Monday, May 30, 2011

Author: Blacks Held First Memorial Day in 1865

Black Buzz News Service
Charleston, South Carolina
May 30, 2011

Date: Friday, May 27, 2011, 5:40 am
By: Denise Stewart, BlackAmericaWeb.com

Three years before the commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic called on Union veterans’ organizations to decorate the graves of dead soldiers, blacks in Charleston, South Carolina in 1865 launched the first Decoration Day in honor of the Union’s war dead, says Yale University history professor David Blight.

“That ceremony on May 1, 1865 was actually the first recorded Decoration Day or Memorial Day,” said Blight, author of several books, including "Reunion and Race."

Today, the national observance on the last Monday in May still serves as a day to remember those who died in wars. It’s also mixed with parades, picnics and other displays of patriotism.

Blight was in a Harvard University library doing research for "Reunion and Race" about 15 years ago when he stumbled across a box of unorganized papers of a Union veterans’ organization and a folder with the words “First Decoration Day” written on it.

He sifted through those papers and landed on a research path that would take him to South Carolina and the former Washington Race Course and Jockey Club, a place that was once a prestigious horse racing course for the state’s low country planters and others in the wealthy, aristocratic class.

During the Civil War, that track was turned into a prison for Union soldiers. Many died there, but were not buried properly, Blight said.

Following the Confederate surrender ending the Civil War, blacks went to the place where hundreds of prisoners had been buried, many in mass graves.

“Blacks, many of them recently freed slaves, buried the soldiers properly. They put up a fence around the area and painted it. More than 260 were buried there. We don’t know the names. We don’t know the race,” Blight told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Following the burials, there was a ceremony.
Blight found more information about the rites in old newspapers and magazines such as Harper’s Weekly. Several large newspapers from the North would send reporters into the South to cover the war and its aftermath, with some writing narratives with great detail, Blight said.

“At 9 a.m. on May 1, a procession stepped off, led by 3,000 black schoolchildren carrying arm loads of roses and singing. The children were followed by several hundred black women with baskets of flowers, wreaths and crosses. Then came black men marching in cadence, followed by contingents of Union infantry and other black and white citizens," Blight said. “As many as possible gathered in the cemetery enclosure; a children’s' choir sang 'We'll Rally Around the Flag,' 'The Star-Spangled Banner' and several spirituals before several black ministers read from scripture. This was their way of saying what the war meant to me and what America means to me. They were now freed men and women.”

According to Blight, they paid tribute to the dead on the very grounds where the wealthy enjoyed the good life.

“Some of their former owners probably went to the track," he said. "Some of the people who buried the dead soldiers and carried flowers may have even worked at the track.”

Finding an account of the celebration at the track led by blacks proved to be quite difficult for Blight, at first.

“That shows that some parts of history can be lost, depending on who is in control,” Blight said. “You have to realize that the white Democrats in South Carolina soon returned to power. The Republicans were out of office. The blacks were out of office. Southerners did not want to remember the war, especially through an event such as this.”

Recognition of the Memorial Day event finally did come to Charleston. Last year, a historic marker was placed on the grounds, now .....
the site of a park located near the Citadel, a prestigious military academy.


Blight was invited to speak at the dedication of the marker, along with Bernard Powers, a history professor at the College of Charleston.

The dead who had been buried on the racetrack grounds were reinterred a few years after the Decoration Day and buried in a national cemetery in the 1880s.

But memories of those blacks and whites who died fighting in the war and those who paid tribute to fallen Union soldiers the first time have not gone away, Blight said.

“This shows that even at a time when blacks did not know what the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution would mean for them, they appreciated those who fought so that they all would have a right to claim this as their country – those who died a terrible death so that they could be free.”

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

The Obama Deception: Why Cornel West Went Ballistic

Black Buzz News Service
West Warick, Rhode Island
May 24, 2011

Posted on May 16, 2011
By Chris Hedges

The moral philosopher Cornel West, if Barack Obama’s ascent to power was a morality play, would be the voice of conscience. Rahm Emanuel, a cynical product of the Chicago political machine, would be Satan. Emanuel in the first scene of the play would dangle power, privilege, fame and money before Obama. West would warn Obama that the quality of a life is defined by its moral commitment, that his legacy will be determined by his willingness to defy the cruel assault by the corporate state and the financial elite against the poor and working men and women, and that justice must never be sacrificed on the altar of power.

Perhaps there was never much of a struggle in Obama’s heart. Perhaps West only provided a moral veneer. Perhaps the dark heart of Emanuel was always the dark heart of Obama. Only Obama knows. But we know how the play ends. West is banished like honest Kent in “King Lear.” Emanuel and immoral mediocrities from Lawrence Summers to Timothy Geithner to Robert Gates—think of Goneril and Regan in the Shakespearean tragedy—take power. We lose. And Obama becomes an obedient servant of the corporate elite in exchange for the hollow trappings of authority.

No one grasps this tragic descent better than West, who did 65 campaign events for Obama, believed in the potential for change and was encouraged by the populist rhetoric of the Obama campaign. He now nurses, like many others who placed their faith in Obama, the anguish of the deceived, manipulated and betrayed. He bitterly describes Obama as “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. And now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it.”

“When you look at a society you look at it through the lens of the least of these, the weak and the vulnerable; you are committed to loving them first, not exclusively, but first, and therefore giving them priority,” says West, the Class of 1943 University Professor of African American Studies and Religion at Princeton University. “And even at this moment, when the empire is in deep decline, the culture is in deep decay, the political system is broken, where nearly everyone is up for sale, you say all I have is the subversive memory of those who came before, personal integrity, trying to live a decent life, and a willingness to live and die for the love of folk who are catching hell. This means civil disobedience, going to jail, supporting progressive forums of social unrest if they in fact awaken the conscience, whatever conscience is left, of the nation. And that’s where I find myself now.

“I have to take some responsibility,” he admits of his support for Obama as we sit in his book-lined office. “I could have been reading into it more than was there.

“I was thinking maybe he has at least some progressive populist instincts that could become more manifest after the cautious policies of being a senator and working with [Sen. Joe] Lieberman as his mentor,” he says. “But it became very clear when I looked at the neoliberal economic team. The first announcement of Summers and Geithner I went ballistic. I said, ‘Oh, my God, I have really been misled at a very deep level.’ And the same is true for Dennis Ross and the other neo-imperial elites. I said, ‘I have been thoroughly misled, all this populist language is just a facade. I was under the impression that he might bring in the voices of brother Joseph Stiglitz and brother Paul Krugman. I figured, OK, given the structure of constraints of the capitalist democratic procedure that’s probably the best he could do. But at least he would have some voices concerned about working people, dealing with issues of jobs and downsizing and banks, some semblance of democratic accountability for Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats who are just running amuck. I was completely wrong.”

West says the betrayal occurred on two levels.

“There is the personal level,” he says. “I used to call my dear brother [Obama] every two weeks. I said a prayer on the phone for him, especially before a debate. And I never got a call back. And when I ran into him in the state Capitol in South Carolina when I was down there campaigning for him he was very kind. The first thing he told me was, ‘Brother West, I feel so bad. I haven’t called you back. You been calling me so much. You been giving me so much love, so much support and what have you.’ And I said, ‘I know you’re busy.’ But then a month and half later I would run into other people on the campaign and he’s calling them all the time. I said, wow, this is kind of strange. He doesn’t have time, even two seconds, to say thank you or I’m glad you’re pulling for me and praying for me, but he’s calling these other people. I said, this is very interesting. And then as it turns out with the inauguration I couldn’t get a ticket with my mother and my brother. I said this is very strange. We drive into the hotel and the guy who picks up my bags from the hotel has a ticket to the inauguration. My mom says, ‘That’s something that this dear brother can get a ticket and you can’t get one, honey, all the work you did for him from Iowa.’ Beginning in Iowa to Ohio. We had to watch the thing in the hotel.

“What it said to me on a personal level,” he goes on, “was that brother Barack Obama had no sense of gratitude, no sense of loyalty, no sense of even courtesy, [no] sense of decency, just to say thank you. Is this the kind of manipulative, Machiavellian orientation we ought to get used to? That was on a personal level.”


But there was also the betrayal on the political and ideological level.

“It became very clear to me as the announcements were being made,” he says, “that this was going to be a newcomer, in many ways like Bill Clinton, who wanted to reassure the Establishment by bringing in persons they felt comfortable with and that we were really going to get someone who was using intermittent progressive populist language in order to justify a centrist, neoliberalist policy that we see in the opportunism of Bill Clinton. It was very much going to be a kind of black face of the DLC [Democratic Leadership Council].”

Obama and West’s last personal contact took place a year ago at a gathering of the Urban League when, he says, Obama “cussed me out.” Obama, after his address, which promoted his administration’s championing of charter schools, approached West, who was seated in the front row.

“He makes a bee line to me right after the talk, in front of everybody,” West says. “He just lets me have it. He says, ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, saying I’m not a progressive. Is that the best you can do? Who do you think you are?’ I smiled. I shook his hand. And a sister hollered in the back, ‘You can’t talk to professor West. That’s Dr. Cornel West. Who do you think you are?’ You can go to jail talking to the president like that. You got to watch yourself. I wanted to slap him on the side of his head.

“It was so disrespectful,” he went on, “that’s what I didn’t like. I’d already been called, along with all [other] leftists, a “F’ing retard” by Rahm Emanuel because we had critiques of the president.”

Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president, has, West said, phoned him to complain about his critiques of Obama. Jarrett was especially perturbed, West says, when he said in an interview last year that he saw a lot of Malcolm X and Ella Baker in Michelle Obama. Jarrett told him his comments were not complimentary to the first lady.

“I said in the world that I live in, in that which authorizes my reality, Ella Baker is a towering figure,” he says, munching Fritos and sipping apple juice at his desk. “If I say there is a lot of Ella Baker in Michelle Obama, that’s a compliment. She can take it any way she wants. I can tell her I’m sorry it offended you, but I’m going to speak the truth. She is a Harvard Law graduate, a Princeton graduate, and she deals with child obesity and military families. Why doesn’t she visit a prison? Why not spend some time in the hood? That is where she is, but she can’t do it.

“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,” West says. “It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation. When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening. And that’s true for a white brother. When you get a white brother who meets a free, independent black man, they got to be mature to really embrace fully what the brother is saying to them. It’s a tension, given the history. It can be overcome. Obama, coming out of Kansas influence, white, loving grandparents, coming out of Hawaii and Indonesia, when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. It is understandable.

“He feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want,” he says. “He’s got two homes. He has got his family and whatever challenges go on there, and this other home. Larry Summers blows his mind because he’s so smart. He’s got Establishment connections. He’s embracing me. It is this smartness, this truncated brilliance, that titillates and stimulates brother Barack and makes him feel at home. That is very sad for me.

“This was maybe America’s last chance to fight back against the greed of the Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats, to generate some serious discussion about public interest and common good that sustains any democratic experiment,” West laments. “We are squeezing out all of the democratic juices we have. The escalation of the class war against the poor and the working class is intense. More and more working people are beaten down. They are world-weary. They are into self-medication. They are turning on each other. They are scapegoating the most vulnerable rather than confronting the most powerful. It is a profoundly human response to panic and catastrophe. I thought Barack Obama could have provided some way out. But he lacks backbone.

“Can you imagine if Barack Obama had taken office and deliberately educated and taught the American people about the nature of the financial catastrophe and what greed was really taking place?” West asks. “If he had told us what kind of mechanisms of accountability needed to be in place, if he had focused on homeowners rather than investment banks for bailouts and engaged in massive job creation he could have nipped in the bud the right-wing populism of the tea party folk. The tea party folk are right when they say the government is corrupt. It is corrupt. Big business and banks have taken over government and corrupted it in deep ways.

“We have got to attempt to tell the truth, and that truth is painful,” he says. “It is a truth that is against the thick lies of the mainstream. In telling that truth we become so maladjusted to the prevailing injustice that the Democratic Party, more and more, is not just milquetoast and spineless, as it was before, but thoroughly complicitous with some of the worst things in the American empire. I don’t think in good conscience I could tell anybody to vote for Obama. If it turns out in the end that we have a crypto-fascist movement and the only thing standing between us and fascism is Barack Obama, then we have to put our foot on the brake. But we’ve got to think seriously of third-party candidates, third formations, third parties.

“Our last hope is to generate a democratic awakening among our fellow citizens. This means raising our voices, very loud and strong, bearing witness, individually and collectively. Tavis [Smiley] and I have talked about ways of civil disobedience, beginning with ways for both of us to get arrested, to galvanize attention to the plight of those in prisons, in the hoods, in poor white communities. We must never give up. We must never allow hope to be eliminated or suffocated.”

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Fryeburg Academy, Maine 1962 Track & Field Team Featuring Record Breakers Charlie Robitalle In The High Jump, and Ronald B. Saunders in the 100 Yard Dash

BLACK BUZZ SPORTS NEWS SERVICE
The Ronald B. Saunders Project
The Saunders Family Archives
FRYEBURG, MAINE
Special Report


 PORTLAND MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM
                         MAY 27, 1962




         The 1962 Fryeburg Academy Track Team, Fryeburg Maine.

        For more information on the Track Career of Ronald B. Saunders read:

BlackBuzz's Track Career dated March 2, 2009  at http://blackbuzz.blogspot.com/

Note: I ran on a cinder track at the Maine State Prep School Meet. Our track at Fryeburg Academy was a dirt Horse Track, which was designed and built for horses.
Times on cinder tracks are much slower than today's high tech Synthetic Solid Polyurethane and Rubber tracks which are very fast. I never ran on a Asphalt track which is also much faster than a cinder track or dirt track which is for horses.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Obama's 60 Minutes Interview On May 8, 2011

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
College Park, Maryland
May 12, 2011
BBNS


  President Obama's performance on 60 Minutes on May 8, was all about style and weak empty rhetoric. Mr. Obama tried to show that he was decisive and a real leader which the Republicans have been saying he is not.
 I would like for you all folks who believe in the Obama Presidency to explain to me how the most advanced technological country in the world could take ten years to find Osama Bin Laden?
The United States of America put over 100,000 troops, Drones, Aircraft, Crypto Gear to find bin Laden and quash his movement, and we are still engaged in fighting an enemy that is largely do to the USA's making.
George W. Bush and Barack Obama have failed in the mission to defeat Al- Qaeda and the Taliban at a huge cost in lives and treasure. There is nothing President Obama can say to appease me, except a date certain when all of the U.S. troops are going to leave Afghanistan.
The raid by the SEALS on the bin Laden compound was all strategically timed by Obama to boost his ratings in the public opinion polls, which will give him a tremendous elevation going into the 2012 election. No one is fooled by Obama's deception.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies the Afghanistan War is now the largest in U.S. history which has cost the American taxpayers $ 455 billion dollars, not including debt-service on the money borrowed to fight it.
1,413 American soldiers and Marines have been killed and 9, 997 wounded.
The Taliban has showed governments in 33 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.
The enemy initiated more than 21,000 attacks in 2009, a 75 percent increase from the previous year.
IED ( roadside bomb) attacks in the first four months of 2010 were 94 percent higher than during the same period in 2009.
Insurgents assassinated seven people per week in the first four months of 2010, twice the number of assassinations over the same period in 2009.
The Afghan interior minister last year designated as " safe"nine of the country's 364 districts.
Tailban attacks against Coalition forces between September 2009 and March 2010 were up by 83 percent over the same period the previous year, with attacks against civilians up by 72 percent.
As of September 2010, 10 units of the Afghan Army were considered effective with U.S. assistance and nine units remained dependent upon U.S. forces to perform basic military operations beyond standing post (American trainers are still teaching illiterate Afghan officers basic reading skills).
How much money have the thousands of U.S. and foreign contractors and sub-contractors made in the last ten years in Afghanistan?
 Is this the change you voted for? Or is Obama's Afghan war just more of the same?

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

HILL CITY YOUTH MUNICIPALITY-Friendly Service Bureau, Department Of Public Safety, Pittsburgh PA. The James S. Robinson Jr. Project

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
Special Report
James S. Robinson, Jr. Project
Pittsburgh PA.
July 1, 2010
BBNS
Pittsburgh PA..... Blogger Black Buzz's father James S. Robinson, Jr. was employed by nationally acclaimed Hill City Municipality from 1942 to 1953.
The James S. Robinson Jr. Project-Part II HILL CITY


HILL CITY OFFICIALS
HONORARY PRESIDENT
Hon. David L. Lawrence
Mayor of Pittsburgh
PRESIDENT
Louis Little, Esq.
VICE PRESIDENTS
COL. George E.A. Fairley
Hon. Lois Mary McBride
P.L. Prattis
SECRETARY
Paul F. Jones, Esq.
TREASURER
James B. Fleming
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Thomas Barton, Esq.......................R. R. King
Andrew Berhard.............................William Koehler
William Block..................................Hon. Artemus C. Leslie
Jacques Blum.................................. Mrs Daisy Lampkin
Mrs William E. Booth.....................Charles C. McCarey
Mrs. George H. Born......................Frederick C. McKee
Miss Eugenia Brunot.....................Miss Adeline McKibben
Miss Ella M. Carnahan.................James F. Mcknight
Dr. Charles H. Carroll..................Walter C. Monaghan
Andrew L. Charles......................... Dr. John H. Mogart
Richard J. Cook.............................Mrs. John M. Philips
George W. Culberson.................... Edward J. Priddy
Willaim H. Davis.......................... Walter J. Rome
Lonnie Fisher.................................Levi Saunders
Joseph C. Fitzpatrick....................Hon. Gustav L. Schramm
Gurdon F. Flagg........................... Harvey Scott
Rev. C.H. Foggie........................... Hon.Cornelius D. Scully
Mrs. Robert J. Frank...................Mrs Joseph D. Schuman
Sig J. Hahn................................... Mrs Joseph R. Silberstein
John H. Harris.............................. M. A. Silver
Harry Hendel................................ Emanuel Spector
Mrs Alma Illery............................. W. Wendell Stanton. Esq.
Henry J. Jackson........................... Rev. H.R. Tolliver
Oliver L. Johnson, Esq..................Mrs. Robert L. Vann
Mrs John J. Kane........................... Rev. O.M. Walton
John Kappel....................................Rev. J. O. Williams
Hon. Thomas E. Kilgallen..............Robert E. Williams
Hon. A. L. Wolk
Administrative Staff
SUPERVISOR
*James S. Robinson, Jr.
ASSISTANT SUPERVISORS
James H. Williams
John A. Cundieff
Eunice W. Cook
2038 Bedford Avenue * AT lantic 5908
Hill City
what it is
what is does
how it affects you !

What is is.....
Hill City, is a formally chartered organization, a youth municipality devoted to the prevention of juvenile crime and delinquency. During the depression era, the number and variety of crimes committed by youths increased alarmingly throughout the city, and particularly in the Hill District, where 80 percent of the inhabitants were dependent upon government dole and the remaining 20 percent were existing on an average of $ 20.00 per week per family. False fire alarms alone cost the city thousands of dollars. Business houses, schools, and private homes were looted. Vandalism was rampant. Youth gangs were well organized and numerous. A group of public spirited citizens met to consider ways and means to meet this emergency. Police officials, judges, lawyers, educators, social workers, and business men attended this meeting. The result was Hill City. The idea was great one. It worked. Juvenile crime began to drop rapidly. The idea has since been copied by other cities in the United States of America.

Four college trained social workers, attached to the Friendly Service Bureau of the Public Safety Department of the city of Pittsburgh are sworn in by the Director of Public Safety to supervise and control the management of the building and activities of the boys and; girls of Hill City. Through the generosity of civic-minded citizens who are keenly interested in the prevention of juvenile delinquency, a building at 2038 Bedford Avenue, Pittsburgh was recently purchased.

What It does
Hill City functions as a city within a city. It is governed by the youth themselves, under the supervision of trained workers attached to the Pittsburgh Department of Public Safety. Hill City has its own Mayor or, Council, Judges, District Attorney, Police, and every department and bureau found in the City of Pittsburgh. Through this organization the citizens are taught good citizenship and the value of leading constructive lives. They in turn attempt to lead their friends into ways of good citizenship.
Hill City conducts vocational training and provides recreation for the delinquent or problem child as well as for its citizens.

How it Affects you....

Its work saves the City, of Pittsburgh an estimated 25,000.00 annually by the prevention of fires and false fire alarms.
It has reduced shoplifting in the downtown stores about 63 per cent.
It has reduced gang activities 96 per cent.
It has reduced vandalism more than 60 per cent.
A decrease in Juvenile court costs in the County courts, has been attributed to the efforts, of Hill City.
Unestimated amounts in property damage have been saved by the prevention of riots, among both juveniles and adults.
Many children have been saved from reform school and made decent, law abiding citizens through the efforts of Hill City.
All this saves YOU money !

The James S. Robinson, Jr. Project Part II

New Training Course Starts At Hill City, The Pittsburgh Courier, May 12, 1944.
Junior Firemen

Big Factor
Down False Alarms
What's Halloween without at least a few false fire alarms and police calls reporting the garbage can stolen.
Hill District people know. The night of October 31, last was a quiet one on the Hill, with much of the credit going to Hill City's " municipal government" and particularly to members of the Junior Fire Department who have roamed and terraced streets up there for the past eight years, investigating false alarms, reporting loiterers about call boxes, and otherwise policing the area.
Six Months Course Starts
About 20 boys form the Junior Fire Department under Chief Stanley Kane, Assistant Chief Herman Durr, and Captains Floyd James and George Hugley. The chief and his assistants have been trained at the Fire School Academy of the City of Pittsburgh in the Chamber of Commerce building and pass along their knowledge of the city fire-alarm system to the firemen who educate the entire neighborhood.
Last night the Junior Fire Department with its personnel changing, began a six-months' training course for new members at Hill City, the famed juvenile youth municipality of the Friendly Service Bureau, Department of Public Safety.
City Within a City
Hill City functions as a city-within-a-city, with a major, council, and judiciary elected yearly. James S. said last night night that his fire Department, working in conjunction
Robinson, Jr. director of Hill City,
with the " Bureau of Investigation" and other of the municipality's agencies, has reduced the number of false alarms in the Hill district from 16 a month to less than two a month, saving the City of Pittsburgh $ 15,000 annually.  Assistants to Mr. Robinson are James H. Williams, John A.Cundieff and Eunice Cook.
 The above weapons were taken from Gang members. When my dad started at Hill City in 1942 there were 26 organized gangs in the Hill District. When my dad left Hill City in 1953 there were zero gangs in the Hill District.
In 1955 there were two main gangs in the Hill District, the Cavaliers and the Cherokees along with a wannabee gang called the Jr. Ace's

Deshon VA Hospital Donates Recreational Equipment To The Paul Lawrence Dunbar Community Center In Butler PA

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
The James S. Robinson Jr. Project
The James S. Robinson Paper
The Robinson/ Saunders Archives
Butler PA
May 18, 2011



The above picture appeared in the Butler Eagle Newspaper on July2, 1954.
  
SOROPTMIST PRESIDENT- Miss Margaret Wolf, chief of nursing service at Deshon VA Hospital is a pictured presenting to James S. Robinson, director of Dunbar Community Center, educational and recreational equipment to value of $400 , representing a mjor portion of the proceeds of Soroptimist Rose Day here last November. Others in the picture are Mrs. Walter A. Haug,, Soroptimist corresponding secretary and Charles H. Banks, preisdent of the Board of Dunbar Center.

Friday, May 13, 2011

THE INTERMEDIATE LEAGUE OF BUTLER: Gives A Check To James S. Robinson Jr.,Director Of the Dunbar Community Center in Butler Pa.

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
The James S. Robinson Jr. Project
The James S. Robinson Papers
The Robinson and Saunders Archives
Butler, PA
May 13, 2011



                  PICTURE OF ABOVE

THE INTERMEDIATE LEAGUE OF BUTLER--presents James S. Robinson director of the Dunbar Community Center with a check for $8oo to be used necessary arts and crafts materials and other special equipment at the Center.
Money for the gift was realized from the recent Antiques Show and Sale sponsored by the Intermediate League.
Presenting the check are Mrs Ralph F. Bush, Antiques Show and Sale chairman and Mrs Kenneth L. Wolfgong, welfare chairman of the Intermediate League.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The Destructive Myth of a Post Racist America & the Devil Americans Ignore

Black Buzz News Service
College Park, Maryland
May 11, 2011

By: Solomon Comissiong

There is a well know saying that goes, “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.” Pretty self explanatory adage, huh? By not believing in the “devil” mankind would let its guard down by assuming the threats of evil were reduced simply because the devil did not exist. Whether one believes in the devil or not, the threat of evil still exist in myriad forms—obliviousness to evil only increases one’s vulnerability to malevolence. In 2011 a disbelief in the existence of a very real evil is hurting a great many people similar to the way carbon monoxide can quietly sneak up on someone and inflict lethal damage. This evil is as real as the people that created it, and those who continue to perpetuate it. This evil, that predominately harms people of color—-is none other than institutional racism. Institutional racism is not hate based language, it is much more harmful.

In 2011 we cannot afford to base the myth of a living in a post racist society upon hate language. In fact, many people of color who continue to suffer as a result of living within an institutionally racist nation have never been called nigger, coon, spic, or the like. Terms like nigger, coon, and spic have commonly been used by white people to describe people of color—usually because those same white people are coming to grips with their own inferiority complexes and inner demons. It is not only about ignorance, as some people use as an excuse to explain why many white people use those terms to describe people of color; it is about hate—plain and simple. Not only do they hate people of color, they are conflicted with demons swirling around their own self-hatred. They continue to use these petty terms as a means of deflecting their own shortcomings to someone else—-in this case that someone is anyone that looks differently from them or has vastly different cultural norms. Nonetheless it is not hate based terms that inflict the most damaging effects upon people of color—it is the institutionalization of white people’s hatred that causes the most damage. In essence, it is the very reason their inaccurate and hate-based propaganda keeps getting recycled within most of America’s public school systems—they are institutionally racist and white supremacist to their core.

Institutional racism within America’s schools creates, and then promulgates heroes out of known murders, slave owners, and rapists, such as Christopher Columbus, George Washington, and Andrew Jackson—to name a few of many. These barbarians just happened to inflict the brunt of their assault on humanity upon the lives of Africans and Indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere. One has to wonder if they would be extolled if they committed that kind of carnage upon other white people…probably not. Kill, rape, and enslave Africans—you get enshrined as national heroes. Murder, plunder land, and mutilate Native Americans—you get US holidays named after you. The common denominators rest upon the monsters being white and the victims being of color. Any humane society would never accept this, however within countries that lack morality this is a way of life supported by every major institution within it (schools, government, media, etc). Why you may ask…because every major institution within the US has been infected with the societal cancers of racism and white supremacy.

Institutional racism in America, in many ways, functions like an actual cancer. Institutional racism kills just like cancer kills. Cancer slowly and systematically, if uninterrupted by aggressive treatment, robs the host body of essential tissue and cells it needs to survive. Institutional racism robs communities of color of the ability to determine their own destinies. In essence, they are robbed of human rights—-life, liberty and their collective pursuit of happiness. Those who support institutional racism, or are too socially limited to recognize it, often point to limited examples of black entertainers (athletes, actors, musicians) to feebly “prove” that racism is a thing of the past, meanwhile never addressing the masses of black people who reside within governmentally neglected communities (ghettos, slums). These intellectually dishonest people want no part of constructive dialogue that rests on substantive facts that unequivocally substantiate the large chasm of racial inequality throughout the United States. They insist in not recognizing information that sheds light on the fact that in 2011 African-Americans earn roughly 60 cents to every dollar their white counterparts make. These people are not simply the right wing Republicans some may envision; they are also white liberals. White liberals like to masquerade around as if they are “friends” to the black community; however they policies and actions speak louder than words. When it all boils down, white liberals, themselves, don’t even speak about institutional racism. Year after year African-Americans die unarmed by way of rampant police brutality. Year after year African-American communities are broken up via targeted gentrification. And year after year African-Americans are targeted by a vastly flawed criminal “justice” system to serve as a viable cheap labor force within America’s prison industry complex. All of these things continue to happen simultaneously and yet no targeted national platform, from the Democratic Party, to eradicate these man-made evils. Democrats are no better than Republicans when it comes to tangible progressive change. They are as comfortable with the metastasizing cancer of institutional racism as are their Republican counterparts. They are conniving frauds and the sooner the black community divorces itself from the Democratic Party, the better!

Institutional racism is in fact, as American as apple pie. Those who claim that the US is now a “post racial/racist society” are playing their part in perpetuating this evil. The US corporate media is a sizable part of the problem. They routinely and methodically ignore any substantive coverage of this ongoing problem, all the while promoting the myth of America being a society now entering a post “racist era”. Media consolidation in the US is not just about a few corporations controlling the vast majority of news and information flowing through most homes in America; it is also about 92 percent of all radio stations being owned by whites as well as 96 percent of all full power television stations. Institutional racism plays a large role in this enormous media ownership disparity that comes nowhere close to actual population figures based on US racial demographics. The US corporate media, which is almost entirely all white, deliberately provides no space or agency for any person who might speak out against the institutionally racist bloodlines of America.

Those who choose to speak out against this evil are playing a significant role in elevating the specter of consciousness, thus enabling more people to see where their collective efforts should be placed—fighting the scourge of institutional racism and white supremacy. Independent and progressive black media has historically shed far more of an accurate light on institutional racism and discrimination than that of the corporate driven white media, liberal or conservative. The black media has played this significant role dating back to the 1800s with publications such as Freedom’s Journal. In 2011 media outlets owned and controlled by people of color is arguably as important as it was in 1827. While white liberals and conservatives, alike, play their unique roles in keeping institutional racism in perpetuity—it is people of color who must endure the brutality of this devilish institution. While the corporate media does all it can to convince society that institutional racism is a thing of the distant past it is people of color who are systematically languishing in the bowels of Americanism. Even the politically regressive first African-American president is a product of white supremacy and institutional racism. Had Barack Obama been an African-American candidate who actually sought out to mitigate the negative influences of institutional racism most of white Americans that voted for him would never have in the first place. Barack Obama was “safe” enough for many white liberals to vote for. He was the black guy who would never make them feel guilty about their white privilege and American institutional racism that they, in fact, benefit from. Then candidate Barack Obama was someone they could vote for and subsequently claim they were not racist because they had, in fact, voted for an African-American candidate. Now that Barack Obama is President Obama, very little has changed except for the fact that he has become even more socially conservative. Obama did not become more progressive upon winning the 2008 election; he became more conservative as if he had to prove to his white constituents that he was the same safe “negro” they wanted him to be. If the white nationalist wing of the Republican Party (which is most of it) were not so damn racist they would understand that President Obama is comfortably in tune with them on most social issues, especially those dealing with race and discrimination. Obama is the perfect spokesperson for white America to promote its false image of a nation free of inequalities. He is, in essence, a black man more comfortable making excuses for America than he is actually doing something tangible to lessen the devastating blows of institutional racism. If this were 1812 Barack Obama would be more than comfortable doing whatever it took to remain in his “master’s” house and not outside toiling, day in and day out, in the fields with the other enslaved Africans who hated their devil-like master, as well as the wretched institution of chattel slavery. Yes, he is the kind of guy Malcolm X might refer to as a “House Negro”. Obama’s presidency has done more harm in clarifying the existence of race based disparities in America than he has working towards its eradication. He has consistently ignored the plight of masses of African-Americans that voted for him, all the while working to gain deeper favor with the white financial institutions that contributed to his 745 million dollar campaign “war chest”. They will refuel is re-election campaign funds in 2012 thus he feels compelled to cater to their every beck and call—to hell with the masses of black people suffering as a result of institutional racism in America. Obama continues to be a very clever way America has covered up her racist ways to those with their heads still buried in the sand of obliviousness.

Institutional Racism in America is a devil with over 400 years of experience in destroying the lives of people of color. It is a devil that exists whether we believe it or not. This devil and those who benefit from its nefarious work hope that many of us continue question its mere reality. The longer we are lost in the disbelief of this devil’s existence the longer people of color will systematically be caught in this hell on earth. Institutional racism is nothing short of hell for those who are robbed of the same rights routinely given to whites. Institutional Racism is evil and it is a devil. When we will, as progressives, wake up, except its reality, and no longer tolerate its existence by destroying it—once and for all?

Solomon Comissiong is an educator, community activist, author, public speaker and the Executive Editor of the Your World News media collective (www.yourworldnews.org).

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Caucus Mounts Campaign Against Court Nominees

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
The Ronald B. Saunders Project
The Ronald B. Saunders Papers
The Saunders Family Archives
Pittsburgh PA
May 10, 2011

This below article by Marty Willis staff writer for the New Pittsburgh Courier titled Caucus Mounts Campaign Aganist Court Nominees appeared in the New Pittsburgh Courier on June15,1986.

        

                                                   Caucus Mounts
                                                Campaign Against
                                                  Court Nominees

Warning that the quality of life for all amercians but especially minorities will be severely worsended for decades to come if President Reagan's Supreme Court nominees are confirmed by the Senate, the National Black Political Caucus has mounted a nationwide campaign to opppose their confirmation.


  In a letter sent last Friday, June 20, to 12 major national civil rights
 organizations, the NBPC announced it will hold a news conference July 15 on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to denounce the right-wing ideological views of Justice William Rehnquist and Judge Antonin Scalia. The caucus invited the organizations to join in the 11 a.m. news conference.
Those contacted include the NAACP, the National Urban League, The National Rainbow Coalition, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Organization for Women, the American Jewish Committee and the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials.

Reagan last week nominated Rehnquist, an associate justice on the court, to replace Warren Burger, who is retiring, as chief justice. He nominated Scalia, a U.S. Appeals Court Judge, for the position of associate justice now held by Rehnquist.

NBPC Board Chariman Ronald B. Saunders and President Reginald Plato described Rehnquist, an appointee of former President Richard Nixon, as a "Reagan loyalist who will put his own self-serving interests and other right-wing ideological views... over sound moderate legal interpretations of law...
( He ) vehemently opposes affirmative action plans designed to help minorities and women, and he has been a staunch supporter in limiting criminal defendants rights."

In a letter, the NBPC officials described Scalia in similar terms: " a dyed-in-the-wool Reagan loyalist who is deeply committed to the President ( whose ) narrow First Amendment interpretations in libel cases against print media have set a dangerous .... demoralizing precedent.

Plato said in an interview this week,"We're simply seeking a moderate jurist to replace the moderately conservative Burger. We'er seeking someone who doesn't bring his own peculiar brand of bias and prejudice to the bench.
"But this is extremism," Plato said of Reagan's attempt to restructure the court of last resort.

Saunders acknowledged that the NBPC campaign is a "long shot" because both jurists appear to have a good chance of winning Senate confirmation on the basis of their unquestioned intellect and scholarship.
But he pointed out that two Nixon appointees G. Harold Carswell and Clement F. Haynsworth Jr. were denied confirmation by the Senate in 1969. He urged all Americans to contact their senators to encourage them to do likewise this time.

                          Scalia Profile

Antonin Scalia, born March 11, 1936, has been on the United States of Appeals in the District of Columbia since being named to it in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan. A graduate of Georgetown University, he has taught at his Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, Stanford University and the University of Virginia. He served as assistant Attorney General from 1974 to 1977 and would be the first Italian-American to serve on the Court.
He is said to have strong views on laws that permit congress to overturn presidential decisions, affirmative action and abortion.

* The editor notes that Justice Scalia has been one of them most activist right-wing extremist ideologues in the history of the United States Supreme Court and I feel honored to have opposed his nomination to the highest court in the land.




                    

            

Saturday, May 7, 2011

7 Black GIs Kenneth Calloway, Tyrone Exum, Alton Jones, Chip Maxwell, Robert Meek, Ronald Saunders, Zachary Scott, Publish PRO Black Panther Pamphlets

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
The Ronald B. Saunders Project
GI Resistance Movement Archives
Pittsburgh PA
November 11, 2010

Ronald B. Saunders was part of a revolutionary militant group of Black GI's known as the Fort Sam 7, who published and distributed Pro-Black Panther pamphlets on January 19, 1968 at Fort Sam Houston Texas supporting Black Power, and we were vehemently against the racially oppressive wars that were being waged against the colored peoples of South East Asia.

We advised all Black and Puerto Ric an GIs to refuse to go to Vietnam or anywhere that the U.S. government was conducting wars against the native colored populations. We provided outside counsel to any GI who refused to serve in said Republic of Vietnam, and we worked in concert with other outside Anti-War Organizations, and the Oakland Chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.We set up conscience raising circles that were designed to enhance the Black and Puerto Ricans GIs levels of awareness to the actions of the racially oppressive U.S. Military, and its government.

We conducted intense two-week, four hour a day sessions that dealt with the restoration of true Black pride and culture, and Alton Jones whom we all called PRIDE along with Blogger Black Buzz conducted these sessions which were open to all Black and Puerto Rican GI's. White GIs were also welcome only if they had the mentality of one our heroes the radical Abolitionist John Brown.

No whites joined are our organization nor were they recruited. But we did have working relationships with progressive organizations and groups such as the SDS and Maoist centered organizations.  

Pride and I gave each new inductee a heavy dose of what Black pride was really about long before James Brown's "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud." We told them we wanted to make it perfectly clear that they must be proud of everything about their person from their woolly hair, big lips, broad noses, and dark skin tone and color that they are somebody of importance and that they have worth as individuals; and to say it loud and clear I'm Black and I'm Proud.
Each Negro that we recruited was a Detroit Red, a Boston Blackie, New York Red, or Chicago Brownie and it was our job to resurrect and build a new type of Negro, and turn that Negro into proud and educated Black man. We taught each new member that the first education one receives should be the knowledge of self and your history, and not the American White man's version of your history. We reminded each new inductee that the victors of that warped Manifest Destiny Policy of White Supremacy of the last 150 years had the luxury of writing the history in the fraudulent school boy books. Each new inductee into our Organization was a work in progress, and a big challenge but it was our charge to make that Negro into a new proud being.

It was a very difficult task because of the 400 plus years of intense Euro brainwashing, and indoctrination that has been so devastating on the psychic of each person of color in the USA.
Each new member was required to read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, various speeches by Malcolm X, Chairman Mao's Little Red Book, Invisible Man, 100 Amazing Facts On The Negro, Africa's Gift To America, Black Skin and White Mask, The Wretched of The Earth, The Soul Of Black Folks, The Suppression of The Slave Trade, Revolutionary Life, by Che Guevara, and various other books by Che etc.

You had to listen to, and understand Nina Simone's Anthology of Four Women, and Goddamn Mississippi. Lessons +Critiquing and oral exams were given to each GI at different intervals of their development.
They were taught that Africans resisted their forced enslavement from the first day the first European set foot on the African Continent, and the first Africans in the so-called new world in Brazil conducted a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the Portuguese slavers, and other Europeans. They were taught that the Africans always fought against the Euro Slave powers, their Africans surrogates, and their colonial masters.
I personally taught my fellow brothers on the successes and the weaknesses of the proud Mau Mau's, and the impact of the Mau Mau movement on the other revolutionary movements on the African Continent.
I taught them how the Talmudic Rabbinical Scholars first introduced the concept and idea that Blacks were cursed through Ham, and how they passed it on to the Christan European Theologians during the Middle Ages. Thus we are still suffering from that racist ideology of those ancient Rabbinical Scholars.
I gave them comprehensive lessons on each period in Egypt's glorious history (Kemet) from the Archaic Period to the Late Period.
( I ) emphasized the fact that the Egyptians of the Archaic Period, The Old Kingdom to the Middle Kingdom were predominately Black, and that the Egyptians are descendants of Mizriam, who was one of Ham's sons.
I taught the new members correctly that Africa was the birth place of man, civilization, and the Garden of Eden. I further taught them that the Garden of Eden was a luxurious, warm, plentiful place of fruits and other splendid things. They were also taught that Europe was the this cold Barbaric heathen place, and that Greece was the first European Country to have a civilization. They were also taught long before the popular Afrocentric Scholarship of the past twenty five years that the Greeks stole and copied many of their ideas of government, worship, culture from my proud Egyptians.
This was a serious movement, and we weren't just sitting around listening to the Last Poets, or rapping about non-sense, or shooting the breeze. This is why the U.S. Army was scared to death of our Movement. All of the social changes that were happening in the U.S. society were also occurring in the U.S. Military and it was twice as hard, and difficult organizing in the Military in comparison to civilian life. And the U.S. Military was not prepared for all of these political and social changes.
Alton (Pride) Jones was the theoretician of our organization and Ronald B. Saunders (Blogger Black Buzz) was the meticulous planner, organizer and recruiter for new members.
Alton Jones was a member of SNCC, and a graduate of Howard University. Alton was also a close friend of Stokely Carmichael ( Kwame Ture). At Central State University I was a member of a SNCC off-shoot called Unity For Unity.

I along with Sam Anderson of Pittsburgh was part of a delegation of Antioch College Students and Central St. Students who attempted to integrate Gegner's barbershop in the fall of 1963 in Yellow Springs Ohio. Mr Gegner had refused to cut the hair of Blacks. I will write about that experience and the legal issues involved in Gegner's barbershop at a later date.

   Most Afro GIs on the base ( Fort Sam) joined our organization, but the Negroes on the base avoided us as though we had the plague.
Chip Maxwell another member of our organization said Pride is the Lenin of this organization, and brother Saunders is the Leon Trotsky of our Organization.

One Negro from Pittsburgh Herb ( Herky)Moffett refused to join our organization, and he told one of my mentors at Central State University located in Wilberforce Ohio (Mrs. Austin) that was I was down in San Antonio causing trouble for the white man. I grew up with this same Herky on the Hill, and we played on the same Herron Hill Jr. High School Softball team. But I knew you could never trust a Negro.
I understand that even to this day how Negroes, and House Servants have always feared real authentic African Americans and African Caribbeans like Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Marcus Garvey, Nina Simone, and W.E. Dubois. Thus the internal battle between Negroes and African American people still wages to this day, and we can see how that conflict manifest in many different forms and pathologies.
One evening there was GI dance on hill at Fort Sam, and we had received word that a group of white Special Forces troopers were fighting with Black, and Puerto Rican GIs and we came to the Black GIs defense. Those white Special Forces got their tales kicked all over the place, and of course the MPs arrested only the Blacks and Puerto Ricans.

The conflict between the Special Forces, and Blacks started because some of the white Special Force Troopers didn't like the fact the some of the White (females) WAC's were dancing with Black and Puerto Rican men.

Yes it was quite a battle, and their were many injuries on both sides. We gave those special forces guys the battle of their lives, and we were only a group of Black and Puerto Rican medics. But one of the Black GIs in our group was John Milner a professional Heavyweight boxer from Philadelphia, and he loved to fight and kick behind. Many of the Afro Americans and Puerto Rican brothers had been battled tested on the streets of the various cities throughout the 1960's, and who participated in the violent popular Urban Insurrections and Rebellions. Being in the Special Forces didn't mean a damn thing to the brothers who came from Harlem, Brownsville, Red hook, Brooklyn, the Bronx, the Hill District of Pittsburgh, the Filmore District, South or North Philly, the East Side of Cleveland, D.C., Roxbury in Boston, the South side of Chicago, or Watts in L.A., Detroit, Gary Indiana, Camden New Jersey, Newark, the East Side of Columbus Ohio, Avon dale in Cincinnati, East St. Louis, Nap town, and other towns and cities in the USA. Note many of these cities had erupted before the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr such as in Watts , Detroit, Newark, the Huff area in Cleveland. Further the residents of the Harlem section of New York City were always engaged in combat with the racially oppressive white police, and the absent Jewish landlords.
Some of the brothers had gone to Jump School, and they were bona-fide paratroopers, and they didn't mind a good fight . They would always shout " I wanna be an Airborne-Ranger." "I wanna live the life of danger". "Airborne-Ranger."
The Special Forces troopers were at Fort Sam to get specialized medical training. Fort Sam Houston was one of the Army's Medical Training Centers, and all the Black and Puerto Ricans were in training to be medics, but we kicked those Special Forces butt's.

Even before we passed out our literature to each Black and Puerto Rican GIs on the base ( Fort Sam) on January 19, 1968 we were under surveillance and investigation by the Army's G2, CID, and other elements within the top security apparatus of the U.S. Government.
Prior to the passing out of our literature on January 19, 1968 Blogger Black Buzz received an Article 15, and fourteen days extra duties, barracks restriction for a physical confrontation with a white cadet Sergeant during a 3 am shakedown.

My CO Lt. Fairchild said I shouldn't have sucker punched his sergeant . I told Fairchild that we was talking to me in a nasty disrespectful manner." Lt. Fairchild basically tolerated me because I was a good athlete, and leader. Fairchild was trying to convince me to go into Officer's Candidate School, and I told Fairchild that (OCS) wasn't for me and that I had 2 years of Army ROTC. Lt. Fairchild played QB at some college in Utah.
    
    Taken from GI Archives + Press and Movement Organizations, 1965-1972
1968- January. Chicago-First Issue of Vietnam GI Published....Fort Sam Houston-GIs publish pro-panther pamphlet supporting " Black Power...
Free the Fort Dix 38" petition distributed in GI papers across the country... May 15, Grand Forks AFB-GI and GI wives for Peace coffee house with Dave Dellinger...
www.sirnosir.com/timeline/chronology_GI_press.html-coached-similar

PUBLIC PROTESTS- 1965-1972

The Film- CHRONOLOGY OF GI RESISTANCE{ Protests and Demonstrations}{ Combat Refusal and Refusal of Orders}
{ AWOL and Desertion}{ {Papers, Coffeehouses and Organizations}
{ Riots and Rebellions} { Harassment and Repression}

1965April 17
Washington D.C-First large antiwar demonstrations, organized by SDS
October 11
New York City-A large group of World War 2 veterans join 25,000 other people in the first big demonstration against the Vietnam War.

October 11
Ad Hoc Committee of Veterans for Peace in Vietnam founded.
November 2
Washington D.C.- Norman Morrison sets himself on fire in front of the Pentagon in protest of the war in Vietnam.

November 6
El Paso- Lieutenant Henry H. Howe, Jr Joins a demonstration to protest the war in Vietnam. Off -duty and wearing civilian clothes, he carried a placard which read, "End Johnson's Fascist Aggression In Vietnam," Although he broke no laws, including military regulations, he was arrested and surrendered to military police.

November 9
New York City-Roger Allen LaPorte sets himself on fire in front of the United Nations building in protest of the war in Vietnam.

November 24
The Ad Hoc Committee of Veterans For Peace in Vietnam sponsor a full page ad in the New York Times denouncing the war in Vietnam. The ad contains the signatures of 500 veterans.

1967
June 1
New York City-Vietnam Veterans Against the War founded.

June 23
Berkeley-First Issue of the Bond published.
July 1
New York City-Committee for GI Rights founded.
July 21
Richard Perrin publishes antiwar statement in the Bond.
September 1
Chicago-First issue of Veterans Stars and Stripes For Peace published.

November 12
PFC James Chung published Antiwar-statement in the Bond.
December 10
U.S. Navy reportedly warns its personnel in South Vietnam to avoid Peace groups whose members would try to induce them to desert.
December 24
American Servicemen's Union Founded at Fort Sill.
1968
* Chicago- First issue of Vietnam GI Published.
* Columbia- Fred Gardner opens First GI Coffee House the UFO.

January 19
* Fort Sam Houston- 7 Black GIs ( Kenneth Calloway, Tyrone Exum, Alton Jones, Chip Maxwell, Robert Meek, Ronald B. Saunders, Zachary Scott) printed, and distributed Pro- Black Power, Black Panther pamphlets that said in part: " What happens when, or rather if , a brother comes back from Vietnam? He still has to be bothered by the same old honkie racism. On Christmas leave, a train of GIs stopped in Texas. Some Black troops went inside to eat, but were made to sit in the 'Black Section'or to take the food out or they weren't served. They were wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army, but they were still Black."

*The people in the Old Confederacy, and throughout the country didn't give care about the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and I had refusal to serve cases in Ligonier and Grove City PA in the 1970's while employed with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, Pittsburgh Regional Office.
I will stop here for now, but it must be said we were told that we were the first group or organization of Black GIs who resisted the war in Vietnam and all of the systemic racism in the military. I must say that as young bucks ( Bloods) we didn't realize that at the time how revolutionary, and important our actions were as we became part of the history of the GI Resistance Movement, and the Anti-War Movement and the continued struggle for Black Liberation. We are all proud to be included in any film that tells the story of the Fort Sam 7, who were really over 300+ Black and proud men. How can any legitimate author write a book about Black soldier resistance in any era, and not mentioned the famous Fort Sam 7? When we graduated from the Medical Training Center in February 1968 the following members of the Fort Sam 7 were sent to the following country's:
1. Kenneth Calloway- Panama
2. Tyrone Exum- Stateside
3. Alton Pride Jones- West Germany
4.Chip Maxwell- West Germany
5. Robert Meek- West Germany
6. Ronald B. Saunders- West Germany
7. Zachary Scott- West Germany


I told the folks in G2 that we wouldn't go to jail if sent to Vietnam, but we would organize every Black and Puerto Rican, Native American and others into a separate military to fight U.S. Military aggression.
Dr Martin Luther King Jr., said in his famous Riverside Baptist Church speech in New York in 1967 that the United States government was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.
Dr King, Ida B. Wells Barnett, Nat Turner, Che, Chairman Mao, Chief Crazy Horse, Ramses II, Imhotep, Askia Muhammad, Olaudah Equiano, Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, Cinque, William and Ellen Craft, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Shields Green, John Copeland, Chief Victorio, Marcus Garvey, Geronimo, and Malcolm X, Toussaint L'Ouverture the slave who beat Napoleon, were our heroes along with the great Frantz Fanon.

*The Fort Sam 7 brothers who went to bases in West Germany kept alive what we had started at Fort Sam Houston by organizing the Black troops in West Germany.
I along with Thomas Barlow of Philadelphia, Tim Holt of Detroit organized the Black troops within the Third Armored Division in West Germany into Afro-American Soldiers Clubs, which were cells of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. We were infiltrated and investigated again by the highest levels of G2, and charged with various violations of the U.S. Military Code of Justice. All of the Army's charges were bogus, and they couldn't prove any of the alleged violations. I was represented by the prominent New York attorney Roland Watts, and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. also assisted me and other Black GIs with numerous trumped up charges. Note the U.S. Military was dead set on destroying our Movement because they sent my top leader Tom Barlow to Vietnam, but he never reported to duty, and they transferred brother Holt to some other obscure base in West Germany.
I would love to have a reunion with the Fort Sam 7, and I haven't talked with any of those men since 1968.
I once saw Chip Maxwell at the 97TH General Hospital while I was on a hospital run in Frankfurt Germany, and he told me he had received word that Pride was up for a Court Martial for plotting to overthrow the U.S. government. We both knew that charges against Pride were false and bogus.

West Germany was an extreme hot bed of racial confrontations between Black and white troops. Two White GIs from Alabama stabbed to death a Black GI in K-town or Kaiserslautern in the spring of 1968, and the entire base erupted into major violence. The two white murderers were secretly send back to the states at 2: A.M. in the morning from Rhein Mein Airport.

When Dr. King was murdered in April 1968 every base in West Germany was put on lock-down as Black and Puerto Rican GIs were attacking white troops at Enlisted Clubs, NCO Clubs, and everywhere. They didn't have enoug MPs in Germany to put down all of the battle zones.

A real big brother from Chicago named Sanford knocked out a white GI at the Enlisted Men's club on our base at Kirch-Gons, and a major battle erupted between Black and White troops. Another brother name Smith from L.A. in A Company of the 3/36 infantry at Girch-Gons hit a white Sergeant over the head with a bunk adapter after the Sergeant called Smith a "nigger."
A white GI from Kentucky stabbed one our boys in my organization in Frankfurt and we retaliated by beating  the White GI.

When Dr. King was murdered many fire base's in Viet nam erupted.
Black and White Marines fought hand to hand against each other at Khe Sanh, and they shot and killed each other. There was numerous fraggings between Black, and White troops in Vietnam. All the Black and Puerto Rican troops that were housed and detained at LBJ prison fought and attacked white troops after King was murdered. Major confronational shooting battles were common place between between Black and white troops in the Army, and the Marines.

Blacks attacked their white comrades who were flying the Confederate flag at Binh Thuan in 1968, and these same White troopers had sent mortars into a Black compound. Blacks were systematically discriminated against in all the systems of assignments and promotions throughout the U.S. Military in both the states and overseas. Blacks were always last in receiving decorations, promotions, and assignments. The Blacks were not only at War with the Viet Cong, and NVA but also with their white fellow troopers and white America. Many Brothers attacked their white officers in both the Vam and West Germany. There were over 100 fraggings, or grenade attacks, on army officers during the summer of 1969. A favorite tactic of the white racist was to flaunt the Confederate flag.

Check this out at An-Loc, whites raised the Confederate flag over one camp, and later a gas grenade was hurled at into all Black barracks.

When brother James Taylor, a Black asked the new company commander to tell the Inspecter General that the racial situation was out of hand, the captain refused to listen. Brother Taylor was so damn out raged that he killed his commander before several witnesses. He was sentenced to 15 years in a federal penitentiary.
A childhood friend of mine who grew up on Francis Street in the Hill, Michael X said we had to take care of the bad actors in his Unit, and Charlie.

There were many unsolved killings between Black, and Whites in the Jungles of Vietnam, and you won't here a word about these killings or incidents on fake programs like 60 Minutes or Night Line.
At Camp Lejune North Carolina Black troops rebelled for 4 straight days in 1966. In 1970 a group of Black troopers in Vietnam through a hand grenade into a White bar/club injuring 67 Whites and Vietamese.
Yes there are stories where Black and white GIs fought harmoniously in the Vam but the USA hadn't been this divided over a war since the great conflict between the States in 1861.
I recall receiving a letter from one of my classmates from Fort Sam who was sent to Vietnam, and he informed me of the following. He stated that his squad was involved in a fire fight with Charlie and they got the drop on him and this white trooper, but Charlie told him that he could leave the scene. He further stated that Charlie told him in some broken Viet Langauge that he was free to leave, but the white guy had to stay. He further reported that Charlie told him that he shouldn't be over here fighting for the USA against him. My former classmate who was from Detroit also stated that Charlie said they had fought the Black Sudanese back in the early fifties, and they had kicked their butts along with the racist French. The brother from Detroit said he begin to walk away and he heard shots ring out and he turned around and shot both of the VC's with his 45 that they forgot to take. He said "Saunders they shot the Honkie's head off" but he was an American, and when they did that to him I froze, and I shot those bastards." Later he wrote me and stated that he was in Japan because his legs were blown off by a mine or boo boo trap. I never heard from him again.
I do recall when he was at Fort Sam that he flirted with our movement, and he always had one step in the movement and one step out of the movement because he enjoyed that (Detroit Red ) type of lifestyle.
Chip also stated that he had traveled to Libya, and Algeria and he had enjoyed himself . I told chip that I had planned to visit Morocco and Algeria in the very near future. I did travel to Copenhagen Denmark, Holland and Paris France. I remember visiting the Left Bank in Paris, and Canal Street in Amsterdam.

I traveled throughout Italy, Switzerland, West Germany, Austria, with a young WAC by the name of Evelyn, who was Puerto Rican, Jamaican, Haitian and Italian, and she lived across the street from the famous Albert Anastasia in New York. We wrote each other a couple of times after we were discharged from Uncle Sam, and I still have many pictures of her, and the country of Italy.
I spent five days in Spain, and stayed at a sea side resort on the coast of Spain called the Costa Del Sol. I still have the Post Card that I had written to my mother from that sea side resort in Spain.
The U.S. Military refused to let me swim in the Berlin Games because they said I was a secuirty risk. I replied "a risk to what and where." I wasn't in any kind of swimming shape because I hadn't swum competitively since the fall of 1963, but that was my way of traveling to Berlin.

I have earned a double doctorate in the school of life. I went from growing on Francis Street in the Hill District to walking six miles home after basketball, and track practice at Slippery Rock Area Joint High School to meeting with the South African Ambassador to the U.S. at the South Africa Embassy to breaking bread with the Dr Leon Sullivan at his church in Philadelphia in an effort to lure GM into the state of Penna to build the now defunct Saturn Automobile.

Indeed this was quite a feat for a young brother growing on Francis Street, who came from a Black middle class family that I have already written a ton on previously.
My Brigade Commander Colonel Papille said "Saunders you are one of the brightest, and most dangerous GIs that I have ever commanded." I told the Colonel that my mind was the biggest weapon that I had in my arsenal, and that you could investigate/infiltrate our organization, but I will still be Black and Proud. Kirch-Gons was also known as the 'Rock, and it was the toughest and meanest base in West Germany.

To write about all my activities in West Germany, and Denmark would require another 200 pages so I will stop for the time being, but my involvement at Fort Sam Houston and at Kirch-Gons West Germany and throughout West Germany was part of the GI Resistance Movement and the struggle for Black Liberation.

Malcolm X said, "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."
I have been standing up for Negroes, and others all of my life even when they didn't have the stamina, heart or courage to stand up for themselves.

Note the New Pittsburgh Courier did write a weak article about me in May 1974 titled Black Man Calls For Scrutiny of The Civil Rights Act of 1866. This article also touched briefly on some of my activities in West Germany. Most Negroes don't even know what the Civil Rights Act of 1866 is or was.

Happy Veterans Day to the 23 Million U.S. Veterans.

*The Struggle Must Continue.
* Never forget the 167 brave Black men of the 25th Infantry Division whom I will call the Brownsville 167)
* Since I wrote this post I had a Negro call me, and he asked me was I concerned about getting a Bad Conduct Discharge or a Dishonorable Discharge.

I responded to the Negro by saying was "sister Rosa Parks afraid of getting arrested and hauled off to jail?" I asked the Negro this question! What did sister Harriett Tubman tell the Boots who where in slavery that didn't want to go with her on the Underground Railroad to freedom? The Negro remained silent. Further I asked the Negro was John Carlos, and Tommy Smith scared of the repercussions they would receive as a result raising their clinched fists at 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City?

I told the Negro that all of the Negro athletes at 1968 Summer Olympics had agreed to stand -up and show some type of solidarity with the cause of Black Liberation and the systemic discriminatory plight of Blacks in the USA, but only Carlos and Smith emerged as the only true Black people.

Again the Negro was silent. I asked the Negro "what was he doing when all of the historic revolutionary changes were taking place in the USA in the 50's, 60's and 70's. The dumb Negro replied that he was sitting on the side-lines watching the social changes on TV, and living in LA LA Land. I also asked the Negro was he aware of the fact that two brave, and bold Duquesne University African American Law School faculty members have filed racial bias suits against the Fourth-Tier Law School at Duquesne? Again the Negro looked dumbfounded. I would like to commend, and give Kudos to Kellen McClendon and Mrs Vanessa Browne- Barbour for standing up to the racial injustices, and overt, and undercover discrimination at Duquesne Law School. The Negro asked me did Duquesne Law School admit that they discriminated against the two African American faculty members. I asked the Negro what planet did he live on? I also asked him has he ever known a discriminator, sexist or racist admit to their discriminatory behavior or actions? The Negro stuttered in answering my question.

 Furthermore I informed the Negro that the Pittsburgh Branch of the NAACP had two racial discrimination complaints against Duquesne University in 1976 that were filed by African American students. And Bob Pitts head of the Labor and Industry Committee of the Pittsburgh Branch of the NAACP asked me to accompany him as he met with the Respondents ( Duquesne ). Bob considered Brothers like me and the late Dennis Schatzman as heavyweights that he could rely on too kick butt, and who werent afraid of work place reprisals or retaliation by the system. Indeed Duquesne University did discriminate against the African American students in question and I pointed out to Bob where the disparate treatment existed. I rest my case for now.

Dennis and I were both members of the Pittsburgh Branch NAACP and said Labor Industry Committee. Blogger Black Buzz was also a member of the Greensburg-Jeanette PA NAACP, and the beautiful Connie Craig was the President of that chapter.

Blackbuzz was also a faithful member of the Burgettstown PA NAACP headed by the late Ralph Smith, and the honorable Dorothy Atkins. It seems as though every community that Blogger Black Buzz worked in they adopted him as one of their own family members.


*The Editor notes that the above pictures are as follows:

A.  Picture number 1 is the port in Algecircas, Spain with the Rock of             Gilbrator in the back ground.
B. Picture number 2 is my only picture in the Army Green dress uniform which you were required to wear when hopping from US base to base.
C. Picture number 3 I'm giving the Black Power raised fist salute at the U.S. Army Training Center in Hohenfels Germany.
D. Picture number 4 shows me swimming backstroke at the Torrejon Air Force Base in Madrid, Spain. Note I will be doing an extensive blog post on our Herron Hill Jr. High School Swimming team that won back to back swimming titles in 1956 and 1957 in Pittsburgh, PA. Note the Herron Hill Jr. High School teams of 1955 to 1957 featured the greatest Black Swimmers on any one team in the history of the US.
E. Picture number 5 shows my friend Evelyn and me sitting on the steps of a cafe outside of Aviano Italy.








POWER TO THE PEOPLE!