143rd birthday of Carter G Woodson

(Born 19 December 1875, New Canton, Va, United States)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

Historian, journalist, versatile educator and inaugurator of the “African World History Month”, now a very important fixture in the annual calendar in several regions of the African World, outside Africa, and who, whilst researching the nature of the education of African Americans in the 1930s, concludes on the following consequences on someone, anyone, being controlled and defined by an agency outside their own centre of being, an observation as salient as ever, 80 years on (Woodson, Mis-Education, 2010: 48):

IF YOU can control a [person’s] thinking, you don’t have to worry about [their] action. If you can determine what a [person] thinks you do not have to worry about what [they] will do. If you can make a [person] believe that [they are] inferior, you don’t have to compel [them] to seek an inferior status [for they] will do so without being told and if you can make a [person] believe that [they are] justly an outcast, you don’t have to order [them] to the back door. [They] will go to the back door on [their] own and if there is no back door, the very nature of the [person] will demand that you build one [for them]. (added emphasis)

(Charles Mingus Quartet, “All the things you could be by now if Sigmund Freud’s wife is your mother” [personnel: Mingus, bass; Ted Curson, trumpet; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone; Dannie Richmond, drums; recorded: Nola Penthouse Sound Studios, New York, US, 20 October 1960]) 

*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018)

(https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Donald-Trump-great-Africa-ebook/dp/B07KFQHXKV/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1542585950&sr=8-1)

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

142nd birthday of Carter G Woodson

(Born 19 December 1875, New Canton, Va, United States)

Historian, journalist, versatile educator and inaugurator of the “African World History Month”, now a very important fixture in the annual calendar in several regions of the African World, outside Africa, and who, whilst researching the nature of the education of African Americans in the 1930s, concludes on the following consequences on someone, anyone, being controlled and defined by an agency outside their own centre of being, an observation as salient as ever, 80 years on (Woodson, 2010: 48):

IF YOU can control a [person’s] thinking, you don’t have to worry about [their] action. If you can determine what a [person] thinks you do not have to worry about what [they] will do. If you can make a [person] believe that [they are] inferior, you don’t have to compel [them] to seek an inferior status [for they] will do so without being told and if you can make a [person] believe that [they are] justly an outcast, you don’t have to order [them] to the back door. [They] will go to the back door on [their] own and if there is no back door, the very nature of the [person] will demand that you build one [for them]. (added emphasis)

(Charles Mingus Sextet – with Eric Dolphy, Cornell University 1964, “Meditations” [personnel: Mingus, bass; Johnny Coles, trumpet; Dolphy, flute, bass clarinet; Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Jaki Byard, piano; Dannie Richmond, drums; recorded: live, Cornell University, 18 March 1964]) 

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

130th birthday of Marcus Garvey

(Born 17 August 1887, St Ann’s Bay, Jamaica)

PREEMINENT African peoples-centred thinker, journalist, publisher, organiser, entrepreneur

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

115th birthday of Nicolás Guillén

(Born 10 July 1902, Camagüe, Cuba)

CELEBRATED PROLIFIC liberatory poet, essayist, journalist, freedom exponent, Cuban national poet

(George Russell Sextet, “Ezz-thetic” – personnel: Russell, piano; Don Ellis, trumpet; Dave Baker, trombone; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone; Steve Swallow, bass; Joe Hunt, drums [recorded Riverside Records, New York, US, 8 May 1961])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe