African-American News&Issues

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February 13-19, 2008 ™ Vol. 13 Issue 2

TEXAS’ Widest Circulated and Read Newspaper with a Black Perspective

www.aframnews.com

Houston - Galveston - Texas City - Missouri City - Conroe - Woodlands - Huntsville - Beaumont - Port Arthur - Grove - Orange - Lumberton - Liberty - Cleveland - Livingston - Crockett - San Antonio - Mexia - Gatesville - Bellmead Austin - Brenham - Hempstead - Prairie View - College Station - Bryan - Killeen - Temple - Waco - Dallas - Irving - Fort Worth - Arlington - Waxahachie - Elgin - Round Rock - Harker Heights - Copperas Cove - Ennis - Corsicana

Enslaved Valentines

Black males sacrificed freedom for love BUD JOHNSON

African-American News&Issues

Money Man Speaks PAGE 5

Bradley Jackson remembers George Washington Carver Deacon privileged to serve as pallbearer MARVIN D. CLOUD

African-American News&Issues

HOUSTON- The epitath on the grave of George Washington Carver reads, “He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.” It is a befitting tribute to the agricultural chemist who gave to this country, 300 uses for peanuts and hundreds more uses for soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes. Among the listed See JACKSON page 3

“Away from the view of owners and overseers, slaves lived their own lives. They made friends and made love, played and prayed, sang, told stories, cooked, joked, quarreled, and engaged in the necessary chores of day-to-day living, from cleaning house, cooking, and sewing to working on their garden plots. Especially important as anchors of the slaves’ lives were their families and their religion. Throughout the South, the family defined the actual living arrangements of slaves: most slaves lived together in nuclear families—mother, father, children. The security and stability of these families faced severe challenges: no state law recognized marriage among slaves. Masters rather than parents had legal authority over slave children. Thus, the possibility of forced separation, through sale, hung over every family. Such separations were especially frequent in the slaveexporting states of the upper South. Still, despite their tenuous status, families served as the slaves’ most basic refuge, the center of private lives that owners could never fully control.”

The movie “Roots,” captured the essence of slaves in love.

See ENSLAVED page 3

Black History’s super mistakes

Bradley Jackson

BLACK

If you

HISTORY don’t

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Quote of the Week

“The most fundamental truth to be told in any art form, as far as Blacks are concerned, is that America is killing us. But we continue to live and love and struggle and win.”

-Sonia Sanchez

Black History Month is an ideal time to explore the past, to determine what future generations will experience. However, it’s doubtful that any politically-correct media will record that 2008 America’s fanatical reaction to Super Bowl XLII, as opposed to its less enthusiastic response to Super Tuesday, could be interpreted a sign of the apocalypse. Therefore it becomes the obligation of African-American News&Issues (a different kind of newspaper that’s dedicated to making a difference), to tell like it is from an objective, uncompromised Black perspective. The Since Valentine’s Day is observed in the midst of Black History Month, it’s apropos for a complimentary memoriam (sponsored by Shirley Ann’s Black Arts & Kollectibles Gift Showroom), for the those who cherish the precious memories of Ester C. Allen, who left a legacy of love and caring for those who celebrated her long and productive life at Our Mother of Mercy Catholic Church, 4000 Sumpter, on February 16, 2007. Father Lowell Case, and Deacon Ignatius Joseph, of St. Francis of Assisi officiated the Funeral Mass and active pallbearers were Leonard Sr., Elic, Wilbert, Leonard Jr., and Earnest Jr. Charles. Floyd Manning, Anthony Castille, Milton Castille, Raymond, Author, Lewis, Raymond and Whitney Charles were honorary pallbearers for Ester, who was one of Louisa and Louis Charles’s dozen children (four girls and eight boys), that was born on October 19, 1914 in Arnaudville, Louisiana, a tiny hamlet in Saint Landry Parish, in the Opelousas-Eunice metro area.

Apocalypse or Armageddon is a Christian concept that is mostly alluded to as “The Last Days” in Black America. Black America, however, alludes only to the book of Revelations in the Holy Bible, but like everything else, the biblical concept has been co-opted to also include a school of thought known as Apocalypticism. (FYI: Apocalypticism is a worldview based on the idea that important matters are esoteric in nature (“hidden”) and they will soon be revealed in a major confrontation of earth-shaking magnitude that will change the course of

Esther C. Allen

OCT. 19, 1914 - FEB. 8, 2007 The highlight of Ester’s life was when she, like many young Black Americans born in the South, got caught up in The Great Migration and relocated to 1920s’ Chicago, Illinois. According to Wikipedia Encyclopedia, The Great Migration was the movement of approximately 7 million African Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the North, Midwest and West from 1916 to 1970. African-Americans migrat-

history. Apocalypticism can be tied to religious or secular views, and the expected outcome can be seen as positive, negative, or ambiguous. It can appear as a personal and group tendency, outlook, perceptual frame, or rhetorical style; and can lead people toward passivity while awaiting the inevitable end, or active preparation in anticipation of an “apocalyptic” event. Apocalypticism is a frequent theme of literature, film and television. It also influences political policy through movements such as Christian Zionism, and in the dualism seen when politicians demon-

ed to escape widespread racism in the deep South, to seek employment opportunities in industrial cities, to get better education for their children, and to pursue what was widely perceived to be a better life in the North. Some historians differentiate between the Great Migration (1910-1940), numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and the Second Great Migration, from 1940-1970. Not only was the Second Migration larger, with five million or more people relocating, but it had a different demographic, and migrants moved to more different places. Many particularly moved from Texas and Louisiana to California, where there were a new range of jobs in the defense industry. When the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, less than 8 percent of the AfricanAmerican population lived in the Northeast or Midwest. Most African-Americans who participated in the migration moved to large industrial cities, such as New York, Phila-

By Roy D. Malonson ize and scapegoat their enemies as wholly bad, evil, or even Satanic. This process often involves conspiracism, in which the apocalyptic enemy is alleged to be engaged in a conspiracy against the good or godly people. The tendency was especially evident with the approach of the millennial year 2000, but it need not be tied to a particular calendar date.-Wikipedia Online Free Encyclopedia.) Surely, Super Tuesday, personified apocalypticism, since the outcome can be seen as being positive, negative, or ambiguous. Need See MISTAKES page 7

delphia, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Cleveland, as well as to many smaller industrial cities. Cities such as Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Cleveland had some of the biggest increases in the early part of the century. Urban tensions rose as African-Americans and recent European immigrants, competed for jobs and housing with native White working class Americans. However, Ester returned to Houston, Texas to care for her ailing brothers and sisters who all preceded her in death, along with her parents. She spent her remaining years as a community service worker for Julia C. Hester House and as a seamstress for the Red Cross, until God call her home on February 8, 2007, after she finished her course. She leaves in mourning: a sister-in-law, Antoinette L. Charles of Houston, Texas; a host of nieces and nephews; great and greatgreat nieces and nephews; many friends and relatives. TX-1


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