Category: Insights

Help our children to appreciate learning by reading together. Order you books directly from the author, haywoodfennell3@gmail,com. Families that read together, learn together.

Blessings. The Oscar Micheaux Family Theater Program Company continues its goal for educating and empowering the Public with theater production and artistic project with music focusing on our history of our capture and transporting our Ancestors to the Western hemisphere during the time of the African Diaspora, the Black or Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance Era and the impact of these three cycles of evolement.
Our Ancestors captured, chained and put on ships were the only settlers that came to the shores of what was and called America and were free as other were running away from persecutions with others sent from jails or prisons to settle the land. Many of our Ancestors went to other places in chains and were forbidden to use their cultural traits to include not speaking their own language and forced to speak the language of their captors and emulating the customs of their captors. The culture similarities were hidden in the drums and the dance. Even today we honor our ancestors as we do the drum beats of then and pound the stage with dance movements of old as if our feet were moving in the center of the villages.
The Harlem Renaissance Era is a time to build on the affinities using the music of spirituals, Gospel, Blues and all other so-called Black dominated music i.e. Hip Hop to crystalize a sameness in cultural values for bringing our forgotten “cousins” to the table and become a force for social change and social justice. Learning who  we are and who we are not erases the social strains of being different, but yet the same no matter the language spoken or the hue of the skin. For more information visit our youtube at, the Oscar Micheaux Family Theater Program Company or visit our website at, omtc.com.WSe must not hide our history, but tell it.

Our schools have become “missionary type” schools as  was in the days when missionaries went in countries and destroyed cultural systems that were in place  and called the natives “savages” and what the natives were told reduced the love of themselves and they would later become haters of themselves/culture and began to emulate the cultural features of the missionaries.

We are a spiritually wounded People that continue to emulate a system to educate that is failing in large unreported numbers with outcomes that finds far too many school aged children in the court system or in the streets with no desire to learn. There were thoughts that “charter schools” would be the answer, but charter schools have a tinge of elitism and many folks shy away from entering their children. It seems that the school teachers are teaching or trying to teach what to think as opposed to how to think. Take back our system and rescue our children from the “neo missionary” style of teaching.

The missionaries were suppose to be “rescuing” those that were “savages” and bring them to GOD and then to teach them the right ways. Today, there is a need to look and then finds ways to remove the style of teaching, build a spirituality for learning. Far too many parents are just relegating the education of their children to the politically dominated Boston Public School system. Of course there are a few in the school system and outside that are fighting, but they do not get the support from their peers other than a smile that later turns into a frown. Many in the so-called leadership seem not to know the difference between opportunities for a few and disadvantages for the many. We cannot continuously allow ourselves to be “duped” that it is the fault of the powers that be. We must create a model to help ourselves and “seize” power as well as support in a big  way for the leadership that supports changes that we must have. Having common sense like our Ancestors had was key then and should be today.

The days for having just one or two is over. The days for having many that are qualified is NOW!!! While I have earned a degree, a degree is not necessary for leadership other than the degree of how much quality leadership you are providing in the plan.

With ALL the years of getting degrees and PHDs, we as a People have no cohesive plan to address a failing school system with many saying/claiming that more funds are needed. Dignity and self-respect cannot be purchased. Getting a solid education was a badge of honor long time ago. Parents were involved and if the Mother was working, a family member would be at the school meetings when called to monitor the child’s progress. We need that back with modifications to begin a process for creating resources among ourselves and in the communities to reeducate not just the students, but the residents in order for saving our youth from deadly ends as in “dead spiritual development” that leads to chaotic futures and pain.

Looking the other way by service providers be they VA or community based, for them the “war is over” and there is nothing to remember. Yet, the war is not over and many of those that seek oblivion by the use and abuse of alcohol and other drugs slip away as their families helpless as they watch, a daughter, a son, a husband die be it physically or spiritually.

Veterans and the services that they require cannot be achieved if there is no understanding by the so-called “healed” that except for the GRACE of GOD there you go. While advocacy is an important step on the matter of service providing for African American Veterans, there needs to be an understanding of cultural sensitivity when trying to provide care and service. These men and women wore the uniform of the US Military only because their Ancestors during the earlier wars and conflicts were denied the uniform and sometimes denied weapons in the wars for freedom that they fought ALL over the Globe back then with little documentation.

Among the too many suicides or attempt suicides and lives being wasted is the “silent” voices of other Veterans that talk among themselves and leave it at that. Until there be respect for those that still suffer and by other Veterans getting involved to organize with a solution driven series of strategies,  we will continue to have “Stand Down Projects” instead of “Stand Ups.” Thank you for sharing this comment.

Reading about how an African American Investor by the name of Robert Smith should be a kick in the you know where because we have been “sleeping on the job” as to what having an education sometimes backed with so-called advanced degrees such as PH Ds., etc. means.

What I am about to say many of you maybe have already thought about when it comes to graduating from college and feeling hopeful that you will get a profession, be promoted from time to time and be in the top echelon of the corporation that you work and receive ALL the benefits to maybe becoming the “only, but lonely” one. Being the “only, but lonely” one is unlike the “Spook That Set By The Door,” written by Sam Greenlee wherein the central character went in and learned all that he could and stepped off on his campaign to change things.

You do not learn everything in school and graduating from an institution of higher learning is good, but not taking that education to make some others very wealthy and you work on retiring after 30 years with a gold watch as a reward if that. To me that is akin to being a “slave” you just don’t sleep in the slave quarters.

I think Robert Smith was saying a couple of things to those Morehouse graduates and to others. In order to own something you have to do something and do not be afraid to step out on faith. There should be waves after waves of our college graduates learning computer sciences, chemistry, finance, international studies, and medicine as well as biological research and reach out to our youth instead of not giving them some of what you have learned to inspire them. We must get away from racist thoughts and labels and believe in our Greatness as a People. Remember, Mr. Robert Smith talked about his family and the eight generations they have been building. Start now to build the spirit for wealth building so that we can have our own economy.