John Lewis: Rev. James Lawson's Eulogy

Pastor, sisters and brothers,
member of the Lewis family,
that so wonderfully nurtured John and
loved, hope, courage and faith, the rest
of it...and sisters, and brothers...

Seslov Melosa, a Polish Catholic poet, sets
the tone, at least, in part for me, as John
Lewis has journeyed from the eternity of this
extraordinary, mysterious human race into the
eternity that none of us know much about. When
he wrote this poem called Meaning


When I die,
I will see the lining of the world.
The other side
beyond bird, mountain, sunset
the true meaning ready to be decoded
what never added up
would now add up.
what was incomprehensible
will become comprehended,
And if there is no lining to the world,
if a thrush on a branch is not a sign
but just a thrush on a branch
if night and day make no sense
following each other, and
on this earth, there is nothing,
but the earth, even if that is so,
there will remain a word, written by
the lips that perished, a tireless
messenger who runs and runs through
interstellar places, to revolving galaxies
and calls out, and protests and screams...

And, I submit that John and that other eternity
will be heard by us again and again,
running through the galaxies,
still proclaiming, that we the people
of the USA can one day, live up the the full
meaning that we hold these truths,
live up the the full meaning,
we the people of the USA,
in orther to perfect a more perfect union.

John Lewis practiced not the politics that we
called bi-partisan. John Lewis practiced the
politics of we the people of the USA need more
desperately than ever before: the politics of
the declaration of independence.

The politics of the preambles of the Constitution
of the United States.

I have read many of these so-called civil rights
books of the last fifty or sixty years, about the
period between 1953 and 1973. Most of the books
are wrong about John Lewis.

Most of the books are wrong about how John got
engaged in the national campaign of 1959-60. This is
the sixtieth year of the sit-in campaign which swept
into every State in the union. Largely manned by students
because we recruited students. But, put up on the map, that
the non-violent struggle began in Montgomery, Alabama was
not an accident. But as Martin Luther King Jr. called it
Christian love has power that we have never tapped, and if
we use it, we can transform, not only our own lives but we
will transform the earth in which we live.

I counted providential, what as I move into Nashville, Tennessee,
dropping out of graduate school. In Nashville, people like
Kelly M Smith and Andrew White, then Janada Hays and Hellen
Roberts, Dolores W. and John Lewis, Diane Nash, C.T Vivian,
Marion Barry, Jim Bevel, Bernard Lafayette, Paulina Night, Angela
Butler.

How all of us gathered in 1958, 59, 60, 61 and 62 in the same
city at the same time, I count as being providential. We did not
plan it. We were all led there.

Langston Hughes' Poem

I dream a world where no human
no other human will scorn
where love will burst the earth
and piece its path adorned
I dream a dream where will know
sweet freedom's way
where greed no longer saps the soul
nor Everest's light or day
a world I dream where black and white
and yellow and blue, and green and red,
and brown, whatever the race maybe
will share the bounties of the earth,
and every woman and man, boy and girl
is free, where wretchedness hangs its head
and joy like a pearl attends the need of
all humankind...

John Lewis : President Obama's Eulogy

James wrote to the believers, considerate it as pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. That perseverance finish its work so that you maybe mature and complete.

It is a great honor to be back at Ebenezer Baptist Church from the pulpit of its greatest pastor, Dr Martin Luther King Jr. to pay my respects to perhaps his finest disciple. An American whose faith was tested again and again to produce a man of pure joy and unbreakable perseverance: John Robert Lewis.

To those who have spoken, to presidents Bush and Clinton, Mrs Speaker,... I have come here today, because, like so many Americans, owe a great debt to John Lewis and his forceful vision of freedom. Though this country is a constant work in progress... We're born with instructions to form a more perfect union. Explicit in those words is the idea that we're imperfect.

That, what gives each new generation purpose, is to take up unfinished work of the last and carry it further any might have thought possible.

John Lewis, first of the freedom riders, head of the student non-violent coordinating committee, youngest speaker at the March on Washington, leader of the March from Selma to Montgomery, member of Congress, representing the people of this State, and this District for 33 years, mentor to young people, including me at the time, until his final day on this earth. He not only embraced that responsibility, but he made it his life's work. Which isn't bad...for...

John was born with modest means, that means he was poor. In the heart of the Jim Crow South, to parents who picked somebody else's cotton. Apparently, he didn't take to farm work on days he was supposed to help his brothers and sisters with their labor, he's hide under the porch, and make a break for the school bus when it showed up.

As a mother, Willy Mae Lewis, nurture that curiosity in this shy, serious child. Once you learned something, she told her son, once you get something inside your head, no one can take it away from you. As a boy, John listened through the door after bedtime as his father's friends complain about the Klan... One Sunday as a teenager, he heard Dr. King preach on the radio. As a college student in Tennessee, he signed up for Jim Lawson's workshop on the tactic of non-violence and civil disobedience.

John Lewis was getting something inside his head. An idea he couldn't shake, took hold on him. That non-violence and civil disobedience were means to change laws, but also change hearts, change minds and change nations, and change the world.

So, he helped to organize the national campaign in 1960. He and other young men and women sat on a segregated lunch counter. Well-dressed, straight back, refusing to let a milk shake poured on their heads or cigarettes extinguished on their backs or a foot aimed at their ribs, refuse to let that bent their dignity and their sense of purpose.

And, after a few months the national campaign achieved the first successful desegregation of public facilities in any major city in the South. John get a taste of jail, for the first, second, third... whatever...several times. But, he also got a taste of victory, and it consumed him with righteous purpose. And, he took the battle deeper into the South.

That same year, weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of Interstate bus facilities was unconstitutional, John and Bernard Lafayette, bought two tickets, climbed aboard a Greyhound, sat upfront and refused to move. This was months before the first official Freedom Riders. He was doing a test... triples on sanctions...few knew what they were up to.

And, at every stop through the night, apparently the angry driver stormed out of the bus and into the bus station. And, John and Bernard had no idea what he might come back with or who he might come back with. Nobody was there to protect them, there were no camera crews to record events...

We... you know, sometimes, we read about this and we kind of take it for granted or at least we act as if it was inevitable. I imagine the courage of two people, of Malea's age, younger than my oldest daughter, on their own, to challenge an entire infrastructure of oppression. John was only 20 years old. But he pushed all twenty of those years to the center of the table. Betting everything, all of it! That his example, could challenge centuries of conventions and generations of brutal violence and countless daily indignities suffered by African-Americans.

Like John the Baptist, preparing the way. By those old testament prophets talking truth to kings. John Lewis did not hesitate, and he kept on getting on more buses and sitting on lunch counters, got his mugshot taken again, and again... marched again and again...on a mission to change America.

Martinique: Déboulonnement de statues !

C'était au son du lambi traditionnel qu'on a procédé cette semaine, en Martinique, au déboulonnement de deux statues d'anciens esclavagistes Français.

Manifestant - An 91 gen moun ki pete tèt Josephine de Beauharnais menm bagay la te fèt lè yo te koupe tèt estati Napoléon pour apoloji kont krim kont lumanité, Napoléon Bonaparte, empereur des Français...

Manifestant - Partout dans le monde, en Australie, en Afrique, en France, aux Etats-Unis, à Londres, partout...c'est pour montrer que l'oppression coloniale est toujours là, elle est toujours présente. Le peuple Noir souffre beaucoup.

Posthumous letter to congressman Lewis

Congressman Lewis, my only memory of you were: you standing on a float and me on the sidewalk in Decatur, Georgia. You waved as politicians often do from afar...

Personally, I never know you. That fact saddened me, even more so when I heard of your passing last week.

Congressman, you left behind a world a tiny bit different from the days of Jim Crow. You marched, and were beaten with billy-clubs, your feet swept from under you by the force of water sprayed from fire trucks. These were men that you funded and who swore to protect you. You were bitten by dogs and put in jail. You simply wiped the gushing blood from your face and marched again another day... You chanted "we are not afraid..." Fear ? fear is the enemy...you said.

Congressman, you never raised a feather neither in anger nor in anguish against any of your countrymen, that fact to me is admirable. The tyranny of that era is etched in our memories for ever when we revisit these clips, and years later we felt the pain you endured for humanity's freedom.

Congressman, it must have been hard for you to watch the tapes of your marches, arrests and the acts of aggression done to your person?

Congressman Lewis, you did nothing to repel the violence done unto you. Why ? You practiced non-violence and love in situations where anyone would react violently. Even your aggressors were beginning to think less of you for not taking the bait. In the final analysis, you and your cause were right.

Congressman, you were spat on while cameras were rolling. Your only reaction was to tell the offender that you forgive and love him.

Unfortunately, congressman Lewis, this new generation no longer believes in the non-violence movement. That's where we are today. People are fed up!

They don't understand the non-violence movement. Non-violence is not being taught in our universities or any centers of higher learning, and passed on to generations, whereas Alexis de Tocqueville, and Kafka is being taught right from under our noses so people could learn in school how to think less of black people...

Congressman Lewis, young Americans today believe in the contrary as means to resolve conflicts, and that fact saddens me. It saddens me because we're still discussing ways to defeat hatred with love while you are gone...

It's my turn to say good-bye, rest in power and well-done, Congressman Lewis!

Violence had no power over you!

Veritas

Weiner Marthone est l'auteur de Dictateurs du Tiers Monde.
Disponible sur Amazon.com

Haiti : Pwoblèm Kontwòl

Kontwòl se pi move abitid ke yon peyi an vwa devlopman kapab genyen. Lè ekonomi yon peyi se sou kontwòl lap mashe sa fè tout bagay ale lan, se tankou an ralanti peyi a ye. Plis Ayiti ap viv sou sistèm ekonomik kontwòl ki devan je nou la, se plis lap anfouraye pifon nan tout kalite mizè pou popilasyon an.

Gen moun ki renmen kontwole tout bagay nan yon peyi. Dirije yon peyi anba kontwòl se yon gwo malediksyon. Malgre tout efò kap fèt moun yo pap janm santi yo byen lè yo sou kontwòl. Pèp pa janm pwogrese nan yon peyi ki shwazi kontwòl, kòm modèl ekonomik li.

Nan zafè kontwòl sa-a. Tout moun ou paka kontwole se detwi wap vle detwi moun sa yo. Move abitid kontwòl sa, fè ke se yon sèl bò kap manje tout tan. Rès la rete nan pourisman, malgre tout bon entansyon nou genyen.

Se pou Ayisyen divòse ak kontwòl nan tout sa lap fè pou bon jan pwogrè ka fèt tout bon nan peyi a. Libere ekonomi peyi a nan yon fason ke tout moun kap shèshe travay kapab jwen sa poul fè. Zafè kontwòl sa ap simen plis divizyon, patizan ak rayisab.

Zafè renmen gen kontwòl sa, non sèlman ap simen anpil malè ak dega nan peyi a, men lap anfourayen, kenben nan yon sistèm ki pap janm mashe.

Pou Ayiti sa vanse, se pou lanmou ak libète ka gaye tou patou. Se pou tout Ayisyen sispann kontwole depi anwo jiskanba! Kase tout shenn, libere tèt nou dabò anba kontwòl nan tout sa nap fè, epi tout rès peyi a va LIBERE.

Haitian deported after time served ?

LIVE and LEARN...

Haitian deportees in their own words...

LIVE and LEARN...

Haiti : Pwoblèm Blakawout...

Sa fè anpil lapenn lè w ap tande ke se prezidan yon peyi ki ap bay tout
detay sayo sou zafè elektrisite. Poukisa nap peye bann minis sayo ? Pagen
yon minis enfòmasyon, travo publik ak komunikasyon ?

Kote minis planifikasyon an ye ?

Tout moun sayo ap toushe lajan. Pagen yonn ladan yo ki kapab bay yon
konferans konsa ?

Gen gwo danje lè yon sèl moun konsantre tout pouvwa ak kontwòl nan men l.
Eske se enkonpetans kifè tout minis yo bèbè oubyen se kontwòl prezidan
d Ayiti a renmen gen kontwòl konsa ?

Poukisa prezidan an pajanm vle delege bann ti bagay sayo ?

Haiti : Maturité...nan eksplwatasyon minyè

Ayisyen kòmanse konprann diferans ant fè lajan pou yon moman
ak fè dega kap dire pou tout lavi.

Bann Ayisyen kap pale kreyòl fransize sanble y ap defann enterè pèsonèl tandis ke si ou koute pawòl medam yo ak tout lòt moun ki kontribwe nan videyo dokimantè sa, ou gen enpresyon ke yo tout konprann nan-nan koze a byen vit.
Weiner Marthone est l'auteur de "il était une fois, UNE RADIO"

Elections en Haiti: Wilson Jeudi en train de gagner

Voyons... pour le moment, le Maire de Delmas, étant le seul
candidat déclaré, est en train de gagner puisqu'il n'y en a
pas d'autres...

Haïti: L'histoire des 800 Carreaux de Terres volés.

D'après l'article de Haïti Sun, sous le règne de Paul Eugène Magloire, 800 carreaux de terres, appartenant à la paysannerie, ont été expropriées au profit des personnes dont la sphère d'influence est connue dans l'administration du dit président. Cela est si vrai que le frère de ce dernier figurait parmi les bénéficiaires de ces actes malhonnêtes. Voici, en grosso modo, l'ordre de répartition des terres et les localités d'où on les avaient volées de la paysannerie.

La réforme agraire du feu dictateur aidant, on procéda à la restitution de ces domaines aux propriétaires...

Pendant 15 jours, huit cent carreaux ont été distribués. 200 carreaux à Grand Desdunes, 150 à Trois Rivières, 150 à Bois Dehors et 300 à Pinson. La propriété de Pinson appartenait à l'ex-ministre Arsène Magloire. Il était le frère du Président Paul Eugène Magloire.

N.B 800 carreaux de terres équivalent à 1 032 hectares.

Le vol était considérable !

Aussitôt que les paysans soient installés à nouveau sur leurs propriétés, la dictature envoya un contingent d'agronomes, de tracteurs, de grains et d'eau, qui seront mis à leur disposition pour améliorer la valeur de ces terres.

Cette décision du chef de l'Etat a été très utile à l'agriculture et augmentera dix fois plus la récolte, parce qu'un paysan aura plus d'intérêt de labourer une terre qui lui appartienne, plutôt que d'aller travailler sur une terre appartenant à ceux qui lui avaient volé sa propriété.

Le Matin, 23 et 24 Juillet 1961.

On a droit de se demander, après la chute des Duvalier, si les descendants de ces personnes sont revenus au pays avec beaucoup d'influence dans l'arène politique, réclamer, papiers en main s'il vous plait, des domaines qui ne leur appartiennent pas ? À partir de là, beaucoup de choses peuvent arriver...

Traduit de l'Anglais par Weiner Marthone
Weiner Marthone est l'auteur de Dictateurs du Tiers Monde.
Disponible sur Amazon.com

Héroïsme ou Démagogie ?

Trois sujets ont retenus l'attention.

Hier, je ne croyais pas mes oreilles ! Toute dissertation a une forme: introduction, dénouement et conclusion. Les producteurs de NBC News osent faire la différence parmi toute cette mare de médias aux Etats-Unis. A vrai dire, ils l'ont toujours fait, mais toujours plus en sourdine qu'en direct.

La démagogie a toujours existé, elle sert à pacifier les entêtés pour mieux contrôler ces hommes par la pensée même. Bon, pour mieux comprendre la portée du reportage d'hier, il nous a fallu un antécédant: Connaitre ce qu'est le Pentagone.

Par le passé, vous avez surement entendu parler du terme "Pentagon papers". Sinon, nous vous prions de consulter Google Search pour mieux comprendre son mode de fonctionnement. Ensuite, vous n'êtes pas sans savoir que le Pentagone sert de quartier général des militaires américains.

Mais, de quoi parlait-on hier à NBC News ?

Raisonnons. Si le Pentagone est le quartier général des militaires, on peut déduire logiquement que c'est aussi le bastion du racisme dans toutes les branches. Nous ne sommes pas des imbéciles. Les nouvelles d'hier de NBC News ont été répandues avec beaucoup de sophistication. Nous dirons même, à la mannière d'Ed Bradley qui, parlant de son superviseur, devant lui, disait que ce dernier était un "idiot-savant".
Bon, la part de démagogie parlera d'elle-même. Vous pourrez utiliser tous les autres drapeaux ci-dessous, celui des confédérés ne figurait pas. Donc, on peut déduire, logiquement...

Chicken shit ! Démagogie, pour faire dormir le monde!

Une femme noire agréssée sexuellement.

NBC News a pointé du doigt, l'impunité dans cette affaire. Un déni de justice d'une journaliste agréssée dans son lieu de travail. Un sujet tout aussi d'intérêt que celui des suprémacistes blancs au Pentagone.

Enfin, le plat de résistance ou le rôt de l'affaire. La suppréssion massif d'électeurs noirs, en exigeant d'eux le renboursent à leurs accusateurs, du montant total d'un indemnité que ces derniers réclament comme condition sine qua non d'admission aux urnes dans leur propre pays.

Nous remercions l'héroïsme de NBC Nightly News, pour l'émission d'hier. Il y a belle lurette, depuis cette forme de jounalisme faisait défaut dans les médias américains.

Haïti : Organiser des élections à l'heure

Un mal qui se répand plus que le Coronavirus dans notre coin du globe est
celui d'organiser des élections à l'heure, comme prévue par la loi ou la
constitution du pays.

Pourquoi payons-nous les membres du comité électoral s'ils n'organisent
pas des élections à temps ? par surcroit de malheur, pourquoi sont-ils
toujours à leur poste ?

Nous avons endomagé le bon fonctionnement de la législature...

Le mandat de l'actuel président touche à sa fin et Jovenel Moise doit partir.

Nous sommes d'accord, mais, qui va le remplacer ?

Pour le moment, personne n'ose entamer ou lancer une campagne électorale
et pourtant la date approche à pas de géant.

Reste à savoir quand le comité électoral provisoire (CEP) va se prononcer
sur le calendrier électoral...

Suivi...

Le 20 juillet, sur les ondes de ScoopFM l'actuel Maire de Delmas, Mr. Wilson
Jeudi, mit fin aux rumeurs. Il sera, pour une seconde fois, candidat aux élections
presidentielles...

Qui dit mieux ?

USA: Just when you thought...

Mèt Estòy : Version Audiobook est Disponible

La version audiobook de Mèt Estòy est disponible sur Audible, Amazon.com et iTunes.

Pour obtenir une copie d'évaluation gratuitement, cliquez ici Mèt Estòy
et utilisez le code 5L9SBAJMQ84RX

Difficulté technique ? Écrivez-moi sur le courriel veritas_tum@yahoo.com

eBook personnalisé sur demande.

Haiti: Jovenel Moïse, dictateur à la mamelle ?

Le Coronavirus 19 ou COVID-19 tue toujours. Mondialement, on estime à plus de 500 000 le bilan de mortalité. En Haiti, le dépistage est efficace. Sur une population de 10 millions, on compte une centaine de morts. On aurait souhaité que ce chiffre soit réduit à zéro.

La réouverture de l'économie est une prochaine étape à franchir. La reprise des vols à l'aéroport ? cela s'entend, mais elle doit marcher en symbiose avec la reprise des activités économiques. Ensuite, l'état d'urgence doit être levé après tout ce temps de confinement.

Certains esprits commencent à s'impatienter... à la question d'en haut, je répondrai
non, nous y sommes pas là !

Weiner Marthone est l'auteur de Dictateurs du Tiers Monde.
Disponible sur Amazon.com

Boucar Diouf: Un comédien pas comme les autres...

1852: Frederick Douglas' July 5th address.

July 5th, 1852. Speech at the Rochester NY ladies anti-slavery
society.

Fellow citizens,

Pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called
upon to speak here today?

What have I or those I represent have to do with
your national independence? Are the great principles of
political freedom and of natural justice embodied in
that declaration of independence extended to us, and
am I therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering
to the national altar and to confess their benefits?

To express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting
from your independence to us?

I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary.
Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance
between us. The blessings in which you today rejoice are not
enjoyed in common.

The rich inheritance of Justice, Liberty, Prosperity and
Independence, bequeathed by your fathers is shared
by you not by me.

The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought
stripes and death to me. This fourth of July is yours, not mine.
You may rejoice, I must mourn.

To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of
liberty, and call upon him to join you in
joyous anthems were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious agony!

Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?
What, to the american slave, is your fourth of July?

I answer. A day that reveals to him, more than all other
days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which
he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration
is a sham, your boasted liberty, an unholy license,
your national greatness, swelling vanity, your sound of
rejoicing are empty and heartless, your denunciation of tyrants,
brass founded impedance, your shouts of liberty and
equality, hollow mockery, your prayers and hymns,
your sermons and thanksgivings with all your religious
parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud,
deception, impiety and hypocrisy, a thin veil to
cover up crimes that would disgrace a nation of savages.

There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices
more shocking and bloody than are the people of
these United States at this very hour. At a time like this,
scorching irony not convincing argument is
needed.

O have I the ability and could reach the nation's ear ?
I would today pour forth a fiery stream of biding
ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm and stern rebuke,
for it is not light that is needed, but fire. It is not the gentle
shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind,
the earthquake, the feeding of the nation must be quickened,
the conscience of the nation must be roused, the propriety of
the nation must be startled, the hypocrisy of the nation must
be exposed and the crimes against God and
man must be proclaimed and denounced.


Frederick Douglas

Transcription by Weiner Marthone. Weiner Marthone is the
author of Under Fire. The book is available on Amazon.com.



What to the slave is the 4th of July?

Mr. president, friends and fellow citizens,

He who could address this audience without a quell in sensation has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more strikingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability than I do this day.

A feeling has crept just over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me, is one which requires more previous thought and study for its proper performance.

I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at ease ? My appearance would much misrepresent me.

The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings in country schoolhouses avails me nothing on the present occasion. The papers and placards say that I am to deliver a fourth of July oration. This certainly sounds large and out of the common way for me.

It is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful home and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But, neither with their familiar faces, nor the perfect gauge I think I have of Corinthian Hall seems to free me from embarrassment.

The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation from which I escaped is considerable. And the difficulties to be overcomed in getting from the latter to the former are, by no means, slight.

That I am here today is to me a matter of astonishment was well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore, be surprised if and what I have to say, I advanced no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exhortium.

With little experience, and with less learning I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together and trusted to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you.

This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the fourth of July. It is the birthday of your national independence and of your political freedom. This to you is what the Passover is to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance, and to the signs, and to the wonders associated with that act in that day.

This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life, and reminds you that the republic of America is now seventy-six years old...

Transcription by Weiner Marthone