I hope that you enjoy the entries below that celebrate African-American & Black History Month. (beginning with entry posted Saturday January 22, 2011)

We began in my hometown Portland, Oregon where my young life and neighborhood were both segregated. Lucky for me, super parents, great role-models, my young friends and the Civil Rights Movement cured that discrimination. Yet, there is a ways to go and we must climb.

Still in the Great Northwest, we made a stop in Blaine, Washington and listened to the great Paul Robeson sing to enormous crowds lining the US/Canada border. Paul went there to sing in support of the labor movement. He made a point to step across the border—sticking a needle in the eye of the HUAC that had illegally taken away his passport and black-listed him due to his activism. The government of the United States was proven wrong. Paul Robeson, in humble self-less words and deeds, showed the Senate and the world that working people, poor people and people of all backgrounds are the important ones. Their rights come first.

We traveled east to the “heartland” of America—Chicago, “The city of big shoulders”. The great city was founded by a black man of African and European descent. And we glimpsed two vastly different lives. One was the wealthy white “baron” who is now studied for his bigotry and cruelty toward his employees—on whose backs he thrived. And the other is Oscar Micheaux, who was a shoe-shine boy and porter, but who is now honored for his pioneering writing, publishing and film-making. He was the first to put Paul Robeson on the big screen.

The journey turned south, through Missouri and Arkansas where Maya Angelou grew up. We recalled her cruel and unfortunate childhood. And we admired her incredible voice. Though it deserted her for five long years as a child, she recovered it with glory to become a clear and present champion for all people in this land and of this world. Unite! We are all the same—and, by knowing this, we can at last know peace! Dr. Angelou teaches still.

We sailed east. We visited the history of Haiti—where the New World was first “discovered” by the Europeans; where ancestors of the land’s true discoverers were the first to suffer genocide in short order as a direct result of the new rulers’ “ownership”; where French imperialism and the new lucrative slave trade brought 300-years of misery to the African labor force that the Europeans imported to replace the wiped-out natives; and where François Capois (a man they called “Death”) led his rebel-slave troops with valor and helped to defeat the most powerful army in the world. Capois helped to free Haiti—in the first slave uprising that actually defeated an empire.

We flew back—back into Africa, where the Human Diaspora began in the dawn of Man’s earliest experiments with social living arrangements. We met Dr. Wangari Maathai who is accomplishing miracles for exploited populations. Her Greenbelt Movement teaches sustainability while saving both the environment and the people’s rights to preserve their homelands. And we met Generose. She is the salt. She is the starch. She is the cement, the iron, the steel—she is the standard and the basis upon which we all can stand and peer into the future of our species. For, if we are to ever find an acceptable outcome to our experiment to live together, socially and civilly, in this the only world that we all can ever share, we must have the guts and the resolve that are modeled for us by Generose. She stands stronger on one-leg than any of her marauders who are men with two!

We paid respect to our long legacy of heroes, especially, to Dr. King.

This is the history of Blacks and of African-Americans. This is also the history of Taino and of Arawakens. Of Italian explorers sponsored by Spanish royals. Of sailors. Of conquistadores. Of slaves and rebels. Of barons and usurpers. Of the privileged who under-whelm and of the impoverished who shine! Maya Angelou said it best. These are a few of the final stanzas from On the Pulse of Morning:

You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede,
The German, the Eskimo, the Scot,
The Italian, the Hungarian, the Pole,
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands,
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For a newbeginning.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes,
And into your brother’s face,
Your country,
And say simply
With hope—
Good morning.

Image: Impala in the Sun by Caitlin Brown

If you would like a copy of my bibliography for blog entries 1/22/11 to 2/22/11, please send an e-mail to: Tim@Bentari.com. Please write “Bentari Bibliography” in the subject line of your e-mail. I will send you a PDF file containing links and reference material that I used to create these entries. Thank you.