Guest Editorial by Keith Mobley
Keith Mobley
As a retired lawyer, I continue to believe in the process that has evolved over many generations. We go to court, before a decider or deciders, to present the best evidence we can find of the merits of our side of a case.
The case I bring before you as a decider is that we are all of one race, and skin color is irrelevant and immaterial. This case, and the facts and arguments that support it, has a very long history.
One of the most persuasive witnesses was Josephine Baker, about whom you can learn more below. Already a successful entertainer at age 19, she took her talents to France. Those talents were enough for her to have joined the Pantheon, the first black woman to receive one of the highest honors awarded by France. Although she died in 1975, recognition came in November 2021. On one of her visits to her home country, she was pressed on questions about race. Her response: we are of one race – the human race.
Evidence of the truth of her statement is ready for your discovery, using the technology available today. As you read about the lives of the people profiled below, all on Wikipedia, note the consequences of judging people by the color of their skin. Have we not paid enough in human suffering to know Josephine Baker was right?
Frederick Douglass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass
Josephine Baker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Baker
Thurgood Marshall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurgood_Marshall
Martin Luther King Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu
Derrick Bell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrick_Bell
Colin Powell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Powell
Amanda Gorman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Gorman
Jackie Robinson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Robinson
Sidney Poitier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Poitier
Cicely Tyson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicely_Tyson
And more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Greatest_African_Americans
Your verdict?
Keith A. Mobley
Dufur, Sunriver, and Newport, Oregon
