In celebration of
Black History Month -2004
“138 Years Out of Slavery-Lost
Generations Still Struggling-Why?”
By
Aubrey W. A. Weldon, Esq.
Slavery is an awesome human tragedy that is similar to a nuclear
explosion causing the psychological, emotional, and physical destruction of a
generation, and crippling the future generations for several lifetimes. Slavery
existed in America for over 300 years. It’s going to take another 300 years to
return these crippled generations to the status of human? Yes!
My great Grandfather was born into slavery over 160 years
ago. On a recent journey back in
history to find his roots in America was exciting and emotionally
liberating. Though by this time in my
life I had traveled on every continent on the earth this final journey to find
Cyrus Weldon, my great Grandfather on my father’s side of the family would be
decisive and rewarding.
Let me say at the outset that I am proud of what the
generations of Africans in America have accomplished in the fields of
education, economics, and entertainment. Sports and music have proven to be the
most highlighted fields of advancements since slavery, at least it would appear
to be based on the focus of the mainstream media. Unfortunately, the majority
of African-Americans are still struggling to overcome the “Holocaustic
Perpetual Psychosis of Dependency” that was created by the “Peculiar
Institution” of slavery. How do you
overcome 300 years of murder, role reversal, abusive sexual practices, and
forced illiteracy?
Is it really going to take another 300 years to stop the
cycle of psychosis that still cripples’ families touched by slavery? All
Americans are affected by the cycle regardless of nationality. Most Americans
are not aware of the cycle that was set in motion over 300 years ago.
In 1868, the 13th, 14th, and 15th
Amendments were added to the United States Constitution to overcome the 3/5
section of Article I, section 2 that counted slaves as 3/5 of the Union when selecting
House of Representatives. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery
except for criminal punishment, and the 14th Amendment declared all
persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United
States and the States where they lived. The 15th Amendment gave all
citizens the right to vote regardless of race, creed, color or previous
condition of servitude.
Those laws were passed over 135 years ago, but
unfortunately, there was no serious or substantial move to enforce them until
the 1960’s. After the death of John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Robert
Kennedy, and other civil rights leaders, the movement toward social, economical
and political freedom for all Americans has become transparent yet elusive. Substantial gains have been made but there
are constantly forces within the body politic driven to reduce access and limit
access to the economic and political power within America. I am of the opinion
that the law can only go so far and tends to follow the will of the people notwithstanding
the natural cry for what is just and right. The laws of slavery are a good
example.
It was with these thoughts in mind that I traveled to my
father and mother’s birth State in search of my great Grandfather during the
week of Thanksgiving 2003. They were born in the State of Oklahoma in the early
1900s. I was aware that my grandfather was born in the State of Texas because I
had spent many hours at his side as a child listening to the stories of our
family. I didn’t have a clue concerning his father. Though he told me that he
married an Indian woman who was from the Choctaw tribe and he taught me some of
the tribal language. He never told me that his father had been a slave.
Prior to leaving I had spent numerous hours on the
Internet researching ancestry records and locations to stay while in Oklahoma.
The weather channel on the Internet said to expect temperatures in the 20’s and
sunshine. It was easy to prepare what clothing I would take because of my
experience in traveling to Antarctica in January a few years ago. The long
flannel underwear, the down jacket and gloves would be perfect. Though while
there I had to wear five layers of clothes, I thought that one layer would be
adequate for Oklahoma.
I decided to stay at the Days Inn in Shawnee. That would
be my base of operation for the next eight days. Shawnee is an Indian tribe and
this area was the land given to them by the federal government. Also, it was
the location of the famous Shawnee Trail that was used by cattleman in Texas to
drive their cattle to market in Kansas City during the 1800’s.
What do you need to take an African and
turn him or her into a slave and call it a Negro?
“First of all we need a black nigger man,
a pregnant nigger woman and her baby nigger boy. Second, we will use the same
basic principle that we use in breaking a horse, combined with some more
sustaining factors. We reduce them from their natural state in nature; whereas
nature provides them with the natural capacity to take care of their needs and
the needs of their offspring, we break that natural string of independence from
them and thereby create a dependency state so that we maybe able to get from
them useful production for our business and pleasure.
CARDINAL PRINCIPLE FOR MAKING A NEGRO For
fear that our future generations may not understand the principle of breaking
both horses and men, we lay down the art. For, if we are to sustain our basic
economy we must break both of the beasts together, the nigger and the horse. We
understand that short range planning in economics results in periodic economic
chaos, so that, to avoid turmoil in the economy, it requires us to have breadth
and depth in long range comprehensive planning, articulating both skill and
sharp perception. We lay down the following principles for long range
comprehensive economic planning: Both horse and niggers are no good to the
economy in the wild or natural state.
We hold the above five cardinals as
truths to be self-evident, based upon following discourse concerning the
economics of breaking and tying the horse and nigger together...all inclusive
of the five principles laid down above.
NOTE: Neither principle alone will suffice for good economics. All
principles must be employed for the orderly good of the nation. Accordingly,
both a wild horse and a wild or natural nigger is dangerous even if captured,
for they will have the tendency to seek their customary freedom, and, in doing
so, might kill you in your sleep. You cannot rest. They sleep while you are
awake and are awake while you are asleep. They are dangerous near the family
house and it requires too much labor to watch them away from the house. Above
all you cannot get them to work in this natural state. Hence, both the horse
and the nigger must be broken, that is break them from one form of mental life
to another, keep the body and take the mind. In other words, break the will to
resist.
Now the breaking process is the same for
the horse and the nigger, only slightly varying in degrees. But as we said
before, you must keep your eye focused on the female and the offspring of the
horse and the nigger.
A brief discourse in offspring
development will shed light on the key to sound economic principle. Pay little
attention to the generation of original breaking but concentrate on future
generations. Therefore, if you break the female, she will break the offspring
in its early years of development and, when the offspring is old enough to
work, she will deliver it up to you. For her normal female protective
tendencies will have been lost in the original breaking process. For example,
take the case of the wild stud horse, a female horse and an already infant
horse and compare the breaking process with two captured nigger males in their
natural state, a pregnant nigger woman with her infant offspring. Take the stud
horse, break him for limited containment. Completely break the female horse
until she becomes very gentle whereas you or anybody can ride her in comfort.
Breed the mare until you have the desired offspring. Then you can turn the stud
to freedom until you need him again. Train the female horse whereby she will
eat out of your hand, and she will train the infant horse to eat of your hand
also.
When it comes to breaking the uncivilized
nigger, use the same process, but vary the degree and step up the pressure so
as to do a complete reversal of the mind. Take the meanest and most restless
nigger, strip him of his clothes in front of the remaining niggers, the female,
and the nigger infant, tar and feather him, tie each leg to a different horse
faced in opposite directions, set him a fire and beat both horses to pull him
apart in front of the remaining niggers. The nest step is to take a bullwhip
and beat the remaining nigger male to the point of death in front of the female
and the infant. Don't kill him. But put the fear of God in him, for he can be
useful for future breeding.
THE BREAKING PROCESS OF THE AFRICAN WOMAN
Take the female and run a series of tests on her to see if she will submit to
you desires willingly. Test her in every way, because she is the most important
factor for good economic.
If she shows any signs of resistance in submitting completely to
your will, do not hesitate to use the bullwhip on her to extract that last bit
of bitch out of her. Take care not to kill her, for in doing so, you spoil good
economics. When in complete submission, she will train her offspring in the
early years to submit to labor when they become of age. Understanding is the
best thing.
Therefore, we shall go deeper into this
area of the subject matter concerning what we have produced here in this
breaking of the female nigger. We have reversed the relationship. In her
natural uncivilized state she would have a strong dependency on the uncivilized
nigger male, and she would have a limited protective dependency toward her
independent male offspring and would raise female offspring to be dependent
like her. Nature had provided for this type of balance.
We reversed nature by making him dependent like her. Nature had
provided for this type of balance. We reversed nature by burning and pulling
one civilized nigger apart and bull whipping the other to the point of
death--all in her presence. By her being left alone, unprotected, with male
image destroyed, the ordeal cased her to move from her psychological dependent
state to a frozen independent state. In this frozen psychological state of
independence she will raise her male and female offspring in reversed roles.
For fear of the young male's life she will psychologically train him to be
mentally weak and dependent but physically strong. Because she has become
psychologically independent, she will train her female offspring to be
psychological independent as well. What have you got? You've got the nigger
woman out front and the nigger man behind and scared. This is perfect situation
for sound sleep and economics. Before the breaking process, we had to be alert
and on guard at all times. Now we can sleep soundly, for out of frozen fear,
his woman stand guard for us. He cannot get past her early infant slave molding
process. He is good tool, now ready to be tied to the horse at a tender age. By
the time a nigger boy reaches the age of sixteen, he is soundly broken in and
ready for a long life of sound and efficient work and the reproduction of a
unit of good labor force.
Continually, through the breaking of uncivilized
savage niggers, by throwing the nigger female savage into a frozen
psychological state of independency, by killing the protective male image, and
by creating a submissive dependent mind of the nigger male slave, we have
created an orbiting cycle that turns on its own axis forever, unless a
phenomenon occurs and re shifts the positions of the male and female savages.
We show what we mean by example. We breed two nigger males with two nigger
females. Then we take the nigger males away from them and keep them moving and
working.
Say the nigger female bear a nigger
female and the other bears a nigger male. both nigger females, being without
influence of the nigger male image, frozen with an independent psychology, will
raise him to be mentally dependent and weak, but physically strong...in other
words, body over mind. We will mate and breed them and continue the cycle. That
is good, sound, and long range comprehensive planning.
WARNING: POSSIBLE INTERLOPING NEGATIVES
Earlier, we talked about the non-economic good of the horse and the nigger in
their wild or natural state; we talked out the principle of breaking and tying
them together for orderly production, furthermore, we talked about paying
particular attention to the female savage and her offspring for orderly future
planning; then more recently we stated that, by reversing the positions of the
male and female savages we had created an orbiting cycle that turns on its own
axis forever, unless phenomenon occurred, and re shifted the positions of the male
and female savages.
Our experts warned us about the
possibility of this phenomenon occurring, for they say that the mind has a
strong drive to correct and re correct itself over a period of time if it can
touch some substantial original historical base; and they advised us that the
best way to deal with phenomenon is to shave off the brute's mental history and
create a multiplicity of phenomenon or illusions so that each illusion will
twirl in its own orbit, something akin to floating balls in a vacuum. This
creation of a multiplicity of phenomenon or illusions entails the principles of
crossbreeding the nigger and the horse as we stated above, the purpose of which
is to create a diversified division of labor. The result of which is severance
of the points of original beginnings for each spherical illusion. Since we fell
that the subject matter may get more complicated as we proceed in laying down
our economic plan concerning the purpose, reason, and effect of crossbreeding
horses and niggers, we shall lay down the following definitional terms for
future generations.
What this means is this: Put the niggers
and the horse in the breeding or, mix some asses and some good white blood and
what do you get? You got a multiplicity of colors of ass backwards, unusual
niggers, running, tied to backwards ass long headed mules, the one productive
of itself, the other sterile. (The one constant, the other dying. We keep
nigger constant for we may replace the mule for another tool) both mule and
nigger tied to each other, neither knowing where the other came from and
neither productive for itself, nor without each other.
CONTROLLED LANGUAGE Crossbreeding
completed, for further severance from their original beginning, we must
completely annihilate the mother tongue of both the nigger and the new mule and
institute a new language that involves the new life's work of both. You know,
language is a peculiar institution. It leads to the heart of people. The more a
foreigner knows about the language of another country the more he is able to
move through all levels of that society.
Therefore, if the foreigner is an enemy
of the country, to the extent that he knows the body of the language, to that
extent is the country vulnerable to attack or invasion of a foreign culture.
For example, you take the slave, if you teach him all about your language, he
will know all your secrets, and he is then no more a slave, for you can't fool
him any longer and having a fool is one of the basic ingredients of and
incidents to the making of the slavery system.”
**By The Black Arcade Liberation Library;
1970 (recompiled and reedited by Kenneth T. Spann
In my search for the Weldon’s roots in
America, I could not began to comprehend the awesome and permanent effect the
slave making process has had on Africans living in America. Great Grandfather
Cyrus Weldon lived under these conditions and survived to produce a family that
is still expanding in the American interior.
The seven definitional terms set out in
that Article on making the “Negro” was to be understood by all future
generation of Americans in order for them to protect their lives and economic
prosperity. The end result of this orbital cycle is what I choose to call the
“Holocaustic Perpetual Psychosis of Dependency” that generations of
African-Americans are still struggling to understand and to overcome its
awesome destruction.
On Monday morning I headed for a place called Okemah that
was about forty miles from Shawnee. I wanted to check the records there to see
if I could get a copy of Cyrus’s death certificate. Okemah is the County seat
for Boley and is named for the Creek chief Okemah meaning “Big Chief.” Two of Okemah’s most noted residents were
Leon Chase Phillips, 11th governor of Oklahoma, and noted American
songwriter Woody Guthrie. Guthrie Oklahoma played a major role in our family.
It was the place where the Church of God, the Evening Light Saints, was
located. Our grandparents and mother were members of that particular religious
sect.
The Okemah County Courthouse is where the records were
kept for recent history but they had no records dating back to the 1800’s. They
gave me the telephone number for the Vital Statistics and Record Office in
Oklahoma City. I would have to go there to find any information on Cyrus
Weldon. I did not see one black face in this little three-story building. There
were a number of old white women who looked at me strangely but they were
courteous.
Okemah is located at the junction of highway 40, 56, and
62. I had looked up several graveyard locations in the area on the Internet and
so I decided to check out one that was nearby. I was looking for the Sand Creek
Cemetery and mistakenly thought the one I found there was it. However, it was
called Highland Cemetery. I spent about an hour walking through Highland. There
were a few Weldon’s buried there but no (Sy) Weldon. At that time, I didn’t
know that Sy Weldon was really Cyrus Weldon.
After I left Okemah, I headed for a cemetery called St.
Emanuel South that was about 3 miles south of Boley. It was a new cemetery
adjacent to the St. Emanuel Baptist Church. I would later find out that there
were two other older cemeteries that were further down the road from the
church. On Thanksgiving Day, my cousin Pam Ramsey and her brother, Amos
Stevenson, helped me search those two. They were really old. I had to trap through
tall grass and weeds. The stick bushes were scattered throughout the field.
They provided a nasty sting when you got too close.
On that same day, Monday, I continue on to Boley to look
for Cyrus’s grave. I was told that he was buried somewhere near Boley by my
grandfather’s nieces who lives in Bakersfield, California. She thought it would
be either at St. Emanuel North near Boley or Sand Creek that was near highway
40 and 56.
I drove through Boley. It’s now a historical landmark.
Some of the old buildings are still standing. The main street through town is
called Pecan Street. It’s a paved street that eventually turns into a gravel
the further you go inland. The majority of the streets in Boley are gravel. I
passed by the school and the church my father attended. There appeared to be
some drug dealing happening on the main street. I got out of the car to take a
look at a historical marker near the community center, and a poorly dressed
black woman in her late thirties approached me and ask for five dollars. She
appeared to be on drugs or alcohol. Some of my relative told me later that
drugs were a big issue for Boley.
One of the young residents pointed me to the direction of
the cemetery that was north of town. The first one I stopped at was the
Evergreen Cemetery that was located about a half mile off the main highway 62.
It was well maintained. There was no Sy Weldon buried there. I traveled further
down the road and stopped a white man in a pickup to ask about the cemetery. He
directed me to another cemetery that was further down the road. It was called
Rusk Cemetery. It was covered with weeds and dead grass. You could see some of
the older tombstones from the road. If you were driving too fast on the gravel
road, you could easily miss this one.
My father, Isiah Weldon was born in Boley
in 1913. Boley was located in Okfuskee County. The Creek Nation owned and
governed the area until near statehood. The land was allotted to individual
Creek Nation citizens, including the freeman. The capital of the Creek Nation
was Okmulgee until Oklahoma became a State.
My mother, Zephyr Weldon was born in Okmulgee in 1916, which was
the capital of Okmulgee County. Her
mother, Lucy Battle was born in Paris, Texas in 1889 and her father was born in
Texas. Lucy’s father was born in Alabama and her mother, Mary Kennedy, was born
in Texas. Mary Kennedy’s father was born in Arkansas and her mother was born in
Alabama. All of them listed their occupation as farmers. Mary Kennedy was born
in 1865 while her mother and father were born in slavery.
Finally, after walking through the Rusk Cemetery, I
decided to call my cousin by the name of Cadwell. My cousin Gwen gave his name
and number to me. He is her nephew. I called him and he told me that he was
only five minutes away from me and that he would come immediately. He was
related to me on my father’s mother side of the family. Birdie King Spear
Weldon was Gwen’s Aunt. Her father, Boley Spears was my grandmother’s
half-brother.
Cadwell arrived within a few minutes. His mother was Anna
Spears, Gwen’s sister who lived about a mile from where I was located. Cadwell
had me follow him to the North St. Emanuel Cemetery that was about 1000 yards
north of the Evergreen Cemetery. It was the Boley cemetery. The weeds, dead
grass, old trees, and stick bushes were everywhere. Weeds covered up the
majority of the gravestones. About 20% of the graves were unmarked. On some of
them was just a stone with initials carved in them. I spent the rest of the
afternoon and evening searching for Sy Weldon. The gravesites I found there
that were related in some way to the Weldon’s were the Spears, Toles and
Stevenson. Jake Spears Sr. and Anna Spears, my grandmother’s parents on my
father’s side of the family are buried next to each other.
Jake Spears Sr. was in fact our step great grandfather
because when he married Anna she already had two daughters, Birdie and Mittie
King. Jake raised them as his own children.
Mittie King Spears became a Toles and then a Jackson. She is buried near
her mother, Anner. The other Spears buried there in Boley were Aunt Ora, Uncle
Manley and his wife, Tollie, Kytus and Dudley D. Spears.
Cadwell came back later to tell me that his mother, Anna,
wanted me to stop and see her before I left. I agreed. I finished exploring the
rest of the cemetery till almost sunset. Anna Spears Thompson place was about
three minutes away. I stopped and talked with her and her husband for about an
hour before heading back to Shawnee.
Tuesday morning I decided to go into Oklahoma City to
search for Sy’s death certificate at the Vital and Statistics and Records
office. I arrived just before 11 am. It was packed with people looking for
birth certificates. There were black, whites, Indians, and a mixture of all
three setting in that room. My number was 44. After about thirty minutes my
number was called. I paid the $10.00 and gave the clerk the form with the
information on Sy Weldon. I had them search the records of deaths in Boley
between 1900 to 1958. They had no record. The clerk told me to go to the
Oklahoma Historical Society near the State capital. I would find a lot of old
records there that might be helpful. I had one free search left for my $10.00.
If found better information on the dates of Sy’s death, I could come back and
have another search.
The Oklahoma Historical Society is a private membership
organization and state agency dedicated to the preservation and interpretation
of Oklahoma history. It was full of exhibits on Oklahoma history. There was a large
exhibit on black towns, the civil war, the confederacy and the Indian
Territories. In 1934 the federal government transferred the historical records
of Oklahoma’s Indian tribes to the Oklahoma Historical Society. That
world-famous collection is now preserved as the heart of the Archives Division.
In addition to these Indian materials, the Archives preserve a wide variety of
records, from special collections of pioneer missionaries to oral history
tapes. All are carefully stored with the most modern archival methods.
I was directed by the lobby receptionist to the first
floor research library. It was filled with old records and books. They had four
computers to use for Internet research. The staff was extremely nice and
helpful. After looking on the web for information and looking through several
books, I went to the counter to ask for help. The clerk asked me for the name
of the person I was looking for and in what city and county. I told her that I
was looking for a Sy Weldon in Boley Oklahoma in Okfuskee County. She was using
a database called Heritage Quest on her computer.
She was scanning the screen when she said to me, “I don’t
see a Sy Weldon in Boley Oklahoma but I do have a Cyrus Weldon on the 1910
census for Boley Oklahoma.”
My heart dropped to my feet. I was close to tears. I was
overwhelmed with emotion because I had found the name Cyrus Weldon in the
Probate Records of Rusk County Texas. It listed him as a property owner of 160
acres in 1912.
The light in my head went on! Sy Weldon was Cyrus Weldon. The Census of
1910 showed that he was in Boley with his wife, Jayne, and a stepson, Theo. He
was 67 years old, she was 59, and Theo was 39.
Boley was one of the largest
black towns of over thirty (30) that were established in the Indian Territory
after the end of slavery.
It showed that he
was born in Alabama and that his father was born in Alabama. His wife was from
Mississippi and her father was from Missouri. Theo was born in Texas and his
father was from Alabama and is mother was from Missouri. They listed their
occupation as farmers.
It became apparent that Cyrus Weldon was
born into slavery in 1843 in the State of Alabama. His father was born in
Alabama as well. At some point in his life, he was taken to the State of Texas
as slave labor in Rusk County. His specialty was raising horses and general
farming. He met and married a Choctaw Indian woman named Jayne sometime after
the end of the Civil War. Jayne was born in Mississippi, the original home of
the Choctaw Indians. Her father was born in Missouri.
My grandfather, Webster Weldon, was their
first child. He was born in Henderson Texas in 1882 or 188l, depending on which
source you use to verify it. He married Birdie King Spear who was born in 1884
in McKinney Texas. Her mother was Anner King prior to marrying Jake Spear in
Texas. Jake Spear, raised Birdie and her sister Mittie as his own daughters
after he married Anner.
I had her look up Webster Weldon on the 1910 Census. There he was with
Birdie King and this three sons, Roosevelt, Cornelius, and Jacob. According to the Census, Webster, Birdie, Roosevelt,
Cornelius, and Jacob were living together. Webster was 28, Birdie was 26,
Roosevelt was 5, Cornelius was 3, and Jake was 1 year old. My father was
born three years later.
On Wednesday morning, it was off to Okmulgee County to
see the birthplace of my mother. I found the Sand Creek graveyard off at
highway 40 on north 56. It was located in Seminole County on Seminole-Okfuskee
County Line. The direction off the Internet was north on 56 from 40 for 0.5
mile, then 1 mile East. The cemetery was on the southwest corner of the
intersection, in the northwest corner of section 34T11n RSE. I used the car
odometer to count the 0.5 miles and turned on the first road that headed east.
I drove for 1 mile, and bingo, there it was, on the right side of the street at
the corner. It was a well-kept cemetery. I spent about an hour there looking
for Cyrus Weldon. No luck! I decided to take 56 north through Okemah and into
Okmulgee.
It was an uneventful drive through wide-open ranges with
plenty of farmland for horses and cattle. Webster Weldon use to tell me stories
about his father when I visited him. Cyrus Weldon was a cowboy. He raised
horses and herded cattle. From Alabama, Texas, and Oklahoma the surrounding
environment was always farming.
Upon arrival in Okmulgee I notice a beautiful lake
surrounded by trees. I stopped to take a picture of it. There appeared to be
more small hills in Okmulgee. The buildings in the town were really old. They
had one streetlight hanging in the middle of each intersection. I stopped and
had lunch at a Subway shop before heading for the section of town where most of
the black people lived. It looked a lot like Boley but cleaner. The homes were
old and the streets were paved. I made a stop at the Creek Council House Museum
in the center of town. The Creek Council House represents one of our nation’s
important historic sites. Listed on the National Register of Historic Sites,
the structure was designated as a National Landmark in 1961.
Though the members of the Muskogee (Creek) Nation were
divided during the Civil War, the tribe made a surprisingly rapid economic and
social recovery. In October 1867, the Muskogee Nation unanimously adopted a new
constitution and code of laws aimed at healing internal divisions through
governmental changes. The Council House was built at the edge of the thick
timber that fringed the Deep Fork. While members suggested several names for
the surrounding town, the Nation’s two legislative bodies, the House of Warrior
and the House of Kings, adopted the name “OKMULGEE.” My mother was born in this
town in 1916. Her parents migrated to this area from Texas.
In 1803, Thomas Jefferson purchased France’s
claim to the uncharted land known as the Louisiana Territory. Included in this
vast region was the land that became Oklahoma. Before it became a State, the
five “civilized” tribes who had been pushed off their lands by the exploding
and expanding white population occupied the land. The tribes were the Cherokee,
Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and the Seminole.
The forced migration of the Indians to
this land was so terrible the route became known as the “Trail of Tears.” By
1890, 67 different tribal groups resided in Oklahoma. President Theodore
Roosevelt signed a proclamation that granted statehood to Oklahoma on November
16, 1907.
On September 22, 1903, Boley was formally
established in the Creek Indian lands. It was 80 acres that was donated by a
Creek freedman. Railroad officials, Lake Moore and J.B. Boley, a white man,
contended that Black people could govern themselves, and that a black town
should be established along the Fort Smith and Western Railroad. The town was
incorporated in 1905. Our uncle Boley Spears was the first child born in Boley
in 1905 so he was named after the town. He went on to become the magistrate of
the town.
I decided to head back to Shawnee in the evening. Highway
75 is the main route through Okmulgee. It runs down the state into Texas. A lot
of salves used this route toward the end of slavery to get into the Indian
Territories. It was the slaves own “Trail of Tears” to freedom. A lot of them
died of hunger on the way.
I stopped at two different museums on the way back. One
was a small western museum off of highway 40 near 56. It was filled with 1800
western equipment used by the cowboys on the ranches. The other museum was in
Seminole County. The city was Wewoka Oklahoma. The Seminole Museum was filled
with examples of Seminole life in the 1800’s. The Seminole Indians were moved
to this area by the federal government during the “Trail of Tears”
redistribution of Indians off the east coast and the southern states area. A
lot of Seminole were blacks mixed with Indian blood. During slavery, a lot of
the slaves escaped into Florida and lived with the Indians.
Time was different in Oklahoma. It seems that everything
moved at a much slower pace. It could be compared with the same pace it takes
for a plant to grow. The people were really friendly and never appeared to be
in a hurry. Shawnee is located on the Sac and Fox Indian Reservation lands. It
was rare to see or feel any hostility from anyone. All of the Indian counties
had this same feeling, Seminole, Ofkuskee, Choctaw, Creek, and Chickasaw. It
was a comfortable feeling. The Indians were extremely polite and kind. The
tempo really picks up when you get into Oklahoma County and Oklahoma City. The
people are nice but you could feel more of an edge and the police were more
abundant. Compared to Northern California though, Oklahoma City was serene.
Thanksgiving Day was special. This was the day I was to
meet relatives that I didn’t know I had. I was invited to dinner at the home of
a relative’s husband at a place called Castle Oklahoma. It was about three
miles east of Boley. The family was Pam Ramsey’s husband, Floyd, family. It was
a wonderful day! As mentioned earlier, Pam and her brother, Amos, took me to
see a couple of graveyards near St. Emanuel South that I missed. They helped me
look for Cyrus Weldon’s gravesite. No luck!
On Friday, November 28, I went on a tour of the Shawnee
area. The downtown area was really old. It looked like a town in the late 18th
century. Some parts of the area were country clubs with nice big modern homes.
There was a small section called Dunbar that appeared to have a sizable number
of blacks living in the area. It’s not a big town but it’s vibrant with a lot
of small business.
Saturday morning I traveled to Oklahoma City to see the
National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. This 220,000- square foot facility
has assumed a new national presence as a living memorial to the indomitable
spirit of the West.
This is truly an extraordinary collection of “cowboy”
history in America. It has a permanent art collection, special exhibitions, a
life size old west town, American Cowboy and American Rodeo galleries, The Joe
Grandee Museum of the Frontier West, The Weitzenhoffer Gallery of Fine American
Firearms, artifacts, gardens, heroic-size sculptures, an interactive children’s
corral and Museum Store.
The next stop was the Oklahoma City National Memorial to honor those
killed and injured in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on
April 19, 1995. At 9:02 a.m. that morning, 168 people lost their lives
including 19 children because of a terrorist bomb. The Museum has displays,
sound effect of the bomb going off, written experiences of those who survived.
The Museum is comprised of three distinct components. The Outdoor Symbolic
Memorial was dedicated on April 19, 2000, the fifth anniversary of the attack.
The Memorial Center Museum was dedicated the following year on February 19,
2001.
This was truly a moving display of mans inhumanity to man
and the end result. As Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “Violence and hatred
are the attributes of a sick society.”
On Sunday, I prepared for my trip home. The journey was
almost over!
On Monday morning, I returned to the Vital and Statistics
Records Office for another shot at finding my great Grandfather’s death
certificate. Even with his correct name they still could not find his death
certificate. I headed for the Will
Rogers Airport for my flight home after lunch with relatives.
Cyrus Weldon is the root of the Weldon
family. He endured slave labor, racial prejudice and bigotry to sustain his
life and to produce a family. We owe our lives to him and Jayne. They were
strong, honest, and industrious. The work ethic was instilled in his son,
Webster, and he instilled it in our fathers, uncles, and aunts. Though our
family did not escape the terrible emotional and psychological damage produced
by slavery, if we know truth about what happened to our ancestors, we can
continue the struggle to correct it and live the American dream. We must stop
the nightmare affects of slavery.
The Holocaustic Perpetual Psychosis of
Dependency cycle was caused by slavery. It is extremely important that all
Americans understand the truth about this history and to come up with innovated
ways to correct it for future generations. The murders, role reversal, abusive
sexual practices, and the forced illiteracy that sustained the cycle must be
revealed to all. The modern conditions
that have evolved from the cycle must be labeled as the product of that cycle
and not used as a weapon to cause inferiority.
The broken families, self-hatred, dubious
sexual practices and the self-genocidal affect of drugs, alcohol and disease
are the symptoms of this cycle. The cure is not to blame of the victim! Can
reparations change this cycle? Is it just a matter of economic pay back? I
don’t think so.
The majority of Americans have not been
taught the truth about slavery. Instead, the violent and destructive affects of
have been exploited for social, financial, and political gain. The ancestors of
slave owners have been branded with the results of the historical institution
without an opportunity to understand the depth of the wound. As a result of complacency, ignorance, and
greed, a lot of good intentioned people are maligned alone with the evil ones
who still profit from history.
I often ask myself the question, did I
escape the cycle? Even after becoming a lawyer, I am still haunted by the cycle
because some of the psychosis defies time. Without the help of some “White”
people, it would have been impossible to complete my goals.
White and some Black slaveholders
participated in this arcane economic system. Not all Whites were slaveholders
and clearly, almost all of the Blacks were not slaveholders. The more you learn
about America you will realize that the terms “White” and “Black” are not
descriptive of Americans but are used as a potent term for creating division
and racists patterns.
The majority of Americans have more than
one ethnic ancestor in their family and because of crossbreeding in slavery,
using the term “Black” is even more ludicrous.
America’s obsession with color is a direct relic of slavery.
The over population of the prison systems
with minorities is a relic of slavery. The violence, drugs, and abuse of
alcohol in minority communities are a relic of slavery. The majority of
relationship failures between African-Americans male and females is a relic of slavery.
The lack of interest in higher education by some African-Americans is a relic
of slavery. The still wide spread
segregation in America is a direct relic of slavery.
Every American is duty bound to learn and
understand the system that caused the Holocaustic Perpetual Psychosis of
Dependency in our country. The next 300 years is plenty of time to find
solutions once the problem is understood.
The lack of understanding this history in “real” time by all Americans
is why lost generations are still struggling.