Category: Practical Politics

In 2017, in the 115th Congress, counting the recent election of South Carolina’s Tim Scott, there are 50 African Americans collectively serving in the House and U.S. Senate.
Starting in 1870 during Reconstruction, to date there have been 140 African American members of Congress, including 130 members of the House of Representatives, and 10 U.S. Senators, six of whom were elected. Of that number, there have been 106 Democrats, including 101 in the House and six in the Senate; and 30 Republicans, including 26 in the House and four in the U.S. Senate. Those 140 members have represented 27 states. (See Figure 1-A)

From the millions protesting on Jan. 21, in the Women’s March, which was the largest single-day protest in the history of the United States, to the smaller but fervent March 8 protests on the “Day Without A Woman,” the political constituency—the we, the people—has been voicing its considerable displeasure at its new leadership.

With them just coming back to take up a new private residency in Washington, D.C., from vacationing in the Caribbean, it is interesting to imagine a morning conversation this week between Michelle Obama and her husband.
Michelle: Now Barack, I’ve lived every minute of the joys and heartaches of your being president. But that’s over now…

Although it is far too soon to do a definitive assessment of where former President Barack Obama ranks among the 43 presidents that came before him, the assessments have begun nevertheless. Most usually, such rankings need time, like fine wine and aged liquor, to season and mellow.
Based on a C-SPAN survey just completed from 93 American historians and presidential biographers, President Obama, overall, ranked number 12 among the U.S. presidents, three spaces above Bill Clinton, who ranked number 15. The only modern president ranked above Obama’s number 12 was Ronald Reagan at number 9.

During annual Black History Month celebrations, we usually focus on African Americans who have come before and who have done things, or said things that moved the quality of Black life forward. Mostly, as the name says (his-story), we have not often enough focused on what African American women have done. That is not intrinsically bad, but it is a fact.
This column this week will focus on Sarah Breedlove, a.k.a. Madame C.J. Walker, America’s first Black female millionaire. We’ve long praised her financial and entrepreneurial genius, but we have only rarely talked about her Black activism.

Colonialism is supposed to be dead in the 21st century. Countries are not supposed to have direct control of governments, resources, outputs, banking and educational facilities of other countries. Well, lo and behold, that’s not the case. The islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique are still colonies of France. The Virgin Islands (St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. Johns) are still owned by the USA. And England still owns several Caribbean islands, including the sea resort set of islands called Turks and Caicos, population about 35,000.

On the day the 115th Congress convened, Jan. 3, long-serving Rep. John Conyers, the author since 1989 of a bill dubbed H.R. 40 (in memory of the 40 acres and a mule concept) re-introduced a new version of his legislation.
This new version, officially entitled a “Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act,” more explicitly cited the legislative goal of the proposed bill as the creation and funding (up to $12 million) to create a federal commission to study and consider a national apology and proposals for reparations for the institution of slavery in the USA.

Reports recently have decried how bad things are in the USA because of the Obama administration. That description flies in the face of obvious facts. Let’s count some of the ways.

In public school education, Ethnic Studies courses are the new rage, particularly in California.
While the rest of the country seems to be content with its stunning lack of cultural literacy, given we’ve had a successful POTUS for the past eight years who is decidedly African American with a distinctly African American family, California, as it is known to do, has leaped out front.

On October 1, 2016 (American Heritage Day), in Charleston, S.C., in a little-noticed ceremony, the U.S. Postal Service dedicated its sixth and most permanent celebration of the African American holiday called Kwanzaa. Hosted by the MOJA Art Festival at Marion Square, U.S. Deputy Postmaster, Ronald Stroman, dedicated the U.S. Post Office’s Kwanzaa Forever stamp. Forever stamps remain equal in value to the current first-class mail, 1-ounce price.