Posted on 02/01/2010 1:16:31 PM PST by Graybeard58
Created in 1926 by black historian, scholar, educator and publisher Carter G. Woodson, it began as "Negro History Week."
By 1976, it morphed into Black History Month -- a celebration of the contributions of blacks to America and their struggles to overcome.
From Africa to slavery. The Civil War. Jim Crow and lynchings. Sit-ins and marches. Brown vs. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act. Assassinations. A historic presidency.
With history yet to have its full say regarding President Obama, we interviewed a broad spectrum of his fellow Chicagoans and prominent visitors on what the month means to them and whether it's still relevant in 2010.
We'll bring you their thoughts throughout the month, beginning today with Operation PUSH's founder, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a two-time presidential candidate and arguably Chicago's most prominent civil rights leader.
Jackson said:
"There's no history quite like black history, and it's always an error when people confuse that history with any other group who came here from some distant shore. No one else came here as slaves, and it distinguishes African Americans from immigrants.
"We did not come here as immigrants. We came here as the commodity, and for many years, African Americans as commodities were more valuable than insurance or banking or land. No one else was designated three-fifths human in the U.S. Constitution. No other group required legal appropriation to obtain legal rights. No other group had to have anti-lynching laws passed, or the military take them to school, in Little Rock or Montgomery, or wherever.
"So, blacks have been steadily overcoming barriers for nearly 400 years, with varying degrees of break-throughs and overcoming. We've seen the most advancement, frankly, in the arts and in athletics, and now in politics.
"But while we have achieved against these odds, we remain number one in poverty, infant mortality, home foreclosures. We lack access to quality education, health care, technology, capital and credit. The national unemployment rate for white males is 9.5 percent, for black males, 19 percent. Of the 2.3 million Americans in prison, about 1.1 million are black, 500,000 are Latinos. So one sees evidence that patterns of institutional discrimination persist, that race remains a critical factor in the fabric of our nation's culture.
"Black History Month is more relevant now than ever before. Black history is the journey that made it possible for Barack Obama. He is the result of our struggles."
america was constipated
The three remaining most significant barriers to American blacks are obama, sharpton and jackson. (No caps on purpose.)
What a coincidence. My struggles also produce an Obama every morning.
Jackson: “But while we have achieved against these odds, we remain number one in [fill in the blank].” Boob belts? Fugly First Ladies?
Some of our ancestors came as INDENTURED servants...who worked for no pay in order to pay off a debt...a form of slavery.
Mein Kampf = My Struggle
Most Excellent post.
Obama, the same guy that helped slumlords operate in Chicago, while accepting their campaign contributions. Obama was a member of the political machine that helped a whole gang of slumlords funnel local, state and federal tax dollars, over the backs of poor people in need of affordable housing, to line their own pockets and fund the campaigns of politicians in positions to recommend and award contracts.
Jesse , you got this one ALL wrong. The ‘bamster isn’t about being black he’s a liberal facist... is that what you are talking about?
America could have elected a real American Negro decendent of American slaves — such as Condi Rice or J.C. Watts or Shelby Steele or Frances Rice or Janice Rogers Brown (Brown would be better on SCOTUS) or even some older guys such as Colin Powell or Thomas Sowell.
RINO or not, they would have been better than 0bowma who is NOT an American Negro (and whose African-Arab father was a decendent of slave traders, not slaves).
There, fixed it.
The Three-Fifths Clause counted slaves (not free blacks) as 3/5 of a person for purposes of the U.S. Census. It did not deem slaves, much less blacks, as three-fifths human any more than a law that states that tourists temporarily in Orlando, Florida on April 1, 2010 should not be counted as persons in the Census deems such tourists to be non-human.
Ironically, the Three-Fifths Compromise was an anti-slavery clause--Jesse Jackson needs to read up on his Frederick Douglass instead of re-reading the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. Free states did not want slaves to be counted in the Census at all, while slave states wanted them to count as one person so as to gain additional U.S. Representatives and electoral votes, and they reached a compromise that, as Frederick Douglass pointed out, provided an incentive for states to free their slaves. I guess that Jesse Jackson would have been happier had there not been a Three-Fifths Clause in the Constitution, but not as happy as those slave states would have been to get additional Representatives and electoral votes.
I thought he was supposed to be the president for ALL of us?
Guess not.
Still promoting a distorted view of America's history as relates to its Constitutional structuring of government, thus perpetuating misunderstanding and less-than-honest appraisal of what was known as the "three fifths compromise" in order to establish a union.
Perhaps Justice Harlan's words in his "Concurring and Dissenting Opinion" (1970) in Oregon v. Mitchell included this paragraph might be instructive:
"A. Historical Setting
[n3] "The point of departure for considering the purpose and effect of the Fourteenth Amendment with respect to the suffrage should be, I think, the preexisting provisions of the Constitution. Article I, § 2, provided that, in determining the number of Representatives to which a State was entitled, only three-fifths of the slave population should be counted. [n4] The section also provided that the qualifications of voters for such Representatives should be the same as those established by the States for electors of the most numerous branch of their respective legislatures. Article I, § 4, provided that, subject to congressional veto, the States might prescribe the times, places, and manner of holding elections for Representatives. Article II, § 1, provided that the States might direct the manner of choosing electors for President and Vice President, except that Congress might fix a uniform time for the choice. [n5] Nothing in the original [p156] Constitution controlled the way States might allocate their political power except for the guarantee of a Republican Form of Government, which appears in Art. IV, § 4. [n6] No relevant changes in the constitutional structure were made until after the Civil War." (Underlining added for emphasis)
Just words, as the President has said, but then words can be explanatory or inflammatory.
No need. Michelle has themm locked up..
Here ya go Jesse. PART ONE - A Who’s Who of The Associates of Barack Obama http://insightanalytical.wordpress.com/2008/09/29/the-lineup-a-whos-who-of-the-associates-of-barack-obama/ Part TWO –The Lineup: A Who’s Who of The Associates of Barack Obama http://insightanalytical.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/part-2-the-lineup-a-whos-who-of-the-associates-of-barack-obama/
That’s what I’ve always thought, too. But of course, a real American Negro descendant of slaves wouldn’t have appealed to the Bidens and Reids of this Democrat world.
Boy, oh boy, did you ever screw up.
So if there is black history then there must also be white history.
How so?
“George Washington Carver would be a good place to start.”
Became one of my heroes when I read a book about him in third grade.
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