What Is The Black Agenda?

A march is only as effective as the character of its leader. When the wolf looks out the window and sees a Judas goat leading the sheep, he can begin preparing the dinner table. These leaders always call for wasted and misdirected energy to maintain the status quo. This is the difference between Malcolm X and Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.

[I Write What I Like]

Although Blacks will march around the Department of Justice building on November 16 and, hold  press conferences, the key issue is whether the U.S. Senate should have approved President Bush nominee as the next U.S. Attorney General.

Judge Michael Mukasey, a New Yorker and close friend of presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani, has just taken over the reins at the Department of Justice. The rest of his resume is meaningless. Giuliani is charitable in describing all of his friends as “conservatives.”

If the “hidden hand” has already decided that Giuliani will be the next President of the United States, Mukasey would have already formulated Giuliani’s mission statement for a “War on Blacks.” Again, Black leaders were asleep at the switch when it counted.

Instead of another “Shopping for Justice” march, Blacks should now focus on the history of the Department of Justice, which began its operations after the Civil War and on July 1, 1870. The horse is already out of the barn. Black leaders took the “Fifth” while Senator Charles Schumer was walking Mukasey through a minefield in the U.S. Senate.

Attorney General Amos T. Akerman pursued the Ku Klux Klan in 1871 but it was short-lived. The Klan had support in both the Democratic and Republican parties. It was bullet-proof. On the question of race, both political parties were united. They are still united. The Democrats and Republicans are about to enshrine Mukasey.

President Ulysses S. Grant then proposed that Blacks should be shipped to the Dominican Republic. This would allow the United States to control the labor supply to the South in addition to establishing a Caribbean naval base. Frederick Douglass was warm to the idea. He had been a member of the presidential fact-finding commission

Sen. Charles Sumner, who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, opposed it. Most Blacks were in accord. On the other hand, Sumner advised Blacks not to join the Republican Party but to form a third party to exercise political leverage. Sumner was a Republican.

Blacks chose to follow his advice on not leaving the United States but nixed his advice about forming a third party. A separatist, but not an integrationist, can exercise economic and political leverage. Both of these critical decisions, by Blacks, were wrong and they have been curses for nearly 150 years.

Afterwards, the Department of Justice watched white supremacists terrorize Blacks. This is called enforcing the U.S. Constitution, which is xenophobic, ergophobic, pauperphobic and misogynist. The common thread is hatred. No march can end hate much less a racial philosophy.

A march is only as effective as the character of its leader. When the wolf looks out the window and sees a Judas goat leading the sheep, he can begin preparing the dinner table. These leaders always call for wasted and misdirected energy to maintain the status quo.

This is the difference between Malcolm X and Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., on the one hand, and the current crop of Black leaders, on the other hand. Police terrorism continues unchallenged. Khiel Coppin was the latest victim of a shoot-to-kill policy and the fatal shooting was within police guidelines.

Current Black leaders are living large from engaging in political prostitution and criminal racketeering. When the wolf, to the contrary, sees a lion leading the sheep, the wolf must become a marksman: “Houston, we have a problem.” Living large and engaging in racial struggle are contradictory terms.

By 1885, the United States had gutted the Civil War amendments and the Reconstruction statutes since they had been designed to protect Blacks against terrorism. It was time to appoint a Confederate official to head the Department of Justice. This has since become a tradition in the Justice Department.

Augustus Hill Garland received the presidential nod to head the Justice Department. He had perpetrated treason against the United States during the Civil War. Nonetheless, President Andrew Johnson had already pardoned him and the Supreme Court upheld the pardon in Ex parte Garland. He could practice law again.

President William J. Clinton, on the other hand, pardoned disbarred attorney William A. Border, Jr., a descendants of enslaved Africans, on January 20, 2001. He had suffered a felony conviction in federal court. Garland’s pardon freed him politically and legally while Borders’ pardon has had no effect on his disbarment.

This disparity in results is a clear case of Jim Crow and it is still sanctioned under Plessy v. Ferguson. The Congressional Black Caucus will not touch Borders with a 10-foot pole. His plight will also not be raised as an issue on November 16. The question thus becomes whether we are witnessing a protections racket in the guise of pursuing civil rights?

After nearly 100 years of constitutional terrorism, Congress finally created a Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice in 1957. This happened under President Dwight Eisenhower’s watch while Blacks were torn between the Democratic and Republican parties. Both parties were “courting” Blacks.

After the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a reasonable person would have anticipated an increase in legislative activities by Blacks and a decrease in marches. Instead, the increase in Black selected officials has also increased the need for more marches. Legislative activity is still off-limits.

The KKK once intimidated Black voters and drove them away from the polls. Today, the two-party, political system intimidates Black selected officials. They must tow the party line—or else. Blacks enjoy political presence but not political representation.

Dr. King spent his time at crime scenes. He pitched his final tents in the nation’s capital in 1968 for the Poor People’s Campaign. He was forced into the caboose of the 1963 March on Washington. He had refused one-night stands in D.C. Instead, his modus operandi always involved stakeouts.

The central issue affecting Blacks is the lack of political and legal representation. It is time for us to get back on course. Blacks hold the balance of power in the Electoral College. Yet, we are afraid to exercise political and economic leverage. Police-sanctioned marches will not cure our fear of white supremacists.

In order for incessant marches to be effective, they must be preceded by a demand, they must be strategic and they must be shrouded with drama. The operative word is “incessant.” Mystery enhances the intensity of a movement. These elements must be present in every struggle.

A demand is a statement that starts with a conditional sentence and ends with an exclamation point –“or else!” Frederick Douglass said it best: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will.” To defeat white supremacy, we must embrace the teachings of our revered ancestors.

Black leaders curiously waited until after the U.S. Senate gave Mukasey a clean bill of health before they would give the Black masses a green light to march around the Department of Justice building seven times. This had to have been previously orchestrated to divert attention away from the U.S. Senate.

Black leaders in New York put Schumer in office. In return, Schumer worked with Bush to give Mukasey the Senate nod. By voting without a political agenda, we are endorsing our own oppression. Our worst enemy today is Black voters without a Black agenda.

A case in point is the presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama. There was a photo of Obama on the front page of the November 10, 2007 edition of the influential Wall Street Journal. The headline under the photo read “Whites Great Hope?” Do I need to elaborate?

November 21, Wednesday -United African Movement will host its next forum at 7:00 p.m. at the Elks Plaza, 1068 Harriet Tubman (Fulton Street) nr. Classon Ave. in Brooklyn. Take the “C” train to Franklin Ave. Come see “The Noose.”

November 28, Wednesday -United African Movement will present a special program to recognize 20 years of struggle in the Tawana Brawley case. A journal will be published commemorating the struggle. UAM is soliciting ads in support of it. Deadline for the ads and boosters is November 21, 2007. We must tell our own story. For further information, call UAM at 718-834-9034.

See: www.reinstatealtonmaddox.net for “UAM Petitions A.G. Andrew Cuomo,” “Civil Rights and One-Night Stands” “The Early Years: Remembering Friends of the Brawley Struggle.” and “Double Jeopardy and Mychal Bell.”

 

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