Now is the time for the children. No disrespect but Rev. Al Sharpton and all of the other preachers and older “activists” do not need to be out front in any Trayvon Martin protest actions. Nobody in our movement has a monopoly on doing what needs to be done.
My recollection about people like those allegedly in charge and organizing the publicized Trayvon Martin calls for justice efforts are the people who historically have come into a town to get the people riled up and then they leave.
They fly first-class into a city, have a limo pick them up, go to a church or a designated “protest area,” they holler a few chants and sermons that we’ve heard before, they take up a collection that no one ever audits and then they leave town.
To say it nicer, the people pretending to be like Martin Luther King mobilized the people but someone else organized the people.
So who were these organizers? They have always been younger people.
In my day, the young organizers were members of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), SNCC (the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee), the AARP (the All African Revolutionary Party), The Black Panther Party and local groups across the nation, like Atlanta’s BFA (the Black Federation Alliance).
Those were the groups that stayed around. They were the ones who set up a system to address an issue or a crisis. Block organization and precinct organization was set up by students and other youth. The young people ran the breakfast programs and the tutorial programs.
Today, the media is trying to select black community leaders. The media wants black leaders who will sell us out for a radio show or a TV show. The media wants black leaders who will put white networks first, white newspapers first and white people first, rather than utilize, patronize and support media of their own kind that shares their very own goals and aspirations.
Back in the day, you could have a rally of thousands and you could count all of the white supporters there on one hand. Now, you can’t have a rally, you can’t have a march, you can’t have a protest, you can’t have a program about our issues, our concerns and our lives unless old white people are there to tone things down.
The children, the youth and the students, both black and white, need to tell the people trying to run the Trayvon protests for justice efforts to move out of the way.
This idea that to make progress, get justice or improve our standard of living all we have to do is lock arms and sing We Shall Overcome is a cruel an ridiculous joke.
Every ethnic group in America is more organized than black people are because our so-called leaders want you to use 1950s tactics to solve 2013 problems.
When Hispanics want immigration and other laws changed, those laws are changed. When gays want laws changed, those laws are changed. And when women want laws changed, those laws are changed. But when black people want to get something done, so-called black leaders say we should pray and sing.
If you’re smart, you can see that the “Arab Spring” protests in Egypt, Tunisia and other countries were started by young people on social media, not by old preachers or imams.
If young people stand up, speak out and organize themselves, instead of sitting in, lying down, bowing down and holding hands, the old revolutionaries will help you. They will assist you. They will back you.
Or, you can keep sucking up to political parties that you put first and they put you last, you can keep the social pimps and protest hustlers who take donation money from you, you can keep chanting and you can keep on singing.
Now is the time for the children, the youth and the students to agitate, aggravate and organize to save black people worldwide and be like students were in South Africa, like students were in the Congo and like the little girl who stood up to the Taliban in Afghanistan not too long ago.
Lucius Gantt, a political consultant based in Tallahassee, is author of the book Beast Too: Dead Man Writing which is available at Amazon.com. You can like The Gantt Report page on Facebook and contact Gantt at www.allworldconsultants.net
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