Reflections of a Negro Revolutionary: What I Thought I Was Doing During the 60'S

By Boss Jackson

The turbulent years of the sixties and early seventies, a time of the flowering of a people and a nation, we thought we knew what it meant to black in America, but everything we knew was changing. From the civil rights movement Led by Dr Martin Luther King Jr. The watts Riot, the so called Black Revolution, the rise of the Black Student Unions on college campuses, to the anti War and womens Lib movements, America was Changing and we were forced to change with it.

The reality is that change is most certain of all the forces of nature however from my point of view not all change is good. The turmoil we experience in our modern society is a direct result of many of the changes that took place back in the sixties and seventies most important from where I stand is the loss of identity suffered by millions of Americans of African descent in the transition from Negro to Black.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491769737

Boss Jackson

Boss Jackson is a graduate of fuller seminary MA Theology he is currently serving as pastor of the Bel-Vue Presbyterian Church USA in Los Angeles, California a position he has held for over 31years. He is an accomplished vocalist song writer and poet he has produced one play ‘from the cotton fields to the tabernacle’, one Album ‘Truth Will Rise’ with Dr Isaiah Jones Jr, and has published several award winning poems. he has one son, L.R, currently residing in New York, pursuing a career on Broadway as actor singer and director. Boss Jackson currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

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Copyright © 2015 Boss Ross.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-6972-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6973-7 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 10/15/2015

Contents

Intro

Reflections of a Negro Revolutionary

Everybody’s Crazy

The Myth of Revolution

Between the Darkness and the Light

Civil rights

One Nation Under God

Contradictions

Big John

Reformed, Always Reforming

How Star Trek Saved My Life -

vision of an enlightened future

You’re Tearing Me Apart

Intro

Mother land

The soothing warmth of the African sun

The children bathe in its richness while the day’s work is done.

And while the men labor, their work songs are sung

Mother Land

Land of the fathers of lost generations

Land of great empires and powerful nations

Land of cool breezes through which native birds fly

Land of green valleys and tropical Skies

Mother Land

Blown to these shores are the seeds of destruction

Blown for to gather the seeds of a nation

But from destruction must come salvation

Torn Away From

the Mother Land

Transplanted as I am a seed to grow

What I have endured only God and I know

As the Tall Tree once stood,

now here I must stand

Torn away from

the Mother Land

Reflections of a Negro Revolutionary

The old saying, A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, I have come to believe is a false statement. It assumes that the so called rose is non-sentient and therefore unaware of what it is called by those who care for, nurture, or exploit it. This reality was impressed upon me in undeniable fashion through the years by the rancor over how to designate the descendants of Africans coming to this country, either voluntarily or in chains, before, during or after the slave trade. The fact is that most peoples in the world are designated by their country of origin or tribal affiliation. Second generation Africans, slave or free, were designated by color status, or the amount of Caucasian blood that was believed to flow through their veins. We became Colored, Mulatto, Negro, Black, African Americans or Niggers, each name making a profound impact upon the psyches of those so designated.

I was born during the transition from Colored to Negro, often used interchangeably. The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), for example, always left itself open to the question; ‘Which colors’? There are red and yellow people as well.