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Let me get this straight, America:
You terrorize and enslave a race of people for over 300 years; You ban them from your privileges for the next 100 years; You fill two-thirds of your prison cells with them until today; And You are angry, when WE do not applaud YOUR History?
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Imagine a society where one group of people was routinely advantaged over another for hundreds of years. I know it’s a stretch, but give it a shot.
The first group was afforded legal opportunities off-limits to others — including the right to own members of the second group, keep them in bondage, and beat or kill them with impunity if they sought to escape bondage. And even after this was no longer allowed, for another hundred years, they were favored over the second group in every arena of life: jobs, education, housing access, health care availability, the justice system, and especially voting. Members of the second group were unable primarily to accumulate assets and pass them down to their kids. They were not eligible for Social Security for decades and the GI Bill was "off-limits" to them. They could not procure homes in neighborhoods where home values were continuously increasing. They were placed in schools with insufficient resources and relegated to the lowest rung jobs, with few exceptions. And all of this was legal. They were subjected to a "poll tax" and "impossible to pass literacy tests" just to vote., also legal. When challenged, those who deny the ongoing problem of racism respond “PROVE IT” as if America has always been a land of equal opportunity and good faith. Show us clear and convincing evidence, they say, of discrimination in housing, jobs, schooling, the justice system, and voting. THE TRUTH! AND AS WE KNOW...AND HAS BEEN PROVEN, AND RACIST WHITE AMERICA CANNOT HANDLE THE TRUTH! Noted journalist and author Carl Bernstein told CNN's Jim Acosta, "A picture is already starting to emerge of a criminal, seditious President of The United States, unprecedented in our history in this country."
...THE CORE RACIST ATTITUDES OF AMERICA'S RACIST FORMER PRESIDENT---
donald j. trump's '1776 Commission' report, issued on Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday last year, deifies founding fathers who owned enslaved persons, excuses slavery, and condemns the legacy of the civil rights movement. It was a Racist Response, to "The 1619 Report," as you would expect, by a commission appointed by a Racist president. Nikole Hannah-Jones was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for The 1619 Project, The New York Times Magazine’s groundbreaking exploration of the legacy of Black Americans starting with the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in 1619. It was a final out-the-door Lie by the Lying-est Racist president who God gave lips. Again, a Racist president trying to write still another immoral chapter in America's Incomplete, Dishonest, and Racist American History. BTW...One of the first Executive Orders signed by President Joe Biden was "disavowing" the 1776 report and the "commission" and removing it from the Presidential website.     AS WE APPROACH ANOTHER BLACK HISTORY MONTH, LET'S PUT A FEW THINGS IN PROPER PERSPECTIVE-
When Dr. Carter. G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History-ASALH) in 1915, he did so to place contributions by African-Americans prominently at the forefront of American History. Not "instead of," but "in addition to." He lobbied schools and organizations to participate in a special program to encourage the study of African-American History, which he founded in February 1926 with Negro History Week. We now know it as Black History Month. (Woodson chose February because February included the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, whom Black communities had celebrated since the late 19th century.) Mr. Rutledge Pearson, my Eighth Grade American History teacher and the adviser to the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP during the sit-ins in 1960 and Ax Handle Saturday, and my mentor, told us to leave our American History textbooks at home-a textbook approved for Negro education in the Negro Division (at that time) of the Duval County School System! He refused to teach American History from a textbook written by Racist White textbook authors and Racist White historians, which only included the names of three Black Americans: Crispus Attucks, without identifying him as Black; Booker T. Washington; and George Washington Carver. Of course, as Black students— "Negro” and "Colored" were the racial terms at the time—we were expected to be grateful that their names were included at all. He then proceeded to teach us an honest and inclusive American History and the many contributions of those who looked like us. Understand the playing field then and even now. Whites and European American students can readily read what their ancestors did in this country in history textbooks. Blacks cannot, which is the overriding purposeful philosophy when you read segregated and Incomplete, Dishonest, and Racist textbooks of American History that give the impression that Blacks contributed nothing of substance to the development of this country. It should have been as important to read about Black Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, as it was to read about White Eli Whitney; as important to read about Black Ida Wells-Barnett, as it was to read about White Betsy Ross; and as important to read about Black Garrett Morgan, as it was to read about White Benjamin Franklin. Incomplete, Dishonest, and Racist. How academically pure, historically, and culturally informative it would be to teach an honest American History? How academically pure and historically and culturally informative it would be to read about the many Blacks who impacted America in classroom textbooks? Yet Blacks and their contributions are excluded. Robert Kennedy said, "Truth is the token of trust." Not teaching the honest History of Black Americans' role in the development of this country keeps the playing field untrustworthy, uneven, and dishonest. Thus, White America's opposition to a Truthful American History, which they call Critical Race Theory. The infrastructure of Racism is rooted in dishonesty and disrespect. We must tell and teach the real story of American History, NOT the version that is Racist, Dishonest, and Incomplete. An Ethiopian proverb says, "He who learns, teaches." LEARN YOUR HISTORY AND TEACH IT! I was honored to be the speaker today at the observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Day at St. Johns Cathedral. The program was sponsored and hosted by the Rev. Sidney Parker Chapter of the Union of Black Episcopalians (UBE) - President Alma Flowers, and St. John's Cathedral-Dean Kate Moorehead. A Great Day. Special thanks to my longtime friend, my classmate (Isaiah Blocker Junior High School), and the Photographer par-excellente for these pictures. Lethera Ann Floyd Dunson.        THE INAUGURAL JACKSONVILLE CIVIL RIGHTS CONFERENCE IS POSTPONED UNTIL ***AUGUST 25-27, 2022*** BECAUSE OF THE OMICRON VARIANT. WE FELT IT WAS RESPONSIBLE TO RESCHEDULE. THE NEW DATES COINCIDE WITH THE 62ND ANNIVERSARY OF AX HANDLE SATURDAY, AUGUST 27, 2022. ALL SPEAKERS AND CONCERT GUESTS HAVE RECONFIRMED. PLEASE SEE BELOW. THANK YOU.      SPEAKERS AT THE INAUGURAL JACKSONVILLE CIVIL RIGHTS CONFERENCE, FEBRUARY 3-5, 2022, SOUTHBANK MARRIOTT: TOP ROW, FROM LEFT-Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, President, The University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole, President Emerita Spelman College and Bennett College, and former Director of the Smithsonian Museum of African Art; Leon Russell, Chairman, The National NAACP Board of Directors. SECOND ROW, FROM LEFT-Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, an American academic, author, ordained minister, radio host, and a professor in the College of Arts and Science and in the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University; G. C. Cameron, former lead singer with the Spinners, and the Temptations; and Rev. Christopher McKee Jr., Senior Pastor, First Baptist of Oakland. 3rd ROW, FROM LEFT-Rodney L. Hurst Sr, author, Black Historian, and former activist with the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP; Chevara Orrin, diversity & inclusion practitioner, author, international speaker, and survivor of sexual violence; Charlie Cobb Jr, journalist, author, professor, and former activist with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.  |
AuthorRodney. L. Hurst, Sr. 
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