Saluting Women For Their Amazing Greatness

I am proud to salute and pay homage to all of the women of the women of the world who are given a monumental task in life and, therefore, during Women’s History Month, I want to share my GREAT appreciation for those who are the givers of life. Further, let me give special honor all of the beautiful Black Women who, as we know, were the first soul to give life to this little rock called earth.

History tells us, and His-story agrees that the oldest known human remains discovered was that of a black woman, whose name was “Lucy,” found in African over 4 million years ago. It is also a fact, although we are lead to believe differently, Africa is the cradle of mankind, and that is believed to be the first place to produce the first human life, which means a black woman gave birth to mankind in a place called Pangaea.

These amazing creatures proud, strong, bear the distinction of creating and continuing the species of human life, caring for family, and they carry the world on her shoulders. A woman gives life, maintains life, and determines the help of her child or death by her nurturing – an awesome responsibility. She is God’s greatest creation. So it is fitting that we give praise and a special honor to these amazing women. This post is not meant to exclude any woman regardless of ethnicity or hue because you are also of distinction. It is meant to express my profound gratitude and appreciation for the wonders and wonderful mothers of the earth – Black Women.

Some may say that today’s black woman, particularly the young women, have lost their way. This is a subjective statement, which may be true to some degree, but I believe each woman have the power to change that perception by guiding these young girls into womanhood. Each woman, deep down, knows the nurturer in her soul and a real woman understands her strength and uses that power positively as a gift to mankind. I’ll say, the mantra so often used – a “Strong Black Woman” is misguided because your strength is in unity, and I will leave that there as my perspective.

We can remember, I hope, Big Mama, who was the backbone of our families for generations in the mists of mind boggling adversity. She was the strength of the black race, supporting her man, teaching and caring for her children. She is the kind of woman, the model, that I dedicate this article, and pay homage to her and those like her, for being the family’s greatest gift; a proud woman with wisdom, pride, and dedication with one purpose “family”. It is a role that nearly every woman will be granted someday.

If I may say, unlike, at any time in our history, you have a perfect role model for you, First Lady Michelle Obama, our crowned queen as an example for which to follow. She portrays for the world to see what a black woman is – proud, graceful, supporting, dignified and charming.

Personally, my greatest heroine was Harriet Tubman because of her bravery and courage. It has been more than a century since her death, and I continue to be haunted by a powerful statement she made shortly before that fateful day. She was asked by a reporter if she knew how many slave she saved while conducting the Underground Railroad? She said, without hesitation, “I could have freed a lot more if they had only known they were slaves?” POWERFUL!!!

I respect and honor her because she risked her life for the benefit of others traveling back to rescue many captive souls, dozens of times after she escaped herself during a time that we cannot imagine today. Ladies, she demonstrated the amazement that is you, deep in your soul. Let me be clear, today some of you want to be men and have forsaken your black man. Also, I know there are good and bad women, God knows I know because the person who delivered me was such, but there were other women who pulled me through.

These are just a few exceptional women that I am particularly proud of because of their integrity, pride, dignity, and fortitude, but there are so many more worthy of praise. So for those that came before you or walk amongst you; like Phyllis Wheatley, May Jemison, Mya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey, Madam CJ Walker, Sojourner Truth, the Queen of Sheba, Nefertiti, Big Mama, Isis, and you! Therefore, I salute you “woman” and not to be left out the millions of heroines that the world has been blessed to share with us, know that we need you and that you are loved.

This post was inspired by a black woman, who shared her emotions that I hope all women feel showing the strength within her soul – PLEASE READ! If you are an amazing woman or know someone who is – add her to this list to be honored for she is the queen of life!!! And that’s my thought provoking perspective…

JUST A SEASON

Unsung Matriarch Of Civil Rights: Dorothy Height

The modern Civil Right movement has had many dedicated soldiers. We know the names, Parks, Tubman, and others but one name seems to have been forgotten by most. She was just as dedicated as any of the greats. Her name was Dorothy Irene Height, who in my view should be called the Matriarch of the movement. Dr. Height established a national reputation as a graceful insistent voice for civil rights and women’s rights. She was a tireless crusader for racial justice and gender equality spanning more than six decades and regarded as the “Godmother of the Civil Rights Movement.”

Dr. Height was born in Richmond, Virginia. She moved with her family to Rankin, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh early in her life where she attended racially integrated schools. She was admitted to Barnard College in 1929, but upon her arrival, she was denied entrance because the school had an unwritten policy of admitting only two black students. She pursued studies instead at New York University earning a degree in 1932 and a master’s degree in educational psychology the following year.

Dr. Height served on the advisory council of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the National Advisory Council on Aging. Her awards included 36 honorary doctorates from colleges and universities, including Harvard and Princeton. Also, Dr. Height was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and on her 92nd birthday, she received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest decoration Congress can bestow.

Dr. Height was among a coalition of African American leaders who pushed civil rights to the forefront of the American political stage after World War II. She was instrumental, and a key figure, in the struggles for school desegregation, voting rights, employment opportunities and public accommodations in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Dr. Height was president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years, relinquishing that title at the age of 95.

National Council of Negro Women is a four million member advocacy group consisting of 34 national and 250 community-based organizations. It was founded in 1935 by educator Mary McLeod Bethune, who was one of Height’s mentors. Dr. Height was a civil rights activist who participated in protests in Harlem during the 1930’s. In the 1940’s, she lobbied First Llady Eleanor Roosevelt on behalf of civil rights causes and in the 1950’s she prodded President Dwight D. Eisenhower to move more aggressively on school desegregation issues.

President Obama issued an official statement White House that reads as follows: Dr. Height was “a hero to so many Americans… Dr. Height devoted her life to those struggling for equality . . . witnessing every march and milestone along the way… And even in the final weeks of her life — a time when anyone else would have enjoyed their well-earned rest Dr. Height continued her fight to make our nation a more open and inclusive place for people of every race, gender, background, and faith.”

As a young woman, Dr. Height made money through jobs such as ironing entertainer Eddie Cantor’s shirts and proofreading Marcus Garvey’s newspaper, the Negro World. She went nightclubbing in Harlem with composer W.C. Handy. Dr. Height began her professional career as a caseworker for the New York City welfare department. She got her start as a civil rights activist through the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, and from the pastor’s son, the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who later represented Harlem in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In the 1940’s, Dr. Height came to Washington as chief of the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA branch. She joined the staff of the national YWCA board in 1944 through 1975. She remained on that staff with a variety of responsibilities, including leadership training and interracial and ecumenical education. In 1965, she organized and became the director of the YWCA’s Center for Racial Justice, and she held that position until retiring from the YWCA board in 1975.

Dr. Height became national president of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority in 1947 holding that position until 1957 when she became the fourth president of the National Council of Negro Women. She was a visiting professor at the Delhi School of Social Work in India, and she directed studies around the world on issues involving human rights.

During the turmoil of the civil rights struggles in the 1960’s, Dr. Height helped orchestrate strategies with major civil rights leaders including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, Whitney Young, James Farmer, Bayard Rustin and John Lewis. She later served as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia. Congressman John Lewis said when Dr. Height announced her retirement as president of the National Council of Negro Women – “At every major effort for progressive social change, Dorothy Height has been there.” She was also energetic in her efforts to overcome gender bias, and much of that work predated the women’s rights movement.

Dr. Height was the most influential woman at the top levels of civil rights leadership, but she never drew the major media attention that conferred celebrity and instant recognition on some of the other civil rights leaders of her time. In August 1963, Dr. Height was on the platform with King when he delivered his “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Less than a month later, at King’s request, she went to Birmingham, Ala. to minister to the families of four black girls who had died in a church bombing linked to the racial strife that had engulfed the city.

In 1995, Dr. Height was among the few women to speak at the Million Man March on the Mall led by Louis Farrakhan, the chief minister of the Nation of Islam. “I am here because you are here,” she declared. Two years later, at 85, she sat at the podium all day in the whipping wind and chill rain at the Million Woman March in Philadelphia.

She would often remark, “Stop worrying about whose name gets in the paper and start doing something about rats, and day care and low wages. . . . We must try to take our task more seriously and ourselves more lightly.” She also famously said, “If the times aren’t ripe, you have to ripen the times.” It was important to dress well she said, “I came up at a time when young women wore hats, and they wore gloves. Too many people in my generation fought for the right for us to be dressed up and not put down.”

“She was a dynamic woman with a resilient spirit, who was a role model for women and men of all faiths, races, and perspectives. For her, it wasn’t about the many years of her life, but what she did with them,” said former U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexis M. Herman. Dr. Height is a national treasure who lived life abundantly and for the abundance of others. She will be greatly missed, not only by those of us who knew her well but by the countless beneficiaries of her enduring legacy.

In my novel “Just a Season,” I talked about the “Dash” that will be placed on our final marker between the years of one’s birth and death that will represent the whole of a person’s life. I said that to say, this tiny little dash on Dr. Height’s marker will not adequately give enough credit for her outstanding life’s work. It should have an inscription that says – “Servant of God, Well Done.” And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…

A Queen In Name Only

It is a fact that the black woman is the foundation of the African American Diaspora. There is no doubt the black woman is the greatest gift given to the world. She is the most powerful force ever created and the mother of life. Therefore, it is an honor to say she is our foundation, but our rock is crumbling and that means so is our salvation; causing much despair and possibly our extinction.

In the last thirty – forty years or so, something happened. We seemed to have forsaken the struggles that bound all black people to join the causes of everyone else who claims to have an issue. It’s called divide and conquer!

If you follow Thought Provoking Perspectives, you know I don’t shy away from controversy, rather offer hard truths or at least give you something to think about. Sometimes these truths are disturbing, as is this documentary, but more often than not; I hope my words produce thought and hopefully leading to solutions. If nothing else it may cause you to view thing from a different perspective.

One of my followers sent me this documentary that is the first in the groundbreaking series that lay out in INTELLIGENT terms, according to the producer, why Black America is in dire straights. It speaks to issues, such as; where the black woman went wrong. Whether you agree with what’s said in the video or not; the African American Diaspora is in trouble. So the question is; what can be done to bring about unity?

Let’s talk about it!

What say you!

A Message For The Black Woman

I want to say from the outset that this message is not intended to discredit black women because I LOVE black women – my mother, sister, grandma, aunts, and most of the women in my family are black women. God gave you to the world for a divine and important purpose, which is why you are the original mother and the first woman.

These words are intended as an observation of my experiences with black women and what white supremacy has done to corrupt their thinking. First, the system of supremacy has corrupted your thinking – in other words, brainwashed many of you. I say this because you, most, believe and love their white Jesus more than you love your man!

The God you worship so vehemently created the black man for you. He is the strongest man in the universe and also divine. You are the foundation of the family, which means to support him, bare and raise his children; which is the sole reason we were created to continue the species.

There are too many black women who have adopted the white woman’s liberation movement, and the concept of feminism, which is toxic to successful black families and life. Those issues are not the black woman’s issues. Your issues are the same as that of the black man, which is to be united and fight the forces and the system of oppression imposed upon you and I as black people.

I decided to write this post because there are clear representations of your views in survey after survey. Rich or poor, educated or not, black women sometimes feel as though the imposed myths are stalking them like shadows, their lives are reduced to a string of labels. Such as the angry black woman; the strong black woman; the unfeeling black woman; and true or not the manless black woman. Sophia Nelson Author of “Black Woman Redefined” was quoted in the article saying “Black women haven’t really defined themselves.”

Frankly, you are defined by your actions and white people. I know you think white people and his white Jesus loves you – they don’t. In fact, most black women love Jesus so much that they out Pope the Pope. The Jesus they have you worshiping, if he lived at all, was a black man. Yes, he looks like your man – the black who white folk taught you to hate. Now I know you did not hear this in the church today. Frankly, the church only wants your money, and the “pimp in the pulpit” did nothing for you today other than make you feel good for an hour. Then return to doing the same thing you were doing all week.

There was a nationwide survey conducted by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation some time ago. From it emerged a complex portrait of black women who feel confident but vulnerable, who have high self-esteem and see physical beauty as most important, and who find career success more vital to them than marriage. The survey represents the most extensive exploration of the lives and views of black women in decades.

Of course, they hit on the usual topics such as Religion being essential to most black women’s lives adding that being in a romantic relationship is not all that important. The survey showed nearly three-quarters of black women say now is a good time to be a black woman in America, and yet a similar proportion worry about having enough money to pay their bills. Half of black women surveyed call racism a “big problem” in the country; nearly half worry about being discriminated against. Eighty-five percent say they are satisfied with their own lives, but one-fifth say they are often treated with less respect than other people.

According to the stereotype, “black women even educated women are b—— and wh—-, and they run men out of their lives because they are so mean, and they don’t want a man and blah, blah,” says Palmer an Atlanta lawyer who helped lead protests of rapper Nelly’s controversial “Tip Drill” video when she was a student at Spelman College. “My law firm has no African American female partners. It has to do with how we are seen. And our value is based on what the media shows the world we are.”

Black women were once described as the “mules of the world” by Zora Neale Hurston, whose biting literature made her one of the most influential black writers of the early 20th century. Her reference to mules — the workhorses of the American South — pointed to the backbreaking manual labor that black women were expected to perform, and the limits placed on their vocations. Throughout history, black women have been over-represented in the workforce compared with other women and have come to embrace work as an enduring part of their sense of self, says Constance C.R. White.

It is a fact that the black woman is the mother of all mankind. Having said that black women know there is an institutional system in place that is designed to lower your standard and perception. This is as old as the nation or dare I say the world, which is needed to maintain this misguided principle.

It’s time to change the narrative, unless and until you put family first we cannot and will never build a nation or make any positive move forward toward freedom for your children. So, I say hold your head up, keep looking up, and don’t allow others to define you. Many will have you think differently but know that we love you, your community needs and appreciates you. And that’s my Thought provoking perspective…

The Apology

BUY YOUR COPY TODAY “Just a Season“

Happy Mother’s Day

The Black Mother is the strongest for on earth and God’s greatest creation!

Happy Mother’s Day To All Mothers, And Grandma’s too…

While we honor all our mothers
with words of love and praise.
While we tell about their goodness
and their kind and loving ways.
We should also think of Grandma,
she’s a mother too, you see….

Big Mama was the greatest mother of all.
For she mothered my mother
as my mother mothered me.

 

A Thought For The Ladies

Love In Loneliness

I don’t want my karma to be the curse of repetition. 

For the world to teach me real loneliness,

to rival what I’ve whined about,

to rival the darkness I fear. 

I don’t want my curse to be the devotion I had and lost.

To be replaced with the mirror of my worst fear.

 

I love that I love you and that scares me.

I love that I’m in love with you

the limits I know not of. It is dangerous.

I want to try for you.

I need you to know what I cry for.

I want to breathe in your passion even

if I have to imagine it there.

 

Why won’t you glow for me?

What about me doesn’t inspire effort?

Doesn’t inspire what I feel I do,

and feel and give to you? To us!

Why do you allow me to be a one woman relay?

Passing a baton of hope and of happiness to myself

and begging for you to pick up the anchor leg of this race.

 

Panting for you to meet me half way,

and sweating out bits of myself, as I run to you.  

When will my smile be enough for you to run to me again?

When will my need for you be enough again?

 

I miss you when you are physically here

and it’s heartbreaking.

I’d expect a longing in distance,

but not emptiness in close proximity.

Where are you?

Where is the man that worked tirelessly

to ensure that I knew you were here for me.

Where is he?

 

I need the warmth of him, the embrace

that taught me the special of my being.

Where are you love? I miss you.

Am I still visible enough to be missed too?

Am I still tangible enough to your being,

to still be important enough to your world?

Kathryn Sabir-Beach

THE APOLOGY

On this, the last day of black history month, and a leap year, let us not forget the horrors inflicted upon us for four-hundred years and come together with one single purpose – UNITY! The first step in this effort begins with family and for that we need black women to stand up and stand by black men to do what God intended. Celebrate Black History 365 days each year. Our story is the greatest story ever told. And that’s my thought provoking perspective…

THE APOLOGY by Aisha Williams

They beat me and I called you to save me … but you couldn’t.. so I secretly resented you. They took our babies and sold them, I begged you to save us.. but you couldn’t .. so I secretly blamed you..

They raped me, and I cried out for you to protect me… but you couldn’t…..So I stopped trusting you…

You were supposed to be my man.. my provider.. my protector but when I needed you.. you couldn’t be there… so I hated you…
How could I let you tell me what to do.
When massa could protect me more than you..
How could I submit to you when you are forced to submit to massa?
So to protect myself I submitted to the one who could protect me and our children.

I stopped trusting you..
I stopped loving you..
I stopped honoring you..
I stopped valuing you and in turn I became valueless to you.

I didn’t see the frustration in your eyes when our children were sold..
I didn’t hear your silent cries when I was beaten.
I didn’t see your anger when I was being ravished..
I didn’t understand that you held your emotions to be strong for me..
I thought you didn’t care.. but you wanted to be there…you wanted to protect me.. you wanted to ….

but massa made it so you couldn’t so I would trust him more than you.
I didn’t see the hidden hands shaping our destiny..
all I saw was my pain.. and the feeling that you neglected me..

For all the times I blamed you, I’m sorry
For the resentment and distrust I’ve held against you for centuries.. I’m sorry
For the times I’ve let you down
For all the times I’ve broken your spirit with my words and my actions.
For the times I openly rejected you.. and tried to control you .. because I thought less of you.. I’m sorry..

Massa had a plan.. that he said would work for 400 years.. 400 years is over now.

My eyes are wide open… ..
I see the king in you…

Please forgive my wrongs and see your queen in me.

POETRY By KhaYah (Aisha Williams) ©

Much love and many thanks to Aisha Williams for this powerful poem. Sharing it with the world! John T. Wills

Prison System: The New Apartheid

In recent years, we have witnessed torture inflicted upon people supposedly to protect America. Black people are supposed to be American’s but the state, kills about one black person each week. I’m not talking about the wars abroad supposedly to bring freedom, rather right here on American soil where racism was born. In nearly every city in America black people are victims of abuse at the hands of the police, vigilantes, and murdered that seems to most often go unnoticed by the justice system.

For example, there was the assassination of a young black child in Florida, Travon Martin, which was similar to little Emmett Till over a half century ago. Also, let’s not forget Oscar Grant and Jordon Davis, Michael Brown and Eric Gardner, and so many more that have fallen victim having their rights violated to the point of death.

The Klan is on the rise, and most conservative lawmakers are trying to turn back the hands of time. During this month in the year of our Lord 2015, black people still face the evils of those who are sick, like a Bull Connor, with the seemingly incurable disease of racism. The mass incarceration rate of people of color and minorities are at an unprecedented rate; only compared to the captured soul’s once held in the evil system of slavery.

The Constitution and Western jurisprudence, going back to the Magna Carta and before, do not require a person accused of a crime to prove his or her innocence. The burden of proof is on the prosecutors to convince a jury of one’s “peers” to unanimously agree on guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Not if you are black!

The odds were stacked against minorities and African Americans in particular, from the beginning. This is evident today because black men are sentenced to jail in astounding numbers with extremely long sentences compared to people of the other hue for the same crimes.

I was struck by something Hip-hop duo Dead Prez once said, “Behind me on the wall it says this place is a place of hallowed justice, it should say this is a place of hollow justice, there’s no justice. We’re right in front of the injustice department because for over 40 years we’ve seen Mumia Abu Jamal get no justice, we’ve seen Eddy Conway, we’ve seen Mutulu Shakur, we’ve seen Herman Bell, we’ve seen Jalil Muntaqim, and countless other colonial subjects shot down by the police departments inside this country, no justice.”

Some might say this is “Modern Lynching” or as Michelle Alexander calls it “The New Jim Crow”. It could also be called “American Apartheid”! Today, the prison industry is traded on the Stock Exchange. Did you know that the place where the Stock Exchange exists was once a place where slaves were sold? When laws are made to support the interests of an industry that is designed for profit and to benefit its stockholders; there is not much difference in the once profitable slave industry.

Right now, the United States represents five-percent of the world’s population but incarcerate twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners. And guess which group of people is disproportionately represented in the American criminal injustice system – Just Us. Black people represent a large number of what I call the modern slaves, but the system calls them Felons. Yeah, some kind of “Liberty”!

Lift every voice and demand justice, thereby remove the stigma of “Just Us”. And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…