Author: Reggie Jackson

“If some groups are simply meant to be at the bottom, then there are no questions to ask about their deprivation, isolation and poverty. There are no questions to ask about the society which produces that deprivation, isolation and poverty. And there is nothing to be done, because nothing can be done: Those people are just the way they are.” – Jamelle Bouie I have read more and more recently about people claiming that the observation of America being a nation where some have been oppressed is a lie. As efforts by people of color to express their true...

“Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.” – Dr. Carter G. Woodson, Founder of Black History Month “The foremost purpose of Black History Month is to make all Americans aware of this struggle for freedom and equal opportunity. It is also a time to celebrate the many achievements of Blacks in every field, from science and the arts to politics and religion. It not only offers Black Americans an occasion to explore their heritage, but it also offers all Americans an occasion and...

“The thought of the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies. If he happens to leave school after he masters the fundamentals, before he finishes high school or reaches college, he will naturally escape some of this bias and may recover in time to be of service to his people.” – Carter G. Woodson, “The Mis-Education of the Negro” My earliest memories of school leave me with an empty feeling today. I was never exposed to the wonderful intellect and creativity of Black people. I...

“History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations.” — James Baldwin, “White Man’s Guilt” (Ebony, 1965) I took a short ride recently...

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are...