For a peoples in a country where reading was once a crime punishable by death (because doing anything while black was punishable by death in America), I take great pride in the privilege of being able to stand in a long line of storytellers … griots. I am more proud of the people who gave me this pride and this privilege. Those who fought for it. Many who died for it. Those who build it, especially during a time when invocation was mouthy, talk back … probably because they simply weren’t used to us talking at all. If reading was considered dangerous to a white supremacist hierarchy of land, power and money … then writing was incendiary.
“Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind, and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.”
“Real revolution begins in the mind.”
And (Immortal) Technique thought so.
“The mind of a child is where the revolution begins.”
In New for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media (Verso Books, 2012) by Joe Torres of Free Press and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now!, it is epically documented how the people’s history of this country has never been a practice that we’ve engaged in post mortem. It has always been something that was contemporary. Looking at instead of looking back, which has always been a more threatening proposition.
In reading this book, I learned about the Chicago Defender, the Philadelphia Observer and how Ida B. Wells was one of the early muckraking editors of a Black paper in Memphis that was burned down while she was out of town on her famed campaign against lynching. In fact, James Rucker (founder of ColorOfChange.org) said this about the book, “The historic inability of marginalized communities to control their own images has been devastating. News for All the People illustrates that this lack of control hasn’t been by accident. It’s a part of a greater story of media control and ownership that traces back to the creation of the United States. An essential read.”
This is my legacy, as a Black poet, journalist, songwriter, storyteller and author in this country. I owe it to those heroes and “sheroes" of yesteryear, and just this week was fortunate to honor one of those heroes of today.
As part of the month long celebration of Black History in February, the New Mexico Black History Organizing Committee created the Asante Awards to recognize leaders in different industries whose work and ethic edifies the Black community. This year, for their their annual recognition ceremony they decided to honor Black journalists. I was proud to learn that one of my mentors, fraternity brothers and friend, Ron Wallace was the honoree. I was humbled to be invited to share a poem for his award ceremony, even as I was out of town for a Black Lives Matter workshop and performance at Western New Mexico University.
Here’s what I came up with to honor a gentlemen who took a chance on me when I was a young upstart writer in town trying to make a name for myself in print, radio and television news. He gave me one of my first regular columns in the Perspective and the Statewide Focus.
Thank you Ron. For helping to teach me the meaning of the old African proverb:
Until the lion has his or her own storyteller, the hunter will always have the best part of the story.
The oft celebrated forefathers of this disputably “great” country thought so much of our right to free speech and free press that they made it the very first amendment, even before the right to bear arms was the right to bear democracy. In this time of fake news and even “faker” history, it is imperative to understand that the best media literacy strategy in the age of misinformation is producing media that sets the record straight and providing more spaces for marginalized, disempowered or unheard voices.
This blog and poem are my humble contributions to the formal preservation of our history in New Mexico, Ron. And making sure that you are an unforgettable part of it.
The following is a transcript excerpt from the film THE BLACK PRESS: SOLDIERS WITHOUT SWORDS (PBS)
Vernon Jarrett: We didn't exist in the other papers. We were neither born, we didn't get married, we didn't die, we didn't fight in any wars, we never participated in anything of a scientific achievement. We were truly invisible unless we committed a crime. And in the BLACK PRESS, the negro press, we did get married. They showed us our babies when born. They showed us graduating. They showed our PhDs.
Phyl Garland: The black press was never intended to be objective because it didn't see the -- the white press being objective. It often took a position. It had an attitude. This was a press of advocacy. There was news, but the news had an admitted and a deliberate slant.
Narrator: For over 150 years, African American newspapers were among the strongest institutions in Black America. They helped to create and stabilize communities. They spoke forcefully to the political and economic interests of their readers while employing thousands. Black newspapers provided a forum for debate among African Americans and gave voice to a people who were voiceless. With a pen as their weapon, they were Soldiers Without Swords.
MORDECHAI NOAH QUOTE: "The 15th part of the population of this city is composed of blacks. Only 15 are qualified to vote. Freedom is a great blessing, indeed, to them. They swell our list of paupers, they are indolent, and uncivil. And yet if a black man commits a crime, we have more interest made for him than for a white." Mordechai Noah, New York Enquirer, Tuesday, November 21st, 1826.
Narrator: In the early 19th century, African Americans were routinely vilified on the pages of the mainstream press and had no way to respond. And by the winter of 1827 an outraged community had had enough. Three blacks gathered on Varick Street in Lower Manhattan and decided that they, too, would use the press as a weapon. They pooled their money and started the first newspaper in the United States to be published by African Americans, Freedom's Journal.
Jane Rhodes: Their whole idea behind Freedom's Journal was, ah, to have a voice, an independent voice, an autonomous voice for African Americans. The opening editorial on the front page of Freedom's Journal says, "We mean to plead our own cause ...
There is something poetic
about a Black man bleeding
all over the page
in black ink
for his people…
Sweating bylines
in black ink
for the people…
Tear
by black tear
for our people.
A mirage of sorts
sanctuary in part
for a displaced tribe
in a frontera called “Judah.”
A people
one desert removed
from Pharaohs
a legacy of Egyptian features and faces
plenty of walls
but no hieroglyphics
to call our own.
Mr. Wallace,
you are a symbol.
Cultivator of code.
Gave us native tongue
to call our own.
Gave our language
a home.
A journal,
a hush harbor of sorts,
a place to put all of our free things
like dreams
like desires
like dialogue
like diary
like devotional
like decide.
A way to map our community,
hearts and minds
A Northstar
to write love letters to
years after our right
to read & write was no longer
a crime.
Our Sandia Defender
years before you gave our community
a new Perspective.
A beacon of gang intervention
John Marshall Service Center Director
A walking resource of services
to low income families left otherwise hopeless
only to return 10 years later
to resurrect Black Pride and give those very same families
a Statewide Focus.
You been our “Man of the Year” for years
but too humble to ever put yourself
on one of your publication’s covers
And long before NBC, New Mexico PBS,
and KUNM you helped get me started in journalism
by taking a chance on a brother.
You are the Alpha Phi Alpha man
the rest of us look up to…
The star student athlete
not afraid to take a knee,
raise a fist,
or read a book…
In fact,
you’ll do us one better…
and publish us too.
There is something revolutionary
about a Black man
bleeding black ink
all over the place…
Sweating
a love of labor,
a body of work
all over this place…
Crying
our history,
our present,
and our future
© Hakim Bellamy February 7th, 2017
