FOR THE BROTHAS: AN INTRODUCTION

It must have been about 20 years ago when I first began thinking about creating a "Cultural Salon" as a reaction to the mundane social circles In Washington D.C. The richness of intellectual and artistic interchange had died, college friends had moved, the internet had not yet become the phenomenon it now is... I romanticised about the Salons of the mid to late 1800's in Paris, London and Berlin and the cultural dynamo of the Harlem Rennaisance. I was fortunate enough to meet a gentleman, an artist who lived and traveled with James Baldwin... Jimmy he affectionately called him, and he spoke often of their small cottage in southern France and of the many Artists, Poets and Luminaries that dropped in to chat and relax. Well, the impressionists, cubists, modernists, etc. all hung out together famously in those days and shared their ideas with one another creating a creative greenhouse in a world that was rapidly changing. I longed to have lived in those times, to have met Cassat, Rodin, Ellington, Fitzgerald, Baker, Balwin, well I did finally meet Baldwin and others purely for the joy of intellection upon the arts. This was in the late 1980's and by the mid 2000's I happened to run into a friend of mine from Hampton University who had been living in New York since he graduated in the early 90s. Well, I was surprised to hear him comment that in all of the wonder that is New York he never met anyone who ever really had anything interesting to say about art, literature, architecture, science, fashion or anything... I was so surprised to hear this since it had also been my experience. Well here I am in 2011 attempting the Virtual Salon...

Thursday, July 4, 2013

A BLACK AMERICAN MAN’S THOUGHTS ON THE 4TH OF JULY…




A BLACK AMERICAN MAN’S THOUGHTS ON THE 4TH OF JULY…

The fourth of July is always a bittersweet day to me.  On July 4th, 1776 Black people were effectively written out of the great socioeconomic promise of this country.  It took Black Americans 188 years to finally change turn the nation’s policy in the direction of their favor, an accomplishment earned with the most intensive of struggle… 

An ever vigilant Sojourner Truth


I like to believe that the founding fathers, enlightened as they were, embedded the kernels of freedom in the Declaration of Independence knowing that one day the hidden argument for freedom would finally be successfully argued.  But that is at best a poetic leap of faith, a romanticized maybe because at the end of the day it was only through struggle that freedom was finally achieved.  On July 4, 1776 the founding fathers opined not to invest in an historic opportunity to thoroughly realise their vision of freedom including their brothers in struggle who had fought beside them during the difficult American Revolutionary War, turning their backs on the Black American man.

A thoughtful Lucretia Coffin Mott


Emancipation day appears to be a more appropriate time for Black Americans to join in celebration, with food, fellowship and colorful incendiaries… Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, John Brown and other activists rather than the founding fathers appear to be the appropriate icons for those votaries of freedom who trace their ancestry back to free African slaves stolen from their homes and civilizations and thrust into a hellish cycle of fear and inhuman brutality.  The sociopathic nature that characterized the enforcement methods of institutionalized enslavement continue to affect the psyche of Black Americans traumatized by centuries of abuse.  Likewise, the insanity and pathology typified by those who enforced institutionalized slavery upon innocent men, women and children continues to haunt the psyche of white Americans who must divorce themselves from the sociopathic traditions of racism.  Emancipation Day completes the bright but underdeveloped promise of July 4th 1776 as does the Civil rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 bringing true freedom in America full circle... 

A dapper John Brown


To a Black American man who is enlightened the fourth of July is represents a critical date in the evolution of human freedom, the culmination of centuries of social debate and evolution known as the Enlightenment but yet another stumbling block for the Black man in his continued struggle for freedom and equality in a land he has now earned the right to call home…


A youthful Frederick Douglass


Written by David Vollin on July 4th, 2013
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