Black Life Texas
The Strength from Which You Came
By Caleb Alexander
I think about my mother often, my grandmother as well. I think about the stories they told, my mother’s
of the Black Power Movement, and my grandmother’s of the Civil Rights Movement. I remember
hearing these stories from my grandmother’s mother, and from my great-great-grandmother as well.
Each had their own stories to tell; stories of strength, of struggle, of perseverance. I think about the
women who helped raise me, my village, the women in my old neighborhood, my teachers, and the
mothers in the church where my grandmother played the piano for more than 40 years. I think about
their stories, their wisdom, but most of all, I think about their strength.
I was surrounded my entire life by strong women, educated, but down-home, their voices thick with
Louisiana accents, which was like gumbo for my soul. Phenomenal women, all of them, but not unique. I
looked at them in awe, but they were just being Black women, living the way Black women had always
lived. Walking in their power, walking in their glory, walking in their strength. Where did this magnificent
essence come from, I used to wonder, and then I began to learn history and realized it was in their DNA.
It was in college when I first learned of Queen Nzinga Mbande, ruler of the Mbundu people who
inhabited what is now modern-day Angola. Queen Nzinga was fierce. She overthrew her weak brother,
took the kingdom, and went to war to save her people from the horrors of the Trans-Atlantic Slave
Trade. Queen Nzinga was a skilled diplomat, warrior, and politician. She negotiated with the Dutch, led a
combined army against the Portuguese, and successfully waged a war against them for decades. In the
end, Portugal was never able to conquer this indomitable queen. She died peacefully on her throne in
her eighties, having never been subjugated.
It was about the same time that I learned of Queen Amanirenas, a Kushite Queen who took on the might
of the Roman Empire. The Romans had taken Egypt and were hungry to continue their conquest up the
Nile Valley and into Kush. This sister and her Kushite army didn’t wait for Rome to strike first. They took
the fight to Rome. The majority of the grain that was needed to feed the Roman Empire came from
Egypt. Losing Egypt meant the collapse of the Empire, so Rome threw everything it had at this Kushite
Queen with a mighty army sitting on Egypt’s southern border. Queen Amanirenas fought the entire
might of an Empire that was worried about its very survival, and she fought them to a standstill. She
inflicted so many casualties on Rome that five years after the first battle, they sued for peace.
It was later in life that I learned the story of Queen Nanny, who became the leader of the Jamaican
Maroons, a community of formerly enslaved Africans who fought the British for their freedom. Queen
Nanny had been kidnapped in Ghana and enslaved in Jamaica, where she escaped to freedom. She
quickly rose to the top and led the Maroons to freedom. She freed over 800 other enslaved people,
trained her people in guerilla warfare, and decimated the British army until she forced them to sign a
peace treaty guaranteeing the freedom of her people.
I think about these women and many others as well. I think about Black women throughout history, who
have repeatedly fought for freedom and justice, for the survival of a people, and some even fought to
birth a new nation. I can see the line from Amanirenas, to Nzinga, to Nanny, to Harriet Tubman, to
Sojourner Truth, to Mary McLeod Bethune, to Dorothy Height, to Ella Baker, to Fannie Lou Hammer, to
Kathleen Cleaver, to Angela Davis. I can feel it in Mya’s poetry, hear it in Billie’s music. I can see it in
Dunham’s dancing. I can’t wait to sit my daughter down when she comes of age and talk to her about
history. The history of her grandmother, great-grandmother, and great-great-grandmother and about these powerful freedom fighters, warrior queens, and nation builders. I can’t wait to talk to her about the strength from which she came.
Black Life Texas
Power Book II: Ghost Debuts in Starz
The “Power” franchise is back again and adding some Mary J. Blige flair to its latest sequel.
This time, “Power Book II: Ghost” is told through the eyes of young Tariq St. Patrick, the central character, trying to navigate his life to shed his father’s legacy and coming up against the mounting pressure to save his family. Along the way, Tariq gets entangled in the affairs of the cutthroat Tejada family, adding further complications as he tries to balance his drug operations with his education, love life, family affairs, and mounting pressure from Cooper Saxe. He divides his time between school and hustling to pay for his mother’s defense attorney, but Tariq turns to a familiar drug game when he runs out of options.
The “Power” franchise is a television series created and produced by Courtney A. Kemp in collaboration with Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. Upon release in 2014, the series, which airs on Starz, earned positive reviews and is one of the network’s most highly-rated shows.
This spinoff stars Michael Rainey Jr. as Tariq, Shane Johnson as Cooper Saxe, Method Man as Davis Maclean, Mary J. Blige as Moet, Larenz Tate as Councilman Tate, Lovell Adams-Gray as Dru Tejada, and many more familiar characters.
Since 2014, the franchise has spun off into “PowerBook II: Ghost,” “PowerBook III: Raising Kanan,” and “Powerbook IV: Force and BMF.”
Last September, Jackson announced he was leaving Starz. And recently, in February, he announced a multiyear broadcast direct deal with Fox, which is offering him the platform to develop scripted dramas, comedies, and animated series that would air on the network.
Black Life Texas
American Red Cross: On the Right Side of History
On June 1, 1921, over 7,500 angry white Tulsan, armed with weapons and a determination to destroy, crossed the Frisco Railroad Tracks into the segregated Greenwood section of North Tulsa, also known as Black Wall Street. They slaughtered over 300 men, women, and children within seven hours while literally burning down all the businesses and homes within a 33-block area.
After the State National Guard finally arrived in the city and ended that savagery, over 7,000 Black American citizens were left without homes, no food, and their hospital had been destroyed. At that time in the country’s history, it was the worst single-day massacre of fellow citizens and their property.
In 1921 no organizations were willing to assist the 7,000 distraught, homeless men, women and children, except the American Red Cross. Founded in 1881, the organization had never assisted victims of a manmade disaster, especially when those victims happened to be Black. However, Maurice Willows, director of the Southwest Division of the Red Cross, insisted that the organization come to the rescue of what he considered his fellow citizens of the country. He called on his workers to respond as a matter of human life and led a team of volunteers from across the area into the ravaged community to assist what he termed the Black “riot victims.”
Willows’s first act was to order “the incumbent city officials to abdicate power to him for a 60-day period.” He then set up his operating headquarters at the Booker T. Washington High School. For some reason, the high school was not torched. He also set up a makeshift hospital inside one of the classrooms. With the extreme possibility of disease spreading due to the number of dead bodies lying in the streets, Willows obtained vaccines and inoculated 1,800 people against tetanus, typhoid, and smallpox. According to the Red Cross records, 163 operations were conducted in the make-shift hospital, saving a considerable number of lives. The Red Cross also attended to 763 lesser wounded men, women, and children.
The Red Cross workers set up tents throughout the community for the residents whose homes had been burned to the ground from turpentine-soaked explosives thrown from low-flying airplanes. Many of those residents lived in tents throughout the winter of 1921-22. One special tent was erected and filled with sewing machines. The women were put to work making clothes, quilts, cot pads, sheets, and pillows, while the men helped to erect the tents.
The Red Cross stayed in Tulsa for seven months and spent over $100,000 in its sustained relief effort. Along with the material necessities, they also provided the angry and often depressed residents of Greenwood with a much-needed psychological uplift. When it appeared that all was lost, Willows and the other white volunteers showed up and immediately gave the distraught residents hope. They were extremely grateful for Willows and the others that accompanied him to Tulsa. In a letter sent to him years later by a collective assembly of Black Tulsa residents, they wrote, “Thank God for the Red Cross helping us to shut out of our lives that what is evil.”
No doubt that early in its existence, the American Red Cross was on the right side of history.
Red Cross Black History Facts (from the website of the American Red Cross)
Frederick Douglass, a prominent abolitionist, orator, and author, first met Red Cross founder Clara Barton shortly after the end of the Civil War. During the war, Barton risked her life to bring supplies and support to soldiers, including the all-Black Massachusetts 54th Regiment, which Douglass recruited. The story of the 54th Regiment formed the basis for the 1991 film “Glory.”
Douglass offered advice and support to Barton in her efforts to gain American acceptance as a member nation of the global Red Cross network. Douglass signed the original Articles of Incorporation for the Red Cross, which later documented the creation of the American Red Cross.
Frances Reed Elliott Davis was the first officially registered African American nurse to be accepted into the Red Cross Nursing Service, where she provided medical care for the families of service members during World War I.
Mary McLeod Bethune was an advisor to the U.S. president. She was invited to two American Red Cross wartime conferences to discuss African American representation within the organization. As a result of these conferences, the “Committee on Red Cross Activities with Respect to the Negro” formed. Bethune was one of five committee members who made recommendations on the blood plasma project, the use of African-American staff in overseas service clubs, the enrollment of African-American nurses and the representation of African Americans on local and national Red Cross committees and staff departments.
Dr. Jerome Holland became a member of the American Red Cross Board of Governors in 1964. President Jimmy Carter later appointed him as chairman of the American Red Cross Board of Governors in 1979. He was the first African American to hold this position (one of the highest-ranking positions at the Red Cross). Because of his commitment to the Red Cross, he was appointed again in 1982. While serving on the board, Dr. Holland showed a passion for blood research and took the lead in consolidating growing laboratory operations for the Red Cross Blood Services program. After his death in 1985, the organization named its biomedical research facility in Rockville, Md., the Jerome H. Holland Laboratory for the Biomedical Sciences.
Black Life Texas
Game, Match, Set – Part Five
A Mother’s Justice – A Short Story by Caleb Alexander
“There’s been a lot of strange things happening around this case, your honor!” Defense Attorney Gabe Kline said, standing next to his client. He had been hired by the Fraternal Order of Police to represent the man who killed my son.
“We have mysterious USBs showing up at the police station, at the local and national news stations, at the district attorney’s office, and God knows where else. I find it mighty disturbing that police body camera footage, footage that was completely lost, was somehow found and then distributed in this manner. 9-1-1 calls that were lost have magically turned up and somehow found their way to the media. Don’t you find this a little strange, your honor?”
“Make your point, counselor,” Judge Phillipa Bass ordered.
“My point is, judge, my client has rights,” Gabe Kline argued. “This body cam footage is highly prejudicial and misleading under the best of circumstances. It doesn’t convey the full picture of what happened that day. And having it spread all over the news is going to deny my client his Constitutional Right to an unbiased jury and thus a fair trial.”
“To my understanding, in every single similar case, where there has been an officer-involved shooting, the police departments themselves have released incident footage to the public,” Judge Bass replied. “Why would it not be in this case? The media has been highly opinionated in this case from the very beginning. When they were insinuating drug involvement before the autopsy report was made public that showed that narrative was false, I didn’t hear a peep about public scrutiny or potential bias.”
“Judge, I move for a mistrial,” Kline stated.
“On what grounds?”
“The release of the body cam footage.”
“Denied,” Judge Bass said. “Take it up with SAPD.”
“They aren’t the ones who released that footage!” Kline said forcefully.
“They’re the only ones who had access to it,” Judge Bass told him. “If it came from anywhere, it came from there.”
“Judge, I move for a motion to suppress the body camera footage and the 9-1-1 tapes,” Kline said.
“Let me get this straight,” Judge Bass said, leaning forward and peering over the spectacles resting on her nose. “You want to suppress evidence that the world has already seen, and that came from the police department?”
“It shouldn’t be considered, it’s misleading and prejudicial.”
“Oh, I think it’s very relevant, and I think that the jury should see it as part of the truth-seeking function of the trial process,” Judge Bass said sternly. “Your motion is denied.”
“This is bull crap!” Officer Vincent Mayorga shouted. “This whole thing is a setup! It’s rigged! The whole thing has been rigged!”
I stared at the monster who killed my son. I wanted to run to the defense table and choke the life out of him. I knew that I was squeezing the blood out of my husband’s hand.
“Order! Order in the court!” Phillipa shouted, banging her gavel. “Counselor, control your client, or I’ll find you both in contempt!”
“This is a setup!” Officer Mayorga shouted. He rose from his seat, causing the bailiffs to rush to his table and constrain him. “How could I have an all-Black grand jury? How? In this city? How? And then a Black prosecutor? And a Black judge?”
“You have a problem with my ethnicity?” Phillipa asked, peering over her glasses.
“No, your honor!” Kline said, grabbing his client. “He’s just a little distraught right now!”
“This system is rigged!” Officer Mayorga shouted.
“Bailiff, remove him from my courtroom!” Phillipa said, banging her gavel. “Officer Mayorga, you are hereby in contempt of court. Your bail is hereby revoked. All motions are hereby dismissed. This trial is set for Monday! I will have you restrained and gagged if you try this on Monday, Officer Mayorga. And if that is the way you want to sit in front of the jury, that is fine with me! Court is dismissed!”
Assistant District Attorney Genevieve Kingston gathered her materials and then walked to where I was seated. “I have this, you can stop now.”
“Vivi, what are you talking about?” I asked.
“Really?” she asked, tilting her head. “Girl, stop. I don’t want anything coming back on appeal. I got him.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The 9-1-1 call? The body cam footage showing up at my office?”
“Not me.”
“Then you tell Tenayson that I’m going to kill her!” Genevieve winked at me and walked off. “I got this, girlfriend! Trust me, I got this!”
To Be Continued ….
Power Book II: Ghost Debuts in Starz
American Red Cross: On the Right Side of History
Game, Match, Set – Part Five
-
Community3 weeks agoCelebrating 100 Years – Saleta Rodgers
-
Black Life Texas4 weeks agoBlack Leadership and the role of the church
-
Black Life Texas4 weeks agoAdidas and Ye Friends Again
-
Black Life Texas2 weeks agoChris Rock Breaks Silence with Netflix Special
-
Black Life Texas4 weeks agoThe Cover Up – Part II
-
Black Life Texas3 weeks agoA Mixture of Black Girl Magic
-
Business2 weeks agoBexar County Couple Offers Counseling & Mentorship Program
-
Black Life Texas4 weeks agoNunn To Lose! Exhibition Show Turns TKO
You must be logged in to post a comment.