My wishes for a Black, productive 2017

By A. Peter Bailey
TriceEdneyWire.com Columnist

I wish most Black folks would join the One Million Conscious Black Voters and Contributors Movement as advocated by Prof. James Clingman. Prof. Clingman, whose column “Blackonomic$” is a must-read for anyone who has a serious commitment to our people, says the movement “is for conscientiously conscious Black people who are not only aware but are willing to work on and contribute their skills, knowledge and treasure to solving our problems and bringing solutions to fruition.” Its website is www.iamoneofthemillion.com.

I wish we as a people would act on the words of wisdom from Brother Malcolm X in which he said, “U.S. politics is ruled by special interest blocs and lobbies. What group has a more urgent special interest than the black man?… Twenty-two million Black people should tomorrow give a dollar a piece to build a skyscraper lobby building in Washington, DC. Every morning every legislator should receive a communication about what the Black man in America expects, wants and needs. The demanding voice of the Black lobby should be in the ears of every legislator who votes on any issue.”

I wish our people would cease honoring Martin Luther King Jr., as some kind of other-worldly dreamer and act on his stated belief, “A second important step that the Negro must take is to work passionately for group identity. This does not mean group isolation or group exclusivity. There must always be healthy debate…this form of group unity can do infinitely more to liberate the Negro than any action of individuals. We have been oppressed as a group and we must overcome that oppression as a group.”

I wish we would listen to and act on a statement made by Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune in her last will and testament in which she wrote, “I leave you the challenge of developing confidence in one another. This kind of confidence will aid the economic rise of the race by bringing together the pennies and dollars of our people and ploughing them into useful channels.”

I wish we, as a people, would do something which I first advocated in a 1992 column in the Richmond Free Press. That was to pull together a conference in that would focus on our group and individual strengths. I noted that contrary to popular propaganda and beliefs, we have many such strengths. Only a strong group of people could have survived the physical and psychological attacks that we have had to deal with in the United States of America. We need to identify, analyze and document our cultural, economic, political and educational strengths and build on them. Such a conference would truly be educational, productive and history-making. It’s time for us as a people not to watch what’s happening or wonder what’s happening but to make things happen for current and future generations.

This article originally published in the January 16, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.