Tag Archives: African-American History

African-American History

KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON: WHY I AM SO INSPIRED BY A PHOTO TAKEN ON THE WHITNEY PLANTATION

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Eric Morris is one of my dearest friends in the world. In many ways, our lives have been on parallel tracks. We attended the same schools, however never sat in the same classrooms as he was a year my senior, the same church, and our beloved mothers actually sat next to each other every Sunday on the same pew, listening to the same word of God via the Rev. Archie Johnson and the Rev. Dr. Johnny R. Heckard.

Yet, we are opposites in regards to our personalities. While Eric is an extrovert capable of engaging anyone, I am solidly in the camp of ambiverts, an introvert around unfamiliar settings and people and an extrovert around close friends and a few family members. I’ll tell you the truth. There were times when I thought that Eric’s life mission was to poke, prod, and provide commentary regarding everything that he encountered, particularly my stoic demeanor.

I remember the following question as if it were presented to me yesterday. In his joyful, yet inquisitive manner, Eric articulated the following.

Man, let me ask you something. Why are you so serious You don’t drink, you don’t smoke, all that you do is read, write, and think. Hell, what do you do for fun Many you are way too serious about life. 

Of all of our thousands of verbal exchanges this inquiry stands as a prominent memory for a host of reasons. Within this question I found a description of myself — I have actually never had a drink of alcohol or smoked anything (I was frightened by what would occur if I used any type of drugs because addiction runs in my family), yet it simultaneously show that even my closest friends never realized that my actions were aimed at fulfilling a directive my mother and the surrounding Black community provided early in my life. If I had to put this directive in words, it would be stated in the following way.

You are our soldier and your primary duty is to engage and defeat the adversary at every turn through any methods available. This is a life’s work that will only be accomplished via the total dedication of your life.    

I will tell you the truth; there is not a period in my life that was not dedicated to fulfilling this Herculean task. I was motivated by the fact that there was work to do, people to save, others to inspire, and the sacrifice of my life was not too big of an ask.   

This calling serves as propulsion for my lectures and the unyielding demand that I be referred to as DR. JAMES THOMAS JONES III. Despite what many may think about the fact that I will not respond to anything other than Dr. Jones, the truth of the matter is that this demand flows from an interaction with an elderly Black lady who approached me on my campus and related how it lifted her spirits to see that “Black folk are now called Doctor this and Doctor that. Y’all keep on keepin’ on. I love it!!!!!!!”

This pivotal moment in my life has risen to the forefront of my mind due to my own “keep on keeping on” moment. I recently viewed a group of medical students from Tulane University posing for a photo on the Whitney Plantation. Sydney Labat, one of the students in the photo, provided the following caption for the powerful moment.  

Standing in front of the slave quarters of our ancestors, at the Whitney Plantation, with my medical school classmates. We are truly our ancestors’ wildest dreams.

I can only speak for myself in stating that there is no more fulfilling occurrence than when a student reaches a significant marker in their lives be it graduation, entrepreneurship, marriage, etc. and continues a path of ascension that I know makes our ancestors say “Keep on keepin’ on.”

I salute these future medical doctors and all young people for their steadfast determination to engage and conquer the many obstacles standing between their current station and ultimate destination. I pray that they remember that this entire world is in desperate need of their contributions and counting on their success as it serves as yet another dose of wind that educators such as myself will use to stay afloat in the arduous struggle to continue the historical struggle to throw up roads to success where there has previously not been any road or light.

Keep on keepin’ on y’all.

Dr. James Thomas Jones III

© Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2019.    

African-American History

Black Panther Party Leader Bobby Rush Remembers the Murder of Fred Hampton

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The first evening we held a Political Education class and after that the Central Committee was supposed to meet at Fred’s. After the Central Staff meeting, which ended early, there wasn’t enough room for everybody to stay there, and a member dropped me off. It must have been about two-thirty.

Between four and five that morning I got a call from a member who had gotten a call from a woman who lived down the street. They said there was a shoot-out at Fred’s house and the cops had cordoned off the streets. So I had somebody come by and pick me up, and went over to the woman’s house.

Her apartment was in the basement. We stayed there, listening to the radio. I guess it must have been about six, six-thirty. And they – they had said, you know, that there was a shoot-out – but they said Fred Hampton had been killed. He had been taken to the Cook County Hospital. I don’t know what other persons they had announced. I don’t know if they announced anybody, but they said Fred Hampton was killed. That’s how we found out about it. On the radio.

It was very…I mean it was something where you…I mean I broke down and cried.

I guess the next thing I remember was that I hoped Fred took someone with him. They didn’t say, but I knew that Fred was…that taking someone with him was what Fred was gonna be about.

I guess maybe we stayed down there till eight, eight-thirty, nine o’ clock. I’m not sure what all was going on. It’s almost a real blank in terms of what was happening. People calling in, us calling folks, things like that. I remember Eldridge. He called fro Algiers. Tried to tell us how to deal with the situation. Something to do with retaliation and that kind of thing. What was he doing calling from Algiers, some villa in Algiers, telling us how to deal with something here in Chicago?

Not so say retaliation wasn’t on our mind. We were gonna retaliate. I had given some specific directions about what should have happened and where it should happen. But certain things didn’t get carried out. In retrospect it was good that revenge didn’t happen militarily, but politically. The political development and consciousness of the people of Chicago would never have occurred, the whole thing would have been blurred and obliterated, had we gone out and killed some policemen.

We went over to the house and saw the bullet holes. Then we dealt with the attorneys, dealt with the media, dealt with trying to find out whether or not somebody else had been killed, trying to find out what had really happened. It was then that we found out another member, Mark Clark, the defense captain of the Peoria branch, had also been killed.

I remember going to the morgue…you know, identifying Fred’s body.

They didn’t cordon off the apartment. So we had people walk through the apartment. Twenty-five thousand people came through that apartment to see what was going on. That was the biggest thing in terms of making sure that our version of the story was at least heard and also accepted.

The next thing was this guy who used to be a producer of the NBC midday news. He invited me and another Party member and Hanrahan, the state’s attorney, to be on his show. Hanrahan refused. We went on the station and told him that Fred had been murdered. That’s how the word really began to get out that Fred had been murdered. One reporter, named Phil Walters, took the side of the Panthers. He called it murder. He almost got fired. But then a couple of days after, the Tribune came out with this big article questioning who did it, who shot, how many bullets were fired, and was it a really shoot-out, or was it murder, just cold-blooded murder?

(Interview with Bobby Rush)

African-American History

How The Failure to Understand a Common Writing Technique Has Led So Many Blacks to Put Their Ignorance on Full-Display

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I guess it is merely a “Sign of the Times”. The fact that our contemporaries are incapable of differentiating between entertainment “inspired by real-life events” and in-depth scholarship. Such failings speak volumes about not only the education system but also the misplaced faith that so many place in non-scholarly sources of information. 

Of course, the primary impetus for the above thoughts is the over the top reaction of so many Blacks to the Hollywood film, Harriet. 

As they are known to do, the so-called “woke” community has called for all to boycott Harriet for lack of historical accuracy among other things. In many ways, a perfect storm of race, representation, and voice caused this brouhaha. The presence of Kate Larson, a White female who served as the historical consultant on Harriet, did not help matters at all as her presence exacerbated critics’ propensity to form outlandish conspiracy theories.

Let me be forthright regarding this issue of Whites telling the story of Black ancestors like Harriet Tubman. In many ways, I am uncomfortable with the proposition of such a remarkable story being placed in the hands of the White imagination, an imagination that rarely has presented a suitable recitation of Black life. 

Yet, this posting has less to do with Kate Larson and everything to do with the production of edutainment by Hollywood Studios. To simplify my thoughts regarding this matter, I must state that my definition of edutainment is the means of describing media creations aimed at introducing a historical topic while providing entertainment to viewers. More times than not, those who consume these popular culture depictions of events “inspired by real-life events” have little knowledge about what they are viewing. In actuality, these types of films are phenomenal ways of introducing a historical event to the general public.

One thing that is obvious about the droves who have chosen to criticize Harriet is that they have no understanding of the writing process. There is not a serious writer alive who will deny that every story has gaps within it. Writers circles’ are filled with those who lament that the story does not “flow” in an entertaining manner; in fact, this problem is so pervasive that there are support groups for writers who are afflicted by “writer’s block.” Such moments can be the height of frustration for writers wed to that sultry siren or witch called historical accuracy. Alas, the demonic entity does not possess every writer in the same manner. Those constructors of “historical fiction” have well-established means of dealing with that thing called historical facts. They use an Excalibur called “literary license” to free their pen in ways that are unimaginable to others. This literary device is as common in Hollywood as actors or a script. 

One needs to look no further than Spike Lee’s iconic Malcolm X blockbuster film for verification of the use of “creative license.” Fortunately for Lee, his movie, rife with moments of “historical fiction,” was wildly celebrated by adoring Black audiences for a host of reasons. 

I am confident that if one interviewed the writers of Spike Lee’s Malcolm X regarding how they conquered the Herculean task of abbreviating Malcolm’s heroic life to fit on the “big screen,” the words “literary license” would figure prominently in that discussion. Although I am not psychic, I guarantee you that a significant portion of that discussion would revolve around “Brother Baines.” 

Let’s be clear on this matter, “Brother Baines” is birthed through “creative license” and used to push the riveting story along. “Brother Baines” is the bridge between Malcolm’s incarceration to his arrival and exit from the Nation of Islam. Any decent writer of “historical fiction” will tell you that such characters are a convenient tool used to move a story along without introducing a slew of characters that will slow momentum by confusing viewers.  

These attacks on Harriet reveal a disappointing reality that many can not distinguish between a scholarly book/documentary from an edutainment Hollywood biopic. 

In the end, it appears that the critics of Harriet are doing what comes natural to them; that being, providing criticism that is neither constructive nor address the major issue of presenting stories capable of capturing the minds of young African-Americans. Such critics are ironically serving as a roadblock to the process of sparking the imagination of Black youth to a large audience. Who knows if this exposure will serve as the impetus to them exploring the Black experience in an uncommon manner. Sadly, this unwise course of action, caused by a conventional literary device that they do not understand, threatens to seal a reasonable path to develop a bourgeoning interest in African-American studies among American youth. 

What a blind and stupid people we can be at inopportune times.

Dr. James Thomas Jones III