MARVEL

MARVEL OF MARVELS Grappled inside Greek tapia, roped ruefully in place by Roman fascia, plundered punitively by Muslim invaders, Turkish traders, Byzantine Mamelukes' harems/eunuchs, nipped, gnashed, by merchants, pinched off piece by piece by: vain Napoleon, by bloody British cannonballs and scholars, it is a marvel that anything remains of Africa's aboriginal Kemet and Kush! Not to mention the earlier raiders, Assyrians, Persians, both invaders who preceded the Greeks who entered under Alexander in 322 B.C. "Egypt" as they renamed it, having already fallen in 650 B.C., hoary with age already when Plato first came to learn, when Alexander came to be anointed pharaoh at Libya's Oasis Oracle of Delphi as the legitimate heir to the pharaohs, without him ever fighting a battle. But much remains underground, in the lake and seabeds, seemingly surfacing with each dig, each document, interminably: pointing to their very prehistoric antiquity and a divine propinquity of their primal people's global marvel of mankind.

WASHINGTON: DUBOIS, LOGAN CRITIQUE

WASHINGTON : DuBOIS AND LOGAN CRITIQUE I was relieved and glad to read that two of Dr. Booker T. Washington's most often quoted educational critics had somewhat mitigated and contextualized their vituperative, visceral criticisms of the “Sage of Tuskegee” in their later writings. I make specific reference to Dr. W.E.B. DuBois and to Dr. Rayford W. Logan. Dr. DuBois' “Souls of Black Folks” and “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others.”are two essays of 1903, which have been cited repeatedly by Washington's liberal scholarly traducers as cardinal truths. The reader is beseeched to read both DuBois essays, as I have previously done, to fortify themselves. In his 1925 essay, “The Negro Mind Reaches Out,” in Alain Locke's classic THE NEW NEGRO: AN INTERPRETATION (1925), Dr. DuBois reconnoiters himself with respect to Washington as he writes: “Once upon a time in my younger years and in the dawn of this century I wrote: “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” It was a pert and singing phrase which I then liked and which since I have often rehearsed to my soul and asked:—how far is this prophecy or speculation? To-day in the last years of the century’s first quarter, let us examine the matter again, especially in the memory of that great event of these great years, the World War. Fruit of the bitter rivalries of economic imperialism, the roots of the catastrophe were in Africa, deeply entwined at bottom with the problems of the color line. And of the legacy left, the problems the world inherits hold the same fatal seed; world dissension and catastrophe still lurk in the unsolved problems of race relations. What then is the world view that the consideration of this question offers?” p. 385 My point here is that if DuBois reconnoiters DubBois' estimation of Dr. Booker T. Washington in light of supervening factual occurrences, it is obvious that today's detractors of either man must do no less! The assertion, “ The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line,” appears in “The Souls of Black Folk' where DuBois scolded Washington. DuBois reaffirms his earlier sentence which was true of all centuries from the 15th forward when the Portuguese began the African slave trade to Europe. Dr. Rayford W. Logan, another Harvard Ph. D., like Dr. DuBois, who had also gained some credence by his equivalent denunciation of Washington, albeit more subtly. Logan's major work is titled, THE BETRAYAL OF THE NEGRO (1965, 1997). He says in Chapter 5, “”The Nadir Under McKinley”: “[Grover] Cleveland's second administration was so beset with national and international problems—the Panic of 1893, Free Silver, the Populist Revolt, Hawaii, Venezuela and Cuba—that he had little opportunity to stop the steady deterioration of the Negro's status. He probably concluded that the Southern question was definitely settled when Booker T. Washington won national acclaim for his Atlanta Compromise Speech in September, 1895. In the following year the United Supreme Court consolidated the triumph of the former slave states when it sanctioned the doctrine of 'separate but equal accommodations.'” p.79 Of note, here, is Dr. Logan's deliberate calumny on the legacy of Washington by referring to his internationally famous “Atlanta Exposition Address” as the “Atlanta Compromise Speech,” without qualification, as though Washington were a diplomat with authority to bargain away, to compromise away 'rights' of African Americans that had survived the betrayal of 1876-77, the “Civil Rights Cases” of 1883, and terrorist lynchings and land thefts. Logan's snide mockery continues into the next sentence where he implies that the “Plessy v. Ferguson” decision of 1896 was attributable also to Booker T. Washington. As far as mitigation goes DuBois and Logan note Washington's work's awesomeness and his powerful influence on North and South. But it would belabor this disquisition unduly to do more than to note their begrudging existence which you can read yourself.

AMISH CONVERSATION

We spoke with an Amish father of 8 yesterday at the train station in Chicago. His wife and their 3 younger children were traveling with them to Mexico, where one of their daughters is teaching. We joked amiably that they were rather like "reverse migrants,." going from the USA into Mexico. He farms a 57 acre spread in Indiana from which they gather and can their food; but they "still shop;".as noted by his kids' footwear. He is a gray-bearded, productive, 52-year old, but looks to be somewhat substantially older. "Monroe's" main business is home construction, in which two married sons work along with him and others. I was very enriched by our conversation. He said he was too! He was the first Amish person to whom I ever spoken, as best I can recall. He is a speaker of high German, (where he traces his descent), Amish and English. A spirit of love and familial sharing was observable in their interactions.

GOD 'AND' MAMMON

"LOVING GOD AND MAMMON" Wealth and power prove potency. Wisdom and knowledge are virtue. Rarely are wealth, power, wisdom and knowledge vested in a person. The Bible says Solomon was such. Ancient history says 'pharaoh' was. It is hard to have man made riches and divine virtues at the same time. This dilemma confronts me, you, all of us humans daily. Riches versus virtue seed society's philosophies, religions, sciences, literature, arts. "Loving God and Mammon" is how the crushingly curious choices are foisted upon us in Bible scriptures. Matthew 6:24 New King James Version (NKJV) You Cannot Serve God and Riches 24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and [a]mammon." At the same exact time we hear: “But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly in this manner? For all things come from Thee, and from Thine own have we given Thee." 1 Chronicles 29:14 Therefore the choice between God and Mammon, the Old and New Testaments, is a false dichotomy. In God there are no dichotomies. All things come from God, riches and poverty, power-impotency; life and death; knowledge and wisdom; evil, good; today, tomorrow, me, you. Amen.

'BLACK' 'WHITE' ORIGINS

'BLACK' 'WHITE' SLAVE COLONIAL AMERICAN ORIGINS 'BLACK' BEGAN AS A CONVENIENT COLONIAL SOCIAL CONSTRUCT THAT WAS CONCEIVED BY COLONIAL POLITICAL LEADERS/PLANTERS TO DIVIDE AND TO SEPARATE INDENTURED SERVANTS INTO CLASSES. THERE WERE NO 'BLACKS' IN AFRICA. THERE WERE TRIBAL NATIONS. THE SAME WAS TRUE IN EUROPE. IT HAD NO 'WHITES'. IT HAD TRIBAL NATIONS. 'WHITE' BEGAN AS THE AMERICAN POLITICAL COUNTER-CONSTRUCT OF 'BLACK.' WHITE' INDENTURED SERVANTS WHO WERE FREED AT THE END OF THEIR TERMS, WERE AWARDED ALLOTMENTS OF LAND, SEED, TOOLS, FARM ANIMALS, AS ''FREE LAW" BY LOCAL LAW, TO ENABLE THEM TO SUSTAIN THEMSELVES. 'BLACKS' WERE NOT GIVEN "FREE LAW PAYMENTS" BY LAW. INSTEAD, THE LAW MADE THEM 'SLAVES' FOR LIFE.

BLACK STUDIES

"In January 1923, Drs. [Jesse] Moorland and [Charles] Wesley created the African Civilization Section in the History department at Howard. The three subjects that Professor Hansberry taught became the first "Black Studies" courses offered in any major institution in the United States." P. 26, HONORING PROFESSOR WILLIAM LEO HANSBERRY (1894-1965) by Kaba Hiawatha Kamene (2016)

USE THEM

Reading, writing, computing, are African inventions, gifts to mankind. Honor your elders, your heritage, by using them.

HOWARD SURPRISES

A FEW OF MY HOWARD UNIVERSITY SURPRISES Howard U. surprised me in many ways where I studied 1969-1976. Howard's vast diversity of foreign and African American students was echoed in their accents, music, dances, and abilities. Africans and Caribbeans trended toward the hard courses in "death valley" like chemistry, zoology, physics, pharmacy. African Americans trended toward Liberal Arts like political science, education, psychology. I was shocked that a girl from Washington, D.C. in my African American Literature class could just barely read. This too was part of Howard's diversity: with students of varying proficiency. My next surprise was that the Howard Blues Festival in 1971 was well over 90% white! Howard students did not like the blues! As a St. Louisan, which is famous for the blues, I was flummoxed by this discovery. Yet, before I could get too excited about that, they turned right around to launch the awesome Howard University Gospel Choir, also in 1971. Among many other surprises was one for especially for me. I had helped to found the Amani Gun Club in 1970, without guns, bullets. or firing range. After our first meeting, a solution occurred to me: Why not enroll in Howard's riflery as an elective.? We did. Some stuck with riflery, becoming members of the ROTC, later Army officers, under the command of a very grateful riflery instructor, needing recruits!

PHILOSOPHY

OUR APROPOS PHILOSOPHY I infer from my years of selective reading, observing, and learning that the abysmal confusion in the popular diffusion of philosophy has much to do with so-called present "philosophy's " truncated definition and professors' abridged exposure to the true corpus of unadulterated ancient African philosophy, when they were instructed themselves. Garbage in garbage out is apropos. This niggardly exposure to adept instruction has caused the woeful miscomprehension, of the mother of all knowledge and wisdom--which philosophy unquestionably is--by that saintly subject's gross misapprehension by so many of its teachers' teachers who necessarily misconceived the actual scope of primeval philosophy's true breadth, vitality, divinity, as all civilizations' guide, barometer, clock, compass. Thus, under-exposure has biased instructors against philosophy's social potency, as exemplified in its vapid manner of lifeless remission, transmission to the great masses of modern people. Philosophy's teachers, themselves, need again to be taught, re-taught, philosophy through natural pedagogical study, observations, discussion, worship, that celebrates philosophy's primal, regnal, astral, astronomical roots as reconciled with the seminal earthly tethers in nature, man, God, infinity. Plato was instructed by our ancient Egyptian priests, as a student, who had descended from thousands of years of teaching--10,000 years he said in THE LAWS. He spoke truth. Others after Plato diminished in the truth to the extent of their distance from anointed priests, scribes, who also were properly trained, raised, vetted, authorized to speak, teach; and who remained alive after series of foreign conquests had divested these ancient priests of lands, of resources, powers, basic respect: while plagiarizing badly, boldly their literature, sciences, arts, crafts and then taking their veritable lives too! The root is the source of the fruit. Our present philosophy is apropos its bloody history, also philosophy.

STRUGGLES

Our racial struggle is but incidental to the divine struggle that preceded it by eons.

proof and disproof

Proving a negative is as difficult, at least, as disproving a positive. "There is no God vs. there is a God, " for instance.

OPEN BOOK

Mine is an open book, an open spirit, derived from much reading , listening, observation . My daily posts are daily bread: to be read, shared, not shelved, nor used as paper weights like most others published Thanks Much love ❤️

AFRICA'S HUMANITY

AFRICA'S GREATEST GIFT IS HUMANITY Vastly more valuable than Africa's "stolen" jewels, relics, artifacts, statuary, are its stolen people, who produced these stolen treasures. And even more valuable than either one was Africa's unique "stolen legacy" of ideas and ideals. First was the recognition of the existence of God, in nature, in themselves; from this divine anchor, foundation,convivial ideal, descended all knowledge, wisdom, order, beauty, disciplines, civilizations. In truth, all of earth's people of any kind are descendants of Africans, since African DNA is more diverse than the rest of mankind's combined.These inconvenient truths brought forth disharmony among certain non-African leaders, scholars, who coveted it. Their dialectic masks a primordial unity of oneness, of wholeness, of precessional boldness, in these observations.

EQUALIZE THE MONEY!

Kenneth and Mamie Clark's famous "dolls tests" do not really show how segregated schools "severely" hurt black children. For pre-school aged children, who were as young as 3, reacted the same way that the older black children had, ashamed. Social psychologists, Kenneth and Mamie Clark's' famous dolls-tests proves that it was NOT the "segregated schools" that were causing the harm in these 3-year old black children, but rather their homes, parents, relatives, churches, friends. Therefore, I hold firmly to the view that the equalization of schools and the money to effect that end if pursued by black neighborhoods' schools' administration's can work better than failed "busing for integration policy", the exclusive remedy pursed after the death of Charles Hamilton Houston in 1950 by Thurgood Marshall and the coterie of civil rights lawyers,and groups. However well-intended they may have been, they were in err. They were intrinsically misguided by beliefs and biases about their own people's capacities! Black colleges, churches, fraternities, sororities, lodges, are also segregated by choice and few people refer tol them as "inherently inferior." Why then the public schools, exclusively? Equalize the money! I read these facts about the CXlarks' influential demonstrative evidence in ROOT AND BRANCH by Rawn James, Jr. (2010), p. 221-222.

ACUITY

Hopeful signs of African acuity/assiduity augur well for our present. Their loss abased us; resurgence restores our souls

SIGNS IN THE SKY

"We have already mentioned the bennu and phoenix bird, and how it provided the Ancient Egyptians with the notion of creation and cosmic cycles related to the stars . It seems it was the phoenix, returning after a long period of absence , who opened a new golden age. R. T. Rundle Clark mentions a period of 1460 years, and in his extensive study of the Egyptian phoenix, mentions this same date and also 12,954 years . Fourteen hundred sixty years is the Sothic Cycle, which was based on the helical rising of Sirius and its shift of one day every four years in relation to the 365-day calendar, completing a full cycle in 4 x 365=1460 years. But what of the vast period of 12, 954 years? What cycle was that? Did it also apply to Sirius? For those familiar with its precession and its effects, 12,954 years is immediately familiar. It is a half-cycle of precession of about 26,000 years and, so far as visual effect is concerned, denotes the time for a star to reach its maximum and minimal range of altitude/declination change. "Let us take a hypothetical star and assume it started its upward precessional cycle of 13,000 years; imagine that it crossed the south meridian at, say, 12 degrees above the horizon. Every year it seems to have moved a fraction higher, at the rate of roughly twelve arcseconds per year . After a little more than two centuries, it crosses the meridian at about 13 degrees altitude and so on. After about 13,000 years it reaches its maximum altitude of, say, 55 degrees above the horizon. It begins to go down at the same rate to reach its minimal altitude of 12 degrees in another 13,000 years, back to where it started, ready to begin another cycle . "Sellers has demonstrated cogently that the ancients had not only divided the zodiac into twelve parts but were aware that it took the sun 2160 years to travel through each part or age. The result of the 2160 x12=25,920 years , the precessional cycle. This huge period of time, though divided epochs or ages of 2160, and these in turn into 360 degrees or portions of 72 years (72 x 360=2160 years), was the fundamental basis of the belief in an Eternal Return of the first golden age. A thorough study led Sellers to make this forceful statement: 'I am convinced that for ancient man, the numbers 72...2160, 25,920 all signified the concept of the Eternal Return.' "The symbol of Eternal Return was, of course, the phoenix, the fabled bennu , and we have seen how in the Pyramid Age its relic or 'seed', the mysterious Benben Stone, was kept in the Temple of the Phoenix at Heliopolis . More importantly, the stylized replicas of the Benben Stone were placed on top of great pyramids. Could these pyramids--and more especially the great pyramids of Giza--be an omnipotent expression of the Eternal Return, the precessional return? The shafts in the Great Pyramid are a powerful indication that this approach is on the right track." P. 188-189, "The Great Sign Clock of the Epochs," THE ORION MYSTERY by Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert (1994)

UNSEAMLY

Unseemly indeed it is for mankind to pull itself apart at the seams: man from God, man from nature, man from man, inside from outside, cosmically self-estranged.

SUMMER SOLSTICE

SUMMER SOLSTICE SOLICITATIONS "When Last I Stopped Here" is one of my most personal spiritual poems. It describes the seasonal changes around a bus stop near Washington, D. C., in Bladensburg, Maryland, where I lived as a senior at Howard and freshman at Howard Law School in the year 1972-73-- "When last I stopped here; No ivy encircled this old oak tree; the wet ground sent no sweet fragrances up to me; and nary a butterfly did I see; when last I stopped here." That sentimental moment in time and space with nature mirrors a similar moment in time, space and nature today that is also now past. This morning when I awoke, I just happened to notice that the rays of piercing sunshine which had fallen for several days upon my face--necessitating that I close my door--had gone. No more ritual 6:30 am solar reveille for me. I woke at 8:00. For a few days following the solar solstice, June 20-21, the sunlight had streamed into my study's windows. Its rays had bounced off mounted picture frames at precisely exact angles to enter my bedroom door, splashing their divine morning glories into my sleeping face. Laser-like light beamed into my closed eyelids, drilled deeply into my somnolent consciousness. Insistently, they had demanded that I obey the lyrical reggae order and commands of famed "Third World" musicians who had rhythmically crooned : "Wake up! Get up! Stand up for your rights! Wake up ! Get up ! Don't give up the fight! Don't give up the fight !" Hello World! I am fully awakened by grace and mercy on July 8, 2019. Amen.

cosmology and philosophy

COSMOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CUSH-KEMET "Every civilization has looked far into its mythical past and provided itself with divine pedigree . For the Greeks it was the Olympian epoch , when gods fraternized with mortals as Homer described in the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey '. For the Hebrews it was the time of Genesis and the Patriarchs, expounded in the Old Testament . For the Egyptians , whose civilization preceded the Greeks and the Hebrews , the first golden age , when gods fraternized with humans , was called 'Tep Zepi', which translates loosely as the 'First Time.' "They believed that the system of the cosmic order and its transference to the land of Egypt had been established a long time before by the gods. Egypt had been ruled by a race of gods for millennia before it was entrusted to the mortal yet divine line of pharaohs. The pharaonic were the sacerdotal connection with the gods and, by extension, represented the link with the First Time; they were the custodians of its established laws and wisdom. Everything they did , every action, every move , every decree had to be justified in terms of the First Time, which served as a sort of covenant of kingship, to abide by and to explain their actions and deeds. This was true not only for the king and his court but applied to all natural events: the movement of celestial bodies, the unexplained phenomena of nature and the ebbing and rising of the Nile. It would not be an exaggeration to say that everything a pharaoh did was connected with the First Time; hence, the careful reenactment of mythical events which could be either cosmic or secular or both combined in a duality by the power of symbols and rituals . It is not surprising that this blissful First Time was invariably referred to as the Time of Osiris. The rule of Osiris on earth was seen as Egypt 's happiest and most noble epoch and was believed to have been in the distant abyss of time , long before that which Egyptologists are willing to accept as realistic. When Egyptians built the pyramids, they were thinking of an important event that related to the First Time; whenever that might have been, we now know it had something to do with stars and, more particularly, the stars of Orion and the star Sirius --the cosmic lands of the souls. "What makes the First Time so interesting is not just that the Egyptians were adamant about its real existence but would pride themselves on being able to compute its epoch , and indeed any epoch in their past. To do that they would need to be aware of precession .... (P. 180-181, THE ORION MYSTERY by Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert (1994) "It has been common sport to pit the Ancient Egyptians against the philosophical 'genius' of the Greeks. Egyptian sages are said to have been poor relatives to Solon , Pythagoras , Socrates, Plato and Aristotle . As far as the sciences of mathematics and astronomy, experts such as Parker and Neugenbauer felt that the mathematics was rudimentary calculations children of ten could tackle, and the astronomy simply quaint observations of the stars to interpret superstitious beliefs and the doings of the gods. Whatever skills the Egyptians might have possessed, say these experts, their astronomy was less developed than that of Babylonians and the Greeks. Yet such views are at odds with what Ancient Greeks said of the Egyptian sages they made contact with in the early part of the first millennium BC. "Most Ancient Greek and Roman authors believed emphatically that Pythagoras, Plato, even Homer received their philosophy from the Ancient Egyptians. Diodorus (first century BC) tells us: 'The most educated Greeks have an ambition to visit Egypt to study the laws and principles of a most remarkable nature . Although this country was closed to strangers, those among the ancients known to have visited Egypt: Orpheus, Homer, Pythagoras and Solon...' "The great Strabo (64 BC-AD 25) had this to say: "'The Egyptian priests are supreme in the science of the sky. Mysterious and reluctant to communicate they eventually let themselves be persuaded , after much soliciting, to impart some of their precepts; although they conceal the greater part. They revealed to the Greeks the secrets of the full year, whom the latter ignored as with many other things...' "In his famous 'Histories', Herodotus (c. 485-425 BC), tells us: "'It is at Heliopolis that the most learned of the Egyptians are to be found...all agree in saying that the Egyptians by their study of astronomy discovered the solar year and were the first to divide it into twelve parts , and in my opinion their method of calculation is better than the Greeks...The name of nearly all the gods came to Greece from Egypt...' "Dion Chrystomenos (AD 30) also pointed out : 'The Egyptian priests mocked the Greeks because, on many things, they have never known the truth...' "What seems to be clear is that the Egyptian priests were regarded by the Greeks as the keepers of great astronomical wisdom which it was not easy to persuade them to divulge to strangers, whom they regarded as unworthy of their high levels of culture. Indeed, strangers entered Egypt only with great difficulty in ancient times--and presumably even greater in the Pyramid Age. In the days of the Fourth Dynasty the primitive Greeks would have appeared as barbarians and other Europeans no more than cave men to the sophisticated and technologically advanced Egyptians who built the great pyramids . It was not until the Saite Period (c.663 BC) that foreigners were allowed to enter Egypt freely, and learn its mysteries. "Schwaller de Lubicz, the modern philosopher, spent most of his life showing that Ancient Egypt was the true repository of philosophy and astronomy (which he termed 'sacred science '). He was convinced that modern scholars are simply not reading the ancients right and that 'there are many revisions to be brought to our judgements of ancient peoples of whom only traces remain." (P. 182-183, "The Great Star-Clock of the Epochs," THE ORION MYSTERY by Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert (1994)

PHILOSOPHERS

I received in the mail recently the book, AFRICAN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHERS AND PHILOSOPHY (2019) by John H. McClendon III and Stephen C. Ferguson II. Though having barely begun my reading of It, I was chagrined by its tentative first steps into this divine temple being a tedious reference to David Hume that Hume "is apt to suspect the negroes to be naturally inferior to the whites." Later the authors compound their Hume faux pas by saying that : "It is perhaps because of the philosopher's aversion to history that the reconstruction of the history of African American philosophers has lagged behind other disciplines." To make matters worse, they say "The book was born in 1981...For nearly twenty-five years , we have been on a journey to recover and reconstruct the history of the Black philosopher. This work is only a preliminary presentation of our collective research. "Introduction," p.1-3. Thus, given the foregoing, I have asked the questions: "What is philosophy" And "Is there an African American philosophy?"

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY

The very lowest people on earth were at one time were our African American people. Yet not only are we now free, but we are in ascendancy, to God be the glory for those of us who had faith enough to cast down their buckets where we are and were . Amen.

BUCKET

CAST DOWN YOUR BUCKET The phrase and aphorism, "Cast down your bucket where you are" is really a testament to sufficiency in you, in anyone , to overcome all things that beset any upon earth . It speaks to and of divinity in you, in any person to navigate, negotiate, whatever betides. The very lowest people on earth were at one time were our African American people. Yet not only are we now free, but we are in ascendancy, to God be the glory for those of us who had faith enough to cast down their buckets where we are and were . Amen. 

PREAMBLE POWER!

THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION IS BOTH AN ANTI-SLAVERY DOCUMENT AND PRO-REPARATIONS DOCUMENT PER PREAMBLE @ FREDERICK DOUGLASS I had formerly been of the view that the United States Constitution was "pro-slavery" from my review of a wide variety of cases at the Howard University School of Law involving construing its provisions. My "pro-slavery" views were reinforced by my years (33) in the active practice of law in Missouri, both in the private solo practice, and as government lawyer at the Departments of Labor and Justice. Therefore, I was at least moderately surprised to hear, then later to read, that the great icon of African American abolitionists, Frederick Douglass, had viewed the Constitution as "anti-slavery!" I was a bit discommoded to learn this, but only a "bit;" after all, I was the experienced civil rights lawyer not he, albeit his being a clearly courageous, incredibly brilliant man! Fortunately I have now had an opportunity to read for myself how Douglass came to be of the view that the now-thrice-amended United States Constitution was other than as I viewed it and deemed it to be. First, he was of the view of it being "anti -slavery" in orientation BEFORE THE Civil War, thus before any post-war amending. If anything, that earlier posture made a more difficult case for him to make in his justification. So I thought smugly to myself, until I read this stentorian orator's logic. In LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1893), he wrote : "My first opinions were naturally derived and honestly entertained . Brought directly, when I escaped from slavery, into contact with abolitionists who regarded the Constitution as a slaveholding instrument, and finding their views supported by the united and entire history of every department of the government, it is not strange that I assumed the Constitution to be just what these friends of mine made it seem to be. I was bound not only by their superior knowledge, to take their opinions in respect of this subject, as the true ones, but also because I had no means of showing the unsoundness of these opinions. But for the responsibility of conducting a public journal , and the necessity imposed upon me of meeting opposite views from abolitionists outside of New England, I should in all probability have remained firm in my disunion views. My new circumstances compelled me to re-think the whole subject, and to study with some care not only the just and proper rules of legal interpretation, but the origin, design, nature, rights, powers and duties of civil governments, and also the relations which human beings sustain to it. By such a course of thought and reading I was conducted to the conclusion that the Constitution of the United States--inaugurated to 'form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty '--could not well have been designed at the same time to maintain and perpetuate a system of rapine and murder like slavery, especially as not one word can be found in the Constitution to authorize such a belief. Then, again, if the declared purposes of an instrument are to govern the meaning of all its parts and details, as they clearly should, the Constitution of our country is our warrant for the abolition of slavery in every State of the Union." P. 705-706, DOUGLASS (1994) There! He had done it! By using the Preamble of the United States Constitution as his guide and stay, Frederick Douglass had used its own declared "original intent and purposes" to conform every other part and detail of the instrument to exact rules of legal interpretation. Bam! Thereby the great Frederick Douglass had upbraided, humbled, convinced me of the accuracy of his claims about the Constitution being "anti-slavery," in the years before the outbreak of the Civil War, and 124 years after his death in 1895; to wit: July 2, 2019. But, what is more, icon, Frederick Douglass had not only added a very powerful weapon to my legal and rhetorical arsenals to fight on behalf of securing long-past-due reparations for African Americans, generally, and for me particularly--the remaining duty that was left for the present generation of black and white freedom fighters to attain by use of the Preamble--but the great Frederick Douglass had re-taught me the value of self-reasoning ! What was true for slavery is also true for reparations to the progeny of the former slaves by the use of the Preamble of the Constitution!

COLORED PEOPLES' PREROGATIVE

"COLORED PEOPLES' TIME" PREROGATIVE "Colored people's time" "CP time" was a whimsically caustic comment on the cultural tendency, indeed--tradition --of African Americans to arrive off-time, around time, even well past the time, set for the start of an event or even work . In fact, the tendency or tradition is not limited to "diasporal" Africans, but the indigenous Africans also do it. Well , since colored people created the calendar from thousands of years of stellar, lunar, solar, earthly observations and annotations in Ethiopia and Egypt , whence time was derived as graphically depicted divine concept and cosmic fact; and from the calendar came cosmic magnitudes like years , decades, centuries; and their opposition: months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, it is but fair that the inventors of "time" exercise the prerogative of play! Our musicians certainly played "all that jazz:" blues, pop, rock and roll, gospel, spirituals, boogie woogie, zydeco, concert, rhythm and blues, hip-hop, ragtime, ballad, opera, and every variation of the same. All are based on time and timing in concert with tune and tuning. So, when next waxing whimsically on the anomaly of colored people's time, think upon their prerogative !