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The lessons we learn in life are often based
on the experiences of the past. Those who learn the lessons
of the past aren’t bound to repeat them. In times of extreme
conditions in our community, what we sometimes think might
be an “overstretch” in the boundaries of civility are actually
a mule’s stand for the sake of principal.
In the light of the “preachers row” rebuttal,
“In Defense of Reverend Leonard Jackson,” I offer such a lesson.
The year was 1934. The leading national voice of African Americans
(called Negroes at that time), Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, then the
editor of the NAACP’s The Crisis magazine, the most
widely respected and (other than Marcus Garvey’s The Negro
World) most widely circulated black periodical, wrote
an editorial commentary that it might be time for Blacks to
separate from whites to save themselves from starving to death
during the Great Depression. It was considered a compromise
position on segregation and shocked black leaders throughout
the nation, including those in the NAACP, taken aback that
DuBois would publish such a commentary in their magazine.
The very thought of placating segregation for self-sufficiency
was abominable. NAACP Board Chairman, Arthur Spingarn, immediately
instructed Executive Director, Walter White, to fire DuBois.
But DuBois, who had come to national attention
30 years earlier, publicly critiquing the same position of
the nation’s then leading black spokesperson, Booker T. Washington,
in his timeless book, The
Souls of Black Folk(1903), was considered untouchable by the rank and file
NAACP members and the black middle class, nationwide. Then
a lowly Howard Law School Law Professor by the name of William
Hastie (the cousin of Charles Hamilton Houston, the architect
of the 20 year effort to end Jim Crow), wrote an editorial
response, published in the January 25th edition of The
New Negro Journal. A scathing public editorial on DuBois’
stand, it read as follows:
For fifty years prejudiced white men and
abject, boot-licking, gut-lacking, knee-bending, favor-seeking
Negroes have been insulting our intelligence with a tale
that goes like this:
Segregation is not an evil. Negroes are better
off by themselves. They can get equal treatment, and be
happier too, if they live and move and have their being
off by themselves - except, of course, as they are needed
by the white community to do the heavy and dirty work, and
why should we object to being set off by ourselves if we
are with our own people, who are just as good as anyone
else.
But any Negro who uses this theoretical possibility
as a justification for segregation is either dumb, or mentally
dishonest, or else he has, like Esau, chosen a mess of pottage.
On page 20 of The Crisis for January,
1934, Editor DuBois indulges in all these old sophistries
and half-truths. If you don’t believe it, read for yourself.
I refused to believe it until my own eyes convinced me.
DuBois, William Edward Burghart, himself - or not himself
- making a puny defense of segregation and hair splitting
about the difference between segregation and discrimination!
Oh, Mr. DuBois! How could you?
It is a real blow to lose you, Mr. DuBois,
and we will not deny that your statement, coming from you,
is a powerful weapon in the hands of our enemies.
Oh, Esau!
DuBois read the commentary and submitted his
resignation, stating he could do more to advance the interests
of the Negro outside the NAACP than he could inside the NAACP.
History tells us that DuBois’ segregation compromise was no
more than a momentary lapse, and though in his sixties, DuBois
- the most significant intellectual force of the 20th Century
- would live another 30 years, providing intellectual fuel
for global Pan Africanism.
The title of Hastie’s commentary was, “DuBois:
Ex-Leader of Negroes.” When black leaders confronted Hastie
on how he could be so uncivil to such a legendary figure as
DuBois, he stated, “No Negro can ever afford any act contrary
to good conscience — not for a single moment.” Segregation
would be outlawed 20 years later, and William Hastie would
go on to become the first black federal judge appointed by
President Franklin Roosevelt in 1937, dean of the Howard Law
School, the first black on the federal Court of Appeals in
1949 and was on Kennedy’s “short-list” to become the first
U.S. Supreme Court Justice five years before Thurgood Marshall
was appointed. The point here is that Hastie was right about
the absence of conscience. No black ever gets so large - so
close to power - that they can act contrary to our interest
and not be critiqued. And sometimes critique is uncivil.
Rev. Leonard Jackson is hardly DuBois, but
the circumstance is the same. He found himself trying to defend
a position that was indefensible. The black community has
known for the past few years that Blacks were losing power
in City Hall. Then, when he was challenged about it, not only
did he make a puny half-truth (or half-lie) defense of the
Mayor’s position, but he attacked the source that was defending
our interest. His rebutters say that I “overstretched the
boundaries of accuracy, let alone civility.” (BC
Issue 250) I will admit to the latter, in the same way
Hastie did so in 1934, to stand on a point of principal. As
for the former, I believe that my source, who was directly
in the fray, was more accurate than the one who stands in
denial that any of it happened.
We’re all entitled to our own opinions, just
not our own facts. Jackson, like DuBois, has given 30 years
of service and certainly shouldn’t be judged by one momentary
lapse. And I have nothing but a healthy respect for Chip Murray
(who officiated at my wedding and that of my daughter). I
don’t really know John Hunter, but he seems to be a nice enough
guy, given the madness he’s had to endure over at First AME
the past couple years. The point is, I know First AME and
its politics because it was my church before I came into a
real truth (Islam). My mama still goes to the church. I have
a no problem with them closing ranks around one of theirs
(Jackson). But a preacher’s mouth ain’t necessarily a prayer
book and they do cover for each other (as in the Catholic
Church covering for its molesting priests). God’s men aren’t
always right. I chose to rally around Valerie Shaw and I stand
by that.
Our community is in such dire straits because
we engage in the politics of placation when we know the truth
and choose to ignore it. We have people engaged in outright
charlatanism and perpetuating a mass distraction to the truer
advocacy interests of our community, yet we refuse to say
anything for fear we’re being divisive or “airing dirty laundry”
(which doesn’t apply in this case since this wasn’t just amongst
Blacks). It’s why we continue to be compromised and regress.
I, for one, believe in the lesson of William
Hastie. The absence of conscience is the biggest problem in
the black community. When we are easily placated for the sake
of individual self-sufficiency — be it a job, a contract,
closeness to “mighty whitey” (or in this case, “mighty brownie”).
Then we, like Esau, give up our birthright of equality for
a “mess of pottage.” In this instance, it’s not being in the
Mayor’s Office…but two doors down. It’s a commission in exchange
for a department head. That’s the type of regression with
which we’re supposed to be satisfied and about which we're
supposed to be silently “civil”. I think not. At some point,
we have to let people know when they’ve lost sight of the
real fight. We can all be critiqued. Just know, placation
is no substitute for conscience.
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