California’s Reparations Task Force Unleashes Final Report

A state task force in California has proposed more than 100 recommendations, including cash payments that could surpass $1 million in certain cases, as part of a reparations initiative. It’s aimed at addressing historical injustices faced by Black residents who are descendants of enslaved people and have battled systemic discrimination for generations.

After conducting over two years of research and holding public hearings, the task force presented its findings and recommendations to lawmakers last week.

The proposed measures extend beyond monetary compensation to include suggestions like tuition-free college education for eligible individuals and funding for wellness centers in predominantly Black neighborhoods.

Assembly Member Reginald Jones-Sawyer, a member of the reparations task force, said he intends to use its findings to draft a reparations bill to fellow lawmakers. He is expected to propose a bill in 2024.

“Not being able to own your own businesses, not being able to have access to capital, not being able to be hired and move up and matriculate — all of those things kept us from being able to rise naturally,” Jones-Sawyer said.

According to economists from the task force, descendants in California have suffered a loss of over $500 billion in wealth due to factors like over-incarceration, shortened lifespans, and the devaluation of Black-owned businesses.

Although cash payouts may not reach this figure, the specifics of the reparations program will be determined by lawmakers.

Jones-Sawyer believes that California can serve as a model for national reparations efforts.

“We may not totally get there, but we’re going to be so much better than if we have never done anything,” said Jones-Sawyer.

Gloria Pierrot-Dyer, whose ancestors were forced to work on plantations in Georgia and Louisiana, is among those who support the initiative.

An earlier generation of her family fled after a relative was lynched, and eventually settled in California’s historically Black community of Allensworth in the 1950s. She witnessed firsthand during her childhood her father’s struggle to secure a loan for a well on their farm — a loan that could have helped them succeed, she said.

“We could have been so much farther. There were so many things we could have done had we had water,” Pierrot-Dyer said.

A recent Pew Research Center survey reveals that while over half of Americans acknowledge the enduring impact of slavery on Black Americans today, views on reparations are sharply divided. The survey found only 18% of White Americans support reparations for the descendants of enslaved people, compared to 77% support among Black Americans.

Bob Woodson is among the 17% of Black Americans who do not favor reparations. Woodson said he believes reparations distract from the focus on individual resilience and the efforts to overcome past injustices.

“It’s part of our past. It was brutal. Oppression is part of the story and it should be told. But we should never define ourselves by what disabled us,” said Woodson.

The five components of reparations

Restitution

This should restore victims to their original situation before the violation occurred: restoration of liberty, reinstatement of employment, return of property.

Compensation

This should be provided for any economically assessable damage, loss of earnings, loss of property, loss of economic opportunities, moral damages.

Rehabilitation

This should include medical and psychological care, legal and social services.

Satisfaction

The injured community should feel satisfied with the actions taken. Can include public apologies, sanctions and memorials or commemorations

Guarantees of non-repetition

This should include the cessation of continuing violations, and the promise that it won’t happen again.

The Hit Movie “Emancipation” starring Oscar Award Winning Actor #WillSmith on Apple TV, and BLMTV

A movie about the true story of the man in the iconic portrait of “WhippedPeter”, a runaway slave who manages to find his way through the swamps of Louisiana, on a tortuous journey to escape plantation owners that nearly killed him.

EmancipationMovie #BlackMovieSunday

Two photographers/abolitionists arrange Peter’s posture as he sits in a chair. They ask him to turn his scourged back toward the lens, to move his face to the side.

Peter asks, “Why are you doing this?” The photographer reverently responds: “So the world might know what slavery truly looks like.” In a film about the universally historic impact of the image known as “Whipped Peter,” the conversation is historic. And still over 150 years later, we’re still suffering from the horrors of slavery in this country, no one can deny.

#BLMTV

Brittney Griner HOME after being released by Russia in prisoner swap for arms dealer Viktor Bout

BLMTV WELCOMES BRITTNEY GRINER HOME!

Brittney Griner arrived in the U.S. early Friday, landing at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas.

The WNBA star, who was arrested on February 17th, 2022, and held in Russian prisons on drug charges (she was found to have less than 1 gram of cannabis oil in her luggage) was released Thursday in a one-for-one-prisoner swap for notorious international arms dealer Viktor Bout, bringing an end to an ordeal that sparked intense high-level negotiations between the two governments, Washington DC, and Moscow, Russia. to bring her home.

Griner, a 32-year-old star center for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, was detained at a Russian airport in February and later pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the discovery of cannabis-derived oil cartridges in her luggage. Griner said she didn’t mean to bring the cartridges with her when she traveled to the country to play in a Russian basketball league during the WNBA offseason.

CBS News learned last Thursday that the Griner-for-Bout swap was in the offing but agreed to a White House request to hold the reporting because officials expressed grave concern about the fragility of the then-emerging deal.

Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, tweeted, “So happy to have Brittney back on U.S. soil. Welcome home BG!”

Did you know South Phoenix had a Farmers Market? You Do Now!

BRITTNEY GRINER Facing Hell In Prison… HOMOPHOBIA, RACISM & 16-HOUR WORK DAYS GET HER OUT!

BRITTNEY GRINER

Facing Hell In Prison …
HOMOPHOBIA, RACISM & 16-HOUR WORK DAYS

Brittney Griner will face horrific conditions during her time in a Russian prison … with environments that will include homophobia, racism and 16-hour work days.

According to The Nation’s Dave Zirin, prisoners in Mordovia — where Griner was taken to earlier this month — are barely treated like humans.

Bigotry is commonplace, medical care is nearly nonexistent … and, Zirin says, inmates are expected to sew the uniforms for police and guards.

In fact, it’s unclear if Griner will even get a bed that will fit her 6-foot-8 frame.

Musician Nadya Tolokonnikova, a founder of the feminist group Pussy Riot, spent two years in Mordovia following a 2012 arrest, and per Zirin, described the place as hell, where “beatings and torture” are common.

Griner’s camp, however, has insisted the WNBA star is trying to remain brave in the face of it all … saying in a statement following her move to Mordovia earlier this month that “Brittney is doing as well as could be expected.”

“Despite the fact she is alone and now nearing her ninth month in detention separated from her loved ones,” her reps said, “she is trying to stay strong.”

Griner has been detained in Russia since February after she was accused of bringing hashish oil in her luggage to a Moscow airport. In August, she was sentenced to nine years in prison. An appeal of that sentence was denied in October.

U.S. officials, meanwhile, have said they’re actively working to get her out, currently in the process of negotiating a prisoner swap with Russia.

The Arizona Recovery Care LLC, hosts the Give Thanks Event, Honoring Our Men and Women in their Recovery Process

A beautiful evening in deed! Black Women of Faith along with many of our Black Community Partners, presented The AZ Recovery Care Give Thanks Dinner, at United Nations Church with Special Guests of A Better Way Transitional Home Foundation.

We served mighty men who are in the process of recovering from drug and alcohol addictions. Many of these men have lost all but hope!

Our special guest speakers included, Minister Tye Rush, Apostle Timothy Craig, and Dr Larry Witherspoon, whom gave the men a charge to be encouraged in their pursuit of stability.

After much sharing of information, it has come to our understanding that the organizations who focus on caring for the recovering persons, need support in their endeavors. The chance for one being successful in sobriety is increased when their spirituality is engaged in the process. Recovery is not only a personal effort, but a community effort, and the church and leaders, must take its rightful place in our society to assist.

Awards of recognition were presented to our servants for their engagement and leadership within our community.

Special recognition was given to a several of our front line Black owned recovery home owners; A Second Chance Group Homes, Residential Rehab Services, Community Builders, A Path to Resilience, and A Better Way.

A great Thank you to the many ladies of @BlackWomenofFaith, and our men of faith who spent their thanksgiving eve to serve for this purposeful event. I’d also like to give special mention to the United Nations Church, and it’s Pastor for hosting our event in excellence!

🙏🏽AZ RECOVERY CARE HOMES and BLACK COMMUNITY PARTNERS, serve as a network of resources for our Black owned nonprofits and transitional homes families. We are making great strides to network our efforts of care for our community. Our businesses have long standing needs to build and collaborate to find funding and resources available to them. We pray we fill that need. Over the course of the next couple months, we will be sharing information on our growth and success in this process, and endeavor.

AZ Recovery Care Homes Black Women of Faith Black Community Partners BLM TV United Nations Church Glendale Mr. Black Arizona OCCUPi Media & Entertainment Ctyc-tv Network – Connect to Your City, LLC Black Woman in AZ Rights and Wishes of Will and Trust Annual Walkathon Miasia Pasha

Kanye West is Moving Into His Own World…Dave Chappelle Spells Why…

Two Yeezy sources say West’s plan for his own small “universe” has been in the works for years, describing it as a self-sustained enterprise that would have its own branded products and services.

In the midst of all the chaos from West’s past month, his team filed a slew of trademark applications that would allow West to create his own mini-community — or as West intends to call it, the “Yecosystem.”

West’s plan for his own small “universe” has been in the works for years, two Yeezy sources confirm to Rolling Stone. The sources describe it as a self-sustained enterprise that would have its own branded homes, retail stores that sell Yecosystem-branded food items and beverages. The plan is serious, with arrangements to launch the first campus as early as next month, one source says. Eventually, West hopes to establish these mini-communities across the country, the source says. 

West’s vision is on par with Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, another source says, adding that West is adamant on creating something equally as world-changing. “He’s trying to do shit that people couldn’t even conceive of and he’s trying to make it happen,” they explain. “He comes from a good place. It’s definitely his goal that everything that people touch that’s his is a good thing and has a good impact on the world.”

KANYE WEST MIGHT have plans as ambitious as running for president. 

In the midst of all the chaos from West’s past month, his team filed a slew of trademark applications that would allow West to create his own mini-community — or as West intends to call it, the “Yecosystem.”

West’s plan for his own small “universe” has been in the works for years, two Yeezy sources confirm to Rolling Stone. The sources describe it as a self-sustained enterprise that would have its own branded homes, retail stores that sell Yecosystem-branded food items and beverages. The plan is serious, with arrangements to launch the first campus as early as next month, one source says. Eventually, West hopes to establish these mini-communities across the country, the source says. 

West’s vision is on par with Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, another source says, adding that West is adamant on creating something equally as world-changing. “He’s trying to do shit that people couldn’t even conceive of and he’s trying to make it happen,” they explain. “He comes from a good place. It’s definitely his goal that everything that people touch that’s his is a good thing and has a good impact on the world.”

West teased the idea of his own self-sustained enterprise in mid-September when he appeared on CNBC to explain why he severed his relationship with Gapand to hint that he might terminate his Adidas deal, too. (Following West’s antisemitic remarks, Adidas said it was putting its partnership with West “under review.” On Friday, Balenciaga announced it had severed its relationship with West, despite the rapper’s close relationship with the French fashion house’s creative director Demna.)

During the interview, West spoke of building his “own castle,” saying he was tired of having to answer to retailers’ boards, being frozen out of business discussions, his designs allegedly ripped off and having his team members poached. (West himself has been accused of “borrowing” designs from emerging designers without their knowledge.)

Instead, West said he wanted to build his own company and purchase his own factories, boasting that his new private school, Donda Academy, would “focus on bringing the American economy back, starting with our children.” “We are focusing on engineering for our species — what’s the thing we need the most? Food. [We are] engineering food,” he told CNBC, adding that Donda Academy students would also be learning automotive, software and shelter engineering. 

Days after his CNBC appearance, West’s company Mascotte Holdings filed numerous trademark applications that create the framework of a mini-community, trademark attorney Josh Gerben tells Rolling Stone

“The way these series of trademark applications were filed would very much be how you would file trademark applications to protect this type of idea of building this type of community out,” Gerben explains. 

The trademark applications cover branding and typical products, such as clothing items and retail goods. But in a first for West, the CEO of Mascotte, these new filings include a range of beverages; pre-made alcoholic drinks and liquors; raw fruits and vegetables; snacks, candy, and other processed foods. 

The filings indicate that West plans to create a variety of services under the Yecosystem umbrella, such as consulting services for nutrition, beauty, interior design and a public relations firm. Yecosystem has filings that would establish a production arm for movie, television, and radio programs, as well as an online media site that features “information on a recording artist in the fields of beauty, fashion, modeling, acting, music, [and] the arts.” The Yecosystem also hopes to create its own “residential buildings and houses.”

There’s also a philanthropic arm associated with the filings, indicating charitable services that include biological cloning, reproductive healthcare, children’s education and supporting members of the United States military. 

West’s vision is borne out of a sincere desire to make the world a better place, one Yeezy source explains, such as creating new technology like his Stem Player and offering a new approach to education with Donda Academy. “There’s a saying that he would say, which is like, ‘Yeezy makes life easy,’ they say. “I think his ideal vision is, ‘Let me use where I’ve come from and what I’ve achieved to spread good in the world.’” 

Does the United States Owe Reparations to the Descendants of Enslaved People? OF COURSE!

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan sought to “right a grave wrong” by signing legislation that apologized for the government’s forced relocation of 120,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II and established a $1.25 billion trust fund to pay reparations to those who were forced into internment camps and to their families.

However, the United States has never apologized for the nation’s treatment of enslaved people and their descendants. What do you think? Do you think that the descendants of enslaved people are owed anything for the wrongs of slavery? 

In the article “What Reparations for Slavery Might Look Like in 2019,” Patricia Cohen explores different arguments and possibilities:

When James Forman, a civil rights pioneer who later served briefly as the Black Panther Party’s foreign minister, demanded $500 million in reparations in his 1969 Black Manifesto, he grounded his argument in an indisputable fact: Unpaid slave labor helped build the American economy, creating vast wealth that African-Americans were barred from sharing.

The manifesto called for white Christian churches and Jewish synagogues to pay for projects like a black university and a Southern land bank. “We have helped to build the most industrial country in the world,” it declared, at the same time that “racist white America has exploited our resources, our minds, our bodies, our labor.”

Other civil rights leaders, such as Bayard Rustin, were not in agreement. Mr. Rustin said, “If my great-grandfather picked cotton for 50 years, then he may deserve some money, but he’s dead and gone and nobody owes me anything.”

Many people argue that while slavery happened in the past, its legacy still continues today:

The question of reparations, however, extends far beyond the roughly four million people who were enslaved when the Civil War started, as Ta-Nehisi Coates explained in an influential essay published in The Atlantic in 2014. Legalized discrimination and state-sanctioned brutality, murder, dispossession and disenfranchisement continued long after the war ended. That history profoundly handicapped black Americans’ ability to create and accumulate wealth as well as to gain access to jobs, housing, education and health care.

For every dollar a typical white household holds, a black one has 10 cents. It is this cumulative effect that justifies the payment of reparations to descendants of slaves long dead, supporters say.

The article raises the question: How much money would recipients of reparations get? Economists, including William A. Darity Jr., an economist at Duke University and a leading scholar on reparations, have looked to other models to calculate possible answers:

Compensation programs can take many forms. In the United States, after a congressional study, people of Japanese descent who were forced into internment camps during World War II received $20,000 in 1988 and a formal apology.

Since 1952, Germany has paid more than $70 billion in reparations through various programs, primarily to Jewish victims of the Nazi regime, and continues to deliver hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Payments vary from a lump sum distributed to individuals to a monthly pension based on years working in a slave labor camp. Money is also given to organizations to cover home care for older survivors or for grants. A small portion goes for research, education and documentation.

A reparations program in the United States could likewise adopt a single method or several at once. Families could get a one-time check, receive vouchers for medical insurance or college, or have access to a trust fund to finance a business or a home. Mr. Darity argues that “for both substantive and symbolic reasons, some important component must be direct payment to eligible recipients.”

Other scholars have emphasized different features. Roy L. Brooks, a law professor at the University of San Diego and the author of “Atonement and Forgiveness: A New Model for Black Reparations,” has reservations about what he calls the “settlement model,” a legalistic approach that looks backward to compensate victims for demonstrable financial losses. He prefers what he calls the “atonement model,” emphasizing longer-term investments in education, housing and businesses that build up wealth.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

  • Do you think that the United States owes the descendants of enslaved people an apology for slavery? If yes, what do you think an effective apology would look or sound like? Do you think that things like monuments, statues or memorials could be forms of apology? 
  • The article cites investments in education, housing and business as other models for reparations. What do you think about these approaches?
  • Students at Georgetown University have voted to increase their tuition by $27.20 each semester to “benefit descendants of the 272 enslaved Africans that the Jesuits who ran the school sold nearly two centuries ago to secure its financial future.” What do you think about this action on behalf of Georgetown students? Do you think the fee effectively addresses the university’s ties to slavery? If you were a student at Georgetown, would you have supported this decision? Do you think that other schools, colleges or institutions should follow Georgetown University’s example and investigate their ties to slavery?
  • Do you think descendants of enslaved people are owed reparations, in a similar way that the United States gave reparations to Japanese-Americans? Or the ways that Germany has given money and services for Holocaust survivors? Do you think there is a thoughtful and fair way to do this, or has too much time passed since slavery was abolished to make reparations practically feasible or appropriate?

Dr. Edward Robinson Explains Difference Between Black and White DNA

REFERENCES

Linkage disequilibrium (LD) is a population-based parameter that describes the degree to which an allele of one genetic variant is inherited or correlated with an allele of a nearby genetic variant within a given population (Bush and Moore, 2012).Feb 11, 2020

Cited:

Tishkoff SA, Dietzsch E, Speed W, Pakstis AJ, Kidd JR, Cheung K, Bonné-Tamir B, Santachiara-Benerecetti AS, Moral P, Krings M. Global patterns of linkage disequilibrium at the CD4 locus and modern human origins. Science. 1996 Mar 8;271(5254):1380-7. doi: 10.1126/science.271.5254.1380. PMID

BLMTV Sheds Light on Ye’s Truth

Not only is Kanye West the richest Black Man in America, but he is also the richest musician in the world.

Kanye Explains his rant…

His portrayed declaration of War against the “Jews”, is just the beginning of a Full Pledge Act of Purposeful Exposure of an Industry built on our backs and from our pain, to expose their true agenda against the Black American People of True Jewish descent.

They should arrest him if they feel that bad, but they don’t…they’d rather exercise their authority and expose their power to socially, and materially execute him.

Defcon 3 means “increase in force readiness above normal readiness” and would be used in situations that may not pose immediate danger but warrant significant alert. Under this warning, the military must be prepared to launch operations within 15 minutes of warning.

6 days ago — “I’m sorry for the families of the people that had nothing to do with the trauma that I have been through,” the rapper said.

What Kanye has said…

1. “Ima use you as an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me.”

2. “Jesus is Jew”

3. “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE,” he wrote.

5. “The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also,”

6. “You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”

7. Planned Parenthood as being created “to control the Jew population.” When I say Jew, I mean the 12 lost tribes of Judah, the blood of Christ, who the people known as the race Black really are.”

8. “I prefer my kids knew Hanukkah than Kwanzaa. At least it will come with some financial engineering,” he said, in a comment that appeared to allude to ideas that Jews are good with money.

9. President Barack Obama was frustrated in his efforts to legislate in part because Blacks are not as connected as Jews.

10. “Think about us judging each other on how white we could talk would be like, you know, a Jewish person judging another Jewish person on how good they danced or something,”

Indiana’s attorney general, Todd Rokita, tweeted that “Kanye’s message in this instance is fair and accurate, & regardless, he is entitled to his opinion,” adding, “The media will steamroll anyone if they do not kowtow to their way of thinking. According to them, you’re not thinking correctly if you don’t completely agree with them.”

The Hand Clapping Game


One of the many things that have been transferred through slavery is the “Hand Clapping Game”.

Traditionally played amongst school aged girls, this high-five action game gave rise to many early recorded popular songs. Our history is everywhere!

Traditional Setswana Wedding Dance


Young men, of the village Tlokweng, share with visitors their traditional wedding Setswana Dance.


A team of young men entertain the crowd with an exciting piece of traditional setswana dance during a wedding inTlokweng..Enjoy the scincillating performance!


#Till Movie Advance Screening Review

@TillMovie #WorldPremiere

🎥 Hosted by

Black Women of Faith

BLM TV Network
HarkinsTheatres

Emmett Till Legacy Foundation

Dan Harkins – Harkins Owner

Wednesday October 19th, 2022 6PM

Profoundly sad movie 😢 But what must be received, is that this was the beginning of the #CivilRights movement for our country. Not even 90 days later did Rosa Parks refuse to give up her seat! 🙅🏽‍♀️

Like @mamietillmobleymemorial knows, our children’s blood need not be in vain. This movie teaches valuable lessons of tragedy, and strategy. ✍🏽 #LettheWorldSee #TillMovie

Special Thank you to the #EmmettTill Family for their blessings, and participation.

http://www.TheBlackWomenofFaith.com

@mudbootmarketing Rhyen Thompson Black Women of Faith BLM TV Harkins Theatres Scottsdale Fashion Week

Hair Straightening Products May Be Leading Cause in Uterine Cancer of Black Women

Black Women of Faith and BLM TV Network To Sue Multiple Company’s In a Class-Action Lawsuit for Selling Products Hair Straightening Chemicals that Cause are Linked with Uterine Cancer

Katt Mckinney

(Nancy Lipid)

Oct 17

Hair-straightening products may significantly increase the risk of developing uterine cancer among those who use them frequently, a large study published on Monday suggests.

“We estimated that 1.64% of women who never used hair straighteners would go on to develop uterine cancer by the age of 70, but for frequent users, that risk goes up to 4.05%,” study leader Alexandra White of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Safety (NIEHS) said in a statement.

“However, it is important to put this information into context. Uterine cancer is a relatively rare type of cancer,” she added.

Still, uterine cancer is the most common gynecologic cancer in the United States, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with rates rising, particularly among Black women.

Researchers tracked 33,947 racially diverse women, ages 35 to 74, for an average of nearly 11 years. During that time, 378 women developed uterine cancer.

  • Call To Action –
  • Have you worn a straightening perm? If yes, please continue.
  • Have you experienced any pain in your stomach area?
  • Have you had a diagnosis or have ever had uterine cancer?
  • Contact Medical Provider right away for records.
  • Call BWF LEGAL SERVICES at (702) 683-2521.
  • Leave a message with your name, age, and diagnosis.
  • List of Pending Lawsuits
  • Soft Sheen-Carson, Hawaiian Silky, Beautiful Textures, Gentle Treatment, Affirm, QRS, Crème of Nature, TCB, Designer Essentials, Silk Elements, Just For Me, Africas Best, and more.

Ames Family Response to Apologies

Ames Family Rejects Apologies of City of Phoenix Mayor, and Police Chief.

Monday, June 17th, 2019

FAMILY BRUTALIZED AND VIOLATED BY PHOENIX POLICE TO HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE TODAY AT 11:00AM OUTSIDE OF THE MAIN ENTRANCE TO PHOENIX CITY HALL IN RESPONSE TO MAYOR AND POLICE CHIEF’S “MEANINGLESS SHAM APOLOGY AND CONTINUED LACK OF SUBSTANTIVE ACTION” TO FIRE AND DISCIPLINE ALL OFFICERS INVOLVED IN ATTACK THAT OUTRAGED MILLIONS.

“YOU WILL NOT INSULT US,” SAYS KATT MCKINNEY OF BLACK WOMEN OF FAITH.

NEW ALLEGATIONS OF ABUSE RELATED TO THE VIOLENT ENCOUNTER WILL BE REVEALED, AS THE MOTHER INVOLVED RECOUNTS HER BODY SEARCH BY MALE OFFICER AND HIS FAILURE TO CALL FOR OR WAIT FOR A FEMALE OFFICER.

THE FAMILY, THEIR LAWYERS, AND SPOKESMEN WILL ALSO DETAIL THE LIES AND SLANDEROUS DEMONIZATIONS THAT POLICE ATTEMPTED TO PASS OFF AS FACTS TO THE MEDIA IN THE NOW WIDELY CRITICIZED POLICE REPORT. 

MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY WILL ALSO OUTLINE PLANS FOR A PROTEST OF THE MAYOR AND POLICE CHIEF’S PLANNED TUESDAY MEETING AND WEDNESDAY’S COUNCIL MEETING. FURY BUILDS. 

MASS MARCH BEING PLANNED FOR THURSDAY TO DEMAND OFFICERS INVOLVED IN AMES-HARPER FAMILY ASSAULT BE FIRED IMMEDIATELY…

Phoenix, AZ – As the City of Phoenix continues to reel from national outrage over two damning videos that captured police officers assaulting and abusing an innocent Black Family over an alleged theft of a dollar-store doll, the community is mobilizing for mass action intended to pressure elected officials to take action, including the firing of the officers involved. Outrage grows.

At 11:00AM TODAY, Dravon Ames and his fiancé Iesha Harper will join the Rev. Jarrett Maupin, Katt Mckinney of Black Women of Faith, their lawyers, and community members outside of the main entrance of Phoenix’ City Hall to respond to what the family and the public are describing as, “The meaningless sham apologies and continued lack of substantive action” of the Mayor and Police Chief with respect to their failures to properly discipline, terminate, and reform a citizen abuse-prone police force. 

The group will debunk and denounce the police report of this incident. Glaring omissions and altered facts that contradict video tape will be outlined and condemned. Ames and Harper will also speak about failed attempts by police to destroy and assassinate their character. 

The family and their representatives will also share, for the first time, Iesha’s gut-wrenching account of her body search by a male police officer who refused to call or wait for a female officer to conduct it. Ms. Harper was not guilty of committing any crime and the officer has not been fired. 

Members of the community will also outline protest plans for THURSDAY of THIS WEEK, intended to increase pressure on city leaders to fire all of the officers involved in this incident and adopt the 12 POINT PLAN residents submitted to police. The department has FAILED to implement the community recommendations for policy and procedural reforms for more than half a decade. Community members say the police department is hostile to civil rights and guilty of collusion to violate the Constitutional rights of people of color.

The press conference will also detail plans for protests at the planned TUESDAY meeting organized by the Mayor to try and mislead and manipulate the community with, “More lies and false promises that mean absolutely nothing.”

“There are a lot of new facts, new abuse allegations, and new attacks on this family to unpack,” says Rev. Maupin, “The Family continues to be victimized by Phoenix Police but that will not deter them from their quest for justice and reform. The officers involved must be fired and policies and procedures must be strengthened. There will be a change. We must demand it.”

Media Contact: 480.363.1090

Press Conference, 11AM, TODAY (06/17)

Outside the main entrance of

Phoenix City Hall 

200 W. Washington Street

Phoenix, AZ 85003

Confront the #PolicingCrisis In #Phoenix

Come out to support the families and victims of the City of Phoenix Policing Crisis, and speak along with them to City Council Members on why this problem in our community must be addressed.

This is a National, International and Humanitarian Crisis that we must SPEAK ON! 

#PolicingCrisis

#PHXPOLICINGCRISIS

#NationalPolicingCrisis

#12PointPlan

More Info:

1. Request to Speak

The public may request to address the Council regarding an agenda item by submitting a yellow “Request to Speak” card at the meeting, or may submit a white card to state their support or opposition to an item for the record without speaking. Individuals wishing to speak or submit their position on an item should arrive and submit a card by the beginning of the meeting, before action is taken on the item. 

2. Citizen Comments

Citizen Comments are heard for up to 30 minutes (unless extended by the Chair) before adjournment or recess of the formal meeting provided a quorum of the Council is present. Additional time for Citizen Comments may be allowed at the discretion of the presiding officer. ANY member of the public may address the Council to comment on issues of interest or concern to them. Citizen Comments will be televised as part of the formal meeting. Members of the public will be given a maximum of three minutes each to address the Council. In compliance with the Arizona Open Meeting Law, the City Council cannot discuss or take formal action on any matter raised during Citizen Comments.

3. Accommodations

An assistive listening system is available in the City Council Chambers to assist individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. Headset units for this system are available at the front table in the Council Chambers. In addition, with 72 hours advance notification, the City Clerk’s Office will provide sign language interpreting services. 

Hey Hey, Ho Ho, These Racists Cops Have Got to Go!

FRIDAY NIGHT March & Rally 7:00PM!

Join us as the COMMUNITY marches and rallies against racism and police brutality after NEW EVIDENCE has come forward proving the Phoenix Police Department is riddled with racist police! (See Latest News Articles Below)

NOW WE HAVE IRREFUTABLE, UNDENIABLE, OUTRAGEOUS PROOF OF ACTIVE RACISTS WITHIN THE PHOENIX POLICE DEPARTMENT!

It is time to shut down the city! SHUT IT DOWN!

Come and show your support for the families and victims of police racism and brutality!

Stand side by side with the families of Michelle Cusseaux, Jacob Harris, Edward Brown, and others as they lead the community on a march and rally through downtown and at police headquarters!

Show up, show out, shut down the streets as we demand the officers involved in this blatant racist and culture of discrimination be FIRED!

We will gather at 620 W. Washington Street (Phx PD HQ) at 7:00pm on THIS FRIDAY! (June 7th)

We will no longer tolerate the abuse, racism, hostility, prejudice, bigotry, and physical / verbal violence openly practiced on our community by Phoenix Police officers!

JOIN THE COMMUNITY and make your voices heard! BRING SIGNS, BRING FRIENDS, BRING YOUR LOUD VOICES AND DEMANDS FOR JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY as we take bold action to demand the badges of racists!

DETAILS:

Join the families of police brutality and racism victims as we stand up to the EXPOSED culture of racism and violence against BLACK AND LATINO residents within the Phoenix PD!

7:00PM FRIDAY (June 7th)

Outside of

Phoenix Police Headquarters
620 W. Washington Street
Phoenix, AZ 85003

BE PRESENT FOR THE MARCH AND RALLY!

SHOW UP, STAND UP, SPEAK UP!

As we mobilize the masses and shut down the streets of downtown to DEMAND that racist police be immediately FIRED!

SEE ARTICLES BELOW:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2019/06/03/phoenix-police-officers-facebook-posts-include-racist-violent-commentary/1331941001/

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/phoenix-cops-bash-muslims-immigrants-and-black-people-online-11306928

blm #blacklivesmatter #blacklivesmatteraz

blacklivesmatterarizona #phx #az

policebrutality #racism #civilrights #justice

Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Racists Cops Have Got to Go!

FRIDAY NIGHT March & Rally 7:00PM!

Join us as the COMMUNITY marches and rallies against racism and police brutality after NEW EVIDENCE has come forward proving the Phoenix Police Department is riddled with racist police! (See Latest News Articles Below)

NOW WE HAVE IRREFUTABLE, UNDENIABLE, OUTRAGEOUS PROOF OF ACTIVE RACISTS WITHIN THE PHOENIX POLICE DEPARTMENT!

It is time to shut down the city! SHUT IT DOWN!

Come and show your support for the families and victims of police racism and brutality!

Stand side by side with the families of Michelle Cusseaux, Jacob Harris, Edward Brown, and others as they lead the community on a march and rally through downtown and at police headquarters!

Show up, show out, shut down the streets as we demand the officers involved in this blatant racist and culture of discrimination be FIRED!

We will gather at 620 W. Washington Street (Phx PD HQ) at 7:00pm on THIS FRIDAY! (June 7th)

We will no longer tolerate the abuse, racism, hostility, prejudice, bigotry, and physical / verbal violence openly practiced on our community by Phoenix Police officers!

JOIN THE COMMUNITY and make your voices heard! BRING SIGNS, BRING FRIENDS, BRING YOUR LOUD VOICES AND DEMANDS FOR JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY as we take bold action to demand the badges of racists!

DETAILS:

Join the families of police brutality and racism victims as we stand up to the EXPOSED culture of racism and violence against BLACK AND LATINO residents within the Phoenix PD!

7:00PM FRIDAY (June 7th)

Outside of

Phoenix Police Headquarters
620 W. Washington Street
Phoenix, AZ 85003

BE PRESENT FOR THE MARCH AND RALLY!

SHOW UP, STAND UP, SPEAK UP!

As we mobilize the masses and shut down the streets of downtown to DEMAND that racist police be immediately FIRED!

SEE ARTICLES BELOW:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2019/06/03/phoenix-police-officers-facebook-posts-include-racist-violent-commentary/1331941001/

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/phoenix-cops-bash-muslims-immigrants-and-black-people-online-11306928

blm #blacklivesmatter #blacklivesmatteraz

blacklivesmatterarizona #phx #az

policebrutality #racism #civilrights #justice

Memorial Day Started by Slaves

Did You Know?

Memorial Day was started by former slaves on May, 1, 1865, (post Civil war) in Charleston, SC to honor 257 dead Union Soldiers who were buried in a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp? They dug up the bodies working for 2 weeks to give them a proper burial as gratitude for fighting for their freedom. Afterwards a parade of 10,000 people led by 2,800 Black children marched, sang and celebrated.

During the Civil war, Union soldiers, who were prisoners of war being held at the Charleston Race Course, died and were buried in unmarked graves. Together with teachers and missionaries, Black residents of Charleston organized a May Day ceremony in 1865, which was covered by the New York Tribune and other national papers.

The Black freedmen cleaned up and landscaped the burial ground, and built an enclosure and an arch labeled, “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

Nearly ten thousand people, mostly Black freedmen, gathered on May 1 to commemorate the dead soldiers. Involved were 2800 school children newly enrolled in freedmen’s schools, mutual aid societies, Union troops, Black ministers, and white northern missionaries. Most brought flowers to lay on the burial field.

Today the site is used as Hampton Park. Years later, the celebration would come to be called the “First Decoration Day” in the North.

Whites Super Humanize Blacks Leading to Imperial Dehumanization Studies Suggest

 A recent study proves white people may possess a bias which causes them to associate black people with superhuman qualities, which may lead ultimately to dehumanization practices. Proof that their mentality towards Blacks is precluded by misconceptions and expressed with fear.

SUPERHUMAN -   being above the human :divine:  exceeding normal human power, size, or capability : having such power, size, or capability magical, miraculous, phenomenal, preternatural,supernatural, supernormal, transcendent, transcendental, uncanny, unearthly.

SUPERHUMAN – being above the human :divine: exceeding normal human power, size, or capability : having such power, size, or capability magical, miraculous, phenomenal, preternatural,supernatural, supernormal, transcendent, transcendental, uncanny, unearthly.

“A Superhumanization Bias in Whites’ Perceptions of Blacks,” published in the Journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, examines the idea that black people have been historically dehumanized, “from constitutional denial of full legal personhood to enslavement.”

In the first test– researchers Kelly Marie Hoffman and Sophie Trawalter, of the University of Virginia, and Adam Waytz, of Northwestern University, performed Implicit Association Tests. White participants were asked to associate certain words to images of a person. It was found that white people were more likely to link words commonly associated with the supernatural, (ghost, paranormal, spirit, wizard, supernatural, magic, mystical), to pictures of black people, and more likely to link  “human words,” (person, individual, humanity, people, civilian, mankind, citizen), to pictures of white people, New York Magazine reported. These results remained consistent, even as researchers varied the experiments in order to rule out the possibility of bias.

Screen-Shot-2014-11-17-at-11.22.52-AM

In the second test — to account for the possibility that the bias in test one occurred in part because of White-Human associations as opposed to Black-Superhuman associations — the researchers used categorization tasks, again asking participants to quickly associate a word with an image, this time with more groupings, (Black/Human, Black/Superhuman, Black/Subhuman, White/Human, White/Superhuman, White/Subhuman), and asking participants to quickly sort words as belonging to a category based on the image of a face flashed on the screen. They found the same bias present as in study one.

31_gerard_baronsamedi_24x30_nov03

The third test — was a bit more specific. In it, the participants were shown images of both a white person and a black person and were asked to choose which person they believed possessed a series of supernatural abilities. The questions included:

1. Which person is more likely to have superhuman skin that is thick enough that it can withstand the pain of burning hot coals?

2. Which person is more capable of using their supernatural powers to suppress hunger and thirst?
3. Which person is more capable of using supernatural powers to read a person’s mind by touching the person’s head?
4. Which person is more capable of surviving a fall from an airplane without breaking a bone through the use of supernatural powers?
5. Which personal has supernatural quickness that makes them capable of running faster than a fighter jet?
6. Which person has supernatural strength that makes them capable of lifting up a tank?

White people chose an image of a black person an overwhelming 63.5 %  of the time for everything except for the abilities to survive a plane crash and read minds.

The final study — “specifically shows superhumanization of blacks predicts denial of pain to Black versus White targets.” The results suggest superhumanization of black individuals may contribute to the undertreatment of pain for black patients because they’re viewed as being able to endure more. (Which supports earlier research from the same authors that showed nurses of any race see black patients as less sensitive to pain than white patients.)

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The authors assert superhumanization may also explain white tolerance for police brutality against black people. The authors of the study suggest that “perhaps people assume that blacks possess extra (superhuman) strength that enables them to endure violence more easily than other humans.”  The authors say their results “might also explain why people consider Black juveniles to be more ‘adult’ than White juveniles when judging culpability.”

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How is this bias reflected in American culture? Sportscasters discussing fast-twitch muscle fiber, stereotypes about genitalia, and phrases like “black don’t crack” are common.

The Boston Globe pointed out a Los Angeles Times op-ed from 2007 calling out the elevation of Barack Obama as a savior figure by some who had outsized expectations of his ability to single-handedly effect change.

The Boston Globe pointed out a Los Angeles Times op-ed from 2007 calling out the elevation of Barack Obama as a savior figure by some who had outsized expectations of his ability to single-handedly effect change.

The paper cites Director Spike Lee's famous criticism of the way black characters are portrayed in Hollywood films like The Green Mile or The Legend of Bagger Vance: "These films all have these magical, mystical Negroes who show up as some sort of spirit or angel, but only to benefit the white characters."

The paper cites Director Spike Lee’s famous criticism of the way black characters are portrayed in Hollywood films like The Green Mile or The Legend of Bagger Vance: “These films all have these magical, mystical Negroes who show up as some sort of spirit or angel, but only to benefit the white characters.”

The phenomenon has received virtually no empirical attention thus far, according to the authors, though the studies “demonstrate this phenomenon at an explicit level,” showing that “whites preferentially attribute superhuman capacities to blacks versus whites.”

And while imbuing a group of people with superhuman abilities might seem like a complimentary thing on the surface, the study contends this bias leads to dehumanization on the personal and political level.

The Good Ship Jesus | The Beginning of the Slave Trade

Jesus of Lubeck (Name of first Slave Ship to Grace the America's.) Jesus of Lubeck (Name of first Slave Ship to Grace the America’s.)

What has come to be referred to as “The Good Ship Jesus” was in fact the “Jesus of Lubeck,” a 700-ton ship purchased by King Henry VIII from the Hanseatic League, a merchant alliance between the cities of Hamburg and Lubeck in Germany. Twenty years after its purchase the ship, in disrepair, was lent to Sir John Hawkins by Queen Elizabeth.

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Hawkins, a cousin of Sir Francis Drake, was granted permission from Queen Elizabeth for his first voyage in 1562. He was allowed to carry Africans to the Americas “with their own free consent” and he agreed to this condition. Hawkins had a reputation for being a religious man who required his crew to “serve God daily” and to love one another. Sir Francis Drake accompanied Hawkins on this voyage and subsequent others. Drake, was himself, devoutly religious. Services were held on board twice a day.

Off the coast of Africa, near Sierra Leone, Hawkins captured 300-500 slaves, mostly by plundering Portuguese ships, but also through violence and subterfuge promising Africans free land and riches in the new world. He sold most of the slaves in what is now known as the Dominican Republic. He returned home with a profit and ships laden with ivory, hides, and sugar. Thus began the slave trade.

Admiral, Slaver John Hawkins Admiral, Slaver John Hawkins

Admiral John Hawkins is often remembered as one of the greatest men in the early English navy. Along with his cousin and companion Sir Francis Drake, he helped defeat the Spanish Armada and cement England’s role as ruler of the seas. But like most men who fell under the category of “Sea Dogs”, his career was filled with a blood-thirsty ruthlessness far removed from the modern ideas of heroes.

More Reading on John Hawkins and His “Crusades” Here: http://www.chroniclesofamerica.com/sea-dogs/john_hawkins_slavers_gentlemen_pirates.htm

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Mississippi Recently Ratifies 13th Amendment

Come on Mississippi! You just now have ratified the 13th Amendment? I found this fact to be quite startling, shocking, and hilarious.

An oversight of document filing from 1995, led to an error that has kept the Law of Slavery unratified in the state of Mississippi. They have inevitability won title as “Last State to Free Their Slaves”, doing so on February 6, 2013!

This discovery was made by an unsuspecting citizen, inspired to learn of his own state ratification date by the movie “Lincoln”.

(This document was historically adopted by the government on January 31, 1865.)

Read Full Story Here: http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1267133

20130218-224730.jpg

Significant Societal Contribution

This lady has saved most of humanity from being annihilated by uncureable diseases…

Henrietta Lacks

(August 1, 1920 – October 4th, 1951)

Henrietta Lacks is the source of the immortal cell named “Hela”. Lacks, was an impoverished black woman who died on October 4, 1951 of cervical cancer at just 31 years old. During her cancer treatment, a doctor at Johns Hopkins took a sample of her tumor without her knowledge or consent and sent it over to a colleague of his, Dr. George Gey, who had been trying for 20 years, unsuccessfully, to grow human tissues from cultures. A lab assistant there, Mary Kubicek, discovered that Henrietta’s cells, unlike normal human cells, could live and replicate outside the body.

Her cells, (a very significant contribution to the world), have been essential in many of the great scientific discoveries of our time: curing polio; gene mapping; learning how cells work; developing drugs to treat cancer, herpes, leukemia, influenza, hemophilia, Parkinson’s disease, AIDS … and the list goes on and on (and on). If it deals with the human body and has been studied by scientists, odds are those scientists needed and used Lacks’ cells somewhere along the way. HeLa cells were even sent up to space on an unmanned satellite to determine whether or not human tissue could survive in zero gravity.

Go to just about any cell culture lab in the world and you’ll find billions of HeLa cells stored there. In contrast to normal human cells, which will die after a few replications, Lacks’ cells can live and replicate just fine outside of the human body (which is also unique among humans). Give her cells the nutrients they need to survive, and they will apparently live and replicate along forever, almost 60 years and counting since the first culture was taken. They can be frozen for literally decades and, when thawed, they’ll go right on replicating.

Before her cells were discovered and widely cultured, it was nearly impossible for scientists to reliably experiment on human cells and get meaningful results. Cell cultures that scientists were studying would weaken and die very quickly outside the human body. Lacks’ cells gave scientists, for the first time, a “standard” that they could use to test things on. HeLa cells can survive being shipped in the mail just fine, so scientists across the globe can use the same standard to test against.

Lacks died of uremic poisoning, in the segregated hospital ward for blacks, about 8 months after being diagnosed with cervical cancer, never knowing that her cells would become one of the most vital tools in modern medicine and would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry. She was survived by her husband and five children; the family lived in poverty for most of their lives, and didn’t find out about the fate of Lacks’ incredible cells until years later.

http://www.BlackWomenOfFaith.com

James Hood – One of First Blacks to Break Collegiate Racial Education Barrier Dies

James Hood (1943-2013) James Hood (1943-2013)
James Hood, made famous by the “stand in the schoolhouse door” policy, died at his home in Alabama, Thursday, at age 70.  He was thrust into the national spotlight during a long fight to attend college in his home state of Alabama at the height of the civil rights movement.  Alabama was the last state to integrate its education system.

On June 11, 1963, after a U.S. court ruling ordering Alabama to desegregate, James Hood and Vivian Malone attempted to register for classes at the University of Alabama, but they were blocked at the door by then-Gov. Wallace and several state troopers.

Later that day, President John F. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard and issued a presidential proclamation ordering Wallace to execute federal court orders that would allow Hood and Malone to enroll at the university.

Guardsmen then escorted Hood and Malone via a side door into the school auditorium, where Wallace stepped aside and allowed the two to register.

Later that evening, Kennedy addressed the nation and called for sweeping civil rights legislation that would ban discrimination in all public places.

Wallace had long proclaimed he would stand at the front door of any school that was ordered by the federal courts to admit black students. During his inaugural speech five months before the standoff at the university, Wallace famously proclaimed, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”James Hood (1943-2013)

James Hood left the school a few months after the historic day and moved to Michigan, where he finished out his undergraduate degree. He said he did so to avoid “a complete mental and physical breakdown,” according to the school website dedicated to a civil rights memorial named after Hood and Malone.

Hood returned to the University of Alabama three decades later to earn a doctorate in higher education in 1997.

University of Alabama President Judy Bonner issued a statement today honoring the civil rights figure.

“James Hood will be remembered for the courage and conviction he demonstrated as one of the first two African-American students to enroll at The University of Alabama,” Bonner said.

Wallace renounced his segregationist views before his death in 1998. Following his death, according to the New York Times, one of those who came to pay their respects to the former governor was James Hood.

“I think he made peace with God,” Hood told the paper.

The Truth Behind the Promise of “40 Acres and a Mule”

What happened to the “40 acres and a mule” that former slaves were promised? We’ve all heard the story of the “40 acres and a mule” promise to former slaves. It’s a staple of black history lessons.

40-acres-and-a-mule

The promise was the first systematic attempt to provide a form of reparations to newly freed slaves, and it was astonishingly radical for its time, proto-socialist in its  implications. In fact, such a policy would be radical in any country today: the federal government’s massive confiscation of private property — some 400,000 acres — formerly owned by Confederate land owners, and its methodical redistribution to former black slaves.

What most of us haven’t heard is that the idea really was generated by black leaders themselves. Try to imagine how profoundly different the history of race relations in the United States would have been had this policy been implemented and enforced; had the former slaves actually had access to the ownership of land, of property; if they had had a chance to be self-sufficient economically, to build, accrue and pass on wealth. After all, one of the principal promises of America was the possibility of average people being able to own land, and all that such ownership entailed. As we know all too well, this promise was not to be realized for the overwhelming majority of the nation’s former slaves, who numbered about 3.9 million.

What Exactly Was Promised?

We have been taught in school that the source of the policy of “40 acres and a mule” was Union General William T. Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15, issued on Jan. 16, 1865. (That account is half-right: Sherman prescribed the 40 acres in that Order, but not the mule. The mule would come later.) What many accounts leave out is that this idea for massive land redistribution actually was the result of a discussion that Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton held four days before Sherman issued the Order, with 20 leaders of the black community, in Savannah, Ga., where Sherman was headquartered following his famous March to the Sea.
The Three Relevant Sections of the 40 Acre and a Mule Order:
Section One: “The islands from Charleston, south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. Johns river, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of the negroes [sic] now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States.”
Section Two:  (Specifies that these new communities, moreover, would be governed entirely by black people themselves) ” … on the islands, and in the settlements hereafter to be established, no white person whatever, unless military officers and soldiers detailed for duty, will be permitted to reside; and the sole and exclusive management of affairs will be left to the freed people themselves … By the laws of war, and orders of the President of the United States, the negro [sic] is free and must be dealt with as such.”
Section Three: (Specifies the allocation of land) ” … each family shall have a plot of not more than (40) acres of tillable ground, and when it borders on some water channel, with not more than 800 feet water front, in the possession of which land the military authorities will afford them protection, until such time as they can protect themselves, or until Congress shall regulate their title.”  
(See Entire Order Here http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/40acres/ps_so15.html)
With this Order, 400,000 acres of land — “a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, South Carolina, to the St. John’s River in Florida, including Georgia’s Sea Islands and the mainland thirty miles in from the coast,” as Barton Myers reports — would be redistributed to the newly freed slaves. The extent of this Order and its larger implications are mind-boggling, actually.
freedman bureau
Who Came Up With the Idea?
Abolitionists Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens and other Radical Republicans had been actively advocating land redistribution “to break the back of Southern slaveholders’ power,” as Myers observed. But Sherman’s plan only took shape after the meeting that he and Stanton held with those black ministers, at 8:00 p.m., Jan. 12, on the second floor of Charles Green’s mansion on Savannah’s Macon Street. In its broadest strokes, “40 acres and a mule” was their idea.

Stanton, aware of the great historical significance of the meeting, presented Henry Ward Beecher (Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous brother) a verbatim transcript of the discussion, which Beecher read to his congregation at New York’s Plymouth Church and which the New York Daily Tribune printed in full in its Feb. 13, 1865, edition.

Stanton told Beecher that “for the first time in the history of this nation, the representatives of the government had gone to these poor debased people to ask them what they wanted for themselves.” Stanton had suggested to Sherman that they gather “the leaders of the local Negro community” and ask them something no one else had apparently thought to ask: “What do you want for your own people” following the war? And what they wanted astonishes us even today.

Who were these 20 thoughtful leaders who exhibited such foresight? They were all ministers, mostly Baptist and Methodist. Most curious of all to me is that 11 of the 20 had been born free in slave states, of which 10 had lived as free men in the Confederacy during the course of the Civil War. (The other one, a man named James Lynch, was born free in Maryland, a slave state, and had only moved to the South two years before.) The other nine ministers had been slaves in the South who became “contraband,” and hence free, only because of the Emancipation Proclamation, when Union forces liberated them. Their chosen leader and spokesman was a Baptist minister named Garrison Frazier, aged 67, who had been born in Granville, N.C., and was a slave until 1857, “when he purchased freedom for himself and wife for $1000 in gold and silver,” as the New York Daily Tribune reported.

Rev. Frazier had been “in the ministry for thirty-five years,” and it was he who bore the responsibility of answering the 12 questions that Sherman and Stanton put to the group. The stakes for the future of the Negro people were high. And Frazier and his brothers did not disappoint. What did they tell Sherman and Stanton that the Negro most wanted? Land! “The way we can best take care of ourselves,” Rev. Frazier began his answer to the crucial third question, “is to have land, and turn it and till it by our own labor … and we can soon maintain ourselves and have something to spare … We want to be placed on land until we are able to buy it and make it our own.” And when asked next where the freed slaves “would rather live — whether scattered among the whites or in colonies by themselves,” without missing a beat, Brother Frazier (as the transcript calls him) replied that “I would prefer to live by ourselves, for there is a prejudice against us in the South that will take years to get over … ” When polled individually around the table, all but one — James Lynch, 26, the man who had moved south from Baltimore — said that they agreed with Frazier. Four days later, Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15, after President Lincoln approved it.

What Became of the Land That Was Promised?

The response to the Order was immediate. When the transcript of the meeting was reprinted in the black publication Christian Recorder, an editorial note intoned that “From this it will be seen that the colored people down South are not so dumb as many suppose them to be,” reflecting North-South, slave-free black class tensions that continued well into the modern civil rights movement. The effect throughout the South was electric: As Eric Foner explains, “the freedmen hastened to take advantage of the Order.” Baptist minister Ulysses L. Houston, one of the group that had met with Sherman, led 1,000 blacks to Skidaway Island, Ga., where they established a self-governing community with Houston as the “black governor.” And by June, “40,000 freedmen had been settled on 400,000 acres of ‘Sherman Land.’ ” By the way, Sherman later ordered that the army could lend the new settlers mules; hence the phrase, “40 acres and a mule.”

And what happened to this astonishingly visionary program, which would have fundamentally altered the course of American race relations? Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor and a sympathizer with the South, overturned the Order in the fall of 1865, and, as Barton Myers sadly concludes, “returned the land along the South Carolina, Georgia and Florida coasts to the planters who had originally owned it” — to the very people who had declared war on the United States of America.

Adapted from Article Authored by Henry Louis Gates Jr. ( the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard University. He is also the editor-in-chief of website, The Root.)

Kwanzaa Workshop

Saturday, December 22, 2013 the Urban Art and Science Foundation will host a Free Kwanzaa Workshop. This workshop will educate on the Purpose, History, and Proper Recognition of its Principles.

Place: Sam Garcia Workshop
435 E. Western Ave
Avondale, AZ 85323
10:00am – 2:00pm

Call 480.359.7509 to Register Today!

20121206-135142.jpg

Meet the Black Olympians of the USA Teams 2012

Gold Medallist Tommie Smith, (center) and Bronze medallist John Carlos (right) showing the raised fist on the podium after the 200m in the 1968 Summer Olympics wearing Olympic Project for Human Rights badges. Silver medallist Peter Norman from Australia (left) joins them.

Womens Basketball

Seimone Augustus, age 28, studied at Louisiana State University
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/augustus-seimone-1133206/

Swin Cash, age 32, studied at University of Connecticut
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/cash-swin-1133425/

Tamika Catchings, age 33, studied at University of Tennessee
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/catchings-tamika-1133428/

Tina Charles, age 23, studied at University of Connecticut 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/charles-tina-1133450/

Sylvia Fowles, age 26, studied at Louisiana State University 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/fowles-sylvia-1132897/

Asjha Jones, age 31, studied at University of Connecticut 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/jones-asjha-1132255/

Angel McCoughtry, age 25, studied at University of Louisville
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/mccoughtry-angel-1131214/

Maya Moore, age 23, studied at University of Connecticut 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/moore-maya-1131345/

Candace Parker, age 26, studied at University of Tennessee 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/parker-candace-1131492/

**Women’s team scheduled to face Turkey on Wednesday, Aug. 1 at 10:30 p.m.

Men’s Basketball

Carmelo Anthony, age 28, studied at Syracuse University 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/anthony-carmelo-1133184/

Kobe Bryant, age 33
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/bryant-kobe-1124720/

Tyson Chandler, age 29 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/chandler-tyson-1124775/

Anthony Davis, age 19, studied at University of Kentucky 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/davis-anthony-1284180/

Kevin Durant, age 23, studied at University of Texas
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/durant-kevin-1124764/

James Harden, age 22, studied at Arizona State University 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/harden-james-1237724/

Andre Iguodala, age 28, studied at University of Arizona 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/iguodala-andre-1124730/

LeBron James, age 27 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/james-lebron-1132190/

Chris Paul, age 27, studied at Wake Forest University 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/paul-chris-1124686/

Russell Westbrook, age 23, studied at UCLA 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/westbrook-russell-1124672/

Deron Williams, age 28, studied at the University of Illinois 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/williams-deron-1124731/

Women’s Boxing

Quanitta Underwood, age 28 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/underwood-quanitta-1134186/

 

Clarissa Shields, age 17  (Won Gold for her Division of  Middle Weight 8/8/2012)

http://www.london2012.com/athlete/shields-claressa-1132139/

Men’s Boxing

Marcus Browne, age 21 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/browne-marcus-1133355/

Dominic Breazeale, age 26, studied at University of North Colorado
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/breazeale-dominic-1235859/
**Scheduled to box on Wednesday Aug. 1 at 3:30 p.m.    

Michael Hunter, age 24 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/hunter-ii-michael-1124723/
**Scheduled to box on Wednesday Aug. 1 at 2:30 p.m.

Terrell Gausha, age 24
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/gausha-terrell-1132937/

Jamel Herring, age 26 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/herring-jamel-1134753/

Errol Spence, age 22 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/spence-errol-1133773/

Rau’ Shee Warren age 23
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/warren-raushee-1135362/

Women’s Fencing

Maya Lawrence, age 32, studied at Columbia University
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/lawrence-maya-1132404/

Nzingha Prescod, age 19, studied at Columbia University
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/prescod-nzingha-1134168/

Men’s Fencing

Miles Chamley Watson, age 22, studied at Penn State University
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/chamley-watson-miles-1131809/

Daryl Homer, age 22, studied at St. John’s University 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/homer-daryl-1131268/

Women’s Gymnastics

Gabrielle Douglas, age 16 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/douglas-gabrielle-1132742/

Men’s Gymnastics

John Orozco, age 19 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/orozco-john-1133634/

Men’s Rowing

David Banks, age 28, studied at Stanford University 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/banks-david-1133221/

Women’s Soccer

Sydney Leroux, age 22, studied at UCLA
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/leroux-sydney-1130630/

Women’s Swimming

Lia Neal, age 17 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/neal-lia-1133103/

Men’s Swimming

Cullen Jones, age 28, studied at North Carolina State University 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/jones-cullen-1237821/

Anthony Ervin, age 31
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/ervin-anthony-1237576/

Taekwondo

Terrance Jennings, age 25, studied at Northern Virginia Community College 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/jennings-terrence-1132211/

Women’s Tennis

Serena Williams, age 30 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/williams-serena-1131104/

Venus Williams, age 32
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/williams-venus-1131109/

Men’s Tennis

Donald Young, age 23 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/young-donald-1135619/

Women’s Track and Field

Keisha Baker, age 24, studied at University of Oregon – 4×400 meter relay
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/baker-keshia-1133216/

Bridgette Barrett, age 21 – High Jump
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/barrett-brigetta-1131820/

T’erea Brown, age 22, studied at University of Miami –  400 meter hurdles
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/brown-terea-1132758/

Michelle Carter, age 26, studied at University of Texas – Shot Put
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/carter-michelle-1124778/

Janet Cherobon-Bawcom, age 33 – Long Distance Running
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/cherobon-bawcom-janet-1284280/

Jessica Cosby, age 30, studied at UCLA – Women’s Hammer Throw
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/cosby-jessica-1135064/

Sharon Clay, age 27, studied at University of California-Poly – Heptathlon
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/day-sharon-1132681/

Janay Deloach, age 26, studied at Colorado State University – Long Jump
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/deloach-janay-1132695/

Diamond Dixon, age 20 – 4×400 meter Relay
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/dixon-diamond-1289855/

Allyson Felix, age 26, studied at University of Southern California – 100 meter
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/felix-allyson-1132858/

Chelsea Hayes, age 24 – Long Jump
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/hayes-chelsea-1289859/

Carmelita Jeter, age 32, studied at California State University – 100 meter
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/jeter-carmelita-1132223/

Alysia Johnson Montano, age 26, studied at University of California Poly – 800 meter
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/johnson-montano-alysia-1132145/

Chantae McMillan, age 24 – Heptathlon
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/mcmillan-chantae-1289866/

Aretha Thurmond, age 35, studied at University of Washington – Discus Throw
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/thurmond-aretha-1133890/

Deedee Trotter, age 29, studied at University of Tennessee – 400 meter
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/trotter-deedee-1131834/

Men’s Track and Field

Kerron Clement, age 23, studied at University of Florida – 400 meter Hurdles
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/clement-kerron-1132319/

Ashton Eaton, age 24, studied at University of Oregon – Decathlon
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/eaton-ashton-1132803/

Justin Gatlin, age 30, studied at University of Tennessee – 100 meter Hurdles
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/gatlin-justin-1132934/

Tyson Gay, age 29 – 100 meter
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/gay-tyson-1284191/

Marquis Goodwin, age 21 – Long Jump
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/goodwin-marquise-1284181/

Reese Hoffa, age 33, studied at University of Georgia – Shot Put
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/hoffa-reese-1134774/

George Kitchens, age 29 – Men’s Long Jump
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/kitchens-george-1284288/

Erik Kynard, age 21, studied at Kansas State University – High Jump
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/kynard-erik-1132385/

Lopez Lomong, age 27, studied at Northern Arizona University – 5000 meter
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/lomong-lopez-1132453/

Tony McQuay, age 22, studied at the University of Florida – 400 meter
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/mcquay-tony-1235744/

Aries Merritt, age 26, studied at University of Tennessee – 110 meter Hurdles
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/merritt-aries-1131270/

Lashawn Merritt, age 26, studied at Old Dominion University – 400 meter
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/merritt-lashawn-1131818/

Manteo Mitchell, age 25 – 4×400 meter Relay
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/mitchell-manteo-1284291/

Maurice Mitchell, age 22, studied at Florida State University – 200 meter
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/mitchell-maurice-1134178/

Jamie Nieto, age 35, studied at Eastern Michigan University – High Jump
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/nieto-jamie-1132195/

Darvis Patton, age 34, studied at Texas Christian University – 4×100 meter Relay
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/patton-darvis-1131841/

Jason Richardson, age 26, studied at University of South Carolina – 110 meter Hurdles
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/richardson-jason-1133547/

Khadevis Robinson, age 36, studied at California State – 800 meter
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/robinson-khadevis-1130722/

Duane Solomon, age 27 – 800 meter
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/solomon-duane-1284295/

Michael Tinsley, age 28, studied at Jackson State University – 400 meter Hurdles
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/tinsley-michael-1135605/

Isiah Young, age 22 – 200 meter
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/young-isiah-1295643/

Jason Young, age 31, studied at Texas Tech University – Discus Throw
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/young-jason-1124779/

Women’s Volleyball

Foluke Akinradewo, age 24, studied at Stanford University
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/akinradewo-foluke-1133141/

Tayyiba Haneef-Park, age 33, studied at Long Beach University 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/haneef-park-tayyiba-1133051/

Megan Hodge, age 23, studied at Penn State 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/herring-jamel-1134753/

Destinee Hooker, age 24
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/hooker-destinee-1134789/

Danielle Scott-Arruda, age 39, studied at Long Beach State University 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/scott-arruda-danielle-1133665/

Men’s Weightlifting

Kendrick Farris, age 26, studied at Louisiana State University 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/farris-kendrick-1132313/

Women’s Wrestling

Kelsey Campbell, age 27, studied at Arizona State University 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/campbell-kelsey-1133411/

Men’s Wrestling

Dremiel Deshon Byers, age 37, studied at North Carolina A&T 
http://www.london2012.com/athlete/byers-dremiel-deshon-1133391/

The Negro Motorist Green-Book (1936)

Negro Motorist book used during Jim Crow Era…In 1936 a Harlem postal worker and activist named Victor H. Green decided to develop a guide that would help African Americans travel throughout the country in a safe and comfortable manner. The Negro Motorist Green Book (also called The Negro Travelers’ Green Book), often simply known as The Green Book, identified places that welcomed black people during an era when Jim Crow laws and de facto segregation made it difficult for them to travel domestically without fear of racial backlash.

The Green Book listed businesses and places of interest such as nightclubs, beauty salons, barbershops, gas stations and garages that catered to black road-trippers. For almost three decades, travelers could request (for just 10 cents’ postage) and receive a guide from Green. Eventually the guide expanded to encompass information about Canada and Mexico.

Like users of today’s popular recommendation sites such as TripAdvisor, travelers collected information during their journeys, which they shared with Green and his team of editors. The data were then incorporated into future editions. “Historically, The Green Book falls in line with the underreported activism of black postal workers and the heightened awareness of driving while black in certain regions of the country,” says Robert Smith, associate professor of African-American and civil rights history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “Although many think of this book in historical terms, the challenges facing black travelers then resonate with black travelers now, particularly as it relates to racial profiling and stop-and-frisk laws.”

Project Director

“With God, everything is possible!” is Mrs. Kathryn S. McKinney’s personal faith declaration. The firm belief that there are no impossibilities with God has enabled her to be a success at professional and ministerial endeavors she has embarked upon.

Growing up in the heart of Los Angeles, California and attending Langston University, a Historical Black University in Oklahoma, and later attending Azusa World Ministry Training Institute, in Phoenix, Arizona, has given her a broad prospective of her societal responsibilities. She has been inspired by an array of mentors from Myles Munroe and Maya Angelou, to Xan Lundgold.

Kathryn recognized that her desire to be a servant, coupled with her entrepreneurial spirit could purposefully integrate the world with God’s business!

Kathryn, during a 12-year career in nursing, became the Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities for the City of Glendale in Arizona.

During her career, she started Guardian’s Choice Healthcare, a staffing agency that met the healthcare needs of disabled children in the Glendale Unified High School District, the Upward Foundation, MGA Pediatric Home health, and various healthcare facilities and schools within the state of Arizona.

Kathryn authored the state’s nursing policy and procedure manual for schools that service children with disabilities.

Kathryn also pioneered the medical food and supply exchange, which services the low-income disabled children in the metro Phoenix, and Glendale areas.

Kathryn has gone on to diversified her portfolio by establishing Kat and Dodie’s Catering, in which she was employed by General Electric, America’s Baseball Camps, and Bio Source of Arizona.

While she feeds people naturally, she also feeds people spiritually and has created an inspirational section titled, “The Faith Forum” in the Write Up, an urban newspaper circulated throughout Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada.

Writing has proved to be a very effective method of ministry for Mrs. Kathryn S. McKinney, as it has enabled her to reach a diverse and national audience, through national magazines like the Black Atlas and her very own nationally acclaimed The International Black Women of Faith Association when she is the Founder / CEO.

Kathryn found a voice and a great joy in writing. She continues to inspire people on her internet blog at www.findyourpurposehere.com.

Through personal experience, she knows walking in purpose creates manifold blessings, and she strives to help others find that place of peace and increase.

Her passion for purposeful living prompted the creation of the International Black Women of Faith Association (BWF), Arizona’s largest social network of Black women, in October 2010.

As Founder, President and CEO, Kathryn brings awareness to women, by encouraging them to unearth, unveil, and uncover their own personal purpose through the thoughtful expression and exploration of their gifts and talents.

Kathryn proposes to cultivate a mindset of moral and social responsibility towards GOD first, our families, communities, and world.

She has been charged by God to gather women together online and off to uplift, their spirits through the BWF website and Facebook group pages that serve as a place of encouragement, intercessory prayer, and as an advertising platform for professional black executives of God.

Kathryn S. McKinney is an anointed woman of GOD highly sought after for strategies in consulting, planning, promotions, and directing of various events.

Kathryn knows that praise, prayer, and the pursuit of purpose, is what it will take to release our communities, our States, Our Nation and our world from bondage!

Kathryn knows the most important thing in our lives today is the praise and the worship of THE GOD of no impossibilities!

Adele Taylor Promotes Literacy

Instead of being concerned about parties, makeup or boys, sixteen-year-old Adele Taylor is concerned about teen literacy. When she was 13, she noticed that some of her classmates struggled in the area of reading. As she dug deeper, she realized that her peers’ inability to read was directly related to lack of access to books.

VIDEO: Adele Promotes Literacy

Since her discovery, the teen philanthropist has started her own book donation program called Adele’s Literacy Library. The goal of her non-profit organization is to empower everyone through reading and that’s exactly what she has been doing since 2008, delivering more than 5,000 books around Monroe Township, NJ.

Recently, Adele was recognized by Nickelodeon for her literacy advocacy work at the TeenNick HALO Awards.

In Adele’s own words: “Reading is the seed you plant that nurtures your roots into strong and thick branches of knowledge.”

For more about Adele Taylor’s literacy program visit: adelesliteracylibrary.org

Find original Story & Credits Here: http://www.blackcelebkids.com/2012/06/upcoming-adele-taylor-promotes-literacy/

 

50th Anniversary of Juneteenth Commemorated with Poem “Fifty Years” by James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 FIFTY YEARS
 (1863 - 1913)
 

O brothers mine, to-day we stand
  Where half a century sweeps our ken,
Since God, through Lincoln’s ready hand,
  Struck off our bonds and made us men.

Just fifty years—a winter’s day—
  As runs the history of a race;
Yet, as we look back o’er the way,
  How distant seems our starting place!

Look farther back! Three centuries!
  To where a naked, shivering score,
Snatched from their haunts across the seas,
  Stood, wild-eyed, on Virginia’s shore.

Far, far the way that we have trod,
  From heathen kraals and jungle dens,
To freedmen, freemen, sons of God,
  Americans and Citizens.

A part of His unknown design,
  We’ve lived within a mighty age;
And we have helped to write a line
  On history’s most wondrous page.

A few black bondmen strewn along
  The borders of our eastern coast,
Now grown a race, ten million strong,
  An upward, onward marching host.

Then let us here erect a stone,
  To mark the place, to mark the time;
A witness to God’s mercies shown,
  A pledge to hold this day sublime.

And let that stone an altar be,
  Whereon thanksgivings we may lay,
Where we, in deep humility,
  For faith and strength renewed may pray.

With open hearts ask from above
  New zeal, new courage and new pow’rs,
That we may grow more worthy of
  This country and this land of ours.

For never let the thought arise
  That we are here on sufferance bare;
Outcasts, asylumed ’neath these skies,
  And aliens without part or share.

This land is ours by right of birth,
  This land is ours by right of toil;
We helped to turn its virgin earth,
  Our sweat is in its fruitful soil.

Where once the tangled forest stood,—
  Where flourished once rank weed and thorn,—
Behold the path-traced, peaceful wood,
  The cotton white, the yellow corn.

To gain these fruits that have been earned,
  To hold these fields that have been won,
Our arms have strained, our backs have burned,
  Bent bare beneath a ruthless sun.

That Banner which is now the type
  Of victory on field and flood—
Remember, its first crimson stripe
  Was dyed by Attucks’ willing blood.

And never yet has come the cry—
  When that fair flag has been assailed—
For men to do, for men to die,
  That have we faltered or have failed.

We’ve helped to bear it, rent and torn,
  Through many a hot-breath’d battle breeze;
Held in our hands, it has been borne
  And planted far across the seas.

And never yet—O haughty Land,
  Let us, at least, for this be praised—
Has one black, treason-guided hand
  Ever against that flag been raised.

Then should we speak but servile words,
  Or shall we hang our heads in shame?
Stand back of new-come foreign hordes,
  And fear our heritage to claim?

No! stand erect and without fear,
  And for our foes let this suffice—
We’ve bought a rightful sonship here,
  And we have more than paid the price.

And yet, my brothers, well I know
  The tethered feet, the pinioned wings,
The spirit bowed beneath the blow,
  The heart grown faint from wounds and stings;

The staggering force of brutish might,
  That strikes and leaves us stunned and daezd;
The long, vain waiting through the night
  To hear some voice for justice raised.

Full well I know the hour when hope
  Sinks dead, and ’round us everywhere
Hangs stifling darkness, and we grope
  With hands uplifted in despair.

Courage! Look out, beyond, and see
  The far horizon’s beckoning span!
Faith in your God-known destiny!
  We are a part of some great plan.

Because the tongues of Garrison
  And Phillips now are cold in death,
Think you their work can be undone?
  Or quenched the fires lit by their breath?

Think you that John Brown’s spirit stops?
  That Lovejoy was but idly slain?
Or do you think those precious drops
  From Lincoln’s heart were shed in vain?

That for which millions prayed and sighed,
  That for which tens of thousands fought,
For which so many freely died,
  God cannot let it come to naught.