The Best of Freedom Rider

Margaret Kimberley is an especially prescient woman – she sees things before the rest of us do. Her column, “Freedom Rider,” is the essential weekly diet of The Black Commentator audience – the soul food that we must imbibe. She has a conscience, and calls upon the rest of us to act as if we do, too.

Ms. Kimberley saw clearly the racist nature of the American aggression against Iraq, a repeat of many aggressions of the past. It seems that white America cannot change its pattern of behavior when it comes into contact with non-white citizens of our world. In one of the most significant commentaries that we have ever published, Margaret Kimberley spoke to the latest manifestation of the racial pattern, in a May 6, 2004 piece called, “White Supremacy in Iraq.”

The Americans tried to steal a country in Iraq. The same cabal, the Bush men, stole an election and a nation in 2000, in a flurry of crime in Florida. However, as Margaret pointed out in her brilliant article of March 18, 2004, titled “Vote Theft in 2004: Deja Vu All Over Again,” the criminal enterprise had also been hard at work in Georgia.

Ms Kimberley explores deeply the subject of the Great Theft, one that the criminals who stole the White House show every sign of planning to perpetrate again. Her February 12, 2004 commentary states it plainly: “Trust No One.”

Ms. Kimberley cares deeply about our family life – how we organize ourselves. On January 29, Margaret took the measure of “Black Families: A Glass Half Empty and Half Full.”

Kimberley also addresses the unspoken issue in Black American politics: how our fellow Americans, Jews, have distorted the Black Agenda. This is a long-running conversation, but Ms. Kimberley brought it up to date, on December 18, 2003, with her incisive piece, “Congressional Black Caucus, Target of Pro-Israel Lobby?”