Message from New York Chapter President

Renetta English

Hello Members,

Today, Monday, as I reflect on the impact of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King on our country and throughout world, I remembered he was a leader in organizations like the NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Montgomery Improvement Association.

Why is this important?

Martin Luther King was a fearless leader and he realized that collective participation of members in these organizations was the only way to fight for our social and economic civil rights.

The BDPA New York Executive Board needs your collective assistance to make 2011 a successful year. We need volunteers to lead and serve on committees in the following areas: Education, Membership, Community Service and Fundraising.

Don't forget you are cordially invited to join the BDPA New York Executive at our upcoming Meet-N-Greet at Empire Hotel on January 19, 2011 between 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM. Looking forward to seeing you soon.

Renetta English, President
BDPA New York Chapter
E-Mail: pres@bdpa-ny.org
Phone: (212) 802-5341

MLK Technology Challenge Day

On January, 18, 2010, people of all ages and backgrounds will come together to improve lives, bridge social barriers, and move our nation closer to the “Beloved Community” that Dr. King envisioned.

Dr. Martin Luther King devoted his life’s work to causes of equality and social justice. He taught that through nonviolence and service to one another, problems such as hunger and homelessness, prejudice and discrimination can be overcome. Dr. King’s teachings can continue to guide us in addressing our nation’s most pressing needs -- poverty, economic insecurity, job loss and education

The MLK Tech Challenge is working to connect IT and web professionals who are willing to volunteer their time with local schools to help them meet their technology needs.

I hope that all BDPA members will Get HandsOn! and find a way to make your MLK Day "A Day On, Not A Day Off!"

How will you choose to spend your MLK Day? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below!

Barack Obama is Living Martin Luther King's Dream

Will You Support 'Day of Blogging For Justice: Community Organizers'?

I am a member of The AfroSpear. I think that Sarah Palin is out of line with her caustic criticism of community organizers like Martin Luther King Jr. or Norman Mays.

As such, I will participate in the Day of Blogging for Justice: Community Organizers on Monday September 8, 2008. I will join other AfroSpear members by blogging about community organizers and the great work they have done in America's communities.

I invite you to participate as either a blogger or a blog reader.

Philip Emeagwali: 'The Graves Are Not Yet Full'

Philip Emeagwali is a giant in the information technology industry. He has served as a keynoter for BDPA in the past. Born in Nigeria, this computer genius studied for his doctorate from the University of Michigan. He is best known for linking 65,000 computers to form the fastest computer on Earth and founding the Internet. Emeagwali considers himself to be “a Black scientist with a social responsibility to communicate science to the Black Diaspora.”

He shared his reflections on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. last week in Atlanta. I invite you to reflect on his words as shared below:

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Walk with me down memory lane. The time: 1968. In 30 months, one million dead. The setting: a dusty camp in Biafra where survivors waited and hoped for peace. The survivors: Refugees fleeing from the “Dance of Death.” My mentor: One of the refugee camp directors, whom I called “Teacher” out of respect.

“Martin Luther King has been killed,” Teacher said, with a pained voice and vacant eyes. I looked towards Teacher, wondering: “Who is Martin Luther King?” I was a 13-year-old refugee in the west African nation of Nigeria, a land then called Biafra. Martin Luther King. What did that name mean?

Eight out of ten Biafrans were refugees exiled from their own country. Two years earlier, Christian army officers had staged a bloody coup killing Muslim leaders. The Muslims felt the coup was a tribal mutiny of Christian Igbos against their beloved leaders. The aggrieved Muslims went on a killing rampage, chanting: “Igbo, Igbo, Igbo, you are no longer part of Nigeria!” In the days that followed, 50,000 Igbos were killed in street uprisings.

Killing was not new to us in Biafra. I was 13, but I knew much of killing. Widows and orphans were most of the refugees in our camp. They had survived the Igbo “Dance of Death” – a euphemism for the mass executions. One thousand men at gunpoint forced to dance a public dance. Seven hundred were then shot and buried en masse in shallow graves. When told to hurry up and return to his regular duty, one of the murderers said: “The graves are not yet full.”

A few days later, with only the clothes on our backs, we fled from this “Dance of Death.” That was six months before Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Teacher and I were eventually conscripted into the Biafran army and sent to the front, two years after our escape. After the war, Teacher – who had taught me the name of Martin Luther King – was among the one million who had died. I – a child soldier – was one of the fifteen million who survived.

Africa is committing suicide: a two-decade war in Sudan, genocidal killings in Rwanda, scorched-earth conflicts in Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, and Liberia. The wars in modern Africa are the largest global-scale loss of life since the establishment of the Atlantic Slave trade, which uprooted and scattered Africa’s sons and daughters across the United States, Jamaica, and Brazil.

Africa’s wars are steering the continent toward a sea of self-destruction so deep that even the greatest horror writers are unable to fathom its depths. So, given our circumstances, Martin Luther King was a name unknown, a dead man among millions, with a message that never reached the shores of Biafra. Neither did his message reach the ears of “The Black Scorpion,” Benjamin Adekunle, a tough Nigerian army commander, whose credo of ethnic cleansing knew nothing of Martin Luther King Jr.’s movement: “We shoot at everything that moves, and when our forces move into Igbo territory, we even shoot things that do not move.”

As we heed Martin Luther King Jr.’s call, and march together across the world stage, let us never forget that we who have witnessed and survived the injustice of such nonsensical wars are the torchbearers of his legacy of peace for our world, our nation, and our children.

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The passage above was excerpted from a speech delivered by Philip Emeagwali at Morehouse College's Science and Spirituality Week celebration.