Upon hearing about the passing of historian and scholar Dr. John Hope Franklin, March 25, 2009 at age 94, my mind drifted back to my high school days eons ago when I was thankfully introduced  to a book written by Dr. Franklin, a book that heavily influenced my path in education.

It was the early 1960’s, Ms. Peanages was a first year language teacher at John Muir High School in Pasadena CA. Being one of only two high schools in town, Muir was were most of the city’s Black students were routinely  funneled for enrollment. Ms. Peanages seemed to genuinely relish her position and was very encouraging, even overly so with the Black students in the class.
One day, beaming with the expression of a great idea, she stood in front of the class and naively, yet enthusiastically, encouraged the students to interview family and neighbors about slave stories that may have been passed along, to write the stories down before they were lost and share them with the class.

Her suggestion was met with absolute silence! The white students hid their faces behind hands or stared distantly out the windows while most of the Blacks students shrank so small in their seats they became invisible. Just the mention of the word slavery brought about embarrassment and humiliation, a word never to cross your lips, especially in the presence of mixed company. Our history textbook covered the entire Civil War without once mentioning slaves or slavery!
The ringing bell came to everybody’s rescue. I lagged behind the others leaving the classroom and approached Ms. Peanages, her disappointment visibly plastered on her face, but she quickly lit up when I stated I was interested in doing the project, not only was I interested, I was excited about the whole idea.

As I stepped into the project, my enthusiasm was hit in the face with a cold bucket of water. My questions mentioning slavery, although some responses were polite, many more greeted my queries with denial, anger, and even hostility;

“Why you want to talk about something like that?”
“I don’t know nothing about no slavery and the school ought not be teaching about that.”

After this rough baptism into the reality of the way things were, my older sister Lois, with whom I was living at the time, came strongly to my rescue. Lois was uncompromising and prideful about who she was and naturally scoffed at those that would deny their heritage. “That’s part of our history, you can’t pretend it never happened”.
A few days later she handed me a book, From Slavery to Freedom by John Hope Franklin. From the pages of this book, a sea of knowledge poured forth. For the first time in my life I was reading and learning about myself, about my ancestry, about my history and more importantly, the words jumping off the pages left me feeling uplifted and proud.  I could appreciate Dr. Franklin’s scholarship even back then, his annotations, references and factual detail led me to better understand what was meant by the word, scholarship.

I eagerly took my place in front of the class to give my report, not on collected slave stories, but on the Middle Passage and the African Diaspora in the Americas as I continuously cited Dr. Franklin’s book. I can remember the smile on  Ms. Peanages’ face as she listened to the questions and comments raised by classmates, classmates now willingly discussing a subject that weeks earlier had been quietly forbidden or too shameful to breach.

In the years to follow, my interest in history continued to grow. I routinely browsed the racks in both new and used bookstores and heard many a library closing chime as I found myself lost the stacks. Dr. Franklin’s introduction to African American history led me to others who had written on the subject; John G. Jackson, John Henrik Clarke, Cheikh Anta Diop, Gilberto Freyre, Chancellor Williams, Lerone Bennett, Basil Davidson, Herodotus and other Ancient Greeks to name a few of many. But it was my resolute sister introducing me to Dr. John Hope Franklin’s From Slavery to Freedom, that opened my mind and inserted a love for the subject of history that never waned.

Mural, Charlotte and Mecklenburg County Library, Charlotte, North Carolina

In October of 2007, I had the opportunity to attend the 92nd annual convention of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), founding organization for Black History Month, in Charlotte, North Carolina. On this memorable occasion, ninety-two year old Dr. John Hope Franklin was the keynote speaker.

I stood at the back of an overflowing dining hall as Dr. Franklin rose from the table of dignitaries to address the assembled. From his slender, demure frame, a powerful voice burst forth, soaring above the amplification, crashing the confines of the room and rattling throughout the corridors of the hotel. He spoke with the authority of a pioneer who over six decades earlier—when  the history of slaves nor their descendants was considered serious scholarship—veered off the road least traveled to blaze his own path, a path that led  him to writing and speaking forcefully about the unmentionable elephant in the room.
In documenting the crime of the millennium, a crime that some descendants of both perpetrator and victim alike wished would forever be erased from memory, Dr. Franklin permanently altered narratives on American history and established a more accurate paradigm from which the discipline henceforth would be viewed and studied.

On this night, Dr. Franklin spoke with the wisdom of 92 years. He spoke with the knowledge gained from  nearly a century of life. He spoke  with such zeal that attendees could only marvel at his energy and stamina. He spoke and ventured  in to realms of history that only an pioneering historian and scholar would dare tread. What a wonderful evening it was.

Sylvia Cyrus, Dr. John Hope Franklin, Okeyo Ajamu Jumal

The following morning, while visiting in the hotel restaurant with Sylvia Cyrus, Executive Director of ASALH, it was my good fortune to have Dr. John Hope Franklin walk over and join us. I must have looked awe struck as I  welcomed Dr. Franklin. He grinned broadly while clasping my hand firmly. It is rare when you have the opportunity to meet an individual of Dr. Franklin’s enormous stature. And as I stood there, still holding on to his strong grip, I was  struck by the reality of it all—I was in the company of, and shaking hands with a giant.

Spiritualshackles.com

A Beautiful Experience

Writings by

Okeyo Ajamu Jumal

All Rights Reserved

Departure
The digital temperature sign flashed 14 degrees Fahrenheit as Jostlyn, my grand cousin who nicely opened her home for my visit, sped pass the nondescript shopping mall a little after 5AM on our way to the Greenbelt subway station. When we passed the last checkpoint entering the station drop-off/pick-up area, it became clear that the Greenbelt station was the final destination for hundreds of tour buses dropping off thousands of folks like myself, headed for the National Mall.

Jostlyn and myself had walked the full length of the Mall the day before and I made a nice little plan to avoid much of the large crowd expected. I would exit the subway at L’Enfant Plaza and after a brisk walk of a mile or so, I’d end up watching the proceedings on big screen from the Lincoln Monument. The crowds would surely be thinner watching from two miles back! Just follow my plan and everything should be copacetic.

Jostlyn, was sounding very much like the good mother as I stepped from the car into the cold,
“You checked to make sure you have both gloves? Make sure you have my phone number. And it’s probably going to be icy so be careful. And call…”
A smile lit-up my face as I walked the final block or so to the station, the resonance in Jostlyn’s voice conveyed the same excitement I’d heard two days earlier when leaving home in California.
It was still dark when wife Phyllis and myself were on our way out the door headed to LAX, when five year-old granddaughter Sariah came bounding down the stairs in her pajamas, her head of thick black hair going in every-which-a-way and dragging her coat behind while exclaiming,
“I want to ride to the airport with you Papa!” Sariah and her mother Angela had stayed the night as plan B in case Phyllis, who was on call, had to go in to work.
“I’m going too”, was Angela calling down from the landing.
“That’s okay” I said, “Your mother is taking me, so you guys can go back to bed.”
“Can we please go with you Papa,” was Sariah’s response, her bright eyes staring up as she zipped her coat, “I’m all ready to go.” She may not have understood what my trip was about, but she knew who it was about—because she loved hearing herself say his name, Barack Obama.

Arriving at the airport, Phyllis parked in the white zone, something she never does, and the three of them popped out of the car to give me big hugs, those long hugs like I was sailing away on some voyage across distant seas. If I didn’t know when long time Andrew called last night to wish me well, I knew now, this trip was something very special, I could hear it in their voices and see it in there eyes, this was like taking the first step on an epic journey, a pilgrimage or hajj or something yet defined.

Greenbelt Station
Jostlyn was waving good-bye as I rounded the corner from the drop-off point, and just as the entrance to the Greenbelt Station came into view, I was swallowed whole by a mass of people. I’d been in large crowds before, including the World Cup and Olympics, but nothing like this! Into this subway station most likely built for a capacity of a few hundred, five to ten thousand travelers were attempting to squeeze-in, all at once! And since the station entrance-way was at the bottom of a down slope, those in the back were pushing down hill with those nearer the entrance left with no place to go except pressed against the iron security gates. This could get ugly I’m thinking, those at the top could lose balance with all the pushing and start an avalanche of people cascading on those below.

But bad things didn’t happen! People in the crowd said, “Please don’t push.” Others repeated the request as it echoed all the way to the back…And the pushing stop! Just stopped, like some mass courtesy descended from a darkened sky. And it‘s all good.

After a little over an hour, I had finally moved twenty-five feet to the door of the station when a sudden surge of people carried me through the door, my feet off the ground and landing me standing sideways in a crush of humanity. That personal space encapsulating us that no one trespasses, had long since disappeared. My face was shoved into some guys shoulder with a ladies elbow stuck in my ribs while my arm was tangled in someone’s coat. We were like olives stuffed in a jar, less the wiggle room.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get more exciting, it did. Those crushed-in on the left side of the station needed tickets that were located on the right side and moving cross-ways in this crowd wasn’t an option. Then an idea, people on the far side began passing twenty dollar bills across the station to those nearest the tickets and in turn, tickets were being passed back in the opposite direction, hundreds of $20 bills dancing in the air like leaves in an autumn breeze, passing through finger tips of perfect strangers while tickets floated back across like butterflies in the same breeze and all seemingly finding there destination! What a uniquely chaotic scene, un-orchestrated politeness that purred with the precision of a finely tuned machine. And it’s all good.

The Train Ride
Finally, in the flash of a few minutes, a group of us that had become glued to each other in the crush, were through the stiles, up the steps to the platform and on the train! There was a mass sense of accomplishment as we now sat joking with each other like a bunch of old time friends. Towns and states became our names, I was seated next to Texas and we were facing Mo’town and Chi’town. Seattle was across the aisle and I was Cali.
“I bet you’ve never seen this kinda cold in California!”
“Is that a myth or is it true that it never snows in Los Angeles?”
The conversations flowed in a relaxed way, with Chicago grabbing our attention when she randomly asked the group a question,
“When did you make up your minds to come to D.C.?”
For me, the answer was easy. Sometime before Obama’s nomination, my lingering doubts and suspicions had waned, I embraced the possibility, the possibility that it could happen! On election night, November 4, 2008, while standing amongst the celebrating crowd in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, with emotions thundering forth like a powerful storm, drenching me in tears of the most wonderful kind, my decision was made. I was going to ride that emotional crest all the way to Washington D.C. and meld into the inauguration day crowd. Melding, a most apt description.

The conversations buzzing amongst us were interrupted by announcements from the engineer,

“Do to over crowding, this train will not stop at Gallery-Pl Chinatown,
Archives-Navy Museum and L’Enfant Plaza.”

L’Enfant Plaza, I thought to myself, that’s my stop! As the train whizzed through the station on the center track, I caught a glimpse of the massive crowds cramped on the platform, so I made up my mind that wherever the train stopped, I was gettin’ off. If I thought Greenbelt Station was a big crowd, as the sayin’ goes, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”

The Crowd!!
Up the escalator to the street, I emerged into crowds hundreds, thousands fold what I’d encountered at Greenbelt and all seeming moving in different directions. Seems like a whole bunch of us had the same plan!

“Which way to the National Mall” I asked. “Just follow the crowd going that way,” was the given advice by a security officer, so I did. After five blocks we ran into more security and twelve-foot high crowd control barricades, “you can’t get through this way, you need to go that way!” After seven blocks walking that way, we ran into more barricades and security,
“You folks came the wrong way, you should have been directed to go the other way!” Experience tells me that at this point, frustration turns to anger, but not on this day. politeness and jabbing fun at our predicament had people joking deep on the humorous side. And it’s all good.

Security consisted of TSA, Secret Service, D.C. Police, the army, the navy, FBI, and you name it, all seemingly with different instructions and giving conflicting directions. After a few more of these go this way, go that a way and passing the same spot twice, what I had ignored finally made its presence felt big time, this was some serious COLD! My frozen face felt like it was being pierced by thousands of needles and my gloves seemed useless. But luck turned as a toasty looking pub appeared right in front and there was room on the inside.
“Whatever you have that’s hot and quick,” was my shivering request.
“We have coffee, tea and delicious homemade chilli.”
“I’ll have the tea and chilli” was my order to the affable waitress. From the window, I could see endless lines of icy looking porta-potties. That got me thinking, maybe strange chilli on a day like this might not be a good move!
“Ma’am, you can hold that chilli.”

Back on the street, a man preceding me out the door was bumped and dropped his Styrofoam cup of hot coffee. Within a minute, the spilt coffee had turned into a splash of brown ice, but rather then getting bent out of shape, the man started laughing,
“I be damn, ice coffee anyone?”
I was trying to find a way on to the National Mall. My original plan had been to watch the proceedings on giant screen monitors from the Lincoln Monument. But that wasn’t going to happen because of all the barricades and check points between me and there, so my next plan B was to just get as close as I could. And just like that, I saw my chance! While a group of folks were explaining their situation to security, other people were stealthily slipping behind security and through the gate, just like we’d do at high school football games back-in-the-day. If no one says anything, just keep walking like you belong!

The Home Crowd
The sign read 3rd Street and as I turned the corner at Constitution Avenue, I found myself in a spirited throng of hundreds of thousands of people, people who had been sent this-away and that-away and finally ending up here, on the parade route with a third of the inaugural stage in view. Not bad, I can hang-out here! These were the hundreds of thousands of people who came to the inauguration with no orange, gold, purple or any other color passes, who came absent of inaugural ball invites and with tickets to nothing. These were the Hundreds of thousands people who traveled the many miles, most at their own expense, to brave the cold and the crowds for the best reason of all, just to be here!

The crowd here on Constitution Avenue was just as relaxed and talkative as the folks at the Greenbelt Station. And like Greenbelt, conservations seemed to start with the same question, “Where are you from?” And the answers came in dialects and accents from every state in the union and from a multitude of countries around the world.
“Ottawa, Canada!” exclaimed the lady wrapped in a big Obama scarf. “I’m From Paris! I couldn’t miss this for the world.” I found myself absorbed in laugher and conversation with people from, Hawaii, Johannesburg, Kansas, New Orleans, Madrid, Boston, Atlanta and then, there was the couple from Kenya, Mary and Kisii, as I’d soon learn.

While in conversation about my book, Spiritual Shackles, I handed my card to a nearby couple to pass it over to Kansas. The couple stopped the card to take a closer look at the name,
“Your name is Okeyo?” “Yes”, I replied as she continued, “That is a Luo name from Kenya?”. “Yes”, again I replied.” “We are from Kenya and we are Luo. Unaongea Kiswahili?” She was now asking me if I spoke Swahili, and to my own surprise, the walking around, market place Swahili words and phrases I’d learned when living in Tanzania way-back-in-the-day came rolling out,
“Ndiyo, nina ongea Kiswahili kidogo. Jina lako nani?” I responded that I spoke a few words and asked their names. A look of surprise came over their faces, “Jina letu Mary na Kisii. Na wewe je?” I replied , “Jina logo Okeyo Jumal. Una toka wapi?”, asking them what town they were from, “Tuna toka Kisumu. Wewe ulikaa wapi Kenya?” “Nili kaa Kisumu pia?” The three of us broke out in big laughter and it was only then that we realized we had attracted a small crowd. Then the three of us really start laughing, I was laughing for how stiff I must have sounded and they coulda been laughing because my Swahili was so lousy. And those listening were laughing in amazement,
“I didn’t know they spoke Swahili in Cali!”
“What a coincidence!” came a voice, “out of all these people, you three meet each other.”

Now speaking in English, we talked briefly about Kisumu, a town on the shore of Lake Victoria before Kisii, addressing the small crowd that had gathered, began answering questions about Kenya, the country of Barack Obama’s paternal family. “There’s no words to express how proud we Kenyans are of Barack Obama. The Obama family is Luo you know.” Laughing at the irony, Kisii stated, “ Do you know it was easier for a Luo to be elected president of the United States than for a Luo to be elected president of Kenya.”
“Only in America,” was an instantaneous comment from somewhere in the crowd, accompanied with an all consuming laughter. And it’s all good!

The warmth of comradery and shared conversations helped mute the freezing cold and made hours of waiting pass gently. It was now noon and the program was starting. A hush descended on the huge crowd, a quiet that seemed unreal, you could hear traffic lights clicking in the distance. But it soon became apparent that we could only hear a muffled sound from the large speakers because they were directed inward toward the Mall.
You could feel the buzz of disappointment moaning through the crowd, but just like at Greenbelt, a solution naturally blossomed. People began taking out cell phones and giving a play-by-play commentary on what was happening on stage just blocks away, commentary that was being relayed from folks watching TV back home. Then there were the web phones that were being streamed the live broadcast to their tiny screens. Blackberry’s, iPhones were being passed and shared with strangers, they were being held aloft so hundreds could see the picture. The fact that the phones were fifteen to twenty seconds out of sync with each other, depending on were their particular signal was being relayed, didn’t matter. The phones danced around like fireflies, these small lights darting about in all directions and this incredible sharing, this beautiful quality of goodness seemed to flow so naturally. And to wittiness goodness like this, the hundreds of thousands of people standing, clapping and appreciating the program knew—with these little screens—they had the best view in the house, better then seats right down on the front row. And it’s all good!

More…Part two 2 of 2

by

Okeyo Ajamu Jumal

All Rights Reserved

The Lincoln Monument
The virtue of patience was about to receive its severest challenge. It had taken ten hours plus to fill the Mall and surrounding streets with millions of people, but after the ceremonies over, the same millions of people head for the trains and subways all at once! And not looking forward to being crushed again like wet jellybeans in a candy dish, walking the two miles down the slowly emptying Mall to visit the Lincoln Monument seemed to be the more spacious option.  As I approached the frozen solid Reflecting Pools fronting of the monument, it was clear by the size of the crowd, numbering in the tens of thousands, that trekking to this monument was a very popular idea amongst the multitude of visitors on this inauguration day.  Involved in conversation while waiting, it was also clear that Barack Obama’s high praise for the Sixteenth President had assisted in rekindling interest in Lincoln’s legacy and Obama’s appearance at the Monument during the Weekend Inauguration Concert had further enhanced Lincoln with young generations.

Still others shared their memories of that snowy day in 1981, or was it 1982 when they were at the Lincoln Monument and Steve Wonder sang “Happy Birthday” [Dr. Martin Luther King] from his album Hotter than July, a song that would catapult the day Dr. King came to be into a national holiday and world party. There were other contemporary reasons that pulled, like a magnet, many in this large crowd to the Lincoln Monument, one that caught me completely by surprise.

I had been here before, but on this visit, I took more time. Just the sculpture alone is a powerful, intriguing work of art. Carved into stone in one wing is his Second Inaugural Address and in the other wing set in stone is America’s greatest historical document, The Gettysburg Address. However, conspicuous by its absence, the Emancipation Proclamation is not to be found or mentioned. Pondering the possible reason for this  obvious omission, perhaps national amnesia in a segregated America when the Monument was built in 1922, a crowd lining-up on the Monument steps caught my attention.

As I approached, a man and his family, from Mexico City, asked if I would take their picture. When I mentioned that the Lincoln sculpture wasn’t in the frame, he gestured that it wasn’t a problem and as I handed him back his camera, the same request was made by Japan and then Sweden. Now curious, I asked Mexico City what was the significance,
“This is where Dr. King stood!”
Looking both surprised and enlightened, I listened as he continued,
“…We came for the inauguration, but we had to come here, right here.”

With great certainty and in the near future, a monument will rise here on the National Mall honoring Dr. King. It will most surely become the primary destination for many visitors from this country and from around the world. But for some of today’s visitors and many more to follow, their hajj to pay tribute to Dr. King will end at this nondescript, unmarked place somewhere on the steps of  Lincoln Monument where there pilgrims will metaphorically climb to the top of  a prodigious mountain, circle the kaaba sevens times and bath in the Ganges. They will honor the Prince of Peace, not from a spanking new monument, but  from an undefined spot, where Dr. King stood and delivered some of his most profound words.

DC Irving
I have a dinner invite, crab-cakes and other good stuff with writer Swaggie Coleman and her family, which is sounding real good right about now. But this delicious sounding dinner party was forty miles away in Baltimore and there’s a crush of people headed where I’m headed, the Foggy Bottom subway station. I’m standing here thinking, how about another plan B, when I think I hear a familiar voice call my name,
“Jumal!”
This was impossible I thought to myself as I looked in the direction of the voice calling. Nimat and myself, who’s parents I’ve  known since high school, surprised each other when rushing to our flight gates at LAX and finding out we were both headed to the same place. After exchanging cell numbers, the comment was made of maybe meeting on the Mall—then we both laughed. Finding each other amongst the millions expected—not gonna happen! But a million to one would have been a a good bet, guess who’s waving at me from a bench where she was seated with friends, Nimat!
After our greeting of mutual disbelief, Nimat introduced me to her uncle Sultan from Georgia and a local man who they’d  just made acquaintance with, Irving from D.C.  I joined the group seated at benches facing across from each other. Immediately, I was captivated by the presence of Irving from D.C. Irving was a native of D.C., a partly-retired taxi driver and local historian of sorts, not of government or politicians,  but of the everyday people in the neighborhoods.  He exuded a rock solid love his hometown, a love with that same gritty pride found in the lyrics of that old blues tune, Tobacco Road, “…but I love you ‘cause you home.”

I shared with DC my predicament and he said he’d hook me up with a taxi ride to an outlaying MARC station and I’d be on a train to Baltimore in no time. Problem solved. Now with time to conversate, I’d joined the party as DC was talking about when as a boy of six or seven back in 1939, his parents brought him to the Mall to hear a lady named Marian Anderson sing from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Irving went on to say that he was too young to understand what it was all about, but what stuck in his memory about that day was seeing so many grown folks crying, later finding out that they crying because they were so damn happy.
“The next time I was on this Mall, I came for the March on Washington. A lot of them folks on that day were right out the cotton fields, still wearing overalls when they got off them buses. And after all that marching and walking in the hot sun, they  pulled off  they shoes and rested their feet in the mirror pools. They made a lot out of that at the time, saying it was disrespectful, but them country folks thought that’s what the pools were for, bless their hearts.” You could tell that DC enjoyed telling stories he’d told more then a few times,
“…But to hear Dr. King speak was something. I was standing right in the same spot were I stood as a boy in ’39! That Dr. King made you feel all good inside, you know what I mean, like you were somebody.”

DC had our attention as he continued talking about Dr. King, how he knew back then he’d been apart of something very special. His conversation flowed right into the next time he came to the Mall, standing in the same spot, by the pool of course, when taking part in the  Million Man March. Being part of the Million Man March was a  comment often heard as veterans of the that March were generously mixed in today’s massive crowd. They reminisced proudly of participating in the 1995 March and DC Irving  spoke with that same reverence,
“Some people want to forget the Million Man March because of  the man who organized it. But you got to give the Minister Louis X his props, over a million people came to hear him speak. And you got to admire his courage, he wasn’t afraid to say the things we needed to hear…I saw a whole lot of men standing tall that day and you could feel a pride in community long after that March was over.”

It wasn’t long before DC was talking about today and Barack Obama. Still holding a small American flag he’d received on his early morning arrival, you could feel the passion raising in his deep baritone voice, today was most special.
“The crowd today, now this is what you call big!  I ain’t never seen this many people in my city. I got here at 3AM just to make sure I got my same spot by the pool. And like Million Man March, I had to turn and look two miles in the opposite direction and watch on the big TV monitors…Sure I like Obama, he’s a good man. And sure it makes me proud that he’s Black, but I’d like the man if he were green! The man is genuine, the real deal. Look at all these people from everywhere. Now what does that tell you?!
DC Irving stopped and took a moment, his gloved hand squeezing tightly the small flag staff and when he continued, his comments became personal,
“See this [flag]. I feel a since of pride in my country I never had before. For the first time in my life, I feel comfortable in my own home.”

“…Some people released the pain they carried for a life time.”

The Good Host
The city of Washington D.C. played host to guests from around the world and these visitors will leave, taking home with them an unforgettable experience. They will  take home an image of Americans, especially African-Americans that are completely opposite of the two-dimensional stereotype molded by news organizations and Hollywood’s big screen. Contrary to finding the glorified ugliness of hype, they will speak of how they discovered the true soul of a people. Foreign travelers returning to their towns and villages will share the experience of meeting  and mingling with Americans; a proud people, a sharing people, a compassionate people.

To throw a great party, you need a great host and the citizens of D.C. were all that and some. To accommodate the hundreds of thousands of visitors, Washingtonians opened their homes, shared dinner tables and gave of time graciously while extending hospitality to relatives, friends and strangers alike. And if it were not for this display of kindness, today could not have happened. There are many cities across the country that can and have host great events, but when it came time to step-up, this city stepped-up big time. There will arise opportunities in the future for cities to host extraordinary affairs, but what’s undisputed is that the DC’ans have raised the bar—and on that, they can’t be faded.

The Generations
If we are judged by the company we keep and attract, then President Barack Obama must be judged by the millions of well-wishers he’s  attracted on this day. He chooses to lead with respect not fear and the sincerity and honestness radiating from his cool demeanor has attracted people mirroring similar qualities. And the assemblage before him reflects a beautiful mosaic of a diverse country—people from all walks of life and from every geographical niche. The term, “We the People”, has never been more aptly suited. The hopes and dreams expressed in the faces of the people gathered easily equate into a vision of a positive future and if their high expectations for the new president seem unobtainable —or just a dream—remember, they stand where a dreamer once stood.

Since age demographics cut across ethnic and gender lines, young people, many standing on the Mall with their young families, make-up the largest contingent group. In a family setting, generation grouping are marked on average about every twenty years, from parent, on to grandparent, on to great-grand parent and so on. When the torch is passed, it contains the emotions; happiness and joy, sadness and pain of the preceding  generation. If pain is learned and not experienced, the hurt subsides—there can be movement and degrees of change are possible.
In nations however, generations are a continuum, born every second, there’s no such thing as generation grouping. The notion we have national generation groups was created when a blurry line was drawn at the end of WWII designating the next twenty years as the baby boom generation. That gives us a starting point. Boomers are followed by generation X, followed by the Y or Z or something else. But whatever name is bestowed in pop culture lexicon, the reality remains the same, the iGeneration and the Hip-Hop Generation elected GenerationX President of the United States. The ground has shifted. The torch as been passed.
And it’s all good.

Let me back-up. It was 7PM PST and CNN had just projected Barack Obama the winner in Ohio, pushing his electoral vote total to 207 of the 270 needed to be elected president. The polls in California (55 electoral votes) closed polls at 8PM, which meant that at only a few minutes past 8PM, Barack Obama would be declared President-Elect of the United States.
This also meant that I had less then an hour to get from in front of the TV and drive 56 miles to Ladrea Center’s Magic’s T.G.I.F./Starbucks (near LAX), if I wanted to get caught-up in the insane pandemonium that most assuredly would erupt at the strike of eight!
Now parked, I was racing (okay, walking kinda fast) pass the KJLH mobile DJ’s and into T.G.I.F.’s just in time to see the TV screen flash,

CNN BREAKING NEWS!! BARACK OBAMA…Pandemonium indeed! Euphoria descended from the clear, star splashed sky like loving mist.

Navigating the jammed-full parking lot that was exploding with leaps and joyful screams, I crossed over to Starbucks looking for one person in particular, Shon Wolfe. And Shon was right where I knew he would be, playing chess at the tables outside the coffee shop. Chess players have something very much in common with the Vegas gambler. It’s a known fact in Las Vegas that when an earthquake shook or hotels caught fire, serious gamblers never move from the table, “deal the cards” was the response. Likewise the chess player, the world is shutout; their entire universe consists of 64 squares, 32 pieces and a game clock set at five minutes each per player. “Election, what election?”
“Time Shredder, you down.”

“That’s the only way you could win, on time. Look at my position!”, was Shredder’s response as he started to rise from his seat.
“Come on Shredder, I gave you that position because you were low on time”… And then the trash talk begins, “I need a real player over here!”
When Shon spotted me in the crowd, he gave up his winners seat and came over with a big time greeting and laugh, “Obama! I told you, didn’t I? I told you all along he was gonna win! You were all concerned about that ‘Bradley effect’”. We laughed and talked politics until Obama had finished his acceptance speech. Afterward I hurried off to my next stop, Leimert Park.

Specter of the Bradley Effect
On the short drive, I found myself reminiscing about the Bradley thing, a topic that had been part of Shon and my conversations for months.
The Bradley Effect: No, not the 1982 gubernatorial race in California between Tom Bradley and George Deukmejian.
No, the Bradley Effect that haunts me until forever was the 1969 race for mayor of Los Angeles between Bradley and the incumbent mayor, Sam Yorty. In the April primary, Bradley won 42% of the vote to Yorty’s 26%, forcing a run-off because no one had 50%.
Sam Yorty was unapologetic about running a race-based campaign; his billboards portrayed Bradley as a frightening Black figure representing sinister Black Power. But in spite of the Yorty’s play on race baiting in a city with a huge white majority, Bradley still held a substantial lead.

In a far more segregated 1969 Los Angeles, white Westside voters were canvassed before they entered the polling place and the majority said they were voting for Bradley. The exit pollsters canvassed the same precincts and by a wide margin, they claimed to have cast their vote for Bradley.

By the time polls closed that May 27, 1969, the victory celebrations in Black L.A. communities were jammin’. Bradley had been declared the winner by several radio stations. Deep into the night it seemed Bradley was most assuredly the winner. But by 9AM the next morning, with 99% on the votes counted, the sobering reality was apparent, Yorty had won, 53% to 47% for Bradley.

Amongst Blacks, the Bradley defeat was palpable. The pain was a deep gnawing inside the gut. Tears of anger were mixed with tears of misery and a sense of betrayal. At the Texaco Building on Wilshire Blvd where a hand full of us were employed at the time, whites and Blacks walked passed each other in total silence. It was literally sickening; two employees were so upset they vomited, one in the hallway. It’s a memory that bores deep into the bones because so many whites at the time had voiced support for Bradley. There had been plenty of support and bright smiles offered by office co-workers before the election; but when it was time to pull the lever, what was said in public was one thing, and what they did in the privacy of the voting booth was another.
True, Bradley won the 1973 rematch against Yorty and was elected mayor of Los Angeles five times. But the fear that stalked my thoughts throughout the 2008 election campaign was the possibility of the 1969 scenario playing out again.

Making Fears Disappear
Earlier this year and nearly forty years forward from 1969, on Super Tuesday night, February 4, 2008, I found myself at Magic’s Starbucks sitting across the chessboard from thirty-something Shon, not playing chess this time, but talking politics. Shon was one of the earliest supporters of Barack Obama. He was onboard back when some Chicago politicians questioned Obama’s blackness and/or his ability to appeal to African Americans. Shon was stumping for Obama back when Bill Clinton was Mr. popularity with Blacks-Black comedians christened Bill Clinton the first Black president. And Shon was on the campaign trail way back when Hillary Clinton held a sizable led over Obama amongst Black women.
When I met Shon at a jazz concert back in July of 2007, long before the Iowa caucuses, he was wearing a large Obama button and on this Super Tuesday night, he was loudly singing Obama’s praises with I-told-you-so optimism. So being my natural instigating self, I asked him if he’d ever heard of the Bradley Effect?

“The Bradley effect? You mean when Tom Bradley ran for governor in 1982?”
“No.” I said, and I went on to explain the mayor’s race in 1969. Shon listened intently before commenting,
“Blogs all over the internet say the Bradley thing is a myth, just an old myth. And even so, that was forty years ago!” He comically conveyed with body language that he wasn’t even born in 1969.
He continued, “This is a new generation. The fact that Obama is a serious candidate shows how far we’ve come.”
“Yes”, I responded, “But the fact that Fox News exists shows how little progress has been made.”
“I hear what you’re saying Jumal. But still, you got to admit that a lot has changed since back-in-the-day?”

Had it? Had things changed? Or was this perceived change just cosmetics plastering over a deeper reality? If Shon only knew how I wanted to grasp tight to his optimism on change, but my lingering doubts were grounded, not in myth, but the reality of 1969.
Over the coming months we’d discuss the issues; the controversy over Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s comments appeared and Obama’s brilliant speech on race relations in America made them quickly disappear. Hillary conceding defeat had us talking late into the evening and the historic nomination of Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention had left me succumbing to Shon’s optimism. For the first time; buoyed by seeing massive Obama crowds from Berlin to Denver, by my trip to the ASALH history convention in the civil rights battleground city of Birmingham Alabama and listening to Obama’s autobiography, Dreams from My Father, I now believed it could happen. I believed that enough, if not a majority of white Americans, who accounted for 74% of the total electorate, would actually cast their vote for an African American, based on content of character, and elect him President of the United States.

Tenuous lay the crown of my unwavering optimism. I couldn’t shake the specter of 1969, I feared, not just a city this time, but the hope of a nation of people could be crushed to dust under the weigh of disingenuous smiles and phony promises.

It Happens!
As Election Day drew near, the tension building within seemed unbearable. When would the Republicans spring their October surprise, when would they roll out a Willie Horton or some other Yorty type dirty trick. I finally decided to just turn-off both T.V. and computer; go campout in the woods until it was over, somewhere so remote that cell phones and satellites couldn’t find me. That’s when I had to admit I was a political junkie, I wasn’t going anywhere, I was addicted!

On Election Day, I was bright and early in at the polling place and voting in a presidential election for the first time! Yes, first time! I would have voted for Kennedy but I was a high school senior, not yet old enough. After my radicalization in the ‘60’s, all presidential candidates, Democrat or Republican, seemed clones of each other, so I became a conscientious abstainer. But Obama had me standing in light drizzle, not because he‘s Black, but because he is an exceptionally brilliant and ethical individual, an anomaly amongst politicians, attributes that were easily worthy of me standing in a driving rainstorm or flood waters if necessary to exercise my vote.

I told myself I wouldn’t turn on the T.V. until the polls closed in California. Yeah, right!? I found myself mesmerized in front of the T.V. from the first poll closing on the east coast. It was happening, really happening…Ohio had been projected…

The Crowd

After a three-mile drive From Magic’s Starbuck’s, I arrived at the one-acre Leimert Park in the middle of celebratory madness. The huge crowds had surged into the middle of Crenshaw Blvd. Motorcycle cops assigned to keep the street open were being swarmed by the chaotic crowd. Unbelievable as it sounds, L.A. police were being mobbed by young ladies taking cell-phone photos of each other hugging the cops. Champaign was being sprayed randomly in the air, multi-rhythm congo drumming bounced loudly throughout and spontaneous dance broke out everywhere. It was total madness, happy madness!

What was most striking was the youth of the crowd. And not the bling, gangta rap, sagging pants image of lore-no-these young people were living larger then all that! These young people were buying into the idea that change was possible! Celebrating in the streets on this night were the future mayors, governors, senators, gadflies, political junkies, community organizers, community activists and yes, presidents.
So, answering the question often asked by older generations when evaluating today’s youth -with not so subtle, rhetorical contempt-, “Where will the next leaders, the Dr. King’s the Malcolm’s come from?” The emphatic answer on this November night, cascading down with a powerful unspoken resonance,
“The next Dr. King’s and Malcolm’s are us!”

It Was a Good Day!
“Hello young man.” It took a few seconds before I realized that I was the “young” man being addressed. The older couple walking smartly in my direction were indeed my seniors, perhaps in their eighties. The man gave me a firm hand shake while the lady, his wife I presumed, her cheeks wet with tears, gave me a smile so bright and full of happiness that it seemed to light-up the entire corner where we stood.
“Never thought I’d live to see this day, never in a million years”, the man remarked in a proud voice.
“My name is Lucky Ballard and this is my wife Lois Betty, we’ve been married sixty-four wonderful years.”
“I’m Jumal, Okeyo Jumal,” I respectfully responded.
The three of us just stood for a few moments admiring the beautiful scene, before Lucky began speaking,
“Isn’t this a sight to behold? I haven’t seen so many happy black folks in the streets since Joe Lewis and Max Schmeling fought back in 1938. You probably don’t remember that young fella, I figure that was before your time. When Lewis knocked out Schmeling in the first round, Negro’s ran out into the streets from everywhere, just jumping and hollering! Yes sir, it was a pretty sight for sore eyes. At the time, they say that was the biggest celebration since Freedom’s Eve, you know, Watch Night in 1862 when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.”
Lois Betty began chuckling while tugging on Lucky’s arm, then commenting, “Now Honey, you weren’t around for that!”
Lucky laughed before continuing, “I’m just making the point that tonight’s celebration has to be the best!”
As we said our good-byes and faded apart, Lucky and Lois Betty were attracting a crowd like they were show business celebrities or rock stars, with the young folks finding different ways to ask the same question, “Did you ever think you’d see this in your life time, a Black man elected…”

Unity
I sat in the car a few minutes before turning the key and heading home. Just thinking. If there had been a Bradley thing, it was inconsequential as to effecting the elections out come. True, McCain won the white vote (74% of the electorate), 55% to 43% for Obama; (43% is more then any other Democratic candidate had received in decades), about 2% less than pre-election polls had projected. The Hispanic vote (9% of the electorate) went big for Obama, 67% to 31% for McCain. But it was the African American vote(14% of the electorate) posting the highest voter turnout in history and giving Obama 96% of its vote that proved deceive! Never before had an identified demographic group supported one candidate by such an overwhelming margin! 96%!
All throughout the civil rights and Black power movements of the 1960’s and ‘70’s, there were siren calls for unity, Umoja. However, no individual, cause or movement in the Black community, regardless to how passionate, ever gained close to 90% of acceptance. But on this November 4th day in 2008, for a thin sliver of time; all economic, religious, generational, social and cultural differences were laid aside; and in a resounding show of unity, 96% of African Americans spoke and acted as one.

Congratulations to President-Elect Barack Obama and thanks for the ride!
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