90 years and counting
22nd September 2015 · 0 Comments
This week marks the 90th anniversary of the birth of The Louisiana Weekly, one of the oldest Black newspapers in the Deep South and a beacon of enlightenment, hope and inspiration for communities of color and underrepresented people in Louisiana, the United States and around the world.
It is with great pride and a sense of accomplishment that we reflect on how far people of African descent have come since The Louisiana Weekly was founded in 1925. We have organized to do away with legal segregation, worked to secure the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, integrated the nation’s armed forces, entered the nation’s top corporate boardrooms and elected the nation’s first Black president.
But we also acknowledge that the nation still has a long way to go. Black, Brown, Red, Yellow and poor people are still relegated to the lower rungs of the socioeconomic totem pole and people of color are still often treated by the legal system and criminal justice system like we have no rights that white people are bound by law to respect. We are still being targeted and racially profiled by those sworn to protect and serve us and are being gunned down in numbers that would make some believe that it’s 1965 rather than 2015.
With financial institutions subjecting people of color to payday loans, redlining strategies and high interest and mortgage rates and the U.S. Department of Justice doing little to that people of color enjoy equal protection under the law, there is little time for celebration, sleep or rest.
The privatization of public education has proven to be a major setback for children of color and in 2015 members of the state-run Recovery School District are still trying to build a new high school for Black children atop a former landfill that contains at least eight toxic metals including lead, mercury and zinc.
Again, many of the injustices and challenges we face make it appear as though it is 1965 instead of 2015.
Much of the progress of the past 50 years has been eroded by Supreme Court Justices beholden to billionaires and a sense among some that people of color are taking over America.
As a result, we see a renewed push for aggressive police tactics that run afoul of the U.S. Constitution, increased incidences of fatal police killings of unarmed Black men, women and children, a concerted effort to undermine the Presidency of the United States and a general effort to “turn back the clock” in America.
Ninety years after it was founded, The Louisiana Weekly remains committed to fighting the good fight and advocating for the rights of the dispossessed, disenfranchised and underrepresented. We remain committed to providing a voice for the voiceless and offering enlighten and empowerment to the masses who continue to toil for slave wages and languish in penal institutions for the unpardonable crime of being born Black in an unforgiving world.
We will continue to raise awareness of elected officials who refuse to uphold the U.S. Constitution and promote laws and polices that give one group of people a decided advantage over others.
When you consider lethal attacks on unarmed Black men, women and children, efforts to undermine the Voting Rights Act, the privatization of everything from health care to education and recreation departments and conditions in New Orleans, it becomes painfully evident that there is still a need for The Louisiana Weekly and other members of the Black Press.
We are thankful for and inspired by the many Louisiana Weekly readers and supporters who have joined us every step of the way and continue to share our commitment to speaking out against tyranny in all of its forms, inequitable practices and taxation without representation.
There is an African adage that says “I am because we are.” That notion underscores the vital importance of unity and collective efforts to move the community forward.
We thank and salute our readers for standing on the battlefield with us as we strive for liberation, justice, true democracy and self-determination.
In honor of this momentous occasion, I leave you with the words from a poem by Bernard J. Keller titled “Harvard 8/9/85 (For the bespectacled elderly gentleman on he Harvard campus)”
If you cannot be the best for yourself,/do it for those who were denied an/opportunity to be the best.
If you cannot fight the fight for yourself,/do it for those who fought the wars,/but were without the weapons./If you cannot dream the dream for yourself,/dream it for those who could dream/but could never make their dreams come true.
If you cannot love you for yourself,/love you for those who loved you even as/they stepped off slave ships into a new world,/or stood against those who said they were not men.
If you cannot be proud for yourself,/be proud for those who used pride to/sustain themselves against the times/they were sentenced to ride in the back of the bus/or braved wild dogs and open fire hoses/in order to east their votes/for a candidate of their choice.
Do it for yourself if you can,/but whenever you cannot do it for yourself, do it for them.
This article originally published in the September 21, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
