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A Crime Thriller’s Treat
Paper Puzzle by Harold Michael Harvey is a gripping crime thriller that masterfully intertwines mystery and social commentary. Set in Macon, Georgia, the novel follows Clay, a fresh college graduate who steps into the MTJ newsroom in 1974. Unbeknownst to him, he holds the key to unraveling the circumstances behind a moonshiner’s death in 1946.
I’ve lived through three encounters with the police that could easily have ended in my death. Each time I see another Black man lose his life to a trigger-happy cop; it brings back that same dread I had on those three occasions.
In the mid-1970s, I was a young reporter covering the city hall beat for a Black-owned weekly tabloid. One day I went home for lunch with a couple of girls who worked in the newsroom. They were curious to know how I prepared a vegetarian hamburger. This was decades before the meat alternatives we have on the market today and a lot less appetizing.
Lorenzo “Lo” Ogden Now Playing First Base With the Heavenly Host
When Lorenzo Ogden stepped on the Tuskegee Institute campus in1968, he was a tall, skinny kid off the sandlots of Birmingham, Alabama. He spent his summer days playing baseball during the week, but on Sundays, you could find him at old Rickwood Field watching the Birmingham Black Barons play the best competition in the Negro Leagues.
In 1962, Harold Michael Harvey was a 12-year-old with an insatiable appetite for reading books. He liked baseball and rocks. He loved reading books about baseball and rocks.
When he had read all the books in his mother’s library at home, and in the library at Eugenia Hamilton Elementary School, he asked his mom if she would take him to the library on Washington Avenue. He wanted to check out a book on Willie Mays, one of his favorite baseball players.
Cascade Publishing House (CPH) is pleased to release the speaking appearances of its founder and publisher, Harold Michael Harvey, during the 2020 Black History Month observance. The theme of this year’s celebration is 2020 African Americans and the Vote.
On February 1, 2020, Harvey will be honored by the Tuskegee University Baseball team as the team pays tribute to 29 former Tuskegee University baseball players during the team’s Black History Month observance.
Black History Month 2016 has run its course this year. However, Black History is more than a month. Black History is an event that has significance three hundred and sixty-five days a year, and in leap years like this one, three hundred and sixty-six days a year.
I was honored during Black History Month 2016 by two museums which document and maintain the rich cultural history of the Black community in America.
First on Saturday, February 27, 2016, the Sights & Sounds Black Cultural Expo Museum presented me with a “Distinguished Honoree” award for service to humanity over the course of my lifetime. For a young man, such as myself, this was a humbling experience, especially as I believe that my greatest work is ahead of me.
Then, on Sunday, February 28, 2016, I spoke at The Official Noble Hill-Wheeler Memorial Center in Cartersville, Georgia the first school for “colored children” built in Northwest Georgia by the Rosenwald Foundation.
The goal of these museums is a noble one. Their importance is underscored given the fact that many entertainers who have reached a modicum of success in America argue for the proposition that it is no longer important, nor necessary to remember Black History in the larger context of the American experience. Miss Stacy Dash is the latest affluent Black person to denigrate the observance of Black History. She is joined by Whoopi Goldberg, Raven Symone, Charles Barclay and Morgan Freeman, just to list a few.
Marcus Garvey said, “A people without a knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” The great historian W. E. B. Dubois said it thusly, “The past is the present, that without what was nothing is, but for the infinite dead, the living are but unimportant bits.” It is easy, therefore, to see how an absence of history in the context of the American melting pot can lead to an out of sight, “outta” mind reality for any ethnic group.
Young people should realize that the proselytizing glamour and athletic stars have found their money pipeline. These stars are fearful that they could lose their gravy train if, in the vernacular of the the 1960’s, “The Man” gets upset with the thrust of Black people for justice and equality under the color of American law.
Seemingly, they are saying to the brothers and sisters who are not performing on the field or stage to “go slow, tone it down, don’t embarrass a politician who needs your vote. Be polite, we gonna get all of the gravy and you can relish in the fact that a brother or sister made it, skinning and grinning in front of “The Man.”
During my speech to the group in Cartersville, I centered my opening remarks with an overview of why Black History Month started as a single week of Negro History and expanded to a month long celebration in 1970 that wraps up today for 2016. God forbid that the more wealthy Black people among us do not get their wish and this becomes our last observance of the role and scope of Black people in the American scheme of things. I then moved into the topic that will consume us as a society for the remainder of this decade, the need for “Reparatory Justice.”
Kindly enjoy my opening remarks by clicking on the link below.
Black History Month Observance at Noble Hill-Wheeler Memorial …Harold Michael Harvey’s opening remarks during Black History program at The Official Noble Hill-Wheeler Memorial Center, February 28, 2016.
Posted by Harold Michael Harvey on Monday, February 29, 2016
Why do Blacks not feel “The Bern,” a twitter connection from my hometown of Macon, Georgia tweeted me the other day?
“Why are Blacks supporting the HRC Machine,” he tweeted. “I don’t get it. Can you explain? Is it the Jewish thing or the not electable argument?”
“Bernie is preaching the spirit of the Gospel and blacks are missing his message, ” I responded with a promise to give more thought into this political anomaly.
I’m often asked in private conversation what I think about a variety of things. People throughout the world whom I have never met, nor likely will meet, will connect with me on social media when they are looking for truthful answers without a spin on one side of an issue or the other.
I am not quite sure why I have come to have such respect among the people I meet on social media, or a few people who know me in real life, who have a similar admiration for my ability to give them a rounded answer. The twitter referenced here is a man whose hand I have shaken in the flesh, and with whom I have attempted to solve one or two of the world’s problems over a good meal and beverage or two. Although it should not matter, my friend is white, a Sanders supporter and wonders why the Sanders message is not resonating with Black folks.
Many of my Black friends have asked a similiar question. The difference is my Black friends couch this question this way: “Do you think Sanders can get the Black vote?” Imagine a black person asking what other blacks will do with a vote that is in that black person’s hand.
I have never given a definitive answer to their questions. I usually say, “I don’t know,” which is the truth; but I have left these conversations puzzled in my own mind over this conundrum of contemporary American politics and determined to gain some clarity of thought on this issue.
As I ponder the reasons Blacks are not feeling “The Bern,” Harriet Tubman keeps coming to the forefront of my mind.
After the conclusion of the Civil War, Mrs. Tubman once said, ” I could have freed more slaves, if more people knew they were slaves.”
This statement is shared in a perfunctory manner on social media. Oftentimes, Blacks sharing it and reading it think how sad that more Blacks enslaved in that day did not realize that they were not free. Who needs a “Black Moses,” as Tubman was called, when you know with a degree of certainty how to navigate your way around the plantation?
As Malcolm X would point out a hundred years after Tubman’s exploits on the “Underground Railroad,” in his analysis of the “House Negro and the Field Negro:”
“Where can you find a better house than this? Where can you find better food than this? Where can you find a better master than this?”
Black folks share these quotes of Tubman and Malcolm, especially in February during Black History Month, without taking into account that these words have application to the situation of Black Americans today.
On the campaign trail, Secretary Hillary Clinton in essence says to Black folks:
Hey don’t worry about anything. I’ll be the first white lady in the big White House, that your ancestors built and I’ll take care of you. I apologize for calling young Black men ‘serious predators’ and for encouraging congress to pass tough sentencing guidelines that have taken Black men out of the community and placed them in prison for most of their lives, if they were lucky to survive after 30 or 40 years. I apologize for supporting the expansion of private prisons which has led to more Black men being behind bars than those attending college. You know, it’s a tough world, and I have had to make the tough decisions. We were all scared of those Black men and had to do something about them. You don’t need to go anywhere else, stay right here with me. Where can you find a better Whitehouse than this? Where can you find better food on your table than what Bill and I can provide for you? Where can you find better caretakers than Bill and I?
As Harriet Tubman found out, the “House Negroes” had a compelling argument for staying on the plantation; this is no less true for Clinton’s sales pitch to descendants of enslaved Africans. Many feel more comfortable with the reality they know rather than in venturing out to seek an alternative to the status quo.
This gets me to that spirit thing and that Jewish thing.
Bernie Sanders is a Jew. You would hardly know it because he does not make his cultural and religious upbringing a litmus test for seeking votes, unlike Clinton who oftens mentions that if elected, she would be the first woman president. A powerful Clinton supporter, Madelyn Albright, said there is a special place reserved in Hades for women who do not vote for Hillary Clinton, because she is a women.
If elected Bernie Sanders will become the first Jew elected president. However, he is not running on his Jewishness, but on ideas conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that All Americans should share in the wealth and prosperity of this bountiful land.
What is confusing about Sanders lack of support among Black folks is that the Black community is still largely a very religious community. Sanders platform comes straight out of the “Sermon on the Mount,” that was preached by an itinerant Jewish Rabbi.
Sanders believes that it is not okay that only ninety percent of Americans have health insurance. Many of those in the ten percent category without health insurance are Black Americans who live in southern states controlled by Republican governors and legislatures. These southern states chose not to expand their state run medicaid programs to insure their citizens. “The Bern” believes that the government should provide health insurance to all Americans.
Sanders believes that it is shameful that the unemployment rate among Black folks is at least fifty percent. He wants to create a jobs program to repair the country’s infrastructure that will eliminate unemployment in the Black community. The crux of Sanders work program is to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour.
This will directly benefit the working “Black poor,” who will have sufficient income to take care of their families. Most sociologist agree that the absence of jobs in a community creates a pathway to crime for young people in those communities.
This measure will have enormous impact in improving the quality of life in the Black community and in eliminating the rising rate of crime and drive by shootings.
The centerpiece of the Sanders platform, and probably the thing that does not resonate with Black folk is his notion that the rich should be taxed more to provide for health insurance for all Americans and college tuition for all Americans, including Black people, who qualify for college.
In short, Sanders’ platform is the specifics “of the things hoped for” in the Obama campaign of 2008.
Which brings me to the electability argument.
Black folks lack the faith “of the evidence of things not seen” in order to give birth to a reality that ultimately will empower their community. Since, it is not apparent that Sanders can take on the giant corporations and win, like it was not apparent that the shepherd boy David could defeat Goliath, Black folks are skeptical about joining the Sanders political revolution.
When the dust clears in Philadelphia this summer, I will break bread with my friend in Macon, and, perhaps lament, that Bernie Sanders could have moved Black folks off the plantation, if only more of them knew they were still on the plantation.
SOURCES:
45Elliott Dunwody, VI@edunwody
@hmichaelharvey Why are Blks supporting the HRC machine. I don’t get it. Can U explain? Is it the Jewish thing or the not electable argument
Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.
“Hello,” Mrs. Vivian said answering the telephone in a soft, sweet voice full of life.
“May I speak with Dr. Vivian,” I said.
“He is traveling,” the wife of 59 years replied. “I will have him call you.”
That was four weeks ago and my last conversation with Octavia Vivian. In the twenty years, we have been neighbors I have had several hundred conversations with her husband, Rev. Dr. C. T. Vivian, many in her presence; yet seldom did she interject herself into the conversation. She would leave us to our intellectual discussions, our intellects free to roam and explore resolutions of war and peace, and full participation in the American dream. Such was the sweet spirit that was and will always be Octavia Geans Vivian. Three weeks later we gathered to give her our final goodbyes.
Tuskegee honored at Hall of Fame. The crimson helmet of the Golden Tigers of Tuskegee is on display as part of the College Football Hall of Fame’s “Helmet of the Week” feature.
It is an appropriate designation as the month long celebration of Black History draws to a close next week. After all, the legendary football program at Tuskegee has won more games than any other Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in the history of college football.
The school, located in East Alabama, began playing football in 1894 under the tutelage of James Washington. Coach Washington was the brother of the school’s first principal, Booker T. Washington. He organized the first football team with the assistance of William Clarence Matthews, a student-athlete who had learned the intricacies of the game of football.
Matthews did not play on the football team. He helped Washington coach that first team to an 0-2 season. Matthews was a member of the Tuskegee baseball team and would later go on to play baseball for four years at Harvard, where in 1905, he was described as the ideal black person to re-integrate major league baseball.
When the baseball owners were slow to act, Matthews abandoned the idea of playing professional baseball. He enrolled into law school at Boston University. He would later represent Marcus Garvey and serve President Calvin Coolidge in the Justice Department as a Senior United States Attorney General. Until the appointment of Eric Holder by President Barack Obama in 2008, he was the highest ranking black person to ever serve in the Justice Department.
Since that maiden 1894 season, Tuskegee’s football program closed out the 2014 season with 637 wins under its belt. Their nearest competitor is Grambling University with 535 wins. Ironically, Grambling University was founded in 1901 by Charles P. Adams, son of Lewis Adams, who founded Tuskegee University in 1881.
On a recent visit to the College Football Hall of Fame, I pointed out a video presentation to a visitor of the Hall and said, “Here is the winningest black college football team in history.”
The other person replied, “Who is that, Grambling.”
“No,” I replied, “Tuskegee!”
“I would have thought that Grambling would have won the most given all those games won by Eddie Robinson,” he said.
It is easy to see how this gentleman could be mistaken over this fact, because the HOF honors both Eddie Robinson who coached at Grambling and Jake Gaither who coached at Florida A&M.
However, there is not a display of the exploits of Cleveland “Cleve” Leigh Abbott, the Tuskegee Coach who amassed 202 wins from 1923-1954. Coach Abbott is the dean of black college football coaches. He won national championships in 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1929, and 1930.
According to Kristin Couch, spokesperson for the College Football Hall of Fame, “This February we’ve featured HBCUs as our Helmets of the Week in honor of Black History Month. The Hall of Fame has a great display on the history of HBCU football and artifacts from many of the schools including Tuskegee.”
“When you enter the College Football Hall of Fame and Chick-fil-A Fan Experience, you are greeted by the Helmet Wall Presented by Southwest Airlines, featuring helmets from every Div. I, II, III and NAIA school that has a football team – 768 helmets!
When visitors register their entry badge and choose their school, their helmet lights up on the wall. At the end of the day, the wall is lit with helmets from schools all over the country. It’s really a sight to see,” Couch said.
The novelist and essayist Harold Michael Harvey will appear at the Sights & Sounds Black Cultural Museum, Saturday, February 14, 2015 to autograph his novel Paper Puzzle. The public is welcome to come out and visit with the author from 10:00 a. m. until 2:30 p. m.
Long before Ferguson and Staten Island, Harvey was writing about the injustices in the judicial system. Paper Puzzle is a modern day Southern murder mystery that exposes the underbelly of the good ol’ boy network of power and judicial system abuse.
C. T. Vivian, a recent Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, and the Director of Affiliates for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference under Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., says that Harvey is a crafty author and is one of the best storytellers in the 21st century.
Harvey weaves tidbits of American history through this suspenseful tale. His character Dorsey Pitts and the manner in which he died at the hands of the State is eerily reminiscent of the death of Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York.
The novel was commenced in 1978 and is a harbinger of things to come. It accurately predicted local law enforcement department making use of military style weapons. Paper Puzzle depicted military tanks rolling down the streets of Macon, Georgia in 1968 to put down citizen protests in the wake of the assassination of Dr. King.
If you are interested in what is taking place in the judicial system today, Paper Puzzle is a book that you simply must read. It has more twists and turns than Shonda Rhimes, How To Get Away With Murder.
Saturday will be Harvey’s first appearance at Sights & Sounds Black Cultural Museum in over two years. He said, “I like signing my book at Sights & Sounds because the cultural history in the museum presents the perfect backdrop for the lives of the characters in Paper Puzzle.”
Harold Michael Harvey, JD, is the author of the legal thriller “Paper Puzzle,” available at Amazon and at haroldmichaelharvey.com. He can be contacted at hmharvey@haroldmichaelharvey.com
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