Recently I was asked to speak at a Black History Month program at a Black university in Florida. My excitement was tremendous but in less than 24 hours, I got an email that said my appearance was canceled!
When citizens called the school to ask why they were told I was dropped from the program because “Lucius Gantt would confuse the students”.
Confuse?
Well, I’ve been accused of doing a lot of things but confusing students is not one of them!
I may be wrong but I thought most Black colleges were created because white schools were reluctant to accept Black students and were designed to teach all students there how to live a white life.
Today, many Black colleges have a twisted view of certain aspects of Black American History.
For instance, one Florida school is telling today’s students that students from their school orchestrated bus boycotts and other civil rights protests in the day.
Yes, students from Florida colleges and other schools across the nation participated in sit-ins and other protests but, more often than not, there were more community folk involved in the protests. There were preachers, teachers, community activists and many more so-called common folk risking their lives and careers to stand up for what was right.
Unlike what students are being told today, the truth about student involvement was that those students that stood up and spoke out were not considered heroes back then. They were considered trouble makers, militants, radicals and sometimes communists and socialists just like students today are labeled if they disagree with or criticize the devilish beasts in their college communities.
So now, those protesting students of the 40s and 50s are being honored and remembered with false descriptions of what they went through. But can they tell the true story about how many of their classmates snitched on them, shunned them, and doubted them? Not really because many of those brave protesters are dead!
So what we have is a clownish view of the history of Black student involvement told by modern day Uncle Toms, Sambos and Aunt Jemimas that will run from a protest today like slaves would run away from plantations!
Anyway, some students hate the so-called militants and radicals of today and would prefer to hear speeches by people like Atlanta Journal Editorial columnist Cynthia Tucker.
Yes, they love Tucker but did you read one of her recent Black History Month editorials? Tucker wrote that Black History Month, Black civil rights organizations and, guess what, Black state universities like Florida A&M and Albany State are obsolete and should be abolished!
If students and faculty at Black schools love Cynthia Tucker and hate Lucius Gantt, then maybe the people that don’t want today’s students to hear me are right and I am “confusing”.
