It’s Time For Some Action
“At
the banquet table of life, there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take and keep what you
can hold. If you can’t take anything, you won’t get anything. And if you can’t hold anything, you won’t
keep anything. And you can’t take
anything without organization.” - A. Philip Randolph
Frederick
Douglass once said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” I’ve been thinking about A. Philip Randolph’s
understanding of what it takes to produce the demand that Douglass deemed
necessary to get those with the “bully pulpits” of power to do what their
constituency wants. There are many ways
to define what Randolph meant, but simply put: Organize, mobilize and you realize!
This
past Sunday, during the mid-morning service at UnionTemple in Washington D.C., I was privileged to see
honors given to the men and organizations of the community who have mobilized
themselves to work for change. The most
powerful moment for me, being when rival gang members who had been at war with
each other, came together to make peace – a moment of profound
significance. During this significant
moment of solidarity I listened as honoree after honoree came forward and
testified. They testified to the
inspirational push that Union Temple’s ministry had provided
them, but in their reflections they also spoke of galvanizing themselves around
an “idea.”
It
reminded me of how much ideas matter, especially in these politically charged
times. Ideas are necessary, because it
is development of our ideas that allows us to act on the issues that effect our
collective lives. With elections
looming, I believe we stand at a fault line in America’s future, and even more so for the African-American’s future in this country, therefore we need more forums to develop our ideas into actionable steps, so that we can create a demand in the eyes of power.
To
advance this, the Bakare Chronicles is launching a new blog, Issues InAction as a depository for
community empowerment. This will be an
online ideas laboratory for handling the issues of our time.
So, I invite you to join me in
the Issues InAction forum, let’s organize our thoughts so that the members of
our collective community can have another resource to in-act our dreams.
