by A. Peter Bailey
(TriceEdneyWire.com)—Black master teachers, including Brothers Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Jerome Bennett Jr., Harold Cruse, Hoyt Fuller, John Henrik Clarke, and Sisters including Fannie Lou Hamer, C. DeLores Tucker, France Cress Wesling, and Myrlie Evers-Williams didn’t totally agree on every issue confronting Black folks. However, the one thing that they all agreed on was the absolute necessity for serious Black unity in this country and in the world.
Their beliefs were based on the principle that Black unity was the most effective way to promote and protect our health, economic, cultural, political, educational, technological, and communication interest in a nation in which most of the majority population insist that they are inherently superior just because they are White.
It’s way past time for those of us who honor and celebrate the great lives of the above master teachers to understand that until we achieve the kind of unity they advocated we will be physically and psychologically abused by the proponents of White supremacy.
One of the ways to do that is to set up unity conferences throughout the country and cities that have sizeable Black populations. Those of us who live in urban areas such as New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans, Richmond, Nashville, Detroit, and Cleveland, etc. should host events that focus on the need for unity of our people. Following that there should be a national conference during which each entity will present their action plans for discussion and eventually a unified action.
Believe me, I am well aware that what I am proposing is not going to happen overnight….But I do believe that there are enough serious Black folks in this country to begin laying the groundwork for a serious degree of Black unity. One of our master teachers Brother Martin has a birthday coming up very soon.
The best way to celebrate and honor him is to make sure that any event one participates in or just attends will be given a quote by Brother Martin which makes very clear his profound belief in Black unity. It goes as follows: “Groups and training centers now proliferating in some slum areas to create not nearly an electorate but a consensus, alert and informed people who know their direction and whose collective wisdom and vitality commands respect…. Power is not the White man’s birthright. It will not be legislated to us and delivered to us in neat government packages. It is a social force any group can utilize by accumulating its elements in a planned, deliberate campaign to organize it under its own control.”
Brother Martin was asking for real deal Black unity.
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