Get on the bus!

African Americans yearn for “freedom, justice and equality.” Some may disagree with the definition of those terms, but everyone wants to live in peace, with reasonable affluence and comfort, while enjoying the respect of their fellow citizens.

A few African Americans believe that they have already attained that status. Educational opportunities have enabled them to prosper in their professions and business. There has been a burgeoning of the black middle class in the last 25 years. In 1980, the total income of African Americans was only $127.1 billion. By 2004 this figure had climbed to $679 billion, a growth of 534 percent.

Even so, too many African Americans have had difficulty climbing out of poverty. In 2003, 24.4 percent of blacks lived below the poverty level. This was 2.32 times the rate for whites which stood at 10.5 percent. Even more destructive was the extraordinary number of black men in prison or jail. There are about 2.1 million men in federal and state prisons. Although blacks comprise only 13 percent of the nation’s population, 44 percent of the male prison inmates are black men. On any given day one in fourteen adult black males is locked up on some criminal charge.

Clearly there is a very large group of African Americans for whom the concept “freedom, justice and equality” has little meaning. Are these just throw away people? Or do those African Americans who have prospered need a closer alliance with those struggling in order to preserve their own status?

There is considerable confusion on this point because of the nature of the Civil Rights Movement. Blacks were asked to organize in a joint appeal to whites in power to induce them to pass laws which would free blacks. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 created for the first time a legal framework which technically granted “freedom” to blacks. However, these laws did not create “justice and equality.”

The Civil Rights Movement necessarily had to rely upon a time-honored tradition from the days of slavery — an appeal to the white man in charge. When so many people of good will of many races joined in the appeal there was considerable pressure on politicians to relent. Such an approach would be totally ineffective in attaining “justice and equality” because that is not something that politicians are willing, able or required to grant.

The only strategy that will carry African Americans forward from this point on is black unity. This is something that has never before been achieved. Every past attempt to accomplish this has been thwarted by whites in power, aided by their black minions.

Analysis of “justice” and “equality” reveals why the opposition is so intense. “Justice” will be achieved only when there is sufficient political clout to end racial profiling and to assure that sheriffs, police departments and judges treat blacks with dignity and fairness. “Equality” will be achieved only when blacks are no longer merely consumers but become creators of wealth. Both of those objectives — “justice and equality” — upset the political and economic status quo.

In order to move to the next level, blacks will have to look to themselves and to one another in a newly forged bond of unity. That is what the Millions More Movement is about. The only man in America who can motivate African Americans to travel to Washington on Oct 14-16 to begin this process is Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam.

Even though this is an ecumenical assembly, open to men and women of all religions and all races, the black minions of whites in power have already begun to voice their opposition with fraudulent objections. They are willing to jeopardize the hope of black unity to satisfy the prejudice of their white handlers. Turn away from those who would betray you.

Fail not in this African Americans. The train is leaving the station. This is the last chance to form the bond of unity needed to build a strong black base of moral authority in this nation. Reject the naysayers and join the Movement that Farrakhan is organizing.

Melvin B. Miller
Editor & Publisher
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