Colin Powell Endorses Obama: A common way forward

Now I know that Colin Powell's endorsement is not earth shaking news, but it is important that the second most powerful Black man in America supports the first. This is a rarity in US history. Usually, almost always, powerful brothers are pitted against each other. Usually one is seen as the accomodationist  and the other is seen as the radical.

FEATURED BOOK Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell

Martin versus Malcolm

WEB Dubois versus Booker T. Washington

President Obama is a Democrat and Gen. Colin Powell a Republican. This endorsement symbolizes a common way forward. How these guys think is the important take away lesson: strategically, intelligently, circumspectly.

JOHN LEWIS SPEECH

Watch John Lewis Speech on Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwlsQ8CX20w

Published on Sep 6, 2012 by 5portsCenter

John Robert Lewis (born February 21, 1940) is the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district, serving since 1987 and is the dean of the Georgia congressional delegation. He was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), playing a key role in the struggle to end segregation. He is a member of the Democratic Party and is said to be one of the most liberal legislators.

Featured Book: Across that River: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change 
by John Lewis

Lewis was born in Troy, Alabama, the third son of Willie Mae (née Carter) and Eddie Lewis.[1] His parents were sharecroppers. Lewis was educated at the Pike County Training High School, Brundidge, Alabama and also American Baptist Theological Seminary and at Fisk University, both in Nashville, Tennessee, where he became active in the local sit-in movement. As a student he made a systematic study of the techniques and philosophy of nonviolence, and with his fellow students prepared thoroughly for their first actions. He participated in the Freedom Rides to desegregate the South, and was a national leader in the struggle for civil rights.[2] In an interview John Lewis said "I saw racial discrimination as a young child. I saw those signs that said "White Men, Colored Men, White Women, Colored Women."..."I remember as a young child with some of my brothers and sisters and first cousins going down to the public library trying to get library cards, trying to check some books out, and we were told by the librarian that the library was for whites only and not for "coloreds." John Lewis followed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and Rosa Parks on the radio. He and his family supported the Montgomery bus boycott.

FEAR OF OBAMA

from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2012/09/fear-of-a-black-president/309064/

Fear of a Black President

AS A CANDIDATE, BARACK OBAMA SAID WE NEEDED TO RECKON WITH RACE AND WITH AMERICA’S ORIGINAL SIN, SLAVERY. BUT AS OUR FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT, HE HAS AVOIDED MENTION OF RACE ALMOST ENTIRELY. IN HAVING TO BE “TWICE AS GOOD” AND “HALF AS BLACK,” OBAMA REVEALS THE FALSE PROMISE AND DOUBLE STANDARD OF INTEGRATION.

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

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After Obama won, the longed-for post-­racial moment did not arrive; on the contrary, racism intensified. At rallies for the nascent Tea Party, people held signs saying things like Obama Plans White Slavery. Steve King, an Iowa congressman and Tea Party favorite, complained that Obama “favors the black person.” In 2009, Rush Limbaugh, bard of white decline, called Obama’s presidency a time when “the white kids now get beat up, with the black kids cheering ‘Yeah, right on, right on, right on.’ And of course everybody says the white kid deserved it—he was born a racist, he’s white.” On Fox & Friends,Glenn Beck asserted that Obama had exposed himself as a guy “who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture … This guy is, I believe, a racist.” Beck later said he was wrong to call Obama a racist. That same week he also called the president’s health-care plan “reparations.”

EARLY FREE BLACK SETTLEMENT

http://www.histarch.uiuc.edu/plymouth/index.html


From Black Saga: The African American Experience by Charles M. Christian

Parting Ways, one of the earliest free Black settlements in America, was established near Plymouth, Massachusetts, when the town gave Cato Howe, a Black Revolutionary War veteran, ninety-four acres of land. The grant specified that the land had to be cleared and settled by Cato Howe, Prince Goodwin, Plato Turner, and Quamony Quash and their families. The four men built homes and lived out their lives on the land. 

A fuller treatment of current efforts understand the history of Parting Ways available at:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2011/02/17/plymouth_efforts_to_build_museum_for_parting_ways_african_american_settlement_stall/

A history of Black Settlements in Oklahoma:
CLICK HERE

HISTORY OF EARLY SUDAN

Adapted from General History of Africa III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century

The first settlement of Sudan dates from the end of the Stone Age when the flourishing Sahara had become barren and forbidding as slowly became a desert. The Blacks who lived their migrated south to the Sahel where they found other groups of Blacks to form stronger groups and small kingdoms. When the Muslims arrived in the Sudanese Sahara, they found a series of states. The powerful Soninke kingdom of Ghana dominated the extended Mande group in the region between the Senegal and Niger rivers while the nucleus of what would become the Songhay Kingdom took shape in the eastern part of the Inland Niger Delta.

The period from the eighth to the eleventh century was decisive for the peoples of Sudan. Because of sound organization and powerfully centralized structure of their monarchies, they were able to realize the importance of trade with the Mediterranean and Saharan African. Black states succeeded in safeguarding their personality, despite the coming of Islam, and thus ensured the foundations of lasting civilization whose subsequent development found expression in Mali, the Songhay empire and in the city-states of the Hausa.

BLACKS IN AMERICAN REVOLUTION

From PBS http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2narr4.html

"While the Patriots were ultimately victorious in the American Revolution, choosing sides and deciding whether to fight in the war was far from an easy choice for American colonists. The great majority were neutral or Loyalist. For black people, what mattered most was freedom. As the Revolutionary War spread through every region, those in bondage sided with whichever army promised them personal liberty. The British actively recruited slaves belonging to Patriot masters and, consequently, more blacks fought for the Crown. An estimated 100,000 African Americans escaped, died or were killed during the American Revolution."

SLAVERY ABOLISHED IN ENGLAND BEFORE U.S.

From: Black Saga: The African-American Experience by Charles M. Christian

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Murray,_1st_Earl_of_Mansfield

"On June 22, 1772, Chief Justice Lord Mansfield abolished slavery in ENGLAND and thereby gave immediate freedom to 14,000 slaves. His decision in the Sommersett case stated that, 'by Common Law no man could have property in another man and that as soon as a Negro came to England he is free, one may be villein in England but not a slave.' Penalties were levied on those who did not free their slaves. The English courts did not attempt to apply this decision to their colonies and no official body in America took notice of the decision. Nevertheless some slave upon hearing of the decision ran way from their owners and attempted  to get passage to England."