- Moe Factz with Adam Curry for May 25th 2020, Episode number 38
- Executive Producers:
- Baron Sir DH Slammer AKA Moe Factz Boule "DH Slamma tha God"
- Associate Executive Producer:
- Description
- Adam and Moe Take on Joe Biden's Epic Fail
- ShowNotes
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Wikipedia
- A business and self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989, is a business and self-help book written by Stephen Covey.[1] Covey presents an approach to being effective in attaining goals by aligning oneself to what he calls "true north" principles based on a character ethic that he presents as universal and timeless.
- Covey defines effectiveness as the balance of obtaining desirable results with caring for that which produces those results. He illustrates this by referring to the fable of the goose that laid the golden eggs. He further claims that effectiveness can be expressed in terms of the P/PC ratio, where P refers to getting desired results and PC is caring for that which produces the results.
- Covey's best-known book has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide since its first publication. The audio version became the first non-fiction audio-book in U.S. publishing history to sell more than one million copies.[2] Covey argues against what he calls "the personality ethic", that he sees as prevalent in many modern self-help books. He promotes what he labels "the character ethic": aligning one's values with so-called universal and timeless principles. In doing this, Covey is deliberately and mindfully separating principles and values. He sees principles as external natural laws, while values remain internal and subjective. Our values govern our behavior, while principles ultimately determine the consequences. Covey presents his teachings in a series of habits, manifesting as a progression from dependence through independence on to interdependence.
- The 7 Habits [ edit ] Covey introduces the concept of paradigm shift and helps the reader understand that different perspectives exist, i.e. that two people can see the same thing and yet differ with each other.
- Covey also introduces the Maturity Continuum. These are three successive stages of increasing maturity: dependence, independence, and interdependence. At birth, everybody is dependent, and characteristics of dependence may linger; this is the first and lowest stage of maturity.
- Dependence means you need others to get what you need. All of us began life as an infant, depending on others for nurturing and sustenance. I may be intellectually dependent on other people's thinking; I may be emotionally dependent on other people's affirmation and validation of me. Dependence is the attitude of "you": you take care of me... or you don't come through and I blame you for the result.
- Independence means you are pretty much free from the external influence [and] support of others. ... Independence is the attitude of "I". ... It is the avowed goal of many individuals, and also many social movements, to enthrone independence as the highest level of achievement, but it is not the ultimate goal in effective living. There is a far more mature and more advanced level.
- The third and highest level in the Maturity Continuum is interdependence. ... We live in an interdependent reality. Interdependence is essential for good leaders; good team players; a successful marriage or family life; in organizations. Interdependence is the attitude of "we": we can co-operate; we can be a team; we can combine our talents.
- Stephen Covey, The 7 habits of highly effective people (1998)[3]Each of the first three habits is intended to help achieve independence. The next three habits are intended to help achieve interdependence. The final, seventh habit is intended to help maintain these achievements. Each of the seven habits has a chapter of the book (or a section of the videotape or DVD) devoted to it:
- Independence [ edit ] The first three habits surround moving from dependence to independence (i.e., self-mastery):
- 1 - Be proactive [ edit ] Take responsibility for your reaction to your experiences, take the initiative to respond positively and improve the situation. Recognize your Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern. Focus your responses and initiates on the center of your influence and constantly work to expand it. Don't sit and wait in a reactive mode, waiting for problems to happen (Circle of Concern) before taking action.[4]2 - Begin with the end in mind [ edit ] Envision what you want in the future so you can work and plan towards it. Understand how people make decisions in their life. To be effective you need to act based on principles and constantly review your mission statements. Are you - right now - who you want to be? What do I have to say about myself? How do you want to be remembered? If habit 1 advises changing your life to act and be proactive, habit 2 advises that you are the programmer! Grow and stay humble.All things are created twice. Before we act, we should act in our minds first. Before we create something, we measure twice. This is what the principle is about. Do not just act; think first: Is this how I want it to go, and are these the correct consequences?[5]
- 3 - First things first [ edit ] Talks about what is important and what is urgent. Priority should be given in the following order (in brackets are the corresponding actions from the Eisenhower Matrix):,[6][7]Quadrant I. Urgent and important (Do) '' important deadlines and crisesQuadrant II. Not urgent but important (Plan) '' long-term developmentQuadrant III. Urgent but not important (Delegate) '' distractions with deadlinesQuadrant IV. Not urgent and not important (Eliminate) '' frivolous distractionsThe order is important; after completing items in quadrant I, we should spend the majority of our time on II, but many people spend too much time in III and IV. The calls to delegate and eliminate are effective reminders of their relative priority.If habit 2 advises that you are the programmer, habit 3 advises: write the program, become a leader! Keep personal integrity: what you say vs what you do.[8]
- Interdependence [ edit ] The next three habits talk about Interdependence (e.g., working with others):
- 4 - Think win-win [ edit ] Genuine feelings for mutually beneficial solutions or agreements in your relationships. Value and respect people by understanding a "win" for all is ultimately a better long-term resolution than if only one person in the situation had gotten their way. Think Win-Win isn't about being nice, nor is it a quick-fix technique. It is a character-based code for human interaction and collaboration.[9] 5 - Seek first to understand, then to be understood [ edit ] Use empathetic listening to genuinely understand a person, which compels them to reciprocate the listening and take an open mind to be influenced by you. This creates an atmosphere of caring, and positive problem-solving.Habit 5 is greatly embraced in the Greek philosophy represented by 3 words:1) Ethos -- your personal credibility. It's the trust that you inspire, your Emotional Bank Account.2) Pathos is the empathetic side -- it's the alignment with the emotional trust of another person's communication.3) Logos is the logic -- the reasoning part of the presentation.The order is important: ethos, pathos, logos -- your character, and your relationships, and then the logic of your presentation.[10] 6 - Synergize! [ edit ] Combine the strengths of people through positive teamwork, so as to achieve goals that no one could have done alone.[11]Continual improvement [ edit ] The final habit is that of continuous improvement in both the personal and interpersonal spheres of influence.
- 7 - Sharpen the Sword; Growth [ edit ] See also: Kaizen (continuous improvement)
- Balance and renew your resources, energy and health to create a sustainable, long-term, effective lifestyle. It primarily emphasizes exercise for physical renewal, good prayer (meditation, yoga, etc.) and good reading for mental renewal. It also mentions service to society for spiritual renewal.Covey explains the "Upward Spiral" model in the sharpening the saw section. Through our conscience, along with meaningful and consistent progress, the spiral will result in growth, change, and constant improvement. In essence, one is always attempting to integrate and master the principles outlined in The 7 Habits at progressively higher levels at each iteration. Subsequent development on any habit will render a different experience and you will learn the principles with a deeper understanding. The Upward Spiral model consists of three parts: learn, commit, do. According to Covey, one must be increasingly educating the conscience in order to grow and develop on the upward spiral. The idea of renewal by education will propel one along the path of personal freedom, security, wisdom, and power.[12][13]
- Reception [ edit ] The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has sold more than 25 million copies in 40 languages worldwide, and the audio version has sold 1.5 million copies, and remains one of the best selling nonfiction business books in history. In August 2011 Time listed 7 Habits as one of "The 25 Most Influential Business Management Books".[14]
- U.S. President Bill Clinton invited Covey to Camp David to counsel him on how to integrate the book into his presidency.[15]
- Abundance mentality [ edit ] Covey coined the term abundance mentality, or abundance mindset, a concept in which a person believes there are enough resources and successes to share with others. He contrasts it with the scarcity mindset (i.e., destructive and unnecessary competition), which is founded on the idea that if someone else wins or is successful in a situation, it means you lose, because you are not considering the possibility of all parties "winning" in some way or another in a given situation (see zero-sum game). Individuals having an abundance mentality reject the notion of zero-sum games and are able to celebrate the success of others, rather than feel threatened by them.[16] The author contends that the abundance mentality arises from having a high self-worth and security (see Habits 1, 2, and 3), and leads to the sharing of profits, recognition and responsibility. Similarly, organizations may also apply an abundance mentality when doing business.[17]
- Since The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People's publishing, a number of books appearing in the business press have discussed the idea.[18]
- Formats [ edit ] In addition to the book and audiobook versions, a VHS version also exists.[3]
- Adaptations [ edit ] Sean Covey (Stephen's son) has written a version of the book for teens, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. This version simplifies the 7 Habits for younger readers so they can better understand them. In September 2006, Sean Covey also published The 6 Most Important Decisions You Will Ever Make: A Guide for Teens. This guide highlights key times in the life of a teen and gives advice on how to deal with them.
- References [ edit ] ^ "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" author, Stephen Covey, dies". Archived from the original on October 7, 2012. ^ " ' 7 Habits' author Stephen Covey dead at 79". CNN . Retrieved July 17, 2012 . ^ a b The 7 habits of highly effective people (Videotape). Franklin Covey. 1998. OCLC 42358104. ^ The 7 Habits: Be Proactive, Not Reactive ^ The 7 Habits: Begin With the End in Mind ^ J., Scott, S. (April 10, 2017). Habit stacking : 127 small changes to improve your health, wealth, and happiness (2nd ed.). [Mahwah, NJ]. ISBN 9781545339121. OCLC 987616572. ^ Eisenhower Matrix ^ The 7 Habits: Put First Things First ^ The 7 Habits: Think Win/Win ^ The 7 Habits: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood ^ The 7 Habits: Synergy (Beyond the Eye-Rolling Buzzword) ^ Covey, S. R. (1989). Organizing change:Upward Spiral. Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-6951-9. ^ The 7 Habits: Sharpen the Saw ^ Gandel, Stephen (August 9, 2011). "The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People (1989), by Stephen R. Covey". Time . Retrieved January 3, 2020 . ^ Harper, Lena M. (Summer 2012). "The Highly Effective Person". Marriott Alumni Magazine. Brigham Young University . Retrieved August 11, 2012 . ^ English, L (2004). "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Information Professionals, Part 7" (PDF) . DM Review. September/October '04: 60''61. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 27, 2018. ^ Krayer, Karl J.; Lee, William Thomas (2003). Organizing change: an inclusive, systemic approach to maintain productivity and achieve results. San Diego: Pfeiffer. p. 238. ISBN 0-7879-6443-3. ^ See for instance the chapter in Carolyn Simpson's High Performance through Negotiation. External links [ edit ] Official Stephen Covey homepageVideo of the 7 habits in 3 Minutes.
- Forrest Kinney-Home
- Thank you for visiting Forrest's website. You may have heard of his illness and his passing and are concerned that his books won't be available much longer. Rest assured, the opposite is true! Team Forrest will be working diligently in the next few months to ensure his legacy and expand access to Forrest's lifework helping others create music spontaneously and joyfully. Please check back and also sign up for the email list to be notified of our progress. Thank you for your continued interest in Forrest's work. - Team Forrest''Now is the time'--and it will always be the time'--to be inspired and to create.'' '-- Forrest Kinney, from Creativity Beyond Compare
- FREE! SamplerDownload over 200 pages from 37 of Forrest's publications and links to videos introducing his books.
- The Art of ArrangingThis collection includes three series: Puzzle Play, Chord Play, and Birthday Variations.
- The Art of ImprovisingThis includes Create First books, PDFs, and videos, and two Pattern Play series.
- The Art of InterpretingBeginning Years, Modes in All Keys, Opposite Twins, and more encourage pianists to move beyond ''correct'' to creative.
- Books on CreativityBooks that explore how to invite creativity into daily life, an artistic practice, and a music studio.
- Songs by Helppie and KinneyVarious collections of songs composed by Forrest Kinney and vocalist Kevin Helppie, Ph.D.
- Dr. Jose V. Pimienta-Bey - African and African American Studies Department
- No-Tuition PromiseBerea is the only one of America's top colleges that makes a no-tuition promise to every enrolled student.
- No student pays for tuition.
- Our generous Tuition promise scholarship makes it possible for you to graduate debt-free. Even if you borrow for special learning opportunities or to replace your family's total contribution, you will have a low debt compared to national trends. We sometimes call Berea ''the best education money can't buy.''
- Opinion | Vice President Biden, you need black women voters. This is how to win us. - The Washington Post
- Opinion | Vice President Biden, you need black women voters. This is how to win us.
- Opinion | Lessons from Ahmaud Arbery's killing '-- that you already knew
- Opinion | This is why some black men fear wearing face masks during a pandemic
- Opinion | 'We are not sacrificial lambs': A nurse's message to other nurses
- Opinion | Covid-19 forced this doctor to close his practice. Here's how he's caring for patients.
- Opinion | Covid-19 threatened to kill this restaurant. It turned into a community kitchen instead.
- Opinion | For domestic violence victims, pandemic lockdown is a time to plan the escape
- Opinion | I survived solitary confinement. You can survive self-isolating.
- Opinion | U.S. diplomatic cables warned of Wuhan lab safety issues. The world needs answers.
- Opinion | Coronavirus could change how we vote in the general election. That's not necessarily bad.
- Mail-in voting can be thwarted by poorly designed ballots and undercounted votes
- Opinion | The improbability of Nancy Pelosi
- Opinion | Beating Trump? This bus driver wants candidates to beat child hunger.
- Opinion | First-time voter to Democratic candidates: Fix inequality, don't pander to black Americans
- Opinion | He loves Trump, so he voted for Bernie Sanders
- Opinion | He is black, gay and a Democrat. And he may vote for Trump.
- Opinion | Can Michael Bloomberg be forgiven?
- Opinion | 'Today is for Amy (Klobuchar),' a Stephen Sondheim parody
- Opinion | There are two Joe Bidens. The wrong one has been running for president.
- Opinion | Pelosi ripped up a speech. Trump is ripping up our democracy.
- Opinion | David Axelrod: The Iowa caucuses are problematic '-- but don't throw them out
- Karine Jean-Pierre - Wikipedia
- Karine Jean-Pierre is a Haitian-American political campaign organizer, activist, political commentator, and lecturer in international and public affairs at Columbia University. She is the senior advisor and national spokeswoman for MoveOn.org and a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. She has served as the deputy campaign manager for both the Barack Obama and Martin O'Malley presidential campaigns.[1]
- Early life and education [ edit ] Jean-Pierre was born in Martinique to Haitian immigrant parents.[2] She was raised in Queens, New York. She credits her parents' decisions for her own success in politics:[3]
- I give credit to my parents. They are Haitian and immigrated to America. My dad is 70 but still drives a cab, my mom is home health care worker. They came from a country that is impoverished but left to get a better life for their kids. For them, they are so proud of me, and they feel they have reached their dream because of my successes, but without them I wouldn't be where I am. They told me I could be whatever I wanted to be, do whatever I wanted to do.
- Jean-Pierre received her MPA from Columbia University's SIPA in 2003.[4]
- Campaign work [ edit ] 2004 presidential campaign [ edit ] Jean-Pierre was the southeast regional political director for John Edwards' presidential campaign.[1]
- 2008 presidential campaign [ edit ] She was the southeast regional political director for Obama for America campaign.[1] During the first Obama term, Jean-Pierre served as the regional political director for the White House Office of Political Affairs.[5][6]
- 2012 presidential campaign [ edit ] In 2011, Jean-Pierre served as National Deputy Battleground States Director for President Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.[6] She led the delegate selection and ballot access process, while managing the political engagement in key states.[1] She provided resources to help states determine "the best way for them to get the word out for the campaign."[5]
- 2020 presidential campaign
- Jean-Pierre currently serves as a senior advisor to Former Vice President Joe Biden's 2020 campaign.
- Post-campaign [ edit ] Jean-Pierre joined the Columbia University faculty in 2014,[7] where she is a lecturer in international and public affairs.[8]
- Jean-Pierre served as the deputy campaign manager for Martin O'Malley's presidential campaign.[1] In April 2016, MoveOn.org named her a senior advisor and national spokesperson for the 2016 presidential election. In a press release announcing the hire, MoveOn said Jean-Pierre would "advise on and serve as a spokesperson around MoveOn's electoral work, including a major effort to stand up to Donald Trump."[9] She has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, CNN, CSPAN, PBS NewsHour.[1]
- In December 2018, the Haitian Times named her one of six "Haitian Newsmakers Of The Year".[7]
- In January 2019, Jean-Pierre became a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.[10]
- Activism [ edit ] Jean-Pierre has often demonstrated concern for human rights. She has worked at the Center for Community and Corporate Ethics and pushed major companies like Walmart to change their business practices.[11]
- Personal life [ edit ] Jean-Pierre identifies as lesbian.
- In an interview regarding her tenure working for the Obama Administration as an openly gay staffer, she said: "What's been wonderful is that I was not the only; I was one of many. President Obama didn't hire LGBT staffers, he hired experienced individuals who happen to be LGBT," she says. "Serving and working for President Obama where you can be openly gay has been an amazing honor. It felt incredible to be a part of an administration that prioritizes LGBT issues."[12]
- See also [ edit ] Organizing for AmericaReferences [ edit ] ^ a b c d e f "Karine Jean-Pierre: Biography". School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University . Retrieved May 14, 2019 . ^ https://thehaitianroundtable.org/portfolio/karine-jean-pierre/ ^ Watson, Jessica (October 30, 2012). "A conversation with former Obama aide, Karine Jean-Pierre". SheKnows Media . Retrieved March 16, 2017 . ^ "FEMALE RISING '' 7 Caribbean American Women Making Waves". News America Now. March 15, 2018 . Retrieved May 14, 2019 . ^ a b Johnson, Chris (September 8, 2011). "Behind the scenes of the Obama campaign". Washington Blade . Retrieved March 16, 2017 . ^ a b Allen, Mike (August 25, 2011). "Obama 2012 launches Project Vote". Politico . Retrieved March 16, 2017 . ^ a b "Haitian Newsmakers Of The Year". Haitian Times. December 27, 2018 . Retrieved May 14, 2019 . ^ Norris, Molly (January 15, 2018). "Political activist Karine Jean-Pierre encourages action, proactivity in speech". The Michigan Daily . Retrieved May 14, 2019 . ^ "MoveOn.com Names Karine Jean-Pierre As Senior Advisor & National Spokesperson for 2016 Elections". Politico. April 27, 2016 . Retrieved March 16, 2017 . ^ Concha, Joe (January 8, 2019). "MoveOn.org senior adviser joins NBC, MSNBC as political analyst". The Hill . Retrieved May 14, 2019 . ^ "Karine Jean-Pierre: The Child of Haitian Immigrants Who Became the Forefront of U.S. Politics". L'Union Suite. August 16, 2017 . Retrieved August 13, 2018 . ^ "Women on the Verge Part Two". The Advocate. June 9, 2011 . Retrieved August 13, 2018 . External links [ edit ] Official website
- Trymaine Lee - Wikipedia
- Trymaine D. Lee (born September 20, 1978)[1] is an American journalist. He shared a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of Hurricane Katrina as part of a team at The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.[2] From 2006 to 2010, Lee wrote for The New York Times and from early 2011 to November 2012 he was a senior reporter at The Huffington Post. Since then Lee is a national reporter for MSNBC, where he writes for the network's digital arm.
- Background [ edit ] Lee was raised in Chesilhurst, New Jersey. As a child, he showed an early interest in writing and athletics while attending the Milton Hershey School in Hershey, Pennsylvania.[3] After obtaining an associate degree in communications studies at Camden County College, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Rowan University.[4] While at Rowan, he wrote for the school newspaper The Whit and was involved with the NAACP.[5]
- Career [ edit ] Lee began his career reporting on police and crime at the Philadelphia Tribune and the Trentonian of Trenton, New Jersey. Outside of his work as a daily reporter, his work has also appeared in the magazines Ebony, Essence, Real Health and The Crisis.[4]
- Times-Picayune and Hurricane Katrina [ edit ] As a reporter for The Times-Picayune, Lee covered Hurricane Katrina as it happened. He had arrived in New Orleans only four months before.[1] Lee says that he was given the opportunity to evacuate on August 29 by another editor, but chose to stay and cover the story. His article "Nightmare in the 9th Ward all too real for one woman" was published on September 1, 2005'--exclusively online because the newspaper could not be printed.[5]
- The New York Times [ edit ] From 2006 to 2010, Lee was a staff reporter for The New York Times, where he primarily covered Harlem.[6] During this period, Lee also reported from Albany and Brooklyn and contributed to a series of videos called "New York On Less".[4]
- The Huffington Post [ edit ] In March 2011, Lee was hired to cover "national issues that impact the black community" for Huffington Post's Black Voices. The move was a consequence of AOL's acquisition and expansion of Huffington.[4][7]
- Reporting on Trayvon Martin [ edit ] Lee did not learn of Trayvon Martin until more than a week after the teenager's death, but he was one of the first national reporters to cover the story, for Huffington Post's Black Voices on March 8, 2012. He continued filing stories on the case nearly every day that month. He believes that his "early coverage definitely helped light the fire ... Before we pushed the story, few if any major national news outlets were covering it."[8][9] Lee appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann to discuss the story multiple times.[10]
- MSNBC [ edit ] In November 2012, Lee joined MSNBC as a national reporter for its digital unit, reporting on social justice issues and the impact of politics and policy on everyday people.[11] Lee described his move to MSNBC as a chance to "flex different muscles" as a journalist.[12]
- Awards [ edit ] Pulitzer Prize [ edit ] "Nightmare in the 9th Ward all too real for one woman" was one of the ten stories cited when The Times-Picayune staff won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting in 2006. Lee shared the award with three other reporters, Doug MacCash, Manuel Torres, and Mark Schleifstein.[2][13] The award marked the first time a Pulitzer was awarded for online journalism.[5] Lee also contributed to coverage of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal by The New York Times, which won the Breaking News Pulitzer three years later.[4][14]
- Other awards [ edit ] In 2006, Lee was named Emerging Journalist of the Year (one of three) by the National Association of Black Journalists.[1] The New York chapter of the association gave him the Griot award in 2011.[4] In April 2012, Lee won the April Sidney Award from the Sidney Hillman Foundation for his coverage of the Trayvon Martin case.[8] His alma maters Rowan University and Camden County College have both recognized him as outstanding among their alumni.[5][15]
- References [ edit ] External links [ edit ] Trymaine Lee on Twitter
- Sam Seder - Wikipedia
- American comedian and political progressive talk radio host
- ( 1966-11-28 ) November 28, 1966 (age 53) Alma materConnecticut College (BA)OccupationComedianwriterdirectorradio personalityYears active1987''presentPolitical partyDemocratic Spouse(s) Nicole Cattell (divorced sep. 2017)Children2Samuel Lincoln Seder (born November 28, 1966) is an American comedian, writer, actor, film director, television producer, philanthropist, and politically progressive talk radio host. His works include the film Who's the Caboose? (1997) starring Sarah Silverman and Seder as well as the television shows Beat Cops (2001) and Pilot Season (2004), a spinoff of his independent film with Silverman that was originally broadcast on the now-defunct Trio cable network. He also appeared in Next Stop Wonderland (1998) and made guest appearances on Spin City (1997), Sex and the City (2000), America Undercover (2005), and Maron (2015). Since 2010 he has hosted a daily political talk show, The Majority Report with Sam Seder. He also voices a recurring antagonistic character, Hugo, on the animated comedy series Bob's Burgers.
- Early life [ edit ] Seder was born to a Jewish family in New York City, and was raised in Worcester, Massachusetts.[1][2] One of three children, his father, J. Robert Seder, was a well-known lawyer in Worcester. Seder earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Religious Studies from Connecticut College and enrolled at Boston University School of Law, though he later dropped out to pursue a career in comedy.[3]
- Career [ edit ] In March 2004, Seder became co-host of Air America Radio's The Majority Report alongside Janeane Garofalo.[4]
- Air America later renewed Seder's contract, giving him top billing and retooling the program as The Sam Seder Show. The show was also moved to a time slot with higher viewership traffic.[citation needed ]
- During Mark J. Green's restructuring plan to transform Air America into a profitable leader in progressive talk radio, called "Air America 2.0",[5] The Sam Seder Show was cancelled on April 13, 2007 and replaced by WOR Radio Network late night radio show host Lionel.[6] Seder was relegated to a Sunday show entitled Seder on Sunday.[5] Lionel soon lost two-thirds of Seder's live affiliates and listenership.[7] The final Seder on Sunday was broadcast on June 1, 2008.[citation needed ]
- Seder also occasionally substituted for Randi Rhodes when Rhodes was on Air America, as well as Mike Malloy on The Mike Malloy Show on the Nova M Radio network. In 2008 he also began a collaboration with Marc Maron on Maron v. Seder, an hour-long video webcast. In January 2009, Maron v. Seder was renamed Breakroom Live with Maron & Seder[8] and aired live from the kitchen in the Air America offices weekdays. Seder and Maron also hosted a post-show chat with viewers after each episode. Air America Media cancelled Breakroom Live with Maron & Seder in July 2009.[9] In 2010, Air America was shut down.[10]
- In November 2009, Seder hosted a pilot for NBC of an American version of Have I Got News for You. Three years later, in November 2012, it was announced Seder would again be the host of an American version of the show, this time on TBS.[11][12]
- In November 2010, Seder began an independent online podcast, also called The Majority Report. The live talk-show format closely matches the previous Air America program, with politically-oriented commentary by Seder and co-hosts and interviews with various guests. Seder offers listeners different tiered levels of access to content around the show via crowdfunding platform Patreon.
- In late 2010, Seder began occasionally serving as substitute host of Countdown with Keith Olbermann when Olbermann was on vacation. In December 2010, Seder also became co-host of the nationally syndicated progressive radio interview program Ring of Fire, co-hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Florida-based attorney Mike Papantonio.[13]
- Seder also works as a political contributor for MSNBC.[14][15]
- 2004 Republican National Convention [ edit ] On September 1, 2004, Seder was briefly detained by the United States Secret Service during his live, on-site coverage of the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden. Shortly after Zell Miller gave his speech, Seder began searching (with a sign in hand) on the convention floor for a willing homosexual Republican to interview live on radio. Shortly thereafter, he was physically removed from the floor and '' after brief questioning '' asked to leave the convention. Seder later commented that his wearing of a lapel pin that he had been given by a Secret Service agent at the Democratic National Convention earlier that year had kept him from being ejected from the convention completely.[16]
- 2017 MSNBC controversy [ edit ] I believe this tweet was posted when Polanski was seeking to return to the US. I wrote that tweet out of disgust with those who were excusing or were seeking to advocate forgiveness for Polanski's actions which caused him to flee the US. I was appalled that anyone would diminish the seriousness of rape, particularly of a child by citing the perpetrator's artistic contributions. Obviously, I would not wish any harm of my daughter or any other person.
- I am confident that other tweets from that time will reflect my disgust in a less satirical tone.
- '--Sam Seder in an email to MSNBC Senior VP of Communications Errol Cockfield Jr., defending the tweet.[17]
- On November 28, 2017, American social media personality, writer, and conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich published a post on Medium[18] that resurfaced a deleted tweet Seder wrote in 2009 joking about convicted statutory rapist and fugitive film director Roman Polanski.[15][19] The tweet read, "Don't care re Polanski, but I hope if my daughter is ever raped it is by an older truly talented man w/ a great sense of mise en scene."[18][19] Cernovich insisted the tweet proved Seder tacitly endorsed Polanski's sex crime.[18][17] He then approached multiple journalists and news outlets, including MSNBC, to break the story.[14][20]
- Seder found out about the brewing controversy the same evening en route to a supermarket after being contacted by MSNBC Senior Vice President of Communications Errol Cockfield Jr. asking him to explain the tweet. Seder replied to Cockfield in an email explaining the point being made in the tweet and the context in which he wrote it. Seder also provided other tweets supporting his claim.[14][17]
- The next day, on November 29, 2017, Seder received a voicemail from Cockfield indicating MSNBC's upper management was seriously considering cutting ties with him. Seder responded that MSNBC was making a mistake and that, "there's no story here." Seder further warned Cockfield that if they moved forward with the termination, "You guys are going to be the story." Seder also requested a formal termination email. Seder never received the email, leading him to believe that this employment status was still undecided.[14][17]
- On Sunday, December 3, 2017, Seder was notified by Jon Levine of TheWrap that they had been contacted by MSNBC who had decided to terminate Seder's contract and were about to break the story through their own publication. Seder immediately sent Cockfield an inquiry regarding his status. Cockfield, at first, did not have a status update but later confirmed MSNBC was, in fact, dropping Seder.[14][17]
- Firing [ edit ] The next day, on December 4, 2017, TheWrap announced that MSNBC had severed ties with Seder by not renewing his contract due to the controversial tweet.[14][15][17] Seder defended the tweet by pointing out that, taken in context of the current events around the time he posted it, it was a satiric response to a petition urging Polanski's release from detention in Switzerland.[15][20][21][22] An anonymous MSNBC source defended the termination, "It gives us pause when we see alt-right figures whipping up attention about our action but the reality is Seder made a rape joke."[17] After news of the termination broke, Cernovich released a Twitter video celebrating his triumph.[14][N 1]
- Seder noted that advertisers on The Majority Report with Sam Seder podcast were also being contacted and pressured by Cernovich and his team to cut ties with the show over the tweet.[14] In response, Seder launched a GoFundMe campaign to help maintain funding for the show in the face of potential loss of advertising revenue.[14] In an episode of the podcast titled, "I'm Under Attack By the Nazi Alt-Right", Seder said, "this smear involves the willful misinterpretation of a tweet that I posted in 2009" and that he will "never be ashamed of criticizing those who would excuse the predation of women or girls."[15][17]
- Seder revealed plans to use a portion of the GoFundMe proceeds to produce a three-minute video educating people on Cernovich's tactics.[14] He surmised Cernovich's ploy had been retribution for his frequent criticism of Donald Trump as well as Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore who was accused of sexual assault.[15][20][N 2] Further, Seder chided MSNBC's decision to terminate his employment concluding, "I think they're afraid of those people."[17][N 3]
- This was mind-bogglingly stupid, a real textbook case of how not to handle 'controversy' ... Seder was taking the side of abuse victims.
- '--The Washington Post reporter David Weigel on MSNBC's decision to fire Seder.[14]
- The news of Seder's dismissal sparked a backlash.[15][23] Over 12,000 people signed a petition protesting Seder's termination, arguing that Cernovich had acted in malice and was deliberately mischaracterizing the tweet.[20][24] AV Club wrote that "MSNBC has now fully bought into that smear campaign ... whose openly stated goal is the destruction of news outlets just like it through the use of blatantly manipulative trolling techniques.[25] Mother Jones rebuked MSNBC for capitulating "to the demands of a lunatic conservative."[N 4] HuffPost chided that Cernovich was now MSNBC's new "De Facto Ombudsman."[27] MSNBC primetime anchor Chris Hayes tweeted, "The entire culture and our politics are now dominated by people who have weaponized bad faith and shamelessness."[26] Hayes tweeted several times against the decision by his own network, including: "Also, I reiterate my longstanding position that people shouldn't be fired for a tweet, *particularly* one that is obviously being read in manifestly bad faith."[20][28] Actress and comedian Sarah Silverman also tweeted in support of Seder.[N 5]
- Rehiring [ edit ] There was considerable dissent within MSNBC over Seder's termination. Some employees expressed concerns that his firing would encourage other far-right personalities to launch similar smear campaigns.[14][21] A senior MSNBC employee characterized the capitulation as "really weak" and "pathetic".[14][21] MSNBC's management itself was unsettled by the celebratory reaction from the far-right.[14][21] On December 7, 2017, MSNBC decided to reverse their decision to terminate Seder's employment. MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a statement, "Sometimes you just get one wrong, and that's what happened here. We made our initial decision for the right reasons'--because we don't consider rape to be a funny topic to be joked about. But we've heard the feedback, and we understand the point Sam was trying to make in that tweet was actually in line with our values, even though the language was not. Sam will be welcome on our air going forward."[24][29] In response, Seder issued a statement while accepting his job back:
- I appreciate MSNBC's thoughtful reconsideration and willingness to understand the cynical motives of those who intentionally misrepresented my tweet for their own toxic, political purposes ... We are experiencing an important and long overdue moment of empowerment for the victims of sexual assault and of reckoning for their perpetrators. I'm proud that MSNBC and its staff have set a clear example of the need to get it right.[22][29][N 6]
- If you decide to let this guy be the arbiter of what is and is not appropriate, understand who he is.
- '--Sam Seder on Cernovich.[14]
- Columbia Journalism Review cited the incident as an example of a broader pattern of far-right media personalities using online smear campaigns to get mainstream journalists fired.[30] Cernovich acknowledged that "some are saying Seder was making a joke or being sarcastic."[14][15] However,he didn't misrepresent the tweet, but merely "reported on what [Seder] said."[14] |"The left isn't going to stop going through our tweets so we aren't going to stop going through theirs," Cernovich said. "I wish we would get over people trying to find someone saying a naughty thing. I've been saying that for years. And nobody wants to listen. So fine, we will play by the same rules."[14]|group=N}} Cernovich indicated this was meant to bring attention the double standard in the media and obvious lack of "diversity of viewpoint"{{#tag:ref|"EVERY media article has defended Sam Seder's right to make child rape 'jokes' that would get anyone else fired, but yeah there is no media narrative at all, and there's totally a diversity of viewpoint in the media. Yes, sure thing guys, we totally buy that."Cernovich also tweeted that he was thrilled MSNBC offered Seder his job back while promising to "bring Sam Seder's Tweet out every time the media goes after someone else for a Tweet. "I'm thrilled MSNBC has made the decision that people shouldn't be fired over satirical tweets," Cernovich said on Twitter. "This rule will surely be applied equally to all sides, and if it's not, we will bring Sam Seder's Tweet out every time the media goes after someone else for a Tweet." Cernovich also revealed "My wife is being stalked, and the media is encouraging this campaign of terror."
- 2020 and 2022 elections [ edit ] On January 24, 2019, Seder announced his intention be a candidate in the Libertarian Party primary for the 2020 presidential election as a satirical candidate, due to his opposition to American libertarians.[31]
- He subsequently announced his intention to challenge incumbent senator Chuck Schumer for the Democratic Party nomination for the 2022 New York Senate election.[32]
- Months after announcing his satirical candidacy, a poll by Third Party Watch among registered libertarian voters had Seder in first place, beating candidate Adam Kokesh by nine points.[33]
- Personal life [ edit ] On August 9, 2005, Seder's then-wife gave birth to a daughter.[citation needed ] On March 7, 2013, she gave birth to their second child, a son.[34]
- On April 27, 2018, Seder announced that the couple were separated.[35]
- Filmography [ edit ] All American Girl TV actor (1994)The Show TV actor (1996)The Big Fall actor (1997)Who's the Caboose? actor, director, co-writer, co-producer (1997)Spin City TV actor (1997)Next Stop Wonderland actor (1998)Home Movies TV voiceover (1999)Sex and the City TV actor (2000)Happy Accidents actor (2000)Endsville actor (2000)Home Movies Voice of Fenton Mewley and other smaller roles (2001''2004)Beat Cops actor, writer, producer (2001)Saddle Rash TV voiceover (2002)I'm with Busey director (2003)Pilot Season TV actor, director, writer, producer (2004)America Undercover TV actor (2005)Jesus Camp cameo (2006)Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil TV voiceover (2007)Assy McGee TV voiceover & writer (2008)Bob's Burgers TV voiceover (2011'')Fits and Starts (2017)References [ edit ] Notes
- ^ "Thank you to everybody who emailed MSNBC," Cernovich said in a video he posted on Twitter. "Thank you to all of you. You're heroes. You're heroes because you emailed MSNBC and you let them know about the tweet. You let them know the people will be heard."[14] ^ Seder explained Cernovich's ploy thusly: "If they succeed in getting me fired or scaring my advertisers away, they will continue until they have silenced anyone who'd criticize Roy Moore, criticize President [Donald] Trump or criticize the conservative movement."[15] ^ "According to Seder, he and MSNBC management never had a serious discussion about the tweet, what it meant and whether it posed a problem for MSNBC social-media standards. "If there was any conversation about the tweet," says Seder, "it had nothing to do with substance. It was, 'This is blowing up.'" And from what Seder can tell, his position with the network didn't much concern the company's top managers. "I only spoke to the PR guy and they only fired me after there was an imminent story," says Seder. An MSNBC spokesman responds that the company requested Seder's written defense of his tweet, and then considered that defense in reaching its decision on the contract renewal. Seder's conclusion: "I think they're afraid of those people."[17] ^ Mother Jones wrote: "thanks to the demands of a lunatic conservative, they cut off Sam Seder for a single lame joke made on Twitter in 2009."[26] ^ Sarah Silverman's tweet: "Yo @msnbc ur gonna let Mr Pizzagate be ur moral compass?"[14] ^ Seder further elaborated on this statement in a phone interview with The New York Times: "I think [MSNBC] messed up, and I think they hopefully learned a lesson that you have to make an assessment on the substance. Media outlets in general have been very reluctant to do that, and I think it's become so much more important in this era, both because of technology and because of, frankly, the depravity of some elements of our society."[20] Footnotes
- ^ http://archive.boston.com/yourlife/articles/2006/08/23/failure_is_an_option/ ^ Shanahan, Mark (August 23, 2006). "Failure is an option - Despite his best efforts to sabotage himself, Sam Seder is finding success on Air America". Boston.com. ^ Dianne Williamson. "Worcester Living: Worcester Native and Podcast Host Sam Seder Takes Life With a Laugh - and Thanks." Worcester (MA) Telegram and Gazette, December 4, 2018. https://www.telegram.com/entertainmentlife/20181204/worcester-living-worcester-native-and-podcast-host-sam-seder-takes-life-with-laugh---and-thanks ^ Steinberg, Jacques (March 31, 2004). "Liberal Voices (Some Sharp) Get New Home On Radio Dial". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved February 8, 2020 . ^ a b "Comment from Mark Green about Sam Seder". Airamerica.com. Archived from the original on March 27, 2009 . Retrieved July 16, 2009 . ^ "Radio Online". News.radio-online.com. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007 . Retrieved July 16, 2009 . ^ "Sam Seder on TYT Network (Why Air America Fell, Obama & Much More!)". YouTube. ^ "The Majority Report with Sam Seder - Political Podcast & Radio Show". Breakroomlive.com . Retrieved July 21, 2017 . ^ Lowen, Cynthia (August 9, 2009). "Whatever Happened to Progressive Talk Radio? Did Air America Kiss it Good Bye?". AlterNet . Retrieved December 20, 2017 . ^ Stelter, Brian (January 21, 2010). "Air America, the Talk Radio Network, Will Go Off the Air". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved February 8, 2020 . ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on November 14, 2009 . Retrieved November 17, 2009 . CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) ^ "Will UK Panel Show 'Have I Got News for You' Work in the US?". Screenrant.com. November 14, 2012 . Retrieved July 21, 2017 . ^ "Sam Seder joins Ring Of Fire". CBS Radio. January 5, 2011 . Retrieved August 17, 2011 . ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Kludt, Tom; Darcy, Oliver (December 5, 2017). "How a joke, and Mike Cernovich, got Sam Seder booted from MSNBC". CNNMoney. Time Warner . Retrieved December 10, 2017 . ^ a b c d e f g h i O'Connor, Lydia (December 5, 2017). "MSNBC Gives In To Disingenuous Right-Wing Smear, Fires Sam Seder". Huffington Post. Oath Inc. Retrieved December 10, 2017 . ^ "Sam Seder gets thrown out of the RNC 2004". March 8, 2007 '' via YouTube. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wemple, Erik (December 5, 2017). "MSNBC is cutting ties with Sam Seder. 'I think they're afraid' of Mike Cernovich & Co., he says". The Washington Post. Fred Ryan . Retrieved December 10, 2017 . ^ a b c Cernovich, Mike (November 28, 2017). "MSNBC Contributor Sam Seder Endorses Polanki's Sex Crimes in Now Deleted Tweet". Medium. A Medium Corporation . Retrieved December 10, 2017 . ^ a b "MSNBC to Cut Ties With Sam Seder After Roman Polanski Rape Joke (Exclusive)". TheWrap. December 4, 2017 . Retrieved December 5, 2017 . ^ a b c d e f Bromwich, Jonah Engel (December 7, 2017). "MSNBC Rehires Contributor Sam Seder: 'Sometimes You Just Get One Wrong ' ". The New York Times. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. Retrieved December 10, 2017 . ^ a b c d Kludt, Tom (December 7, 2017). "MSNBC decides to bring back Sam Seder after controversy". CNNMoney. Time Warner . Retrieved December 10, 2017 . ^ a b Grim, Ryan (December 7, 2017). "MSNBC Reverses Decision to Fire Contributor Sam Seder". The Intercept. First Look Media . Retrieved December 10, 2017 . ^ Salisbury, Drew (December 7, 2017). "MSNBC Rehires Sam Seder After Stupidly Firing Him for Satirical Tweet". Spin. Eldridge Industries . Retrieved December 10, 2017 . ^ a b Lima, Christiano (December 7, 2017). "MSNBC reverses course on firing contributor Seder after backlash". Politico. Capitol News Company . Retrieved December 10, 2017 . ^ O'Neal, Sean. "MSNBC cuts ties with Sam Seder after giving in to "alt-right" smear campaign". The A.V. Club. Onion Inc . Retrieved December 5, 2017 . ^ a b "MSNBC cuts off Sam Seder over a single lame joke from eight years ago". Mother Jones. Foundation For National Progress . Retrieved December 5, 2017 . ^ Feinberg, Ashley (December 6, 2017). "This Is MSNBC's De Facto Ombudsman". Huffington Post. Oath Inc . Retrieved December 10, 2017 . ^ Hayes, Chris (December 4, 2017). "Also, I reiterate my longstanding position that people shouldn't be fired for a tweet, *particularly* one that is obviously being read in manifestly bad faith" . Retrieved December 5, 2017 . ^ a b "MSNBC Reverses Course on Contributor Sam Seder". Variety. Penske Media Corporation. December 7, 2017 . Retrieved December 10, 2017 . ^ Vernon, Pete (December 5, 2017). "The media today: Trump's 'fake news' attacks have global impact". Columbia Journalism Review. Columbia University . Retrieved December 10, 2017 . ^ Seder, Sam (November 11, 2010). "An Open Challenge To Libertarians". Youtube. ^ "Sam Seder Announces 2020 Campaign". YouTube . Retrieved January 24, 2019 . ^ "2020 Green and Libertarian Primary Polling". Third Party Watch. Third Party Watch . Retrieved April 26, 2019 . ^ Seder, Sam (March 7, 2013). "My son born at 5:36 AM today. Mommy & baby both healthy!". Twitter . Retrieved July 21, 2017 . ^ Seder, Sam (April 27, 2018). "I am separated from my wife". YouTube . Retrieved June 27, 2019 . Bibliography
- Seder, Sam; Sherrill, Stephen (2006), F.U.B.A.R.: America's Right-Wing Nightmare, HarperCollins, ISBN 978-0-06-186364-6 Scher, Bill; Garofalo, Janeane; Seder, Sam (2006), Wait! Don't Move to Canada: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America, Rodale, ISBN 9781594863967 External links [ edit ] Official website Sam Seder, Bob Knight (December 12, 2005). "War on the War on the War on Christmas". CNN News (Transcript). CNN. Sam Seder on IMDb
- The Heritage of Slavery (1968) w/ Fannie Lou Hamer & Lerone Bennett, Jr. | Beyond Capitalism Now
- The Heritage of Slavery (1968)
- w/ Fannie Lou Hamer & Lerone Bennett, Jr.
- News documentary from 1968 hosted by George Foster, exploring the legacy of oppression that remains over 100 years after the abolition of that peculiar institution. In Part 1, Foster visits Charleston, SC and speaks with both descendants of slaves and slave owners. The cameras capture a sermon by Rev. Henry Butler of the Mother Emmanuel AME Church (where Denmark Vesey planned an unsuccessful slave revolt in 1822 and Dylan Roof would later kill 9 church members in 2015). In Part 2, the cameras go to Mississippi to speak with former sharecroppers and political activist FANNIE LOU HAMER. In the final segment, we travel to Chicago, where Prof. JAMES TURNER and activist CALVIN LOCKRIDGE educate young people about revolution. Ebony Magazine editor and historian LERONE BENNETT offers a poignant analogy to describe the times we are in today. From http://www.archive.org Assumed to be in the Public Domain.
- Charleston, South Carolina has a beautiful harbor, and an historic one. The Civil War began here with the shelling of Fort Sumter, and even before his fleet was beaten back at the harbor entrance by American revolutionary troops. But there is another history here, and it has its own kind of troops, two boatloads of them once starved themselves to death at this harbor rather than enter Charleston. Another 40,000 of them were rushed through this port in one three-year period, so they could go to work in America, for nothing.
- They were Africans. But, in this country, they were taught to look at themselves another way, as slaves. Charleston is one of America's oldest cities. Much of the city is lovely, and much of its loveliness is the product of slave labor. But Charleston, like the rest of America, learned very early that, if it was going to have slaves, it had better sleep with a gun under its pillow.
- Like other immigrants to America, the slaves were huddled masses. But, unlike the others, what Blacks were huddled against was America itself. Often they rebelled . Quite often.
- Partly in order to deal with inside agitators, Charleston put walls and fences all over the place. It turned out, that if you bought a slave, you may have bought yourself an insurrectionist.
- Today, all over America, there are still echoes of the noises made when one race tries to subjugate another. We will explore the heritage of slavery and the roots of Black rebellion.
- Twenty Africans were landed in America in 1619, one year before the Mayflower. By 1860, there were four million Black men, women and children, the private property of White America. The New World meant possession to the White man. It meant dispossession to the Black man. Slavery was an attitude as much as a condition, and attitudes, like land, can be inherited
- On the plantation outside Charleston where his family has lived for eight generations, since 1672, Norwood Hasty was asked if he thinks slavery was immoral.
- No, no. I don't, because when a slave came from Africa, he couldn't speak the language, he was totally untrained to do any any job at all that would fit in with the civilization. Someone had to take care of him, someone had to take care of him 24 hours a day, and it's pretty hard to do that unless you owned a person. So I think slavery just had to be in those early days.
- Mr. Hasty, what was life like in those early days?
- As far as the Colored people were concerned, I feel that they were a good bit happier than they are now. They had less in the way of material things. but I can remember back in the twenties, when I was a small boy, they were always singing at their work, had a great sense of humor. Now today they just don't seem to care much about that as they used to. And I think they have lost their sense of it somewhat, which I deplore.
- What do you think are the differences between the races?
- I think there's a refusal to accept responsibility. I think there's a lack of motivation. I've tried here to promote people to foreman, superintendents, but they just refused to do it. They just don't want the responsibility. They don't worry likely the White man. If they have troubles, they go to sleep and wake up the next morning, that trouble is over.
- Is it possible that White people have something to do with the lack of ability for Blacks to assimilate into this culture?
- Absolutely. White man has certainly been prejudiced and, to quite an extent, unfair. But customs die awful hard. it takes takes a long time. and everyone knew years ago that the nigger would have to be given equality. but in the South, knowing Nigras as we think we do, we realized it would take time. it has been compared to straightening teeth, you can't do it with a hammer. White people's attitudes will change in time. I'm a lot more liberal than I was five years ago, and I know I'll be a lot more liberal five years from now. And I think almost everyone else is in that category.
- What has tended to make you more liberal?
- The realization that the Negra is a human being like anyone else.
- Mr. Hasty, what did you think we were before you began to think of us as human beings?
- Well, in a way, we thought of ya'll mostly as a very superior pet, something, or rather, someone we had to take care of. Because we had to do so much of their thinking for them. We had to do almost everything for them, except living their own lives. Anything outside, we had to do for them.
- If masters did the thinking for slaves, it is not recorded who did the thinking for masters. Most Southerners didn't even own slaves, but they became victims of the glamour surrounding big plantations. Today there is talk of equality in the future. But it is the romance of the unequal past that still infatuates and torments much of Charleston. For Blacks, that past is a little thin on romance.
- It is true that in a home like this one, Scarlett O'Hara might have lived. And, a home like this might have contained an overseer like Simon Legree. But it is an absolute certainty that ,if I had been around in those days, I would have lived right here. And that, for an increasing number of Black Americans today, is what American history is all about.
- The process of slavery began in Africa. The slave trade was very rewarding. New Englanders made quick fortunes and African profiteers, who were not exactly soul brothers, sometimes helped them. A Black captive was marched overland to the west coast of Africa where a molten branding iron gave him a new instant identity. It was found that if you strip a man of his culture, prevent him from learning a new one, and separate him from his family, it does not take him too long to start feeling like a commodity.
- The West's naval architects competed to design slave ships where more men could be packed into less space. Gustavus Vassa was a slave who later bought his freedom. A reading from his diary recalls his abduction in 1756:
- The sight of the ship filled me with terror when I was carried on board. I was put down into the decks. and there, with the loathsomeness of the stench and crying together, I became so sick and loathe that I was not able to eat. Two of the White men offered me eatables, and on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, while the other flogged me severely. The closeness of the place and the heat added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us . The air soon became unfit for respiration from a variety of loathsome smells and brought on a sickness among the slaves of which many died. The shrieks of the women and the groans of the dying rendered a scene of horror almost unbelievable.
- When they reached America, slaves found auction blocks waiting for them. Any slave could be sold at anytime. Slave markets were very effective socially. They broke up the Black family. But even if you were a commodity, you remembered the last time you saw your mother. A slave described his own sale in 1858:
- My brothers and sisters were bid off first, while my mother, paralyzed by grief, held me by the hand. Her turn came and she was bought by Isaac Riley. Then I was offered to the assembly of purchases. My mother pushed through the crowd to the spot where Riley was standing. She fell at his feet, entreating him to buy her baby as well as herself and spare her one child at least. Will it, can it be believed, that this man was capable of disengaging himself from her with such violent blows and kicks as to reduce her to creeping out of his reach? I was then five years old.
- Slaves were sold at several markets in Charleston, and one of them has been meticulously preserved for visitors. Recently, a bi-racial committee was formed, and it has worked hard to build a new link between Whites and Blacks. Very little of what American cities have come to think of as racial turmoil has occurred in Charleston. But underneath the graciousness, old relationships are often found intact. Descendants of slaves work for descendants of slave owners.
- Mrs. Lionel Leg retains the tone of a past she cherishes.
- So Daisy was my little playmate, my maid, my friend, and the daughter of old Catherine, who was a cook that we adored. So all those years we played together and everyone was happy. We never heard of all these things we hear about today. And there were nearly a hundred, enormous rice plantation with many animals around, and a beautiful old house and about a hundred Colored people there. But we loved them. They were our friends, and then it's no disgrace to say they're like children. When we say they are like children, it's because they are like happy children, some of them, because they like to sit in the sun rather than work hard, and they'd rather play than work.
- If you could, would you paint a picture for us of what it was like on the plantation in your early days.
- It was a lovely happy time, living in open spaces with many lovely Colored people and animals and flowers and fields. My father had everything thoroughbred, from the pigs, horses, the dogs and the people had to be thoroughbred.
- And we would get into a buggy with him and drive to the plantation from what we call the pine land, where we lived. And we would spend, every Saturday this was, we would spend the day, and old Fortune, I can see him now, he would give us dinner. And we would have a heavenly time. And old April, he was the dairyman, that's all he did, all he did was to skim the cream off of these great big boards of clabber and put them in the wooden churn and churn this marvelous fresh butter. That was April's job. He didn't do anything else, but love us and and skim the cream.
- Mrs. Ruby Cornwell: (Retired Charleston School Teacher)
- The Southern White man just loves to say that ,''Oh our Negros are happy. They like it, they like the way things are. If other people would just leave them alone, there wouldn't be any problem''. And, some, I think, really believe it. And I think that's one thing, perhaps, has sort of thrown them off balance, when all of a sudden their Negros just weren't behaving the way they thought they ought to behave. You were just a doormat, and that's where the good relations came in. As long as you're a doormat, we have wonderful relations.
- They just felt that, until recently, relations between Negroes and White were just so very good, just wonderful relations. It's outside agitators. And, yet, it never occurs to them that they were good on whose terms, on their terms.
- Those terms have been dictated by a White aristocracy that has ruled the South for almost 300 years. The aristocrats said slavery was one of mankind's noblest inventions. But, it was a nobility often maintained by violence. If a slave got beaten enough, some of the milk of human kindness was likely to drain out of him.
- The master got mad at me, and he buckled me down across a barrel, and whipped me until he cut the blood out of me. It felt like I would die, but he owned us, body and soul, and there wasn't anything we could do about it. When the master died, we were called in to look at his coffin. We all marched by him slowly, and I just happened to look up and caught my sister's eye, and we both just naturally laughed. Why not? We were glad he was dead.
- Slaves began running away in the sixteen-hundreds, but the principal method of escape wasn't formed until the eighteen-hundreds. It was called the Underground Railroad, though the journey was usually on foot. Harriet Tubman, the railroad's outstanding conductor, would walk innocently past a plantation singing ''Steal away to Jesus'', and the slaves would literally steal away, to Philadelphia or Boston.
- Wherever there was slavery, there was also resistance. The revolutionary movement among Blacks began long before the ''Spirit of '76''. Until 1800, slavery was legal in the North. New York City had a massive slave insurrection in 1712. There were at least 250 recorded slave revolts in America. The most effective insurrection was led by Nat Turner in Virginia in 1831. Turner and his fellow revolutionaries killed 60 White people before they themselves were captured and executed by state and federal troops. The South was terrified. Owners decided they had better be protected from their property. Slave laws became more severe.
- In 1850, Congress lent the South a hand by passing the Fugitive Slave Law, allowing Southerners to come North to reclaim their Runaways. But resistance had its own momentum too. It was articulated fiercely and with finality in the famous appeal by David Walker, a free Black man living in the North.
- I ask one question here. Can our condition be any worse? Had you not rather be killed than to be a slave to a tyrant who takes the life of your mother, wife and dear little children? I speak Americans for your own good. We must and shall be free in spite of you! You may do your best to keep us in wretchedness and misery, but God will deliver us from under you. And woe, woe will it be unto you, if we have to obtain our freedom by fighting. Throw away your fears and prejudices, and we will love you more than we do now hate you. What a happy country this will be if the Whites will only listen.
- On the site of an old church in Charleston, the most daring of all slave revolts was planned by a freed slave named Denmark Vesey. With nine-thousand supporters, Vesey intended to capture the entire city of Charleston. But. he was betrayed by a house slave.
- The Reverend Henry Butler inspires his congregation to be proud that slavery was met by insurrection.
- So Denmark Vesey, an anti-slavery leader, 1767, 1822. He was an insurrectionist, so they tell me. He organized an unsuccessful slave revolt here in Charleston, South Carolina. He and 34 other Negro conspirators, so they call them, were hanged. But it was here, on this spot, in a little old wooden structure downstairs that Denmark Vesey planned his insurrection. And then, as now, some of the people could not keep a secret. And I can sympathize because our forefathers were taught not to keep anything secret from the master, and there was a servant who told the master of Denmark Vesey's insurrection and of his plan. And, of course the plan was broken up, and then South Carolina passed a law closing all (our) schools and daring Negroes to be caught reading. And this place was closed.
- When we think of those that were hanged, those that were persecuted, those that were killed, those that have had hoses and water poured on them, those who have had bloodhounds on their trails, those that have been mistreated and, in the midst of of it all, somehow they stood up, because they had a spiritual backbone that called them to look beyond the temporary things of life. If we are to move in this new day, we cannot have backbones like a jellyfish. What is man? Man is a part of God! Each man is a thought of God. Each man is entitled to be recognized. And, we trust that in the future we do not have to do what our fathers had to do, but if necessary, we have to do what has to be done!
- Doing what he thinks must be done in Charleston is what Bill Saunders, a Black activist, worries about. He finds the past too close for comfort. Although it is more than 100 years since the end of legal slavery in America, Saunders believes too many Whites act like masters, and too many Blacks feel like slaves.
- Old slave master and slave conditions that existed, hundred, 200 years ago, are still here in Charleston. We as Black people were brought into this country for slave labor, and we have worked as slaves from the time that were brought into this country until the present time. I'm fighting so hard for Black survival, because I believe that this country is getting to the place that they don't need that labor anymore. And, since they don't need that labor anymore, they don't need Black people anymore.
- The has past taught me that I got to do something to survive here, and I feel like a lot of us will have to start adjusting exactly how we feel about the situation. We really got nothing to lose, really. We ain't got no jobs to lose, we ain't got no business to lose. The only thing we have got to lose are our lives, and the man been taking that any time he want it.
- The thing that I am saying, that I'm preaching, that instead of going to jail for the man all the time, for nothing, if you gonna go to jail, go to jail for something. Have yourself a plan and make something, when you do go to jail. this is the just the type of program, you've got to, you got to. The thing that we don't have, we don't have no program to go to the man and say ''''This is what we want''.
- I did a lot of things in my past that I'm guilty of . First, my parents were Black and then I was born Black. You're not guilty you know of no crime at all except for being Black. The White man is my oppressor. He's the one that
- controls the jail. He controls the hospital. He controls the army, he controls the Navy, controls everything, and he's the man and I have to fight. White America got to wake up and realize and listen and understand that not only Black folk got to make sacrifices, but White folks gonna have to start making sacrifices, some sacrifices to make this country what it's supposed to be. Other than that, there's not gon' be no country.
- '--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'---
- Sharkey County, Mississippi
- Every man, woman and child in Mississippi can rationalize how they have always been friends to the Colored man. All of a sudden, they wake up here one morning and are told that what the way they've operated for the last hundred years is wrong. This is a hard thing to just tell a man that he's spent his life doing something wrong. He doesn't have to believe it. And, then all of a sudden, we're some kind of demon. If you if you live in Mississippi and run a cotton plantation, you''re supposed to be some kind of demon. This is the national image of cotton plantation operator in the Mississippi Delta.
- Humphreys McGee owns a 25-hundred acre plantation in the Mississippi Delta. His mother's family has been in the state for seven generations. And, on his father's side, the McGees moved the Delta from South Carolina. Charleston was the elegant capital of Southern culture in the 19th century. Mississippi was the frontier. Attitudes hardened early. The old way of life has endured in Mississippi longer than anywhere else. Whites and Blacks in the Delta look at he past from different angles, but it is a shared past.
- See the Civil War's over, and regardless of the evils of slavery, these people understood each other. It was not some sort of medieval torture for a person to be a tenant farmer on a plantation. And, I don't know anybody that is ashamed of the system the way it worked. It's an impossible system to return to. With that mechanical cotton-picker, one man can do what 150 men had been doing. This was the crown and blow to this system. Everything is geared to machinery. And where I used to have 83 families on the plantation, I have 15 boys working machine operators. But I will say, that the system we had was a system that, on the surface, developed a very outgoing happy group of people. They're old people now, but these are the people that that I grew up thinking I knew.
- Mr. and Mrs. Haywood Jenkins:
- I work hard and she work hard. (Show'l did.)
- I work hard, hard, hard. I get out, get up at four-clock and get my breakfast done., just at the dawn of day, I go to the field and be pick cotton.
- Mr. and Mrs. Haywood Jenkins of Sharkey County Mississippi have, between them, picked cotton for over a century.
- The boss man came along and he says, ''Mary Jane'', and I say, ''Suh?'', and he says, ''I say, when you wash?'' I say, ''I washed last night''. And he say, ''I don't want you to do that no mo'. That's my agent, you know.'' He says, ''Every Friday morning or Friday evening, you wash. And let all the children stay there with you 'til you get through. And, when you get through, then ya'll can go back to the field and work'' Now the agents was mean, some of 'em, some of 'em was mean. They wanted to whoop the Colored people. And that kind of White man come along and he says ''Haywood, you ain't in the field, yet!'' Hay just had started the plowing, he said, ''Yeah, I just now got to eat my dinner.'' He say, ''Gotdamnit, you ain't doing a gotdamn thing! Gotdamnit, I oughta take this damn stick at frail the hell outcha.'' Hay say ''If you frail the hell outta me, gotdamnit ,I'm gone flail the hell outta you.!''
- It make me feel bad, if we was under him, how mean he was to treat us like that.
- In the frontier days, slaves begged not to be sent to Mississippi, where the work was almost as harsh as the overseers. Resistance was often subtle, but seldom absent. A runaway slave said that each so-called happy song was a testimony against slavery and a prayer for deliverance.
- This system in its best sense was based on noblesse oblige by the land owner. But I don't have 83 families anymore that I feel like I'm the daddy of. I do not expect to ever have this relationship with the younger generation, the children of these men. They are oriented entirely differently. They grew up in the Fifties. They're a conscious of the change in the status quo. They're fairly confused about what their position is. They don't want to be subservient.
- Young Black Man in Mississippi:
- From what I saw my mother and father and my brothers do, while I was growing up, I feel that I don't want my kids growing up in a world like this. Because I know some days I saw my mother slaving from six in the morning in a hot sun, hundred-degree weather, from pulling a hoe in a field from six until night, with about a hour's break between all this time. My father doing labor that machines wouldn't be made to do, hardly. The labor was that bad. And, I feel that if we've been working this long and we can't even own the shirts on our backs, I feel that we have to take some drastic steps, some drastic steps, to make something happen, to make a change come about. Because Mississippi is going to either have to change or there can be no more Mississippi. And we have to do this by any means possible. Through our parents, we've earned Mississippi. It's no question about it, brother. I mean, if my mother got out there and sweated from morning until night and you tell me I don't own anything she sweated on! How can that be! How can it be?!
- The White man does not want to give over his institutions. And that's what people fear will happen. Give up control, who wants to give up control? You just don't want to turn over the reins of everything, and give up control. Who wants to give up control?
- (Okay guys get in the car . Let's go.)
- So White supremacy is, undoubtedly, a feeling that White people have all over the world. Of course, how the Black man and the White man would live together has been the paramount concern of people ever since the Mississippi Valley was settled, especially when the greatest number was the Black people. The problem is that I don't need the men I used to need.
- Humphreys McGee can run his plantation with machines now, and the government takes care of surplus cotton. That leaves surplus people and no one does anything about them. They cluster in shanty towns like this one in Cleveland, Mississippi, and they wait for something, almost anything, to happen.
- First as slaves and then as tenants and sharecroppers, Black Mississippians turned the Delta swamps into the richest plantation soil in the world. Now the soil and the crops no longer need the people. the mechanical cotton-picker, an instrument of agricultural efficiency, became also an instrument of history.
- In many Mississippi counties, Blacks have always been in the majority, which means Whites have had a problem. If you've got the land and the money but not the numbers ,its natural, as Humphreys McGee says, to want control.
- In Mississippi, White control has made the past hard to distinguish from the present. More than anyone else, the spirit of resistance to this control has been Fannie Lou Hamer. At the 1964 Democratic convention, Mrs. Hamer was a leader of the attempt to unseat the regular Democratic delegation from Mississippi.
- Mississippi is still a very rough place. No, people is not just walking up like they used to do in the past, walking out and you know shooting a man down, or getting, maybe, two or three-hundred, people carrying ya out and lynchin' ya, but it's in a more subtle way. You know, they let you starve to death, not give you jobs. These are some of the things that's happening right now in Mississippi.
- You see Mississippi is not actually Mississippi's problem. Mississippi is America's problem. Because if America wanted to do something about what has been going on in Mississippi, it could have stopped by now. It wouldn't have been, in the past few years, 40, between 40 and 50 churches bombed and burned. You see, this lead me to say, you know, all of the burning and bombing that was done to us and the houses, nobody never said too much about that, and nothing was done, but let something be burned, you know, by a Black man, and then my God! You see the flag is its drenched with our blood. Because, you see, so many of our Ancestors was killed because we have never accepted slavery. We've had to live under it, but we've never wanted it!
- So we know that this flag is drenched with our blood, so what the young people are saying now ''Give us a chance to be young men, respected as a man, as we know this country was built on the Black backs of Black people across this country. And, if we don't have it, you ain't gonna have it either, cause we gone tear it up,'' that's what they're saying, and people ought to understand that. I don't see why they don't understand it. They know what they've done to us. All across this country, they know what they've done to us. This country is desperately sick and man is on the critical list. I really don't know where we go from here.
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- Where many Black Mississippians are going is North. Over 400,000 since 1950. What is finally
- breaking up the old relationships in Mississippi is not enlightenment nor revolt nor the Civil Rights Movement. It's just machines, and when the machines came, many of the Blacks had to go.
- What the past all adds up to, is the present. Chicago is the present for as many as 1,000 Black immigrants each month. The railroad isn't underground anymore, but the objective is still the same. Nobody seems to migrate anywhere without some combination of hope and bewilderment. After 300 years, the huddled masses are still looking for what eluded them in the South, jobs, freedom, a different way of life.
- But the migration itself has created tensions and the polarization of attitudes.
- Well bigotry means that you believe in the creator cultural stem of life, a way of life. And this I do believe in. I believe that we have communities here, that we've developed in our country, that we have to protect. And I believe a community way of life has been developed for 75 years, and I don't believe it should be broken up. And, I think that this is the way we'll have to fight for it, from now on in. It's going to be a community life versus those that want to come into it. And that's gonna be rough. And, if this means racism, its going to practiced on both sides.
- You're a practicing bigot, then?
- Middle-aged White Man in Chicago:
- I'm practicing bigot. I believe in my way of life.
- Young Black Man in Chicago:
- As far as I'm concerned, things are getting worse in America. I haven't seen where America have did anything for Black people. What have American did ? You give a few Negros with a higher position a higher job. That's still not helping the grassroot. I'm in the grassroots. My lil' brothers ,around here, are in the grassroots. My sister is living in the grassroots. She still living in the grassroots. As a young Black man, I feel that I have a obligation to my race of people, not to no other race, no other nationality, just to Black people.
- The South Side of Chicago is not a nice place to visit and it isn't easy to live there either. The situation is not new. Over 100 years ago, a brilliant Black abolitionist, Frederick Douglas, escaped from slavery to come North. Douglas found that Black people were already being crowded into large urban slums. Today, eighty-five percent of Chicago's Black population live in ghettos.
- What the Black man who leaves the South faces when he comes to Chicago is described by the Midwest Director for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, John McKnight.
- In the South, he knows who the ''man'' is. The ''man'' is up there on a hill, in the the big white house. When he comes to a city like Chicago, its' much harder to determine who that ''man'' is, such a complex society. It's a different man who controls the house, from the man who controls the job, from the man who controls the welfare, from the man who controls the hospital, from the man who controls the school, I think what's happening is that he quickly comes to the conclusion that the man is all the White men. Not being able to discern his specific captor, he decides that all people with White faces are his captors. And, to the degree that all White people are engaged in supporting the systems of separation and racist institutions that we have in the North, that judgment is basically accurate.
- How do these institutions function in a racial way?
- When we develop any kind of a system that, by definition, excludes people who are poor, inner-city, limited- education people, we are saying ''Black'' on them. We might as well put the sign back up, because it's the same thing. Same bag.
- The problem that we have in White America is that most White people when they hear about White racism almost most White people say, '' Man, that's not me. I never discriminate against anybody, never did.'' And in their
- sense of what discrimination means, or what racism is, they may be right. But, they sit residing in a system from which they take full benefit, a system that defines them in, and and defines Black people out.
- We are going to have to face the fact that we are not a community. A community is where a lot of people develop mutually beneficial relationships with each other. And, our racist institutions and the political boundaries of our cities define Black people out of the community.
- White people who sit in their suburban homes and watch a television programs and hear about all of these laws that are being passed. Many of them are beginning to wonder, ''What is it with those Colored people on there? Why are they so upset, all this wonderful stuff we're doing for them.'' But, we aren't focusing on the Black man living on the block. He lives in a in a in a two-flat on that block ,and he knows what the circumstance on that block was 10 years ago. And, he knows what it is today. And, he, too, has heard about all of those programs and laws being passed. But the hard fact of the matter is that things are not changing for him.
- It's no wonder that the White population and the Black population are pitted against each other, when the Black man knows that the change is not coming, and the White man thinks that major efforts are being undertaken, when they are not. So I don't think anybody should be surprised when one sees the Black people in open attack on the system. Because, I suspect that they don't see that there is any other realistic alternative.
- James Turner, an instructor in Political Sociology at Northwestern University, also teaches a summer study group, What Black Patriotism Means to Him. Denmark Vesey, the insurrectionist of Charleston, is Turner's lesson for the
- What Denmark Vesey did in Charleston, South Carolina is very much related to Detroit and to Watts and to Newark. It is very much related to Black men saying, ''Tanks be damned! I'll have my freedom!'' The price of freedom is not cheap. Denmark Vesey was very mindful of this. So, it's very important for us, the lessons of Denmark Vesey. A lot of us like to think that the effective thing is to whop the man, to get up and blow our whole game to him. That somehow the revolution will come through oratory. The unique thing about Vesey is that he was a quiet man, which is oft the mark of determination.
- Study Group Participant: (How come this was't taught in our schools? )
- I think that this is a very good question. Why it is that Denmark Vesey doesn't stand beside Patrick Henry. Because they've never wanted us to come to the kind of position and the state of mind that those of us, who have gathered around this table, have come. Because Denmark Vesey released in his time, as he has done for us now, a whole force of Black resistance and struggle. We have not been able to talk about, because they're nameless and faceless, the thousands of Black people who fought in a more quiet way.
- Those Black women, who, consigned to cook in the kitchens of the slave master, who ground-up glass to very fine bits, and put it in the master's soup. And, then asked the master, ''What's the matter, boss? You seem like you're not well.'' And, the White man was tricked by his own notion that our people were just silly as he bled internally to death.
- As well as the brothers in the field who set fire to the cotton. The brothers who set fire to the cotton when the master came with his whip and said, ''Boy what's going on?''
- '' I don't know master. Somethings a'taken place strange''. And brother went on to burn more cotton. Black people have resisted. We have determined here today that we are going to free our people.
- Denmark Vesey is alive. Denmark Vesey is alive and among the brothers today in Oakland, California with the Black Panthers. Denmark Vesey's a young Black man named Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton in Oakland, California. Denmark Vesey is personified by another courageous Black brother named H. Rap Brown. Denmark Vesey is the guiding life that inspires and gives incentive to brother Stokely Carmichael. Denmark, Denmark Vesey was the father of brother Malcolm X. Denmark Vesey walks the streets of the Black community today. He is in the minds and the bosoms of young Black men, who stride now with pride and dignity in the Black community, who say that they will no longer reside in the hell of the ghetto, but will struggle to transform their plight to a community. They will do it, or die trying.
- There is a fever of revolution in America. And it's a Black revolution. The only thing that is hanging us up, that we must clear, we must sit down and continue to analyze and discuss what our particular role will be in the revolution.
- Calvin Lockridge, a young ghetto leader, moves his training group toward confrontation with a system he
- finds oppressive. For Lockridge, the heritage of slavery is insurrection.
- We talk about it all revolutions are lead by a hard-core disciplined group. I think this is where we have to start. We have to start organizing that hard-core disciplined group of people. And, then we pyramid ourselves. Then we move, we move the masses of people, around an issue, when we're ready to move.
- Masculine Group member (speaker 1):
- You have to have your own communications.
- Well this is how the rebellions during slavery was able to move to action. It's because of the fact that we have members of the revolution, or the rebellion, who would move and communicate through the Black grapevine, because you never knew how many people were actually involved, because it meant death if you were ever found out.
- A lot of Negros, they might have thought they were given a chance but they weren't. There is going to have to be some bloodshed in the revolution somewhere.
- Masculine Group Member (speaker 1) :
- I think that Black people have always had justification for insurrection, rebellion, revolution, whatever word you want to call it. You're talking about guerrilla warfare.
- You're saying we should start the preparing to guerrilla warfare?
- Masculine Group Member (speaker 2):
- Guerrilla warfare is extreme, and I don't I don't know of any Black person around who has done any type training
- to prepare himself for guerrilla warfare.
- Masculine Group Member (speaker 3):
- If one prepares himself for guerrilla warfare, that you wouldn't know. I would hope no one would know. Guerrilla warfare is not the training in the use of weapons. It's a training in the use of the mind.
- It's a revolution going on. Anyone who doesn't join in, who is in the way, you treat him as a traitor or a spy. If he doesn't sympathize with you, can't help you. You have to treat him like a traitor or a spy and that means you kill him.
- It's an American Revolution. It's happening here on the American soil. And a Black and White are caught up in the revolution, but Blacks the spearhead of the revolution.
- Neither James Turner nor Calvin Lockridge could win any elections today. So far, they represent only a minority of a minority. Yet their potential constituency can be found on any sidewalk, in any slum. Among youth and among Black opinion-makers, even a minority is many thousands. The question posed by increasing Black activism is will White America respond before the few become the many.
- Chicago is 30% Black, but less than 1% of the city's businesses are owned by Black people. This is hardly a revelation that economic bondage produces social revolutionaries. The future may not work, but if you're Black, neither did the past .
- The pressures that bring about rebellion are defined by the Senior Editor of Ebony magazine, historian, Lerone Bennett.
- Men fight when they reach the wall, not because victory is sure, but because their manhood demands that they
- that they act in this way. And, therefore, I'm not at all sure what is the proper measure of success when you're talking about a rebellion of an oppressed people. one might almost say that it is normal for an oppressed people to revolt, and is abnormal, really, for them to accept the oppression which is forced upon them. Any oppressed people, when they revolt, revolt really in the ultimate sense, even in the name of their oppressors. Because they' are re-establishing a reciprocity between man and man, and re-establishing the bonds of humanity which must govern men if they are to live together in a the common climate.
- I just ask you to visualize a room, you know where all the goodies of the world, all the material goodies of the world. And there are people in that room, and all of those people are White. And the door to that room is locked. And, that room is in a building with a hall. And, in that hall, are people. and all those people are Black. Black people have been standing in that hall more than 200 years knocking on that door and they've been saying, ''please let us in. you know we want to be with you. we want to be like you. we love you.'' And that door is never opened.
- One of the men in the hall say you know what I think I'll do so I think I will go outside get me a brick
- throw it through the window and take some of my things out of that window, because he's never going to open the front door. And, another man in the hall says that ''No , I tell you what I'm going to do. What I'm going to do, I'm going outside and going under the house and I'm taking a match and burning the whole house up and everything in it, including me. And a third man says, ''Wait brothers, you know, it might become necessary to do that, but it
- has not become necessary, yet. See, the problem is we've been standing here for 200 years knocking on that door and he hasn't opened the door because we haven't been speaking his language. His mother tongue is power. And, that perhaps, if we take all of toothpicks of power and put them together and create a whole huge battering ram, then the door will open one way or another. I think history has arranged it that ,eventually, America would have to face itself through Black people, or go under. And I deeply believe that this is the point we occupy now in time.
- A suburb of Chicago, July fourth, this year. If you're White, try to think Black. For 200 years, Black's have watched White parades roll by. For most Americans, the past itself has been White. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are the champions of American independence, but they were also slaveholders. Patrick Henry wanted liberty or death, just like Denmark Vesey and the young men in the ghettos today, but Patrick Henry was also a slaveholder.
- Freedom, like history, is not supposed to have a color, but when America institutionalizes freedom and history, all of the symbols are White. Black America is still waiting for the parade to open its ranks and let in Frederick Douglass, Denmark Vesey, Malcolm X and other heroes of a Black fight for freedom.
- Frederick Douglass, escaped slave, was once invited to celebrate July fourth with White people. He told them, ''This fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice. I must mourn.''
- When White people celebrate Black heroes as Black people have celebrated Washington and Jefferson the battle for the past will be over. And when the past belongs to everyone, so will the present. Most Black people still don't want to wreck this parade. They want to join it.
- In the heritage of slavery, there are plenty of heroes, just like in any other tragedy. Deep in the wasteland of Chicago's Southside, embedded like an emerald in an ashcan, is an immaculate wonder called the Wall of Respect. Black artists painted Black heroes. On this wall, men and women willing to liberate themselves, in Malcolm X's words, ''by any means necessary.'' They are individuals who will either have respect or will die trying to get it, and some of them have.
- It's a long way and a lot of years from the slave market in Charleston to the Wall of Respect in Chicago, but neither distance nor time has yet entirely separated the Black man from bondage. No one needs to inflame the Black race against these realities. The fire of rebellion started burning a long time ago. but these travels in Black America
- have shown is that White racism created the need for Black power, just as slavery bred insurrection.
- If a country can be a collective, now in America is mad at each other right now. We Blacks and Whites are
- plotting separate courses with great skill and cunning. You can't have oppression without rebellion, and you can't have either in a country that belongs to all its people.
- But Black Americans are telling White Americans today is that this land is ours too. plaintiff question the slaves used to ask am I not a man and a brother has been replaced by an affirmation that a challenge I am a man and a brother. Black men are saying and if you don't think so then this country isn't big enough for both of us.
- This is George Foster at the Wall of Respect.
- Patrick Gaspard - Open Society Foundations
- Asia Pacific Regional Office
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- Open Society European Policy Institute
- Open Society Fellowship Program
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- Program on Independent Journalism
- Music in this episode
- Intro: Lil' Wayne - Comfortable Instrumental
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