I Am Jack's Seething Cauldron Of Rage

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Showing posts from May, 2010

Greenwood: The Burning Of Black Wall Street

- May 01, 2010

Ruins of Freemont Street in the affluent black suburb of Greenwood in Tulsa, May of 1921. In the chapters of American history, there are stories of tragedy and senseless death that are very carefully and almost entirely forgotten. These tales are conveniently forgotten by the wise and craftily ignored by the haughty. This particular tragedy raged in 1921, in a Tulsa Oklahoma neighborhood that was burned to the ground by a mob. 300 people were officially reported killed. Those killed weren't soldiers or insurrectionists - they were a small community of successful minority business owners who were murdered by a mob of angry white Oklahomans for no better reason than hatred and ignorance. When the story of Greenwood is foggily recalled it makes Americans, as a people united by common cause, law and geography, question the value of life itself when witnessing that life so carelessly snuffed out. Life snuffed out like stray sparks from an untended fire - crushed under the collect

This is Mary Ann Meredith in 2001. She is an elderly woman who was in downtown Cincinnati during the worst of the riots. She was shot point blank in the head by a bean bag shot gun that fractured her skull.

This very kind and well-spoken woman was badly injured by riot police for simply standing around. The blood thristy Nazi that pulled the trigger, point blank, on a unarmed mother and grandmother was never identified.

She successfully sued the City of Cincinnati and eventually won a settlement to pay for her medical bills. She has recovered but still has migraines from her injury.

Patron Saints:

Badshah "Ghaffar" Khan, (1890-1988), was a life long proponent of Mohandas Gandhi's non-violent idealism. He spent nearly 52 years of his life in British, Indian and Pakistani prisons.

He was born into an affluent Pashtun family in Central
Afghanistan. As a young man, he developed the ideals that would shape Northern India studying the Qu'ran and becoming involved in soldiery and education. At 20, Ghaffar opened his first school in Utmanzai. It was an instant success and he was soon invited into a larger circle of progressively minded reformers.

On April 23, 1930, Ghaffar Khan was arrested during protests. A crowd of his followers called the Khudai Khidmatgar (Servants of God) gathered in Peshawar's Kissa Khwani (Storytellers) Bazaar. The British ordered troops fired on the unarmed crowd, killing an estimated 200-250 innocent people. There appears to be no record of any British casualties.

The Khudai acted in accord with their training in non-violence under Khan, facing bullets as the troops fired on them.

Bloody repression was standard practice for stifling popular opinion. Peaceful protests, and even prayer gatherings, were called rebellions. When the British "Raj" was challenged by what was commonly viewed as second-class citizens his English forces mercilessly attacked. The Kissa Khwani Massacre and Amritsar Massacre were brutal Tiananmen Square styled butcheries that claimed the lives of hundreds of unarmed civilians who were peacefully protesting the Occupation.

In jail, and in the streets of India, Khan and his colleagues worked tirelessly alongside Gandhi in the campaign's of civil disobedience to overthrow colonial rule of India.

Khan was a champion of women's rights and nonviolence. He became a hero in a society dominated by violence; notwithstanding his liberal views, his unswerving faith and obvious bravery led to immense respect. Throughout his life, he never lost faith in his non-violent methods or in the compatibility of Islam and nonviolence. He viewed his struggle as a jihad with only the enemy holding swords.

Ghaffar Khan strongly opposed the partition of India and spent much of the rest of his life at odds with the Pakistani government after the subcontinent won independence in 1947. He died in 1988 having spent 52 years of his life in prison.

Further Reading:
Khan on Gandhi.com
Badshah Khan and the World’s First Nonviolent Army
Explaining Gandhi to a 5 year old