W.E. A.L.L. B.E.: The Tale Of Two Freedom Fighters: Losing Rev. James Bevel & Finding Diane Nash.

Tha Artstorian Reports...

Losing Rev. James Bevel

(1936-2008)

"James Bevel . . . an experienced leader, set 'D-Day' when thousands of children would go to jail."
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"They announced this important meeting, and said James Bevel would be speaking that night. James Bevel did speak and everything he said, you know, made sense."
—Fannie Lou Hamer

"I was inspired by Jesus, Malcolm X, James Bevel, and Martin Luther King, Jr."
—Rev. Jesse L. Jackson

"You were like an angel to me . . . God sent you to me to talk about a day of atonement."
—Minister Louis Farrakhan

"The pattern was always the same, first the local minister spoke, then Bevel, and then King . . . Bevel was the most rousing speaker. He was a firebrand and got the audience riled up . . . An orator without peer.
—Charles Fager, author

"[James Bevel] could do more with young people than any human being on the face of the earth."
—Hosea Williams

"The Bevel story does revise the history of the civil rights movement and it needs to be told."
—Robert St. John in a letter to Randy Kryn

"I don't think we would have had a movement without him...He played a very important role, and that role was translated into a successful movement."
—Andrew Young, interview with Randy Kryn

"Even the March on Washington was Jim Bevel's idea."
—Bernard Lafayette, interview with Randy Kryn

"I'd say 99% of the plans and activities in Selma were Bevel's. The Selma Movement was Bevel's baby."
—James Orange, interview with Randy Kryn

"We would have never gone to Selma, and there would not have been a Voting Rights Bill today if James Bevel had not conceived of the idea. . . Jim was the originator of the idea of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Jim Bevel is the author of that. . . Dr. King could not have done the things he did unless he had a James Bevel."
—Ralph David Abernathy, interview with Randy Kryn

"He was a great philosopher, an unbelievable philosopher."
—Hosea Williams, interview with Randy Kryn

"Bevel was the real creative genius of that period."
—Rev. Jesse L. Jackson

On Friday Dec. 20, 2008 a giant tree of a man fell without making a sound…Legendary Civil Rights Icon & Eccentric Freedom Fighter Rev. James Bevel finally succumbed to the cancer ravaging his prostate…However his spirit lives on, but his legacy is tainted by allegations of sexual perversity & incest by several of his daughters or is it??? It seems the media did a Bush Administration hand job in not only underreporting the death of this important history maker, but also under reporting the sins committed by this father of 13: the taking of his daughter(s)’innocence by using biblical teachings as justification for this grotesque violation of the relationship between father and child…But like I stated in earlier post don’t be so quick to write this brother off… He made contributions and sacrifices that can’t be denied or fathomed by many of us…He was a victim of state sponsored terrorism & jedi mind tricks as much as his daughters were victims of bad parenting and inappropriate sexual rapaciousness and sacrilege…I hope we as conscious people understand that there is a cyclical generational sickness that has taken hold of our communities…The intelligent way to approach is not to not blame the victims for the institutionalization of their sickness, but rather to eradicate the system that produce victims and the sickness which undermines the vitality, selflessness, and indomitability of the human spirit…

Nevertheless Rev. Bevel is now an ancestor, may his soul find the peace that he could not find in life…May his daughters find forgiveness for their father and his sins as well as forgiveness for their stolen innocence: I know it is easy for the victims to blame themselves for a crime/violation that they did not commit nor provoked…The evil that men full of sickness do can’t vanquish the power of love and forgiveness: Time heals all wound but courage transcends adversity, distress, doubt and shortcomings as well as renews the mind, body & spirit…

Post traumatic slave disorder is real and not a figment of an angry black man’s imagination…You can’t expect folks who have been treated as 3/5ths humans and chattel property for 4 centuries to carry this load by themselves…It is up to all segments of society to do their parts to ensure that all of the republic’s citizens have access to decent education , housing, food and health care benefits…We must now come together and reconnect with what makes us all human and vulnerable: mortality…
My goal is to leave the world in better shape than the one I inherited…I hope you all join me in this cause…

Let’s keep and get our eyes back on the prize…Hold on!!!
http://www.jameslutherbevel.com/

Finding Diane Nash…

R2C2H2 Tha Artivist with Sis. Diane Nash
(4 Way Grill Restaurant, Memphis,TN)

"My concern with the black community is that we really have no saviors. There's no such thing. Although I think Mr. Obama is an excellent person ... I am so concerned that many people in the black community have such hopes for the candidacy of a single person and it still is going to take the citizens as a whole to make serious social change."~Sis. Diane Nash

In the fall of 2008 freedom fighter extraordinaire & co-SNCC founder Sis. Diane Nash was acknowledged by the National Civil Rights Museum as a distinguished honoree of the 2008 National Freedom Award…I was lucky to receive tickets to the banquet and to see Sis. Diane Nash accept the award along wither fellow distinguished honorees B.B. King and Al Gore…
I really enjoyed her message of fighting the righteous struggle with dignity and love…She basically paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt when she stated that that people are only oppressed & repressed if they allow themselves to be oppressed & repressed…

What was a treat to me was the fact that I was invited by a circle of respected Memphis civil rights veterans to have lunch with Sis. Diane Nash the next day at the historic 4 Way Grill Restaurant on Mississippi street (the restaurant is actually located near where the People’s Grocery Store was located , a prosperous late 19th Century grocery business owned by respected Black business owners which was central in the infamous lynchings involving the owners of the venture…Ida B. Wells-Barnett was close friends with one of the principal owners, Thomas Moss and this event was pivotal in starting her international one woman anti-lynching campaign)…Among the group meeting that day were true frontline and in the trenches civil rights activists as well as freedom fighting Black Nationals, people who have put their ideals, lives and hides on the line to move this country in the right direction…Also included were politicians, well meaning white liberals, young Black professionals and educators…

It was a nice size yet intimate gathering...And through it all Sis. Diane Nash was holding court, her understated regality coming from the authenticity of her well documented and now legendary transformation/transition/journey from being a former award winning beauty queen to bravely leading her comrades in the formation of SNCC and the sit ins at lunch counters in Nashville to her life risking safaris into the wilds of the Magnolia State (Mississippi), Sis. Diane Nash in her small stature possessed a seemingly ominous all knowing serenity and cool about her person…

She was indeed very proud of the son who was also present that she had with her now late ex-husband Rev. James Bevel…It could be argued that Sis. Nash’s courageous leadership in those stormy days of the movement helped inspire her counterparts including Rev. Bevel to greater heavenly heights of strategic brilliance and moral daring…Together Diane Nash & Rev. James Bevel were truly the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie of the civil rights activists an ideal power(read righteous) couple for social justice for all...They were the living embodiment of BLACK BRAWN, BEAUTY AND BRAIN BEING PUT TO GOOD USE…

She told us in so many words that we were the leaders that we are looking for that it is up to each and every individual at that lunch meeting to take an active part in bettering the conditions of their immediate community. She further advocated that instead of the great messianic leader model that we should be more concerned with forming a true great communal society where individuals will play a pivotal part in the progression of the collective human species…

She railed against the propagandistic Great Man Of History theory and reiterated once again that no one can save you but you and that we are the leaders we are waiting for...It was strange to see some of these veterans of the struggle to end all struggles flatfooted and almost at a loss of words for what she said…It seems as if she deflated their hopes by telling then what they needed to hear instead of what they wanted to hear…

I know for me what she said to be the gospel truth…I think we as black people must get out of our romanticized passive emotional dreary state of what revolutionary suicide truly is and get with the program of living and fighting for a better tomorrow a.s.a.p.…We must stop using the crutch of MLK's physical death as the reason that the spirituality of the movement is D.O.A. 40 years later…King did not produced the zeitgeist of the times, the zeitgeist produced MLK...We must learn how to seize the time and make the most of opportunities as well as the adversity that come our way…We must also learn how to fight with and utilize to the fullest the resources we have instead of always pining for the materials and resources we would like to have…

We must not go backwards, but forwards…Stop living on TV Land reruns of Good Times (in hindsight truly the good times weren’t so good after all no E! True Hollywood Story here) and The Cosby Show and start living the life that will create the strength and vision to rebuild New Orleans, ensure that our people have universal healthcare as well as access to affordable & quality housing, food and yes education…

In the words of the revolutionary scholar Frantz Fanon, “Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity."

Let the discovery begin!!!

See Also On W.E. A.L.L. B.E.:

Controversial Civil Rights Icon James Bevel Dies...

http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/12/controversial-civil-rights-icon-james.html

Sins Of Thy Father: Revered American Civil Rights Icon Sentenced To Jail For Molesting Daughter(s)...
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/05/sins-of-thy-father-revered-american.html

W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio Special: February 18, 2007~"We Shall Overcome"-The Henry Hampton Collection (Creator of the Award Winning Eyes On The Prize Documentary)
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2007/02/18/tha-artivist-presentsmaking-b

Find A Civil Rights Veteran Today!!!

http://www.crmvet.org

Eye-Witness To The Crucifixion: The Last Days Of MLK...