New Blog Redesign Is Complete!

Hi guys! My new blog redesign has been completed and is now up and functioning. As you may have read earlier, I am now using WordPress for Make Blog Not War and will no longer be using Blogger. To see the new website, please visit http://www.blognotwar.com

I will no longer be updating this particular page. I hope to see you on the other side!

Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Dream Realized

If Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been alive today, he would've turned eighty years old last Thursday. The man who gave perhaps one of the most famous speeches in history, was just 33 years old, the same age as I am currently, when he delivered the I Have A Dream speech in August 1963.

Today is not only a day to celebrate his legacy and life, but also remember his dream and how is has somewhat come to a realization today as we embark on the Inuguration of the 44th President of these United States, the first African American President, Barack H. Obama. 

Oh, how proud he is of us today. The Dream still lives on....

R.I.P Donny

Last night, I watched the Unsung series on TVOne which spotlighted R&B composer, singer, and musician Donny Hathaway. I have always been in awe of his music and had no idea that he committed suicide in 1979 by jumping out of a window of a hotel in New York. What a tragedy. What a loss.

Hathaway suffered for many years and was classified a paranoid schizophrenic in the early 70s. He continued to work, but towards the end, he could not longer sustain the pressure. Hathaway died when he was only 34 years old. He is buried here in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was raised.

Donny Hathaway produced hits for Roberta Flack and others. The song below (also sung by the Carpenters) is my favorite song by him.

Black Friday Wal-Mart Death

I didn't shop on Black Friday. I had to work.

What the hell is going on in America? (And people were mad because the store closed down because a man died? They were more concerend with how long they had to wait in line than a person losing his life over some marked down foolishness that will probably be marked down even more the closer it gets to Christmas?)

I am sick at this. And saddened. Losing a life is a sad thing but losing it because of a SALE?

No words, people. No words.

Jonestown: 30 Years Later

I am always searching for knowledge and understanding in history. Today marks the 30th year anniversary of Jonestown in Guyana. If you have never heard of Jonestown, I will do my best to give you a short rundown of the events which led up to November 18, 1978 and the events that happened on that awful day.

Jim Jones became interested in religion at a young age and as a teen, studied the works and words of Karl Marx, Joseph Stalin, and Ghandi. Along with religion, he was also somewhat obsessed with the plight of black people and the civil rights movement. Jones grew up in the midwest, Indiana to be exact, and graduated from Butler University in Indianapolis with a degree in secondary education.

Jones began, by many accounts, attending communist meetings and sought religion as a way to meet friends. He became a student pastor and began seeking church members in black communities, seeing the need for someone to help the the struggling race in the 60's. Some believe that Jones began befriending blacks simply because he knew that most of them would follow and feel obligated to someone that was helping them as much as he did. He and his wife Marcelene began adopting children of Korean decent and called themselves the "rainbow family". They also adopted an African American child they named Jim Jones, Jr. and they were the first white couple to adopt non-white children in Indiana.

Jones began the People's Temple in Indiana and then moved the Temple and his family to San Fransisco. He became well known in political circles and was appointed to the Chairman of the San Fransisco Housing Authority, a post that gave him entree to meet with such figures as Angela Davis, Harvey Milk, Governor Jerry Brown, and Rosalynn Carter.

But with increasing visibility in the media, he became more scrutinized. Wanting to form a utopia and to get away from increasing questions regarding the Temple and its practices, Jones sought to move his Temple abroad, and focued on Guyana because people there spoke English and were majority Black. There he wanted to create a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary".

Many family members of the People's Temple left behind in America began writing to the government about the cult-like happenings of the group. Congressman Leo Ryan became involved and went to Guyana to see for himself what was happening and to give the opportunity for those who wanted to leave People's Temple a way out.

On November 18, 1978 after meeting with followers, there were a few families who wanted to leave Jonestown. Jones was not happy about this but reluctantly allowed them to leave with Ryan. Ryan and the followers were getting ready to board two small planes when gunmen fired, killing Ryan, NBC cameraman Bob Brown, follower Patricia Parks, and reporters Don Harris and Greg Robinson. Several others were also shot and wounded during the attack.

Jones, after the killings, instructed over 900 followers to drink Flavor-Aid laced with cyanide, 276 of them were children. They all died and Jones either shot himself in the head or had someone else kill him. It was the greatest single loss of life of American civilians during a non-disaster before September 11th attacks. Only 33 of the followers survived. Most killed in this mass-suicide were African American.