From TheGrio.com:

By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III

Once again RNC Chairman Michael Steele has taken his rhetoric a bit too far. Last Thursday while speaking at a Republican fundraiser Steele said he found the dismissal of Gen. Stanley McChrystal “comical.” Steele went on to say “Keep in mind … this was a war of Obama’s choosing, ….This was not something that the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in … the one thing you don’t do is engage in a land war in Afghanistan …Everyone who has tried over a thousand years of history has failed, …”

As a result of these comments Chairman Steele has come under heavy fire from within the Republican Party. Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol among others has called for Steele’s resignation. “I ask you to consider, over this July 4 weekend, doing an act of service for the country you love: Resign as chairman of the Republican Party.” Sometimes, as with Steele, the problem is the messenger and the message.

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“I could not have told you then that some sun
would come,
somewhere over the road,
would come evoking the diamonds
of you, the Black continent–
somewhere over the road.
You would not have believed my mouth.”

The above stanza echoes, poet and author Gwendolyn Brooks’ confidence in the potential of African-Americans. In 1950, Brooks was the first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize. Brooks did more than illuminate the Black experience; she transcended racial boundaries, paving the way for transformative Black figures that would come after her.
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Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas on June 7, 1917. Six weeks later, her parents, David and Keziah Brooks, moved to Chicago, Illinois. As a teen, attending a leading white high school, Brooks was no stranger to racism and prejudice. She transferred from the all-black Wendell Phillips to the integrated Englewood High School. She graduated from Wilson Junior College in 1936. Brooks developed profound insight on racial dynamics, which later influenced her work.

At 13, Brooks’ first poem, “Eventide,” debuted in the American Childhood Magazine. By 16, the shy Brooks had compiled 75 published pieces. As a teen, she met two of Harlem Renaissances iconic poets, Langston Hughes and James W. Johnson, who encouraged her to read modern poetry extensively.

In 1945, Brooks won critical praise for her first published book of poetry in, “A Street in Bronzeville.” By the end of the decade, she had become a Guggenheim Fellow, and in 1950, Brooks became the first African-American to win the Pulizer Prize, for her book “Annie Allen.”

In 1962, John F. Kennedy invited Brooks to read at the Library of Congress poetry festival, she later began teaching creative writing at several notable institutions.

1967 marked a pivotal change in Brooks career; she attended a Black Writers’ Conference at Fisk University, where she said she rediscovered her Blackness. This consciousness is notably portrayed in “In The Mecca,” a long poem about a mother’s desperate search for her missing child in a Chicago housing project.

Gwendolyn Brooks was made poet laureate of Illinois in 1968, a title that she held until her death, of cancer, on December 3rd 2000, at age 83. Brooks’ resilience lives on far beyond Chicago’s South Side. Whether it was via ballads and sonnets or blues and rhythms in free verse, the poet’s words reverberate loudly. She once said that in order to create “bigness” one doesn’t have to create an epic. “Bigness,” Brooks proclaimed, “Can be found in a little haiku, five syllables, seven syllables.”

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THE STORYTELLER: Zora Neale Hurston

THE FIRST CHAMPION: Jack Johnson

As Black History Month comes to an end, it is important that we remember the African-Americans who fought and died for America during its many wars. Few people know that the man credited to be the first one to die in the Revolutionary War was a Black man by the name of Crispus Attucks. During the War of 1812, Black soldiers helped defeat the British in New Orleans.

By the end of the Civil War, 10% of the union forces were Black. The 54th regiment, which was an all Black fighting unit, was immortalized in the movie “Glory” and fought a number of important battles, eventually losing more than half of their troops. Two of Frederick Douglass’s sons also fought in the Civil War and Harriet Tubman severed as a scout for the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers.

During World War I, Black soldiers were given full citizenship, although they still fought in segregated units. Many credit Black soldiers for bringing Jazz music to Europe and France.

In World War II, Black soldiers had an increased presence. The NAACP pushed for the War Department to form the all-black 99th Pursuit Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Corps, otherwise known as the Tuskegee Airmen. The Tuskegee airmen were the only U.S. unit to sink a German destroyer. Like the 54th Regiment, the Tuskegee Airmen were immortalized in a movie of the same name.

The Marines first opened themselves to Black volunteers in 1942. To the dismay of the Marines only 63 African Americans joined.

Black officer, Lieutenant Colonel Campbell C. Johnson, decided that he would actively recruit Black Marines. Due to his efforts African Americans began joining the Marines at a rate of more than 1,000 a month in 1943.

Despite the opposition to the Vietnam war from Black leaders and athletes like Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali, many Black soldiers both volunteered and were drafted to fight in the Vietnam war. Colin Powell joined the ROTC at City College and would go on to be a Captain in Vietnam, later becoming a major. Powell would go on to be National Security Adviser (1987–1989), Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Army Forces Command (1989) and as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–1993) and eventually as Secretary of State for George W. Bush in 2001.

Another Black Vietnam veteran who would go on to success was Col. Charles F. Bolden. After graduating from the United States Naval Academy in 1968, he became a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps, flying over 100 sorties in Vietnam. Bolden’s flying skills made him an ideal candidate for NASA, which he joined as an astronaut in 1981. After a long and impressive career as an astronaut, President Barack Obama name Bolden the head of NASA.

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GALLERY: Landmark Year In Modern Black History – 1968

GALLERY: Landmark Year In Modern Black History – 1977

GALLERY: Landmark Year In Black History – 1988

Ralph Bunche was an American diplomat and political scientist whose work on domestic policy and foreign affairs shaped the struggle for human rights. Bunche was the first African-American to win the Nobel Peace Prize. His consistent avowal of African rights gave American statesmen the example they needed to pursue civil rights during segregation.

Ralph Bunche was born in Detroit, Michigan on August 7th, 1904. His family later moved to Los Angeles, California where he would enroll in several schools during his peripatetic childhood. Bunche studied at the University of California, Southern Branch and graduated with high honors there at the age of 23. It was the second time he had served as class valedictorian, the first he held at Jefferson High School years prior. He set high standards for himself as a varsity basketball athlete and budding scholar. Upon graduation from college, Bunche took a job as a janitor and later a teacher to save money for his graduate studies. He received his Master’s in 1928 while working as a professor at Howard University; he would later move on to Harvard University to pursue a doctoral fellowship in International Relations. His forays into diplomatic affairs centered largely on the politics of the African continent during the heights of colonial rule. The Rosenwald Fellowship allowed him to examine the social institutions of Togoland and Dahomey. His work was so thorough that he was honored with the Toppan Prize for outstanding work in social studies.

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But Bunche’s career was not about winning awards; it was about defining the problem of race across the African diaspora and finding solutions to the nagging iniquities in the global conscience. In his quest to offer workable solutions, Bunche served as an educational leader on the New York City Board of Education, Professor Emeritus at Howard University, trustee at Oberlin College and several other posts where he could disseminate the information he collected. His first book <em>A World View of Race</em> was the premier sociological work to approach the issue of race from a wide-angled view. It solidified his place as a scholar, and challenged his home country’s political order by comparing the injustices abroad to the seething conflicts in America. His early academic work informed his civic duties as a member of Roosevelt’s esteemed Black Cabinet, preliminary planner for the United Nations and diplomat in the Arab-Israeli mediation process. As he accumulated experience with world issues, he was apt to challenge the segregationist policies of the South. He refused an appointment as assistant Secretary of State under Harry Truman because of his opposition to the unfair laws still practiced in parts of the country. Nevertheless, he pushed forward where he could to promote world peace.

Bunche was often criticized by new guard leaders of the Black Power Movement for his government loyalty. Although he was working within a broken system, he toppled some of the powerful biases that held Blacks in a lower position for so long.

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THE WOMAN’S WOMAN: Sojourner Truth

THE ACTIVIST: Fannie Lou Hamer

Even with slavery so deeply entrenched in the American psyche during the 19th century, it was difficult to ignore a voice as strong and as bold as the one of Sojourner Truth. An American slave who actively supported abolitionist movements and became a staunch women’s rights activist, Truth’s message of equality and freedom, of compassion and the power of civic activism spoke to legions of Blacks and Whites, alike. Her legacy of civic participation and grassroots organizing became a cornerstone of the philosophies that guided many of today’s Black leaders into lives of public service.

Sojourner Truth was born into slavery in 1797 in New York. Originally Isabella Baumfree, she grew up with a dozen siblings under the mastership of a Dutch colonel. After the colonel’s death and the subsequent property shuffling, Truth’s family was separated. Approximately 9 years old at the time, was sold to a man named John Neely who beat her with metal rods and raped her daily.

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Truth was sold a few more times before she finally escaped the tyranny of slavery in 1826. After changing her name to Sojourner Truth in 1843 she became a Methodist and began preaching about the need to abolish slavery.

The Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Massachusetts was an organization founded by abolitionists that also worked on women’s rights, peace, and religious tolerance. In 1844, Truth joined their cause and learned about the virtues of pacifism and the importance of pursuing peace alongside fellow members Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison.

The powerful ideologies of equality and freedom that Truth had learned and internalized during her time with the Northampton Association manifested themselves in her now-famous 1851 speech, “Ain’t I A Woman?” in which she laid her rights as a woman in this country alongside her white counterparts at the Ohio Women’s Rights convention.

Her belief that Blacks and Whites in America had to work together to achieve peace and equality informed her strategies while working for the Union army during the Civil War. Truth recruited Black soldiers to fight in the war and while working in the Freedman’s Hospital in Washington D.C., she would lay the groundwork for the principles of desegregation espoused during the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century.

Her fight for the dignity, humanity and self-respect of African-Americans allowed for the paradigm shift required to eventually bring us to the inauguration of America’s first Black president.

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THE LIBERATOR: Harriet Tubman

THE ACTIVIST: Fannie Lou Hamer

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GALLERY: Landmark Year In Modern Black History – 1977

GALLERY: Landmark Year In Modern Black History – 1968

From The Root:

It’s Black History Month yet again. With several years of university teaching under my belt, I’ve begun to wonder what black history my students have actually learned during this month or any month before entering college. It’s clear the students know a version of black history that moves rather quickly from slavery to Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement to the election of Barack Obama.

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They describe black history with words, such as “real,” “struggle,” and “overcoming.” “Real” captures the racial authenticity that privileges those stories, which emphasize the ways in which black people have fought back against an oppressive system through invention, revolution, and political activism. What the students have learned seems to suggest that a history of the black experience documents how black Americans have “kept it real” in spite of racism.

After numerous classroom discussions, I’ve come to understand that though this “real” history is important, it overshadows the moments where resistance and activism are not obvious concerns. There is a black history that exists outside of the “real” story. Here, I am reminded of 18th century poet, Phillis Wheatley whose poems possess no apparent literary activism. Her well-formed elegies barely discuss slavery and certainly do not seem to oppose its practice. Before we place her outside of black history or chastise her lack of racial consciousness, we must recognize that Wheatley may offer an alternative story. Let’s assume that Wheatley’s intention was not to inaugurate this “real” history. Let’s concede that Wheatley does not keep real the narrative of struggle and resistance that has become synonymous with blackness.

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OPINION: Black History Month Shortchanges Us

OPINION: Why We Still Need Black History Month

In the 1960s, being Black and exercising your right to vote meant losing your job, being beaten or even lynched. But for Fannie Lou Hamer, voting rights activist and civil rights leader, there was no point in being scared. Fearless, she was among the first to organize voter registration drives throughout the South during the Civil Rights struggle, and considered one of the best organizers of the entire movement. For her efforts, Hamer received death threats. She was shot at, jailed, brutally beaten, and fired from the plantation where she worked. She was “tired of being sick and tired,” Hamer said. Thanks to Hamer’s relentless commitment, not only can African-Americans vote with no restraints, they eventually went to the voting booths in droves and successfully elected the first African-American President.

Fannie Lou Hamer was born in Montgomery County, Mississippi on October 6, 1917. She was the youngest of 20 children, born to sharecroppers Jim and Ella Townsend. Hamer began helping her parents in the fields when she was six-years-old. At 12, she dropped out of school to work the fields full-time.

In 1962, Hamer volunteered with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1964 she became SNCC’s field secretary, and co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), which challenged the legitimacy of the Democratic National Convention’s all-white Mississippi delegation.

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In front of the Credentials Committee, in a televised proceeding, Hamer gave a riveting speech. She explained how taxes, literary tests, and intimidation prevented African-Americans from registering to vote. The convention soon “compromised,” offering MFDP two seats, which the MFDP refused. Although they were denied official recognition, they continued to successfully register African-Americans to vote.

On March 14, 1977, at the age of 59, Fannie Lou Hamer died of cancer. Hamer was an unyielding pioneer in the struggle for civil rights. She knew voting was the vehicle to change the plight of African-Americans.

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THE STORYTELLER: Zora Neale Hurston

THE LIBERATOR: Harriet Tubman