By Charles D. Ellison
Special to the NNPA from The Philadelphia Tribune

At one point, Newark Mayor Corey Booker’s meteoric political rise seemed unstoppable when he ended up running from his security detail into a burning house to save its elderly resident. No contemporary American politician could compete with optics as legendary as that, and many commentators were overheard chattering on air and in cable TV green rooms about how Booker made other lawmakers look like “chumps.”

But fast forward through one miserable misfire on Meet the Press and a subsequent backseat during Superstorm Sandy, and the Booker brand hit its ceiling. Stories of the Twitter-happy mayor dashing into danger were distant memories. Booker found himself, his social media addiction and voracious appetite for national coverage under newfound scrutiny.

Booker is by no means a stranger to controversy. A fast-talking, telegenic mix of great debater and policy wonk, Booker rolls with the rhetorical punches with legendary flair. And while his detractors may be many, the young Newark mayor — accused of everything from being a media hound to serving as a gentrification enabler for aging white yuppies attempting to transform urban North Jersey — believes he’s changed the troubled city for the better.

There is an emerging skepticism surrounding Booker’s new political project: running for the U.S. Senate. It will be a peculiar and fascinating spectacle to watch in 2014, as Booker may be locked in one of the nastiest intra-state political battles in recent years. While the candidate field is still taking shape, the tension between Booker’s national star power and his very complicated relationship with his home state pose challenges for the man who could well become the first African American elected to the Senate since Barack Obama in 2004.

Comparisons to President Obama aside, Booker must first navigate a treacherous maze of Jersey politicians, giant egos and prickly voters who’ve made the Garden State read like a pulpy political thriller. When talking off the record with many Jersey politicos, there is a sense that Booker has very little in terms of a home-bred political base. While certainly the most famous Black politician out of New Jersey, he is not well liked by many in the state’s crowded Black political establishment.

“Corey has issues,” smirked one ranking Jersey elected official, speaking candidly on the subject. “And he needs to recognize that effective communication is not all about Twitter.”

Booker, however, is no ring-kisser — something that is known to irk many old guard politicos who spurn his new school approach. This will be a significant test in two ways. His ability to win the Senate seat now held by 89-year-old incumbent Frank Lautenberg will hinge on how he manages his relationship with an entrenched political machine. Running statewide as a Black candidate will require pulling together a solid majority of African Americans, a population estimated at 14 percent in Jersey.

Yet, his relationship with African Americans in places like Newark is complex. It took two tries before he was able to unseat former Mayor Sharpe James, the longtime “Black King of Newark” who ruled the city with a political iron fist, until finally succumbing to corruption charges and jail time. And many in the city’s Black political class, which for years operated on a civil rights model, see Booker’s agenda of charter schools and urban economic development as code for making the majority Black city more amenable to white interests.

Meanwhile, powerful State Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, a mainstay Black political power broker, is also showing interest in the Lautenberg seat. That move could end split the African-American vote between Booker and Oliver, thereby giving Lautenberg the opening he needs to keep his seat.

Despite his complex relationship with Black New Jerseyans, Booker is still considered a favorite in a 2014 Senate race — albeit momentarily. It was widely known that the Newark politician preferred a run for the Governor’s mansion.

Equally problematic is if Lisa Jackson, the outgoing Environmental Protection Administration head, returns to Jersey and decides to run for Senate also. Jackson was popular in Jersey before her stint as an Obama Administration cabinet member, and she already finished a round of deflating rumors that she might run against Republican Governor Chris Christie in 2013.

A Jackson–Booker match-up in a Jersey Senate Democratic primary could find the Newark mayor suffocating under the weight of a massive Obama political machine that would more than likely support a former cabinet official. Observers point to the president still being perturbed with Booker after he openly criticized the Obama 2012 campaign for demonizing Wall Street investors like Bain Capital.

But, ultimately, it’s all come down to Sandy.

“Superstorm Sandy not only sealed Mitt Romney’s fate — it may have forced Mayor Cory Booker’s political hand as well,” adds Peter Groff, a former elected official familiar with Booker and a lecturer on African-American political history. “Gov. Chris Christie’s handling of the storm all but sealed his re-election and caused the mayor to look toward the Senate.”

For now, the problem for Booker appears to be Lautenberg, the aging statesman suddenly turned into irate octogenarian. Lautenberg reportedly fumed when Booker made his announcement, angry over the perception that the young politician was overstepping his bounds.

“I have four children, I love each one of them. I can’t tell you that one of them wasn’t occasionally disrespectful, so I gave them a spanking and everything was OK,” Lautenberg told the Philadelphia Inquirer in reference to Booker. The Senator’s recent open hazing of Booker is stirring bad blood between the two, even as the younger mayor attempts to show public deference. Still, Lautenberg hasn’t mentioned an intent to retire, raising the prospect of an ugly primary, and he recently said Booker “has got a lot of work to do” in Newark.

“It would be an uphill battle for Lautenberg, though,” says Jersey-based Democratic strategist Tara Dowdell of the Dowdell Group. “Jersey is a grind game and a money game.”

So far, recent polls suggest Lautenberg could find himself being slaughtered by Booker. A recent Quinnipiac Poll found Booker slamming Lautenberg in a likely match-up 50 percent to 34 percent.

Dowdell cautions that Booker’s challenge is marshalling a home state base despite his name recognition. He could end up getting more out-of-state support and contributions than in-state. But, she also notes that her old boss, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., shouldn’t be counted out of primary contention. Pallone has indicated he’ll base a decision on whether or not Lautenberg decides to retire.

“If Sen. Lautenberg doesn’t retire, he’d give the mayor a tough battle,” says Groff. “But with outside money, youthful energy and ideas and running against a Senate that could be the most dysfunctional ever, Booker should win the primary and coast in the general election.”

By Dorothy Rowley
Special to the NNPA from The Washington Informer

In a letter to President Barack Obama, the National Coalition of Black Veterans Organizations (NCBVO) asks that during the celebration of Black History Month in February– a presidential proclamation be issued that elevates legendary Buffalo Soldier Col. Charles Young to the honorary rank of Brigadier General.

Col. Young was medically discharged from the US. Army on Jan. 22, 1917, but he was recalled in 1918 after riding 500 miles to demonstrate his fitness to serve on active military duty.

“We are firm in our belief that the honor we are seeking on his behalf was earned over a career that spanned more than thirty-two years of honorable service to our nation (1889 – 1922),” a portion of the letter dated Jan. 22, reads. “We are joined in this request by resolutions from the Commonwealth of Kentucky House of Representatives (the birth state of Colonel Young), the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, the Council of the District of Columbia and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.”

The letter, which was signed by NCBVO chairman Charles Blatcher III, goes on to state that “as the third Black cadet to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Young’s accomplishments were numerous.

“They included becoming the first Black military attache, the first Black Superintendent of a National Park, and the first Black soldier promoted to both the ranks of Lieutenant Colonel as well as Colonel. He also distinguished himself in command positions during the Philippine Insurrection and General Pershing’s Punitive Expedition. During the latter event, his courageous actions under fire resulted in the rescue of the 13th Cavalry. Colonel Young was the highest ranking African American in the military at the outset of the First World War and until his death in 1922.”

In alluding to action taken in 1956 by President Harry Truman, NCVBO further notes that this would not be the first time such a request was made.

“In 1925, Brigadier General William “Billy” Mitchell was court martialed, reduced in rank to colonel and discharged from the United States Army,” the letter continues. “He was charged with “conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline and in a way to bring discredit upon the military service. Ten years after his death in 1946, President Harry S. Truman posthumously promoted then Colonel William “Billy” Mitchell to the rank of Major General.”

California Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who will also be writing Obama on Young’s behalf, said in a statement that Black History Month is a “particularly fitting time” to bestow the posthumous honor on Young.

“Colonel Young was a true trailblazer; in a time when the obstacles he faced due to the color of his skin seemed insurmountable, his achievements were astounding,” Lee said.

“This is why I will be sending a letter to President Obama requesting a presidential proclamation promoting Colonel Young to the rank of Brigadier General.”

Special to the NNPA from the Atlanta Daily World

For several generations, leading historians, scholars and intellectuals have often times quoted and recited the following almost prophetic words written by Dr. W.E.B. DuBois in his classic The Souls of Black Folks (1903: “The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color-line.” The book had its greatest impact in the United States among Black and White Americans, but its influence also extended beyond America’s shores to the Caribbean islands and continental Africa.

According to an illuminating essay authored by Playthell Benjamin in Reconsidering the Souls of Black Folk (2002), French-speaking Black intellectuals such as the Haitian scholar Jean Price-Mars, the poet Leon Damas of Cayenne, and the poet/statesman Leopold Sedar Senghor who along with Damas is a founder of the “Negritude” literary movement testified to having been inspired and influenced by The Souls of Black Folk. In short, it can easily be seen as the most influential of the early texts that forged a sense of racial consciousness for African descendants in the diaspora.

But now, thanks to the deep persistent dedication and scholarly rigor of two academics, Carolyn Lobban and Asselin Charles, we have knowledge about another landmark and groundbreaking book written in 1885 by Haitian intellectual and anthropologist Joseph Antenor Firmin.

Firmin’s little known but masterful treatise, The Equality of the Human Races; Positivist Anthropology, was basically researched and published by the author to intellectually defeat scientific racism, racist writings and stereotypical views about modern racial humanity during the closing years of the 19th century.

Firmin’s pioneering and revolutionary book was written, in essence, to intellectually challenge and refute the pseudo-scientific claims of the so-called father of modern racism/White supremacy, Arthur DeGobineau, who’s four-volume work, The Inequality of the Human Races, was also written in French between 1853-1855.

Firmin’s scientific rebuttal was especially directed at the racist theoretical writings of DeGobineau whose work was the first to assert the racial superiority of Aryan peoples. It was also one of the earliest of the many influential texts to support and reinforce dangerous ideas about purported inherent Black inferiority. In The Equality of the Human Races, Firmin’s magnum opus, he powerfully and positively affirmed just the opposite idea. He wrote, “All men are endowed with the same qualities and the same faults, without distinction of color or anatomical form. The races are equal.”

As anthropologist Ashley Montagu, author of Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, has noted, “It is a fact worth remarking that throughout the nineteenth century hardly more than a handful of scientific voices were raised against the notion of a hierarchy of races.”

Fortunately, for all of humanity past, present and future, Joseph Antenor Firmin was such a voice courageously raised in a herculean effort to eliminate negative racist ideology and mythology, and to bring racial healing and harmony to the global human family.

It is only fitting that as we inaugurate President Barack Obama, who happens to be another brilliant son of Africa, that we recall a prophetic prediction made by Antenor Firmin in his profoundly provocative book more than a century ago.

“Appearance to the contrary, this big country is destined to strike the first blow against the theory of the inequality of the human races. Indeed, at this very moment, Blacks in the great Federal Republic have begun to play a prominent role in the politics of the various states of the American Union. It seems quite possible that, in less than a century from now, a Black man might be called to head the government of Washington and manage the affairs of the most progressive country on earth….”

Antenor Firmin was indeed an intellectual trailblazer in the long line of scholars who have become part of what has been called the vindicationist school of great African thinkers.

Gershom Williams is currently editing a special edition of the Journal of Pan African Studies celebrating the intellectual life and scholarly legacy of J. Antenor Firmin. He can be reached at bennuinstitute@yahoo.com.

Special to the NNPA from the New York Amsterdam News

Jan. 22 (GIN)- The African Union has called on its member countries, the economic community and Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the continental organization.

The AU Commission said that the actual date should be celebrated with cultural activities, debates, school contests and public enquiries.

As the Organization of African Unity, a regional group of 32 countries launched May 25,1963 in Addis Ababa, it aimed, among its many goals, to eradicate all forms of colonialism, especially in those states that had not yet won their independence or were minority-ruled. South Africa and Angola were two such countries.

But it drew criticism as an ineffective “talk, no walk” organization and called a “dictators’ club.”

It was reorganized on July 9, 2002 as the African Union with 54 countries.

Plans for the 50th anniversary celebrations will be submitted by AU Commission chairwoman Nkozasana Dlamini-Zuma, to the 20th summit of AU Heads of State and Government to be held on Jan 27 and 28 at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa under the theme “Pan-Africanism and Renaissance”.