Letter to Editor
By James Jerome Hankins
WHAT WE BLACKS NEED TO DO-PART 2 During my 34 years teaching vocational education (shop), I taught my students a new word every week. To expand our knowledge, our parents and students need to add at least one new word to their vocabulary every week for the 52 weeks in 2022. NOTE#: Good teachers never stop teaching, freedom fighters never stop fighting, students never stop learning and parents never stop parenting.
I will post one or two words every Sunday on my Facebook page (James Hankins). The two words for today are visionary and fruition. A person who can imagine or look into the future is called a visionary. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King is a great example of a visionary with his “I Have a Dream Speech” at the Washington Monument in 1963. Dr. King said, “We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and hotels of the cities.”
Then along came Sheila C. Johnson, a Black billionaire owner of Salamander Hotel and Resorts and the Washington Mystic pro women basketball team to fill that gap. Dr. King said, “Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.” Then along came Stacy Abrams who organized the most successful voter education and registration drive in history, thereby electing Raphael Warnock to the U.S. Senate, filling that gap.”
Dr. King said, “One day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.” Then along came U.S. Representative, Bennie Thompson, from Mississippi 2nd district and chair of the January 6th select committee investigating the insurrection filling that gap. Dr. King said, “We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s in Mississippi cannot vote, and the Negro’s in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.”
Then along came South Carolina U.S. Representative Jim Clyburn, 3rd in line in the Democratic leadership and New York City Mayor Eric Adams to fill that gap. This February President Joe Biden will fulfill his campaign promise to nominate a Black lady to the United States Supreme Court. She will be sworn in by the first Black lady Vice President of the U.S., Kamala Harris. Dr. King was killed while planning the poor people campaign.
Then along came Rev. Dr. William Barber CEO of the poor people’s campaign to fill that gap. Students, FRUITION means when you get to the end. Your school year will come to Can end/fruition soon. Parents it means when you receive your last local Black newspaper (our black encyclopedia) for your one-year subscription. What are you visionary parents and students reading, training, and doing to make your dream come to fruition? Are you and every person at least 17 years old registered? Ecclesiastes 9:11 “The race is not given to the swift or to the strong but to the one who endures to the end…”
Be the first to comment