The N word ain't cool.

A modicum of

 R-E-S-P-E-C-T

for our heroes

A strong and proud people marched, and many died, to free us from the remnants of slavery. Yet the seeds of that evil spreads thoughtlessly among us because we think it's cool. It ain't...

Bury that “N” word

Our babies need not find it.

Southern girl for Blackhistoryflag.com

The #Negroes are not extinct

The Negroes are not extinct. Many of us are still alive, listening to Black Americans call each other nigger. Let’s do more shucking and less jiving. Shed ourselves of all things not helpful to the present or our future.

Frederick Douglass once said “We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.”

All we're asking for is a MODICUM of R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Southern girl for BlackHistoryFlag.com  

Black History Flag: The “N” Word: Will It Ever Go Away

Black History Flag: The “N” Word: Will It Ever Go Away: I was born when the word nigger was used by most white folk and lynching was done less for fun and more to protect white supremacy. Today ...

Give the World a Gift

-->

If you want the world to remember you, give it a gift. 

It will "Forget you not."

My girlfriend's mother, Annie Reid who is 90 years old, asked her to dial my number so that she could thank me for a gift I sent her.  The gift was a box of tea and a teacup set designed with a top that covers the teacup for steeping. The tea set was from Forte, a company that sets itself apart from other tea companies through packaging and presentation. Its tea bags are small silky mesh pyramids with a green leaf stemming from the top.  The wrapper which envelopes the tea has the same shape made of quality card-stock. The Forte teacup set consists of a cup with a fitted top for steeping. A tiny hole in the top of the cover allows the leaf and stem to sprout through. 

When Annie and I talked she said how much she appreciated it, how beautiful and thoughtful it was, and how much of my style came through. Her sentiments also made me realize why I love her so much. She has always believed that I can do anything I set out to do and that it would be fantastic.  What she didn't know is that she gave me the motivation to try and to be persistent.  Before she hung up, she said, "We sat here, drinking tea and talked about you.” Using the name my close friends and family call me, she said, “So Faye, you see, if you want people to remember you, give them gifts." I will always remember that advice.

For Women's History Month, Black History Flag Company honored all women for the many gifts they have given the world.

“Forget Them Not”

Forget Them Not

If you are under the impression that the waves of change happened because Blacks demanded it, think again. White Americans – both men and women – sacrificed their lives alongside Black men and women so that we could have the voice we have today.

On this day in Women’s History Month, BlackHistoryFlag.com waves the flag of honor in celebration of the life and courage of Viola Gregg Liuzzo.

Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a mother of five, traveled from her Michigan home to the South to help on the frontline of the civil rights movement, and suffered a cruel fate at the hands of an Alabama klansman. She was killed instantly when he fired a .38 caliber pistol through the window of her car on March 25, 1965.

Thousands of other white women worked for black freedom. Anyone who cares to learn more can read Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement, published in 2000 by the University of Georgia Press. Another book, Debra L. Schultz's Going South: Jewish Women in the Civil Rights Movement, demonstrates the singular courage of women driven to the cause by a sense of morality and social justice.

Atlanta novelist Lillian Smith, a southern liberal and vocal critic of segregation, received an anonymous letter threatening her life if she spoke about racism to a group of white students. Her collection of essays in Killers of the Dream, published in 1949, challenged the South’s prejudice and racism and pointed to the evils of segretation. For her liberal views, she bravely faced social ostracism from southern circles.

Bill Maxwell summed it up well in his 2008 article published by the Tampa Bay Times: “Virginia Durr, an early supporter of the sit-in movement in Atlanta, learned the hard way about the hazards of standing up for human rights. "I am seeing down here," she wrote, "this deathlike conformity building up, when to speak out, to take action of any kind, to protest, to write a letter, to hold a meeting, brings down on your head both social and economic ruin and there is no recourse in the law."”

Maxwell’s article details more White heroes from the civil rights movement and the vital support they provided in securing change. 

Practice Leads to Perfection

The lessons learned and practiced as a child are carried with them for a lifetime.
 

The more things change the more they remain the same. When I was a kid in the 50's, Negro people would say, if you can't sing or dance, you can't be successful in America. Today, nearly 60 years after the marches for civil rights and human dignity ended segregation, if you are Black/African American and you can't entertain, and you can't express yourself well in writing and communicate in standard English, you aren't going very far.

It is imperative that we know how to write and communicate well to change the social and economic circumstances of African Americans. In order to unleash the power of our voices; in order for us to truly be heard; in order for us to make a difference; in order to improve our circumstances and become leaders, we must invest in education at the level of the family. We must take time to nurture and support our children's learning, to let them know we care about their future and that we will do our best to help them succeed. Let's begin encouraging parents to insist that their kids practice at home what they learn in school. Only by practicing lessons learned in school can they become second nature to their being. As the saying goes: "Practice makes perfect."


Were it not for an aunt who would always question my sister and me - “How did you learn to say that sentence in school?” - I wouldn’t sound like I learned very much English grammar today.

Children should be encouraged to practice at home what they've learned in class and given the freedom to share what they've learned; even if it means correcting you. Give them the space to grow.  To ensure preparedness for their future, let's encourage our children to practice the lessons learned in school.

Come on People

Some years ago, I heard a voice – a commanding voice, a male’s voice, a Black man’s voice – a voice so sure and reassuring that it immediately got my attention. The man’s message was a call to action. I felt like rising up, almost as if I was being called to war.  I haven’t felt that way since Martin Luther King organized the people of Birmingham to protest in the 1960’s.

It was the voice of Dr. Bill Cosby in Newark, New Jersey, forty years and less than a month after the death of Dr. King. He had written a book called Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors along with Harvard psychiatrist Alvin F. Poussaint and was touring communities across American to promote the message and stimulate the people to get “on the path from vicitims to victors.” The point of his message was to encourage African Americans to make a better life for their children, their community and for their future. His message was bold - change the way you are raising your kids and teach them to respect themselves and others.  Most fundamentally, the culture of victimhood must end.

For days, I listened to the news on TV and on radio stations trying to find out where to sign up for the next revolution. The media amped up the negativity spouted by Blacks who either disagreed with him or in the way he presented his argument. His voice soon went silenced.

No one was prepared to pick up the baton in the spring of 1968 when it fell from the hands of Dr. King on April 4, the day he was gunned down in Tennessee.

There was no master plan for the next revolution even though Gill Scott-Heron wrote a poem and song about it in 1970; The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. He said of the song in an interview “That song was about your mind. You have to change your mind before you change the way you live and the way you move...The thing that’s going to change people will be something that no one will ever be able to capture on film. It will just be something you see and all of a sudden you realize ‘I’m on the wrong page.”

Cosby’s call was a leap in the right direction: it brought these issues into the open, confronted taboos, and opened the conversation. Yet the conversation has halted. There remains a void in the Black American experience.  Someone has to set aside the excuses once and for all and pick up the baton. We need to come together, find solutions, and start the next 'untelevised' revolution.