“I wonder where we’re goin’ baby/ that is my concern
Are we really headed to the point of no return?
A place where generosity has been replaced by greed/
I’m not sure how we got here
but this is what we need:
Revolution.”
lyrics by Joseph Wooten, from his song “Revolution of the Mind”, named after a James Brown album of the same title.
Every blue moon, someone asks me a powerful question, the kind of question that gives me pause, makes me stop what I’m doing and think deeply about a particular idea, issue or current event.
Last week, my wife asked me what I was going to preach about on Sunday's sermon at the Happytime Tabernacle Temple Number Two for All People on the Earth, in the Universe and Every Dimension Beyond.
She said “Reverend Boogaloo, when are you gonna preach again and teach the people about `The Change that Can Re-Arrange´? Because some of those deacons and trustees need to check themselves-before-they-wreck-themselves!!...on change management, leveraging diversity, thinking-outside-the-box...Why last week during that building fund committee meeting, half of them were sitting up there on the rostrum sound asleep, with slobber comin’ out the side of their mouths...”
I cut her off.
“But lamb-chop, they had just finished lunch and it was a really hot afternoon...” and I made up some excuse about how some of them are getting old and I quickly changed the subject. Later on, I began to meditate and think about change and what change agency means, what with all the big hub-bub about Mr Obama’s first 100 days and all. And suddenly, I had a vision (because I am a prophesizer) of what change would look like for black people in ‘Merica and around the world if real, substantive change in our thinking took place.
One thing it could mean would be that we would stop killing, raping and robbing each another over petty slights, imagined insults and stupid stuff.
Also, it might mean that we would believe in ourselves and each another.
I imagined us black folk speaking Portuguese, French, Spanish, German, Lendu, Lingala, Lango, Fon, Kiswahlili, Xhosa, Jamican Patois, Ebonics, Mandarin and Russian, pooling our resources to start banks, credit unions and businesses together so that no one would be unemployed and everyone would have a wholesome place to live. We would teach each other how to take care of our bodies with proper nutrition, exercise and stress management techniques so that things like kidney and heart disease, diabetes and cancer, high-blood pressure and hiv/aids would be a thing of the past. We would heal each other with a love so strong that our surplus would spill over into the rest of the world and we would solve global problems for everybody else, being leaders instead of followers.
And then I thought to myself, “But Boogaloo, that would take a revolution” in our thinking, our values, our habits, our practices, our beliefs about ourselves and our role in the world.
rev*o*lu*tion
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English revolucioun, from Middle French revolution, from Late Latin revolution-, revolutio, from Latin revolvere to revolve
Date: 14th century
(1) a: the action by a celestial body of going round in an orbit or elliptical course; also: apparent movement of such a body round the earth; b: the time taken by a celestial body to make a complete round in its orbit, c: the rotation of a celestial body on its axis;
(2) a: sudden, radical or complete change; b: a
fundamental change in political organization; c: activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation; d: a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something - a change of paradigm.
It was then that I began to remember all the black revolutionaries I have heard about, known about or met, people like Joseph Wooten writes about who have sparked revolution not with bombs, guns or bullets, but with a revolution of New Ideas.
rev*o*lu*tion*ary (noun)
(1) one engaged in a revolution
People like Benjamin Banneker, Samuel Cornish, John Brown Russwurm, George Washington Carver, Mary McLeod Bethune, Oscar Micheaux, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, Louis Armstrong, Jesse Owens, Shirley Chisholm, Geoffrey Holder, Carmen De Lavallade, James Baldwin, Charles Hamilton Houston, Chinua Achebe, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delaney, Angela Davis, Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi, Miriam Makeba, Ayi Kwei Armah and Wangari Maathai.
And then, I thought of DeWayne.
I had the good fortune to meet and spend time with DeWayne Wickham last week in Berlin when he attended the African Presidential Roundtable conference on land reform, commemorating the 125th anniversary of the Berlin Conference of 1884.
Mr. Wickham is a journalist, author, entrepreneur and educator. In a subtle and sophisticated way, he is the quintessential definition of a black revolutionary. He has used the power of his mind to influence, inform, challenge and change the opinions of millions of ordinary people every week for almost 40 years.
Overcoming tremendous challenges as an orphaned youth in Baltimore Maryland, Wickham groomed himself to self-respect studying the status signification of his white ethnic customers (and the subtle wisdom of the black caddies who showed him the ropes) while working as a caddy at an all-white golf course in the 50s. He continued his education-in-life as an Air Force Sergeant in Vietnam in the 60s. He proved his commitment to life-long learning by studying at the Community College of Baltimore and earning his B.S.J and certificate of African American Studies at the University of Maryland in 1974 and his MPA from the University of Baltimore in 1982.
Driven by his quest to become a writer, he interned at the Baltimore Evening Sun from 1972-73 and at the Richmond Times Dispatch as a copy editor in 1974. He honed his skills as a Capitol Hill reporter for U.S. News and World Report during Nixon’s Watergate hearings and as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun from 1975 to 1978. His pioneering work as a talk-show host for Baltimore’s WBAL-TV from 1976-89 empowered him to encourage Oprah Winfrey and BET founder Robert L. Johnson at the beginning of their national careers.
In his career he has interviewed and written about many leaders of the world including Nelson Mandela, Jean Bertrand Aristide, Bill Clinton and Fidel Castro. In his spare time, he secured the fiscal health of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) as president of the organization from 1987 to 1989, founded the Trotter Group, an African American columnist think tank in 1992 and created the Institute for Advanced Journalism Studies at North Carolina A&T University in 2000.
As a matter of fact, he even found time away from his golf game to write at least five books: “Destiny 2000: The State of Black Baltimore” (1987), Fire at Will (1989), Woodholme: A Black Man’s Story of Growing Up Alone (1995), “Thinking Black: Some of the Nation’s Best Black Columnists Speak Their Mind” (1997) and “Bill Clinton and Black America” (2002).
I even know he’s currently planing several more amazing books based on Caribbean history (cause I can read his mind), but I’m not going to tell you more than that: because black revolutionaries always tell you the truth - we just don’t tell you everything we know.
By now, I can hear you thinking (because of my hoodooistic-ueber-powers, I can read your minds too) “Rev. Boogaloo, for the-love-of-Pete, what does all this have to do with black revolutionary personality development?”
OK. I’m gonna break it down for you in a language you can all understand. In order to be a black revolutionary for the new millennium, you gotta master the basics:
1) Stay committed to owning your own business, placing a premium on intellectual property: Mr Wickham has produced media content that he owns 100%; in an information based economy, his books, articles and television products gain value with each passing year.
2) Master non-violent communication: as a journalist, Mr Wickham teaches his students to create a safe, trustworthy environment for interview partners; this human relations skill is effective not only for journalists but for marketing executives, doctors, lawyers, accountants, scientists, teachers, law enforcement officers and administrators.
3) Grow thick skin and ignore the critics: Mr Wickham never reads his critics; there will always be someone who won’t like you or what you say no matter what you do, so you might as well be honest.
4) Develop organizational skills: Mr Wickham fixed the bank balance and grew the membership of the NABJ under his leadership; if you’re going to grow your organization, lead by example - cross every “I” and dot every “T”.
(5) Go by yourself when you have to, but take people with you when you can: unlike many high profile media figures, Mr Wickham often travels alone to new places without a big entourage, click, posse or gang. This requires bravery and risk. While he could have chosen to come to Germany by himself, he brought four of his students with him so that they could experience a life changing event.
6) Believe in yourself and develop enough self-respect and self-esteem so that you can be generous to others, teaching them to believe in themselves; this is self-explanatory.
7) Be consistently motivated, demonstrate persistence, be hard working, disciplined, analytical in thinking, self-reliant, frugal and display creativity; these traits require endurance and courage. Mr Wickham’s many accomplishments point to this fool-proof strategy: it can produce success in life for anyone, not only if you are born black and poor in Baltimore but if you are pink, blue, green, tall, squatty or pimply.
I don’t have to pass the plates like T.D. Jakes but according to this criterion, DeWayne Wickham is a black revolutionary.
My question is: what are you?
more DeWayne Wickham on the web:
bio
http://www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/biography.asp?bioindex=1142
books
http://dreamwalkergroup.com/bio/d/dewayne_wickham.htm
The Trotter Group
http://www.trottergroup.org/about.htm
blog
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