What Will Our Legacy Be?
Editorial by CIF President Michael J. Springer, Jr.
D. Hamilton Jackson
We walk in the footsteps of D. Hamilton Jackson, whose legacy will always be tied to the creation of the labor movement in the Virgin Islands.
As proud Virgin Islanders, Labor Day has a special place in our history. But as we look at the fate of so many who are without gainful employment, we must question what has gone wrong.
Yes, there is a recession – but we are also suffering from a lack of vision in our current leadership resulting in missed opportunities and misplaced financial resources.
So this weekend, as we honor those among us who earn a fair day’s pay for a honest day’s work, let us recommit ourselves to creating opportunities for Virgin Islanders first and to electing leadership that will execute on that commitment as their number one priority.
This time next week, the Democratic primary will be another chapter in our history. Will we look back on it as the turning point toward a Virgin Islands that embodies the virtues of fairness and self-sufficiency to which Jackson dedicated his life and his legacy?
The decision is in our hands.
The widespread use of passports did not begin in Europe until after the World War I, circa 1917, Herb. Photography was not even widely available until that time.
The US did not begin widespread use of passports until a few years ago. One could go to Ellis Island with no documentation. So it is unlikely that D Hamilton Jackson coming off a ship from a “friendly” nation would have needed a passport.
Or maybe he had a letter from the Danish consulate stating that he was one of their “subjects” and so he should have passage.
You know Herb, there is a common theme in everything you write.
You surreptitiously deny racism. Von Schulten was a good slave master who was going to free his slaves and he got a bad rap, Budhoe was the real baddie, and the US meant the locals well during the transfer, and African slavery negates the injustice that the Europeans wreaked when they themselves enslaved Africans….etc What’s up with Herb? I think you need counseling. You are obsessed with trying to overwrite history to eliminate or downplay racial injustice.
I never denied racism nor the reverse racism heard daily on 1620. Nothing negates known race based injustice except a better future without it as at least some hope for that skin color in a post racial society is totally irrelevant. Our multi-racial President has indeed helped heal some wounds. To bad he has aligned himself with creeps who think that socialism is the answer to good governance. Socialism is not freedom when the mother government calls all the shots. It is a road to another form of bondage which empowers bureaucracies not people.
And to get this straight the first Africans who were enslaved and sold by tribal chieftains happened long before the first Europeans ever set foot on the continent. Europeans just took advantage of an existing system of servitude. But they were the first to put an end to this madness but unfortunately not soon enough. And now without the evil Europeans spreading their colonial ways, guess what, the practice has re-emerged in some African countries who as a national policy feel it is alright to have another person as property. And yes there is plenty of blame to go around but a universal commitment to freedom and liberty is the answer for humanity.
Interesting history. Bet you didn’t know that the first race to ever “take” an African slave was the Arabs who continue to treat women and children as chattel to this day.
1. I would love to liveina world where blacks are richer and more dominant and had formerly enslaved white people and they have one out if 6 local stations to voice their anger and “reverse racism” against me.
2. Can you ever just say that the enslavement of Africans was wrong without going on to say that blacks did it too, or white people freed them, or that was so long ago…etc? Can you let the wrongness of slavery of blacks by whites just stand alone? It’s like saying I am sorry I did so and so but you guys did it too? Just say it in one line , Herb, Slavey if blacks by whites was wrong. Period.
In the next three days, we might be making history. We must decide which side of history we will be on. The times are too critical for us to settle with the status quo. We must make the most of the time we have now. Our future generations may very well depend on it.
Herb, FYI The US is socialist (as is Europe). What do you think public schools, Medicare, and Social Securit are? Don’t forget W.I.C., welfare and tax breaks for businesses. Tell me you don’t plan to collect your social security or use your medicare, Herb.
You sound like those idiots in the Tea Party that throw words around without knowing the impact. Just because Puh-lease humiliated you tonight is no reason to attack the system of government we enjoy: a republic with a socialist democracy.
Anonymous@ 2:38 am….I already do and rightfully so as I paid Social Security taxes for 50 years. I don’t mind getting some of it back. As far as tax breaks for businesses that is not a hand out but rather an incentive for economies to grow. As the founder of the Democrat party advised…”take not the bread from the mouths of those who have earned it….” Yes that was from Thomas Jefferson, right?
Herb,
Do want to be appointed Communications Director of deJongh dysfunctional 911 system?
Can you fix that mess?
SA….yes indeed and not only did the North African Arabs take slaves from Sub-Saharan African they took millions of European Christians as well. The men were used as galley slaves and women taken away for harem slaves. They went as far north as Ireland and captured whole villages.
Herb,
Can you and would you help us correct the flaws in the 911 System?
Herb,
A Change is Coming! We will Do Better!
Do you want to be apart of the Solution in the Future; or do you want to hold on to the Ghost of Past-Problems, John deJongh?
Change For Better!
I say make Herb a member of the Transition Team to conduct a TRUE Written Assessment of the Communication ills of the 911 System.
Herb, your forte is in communications; are ready? I suggest you start your research from NOW!
Anonymous @ 2.38 a.m.:
When it comes to throwing ‘words around without knowing the impact’ nobody does that better than Barack Obama and his fellow socialistic zars when they talk about ‘taking from the rich and spreading their wealth around.Ditto for his so-called economic (socialistic,of course)
policies which have failed (and are failing) to stimulate growth and put people back to work.Close to a trillion dollars spent and still unemployment is hovering at 9.5 to 9.8%.Only in America!!
The ‘best’,however,is yet to come….as there is talk about ANOTHER
stimulus package.But you have to give the ‘Gifted One’ credit because
he promised CHANGE and CHANGE is what we (including those of us who didn’t fall his rhetoric) have been getting.
But you have more important matters to worry about come Sptember 11th
so go ahead and do your t’ing and the ‘idiots in the Tea Party’ will do theirs this November and moreso in November of 2012.
….make that ‘who didn’t fall for his rhetoric’.
Bush started the stimulus. The money cannot be traced.
Herb, are welfare and foodstamps an “incentive for growth” of families? Another double standard.
Before I die Herb I too would like you to write “Europeans were wrong to brutally enslave Africans for hundreds of years.” Period. No talk about who freed them, who Started slavery, ir who is doing it now. Just a one liner. I’ll make sure Shelley doesn’t see it.
@ ‘Vegan’:
He sure did.But didn’t he do that by enacting policies that benefited
small businesses? And he sure as hell wasn’t taking money away from those who invested their blood sweat and tears to grow and insure their investments.
Did Bush make any mistakes while he was president? You bet your ass he did….and none more so (in my estimation at least) than when he failed to take Colin Powell’s advice of when going to war you send an abundance of troops to take care of,not only planned goals and objectives,but of UNFORSEEN contingencies that may come about as well.
Had the president done so (and his excuse for not having listened to Powell’s advice was that he gave his Genarals the number of troops they requested),the extent of the violence and looting that took place after Sadam was ousted would have been far less.The war would have ended sooner,more lives and billions of dollars would have been saved and,who knows,perhaps the global recession that ensued might not have been catastrophic as it was.
Vegan…you don’t have to what that long. Of course what the Europeans did was wrong. The is however one major difference. The 1.25 million Europeans Christians captured by Arabs and taken to Africa as slave labor between the 16th and 18th century never saw freedom. Men were chained to the oar in the belly of a galley ship. When their strength gave out or they became sick they were just thrown overboard. The enslavement of Africans by Arabs was equally brutal. The big difference in all of this was that only Africans sold their own people into this trade.
Vegan…Correction: “You don’t have to *wait* that long” and I want to confirm that I authored the reply.
Herb, please acknowledge the wrong of European slavery of the Africans in a oneliner for Vegan. Please spell it out.
I did just that on my 9:50 post!