Each year while gathering information on Black pioneers and history makers we become mesmerized and exhilarated by the oceans of information being increasingly made available from ever widening sources. It is even more rewarding to have lived through the unparalleled period of time that witnessed much pertinent Black History in the making, especially through my association with the media–with which I have been affiliated for some 70 years on six different newspapers (two of which were White-) in four different states. My association comes not always through the glamorous profession of interviewing and reporting (that still does not appeal to me), but through dingy, often smoke filled all-male composition rooms from which the printed media came, prior to computers.
Such broad exposure through the most historic of times gives one a much different perspective and appreciation of what far too many take for granted today. It also creates different motivation than that of current persuasion where everything goes to the highest bidder.
War and carnage, whether within families, groups, corporations, cities, nations or the world, still top the news. But war is not news–it’s history! Only its sophistication of barbarian tactics is news.
“Do ye know in what Day you are living,” ask the Baha’i Holy Writings of this New Era. “Do ye realize in what Dispensation ye exist? Have ye not hear that at the consummation of the ages there would dawn a Day the sum total of all former ages combined? This is that day!
In view of the innumerable accounts of new and continuous wars and progressive examples of man’s inhumanity to man on massive scale, may we take time out during this Black History Month to consider that out of slavery and Civil Rights movements within this comparatively new nation over recent centuries have emerged federal, state and local laws, agencies, administrative framework, religious and other organizations to protect the innocent of this and other nations more so than in any other period of history. They may not have been perfected but the infrastructure has been solidly formed for perpetual improvement and adaptation to a fast changing society. Let us not allow this all to become obscure in the heat and flames of constant, deliberate agitation of hate made easy through the many forms of prejudice.
By no means do we infer that the ills of society should not be reported by the media, only that it not be to the degree of glorification that encourages “copy cat” or outdoing such heinous atrocities, further encouraged by special documentaries and books sales.
How great the bounty of being directly and indirectly associated with much of this city, state and nation’s Black History–before becoming Black History. Especially am I humbled by so great an honor as to recognize the greatness of this Day and for being entrusted in it with the “power of the press”–while witnessing the ever widening unimaginable dimensions and freedoms of “social media” fast becoming impossible to control.
Through steady advancement of such unbridled freedoms and increase in the savagery of war, the vitality of belief in God is paling throughout this great nation among many. “The weakening of the pillars of religion strengthens the foolish and emboldens them to become more arrogant,” the Baha’i Scriptures assert. “True religion is the chief instrument for the establishment of order in the world and of the tranquility of its peoples. Therefore, if we seek to establish peace we must cast aside prejudices, otherwise agreement and composure are not to be obtained.” (Investigate! – 1-800-22-unite)
