bangaindigenous: We Shall Overcome!Time for Third Worl...

We Shall Overcome!Time for Third World including South Asia to Kill Manusmriti and Apartheid Hegemonies!My Black Untouchable Father Pulin Babu also had a DREAM that WE All WOULD BE LIBERATED, EMPOWERED AND EQUAL Some Day!He Could Not Prove Himself Neither a Martin Luther King Nor a BARRACK OBAMA. Are the DREAMS of our Ancestors DEAD for Ever? Just Awaken, Educate and Organise!Then Mobilise RESSISTANCE GALAXYWIDE! The Thundering Spring from Americas would Visit Asia Some day or other day! HOW Long we would remain Predestined to be STARVED, DISPLACED and KILLED?

Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 102

Palash Biswas

Bush On Transition Of Office

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=zfJc9Sjw4DU

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NEW: Obama claims Indiana, 349-163 electoral vote advantage

Barack Obama scores wins with women, African-Americans, young voters

Obama to voters: "Change has come to America"

Obama will be working with heavily Democratic Congress

We Shall Overcome!Time for Third World including South Asia to Kill Manusmriti and Apartheid Hegemonies!My Black Untouchable Father Pulin Babu also had a DREAM that WE All WOULD BE LIBERATED, EMPOWERED AND EQUAL Some Day!He Could Not Prove Himself Neither a Martin Luther King Nor a BARRACK OBAMA. Are the DREAMS of our Ancestors DEAD for Ever? Just Awaken, Educate and Organise, The Thundering Spring from Americas would Visit Asia Some day or other day! HOW Long we would remain Predestined to be STARVED, DISPLACED and KILLED?

Chandrayaan takes pictures of moon!

The Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) on board Chandrayaan-1 has started taking pictures of the moon. On Tuesday evening, when the spacecraft was in the lunar transfer orbit, it photographed the crescent moon from a distance of some 2.5 lakh km.

The TMC took pictures of the earth when it was made operational on October 29. The pictures showed the northern and southern coasts of Australia.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) performed the fifth and final orbit-raising manoeuvre of Chandrayaan-1 early Tuesday morning, which put the spacecraft in the lunar transfer orbit. In the evening, the TMC, one of its 11 scientific instruments, took images of the moon.

M. Annadurai, Project Director, Chandrayaan-1, said: “The pictures were taken when the spacecraft was more than 2.5 lakh km away from the moon. We did again the entire chain of tests of the 11 instruments, data handling, data storage, downlinking, radio frequency and so on.”

Chandrayaan-1 will reach the moon’s vicinity on November 8. According to ISRO’s present plans, the spacecraft will be lowered into its final orbit on November 15, in which it will go round the moon at an altitude of 100 km.

I saw him haunted lifelong as the DREAM of Liberation continued to boil within him. As a child I was fortunate enough to share his dreams! But as soon as I developed my vision and committed myself to a certain IDEOLOGY alienated from our Black Untouchable Aboriginal Indigenous social fabrics, we were separarted as two islands. I could never help him in his lifelong struggle to bring a CHANGE in our people`s life and I could never realise this in his lifetime. But I always felt the POWER and the Inspiration of the DREAM! It was not so loud as I SHALL OVERCOME! Rather we used to sing this Black Song to liberate India! Liberation was not to come in our way as we lost our roots in Negroid Anarya Dravid Indigenous Life and Heritage. We were never so Black to identify with the Blacks and untouchables worldwide. so we let the KILLING Machine go on! So, we still wait for a CHANGE so Visulised by our Parents and ancestors! The CHANGE rather has come from a land well known for the centre of Global ruling Class, Global hegemony and Global Fascism, Manusmriti, Aparteid, Zionism, Corporate Imperialism, Capitalism, Star Wars, Nuclear Biological Chemical Warfare! It was possible just because our Brothers and Sisters in United States of America never forgot the DREAM!

We always chanted the Song: We SHALL OVERCOME!

BUT WE NEVER BELIEVE THAT WE COULD BRING THE CHANGE! THUS THUNDERING SPRING FAILED IN OUR HEART!

I saw my father struck by CANCER in his Spinal Chord and brething last, DREAMING all the Time! He could Visualise the CHANGE which our generation could not. rather we contributed to strengthen the chains of Enslavement being the tools and parts of the Brahaminical syatem in India!

My Father and his people were ejected from their Home Land in East Bengal just because they Elected DR Bhimrao Ambedkar to the Constitution Assembelly. They were deprived of Citizenship, Reservation, political representation, Mother Tongue, cultural identity, history and geography , civil and human rights!

My father led a Movement in SILIGURI Bengal when the Brahmin leaders tried to convert our Agrarian Bengali outcaste Refugges into TEA GARDEN Coolies. He continued the fight in ranaghta Coopers Camp and entire bengal until he was sent to Orissa, in CHARBETIA Refugee camp near Cuttak. He was once agian the leader of all agitation and was dumped into the Jungles of Nainital Terai, famous to be linked with GIM CORBETT in 1954. He led the Bengali refugees in a strong movement for rehabilitation in 1956 before my birth. My Village Basantipur was established after that movement where I was Born and my mother Basanti Devi never left the village, inhibited by my father`s lifelong comrades!

In 1958, My father and his comrades led the famous DHIMRI BLOCK peasant`s insurrection inspired by TELENGANA Uprising! They not only faced unprecedented STATE and MILITARY Repression, but they had to bear with the Betrayal by the COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA undivided and led by Comrade PC Joshi, the Brahmin General secretary.

He went to Riot Torn Assam to stand with his people in 1960 and was ousted from the party. I was growing up. He would take me with him in every local tour however important or tedious or dangereous. He wanted to train me in Mobilising Affairs! I miserably failed as I tended to be much more Academic with systematic education. I was studious but he studied life. He was involved with the social fabrics. I saw him to interact with the common masses, all Black, Untouchable, indigenous castes and communities, minorities as well as the topmost Political leaders in India including all the Prime Ministers of India since pandit Jawahar lal Nehru. He dared to block Lucknow Charbagh RLY Station for more than two days while a Bengali chief Minister Sucheta Kriplani was in office asnd eventually who was pulled back due to the refugee movement. I also felt his hurt feelings while he used to visit Barabanki or Meerut during riots to stand with the minorities. But I never could realise how the SIKHS in Terai considered him as the Gandhi of Terai as I hated gandhi as well as Gandhians most. Since I was a Marxist since Schooldays, I never believed his version of Indigenous Indian history and read Ambedkar and Jogendra Nath manadal along with the history of subaltern social movement very late, yes, after the demise of my father.

Yes, my friend, we happen the poor fellows who never understand the social activism of our parents! Who never understand the Dreams of our Ancestors!

I never know whether BARRACK OBAM is enough Black for the DREAM of Martin Luther King. I never know whether he would be able to deal with the Zionist White HOUSE, PENTAGON, World Bank, IMF, WTO, UN, NASA ,GATT or CIA, but he has proved himself a Man who inspired the Black Untouchables, Indigenous, aboriginan communities and Minorities to believe that NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE and WE CAN! He made us believe that the DREAMS of our parents and anchestors are never dead. It is ALIVE and it is within our Heart. Just we have to feel it and activate our real Identity for Awakening, Education, Organisation and Movement for the CHANGE!

Latin American leaders expressed optimism Wednesday that Barack Obama's election to the presidency of the United States would lead to better relations.

Veneuzelan President Hugo Chavez says the election of "an African descendent" is historic.

1 of 2 "It is a message of hope," said Jorge Taiana, Argentina's minister of foreign affairs.

"A message of hope and evidence that a cycle in the world is closing, a cycle dominated by a neoliberal ideology and by a policy of unilateralism and imposition of its positions."

Bolivian President Evo Morales, who recently stopped cooperating with U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents working to stem the flow of cocaine northward, called Obama's triumph "historic."

"In the name of the government of Bolivia, I congratulate him," he said about Obama's victory.

"It is historic. My great desire is that the new government end the blockade of Cuba and withdraw its troops from other countries, and I hope that relations with the United States improve."

In Venezuela, the foreign ministry of the government of President Hugo Chavez congratulated Obama and called for the establishment of new relations between the two countries.

"The historic election of an African descendent to lead the most powerful nation in the world is the symptom that the change that has been gestating from the south of the Americas could be knocking at the doors of the United States," Chavez said, referring to the hemisphere's increased number of leftist governments.

The Colombian government, which has been the Bush administration's closest ally in Latin America, also congratulated Obama and reiterated its readiness to continue working on matters of mutual interest to strengthen ties between the two countries.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim indicated that, despite good relations with the United States, he hopes "that the change in government results in an easing in relations with Latin America, especially with Venezuela and Cuba."

Obama's election redraws America's electoral divide

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- Barack Obama did more than thump John McCain in the Electoral College tally; he also handily won the popular vote and redrew the great divide between red states and blue states.

Barack Obama addresses a crowd of more than 200,000 at Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois.

1 of 3 more photos » Riding a Democratic tide that bolstered the party's presence in both houses of Congress, Obama snared about 63 million votes to McCain's 55.8 million, according to totals early Wednesday.

According to exit polls, Obama crushed McCain among women voters (56 percent to 43 percent); voters under 30 (66 percent to 32 percent); African-American voters (95 percent to 4 percent); Latino voters (66 percent to 32 percent); first-time voters (68 percent to 31 percent); and voters making less than $100,000 a year (55 percent to 43 percent).

"I think this is the passing of an old order," CNN senior political analyst David Gergen said as the results rolled in Tuesday night and the outcome became increasingly evident. Read what analysts had to say about the victory »

"I think what we see ... is a new coalition, a new order emerging. It isn't quite there, but with Barack Obama, for the first time, it's won. It is the Latino vote we just heard about. It is the bigger black vote that came out. Very importantly, it's the youth vote, the 18-to-29-year-old," said the Harvard University professor and former presidential adviser. Watch Obama pay tribute to McCain »

Early voting totals in the East suggested things would go traditionally, with McCain taking most of the Southeast, Obama most of the Northeast.

But then things quickly changed, as the senator from Illinois struck -- first in Pennsylvania and then in the Midwest state of Ohio, states McCain had to win in his bid for the Oval Office. Obama then delivered an uppercut in Virginia, a state that had not voted for a Democratic president since 1964. See your state's county-by-county totals

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As polls closed from East to West, Obama kept hammering McCain, as he snatched away Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada -- states that had been in President Bush's column in 2004.

And Wednesday morning, Obama added Indiana to the list of states he'd turned from red to blue. Indiana hadn't voted for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

(Missouri and North Carolina were still counting votes Wednesday, but it appeared one or two of them could become blue-state converts as well.)

With McCain on the ropes, an Obama victory in Florida sounded the death knell. What's next for Illinois and Delaware? »

When Indiana fell into Obama's column Wednesday morning, he had a 349-163 lead over his rival in electoral votes, with only 26 undecided.

As he claimed victory Tuesday night, Obama told supporters, "change has come to America."

"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America -- I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you -- we as a people will get there," Obama said in Chicago before an estimated crowd of up to 240,000 people.

With Obama's win, he becomes the first African-American to win the White House.

McCain pledged Tuesday night to help Obama lead. Watch more on the balance of power »

"Today, I was a candidate for the highest office in the country I love so much, and tonight, I remain her servant," McCain said.

The senator from Arizona called Obama to congratulate him, and Obama told him that he was eager to sit down and talk about how the two of them can work together.

Obama will also be working with a heavily Democratic Congress. Democrats picked up Senate seats in New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina and Virginia, among others. Read about the Senate races

But Obama pledged to work across party lines and listen to the 46 percent of voters who chose McCain.

"While the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress," Obama said.

"To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn -- I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president, too," he said. Watch Obama tell voters "all things are possible" »

And he recited the words of Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican in White House, to call for unity.

"As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, 'We are not enemies, but friends ... though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection,'" Obama said. Watch a discussion of what Obama should do first »

Supporters in Chicago cheering, "Yes, we can," were met with cries of "Yes, we did."

Bush also called Obama to offer his congratulations.

The president told Obama he was about to begin one of the great journeys of his life, and invited him to the White House as soon as it could be arranged, according to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

More than 1,000 people gathered outside the White House, chanting "Obama, Obama!"

Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama's former rival for the Democratic nomination, said in a statement that "we are celebrating an historic victory for the American people." iReport.com: Share your Election Day reaction with CNN

"This was a long and hard fought campaign, but the result was well worth the wait. Together, under the leadership of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress, we will chart a better course to build a new economy and rebuild our leadership in the world."

Sen. Edward Kennedy said Americans "spoke loud and clear" in electing Obama.

"They understood his vision of a fairer and more just America and embraced it. They heard his call for a new generation of Americans to participate in government and were inspired. They believed that change is possible and voted to be part of America's future," the Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement.

Voters expressed excitement and pride in their country after casting their ballots in the historic election. Poll workers reported high turnout across many parts of the country, and some voters waited hours to cast their ballots. Read about election problems

Tuesday marked the end of the longest presidential campaign season in U.S. history -- 21 months.

Obama, 47, will begin his transition to the White House. He will be sworn in as the 44th president on January 20.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/05/election.president/index.html

We Shall Overcome
The black church has been at the forefront of black leadership and social protest in America. In fact, Abyssinian Baptist Church was founded out of protest.

Noah Adams traces the history of the civil rights song, "We Shall Overcome." It began as a folk work song, became a hymn, and then was used politically for the first time on the picket lines of the tobacco workers' strike in South Carolina in 1945. In the early 1960s, it became an inspirational force in the civil rights struggle. We hear from Pete Seeger, Guy and Candi Carawan of the Highlander Center, and Dr. Bernice Johnson-Reagon, one of the founding members of the Freedom Singers.

We Shall Overcome

Lyrics derived from Charles Tindley's gospel song "I'll Overcome Some Day" (1900), and opening and closing melody from the 19th-century spiritual "No More Auction Block for Me" (a song that dates to before the Civil War). According to Professor Donnell King of Pellissippi State Technical Community College (in Knoxville, Tenn.), "We Shall Overcome" was adapted from these gospel songs by "Guy Carawan, Candy Carawan, and a couple of other people associated with the Highlander Research and Education Center, currently located near Knoxville, Tennessee. I have in my possession copies of the lyrics that include a brief history of the song, and a notation that royalties from the song go to support the Highlander Center."

1.
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day

CHORUS:
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome some day

2.
We'll walk hand in hand
We'll walk hand in hand
We'll walk hand in hand some day

CHORUS

3.
We shall all be free
We shall all be free
We shall all be free some day

CHORUS

4.
We are not afraid
We are not afraid
We are not afraid some day

CHORUS

5.
We are not alone
We are not alone
We are not alone some day

CHORUS

6.
The whole wide world around
The whole wide world around
The whole wide world around some day

CHORUS

7.
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day

CHORUS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOURCES:
Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans: A History, Second Edition (Norton, 1971): 546-47, 159-60.
The International Lyrics Server. <http://www.lyrics.ch/query/normal?artist=&album=&song=We+Shall+Overcome>. March 1998.
Donnell King, email message, 29 Nov. 1999.

Meanwhile, Indian Ruling Brahaminical Hegemony led by Superslave DR Manmohan Singh and Worldbank Chettiar Gangsters continue to FEED the Miney Machine our Blood, Flesh and Bones as we never understand the subversion, divide and rule game of Manusmriti based Brahminism, the other face of the APartheid COIN! Continuing the consultation process with India Inc, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to meet corporate veterans including Keshub Ma
hindra, N Vaghul and Ashok S Ganguly tomorrow to seek their views on the current crisis and also the steps that may be taken to neutralise the impact of the global meltdown on the country.

Singh has already met some captains of Indian industry earlier this week and assured them that the government will take steps to improve liquidity and promote growth.

The Prime Minister has now called a meeting of a smaller group comprising doyens of the Indian corporate world to discuss the current economic scenario in the backdrop of the financial crisis in the US and European countries.

Keshub Mahindra, who will be attending the meeting, is chairman of automobile major Mahindra and Mahindra and had served on various government committees including the Sachar Commission on Company Law and MRTP and Central Advisory Council of Industries.

Veteran banker N Vaghul, who has been associated with the financial sector for long years, is currently chairman of ICICI Bank.

ICI India Chairman Ashok Ganguly was chairman of the erstwhile Hindustan Lever and is currently a member of the Investment Commission.

Meanwhile, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Virmani held a meeting with chief financial officers (CFOs) of various companies to take stock of the current credit crunch and work out steps to deal with the problem.

Singh, while addressing India Inc, had said: "We recognise that the situation is abnormal and we need to be constantly on the alert. The situation is being watched on a day-to-day basis and more steps will be taken if required."

On the other hand, Indian Ruling Class has to cheer for something! Bobby Jindal has to wait for another Five Years with enhanced hope due to the CHANGE!But Eighty Nine Percent NRIs voted for Barrack Obama despite intense Black hatred just to have a slice of the changing Future after the demise of Ambushed War Criminal BUSH, the mastermind of Global Corporate Zionist Mass Destruction! It has already began!Indian-American Sonal Shah, an eminent economist who heads Google’s philanthropic arm, has been appointed an advisory board member by US President-elect Barack Obama to assist his team in smooth transition of power. 40-year-old Shah is part of a panel comprising individuals with significant private and public sector experience who will offer their expertise in their respective fields to Obama’s transition team, US media reported on Thursday.

She along with other members of the advisory board will help the transition team headed by former White House chief of staff John Podesta, longtime Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, and Pete Rouse, the President-elect’s Senate chief of staff.

Shah, who was named the ‘Person of the Year 2003’ by ‘India Abroad’ publication, currently works for Google.org on their Global Development team, where she is engaged in defining their global development strategy and promoting the firm’s philanthropy work.

Prior to joining Google, she was Vice President at Goldman, Sachs and Co. and developed and implemented its environmental strategy. She has also served as the Associate Director for Economic and National Security Policy at the Centre for American Progress, where she worked on trade, outsourcing and post-conflict reconstruction issues.

In the past, she also worked with the Department of Treasury on various economic issues and regions of the world.

Shah is the co-founder of the US-based non-profit organisation Indicorps which offers one-year fellowships for Indian-origin Americans to work on specific development projects in India.

Her father moved from Gujarat to New York in 1970 and she along with her sister and mother joined him in 1972. She also has a brother.

World stock markets tumbled on Thursday, following Wall Street lower as U.S. presidential election euphoria gave way to worries about the
global economy and company profits. Japan's Nikkei stock average retreated 6.5 percent to 8,899.14, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index lost 7.1 percent to 13,790.04. South Korea's benchmark Kospi index broke a five-session winning streak to dive 7.6 percent. Markets in Singapore, Australia and mainland China also dropped sharply.

European stocks got off to a weak start, with benchmarks in Germany, Britain and France down about 3 percent. The pullback was in line with weakness on Wall Street, where investor optimism surrounding the election of Democrat Barack Obama as president quickly evaporated in the face of gloomy economic news.

The U.S. service sector, the largest component of America's gross domestic product, contracted sharply in October as new orders and employment fell. Closer to home, a series of profit warnings from major companies such as Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. and Isuzu Motors Ltd. and Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. yanked the markets back to the reality of depressed economic conditions. After seeing some strong gains in recent days, many investors moved to take profits.

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Obama's election recalls so much pain, so recent

NEW YORK (AP): At this astonishing moment, let us pause to reflect: Just 40 years ago, the kind of marriage that brought Barack Obama into the world _ one between a black man and a white woman _ was illegal in 16 states.

We have come such a long way, in so very little time.

Not all the way, of course. There is still racism in America, as we are reminded again and again _ most recently, during Obama's campaign itself (``I'm afraid if he wins, the blacks will take over,'' one woman told a camera crew at an Ohio rally for John McCain).

But there was a time when blacks had to defer to white drivers at intersections in some states; when by law, circuses in Louisiana had to maintain separate entrances and ticket offices for the races; when the Lonestar Restaurants Association of Dallas posted signs that read, ``No Dogs Negroes Mexicans.''

And it is all within living memory.

Segregation laws extended from the 19th century until the mid 1960s. It wasn't just the South; as recently as 1949, 29 states outlawed intermarriage. The toughest penalties _ 10 years in prison _ were levied in Indiana and the Dakotas.

And it wasn't just the state and local governments. Until 1948, the U.S. military was segregated. Until the last year of World War II, the U.S. Navy did not commission a single black officer. By the end of the war, there were just 58 black ensigns or lieutenants out of 160,000 black sailors.

Blatant discrimination was everywhere. In 1948, dancer Josephine Baker and her French husband went to 36 hotels in New York City before finding one where they could stay.

And racist violence was nearly as widespread. The Tuskegee Institute counted the lynchings: Between 1882 and 1964, 3,446 blacks were killed in 36 states.

But it was the South where the blood flowed freely, where 4-year-old Emmett Till was beaten beyond recognition because he whistled at a white woman in 1955, where Sgt. Isaac Woodard, returning from the war in 1946, was arrested by a police chief for disrespecting a bus driver _ and then was blinded by a blackjack's blows. The chief was acquitted in 28 minutes.

It was the South that perfected myriad ways to bar blacks from voting. Intimidation usually worked: The best way to keep a black person from voting _ and here, Theodore Bilbo used an infinitely more offensive word for black person _ was ``to see him the night before election.'' Bilbo parlayed such tactics into eight years as Mississippi's governor and 12 years in the U.S. Senate, ending in 1947.

If that didn't succeed, whites-only primaries, poll taxes and literacy tests did the trick _ the last requiring would-be voters to recite the state or national constitutions from memory, or translate nonsensical Latin phrases like ``Itar, E. Quar Tum Enteria Ventricular'' (whites were never asked such questions).

It worked for a long while. In 1960, only 22,000 Mississippi blacks were registered to vote out of a population of 915,743. Then came the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and, by 1966, 175,000 Mississippi blacks were registered. By 2008, it was believed that blacks were as likely to be registered voters as whites.

It wasn't enough to turn that red state blue on Tuesday. But across the country, blacks whose parents and grandparents were once denied the franchise went to the polls in enormous numbers.

And overwhelmingly, they voted for the first black president of the United States.

Obama begins assembling team

WASHINGTON (AP): President-elect Barack Obama barely had time to savour his victory before he began filling out his new administration and getting a sobering look at some of the daunting problems he will inherit when he takes office in just 10 weeks.

As president-elect, Obama begins receiving highly classified briefings from top intelligence officials on Thursday.

Already, Russia was threatening to put missiles alongside U.S.-ally Poland if President George W. Bush's plan for a missile defence shield in Europe is not repealed. In Afghanistan, U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai demanded that Obama ``put an end to civilian casualties'' by changing U.S. tactics to avoid airstrikes in the hunt for militants.

Obama on Tuesday night made history by being elected the first black U.S. president. But times are bleak: the country is in the grips of its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s and is fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Emanuel as new White House chief of staff?

Obama got a quick start with the transition Wednesday, calling on Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a fellow Illinois politician, to serve as White House chief of staff.

While several Democrats confirmed that Emanuel had been offered the job, it was not clear he had accepted. But rejection would amount to an unlikely public snub of the new president-elect swept toward power in an electoral college landslide.

Obama's staff said he would address the media by the end of the week, but Cabinet announcements were not planned that soon.

With hundreds of jobs to fill before his Jan. 20 inauguration, Obama and his transition team confronted a formidable task complicated by his anti-lobbyist campaign rhetoric.

The official campaign Web Site said no political appointees would be permitted to work on ``regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration.''

Because they often have prior experience in government or politics, lobbyists have routinely filled out the list of potential appointees for past presidents of both parties.

In offering the post of White House chief of staff to Emanuel, Obama turned to a fellow Chicago politician with a far different style from his own, a man known for his bluntness as well as his single-minded determination.

Emanuel was a political and policy aide in Bill Clinton's White House. Leaving that, he turned to investment banking, then won a Chicago-area House seat six years ago. In Congress, he moved quickly into the Democratic leadership. As chairman of the Democratic campaign committee in 2006, he played an instrumental role in restoring his party to power after 12 years in the minority.

Emanuel maintained neutrality during the long primary battle between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, not surprising given his long-standing ties to the former first lady and his Illinois connections with Obama.

Cabinet appointments

The day after the election there already was jockeying for Cabinet appointments.

Several Democrats said Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who won a new six-year term on Tuesday, was angling for secretary of state. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss any private conversations.

Kerry's spokeswoman, Brigid O'Rourke, disputed the reports.

In light of the financial crisis, Obama is expected to quickly name members of his economic team. Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who served in the Clinton administration, and Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, are among the names being mentioned for Treasury secretary.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has pledged to work with Obama to ensure a smooth transition. He has already set up desks and phone lines at the department where Obama's incoming Treasury team can work between now and the inauguration.

Obama's transition team is headed by John Podesta, who served as chief of staff under former President Bill Clinton; Pete Rouse, who has been Obama's chief of staff in the Senate, and Valerie Jarrett, a friend of the president-elect and campaign adviser.

Several Democrats described a sprawling operation well under way. Officials had kept deliberations under wraps to avoid the appearance of overconfidence before the election.

They said the group was stocked with longtime associates of Obama, as well as veterans of Clinton's White House.

In addition to the many decisions he faces in getting the Obama administration up and running, he has personal decisions to make, too. Such as when to move his family to Washington and where his 10- and 7-year-old daughters will go to school.

SBI cuts PLR by 0.75 per cent, more banks to follow suit

Loans from premier public sector lender, State Bank of India, will be cheaper with the bank deciding to cut its Prime Lending Rate (PLR) by 0.75 per cent from Monday. Accordingly SBI's PLR will stand reduced to 13 per cent from the present 13.75 per cent, bank's Chairman O P Bhatt said on Thursday.

SBI being the largest lender, more banks are expected to follow suit by this week-end.

Several public sector banks such as Punjab National Bank, Union Bank, UCO Bank and Syndicate Bank, have already effected a cut in their PLRs.

On Tuesday, Finance Minister P Chidambaram met heads of PSU banks following which bankers had promised to cut their lending rates by up to 0.75 per cent.

On Wednesday, Finance Secretary Arun Ramanathan also got assurance from private sector and foreign banks that they would consider an interest rate cut in a fortnight.

The earlier hardening

Will US have its first woman SG, that's too an Indian?
India-born Preeta Bansal, a Harvard-educated lawyer who was part of Barack Obama's dazzling team of advisers during his election campaign, is being seen as a potential candidate for the office of the Solicitor General, a post yet to be filled by a woman in US.

42-year-old Bansal, who has advised the President-elect on foreign policy and judiciary matters, is among possible appointees to the post, 'The Am Law Daily' reported citing some unnamed advisers of the Obama campaign.

"The Solicitor General is the only position where the statute requires that the officer be learned in the law," it quoted O'Melveny and Myers's Walter Dellinger as saying.

Bansal, a product of Harvard Law School and a partner at the international law firm of Skadden Arps, has earlier served as the New York state Solicitor General.

Dellinger said that for the post, experience as a state Solicitor General would be valuable, as would be a record of advocacy before the court, the report said.

Morrison and Foerster partner Beth Brinkmann and Harvard Law school dean and professor Elena Kagan's names have also been attached to the post, which has never been filled by a woman, the report in the daily's online edition said.

Other possibilities, according to 'Legal Times', include Stanford Law School professors Kathleen Sullivan and Pamela Karlan, as well as MetLife litigation counsel Teresa Wynn Roseborough.

Bansal, a member of what an Obama lawyer playfully calls the 'Harvard Law School mafia', was part of Bill Clinton's White House and Justice Department in 1993-96. She was also the first Indian-American to head the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Taliban asks Obama to end war in Afghanistan

Islamabad (PTI): Hoping that a new era of peace will dawn with the election of Barack Obama as the US President, the Taliban has asked the President-elect to change his country's policies towards it and end the war in Afghanistan.

Reacting to Obama's victory in the American polls, top Taliban spokesman Qari Muhammad Yousaf Ahmadi told reporters: "We want to tell the world and the West to pull out their troops from Afghanistan as the (party of US President George W Bush) has lost the race because of their flawed polices."

Another Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said it would be "unwise" if Obama tried to solve the Afghan problem militarily. He said it would be "wrong thinking" if Obama tried to increase US forces in Afghanistan to "make Afghans slaves".

Mujahid pointed out that the Russians too tried to suppress Afghans by deploying thousands of soldiers but could not succeed.

"We are hopeful that Obama will withdraw forces from Afghanistan. The US should try to solve its financial crisis instead of keeping troops in Afghanistan," he said.

Ahmadi said the new President should bring an end to fighting and begin a new era of peace in the world. "The US President should end the continuing era of war and begin a new era of peace," he said.

Asked whether he thought Obama would pull out troops, Ahmadi said: "We do not have much expectations. But despite that we will see. If Obama sends more troops to the war-ravaged country, jehad and resistance will be continued."

Ahmadi said there was neither joy nor sorrow in the Taliban ranks over the election of Obama.

Obama should respect the mandate from the public and spend the taxpayers' money on social welfare and development rather than weapons and war, Pakistani Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said.

Rice off to Mideast as peace deadline looms
Washington (AP): Fighting irrelevance and a ticking clock, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice embarks on yet another Middle East peacemaking trip, hoping to secure fragile Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and leave a viable process for the incoming Obama administration.

With just 77 days left in office, Rice will be making her eighth trip yesterday to Israel and the Palestinian territories since the parties set a year-end goal of reaching a peace deal at last November's US-sponsored peace conference. She will also visit Egypt and Jordan to shore up Arab support for the talks.

Meeting the target date for an agreement is now highly unlikely, especially with political uncertainty in Israel and the lame duck Bush administration's waning influence, but Rice intends to press the two sides to carry on and, if possible, come up with an outline of how they can move ahead after Jan 20.

"We're going to try to put this process in the best possible place going forward so that whomever comes next can formulate their policies, take a look at the process, and possibly use it, take it further," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

"Our focus is going to be on moving the process forward as far as it can be moved forward in a responsible way, while preserving the process," he said. "That has great value."

The Israeli-Palestinian situation is one of several Middle East trouble spots that the Bush administration will bequeath to President-elect Barack Obama. The war in Iraq, Iran's nuclear program and troubles with Syria are among the most troublesome.

Majority in Pakistan 'Obamaistic'
Islamabad (PTI): Despite Barack Hussain Obama's resolve that he would send US troops to Pakistan to hunt down terrorists, citizens here are revelling in the fact that America's President-elect has a Pakistani link that dates back to 1981 and more so because his middle name suggests he is a 'Muslim'.

Obama's Pakistan connection has been widely speculated about in the local and international media since his remark last year that if elected as President, he may send troops to Pakistan to hunt down terrorists. Obama is believed to have visited Pakistan in 1981.

"Mr Obama visited Pakistan in 1981, on the way back from Indonesia, where his mother and half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, were living. He spent about three weeks there.. staying in Karachi with the family of a college friend, Mohammed Hasan Chandoo but also traveling to Hyderabad, in India," a report in the New York Times quoted his campaign manager as saying.

Interest in the 47-year-old first black President of US rose in Pakistan after reports said Obama's mother Ann Dunham had spent five years in the country. Dunham, who died in 1995, was in Pakistan between 1987 and 1992. She was hired as a consultant by the Asian Development Bank and travelled often from Lahore to Gujranwala.

"I have a dream that the damage wrought in the US and other countries will be overturned in the next four years to a great extent. You are black. You are white. Your father is from Kenya. Your mother is from Kansas. You have seen Muslim. You have seen Christian," wrote Soniah Kamal in an e-magazine.

"They called you terrorist because once you crossed streets with a domestic terrorist. They called you socialist because you care about all and not just an elite few. They called you Muslim as if this is a four letter word," she added.

Sensex closes below 10,000 mark
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Reuters
Posted: Nov 06, 2008 at 1624 hrs IST
New Delhi, November 6: The benchmark indices fell 3.8 per cent on Thursday to its lowest close in a week, caught in a broad global sell-off on fears of a deep US recession, while higher-than-expected inflation data added to the pain late on.
Heavyweights Reliance Industries and Infosys Technologies lost heavily, shedding 7.7 per cent and 5.5 per cent respectively, and were major contributors to the losses in the main index.

Top vehicle maker Tata Motors fell 12.2 per cent to 159.15 rupees after it said it was shutting down its commercial vehicle plant in eastern India for three days to avoid a build-up of inventory.

Tata Steel, the world's sixth-largest steel maker fell the most among frontliners. The stock closed 13.7 per cent lower, while aluminium maker Sterlite Industries declined 11.3 per cent on concerns that a global slowdown would lower demand for metals.

"It's going to be pendulum-like trading for sometime," said K.K. Mital, head of portfolio management services at Globe Capital. "Global concerns still remain. Every day we are hearing this guy is cutting production, that guy is cutting jobs ... so people are booking profits."

The 30-share BSE index closed down 3.81 per cent, or 385.79 points, at 9,734.22, its lowest close since Oct. 29.

It had shed as much as 4.8 per cent but in late afternoon trade suddenly trimmed losses to be down just 0.1 per cent at one point on expectations that annual inflation data would show a substantial fall from a week earlier.

But data released 30 minutes before the market closed showed wholesale price inflation rose 10.72 per cent in the 12 months to Oct. 25, marginally above the previous week's annual rise of 10.68 per cent and outpacing market expectations for around 10.5 per cent.

The main index had fallen 4.81 per cent on Wednesday to 10,120.01, snapping a five-day winning run after a surge that had lifted the market more than 40 per cent off a three-year low hit on Oct. 27. It is down about 52 per cent in 2008.

"When you are in the grip of full-fledged bear market, you see sharp rallies. But that does not mean that things have turned around," said Daljeet Kohli, head of research at Emkay Global Financial.

"Markets work on both fundamentals and sentiments. Sentiments have improved after all the measures taken, but fundamentals have not changed," he said referring to liquidity-boosting measures taken by central banks in many countries.

Citigroup said corporate India had posted its lowest earnings growth in four years in the September quarter, as high interest rates and input costs hit demand, and Kohli said the current quarter could be even worse as firms could not raise prices.

Data showed foreign funds were net sellers of $23 million of stocks on Tuesday, in a market that had risen 2.8 per cent, after buying nearly $500 million worth shares in the previous two sessions.

All but six stocks in the main index closed in red, while in the broader market there were almost two losers for every one gainer on normal volume of 319 million shares.

The 50-share NSE index closed 3.42 per cent down at 2,892.65.

Terror-funding scanner on two Indian expats
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Express News Service
Posted: Nov 06, 2008 at 0909 hrs IST

Both NRIs had bank accounts in the Gulf and these were being used to channel funds to IM members in Mumbai, the police said. The police have frozen both accounts and issued lookout notices against the two NRIs but refused to name them.

The crime branch said the NRIs opened accounts in a nationalised bank about a decade ago, and absconding IM operative Riyaz Bhatkal kept withdrawing small amounts regularly in the city for terror operations.

The police have identified six other accounts which were allegedly used by IM operatives.

“Of the eight accounts under our scanner, two are in the name of NRIs in the Gulf. These two accounts were opened in a nationalised bank in the late ‘90s, and small amounts of money were deposited and withdrawn from them regularly by Bhatkal in the city. The amounts ranged from Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000 at a time. A total of Rs 27 lakh was in the accounts when we froze both on October 4; we issued the lookout notices a day later,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria.

The Crime Branch has also seized a cheque for Rs 1 lakh in the name of Bhatkal from one of the arrested.

“Riyaz Bhatkal had been given signed blank cheques for the purpose of withdrawing money from both accounts whenever he wanted. We have seized one such cheque for Rs 1 lakh issued in Bhatkal’s name from one of the other arrested accused,” said Maria.

According to crime branch officials, they have so far tracked transactions dating back till 2006 from the two accounts, and investigations are on with regard to matching dates of withdrawals from the accounts to the dates of different blasts.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Terrorfunding-scanner-on-two-Indian-expats/381946/

We Shall Overcome
History of an American Folk Song
By Kim Ruehl, About.com
See More About:civil rights songspete seegerjoan baezafrican-american folk music"We Shall Overcome" became particularly popular in the 1960s, during the Civil Rights movement in America, after Pete Seeger picked it up, adapted it, and taught it to his audiences to sing. However, the song had a half century (or so) to evovle and expand its meaning before Seeger and Joan Baez popularized it during the folk revival.
The melody dates back to before the Civil War, from a song called "No More Auction Block For Me." Originally, the lyrics were "I'll overcome someday," which dates back to a turn-of-the-20th-century song by the Reverend Charles Tindley of Philadelphia.

The song didn't appear on a large scale until 1946, during a labor strike at the American Tobacco Company. One of the women striking that day – Lucille Simmons – began singing slowly, "Deep in my heart I do believe we'll overcome some day."

Zilphia Horton, whose husband was the co-founder of the Highlander Folk School (aka Highlander Research and Education Center), learned the song from Simmons and, a year later, taught it to folk singer Pete Seeger.

The adaptation of the song to its current lyric is often attributed to Pete Seeger, but there is some debate over whether Seeger changed the lyric to "We Shall Overcome," or whether this was the doing of others at the Highlander School. At any rate, Seeger taught the song to other folksingers and, a decade later (1959), the song was brought back to the Highlander School.

Since then, "We Shall Overcome" has spread from folksinger to folksinger, through protests and peace rallies, song circles, and open mics. It was recorded by Joan Baez in 1963 and became a major anthem of the Civil Rights movement.

Full lyrics of "We Shall Overcome"

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http://folkmusic.about.com/od/folksongs/qt/WeShallOvercome.htm

“And We Shall Overcome”: President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Special Message to Congress
Although the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, guaranteed citizens the right to vote regardless of race, by 1957 only 20 percent of eligible African Americans voted, due in part to intimidation and discriminatory state requirements such as poll taxes and literacy tests. Despite the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in employment and public accommodations based on race, religion, national origin, or sex, efforts to register African Americans as voters in the South were stymied. In 1965, following the murder of a voting rights activist by an Alabama sheriff’s deputy and the subsequent attack by state troopers on a massive protest march in Selma, Alabama, President Lyndon B. Johnson pressed Congress in the following speech to pass a voting rights bill with teeth. As Majority Leader of the Senate, Johnson had helped weaken the 1957 Civil Rights Act. When he assumed the presidency following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, however, Johnson called on Americans “to eliminate from this nation every trace of discrimination and oppression that is based upon race or color,” and in the following speech adopted the “We Shall Overcome” slogan of civil rights activists. His rhetoric and subsequent efforts broke with past presidential precedents of opposition to or lukewarm support for strong civil rights legislation. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law on August 6.

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[As delivered in person before a joint session at 9:02 p.m.]

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the Congress:

I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy.

I urge every member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors, from every section of this country, to join me in that cause.

At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.

There, long-suffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted. One good man, a man of God, was killed.

For the cries of pain and the hymns and protests of oppressed people have summoned into convocation all the majesty of this great Government—the Government of the greatest Nation on earth.

Our mission is at once the oldest and the most basic of this country: to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man.

In our time we have come to live with moments of great crisis. Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues; issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved Nation.

The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation.

For with a country as with a person, “What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans—not as Democrats or Republicans—we are met here as Americans to solve that problem.

This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: “All men are created equal”—“government by consent of the governed”—“give me liberty or give me death.” Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their lives.

Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man’s possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, and provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being.
To apply any other test—to deny a man his hopes because of his color or race, his religion or the place of his birth—is not only to do injustice, it is to deny America and to dishonor the dead who gave their lives for American freedom.

THE RIGHT TO VOTE

Our fathers believed that if this noble view of the rights of man was to flourish, it must be rooted in democracy. The most basic right of all was the right to choose your own leaders. The history of this country, in large measure, is the history of the expansion of that right to all of our people.

Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument. Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.

Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes.

Every device of which human ingenuity is capable has been used to deny this right. The Negro citizen may go to register only to be told that the day is wrong, or the hour is late, or the official in charge is absent. And if he persists, and if he manages to present himself to the registrar, he may be disqualified because he did not spell out his middle name or because he abbreviated a word on the application.

And if he manages to fill out an application he is given a test. The registrar is the sole judge of whether he passes this test. He may be asked to recite the entire Constitution, or explain the most complex provisions of State law. And even a college degree cannot be used to prove that he can read and write.

For the fact is that the only way to pass these barriers is to show a white skin.

Experience has clearly shown that the existing process of law cannot overcome systematic and ingenious discrimination. No law that we now have on the books—and I have helped to put three of them there—can ensure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it.

In such a case our duty must be clear to all of us. The Constitution says that no person shall be kept from voting because of his race or his color. We have all sworn an oath before God to support and to defend that Constitution. We must now act in obedience to that oath.

GUARANTEEING THE RIGHT TO VOTE

Wednesday I will send to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote.

I have had prepared a more comprehensive analysis of the legislation which I had intended to transmit to the clerk tomorrow but which I will submit to the clerks tonight. But I want to really discuss with you now briefly the main proposals of this legislation.

This bill will strike down restrictions to voting in all elections—Federal, State, and local—which have been used to deny Negroes the right to vote.

This bill will establish a simple, uniform standard which cannot be used, however ingenious the effort, to flout our Constitution.

It will provide for citizens to be registered by officials of the United States Government if the State officials refuse to register them.

It will eliminate tedious, unnecessary lawsuits which delay the right to vote.

Finally, this legislation will ensure that properly registered individuals are not prohibited from voting.

I will welcome the suggestions from all of the Members of Congress—I have no doubt that I will get some—on ways and means to strengthen this law and to make it effective. But experience has plainly shown that this is the only path to carry out the command of the Constitution.

To those who seek to avoid action by their National Government in their own communities; who want to and who seek to maintain purely local control over elections, the answer is simple:

Open your polling places to all your people.

Allow men and women to register and vote whatever the color of their skin.

Extend the rights of citizenship to every citizen of this land.

THE NEED FOR ACTION

There is no constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain.

There is no moral issue. It is wrong—deadly wrong—to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country.

There is no issue of States rights or national rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.

I have not the slightest doubt what will be your answer.

The last time a President sent a civil rights bill to the Congress it contained a provision to protect voting rights in Federal elections. That civil rights bill was passed after 8 long months of debate. And when that bill came to my desk from the Congress for my signature, the heart of the voting provision had been eliminated.

This time, on this issue, there must be no delay, no hesitation and no compromise with our purpose.

We cannot, we must not, refuse to protect the right of every American to vote in every election that he may desire to participate in. And we ought not and we cannot and we must not wait another 8 months before we get a bill. We have already waited a hundred years and more, and the time for waiting is gone.

So I ask you to join me in working long hours—nights and weekends, if necessary—to pass this bill. And I don’t make that request lightly. For from the window where I sit with the problems of our country I recognize that outside this chamber is the outraged conscience of a nation, the grave concern of many nations, and the harsh judgment of history on our acts.

WE SHALL OVERCOME

Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.

And we shall overcome.

As a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil I know how agonizing racial feelings are. I know how difficult it is to reshape the attitudes and the structure of our society.

But a century has passed, more than a hundred years, since the Negro was freed. And he is not fully free tonight.

It was more than a hundred years ago that Abraham Lincoln, a great President of another party, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but emancipation is a proclamation and not a fact.

A century has passed, more than a hundred years, since equality was promised. And yet the Negro is not equal.

A century has passed since the day of promise. And the promise is unkept.

For Negroes are not the only victims. How many white children have gone uneducated, how many white families have lived in stark poverty, how many white lives have been scarred by fear, because we have wasted our energy and our substance to maintain the barriers of hatred and terror?

So I say to all of you here, and to all in the Nation tonight, that those who appeal to you to hold on to the past do so at the cost of denying you your future.

This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all: black and white, North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They are the enemies and not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too, poverty, disease and ignorance, we shall overcome.

AN AMERICAN PROBLEM

Now let none of us in any sections look with prideful righteousness on the troubles in another section, or on the problems of our neighbors. There is really no part of America where the promise of equality has been fully kept. In Buffalo as well as in Birmingham, in Philadelphia as well as in Selma, Americans are struggling for the fruits of freedom.

This is one Nation. What happens in Selma or in Cincinnati is a matter of legitimate concern to every American. But let each of us look within our own hearts and our own communities, and let each of us put our shoulder to the wheel to root out injustice wherever it exists.

As we meet here in this peaceful, historic chamber tonight, men from the South, some of whom were at Iwo Jima, men from the North who have carried Old Glory to far corners of the world and brought it back without a stain on it, men from the East and from the West, are all fighting together without regard to religion, or color, or region, in Viet-Nam. Men from every region fought for us across the world 20 years ago.

And in these common dangers and these common sacrifices the South made its contribution of honor and gallantry no less than any other region of the great Republic—and in some instances, a great many of them, more.

And I have not the slightest doubt that good men from everywhere in this country, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Golden Gate to the harbors along the Atlantic, will rally together now in this cause to vindicate the freedom of all Americans. For all of us owe this duty; and I believe that all of us will respond to it.

Your President makes that request of every American.

PROGRESS THROUGH THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

The real hero of this struggle is the American Negro. His actions and protests, his courage to risk safety and even to risk his life, have awakened the conscience of this Nation. His demonstrations have been designed to call attention to injustice, designed to provoke change, designed to stir reform.

He has called upon us to make good the promise of America. And who among us can say that we would have made the same progress were it not for his persistent bravery, and his faith in American democracy.

For at the real heart of battle for equality is a deep-seated belief in the democratic process. Equality depends not on the force of arms or tear gas but upon the force of moral right; not on recourse to violence but on respect for law and order.

There have been many pressures upon your President and there will be others as the days come and go. But I pledge you tonight that we intend to fight this battle where it should be fought: in the courts, and in the Congress, and in the hearts of men.

We must preserve the right of free speech and the right of free assembly. But the right of free speech does not carry with it, as has been said, the right to holler fire in a crowded theater. We must preserve the right to free assembly, but free assembly does not carry with it the right to block public thoroughfares to traffic.

We do have a right to protest, and a right to march under conditions that do not infringe the constitutional rights of our neighbors. And I intend to protect all those rights as long as I am permitted to serve in this office.

We will guard against violence, knowing it strikes from our hands the very weapons which we seek—progress, obedience to law, and belief in American values.

In Selma as elsewhere we seek and pray for peace. We seek order. We seek unity. But we will not accept the peace of stifled rights, or the order imposed by fear, or the unity that stifles protest. For peace cannot be purchased at the cost of liberty.

In Selma tonight, as in every—and we had a good day there—as in every city, we are working for just and peaceful settlement. We must all remember that after this speech I am making tonight, after the police and the FBI and the Marshals have all gone, and after you have promptly passed this bill, the people of Selma and the other cities of the Nation must still live and work together. And when the attention of the Nation has gone elsewhere they must try to heal the wounds and to build a new community.

This cannot be easily done on a battleground of violence, as the history of the South itself shows. It is in recognition of this that men of both races have shown such an outstandingly impressive responsibility in recent days—last Tuesday, again today.

RIGHTS MUST BE OPPORTUNITIES

The bill that I am presenting to you will be known as a civil rights bill. But, in a larger sense, most of the program I am recommending is a civil rights program. Its object is to open the city of hope to all people of all races.

Because all Americans just must have the right to vote. And we are going to give them that right.

All Americans must have the privileges of citizenship regardless of race. And they are going to have those privileges of citizenship regardless of race.

But I would like to caution you and remind you that to exercise these privileges takes much more than just legal right. It requires a trained mind and a healthy body. It requires a decent home, and the chance to find a job, and the opportunity to escape from the clutches of poverty.

Of course, people cannot contribute to the Nation if they are never taught to read or write, if their bodies are stunted from hunger, if their sickness goes untended, if their life is spent in hopeless poverty just drawing a welfare check.

So we want to open the gates to opportunity. But we are also going to give all our people, black and white, the help that they need to walk through those gates.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS GOVERNMENT

My first job after college was as a teacher in Cotulla, Texas, in a small Mexican-American school. Few of them could speak English, and I couldn’t speak much Spanish. My students were poor and they often came to class without breakfast, hungry. They knew even in their youth the pain of prejudice. They never seemed to know why people disliked them. But they knew it was so, because I saw it in their eyes. I often walked home late in the afternoon, after the classes were finished, wishing there was more that I could do. But all I knew was to teach them the little that I knew, hoping that it might help them against the hardships that lay ahead.

Somehow you never forget what poverty and hatred can do when you see its scars on the hopeful face of a young child.

I never thought then, in 1928, that I would be standing here in 1965. It never even occurred to me in my fondest dreams that I might have the chance to help the sons and daughters of those students and to help people like them all over this country.

But now I do have that chance—and I’ll let you in on a secret—I mean to use it. And I hope that you will use it with me.

This is the richest and most powerful country which ever occupied the globe. The might of past empires is little compared to ours. But I do not want to be the President who built empires, or sought grandeur, or extended dominion.

I want to be the President who educated young children to the wonders of their world. I want to be the President who helped to feed the hungry and to prepare them to be taxpayers instead of taxeaters.

I want to be the President who helped the poor to find their own way and who protected the right of every citizen to vote in every election.

I want to be the President who helped to end hatred among his fellow men and who promoted love among the people of all races and all regions and all parties.

I want to be the President who helped to end war among the brothers of this earth.

And so at the request of your beloved Speaker and the Senator from Montana; the majority leader, the Senator from Illinois; the minority leader, Mr. McCulloch, and other Members of both parties, I came here tonight—not as President Roosevelt came down one time in person to veto a bonus bill, not as President Truman came down one time to urge the passage of a railroad bill—but I came down here to ask you to share this task with me and to share it with the people that we both work for. I want this to be the Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, which did all these things for all these people.

Beyond this great chamber, out yonder in 50 States, are the people that we serve. Who can tell what deep and unspoken hopes are in their hearts tonight as they sit there and listen. We all can guess, from our own lives, how difficult they often find their own pursuit of happiness, how many problems each little family has. They look most of all to themselves for their futures. But I think that they also look to each of us.

Above the pyramid on the great seal of the United States it says—in Latin—“God has favored our undertaking.”

God will not favor everything that we do. It is rather our duty to divine His will. But I cannot help believing that He truly understands and that He really favors the undertaking that we begin here tonight.

Source: National Archives and Records Administration, The Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum ( http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/650315.htm )

We Shall Overcome
Peter Ling, Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Nottingham and the author of a forthcoming biography of Martin Luther King

Introduction

Nonviolence and Self-Defense
Nonviolent direct action and the 1960 watershed
Economic Coercion as an aspect of nonviolent direct action
Nonviolence as a pragmatic position for a minority group
Alternatives to nonviolence
The psychology and ethics of nonviolence
King’s Political Coalition of Conscience
Why did King’s nonviolence achieve no equivalent successes after 1965?
King’s Final Year: Did his Nonviolence Fail?
Martin Luther King is remembered today for his championing of the cause of non-violent direct action as a means of advancing the struggle for Civil Rights, but his views were not shared by all in the movement. This article attempts to set King's views into the context of the struggle, analyses his philosphy and considers what his lasting legacy to Civil Rights has been.The paper was first presented at the ASRC Annual Schools Conference Oct 31st 2001 on the topic of Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights Movement and Black Nationalism.
Introduction

Listen to a sound file of his "I have a dream" speech

Real Audio needed
“We Shall Overcome” was the anthem of the southern civil rights movement, and it captured its religious idealism. Almost as soon as the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56 catapulted him to fame, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was a major symbol of, and spokesman for, this aspect of the movement because of his championing of the philosophy and tactics of non-violence. Accordingly, I want to examine the role and practice of non-violence over the course of King’s career, which (as you all know) was tragically cut short by his assassination on 4 April 1968.

Nonviolence and Self-Defense At the time in 1960, the press sometimes referred to non-violence as “passive resistance,” and the sight of people not striking back when attacked tended to underline that word: “passive.” It was this perception of non-violence that made King’s approach so controversial inside the African American community. Figures such as Malcolm X vilified King for what they regarded as a demeaning denial of the basic human right to self-defence. In contrast to King’s rejection of violence, which won him praise among white liberals and the mainstream media, Malcolm’s advice that “If the Man puts a hand on you, - send him to the cemetery,” had been warmly applauded by appreciative black audiences. The violent resolution of conflict was deeply embedded in the American tradition and although African Americans had developed supplementary tactics of resistance during slavery, they generally shared with other Americans the expectation that a man of courage would fight back and that, by fighting back, you won your opponents’ respect.

This was certainly the view of Robert Williams, leader of a local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter in Monroe, North Carolina, who was suspended by national NAACP officials for organizing a paramilitary group to deter white attacks and by advocating armed self-defence. Williams had been in the US Air Force and in a published debate with King in1959, he spoke openly of how America had taught him to fight. We need to acknowledge that there were many such men in African American communities across the nation in 1960 and that they were probably more representative of black attitudes than King was. But we need also to recognize that the argument is essentially a false one. In his exchange with Williams, King had declared that not even Gandhi denied the right to self-defence, and had openly admitted that the kind of principled pacifism that refused any use of force was not going to attract a large following. At the same time, King insisted that if you chose to become involved in a non-violent demonstration, you agreed to control your actions and reactions during that protest. This kind of pragmatic use of non-violence was what Gandhi had called “the non-violence of the weak.”

Nonviolent direct action and the 1960 watershed I also chose this excerpt because the sit-in wave of 1960 represented a real watershed in terms of the use of non-violence. The Montgomery Bus Boycott drew on the repertoire of non-violence because it was an act of non-cooperation, but like later consumer boycotts that attracted relatively widespread community support, it was essentially a strategic withdrawal. In contrast, the sit-in was an act of engagement: you put yourself in harm’s way.

This helps to explain why many civil rights activists in 1960 disapproved of the term: passive resistance. They preferred to speak of “non-violent direct action,” with the emphasis equally on “direct action” to indicate that the key elements were the decision to act rather than to accept or accommodate, and the insistence that such action should be aimed directly at the instances or sites of oppression: e.g. segregated lunch counters. The rejected alternative here was not just violence, but the older generation’s tactics of lobbying and lawsuits, which had dominated the formal politics of resistance under the leadership of the NAACP. Civil rights groups had used non-violent direct action tactics before 1960, but after the widespread demonstrations of that year non-violent demonstrations could be said to set the tone.

Economic Coercion as an aspect of nonviolent direct action Of course, what the bus boycotts and sit-in demonstrations had in common was a calculated use of economic pressure. Since two-thirds of bus riders in Montgomery were African American, the bus company suffered enormous losses during the Boycott and became more eager to settle the dispute than were the city’s white politicians. Similarly, the sit-ins were often accompanied by a formal boycott of the downtown stores that refused to desegregate their lunch counters, including national boycotts in the case of department store chains such as Woolworth’s, and by a sometimes much larger decline in general business as shoppers avoided publicized “trouble-spots.” Such economic pressure was not a function of non-violence as a philosophy, however, and it is worth pointing out that white segregationists used economic intimidation as their principal means of disciplining anyone, black or white, who questioned the racial status quo. Nevertheless, King, like Gandhi before him, was very aware of the potential of economic pressure tactics throughout his career.

Nonviolence as a pragmatic position for a minority group The increasingly violent and excessive tactics of King’s white opponents in Montgomery had made him into a public champion of non-violence. In February 1956, a bomb had exploded at the King home, nearly killing his wife, Coretta, and baby daughter, Yolanda, yet King had calmed an angry mob of his followers, urging them to put away their guns. On one level, his non-violence was a tactical and pragmatic choice, which rested on the belief that the facts of demography and history made violence by African Americans (not much more than 10% of the US population in 1960) a very high-risk option, given the repeated examples of the white population responding to isolated instances, or even just the threat, of black violence, with extraordinary brutality.

In later protest campaigns, King and his SCLC lieutenants struggled to contain African American anger in part by stressing the firepower literally ranged against them. Thus, Andrew Young writes of how after the “Bloody Sunday” attack in Selma in March 1965, he talked to men who wanted to go outside and shoot it out with Sheriff Jim Clark’s deputies. You had to be specific, he explains, about what guns you had, and what guns they had, and how yours would hold up against high-velocity, repeat-action rifles. Similarly, earlier in the same campaign, King and James Bevel are said to have restrained local men who wanted to go to the aid of a black woman who was being beaten by Clark while being held to the ground by his men. If we intervene, Bevel warned, they’ll call us a mob and that’s all the excuse they need to kill us.

Alternatives to nonviolence Of course, others disagreed. King reportedly laughed when SCLC’s executive director Wyatt Walker told him of a rumoured encounter on a bus in Petersburg, Virginia. The story went that a white driver was complaining that black passengers were giving him a hard time when one of the stars of the local black college football team strolled over and lifted the white man off his feet with one hand. “Two things you need to know,” he allegedly said, “one, I can break your neck, and two, I ain’t one of Dr. King’s non-violent niggers!”
In the summer of 1963, Malcolm X repeatedly expressed the view that what had forced the Kennedy administration to intervene in the Birmingham confrontations was not King’s non-violent demonstrations, but the inter-racial violence that erupted in May. It was only when black men started “busting crackers’ heads,” Malcolm alleged, that the Kennedy administration suddenly found that it had the authority to act. This was consistent with Malcolm’s larger view not only that African Americans could deter white attacks by uniting and organizing in a militant fashion, but that there was a larger world community to which African Americans could turn. With strong Garveyite roots, Malcolm, in his final persona of Malik al-Shabazz, turned increasingly to this vision of a global, anti-colonial alliance.

Similarly, Robert Williams strongly argued that the realities of Cold War politics made it unthinkable that the federal government would stand aside and allow African Americans to be massacred, if the self-defence efforts of the latter provoked whites into a wholesale race war. This was a continuation of a well-established argument since the 1930s that had previously prompted civil rights groups to use the leverage of international public opinion to induce federal actions and concessions. Summed up in the1968 cry: “The whole world is watching”, it became a key axiom of protesters in the television era.

The psychology and ethics of nonviolence Perhaps the most contentious aspect of non-violence was its rationale and supposed effects in psychological terms. The motto of King’s SCLC was “To Redeem the Soul of America,” and this reflected not only the fact that it was primarily an organization of black churches, but also its commitment to orthodox Gandhian beliefs that non-violence could transform the oppressor. At times, King’s rhetorical defence of non-violence slipped into an interesting blend of a classic evangelical Christian scenario of renouncing one’s sins and a more recently developed psychoanalytical outlook that implied that confronting and admitting the wrongs of one’s past was a vital stage in the recovery process.
More persuasive in a secular sense was the claim that non-violent direct action intruded upon the process of reification, whereby it becomes easier to act unethically towards someone by blanking out their humanity and making them into something else. Essential to racism, reification not only facilitated oppression, it also psychologically damaged the oppressed person, who became prone to believing the negative stereotyping that accompanied racism. Defenders of non-violence argued that their technique simultaneously enabled them to affirm their moral dignity as human beings and forced their antagonists to acknowledge their humanity. Sit-in demonstrators, such as Franklin McCain in Greensboro, spoke of how they felt “cleansed” and empowered by the stand they took, and relished the shock they detected in white police officers, who were unsure how to respond.

As public encounters, non-violent demonstrations actually involve three separate groups of people: 1) the demonstrators, 2) the other actors such as store staff or police who are trying to end the demonstration, and 3) the usually much larger group of bystanders or spectators, especially when this includes those who “see” the encounter on television or in newspapers. This third group was especially important in the politics of non-violence since it was hoped that the spectacle of one-sided violence would sway their loyalties. As disengaged spectators, they might be psychologically more uncomfortable with the action taken against the demonstrators.

King’s Political Coalition of Conscience
The classic phase of King’s career - 1963-1965 - tends to be discussed in terms of the March on Washington speech, and the Birmingham and Selma campaigns, which mobilized a bipartisan political coalition in favour of federal legislation. King’s ability to induce segregationists to attack civil rights protesters on camera is usually deemed to be central to this success, especially when his lack of success in Albany in 1961-62 is contrasted with his subsequent campaign in Birmingham the following year. Extremely wary about the political costs of introducing a civil rights bill, President Kennedy was reportedly “sickened” by the sight of Bull Connor’s use of dogs and water cannon against young demonstrators in Birmingham. Worried too by the international reaction to such images, Kennedy eventually introduced a civil rights bill in the summer of 1963. One important factor in Lyndon Johnson’s eventual passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was Midwestern Republican support in Congress, much of it mobilized via church groups appalled by what they had seen on television.
The same process of recruiting the guilty bystander was even more at work in the Selma campaign. Not just the televised violence of the March 7 “Bloody Sunday” attack on demonstrators on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, but earlier incidents involving the explosive Sheriff Clark and the murder of white clergyman James Reeb and white housewife Viola Liuzzo, ensured that President Johnson could press through the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on a national wave of public sympathy. When Johnson closed his address to both houses of Congress on March 15, he deliberately aligned himself with the movement through his final words: “And we shall overcome.” Watching the President on television, King is reported to have wept.

Why did King’s nonviolence achieve no equivalent successes after 1965? By the summer of 1965, it was widely acknowledged that King’s use of non-violence had secured important political gains, but at the same time non-violence seemed to work only under certain conditions and the gains it obtained seemed very partial and incomplete.
a. Choosing one’s opponent

Targeting an opponent who would discredit his own position through brutality seemed one key condition. Some newspaper commentators had been hostile and cynical towards non-violence since 1961 because they saw it as disingenuous. The New York Times had complained in the summer of that year that the continuing Freedom Rides were primarily publicity stunts that tried to provoke violence. When King announced that he would target the Northern metropolis of Chicago in1966, the media were already alert to the idea that he was largely engaged in public relations manoeuvres. They therefore applauded Chicago Mayor Daley’s astute counter-moves that effectively undermined King’s initial efforts to expose the evils of ghetto poverty in the city.

b. Choosing and limiting one’s objectives

Another key factor was finding a symbolic objective, one where immediate concessions might be forthcoming but which would simultaneously highlight, and engage with, the larger issue. In the early months of 1966, there were too many issues - education, housing, employment, social services - for the Chicago campaign to generate a clear message. Compounding this weakness, Mayor Daley skilfully avoided a direct confrontation by stressing that he too wanted improvements and was already at work. He also used patronage jobs to tighten his hold on black constituents and undermine King. When King’s campaign narrowed to concentrate on housing discrimination and staged marches into all-white residential neighbourhoods in August, it succeeded in creating a political crisis along the lines of Birmingham and Selma, but it did not generate the same national coalition of conscience.

c. Attracting external support.

Watching the fury of white residents against the open housing marchers did not induce a majority of Americans to side with King’s demands. Particularly after Mayor Daley stepped up the level of police protection given the demonstrators, public sympathy went not just to the protesters but to the police, caught between the two sides. Moreover, whereas earlier demands for the desegregation of public accommodations or the protection of the equal right to vote had seemed modest, legitimate, and unthreatening to many non-southern whites, the new demands had an economic dimension that many whites found threatening, wherever they lived. Racism was built into the housing market to such an extent that the arrival of black residents was widely perceived as economically and socially destructive. Property values would fall, it was assumed, and crime and delinquency would increase.

d. Avoiding violence that casts doubt on the campaign’s legitimacy.

The climax of the Chicago campaign in August 1966 suggested that King’s non-violence had shifted from the cultivation of external sympathy, which was arguably the key in Selma, to the creating of social crisis, which was an important feature of the Birmingham campaign. This analogy allows us to review Malcolm X’s claim that it was the black-on-white retaliatory violence that forced a resolution of the crisis in 1963. Certainly, escalating social disorder alarmed both Mayor Daley’s political machine and the Birmingham city fathers and readied them for negotiations with civil rights leaders. However, whereas the non-violence of King’s 1963 campaign gave some legitimacy to the eruption of black anger in Birmingham, the July Chicago ghetto disturbances tarnished King’s efforts in 1966. King’s claim in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” that sometimes it was necessary to create a crisis in order to generate the momentum for action was called into question in his later campaigns as the mass perception ceased to be that the underlying cause of the crisis was white brutality (symbolized by Bull Connor or Jim Clark), and reverted to the, always present, suspicion that the crisis was caused by African American demands.

e. Maintaining discipline and unity through common goals.

By 1966, King’s cultivation of external sympathy had become a key element behind the larger antipathy that his non-violent stance engendered in black militants. Northern-based black activists, outside of the NAACP and National Urban League, had always doubted King’s faith in white liberals, and leading figures among the battle-hardened, southern movement veterans had experienced too much white brutality and too little liberal commitment by 1966 to retain their faith in non-violence. They either experienced a kind of “burn-out” like Robert Moses of SNCC or like Moses’ colleagues, Stokely Carmichael and James Forman, they declared non-violence to be just one part of a repertoire of protest that shook concessions from the establishment by creating a crisis. This was not a new position by any means but it was more widely publicized in 1966, and in the generally alarmist reaction to Carmichael’s calls for “Black Power” and the emergence of such paramilitary groups as the Black Panther Party in California, rejecting non-violence was presented by the media as tantamount to embracing violent tactics. The big press “story” then became the splits: between King and Carmichael, between integration and separatism, between non-violence and armed struggle in the Che Guevara style.

What King sensed about “Black Power” was its huge strategic miscalculation. It relied upon a level of African American solidarity that had never existed, yet fuelled white solidarity in an acutely damaging way. Conservative politicians like Governor Ronald Reagan of California prospered, while progressive white figures such as Mayors Kavanagh of Detroit and Lindsay of New York saw their careers destroyed by the backlash against a black militancy that produced massive disturbances in Detroit and a huge disruption of New York schools in 1967.

g. Exploiting divisions and appealing beyond one’s opponent’s jurisdiction.

Ever since the abolitionist fight against slavery, African Americans had tried to profit from the divisions within the white majority. The guarantees and proscriptions added to the federal Constitution after the Civil War strengthened a trend for black Americans to appeal to the federal government either through the courts or increasingly after World War II via the Presidency, an office secured via a voting system that gave the black vote leverage in key electoral college states like California or other non-southern heavily populated states. Between 1963 and 1965, King had appealed to a national coalition to mobilize the federal government against what were perceived to be anachronistic, Southern injustices. Between 1966 and 1968, on the other hand, he spoke out against national and international evils that were condoned and perpetrated by the federal government. After nearly a year of vacillation, he spoke out strongly against the Vietnam War in the spring of 1967, branding his own country as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” and calling on America to get on the right side of the coming revolution of values. However, his denunciation of the war was too prescient to secure a sympathetic reception and he was lambasted as a Communist fellow traveller, a venal publicity seeker, or simply, a fool.

King’s Final Year: Did his Nonviolence Fail? Subsequent events largely support King’s analysis of the dire consequences of the Vietnam War, but in the year that elapsed from his great Riverside speech against the war and his assassination in Memphis, he did not develop an effective non-violent strategy either to end the war or to transform America’s political agenda from militarism to a genuine war on poverty. In terms of direct action, King did not go on a Gandhi-style hunger strike and flirted with only a few ideas. He talked about taking a highly trained group of volunteers to Vietnam, where they would encamp on bridges and at other strategic sites to provide “human shields” to stop the bombing. His supposedly Communist white advisor, Stanley Levison told him not to be ridiculous. He indicated his support for conscientious objectors and visited other protesters arrested for demonstrations at military installations. He led marches, gave speeches, signed petitions, and lobbied, but although the rallies were growing larger, King did not follow his colleague Jim Bevel’s advice to attack the US war machine non-violently. The largest anti-war demonstrations occurred after his death.
The Poor People’s Campaign, which King was planning at the time of his death, shows that he was striving to demonstrate that non-violence could address the key issues of social and economic injustice. Here, too, his emphasis shifted between a coercive non-violence that created widespread disruption through mass civil disobedience and a persuasive non-violence that generated a coalition of conscience through publicizing undeniable injustice. Thus, the idea of bringing the poor to Washington was sometimes presented in terms of protests that would stop the federal government from functioning, and at others was seen as bringing the forgotten Americans - the poor - before Congress, which would act once it saw firsthand the malnutrition, dilapidated housing, and lack of income or employment, and heard about the level of exploitation.

King himself spoke of the Poor People’s Campaign as “going for broke,” a phrase that highlighted his desperation. The looting and violence that disrupted his march in support of striking black workers in Memphis on March 28 gravely damaged his reputation and probably ensured that he would have backed further away from radical coercive non-violence in the upcoming Washington campaign. King knew how thin was the tightrope he walked in 1968. If his protest degenerated into violence, it would provide a justification for reactionary measures. If it failed to generate a crisis that extracted concessions, however, it would strengthen the appeal of his black separatist rivals.
Since American politics in 1968 went through a crisis from which conservative forces and a revitalized Republican Party ultimately emerged victorious, it is tempting to see King as a failure rescued by martyrdom. That would be too hasty a judgment, even though it might be the kind of harsh verdict that King would have made of himself. To emphasize only the conservative forces in American life at this time would be to ignore how close Congress came to passing a guaranteed income plan, how the movement’s economic and legal pressures have generated the conditions for the subsequent emergence of an expanded African American middle class, and how schemes to secure social stability through expanded welfare and education programs endured into the Reagan years. Certainly, the absence of racial justice in the United States today cannot be taken as a sign of the failure of non-violent direct action. Evil prospers, King once wrote, when good men do nothing.

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Joan Baez - We shall overcome

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Why We Shall Overcome ....

By Donald Winkfield

October 11th, 2008


Barack Obama continues the Long March to American unity started by Dr. King



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[On The Spot: Election 2008]

"I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government."--- April 4th, 1967, A Time To Break The Silence, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The United States of America has lost the respect of countries around the world.

The selected few who have literally run the USA into the ground are trying their best to keep control of the many – the voters. Yet, over eight millions African Americans were not even registered to vote as of October 10, when many states had their deadline.

I stated back in November 2007 that before this presidential race comes to an end – it will turn into a race-race. Senator Barack Obama is clearly the better candidate for the White House – but because of his race, some in the Democratic Party, calling themselves “Reagan Democrats,” wanted to cross over to vote for Senator John McCain. Now that is modern day racism at its best.

Anyone who has been really paying close attention to the last two debates know Obama’s and McCain’s policies are very different. McCain’s policies will be a continuation of George Bush’s eight years – and the USA cannot take four more years of the same administration we now have in place simply because they are operating under different names.

For the too many, who are still undecided – after the Wall Street mess, which has a lasting effect on an already troubled economic crisis – those people need to debate within their own mind to find out what is really stopping them from facing the truth. McCain is not that convincing or persuasive, what with people like former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as one of his close advisors – another reason to call for alarm.

Witness the blatant disrespect we are witnessing from McCain and his dismal Vice-Presidential pick Sarah Palin. During a moment in the debate, McCain referred to Obama as, “That one there.” In his mind, he may have wanted to say, “that n-word there.”

This is how far we have come in this world. No matter what McCain thinks of Obama, he still should show the world he respects him as a person and a senator and a serious candidate who may actually end up as our president.

But, when you run a race from behind, you say and do things out of frustration. Palin has been rehashing some old political dirt on Obama which has been used before and has never proven to hold water. However Palin chose to take the low road –obviously on orders from McCain—because it is the only road she knows. This ugly McCain-Palin strategy to incite racial animosities tapped into some lawless thinking people: someone in one of her campaign gatherings yelled out, “Kill him,” in reference to Obama. Palin and McCain never issued a statement disavowing such ugly sentiments; it’s only yesterday that McCain started backing off the ugly strategy he’s unleashed.

An elderly woman at one of McCain’s gatherings had said she was afraid of Obama because “he’s an Arab.” When McCain took away the microphone and assured the woman Obama was not an Arab and that he was a “decent American” and “family man” with whom they had political disagreements, many in the crowd booed McCain.

What a sad moment it was: the crowd wanted McCain not to disavow something they all knew not to be true –that Obama is an Arab; and it’s even sadder that apparently being an Arab is some sort of crime— and McCain himself seemed surprised by the episode.

The chickens coming home to roost; he is now reaping the fruits of the hatred he and his running mate sowed.

In terms of the second debate itself, I watched it with some young people who are very clear as to whom they are going to be voting for on November 4th. “Look how he just stood there to answer the question the Black guy asked him. He didn’t even want to look him in the eyes,” observed Lester J. “I’m happy to be voting for a Black president for the first time.”

Another viewer noted that McCain seemed more relaxed when he answered questions from Whites. “He walked right up to where one lady was sitting and was looking directly at her when he answered her question. Then on another question asked by a White guy, McCain patted him on the back and shook his hand just because he asked him a question about Israel,” said Montel W.

There are a lot of young people who are first-time voters and so energized - they are talking as if they can wait to vote. But we have to keep in mind the results of the last two presidential elections. The last two elections have not been investigated nor have there been any real protective measures put in place by the Board of Elections to prevent the past from reoccurring at the polls.
There needs to be notices sent over the television and internet to police agencies, and known hate groups – if you are caught tampering with the election or preventing anyone from casting a vote, you will be arrested.

From the start of his campaign, Obama called for unity – asking all Americans to come together for a common cause. “We are not just red states and blue states; we are the United States of America,” Obama has said. Those were not just words – that was reality. For decades we as Americans have been tricked into believing we can grow as a nation being separate and unequal, while the rest of the world grows and surpasses us on human issues so embedded in our own constitution.

Since September 11, 2001, we have lost many of our civil liberties and everywhere you go it feels as if you are in a foreign country. The Patriot Act is an act against the very people who believe in freedom, and who believe in having the right to petition the government, rally, free speech, press, to bear arms and to vote.

American did not change after 9/11; the people who run the government did. This is why November 4th is going to feel like a new day. There are people who did not believe in change, but they are singing another tune now, “Obama, Obama” and chanting “Yes we can,” which is actually the modern equivalent of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “We Shall Overcome.”

Young people are so fired up. I got an email message showing a young man with an interesting hair cut; he had the image of Obama carved onto the back of his head.

This is real. Make sure your vote is cast and counted.

Give peace a chance.

Contact Winkfield if you have a serious story or expose for his column. (347) 632-2272 or On The Spot, Post Office Box 230149, Queens County 11423. Email: Bsnonthespot@aol.com or milton@blackstarnews.com or (212) 481-7745.
Together we can get the justice everyone just talks about.

To subscribe to or advertise in New York’s leading Pan Global weekly investigative newspaper, please call (212) 481-7745 or send a note to Milton@blackstarnews.com

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We Shall Overcome
Historical Period: Postwar United States, 1945-1968Songs and Poems | Analysis Tools | Activity Ideas | About Song and Poetry

"We Shall Overcome"
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It was the most powerful song of the 20th century. It started out in church pews and picket lines, inspired one of the greatest freedom movements in U.S. history, and went on to topple governments and bring about reform all over the world. Word for word, the short, simple lyrics of "We Shall Overcome" might be some of the most influential words in the English language.

"We Shall Overcome" has it roots in African American hymns from the early 20th century, and was first used as a protest song in 1945, when striking tobacco workers in Charleston, S.C., sang it on their picket line. By the 1950s, the song had been discovered by the young activists of the African American civil rights movement, and it quickly became the movement’s unofficial anthem. Its verses were sung on protest marches and in sit-ins, through clouds of tear gas and under rows of police batons, and it brought courage and comfort to bruised, frightened activists as they waited in jail cells, wondering if they would survive the night. When the long years of struggle ended and President Lyndon Johnson vowed to fight for voting rights for all Americans, he included a final promise: "We shall overcome."

In the decades since, the song has circled the globe and has been embraced by civil rights and pro-democracy movements in dozens of nations worldwide. From Northern Ireland to Eastern Europe, from Berlin to Beijing, and from South Africa to South America, its message of solidarity and hope has been sung in dozens of languages, in presidential palaces and in dark prisons, and it continues to lend its strength to all people struggling to be free.

As you listen to "We Shall Overcome," think about the reasons it has brought strength and support to so many people for so many years. And remember that someone, somewhere, is singing it right now.
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/lyrical/songs/overcome.html

Lyndon Baines Johnson

Address to a Joint Session of Congress on Voting Legislation

"We Shall Overcome"

delivered 15 March 1965, Washington, D.C.

Audio mp3 of Address

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[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio.]

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the Congress:

I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy. I urge every member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors, from every section of this country, to join me in that cause.

At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama. There, long-suffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted. One good man, a man of God, was killed.

There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma. There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our democracy in what is happening here tonight. For the cries of pain and the hymns and protests of oppressed people have summoned into convocation all the majesty of this great government -- the government of the greatest nation on earth. Our mission is at once the oldest and the most basic of this country: to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man.

In our time we have come to live with the moments of great crisis. Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues -- issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, or our welfare or our security, but rather to the values, and the purposes, and the meaning of our beloved nation.

The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue.

And should we defeat every enemy, and should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation. For with a country as with a person, "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans -- not as Democrats or Republicans. We are met here as Americans to solve that problem.

This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: "All men are created equal," "government by consent of the governed," "give me liberty or give me death." Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their lives.

Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man's possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being. To apply any other test -- to deny a man his hopes because of his color, or race, or his religion, or the place of his birth is not only to do injustice, it is to deny America and to dishonor the dead who gave their lives for American freedom.

Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote.

There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.

Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes. Every device of which human ingenuity is capable has been used to deny this right. The Negro citizen may go to register only to be told that the day is wrong, or the hour is late, or the official in charge is absent. And if he persists, and if he manages to present himself to the registrar, he may be disqualified because he did not spell out his middle name or because he abbreviated a word on the application. And if he manages to fill out an application, he is given a test. The registrar is the sole judge of whether he passes this test. He may be asked to recite the entire Constitution, or explain the most complex provisions of State law. And even a college degree cannot be used to prove that he can read and write.

For the fact is that the only way to pass these barriers is to show a white skin. Experience has clearly shown that the existing process of law cannot overcome systematic and ingenious discrimination. No law that we now have on the books -- and I have helped to put three of them there -- can ensure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it. In such a case our duty must be clear to all of us. The Constitution says that no person shall be kept from voting because of his race or his color. We have all sworn an oath before God to support and to defend that Constitution. We must now act in obedience to that oath.

Wednesday, I will send to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote.

The broad principles of that bill will be in the hands of the Democratic and Republican leaders tomorrow. After they have reviewed it, it will come here formally as a bill. I am grateful for this opportunity to come here tonight at the invitation of the leadership to reason with my friends, to give them my views, and to visit with my former colleagues. I've had prepared a more comprehensive analysis of the legislation which I had intended to transmit to the clerk tomorrow, but which I will submit to the clerks tonight. But I want to really discuss with you now, briefly, the main proposals of this legislation.

This bill will strike down restrictions to voting in all elections -- Federal, State, and local -- which have been used to deny Negroes the right to vote. This bill will establish a simple, uniform standard which cannot be used, however ingenious the effort, to flout our Constitution. It will provide for citizens to be registered by officials of the United States Government, if the State officials refuse to register them. It will eliminate tedious, unnecessary lawsuits which delay the right to vote. Finally, this legislation will ensure that properly registered individuals are not prohibited from voting.

I will welcome the suggestions from all of the Members of Congress -- I have no doubt that I will get some -- on ways and means to strengthen this law and to make it effective. But experience has plainly shown that this is the only path to carry out the command of the Constitution.

To those who seek to avoid action by their National Government in their own communities, who want to and who seek to maintain purely local control over elections, the answer is simple: open your polling places to all your people.

Allow men and women to register and vote whatever the color of their skin.

Extend the rights of citizenship to every citizen of this land.

There is no constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong -- deadly wrong -- to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of States' rights or national rights. There is only the struggle for human rights. I have not the slightest doubt what will be your answer.

But the last time a President sent a civil rights bill to the Congress, it contained a provision to protect voting rights in Federal elections. That civil rights bill was passed after eight long months of debate. And when that bill came to my desk from the Congress for my signature, the heart of the voting provision had been eliminated. This time, on this issue, there must be no delay, or no hesitation, or no compromise with our purpose.

We cannot, we must not, refuse to protect the right of every American to vote in every election that he may desire to participate in. And we ought not, and we cannot, and we must not wait another eight months before we get a bill. We have already waited a hundred years and more, and the time for waiting is gone.

So I ask you to join me in working long hours -- nights and weekends, if necessary -- to pass this bill. And I don't make that request lightly. For from the window where I sit with the problems of our country, I recognize that from outside this chamber is the outraged conscience of a nation, the grave concern of many nations, and the harsh judgment of history on our acts.

But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause too. Because it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.

And we shall overcome.

As a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil, I know how agonizing racial feelings are. I know how difficult it is to reshape the attitudes and the structure of our society. But a century has passed, more than a hundred years since the Negro was freed. And he is not fully free tonight.

It was more than a hundred years ago that Abraham Lincoln, a great President of another party, signed the Emancipation Proclamation; but emancipation is a proclamation, and not a fact. A century has passed, more than a hundred years, since equality was promised. And yet the Negro is not equal. A century has passed since the day of promise. And the promise is un-kept.

The time of justice has now come. I tell you that I believe sincerely that no force can hold it back. It is right in the eyes of man and God that it should come. And when it does, I think that day will brighten the lives of every American. For Negroes are not the only victims. How many white children have gone uneducated? How many white families have lived in stark poverty? How many white lives have been scarred by fear, because we've wasted our energy and our substance to maintain the barriers of hatred and terror?

And so I say to all of you here, and to all in the nation tonight, that those who appeal to you to hold on to the past do so at the cost of denying you your future.

This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all, all black and white, all North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They're our enemies, not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too -- poverty, disease, and ignorance: we shall overcome.

Now let none of us in any section look with prideful righteousness on the troubles in another section, or the problems of our neighbors. There's really no part of America where the promise of equality has been fully kept. In Buffalo as well as in Birmingham, in Philadelphia as well as Selma, Americans are struggling for the fruits of freedom. This is one nation. What happens in Selma or in Cincinnati is a matter of legitimate concern to every American. But let each of us look within our own hearts and our own communities, and let each of us put our shoulder to the wheel to root out injustice wherever it exists.

As we meet here in this peaceful, historic chamber tonight, men from the South, some of whom were at Iwo Jima, men from the North who have carried Old Glory to far corners of the world and brought it back without a stain on it, men from the East and from the West, are all fighting together without regard to religion, or color, or region, in Vietnam. Men from every region fought for us across the world twenty years ago.

And now in these common dangers and these common sacrifices, the South made its contribution of honor and gallantry no less than any other region in the Great Republic -- and in some instances, a great many of them, more.

And I have not the slightest doubt that good men from everywhere in this country, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Golden Gate to the harbors along the Atlantic, will rally now together in this cause to vindicate the freedom of all Americans.

For all of us owe this duty; and I believe that all of us will respond to it. Your President makes that request of every American.

The real hero of this struggle is the American Negro. His actions and protests, his courage to risk safety and even to risk his life, have awakened the conscience of this nation. His demonstrations have been designed to call attention to injustice, designed to provoke change, designed to stir reform. He has called upon us to make good the promise of America. And who among us can say that we would have made the same progress were it not for his persistent bravery, and his faith in American democracy.

For at the real heart of battle for equality is a deep seated belief in the democratic process. Equality depends not on the force of arms or tear gas but depends upon the force of moral right; not on recourse to violence but on respect for law and order.

And there have been many pressures upon your President and there will be others as the days come and go. But I pledge you tonight that we intend to fight this battle where it should be fought -- in the courts, and in the Congress, and in the hearts of men.

We must preserve the right of free speech and the right of free assembly. But the right of free speech does not carry with it, as has been said, the right to holler fire in a crowded theater. We must preserve the right to free assembly. But free assembly does not carry with it the right to block public thoroughfares to traffic.

We will guard against violence, knowing it strikes from our hands the very weapons which we seek: progress, obedience to law, and belief in American values.

In Selma, as elsewhere, we seek and pray for peace. We seek order. We seek unity. But we will not accept the peace of stifled rights, or the order imposed by fear, or the unity that stifles protest. For peace cannot be purchased at the cost of liberty.

In Selma tonight -- and we had a good day there -- as in every city, we are working for a just and peaceful settlement And we must all remember that after this speech I am making tonight, after the police and the FBI and the Marshals have all gone, and after you have promptly passed this bill, the people of Selma and the other cities of the Nation must still live and work together. And when the attention of the nation has gone elsewhere, they must try to heal the wounds and to build a new community.

Because all Americans just must have the right to vote. And we are going to give them that right. All Americans must have the privileges of citizenship -- regardless of race. And they are going to have those privileges of citizenship -- regardless of race.

Of course, people cannot contribute to the nation if they are never taught to read or write, if their bodies are stunted from hunger, if their sickness goes untended, if their life is spent in hopeless poverty just drawing a welfare check. So we want to open the gates to opportunity. But we're also going to give all our people, black and white, the help that they need to walk through those gates.

My first job after college was as a teacher in Cotulla, Texas, in a small Mexican-American school. Few of them could speak English, and I couldn't speak much Spanish. My students were poor and they often came to class without breakfast, hungry. And they knew, even in their youth, the pain of prejudice. They never seemed to know why people disliked them. But they knew it was so, because I saw it in their eyes. I often walked home late in the afternoon, after the classes were finished, wishing there was more that I could do. But all I knew was to teach them the little that I knew, hoping that it might help them against the hardships that lay ahead.

And somehow you never forget what poverty and hatred can do when you see its scars on the hopeful face of a young child. I never thought then, in 1928, that I would be standing here in 1965. It never even occurred to me in my fondest dreams that I might have the chance to help the sons and daughters of those students and to help people like them all over this country.

But now I do have that chance -- and I'll let you in on a secret -- I mean to use it.

And I hope that you will use it with me.

I want to be the President who helped the poor to find their own way and who protected the right of every citizen to vote in every election.

I want to be the President who helped to end hatred among his fellow men, and who promoted love among the people of all races and all regions and all parties.

I want to be the President who helped to end war among the brothers of this earth.

And so, at the request of your beloved Speaker, and the Senator from Montana, the majority leader, the Senator from Illinois, the minority leader, Mr. McCulloch, and other Members of both parties, I came here tonight -- not as President Roosevelt came down one time, in person, to veto a bonus bill, not as President Truman came down one time to urge the passage of a railroad bill -- but I came down here to ask you to share this task with me, and to share it with the people that we both work for. I want this to be the Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, which did all these things for all these people.

Beyond this great chamber, out yonder in fifty States, are the people that we serve. Who can tell what deep and unspoken hopes are in their hearts tonight as they sit there and listen. We all can guess, from our own lives, how difficult they often find their own pursuit of happiness, how many problems each little family has. They look most of all to themselves for their futures. But I think that they also look to each of us.

Above the pyramid on the great seal of the United States it says in Latin: "God has favored our undertaking." God will not favor everything that we do. It is rather our duty to divine His will.

But I cannot help believing that He truly understands and that He really favors the undertaking that we begin here tonight.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/lbjweshallovercome.htm
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We Shall Overcome
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For the Bruce Springsteen album, see We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.
"We Shall Overcome" is a protest song that became a key anthem of the US civil rights movement. The lyrics of the song are derived from a gospel song by Reverend Charles Tindley. The song was published in 1947 as "We Will Overcome" in the People's Songs Bulletin (a publication of People's Songs, an organization of which Pete Seeger was the director and guiding spirit). It appeared in the bulletin as a contribution of and with an introduction by Zilphia Horton, then music director of the Highlander Folk School of Monteagle, Tennessee, a school that trained union organizers. It was her favorite song and she taught it to Pete Seeger (see Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Musical Autobiography by Pete Seeger, 1993-97, p. 34), who included it in his repertoire, as did many other activist singers, such as Frank Hamilton and Joe Glazer, who recorded it in 1950. The song became associated with the Civil Rights movement from 1959, when Guy Carawan stepped in as song leader at Highlander, and the school was a the focus of student non-violent activism. It quickly became the movement's unofficial anthem. Seeger and other famous folksingers in the early 1960s, such as Joan Baez, sang the song at rallies, folk festivals, and concerts in the North and helped make it widely known. Since its rise to prominence, the song, and songs based on it, have been used in a variety of protests worldwide.

Contents [hide]
1 Origins
2 Role of Highlander Folk School
3 Widespread adaptation
4 Copyright and royalties
5 See also
6 Notes
7 External links
8 References
9 Further reading

[edit] Origins
The phrase "We Will Overcome" is derived from the lyrics to a 1901 hymn or gospel music composition by Rev. Charles Tindley of Philadelphia. Tindley was an African Methodist Episcopal Church minister who composed many hymns and lyrics, some 50 of which are known to have survived. The lyrics to "We Shall Overcome" were combined with Tindley's original melody at a later date. Newer lyrics contained the repeated line "I'll overcome someday," and the phrase, "Deep in my heart," which more likely derive from a later gospel song. Whatever the case, various versions can be traced to integrated meetings of black and white coal miners in the early 1900s and to black churches in the 1800s.[1]

According to James J. Fuld, Tindley wrote words that are similar to the song we now know, but his tune was a different one.[2] Sometime between 1900 and 1946, someone married Tindley's words to a tune with a noticeable family resemblance to that of Michael Praetorius's famous hymn "O Sanctissima." Atron Twigg is possibly responsible for the change.[3] Note that Praetorius (1571-1621) himself, however, could well have taken his tune from the folk tradition, as was a common practice. Some hymn melodies have been traced to sixth-century Gregorian chants and were probably old even then.

[edit] Role of Highlander Folk School
In the fall of 1945 in Charleston, South Carolina, members of the Food and Tobacco Workers Union (who were mostly female and African American), began a five-month strike against the American Tobacco Company. To keep up their spirits during the cold, wet winter of 1945-46, one of the strikers, a woman named Lucille Simmons, led a slow "long meter style" version of the gospel hymn, "We'll Overcome" (I'll Be All Right") to end each day's picketing. Union organizer, Zilphia Horton, who was the wife of the co-founder of the Highlander Folk School (later Highlander Research and Education Center), learned it from Lucille Simmons. Horton was (1935-56) Highlander's music director, and it became her custom to end group meetings each evening by leading this, her favorite song. During the Presidential Campaign of Henry A. Wallace, "We Will Overcome" was printed in Bulletin No. 3 (Sept., 1948), 8, of People's Songs with an introduction by Horton saying that she had learned it from the CIO Food and Tobacco Workers' Union workers and had found it to be extremely powerful. Pete Seeger, a founding member, and for three years Director of People's Songs, learned it from Horton's version in 1947.[4]Seeger writes: "I changed it to 'We shall'. . . . I think I liked a more open sound; 'We will' has alliteration to it, but 'We shall' opens the mouth wider; the 'i' in 'will' is not an easy vowel to sing well [...]."[5] Seeger also added some verses ("We'll walk hand in hand" and "The whole wide world around").

In 1950, the CIO's Department of Education and Research released the album, Eight New Songs for Labor, sung by Joe Glazer ("Labor's Troubador"), and the Elm City Four (songs on the album were: "I Ain't No Stranger Now," "Too Old to Work," "That's All," "Humblin' Back," "Shine on Me," "Great Day," "The Mill Was Made of Marble," and "We Will Overcome"). During a Southern CIO drive, Glazer taught the song to country singer Texas Bill Strength, who cut a version that was later picked up by 4-Star Records.[6]

The song made its first recorded appearance as "We Shall Overcome" (rather than "We Will Overcome") in 1952 on a disc recorded by Laura Duncan (soloist) and the The Jewish Young Singers (chorus) conducted by Robert De Cormier co-produced by Ernie Lieberman and Irwin Silber on Hootenany Records (Hoot 104-A) (Folkways, FN 2513, BCD15720), where it is identified as a Negro Spiritual.

Frank Hamilton, a folk singer from California who was a member of People's Songs and later the Weavers, picked up Seeger's version. Hamilton's friend and traveling companion, fellow-Californian Guy Carawan, learned the song from Hamilton. Carawan and Hamilton, accompanied by Ramblin Jack Elliot, visited Highlander in the early fifties and would also have heard Zilphia Horton sing the song there. When, in 1959, Guy Carawan succeeded Horton as music director at Highlander, he reintroduced it at the school. It was the young (many of them teenagers) student-activists at Highlander, however, who gave the song the words and rhythms we know it by today, when they sang it to keep their spirits up during the frightening police raids on Highlander and their subsequent stays in jail in 1959-60. Because of this, Carawan has been reluctant to claim credit for the song's widespread popularity. In the PBS video We Shall Overcome, Julian Bond credits Carawan with teaching and singing the song at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Raleigh, N.C., in 1960. From there, it spread orally and became an anthem of Southern African American labor union and civil rights activism.[7] Seeger also has publicly, in concert, credited Carawan with the primary role in teaching and popularizing the song within the Civil Rights Movement.

[edit] Widespread adaptation

In August of 1963, folksinger Joan Baez memorably led a crowd of 300,000 in singing "We Shall Overcome" at the Lincoln Memorial during Martin Luther King's March on Washington. President Lyndon Johnson used the phrase "we shall overcome" in addressing Congress on March 15, 1965[8], following violent, "bloody Sunday" attacks on civil rights demonstrators during the Selma to Montgomery marches, thus legitimizing the protest movement. Farmworkers in the United States later sang the song in Spanish during strikes and grape boycotts of the late 1960s.[citation needed] The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association adopted "we shall overcome" as a slogan and used it in title of their retrospective autobiography publication, We Shall Overcome - The History of the Struggle for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland 1968-1978.[9][10] The film Bloody Sunday depicts march leader MP Ivan Cooper leading the song shortly before the Bloody Sunday shootings. Bruce Springsteen re-interpreted the song, which has been included on Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Tribute to Pete Seeger and his 2006 album We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made use of "we shall overcome" in the final Sunday March 31, 1968 speech before his assassination[11] In a 1965 speech[12] King explained the reasons why he believed "we shall overcome" in terms very similar to those used in a 1957 speech to support his belief in "an other-loving God working forever through history for the establishment of His kingdom".[13] These were:

Because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
Quoting Thomas Carlyle, because no lie can live forever.
Quoting William Cullen Bryant, truth crushed to earth will rise again.
Quoting James Russell Lowell, truth is forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne - yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown, stands God within the shadow keeping watch above His own.
"We Shall Overcome" was notably sung by the U.S. Senator for New York Robert F. Kennedy, who led anti-apartheid crowds in choruses from the rooftop of his car while touring the country in 1966.[14]It was also the song Abie Nathan chose to play as the Voice of Peace on October 1, 1993.[citation needed], and as a result it found its way to South Africa in the later years of the anti-apartheid movement.[15]

"We Shall Overcome" later was adopted by various anti-Communist movements in the Cold War and post-Cold War. In his memoir about his years teaching English in Czechoslovakia after the Velvet Revolution, Mark Allen wrote:

In Prague in 1989, during the intense weeks of the Velvet Revolution, hundreds of thousands of people sang this haunting music in unison in Wenceslas Square, both in English and in Czech, with special emphasis on the phrase "I do believe." This song's message of hope gave protesters strength to carry on until the powers-that-be themselves finally gave up hope themselves. In the Prague of 1964, (former Communist) Seeger was stunned to find himself being whistled and booed by crowds of Czechs when he spoke out against the Vietnam War. But those same crowds had loved and adopted his rendition of "We Shall Overcome". History is full of such ironies -- if only you are willing to see them. Prague Symphony (Praha:Praha Publishing, 2008[citation needed]

In India, its literal translation in Hindi "Hum Honge Kaamyab / Ek Din" became a patriotic/spiritual song during the 1980s, particularly in schools. In Bengali-speaking India and in Bangladesh there are two versions, both popular among school-children and political activists. "Amra Karbo Joy" (a literal translation) was translated by the Bengali folk singer Hemanga Biswas and re-recorded by Bhupen Hazarika. Another version, translated by Shibdas Bandyopadhyay, "Ek Din Surjyer Bhor" (literally translated as "One Day The Sun Will Rise") was recorded by the Calcutta Youth Choir arranged by Ruma Guha Thakurta during the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence and became one of the largest selling Bengali records. It was a favorite of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and regularly sung at public events after Bangladesh gained independence.[citation needed] In the Indian State of Kerala, the traditional Communist stronghold, the song became popular in college campuses in late 1970s. It was the struggle song of the Students Federation of India SFI, the largest student organisation in the country. The song translated to the regional language Malayalam by N. P. Chandrasekharan, an activist of SFI, in 1980. The translation followed the same tune of the original song. Later it was also published in Student, the monthly of SFI in Malayalam.[citation needed]

The melody was also used (with due credit to Tinsley) in a symphony by American composer William Rowland[citation needed]. In 1999 National Public Radio included "We Shall Overcome" on their NPR 100 list of most important American songs of the 20th century.[16]

[edit] Copyright and royalties
"We Shall Overcome" was originally written by Rev. Charles Tindley, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. As the work was composed in 1901, it is now in the public domain, according to current (2008) US Copyright law, which provides 100 years for musical works before they become public domain. The present version is an adaptation by Zilphia Horton, Guy Carawan, Frank Hamilton, and Pete Seeger, who share the artists' half of the rights, and TRO (The Richmond Organization, which includes Ludlow Music, Essex, Folkways Music, and Hollis Music), which holds the publishers rights (or 50% of the royalty money). Pete Seeger explained that he took out a defensive copyright on advice of his publisher, TRO, to prevent someone else from doing so and "At that time we didn't know Lucille Simmons' name."[17] All royalties go to the "We Shall Overcome" Fund, administered by Highlander under the trusteeship of the "writers" (i.e., the holders of the writers' share of the copyright, who, strictly speaking, are the arrangers and adapters). Such funds are used to give small grants for cultural expression involving African Americans organizing in the U.S. South.[18]

[edit] See also
American Civil Rights Movement Timeline
Pete Seeger
We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
Guy Carawan
Sing for Freedom, Folkways Records, produced by Guy and Candie Carawan, and the Highlander Center. Field recordings from 1960-88, with the Freedom Singers, Birmingham Movement Choir, Georgia Sea Island Singers, Doc Reese, Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, Len Chandler, and many others. Smithsonian-Folkways CD version 1990.
We Shall Overcome: The Complete Carnegie Hall Concert, June 8, 1963, Historic Live recording June 8, 1963. 2-disc set, includes the full concert, starring Pete Seeger, with the Freedom Singers, Columbia # 45312, 1989. Re-released 1997 by Sony as a box CD set.
Voices Of The Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs 1960-1966 [BOX CD SET] With the Freedom Singers, Fanny Lou Hammer, and Bernice Johnson Reagon, Smithsonian-Folkways CD ASIN: B000001DJT (1997).

[edit] Notes
^ We Shall Overcome, Bruce Springsteen's official website.
^ The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk (1966; Dover, 1995).
^ Tindley
^ Dunaway, 1990, 222-223; Seeger, 1993, 32; see also, Robbie Lieberman, My Song is My Weapon: People's Songs, American Communism, and the Politics of Culture, 1930-50 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, [1989] 1995) p.46, p. 185
^ Seeger, Pete and Blood, Peter (Ed.), Where Have All the Flowers Gone?: A Singer's Stories, Songs, Seeds, Robberies (1993). Independent Publications Group, Sing Out Publications, ISBN 1-881322-01-7
^ Ronald Cohen and Dave Samuelson, Songs for Political Action: Folkmusic, Topical Songs And the American Left 1926-1953 (This lavish book is published as part of Bear Family Records 10-CD box set published in Germany in 1996. It includes a selection of of satirical Trotskyist songs from 1953 by Joe Glazer and Bill Friedland that are bitterly critical of the Popular Front from the point of view of the ultra-left (for example, for cooperating with FDR and for agreeing not to strike during the war) and makes fun of folk singers and folk songs.
^ Dunaway, 1990, 222-223; Seeger, 1993, 32.
^ Lyndon Johnson, speech of March 15, 1965, accessed March 28, 2007 on HistoryPlace.com
^ CAIN: Civil Rights Association by Bob Purdie
^ CAIN: Events: Civil Rights - "We Shall Overcome" published by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA; 1978)
^ "A new normal"..
^ "A New Addition to Martin Luther King's Legacy".
^ ""Give Us the Ballot,"". Address Delivered at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, Washington D.C. (1957-05-17).
^ Thomas, Evan. Robert Kennedy : His Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 322. ISBN 0-7432-0329-1.
^ Dunaway, 1990, 243.
^ The NPR 100 The most important American musical works of the 20th century
^ Seeger, 1993, p. 33
^ Highlander Reports, 2004, p. 3.

[edit] External links
Authorized Profile of Guy Carawan with history of the song, "We Shall Overcome"
Freedom in the Air: Albany Georgia. 1961-62. SNCC #101. Recorded by Guy Carawan, produced for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee by Guy Carawan and Alan Lomax. "Freedom In the Air . . . is a record of the 1961 protest in Albany, Georgia, when, two weeks before Christmas, 737 people brought the town nearly to a halt to force its integration. The record's never been reissued and that's a shame, as it's a moving document of a community through its protest songs, church services, and experiences in the thick of the civil rights struggle."—Nathan Salsburg, host, Root Hog or Die, East Village Radio, January 2007.
Susanne´s Folksong-Notizen, excerpts from various articles, liner notes, etc. about "We Shall Overcome".
Musical Transcription of "We Shall Overcome," based on a recording of Pete Seeger's version, sung with the SNCC Freedom Singers on the 1963 live Carnegie Hall recording, and the 1988 version by Pete Seeger sung at a reunion concert with Pete and the Freedom Singers on the anthology, Sing for Freedom, recorded in the field 1960-88 and edited and annotated by Guy and Candie Carawan, released in 1990 as Smithsonian-Folkways CD SF 40032.
NPR news article including full streaming versions of Pete Seeger's classic 1963 live Carnegie Hall recording and Bruce Springsteen's tribute version.
"Something About That Song Haunts You", essay on the history of "We Shall Overcome," Complicated Fun, June 9, 2006.
"Howie Richmond Views Craft Of Song: Publishing Giant Celebrates 50 Years As TRO Founder", by Irv Lichtman, Billboard, 8, 28, 1999. Excerpt: "Key folk songs in the [TRO] catalog, as arranged by a number of folklorists, are 'We Shall Overcome,' 'Kisses Sweeter Than Wine' 'On Top Of Old Smokey,' 'So Long, It's Been Good To Know You,' 'Goodnight Irene,' 'If I Had A Hammer,' 'Tom Dooley,' and 'Rock Island Line.'"

[edit] References
Dunaway, David, How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger, (orig. pub. 1981, reissued 1990). Da Capo, New York, ISBN 0-306-80399-2.
Seeger, Pete and Blood, Peter (Ed.), Where Have All the Flowers Gone?: A Singer's Stories, Songs, Seeds, Robberies (1993). Independent Publications Group, Sing Out Publications, ISBN 1-881322-01-7
___, "The We Shall Overcome Fund". Highlander Reports, newsletter of the Highlander Research and Education Center, August-November 2004, p.3.
We Shall Overcome, PBS Home Video 174, 1990, 58 minutes.

[edit] Further reading
Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through Its Songs: Compiled and edited by Guy and Candie Carawan; foreword by Julian Bond (New South Books, 2007), comprising two classic collections of freedom songs: We Shall Overcome (1963) and Freedom Is A Constant Struggle (1968), reprinted in a single edition. The book includes a major new introduction by Guy and Candie Carawan, words and music to the songs, important documentary photographs, and firsthand accounts by participants in the Civil Rights Movement. Available from Highlander Center.
We Shall Overcome! Songs of the Southern Freedom Movement: Julius Lester, editorial assistant. Ethel Raim, music editor: Additional musical transcriptions: Joseph Byrd [and] Guy Carawan. New York: Oak Publications, 1963.
Freedom is a Constant Struggle, compiled and edited by Guy and Candie Carawan. Oak Publications, 1968.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Shall_Overcome"
Categories: 1903 songs | American folk songs | American patriotic songs | History of African-American civil rights | Pete Seeger songs | Protest songs | Joan Baez songs | Songs against racism and xenophobia
Hidden categories: Articles needing additional references from June 2008 | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since January 2008 | Articles with unsourced statements since June 2008 | Articles with unsourced statements since September 2008

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Shall_Overcome

We shall overcome: But we must have real leadership to do so
October 28th, 2008 · 10 Comments
(As published today in San Diego CityBeat.)

Poor ACORN. The social-justice organization has been an unfortunate victim of John McCain’s inflammatory tactics.

The poster child for a GOP-invented voter-registration fraud, ACORN is this election’s lanky geek who’s being bloodied and brutalized by the puffed-up neighborhood bullies. And as The Huffington Post reports, the bullies are feeling dangerously emboldened.

Not only have at least two of its offices been vandalized in recent weeks, but ACORN has also been the recipient of extremely disturbing e-mails and voicemails that can only be attributed to Real Americans. You know, the ones Sarah Palin is talkin’ to and, also, winkin’ at, the ones who reside in the “pockets” of Real America. Because those of us Fake Americans in the Fake America? We don’t believe in hate speech or intimidation as a means to an end.

The e-mails to ACORN contained, among other things, a threat to the life of a manager and a directive that all “blue gums” and “porch monkeys” high-tail it back to Africa. Alas, the voicemails weren’t any subtler. One caller’s favorite word rhymed with a comparative form of the adjective “big,” and she spoke of things other than acorns that she hoped would hang from oak trees. I heard her; she was horrid.

Thankfully, the Internet is available in both Americas so we can come together as one, listen to these comments and be not the least bit confused as to how far we still have to go in this diverse nation.

Given this country’s violent racial history and the fact that we are one swing-state combo away from electing a black man to lead us out of this morass, it’s not shocking that racism would become a flashpoint in this election. But the fact that a candidate would intentionally incite the bigoted few—and not be widely condemned for it—is appalling.

After the second presidential debate, I asked readers of my blog whether they felt McCain’s reference to Obama as “that one” was a racially charged remark. Though a few people expressed concern that it might be, the overwhelming opinion was that he is just an out-of-touch geezer. I happen to disagree with this naïve assessment: I believe his remark was specifically intended to degrade Obama, a belief that’s been underscored by unfolding events. Given the kinds of statements he and his representatives had been making up until that night, I had little doubt that calling Obama “that one” was an effort to delineate him—and, in effect, other brown people—as an “other” to be feared.

While McCain and his pathological liar of a running mate haven’t themselves uttered obvious words of racism, they have smilingly relied on coded language. They’ve used words—and combinations of them—with double entendres nearly as indiscernible as a dog whistle when taken individually. But collectively they’re as plain as the melanoma scar on McCain’s jaw.

McCain the Matador waved his red flag before the glazed-over eyes of the smoldering bull with sneering references to “community organizing.” And the bull was frenzied by the time the candidate offered his pre-debate battle cry of, “I’m gonna whip his you-know-what!” An interesting choice of words, given historical context, and I would argue this was not accidental.

Meanwhile, when asked why he does not immediately denounce unsavory outbursts at his rallies, McCain blinks and clenches and takes the I-have-no-idea-what-you’re-talking-about approach.

To be fair, he did attempt to correct a few bigots at one of his rallies. But he didn’t go far enough. McCain stood down when he had an opportunity to stand for something. He could have publicly stated that further outbursts would be met with expulsion from events. He could have publicly stated that Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans are, in fact, Americans. He could have publicly stated that there is no room for bigotry and hate in civil discourse. He could have publicly stated that lawyers will address any wrongdoing at ACORN but the death threats and vile accusations toward the organization, it’s workers, it’s beneficiaries and, yes, his opponent must absolutely, unequivocally, immediately stop.

He could have led, but he didn’t.

In contrast, upon hearing his supporters boo his opponent during a speech on Oct. 21, Obama told the crowd, calmly but firmly, “No, no, we don’t need that. We need you to vote.” Certainly, not an issue as inflammatory as the one created and perpetuated by McCain, but Obama’s already been tested in this way.

Time journalist Joe Klein recently asked Obama about his gut feeling on dealing with the explosive remarks of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama said, “My gut was telling me that this was a teachable moment and that if I tried to do the usual political damage control instead of talking to the American people like an adult—like they were adults and could understand the complexities of race—that I would be not only doing damage to the campaign but missing an important opportunity for leadership.”

This was no gut feeling that put us in an endless war or gave us an unqualified nominee for vice president. No indeed. From this gut feeling came one of the most important and meaningful speeches on race that I’ve ever heard anyone deliver in my lifetime. Apparently, those Real Americans who called ACORN with their snippets of wisdom missed it.

The next four years will hold many opportunities for leadership, one of them being bridging the chasm between Real and Fake America. The choice couldn’t be more obvious. To paraphrase the conservative writer Andrew Sullivan, Obama is the future and we must decide if the future will begin Nov. 5.

http://www.aarynbelfer.com/2008/10/we-shall-overcome-but-we-must-have-real-leadership-to-do-so.html

Victor Obama reassures world
K.P. NAYAR

Barack Obama at the victory rally in Chicago. (Reuters)
Washington, Nov. 5: Americans voted their country back into reckoning as the leader of the free world when they elected Barack Obama as the 44th president of the US last night in a turnout that set a record in 48 years.

With the counting of provisional and absentee ballots still going on across America, 64 per cent of eligible voters cast their votes, braving the elements, long queues and snags at polling stations.

The last time Americans turned out in similar numbers to elect their commander-in-chief was when they voted John F. Kennedy to the presidency.

But if Kennedy’s election was “return to Camelot”, the idealisation of his White House as emblematic of King Arthur’s legendary court, the election of America’s first black President represents the redemption of this country where slavery was legal.

If the percentage is much higher than the figure given at the time going to the press, yesterday’s voting statistics could set a record in 100 years for a country that is notorious for its indifference to exercising adult franchise.

The 63 million plus popular votes polled for Obama, a nearly seven million lead over John McCain, represented a comprehensive rejection of eight years of Republican unilateralism that made the US government an object of revulsion in virtually every country in the world.

An hour after McCain conceded defeat, Obama sought to assure the world that he would turn his back on policies which have made people around the world lose faith in America and turn against it.

“To all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world — our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand,” the President-elect said in an acceptance speech at midnight before a raucous audience estimated at 200,000 in Obama’s home town of Chicago.

“And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright — tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope,” Obama said.

Today, with only 76 days left for his swearing-in, Obama immediately set about assembling his presidency, but he made a point of taking his two daughters, 10-year-old Malia and seven-year-old Sasha, to school in the knowledge that he cannot do that regularly any more after January 20 next year.

From tomorrow itself, top US intelligence officials will begin to give him top-secret daily briefings and share critical overnight intelligence reports as if he is already in the White House. Obama will also begin a practice of daily briefings to the media on Thursday.

Obama is expected to immediately name Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his White House chief of staff, traditionally the first appointment by an incoming President. Emanuel was political and policy adviser to Bill Clinton when he was President.

In another move that will bring Clinton’s top aides back into the White House, Obama is also expected to name John Podesta, who was Clinton’s chief of staff, to head his transition team. Meanwhile, a group of Americans have begun an online petition drive through an open letter to the next President to draft Fareed Zakaria as the next secretary of state.

Zakaria is an Indian-born American journalist, currently editor of Newsweek International. It is an effort that is unlikely to go very far in view of his earlier support for the policies of President George W. Bush. The Democratic party establishment is said to be pressing for recruiting Senator John Kerry for the job.

Bush, meanwhile, talked to Obama on telephone and pledged “complete co-operation” in the transition and called Obama’s victory a “triumph of the American story”.

At the time of writing, Obama has secured 349 votes in the electoral college of 538 persons in results that are still incomplete. McCain got 163.

Results from Missouri and North Carolina are still awaited because the race in the two states is very close and counting of provisional and absentee votes is in progress.

Virginia voted for Obama and if North Carolina follows suit, two states which had very dark histories during the slave era would have especially redeemed their dishonourable past.

Obama’s victory sparked instant, late night celebrations all across the US, which continued today. A few thousand people marched to the White House and claimed that the American people had retaken the presidential home. CNN quoted Secret Service officers as saying that they had never seen anything like it before.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081106/jsp/frontpage/story_10071143.jsp
Maya to Obama, signs of the new millennium
GAIL OMVEDT
Obama has won! I was in the US in May 2007, when Mayavati became chief minister of UP, and Obama was coming forward in the US primary. With my daughter’s friends, mostly young and radical South Asian Americans, and all Obama supporters we celebrated Mayavati’s achievement. After years of depressing Republican presidencies, war and neoliberalism, something new was happening in the world.

An African American was aiming for the presidency, while a Dalit (and a woman!) was heading India’s largest state and promising to become Prime Minister in 10 years. Old barriers of caste and race were being not only challenged, but surmounted. Obama has made history: will Mayavati?

It seems that we were truly entering a new millennium! Obama’s victory itself reflects not only his own impressive leadership, but also a long history. I remember the 1960s: Thirty to forty years ago there were huge “race riots” in the US. In fact, they were urban ghetto uprisings, protests against the continued racism of American society.

A bloody civil war — the bloodiest in American history — had been gone through a century earlier; but in the reaction afterwards segregation was reimposed in the south and the former slaves were deprived of the voting rights. It took decades to make really solid changes. W.E.B. Dubois, as a militant, Left-leaning leader of African Americans, and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar can well be compared; theoretically and practically there were great similarities.

Yet while Ambedkar could become the head of the Constitution drafting committee and a minister, first in British Indian, then in independent India, Dubois could not get a job as postmaster in Washington D.C. which he had applied for. Bitter at the end, Dubois ended as a Communist in Africa.

The 1960s saw the civil rights movement; Martin Luther King (moved by a brave woman named Rosa Parks) emerging to leadership of a Montgomery bus strike as Blacks revolted against being forced to sit at the back of the bus; then came sit-ins by militant Black students resolving not to move away from restaurants refusing to serve them coffee.

In Freedom Summer, an event organised by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to bring whites and Blacks together to fight segregation in Mississippi, four men — three whites and an African American — were killed. One of the slogans of SNCC was the sarcastic, “there’s a town in Mississippi called Liberty; there’s a Department in Washington called Justice” — a comment on the lack of support they were getting from the Federal government. Little children moving to integrate schools were forced to go through mobs of cursing and shouting white segregationists. And then came the uprisings in northern ghettos, cities outside the Deep South which had their own harsh forms of racism.

They were historic years, a time of spreading militancy. A youth group I was working with in Berkeley, calling themselves “Youth Council for Community Action” (they had wanted “Youth Party for Youth Protection” but it was felt too militant), had the saying: “There are Negroes, niggers and Black people. We have a lot of niggers in this organisation, but we at least we don’t have any Negroes!”

Negroes, once the preferred term, had gotten the connotation of a middle class sellout; “nigger” was a derogatory term when used by whites (known insultingly as “honkies”) but when used among themselves had a rather desirable connotation of someone who was (ironically) “bad” — tough, riotous, uncontrollable, one who never gave in or gave up. And “Black” by then was the preferred term, someone who was “together”, a real “brother”.

America has come a long way since then. Sparked by the protests and uprisings, which had the support of growing groups of whites, the government responded with a number of “affirmative action” programmes. Some sections preferred to build “Black Capitalism”, which radicals such as myself at the time saw as rather a sellout. Yet all of these had their effect, Blacks — now calling themselves “African Americans” — began to move ahead in many fields. Emerging writers, men and women alike began to make their impact. Films such as Roots brought home the reality of slavery to millions of viewers; the Color Purple (from the novel by Alice Walker) saw Black women coming in masses and crying through its showing — and sterling first performers by Whoopee Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. Oprah went on to become the highest paid TV personage in the country, said to be worth a million dollars an hour, her endorsement for Obama worth a million votes.

Among the youth of the country, the change in attitude was often profound; people began to choose their friends and mates without looking at colour. According to Census bureau figures, for example, black-white marriages increased from 65,000 in 1970 to 422,000 in 2005. Racism is hardly dead; but it is under challenge as never before.

Then came a young Senator of mixed parentage, white and African, with a history of community organising, with a Kenyan father and a childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii. When he announced his candidacy as a Democrat for the presidency in 2007, he was a “dark horse”, a relative unknown; Hillary Clinton was the overwhelming favourite. Yet Obama began to waken tremendous enthusiasm, drawing huge crowds and provoking emotion. His slogan was simple: “change”.

By the time of the vote, Obama’s victory was no surprise. Charged with being young and inexperienced, he won over his primary and main election opponents not only with the most impressive funding seen in history, but also with powerful organisation, going to the grassroots with a practical machine and using the Internet, YouTube and SMS cellphone messages. He remained cool and unflappable in the face of every challenge. And he awakened something like a new dream among Americans, mostly young, but of every class, Black and white and Hispanic.

Throughout the campaign, he drew crowds like a rock star or a famous preacher, emotional, swaying. The night of the election itself tens of thousands gathered in Chicago and New York, singing and weeping, hugging each other as the results became clear. When he stated in his acceptance speech “change has come -- we have proved today it is a new and real ‘United’ States of America”, the emotional achievement of breaking through three hundred years of American slavery and oppression was visible in many faces.

As one columnist, Frank Rich in the New York Times, wrote: “Obama doesn’t transcend race. He isn’t post-race. He is the latest chapter in the ever-unfurling American racial saga. It is an astonishing chapter.”

For African Americans, it was symbolised in a message sent from phone to phone: “Rosa sat so Martin could walk. Martin walked so Barack could run. Barack ran so your children can fly.” Hopefully, this will symbolise the new millennium, not only for people of every colour in the US but for people of all castes in India.

Gail Omvedt is an America-born sociologist whose essential work has centred on Dalit empowerment movements in India. Among her many books is a political biography of B.R. Ambedkar. Omvedt became an Indian citizen in 1983 and lives in Maharashtra.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081106/jsp/frontpage/story_10071201.jsp

Pat from PM, but no love
RADHIKA RAMASESHAN
New Delhi, Nov. 5: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not tell Barack Obama Indians “deeply love” him, but he did promise the US President-elect “a warm welcome” in the country.

In his congratulatory message to Obama, the Prime Minister said: “Your extraordinary journey to the White House will inspire people not only in your country but also around the world.”

“I hope you will find an opportunity to visit India soon. A warm welcome awaits you,” Singh added, saying he looked forward to working with Obama. “We have strong ties between our people and I look forward to working with you to realise the enormous potential for co-operation that exists between India and the US.”

A little over a month ago, when Singh met the outgoing President at the White House, he had told George W. Bush: “The people of India deeply love you, and all that you have done to bring our two countries closer to each other.”

Congress spokespersons were asked why the Prime Minister got so effusive about a leader whose approval ratings had plummeted when he was about to demit office.

Bush and Singh had worked closely to seal the nuclear deal, an issue so close to the Prime Minister’s heart that he staked his government on it.

If Singh’s message to Obama was unlike his emotional interactions with Bush, the ruling Congress and the Opposition BJP were not effusive either.

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi congratulated Obama and both parties hailed as “historic” the election of the first black President of the US but were weighing what the regime change would mean for India.

Bush, sources in the Congress and the BJP agreed, meant a lot to both parties. Relations between India and the US got a boost when he was first elected President in 2000. At the time, the BJP’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Prime Minister. Indo-US ties reached a high when the nuclear deal was sealed this year.

BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said: “India has to be careful because the Democrats will pressure India to sign the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty).”

Congress sources said that while the deal could not be abrogated, the Democrats might thwart its implementation. Since every nuclear transaction will require a licence from the US government, Washington could leverage its position to pressure India to sign the CTBT, they feared.

Congress sources also pointed out that “a Democrat dispensation tends to lean towards China”.

Other areas of concern were Obama’s hints at third-party mediation on Jammu and Kashmir and curtailing outsourcing of jobs.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari pinned his hopes on Indian Americans: “Indo-US relations have grown and consolidated over the last two decades. If there are differing perceptions, we will have to work towards their reconciliation. The Indian diaspora has enough strength to work on the US establishment towards reconciliation.”
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081106/jsp/frontpage/story_10069513.jsp
Indians shrug off BPO worry
AMIT ROY

Shefali Kapadia watches election night coverage with Indian techies in New York
New York, Nov. 5: As President, Barack Obama will not be able to reverse the whole process of outsourcing to India whatever he may have indicated during the election campaign, many Indian Americans feel.

Explaining why Indian “techies” took this view, Kartik Kilachand, member of South Asians for Obama, told The Telegraph: “Indians comprise 2.4million — about 0.8 per cent of America’s 300 million population. Yet out of the $650million campaign funds collected by Obama, Indians raised nearly $30million — about 5 per cent of the total.”

Kilachand, who had gathered for an Indian election-night party in Brooklyn Heights, an affluent New York suburb, said: “We now have a seat at the table. We will be consulted on important policy issues, such as outsourcing.”

The Indians clearly felt part of the US political process. A rousing cheer went up at 8.45pm when CNN called Pennsylvania for Obama. At 9.20pm, Ohio, another crucial battleground state, followed.

One of the guests, Shefali Kapadia, combining the glamour of New York and Mumbai, the two cities between which she — like many other Indian Americans — practically commutes, said she worked for two NGOs, Chakshu and Blazing Hope, which focused on 64 villages in Maharashtra.

“I often work in the village of Shivkar in the Panvel area and know bright children,” she said. “All they need is a break. I am confident they could be the Indian Obamas of tomorrow, the outsider who has come from nowhere.”

Last night’s party was hosted by Ashok Vasvani, a “financial analyst for hedge funds”, and his wife Bansi, an art dealer. Many of the guests were entrepreneurs in software development.

Whether Obama really will consult his Indian supporters on outsourcing remains to be seen but the main argument advanced last night was that, in office, he would be unlikely to adopt policies that would damage American companies by restricting their ability to engage with business partners in India.

There was no jingoism on display, only a presentation of the realities of burgeoning Indo-US trade and business. And it came at a celebration where the mood was genuinely pro-Obama.

Kilachand’s business partner, Samir Hutheesing, stressed that US corporations outsourced to India “not because it was cheaper but because they received quality”.

He said: “Obama has talked of rewarding American companies that don’t send jobs abroad but I don’t think US companies have a choice. The Wipros and the Infosyses of this world are multi-billion-dollar companies. Indian companies are very competitive. Indian companies can offer good service with excellent technical skills, which are often things you cannot get in the US.”
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081106/jsp/frontpage/story_10070953.jsp
PROMISE OF THE PRESENT
- Barack Hussein Obama’s election completes a cycle of history
Mukul Kesavan

This is the richest and the most powerful country which ever occupied this globe. The might of past empires is little compared to ours. But I do not want to be the President who built empires, or sought grandeur, or extended dominion.

I want to be the President who educated young children to the wonders of their world.

I want to be the President who helped to feed the hungry and to prepare them to be tax-payers instead of tax-eaters.

http://www.blackstarnews.com/?c=125&a=4988
The day before Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States of America, I asked a class of post-graduate students if they thought an Obama win (were it to happen) would amount to a historically significant event, a landmark of sorts, a watershed. Ever since the great materialist historians of France and Britain discredited a style of history-writing that reduced history to a chronicle of kings and queens and governments, students of history have been careful not to freight individuals with more historical significance than they can bear.

Two students in a class of six argued that Obama’s election would make no material difference to race relations in America, nor to America’s relations with the world. Both of them had specific reasons for their view: the boy, a Maoist, said that America’s military-industrial complex was too entrenched for any individual to affect, and the girl (of no explicit political affiliation) was content to argue that Obama’s election would be, at best, a kind of tokenism practised by a society keen to buy cheap absolution for its racist past and present.

Since I had been following Obama’s career obsessively for more than four years, ever since I read a magazine profile of him written around the time he was running for the US Senate, I felt both disappointed and chastened by their unillusioned take on an Obama presidency. Disappointed because in a corny way I expected ‘young people’ to be excited by the prospect of a relatively young black man becoming the president of the most powerful country in the world, and chastened because their answers made my excitement feel like middle-aged hyperventilation.

Even middle-age wasn’t an excuse because there were many grown-up people whose views on Obama’s campaign were similarly clear-eyed. In an interview with the New Statesman, the writer, Arundhati Roy, refused to endorse Obama. For the American electorate, the choice between Obama and McCain was no better than the humiliating choice Indians faced between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, she said. If Obama was elected, he would, metaphorically, turn into a white man because “He’ll have to prove that he is whiter than the white man.”

If Arundhati Roy’s argument about the irrelevance of Obama’s colouring came from the Left, Christopher Hitchens disdained Obama’s blackness from the Right. A Trotskyist who became a neo-conservative a few years ago, Hitchens declared with fine rhetorical flourish in the Wall Street Journal that “I shall not vote for Sen. Obama and it will not be because he — like me and like all of us — carries African genes.” For Hitchens the idea that Obama’s mixed race identity or his colour made his candidacy historic was ignorant and sentimental because science had taught us otherwise: “The enormous advances in genome studies have effectively discredited the whole idea of ‘race’ as a means of categorizing humans. And however ethnicity may be defined or subdivided, it is utterly unscientific and retrograde to confuse it with color.”

Having scientifically demonstrated (at least to his own satisfaction) that since everyone was African, no one was black, Hitchens went on, in another article, to dismiss the excitement about the significance of Obama’s candidacy as a feeble-minded capitulation to identity politics: “The more that people claim Obama’s mere identity to be a ‘breakthrough,’ the more they demonstrate that they have failed to emancipate themselves from the original categories of identity that acted as a fetter upon clear thought.”

So why was I thrilled by Obama’s victory? And what reason was there to believe that a hundred years from now, his election as president would merit a page or even a footnote in a history of the 21st century? It’s salutary to be reminded of the historical cruelties of the American State, and the suffering it has inflicted on people within its borders and beyond them. In the headlined hysteria of the moment, it’s useful to be reminded that Obama’s ascension won’t, in the foreseeable future, reduce the population of African-Americans in jail, extend their life-expectancy or magic blacks out of inner-city ghettoes into prosperous suburbs. And in Obama’s declared foreign-policy intentions — his determination to wage an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, his keenness to bomb Pakistan in pursuit of bin Laden — there is enough to depress the most enthusiastic supporter.

And yet, shouldn’t a historically informed scepticism about Obama, founded in an understanding of the past nature of the American State, be nuanced and complicated by another history, one that feeds directly into this election? To acknowledge the history of American empire and the heartbreak it has visited on this world is proper. But surely we should simultaneously recall the struggle against slavery and segregation, recognize that span of history, which now includes Obama in its arc, remember Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Bayard Rustin and Rosa Parks, and try to imagine what the election of a black man to the American presidency would have meant to them? Because unless we make that effort, our scepticism of individuals and the politics of identity remains depthless, unempathetic, ahistorical.

Ironically it was a conservative American writer, Michael Gerson, a supporter of McCain, who summed up the historical symbolism of Obama’s victory: “An African American will take the oath of office blocks from where slaves were once housed in pens and sold for profit. He will sleep in a house built in part by slave labor, near the room where Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation with firm hand. He will host dinners where Teddy Roosevelt in 1901 entertained the first African American to be a formal dinner guest in the White House; command a military that was not officially integrated until 1948. Every event, every act, will complete a cycle of history.”

A few days before the election, the great American novelist, Toni Morrison was asked roughly the same question I asked my students. Morrison, whose wrenchingly beautiful novel about slavery, Beloved, is arguably the best American novel written in the past half century, had this to say. “This election is critical, vital to more than just people in the United States. It’s going to make a big, big difference which way it goes… I think the promise with Senator Obama is that we return to an idea known as ‘the common good’…” Toni Morrison is a black woman, who, despite Christopher Hitchens’s dazzling deconstruction of race and colour, has no doubt at all about her blackness, the history of that blackness and the significance of Barack Obama’s bid for the presidency of the United States of America to that history. Asked what she was going to do on election night, this grand old woman of American letters who has won every distinction that a writer can hope for, said: “I have three choices: I can go to some friends; I was invited to go on a TV show; but I think under the bed may yet prove the safest place to be.”

She can come out from under the bed now, and I can tell my students tomorrow that I had asked them the wrong question, that there are times when, like a good reader, it’s good to briefly suspend disbelief, to resist the pleasure of knowingness, to give yourself up to the promise of the present. The election of Barack Hussein Obama is one of those times. For a day (or a week), history can take care of itself.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081106/jsp/opinion/story_10068405.jsp

Beacon of an equal world
Struggle makes victory special
Barack Hussein Obama has made it. The child of a black man will enter the White House as President of the USA on January 20, 2009. This is not an ordinary event, nor is it a symbolic one. Indeed, it is an epoch-making event signifying a real change, not only for America but for the entire world, especially for the disempowered people across nations.

What does the Obama victory mean for the disempowered masses worldwide? In one word: Hope.

It was probably the first election in the history of the United States that witnessed long and winding queues of African American voters, who, until now, had felt largely disenfranchised and under-represented in the election process and to an extent, even shut out of mainstream America. It is also for the first time in American history that African American youth have an empowered leader they can look up to and strive to aspire to become.

Not since John F. Kennedy has there been such anticipation and speculation around a presidential candidate as was the case with Obama. But the comparison between Kennedy and Obama really ends with a minority background and highly energetic youthfulness which they shared.

Kennedy had a strong and wealthy family background. On the other hand, as the child of a black man and white woman, raised by a single mother and with a father having a Muslim-sounding name — Hussein — besides an extremely modest economic background, Obama had to beat many more seemingly insurmountable odds and overcome vicious personalised criticism. That is precisely why this victory is so special, and truly unprecedented.

Obama represents a beacon of hope to millions of sidelined or marginalised masses throughout the world just for who he is. As he explains his multicultural background and family structure in his book, The Audacity of Hope, “I have no choice but to believe this vision. As the child of a black man and white woman, born in the melting pot of Hawaii, with a sister who is half-Indonesian, but who is usually mistaken for Mexican, and a brother-in-law and niece of Chinese descent, with some relatives who resemble Margaret Thatcher and others who could pass for Bernine Mac, I never had the option of restricting my loyalties on the basis of race or measuring my worth on the basis of tribe.”

Obama’s wife, Michelle, also symbolises the true 21st century woman: intelligent, independent, and the pillar of strength for her husband. Women throughout the world can look up to her poise and intellect, and can have similar dreams of their own.

Obama supporter Joyce Nichols cries as she watches the election results in Houston. (AP)
Needless to say that the accomplishment does not lie with the person alone and the praise must legitimately also go to the nation that elects such a leader despite racial or religious or caste barriers. This is symptomatic of the welcome maturity of the American democracy. Nevertheless, as former secretary of state Colin Powell stated while endorsing Obama’s candidature, Obama was not supported “because of his race”.

Obama studiously refrained from using the “Black Card” and charged the American public opinion by conveying a new image of American leadership and also a new vision for America’s role in the world.

“This election is not about me, it is about you,” he convinced the American people. This great contribution is entirely Obama’s own.

“President” Obama would certainly represent the “melting pot” that America has become and is hoped to be a harbinger of a change indicating that centuries of prejudice and hate that have besieged American society and culture have finally begun to end. No longer will a typical American just be thought of as a Caucasian, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant man. It could be an Indian businessman, or Chinese professional or even a Muslim woman wearing a burqa.

Rahul Gandhi recently said that in India “there are hundreds of Obamas in the making”. Well, Barack Obama’s election as the President of the US is a great source of inspiration to the thousands of Obamas in the making all over the world. Indeed, the making of the man — “President” Barack Hussein Obama — is the message!

Dr Narendra Jadhav, economist and educationist, is vice-chancellor of the University of Pune. His autobiography Outcaste is the saga of a Dalit family, and their triumphs and tribulations
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081106/jsp/nation/story_10069812.jsp

1 comment:

Unknown said...: Ronald reagan must be turning blind in his grave as free market champion, the unipolar corporate zionist United States nullified his Star Wars and the histroic assassination of socialism. Socialism is ressurrected as phoenix in the land of capitalism and globalisation! socialism proves itself the best survival strategy for the capitalism, Marx would never have dreamt! Looking to calm worries about the government’s purchase of equity in U.S. financial institutions, President George W. Bush said that the emergency moves will be temporary and limited in scope.
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oliviaharis
social bookmark; November 10, 2008 at 2:37 AM

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