26 Aug 2013 Project 21 Members Discuss March on Washington Legacy
This past weekend, Project 21 members were well represented in major media outlets regarding the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Among the dozens of interviews booked on television, radio and with print and Internet journalists, here are three examples.
Pondering the possibility of a modern-day Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the 8/24/13 edition of “Fox and Friends” on the Fox News Channel, Project 21 member Jerome Hudson said he “certainly hope[s] so.” But he fears that such a person may not survive high school based on “the way things are going” in many black neighborhoods.
Citing FBI crime statistics, Jerome discussed staggering figures of black-on-black crime that he said are ignored by the media and civil rights lobbyists eager to mark the anniversary of the March on Washington. Saying that the media likes “to lay this [problem] at the feet of racism,” Jerome noted that racism played no part in the hold-up that had him on the wrong end of a shotgun a few years ago.
Asked what America should focus on, Jerome suggested “there needs to be more dialogue towards the importance of fatherhood.” He said families lacking fathers “dramatically” affect child development.
Jerome added:
This is America. Opportunity is there. All you have to do is work for it. I had two loving parents. Everything I have I’ve worked hard for. Do not look for a handout. You can achieve the American Dream as long as you work hard.
On a special 8/24/13 program on WUSA-TV in Washington D.C. in which he was asked to comment on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Project 21 co-chairman Horace Cooper said he looks at the anniversary and the political rally held at the Lincoln Memorial to observe the anniversary this past weekend with a “bit of sadness.”
Cooper said “today ought to be more like the 4th of July” with talk about accomplishments that have occurred over the past five decades. Horace notes that people featured at the rally were “talking as if none of those [accomplishments] happened.” He said those who act as if they are leaders of the civil rights lobby act as if blacks are “losing ground” in American society.
Challenged by the hosts of the program, Horace points out institutional racism common in 1963 is no longer legal and would no longer be accepted by society if it weren’t already against the law. Furthermore, there is a real problem of people “not taking advantage of opportunities” that are now readily available.
Horace suggested that President Obama, who will speak at the Lincoln Memorial at a separate event on the actual anniversary day, would do well to promote his own success and stable family as a way to help black America on this momentous occasion — pointing out that education and family are the most important factors today.
On WMAL radio — the biggest talk radio station in the nation’s capital — Project 21 co-chairman Cherylyn Harley LeBon talked about the March on Washington anniversary just hours after the political rally marking it had ended on 8/24/13.
Talking with host Ernest Istook, a former member of Congress, Cherylyn said about the civil rights movement:
[It’s been] co-opted by the race-hustlers… They’re looking for opportunities to prey on black people. [They] play on our fears, play on complaints about how we’re not doing well when — really — when you look at how much our country has changed since the 1940s and ‘50s. And the fact… we have our first black president… Our country has come a long way having the first black president.
But Cherylyn did not let Obama’s skin color be a shield, as many people have used and accepted in the President’s defense. She added, about the increase of special treatment during the Obama Administration: “This idea of it being post-racial… In fact, it seems that race is injected in everything this administration does.”
Talking about the current media and civil rights lobby obsession with the death of Trayvon Martin, Cherylyn told Congressman Istook:
The reality is there are Trayvon Martin’s being killed in the United States in the inner cities every day. Every day this is happening. And, frankly, let’s just even look at the President’s hometown of Chicago and the types of murders that are happening there… We also have a very unfortunate incident that happened in Oklahoma… Where have the civil rights leaders been there?
In a second segment, Cherylyn talked about how the Obama Administration has skipped over the flaws and the excess costs of its takeover of health care in order to addict the American people to a new entitlement that will eventually take away their freedom. ObamaCare, Cherylyn and Congressman Istook noted, is more of a power grab than anything else. Cherylyn noted:
You’re preying on peoples’ fears. The blame game. The reason you don’t have X is because Y is taking it away from you… It’s increasing the dependency generation… If you keep people at a certain level. If you keep them down… What this administration wants to do is keep giving people a fish and not allowing them to learn how to fish.