Black Resistance (British America)Part II in a Series So to continue our series on Black Resistance to Slavery in America, let’s begin after Columbus discovered the western reaches of India around 1492. Okay, of course, we all know Columbus did not discover the western reaches of India although that was what he wanted to do and that is what he thought he did. What he sought was a short water route to India and the Far East; his theory was if he circumnavigated the globe he would find that route. Of course, he and other Europeans had no idea that...

Written at the beginning of the millennium. Twenty years later, with the rise of vitriol and violence still in pursuit of a people as old as the Pyramids, a reprint is timely. With faith and family intact,...

Disrespect and mistreatment of Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans spans centuries. It starts with the island being handed over as a prize of war after Spain’s defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898. For some time, Puerto Ricans were merely...

President Donald J. Trump’s frenzied, double-edged sword of spreading fear and currying favor by dramatically announcing, delaying, and then re-instituting Immigration and Customs (ICE) raids upon those he considers to be in the country illegally, reminds me of a similar...

William Lloyd Garrison headed the Abolitionist Movement. Both he and Frederick Douglass used flaming oratory alone in furtherance of their cause. These impassioned men could only sit and pat their feet as the religious zealot John Brown set about attempting...

On D-Day in Philly, in Forty-Four,I, at fifteen, sat on the floor – All night long, as it turned out to be –It was finally D-Day, a big deal for me. The radio screeched from the undersea cable.I pressed my...

Mi Abuelita (Laura Maria Rosa y Mendez) was born in 1896, two years before Yanqui troops invaded. She and all of my father’s side of the family are Jibaros that come from a small town in the mountains of Puerto...

Mommy, Laurie and me When I was in the first grade, my mother became very ill with Rheumatic fever. This caused my sister and me to be sent to stay with our grandparents. Laurie went to live with Mama...

    "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every...

James Weldon Johnson (center) with friend Bob Cole (left) and brother Rosamond On the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday in the year 1900, a group of young men in the city of Jacksonville, Florida arranged to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday....

As the newspaper obituaries will show, Jacquelyn Littlefield challenged to big boys on a diamond that stretched from Beverly Hills through New York City and back west again to San Diego / La Jolla.  I met Jacquie in 1979,...

The Little Prince Of Brooklyn  Chapter 1 When the film “The Godfather” was first released, I took my girlfriend and her mom to see it. At the point where Don Corleone tells his son Michael that “I never wanted...

Today, we Americans are faced with a frightful vision: The “Better Angels of Our Nature,” with clipped wings, tentatively clinging to a wobbly, “Arc of the Moral Universe,” whilst weakly accompanied by the discordant strains of the, “Mystic Chords of...

In this sense i have been in love with every collaborator I worked with, deeply in love Thomas, the French film maker & German novelist was the translator of my poems but we became more than that, much more than...

That inconceivably pointed elimination from Planet Earth of 12,000,000 souls, including 6,000,000 people of the Hebrew Faith; the sexually non-conformists; the Roma (Gypsies); the physically and mentally other-abled; as well as those who otherwise did not fit n socially or...

This is a colloquy between Thomas Jefferson  and James Madison, about the U.S. Constitution of 1787/89, The Bill of Rights and the 2nd Amendment in particular. JEFFERSON: As you will recall, James, I was in Paris when I received the...

The Independence Movement comprises the intellectual, artistic and most ineffectually noisy 5% of the conscience of the Puerto Rican people. Fifty years ago, I was sitting in a contrastingly calm Independista reading-discussion coffee room in Santurce, Puerto Rico, when the...

INTERVIEWER: Mr. PresidentMr. President, are you aware of how the current POTUS compares himself to you?LINCOLN: Strange term, but oh, yes. I had no idea the presidency could be so entertaining. Seems it’s the ultimate toy for a rich, big...

As we stare into the abyss of an unknown political future, let’s take a moment and appreciate what we have. I was born during the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, arguably the last good Republican President. That year segregation...

Billy Pilgrim's Bunkmate The professor seemed bursting with quirks: ramrod erect though middle-low in height, thinning hair, full suit, top rim glasses, a nasal yet precise voice, the epitome of a square to any clutch of students. He introduced himself...

A black and white Polaroid taken by my grandfather commemorates one of several pilgrimages we took by bus back to his birthplace in north-central Georgia. The scattered village where he was born is a remnant of what was once the...

In the private Berlin study of the Rabbi for the largest Jewish Temple in Germany, late-evening tea is being served. In five years’ time, this country will be the centerpiece of the first of two great wars. These dual...

My earliest and most vivid memories of elementary school were when we would gather together in a single classroom and watch a rocket take off with a man aboard. I grew up with the Mercury Seven Astronauts, the Gemini program...

(Elie Wiesel has died. He survived a Nazi concentration camp, and ever since spread the Jewish mantra, “Never Again!” He added, “Never remain silent in the face of oppression.” Elie Wiesel and this writer were born in the same year....

Helen Fabela Chavez, the widow and activist-partner of farmworkers champion Cesar Chavez, was laid to rest last week. Following is an obituary by her son-in-law Richard Ybarra, who apart from having married his daughter, marched beside Cesar Chavez in...

Once again we find ourselves in the midst of a tragedy carried out by use of firearms. The true shame of this horror is that it surprised no one, except those in the crosshairs. For most Americans it now seems...

    August 22, 1964 - Martha and The Vandellas debuted at No. 68 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with their single, "Dancing In The Street." I was only 10 at the time. Bed-Stuy was still a "mixed" neighborhood back...

In 1942, while innocent San Diego citizens and legal residents of Japanese ancestry were being held under guard at Santa Anita’s stinking horse stables, in Orange County. Del Webb (who later built Arizona’s “Sun City”) was busy constructing, “Camp Poston,”...

The Castillo San Felipe del Morro, once the most formidable fortification in the Caribbean and its companion Fortín de San Gerónimo del Boquerón that protect the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico, were never taken by force of arms. ...

America, thou art Hypocrisy. Thy promise was fairness to all. Instead, ‘twas planted a bitter-fruit tree – Today, yet, we still taste the gall! Generally, Ken Burns’ excellent filmings of the American story are so remote...

For Part 8 click HERE I walked endlessly through the city. I'd arrive back at my office in the evenings and I would sit there in the dark watching the light of the flames outside which...

For Part 7 click HERE I am sitting in this office in a burnt out Berlin while my men are going to the wall. I am powerless to do anything at all. They would expect...

I am an old man but I am not too old to forget their scent. I am being sought by a race that stole its sense of community from my homeland. While at home what they call a nation is...

  Idiot Free Zone® is the culmination of a long and at first unplanned, process. Of course it represents the totality of my life experience, but more to the point it is really the result of long debates and outright arguments...

    It is 71 BC and I'm Spartacus You are Marcus Licinius Crassus   It is 60 AD and I'm Boudica You are Gaius Suetonius Paulinus   It is 415 and I'm Hypatia You are the christian mob  ...

As I was walking my grandson home from school he mentioned something about WWI and I asked him how he knew about WWI, his reply: “Because I am a history nerd. I study it whenever I can. I also know...

Since this writer’s late brother, Dr. Richard A. Long, was a formidable, intellectual force within African American academia and beyond, and this being the season of concentration upon the Black Experience, IFZ has requested a sketch of Richard’s early life...

For Part 5 click HERE From the early days I had developed such a network the like of which had not been seen. I was drawn to the corruption in men. I was a man whose...

Although it is suggested by the recent release of the first full-length documentary based on the life of the late Dr. Maya Angelou, a Sundance project, “Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise,” this piece will not contain information from that...

For Part 4 click HERE Short memories were a commodity much in demand after the war. I can understand a man looking after his own skin. That is to be expected even if it shows a certain...

        North Platte is known for four historical sites – Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park; a Pony Express Station; Baily Switchyard... and The North Platte Canteen.       A fictional narrative dated 1941:  ...

      For Part 3 click HERE     He was no lone individual. He was a good example of how the average Berliner conducted their life. When we took power I grabbed this fellow by the collar...

    It is now all so hallowed and holy, with the documents sanitized and vacuumized, and a George Washington apotheosized. It has become such an untouchable temple – that mythical American Revolution. The school books formed our early...

      For Part 1 click HERE       The old C.I.A. — the O.S.S. — who were using my information suggested it was best for me to get out. To fly the coop. It was only...

For Part  2 click HERE         These people had seen the best of a generation plucked from them in the First World War and lost not to historical battles of significance but to the callousness of their...

        A text for performance In memoriam Walter Benjamin "Human beings live emotionally on the surface with their surface appearance. In order to get to the core where the natural, the normal, the healthy is, you have...

        My stepfather was an iron worker and as a kid I ran coffee and donuts for his crew. Most jobs were only a few days, but work on the Twin Towers seemed to go on...

    This writer recently published a poem on IFZ: "American Heritage". There ensued questions as to why the Irish were not included among the marginalized classes depicted in the poem. They were there, but as part of the...

    For the ever-dwindling number of us who saw most of the 20th century, Donald Trump's racial and religious rants pale in comparison to what has been heard on the streets and within the hallowed halls of local...

      Eight banker's boxes in the garage contained over three thousand photos. Some of these pictures were ripped from the pages of scrap-books with glue and remnants of black pages stuck to the back, so the images on...

    Even before it was reported that a former Trump wife had accused him of rape, The Donald opened his presidential campaign by accusing immigrants from below the border, in large part, of being rapists. That was then;...

      The bloodletting suffered by France this year is horrendous and inhumane. The perpetrators should meet full judgment for their heinous acts.   France, just as other great European colonial powers and the United States, is finding...

    I am Crispus Attucks, an escaped slave, the first casualty of the American Revolution, killed in the "Boston Massacre," March 5, 1770.   I am a Francis Salvador, the firt Jew to hold elected office in the...

IDAHO FISH AND GAME USED TAX DOLLARS ON SKYDIVING BEAVERS (VIDEO) Although it reads like something designed to make heads explode among members of the House Freedom Caucus, according to a story published recently on Mashable.com, that's more or less...

          Cristoforo Colombo - Italian, Cristobal Colon – Spanish version, Christopher Columbus - English translation... by any name, was a complicated man.   A genius, a man of and ahead of his time, a great...

Even from her gentle birthplace in the Lesser Antilles, Katrina has her eye set upon "The Big Easy." The warm waters of the Caribbean combine with her nascent breezes until they form a subtle, adagio pas de deux. As the...

  Yes, there were other issues that helped exacerbate the American Civil war. Yes, most white southerners were not slave holders. Yes, the war aims of Abraham Lincoln were based (originally) on keeping the American union together, not abolition. Yes, the northern...

Both flags, at different times, protected an abomination of mankind. One flew at the birth of a republic. The other flew at the attempted murder of that republic. One said that it represented the best of mankind, while...

As oncologists still struggle with the so-far incurable ravages of the body, likewise, the evil we inflicted upon our body politic several centuries ago yet defies extinction.   Just over one hundred and fifty years ago, a cannon was fired...

Our society began to percolate on foreign shores. We chafed at having our personal liberties circumscribed by others. Hearing of virgin lands in a newly discovered hemisphere of the world, we set out to found that freedom we so earnestly...

  Cambodia and Viet Nam in 1950.  American service members in the countries initially to help the French, who eventually lost their war in 1954.  All of the military personnel were told not to wear any type of military uniform. ...

  Previous mention was made in this space about the political pole-shift between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Abraham Lincoln was the first to be elected president under the aegis of the Grand Old (Republican) Party. The rebellious Southern Confederates,...

Linguistic subterfuge is in vogue. In these newly dis-United States, we have evolved. No longer, in the well of the all-white-male Senate do they rail against the need of lynch-law protection for Nigras. Those laws never were enacted – despite...