Episode 8 -- Black History Month Special Edition: Political Progress from Darkness to Light!

In this episode we continue our narrative journey through the trials and tribulations of Black citizens seeking to exercise their full political and civil rights as citizens in the United States of America.  In this episode we journey from darkness into the light and witness the growing political participation and power of Black Americans.  We open the episode with darkness and faint hope about the condition and future of Black America.  We hear deep laments from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and James Baldwin as they reflect on the elections of 1964 and 1968, which harkens back to the conditions that we explored in episode 6 of The Point and the Pushback: A Profile in Courage.  If you have not listened to episode 6 about Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, I highly recommend that you listen to that episode too, it will allow you to appreciate the narrative arc (from darkness to light) presented in this episode.Episode 8 reaches back to the historic election of 1972, that witnessed the first African-American to ever run for the highest office in the land (also a woman), her name is Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm.  We listen to her historic declaration speech of her candidacy in 1972.  We then move forward by four years and find ourselves at the 1976 Democratic Convention listening to the keynote address given by Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, the first African-America (also a woman) to give the keynote address at a major American party convention.  Then we travel to Philadelphia for a powerful and legendary speech given by Rev. Jessie Jackson as he campaigned for the Democratic Party nomination in 1984.  We listen to his famous lesson on strategy, "rocks just laying around," as he would say.  Of course, no political narrative arc for Black America (and America) about political darkness to light can be complete without going to Chicago's Grant Park on the evening of November 4 2008 to listen to President-Elect Obama give his acceptance speech.  That is one HELL of a narrative arc!!!  Thank you for listening and traveling with me on this two episode Black History political narrative arc.  Happy Black History Month everyone!--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dewardric-mcneal/support