation were still the law of the land in the south. Having just been honourably discharged, Mr. Montgomery attempted to board a train in Atlanta to return home to his family. “Before I could get in, a white officer threw up his hand. ‘You can’t come in this door, boy, you got to go around the back.’ “ After returning home, Mr. Montgomery went to the courthouse in Selma to register to vote in the next election, but was told by a clerk that he would need the signatures of three white men before he would be allowed to register. His father, Dred, a fireman for Southern Railroad, knew three white men who were willing to sign. But when Mr. Montgomery returned to the courthouse with the signatures, yet another hurdle had been put in his way … he was told he must own at least $1,000 worth of property. He did not own property, and thus was denied the right to vote. Obviously not much had changed in the south during his time of service to his country.

Mr. Montgomery attended Livingstone College in North Carolina on the GI Bill and graduated with a degree in religious education in 1949. A man of many interests and talents, Mr. Montgomery soon ended up in Boston, where he studied dance at the Boston Conservatory of Music, and later in New York at the New York City Metropolitan Opera Dance School! Sadly, an injury soon ended his dance career, and in 1955 he went to work for the City of New York, first as a Social Service Investigator in the Department of Social Services and later for the Housing Authority.

Then one day …

“I was sitting at home in New York City and I saw that attack on people in Selma on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. They gassed them and beat them with sticks — the sheriff, the officials in their uniforms, because they was [sic] marching to the governor’s office to vote.

“And I saw them knocked down, and I saw the gas in the air, and I was sitting here — this is happening in my hometown, Selma! I said, ‘I’m going and get[ting] a taste of that gas.’

“I went to my director and said, ‘I’ve got to go home. … I’m going home to take part in that movement.’ “

The date was Sunday, 07 March 1965, and the event Mr. Montgomery saw on television would become known across the nation as “Bloody Sunday”. The previous year, 1964, the Voter’s Rights Act was passed, but African-Americans were still meeting with resistance when attempting to register to vote, and as a result, only 2% had been able to register. Dr. Martin Luther King was working with the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to register black voters. There was much resistance in Selma, and on February 17, protester Jimmy Lee Jackson was fatally shot by an Alabama state trooper. In response, a protest march from Selma to Montgomery was scheduled for March 7. Six hundred marchers assembled in Selma that Sunday, and led by John Lewis and other SNCC and SCLC activists, planned to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River en route to Montgomery. Just short of the bridge, they found their way blocked by Alabama State troopers and local police who ordered them to turn around. When the protesters refused, the officers shot teargas and waded into the crowd, beating the nonviolent protesters with billy clubs and ultimately hospitalizing over fifty people.

Mr. Montgomery had been active in the Civil Rights movement before, participating in the 1963 March on Washington, but when he returned to Selma, he jumped on the bandwagon with determination to make things better, to do whatever he could to help bring about an end to racial segregation. Within days of arriving in Selma, Mr. Montgomery connected with Dr. King, and by the beginning of the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on 21 March 1965, Mr. Montgomery had become one of Dr. King’s bodyguards. The march took four days of walking 12 hours a day, sleeping in fields along the way, protected by U.S. Army troops and Alabama National Guard forces that President Johnson had ordered.

Eventually, Mr. Montgomery returned to his job in New York City and in 1971 he married the girl of his dreams, Amelia. Mr. Montgomery retired from the New York City Housing Authority in 1988, but he did not rest on his laurels! Since his retirement, he has worked as a Social Outreach Worker for Project FIND, a non-profit organization assisting older adults on Manhattan’s West Side. Montgomery was also very active with Harlem’s Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the oldest organized black church in New York, and was also active on the Parks Committee and Harlem’s Interfaith Committee of the Tenth Community Board of Manhattan. He also frequently visited schools to talk to the children about his experiences, and according to his wife, he remained active until he became ill, just a few weeks prior to his death.

In 2007, Mr. Montgomery, along with the other Tuskegee Airmen, received the Congressional Gold Medal. The heels from the shoes he wore during the march from Selma to Montgomery will be on display in the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, which is scheduled to open the 24th of this month.

There is no official record of how many of the Tuskegee Airmen are still alive today. What is certain is that within another decade, there will likely be none left to tell the story. With that in mind, a group called The History Makers began recording, preserving and sharing the life stories of thousands of African Americans, from President Barack Obama to the oldest living black cowboy. You can hear Mr. Montgomery’s story in his own words . What a noble project! And what a noble man … my hat is off to Mr. Dabney Montgomery … Rest in Peace, sir, and thank you for your many contributions.

Republican Hypocrisy on MLK Day

Posted on January 18, 2022 by jilldennison under education, History, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, voting rights

I’m a little late posting this, but I found it in yesterday morning’s newsletter from The Root and think it is worth sharing, even late. I fully agree with Mr. Rawls … Republicans are working to destroy everything that Dr. Martin Luther King fought for and they do not have a right to so much as speak his name.

If You’re A Republican Lawmaker Planning To Post An MLK Quote On Monday, Just Don’t.

Republicans take MLK day off or better yet, tell the truth about his history.

By

Murjani Rawls

When I was a kid, I remember the first time I learned about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr–you know, the Disneyland version. There were slight mentions of protests and arrests–however, my teachers gave the most significant amount of time to King’s “I Have A Dream,” the speech he gave in 1963 at Washington D.C. and his principles of non-violence. We constantly emphasized one quote:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Then, we jumped right to his assassination in 1968—the end. But we knew everything about the American Revolution, the Boston Tea Party, and how George Washington crossed the Potomac River with his powered wig intact.

It wasn’t until I got older that I learned about the march in Selma, Alabama/”Bloody Sunday,” the Poor People’s Campaign, J. Edgar Hoover ordering surveillance of his activities with the F.B.I., or that his house got bombed in 1956. Much of that research were things to do on my own.

On M.L.K. Day Monday, there will be a lot of Republican lawmakers and congressional representatives posting the same variation of quotes. It’s either from the one I mentioned or from his “Strength To Love” sermon in 1963.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

It will be from the same cast of people actively working against voting rights legislation across the country, acting as though Jan. 6th is no big deal and further diluting what we learn with this “Critical Race Theory” movement. So, I will ask them for this holiday and others:

Just skip it. Take the day off.

Tell your intern to go ahead and delete that scheduled post. Maybe there’s a big WhatsApp chat you are all in, and you pick the quote to post. Put those notifications on silent.

Or better yet, here are a few that you can use:

From his “Letter From Birmingham Jail” in 1963:

“For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

From his “Beyond Vietnam” speech in 1967:

“The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve.”

From his “Where Do We Go From Here” speech in 1967:

“We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism are all tied together. And you can’t get rid of one without getting rid of the other.”

From his “The Other America” lecture in 1967:

“It may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law can’t make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important also.”

During Super Bowl LII, Dodge promoted their new Ram Truck in a commercial with some excerpts from King’s “Drum Major Instinct” speech in 1968–completely using them out of context. Even though, in the same address, King spoke to the evils of consumerism.

This is the climate Republicans aim for as they go through history and erase all the bad parts. Because as sunny as the “I Have A Dream” speech is made out to be, it doesn’t show the many beatings, threats, arrests, and prison time that King and many civil rights leaders endured for progress. Many ultimately lost their lives for the rights which are being attacked to this very day.

Truth feels like something you can twist to your likening these days, but history remembers everything. No matter how often you try to ignore it, themes from the past will come back if you don’t address them. The Supreme Court made a ruling in 2013 to strike down parts of the 1965 Civil Rights Act. Ironically, some of the congressional representatives who post the “feel good” MLK quotes were alive when that legislation passed and cheering as it gets broken down.

So, I say this. The facade isn’t worth it. We see right through it. You might be drafting this post as you read this, but as Jay-Z once said on Takeover, “We don’t believe you/you need more people.”

Honouring Dr. Martin Luther King …

Posted on January 17, 2022 by jilldennison under History, Holidays, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, Tributes, voting rights

Today is Martin Luther King Day, a federal holiday in the United States to honour one of the greatest men who ever lived in this country. I first wrote this tribute to Dr. King in 2017, and each year I reprise it, with slight changes or minor additions, for I find that it still says exactly what I wish to say. Given the increase in racism in the United States in recent years, I think the above quote seems more apt today than ever before. So please, take just a minute to, if nothing else, listen once again to Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. In these troubled times, it is good to be reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream. More than ever, I wish we had a few Dr. Martin Luther Kings fighting for equality and justice for all today.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that.”

“That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on 15 January 1929. He would have been 93 years old last Wednesday, had he lived. On this day, we celebrate not only his life, but also his legacy. Martin Luther King Day celebrates not only Dr. King, but the movement he inspired and all those who helped move forward the notion of equal rights for ALL people, all those who worked tirelessly during the civil rights era of the 1960s, as well as those who are continuing the good fight even in this, the year 2022. Dr. King’s fight lives on, for we have moved further away than before from his dream.

Yet, while we celebrate the achievements of Dr. King and the others, there is still much to be done. Just look around you, read the news each day. Think about these statistics:

More than one in five black families live in households that are food insecure, compared to one in ten white families

Almost four in ten black children live in a household in poverty, nearly twice the rate of other racial groups

Among prime-age adults (ages 25 to 54), about one in five black men are not in the labor force, nearly twice the rate of other racial groups

Although blacks and whites use marijuana at approximately the same rate, blacks are over 3 and a half times more likely to get arrested for marijuana possession

For every dollar earned by a white worker, a black worker only makes 74 cents

Black families are twice as likely as whites to live in substandard housing conditions

Black college graduates now have twice the amount of debt as white college graduates

The likelihood of a black woman born in 2001 being imprisoned over the course of her lifetime is one in 18, compared to 1 in 111 for a white woman

Similarly, the likelihood of a black man being imprisoned is 1 in 3, compared to 1 in 17 for a white man

Of black children born into the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution, about half of them will still be there as adults, compared to less than one-quarter of white children

Data courtesy of the Brookings Institute – for charts and supporting details of above date, please click on link.

In a speech on April 12^th, 1850, then-Senator and future President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis said:

“This Government was not founded by negroes nor for negroes, but by white men for white men.” [1]

Here is a bit of trivia you may not know about Dr. King …

King’s birth name was Michael, not Martin.
The civil rights leader was born Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929. In 1934, however, his father, a pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, traveled to Germany and became inspired by the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther. As a result, King Sr. changed his own name as well as that of his 5-year-old son.
King entered college at the age of 15.
King was such a gifted student that he skipped grades nine and 12 before enrolling in 1944 at Morehouse College, the alma mater of his father and maternal grandfather. Although he was the son, grandson and great-grandson of Baptist ministers, King did not intend to follow the family vocation until Morehouse president Benjamin E. Mays, a noted theologian, convinced him otherwise. King was ordained before graduating college with a degree in sociology.
King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was not his first at the Lincoln Memorial.
Six years before his iconic oration at the March on Washington, King was among the civil rights leaders who spoke in the shadow of the Great Emancipator during the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom on May 17, 1957. Before a crowd estimated at between 15,000 and 30,000, King delivered his first national address on the topic of voting rights. His speech, in which he urged America to “give us the ballot,” drew strong reviews and positioned him at the forefront of the civil rights leadership.
King was imprisoned nearly 30 times.
According to the King Center, the civil rights leader went to jail 29 times. He was arrested for acts of civil disobedience and on trumped-up charges, such as when he was jailed in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1956 for driving 30 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone.
King narrowly escaped an assassination attempt a decade before his death.
On September 20, 1958, King was in Harlem signing copies of his new book, “Stride Toward Freedom,” in Blumstein’s department store when he was approached by Izola Ware Curry. The woman asked if he was Martin Luther King Jr. After he said yes, Curry said, “I’ve been looking for you for five years,” and she plunged a seven-inch letter opener into his chest. The tip of the blade came to rest alongside his aorta, and King underwent hours of delicate emergency surgery. Surgeons later told King that just one sneeze could have punctured the aorta and killed him. From his hospital bed where he convalesced for weeks, King issued a statement affirming his nonviolent principles and saying he felt no ill will toward his mentally ill attacker.
King’s mother was also slain by a bullet.
On June 30, 1974, as 69-year-old Alberta Williams King played the organ at a Sunday service inside Ebenezer Baptist Church, Marcus Wayne Chenault Jr. rose from the front pew, drew two pistols and began to fire shots. One of the bullets struck and killed King, who died steps from where her son had preached nonviolence. The deranged gunman said that Christians were his enemy and that although he had received divine instructions to kill King’s father, who was in the congregation, he killed King’s mother instead because she was closer. The shooting also left a church deacon dead. Chenault received a death penalty sentence that was later changed to life imprisonment, in part due to the King family’s opposition to capital punishment.

[1] (Kendi, 2016)

Note: Our friend TokyoSand has written a post with ideas for how each of us can help carry on Dr. King’s legacy … I hope you’ll pay her a visit!

The World I Dream Of

Posted on April 25, 2021 by jilldennison under animals, Bits 'n Pieces, education, Environmental Issues, Global Issues, guns, History, Personal, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

On August 28^th, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington. An excerpt … perhaps the most memorable lines …

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

That was in 1963, nearly 58 years ago, and today we are no closer to realizing Dr. King’s dream than we were then. I once thought we were headed in the right direction, but I no longer believe that. I have my own dream …

I dream of a world without guns, where people are well enough educated to be able to use words instead of weapons to resolve their differences. I dream of a world where nuclear weapons have been destroyed forever, where armies and navies have been disbanded due to lack of need, and where instead of building warships and bombs, we are building housing for people in need, hospitals and schools in poor areas.

I dream of a world where national boundaries don’t exist. This is not to say people cannot take pride in the history of their geographical region, but rather where people respect and cherish everyone, not just those who have a shared background or ethnicity. I dream of a world where we are building bridges instead of walls.

I dream of a world where everyone pulls together to ensure that nobody anywhere on the globe goes to bed hungry, where medical care is available to all without charge. I dream of a world where the environment is more important to everyone than technical gadgetry, air travel, expensive cars, fancy clothes, etc.

I dream of a world where people think more about planting trees than about a vacation to the beach.

But most of all, I dream of a world where people are humans, not hateful warriors, not bigots, not violent, just human. In my dream world, people fall in love and it doesn’t matter to anybody else who they choose to love. Same sex, different skin colour … no matter. It’s nobody’s business.

I’ve lived in this world for nearly 70 years now, and frankly I’m tired of it all. I’m tired of seeing people accumulate wealth for no reason other than to be on the Forbes list of richest people in the world. I’m tired of seeing the arrogance of people with paler skin who believe they are somehow ‘better’ or ‘entitled’. I’m tired of seeing religious leaders lie to their followers, telling them to shun others because they think or act differently, giving them a false sense of superiority. I’m tired of police gunning down unarmed Black men because … just because they know they can get away with it.

I’m sick and tired of people who hunt wild animals for sport, for bragging rights. I’m equally sick and tired of people who kill other people just because they had a bad day, or didn’t like the other person’s skin colour, hair style, or … whatever excuse they make.

I’m tired of men who abuse women, who still somehow believe they are entitled to dominance over women. And I’m equally tired of women who allow men to do this, for we have the power to put a stop to it.

There are many good people in this world … I write about them every Wednesday. But there is more wrong with the world than there is right at the moment, and I’m tired of living in a world where each day brings new abominations around the globe created by human greed. It doesn’t have to be this way! Humans in all their arrogance and greed are on the brink of bringing about the extinction of their own species if they don’t get serious about protecting the environment. Some days I think maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Filosofa's Word

Cogito Ergo Sum

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