Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

By Linda Armstrong
Telling The Black Man’s

Relationship Plight
       In almost 20 years of seeing all types of theater, I must say that “Waitin’ 2 End Hell” is one of the best plays I’ve seen depicting the hardship that the Black man goes through when in relationships with the Black woman. As a Black woman I left the play very enlightened about the way that Black men feel about their role in the family and the emotional and physical anguish they go through when they are in a bad relationship. William A Parker, the playwright, is a Black man and he is up front about his and the feelings of other Black men in relationships with Black women, from the opening scene of the play. Parker is well-versed in the telling of the Black experience. Waitin’ 2 End Hell is one of four full-length and nine short plays he has written during his almost 20 years in Black theatre.
Waitin 2 End Hell is having its New York debut at the 47th Street Playhouse at 47th Street and 8th Avenue and has been extended four times. It is not surprising that this production has been extended. It is filled with truths about the relationships that Black men and women share and it is not bashing men. It is explaining their side of many issues that are often looked at mainly from the woman’s point of view.
    The Black male characters in the play, Dante, Alvin, Larry and Mark represent the varying ways that a Black man can be. Dante
is the loving, generous, faithful husband. Alvin is the Black  man who has tried to be married to a Black woman. He has worked, assisted around the house, but got the cold shoulder in the bedroom. He got so desperate he had to seek  another companion.  Now he is sworn off of Black women and has married an Asian woman. He says Asian women know that their man is the head of the house and he is never told no when he
asks for sex. In fact, his wife is constantly kissing and touching him. Larry is very funny, he has just started seeing a Black woman named Shay. They are both not looking for a commitment. He feels he can’t trust  women because his  high school sweetheart trapped him by getting pregnant in their senior year. Mark represents the type of Black man Black women need to avoid. He is strictly about sex and nothing else. When faced with commitment, his commitment is to his single status.
 Waitin’ 2 End Hell is a play for couples to see, but especially Black couples. During the performance many men and women in the audience were calling out their reactions to some of the “testifying” about the problems with Black relationships. Once the Black man’s case was made, women in the audience were siding with the Black man against their sisters.
      This play is superbly entertaining, amazingly hilarious and very insightful. The characters created by Parker are very clear-cut. Besides the four male characters, the audience sees three female characters-Diane, Dante’s unfaithful wife Shay; a woman who is an old friend of Dante, Diane and Alvin and is dating Larry while she yearns for Dante. Angela, the Asian wife of Alvin appreciates her Black man and will please him anyway he wants.
    Parker has a mesmerizing way of putting a story together. This  production also flows due to the brilliant direction by Woodie   King, Jr., who is also presenting the play through the New  Federal Theatre.
     The cast gives noteworthy performances. Marcus Naylor is versatile and vulnerable as Dante. He goes through so many emotions as he tries to save his marriage. Ron Scott is on the mark as Alvin. He is both a supportive friend to Dante and a man that states straight out  what he  needs from a marital relationship. O.L. Duke is fantastic as Larry. He is a man who has been wounded  in the battlefield of love by a Black woman and has survived to share the lessons he has learned with others. Eric McLendon plays his superficial character of Mark very well. On the woman’s side Thyais Walsh is funny, sexy and a woman on a mission in the role of Shay. Trish McCall is perfect as the unappreciative Diane. Elica Funatsu is moving as Angela, a character who seems to be controlled by her husband, but one finds that there is much more there.
Go and experience Waitin’ 2 End Hell for yourself!

By Peter Williams
Institutions such as Medgar Evers College School of Continuing Education play an important role in transforming the lives of Central Brooklyn’s residents.  Continuing and adult education is needed more than ever today, especially in communities such as Central Brooklyn and others that face both an educational and employment crisis.  For example, Central Brooklyn comprises nine community districts, in which, according to year 2000 census data, reside 747,497 people over the age of 25 years.  Our analysis shows that 27.2 percent of those residents 25 or older do not have a high school diploma.  More than 30 percent of the residents of five of the community districts have no diploma.  In addition, the Community Service Society reports that nearly half of New York City’s black men are jobless.
It is the view of Medgar Evers College that it is imperative to change the trends cited above by creating opportunities for Central Brooklyn residents to acquire the academic credentials needed to successfully compete in today’s job market.  Without these credentials, studies show the residents face bleak wage prospects.  According to a report by the Workforce Strategy Center, Building a Career Pathways System: Promising Practices in Community College-Centered Workforce Development, “The gap between well-paying jobs and unemployed undereducated worker looms large.”  The report’s data reveals a significant difference in income between people over 25 years without high school diplomas and people who have Associate’s degrees.  Individuals with no high school diploma typically earn $21,391 annually, while those with an Associate’s degree earn $35,839.  The income gap widens with each additional level of education. 
Medgar Evers College’s Adult Education programs are geared to individuals who want to transform their lives by: 1) obtaining a GED; 2) enhancing their skills to improve their chances for career mobility; or 3) developing preparatory skills needed to enter college.  Through its GED programs, the college can enhance the literacy rate among Central Brooklyn residents and provide them with the basic credentials necessary for entry into college.  The college’s Adult and Continuing Education department also offers more than 130 courses and numerous certificate programs such as medical billing, paralegal, Web and graphic design, as well as drug and alcohol abuse counseling.
Medgar Ever College President Edison O. Jackson believes that education provides the road map to better lives and to the middle class, and that the College’s School of Continuing Education is an important means to achieve that goal.  As we say at Medgar Evers College, “We Create Success, One Student At A Time”.
Peter Williams is Vice President for Adult Education at Medgar Evers College.

Historian, Mary Logan Taylor
Samuel Carter, Sr., was born to enslaved parents during the 1800’s. We were told that his original given name was Miles. Samuel was apparently sold to a slave master by 10 the name of Carter, thus taking on the name Carter. We have no verbal or written record .,,of his having any brothers or sisters. It is not known how many times he was sold. Samuel grew up in Pittsylvania County, Virginia where he courted and married Josephine Luck, J who also was born to enslaved parents. However, we do know that Josephine had no sisters but, had several brothers, Jerry, Lemmon, Green, Winston, Preston and Felix. We also know that two of her nieces, Addie Luck Williams and Etta Luck Jones (Jerry’s daughters) lived to be over 100 yeas of age.
Samuel and Josephine raised their children as they worked as share croppers on what we heard (Walter) speak of as “Char1ie White’s Farm,” which is located somewhere near Blairs, Virginia. Their children grew up during the time when children were “whipped” by whomever saw them doing anything wrong, plus, they received a second “whipping: because they were ‘not sent home, but taken home. Samuel and Josephine had 14 children. Samuel waS’ the oldest boy and Joanna was the oldest gir1 and Myrtle was the , youngest. Their other children were: Andy, Alvin, Walter, Willie, Mary, Sallie and Pear1.  Education was an important factor in their life.
Samuel, Jr. and Sandy moved north to Philadelphia and worked at a steel. mill. J , During the ear1y 1950’s Samuel, Jr., returned to Danville where he died. Sandy later died and was buried in Philadelphia. Alvin moved to West Virginia where he raised his family and later died. ‘Samuel, Sr. lost his eyesight; so Walter being the next oldest boy had to take care of his mama and papa, younger sisters, and brothers. Joanna, the oldest, married John Price and they raised six children along with several grandchildren. Mary worked outside of the home. She was a school teacher. Mary died at an ear1yage. Sallie, moved to New York were she met and married Ernest Stroud. They had two sons. Sallie died in the 1970’s. Willie married Viola Flag. There were no children. He later moved to New York and died there in the 1960’s. Pearl married Otis Luck and they remained in the .. Danville area where they raised 11 children.
Myrtle married William Badgett. Together, they had 6 children. Myrtle died in 1926. Walter was the only surviving child of Sam and Josephine. He continued helping his parents care for his youngest brothers and sisters and working in the field. Their home was home to many others because there was always room for one more.
In 1921, Walter, Jr. married Susie Irving. They had 9 children together. Four are now deceased. Walter continued ‘to share crop as he raised and supported his family. There came a time when farming was inadequate so Walter went north to Baltimore and when times got better in the farming business, Walter returned to his home and began, ‘” farming again. He later secured a job in a cotton mill, working from 4:00 p.m. to midnight. , He would get up at the crack of dawn, work in the field with his family until 12 noon or 1 :00 p.m., clean himself up, and go to work at the cotton mill.
Walter and his family raised tobacco and vegetables. They churned their own milk and, butter, raised hogs and chickens and took wheat and com to be ground into meal and, flour. Walter worked hard to sell all of his produce because he wanted all of his children to go to college.
The Carter family had a strong religious foundation. Everyone attend Sunday School and church service every Sunday. Walter was a deaCQn and trustee at Oak Grove Baptist Church in Blairs, Virginia. His family were the first to arrive at church and the last ones to leave because Walter made several church before taking his family home. All of his children lived to adulthood except Roberta who died in infancy.
On February 23, 1994 at the age of 99, Walter, the last surviving children of Samue1 and Josephine went home to be with the Lord. Since Walter’s demise, our family tree has sprouted with a number of new branches, and our tree continues to bear fruit to this day. We thank God for our family history. We thank God for each other.

Fifty years after the powerful impact of a combined legal strategy and activism across Black America that brought forth the Brown victory, we are worse off. The US political and economic system found ways to absorb our militancy and reformist demands because we- for the most part -wanted IN to this rotten-by-nature system. In the South, our Black- run schools were allowed to be dismantled¼ and most of our wonderful Black teachers wound up not teaching our children. In the North, white flight from the cities were the order of the day and we- for the most part- were uncritical of what and how our children were being taught by racist white teachers until¼ the rise of the Civil Rights/Black Power era of the 1960’s. It is in this era of the 60’s and 70’s that we dreamed of and struggled for POWER. Today, we need to rekindle that righteous fire to dream of and struggle for POWER. Especially the POWER to develop our children’s minds to be proudfully Black; to be inquisitive and critical thinkers; to embrace science and math¼. ¼But today, if we randomly chose 100 eager wide-eyed Black kindergarten children from throughout the five boroughs entering Mayor Bloomberg’s “public” educational system, they have less of a chance of graduating from high school and going to college and graduating than their grand parents and great-grands did back in 1954 when the US Supreme Court declared segregated schools unconstitutional.
In fact, given the present quality of education provided for our children, this is what is happening and will most likely happen to them: · Out of the 100 kindergarteners, only 40 will make it through to the 9th grade to high school– · Out of the 40 who made it to high school only about 15 or 16 will graduate from high school– · Out of the 15 or 16 who will be high school graduates, at most 6 will go on to college— · Out of the 6 who will go on to college at best 3 will graduate from a four-year college¼ and only 1 of them will be a Black man– What happens to the 97 young Black men and women who never graduate from college? We know only too well. Just walk down our neighborhood streets any workday afternoon and look at who’s hanging out. Just visit Riker’s Island¼ or any of NY’s prisons anytime. Just look at who’s behind the Burger King, KFC and McDonald’s counters for slave wages. Just look at who is getting killed in Iraq and other US imperial war zones of the world.
It would be a horrendous criminal situation if we are only talking about 100 young Black men and women. But we are talking about witnessing tens of thousands of kindergarten-aged beautiful, inquisitive Black children being sent into these anti-education centers to be transformed into intellectual zombies destined to be bling-bling consumers, prisoners and warriors protecting white supremacists’ wealth in the name of “Democracy.” We are also talking about us Black adults complying with these terrible institutional acts to render our children 21st Century slaves.
At the start of the 2004-05 school year we, African-American adult citizens of New York City, are allowing nearly 36,000 5 to 7-year-old Black children to enter the first stages of educational genocide*. Let’s never forget that some 520,000 elementary and secondary Black children are also being subjected to this educational genocide policy.
*Educational Genocide: the systematic institutional miseducation of African- American, Latino and Asian youth based on the racist assumptions and policies of white supremacy that are embedded within the very structures of the US educational system.
This systematic and institutional mis-education process renders our children and our future “superfluous”(useless) to the needs of capitalism and white supremacy. At the start of the school year, we eagerly look forward to seeing our children go into these buildings of Education Hell. Sometimes we smile. Sometimes they smile or cry. We cry with pride & joy and with an undying assumption that our sons and daughters will learn and grow into prosperous men and women. We hope beyond hope that their experiences will be better than what happened to us.
Many of us either deny the horrors we see right in front of us or have fallen under the white supremacist spell that this is the best we can do because of our limited intellectual capacities. But since 1954, the reality is monstrously opposite of our dreams. For out of the 36,000 beautiful, bright Black tots happily skipping or tearfully being torn from moms or pops on that first day of school, 31,000 will end up with miserable lives of dropouts: jail, death, drug addiction, hustling, prostitution, teenage moms with no support, AIDS, dead-end jobs¼. If we allow school year 2004-05 to go on as business as usual.
Black New Yorkers for Educational Excellence (BNYEE) is here to say that we don’t have to have “business as usual” with Bloomberg and Klein cranking up their educational genocide machine preparing to transform our children’s brilliance into madness and criminal self-centeredness. BNYEE – Black men and women who are educators, parents and students – is here to take a stand and organize to regain community control of public schools so as to implement a curriculum that stimulates intellectual growth, critical thinking, scientific & technological knowledge, Black pride and respect for community.

BNYEE is prepared to go into every corner of the Black community to help build a mass movement to not only combat educational genocide currently operating within the public school systems, but we are also prepared to implement a totally different, more egalitarian, educational system where parents and students have a direct and equal say (as do the teachers and administrators) in the day-to-day operations of schools and the entire system.
BNYEE is a fighting organization. We know that this $12-14 billion/year educational system is run by ruthless men and women primarily concerned with making a profit and maintaining the criminalization and dumbing-down process of Black and Latino children. They are not going to give up their control through moral suasion and nice negotiations. They have a “white supremacist” mandate to carry out¼ and have the backing from the governor, the US president and Congress through all kinds of racist and criminal policies including the No Child Left Behind Act that’s leaving our children behind at faster and faster rates than back in 1954.
A half-century after Brown v. Board’s promise of Black freedom and equality, we now have the possibility to unite and confront the educational genocide currently ravaging Black America in general and New York City in particular. BNYEE is just a local representation that is growing across Black America: organized resistance and struggle for education  and liberation. It is ONLY You and I reading this that can fight to make this Black Freedom Promise a Reality. BNYEE invites you to join us in this righteous work to bring educational excellence to our children. For information about our next meeting and actions please call: 718-270-6287.
Author S. E. Anderson is Education Director, Center for Law and Social Justice of Medgar Evers College and author of The Black Holocaust for Beginners.

“The African Burial Ground is the most significant archaeological find in New York City history,” says Howard Dodson, Schomburg Chief. “In October 2003, we ensured that our ancestors were reburied with the dignity, respect and honor that their service to African- Americans, New Yorkers, and Americans in general, deserves.
Honoring Lives, Legacies
“On October 1-3, 2004, we will honor the lives of those interred at the African Burial Ground while exploring their legacies through a prism of multidisciplinary scholarly and artistic perspectives. The commemoration will encompass a range of activities designed to involve interfaith leaders, schoolchildren and other segments of the public interested in the contributions of Africans to the development of the city and the nation.”
  Schoolchildren, Faith Institutions, Drummers
Event highlights include: the marking of African-American historic sites in Lower Manhattan; placement of wreaths at burial sites around the Tweed Building and City Hall Park; participation of  schoolchildren and drummers in a Ring-Shout around the perimeter of the African Burial Ground; a street renaming ceremony at the  site; an overnight public vigil; and guided tours of African -American historic sites in the area.
 Performers from Around the World
Also, the event will involve faith institutions in tributes to the ancestors during their services; a concert; and a tribute ceremony with performances and readings of performers from Africa, the Caribbean, Brazil and the U.S. reflecting the theme, “Africans in the Americas: Celebrating the Ancestral Heritage.”