Waterstar

(**This speech was delivered in 1866 by Georgia Senator. Henry McNeal Turner. What a rare politician. This was in 1866... Who among black politicians in 2012 has the testicular fortitude to deliver such a speech AND mean that thing?**) 1868) Rev. Henry McNeal Turner, “I Claim the Rights of a Man” African Methodist Episcopal minister and later Bishop Henry McNeal Turner emerged immediately after the Civil War as one of the most ardent defenders of African Ameriacn rights. Turner was also among the first group of Reconstruction-era African American elected officials. In July 1868, Turner was among the two state senators and twenty-five black Republican state representatives elected to serve in the Georgia legislature. Less than two months later, Georgia Democrats, the majority of the legislature, boldly expelled all of the black members. On September 3, 1868, Turner stood before the assembled representatives and denounced the legislators who had refused to seat the African American senators and representatives. That speech appears below Mr. Speaker: Before proceeding to argue this question upon its intrinsic merits, I wish the members of this House to understand the position that I take. I hold that I am a member of this body. Therefore, sir, I shall neither fawn nor cringe before any party, nor stoop to beg them for my rights. Some of my colored fellow members, in the course of their remarks, took occasion to appeal to the sympathies of members on the opposite side, and to eulogize their character for magnanimity. It reminds me very much, sir, of slaves begging under the lash. I am here to demand my rights and to hurl thunderbolts at the men who would dare to cross the threshold of my manhood. There is an old aphorism which says, "fight the devil with fire," and if I should observe the rule in this instance, I wish gentlemen to understand that it is but fighting them with their own weapon. The scene presented in this House, today, is one unparalleled in the history of the world. From this day, back to the day when God breathed the breath of life into Adam, no analogy for it can be found. Never, in the history of the world, has a man been arraigned before a body clothed with legislative, judicial or executive functions, charged with the offense of being a darker hue than his fellow men. I know that questions have been before the courts of this country, and of other countries, involving topics not altogether dissimilar to that which is being discussed here today. But, sir, never in the history of the great nations of this world never before has a man been arraigned, charged with an offense committed by the God of Heaven Himself. Cases may be found where men have been deprived of their rights for crimes and misdemeanors; but it has remained for the state of Georgia, in the very heart of the nineteenth century, to call a man before the bar, and there charge him with an act for which he is no more responsible than for the head which he carries upon his shoulders. The Anglo Saxon race, sir, is a most surprising one. No man has ever been more deceived in that race than I have been for the last three weeks. I was not aware that there was in the character of that race so much cowardice or so much pusillanimity. The treachery which has been exhibited in it by gentlemen belonging to that race has shaken my confidence in it more than anything that has come under my observation from the day of my birth. What is the question at issue? Why, sir, this Assembly, today, is discuss¬ing and deliberating on a judgment; there is not a Cherub that sits around God's eternal throne today that would not tremble even were an order is¬sued by the Supreme God Himself to come down here and sit in judgment on my manhood. Gentlemen may look at this question in whatever light they choose, and with just as much indifference as they may think proper to assume, but I tell you, sir, that this is a question which will not die today. This event shall be remembered by posterity for ages yet to come, and while the sun shall continue to climb the hills of heaven. Whose legislature is this? Is it a white man's legislature, or is it a black man's legislature? Who voted for a constitutional convention, in obedience to the mandate of the Congress of the United States? Who first rallied around the standard of Reconstruction? Who set the ball of loyalty rolling in the state of Georgia? And whose voice was heard on the hills and in the valleys of this state? It was the voice of the brawny armed Negro, with the few humanitarian hearted white men who came to our assistance. I claim the honor, sir, of having been the instrument of convincing hundreds yea, thousands of white men, that to reconstruct under the measures of the United States Congress was the safest and the best course for the interest of the state. Let us look at some facts in connection with this matter. Did half the white men of Georgia vote for this legislature? Did not the great bulk of them fight, with all their strength, the Constitution under which we are act¬ing? And did they not fight against the organization of this legislature? And further, sir, did they not vote against it? Yes, sir! And there are persons in this legislature today who are ready to spit their poison in my face, while they themselves opposed, with all their power, the ratification of this Con¬stitution. They question my right to a seat in this body, to represent the people whose legal votes elected me. This objection, sir, is an unheard of monopoly of power. No analogy can be found for it, except it be the case of a man who should go into my house, take possession of my wife and chil¬dren, and then tell me to walk out. I stand very much in the position of a criminal before your bar, because I dare to be the exponent of the views of those who sent me here. Or, in other words, we are told that if black men want to speak, they must speak through white trumpets; if black men want their sentiments expressed, they must be adulterated and sent through white messengers, who will quibble and equivocate and evade as rapidly as the pen¬dulum of a clock. If this be not done, then the black men have committed an outrage, and their representatives must be denied the right to represent their constituents. The great question, sir, is this: Am I a man? If I am such, I claim the rights of a man. Am I not a man because I happen to be of a darker hue than honorable gentlemen around me? Let me see whether I am or not. I want to convince the House today that I am entitled to my seat here. A certain gentleman has argued that the Negro was a mere development similar to the orangoutang or chimpanzee, but it so happens that, when a Negro is examined, physiologically, phrenologically and anatomically, and I may say, physiognomically, he is found to be the same as persons of different color. I would like to ask any gentleman on this floor, where is the analogy? Do you find me a quadruped, or do you find me a man? Do you find three bones less in my back than in that of the white man? Do you find fewer organs in the brain? If you know nothing of this, I do; for I have helped to dissect fifty men, black and white, and I assert that by the time you take off the mucous pigment the color of the skin you cannot, to save your life, distinguish between the black man and the white. Am I a man? Have I a soul to save, as you have? Am I susceptible of eternal development, as you are? Can I learn all the arts and sciences that you can? Has it ever been demonstrated in the history of the world? Have black men ever exhibited bravery as white men have done? Have they ever been in the professions? Have they not as good articulative organs as you? Some people argue that there is a very close similarity between the larynx of the Negro and that of the orangoutang. Why, sir, there is not so much similarity between them as there is between the larynx of the man and that of the dog, and this fact I dare any member of this House to dispute. God saw fit to vary everything in nature. There are no two men alike no two voices alike no two trees alike. God has weaved and tissued variety and versatility throughout the boundless space of His creation. Because God saw fit to make some red, and some white, and some black, and some brown, are we to sit here in judgment upon what God has seen fit to do? As well might one play with the thunderbolts of heaven as with that creature that bears God's image God's photograph. The question is asked, "What is it that the Negro race has done?" Well, Mr. Speaker, all I have to say upon the subject is this: If we are the class of people that we are generally represented to be, I hold that we are a very great people. It is generally considered that we are the children of Canaan, and the curse of a father rests upon our heads, and has rested, all through history. Sir, I deny that the curse of Noah had anything to do with the Negro. We are not the Children of Canaan; and if we are, sir, where should we stand? Let us look a little into history. Melchizedek was a Canaanite; all the Phoenicians all those inventors of the arts and sciences were the posterity of Canaan; but, sir, the Negro is not. We are the children of Cush, and Canaan's curse has nothing whatever to do with the Negro. If we belong to that race, Ham belonged to it, under whose instructions Napoleon Bonaparte studied military tactics. If we belong to that race, Saint Augustine belonged to it. Who was it that laid the foundation of the great Reformation? Martin Luther, who lit the light of gospel truth alight that will never go out until the sun shall rise to set no more; and, long ere then, Democratic principles will have found their level in the regions of Pluto and of Prosperpine . . . . The honorable gentleman from Whitfield (Mr. Shumate), when arguing this question, a day or two ago, put forth the proposition that to be a representative was not to be an officer "it was a privilege that citizens had a right to enjoy." These are his words. It was not an office; it was a "privilege." Every gentleman here knows that he denied that to be a representative was to be an officer. Now, he is recognized as a leader of the Democratic party in this House, and generally cooks victuals for them to eat; makes that remarkable declaration, and how are you, gentlemen on the other side of the House, because I am an officer, when one of your great lights says that I am not an officer? If you deny my right the right of my constituents to have representation here because it is a "privilege," then, sir, I will show you that I have as many privileges as the whitest man on this floor. If I am not permitted to occupy a seat here, for the purpose of representing my constituents, I want to know how white men can be permitted to do so. How can a white man represent a colored constituency, if a colored man cannot do it? The great argument is: "Oh, we have inherited" this, that and the other. Now, I want gentlemen to come down to cool, common sense. Is the created greater than the Creator? Is man greater than God? It is very strange, if a white man can occupy on this floor a seat created by colored votes, and a black man cannot do it. Why, gentlemen, it is the most shortsighted reasoning in the world. A man can see better than that with half an eye; and even if he had no eye at all, he could forge one, as the Cyclops did, or punch one with his finger, which would enable him to see through that. It is said that Congress never gave us the right to hold office. I want to know, sir, if the Reconstruction measures did not base their action on the ground that no distinction should be made on account of race, color or previous condition? Was not that the grand fulcrum on which they rested? And did not every reconstructed state have to reconstruct on the idea that no discrimination, in any sense of the term, should be made? There is not a man here who will dare say No. If Congress has simply given me a merely sufficient civil and political rights to make me a mere political slave for Democrats, or anybody else giving them the opportunity of jumping on my back in order to leap into political power I do not thank Congress for it. Never, so help me God, shall I be a political slave. I am not now speaking for those colored men who sit with me in this House, nor do I say that they endorse my sentiments, but assisting Mr. Lincoln to take me out of servile slavery did not intend to put me and my race into political slavery. If they did, let them take away my ballot I do not want it, and shall not have it. I don't want to be a mere tool of that sort. I have been a slave long enough already. I tell you what I would be willing to do: I am willing that the question should be submitted to Congress for an explanation as to what was meant in the passage of their Reconstruction measures, and of the Constitutional Amendment. Let the Democratic Party in this House pass a resolution giving this subject that direction, and I shall be content. I dare you, gentlemen, to do it. Come up to the question openly, whether it meant that the Negro might hold office, or whether it meant that he should merely have the right to vote. If you are honest men, you will do it. If, however, you will not do that, I would make another proposition: Call together, again, the convention that framed the constitution under which we are acting; let them take a vote upon the subject, and I am willing to abide by their decision... These colored men, who are unable to express themselves with all the clearness and dignity and force of rhetorical eloquence, are laughed at in derision by the Democracy of the country. It reminds me very much of the man who looked at himself in a mirror and, imagining that he was addressing another person, exclaimed: My God, how ugly you are!" These gentlemen do not consider for a moment the dreadful hardships which these people have endured, and especially those who in any way endeavored to acquire an education. For myself, sir, I was raised in the cotton field of South Carolina, and in order to prepare myself for usefulness, as well to myself as to my race, I determined to devote my spare hours to study. When the overseer retired at night to his comfortable couch, I sat and read and thought and studied, until I heard him blow his horn in the morning. He frequently told me, with an oath, that if he discovered me attempting to learn, that he would whip me to death, and I have no doubt he would have done so, if he had found an opportunity. I prayed to Almighty God to assist me, and He did, and I thank Him with my whole heart and soul... So far as I am personally concerned, no man in Georgia has been more conservative than I. "Anything to please the white folks" has been my motto; and so closely have I adhered to that course, that many among my own party have classed me as a Democrat. One of the leaders of the Republican party in Georgia has not been at all favorable to me for some time back, because he believed that I was too "conservative" for a Republican. I can assure you, however, Mr. Speaker, that I have had quite enough, and to spare, of such "conservatism" . . . But, Mr. Speaker, I do not regard this movement as a thrust at me. It is a thrust at the Bible a thrust at the God of the Universe, for making a man and not finishing him; it is simply calling the Great Jehovah a fool. Why, sir, though we are not white, we have accomplished much. We have pioneered civilization here; we have built up your country; we have worked in your fields and garnered your harvests for two hundred and fifty years! And what do we ask of you in return? Do we ask you for compensation for the sweat our fathers bore for you for the tears you have caused, and the hearts you have broken, and the lives you have curtailed, and the blood you have spilled? Do we ask retaliation? We ask it not. We are willing to let the dead past bury its dead; but we ask you, now for our rights. You have all the elements of superiority upon your side; you have our money and your own; you have our education and your own; and you have our land and your own too. We, who number hundreds of thousands in Georgia, including our wives and families, with not a foot of land to call our own strangers in the land of our birth; without money, without education, without aid, without a roof to cover us while we live, nor sufficient clay to cover us when we die! It is extraordinary that a race such as yours, professing gallantry and chivalry and education and superiority, living in a land where ringing chimes call child and sire to the church of God a land where Bibles are read and Gospel truths are spoken, and where courts of justice are presumed to exist; it is extraordinary that, with all these advantages on your side, you can make war upon the poor defenseless black man. You know we have no money, no railroads, no telegraphs, no advantages of any sort, and yet all manner of injustice is placed upon us. You know that the black people of this country acknowledge you as their superiors, by virtue of your education and advantages... You may expel us, gentlemen, but I firmly believe that you will some day repent it. The black man cannot protect a country, if the country doesn't protect him; and if, tomorrow, a war should arise, I would not raise a musket to defend a country where my manhood is denied. The fashionable way in Georgia, when hard work is to be done, is for the white man to sit at his ease while the black man does the work; but, sir, I will say this much to the colored men of Georgia, as, if I should be killed in this campaign, I may have no opportunity of telling them at any other time: Never lift a finger nor raise a hand in defense of Georgia, until Georgia acknowledges that you are men and invests you with the rights pertaining to manhood. Pay your taxes, however, obey all orders from your employers, take good counsel from friends, work faithfully, earn an honest living, and show, by your conduct, that you can be good citizens. Go on with your oppressions. Babylon fell. Where is Greece? Where is Nineveh? And where is Rome, the Mistress Empire of the world? Why is it that she stands, today, in broken fragments throughout Europe? Because oppression killed her. Every act that we commit is like a bounding ball. If you curse a man, that curse rebounds upon you; and when you bless a man, the blessing returns to you; and when you oppress a man, the oppression also will rebound. Where have you ever heard of four millions of freemen being governed by laws, and yet have no hand in their making? Search the records of the world, and you will find no example. "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." How dare you to make laws by which to try me and my wife and children, and deny me a voice in the making of these laws? I know you can establish a monarchy, an autocracy, an oligarchy, or any other kind of ocracy that you please; and that you can declare whom you please to be sovereign; but tell me, sir, how you can clothe me with more power than another, where all are sovereigns alike? How can you say you have a republican form of government, when you make such distinction and enact such proscriptive laws? Gentlemen talk a good deal about the Negroes "building no monuments." I can tell the gentlemen one thing: that is, that we could have built monuments of fire while the war was in progress. We could have fired your woods, your barns and fences, and called you home. Did we do it? No, sir! And God grant that the Negro may never do it, or do anything else that would destroy the good opinion of his friends. No epithet is sufficiently opprobrious for us now. I saw, sir, that we have built a monument of docility, of obedience, of respect, and of self control, that will endure longer than the Pyramids of Egypt. We are a persecuted people. Luther was persecuted; Galileo was persecuted; good men in all nations have been persecuted; but the persecutors have been handed down to posterity with shame and ignominy. If you pass this bill, you will never get Congress to pardon or enfranchise another rebel in your lives. You are going to fix an everlasting disfranchisement upon Mr. Toombs and the other leading men of Georgia. You may think you are doing yourselves honor by expelling us from this House; but when we go, we will do as Wickliffe and as Latimer did. We will light a torch of truth that will never be extinguished the impression that will run through the country, as people picture in their mind's eye these poor black men, in all parts of this Southern country, pleading for their rights. When you expel us, you make us forever your political foes, and you will never find a black man to vote a Democratic ticket again; for, so help me God, I will go through all the length and breadth of the land, where a man of my race is to be found, and advise him to beware of the Democratic party. Justice is the great doctrine taught in the Bible. God's Eternal justice is founded upon Truth, and the man who steps from justice steps from 'Ruth, and cannot make his principles to prevail. I have now, Mr. Speaker, said all that my physical condition will allow me to say. Weak and ill, though I am, I could not sit passively here and see the sacred rights of my race destroyed at one blow. We are in a position somewhat similar to that of the famous "Light Brigade," of which Tennyson says, they had Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them, Volleyed and thundered. I hope that our poor, downtrodden race may act well and wisely through this period of trial, and that they will exercise patience and discretion under all circumstances. You may expel us, gentlemen, by your votes, today; but, while you do it, remember that there is a just God in Heaven, whose All-Seeing Eye beholds alike the acts of the oppressor and the oppressed, and who, despite the machinations of the wicked, never fails to vindicate the cause of Justice, and the sanctity of His own handiwork. Sources: Ethel Maude Christler, "Participation of Negroes in the Government of Georgia, 1867 1870" (Master's thesis, Atlanta University, June 1932), pp. 82 96.

History reminds us that black people in America were not always mostly associated with the democratic party. Black people in America were once associated with the republican party, which was the party that helped to make great strides in the area of Reconstruction.They were republicans and they voted republican. Republican state and local governments in the American south in the 19th century were among thhe most progressive anywhere in America. Basically, I think that black people were being then as they are being now, "practical" as you have said, "working the system" for their own benefit. Again, I do not endorse either party, they are two different sides of the same coin. Will some people have a problem with me for this opinion and possibly many other opinons that I have? It's possible, but in the end, they will be much more hot and bothered over my mere opinions than I will be over theirs. As for black people being among the growing ranks of independents, I think this is increasingly due to the fact that neither the democratic party nor the republican party is serving the way in which they feel that these parties should serve. Even when parties of more fiery black people were registering to vote or promoting voter registration, they were registering as independents or encouraging others to vote as independents so as to not follow the duopoly. Some democrats are democrats for politically strategic reasons i.e. being able to vote during primaries.

Cynique said: "What you are also implying, WaterStar, is that the bravery of these Marines should be ignored because of the sins of the past." May I ask you what specifically I said to make you infer this? Also, you seem to have interpreted something in my words to make you think that I think that notable black events of the past should be kept obscure because of present or past circumstances. I certainly do not feel that way at all. If anything, as I stated, I wondered why now. Not in just a cynical way, but in a way in which the question of possible motives and objectives beyond the surface is explored.

Reflections on Gil Scott-Heron By Norman (Otis) Richmond aka Jalali We do what we do and how we do because of you. And to those that don’t know, tip your hat with a hand over your heart and recognize.” This is how Chuck D of Public Enemy summed up Gil Scott-Heron . Scott-Heron’s musical career spanned five decades; he released twenty albums, and many seminal singles. He was a key figure in the creation of spoken word poetry and many maintain he is the “Godfather of Rap.” However, he never referred to himself in that manner. His socially conscious work has been described as, “savagely satirical, and disarmingly tenderhearted.” His death on May 27, 2011 robbed Africans in America and the whole world of one of its most eloquent and influential artist-activists. Like the Washington D. C.-born Duke Ellington, Scott-Heron was beyond category. His music covered the waterfront. He dealt with racism, capitalism, the environment, Pan-Africanism, substance abuse, nuclear power, women's liberation and just plain "silly" little love songs. "Whitey on the Moon", "Shut Down", "The Bottle", "Angel Dust", “Johannesburg” and "Your Daddy Loves You" are parts of his catalog. I have recently completed reading Scott-Heron's memoir, The Last Holiday, which discusses his tour with Stevie Wonder and which helped create a formally recognized observance for Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday. Today Dr. King's January 15th birthday is a national holiday thanks to the efforts of Wonder and Scott-Heron and millions of people in the United States. Scott-Heron was a last minute replacement for Bob Marley and the Wailers. When Marley was diagnosed with cancer, the "Eighth Wonder of the World"—Stevie—hand-picked Scott-Heron to tour with him. I was fortunate to have caught the concert in Montreal as well as an exclusive interview with Wonder. Instead of this coup firming up my relationship with the "Big White Folks" in the corporate media, I was fired. More about that at a later date. I covered the event for Al Hamilton's Contrast, "the eyes, ears and voice of the Black community" and the Toronto Star, "Canada's largest newspaper.” I was able to pull this off because Wonder and his management wanted someone with crossover appeal but who still had ties to the African community. Contrast had a corner on Canada's African community and the Toronto Star gave me a readership from Canada coast-to-coast. I was just what the doctor ordered. At that time, Wonder’s team included an individual named Keith who happened to be from Sierra Leone. It did not hurt that I had done my homework when it came to Africa and Africans. I passed the test that Keith put me through. Scott-Heron spent his childhood with his Alabama-born grandmother, Lilly Scott, in Jackson, Tennessee. I found this out the hard way on my first encounter with him in 1976 in Toronto, Canada. His bio that was circulated by Arista Records talked about him being the son of a Jamaican professional soccer player, Gil Heron. When I raised this with him he quickly rebuked me. "The Scotts raised me," he responded with his booming bass/baritone voice. I would find out years later that at that moment of our exchange in 1976, he had not yet met his father. Later, he does talk about meeting his father when he was 26 years old on the song "Hello Sunday, Hello Road.” Gil eventually left Tennessee and his grandmother since by the time Gil reached his teens, his mother, Bobbie Scott, had taken a job in New York City and he joined her there. She was an opera singer who performed with the New York Oratorio Society and the daughter of Bob Scott. Says Scott-Heron, "My grandfather was "Steel Arm Bob”, a pitcher who bested Satchel Paige's barnstorming team 1-0 when they came through Jackson." Both sides of Scott-Heron's family stressed education. Africans born in the Southern part of the United States, like their counterparts in the Caribbean, were united on this issue. Scott-Heron described his grandmother as a "God-fearing woman with high ideals, strong principles, and most of all, a belief in the power of learning." He went further to explain, "And she scrapped, scrimped, scrambled, scrunched, scrubbed, scratched, scuffled, slaved, and saved until somehow all four of her children had graduated from college with honors." This laid the basis for him to gain entry to New York City's prestigious Fieldston School. Scott-Heron attended Lincoln University, the first and oldest historically Black university in the United States. Kwame Nkrumah, Langston Hughes, Cab Calloway and Thurgood Marshall inspired him to choose Lincoln. And he did make a name for himself there by leading a strike to demand better student health care. Scott-Heron was in struggle with himself near the end of his life. The one who stood in the vanguard of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa momentarily lost his way. In 2010 he was due to perform in Tel Aviv, but this attracted criticism from Palestinian groups who stated, "Your performance in Israel would be the equivalent to having performed in Sun City during South Africa’s apartheid era... We hope that you will not play apartheid Israel." Fortunately, he heeded the call and cancelled the date. While he expressed a Love Supreme for his mother and grandmother, he publicly admits in The Last Holiday that his record on the question of other women in his life was less than stellar. Says Scott-Heron , "And it may be that I will never get another chance to say this to those children, as well as I know I have never taught them by example so that they can turn to each other for this when they need it. I hope there is no doubt that I loved them and their mothers as best as I could. And if that was inevitably inadequate, I hope it was supplemented by their mothers, who were all better off without me." He had three children, a son Rumal, and two daugthers Gia and Che. Like all human beings Scott-Heron had merits and demerits. I personally always saw him as a tortured genius. Like many who came before him and those who are living today and those who will emerge in the future.

The Senecas, members of the Iroquois Confederacy, fought on the side of the British in the American Revolution. Red Jacket, also known as Sagoyewatha, was a chief and orator born in eastern New York; he derived his English name from his habit of wearing many red coats provided to him by his British allies. After the hostilities, as the British ceded their territories to the Americans, the Senecas and many other Indian peoples faced enormous pressure on their homelands. Red Jacket was a critical mediator in relations between the new U.S. government and the Senecas; he led a delegation that met with George Washington in 1792, when he received a peace medal that appeared in subsequent portraits of the Indian leader. In 1805 a Boston missionary society requested Red Jacket’s permission to proselytize among the Iroquois settlements in northern New York State. Red Jacket’s forceful defense of native religion, below, caused the representative to refuse the Indian’s handshake and announce that no fellowship could exist between the religion of God and the works of the Devil. Red Jacket Defends Native American Religion, 1805 by Red Jacket Friend and brother; it was the will of the Great Spirit that we should meet together this day. He orders all things, and he has given us a fine day for our council. He has taken his garment from before the sun, and caused it to shine with brightness upon us; our eyes are opened, that we see clearly; our ears are unstopped, that we have been able to hear distinctly the words that you have spoken; for all these favors we thank the Great Spirit, and him only. Brother, this council fire was kindled by you; it was at your request that we came together at this time; we have listened with attention to what you have said. You requested us to speak our minds freely; this gives us great joy, for we now consider that we stand upright before you, and can speak what we think; all have heard your voice, and all speak to you as one man; our minds are agreed. Brother, you say you want an answer to your talk before you leave this place. It is right you should have one, as you are a great distance from home, and we do not wish to detain you; but we will first look back a little, and tell you what our fathers have told us, and what we have heard from the white people. Brother, listen to what we say. There was a time when our forefathers owned this great island. Their seats extended from the rising to the setting sun. The Great Spirit had made it for the use of Indians. He had created the buffalo, the deer, and other animals for food. He made the bear and the beaver, and their skins served us for clothing. He had scattered them over the country, and taught us how to take them. He had caused the earth to produce corn for bread. All this he had done for his red children because he loved them. If we had any disputes about hunting grounds, they were generally settled without the shedding of much blood. But an evil day came upon us; your forefathers crossed the great waters, and landed on this island. Their numbers were small; they found friends, and not enemies; they told us they had fled from their own country for fear of wicked men, and come here to enjoy their religion. They asked for a small seat; we took pity on them, granted their request, and they sat down amongst us; we gave them corn and meat; they gave us poison in return. The white people had now found our country; tidings were carried back, and more came amongst us; yet we did not fear them, we took them to be friends; they called us brothers; we believed them, and gave them a larger seat. At length, their numbers had greatly increased; they wanted more land; they wanted our country. Our eyes were opened, and our minds became uneasy. Wars took place; Indians were hired to fight against Indians, and many of our people were destroyed. They also brought strong liquor among us; it was strong and powerful, and has slain thousands. Brother, our seats were once large, and yours were very small; you have now become a great people, and we have scarcely a place left to spread our blankets; you have got our country, but are not satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us. Brother, continue to listen. You say you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to his mind, and if we do not take hold of the religion which you white people teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter. You say that you are right, and we are lost; how do we know this to be true? We understand that your religion is written in a book; if it was intended for us as well as you, why has not the Great Spirit given it to us, and not only to us, but why did he not give to our forefathers the knowledge of that book, with the means of understanding it rightly? We only know what you tell us about it. How shall we know when to believe, being so often deceived by the white people? Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit; if there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agree, as you can all read the book? Brother, we do not understand these things. We are told that your religion was given to your forefathers, and has been handed down from father to son. We also have a religion which was given to our forefathers, and has been handed down to us their children. We worship that way. It teacheth us to be thankful for all the favors we receive; to love each other, and to be united. We never quarrel about religion. Brother, the Great Spirit has made us all; but he has made a great difference between his white and red children; he has given us a different complexion, and different customs; to you he has given the arts; to these he has not opened our eyes; we know these things to be true. Since he has made so great a difference between us in other things, why may we not conclude that he has given us a different religion according to our understanding. The Great Spirit does right; he knows what is best for his children; we are satisfied. Brother, we do not wish to destroy your religion, or take it from you; we only want to enjoy our own. Brother, you say you have not come to get our land or our money, but to enlighten our minds. I will now tell you that I have been at your meetings, and saw you collecting money from the meeting. I cannot tell what this money was intended for, but suppose it was for your minister; and if we should conform to your way of thinking, perhaps you may want some from us. Brother, we are told that you have been preaching to the white people in this place. These people are our neighbors; we are acquainted with them; we will wait, a little while and see what effect your preaching has upon them. If we find it does them good, makes them honest and less disposed to cheat Indians, we will then consider again what you have said. Brother, you have now heard our answer to your talk, and this is all we have to say at present. As we are going to part, we will come and take you by the hand, and hope the Great Spirit will protect you on your journey, and return you safe to your friends. Source: Daniel Drake, Lives of Celebrated American Indians, Boston, Bradbury, Soden & Co. 1843), 283–87.

I know that my eyes do not give way to the sight of the world. However, I will say that though it is no secret that the armed forces were always racially prejudiced (and actually, many do not know. Many youths of today don't even know that it wasn't so long ago that the armed forces were segregated.), it is very much overlooked how these black people fought so hard, many of them to prove to be loyal to America, to prove to be worthy of their citizenship and were even in some cases honored foreignly for this yet not honored by the countries for which they fought. I mean really, these black people fought for a country in which they couldn't even get a cup of water in that was not at a coloreds only table. They came back and were treated like dirt. Furthermore, it was a country that still refused to acknowledge them years later, even though they no longer had to eat a coloreds only tables. So many years of no major official recognition of this caliber and yes, I do wonder why now, in this so called post-racial era which is everything but "post" racial. At the very least, my guess about why this gesture is being made now would include but not be limited to the promotion of the post-racial lie.

LOL The big difference though, Cynique, is that the overwhelming majority of black people already know where republicans stand and so these buzzwords and this false praise don't get to them like the false empathy and psuedo-agency of the democrats. If those such as Herman Cain and Alan West for one second ever really thought that they had the support of those of their party, then they are truly idiotic. Most any kid in "urban America" can tell you what's up with republicans and they know very well that most black republicans are tokens, so either these kids know something these token politicians do not or these politicians are playing the game to make their lives more comfortable and for a few pats on the heads in the process. I don't know too many black people who are duped by the rhetorical ethic of republicans, but I sure know a whole LOT of black people who are duped by the rhetorical ethic of democrats. I don't know that Randall Robinson would be the second coming of Obama. I wouldn't expect him to be President Geezus, but then, I was not among those who expected this of Obama. However, I do tend to believe that Randall Robinson would not merely a puppet for the white 'power' structure and imperialism. I tend to think that Randall Robinson would have handled the position much differently than Obama in that I believe that Randall Robinson would have served the people before the power structure/big business and such. In fact, I think that Randall Robinson would feel so strongly about not bowing to these forces until he wouldn't have even run for president. :-) As far as what our people fought and died for, in speaking with my dear friend about this very thing, he said something that I wish that more of us seriously consider. About the right to vote... Our people (my friend said) did not fight and DIE for that; they fought and died for the right to control their own destiny and for the right to live life with dignity.. I fully agree with him.

Why thank you very much, breathebooks. The first post that I saw from you is the post that I just saw in "Turn the volume down" and I absolutely loved it. Yes indeed @ southern versus northern people comparison. Yes indeed, indeed. This is indeed how it is for the most part. I have enjoyed every Randall Robinson book that I've read. You should read "Quitting America" . Oh but then, every book that I've read by him is a book that I would suggest for you.

:-)

That is so wonderful! What Michael Baisden said made so much sense. He is really on it with that. I It is so great that Azizi Bookstore outlasted Borders. Sista Monda, I live in the south. I know, Sista. I know. OOH! I will definitely be pickin up Daniel Black's "The Coming"! Hey, it was wonderful seeing those clips, Troy. Thank u. On another note, I'm going to NY for carnival in a few months. I know of a few really good bookstores there. Can anyone suggest some good more good ones that I might not know about?

LOL! As for prez, no one will get my vote. If Randall Robinson were running, he would get my vote without question or if Cynthia McKinney were running, it is possible that she would get my vote (unless she were running against Randall Robinson). Well if Cynthia McKinney were running against these people who are out there running now, she would get my vote. However, that is not the reality and the reality is that I'm not consciously voting for imperialism, so neither of those men who are running will get my vote. What I respect about most republicans is that they don't come in like foxes, cunning, planning to devour yet not straightforwardly. Most of those republicans do not try to hide the fact that they do not care about their prey, that they are out to devour it. Meanwhile, most democrats pretend as if the care is their prey is their top priority. All my opinions, of course...

In Mexico and Peru Professor Gates explores the almost unknown history of the significant numbers of black people—the two countries together received far more slaves than did the United States —brought to these countries as early as the 16th and 17th centuries, and the worlds of culture that their descendants have created in Vera Cruz on the Gulf of Mexico, the Costa Chica region on the Pacific, and in and around Lima, Peru. Watch full episode. Another Louis Gates documentary: Also, Dr. Ivan van Sertima, author of "They Came Before Columbus" (about African Presence in Ancient America) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nceKy72vV0

PLEASE turn the volume down on your computers the first time you view this. What do you see? Then view it again. Do you see anything different now?

"Cuba was always represented as a black child." I'm not a big fan of Louis Gates Jr., but this documentary actually tells much more about Cuba from the days of slavery to the days of the Cuban revolution than what is usually told.It even shows how the United States tried to import American style apartheid to Cuba. It goes into how Europeans were imported to Cuba to "whiten" Cuba. It talks about how the battleship was sent to Cuba to protect American interests long before Castro. It goes into the many years of American intervention, how America's colonialism replaced Spain's colonialism in America. The United States of America tried to impose a Jim Crow state in Cuba and these policies found support from the Cuban elite. The Cuban elite, the descendants of those who had maintained slavery for so long, have remnants in many surviving anti-Castro/pro-Batista supporters. Can one in America of Afriican descent truly know the struggle of those in Cuba of African descent and not support the Cuban revolution? (Backgrounds should always be examined, media and state objectives should always be kept in mind.). Anyway, this documentary is, overall, a really good documentary. I must admit that I wasn't even in any rush to see it because I just didn't think that Gates would do the story of Cuba any justice. I thought that it would be full of the same American/European. narrative. It wasn't though. Perhaps being arrested in his own neighborhood had some influence on Gates, I don't know. At any rate, as I've said, the documentary is, for the most part, a good one. Let it be remembered, also, that President Fidel Castro was no more of a magician than is President Barack Obama. Regardless of his efforts, could Castro really have erased all racism from Cuba? Regardless of his efforts, can Obama erase all racismand injustice from America? Why should this have been expected of Castro more than Obama, but why should this have be expected from either? Could Barack Obama ever have produced a colorblind America? That is terribly unrealistic. Could Castro ever produced complete colorblindness in Cuba? Some would probably be surprised, however, to compare the politics of race in America to the politics of such in Cuba. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oooVDI3w9o&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lxKIqWXJIs&feature=related

How American Antiwar and Solidarity Movements in 60s Impeded an Effective Invasion of Cuba Fair Play for Cuba and the Cuban Revolution by BILL SIMPICH July 26, Cuba’s most important holiday, is the commemorative date in 1953 when Castro and his forces unsuccessfully stormed the government stockade at Moncada and ignited the Cuban revolution. On a day like today, it should be noted that Americans made a successful Cuban invasion impossible with a campaign of determined resistance. Antiwar and solidarity activists came together to protect the Cuban revolution during the era of 1960-1963 – the era of the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis, and the JFK assassination – in significant part due to organizations such as the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC). Professor (and CISPES activist) Van Gosse has done groundbreaking research to make a good argument that this period really was the birth of the New Left. The release in the last few years of thousands of CIA and FBI files reveals that this resistance was central in preventing a successful invasion of Cuba. Like most activist organizations, the FPCC had approximately a three-year life cycle – after that period, many of the core activists had returned to Cuba or have moved on to other pressing causes. In the period from 1960-1963, recently released documents show the powerful conflict between the forces of agitation (the FPCC and its allies) and the forces of provocation (the CIA, FBI and military). This conflict ended with a political landscape that made any future US invasion of Cuba impossible. This story is not founded on a theory about who killed JFK, but rather examines an overlooked conflict. The story below is largely set in New York City, the headquarters of the FPCC, and the revelation here of a key informant’s identity explains how different threads of this drama weave together. As the Church Committee said in the seventies, informants are used to “raise controversial issues” and “to take advantage of ideological splits in an organization.” Many of the documents are hidden to protect the identity of the informants, while the world is deprived of the history of how these informants were used to protect the US national security state. An April 1960 New York Times advertisement paid for by the Cuban government led to the formation of the FPCC The founder and first leader of the FPCC was Robert Taber, a CBS newsman who was befriended by the Santos Buch family when they learned that Taber was interested in telling the rebels’ side of the story about Castro and his followers. With the help of the Santos Buch family, Taber obtained a rare exclusive interview with Fidel Castro while he was up in the mountains fighting in 1957. This interview became the basis of the CBS Special Report “Rebels of the Sierra Maestra: The Story of Cuba’s Jungle Fighters and his renowned book on the rebels: “M-26: Biography of a Revolution”. “M-26" refers to the aforementioned storming of Moncada on July 26, 1953. Working with CBS newsman Richard Gibson, they decided to run a full page ad in the New York times in order to make a statement on the importance of the Cuban revolution. Taber and Santos-Busch went so far as to raise the money for the ad by obtaining a big donation from the Cuban government with the assistance of Raulito Roa, the son of Cuban UN foreign minister Raul Roa. The advertisement caused a minor sensation in a number of different circles. The authors were flooded with more than a thousand letters of people ready to take action. Besides the timeliness of the appeal, it was signed by other leading lights in the literary community: Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Norman Mailer, Dan Wakefield, even Truman Capote. African Americans were prominent in the call – besides newsman Richard Gibson of CBS, it was also signed by the historian John Henrik Clarke, novelists James Baldwin, Julian Mayfield and John O. Killens, and the soon-to-be-famous Southern activist Robert F. Williams. Other supporters in this period included Linus Pauling and Allen Ginsberg. The ad also caught the attention of the CIA’s Cuban affairs head William Harvey, whose love of alcohol and firearms caused many to ask if he was the role model for Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Two days after the ad ran, William Harvey bragged to FBI counterintelligence chief Sam Papich. “For your information, this Agency has derogatory information on all individuals listed in the attached advertisement.” Harvey was the head of Task Force W, a brigade of 2000 Cubans, a navy of speedboats, and 400 Americans based at CIA headquarters and the JM/WAVE station in Miami. JM/WAVE may have been the largest CIA base in history. Huge quantities of arms and munitions passed through its gates. The JM/WAVE station directed a wide range of operations against Cuban shipping, aircraft and industrial sites. The Socialist Workers Party and the Communist Party were able to work together within the FPCC, marking a break from a bad history going back to the Depression era when 20,000 Communist supporters marched through the streets to denounce their Trotskyist competitors. Berta Green of the SWP was able to provide deep experience from her organizing efforts in Detroit and more recently in New York City. Richard Gibson was a bridge to people like Robert Williams, Leroi Jones, journalist William Worthy and other black activists in making the equation between African American militance and solidarity with Castro and Cuba’s largely black population. Within six months, the FPCC had 7000 members in 27 "adult chapters" and 40 student councils on various college campuses with emerging student leaders such as Saul Landau and Robert Scheer. When Fidel met Malcolm X and other community leaders at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem during the late summer of 1960, it was the social event of the year in New York for African Americans and radicals alike. In December, 1960, William Worthy released the documentary “Yanqui, No!”, with a camera crew that included the legendary D.A. Pennebaker and Albert Maysles. After doing a national tour for Fair Play, his work led to an indictment for traveling to Cuba – imposed on no other journalist. “The Ballad of William Worthy” earned a spot in the Phil Ochs canon: William Worthy isn’t worthy to enter our door He just came back from Cuba, he’s not American anymore But it seems awfully funny to hear the State Department say You’re living in the Free World In the Free World you must stay. Sensing a deepening problem, the anti-Castro forces countered by investigating the funding of the initial ad, calling the FPCC leaders before a Congressional committee, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee with the appropriate-sounding name of "SISS". It was also known as the Eastland Committee; at the time, James Eastland was probably the most racist senator in the United States. The SISS was so powerful that its chief prosecutor Julian Sourwine had been known in the 48-state era as the "97th Senator". On January 6, 1961 Santos-Buch told Sourwine in executive session that he and Taber had received the needed money from "eight different people". The documents reveal that Santos Buch changed his story on January 9 at a subsequent executive session, and that he was also given a promise that the CIA would help get a number of family members out of Cuba. On January 9, Santos Buch changed his story, at least in part because of his desire to extricate his family from Cuba. On January 10, Santos Buch publicly admitted that the Cubans provided the crucial $3500 needed to place the NYT ad. A week later, Jane Roman from James Angleton’s counterintelligence office in the CIA reported that security concerns made it too dangerous for the CIA to keep its promise to Santos Buch. Taber had gone to Cuba the previous month, in December 1960. For obvious reasons, he now felt it was a good idea to stay. He passed on his executive secretary duties to Richard Gibson, covered the ensuing Bay of Pigs invasion, and was wounded by mortar shells in the effort. Meanwhile, CIA operatives David Phillips and James McCord (of Watergate fame) ran an illegal domestic surveillance on the FPCC throughout the year of 1961 until the FBI apparently got wind of it while they began their own operation. The CIA then backed away from the FBI’s turf for a period of time. During this same period, Phillips was running an anti-Castro media campaign in New Orleans. Phillips was the recent recipient of the CIA’s Intelligence Medal of Merit for the disinformation campaign he ran in Guatemala that paved the way for the successful 1954 coup – it was stated that “this achievement has no parallel in the history of psychological warfare”. The upsurge of protest against the Bay of Pigs invasion in the United States Some people could sense the Bay of Pigs coming, but the FPCC sounded the alarm. After the Nation magazine warned about it in explicit terms during November of 1960, the LA chapter held a press conference to get the word out. They “called upon Congress to investigate immediately the widespread reports indicating that the Central Intelligence Agency is implicated in the training of armed forces for an invasion of Cuba. Persistent reports from Guatemala, Nicaragua and Florida of invasion forces in these areas being tied to the CIA raise into question U.S. observance of the principle of nonintervention into the domestic affairs of other countries.” At what is described by Van Gosse as a "massive inaugural rally of San Francisco Fair Play" in January 1961... poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote an homage to Castro and Walt Whitman that sums up the passions of many people during this era. One Thousand Fearful Words for Fidel Castro I am sitting in Mike’s Place trying to figure out What’s going to happen without Fidel Castro Among the salami sandwiches and spittoons I see no solution It’s going to be a tragedy I see no way out among the admen and slumming models and the brilliant snooping columnists who are qualified to call Castro psychotic because they no doubt are doctors and have examined him personally and know a paranoid hysterical tyrant when they see one because they have it on first hand from personal observation by the CIA and the great disinterested news services… I see no answer I see no way out among the paisanos playing pool it looks like Curtains for Fidel They’re going to fix his wagon in the course of human events… The radio squawks some kind of memorial program: “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another—“ I see no way out no escape He’s tuned in on your frequency, Fidel… History may absolve you, Fidel but we’ll dissolve you first, Fidel You’ll be dissolved in history We’ve got the solvent We’ve got the chaser and we’ll have a little party somewhere down your way, Fidel It’s going to be a Gas As they say in Guatemala… Here’s your little tragedy, Fidel They’re coming to pick you up and stretch you on their Stretcher That’s what happens, Fidel when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the bonds of International Tel & Tel and United Fruit Fidel How come you don’t answer anymore Fidel Did they cut you off our frequency We’ve closed down our station anyway We’ve turned you off, Fidel I was sitting in Mike’s Place, Fidel waiting for someone else to act like a good Liberal I hadn’t quite finished Camus´ Rebel so I couldn’t quite recognize you, Fidel walking up and down your island when they came for you, Fidel “My Country or Death” you told them Well you’ve got your little death, Fidel like old Honest Abe one of your boyhood heroes who also had his little Civil War and was a different kind of Liberator (since no one was shot in his war) and also was murdered in the course of human events Fidel…Fidel… your coffin passes by thru lanes and streets you never knew thru day and night, Fidel While lilacs last in the dooryard bloom, Fidel your futile trip is done yet is not done and is not futile I give you my sprig of laurel." In the immediate aftermath of the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, the FPCC’s national influence was at its highest point. "Actions with up to 2,000 outside the United Nations began the same day as the invasion and lasted throughout the entire week of the crisis, culminating in a rally of perhaps 5,000 in Union Square on 21 April – the largest left wing demonstration there or anywhere else in the US since the execution of the Rosenbergs, and one also unprecedented in that a young Communist and a young Trotskyist shared the same public podium, brought together by the 26th of July. "…Meanwhile, San Francisco saw demonstrations in which students played a leading role. Coordinated actions on various Bay Area campuses on 19 April were followed by a student-only rally of 2,000 in Union Square on 20 April, and an equally large all-ages Fair Play demonstration…(where protesters) spontaneously took to the streets of the downtown area to march to the offices of Hearst’s virulently anti-Castro San Francisco Examiner, an unheard thing to do in those days." Elsewhere, there was violence inflicted on numbers of Fair Play protesters. Meeting halls were shuttered in Los Angeles, Detroit, Newark and Tampa. Campuses came alive with lively actions at Cornell, Swarthmore, Madison, Berkeley, City College, Yale, the University of Michigan and Oberlin. On April 27, Hoover himself ordered his agents to focus on pro-Castro activists, stating that the FPCC illustrated "the capacity of a nationality group organization to mobilize its efforts in such a situation so as to arrange demonstrations and influence public opinion.” Right after the Bay of Pigs, the FBI organizes a campaign of disruption against the FPCC In response, FBI man number three Cartha “Deke” DeLoach began a well-documented red-baiting campaign against the FPCC during May 1961. "As part of his counterintelligence responsibilities, DeLoach developed a "Mass Media Program" that included over 300 newspaper reporters, columnists, radio commentators, and television news investigators." Meanwhile, during that same month, something very odd was going on in Havana. Dr. Enrique Lorenzo Luaces told Army Intelligence that Taber introduced him to “Lt. Harvey Oswald, an arms expert” while having drinks at Sloppy Joe’s, better known as the "Sardi’s for spies". When the FBI interviewed Taber, he denied knowing Oswald. A popular position to take, especially since the common wisdom is that Oswald was continuously in the USSR between 1959 and 1962. During June, 1960, a few months after Oswald’s defection to the USSR in late 1959, J. Edgar Hoover himself sent a memo to the State Department alerting it to the possibility that an imposter was using Oswald’s identity. Hoover was tipped to the problem by a telegram from Harold F. Good at the New York field office. Former Cuban Prime Minister Tony Varona testified to a House committee that he believed Oswald was in Cuba during 1961. There is a long and well-documented history of reports involving individuals impersonating Oswald, no matter where one stands on the JFK assassination. The FBI uses Victor Vicente, the head of the FPCC’s Social Committee and informant T-3245-S*, to build a criminal case against Gibson Back in Washington DC, SISS was now focusing its attention on Richard Gibson, issuing a subpoena for him to come to Washington and testify. They wrote a letter to INS, asking them to take action to stop Gibson from leaving the country before his testimony. INS explained that American citizens were virtually never given such a “stop” order without a directive from the Secretary of State. Within a matter of hours, such a directive was issued against Gibson. Gibson spent years abroad in the 1950s in expatriate circles, and this directive was a serious blow to his freedom. In Gibson’s first appearance in April, 1961, he told SISS that "on behalf of myself and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and speaking personally for myself and many other American Negroes, I can only express delight at the utter and dismal defeat of this act of international banditry." The SISS, licking its wounds, ordered him to come back with the FPCC membership list. When he came back on May 16, he provided the mailing list, and claimed that there was no way to separate the FPCC members from those who were on the mailing list. This infuriated the committee. The FBI was asked to take action to obtain whatever membership list could be found, as well as anything else that would expose Gibson to perjury charges. They immediately ordered a mail cover on Gibson’s home at 788 Columbus Circle. On May 21 and 22, Special Agents Patrick Lundquist and Harold Hoeg went inside the FPCC offices and photographed the list provided to them by informant T-3245-S*. The identity of T-3245-S* has been the subject of serious speculation over the years, especially because the “S” is a symbol for a political informant. With the flood of new documents released by the government in the wake of the JFK Act, I can confirm with confidence after long and careful study that the identity of this informant is Victor Thomas Vicente, who was the head of the Social Committee for the FPCC. As the one willing to do the difficult work of fundraising, he was given special trust. Vicente’s work proved invaluable. The dean of the study of FBI “black bag jobs”, also known as “break-ins” or “surreptitious entries” for many years has been Athan G. Theoharis, professor of history at Marquette History. In a black bag job, the documents are photographed rather than stolen, so that the target does not know that its privacy has been compromised. William Sullivan justified them in a letter to the Director’s office in 1966: “Such a technique involves trespass and is clearly illegal; therefore, it would be impossible to obtain any legal sanction for it. Despite this, “black bag” jobs have been used because they represent an invaluable technique in combatting subversive activities…aimed directly at undermining and destroying our nation.” Theoharis credits the FBI for eight black bag jobs to the FPCC, far more than suffered by any other group in his study. He discovered an initial black bag job at the FPCC NY headquarters during January, 1961, which I have not yet located in the FBI records on-line. The second one is clearly during the weekend of May 22-23, 1961. The purpose for the entry was to obtain evidence to contradict Gibson’s testimony to SISS about the FPCC membership list and to the Fair Play publication. In the material provided by Vicente in May, 1961, a voluminous mailing list was included in this material, but the agents reported that there was no way to determine whether a code system was being used on this list in order to designate members or subscribers – names of members of student groups were also provided, but no membership list and no list of subscribers to “fair play” was included in this material. Thus, this material could not be used to support a perjury charge against Gibson. However, the data was used to focus on FPCC operatives in Dallas, Tampa and Miami (major cities in the southern United States). What is fascinating is that the NY office mailed the relevant portions of these mailing lists to Miami got the mailing lists on 6/16/61, Dallas got the lists on 6/19/61 in a letter from “FED” in the New York office to Dir. FBI urging an investigation of the principal FPCC leaders in the area. Shortly after, Miami was asked to bring the Tampa office into the hunt. The Tampa FPCC had hundreds of members during this period, due to the pro-Castro workers in the nearby cigar factories. The president of the chapter during this time, VT Lee, later became Gibson’s successor as the last national FPCC head. It seems like the FBI wanted the focus to be on FPCC members in the vicinity of Cuba. Within days, the FPCC mailing list were circulating in right-wing circles such as the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission and the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee. Taber returns to the USA, leaves the FPCC, is hounded by the red-hunters, but curiously not charged with perjury – while Gibson seeks recruitment by the CIA in exchange for money Taber returned to the US during the end of 1961. The stories were various: One was that he was "homesick"; another was that Cuban currency was not convertible into American dollars. In any case, Taber claimed that he could return "quietly". He was subpoenaed in short order. He resigned from the FPCC in February, and spoke with the CIA and FBI on 3/19/62. On 4/10/62, he had to testify again before SISS, this time in executive session, where he was confronted with his testimony that clashed with Santos-Buch about the source of the money for the ad. Despite the committee’s fury at Taber, he was never charged with perjury. Instead, his testimony was publicly released in June 1963. Many people claim that Taber had gone over to the CIA at this point. The real question is more subtle – it isn’t whether he asked to be an informant, but whether his offer was ever accepted. In a dramatic incident during the summer, Gibson’s problems with money finally got the best of him. On July 16, 1962, Richard Gibson wrote a letter to Thornton Hagert of Falls Church, VA, the stepbrother of Philip Reiss of the Dept. Of Agriculture. Gibson writes in the letter that Reiss told him in the past that he is a former CIA employee. Gibson wants to make contact with the CIA, and suggests either the 799 Broadway office or his home. (201-306052) (also see redacted version at 105-93072-80) On July 24, 1962, the Nationalities Intelligence Section get the OK to interview Gibson. On August 16, 1962, Gibson is interviewed by NY agents Hoeg and Day. James Day writes the report in October, after Gibson skipped the country heading for Algeria in 9/12/62 – some say "just ahead of an indictment" but I’m not convinced any indictment was in the works based on these records. Gibson initially went to Canada, and there is no sign of pursuit or even concern by his departure by the intelligence agencies. Although I don’t see anything in the file indicating a push for indictment of Gibson, Gibson’s story to Lee was that the Cuban Mission told him that indictment was imminent. From reviewing the documents, it seems like this was Gibson’s cover story. "On September 15, 1962, NY T-1 advised that on the evening of September 14 Ted Lee (also known as VT Lee) advised that Gibson’s departure from the United States was unexpected. Lee told the source that someone from the CMUN (the Cuban Mission to the UN) had contacted Gibson and had told Gibson that things were getting hot for Gibson in the United States and that it would be necessary for Gibson to go to Canada for a short time. According to what Lee told NY T-1, the employee of the CMUN gave Gibson an envelope and instructions. Lee further stated that when Gibson got to the Cuban embassy in Ottawa, Canada, Gibson was told that he should go to Algeria with the result that Gibson left Ottawa, Canada by plane on September 13, 1962 headed for Algeria. Lee stated that Gibson told him of this when Gibson called Lee from Ottawa, Canada on the evening of September 12, 1962. Lee further advised T-1 that very few people know of the involvement of the CMUN in this matter and that NY T-1 should keep it secret." Gibson says he will assist the FBI for money, as he finds the FPCC no more than a translation service and the whole leftist movement "ineffective and inconsequential". He adds that the Cubans are stupid and he hates stupidity, and that the Communists have failed to help the Negro race. Hoeg discusses in his report that he will submit the New York office’s “recommendation for both a tactical and strategic plan to be implemented to disrupt, dissolve, or at least neutralize the FPCC as a subversive organization”. Another report on this interview says: “We advised Attorney General (Robert F. Kennedy) re (Gibson’s) interview with New York office on 8/16/62 (redacted) wherein he wanted money to denounce FPCC and wanted US to grant fugitive Robert Williams immunity from prosecution if he returned from Cuba. We told AG Gibson was untrustworthy and we were not initiating any more communication with him. Data herein will be given AG, as well as CIA and State Department, which agencies are aware of the previous interview.” FBI reports Gibson is in Algeria, speculates that Gibson may have been picked up by the CIA as an informant, but a handwritten note by Austin Horne of the CIA says no. Chief of the Nationalities Intelligence Section Raymond Wannall told his boss domestic intelligence chief William Sullivan that Gibson is very untrustworthy and the approach has to be to accept any info he provides but not to run Gibson as an informant. A later document confirms that neither the FBI or the CIA would accept Richard Gibson’s help at that time: "Gibson indicated that he was willing to publicly denounce the FPCC, say he was duped, that the FPCC is a tool of the Cuban government, that it is ineffective, and anyone still remaining loyal (to the FPCC) was just wasting his time, or any other tactic subsequently determined to be the most effective course of conduct. However, there was an undertone that he expected to be paid for any efforts in this regard. He stated that it was his personal opinion that it would be much more effective to use the FPCC as a cover for intelligence and counter-intelligence purposes, but when questioned for his specific thinking in this regard, he commented only that this could possibly be worked out later." Gibson clearly had some weak moments. The Cuban missile crisis – protesting against the end of the world At this point, during October, 1962, the world was in the full grip of the Cuban missile crisis. Even when protesting against the end of the world, FPCC activists did not get a lot of support, but the show of resistence made the powers that be even more irrational. From Ron Ridenour’s on-line book, Our America: I later learned that everyone in the United States was scared to death, even my friends. There were daily air raid drills—practice drills for children and workers in air raid shelters, stacked with food and water supplies. Hoarding became a national characteristic with rushes on supermarkets. The American people were preparing for a world war; they were not acting to prevent one. A few thousand rare souls braved the government-mass media-panic-created atmosphere to take up picket signs. There were a few demonstrations. The largest mustered about 10,000 people. They marched before the United Nations plaza with slogans: “US-USSR, No War Over Cuba”, and “Hands Off Cuba.” The latter, more “radical” demand was opposed by the social democratic part of the tiny minority who protested US bellicosity. The American working class—the population as a whole—shunned the left-wing like pariahs. As Simone de Beauvoir wrote in Force of Circumstance, “To be genuinely left-wing in the United States takes a great deal of character and independence as well as openness of mind…(they are) lonely and courageous men and women.” Van Gosse mentions that the FPCC-led demo in New York on October 27 drew about 2500, and the SANE-led one the next day had about 8000 participants. San Francisco FPCC led the biggest one on the West Coast, with about 3500. These were among the few actions led by FPCC that month – the organization was already much smaller and weaker than during the Bay of Pigs eighteen months earlier. On October 8, the FPCC did put together a picket line at the UN with 200 participants, where they were attacked with bottles of red paint, rotten eggs and other objects. The FBI "expanded its Security Index, establishing a special "Cuban Section" that included not only names of suspected Cuban agents operating in the United States, but also of people who had participated in organizations or picket lines that supported Castro. Nearly twelve thousand persons were included on the main index and another twenty thousand in two reserve indexes – all of whom were targeted for arrest as "potentially dangerous" in the event of an "internal security emergency". Oh, yes, the Security Index is still around, under another name. After 1971, the Security Index became ADEX during the 70s. From the 80s on, it’s been known as "Main Core". There’s been progress, of a sort – now, 8 million Americans are apparently on the round-up list. So members of the FPCC were on the Security Index, but not Oswald. He was placed on the FBI’s watchlist (a level of slightly lesser severity, denoted by a “Wanted Notice Card”) shortly after he relinquished his passport at the US embassy in Moscow. This would be lifted a month before the assassination, as shown below. At the same time, Oswald became a subject of the CIA’s mail-reading project “HT LINGUAL”. Thus, even though no CIA file was opened on Oswald for more than a year, Angleton’s CI-SIG unit was reading his mail, ostensibly because he was a defector that might be contacted by the Soviets. Right at the time of the final Bay of Pigs prisoner exchange, the FBI and Vicente conduct a key black-bag job at the FPCC office. During April, 1963, Vicente reports the contents of the FPCC bank statements from Chase for the months of January through April 1963. Lee is the person who can authorize withdrawal from the bank account. The FBI agents are still trying to develop volunteer Ed Linton as a source. During this month, Victor Vicente stated that Vincent Lee had telephonically contacted him and asked that the NYC FPCC take care of the month’s rent of the FPCC office. Lee was on a speaking tour for the month of April, and assured his colleagues that Ed Linton would handle the office Monday-Wednesday, Lee’s wife Marjorie Speece would handle the office Thursday, and that the office would be closed on Friday. The FBI agents entered on April 21, 1963 – a Sunday. Lee’s final words on the subject were that "Victor Vicente will handle anything of importance that happens during his absence." 4/18/63 is the postmark date of the letter sent from Dallas by Oswald to the national FPCC office in New York, according to a It refers to “photographs of the below listed material made available by NY 3245-S* on 4/21/63…in the event any of this material is disseminated outside the bureau, caution should be exercised to protect the source, NY 3245-S*, and the communication should be classified “Confidential”. The FPCC notes stating that 50 pieces of literature were forwarded to LHO on 4/19/63. Lee informed the FBI that the notation was written by him – but all the evidence is that he was out of town at the time. It was a meaningless and stupid falsehood, and he was probably covering for his ally Vicente in an absent-minded fashion. On 4/21/63, Vicente “made available records and correspondence currently maintained at FPCC Headquarters…Approximately 100 photographs were taken of this material…NYO will make appropriate dissemination when the film is developed.” Hoover biographers Dr. Anthan G. Theoharis and John Stuart Cox have a copy of the FBI NY office’s “Surreptitious Entries” file, maintained “informally” in the SAC’s personal folder, which says that “the FBI did break into the FPCC offices during April, 1963". On April 21, 1963, Vicente – advised that Lee H. Oswald of Dallas, Texas, was in contact with FPCC of New York City at which time he advised that he passed out pamphlets for the FPCC.” Under the wing of the CIA, informant Victor Vicente goes to Mexico City and meets Castro and Che The document that tells us what was Vicente’s award for all of his hard work is a 7/10/63 memo by CIA’s Louis de Santi of the counterintelligence division of the Special Affairs Staff (SAS) which states: “(T)he FBI informant (blank) is an American-born (blank) born in NYC (blank). He has been under FBI control for nearly three years penetrating the three pro-Castro organizations in NYC: the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC); the Casa Cuba, and the Jose Marti Club. Through the first two years Subject was only a marginal asset, in the last six months he has become a valuable penetration for the FBI into the above 3 organizations as well as the (blank) having apparently won the complete confidence of the pro-Castro leaders and Cuban officials. (blank) Recently he was asked to join the CPUSA…subject has been instructed by his Cuban superiors to take a camera with him to take pictures of Cuba for organizational meetings in NYC.” The LAD/JFK Task Force wrote an analysis in the 70s that DeSanti debriefed the informant upon his return to the US, and there is a reference that there were interviews with Castro and Che Guevara. In The Road to Dallas, author Robert Kaiser names the document quoted above that identifies Vicente: “In July 1963, the agency infiltrated an informer from the New York chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a Puerto Rican named Victor Thomas Vicente, into Cuba, probably through Mexico City. Vicente declined to settle there, as the CIA hoped he might, but he met both Castro and Che Guevara and was debriefed after he returned.” Upon his return to New York, Victor Vicente showed a slide show of his recent trip to Cuba on September 23 with about 100 persons in attendance. The FPCC was still soldiering on with hundreds of people attending the various New York forums, but it appeared to be reaching the end of the three year life cycle that is the natural fate of most activist-oriented organizations. Cuba was no longer in the news on a regular basis. Getting the travel ban reversed seemed hopeless in the political climate of the era. The FPCC was undergoing more and more infiltration – some of the FBI reports refer to as many as forty informants. But the intelligence agencies’ plans to make the FPCC look bad were to blow up in their face. Throughout this period, CIA and Mafia forces were trying to assassinate Castro Trafficante (Tampa), Marcello (Dallas) and Johnny Roselli (Chicago) had the motive to assassinate Castro, and they worked with CIA operatives like William Harvey to get it done. In the wake of the missile crisis, such an operation had to be done in secret. Officials like William Harvey of Task Force W, Deputy Director of Plans Richard Helms, and Desmond Fitzgerald of the Special Affairs Staff had not informed the CIA Director about some of their plots, which forced them to cover up after the JFK assassination. Harvey testified to the HSCA that he and Helms concealed the Castro assassination plots from the CIA director. David Morales, the Chief of Operations at JM/WAVE, was involved in all of the numerous CIA actions against Castro in 1963. CIA documents show that Morales was at an early AMTRUNK meeting at a “safe house in Washington, D.C.”, along with “Tad Szulc, New York Times reporter”, someone from the State Department, and two other CIA agents, before the CIA and AMTRUNK apparently went their separate ways in April. One of the more spectacular efforts happened on March 13, 1963, when Morales and “Colonel” Rosselli’s team tried to assassinate Castro from a house near the University of Havana by firing a mortar…bazookas, mortars and machine guns were taken. Demond Fitzgerald handed poison to another operative to kill Castro on the very day that JFK was shot. The Kennedys had their own projects for a coup or to push the Soviets from Cuba Kennedy also met with CIA officials in May 1962 and told them not to join forces with the Mafia without personally contacting him. As quietly as possible during 1963, the Kennedy brothers were brewing their own Cuban disruption campaign. They had a two-track strategy: A coup launched from foreign shores if necessary, or an agreement with Castro to rid the island of Soviet influence. Working with a separate wing of the CIA than those supporting the Cuban exiles, this project was known as AM/WORLD. The leaders of this effort were Manuel Artime and Harry Ruiz-Williams, with the CIA’s Harry Hecksher as the main case officer. The plan to create this junta in exile was picked up by the Associated Press as early as May 1963. By October, JFK had approved thirteen new sabotage missions as well a project called AMTRUNK proposed by New York Times correspondent Tad Szulc to enlist Cuban military officers into the coup effort. Although many referred to Artime as the Kennedys’ “Golden Boy”, it is revealing that the CIA referred to him as AM/BIDDY-1. Oswald joins the FPCC and meets the CIA’s David Phillips of the anti-Castro forces, who is involved in a deceptive operation designed to counter the FPCC in foreign countries During this same period Oswald used the opportunity to build up his resume as the head of his one-man FPCC chapter in New Orleans, culminating in an arrest and widespread TV coverage in August as he picketed on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and outraged his Southern neighbors. The arrest for breach of the peace grew out of a contrived fight between Oswald and the anti-Castro DRE, after what looked like a deliberately clumsy effort by Oswald to pose as an ant-Castro activist to infiltrate the DRE. Oswald even wrote VT Lee and described the fight several days before it actually happened. The head of the DRE was David Phillips. At the beginning of 1963, the Cuban disruption program Operation Mongoose is abolished with Harvey’s departure. Harvey’s Task Force W now becomes the Special Affairs Staff (SAS). Throughout 1963, David Morales of the CIA’s Special Affairs Staff (SAS) was one of the coordinators of operations against Castro (including new assassination projects), and to maintain contact with Cubans and other enemies of the Kennedys. That autumn, when CIA agent David Phillips became Chief of Cuban Operations in Mexico City, he became one of these SAS coordinators. Phillips was in effect rejoining the officers he had worked with on the Bay of Pigs in 1961, at which time he had been responsible for propaganda operations against the newly-created Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The SAS was packed with people who wanted to invade Cuba and saw JFK as an impediment. During September, Alpha-66 Cuban exile leader Antonio Veciana met with David Phillips and Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas at the lobby of the Southland Building for fifteen minutes. Oswald was talking about “something that we can do to kill Castro.” On 9/16/63, John Tilton of the CIA asked the FBI to help obtain FPCC stationery and any existing foreign mailing list in order to have a sample “to produce large quantities of propaganda in the name of the (FPCC)” in order to “counter” their activities in foreign countries. Tilton also said that the CIA was considering planting “deceptive information” which might “embarrass” the FPCC in areas where it has some support. Tilton assured the FBI that no "fabrication" would take place without advance notice and agreement. The CIA request was directed to the “Nationalities Intelligence Section” -to chief Raymond Wannall. Its analogue in New York was Harold Hoeg’s Squad 312. “The reply to CIA should be delivered via Liaison.” On 9/26/63, a memo then went out to SAC NY from LL Anderson on behalf of Director Hoover. “New York should promptly advise whether the material requested by CIA is available or obtainable. If available, it should be furnished by cover letter with enclosures suitable for dissemination to CIA by liaison.” This is right when Lee Harvey Oswald left for Mexico City for a week, and repeatedly visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies in an unsuccessful quest for a visa to get to Cuba. Wasn’t this the foreign FPCC activity the CIA was gearing up to counter? Transcripts of calls that were supposedly made by Oswald to the Cuban embassy reveal conversations so contrived that it is obvious that an imposter was making these calls. Photographs and a tape recording made available to members of the Warren Commission showed that someone impersonated Oswald in Mexico City. Even Hoover said it to LBJ the morning after the assassination. The 10/4/63 response from SAC NY James Kennedy reiterated his understanding that "CIA desires information regarding the availability of samples of FPCC stationery and FPCC mailing lists in connection with their consideration of plans to counter the activities of FPCC in foreign countries. The NYO plans to contact 3245-S* (Vicente) on 10/27/63." The attached blind memo is a COINTELPRO letter suggesting that VT Lee should be asked “how many dupes are still contributing to Castro’s propaganda arm here in the US…his fervor for Castro’s cause is directly related to the amount of funds being received.” Angelton’s aide Jane Roman stated that the man who “takes over Cuban operations in WH/3/Mexico on the 8th of October 1963 is named David Phillips.” The PR man who was key in bringing down the Guatemalan government now has a second chance at getting Cuba right. The next day after Phillips takes over Cuban operations in Mexico, October 9, FBI supervisor Marvin Gheesling canceled a FLASH notice on Oswald that had kept him on the aforementioned Watchlist among all FBI offices. As mentioned earlier, Oswald was placed on this Watchlist due to his defection to the USSR in 1959 and his statements to the US embassy that he was going to provide military secrets to the Soviet Union. When Gheesling canceled the FLASH just hours before the twin October 10 cables were sent by the CIA containing critical information about Oswald, he “turned off the alarm switch on Oswald literally an instant before it would have gone off”. Gheesling’s explanation for why he released the “stop” on 10/9/63 is contained in a memo to FBI #2 man Clyde Tolson from Inspector Gale: The “stop was placed in event subject returned from Russia under an assumed name and was inadvertently not removed by him on 9/7/62 when case closed.” James W. Douglass, a Catholic theologian who has pondered this question, suggests that Gheesling may have been misled by Tilton’s memo "into thinking Oswald was only working under cover in Mexico to counter the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. As a CIA operative, Oswald did not belong on the Security Index. Thus, his security watch was lifted. His staged Soviet connection could then be documented for scapegoating purposes after Dallas, but without sounding a national security alarm that would have put a spotlight on Oswald and prevented Dallas from happening." The next day, the CIA sent two totally conflicting documents. One was a teletype to the FBI, State Department and the Navy about Oswald contacting the Soviet embassy in Mexico City, inaccurately describing him as “approximately 35 years old, with an athletic build, about six feet tall, with receding hairline…believed that Oswald was identical to Lee Henry Oswald", a seeming error made by the CIA in their initial filing of 1960 when the CIA finally (and mysteriously) opened a file on Oswald a year after his defection and his threat to reveal military secrets to the Soviets. The other document was a cable sent two hours later to the station in Mexico: "Oswald is five feet ten inches, one hundred sixty five pounds, light brown wavy hair, (and) blue eyes." This description came from his mother to the FBI’s John Fain years earlier, which then ricocheted back and forth between INS, the FBI and CIA for years after that, although Oswald’s weight only varied between 130-150 and was 150 at the time of his death. The description sent to the FBI, the State Department, and the Navy is a deliberate lie. The wording of this cable was repeated to the Dallas police officers almost verbatim in a mysterious call-in to the dispatcher fifteen minutes after Kennedy was shot: “white, slender, weighing about one hundred sixty five pounds, about five feet ten inches tall, and in his early thirties.” Despite repeated attempts to find out the source, even J. Edgar Hoover had to admit that the information came from “an unidentified citizen”. Both of these messages were drafted by Mexico City desk officer Charlotte Bustos, while a key role in checking for accuracy was played by Ann Egerter of Angleton’s CI/SIG mole-hunting unit (the woman who opened the 201 file on "Lee Henry Oswald") This may have been as part of a larger strategy to confuse the FBI, with the goal to withhold information about its anti-Cuban operations in Mexico City. Egerter admits that she thought Oswald “was up to something bad” and that she knew he had spoken with a KGB agent at the Mexican embassy. Vicente comes through for the CIA on October 27 Right on October 27, as predicted in the NY FBI memo earlier that month, Vicente came through. He provided the Agency with the FPCC stationery they sought, as well as a ten page mailing list. He also provided them with "one hundred photos of the financial records and general activities", which included a recent letter from Oswald. In any case, Vicente brought home the bacon. Special Agent James Kennedy wrote that he was "…advised that CIA was interested in obtaining samples of FPCC stationery and also the existing foreign mailing list of FPCC. On 10/27/63, NY-3245-S* furnished the above material to agents of the NYO…3245-S* is a highly confidential source, the unauthorized disclosure of which could be prejudicial to national defense interests.” After the assassination, Taber, wracked with guilt, appears to have gone over to the other side "At approximately 9:45 pm on the night of 11/22/63, ROBERT TABER telephonically contacted the NYO at which time it was immediately evident TABER had been drinking heavily He at first asked to speak with SAS JAMES A DAY and LUNDQUIST, who had previously interviewed him in Boston and NY, and then spoke to HAROLD HOEG. He was regretful, saying he wished he had never heard of the “damned outfit” the FPCC. Told him they wanted him to cure his perjury about the Cuban funding, he said he wanted to but didn’t want to go back to jail, he’s “got four years under his belt” (note: to the SISS, he told them he did eight years) FBI told him it was the best way to avoid prosecution. Taber called HOEG again on 12/5, and had a similar conversation. The CIA and the Assistant AG Yeagley discussed plans to have a grand jury sit on 1/15/64 and prosecute Taber for perjury about Cuba’s Raul Roa being the source of FPCC’s original 1960 start-up ad, as well as failure for FPCC to register, based on his statements to Lundquist on 11/22 while intoxicated. But, instead, FBI founder Robert Taber is interviewed by Lundquist and O’Flaherty, and offers to provide info to the CIA, and even called back Lundquist on information about another case – almost certainly the report about seeing "Lt. Harvey Oswald" in Cuba after the Bay of Pigs invasion. Taber admitted that he checked out of hospital on crutches in third week of April, 1961 and went to Sloppy Joe’s tavern in Havana, but denied knowing anything about Lt. Lee Oswald or anyone named Oswald. Taber affirms that he’s willing to assist the US government. A situation can be created to make it look like he’s fleeing to Cuba to avoid prosecution. When Taber was interviewed by CIA, the agency initially said it was very interested in Taber’s offer. It is to be noted that both newspaper articles in the accompanying letterhead memo feature the possible prosecution of Taber, Gibson, and Lee. Like with Gibson, the CIA apparently got cold feet. On March 2, 1964, Henry Real said that CIA plans to use Taber are “indefinite”. During March 1964, Robert Taber applied for employment with the CIA. The CIA’s Office of Security rejected him because "In view of Subject’s notorious background, which raises serious questions on his honesty, loyalty, integrity and (deleted) trustworthiness, (deleted). Leo J. Dunn." Wannall grumbled to Sullivan a couple of months later that they should empanel a grand jury against Taber if he goes to Cuba as he has discussed. During 1965, Taber released his classic work on guerilla insurgency, War of the Flea. Ominously, this book was reprinted in 2002 by Potomac Press, with a new foreword by Bard E. O’Neill, a military counterintelligence author. The book is now a standard reference for the US military on counterinsurgencies. In 1966, it appears that the plan Taber discussed with the CIA may have ripened into fruition. The CIA reported that Robert Taber asked for and received political asylum in Cuba. Allegedly, he was facing prison due to perjury before the Internal Security Committee. Taber, like Gibson, clearly had some weak moments. Virtually all the FBI agents named here were among the 18 punished by Hoover, and then chosen to lead the investigation into the assassination 18 FBI agents were punished by Hoover for their pre-assassination work. Lundquist and Hoeg of New York were two of them. At an HSCA hearing Gale stated, “Tolson called me on two of the agents in New York they (the Warren Commission or the FBI) found had, they felt, were derelict in the way they had reported the matter, and he asked me if we had found those…and I told him that, yes, we had found those.” Hoover believed that Oswald’s background as a Soviet defector (and marrying the daugther of a Soviet intelligence officer) triggered espionage concerns; and his FPCC activism triggered security concerns. The FBI files available to Hoover also revealed that Oswald had initially threatened to provide US military secrets to the Soviets in exchange for citizenship and that he was presently a self-declared Marxist.. For these reasons, Hoover felt that Oswald should have been on the Security Index, and certainly should not have been removed from the Watchlist. The others punished included Gheesling for removing the FLASH, Elbert Turner for not taking action on the CIA memo received the day after Gheesling removed the FLASH, and Hosty, Kaack, and Lambert L. Anderson for not following up more aggressively. Fain would have been punished, but he retired in 1962. Nevertheless, the same men proceeded to lead the post-assassination investigation as well. As soon as the investigation was over, the FBI knew what it had to do to protect its role in history. The Director’s office told New York that since Warren Commission had issued its report, “you are now authorized to mail an updated copy of the letter previously submitted. Include a number of spelling and typographical errors in the letter and use commercially purchased stationery. Use every possible precaution to ensure that the letter cannot be traced to the FBI”. Originally submitted for approval three months earlier was a hit-piece on the “left-wing background and moral degeneration of Mark Lane”. The FPCC legacy remains a powerful one The FPCC provides a legacy of resistance. It was an antiwar organization and a solidarity organization, much like CISPES (Committee in Support of People of El Salvador). Berta Green, to this day, continues to organize against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is still a force in present day America – when co-founder Alan Sagner was nominated as head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Senator John McCain red-baited him about his history with the FPCC. (Sagner said good things about the founding of the FPCC, and then weaseled out with, “Within a year of two after the group was organized…I perceived that people were getting involved whose purpose and mission was different than mine.”) Fair Play stood in solidarity with Cubans, and also with African Americans. Cubans helped build it, and part of the reason for the FPCC’s decline is that so many of them went back to Cuba.. Some people fell or lost faith in the struggle; some were strengthened; and some we won’t be sure about until all the files are opened. The work of the FPCC and its allies made any successful invasion of Cuba impossible. They blew the whistle on the Bay of Pigs loudly and clearly for months before the invasion. They mounted resistance to the war plans of US military and intelligence advisors in the Bay of Pigs aftermath. The agencies retaliated by infiltrating the FPCC and demonizing its leadership. When JFK was allegedly killed by the FPCC activist Lee Harvey Oswald, the agencies had to hide their war plans from the Warren Commission in order to avoid punishment for public exposure of their illegal plans to assassinate Castro, violate the Neutrality Act by creating shadow armies and navies, and engage in dirty tricks on American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. The Kennedys’ AMTRUNK operation never regained its momentum and slowly petered out to a close by 1966. LBJ was petrified that any Cuban connection with Oswald could result in World War III. That’s how he persuaded Warren to chair the Warren Commission. LBJ didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, any details about the assassination. The net result was to greatly ease the heat on Cuba. Many of these activists are still alive and with their shoulders bent in defense of Cuba, such as Saul Landau. Lawrence Ferlinghetti still operates the City Lights Book store in North Beach and continues to inspire at the age of 90. Many others are unknown to anyone but their loved ones. After the hard stories about that era, it heartened me to know that Rosa Parks came to Robert F. Williams’ funeral in 1996 (he made it back to the USA in 1969, where all charges were ultimately dropped), and gave thanks that a warrior that faced so many dangers in the defense of the people was able to return home with his family and live a long and happy life. Think about what didn’t happen to Fidel. Fidel…Fidel… your coffin passes by thru lanes and streets you never knew thru day and night, Fidel While lilacs last in the dooryard bloom, Fidel your futile trip is done yet is not done and is not futile I give you my sprig of laurel." BILL SIMPICH is an antiwar activist in the San Francisco Bay Area. The endnotes, with weblinks to the documents, are available with an email to bsimpich@gmail.com. To see other historical documents from the sixties and seventies involving US intelligence and military plans, maryferrell.org is a great resource.

“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Frederick Douglass on 5 July 1852 Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country school houses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable — and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say, I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you. “May [the reformer] not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot’s heart might be sadder, and the reformer’s brow heavier. . . . There is consolation in the thought that America is young.” This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot’s heart might be sadder, and the reformer’s brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with nations. Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. The style and title of your “sovereign people” (in which you now glory) was not then born. You were under the British Crown . Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgement, it deemed wise, right and proper. But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. They went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried men’s souls. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. But, to proceed. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they persevered. They were not the men to look back. As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of. The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present rulers. Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever have a place on this planet; and their course, in respect to any great change, (no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be redressed by it), may be calculated with as much precision as can be the course of the stars. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. These people were called tories in the days of your fathers; and the appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in our papers, applied to some of our old politicians. Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful; but, amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it. On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day, whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it. “Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved.” Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation’s history — the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. Cling to this day — cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight. The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness. The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime. The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. The country was poor in the munitions of war. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too — great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory. They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was “settled” that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were “final;” not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! How unlike the politicians of an hour! Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defence. Mark them! Fully appreciating the hardship to be encountered, firmly believing in the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of an on-looking world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their sincerity, soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under the inspiration of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the corner-stone of the national superstructure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you. Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze. The din of business, too, is hushed. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. Prayers are made, hymns are sung, and sermons are preached in honor of this day; while the quick martial tramp of a great and multitudinous nation, echoed back by all the hills, valleys and mountains of a vast continent, bespeak the occasion one of thrilling and universal interests nation’s jubilee. Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. Many of you understand them better than I do. You could instruct me in regard to them. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. They have all been taught in your common schools, narrated at your firesides, unfolded from your pulpits, and thundered from your legislative halls, and are as familiar to you as household words. They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence. I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. This is esteemed by some as a national trait — perhaps a national weakness. It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! will be found by Americans. I shall not be charged with slandering Americans, if I say I think the American side of any question may be safely left in American hands. I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine! THE PRESENT. My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. “Trust no future, however pleasant, Let the dead past bury its dead; Act, act in the living present, Heart within, and God overhead.” We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child’s share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. This truth is not a doubtful one. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have “Abraham to our father,” when they had long lost Abraham’s faith and spirit. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abraham’s great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous? Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men, shout — “We have Washington to our father.” Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is. “The evil that men do, lives after them, The good is oft’ interred with their bones.” “What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?” Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the “lame man leap as an hart.” But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.” Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!” To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America! “I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;” I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgement is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just. But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, there will I argue with you that the slave is a man! For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian’s God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men! Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and lo offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him. What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength, than such arguments would imply. What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is past. At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival. INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE. Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year, by dealers in this horrid traffic. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave-trade) “the internal slave trade.” It is, probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa! It is, however, a notable fact that, while so much execration is poured out by Americans upon those engaged in the foreign slave-trade, the men engaged in the slave-trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable. Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and American religion. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. You know what is a swine-drover? I will show you a man-drover. They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. You will see one of these human flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to have torn its way to the centre of your soul! The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow this drove to New Orleans. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States. I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot Street, Fell’s Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on flaming “hand-bills,” headed CASH FOR NEGROES. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness. The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain caution is observed. In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathised with me in my horror. Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave-markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the sight. “ Is this the land your Fathers loved, The freedom which they toiled to win? Is this the earth whereon they moved? Are these the graves they slumber in?” But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. By that act, Mason & Dixon’s line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The power is co-extensive with the star-spangled banner and American Christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred. He is a bird for the sportsman’s gun. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground for men. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Your President, your Secretary of State, your lords, nobles, and ecclesiastics, enforce, as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country, and to your God, that you do this accursed thing. Not fewer than forty Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a moment’s warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included! For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. The Fugitive Slave Law makes MERCY TO THEM, A CRIME; and bribes the judge who tries them. An American JUDGE GETS TEN DOLLARS FOR EVERY VICTIM HE CONSIGNS to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. The oath of any two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery! His own testimony is nothing. He can bring no witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their offices under an open and palpable bribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a man’s liberty, hear only his accusers! In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenceless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there be another nation on the globe, having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it. At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance, and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness. Did this law concern the “mint, anise and cummin” — abridge the right to sing psalms, to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion, it would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. A John Knox would be seen at every church door, and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was shown by Knox, to the beautiful, but treacherous queen Mary of Scotland. The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional exceptions), does not esteem “the Fugitive Slave Law” as a declaration of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. The Bible addresses all such persons as “scribes, pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgement, mercy and faith.” THE CHURCH RESPONSIBLE. But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done! These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that “pure and undefiled religion” which is from above, and which is “first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.” But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation — a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, “Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea! when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgement; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow.” The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that “There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.” Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds; and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive. In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a thing be done? We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared — men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. The LORDS of Buffalo, the SPRINGS of New York, the LATHROPS of Auburn, the COXES and SPENCERS of Brooklyn, the GANNETS and SHARPS of Boston, the DEWEYS of Washington, and other great religious lights of the land, have, in utter denial of the authority of Him, by whom they professed to he called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example of the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teach “that we ought to obey man’s law before the law of God.” My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be supported, as the “standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ,” is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. In speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend* on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave’s redemption from his chains. [*Rev. R. R. Raymond] RELIGION IN ENGLAND & RELIGION IN AMERICA. One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in England towards a similar movement in that country. There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty. There, the question of emancipation was a high[ly] religious question. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. The anti-slavery movement there was not an anti-church movement, for the reason that the church took its full share in prosecuting that movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall assume a favorable, instead of a hostile position towards that movement. Americans! your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties), is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education; yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation — a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country. You profess to believe “that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth,” and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you “hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;” and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, “is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose,” a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country. Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a by word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! be warned! be warned! a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever! THE CONSTITUTION. But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States; that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic. Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped “ To palter with us in a double sense: And keep the word of promise to the ear, But break it to the heart.” And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practised on mankind. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. There is not time now to argue the constitutional question at length — nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discussed. The subject has been handled with masterly power by Lysander Spooner, Esq., by William Goodell, by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., and last, though not least, by Gerritt Smith, Esq. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour. “[L]et me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it.” Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it. What would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a tract of land, in which no mention of land was made? Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. These rules are well established. They are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the study of law. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. I hold that every American citizen has a right to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too attentive, and no American heart too devoted. He further says, the constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the constitution. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument. Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. I have detained my audience entirely too long already. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. “Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country.” Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work The downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the other. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, “Let there be Light,” has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. “Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God.” In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it: God speed the year of jubilee The wide world o’er! When from their galling chains set free, Th’ oppress’d shall vilely bend the knee, And wear the yoke of tyranny Like brutes no more. That year will come, and freedom’s reign, To man his plundered rights again Restore. God speed the day when human blood Shall cease to flow! In every clime be understood, The claims of human brotherhood, And each return for evil, good, Not blow for blow; That day will come all feuds to end And change into a faithful friend Each foe. God speed the hour, the glorious hour, When none on earth Shall exercise a lordly power, Nor in a tyrant’s presence cower; But all to manhood’s stature tower, By equal birth! THAT HOUR WILL, COME, to each, to all, And from his prison-house, the thrall Go forth. Until that year, day, hour, arrive, With head, and heart, and hand I’ll strive, To break the rod, and rend the gyve, The spoiler of his prey deprive- So witness Heaven! And never from my chosen post, Whate’er the peril or the cost, Be driven.

The irony in the prayer, speeches, remarks given (and even the selection of the people giving these) during this event is endless. I wonder if anyone else will notice. Anyway, these African American men fought their hearts out in World War II for a nation that would not even allow them to fight without being in segregated units (and often only in roles of servitude). Ut;s 2012 and these men are just being honored. Why is that? Not so much why are they being honored and not even why are they just now being honored, but I mean...why now? Anyway, check the full program out here: http://www.c-span.org/Events/Nations-First-African-American-Marines-Receive-Congressional-Gold-Medal/10737431920-1/ Montford Point Marines Recall Challenges in Breaking Color Barrier: Documentary about Montford Point Marines narrated by Louis Gossett Jr. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDu5GLRLZVI&feature=related

Try The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison). Mama Toni Morrison writes spirit-led works and every single stroke of her pen/keyboard serves for the purpose of uplift. Writing is more than craft for those keepers of The Way like her; writing is soul's work and we really need more like her, keepers of The Way, griots with that true sense of ancestral responsibility and artistic integrity. . Toni Morrison explains her novel Home in this following NPR interview: http://onpoint.wbur....morrison/player

"Belly full but dem starvin, have a lot but still wantin" -Garnett Silk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEMQKs_v6II

"Obama-care"... Is it just me or not including the "solid right") are relatively few people talking about the court's decision (re: the constitutionality of the aforementioned/provisions/stipulations)?

Thank you, Troy. I really hope that this documentary does not gloss things over on either end, too much has been eliminated, demonized, minimized or romanticized. The people need to know. If Bro Huey's story is told as honestly and as openly as possible, it will open the door for more of the story to be told and received, which it never really has been. This will re-open (and in many cases "open") the door for the stories of so many to be told and considered. Our political prisoners who are still existing with U.S. bounties on their heads, our political prisoners who are serving "life +" sentences for daring to be honest, for daring to help change the miserable conditions of a people and of humanity, their stories will start receiving more attention and consideration. The realities of today, they will have to come out. Many of these realities that so many (both on domestic and foreign fronts) are oblivious to, these realities of today will have to come out.Then it will be understood what is meant by statements like "The struggle is not over; the struggle has just evolved...the struggle has just become much more sophisticated."

Arizona Governor says Police can Begin Enforcing Immigration law By Paloma Esquivel and John M. Glionna / Los Angeles Times | Tuesday, June 26, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | West PHOENIX — Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer called it "a victory for the rule of law." But for police chiefs, Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the so-called "show me your papers" provision of SB 1070, the state’s immigration law, looks like a big headache. Arizona may now require officers to ask for proof of legal status of people they stop for other reasons and suspect to be in the country illegally. State law enforcement officials said the decision immediately made the job of Arizona’s street cops much more complicated, requiring them to conduct traffic stops and other activities with a new level of public scrutiny. Critics have said the new police authority could lead to racial profiling. Obama administration officials, who had publicly dismissed the law as unconstitutional, warned that it would be watching closely for federal civil rights violations. With officers across Arizona forced to walk a tightrope of legal complexity, cash-strapped municipalities also worry they could soon be defending a flurry of lawsuits by the federal government, civil rights activists and irate motorists — distracting police from their main goal of fighting crime. "We absolutely expect lawsuits on both sides of this issue," said Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villasenor. "This will result in our officers being tied up in court rather than working on the streets to reduce crime." John Bennett, president of the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police, said he expects "bumps in the road" in executing the new law. "On the street, who knows what’s going to happen," he said. "We’re going to enforce this law. There may be problems, but not matter what you do as a police department, you’re always subject to litigation." While the court gave the go-ahead to a key provision of Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, it also warned that state law enforcement could not hold people for extended periods merely for not having proper immigration papers. Within hours of the high court’s ruling Monday, Brewer emphasized that police immigration checks based on reasonable suspicion during legal stops was now the law of the land in her state. "We will move forward instructing law enforcement to begin practicing what the United States Supreme Court has upheld," she said, adding that Arizona officers would be responsible in their actions. "Civil rights will be protected. Racial profiling will not be tolerated." But the federal government put Arizona officials on notice that Washington would not tolerate the state’s enforcement of the new law "in a manner that has the purpose or effect of discriminating against the Latino or any other community," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. Holder also expressed concern that Arizona’s law would discourage crime victims such as victims of domestic abuse or asylum seekers from contacting police out of fear of detention or deportation. "We will continue to use every federal resource to protect the safety and civil rights of all Americans," Holder said. Even before Monday’s court ruling, Brewer ordered training materials, including a video that specified what officers could and could not do under the law, distributed to all state law enforcement agencies. By Monday afternoon, officials had issued revised guidelines taking the court’s ruling into account. They encouraged officers to review part of the material concerning racial profiling and said several chapters pertaining to provisions that were struck down should no longer be used. The training materials make it clear that Latino appearance alone is not a relevant factor in determining whether there’s reasonable suspicion that someone is in the country illegally. However, "the country of birth may be one factor that, in combination with others, may lead to a determination of reasonable suspicion of unlawful presence," according to the training manual. Mary Rose Garrido Wilcox, a Maricopa County Supervisor and outspoken critic of SB 1070, said she would continue work with local organizations to calm fears and inform immigrant communities about their rights. "We’ll be telling people they don’t have to leave," she said. She expects lawsuits to follow soon after the implementation of the law. In their ruling, the justices said the federal government has the ultimate authority to decide who will be held on immigration charges and possibly deported. Arizona police officers must also check with federal immigration agents before deciding to hold any suspects, the court ruled. Federal immigration officials in Arizona were instructed by the Department of Homeland Security not respond to a traffic stop or similar law enforcement encounter unless the person in custody is a convicted criminal, has been removed from the U.S. previously and re-entered the nation illegally or is a recent border crosser. They will, however, respond to telephone requests from local law enforcement to verify a detainee’s immigration status. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also rescinded agreements with several Arizona law enforcement agencies, including the Arizona Department of Public Safety and police departments in Phoenix and Mesa, as well as several county sheriff’s offices. Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck said it was bad policy to local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws. "It breaks down trust and limits cooperation in a large segment of the population we serve (and) overtaxes our limited resources," he said. In a news conference Monday, Villasenor, the Tucson police chief, expressed a similar concern — that the law would damage the relationship his department had worked to mold with the city’s Latino community. He said his officers on average have cited and then released thousands of people a year. Now, police officers will have to verify a person’s immigration status before letting them go, depending on how quickly federal law enforcement respond. "I think this is a setback for local law enforcement," Villasenor said. "This is not what we’re here to do. We’re here to ensure the safety of all involved." ——— (Esquivel reported from Phoenix and Glionna from Las Vegas. Staff writer Joel Rubin in Los Angeles and special correspondent Megan Kimble in Tucson contributed to this report.)

License Plate Readers Spark Privacy Concerns by Charlotte Albright June 26, 2012from VPR It is increasingly likely that someone or something has recently taken a picture of your car's license plate. License plate readers are used in almost every state. They allow police to quickly spot everything from expired registrations to car owners who may be wanted for more serious offenses June 26, 2012from VPR It is increasingly likely that someone or something has recently taken a picture of your car's license plate. License plate readers are used in almost every state. They allow police to quickly spot everything from expired registrations to car owners who may be wanted for more serious offenses *********************** Source:aclu.org American Civil Liberties Union article about license plate readers and the recording of plate date: DEA Recording Americans’ Movements on Highways, Creating Central Repository of Plate Data By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 3:58pm The DEA wants to capture the license plates of all vehicles traveling along Interstate 15 in Utah, and store that data for two years at their facility in Northern Virginia. And, as a DEA official told Utah legislators at a hearing this week (attended by ACLU of Utah staff and covered in local media), these scanners are already in place on “drug trafficking corridors” in California and Texas and are being considered for Arizona as well. The agency is also collecting plate data from unspecified other sources and sharing it with over ten thousand law enforcement agencies around the nation. We know that automated license plate scanning (ALPR) technology is rapidly being deployed by local police around the country. However, its use by a federal agency raises new issues and questions. To begin with, the federal government is in more of a position to create a centralized repository of drivers’ movements, so federal deployment of the technology is even more serious a matter than widespread local deployment. In addition, a federal agency is required by law (the Privacy Act of 1974) to disclose to the American people how it is collecting, using, and sharing data about them. However, we were not able to find a Privacy Act notice anywhere in the Federal Register in which the DEA describes any collection of license plate data. (The two recent DEA Privacy Act notices we found do not mention the practice.) The DEA official claimed to the Utah legislators that “we’re not trying to capture any personal information—all that this captures is the tag, regardless of who the driver is.” The idea that a license plate number is not personally identifiable information is laughable. It is true that different people can drive one vehicle, but they are usually closely related to the registered owner and their identities are rarely difficult to ascertain after the fact. We have received reports from ACLU affiliates along what the government calls the “SWB” (southwest border) that ALPR technology appeared to be in use at border checkpoints. And we did find mention of ALPR in DEA written testimony to Congress. In May 2009, DEA and Justice Dept. officials mentioned the agency’s use of the technology along the border. They wrote: Within the United States, DEA has worked with DHS to implement its “License Plate Reader Initiative” (LPR) in the Southwest border region to gather intelligence, particularly on movements of weapons and cash into Mexico. The system uses optical character recognition technology to read license plates on vehicles in the United States traveling southbound towards the border. The system also takes photographs of drivers and records statistical information such as the date, time, and traffic lane of the record. This information can be compared with DEA and CBP databases to help identify and interdict vehicles that are carrying large quantities of cash, weapons, and other illegal contraband toward Mexico. The word “particularly” in that statement is particularly ominous. In March 2011 written testimony, a top DEA official updated the picture: DEA components have the ability to query and input alerts on license plates via an existing DEA database, and other law enforcement agencies can do the same via EPIC [the DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center]. DEA and CBP are currently working together in order to merge existing CBP LPRs at the points of entry with DEA’s LPR Initiative. In addition, the FY2010 SWB supplemental provided $1.5 million to expand the LPR initiative by purchasing additional devices and barrels and support maintenance to allow DEA to monitor traffic and provide intelligence on bulk currency transiting toward Mexico. Note that “the border” as described by the government is not what most people might think it is; the government’s “border” extends 100 miles inward, along with some of the extraordinary powers the government possesses at the true border. We have complained vociferously about this “Constitution-Free Zone,” which, according to our study, actually contains two-thirds of the entire U.S. population. I note, however, that no part of Utah lies within 100 miles of the real border, so this latest initiative is something more than the one described in the Congressional testimony. Utah state legislators are rightly skeptical. The law enforcement officials defended the program in part by describing it as an extension of already existing ALPR deployments in the rest of the state. But rather than mollifying the legislators, this answer prompted them to resolve to hold hearings on those local uses of the technology. As usual, the authorities also tried to package their proposal with all kinds of soothing promises: the data would not be used except to catch drug traffickers and to investigate “serious crimes.” The data would not be cross-referenced with other databases containing driver’s names (and therefore presumably to the vast realms of other information that that would be available). The data would not be used to locate people with outstanding traffic tickets and misdemeanor warrants. This is what you call sugaring a pill so that people will swallow it. Anyone who thinks all of the above will never happen doesn’t know much about history. We’ve seen this dynamic many times—a new surveillance technique is unveiled supposedly for use only against the most extreme criminals and is quickly expanded to much broader use. (To take just one example: DNA testing was first applied only to convicted murderers, then to all convicts, then to certain arrestees who haven’t even been convicted of a crime.) The DEA official in charge of this program, Gary Newcomb, made it clear that this program is already envisioned as expanding dramatically. He told the Utah legislators that: Back in 2008 the DEA started a program called the DEA National License Plate Reader Program. It’s going to be deployed in three parts. Part one is, we’re currently deploying all along the southwest border. We’re deployed in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and the eastern part of California....We’re also receiving additional LPR data from other sources who collect and store LPR data but who also provide additional LPR data into our national repository.... It is not clear what the “other sources” are that are feeding their ALPR data to the DEA. We do know of state efforts to centralize data. Worst case, it’s a preponderance of the rapidly growing list of law enforcement agencies around the country that are deploying this technology. Newcomb continued: We actually have data feeds coming from portable trailers all throughout the southern border, from fixed sites as well as from covert barrel cams too [i.e., cameras hidden in traffic barrels]. That is done on a strategic operational level. So that that data is then stored within our back-end. The feds have the ability to query it directly, and we also have the ability where we provided over ten thousand state, local, and tribal law enforcement the ability to access this through the Internet….The final part is, we’re hoping to start with Phase II, phase II is where we want to deploy along the hub cities and the high-traffic corridors, to include this state, as well as phase III being the northern border. We hope to have this completed within about two to three years max. Two-thirds of the American population already lives within the “border” as defined by the federal government; when you add in “hub cities” (whatever they are) and “high-traffic corridors,” most Americans’ movements are likely to be recorded by the federal government under this scheme, it would seem. Audio of the Utah hearing is online; discussion of ALPRs begins at 1:47:40.