$2.3 Trillion Train To Black Wall Street… ALL ABOARD?

TRUE OR FALSE: GENERATION ALPHA -- What did we learn about virtual and real from COVID-19 school?  (1) As a U.S. Senator, Joe Biden traveled between Wilmington, DE and Washington, DC by train; (2) “Uncle Joe” is either a character from Petticoat Junction or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s worst nightmare in a proposed $2-trillon infrastructure bill;  (3) No AMTRAK train has ever arrived on Black Wall Street.

By Eric Stradford, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired

AMWS May 8, 2021, Muskogee – A virtual Presidential whistle stop marks the 100^th year since white “settlers” devastated Black Wall Street.  The “Frisco” is one of many information infrastructure projects considered for a Learning Journey back to the future.  The railroad tracks just south of North Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Greenwood community is but one haunting reminder that American infrastructure does not necessarily sustain “One Nation Under God” on both sides of the railroad track.

Fact:  “Uncle Joe” is not the 46^th President of the United States.  He’s the character played by American Actor Edgar Buchanan in a 1960s situation comedy. “Petticoat Junction” in no way references two California women behind the man at his first address to a joint session of Congress.  And, The New Stradford Hotel Upon Black Wall Street might never geographically co-exist within a White Supremist’s vision of America’s future.

Give or take a trillion dollars or so, the cost for “healing the soul of America” is racking up a whole new set of zeros.  Today’s new math calls for the youngest living generation to reconcile virtual and physical reality in a quadrillion dollar economy. 

$1,000,000,000,000. The next named number after trillion is quadrillion.   

Anybody planning quadrennial events in 2021 will need to adjust from a single to multi-generational mindset.  Funding decisions made now will ultimately fall on Generation Alpha and two to three generations beyond.

Biden Administration Infrastructure envisions Economic Inclusion for folks who are ready, willing and able to #PlayTheGame.   There’s at least $80 billion on the way to AMTRAK.    There is significantly less on the way to Muscogee for misappropriated infrastructure resulting from the “Indian Removal Act.”  AMTRAK will need to backtrack beyond its half century dependency on federal aid to a time when railroad infrastructure promised Economic Inclusion for all.

With the right balance of faith and science, governments, businesses, communities, and individuals can work together to create infrastructure linking the world's telecommunication and computer networks together.  In the United States, public policy is finally catching up to the Clinton era idea of information infrastructure, enabling the transmission of every conceivable information and communication application.

President Biden’s passion for choo-choo trains may move a $2.3 trillion infrastructure bill closer to public law. But, in Red vs. Blue politics, compromise almost never produces purple.  Rather than funding more dead-end jobs at minimum wage, why not just seed a $1 m trust for every low-income citizen in Generation Alpha?  If we ensure more of them grow up whole, they might produce 3D printers or the next technological evolution to maintain their infrastructure.

A half century ago, Pullman porters rode the rails to inclusion.  It was not their job to learn on behalf of the disenfranchised, but the information they shared empowered friends-n-kin with a glimpse of what is possible...still.  

From across the tracks, America received porters as their on-ramp to mobility.  Pullman porters served American railroads from the late 1860s until the Pullman Company ceased operations on December 31, 1968, just three years before President Richard Nixon’s infrastructure vision saddled America with a quasi-public corporation that, by now, should have ended poverty.

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK) receives a combination of state and federal subsidies but is managed as a for-profit organization.  The United States federal government through the Secretary of Transportation owns all the company's issued and outstanding preferred stock.  Amtrak's headquarters is located one block west of Union Station in Washington, D.C. 

There is no AMTRAK service to Tulsa, Oklahoma.  There is little infrastructure investment north of the railroad tracks.  Throughout AMTRAK’s fifty years of government operations and appropriations, political compromise has ignored one major cornerstone for American infrastructure.  So, why is this important?

For 100 years, planes, trains, automobiles, and banks have run on tax-payer subsidies. According to the Tulsa Preservation Commission, the Curtiss-Southwest Airplane Company was the nation’s first commercial interstate air freight shipping business.  They opened an airfield in Tulsa near Apache Street and Memorial Drive in 1921.  On May 31, that same year, white “settlers” bombed Black Wall Street from airplanes.  Where did they come from?  Where did they go?

On January 6, 2021, almost 100 years after the attack on Black Wall Street, the United States Capitol met a domestic terrorist attack with familiar confusion and disbelief.  However, the outcome was all too familiar outcome.  The FBI is still investigating, “Where did the attackers come from?  Where did they go?”  

Commercial airplanes, AMTRAK trains and automobiles may offer some hint of how we go.  But in getting there, we’ll need to imagine affordable landings at a yet to be determined destination, “Where Do We go From Here?”

 

Gen-X,Y,Z voters leery of the Good Ole Days

By Eric Stradford, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired

AMWS, October 12, 2018, America – When you vote, will you vote for a who, a what or a when?  It’s an important factor to consider when politics of the past preclude people in the present from producing inclusive policy for the future.  If this sounds familiar, America, it’s because #WeThePeople have been there and done that back…in the “Good Ole days.”

In the YouthUSA Corporate Village, economic inclusion is an absolute right and responsibility of every economic beneficiary.  In 1999, one nonprofit tested an inclusive vision of America’s future on Generation X participants at The American Mentor Summit in Washington, DC.  The charity invited qualifying youth to assess their goals and determine how existing corporate assets should be prioritized, allocated, and distributed.  

Not surprisingly, the young folks voted to divide allocated corporate assets among themselves, excluding those beneficiaries not in physical attendance.  No vote emerged on ways and means to sustain the organization for future generations of beneficiaries. As a lesson-learned, the YouthUSA brand, supported by Youth Achievers USA Institute, a 501c3 public charity, promotes economic inclusion for economically disadvantaged American children within its shared vision of America’s future. 

This week marks the “discovery of America,” often memorizing -- “in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”  But an emerging generation of new voters are exploring facts beyond lessons learned back in the “good ole days.”   According to historical sources, on August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, with three small ships, the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina. On October 12, the expedition reached land, probably Watling Island in the Bahamas.  Later that month, Columbus sighted Cuba, which he thought was mainland China.

AMWS, a reporting asset of YouthUSA, invites America’s newest voters to put a 21^st Century face on the future.  We’ll want to replace divisive debates with constructive engagement.  Pick any two Americans for your 2020 Presidential ticket, write your goals and any facts about your candidates.  But, we urge you not to pick Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, or other fictional or deceased individuals like so many 2016 voters did in protest.  To get started, complete steps 1, 2, and 3 at www.YouthUSA.net

The inalienable right to economic inclusion has been challenged at various levels of government by politicians elected to serve the needs of a nation’s most vulnerable citizens.  This week, the reality of economic inclusion hit home.  Yesterday, I got a $402.00 bill from the U.S. Government for Medicare Part B premiums.  Before now, insurance supplemented by the Defense Department, addressed all the healthcare needs of this retired veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces.  The U.S. Government set a due date for payment in full within two weeks.  

My lovely bride of 24 years, endeavoring to extinguish a potentially combustible concern, said, “no problem, just pay it.”   This “what” is better known as “affordable healthcare.”  It is second only to the “what” we know as the inalienable right to vote. “Healthcare is complicated…who knew?” stated one elected official.  Just imagine getting a bill from the government for benefits you thought you had earned.  Or, losing a benefit you fought for, and paid for, only to lose that right before you could use it when needed.  

I asked a Democrat or two the “who” question--Donald Trump or anybody else?  Does the response, “Anybody else,” qualify as an “exact match?”  I asked a patriotically practical Republican the same question.  The fiscal conservative quickly pivoted from a common sense “who” to a “what,” further complicated by an unspoken agenda of arriving at a “how much.”  Depending on your perception of truth, political perversions are producing anything but an “exact match” to what is right, and what is wrong.

Healthcare is complicated.  But, voting for fiscally responsible governance and against traditional conservative nationalism presents an unfortunate and perhaps untimely dilemma.  A socially sensitive hybrid of fiscal conservative voters will carve out their own truth with their Election 2018 choices.  But, they’ll need to cut through the hyperbole to discover deficits in the folks once trusted by previous generations…back in “the good ole days.”   Perhaps all are better served by pivoting the collective perspective from the elected to the electorate.  

As a component of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Census Bureau, technically presents “facts” from within the Trump Administration.   The U.S. Census Bureau, headquartered in Suitland, Maryland, is overseen by the Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA) within the U.S. Department of Commerce.  The Census Bureau provides facts and figures about America’s people, places, and economy.

As such, the U.S. Census is perhaps the best place to profile the “who” in the American electorate. U.S. Census reports on voting rates have historically varied according to age, with older Americans generally voting at higher rates than younger Americans.  This is one of many factors profiling the “who,” but it cuts with a double edge when you consider the importance of economic inclusion for American youth.

In 2016, young voters ages 18 to 29 were the only age group to report increased turnout compared to 2012, with a reported turnout increase of 1.1 percent.   Labeled “Generation Z,” these new voters make-up one-quarter of America's population, making their generation larger than baby boomers or Millennials.   A 2018 report from Pew Research Center defines these "Post-Millennials" as having been born from 1997 onward.  This hard date on the American calendar presents a point of reference for "key political, economic and social factors", including the September 11th terrorist attacks and the Barack Obama presidency.

Building on their tech-savvy Gen Y predecessors, and Gen X independent-thinking entrepreneurs, observers view Gen Z as motivated by social rewards, mentorship, and constant feedback. They also appear to want meaningful work and be given responsibility.  Like their predecessors, they also tend to demand flexible schedules.

Asked to consider policies of the present and their potential impact on the future, the Gen Z response might weigh the who against what they do.  Is Republican candidate Brian Kemp “cheating his way to Governor of Georgia by suppressing Black voter rights?” This question may draw one response from change enthusiasts and another from traditionalists. 

Somewhere in the middle, is that socially sensitive Gen Z conservative weighing a truth between the who and what they do.  Access to information may prove to distinguish Gen Z voters from an aging generation of “traditionalists,” born between 1928 and 1945.  The older voters have proven to be extremely loyal to what they believe, and they enjoy being respected for that.

Young voters can search for an “exact match” to Georgia’s July 15, 1870 vision of its own future.  During and since the 1800s, politics has followed patterns of behavior to preserve traditional values in Georgia and elsewhere.  The Reconstruction era was the period from 1863 to 1877 in American history.  Today’s voters will need to discern right and wrong from three Post-Civil War visions.  History reveals a reconciliation vision, rooted in coping with the death and devastation from the war; a white supremacy vision, which included terror and violence; and, an emancipation vision, which sought full freedom, citizenship, and Constitutional equality for African Americans.

Georgia never elected an African American to the U.S. Senate.  Until now, no state has ever elected an African American woman to be its governor.  Gen Z will need a few facts from history to make the right choice.  These same young voters will need to hold accountable a politically-polarized United States Supreme Court, bequeathed to them by generations of emotional, lesser informed elders.  That court may eventually hear a case of voter disenfranchisement in the last state to be restored to the United States following the Civil War.

 

That historic U.S. Supreme Court case will need to consider a history of disenfranchisement dating back 1870 to 1871.  During Reconstruction, Hiram Rhodes Revels became the first African American to ever serve as a U.S. Senator.  The list of African American senators has since added four Republicans and five Democrats.   Rhodes, a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), was born a free person in North Carolina.  Before the Civil War, he lived, worked and voted in Ohio.

In 1877, not long after Reconstruction ended, white Democrats regained power in the state legislature. They passed a poll tax which disenfranchised many poor blacks and whites, preventing them from registering to vote.  In 1908, Georgia established a white primary; with the only competitive contests within the Democratic Party.  This was another way to exclude blacks from politics.  Blacks constituted 46.7% of the state's population in 1900, but the proportion of Georgia's population that was African American dropped thereafter to 28%.  During the Great Migration, tens of thousands of families left Georgia, fleeing one of three post-Civil War visions of Georgia’s future.  Political disfranchisement persisted through the mid-1960s, until after Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Designed to enforce the voting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Voting Rights Act secured the right to vote for racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Act is considered to be the most effective piece of federal civil rights legislation ever enacted in the country.

On June 25, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Shelby County v. Holder ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional.  A majority of the court said the coverage formula is based on data over 40 years old, making it “no longer responsive to current needs and therefore an impermissible burden on the constitutional principles of federalism and equal sovereignty of the states.” The Court did not strike down Section 5, but without Section 4(b), no jurisdiction will be subject to Section 5 preclearance unless Congress enacts a new coverage formula.  

Five years after the Supreme Court ruling, nearly a thousand polling places have been closed in the United States.  Many of the closed polling places are in or near predominantly African-American counties. Research shows that the changing of voter locations and reduction in voting locations can reduce voter turnout.  

If the diabolical plot still lacks clarity, perhaps history will reveal truths lost in political power plays.  New voters in 2018 and beyond will need to bring their "A Game"  to break the historic cycle of veiled exclusion.

#SavingOurOwnLives

By Eric Stradford and Stephanie A. Walker Stradford

GENIUS AT WORK

A perspective on the final chorus of #WeAreTheWorld from Quincy Jones' notes. 
 "Love is all we need."

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AMWS July 16, 2018 – “There comes a time when we heed a certain call, when the world must come together as one.”  Now is that time!

#SavingOurOwnLives, an urgent cause for action, sparked an unprecedented demonstration to address a credible threat to a nation’s #EconomicSecurity. 

#WeAreTheWorld demonstrated endless possibilities for people who will stand together as one.  It’s been more than three decades since artists Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie etched this cause into a global call for action. 

A threat to the world’s most vulnerable citizens intensifies with each generation of wealthy folks who simply do not pay attention.  

BREAKING NEWS: Donald J. Trump is openly colluding with his Russian "competitor," despite months of denial by political conspirators.  The alleged action follows the indictment of 12 Russian officers for unlawful activity during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections. Though not necessarily a crime, punishable under U.S. law, collusion is a secret understanding between two or more persons to gain something illegally, to defraud another of his or her rights, or to appear as adversaries though in agreement.

Trump is hardly the first to learn that past acts, words and deeds matter.  "Tear down this wall!" is a line from a speech made by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on June 12, 1987, calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961. 

 

Reagan was reportedly raised in a poor family in small towns of northern Illinois. He graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and worked as a sports announcer on several regional radio stations.  Hollywood acting and trade union attacking perhaps links the mid 1980’s to today’s news on foreign influence in American rights and responsibilities.

No international summit, multi or unilateral trade agreement, broken treaty or meet and greet will make a difference without facing reality.  “The poor can stop being poor if the rich are willing to become even richer at a slower rate.”  The assistant director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, Hyman Bookbinder, declared that the long-range costs of adequately implementing programs to fight poverty, ignorance and slums will reach one trillion dollars in the future.

“The future is here,” said Stephanie A. Walker Stradford, CEO for Youth Achievers USA Institute.  We know what to do, but will we? Stradford is calling on fellow organization, civil rights, business, faith, and political leaders in a #BelovedCommunity to #PayAttention. #SavingOurOwnLives underscores the urgency for #WeThePeople to act now to #StandOurGround against enormous threats to our children, families and communities.

Depending on one’s political perspective, Ronald Reagan’s supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated tax rate reductions to spur economic growth, economic deregulation, and reduction in government spending.  Sound familiar?  From a historically disadvantaged perspective, the outcome was “trickle-down” for the middle class and a dream deferred for the poor.

In his first term, Reagan reportedly survived an assassination attempt, spurred the War on Drugs, and fought public sector labor.  Meanwhile, remnant factions of a #BelovedCommunity drew on indigenous assets to encourage a national offensive against the effects of unfavorable Washington policies.

Walls came down after realizing the need to engage in #SavingOurOwnLives and defeating apartheid by proclaiming #WeAreTheWorld.  Hands Across America was a benefit event and publicity campaign staged on Sunday, May 25, 1986.  It is reported that approximately 6.5 million people held hands in a human chain for fifteen minutes along a path across the contiguous United States.  Several international cities joined the cause and many donated ten dollars to reserve their place in line.  The proceeds were donated to local charities to fight hunger, homelessness and those in poverty.

In 1985, the supergroup United Support of Artists (USA) for Africa, brought to life the proclamation #WeAreTheWorld.  The song was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie with arrangements by John Barnes. Quincy Jones produced it for the album. With sales in excess of 20 million copies, #WeAreTheWorld is one of the fewer than 30 all-time physical singles to have sold at least 10 million copies worldwide. 

On a relative small scale, #WeAreTheWorld demonstrates endless possibilities when people stand together as one.