Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

By Elombe Brath
(Part 2)

BUSH IN AFRICA: The U.S. Road Map For Globalization, Militarization, Recolonization and Depopulation
By Elombe Brath
(Part 2)
Bush’s visit to Senegal was followed by a trip to South Africa on Wednesday, July 9. South Africa, the last country in Africa to divorce itself from direct European domination, is the African country most saturated with Western capital and foreign corporations. Its population is 43,647,658.  It is overwhelmingly African (including the so-called Coloreds), with a minority of Europeans and Asians (mostly of Indian background). The country has one of Africa’s highest GDPs at $9,400, which is a deceptive and eschewed statistic because the vast majority of impoverished people in the country are the Africans and the wealthiest are the white minority. This ratio is also reflected in South Africa’s HIV/AIDS population, which is 19.9 percent. The most afflicted are, of course, Africans, and the least suffering from the disease, no doubt, are non-Africans. As I have maintained for over a decade, the real decoding of the acronym AIDS should be an Acquired Imperialism Dependency Syndrome!
 The Times reported that the purpose for Bush’s trip to South Africa was to “promote foreign investment and trade and urge President Thabo Mbeki to go all out to fight AIDS.” The false premise that Mbeki is insensitive and lax in responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa is often used by the media to tweak him as a reminder that they can demonize his integrity anytime they desire if he continues to be what the United States feels is too stubborn in not cooperating with their agenda in southern Africa. This translates to mean that the United States is only interested in pursuing its objectives in Africa of further entrenching foreign capital and the continued extraction of exorbitant profits, as well as removing from state power those leaders they deem to be inimical to vested Western interests.
 In regards to Bush’s promise to authorize $15 billion within the next five years to eradicate AIDS, the Republican-controlled Senate voted to appropriate only $1.9 billion rather than the $3 billion expected for fiscal year 2004, refusing to add  $1.1 billion dollars that they claim had to be used in the defense budget to update and replace military equipment needed for the continued occupation in Iraq. One can look forward to the eventual downplaying of U.S. promises of serious consideration of South Africa’s request for U.S. financial assistance in its New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the Millennium Challenge Account, two major development projects slated to lift Africa out of poverty and reconstitute a long- overdue African Renaissance.
Unfortunately, U.S. assistance in eradicating HIV/AIDS from Africa in general and South Africa in particular is predicated on what is most rewarding for American pharmaceutical corporations – one of the Bush regime’s major financial benefactors – rather than what is best for the health-care considerations of impoverished people in Africa.
 If you don’t believe that, then explain the appointment which Bush made just before he left for Africa.  He chose Randall Tobias, a former CEO of Eli Lilly and a major Republican Party contributor, to become the head of the aforementioned $15 billion program – with the rank of an ambassador.  As CBS News reported, Tobias will coordinate the administration’s AIDS activities for all governmental departments and agencies, as well as faith-based community groups. His appointment is expected to be approved by the U.S. Senate in spite of the protests of Sen. Tom Harkins (D-Iowa), Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) and 22 other mostly Democratic members.   This is the same Senate which just voted 76 to 24 to not increase the appropriation to the called-for first installment of  $3 billion for fiscal year 2004. If confirmed, Tobias will report directly to Secretary of State Colin Powell.  Appalled by such an arrangement, Dr. Paul Zeitz, a representative of the Global AIDS Alliance, described Tobias as a “henchman for the drug industry.”   
 Prior to Bush’s arrival in South Africa,  there was no prior mention in the Times about Bush continuing to exert pressure on Mbeki to persuade Robert Mugabe to step down from his presidency in Zimbabwe, much as he has been able to get Charles Taylor to do in Liberia. Besides the fact that the situation in Liberia is not similar to that in Zimbabwe, Taylor’s history is definitely not the same as that of Mugabe. Nor was there any confirmation of a rumor that the U.S. delegation, possibly either Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, was trying to arrange some sort of congenial rapprochement (or at least a photo-op) between Bush and former South African President Nelson Mandela, who had said that he had no intention of meeting with the American president and reportedly left the country to avoid any such chance encounter as Air Force One was arriving.
 In any event that was a meeting that many of us had wagered would not happen, more so because of the principles of Mr. Mandela rather than any lack of opportunism by George Bush. However, the media did imply that Bush tried to convince President Mbeki to agree with the White House’s stated plan to engage South Africa’s complicity in convincing Mugabe to step down from his presidency.  They offered $10 billion to rebuild the Zimbabwean economy if he agreed. How much of this was reported accurately is not known, but the fact remains that the plan was a dismal failure.  However, the public discussion of the issue during a press conference did reveal an uneasy and embarrassing televised attempt to insinuate an agreement on a resolution of  the crisis-in-the-making in regards to Zimbabwe.  The action would be spearheaded by South Africa because the problem was in Mbeki’s  “neighborhood.”
 Bush tried to jokingly mask his disappointment that there was nothing that he could report that would satisfy his obsession and avowed attempt to remove Mugabe from office and have him replaced with Morgan Tsvangarai, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader, in a fashion much like that during the transition period between the Eisenhower and Kennedy  administrations which took place four decades ago when the CIA deposed Patrice Lumumba, the democratically-elected prime minister of the newly independent Democratic Republic of the Congo, and replaced him with Washington’s choice of  Col. Joseph-Desire Mobutu  (later Mobutu Sese Seko).  Tsvangarai and the MDC are also backed by Britain, the European Union, Australia, the former Rhodesian Commercial Farmers Union, former Rhodesian Front racist leader Ian Smith and his good friend, former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, and his Dixiecrat confederates in the United States. As a matter of fact, Bush’s attempts to promote the MDC leader’s case became so obnoxious that Tsvangarai had to alert him to back off because his close association with the Western cabal was becoming very detrimental to his credibility and more and more people were viewing as an agent of Western imperialist interests. This is supported by the fact that in spite of the Western media refusing to report unbiased information on the situation in Zimbabwe that does not correspond with Western interests, Tsvangarai was defeated  in his own constituency in the June 2000 parliamentary elections and therefore was not able to become a member of parliament as a part of the opposition.
Add to this the fact that Tsvangarai was arraigned in February of this year on the charges of  treason and has been on trial since the MDC leader was shown on a videotape conspiring to assassinate President Mugabe.. The six-hour videotape was made in Montreal, Canada, on December 4, 2001, by Ari Ben-Menashe, a former renowned Mossad agent hired by a Canadian political consultancy firm of  Dickens & Madison that was damaging to Tsvangarai’s aspiring career. Thus, it is understandable why Mugabe’s opponents are now contemplating a sort of  regime change within the MDC itself and are now fishing around for a popular religious personality  to replace Tsvangarai as the new figurehead leader to continue the destabilization of the ZANU-PF government.  
 The major media chooses to chase any planted negative story defiling Mugabe while ignoring documented evidence that exposes the desperation of their candidate Tsvangarai and the comparative weakness of the Bush-Blair campaign to oust Mugabe. The fact that the U.S.-U.K. case is supposedly based on an alleged rigging of the 2001 Zimbabwe presidential elections is  
ironically being leveled with the beneficiary of the most notoriously fraudulent election in the history of the U.S. and his main foreign supporter would be hilarious if it didn’t place the lives of billions of people around the world in jeopardy. In my view, only New African magazine has been consistent in its coverage of  Zimbabwe, as well as the bitter legacy of the trans-atlantic slave trade and its requisite restitution measure to repair the historical damage, reparations, along with its general coverage of Africa at large from a progressive perspective that is based on alleviating the suffering of the masses of African people around the world.
 I must include the fact that the MDC is also supported  by a considerable number of disgruntled Zimbabweans who, unfortunately, have been inveigled into believing that all of the problems which Zimbabwe is currently undergoing has nothing to do with the pressure of international financial institutions and donors but are merely the problem of incompetence, corruption and poor governance of the government of the day. Many frustrated members of the opposition seem to have chosen to ignore historical precedents where a number of  leaders have been totally undermined by covert activities initiated by the U.S., in league with Britain and other western European countries, by which authorities in Washington can make the economies of targeted countries scream.  Such is the current situation in Zimbabwe.
The policy of systematic, well-coordinated campaigns of demonizing political leaders that former colonial powers feel will not prioritize and/or secure vested foreign interests, or others they have had a falling out with, has long been applied by the U.S. to undermine and  successfully bring down political leaders of  legitimate administrations. The U.S.-Britain duo and their embedded media refuses to cite the well-known cases of  Presidents Dr. Mohamed Mossadegh in Iran (1953), Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala (1954), the aforementioned case of Lumumba in the Congo (1960-61), Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana (1966) and Salvador Allende in Chile (1973), who are only a few of the most notable “regime changes”  in the last 50 years, as well as the most recent example of  Iraq, the character and personal conduct of Saddam Hussein, notwithstanding. 
 The targets were usually those who had self-determined, noncapitalist development priorities that the United States and its Western imperialist allies felt were in conflict with the unfettered exploitation of supposedly poor, undeveloped countries of the world, whose natural resources and cheap labor pools are, to say the least, inviting.

 Bush arrived in Botswana, a large geographically landlocked southern African country, on Thursday, July 10. Botswana is a major diamond exporter that lies just north of South Africa, with its western border next to Namibia, whose Caprivi Strip [all diamond exporters] and Zambia share adjacent borders and cover Botswana’s northern border. Zimbabwe and a part of South Africa make up its eastern border. The country’s area  is 231,805 square miles, not a small country by world standards but with a population of 1,591,232 people makes it one of Africa’s most sparsely populated states. Botswana used to be derided as a country that had more cattle than people. Neither the Batswana or the San (or Khwe) people think this is funny – and neither do I. Nor should anyone else who take Africa’s current plight very seriously.
Because of  its brisk diamond industry and small population, the country’s GDP per capita is $7,800, one of the higher GDPs in sub-Saharan Africa. But its HIV/AIDS rate is 35.8%, which seems quite high since with its financial statistics, one would anticipate that the country should have a more adequate health-care system, as well as expenditures to develop a first-class research and development program in regards to the social needs of such a small population.
 According to The New York Times, Bush’s reasons for going to Botswana was to “promote trade and urge environmental conservation in one of Africa’s most vibrant economies.”
But how does urging environmental conservation correspond with the possible pollution from militarization of one’s natural environ. The Times – allegedly the U.S.’s “paper of record” – has been lapsed in its duty to report all of the relationships between the U.S. and certain countries in Africa and Botswana is an example.
 Even before the post-9/11 tragic events and more so after Bush’s declaration of  his alleged “war against terror”, the U.S. government had been trying to shape new leadership in Africa that it considers favorable to globalization and privatization.  In other words, shaped to corporate interests and the need to protect those interests with a network of forward-positioned military bases to be used for possible missions.
A couple of issues most readily come to mind, particularly in Africa and specifically southern Africa. First, the U.S. is interested to see the leadership in the region replaced, particularly those   leaders who achieved state power as the head of political parties who had engaged in protracted armed struggles which were guided by following a path of noncapitalist – i.e., socialist-oriented – development. The U.S. views the announcement by President Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola that he will not run for reelection in his country, and a similar indication by President Joaquim Chissano in Mozambique, as an opportunity to disrupt the domination of the MPLA and FRELIMO, the  governing political parties that defeated imperialist aggression and intrigue to establish governments in the respective territories of the two former Portuguese colonies.
Bush is also interested in trying to get a similar accommodation in  the case of President Sam Nujoma in Namibia. And once again, I must reiterate that it is no secret that one of the main reasons that Bush went to South Africa was his continuing effort to try to get member states of  SADC to assist the campaign that he orchestrated along with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to terminate the presidency of  Robert Mugabe.  Mugabe’s successful final reclamation of the land in Zimbabwe and restoration of that fundamental resource for the broad masses of African people to develop, as well as his decision as the head of SADC’s Committee on Politics, Defense and Security to intervene against the invasion of the Democratic Republic of  Congo by Uganda and Rwanda to change the government of President Laurent Kabila, thwarted Washington’s plan to reinstall a Mobutuist regime in Kinshasa during 1998 after the death of Mobutu Sese Seko.
 These issues are the real reasons for the U.S. chagrin and invective against Mugabe, not any genuine interests of election results [Let’s be real], alleged human rights violations, corruption, good governance, etc. Mugabe is considered a very bad example, as well as an even worst omen for those whites in other African countries still trying to retain the colonial status quo 45 years after the era of decolonization.
This should be fairly self-evident for anyone following the internationally coordinated systemic campaign to promote the idea that radical land reform is incompatible to the interests of globalization and its large international agribusiness sector.  But I am surprised that Bush did not  look into a joint project that the U.S. has with Botswana, unfortunately a project that does not seem to be on the political radar of most Black Congressional representatives and many self-promoting pseudo-Pan-Africanist scholars and NGOs concerned with civil society, but is a key concern of the futuristic warmongers in Washington, D.C., and  the military industrial complex. 
It is hard to believe that Bush’s trip to Botswana did not provide him with an opportunity to review the development of the U.S. role in building a military base in Botswana.  As quiet as it has been kept, since 1994 Botswana has collaborated with the U.S. in  the building of  “Contract 15”, a large multimillion-dollar military air base located in Mapharangwane, a desert [and deserted] area near the town of Molepolole, some 55 miles northwest of Gaborone, the country’s capital. It is an important story that the major media has paid little attention to, but not  Wayne Madsen, a  Washington, D.C.-based  investigative journalist who specializes in national security and intelligence issues.
Madsen clinically exposed this U.S. covert action in his 1999 book Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa-1993-1999.  Known to some as “Operation Eagle” and “Project Eagle,” because of its U.S. origins, this development was simply not what is derisively called a  “white elephant.” It is an important project that consecutive administrations have lent their support to. It stands to reason that if a country with as small a population as that of  Botswana had requested millions of dollars from the United States for its own defense, then the IMF, the World Bank or the U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments, all with their structural adjustment program (SAP) conditions, would never have approved such an undertaking.  Many people felt that “Contract 15”, which the project was officially called, was  “much too large for Botswana’s defense needs.”
Dr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, Namibia’s foreign minister at  the time (today he is the country’s prime minister), was very clear in his country’s suspicions when he stated, “We have seen reports which suggest that it is a huge military base which, on the face of it, goes beyond the needs of Botswana as a country. Some people even suggest it goes beyond the needs of southern Africa as a region. If it is confirmed beyond any doubt that it is a huge military base, that creates suspicion. What is the purpose? Whom is it intended for? Who is going to use it? Then we would be very much concerned, because we want to close the chapter of  militarization in southern Africa.”
Dr. Gurirab’s concern was not out of  paranoia, although Namibia and Botswana have serious irredentist claims and counterclaims that concern  things like having equal access to water in a region that affects both countries which have large desert areas. Gurirab is a longtime representative of  SWAPO, the Namibian national liberation movement which waged a 24-year national liberation armed struggle against the racist regime of  South Africa and which has dominated  the government in Namibia since its independence in 1990. Thus, he also knew full well that it was the U.S. which surreptitiously gave military support to apartheid South Africa, Rhodesia, Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA and the then-fascist Portugal in their attempts to block the people of southern Africa which took up armed struggles [e.g., Namibia, South Africa,  Zimbabwe, Angola and Mozambique] to gain their independence from those forces whom never intended for them achieving their liberation. And Gurirab also knew that the U.S. tried its utmost to make sure that the former colonial regimes got the best deal it could get when they were forced to surrender power to the African majorities in the respective territories they ruled, as was later exposed in a National  Security Study Memorandum 39, authored by Dr. Henry Kissinger and bore the pejorative nom de guerre as “the Tar Baby Memorandum.”
Nor was the criticism only from members of  the SWAPO-led government. Geoffrey Mwilima, the leader of the opposition Democratic Turnhalle Alliance, which the former apartheid regime supported against SWAPO, raised questions as to what the Namibia’s Intelligence Service was doing to forestall a potential military threat from Botswana. As Madsen wrote,  Mwilima, the DTA representative said,  “We can only hope they are providing the government with useful and accurate information about any possible military build-up in Botswana, as has been suggested by that country’s big air base funded by the United States.” And even several members of the Botswana opposition had their own criticism as to “why should we [the Botswana people] put up such a sophisticated and costly facility when people are starving?”
It still is hard to believe that the only thing that Bush saw in Botswana that really  tickled his fancy were two elephants in the act of mating at a game reserve. Was anybody from the Bush party sent to assess the development of  “Contract 15”?

The first I’d heard about an alternative lifestyle called “down low” was when Dr. Monica Sweeney spoke of it at the Health Crisis meeting called by Congressman Major Owens.   She explained, “What is ‘life on the down low?’  That means there are men who are married or otherwise connected to a female partner, who, when they have their infidelities, have it with men and their partners are totally unsuspecting.”  
Where did this kind of behavior come from, this “down low” lifestyle of men sleeping with men? Provocatively featured in The New York Times Magazine, this behavior that Dr. Sweeney warned us about is spreading HIV/AIDS throughout African-American communities to devastating effects.   “It comes from the prison system,” said the caller to WBAI (99.5FM), and her words rang true.  Of course the prison system would play a part in this.  After all, that’s where the unbelted pants and untied shoes come from.  And sex in prisons is a long-known worldwide phenomenon that comes from incarcerating men for long periods of time.  The race of the person has nothing to do with it.  But here in the United States, we have a situation where blacks, while only 13% of the U.S. population, are 50% of all prison inmates.  In fact, the Justice Policy Institute notes, “Between 1980 and 2000, it is estimated that African-American men were added to the prison system at 3 times the rate they were added to colleges. During that period, 21,800 African American men were estimated to have been added to the prison system and 7,247 were added to colleges.  In 2000, one out of three young black men was either locked up, on probation, or on parole.”   This explains how Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn has an enrollment that is 78% female, mirroring the situation we find at Historically Black Colleges across the country. 
In New York State, these men come  mostly from neighborhoods here in the city, and if you live in central Brooklyn, then “behind the  prison wall” is really the room in the next building.  And when men are released from a punitive rather than rehabilitating environment, from an environment that does not allow them to learn, to grow and to come to their senses, and they are dropped off on the street by bus or subway directly from the prison door without being phased into society, then many times the behaviors they were practicing yesterday are transferred to the next block or around the corner.   
The Lowdown on the “Down Low”:
And yet that doesn’t explain where it comes from, this acting on a desire, while uncaringly and wantonly spreading disease throughout the general population.  Dr. Amos Wilson said that when you look at this kind of situation, you have to ask, “Who benefits from this aberration in the Black man’s mind?  What is the social, political and economic benefit, and for whom?” 
Who Profits?
Taking Dr. Wilson’s admonitions to heart we ask, “What is the social role, function and benefits of this behavior, who profits?”
If you look at the net effect of this reported “downlow” culture, it has to be acknowledged as being a White supremacist’s favorite dream.  Black men removing themselves from sexual competition for females, and when they do compete in the heterosexual market, they spread the highly communicable and deadly disease, HIV/AIDS.  While being highly profitable for the pharmaceutical and health care industries, at the same time it destroys the African-American community, certainly making it easier here in Brooklyn for Whites to buy or “gentrify” as these system beneficiaries innocently call it when they smilingly move in up the block.
Continuum of Community Destruction
This disease and takeover of the Black communities is occurring at the end of a forty-year process, so let’s take a look at how we got here.  In the December 1999 issue of OTP, we wrote about the history of  Africans-in-America and the continuum of States’methods used to break down our communities.  The following is an excerpt from that issue.
 “After the Voting Rights Act of 1965, there was a quickening impatience with the White supremacist culture of the United States.  The anger erupted in the street rebellions of the 60’s.  These were first met with troops and tanks and then as the anger became more focused and organized, there was a Counter-Intelligence Program.  Known as COINTELPRO, this operation combined city, state and federal law enforcement agencies in a joint effort to destroy the increasingly militant activism of the African-American community. Groups like the Black Panther Party were infiltrated and destroyed.  Misinformation was sown and African-American dissenters were treated by law enforcement agencies in the same way as dissenters are in any country with very strict rules for minority people and dissenting opinions.  Some like Fred Hampton were murdered in their beds.  Others were shot down in the streets or jailed on false charges.   This history continues to live on in prisons where many of those politically-active black people are still held today. 
 One of the things that may have been learned by COINTELPRO operatives was that African-Americans are an unusually resilient and community-centered people – there is a legacy of spirituality and self-help-and a way had to be found to break that.   It was during the Sixties that highly addictive and debilitating compounds, drugs, became readily available in African-American communities across the country.  If you want to know where in the world the drugs at the corner were coming from, look to where in the world the CIA was active at the time. In the Sixties, the heroin epidemic came in from CIA cohorts in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. This is extensively documented in Al McCoy’s book, “The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia.”
Going into minute detail, McCoy shows how the CIA’s connection with its covert allies led directly to the heroin epidemic of the 1960’s. The crack explosion coincided with the CIA’s work on behalf of the Reagan administration in support of the Nicaraguan Contras in the mid-Eighties. In Dark Alliance, investigative reporter Gary Webb reveals the connections between the Contras, the CIA and the crack epidemic of the 1980’s.   In one instance, Danilo Blandon, a CIA “asset”, was reported to have brought in “easily” 55 tons of cocaine between 1980 and 1991.   This is only one of the people controlling deliveries destined for African-American communities. As one convicted deputy put it in Dark Alliance, “I didn’t pump 500 tons of cocaine into the ghetto.  The United States government can’t say that.”
Prison “Seasoning”: Updating Human Software
One of the distinguishing features of the slavery business was the one-to-three-year formal process known as “seasoning.”  This was when new captives from Africa were terrorized and programmed into slavery and their roles on the plantations.  If we were to judge the United States as we do people, that is by what it does rather than by what it says, then the current criminal justice system can be seen as an updated version of the “seasoning” process.  It catches unending streams of black men and puts them into cages for the installation of new behavior software to fit the current needs of the ruling classes.   Farmwork is long past and the industrial age is shifting offshore.  The remnants of those jobs and the remaining technical, government and small businesses can be handled by a much smaller workforce.   There are people needed in the service areas, but according to a New York judge, those folks won’t need more than an eighth-grade education. 
So one of the things that is done is shown in a report from the College Consortium at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. They note that “in 1994, under a provision of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, Congress eliminated inmate eligibility for Pell Grants. Allowing inmate access to Pell Grants was viewed as taking money away from law-abiding citizens, despite the fact that inmate education accounted for 1/10 of 1% of the Pell Grants’ annual budget.  At the time that federal support was removed, extensive research demonstrated that recidivism rates decline significantly with higher education.  Despite the evidence, by 1995, all but eight of the 350 college programs in prisons were closed nationwide. As public funds for college education in all New York State prisons were eliminated, a successful college program at BHCF, run by Mercy College from 1984 through 1994, closed its doors. Given the extraordinarily low levels of educational achievement with which most enter prison, this loss was not only educationally consequential but also, according to reports from women and corrections officers at BHCF, profound in terms of morale and discipline.” 
Did you spot the enemy’s PR marker in the above paragraph?  It’s “viewed as taking money away from law-abiding citizens.”   That’s the way a lobbyist says, “You’re taking money from White people and giving it to Blacks.”  What’s left unspoken is that it’s being used to give them an education and the collective subconscious, part social-engineering and part genetics, does not even want them to survive.
New Technology Leads Way
to Solving Control Problem
One of the technologies used in WWI was social engineering, and the importance of the work of Dr. Edward Bernays, “The Father of Public Relations,” cannot be overstated. Bernays was the author of Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), Propaganda (1928) and The Engineering of Consent (1947).  During the war, he worked for the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI), the group charged with marketing the war to the American people.  It was they who developed the WWI rallying cry, “To make the world safe for democracy,” to help bind the nation behind the war, and also to create the template for all the war-rallying that has followed.  From these kinds of government projects, as well as work being done with mass psychology in the private sector, it would indicate that state-of-the-art social engineering  is a tool that any ruling class or business has in its kit. 
I believe it is this cumulative use in business and government, expressed most visibly in advertising and political action committees, that creats a collective subconscious that is always looking for profit and racial control and because it’s exercised mostly by Whites, there is a peculiar sense of racial superiority and animosity is exercised as well.  That’s why an obvious solution – education in prisons – is a very difficult idea.
This subconscious would have had two intolerable situations developing after WWII.  African-American businesses were growing  in pockets around the country and African-American children, taught in second-class schools by first-class teachers who believed in them, were becoming increasingly militant and vocal. 
Working in a way that is not a conspiracy but has the effect of one, government and business were able to take the journey for equal rights, for which African-Americans had marched and fought for during the Fifties and Sixties, and transform it into a movement that “wins” by having White businesses accept Black patronage and demanding that European people educate (or miseducate, according to Carter G. Woodson) Black children.
A  popular quote by Bernays  from Propaganda is, “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in a democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitutes an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country…. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”
“My People are Destroyed for Lack
of Knowledge…” Hosea 3:6
Referring to what is needed to cure the current conditions of Africans in America, Reverend Johnny Ray Youngblood, of East New York’s St. Paul Community Baptist Church, says that “when ‘our’ masses begin acknowledging and purging the pain of the past, profound political, social and economic change is inevitable.”   Toward that end, for the last nine years St. Paul has hosted a “Commemoration of the MAAFA”, a Kiswali term encompassing the experience of millions of Africans during the Middle Passage, when they were brought to the Americas for enslavement. 
In workshops and seminars led by experts in their field, the Commemoration seeks to reveal the American situation and that “The way out is back through.”  And in that knowledge we have the key to stopping unhealthy, self-destructive and community-degrading behavior.   We have to also remember that in a very real way, helping us to rebuild will be an old spirit.    Brought together by technology and the conditions of African people worldwide, there is a new excitement around Pan-Africanism, the work of the African Union and the tantalizing promise of the synergy of the AU’s proposed “Region Six”, comprised of the Diaspora with all of its economic and political potential.
If we can stop the violence, stop the disease, and exercise the right to vote as diligenlly as we do

The African Burial Ground
More than a decade ago in New York City, archeologists excavated one of the most significant finds in American history: the largest known intact colonial African cemetery in America, the African Burial Ground. Stretching more than five city blocks, from Broadway beyond Lafayette Street to the east and from Chambers beyond Duane Street to the north, the cemetery was discovered in 1991 during the construction of a federal office building at 290 Broadway.
The remains of approximately 20,000 enslaved Africans were buried in the Lower Manhattan cemetery, which opened in the late 1600s and closed in 1795, and at that time represented the outskirts of the city proper. The remains of more than 400 men, women, and children were discovered carefully shrouded, buried mostly in hexagonal coffins, with coins and other artifacts. Half of those discovered were under the age of twelve, and some 1.5 million artifacts clothing, food, and other materials-were found at the burial ground and construction site. The discovery was a staggering one for anthropologists, historians, and the community. More than evidence of the often concealed or overlooked contributions of African Americans to New York City history, the remains are a poignant reminder of the inviolability of the family, community, and cultural ties among enslaved Africans living under the most oppressive of circumstances.
The burial ground, virtually disregarded before 1991, was for nearly 200 years concealed below city buildings, parking lots, and streets. Today it reflects a rich African history and culture in this city, a history that dates back more than 350 years. This fall, after some ten years of study, the ancestral remains from the burial ground will be returned to a permanent resting-place adjacent to 290 Broadway.
The 6-city commemorative ceremony, organized by the Schomburg Center and the U.S. General Services Administration, will  include Washington DC, Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Newark and end in Lower Manhattan. The event will take place over five days, in five states and the District of Columbia, ending with an arrival ceremony, vigil, tribute, and reinterment ceremony at the African Burial Ground.
(Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture)

When my mom and I got on the plane at La Guardia Airport, I was very excited. Waiting in the airport for the flight, there were a lot of celebrities going to the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina that I already knew. Barbara Montgomery kissed me on the cheek, said “hello,” and gave me a hug. We also saw Mr. Woodie King, Jr., Rome Neal, and Andre De Shields. Ralph Carter hugged me and introduced to his mother. We saw the cast of American Menu and we told them how great their show was.
On the plane ride down, I played my Gameboy Advance. When we arrived in Greensboro, North Carolina, I was very happy to be back- I had gone with my mom two years ago to the festival.
From the airport a van took us to Winston-Salem, North Carolina and we went to our hotel room, which was very pretty. In the lobby of the Adam Mark Hotel, where a lot of festival activities occurred.   I was very excited when I saw Janet Hubert, the mom from Fresh Prince of Bel Air. When I said “hello” to her, she gave me a hug and we took a picture together.  Actress Ebony Joann said “hello” and gave me a big hug; so did Lillias White.
That night, my mom and I went to the awards dinner. It was very nice. Then we went to see Lillias White in her opening night show, From Brooklyn to Broadway II. White was excellent. She really knows how to work her magic onstage.
The next day actress Edithe Jason said “hello” to me and shook my hand. Garland Lee Thompson said “hi” and hugged me. My mom and I went to see two plays in the afternoon. Hillary & Monica is an extremely funny show. The women that play Hillary [Heidi J. Dallin] & Monica [Jacqueline Kristel] and the president’s secretary Betty [Marjorie Johnson], and the man who plays the president [Randall England] do a wonderful job. The man who plays the president also plays Sam, Hillary’s secret service agent. People really need to see this show.
Aunt Rudele’s Family Reunion was the next play. In that show a man [Nate Jacobs] plays a woman-Aunt Rudele and other characters. The show is about Aunt Rudele and her family going on a picnic for their family reunion and her talking about everybody. It was a very funny show. There were certain parts that a child my age shouldn’t have seen, but it was very entertaining.
That night, we saw a play about Louis Armstrong called A Tuff Shuffle: Backstage with Louis Armstrong. The man that played him [Danny Mullen] did a very good job. He sounded like Mr. Armstrong and he reminded me of him. The actor talked about everything that happened in Mr. Armstrong’s life. When he ate gumbo in front of the audience, said he was going to the bathroom and at intermission he was going to take a shower, it was like you were in the house really talking with Mr. Armstrong.
Rome Neal did a great job in Monk as Monk. He plays other characters also. He talks about everything that happened to Monk when he was a kid and when he was growing up.
The next day we saw Miss Evers’ Boys, a very serious drama. This show is about a disease called syphilis that kills people. Doctors have a cure called penicillin. But they won’t give the sick men the cure. They will study the men as they let them die. Nurse Evers is taking care of the sick men and tells the story from her point of view. She didn’t want to do it, but she had no choice. She had to follow the doctors’ orders.
Barefoot in the Park is very funny. It’s about a couple married for six days who move into a run-down apartment, and that’s where the laughs begin. The man that plays the husband Paul [Tony Grant] does a very good job. His singing is wonderful. Kim Fields plays Corie his wife. She does a great job. Ella Joyce plays her mother and does a wonderful job also. People really need to see this show.
Kids from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, did a show called Home & Hood. It was part of the Celebrity Youth Project. Home & ‘Hood was a very entertaining show. Sixteen kids were rapping, dancing and some were singing about life in the ‘Hood.
The Piano Lesson was very nice. Some of the play was funny, some very serious and some spiritual. It was about a brother and sister arguing over selling a piano. The piano had to stay in the sister’s house because a ghost would not let it go. The piano had been in this family since slavery and connected with the souls of their ancestors.
These are some of the plays I saw with my mom.
Going to the 2003 National Black Theatre Festival was an extraordinary experience.

From August 4-9 the only place to be was Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where the 14th Anniversary National Black Theatre Festival (NBTF) was held. It was absolutely glorious.
For theater lovers the event was like journeying to a theatrical mecca. The Reader’s Theatre, now in its 10th year, coordinated by Garland Lee Thompson of the Frank Silvera Writers’ Workshop, provided multiple opportunities for hearing thirty new works of playwrights in play readings that occurred during the day and night. Celebrities like Hal Williams and Andre De Shields participated in these readings. This year’s Reader’s Theatre was dedicated to the memory of the late playwright John Henry Redwood. Redwood delighted audiences with magnificent plays including The Old Settler.
Companies from around the country performed thirty full productions including dramas, comedies, musicals, cabaret, youth, collegiate and hip-hop theater. However, theater companies from the New York area distinguished themselves this year, as they presented seven of the shows.
Broadway Diva, Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards recipient Lillias White had the headliner show which opened the festival. A native of Brooklyn, White’s show, From Brooklyn to Broadway II is a cabaret-style production. White kicked back, sang, danced and told the audience about her life.
The Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn presented the dramatic comedy Faith On Line written and directed by Joyce Sylvester. It is the story of siblings arguing over whether to sell their inherited Harlem brownstone.
Rome Neal from the Nuyorican Poets Caf‚ performed the one-man show Monk written by Laurence Holder and co-directed by Neal and Holder. The play was an in-depth look into the jazz pianist and composer’s life. Monk was presented by Holder/Neal Productions.
New Federal Theatre presented playwright Ron Milner’s Urban Transition: Loose Blossoms. Directed by Woodie King, Jr., the play vividly chronicles a family’s destruction. When a father is unable to work, his young son turns to crime to keep the family financially stable.
Black Spectrum Theatre, based in Jamaica, New York, gave a rousing performance of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. The production was directed by Bette Howard. “The Piano Lesson” focused on a brother and sister arguing over selling a piano which had been in the family since slavery. The production was absolutely incredible.
The Harlem-based H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players had two productions at the festival. American Menu, a brilliant AUDELCO Award-winning drama written by Don Wilson Glenn and directed by Ajene Washington, looked at racism in the South in 1968.
The other H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players piece was A Song for You…A Civil Rights Journey of a Negro Woman: Lena Calhoun Horne. The play is written and performed by Wendi Joy Franklin and directed by Leon Pinkney. The production took the audience on a journey through the childhood and career of this talented entertainer.
Theatrical professionals hailing from New York were also among the honorees at NBTF. Carl Clay, artistic director of the Black Spectrum Theatre, was given the Larry Leon Hamlin Producer’s Award. Bette Howard received the Lloyd Richard’s Director’s Award, along with Rome Neal. Playwright P.J. Gibson was given the August Wilson Playwright Award. Actor Adam Wade was honored as a Living Legend.
Actor Ralph Carter, also from New York, demonstrated his writing ability as The Reader’s Theatre performed his work called Grandma’s Hand. It is a story focusing on the relationship and love between five generations of women. The play demonstrated how supportive family could be and was filled with engaging humor.
The event, co-chaired by Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Melba Moore, was a gathering of the Black Theatre family at a homecoming that celebrity and noncelebrity alike look forward to attending every two years. Festival founder, producer and artistic director Larry Leon Hamlin has created a must-go event.
This year’s festival brought one up close and personal with stars including Barbara Montgomery, Richard Roundtree, Bill Cobbs, Diahann Carroll, Malik Yoba, CCH Pounder, Adam Wade, Andre De Shields, Hal Williams, Joseph Marcell, Ella Joyce, Maurice Hines, Mercedes Ellington, Kim Fields, RaeVen Larrymore Kelly, Kim Brockington, P.J. Gibson and many others. There was time to shoot a picture, get an autograph or simply talk.
There was so much to experience at the festival. It will be difficult to wait until 2005 for the next one.