Portland Advocate_1981-09&10

• page4 (Continued from Page 3) piece. I remember when we used to put all the chicken in the shoe box. Everything we do is proficient, and the skill, dex– terity so that even driving from New York to Georgia was an ex– ercise in proficiency as the driver could eat a piece of ' chicken with a napkin in his hand, and pick his teeth while he never stopped until we got to our destination in Georgia. The reason was we did not want to be humiliated, a stop meant you would be humiliated or you would not get any further, and so we developed that kind of skill. So those were some of the ways that helped us survive these dreadful times. So there was progress, social progress, we do not want to count that lightly. We have a tendency, some of us looking back on this side of safety to belittle the struggle that went into breaking down the barrier, just to get into a res– taurant. Those were not small victories. It took an awful lot of courage for people to go against years and years of social patterns in which they had seen their loved one beaten, humili– ated for just a slight violation of these traditions, and of course the political aspect of it all helped to say we were on our way. Now, there was the satisfaction a latent "middle– class", and when I say middle– class, I am really indulging in the illusion that there is a _ Black middle-class, I tend to believe that when we talk of a middle-class, we are talking of a class that has the capacity to produce, and not just be consu– mers. When you talk of a middle– class, you are talking of a class that has the capacity to protect itself. And I do not think that we have arrived at the position that we can call ourselves middle class, because we do not produce anything except consumers and most of us are about four or five paychecks away from bankruptcy anyway. And that depends on whether or not someone likes us or not. We may- go to work in the morning and the man might have had some problems with his wife, and suddenly we look around and we are looking for a job some– where. We need to understand that, because what it suggests is that we have no security. But there was this satisfaction, be– cause there was this feeling that some people were getting some of the goodies. Some peo– ple were making some headway and there was the feeling that some people were selling them out, and there was some dis– illusionment too. With refer– ance to white people. It seems that white folks still con– trolled everything Black. Word began to leak that even during the great March on Washington, white folks had altered the speeches of Black folks. John Lewis could not say what he w~nted to say, Baldwin could not say what he wanted to say, so hethey became the National Confe- got angry and left the whole renee of Black Churches. That s~ow. 1 The cry of Black Power was a summon from a people to return to their own souls, to build inward and outward, and white people could better be used ... better serve the struggle, in their own communities. That is where the problem emanated from, ·and if they could reach their own people- everything would be alright. is, every organization that cal– led itself "Negro" changed, ex– cept one. The Negro National Anthem had to be changed. It was no longer the Negro National Anthem, but now it was the National Black Anthem. There were Black Student Unions, (Continued ont Page 5) A wise man of Biblical themes said, "there's nothing new under the sun." The same words put forward at one point in history will be put forward at another point, and so on for many years~ Reverand Henry Highland.Garnett, . Alberta Fish & Poultry Bishop McNeil Turner, Marcus Garvey, and many many others had urged Black people to look with– in themselves and try to build upon their own inner genius, to try to form group solidarity, and this would be the way that principles and meaningful alli– ances with other people could be made. Then one other point. In · 1945, 200 Afrikans had met in Manchester, England at the Fifth Pan-Afrikan Congress. Twelve years later Ghana was indepen– dent, led by Kwame Nkrumah. Then in 1958, Guinea led by Sekou Toure, and other Afrikan coun- tries had gained their indepen– dence so that in a generation oyer 40 Afrikan countries had gained their independence. And yet Blacks, those of us here in the the U.S. were moving at a snail's pace and obviously it produce disillusionment. Now, we want to look at 1966 and 1967, Jackson, Mississippi, as we begin to note the years of Black Power. There was noth– ing new about the words, the ideas, the concept of Black Power. It had been used be– fore, in fact Adam Clayton Powell had used it earlier. But it was a strange consid– eration that words, ideas and concepts can be around for centuries without causing a ripple and then at some pre– cise moment in the time when circumstances and events are right and a certain number of people, then the very same words, ideas and concepts burst forth like a mighty hurricane, and so it was with Stokely Carmichael uttering Black Power! This time the words caught on, they struck responsive chords, and the world would never be the same again. For the next 5 or 6 years, Black Power was in– escapable. Everybody had to be for it, · or everybody had to be against it. It seems that every organization be– came Black overnight. There was the National Association of Black Social Workers, the National Black United Fund - not Front, these are the money people, and those who had called themselves Negro, changed it. Like the National Committee of Negro Churches - 1824 NE Alberta 282 4083 We Sp«UIIi# in S«Jfood Robert & Ida Johnson owners Fish cooked Southern-style Chicken cooked Eastern-style "Players Ball"·- Played Out by Mary Avery In the past we'~e voiced our concerns and made a con– certed effort to eliminate those elements that contribute to the moral degradation of our community. We have pres– sured the police to crack-down on prostitution and we've or– ganized picketts in protest of the activities of the Walnut "Park (pornographic) Theater. Yet, some individuals fail to take us seriously. Nothing exemplifies this more that the masquerade,"The Players Ball", that was recently held for the "players" and their "Ladies" as depicted in the illustration. Fortunately, this year the "Players Ball" was not well attended. One might say that the Players Ball "played out".