Okay something for Black History

[Jawge]

Month:

Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. Source: Martin Luther King, Jr: The Peaceful Warrior, Pocket Books, NY 1968
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.
One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.
So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

[Jawge]

This is for ye Negroes that lack
self belief:

100 years later

100 years later, still good advice...


12 Things The Negro Must Do For Himself


by Nannie Helen Burroughs
(Circa Early 1900's)
1. The Negro Must Learn To Put First Things First. The First Things
Are: Education; Development of Character Traits; A Trade and Home
Ownership.
* The Negro puts too much of his earning in clothes, in food,
in show and in having what he calls "a good time." The Dr. Kelly Miller
said, "The Negro buys what he WANTS and begs for what he Needs." Too
true!
2. The Negro Must Stop Expecting God and White Folk To Do For Him What
He Can Do For Himself.
* It is the "Divine Plan" that the strong shall help the weak,
but even God does not do for man what man can do for himself. The Negro
will have to do exactly what Jesus told the man (in John 5:8) to
do--Carry his own load--"Take up your bed and walk."
3. The Negro Must Keep Himself, His Children And His Home Clean And
Make The Surroundings In Which He Lives Comfortable and Attractive.
* He must learn to "run his community up"--not down. We can
segregate by law, we integrate only by living. Civilization is not a
matter of race, it is a matter of standards. Believe it or not--some
day, some race is going to outdo the Anglo-Saxon, completely. It can be
the Negro race, if the Negro gets sense enough. Civilization goes up
and down that way.
4. The Negro Must Learn To Dress More Appropriately For Work And For
Leisure.
* Knowing what to wear--how to wear it--when to wear it and
where to wear it, are earmarks of common sense, culture and also an
index to character.
5. The Negro Must Make His Religion An Everyday Practice And Not Just A
Sunday-Go-To-Meeting Emotional Affair.
6. The Negro Must Highly Resolve To Wipe Out Mass Ignorance.
* The leaders of the race must teach and inspire the masses to
become eager and determined to improve mentally, morally and
spiritually, and to meet the basic requirements of good citizenship.
* We should initiate an intensive literacy campaign in America,
as well as in Africa. Ignorance-- satisfied ignorance --is a millstone
abut the neck of the race. It is democracy's greatest burden.
* Social integration is a relationship attained as a result of
the cultivation of kindred social ideals, interests and standards.
* It is a blending process that requires time, understanding
and kindred purposes to achieve. Likes alone and not laws can do it.
7. The Negro Must Stop Charging His Failures Up To His "Color" And To
White People's Attitude.
* The truth of the matter is that good service and conduct will
make senseless race prejudice fade like mist before the rising sun.
* God never intended that a man's color shall be anything other
than a badge of distinction . It is high time that all races were
learning that fact. The Negro must first QUALIFY for whatever position
he wants. Purpose, initiative, ingenuity and industry are the keys that
all men use to get what they want. The Negro will have to do the same.
He must make himself a workman who is too skilled not to be wanted, and
too DEPENDABLE not to be on the job, according to promise or plan. He
will never become a vital factor in industry until he learns to put into
his work the vitalizing force of initiative, skill and dependability.
He has gone "RIGHTS" mad and "DUTY" dumb.
8. The Negro Must Overcome His Bad Job Habits.
* He must make a brand new reputation for himself in the world
of labor. His bad job habits are absenteeism, funerals to attend, or a
little business to look after. The Negro runs an off and on business.
He also has a bad reputation for conduct on the job--such as petty
quarrelling with other help, incessant loud talking about nothing;
loafing, carelessness, due to lack of job pride; insolence, gum chewing
and--too often--liquor drinking. Just plain bad job habits!
9. He Must Improve His Conduct In Public Places.
* Taken as a whole, he is entirely too loud and too
ill-mannered.
* There is much talk about wiping out racial segregation and
also much talk about achieving integration.
* Segregation is a physical arrangement by which people are
separated in various services.
* It is definitely up to the Negro to wipe out the apparent
justification or excuse for segregation.
* The only effective way to do it is to clean up and keep
clean. By practice, cleanliness will become a habit and habit becomes
character.
10. The Negro Must Learn How To Operate Business For People--Not For
Negro People, Only.
* To do business, he will have to remove all typical
"earmarks," business principles; measure up to accepted standards and
meet stimulating competition, graciously--in fact, he must learn to
welcome competition.
11. The Average So-Called Educated Negro Will Have To Come Down Out Of
The Air. He Is Too Inflated Over Nothing. He Needs An Experience
Similar To The One That Ezekiel Had--(Ezekiel 3:14-19). And He Must Do
What Ezekiel Did
* Otherwise, through indifference, as to the plight of the
masses, the Negro, who thinks that he has escaped, will lose his own
soul. It will do all leaders good to read Hebrew 13:3, and the first
Thirty-seven Chapters of Ezekiel.
* A race transformation itself through its own leaders and its
sensible "common people." A race rises on its own wings, or is held
down by its own weight. True leaders are never "things apart from the
people." They are the masses. They simply got to the front ahead of
them. Their only business at the front is to inspire to masses by hard
work and noble example and challenge them to "Come on!" Dante stated a
fact when he said, "Show the people the light and they will find the
way!"
* There must arise within the Negro race a leadership that is
not out hunting bargains for itself. A noble example is found in the
men and women of the Negro race, who, in the early days, laid down their
lives for the people. Their invaluable contributions have not been
appraised by the "latter-day leaders." In many cases, their names would
never be recorded, among the unsung heroes of the world, but for the
fact that white friends have written them there.
"Lord, God of Hosts, Be with us yet."
* The Negro of today does not realize that, but, for these
exhibits A's, that certainly show the innate possibilities of members of
their own race, white people would not have been moved to make such
princely investments in lives and money, as they have made, for the
establishment of schools and for the on-going of the race.
12. The Negro Must Stop Forgetting His Friends. "Remember."
* Read Deuteronomy 24:18. Deuteronomy rings the big bell of
gratitude. Why? Because an ingrate is an abomination in the sight of
God. God is constantly telling us that "I the Lord thy God delivered
you" --through human instrumentalities.
* The American Negro has had and still has friends--in the
North and in the South. These friends not only pray, speak, write,
influence others, but make unbelievable, unpublished sacrifices and
contributions for the advancement of the race--for their brothers in
bonds.
* The noblest thing that the Negro can do is to so live and
labor that these benefactors will not have given in vain. The Negro
must make his heart warm with gratitude, his lips sweet with thanks and
his heart and mind resolute with purpose to justify the sacrifices and
stand on his feet and go forward-- "God is no respector of persons. In
every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is" sure to
win out. Get to work! That's the answer to everything that hurts us.
We talk too much about nothing instead of redeeming the time by working.

R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R
* In spite of race prejudice, America is brim full of
opportunities. Go after them!

[Jawge]

If mi touch ah corn, hush
wasn't intentional. Unnuh nuh baddah trace mi off like how Gamma
trace mi up top.

[HL]

Thanks KING Jawge.

Continue taking the 'high road'. Never lower your standards.

" In spite of race prejudice, America is brim full of opportunities..."

Can I get a witness!!??

[Jawge]

Ah try hard