William J. Barber III’s Post

Tomorrow marks what would have been Fannie Lou Hamer's 106th birthday. I was honored to have the opportunity to talk with Dr. Keisha N. Blain about Hamer's life and legacy. Check out my latest piece, which was published in Truthout: https://lnkd.in/eTbBiB9E

What is an Ethical Leader? I describe ethical leadership as the critical appropriation and embodiment of moral traditions that have shaped the character and shared meanings of a people (an ethos). In fact, ethical leadership does not emerge from a historical vacuum but from the lifeworlds of particular traditions and speaks authoritatively and acts responsibly with the aim of serving the collective good. Ethical leaders, therefore, are those whose characters have been shaped by the wisdom, habits, and practices of particular traditions—often more than one—yet they tend to be identified with a specific cultural ethos and narrative. Finally, ethical leadership asks the question of values in reference to ultimate concern. Fannie Lou Hamer was an ethical leader.

A reminder of why many of us have today as an official holiday. Learn more about the legacy of Juneteenth and some of the reforms advocates are fighting for in DC ➡️https://lnkd.in/ewtvAqvY

Available Now! "Building a House Divided: Slavery, Westward Expansion, and the Roots of the Civil War" by Stephen G. Hyslop. https://lnkd.in/gc3eJeJu By the time Abraham Lincoln asserted in 1858 that the nation could not “endure permanently half slave and half free,” the rift that would split the country in civil war was well defined. The origins and evolution of the coming conflict between North and South can in fact be traced back to the early years of the American Republic, as Stephen G. Hyslop demonstrates in Building a House Divided, an exploration of how the incipient fissure between the Union’s initial slave states and free states—or those where slaves were gradually being emancipated—lengthened and deepened as the nation advanced westward. Hyslop focuses on four prominent slaveholding expansionists who were intent on preserving the Union but nonetheless helped build what Lincoln called a house divided: Presidents Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and James K. Polk and Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, who managed a plantation in Mississippi bequeathed by his father-in-law. Hyslop examines what these men did, collectively and individually, to further what Jefferson called an “empire of liberty,” though it kept millions of Black people in bondage. Along with these major figures, in all their conflicts and contradictions, he considers other American expansionists who engaged in and helped extend slavery—among them William Clark, Stephen Austin, and President John Tyler—as well as examples of principled opposition to the extension of slavery by northerners such as John Quincy Adams and southerners like Henry Clay and Thomas Hart Benton, who held slaves but placed preserving the Union above extending slavery across the continent. The long view of the path to the Civil War, as charted through the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian eras in this book, reveals the critical fault in the nation’s foundation, exacerbated by slaveholding expansionists like Jefferson, Jackson, Polk, and Douglas, until the house they built upon it could no longer stand for two opposite ideas at once.

Our Founding Fathers gave us a more perfect union, that has lasted 235 years.  For the sake of our children and our grandchildren, we must have a rebirth of freedom, a rebirth of our laws, and we must defend all of our Institutions. Every single American must now decide in the election year 2024 whether they still believe in those Founding Fathers, in that U.S. Constitution, our flag, and most importantly all of our well-structured American Institutions.  Check out my blog post https://wix.to/tcvUhLC #newblogpost

We can do more

A powerful piece by Professor Anansi Wilson!

2023 version of RBG and Scalia?

The following is an excerpt from a story titled "White Tennessee Lawmakers Speak Out For Insurrection In Honoring Confederate History" published in The Conversation US and written by University of Tennessee History Professor Daniel Feller. "Whether the Confederacy should be celebrated or condemned depends inescapably on point of view. The proclamation casts the Confederacy in the mode of the American Revolution. The picture it paints is of a noble, if unsuccessful, attempt to erect a new self-governing independent nation – ignoring the fact that the institution of human slavery was at its center, as the Confederate constitution made clear. Yet from another perspective, the Confederacy was nothing more than an armed mass rebellion against a legitimately elected government. It was, ironically, a famous Tennessean, President Andrew Jackson, who had warned would-be seceders in an official proclamation in 1832: 'Be not deceived by names. Disunion by armed force is treason. Are you really ready to incur its guilt?' Lincoln labeled the Confederacy an 'insurrection' within the United States itself, which the government and loyal citizens had not only a right but a duty to put down. In words that echo today, Lincoln also observed that if the United States won its battle against forcible dismemberment, 'it will then have been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost.'" #UTKArtSci #History #UTK

While attending a recent conference in Philadelphia, I had the opportunity to visit Liberty Bell. Philadelphia is such a historic city, with sites that represent the very beginnings of our nation, such as Independence Hall, the President’s House, and the Betsy Ross House. During a time in our country when there appears to be so much division, I wanted to visit a landmark that has been a symbol of freedom for all. Liberty Bell bears a timeless message: “Proclaim Liberty Throughout all the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof”. The speaker of the Pennsylvania assembly ordered that a bell be placed at what is now Independence Hall to commemorate the 50th anniversary of William Penn’s Charter of Privileges, which outlined Penn’s ideas of rights and freedoms. Penn’s charter of Privileges laid the groundwork for a free society: free enterprise, free press, freedom of worship, the right to secure private property, and the right of individuals to speak their mind. The name of the bell was later changed to “Liberty Bell” when it was adopted as a symbol of putting an end to slavery in America. A little-known fact is that the Bell was removed from Philadelphia in 1777 under armed guard and taken to Allentown, PA, where it was hidden in a church. The fear was that the British would melt it and use it to make cannons. It was returned to Philadelphia the following year. In times like these, we need symbols (reminders) that bring us together and help us find common ground. I hope this picture of Liberty Bell encourages you today to embrace ideas that unify us for the greater good. Let’s not forget the freedoms that Penn outlined in his Charter of Privileges to ensure a free society. #liberty #libertybell #freedom #unity #independencehall Source: constitutioncenter.org, ushistory.org, firstamendment.mtsu.edu