The March on Washington 50th Anniversary

http://youtu.be/LkntwZKBpWw

A walk from the National Mall to the White House is a relatively short distance to travel. Depending on the starting point and the pace the stroll could take as little as thirty minutes. At any rate, if  you begin from where African Americans began fifty years ago it would be a much longer journey. On August 28, 1963 from a place of second-class citizenship, a group of African Americans and their supporters gathered at the National Mall for the March on Washington. The march was a demonstration for freedom and jobs. Driven by a force of a quarter of a million people its influence would travel through time to the White House and into history.

As a vehicle of the civil rights movement, the March on Washington carried its message of equality for African Americans from the National Mall on Capitol Hill to the the floor of the legislature in Congress. Dispatched from the Lincoln Memorial, the message boldly served as a notice of intent to reform. Adjoined with a civil rights bill proposed by President Kennedy, it trudged through the bureaucracy of Washington. The moving message prompted the passage of two important laws in successive years, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Impelled into reality by the march,  the landmark laws embarked on a mission to remove the road blocks of injustice that prevented minorities from moving forward. Persevering for decades through systemic racism the enduring statutes went on to break down those barriers.  Consequently, a path toward better educational and employment opportunities was constructed. It was through that path that the course of life for black people changed and the way was paved for the first African American to arrive at the White House as the president of the United States.

On January 21, 2013, four years after serving his first term as president, Barack Obama arrived at the National Mall again, almost fifty years after the March on Washington.  He was there to be sworn in for his second term as president.  He took the oath on the holiday named for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, the keynote speaker at the March on Washington. The bible used to swear him into office was Dr. King's traveling bible.

    

Dred Scott: Statue of Freedom

                                                                                             

Photo By Raymond House

In the mid 1800’s a legal issue in the state of Missouri involving slavery further flamed the debate of whether to abolish it and eventually led to the Civil War.  At the center of the controversy was Dred Scott.  He had been born a slave around 1799 to the Blow family in Virginia.  After the family relocated to Saint Louis they sold Scott to John Emerson.  When Emerson died Scott tried to buy his freedom from the estate of Emerson’s wife who inherited him as property. The attempt was unsuccessful and in 1846 with the help of legal representation, Scott filed suit in the Saint Louis Circuit Court. The basis of his argument hinged on the fact that he had been taken by his owner from the slave state of Missouri into areas where slavery was against the law. This was a violation of “Once free, always free”, a common law doctrine that had been previously recognized by the courts. The law made it illegal for slaves who had ever been freed to be enslaved again.  Under the ownership of John Emerson, Scott had lived with him in the free-state of Illinois and the free territory of Wisconsin.  The governing entities in anti-slavery areas also supported the view that time spent by slaves in free-states and territories made them free. Since there were no laws within their boundaries to govern the possession of slaves, they believed that slave owners with slaves in their jurisdictions forfeited their rights to own them.  Without a legal precedence of someone trying to obtain their freedom after leaving a free area and returning to a slave state, the court had to determine a course of action.  In 1847 the case went to trial and despite the favorable legal presence of the Once Free, Always Free Law and the strong anti-slavery sentiments of abolitionists, the judgment went against Scott and he remained a slave. However, due to the evidence of hearsay discovered after the verdict, the judge ordered a re-trial.  In the second trial, citing the fact that Scott had been wrongfully enslaved while living in free-areas a jury decided to grant him his freedom.  Displeased with the decision, his owner appealed it and in 1852 the Missouri Supreme Court overturned it.  The court stated that “Once free, always free”, which had been adhered to for the previous 28 years was no longer applicable.  Scott was returned to a life of slavery. Since Scott’s owner lived in New York, his lawyer was able to have the case retried under appeal in the federal district court. Another trial was held. Nevertheless, the original decision was upheld, Scott lost his case and again was denied his freedom.  In 1857 the case went to the United States Supreme Court. It decided against awarding Scott his freedom too. The judge ruled that no person of African ancestry could claim citizenship in the United States. Furthermore, since he was not considered a citizen, it was illegal for him to file suit in a federal court. The court also concluded that granting Scott his freedom after he temporarily lived in anti-slavery areas, would have denied his rightful owner of possessing his property, which would have been a violation of the Missouri Compromise.  Still considered as the property of the newly married heiress Irene Emerson, Scott's status was reaffirmed to be that of a slave.  Emerson's marriage prior to the Supreme Court verdict was the start of an unexpected turn toward freedom for Scott.  Emerson's husband was an abolitionist and had been unaware that his wife owned the most controversial slave in the country. After finding out, he and his wife decided to return Scott to his original owners, the Blow family.  The Blow family had also become abolitionists and just four months after the Supreme Court ruling they released Scott and his wife Harriet.  Finally after years of fighting court battles as a slave Scott was free. In September 1858 he went to work as a porter and less than two years later he died from tuberculosis. In 1863, a few years after Scott's death the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order by President Lincoln started the process of freeing all slaves.


Interestingly, it was in the court of law that Scott pursued his liberty, but it was through the court of changing public opinion that he gained it. As the progressive attitude to abolish slavery grew it persuaded the people who owned Scott to set him free.  Perhaps it’s fitting where the statue of Scott and his wife erected in 2012 is located. 155 years after its ruling to keep him enslaved the statue of Dred Scott stands in the yard of the Saint Louis Old Courthouse. Ironically, as a lifeless sculpture he has gained more freedom outside the courthouse than he was able to as a living person inside of it.

BLACK UNIVERSE-COLORFUL WORLD

Black, the most mysterious, the most abundant, and the most powerful color in the universe.  It's no wonder that Black people, who are born in more shades than any other race, are the most colorful people in the world.

The Friendship Prayer

A Triangular Affair

Being a third wheel in a love triangle is no way to roll. It’s geometrically unbalanced and physically unsafe.

Ernie Davis: The Fast Track to History

Ernie Davis was one of the fastest and best running backs to ever play college football. Experiencing racial hatred on the field along the way, he led Syracuse to its first national championship in 1961. Davis was the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy. He was also the first to be drafted first in an NFL draft. His career and life were cut short by Leukemia. Davis is remembered as a player who lived his life with dignity, grace and compassion. He took the fast track to into NFL history. Even though he never ran a yard in a professional game, the Cleveland Browns honored him by retiring his number. His story is told in the movie The Express: The Ernie Davis Story.

                                                http://youtube/ZoMhsoR_avM

Communication: On The Road To Love

On the path to relationships the importance of good communication cannot be over-stated.Whether we choose to go a new route with someone we have chemistry with or an old one with someone we have history with, learning to be a better communicator will guide us to happiness on the road to love......

George Washington Carver: From Slave to Scientist

George Washington Carver was born a slave in Missouri. A year after his birth, the emancipation proclamation ended slavery. At liberty to pursue a formal education, he enrolled at Iowa College. He was the first African American to do so. After receiving a Master of Science degree in bacterial botany, Carver went on to discover over 300 uses for the peanut and over 100 for sweet potatoes. One of his more timely discoveries was his development of the crop rotation method. In the early 1900's soil was being depleted by the continual planting of cotton and tobacco crops. Carver’s valuable technique prevented further depletion and helped the economic recovery of the South. During a time when the efforts toward farming by Black men was all physical, Carver’s used his intelligence as a scientist to prove that African Americans had something more to offer.

Health: The True Treasure Of Life

                                                                                                                                                                  

It's a gem, a gift from God. It exceeds the worth of any amount of wealth. It's more beautiful than any person and is far more popular. There is nothing that we can do that doesn't require some aspect of it. It allows us to navigate the course of our lives, visually through our sight, mentally through our thoughts and physically through our movement. It allows us to form relationships with the people we love, vocally through our speech, audibly through our hearing and emotionally through our hearts. It's because of our health that we are able to experience the essence of our being.  Health, the true treasure of life, value it.

The Sad Truth: Famous African American Deaths

In the entertainment and sports industries  dietary related illness has taken center stage to close the curtain on the final act of many famous African Americans. There’s a who’s who list  of celebrities and athletes who have passed on from complications of diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and dietary related cancers.

Some of the victims were as familiar to us as family as they frequently came into our homes to entertain us. We grew up laughing at their antics on television, dancing to their music on the radio and cheering their accomplishments in the world of sports.
                                    
While their talents have been silenced, their voices can still be heard. If you listen closely to this tribute to famous African Americans, you can hear a voice of awareness from the grave that speaks loud enough in death to be heard in life. 
                                                             
 Excerpt and video from R. House’s, “What to Health Are We Doing!"

                        

        

                  

http://youtube/xsppYCFFVXg 

Emmett Till: The Ugly Face Of Racism

If you haven’t seen this picture before, it’s one that you won’t soon forget. That’s just the way Mamie Carthan wanted it to be in 1955. That was the year that her son Emmett Till was murdered down in the Mississippi Delta. Till was visiting from Chicago that summer and had reportedly flirted with a white woman. The 14 year-old was taken from a relative’s house in the middle of the night, pistol whipped and thrown into the back of a pick-up truck. Then he was taken to a barn where he was beaten. One of his eyes was gouged out and he was shot. A 70 pound cotton gin was tied around his neck and he was thrown into the Tallahatchie River. His body was found three days later. His mother requested an open-casket funeral so that the world could see and never forget the brutality of his murder.

The two men accused of the kidnapping and murder, Roy Bryant and J.W.Milam  were tried and acquitted. It was a gross case of racial injustice in the state of Mississippi. The two accused later admitted to the crimes in a magazine article, but they were unable to be re-tried because of Double Jeopardy. 
                                       
 

 

Hand from Heaven: The Birmingham Church Bombing

                        
During the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s the Black church was not only a place of worship. It was a place of refuge, a place where Blacks felt safe from the hatred of racism. That is, until the church became a meeting place for the struggle confront racial justice. As organizers started to go against the grain of the tradition of White supremacy, the church became a target of violence.

50 years ago on September 15th 1963, two weeks after the March on Washington,the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed.  It was Youth Day and four girls in attendance that day were killed. The bodies of Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Weslely lied lifeless in the sanctuary. As sacrifices for justice on earth, their spirits were safely taken to heaven by the hand of God.

As for the church, it was badly damaged. The blast had blown a hole in the back of its wall. The steps were demolished and every glass structure was shattered, except for one stained-glass window. On it was a picture of Christ. He was leading a group of small children. The story of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing is told in the documentary 4 Little Girls.


                                              http://youtube/OzA7AifBTpQ