Obama Will Triumph --So Will America Commentary by Frank Schaeffer

D-Day Media has posted this important Guest Commentary by author Frank Schaeffer and fully endorses it's editorial content.

Frank Schaeffer is a New York Times best selling author.
Obama Will Triumph -- So Will America
By Frank Schaeffer

Before he'd served even one year President Obama lost the support
of the easily distracted left and engendered the white hot rage of
the hate-filled right. But some of us, from all walks of life and
ideological backgrounds -- including this white, straight, 57-year-
old, former religious right wing agitator, now progressive writer
and (given my background as the son of a famous evangelical leader)
this unlikely Obama supporter -- are sticking with our President.
Why?-- because he is succeeding.

We faithful Obama supporters still trust our initial impression of
him as a great, good and uniquely qualified man to lead us.

Obama's steady supporters will be proved right. Obama's critics
will be remembered as easily panicked and prematurely discouraged
at best and shriveled hate mongers at worst.

The Context of the Obama Presidency

Not since the days of the rise of fascism in Europe , the Second
World War and the Depression has any president faced more
adversity. Not since the Civil War has any president led a more
bitterly divided country. Not since the introduction of racial
integration has any president faced a more consistently short-
sighted and willfully ignorant opposition - from both the right
and left.

As the President's poll numbers have fallen so has his support from
some on the left that were hailing him as a Messiah not long ago;
all those lefty websites and commentators that were falling all
over themselves on behalf of our first black president during the
2008 election.

The left's lack of faith has become a self-fulfilling "prophecy"--
snipe at the President and then watch the poll numbers fall and
then pretend you didn't have anything to do with it!

Here is what Obama faced when he took office-- none of which was
his fault:

# An ideologically divided country to the point that America was
really two countries

# Two wars; one that was mishandled from the start, the other that
was unnecessary and immoral

# The worst economic crisis since the depression

# America 's standing in the world at the lowest point in history

# A country that had been misled into accepting the use of torture
of prisoners of war

# A health care system in free fall

# An educational system in free fall

# A global environmental crisis of history-altering proportions
(about which the Bush administration and the Republicans had done
nothing)

# An impasse between culture warriors from the right and left

# A huge financial deficit inherited from the terminally
irresponsible Bush administration.

And those were only some of the problems sitting on the
President's desk!

"Help" from the Right?

What did the Republicans and the religious right, libertarians and
half-baked conspiracy theorists -- that is what the Republicans
were reduced to by the time Obama took office -- do to "help" our
new president (and our country) succeed? They claimed that he
wasn't a real American, didn't have an American birth certificate,
wasn't born here, was secretly a Muslim, was white-hating "racist",
was secretly a communist, was actually the Anti-Christ, (!) and was
a reincarnation of Hitler and wanted "death panels" to kill the
elderly!

They not-so-subtly called for his assassination through the not-so-
subtle use of vile signs held at their rallies and even a bumper
sticker quoting Psalm 109:8. They organized "tea parties" to sound
off against imagined insults and all government in general and
gathered to howl at the moon. They were led by insurance industry
lobbyists and deranged (but well financed) "commentators" from
Glenn Beck to Rush Limbaugh.

The utterly discredited Roman Catholic bishops teamed up with the
utterly discredited evangelical leaders to denounce a president who
was trying to actually do something about the poor, the
environment, to diminish the number of abortions through
compassionate programs to help women and to care for the sick! And
in Congress the Republican leadership only knew one word: "No!"

In other words the reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy
American far right,combined with the educated but obtuse
neoconservative war mongers, religious right shills for big
business, libertarian Fed Reserve-hating gold bug, gun-loving
crazies, child-molesting acquiescent "bishops", frontier loons and
evangelical gay-hating flakes found one thing to briefly unite
them: their desire to stop an uppity black man from succeeding at
all costs!

"Help" from the Left?

What did the left do to help their newly elected president? Some of
them excoriated the President because they disagreed with the bad
choices he was being forced to make regarding a war in Afghanistan
that he'd inherited from the worst president in modern history!

Others stood up and bravely proclaimed that the President's
economic policies had "failed" before the President even instituted
them! Others said that since all gay rights battles had not been
fully won within virtually minutes of the President taking office,
they'd been "betrayed"! (Never mind that Obama's vocal support to
the gay community is stronger than any other president's has been.
Never mind that he signed a new hate crimes law!)

Those that had stood in transfixed legions weeping with beatific
emotion on election night turned into an angry mob saying how
"disappointed" they were that they'd not all immediately been
translated to heaven the moment Obama stepped into the White House!
Where was the "change"? Contrary to their expectations they were
still mere mortals!

And the legion of young new supporters was too busy texting to pay
attention for longer than a nanosecond. "Governing"?! What the hell
does that word, uh, like mean?"

The President's critics left and right all had one thing in common:
impatience laced with little-to-no sense of history (let alone
reality) thrown in for good measure. Then of course there were the
white, snide know-it-all commentators/talking heads who just
couldn't imagine that maybe, just maybe they weren't as smart as
they thought they were and certainly not as smart as their
president. He hadn't consulted them, had he? So he must be wrong!

The Obama critics' ideological ideas defined their idea of reality
rather than reality defining their ideas-say, about what is
possible in one year in office after the hand that the President
had been dealt by fate, or to be exact by the American idiot nation
that voted Bush into office. twice!

Meanwhile back in the reality-based community - in just 12 short
months -- President Obama:

#Continued to draw down the misbegotten war in Iraq
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of several bad choices
regarding the war in Afghanistan
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Gave a major precedent-setting speech supporting gay rights
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Restored America 's image around the globe
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Banned torture of American prisoners
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Stopped the free fall of the American economy
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Put the USA squarely back in the bilateral international community
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Put the USA squarely into the middle of the international effort
to halt global warming
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Stood up for educational reform
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Won a Nobel peace prize
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Moved the trial of terrorists back into the American judicial
system of checks and balances
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Did what had to be done to start the slow, torturous and almost
impossible process of health care reform that 7 presidents had
failed to even begin
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Responded to hatred from the right and left with measured good
humor and patience
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Stopped the free fall of job losses
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed and
dangerous far right opposition that included the sort of disgusting
people that show up at public meetings carrying loaded weapons and
carrying Timothy McVeigh-inspired signs about the "blood of
tyrants" needing to "water the tree of liberty".
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Showed that he could not only make the tough military choices but
explain and defend them brilliantly
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

Other than those "disappointing" accomplishments -- IN ONE YEAR --
President Obama "failed"! Other than that he didn't "live up to
expectations"!

Who actually has failed...

...are the Americans that can't see the beginning of a miracle of
national rebirth right under their jaded noses. Who failed are the
smart ass ideologues of the left and right who began rooting for
this President to fail so that they could be proved right in their
dire and morbid predictions. Who failed are the movers and shakers
behind our obscenely dumb news cycles that have turned "news" into
just more stupid entertainment for an entertainment-besotted
infantile country.

Here's the good news: President Obama is succeeding without the
help of his lefty "supporters" or hate-filled Republican detractors!

The Future Looks Good

After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will), after his
wisdom in moving deliberately and cautiously with great subtlety on
all fronts -- with a canny and calculating eye to the possible
succeeds, (it will), after the economy is booming and new industries
are burgeoning, (they will be), after the doomsayers are all proved
not just wrong but silly: let the record show that not all
Americans were panicked into thinking the sky was falling.

Just because we didn't get everything we wanted in the first short
and fraught year Obama was in office not all of us gave up. Some of
us stayed the course. And we will be proved right.

PS. if you agree that Obama is shaping up to be a great president,
please pass this on and hang in there! Pass it on anyway to ensure
that his "report card" gets the attention it deserves.

Messin’ With Your Mind - Glenn Beck’s Subliminal Manipulation of Racial Iconography

Recently Fox television’s Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, employing their customary formulaic shtick, engaged in what on surface seemed innocuous, if somewhat mean-spirited, witty banter on a regular segment of O’Reilly’s show called “Beck and Call.” The topic was Beck’s earlier recorded commentary “Rats, Flies, Bees, and Obama, Oh My!” Beck and O’Reilly juxtaposed more recent footage with that of President Obama’s infamous fly-swatting episode from June 2009 – you remember the shot, in which President Obama summarily dispatched a fly in one fell swoop without batting an eye or becoming distracted from his line of thought, then a downward pan to frame a dead fly on the floor of the Oval Office. In the new video, there’s a close-up of another fly landing on the president’s face, followed by a shot of a rat scurrying across the front of the presidential podium, and then, as Beck’s narrative arcs, the camera cuts to an image of bees swarming on the White House lawn. These pictures prompt the obligatory pseudo-journalistic query (as both men feign utter befuddlement): Why has the Obama White House attracted such infestation?

To the casual viewer untrained in anthropology, sociology, symbology, or iconography, Beck’s cavalier amusement with the White House pest-infiltration narrative may appear to be nothing more than a Fox infotainment foray into a human-interest aspect of the Obama administration. But it would be unthinkable to dismiss this charade as lighthearted comedic jesting. If you were to casually regard Fox’s snickering “White House Infestation” segment as mere comic relief, you’d be viewing the world through the proverbial rose-colored lens and missing the real picture.

The fact is that symbols are powerful tools of mass communication. One need only reflect on the passion that symbols can evoke; the American flag, the Confederate flag, the Star of David, the Christian cross. Across cultures and through the ages, animals, insects, and objects have been imputed symbolic meanings. And once symbols are embedded and codified as icons, they possess a unique ability to convey intent and significance in compact, coded – but also immediately recognizable – form.

Glenn Beck has long displayed a ferocious proclivity for deconstructing symbolism as he plants himself to pontificate piously in front of an image of the Statue of Liberty, or frames his bloviations with the American flag, or implores the electorate to beware of treasonous communistic iconography in our midst – as in the artwork of Rockefeller Center, stoking fears of the demise of our morals and our democratic society.

The effect of icons, signs, and symbols is enormous. The fly’s image has had currency for centuries as a symbol of filth, decay, and disease. The fly on Obama’s cheek evokes the fly-covered faces of Biafran children in UNICEF campaigns. And Beck tastelessly drags the joke to even more sophomoric levels by pretending to ingest a dead fly for “yuck” effect.

Likewise, rats have long signified pestilence, plague, betrayal, and death, at least in Western culture. (In China the year of the Rat denotes prosperity and good luck.) In Albert Camus’classic novel, The Plague, the image of rats is called forth to do more than merely symbolize disease – the rats parallel the frailty of our human condition. Both creatures are regarded as vermin; fodder for annihilation lest they infect our homes, crops, and livestock.

And then there’s the troublesome White House bee-infestation imagery. What gives this story wings, so to speak? After all, rose gardens are expected to attract bees and more significantly, for the first time in history a bee hive is being maintained on the South Lawn as part of the First Lady’s environmental and healthy-foods efforts. (This was never mentioned by Beck and O’Reilly.) Robert Bridges in his poem “The Parable of Bees” refers to ancient times when the life of the bee was not systematized and regulated as it is today, and “the bee was not a State-kept hoard.” In other words, before people colonized bees into hives for cultivation, they were free. In the brief clip used by O’Reilly and Beck, the bees appear to be swarming in attack mode, overwhelming the groundskeeper in a terroristic frenzy.

The visuals serve to drum home Beck’s story line. In his subliminal iconography, the bee hive represents a socialist society dependent upon the Queen Bee, a perfect metaphor for the Republican narrative that seeks to portray Obama’s presidency as imperial, with full reign over big-government resources and committed to redistributing the wealth (and subtly implying redistribution on the basis of race). Symbolically, bee swarms in the Rose Garden represent a rebellious, disruptive (white) electorate on the attack against the President for leading the nation down the slippery slope to socialism – to a society in which individual freedoms are viewed as subservient to the survival of special interests,minority groups and blacks in particular.

Within days of his hijacking of the bee footage, Beck was hawking “The Bees Know” t-shirts on his website.

In addition to the rats, flies, and bees, other symbolic literary references surfaced in this same “Beck and Call” segment, all deviously laden with disturbing allegory masquerading as good-humored jesting at the President’s expense: Obama mocked as Pied Piper, as Dr. Doolittle, as the blood-sucking Count Dracula, and the White House portrayed as the Amityville Horror house (which, along with the haunting spirits, was infested with – you guessed it – flies). These giggly comparisons are not void of layered social, psychological, political and, yes, deliberate racial connotations. They are meant to demean and marginalize the President by innuendo, using symbolism and literary imagery to reinforce the notion of Obama’s mystical “otherness.”

Fox’s program executives have strategically allowed Beck and O’Reilly to cast America as a nation in decline under Obama’s leadership. Biblical allegories of deadly plagues, mystical metaphors of evil haunted houses, and raw images suggesting a vermin- and insect-infested White House are calculated to conjure fear and revulsion in an already economically insecure and anxious American electorate. They present a vision of the U.S. plunging from number-one reigning world empire to banana republic by casting President Obama as alien, third-worldly; an unworthy occupant of America’s most revered residence, the White House.

Despite Beck’s admitted lack of formal education – he never earned a college degree – he nonetheless is a New York Times bestselling author, so it’s difficult to believe that he is unaware of the racist content of Hugh Lofton’s original Dr. Doolittle books, in which, for example, the African Prince Bumpo persuades Dr. Doolittle to bleach his face white in hopes that he may marry a fairytale European princess. The books have come under attack from advocates seeking to draw attention to children’s books that portray racist imagery and mock black people.

Powerful stereotypes, both positive and negative, depend upon one’s cultural perspective. Nearly four decades ago at Fisk University, I reviewed research on racial stereotypes when I studied with the brilliant Japanese-American scholar Dr. J. Matsuoka. Many of the same vicious and factually baseless stereotypes persist today, having been bequeathed from generation to generation. For example, in 2007 a D.C. high school teacher asked students to list stereotypes they were aware of pertaining to black, white, and Latino populations. Many of the descriptors generated by the students echoed the vicious views found in Dr. Matsuoka’s empirical studies from the 1960s. For black people, these included “low job expectations, dropouts, live in the ghetto/projects,” despite blacks’ enormous economic and educational gains over forty years, while whites were characterized as “rich with big houses” and “always in a hurry and on time.”

Beck and O’Reilly are perversely intentional in their skillful appropriation of symbols and stereotypes – in this case infestation; linking rats, flies, and bees with the name and image of Obama for the subliminal manipulation of their viewers’ emotions and opinions, further stoking the suspicion, racial division, apprehension, anger, and hatred that they are often accused of evoking in more open, direct commentary. Their visual tools of mind control are carefully crafted for full effect – to perpetuate the us-against-them and we-they attitudes within our national psyche that govern our common discourse on race.

As Marshall McLuhan intoned in 1960, “the medium is the message.” Television’s formidable power to shape public opinion and common cultural understandings is not lost on Beck, O’Reilly, or pundits and network executives across the industry. Fox’s mass-media forum, tactically handed over to the likes of Beck and O’Reilly, becomes a lethal weapon; spewing propaganda, reinforcing stereotypes, and smearing innuendo for political advantage and, to an even greater extent, for pure monetary profit. Why else would Fox spend the enormous salary and production costs-per-minute to devote such an inordinate number of minutes to this infestation narrative when so many larger issues loom?

The illusion of a hoped-for post-racial American society has not materialized. Like a steady drumbeat in the polarizing cable media “culture wars,” the carefully crafted, symbol-laden imagery of Beck and O’Reilly propels their storyline. Obama’s White House, like the Amityville Horror house, is infested with threatening, blood-sucking (your tax dollars!) nuisances that must be exorcised or “there goes the neighborhood.”

At the end of the televised “Beck and Call” segment, O’Reilly asserts that everything Beck has said is completely true. You be the judge of whether what is portrayed is truthful the next time Mr. Beck portends to reveal the symbolic meaning of an event, relationship, idea, object, or picture. (More recently, for example, he compared Obama’s America to the Planet of the Apes. )

Ask yourself what Beck is really saying. And then ask: Why should we care? As freedom-loving Americans, indeed we all should care. Think about it.

Why Do I Do This Thing Called Jazz?

As I awoke yesterday morning to the news of an earthquake in the Maryland and Washington DC area, I reflected on the new morning, which was my birthday, and on the meaning of what’s called the Grace of God – God’s unmerited favor. On Thursday morning I had driven from NYC to Hyattsville, MD near DC to rehearse with a new band. Later in the afternoon, I drove home, only hours ahead of the quake, which registered 3.6 in the Richter scale. Thank God for safe travel mercies. I returned safely to the comforts of home and a loving significant other. Finally, I was able to casually “chill-ax” with a glass of merlot after a grueling rehearsal and ten hours of driving through DC/ Baltimore rush-hour traffic. I reflected on why I do this music. The answer is simple – because I love music and I especially love performing jazz. When I think about how fortunate I have been to have a measure of good health and strength sufficient to move freely about performing, sharing life, music, art and being blessed by love, friendships, and colleagues – and as the elders say “having a reasonable portion of my right mind” – I better understand God’s grace. So as I celebrated yet another milestone anniversary and survey how simply and graciously I’ve been blessed, I counted each blessing and gave thanks to God for having brought me this far. Were it not for the unmerited favor He has extended to me, none of my activities would be possible. At this stage in my life I know from whence cometh my real strength and joy; it cometh from the Lord God. And I thank you, Heavenly Father for allowing me to approach another year on the planet earth. Amen. Now with your Good Grace, I'm ready to go out sing my A_ off! Oops!

Benny Powell Left A Great Legacy

I was saddened to learn of trombonist Benny Powell's transition. Benny was a friend and a consummate artist, who fought the "good fight," astute, well-rounded, Benny was a proud native of New Orleans and comfortable on the world stage whether as a much sought after side-man or leader. He executed his craft skillfully, always comporting himself as a man of great dignity, class and grace.
I met Benny in the 80s through our joint work with the American Federation of Musicians union Local 802’s Justice for Jazz Committee's efforts to change New York City’s archaic cabaret laws, which limited musicians in their ability to earn full wages and benefits they deserve. Benny was among the early wave of musician activists leaders who pressed for needed changes in the City’s restrictive cabaret laws. His and the efforts of his comrades opened new opportunities for jazz musicians in NYC and the work continues.
A highly trained world-class musician in the classical sense of it's best meaning, Benny Powell remained committed to his music; always growing, learning, expanding his knowledge by teaching, mentoring, composing and collaborating. We last spoke in late 2009 about my wish to record a great song he had composed that I love. Benny made a difference with his life through sharing his music and his irrepressible gift of inspiration with countless musicians and music lovers throughout the world, Benny Powell will surely be missed. Well-done Benny! RIP.

On Face Book After One Year

For me FB is an important tool, for networking, marketing and connecting individuals with diverse backgrounds. It is among the purest forms of open democratic expression available to people world-wide except for a few autocratic regimes intent on limiting political discourse and artistic expression deemed subversive to the State's interest. As with any governing entity rules of conduct and regulations need to apply to protect individual rights and preserve the integrity of the system for every ones' benefit.After going on-line as a Facebooker a year ago. I can say the experience
has been mostly positive. It's not perfect by any means but as a social media outlet its power for the good and creating a more global and humane environment is a blessing we can ill afford to take for granted or abuse.Now, I'm off my soapbox and "gone fishing". Enjoy!

Win-Win Situation for Fisk Jubilees and Carnegie Hall’s Community Sing

By Dennis Day
©D-Day Media Group, Inc.

“In the Fisk Jubilee Singers, America has produced the perfectest flower of the ages. I wish it were a foreign product, so that she (America) could lavish money on them and go properly crazy over them.”
- Mark Twain, American Humorist


The Community Sing with the Fisk Jubilee Singers from Nashville, Tennessee, sponsored by Carnegie Hall and held at Aarron Davis Hall on the pristine campus of City College, was a resounding success Tuesday evening, May 18. Despite a grey drizzly evening, a large, racially diverse audience turned out to hear the renowned Jubilee Singers and was charmed by 17 bright-eyed African-American singer-scholars. The Fisk Jubilee Singers, , a group Mark Twain once associated with a choir of angels, carry on a rich American tradition of more than 140 years, singing “slave songs,” known today as spirituals. The original Jubilee Singers introduced these beautiful songs to the world in 1871 and were instrumental in spreading and preserving this rich American musical tradition. In the late 19th century, they broke racial barriers in the U.S. and abroad, even performing before Europe’s royalty.

If audience response is any indication of what the future portends for Fisk University and its storied Jubilee Singers’ hallowed tradition, this week’s performance supplied ample assurance that the historically Black university’s prospect for once again becoming a premier destination among the best and brightest students is not a pipe dream. Vastly expanded opportunities for African Americans during in the post-Civil Rights Movement era coupled with some progress in enforcing equal educational opportunity and affirmative action policies pose ongoing competitive challenges for the private, once-elite baccalaureate-level university as it seeks to attract gifted faculty and students. In recent years Fisk has been plagued with dwindling enrollment and allegations of financial mis-management. A lawsuit enjoining the University not to sell highly valued pieces of its vaunted Alfred Stieglitz art collection – bequeathed by Georgia O’Keefe – in an effort to remain solvent has wound its way through the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Despite these challenges, Fisk remains a beacon of hope for today’s generation of mostly young African Americans seeking a solid liberal arts education from an institution that once held the distinction of producing more Black PhDs in natural science than any other American university. In fact, until the mid 20th century nearly half of all African-American physicians and dentists were graduates of Fisk. An unpublished survey conducted by D-Day Media Group in 2007 found that Fisk graduates have served for more cumulative years in governmental leadership and legislative positions, both elected and appointed, than graduates from any other school except Harvard, Yale, Howard, and Princeton.

The nation’s first African-American Solicitor General, Wade McCree, was a Fisk alumnus and the late Judge Constance Baker Motely matriculated at Fisk and served as U.S Federal District Court Magistrate from 1982 to 2005. From 1942 until his retirement in 1970, U.S. Congressman William Dawson (D) of Chicago was a powerful chairman of several committees. Congressman and leading Civil Rights figure John Lewis (D) of Georgia has represented that state’s Fifth Congressional District since 1987, while Alcee L.Hastings (D) has served Florida’s 23rd District. Fisk’s current president, the honorable Hazel O’Leary, Esq. served as Secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency under former president Bill Clinton. And Clinton’s chairperson of the One America Initiative on Race was the late historian Dr. John Hope Franklin, former Professor Emeritus at Duke University and one of Fisk’s most notable alumni. Together, these leaders’ extensive terms total well over 100 years of national service.

The Fisk roster of illustrious alumni and professors is impressive by any academic measure. The list includes Dr. W.E.B Du Bois, regarded by many as one of the 20th century’s leading intellectuals and social philosophers, and Dr. Charles S. Johnson, an African-American social scientist largely credited with having helped advance research on African Americans and the modern school of social science methodology. Johnson also became president of Fisk. Other notable teachers were Japanese-American sociologist Dr. J. Masuoka, and four powerful influences of the Harlem Renaissance: Writer and poet Arna Bontemps; James Weldon Johnson, who served as Adam K. Spence Chair of Creative Writing; Arthur Schomberg, Curator of Black Literature; and artist Aaron Douglass. Contemporary notable figures who share the Fisk experience include Judith Jamison, director of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company; renowned poet Nikki Giovanni, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author-historian alumnus Daniel Levering Lewis.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have made immense contributions to our nation’s welfare and deserve wide recognition. Fisk University stands at the vanguard of those great institutions. If Fisk is to thrive, administrators, trustees, faculty, students, and alumni must summon their best angels and wisely employ all necessary human and capitol resources needed to sustain Fisk’s academic reputation and status as a top-tier liberal arts postsecondary institution.

The Carnegie Hall/Fisk Jubilee Communiy Sing template is simple and powerful. Director Paul Kwame provides the audience with a brief historical outline of the University’s origins during the U.S. period of Reconstruction and shares vignettes about Fisk’s struggle to independently establish the first permanent edifice erected for the education of Blacks in the South – Jubilee Hall, now a national historic landmark. He then rehearses each choral section; soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. After a couple of trial run-throughs, the Jubilee Singers perform a version of the song being taught to the audience. The audience has now been gracefully molded into a newly minted chorus and is cued by Director Kwami to sing along with the legendary Singers. The effect is a profound communal experience that is at once powerful, inclusive, self-affirming, and educational – a beautiful mosaic of ethnic and cultural diversity.

Fisk and Carnegie Hall, or some other viable business, partner should consider expanding this concept nationwide. The Carnegie Hall/Fisk Jubilee Community Sing Partnership offers an important forum for reconnecting Fisk’s remarkable narrative to ordinary Americans in cities, villages, and hamlets throughout the nation. By introducing entire communities of contemporary Americans to a slice of authentic American culture as introduced, performed, and perfected by people of African descent, these mini audience-participation concerts would afford students and families an invaluable opportunity for lessons about cultural history that become exercises in democracy, requiring common goals, leadership, cooperation, participation, and execution. The experience is a rare and precious one, unlike any other.

With diminished support for the arts, both Fisk and a partnering arts organization could generate needed revenue from the sale of DVDs, CDs, and related paraphalia. The biggest most enduring sale being one’s bragging rights when captured on video, documenting that “I once sang with the Fisk Jubilee Singers!”

Refections on Stevie Wonder: the Age of Innocence

Happy Birthday Steveland Morris! In this photo taken at Harlem’s Hue Man Bookstore, I joked with Stevie about his annual summer visits to my old neighborhood in East Chicago, IN where his grandparents lived and his mom was raised.

My sister, a talented singer in her own right, along with her Our Gang-motley crew from the "hood" would tag along wherever Little Stevie and his escorts would roam, like good little groupies savoring his spontaneous bursts into song, coaxing the “Boy Wonder” to sing and play his harmonica. More often than not those assisting him, usually his cousins, former baby sitters, or neighbors would allow this extraordinarily gifted child freedom to dazzle his young and older admirers with a selection or two.

In our neighborhood, we all knew the little blind Morris grandchild visiting from near Detroit was special. Stevie’s impromptu mini-concerts usually took place near his grandparents’ home and family business, the Morris Liquor Store at 138th and Alexander Avenue, or on the bustling green and playground of Smith Park that served as a sort of Village Square near the Carver Public Swimming Pool. This phase of Stevie’s emergence as an artist predates his rise to fame with his first huge hit record Fingertips, Part 1.

When Stevie visited the “hood” back in the day, it was like watching the Pied Piper, only in real time. Instead of leading rats to the river, boys and girls trailed Little Stevie during the humid hazy days of Lake Michigan summers, marveling at his talent, waiving in the musical afterglow of pure soulful genius. The boy Wonder’s entourage often lingered for one last song into the evening, before the street lights came on and happy kids from a more innocent time excitedly returned home, sharing the story of their unforgettable musical experience that day.

I was privileged to have been part of Stevie’s marches in Washington DC, during his successful campaign to make Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday a national holiday. If our paths should cross again, I’d ask him whether his mom or grandparents allowed him to go swimming in the neighborhood public swimming pool located a block from his grandparents’ home and business. The pool opened its doors in the 1940s, named in honor of George Washington Carver the great African- American scientist, who personally attended the ribbon cutting ceremony. The Carver Swimming Pool was built to preserve racially segregated neighborhoods and recreational activities in East Chicago, a town known as a melting pot of ethnic backgrounds. For nearly 70 years, Carver Pool was a source of community pride and summer joy and for generations of largely black and Puerta Rican youth. The swimming pool has long since been demolished and the rust belt neighborhood Stevie and I fondly recall is nearly a ghost town as a result of the region’s decline as a steel-producing economic engine. What will never fade are our sweet memories of youth and the joy one little blind kid shared annually with those of us “living in the city.” Happy 60th birthday Stevie, we love you!