Obama Stands on Black History in Denver
By:  Alton Maddox, AmNews

For Blacks in the United States, August 28 “is a date that will live in infamy. ”Emmett Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago, Ill., was tortured and fatally shot, his body dumped in the Tallahatchie River. This all happened in Money, Miss., on August 28,1955.His crime was allegedly whistling at a white woman.

If Blacks had enjoyed the right of self-defense against whites and, consequently, the right to bear arms against white supremacists, Emmett Till might still be alive today. It was a crime for a Black man not to bow his head when he was talking to a white person.

He was living with his uncle for the summer. A white mob kidnapped Till while his uncle stood helpless. Like today, his uncle’s residence in Mississippi was classified as a slave quarter and not a castle. There was no right of privacy.

Our relationship to land in the United States is still transitory.

A white man’s home is his castle. More than fifty years after Till, John White of Suffolk County, N.Y., harbored this same view about his property. He shot a white burglar who was threatening to rape his wife and harm his son. A New York court sentenced him to hard labor in prison for defending his wife and his son.

By refusing to pardon him, Gov. David Paterson has declared that Dred Scott is still in effect. No Black person,with at least one working brain cell, could possibly be content with this racial injustice. Left unchecked, it defines every Black person in New York as a slave.

After Black delegates trek to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, in Denver, I hope that they will remind this country of Till and White. These cases of racial injustice demonstrate the lack of progress that Blacks have suffered in the United States since 1955.

Mob violence and police terrorism are still running amuck in the “land of the free,” with no relief in sight. Rudolph Giuliani is in charge of the U.S. Justice Department. He tried to swing Homeland Security. Which slice of the presidential pie will Obama give to Blacks?

The proof in the pudding is that there is no specific plank in the platform of the Democratic Party this year to protect descendants of enslaved Africans from the badges of slavery. No constitutional courts exist to defend Reconstruction amendments and statutes, and this absence of a constitutional guardian for Blacks is of no moment to the Democratic Party.

Of course, Rev. Jeremiah Wright and, now, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick are not welcomed in Denver. Wright was making political speeches from his pulpit. This is apparently different from Pastor Rick Warren interrogating Obama and putting leading questions to Sen. John McCain about politics and religion.

McCain cheated and he is a poor example for children. He knew the questions beforehand, because he went second. McCain claims that children acquire human rights at the time of conception—even though he vehemently opposed a holiday for Dr. Martin L. King ,Jr., who was in the vanguard of the Civil Rights Movement .McCain is on nobody’s radar screen for advancing human rights. Obama fumbled the ball because he lacks basic debating skills. McCain is a political chump and Obama is no Melvin Tolson.

Kilpatrick has been thrown under the bus—and the presumption of innocence can only be enjoyed by citizens and aliens. This is a far cry from 1960, when Robert Kennedy phoned the sentencing judge in Dekalb County, Ga., to secure the release of Dr. King. Sen. John F. Kennedy was running for the White House. In 1927, “Silent Cal” commuted Marcus Garvey’s federal prison sentence.

Someone should be calling the authorities in Wayne County, Mich. The issue is not Kilpatrick. Voters in Michigan are about to be disenfranchised. The specter of the 1964 Democratic National Convention is about to raise its ugly head again without a Fannie Lou Hamer.

When Obama makes his acceptance speech in Denver on August 28,he will be standing on history. The first national convention of the Democratic Party was held in Baltimore in 1832.It followed the first national convention of its major opposition party in 1831.This convention was also held in Baltimore.

The notion of a national convention for the political parties, however, followed the Colored Convention Movement which started in Philadelphia in 1830.State conventions for persons of African ancestry met annually in northern states, starting also in 1830, to address the enslavement of people of African ancestry. They continued until 1870.

Although Rosa Parks was the catalyst for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Mamie Till-Mobley was the agent of change for the modern Civil Rights Movement. She refused to take hush money and allow for a cover-up of the crimes against her 14-year-old son by white supremacists in Mississippi.

These crimes against humanity on August 28,1955,in Money, Miss., inspired Parks to go nose-to-nose and toe-to-toe with Jim Crow on December 1, 1955, in Montgomery. She was tired of accommodating Jim Crow. Prof. JoAnn Robinson was waiting in the wings to become the architect of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

A. Phillip Randolph had threatened a “March on Washington” in 1940 to protest racial discrimination in the defense industries. It worked. FDR signed an executive order banning racial discrimination in the defense industries in 1941. He had welcomed the threat of a “March on Washington.”

Civil rights organizations sought to end racial discrimination in public accommodations eighty years after the death of the Civil Rights Act of 1875.A “March on Washington” was scheduled for August 28,1963, eight years to the day after the racially motivated killing of Till. The slogan was “Jobs and Freedom Now.”

LBJ would sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on July 2, 1964. In the interim, the KKK had launched a wave of terrorism, including the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., killing four young Black girls on September 15,1963.Three civil rights workers had been missing since June 21,1964. Their bodies were found on August 5, 1964 near Philadelphia, Miss.

Fifty years later to the day that Till was murdered in Money, Miss., Black leaders failed to plan a day of commemoration of his death in Mississippi. This was unlike their holding of commemorations of the “March on Washington” and the “Bloody Sunday March” across the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., for voting rights.

What did Black leaders know about Hurricane Katrina and when did they know it? Did “Big Brother” conspire against Blacks in New Orleans? It makes you wonder if HAARP, a weather modification program, had any impact on Hurricane Katrina when it made landfall on August 29. Evacuations belatedly did not happen until August 28. Bush 43 and McCain were celebrating on Air Force One in Arizona on August 29.

Bush 43 would wait until September 15,2005,to make a public address in New Orleans. He chose to speak in front of Jackson Square. This was exactly 42 years after the church bombing in Birmingham, and it was in front of a statue of President Andrew Jackson, the architect of Indian removal, who became a legend because of the Black defenders of New Orleans during the War of 1812.

In his speech, Bush 43 attributed the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to “poverty” and “racial discrimination.” “We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. ”Three years later, no plank in the Democratic Party’s platform will promise to correct poverty or racial discrimination because of slavery—even though the Democratic Party must rely on the Black vote to win the White House.

While Obama is clearly an upgrade over McCain, both men are descendants of slaveholders. The political establishment is hedging its bet. McCain is a beneficiary of white supremacy. Obama is a victim of racial prejudice. The two terms are not synonymous, however. Given his experience, Obama is better suited to speak for the underdog.

After the assassination of Dr. King, the Civil Rights Movement was derailed. Racial hustlers stepped into the void and led Blacks away from the road to the “Promised Land.” Blacks are now en route to the White House. The “White House” is a euphemism for the “Big House.” These hustlers may achieve this objective in 2009 to the detriment of Dr. King’s vision.

The lesson that Blacks should have learned in this country is that rights have to be taken. They are rarely given. Before the Civil War, the rallying cry was “the ballot or the bullet. ”In his speech entitled “Where Do We Go From Here, ”Dr.King said, “We made our government write new laws to alter some of the cruelest injustices that affected us.”

The struggle for Black freedom must continue uninhibited regardless of the skin color of the president. Blacks have made the most progress in changing Jim Crow laws without the benefit of politics. Direct action and direct litigation have been the keys. The Democratic Party will continue to be our biggest obstacle and Obama will be an oath taker in the White House.

United African Movement Forum—The weekly UAM assemblies will be in recess for three weeks and will resume on September 3 at the Elks Plaza, 1068 Harriet Tubman (Fulton Street) near Classon Avenue in Brooklyn.

For further information on all events, call UAM at (718) 834-9034.

See www.reinstatealtonmaddox.net for “The Right Mindset for United African Movement,” “Motion and Memorandum of Law in Maddox v. Prudenti et. al.,” “Legal and Life Experiences of Alton H.Maddox,Jr.”