It's Friday but Sunday's coming!

It's Friday but Sunday's Comin'

That's My King - S.M. Lockridge

Jehovah You are the most high God (African Gospel)

God Bless Africa (Nkosi Sikeleli Africa)- Children of Africa

The Staple Singers - Respect Yourself

BeBe Winans - I have a dream

In defense of Isiah Thomas

  In defense of Isiah Thomas

By Jason Whitlock

Updated Mar 31, 2011 1:58 PM ET
Yep, I’m going to defend Isiah Thomas.

I’m sure that sounds as crazy as traveling to Jena, La., in 2007 and defending the people who thought six black boys jumping and stomping a white boy was a vicious, cowardly crime worthy of serious jail time.

I did that. I don’t mind being viewed as crazy. I don’t mind pointing out that we in the media often get things wrong, get caught up in our biases and inaccurate narratives and use people and communities as punching bags for profit.

So let me begin my defense of Isiah Thomas with the story about his alleged suicide attempt and his alleged blaming of his alleged suicide attempt on his daughter.

On the day of his alleged “crimes,” Thomas and his wife took their daughter to the hospital for some sort of medical emergency. Later, in the early evening, Thomas went home and, by all accounts, accidently popped too many sleeping pills. He fell into a state of unconsciousness and had to be rushed to a hospital in the wee hours.

Later that day, before he was released from the hospital, a New York Post reporter called Isiah’s cell phone. Thomas, in an attempt to explain he hadn’t tried to commit suicide, said he hadn’t overdosed and expressed concern about his daughter’s health.

Just think about it. In less than 24 hours, you leave your wife and daughter at a hospital. You go home to get some sleep. You wake up in a hospital bed. A reporter calls you asking for comment. In a brief cell-phone conversation, you quickly try to explain your sad, bizarre day. A New York tabloid newspaper takes a couple of sentence fragments and paints the picture you’ve accused your daughter of attempting suicide.

It “wasn’t an overdose,” Thomas told the New York Post reporter. “My daughter is very down right now. None of us are OK.”

The New York Times takes the Post’s sensationalized characterization of Thomas’ comments and gets a New York police chief to blast Thomas for blaming his daughter.

Isiah Thomas has a brief conversation with a reporter trying to explain he didn’t try to commit suicide and that his daughter’s illness has him and his family concerned.

The nation scoffs, laughs and is further convinced Isiah Thomas is a scumbag.

Maybe you’re good with it because Thomas is rich and famous and too arrogant for your liking. Maybe you’re good with it because you believe Thomas destroyed the New York Knicks. Or maybe you believe Thomas deserves it because Anucha Browne Sanders won a wrongful termination lawsuit against the Knicks and claimed Thomas sexually harassed her.

It’s not all good. It’s wrong. It’s why smart people place no faith in the American media. We’re broke, irresponsible, reckless and unfair.

Sanders’ lawsuit was a joke. People in New York know that. The media know it.

I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of Isiah’s tenure as president and coach of the Knicks. As best I can tell, he and Knicks owner James Dolan hatched an immature, quick-fix plan to make the Knicks relevant and it predictably backfired.

That failure falls on Isiah more than Dolan.

A true innovator, a savant, a courageous visionary ignores a well-intentioned, irrational boss and gives him something far better than what he childishly wants.

Isiah flopped as president of the Knicks. So what? Bill Belichick flopped as coach of the Browns.

No, what troubles me is the media-led destruction of Isiah’s dignity. You’d think he’d strangled his coach, blown through millions making it rain at strip clubs, negotiated a pay-for-play scam while at Indiana and operated a dogfighting ring that doubled as a front for a Colombian drug cartel.

Let’s see. According to Magic Johnson, Isiah went from kissing Magic on national TV to privately spreading rumors that Magic was gay. This makes no sense. Isiah was Magic’s best friend. Isiah would be outing himself.

Isiah’s problems with the media began in 1987 when he got swept up in Dennis Rodman’s post-game rant about Larry Bird being just an average player. Rodman was wrong. Thomas tried to clarify Rodman’s statements and offer nuance and context to the legitimate beef that the overwhelmingly white reporters and broadcasters who covered professional sports relied on stereotypes to define black and white players.

Stereotypes like this one:

Bird was smarter and worked harder than the black players he dominated in the 1980s.

That suggestion justifiably bothered Thomas. He was trained by Bobby Knight. Thomas was an Indiana legend just the same as Larry Bird. Thomas was a little man who relied on intelligence, courage and work ethic to compete against bigger, stronger players.

Everything that was said about Larry Bird could be said about Isiah Thomas. The Pistons’ super-physical, “Bad Boy” style of play was identical to Boston’s.

In trying to cover Rodman’s idiocy, Thomas repeated Rodman’s quote in his answer to reporters and the media hung Isiah with Rodman’s words.

It’s fun and it’s good business to ridicule Isiah Thomas. Is it the right thing to do?

He pulled himself up by his boot straps, embraced education, involved himself in sound business decisions throughout his career, maintained a marriage, won championships, invested some of his wealth in the education of others and remained loyal to his family and friends from the west side of Chicago.

Is Thomas perfect? Hell no. I don’t know anyone who is, especially not anyone with the kind of fame and wealth Thomas enjoys.

But Isiah Thomas is not Charlie Sheen or O.J. Simpson. Thomas is what we say we want inner-city athletes to become.

Spearhead - Positive

Nuttin but stringz

        Thunder - Nuttin but stringz

Nuttin' But Stringz, also known as N.B.S., consists of brothers Damien and Tourie Escobar who both play violin. The musicians from Jamaica, Queens play a blend of classical music, hip-hop, jazz and R&B.

        Nuttin but Strings Finals Performance - America's got Talent 2008


In 2005, the duo entered and won a talent competition at the Apollo Theatre in New York. Their victory on Showtime at the Apollo led to media attention and appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Today Show with Katie Couric, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Around the same time the duo showcased their talents at Carnegie Hall and performed for President George W. Bush at The White House.

        Broken sorrow by Nuttin but Stringz


The brothers' big break came when they auditioned for the third season of NBC's America's Got Talent in New York City and received a unanimous yes from all three judges thus advancing to Las Vegas. They were subsequently named to the Top 40, advancing to Hollywood.  They made it through subsequent rounds and were one of the five acts to make it to the finals. The duo ultimately placed third.

        Nuttin' But Stringz - Beauty Of aFar


        Nuttin' But Stringz "Dance With My Father"

Oscar Brown Jr - This Beach

Def Poetry - Oscar Brown Jr - Children Of Children

Def Poetry: Jill Scott

Egypt Scene "Richard Pryor Show" 1977

Powerful Scene from "Mandingo" - 1977 - Black on Black Crime

Public Enemy - Fight The Power

Frederick Douglass

         Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, known for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing. He stood as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves did not have the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. He became a major speaker for the cause of abolition.

           Frederick Douglass was one of the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement, which fought to end slavery within the United States in the decades prior to the Civil War.
A brilliant speaker, Douglass was asked by the American Anti-Slavery Society to engage in a tour of lectures, and so became recognized as one of America's first great black speakers. He won world fame when his autobiography was publicized in 1845. Two years later he bagan publishing an antislavery paper called the North Star.

           Douglass served as an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and fought for the adoption of constitutional amendments that guaranteed voting rights and other civil liberties for blacks. Douglass provided a powerful voice for human rights during this period of American history and is still revered today for his contributions against racial injustice.

          Frederick Douglass was born in a slave cabin, in February, 1818, near the town of Easton, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Separated from his mother when only a few weeks old he was raised by his grandparents. At about the age of six, his grandmother took him to the plantation of his master and left him there. Not being told by her that she was going to leave him, Douglass never recovered from the betrayal of the abandonment. When he was about eight he was sent to Baltimore to live as a houseboy with Hugh and Sophia Auld, relatives of his master. It was shortly after his arrival that his new mistress taught him the alphabet. When her husband forbade her to continue her instruction, because it was unlawful to teach slaves how to read, Frederick took it upon himself to learn. He made the neighborhood boys his teachers, by giving away his food in exchange for lessons in reading and writing.
Douglass is noted as saying that "knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom." As Douglass learned and began to read newspapers, political materials, and books of every description, he was exposed to a new realm of thought that led him to question and then condemn the institution of slavery. In later years, Douglass credited The Columbian Orator, which he discovered at about age twelve, with clarifying and defining his views on freedom and human rights.At about the age of twelve or thirteen Douglass purchased a copy of The Columbian Orator, a popular schoolbook of the time, which helped him to gain an understanding and appreciation of the power of the spoken and the written word, as two of the most effective means by which to bring about permanent, positive change.

            Returning to the Eastern Shore, at approximately the age of fifteen, Douglass became a field hand, and experienced most of the horrifying conditions that plagued slaves during the 270 years of legalized slavery in America. But it was during this time that he had an encounter with the slavebreaker Edward Covey. Their fight ended in a draw, but the victory was Douglass', as his challenge to the slavebreaker restored his sense of self-worth. After an aborted escape attempt when he was about eighteen, he was sent back to Baltimore to live with the Auld family, and in early September, 1838, at the age of twenty, Douglass succeeded in escaping from slavery by impersonating a sailor.
He went first to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he and his new wife Anna Murray began to raise a family. Whenever he could he attended abolitionist meetings, and, in October, 1841, after attending an anti-slavery convention on Nantucket Island, Douglass became a lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and a colleague of William Lloyd Garrison. This work led him into public speaking and writing. He published his own newspaper, The North Star, participated in the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, in 1848, and wrote three autobiographies. He was internationally recognized as an uncompromising abolitionist, indefatigable worker for justice and equal opportunity, and an unyielding defender of women's rights. He became a trusted advisor to Abraham Lincoln, United States Marshal for the District of Columbia, Recorder of Deeds for Washington, D.C., and Minister-General to the Republic of Haiti.

                 In addition to his oratory, Douglass wrote several autobiographies, eloquently describing his life as a slave, and his struggles to be free. His first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, was published in 1845 and was his best-known work, influential in gaining support for abolition. He wrote two more autobiographies, with his last, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, published in 1881 and covering events through and after the Civil War.
After the Civil War, Douglass remained very active in America's struggle to reach its potential as a "land of the free". Douglass actively supported women's suffrage. Following the war, he worked on behalf of equal rights for freedmen, and held multiple public offices.
Douglass was a firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant. He was fond of saying, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."

1.Douglass, Frederick. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. New York: Collier Books, 1962.
2.The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave electronic text.
3.Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1960.
4.Foner, Philip S. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass: Early Years 1817-1849. New York: International Publishers, 1950.
5.Foner, Philip S. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass: Pre-Civil War Decade 1850-1860. New York: International Publishers, 1950.
6.Foner, Philip S. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass: The Civil War 1861-1865. New York: International Publishers, 1952.
7.Foner, Philip S. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass: Reconstruction and After. New York: International Publishers, 1955.
8.Huggins, Nathan Irvin. Slave and Citizen: The Life of Frederick Douglass. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980.
9.Quarles, Benjamin. Frederick Douglass. Washington, D.C.: The Associated Publishers, Inc., 1948.

James Brown - "Say It Loud - I'm Black And I'm Proud" (1968)

HISTORY DETECTIVES | Slave Songbook | PBS

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most well-known of all the Underground Railroad's "conductors." During a ten-year span she made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom. And, as she once proudly pointed out to Frederick Douglass, in all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger."

Tubman was born a slave in Maryland's Dorchester County around 1820. At age five or six, she began to work as a house servant. Seven years later she was sent to work in the fields. While she was still in her early teens, she suffered an injury that would follow her for the rest of her life. Always ready to stand up for someone else, Tubman blocked a doorway to protect another field hand from an angry overseer. The overseer picked up and threw a two-pound weight at the field hand. It fell short, striking Tubman on the head. She never fully recovered from the blow, which subjected her to spells in which she would fall into a deep sleep.

Around 1844 she married a free black named John Tubman and took his last name. (She was born Araminta Ross; she later changed her first name to Harriet, after her mother.) In 1849, in fear that she, along with the other slaves on the plantation, was to be sold, Tubman resolved to run away. She set out one night on foot. With some assistance from a friendly white woman, Tubman was on her way. She followed the North Star by night, making her way to Pennsylvania and soon after to Philadelphia, where she found work and saved her money. The following year she returned to Maryland and escorted her sister and her sister's two children to freedom. She made the dangerous trip back to the South soon after to rescue her brother and two other men. On her third return, she went after her husband, only to find he had taken another wife. Undeterred, she found other slaves seeking freedom and escorted them to the North.

Tubman returned to the South again and again. She devised clever techniques that helped make her "forays" successful, including using the master's horse and buggy for the first leg of the journey; leaving on a Saturday night, since runaway notices couldn't be placed in newspapers until Monday morning; turning about and heading south if she encountered possible slave hunters; and carrying a drug to use on a baby if its crying might put the fugitives in danger. Tubman even carried a gun which she used to threaten the fugitives if they became too tired or decided to turn back, telling them, "You'll be free or die."

By 1856, Tubman's capture would have brought a $40,000 reward from the South. On one occasion, she overheard some men reading her wanted poster, which stated that she was illiterate. She promptly pulled out a book and feigned reading it. The ploy was enough to fool the men.

Tubman had made the perilous trip to slave country 19 times by 1860, including one especially challenging journey in which she rescued her 70-year-old parents. Of the famed heroine, who became known as "Moses," Frederick Douglass said, "Excepting John Brown -- of sacred memory -- I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman]."
And John Brown, who conferred with "General Tubman" about his plans to raid Harpers Ferry, once said that she was "one of the bravest persons on this continent."

Becoming friends with the leading abolitionists of the day, Tubman took part in antislavery meetings. On the way to such a meeting in Boston in 1860, in an incident in Troy, New York, she helped a fugitive slave who had been captured.

During the Civil War Harriet Tubman worked for the Union as a cook, a nurse, and even a spy. After the war she settled in Auburn, New York, where she would spend the rest of her long life. She died in 1913.




Harriet Tubman



Incident in Troy, New York

In the spring of 1860, Harriet Tubman was requested by Mr. Gerrit Smith to go to Boston to attend a large Anti-Slavery meeting. On her way, she stopped at Troy to visit a cousin, and while there the colored people were one day startled with the intelligence that a fugitive slave, by the name of Charles Nalle, had been followed by his master (who was his younger brother, and not one grain whiter than he), and that he was already in the hands of the officers, and was to be taken back to the South. The instant Harriet heard the news, she started for the office of the United States Commissioner, scattering the tidings as she went. An excited crowd was gathered about the office, through which Harriet forced her way, and rushed up stairs to the door of the room where the fugitive was detained. A wagon was already waiting before the door to carry off the man, but the crowd was even then so great, and in such a state of excitement, that the officers did not dare to bring the man down. On the opposite side of the street stood the colored people, watching the window where they could see Harriet's sun-bonnet, and feeling assured that so long as she stood there, the fugitive was still in the office. Time passed on, and he did not appear. 'They've taken him out another way, depend upon that," said some of the colored people. "No," replied others, "there stands ÔMoses' yet, and as long as she is there, he is safe." Harriet, now seeing the necessity for a tremendous effort for his rescue, sent out some little boys to cry fire. The bells rang, the crowd increased, till the whole street was a dense mass of people. Again and again the officers came out to try and clear the stairs, and make a way to take their captive down; others were driven down, but Harriet stood her ground, her head bent and her arms folded. "Come, old woman, you must get out of this," said one of the officers ; "I must have the way, cleared; if you can't get down alone, some one will help you." Harriet, still putting on a greater appearance of decrepitude, twitched away from him, and kept her place. Offers were made to buy Charles from his master, who at first agreed to take twelve hundred dollars for him; but when this was subscribed, he immediately raised the price to fifteen hundred. The crowd grew more excited. A gentleman raised a window and called out, "Two hundred dollars for his rescue, but not one cent to his master! " This was responded to by a roar of satisfaction from the crowd below. At length the officers appeared, and announced to the crowd, that if they would open a lane to the wagon, they would promise to bring the man down the front way.

The lane was opened, and the man was brought out -- a tall, handsome, intelligent white man, with his wrists manacled together, walking between the U. S. Marshal and another officer, and behind him his brother and his master, so like him that one could hardly be told from the other. The moment they appeared, Harriet roused from her stooping posture, threw up a window, and cried to her friends: "Here he comes -- take him!" and then darted down the stairs like a wild-cat. She seized one officer and pulled him down, then another, and tore him away from the man ; and keeping her arms about the slave, she cried to her friends: ÒDrag us out! Drag him to the river! Drown him! but don't let them have him!" They were knocked down together, and while down, she tore off her sun-bonnet and tied it on the head of the fugitive. When he rose, only his head could be seen, and amid the surging mass of people the slave was no longer recognized, while the master appeared like the slave. Again and again they were knocked down, the poor slave utterly helpless, with his manacled wrists, streaming with blood. Harriet's outer clothes were torn from her, and even her stout shoes were pulled from her feet, yet she never relinquished her hold of the man, till she had dragged him to the river, where he was tumbled into a boat, Harriet following in a ferry-boat to the other side. But the telegraph was ahead of them, and as soon as they landed he was seized and hurried from her sight. After a time, some school children came hurrying along, and to her anxious inquiries they answered, "He is up in that house, in the third story." Harriet rushed up to the place. Some men were attempting to make their way up the stairs. The officers were firing down, and two men were lying on the stairs, who had been shot. Over their bodies our heroine rushed, and with the help of others burst open the door of the room, and dragged out the fugitive, whom Harriet carried down stairs in her arms. A gentleman who was riding by with a fine horse, stopped to ask what the disturbance meant; and on hearing the story, his sympathies seemed to be thoroughly aroused; he sprang from his wagon, calling out, "That is a blood-horse, drive him till be drops." The poor man was hurried in; some of his friends jumped in after him, and drove at the most rapid rate to Schenectady.

Harriet, the Moses of her people, by Sarah H. Bradford