February is Black History Month

[Bowwowmeow]

February marks the beginning of Black History Month - an annual celebration that has existed since 1926. But what are the origins of Black History Month?

Much of the credit can go to Harvard Scholar Dr. Carter G. Woodson, who was determined to bring Black History into the mainstream public arena. Woodson devoted his life to making "the world see the Negro as a participant rather than as a lay figure in history."

In 1926 Woodson organized the first annual Negro History Week, which took place during the second week of February. Woodson chose this date to co-incide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln - two men who had greatly impacted the black population.

Over time, Negro History Week evolved into the Black History Month that we know today - a four-week-long celebration of African American History.

Read about the history of the civil rights struggle! (http://www.historychannel.com/blackhistory/?page=history)

[Bowwowmeow]

Spike Lee: Miss. Should Get Rid of Flag

http://eimg.net/harvest_xml/NEWS/img/20060209/43eacc50_3ca7_1552720060209230699752.jpg (http://enews.earthlink.net/article/pho?guid=20060209/43eacc50_3ca7_1552720060209230699752&article_path=/article/ent&article_guid=20060209/43eacc50_3ca6_1552620060209-1644551770)
Director Spike Lee applause during the University of Mississippi's Black History
Month celebration in Oxford, Miss.
BRUCE NEWMAN

From Associated Press
February 09, 2006 10:49 PM EST
OXFORD, Miss. - Director Spike Lee, known for his stylish and controversial films, said Mississippi should get rid of the state flag during a speech at the University of Mississippi's Black History Month celebration.
Lee said Mississippians cling too tightly to what he considers symbols of oppression.
"You've gotta do something about that flag," he said. "I know people say its representative of history. Well, so's the swastika."
Lee is working on a documentary entitled "When the Levees Broke," which deals with the African-American experience in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
He did not go into details of the film's focus. But he did say the movie was more difficult to film than "Four Little Girls," in which he interviewed the families of the four children who were killed in a church attack in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963.
"When I saw the devastation on TV and in the news...it (didn't) prepare me for what I saw there," Lee said of New Orleans. "You hear these people's stories, and its heartbreaking."
"Levees" will be premiere on HBO on Aug. 29, exactly one year after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
Lee also targeted certain aspects of modern black culture during his speech.
Lee said that rap culture has perpetuated a cult of violence, drug use, disrespect to women and ignorance among a staggering portion of young blacks.
"This 'gangsta' obsession is madness," Lee said. "Thinking like that is genocide."

[Bowwowmeow]

I like Spike Lee. I have always found his work very thought provoking.

[Bowwowmeow]

From 100 Great Black Britons (http://www.100greatblackbritons.com)

Benjamin Zephaniah
http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/images/zeph1.jpg
Poet, performer, writer, cultural commentator

Dr. Benjamin Zephaniah was born in Birmingham, but spent his early years in Jamaica, where he absorbed much of the music and poetry that influences his work. Benjamin had a difficult school life, and at 14 was sent to a borstal, and spent two years in prison. It was there that he decided, 'I'm going to use this energy differently. I've got the talent to be a poet…I wanted to educate myself, be a bit more spiritual, a bit more political'.
He published his first poetry collection, Pen Rhythm, in 1980, and through the dancehall and sound system scene he became involved in performance poetry. His second collection of poetry, The Dread Affair: Collected Poems (1985) contained a number of poems attacking the British legal systemRasta Time in Palestine (1990) is an account of a visit to the Palestinian occupied territories. In 1989 he was nominated for Oxford Professor of Poetry, narrowly beaten by Seamus Heaney
His other poetry collections include two books written for children: Talking Turkey (1994) and Funky Chickens (1996). He has also written two novels for teenagers, Face (1999), which was short-listed for the Children's Book Award in 2000, and Refugee Boy (2001).
He has been Writer in Residence at the Africa Arts Collective in Liverpool and Creative Artist in Residence at Cambridge University. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of North London (1998), the University of Central England (1999), and the University of Staffordshire (2002). In 1998, he was appointed to the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education to advise on the place of music and art in the National Curriculum. His most recent book is We Are Britain! (2002), a collection of poems celebrating cultural diversity in Britain.

Search for his poems here. (http://www.poemhunter.com/benjamin-zephaniah/poet-6669/)

[Oracl]

I saw Benjamin Zephaniah reciting his poem Talking Turkeys! on TV a while ago and I thought he seemed such a lovely gentle guy. :nanakiss: :colors:

[IndyVegan]

M-1 SPEAKS OUT AGAINST 'BLACK HISTORY MONTH'

(NEW YORK, NY) Rapper M-1, of dead prez, sounds off regarding yet another
Black History month celebration this February. The rapper and activist
feels the need to acknowledge Black contributions should be year round and
the acknowledgement of this celebration also acknowledges the fact that
Black life is marginalized. Below is his commentary on what he believes
to be yet another insult thrown at Black people living in the United States:


"Well, first of all I think the concept of Black History Month is insulting
and offensive to all people of African descent. It seems like a measly,
meaningless offer from the parasitic and capitalistic system that has
amassed an empire of wealth from our worldwide community. Instead of
offering us 28 days in February, we should be awarded reparations as this
so-called Black History month doesnt include any agenda to lift oppression
from Black life i.e. war on drugs, taxes, awful healthcare conditions, and
economic disparity. Further, the actual name of this "sacred" month- Black
History Month is damaging propaganda in it of itself. As my partner
Stic.man would say, we should call it Crack History Month because of the
damage that has been done to our community. This is the reason why my most
recent video, Til We Get There, ends up with a group of kids in the hood
around a mural that we created which depicted the words Black History Month
scratched out to reveal a more appropriate AFRICAN HISTORY YEAR Therefore,
I propose a ban on the term Black History Month because it doesnt identify
the land mass and the people that produced everything that we know of as
culture today.-- M1, dead prez

[Fauxmage]

Well IndyVegan I guess he's got a point. I've often thought it ironic that Black History month was the shortest month of the year. But Carter Woodson, who got the idea started, was known as the "Father of Black History," Carter G. Woodson holds an outstanding position in early 20th century American history. Woodson authored numerous scholarly books on the positive contributions of Blacks to the development of America. He also published many magazine articles analyzing the contributions and role of Black Americans. He reached out to schools and the general public through the establishment of several key organizations and founded Negro History Week (precursor to Black History Month). His message was that Blacks should be proud of their heritage and that other Americans should also understand it.
This doesn't seem like a bone thrown to African Americans by white capitalists to me. But time does seem to warp things that start out with the best of intentions. I often wonder what Jesus would think of modern Christianity if he were to come back to life, or what the Founding Fathers of the United States would think of their modern day replacements. :o

[Rainbow]

It was seeing Benjamin Zephaniah live (circa 1999) that really sparked my brain into gear about going completely vegan. He was fantastic, his poetry makes so much sense.

[Bowwowmeow]

Coretta Scott King Date of birth: April 27, 1927
Date of death: January 30, 2006



(http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/printmember/kin1bio-1)
http://www.achievement.org/achievers/kin1/headers/kin1_profile_headline.gif
http://www.achievement.org/achievers/kin1/photos/kin1-009a.gif (http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/photocredit/achievers/kin1-009)Coretta Scott was born in Heiberger, Alabama and raised on the farm of her parents Bernice McMurry Scott, and Obadiah Scott, in Perry County, Alabama. She was exposed at an early age to the injustices of life in a segregated society. She walked five miles a day to attend the one-room Crossroad School in Marion, Alabama, while the white students rode buses to an all-white school closer by. Young Coretta excelled at her studies, particularly music, and was valedictorian of her graduating class at Lincoln High School. She graduated in 1945 and received a scholarship to Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. As an undergraduate, she took an active interest in the nascent civil rights movement; she joined the Antioch chapter of the NAACP, and the college's Race Relations and Civil Liberties Committees. She graduated from Antioch with a B.A. in music and education and won a scholarship to study concert singing at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

http://www.achievement.org/achievers/kin1/photos/kin1-003a.gif (http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/photocredit/achievers/kin1-003) In Boston she met a young theology student, Martin Luther King, Jr., and her life was changed forever. They were married on June 18, 1953, in a ceremony conducted by the groom's father, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. Coretta Scott King completed her degree in voice and violin at the New England Conservatory and the young couple moved in September 1954 to Montgomery, Alabama, where Martin Luther King Jr. had accepted an appointment as Pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
http://www.achievement.org/achievers/kin1/photos/kin1-010a.gif (http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/photocredit/achievers/kin1-010) They were soon caught up in the dramatic events that triggered the modern civil rights movement. When Rosa Parks (http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/par0int-1) refused to yield her seat on a Montgomery city bus to a white passenger, she was arrested for violating the city's ordinances giving white passengers preferential treatment in public conveyances. The black citizens of Montgomery organized immediately in defense of Mrs. Parks, and under Martin Luther King's leadership organized a boycott of the city's buses. The Montgomery bus boycott drew the attention of the world to the continued injustice of segregation in the United States, and led to court decisions striking down all local ordinances separating the races in public transit. Dr. King's eloquent advocacy of nonviolent civil disobedience soon made him the most recognizable face of the civil rights movement, and he was called on to lead marches in city after city, with Mrs. King at his side, inspiring the citizens, black and white, to defy the segregation laws.
http://www.achievement.org/achievers/kin1/photos/kin1-007a.gif (http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/photocredit/achievers/kin1-007) The visibility of Dr. King's leadership attracted fierce opposition from the supporters of institutionalized racism. In 1956, white supremacists bombed the King family home in Montgomery. Mrs. King and the couple's first child narrowly escaped injury. The Kings had four children in all: Yolanda Denise; Martin Luther, III; Dexter Scott; and Bernice Albertine. Although the demands of raising a family had caused Mrs. King to retire from singing, she found another way to put her musical background to the service of the cause. She conceived and performed a series of critically acclaimed Freedom Concerts, combining poetry, narration and music to tell the story of the Civil Rights movement. Over the next few years, Mrs. King staged Freedom Concerts in some of America's most distinguished concert venues, as fundraisers for the organization her husband had founded, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
http://www.achievement.org/achievers/kin1/photos/kin1-006a.gif (http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/photocredit/achievers/kin1-006) Dr. King's fame spread beyond the United States, and he was increasingly seen not only as a leader of the American civil rights movement, but as the symbol of an international struggle for human liberation from racism, colonialism and all forms of oppression and discrimination. In 1957, Dr. King and Mrs. King journeyed to Africa to celebrate the independence of Ghana. In 1959, they made a pilgrimage to India to honor the memory of Mahatma Gandhi, whose philosophy of nonviolence had inspired them. Dr. King's leadership of the movement for human rights was recognized on the international stage when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. In 1964, Mrs. King accompanied her husband when he traveled to Oslo, Norway to accept the Prize.
In the 1960s, Dr. King broadened his message and his activism to embrace causes of international peace and economic justice. Mrs. King found herself in increasing demand as a public speaker. She became the first woman to deliver the Class Day address at Harvard, and the first woman to preach at a statutory service at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. She served as a Women's Strike for Peace delegate to the 17-nation Disarmament Conference in Geneva, Switzerland in 1962. Mrs. King became a liaison to international peace and justice organizations even before Dr. King took a public stand in 1967 against United States intervention in the Vietnam War.
http://www.achievement.org/achievers/kin1/photos/kin1-011a.gif (http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/photocredit/achievers/kin1-011) On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Channeling her grief, Mrs. King concentrated her energies on fulfilling her husband's work by building The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change as a living memorial to her husband's life and dream. Years of planning, fundraising and lobbying, lay ahead, but Mrs. King would not be deterred, nor did she neglect direct involvement in the causes her husband had championed. In 1969 , Coretta Scott King published the first volume of her autobiography, My Life with Martin Luther King Jr. In the 1970s, Mrs. King maintained her husband's commitment to the cause of economic justice. In 1974 she formed the Full Employment Action Council, a broad coalition of over 100 religious, labor, business, civil and women's rights organizations dedicated to a national policy of full employment and equal economic opportunity; Mrs. King served as Co-Chair of the Council.
In 1981, The King Center, the first institution built in memory of an African American leader, opened to the public. The Center is housed in the Freedom Hall complex encircling Dr. King's tomb in Atlanta, Georgia. It is part of a 23-acre national historic site that also includes Dr. King's birthplace and the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he and his father both preached. The King Center Library and Archives houses the largest collection of documents from the Civil Rights era. The Center receives over one million visitors a year, and has trained tens of thousands of students, teachers, community leaders and administrators in Dr. King's philosophy and strategy of nonviolence through seminars, workshops and training programs.
http://www.achievement.org/achievers/kin1/photos/kin1-002a.gif (http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/photocredit/achievers/kin1-002) Mrs. King continued to serve the cause of justice and human rights; her travels took her throughout the world on goodwill missions to Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia. In 1983, she marked the 20th Anniversary of the historic March on Washington, by leading a gathering of more than 800 human rights organizations, the Coalition of Conscience, in the largest demonstration the capital city had seen up to that time.
Mrs. King led the successful campaign to establish Dr. King's birthday, January 15, as a national holiday in the United States. By an Act of Congress, the first national observance of the holiday took place in 1986. Dr. King's birthday is now marked by annual celebrations in over 100 countries. Mrs. King was invited by President Clinton to witness the historic handshake between Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Chairman Yassir Arafat at the signing of the Middle East Peace Accords in 1993. In 1985 Mrs. King and three of her children were arrested at the South African embassy in Washington, D.C., for protesting against that country's apartheid system of racial segregation and disenfranchisement. Ten years later, she stood with Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg when he was sworn in as President of South Africa.
After 27 years at the helm of The King Center, Mrs. King turned over leadership of the Center to her son, Dexter Scott King, in 1995. She remained active in the causes of racial and economic justice, and in her remaining years devoted much of her energy to AIDS education and curbing gun violence. Although she died in 2006 at the age of 78, she remains an inspirational figure to men and women around the world.
Apparently lots of vegans are unaware that this wonderful lady was vegan. There is a picture of her in our "Famous Vegans and Vegetarians" avatar collection.

[Bowwowmeow]

Coretta Scott King 1927~2006

Feb 1, 2006
http://www.veg.ca/images/p-CorettaScottKing.jpgThe widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., died on Jan. 30, 2006. She had devoted her life to his legacy. An activist long before she met her husband, she embraced a vegan diet in 1995 due to the influence of her son, Dexter Scott King. Coretta believed that promoting animal rights was the next "logical extension" of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s philosophy of non-violence.
"She would always admonish us that ... one of the ways you bring about change is, you must change yourself so that you're prepared to lead people in the direction they should go. If your emotions are as bad as those you're fighting, even if your cause is just, you disqualify yourself from being effective," the Rev. Al Sharpton told CNN.
Rev. Jesse Jackson recounted that when an assassin's bullet killed her husband in Memphis in 1968, just prior to a planned march, Mrs. King organized her husband's funeral, then "went to Memphis and finished the march. She was a staunch freedom fighter."
Mrs. King spoke out "on behalf of racial and economic justice, women's and children's rights, gay and lesbian dignity, religious freedom, the needs of the poor and homeless, full employment, health care, educational opportunities, nuclear disarmament and ecological sanity," says the biography (http://www.thekingcenter.org/csk/bio.html) on The King Center's Web site.
http://www.veg.ca/images/p-dexterking.jpgHer son Dexter Scott King who just turned 45, is a prominent civil rights activist in his own right. He is currently Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc. (The King Center), in Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. King has served as a member of the board of directors since 1984. In 1987, he was introduced to vegetarianism by comedian/activist Dick Gregory.
Gregory is also no stranger to the fight against injustice. He has been an influential figure in the civil rights movement for more than 40 years and was an outspoken advocate for peace during the Vietnam War. He is also an enthusiastic PETA supporter (http://www.kentuckyfriedcruelty.com/gregory.asp) and has recorded two public service announcements – one urging people to boycott circuses that use animals in what he calls “modern-day slavery”, and the other a narrated expose of KFC's cruelty to chickens [view (http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=dick_gregory_psa)].
"Veganism has given me a higher level of awareness and spirituality, primary because the energy associated with eating has shifted to other areas," Dextor King told Vegetarian Times in a 1995 interview (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0820/is_n218/ai_17444897).
The King family name is practically synonymous with the principles of non-violence, and Dexter King believes that vegetarianism is the logical extension of that philosophy. "If you're violent to yourself by putting [harmful] things into your body that violate its spirit, it will be difficult not to perpetuate that [violence] onto someone else," he said.
http://www.veg.ca/images/p-mlking.jpgDuring the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. captured the attention of the American nation with his commitment to the method of nonviolent resistance. According to Dr. King, this was the only solution that could cure society’s evil and create a just society. In 1959, he visited India to study Mohandas Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence.
If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable. He lived, thought and acted, inspired by the vision of humanity evolving toward a world of peace and harmony. We may ignore Gandhi at our own risk.
– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
– From his famous speech (http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/Ihaveadream.htm) delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

[Bowwowmeow]

Vegan Restaurants Are Thriving in the Black Community
as People Seek a More Healthful Lifestyle
By Ron Howell
STAFF WRITER

Mawule Jobe-Simon, owner of the Green Paradise restaurant in Brooklyn, admits he's on the radical end of the vegetarian spectrum.

Not only does he shun fish, meat, milk and eggs, but all of his dishes are raw. That means they're made entirely of uncooked vegetables and fruits, creatively blended and spiced, of course.

There was a time when a menu like his would have died on arrival in a largely black community. But Jobe-Simon says times, and tastes, have been changing.

"It's like a new generation, a whole new revolution, just growing stronger and stronger as days go by," said Jobe-Simon, 26, who opened his restaurant on Vanderbilt Avenue six months ago.

Black-owned vegan and vegetarian restaurants have been opening at a quick clip in New York and elsewhere, catering to a population that, according to experts, is struggling to reverse grim health statistics and adopt a more healthful lifestyle.

"It's just amazing right now how many people are getting on this diet," Jobe-Simon said of his veganism.

On one single block in Brooklyn - Church Avenue between Flatbush and Bedford avenues - five vegetarian businesses have sprouted in recent years.

Some observers think the health explosion is related to an ongoing emigration from the Caribbean, especially from Jamaica, home of the Rastafarian religious group.

Rastas are better known for reggae music and smoking marijuana. But "from the beginning, Rasta people have always lived a vegetarian lifestyle, meaning anything that moves is not supposed to be eaten," said Larry Dawson, a Jamaican-born Rastafarian and owner of Health Conscious, a primarily vegetarian food center in Laurelton.

Jobe-Simon, the Trinidad-born owner of Green Paradise, also is Rastafarian.

Vegetarian entrepreneurs also claim that growing numbers of blacks in the hip-hop generation have acquired a taste for tofu.

"We're next to a barber shop, and all the guys come in for soy patties," said Jade Williams, 21, assistant manager at Nature's Best health food store in Valley Stream. "The more available it is, the more they will eat it and they say, 'Hey, this is not so bad!'"

Williams' father, Gerald Williams, who opened Nature's Best five years ago, is from Jamaica, like so many of the vegan store owners.

But it would be wrong to conclude that African- Americans are not onboard the vegetarian train.

In fact, some say the granddaddy of black vegetarianism is African-American comedian Dick Gregory. It is an opinion that Gregory, 70, shares.

"I'm the one who changed the whole thing in the black community," said Gregory, who has written books on the subject and spoken out about it for four decades.

In a telephone interview last week from California, Gregory reported the vegan explosion is hitting not only New York, but black communities in Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, St. Louis and Los Angeles.

He said the phenomenon is especially dramatic considering black people's long love affair with greasy foods. "It used to be if you told someone not to eat pork, you could almost get into a fight," he said.

Gregory called the vegetarian trend "a real explosion, a revolution that's happening across the country in the black community."

A sure sign of vegetarianism's deep penetration into black society, Gregory said, is that major soul food restaurants all around the country have put vegetarian platters on their menus.

At Sylvia's Soul Food Restaurant on Lenox Avenue in Harlem, manager Judy Smith agreed, saying Sylvia's has a veggie plate consisting of cooked greens, garlic potatoes, yams and salad.

In addition to numerous storefronts selling vegan patties and sandwiches, Newsday located about 20 black-owned restaurants serving vegan lunches and dinners in Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx and Long Island. Nadine Williams wishes there were more.

Williams, 24, was eating a lunch last week of flavored soy chunks, chickpeas and brown rice mixed with vegetables at the Veggie Castle on Church Avenue in Brooklyn. "There's a demand for more stores," said Williams, who immigrated to New York from her native Jamaica five years ago. She called herself a "lacto-ovo-vegetarian" who occasionally eats food made with cow's milk or eggs. She chose her new dietary path seven months ago in a pact with a friend.

"We said we would do it for two weeks, and it just progressed from there," said Williams, a business journalism major at Baruch College.

In giving up meat and fish, she said, "There's been a tremendous improvement, especially in my skin. ... I usually had bumps, breakouts, but I don't have them anymore." She said that in her circle of acquaintances she sees a lot more people getting into the vegetarian lifestyle.

Few of those interviewed knew much about Joseph and Silva Swinton, a black couple from Queens Village who are accused of endangering their daughter by putting her on a radical vegan diet. Prosecutors say the Swintons fed their daughter, Ice, ground nuts, fresh- squeezed juices, herbal tea, beans, cod liver oil and flaxseed oil. Ice was 15months old at the time authorities discovered her condition in November 2001. She weighed only 10 pounds (a child of that age typically weighs 23 pounds) and appeared to have no muscle, prosecutors said.

Ice, now 2, has made significant progress and is living in foster care with her 7-month-old brother. Her parents were arrested in last April; their trial continues this week in Queens Supreme Court.

Donna Cover acknowledged she was initially troubled by news reports about the Swintons. But she never wavered in her belief that being a vegan was right for her. And for her four children.

When she first became a vegan 21 years ago - before the birth of her oldest child, Joseph - Cover consulted a pediatrician. Since then she hasn't looked back. Her four children have been vegans since birth and "they have never strayed," she said.

"You should see my son [Joseph, now 20]. He's built up with muscles because he likes to look cute for the girls. ...And all my children are very bright. I connect it to the diet," she said.

Donna and Danny Cover, emigrants from Jamaica, own the Strictly Roots vegetarian restaurant in Harlem. Although they are not Rastafarians, a picture of one of the world's most famous Rastas, the late Bob Marley, graces one wall. Next to it is a poster advising customers "How to Win an Argument With a Meat Eater."

Among the pointers: Tell the meat eaters it is wrong to kill animals; that a vegetarian diet reduces the risk of heart disease; that agriculture is more effective than livestock grazing for feeding the world's growing population.

But experts say appetite, rather than hunger, is what drives most Americans. And so black vegan chefs say they spend hours a day trying to appeal to palates raised on non-vegetarian foods.

Listed on the menu at Tchefa's restaurant on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn are curry soy goat, curry soy shrimp, barbecue soy chicken, sweet and sour tofu, lo mein dishes, and vegetarian cakes and pies.

"We have all the down-home Southern and West Indian-type food," said Queen Mother Maast Amm Amen, the Bronx-born cook and boss at Tchefa, which means "food of the Gods" in ancient Egyptian.

Some say the vegan eating style for blacks is a political act of self-assertion.

"We are trying to introduce African foods and products that we were robbed of during slavery," said Beta Duckett, manager of the Sundial Herbs and Herbal Health Food Shoppe in Uniondale.

Sundial is one of the most successful distributors in the black vegan market in New York. It sells dinners at its Uniondale store but is better known for its Wood Root Tonic, an energy- and strength-booster made of Jamaican herbs and roots that is sold at hundreds of stores in the metropolitan area.

Duckett said she and other black vegan business people are trying to cure "the sickest race on the planet."

There is much evidence underlying her strong statement. According to the American Heart Association, "the prevalence of high blood pressure in African-Americans in the United States is among the highest in the world." The association also says blacks between the ages of 35 and 54 are four times more likely than whites to die from stroke.

Last fall, a group of health advocates formed the Black Vegetarian Society of New York and vowed to try to change those statistics. It met at the Uptown Juice Bar, a popular vegan restaurant in Harlem.

"There's a growing amount of evidence which shows that vegetarian diets for African-Americans can lead to lower rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and other dietary-related illnesses," said John Sankofa, who is working on a master's degree in public health at Columbia University.

Sankofa said that while "some folks might think vegetarianism is growing for fashionable reasons," the trend is as serious as life and death.

Incidentally, some business people say, there is money to be made in the changing appetites.

Viburt Bernard, who opened the Veggie Castle in 1998, said he was surprised at how well his business has been doing.

"You think you would get a line that's 80 percent Rastafarian, but that's not so," Bernard said. "I wasn't aware how big vegetarianism is.... They're popping up all over the place, these vegetarian places. It's a big, big business, and it's growing."

[Bowwowmeow]

Abraham Lincoln said: "I care not for a man’s religion whose dog or cat are not the better for it...I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being."
Supporters of civil rights should be supportive of animal rights. Many of the moral and theological arguments used today to oppress animals were once used to oppress blacks. Buckner H. Payne, calling himself "Ariel," wrote in 1867, that "the tempter in the Garden of Eden...was a beast, a talking beast...the negro." Ariel argued that since the negro was not part of Noah’s family, he must have been a beast. Eight souls were saved on the ark, therefore, the negro must be a beast, and "consequently he has no soul to be saved."
In her preface to Marjorie Spiegel’s The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery, Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, writes: "The animals of this world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men..."
At a rally in San Francisco protesting the use of animals in medical research, former Alameda County supervisor John George said, "My people were the first laboratory animals in America." Black Americans suffered at the hands of research scientists just as animals continue to do today.
In 1968, civil rights leader Dick Gregory compared humanity’s treatment of animals to the conditions of America’s inner cities:
"Animals and humans suffer and die alike. If you had to kill your own hog before you ate it, most likely you would not be able to do it. To hear the hog scream, to see the blood spill, to see the baby being taken away from its momma, and to see the look of death in the animal’s eye would turn your stomach. So you get the man at the packing house to do the killing for you.
"In like manner, if the wealthy aristocrats who are perpetuating conditions in the ghetto actually heard the screams of ghetto suffering, or saw the slow death of hungry little kids, or witnessed the strangulation of manhood and dignity, they could not continue the killing. But the wealthy are protected from such horror...If you can justify killing to eat meat, you can justify the conditions of the ghetto. I cannot justify either one."
Gregory credits the Judeo-Christian ethic and the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with having caused him to become a vegetarian. In 1973, he drew a connection between vegetarianism and nonviolent civil disobedience:
"...the philosophy of nonviolence, which I learned from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during my involvement in the civil rights movement was first responsible for my change in diet. I became a vegetarian in 1965. I had been a participant in all of the ‘major’ and most of the ‘minor’ civil rights demonstrations of the early sixties, including the March on Washington and the Selma to Montgomery March.
"Under the leadership of Dr. King, I became totally committed to nonviolence, and I was convinced that nonviolence meant opposition to killing in any form. I felt the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ applied to human beings not only in their dealings with each other—war, lynching, assassination, murder and the like—but in their practice of killing animals for food or sport. Animals and humans suffer and die alike...Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel and brutal taking of life."
In a 1979 interview, Gregory explained: "Because of the civil rights movement, I decided I couldn’t be thoroughly nonviolent and participate in the destruction of animals for my dinner...I didn’t become a vegetarian for health reasons; I became a vegetarian strictly for moral reasons...Vegetarianism will definitely become a people’s movement."
When asked if humans will ultimately have to answer to a Supreme Being for their exploitation of animals, Gregory replied, "I think we answer for that every time we go to the hospital with cancer and other diseases."
Gregory has also expressed the opinion that the plight of the poor will improve as humans cease to slaughter animals: "I would say that the treatment of animals has something to do with the treatment of people. The Europeans have always regarded their slaves and the people they have colonized as animals."
Since the 1980s, Dick Gregory has been involved in the anti-drug campaign. In his first major civil rights sermon at the Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said: "If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer...If we are wrong, justice is a lie!" Bruce Friedrich of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) reports that under Gregory’s influence, Dexter Scott King—head of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolence in Atlanta, and son of the slain civil rights leader—and King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, have both become committed vegetarians.

[Bowwowmeow]

Dick Gregory


Under the leadership of Dr. King, I became totally committed to nonviolence, and I was convinced that nonviolence meant opposition to killing in any form. I felt the commandment Thou Shalt Not Kill applied to human beings not only in their dealings with each other (war, lynching, assassination, murder and the like) but in their practice of killing animals for food and sport. Animals and humans suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel and brutal taking of life.
– Dick Gregory, comedian & activist, from his memoir, Callus on my Soul




http://www.veg.ca/images/p-dickgregory.jpg



Dick Gregory's Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat:
Cookin' with Mother Nature

Chapter One
Warning: The Author Has Determined That
Not Reading the Following Pages Is Dangerous
to Your Health

This is a book for folks who are willing to take the time to stop and think. I've often said that one of the biggest problems in America today is that we Americans just don't think, not just about food, about anything.
The trouble with us 'Americans is that we've never thought. Remember that old cleanser commercial? "Keep the rust out of the entire house!" So folks would clean up all the rusty spots. But if they ever thought to pick up that can of clenser after it had been sitting for awhile, sure enough they'd have found that little brown rusty ring!
Let's take another example. We spend millions of dollars in the United States every year for civil defense buildings. But do you realize most of them are closed on weekends? It's as if we think our enemies are planning to fight a five-day war! Even Israel took six days.
Life insurance is another example. Probably not other group of people on the face of this earth spend more money on life insurance than we do in the United States. Did you ever stop and think that you have to be slightly stupid to buy life insurance? But just analyze this. You're betting the insurance company people that you're going to die. And they're betting you that you are going to live. And you're hoping they win. And they charge you.
Sometimes the strangest things cause you to stop and think. I remember when I first started thinking about whether or not it was right to eat meat. It was on Thanksgiving Day a number of years ago. I had been drinking while I waited for the turkey to get done. By the time I was standing at the head of the table with my carving knife, I suddenly had the strangest thoughts. I got to thinking that there might be some beings on another planet somewhere who are as intelligent compared with us as we are compared with turkeys.
Now that's a disturbing thought! I could just see myself in some strange planetary oven, being roasted. It would be one thing to roast white folks brown; they'd be trying to figure out a way to "undone" us black folks. I even thought about myself lying on a platter all filled with stuffing!
Then I had visions of these beings from another planet going to the butcher shop with their meat list. I wonder what they'd call their butcher shops? They'd probably call them "folks shops." I could hear them placing an order: "Give me a half dozen Oriental knees, two Caucasian feet and twelve fresh Black lips." And the folks-shopkeeper comes back smiling and says, "These Black lips are so fresh they're still talking'." After that little fantasy, I couldn't eat my Thanksgiving dinner. But it started me thinking.
There would be a whole lot of changes in America if we Americans decided one day to start thinking. And one of the biggest and most important changes would be in the "traditional American diet. The old saying is true: You are what you eat." It would be more accurate, perhaps, to say: "You are what you assimilate." That is, your body literally is what you assimilate from the "foods"-or more frequently "things"-you eat to rebuild cells and what you eliminate as waste products of the cell-building activity as you revitalize yourself each day.
If you just stop and look around you, you can see-and many of you can feel-the sorry results of eating habits of the majority of folks in America today. Folks getting old twenty, thirty, forty or even fifty years before their time. Swollen ankles, varicose veins, pot bellies, bald heads, arthritis, rheumatism, ulcers, sinus trouble, hemorrhoids, heart trouble, liver trouble, kidney trouble, overweight, underweight, anemia, bad feet, headaches, short breath, can't sleep or can't wake up, no energy, "tired" blood, sitting in front of the television set all evening and falling asleep watching it-the list is endless and very, very familiar.
Dr. Laura Newman, in her 1970 book, "Make Your Juicer Your Drugstore," reports: "During the last 50 years in the U.S.A., the increase of Epilepsy has been 450%; Diabetes, 1800%; Brights Disease, 650%; Anemia, 300%; Insanity, 400%; Heart Trouble, 300%; Cancer, 308%; and while we have the distinction of raising the world's best hogs, we have 75% of the world's Sinus Trouble."
The sad truth is that all of these afflictions, and their unbelievable increase, are the result of the American habit of putting "garbage" in their stomach instead of in the disposal. Most folks throw leftover "garbage" in the incinerator, disposal or garbage can-but only after they have tossed down or gulped-seldom chewed!-the greatest percentage of garbage into their own bodies.
It is very hard to unlearn the falsehoods we have accepted as truth all our lives. So much of what we are taught-both in school and at our mother's knee-is nothing more than accepted, handed down opinion that simply will not hold up under cold, hard analysis or weather the test of new experience. The great scientist Albert Einstein described most of what we learn as "a collection of prejudices which are fed to us with a porridge spoon before our eighteenth year." In schools at all grade levels, teachers present the current theories and notions of the time as though they were established facts. But the passage of time, combined with new experience and research, makes yesterday's "facts" today's myths, superstitions and falsehoods.
Einstein's description is uniquely apporpriate when it comes to the matter of personal diet. We are literally spoon fed wrong notions about what we ought to eat! It begins when we are babies and food is inserted in our mouths; we are offered no choice. For many of us the process never changes! The only alternative babies have is to spit it out-which of course they often do. Mothers see that reaction as something babies go through until they learn how to eat rather than as the natural response of innocence to aa violation of Mother Nature's rules!
Teachers in the great centers of education in the ancient world (e.g., Pythagoras at Crotona) were very hip. They understood that it was impossible for folks to learn anything until they had experienced its full truth for themselves . So the ancient teachers set up a curriculum where their pupils practiced the arts of numerology and dynamic geometry, for example, to experience the faculty of intuition. From that experience a pupil could go on to apprehend the essential laws of cosmic motion.
This book is based upon that anient undestanding of how we learn. The book grew out of my own personal experience. Its pages reflect what I have learned-what I have experienced as Truth and what I hope you will try for yourself-in my new life of "cookin' with Mother Nature."
Unless you are already very heavy into the natural-food-andway-of-life movement, most of what you read in Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat will go against everything you've ever believed about food, eating, health, and disease. I can only say to you, "Don't feel too bad. I started out on equal footing with the worst-eatin' reader of these pages!"
But I was fortunate. I met a teacher in the "ancient tradition," Dr. Alvenia M. Fulton. I'll speak more of her later, but in this chapter I'll just testify! When I met her, Dr. Fulton was confident the she pssessed the truth about food, nutrition and proper diet. But she knew I would have to experience that Truth for myself. I resisted every step of the way. Out of ignorance, I argued, rationalized, and repeated all the wrong notions about food I had been taught. Why? Because I just couldn't believe my momma would have fed meat if it was wrong, or given me cow's milk if it was wrong. And here was a stranger, a woman I had just met, telling me that my own momma had fed me wrong! My momma's main concern was that we kids got "somethin' to eat"
Every time I would come up with one of my stupid arguments, trying to refute what Dr. Fulton was telling me about some new way to change my diet, she would smile and say, "Just try it for me. Try it for a while and see what happens." I tried it, and invariably I liked it! I liked the fresh, pure tastes of natural foods; but even more important, I liked the glowing feeling of health, vigor and energy which followed my change in diet.
So many times I hear people resist changing their diet because they don't want to give up something they like. That's the first great myth to be dispelled . Learning to eat as Mother Nature intended her children to eat does not mean giving up something. It means just the opposite! It means gaining something of great value; a value far greater than the old rationalization "I've grown accustomed to its taste." It means gaining health, youthful energy and appearance, increased mental capacity, and a joy in living you never dreamed possible. To say nothing of the clean, fresh, natural taste of the food you will be enjoying!
The more I tried out Dr. Fulton's recommendations, the more I began to realize the sad neglet of my formal education. I had gone the whole school route-grade school, high school and college-and never once did I take a course in "Nature." I was never taught that the most important thing in life was learning to live in harmony with Nature. My formal education was so designed to teach me how to make a living, it never got around to teaching me how to live! I was taught about so-called civilization's attempt to control Nature and the ongoing war against Nature (although those terms were never used). I learned about the industrial revolution, the invention of the automobile, the steam engine and the airplane, the world wars, the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb, and other "accomplishments" of twentieth-century civilization. I was taught about thinkers, great political and military leaders, great philosophies and ideologies, but none of them told me about Nature.
I want to share with you may new experience with Mother Nature. Hopefully you'll learn something and have a few smiles. But most important is the experience you will gain in living a more natural way of life-the joyful experience of "cookin' with Mother Nature."

OK, we have weted your appetite with Chapter One. Here is one more choice-cut (pun intended) of Dick Gregory's Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin' with Mother Nature:
Dick Gregory on "Fasting"
from chapter two; page 18
My Career involves my work as a comedian, lecturer, author, recording artist, television and film personality. My vocation involves my participation in the stuggle for human dignity-the human rights movement. The increased knowledge of proper diet has accompanied my deeper understanding of my vocation. My vocation, which began in the civil rights movement, has now been expanded to include the human rights and peace movements. Thus, my expanded vocation led to my next change in diet.
In talking with Dr. Fulton, I kept hearing of the benefical aspects of fasting. Like most people, I was afraid to go on a long fast. All my life I had been told, "If you don't eat, you'll die." I had read about Gandhi's fasts, and I greatly admired the man, but his dedication and commitment was a lesson from history rather than a shared experience.
I wanted to do something dramatic and personal to protest the continued slaughter in Vietnam. Dr. Fulton had fasted many times, and she had prescribed fasts for her patients. I became more and more convinced I, too, should go on a long fast, at least thirty days. So I decided, in the latter days of 1967, to take only distilled water for nourishment, beginning Thanksgiving Day and continuing until New Years Day, 1968. My fast was for moral reasons, as a social protest.
Dr. Fulton must have sensed my uneasiness with the decision. She told me, "If you're really serious about this fast, I'll go on it with you." She did. Not only did she fast right along with me, but she guided and counseled me every step of the way. She told me how to prepare for the fast by cleaning out my body. She put me on a diet of fruit juice seven days prior to Thanksgiving, and she told me to cleanse my colon with enemas and to continue the enemas after the fast began. Under the direction of Dr. Fulton, what started out as a kind of "hunger strike" became a "scientific fast."
The first fast was the experience of my life! I started out weighing 280 pounds and on New Year's Day I was under a hundred pounds. I had become that "97-pound weakling," but felt stronger and healthier than ever before. I maintained my usual hectic schedule throughout the fast, traveling to fifty-seven cities in forty days. I gave 63 lectures.
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My first forty-day fast was more of a protest against the Vietnam war than most people realized . I really thought I was going to die! I would come back to the hotel room somewhere after giving a lecture, flop down on the bed and fall asleep. Then I'd wake up in the middle of the night and pinch myself to see if I'd died in my sleep. I'd never died before, so I began to think, "Wow! Maybe this is what death feels like! One everlasting pinch!"
So I would call Dr. Fulton in Chicago, and she would reassure me. More Important, she would tell me exactly what was going to happen on each day of the fast! When Dr. Fulton told me that at the end of the third week of fasting I would feel a resurgence of energy like I had never felt before, well, I won't say I disbelieved her; I'll just say I didn't believe it at the time! But of course it was true, because at that period of the fast the body begins consuming itself, riding the system of stored-up poisons and waste that have been there for years.
On January 9, 1968, I broke my first fast, with fruit juice, at the Fultonia Health Food Center in Chicago. After a long fast, Dr. Fulton says, it is necessary to take a day of fruit juice for every five days you have been fasting, so I needed eight days of juice before I could begin eating again.
What began as an act of social protest-a political act-became in the process of living it a "purifying act"-in mind, body and spirit. As my body was cleansed of years of accumulated impurites, my mind and spiritual awareness were lifted to a new level. I felt closer to Mother Nature and all her children. I was now aware of the meaning of the words I uesd to hear in church: "The body is the temple of the spirit." Just as Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the temple, fasting had driven the "devils of my former diet" from my own "temple," and my life changed completely.
About three months after my first fast, I had asip of Scotch and soda and the taste was repugnant. That old favorite devil of mine was gone forever. I remembered how bad liquor tatses to most people the first time they try it. Folks say you have to "cultivate a taste" for booze . Even though the body is saying "No!" people repeat alcohol until they get used to it.
With my body cleansed from fasting, I had a new hunger. I hungered to know more about nutrition and proper food so that my "temple" would remain clean. I visited health food stores everywhere I traveled. I would head straight for the book rack and buy every book on health and nutrition I could get my hands on. I found more wisdom there than I've found on any college campus I've ever visited-and I lecture in three hundred colleges a year.
The more I read, the more I talked to Dr. Fulton and the more I experimented with my own diet, the closer I came to the fruitarian point of view concerning nutrition. After my first fast, I adopted a diet that included only raw foods. I became convinced I should leave my "cookin'" to Mother Nature!
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The Result of Fasting
The long fast puts the entire body through a cleansing. That also includes toxic accumulations in the brain. And as the brain is cleansed the mind is released. During a long fast you will notice a heightening of ethical and spiritual awareness.
One of the things that happen during a long, cleansing fast is that you lose the six basic fears which plague humankind:
Fear of poverty
Fear of death
Fear of sickness
Fear of getting old
Fear of being criticized
Fear of losing your love
All six, or some combination of these fears, haunt everyone who is captive to the usual nervous imbalances accompanying toxic diet. But when those fears disappear you are really at home with Mother Nature and happily at peace with life in Mother Nature's world. You can shout the words of the familiar freedom phrase and they will have a meaning only you will truly realize: "Free at last!"



I could just see myself in some strange planetary oven, being roasted. It would be one thing to roast white folks brown; they'd be trying to figure out a way to "undone" us black folks. I even thought about myself lying on a platter all filled with stuffing!
Then I had visions of these beings from another planet going to the butcher shop with their meat list. I wonder what they'd call their butcher shops? They'd probably call them "folks shops." I could hear them placing an order: "Give me a half dozen Oriental knees, two Caucasian feet and twelve fresh Black lips." And the folks-shopkeeper comes back smiling and says, "These Black lips are so fresh they're still talking'.
:jester2::jester2::jester2: