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| Martin Luther King. I Have A Dream speech. 1963 at the Washington D.C. Lincoln Monument. |
Just as the Word of God is the essential life instruction book of the sons of Abraham, the role of a smart, dynamic education is vital to the well-being of the American citizen and the larger American community. How does the understanding of the most cherished precepts found in the words of the two main documents of our Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, vary according to the understanding, appreciation, and insight of the professors and teachers?
Our sense of humanity is strengthened, denigrated, sharpened, and made dull according to the quality of instruction we receive, creating and sustaining an educational and overall leadership divide in America. Think about Frederick Douglass for a moment; his rise as an outspoken citizen was initially launched with his self-education and through the combined efforts of the network of caring members in the local and national communities of the U.S. and England; refashioning himself from ignorant slave to acclaimed public speaker, best-selling author, and ultimately, a statesman and exemplary American citizen with 2-3 books: The Columbian Orator, the Holy Bible, and a writing practice book. His understanding of the basic precepts in the American Constitution coupled with his gratitude for the role of access to education in his life, and the pivotal role of like-minded souls in the American and English communities allowed him to be occupied in the good work of improving the basic human rights of Americans of black skin color (and women of all skin colors).
It is a challenge to Educators and parents in how we are brought to understand the work of altruist American leaders. Not valuing the importance of what the ‘American Spirit’ is supposed to be; failing to search it out from the established positions of John Adams, and never less of importance, his wife and First Lady Abigail Adams, or how politically-savvy Alexander Hamilton controlled much of the administration, foresight and actions of George Washington renders an American citizenry that is ignorant and lacking in its duty to be an aware and advocating citizenry of life and liberty; and the protection of our land and community.
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| President Ronald Reagan, March 8, 1983. Breaks ranks from his advisors, transcends his office, and speaks to the American heart & mind on the dire importance of protecting the right of life of unborn children. |
Have the professors, Educators and parents read the letters of John and Abigail Adams, or of the golden years of John Quincy Adams in the U.S. House of Representatives? Have these professors read the autobiographies of American Hero Frederick Douglass? Do they know of President Ronald Reagan’s groundbreaking essay and book published while he was in office (the only published book of a President while in office)? What of Abraham Lincoln’s initial ideas on what to do with the slaves? How do they understand our 16th President from the view point of Frederick Douglass’s writings in his third autobiography? What literature was studied, to what extent is the understanding and discussion of how a smart education itself transformed each of these individuals?
These leaders were human beings performing in extraordinary ways, not sentimental American patriots for the sake of patriotism, but visionaries and action-oriented intellectuals who were altruistic in their efforts to make an America that was truly great.
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| President Abraham Lincoln, General Grant & other generals strategizing during the American Civil War. |
As a whole, public schools and most private school education policy makers in America do not grasp the importance or practical value in supporting a profound, unbiased inculcation of the nuances between Malcolm X versus Martin Luther King, or of the work of John Quincy Adams, Frederick Douglass, and Attorney Thurgood Marshall as they intelligently and astutely railed, cajoled, and defied an America reality wherein the life and liberty of all American citizens was not equal in its citizenship rights; in its sense of a shared humanity. They endeavored with the written and spoken word within the courtroom, within our Congress, from railway cars, and town assembly halls, from Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia, and quietly on the streets of Montgomery, Alabama. These heroes defied the prevailing order with equanimity and withstood the complacency of a disjointed union that favored some at the expense of the human rights of others; with altruistic yearning, and a calling forth for a rightful assembly of the American story; one were their was the protection of life & liberty.
Is our educational paradigm able to introduce altruism in its educational upbringing, or must it denigrate into politically-slanted positions that polarize the citizenry into camps of thought?
It IS important that we know that John Quincy Adams, Frederick Douglass, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, and Ronald Reagan saw that the failure of the government to fairly serve and protect the right to life, liberty, justice, and the protection of the land was not a call to shame Americans, but a signal for the need of American sentinels to become extraordinary in the endeavoring of a United States of America that responsibly lived up to the ideals of that Constitution.
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| Slaves marching after being freed during the Civil War, 1861-1865. |
It IS important that we know HOW these leaders went about to attain victory. They did not call for Americans to lay down their weapons or to take them up as a means of achieving a desired outcome. John Quincy Adams went before the Supreme Court, as did Thurgood Marshall. Frederick Douglass’s power was in the spoken and written word; he published his newspapers, books, and was a relentless public speaker in the 1800’s. This last spoke in all the major towns and cities of the American north, then crossed over to England and Ireland and spoke in all of its major cities and towns. Martin Luther King rebuked the impatience and violence of Malcolm X, King’s foundation was based on non-violence and an adherence to the Christian precepts found in the Bible.
The creation of such an intellectual dearth of the American story, an understanding of where we come from, leaves us with a lack of knowledge as to who we are, and who we shall be. Rectifying this is of great importance to the people of the United States. Ultimately, we must be taught to be Americans before we prioritize our allegiance to a political party, and if possible, peaceable, yet awakened sons and daughters of God before we are these American patriots.
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