“No one seems to think it  significant that upon the policemen’s arrival Kajieme Powell possibly had  reason to fear for his life and reacted in a manner consistent with his  disability.” ––Article excerpt (Aberjhani) “Democracy is not a gift of power,  but a reservoir of knowledge.” –– from The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois The month of August happens to be  one in which a number of notable events in African-American history, relatively  recent in historical terms, have occurred. There are the birthdays of such  celebrated individuals as author James Baldwin (Aug. 2), President Barack Obama  (Aug. 4), and philanthropist and performing artist Michael Jackson (Aug. 29). From this point forward, people  shall also certainly recall August 9, 2014, as the day when 18-year-old’s Michael Brown’s death served to ignite a series of violent night-time protests  eerily reminiscent of similar scenes from the 1960s. The chaos also funct...

Varieties of angels, like varieties of love, are many. It is therefore not too surprising that the angelic imagery utilized to help celebrate Valentine’s Day tends to range from innocent blushing cherubs to winged beauties swagged out in erotic creations worthy of placement in a Victoria’s Secret catalog. Valentine’s Day itself, like most holidays in the modern era, has been heavily influenced by commercialism that focuses on the appeal of romantic fantasies. The effective marketing of Valentine fantasy movies such as Winter’sTale (with Colin Farrell, Jennifer Connelly, and Jessica Brown Findlay);and the film Endless Love (with Gabriella Wilde and Alex Pettyfer) support that observation. Movies can provide tear-inducing or comically-entertaining representations of love but many agree that its deeper conflicting complexities often seem unfathomable. That is largely because different human hearts often interpret their experiences of love in different ways. ...

                                Cover of Notes to the Future by Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu . “Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.” ––Nelson Mandela, Presidential Inauguration Address When Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela stood before the people of South Africa on May 10, 1994, as its first black and democratic president, the moment represented much more than a personal victory. It embodied the kind of glimpse into humanity’s potential for harmonious coexistence that history rarely provides. Neither the concept nor the practice of persecution were invented the day Mr. Mandela began as a middle-aged man serving his 27-year prison sentence on Robben Island in 1963.  There are nevertheless, in his case, the notable distinctions of excruciating sacrifice, phenomenal grace, and uncommon personal evolution which moved almost 100 wor...

Not far from the scene of the Boston Marathon bombing, a toddler kneels before a memorial to the victims of the atrocity.  ( Photo by Jim Bourg and Reuters ) For those so inclined, it was and is natural in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing to share prayers and thoughts for healing on behalf of victims and their families. Many have conditioned themselves to respond in such a manner partly because it is within their power to do so and partly because they hope others would feel moved in the same way toward them if they were the ones whose bodies and sanity had been shattered so brutally. Victims, after all, within the context of terrorism––whether homegrown or imported––are much like newborn innocents simply because they have not signed up for a war. In this particular case, they had simply stepped out into the light of day intending to honor, preserve, and celebrate a long-standing tradition. Some might argue (and in fact some do) that America, like much of th...

Montage of African Americans and Abraham Lincoln illustrating significance of the Emancipation Proclamation . ( Image courtesy of Library of Congress Public Domain ) Welcome to the first of this special 3-part article series presented in honor of the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation : The fact that an African American sits in the White House at the helm of government in the United States of America on this 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation represents both phenomenal political symbolism and a victory of faith in democracy that should not be lost on any American. Thoughts of the Emancipation Proclamation or the text of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S.  Constitution generally evoke images of American Blacks departing fields and kitchens to lend their own interpretation to the country’s great experiment in western democracy. But the end of legalized slavery did more than provide liberation for the bodie...

                           American troops maintaining their holiday spirit in the face of war .                                                           (Reuters photo by Saad Shalash) Why do you think certain creative works make such a powerful and lasting impact on a wide range of people? By way of example, consider the very edgy TV drama series Homeland , the current hit movie Lincoln , and Clint Eastwood’s modern film classic Letters from Iwo Jima ; or books such as The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and The Diary of Anne Frank . Their sustained impact likely endures because they achieve what the best of the cultural arts generally do–– they step beyond blinders of national restrictions to shine a transcendent light on the universality of the human experienc...

President Barack Obama standing with the Red Cross and the nation in the face of Hurricane Sandy's historic devastation . (Reuters photo by Larry Downing) As much as many of us prefer to believe we now live in a “post-racial America,” fairly staggering evidence continues to accumulate to the contrary. Former President Bill Clinton, Reverend Al Sharpton, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Huffington Post bloggers, and other public figures have spent  much of their time during the 2012 presidential election campaign sounding alarms against voter suppression targeting African Americans and Latinos. These proposed types of suppression have taken the form of newly-required photo IDs, the cancellation of early voting on the Sunday before the election , the requirement of a long-term address over a given period of time, and other recently-invented criteria. Moving beyond the immediate political implications of these attempts, Clinton has asked th...

                        Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney . (Reuters photo by Jim Young) Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney at this point can claim with some justification that the media’s treatment of his “47 percent” comments, made at a private fundraiser in May in Florida, fall solidly in the category of guerrilla decontextualization. Yet, of all those powerful men and women who might have flocked to Mr. Romney’s defense in the wake of the PR nightmare that followed, only his running mate Paul Ryan did so with any kind of half-way convincing persuasive immediacy. Many former allies of Mr. Romney are now in fact performing that odd horizontal shuffle called “distancing” that politicians sometimes do so well when the word “stigma” threatens to attach itself to a colleague.  Such tends to be the case whether said colleague is wealthy, powerful, handsome, ugly, or none of the...

Poster commemorating 1st anniversary of execution of Troy Anthony Davis . (courtesy of NAACP) From the time he was first placed on trial for the murder of Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989 until his death by execution one year ago, September 21, 2011, more questions than answers have tended to accumulate where the case of Troy Anthony Davis was and is concerned. As far as any observers––including such trained onlooker as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Amnesty International, and Color of Change–– have been able to tell, Davis was not executed because he was proven guilty.  He was executed because technicalities of applied legal practice and questionable choices in regard to his defense failed to confirm his innocence. For the average person, such a distinction is murky at best. For Troy Anthony Davis––and for an as yet undetermined number of individuals––it literally meant the difference between life and death. ...

                               ( Photo of late actor Michael Clarke Duncan by Ethan Miller for WireImage ) Since his emergence during the 1980s and 1990s as a master of horror and suspense, author Stephen King has enjoyed popularity among a racially diverse reading audience. His popularity among African Africans likely ticked up a notch when his novel The Green Mile was made into a movie in 1999 and the late Michael Clarke Duncan brilliantly brought King’s character, John Coffey, to awe-inspiring life. Duncan, who died September 3, 2012, at the age of 54 from complications following a heart attack suffered in July, received an Academy Award nomination for the role. Moreover, he actually won the Saturn Award, Black Reel Award, Broadcast Film Critics Association Critics’ Choice Award, and Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for his performance. The accolades that rained upon...

                         C lassic silhouette of "King of Pop" Michael Jackson . (public domain) Assistant program director “Lady Grace" at Savannah State University’s WHCJ radio station (90.3 FM) pointed out during one of her shows at the beginning of June that June and August represented the station’s “Michael Jackson time.” By that, she meant listeners could expect to hear during these months an occasional extended broadcast of music by the late enduringly great Mr. Jackson . She then launched into an uninterrupted set that lasted for longer than I could stay tuned in to listen. The music spanned every period of the creative genius’s exceptionally prolific career and included a variety of samplers from innovative mixes by diverse musicians and producers. In contrast: I recalled a fellow author informing me that she was “burned out” on Michael Jackson and didn’t see the point of different people’s cont...

Cover of the forthcoming Visions of a Skyalrk Dressed in Black eBook . The story behind the annual Juneteenth celebration is now fairly well known. The event commemorates June 19, 1865, the day slaves in Galveston, Texas, and other parts of the state learned for the first time they had actually been freed via the Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier. There is not much with which to compare such an event to in the year 2012 . But try this: imagine how a group of prisoners might feel if they learned their innocence had been proven years ago and orders for their release signed but left forgotten in someone’s desk drawer. At this point in time, just three years before the 150th anniversary of Juneteenth, the holiday has come to represent a great deal more than recognition of delayed freedom. A statement from the Juneteenth Worldwide Celebration website founded by Clifford Robinson put it as follows: "Juneteenth is a day of reflection, a day of renewal, a p...

(Cover of Whitney Houston's brilliant debut album .) With the death of Soul Train founder Don Cornelius at the very beginning of the month, and that of Whitney Houston on February 11, Black History Month 2012 is fated to go down in history as one during which the world lost two of its greatest champions of African-American music. Moreover, since almost two weeks still remain in the month, one presents such a statement with noted caution. Yet as the world community and the good people of Newark, New Jersey, bid farewell to the elegant Whitney Elizabeth Houston, it seems appropriate to pause a moment and give some consideration to things of an elevated nature. To repeat myself from another occasion: Sometimes an angel gets in my head and refuses to leave until I write down whatever it says. It felt that way when Michael Jackson passed in 2009 and it feels like that now. Please click the following link to read the full editorial and poem by Aberjhani in honor of Whitney...