Dancing with Angels

One Black Man Reacts to Impeachment of 45th President “When we’re dancing with the angels, the question will be asked: ‘In 2019, what did we do to make sure we kept our democracy intact?’” Elijah Cummings My grandmother’s mother was a slave. My grandfather was a sharecropper who never received his 40 acres and a mule. My mother, Ida Scott […]

City Hall: Don’t Stereotype Black Atlanta

Why black community needs Complete Streets My wife and I are over 60-years-old and we are avid tennis players, bikers, golfers, walkers and we practice yoga at least twice a week. We live on the westside of Atlanta where we have resided for more than 40 years. We welcome the new Complete Streets (CS) renovations […]

45 Trumps HBCU Benedict College

The wrong party got locked up (or down) Last week, the so –called 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center, organized in 2015, gave the 45th President of the USA its Bipartisan Justice Award at the 150-year old HBCU, Benedict College, where I once worked as vice president of community development and external relations. I would have been […]

Old Radicals Never Die

Death of former Black Panther takes me back to butterflies and bulldozers Recently, I received word that my old comrade/antagonist Bill “Pee Wee” Winston had died. Winston, a former Black Panther, later became a youth minister with Young Life, Inc. (YL), a nondenominational Christian youth organization. He was a good man with whom, at times, […]

Meria Carstarphen believes she has divine right to position

Guest column by Former State Senator Vincent Fort (Note: The views expressed in this column are those of Senator Fort and not those of Jabari Simama Speaks. Fort indicates he is a consultant for the Georgia Federation of Teachers) Thank you for beginning a thoughtful conversation regarding Superintendent Meria Carstarphen and the future of the […]

WHERE HAVE ALL THE OLD GUARD GONE?

The need for intergenerational dialogue between Young Turks and Old Guard A specter of change is engulfing Atlanta, a sunbelt city that for decades has been promoted by marketers as a “city too busy to hate.” Because of the number of African Americans, black millionaires, HBCUs and educated Blacks from around the country and world […]

CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST

The Ousting of School Superintendent Meria Carstarphen The decision of the Atlanta School Board not to extend the contract of Superintendent Dr. Meria Carstarphen is both unbelievable and predictable at once. By all accounts, Dr. Carstarphen worked hard and did much of what the Board asked of her, including transitioning the Atlanta School System into […]

POSE: The Category is LOVE

FX Narratives help us understand family and humanity My daughters are always trying to get my wife and me to watch one TV program or the other they believe is groundbreaking insofar as television is concerned. They introduced us to This is Us, the award winning NBC series; Queen Sugar, the OWN Network gem; the […]

WE’VE MOVED PAST KNEELING?

Attempts to de-legitimize Kaepernick through puppet Jay-Z pact will backfire Hip-hop billionaire Jay-Z’s timing couldn’t have been worse as he announced a multi-year partnership between his company and the National Football League on the eve of NYPD Commissioner James P. Oneill’s firing of Daniel Pantaleo, the cop who choked to death Eric Garner whose chilling […]

Ball of Confusion

America’s at crossroad after domestic terrorist attack, The Donald’s racist rants and silence of Republican sycophants “Evolution, revolution, gun control, the sound of soul, . . . Fear in the air, tension ev’rywhere and the only safe place to live is on an Indian reservation, . . . Round and round and around we go, where […]