GOD RULES

GOD RULES & SUPER-RULES “My hope for the future of my race is further supported by the rapid decline of an emotional, shouting , and thoughtless religion. Scarcely in any direction can there be found a less favorable field for mind or morals than where such a religion prevails. It abounds in the wildest hopes and fears, and in blind, unreasoning faith. Instead of adding faith to virtue, its tendency is to substitute faith for virtue, and is a deadly enemy to our progress. There is still another ground for hope. It arises out of a comparison of our past condition with our present one,—the immeasurable depths from which we have come, and the point of progress already attained. We shall look over the world, and survey the history of any other oppressed and enslaved people in vain to find one that has made more progress within the same length of time than have the colored people of the United States.” P. 937, “Appendix,” LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1881, 1994), “West India Emancipation address” Elmira, NY (Aug. 1, 1880). It took me several days to get the courage to get around to quoting this “religious” part of the great former slave, Frederick Douglass’ powerful address. That delay was probably because I thought that it might be misinterpreted by cynical knaves who are intent on destroying the black church. I was raised in a church where people shout; where none of the pastors were very well educated, informed, sophisticated. Neither were we, members, as far as that goes. But we serve a mighty God! A God who can make an ass speak! Can make iron float! And can deliver Daniel, Jonah,Shadrack, Meshak and Abednego! Deliver me! That same God delivered Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, Elijah Lovejoy, John Brown! So interpretations may vary but the sun still shines, stars still dazzle and God still rules & super-rules!

SOUL FOODS

As the NEW YEAR, 2020, draws near,I think of my soul foods, ritualized foods, like black-eye peas, okra, sweet potatoes, I also think of some less popular fare like curried goat, chitlins, Whatever rings your bell, be merry, be happy, joyful, satisfied!

THAT WILL PREACH

The saying, “That’ll preach!” is coded, black preacher-parlance that affirms, verifies, reifies, the spiritual power, the analogical substantiality, the incipient truth of any observed, heard, tasted, smelt, felt—  thought, utterance, image, natural material or musical riff.

CONCEIT

Viewing oneself, conceiving oneself, as separate from God, apart from God, as other than God, is the height of conceit.

NATURE REIFIES

Nature reifies rhetoric. If not, such rhetoric is untrue, unnatural, unreal. 1Larry

SLAVE PIT

SLAVE PIT Friday, December 27, 2019 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman Rich plantation owners in the South used to fight their dogs, roosters, and slaves against each other, from time to time, place to place, for sport, while gambling. Winning brought prestige, fame, wealth. These pastimes led to special training, diets, privileges for the combatants, man and beast, to boost the chances of winning. Some owners would go to extremes to win, like cutting off ears of fighting slave men, filing their teeth, doing whatever promoted an aspect of terror, to kill the spirit of any competitors. One fighting slave was so ferocious that his owner would travel with him to distant states to “pit” him—literally—against other trained fighting slaves. The slave men fought in a muddy pit to frustrate escapes. News of the arrival of traveling fighting slaves brought out area sporting-life gaming crowds, frisk betting, whiskey drinking, tumultuous clamor, drama of all kinds as part of the atmosphere. Death was a routine possibility. Broken bones, dislodged teeth, bashed skulls were par for the course. Like gladiators in Rome, fighters’ lives might be saved or destroyed at “Caesar’s” discretion: thumbs up, thumbs down. One slave fighter had heard accounts of a ferocious fighting slave, a true barbarian, with no ear lobes, filed teeth, vicious mien, bald head. He had killed a number of slaves in the pit with hands, limbs, teeth. His master had decided to pit him—of local renown, but of very few fights-- against this monstrous man. In his heart of hearts, the local fighter knew that something had to be done to save his neck, his own miserable fighting life. But what could be done? He prayed for an answer, for deliverance, but nothing availed. Finally, the day of the fight came. He was oiled up and led to the pit, where he saw a gleaming, leering, monstrous, fighting slave eyeing him with fervent glee, as though he were an appetizing meal. Standing beside the ferocious fighting slave, a killer of other fighting-slaves, stood his pipsqueak master, beaming, taking bets, bragging. After preliminaries, he ordered his slave into the 6-foot deep muddy pit. Jumping in, his slave smeared himself with mud. The local fighter looked down onto the spectacle in the pit; then, he looked over the pit at the spectacle’s pallid owner. Wordlessly, the local slave leaped in an instant, clear across the 6-foot deep pit. In the same inspired motion, he knocked to the ground, the swaggering, ferocious slave’s owner clean-old out with one mighty right-handed fist’s blow to the jaw! It all happened so fast, in such a blurry burst of energy, that the startled slave in the pit was stupefied! The very thought of another black slave striking his white man was so fantastic, was so phantasmagoric, that the pitted-slave was benumbed, dumbfounded! Not only had this slave-opponent knocked his owner unconscious, but he was standing over him to boot, making threatening gestures down to him in the pit, while his irrepressible master lay sprawled on the ground. The shock of this unfathomable, utterly unimaginable occurrence, fortuitous turn of events, stroked him out! In fact, it killed him! Any slave striking a white slave-owner was automatically instant death in his feverish enslaved mind! Conversely, the mind of the local slave, who had overcome the spirit of fear, had intuitively found a neat solution to his multiple compounding dilemmas, by acting. His sagacious actions presented with far less danger to himself, to personal safety, than certain destruction in the bottom of a muddy slave pit. Needless to say, the unconscious slave-owner was later revived to learn that his ferocious fighting slave had died of fright in the pit. He angrily paid off his bets, demanded the death of the local slave, which his enriched owner refused. So, the dead ferocious slave’s former owner left town shaken and deflated. #30

UMOJA

"Umoja" (Unity) : not "all" are needed! Galled by "all," am I, on this day! "When we all, as blacks, get together, we can all do this and that," is especially galling to me, as an oft repeated, utterly untrue, mantra that is both mortifying & misleading ! First, it is ahistorical . Merely a few people have done great things many times, repeatedly, in history. Secondly, it is non-mathematical. Therein, in mathematics, one finds operating: addition , subtraction, multiplication and division ; square roots and exponents; fractions and integers; geometry and arithmetic ; trigonometry and algebra, etc. there is no mathematical "all!" Theologically , God admonished Gideon to reduce his 3,000 men to 300 in order to win the battle over enemies. Thus God took those who "lapped like a dog," while drinking from a river. Again, no "all," y'all! "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump," says scripture to like effect. So, as we meditate on the meaning of unity on "Umoja," this first day of Kwanzaa, do know, now, that no "all" is ever needed, historically, mathematically, theologically, or scripturally, in order to win, or prevail, whatever the travail!

"Problems of the Soul"

“The souls go forth neither under compulsion nor of freewill; or, at least, freedom here is not to be regarded as action upon preference; it is more like such a leap of nature as moves most men to the instinctive desire of sexual union, or in the case of some, fine conduct ; the motive lies elsewhere than in the reason: like is destined unfailingly to like, and each moves hither or thither at its fixed moment. “Even the Intellectual-Principle, which is before all the Cosmos, has, it also, its destiny, that of abiding intact above, and of giving downwards; what it sends down is the particular whose existence is implied in the law (or decreed system) of the universal, for the universal broods closely over the particular ; it is not from without that the law derives the power by which it is executed; on the contrary, the law is given in the entities upon whom it falls; these bear it about with them. Let the moment arrive, and what it decrees will be brought to act by those beings in whom it resides; they fulfill it because they contain it; it prevails because it is within them; it becomes like a heavy burden, and sets up in them a painful longing to enter the realm to which they are bidden from within.” P. 267, “Problems of the Soul,” THE ENNEADS by Plotinus (1991)

DEFT HYDRATION

Ripples, estuaries, eddies dribble away from the main riverine flowing in rivers , oceans, streams. These bring life-giving activities bring hydration to depressed regions. As with water so with natural wealth. Ripples, estuaries, eddies must be used to conscientiously divert hydration back into depressed regions, by deft husbandry of their natural resources. Or be constrained to seek from others what they have earlier given away by indiscriminate spending or frivolous consumption.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Home Contact Christmas Posted byLcoleDecember 24, 2019Posted inUncategorized The seasonal respite of Christmas-New Year’s to our virtuous enslaved forbears meant post-harvest family reunions, blessed spiritual renewal, athletic competitions, male-female courtships, marriages, recreation, strong drinks and good eats , much-needed rest, escapes from chains. Each met it as he or she found it. Each were descendants of Africans who had not only, not “offended”, their captors, oppressors, enslavers, as affirmed by the “Declaration of Independence “; but, each had by their free labor, their prepossessing skills, personal integrity, intellect, enriched exponentially the raw wildernesses of North America into global economic powerhouses and into the earth’s foremost of nations! They identified with the life of Jesus Christ . Like Him, they too had been born in a “manger” to lowly black persons deemed chattel like: horses, cattle, sheep, by white philosophical permutations, law, national custom. Like the Savior, their paternity was naturally, genealogically uncertain; but whoever their inseminator may have been, they all were surely born of the Holy Spirit as He had been in Bethlehem centuries before! Born in North American English colonies who were always fighting , struggling for national sovereignty against claims of French, Spanish, themselves for possession of various Indian nations’ native lands, the Africans were instrumental in these wars, every war, against all claimants, including the Indians’. The Africans explored the continent with Lewis and Clark in the person of Clark’s servant, York. After York, James P. Beckwourth, of white father/slave mother blazed trails across the great plains, through the distant Rocky Mountains, one bears his name. Jim Beckwourth’s vivid frontiersman’s 1855 autobiography details how he traded, trapped, scouted, hunted , fought, translated, and even became a Chief among the Crows with wives for decades . The Civil War’s true account now shows how 200,000 black soldiers and sailors fought to preserve the Union from self-destruction in a struggle to determine whether their enslavement would be extended to new lands, territory acquired from France, after its defeat by “Haiti” in 1804, under Toussaint L’overture and Jean Jacques Dessalines, both former slaves of Saint Dominique . Not only did the forbears preserve the Union in their “Freedom War” , they transformed it philosophically by causing its Constitution’s amending with the 13-14th Amends, granting legal freedom from slavery and citizenship in the nation and state of their birth ; followed by the 15th Amendment right to vote in federal elections (which sounds redundant, given earlier citizenship, but was germane to retrenchment of white supremacy doctrine and doggerel after the Civil War when the unredeemed, unreconstructed United States Supreme Court restored legitimacy to white murders, trickery, legal blasphemy). So, what was gained by forbears was largely lost as crucified “Jesus Christ” hung on the cross with thousands of other inoffensive , virtuous men , women, children , who were lynched by Rome, now killed by transmogrified America. But as He rose, so also, we rose! and do still rise to say ‘Merry Christmas’ to you and yours wherever you are!

REPARATIONS

WAIVING BLACK STATE AND FEDERAL INCOME TAXES ARE ADEQUATE REPARATIONS FOR MISTREATMENT ABUSES

SOUL MUSIC

IN 1950'S-1960'S SOUL MUSIC WAS THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF 'BLACK' AWARENESS; THEN THE MUSIC CHANGED, BECOMING DEMONIC, DISTORTED.

WE ARE GODS

We Are Gods “People tend to play down our power,” said the late maestro Barry White, in an interview with Arsenio Hall. “We are gods. Every man and woman on this planet are gods. I changed my own life at age 16.” Some people may scoff at this as being heresy. But as Barry said people tend to downplay our power. Psalms 82:6 reinforces Barry White when it says “Ye are gods.” I have long been of a similar view to that of Barry White. I said “Sho you right!” when I heard it, agreeing with his hip “In My Garden” motto! Here is the Big’un! Live preaching the truth about our power as gods! https://www.facebook.com/ankhmaatra/videos/459864721597636/?t=0

LINCOLN PER DOUGLASS

LINCOLN PER DOUGLASS Abraham Lincoln, Esq., the 16th President of the United States of America , was a very complicated, very conflicted man. I did not fully know how extremely complicated/conflicted he was, before reading Frederick Douglass’ profound “Oration Delivered on the Occasion of the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument, in Memory of Abraham Lincoln , in Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C., April 14, 1876.” Douglass knew Lincoln intimately. They were spiritual, philosophical, historical peers in American history. Both men emerged from humble beginnings. Douglass was a black, Maryland, runaway, slave. Lincoln was a poor, white, frontiersman. Both men were self-educated and lovers of books; both men were stentorian orators , whose words yet emblazon turbines of thought. I thought that I already knew Frederick Douglass. I had read his thrilling 1845 NARRATIVE while but a teenager, and presumed that there was nothing else much to know. Blessedly, the arrogance of youth has blossomed into a humble openness to greater understanding in my 68th year. For I was revivified, sanctified by reading DOUGLASS AUTOBIOGRAPHIES: NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE; MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM; and LIFE AND TIMES (1994). In the appendix of this heady work is found an “Appendix” containing the April 14, 1876, oratory mentioned above that I had started not to read, surmising that I had read all that there was to know! When one humbles oneself, one is usually blessed with understanding. I certainly was blessed for forcing myself to read Frederick Douglass’s oration dedication to the unveiling of the statue of Abraham Lincoln that was paid for exclusively by the ‘colored people’ in 1876, before the rest of the nation drew abreast, by erecting Lincoln Memorial in 1922. I have attached here Douglass’ divine dedicatory address, sermon, lecture, history lesson, prophesy, below, beloved reader, for your own edification. It is one of the greatest of American orations! Coming now after the impeachment of Donald Trump, it takes on a more sublime character ; for it contrasts what was, with what seemed; with what remained unrealized; with what was reclaimed; with what is almost lost! https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/4402

VOICES

A small quiet voice is more powerful than a big loud voice

LEARN

LEARN LONG AS YOU LIVE Knowledge is the natural baseline of wisdom and understanding. It is also the armor of initiative, the bulwark of the ambitious. Getting knowledge is necessary but not sufficient into itself to gain and keep power. For mere, disembodied, knowledge lacks the means for that practical self-expression of its inert applications for that which it knows. The key word is “disembodied” for it particularizes knowledge as inert. Inert means intellectual or spiritual. “Faith without works is dead” says the Bible; stating “Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” James 2:18. Faith is intellectual, thoughts, inert. Bodies materially apply knowledge to practical circumstances in faith for outcomes based on precedents. Thus, if disembodied knowledge is inert, bodies without knowledge are directionless, dispirited, plain, base. Life’s spiritual upshot, knowledge, needs bodies to do the will of divine intelligence: instinctual or learned. Bodies need intelligence to work the work of the Giver of matter\energy, that’s commonly called knowledge . Knowledge is dynamic. It requires continuous improvements, since the cosmos, heaven, earth, are growing continuously, infinitely, dynamically. Learn as long as you have a faculty for breathing to stay connected to eternal universal accretions of God. Amen.

IMPEACHMENT 1868, 2019

IMPEACHMENT 1868 This December 19, 2019, constitutional edition for Donald John Trump is my second, observed, American Presidential impeachment . I am 68. The first American Presidential impeachment was in March 1868, just 3 years after the Civil War, the Andrew Johnson-edition. It was in the era in which our great-grandparents lived, following the Civil War, “Freedom War,” to them, when, then, newly freed from slavery, they may not have known of impeachment’s importance in their lives. If not they could hardly be blamed! Being “free” itself was so dazzling, so hopeful; so heaven-sent; that just to survive with their families, intact, from day-to-day was so daunting in Mississippi, they are excused, by me, if they did not appreciate impeachment’s enormity. “Freedom” with its daily challenges to the underserved Freedmen, who lacked land, resources, back wages was their enormity! Freedom and surviving: eating, sheltering, raising, clothing, educating their with family intact, were our great-grandparents’ all-consuming challenges. Freedom is no less our enormity, in 2019! “Freedom” is an ever-present enormity for everyone! U.S. Senate: The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (1868) President of the United States

BLASPHEMY

Blasphemy All roads lead to God, not to Rome; that is false philosophy, blasphemy

SANDWICHES

SANDWICHES A pretty lady shared her sandwich with me in a hallway when I was a boy at the annual Annie Malone Parade In St. Louis and quite hungry. So when I saw her walking swiftly down the hall, of some building associated with the parade, eating, I stopped her. And I asked “where do you get the sandwiches?” She stopped when she heard me . Looked inquiringly at me, she divided her sandwich in half, gave a piece to me, and kept right on moving swiftly. Another pretty woman, decades later , did the same thing aboard a flight from Washington, D. C. She had flown from Nashville to pick up her daughter who was a Howard University student. The mother had exchanged glances with me in the terminal as we awaited boarding. I was reading a book, as usual. She was a professor at Tennessee State. We sat side by side until they disembarked in Nashville. But the simple dignity and beauty attending her person was amplified, when she pulled out a carefully wrapped sandwich from her bag, offered half to me, that I graciously accepted. Lord! It was heavenly delicious! The quickest way to a man’s heart and memory is to feed him! I know!

"MODERN AFRICA"

“An Africa without modern schools and teaching could never make progress; everyone agreed about that. But the provision of this kind of education ran into three big obstacles. One problem was that money for schools and teaching was always in short supply. In every colony, most children had no chance of going to school because there were no schools to go to. By 1945, even in the less backward colonies, the proportion of children who could go to school was smaller than one in every ten. The ability to read and write was still a rare skill. In the backward colonies—those of Portugal after 1945–the proportion of Africans who had been able to learn this skill was smaller than one in every hundred. “A second obstacle was the poverty of parents. Few could afford school fees, books, clothes, or journey-money if getting to school required a bus journey. Even if they sent their children to school, those sons and daughters might seldom stay for more than one year, or perhaps for two : they were wanted for work at home...Of the few children who went to school, most stayed too short a time to be able to learn much of use. “A third obstacle was the nature of colonial education. When young people managed to get to school, and stay at school, what could they learn? The elements of literacy and religion were the main subjects taught; in the first year or so, they were usually the only subjects taught. Later years included some history and geography, and perhaps one or two other subjects. But all these subjects were taught from a racist standpoint: tending to show that whatever came from Europe was good or useful, and that whatever came from Africa was either the reverse or not worth studying . In history, for example, British colonial schools taught about British kings and heroes, French colonial schools taught about French kings and heroes , and the smaller empires did the same. The general assumption behind behind such teaching was that Africans lacked the capacity to solve their own problems, and Europeans must show them how. “By 1945, however, a lot of people began to see that there was something wrong with this lesson. The economic depression of the 1930s and the Second World War has taught a different lesson: that Europeans had not been able to solve even their own problems, let alone the problems of Africa. And from this different lesson there came a new mode of questioning, of criticism. It was the point at which, after 1945, schools which were intended to teach students to accept and even to admire colonial systems began to turn into schools where students became increasingly critical of those systems . “It was natural that African teachers should often take the lead in this growing trend of independent thought. Much as in the black American community at an earlier period—and black American leadership was now increasingly influential among literate Africans—thoughtful teachers began to question and reject the obedient orthodoxies of official textbooks and attitudes . They sought instead for ways of recalling and then of teaching the values of Africa’s own life and history. “ P.89, “Colonial schools: new sources of anti colonial criticism.” MODERN AFRICA , by Dr. Basil Davidson (1994) Interestingly when I toured Africa in 1983, with a group of Americans, we visited a grade school in rural Tanzania . Their language was Swahili, but they also spoke other languages, English being one of them. I drew a map on the black board of the United States, of Africa and of my home state, Missouri, to show them the long distance from Tanzania that my home was. When I said the word “Missouri” a sound of rapturous wonder arose from the students. Their teacher recognized my confusion and told me that “Missouri” was the sound of a word in Swahili as well. “Small world!” I said to myself . “Small world !

MISSOURI IN SWAHILI

What does the word Missouri mean Swahili? Ad by DuckDuckGo What's a meaningful resolution I can make (and actually keep) for 2020? You've likely made a resolution in the past that turned out... well, let's just say it didn't turn out so well. 😞Not this year!My recommendation? Resolve to take back control of...(Continue Reading) 4 Answers Stephen Muriira Stephen Muriira, Pan-Africanist: if only Africa could become a country :) Answered Mar 3 I am sure you meant mzuri or mizuri. Zuri in Swahili means good. It can be used as a kivumishi (adjective) or as a kielezi (adverb) depending on what you are describing. In the case of mizuri, (which conveniently sounds like Missouri) the person is most likely describing a noun and from a specific noun group the U-I group. These nouns begin with M in singular and Mi in their plural. This group contains most (if not all) plants. Mti mzuri - (A good tree) Miti mizuri - (Good trees) In a complete sentence: Huu ni mchungwa mzuri. (This is a good orange tree.)

IS THE SUN HELL?

The Sun is the closest to “hell” we may ever get to a promised punishment! In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth but no hell is mentioned in Genesis 1:1. An oversight? By God ? Therefore I say that the sun is the closest mankind may come to hell. 

YORK AND CLARK , CLARK AND YORK

YORK and CLARK, companions Wednesday, October 26, 2011 Updated: Tuesday, October 16, 2012 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman York, a black man, was one of the earliest explorers of the Louisiana Purchase. He was a “servant” of William Clark, a leader of the Louis and Clark Expedition, which was commissioned by United States President Thomas Jefferson to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase, and to report back its findings in 1804. York, whom William Clark referred to as his “servent,” was born in Virginia on William Clark’s father’s plantation. They had been playmates since their infancy. They had done everything together as boys: play, wrestle, run, swim, hunt, fish, and look out for one another. Clark, however, was always the boss, because at that time most—but not all-- black people were the chattel slaves of some—but not all-- white people. That was the way life was back in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s in Virginia. York could also read and write and cipher—that is, he could count and figure: add, subtract, multiply, and divide. He had learned these skills along with William Clark, who had had a private tutor to teach him. Most slaves were not taught to read, write and to cipher, because their masters were afraid they might demand their freedom, or run away, once educated. But, York and Clark were practically inseparable, so they also learned together, despite the custom of those times. York, being the body servant of William Clark, grew up in Clark’s shadow. Where you saw Clark, you saw York. And, when you saw Clark, you saw York. They were so close, even their names rhyme, Clark & York, York & Clark. Now the Louisiana Purchase was a large tract of land covering 15 states, west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, and south of Canada. It easily doubled the size of the 13 original British colonies, which then comprised the United States of America. The United States government purchased this land very cheaply from France in 1803, for roughly 3 cents per acre. France, whose leader was Napoleon Bonaparte, had been defeated on the island of Hispaniola, in the nation of “Haiti,” by the black military genius, and former slave, Toussaint L’Overture. Toussaint’s top commander, General Jean Jacques Dessalines, administered the coup de grace to French General LeClerc and 30,000 crack troops in an epochal uprising of that nation’s black slaves. It is the only successful slave revolt in world history. The island of Hispaniola is the first land on which the Italian adventurer, Christopher Columbus walked, when he “discovered the so-called New World in 1492,” some 300 years earlier, claiming it for Spain, aboard three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. At the time of the Louisiana Purchase, however, “Hispaniola” was half-Spanish, “Santo Domingo” and half-French, “Saint Dominigue.” Both western European nations had enslaved and imported hundreds of thousands of African chattel slaves, to grow sugarcane and other crops. “Chattel” means personal property like cattle or horses or crops. In addition to its land on the island of Hispaniola, Saint Dominigue, France also laid claim to vast tracts of land on the North American continent, itself, including New Orleans, Louisiana, and all lands to the west of the Mississippi River and south of Canada. These lands came to be known as “The Louisiana Territory.” A French explorer named Rene LaSalle had claimed these lands for France in 1682 after canoeing down the Mississippi River from Fort Wayne, Indiana . He renamed the Mississippi basin in honor of Louis XIV, king of France. These were the vast lands which Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd President, commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, his fellow Virginians, to explore, to map, survey and describe Saint- Dominique was by far and away the richest French possession in all North America. When Sainte Dominique was lost to the blacks, in a brutal and costly war, the chastened, embarrassed, and humiliated French decided to sell all of their “Louisiana Territory,” not just the City of New Orleans, which the Americans had sought for trade purposes. France determined to sell it all to the Americans at any price, thereby enabling Napoleon to finance and to wage other wars in Europe. The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of approximately 530 million acres (828,000 sq mi or 2,100,000 km²) of French territory in 1803, at the cost of about 3¢ per acre (7¢ per ha); totaling $15 million or 80 million French francs. Including interest, America finally paid $23,213,568 for the Louisiana territory. The land purchased contained all of present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota south of Mississippi River, much of North Dakota, nearly all of South Dakota, northeastern New Mexico, northern Texas, the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide, and Louisiana on both sides of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans. (The Oklahoma Panhandle, and southwestern portions of Kansas and Louisiana were still claimed by Spain at the time of the Purchase.) In addition, the Purchase contained small portions of land that would eventually become part of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The land included in the purchase comprises around 23% of the territory of the modern United States. The purchase was an important moment in the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. At the time, it faced domestic opposition as being possibly unconstitutional. Although he already knew, being one of its authors, that the U. S. Constitution did not contain any provisions for acquiring territory, Jefferson decided to purchase the “Louisiana Territory” because he felt uneasy about France and Spain having the power to block American traders' access to the port of New Orleans. President Jefferson was, at that time, President of the American Philosophical Society, a scientific association of leading men, one of whom was its co-founder, Benjamin Franklin. Jefferson sent Meriweather Lewis and William Clark (accompanied by York, naturally) to study under, and to learn from these savants, in Philadelphia, before they were sent forth on this extraordinary expedition of North America, concerning the scientific, linguistic, topological, and anthropological aspects of their impending exploration of the Louisiana Territory. Other explorers had preceded Lewis, Clark and York, in exploring parts of the Louisiana Territory, at least one of whom was also black. His name was Jean Baptiste Point DuSable. Not only was this black French-speaking trapper and wealthy trader renowned for founding the City of Chicago, Illinois, but he was also an early settler of, retired in, the City of St. Charles, Missouri, the first state capitol. Ironically, during the American Revolution, in 1779, Jean BaptistePoint DuSable, the black trader, was arrested briefly by the British for having helped William Clark’s brother, American Gen. George Rogers Clark to win at the critical battle of Vincennes. So, as York, the “servent”, helped William Clark, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, the trader and trapper, had helped his brother, George Rogers Clark. The exploratory party set out from Illinois, in May 1804, near the juncture of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and traveled upstream on the Missouri River in keel boats and pirogues some 1500 miles. Along the way Lewis and Clark kept journals, collected samples, and made astronomical observations from which they drew lines of longitude and latitude and mapped the river and its environs. What ever happened to York, who had tasted the freedom of the wilderness is a very interesting historical question. My research discloses that after returning to St. Louis and discovering that his wife had been sold “down the river” from Kentucky into the Deep South to parts unknown, that he returned to Indian territory, up the Missouri, and finished out his days with 4 Indian wives. Below I set forth additional research on this interesting subject. “YORK”: BIG, BLACK, MEDICINE MAN Tuesday, October 13, 2009 By Larry Delano Coleman, Esq. Members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, according to an April 1, 1804, “Journals” entry, included York, a “negro slave of Captain Clark’.” York is included among the roster of persons on the Lewis and Clark expedition, who were not on the “official pay-roll” (p.12, footnote 1). Other non-payroll roster members included: “Two interpreters, George Drewyer (or Drouillard) and Toussaint Charbonneau; an Indian woman, Sacajawea (“Bird Woman”), Charbonneau’s wife. Passed a projecting rock on which was painted a figure and a Creek… opposite a verry bad Sand bar of several miles in extent, which we named Sand C, here my servent York Swam to the Sand bar to geather Greens for our dinner, and returned with sufficient quantity wild Creases [Cresses] or Tung [Tongue] grass… (p.40) (June 4, 1804) “I saw Pelicans to day on a sand bar, My Servent York nearly loseing an eye by a man throwing Sand into it…” (p. 53) (June 18, 2004) According to William Clark, in a journal entry dated October 9, 1804, States that the Indians were “much astonished at my black Servent, who did not lose the opportunity of displaying his powers Strength &c. &c. this nation never saw a black man before.” (p.185) “By way of amusement [York] to them that he had once been a wild animal, and caught and tamed by his master; and to convince them showed them feats of strength which added to his looks made him more terrible than we wished him to be.--Biddle (I, p. 101). In a rare pamphlet entitled Adventures of Zenas Leonard (Clearfield, Pa. 1839)--for information regarding which see Chittenden’s American Fur Trade, I, p. 397--is an account of a negro residing (1832-1834) in the Crow village at the junction of Bighorn and Stinking rivers, who apparently was Clark’s servant York. He told Leonard that he first went to that country with Lewis and Clark, with whom he returned to Missouri; and he afterward accompanied a trader up the Missouri, and had remained with the Indians ever since (about ten or twelve years). He had, when Leonard saw him, four Indian wives, and possessed much reputation and influence among the Crows, from whom he secured the return of some horses which they had stolen from Leonard’s party.---Walter B. Douglas (St. Louis). (p. 185, n.1) (April 1, 1804) “I Derected My all Servent York with me to kill a Buffalow near the boat from a number then scattered in the Plains. I saw at one view near the river at least 500 Buffalow, those animals have been in view day feeding in the plains…” (p. 143) (September 8, 1804) “Several of the Curious Chiefs whome wished to see the Boat which was very curious to them viewing it as great medison, (whatever is mysterious or unintelligible is called great medicine) as they also viewed my black Servent.” (p.209) 10/28/1804 Those people are much pleased with my black Servent. Their womin verry fond of caressing our men &c. (p.194) 10/15/1804) Those Indians were much astonished at my Servent, they never Saw a black man before, all flocked around him & examin him from top to toe, he Carried on the joke and made himself more turribal than we wished him to doe. (p. 186) October 11, 1804. “[W]e made up the presents and entertained several of the curious chiefs whome, wished to see the Boat which was verry curious to them viewing it as great medison, (whatever is mysterious or unintelligible is called great medicine) as they also Viewed my black Servent.” (p. 209) (October 28, 2004). “I found them much pleased at the Dancing of our men, I ordered my black Servent to Dance which amused the Croud Verry much, and Somewhat astonished them, that So large a man should be active…” (p. 243) (December 28, 1804). York was also an interpreter. He is listed among other interpreters as “a Black man by the name of York, servant to Captain Clark.” (p. 284) April 7, 1805; also (p.229) November 30, 1804. “the method of Lewis and Clark’s communications with the Indians: “A mulatto, who spoke bad French and worse English, served as interpreter to the Captains, so that a single word to be understood by the party required to pass from the Natives to the woman [Sacajawea, Indian wife of Charboneau, who could not speak English], from the woman to the husband, from the husband to the mulatto, from the mulatto to the captains.”--Ed. (“Mulatto” reference to York, or someone else?) (p.229, n.1) (November 30, 1804) “[T]his day being Cold Several men returned a little frost bit, one of the men with his feet badly frost bit my Servents feet also frosted & his P----s (penis?) a little…” (p. 235) (December 8, 1804) Interpreters, George Drewyer and Tauasant Charbono also a Black man by the name of York, servant to Capt. Clark, an Indian Woman wife to Charbono with a young vhild, and a Mandan man who had promised us to accompany us as far as the Snake Indians with a view to bring about a good understanding and friendly intercourse between that nation and his own… (p.284) (April 7, 2005) #30 The point established by the foregoing discussion, citations about York and Clark, Clark and York, is that African Americans were endemic to the founding, settling, exploration, of the United States of America, and, therefore, need not defer to anyone, or anything, respecting their primacy: derivative, involuntary, or volitional.

IMPEACHMENT "POLITICS"

The impending official impeachment trial of President Donald Trump that is pending before the House of Representatives before heading to the Senate for determination was further augmented by the disclosure that the war in Afghanistan has been propped up on many officials’ lies since the “baby” George Bush #43 administration . Nor sadly were these ruinous lies the only official national lies. For lying as a matter of national public policy dates back at least to the nation’s founding in 1789, and probably even sooner. In his 4th century B. C. classic, POLITICS, Greek philosopher, Aristotle, the tutor to Alexander “the Great” of Macedonia, who too was killed in Afghanistan, while seeking to conquer the world, wrote the following pertinent words therein: “[If] the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call it its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse or a family. Besides the final cause and end of a thing is its best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best.” Book 1, chapter 2. The nature of AMERICAN society, having been born in lies, raised on lies, and sustained by lies, it is only “natural” per Aristotle, that in our nation of lies and liars that the United States Senate must acquit President Trump of the two charges that have been arraigned against him. Liars beget, protect, liars. It is not only “natural,” but inevitable. Aristotle adds in denouement : “A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, and yet he who first founded the state were the greatest benefactors. For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with arms, meant to be used by intelligence and virtue, which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states , for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.”

DIMENSION

DIMENSION IS MEDIUM. DOMAIN IS BEING. EXISTENCE IS ALLOYED LIFE THAT IS IMMANENT IN DIVINE IDEAL

GLOBAL NEOCOLONIALISM

“Neocolonialism” usually applies to ‘Third World’ countries , not to the United States of America. But in reading MODERN AFRICA (1994) by Dr. Basil Davidson, “neocolonialism” seemed to pertain to our historic American internal political plight also. While my initial thought was that the conditions of neocolonialism clearly appeared to apply to post-civil war suffrage among the freed slaves and free blacks in the South, certainly in the turbulent post-Reconstruction, when attempts to “peonize” the former slaves were notoriously carried out by white Southerner economic interests. But further reflection required that I broaden my first conception into the present day, into 2019, and into the remainder of the United States of America; to view “neocolonialism” without regard to race or color , but as practical philosophical phenomenon. After all America was an actual colony, itself, from 1619 until 1781, when with the defeat of Great Britain, it gained a form of independence. It was still a colony philosophically until 1789, when its imperfect Constitution was ratified; and until 1814, when the resurgent British colonizers were again defeated in their war of 1812’s “recolonization” attempt. Americans, as a matter of organic law, remained colonists by legal rubric until after the North-South “Freedom War” of 1861-1865, when it adopted the transformative, uniquely American, more perfecting, 13th, 14th, and 15th Constitutional Amendments that not only made state and federal citizens of African Americans; but had made true citizens of everyone else, invested now with Equal Protection” , “Due Process” under law, privileges. Its unsteady attempts to become “a more perfect union,” however, have fallen short, repeatedly. In 1877, the “Hayes-Tilden Compromise” gave the White House to Republicans, but gave renewed license to the South to resume its economic oppression of its black citizens (now again denizens). In 1881, resurgent legal repression arose with the United States Supreme Court’s “Civil Rights Cases” declaring the unconstitutionality of the “Civil Rights Acts of 1875,” that had criminalized personal racism and had guaranteed equal rights to blacks in public accommodations everywhere . Repression came again in the form of the assassination of President James A. Garfield also in 1881. And with 1896’s “separate but equal” legal imprimatur in Plessy v. Ferguson, old repression re-achieved hegemony . The incessant attempts to recover from these legal reversals resumed in the courts in the 1930’s with the state and federal court legal victories achieved by NAACP’s lawyers: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, black/white associates, or classmates, from Howard University Law School. After 1954, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., our own black philosopher-king, reinvigorated the neocolonial freedom struggle by “taking it to the streets” by massive civil disobedience marches, boycotts, demonstrations, sermons , lectures, across cities and states, into living rooms, schools, governments, churches, synagogues, and abroad. Dr. King was aided by and inspired by SNCC-black students’ “freedom rides” and “sit-ins.” He was transformed by attorney Mahatma Gandhi of India’s “Sarvodaya”, 1947, nonviolent philosophical victory against British neocolonialism. That productive restorative post-Reconstruction era ended in 1968 when, then-vilified, as “too conservative” Dr. Martin Luther King, jr. was shot, killed, in Memphis, Tennessee, glorified, like Gandhi. “Neocolonialism”, as used by Dr. Basil Davidson, was “the handing over of power to African groups and persons who could be relied upon to safeguard the interests, at least the economic interests of the former empire-owners. Dominant ‘middle-class’ interests in Europe, in other words, were to be defended and reinforced, in any prospective decolonizing process , by the promotion of subordinate middle-class interests in Africa.” P.81, “Colonialism in Crisis.” “Neocolonialism” is the now-current, dissembled, political philosophy used coyly by prevailing economic interests to protect, preserve, perpetuate their privileged power and wealth by proxy. As such it yet remains in America, India, elsewhere in varying degrees.

WHEN WE RULED: ARABIC SCRIPT

“Note on the role of Islam in African Culture. “Dr. Leo Frobenius, the great German Africanist, was among the first to refute the notion that the civilizations of West Africa and the Central Sahara were of Arab inspiration (see page 362). Nevertheless, misconceptions continue to persist. What is less well known is that the Arabic script, used in many of these civilizations, was in fact of African origin. Ibn Khallikan, the great biographer of the Middle Ages, claimed that Abu Aswan, an African invented the Arabic script. Furthermore, the greatest literature of the Arabs was penned by Blacks including Luqman, Antar, Ibrahim Al-Mahdi, and the greatest intellect of them all, Al-Jahiz. On the genesis of Islam, one cannot overlook the outstanding contribution of Bilal, an Ethiopian, who was considered one third of the origin of that religion, where Al’lah was the first part, and Mahomet was the second. In addition , the Ka’aba of Mecca, the only substantial piece of early Islamic architecture in the entire Saudi Arabian region, was rebuilt in its present form by Ethiopian architects (see page 466). It should also be acknowledged that Christianity, like Islam, is also partly of African origin. Among those outstanding Africans who brought glory to the early church were Tertullian, Perpetua, St Cyprian, and the venerable St Augustine . “In conclusion, the presence of Christianity in early Europe , despite its non-European origins, does not de-Europeanise European historical achievements any more than the presence of Islam in early West and Central Africa de-Africanises African historical achievements.” P. 450, “The Central Sahara,” WHEN WE RULED (2006) by Robin Walker

UNTIL

Until enough blacks realize that we freed ourselves by fomenting and winning the Civil War, gross ignorance must remain within us.

CAN WHITE FOLKS OVERCOME?

CAN WHITE FOLKS OVERCOME? It may be too much to expect the white descendants of those who decimated the Americas’ natives, who enslaved descendants of expropriated Africans over two hundred years; who disdain their own laws and founding doctrine ; who lie, cheat , steal, kill, rape, plagiarize; who break their own laws routinely and openly; who suborn their own religious principles and philosophy by racism; it may be simply too much to expect the descendants of such infamy to be able to overcome their historical pedigree! It may be too much. But it may not be. I pray it's not too late for them to overcome!

DR. KING'S INCOME TAX VICTORY

Dr. King was acquitted of tax evasion under an Alabama statute in 1960 for the years 1956 and 1958. Judge, jury, prosecutors were all white. Only King as his lawyers were the only blacks. This income tax may have been his most significant civil rights victory. Its occurrence carries great historical resonance today in 2019.

STOP THE LIES

STOP THE LIES! Saying that the American “Founding Fathers” would have been “horrified” by the conduct of President Donald John Trump, as reported in the media, is far more than being mildly hyperbolic! Just stop to consider that the “Founding Fathers “ approved the duplicitous counting of ‘3/5s’ of the enslaved black people in Article 1, Section 2, of the 1789 Constitution’s tax and representation numerical quotas , while denying their blacks the legal status of basic ‘personhood;’ saying, rather, that blacks, (slave or free), like chattel—cows, horses, pigs, sheep —had no legal rights that white people were duty bound to respect, in 1857. Not even Donald Trump has been so vain as these founding fathers! Vanity! Oh vanity! Compound it by claiming that slaveholder George Washington never told a lie, after chopping down the cherry tree; that Benjamin Franklin flew a kite in the lightning storm with a key attached, miraculously discovered electricity, and avoided electric shock! And the greater shock was to claim that the “Declaration of Independence” was written by the slaveholder, Thomas Jefferson, not by pamphleteer, snubbed-Founding Father, Thomas Paine, of “Common Sense” who was not a slaveholder, but was an early American rarity, abolitionist! Horrified by Trump, you say! No way! For neither Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee nor the Confederate States of America’s hierarchy—civil or military—were ever tried for treason, nor hung outright, despite causing the secession deaths of a million men, women and children! Horrified by Trump? Stop the lies!

CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION “My part has been to tell the story of the slave. The story of the master has never wanted for narrators. The masters, to tell their story, had at call all the talent and genius that wealth and influence could command. They had their full day in court. Literature , theology, philosophy, law and learning have come willingly to their service, and, if condemned, they have not been condemned unheard. “It will be seen in these pages that I have lived several lives in one: first, the life of slavery; secondly, the life of a fugitive; thirdly, the life of comparative freedom ; fourthly, the life of conflict and battle; and, fifthly, the life of victory, if not complete, at least assured. To those who have suffered in slavery I can say, I, too, have suffered. To those who have taken some risks and encountered hardships in the flight from bondage I can say I , too, have endured and risked. To those who have battled for liberty, brotherhood , and citizenship, I can say that I , too, have battled. And to those who have lived to enjoy the fruits of victory I can say I, too, live and rejoice. If I have pushed my example too prominently for the good tastes of my Caucasian readers, I beg them to remember that I have written in part for the encouragement of a class whose aspirations need the stimulus of success . “I have aimed to assure them that knowledge can be obtained under difficult circumstances; that poverty may give place to competency; that obscurity is not an absolute bar to distinction, and that a way is open to welfare and happiness to all who will resolutely pursue that way; that neither slavery, stripes, imprisonment nor proscription need extinguish self-respect, crush manly ambition, or paralyze effort; that no power outside of himself can prevent a man from sustaining an honorable character and a useful relation to his day and generation; that neither institutions nor friends can make a race to stand unless it has strength in its own legs; that there is no power in the world which can be relied upon to help the weak against the strong or the simple against the wise; that races like individuals, must stand or fall by their own merits; that all the prayers of Christendom cannot stop the force of a single bullet, divest arsenic of poisoning or suspend any law of nature. In my communication with the colored people I have endeavored to deliver them from the power of superstition, bigotry, and priest-craft . In theology I have found them strutting about in the old clothes of the masters, just as the masters strut about in the old clothes of the past. The falling power remains among them long since it has ceased to be the religious fashion in our refined and elegant white churches. I have taught that the ‘fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves , that we are underlings,’ that ‘who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.’ I have urged upon them self-reliance, self-respect, industry , perseverance, and economy, to make the most of both worlds, but to make the best of this world first because it comes first, and that he who does not improve himself by the motives and opportunities afforded by this world gives the greatest evidence that he would not improve in any other world. Schooled as I have been by the abolitionists of New England, I recognize that the universe is governed by laws which are unchangeable and eternal , that what men sow they will reap, and that there is no way to dodge or circumvent the consequences of any act or deed. My views at this point receive but limited endorsement among my people. They, for the most part, think that they have means of procuring special favor and help from the Almighty; and that their ‘faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen,’ they find much in this expression which is true to faith, but utterly false to fact. But I meant here only to say a word in conclusion. Forty years of my life have been given to the cause of my people, and if I had forty years more they should all be sacredly given to the same great cause. If I have done something for that cause, I am, after all, more a debtor to it than it is to me. “ P. 913-914, LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1881, 1994).

RAISED RIGHT

“Raised right” means bringing up a child in conformity with social rules of behavior that confirm ideas about the self relative to all else. Raised means systemic sustenance of food water shelter clothes love. Conformity means consistent with custom order expectations values. All ideas, all lives are divine from a source beyond any but the creator. Neither you nor they control may ever control divine ideas, nor acts attributed to ideas; but we try to do our best by raising children up right. 

FIRST BLACK SENATORS

Senators of African descent from the state of Mississippi were empty clouds that promised rain that never fell. Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce were such clouds. Hopeful in appearance but lacking in substance . Mississippi “readmission” to the Union, after the Civil War In 1870 was shoe-horned politically by the pretense of its acceptance of the fact of the end of chattel slavery and its acceptance of the amended constitution of the United States. No better way to carry out the hoax than to send two black senators to Washington as proof of its change, and at least one Representative of African descent : Mr. Robert Lynch. While it is better that these few men were in Congress, than not to have been, the bedazzling allure of elective office did detract from the fact that the state of Mississippi—my birth state-remained notoriously ‘unreconstructed’ despite the show of election pretense resulting in the several African American officials: whose dark presence deceived the nation into believing a falsehood. By ‘notoriously unreconstructed’ is meant that Mississippi did not ever ratify the 13th Amendment of 1865, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude, until 2013! By then, Hiram Revels had served out the remainder of Confederate States of America’s traitorous president, Jefferson Davis’, post-secession, one-year remaining term in the United States Senate 1870-1871. By then also Blanche K. Bruce had been elected to and completed his full six-year term ending in 1881, the same year of President James M. Garfield’s political assassination. Hiram Revels, an iconic African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church pastor, and the first black Alcorn University president, was the first man of African descent to serve in Congress —House or Senate—and his example surely inspired others to do as he had done; if he did not redirect the focus to politics after freedom from thralldom in 1865. Senator Hiram Revel’s next African American successor (following Gov. Alcorn, a white man), Blanche K. Bruce, was a wealthy Mississippi delta landowner, with thousands of acres of land. Bruce certainly had done so , redirected the focus to political office, in the fading days of feigned national Reconstruction. Politics, in short , took priority and took precedence over economics: land redistribution to former slaves, and the education of former slaves. That pattern still prevails into 2019.