The history of a noble race, running roughshod over bondage, obstacles and time eternal. Fearless, proud and infinitely hopeful, that is the essence of our heritage. In honoring Black America we celebrate the rebirth of the nation’s most maligned ethnic group.

We celebrate the present by expounding on our achievements and reliving great moments from the past. We celebrate our ancestors who toiled in the midday sun, under the sweltering heat of oppression. Exhausted, their hands covered with abrasions from the cotton’s prickly thorns, they refused to buckle under the indignation, creating courage of the highest magnitude.

We celebrate the legacy of Marcus Garvey, Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Dubois, crying out against injustice. We celebrate the NAACP, National Urban League and Southern Christian Leadership Conference in their crusade to remove the insufferable stench of racism gone awry.

We celebrate the strength of Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and Ida Wells-Barnett, women of unrelenting persistence, rebelling against the savagery of hate and inhumanity.

We celebrate the uprisings of Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey in their ill-fated attempt at freedom. So strong were these men in their quest for freedom, they preferred death to enslavement. We celebrate the Civil, Political and Equal rights so long denied and withheld. We celebrate our triumphs, disasters and heritage.

We celebrate the political activism of Jesse Jackson, Fannie Lou Hamer and the charismatic Adam Clayton Powell, eloquent strategists demanding the granting of voting rights to every adult, young and old. Continue at  http://www.blackstate.com