Tuesday, January 31, 2017

DONALD TRUMP: RACE AND POWER, A DANGEROUS COMBINATION


DONALD TRUMP: RACE AND POWER, A DANGEROUS COMBINATION


By Fahim A. Knight-El


Image result for images of race in america
 
Donald Trump has moved further right than any past United States president that we have had in the last 50 years. Trump built a political base that was structured differently than traditional republican conservatives and established platforms that transitioned into a movement. He openly invoked race, cited religious intolerance and bigotry, spewed misogynist discrimination and openly ran on a law and order platform; he even sold white Americans on the idea in 2017, that he was going to build a wall around the Mexican and United States boarders and that the Mexican Government would pay for it. Think over this, a developing nation with untold poverty and one of the lowest standards of living in the western hemisphere and a country ridding by international debt; to attempt to impose this massive debt on the Mexican people was ludicrous and politically irrational and the Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto made it clear to Trump that Mexico was a sovereign nation and they did not take orders from Trump and the U.S. government. Trump’s overall theme of taking back America rhetoric (coded in white supremacy language) political sentiments was covertly shared by many white Americans who helped to put him into office.

Some of these same white Christians who toted the bible in one hand and dressed up in hoods and burned crosses in the name of Jesus and the white Knights casted ballots for Trump; the Neo-Nazi and white supremacy groups after his victory were applauding and cheering for their man. But his Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner should have stood with the people and condemned these hat groups who have a long history of anti-Semitism and anti-Black violence and have a history of committing acts of terrorism against African American people and innocent Jews. Why hasn’t the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) come front and center to condemn Donald Trump for indirect linkages and association with white hate groups? But his message resonated with large segments of the white American population who had become disillusioned and dissatisfied with the political mood over America under President Barack Obama, an African American president; who had been ridiculed by a rising climate of racism and hate for his entire eight years as commander-in-chief. They initially thought his election had brought us to a post-racial era and an end to American racism, however, we would quickly found out that this was the furthest thing from the truth, because institutionalized racism was entrenched in the very fiber of America's socio-political traditions and systems and it wasn’t going anywhere no time soon.

I truly do not think that Trump understood the level of dissatisfaction that existed inside America amongst white people and his overwhelmingly presidential win even caught him off guard and shocked him that people would cast ballots for a political novice who had no previous political experience, but he won the Electoral College votes by a landslide. His victory over Hillary Clinton has possibly led to the redrawing of the electoral map relative to what use to be traditional blue states and red states were rearranged by Trump this phenomena was unlike anything, we have seen in recent American political history. Trump went into the heart of the lion's den and challenged Senator Ted Cruz who like former Governor Mike Huckabee openly taunted Christian values as so-called conservative Christian politicians. This stance almost always guaranteed receiving the political support of evangelical white Christians, which in past elections were always courted by republican candidates, in particular in the southern Bible belt States. Their power to influence presidential elections was evident up until the 2016 presidential election. But many thought that Cruz (Senator from Texas) was preaching and singing the evangelical language; and oddly enough Trump could not even quote a biblical scripture and did not appear that he had any real church or religious ties that was meaningful (in prior presidential campaigns this would have mattered, but in 2016 just white skin and racial slogans of duplicity outweighed past historical alliances).

Former President Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush as vice president used evangelical right-wingers to justify reactionary U.S. foreign policy and military aggression in the name of God. Back then Pat Robinson, Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, etc., were the go to clergy voices that would set the religious ideological tone by politically justifying United States aggression and imperialism across the globe by openly invoking the name of God into U.S. foreign policy matters. For example, the decade of the 1980s signaled a new political era for America, in particular and the world in general, with the 1980 election of Ronald Wilson Reagan propagandized a false sense of evangelical emotionalism and ushered in a political-religious patriotism that incited Americans towards taking a proactive position in world domination. Reagan would continue to strategically galvanized his rightwing propaganda tools, the conservative Christian right, along with their "morally correct" clergy, and they went on a "moral manifest destiny" crusade in order to so-called create a world more safer for democracy and missionaries (they only made the world more safer for the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and international banks to steal by wrapping their tentacles around the entire globe).  

If the truth be told the evangelicals probably did not like Donald Trump's promiscuity and his overall moral ineptitude (this was the making of strange bedfellows), but silently they shared in his racial politics of issuing in a white manifest destiny. Reagan was a master manipulator of the media, both electronic and print. He molded and shaped public opinion and thought in whatever direction he desired (Trump has been equally affective in manipulating propaganda and disseminating disinformation) his top level spokesperson Kellyann Conway calls it presenting alternative facts.

Reagan got into these minor Cold War military skirmishes in 1983, he attacked the small Caribbean island of Grenada, but only as a demonstration of military flexing, the world knew this tiny Caribbean communist inspired nation was no match for the powerful U.S. military and government. The Bible toting "morally correct" evangelical preachers (Pat Robertson, Billy Graham, and Jerry Falwell) came to the defense of United States aggression, because Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was depicted as a bad communist.  And all parties understood the 1823 Monroe Doctrine and the implications of Cuba and the USSR imposing influence in America’s backyard would not be tolerated.

The conservative Christians (they viewed communism as a atheistic system that threatened global Christian values) along with the U.S. government moved towards ending the Cold War by using East Berlin and West Berlin as the visible symbol of bringing closure to a divisive era in world history, which had old international alignments that went back to World War II rooted in the former USSR and NATO ideologies. The U.S. created an illusion in the political minds of the West and idea that the world could never make the necessary global paradigm transition properly unless communism and its Eastern bloc influence had to be eliminated and in the name of "Jesus" and in the interest of capitalism expansion (this new alignment exposed Russia as an antagonist reactionary capitalist nation who had hid for decades under Marxism-Leninism inspired communism).

Under the Reagan/Bush administration, the United States foreign policy agenda became synonymous with the aspirations of God, whatever his aspirations meant to them. In April of 1986, the country of Libya was bombed, because they refused to submit to the United States dictates; the United States created a heavy naval military presence in the Mediterranean Sea posting the Sixth Fleet in striking distance from Tripoli. Once again, the Falwells, Robertsons, and Grahams defended the United States aggression in the name of God. Trump is imposing executive orders banning Muslim immigration and entry into the United States from countries such as: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen (trust me the Christian evangelical right such as Reverend John Hagee of Cornerstone Church as in the past is applauding Trump's immigration banned against the so-called 'infidel' Muslims). But did you noticed Saudi Arabia was not on that terrorist nation list, because he is  member of the Elitist House of Saud, although, sixteen of the so-called terrorist who attacked the World Trade Center on 9/11 were Saudi nationals and sworn members of Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin-Laden network. Trump is duping the American people into believing that he is being proactive in banning Muslims from entering our country in the name of controlling potential terrorist from enter and this so-called serves his long term national security interest aimed at combating terrorism.

Trump is systematically inducing fear in America and throughout the world while he continues to sign reactionary executive orders to further moved the United States towards a police state and into a one world government; the white voters who put him into office do not understand that they too will be victims of martial law (the sheeple will volunteer themselves for the slaughter, but I and others are the good shepards, but the sheep is not listening to us--Elijah Muhammad, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, Kwame Ture, Queen Mother Moore, etc., have issued warnings to the sheep who continue to desiring to be led in the wrong direction by the slave master's children . Moreover, according to Dr. Ravi Batra, in his book, The Great Depression of 1990, the intellectual is endowed with foresight and keenness of mind. In general an intellectual is cautious and pragmatic, he or she relishes comfort but not at cost of physical labor. Consequently, the intellectual attains power only by defeating the warrior in a battle of wits. Intellectuals rule indirectly—through their control over the warrior ruler, who alone can summon the might to keep order in society. Whenever and wherever the intellectuals perceived that their time had come, they devised new dogmas rationalizing their hold over the people. After outwitting the warrior, the intellectuals then set out to inject baseless fears and prejudices in other classes as well. Once the rule was over, it was just a matter of time before the rest of society yielded to their self-serving doctrines

Trumps policies will be devastating to the middle class and poor whites, but as I have stated in previous Blogs, it is the white supremacy mentality (which has become an incurable disease) in America that would cause them to vote against their own political, economic and social interest (their white privilege is not on the same level of Trump's white privilege). The poor whites who many of them live way below the poverty line—unemployed, poorly educated, do not have adequate health care, and have shorter life expectations and their overall quality of life is one of disillusionment and because of entrenched racist values, they could not see beyond Donald Trump’s many games of political deception.  He covertly rallied them around race by playing the blame game and they do not understand that this white billionaire's allegiance is only to other billionaires and the poor whites in this nation share nothing with Donald Trump other than white skin. 

White folk just were glad to hear a white politician echo the emotional sentiments of 'lets make America great again' and they got caught up in the mix, because Trump convinced them that the Latinos were their problems and the cause for them losing jobs and it was Muslim-Americans whom he subtlety tied to Islamic radical extremism that were threatening the safety of American white citizens. Trump indeed gave them something to believe in and rally around, which was the artificial value in their white skin in which they falsely believed that they shared this divine manifest destiny with their new white shinning Knight named Donald J. Trump.

They still cannot see a direct correlation between a government that's under Trump's administration that is going to further enrich the Elitist class and implement domestic policy that's going to expand the hunger lines across America and poverty will be taking to an entirely new level. Life (black or white) and humanity do not matter in his worldview; I detest poverty, because I believe, there are enough resources to ensure the basics of food, clothing and shelter could be adequately met to satisfy the needs of humanity. There are enough resources on the planet to adequately meet the needs of the entire globe. The root of poverty is greed this creates a varied of reactionary symptoms and is the root of human suffering where 95% of the world’s wealth is controlled by 1% of the population. 

This Elitist segment sees the planet as belonging to them, it’s this disparity that causes national and global hunger in particular amongst Emerging and Developing Nation (use to be referred to as ‘Third World Nations’).  This systematic induced disparity causes people to have to live in substandard conditions because their economies have been systematically depressed and often their currency has been devalued by Western Governments who are members of the G-8 and G-20 Nations.  John Knowles, the President of the Rockefeller Foundation, in its annual report for 1975: "I am sure of only one thing—more is not necessarily better. The web of interdependence is tightening. We are one world and there will be one future—for better or for worse—for us all. Central to a new ethic of making less more is controlled economic growth which conserves scarce resources provides more equitable distribution of income and wealth ... ‘

There must be a redistribution of the world’s wealth with the world’s people; this is the only solution to ending national and global poverty. This phenomenon creates a vicious cycle of human social, political and economic disruption (which translates into unspeakable oppression which creates systemic outcomes) on poor people in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Central and South America by determining other nations Gross National Products (GNP). Even in the United States one of the most industrialized nations in the world, poverty and hunger still remains an issue—there has been in  recent years and increase in people being forced to live in homeless shelters and eat their meals at soup kitchens.

Yet, our U.S. Government, in particular our congress has become more conservative and anti poor—social programs are being cut and the poor are being politically scapegoat for causing the political, economic and social issues plaguing the United States. It was Hurricane Katrina in 2005, that exposed that there were two Americas—poor and black; the media gave the public a firsthand look at how poor people in New Orleans lived in conditions equalvent to “Third World Nations” the scene was shocking to most Americans because they did not know and could not believe that level of poverty existing inside the United States of America (President George W. Bush even called the black people of New Orleans refugees as though they were 'third world' people). The Katrina crisis and scene was despicable and was a clear indication that America had failed its people. The poor even after President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s war on poverty American and the Great Society—some forty-Five years later a great deal of the American people still lived in substandard conditions.

Many worked minimum wages jobs, (classified by sociologist as the working poor), lacked education, lived in public housing or were part of some housing arrangement where the government subsides the rent, and many have minor aged children where there are no fathers in the homes; and mothers are forced to raise their children in single parent homes (this further complicates dysfunctional family structures and continues the cycle of poverty and disillusionment). The once blue collar and non-skilled jobs are readily fading out and U.S. businesses and corporations have abandoned the American people by outsourcing and downsizing their corporate interest by finding cheaper labor and product (raw materials) markets across seas. This social phenomenon in my opinion has given rise to the Prison Industrial Complex (which has led to mass incarceration) where cities and towns across America have become the homes of privatizes corporate prisons. The United States has over seven (7) million people incarcerated, perhaps more than any other industrial nation in the world. Trump’s public policies will further acerbate the problems already confronting the poor and top of list who will eventually become dismayed will be poor white people after they wake up and come to recognize that they had been hoodwinked by a sophisticated conman.

The corporate outsourcing of part of the U.S. economy to Asia, Central and South America have allowed capitalist to exploit overseas markets, which negatively impacts the job market and the U.S. economy. The earth is 196, 940,000 square miles and 57, 255, 000 square miles of land. The poor white citizens along with most Americans who  do not have the ability to predict and see the backlashes will eventually be led to a painful reality unless we are willing to deal with poverty, it’s superficial to talk about national security or building a wall around the United States or signing insignificant executive orders. I am a pessimist in which I am not optimistic about the United States national or global course as we move forward in the next four to eight years, because I see a vicious assault on the poor and have 'nots' and these type reactionary policies are going to create un-precedent protest and rebellions in the streets of America. We are treading on some dangerous waters relative to the U.S. previous commitment to at least giving the appearance of respecting the U.S. democracy, but Trump is bent on totally obliterating the United States Constitution and compromising of the American jurisprudence rules of law. All I can tell you is to get ready and be prepared for new and dangerous chapter to be written in American history.

Fahim A. Knight-El Chief Researcher for KEEPING IT REAL THINK TANK located in Durham, NC; our mission is to inform African Americans and all people of goodwill, of the pending dangers that lie ahead; as well as decode the symbolism and reinterpreted the hidden meanings behind those who operate as invisible forces, but covertly rules the world. We are of the belief that an enlightened world will be better prepared to throw off the shackles of ignorance and not be willing participants for the slaughter. Our MOTTO is speaking truth to power. Fahim A. Knight-El can be reached at fahimknight@yahoo.com. 

Friday, January 27, 2017

ESOTERIC, OCCULT, GNOSTIC AND THE BLACK ISLAMIC SCIENCE CONNECTION


ESOTERIC, OCCULT, GNOSTIC AND THE BLACK ISLAMIC SCIENCE CONNECTION

By Fahim A. Knight-El

Image result for Ancient kemetic images,
What I have learned and discovered of my many years of research, is that ALL of the ancient wisdom was connected and this interconnectedness extended to almost every culture on the earth. Manly P. Hall in his book titled, The Secret Teachings of  All Ages,  and the works of Aleister Crowley, these esoteric and occultist had tapped into a body of spiritual and esoteric science that had been around since the dawn of time and since the origin of man; the ancient Kemites of ancient Egypt (who gave the world the first true resurrection story in Asar, Aset, and Heru), the Celtic Druids (on the British Isles and in Europe) and the ancient people of Persia and who relished in the ancient practices of Mithra and Adonis and in which the mystic Sufism teaching took some of it roots and the people of Suma (Chihuahua, Mexico) all understood a spiritual energy sources that still have western scientist and philosophers baffled. They (western man) have attempted to dismiss this knowledge as being non-basis paranormal and conspiracy theories—these negative characterizations serve as mere cover ups and deception ploys to disguise and deny these hidden truths and sacred bodies of spiritual knowledge from humanity ever being allowed to be awaken from their slumber.

Furthermore, these labels are applied to create doubt, suspicion, and it allows them to lead humanity in dismissing the possibilities of learning and coming into a deeper recognition of the spirit realm. There are many white social science theorist such as Graham Hancock (who totally understands the value of the esoteric, occult and Gnostic perspective to human evolution), a British counter-culture intellectual that works on the fringe of traditional interdisciplinary schools of thought ranging from archeology, anthropology, human genetics, philosophy, history, pure science, ancient architecture, human sociology, earth beings and outer-space beings connections, etc. I joined the Graham Hancock Internet forum may be nine years ago and I have always been impressed by his willingness to step outside of mainstream academia and explore the vast universe of ideals. I am a staunch black nationalist and Pan-Africanist, but, what would I have in common with a white British intellectual? Very simple truth and moral insight, is not shaped by nationality, race nor skin color—enlightenment is a spiritual space that is only encompassed by those that are worthy to journey the road and path less traveled.

Hancock has authored a number of alternative knowledge books that even my Blog audience would find them to be enlighten (I will not insult this scholars body of work by referring to it as new age information, I will call it global human enlightened knowledge, when you have been touched by the Gods in spirit then labels only cheapens the universal space of where you have arrived) books such as: Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth's Lost Civilisation,  Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization, The Message of the Sphinx: A Quest for the Hidden Legacy of Mankind,  The Mars Mystery. Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization , The Sign and the Seal: The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant that challenges traditional science. We, humanity have arrived at a very dangerous space in time, which has placed us all under the diabolic power and spirit of western man; this is a counter-aura to the positive energy of good that encompasses the universe, it is has created a human imbalance on earth and has placed humanity on a collision course with the universe. If you do not know by now, I am here to tell you and inform you, that the stars in their present numerological order have aligned to bring nothing but future destruction to the western world in particular and the evil practitioners across the globe in general.

I have five sacred holy texts that I read and meditate and make prayer and supplication every day before I begin my day: The Original African Heritage Bible, Holy Qur’an translated by Muhammad Ali, the Holy Vedas, the Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece and the Prophet by Khalil Gabran, these are my daily routines of spiritual sources in which I read these spiritual texts while softly playing the musical messengers John Coltrane and Miles Davis and this helps me channel and re-channel my energy source to a heightened level of spiritual connection with the universal order and the spiritual powers beyond this world’s order. I chose to leave organized religion a long time ago, because my spirit would no longer allow faith traditions and beliefs systems to subjugate and confine me to a religious box; religion was too shallow for me; I knew that in 325.A.D. at the Council of Nicea, Constantine and his bishops had fabricated lies and literally rearranged the bible and teachings of Jesus and it was this type of theological deception that I could never whole heartily follow; Islam became corrupted to it core by white skinned Wahabbi Arabs and Prophet Muhammad said to them three generation after me you all will no longer be of me. 

But I have always found some spiritual comforts in the theology of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad (there is a powerful lecture series that he did over many years titled, “The Theology of Time,’ I hold those lessons dear to my heart (so I only follow the divine teachings of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad and not those offered by Rabbis, Preachers or Imams). So over the years, I became a traditionalist spiritualist, one who dared to venture outside the religious structures of the African American traditions in order to truly find that inner and external divine essences or being (I found that God was within). I sought of got on my path and journey when I was in college between finding something to eat and studying, I use to wash my clothes off campus in the laundry mat in the black community (those who are guessing, yes I am the product of a HBCU education) and on the free news rack I just randomly picked up a little magazine titled, “The Plain Truth” authored by a white Christian theologian named Dr. Herbert W. Armstrong who presented an alternative Christian type worldview relative to interpreting past historical events and analyzing current events (he was the founder of the Worldwide Church of God). But Dr. Armstrong religious views were a lot different than what I was accustomed to reading in traditional black Christian literature. He seemed to have been a student of epistemology and etymology and had a deep grasp of religious symbolism and accurately applied the scripture to interpreting and defining international and national events. I started to look forward to going to the laundry mat and reading Dr. Herbert Armstrong’s “Plain Truth” publications. These readings led me to delving into deeper searching for more ancient knowledge and spiritual teachings. He authored books such as:  The Incredible Human Potential, Mystery of the Ages, Human Nature: Did God Create It?, The Seven Laws of Success, etc.

We all have a duty and responsibility to work to change the present energy of the universe, because the universe is steadily and rapidly turning on man. This has always been my African spiritual indigenous ancestors constantly speaking to me and showing me the path to universal peace and finding a true connection with all the indigenous people’s spirits of the universe —.Aborigines, these dark skinned blond and kinky haired people found in Australia who existed long before Paleolithic and Neolithic periods in world civilization. I was led to write this Blog by a Moorish Science Temple Brother who sent me a link to watch of this Caucasian occultist named Peter Moon who had seemed to have become enlightened in many esoteric and occult schools of thought in which he was well published. I still have not completed viewing the entire Youtube clip. But I told this Moorish brother that I just wanted to take a moment and digest all the knowledge that he was dropping (well that moment has now turned into me writing this said Blog titled, “Black Esoteric, Occult, Gnostic,and Islamic Science”). The type of information that Peter Moon was dispersing and teaching should have required all intelligent Moors of so-called African descent to get to the root of this ancient and mystical wisdom that Peter Moon was dropping and verify these truths for themselves.

I wrote and article, a few weeks ago titled, "Hidden Indigenous Knowledge" and I were skimming the surface of some of the things that Peter Moon was conveying. There is no doubt that some of his philosophical theories were perhaps way above the heads of most of those who had assembled and had come out to hear him give that lecture, unless they were serious students of esoteric, Occult and Gnostic wisdom and information, which would have allow them to be able to make the broader connections in piecing and linking this knowledge to its original Nubian sources. Now, I remember Dr.  Malachi Z. York-El (leader of Black Nuwaubian Nation ) who had written over 200 books and was delving into outer-body travel and inter-galaxy travel and extraterrestrial beings and alien species, and hidden Unidentified Flying Objects, as well as decoding the Mother plane and various unconventional concepts that went against the grain of traditional science known as astro-physics. Some years ago I met one of the greatest esoteric entertainers in the world, his name was Sun-RA, I asked where was he from? and said he was not from this planet. Perhaps Sun-RA understood the spiritual lessons of all the great gurus and sages. York-El said, he had proof that the United States Government had highly confidential and classified information of outer-space beings, in which NASA, NSA, and the CIA were all engaged in keeping this type information from the public.

The indigenous ancients had established many of these principles that Moon was sharing, long before the Caucasian man 6,000 year existence on the planet. The deeper spirituality of many of the principles and spiritual concepts couldn't even be recorded. But they were experience through spiritual energy sources, that were tied to the universe and were based on the alignment of the stars and the motions of moon and sun. Maybe we should revisited York's work, which outside of his following base was dismissed and not taking seriously and was discredited by black and white theologians and social scientists. Many in the black consciousness community also didn't take Dr. York serious, but it always amazes me that we need white affirmation to give our ideals validity. But many wise Caucasians, perhaps were paying close attention to York's concepts and Peter Moon was saying some very similar things to Dr. York. Yet, there is no doubt that Moon has a perspective, but what he will soon learn, if he doesn't already know, that it has been global white supremacy, which is frustrating him in his efforts of trying to link and connect this universal knowledge that the people of Kemet, Australia, Upper Africa, the original and indigenous people of the Americas had over 16,000 years ago.

They had the ability to tune into and connect with Astro-engery that allowed them to exit their physical bodies and in a transcendental state could travel outside of the earth's gravitational pull and leave this earthly plain and had contact with Astro beings. The Mayas, Incas, and Aztecs attempted to record these experiences on ancient cave rocks and inside the walls of the South America and Central America pyramids; this indigenous and ancient people’s knowledge went much further than quantum physics and went even further than the sacred geometric spiritual mathematical schematic codes (these ancient codes of indigenous Native Americans have gone un-deciphered for thousands of years and the Caucasian scientist do not understand that the lost keys are only in the minds of the original man; Minister Louis Farrakhan understood this and definitely sister Tynetta Muhammad understood this riddled and divinely phenomenon and the likes Dr. Phil Valentine and the Dr. Delbert Blair also had this knowledge and understood its mystical and spiritual value).

Western science when it comes to trying to decipher and understand the ancient indigenous knowledge and world, they have shown-forth serious limitations. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad did tell us that there would be some wise Moslem Sons (Caucasians) who would have been allowed to get a peep into the mind of God, which is the black man's mind. I know white supremacy is always cloaked behind the symbolism of theoretician's analysis (the Honorable Elijah Muhammad raise the question can you trust the devil? Not now day. There is a quest for power and the realignment will not include us, but it will include us in the grand scheme of things. The white world in Eastern Europe and other parts of the white world have to find a way to short circuit and curtail genetic annihilation this is the real motive that is driving these moves on the chessboard. Master Fard Muhammad taught the black Muslims about his nature and he must once again recapture and control all that territory expanded beyond his origin in Caucasus Mountains between the Black and Caspian Sea and extend the white world domination deep into Asia and across the planet.

I do think the likes of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology had tapped in some of the ancient mystical teachings of Kemet (Egypt) and other ancient indigenous teachings that were rooted in the universal principles found in the bosoms of all the previous world altering sacred spiritual knowledge. But this type of powerful wisdom and principles can do two things; it could assist you in your spiritual development and or it can corrupt you and destroy you from within and from without. This is what happened to the Church of Scientology, it lost its original energy source and it connections to the universal teachings of good.

They like to denigrate our ancient Folklore and mythological and mystical wisdom as being part of some ancient secret societies, thus, anything they cannot quantify in the Eurocentric worldview, because the knowledge and spiritual practices are above their heads they are quick to define and classify what they do not understand as either pagan, cult based or secret societies. I have not completed watching Moon's commentary, but my mind was racing and these are just some of my preliminary thoughts. For example, he was talking about virgin births and sacred mythological saviors, which if one had studied deeper information there is a book written by Kersey Graves title, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors that empirically track these Saviors who all were born of virgin births, died and was resurrected. I think the Prophet Noble Drew Ali whom I believe had Native American ancestry tied a lot of this indigenous knowledge and infused it into the Moorish Science Doctrine and the Moorish philosophical worldview. The Prophet understood the ancient Occidental wisdom by have been initiated into the esoteric knowledge studied and learn in Egypt. We can spend a life time just studying Noble Drew Ali's symbolism and never exhaust the esoteric knowledge associated with how far he was ahead of the Western world and the Islamic world. So I am not surprised that white occultist, spiritualist, esoterist and wise white intellectual theoreticians are now seeking to revisit the Prophets teachings some 90 years later.

The students of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad never cease to amaze me with their ability to use that powerful third eye; the Honorable Elijah Muhammad stated what I have given you, is just awake up message; meaning that what Master Fard Muhammad taught him will be ever evolving and there are many links which connects this wisdom; he even used the Bible that he often would refer to as the 'poison book' as a tool to uplift black people. Master Fard Muhammad who was in and out America some 20 years before he made his presence known and although his physical birth was February 26, 1877, but proclaimed to have embodied all the wisdom and knowledge of first God who willed himself out of total triple darkness 76 trillion years ago. Now, one cannot separate the theology from being an article of faith and it is this part of the Black Muslim teachings that has unjustly brought the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad under criticism from the Islamic world.

But this variable of faith in the teachings cannot and must not be overlooked nor separated in understanding Mr. Muhammad religious and theological intent aimed specifically for the black man and woman of America. I think that Imam Mohammed in his criticism at times against the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was a bit disingenuous to say the least, because he had first hand knowledge that his father totally understood Sunni Islam and Malcolm X also understood this as well. Minister Malcolm X had flown to Egypt and Jeddah in 1959, and Minister Malcolm X served as the official emissary of the Nation of Islam in arranging the minor Hajj of Umurah that Elijah Muhammad, and his two sons Jabir Muhammad and Warith Mohammed both accompanied their father to Mecca and performed the minor hajj ritual. Thus, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was fully aware of the five pillars of Islam and the Sunna.

Master Fard Muhammad instructed Elijah Muhammad to only use the Muhammad Ali (an Islamic theological and jurisprudence scholar from Lahore, Pakistani) Qu'ranic translation because the Ahmadiyyas (founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad) were the first Eastern based Muslims who sought to bring Islam to so-called African Americans in Detroit in the 1920s (a black ghetto referred to as the bottom). Thus, Master Fard Muhammad, I believe, intentionally created the “Supreme Wisdom” lessons in a mystic catechism questions and answers format—with the objective of delving into mystic Sufism and Shia Islam, but remained true to the original theology, but the 24 Wise Scientist, Mother plane, scientific numerology were rooted deep in esoteric and occult practices of Islam that is mostly akin to Sufi Islam. But he allowed Ministers like Bernard Cushmere (Jabril Muhammad) who authored the book titled, This is the One: We Need Not Look for Another perhaps written in 1968 and Is It Possible that Honorable Elijah Muhammad is Still Physically Alive? and sister Tynetta Muhammad to push the envelope relative to exploring mystical Islamic principles.

Master Fard Muhammad who often gave the Honorable Elijah Muhammad assignments that had to be answered 100% correctly before he could move on to said lesson #1. Honorable Elijah Muhammad teachings and methods of researching were right and exact. The Lamb was definitely a master teacher. He told us that Islam is mathematics and mathematics is Islam. So in this science, he was given us the degree of quantification relative to how we should approach the "Supreme Wisdom" and decipher the hidden jewels. But he reminded us that God willed himself out of total triple darkness 76-78 trillion years ago. So if we start from that premise, there is nothing impossible. But the answer has to be discovered and found in our mathematical Islam.

Master Fard Muhammad probably would have asked those early Muslims at Temple#1 in Detroit who amongst you are prepared to tackle this equation and be able to show and prove. He might have even qualified it by saying THE BEST ANSWER will be rewarded with a trip to the holy city of Mecca. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad paid and sent his youngest son Akbar Muhammad to Al-Azhar University in Egypt to study eastern based Islam who later became an Islamic studies professor in Binghamton, New York. Akbar Muhammad spoke fluent Arabic. So it is a serious misnomer for Muslims in America and outside of America to believe that the Nation of Islam did not understand or practice true Islam. Imam Mohammed did not introduce the Qur'an and the Hadiths to the Nation of Islam, we already new of these sacred texts.

Fahim A. Knight-El Chief Researcher for KEEPING IT REAL THINK TANK located in Durham, NC; our mission is to inform African Americans and all people of goodwill, of the pending dangers that lie ahead; as well as decode the symbolism and reinterpreted the hidden meanings behind those who operate as invisible forces, but covertly rules the world. We are of the belief that an enlightened world will be better prepared to throw off the shackles of ignorance and not be willing participants for the slaughter. Our MOTTO is speaking truth to power. Fahim A. Knight-El can be reached at fahimknight@yahoo.com.

Thursday, January 26, 2017

INTERVIEW: A LOOK AT CIVIL RIGHTS THROUGH THE EYES OF TWO UNSUNG FAMILY HEROES OF MINE (Part I)


INTERVIEW: A LOOK AT CIVIL RIGHTS THROUGH THE EYES OF TWO UNSUNG FAMILY HEROES OF MINE (Part I) 
               
                                                                                                               
By Fahim A. Knight-El 

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I took the opportunity to interview my mother-in-law, my wife's mother and I wish I could have conducted this interview with both of her parents prior to my father-in-law transitioning in 2015; they had a serious history in the civil rights movement in Durham, North Carolina and they would share all these powerful stories with me about the role they played in fighting for justice and equality in Durham and these personal stories would always captivate me because they were stories of bravery, integrity, determination, will power, etc. They had both become Elders and so often, we are allowing our African-American family oral history to slip away and we are not taking the time to converse, record and document our families history (and preserve this valuable history); my in-laws were in their 70s and had made tremendous sacrifices and stood on the front line of fire to achieve some of the goals that  the civil rights movement were aiming. They are two of my unsung heroes and my wife's father was like a father to me and I know that I was liken to a son to him. He helped transition me into manhood relative given me the tools to be a good husband and good father to my children (he taught me the importance of standing up for what is right and fight for what you believe in); he taught me patience and the value of kindness and he taught me Islam and what the Muslim overall responsibility should be. My mother-in-law and my father-in-law had been married for over 57 years and I had never seen them have a real fight or argument. My mother-in-law was kind but was a fighter for those things she held dear to her heart and she loved family. So this interview is part one of their story told to me by mother-in-law. I chose not to include their real names into this public blog because of security and privacy concerns, I chose to shield their true identity in telling their story and still share this story with my Blog audience as an authentic personal historical account. I changed momma's name to Khalilah Abdur Shabazz and my father-in-law will be referred be to as Baba Sharrieff Muhammad Shabazz.

This essay will focus on the Civil Rights Movement in Durham, North Carolina as a partial oral history told to me by my mother-in-law, momma Khalilah Abdur Shabazz  (born in the eary1940s)[1] as primary history and will use secondary information provided by scholars, historians and intellectuals as supportive evidence in order to provide an empirical and objective approach to this discussion. This writer, will attempt to explore a small portion of the civil rights movement in Durham between the years 1965-1968, as told to me by mother-in-law momma Khalilah Abdur Shabazz  from her personal insights and experiences, but it will not be a comprehensive analysis that explores the entire civil rights movement relative to the many personalities and events that helped shaped the national political, economic and social debate during this turbulent time in American history. [2]

In 1896, the United States Supreme Court passed the Plessy versus Ferguson decision in which the high court ruled that ‘separate but equal’ was legal and constitutional, which ushered in a time in American history known as Jim Crow. Jim Crow laws led to African Americans being denied access to public accommodations and established strict racial laws based on discrimination, which led to segregation. Blacks could not enter certain business establishments (and in many places in the south, they had signs that read ‘white and ‘colored’).[3]

These Jim Crow laws and policies created almost two distinct societies inside the United States of America, what scholar Andrew Hacker, describes in his book titled, Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal, “Black Americans are Americans, yet they still subsist as aliens in the only land they know. Other groups may remain outside the mainstream-some religious sects, for example-but they do so vol­untarily. In contrast, blacks must endure a segregation that is far from freely chosen. So America may be seen as two separate nations. Of course, there are places where the races mingle. Yet in most significant respects, the separation is pervasive and penetrating. As a social and human division, it surpasses all others-even gender-in intensity and subordination.”[4]

Moreover, this was the social climate that my mother-in-law and her family grew up in and there was no doubt that this social history had helped to shape their worldview. This writer could hear the pain endured, as well as, the determination and resolve they had in confronting these barriers and overcoming them.[5]  Black protest movements evolved out of the oppression, racism and overt inequalities that took place during this 58 year period of Jim Crow and it was the Brown versus Board of Education decision 1954 (Topeka, Kansas) in which the United States Supreme Court overturned the Plessy versus Ferguson decision and declared ‘separate but equal’ as being unconstitutional.[6] The quest for freedom, justice and equality took on many forms, which various black protest movements arose during different time periods in America to challenge racist public policy and injustices. For example, the political spectrum ranged from the Marcus Garvey model (back to Africa movement) of black nationalism to the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who advocated integration and civil disobedience to alter social change.[7]

Yet, this writer, was aware of the historical role lynching played and how and why the voices of Ida B. Wells-Barnett and W.E.B. Dubois came about on the national stage in founding the Niagara Movement (1903) that evolved into the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909—committed to social justice for African American people.[8]

                         Durham and its Unique Black History and Experience

In a book titled, Black America Series: Durham’s Hayti stated, “Durham, like most Southern cities in the 1880s and 1900s, had rigidly segregated communities. The majority of African-Americans resided in the southern and southeastern sections known as Hayti, pronounced as ‘hay-tie’. In 1920, W.E.B. Dubois, a prominent African American historian, referred to Durham, specifically the Hayti area, as the ‘Negro business mecca of the South’. He wrote, ‘There is in this small city a group of five thousand or more colored people, whose social and economic development is perhaps more striking than that of any similar group in the nation.’ Booker T. Washington, the noted African American leader and educator at Tuskegee Institute, agreed with Dubois that Durham provided an opportunity for African American to excel economically. But Washington also recognized the existence of friendly relations between African Americans and whites. He stated, ‘Of all the Southern cities that I have visited I found here the sanest attitude (among) white toward the blacks.’[9]    

Momma Khalilah Abdur Shabazz migrated from Western, North Carolina to Durham with her mother and her two siblings when she was about twelve years old at this time. She and was raised in Pearsontown (an area near North Carolina Central University and Fayetteville Street) and where many of the black elite lived (an adjacent neighborhood in and around NCCU and next to where the old Hillside High School used be located on Concord Street and  Lawson Street). These educated blacks fitted into the social and economic class of  what W.E.B. Dubois referred to as the talented tenth and what E. Franklin Frazier called the ‘the black bourgeoisie’.[10]

Durham being a southern city was very segregated, as most of the south was during the 1950s and 1960s; thus, my momma Khalilah explained to me that Pettigrew Street (at the railroad tracks) separated the white community from the African American community. She and my (father-in-law the Baba Sharrieff Muhammad Shabazz-2015)[11] both attended segregated public schools and as much as she admired the things Dubois and Washington stated about Durham—the Durham she experienced had more of a sense of black classism in which prominent black Durham leaders had cut behind door deals with the white establishment that allowed the black elite class to create strong business opportunities and banking ties, which led to the establishment of Mechanics and Farmers Bank and North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company.[12] 

For example, prominent blacks and families such as John Merrick, Dr. A.M. Moore, C.C Spaulding, W.J. Kennedy, Bert Collins, Asa T. Spaulding, J.W. Goodloe, W.J. Kennedy, etc., ( momma Khalilah called these elitist black Durham leaders and businessmen ‘spluking ducks’ it was slang term they used to describe for high class light skinned ‘Negroes’ of the bourgeoisie persuasion) and viewed them and their off springs as privileged Negroes, but I got the picture that she perhaps saw their political approach as being reactionary.[13] It was evident that in Durham my in-laws experience a wealth disparity and race and privilege were dictating quality of life and economic mobility. My in-laws met a young civil rights worker named Howard Fuller (he was a cross between Minister Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in ideology and philosophical thought) he had come south to engage in the war on poverty in the early 1960s, Fuller’s commitment to altering social change in Durham and throughout North Carolina would shape my grandparent’s political views.[14]   

               Howard Fuller: Durham’s Civil Rights Icon Enters on the Scene

Devin Ferguson in his book titled, Liberalism, Black Power and the Making of American Politics 1965-1980 describes Howard Fuller and his leadership in the Durham civil rights movement in this manner: “Since the mid-1960s Fuller had been hailed by adversaries and acolytes alike as the state’s leading black activist. The appellation was apparently well deserved. Amid physical threats to himself and family. Fuller mobilized fair-housing rallies, protest marches, and university demonstrations. More important, he had earned the confidence of fellow activists and local residents. “I walked the streets of the most dilapidated sections,’ one observer noted, ‘and talked with tired Negroes on their front porches. Most all of them knew of OBT {Operation Breakthrough} and the residents council and spoke well of them.’ The success of grassroots organizing and black political power in Durham, community and fieldworkers claimed, was largely attributable to one man, Howard Fuller.”[15]

This writer had personally met Fuller on a number of times at my in-laws' home and I knew that my father-in-law and my mother-in-law were very fond of him,[16] but as I talked with my mother-in-law, I really did not know much about him and his huge relationship with the Durham civil rights movement. Moreover, doing this research and having these various conversations with my mother-in-law this writer started to immediately develop a deeper sense of appreciation for the role they played as grassroots activist and their personal connection to one of the premier Durham civil rights leaders in the 1960s and most all I came to appreciate their work and the personal sacrifices they made to change a social and political system that was fundamentally flawed and wrong.[17]

My mother-in-law said they would go out at night and she did not know, if they would return home because of possibly being arrested or killed (being deemed as black agitators) and I sought of got the feeling that some of their tactics deviated from King’s non-violent confrontational position, but she stated ‘those who tell don’t know and those that know don’t tell’. She made it clear that whatever this writer wrote, she does not have to read the final version, because she lived this history.[18]

But as much as she had high praises for Fuller and his work, this is what Fuller had to say about my in-laws in his book: “On Sundays, I occasionally spoke at local churches, where I met people like,  Khalilah Abdur Shabazz and Sharrieff Muhammad Shabazz a young married couple in their early twenties, who would become two of the movement’s most dedicated and committed warriors. They were among the few married people living in McDougald Terrace. They had heard that a young black man from ‘up North’ had been traveling around town, telling black folks that they did’nt have to accept how they’d been living. So, they came to Mount Zion Baptist Church on Fayetteville Street one Sunday night to hear for themselves what I had to say. My message about the need for poor people to come together and change things tapped into their own simmering anger and frustration. Later on in life when I asked Sharrieff what attracted him to the movement, he told me: ‘There were these fires burning inside of us with the way we were treated. And you came along and started blowing on those flames.’Khalilah and Sharrieff joined the movement and never looked back. They were true salt–of-the-earth North Carolinians—welcoming, unpretentious, dedicated, and determined.”[19] 

                                                 They Accepted the Challenge

My in-laws became active in the civil rights movement in approximately 1965, participating in marches freedom rides, picketing, boycotts, sit-ins, etc. they both had a love and a passion for social activism and shared in some of Durham's most historical civil rights moments.[20] They worked alongside Howard Fuller (my father-in-law.once said to me next to his father, Fuller was, perhaps the second man that had the most impact on his life); Fuller was a grassroots leader that led the civil rights struggle in Durham with passion and commitment, he was one of the faces and voices in black Durham who did not mind speaking truth to power; he was the Malcolm X of the south and gave a lot Black folk backbone to stand up for equality and justice. [21]

There were also Ben Ruffin (North Carolina Central University even named a building after Ruffin called Benjamin S. Ruffin Residence Hall), Floyd McKissick, Sr., (Floyd McKissick, Jr., the son Floyd McKissick, Sr. now sits in the NC State Legislature); McKissick, Sr was one of the attorneys for Durham Civil Rights movement and also founder of black incorporated township in Warrenton, North Carolina called Soul City, Howard Clements, Ann Atwater, Pat Rogers, Ruby Gattis, John Edwards, Lonnie Wilson, Joyce Thorpe-Nichols, and countless others that were involved in desegregating Durham and forcing the local and State government to abide by the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965) relative to Black people. All of the above activist worked with my in-laws as activist and community organizers.[22].

    Atwater, A Durham Civil Rights Warrior Forgave Ku Klux Klan Adversary  

Ann Atwater one of the chief community organizers of Operation Breakthrough who worked side-by-side with Momma Khalilah and co-authored a book with a former head Ku Klux Klan member named C. P. Ellis titled, The Best of Enemies: Race and Redemption in the New South, authored by Osha Gray Davidson. My mother-in-law said some of the former civil rights workers were very critical of Atwater sitting down some 40 years later and having dialogue and conversation with one of their staunch adversaries and talking about forgiveness, atonement and reconciliation. She had vivid memories of the hooded Ku Klux Klan marching down Main Street in Durham holding up Confederate Flags and spewing vitriol hatred.[23]

Amazon review of the book stated: “C. P. Ellis grew up in the poor white section of Durham, North Carolina, and as a young man joined the Ku Klux Klan. Ann Atwater, a single mother from the poor black part of town, quit her job as a household domestic to join the civil rights fight. During the 1960s, as the country struggled with the explosive issue of race, Atwater and Ellis met on opposite sides of the public school integration issue. Their encounters were charged with hatred and suspicion. In an amazing set of transformations, however, each of them came to see how the other had been exploited by the South's rigid power structure, and they forged a friendship that flourished against a backdrop of unrelenting bigotry. Rich with details about the rhythms of daily life in the mid-twentieth-century South, The Best of Enemies offers a vivid portrait of a relationship that defied all odds. By placing this very personal story into broader context, Osha Gray Davidson demonstrates that race is intimately tied to issues of class, and that cooperation is possible--even in the most divisive situations--when people begin to listen to one another.”[24]

Thus, for me reviewing some of this historiography this writer has to take into consideration the historical time and approach my assessment and analysis with a clear understanding of the context of the historical timeframes and what the political, economic and social climate was like that created the feelings my mother-in-law was still having relative to the former Ku Klux Klan member C. P. Ellis[25] and although I am supposed to approach my research with a level of objectivity, it was not difficult for me to understand why momma Khalilah emotions' about Atwater having this humane dialogue with the former Ku Klux Klan was still a little unsettling to my momma Khalilah even in 2017 .[26]

Yet, simultaneously I could reckon with Atwater and Ellis being forty years removed from that antagonistic history and perhaps Ellis had come to the conclusion based on time and human development that this conversation needed to take place in a broader context and allow the public to look deeper into the conscious minds of how a racist ideology had shaped and molded the course of history of two human beings, one white and one black (and in the larger context their lives were a microcosm and typified the social and political tension that existed in America during the 1960s and 1970s).[27]

Their discussions evolved out of socio-economic timeframes in American history that was drastically different in the 1960s and I further believe by 2007, it was enough time and space that had lapsed, which allowed for some 40 years later for forgiveness and redemption to take place in spite of the past historical divisiveness and racial tension that once separated these two unsettling souls. I personally think people have the ability to change and be reformed and although my momma Khalilah  would disagree the above mentioned book is a testimony of the power of personal healing and redemptive love.[28]   

Fuller in his book titled, No Struggle, No Progress: A Warrior’s Life From Black Power to Education Reform stated, “That understanding of the relationship between struggle and progress is what propelled me down dark alleys and dirt roads in some of North Carolina’s poorest communities in the 1960s, and pushed me into the bush, mountains, and war-torn villages of Africa nearly a decade later.”[29]

                 Unknown History: The Civil Rights Movement Begin in Durham

It would be under Fuller’s leadership and tutelage that my in-laws entered the Civil Rights Movement in 1965—they were concern with housing, jobs and poverty in Durham and somewhat like King, Fuller advocated civil disobedience[30]. Momma Khalilah talked about how they use the strategies and tactics of boycotts, sit-ins, picket lines, etc., to agitate the white power apparatus in Durham City with the objective of disrupting business. She even argues that the first sit-in actually took place in Durham, North Carolina at Royal Ice Cream Parlor (on Roxboro Road and Dowd Street) in 1957 and this event actually took place three years prior to the Greensboro Four (North Carolina A&T State University students) sit-ins at counter of Woolworth in February 1960, but the Durham sit-in did not get the public and national notoriety as the Greensboro incident.[31]

Momma  Khalilah stated that the white business leaders who were practicing segregation in Durham became fearful of them, because the protests begin to affect their bottom economic line and she recalled a few incidents where they shutdown city council meetings, if their demands were not met. She said boycotts were a very effective way of protesting and altering social change.[32] She stated on August 28, 1963, she can remember almost like it was yesterday when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called for the March on Washington and almost two hundred thousand people converged on the capitol grounds that rallied around jobs and justice. She said at the time, she had four small children, but she supported the goals and objectives of the march.[33]

Thorpe-Nichols: Durham Public Housing Resident and the U.S. Supreme Court

Momma Khalilah joined an anti-poverty organization called Operation Breakthrough as a community organizer in early 1960s, which was geared toward organizing poor people in public housing relative to understanding their legal rights, and directing them toward services—they became advocates for the disenfranchised poor in Durham. Momma Khalilah told me about Ms. Joyce Thorpe-Nichols who lived right around the corner from my home and this writer, actually met her before she died (Thorpe-Nichols also informed me that she was the first black to have received a physician assistant degree from Duke University). Nichols in the early 1960s lived in McDougal housing projects and for whatever reason was evicted by Durham Housing Authority without cause and Thorpe-Nichols case made its way to the United States Supreme Court and she won.Momma Khalilah further stated that Thorpe-Nichols became empowered by being involved in the work of Operation Breakthrough.[34]

Momma Khalilah pulled from her archives and provided me with an unpublished document titled, “The Evolution of Neighborhood Organizing Around Housing Policies in Durham, 1965-1975” authored by a Duke University researcher named Ellie Bullard of the history department, perhaps under the guidance of Professor Robert Korstad. Bullard stated: “Thorpe received an eviction notice. The reason for the eviction was not made clear to her, most likely retribution for her involvement with the Breakthrough-organized neighborhood council. Regardless, Thorpe refused to leave her home in McDougald Terrace, even when Durham police officers came to the door . . . if you got an eviction, you had no recourse. . .So I said, ‘I am not going anywhere.’ And I didn’t, Thorpe said. With the help of Howard Fuller, Joan Alston, and civil rights lawyer Floyd McKissick, Thorpe pressed against the Durham Housing Authority for failing to give her a reason for eviction. In a case that would last until 1969, the Supreme Court finally ruled “you can’t evict people out of public housing without giving them a reason.’ ‘We are the reason for that, ‘said Howard Fuller years later.’[35]

                     Conclusion and Historiography analysis and comments

Lastly, this research project exposed me to the rich civil rights history that existed in Durham and the roles that my in-laws played, in particular and the impact their activism had in general, in the State of North Carolina. Thus, last year my father-in-law father Baba Sharrieff Muhammad Shabazz  (2015) passed and as this writer was writing this narrative and formulating my thoughts, I could not but think about the many stories and accounts he often talked about relative to their involvement in desegregating Durham (he loved to talk about their conviction to social justice). 

Both of my in-laws took a lot of pride in working as community grassroots workers and advocating for the ‘have nots’ and participating in boycotts, sit-ins and walking picket lines to ensure that African Americans would be treated as human beings and receive justice.[36] The 1960s was tumultuous period in American history in which there were many issues pulling in many political directions such as the Vietnam War, the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. which made America a social tender box. Moreover, cities like Newark, Jersey, Detroit, and the Watts section of Los Angles were overtaking by riots and social rebellion.[37] Durham remained relatively peaceful, but that is not to say that racial tension was not high in Durham. My mother-in-law said former U.S. Senator Jesse Helms would come on the radio spewing hate and his approach to public policy reflected a rightwing conservative viewpoint in which many liberal blacks and whites took offense.

Momma Khalilah believed that Durham’s black bourgeoisie and black elite had often cut behind the scene deals with the white establishment and this allowed for them to prosper in business and assisted in their wealth building.[38] Thus, Howard Fuller often worked with them, but he was deemed a political outsider and a threat by prominent black leaders in Durham and their relationship was more of a political convenience. Fuller’s activism inspired my grandparents who got involved in Operation Breakthrough and this led to them become community organizers.[39]

In the book titled, Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years 1954-1965 , Civil Rights leader Julian Bond who wrote the introduction to the book stated: “The civil rights movement began a long time ago. As early as the seventeenth century, blacks and whites, slaves in Virginia and Quakers in Pennsylvania, protested the barbarity of slavery. Nat Turner, Sojourner Truth, Fredrick Douglas, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman are but a few of those who led the resistance to slavery before the Civil War. After the Civil War, another protracted battle began against slavery’s legacy—racism and segregation. But for most Americans, the civil rights movement began on May 17, 1954, when the Supreme Court handed down the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision outlawing segregation in public schools.”[40]     

Bond’s commentary only serves as a reminder that the continued response and opposition to injustice and inequality was not created in a vacuum and Fuller and my grandparents’ struggles were inextricably tied to this long legacy and history. 

Yet, Harold Cruse in his book titled, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, that was published in 1967, this writer does not know, if he is considered a sociologist or historian but unlike most traditional black intellectuals, he seemed to be very open to objectively criticizing some of the civil rights leadership models and personalities. He consistently cited that many of civil rights organizations, in particular the radical left often confused reform planks with revolutionary planks which left a lot to be desired relative to their ideological methodology. Cruses stated, “The Question arises: “Why was it necessary for all those idealistic and intrepid direct actionists to submit themselves to such terrible physical and psychological battering in the South to establish a few struggling groups for local reform in politics and economics, attempting in vain to breach Jim Crow barriers, which are, in effect, ‘separate’ movements? It was because these young radicals did not understand, at the outset, the divergent natures of reforms and revolutionary movements for social change. They confused the methods without understanding them, thus imputing revolutionary interpretations to merely reformist methods. Hence, when direct-action methods failed against hardening barriers, they had to fall back on what few political and economic reforms gains they had won.”[41] 

Now, as I review and assess the election of President Barack Obama becoming the first African American president and briefly comparing and contrasting two different historical time periods in American history.  This writer in looking back to the 1960s from my in-laws’ era they probably could not have imagine in their lifetime that they would ever have witness a black man becoming president and serving as our commander-in-chief, but in 2008 it happened. Momma Khalilah in their hearts know that it was their work that laid the foundation and sacrifices of so many civil rights workers and freedom fighters who died conducting voters registrations drives in the deep south and eliminating barriers that did not permit African Americans to participate in the electoral process. Momma Khalilah worked to desegregated Durham and all across this nation bigotry, racism and discrimination were being challenged in the 1960s under the banner of civil rights.[42] This writer does not know, if Momma Khalilah would agree that we now live in a post racial era since the 2008 election of President Obama, but she will agree that life is different and blacks have made tremendous progress and strides in all fields of endeavors since the civil rights movement in the 1960s.[43]     

Senator Obama’s candidacy for president in 2008 created excitement and enthusiasm amongst African Americans, which was undeniable—most whites could never understand this euphoria, because it was rooted in the history and culture of an oppressed people who were disenfranchised, denied civil rights, and human rights from 1555-1964 until the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Acts. But before the passing of these two pieces of monumental legislation, Jim Crow reigned high in America. So this writer must say that he can reckon with their enthusiasm and excitement, for them it was a very passionate historical moment. For example, Momma Khalilah is 75 years of age and as an elderly African American who experienced the era of Jim Crow where race determined the political, economic and social reality of African American people in the United States, it wouldn’t be difficult for one to share in her and their newfound optimism and her deep seated suspicions.[44]

The Jim Crow culture and segregation was very painful for blacks to endure—there were racial violence in the form of lynching and outright racial motivated murders, separate but equal policies were the law of the land—white only public accommodations was the norm, whites and blacks could not share the same bathrooms and/or attend the same schools. Momma Khalilah as she recalled this painful history became teary-eyed (these were tears of both pain and joy) and viewed the possibility of Obama becoming the first black president in the history of the United States as being monumental in her psyche; this same view probably resonated with millions of others just like her. The presidential election of Obama in 2008, made it all worth the hell they caught fighting to achieve freedom, justice and equality for the African American race in 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, etc.. And it was a sharp contrast and departure from the social politics of the 1960s. Just remember we are only 50-60 years removed from one of the most antagonistic times in American history relative to modern race relations.[45] 

Fahim A. Knight-El Chief Researcher for KEEPING IT REAL THINK TANK located in Durham, NC; our mission is to inform African Americans and all people of goodwill, of the pending dangers that lie ahead; as well as decode the symbolism and reinterpreted the hidden meanings behind those who operate as invisible forces, but covertly rules the world. We are of the belief that an enlightened world will be better prepared to throw off the shackles of ignorance and not be willing participants for the slaughter. Our MOTTO is speaking truth to power. Fahim A. Knight-El can be reached at fahimknight@yahoo.com.

 
                                                            Notes

[1] Fahim Knight-El. Interview with Khalilah Abdur Shabazz . May 10, 2016; Durham, North Carolina.

[2]Ibid,2.

[3]Ibid, 3-4.

[4] Andrew Hacker, Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal. (New York: Scribner, 1995) 3.

[5] Ibid, Shabazz,5.

[6]Ibid, 2-3.

[7] William L. Van Deburg. Modern Black Nationalism . (New York: New York University Press, 1997) 373-374.

 [8]Ibid. 

[9]Andre Vann & Beverly Washington Jones. Black American Series: Durham’s Hayti. (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 1999) 7.

[10]Ibid, Shabazz, 5.

[11]Ibid, 2-3. 

 [12] Ibid, 3-5.

 [13]Ibid, 4-5.

  [14] Ibid, 6-7.

[15]Devin Fergus. Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American . (Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2009) 59.

 [16] Ibid, Shabazz,13.,

 [17]Ibid, 12.

 [18] Ibid,

[19]Howard Fuller. No Struggle, No Progress: A Warrior’s Life from Black Power to Education Reform. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette University Press, 2014) 64. 

[20]Ibid, Shabazz, 7.

 [21]Ibid, 6.

[22]Ibid, Fuller, 62-79.

[23]Ibid, Shabazz, 8-9.

[24] Amazon..com –Internet online book review. The Best of Enemies,

[25]Ibid, Shabazz, 8-9.

[26]Ibid, 9.

[27]Ibid, 8-9.

[28] Ibid, 8-9

[29] Ibid, Fuller, 11.

 [30] Ibid, Shabazz, 6.

[31] Internet article (2009) titled, “Royal Ice Cream marker unveiling brings history, recognition, closure to Roxboro St”. http://www.bullcityrising.com/2009/11/royal-ice-cream-marker-unveiling-brings-history-recognition-closure-to-roxboro-st.html.

 [32] Ibid, Shabazz, 11.

 [33]Ibid, Shabazz, 6.

 [34]Ibid, Fuller, 67-68.

 [35] Ellie Bullard. “The Evolution of Neighborhoods Organizing Around Housing Policies in Durham, 1965-1975”.Uupublished Document; perhaps a Master of Arts Thesis; submitted to Duke University Department of History under the guidance of Professor Robert Korstad.

 [36] Ibid, Shabazz, 10.

[37]Lerone Bennett. Before the Mayflower; A History of Black America. (New York: Penguin Books, 1985) 423-432.

 [38] Ibid, Shabazz, 3-4.

[39] Ibid, Shabazz,  11.

[40] Juan Williams. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years 1954-1965. ((New York: Penguin Books, 1987) xi.

[41]Harold Cruse. The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1967) 547. 

 [42] Ibid, Shabazz, 7.

 [43] Ibid, Shabazz, 7.

[44] Ibid, Shabazz, 8

 [45] Ibid, Shabazz, 8 &10.