PHENOMENAL

PHENOMENALLY EMPIRICAL Some years ago a famous author and African American intellectual once admonished me not to be “too empirical” In my deductions. When I asked him what empiricism was, however, he made no reply. Today, in reading the book AFRICAN PHILOSOPHERS AND PHILOSOPHY by John H. McClendon III and Stephen C. Ferguson II (2019), I see this: “Plato’s epistemology is best described as ‘rationalism’, whereby reason supersedes experience as the foundation for knowledge. Concomitantly, Plato rejects ‘empiricism’ because it establishes knowledge based upon perceptual experience.” P. 127. Now with a context for my friend’s admonition—Plato—a philosopher who learned what little he knew in ancient Kemet from its priests and sages, by his own admission, in his TIMAEUS that “the Greeks are like children intellectually”, I double- down on my so-called empiricism. After all, I am phenomenally one among the many who has blessedly descended from the iconic Greek philosopher, Plato’s, own ancient African teachers, including their intellectual legacy; thus, I am also therefore, perforce, experientially, empirical, by the grace of God!

POLICE KILLINGS OF BLACKS

The police killings of black people is no curious anomaly. It is enabled. It is sought. It is encouraged , rewarded, by several United States Supreme Court decisions, especially one from 1989, known as “Graham v. Connor .” The Graham v. Connor case gave police officers not only the power to kill, if they felt that their lives were in danger, subjectively . But this belief was not subjected to “objective” attack by any other police officer , who was not then “present at the scene” at the instant of the occurrence —not even superior officers in the chain of command—; nor forensic experts in law enforcement protocols, or anything else! The “fear of the cop” was the determining factor. Nothing else. Thus, police have carte blanche to kill people, if they claim to “fear for their lives.” By law since 1989. The Atatiana Jefferson woman who was killed while in her apartment looking out of a window in Texas, is but the latest in a string of stirring accounts of “fear for my life” lies. Hopefully her killer will meet the same fate as the female cop who killed Barbadian Botham James. Graham v. Connor :: 490 U.S. 386 (1989) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center

PRECESSION

“Precession calculation is a vital tool for the historian to help him understand ancient man, whose religion was often directed to the ‘sky gods’ and thus based on observations of the sky—what today we would call naked eye observational astronomy. It can be thus understood that ancient man built religious monuments and, prolifically, tombs which made use of geometrical astronomy to express astronomical alignments and other phenomena of the sky using symbolic architecture. It further follows that if an architectural feature of a monument is suspected to have been aligned towards a specific star, then, with the use of precession, it is possible to work out the date of such a monument to a fairly good level of precision . By also ‘re-creating’ the sky for a given epoch, we can see what they saw and hence understand further the religious importance of their observations through the design and symbolic expression of the monument .” P. 242, “Precession,” THE ORION MYSTERY (Appendix 2) by Robert G. Bauval (1994)

RICHARD ALLEN'S FORMULA

Richard Allen’s Formula Still Works in America Correctly read, the history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was far more practical, intricate, sophisticated than the current version reflects—confined to preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. The church itself grew out of the fact of the enslaved colonial roots of Richard Allen, whose mother and 3 siblings were sold away, whom he never saw again. Located in the Delaware-Maryland-Pennsylvania region, also made famous by Benjamin Banneker , his peer and contemporary, he heard an itinerant Methodist preacher tell a mixed audience of slaves and free persons, blacks and whites, that in Christ all were one, neither Greek nor Jew; nor free nor slave; nor male nor female. Instead, all people, slaves too, were God’s uniquely divine children. This revelation revolutionized his self-conceptions, lifted him up on high! As a consequence of hearing, of learning these basic facts , Allen weaponized religion as a tool in his personal war chest for freedom. He bought his own personal and his brother’s freedom by chopping wood, selling salt, moving about in a wagon with his brother. Allen also converted his master to Jesus Christ by his faithful example, as he traveled about with the leading preachers up and down the eastern seaboard proclaiming the power of Jesus Christ to the slaves. This message gave the slaves hope and a sense of “somebodyness.” He sought the company of other leading blacks who were spirited in thought in Maryland, Daniel Coker; in Massachusetts , Prince Hall; in Philadelphia, Absalom Jones. With these, he helped to organize the Free African Society, the Prince Hall Masons, the African Methodist Episcopal church; the latter after a fierce legal battle lasting for years over who would have the right to proclaim what “thus sayeth the Lord” to people of African descent? Those who arose from their status or those from white establishment that consisted of white supremacy? Battling white supremacy was the main reason for being of the African Methodist Episcopal church. They were a station on the Underground Railroad. They were involved in civic affairs, like abating “Yellow Fever” in 1793. They also had guns in the basement to protect themselves from enslavers. They taught school in church and church in school; they made use of young people—Bishop Allen’s son was secretary at conferences—they made use of women: Jarena Lee was one of the earliest black women preachers. They did for themselves on their own land “under their own vine and fig tree,” confidently, faithfully. Having myself been an African Methodist Episcopal church pastor in Butler, Bates County, Missouri , from 1995-2004, at Brooks Chapel, I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ when combined with true black history can defeat white supremacists minds, hearts, in the black and white peoples of rural, formerly slaveholding, Missouri! We erected a statue on the court house square in 2008, of a black soldier! This was a tribute to the forgotten black soldiers of the First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry who won the Battle of Island Mound in October, 1862. The State of Missouri in 2012, dedicated a 40-acre park at the site of the battle in 2012, about 8 miles from Butler. It must be borne in mind that The “Emancipation Proclamation” was not issued until January 1, 1863, so these brave men of First Kansas —who were organized by Kansas United States Senator, James Lane, (with President Abraham Lincoln’s tacit consent) defeated a group of mounted Confederate irregulars, before blacks could lawfully fight. Often times, one cannot wait on the law; instead one must wait upon the Lord (obey God), regardless of the law or consequences! Memory was lost of this ground-breaking 1862, battle in Butler, in Bates, County, in local history and lore, except for a few, me and Chris Tabor, an ex-Marine cartographer, who had published articles about it in the local newspaper . I discovered it adventitiously, myself, in a book store in Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1999, when Noah Trudeau’s LIKE MEN OF WAR (1998) summoned me from across the room. I opened the book and was shocked to see Butler in print as the place of this epochal battle! The truth is the light indeed! Bishop Allen’s example worked in the 18th-19th centuries. It worked in Butler in the 20th century. Richard Allen’s formula can work into the 21st century to cure the abased minds, hearts , conditions of our amazing people, who do not know God, who pray the work is done to complete its mission of deliverance!

CUMMINGS AND SMALLS

Late Congressman, Elijah Cummings, my Bison brother, has observed that he went from a sharecroppers’ son to Congress in one generation. So too have others even more dramatically than Elijah’s example! Robert Smalls of South Carolina went from being an enslaved ship pilot in Charleston, to ship liberator and family liberator of himself and of eight other enslaved crewmen families. These brave men, before dawn one day, had sailed that stolen battle ship, “The Planter”, that Robert Smalls piloted, in 1862, past 4 Confederate forts’ guns and mines in Charleston harbor, safely, secretly, to the Union fleet that was blockading Charleston out at sea, shocking the Union rescuers as much as they later had shocked the rebels . Smalls was later promoted to be the captain, of the “Planter” and used his knowledge of tides and waterways to help the North defeat the South there. Smalls later became the shipowner, when Congress granted him payment ; he was elected to the U. S. Congress during Reconstruction, where he served with others, like himself , who had “in the same generation” gone from from slavery to the U. S. Congress. God is a powerful captain!

FREE BLACK SLAVE CATCHERS?

I was shocked to read of “free black slave catchers” in Louisiana along the [Mississippi River’s] “east bank above New Orleans, on the “German Coast”, where there were “dozens of slave labor camps [that] stretched back from the river into French-surveyed ‘long lots’, narrow strips of land that ran a mile or two across cleared ground to a dense belt of forested swamps....The swamps themselves were almost impenetrable , full of alligators, snakes, panthers , and bears . Runaways sought refuge in the swamps, hiding from overseers and free black slave-catchers .” P. 56-57, “Heads,” THE HALF HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD (2016) by Edward E. Baptist. I do not recall ever reading of “free black slave-catchers” in America, only in Africa. But I will read on!

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN RELIGION

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_philosophy?fbclid=IwAR3O4IeuSX_2QqdWQiloAfpudHDYFuM2Pt7W-CVvk0gC8g1XeJAUa9ifsUs LOST AND FOUND AT LAST I have long sought what we lost as Africans—if anything—to bring about our abasement, our enslavement, our being “scattered and peeled” to the four winds like dross which the winds have driven. At age 68, October 20, 2019, I may have found part of it. The part that I found is set forth plainly, accurately in the Wikipedia article below that is entitled, “Ancient Egyptian Philosophy”. Read it. Do not be at all spiritually deterred by its title. It is love’s sweet meat . It is the key to displaced African people’s long-sought liberation, restoration, reparations, redemption . As the stars’ precessions cycle in-out in phases, in seasons, so man’s destiny undergoes precessions. Whether 1250 years of mini/cycling or 26,000 years of grand cycles, our destinations, destinies, are linked both to heaven above, to earth below. Such ancient African philosophy reveals sacral science. The key to that ancient African assiduity that was celebrated by Plato, Aristotle, Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus; that assiduity was embodied in Tertullian, Origen, Plotinus , Augustine ; that assiduity has produced, has adduced, conception/perceptions of knowledge , wisdom, “God”, as fact and as ideal; as one and as all; that ancient African assiduity perfected philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, navigation , engineering, letters, art, agriculture , architecture, in short, world civilization—which it shared; this assiduity is the link with our past, which is ever present, in us. This link is whence came our faith, our adaptability, our creativity, our genius, our music, for the many seasons, “2000 seasons, “ of our divine oppression , earthly , riverine, precessions from divine favor on the Nile to divine disfavor on the Mississippi, Potomac, Missouri, Shenandoah and the rivers of which Lawrence, Kansas’ Langston Hughes poetically, presciently sang in “I’ve Known Rivers.” And in others. But having done our penance, having suffered, having survived , thrived, been elected chief of the United States of America, we are ascending, “rising”, on our way to the top to the stars, to our destiny ! Don’t believe me! Never believe me! Read the truth for yourself. Share it! Ancient Egyptian philosophy

EMPOWERED

EMPOWERED WERE WE IN 1973 A friend has complimented my Howard University Class of 1973, to which the late great Maryland Congressman, Elijah Cummings, belonged as being “empowered.” I could not agree more! We were “Empowered” by the times in which we attended Howard. We were empowered by our powerful Bison predecessors who taught us our Bison protest history. We were empowered by President James E. Cheek and staff, who loved us as their own, whom we loved as our own. We were empowered by our families and empowered by God to be all that we could be, fearlessly , confidently, in our class of 1973! Elijah has entered the herd of vaunted Bison—too numerous to name—dating back to 1867 and General Oliver Otis Howard, Freedmen’s Bureau Director, our namesake-Founder from Maine. I am honored to have known Elijah Cummings of Baltimore , Maryland, so well in our 4-year adventures-filled sojourn upon the yard, including those with our incredibly beautiful intellectual Bison sisters who who were intimately involved in everything that we did, as coadjutors, joint heirs to Bison legacy. I am grateful that I, Larry Delano Coleman, Elijah Eugene Cummings; Geoffrey Simmons, Raymond Johnson, Ezekiel Mobley, Ronald D. Hayes’, had an amenability to comradeship in work, play, planning, protest, manhood! And that we all became attorneys at law! I praise God for my matriculation at Howard ,1969-1976; for the ability to be of service , to be loved and to love!

CODED

CODED IN COSMOLOGY Individualizing universal principles (IUP) may not be how we consciously or unconsciously conceive or perceive of negotiating our way around, through earth’s environment . But it is. IUP is that by which we live, move, have our being: body, personality, identity, soul, or balance. Fortunately, we don’t have to think much about our consistency, or our reason for being. We live autosome, meaning we are flotsam-jetsam in the ambience of spiritual essence. That means we are hardwired to be here, right now, in consonance with our context. To that end, we have also been endowed , blessed with the gift of thought, intuitive access into divine realms of preexistence : worlds of no-time, no-space or life. Many people blithely blindly accept (IUP)—verb/noun—as a matter of course in ordinary life. Life is a gift of the spirit, one which I delight in contemplating meditating among those few who are blessed to do this, likewise, to correlate material manifestations in IUP to mankind . These manifestations may have been coded, recorded artistically, graphically, musically, scientifically, philosophically, agriculturally, navigationally by mankind. They may subsist in nature with us, on us, or inside of us, as we with them. IUP may be the refracted, encased, exhibited in works or words of those who have or who deign to do the daily work necessary and proper to contemplate, philosophize, study mankind in relationship to nature, to earth , to the heavens; hence to God, where all other individualized universal principles (IUP) are alive. Practically, IUP means that each person is already part of an infinite constellation of assets . No one is ever alone nor is any ever isolated from others ; but rather, each life is intrinsically , inherently , infallibly connected to past, present, lateral. It also means that epistemological facts link the destiny of any man to earth as eschatological facts link any man to God, jointly, indivisibly , severally, at once, in time & space, as is each leaf, drop of water, star; & outside of time, space, cognition. Man epitomizes this divine mystery by being sapient to ideal existence that is coded, recorded, in cosmos. Locking down hard on yourself and your circumstances IUP has always manifested in your decision-making, without the name; by some other name. But we are called here  Amen. Thank you master! Thank you Heavenly Father. Thank you Jesus!

LEGACY

Legacy is labile. Therefore, legacy, being labile, is liable to be stolen, subject to be plagiarized, scandalized, by covetous latecomers. Ancient "African" legacy is your identity in perpetuity; enrich it, protect it; pass it own unimpaired. Amen.

ENCOMIUM FOR CUMMINGS

“Encomium: Bison brother Elijah Cummings” Yesterday, I was reading in Baltimore, Marylander, Frederick Douglass’ third autobiography, LIFE AND TIMES (1881, 1994). Today, October 17, 2019, I learn of the death of Hon. Elijah Cummings of Baltimore, Maryland, esteemed U. S. Congressman, my former ‘73 classmate, friend and Bison brother at our beloved Howard University. Baltimore has produced great men. Maryland has produced great men and women; Harriet Tubman and Francis Ellen Watkins Harper among them. Frederick Douglass’ chapter in “Weighed in the Balance “ decried the exodus movement of the 1879’s-1880, as “a medicine, not food; it is for disease not health; it is not to be taken from choice but necessity. In anything like a normal condition of things the South is the best place for the Negro. Nowhere else is there for him a promise of a happier future....While however it may be the highest wisdom in the circumstances for the freedmen to stay where they are, no encouragement should be given to any measures of coercion to keep them there...If it is attempted by force or fraud to compel the colored people to stay there, they should by all means go—go quickly and die, if need be, in the attempt .” P.872-873 Congressman Cummings stayed in the South, in his beloved Baltimore. For college he ventured to Howard University in Washington, D.C. There he assisted me in attaining the honor of becoming the Editor-in-Chief of THE HILLTOP; our weekly newspaper that was founded by Zora Neal Hurston in 1924, when she matriculated there. Elijah Cummings and others of us, all of whom later became attorneys, in various states, launched “Black Love Productions,” in 1973, a social club of male achievers, who did not pledge any of Howard’s fraternities. Harriet Tubman was the “Moses” of our people in many ways, leading hundreds —maybe thousands if we include her Civil War, South Carolina, riverboat exploits—of slaves to freedom from slavery and never losing one . She had fainting spells that lasted hours, from her having been hit in the head with a metal object by a slave master. Yet “the Lord made a way, somehow !” The last Marylander mentioned here is one of my favorite poets and freedom-fighters, Francis Ellen Watkins Harper. She was born free. She is lesser known than Tubman and Douglass, but having helped to found the Underground Railroad with William Still in Philadelphia and coming from an African Methodist Episcopal Church Church and School, before ending as Unitarian, her rich life has been no less effective. While I enjoyed her novel, “Iola Leroy,” her unforgettable poem about a slave mother learning her ABC’s so she could read her Bible, is what electrified me. A female church van driver in Alton, Illinois at St. John Missionary Baptist church, then-pastored by my baby brother, Rev. Edwin M. Coleman, recited Harper poem, extemporaneously after I spoke to a young people’s conference. It goes: “Learning to Read BY FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER Very soon the Yankee teachers Came down and set up school; But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it,— It was agin’ their rule. Our masters always tried to hide Book learning from our eyes; Knowledge did’nt agree with slavery— ’Twould make us all too wise. But some of us would try to steal A little from the book. And put the words together, And learn by hook or crook. I remember Uncle Caldwell, Who took pot liquor fat And greased the pages of his book, And hid it in his hat. And had his master ever seen The leaves upon his head, He’d have thought them greasy papers, But nothing to be read. And there was Mr. Turner’s Ben, Who heard the children spell, And picked the words right up by heart, And learned to read ’em well. Well, the Northern folks kept sending The Yankee teachers down; And they stood right up and helped us, Though Rebs did sneer and frown. And I longed to read my Bible, For precious words it said; But when I begun to learn it, Folks just shook their heads, And said there is no use trying, Oh! Chloe, you’re too late; But as I was rising sixty, I had no time to wait. So I got a pair of glasses, And straight to work I went, And never stopped till I could read The hymns and Testament. Then I got a little cabin A place to call my own— And I felt independent As the queen upon her throne.”

NO CONDEMNATION

No condemnation. I have no condemnation because Christopher Columbus “discovered” or rediscovered America for foreign habitation and colonization. This “new world “ produced “new creatures,” African Americans, especially, who gave the world a “new negro.” The “new negro” was celebrated in a 1925 Dr. Alain Locke’s literary masterpiece that too few “negroes” in 2019 have ever heard of, read of, or read . Please read it soon! This “new negro,” our forbears, was the byproduct of an amazing array of cultural of diversity among Africans and others, who literally survived hell, the burning fires, to produce babies (us) riches, philosophy , music, arts, crafts , inventions, literature, in short, that for which America is now known. Their descendants—you and me—gave the world glories and wonders—and yet does so—in innumerable fields. We are ahead of Africans (they now willingly migrate here), Europeans (they migrated by millions here); and all the rest of the world of us and , because of Columbus’ serendipity. Hope now you better understand why not only do I —personally, not representatively—not blame Columbus, nor the Spanish, French, English, Dutch , Portuguese enslavers-colonizers. Nor do I condemn the African tribes and chiefs who captured us and sold us; nor do I condemn the “whites” who exploited us cruelly in America. The will of God has scattered and peeled us to enrich us and earth ! All of the horrible “wrongs” done to us were due to the will of God who rules and super-rules over all things, and space and time according to God’s (or Gods’) riches in glory and divine will.

COLUMBUS

I do not condemn Columbus. But for him, there would be no African Americans, no me or you!

QUIET

Conceiving existence alloys life with perceiving. By virtue of conception, we intuit, think, automatically, grasp autosomally. By the other we sense. Not that they—conception and perception— are separated, but we deem them to be different by reason of currently prevailing preconceptions, which have dominated the cultural domain of mankind for centuries by forces: force of nature, force of arms, force of intellectual innovation innervation. Intuition-thought-sensations-life are blessed cosmic allies in the menageries of divine grace sown in mankind by creation.

HART AND SOUL

HART AND SOUL “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? ... Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.” Psalms 42. Declaimed : Flesh seeks flesh. Soul seeks soul. Kin seeks kin. Life seeks life. Amen

ROB GOD?

“Would a man rob God?” Not only “rob God,” but some men would rape God, scourge, dethrone , crucify, God, and then lie about it!

BETRAYAL

CUSP NOT NADIR The term "nadir" has been used by some historians to characterize the period of black American life from Reconstruction Period, 1877 through the 1930's. Perhaps it was most prominently used by Dr. Rayford W. Logan, author of THE BETRAYAL OF THE NEGRO (1954, 1997), noted historian of Howard University. Nadir means lowest social point , the absolute bottom. I disagree. "Cusp" is a better term than "nadir," for the interim post Reconstruction Period, up until the civil rights litigation period began at the NAACP under Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall of the 1930s. To me, chattel slavery would be the "nadir" or lowest point of the African American experience. After Reconstruction, 1865-1873, African Americans were for eight years on the "cusp" of freedom—betwixt and between—by reason of white privileged racist retrenchment in all fields, after the post-Civil War Amendments, 13-15, had promised and had proclaimed liberty, justice, equality for black people particularly. But these new laws were never interpreted nor enforced as purposely enacted to benefit black freedmen and freed women. The law itself, having been suborned, was violated, was corrupted by venal politicians for reconciliation of white adversaries at the expense of black patriotism. Jim Crow laws with “separate but equal” disparities overwhelmed the nation, whether government, family, private, religion, academic, society. I am still reading Dr. Logan’s epic work. Yet, I quote from it in progress to authenticate my perspective: “Part I of this book has traced the Negro’s descent toward the nadir from 1877 to the turn of the century. Part II will portray the attitudes towards this descent as expressed especially in Northern newspapers and magazines. No attempt will be made to determine the extent to which these attitudes helped to mold events , but it will be clear that, on the whole, attitudes endorsed the policies and approved the events that steadily reduced the Negro to a subordinate place in American life.” P.159 He says “nadir”. I say “cusp.” He says we have been reducing since 1877. I say that we have been rising.

FAKE LAW

FAKE ROOT, FAKE AMERICAN LAW Law was originally based in religion. Religion was originally based upon nature. Law among men grew apart from religion in time, as continents drifted from a primordial land mass. Nature is ordered life and non-life; that is, if such a thing as "non-life" exists contra life, at all. Nature is all: existence and/or preexistence, by any name that either is now known. Man is part of nature. Man studies and contemplates nature; lives by the laws of nature, but, yet governs men by unnatural laws and means. By "unnatural laws and means" is meant those that defy, contradict, or discountenance nature and its correlations in religion, science, and mathematics as determining. Whether it is called "common law," "civil law," "ecclesiastical law," or by some other law name, to the extent that law does not join with, parallel, the laws of nature in application, it is "unnatural law, unnatural means." Roots normally, naturally, produce fruit that is in accord with the root. If not, it is a most unnatural root/fruit; a most unusual, artificial, man-made law is such: being imposed in place of nature, fake nature, ersatz law. It may well be a monster, demon root. Thus for American common law to have operated for centuries in utter contempt of these laws of nature, by discrimination based on color, or race, in its legal application of its ersatz-law to facts, it sets itself up to fall, having already failed, to adjudicate naturally, nondiscriminantly. If the root is rotten, the tree and its fruit are too.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS POST-BELLUM

Frederick Douglass ' proverbial life was rich with meaning and metaphors. It symbolized major portions of the African American past, from slavery to freedom and points in between, high and low. Reading recently in his 1883 autobiography LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, his third such book of his remarkable life, I was blessed to gain additional insights that are as relevant to the present as the past of black life. He writes about his refusal to stand as a candidate for federal elective office, despite entreaties from friends and backers to do so. He writes about his reentry into the field of newspaper publishing with the "New National Era," after the Civil War in Washington, D.C. Most significantly, he sheds inside information on the demise of the Freedmen's Savings Bank and Trust, whose chairmanship he was bamboozled into accepting before its demise, in which he lost his own money, while it was being fleeced! All of these efforts had the intent to draw Douglass from Rochester, NY, where he had lived for 25 years, in comfort, into the sappy maelstrom of Reconstruction era political plunder. That he blinked twice and regretted each capitulation holds valuable lessons for us all in 2019. Anyone can be used, misused, abused, deceived when forces combine to exploit your features, tendencies, vulnerabilities . Frederick Douglass certainly was. Therein lies a lesson for us today. I quote from Chapter XIV "Living and Learning", viz.: "The adoption of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments and their incorporation into the Constitution of the United States opened a very tempting field to my ambition , and one to which I should probably have yielded had I been a younger man. I was earnestly urged by many of my respected fellow citizens both colored and white, and from all sections of the country, to take up my abode in some one of the many districts of the South where there was a large colored vote and get myself elected, as they were sure I could easily do, to a seat in Congress --possibly in the Senate. That I did not yield to this temptation was not entirely due to my age, for the idea did not square well with my better judgment and sense of propriety. The thought of going to live among a people in order to gain their votes and acquire official honors was repugnant to my self -respect, and I had not lived long enough in the political atmosphere of Washington to have this sentiment sufficiently blunted to make me indifferent to its suggestions. I do not deny that the arguments of my friends had some weight in them, and from their standpoint it was all right; but I was better known to myself than to them. I had small faith in my aptitude as a politician , and could not hope to cope with rival aspirants... "I think in this I was right; for thus far our colored members of Congress have not largely made themselves felt in the legislation of the country; and I have little reason to think that I could have done any better than they." P. 835-836 "An effort was being made about this time to establish a large weekly newspaper in the city of Washington, which should be devoted to the defense and enlightenment of the newly emancipated and enfranchised people; and I was urged...to become its editor-in-chief. My sixteen years' experience as editor and publisher of my own paper, and the knowledge of the toil and anxiety which such a relation to a public journal must impose, caused me much reluctance and hesitation; nevertheless, I yielded to the wishes of my friends and counselors, went to Washington, threw myself into the work, hoping to be able to lift up a standard at the national capital for my people which should cheer and strengthen them in the work of their own improvement and elevation. "I was not long connected with this enterprise before I discovered my mistake. The cooperation so liberally promised, and the support which had been assured, were not very largely realized. By a series of circumstances, a little bewildering as I now look back upon them, I found myself alone, under mental and pecuniary burden involved in the prosecution of the enterprise . I had been misled by loud talk of a grand incorporated publishing company, in which I should have shares if I wished, and in any case a fixed salary for my services; and after all these fair-seeming I had not been connected with the paper one year before its affairs had been so managed by the agent by this invisible company or corporate body, as to compel me to bear the burden alone, and to become the sole owner of the printing establishment...This paper was the "New National Era"...A misadventure though it was , which cost me nine to ten thousand dollars, over it I have no tears to shed. The journal was valuable while it lasted, and the experiment was to me full of instruction , which to some extent been heeded, for I have kept well out of newspaper undertakings since. "Someone has said that 'experience is the best teacher.' Unfortunately the wisdom acquired in one experience seems not to serve for another and new one; at any rate, my first lesson at the national capital, bought rather dearly as it was, did not preclude the necessity of a second whetstone to sharpen my wits in this my new home and new surroundings. It is not altogether without a feeling of humiliation that I must narrate my connection with the 'Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company .'" P. 636-637. "'The Freedmen 's Savings and Trust Bank'...was something missionary in its composition, and it dealt largely in exhortations as well as promises. The men connected with its management were generally church members, and reputed eminent for their piety. Some of its agents were preachers of the 'Word.' Their aim was to instill into the minds of the untutored Africans lessons of sobriety, wisdom, and economy, and to show them how to rise in the world. Like snowflakes in winter, circulars, tracts, and other papers were, by this benevolent institution scattered among the sable millions, and they were told to 'look' to the Freedmen's Bank and 'live.' Branches were established in all the Southern States, and as a result, money to the amount of millions flowed into its vaults....The whole thing was beautiful. I had read of this bank when I lived in Rochester, and had indeed been solicited to become one of its trustees, and had reluctantly consented to do so; but when I came to Washington and saw its magnificent brown stone front, its towering height, its perfect appointments and the fine display it made in the transaction of its business, I felt like the Queen of Sheba when she saw the riches of Solomon, that 'the half had not been told me.'... "My confidence in the integrity and wisdom of management was such that at one time I entrusted to its vaults about twelve thousand dollars. It seemed fitting to me to cast in my lot with my brother freedmen and help them build up an institution which represented their thrift and economy to so striking advantage ; for the more millions accumulated there, I thought, the more consideration and respect would be shown to the colored people of the whole country. "About four months before this splendid institution was compelled to close its doors in the starved and deluded faces of its depositors, and while I was assured by its President and by its Actuary of its sound condition, I was solicited by some of the trustees to allow them to use my name as a candidate for its presidency . So I waked up one morning to find myself seated in a comfortable arm chair, with gold spectacles on my nose, and to hear myself addressed as President of the Freedmen's Bank. I could not help reflecting on the contrast between Frederick the slave boy, running about st Colonel Lloyd's with only a tow linen shirt to cover him, and Frederick --President of a bank counting its assets in millions....My term of service on this golden height covered only the brief space of three months, and these three months were divided into two parts , during the first part of which I was quietly employed in an effort to find out the real condition of the bank and its numerous branches... I was induced to loan the bank ten thousand of my own money, to be held by it until it could realize on a part of its abundant securities. This money, though it was repaid, was not done so promptly as, under the supposed circumstances, I thought it should be, and these circumstances increased my fears lest the chasm was not so easily bridged as the actuary of the institution had assured me it could be. The more I observed and learned the more my confidence diminished. I found that those trustees who wished to issue cards and publish addresses professing their utmost confidence in the bank, themselves had not one dollar invested there. Some of them, while strongly assuring me of its soundness , had withdrawn their money and opened accounts elsewhere. Gradually I discovered that the bank had, through dishonest agents, sustained heavy losses at the South; that there was a discrepancy on the books of forty thousand dollars for which no account could be given , and that instead of the assets being equal to the liabilities, we could not in all likelihoods of the case pay seventy-two cents on the dollar... "Standing on the platform of this large and complicated establishment with its thirty-four branches, extending from New Orleans to Philadelphia ...I found the path of inquiry I was pursuing an exceedingly difficult one. I knew there had been lately several runs on the bank, and there had been a heavy draft made upon its reserve fund, but I did not know, what I should have been told before being allowed to enter upon the duties of my office, that this reserve, which the bank by its charter was required to keep, had been entirely exhausted, and that hence there was nothing left to meet any future emergency. Not to make too long a story, I was, in six weeks after my election as president of the bank, convinced that it was no longer a safe custodian of the hard earnings of my confiding people.... "After seven years ...the depositors may deem themselves fortunate if they receive sixty cents on the dollar for what they placed in the care of that fine institution... "I was married to a corpse.... "When I became connected with the bank I had a tolerably fair name for honest dealing...I could today, with the confidence of the converted centurion, offer 'to restore four-fold to any whom I have unjustly taken aught.' I say this not for the benefit of those who know me, but for the thousands of my own race who hear of me mostly through the malicious and envious assaults of unscrupulous aspirants, who vainly fancy that they lift themselves into consideration by wanton attacks upon the characters of men who receive a larger share of respect and esteem than themselves ." P.837- 843

THANKSGIVING FEVER

I HAVE THANKSGIVING FEVER For whatever reason, so early in October, I am already in October 2019, dreaming about , thinking about our American Thanksgiving, "Turkey Day," my favorite family holiday ! No gifts to give nor gifts to exchange . No lines nor parking lots to negotiate or hazard. Just packs of friends, of family, feasting, and non-stop football 🏈! (And sales!) Nothing to buy, but ham, turkey, pies, cakes, ice cream, fruit, wine, chicken, corn meal, peas, carrots, flour, sugar, salt, pepper, sage, beans, paprika, garlic, onions, celery, green pepper, corn, butter, cooking oil , chitterlings, ice potatoes, sweet potatoes, greens ! Don't mind me! I am old school and I am proven school, not innovative, nor modern nor acculturated to the present orientation of prepared or ready-mix that is so vogue, risqué! The preparation of the food is itself celebratory for the gifts of Almighty God made manifest in the edibles in gestation, in felicitous company. Some may not know what the heck Elder is talking about. But for the others who do know! Very Happy Thanksgiving already from me to you! Work that thang! Do the do! Thank you Lord Jesus , Jehovah-Almighty God through and through!

GOD IN US

Rather than my denying the God in you that is necessarily also in me, I work to increase the realization of God in you that is necessarily in me.

FACTS LIES

Facts radicalize . Lies anesthetize .

"AIDING COMFORTING ENEMIES"

AIDING COMFORTING ENEMIES Working for the enemy is giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy. Aid and Comfort to the Enemy SECTION 3. Clause 1. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open court." Article III. U. S. Constitution That is treason. The "enemy" is a political term that changes over time. Once, the Soviet Union was an ally in World War II contra Hitler. With the Cold War, USSR became the enemy with Red China. With "detente" and "glasnost" and the death of Mao, the enemy became more murky. Each former enemy became capitalist competitors. The billionaires of Russia and China are competing with Americans all over the world. Are they still enemies? African Americans' ancestors have been enemies within the United States, who were denied aid and comfort as a matter of American law in and outside of courts, legislatures, as a matter of ingrained custom. It did not matter that African Americans saved the country from military defeat in the American "Revolution" when James Armstead , an enslaved double-agent, betrayed England into a trap, forcing her surrender. More recently in the Civil War, a/k/a "Freedom War" it was of little or no political significance that the African Americans were the force who saved our nation from dissolution and destruction by fighting for its preservation as newly freedmen and freed women. By helping (cooks, spies, laborers) as millions of so-called " "contraband": emancipated slaves; these gave aid and comfort to the Union after January 1, 1863, by means innumerable. For eight turbulent but hopeful years the African Americans were fretted over, sweated over , until the end of "reconstruction," when the leading white men of North and South, Democrat and Republican, joined to effect reconciliation of the American "whites" at the expense of the blacks and in contempt of the newly ratified Constitutional Amendments and their statutes. By reason of "white reconciliation", the blacks then became the enemy once again, as before the Civil War. The only "aid and comfort" that the blacks got was a lynch rope, bullet in the back, voting , education , denial of bank loans, no abandoned lands,"separate but equal" everything in America, except jail, in land of the alleged free and the home of the alleged brave. Even in 2019, police officers may shoot to kill unarmed black if they "fear for their lives" by Supreme Court law! So "aiding and comforting" the enemy by working for them in Ukraine (Russia) is political in 2019, as relates to Joe Biden's son, Hunter. Perhaps other prominent, political Americans family members are doing the same as well. Many things in America are political even sex, even birth , life, death, legacy! What "aiding comforting lies!

COLLOQUY

COLLOQUY ABOUT OUR OWN AMERICAN "PHILOSOPHER KING" "Dr. King taught philosophy at Morehouse College. I was in his social ethics class. "Great affirming information, Tom Southern, What was he like as a philosophy professor? "He was our teacher while yet a brother. Teaching interrupted by many jailings. Julian Bond was in the class and we were all actively involved in the movement. Learning took place outside the walls of the classroom. I am now an old foot soldier and thankful I've made it thus far. "I am overwhelmed, overjoyed by your witness and testimony, brother Tom Southern! What a mighty God we serve! You are a blessing!" The above colloquy between a Facebook friend and me confirmed my earlier conviction and post that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was really a "philosopher," Indeed, he was our "Philosopher King" as another FB friend reminded me, evoking Plato's "Republic". Greek philosopher Plato's classic, was required reading in Dr. Samuel Yette's journalism class at Howard University in the 1970s for us students. The "Philosopher King" quip came from a Bison brother, Cook Hall mate, FB friend, named Edgar Williams. Of course both Tom Southern quoted above and Dr King are both Morehouse men. Add it all up, there are inferences to be drawn from this by those with "ears to hear, minds to think and hearts to believe" thus says the Lord. One such inference is philosophy has value and utility in American life, as in ancient life; as does history have like value, with spiritual orientation towards God. For it is, at least, arguable that the philosophy of Jesus Christ was a sacerdotal refinement of that of ancient pharaohs' scribes, priests, astronomers'. He came after them and in the context of his own syntax derived "Be you perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect" and the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5 in the Bible. These holy teachings our enslaved ancestors intuited in the context of their own lives. Thereby, they not merely survived but thrived to be able to produce us as witnesses, as testimonies, to the power of divine philosophy in righteous minds, who already know that God is in power! 

DR. KING WAS A PHILOSOPHER

DR. KING WAS A PHILOSOPHER Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr is remembered much more as an iconic civil rights leader, Baptist preacher, husband and father, than as the philosopher, which he was. Dr. King's doctorate in 1955 was in systematized theology from Boston University. In his scholarly work, he compares the works of two fellow philosophers, Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman. He then contrasts them with his own philosophy that of a personal view of God. This view is the view of black religion for whom God is real, ever present, personal, powerful . Persons with academic doctorates become known by the fields in which they are obtained: historians, mathematicians, archaeologists, sociologists, psychologists, physicists , botanists, philosophers. Yet in his namesake's DADDY KING AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Martin Luther King, Sr with Clayton Riley (1980), no mention is made of his son being a philosopher. The word is not in the index . That lack could not have been an oversight; it had to have been purposely excluded, for the reasons best articulated by others. I simply don't understand. But I say that Martin Luther King, Jr was a philosopher. This is based not merely on my reading of his corpus, books, but on his practical philosophical orientation to God, as the source, personification of life. Dr. King's is redolent of ancient Ethiopian and Egyptian priests, scribes , philosophers', views of life, divine conception and whose works undergird Greek philosophy. Savior Jesus Christ was not known as a "philosopher," either, but by other titles/names . But who when reading the sublime philosophy of the "Sermon on the Mount," can doubt that it was life philosophy. Christ's philosophy was applied and practiced for 400 years by Africans in North America , being the traditional form of religion that was most widely practiced in black churches of any Christian denomination as well as in the secret slave bush arbors, as most eloquently explained by Dr. Howard Thurman, in JESUS AND THE DISINHERITED. Howard Thurman himself was a profound scriptural exegete, cosmic philosopher, and professor, associate/teacher of Dr. King, Jr and Daddy King Sr. Don't believe me read them yourself!

HAITI

Haiti was embargoed by Western European and American countries, after 1803, when Toussaint L'Overture was deceived, captured aboard ship at a "peace parley" and jailed in the Jural Alps in France, where he was starved to death by Napoleon. Touissaint's successor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and others crushed the French army in battle and won true independence. Then, the avaricious colonizers conspired together to created a trade embargo of Haitian sugar and a naval blockade about it, to strangle it, attempting to starve it back into re-enslavement; Later after agreeing to gigantic reparations payments to France in 1824 for tens-billions of francs, limited trade resumed under controlled conditions adverse, always, to Haiti and Haitians to forestall further black revolutions in the New World colonies of France, Spain, England, Netherlands, Portugal, US, etc. The U.S.A. also repeatedly invaded Haiti, even clandestinely elected venal puppets, like Papa Doc Duvalier and Tonton Macoutes.