About a day or two i think after Barack Obama had been sworn in at the White House,i tuned in to Oprah one afternoon & saw that they featured a tribute of sort for Rev.Martin Luther King,the famous black preacher who made the "I Have A Dream" speech,aptly titled "The Dream Lives:A Martin Luther King Day Special."
Of course,its not all about him.The program also featured the history of American Blacks & their journey to freedom & their fight against discrimination & racism.And it helped me realise why the word "Negro" & "Niggah/Nigger" do bring in a lot of bad blood among the brothers & sisters.
To be hanged just for being accused of doing something(it even happened among American servicemen right here on Australian shores during World War 2) or shot in cold blood in the streets simply because you're black & your white killers getting away with murder not just because of their pale skin color but because the ones in power were racist & they think the crime done is fair enough?Very wrong,but it was that way the black people were seen & treated for more than a hundred years before Dr.Luther made his famous speech.
Inter-racial marriages as illegal,unaccepted & the couples who dared go on with it anyway will be dragged out of bed,jailed & later on banished in their state??Thats what happened to the Loving couple sometime in the 60s(the woman happened to be black) but they fought back & finally the ban against inter-racial marriages was lifted off,thanks to them.
Poor kids from an isolated Afro American neighborhood almost not given the chance for a better education & most had decided that their violence,poverty-stricken place will be the way of life for them for the rest of their lives?Uh oh,not even the poorest of the poor outside America will dream of it for their children.Yet whilst some poeple think that the black people were always involved in criminal & violent acts,you may wonder who put them in such position in the 1st place.
How about taking a ferry off at Gee's Bend in Alabama simply because the blacks joined the cvil rights movement in the 60s,cutting them off from the other side of the river for 40 years?
"As Dr. King's message of freedom and equality spread throughout the country, citizens in a small Alabama town wondered if his vision would ever reach them.
For nearly 200 years, the Alabama River has separated the black citizens of Gee's Bend—a small peninsula surrounded by water on three sides—from their white neighbors in Camden. With no grocery stores, hospitals or job opportunities in Gee's Bend, residents travel by ferry to Camden for almost all their basic necessities.
In the 1960s, water was just one of many things that divided these two communities. Gee's Bend citizens joined the civil rights movement and began protesting segregation in Camden.
When they crossed the river, they were met with intimidation and intolerance. "When you leave home that morning to go march, you didn't know if you were going to make it back home or not," says Nettie, a 90-year-old Gee's Bend resident.
Hollis Curl, a former Camden judge, says no matter how hard the racists tried, they couldn't stop the growing tide of change. "Marching and demonstrating in the street and holding voting rallies…some of the movers and shakers in the county at that time wanted that stopped," he says. After one such demonstration, Judge Curl says he put 410 protestors behind bars.
Nettie says she was imprisoned for almost a week. "I went because we were marching, and they told us don't," she says. "But we did it anyway because we wanted our rights."
When Camden leaders realized they couldn't stop the protests, they stopped the ferry instead."(to read more about this & other stories featured in the program click on the link: http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/slideshow1_ss_politics/1)
So much oppression,too many basic & civil rights forbidden to them,thier human rights violated to the core by people who were supposed to be human rights advocates & protectors,all because they had been slaves & descendants of slaves,had darker skin & looked upon as less than human.Now i saw more than what i thought i know about the history of the Afro Americans.I even think they had been thru more than the rest of their other brethren elsewhere.
It was about time then for the brethren & for the rest of the "colored people" around the world as well to see an Afro American took the presidential office in the world's most powerful,influential country amidst all of the financial crisis & international chaos.At least Mr.Obama not just breathed life to Rev.King's dream but he also lighted up the dim hopes of many a people who never thought that their time will come & their voices be finally heard.
