BLACK CREATIVE EDUCATION

Black people had to be creative to become educated in olden days.. It was against the law for black people to be taught by anyone, or to be preached to by black preachers in Missouri in 1847. To get around the legal ban, John Berry Meachum, a freed slave, entrepreneur ((barrel-maker), first black church in Missouri founder, and educator, moved his school to a steamboat that he moored in the middle of the Mississippi River, federal property. Tuition was $1.00. 300 students caught a skiff each day from St. Louis to the steamboat freedom school. One of those students was James Milton Turner, for whom my grade school in Meachum Park, Missouri, was named. Turner also established public education for blacks all over Missouri, when he served as Asst. Education Commission during Reconstruction, including Lincoln University in Jefferson Meachum creativity was matched by Booker T. Washington's mobile schools, which took education to rural blacks, who did not have access to Tuskegee, or means of enlightenment. No reason exists not to become useful, educated, valuable, now!

"LAW"

"Law" is secular religion, political ethics, in our era. Anciently there was no division between them: LAW, RELIGION, ETHICS, in Ethiopia and Egypt, their place of origin.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS ON READING

"Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he said, 'If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master--to do as he is told to do. Learning would 'spoil' the best nigger in the world. Now', said he, 'If you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read , there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.' These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation , explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing mystery--to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a great achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it. Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I had gained from my master. Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble , to learn how to read . The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering . It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded , that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged against my learning to read , only inspired me with a desire and determination to learn. In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both." P. 37-38, "Chapter VI," NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1845, 1994) Douglass elsewhere had said that the book, the COLUMBIA ORATOR had been an indispensable aid in filling him out intellectually and philosophically for his later life's work as a writer, publisher, orator, renown global abolitionist lecturer. Of it, Douglass wrote: "I saw now about twelve years old, and the thought of being a 'slave for life' began to bear heavily upon my heart. Just about that time, I got hold of a book entitled THE COLUMBIAN ORATOR. Every opportunity I got, I used to read this book. Among much of other interesting matter, I found in it a dialogue between a master and his slave. The slave was represented as having run away from his master three times. The dialogue represented the conversation which took place between them , when the slave was retaken the third time. In this dialogue, the whole argument in behalf of slavery was brought forth by the master, all of which was disposed of by the slave. The slave was made to say some very smart as well as impressive things in reply to his master--things which had the desired though unexpected effect ; for the conversation resulted in the emancipation of the slave on the part of the master. In the same book, I met with one of Sheridan's mighty speeches on behalf of Catholic emancipation. These were choice documents to me. I read them over and over again with unabated interest ." Id. pp. 41-42.

FREEDOM

I can never cease to be amazed at the eloquent wisdom of former slaves. To have been through what they all went through: strengthens, exalts, them and those to whom they have exposed the truths of the depths and heights of life

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ Rather than being just a story, the "Wizard of Oz" might be allegory. It might speak to the incongruity of masquerading male minions being able to manipulate many credulous citizens, following an environmental upheaval that displaces all values, with puffery, quackery, technology, sapping courage, wisdom, vitality. I have not read the book, the novel, the purported "children's fairytale", THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ by L. Frank Baum (1900). But, of course, I have watched the movie with you, and was as thrilled by the wicked witch of the West's deeds and demons who sought to deter our determined pilgrimage to truth. "Dorothy," the lion, scarecrow, tin man, all played their parts cleverly. Only now in 2019, at age 68, does it occur to me of the metonymy of the story, a trope on the fall of the real, the truth, by cosmic force that seem to have destroyed goodness. But magic shoes are the foundation and , of course, a foundation is life! "Oh! We clearly see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of oz!" Fake! 

MATTER

"Matter is not soul; it is not intellect, is not Life, is no Ideal-Principle, no Reason-Principle; it is no limit or bound, for it is mere indetermination; it is not a power, for what does it produce? "It lives on the farther side of these categories and so has no title to the name of Being. It will be more plausibly called a non-being, and this is not in the sense that movement and station are Not-Being (i.e. as merely different from Being) but in the sense of veritable Not-Being, so that it is no more than the image and phantasm of Mass, a bare aspiration towards substantial existence; it is a stationary but not in the sense of having position, it is itself invisible , eluding all effort to observe it, present where no one can look, unseen for all our gazing, ceaselessly presenting contraries in the things based upon it, it is large and small, more and less, deficient and excessive; a phantasm unabiding and yet unable to withdraw--not even strong enough to withdraw , so absolute its lack of Being. "Its every utterance , therefore, is a lie; it pretends to be great and it is little, to be more and it is less; and the Existence with which it marks itself is no Existence, but a passing trick making trickery of all that seems to be present in it , phantasms within a phantasm; it is like a mirror showing things within itself when they are really elsewhere, filled in appearance but actually empty, containing nothing, pretending everything. Into it and out of it move mimicries of the Authentic Existents, images playing upon an image devoid of Form, visible against it by its very formlessness; they seem to modify it but in reality effect nothing, for they are ghostly and feeble, have no thrust and meet none Matter either; they pass through it leaving no cleavage, as through water; or they might be compared to shapes projected so as to make some appearance upon what we know only as Void." P.196-197, "The Impassivity of the Unembodied," THE ENNEADS by Plotinus (1991)

SPIRIT OF 1776 REVIVAL

SPIRIT OF 1776'S REVIVAL BEATS The "Spirit of 1776" was banked in 1781, at Yorktown near Jamestown, Virginia, when General Cornwallis surrendered Britain's defeated army to Its rebellious colonists. All hues were there, even the blacks, whose double agent, Armstead, posing as a valet trickled ole Great Britain, into the trap, and its doom. The "Spirit of 1776" was suborned, was betrayed, was waylaid, in 1785 when Jefferson's scandalous and secretly distributed book, privately published, NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, "Query XIV", was released by Thomas Jefferson in an "Articles of Confederation" America and in Europe. By it, through it, the "white" and the "black" became the true American paradigm not that "Declaration of Independence", an edited, publicly praised document proclaiming "liberty, justice for all ." The "Spirit of 1776" was destroyed in 1787, in Philadelphia, after the Constitutional Convention there, released a new government edict, under pretense of amending its old; that extended the slave trade until 1808; that made slaves 3/5s units for Southern Congressional count; that made the federal power the predominant political power over any and all states; that capitulated to slavery fully as fuel of capitalism. The "Spirit of 1776" was mocked in 1814, when American Gen. Andrew Jackson reneged on promised land grants and freedom to black slaves, black freed men who had famously defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans, while giving land and other emoluments to "whites"; but the blacks got zero, but hot air, and even worse, remanded to slavery. The "Spirit of 1776" was revived by the stimulants in Denmark Vesey's 1822 African Methodist Episcopal, Charleston, South Carolina, plot that was betrayed by a scary slave solicitous of his master's safety. But, it was revived in "David Walker's Appeal to the Colored People of the World," in 1827, and sanguinely with Rev. Nat Turner's fierce rebellion in Southhampton, Virginia in 1831, all reminders of us! The "Spirit of 1776" spoke softly, in revival, through the apostrophic pages of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's UNCLE TOM'S CABIN in 1852; and barked belligerently in a hail of bullets condemning historic heresies in Bishop John Brown's military assault on Harper's Ferry in 1859, when, where, black-white patriots, true to the Spirit of 1776, unedited, and to the Word of God, descended like locusts for arms! The "Spirit of 1776" was called into question in a "Civil War," to whites, in a "Freedom War" to blacks. It was fact that before the executive order "Emancipation Proclamation" of 1863, blacks were excluded from fighting, because it was declared a "white man's war," repeatedly. That it was, until the South kept winning! Then, what the President Abraham Lincoln termed "military necessity" compelled, impelled, the enlistment of black troops in consideration of instant freedom given to enslaved blacks in the Confederate States of America by the Union, conditioned on victory . It was a neat, decorous diplomatic, political and military maneuver that debased the South, while it exalted the North, in the war, and international debate over the meaning of the "Spirit of 1776." The "Spirit of 1776" had seemed to win the debate between North and South over its fate, April 9, 1865, when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox . But five days later Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed in Ford's Theater on April 14, by a secret special agent plot of the CSA, carried out by John Wilkes Booth. This depressing murder raised up Vice (literally) President, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, to become President. Johnson, a slaveholder at heart, was a white supremacist indeed! He too quickly readmitted unrepentant rebels, who were yet unredeemed racists back into the Union, while not protecting, nor securing newly freed blacks' spoils! This rascal was impeached, but acquitted, serving but one term. The "Spirit of 1776" was slandered by the ruse of "Reconstruction" for blacks, but really reconciliation for the whites, as the blacks got no land--no forty acres nor a mule--as had been promised in February 1865 in Savannah, Georgia, by Edwin Stanton , War Secretary, and General William Sherman to 27 black preachers in a meeting on that specific subject. Preachers said they wanted land and to be left alone in peace to do for self. Instead, abandoned lands that whites had fled, that blacks had historically worked, were slowly surreptitiously siphoned away by Congress and given to white real estate speculators in total disregard of prior government promises . Similarly, the Congressionally chartered Freedmen's Savings Bank was being mulcted of millions by Wall Street speculation after Congress amended the banks' charter to allow investments outside of government securities and outside of Washington, D. C., in the 1870s. The "Spirit of 1776" was corrupted in the collusive election outcome of 1876-1877, when Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, a Republican, was made the President by Congress, in consideration of his withdrawal of the remaining federal troops from the South (South Carolina and Louisiana). Samuel Tilden, Democrat of New York, who won more electoral votes (but not enough) got nothing "on the public record" but token symbolic thanks. https://www.270towin.com/1876_Election/ The "Spirit of 1776" hit "its nadir" in 1896, when Jim Crow, "separate but equal ", segregation was decreed in Plessy v. Ferguson as the new law of the land, in all public accommodations until the "Brown v Board of Topeka" cases overruled it in 1954. This epochal litigation was directed by the NAACP's Special Counsel, Thurgood Marshall, as it had been previously outlined by then-deceased Charles Hamilton Houston, when dean of Howard Law School, until 1935. Howard U. Law is a residue of Reconstruction. The "Spirit of 1776" encountered turbulence in the 1950-1960s which saw blacks fighting for "civil rights" by many demonstrations , sit-Ins, boycotts, and nonviolent civil disobedience led primarily by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968, leaving a void in spiritual philosophical leadership, that remained largely void until the election of Barack Obama in 2008. The "Spirit of 1776" still seeks to find power, peace, permanency in 2019 in the mercurial presidency of Donald John Trump of New York, a new politician, who, as I write this in January 2019, has had a number of his advisors, campaign officials, lawyers, aides, indicted or arrested; and who has shut down the federal government for the longest time in history over a border wall dispute in the southern United States with Congress, which will not agree to appropriate billions of dollars to it.

MARRIAGES

MARRIAGES ARE OF GOD NOT OF FORM "Married" is subject to definition. Slaves "married" even when religion was illegal for them and black preachers were too! They "married" despite the uncertainty of sale or separation of they or their offspring, (that would be our forbears) which to them was like death. Slaves ' narratives recount stories of escaped slaves returning to rescue their spouses, families, friends . One noteworthy example of this was our saint "Harriet Tubman" (19 times) and a Virginia man named "Washington" who returned from Canada for his wife in Virginia, who had been sold away from the plantation. Shocked! he was then recaptured. While onboard the "Creole", a slave ship to New Orleans, in 1841, Washington led a slave revolt! After they took over the ship, they killed some of their captors; but they wisely saved enough expert sailors to navigate it the British Bahamas, where slavery was illegal. The 118 slaves who wanted off, got off. But there were five slave women who were "married," who had chosen to remain aboard with their white sailor-husbands, whom they had "married" aboard ship. The ship sailed on to New Orleans, after negotiations with the American government. Washington was not later heard of again in history! The point being "marriage" is spiritual, which ever forms it may assume, be it whatever. Ethiopians had six kinds of marriages, according to J. A. Rogers., who wrote of it in SEX AND RACE, a three-volume ancient-modern black history masterpiece, or his other books, like NATURE KNOWS NO COLOR LINE, AS NATURE LEADS, etc . The lawyer, stenographer and novelist, Charles Chesnutt in a great short story "The Wife of his Youth" writes of a light skinned man who had "married" a dark skinned wife, but who were lost to each other during the upheaval of the Civil War. Over the next forty years they had diligently searched for each other; then, one day they miraculously serendipitously meet, rejoice, rejoin. "Marriage" is variously defined, and practiced, but if God (love) is its glue, then all things are possible ! Amen 🙏

PETITIONING TO BE A VIRGINIA SLAVE?

Talking about amazing audacity! "During the 1850s, the most tumultuous decades in American history , new laws regarding people of color in various southern states the fear and anxiety of many slaveholders toward free blacks. Six states passed statutes whereby free blacks could petition courts and legislatures to become slaves. The first of these, passed in Virginia in 1856, provided a blueprint 'for the voluntary enslavement of the free negroes.' Any free persons of color--men, at least twenty -one years of age; women, eighteen--who were residents of the state could choose a master and enter slavery by submitting to the circuit court a petition that exists explained their wishes to be reduced to bondage." Fortunately, the author of the book from which this quote was taken, did not name any free persons who sued to be enslaved in Virginia! The book is APPEALING FOR LIBERTY FREEDOM SUITS IN THE SOUTH by Loren Schweninger (2018), p. 48

CLIMATE CHANGE IN BLACK MEN

CLIMATE CHANGE IN BLACK MEN Concentrated light directed at a specific target is very powerful. Concentrated wind, water, lava, earth tremors, are no less powerful. Concentrated laws, prejudices, are comparable to natural forces when they are directed at special people; all people of a certain color creed and/or condition are used to enrich all other non-proscribed citizens , who are protected by law, prejudice and the military power of the state. The proscribed people enrich the non-proscribed persons by paying higher prices, taxes, receiving lower wages, salaries, rewards, than their counterparts ; by losing lands, properties, legacies, credits, accounts, and by being penalized , imprisoned, lynched, or executed as disposable excrescences of life. By now, the latter category has surely been recognized as racism which has been visited upon the black people by the white people of the United States of America. This mishmash worked well by reason of the reward retribution dichotomy . That is, as long as "white" people played their parts and the blacks theirs, all would be well; but when either behaved irregularly, veering, deviating, condign rewards would be withdrawn, retribution inserted. Inevitably, however, mountains do crumble. Trees do crash to earth. Deserts overtake lush savannas. Magnetic poles shift even flip! In short, there is a changing of the guard in climatologies, so too man. Climate change is generally viewed through the perspective of earth being victimized by modern man. Less frequently is climate change viewed behaviorally, as Zeitgeist , or "spirit of the times" in society. I for one feel behavioral change in man is modulated by self concept. Pervasive self concepts like music beats, dances, language, fashion, all play a subliminal part in change. Each accretes until critical mass is reached. Then ineffable influences "swing low" like a "sweet chariot, coming forth to carry me home;" then, after we "lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring, ring with the harmonies of liberty," some "inner city blues" recalls the question lamented earlier about the "strange fruit ... a strange and bitter crop." So, in succession an oppressed resistance beckons the paranormal, spiritual, behavioral, powers, forces, influences to aid as with the progression from boogie woogie, bebop, jazz, blues, spiritual songs that incant change. Rap music, hip hop, is paradigmatic as well. Its concentrated rhythms and rhymes are as comfortable in this era of change as the forbears. It is year 2019 so 400 years later of Genesis 15:12-15 is here right now!

FIRST KNOW GOD

FIRST KNOW GOD Saturday, January 26, 2019 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman Know God for yourself! You are here and now, with all else that is here and now. There must be a reason why. Ask yourself “why?” That leads back to God. Now, God answers inquiries, prayers, summons, invocations, or calls. God answers all! But who is God? What is God? Who are you? What are you? God’s image and likeness! So says the BIBLE. You need not agree. God loves you despite you. To find yourself, first, find God, who made you from the midst of eternity for now. Amen.

STEGER'S HOPE

HOPE WAS FOUND AT STEGER Steger Junior High School was an ideal, indeed an idyllic, educational situation for me, for our family, in 1963, the year when we moved to Eldridge Avenue in the Webster Groves School, Missouri, District. Our home was just four doors away from Rockhill Road, the street, two-lanes, that Steger faced, defined, refined, distinguished. Steger was almost new, a model of modern eco friendly architecture of glass, steel, stone, brick, concrete, asphalt, that looked like it might have been lifted from the drafting board of the great Frank Lloyd Wright. A rustic creek transversed Steger's 20+ acres of green acreage. The creek bound it, for the whites who lived west of it, for the blacks who lived in the east. Our large family of six kids loved books in 1963. Mama and Daddy saw to that. They brought books home from many directions of all kinds. "If you get something in your head, " they often would say, "can't nobody take it away." Repeatedly. I still love books as my birthright due to Mama and Daddy, now gone on. Up Rockhill Road, with me in the lead as the eldest, in single file we trekked to the public library in spring 1963. The Rockhill library was then located in a house, the new brick one , having not been built. We all checked out books; then we trekked back home down Rockhill Road to Eldridge Avenue. Rockhill, Missouri, is homeowners' haven, even today in year 2019, even though slick developers have brought in stores, shops, plenty of apartments. But, way back in the day, the black community and the white community consisted mainly of black-white two parent families of hardworking, homeowners with school-age children who were mainly enrolled at Steger Jr. High. The anomaly of the neighborhood school in the modern era that is, at once, also academically excellent, racially integrated, aesthetically beautiful; but that is a community resource all year round for all sports, hiking, sledding, exploring, kite-flying, golfing, voting, remote controlled airplane flying, cork ball-playing, is surely hard to imagine. But we can! We lived it. I did from 1963-1966. When I become critical of busing only for integration, or of family-shredding magnet schools, school vouchers, and all the rest of the modern educational gimmickry designed to get the public's money by untried or invalidated, non-corroborated, pretensions, whether by so-called civil rights groups or by innovation experts, it is because I know better! I know because I went to Steger Junior High School, in Webster Groves, Missouri, School District, in the early 1960s when hope thrived!

TRUMP IS TYPICAL NOT ATYPICAL

TRUMP IS TYPICAL NOT ATYPICAL United States President Donald Trump's vast legal difficulties raise a specter of criminality. It is almost laughable, if it was not so pitiable. I naturally wondered where else had such criminality reigned in history? As I reflected, however, indeed, before I undertook to do research another question superseded the first one. It was: Which kings, emperors, rulers, potentates were not criminals ? There are so many criminals just in America and in the Americas, there was no need to inquire further, abroad, to the rest of the world! Hence, it may be easier to search for those that were not criminals! Very ancient nations. Nations before Rome must be searched for righteousness and for non-criminality, since Rome fed Christians to the lions tigers bears for amusement, entertainment in their massive amphitheaters. Rome also crucified Jesus Christ, then stole his redemptive theology as their own centuries later under Emperor Constantine, and others. Greece of course was not a nation but an aggregation of city-states like Athens, Sparta, others. They were great mariners and traders, whose influence was more derived from their contact with Africa, than autochthonous, as portrayed today. Yet even in Greece rulers' names like Draco for Draconian: harsh, severe yet survive. Athens' fabled wise man, Socrates, was jailed for teaching philosophy "foreign ideas" to youth. Socrates drank hemlock to poison himself to death, while jailed, rather than compromise philosophy's principles says Plato, his alleged student and renowned author . Its democracy excluded Athens' vast class of slaves and its lower classes from juries, voting, offices, power perquisites of rulers. Of course, Greece and Rome are the model of the West, especially Western Europe and America, whose ancestors were "barbarians" to Greece and Rome, whom they routinely fought, subdued until they were later, themselves, subdued by their descendants, today's rulers! But I digress . Trump is typical , not atypical, of all criminal leadership!

"UNFOLDING DELIVERANCE"

“Unfolding Deliverance” (short story) Conceived: Friday, December 24, 2010 Completed: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman “It ain’t over.” That was the last sentence he heard before falling asleep. Awakening hours later to find that he was still in bed, and fully dressed, Booker Barca Bailey, age 12, unfolded the lovely, red, black and green-crossed damask spread wrapped, catawampus, around him. Recalling that sentence, he wondered aloud: “What ‘ain’t over?’” as he stretched and yawned, shaking off dusts of slumber. Booker, his first name, was from Booker T. Washington, famed founder of Tuskegee University. Barca, his middle name, was the surname of Hannibal, the great Carthaginian general. Bailey was his daddy’s surname, who had named him at birth. Climbing out the bed, and neatly refolding his aunt’s damask spread, which she had brought back from out of the country, Booker ambled down the deeply-padded carpet, in sock-feet. “The sleeper has awakened!” teased his uncle, as Booker entered the family room. “How about some breakfast, champ?” he asked. “All that noise you were making surely woke him up,” his mother pouted, petulantly, enfolding him in her arms. “Morning, Booker.” “Morning Mama,” he replied as she him released. “It’s time for you to get up, anyway. Nothing comes to a sleeper, but a dream.” Said his father as he winked at their only child. Faintly smiling, secure in familial comfort and love, he asked “What ‘ain’t over? Y’all were talking about this topic last night before I went to sleep. It’s the last thing I remember hearing.” “’You all were” corrected his mother, a school teacher. “The word ‘ain’t,’ is an African American linguistic contraction, now deeply imbedded in the American lexicon. But it is still improper English.” “You all were talking about this topic last night before I went to sleep.” said Booker as he carefully, slowly, modulated each syllable. Only recently, his junior choir had sung the hopeful gospel version of “It ain’t over” in his Uncle Abednego’s church, Mighty Congregation African Church, near St. Louis, Missouri. He was in its dynamic youth choir, “The Morning Dews.” Then too, he had also sung, a raunchier, more hip-hop version of “It Ain’t Over” at school, during lunch with friends. Which version was being discussed? He wondered. Just then, it came on again, toward the front of the house: “It ain’t over until your victory is won …” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnHDDgdJ7Y8&feature=related It was being softly, plaintively, sung version by Maurette Brown Clark. He recognized it from church and smiled placidly. Uncle Abnego picked up his tattered Bible and read expressively from Genesis, Chapter 15: 12-15-- 12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. “And just what is that supposed to mean?” quipped his aunt, somewhat facetiously. Earlier, she had covered him while he slept with her damask spread of many colors; it was one that she had acquired on one of her occasional, fabled shopping forays abroad. Now she was refolding her spread as she had unfolded it on him. Booker wondered if they had been up all night long “debating” the ways of black/white folk, their usual topic. This one, though, had a sharper edge to it, unlike its more pallid predecessors. “It means there’s more to come, more to follow. It means ’Stay tuned!’” continued Uncle Abednego. “This scriptural passage applies to black people, to African-Americans, as surely as does the universally acclaimed, Negro spiritual, ‘Go Down Moses!’” “The struggle for black folks’ freedom ‘is not over’ either, baby.” smirked Booker’s aunt. “Just ask your Uncle Abe. He is about to involve us all in this 2019 African American deliverance scheme!” “He was just about to explain Abram’s dream, when you came half sleep-walking through the door. Weren’t you, baby?” cooed Booker’s Aunt Sidney, smooching her lips to blow her husband of ten years a mockingly petulant kiss. “Booker’s sleep was ‘deep’ like Abram’s,” interjected his father. “And ‘deep’ like that of our own African American people’s sleep. But, if one is to go into deep space for 400 years, sleep helps!” “I’m still trying to hear your interpretation of what that scripture means, Abe. Abram was obviously a Jew. Not African, not African American,” Aunt Sidney stated, rising to her feet with a sigh. “So, how you can equate that with us is not quite clear to me,” she said, pulling Booker toward the kitchen. “You want hot oatmeal or cold cereal?” she asked familiarly. “I want cereal.” Booker said. “What kind do you have?” “Nothing that sugary kind, like you 12 year old kids like. How about some Cheerios?” “OK” “Go wash your hands in the restroom. By the time you get back, everything will be ready,” she said. She adored her nephew, her sister’s son. Being childless, herself, she loved to play ‘Momma.’ When Booker returned to the kitchen, a bowl of Cheerios, containing cut-up bananas and strawberries was waiting on the table, beside a spoon and a glass of milk. Aunt Sidney had already rejoined the others in the family room conversing. “Jew or Ethiopian, it’s all the same to God.” interjected Shadrach, Booker’s father, Uncle Abednego’s older brother. Amos 9:7 say: “Are you not as the Ethiopians unto me O children of Israel?” “Pass me that Bible. I want to read that one for myself.” Tamara, Booker’s mother said. Searching for Amos in the Old Testament, she found the place and read silently. “Well it does say that. But … I’d always thought they, the Jews, were God’s ‘chosen people.’ In fact, I believe I have read that, somewhere, in the Bible!” “If you’re reasonably healthy, and still breathing, you’re already ‘chosen’ in my view.” Said Aunt Sidney. “The rest is up to you.” “Oh, it’s in there, Tamara. But the Jews’ and everybody else’s utter destruction is also in there. The Lord gives and takes away. The point is: God does not play favorites. He made of one blood all men.” answered her husband, Shadrach, Booker’s father. Rising to his feet, Uncle Abednego began to preach, using his hands for emphasis. “I am using a mystical, allegorical and spiritual interpretation of scripture.” “And historical,” interjected Shadrach. “Don’t leave that out! Too many black preachers, black people, either don’t know history, nor care for history. Therefore, most folks run from all history.” “White ones, too!” added Tamara, emphatically. “They run too! Their history is often fake, weak and often biased against blacks!” “’Yes. Historical, too, Shad and Tamara.’” Resumed Abednego. “We came to Jamestown, Virginia as indentured servants in 1619, serving a term of years, till we were freed. About 50 years later, the colonial Virginia legislature made us lifelong slaves, to divide and to separate us from our fellow white and Indian indentured servants, who continued to serve a term of years. This happened back in the 1660s, after the so-called “Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion” in Virginia. “Wasn’t there another Nathaniel somebody in Massachusetts who rebelled after the American Revolution in the 1780’s, over the lack of equitable land distribution?” asked Tamara, quizzically. “That was Daniel Shay’s Rebellion, Dear.” answered Abednego. “Nathaniel Bacon, a rich white planter, himself, had led a rebellion against the colonial oligarchy. Bacon’s brigade consisted blacks and whites and Indians, indentured servants all. This dangerous combination of indentured folks had to be broken up, as it threatened good colonial order, land, and power. So, the Virginia colonial legislature passed laws setting different rights between black, white and Indian indentured servants, after Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion was crushed. This all happened during the middle 1660’s. Nathaniel Bacon died mysteriously and that ended the rebellion. He might have been poisoned, some say.” “Fascinating” Aunt Sidney quipped. “Coffee anyone?” she asked “This is year 2017. In year 2019, 400 years will be up, since “we” symbolically came here. That’s when our deliverance will fully unfold, in year 2019. That Genesis scripture is allegorical, relating to the sojourn of black people in America. That’s only 2 years from now.” Explained Uncle Abednego, “Abe” for short. “Do you really believe that?” asked Aunt Sibley slightly miffed. “Allegorical? I thought the Bible was to be taken ‘literally,’ not allegorically.” She stated feinting to dodge an imaginary blow. “The Apostle Paul uses the word “allegory” in the New Testament. Jesus spoke in parables, frequently. Jesus also admonished his disciples to be discerning, able to see through facades, exteriors. Let me go back to the study and get my study Bible. I can tell right now this is going to get deep.” Said Abe rising to leave. “Bring me one, too, Abe.” Cried Sidney. “Me, too,” said Oscar. “Well, Obama was elected President of these United States of America—in 2008!” added Booker’s dad, flippantly. ”That was something I’d thought that I would never see happen in my lifetime, or ever. After that, I can believe almost anything else. ” “And from that Harvard lawyer’s miraculous election as President you can deduce that black folks are going to be free in two years?” snorted Aunt Sibley. “’Tamara, chastise you husband, please! while I check his brother.’” she said, gesturing to Tamara in mock contempt. “’Girl, don’t you know by now! They’re flip sides of the same coin!’” Mom gushed. “’It is no use! Abe and Shad are joined at the hip in politics and just about all issues related to black folks.’” “Getting back to the subject at hand,” interjected Uncle Abe, “It’s not just the election of Obama. This momentum has been building for 400 years! The election of Barack Obama or Deval Patrick as Governor in Massachusetts or Douglas Wilder as the Governor of Virginia were all just “heat checks”. Tremors before the real deal! This 2019 piece makes more sense than anything I’ve heard, yet. Plus, it is futuristic, historical, and Biblical. Therefore prophetic.” “And allegorical” Dad added. “That 400 year thing is deep.” “But is it practical?” asked Aunt Sibley. “How are you, how are you going to get black folks to believe in their own deliverance in 2 years, much less work to bring it about?” she half-teased. “’You?’ What do you mean by ‘you’? How do ‘you’ get the tides to rise or the seasons to change? You don’t. ‘You’ don’t. These things are divinely ordered, just like 2019.” Dad said.” Our job is to prepare ‘the least of these’—that would include practically all of us—for the benevolent receipt of this blessing, of this “unfolding deliverance,” this divine dispensation, that is inscribed in verse.” “So, if we don’t do anything, the 2019 prophesy just will happen on its own? Will the fact and the act of spiritual liberation--black liberation, whatever-- happen on its own? Which is it anyway? Spiritual or black? That is my question. Like the ‘tides and the seasons,’ you said. That’s all Mother Nature? Will it require some work on anybody’s part, everybody’s part?” asked Tamara. “That’s a whole lot of questions to answer at once,” Abe said. “You’re starting sound a lot like my wife, Tamara!” He said, stealing a sidelong glance at Sidney, now smiling cherubically. Sidney responded on cue. ”Flip sides of the same coin, my brother,”she replied, in a playfully mock salute. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander! ‘Measure twice. Saw once.’ That’s your clichéd-mantra, Dear Husband. Call this our ‘due diligence!’” She said. Sashaying over to Tamara they exchanged a sisterly, ritualized high-five in slow motion, laughingly. “Colored women,” cracked Abe throwing up both hands, “make me want to holler, sometimes. Throw up both my hands!” “That’s ’Inner City Blues’—Marvin Gaye! Jam that!” Cried Shadrach. “I’ll get it myself.” “Work? Somebody say ‘work’” mimicked Shadrach. Isley Brothers say “’…Everybody’s got work to do…to-do, to-do.” I’m still confused” said Aunt Sidney, sighing and looking down on her well-manicured nails. “I don’t see the big deal. If 2019 is for everybody, and God is no respecter of persons, then everything is everything. There’s no difference between 2017’, by the way—“HAPPY NEW YEAR, again, to all”—and 2019, as far as that goes.” “For lawyers like you and Obama there may not be a difference, Sidney. Oh! ‘Happy New Year!” back at you, again, too, my Beloved.” chimed Uncle Abe, Sidney’s doting husband. “Preachers, like me, steeped in history, appreciate the potency of pregnant prophesy. Even before Jesus was born, there was the Annunciation, the star in the East, the long held prophesies of the coming of the Messiah. Pass me that Bible, please. The first chapter of the Book of Luke reads: 26In the sixth month the angel(AY) Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named(AZ) Nazareth, 27(BA) to a virgin betrothed[b] to a man whose name was Joseph,(BB) of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, "Greetings,(BC) O favored one,(BD) the Lord is with you!"[c] 29But(BE) she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 30And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for(BF) you have found favor with God. 31And behold,(BG) you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and(BH) you shall call his name Jesus. 32He will be great and will be called the Son of(BI) the Most High. And the Lord God(BJ) will give to him the throne of(BK) his father David, 33and he will reign over the house of Jacob(BL) forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." 34And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?"[d] 35And the angel answered her,(BM) "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of(BN) the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born[e] will be called(BO) holy—(BP) the Son of God. Sidney said, swell, I sure hope you’re right. But, it sounds too simple, too easy to be real.” I’ve got that one, too, dear. It’s like a dream. Psalms 126 reads: I When the LORD restored the fortunes of[a] Zion, we were like those who dreamed.[b] 2 Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.” 3 The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy. “All of that is well and good in here. But, how will it play in Peoria?” Asked Sibley. “That is the $64,000 question.” “Isn’t that why we are gathered here, Dearly Beloveds? To try to figure out how to make it play in Peoria and Kansas City and Chicago, too?” Shadrach asked. “I’ve been up all night laughing and joking…” “And eating,” interjected his wife, smoothly and sweetly. “Put on that Maurette Brown Clark CD, Booker. It should be on that rack behind you…No! Better yet! Sing us a few bars of ‘It Ain’t Over’ accappello”, commanded Uncle Abe. So Booker began to sing the song in a sweet tenor falsetto: “’I know the odds look stacked against you. And it seems there’s no way out. I know the issue seems unchangeable. And that there’s no reason to shout! But, the impossible, is God’s chance, to work a miracle, a miracle. So, just know it ain’t over, until God says it’s over, it ain’t over till God says it’s done. Keep fighting till your victory is won. When people say you can’t, remember he can! Hold your head up high, you’re going to win. It ain’t over till God says it’s over. Jesus defeated all your enemies way before the fight began! But, the impossible is God’s chance to work a miracle, a miracle. You’re going to win. So, just know, It ain’t over until God says it’s over… Until God says it’s done. Keep fighting, praying, fasting… pressing, progressing, moving…keep reading, interceding, believing…keep fighting until your victory is won.’” Swaying and humming, Aunt Sidney and Tamara hummed in the background, while Shadrach interjected bursts of encouragement. Uncle Abe cried, openly and unashamed. His wife came over and comforted him. Through it all, Booker, with his eyes closed, just kept right on singing. “It ain’t over, until God says it’s done!” #30

MACON B. ALLEN, FIRST BLACK AMERICAN LAWYER

MACON B. ALLEN, POWER "M" Macon Bolling Allen was the first black lawyer in the United States. He was admitted in Maine in 1844. He was also admitted in to the bar of Massachusetts, whence he had migrated in search of better money making opportunities, than Maine had afforded him. Boston was not appreciably better, evidently. Allen complained that the law business usually flowed by family linkages and established tradition, neither of which "appendages" he enjoyed. However, Macon B. Allen made it clear that his profession in no way estranged nor insulated him from the fate of millions enslaved blacks. Howard University Law Professor, the late J. Clay Smith, SJD, writes in his magisterial law compendium, EMANCIPATION THE MAKING OF THE BLACK LAWYER 1844-1944 (1993), in the chapter , "New England: The Genesis of the Black Lawyer," the following: "Allen 's woes were further magnified when he was publicly insulted by an abolitionist at the Boston Town Meeting during the heated debates against the U.S. expansionist policies during the Mexican War . Fearing that war with Mexico would expand slavery and enhance the power of recently annexed Texas, abolitionists in 1846 asked New Englanders to pledge not to support the government's war efforts. Allen voiced outrage at the abolitionists ' 'indecorous' conduct toward him when he refused to sign the pledge 'not to sustain the government in any event, in the present war with Mexico.' One abolitionist accused him of being unconcerned about the slave conditions existing in the South. Allen wrote to William Lloyd Garrison ['Liberator' editor]: "'Though not in the habit of declaring what sentiments I entertain, deeming it of little consequence , I trust it will not seem presumptuous if I embrace the occasion...to say, that I sympathize as strongly with my brethren in bonds--with whom I am identified in almost every particular, as my nature, not a cold one, enables me to do so, and accordingly to the right that is in me, and my humble ability, am ever ready to do all I can for their melioration. The cause of the Colored man, in whatever section of our country, expressly is really my own cause; and it would be monstrous indeed if I did not so regard it.'" P. 95. Macon Bolling Allen sounds very much like other eloquent warriors whose names include "M": Martin, Mandela, Malcolm , and Medgar. After the Civil War, Allen relocated to Charleston, South Carolina to practice law. He died there in 1894.

UNFOLDING DELIVERANCE

Unfolding Deliverance Friday, December 24, 2010 Wednesday, January 23, 2019 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman “It ain’t over.” That was the last sentence he heard before falling asleep. Awakening hours later to find that he was still in bed, and fully dressed, Booker Barca Bailey, age 12, unfolded the lovely, red, black and green-crossed damask spread wrapped, catawampus, around him. Recalling that sentence, he wondered aloud: “What ‘ain’t over?’” as he stretched and yawned, shaking off dusts of slumber. Booker, his first name, was from Booker T. Washington, famed founder of Tuskegee University. Barca, his middle name, was the surname of Hannibal, the great Carthaginian general. Bailey was his daddy’s surname, who had named him at birth. Climbing out the bed, and neatly refolding his aunt’s damask spread, which she had brought back from out of the country, Booker ambled down the deeply-padded carpet, in sock-feet. “The sleeper has awakened!” teased his uncle, as Booker entered the family room. “How about some breakfast, champ?” he asked. “All that noise you were making surely woke him up,” his mother pouted, petulantly, enfolding him in her arms. “Morning, Booker.” “Morning Mama,” he replied as she him released. “It’s time for you to get up, anyway. Nothing comes to a sleeper, but a dream.” Said his father as he winked at their only child. Faintly smiling, secure in familial comfort and love, he asked “What ‘ain’t over? Y’all were talking about this topic last night before I went to sleep. It’s the last thing I remember hearing.” “’You all were” corrected his mother, a school teacher. “The word ‘ain’t,’ is an African American linguistic contraction, now deeply imbedded in the American lexicon. But it is still improper English.” “You all were talking about this topic last night before I went to sleep.” said Booker as he carefully, slowly, modulated each syllable. Only recently, his junior choir had sung the hopeful gospel version of “It ain’t over” in his Uncle Abednego’s church, Mighty Congregation African Church, near St. Louis, Missouri. He was in its dynamic youth choir, “The Morning Dews.” Then too, he had also sung, a raunchier, more hip-hop version of “It Ain’t Over” at school, during lunch with friends. Which version was being discussed? He wondered. Just then, it came on again, toward the front of the house: “It ain’t over until your victory is won …” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnHDDgdJ7Y8&feature=related It was being softly, plaintively, sung version by Maurette Brown Clark. He recognized it from church and smiled placidly. Uncle Abnego picked up his tattered Bible and read expressively from Genesis, Chapter 15: 12-15-- 12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. “And just what is that supposed to mean?” quipped his aunt, somewhat facetiously. Earlier, she had covered him while he slept with her damask spread of many colors; it was one that she had acquired on one of her occasional, fabled shopping forays abroad. Now she was refolding her spread as she had unfolded it on him. Booker wondered if they had been up all night long “debating” the ways of black/white folk, their usual topic. This one, though, had a sharper edge to it, unlike its more pallid predecessors. “It means there’s more to come, more to follow. It means ’Stay tuned!’” continued Uncle Abednego. “This scriptural passage applies to black people, to African-Americans, as surely as does the universally acclaimed, Negro spiritual, ‘Go Down Moses!’” “The struggle for black folks’ freedom ‘is not over’ either, baby.” smirked Booker’s aunt. “Just ask your Uncle Abe. He is about to involve us all in this 2019 African American deliverance scheme!” “He was just about to explain Abram’s dream, when you came half sleep-walking through the door. Weren’t you, baby?” cooed Booker’s Aunt Sidney, smooching her lips to blow her husband of ten years a mockingly petulant kiss. “Booker’s sleep was ‘deep’ like Abram’s,” interjected his father. “And ‘deep’ like that of our own African American people’s sleep. But, if one is to go into deep space for 400 years, sleep helps!” “I’m still trying to hear your interpretation of what that scripture means, Abe. Abram was obviously a Jew. Not African, not African American,” Aunt Sidney stated, rising to her feet with a sigh. “So, how you can equate that with us is not quite clear to me,” she said, pulling Booker toward the kitchen. “You want hot oatmeal or cold cereal?” she asked familiarly. “I want cereal.” Booker said. “What kind do you have?” “Nothing that sugary kind, like you 12 year old kids like. How about some Cheerios?” “OK” “Go wash your hands in the restroom. By the time you get back, everything will be ready,” she said. She adored her nephew, her sister’s son. Being childless, herself, she loved to play ‘Momma.’ When Booker returned to the kitchen, a bowl of Cheerios, containing cut-up bananas and strawberries was waiting on the table, beside a spoon and a glass of milk. Aunt Sidney had already rejoined the others in the family room conversing. “Jew or Ethiopian, it’s all the same to God.” interjected Shadrach, Booker’s father, Uncle Abednego’s older brother. Amos 9:7 say: “Are you not as the Ethiopians unto me O children of Israel?” “Pass me that Bible. I want to read that one for myself.” Tamara, Booker’s mother said. Searching for Amos in the Old Testament, she found the place and read silently. “Well it does say that. But … I’d always thought they, the Jews, were God’s ‘chosen people.’ In fact, I believe I have read that, somewhere, in the Bible!” “If you’re reasonably healthy, and still breathing, you’re already ‘chosen’ in my view.” Said Aunt Sidney. “The rest is up to you.” “Oh, it’s in there, Tamara. But the Jews’ and everybody else’s utter destruction is also in there. The Lord gives and takes away. The point is: God does not play favorites. He made of one blood all men.” answered her husband, Shadrach, Booker’s father. Rising to his feet, Uncle Abednego began to preach, using his hands for emphasis. “I am using a mystical, allegorical and spiritual interpretation of scripture.” “And historical,” interjected Shadrach. “Don’t leave that out! Too many black preachers, black people, either don’t know history, nor care for history. Therefore, most folks run from all history.” “White ones, too!” added Tamara, emphatically. “They run too! Their history is often fake, weak and often biased against blacks!” “’Yes. Historical, too, Shad and Tamara.’” Resumed Abednego. “We came to Jamestown, Virginia as indentured servants in 1619, serving a term of years, till we were freed. About 50 years later, the colonial Virginia legislature made us lifelong slaves, to divide and to separate us from our fellow white and Indian indentured servants, who continued to serve a term of years. This happened back in the 1660s, after the so-called “Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion” in Virginia. “Wasn’t there another Nathaniel somebody in Massachusetts who rebelled after the American Revolution in the 1780’s, over the lack of equitable land distribution?” asked Tamara, quizzically. “That was Daniel Shay’s Rebellion, Dear.” answered Abednego. “Nathaniel Bacon, a rich white planter, himself, had led a rebellion against the colonial oligarchy. Bacon’s brigade consisted blacks and whites and Indians, indentured servants all. This dangerous combination of indentured folks had to be broken up, as it threatened good colonial order, land, and power. So, the Virginia colonial legislature passed laws setting different rights between black, white and Indian indentured servants, after Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion was crushed. This all happened during the middle 1660’s. Nathaniel Bacon died mysteriously and that ended the rebellion. He might have been poisoned, some say.” “Fascinating” Aunt Sidney quipped. “Coffee anyone?” she asked “This is year 2017. In year 2019, 400 years will be up, since “we” symbolically came here. That’s when our deliverance will fully unfold, in year 2019. That Genesis scripture is allegorical, relating to the sojourn of black people in America. That’s only 2 years from now.” Explained Uncle Abednego, “Abe” for short. “Do you really believe that?” asked Aunt Sibley slightly miffed. “Allegorical? I thought the Bible was to be taken ‘literally,’ not allegorically.” She stated feinting to dodge an imaginary blow. “The Apostle Paul uses the word “allegory” in the New Testament. Jesus spoke in parables, frequently. Jesus also admonished his disciples to be discerning, able to see through facades, exteriors. Let me go back to the study and get my study Bible. I can tell right now this is going to get deep.” Said Abe rising to leave. “Bring me one, too, Abe.” Cried Sidney. “Me, too,” said Oscar. “Well, Obama was elected President of these United States of America—in 2008!” added Booker’s dad, flippantly. ”That was something I’d thought that I would never see happen in my lifetime, or ever. After that, I can believe almost anything else. ” “And from that Harvard lawyer’s miraculous election as President you can deduce that black folks are going to be free in two years?” snorted Aunt Sibley. “’Tamara, chastise you husband, please! while I check his brother.’” she said, gesturing to Tamara in mock contempt. “’Girl, don’t you know by now! They’re flip sides of the same coin!’” Mom gushed. “’It is no use! Abe and Shad are joined at the hip in politics and just about all issues related to black folks.’” “Getting back to the subject at hand,” interjected Uncle Abe, “It’s not just the election of Obama. This momentum has been building for 400 years! The election of Barack Obama or Deval Patrick as Governor in Massachusetts or Douglas Wilder as the Governor of Virginia were all just “heat checks”. Tremors before the real deal! This 2019 piece makes more sense than anything I’ve heard, yet. Plus, it is futuristic, historical, and Biblical. Therefore prophetic.” “And allegorical” Dad added. “That 400 year thing is deep.” “But is it practical?” asked Aunt Sibley. “How are you, how are you going to get black folks to believe in their own deliverance in 2 years, much less work to bring it about?” she half-teased. “’You?’ What do you mean by ‘you’? How do ‘you’ get the tides to rise or the seasons to change? You don’t. ‘You’ don’t. These things are divinely ordered, just like 2019.” Dad said.” Our job is to prepare ‘the least of these’—that would include practically all of us—for the benevolent receipt of this blessing, of this “unfolding deliverance,” this divine dispensation, that is inscribed in verse.” “So, if we don’t do anything, the 2019 prophesy just will happen on its own? Will the fact and the act of spiritual liberation--black liberation, whatever-- happen on its own? Which is it anyway? Spiritual or black? That is my question. Like the ‘tides and the seasons,’ you said. That’s all Mother Nature? Will it require some work on anybody’s part, everybody’s part?” asked Tamara. “That’s a whole lot of questions to answer at once,” Abe said. “You’re starting sound a lot like my wife, Tamara!” He said, stealing a sidelong glance at Sidney, now smiling cherubically. Sidney responded on cue. ”Flip sides of the same coin, my brother,”she replied, in a playfully mock salute. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander! ‘Measure twice. Saw once.’ That’s your clichéd-mantra, Dear Husband. Call this our ‘due diligence!’” She said. Sashaying over to Tamara they exchanged a sisterly, ritualized high-five in slow motion, laughingly. “Colored women,” cracked Abe throwing up both hands, “make me want to holler, sometimes. Throw up both my hands!” “That’s ’Inner City Blues’—Marvin Gaye! Jam that!” Cried Shadrach. “I’ll get it myself.” “Work? Somebody say ‘work’” mimicked Shadrach. Isley Brothers say “’…Everybody’s got work to do…to-do, to-do.” I’m still confused” said Aunt Sidney, sighing and looking down on her well-manicured nails. “I don’t see the big deal. If 2019 is for everybody, and God is no respecter of persons, then everything is everything. There’s no difference between 2017’, by the way—“HAPPY NEW YEAR, again, to all”—and 2019, as far as that goes.” “For lawyers like you and Obama there may not be a difference, Sidney. Oh! ‘Happy New Year!” back at you, again, too, my Beloved.” chimed Uncle Abe, Sidney’s doting husband. “Preachers, like me, steeped in history, appreciate the potency of pregnant prophesy. Even before Jesus was born, there was the Annunciation, the star in the East, the long held prophesies of the coming of the Messiah. Pass me that Bible, please. The first chapter of the Book of Luke reads: 26In the sixth month the angel(AY) Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named(AZ) Nazareth, 27(BA) to a virgin betrothed[b] to a man whose name was Joseph,(BB) of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, "Greetings,(BC) O favored one,(BD) the Lord is with you!"[c] 29But(BE) she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 30And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for(BF) you have found favor with God. 31And behold,(BG) you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and(BH) you shall call his name Jesus. 32He will be great and will be called the Son of(BI) the Most High. And the Lord God(BJ) will give to him the throne of(BK) his father David, 33and he will reign over the house of Jacob(BL) forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." 34And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?"[d] 35And the angel answered her,(BM) "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of(BN) the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born[e] will be called(BO) holy—(BP) the Son of God. Sidney said, swell, I sure hope you’re right. But, it sounds too simple, too easy to be real.” I’ve got that one, too, dear. It’s like a dream. Psalms 126 reads: I When the LORD restored the fortunes of[a] Zion, we were like those who dreamed.[b] 2 Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.” 3 The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy. “All of that is well and good in here. But, how will it play in Peoria?” Asked Sibley. “That is the $64,000 question.” “Isn’t that why we are gathered here, Dearly Beloveds? To try to figure out how to make it play in Peoria and Kansas City and Chicago, too?” Shadrach asked. “I’ve been up all night laughing and joking…” “And eating,” interjected his wife, smoothly and sweetly. “Put on that Maurette Brown Clark CD, Booker. It should be on that rack behind you…No! Better yet! Sing us a few bars of ‘It Ain’t Over’ accappello”, commanded Uncle Abe. So Booker began to sing the song in a sweet tenor falsetto: “’I know the odds look stacked against you. And it seems there’s no way out. I know the issue seems unchangeable. And that there’s no reason to shout! But, the impossible, is God’s chance, to work a miracle, a miracle. So, just know it ain’t over, until God says it’s over, it ain’t over till God says it’s done. Keep fighting till your victory is won. When people say you can’t, remember he can! Hold your head up high, you’re going to win. It ain’t over till God says it’s over. Jesus defeated all your enemies way before the fight began! But, the impossible is God’s chance to work a miracle, a miracle. You’re going to win. So, just know, It ain’t over until God says it’s over… Until God says it’s done. Keep fighting, praying, fasting… pressing, progressing, moving…keep reading, interceding, believing…keep fighting until your victory is won.’” Swaying and humming, Aunt Sidney and Tamara hummed in the background, while Shadrach interjected bursts of encouragement. Uncle Abe cried, openly and unashamed. His wife came over and comforted him. Through it all, Booker, with his eyes closed, just kept right on singing. “It ain’t over, until God says it’s done!” #30

BLACK REVOLUTIONARY WAR SOLDIERS

Ten to fifteen percent of the colonies' troops were of African descent; some say it was as high as twenty-five percentage! Black troops were fully integrated with the whites , except in Rhode Island, and they fought in every battle from Concord to Yorktown , despite being excluded from serving in the beginning by General George Washington! But too few white colonists willing to serve brought about a flood of black as substitutes for masters; especially after British guaranteed freedom to all slaves who reached their lines and who fought for them contra colonies. Thousands of blacks responded! https://www.army.mil/article/97705/black_soldiers_in_the_revolutionary_war

CHIEFS' GLOOM

CHIEFS HANG DOWN GLOOM Fans become psychologically vested in the fate of their teams. I do, at least. Chiefs lose. I lose. Chiefs win. I win. It is as though I am a team member, a participant. This investment may be a carryover from my high school athletic days. Maybe it is couch syndrome. What it is known as medically, or if it is known medically, I cannot say. All I can say is hurry ROYALS baseball !

BLESSED MOURNERS

Blessed are They that Mourn William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) OH, deem not they are blest alone Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep; The Power who pities man, has shown A blessing for the eyes that weep. The light of smiles shall fill again 5 The lids that overflow with tears; And weary hours of woe and pain Are promises of happier years. There is a day of sunny rest For every dark and troubled night; 10 And grief may bide an evening guest, But joy shall come with early light. And thou, who o’er thy friend’s low bier Dost shed the bitter drops like rain, Hope that a brighter, happier sphere 15 Will give him to thy arms again. Nor let the good man’s trust depart, Though life its common gifts deny,— Though with a pierced and bleeding heart, And spurned of men, he goes to die. 20 For God hath marked each sorrowing day And numbered every secret tear, And heaven’s long age of bliss shall pay For all his children suffer here.

KING QUIET ON CIVIL WAR?

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Atlanta, Georgia, states the following words on its website: "During the less than 13 years of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership of the modern American Civil Rights Movement, from December, 1955 until April 4, 1968, African Americans achieved more genuine progress toward racial equality in America than the previous 350 years had produced." To say that this encomium greatly exaggerates is no more than true. During this 350 years referenced, there was the galvanic Civil War, 1861-1865, in which millions of former black slaves fought for, secured, reinforced their own freedom, whether by "contraband" attachments, or by military enlistment. They fought for freedom by military, not rhetorical, not nonviolent, force of arms: bullets, bombs, bayonets, blood, death, disease. Not only did the sable soldiers and sailors secure their own freedom, and that of the slaves (and free blacks), they saved the nation itself from dissolution, after January 1, 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln finally, reluctantly released the epochal "Emancipation Proclamation." This executive order document was issued out of a very grave "military necessity," it stated, he admitted. The document ensnared 200,000 black men as Union soldiers and sailors, the very same men that Lincoln had earlier denied entry into the "white man's war," as the conflict was originally known its first two years . So, rather than see the nation divided into two slave and free nations, Lincoln freed certain slaves in parts of all or certain states that then officially had compromised the Confederate States of America (CSA), but not slaves in border states: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware. Still, I find it strange that the Civil War is not acknowledged on the King Center's website. Does any war's violence undercut Dr. King's philosophy of nonviolence? Was that the fear? that any reference to it might incentivize black militants? I looked on the website, because I could not find a quote, statement , any reference by Dr. King, a native of Georgia, to "Freedom War," as the slaves referred to the Civil War. But Dr. King's tapes have been turning up over the years since his apotheosis in 1968, in Memphis, so, our great leader, the Rev . Dr. Martin Luther King surely said a word or two about the greatest actual event of liberation in African American history before him, and including him, war's beneficiary!

MAIN MOVEMENT MILITARY

OUR MAIN MOVEMENT FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM WAS EXPEDITED BY THE CIVIL WAR IN WHICH WE GREATLY AND GLADLY PARTOOK, AND SAVED THE UNION IN DOING SO.

RUFUS LEWIS PERRY

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_L._Perry?fbclid=IwAR0coUbNqN5-g9fjUuAKWfluEPKubXPdrrN8xnnZl8y1EHzjJhIP5ylnj7o This remarkable Baptist preacher, journalist, organizer, and scholar preceded Dr. King, dying in 1895, but was a noted classicist, speaking, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Born a slave in 1834, in rural Tennessee, he acquired a Ph.D. in theology and several honorary degrees . His great 1893 book, THE CUSHITE, based on the Bible, ancient historians and ancient poets, from Noah to the present I am now reading and blessedly grasping as I move from marvel to marvel in foundational black history . Rufus Lewis Perry and his African Civilization Society both warrant acclaim

GOD MIND SOUL BODY

The mind is divine of God. The soul is the mind's earthly interface. The body is earth's entrepôt of mind and soul .

CUSH

"All through the ancient classics, whenever the Egyptians and the Ethiopians are referred to conjointly, they are regarded as being of one and the same race. Neither of them ever claimed to be of Semitic or Japhetic origin; nor did the descendants of either Shem or Japheth ever identify the lineages of either the Egyptians or the Ethiopians with their own till within the last few centuries, when the racial stock of the Negro fell below par. Then it was that the wide-awake progeny of Japheth set about to rob the Cushite of his liberty, of his country, and rob him of his ancient name and fame. To this end the trend of ancient history was changed, archaeology revolutionized, and the sacred Scriptures made to bear false witness . Yet the original letter of the Kodesh Lashon is faithful, and the honest student of the Bible finds in it light and truth. "Speaking of the ancient Ethiopians, Dr. Anthon says: 'The Aethiopians are intimately connected with the Egyptians in the early ages of their monarchy, and Aethiopian princes, and whole dynasties, occupied the throne of the Pharaohs at various times, even to a late period before the Persian conquest . The Aethiopians had the same religion, the same sacerdotal order, the same hieroglyphic writing, the same rites of sculpture and ceremonies as the Egyptians... The Aethiopians, who were connected with the Egyptians by affinity and intimate political relations, are by the later Hebrew historians termed Cush. Thus Tizhakah, the Cushite invader of Judah, is evidently Tearchon, the Aethiopian leader mentioned by Strabo, and the same who is termed Tarakos, and is set down by Manetho, in the well-known table of dynasties, as an Aethiopian king of Egypt. In the earlier ages the term Cush belonged apparently to the same nation or race ; though it would appear that the Cush or Aethiopians of those times occupied both sides of the Red Sea.' And in discussing the origin of Egyptian civilization this author says: 'Everything seems to countenance the idea that civilization came gradually down the valley of the Nile from the borders of Ethiopia to the shores of the Mediterranean....Monuments, tradition, analogies of every kind, are here in accordance with natural probabilities. There was a period when the names of Ethiopia and Egypt were confounded together, when the two nations were thought to form but a single people.' Class. Dict.... "Dr. Charles Anthon says: 'Everything seems to countenance the idea that civilization came gradually down the valley of the Nile from the brother of Ethiopia to the shores of the Mediterranean. The old Egyptians as well as the Ethiopians were termed by the Greeks ..., 'kinky haired.' Again: 'We may consider it as tolerably well proved that the Egyptians and Ethiopians were nations of the same race.' Again : 'It is nowhere asserted that the Aethiopians and Egyptians used the same language, but it seems to be implied, and is extremely probable.... As regards the physical character of the ancient Aethiopians, it may be remarked , that the Greeks commonly used the term Aethiopians, as we speak of the Negroes, as if they were the blackest people known in the world.' Class. Dict. pp. 40, 72 and 73." P.41-43, "Egyptians and Ethiopians," THE CUSHITE, OR, THE DESCENDANTS OF HAM: AS FOUND IN THE SACRED SCRIPTURES AND IN THE WRITINGS OF ANCIENT HISTORIANS AND POETS FROM NOAH TO THE CHRISTIAN ERA by Rufus Lewis Perry (1893)

ELEMENTARY? HARDLY!

I flunked a math course at Howard University my second semester, Sophomore year. The course was "Elementary Functions." I took it over in summer school with another guy who had also flunked. We met each other outside class, looking warily at the grade sheet. We did not know each other until then. Misery bonded us, united us, fired us up! So, we studied together each day that summer after work. We both got "B's" this time from the same professor, who never gave out "A's!" We had so much fun, studying, preparing, to win, we hated that the class had to end! Morale: Rigorous paired study rocks! Do it with someone, anyone as motivated as you! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_function

"LAW IS NOT LOGIC"

It is neurologically upending to learn that "the life of the law is not logic but experience, even prejudice", according to former U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Oliver W. Holmes, Jr. I feel betrayed, put upon, literally deceived, after having practiced law my whole professional life; after having analyzed cases for consistency! There is no consistency except for white supremacy's legal sovereignty, however disguised, belied, connived or explained.