A True Leading Revolutionary; Malcolm X Day

A True Leading Revolutionary; Malcolm X

As a child growing up in the Virgin Islands, I was taught to have a lot of pride; self-pride, female pride, island pride, and most of all black pride. I grew up with a slew of books in my room (house) all dedicated to educational aspects, inspirational leaders, and leading innovators around the world. One the walls in our living room hung only one family portrait, the rest where pictures of leaders who have paved our way with their life’s work and their lives; Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and Malcolm X. As an adult now, I’ve held the same ideals near and become overly excited to convey all that I’ve learned to others. I also have pictures of my favorite inspirational revolutionaries on my walls at home and while some of the faces have changed, the theme is still the same.

“A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything”- Malcolm X

Many of the children of the Virgin Islands are also raised with similar values, norms, and ideals. It’s displayed in the way that they choose to promote culture through music, hair and clothing trends and even traditional events like Carnival. But there should be more to our culture than those things, there is much more we are responsible for with regards to preparing our children for their futures. Our ideals have been distorted to fit the views of a few ignorant minds. Norms and values are being discarded for attention and popularity. If we cannot teach our children what they do today affects everyone’s tomorrow how can they be expected to grow, participate and strive to make a better community/society for them as we once did.

“Stumbling is not falling”- Malcolm X

Malcom X is a great example to lead the young men in our society. He was a black man, who wasn’t afraid or ashamed to admit when he was wrong. He continued to strive for education and for the betterment of the human race despite what others said of him. He is a role model and the epitome of what many of our youths strive to be, a conscious member of their society.

“Without education you’re not going anywhere in this world”- Malcolm X

Throughout this post I’ve included some of my favorite quotes from Malcolm X, as I have shared with you please share with others, we’ll never know who these words may resonate with most.  

“Do not be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn’t so what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today”
“A race of people is like and individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself”
“I am not a racist. I am against every from of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings such be respected as such, regardless of their color”

Poetry For Women (By Women, For Women, About Women)

AIN'T I A WOMEN?

Photo Credits from http://ionenewsone.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/sojourner-truth.jpg

That man over there say

     a woman needs to be helped into carriages

and lifted over ditches

     and to have the best place everywhere.

Nobody ever helped me into carriages

     or over mud puddles

     or gives me a best place...

And ain't I a woman?

     Look at me

Look at my arm!

     I have plowed and planted

and gathered into barns

     and no man could head me...

And ain't I a woman?

     I could work as much

and eat as much as a man —

     when I could get to it —

and bear the lash as well

     and ain't I a woman?

I have born 13 children

     and seen most all sold into slavery

and when I cried out a mother's grief

     none but Jesus heard me...

And ain't I a woman?

     that little man in black there say

a woman can't have as much rights as a man

     cause Christ wasn't a woman

Where did your Christ come from?

     From God and a woman!

Man had nothing to do with him!

     If the first woman God ever made

was strong enough to turn the world

     upside down, all alone

together women ought to be able to turn it

     rightside up again.

Copyright © Sojourner Truth, 1852.

Poem by Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)

Children's Corner: Poetry (I, Too, Sing America)

I, Too, Sing America

by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong.

Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then.

Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

Ms. Child Advocate

Children's Corner; Short Stories

The Negro Mother

Children, I come back today
To tell you a story of the long dark way
That I had to climb, that I had to know
In order that the race might live and grow.
Look at my face -- dark as the night --
Yet shining like the sun with love's true light.
I am the dark girl who crossed the red sea
Carrying in my body the seed of the free.
I am the woman who worked in the field
Bringing the cotton and the corn to yield.
I am the one who labored as a slave,
Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave --
Children sold away from me, I'm husband sold, too.
No safety , no love, no respect was I due.

Three hundred years in the deepest South:
But God put a song and a prayer in my mouth .
God put a dream like steel in my soul.
Now, through my children, I'm reaching the goal.

Now, through my children, young and free,
I realized the blessing deed to me.
I couldn't read then. I couldn't write.
I had nothing, back there in the night.
Sometimes, the valley was filled with tears,
But I kept trudging on through the lonely years.
Sometimes, the road was hot with the sun,
But I had to keep on till my work was done:
I had to keep on! No stopping for me --
I was the seed of the coming Free.
I nourished the dream that nothing could smother
Deep in my breast -- the Negro mother.
I had only hope then , but now through you,
Dark ones of today, my dreams must come true:
All you dark children in the world out there,
Remember my sweat, my pain, my despair.
Remember my years, heavy with sorrow --
And make of those years a torch for tomorrow.
Make of my pass a road to the light
Out of the darkness, the ignorance, the night.
Lift high my banner out of the dust.
Stand like free men supporting my trust.
Believe in the right, let none push you back.
Remember the whip and the slaver's track.
Remember how the strong in struggle and strife
Still bar you the way, and deny you life --
But march ever forward, breaking down bars.
Look ever upward at the sun and the stars.
Oh, my dark children, may my dreams and my prayers
Impel you forever up the great stairs --
For I will be with you till no white brother
Dares keep down the children of the Negro Mother.

BY
Langston Hughes

Children's Corner; Poetry

Flight 

On silver sand where ripples curled

I counted sea-gulls seven;

Shy, secret screened from all the world,

And innocent as heaven.

They did not of my nearness know,

For dawn was barely bright,

And they were still, like spots of snow

In that pale, pearly light.

Then one went forth unto the sea

That rippled up in gold,

And there were rubies flashing free

From out its wing-unfold;

It ducked and dived in pretty play,

The while the other six

So gravely sat it seemed that they

Were marvelled by its tricks.

Then with a sudden flurry each

Down-rushed to join its mate,

And in a flash that sickle beach

With rapture was elate.

With joy they pranked till everyone

Was diamonded with spray,

Then flicked with flame to greet the sun

They rose and winged away.

But with their going, oh, the surge

Of loss they left in me!

For in my heart was born the urge,

The passion to be free.

And where each dawn with terror brings

Some tale of bale and blight,

Who would not envy silver wings,

The sea-gull in its flight!

Let me not know the soils of woe

That chain this stricken earth;

Let me forget the fear and fret

That bind men from their birth;

Let me be the one with wind and sun,

With earth and sky and sea. . . .

Oh, let me teach in living speech

God's glory - Liberty.

BY 

Robert Service

Children's Corner; Poetry

EMANCIPATION


No rack can torture me,
My soul's at liberty
Behind this mortal bone
There knits a bolder one

You cannot prick with saw,
Nor rend with scymitar.
Two bodies therefore be;
Bind one, and one will flee.

The eagle of his nest
No easier divest
And gain the sky,
Than mayest thou,

Except thyself may be
Thine enemy;
Captivity is consciousness,
So's liberty.

BY
Emily Dickinson

Children's Corner; Poetry

Democracy

Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.

I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you.

Langston Hughes

Children's Corner; Short Stories

The Origin of Thanksgiving

After landing in Plymouth, the Pilgrims had to struggle to survive through their first wretched and miserable winter in Massachusetts. When spring and summer came it was a welcome relief. They learned so many things that first year. They had planted and cared for their first fields of corn. They had found wild strawberries in the meadows, raspberries on the hillsides, and wild grapes in the woods.In the forest just back of the village wild turkeys and deer were easily shot. In the shallow waters of the bay there was plenty of fish, clams, and lobsters.The summer had been warm, with a good deal of rain and much sunshine; and so when autumn came there was a fine crop of corn.They wanted to celebrate and give thanks to God for all he had provided for them.

"Let us gather the fruits of our first labors and rejoice together," said Governor Bradford.

"Yes," said Elder Brewster, "let us take a day upon which we may thank God for all our blessings, and invite our Indian friends who have been so kind to us."

The great Indian chief, Massasoit, came with ninety of his bravest warriors, all dressed in deerskin's, feathers, and fox tails, with their faces smeared with red, white, and yellow paint.

Now there were only eleven buildings in the whole village, four log storehouses and seven little log houses; so the Indian guests ate and slept outside. This was no problem though, for it was one of those warm weeks in the season we call Indian summer.

To supply meat for the occasion four men had already been sent out to hunt wild turkeys. They killed enough in one day to last the whole company almost a week.Massasoit helped the feast along by sending some of his best hunters into the woods. They killed five deer, which they gave to their paleface friends, that all might have enough to eat.

Under the trees were built long, simple tables on which were piled baked clams, broiled fish, roast turkey, and deer meat.The young Pilgrim women helped serve the food to the hungry Indians. One was Mary Chilton, who leaped from the boat at Plymouth Rock; the other was Mary Allerton. She lived for seventy-eight years after this first Thanksgiving, and of those who came over in the Mayflower she was the last to die.

What a merry time everybody had during that week! Young John Howland was there. While they were sailing in mid ocean, he fell overboard but was quick enough to catch hold of a trailing rope. Perhaps after dinner he invited Elizabeth Tilley, whom he afterward married, to sail over to Clarke's Island and return by moonlight.

With them, it may be, went John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, whose love story is so sweetly told by Longfellow.

One proud mother, we may be sure, showed her bright-eyed boy, Peregrine White, who was the first baby born in Plymouth.

And so the fun went on. In the daytime the young men ran races, played games, and had a shooting match. Every night the Indians sang and danced for their friends; and to make things still more lively they gave every now and then a shrill war whoop that made the woods echo in the still night air.

The Indians had already learned to love and fear Captain Miles Standish. Some of them called him "Boiling Water" because he was easily made angry. Others called him "Captain Shrimp," on account of his small size.

During this week of fun and frolic it was a wonder if young Jack Billington did not play some prank on the Indians. He was the boy who fired off his father's gun one day, close to a keg of gunpowder, in the crowded cabin of the Mayflower.

After the third day, the Indian king and his warriors said farewell to their English friends and began their long tramp through the woods to their wigwams on Mount Hope Bay.

On the last day of this Thanksgiving party the Pilgrims had a service of prayer and praise. Elder Brewster preached the first Thanksgiving sermon. After thanking God for all his goodness, he did not forget the many loved ones buried on the hillside.

He spoke of noble John Carver, the first governor, who had died of worry and overwork.

Nor was Rose Standish forgotten, the lovely young wife of Captain Miles Standish, whose death was caused by cold and lack of good food.

And then there was gentle Dorothy, wife of Governor Bradford, who had fallen overboard from the Mayflower in Provincetown harbor.

The first Thanksgiving took place nearly three hundred years ago. Since that time in 1621, almost without interruption, Thanksgiving has been kept as a day to be thankful for all God has given us whether in good times or bad. At this time children and grandchildren return home, the long table is spread, and brothers and sisters, separated often by many miles, again sit side by side.

Today Thanksgiving is observed in the United States as a season of sweet and blessed memories of that first thanksgiving.

Children's Corner; Poetry

The Land of Liberty

Author: Unknown

I love my country's pine-clad hills,

Her thousand bright and gushing rills,

Her sunshine and her storms;

Her rough and rugged rocks, that rear

Their hoary heads high in the air

In wild, fantastic forms.

I love her rivers, deep and wide,

Those mighty streams that seaward glide

To seek the ocean's breast;

Her smiling fields, her pleasant vales,

Her shady dells, her flow'ry dales,

The haunts of peaceful rest.

I love her forests, dark and lone,

For there the wild bird's merry tone

I hear from morn till night;

And there are lovelier flowers, I ween,

Than e'er in Eastern lands were seen,

In varied colors bright.

Her forests and her valleys fair,

Her flowers that scent the morning air--

All have their charms for me;

But more I love my country's name,

Those words that echo deathless fame,

"The Land of Liberty."