The Daily Objective: Black History Month

  • What’s the purpose of Black History Month? (Rucka)
  • Black History Month is great. I’m using it as an opportunity to highlight black educators, authors, thinkers and business success stories. Those people are marginalised even within that movement. (Mark)
  • Frederick Douglas — political power secondary to self-empowerment. (Mark)
  • Civil Rights movement has lost its way. (Mark)
  • I’m for any month that makes us more conscientious. (Mark)
  • The original movement was a mixed bag with regards to individualism. (Rucka)
  • Civil Rights went down the road of political empowerment — the consequence is the creation of a political establishment, but the success doesn’t necessarily improve the lot of those in the lowest economic realms of black society. (Mark)
  • Even MLK had marxists in his corner who were pressing him towards some form of collectivism as a solution. (Mark)
  • MLK himself may have had some marxist tendencies. (Rucka)
  • Read The Self-made Man — Frederick Douglas. (Rucka)
  • The name Douglas chose for himself was inspired by a poem from the Scottish Enlightenment. (Rucka)
  • Read The Life and Times of Frederick Douglas too. He was a spokesperson for the abolition movement, which was a dangerous thing for an escaped slave to do at the time. Abolitionists in England, where he visited, purchased his freedom. (Mark)
  • Douglas’s second wife was a white woman. In the 1880s, it was a risk marrying outside your race. (Rucka)
  • He went against the grain if that’s what his soul told him was the right thing to do. (Mark)
  • From Douglas’s autobiography, it was clear how deeply he understood the damage, to the slaves and the owners too. (Mark)
  • Read an essay called ‘A Plea for Voluntaryism‘. (Rucka)
  • I think the saviour of America will be a black person because they have to overcome so much political pressure to be a certain type of person. (Mark)