Red Tails, the Movie, A Must See

The story of Tuskegee airmen in WWII is a must see for those who care about justice and for those who are unwilling to let stories of courage die.  Directly from the Jim Crow rule of law at the time, facing the reality that Jim Crow ways of thinking and living were alive and well on the battlefield, these men fought Hitler's army, sometimes their own fellow airmen, and for freedom in America, creating along the way an incredible legacy.

See this link for more details.

Check out this one as well.

Put at the top of the use of your entertainment dollar that of seeing this movie.  I'm also going to go buy the book from which this movie was taken.

Hit this link for some background on the movie.

On Martin Luther King Day 2012

Today is a day of reflection and service.  My pondering has led me into such places as the current status of civil rights for people of color, for women, for marginalized populations. I am wondering how we as a society are better all of these years after Dr. King's death. How are we the same?  Some matters are heartening, others not so.

Today is also a day of personal wonderings.  How would my own personal world be different had Dr. King not given the ultimate sacrifice? What have I been able to experience because he came.  What would be missing had he not come?  Here are a few personal reflections.

Dr. King gave his life as the ultimate sacrifice and because of that sacrifice I was able to have Dr. Robert Lee Washington as a high school teacher; Charles, a friend from upstate New York, my wife, and I had that experience of looking for an apartment in Memphis long ago and were able to make sense of it; the N-word is not a part of my vocabulary; and bringing together kids of all groups, black and white, rich and poor, public school and private, middle and upper class neighborhoods and projects was an important effort at the church in Memphis.

Developing four social justice teams at Abilene Christian University in the COAMFTE-accredited MFT program happened and all of our lives are different as we explored Black farmer, Black Indian, and white privilege issues, and as we presented at various forums around the country, Christian and secular.

Meeting and engaging BFAA, Gary and the Grant family, Dr. Muhammad, Dr. Spencer Wood, and farmers in North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas have been rich and challenging. Hearing story after story after story and gathering health and well being information, for me have been life changing.

Publishing a modest piece with Dr. Edward Robinson and seeing it referenced in several journal articles says that the work is being noticed. Ours was just one piece that this researcher and preacher of the gospel was working on at that time.

Walking the farmers' land in Georgia, North Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, and other places brought a gripping reality to the progress and the lack thereof in matters related to the USDA.

Meeting USDA officials at one meeting and being encouraged by one person to just tell the farmers to get over it and move on and at the same conference feeling moved as one speaker had us shut off our microphones as she spoke from the heart about injustices.

Participating in mediation hears with  DOJ and the USDA brought home the reality of how persons in governmental positions saw Black farmers versus how Black farmers viewed themselves and their stories.  I am swayed by both.  Power and privilege and the lack thereof will forever be significant concepts and realities.

Meeting Harry Young and marching on his behalf in Kentucky with Monica Davis, Charla Hinson, Dwayne Burger, and others provided an insight into organizing protests. Attending the community action meeting with Gary Grant and others in Scotland Neck, NC as that community attempted to save its local schools and their kids from six hours on a bus every day gave me a perspective on community activism and its influences.

Walking through Sweet Auburn and reflecting on a friend's words, "Several years ago we would not have been able to do this," meaning that a black man and a white man could not walk across the street in that section of Atlanta or any other black section of America had it not been for Dr. King.

Considering the fact that I now live in Indian Country, work for an American Indian tribe, bringing a family way of thinking to a people who still experience the impact of historical trauma.  Those experiences at ACU and with Black farmers prepared me for this work. Thinking, talking, and strategizing about how to bring music and lyrics of farmers' struggles into the mainstream is something I do often

The questions are still the same. In what societal ways and in what personal ways are you and I different because Dr. King came?  In what ways are we personifying his "I Have a Dream" speech that day in DC? In what ways are we helping to remove Jim Crow ways of thinking from the hearts of people?

Just wondering this evening. Just recounting a few personal stories.

Troubling My Soul

Few things trouble my soul quite like the challenges the Grant family in Tillery, NC has with holding on to their farm. Their story is well chronicled in many places on the web. Gary has been an activist since he was a youth. His sister, Van, likewise. My wife and I love them and respect them deeply.

Please take the time to read the letter that follows. Pray for this family. Contribute to the cause of this family. Help us to help this family. They have given much to the righeous cause of justice, and justice especially for African American farmers.

This letter is addressed to Eric Holder, Attorney General of the US. Feel free to cut and paste it and send it on under your name.

TO:

The Obama Administration
Attention: Eric Holder, Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001


askdoj@usdoj.gov


FROM:
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________

Ph: ____________E-mail: _______________


RE: Matthew and Florenza Moore Grant - (Gary Grant v. USDA)


I am very concerned that the legal case of Matthew and Florenza Moore Grant vs. USDA was recently and unfairly thrown out by a North Carolina District Federal Court.

For over thirty years the Grant family has been fighting for justice and is now being buried once again in legalized minutia, with serious consequences. These are the facts that are not disputed: USDA has played a dangerous and proverbial game of “cat and mouse” offering the Grants, on three occasions, a settlement which never materialized, though never because the Grants rejected it. At the same time not one employee of USDA has been penalized, fired, or denied their retirement benefits. The USDA, whose employees perpetuated all the years of discriminatory policies against the Grants and other Black farmers, remains unscathed.

Now the courts are retreating from addressing these claims as they sense political pressure from right-wing ideologues and right-wing zealots such as columnist Andrew Breitbart and Representatives Steve King (R-IA) and Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who are trying to stop Black farmer settlements by arguing that there is “rampant fraud” among the claimants. Not only are these claims unsupported, but no one has ever made any such claims regarding the case of the Grant family. The “investigations” by Breitbart, King, Bachmann, and others are sadly more racialized witch-hunt than objective fact finding.

There have been many important struggles in the Civil Rights Movement. Discrimination against Black farmers is an important civil rights struggle today. The Grant family has been, and continues to be, part of the Black farmer leadership cadre. In what appears to be an effort to attack the leadership of this struggle, the USDA, Department of Justice, and various courts have singled out the Grant family and other families who have stood as part of the Black farmer leadership by drawing out their cases. Most recently emboldened by a shifting political climate, lower-level courts have single-handedly dismissed the legal demands of several leadership families. This is a stunning and legally unsound tactic that perpetuates the egregious suffering of Black farmers. This is all occurring while no one disputes that these families suffered devastating discrimination at the hands of local USDA officials.

Mr. and Mrs. Grant both died in 2001overwhelmed and broken-hearted because their government had failed them so miserably. As progressive farmers, their land and way of life, and their happiness and well-being had been racially exploited and were in serious jeopardy.

I want to add my influence and voice to support the settlement of the Grants’ legal claims. This tragic outcome can be readily remedied with the settlement they were promised and deserve through your thoughtful and rigorous leadership.

Regarding the struggle for equal treatment of the Black farmer, history will ask…. “What did you do?”

cc: Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) - http://hagan.senate.gov/contact/

Thanks for the Opportunity

It is a rare occasion on which my wife and I both get to speak of our commitment to the cause of African  American farmers.  This summer at our church, a variety of folks are invited to speak of their vocations or avocations, and the ways in which God is involved.

Charla and I traced the history of our involvement, told stories that illustrate the plight of farmers against the racism of the USDA, and placed all of these issues against the larger context of God's Kingdom Come, and the place that social justice has in the greater threads of the Christian movement.

Frankly, we were reminded once more of how the stories have impacted our lives. We think the audience was more than curious about the Cause.

So, thanks to Eddie Poblete, minister of the Central Church of Christ, Ada, Oklahoma, for inviting us to speak. My prayer is that more activists for the Cause have been found.

Auction Blocks and Courthouse Steps

For several weeks now I have had various words and tunes in my head that parallel auction blocks and sale of Black-owned farms on courthouse steps.  Not that these two situations are entirely analogous, but that they do have some curious and demeaning parallels.  "No More Auction Block" by Robeson, Odetta, and Dylan is the standard. At the end of the day, I may just add some lyrics to that haunting tune.

In the midst of doing some research on auction blocks, I came across the book, Bullwhip Days: The Slaves Remember. You can read a review here. It is not a warm-hearted read, but it is a "I need to know and respect and remember" read.  One remembrance that especially moved my heart and fits into the conversation about lyrics and tunes is one by James Martin.  Here he is in his own words:

The slaves are put in stalls like the pens they use for cattle--a man and his wife with a child on each arm.  And there's a curtain, sometimes just a sheet over the front of the stall, so the bidders can't see the "stock" too soon. The overseer's standin' just outside with a big blacksnake ship and a pepperbox pistol in his belt. Across the square a little piece, there's a big platform with steps leadin' up to it.

Then, they pulls up the curtain, and the bidders is crowdin' around. Them in back can't see, so the overseer drives the slaves out to the platform, and he tells the ages of the slaves and what they can do. They have white gloves there, and one of the bidders takes a pair of gloves and rubs his fingers over a man's teeth, and he says to the overseer, "You call this buck twenty years old? Why there's cup worms in his teeth. He's forty years old, if he's a day." So they knock this buck down for a thousand dollars.  They calls the men "bucks" and the women "wenches."

When the slaves is on the platform--what they calls the "block"--the overseer yells, "Tom or Jason, show the bidders how you walk." Then, the slaves step across the platform, and the biddin' starts.

At these slave auctions, the overseer yells, "Say, you bucks and wenches, get in your hole. Come out here." Then, he makes 'em hop, he makes 'em trot, he makes 'em jump. "How much," he yells, "for this buck? A thousand? Eleven hundred? Twelve hundred dollars?" Then, the bidders makes offers accordin' to size and build.----page 291.

These images must not be denied nor forgotten.

Just a Few More Words

The previous post from today deserves a few more words.  As most of you who read the words on these pages know, I have been actively involved with the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association since 2005. A modest faculty renewal leave from Abilene Christian University led to an engagement with Gary Grant, President of BFAA. Justifiably so, this organization needed to check me out.  From there,  my wife and I went to Tillery in the summer of 2005 followed by trips to North Carolina, Georgia, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas to interview African American farmers who had experienced discrimination at the hands of the USDA.

That partnership led to Memphis, TN and a Black Summit, and then Summits in North Carolina, and even a modest role on the board of BFAA.  Interviews with both Black and White farmers in the region.

Along the way, my role was very clear:  tell the stories of Black farmers in places and spaces where they will not or cannot go, explain the impact of discrimination and "farming while Black" on the health and well being of farmers and families, and get the stories and the health challenges to as broad an audience as possible.

Along the way we also developed four Social Justice Teams at ACU.  You'll find them within the pages of this blog.  Those people and those efforts flow through my veins unlike any other work with university students. To this day, those students and I talk on occasion about those days, and they tell me about what they are doing for the cause of justice in this world.  I am proud of them and the work we did.

At the 12th Annual Black Land Loss Summit, immediately after lunch, we assembled for the beginning of afternoon presentations and conversations.  First, there was an award to Rose Sanders, a hero in the fight for justice as she worked on behalf of farmers involved in the Pigford Class Action Suit.

It was then my turn to present.  Instead, Gary Grant asked for me to come forward.  I was in my own world of thinking about the presentation (it is noted a post or two back). He also called in Charla from the booth outside the conference hall.  I do not recall what Gary said, but I do recall the family gathering around, and Charla saying some words that only she can say in ways that only she can say them.  I whispered to Gary,"I'll say a few things in my presentation."  Photos were taken. 

I moved to the front to speak. Words would not come.  Emotions did. Words would not. It is not like me to draw a blank.  All I could say was "stunned."  Fighting through the tears, I babbled a few things and moved into the presentation.  Thankfully the moment is memorialized in the Commonwealth Progress.  There we all are. I looked stunned, Charla is in tears, the family is clapping, and one grandson looks on in curiosity.

So, I do not feel deserving of this award.  That is what some have said.  I am honored to receive the award named for a man who died before I came along.  I am honored to have on my wall an award in his name.  I love his family.

My wife and I are committed to the cause for which he and his beloved wife died.

That is the best that I can do.

There is much to be done.

"A Man Called Matthew Award"

May 8, 2011

The Grant Family

Concerned Citizens of Tillery
P.O. Box 61
Tillery, NC 27887

Dear Friends:

The list of past recipients of “A Man Called Matthew Award” is lengthy and impressive, and for my name to be listed alongside theirs is an honor unlike any I have ever received. Those men and women form in my limited estimation a hall of fame of those who have immersed themselves in the fight for justice for African American farmers.

Unlike that afternoon at the 12th National Black Land Loss Summit when I could not find the words to express my gratitude, the time since has allowed moments of reflection upon the intersection of our paths and convictions. A modest faculty renewal leave in 2005 from Abilene Christian University, the visits to Tillery, the friendships that you have formed with my wife, Charla, and me, engaging with students from the Social Justice Teams, the Summits at Tillery and at Franklinton Center, and the encouragement to tell the stories of farmers and families, all form an amazing tapestry of our mutual commitment to the cause of justice for African American farmers and families.

Some matters are simply intellectual pursuits and look good in a faculty member’s tenure and promotion file, but justice is at the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a reflection of the reign of God’s kingdom in this world. Our calling as followers of the Man from Nazareth is to leave the world a better place than we found it, one act of righteousness at a time.

Simply put, I am very grateful for your willingness to entrust to Charla and me the stories of your lives, and to allow us to walk with you and to fight with you on behalf of African American farmers and families. My commitment is to “wear” the award with dignity, respect, and humility.

With love and respect, and on behalf of Black farmers and families,

Waymon R. Hinson, Ph.D.
Activist/Advocate/Researcher