JAMESTOWN VIRGINIA

African slavery in Jamestown, Virginia, crystallized the existence of the United States, earlier English colonies having failed.

WE BECAME

We became "we" by virtue of enslavers, rape, etc., albeit ignobly. Yet no more ignobly than our oppressors. A baby born of rape is yet divine .

WELL-WATER

WELL-WATER AND BIG MAMA As a little boy, I watched Big Mama toting water from their well to the house, as she did every day. One day, I tried to help her. She smiled; set down both buckets. Then she said "This water's too heavy, Larry, for a little boy like you." But I tried! Sure enough! I could not begin to lift from the earth even one bucket of plain old Mississippi well-water, not to mention two. It was then and there, I acquired renewed respect for well water and for Big Mama! Lessons learned as a child endure.

REPLICATING ANCIENT ASSIDUITY

REPLICATING THE ANCIENT PRIESTS-SAGES' ASSIDUITY Anciently, philosophy was studied by learned hereditary priests-sages who were trained assiduously (40 years just to become a neophyte) in Ethiopia and Egypt to observe stars' relational movements relative to each other and relative to fixed points relative to earth's seasonal episodes. Observations were then recorded over thousands of years in pictorial and symbolic language. By inquiring into the wiles, "wills" of celestial eternity through exacting astronomy, and by reconciling their findings with the natural history in earth's recurring episodes, these priests-sages delineated the stellar seasons, very well. Thereby, they deduced what we know as "time"; the 365 day calendar was another. The philosophy of "MAAT" meaning beauty, order, balance , law, ethics, deities, symbolism, architecture, geometry, engineering, agriculture, mathematics, distilling , writing, reading, education, mythology, temples, navigation, literature , art , music, fishing, in short, civilization, were their philosophical bequests to the earth from the Gods of old. Central, indispensable to their cosmic understanding was God. All things flowed from God, back to God. Earth, life, was an ephemeral recycling "stop," manifold in matter. The wonderful book AFRICAN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHERS AND PHILOSOPHY (2019) by John H. McClendon III and Stephen C. Ferguson II, states about matter: "D. J. Jordan brought to our attention that while matter remains lawfully subject to 'inertia,' nonetheless, it does not emerge as 'inert.' He argued, 'No matter in all creation is inert; every particle and atom are acting upon every other.'... "Jordan correctly argues that matter is internally dynamic. Today, we know that subatomic processes are vital to the composition of matter . With the contemporary advancement of quantum theory, the subatomic structure and active (inner) processes of matter is a well-established scientific notion. Indeed, quantum physics later confirms Jordan's philosophical hypothesis, which remarkably he pronounced in 1893. The exploration into subatomic physics did not advance until Max Planck's treatment of the black body radium problem (1900), Albert Einstein's published research on photoelectric effect (1905) and Neil Bohr's atomic model (1913).... "Ideas in relationship to matter, as [James B.] Carter reveals have significant epistemological implications. He pronounces, "'Man's correct ideas, even his original ones are deductions and inferences from environment even when higher inspiration helps to define, elucidate and fix them. But let this be ever remembered, that new ideas when useful and progressive , come more readily to him who has the more correct knowledge of the relationships, influences and effects upon each other of the different forms, shapes and conditions of matter.'... "Consequently, innovative thought is not whimsical considerations devoid of an anchor in 'the different forms, shapes and conditions of matter'. This epistemological thesis is decidedly materialist in its substance." P.73, 76-77 Therefore the rigorous assiduity of the early African priest-sages with respect to the heavens and the earth laid down the impregnable foundation in the arts, sciences, mathematics, philosophy that we enjoy today. The African American and African peoples would do well to replicate the excellence of their ancient ancestors to move forward! 

AFRICAN TRIUMPH

Learn of the triumphs of our "scattered and peeled" African forbears' barren souls over four centuries of inhumane American mental, physical, spiritual , legal, slavery as the very best means of encouraging the youth, each other, and yourselves on the salvation path! And celebrate our unprecedented win!

FREEDOM WAR SUMMONSES

FREEDOM WAR SUMMONSES Blunting black self-initiatives has been purposefully carried out from the earliest days in America in various ways. Learning to read, write, compute resulted in getting whipped publicly or being sold down the river, away from family, by slave owners as trouble makers. Dressing too well, speaking too well, or not deferring to whites, privately or publicly, was being uppity, resulting in like punishment. Owning anything a pig, a duck , a cat, a dog, chicken , horse, mule, cow, hoe, shovel, hammer, cloth, a loom, was being too self-assertive , too self-sufficient. "I own you, so, therefore, all that you may own in the way of property, be it personal, private or real is my property." they said to the bewildered enslaved. That was the legal rationale and the common law sustained it, in court, out of court, legally, extralegally. Abjectly dependent on master was the desired state of affairs, for this sad state reinforced inferiority and superiority myths propagated by ruling whites to rationalize slavery. Of course , there were exceptions among the black and white people, here and there, every now and then to these written and unwritten rules of African oppression that were carried out in different ways, some innocently; others knowingly, but as covertly as possible, given the awful consequences of discovery. Naturally, slaves resisted, revolted, rose up! or attempted to rise up! from thralldom: Stono River, South Carolina, 1739; New York City, 1741; Richmond , Virginia, 1800; New Orleans/Baton Rouge area, 1811; Charleston, South Carolina, 1822; Southampton , Virginia, 1831; and then there was most successful American slave rebellion of them all, the "Freedom War," 1861-1865, (Civil War) when slavery was killed! Many people may not conceive of the Civil War as a "Freedom War." It may not have started out to be such, in their conceptions. But these were usually not slaves who held this view; this Holy redeeming view, that as "my God delivered Daniel, he would surely deliver me!" For the civil war, the Freedom War, surely resulted in an apocalyptical freedom for millions of enslaved Africans in America , through the working of man and the Holy Spirit! This hallowed outcome had been prayed-for for centuries. This very happy result had been sought for, relentlessly, by running away; by buying their freedom and that of their families. This result had been lobbied, lectured, and lynched for. This blessed result, beneficent outcome, had been argued for, preached for; spied for; lied for; fought for and died for in 435 battlefields by black men, United States Colored Troops, sailors, 200,000 strong! And by millions of so-called "contraband" auxiliaries, who had been supplying , building, fortifying, foraging, nursing, cleaning, scrubbing, digging, cooking, ironing, sewing, darning, washing, messaging, encouraging! A "Freedom War" is what it truly was! "Freedom War" it still is for the sapient descendants of victorious African Americans in the year , 2019! The freedom war is not over! The Freedom War It is still being fought against us by resisters, revisionists, demagogues, and too many: teachers, preachers, police, judges, lawyers, legislators, think tanks, businesses, journalists, landlords, real estate agents and blind, deaf, dumb, criminals who are in our midst who prey upon us! So our "Freedom War" is an inside and an outside struggle against evil forces, wicked powers , predatory principalities in high-low places, among white people, black, other, people; Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant; Muslim and Hindu! This Freedom War is not about race, but about righteousness! It involves a new paradigm of people. This paradigm works inwardly not outwardly, cosmologically not superficially. It works by discerning nor by suborning. It lifts up truth, learning, beauty, justice , equity. It puts down unholiness, injustice, ungodliness, wickedness and lies. This newly-conceived "Freedom War" can accommodate all comers: since this 2019 "Freedom War" is not new at all, but very ancient ! Its laws are the holy books the Bible, Quran, Torah, Septuagint, Kebra Nagast: the Pyramid Texts; the Coffin Texts; inscribed in geometry, codified in genetics, natural history; in the pyramids, temples in Egypt, Nubia, Central America , Asia, Europe , South America and South, Central, West Africa, Persia . Atten-hut ! Shoulder arms! March!   

AFRICAN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHERS

The amazing book AFRICAN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHERS AND PHILOSOPHY by John H. McClendon III & Stephen C. Ferguson II (2019) is literally awash with wisdom and knowledge. Quoting Dr. Francis A. Thomas (1913-2001), of Central State University and Payne Theological Seminary, for example, they write: "Thomas succinctly proffers how this ubiquitous link finds its philosophical expression in the unity of theory and practice, which is allied with the content of philosophy itself. "'Theory, unless grounded in empirical data tends to fancy practice; practice not founded on theory , leans too heavily upon chance and usually results in chaos. In the history of mankind, communications through language and conceptualization constitutes both the mark and the method whereby men distinguished himself from subhuman animals. This ability to think on a high level of abstraction, and the desire to prove both the implications and consequences of thought have resulted in the development of the special field of philosophy which concerns itself with the formulation of theoretical assumptions. P.43. Elsewhere, they write: "Samuel Woodrow Williams...was a student of Alain Locke and Eugene C. Holmes at Howard University and would eventually serve as the chair of the Philosophy Department at Morehouse College. Williams was philosophy professor and mentor to Martin Luther King Jr. Of particular note, Williams gave an address , "The Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., Violence and Nonviolence in the Struggle for Equality," at Hebrew University in 1970. Unlike King, Williams does not completely dismiss the use of violence in the struggle to obtain civil rights. For Williams, in contrast with King, violence is not an absolute principle of immoral fiber. Thus, we discern the philosophy of nonviolence--among African American philosophers--is a rather complex conception with rich variance." P. 49. Dr. Richard I. McKinney of Morgan State University is also cited by the authors respecting philosophy and social activism: "'The question of the relation of theory to practice has often been of concern to philosophers. Sometimes it is claimed that all action proceeds from some recognized philosophical presuppositions. On the other hand, there are those who maintain that we develop habits of action and then seek philosophical justification for them. In any case, we recognize that every philosophy represents some foundation for conduct, whether or not it is developed in advance of that conduct. It is probable that among the participants in the protest movement, examples of both claims may be discovered .' P. 50.

SENSE ACT THOUGHT LOVE

SENSE-ACT-THOUGHT-LOVE "Love covers a multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8. On another level the senses cover a multitude of thoughts; thoughts, correlating a multitude of senses. There is an interactivity between actions and senses, with thought being the hyper-governor quietly working in the background alone. "Having sense enough to come in out of the rain" is a colloquialism summing up the essence of the phenomena: sense-act-thought. Sense of feel rejects rain on bare skin as uncomfortable, as even dangerous. The sense of feel says to us instantaneously, unqualifiedly "Seek shelter immediately, unless you catch cold, pneumonia, or get sick." Sense of "Feel" operates in the foreground, regulating. We may obey or not. Sense is temporized by other facts always. A soldier on the battlefield, for example, has to take the discomfort of rain at the risk of his life or desertion charges. More broadly, each day a new array of challenges, decisions, confront us. Senses resolve most of them silently, automatically for us like breathing, drinking, eating , sleeping, restroom, dressing, communicating, working, moving. But other challenges, decisions, require information; when thought must be fed, itself with facts, data, for us. Then, thought moves from background to foreground ; taking over from, but working, operating always in conjunction with, senses. We are daily all duly blessed with divine thought, whose dimensions are unknowable, capacities infinite. These blessings are divine love for the life in our divine matter matrix. The senses are thought's crew of workers , assembled to eliminate the need to calculate just to act or react to facts presented in a welter of ever changing conditions in life. In back of thought is God whose radiant love enables existence, enables life, thought, senses, us.

"SWALLOWS OF CAPISTRANO"

MEXICANS ARE "SWALLOWS" I love "Mexicans", a term generally applied to all persons from south of the border. I first became aware of them, when, as a small boy in the family car we watched the movie, "Pepe", at the Route-66 Drive-In. Before the heartbreaking ending , I was sure that Pepe, not a white guy, was going to win the girl. Ha! Since childhood, in Missouri, where they were few in the '50s and '60s, I have had increased exposure to Mexicans as co-workers, vendors, entrepreneurs, clients. I have found "Mexicans " to be wonderful, warm witty, people! I say this because my experience with Mexicans in large part determines my perspective on the Trump administration's policies on Mexican immigration or people. Mexicans are people, too! who just want what we want in life, food, jobs, shelter, safety, education for kids. When I say "we " I necessarily note, as an aside, that only since 1865-1870, have my own African American people become a small part of the textual "we" of America. "We" was used formerly to refer exclusively to "white" people, according to U.S. Supreme Court's judicial decisions. "We the people of the United States," in covert forms is/was a highly successful political construct of national color-based divisions. Originally color divisions were instituted by ruling class colonial European Virginians to separate the poorer "whites" from the "blacks:" to prevent renewed coalescence as was done in "Nathaniel Bacon's Rebellion" in 1666-1667, that nearly toppled the Virginia colonial powers' reign. "We" has since been rigorously, been regularly used, promoted for its occult meaning and for divisions inhering in denotative-connotative demographic occlusions in the public, which has served "White supremacy" politics, culture, law. This was done by rewarding the white for being white--no longer European--and enslaving the black for life, who are no longer Africans. The Mexicans were, of course, displaced by the Mexican War of 1844-46, that was started by the enslavers' desire to annex more territory for the slave states. Out of this conflict, came into being, Texas. It was the State of Texas, into which escaped slaves had been fleeing from Louisiana, depriving brutal enslavers of their "property." Mexico had won its independence from Spain and had outlawed slavery in 1824. So, to kill two birds with one stone, Mexican territory became the United States'. And the Rio Grande River became the division line, where it ran, as far as it ran. Then, came later "Indian Wars" in which the famous 9th and 10th Cavalries' "Buffalo Soldiers", were lured away from the South's simmering cauldrons, mustered! They were mustered for "Out West" wars. These heroic men (and women) were from the fiercest -fighting United States Colored Troops of the Civil War. They were chosen to be "our" nation's relentless protagonists, to chase out the remaining Indians' and "Mexicans" who resisted from New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona. Earlier California had mostly been ceded. Anyway as the "swallows returned to Capistrano" so do the Mexicans return to their homelands and ours! Thus, I for one have no objections to these resourceful happy people, nor their tacos, burrito, enchiladas!

PRAISE GOD FOR ANTIETAM!

PRAISE GOD FOR THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM, MARYLAND Thursday, August 22, 2019 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman EARLIER today, August 22, 2019, I read where President Abraham Lincoln in August 1862 had met with five black ministers to tell them of his plans to relocate already “free” Africans in the United States of America to Central America for the “mutual benefit of both races”, the “white” and “black”. He said that the blacks were “half-responsible” for the disastrous Civil War. He had invited them there to the White House “to listen, not to speak”, so that they could rally free blacks to his relocation project. President Lincoln also signed, authorized some contracts in pursuance of his Central America “Chiriqa” project. Then up jumped the devil! The pivotal Battle of Antietam, Maryland! (Or Sharpsburg!) in September 1862, the very next month. Antietam was the bloodiest battle in United States History, more bloody than even the more heralded one, fought at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in July 1863. Antietam had over 22,000 casualties. Antietam ended in a draw. But it had strategically turned back Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia away from Union-held Maryland, back into Virginia. Antietam gave sufficient political cover for President Abraham Lincoln to issue his “preliminary Emancipation Proclamation” a week later, September 22, 1862. It warned the Confederate States of America (CSA) that if it had not surrendered, lain down arms, and returned peaceably to the Union before January 1, 1863, he would free the slaves by Executive Order and he would arm them to fight for the preservation of the Union against the CSA. Had I known the significance of Antietam/Sharpsburg, I would have visited the battle site when I was a student at Howard University in Washington, D.C., or later as I have visited other “Freedom War” battle fields. “Freedom War” is my term, which I have prudently adopted from the former slaves’ parlance. Slaves were always crystal clear in understanding that the “Freedom War” was over them, about them, because of them, and was more meaningful to them, and their progeny, than to either North or South! Fortunately, Facebook reposts my prior years’ writings for me to read of Lincoln’s meetings with the ministers, and from it to follow the chronology through: Antietam, Emancipation Proclamation, arming of the former slaves, recruitment of millions of “contraband slaves’” labor, away from the Confederate States of America to the United States of America ; replacement of cowardly, incompetent, General George McClellan with better generals, surrender at Appomattox. Virginia, preservation of the Union, amendments to the Constitution, 13th, 14th, 15th; “Reconstruction,” white racism’s national legislative, judicial, economic, political, cultural, legal, reconciliation in the 1870’s forward; “Black Codes” and Jim Crow segregation, migrations from the South to North, West, Midwest; NAACP litigation victories; Civil Rights-Black Power Movements and victories; busing and school integration movements and difficulties; disorientation of the drug and mass incarceration campaigns; the political advancements of blacks on national, state, local levels, including the election of President Barack Obama, 2008-20016. Now we have the camouflaged, attempted, retrenchment of “white supremacy” racism under Donald Trump. The point here is that Lincoln, though himself, a “white supremacist”—per the book by the late Lerone Bennett, Jr, as were practically all of the whites, including most white abolitionists--was wise enough, was perspicacious enough, to finally recognize that the black slave, “sable arm” held the winning sword. That it took Antietam, Maryland, for Lincoln to recognize the national peril, give thanks to God Almighty! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Antietam

DECADENT COLOR SCHEMES

If "white" terrorists are not truly representative of white people, then black criminals are not truly representative of black people. Have we, "Americans," not by now in 2019 outgrown decadent utility of Virginia's colonial color schemes, that represent nothing intrinsically about particular people; but were put in place to facilitate divide, rule, tax, legislate away all servile threats from those former now-"white", now-"black" threats to colonial rule?

CORRRELATIONS

If life and death are but constructs "apostrophying", personifying everlasting eternity, may not day and night, good and evil, male and female,new and old, black and white, fresh and stale, beauty and ugly, rich and poor, be substantially similar apostrophes , constructs, personifications that enable us to process, to temporize, to synthesize, in super "pint-size," our ineffable essences of eternity as our correlates' constructions of: divine infinity?

BROKEN-OFF FAMILY REUNION

BROKEN OFF FAMILY CONNECTION NOW RECOGNIZED  How awesome it is to discover a lost branch of one's very large family on Facebook! Our families were joined together in Alabama and Mississippi, until at least 1878. For a marriage license bearing the year has been found online by Paul V. Nash, Jr., which I now repost!  Yesterday by reason of a post that I wrote on "Aunt Sooter," Dedove Merriweather, my mother's people, another family representative of a lost, distant family responded with proofs that were so incontrovertible that we both were saying "Amen!" Cousin Birdie Tynes, our second cousin, Edward Merriweather's beautiful and brilliant daughter, during our chat, made reference to a family reunion of some kind that she had attended in Canton, Mississippi, in 2017, at which Ms. BG Woodard of Chicago--our broken-off, "Anderson" family relative--had said she that she had breakfasted with cousin Edward and others several times.  The most recent proof is this picture of a 19th century relative that she posted yesterday. What I was too overwhelmed to then say that this same photo had been circulated some years ago by Paul V. Nash, Jr., my second cousin and our Merriweather family genealogy expert . He has posted a family tree with thousands of names covering the Nash and Merriweather sides of his family. He had sought to see if anyone knew the story identity of this man. No one did. Then, BG Woodard, from the lost-found Anderson branch of our family posted the same photo asking the same question: "Who is this man?" I must say that the ruddy man pictured here also strongly resembles a lawyer from Canton, who now lives in Monroe , Louisiana, where he practices law, James West. I made friends with him over the past twenty-five years attending various legal conventions.

HEMP/MARIJUANA IS ANCIENT ETHOS

Hemp/marijuana's gestault criminalization in the 1930's was done to undermine politically, culturally, the spread of the convivial spirit induced by African American jazz artists and musicians to white folks. "Whites" had become enamored of the ethos, and much less virulently prejudiced and racist if and when they ingested it . It was the first drug war. But was rather silly. Hemp is painted on the walls of ancient Egyptian tombs and pyramids . York, the black servant of Lewis and Clark's Journals is noted as retrieving it from an island in the Missouri River with other greens, swimming out to collect it! https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/i-feel-lucky-real-how-legalizing-hemp-accidentally-helped-marijuana-n1043371?cid=eml_nbn_20190818&fbclid=IwAR1F9DcK2c26qW81M1eX1hX9p4cAvA4AxJHbgUKx4LkGe0khknnVla8WrW0

TRUMP IS AN EVIL AVATAR

"Donald Trump" is not just a "person "in the literal sense; but is more akin to an evil avatar of global , "white supremacist", criminal cabals that covertly rule in trade, religion, education, politics, military, through other avatars. Viewing President Trump as a person misses the point and the total picture. We must study assiduously every vector of being to fully grasp.

GREAT AUNT SOOTER

SUBTLE SWEET AUNT SOOTER Aunt Sooter's real name was Dedove Merriweather. I became first conscious of Aunt Sooter as a very young boy when we lived in Canton, Mississippi, in the early 1950's. Daddy was away in St. Louis preparing a place for us to migrate to , while Mama, Schleria, Harold and me lived in our great-grandparents' home in Canton. Our great grandfather was renown: Reverend Walter Merriweather, his wife was Lily Brent Merriweather. They were the parents of Aunt Sooter and her eight siblings, one of whom, Ora Bell, is Mama's mother. So Aunt Sooter was my great aunt, grandmother's sister. Aunt Sooter was a quiet, subtle woman with an unhurried way. She lived to be 94 and survived partial amputation of a leg that confined her to a nursing home in the end. I visited her there . She smiled and looked, said I was a "stout fellow!" One day while still in Canton, she had asked me to go around to the back of the house and to fetch her some small switches off that big weeping willow tree back there. I complied. But, when I came back, she said, "Not this. These switches are too small, Larry. Get back again. And bring me back three longer willow switches." Innocent, blithely, I complied again. Then, I watched curiously as she plaited, braided, the switches into one, cluelessly. When she was done, she quietly beckoned 3-year old me to her side. Then, wordlessly, tenderly she began to administer those plaited switches to my bare legs as her form of just compensation for some really minor, now-long-forgotten, indiscretion that I "may" had done . Switching stings! I do remember. Anyway, Daddy returned and we moved from Canton, Mississippi to St. Louis, Missouri on the "Spirit or City of New Orleans" train that was packed with lots of colored folks going North. Most of Aunt Sooter's siblings also went North to Chicago or elsewhere. But Aunt Sooter and "Mother", grandmother Ora Bell, ( who packed up an unforgettably delicious lunch of fried chicken, chocolate cake for our train ride) remained in Canton all life . Mother died in Canton many years later. After migrating, we would only see Aunt Sooter periodically, thereafter, when we went "back home," as Daddy would say, to visit on vacations. Years flew by, becoming decades; then came graduations, marriage, a child of my own and the legal profession to keep me busy. Then one day it was joyfully announced by Mama that Aunt Sooter, who then lived alone, who had long since been widowed, was coming to stay with her and Dad. By this time, I lived in Kansas City and most --if not all--of my seven younger siblings had moved on, away from 334 Eldridge, Rockhill. That left Mama, Daddy and Aunt Sooter together to live out their "golden years", so to speak. But as the quest for gold is still laden with strife and controversy, so was their household! Our strong-willed and demonstrative Daddy "duked" it out with sweet, subtle Aunt Sooter over whatever , whenever, daily . If Daddy was invidious, Aunt Sooter was insidious. What did they argue about? Heaven knows! Old folks do are like dogs and cats, sometimes. Meanwhile, Mama , Mrs . Margie Dean Coleman, looked on, listening refereeing umpiring , laughing lecturing preaching , praying; most of all greatly enjoying confraternity between husband, Elvis Mitchell Coleman and sweet Aunt Sooter! Nothing like family memories!  (Aunt Sooter is bottom left; grandmother Ora Bell is also bottom of this Merriweather family photo, picturing maternal great aunts and uncles)

INFERENCES FROM NATURAL LAW

INFERENCES FROM NATURAL LAW Right and wrong, good and evil, fair and unfair, are intuitive in mankind. Such intuitions are known as natural law. "Natural law" in that it was derived from some divinity, intuitively, anciently. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" , "the golden rule," is a reasonable restatement of a natural law; one which everyone has intuitive cognizance of by reason of life. "You" are the epicenter of "natural law." You are its mete, scale, plumb line--you; for you are an extension of the Creator, the Sustainer, Maintainer, of all else that is or ever was. Therefore, why not you? as the measure, barometer, meter, odometer of natural law? By the same token, you are not alone. You share that same divine common source, identity, with all else that lives and everyone else ever alive. Eons, many eons, before we were born, ancestors, ancient predecessors had occasion to confront and to resolve all the differences inherent in questions of equity, morality, nobility, of mankind: one to another & group to group. These ancient ancestors conceived of an eternal omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, God. Thereby, they having conceived, they were able to hoist, to lift up onerous spiritual burdens: right and wrong, good and evil, fair and unfair, true and false, from themselves and unto "God", Creator, Sustainer, maintainer, of the universe faithfully. Under this ancient conception, confirmed by the earth, sun, moon, stars, everything, everyone was brought to earth. Their ancient philosophical "laws" were derived from their projection of specific facts to the omniscience of God. "God" replied to their prayers, queries, in myriad ways, forms, that were interpreted by ancient sages an "truth." Indeed weighty philosophical questions from facts were sublimated intuitively into the exalted purview of divinity. Then, the judgments that were received from God by scribes, priests,sages were codified over time/space into what we know as forms of divine religion, common law;, or equity and common law, divided now into two what was but one. Common law in America, simply to clarify, is based on feudal law of England, in which the "Lord" of the manor, the feudal estate, derived directly from the raw power of "divine" kings to rule over church, state, women, men. It was a corpus of self-serving, man-made laws predicated on oppression and power. That was the common law of England on which American law is based. Here it sank lower into the denial of personality to African descendants and rights. Ancients' imputations unto God are preserved inversely in scripture. These scriptures rebound as incumbent on man "Philippians 2:5-11 King James Version (KJV) 5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. King James Version (KJV)" The humility of "Jesus Christ"--historical, mythical, theological, literary, all combined-- is, was, the modern hallmark, measurement, epitome of natural law. What has descended, devolved to us from ancient priests, sages, scribes is conceptualized, is apostrophized, in the similitude of Jesus, by whatever "name" Christ is known. Wise men of ancient Africa relied upon the stars,planets, plants, animals, insects, harvests, tides and floods--natural phenomenon--from which to discern truths, continuity from nature as infrastructure, for their legal and divine inferences. So too taught Jesus from nature: birds, bees, lilies, fish, clouds, winds, rains, sunshine. The renown of such sages yet echoes through the ages in the literature of Homer, histories of Herodotus, and Diodorus Siculus; Plato's Dialogues, and Aristotle. Also in the holy texts of all religions are they restated. In writing these observations, I readily acknowledge the inspiration received from THE BETRAYAL OF THE NEGRO (1954, 1997) by Dr. Rayford W. Logan, chapter 6 "The Supreme Court and the Negro." He was a historian who wrote as one, who perceived and understood as a historian, before the "Brown v. Board" decision of 1954. Even so, being an attorney, also of Howard University, as was Logan; one who has practiced civil rights law in state and federal courts,anointed by both, doing so, and also having read much ancient history, literature the Bible, the Quran and other holy works, I have been blessed to draw these natural law inferences that are set forth above intuitively.

LIBRARY OF HISTORY

"69. Now that we have discerned sufficiently the deeds of the kings of Egypt from the earliest times down to the death of Amasis, we shall record the other events in their proper chronological setting; but at this point we shall give a summary account of the customs of Egypt, both of those which are especially strange and those which can be of most value to our readers. For many of the customs that obtained in ancient days among the Egyptians have not only been accepted by the present inhabitants but have aroused no little admiration among the Greeks; and for that reason those men who have won the greatest repute in intellectual things have been eager to visit Egypt in order to acquaint themselves with its laws and institutions which they considered to be worthy of note. For despite the fact that for the reasons mentioned above strangers found it difficult in early times to enter the country, it was nevertheless eagerly by Orpheus and the poet Homer in the earliest times and in later times by many others, such as Pythagoras of Samos and Solon the lawgiver. Now it is maintained by the Egyptians that it was they who first discovered writing and the observation of the stars who also discovered the basic principles of geometry and most of the arts, and established the best laws. And the proof of all this, they say, lies in the fact that Egypt for more than four thousand seven hundred years was ruled over by kings of whom the majority were native Egyptians, and that the land was the most prosperous of the whole inhabited world; for these things could never have been true of any people which did not enjoy most excellent customs and laws and the institutions which promote culture of every kind. " P. 239-241, Book 1, "Library of History" by Diodorus Siculus (1933)

INSCRUTABLE TREE MUSINGS

INSCRUTABLE TREE MUSINGS Spirit and matter are life conjoined. Easily said. Less easily understood. Mankind perceives life to be mobile and to be active. But mobility and activity are merely conceptions and perceptions. Life is larger than our perceptions or conceptions of life. For all meteors, comets, asteroids streak through space by invisible means. The sun radiates, revolves rotates, energizes beyond the pale of our solar system and understanding as does our Earth, its moon that revolves and rotates in sync with the earth. And within our spirit-filled bodies of life trillions of cells live, reproduce, do the work, with no visible means of mobility, activity ; yet they activate, they synchronize, synthesize life. It is no wonder, then, that eons of astronomers, priests, philosophers, farmers, hunters, sailors, artists, musicians, teachers, preachers, mathematicians, physicists, poets, lawyers, physicians, writers, butchers, cooks, scientists, unskilled laborers, skilled craftsmen, fishermen, scholastic doctors, and every genre of mankind, and person must muse on the mysteries of divine nature in human beings and in the universe! Consider, then, that sacred tree of life, death, knowledge, wisdom that was lodged-located in the center of the Garden of Eden. What mobility or activity made its fruit differently? God is that "tree" of life , death , wisdom, knowledge with roots reaching beyond infinity, whose sheltering limbs transcend eternity, comprising all understanding. Still God's tree's fruit mobilize, activate in us the similitude of God on earth. Inscrutable is our God! Amen !

KEBRA NAGAST

I have noticed no ostensible female presence in the KEBRA NAGAST ( Glory of Kings) holy book of Ethiopia as I have begun to read it; unless, the female principle, the woman, is inculcated, by analogy, into the mystery of the Holy Spirit. It reads from the beginning: "This is the interpretation and explanation of the Patriarchs concerning splendor, greatness and dignity, and how God gave them to the children of Adam, especially concerning the splendor and greatness of Zion, the Tabernacle of the Law of God, of which He Himself is the maker and the fashioner, in the fortress of His Holiness before all created things, angels and men. For the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit with good fellowship and goodwill and cordial agreement together made the Heavenly Zion to be the place of habitation of their glory. "Then the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit said: 'Let us make man in Our similitude and likeness' and with ready agreement and goodwill They were all of this opinion . And the Son said: 'I will put on the body of Adam,' and the Holy Spirit said: 'I will dwell in the hearts of the Prophets and the Righteous ': and this common agreement and covenant was fulfilled in Zion, the city of their Glory. "And he made Adam in 'his own image and likeness,' so that He might remove Satan because of his pride, together with his host, and might establish Adam, his own plant, together with the righteous, His children , for His praises. For the plan of God was decided upon and decreed in that He said: 'I will become man, and I will be in everything which I have created; I will abide in flesh.' And in the days that came after, by His good pleasure there was born in the flesh of the Second Zion the Second Adam, who was our Savior Christ. This is our Glory and our faith, our hope and our life, the Second Zion." P.5, "1. Concerning the Glory of Kings," KEBRA NAGAST, (THE GLORY OF KINGS) translated and edited by Miguel F. Brooks (1995)

COLOR IS A PIGMENT

"Color"--black, white, otherwise--is not itself indicative of personal merit or worth. Instead, "color" is a pigment to which societal values are ascribed. "Color" is not spiritual virtue but material pigment. "Color" is not inside but outside. Virtue, divine righteousness in words and deeds, therefore, are far better to be continually sought out, found and daily applied, than imputed color characteristics are to be boasted of, whatever the "color."

AFRICAN MORPHOLOGY

AFRICAN MORPH FROM PREY TO RESURGENT GLOBAL PARADISE Two continents savaging one for over 2,000 years : Western Asia and Western Europe upon Africa. Two "white" sub-interest groups plundering the "black" one for over 2,000 years: Islam and Christianity over African indigenous cultures, religions, civilizations, cosmology. The same two "white" sub-interest groups' colonization, appropriation of African international trade rights and intra-African trade privileges cultures lasted over 1,000 years. The same two "white" sub-interest groups' enslavement, exportation of African people to Western Asia, Western Europe, Caribbean islands, other islands of the seas, especially in South, Central, North, America lasted over 1500 years. The reference point used here is our own, year 2019. It is used as the point of departure, a unit of measure for this survey in time. It would certainly seem as if Africa and Africans have been, are being, preyed upon by nearby neighbors for thousands of years. Perhaps it was and is because Africans don't or didn't conceive nor perceive of themselves as being Africans, nor of being "black", but their nearby neighbors did, yet do. The same "whites" agreed to divide by tacit treaties African nations, tribes, they have militarily defeated by superior arms technology by dominions, into spheres of dominion-influence for trading raiding religious conversion; until people, cultural, geographical carcass of Africa itself was cut off, sectioned, collegially, for the two. Predators and prey have Africa and Africans been to its near-neighbors for over the past 2,000 years. This rather largo sweep of time includes the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the persecution of Christians, the codified Nicene Creed under the aegis of Emperor Constantine, the rise of Muhammad, Islam, spread of Islam, the Crusaders, the Dark Ages, the integumentary Greek and Roman empires of Europe, the rise and spread of Christianity from Africa to Rome and Constantinople; the expulsion of Muslims from Spain and Portugal; the circumnavigation of the globe by Portuguese and Spanish sailors; the Italian Renaissance; the discovery of the Americas, to wit: the island Hispaniola and its natives by Columbus, seeking a short cut to the riches, spices, of the Indies. One may wonder if the humbling of Africa, Africans, by Muslims and Christians was unavoidable? Or was it as inevitable as the ice ages , the desiccation of the Sahara and of the Yellow Nile River? Or was the defeat, shame subordinations for over 2,000 years remediable by the Africans themselves by continued dedication to acquiring knowledge? Two thousand years (or seasons) includes me and you and our close ancestors, predecessors, progeny. What does this sketchy conception of continental interaction connote, denote, to us, who were born into it as the fait accompli? Does any duty devolve upon us by reason of this conception? May not there be yet other conceptions, categorizations, possibilities ahead, above, within, our present paradigmatic paradox? These questions befit those who study, who reflect, who attempt to do something about the prior ideas that brought about this ignoble African parody of ancient pyramids and present poverty: economically, philosophically, cosmologically. The world awaits Africa to resume the place of primacy forfeited by idle inanity, inertia, inattentiveness to the world around it, until it is prey! There are no lack of challenges that befit a resurgent African conspectus. Everywhere a line is cast a keeper-fish is caught: in every field of endeavor bar none. The paradise of which Diodorus Siculus, Homer, Herodotus wrote; the maths, sciences philosophies of Pythagoras, Euclid, Plato, more still endure epigenetically in the spiritual perspectives of Africans. Bring on climate change, nuclear proliferation and nuclear waste; bring on abased, depressed men women, nations, children! African genius that was yet is as the sun is, as the earth is, as the stars are , as we are! Africans hold the solutions.

MATURATION

REFLECTION ON MATURATION Along with breathing, drinking and eating, expelling, walking, entertaining, talking, clothing, hygiene, shelter, family, friends as basic needs, one is able to grow into one's integral group cycle of socialization, education, protection, production, harvest, reproduction. To carry this out, land is desirable , one's own land, on which one can breathe fresh air, drink clean water, eat wholesome foods, have privacy in bodily needs; bathe, live in one's own house with one's own family, playing with nearby friends in peace of body, mind, spirit. Thereby one is able to grow up straight , strong, righteous, well-nourished, balanced, mentally, socially, while learning-teaching skills, lessons, knowledge about self, family , society, one's place to each other, requisite to occupying positions of mature leadership in society, productively, protectively, proactively. Upon maturity and with sufficient security, one marries and repeats the process into perpetuity.

FOOD WITH FINGERS

EATING FOOD WITH FINGERS I gaped in breathless wonder, in petrified awe, as Daddy fed our infant son, Imhotep, with his fingers, a medley of collard greens' pot liquor and cornbread mash, at our dinner table. "Won't he choke?" I asked him, gasping. "You didn't choke." he dead-panned. Even as we spoke, though, our first-born son was greedily, hungrily, sucking away on Daddy's delicious-clad fingers.This memory came to mind this morning, as I ruminated on a friend's observation that lambs must be fed differently than sheep; which made me wonder if truth were too strong a food for the young? Given our modern propensity to feed the young artificially with manufactured milk formula and so-called baby food, is there any wonder where ADHD, allergies, asthma and other ailments and disabilities come from? Garbage in and out! What brought us here, got us here. It will surely keep us here! To complete the thought, about food, fingers, and truth, I also recall having accepted the honor of an invitation to dine with at a friend's home from Ghana. They served a delicious dish known as "Fufu," that was a dough-like substance over which chicken and broth were served. We all ate this with our fingers! Another time, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1983, on a group tour, we were taken to a popular restaurant where beautiful Ethiopian women fed us "Tej" a spongy bread adorned with meat, spices, broth, while also giving us sips of wine, "lej". Might as well mention, Aunt Mary Stanford, of Meachum Park, Missouri, and St. Matthews C.M.E. Church, our home church. I once saw Aunt Mary and Uncle Otey (Otis) Stanford eating their dinner with their fingers in the kitchen of their modest home, while I was in grade school. Mamma just smiled when I told her.

FAR LESS THAN HALF HAS BEEN TOLD

FAR LESS THAN HALF HAS BEEN TOLD As I read the engrossing history of the United States by Edward E. Baptist, THE HALF HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD (2016), I have come yet again to a very real fork in the road. This fork is the divergence from the facts about our nation's irresolute emergence from a colony into a free-standing entity. Here I mean and make particular reference to the extraordinarily revolutionary ideals that are passionately, poetically, prophetically, philosophically set forth in the stirring Declaration of Independence of the United States. That immortal, iconic document of 1776 is routinely attributed to the authorship of an "enlightened" Virginian, who was an enslaver of hundreds of Africans, a baronial landowner, who was member of the Continental Congress as a Virginia delegate, the inestimable Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Jefferson is alleged to have written the Declaration of Independence by most American historians and scholars, in spite of his own self-interests, and, indeed, contrary to those very self-interests, in his hundreds of enslaved Africans. Future President Thomas Jefferson has not, himself, to my knowledge, ever claimed any authorship of this immortal edict. That is because he was not its author! instead, Jefferson was an but an editor (1 of 5 editors on the editorial committee of the Continental Congress) of the original draft of the remarkable DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. I quote Mr. Edward E. Baptist's book: "Back on the east side of the mountains, meanwhile , slavery in the old Virginia and Maryland tobacco districts were increasingly unprofitable , and even some enslavers were conceding that enslavement contradicted all of the new rhetoric about rights and liberty. In his 1782 NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA , Virginia's governor Thomas Jefferson complained that slavery transformed whites 'into despots.' Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence had already railed against British support for the Atlantic slave trade. Despite his ownership of scores of enslaved African Americans, Jefferson realized that the sale of human beings could turn his soaring natural rights rhetoric into a lie as sour as the hypocrisies of old Europe's corrupt tyrants. Eventually, Jefferson embraced the hypocrisy, even failing to free the enslaved woman who bore his children. 'Sally--an old woman worth $50,' read the inventory of his property taken after his death [1826]. Yet in 1781, his Declaration 's claim that all were endowed with the natural rights to liberty provided a basis to push the Massachusetts Supreme Court into conceding--in the case of a runaway slave named Quock Walker--that slavery was incompatible with the state's core principles.' P.6. First of all, Edward Baptist's reference to Thomas Jefferson's book NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA is from 1782, six years after his alleged authorship of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. While I don't quibble with Baptist's characterization of slaveholders being "despots," --he would certainly know, firsthand--I do note that Baptist does not mention that book's "Query XIV." That racist chapter in Jefferson's infamous book claims that blacks are inferior to whites mentally, morally, physically and that black women are sexually like 'orangutans.' I mention Query XIV not so much to demonstrate Baptist's mendacity, as to show that Jefferson was not in sympathy with the emancipation of slaves as expressed in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. That is because Jefferson was not the author of the most famous testament to American, human, divine, civil rights yet written. Indeed, Thomas Paine, was another true "founding father," who, though its most famously known writer, and author of its most revolutionary tracts, has, been cruelly, negligently, written out of American history, by omission or by commission by journalists, historians, politicians. Nonetheless, Thomas Paine, who wrote the COMMON SENSE, and CRISIS series under the pen name, "Publius," was its author; Thomas Jefferson was but one of five members of an editing committee that struck out that controversial portion about England's King George III's infamously causing the enslavement of innocent beings on the coast of Africa who had never offended him in the least and who had decimated natives to this land. Political differences of the North and South were textually compromised in the editing room, in which Benjamin Franklin, an abolitionist, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was present as an editor. It was Franklin who had brought Thomas Paine to America from England that Thomas Paine might use his rhetorical powers to stir up the gifts of the divided, docile, nearly defeated colonists, who were intimidated by Mother Country's regnal dominion ! I dare say that Thomas Paine succeeded handsomely! Too handsomely in retrospect did Paine succeed to be granted the honor of authorship! Thomas Paine, an itinerant and true political revolutionary, also proved his mettle by writing the famous DECLARATION OF RIGHTS tract of France that produced the French Revolution, in 1789. France was the land to which Thomas Paine had been invited and emigrated after the American Revolution before the Constitution was written. France's stirring DECLARATION OF RIGHTS document was that spark not only that toppled the monarchy in France, but, more importantly, that document's philosophical fervor and rhetorical sublimity had inevitably unleashed the furious revolutionary geniuses of the "Haitian Revolution" on Saint Dominque's portion of the island of Hispaniola, among the caste of mulattoes and millions of black slaves. In a sense, Thomas Paine's epochal revolutionary writings had freed three nations of baleful slavery from monarchist dominion. DECLARATION OF RIGHTS reads substantially similarly to the earlier in time American DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. Edward Baptist's book's title is apropos, if too modest. Far less than half has been told by himself and by others as this essay states. My sources are many. The writings of Thomas Paine are one source. Jefferson's "Notes on the State of Virginia" is another source, The internet is another source. Do your own research to confirm mine. I am certain there is a blessing therein!

"CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_on_a_Hot_Tin_Roof_(1958_film) OVER Christmas Break, 1969, our freshman English class at Howard University had been assigned to read Tennessee Williams' play, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." Somehow, I had missed the assignment. After Christmas, our teacher directed us, first thing, to take out paper and write an essay on the play! Imagine my shock, my horror! My dismay. Although I had been one of her top students, I had also pestered Mrs.____, a white woman, with probing intellectual forays, verbal and written jousts, about "the black perspective" in this or that. Now, I was in a fix, briny pickle! What could I do, what should I do? The brother needed a rally, an effective solution to an insoluble scholastic dilemma. I wrote in the opening line of my desperate essay: "Dear Mrs. ______, I am the "cat on the hot ten roof....." From there, I went on with my best apologia, mea culpa, literary swoon, probably in the history of English literature. Bottom line: IT WORKED! I RECEIVED A GRADE OF "A" IN HER CLASS! Decades later, I learned that her husband was black, which state of matrimony certainly gave her some in-depth knowledge of the "black perspective!" to say the very least. One never knows whom one might need, when, where, why. Great lesson learned! And now paid forward in gratitude, including right now!

MOYNIHAN'S AMERICAN MURDERS

MOYNIHAN'S REPORT AND MASS AMERICAN MURDER With the upsurge in "mass killings" by body-armor-wearing-white, domestic terrorists with automatic weapons, in recent years, we fain would accept as "normal," these hundreds of other day-to-day inner city, "black-on-black crime" automatic weapons "drive-by" killings that go on, in every major and minor American city, every day! The abnormal killings' proliferation, en mass, or personal, cannot be normal nor random! They are purposely propagated by federal, political, benign-neglect, policies, dating back to "Moynihan's Report" in 1965, predicting black, inner-city, familial insecurity due to paternal displacement disruptions from unemployment, underemployment and welfare substituting for productive and leading family men. Policies pursuant to Moynihan led to the destruction of some African American citizens' mental and social sensibilities. Thus Moynihan's sociological finding have borne baneful fruit in the most vulnerable of black people! These wicked U.S. Department of Labor "Moynihan Report" machinations have backfired, as American "chickens have come home to roost" @ Malcolm X in later infernal policies! In other words, the evil that was intended for black folks by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has spilled over onto white folks! https://www.britannica.com/biography/Daniel-Patrick-Moynihan Genesis 50:20 English Standard Version (ESV) 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people[a] should be kept alive, as they are today.

APOLOGY TO PHILOSOPHY

I profoundly apologize to myself and to others who may have been misled by too-early criticisms by me of this epic work. Now that I have read more of its substance and discerned the course of its current, I now know that it's one of the most formidable books in African American history, if not world history of philosophy. History of philosophy is our history of knowledge, civilization. Admittedly, such "heavy stuff", as we say, is not everyone's "cup of tea." But for those who would prefer, or be destined, to soar into stellar empyrean heights , this insightful, heavily cited, prolifically outlined presentation is the means that propel your divine ascents.

SOULS OF WHITE FOLK

I may have read, I thought that I had read, must have read, this essay of Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, when I read enough of his revealing DARKWATER (his interesting autobiography not his metaphysics ) several years ago. But if I had not this curious essay, then read "The Souls of White Folk," I must do so now,since it has been brought abruptly to my consciousness, my attention, by the authors of AFRICAN PHILOSOPHERS AND PHILOSOPHY (2019) by. McClendon III & Ferguson. (Having now read it, I know I had not previously read it or its like, "The Souls of White Folks," by black man. Must be free!) https://medium.com/religion-bites/the-souls-of-white-folk-by-w-e-b-du-bois-354f91ca08ef

PARENTAL LOVE

I LOVE PARENTAL LOVE Mama and Daddy loved education; loved Jesus Christ; loved Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; loved Stokely Carmichael; loved Malcolm X; loved John Fitzgerald Kennedy; loved Lyndon Baines Johnson; loved books; loved good while folks and good black folks; loved hosting food festivals-family get togethers during holidays. Momma and Daddy loved St. Matthews C.M. E. Church and our Kirkwood-Webster Groves, Missouri, neighborhoods. They especially loved their deep birth Mississippi roots, heritage, values, huge family whom they visited frequently on vacations. Momma and Daddy loved love ❤️! Momma and Daddy loved fun and laughter; they loved overcoming challenges. Mama and Daddy loved life; loved each other, loved children, grandchildren (step and half) and Momma and Daddy loved each second of the life with which they had been gifted by God and graced by circumstance. They did not complain. They would protest. But they knew that what God had for them was for them. They looked back appreciably over how far the Lord had brought them together as one and marveled all the more at wonder, power, goodness of God! Great southern-migration parents, like my own parents, whose eternal, invaluable bequests to their eight offspring (and every one else who was kin or somehow known) was abounding love, laughter, hope, faith in Jesus Christ, work, celebration of life, constructive engagement, land ownership, as much education as possible, and perseverance, no matter what, till victory is won! Such parents as these I know best and are those whom I most adore.

FOURTH BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT

FOURTH BRANCH Of GOVERNMENT? If the so-called "free press" is truly the fourth branch of government, as is said, it had crassly abdicated its responsibility and duties, to the American people in 2016, when it lifted Donald Trump's every word, gratis, from his lips, as a lead story! Trump bought advertising for sure , but, unless, the news is advertising as well, his candidacy was lavishly supplied with "lagniappe," extras! The American mainstream media was once covert, masked, secret. Its champion was Thomas Paine, a/k/a, "Publius," renown author of the COMMON SENSE/CRISIS broadside classics of the American Revolutionary War Era. The powerful wisdom of founding father, Thomas Paine, has been misattributed to Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was a member of the five man Continental Congress which edited Thomas Paine's original draft of the "Declaration of Independence" in 1776. Paine was not a slaveholding founding father, like Jefferson. Paine was a gifted and learned English emigrant and rhetorical master of philosophy. He first was discovered by Benjamin Franklin in Europe and brought to America to aid its freedom cause by the use of its journalistic skills. Founding Father, Thomas Paine, wore the famous DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were two of five editors, editing that masterpiece. I am convinced of this by my having read all of the works of Thomas Paine that were devoted to the cause of American Revolution. Others share my view whom I have read online. Paine's authorship explains why the slavery allusion--offensive to Jefferson and enslavers was eliminated from the final draft popularly promulgated and taught in school. Paine's says as much here, albeit, guardedly, subliminally: https://larryslibrary.blogspot.com/2018/07/thomas-paine-final-crisis.html?m=1 Paine's method of journalism was to keep himself separate and apart from party, and all private interests, the better to promote what was the best ideal for the United States of America, that he left before the Constitution--which betrayed his principles--succumbed to slavery. The 2019 American press could best honor its actual, proverbial, father, Thomas Paine, by returning to the principles that he enunciated, rather than foist up another tyrant, a doppelgänger for King George III, in the person of Donald Trump yet again. Trump deserves to be excoriated on the same merits, using history, nature, philosophy, scripture as Paine did for the tyrannical King of England. Thereby the American press can rightly assume the sobriquet "Fourth Branch of government," when it shows itself to be worthy of its name, true to its original nature!

ALLOYED EXISTENCES

ALLOYED EXISTENCES As we are alloyed beings: spiritual, physical. temporal, eternal; conscious, unconscious; we all do well to strive for balance, for proportion, for truth, for: justice, beauty, sublimity--or default to naught--by reason of basal imbalances--in our souls' sensory conceptions, our physical perceptions, our alloyed existences.

DELIVERANCE

BIBLICAL ANALOGY AND THE BLACK FREEDOM MOVEMENT "Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel? Then why not every man?" is a powerful spiritual analogy of encouragement from our enslaved forbears' rich cultural repertoire. Analogy is a figure of speech that compares one thing with another thing so that the meaning of one is applied to the facts of other things. Slaves' uses of analogy were very sophisticated utilizing music, art, quilting, stories, cooking, clothing; in short, they used analogy to code covert messages from prying eyes and ears of masters, their minions, tattle-tales, spies, overseers, so as to communicate with each other . Some messages became so adept that they ceased to be analogy and sublimated into homology, which is super-analogy, so relatively similar. Thus returning to the song above, the Lord delivering "Daniel" from the lion's den became homologous to Harriet Tubman, "Moses," with a $40,000 reward on her head, whether dead or alive, that she successfully evaded for over two decades, rescuing hundreds, despite being handicapped with fainting spells, living into her 80s. "Jonah" was the slave Robert Smalls who piloted the Confederate freighter, the "Planter" , its all-slave crew, and their families out of heavily-fortified Charleston, South Carolina, harbor in the sable darkness of morning in 1862, into the Union fleet that was blockading it, under a white flag. Robert Smalls became a United States Congressman from there. The "Hebrew children" were the millions of former slaves, termed "Contraband of war," who fled the plantations en mass whenever the Union troops drew near; they provided iron strength to the North, as they sapped the South of same. The Bible fueled the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s with additional analogy, homology. Bible's efficacy yet empowers our people in the fight for freedom in years since 1968, as we battle on!

WHITE SUPREMACY

https://www.vox.com/…/unite-the-right-dc-free-speech-first-… White supremacists are not the bottom-dwelling dregs of white society that media and privileged whites often portray them to be. Many are federal judges, prosecutors, politicians, business owners, police, students, males, females, professors, actors, actresses, school teachers, Democrats, Republicans. White supremacy is a pernicious philosophical, pedagogical and theological disease,dating back centuries, ironically, to the "Enlightenment Era." It is based upon myths, lies, immorality, theft, violence; and power. Its doctrines of "democracy" and "equality" are shibboleths--buzz words--for hypocrisy, cupidity. It contains the seeds of its own destruction--"like a fire-bell in the night"-- as Thomas Jefferson, whose NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, "QUERY XIV.," one of its covert pillars, once said of its ersatz (fake) foundation in scientific truths.

VOTE!

VOTE OUT WHITE SUPREMACISTS ON FEDERAL, STATE, LOCAL, LEVELS, EVERYWHERE!

PHILOSOPHY

DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY Okay let's do it this way: assume that a space ship capable of flying at light-speed, 186,000 miles per second were flown across our Milky Way galaxy; it would still take that space 🚀 ship, 100,000 light-years just to cross our galaxy's diameter. Ours is a rather insignificant-sized galaxy compared to behemoths of greater dimensions known to us. All galleries, galaxies, exist in a divine universe of inconceivable distance and dimensions away from Milky Way, much less Earth, or mankind. Yet in by our imaginations we can already conceive what we cannot physically do. That capacity , that capability is the definition of what we know as "philosophy," love of God! Not knowledge; but God in a circumference of total existence.

COTTON + COLORED FOLKS = CAPITALISM

"From the 1790s to the 1860s, enslavers moved 1 million people from the old slave states to the new. They went from making no cotton to speak of in 1790 to making almost 2 billion pounds of it in 1860... "Changes that reshaped the entire world began on the auction block where enslaved migrants stood or in frontier cotton fields where they toiled. Their individual drama was a struggle to survive. Their reward was to endure a brutal transition to new ways of labor that made them reinvent themselves every day. Enslaved people's creativity enabled their survival, but, stolen from them in the form of ever-growing cotton productivity , their creativity also expanded the slaveholding South at an unprecedented rate. Enslaved African Americans built the modern United States, and indeed the entire modern world, in ways both obvious and hidden." P. xxv, "Introduction ," THE HALF HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD: SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM, by Edward E. Baptist (2016)

DOXOLOGY OF IDEAS

DOXOLOGY OF IDEAS Ideas are inscrutable energy derived from cognition and consciousness, that if diligently pursued, if reified by work, in season, materialize-actualize, become manifest. In time, If ideas are popularized, in the right place, time, manner, with the right people, they calcify into cultural beliefs. Cultural beliefs endure until being inevitably dispelled by others, as the heavens swirl, whirl about overhead, illuminating time, space, matter, mystery, nature, God for mankind to perceive and to conceive. No one really knows whence ideas, beliefs, matter, nature, mankind, God, derive or go, except back to death, whence all derives and returns, after their interregnum of life. The glory is that in our existence, we have ability to speculate, correlate, theorize, prognosticate: this with that; that with the other, momentarily.

CIVIL RIGHTS TO BLACK POWER

The Black Power Movement displaced the Civil Rights Movement in 1966, when Stokely Carmichael ( Kwame Toure) raised its clarion call. Its mere utterance sent forth shock waves! These waves resulted in the Black Panther Party, the Revolutionary Action Movement and others. Black Power leaders were either killed, run out of the country, imprisoned, or covertly immobilized by the end of 1980s. The point being Dr. King was killed in the Black Power era, April 1968, and was viewed as a black power proponent.