FORUM
? ? ? ?
African Americans and the Fourth of
July
What to the African is your Fourth of July? . . .
A day that reveals to him more than any qther
day of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty
to which he is the Constant victim. . .
Frederick Douglass
July 5, 1852
As the eloquent, insightful words of the great free
dom fighter and trail-blazer, Frederick Douglass, sug
gest, African Americans have long viewed Indepen
dence Day/the Fourth of July differently from most
other (especially Caucasian). citizens.
While many Americans have historically celebrated
the Fourth of July holiday with patriotic programs,
parades, etc., it has traditionally been the custom (and
practice) in most African American communities to
view July 4th as "just another holiday".
-r-7 To be sure, African Americans can take pride in the
role our ancestors, such as Crispus Attuckes and Peter
Salem (among scores of others), played in America's
war with its colonizer, Great Britain.
To be sure, our folk have in the past (and for that
matter, continue to) commemorated this holiday with
GUEST COLUMNIST
By CUFTbN E. GRAVES JR.
picnics, parties and family reunions. But again, not out
of any real patriotic fervor, but more so because it is the
only real holiday of the summer!
Yet, in spite of this tradition borne out of our peo
ple's long and continued struggle for justice and against
oppression in this yet-to-be "land of the free", it is
- nonetheless instructive of us to use this American Inde
pendence Day weekend to reflect on African and ;
African-Americans efforts toward economic and politi-;
cal independence.
Let us use this July 4th to celebrate - albeit with
guarded optimism - the victory of our
people in South Africa. ^Conversely,
let us use this holiday to reflect on
what role WE must play in the ongo
ing tragedies in Rwanda and Haiti. /
Obviously, our battles on the
domestic front must continue to have
priority consideration. Yet, in spite of
the burgeoning crises confronting our
folk socially, economically, politically
and psychologically, we must remain committed to
insuring that a better day is in store for our chfMft*i.
We must take heart in efforts underway locally and
nationally to address external oppression and internal
obsolescence permeating our communities. Thus, be
inspired by the NAACP's recent African-American
Summit. Critics not withstanding. Brother Ben Cftavis
is deserving of our collective support in attempting to be
a change agent in our community, bringing disparate
v . .
individuals and groups together for the common good.
Let us be inspired by the upcoming North Carolina
Black Leadership Caucus convention, schedule here in
Winston-Salem July 14-16. The agenda promises to
seriously address long standing concerns that need our
immediate attention.
Yes, Frederick Doughs' words are as appropriate
about the Fourth of July in 1 994, as they were in 1 852.
African Americans yet have no cause to celebrate this
nation's "Independence Day", for we are not yet free.
But far from wallowing in a quagmire of despair, or
conversely, mindlessly partying and picnicking, let us
use this holiday to renew our individual and collective
commitment to making this land, this World the place it
has not been yet, but yet must be!
Freedom ain't free!!
Peace. . . ,, ,
.. -v ?. ? . . . .
(Clifton E. Graves Jr.Js a life-long member of the
NAACP and a member of the local Executive Commit
tee.) ?
The Long, Hot Summer of the NAACP
I r ' r * * ? '
As far as fluctuations and shifts in America's civil rights landscape are
concerned, the arrival of summer signals the transition time between the
season of survival and the coming of change. The old convention's and
accords don't give way. easily. They hold out, seeking to survive. The status
quo pushes to maintain itself. ' J
New ideas and methods, like flowers, are propelled onto the political
landscape. If they do not fit into the prevailing panorama, they are weeded
out: attempts are made to dissect, cut, slash, and trash them. If the dialectic,
on the other hand, is principled and nourished in historical fertilizer, the
maturation becomes inevitable. The force of history cannot be reversed. The
summer of 1994, forty years after Brown vs Board of Education, marks a
clear and certain transition in the organizational life of the NAACP.
k
LIFT EVERY VOICE
By WILLIAM H. TURNER
f '
The fuss hinges on the nostalgia about the historic roots of the NAACP
and the way Rev. Ben Chavis is advancing the organization. Like a perverse
pun on the Association's magazine, the pundits are describing the chal
lenges of the NAACP as a "Crisis." According to a lengthy feature in the
New York Times (npt insignificantly on June 10, 1994) many longtime
NAACP members, corporate sponsors, and other supporters are disgruntled
with Chavis' embrace of "radical person? and ideas".- Spell that leftist poli
tics: as in the case of Chavis' work with urban gang leaders, gangster rap
pers like Sistah Souljah, and 60' s era black nationalists like Angela Davis.
Of course, the tip of the iceberg has heen Chavis' attempts to build bridges
between the so-called mainline civil rights organizations and Minister Louis*
Farrakhan. N
There is nothing new about this
kind of politics. It is but the latest of
a longstanding controversy within
the history of blacks' struggle for
civil and human rights. It occurred
when the first generation of educa
tion middle-class blacks and their
compatriots formed the NAACP. Do
we hear the ghost of whites who
formed the nucleus of the NAACP,
who themselves were chided (by
other whites) for the presence of a
single black officer at the time of its
founding 85 years ago? Was W.E.B.
DuBois yester summer's Farrakhan?
In the NAACP's first summer
(1909). W.E.B. DuBois and "the radicals" who organized the Niagara
Movement ? which became the NAACP ? were openly attacked too. For
a generation after that, DuBois debated with Marcus Garvey and Booker T.
Washington argued with both of them. *
If we fast forward time, Summer #2 ( 1954- 1974) \Vas without shade or
cool. "Long Hot Summer!" became a popular flhetaphor. The real and imag
ined differences between Rev. Martin Luther King and Roy Wilkins. on the
one hand, and Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael. on the other, lntegra
tionism versus pluralism.
Now, as natural as the summer solstice, a new person is upon the
NAACP. Some arriving in Chicago next week for the Association's annual
meeting may see it as the summer of discontent. The slashing and cutting
and backbiting has already begun. Resistance to the changes Chavis would
bring to the Association is afoot.
Newsweek's Joe Klien. while "grieving for the NAACP," has accused
Rev. Chavis of "betraying his organization's historic mission." Tu the status
quo black middle class and tradition-bound whites in the Association, a key
element of that mission is to remain a bastion of heterogeneity and integra
Rev. Benjamin Chavis
tion, As well, Chavis' reaching-out to the burgeoning problems of the poor ?
and young is simply new ground they'd rather not plow. To Klein and old
guard critics like Michael Myers and Jack Greenberg (founders of the
National Committee to Save the NAACP) Chavis is a publicity-hungry baby
boomer with a radical orientation. Ben Chavis, to those getting all the press,
is not the man the NAACP needs at this time of crisis. Klien advises African
Americans to locate and elevate a "charismatic integrationist" if they are to
find peership and equality. For me, the hoopla is all to do about nothing.
Change is the only constant., African Americans need a change. Last sum
mer, when Chavis was elected to head the NAACP, these same people were
calling the Association a corpse awaiting burial. Well, at least Rev. Chavis' v
approach | puts new and refreshing breath into the last major vestige of the
Civil Rights Movement and all the other organizations that are synonymous
with it. Thank God for that I hope this means that our hearts and lungs are
pulsating with renewed vigor. t
The time between Memorial Day and Labor Day always contain ele
ments of the clash between the old and the new, the cold and hot, the pre
dictable and unpredictable, and the past generation and the new one. The -
changes Chavis brings to the NAACP are in keeping with the forces of his
tory. Rev. Benjamin Chavis is rooted in the foundation of the total black
experience ? the black church. And, his ordeal in Wilmington is synony
mous with Dr. King's Birmingham jail. Fellows like Klien and Michael
Myers have probably not set foot in a black church, let alone a jail cell. It is
little wonder that they sees things differently from Rev. Chavis. Let a new
leader arise. Let the new day dawn. Let a new summer unfold!
The NAACP has known America's political winters, springs, falls, and
summers. The men and women of that venerable organization are Ao fools.
It will survive.
Let the NAACP change and survive. It cannot change unless it survives
but it will not survive unless it changes. Let this be the Summer of Change
for the NAACP.
? ? V* ?
(William Turner is a regular freelance columnist for the Chroniclt.)
Thirteen years before the Emancipation Proclamation, Frederick Dou
glass, the great abolitionist and orator, delivered a Fourth of July speech in
which he pointed out the hypocrisy of this country's celebration of Indepen
dence Day while it still held millions in bondage. This year, as the whole
world had celebrated the freedom of South Africa, African Americans have
had a bittersweet feeling of joy for our brothers and sisters in South Africa
and sadness that 131 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, we still are
not free in our owr. country . ;
Some would argue that African Americans are free - that the Emancipa
tion Proclamation provided that. But for nearly a century after that docu
ment, African Americans in many southern states were prevented from the
most basic tenet of any democracy - the right to vote. Some would argue
that African Americans were free with the passage of the Voting Rights Act
in 1965, which ensured the right of African Americans to vote. But until the
passage of a strengthened Voting Rights Act in 1990, only two African
Americans from the South were elected to Congress in 71 years and few
were able to be elected to county and state legislatures or to be judges. .
Some would argue that African Americans were free with the Supreme
Court Brown vs. Board of Education decision, which ended school segrega
tion and began the integration process for other areas as well. But the fact is
that although integration has worked for a few, it has meant that those left
behind in the inner cities have few positive role models, few businesses and
services, poor education and a declining housing stock.
The reality, as we celebrate yet another Fourth of July, is that many
African Americans are still slaves in America. We are slaves to violence.
According to the Children's Defense Fund, homicide is now the third-lead
ing cause of death for elementary and middle-school children and since
1979 more children have been killed by firearms than soldiers killed in the
Vietnam War. Black children are planning their funerals instead of their
proms and three quarters of black adults worry that their children will not
live to become adults. * <
We are slaves to poor education. Many city school systems are almost
completely attended by children of color. Meanwhile, one of the dilemmas
corporate America now finds itself in is that increasing numbers of high
school graduates can barely read or write or compute and thus, the quality
of our work force is declining. In many of our larger cities fifty, sixty and
even seventy percent of young people drop out of high school before gradu
ation. Too many of onr ynnng people are discouraged from succeeding in
school - ostracized by their peers for Having "white" values and not
expected to do well by teachers and school systems which too often have
low expectations for African -American youth.
We are slaves to poor health care or no health care at all. African
American children die at the same rate as children in some third-world
countries. Our people face higher incidence of cancer, hypertension, heart
disease and diabetes and often have fewer options for medical care. AIDS
has increased by 185 percent among heterosexual African-American women
over the past year along and in New York City, 90 percent of all children
with AIDS are African -A men can or Latino. Yet African Americans, even
those with the best insurance, are less likely to receive the best or most up
to-date treatments, whether it be for heart conditions or AIDS.
We are slaves to an economy in which there are millions of unskilled,
untrained African- American workers whose strong backs and ability to pick
cotton or assemble cars are no longer needed by society. Unemployment
rates in the African-American community can be nearly double that of
whites and many African Americans have simply stopped looking for work
and are no longer counted as unemployed. While a small percentage of
African Americans have prospered over the past two decades, millions have
been lumped together into the so-called underclass, Where they feel aban
doned by society and hopeless about the future. Generations of African
Americans are living on welfare and children grow up not knowing anyone
with a job.
Frederick Douglass reminded himself of the mournful wail and the
bleeding children of his recent ancestors in the Fourth of July speech nearly
a century and a half ago. Let us remember those chains and our children as
CIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL
By BERNICE POWELL JACKSON
this country celebrates Independence Day once again. And let us also hear
Douglass' words once more as welk-For it is not light that is needed, but -
fire; it is not the*gentle shower but the thunder. We need the storm, the
whirlwinds and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quick
ened; the conscience df thB nation must be roused; the propriety of the
nation must be started; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its
crimes against God and man must be denounced. And let us remember that
until all of us ^re free, none of us is free. ? *
(Bernicc Powell-Jackson is Executive Director for the United Church
of Christ Commission for Racial Justice )
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