Glen Ford and Peter Gamble

The year 2005 will go down as a disaster for Black America. Our most vaunted institution, the Congressional Black Caucus, collapsed as an effective body for our collective political vision. Thirty-seven percent of “our” representatives, in the spring of 2005, crossed the “bright lines” that had always dictated Black elected political behavior, to vote with…

Uncle Tom. Sellout. Race traitor. Minstrel. Self-hater. Sambo. African Americans, who have known for centuries that living, breathing, groveling, shuffling characters walk among us who actually match these caricatures, have been put on notice that it is taboo to point out the obvious. One would think white media and politicians would have enough to do,…

New Orleans represents a challenge to African Americans, unprecedented since the epic struggles of the Fifties and Sixties. The perverse reality, to which African Americans must rise, is that the man-made disaster in the Gulf provides what may be the last chance to build a real Movement, encompassing the broadest sectors of Black America. Cruel…