SQUARING OFF WITH ALI!

SQUARING OFF WITH ALI! I once "squared off"--so to speak--with Muhammad Ali in August 1974. I was newly wed and was taking my still-blushing bride, my first wife, to the Office of Dr. James Edward Cheek, the late, great President of Howard University, in order for her to meet this extraordinary man. Mrs . Tucker, Dr. Cheek's executive secretary told us to have a seat, as he had another visitor. But, that he would surely be out shortly. Soon, thereafter, Dr. Cheek's door swung open. Who should exit? Not Dr. Cheek. Nobody but Muhammad Ali! We both gasped, me and my wife! Muhammad Ali, the Greatest, then the heavyweight champion of the world! I rose to shake his hand. He lightly grazed my hand, while he gazing past me to my lovely wife. Next thing I know, Ali had swooped on her like a hawk on a sparrow, all the while saying "You a pretty girl!" and kissed her on the cheek. She smiled all the while, having made no maneuvers to evade the kiss. It was all done tastefully and quickly . But that did not satisfy me! I threw up my dukes, in a pantomime of the boxers' crouch. Ali threw up his dukes. Looking over at this expert pugilistic wonder of a man, I did what any reasonable, second year, Howard Law School brother would have done--I broke into the Ali shuffle while quickly backpedaling away. Ali made a bounce or two and dismissively waived me away! "Boy! gone somewhere!" he may have said. Meanwhile , the thrilled throng of observers were laughing at our antics and enjoying our great champion's display of humility.

RED SUMMER 100TH ANNIVERSARY

Year 2019 is the 100 year anniversary of the RED SUMMER of 1919, that swept dozens of American cities; first in E. St Louis in 1917, by racist whites, still fighting their "lost cause" Civil War, triggered by migrating African Americans from South.to North. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Summer

POLITICAL MATHEMATICS

MATHEMATICS AND POLITICS In mathematics, constants and variables have value in the outcome; so too do the greatest and the least, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division; rational and irrational numbers; square roots and exponents; fractions and whole numbers. Why do mathematics' variability, diversity, multitudes, magnitudes, symmetry and asymmetry, lack political cogency? Why do blunt instruments and epithets like majority rule suffice?

"PERFECT MAN" STANDARD

"PERFECT MAN" STANDARD Mine is the "perfect man" standard of Matthew 5:48. I may rarely meet it; but it is what I do strive to attain. "Perfect" surpasses a "reasonable man" standard of the common law which is it, under a different name.  Matthew 5:48 New King James Version (NKJV) 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. New King James Version (NKJV)

TOUSSAINT

Toussaint read everything; he follows no methodical program of study, but he gradually educated himself from all sorts of sources. 'His favorite books' says Wendell Phillips, 'were the works of Epictetus, Raynal, and Plutarch, as well as military memoirs. Having learned the properties of various wild plants, he became a country doctor.'"

WHAT IS FORTUNE?

WHAT IS FORTUNE? The quest for enormous fortune in the East Indies--gold, spices--led Christopher Columbus' trio to sail due west, rather than east, like the Portuguese, around the Cape of Good Hope of southern Africa. So, "beyond the pillars of Hercules," seaman myths, onto the shores of an unknown "new world" in Hispaniola, they sailed, based mainly on Moorish sailors' tales of fabled lands to the west of Africa. Could this be a short cut to the riches of the East Indies? The zealous quest for gold, for fortune, drove the royal Spanish sponsors of the Italian, Columbus, to enslave , to exploit, to exterminate Arawak "Indians", whom they deemed them to be. Fortune also drove the expropriation of Africans to the Americas to replace soon-decimated, indigenous people. The zealous quest for fortune yet drives later American ventures and adventures. Fortune is America's heartbeat ; is its reason for being; is its meter , metric, measuring rod. "Fortune" is a necessary thing in context. "Unfortunate" are all they who lack this lapidary, this unction. What, then, is "fortune?" Fortune is variable. To a starving man, fortune is food; to a drowning man, fortune is air; to a thirsty man, fortune is water; to a naked man, fortune is raiment; to a homeless man, it is shelter; to a lonely man, a woman. Fortune is that which completes you; that which satisfies your soul; that which enables, enriches the that life you must lead.

LDF IN LOS ANGELES

"But LDF, an organization led by African-American and Jewish lawyers, had always been about diverse people bound by the mission of delivering on America's promise of equal treatment, liberty, and opportunity. Carrying out that mission in L.A. required a more multiracially and socioeconomically complex approach. In the city of gefilte-fish tacos and chitlin burritos, what choice did we have? "The immense talent of my colleagues aside, it was hard to see how such a tiny office could make a ripple in the ocean of established charities and nonprofit agencies in L. A. Most of the groups did admirable direct service--sheltering the homeless, aiding addict recovery , teaching reading, coaching minority businesses, tutoring children, running health clinics, helping women escape domestic abuse. Few service providers, however , had the artillery to take aim at the root causes of these problems. Sheltering the homeless is a critical service, but permanently breaking the cycle of homelessness requires reengineering the underlying political, economic, policy, medical, mental health drivers of the disease . As lawyers, we also were focused not on root causes but on our class action cases. "Our business as civil rights lawyers was to file lawsuits that enforced the U.S. Constitution's promises. LDF practiced 'impact litigation ' , class action lawsuits designed to change policy and fix systems that affect lots of people at once. We aimed to open doors, to put our clients at the table, influence policy choices, and vindicate rights . LDF had racked up years of tactical victories, winning scores of cases to enforce the relatively limited reach of the civil rights laws won in the 1960s. Unfortunately, I was soon to learn, our courtroom victories rarely touched the deeper problems beyond the reach of the judge. The cases more often restrained unfairness than delivered systemic fairness. I would have to plunge deep into L.A.'s hidden underclass before I truly understood Martin Luther King's warning that 'evils...rooted deeply in the structure of our society... suggest that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced .' Ending extreme poverty and racial exclusion could not be done with lawsuits alone. That also required a revolution in values and the political will to restructure our political and economic systems to open opportunity." P. 90-91, "The Blue Grip," POWER CONCEDES NOTHING, ONE WOMAN'S QUEST FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE IN AMERICA, FROM THE COURTROOM TO THE KILL ZONES, by Connie Rice (2012)