I'm thinking I should only do this on weekends. We'll see.

Why America Needs Us To Be Black
by Earl Dunovant
copyright © 1994

July 4th is celebrated as the birthday of the United States
of America. Though it is the anniversary of the signing of
the Declaration of Independence, it is not the day America
was born. America was born August 20, 1619. That's the day
British pirates landed a Dutch ship on the shores near
Jamestown, Virginia. That's the day pirates sold the first
20 Africans to British colonists, setting the North
American continent on a course that has since shaped the
world.

One hundred fifty seven years later, after considerable
wrangling to make slavery legally, religiously. . .
automatically. . . acceptable, after artisans, metal
workers, laborers, cooks, and servants built the landscape
and economy of this nation, after the well-being of the
majority was insured by labor of the last tribe of Africa,
a nation was declared to be born based on the words of
Thomas Jefferson - "We hold these truths to be
self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are
endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights;
that among these are the right to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness"

Noble words from a slaveowner, a man whose livelihood
depended on depriving the Children of Africa of those
rights.

America has never lived up to that statement. The nature of
America, of Americans, a mere generation ago was much the
same as it was in 1776 - a place and a people that allowed
you to go as far as your abilities would take you, as long
as you weren't an Amerind or African. And it's not very
different now. It can't be. Less than 40 years have passed
since Freedom Summer, when civil rights activists tried to
influence America. The summer that saw the Federal
government mobilize to find two missing white civil rights
workers (that a Black one was missing was, I'm convinced,
incidental. No ever one searched for the many, many Blacks
that vanished before that day. . .). They dragged a lake in
search of their bodies, and found instead nine Children of
Africa that had been lynched and disposed of. Ultimately,
two of the co-conspirators turned in the others.
Ultimately, 19 men were implicated, including the locals in
charge of law enforcement. Ultimately, the sovereign state
of Mississippi refused to press charges for murder.

Many of these men are still alive, as are many of those who
plotted with them. The college students and workers in
their mid- to late-twenties who rioted and were willing to
kill to maintain segregation, the government officials
assigned to track and report the location of civil rights
workers to local officials who were known Klan members, the
FBI agents who stood and watched as Blacks were mercilessly
brutalized. . . almost all these people are still alive.

Their children, who likely share the same values, will be
alive even longer.

America treats us as outcasts, seems to see us as unfit to
share in the wealth we helped create. Yet we were here as
long as you were, America. We worked as hard as . . . no,
harder than . . . any other to make this nation what it is.
We were abused and denied, but we were never destroyed.

America asked the world for its tired, its poor, its
wretched of spirit. . . and turned its back on its own. Yet
there has been some improvement because we would not
relent. We will never give up on our rightful claim. We
have been good for America, and not merely by giving our
labor to her. Every moral improvement America has made has
been in response to the efforts of the Children of Africa.
Every truly new cultural movement in America has its roots
in the activities of the Children of Africa. Every group
that seeks to end its unequal treatment under the present
system compares it's movement to, and models its movement
after, the Civil Rights movement of the Children of Africa.

I say to you America, if you wish to continue to grow wiser
and stronger, you need us. We are the measure of your
honor. If you are ever to live up to your credo, if America
is ever to be what it claims to be, white America must move
beyond its attitude toward the Children of Africa. All the
efforts to make us merely black white people reflect a fear
of advancement to morality. And without morality, your
power bids fair to destroy the world. Like it or not, you
need us proud, you need us strong. America must learn to
accept the diversity in its midst before it finds itself
unable to deal with the diverse world it lives in.
Immigrants seek to become a part of America - they can't
help it in this effort. No, the only people in America that
can goad her to greater openness are the Children of
Africa.