Category Archives: African-American History

African-American History, AMERICAN HISTORY, RACE

This Land Is My Land: Reflections On Patriotism and Black America

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As a historian whose studies have focused on the African-American experience, Independence Day has always been a date that causes tremendous reflection on my status within this nation. My perspective is heavily influenced by the undeniable contributions of my ancestors to the founding, development, and operation of this nation shared with the populace that James Baldwin termed his white countrymen. Of course, this matter is problematized by the long history of racial attacks from marauding whites whose foremost priority was placing a selfish claim on America.

I do not doubt that if most of my white countrymen were given a truth serum, they would state America belongs solely to them. Despite a mountain of evidence displaying the indispensable contributions of Blacks, most whites will never be convinced otherwise. Unfortunately, most of my Black countrymen agree with their counterparts that this is a white land they do not want to claim even a tiny portion of.

This refusal of Blacks to claim a sizable portion of this nation that is as much their birthright as their white countrymen provides a keen insight into the general psyche of far too many Blacks. For some inexplicable reason, most Blacks have tended to behave as if this is a white man’s land, allowing them to dictate their status in the land for which Crispus Attucks and the Massachusetts 54th died. Simply put, my Black countrymen have been far too willing to be subservient to a white population whose priority is to rule.

Brother Malcolm once stated, “Only a fool would allow his oppressor to educate his children.” I want to slightly alter our dear Brother’s statement: “Only a fool would allow his oppressor to tell him when and where he enters this place called America.” Blacks must begin to cease being so reactionary to the political positions and definitions provided to them by their historical oppressors.

Do we not have the mind to think for ourselves?

Must we wait until whites have spoken on or defined an issue before our position is established?

I wonder if the response to the above questions conveys an unwillingness to assert Black independent thought.

The presence of independent Black thought is crucial to understanding that America is as much your land as the whites and any attempts to control Black America’s economics, education, and politics. We must learn to evaluate the issues facing the Race and develop plans to address the myriad problems facing us in the present with a mind of preventing them from shadowing us into the future.

So, sing the following with me. “This land is my land; this land is your land…”

James Thomas Jones III, Ph.D.

©Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2023

 

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African-American History, POLITICS

Have The Chickens Come Home to Roost?: Why Contemporary Black Activists Behave as if They Have No Understanding of Revolutionary Struggle

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In August Wilson’s play The Piano Lesson, the character Doaker issues the following quip about time and how there is no way to stop it. According to Doaker, “Time go long, time go long.” For each of us, “time is the only thing that God ain’t making no more of.” Yet, questions regarding the evaporation of time rarely extend beyond biological deterioration; as we age, our bodies change. A student’s comment pushed me beyond that limited understanding of the impact of time.

During a recent discussion of Marlon T. Riggs’ Ethnic Notions, for a reason I cannot recall, a failing that I attribute to the impact of time on my mind, I was responding to a student’s question of “What occurred after JFK was killed in Dallas?” I proceeded to mention Kennedy’s vice-president Lyndon Baines Johnson’s, commonly termed LBJ, impact on Black America by signing the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965). To my dismay, an unknowing student raised his hand and asked, “What does LeBron James have to do with this?” Initially, I did not understand the comment. However, after a few moments, I realized this young man associated the initials LBJ with NBA superstar LeBron James, not President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

 

I place the blame for such disassociation from the US History record on a host of culprits whose actions ensure that Black youth will fail to achieve the success levels of their parents or even grandparents.

Not a semester expires where a student does not attempt to drive home the silly notion that any occurrence before 2000 is “back in the day” and irrelevant to their tenuous present or uncertain future. The inherent dangers of such thinking disassociate African American youth from a past filled with vital information regarding survival strategies their ancestors used to weather the storms of life in a nation that many call a white man’s country.

Not a semester goes by that I am not saddened by African American students’ historical ignorance and illiteracy. Beyond the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks, Black students tend not to know other Civil Rights icons such as Bayard Rustin, Fannie Lou Hamer, or even a surface-level understanding of Black Nationalist icons Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton, or Assata Shakur.

Truthfully, when I see one of my young charges with a T-shirt emblazoned with the image of Tupac Amaru Shakur (2Pac) or Christopher Wallace (The Notorious BIG), my spirit is lifted. However, when I realize that something as familiar as a T-shirt purchased from Target is no reason to believe that the one it adorns is politicized or revolutionary-minded.

Conservatives have successfully executed long-range goals to control what books are allowed in the libraries of American classrooms ensuring that African American children will continue languishing in a worsening purgatory locked away from their documented historical past. Making matters worse, Black organizations that should be opposing such attacks remain mired in ineffectual reactionary protests that fail to even hint at liberating Black America. Present-day activists can’t teach aspiring young activists about revolutionary struggle because relevant experience displays how little they know about the activity.

I agree with Huey P. Newton’s assertion that the revolution belongs to the young. However, I fear post-Civil Rights activists and groups’ failure regarding how to fight leaves aspiring new millennium activists with the necessary tools.

Far too often, Black activism presents itself as a one-trick pony of reactionary public protests and riotous behavior. Opponents of Black rights must react with glee when they see the old playbook and strategies in the hands of a new generation. Those who seek to increase their freedom quotient by snatching away Black rights have also used a predictable yet highly effective playbook that goes as follows.

  • Donate money to political campaigns.
  • Volunteer for political campaigns.
  • Run candidates that view the world through your lens.
  • Holding the elected officials’ feet to the fire once they’re elected.

As stated above, this is a familiar playbook that any group, regardless of Race/ethnicity seeking to increase its access to power, has implemented for decades.

One can only wonder when unfortunate Black traditions such as phrase-mongering, rioting, and reactionary activism give way to tried-and-true uplift activities that other groups have implemented to ascend out of their marginalized socio-economic position. Such activism is effective yet, considered relatively mundane as it is devoid of public performance and theater. If Black leaders abandoned their propensity to talk so much and modeled a traditional grassroots activism, the African American collegians that I lecture to daily would have some understanding of from whence they come and an inkling of where they should head.

James Thomas Jones III, Ph.D.

©Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2022

 

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African-American History, CRITICAL RACE THEORY, RACE

Why Conservatives Obsession with Critical Race Theory Could Be Another Step Toward Making Abraham Lincoln’s Warning About the Fall of America Prophetic

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 There is no room to reasonably argue against the assertion that many of our countrymen have gone utterly insane regarding racial matters. At the present moment, it is impossible to engage local, state, or national news outlets and not encounter some half-witted conspiratorial scheme regarding the latest boogeyman whose supposed existence is a supreme threat to White America. Of course, I am alluding to that haunting and elusive specter called Critical Race Theory (CRT).

For a significant segment of American Conservatives, CRT has become for discussions of Race in American schools what Sharia Law was during the fury against Muslims.

The latest to enter into the foray against the elusive boogeyman whose penchant for ducking and dodging is heightened by his non-existence in this nation’s K-16 educational system is Sequoyah County lawmaker Rep. Jim Olsen (R). Olsen has issued a notable blow against CRT by authoring House Bill 2988 to outlaw the teaching of American chattel slavery from a historically grounded perspective.

Olsen and those who think like him want to place a revisionist history of the peculiar institution that does not depict white slaveholders as beneficiaries of the labor of stolen Africans and their descendants in front of America’s schoolchildren. House Bill 2988 forbids educators from teaching the following facts.

  • American chattel slavery victimized enslaved Africans/Blacks.
  • The peculiar institution, meaning slavery, was the central pillar in America’s creation.
  • The enslavement of stolen Africans and their descendants occurred for an extended period, nearly 250 years, if we are counting.

Rep. Olsen offered the following commentary regarding his proposed legislative addendum.

It is important that it be taught that we had slavery as a nation and it was evil, but it would not be proper to teach it that we were the only ones that had it. It is the agenda of the far left, they want our young people to hate America.

A dimwitted portion of our populace has ascended beyond their level of ineptitude and understanding.

If American legislators are not careful, they will sanction the transitioning of America’s learning centers into Hitleresque indoctrination sites. The thin threadbare lies supporting this alteration to school curriculums are an unsophisticated attempt to extend politico-economic monopolies they have enjoyed for centuries. Unfortunately, droves of non-elites allow the foolishness mentioned above to be their sole source of information regarding CRT.

Let us be clear on this matter, CRT does not appear in America’s K-16 educational centers. Those local, state, and national level politicians who are speaking the loudest about CRT know nothing about the legal theory beyond its utility to frighten my white countrymen into following their lead. I would venture to guess that the vast majority of these so-called political leaders had never heard of Derrick Bell before the start of this entire charade and have certainly never read any of his books or other writings.

The truth of the matter is that this entire sordid falsity reveals the fact that many within our midst, regardless of their political leanings, are willing to follow political leaders who know no more than they do about racial matters.

Ultimately, the erasure of historical facts in favor of feel-good teachings weakens our nation in many ways, particularly as a false past prevents us from examining America’s creation. If Americans are not careful, they will eventually make Abraham Lincoln’s haunting prediction of America’s fall prophetic. President Lincoln said, “America will never fall from an external aggressor. She will fall from within.”

Trust me when I say to you that this path we are on will lead to all of our demises.

James Thomas Jones III, Ph.D.

©Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2021

African-American History, POLITICS, RACE

The Importance of Local Politics in Securing Political Power: A Political Strategy that White Supremacist Groups Are Executing With Little Resistance from Black America

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Black America needs a new political strategy for teaching the simplest of political strategies. Now, I do not want you to think that the above quip is a slight for the droves of Black political leaders who have failed to guide our people down the path to liberation since President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965). The sloping shoulders of Black political leaders should not hold all of the weight for Black America’s political failings.  For decades, they have called for our people to become more active in local politics. Unfortunately for the cause of Black Liberation, Blacks have by-passed local political races in favor of more glorious, yet less impactful, national campaigns.

The message of “think nationally but act locally” has been one that has been ignored by too many Black voters and seized by their avowed enemies.

The importance of local politics has been heard, considered, and acted on by groups such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three percenters. Groups that have dedicated their entire existence to ensuring that America serves the interests of white men above all other groups.

White supremacist organizations understand that there is a more reliable and efficient means of gaining control of schools and cities than the treasonous actions of January 6. They know something that those who understand the path to Black liberation have understood for decades. Control of city councils, the mayor’s office, and school boards equal city control. The way to gain control of these pillars of local political power is political solidarity, voter education, voter registration drives, and vote casting.

Nothing more, nothing less.

The Proud Boys increasing appearance at local political events and school boards may be just the thing that Black America needs to see to understand this rudimentary political strategy. According to Jeremy Bertino, a member of a North Carolina chapter of the Proud Boys

The plan of attack if you want to make change is to get involved at the local level.

It is time that Black America took to heart the wisdom of Chicago-based Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton who observed that “war is nothing but politics with bloodshed and politics is nothing but war without bloodshed.” Blacks must realize that they must fight the angry horde seeking to curtail their freedom and right to live. Failure to do so reveals you as a cowardly fool and traitor to the Race, and all that civilized people hold sacred.

We must increase our engagement and understanding of local politics because it matters mightily in the battle for Black survival. I am pretty confident that if Marcus Mosiah Garvey were with us, he would implore us in the following manner. “Up You Mighty Race, Achieve What You Will!!!!!!!”

Get active in your local communities because it matters more than you will ever understand.

James Thomas Jones III, Ph.D.

©Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2021