DEFINITION OF GREATNESS/ Featuring The Historic "Drum Major Instinct Speech"

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Empowering Spirits - Freeing Your Mind.

This past weekend while sitting at my computer listening to a Radio tribute to the late Dr. Martin Luther King courtesy of AOL Radio, Mind you I have only heard snipets of speeches given by Dr. King prior to 1968. This oratory was given two months before his asassination. He spoke about war, racisim, false prosperity, and where we were headed as a nation. It was so eleoquent and prophetic 38 years later.

Today, we are facing the same issues with no true leadership from our politicians, our government, or within our own community. We all in some way, shape, or form are faced with the need to be recognized. A need to become a success while most of us make it our mission in life to become prosperous. That's a wonderful achievement even while in pursuit, but at what price? Is it to serve or to be self serving in order to gain recognition for greatness. Why are we the major consumers in America? Black american's always know how to look propserous even while living in a poor economy. Even if we don't have a dime in our pockets we manage to always "represent."

This blog does not focus on gossip, politics, or gender bashing unlike most sites who offer tentilating topics to capture the attention. Empowering Spirits - Freeing your mind is a positive outreach - a cry for the black community to appreciate our heritage.

To give a glimpse at the wealth of knowledge, culture, the arts and entertainment links for which we have plenty. I offer this to a deaf and dumb community, but I will continue to post my blog as a community service to my brothers and sisters young or old. It's time we all wake up and look around us. Many of us look to religion, sex, drugs, or varcariously live our lives through the life of others. Instead of digging deep inside of ourselves to realize our own GOD given strengths and gifts. Reality is that if you don't examine where we have been how you gonna know where you are going. Enjoy Black History everyday.

If you are like minded you will enjoy reading this speech and maybe you'll come away with a better understanding of what greatness truly means.

With much Love,
Shelle'
Moderator

The Historic "Drum Major Instinct Speech" was delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, on 4 February 1968. MLKEC.

This morning I would like to use as a subject from which to preach: "The Drum Major Instinct." "The Drum Major Instinct." And our text for the morning is taken from a very familiar passage in the tenth chapter as recorded by Saint Mark. Beginning with the thirty-fifth verse of that chapter, we read these words: "And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came unto him saying, ‘Master, we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire.’ And he said unto them, ‘What would ye that I should do for you?’ And they said unto him, ‘Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory.’ But Jesus said unto them, ‘Ye know not what ye ask: Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ And they said unto him, ‘We can.’ And Jesus said unto them, ‘Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of, and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized: but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared.’"

And then Jesus goes on toward the end of that passage to say, "But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your servant: and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all."

The setting is clear. James and John are making a specific request of the master. They had dreamed, as most of the Hebrews dreamed, of a coming king of Israel who would set Jerusalem free and establish his kingdom on Mount Zion, and in righteousness rule the world. And they thought of Jesus as this kind of king. And they were thinking of that day when Jesus would reign supreme as this new king of Israel. And they were saying, "Now when you establish your kingdom, let one of us sit on the right hand and the other on the left hand of your throne."

Now very quickly, we would automatically condemn James and John, and we would say they were selfish. Why would they make such a selfish request? But before we condemn them too quickly, let us look calmly and honestly at ourselves, and we will discover that we too have those same basic desires for recognition, for importance. That same desire for attention, that same desire to be first. Of course, the other disciples got mad with James and John, and you could understand why, but we must understand that we have some of the same James and John qualities. And there is deep down within all of us an instinct. It's a kind of drum major instinct—a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first. And it is something that runs the whole gamut of life.

And so before we condemn them, let us see that we all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade. Alfred Adler, the great psychoanalyst, contends that this is the dominant impulse. Sigmund Freud used to contend that sex was the dominant impulse, and Adler came with a new argument saying that this quest for recognition, this desire for attention, this desire for distinction is the basic impulse, the basic drive of human life, this drum major instinct.

And you know, we begin early to ask life to put us first. Our first cry as a baby was a bid for attention. And all through childhood the drum major impulse or instinct is a major obsession. Children ask life to grant them first place. They are a little bundle of ego. And they have innately the drum major impulse or the drum major instinct.

Now in adult life, we still have it, and we really never get by it. We like to do something good. And you know, we like to be praised for it. Now if you don't believe that, you just go on living life, and you will discover very soon that you like to be praised. Everybody likes it, as a matter of fact. And somehow this warm glow we feel when we are praised or when our name is in print is something of the vitamin A to our ego. Nobody is unhappy when they are praised, even if they know they don't deserve it and even if they don't believe it. The only unhappy people about praise is when that praise is going too much toward somebody else. (That’s right) But everybody likes to be praised because of this real drum major instinct.

Now the presence of the drum major instinct is why so many people are "joiners." You know, there are some people who just join everything. And it's really a quest for attention and recognition and importance. And they get names that give them that impression. So you get your groups, and they become the "Grand Patron," and the little fellow who is henpecked at home needs a chance to be the "Most Worthy of the Most Worthy" of something. It is the drum major impulse and longing that runs the gamut of human life. And so we see it everywhere, this quest for recognition. And we join things, overjoin really, that we think that we will find that recognition in.

Now the presence of this instinct explains why we are so often taken by advertisers. You know, those gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion. And they have a way of saying things to you that kind of gets you into buying. In order to be a man of distinction, you must drink this whiskey. In order to make your neighbors envious, you must drive this type of car. (Make it plain)

In order to be lovely to love you must wear this kind of lipstick or this kind of perfume. And you know, before you know it, you're just buying that stuff. (Yes) That's the way the advertisers do it.

I got a letter the other day, and it was a new magazine coming out. And it opened up, "Dear Dr. King: As you know, you are on many mailing lists. And you are categorized as highly intelligent, progressive, a lover of the arts and the sciences, and I know you will want to read what I have to say." Of course I did. After you said all of that and explained me so exactly, of course I wanted to read it. [laughter]

But very seriously, it goes through life; the drum major instinct is real. (Yes) And you know what else it causes to happen? It often causes us to live above our means. (Make it plain) It's nothing but the drum major instinct. Do you ever see people buy cars that they can't even begin to buy in terms of their income? (Amen) [laughter] You've seen people riding around in Cadillacs and Chryslers who don't earn enough to have a good T-Model Ford. (Make it plain) But it feeds a repressed ego.

You know, economists tell us that your automobile should not cost more than half of your annual income. So if you make an income of five thousand dollars, your car shouldn't cost more than about twenty-five hundred. That's just good economics. And if it's a family of two, and both members of the family make ten thousand dollars, they would have to make out with one car. That would be good economics, although it's often inconvenient. But so often, haven't you seen people making five thousand dollars a year and driving a car that costs six thousand? And they wonder why their ends never meet. [laughter] That's a fact.

Now the economists also say that your house shouldn't cost—if you're buying a house, it shouldn't cost more than twice your income. That's based on the economy and how you would make ends meet. So, if you have an income of five thousand dollars, it's kind of difficult in this society. But say it's a family with an income of ten thousand dollars, the house shouldn't cost much more than twenty thousand. Well, I've seen folk making ten thousand dollars, living in a forty- and fifty-thousand-dollar house. And you know they just barely make it. They get a check every month somewhere, and they owe all of that out before it comes in. Never have anything to put away for rainy days.

But now the problem is, it is the drum major instinct. And you know, you see people over and over again with the drum major instinct taking them over. And they just live their lives trying to outdo the Joneses. (Amen) They got to get this coat because this particular coat is a little better and a little better-looking than Mary's coat. And I got to drive this car because it's something about this car that makes my car a little better than my neighbor's car. (Amen) I know a man who used to live in a thirty-five-thousand-dollar house. And other people started building thirty-five-thousand-dollar houses, so he built a seventy-five-thousand-dollar house. And then somebody else built a seventy-five-thousand-dollar house, and he built a hundred-thousand-dollar house. And I don't know where he's going to end up if he's going to live his life trying to keep up with the Joneses.

There comes a time that the drum major instinct can become destructive. (Make it plain) And that's where I want to move now. I want to move to the point of saying that if this instinct is not harnessed, it becomes a very dangerous, pernicious instinct. For instance, if it isn’t harnessed, it causes one's personality to become distorted. I guess that's the most damaging aspect of it: what it does to the personality. If it isn't harnessed, you will end up day in and day out trying to deal with your ego problem by boasting. Have you ever heard people that—you know, and I'm sure you've met them—that really become sickening because they just sit up all the time talking about themselves. (Amen) And they just boast and boast and boast, and that's the person who has not harnessed the drum major instinct.

And then it does other things to the personality. It causes you to lie about who you know sometimes. (Amen, Make it plain) There are some people who are influence peddlers. And in their attempt to deal with the drum major instinct, they have to try to identify with the so-called big-name people. (Yeah, Make it plain) And if you're not careful, they will make you think they know somebody that they don't really know. (Amen) They know them well, they sip tea with them, and they this-and-that. That happens to people.

And the other thing is that it causes one to engage ultimately in activities that are merely used to get attention. Criminologists tell us that some people are driven to crime because of this drum major instinct. They don't feel that they are getting enough attention through the normal channels of social behavior, and so they turn to anti-social behavior in order to get attention, in order to feel important. (Yeah) And so they get that gun, and before they know it they robbed a bank in a quest for recognition, in a quest for importance.

And then the final great tragedy of the distorted personality is the fact that when one fails to harness this instinct, (Glory to God) he ends up trying to push others down in order to push himself up. (Amen) And whenever you do that, you engage in some of the most vicious activities. You will spread evil, vicious, lying gossip on people, because you are trying to pull them down in order to push yourself up. (Make it plain) And the great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct.

Now the other problem is, when you don't harness the drum major instinct—this uncontrolled aspect of it—is that it leads to snobbish exclusivism. It leads to snobbish exclusivism. (Make it plain) And you know, this is the danger of social clubs and fraternities—I'm in a fraternity; I'm in two or three—for sororities and all of these, I'm not talking against them. I'm saying it's the danger. The danger is that they can become forces of classism and exclusivism where somehow you get a degree of satisfaction because you are in something exclusive. And that's fulfilling something, you know—that I'm in this fraternity, and it's the best fraternity in the world, and everybody can't get in this fraternity. So it ends up, you know, a very exclusive kind of thing.

And you know, that can happen with the church; I know churches get in that bind sometimes. (Amen, Make it plain) I've been to churches, you know, and they say, "We have so many doctors, and so many school teachers, and so many lawyers, and so many businessmen in our church." And that's fine, because doctors need to go to church, and lawyers, and businessmen, teachers—they ought to be in church. But they say that—even the preacher sometimes will go all through that—they say that as if the other people don't count. (Amen)

And the church is the one place where a doctor ought to forget that he's a doctor. The church is the one place where a Ph.D. ought to forget that he's a Ph.D. (Yes) The church is the one place that the school teacher ought to forget the degree she has behind her name. The church is the one place where the lawyer ought to forget that he's a lawyer. And any church that violates the "whosoever will, let him come" doctrine is a dead, cold church, (Yes) and nothing but a little social club with a thin veneer of religiosity.

When the church is true to its nature, (Whoo) it says, "Whosoever will, let him come." (Yes) And it does not supposed to satisfy the perverted uses of the drum major instinct. It's the one place where everybody should be the same, standing before a common master and savior. (Yes, sir) And a recognition grows out of this—that all men are brothers because they are children (Yes) of a common father.

The drum major instinct can lead to exclusivism in one's thinking and can lead one to feel that because he has some training, he's a little better than that person who doesn't have it. Or because he has some economic security, that he's a little better than that person who doesn't have it. And that's the uncontrolled, perverted use of the drum major instinct.

Now the other thing is, that it leads to tragic—and we've seen it happen so often—tragic race prejudice. Many who have written about this problem—Lillian Smith used to say it beautifully in some of her books. And she would say it to the point of getting men and women to see the source of the problem. Do you know that a lot of the race problem grows out of the drum major instinct? A need that some people have to feel superior. A need that some people have to feel that they are first, and to feel that their white skin ordained them to be first. (Make it plain, today, ‘cause I’m against it, so help me God) And they have said over and over again in ways that we see with our own eyes. In fact, not too long ago, a man down in Mississippi said that God was a charter member of the White Citizens Council.

And so God being the charter member means that everybody who's in that has a kind of divinity, a kind of superiority. And think of what has happened in history as a result of this perverted use of the drum major instinct. It has led to the most tragic prejudice, the most tragic expressions of man's inhumanity to man.

The other day I was saying, I always try to do a little converting when I'm in jail. And when we were in jail in Birmingham the other day, the white wardens and all enjoyed coming around the cell to talk about the race problem. And they were showing us where we were so wrong demonstrating. And they were showing us where segregation was so right. And they were showing us where intermarriage was so wrong. So I would get to preaching, and we would get to talking—calmly, because they wanted to talk about it. And then we got down one day to the point—that was the second or third day—to talk about where they lived, and how much they were earning.

And when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, "Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. [laughter] You're just as poor as Negroes." And I said, "You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. (Yes) And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And you're so poor you can't send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march."

Now that's a fact. That the poor white has been put into this position, where through blindness and prejudice, (Make it plain) he is forced to support his oppressors. And the only thing he has going for him is the false feeling that he’s superior because his skin is white—and can't hardly eat and make his ends meet week in and week out. (Amen)

And not only does this thing go into the racial struggle, it goes into the struggle between nations. And I would submit to you this morning that what is wrong in the world today is that the nations of the world are engaged in a bitter, colossal contest for supremacy. And if something doesn't happen to stop this trend, I'm sorely afraid that we won't be here to talk about Jesus Christ and about God and about brotherhood too many more years. (Yeah) If somebody doesn't bring an end to this suicidal thrust that we see in the world today, none of us are going to be around, because somebody's going to make the mistake through our senseless blunderings of dropping a nuclear bomb somewhere. And then another one is going to drop. And don't let anybody fool you, this can happen within a matter of seconds. (Amen) They have twenty-megaton bombs in Russia right now that can destroy a city as big as New York in three seconds, with everybody wiped away, and every building. And we can do the same thing to Russia and China.

But this is why we are drifting. And we are drifting there because nations are caught up with the drum major instinct. "I must be first." "I must be supreme." "Our nation must rule the world." (Preach it) And I am sad to say that the nation in which we live is the supreme culprit. And I'm going to continue to say it to America, because I love this country too much to see the drift that it has taken.

God didn't call America to do what she's doing in the world now. (Preach it, preach it) God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war as the war in Vietnam. And we are criminals in that war. We’ve committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation.
But God has a way of even putting nations in their place. (Amen) The God that I worship has a way of saying, "Don't play with me." (Yes) He has a way of saying, as the God of the Old Testament used to say to the Hebrews, "Don’t play with me, Israel. Don't play with me, Babylon. (Yes) Be still and know that I'm God. And if you don't stop your reckless course, I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power." (Yes) And that can happen to America. (Yes) Every now and then I go back and read Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And when I come and look at America, I say to myself, the parallels are frightening. And we have perverted the drum major instinct.

But let me rush on to my conclusion, because I want you to see what Jesus was really saying. What was the answer that Jesus gave these men? It's very interesting. One would have thought that Jesus would have condemned them. One would have thought that Jesus would have said, "You are out of your place. You are selfish. Why would you raise such a question?"

But that isn't what Jesus did; he did something altogether different. He said in substance, "Oh, I see, you want to be first. You want to be great. You want to be important. You want to be significant. Well, you ought to be. If you're going to be my disciple, you must be." But he reordered priorities. And he said, "Yes, don't give up this instinct. It's a good instinct if you use it right. (Yes) It's a good instinct if you don't distort it and pervert it. Don't give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be first in love. (Amen) I want you to be first in moral excellence. I want you to be first in generosity. That is what I want you to do."

And he transformed the situation by giving a new definition of greatness. And you know how he said it? He said, "Now brethren, I can't give you greatness. And really, I can't make you first." This is what Jesus said to James and John. "You must earn it. True greatness comes not by favoritism, but by fitness. And the right hand and the left are not mine to give, they belong to those who are prepared." (Amen)

And so Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. (Amen) That's a new definition of greatness.
And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, (Everybody) because everybody can serve. (Amen) You don't have to have a college degree to serve. (All right) You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. (Amen) You only need a heart full of grace, (Yes, sir, Amen) a soul generated by love. (Yes) And you can be that servant.

I know a man—and I just want to talk about him a minute, and maybe you will discover who I'm talking about as I go down the way (Yeah) because he was a great one. And he just went about serving. He was born in an obscure village, (Yes, sir) the child of a poor peasant woman. And then he grew up in still another obscure village, where he worked as a carpenter until he was thirty years old. (Amen) Then for three years, he just got on his feet, and he was an itinerant preacher. And he went about doing some things. He didn't have much. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. (Yes) He never owned a house. He never went to college. He never visited a big city. He never went two hundred miles from where he was born. He did none of the usual things that the world would associate with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.

He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. They called him a rabble-rouser. They called him a troublemaker. They said he was an agitator. (Glory to God) He practiced civil disobedience; he broke injunctions. And so he was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. And the irony of it all is that his friends turned him over to them. (Amen) One of his closest friends denied him. Another of his friends turned him over to his enemies. And while he was dying, the people who killed him gambled for his clothing, the only possession that he had in the world. (Lord help him) When he was dead he was buried in a borrowed tomb, through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone and today he stands as the most influential figure that ever entered human history. All of the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned put together (Yes) have not affected the life of man on this earth (Amen) as much as that one solitary life. His name may be a familiar one. (Jesus) But today I can hear them talking about him.

Every now and then somebody says, "He's King of Kings." (Yes) And again I can hear somebody saying, "He's Lord of Lords." Somewhere else I can hear somebody saying, "In Christ there is no East nor West." (Yes) And then they go on and talk about, "In Him there's no North and South, but one great Fellowship of Love throughout the whole wide world." He didn't have anything. (Amen) He just went around serving and doing good.

This morning, you can be on his right hand and his left hand if you serve. (Amen) It's the only way in.

Every now and then I guess we all think realistically (Yes, sir) about that day when we will be victimized with what is life's final common denominator—that something that we call death. We all think about it. And every now and then I think about my own death and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. And every now and then I ask myself,

"What is it that I would want said?" And I leave the word to you this morning.

If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. (Yes) And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. (Yes)
I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. (Yes)

I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.
I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. (Amen)
I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. (Yes)
And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. (Yes)

I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. (Lord)
I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. (Yes)

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. (Amen) Say that I was a drum major for peace. (Yes)
I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. (Yes) I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. (Amen)

And that's all I want to say.
If I can help somebody as I pass along,
If I can cheer somebody with a word or song,
If I can show somebody he's traveling wrong,
Then my living will not be in vain.
If I can do my duty as a Christian ought,
If I can bring salvation to a world once wrought,
If I can spread the message as the master taught,
Then my living will not be in vain.
Yes, Jesus, I want to be on your right or your left side, (Yes) not for any selfish reason. I want to be on your right or your left side, not in terms of some political kingdom or ambition. But I just want to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world.

Delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, on 4 February 1968. MLKEC.
courtesy of: http://www.blackwebportal.com/

An Appreciation: Coretta Scott King (1927-2006)
By Jelani Cobb, Special to AOL Black Voices

Coretta Scott King
Born in Alabama, Coretta Scott King graduated form Antioch College and the New England Conservatory of Music.

More on Coretta King and the Civil Rights Movement
Video: King Family Matriarch Dies

When the young Coretta Scott sang publicly, she stood erect and clasped her hands before her, a model of grace, quiet self-assurance and refinement. Those who were fortunate enough to witness her performance had a unique window into the next five decades of her life.
Historian Darlene Clark Hine has written that black women leaders have a long tradition of "dissemblance" -- constructing a public persona that serves the race's need for an "ideal black woman" and simultaneously leaving the true individual protected from the antagonism of a racially hostile society. The recognized faces of Mary Church Terrell or Ida B. Wells-Barnett or Ella Baker as the representative of the race leave us wondering generations later, who Ida or Mary or Ella really was. The paradox is that the more we see of this individual, the less we actually know about her.

We saw a great deal of Coretta Scott, perhaps more than anyone else in these years and with her death we are not only left bereft of our most vital link to Martin, but also made profoundly aware of how little we knew or understood her. The third act of her life -- the one that followed her years as an Alabama farm girl and as a famous preacher's wife, the one that began on April 4, 1968 -- was a public performance that she played with the same grace, quiet self-assurance and refinement.

Photo Gallery

King's Life in Photos
If you were able to get beyond the official Coretta, you would have seen the woman whose roots lay in rural Alabama. Her family, unlike most other black Alabamans, owned their own land. But Coretta Scott was not a product of the rural gentry. Few would have known that the closest thing to a first lady of black America had grown up picking cotton. Few would have known that she continued to reside in the same working-class community where she and Martin had lived together.


She was a graduate of Antioch College pursuing a graduate degree in music when Martin King, the brash, smooth-tongued city boy from Atlanta cold-called her. King had been given her number by a mutual friend and within moments got her to agree to have lunch with him. Coretta endured the open hostility of Martin's father (who had selected another woman for him to marry) and his wedding-day attempt to dissuade them from going through with their marriage plans. As a young wife, she struggled with Martin's refusal to agree with her desire to use her education outside the home (an issue that, interestingly enough, also became a source of conflict between Betty Shabazz, who held a nursing degree, and her husband Malcolm X.)

Beyond the grinding daily pressure of class expectations and confinement to the role of wife and mother, Coretta was married to a man who essentially knew from age 26 his pursuit of justice would lead to a violent death. Any doubts about that possibility were erased during the Montgomery Bus Boycott when their home was bombed. There were other burdens too.

It was Coretta whom J. Edgar Hoover's FBI sought to turn into King's Achilles heel. In 1965, the agency sent audiotapes of King's sexual liaisons with other women to Coretta as a means of derailing the leader and thereby the movement. The actual toll of this is unknown and perhaps unknowable, though years later Coretta wrote that such matters in a union between soul mates are ultimately inconsequential -- a profound statement of commitment and love one suspects was written by official Coretta.

Coretta Scott King was frequently compared to Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and on the surface the comparison was apt. Both women were thrust into history by the assassination of a husband whom history has regarded as a great idealist. Both endured unimaginable travail with vast reserves of grace -- a feat anyone who has ever lost a love one, understands as heroic. And the images of Coretta Scott King and Jacqueline Kennedy at their respective husbands' funerals have been burned into our collective memory. But that is where it ends. While Bouvier Kennedy had the weight of the presidential seal to ensure that her husband would remain a cherished icon of his native land, Coretta Scott King was left with only the sad history and official amnesia that has greeted black martyrs since that first African decided not to board a slave ship.

Jacqueline Kennedy was free to become Jacqueline Onasis without fear that her husband would be forgotten. Coretta had no such assurances. Ask yourselves how many of us recall and honor Harry T. and Harriet Moore, the NAACP officials who were killed by a firebomb in 1950. Even by 1968, their noble work was remembered as a distant echo. It is possible, in the most ideal of scenarios, that the world had actually been changed by Martin’s work and his vision. But such vague hopes are cold comfort to a grieving wife and wounded extended community.

It was Coretta's will that ensured we carried Martin with us, that his vision continues to be spoken of in the present tense. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Non-violent Social Change was literally created in the family basement. It was Coretta's undaunted efforts to have Martin's birthday made into a national holiday that solidified her status as a hero in her own right. A student of American history would have no reason to suspect that the nation would honor a slain black man with a national holiday. Coretta believed.

With time, she came to use her status in overtly political ways -- endorsing Walter Mondale over Jesse Jackson in 1984 and publicly challenging the black community to combat homophobia and address the issue of HIV-AIDS. Last month, Coretta made a surprise appearance at a dinner banquet. The audience was shocked that she had mustered the strength to appear in public after suffering a major stroke. But to those of us familiar with her story, there was no reason for surprise. This is the sort of thing that heroes do.


About the AuthorWilliam Jelani Cobb is an assistant professor of history at Spelman College and editor of 'The Essential Harold Cruse.' He also posts articles at wwwjelanicobb.com. You can reach him at creative.ink@jelanicobb.com.

Courtesy of http://www.aol.com/ - black voices
Submitted by Shelle' REPOSTED: Original post Jan~2006


@Lovleeannwise 2014 all rights reserved

INDIAN SUMMER - Featuring the Sonnet "Desirada"

Desirada

Author unkown (slighty modified)

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are the vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter, for their will always be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly in the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You are needed in this world. Do not concern yourself with other worlds, for they do not exist. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding in an ordered manner.


Therefore, be at peace with nature and the mysterious process of evolution, whatever you conceive it to be; and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, strive to maintian your own inner peace while you do those things bring you happiness and contribute to the survival of humanity.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

HALF PAST AUTUMN
Phil Ponce examines the life and art of Gordon Parks, Life photographer, film director, composer and digital art pioneer. Parks' work, on exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C.

A RealAudio version of this segment is available.

NEWSHOUR LINKS:

January 1, 1998 The work of modern artist Joseph Cornell.
October 28, 1997 A look at modern China as seen in the works of some modern Chinese artists.
October 21, 1997The man who designed the new Guggenheim Museum, Frank Gehry.
June 17,1997 Robert Hughes' American Visions, explores the history of American art.
May 23, 1997:The Whitney Museum of American Art's Biennial Exhibit in New York City.
January 10, 1997 Ellsworth Kelly and Jasper Johns exhibits spark the question: What is Modern Art?
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of arts and entertainment.
PHIL PONCE: The people of Fort Scott, Kansas, their images have stayed with Gordon Parks all his life. It was among the people of this prairie town that Parks grew up as the youngest in a family of fifteen children, amid poverty and discrimination. Now, at age 85, Parks can see the full length of his journey from poverty to a life rich in experience and range: photographer, poet, author, film maker, and composer. In the first museum survey of Parks' multi-faceted career Washington's Corcoran Gallery of Art is showing more than 200 of his images, mainly from his work as one of America's leading photojournalists. The exhibition is called "Half Past Autumn: The Art of Gordon Parks." I talked to Parks at the Corcoran about his early influences.

Humble yet nurturing roots.

GORDON PARKS, Photographer: My mother died by the time I was 15, and already she'd imparted enough of herself to carry me for the rest of my life--when I needed it most after I hit the big world out there, you know, and my father was sort of a wonderful dirt farmer who farmed mostly dirt, had enough food for his children, to eat. So we had a rather meager existence.
PHIL PONCE: I've heard you say that your mother was the biggest influence in your life and in your work.
GORDON PARKS: She taught me what was right and what was wrong. She would not tolerate any sort of prejudice against another person because of their color. You know, I can feel her looking at me when I do something wrong--even today--even though she died when I was 15. I have a picture on my mantel in my home and my father's picture, next to each other. And I look at them before I make a decision.
Parks' "choice of weapons": the camera
PHIL PONCE: A key decision--to use a camera as what Parks called his choice of weapons. Beginning in 1942, he helped document the lives of America's poor--its workers--its urban and country dwellers--as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration, a Depression era government agency. That's when he took what would become perhaps his best-known picture. It was of a cleaning woman who worked in his office building. Her name was Ella Watson.
GORDON PARKS: That was my first day in Washington, D.C., in 1942. I had experienced a kind of bigotry and discrimination here that I never expected to experience. And I photographed her after everyone had left the building. At first, I asked her about her life, what it was like, and so disastrous that I felt that I must photograph this woman in a way that would make me feel or make the public feel about what Washington, D.C. was in 1942. So I put her before the American flag with a broom in one hand and a mop in another. And I said, "American Gothic"--that's how I felt at the moment. I didn't care about what anybody else felt. That's what I felt about America and Ella Watson's position inside America.
PHIL PONCE: You were once given the advice that a great photographer is often somebody who is a good person, who cares about other people. So you do wind up caring, or, in some cases, loving the people you photograph?
"The photographer begins to feel big and bloated and so big he can't walk through one of these doors because he gets a good byline; he gets notices all over the world and so forth; but they're really--the important people are the people he photographs. They are what make him."
GORDON PARKS: Yes. I usually wind up liking them or understanding them better, even though they may have an evil content. The subject matter is so much more important than the photographer. The photographer begins to feel big and bloated and so big he can't walk through one of these doors because he gets a good byline; he gets notices all over the world and so forth; but they're really--the important people are the people he photographs. They are what make him.

PHIL PONCE: It was at Life Magazine that Parks began to gain a national reputation. He was the magazine's first African-American photographer and used the technique in which he would focus a series on one person to tell a broader story about humanity, itself--like a 1948 life and death story on the violence of gang wars in Harlem through the eyes of Red Jackson, a 16-year-old gang leader. By gaining Jackson's trust and spending time with him, Parks was able to capture lives rarely portrayed in American media.
Or his 1961 series on the slums of Brazil from the vantage point of Flavio DaSilva, a 12-year-old boy in Rio who, though sick with tuberculosis, helped support his family--Parks, in effect, adopted Flavio, brought him to the United States to be cured, and still calls him in Brazil to this day. Parks personally helped many of his subjects long after he took their pictures.

A lasting love between Parks and his subjects.
GORDON PARKS: You have to stay with them; you have to be a part of them. In fact, in stories like that I have gone to live with a family for about a week or so without even taking my camera so that they begin to accept me as a person, as a big brother, or uncle, or, you know, something of that sort, so that they have confidence in me, and I have love for them. And it's a lasting love.

PHIL PONCE: But these images are also part of Parks' vision. The man who shot life's ugly side also captured the side that has to do with elegance, beauty, and glamour--as a leading fashion photographer in Paris.

GORDON PARKS: Well, there's nothing wrong with photographing a very beautiful woman, right, and clothes, beautiful clothes, and so forth and so on, and affording me trips to London and Paris and all over the globe, you know, photographing these gorgeous gowns and fabulous women. You get a certain kind of joy out of that.

PHIL PONCE: Returning from Paris in the 1960's, Parks again chronicled the pain and anger at this nation's poorest; the burgeoning civil rights movement; and the rise of the Black Muslim movement. In portraiture, Parks also captured some of the leading figures of the day: Writer Langston Hughes; jazz great Duke Ellington, actresses Ingrid Bergman and later Barbra Streisand; boxing champion Muhammad Ali. In his 50's Parks' artistic evolution took him in a new direction: films. He was a pioneer African American film director, beginning with "The Learning Tree," based on his autobiographical novel about growing up in Kansas.
ACTRESS: No matter if you go or stay think of Cherokee Flats like that till the day you die; that it be a learning tree.
From photography to film, music and digital art.

PHIL PONCE: He made 10 other films, including the popular 1971 film "Shaft," an attempt, he said, to give blacks a positive role model, in this case a charismatic detective. Parks, who learned piano from his mother, also went on to compose a symphony, sonatas, concertos, and a ballet on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

GORDON PARKS: It all comes together now for me, strangely. I've never before the last five years, I've never tried to necessarily tie them together. It just happens that I suppose if I felt that one thing failed me, I'd have something else to go on.

PHIL PONCE: These are some of Parks' latest works. He makes them using computers, photographs, paintings, sculpture, and found objects.

GORDON PARKS: You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery. You can show beauty with it; you can do a lot of things. You can show--with a camera you can show things that you like about the universe, things that you hate about the universe. It's capable of doing both. And I think that after nearly 85 years upon this planet that I have a right after working so hard at showing the desolation and the poverty, to show something beautiful for somebody as well. It's all there, and you've only done half the job if you don't do that. You've not really completed a task.

PHIL PONCE: How do you explain the fact that you've had really such a remarkable life?
"I'm just about ready to start, and winter is entering. Half past autumn has arrived."

GORDON PARKS: My life to me is like sort of a disjointed dream. I can't explain it to you. Things have happened to me--incredible. It's so disjointed. But all I know, it was a constant effort, a constant feeling that I must not fail, and I still have that. And now, I feel at 85, I really feel that I'm just ready to start. There's another horizon out there, one more horizon that you have to make for yourself and let other people discover it, and someone else will take it further on, you know. You discover it. Somebody else takes it on. But I do feel a little teeny right now that I'm just about ready to start, and winter is entering.

Half past autumn has arrived.
visit: www.pbs.com
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Phenomenal Woman
"Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say, It's in the reach of my armsThe span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. I walk into a roomJust as cool as you please,
And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say, It's the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman, That's me.
Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so muchBut they can't touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style. I'm a woman Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman, That's me.
Now you understand Just why my head's not bowed. I don't shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing It ought to make you proud. I say, It's in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need of my care, 'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman, That's me.
With much Love,

@lovleeannwise 2015  repost 7/25/06

GROWING INTO GOD'S FAVOR -Do you have a Vision?

"I Have A Dream"

by Martin Luther King, Jr,

Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. Source: Martin Luther King, Jr: The Peaceful Warrior, Pocket Books, NY 1968

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.

One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.

So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negroes legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negroes basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

courtesy of : www.mecca.org/~crights/dream.html

more sources

www.mlkmemorial.org

www.buildthedream.org

____________________________

Freedom wore an expensive price tag.

Southern blacks who tried to register to vote--and those who supported them--were typically jeered and harassed, beaten or killed. In 1963, the NAACP's Medgar Evers was gunned down in front of his wife and children in Jackson, Mississippi. Reverend George Lee of Belzoni, Mississippi, was murdered when he refused to remove his name from a list of registered voters, and farmer Herbert Lee of Liberty, Mississippi, was killed for having attended voter education classes. Three "Freedom Summer" field-workers--Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman--were shot down for their part in helping Mississippi blacks register and organize. Michael Schwerner, a social worker from Manhattan's Lower East Side, James Chaney, a local plasterer's apprentice, and Andrew Goodman, a Queens College anthropology student, disappeared in June 1964. Their bodies were discovered several months later in an earthen dam outside Philadelphia, Mississippi. Schwerner and Goodman had been shot once; Chaney, the lone African American, had been savagely beaten and shot three times.

When violence failed to stop voter registration efforts, whites used economic pressure. In Mississippi's LeFlore and Sunflower Counties--two of the poorest counties in the nation--state authorities cut off federal food relief, resulting in a near-famine in the region. Many black registrants throughout the South were also fired from their jobs or refused credit at local banks and stores. In one town, a black grocer was forced out of business when local whites stopped his store delivery trucks on the highway outside town and made them turn around.

Like voter registrants, freedom riders paid a heavy price for racial justice. When the interracial groups of riders stepped off Greyhound or Trailways buses in segregated terminals, local police were usually absent. Angry mobs were waiting, however, armed with baseball bats, lead pipes, and bicycle chains.

Martin Luther King, Jr., in the Birmingham jail

In Anniston, Alabama, one bus was firebombed, forcing its passengers to flee for their lives. In Birmingham, where an FBI informant reported that Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor had encouraged the Ku Klux Klan to attack an incoming group of freedom riders "until it looked like a bulldog had got a hold of them," the riders were severely beaten. In eerily-quiet Montgomery, a mob charged another bus load of riders, knocking John Lewis unconscious with a crate and smashing Life photographer Don Urbrock in the face with his own camera. A dozen men surrounded Jim Zwerg, a white student from Fisk University, and beat him in the face with a suitcase, knocking out his teeth. The freedom riders did not fare much better in jail. There, they were crammed into tiny, filthy cells and sporadically beaten. In Jackson, Mississippi, some male prisoners were forced to do hard labor in 100-degree heat. Others were transferred to Parchman Penitentiary, where their food was deliberately oversalted and their mattresses were removed. Sometimes the men were suspended by "wrist breakers" from the walls. Typically, the windows of their cells were shut tight on hot days, making it hard for them to breathe.

Out of jail, the freedom riders joined mass demonstrations where the violent response of local police shocked the world. In Birmingham, police loosed attack dogs into a peaceful crowd of demonstrators, and the German shepherds bit three teenagers. In Birmingham and Orangeburg, South Carolina, firemen blasted protestors with hoses set at a pressure to remove bark from trees and mortar from brick.

Viola Liuzzo MemorialNational Park Service PhotographOn "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama, police and troopers on horseback charged into a group of marchers, beating them and firing tear gas. Several weeks later the marchers trekked the 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery without incident, but afterwards four Klansmen murdered Detroit homemaker Viola Liuzzo as she drove marchers back to Selma. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his life for the movement, struck down by an assassin's bullet in Memphis, Tennessee.

When white supremacists could not halt the civil rights movement, they tried to demoralize its supporters. They bombed churches and other meeting places. They set high bail and paced trials slowly, forcing civil rights organizations to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. At a Nashville lunch counter sit-in, the store manager locked the door and turned on the insect fumigator. In St. Augustine, Florida, city officials who had promised to meet with black demonstrators at City Hall offered them an empty table and a tape recorder instead. In Selma, Sheriff Jim Clark and his deputies forced 165 students into a three-mile run, poking them with cattle prods as they ran. Random violence accompanied calculated acts. The Klan bombing of Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church killed four black girls. On the campus of the University of Mississippi, a stray bullet struck a local jukebox-repairman in a riot that killed one reporter and wounded more than 150 federal marshals. In Marion, Alabama, 26-year-old Jimmy Lee Jackson was gunned down while trying to protect his mother and grandfather from State Police. Not far away in Selma, a white Boston minister who had lost his way was clubbed to death by white vigilantes.

The more violent southern whites became, the more their actions were publicized and denounced across the nation. Increasing violence in the South's streets, jails, and public places failed to break the spirits of the freedom fighters. Indeed, it emboldened them.

___________________________

Growing into God's Favor
Date: Thursday, December 15, 2005

By: Bishop T. D. Jakes, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

Have you ever gone through a situation so bad that you thought no one in the world could possibly be in a more terrible fix than you? The experience was beyond comprehension and it seemed impossible that you ever get out of it but somehow you did? I know people who lost their jobs, and as a result, lost their homes, cars or went bankrupt. Now they're in a better job, making better money and experiencing success in other areas of life only to be challenged by scandalous criticism from so-called "friends" and even family.

Isn't it amazing how a person can go through extreme difficulties in life, but as soon as God delivers them out of that situation into His blessing, the people around them begin questioning their progress? They begin to prejudge the miracle God has performed by saying things like: "I don't know how she got that job; she was just a secretary before." "How can he live in a house like that; he must be selling drugs." "What are they grinning about; last year they were talking about getting a divorce." Can you relate to what I'm saying?

You may be surprised, but your best moment often provokes envy and jealousy in others. God's favor on your life becomes the source of their frustration. In fact, many believe your favor was at their expense. Unfortunately they never muster up the courage to celebrate the big break you've been waiting for all your life.

I am reminded of the story in the Bible where a man had been blind since birth. When Jesus and His disciples came up on the man, the disciples questioned Jesus saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him" (John 9:2-3).

After Jesus healed the man, you would think that the people who knew him would have celebrated and been happy for him. Instead great controversy broke out and they began to question his healing. They questioned his parents to the point that they doubted that the man was who he said he was. Worse than that, they questioned the work of Jesus.

You may be wondering why things are as they are in your life right now, or why you had to go through what you went through to arrive at the place you are today. Quite honestly, some things have no explanation. And unfortunately bad things do happen to good people. But God has purpose in everything; and only He can bring you out. God wants to reveal His work in your life.

Whatever you're waiting for right now, consciously or subconsciously, hold on. Your help is on the way! As you wait, begin preparing yourself for the backlash of God's favor. Determine that you will walk in your miracle despite what anyone says or thinks. People may prejudge you, question God's blessing on your life and hate you for being chosen. Don't worry. Grow into His favor and enjoy the benefits of your miracle.

This article was taken from the series entitled The Favor Factor.

courtesy of: www.blackamericaweb.com

more sources visit: www.tdjakes.org

Submitted by Shelle'

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Moderator's comments

Greetings to all

Thanks for visiting "Empowering Spirits - Freeing Your Mind" weblog

This week we honor and celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King. It is important to point out the fact that Dr. King raised as a Preacher's son attended college but was an average man, a Minister of the Gospel, a husband, and a father. He was a man with many possibilities and huge responsibilites. Dr. King shared his vision with indivduals who were also committed to "the dream" even long after he died. Having a vision isn't enough if we compromise ourselves. So this week we pose a question: Do you have a vision?

Unfortunately today many of us have lost our vision or lack the ability to stay focused on our vision and we often dare to dream big dreams. Struggling to get by or as most say living in lack becomes normal. Their are some who only know poverty as a way of life; for some of us, living paycheck to paycheck is a reality. Our enemy is Poor Planning we dwell on what we don't have and feel defeated instead of working from where we are to come up with a reasonable plan of action. The most successful amoung us likely have a vision and set up a plan of action. My point is don't be intimidated by your vision because if GOD gave it to you then you are charged with making it a reality.

Don't let others who may not agree with YOUR vision deter you in any way. Seek out others who share your vision individuals traveling toward the same goals or find a mentor who has already achieved some goals and want to see you succeed. No matter how old you are, it's never too late!

What if Dr. King gave up after he faced prision, being attacked watching people he cared about being brutalized and killed. Although many people tried to discourage Dr. King to stop participating in the movement fearing what ultimately happened to him, the F.B.I., other leaders often criticized his methodolgy. He was steadfast, today we honor him, today his vision has been adopted by many nations. The world applauds his efforts and this average man from Atlanta GA changed the face of politics for an entire nation by inspiration of others and staying focused on this vision for equality.

Dream big dreams search for the courage, strength and resources to make them come true. This is the purpose of this web blog to encourage and enlighten each of us to keep in pursuit of those dreams.

"For without a vision the people perish"

Although we are often faced with many obstacles in life we cannot allow that cloud our judgement but believe that Faith is the driving force of our ideas. As we began 2006 as a nation we are still faced with much trouble and strife with the threat of terrorism raging. Some of us reside in communities are terrorized daily. Some of us in our minds live in a constant state of terror. Fight back hard no longer be victims we have to find the strength and resources to attain a better life, a better community too attain our dreams. Being concious of the way we conduct ourselves publicly and privately considering all of the possibilities. Stand for something or fall for anything, you have that responsibility. No, you might not get a Nobel Peace Prize, or a federal holiday, but you do have the ability to touch another human beings life enough to make a difference. Stay strong and hold on, don't fret if your vision hasn't become apparent yet. Never give in and don't give up.

Remember for every new level achieved theres a new devil waiting to challenge you, be prepared to fight the good fight. You are a winner no matter if you get recognition for your achievements or none at all. Nothing in life comes easy, forget the myth because life isn't fair. Life is definitely what you make it - when life hands you a lemon make lemonade. Perception is everything.

Do you have a vision?

Dr. King did'nt live to see his dream evolve 100 percent, but he saw it begin after his I have a dream speech. Keep this in mind you may or might not get to live out your dreams completely but at least you'll have embarked upon something to leave as a mark or planted the seed which could pave the way for the future visionary's to follow.

Appreciate the journey of wherever your vision's may lead you.

Peace & Blessing

Shelle'

MAKE IT HAPPEN IN 2006

Make It Happen in 2006!!

Are You Ready For A Health and Wellness Transformation?

I don’t know about you, but I am excited about the start of the New Year because symbolically, it is a time to set new goals and make changes to better your life. Whether you desire to better your health, your spiritual life, your financial life—this is the time to say “This IS going to be my year for a great breakthrough in some aspect of my life”.
I am more convinced than ever that the first step toward living a healthier life starts from within—motivating yourself and making up your mind that you care enough about yourself to make some positive changes. Books, tapes, and people can help but YOU have to be ready, willing, and able to help yourself.

Perhaps you can take a few minutes out of your schedule to evaluate your physical, mental, and spiritual health as we start 2006. Are there opportunities for improvement? Are there areas of your health that you have been struggling with for years and have not been able to conquer? Well, if you utilize your faith and believe that this year IS going to be your year for meaningful improvement—I am convinced that great things will happen for you.

BlackWomensHealth.com will continue to be your partner as you journey through the process of living a healthier, happier, and more productive life in 2006. This site first emerged on the Internet in 1999 and we continue to appreciate and value the connections that we have made with people from throughout the world. Whether your are reading this in the United States, the United Kingdom, Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, France, Saudi Arabia, other areas in Europe, and anywhere else in the world—we want you to remember that you area special and valuable person and you CAN accomplish your goals!

As we start the New Year, I urge each of you to start by taking a “Health Inventory” to determine exactly where you are at in terms of your health and wellness. Start with these 5 very basic questions:

(1) How is your blood pressure? If it is elevated, what are you doing to get it under control? High blood pressure (hypertension) can lead to heart attacks, stroke, kidney disease, and other ailments.

(2) How is your cholesterol? There are dietary and lifestyle modifications you can make to help lower your cholesterol. If these don’t work, there are very effective prescription medications you can take to help you lower your cholesterol.

(3) Are you at your goal weight? Overweight and obesity are epidemic in the United States and the problem is very significant for the African American community. Read the articles below for some helpful hints on weight loss.

(4) Do you have diabetes, and if so, is it under good control? Poorly controlled diabetes can have devastating health consequences and the African American community is at particular risk.

(5) Are you ready to make some sacrifices for improved health and wellness? It will take a little work to live healthier, but it is well worth it!


Courtesy of: www.blackWomensHealth.com
for more info click on the link

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Commentary: Here’s Hoping Black Men Recognize Their Sisters’ Divinity in the New Year
Date: Sunday, January 08, 2006 By: Deborah Mathis, BlackAmericaWeb.com

This is for the untold numbers of sistahs who are hoping that 2006 will be the year they find the love of their lives -- and for the brothas who need to recognize that the gold diggers, the skanks and the hoochies are sorely outnumbered by the millions who have only the best of intentions.

Most of us want romance and devotion. Some of us just would like the promise of it. The possibility of it. A bit of assurance that, one day soon or right now if we’d like, there will be another kind of dazzle in our nights other than fleece coverlets, warring lions and hyenas and a pint of fattening goodness from Baskin Robbins.

One of these days, there will be a man, whether at the door, in the parlor or a phone call away. A man who makes us laugh, who can handle the little girl, the vixen, the bitch on wheels, the sophisticate, the domestic goddess, the careerist -- all that we are. A man who is our friend, our defender, our confidante, our partner, our lover. A man who gets us and adores even what others might find odd. A man who shows up and calls and contributes and assists when he says he will. A man who is just for us and makes life at least a little bit sweeter when he’s there. That’s the dream that travels on our sighs.

Black women are, by tradition and redundant necessity, problem solvers. We are resilient, resourceful and determined. We are gifted with a strong survival instinct and have mastered certain coping skills that speak as much to our hopefulness as to our resolve. We are faithful to the idea of love, passion, security, sharing and joy.

But how do we fix this problem? Have we, at long last, come up against an unconquerable challenge? After all, we can’t go back in time and make more black men, keep them healthy and alive, get them educated and prepare them for this surplus of women who might have them for mates. We can’t raise our dead brothers from the grave, break our incarcerated brothers out of prison, cure all the ill and addicted, or clean out the heads of all those men messed up by racism and abuse and poor rearing, or get our aimless brothers up to speed in time to meet our needs.

There is plenty of advice out there on this subject, much of it for sale. Some of it appears as formulas or strategies for finding, winning and keeping Mr. Right, replete with guarantees, which should be enough of a red flag to stop even the most desperate zealot. In these times particularly, there is a temptation to resort to unconventional means. The proliferation of online dating services, the advent of speed dating and the ubiquity of singles bars and “meat markets” attest to the growing market of singles in-search-of.

One woman I know -- a beautiful, statuesque orthodontist -- pays $100 a month for membership in a certain matchmaking service. It wasn’t that she didn’t have the time to do it the old-fashioned way; it was just that she was having no luck “on the scene.” She has yet to find a match through the service, but she’s willing to give it six more months.

“After that, I guess I’ll just give up,” she says.

Don’t tell this woman that she needs to compromise or, to put it more gloomily, to “settle.” Turning her personal life over to a bank of strangers, no matter their expertise, is settling, she says. She doesn’t want to compromise her standards when it comes to the kind of man she is looking for. That, she says, would not be settling, but selling out. “I’d rather be alone,” she says.
On the other hand, as we have seen, there are women in such dire and pathetic need for a male companion that all they really require is an X-Y chromosomal structure. He doesn’t have to be much more than that. I don’t think that’s most of us; I hope it’s not many of us.

God bless the many women who are at peace with their matelessness. Or, if not at peace, then at least not hysterical. But -- and pardon my presumptuousness -- I doubt that I’d get in much trouble for declaring that, while it is entirely possible to live a happy and fulfilling life without a man, most single women would rather not.

Maybe this will be the year our brothers will look past the stereotype and see us for who we really are.

courtesy of www.blackamericaweb.com

Submitted by: Shelle'

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Snatching at King's Legacy
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News Column

The Hutchinson Report
January 9, 2005
Reprint Rights

The scramble to snatch and grab a piece of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy has not diminished one bit in the twenty years since the first King national holiday was celebrated. Ironically, Ronald Reagan was the first to grab at it. Reagan fought tooth and nail against passage of the King holiday bill. After insinuating that King was a Communist, Reagan signed it only after Congress passed it overwhelmingly, and virtually insured that the bill was veto proof. But then Reagan reversed gears and apologized to a deeply hurt Coretta Scott King, King’s widow, and effusively praised King as a champion of freedom and democracy. Reagan said that King’s struggle for equality was his struggle too.

During the furious battles that raged over affirmative action in the 1990s, conservatives snatched a flowery line from King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and boasted that he would have opposed racial quotas, preferences, and by extension affirmative action if he had lived. It was a wild stretch. King almost certainly would have been a vigorous supporter of affirmative action if he had lived. But in his speeches and writings, he also stressed personal responsibility, self- help, strong families, and religious values as goals that blacks should strive to attain.

In the late 1960s when King denounced the Vietnam war, embraced militant union struggles, and barnstormed around the country blasting wealth and class privilege, the red-baiters and professional King haters branded him a Communist. The Lyndon Johnson White House turned hostile. Corporate and foundation supporters slowly turned off the money spigot. The NAACP, Urban League, black Democrats, and some in King’s own organization turned their backs on him. During his last days, King spent much of his time fund raising and defending his policies against the critics within and without his organization. The back biting, carping of and backpedaling from King not by his enemies, but by some of his one-time friends and supporters got worse when he railed against the penchant for lavish personal spending, luxury apartments and fancy homes by some of his group’s staffers.

In his last installment on King, At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68, Taylor Branch tells how King stormed out of a planning meeting on his Poor Peoples March in fury at the attacks at him by some of his top aides who wanted to scrap the March. The issue of uniting masses of poor people for economic uplift, smacked of class war, and was just too risky and dangerous. The fear was that it would hopelessly alienate their Democratic Party boosters. King was unfazed by their criticism and hurled another broadside at them for their personal egoism, selfishness, and opportunism. King’s civil rights friends weren’t the only ones that took shots at him.

Many black ministers joined in the King bash. At the National Baptist Convention in 1961, then and now the largest black religious group in America, King and a band of dissidents challenged the Convention’s leaders to give more active support to the civil rights battles. They wanted none of that. They flung un-Christian like threats and insults at King and the civil rights advocate-ministers, engaged in fisticuffs with them, and slandered King as a “hoodlum and crook.”

When the dust settled, King was summarily booted out of the organization, and set up a rival ministers group. Even after King’s death, and he took his place among America’s heroes, many black ministers still remained stone silent on the assault on civil liberties protections, the gutting of job and social programs, and U.S. militarism. These were all issues that King relentlessly and loudly spoke out against when he was alive. In an even more insulting twist, many black ministers, and that included one of King’s daughters, shamelessly and unapologetically evoked King’s name to pound gay rights and same sex marriage. There’s not a shred of evidence that King would have been a gay rights opponent. Coretta even demanded that one group of ministers cease using his name to back an anti-gay referendum in Miami a few years ago. Yet they still snatch at his legacy and hail King as one of their own on the King holiday.

Then there’s the King holiday. Though many corporations and government agencies plaster full- page ads in black newspapers that extol King on his holiday, and tout how much he’s done for them, the King holiday is still rock bottom among the national holidays that business and government agencies observe. An annual survey by BNA Inc., a Washington based business news publisher, revealed that about one-quarter of businesses give their workers a day off with pay. That number pales even in comparison to the next least celebrated holiday, Presidents Day.

King is no different than other towering historical figures, especially those that had the bad fortune to fall to an assassin’s bullet. The hypocrisy, mythmaking, embellishments, and outright distortions, quickly kicks in about them. Everyone wants a piece of the fallen legend to puff up their importance and whatever social and political ax they seek to grind. Fortunately, King’s legacy is still big and wide enough to snatch chunks of.

courtesy of :The Hutchinson Report
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
phone:323-296-6331

Submitted by: Robyn from Calli

LOOKING AHEAD WELCOME 2006

Approach Your Physical Fitness Like You Do Your Finances
By Kevin R. Scott, AOL Black Voices

Fit Like A Star

Missy Elliott, D'Angelo, and Mary J. Blige have all been trained by fitness guru Mark Jenkins.
5 Steps to Physical Fitness:

Customize & Personalize Your Fitness Regime: Whether you choose low impact aerobics, an at home workout, strength training, yoga or a combination of all of the above, customize your workout by balancing what you need to do (exercises you don’t like doing) with what you want to do (exercises that you like doing).

Develop a Nutrition Plan and Not Just a Diet: Aside from eating nutritious meals, it’s important to realize that “cheating” happens- but should be monitored. Be careful about combining food and emotions.

Do Your Research: Ask yourself, your trainer, and/or your physician as many questions as possible. It’s key to know your own body type and to realize that not every fitness trend and concept will work the same for everyone.

Aim for long term success: It’s not always about the occasion. Proms, weddings, birthdays and other personal milestones should not dictate your fitness regime. They can serve as benchmarks for your progress however the overall goal is self-improvement.

Actualize financial goals along with your fitness goals. The old adage says, “When you look good, you feel good.” Being physically and mentally fit affects everyone’s earning potential, not just athletes and performers. The boost in self esteem can be one of the biggest income generating tools you can ever acquire.

More on BV Health
The motivation for getting in shape is often the example of the celebrities on television. The toned arms, tight abs and great skin have become requisites for most Hollywood and entertainment insiders and are not courtesy of their stylist. For the hard bodies that set them apart from the pack, many turn to celebrity trainers and fitness experts like Mark Jenkins who believe that fitness initiatives should be aligned with all other long term goals.

Mark is the author of The Jump Off: 60 Days To A Hip Hop Hard Body and is personally responsible for the physical reinventions of celebrities like

Mary J. Blige, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Missy Elliott, D’Angelo and Brandy.

He’s found that when you equate physical fitness with one’s personal financial bottom line, commitment becomes more realistic. “The diet approach doesn’t really work with most of my high profile clients. You’ve got to show them how it’s a part of their economic plan. You make better decisions if you’re getting more nutrients, you’re gonna have more energy so you can work harder and make more money and have more longevity, and be more successful” says Mark.

Physical appearance is directly related to self esteem asserts Jenkins. “When I trained Johnny Cochran, he would say it makes a difference in the way people perceive him when he was wearing a suit and it’s fitting him a certain way.”

Understanding the links between physical fitness, self esteem, and wealth building are key components to any overall plan for self improvement.
2005-12-11 19:42:00
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Is It Too Late for Reparations?
By LaToya F. Drake, AOL Black Voices
















Mary Frances-Berry

Former U.S. Civil Rights Chair, Mary Frances Berry resurrects the reparations debate with her new book, 'My Face Is Black Is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations.'
Buy 'My Face Is Black Is True'

More than 40-years removed from the Civil Rights Act, questions remain on how much black Americans have accomplished. Faced with allegations of racial and class discrimination following Hurricane Katrina, a penal system that disproportionately incarcerates black males and pending expiration of certain provisions in the Voting Rights Act, the issue of reparations has been overshadowed by more immediate political issues. Dr. Mary Frances Berry, former chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, resurrects the issue with her latest book, 'My Face is Black is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations.'

Berry has spent a large part of her life as a civil rights advocate, an outspoken one, that some would call headstrong. She was educated at Howard University and earned a PhD and a law degree from the University of Michigan. Appointed to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights by President Carter, President Clinton designated her chairperson in 1993. She served in that capacity until she resigned in December 2004. During her tenure, the Commission produced reports on Florida and the 2000 Presidential Election, affirmative action and police brutality in New York.

'My Face Is Black is True' tells the story of Callie House, a woman born just as the Civil War began and who later sought compensation for her years as a slave. House organized and mobilized a coalition of ex-slaves who lobbied for a piece of the financial boon built and sustained by their labor.

The story frames the debate about whether a debt is owed to the minority community for slavery and, if so, whether the campaign for reparations has a place in the current political dialogue. BV spoke with Berry about the answers to those questions and her new book, among other things.

Why is the issue of reparations relevant today?

I started writing this book because there has been increasing discussion of reparations, beginning with Randall Robinson’s The Debt, which brought the subject to the forefront. In the last 10-15 years, there has been increasing mobilization to look into this issue of reparations. Polls taken after Katrina say 85 percent of blacks are in favor of reparations, but that number has gone up and down. When modern discussions began on the failure of past movements for reparations, many stated it had to do with a backlash against the civil rights movement. If people were no longer interested in the civil rights movement, the thought was that they were no longer interested in reparations.

Tell us a little about the heroine [Callie House] featured in the book and why we haven't heard her name before your book. I was recently at a conference of historians, and they had a plenary session on why they didn't know about Callie House! Some say it was because she wasn’t the kind of person who kept a diary. She wasn't very literate and didn't have lots of letters going back and forth between her and important people. Many of her contacts were other poor people and that was the nature of her correspondence. Her movement wasn't an elite organization and therefore she was overlooked. We probably didn't know much about her because she was a woman leading a movement at a time when women didn't lead organizations with both men and women involved. At that time, if women had leadership roles it was typically the church auxiliary.

What was it about this woman, and why did she have the ability to mobilize so many ex-slaves?
She was a charismatic figure. Though not educated, she understood the Constitution and always harped on the rights it granted, such as the right to petition the government. She also had a brilliant idea of having chapters throughout the country where members did more than discuss reparations. There were chapters around the country that focused on self-help. Even though they were poor, people would put their pennies together to help one another. For instance, if someone died or a woman lost her husband, they'd try to take care of the family and funeral expenses. It was the idea of chapters and people pulling together to help each other that resonated.


Do you think that it's possible to use House's example to rally a large number of African Americans around any one issue today?

The lessons we learned from Callie House's very successful movement (which was one of the most successful in history) should be applied today. A movement must focus on something people feel is an attainable goal; while reparations weren’t attainable, helping each other was attainable. A movement must focus on what people are interested in, not the leader's interests. The key is finding out what people are thinking and then acting on that.

Since we are far removed from slavery, do you think that a current movement for reparations could garner success, and how would you measure that success? (given that Callie House, who experienced slavery directly, was unsuccessful in gaining government support)
All over the world, we have seen reconciliation and apologies for evils that have been done to people for historical events like the Holocaust and for people who have been historically wronged. In the US, we should at least have a study or commission, like the one Congressman Conyers has been trying to organize to see if the government should come up with money. If not money, should the government apologize to try to get rid of the historical wrong done to black people. I like the strategy of getting private corporations who supported slavery to give recompense in the form of scholarships or aid, but I'm not exactly sure how reparations should be given.

On the Pulse
What do you think are the most important issues facing Black Americans?

1. Civil rights/voting rights. The Voting Rights Act is about to expire, and we want our right to vote protected. We should focus on trying to make sure voting rights are protected because our voting rights weren’t protected in Florida in 2000 or in Ohio in 2004. Voting is the keystone in the arch of democracy, and how to make our vote real is extremely important.

2. Figuring out a way to better educate our children. We know how to do it, but don't always do it. Kids need resources and attention. We know this but don't always produce it. We need a concentrated focus on education because most of what is being said isn't being done and isn't effective.

3. The criminal justice system, particularly in states such as Virginia, deserves attention. There are disparities in the criminal justice system with black Americans who are on death row who didn't commit the crime, or there is DNA evidence suggesting they did not commit the crime for which they are accused.

What do you make of the Tookie Williams execution?
The issue was not just Mr. Williams; if he didn't do the crime, which he says he did not do, then there's no way to find out now because he is gone. It makes me reluctant to say the death penalty should be used. I think there should be a movement to do something about the other people who are not a 'Tookie Williams.' I'd hope our leaders would continue to look into the many others who are on death row, not just pick up with one celebrity and then move on after he is gone.

What are you doing next -- what's on your plate?

I'm teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, and I will continue to train to educate our next generation of leaders.

Get More of Today's Top News Stories
For more on civil rights, visit the U.S. Civil Rights Commission at http://www.usccr.gov/.
For more on Congressman John Conyers' proposal to study African American reparations, visit www.house.gov/conyers/news_reparations.htm.

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Marion Barry Robbed at Gunpoint
Former Washington Mayor Unharmed in Incident



Former Washington Mayor Marion Barry, now a city councilman, was robbed Sunday night.

WASHINGTON (Jan. 3) - Former District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry was robbed at gunpoint at his apartment by some youths who had helped him carry his groceries.
Barry, who wasn't injured in the Sunday night robbery, said he gave the youths a couple of dollars for helping him with his groceries and they left. They returned, however, and pointed a gun at his head and took his wallet, which contained cash and credit cards, Barry told WRC-TV.
Barry, 69, is a member of the City Council and served four terms as mayor. In his third term, he was videotaped in 1990 in a hotel room smoking crack cocaine in an FBI sting. The following year, he served a six-month prison sentence.
He is awaiting sentencing later this month in federal court on his guilty plea to two misdemeanor counts stemming from his failure to file income tax returns in 2000.
1/3/2006 07:54:22
Copyright 2005 The Associated
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When to Trash Your Beauty Stash
By Bailey Enos Orenia, Special to AOL Black Voices

Long-Lasting Lipstick

Just like food, beauty products go bad. How long can they survive in your cabinets? It depends. All products -- lipsticks, foundations, etc. -- fall within a certain category, and once the expiration date hits, they’ve got to go.
Keep in mind that although a product has a general lifespan, you can contaminate it by sharing with others or dipping your finger into the product. Check out these quick tips below to know when it’s time to discard your beauty products.
Foundations will last for at least one year. Liquid foundations need to be replaced when the product starts to separate. Cream foundation should be replaced once it starts to harden.
Eye shadows live the longest, lasting up to two years. Although, like cream foundations, cream eye shadows start to go bad once they starts to harden. Powder eye shadow should be discarded when it looses its powdery consistency.

More Tips

Been away from Style & Beauty? Here's what you missed.
Mascara should be replaced every three months or sooner. If the product starts to thicken or harden, it’s time to put it out to pasture.
Eyeliner usually has a lifespan of a year and a half. Liquid eyeliner will start to crack once it’s beyond the expiration date. An eyeliner pencil has expired once it becomes hard and will no longer draw on smoothly.

Lipstick will last for one to two years. If your lipstick no longer goes on smoothly, then it’s time for a new tube. Lip glosses last up to a year and will start to separate when the product has gone bad.

Skin care products can last up to a year. But if you are using an all-natural product, be sure to read the label for an expiration date. Also, if you start to notice any discoloration or a foul odor, then it’s time to bid it adieu.
Smooches!

About the Author

Bailey Enos Orenia is a celebrity makeup artist and owner of Bo Studios in the Washington, D.C. area.

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http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/thegospel/index.html
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JIMMY SCOTT : IF YOU ONLY KNEW http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/jimmyscott/index.html

JIMMY SCOTT: If You Only Knew is a film portrait of the now famous jazz vocalist who was “rediscovered” decades after he disappeared from the public eye.

Born in Cleveland in 1925, Jimmy Scott's early years were filled with devastating hardships. At age 12, he was diagnosed with Kallmann's Syndrome, a rare hormonal condition that kept his body—and his voice—from developing beyond boyhood. Seven months after the diagnosis, his beloved mother, the sole guardian of Scott and his nine siblings, was killed in a car accident. Her children were separated and sent to live in foster homes.
Scott, who had inherited his mother’s love of music and singing, began working as a valet at some of Cleveland's black theaters. His dream was to break into show business, earn enough money to buy a house and reunite his siblings. He soon joined a vaudeville review headed by Estella Young and found a new family in his fellow performers. At the urging of his friend Redd Foxx, Scott went to New York and landed a job as one of the Lionel Hampton Band's featured vocalists. In 1950, the band released a recording of “Little Jimmy Scott” singing "Everybody's Somebody's Fool." The song was an immediate hit, but it broke Scott’s heart. His name was not on the record. As he recalls, "It was all about Lionel Hampton and that's the way the package worked."

Scott's uniqueness may have worked against him as well. As his biographer David Ritz says, "In the macho world of jazz, there's not a lot of liberal thought about sexuality. Here comes Jimmy, who's straight, who has an affliction, whose physical manifestations are smallness and smoothness…. It's going against a lot of cultural conventions." Yet while some of the men in the jazz world may have had a problem with Scott, the women in the audience loved him. He fell in love and married, but the relationship ended badly. Three subsequent marriages failed as well.

As for Scott’s career, history repeated itself again when he recorded "Embraceable You" with his friend Charlie Parker. Once again, his name wasn't on the album—nor did he ever receive any royalties. Many of the record companies who controlled jazz music during the 1950s and ‘60s were notorious for exploiting their talent, and Scott had the misfortune of signing with one of the worst execs in the industry: Herman Lubinsky of Savoy Records, who, as Ritz says, “was a real albatross around Jimmy’s neck for years.” Twice, Scott was on the verge of finally releasing a hit record, once with the Ray Charles-produced "Falling in Love Is Wonderful" and later with the Joel Dorn-produced Atlantic Records album "The Source." But both times, Lubinsky invoked an old contract and had the records yanked from the shelves.

Doc Pomus
Jimmy in Japan
Bitterly disappointed, Scott returned to Cleveland and worked as a waiter at Bob's Big Boy, a dishwasher, a nurse's aide and a hotel elevator operator, occasionally playing small gigs in a local club. The jazz world had all but forgotten him until 1984, when famed jazz station WBGO in Newark invited him to perform on the air. Next came a three-night engagement for Scott, who was then 60 years old. Word began to spread among his fans: not only was he still alive, he was better than ever. After record industry leaders heard him sing at his friend Doc Pomus’s funeral, they were convinced, too. In 1992, Warner Brothers released Scott’s album All the Way, which was nominated for a Grammy. Since then, he has recorded eight more critically acclaimed albums. At the age of 78, he performs frequently, touring Europe and Asia.
Blending concert footage, rare photos and candid interviews with Scott, his family and his colleagues,

JIMMY SCOTT: If You Only Knew is a moving testament to one of the most distinctive vocalists of our time and his lifelong attempt to reunite his family and find solace through his art—a bittersweet story as unforgettable as the music he continues to make after all these years.

With the release of Holding Back the Years Jimmy Scott returns to the romantic ballads that brought this living legend to the forefront as Jazz vocalist. Jimmy's performance on Holding Back the Years reminds us of the passion and exhilaration of his vocal ability and the uniqueness of his phrasing. Much of the material on Holding Back the Years was completely new to Jimmy-this new release juxtaposes classics from Jimmy's repertoire with the material of contemporary songwriters such as Prince, Bryan Ferry, John Lennon, Mick Hucknall and Elton John-but without a single hesitation Jimmy Scott tackled this new material with the excitement of a debut artist and the skill of the seasoned veteran that he is. The wonderful album cover is by internationally known artist, Mark Kostabi, Jimmy's friend Lou Reed has contributed liner notes to the album. The Bravo network will soon be broadcasting a documentary on Jimmy's life. In Session at 54th will be taping a live performance in October hosted by David Byrne. Club performances are scheduled from September to December.

Lou Reed on Jimmy Scott:
"I first met Jimmy Scott through the remarkable songwriter Doc Pomus. I'd heard about him for many years. At the gathering after Doc's passing Jimmy sang. He has the voice of an angel and can break your heart. He did that day and many others.I've heard and even sung with Jimmy many times since then. Here is the singer's singer if labels mean any thing. Listening to Jimmy is like having a performing heart. The experience of life and the art of expression sing through Jimmy and make us partners in his incredible passion. I love him and I never want to say goodbye. When the song stops with Jimmy's last note we're back in the world as it was. Not quite so pretty, not quite so passionate. And we can only wait for Jimmy to sing again and take us that little bit higher." Lou Reed

TRACK LISTING:

What I Wouldn't Give

The Crying Game

Jealous Guy

Holding Back The Years

How Can I Go On

Almost Blue

Slave to Love

Nothing Compares 2 U

Sorry Seems to be the Hardest

Don't Cry Baby

Holding Back the years Courtesy of : www.artistsonly.com

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This Week's Blog Submitted by Shelle'

- Moderators Comments - Happy New Year --- Thanks for your support check us out weekly and as always we need your input send us feedback and your articles or events happening in the black community. If you know about any interesting people share with us February is Black History Month. Help me to gather some interesting articles for the post or send me your thoughts to michellelane1@gmail.com. Clickon the link below and send email/comments to empowering spirits freeing your mind weblog site.

LOOKING AHEAD - WELCOME

Enjoy 2006 !