Each year as we continue to garner unknown and/or forgotten historical data on Black pioneers and history makers we are exhilarated by the illimitable information that is accessible through ever increasing avenues. It is especially rewarding also at my age and in my profession in journalism, to have experienced much of this youthful nation’s Black history while working on the New York Age in Harlem, the Cleveland (Ohio) Herald, Ohio State Sentinel in Colunbus, Fayette Gazette in Fayetteville, WVA and The Vinton Booster here in the Roanoke Valley before taking the helm of The Roanoke Tribune after my father, (F.E. Alexander’s) auto accident in 1971. Consider also the fact, as I approach my 90th birthday this year, that the scientific and technological advancement made during this period of time has surpassed all other ages combined!
“Do ye know in what Day ye are living,” we are asked in the Baha’i Holy Writings.“Do ye realize in what Dispensation ye exist? Have ye not heard that at consummation of the ages there will dawn a day the sum total of all former ages combined?” This is that Day!
We consistently hear daily news accounts of man’s inhumanity to man in this nation and abroad on massive scales. Yet out of slavery and continuous civil rights movements within this comparatively new nation, during my lifetime, have emerged laws, agencies and administrative orders and framework to protect victims of oppression more so than in any other period of history! Granted they have not yet been fully implemented but the infrastructure has been solidly framed for perpetual improvement and adaptation to a fast changing society.
Since her inception America’s intermingling and interaction of various migrants has been the source of her strength as well as the root of her social problems. But below the surface of the struggles-–of selfishness and greed often elevated into principle, there remains the conviction that this nation has a historical task to perform–that of demonstrating that the brotherhood of man is not an illusion, that justice for all is not an idle dream and that man is not a beast condemned forever to live at war with his own kind!
Perhaps it was this inner conviction that impelled the educated to create in this country the world’s first and largest system of mass education (although still imperfect–- let’s not lose ground); the Whites to struggle for the Blacks and other nationalities- drawn to the light of the torch held high by the Statue of Liberty, the grand Lady in New York Harbor; and the rich (in love, gratitude, compassion and servitude as well as in monetary wealth) to engage in philanthropy on a scale unparalleled elsewhere in the world!
Therefore, with all of the world’s and this nation’s present ills, we can be assured: the more we learn of Black History the more we may acquire imperishable hope for, “As the black pupil gives sight to the eye, so shall the Black people give spiritual sight to the world,” we are apprised in the Baha.i Holy Writings. (Investigate!–1-800-22-UNITE)
