Greetings, Friends And Future Constituents:

Sunday converged two (2) significant American holidays, Juneteenth and Father's Day. Juneteenth, short for "June Nineteenth" is rooted in pain and the "peculiar institution" of slavery. For two hundred forty-six (246) years, Africans in America were caught up in a political, economic, and social stranglehold. We were recognized as three-fifths (3/5) of a human being. We suffered some of the greatest exclusions and rejections based on race, color, and creed. American wealth and capitalism was built on the backs of Africans. Yet, still we rise!

Dr. Booker T. Washington encouraged us to concentrate our time and energy on economic attainment and the trades. Dr. Carter G. Woodson, "the Father of African American History," expressed we must love our heritage and continuously self-educate about the significance of our culture. Dr. W.E.B. DuBois stated the Talented Tenth will lead us to liberation. The American Civil Rights Movement leaders gave us a blueprint to fight, stand up, and declare this is everyone's nation and we are all tied in it together. The new leaders of what I call the Second Civil Rights Movement are pushing back against discrimination and inequality like the days of old.

Let us look back on this day and remember the Union stormed Galveston, Texas to free the enslaved in 1865. This Juneteenth, may we bind together in fierce resistance with the aim and objective to move forward forever and backwards never. This celebration has the ability to galvanize and mobilize us to seek proportional representation in the public and private sectors and politically.

My late beloved father is Mr. Andrew Jackson Pride. He was so handsome with a pearly white smile. He had a deep passion for learning, a hearty laugh, and enjoyed nearly every sport on the planet.

My father transitioned many years ago to be with the ancestors. Yet, the fifteen (15) years we experienced one another has carried me a lifetime. I am truly my parents' arrow. The most powerful lesson I learned from my father were the importance of reading and articulation. Furthermore, he gave me a living, moving, breathing example of what a man is and was. He shaped my worldview of how leadership and scholarship are one entity. He was and still is immortal, a lion, my giant, my strong tower, my superhero...my Father.

This Father's Day, we examine and ask for the execution of a mass reentry of alpha males and fathers in our homes. The Obama Administration sought initiatives and strategies to promote responsible fathering.

✓ Support and sustain stable and healthy environments for children and parents, particularly by strengthening the economic stability of low-income fathers and supporting healthy relationships between parents.

✓ Promote and create positive opportunities for fathers to engage in the intellectual, emotional, and financial well-being of their children.

✓ Strengthen and solidify relationships among fathers, children, and families early in a child’s life.

✓ Support and encourage disconnected fathers to reconnect with their children and families.

✓ Use convening power to coordinate communication and high impact engagement efforts that promote a positive culture shift around fatherhood (The White House, 2012).

Our hope is that through our collective work, we will cause some man to stay or return home and become a better father. The seed that is grown in a woman and implanted by a man is flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood, bone of his bone; and the child cause him to live forever!

Source:

The White House. (2012, June). Promoting Responsible Fatherhood. In Obama White House Archives. Retrieved from  

       https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/docs/fatherhood_report_6.13.12_final.pdf