Post by Blaque on Sept 20, 2006 7:35:55 GMT -5
STANDING WITH ANCESTOR AGITATORS!!!
Not About Being Popular with Critics:
Real "Guts and Balls" Make A Difference
By Darwin Campbell
Just why is Texas Most Widely Circulated and Read Newspaper with a Black Perspective being marked as an "agitator" tabloid?
Time and again, the back room talk surfaces that AAN&I and once again some sell out Negroes are speaking out and have labeled and targeted this publication as a thorn in the side and the enemy of "good obedient" Black folk that want the serious and major issues affecting the Black community to be buried, ignored and go unchallenged.
Some are even desperate enough and have even gone to the point of attacking our little Black "soldiers" on the streets and have approached me and several of our supporters through "sell out" gatekeeper minions asking us to back off (issues) and leave things be.
According to Dictionary.com, the definition of an "Agitator" reads as thus, "a person who stirs up others in order to upset the status quo and further a political, social, or other cause."
African-American history reveals that nothing was ever accomplished by our people by just sitting around and waiting for equality to fall from the heavens. Nothing ever happened by hoping the government would save us or praying that good old White folk will finally decide to be fair, share and distribute power.
Every major thing done in America for African-Americans and accomplished in the fight for liberty and freedom started from these so-called "agitators".
AAN&I is Black America’s editorial voice with two million readers in 30 plus major Texas cities and additional millions more accessing our webpage (www.aframnews.com) to keep hope alive.
For those Black and White gatekeepers who hate us, criticize us and attack our free speech rights in Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, Arlington, Irving, San Antonio, Austin and Washington, AAN&I is in great company – and history bears out that it is right to speak out and to allow the people to have a loud, real and true voice.
A. Phillip Randolph was a Trade unionist and civil-rights leader who was a dedicated and persistent leader in the struggle for justice and parity for the Black American community. In 1925, as founding president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Randolph began organizing that group of black workers and, at a time when half the affiliates of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) barred blacks from membership, took his union into the AFL. Despite opposition, he built the first successful black trade union; the brotherhood won its first major contract with the Pullman Company in 1937. The following year, Randolph removed his union from the AFL in protest against its failure to fight discrimination in its ranks and took the brotherhood into the newly formed Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). He then returned to the question of black employment in the federal government and in industries with federal contracts. Randolph was a true "agitator."
Born a slave in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Ida B. Wells raised her four orphaned brothers and then became a schoolteacher in Memphis, Tennessee, where she purchased and edited a newspaper, the Memphis Free Speech. Outraged by the lynching of three black grocers in Memphis in 1892, Wells devoted her life to a crusade against lynching, lecturing and writing profusely while organizing anti-lynching societies throughout the nation. Her pamphlet, A Red Record (1895), presented a systematic study of lynching, debunking the myth that the murdered victims were rapists and black criminals. She opposed segregated schools in Chicago and helped form the first African-American Women's suffrage group in the nation.
She taught in Memphis and wrote for the newspaper, The Living Word and lost her job because she spoke up about rights and fair laws. She then started her own newspaper, The Memphis Free Speech. This came about because of an incident where the Tennessee Rifles, a black state militia, was illegally disarmed and the Ku Klux Klan (a hate group formed right after the Civil War) dragged three black men from a jail and shot them at close range. Wells made this incident public and wrote about it and other lynchings, beatings and house burnings. Over 10,000 blacks had been killed since the end of the Civil War. She brought this fact to the attention of President William McKinley.
Wells-Barnett worked all her life to stop the Ku Klux Klan by starting awareness groups and publishing information about their activities. Wells was a true "agitator".
Medgar Evers was committed to using peaceful but direct action means to resist Jim Crow. He organized boycotts of gasoline stations that barred blacks from their restrooms Evers conducted mass meetings, sit-ins at lunch counters, a boycott of city merchants who discriminated against blacks, and other forms of mass action.
As the State's leading advocate for civil rights, Evers persuaded James Meredith, an African American, to seek admittance into the University of Mississippi in 1962. Meredith was eventually accepted, but riots ensued on the college campus, leaving four people dead. Evers was later murdered, but many African Americans in the State were inspired by his death to continue the struggle for which he had given his life. Evers was a true "agitator".
What do the people of Mississippi know that Blacks in Texas don’t get about the power of unity?
Mary Church Terrell was born the daughter of slaves in Memphis. Terrell became one of the most prominent members of the black elite in Washington, D.C.
She attended Oberlin College and after graduation married Robert Terrell, a Washington lawyer who became a municipal judge. She became the first president of National Association of Colored Women in 1896.
A strong supporter of the NAACP, her many publications attacked chain gangs, disenfranchisement, lynching, and debt peonage. She participated in protest marches and sit-ins all the way into her eighties, and her 1940 autobiography, "A Colored Woman in a White World", argued that black women had to deal with two disadvantages in the modern world--gender and race. Terrell was a real "agitator".
Victoria Matthews became a cub reporter for several city newspapers and contributed stories to an array of African-American newspapers, including the Boston Advocate and the New York Globe.
Most of her writing dealt with overcoming internal difficulties to exhibit outward triumphs.
She especially urged black women to release their "suppressed inner lives" onto the printed page. Most of her writing dealt with overcoming internal difficulties to exhibit outward triumphs.
Matthews especially urged black women to release their "suppressed inner lives" onto the printed page.
In 1892 she founded the Woman's Loyal Union, helped found the Federation of African-American Women in 1895, and the White Rose Industrial Association in 1897 to free African-American women from sexual exploitation.
She was also an active campaigner to reform the urban employment agencies of the day that were fronts for the entrapment of rural Blacks girls into urban prostitution. Her efforts eventually grew into the National League for the Protection of Colored Women, one of the founding organizations of the National Urban League. Matthews was a genuine "agitator".
My question to cowardly "sell out" and gatekeeper "Negroes" is what would the state of Black America be if Randolph, Wells, Matthews, Terrell, Evers and many others like them would have tossed out the printer’s ink, sat down, shut up and let Black America suffer?
I think it is just agitating to Black "sell outs" and "gatekeepers" and White spin doctors that AAN&I is the modern sword that posts the kind of power and readership it does, publishes weekly and is on time with its remarks from Black historical, political, educational, governmental and grassroots perspectives.
AAN&I is that fly on the wall that reports news from a Black perspective and does not apologize or make excuses for telling it like is or for being blunt in the presentation of its articles and stories. We stand with our "agitator ancestors!!"
There is nothing political or social about telling the truth. Part of upsetting the status quo means not succumbing or buying the propaganda filled political and media machines that have watered down truth, offered false senses of security and failed to give a genuine true voice to the needs, concerns and real issues affecting Black America and the Black community.
AAN&I is not a publication for the weak or faint of heart. Our cause is the people’s cause and our voice belongs to the people.
We will never do what pastors want or say what White America wants us to say because it is cute and proper for us to "dance for our nickels".
Too much of that is being done in the Black Press and that is part of what is hurting and killing our ability as a people to really be free.
If AAN&I is to be labeled as an agitator by safe gatekeeper Negroes and uninformed hatemongering Whites, so be it, but I describe it as "a newspaper of conscience for the conscious."
Not About Being Popular with Critics:
Real "Guts and Balls" Make A Difference
By Darwin Campbell
Just why is Texas Most Widely Circulated and Read Newspaper with a Black Perspective being marked as an "agitator" tabloid?
Time and again, the back room talk surfaces that AAN&I and once again some sell out Negroes are speaking out and have labeled and targeted this publication as a thorn in the side and the enemy of "good obedient" Black folk that want the serious and major issues affecting the Black community to be buried, ignored and go unchallenged.
Some are even desperate enough and have even gone to the point of attacking our little Black "soldiers" on the streets and have approached me and several of our supporters through "sell out" gatekeeper minions asking us to back off (issues) and leave things be.
According to Dictionary.com, the definition of an "Agitator" reads as thus, "a person who stirs up others in order to upset the status quo and further a political, social, or other cause."
African-American history reveals that nothing was ever accomplished by our people by just sitting around and waiting for equality to fall from the heavens. Nothing ever happened by hoping the government would save us or praying that good old White folk will finally decide to be fair, share and distribute power.
Every major thing done in America for African-Americans and accomplished in the fight for liberty and freedom started from these so-called "agitators".
AAN&I is Black America’s editorial voice with two million readers in 30 plus major Texas cities and additional millions more accessing our webpage (www.aframnews.com) to keep hope alive.
For those Black and White gatekeepers who hate us, criticize us and attack our free speech rights in Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, Arlington, Irving, San Antonio, Austin and Washington, AAN&I is in great company – and history bears out that it is right to speak out and to allow the people to have a loud, real and true voice.
A. Phillip Randolph was a Trade unionist and civil-rights leader who was a dedicated and persistent leader in the struggle for justice and parity for the Black American community. In 1925, as founding president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Randolph began organizing that group of black workers and, at a time when half the affiliates of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) barred blacks from membership, took his union into the AFL. Despite opposition, he built the first successful black trade union; the brotherhood won its first major contract with the Pullman Company in 1937. The following year, Randolph removed his union from the AFL in protest against its failure to fight discrimination in its ranks and took the brotherhood into the newly formed Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). He then returned to the question of black employment in the federal government and in industries with federal contracts. Randolph was a true "agitator."
Born a slave in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Ida B. Wells raised her four orphaned brothers and then became a schoolteacher in Memphis, Tennessee, where she purchased and edited a newspaper, the Memphis Free Speech. Outraged by the lynching of three black grocers in Memphis in 1892, Wells devoted her life to a crusade against lynching, lecturing and writing profusely while organizing anti-lynching societies throughout the nation. Her pamphlet, A Red Record (1895), presented a systematic study of lynching, debunking the myth that the murdered victims were rapists and black criminals. She opposed segregated schools in Chicago and helped form the first African-American Women's suffrage group in the nation.
She taught in Memphis and wrote for the newspaper, The Living Word and lost her job because she spoke up about rights and fair laws. She then started her own newspaper, The Memphis Free Speech. This came about because of an incident where the Tennessee Rifles, a black state militia, was illegally disarmed and the Ku Klux Klan (a hate group formed right after the Civil War) dragged three black men from a jail and shot them at close range. Wells made this incident public and wrote about it and other lynchings, beatings and house burnings. Over 10,000 blacks had been killed since the end of the Civil War. She brought this fact to the attention of President William McKinley.
Wells-Barnett worked all her life to stop the Ku Klux Klan by starting awareness groups and publishing information about their activities. Wells was a true "agitator".
Medgar Evers was committed to using peaceful but direct action means to resist Jim Crow. He organized boycotts of gasoline stations that barred blacks from their restrooms Evers conducted mass meetings, sit-ins at lunch counters, a boycott of city merchants who discriminated against blacks, and other forms of mass action.
As the State's leading advocate for civil rights, Evers persuaded James Meredith, an African American, to seek admittance into the University of Mississippi in 1962. Meredith was eventually accepted, but riots ensued on the college campus, leaving four people dead. Evers was later murdered, but many African Americans in the State were inspired by his death to continue the struggle for which he had given his life. Evers was a true "agitator".
What do the people of Mississippi know that Blacks in Texas don’t get about the power of unity?
Mary Church Terrell was born the daughter of slaves in Memphis. Terrell became one of the most prominent members of the black elite in Washington, D.C.
She attended Oberlin College and after graduation married Robert Terrell, a Washington lawyer who became a municipal judge. She became the first president of National Association of Colored Women in 1896.
A strong supporter of the NAACP, her many publications attacked chain gangs, disenfranchisement, lynching, and debt peonage. She participated in protest marches and sit-ins all the way into her eighties, and her 1940 autobiography, "A Colored Woman in a White World", argued that black women had to deal with two disadvantages in the modern world--gender and race. Terrell was a real "agitator".
Victoria Matthews became a cub reporter for several city newspapers and contributed stories to an array of African-American newspapers, including the Boston Advocate and the New York Globe.
Most of her writing dealt with overcoming internal difficulties to exhibit outward triumphs.
She especially urged black women to release their "suppressed inner lives" onto the printed page. Most of her writing dealt with overcoming internal difficulties to exhibit outward triumphs.
Matthews especially urged black women to release their "suppressed inner lives" onto the printed page.
In 1892 she founded the Woman's Loyal Union, helped found the Federation of African-American Women in 1895, and the White Rose Industrial Association in 1897 to free African-American women from sexual exploitation.
She was also an active campaigner to reform the urban employment agencies of the day that were fronts for the entrapment of rural Blacks girls into urban prostitution. Her efforts eventually grew into the National League for the Protection of Colored Women, one of the founding organizations of the National Urban League. Matthews was a genuine "agitator".
My question to cowardly "sell out" and gatekeeper "Negroes" is what would the state of Black America be if Randolph, Wells, Matthews, Terrell, Evers and many others like them would have tossed out the printer’s ink, sat down, shut up and let Black America suffer?
I think it is just agitating to Black "sell outs" and "gatekeepers" and White spin doctors that AAN&I is the modern sword that posts the kind of power and readership it does, publishes weekly and is on time with its remarks from Black historical, political, educational, governmental and grassroots perspectives.
AAN&I is that fly on the wall that reports news from a Black perspective and does not apologize or make excuses for telling it like is or for being blunt in the presentation of its articles and stories. We stand with our "agitator ancestors!!"
There is nothing political or social about telling the truth. Part of upsetting the status quo means not succumbing or buying the propaganda filled political and media machines that have watered down truth, offered false senses of security and failed to give a genuine true voice to the needs, concerns and real issues affecting Black America and the Black community.
AAN&I is not a publication for the weak or faint of heart. Our cause is the people’s cause and our voice belongs to the people.
We will never do what pastors want or say what White America wants us to say because it is cute and proper for us to "dance for our nickels".
Too much of that is being done in the Black Press and that is part of what is hurting and killing our ability as a people to really be free.
If AAN&I is to be labeled as an agitator by safe gatekeeper Negroes and uninformed hatemongering Whites, so be it, but I describe it as "a newspaper of conscience for the conscious."