David Walker's Appeal

When David Walker wrote his Appeal in 1829, he called for slaves to rise up and revolt. But he made it clear that it wouldn't be good enough for just the Blacks in America to get free:

Your full glory and happiness... shall never be fully consummated, but with the entire emancipation of your universal brethren all over the world ... For I believe it is the will of the Lord that our greatest happiness shall consist in working for the salvation of the whole body. When this is accomplished a burst of glory will shine upon you, which will indeed astonish you and the world.
- Rap, Race and Revolution, Solutions for our Struggle - Part Two p. 106 by Supreme Understanding

For those who think that revolution is only for Black people, the Spook wanted to share this piece he found that was written 180 years ago.

Aluta Continua............ (The Struggle Continues)

Elevate The Soul Online Radio Dear Emilio N., Is racism in D.C. Government Agencies Fact or Fiction? We can't talk about it because it will make people feel uncomfortable, guilty, embarrassed or defensive. Yet, racism, definitions, structural racism, discrimination, bigotry and similar acts must be addressed in constructive venues and manners. Racism is not a word that most people want to discuss because they may be unaware of its existence, while others are having personal experiences or trauma and yet others are preoccupied and cannot see beyond racial constructs. This is all of our work and the dialogue cannot stop at one presidential panel or one awareness course.

Featured Guest: Rick Tingling-Clemmons What is happening in DC in response to the allegations of racism among D.C. Fire and Police Departments, Child and Family Services, the Department of Health, DHS, and many others? Visit http://www.abolishracism.blogspot.com/ for additional information and join us for this week's show http://www.blogtalkradio.com/elevate-the-soul or call in at 347-215-7828. Our guest, Rick Tingling-Clemmons, E.R.A.S.E. Volunteer (End Racism And Stop Exploitation), ANC Commissioner 7D05, Black Caucus Representative for the National Green Party, Business Representative for Gray Panthers, and a guest on numerous radio and television broadcasts as he addresses some of the issues he has volunteered to help the DC community and more specifically his own community with in the Benning Road/East Capitol area where some of it began with Engine 30. End Racism And Stop Exploitation (E.R.A.S.E.) The committee is a community based organization of tax payers, clergy and members of the middle and working class, whose understanding of the historical facts around racism and its effects on our community, has forced the group to come together to do what it can to minimize or neutralize racism's impact on our community. We understand the economic, social and political implications of ideas that will demonize non-white people to favor a white supremacist nation. E.R.A.S.E. stands for (End Racism and Stop Exploitation); in its title it embodies what is the cause for racism to exist, and that is to exploit its victim and create an atmosphere whereby people of white descent can maintain a social, political and economic upper-hand over those who are not defined as white. It is understood that these ideas of racism which are based on ignorance and antisocial deviant behavior is represented by a very small group of Europeans and therefore we call on all justice-loving people to ERASE this scourge from its institutionally based support system in order to make this country whole and just.

This is not a debate but an opportunity for dialogue. Every person you meet that has white skin is not racist, every black person is not inferior and we all deserve to be judged based the content of our character...not the color of our skin. Sincerely, Emilio Williams The Koi Group

Black Like Me

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin, is "a history-making classic about crossing the color line in the Segregated South."

The Deep South of the late 1950s was another country: a land of lynchings, segregated lunch counters, whites-only restrooms, and a color line etched in blood across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. White journalist John Howard Griffin, working for the black-owned magazine Sepia, decided to cross that line. Using medication that darkened his skin to deep brown, he exchanged his privileged life as a Southern white man for the disenfranchised world of an unemployed black man.

What happened to John Howard Griffin - from the outside and within himself - as he made his way through the segregated Deep South is recorded in this searing work of nonfiction. Educated and soft-spoken, John Howard Griffin changed only the color of his skin. It was enough to make him hated... enough to nearly get him killed. His audacious, still chillingly relevant eyewitness history is a work about race and humanity every American must read.

John Griffin wrote this book in the early 60s and published it in 1962. He later wrote an epilogue on his thoughts, entitled: What's Happened since Black Like Me:

"The experiment that led to writing Black Like Me was done at the very end of 1959, before the first "freedom rides" or any other manifestation of national concern about racisl injustice. It was undertaken to discover if America was involved in the practice of racism against black Americans. Most white Americans denied any taint of racism and really believed that in this land we judged every man by his qualities as a human individual. In those days, any mention of racism brought to the public's mind the Nazi suppression of Jewish people, the concentration camps, the gas chambers - and certainly, we protested, we were not like that.
If we could not accept our somewhat different practice of racist suppression of black Americans, how could we ever hope to correct it? Our experience with the Nazis had shown one thing: where racism is practiced, it damages the whole community, not just the victim group....
Were we racists or were we not? That was the important thing to discover. Black men told me that the only way a white man could hope to understand anything about this reality was to wake up some morning in a black man's skin. I decided to try this in order to test this one thing. In order to make the test, I would alter my pigment and shave my head, but change nothing else... "

The Spook read this book nearly 40 years ago. Yet, racism at this same level exists in the Fire Department, the Police Department, the law firms, hospitals and in varied other DC institutions harbored by some white people even today. Racism, sexism and other negative 'isms' are mostly supported by a capitalist economic system that is based on exploitation and supported by its actions to divide and conquer on the basis of class, race and sex, to name a few areas. The Spook commends this book to your attention and reminds you, that To Change Things we must learn things; and to learn things we must change everything.

Closing Out Black History Month '09 - Some Words from Malcolm X, compliments of the Spook

In recognition of Black History Month, the Spook will contribute an article by Malcolm X, one of the most misunderstood Americans in history. This, his writing of a history he witnessed (readings), is not an indictment of all European descendants now living in America, for we know there is only one race, the human race. Yet it is well documented the criminal way some Europeans have treated his brothers and sisters who are not European. It is this history recounted by Malcolm X that is featured here that should be read and learned to be better humans and family.

HOW MALCOLM X STUDIED AFRO-AMERICAN HISTORY

Norfolk Prison Colony’s library was one of its outstanding features. A millionaire named Parkhurst had willed his library there; he had probably been interested in the rehabilitation program. History and Religions were his special interests. Thousands of his books were on the shelves, and in the back were boxes and crates full, for which there wasn’t space on the shelves. At Norfolk, we could actually go into the library, with permission – walk up and down the shelves, pick books. There were hundreds of old volumes, some of them probably quite rare. I read aimlessly, until I learned to read selectively, with a purpose…*

I can remember accurately the very first set of books that really impressed me. I have since bought that set of books and have it at home for my children to read as they grow up. It’s called Wonders of the World. It’s full of pictures of archaeological finds, statues that depict, usually, non-European people.

I found books like Will Durant’s Story of Civilization. I read H.G. Wells’ Outline of History. Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Dubois gave me a glimpse into the black people’s history before they came to this country. Carter G. Woodson’s Negro History opened my eyes about black empires before the black slave was brought to the United States, and the early Negro struggles for freedom.

J.A. Rogers’ three volumes of Sex and Race told about race-mixing before Christ’s time; about Aesop being a black man who told fables; about Egypt’s Pharaohs; about the great Coptic Christian Empires; about Ethiopia, the earth’s oldest continuous black civilization, as China is the oldest continuous civilization.

I never will forget how shocked I was when I began reading about slavery’s total horror. It made such an impact upon me that it later became one of my favorite subjects when I became a minister of Mr. Muhammad’s. The world’s most monstrous crime, the sin and the blood on the white man’s hands, are almost impossible to believe. Books like the one by Frederick Olmstead opened my eyes to the horrors offered when the slave was landed in the United States. The European woman Fannie Kimball [Kemble], who had married a Southern white slaveowner, described how human beings were degraded. Of course I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In fact, I believe that’s the only novel I have ever read since I started serious reading.

Parkhurst’s collection also contained some bound pamphlets of the Abolitionist Anti-Slavery Society of New England. I read descriptions of atrocities; saw those illustrations of black slave women tied up and flogged with whips; of black mothers watching their babies being dragged off, never to be seen by their mothers again; of dogs after slaves, and of the fugitive slave catchers, evil white men with whips and clubs and chains and guns. I read about the slave preacher Nat Turner, who put the fear of God into the white slave-master. Nat Turner wasn’t going around preaching pie-in-the-sky and “non-violent” freedom for the black man. There is Virginia one night in 1831, Nat and seven other slaves started out at his master’s home and through the night they went from one plantation” big house” to the next, killing, until by the next morning 57 white people were dead and Nat had about 70 slaves following him. White people, terrified for their lives, fled from their homes, locked themselves up in public buildings, hid in the woods, and some even left the state. A small army of soldiers took two months to catch and hang Nat Turner. Somewhere I have read where Nat Turner’s example is said to have inspired john Brown to invade Virginia and attack Harper’s Ferry nearly thirty years later, with thirteen white men and five Negroes…

Book after book showed me how the white man had brought upon the world’s black, brown, red and yellow peoples every variety of the sufferings of exploitation. I saw how since the sixteenth century, the so-called “Christian trader” white man began to ply the seas in his lust for Asian and African empires, and plunder, and power. I read, I saw, how the white man never has gone among the non-white peoples bearing the Cross in the true manger and spirit of Christ’s teachings – meek, humble, and Christlike.

I perceived, as I read, how the collective white man had been actually nothing but a piratical opportunist who used Faustian machinations to make his own Christianity his initial wedge in criminal conquests. First, always “religiously,” he branded “heathen” and “pagan” labels upon ancient non-white cultures and civilizations. The stage thus set, he then turned upon his non-white victims his weapons of war…

Over 115 million African blacks – close to the 1930’s population of the United States – were murdered or enslaved during the slave trade. And I read how when the slave market was glutted, the cannibalistic white powers of Europe next carved up, as their colonies, the richest areas of the black continent. And Europe’s chancelleries for the next century played a chess game of naked exploitation and power from Cape Horn to Cairo …*

I’ll tell you something. The whole stream of Western philosophy has now wound up in a cul-de-sac. The white man has perpetrated upon himself, as well as upon the black man, so gigantic a fraud that he has put himself into a crack. He did it through his elaborate, neurotic necessity to hide the black man’s true role in history.

And today the white man is faced head on with what is happening on the Black Continent, Africa. Look at the artifacts being discovered there, that are proving over and over again, how the black man had great, fine, sensitive civilizations before the white man was out of the caves. Below the Sahara, in the places where most of America’s Negroes’ foreparents were kidnapped, there is being unearthed some of the finest craftsmanship, sculpture and other objects, that has ever been seen by modern man. Some of these things now are on view in such places as New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. Gold work of such fine tolerance and workmanship that it has no rival. Ancient objects produced by black hands. . . refined by those black hands with results that no human hand today can equal.

History has been so “whitened” by the white man that even the black professors have known little more than the most ignorant black man about the talents and rich civilizations and cultures of the black man of millenniums ago. I have lectured in Negro colleges and some of these brainwashed black Ph.D.’s, with their suspenders dragging the ground with degrees have run to the white man’s newspapers calling me a “black fanatic.” Why, a lot of them are fifty years behind the times. If I were president of one of these black colleges..I’d hock the campus if I had to, to send a bunch of black students off digging in Africa for more and more proof of the black race’s historical greatness. The white man now is in Africa digging and searching. An African elephant can’t stumble without falling on some white man with a shovel. Practically every week, we read about some great new find from Africa’s lost civilizations. All that’s new is white science’s attitude. The ancient civilizations of the black man have been buried on the Black Continent all the time.

Here is an example: a British anthropologist named Dr. Louis S.B. Leakey is displaying some fossil bones – a foot, part of a hand, some jaws, and skull fragments. On the basis of these, Dr. Leakey has said it’s time to rewrite completely the history of man’s origin.

This species of man lived 1,828,036 years before Christ. And these bones were found in Tanganyika [now Tanzania] . In the Black Continent.

It’s a crime, the lie that has been told to generations of black men and white men both. Little innocent black children, born of parents who believed that their race had no history. Little black children seeing, before they could talk, that their parents considered themselves inferior. Innocent black children growing up, living out their lives, dying of old age – and all of their lives ashamed of being black. But the truth is pouring out of the bag now….*

In the words of Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, "Wake up everybody! We need some help y'all. Remember, the world won't get no better if we just let it be; we've got to change it, just you and me.

....And it Continues

Man Died of Heart Attack; Family Plans Suit

Relatives said Edward Givens died after paramedics told him acid reflux caused his chest pains. (Courtesy Of Lolitha Givens) Enlarge Photo

By Elissa Silverman

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 21, 2009; Page B08

The medical examiner has determined that a heart attack was the cause of death for a 39-year-old Northeast Washington man whose family said paramedics told him he had acid reflux and did not take him to a hospital when he complained of chest pains and trouble breathing.

An attorney for the family said yesterday it is preparing to sue the city for "individual acts of negligence" and "systemic errors" in providing emergency medical care.

"If the fire department had transported him to the hospital when he first called, he would be alive today," said William Lightfoot, representing the family of Edward L. Givens.

The District settled a multimillion-dollar lawsuit over missteps in emergency medical services two years ago, promising the family of retired New York Times journalist David E. Rosenbaum that it would make operational reforms. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) appointed a task force, and the city's fire chief said he has been implementing its recommendations.

Givens was not breathing when a relative found him lying in a hallway early on the morning of Dec. 3.

Six hours earlier, paramedics who had responded to a 911 call at the family home had said Givens's vital signs were normal and told him to take an antacid for indigestion, family members said.

Beverly Fields, chief of staff for the D.C. office of the chief medical examiner, said in an e-mail that an autopsy found that Givens died from "occlusive coronary atherosclerosis due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease." In layman's terms, Givens had heart disease, and his arteries became so clogged that the disruption to blood flow was fatal. Chest discomfort and shortness of breath are typical warning signs of a heart attack.

D.C. Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin has asked the city's inspector general to investigate the agency's actions in regard to Givens, and D.C. Attorney General Peter J. Nickles said the city would conduct an operational review of the matter.

A fire department spokesman said yesterday that he had not seen the coroner's report and referred all requests for comment to Nickles.

Nickles said he has reviewed a draft of the operational report on the Givens case but said a final version will not be completed until the medical examiner's office concludes its evaluation. He also said he was unaware that the medical examiner had determined a cause of death.

He would not comment yesterday on the operational report but said, "The city gets sued all the time."

"Bill's a good lawyer, and I look forward to seeing him in court," Nickles added.

An spokesman for the inspector general said he could not comment because the probe is ongoing.

Lolitha Givens said she has not been contacted by city officials about her son's death.

She said that her family has a history of heart disease and that she had a heart attack in 1994. "Maybe his death could not have been avoided [but] it might not have been as swift," she said, fighting back tears.

Every day since her son's death, she has questioned her decision to listen to the paramedics, she said. She said that an electrocardiogram was performed and that the paramedics said it was normal. "They convinced us his vital signs were good . . . so who were we to second-guess them?" she said.

Terry Jodrie, a regional medical director for the state agency that oversees emergency medical services in Maryland, said that not all heart attack victims will show an abnormal electrocardiogram and that heartburn can have the same symptoms. "This is one of the things that makes the diagnosis so difficult," Jodrie said.

Paul Maniscalco, a senior researcher at George Washington University and a past president of the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians, said paramedics should always err on the side of safety. "By transporting to the hospital, you bring the patient the benefit of a higher medical and clinical competence," he said.

Lightfoot said the Givens family, like the Rosenbaums, hopes legal action will spur the city to improve its emergency medical care.

"Mr. Givens' death was preventable, and Mr. Rosenbaum's death was preventable, and our goal is to see that there are no more needless deaths," Lightfoot said yesterday.

The Spook wishes you a Happy and Productive New Year and wants to share this knowledge with you all in celebration of Black History Month.

Black History Month: Imagine If There Were No Black People in the World

Son Güncelleme:

By Makebra Anderson

One morning, a little boy named Theo woke up and asked his mother, "Mom, what if there were no Black people in the world?"

His mother thought about that for a moment, and then said, "Son, follow me around today and lets just see what it would be like if there were no Black people in the world. Now go get dressed and we will get started.”

Theo ran to his room to put on his clothes and shoes. His mother took one look at him and said, "Theo, where are your shoes? Son, I must iron your clothes. Why are they so wrinkled?

When she reached for the ironing board it was no longer there. You see, Sarah Boone, a Black woman, invented the ironing board and Jan E. Matzelinger, a Black man, invented the shoe lasting machine. The shoe lasting machine is a machine that attaches the top of the shoe to the sole.

"Oh well," she said, "Please go and do something to your hair." Theo ran in his room to comb his hair, but the comb was not there."

You see, Walter Sammons, a Black man, invented the comb.

Theo decided to just brush his hair, but the brush was gone. Lydia O. Newman, a Black female, invented the brush.

Well, this was a sight. Theo had no shoes, wrinkled clothes, and his hair was a mess. Even his mom's hair was a mess. See Madam C. J. Walker was one of the first African-American female entrepreneurs, and she created many hair care products for Black women.

Mom told Theo, "Let's do our chores around the house, and then take a trip to the grocery store."

Theo's job was to sweep the floor. He swept and swept and swept. When he reached for the dustpan, it was not there. You see, Lloyd P. Ray, a Black man, invented the dustpan.

So he swept his pile of dirt over in the corner and left it there. He then decided to mop the floor, but the mop was gone. You see, Thomas W. Stewart, a Black man, invented the mop.

Theo yelled to his Mom, "Mom, I'm not having any luck!”

"Well son," she said, "Let me finish washing these clothes and we will prepare a list for the grocery store."

When the wash finished, she went to place the clothes in the dryer, but it was not there. You see, George T. Sampson, a Black man, invented the clothes dryer.

Mom asked Theo to get a pencil and some paper to prepare their list for the market. So Theo ran for the paper and pencil but noticed that the pencil lead was broken. Well, he was out of luck because John Love, a Black man, invented the pencil sharpener.

Mom reached for a pen, but it was not there because William Purvis, a Black man, invented the fountain pen. As a matter of fact, Lee Burridge another Black man, invented the typewriting machine, and W. A. Lovette, another Black man, the advanced printing press.

Theo and his mother decided to head to the market. Well, when Theo opened the door he noticed the grass was almost 5 feet tall. You see, the lawn mower was invented by John Burr, a Black man.

They made their way over to the car and found that it just wouldn't go. You see, Richard Spikes, a Black man, invented the automatic gearshift and Joseph Gammel invented the supercharge system for internal combustion engines. Without these, the car wouldn’t work. Gammel was also a Black man.

They noticed that the few cars that were moving were running into each other and having wrecks because there were no traffic signals. You see, Garrett A. Morgan, a Black man invented the traffic light.

Well, it was getting late, so they walked to the market, got their groceries and returned home. Just when they were about to put away the milk, eggs and butter, they noticed the refrigerator was gone. You see John Standard, a Black man, invented the refrigerator. So they just left the food on the counter.

By this time, Theo noticed he was getting mighty cold. Mom went to turn up the heat; however, Alice Parker, a Black female, invented the heating furnace so they didn't have heat. Even in the summer time they would have been out of luck because Frederick Jones, a Black man, invented the air conditioner.

It was almost time for Theo's father to arrive home. He usually took the bus. But there was no bus. Buses came from electric trolleys, which were invented by another Black man, Elbert R. Robinson. He usually took the elevator from his office on the 20th floor, but there was no elevator because Alexander Miles, a Black man, invented the elevator.

He also usually dropped off the office mail at a near by mailbox, but it was no longer there because Philip Downing, a Black man, invented the letter drop mailbox and William Barry, another Black man, invented the postmarking and canceling machine which, which is how we get stamps.

Theo and his mother sat at the kitchen table with their head in their hands. When the father arrived he asked, "Why are you sitting in the dark?" Why? Because Lewis Howard Latimer, a Black man, invented the filament within the light bulb. Without a filament a light bulb won’t turn on.

Theo quickly learned what it would be like if there were no Black people in the world. Daily life would be a lot more difficult, not to mention if he were ever sick and needed blood. Charles Drew, a Black scientist, found a way to preserve and store blood, which led to his starting the world's first blood bank.

And, what if a family member had to have heart surgery? This would not have been possible without Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, a Black doctor, who performed the first open heart surgery.

You don't have to wonder, like Theo, what the world would be like without African-Americans. It’s clear, life as we know it would be very different!

This February, celebrate the contributions of African-Americans by participating in cultural festivals, going to the African-American history museum in your neighborhood, or learning more about Black inventors.