Black History is Every Month: Malcolm X's Explosive Comments About Elijah Muhammed; Walter Mosley: Enough with the Victors...
philip panaritis
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In 1964, the rift between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammed, founder of the Nation of Islam, would reach a tense peak. In a fiery interview, X revealed a scandalous secret about his one-time ally. (1:43)
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I have studied the great powers that vie to control what they want us to believe about the past; but I don’t identify with them. I identify with the librarians who, when asked by GW Bush to report on their visitors’ reading habits, held up a hand and said, “First Amendment.” I identify with outsider artists and labor organizers and autodidacts who either refuse to or are unable to believe in the lies foisted upon us by the conquerors. I identify with the belief that there exists a history out there just beyond the reach of our powers of cognition. And I believe that a lie is a lie; that if you coexist with a population that helped to build your house, your culture, your music, a population that helped to raise your children and fine-tune your language, and you deny that culture’s impact on who you are… then your knowledge of history will fail you and the past will devour you and your children.
If you deny your past your future will be a detour around your fondest hopes and dreams.
"Speaking to the Daily News, several reporters and neighbors all confirmed that the husband who was shot was black, but said that they do not yet know the ethnicity of the officer who shot him.
Whatever the case, the violent encounter should help illuminate the very real fears so many black families have when calling the police. This family needed help. They wanted to report a crime in their neighborhood. The husband wanted to protect his wife. These are all very basic rights we have, but day after day we see that gun rights don't really apply equally to African-Americans.
Merely reaching for his wallet got Philando Castile shot and killed in his own car. Having a gun in his pocket caused police to shoot Alton Sterling repeatedly in his back and chest."
"We’re trying to find out what we can about Sgt. Alfred Adams, from Albany, a member of Company C (the Albany Company) of the 369th Regiment (the Harlem Hell Fighters) awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government in World War I.
By now most of you are very familiar with the story Sgt. Henry Johnson from Albany – posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery in World War I. As the story goes, he enlisted with about a half dozen other Black men from Albany, many of whom worked for the railroad. We’re pretty sure Alfred Adams was one of those men.*
This is what we know: He was born to Jacob and Caroline Sawyer Adams in 1897 in Albany. They appeared to have lived on Orange St., at various addresses, before Alfred enlisted in 1917. His father was a waiter (probably for the D & H Railroad). He had younger brother and sister, Edwin and Pauline. His father was active in community organizations, including the Elim House, for “colored young women” on Orange St. in the early 1900s and the Albany Inter-racial Council in the 1940s.
The story of the Harlem Hell Fighters (the 369th Infantry) is fascinating. It was a Black unit (the U.S. Army wasn’t de-segregated until 1948 by Pres. Truman) formed from the 15th NY National Guard, created to recruit Black men for World War I. It was among the first U.S. units shipped to Europe to help the French – desperate for American aid. General Pershing, commander of the American forces, was caught between a rock and a hard place. White troops didn’t want to fight in combat with black troops, yet Pershing didn’t want American soldiers to take orders from French officers. Finally, Pershing relented, and permitted the 369th to fight under French officers, rather than just serving in a support role, as was the case with most Black American troops."
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