When we see the hypocrisy of riots from Ferguson, Missouri to the latest disruptions of Donald Trump’s rallies, we are seeing the worst forms of “counter-revolutionary” action that not only attack the first amendment, but the very core of human justice. They threaten to set the cause back one hundred years. They undercut the very moral narrative underlying the basis of human rights, not the least of which will be the outcome none of the protestors want to see: more law and order and a Donald Trump landslide of Reagan’s numbers and stature.
What is more important is the lack of real dialogue discussing the critical issues of our time. Before the Black Lives Matter Movement becomes completely hijacked by mindless thugs who burn the seeds of black empowerment to the ground by burning and looting black owned businesses, businesses that have been created by black entrepreneurs from older generations who know the struggles of walking down freedom’s long, hard road better than the young thugs ever will, it’s time for all to reflect on the those who pioneered the cause. Four names immediately come to mind: Blanche Kelso Bruce, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Blanche Kelso Bruce was born a slave. He was educated by his father who was also his owner. He later gained his freedom. He traveled north of the Mason/Dixon line and unsuccessfully attempted to enlist in the Union Army during the Civil War. Instead, he enrolled and studied for two years at Oberlin College. He moved to Hannibal, Missouri where he founded a school for black children in 1864. He not only taught them the traditional “three R’s” but inspired them to dream big and said eventually they would see a world where they could make those dreams come true. Later, he returned to the Deep South and not only became a prosperous businessman but was elected sheriff of Bolivar County, Mississippi. Bruce was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican from Mississippi in 1874. He was the first African American to serve a full term and on February 14, 1879 became the only African American to preside over the Senate, a position now held by the President Pro Tempre of the Senate. He later was picked by President Garfield to be the Resident of the Treasury and was the first black man to have his signature on U.S. currency. He also received 8 votes to become the Republican nominee for vice president at the 1880 Republican National Convention.
George Washington Carver was also born a slave. After the abolition of slavery, his owner, Moses Carver treated him like a son. His mother educated him as blacks could not attend school in Diamond, Missouri at that time. He eventually traveled to Kansas and received his high school diploma from Minneapolis High School in Minneapolis, Kansas. He was refused entrance to a college which had offered him a scholarship, once they found out he was African American. Still, he persisted and eventually obtained a loan to cover college expenses and attended Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa studying art and music. He was exceptionally apt at drawing flowers and plants. One of his instructors suggested he attend Iowa State and study botany. He enrolled at Iowa State eventually receiving is M. Sc. Degree in botany. His studies in crop diversity have become famous. He eventually worked with Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Carver’s faith in Christ was the key inspiration for his work, which along with Washington sought to radically transform the old feudalistic agrarian South by promoting an agro-industrial base for producing value added products and crop diversification away from mere cotton production alone. Carver firmly believed that a faith based core had to be the center of one’s knowledge and belief structure and system. Moral ethical implications of the use of science were extremely important to Carver, as was a hard work ethic and eventual self-reliance.
Booker T. Washington once said, “There is a certain class of race problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds they have not only a means of making a living, but also an easy medium to make themselves prominent before the public.” Neither Washington nor Carver sought to flash themselves before the public to just flaunt themselves, but sought to make accomplishments that would better humanity.
Martin Luther King’s speeches and accomplishments need no re-statement here for they are all too well known. His “I Have a Dream” speech goes down in the annals of history as one of the most inspirational of its time. His spearheading the civil rights movement in the ‘60’s is legendary. However, when he saw the riots in Detroit and other cities he said “I have a nightmare!”
The oratory and efforts of these pioneers in the cause are expository and reveal the principles stemming from that aforementioned faith based core. “Build, baby, build! Organize, baby, organize – not burn, baby, burn!” King used to say. They all promoted eventual self-reliance and welfare only as a temporary means of getting people up on their feet, not making it into a permanent industry. All of these men were building blocks for each other and paved the way for the Civil Rights Act far more than any one self-serving politician.
Such tactics that we have seen of late are in direct contradiction to the efforts and ideals of the heroes mentioned in this blog. Disrupter’s tactics such as those at Trump’s rally in Chicago run contrary to those who took to the streets of the same city in the aftermath of the police shooting of Laquan McDonald. They insisted that they would not burn Chicago to the ground. They sought constructive dialogue in addition to the resignation of public officials who had clearly betrayed the public’s trust. If ever there was a community that was primed to go off in a fiery rage, it was Chicago. They didn’t. But the protestors at the Trump rally and the looters of Ferguson and Baltimore destroyed their own narrative. King would be rolling over in his grave at them. He would be smiling on those who protested but also sought solutions. This is the dialogue we need. Millennials in particular need to inner-reflect and find the prophetic vision within themselves, indeed to challenge themselves to be great and adopt the Latin phrase “carpe diem”. It is important that they further the unfinished work which those who preceded them have thus far so nobly advanced, to paraphrase Lincoln. It is the discussion that America needs such that the spirit of liberty will never die, nor freedom’s precious voice ever perish from the face of this earth.
