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.”
Monday, May 30, 2011
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.”
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.
The Ronald B. Saunders Project
The Saunders Family Archives
FRYEBURG, MAINE
Special Report
PORTLAND MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM
MAY 27, 1962
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?
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.
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.
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.....
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.
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.
The James S. Robinson Jr. Project
The James S. Robinson Papers
The Robinson and Saunders Archives
Butler, PA
May 13, 2011
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.
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