Priceless Tubman Artifact Donation to Museum of African American History

This one is simply stunning. Who would believe such priceless artifacts still existed – much less were in private hands?

Black history museum gets special opening gift

Black History Month was marked in a very special way Wednesday. The president and the first lady attended the ground breaking for the National Museum of African-American History and Culture on the National Mall, where Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech still echoes.
CBS News correspondent Chip Reid got a first look at some of the priceless artifacts the museum will hold.

Charles Blockson, 78, has been collecting African and African-American artifacts for more than 50 years. The high point came just last year when he inherited 39 items that belonged to Harriet Tubman. Born into slavery, she escaped, but returned to the South nearly 20 times leading hundreds of others to freedom on what came to be known as the Underground Railroad.

Some of Charles Blockson’s ancestors were rescued by Tubman.

“When I first received (her artifacts), I was surprised, shocked. Nearly every item I picked up I started to cry, the tears just, my emotional armor erupted,” Blockson said.

The items include a silk shawl that was given to Tubman by Queen Victoria, and Tubman’s book of gospel hymns. Blockson, though, says it felt wrong to keep them, calling it “an awesome burden.”

So he donated the Tubman artifacts, most of them too fragile to be handled, to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture…

1st collector for Priceless Tubman Donation to Museum of African …
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If There Were a 1% Debate… MLK vs. Romney

What would MLK do? What would MLK say?

There is very little evidence that MLK would have anything good to say about today’s Republican Party. Indeed – for many folks today’s Republican have gone about as low as you can go.

Here is a mash up of points by MLK and “Willard” Romney…

Tunisia, Cairo, Tehran, Benghazi, Beijing…Wisconsin

One brutal dictator or repressive government after another, in perhaps the largest series of mass demonstrations th world has ever seen – people are taking to the streets for political freedom, and economic rights…

In Tunisia and Cairo, the world was riveted as everyday citizens braved sometimes brutal violence by their repressive governments to suppress their will… And overthrew dictators.

The battles in other countries like Libya promise to be even more bloody, as hundreds are murdered by the Ghadaffi’s Secret Police and Army thugs. And China, prepares for perhaps another Tienanmen Square style repression suppressing the upstart “Jasmine Revolution”.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin – Americans start the fight to take their country back from the neo-fascists…

The revolution may not be televised… But it will be on YouTube.

Report – Mubarak Resigns, Hands Power to Military

Not sure that Mubarak is “out-out”, but there are numerous reports that he has left Cairo, and recent reports that he has resigned… The Military Council made the following statement -

Mubarak resigns, hands power to military

Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak resigned as president and handed control to the military on Friday, bowing down after a historic 18-day wave of pro-democracy demonstrations by hundreds of thousands. “The people ousted the president,” chanted a crowd of tens of thousands outside his presidential palace in Cairo.

Several hundred thousand protesters massed in Cairo’s central TahrirSquare exploded into joy, waving Egyptian flags, and car horns and celebratory shots in the air were heard around the city of 18 million in joy after Vice President Omar Suleiman made the announcement on national TV just after nightfall.

Mubarak had sought to cling to power, handing some of his authorities to Suleiman while keeping his title. But an explosion of protests Friday rejecting the move appeared to have pushed the military into forcing him out completely. Hundreds of thousands marched throughout the day in cities across the country as soliders stood by, besieging his palace in Cairo and Alexandria and the state TV building.

“In these grave circumstances that the country is passing through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave his position as president of the republic,” a grim-looking Suleiman said. “He has mandated the Armed Forces Supreme Council to run the state. God is our protector and succor.”

Nobel Peace laureate Mohammed ElBaradei, whose young suporters were among the organizers of the protest movement, told The Associated Press, “This is the greatest day of my life.”

“The country has been liberated after decades of repression,” he said adding that he expects a “beautiful” transition of power.

If there is hope for Egypt… There may indeed be hope for Americans to get out into the streets and peacefully get our country back on track.

National Parks Proposed to Honor Harriet Tubman

Efforts are underway in Congress to recognize Harriet Tubman with the designation of her home in Auburn, New York, and an area on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where she was born a slave, and helped numerous slaves escape bondage on the Underground Railroad.

Don’t think there is much chance of this getting through a Republican majority Congress, not only because of the usual hostility – but because of the extreme focus this term on cost cutting.

Two National Parks Eyed to Honor Legacy of Harriet Tubman

Steal Away

Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave who led others to freedom on the Underground Railroad, could be honored with two national parks promoting her life.

Senators from Maryland and New York introduced legislation on Tuesday — the start of Black History Month — to create parks in both states that would protect sites connected to her life as an abolitionist and later as an advocate for women’s suffrage.

Tubman — known as “the black Moses” for leading hundreds of slaves out of bondage in the South to freedom in the North — lived much of her adult life in Auburn, N.Y. in the state’s Finger Lakes region. If the bill becomes law, her home, the cemetery where she was buried in 1913 and the Home for the Aged, an early nursing home for African-Americans she created, would become part of the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park.

In the Eastern Shore of Maryland where Tubman was born in 1822, the bill would make a sweeping Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Historical Park, covering her presumed birthplace and the site of former plantations where she was enslaved until she ran away in 1849. Tubman returned to the area for 10 years as a famed conductor on the Underground Railroad, and the park would include the location of a former safe house along the route to the North.

“Harriet Tubman [was] a true American patriot for whom liberty and freedom were principles in which she believed and risked her life to achieve,” said U.S. Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., in a statement. “Her life was defined by determination, perseverance and hardship as she helped others on the road to freedom. These two parks will make it possible for Marylanders, New Yorkers and all Americans to trace her life’s work and remember her tremendous contribution to our nation’s history.”

MLK III – Still Striving!

Well worth a read. The difference between what MLK stood for and Glenn Beck and the Sno’ Ho’ stand for is simple, and can be seen in current events. King’s vision was for all people, and was inclusive. Beck and Palin are merchants of hate, as evidenced in virtually every word they say. Palin’s defense of Dr. Laura, Becks declaration that President Obama is “anti-white”, the movement’s stand against the “Ground Zero Mosque”, their stand against the Constitutional rights of immigrants, and warping of the very Constitutional principles this country was founded on defines them as the antithesis of King’s Dream.

Still striving for MLK’s dream in the 21st century

This weekend Glenn Beck is to host a “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial. While it is commendable that this rally will honor the brave men and women of our armed forces, who serve our country with phenomenal dedication, it is clear from the timing and location that the rally’s organizers present this event as also honoring the ideals and contributions of Martin Luther King Jr.

I would like to be clear about what those ideals are.

Vast numbers of Americans know of my father’s leadership in opposing segregation. Yet too many believe that his dream was limited to achieving racial equality. Certainly he sought that objective, but his vision was about more than expanding rights for a single race. He hoped that even in the direst circumstances, we could overcome our differences and replace bitter conflicts with greater understanding, reconciliation and cooperation.

My father championed free speech. He would be the first to say that those participating in Beck’s rally have the right to express their views. But his dream rejected hateful rhetoric and all forms of bigotry or discrimination, whether directed at race, faith, nationality, sexual orientation or political beliefs. He envisioned a world where all people would recognize one another as sisters and brothers in the human family. Throughout his life he advocated compassion for the poor, nonviolence, respect for the dignity of all people and peace for humanity.

Although he was a profoundly religious man, my father did not claim to have an exclusionary “plan” that laid out God’s word for only one group or ideology. He marched side by side with members of every religious faith. Like Abraham Lincoln, my father did not claim that God was on his side; he prayed humbly that he was on God’s side.

Sharpton Finally Finds a Place to Grandsta…Errrr…March

You know it’s been hard out there for an old style Civil Rights leader these last few years. Very few, if an issues in the black community have lent themselves to the don the walking shoes and placards and march down main street approach.

Looks like Al has found a new clientele – Hispanics (alway suspected that process didn’t have enough wave in it!)!

The Berlin Wall - Prooof governments can't keep people in, any more than you can keep them out. The last gasp of a dying Government.

In any event, while it is certainly true that the Republicans in Arizona have passed a law of questionable constitutionality – and arguably targets one sector of the population based on ethnicity…

President Obama has already lined up the DOJ to challenge the law in the courts. Other Hispanic Civil Rights, as well as the NAACP will join with the DOJ to file amicus briefs, or file their own cases. Ergo – this was a really stupid grandstanding ploy by Arizona wing-nut racist Republicans, which is under attack already by the leal apparatus of the Federal Government, as well as COngress.

Along comes Al… Let the hyperventilation begin!

Sharpton, other activists compare Arizona immigration law to apartheid, Nazi Germany and Jim Crow

New York activists, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, compared Arizona‘s new immigration law to apartheid, Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South – and vowed to shut it down with mass protests.

“We will bring Freedom Walkers to Arizona just like Freedom Riders went to the deep south 50 years ago,” Sharpton said yesterday.

Standing with local clergy, elected officials and a leader of the Hispanic Federation, Sharpton said he would mobilize people from across the country to march in Arizona – and get arrested, if necessary – to stop the controversial new law.

“We cannot sit by and allow people to be arbitrarily and unilaterally picked off as suspects because of the color of their skin,” Sharpton said.

Gov. Jan Brewer (R-Ariz.) signed a bill last week authorizing police to question individuals about their immigration status if they suspect they could be in the country illegally.

It now faces a slew of legal challenges and a review by the U.S. Department of Justice that was ordered by President Obama.

“When I heard about it, it reminded me of Nazi Germany,” said Hispanic Federation President Lillian Rodríguez López. “It reminded me of South African apartheid.”

Meanwhile, in Washington, Senate Democrats said they planned to use the Arizona law to push for an immigration reform bill, but Republicans said other legislation took precedence.

“The idea that state by state would start developing its own immigration laws in the country – imagine what a patchwork that might look like,” Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) said on NBC‘s “Meet the Press.”

“It’s demanding a national answer to immigration policy.”