TIM HAYES'

JUST A FEW WORDS TO THE BRAVE YOUNG BLACK ACTIVISTS WHO HAVE GOTTEN INTO THE HABIT OF SAYING SOME REALLY STUPID THINGS ABOUT THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT OF THE 1950s AND 60s

September 23, 2016 by Tim Hayes Comments

Of course this is not directed at all the younger activists…of whom I as an “old soldier” of the movement am very proud. But to the people that I keep running into who say that the people of the old civil rights movement did “nothing” ..or that we quit and didn’t do enough…one guy told me last night that if we meant anything back then cops wouldn’t still be shooting us , and we wouldn’t still be getting lynched…Well while we all know that racism continues …I humbly submit that the people who say that have no f**king idea what they are talking about. That they don’t know their history and have no idea just how bad things were. They don’t know what we have seen, they don’t have a clue about how many comrades we lost. And most of all don’t seem to understand how many of the things that are possible for them…were TOTALLY out of reach for us and the people who came before us. When I was a child one of the first things my uncles taught me was how to walk around town….”when a white person walks toward you on the sidewalk , you keep your head down”…”before you learn to read, learn the letter C and the letter W…cause if you don’t know what they mean you may not make it home that night” No matter how well educated you were unless you got a job teaching school you still could end up mopping someones floors..or that most sought after job of Blacks with a masters degree …being a mailman…One of the things that I didn’t even know was “new” was to see a sign outside that said ” a man was lynched yesterday” …and we saw that everyday….in NYC they even flew flags outside NAACP offices..That was something I at the time did not know was apart of a major victory of the generation that came before us…what me and my generation didn’t know is that just a few years before that ..anybody that put up a sign like that or flew a flag like that would have been burned out on the first day. I remember when you NEVER saw a Black person on a jury, the term “jury of your peers” meant nothing. I remember when the rednecks who sometimes were just as poor as us would play a game called “nigger baseball”…they could drive down the street and when they saw a black man walking down the street they would lean out of the car and smack him in the head with a baseball bat…..if you hit him you got to take a drink out of a bottle..nobody EVER went to jail for doing this. Oh yeah can we talk about where we had to sit on the bus, can we talk about how many stores had signs saying “WHITE ONLY”…or how if you were in many downtown parts of cities there was no place you could go to the bathroom…And we can talk all day about voting..And as far as cops still shooting us….when I think of how much myself and the sisters and brothers of the Black Panther Party had to go through…where the government openly declared war on us and tried to wipe us out HOW DARE YOU SAY WE DID NOTHING.I have to say at this point that one of the things I heard most from my comrades all the time ..was that our main goal was to make sure we were the last generation that had to learn to put up with this shit..Now it was not until I got older that I truly understood that my generation could only change the things we changed because of the things the the generation that came before us had done…the “anti-lynching” movement, and the people like the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters …yeah, none of you know who that was.look them up…but in many ways you younger people as well as my generation owe those guys SO MUCH..because we would not have dared to have a civil rights movement in the 50s and 60s if those men and women had not taken a stand and risked their lives in the 20s and 30s…Younger activists …know that we love you all but know that my generation did not start this thing…and your generation won’t end it..and maybe your children’s generation won’t end it either ….but don’t be stupid…the “civil rights” generation..because we were the largest in number made more change for our people in a shorter time than any generation before us…we didn’t change everything….and you won’t either….but when we were out there….and I still am. I learned that we stood on the shoulders of giants…….you do too.

FILE – In this March 7, 1965 file photo, state troopers use clubs against participants of a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala. At foreground right, John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, is beaten by a state trooper. The day, which became known as “Bloody Sunday,” is widely credited for galvanizing the nation’s leaders and ultimately yielded passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (AP Photo/File)

TRIBUTE TO A CHILDHOOD FRIEND

September 1, 2016 by Tim Hayes Comments

I was offline for the most part yesterday ..I just found out that my best friend in the 5th 6th and 7th grade Virgil Howard passed away. Virgil and I became friends when my family moved from the monster public housing project …Carver Homes into a community of small affordable ( 10,000 dollars, a lot of money in 1959-60 ) houses in a subdivision on the northwestern edge of the city of Atlanta.Called “Lincoln Homes”. It was still very much the time of “jim crow” and Virgil and I met when we found out that the only place close by that sold comic books..( I mean the real deal D.C. and Marvel..not the “Archie” and “Donald Duck” stuff which were called “funny books” in those days) did not allow Black people to even come into the store. We ended up coming up with schemes every month to get some white person to go into the store and make a purchase for us…sometimes we paid a white “wino” to go inside…one summer we went into the surrounding woods and picked buckets of plums to give to the white church lady who lived across the street from the store and she would go in and buy from the list of our favorites that we would give her. Virgil and I in those days were true kindred spirits ..not just comics but we discovered all the classic fantasy writers Ray Bradbury, John W. Campbell., Isaac Asimov.,Arthur C. Clarke.and Robert A. Heinlein. together ..we knew already that we were a lot smarter than the kids we went to school with ..but didn’t dwell on it. I guess it was my interest in being a musician, and later the civil rights movement that caused us to drift apart when we got to high school .I sort of went with the academic crowd while Virgil became something of a loner…But we only lived one block apart so I still saw him everyday. We really did go through a lot together and I treasure the time of discovering who we were together. I have always felt kind of sad that we did not keep in touch…The last time I saw Virgil was about 1976..long after high school walking down the street not far from his parents house. I already lived in Philly by then but we had a beer and talked a little ..I heard two days ago from a class mate that Virgil was ill and in the Hospital..I was off the computer yesterday and at 7 this morning I read that he had passed…this might be the worst thing about this time in life ..when you lose people or things and regret ….strongly how you didn’t get to spend more time with them or let them know how important they were…I have no idea what kind of life Virgil lived as an adult..and I regret that..but where ever he is I wish him peace….this is a picture of Virgil Howard from our high school yearbook …he was voted ” most humorous”

Why there is nothing wrong about another slave movie.

August 27, 2016 by Tim Hayes Comments

One of the things that has really bothered me in this crazy election year. has been the way so many people become victim to the “bandwagon” mentality. If something becomes popular with enough people to reach a certain “critical mass” then it becomes something many people think they just have to do, or think, or at least try to say they believe in. I mean you can’t be considered “hip” or cool unless you embrace certain ways of seeing things or making certain “talking points” a part of your normal conversation.No matter how stupid..if enough people think it’s cool ..you say it too..Among many Black people this had lead to a type of anti-intellectualism . You shut down critical analysis because it just “ain’t cool” any more.One of the ways this manifests itself in today’s world is the “I’m tired of hearing about slavery” crowd..I consider this a childish and backward rejection of a part of our history that still affects us more than any. While I understand why one would say this, from my experience to make such a statement has more to do with ones sense of “racial self esteem”..As Important as it is to study the complete Black Historical experience..from pre-history to now. We still are being influenced by the experience of slavery as a people ..and as a nation… I was a part of that generation that while maybe not the first but certainly was the first in mass to begin to study and research Black History beyond the time of slavery. Fifty years ago we were making pilgrimages to west Africa, saving up to go to Ethiopia, Somalia, Seeing sites in the Middle East. I went to Algeria, and Israel , and Tunisia as well yes Egypt. in search of Black History before slavery. I wanted to find out as much as i could about Moorish history and religion. Important stuff, true. What this all lead me back to is that we still don’t have a really complete understanding of the psychological impact of slavery. or the long lasting pathology that causes us as Black people to act out is some ways over and over in generation after generation. I’m tired of hearing people say “I don’t want to see any more movies about slavery.” Well true there is a lot more to our story than that……a lot more. And I would like to see more films and published studies on Pre-slavery Black history. But we have only scratched the surface of the peculiar institution of slavery. So yes I’m looking forward to another film that deals with slavery…but this one..called “Birth of a Nation” deals with a part of the slave experience most of the films have stayed away from….Rebellion…so it may turn out to be a good film….and it may not. But that anti-intellectual bullshit about “I don’t want to see another slave film” will not keep me out of the theater..to see the trailer use this link.....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIlUerVomDE

LAW AND ORDER

July 22, 2016 by Tim Hayes Comments

JUST IN CASE YOU DON’T KNOW. Donald Trump has now called himself the “Law and Order” candidate..and has said at least three times that Law and order will be the “hallmark” of his presidency. Well I remember very well the last time a person ran for president as the “law and order” president…1968. This person used the fact that people were organizing in mass movements to protest an unjust war. The fact that the civil rights movement had grown to the point of addressing economic issues and foreign policy. A national organization born of the struggle to end police brutality and fight the militarization of police forces had grown to take on many of the responsibilities that aid to dependent children should have been taking on…was demonized and had hundreds of it’s members vilified ..murdered..incarcerated ..framed..This person used all those things happening in our country to scare the shit out of the majority of white Americans… won that election….turned the Presidency into an Imperial office..literally formed a separate government agency for the purpose of cheating in the re-election campaign, stole the re-election …got caught by it’s own arrogance and the President ended up having to resign in disgrace…Guess what ?? last night the republicans put up another “Law and order” candidate…And rather than seeing how this is happening …many alleged “progressives” are still bathing in the “sour grapes” of not getting the nomination for their “darling ” candidate….they need to shut the hell up and join us in some serious work we all need to do..

July 10th 2016 where I think we are ….where I think we need to go..Part one

July 11, 2016 by Tim Hayes Comments

As I begin writing this it is Sunday morning. All the news shows on TV are doing stories on the Dallas police shootings..and just as I was getting my coffee the kitchen radio tells me that there have been several incidents of “police ambush”…This sends a horrible chill up and down my spine….for reasons I will get into later. First let’s set the stage. In the last few days seemingly back to back we have had a Black man shot, on camera, lying down, subdued with two huge white men on top of him and suddenly he is shot several times. Then the next morning we see a video of a desperate Black woman with a baby in her car. And next to her is a Black man in a Bloody shirt, and as the scene goes on we see a policeman still pointing a gun inside the car as the woman, who remarkably managed to remain calm tells us and the now screaming officer that she thinks her “boyfriend” is dead. For me it seems just hours later that I find out that while I was sleeping ( I’m on a lot of meds because I am dealing with a cardio/pulmonary condition ) What at first seemed like several gun-toting people had shot more than several police officers during a “Black Lives Matter” rally ..killing at least five. .I am in my mid sixties….we have been here before. The years 1969 and 1970 were some fierce times. Police brutality and abuse have led to the formation of the Black Panther Party a few years before. The Party started out as a reaction to police brutality and cruelty in the extreme..And yes, the police were what we in those days called “trigger happy”..I feel compelled here to say that even in those days there were police officers who felt bewildered by the behavior of their fellow officers. And in the part of the country where I lived every year you would hear about some officer who “broke the code” and complained about excessive force used by some other officer…most of the time these people ended up leaving the force. We began to hear about these “whistle blowing” cops less and less…I now assume that it does not happen any more..The Black Panther Party in the beginning would follow police around, and when the police stopped a driver or confronted a citizen for any reason we would observe the situation and make sure the police followed procedure. This alone could be called a revolutionary action…in case you don’t know…..it got a lot worse. As the years went on the government began to position itself more and more in opposition to the BPP. We began to be raided ..ambushed and murdered at an alarming rate….and as time went on partially out of frustration but we know now partially because of people planted among us for the purpose of agent provocateur. There came to be people who wanted to declare “war” on police…punish them for every incident of abuse….Now let me say here that this is NOT a history of the Black Panther Party…I’m just setting the stage to tell you about how some very specific events came to happen. By late 1969, I began to meet people..some had been in the BPP at some point often having been thrown out…but even more who had never been a part of the Party. People who were trying to form underground armies..and Police assassination brigades. And yes …some people who I knew or had met actually carried out some of these actions..the most spectacular was when police were called to an address and got there and picked up a package in the room and it exploded. I was told later that this was an “initiation”..There are many of these people still being hunted by the government today…This is the memory that sent waves of fear through my body..Because I remember what happened after that…it became open season on Black activist of all kinds. I lost many really good friends and many people including myself went into exile moving to Cuba, parts of Africa and the Middle Eastand to South America …..some live there still ..in places I won’t talk about….did it make police behave any better toward citizens ? …..no…What it taught us is that when you live inside the cruelist most violent country in the world ..that society will spare no expense to preserve the status quo…and will throw both caution and morality out the window..to crush what opposes it. These actions brought down on even peaceful “non-violent” activists The full wrath of American Law enforcement. Well over a hundred people were killed who had NOTHING to do with any police ambush action..No little brigade of nuts who hate cops and start shooting them, ambushing them will succeed at changing the behavior of what we used to call the “Occupation army” of the oppressor…Okay that’s just one small part of what needs to be said before the idea to some how to retaliate against the police takes hold of some poor soul…it’s a road we have traveled down before…and I remember the consequences too well. There is more to say about the events of the last few days …For instance what’s broken with our police force and how or can we fix it…That’s tomorrow

Muhammad Ali January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016

June 4, 2016 by Tim Hayes Comments

I don’t remember the date, it was in September of 1970, I knew I was hungry, as I had almost nothing to eat the day before. Not an unusual thing in those days when I was full time in the Black Panther Party. On the streets of Atlanta Georgia, I had decided to go to Chestnut and Fair Street, in the center of the Black College complex. Clark College on one corner Spelman College a block away Morehouse College where I was technically still a student on the opposite corner. I was standing there trying to sell Black Panther News Papers. If I sold enough to cover the cost of food for the Free breakfast program I would be able to keep what ever was left for myself. I was busy trying to sell a paper to a really pretty Clark College girl and didn’t notice until I turned around that there was this really tall guy standing right next to me. After I sold a paper to a passing car I noticed the look on the face of the buyer when he looked at the tall guy. I stepped back on the sidewalk and looked up and sure enough it was Muhammad Ali. It was him who struck up a conversation. He said how he respected the BPP and the work we did and was sorry that he had not done more to donate money to our community programs. I told him that we all knew what he was going through, and that to us he was always the “People”s Champion” we went into a lot of subjects Like Abdul Nassar who had just died and how the new Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was a real Egyptian …a Black man and not an Arab. I told him that it meant a lot to many of us that he had taken this stance on the war.Ali kept saying that he had not planned any of this…he just had to do what he thought was the right thing…”suppose ” he said ..”when they grow up …my kids ask me what did I do about this” …”I don’t want to have to say I did nothing ” simple words …but I knew exactly what he meant….You have to understand that during the time Ali had been suspended from boxing the number of Black as well as non-Black men drafted to go and fight that war had grown enormously This was over forty five years ago so a lot of the words have faded away. But what got me was after about ten minutes somebody across the street said “HEY LOOK ….IT’S ALI “..all of a sudden his voice changed, his posture changed, he began to speak more in a “ghetto dialect” and got really loud.It was like a switch was thrown and he turned on his other persona….I think in that moment I learned more about him that in any of his interviews ….he knew who he was, he knew what he was. I knew in that one second that Ali was not being manipulated by Malcolm or Elijah Muhammad. Within seconds there were dozens of people ….trying to get close to Ali. I noticed that a bright yellow limo drove up..Ali pushed through the crowd ..gave me a ten dollar bill..I gave him the Black Panther newspaper, he got in the car and was gone. I found out a few minutes later that Ali had been using the gym at Morehouse College to train for his up coming comeback fight..against Jerry Quarry…it was an easy win about a month later. A lot of things happened to me during those Black Panther years but this day is one memory that I treasure…To guys in my generation maybe Stokely may have made Black what we called ourselves..but it was Ali who maybe not alone but in terms of the loudest voice, taught us how to BE Black men and women…real Black men and women…We were under no obligation to aide America in it’s imperialism …and it fact had more in common with the people America wanted us to kill…The most powerful words spoken by a Black American ..ever, were “NO VIET CONG EVER CALLED ME NIGGER” This took what we were still calling a “civil rights” movement and turned it into something much bigger. That’s what Malcolm died trying to do…it’s what MLK came to embrace at the end of his life…and despite all the money and being the “worlds most famous person” This is and will be what made Muhammad Ali….”The Greatest”…don’t have to tell Ali to “rest in power”…..we know he is.

Memorial Day 2014

June 2, 2016 by Tim Hayes Comments

I actually wrote this one morning two years ago but a friend of mine saw it recently and suggested that this remembrance belonged here……May 26th 2014…I woke from a fitful dream this morning , in my sleep I kept seeing guys I knew who never came back from the war Viet Nam..in that way that dreams can be, some of them were real guys that I knew in high school or from my “hood” but some of them were just faces. I think it’s because I went to sleep with the TV on and there was so much stuff on about Memorial day… But yes I knew a lot of guys and even a few women who went to “the NAM” many never came back. As high school was ending for me and my generation, you had many people who lived in complete fear of the day they would get “called up” in the draft to go fight that war To be honest I also grew up with guys who grew up watching all those WW II movies with John Wayne and Audie Murphy..( I know none of you young people know who Audie Murphy was…do what you do best google him) and these people could not wait to get in uniform and go fight and kill some communists. You have to understand that everybody I mean EVERYBODIES Dad had fought in WW II in fact you could not buy a house in our neighborhood unless you were a veteran. Also I have to mention that not as many Black men went to college as they do today some didn’t have the grades , even more could not afford it. I was in that few who were sought out by the colleges both Black and White. We didn’t have Affirmative Action back then so all the big white colleges would literally hunt down Black “super students” …you only needed two or three in your school then no one could say Cornell , or Dartmouth were “racist” ..but you really had to be that “super student” ten times better than the white student to be what we called in those days “the nigger who sat by the door”..I didn’t have the best grades but in my IQ tests I scored in the 160s ..by the time I was in 11th grade it was not unusual for there to be a big black car sitting in front of my parents house when I got home from school two or three times a week ..all asking us to sign an agreement for me to go to their University … I don’t say this to brag .in fact it was a curse that inflicted a lot of pain on my parents and to this day colors the relationships I have with my siblings. But that’s a story for another day, the point here is that I seemed to be in a position to not be “cannon fodder” in that war….But they got a lot of us…I feel bad about it today that the stupid young man I was would make fun of these guys..”hey man you a little brown guy who is treated like shit in your own country going off to kill little brown guys on the other side of the world who just want to run their own country, man you’re a complete fool”. That was easy for me to say …I would have a student deferment and would not have to go…or so I thought ..that’s another story too for another day or for my blog. But the point here is Uncle Sam took a lot of boys through no fault of their own .Money and class for the most part decided if you had to go or not.0ver 58,000 never came back.. and today I salute every single one of them. This picture is of a statue that sits in the park where the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial is….I kind of like it ..look closely at the soldiers faces ….I think it says it all.

Sorry, I just could not stay out of commenting on this election, even though I wanted to stay away until I dealt with some medical stuff.

May 25, 2016 by Tim Hayes Comments

Well …..I’m trying so so so hard to stay out of it while I deal with some things..but the insanity surrounding this election is making it so hard to stay away..one particular person on my friend’s thread was just so adamant about the only true moral way out was to not vote or even better to write in Bernie if he did not get the nomination..because ” crooked Hillary” had already stolen the election….I put up a valiant effort I think ..to hold it in rather than respond to this scary but growing totally fruitcake opinion…but suddenly ……all on their own my fingers jumped up and flew across the keyboard with this ……” I’m sorry but that is both childish and also a misreading of history. What George Bush Jr. did to Al Gore was a stolen election. But whether you like Hillary or not what has happened in this election is the same way we have elected Presidents for decades. I resent the fact that after 25 years of a Republican war on Mrs. Clinton, when she runs for President by the same rules all the rest have run with for most of recent history..so many clueless people are having a “hissy fit” because the person they like may not get the nomination. The person I like has NEVER gotten the nomination…ever. Hey I would like to see John Lewis get the nomination…or for that matter Bobby Seale..but that ain’t gonna happen. I knocked on hundreds of doors this past year trying to get people to vote for a person ( Bernie Sanders ) who made the choice months ago to run as a Democrat EVEN THOUGH HE WAS NOT ONE HIMSELF. Bernie knew then what the rules were. Now when as could have been predicted it looks like he probably won’t get the nomination all these silly children have picked up the talking points of the Republican party and just like Trump are making this some how Mrs’ Clinton’s fault. I don’t even like her but this whole “crooked Hillary” bullshit is just another example of how a whole group of alleged “progressives” got masterfully PLAYED by the Republican party.” my god I feel so bad now for falling off the wagon…but I could not take this fool for another second….now I have to start all over again.

On Sanders and AIPAC

March 22, 2016 by Tim Hayes Comments

I was going to respond to Bernie Sanders’ position on AIPAC with a long article for my blog web site …but after
three hours knocking on doors today ..campaigning for Bernie …people seem to want to know how I feel “right now”…Well I wrote this early this morning in a personal response to a dear friend at about 6:30 this morning and have not had time to write a longer article but this pretty much sums up what I feel Bernies AIPAC speech was worth…”for me Mr. Sander’s speech amounts to one step out of the United States/Israel “comfort zone” and two steps back into the usual bullshit. But for an American politician that one step may be a real first. What I mean is I think Sanders really does mean it when he speaks about the importance of the occupation. I quote him here. “Peace will mean ending what amounts to the occupation of Palestinian territory, establishing mutually agreed upon borders, and pulling back settlements in the West Bank, just as Israel did in Gaza – once considered an unthinkable move on Israel’s part.” for me that was the step forward, and I commend Mr. Sanders for that. But just like the well–intentioned Obama administration it falls short of mentioning the nature of Israel’s role in provoking a sometimes violent resistance to that occupation. Wrapping it in that old bullshit racist chestnut.that oppression is “necessary” for security . when in fact. Palestine’s right to RESIST is AT LEAST as important as Israel’s right to exist. Until not just Mr. Sanders ….but ANY U.S. presidential candidate comes along who at least acknowledges this double standard, and how it manifests itself in the continued spiraling down into Apartheid. WE won’t see anything but the same old “mumbo-jumbo”..I still support Bernie and in fact am scheduled to speak to over a dozen more church groups to get out the vote for Bernie in the primary…he is after all my choice in this election…but I am not fooled by this and I will not lie to voters.

Democrats need to CHILL

February 12, 2016 by Tim Hayes Comments

I am THRILLED that the GOP seems to be eating itself alive..But I also fear that the Left…what’s left of it is also in deep “doo-doo”..You ever heard the joke about the “circular firing squad” well for months now we have had the more “rabid” element of the Sanders supporters picking up the baton from the decades of Hillary hating Republicans and running with it. I’m a Sanders supporter and I see it everyday, I’ve seen it in the street and I’ve seen it.on the internet..and in recent days Clinton supporters have gotten just as willing to fight with dirt as the “Bernie Bots”..I have major differences with both Clinton and Sanders.. Clinton while a solid liberal in many ways stands for “business as usual”…while Bernie really speaks to me and what I want for America.but. he has all the foreign policy knowledge and experience of my cat..But either of them would be light years better than what the Repugs have in store for us..get behind Hillary or “feel the Bern” but DEMOCRATS CHILL OUT…..