At its core, what is light? Life is the electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye (like gamma rays, X-rays, microwaves, and radio waves). Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400 to 700 nanometers (nm) corresponding to frequencies of 750 to 450 terahertz, between the infrared (with longer wavelengths) and ultraviolet (with shorter wavelengths). So, light is a wave and a particle. Light can have photons with no mass and each one has a specific amount of energy. Light has reflection, refraction, and diffraction like any wave. With the growth of the study of quantum mechanics, physicists now view light as both a particle and a wave. In other words, light is a particle with photons and the flow of photons is a wave. Einstein's light quantum theory is that light's energy is related to its oscillation frequency. The ancients knew about light as a powerful entity. The main source of natural light on Earth is the Sun. Large wavelength frequencies are y-rays, x-rays, and UV rays. Less frequencies (with longer wavelengths) can be long radio waves and microwaves. What we perceive as light is found in the visible spectrum, but there are entities that we can't see with the human eye alone. The retina of the eye is used to trigger the sensation of vision when we see something that is found in the visible light spectrum. Some animals are sensitive to infrared that is invisible to the human eye. Therefore, humans can't see all that is in the physical Universe by default. The speed of light in a spectrum is about 186,282 miles per second. Light can come from sunlight, radiation, and various atoms. Artificial light is common in our generation. The ancient religious texts, including the Bible, mentioned that the light is defined as a metaphor for God or righteousness. Even 1 John 1:5 says that, "The is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, in him there is no darkness at all." Eminent physicist, David Bohm, viewed all matter as “condensed” or “frozen light.” Physicist Stephen Hawking once stated,” When you break subatomic particles down to their most elemental level, you are left with nothing but pure light.” Science found that light was common at the beginning of the Universe. Scientists recently found the "God Particle" or the particle which bestows mass upon all other particles. Albert Einstein's great equation E=mc2 (where E is for energy, m for mass and c is the speed of light) describes the awesome power and energy holding all atoms together. Ironically, the Bible says that, "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Colossian 1:17). Now, scientists have found how to turn light into solid matter after 80 years. As for many animals, some of them like elephants use frequencies to communicate with each among many feet or miles away. Humans are filled with electric energy. According to Dr. Bruce H. Lipton, the body's total voltage is from 3.5 trillion volts. There are ca. 50 trillion cells X 0.7 volts (in each cell) equals to 3.5 trillion volts.
As light has a dual personality of being particles and waves, so we can see by our observation converts light waves into light particles in understanding reality in this dimension (with electromagnetic fields). In other words, the human brain sends signals to the eyes, nose, etc. to gather information on how we see, then the signals come back to the brain (via binary codes), then the brain converts that information into an image of color and other imagery that defines what we see. All matter in the Universe (even our brains and bodies) are made up of mostly empty space (filled with micro atoms) as the structure of atoms is held by atomic energy. Quantum consciousness is the theory of an underlying consciousness connecting everyone and everything and is based upon quantum fields being interpreted as extending infinitely in space. In other words, your human brain gathers information to understand this 3-D reality, the Internet gathers information, the Universe gathers information, and all of these entities are made up of the same substances. The human brain can use frequencies it gets from the senses (light frequencies, sound frequencies, etc.) to deal with the world and develop consciousness. Encoding and decoding light frequencies (in dealing with a high level of mathematics) is a major part of how the Universe functions. One of the fundamental laws in physics, the first law of thermodynamics, is energy cannot be created nor destroyed – it can only be converted. So, if consciousness is indeed a form of energy, then according to the first law of thermodynamics, consciousness cannot be destroyed. Instead, it is converted into something else. Therefore, we aren't children anymore, and the dynamics of the Universe are much more complex than some realize.
My paternal 2nd cousin Patrice Martell Wilson Waller was born on July 2, 1953, in Pitt, North Carolina. She was married to Henry Thomas Waller Jr. (b. 1952) on April 16, 1976. They had 2 children together. Patrice Wilson Waller studied at the Piedmont Virginia Community College in August of 1994 in Graphic Design with a Minor in Art. Her parents were William James Wilson (b. 1931) and Clavon Irene D. (1933-1998). Irene's parents were Mancy D. and Hattie Burnett (b1903-1993). Mancy D.'s parents were Adam D. (b. 1862) and Georganna Tillery (1868-1954). My 3rd paternal cousins are John Jasper Wilkins III (b. 1980) and the late religious leader Pastor Jared Carlton Wilkins (1982-2022). Pastor Jared Wilkins lived a blessed life being lived to 40 years old. He loved his wife Shauna Scott Wilkins (b. 1984) and their 4 children of Makena Wilkins (b. 2010), Declan Wilkins (b. 2012), Zoe Wilkins (b. 2015), and Naomi Wilkins. He was the young pastor of Parkcrest Christian Church. He helped a lot of people in Long Beach, California. He lived in North Carolina, Chicago, Oklahoma, and in California. Jared Wilkins didn't just talk about racial justice. He was actively involved in promoting policies to help his church be inclusive of people of every color. He opposed racism and police brutality. Also, Jared Wilkins worked hard to condemn the January 6th, 2021, insurrection. He was 6 feet and 4.5 inches tall. He was born on April 25, 1982, in Raleigh, North Carolina his parents are John Jasper Wilkins Jr. (b. 1954) and Cheryl R. McDougald Wilkins (b. 1959). Jared Wilkins studied business law as an undergraduate. He graduated from Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. He met his wife, Shauna Scott, at his father's Durham church. His father is a pastor. They married on August 30, 2008. In 2020, he wrote that "Civility and honor must return to our discourse." His wife started as a crime scene investigator for the Huntington Beach Police Department. My 2nd cousin John Jasper Wilkins Jr.'s parents were John Jasper Wilkins (1932-1991) and Inell Ava D. (b. 1935). Inell Ava D.'s parents were Mancy D. (1896-1964) and Hattie Burnett (1903-1993). Mancy D.'s parents were Adam D. (b. 1862) and Georganna Tillery D. (1868-1954). Therefore, I am learning a lot of facts about the courage found in my family tree.
Fred Hampton only lived for 22 years on Earth, but he made tons of contributions to the freedom struggle worldwide. He was born in the location of Summit Argo, Illinois in the Midwest. The date of his birth was August 30, 1948. By the time he was 10 years old, his parents moved him and his family to another Chicago suburb named Maywood. His parents came from Louisiana as part of the Great Migration of Americans in the early 20th century out of the South. There were 2 major Great Migrations of black Americans during the 20th century. His parents were working at the Argo Starch Company, a corn starch processor. When Fred Hampton was young, he loved to learn and play sports. When he was only 10 years old, he started hosting weekend breakfasts for other children from the neighborhood, cooking the meals himself in what could be described as a precursor to the Panthers' free breakfast program. In high school, he led walkouts protesting black students' exclusion from the competition for homecoming queen and calling on officials to hire more black teachers and administrators. Hampton graduated from Proviso East High School with honors and varsity letters, and a Junior Achievement Award, in 1966. Fred Hampton turned 18 in the year of 1966. During that time, he started to identify with the Third World socialist struggles. He read literature from communist revolutionaries Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, and Mao Zedong. Shortly after, Hampton urged not only peace in the Vietnam War but also North Vietnam's victory. Obviously, I don't agree with the Vietnam War, but I don't agree with Communism (because at its core, Communism is atheism. The vast majority of Communists on Earth are atheists. I'm not an atheist as I believe in Almighty God). Also, I don't agree with laissez-faire capitalism either. Capitalism and Communism are not infallible. Fred Hampton was active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and assumed leadership of its West Suburban Branch's Youth Council. In his capacity as an NAACP youth organizer, he demonstrated natural leadership abilities: from a community of 27,000, he was able to muster a youth group of 500 members strong. He worked to get more and better recreational facilities established in the neighborhoods and to improve educational resources for Maywood's impoverished black community. So, Fred Hampton was a naturally born leader. In 1968, Hampton was accused of assaulting an ice cream truck driver, stealing $71 worth of ice cream bars, and giving them to kids in the street. He was convicted in May 1969 and served time in prison. In a memoir, Frank B. Wilderson III places this incident in the context of COINTELPRO's efforts to disrupt the Black Panthers of Chicago by the "leveling of trumped-up charges."
By the late 1960's, Fred Hampton was prominent leader of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. In 1969, Hampton, now deputy chairman of the BPP Illinois chapter, conducted a meeting condemning sexism. After 1969, the party considered sexism counter-revolutionary. In 1970, about 40–70% of party members were women. Fred Hampton has unique plans of solidarity. In 1969, Fred Hampton and his friends and associates achieved many successes in Chicago. Perhaps the most important was a nonaggression pact among Chicago's most powerful street gangs. Emphasizing that racial and ethnic conflict among gangs would only keep its members entrenched in poverty, Hampton strove to forge an anti-racist, class-conscious, multiracial alliance among the BPP, the Young Patriots Organization, and the Young Lords under the leadership of Jose Cha Cha Jimenez, leading to the Rainbow Coalition.
Hampton met the Young Lords in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood the day after they were in the news for occupying a police community workshop at the Chicago 18th District Police Station. He was arrested twice with Jimenez at the Wicker Park Welfare Office, and both were charged with "mob action" at a peaceful picket of the office. Later, the Rainbow Coalition was joined nationwide by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Brown Berets, AIM, and the Red Guard Party. In May 1969, Hampton called a press conference to announce that the coalition had formed. What the coalition groups would do was based on common action. Some of their joint issues were poverty, anti-racism, corruption, police brutality, and substandard housing. If there was a protest or a demonstration, the groups would attend the event and support each other. Jeffrey Haas, who was Hampton's lawyer, has praised some of Hampton's politics and his success in unifying movements. But Haas criticizes the way Hampton and the BPP organized in a pyramidal/vertical structure, contrasting this with the horizontal structure of Black Lives Matter: "They may also have picked up on the vulnerability of a hierarchical movement where you have one leader, which makes the movement very vulnerable if that leader is imprisoned, killed, or otherwise compromised. I think the fact that Black Lives Matter says 'We're leaderful, not leaderless' perhaps makes them less vulnerable to this kind of government assault."
I slightly disagree with Haas, because we don't need movements to have one single person to run everything obviously (as diverse leaders are necessary), but there is a problem with too much decentralization that causes no widespread solutions to solve problems (in other words, you need infrastructure, a cogent plan, and strategies in getting what you want). As Standford historian and civil rights writer Clayborn Carson has accurately stated in an interview in 2020,
"...One thing that I think everyone would agree on is that the young people who are sparking these protests have no single charismatic, supremely articulate leader. One of the consequences is they don’t control the messaging of it. I think that is one of the weaknesses of Black Lives Matter. There is no established leadership to articulate messages. What is the goal? Is it simply to express anger or is to achieve reform about police behavior? If it is to bring about reform, then what would that look like? It doesn’t have to be one charismatic spokesperson. It could be many leaders, but there needs to be people saying, ‘This is what we want’ and clearly articulating that. That’s just not happening now with any consistency...I think he [in reference to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.] would be very pleased to see that the protests were not simply black people protesting. People who are not black are recognizing the urgency of the moment and the righteousness of the anger. I think he would also caution that some specific objectives should be clearly articulated. At some point, the anger and protest have to be linked to some concrete reforms, but I recognize that the protest organizers are reacting to recent events that could not be anticipated. The very strength of the Black Lives Matter movement is that it is decentralized and a lot of the protest is more spontaneous. But that’s also a weakness...."
Fred Hampton was known for his organizing skills, oratorical ability, and charisma. Hampton was the leader of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panthers. He organized weekly rallies, participated in strikes, worked closely with the BPP's local People's Clinic, taught political education classes every morning at 6 am, and launched a project for community supervision of the police. Fred Hampton was a great leader. Hampton was also instrumental in the BPP's Free Breakfast Program. When Bob Brown left the party with Kwame Ture, in the FBI-fomented SNCC/Panther split, Hampton assumed chairmanship of the Illinois state BPP. This automatically made him a national BPP deputy chairman. As the FBI's COINTELPRO began to decimate the nationwide Panther leadership, Hampton's prominence in the national hierarchy increased rapidly and dramatically. Eventually, he was in line to be appointed to the party's Central Committee Chief of Staff. He would have achieved this position had he not been killed on December 4, 1969. The FBI hated Fred Hampton and was jealous of his leadership and talent for communication plus organization. He was a major threat to the FBI among Black Panther leaders. So, the FBI illegally took tabs on his activities. Investigations have shown that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was determined to prevent the formation of a cohesive Black movement in the United States. Hoover believed the Panthers, Young Patriots, Young Lords, and similar radical coalitions that Hampton forged in Chicago were a steppingstone to the rise of a revolution that could cause a radical change in the U.S. government. As early as 1967, the FBI opened a file on Fred Hampton. The FBI tapped Hampton's mother's phone by February of 1968. In May, the FBI placed Hampton on the bureau's "Agitator Index" as a "key militant leader." In late 1968, the Racial Matters squad of the FBI's Chicago field office recruited William O'Neal to work with it; he had recently been arrested twice for interstate car theft and impersonating a federal officer. In exchange for having his felony charges dropped and receiving a monthly stipend, O'Neal agreed to infiltrate the BPP as a counterintelligence operative.
O'Neal joined the party and quickly rose in the organization, becoming Director of Chapter Security and Hampton's bodyguard. In 1969, the FBI Special Agent in Charge (SAC) in San Francisco wrote Hoover that the agent's investigation had found that, in his city at least, the Panthers were primarily feeding breakfast to children. Hoover responded with a memo implying that the agent's career prospects depended on his supplying evidence to support Hoover's view that the BPP was "a violence-prone organization seeking to overthrow the Government by revolutionary means." That is ironic because Hoover was a hypocritical, anti-democratic extremist who lied to people, violated due process, and was a disgrace to anybody who loves democracy. Using anonymous letters, the FBI sowed distrust and eventually instigated a split between the Panthers and the Blackstone Rangers. O'Neal instigated an armed clash between them on April 2, 1969. The Panthers became effectively isolated from their power base in the Chicago ghetto, so the FBI worked to undermine its ties with other radical organizations. O'Neal was instructed to "create a rift" between the party and Students for a Democratic Society, whose Chicago headquarters was near that of the Panthers. This fact showed that the FBI was disingenuous because they wouldn't use lying if they were all about truth and justice.
The FBI released a batch of racist cartoons in the Panthers' name, aimed at alienating white activists. It also launched a disinformation program to forestall the formation of the Rainbow Coalition, but the BPP did make an alliance with the Young Patriots and Young Lords. In repeated directives, Hoover demanded that COINTELPRO personnel investigate the Rainbow Coalition, "destroy what the [BPP] stands for", and "eradicate its 'serve the people' programs." Documents secured by Senate investigators in the early 1970s revealed that the FBI actively encouraged violence between the Panthers and other radical groups, which provoked multiple murders in cities throughout the country. On July 16, 1969, an armed confrontation between party members and the Chicago Police Department resulted in one BPP member being mortally wounded, and six others arrested on serious charges. In early October, Hampton and his girlfriend Deborah Johnson (now known as Akua Njeri), who was pregnant with their child (Fred Hampton Jr.), rented a four-and-a-half-room apartment at 2337 West Monroe Street to be closer to BPP headquarters. O'Neal reported to his superiors that much of the Panthers' "provocative" arms stockpile was stored there. He drew them a map of the apartment. In early November, Hampton traveled to California on a speaking engagement with the UCLA Law Students Association. He met with the remaining BPP national hierarchy, who appointed him to the party's central committee. He was soon to take the position of chief of staff and major spokesman.
During the night of November 13, 1969, Fred Hampton was in California. During that time, Chicago police officers John J. Gilhooly and Frank G. Rappaport were killed in a gun battle with Panthers; one died the next day. A total of nine police officers were shot. Spurgeon Winter Jr., a 19-year-old Panther, was killed by police. Another Panther, Lawrence S. Bell, was charged with murder. In a racist unsigned editorial headlined "No Quarter for Wild Beasts", the Chicago Tribune urged that Chicago police officers approaching suspected Panthers "should be ordered to be ready to shoot." The FBI used the COINTELPRO program to try to prevent any improvement in the effectiveness of the BPP leadership. The FBI orchestrated an armed raid with the Chicago police and Cook County State's Attorney on Hampton's Chicago apartment. They had obtained detailed information about the apartment, including a layout of furniture, from O'Neal. An augmented, 14-man team of the SAO (state Special Prosecutions Unit) was organized for a predawn raid; they were armed with a search warrant for illegal weapons. On the evening of December 3, Hampton taught a political education course at a local church, which was attended by most Panther members. Afterward, as was typical, he was accompanied to his Monroe Street apartment by Johnson and several Panthers: Blair Anderson, James Grady, Ronald "Doc" Satchell, Harold Bell, Verlina Brewer, Louis Truelock, Brenda Harris, and Mark Clark. O'Neal was already there, having prepared a late dinner, which the group ate around midnight. O'Neal had slipped the secobarbital into a drink that Hampton consumed during the dinner to sedate Hampton so he would not awaken during the subsequent raid. O'Neal left after dinner. At about 1:30 a.m., December 4, Hampton fell asleep mid-sentence while talking to his mother on the telephone. Although Hampton was not known to take drugs, Cook County chemist Eleanor Berman later reported that she had run two tests, each showing evidence of barbiturates in Hampton's blood. An FBI chemist failed to find similar traces, but Berman stood by her findings.
The raid happened on December 4, 1969. The office of Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan organized the raid, using officers attached to his office. Hampton had recently strongly criticized Hanrahan, saying that Hanrahan's talk about a "war on gangs" was really rhetoric used to enable him to carry out a "war on black youth." It happened at 4 am. The heavily armed police team arrived at the site. It had 2 teams. 8 cops were in the front of the building, and six were in the back. At 4:45 a.m., they stormed the apartment. Mark Clark, sitting in the front room of the apartment with a shotgun in his lap, was on security duty. The police shot him in the chest, killing him instantly. An alternative account said that Clark answered the door and police immediately shot him. Either way, Clark's gun discharged once into the ceiling. This single round was fired when he suffered a reflexive death-convulsion after being shot. This was the only shot fired by the Panthers. Hampton, drugged by barbiturates, was sleeping on a mattress in the bedroom with Johnson, who was nine months pregnant with their child. Police officers removed her from the room while Hampton lay unconscious in bed. Then the raiding team fired at the head of the south bedroom. Hampton was wounded in the shoulder by the shooting. According to the National Archives and Records Administration, "Upon that discovery, an officer shot him twice in his head and killed him."
Fellow Black Panther Harold Bell said that he heard the following exchange:
"That's Fred Hampton."
"Is he dead?... Bring him out."
"He's barely alive."
"He'll make it."
The injured Panthers said they heard two shots. According to Hampton's supporters, the shots were fired point-blank at Hampton's head. According to Johnson, an officer then said: "He's good and dead now." Fred Hampton's body was dragged into the bedroom doorway and left in a pool of blood. The officers directed their gunfire at the remaining Panthers who had been sleeping in the north bedroom (Satchel, Anderson, Brewer, and Harris). They were seriously wounded, beaten, and dragged into the street. They were arrested on charges of aggravated assault and attempted murder of the officers. They were each held on $100,000 bail. Many of the officers smiled when they carried Hampton's body out of the house. In the early 1990s, Jose "Cha Cha" Jimenez, a former president and co-founder of the Young Lords who had developed close ties to Hampton and the Chicago Black Panther Party during the late 1960s, interviewed Johnson about the raid. She said:
"I believe Fred Hampton was drugged. The reason why is because when he woke up when the person [Truelock] said, "Chairman, chairman," he was shaking Fred's arm, you know, Fred's arm was folded across the head of the bed. And Fred—he just raised his head up real slow. It was like watching a slow motion. He raised. His eyes were open. He raised his head up real slow, you know, with his eyes toward the entranceway, toward the bedroom and laid his head back down. That was the only movement he made [..."
The seven Panthers who survived the raid were indicted by a grand jury on charges of attempted murder, armed violence, and other weapons charges. These charges were subsequently dropped. During the trial, the Chicago Police Department claimed that the Panthers were the first to fire shots. But a later investigation found that the Chicago police fired between 90 and 99 shots, while the only Panthers shot was from Clark's dropped shotgun. After the raid, the apartment was left unguarded. The Panthers sent some members to investigate, accompanied by videographer Mike Gray and stills photographer Norris McNamara to document the scene. This footage was instrumental in proving the raid was an assassination. The footage was later released as part of the 1971 documentary The Murder of Fred Hampton. After a break-in at an FBI office in Pennsylvania, the existence of COINTELPRO, an illegal counter-intelligence program, was revealed and reported. With this program revealed, many activists and others began to suspect that the police raid and Hampton's killing were conducted under this program. One of the documents released after the break-in was a floor plan of Hampton's apartment. Another document outlined a deal that the FBI brokered with US Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst to conceal the FBI's role in Hampton's death and the existence of COINTELPRO.
Human beings of every age and generation love this sport. The sport of volleyball teaches people about teamwork, endurance, and sacrifice in the love of human camaraderie. Recently, many USA national teams won gold medals involving this hallowed sport. For over 100 years, volleyball has united players globally, given enjoyment among lives, and been a blessing in a multiplicity of ways. Volleyball is an egalitarian game that can be played by children, adults, teenagers, etc. Determination and strength of the human will can lead to victories in a volleyball game. The rules of volleyball are extensive and thorough. The sport has been the official program of the Summer Olympic Games since Tokyo back in 1964. Beach volleyball was introduced to the Olympic Program at the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics. The adapted version of volleyball at the Summer Paralympic Games is sitting volleyball. A workout will always encompass any volleyball game. Volleyball culture is prominent in America, Brazil, and throughout the whole Earth. The sport helps to develop the cardiovascular and respiratory systems of the human body by spreading more blood, oxygen, and other nutrients all over the human body. The blood needs the spread of blood and other substances to improve the overall health of humanity. Also, volleyball develops hand-eye coordination, reflexes, etc. that deals with the bones and the joints being activated. Volleyball legends include people like Mireya Luis, Randy Stoklos, Sinjin Smith, Lang Ping, Regla Torress, Misty May-Reanor, Tara Battle Cross, Paula Weishoff, Lori Endicott, Kerri Walsh Jennings, and Karch Kiraly. Therefore, volleyball is a very sacrosanct part of the long journey of the human experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment