President Trump makes History Impeached Again On January 13th, 1931, I, Herbert Daniel Daughtry was born to Bishop Alonzo Austin Daughtry and Mrs. Emmie Cheatham Daughtry in Savannah Georgia at 1007 W 43rd St (Victory Drive) and on January 13th, 2021, the House of Representatives in the United States of America vote to impeach President Donald Trump on charges of inciting an insurrection. Some humorists and cynics and wits said that Mr. Trump’s impeachment was God’s gift to me on my 90th birthday. It was the fourth time a President had been impeached - Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, for Mr. Trump it was the first time a President was impeached twice. It all started with Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept defeat in the Presidential campaign. Throughout the campaign, whenever he was asked, if would he accept the results of the election? He never said yes. He would either dance around the question or clearly state, that he wouldn’t accept the results unless he won. Also, he had demonstrated his connection with white racist, terrorist militia groups. So, when he lost, he and his staff and supporters saturated the nation with the message the Democrats had stolen the election. He used every conceivable tactic, legally and some say illegally, to have the election results overturned. He was not successful. The State electors gave Mr. Joe Biden the victory with 306 electoral votes to Mr. Trump's 232 and the popular vote that went to Mr. Biden at 81,283,098 votes, or 51.3 percent and Trump had 74,222,958 votes, or 46.8 percent. It was left to the U.S Congress to accept the elector's votes- a simple piece of business woven into the Constitution and historically happens without drama or resistance. But Donald Trump had other plans. He played what he thought would be his trump card to prevent the Congressional action. On January 6th, 2021 as Congress was meeting in the Capitol building, Mr. Trump and his followers were holding a mass rally not far away. For weeks, he and his supporters had been sending a message that something important would be happening on that day. At the rally he along with his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and his lawyer Giuliani excited the crowd with highly inflammatory language like, “This gathering should send a message to them: This isn’t their Republican Party anymore! This is Donald Trump's Republican Party!” said Donald Trump Jr. Eric said, his father “has more fight in him than every other one combined. And they need to stand up. And we need to march on the Capitol today. And we need to stand up for this country. And we need to stand up for what’s right.” Mr. Trump in his statement said, “Now, it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down.” Let me emphasize that after they spoke, they got into their cars and hastened away and according to the reports Mr. Trump enjoyed watching the mayhem which was to follow. In the aftermath of the unforgettable acts and images, verbiage and violence, among the most vivid for me and I think at the core of it all was a man carrying a huge confederate flag or a flag similar. It was conspicuously, proudly carried by a mean angry looking large white man defiantly striding through the hallowed halls of Capitol Hill. In his mind, he was winning, especially since the Congress members and their staff were being rushed to hiding places. Even as the invaders were vigorously screaming out the names of some Congressional members. I wondered if in his mind he was reliving the Civil War only this time the South was on the march to victory as General Sherman had marched through the South. He was marching against the North which represented Democrats, immigrants, leftists, radicals, socialists, nigras, etc. The flag with all of its monuments and memorials across the country is an attempt to revive with even greater force, the old South. Searching through my files I found an old calendar that describes the history of the confederate flags, monuments, and memorials that were/are pervasive across America. The authors write “though confederacy was defeated in 1865, many prominent memorials were dedicated generations later, sometimes with express opposition for racial equality. The Equal Justice Initiative has documented ‘since 1838 confederate monuments nationwide, including dozens in the North and West.’ Most remain in prominent, public locations like town squares, courthouse lawns, and State Capitols. Scores of confederate monuments ensured at the turn of the 20th century attempted to recast Confederate Secessions as a sense of liberty rather than to preserve slavery and white supremacy. By 1950, the South had more than one thousand confederate monuments including at least one in every state capitol and three hundred on courthouse grounds.” “In 1955, one year after Brown v. Board of Education ordered an end to school segregation, Robert E. Lee High school in Montgomery Alabama erected a bronze statue of the confederate general at its entrance. Texas installed twenty confederate monuments in the 1960s. In 1964 alone, sixteen different monuments were erected across the South. As civil rights activists gravely agitated for change segregationists opposed to racial equality adopted the confederate battle flag as a symbol of defiant resistance to racial integration. Today Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina*, Tennessee, and Virginia have passed “heritage laws” to prevent the removal of confederate monuments, nearly all of these monuments stand in communities with no public memorial to the history of slavery and lynching or any public acknowledgment of what confederate ideals meant for millions of disenfranchised Black people.” *Respecting the removal of flags and monuments. In recent times, I marched and rallied in South Carolina and other places at the Capitol building for the removal of the Confederate flag and statue and of recent times for the removal of Confederate monuments, flag, and the naming of military installations, ie. Fort Braggs. At the press conference, President Biden issued his support for the removal of monuments and reinstating Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill in place of slave-owning- President Andrew Jackson. Clearly, the mindset or the spirit of the old confederacy with all of its evils has not died or not been put to death. Throughout the history of people of African Ancestry in the USA whenever we have made progress, the old racist confederacy comes roaring back with a vengeance. Especially is this true in the equality of the electoral process is concerned. In my book, My Beloved Community published by Africa World Press, 2001 in the chapter Threat from the New Right; Tracing the History of an All Wrong, I wrote “all forms of racism were manifested in the political system. Black people had been excluded from the political process for most of America’s history. What America claimed to have fought for, no taxation without representation was not extended to Blacks. Recall Thomas Jefferson’s lofty words ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident that all people are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain and alienable rights. Among these, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ Significantly Thomas Jefferson changed the last word, originally it had been property. These lofty sentiments were not extended to Black people. But a particular development occurred. Black people did not count; they did not exist as far as many white people were concerned. But some white people said, ‘Oh, yes, they exist. We have them on our plantation and we want them counted. But you cannot count them,’ other white people said, ‘because they are your slaves. Yes, they exist but they belong to you.’ ‘Alright,’ they said, ‘let us compromise we will count them as 3/5 of men.’ So today, right there in the Constitution, it is recorded; ‘Representatives and direct taxes should be a portion among the several states which may be included in this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, 3/5 of all other persons.” “After the Civil War.... it seemed that at last America would be an open society. Black people would be recognized as human beings. Representative Thaddeus Stevens and Senator Charles Sumner were leading the way. There were attempts to redress inequalities in the Constitution, and the 13th Amendment adopted in 1865 ended slavery. The 14th Amendment in 1868, conferred citizenship; and the 15th Amendment adopted in 1870 extended enfranchisement.” On March 2nd, 1867, Congress legislated that the former slave States should have a convention and all male citizens were entitled to participate. (Notice here at this time women were treated less than human, and I might add that one of the foremost protagonists for women’s rights was Frederick Douglass - it wasn't until 1920 when the 19th Amendment was adopted, that women were given suffrage.) To be continued...

Part Two There still rests heavily on my mind President Biden’s press conference on June 26, 2022 on his return from meeting with the G7 leaders and the suffering people of Ukraine and the rest of the world. It is hard for us to know the truth of what’s going on in Ukraine. The first casualty of war is truth. No nation has a monopoly on stupidity or sagacity. The American press, for the most part, seems to be on a mission to make sure that we see the worst of war waged by Putin (not President Putin or the Russians but just plain Putin. It’s Putin's war.) All day long, for those of us who studied the media, we hear or see bombed hospitals, residents, supermarkets, playgrounds, old folk homes; old women crying in the streets wondering about homeless babies crying for their mommies, families held up in bomb shelters and the rumination of villages and cities. All of this could end if the U.S and NATO would give President Zelensky and the Ukrainians all the money and military weapons they need. Blame this idea on the media. They have helped to feed this idea that Ukranians can defeat Russia or wear Russia down to the impotence in a long protracted military and boycott operations. Some people believe it explains why the peace supposedly was rejected. America has already given 15 billion and 40 billion more has been allocated, and sophisticated weapons. But still, they want more sophisticated weapons. President Biden has been reluctant to provide more highly sophisticated weapons less Russia decides to do the same and there is an intensification of the escalation. President Zelensky has demanded 5 billion per month. All the while the leaders are talking tough while they are tucked away in safe places, some of them enjoying luxurious amenities. It brings to mind one of the most memorable experiences I had in the UN Security Council. In 1977 President Joshua Nkomo came to New York to speak at the UN Security Council. Joshua Nkomo was called The Godfather of the Southern African Liberation Movement. He was president of the Zimbabwe African Peoples Unity (ZAPU) along with President Robert Mugabe, who was president of Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). The two organizations made up the patriotic front. They fought for the freedom of Southern Rodessa. Once they had gained their freedom, they named the country Zimbabwe. We had raised funds for ZAPU. I had become very friendly with ZAPU’s representative at the United Nations, Christus Ndove. So, when Mr. Nkomo was on his way to speak at the UN Security council. He sent information to me to join him. I was very proud to be in his delegation as he addressed the security council. After his presentation other member nations proceeded to ask him questions. When it was over they stood around shaking hands, patting each other on the back, in a rather friendly setting. I could not help but reflect while some of the men were very cordial to each other on the battlefield. Men and women were locked into military conflict, lives and properties were being destroyed and here the leaders were acting as though nothing was happening at all. At the news conference already alluded to. President Biden was asked “How long will America support Ukraine?” his response, “As long as it will take, Ukraine will not lose the war.” President Putin is equally defiant. Russia is not going to be defeated. President Zelensky said, “we will never give up one inch of land for peace”. But according to Michal von der Schulenberg, there was a proposal that Zelensky did not have to give up one inch of his land. “The key elements for a peaceful solution have already been worked out by courageous Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the first two months of the war. According to these, Ukraine would renounce NATO membership and not allow any foreign military bases on Ukrainian soil, while Russia would commit to recognizing Ukraine’s territorial integrity, withdraw all Russian troops from Ukraine and accept international security guarantees for Ukraine. It had also already been tentatively agreed to give a special status to the Donbas within Ukrainian territory (as already foreseen in Minsk II) and to resolve the future status of Crimea at a later stage through purely diplomatic means. Certainly, this is not a complete peace treaty – not yet; many difficult details remain unresolved. But the outcome of these peace negotiations, even if only provisional, represent an astonishing achievement at a time of war. There is and will be no other peaceful solution than to agree to some form of Ukrainian neutrality in return for preserving Ukraine's territorial integrity. It would be completely illusory to assume, as some Western governments like to claim, that such a peace treaty is a purely Ukrainian responsibility and that they should stay out. To use this to justify the West's silence on Russian-Ukrainian peace efforts is highly disingenuous.” We still do not know the reason for the rejection of the above proposal and who rejected it? As stated above some people believe there are those who want the war to continue. So I guess we ought to prepare our children’s children for war until the present leaders or future leaders with the same mindset put an end to life on the planet. In the meanwhile, death and destruction are the daily lot of the people in Ukraine and hunger, disease, and poverty engulf the world. Back home, in the USA, inflation is still high, food shortages are increasing, fuel prices continue to rise, war in the streets of America, violence of every description, women and others rights are being eroded; the January 6th hearing continues to show how close America came to losing it all, at the insurrection orchestrated by the former President. Covid-19 is on the rise with competition from monkeypox; and heat waves spreading across the USA making living conditions unbearable for millions of Americans. 38 million Americans are food insecure with 12 million children. 42 million Americans are below poverty level and 600,000 are homeless. Such is the state of America at this time. Our traveling President is off again to heal wounds of the world. He will first stop in Israel to reassure Israel that Iran will not have nuclear weapons. It is rather hard to believe that nations with nuclear weapons are now going to dictate whether a sovereign state can have or not have nuclear weapons. In addition, the ancient tension and conflict between Israel and the Arab nation, in particular the Palestinians will surely be under discussion. And so the world continues to spin apparently toward no good end. Before or during or after World War II Winston Churchill is reported to have said, to the best of my recollection, “We seem to be drifting toward some catastrophic end. Everybody wants to do something to stop it. But is unable to do so. So we continue to drift toward a catastrophic end.” I don’t know if the words are accurate but the sentiment expressed seems most appropriate for our time. Except that the leaders, some of them, seem not to be working hard or doing all they can to avert the catastrophe toward which we’re headed. God help us!

Part I President Biden returned from his meeting with the G7 leaders in high spirits. He expressed his accomplishments: 800 million dollars drawn out for Ukraine (a group not long ago the Congress allocated 40 billion dollars for Ukraine. This on top of the already 15 billion that had already been spent or allocated. However, this does not satisfy the insasianable demands of President Zelensky. He wants 5 billion dollars a month. The present allocation includes highly sophisticated defense and nuclear weapons. More ships for Spain and trains for Germany, Italy and England Military headquarters in Poland 300,000 troops were deployed in strategic places by NATO Finland and Sweden were now joined with NATO; he and President Biden settled the objections of Turkey. At what price was not disclosed. Turkey had objected to Finland and Sweden joining NATO and of course the Russians strenuously rejected. This, according to President Biden, stretches an 800-mile protection along Russia’s border. Also, he mentioned that they are preparing for a threat from China. After his presentation, the President was questioned by the press. There was one question which was asked and two questions I thought should’ve been asked but were not asked. First, I think we should understand that a significant part of the American press seemed to be a propaganda mouthpiece for President Zelensky and the Ukrainians. The first question that was asked, “How long will the U.S. support Ukraine?” The President's response was, “As long as it takes.” And I would comment, As long as it takes? It is a scary answer. Does he mean that this war with Ukraine and the US support can go on forever? Does he mean my great grandson and daughter should get prepared for war? And with the war prolongation if there’s a slip-up or accident where someone or somebody says or does the wrong thing which precipitates a nuclear war? And as I say, his response was scary. The second question that was not asked and I wondered why, why this unlimited support for Ukraine. They have been fighting over there for years. I think they have been two wars involving Ukraine. Why now and what’s the game plan? Why is this threat of perpetual war and the possibility of nuclear weaponry? What makes Ukraine so important? The next question I would ask, and most importantly, is why haven’t they arrived at Russian and Ukraine negotiated and not implemented? According to Michael von der Schuelenberg, he writes: “The key elements for a peaceful solution have already been worked out by courageous Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the first two months of the war. According to these, Ukraine would renounce NATO membership and not allow any foreign military bases on Ukrainian soil, while Russia would commit to recognizing Ukraine’s territorial integrity, withdraw all Russian troops from Ukraine and accept international security guarantees for Ukraine. It had also already been tentatively agreed to give a special status to the Donbas within Ukrainian territory (as already foreseen in Minsk II) and to resolve the future status of Crimea at a later stage through purely diplomatic means. Certainly, this is not a complete peace treaty – not yet; many difficult details remain unresolved. But the outcome of these peace negotiations, even if only provisional, represent an astonishing achievement at a time of war. There is and will be no other peaceful solution than to agree to some form of Ukrainian neutrality in return for preserving Ukraine's territorial integrity. It would be completely illusory to assume, as some Western governments like to claim, that such a peace treaty is a purely Ukrainian responsibility and that they should stay out. To use this to justify the West's silence on Russian-Ukrainian peace efforts is highly disingenuous.” It is of paramount importance that the American people, the world and the peoples of the world, are just all peace loving people who must ask the question why the agreement didn’t work. Who objected and why?

President Trump makes History - Impeached Again It should be pointed out here that, As John Hope Franklin observed, the state constitutions drawn up in 1867 and 1868 were the most progressive the South has ever known. Most of them abolished property qualifications for voting and holding office; some of them abolished imprisonment for debt. All of them abolished slavery, and several sought to eliminate race distinctions in the possession or inheritance of property. Between 1869 and 1880, Black people could boast sixteen members in the Congress of the United States, and of that number two were senators. Today, we have 18 representatives and no senators. The Freedman's Bureau, of which W.E.B. DuBois spoke so highly, was trying to assist the newly freed slaves. In 1866, Congress passed civil rights legislation over the veto of President Andrew Johnson, and in 1875 there was more civil rights legislation. But racism was not dead yet. Sadistic racists continued to employ the most vicious practices to intimidate Black people. John Hope Franklin said it well: “as surely as the struggle between 1861 and 1865 was the civil war, so was the conflict from 1865 to 1877, with as much bitterness of hatred, but less blood-shed.” I would only add, less white blood but more black blood. Secret societies grew and spread when it became apparent to Southerners that their control was to be broken by Radical Reconstruction. For ten years after 1867, there flourished the Knights of the White Camelia, the Constitutional Union Guards, the Pale Faces, the White Brotherhood, the Council of Safety, the ‘76 Association, and the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Among the numerous local organizations was the White League of Louisiana, the White Line of Mississippi, and the Rifle Clubs of South Carolina. White Southerners expected to do by extralegal or blatantly illegal means what had not been allowed by law: to exercise absolute control over the Negro, drive him and his fellows from power, an established “white supremacy.” Radical Reconstruction was to be ended at all costs, and the tactics of terrorist groups were the first step of Southern leaders toward achieving the goal. Significantly, beginning in Tennessee in 1870, every Southern state adopted laws against intermarriage. Five years later, Tennessee adopted the first “Jim Crow” law and the rest of the South quickly fell in line. Then along came Rutherford B. Hayes. He wanted to become president and to achieve that objective he was prepared to do anything. He made a deal with former slaveholders; He would pull out the Federal troops, and give money for development and greater representation in Washington for their support. In essence, he would restore the former slave masters to power in the South, and Black people would thus be returned to subjugation. By the latter part of the 1870s, Congress had turned against Blacks. In 1878, the use of armed force to ensure fair elections was forbidden. In 1894, the appropriations for Special Federal Marshals and Supervisors of Election were terminated. In 1898, the last disabilities laid on rebellious Southerners were removed in a final amnesty. The Supreme Court, in spite of the Constitution, found a way to drive Blacks away from the temple of legal and human rights. In 1875, the Supreme Court overturned the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and disregarded the legislation of 1870, which were enactments to stop KKK-type vigilantism. The court ruled in favor of defendants who were indicted for preventing Blacks from the voting period in the United States versus Reese, the court ruled that the statute covered more of more offenses than were punishable under the 15th Amendment. In the United States vs. Cruikshank, the court ruled that the 15th Amendment guaranteed citizens not the right to vote, but only the right not to be discriminated against by states because of race, color, or previous conditions of servitude. In 1883, the court outlawed the Civil Rights Laws of 1875. 1890- Plessy v. Ferguson By 1898, with the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, where the court ruled that there could be such a thing as separate and equal, all the noble efforts of the shatterers of racism had come to naught. So much for the Supreme Court and the defense of our constitutional rights. Men who have a special interest, whose profession it is to deal with words, are like iron smiths, they can shape them any way they want to and when they have the power to enforce their will, their laws- right or wrong- become the law of the land. What is clear to some people: Words on paper mean absolutely nothing. To whom, then, shall we entrust the defense of the Constitution? To the courts? The Congresses? The presidents? All of them at one time or another have proven to be our enemies and the enemies of the Constitution. Sadistic racism coupled with sophisticated racism, with the support of simple racism, succeeded in beating back the shatterers of racism, trampling up the recently enacted ideals of the Constitution and destroying the great work of radical reconstruction. There are striking similarities between that time and our own, which requires more time than I can give in this presentation. 1898-1954 When the new century began there was nothing new about the treatment of black people; 214 lynching’s occurred in the first two years. When the First World War broke out, Woodrow Wilson, like Thomas Jefferson before him, had lofty words of freedom, liberty, and democracy. He wanted to make the world safe for democracy – democracy for everyone but Black Americans. Throughout the twenties, thirties, forties, and on into the fifties-in spite of the Constitution- disenfranchisement, economic exclusion, and social ostracism were the common lot of Black people in most states. This state of affairs carried the sanction of Law. “Separate but equal” was how the Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution, which came to mean separate but unequal. Everybody knew it, and most everybody accepted it. While Roosevelt was pulling America out of its depression in the thirties with a “New Deal” which for Blacks was a better deal but not a fair deal. During the forties, A. Phillip Randolph, then president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, had to threaten a march on Washington to force President Roosevelt to pass a Fair Employment Practice Act. We rode with Teddy Roosevelt and his rough riders at the turn of the century. We died fighting Germans in the First World War. We went off to faraway places to fight Germans again, Japanese, and Italians during the Second World War in the forties. During the fifties, we went to fight Koreans in Korea, and we went to Vietnam to fight the Vietnamese in the sixties. It seems that every nationality has fought against the U.S.A., but African...Black People. But after all this loyalty, valor, scars, and death, we were still outside the blessing of the Constitution, and today our predicament is as precarious as it has ever been. With the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. the Board of Education (1954), light began once more to penetrate the gloom of racism. Tragically, the court put in a few words which were really unnecessary: “with all deliberate speed.” These little words allowed the sadistic racism of the South and the sophisticated racism of the North to circumvent the apparent good intention of the Warren court. Almost three decades have gone by and desegregation is still unrealized. In 1955, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Led us into the era of the Civil Rights Movement. Hopes soared as the years went by, and we witnessed what appeared to progress. The legal foundation of segregation was dismantled. In 1963, over 200,000 Black Americans and white Americans stood in the heat of an August sun and heard the Dreamer tell the world about his dream. As he articulated his dream in memorable cadence and rhythm and picturesque language, he seemed to speak for all Americans. Hope soared even higher when the Civil Rights Voter Rights legislation was passed in 1964-65, the first in almost a hundred years, and added to all of that was the antipoverty program. We were on our way! At last, America would “make real the promise of democracy.” The huge man from Texas, who somewhere along the way had been converted from a sadistic racist to a shatterer of racism, had us dreaming of a Great Society. Everybody seemed to be dreaming wonderful dreams during those days. That is, almost everybody. Racism was not dead yet! Alas! Poor Lyndon Johnson, a giant of a man, was forced from office by a “nasty little war in Vietnam.” There was another voice in Washington in 1963 that warned that while King was having a dream, the masses of Black people were having nightmares. Malcolm X was in touch with the masses of Black people, particularly the young, and he knew that discontent was intensifying. We should have been wise enough to see that the political and social gains, as meager as they were, were way ahead of economic gains. Frustration deepened, and expectations were not being realized, so in 1966, in a sultry Mississippi summer after a long hot march. The march was a march against fear. It was begun by James Meredith who integrated Mississippi University. To show his courage, Meredith wanted to walk across Mississippi. As he started his journey, he was shot but recovered. Stokely Carmichael, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Floyd McKissick, and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) decided to complete the march. Stokely Carmichael, then president of SNCC, hit a responsive chord with his cry, “Black Power.” Incontrovertibly, the frustration was valid. In 1966, the President’s commission reported: Hence, in 1966 despite eleven years of intense Civil Rights activity and the new anti-poverty programs, the median income of a Black family was only 58 percent of the income of an average White family, and Black unemployment still ran twice as high as White unemployment despite the war-induced prosperity which the country was enjoying. In some categories, conditions were considerably worse. Unemployment among Black teenagers ran at 26 percent. In the Hough area of Cleveland, which experienced a rebellion in 1966 and again in 1968, Black unemployment in1965 ran at 14 percent, only two percentage points below what it was in 1960. Another important indicator is the Black sub-aged workers and low-paid workers were 33 percent in 1966 in the “worst” areas of nine major cities. To be continued...

President Trump makes History - Impeached Again The quality of education, despite some gains in the number of years of formal schooling, attained remained low. Thus Black students tested out at substantially lower levels than white youths: up to three years difference in “level of achievement” Among twelfth graders. Residential segregation proved to be the toughest nut for the integrationist movement to crack. In 1966, a special census taken in 12 cities revealed increased rates of segregation in eight of them. A joint 1967 report by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of the census, outlining the social and economic condition of Blacks in this country, concluded that “perhaps the most distressing evidence presented in this report indicates that conditions are stagnant or deteriorating in the poorest areas.” In US cities with a population of one million or more, the percentage of nonwhite families living in “poverty areas” between 1960 and 1966 remained constant at 34 percent. In New York and Chicago, however, the percentage increased. In Cleveland’s Hough district, median family income declined over the same period. In the Watts district of Los Angeles, conditions also did not improve. One of the sad and cruel developments of that time was what was called “white backlash.” this was supposedly a warning to Blacks that they were arousing a generous, courageous, and powerful people to retaliate against what that people perceived to be the unreasonable demands an antagonistic militancy of Blacks. This further infuriated Black people. What unreasonable demands? Is seeking equal opportunity and justice after three hundred years of unrequited labor unreasonable? What militancy? If Black people were truly militant, insurrection and revolution would have been initiated a long time ago. Even Vice President Hubert Humphrey was saying in 1967 if he were treated as Black people are treated he would lead a rebellion himself. No! There was nothing new about the white backlash. It had always been there and probably would always be there. Only the name changed; the intent remains the same. In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was planning to return to Washington, this time to stay. Then he saw what was needed was a “radical redistribution of political and economic power.” He never made it! A little while later, Bobby Kennedy was killed as he campaigned for the presidency, in Los Angeles. What a sobering time for America. President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy, were noble spirits who probably had more in common than they realized, all of them trapped by the anti-constitutional, antihuman-rights forces that eventually killed them. The death of good men, the Vietnamese War, thousands of protesters in the streets, and Black rebellious reaction to the inability to see substantial change - it was a time of upheaval. The nation turned to Nixon. It rejected a good man, Hubert Humphrey, and elected a bad one. 1969- Black Solidarity Day It does seem that in a time of crisis, where black people are involved — especially when it seems we are getting something or are too militant — the nation turn's too weak and questionable men. But again, not only do Black people suffer as the nation turns backward, white people suffer too. When will we learn that the absence of justice anywhere is the denial of justice everywhere? The death of Nixon’s chicanery came to light in his second term. There is a biblical saying, “there is nothing hid that shall not be brought to light.” Watergate and all that it meant is forever recorded in American history. The revelation shocked Americans to the core. The highest lawmakers and office holders in the land were guilty of the most heinous crimes. It was to be revealed that even the venerated FBI with its sainted leader, J. Edgar Hoover, along with the CIA was guilty of the most horrible violations of law and decency. It was a time when the rights of all Americans were jeopardized. Spies, wiretaps, and snoopers were everywhere. Dossiers and files were kept on everyone. Nixon refused to give up the tapes, which recorded some of his devious deeds. “a constitutional crisis,” America moaned. Yes, responded black people, but it did not begin with Nixon. It began with slavery; It began with the “3/5 of a man” concept; and, as far as Blacks are concerned, it has remained. In fact, as long as it remains true for Blacks it will be true for all Americans. What America must understand is that the periodic constitutional crises which it experiences are a normal state of affairs for Black people. The nation could not bring itself to vote for Gerald Ford. He was a Nixon appointee. So it turned to Jimmy Carter. A decent man, a believer in human rights with a heart as big as his grin. But, he could not resolve the complexity of the hostage crisis and the myriad of other problems that troubled America. So they turned him out after one term. One of the reasons believed by many people, even by Carter himself, is that he was too cozy with Black people. Andrew Young, a Black man, represented the USA at the United Nations; Patricia Harris, a Black woman was a cabinet member; Blacks seemed to be everywhere. Again, the progress was only an illusion. Consider what the president's own National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity had to say in its final report (September 1981): We assert that there is another deep, unreported crisis going on in America today. It is the crisis in the desperate lives of 55 million poor, and near-poor citizens who will go to bed each night not knowing whether they will have a job tomorrow, be able to pay the rent or doctor's bills, or feed the kids. There seem to be no “happy times” available for these people. But time is getting short. And the burned-out neighborhoods in Miami like Detroit, Watts, and Cleveland from earlier years may well foreshadow the awful possibilities that lay before us if we continue to make the dignity of human life a secondary public concern. In this, we recall the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. while organizing the Poor People's March when he stated “only a tragic death wish can prevent our nation from reordering its priorities.” Another report equally devastating is an article in the New Jersey Record (January 7, 1981), entitled “Black Children Face Tough Odds”: Washington, D.C. — A black child in America has nearly one chance in two of being born in poverty and is twice as likely as a white baby to die during the first year of life. If the Black child survives that first year the odds are against him growing up healthy, wealthy, or wise. Black children are more likely than white children to be sick and without regular sources of healthcare. They are three times as likely to be labeled mentally retarted, twice as likely to drop out of school before twelfth grade, and three times as likely to be unemployed. A black teenager has a one-in-ten chance of getting into trouble with the law and is five times as likely as a white teenager to be murdered. This bleak portrait based largely on government surveys drawn together in one report was presented yesterday by the Children’s Defense Fund, A Washington-based lobbying, and advocacy group for children. The statistics “show why millions of black children lack self-confidence, feel discouragement, despair, numbness, or rage as they grow up on islands of poverty, ill health, inadequate education, squalid streets with dilapidated housing, crime, and rampant unemployment in a nation of boastful affluence,” said the Fund’s president, Marian Wright Edelman. There is passing acknowledgment in the report that the last two decades have been years of progress for some blacks because of affirmative action programs, government scholarships, and court-mandated desegregation; About one-third of black children who graduated from high school go on to college, and about the same proportion as among white youth. But, Edelman contended, that if the black middle class has grown the black poor have increased at an even faster rate. After a spurt of progress in the late sixties, gains made in lifting black children out of poverty leveled off. The seventies produced far more progress for the elderly than it did for black children, according to the statistics the Fund cited. Clearly, the economic ravages of the last decade have had a particularly devastating impact on the black poor. Income for black households, adjusted for inflation, declined. In the sixties, the unemployment rate for black youth was twice as high as for white teenagers. Now, it is three times as high. And the family structure of blacks appears to have been under even greater assault. Four of five white children live in two-parent families, and fewer than half of all black children do. Only one white child in 38 lives away from both parents; one in eight black children does. Proportionally, there are far more black children born to teenage mothers and far more black children in institutions. Now building a full head of steam across the country was the most conservative reactionary force seen in a long time. Thunder on the Right was the title of the book written by Alan Crawford exposing “The Politics of Resentment.” The book identifies the Right’s leaders and their procedures, organizations, lobbies, periodicals, think tanks, auxiliaries, and fundraisers. The book documents the computerization of this new movement’s endeavors. Tied to the movement was God himself, at least according to a group that called itself the Moral Majority. The surge of this force was able to catapult Ronald Reagan into the presidency. To be continued...

President Trump makes History - Impeached Again We should have anticipated that a movie star would be president. After all, America has always gone to Hollywood when reality became too troubling. It could have been John Wayne. But, he was dead, and then when you add to the Hollywood syndrome the proclivity for the mean and narrow in times of crisis, we should have known it would be Ronald Reagan. With Reagan’s election, we immediately saw the similarity between him and Rutherford B. Hayes. Reagan and Rutherford kind of go together: favoritism to the constitution resistors anti-busing; tax exemption status to racist schools removal of legal protection the decimation of voter rights And the time that brought Reagan to power was so much like post-reconstruction. They call this movement the new right, but there is really nothing new about it. During the early days of American history, it was manifest destiny. During the Civil War period, it was state's rights or home rule. During the heyday of American capitalism, it was rugged individuals. During the sixties, it was the white backlash but whatever it calls itself, it and always has been anti-constitutional, anti-Black, anti-Latino, anti-Chicano, anti-Native Americans, anti-semitic, anti -Asian, anti-poor, anti-women, anti-human rights. They have always attracted to their ranks the KKK, the John Birchers, and the Anti- Semites. Everything crawls out of the holes and cemeteries when they make their move. We must carefully observe the convergence of the aforementioned three categories of racism: Sadistic: significantly also including the rise of KKK activity. Sophisticated: big money, America's corporate giants pouring billions into this New Right movement. Simple: a great number of decent folks were carried along by the desire for change. (Since this chapter was written I’ve added another category Subtle Racism and Subtle Racism is the appearance of decency and liberalism but really an undercover racist. See page 42) The surge of these three categories of racism defeated the “Shatterers” of Racism. We also need to observe a crisis in the electoral process: While Reagan’s people were boasting of a mandate from the people, the truth of the matter was that a significant number of Americans did not think it worth their while to participate. They simply did not vote. There are two developments that make the New Right more menacing than ever before: economic crisis and conservative religion. 1. Economic Crisis More serious than ever before was and is the economic crisis. Ronald Reagan was supposed to balance the budget and lead us to new heights of prosperity. What we have experienced is a budget that gives meat to the rich and bones to the poor. “a jelly-bean budget,” Vernon Jordan called it. “A Jones Town budget,” Lane Kirkland called it. The problem with Kirkland's description is that at Jones Town the culprit drank the poison too. It isn't likely Reagan will take the medicine he is dishing out. Even the Director of the Office of Management and the Budget, David Stockman, admitted that it was a rich-take-all budget wrapped up in new verbiage. What we have seen is a shift in the budget away from social programs to the military machine. It is important to note that everybody is hurt by this budget except a very few, which again emphasizes the point continuously made: if the majority does not defend and promote the interests of the minority, eventually they will be in the same predicament. Corporations are closing and running off to other parts of the world in search of cheap labor. These are not good days for Americans, Blacks, or whites, Jews and non-Jews, religionists and non- religionists, young and old. In addition to the economic and social shockwaves, there are assaults on legal rights, not to mention human rights. It cannot be overemphasized that an economic crisis brings out the worst in human beings. As the “Have a Little” experience a threat to their security, they turn on the “Have nots” and/or Minorities, and fix the blame on them. If only the “Have a Little” would redirect their attention to the “Have a Plenty” and demand economic justice for all, including the “Have Nots” the crisis could be resolved. But the “Have a Plenty” has such control over the media and other informing institutions that they can keep the “Have a Little” in ignorance concerning their best interest. An impartial distant observer must ask why poor working people cannot see they share a common predicament and that if they entered into solidarity they could improve their lot a thousandfold, and if they coalesced with all other ordinary, decent, excluded, dispossessed, alienated people—Blacks, Whites, and Chicano, Latino, Asian, Jews, students and intellectuals, men and women, young and old, all who share a desire for a better society, more humane, truly democratic society—they could go a long way towards achieving their objective. But, divided and suspicious of each other, manipulated by forces that profit from their fragmentation and distrust, they will always be weak and vulnerable to the shifts of powerful people, interests, and drives, and there will always be a Constitutional crisis. 2. Conservative Religion While fundamentalism and/or evangelism have always been politically ultra-conservative for most of America’s history, they have exercised their influence subtly. Oftentimes they have taken public stands against political involvement. But, even their silence has been acquiescence to the status quo, which has sustained their interest. So, in a real sense, there was no need to be politically involved. Who can forget Billy Graham's friendship with Nixon, and Oral Roberts calling Nixon a praying man in September of the election year? Significantly, Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, and other electronic holy superstars have never taken a stand against racism, sexism, and antisemitism and never supported any causes or launched any movement against economic exploitation or political exclusion. Where were they during the Civil Rights days? They were where they are and where conservative religionists have always been — on the side of the rich and powerful. In foreign lands, they have stood with the colonizer and the most repressive dictatorial regimes. And in so doing, they have always been against poor people and minorities. They have made Christianity and capitalism synonymous. “Rugged individualism” translated in their jargon becomes “individual salvation”—purity of soul. They only want to purify the soul and deliver it safely to heaven. Never mind if the body is sick, ill-fed, homeless, poor, or uneducated — especially if it is a Black Brown Red, or Yellow body. In recent times these non-political or apolitical religionists, who in times past silently and subtly supported the status quo, have come forth conspicuously to join the New Right — bringing all their resources with them. In American history, where super-patriotism joins hands with super-religion black and the poor are in super trouble. Remember when Nixon and his men used to wear the little American flag on their lapels? They were super-patriotic. Remember when the missionaries went to Africa to bring the blessing of Christianity to the Dark Continent? “When they came, we had the land and they had the Bible,” said the despondent African, “Now we have the Bible and they have the land.” Remember the southern Sheriff who boasted he liked nothing better than “Bible reading, prayer meetings, Sunday service, and beating niggers”? Remember Southern America and South Africa boasting the greatest proliferation of Christianity? The situation prevails because, in spite of the Evangelical profession of Biblical faith and trust in Jesus Christ, they have interpreted both according to their culture and interest. The God of the Bible is the God who identifies with the poor and dispossessed, who takes side with the oppressed against the oppressor, who is angry with the wicked every day—and the wicked here is not some poor soul guilty of stealing a pocket book and knocking somebody in the head (probably a member of his own race). The wicked here are the exploiters who steal lands and countries, oil wells, and diamond mines. The wicked here is the colonizer who takes the wealth of countries to enhance his mother country. The wicked here are those who create political, and economic social systems which deny justice, opportunity, and human rights. Yes! The God of the Bible calls powerful individuals and oppressive institutions into judgment. He even says to the pious religionists, stop your singing, praying, and fasting, cease your religious exercises until justice rolls down like water, righteousness like a mighty stream; Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and take care of the widows. To be continued...

Attacks on Electoral System There were other attacks on the electoral system as it relates to Black people. In 1870, Southern Democrats declared the election of Mississippi Harim Revels, the first African American senator, null and void, forcing a second vote. One of the most important and egregious examples of intimidation and violence occurred in the 1876 Presidential election: “The 1876 United States presidential election was the 23rd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1876, in which Republican nominee Rutherford B. Hayes faced Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. It was one of the most contentious presidential elections in American history and gave rise to the Compromise of 1877 by which the Democrats conceded the election to Hayes in return for an end to Reconstruction and the withdrawal of federal troops from the South. After a controversial post-election process, Hayes was declared the winner.”(Wikipedia) For emphasis let me repeat what was important about this intimidation and violence of the electoral process of Black people and the electoral process is that it was a major setback to significant gains that had been made. At that time sixteen persons were in Congress, two Senators from Mississippi of all places. The success of the former slave masters in their person winning the presidency gave the former slave masters the encouragement to continue their reprehensible violent acts in denying African Americans access or participation in the electoral process. For the next almost century every conceivable method was used of course bombings, lynching, confiscation of properties, Jim Crow laws, etc. It wasn’t until 1965 that another serious voter rights bill was passed. President Johnson said at the time as he was signing the bill that he had just given the South to the Republicans for a generation. The President was right about one thing, the South became Republicans but he was wrong about a generation. It has been more like several generations— remember that in the last election Georgia went Democratic. The Dixiecrats had made it clear if the voting rights legislation was passed, they would leave the Democratic party. They had had a stranglehold over legislation by virtue of their control over the Committees in Congress which dealt with civil and political rights. And it will always be remembered how voter rights came to be implemented. It was after, what has come to be known as Bloody Sunday, as marchers attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama on their way to the Capitol. The violence by law enforcement personnel was so vicious that it shamed white Americans into action resulting in the passage of the voting rights bill to speak or to write of intimidation and violence related to the electoral process cannot be complete without mentioning the Mississippi Summer Project. The project was under the leadership of Robert Moses and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized the project. The call went out for primarily students during their summer break to come to Mississippi in a voter registration drive. Three students were savagely murdered- Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney. Another example of the long history of murder and intimidation is the disruption of the electoral process to keep Black people away from the polls. Perhaps one of the strongest arguments for involvement in the electoral process, including voting, is the great length to which white racists were prepared to go to keep Black people from participating. If voting didn’t mean that much or if the electoral process meant little to nothing then again, why would racists go through all of the trouble to keep Black people from the polls? No, the racists knew the power of participation in the electoral process. It's strange sometimes how our enemies know more about us including our potential power and how to achieve our goals than we do. I am thinking of our Black United Front days. We knew how powerful and effective we were but we didn’t know how effective and powerful we were. Had we known we could've accomplished far more than we did. It is always true that the slave masters and oppressors keep information from their victims that would empower them. Juneteenth, a holiday in some states came as a result of enslaved persons not knowing they were free. The word had not reached them of the Emancipation Proclamation and those who benefited from their enslavement were not about to inform them. To come at the subject of empowerment another way is to think of what we could have done if we had understood our potential and how to organize to accomplish great advancement. I’ve been reading Charles Blow, New York Times writer and author, latest book, The Devil You Know, A Black Power Manifesto, he writes about the immigration of Black people from the South. There were those who argued that “the Great Migration” should have never happened. There were many who felt that we should have stayed in the South and developed our political potential of course others argued that the racists would never allow any kind of Black progress. Mr. Blow pointed out: “Consider this in the first Census after the Civil War, three Southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama) were majority Black. In Florida, blacks were less than two percentage points a way of constituting a majority. In Alabama it was less than three percent; in Georgia, just under four percentage points. But, as previously noted, during and after the Great Migration the percentages plummeted. Black births in those states barely kept pace with the departures, so the Black population was stagnant as the white population boomed. In Alabama, for instance, the population was roughly evenly split between Black and White in 1880; when the migration ended in 1970, whites in the State outnumbered Blacks three-to-one. This was true for the South as a whole. From 1910 to 1970, the Black population in the South grew by only thirty-six percent; the white population swelled to two and half times its 1910 size. Now imagine an alternative scenario: if the Great Migration hadn't happened those Black people had remained in the South until the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. It is possible that African Americans would dominate the politics of the deep South. They could control or be the driving force in electing as many as twelve U.S. Senators. Consider another way, forty-four percent of Black people in America now live outside the South. However, hypothetically speaking, if just half of them moved back South and were strategically arrayed, it would be enough to make Black people the largest racial group in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina a contiguous band of Black people that would upend America’s political calculus and exponentially increase Black political influence.” The Nation of Islam and the Republic of New Africa understanding the numerical strength or the numbers of Black people in those states even at present have made their demand on owning or controlling some of the states and the Republic of New Africa has been organizing in some of the Southern states. All of this is to say that people of African Ancestry have potential power in their numbers- if only we would have exercised it. We saw in the Presidential election just passed, that it was really Black power that saved the Presidential campaign of Mr. Joe Biden and urged him and played a pivotal role, some would say, an indispensable role in his victory. It is going to be interesting to see if Black people will be rewarded commensurate with their efforts to ensure victory for Mr. Biden. Particularly black women whose presence in different parts of the campaign was essential. As an aside in many instances where white supremacist racists employed violence to prevent participation. The courts ruled in their favor. For example in the “Equal Justice Initiative: In 1883, the US Supreme Court in United States v. Harris refused to permit congress to criminalize acts of terrorist groups; Ku Klux Klan (KKK)”. Most whites at the time and to a significant degree today believed what Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney said, “Black people had no rights white people were bound to respect”. So, in too many instances the Supreme Court has not been our friend. As pointed out it did change the tide of American history with Brown v. The Board of Education (1954). Hence, there is nothing new about the attack on Capitol Hill, and still at the center of it all are the people of African Ancestry. Mr. Trump’s fraudulent argument was aimed at those states where the Black population was overwhelming. He and his supporters knew what they were doing when they highlighted the Black districts in their verbal and legal arguments that the election was rigged or fraudulent and therefore stolen from Mr. Trump. Finally, think what would’ve happened if America would have corrected the violence, intimidation, and disruption and denied Black people their right to vote. Think what America would look like today. One thing is for certain, I believe we wouldn’t have had a violent insurrection on Capitol Hill. To be continued...

Attacks on Electoral System -Violence in America It was my intention to commence addressing the impeachment of Mr. Trump but as I reflected on what I had written regarding violence it had related almost exclusively to the electoral process. A reader might get the impression that violence in America was confined to the electoral process and therefore it was a power struggle, so I want to address violence and all of its hideous manifestations. Really, to call what happened to people of African Ancestry violence does not even begin to comprehend how deeply pervasive, and indescribable cruelty was inflicted upon people of African Ancestry (P.A.A a way of expressing people who have African Ancestry which would be more appropriate than defining people by color. The reality is people who are defined as Black, members of the Black race are not all Black, there are various shades. And the people who define themselves as white are really not white but might be colorless or paleface but because white connotes a lot of expressions of good and superior perhaps the people we call white might want to define themselves as Anglo-Saxons, or Euro-Ethnics or Caucasians or Aryans whatever the racial background that connects them to a continent or country. It’s an interesting study, I don’t know if anyone has ever done the research on when, where, and why Americans and other countries started defining people with reference to pigmentation.) As I went back and read some of the histories, I could hardly believe what I was reading. The indescribable cruelty, the creative genius for torture, and the mutilation escaped human description. It was not just violence that could only have emanated from the workbench of hell, but it was the delight, the joy that accompanied the violence. It was a family affair, a picnic, and after church happened when there were lynches. People packed lunches or snacks, they came by buses and trains of the lynches or whatever form of death was going to be means and part of the victim's body or what was attached to his body: clothing, rings, bracelets, wallet -- anything were given away or sold to eagerly waiting for persons some who had come miles with their children to enjoy the moment and to get souvenirs from the bodies if they were lucky they might get a finger or a whole hand, feet, toes, anything would be cherished. All the while as I read, I keep asking why. What had we done? (It is hard for me to write in the third person when speaking of our people P.A.A. (I feel woven, tied, attached, part of P.A.A) My mind kept searching for a reason for these demonic acts. Had we been at war, had we been violent towards them other than sporadic violence to protect ourselves the answer would be no. Significantly, even after Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil war was over. There were no get-even vigilante groups. We didn’t go hunting down cruel slave masters all we wanted was to be free and to go about our lives in peace with opportunities to better ourselves and the nation. Where we were left alone, we did just that. I would like to quote extensively Without Sanctuary lynching photography in America in the Twin Palms publishers and the four authors James Allen, Hilton Als, Congressman John Lewis, and Leon F. Litwack. There are some books that I think should be in everyone’s home and especially P.A.A. and not just lay around to gather dust but be read and studied frequently. Without Sanctuary is one of the books another is Stolen Legacy still another How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Dr. Walter Rodney, Destruction of Black Civilizations Chancellor Williams, The Stolen Lives produced by, the violence meted out to Blacks after Emancipation and during Reconstruction, including mob executions designed to underscore the limits of Black freedom, anticipated to a considerable degree the ways of murder and terrorism that would sweep across the South two decades later and become one of its unmistakable trademarks. What was strikingly new and different in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was the sadism and exhibitionism that characterized white violence. The ordinary modes of execution and punishment no longer satisfied the emotional appetite of the crowd. To kill the victim was not enough; the execution became a public theater, a participatory ritual of torture and death. A voyeuristic spectacle is prolonged if possible (once for seven hours), for the benefit of the crowd. Newspapers on a number of occasions announced in advance the time and place of a lynching, “Special excursions transported spectators to the scene. Employers sometimes released their workers to attend, parents sent notes to schools asking teachers to excuse their children for the event, and entire families attended. The children hoisted on their parent’s shoulders to miss none of the action and accompany festivities. Returning from one subjugation a nine-year-old white youth remained unsatisfied, “I have seen a man hang,” he told his mother; “now I wish I can see one burn.” The story of lynching, then, is more than the simple fact of a Black man or woman hanging by the neck. It is the story of slow methodical sadistic often highly inventive forms of torture and mutilation. If executed by fire, it is the red-hot poker applied to the eyes and genitals and the stench of burning flesh, as the body slowly roasted over the flames and the blood sizzles in the heat. If executed by hanging it is the convulsive movement of the limbs. Whether by fire or rope, it is the dismemberment and distribution of several bodily parts as favors and souvenirs to participants and the crowds: teeth, ears, toes, fingers, nails, kneecaps, bits of charred skin, and bones. Such human trophies might reappear as watch fobs displayed conspicuously for public viewing… Some thirty years after Emancipation, between 1890 and 1920, in response to perceptions of a New Negro born in freedom, undisciplined by slavery, and unschooled in proper racial etiquette and in response to growing doubts that this new generation can be trusted to stay in its place without legal and extra-legal force, the white South denied Blacks a political voice, imposed rigid patterns of racial segregation (Jim Crow), sustained an economic system -- sharecropping and tenantry – that left little ambition or hope, refused Blacks equal educational resources, and disseminated racial charcutiers and scientific theories that reinforced and comforted whites in their racist beliefs and practices… It began convenient for some whites and a portion of the press to blame lynching on lower-class whites although the “best people” like other whites took for granted the inferiority of Blacks, there were said to be more paternalistic and less likely to carry their views to a violent conclusion. “Ravening mobs are not composed of gentlemen,” affirmed Atlanta’s leading newspaper. But the evidence suggested otherwise. Perhaps “rednecks” “crackers” and “peckerwoods” played a more public role in lynchings, but they often did so with the approval and at times the active and zealous participation of upper and middle-class whites. Exceptions existed among all classes, but invariably “gentlemen” and “ladies”, especially the newer generation of whites who had grown up after the Civil war, were no more sympathetic to Black people and their aspirations than lower-class whites. If they sometimes displayed a greater sympathy, they felt less of a threat to their exalted positions in Southern society. Drawn from all classes in Southern white society from the “rednecks” to the “best people” lynchers came together in an impressive show of racial and community solidarity. Neither crazed thieves nor the dregs of white society, the bulk of the lynchers tended to be ordinary and respectable people, few of whom had any difficulty justifying their atrocities in the name of maintaining the social and racial order the purity of the Anglo-Saxon. The mobs who meted out “summary justice” were pronounced by one Georgian as “composed of our best citizens who are foremost in all works public and private good.” In the same spirit, a meridian, Mississippi newspaper concluded, “the men who do the lynchings…. are not men who flaunt the laws but men who sincerely believe they have the best interest of their fellow men and women at heart.” If lynching were calculated to send a forceful message to the Black community and underscore its vulnerability, whites succeeded. But at the same time, it exposed Black men and women -- in ways, they would never forget—to the moral character of the white community. The impression conveyed was not so much the racial superiority of whites as their enormous capacity for savagery and cowardness in the way they inflicted their terror as crowds and mobs rarely as individuals. “The lynch mob came”, a Mississippi woman remembered. “I ain’t ever heard of no one white man going to get a Negro. They are the most cowardly people I’ve ever heard of.” They got the judges They got the lawyers They got the jury-roll call They got the throw-away They got the law They don’t blame white folks They got the sheriff, They got the deputies They don’t come by twos they got the shotgun. To be continued...

Monday- Friday from 7am-8:15am we do our Lifeline morning prayer and discuss various issues particularly social media. We’ve been having these sessions for over five and a half years. Especially were they helpful during covid years. Join us at 716-427-1168 passcode 604309# Moreover, they inspired many other helpful initiatives, i.e. Timbuktu Learning Center (same number above), 24-hour Global Prayer Chain, Social Media, Monthly Organizing meeting, etc. Monday and Tuesday after the Lifeline, we started work with typing and posting. In the evening Monday- Wednesday is the Timbuktu Learning Center. Wednesday, July 13th 2022, our morning started with a special time that I’ve set aside for what I call file revisiting, research and typing. The subject that I’m working on now is My Story and My Songs. In this volume I tell the story of significant points in my life where I was inspired to sing. I even made up a song or put words into melodies of songs already made or sang an old song that is appropriate for the occasion. I usually spend one to two hours on this venture. In addition, we had our second Zoom meeting at 12pm- with Ministers from South Africa, Doctors John Moloma and Modesei, and Dr. AG Miller, our Midwest region leader, my wife, Dr. Karen Daughtry. We discussed our trip to South Africa in December 2022 and/or February 2023. From 5:30-7pm we visited Assemblyman Al Vann. Refer to Article on Al Vann Thursday was office work and I waited for the January 6th hearings which never came. They canceled it until the following week. The big question now is whether Donald Trump is going to be indicted on criminal charges. There have been many witnesses indicating that the insurrection was going to take place before it happened and encouraged it and tried to lead it. Friday, in the morning after our morning Lifeline prayer, during my morning walk I received a phone call from Rev Sharpton and Nayaba Arinde, Editor of the Amsterdam News called me and said that “Assemblyman Al Vann had made his transition.” I thanked them and continued my walk. This time much longer as I had many memories to ponder. I did not do very much after that except we worked on a couple of office items, posting, etc. Except, we worked on President Biden and the war on Ukraine article. Parts I and II are now available here: Saturday, 11am we met with the brotherhood of our church, the House of the Lord Church for their brotherhood brunch in Brooklyn. We could only stay with the brothers for half an hour. Our next stop was in Staten Island for the street naming of Eric Garner. This was scheduled at 1pm. In fact, it was more like 2:30pm before the actual ceremony of hanging the street sign, Eric Garner Way. Prior to the sign hanging there were programs, there were speeches, and a performance by the youth from Gowanus Wildcats from Brooklyn. A sister who was a rapper, and there were speeches by Assemblymember Rose, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braggs, of course Mrs. Gwen Carr and her daughter Ayesha, and other family members including Michael Garner. In my remarks I shared that, “There is an African proverb that as long as a person's name is spoken in the village they never die. So let us remember not only this day of putting Eric’s sign up. Let us call his name often.” It was 3:30pm when we departed for home.

In the last article, we surveyed or studied the violence that was almost exclusively directed towards individuals or a small group of individuals- twos, and threes. Now I want to turn our attention toward mob violence in which whole communities were destroyed or massacres took place. The New York Draft Riots of 1863 One of the worst cases of mob attacks on AA took place in New York City in 1863. In Dr. Gates's massive tome, The Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience written by Robert Fay records the story of the 1863 riots. I want to quote the article in its entirety. I feel that the reader should get full and accurate teaching of the horrific attacks on Black people in Northern American cities like Toledo, Cincinnati, Harrisburg, and Detroit, the economic and social disruption caused by the Civil war led to violence-directed acts at free Northern Blacks. But the New York City Draft Riots of 1863 were by far the most violent. Factors contributing to the riots were labor unrest, unfair draft laws, an unpopular war, ethnic tensions, and disruptive gangs. Before the 1840s New York City Blacks held most of the cities jobs as long showmen, hod carriers, brick makers, barbers, waiters, and domestic servants. Irish immigrants, particularly those arriving after 1846, competed with Blacks for these unskilled jobs and eventually gained control of the occupations, leaving many Blacks to work only as strikebreakers. The animosity between New York whites and blacks was further intensified by the Emancipation Proclamation. Democratic politicians used it to their advantage, by claiming paradoxically, that Republicans would transport free people to New York to replace white workers while lazy Blacks lived on relief services provided by industrious whites. Shortly after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Congress passed the Conscription Act, which had a provision allowing a draftee to decline service for a $200 fee. This financial arrangement widened______. The three-day riot began on July 13th as a protest of the Conscription Act. After the protestors, many of them Irish laborers destroyed draft headquarters, they roamed the streets at times raising entire city blocks, cutting telegraph lines, tearing up railroad tracks, and causing factories and shops to be closed. They assaulted the officers of the New York __ tribute trying to find the pro-union editor Harris Greeley, and they attacked the home of the city’s provost marshal. The mob then split into groups. Some destroyed mansions: others attacked the mayor's house in a failed attempt to level it. Still, others targeted New York Black residents with intense violence. They terrorized Blacks, burned the Color Orphan Asylum, and looted the Colored Home. They raided and destroyed homes, they shot, charged, clubbed, burned, and hanged black victims. Eleven blacks were killed by rioters. Most Blacks fled the city, but a few desperately sought the sanctuary of police-stations jail cells. Union army regiments-including some men returning from the Battle of Gettysburg- finally restored order Though New York City merchants raised 50,000 to raise Black victims and rebuild the Colored Orphan Asylum the psychic scars remain. By 1865 New York's black population had decreased by 20% from 12,072 to 9,945, because of the fear arising from the three-night uprising in July 1863. In addition to the New York Riots there were many other white mob violence against Black communities: Colfax, Louisiana April 1883 One hundred and fifty Black men were murdered by whites with guns and canons for trying to assemble at the courthouse. Because anything was thrown in the red river the exact count of the massacre wasn’t known and hardly would ever be known. But rest assured it was far more than the hundred and fifty. Wilmington, North Carolina 1898 In 1898 Wilmington, North Carolina had a majority Black population. There were several elected officials and the communities were thriving economically. The media in Wilmington, as all over the U.S.A., reported inflammatory speeches about white supremacists. By 1898, Black men were prevented from voting forcing the Black elected officials out of office. (The same old bloody story as it relates to the electoral process) But, in spite of the vicious attacks by whites, they couldn’t stop Black economic power, so they devastated Wilmington. The day after the election whites overthrew the government, destroyed the printing press, and forced out the mayor. Sixty to three-hundred black people were killed. Atlanta Massacre 1906 On September 22nd, 1906 Atlanta newspaper reported four white women claimed they were assaulted by Black men. The allegations were totally untrue. (Probably they wished it were so. These lies of white women attacked by Black men are probably erotic fantasies. After all white women knew that what they were claiming happened to them was the opposite. White men were attacking Black women.) The lies of sexual assault drove over two thousand white terrorists into the streets. They beat, stabbed, and killed any Black person they met. Whole communities were destroyed and over one hundred Blacks were killed according to the official count. Probably many, many more than that were killed, beaten, stabbed _____and confiscated. (WEB Du Bois poem A Litany of Atlanta) Two of the most famous white mob terrorist attacks were in Tulsa. Tulsa, Oklahoma May 1921 On the above date, a white girl accused a Black teenager of assault in Downtown Tulsa. This sparked a wave of white terror attacks equal to, and by some accounts, surpassed anything equal to white barbarism in Tulsa. Three hundred, and probably far more Black people were murdered. The communities that are thriving communities were destroyed. The Black community was called the Black Wall Street. When the rampaging blood-thirsty whites were finished death and destruction were everywhere. Rosewood, Florida 1923 On January 1st, 1923, a white woman Fannie Taylor claimed she was assaulted by a Black man (Here we go again, and I repeat I am convinced that at least some of these white women were fantasizing.) The first person killed was Sam Carter, a respected blacksmith resident. He was tortured and mutilated. His body hung from a tree, left there to the delight of the gazing crowd of whites. After Rosewood was destroyed a grand jury and special prosecutor decided there wasn’t enough evidence of white men killing innocent Blacks. In Brooklyn, New York we had our own Red Summer we called it the History of the Bloody Summer of 78’ The Great Scholar W.E.B Du Bois who was living and teaching in Atlanta at the time of the riot captured the bloody scene and the deep emotional reaction. To be continued...

Early Friday morning July 15th, 2022, as I was doing my morning walk. I received two phone calls almost simultaneously from the Reverend Al Sharpton and Nayaba Arinde, Editor of the Amsterdam News. They started the conversation with, “Have you heard?...” I knew what the next sentence would be -- Assemblyman Al Vann had made his transition. I thanked them and continued my walk. This time much longer as I had many memories to ponder. When I returned to the house I began to write and posted the following: Al Vann, Gone but Never Forgotten! My wife and I were greeted at the door with smiles and embraces by his wife Mildred and granddaughter. After being entertained for a while by Mrs. Vann, we were led upstairs to where he lay in a comfortably large cushioned, adjustable bed which allowed him to sit up. When he saw us, he smiled, and tears came to his eyes. I held his extended hand. He started trying to speak, his voice ever so soft. I moved my face closer to his moving lips. Strangely his voice grew stronger. Ever discerning, Al Vann, I thought to myself, recognizing by the down move of my face. I was having a hard time hearing him and he said, “I love you guys”. My wife and I responded in unison, “We love you too”. He continued, “We made a difference! We turned things around.” I replied, “Yes, your legacy is secure. ‘You have put your footprints on the sands of time’. You will never be forgotten.” Now the tears were flowing more freely. He tried to move his head from side to side, trying to make the “no” head motion. I didn’t want to get in his face, but I wanted to touch him, so I touched his head and moved back around to the front. Then he pointed to my wife and I and then to himself and whispered, "We turned it around!” Here, on his dying bed, he exhibited one of his qualities, and there were many others that endeared him to the people, Humility! He was a Giant of a man in every way, in every noble, admirable quality imaginable, and yet, he treated all of us as though we were his equal. Good night old friend, courageous warrior, may the God we both loved and served, send bands of Angels to sing you to your place in Paradise and tell Jitu and Sam and all the Freedom Fighters I’ll be seeing y’all soon! During the last visit of Al Vann on Wednesday 7/13 and I understand that we were the last to see him alive, he mentioned that “we had turned it around”. In an article that I wrote for the Randolph Evans Memorial Scholarship Ceremony I described briefly how we had come together and what we had accomplished: Now we will focus on Randy Evans and conclude with a list of youth killed by the police. I could not do all of the youths killed, yet I didn’t want to leave anyone out, so I’ve listed all of the youth I could remember and research. Randy was killed by a police officer, Robert Torsney, in November 1976. The following year, almost to the day the jury pretty much acquitted the killer cop. The jury/judge said Torsney had a rare disease, psycho-motor epileptic seizure and therefore sentenced him to psychiatric treatments with weekends home. It should be pointed out that the epileptic foundation disassociated itself from this rare disease. It has been so with all of the cases cited except Russell Ross killed in September 1967. The killer cops all were white, and all were exonerated. The killing and the sentences, the community was furious. We knew we had to do something different and dramatic. Prior to Randy there had been: July 1964, Jimmy Powell, 15 years old, killed in Brooklyn, NY September 1967, Russell Ross, 15 years old August 15, 1972, Ricky Bodden, he was 10 years old, Staten Island April 28, 1973, Clifford Glover, Brooklyn September 1974, Claude Reese, Brooklyn The four of us had been meeting for about 6-7 months analyzing our powerless situation in Brooklyn. It seemed that we were powerless in every regard, social, political, cultural, economic, etc. We looked at our numbers. Brooklyn had the largest concentration of people of African Ancestry in the Western Hemisphere. Over 1.5 million of our people lived in Brooklyn. We have come from many lands and had various stories to tell about our lives. Yet, with all of our numbers and diversity we were pretty much powerless. We decided that we would provide leadership for the community's fury and anger. We put forth a three-prong tactic: To the city, we demanded a blue-ribbon commission on the needs of our youth and why police killed our youths. To the federal court we demanded: 2. Robert Torsney to be indicted for the violation of Randy Evans’ civil rights. This federal law was put in place primarily in the South where juries would never convict a white man or woman no matter what they did to an African American. By creating a violation of the victims civil rights, it did not jeopardize the perpetrators rights of double jeopardy. 3. Thirdly, we targeted from the business community ten demands which included: A percentage of profits of businesses and minority banks Minority Media Advertising Minority employment in construction Maintenance of the Fulton Mall Randolph Evans Community Crisis Fund and Randolph Evans Scholarship Fund Minority employment A Brooklyn fair for minority vendors Space for groups to set up their tables and sell their products Community advisory Committee Entertainment Complex, (presently we wrote there is a multi-million-dollar development under construction in Downtown Brooklyn. Some aspect of this development is exactly what we had argued for in our initial meeting with the merchants in 1978.) Those were the three targets and we called for Black Christmas 1977. The boycott lasted for about 8 months until the business community conceded our demands. The city under Mayor Ed Koch said that they were already organizing a youth commission and a meeting was set up with then Commissioner, Robert Wire. We did not succeed with the indictment of Robert Torsney. In addition to our tactic our objective was clear. We wanted to perpetuate the memory of Randy, empower the people and create a movement. These three things we did. Saturday, June 25th will be the 43rd Scholarship Fund Ceremony for two years there was a hiatus due to covid-19. We created a movement out of which became the National Black United Front (NBUF), Black Veterans for Social justice (BVSJ), African People Christian Organization (APCO) and many others. In addition, we enhanced the already existing organization, thus out of the movement grew the people's empowerment. We will always remember Jitu Weusi and Dr. Sam Pinn who have made their transition. Assemblyman Al Vann is still here. This Saturday, as I have mentioned we will be celebrating our 43rd year of the scholarship fund. The eternal credit goes to my wife, Dr. Karen Daughtry who from the inception has coordinated the ceremonies. Once we had the agreement from the business community, we did a rare thing. We gathered all of the people who had participated in a long boycott in the heat of summer and the cold of winter to a conference at Ramapo College campus in New Jersey. Dr. Sam Pinn was a professor there, in addition he was Chair of Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Jitu was the creator and Head of the East, a multi-dimensional culture of education, businesses, enterprises, etc. and the creator of what was then called the African Street Theater. Now it is the International Festival held annually on the 4th of July Weekend and Al Vann was our political leader. At the conference, I said, I did not want anything but the perpetuation of the Randy Evans scholarship program. The business community agreed to fund the program for 5 years, 10-college bound students $1,500.00. After the 5th year, they liked the program so much they continued funding it for another 5 years. After which we have been raising the funds to implement the program. I said that I want my wife to be responsible and to coordinate the Randy Evans Scholarship program. I could think of no one who I knew would carry forward the program and would not just be another scholarship program. But it would be a program with the highest professionalism and expertise. The years have proved me right. And again, Saturday will be the 43rd anniversary. For those who would like more information read my book “No Monopoly on Suffering” wherever books are sold or visit my website: hdgministries.org

The History and Spirit of the House of the Lord Churches While I was preparing for the June 12th article, President Biden went to Madrid and returned to have a press conference to meet with the G7 leaders. I followed up with another article which I am going to record now and continue the June 12th series at the conclusion of this article. President Biden’s Press Conference: On his return from his meeting with G7 leaders in Ukraine President Biden returned from his meeting with the G7 leaders in Madrid, Spain in high spirits. He expressed his accomplishments: $800 million dollars drawn out for Ukraine (not long ago Congress allocated 40 billion dollars for Ukraine. This is on top of the already 15 billion that had already been spent or allocated.) However, this does not satisfy the insatiable demands of President Zelensky. He wants 5 billion dollars a month. The present allocation includes highly sophisticated defense and offense weapons. More ships for Spain and planes for Germany, Italy, and England Military Headquarters in Poland and Spain 300,000 troops to be deployed in strategic places by NATO (Finland and Sweden will join NATO. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Biden settled the objections of Turkey to Finland and Sweden joining NATO. At what price was not disclosed. Russia, of course, rejected it strenuously. Finland and Sweden joining NATO, according to President Biden, stretches about 800 miles of protection along Russia’s border.) Also, he mentioned that they are preparing for the threat of China: After his presentation, the President was questioned by the press. There was one question that was asked and two questions I thought should’ve been asked but were not. First, I think we should understand that a significant part of the American press seemed to be a propaganda mouthpiece for President Zelensky and the Ukrainians. The first question was asked, “How long will the U.S. support Ukraine?” The President's response was, “As long as it takes.” As long as it takes is a scary answer. Does he mean that this war with Ukraine and the US support can go on forever? Does he mean my great grandson and daughter should get prepared for war? And with the war prolongation if there’s a slip-up or accident where someone says or does the wrong thing which precipitates a nuclear war? And as I say, his response was scary. The second question that was not asked and I wondered why, why this unlimited support for Ukraine. They have been fighting over there for years. I think there have been two wars involving Ukraine. Why now and what’s the game plan? Why is this threat of perpetual war and the possibility of nuclear weaponry? What makes Ukraine so important? The next question I would ask, and most importantly is why didn’t they accept the agreement negotiated by Russian and Ukrainians negotiations? According to Michael von der Schuelenberg, he writes: “The key elements for a peaceful solution have already been worked out by courageous Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the first two months of the war. According to these, Ukraine would renounce NATO membership and not allow any foreign military bases on Ukrainian soil, while Russia would commit to recognizing Ukraine’s territorial integrity, withdraw all Russian troops from Ukraine and accept international security guarantees for Ukraine. It had also already been tentatively agreed to give a special status to the Donbas within Ukrainian territory (as already foreseen in Minsk II) and to resolve the future status of Crimea at a later stage through purely diplomatic means. Certainly, this is not a complete peace treaty – not yet; many difficult details remain unresolved. But the outcome of these peace negotiations, even if only provisional, represents an astonishing achievement at a time of war. There is and will be no other peaceful solution than to agree to some form of Ukrainian neutrality in return for preserving Ukraine's territorial integrity. It would be completely illusory to assume, as some Western governments like to claim, that such a peace treaty is a purely Ukrainian responsibility and that they should stay out. To use this to justify the West's silence on Russian-Ukrainian peace efforts is highly disingenuous.” It is of paramount importance that the American people and all people must ask the question why the agreement didn’t work. Who objected and why?