Lamenting the Sign of the Times

Last week, I ran into an issue with my entire existence here at Howard. It's still bothering me, but it's also turning into something bigger than I could have imagined.

On the first budget meeting that I attended for the Howard University Hilltop newspaper, I received a story - choose an event that happened to at Howard in the past. Not that hard, one would imagine.

I made my way easily around the campus, finding one treasure after another - people who have been around this campus since before I even knew it existed and have very educated and culturally/contextually relevant opinions. There was the individual in the Moorland-Springarn Research center who was a part of the Consciousness Movement. The animation in her face as she spoke of the happenings of the past drew me in further to the joy and cooperative understanding and knowledge that was once harbored in the university. Through her and a few others I got a greater understanding of what Howard use to be just a few decades ago.

From what I understand, Black-affiliated religions have been an intimate friend to Black institutions over the years. Many of the greatest HBCUs have been the direct product of Black religious institutions, as well. Morris Brown, just to name one. . .

Religion has been a part of the Black agenda in some way or another even before it became fashioned into a form of social control for an alternative agenda. Before there was religion, there was spirituality. It was the way in which the Ancients communicated with their surroundings and, even more importantly, communicated with each other. The Ancients believed in maintaining a relationship with those who came before them. They, as Dr. Gregory Carr once explained, believe that there is a cycle that we as people go through. Firstly there is coming into existence, then leaving existence, then reaching ancestorship, then moving into the rest of the cycle once again. Of course, it's far more contextually complex than that, but that'll do for now.

I said that to say that the absence of religion in American public schools proved fatal, as so said by the testimony of many around the country and the world.


In continutation of my story, my editor and I agreed on a topic - a situation that occurred in 1994 with Brother Abdul Khallid Muhammad of the Nation of Islam and Brother Malik Shabazz. (I'll let you go look that up) Now, there was a lot of media hype about what was said. However, the words were taken out of context. Cultural, personal, and just plain ol' outta context!

The Honorable Minister Louis Farakhan himself, in an interview with Barbara Walters (It was a showing of 20/20), only blatantly shunned the brother's choice of words. Brother Farakhan called Khallid's words "harsh." Interesting, no?

Either way, Howard University has disallowed any peoples from speaking on their campus on the behalf of the nation.

Ho Hum Howard.

The 'savior' of Black education and intellectual thought.

Where art thou?