April 19, 2007 - Issue 226

 

In lieu of the ever-increasing controversy surrounding former talk show host Don Imus’ racist, more so than sexist, remarks about many members of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team, (remember: he did not say, “kinky-headed (white) and nappy-headed (black) h-es”), he said, “nappy-headed h-es”—just black females.

I think it is extremely important that the life and accomplishments of one the most highly-regarded and world-renown members of the alumni of Rutgers University, and the trials and tribulations that he suffered there and elsewhere, due to his steel-spined body, his laser-sharp mind, and his indomitable spirit, and life-long struggle for peace and equality for all, must be both recognized and heralded.  He set the stage for countless people after him to follow.  He told and showed them it could be done—that you could and should stand strong and fight for right and not bow down to wrong, even after his would-be university football teammates purposefully broke his nose, sprained his shoulder, and even ripped his finger nails by stomping his hands with their cleats, to prevent him from becoming a member of the team.  According to his son, this man, one of the best examples of a man - period - and most especially a real Black man, helped to make it possible for the legendary Jackie Robinson to become the first, African American to play Major League Baseball.  He went by many names.  I simply call him “Superman” - the real one.

Here is a reprint of those exact sentiments in an article that I wrote on September 30, 2006 for the African American website The Black World Today.  It was posted on Monday, October 2, 2006.  After your read it, maybe you, too, will agree with its title.  The reprint follows.

Superman Really Lived!

Superman was real.  He really lived and breathed.  He actually walked and talked and dwelt among us, his own.

Yet, overwhelmingly, his own received him not.  Instead, with all too few exceptions, his own used the deadly kryptonite-like trio of unbridled jealousy, greed, and white supremacy to vilify, ostracize, and even crucify him in the world court of public opinion.  Collectively, they tried to bury him under a mountain of lies in a relentless attempt to white out the huge depth and extensive width of his mighty deeds and to silence forever his thunderous voice, which he consistently and courageously used to demand justice, freedom, and equality for all people on the earth.

But the monstrous devices that his enemies used against him and the fecal-filled mountain of relentless character, financial, and unsuccessful physical assassinations under which they tried to bury him, completely proved to be almost totally unsuccessful.  Muscular and broad-shouldered, barrel-chested and booming-voiced, this man, the real Superman, disarmed the devilish devices used against him and burst through the seemingly rock-solid mountain under which his foes tried to bury him.  He did so virtually unscathed and definitely unafraid but more steel-willed than ever to stand firmly on, to live out fully, and fight even more vigorously for his life-long, globetrotting convictions in the pursuit and hopeful realization of the ideal that “all men are brothers” and should act and be treated that way.

And just who was this Superman?  A native of earth, not some distant planet, he could neither fly nor stop locomotives.  He was neither bulletproof nor perfect.  But history, most especially his granddaughter’s book The Whole World in His Hand, provides a short list of his many, mighty deeds.  The son of a former slave, he was a much-heralded college and professional football player and an all-around college athlete in basketball, baseball, and track; a brilliant academic student, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa and the valedictorian of his college class at Rutgers University; a graduate of Columbia Law School and a practicing lawyer; an international star of the movie screen and theatrical stage, the recording studio (with records still selling) and the concert stage; a legendary orator; a musicologist; and a linguist, who studied, spoke, and wrote in more than (20) languages, including African languages and Russian, Chinese, and Arabic!

More importantly, however, this man of steel will, the real Superman, was an international hero to the world's oppressed.  That was due primarily to his life-long involvement as an activist who traveled around the globe to give his unflinching support to racially-, economically-, and politically oppressed people worldwide.  Most prominent among them were everyday laborers and those in progressive labor unions, those persecuted in fascist-leaning countries around the globe, the colonized people of Africa and Asia, and, of course, his own heavily persecuted people, African Americans, in his own homeland, the United States of America.

As such, the real Superman used his singing and speaking voice, his written and spoken words, his huge physical presence and laser-sharp mental faculties to right the wrongs he witnessed and believed blanketed the world. That meant that he also used his world-famous name to promote world peace and global unity and positive solutions to death-dealing crises around the world, when all too many of his contemporaries remained silent and decades before many of today’s singers, actors, and/or activists were even born or thought that raising their voice in protest was fashionable or profitable.

Faithfully following his convictions resulted in Superman - an associate, if not a friend, of many world leaders (Russia’s Stalin, India’s Nehru, China’s Mao, and Africa’s Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah, among others) and to such stellar 20th century personalities as the preeminent African American scholar-activist W. E. B. DuBois and the world-renown scientist Albert Einstein, a friend of over 20 years - paying a heavy cost both physically and financially.  But it can truly be argued that, as he did in life, though now dead, he honestly deserves the long-overdue, golden crown of honor and respect due him for living such a long-lived and meaningful life of self-sacrifice on behalf of his fellow human beings.

So, again, just who was this man, this real superhero, the real Superman? Surprisingly, he is a person who no movie studio seems to deem worthy enough of a blockbuster, big-screen movie.  But, in short, he was a multi-talented, multi-genius and giant of a man, who strongly believed in talking straight and walking tall.  No fair-weather friend to the oppressed, he was none other than the late but great, African American Paul Robeson, the real Superman.

BC Columnist HAWK (J. D. Jackson) is a priest, poet, journalist, historian, African-centered lecturer, middle school teacher and part-time university history instructor. Click here to contact HAWK.

 

Your comments are always welcome.