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Dr. King’s “Bank of Justice is Bankrupt” Speech Was Tested in Oakland in 1962

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When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited the Oakland Auditorium Dec. 28, 1962 before a 7,000-plus crowd, the themes of his famous March on Washington speech were tested.

 

Many of the economic justice ideas that King presented, which were a precursor to a call for reparations from the Freedmen’s Bank experience, were also presented months earlier at the McClymonds High School “Mind of the Ghetto” Conference, sponsored by the Afro-American Association, which Malcolm X, Don Warden, Cassius Clay, Floyd McKissick, Wil Ussery, Thomas Berkley, Paul Cobb and many other Black leaders attended.

 

 

Rev. Ray Williams, pastor of Morning Star Baptist who attended the historic event, said: “Pastor Edward Stovall of the progressive Baptist Church of Berkeley led a group of ministers into history. Rev. Stovall reached across the denominational lines to invite ministers of other faiths including Rev. Roy Nichols, a Methodist leader; activist George Henderson of the Star Baptist Church; Rev. Peyton E. Pierce, president of the Baptist Minister Union; and several leaders of the Catholic Church.

 

“The predominantly Black audience signaled for a political awakening that set the stage for the elections of Attorney Thomas Berkley and Barney Hilburn to the Oakland Broad of Education, and Byron Rumford to the State Assembly.”

 

Rev. Frank Pinkard, pastor of Evergreen Baptist, said, “King captured our desire for economic redemption when he opened his March on Washington speech where he said the US Government has given Blacks a note marked “insufficient funds.” That part of the speech should have been equally glamorized as the famous I have a dream phrase.”

 

In his speech King said: “We have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

 

“This note was a promise that all men, yes black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

 

“It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’

 

“But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

 

“So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now.”

 

Assembly member Rob Bonta and Post Publisher Paul Cobb will speak about Dr. King on Sunday, Jan. 17, at 2:30 p.m. at Morning Star Baptist, 1136 34th St. at Adeline in Oakland.

 

Bonta’s father and Cobb marched with King in Selma in 1965. Cobb will also speak at 11:30 a.m. at First Presbyterian in Oakland on Sunday.

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Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

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Oakland Post: Week of October 23 – 29, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 23 – 29, 2024

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Arts and Culture

Soaring Birds and Towering Waves Greet Attendees at 29th Annual Maafa Commemoration at Ocean Beach

The 29th Annual MAAFA Commemoration San Francisco Bay Area was held at Ocean Beach, Sunday, Oct. 13. Warm and cloudy with waves as high as tall buildings, we gathered to honor African ancestors who died by the millions over the centuries of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

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Ayikwei H. Scott (drummer standing), Dr. Uzo Nwankpa (seated), Iya Nefertina Abrams (in background), unnamed participant to the left. Next frame: co-founder, Sister Wanda Sabir at mic. MAAFA winged chorus (center frame). We are singing the MAAFA song Brotha Clint composed. Chorus: Sister Wanda and Antwuanette Queen-Pope, Brother Desmond Iman, Baba Darinxoso Oyamasela. Minister Alisha Teasley (Lower right). Photo montage by Zochi.
Ayikwei H. Scott (drummer standing), Dr. Uzo Nwankpa (seated), Iya Nefertina Abrams (in background), unnamed participant to the left. Next frame: co-founder, Sister Wanda Sabir at mic. MAAFA winged chorus (center frame). We are singing the MAAFA song Brotha Clint composed. Chorus: Sister Wanda and Antwuanette Queen-Pope, Brother Desmond Iman, Baba Darinxoso Oyamasela. Minister Alisha Teasley (Lower right). Photo montage by Zochi.

By Wanda Sabir

Special to The Post

The 29th Annual MAAFA Commemoration San Francisco Bay Area was held at Ocean Beach, Sunday, Oct. 13. Warm and cloudy with waves as high as tall buildings, we gathered to honor African ancestors who died by the millions over the centuries of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

The 50 or so children and adults attending Maafa, Kiswahili word meaning ‘great disaster,’ came from as far as Monterey and Sacramento to just up the block.  We all felt the ancestors’ ethereal embrace as Min. Imhotep and Min. Alicia of Wo’Se Community Church poured libations and invited us to call their names with our mouths, feet, and hands.

Birds on the beach lifted their wings in flight moving towards us and flying overhead the way legends say African ancestors flew away from plantation fields. Their collective Aṣé!

The theme for the 29th Maafa event was accountability and as Zochi led us through Mu-i (pronounced moo-ee, a movement meditation) we embraced our power from our roots through our crown chakras. Dr. Uzo Nwankpa, a healer in residence at Freedom Community Clinic, taught us the Igbo war chant —“Eyinmba” which was also an embodied movement.

Our ancestral poet this year was Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911), born in Baltimore to free parents. She was a poet, abolitionist, suffragist, educator, and freedom fighter who lived in Philadelphia.
“It’s time to be a grown person,” Wanda Sabir, Maafa CEO stated. “Own up, fess up, get righteous. Accountability means we don’t blame others for our poor choices and their consequences. We don’t blame the system, genetic weakness, structural racism, poverty of the soul, families of origin, peer pressure, ignorance….
“We are more than the worse thing we have suffered. We are more than what our ancestors survived.
“Our ancestors do not want us to be functional. Our ancestors want us to be free.”
The drummers were phenomenal, and the section of the program open to reflections was filled with song, poetry, dance and prayers. A special treat was “Amkara Music” by Karamo Susso and Amina Janta, who will perform at Bissap Baobab in San Francisco on Oct. 20.
Join us for a Zoom dialogue on adrienne maree brown’s article, “Murmations: Love Looks Like Accountability” (Yes! Magazine, 7/25/22): Sunday, Nov. 10, 2-4 pm PT. Register in advance: MaafaSFBayArea.com, 510-397-9705. Here is the MAAFA 2024 program (https://qr1.be/CPFI).

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