By William “Duke” Smither “If the muse were mine to tempt it And my feeble voice was strong, If my tongue were trained to measures, I would sing a stirring song. I would sing a song heroic Of those noble sons of Ham, Of the gallant colored soldiers Who fought for Uncle Sam!…” (From […]
Category: Echoes From the Past
By William “Duke” Smither “Because power corrupts, society’s demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.” (John Adams, 2nd President of the United States) National Moral Character? Lordy, Lordy! One would have had to have been born “Rip Van Winkle II,” the fictional dude who fell asleep and […]
By William “Duke” Smither “When the government violates the people’s rights then insurrection is, for the people and for every section of the people, the most sacred of their rights and the most indispensable of their duties.” – Circa 1790: Marquis de Lafayette, a French military officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War and […]
by William “Duke” Smither “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana (from “Reason in Common Sense,” Vol. 1 of The Life of Reason, 1905; also, inscribed, in Polish translation, on a plaque at the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in WWII occupied Poland.) […]
By William “Duke” Smither (Backstreet Djeli Blog Reprint from Memorial Day 2014) “I am the Unknown Soldier And maybe I died in vain, But if I were alive and my country called, I’d do it all over again.” (From “The Unknown Soldier,” by Billy Rose) The first thing one notices when visiting the […]
by William “Duke” Smither “My grandfather had a dream that his four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream that enough is enough…” Nine-Year-Old Yolanda Renee King (Eldest granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr. during “March of Our Lives” […]
works “Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.” Richard Wright (1908-1960; Mississippi-born Writer, Novelist, Poet) The journey in writing “Backroads to ‘Bethlehem’: Odysseys of the Maroon Warrior” has been so much longer than the writing process itself– perhaps, as far back […]
