Beatrice L. Saunders Robinson Project
Robinson Saunders Archives
Pittsburgh, PA
March 30, 2012
 |
| James S. Robinson, Jr. and Beatrice L. Saunders Robinson, mother and father of Black Buzz and brother, Thomas |
Friday, March 30, 2012
New Pittsburgh Courier April13-17, 2005: Beatrice Robinson, tireless advocate, dead at 89
Black Buzz News Service
Beatrice L. Saunders Robinson Project
Robinson Saunders Archives
Pittsburgh, PA
March 30, 2012
Beatrice L. Saunders Robinson Project
Robinson Saunders Archives
Pittsburgh, PA
March 30, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Friday, March 23, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
Herron Hill Junior High School Wins the 1957 Pittsburgh Public School Junior High School Swimming Championship
Black Buzz News Service
Ronald B . Saunders Project
Pittsburgh, PA
Saunders ArchivesMarch 16, 2012
Ronald B . Saunders Project
Pittsburgh, PA
Saunders ArchivesMarch 16, 2012
 |
| Note that the above gold medal was for capturing first place in the 200 yard Freestyle Relay. I did receive a third place bronze medal in the 75 yard Individual Medley. However that medal is presently missing. The Individual Medley consisted of three strokes: butterfly, backstroke, and freestyle. In the championship meet, I was in a virtual tie in the backstroke with a swimmer from Oliver Junior High, but he beat me by a gnat's eyelash for second place which resulted in me getting the bronze medal for third place. Nate Clark, my former Herron Hill and Centre Avenue YMCA teammate, came in first place in the 75 yard Individual Medley swimming for Knoxville Junior High School. Nate and his brother Frank who also swam for Herron Hill and the YMCA had moved from the Hill District to the Beltzhoover section of the city. None of our team members on those back to back championship teams went into any event thinking our opponents could beat us. The championship meet was held at Allegheny High School on the Northside and many members of the Herron Hill student body attended the meet and cheered our team on to victory. I do recall that Mary Ann Mickey, Linda Sales and the late Ida Joyce Sharp were three of the people in attendance at that championship meet. Note: our same Freestyle Relay team that won the City Championship also won the State YMCA Freestyle Relay Championship as indicated in the above article. The Herron Hill Junior High School swimming teams from 1954 to 1957 were the best Black swimming teams ever. As stated in a previous posting, our '54 and '55 team featured Nate Clark who was the first African American to score in an NCAA Championship in swimming by taking fifth place in the 200 Meter Butterfly in 1962 while swimming for the Ohio State University who won the NCAA Title that same year. Note there were other Herron Hill swimming teams that won back to back championships in the 1940's and 1950's. We give a great deal of the credit to the excellent coaches at the Centre Avenue YMCA in Pittsburgh, PA: Walker Crocker, Terence Garmon who was Aquatic Director and swimming coach, the NBA's Ed Fleming from Westinghouse High School who taught me the butterfly with the dauphin kick, and assistant coach Sid Bergman who all helped to develop these champion caliber swimmers for Herron Hill Junior High School, Schenley High School, Knoxville Junior High School, South Hills High School, Central State University and the Ohio State University. Other swimmers on the Herron Hill swim teams ('54 through '57) may have swum for other high schools, colleges and universities. We swam many miles each day with and without the flutter kick boards. We were all dedicated young men who would arise at 4:30 in the morning to walk in pitch blackness, in all types of inclement weather to make our 6:00 a.m. swimming practice sessions each day of the week. None of us missed a day of practice and that was the reason we were back to back champions. Sometimes we practiced after school as well. One day in 2007, at the Reverend Floyd Palmer's Barber Shop on Frankstown Avenue in the Homewood section of Pittsburgh, Ron Curry (Head) and I decided that we should make an effort to have a reunion celebrating our 1957 championship swimming team at Herron Hill Junior High School. We were successful in organizing the event which was held on September 29, 2007 at Duranti's Restaurant in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. Team members in attendance were: Morris Fountain from Houston, Texas, Melvin Russell from New York City, Daniel Tabb who is living in Pittsburgh, Ronald Curry and Ronald Saunders both of Pittsburgh. Team members' family and the general public were also present. Ron Curry's daughter, Brooke Spencer put together an excellent anniversary brochure outlining the program, history and bios of each team member. The program consisted of a dinner with Reverend Dr. Johnnie Monroe, pastor of Grace Memorial Presbyterian Church giving the invocation. Mrs. Sarah Martin, an educator from the Pittsburgh Public Schools, representing Superintendent Roosevelt's office was the guest speaker. Mrs. Martin gave an in depth historical lesson on Black people swimming dating back to the ancient Egyptians to enslaved Africans running away from southern plantations to Black people swimming across the English Channel to present day. Mrs. Martin made it perfectly clear that swimming was always a part of Black culture from our days in Africa and elsewhere around the globe including the Americas. Mrs. Martin read a special proclamation from the Superintendent's office which commemorated our 1956-1957 championship team. Ron Curry was instrumental in obtaining from Allegheny County Council Member William Russell Robinson, Certificates of Recognition which honored the achievements of each individual team member of the Herron Hill Jr. High School Swimming Team (1956-1957). It was stated in the certificate that each individual swimmer's "achievement conferred honor upon the County to be shared by each of us and, for that, we commend you". Ron Curry presented each team member an enclosed glass plaque which was constructed by his daughter, Brooke Spencer. The plaque contained a copy of the announcement of the 50th Anniversary Celebration, two excerpts from the Pittsburgh Courier, one reporting on our victorious championship win and the other about the YMCA swimmers winning in the Freestyle Relay in the State YMCA Meet. An embroidered Championship "H" was also included on the plaque. Ron Saunders presented each team member with a wooden red and gold lettered plaque commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Herron Hill Junior High School capturing the Pittsburgh Public Junior High School Swimming Championship in 1957. The plaque honored the individual member along with the names of the other team members, the coach and the manager. Ron Saunders also gave each team member in attendance a gold anniversary medal which highlighted our 1956-1957 championship team. Each team member reflected on what the 1956-1957 championship meant to him and gave a brief update of his life's work since he started his professional career. Ron Curry and Ron Saunders gave closing remarks with the benediction being given by Rev. Monroe. On a personal note, I have not seen my teammates, Melvin Russell, Pomroy Fountain and Hubert Wilson since 1957 and I had only seen Morris Fountain once which was in 1970 at a party with his wife. I have seen Daniel Tabb on and off. Donald Primus is deceased. One of our team members, Pomroy Fountain was unable to attend our 50th Anniversary Celebration because he is a member and Ghost Dancer with the Crow First American tribe in Montana. In reference to the above newspaper article by New Pittsburgh Courier reporter, Christian Morrow, I am quoted as saying we were all ninth graders. But in fact, there was a seventh grader on the team by the name of Hubert PeeWee Wilson who presently lives in California and was unable to attend. All efforts to contact our legendary Coach Geasa's family were unsuccessful. Coach Geasa's teams at Herron Hill Junior High won back to back championships in 1945-1946, 1946-1947, 1950-1951, 1951-1952, 1955-1956 and 1956-1957. Coach Geasa may have been the most successful swimming coach in Pittsburgh Public School history. Our 1956-1957 championship team was the last of Coach Geasa's teams to win a City Championship. Three team members Pomroy Fountain, Ronald B. Saunders and Daniel Tabb also swam on the Ammon Recreation swimming team which was coached by the great gifted diver Otis Johnson. * We give special thanks to Brooke Spencer, The New Pittsburgh Courier, and Karen Price sports reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune Review who wrote an excellent article in the Tribune on September 29, 2007 titled Herron Hill swim team to celebrate milestone.  Gold anniversary medal highlighting the 1957 Herron Hill Jr. High School Championship Team   |
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
The Fighting Robinson Brothers Along With Their Mother and Father and Their Beautiful Sisters
James S. Robinson, Jr. Project
Robinson Family Archives
Pittsburgh, PA
 |
| Standing from left to right: Russell and older brother Jim Seated from left to right: Youngest brother, Billy, Big Papa and Big Mama and brother Arnold |
 |
| Standing left to right: Baby sister, Lorraine, Julia Seated from left to right: Annie, Pop, Big Mama and Vi. Both of the above pictures were taken in 1976 at the home of Viola Fant's daughter, Della. |
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Rare, Rare Photograph of James S. Robinson, Jr's Grandmother
Black Buzz News Service
James S. Robinson, Jr. Project
Robinson Family Archives
Pittsburgh, PA
March 10, 2012
James S. Robinson, Jr. Project
Robinson Family Archives
Pittsburgh, PA
March 10, 2012
 |
| This is Ronald B. Saunders great grandmother on his father's side. |
Ronald B. Saunders on the Beach: Paradise Island, Bahamas, 1973
Ronald B. Saunders Project
Saunders Family Archives
Pittsburgh, PA
March 10, 2012
 |
Black Buzz practicing self-defense warm-up exercises  |
Rare Photos of Black Buzz's Father, James S. Robinson, Jr, Ages 9,11 and 16
Black Buzz News Service
James S. Robinson Jr. Project
Robinson Family Archives
Pittsburgh, PA
March 10, 2012
James S. Robinson Jr. Project
Robinson Family Archives
March 10, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Ronald B. Saunders Defeats Nate Clark in the 50 Yard Freestyle in the Pittsburgh YMCA Swimming Championship Held at the Allegheny YMCA in 1956
Black Buzz News Service
Ronald B. Saunders Project
Saunders Family Archives
Pittsburgh, PA
March 8, 2012
Ronald B. Saunders Project
Saunders Family Archives
Pittsburgh, PA
March 8, 2012
 |
| Note: This was the last time that I would beat Nate who was formerly on our swimming team at the Centre Avenue YMCA. In this YMCA Championship Meet, Nate was swimming for the Allegheny YMCA because his parents had moved from the Hill District section of Pittsburgh. Nate beat me in the 25 Yard Freestyle in this particular championship meet. Nate also beat me in the 200 Yard Individual Medley while swimming for the Knoxville Junior High School Swim team in the Pittsburgh Public School Junior High Swimming Championship in 1957. But my Junior High School, Herron Hill, won the championship. I may have been the last African American swimmer in history to beat Nate in any swimming event because Nate received a four year swimming scholarship to the Ohio State University in 1961. He was also the first African American in the USA to place in a NCAA Swimming Championship coming in fifth in the 200 Yard Butterfly in 1962. Nate is also a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame. The Centre Avenue YMCA Swim Team featured other swimmers such as Morris Fountain, Ronald Curry, Daniel Tabb, Hubert Wilson, Melvin Russell, Pomroy Fountain, the late Donald Primas and the late Barry Nixon. |
Hill City Youth Municipality, Pittsburgh PA Photo Dated 1947 Pittsburgh Telegraph
Black Buzz News Service
James S. Robinson, Jr. Project
Robinson Family Archives
Pittsburgh, PA
March 8, 2012
James S. Robinson, Jr. Project
Robinson Family Archives
Pittsburgh, PA
March 8, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Education doesn't increase support for affirmative action among whites, minorities
Black Buzz News Service
Washington, D. C.
March 4, 2012
Highly educated Asians as likely to engage in negative stereotyping as less-educated peers
WASHINGTON, DC, February 15, 2012 — Highly educated whites and minorities are no more likely to support workplace affirmative action programs than are their less educated peers, according to a new study in the March issue of Social Psychology Quarterly, which casts some doubt on the view that an advanced education is profoundly transformative when it comes to racial attitudes.
"I think this study is important because there's a common view that education is uniformly liberalizing, and this study shows—in a number of cases—that it's not," said study author Geoffrey T. Wodtke, a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan.
Titled, "The Impact of Education on Intergroup Attitudes: A Multiracial Analysis," the study analyzes the effects of education on racial attitudes among whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians using data from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality 1992-1994, which interviewed adults in Boston, Atlanta, Detroit, and Los Angeles, and the 1990-2010 waves of the nationally representative General Social Survey.
Wodtke's study finds that while being better educated does not increase the likelihood that whites and minorities approve of affirmative action in the workplace, it does increase the probability that they support race-targeted job training. "The distinction between those two policies is that one is opportunity enhancing and the other is outcome equalizing," Wodtke said. "I think that some of the values that are promoted through education, such as individualism and meritocracy, are just much more consistent with opportunity enhancing policies like job training than they are with redistributive or outcome equalizing policies like affirmative action."
Still, Wodtke, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, said he was surprised to find that better educated blacks and Hispanics are no more supportive of workplace affirmative action programs than are their less educated peers. "This surprised me because it's thought that highly educated minorities are most likely to benefit from affirmative action programs," he said.
According to Wodtke, there could be a couple of reasons why more educated blacks and Hispanics are no more likely to support affirmative action in the workplace than are their less educated peers. "One possibility is that affirmative action programs may have the unintended effect of stigmatizing people who have benefited from them," Wodtke said. "As a result of this stigmatization, people who have seemingly benefitted from affirmative action may just lose faith in the efficacy of these programs to overcome racial discrimination in the labor market."
Another possibility is that people with more advanced educations, regardless of race, become socialized in such a way that their own support for more radical social policies is somewhat diluted, Wodtke said. "The data suggest that one ideological function of the formal educational system is to marginalize ideas and values that are particularly challenging to existing power structures, perhaps even among those that occupy disadvantaged social positions," Wodtke said.
The study also finds that while whites, Hispanics, and blacks with higher levels of education are more likely to reject negative racial stereotypes than are their less educated peers, this pattern does not hold true for Asians. In fact, education has no effect on negative stereotyping among Asians, and many Asians at all levels of education hold negative views about blacks and Hispanics.
"It may have something to do with Asian's social position relative to other racial groups in the United States," Wodtke said. "Some posit that Asians and to a lesser extent Hispanics occupy a 'racial middle ground' between whites and blacks. So, it's possible that the non-effect of education on negative stereotyping among Asians is related to their self perceived risk of downward assimilation and their efforts to avoid this outcome."
###
The American Sociological Association (www.asanet.org), founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society. Social Psychology Quarterly is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal of the ASA.
The research article described above is available by request for members of the media. For a copy of the full study, contact Daniel Fowler, ASA's Media Relations and Public Affairs Officer, at (202) 527-7885 orpubinfo@asanet.org.
Obama Hasn't Won Yet
Black Buzz News Service
Washington, D.C.
March 4, 2012
M
on, 02/27/2012 - 1:25am —
Democrats are certainly disappointed by the apparent fading of Rick Santorum in the final week before the Michigan primary and his surprisingly disjointed performance in last week's debate. It's not as clear to me as it is to others that Santorum would be less competitive than Romney as Obama's opponent. What's plain is that Democrats have an interest in the Republican contest going on indefinitely. Romney victories in Tuesday's Michigan and Arizona primaries would likely shorten the process, and ending the nomination battle quickly is the precondition for a Republican counteroffensive.
They need one. Up to now, the Republican battle has played entirely into Democratic hands. The Democrats need upscale voters to cast ballots on the basis of social issues and a general revulsion over the Republicans' lurch rightward. They need working-class whites to look past social issues and focus on economic inequality and the GOP's continued insistence on cutting the taxes of rich people.
That's exactly what's happening. Obama won in 2008 even though he ran 18 points behind in the white working class. Until recently, he was drifting far lower than that, and Democrats were shellacked in House races in 2010 because they lost these voters by 30 points. Obama has now recouped the share he will need among blue collars -- and in the process strengthened himself substantially in the Midwest -- by making economic fairness a central theme of his re-election campaign. He's been helped by a rise in public confidence that the economy is finally recovering.
In the meantime, Romney's wealth and tax status, his private equity background, and his utter tone-deafness on matters related to class have all hurt him in the blue-collar world.
At the same time, social moderates -- particularly women -- have been appalled by the direction of the Republicans on issues such as contraception, and also by the sharp turn to the social-issue right by many Republican-controlled state governments. Virginia put itself at the center of this when its Legislature came close to passing a law that would have subjected women to a highly intrusive ultrasound before they could receive an abortion. National outrage led Bob McDonnell, Virginia's Republican governor who would very much like to be his party's vice presidential candidate, to scale back the bill's requirements.
But the GOP's self-correction in Virginia is also a warning for Democrats. Republicans, now aware that they are on a losing track, may begin to engineer a series of course changes. The fact that House Republicans reached agreement with the president to continue the payroll tax holiday is the clearest sign that the party realizes how a far more assertive Obama is dangerous to them in a way that the conciliatory Obama of last year's debt-ceiling battle was not.
Moreover, while Obama's lead in some polls is significant -- in Friday's Real Clear Politics poll averages he led Romney by five points and Santorum by six -- his job approval ratings are still in the middling range. A recent Pew survey, for example, pegged his approval at 45 percent among independents, a big increase over his 37 percent rating last month, but far from commanding. Any reversal of the economic recovery could endanger even this level of support.
All of which explains why Romney desperately has to win Michigan this Tuesday and effectively shut down the nomination fight by the end of the Super Tuesday primaries on March 6. A Romney no longer driven by the need to pander to the right could regroup and reposition himself. He could spend some quiet time with his consultants who need to give him intensive retraining on how to talk to (and about) average Americans. And the super PACs, fueled by millionaires eager to avoid the tax rates Obama is promising, could fire away freely, field-testing messages and searching for the president's points of weakness.
Obama is far better off than he was six months ago. But he cannot afford to go wobbly or to let the good news go to his head.
E.J. Dionne's email address is ejdionne(at)washpost.com.
Friday, March 2, 2012
How Honoring Dr. King is Connected to Celebrating Ahmed Seku Ture and Amilcar Cabral
Black Buzz News Service
College Park, Maryland
March 2, 2012
College Park, Maryland
March 2, 2012
By
Obi Egbuna, Jr.
As the Democratic Party’s machine inside and outside the African community just recently celebrated the 83rd birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it is important to note that our former colonial and slave masters have immense difficulty accepting that while history certainly can be hidden, it can never be erased. This dynamic automatically puts all of Dr. King’s colleagues and relatives who are still with us in the flesh and who decided his birthday is the best platform to discuss his work and vision, on an unavoidable collision course with people all over the world who prefer to celebrate him on the day he was assassinated instead. What adds further insult to injury is that the memorial built in his honor is so close in proximity to memorials dedicated to a slave owner named Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, whose legacy in US presidential politics represents a political masquerade that has yet to be duplicated or surpassed.
One of the most damaging ideas ever propagated by US imperialism past or present is Lincoln freed Africans from slavery, mainly because of certain demonstrative gestures associated with this historical moment. There are two examples most worthy of in depth focus in relationship to this matter. One is that Dr. Carter G. Woodson decided to establish African History month during the 2nd week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, and Barak Obama choosing to use Lincoln’s Bible to be sworn in as the 44th US President. In the case of Dr. Woodson we have a true fighter whose loyalty to African people can never be questioned, and those who bark up that tree obviously suffer from a severe case of self righteousness. But his legitimizing of Lincoln resulted in President Obama politically showboating with Honest Abe’s good book during his inauguration without any parameters or shame.
While no African on earth is expecting the physical reappearance of Dr. King, as Christians await Jesus Christ’s return, in order to set the record straight concerning what he fought and stood for. However, the logic of his memorial on the mall is the cultural and political equivalent of the Palestinian freedom fighter Yasser Arafat having a memorial in front of the Israeli Knisset (Israel’s Parliament) or the prophet Mohammed having a statue in front of the Vatican in Rome. A crucial part of our never ending struggle is to have the last word on our history, which happens to be a universal responsibility imposed on all people who have walked the planet. We should also take pride in knowing that many who occupy this historical space will take steps to ensure future generations completely understand and continue Dr. King’s work on our behalf. What this approach demands is that today’s historians, writers and activists whose political expression too often wreak of grandstanding and opportunism, will eventually reach the conclusion that writing our history the way its supposed to be written, is much more beneficial to our community worldwide as opposed to indulging in countless critiques aimed at boosting their reputations as experts on an array of topics.
Because Dr. King was a student and champion of non-violence, it is extremely vital to always connect his frontline service and contributions with the positive action campaigns in Ghana and Guinee, that not only put a permanent dent in the armor of British and French colonialism, but made Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Seku Ture the most feared African heads of state at the height of the anti-colonial movement on our beloved Motherland. To link Dr. King with both Nkrumah and Seku Ture is actually running downhill intellecually, especially since Dr. King made a cultural pilgrimage to Ghana for the purpose of attending their independence celebration, and the CIA orchestrated coup that overthrew Nkrumah’s Government on February 24th 1966 when he was in route to Hanoi to present a proposal to end US imperialism’s brutal and genocidal war on Vietnam. Because courageously opposing the Vietnam War not only robbed the African world of a very special freedom fighter at the peak of his resistance, when we were only two years removed from losing Africa’s first government to free itself from settler colonial rule. In this respect, Nkrumah and King, historically speaking, are joined at the hip forever. Through this powerful connection the terrible message sent to African people that we always must look outward for clarity and inspiration when resisting oppression is put to rest, along with the biographical overview that Dr. King’s only influence on the question of civil disobedience was Mahathma Gandhi.
We can begin right this minute by making sure, on a Pan African scale, that our children are reminded that January 7th is Ahmed Seku Ture’s birthday and January 20th marks the assassination of Guinee Bissau’s bravest patriot Amilcar Cabral. Because the 1960’s generation remains the driving force behind teaching our history in educational, political and cultural circles, making a deliberate effort to aggressively share the value of Ture and Cabral around the same time as Dr. King’s birthday is celeberated should meet very little resistance. The only opposition we anticipate receiving in our community concerning this effort, would be from certain elements due to political domestication and bribery, have already come out of the closet to let us know from their vantagepoint Mother Africa takes a back seat to Uncle Sam. In his autobiography Malcolm X correctly and respectfully refers to Ghana as a fountainhead of Pan Africanism. While Malcolm’s claim is virtually impossible to challenge, the tenure of Guinee under Seku Ture is certainly worthy of equal praise and recognition.
There are two reasons this has not taken place already: Nkrumah is an English-speaking African, while Seku Ture is a French-speaking African. Nkrumah is also a graduate of Lincoln University, a Historically Black College, and Seku Ture’s formal education took place on African soil. If we follow the example of Minister Louis Farrakhan this gap will be bridged in no time. During his introduction of Seku Ture at an event in his honor at Howard University in 1982, Minister Farrakhan revealed to the audience that just as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is his spiritual father, Seku Ture is his political father.
In his recent HBO documentary Sing Your Song, the artist and activist Harry Belafonte reflected on the historic 10 member SNCC delegation that traveled to Guinee through his coordination, where he had the honor and privilege of having quality exchanges with Seku Ture and the leadership of the Democratic Party Of Guinee. Because it was none other than Seku Ture himself who taught us “the greatest crime one can commit is that of being ungrateful,” we must give Belafonte the highest level of praise for arranging SNCC’s visit to Guinee. However it is rather curious that the documentary fails to mention that the 4th chairman of SNCC, Kwame Ture, spent the last 31 years of his natural life residing, studying and waging struggle in Guinee. Kwame Ture’s invitation to live in Guinee, came from none other than Seku Ture and Kwame Nkrumah. This humble overture itself is equally, if not more historically significant than his decision to accept their once-in-a-lifetime offer. In his last statement to the African world entitled “Hell Yes We Are Going To Libya,” Kwame Ture discussed being criticized by many activists in the US for deciding to make Guinee his home. At that point of their political development, Ture and Nkrumah obviously considered the Guinean Revolution a foreign policy issue. Before Ture’s transition to the ancestors in November of 1998, he was appointed the head advisor to the Democratic Party of Guinee, something he considered one of the greatest honors ever bestowed upon him. He certainly lived up to the names of Kwame Nkrumah and Seku Ture, in deed as well as word.
Since SNCC’s approach to the Civil Rights Movement was considered by many to be on the cutting edge, they obviously felt right at home in Seku Ture’s presence, many dimensions of SNCC’s activity and outlook was compatible with Africa’s anti-colonial resistance. By deciding to form political parties on the battlefield, as opposed to creating fronts, unions, and movements, Seku Ture, Amilcar Cabral and of course Kwame Nkrumah raised the stakes surrounding political empowerment in Africa. During the same period in history, SNCC came to the conclusion that becoming Democrat meant rubbing shoulders with George Wallace, Ross Barnett, and Orval Farbus, therefore, establishing the Loundes County Freedom Organization (the first Black Panther Party) and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party on the path to self-determination. The decision Seku Ture and the PDG made to vote no concerning the French Union referendum proposed by Charles DeGaulle, making Guinee the only colony of France in West Africa to opt for immediate and total independence, exemplified the slogan Black Power First coined by Frederick Douglass but popularized by SNCC in the 1960’s.
As the next US Presidential election steadily approaches and our community, who votes 95% democrat, are meeting around the clock to develop full proof voter registration and education strategies, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to finally study Nkrumah’s Covention People’s Party, Ture’s Democratic Party Of Guinee and Cabral’s Party For The Independence of Guinee and Cape Verde in order to expand our horizons. When Africans in the US learn that Seku Ture was expelled from school at the age of 14 for organizing a food strike, he automatically will be connected to our illustrious archives of young warriors like Claudette Colvin, the 15-year-old who took part in a bus boycott in Montgomery months before Rosa Parks, or Lil Bobby Hutton the first recruit of the Black Panther Party for self defense, who was shot and killed by the police in Oakland, California on April 6, 1968, two days after Dr. King’s assassination. While frontline struggle is arguably our most significant and uplifting tradition, we rarely witness torches of resistance trickle their way down the nuclear family tree. In this regard, both Seku Ture and Dr. King were truly blessed. The only difference is Dr King was passed the torch by his biological father who headed Atlanta’s NAACP chapter and the Pastor of Ebenezer’s Baptist Church. Seku Ture followed the footsteps of his great-grandfather Samory Ture, who was the spark of the Guinean people revolting against French colonial domination.
The unyielding commitment that Dr. King had to the tactic of non-violence is irrefutable. What Seku Ture did in Guinee after independence sheds an entirely different light on the infamous discussion around King parting ways with Malcolm’s tactical stance best captured with four words, “By Any Means Necessary.” After Guinee’s independence from French colonial rule, Seku Ture established a people’s militia rooted in the premise that a truly patriotic people must be the extension of their military. If we strive to be objective and think beyond our comfort zone, the brilliance of this decision saved Guinee from an invasion plot engineered by the Portuguese, French and US Government called Operation Green Sea. There were between 350 to 420 Portugese soldiers committed to three objectives: the capturing of Amilcar Cabral, the rescue of Portugese mercenaries in Guinee Bissau, and the overthrow of Seku Ture. This is where the tone of our anti-war expression differs from what white liberals choose to swear by. We are diametrically opposed to imperialist driven repression and violence, but gain confidence and motivation when our comrades throughout the world defeat them on the battlefield.
When Commandante Fidel Castro visited Guinee in May of 1972, he compared the manner in which the People of Guinee’s Militia in conjunction with their soldiers handled the invasion, as almost identical to the bravery Cuba demonstrated during the CIA’s cowardly Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 that was planned and carried out by the Kennedy administration. After all these years, many of us still marvel at one of Dr. King’s most utilized quotes from his speech during the March on Washington in 1963, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged not by the color of their skin but the content of their character.” Seku Ture boldly took these exact sentiments to new unprecedented heights by eloquently stating “Fidel Castro, a white man, is more of a brother to me than Mobutu Sese Seko, an African.”
What Seku Ture and Nkrumah teach us is that even though they came to power through positive action campaigns, both of them understood the necessity of not only rock solid defense inside your territorial borders, but aiding liberation movements throughout Africa where the people would have been slaughtered by their colonial masters if they failed to take up arms. In his book, Class Struggle in Africa, Nkrumah documented all the liberation movements engaged in protracted armed struggle that he stood by faithfully until he was overthrown. Both Nkrumah and Cabral were eternally grateful to Seku Ture. Before the shock of the coup that ousted Nkrumah sank in, Seku Ture appointed him Guinee’s co-President. What helped the Cabral and the PAIGC’s guerilla fighters in Guinee Bissau maintain their resolve was a deep understanding that Seku Ture’s was equally devoted to the defeat of Portugese Colonialism in Guinee Bissau, as he was to maintaining the sovereignty of Guinea.
When speaking of Dr. King, we must make it our duty to share the compelling story of his mother, a schoolteacher certified by Hampton University, who forced to give up her job because she was married. In those days female teachers could not be married and remain in that capacity. It is a tragedy that many of us who swear by Dr. King’s every word are not even aware that his mother was shot in cold blood while playing the organ in Ebenezer Baptist Church, only six years after we lost her son that fateful evening at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. From the very moment Seku Ture formed the PDG in Guinee, our sisters were the cornerstone of the revolution and constantly challenged the men in their lives to be part of the anti-colonial struggle. If Alberta King had lived in Guinee instead of Atlanta, she would have been on the frontline, and Guinee under Seku Ture would have never treated female trailblazers like Ella Baker, Daisy Bates, Amelia Boynton Robinson and Queen Mother Moore as mere human footnotes in our history we feel compelled to mention just to save face.
The best practical example of this is after Nkrumah’s overthrow in Ghana, he was accompanied to Guinee by none other the widow of Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, sister Shirley Graham DuBois, who was welcomed in both Ghana and Guinee the way Assata Shakur is in Cuba today. We must not forget that since Dr. Dorothy Height did not speak during the March on Washington, we were deprived of the opportunity to hear a sister’s point of view, and that it was the Queen of Gospel, Mahalia Jackson, who urged Dr. King to share his dream because she already heard him express it publicly. Another awesome sister who witnessed firsthand the beauty of the Guinean people is none other than the revolutionary singer and icon Miriam Makeba who lived there during her marriage to Kwame Ture. Another bold step towards total women’s empowerment in Guinee when Seku Ture and the PDG banned polygamy in the country, because the common sentiment was if the sisters could help liberate the nation, living as equals made the revolutionary process come full circle.
As Jimmy Carter parades around the world today posing as the savior of the Palestinian people, compared to Seku Ture, to call him a Johnny-come-lately would be a gross understatement. Seku Ture is one of the original co-sponsors of the UN Resolution 3379 Zionism is Racism, and was one of the first African Heads of State that called for breaking diplomatic ties with the Zionist State of Israel. Because the Zionist state of Israel’s propaganda machine, have always dangled Dr. King’s position on the 1967 six day war, as a means to garner more support for their conquering and persection of the Palestinian people.
Our people’s unwavering solidarity with the Palestinians.should not only be the tip of the iceberg, this means intensifying our efforts to expose the genocidal nature of Israel’s foreign and African policy, which in the final analysis is the best compliment to the Palestinians never ending battle to attain and maintain independence and self determination.
We are fully aware that mother Africa is scarred by cultural tensions, or what our former colonial and slave masters call tribal warfare for the purpose of implying we are savages incapable of resolving our differences amicably. We mourn the millions of Africans under the soil in Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Eritrea lost to senseless violence. What Seku Ture established in Guinee from 1958 to 1984 was a nation supremely loyal to Guinee and Africa as a whole, taking precedence over belonging to the Mandingo, Fulani or Sisu nations.
The life of Amilcar Cabral was certainly one of impact and quality. His training as an agronomist and emphasis on teaching the masses of Guinee Bissau better farming techniques was strategically brilliant because this protected the PAIGC against the falsehoods being peddled by the Portugese colonial rulers who attempted damage control by labeling them terrorists. The story of Cabral and the PAIGC helps put in proper focus and context the need to support institutions that are part of the HBCU family, such as Tuskegee, FAMU, North Carolina A&T, and Prairie View A & M University, to name a few. By placing such a strong emphasis on agriculture during Guinee Bissau’s heroic armed struggle, Cabral and the PAIGC paved the way for future revolutionaries like the late Thomas Sankara who during time he served as the President of Burkina Faso, made the country completely food self sufficient. These stories automatically link Cabral and Sankara to George Washington Carver, especially during the 47 year period he directed the Agricultural Department of Tuskegee, at the behest of Booker T. Washington. We can only let our imaginations wander concerning Cabral and Carver developing and maintaining a working relationship, identical to the one that existed between Nkrumah and DuBois, which led to DuBois spending his final days developing Encyclopedia Africana with Ghana’s resources at his disposal. Because Carver made his transition to the ancestors in 1943, and even Cabral himself was assassinated 8 months before Guinee Bissau’s declaration of independence, the beautiful site of Dr. Carver utilizing his one of a kind skillset on authentic African soil never came to pass.
It is safe to say that Cabral is smiling down on President Mugabe and people of Zimbabwe, who 12 years ago reclaimed 70% of the country’s most agriculturally resourceful land, from 4,500 white commercial farmers and returned it to 350,000 indigenous Zimbabwean families.
The mock communication exercises that Cabral used to train PAIGC militants to conduct, reminds Africans in the US of the door-to-door efforts of the Freedom Riders over 50 years ago. It was a staple of each and every Civil Rights organization that ever fought to change our conditions. It also sheds light on every organization from Marcus Garvey’s UNIA to the Nation of Islam, whose membership, when selling their newspapers and distributing literature all over the country, were required to attempt to share its organizational goals and visions and persuade you to join their ranks.
Because of their intense devotion to African Culture, both Seku Ture and Amilcar Cabral were visionaries wise well beyond their years. When discussing the role of culture in the struggle in Guinee Bissau, Cabral stated “Liberation itself is an act of culture,” and Seku Ture in his essay A Dialectical Approach To Culture stated “Culture is the sum total of spiritual and material values obtained by humanity throughout its history.”
As it pertains to preserving our cultural integrity and space, the daughters and sons of Africa born and raised in the US, appear to have decided that hitching our star to Western popular culture has become their utmost priority. It is by no means accidental that exactly one week after Dr. King’s birthday, a movie highlighting the Tuskeegee Airmen called Red Tails was released. The film is produced by George Lucas and the screen play was written by two of our own, John Ridley and Aaron McGruder. In addition to co-authoring Red Tails Ridley has written for the Martin Lawrence show, and movies like Bobby, Street Kings, Three Kings, Undercover Brother just to name a few. Ridley also has 7 novels to his credit. The film’s other co-author is the creator of the brilliant and groundbreaking cartoon The Boondocks. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Ridley stated that an uncle of his was a Tuskeegee Airmen. A few years ago McGruder created a Boondocks episode about how Dr. King would be perceived by our people if he was alive today. Since McGruder earned an undergraduate degree in African American Studies from the University of Maryland, he should ask himself if Dr. King would still consider the US Government the greatest purveyor of violence in the world? It appears that all of our cultural workers accept a mandate from the powers that be in Hollywood that before they call it quits, using their talents to pay homage to Uncle Sam, the idiot box, or the big screen is a prerequisite.
In the midst of the quarrel between filmmakers Spike Lee, who aggressively accused Perry of promoting coonery and buffoonery, and Tyler Perry concerning how Africans should be depicted in films we produce and direct, what somehow got lost is Lee deciding to become a pitchman for the US Navy. During the summer of 1999, Lee filmed and directed six commercials for the Navy for a campaign in conjunction with the advertising firm BBDO. These commercials were shown in 16,000 theaters throughout the country. The commercial topics ranged from Life After the Navy, Education and Travel. The general theme of the campaign was “Let the Journey Begin,” and the target was youth between the ages of 17 and 21. To ensure they hit the target, the Navy and BBDO aired commercials on the following TV stations: WB, ESPN, MTV, and of course BET. The other strategic targets were slots during the NBA playoffs and NFL games for that upcoming season. The Navy’s commanding officer Edward Brownlee discussed how Lee was able to connect with the audience they were trying to recruit. What can’t be overlooked is Lee voluntarily bid for this job, and Brownlee stated the Navy fell 7,000 recruits short of their goal the previous year.
It would be interesting to hear Spike Lee’s answer to an extremely important political question, since it’s clear he wouldn’t like to see young African men cross-dress like Tyler Perry when he plays Madea, does the image of them in a US Navy uniform dropping bombs on poor and innocent people all over the world make him sleep better at night?
From the moment President Truman desegregated the US military, our former colonial slave masters have used their classrooms as laboratories to brainwash each and every one of us into believing it is our patriotic duty to die for the stars and stripes in every corner, all over the world. This is why you hear baseless rhethoric like “We don’t support the war but we support the troops” coming out of our people’s mouths. By continuing to make movies like Miracle at St Anna andRed Tails, Lee, McGruder and Ridley not only feed Hollywood’s pro-military frenzy, but demonstrate that the earlier victims of mis-guided patriots like Crispus Attucks, Peter Salem, or Cathay Williams, the female Buffalo Soldier, still have a looming influence on our community today. What they must understand is that for future generations of Africans a burial in Arlington Cemetery is an unwelcomed detour from the trail walked by Dr. King, Seku Ture and Amilcar Cabral.
As if the conventional warfare of US Imperialism isn’t enough to deal with, its diplomatic arm in the information age could perhaps be a bigger threat to world peace. This is why US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appointing NBA legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar to serve as the cultural ambassador for the US State Department has extremely dangerous implications. Since the jump ball is how basketball games begin, we can start by examining Jabbar’s comments on the Libyan situation. He stated, “What we did with President Obama’s tactics in Libya enabled them to obtain their goals and see us as people who were helpful and sticking up for the rights of the common people in Libya confronting a tyrant.” Prior to these remarks Jabbar made the following statement in defense of President Bush “a lot of people criticized him from the very first day he said he was not at war with Islam, he was dealing with terrorists who happen to be Muslim.”
Since Jabbar has earned praise for both his intellect and appetite for knowledge, one wonders if he has ever read Seku Ture’s book Islam For The People’s Benefit. These statements along with his choice to serve as the cultural face of the State Department imply Jabbar has undergone a complete political makeover, and he would like nothing more than to put his decision to boycott the 1968 olympics because of the Vietnam War behind him once and for all. We now have to wonder if Jabbar might come out with a statement that he should have followed the course of the NFL player Pat Tillman, who gave up his football career and went to fight in Afghanistan.
Since Jabbar has earned praise for both his intellect and appetite for knowledge, one wonders if he has ever read Seku Ture’s book Islam For The People’s Benefit. These statements along with his choice to serve as the cultural face of the State Department imply Jabbar has undergone a complete political makeover, and he would like nothing more than to put his decision to boycott the 1968 olympics because of the Vietnam War behind him once and for all. We now have to wonder if Jabbar might come out with a statement that he should have followed the course of the NFL player Pat Tillman, who gave up his football career and went to fight in Afghanistan.
It is no secret that for standing on the side of justice in his early 20′s, the NBA and corporate media went beyond the call of duty to make him feel underappreciated as an athlete. Just last year Jabbar voiced his displeasure concerning the Los Angeles Lakers, with whom he won five championships, who have yet to erect a statue in his honor. Jabbar appeared to be disgruntled that Magic Johnson, Jerry West and the broadcaster Chick Hearn were honored with statues before him. It is deplorable that the State Department decided to appoint Jabbar Cultural Ambassador when he was feeling rejected by the sport that he had dedicated his entire life to, and he responds by condoning the bombing of Libya where people who share his faith were slaughtered like sheep.
The Obama administration appears to have developed an unofficial project that could be labeled Operation Distance Yourself From Your Past. It would be a tragedy if Maya Angelou goes to her grave being remembered solely for reciting Phenomenal Women at Bill Clinton’s Inauguration or having Obama put the Presidential Medal of Freedom around her neck, as opposed to the work she did with Julian Mayfield in Ghana on the African Review magazine. Another dissapointing site was to was witness another Bill Russell, a protest athlete from the 60′s at last year’s NBA All Star Game still sporting his Presidential Medal of Freedom days after the White House ceremony. Russell resembled a 21st century athlete or entertainer sporting a fancy piece of jewelry in bling-bling mode.
We applaud Will and Jada Pinkett Smith along with Jay-Z for financing the Broadway play centered around the life of Fela Kuti. Because the Smith family and Jay-Z provided the additional capital needed to complete this play, comparisons were made to how Bill Cosby, Oprah Winfrey and others stepped in and gave Spike Lee finances to complete Malcolm X. Unfortunately, since then Cosby has become a self-appointed attack dog of our youth who are more than capable of making the transformation as Malcolm X did, from the trappings of the hood to the frontline of our liberation struggle. But the follow-up must be them coming together with activists in their peer groups who are ready to wage cultural warfare with US Imperialism or their role in the raping and plundering of Nigeria and the African continent, such as Dead Prez and Immortal Technique. This, after all, was the work what Fela and his mother Fumilayo Kuti before him dedicated their entire to lives in the first place. Let us remember what Cabral told us “Tell no lies, claim no easy victories.”
Because greed, exploitation and war are the cornerstones of the US Imperialist value system, the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has to work overtime, through attempting to bandage the government’s list of countless atrocities committed everywhere on the map. Since the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961, which happens to be the same year Patrice Lumumba was assassinated in the Congo, the State Department began developing full proof strategies to seek out and train cultural mercenaries. As early as 1956 the legendary Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie served as the State Department’s Jazz Ambassador and was followed a few years later by Louis Armstrong. However, it appeared Armstrong was having a change of heart when he accepted Nkrumah’s offer to become the dean of music at the University of Accra. Unlike Armstrong Gillespie truly blossomed into a cultural agent for US Imperialism, which was on display when he worked in clandestine fashion to help the trumpet player Arthuro Sandoval escape Cuba and seek asylum in the United States. The State Department now has a Hip-Hop ambassador position, that in partnership with gospel, bluegrass and jazz musicians will visit 40 countries this year as a partnership with American Voices. These artists are baited to become double agents with their weapon of choice being song and dance. It was none other than Seku Ture who said “To be part of the African Revolution it is not enough to write a revolutionary song, you must fashion the song with the people and the songs will come of themselves and by themselves.”
Another issue with a similar twist is the Hip Hop artist and movie star Curtis “50 Cent”
Jackson’s pledge to feed 2.5 million children in Africa. It is public knowledge that our brother has certainly expanded his knowledge base, which is commendable, but we also hope he comes across Seku Ture’s statement “An African Statesman is not a naked boy begging for rich capitalists.” Because Brother 50 has decided to tackle hunger in Africa, it would be interesting to get his response to US-EU sanctions on Zimbabwe that were imposed as a vindictive response to Zimbabwe’s reclaiming land which rightfully belongs to them and no one else. Our brother will realize the struggle to end hunger is inextricably linked to Africa’s fight to become liberated, unified and socialist. Our hunger for those goals exceed what the United Nations Food Program can put on a plate.
The artists who travel the world on behalf of the State Department, prior to this experience, have very little or no history whatsoever of organizing at the grass roots level to change US policy towards the countries they end up visiting as a result of these posts. What this means is that their political points of references are either their artistic counterparts they meet and befriend in these countries or the public relations apparatus of the State Department who denounce their governments because they clamor a more comfortable life in the US. The distraction created by the artists talent and to their craft, cause them to loose site of their relationship to the politics on the ground in the country. Due to the State Department’s traveling circus these artists either become loyalists and apologists for US Imperialism, or condemn US foreign policy when it’s convenient to do so. We might even have to wait until they are on their death beds for them to speak truth to power. Some of these artists who work under the banner of the State Department may find themselves at the crossroads plagued with guilt, and as a result could try to transform into spooks who sat by the door. Others might proclaim they have been double agents the entire time they have been in these posts, and were seeking to penetrate the State Department the same way we maneuver inside the Democratic Party and Corporate USA. In the spirit of Dr. King, Amilcar Cabral and Ahmed Seku Ture we seek to play our rightful role in history with humility and dignity.
Obi Egbuna is the US Correspondent to the Herald (Zimbabwe’s National Newspaper), a US-based member of the Zimbabwe-Cuba Friendship Association. Egbuna is also a frequent contributor to Your World News. He can be contacted via
e-mail: obiegbunal5@gmail.com
e-mail: obiegbunal5@gmail.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)