65th Day of ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth‬: Booker T. Washington author of UP FROM SLAVERY born April 5, 1856

I read Up From Slavery as a youngster.  I don't recall what or prompted me to do it.  It would be many years later before I would learn that he was a "controversial" figure.

I've read "Up From Slavery" also, it was one of the most profound books I've read so far.

Apart from the "know your place" precept often associated with Brother Booker's philosphy, I consider myself a Booker T. Washington type of fellow in the sense that I believe Black people should focus more on the skilled trades and making a job and building a society for themselves instead of focusing their children so much on college education which guarantees nothing but debt and at best teaches them how to best "fit in" to someone else's society.

Marcus Garvey read his book also and it was one of his inspirations to come to the United States and start his world renown UNIA movement.

One of the things I hope comes out of our efforts to rebuild Flint will be a renewed interest among Black youth in the skilled trades as well as civil engineering and urban planning in general.

Today's college education teaches Black youth how to "fit in" to a society that has already been established by others.
A society where they're increasingly not wanted.

Marketing manager?
Computer software designer?
Intelligence expert?

These are all careers for the individual who is already living in an established and well build society, and is welcomed in that society.  These careers are for social "refinement".


Black youth need to learn how to mold and BUILD a society for themselves within America that is more conducive to their own social, moral, and economic habits.  This requires skills in building a basic foundation.

Civil engineering
Architecture
Urban planning
Metal works, ect.....

THESE are what Black youth should be focused on learning !
How to repair THEIR communities and how to build new ones.


I go to Starbucks and see a young Black man in glasses sitting on a stool and grinning at me talking about he wants to be the next Steve Jobs and I slap that chocolate latte out of his hand and all over his laptop making it sizzle and smoke!

He doesn't even know how to grow food to FEED himself ,but some movie he saw or one of his goof-off White friends has fooled him into focusing on some hightech computerized garbage that does little to NOTHING toward solving the serious problems of his home'hood back in Philadelphia.

I told him Philadelphia and D.C. and most urban inner cities are falling apart.
Instead of focusing on a degree so you can beg some else for a job and then go chasing after them to get out of the ghetto.....learn how to rebuild the ghetto and make it a place others would want to move to.