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Editorials/Columns
FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN
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Get Greater
Empowered Greetings.
Kick off 2017 with the goal to GET GREATER! Get greater clarity. Get greater focus on your future. Get a greater belief in yourself. Get a greater realization of you, your skills and your abilities. Get greater prosperity. Get greater manifestation. Get a greater spiritually and ethically. Get greater physically, emotionally and cognitively. Plan to delib- erately get greater success in every area of your life.
Get a greater expectation level for 2017. Set your ex- pectancy level at an all-time high. Raising the bar on your outlook enables you to go above and beyond anything
you’ve ever accomplished be- fore. Expect greater. Demand greater. Give greater. Live greater and advance the work that God has for you to do in building a greater business, greater ministry and greater relationships.
Create a greater vison for 2017 so that you can launch into new territories of unchar- tered success. You have the ability to achieve anything you set your mind on accomplish- ing. I am pushing my coaching clients to grow great in 2017 and I want to encourage you to do the same. Don’t play it small. It is time swell up, mag- nify, blow up and have get tremendous results. At this
stage in your life you cannot dummy down or minimize the greatest that resides in you.
Here are two simple suc- cess strategies to get you on track to get your greater.
Forge new success habits. The person you are today is a result of the habits that you’ve practiced over time. Better habits will get you greater re- sults.
Forecast your future by your words. As you seek to forge new habits, begin by speaking what you want to see. Your life will move in the di- rection of what you say be- cause what you say long enough is what you will begin to act on. The actions you take will form your habits and your habits will determine your fu- ture.
Your greater will be in di- rect proportion to your new mindset, habits and success tools you utilize to get you there. So reset your expecta- tions and expand your to GET GREATER!
POSTMASTER: Send Address Change To: Florida Sentinel Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3363 Tampa, FL 33601 Periodical Postage Paid At Tampa, FL
C. Blythe Andrews 1901-1977 (1945)
C. Blythe Andrews, Jr. 1930-2010 (1977)
A Forecast For The Year 2017
ithout tea leaves, oracles, or the aid of Nos-
tradamus, we decided to delve into the possibili- ties of prediction simply to see what the future may bring for Black Tampa during the year 2017. The following is what our editorial staff came up with.
West Tampa’s Black community and the University of Tampa will continue to struggle due to gentrification as 2nd and 3rd generation property owners continue to sell their parents’ property. “Section 8” will become the new name of a secret public housing resistance movement.
A highly energized effort to register all eligible Black voters will begin directly after the inception of the 2017 New Year. A Black woman will successfully throw her hat in the circle to become Tampa’s first Black female mayor. Black women in organizations throughout Tampa Bay will reach out to each other in a movement to become a major socio-political-economic power on the local, state, and national scene. TPD will finally purchase body-cams for all of its officers. Chief Judges on a county, state and federal level will recognize a need to take diversity/sensi- tivity training.
Tampa will get its first 5-star Black restaurant. The Florida Sentinel Bulletin will debut its first television talk-show to be hosted by a revolving list of local celebri- ties. And quarterback Jameis Winston will lead the Tampa Bay Bucs to another NFL Super Bowl title.
So, do you agree with our predictions? And before you answer, consider this statement: “The future is only what we make!” So, as actor Samuel Jackson might say, “What’s in your wallet?” (And may you have a predictably Happy New Year!)
Freedom’s Eve And New Year’s For Black
est wishes to all of our readers for a blessed, healthy, peace-filled,
and prosperous New Year.
A few days ago, millions of Black Americans gathered at churches all over our the na- tion to celebrate Watch Night services as our ancestors did at the first Watch Night Service on December 31, 1862. On that date, freed slaves, Black freemen and women, aboli- tionists (white and Black) as well as others living in Union states gathered together in homes and churches all across the nation and waited for word – via telegraph, newspaper, or word of mouth – that Presi- dent Abraham Lincoln had signed and issued the Emanci-
pation Proclamation.
Because the Emancipation applied only to slaves living in Confederate territories, nearly one million slaves remained in bondage in Northern states and Southern Confederate states (Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland, and Missouri) that had already joined the Union.
While the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in Confederate states, it did not grant the slaves United States citizenship. All slaves were freed on January 31, 1865 when the 13th Amendment was passed. Full U. S. citizenship for Blacks was not granted until the passage of the Civil
Rights Act of 1866 (which re- pealed the 1857 Dred Scott De- cision) and the 14th Amendment in 1968.
Numerous significant events for Black Americans and Africans took place on January 1st – New Year’s Day that we should recognize as well. By 1761, Quakers in America began to view the abolition of slavery as a Chris- tian duty, and on January 1, 1788, Quakers in Pennsylvania freed their slaves. Quakers who refused to do so were dis- owned.
In 1804, French rule ended in Haiti which granted Haiti the status of becoming the first Black republic and first inde- pendent country in the West Indies. Four years later, Con- gress banned the importation of slaves into the United States on New Year’s Day 1808.
In that same year and date, the African Benevolent Society for Mutual Relief was formed in New York City. This organi- zation was the “leading ante- bellum secular charitable and cooperative organization de- signed to serve the everyday needs of the free Black com- munity in Manhattan.” Closely tied to the Black Church, its membership included a large number of ministers. The or- ganization collected funds to help the sick, to bury the dead, help widows and orphans, and
to provide financial support to Black schools.
On January 1, 1808, Sierra Leone, a British West African colony became a British colony.
Other January 1st events to celebrate include the publica- tion of the first abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, from January 1, 1831 until De- cember 29, 1865 by William Lloyd Garrison. Lincoln University, the first degree- granting Historically Black University was chartered in Oxford (Chester County), Pennsylvania on January 1, 1854. On this day in 1860, slavery was abolished in the Neth Indies (Caribbean Netherlands or Dutch Indies). The first collegiate football game between Black colleges took place on January 1, 1897 when Atlanta University de- feated Tuskegee Institute 10-0 in Atlanta, Georgia.
The last three January 1st events include the establish- ment of the British protec- torates of Northern and Southern Nigeria in 1900, the uniting of the Northern and Southern Nigeria as the British colony of Nigeria; and the pub- lishing of the first issue of the Journal of Negro History in 1916, (founded by Dr. Carter G. Woodson), which is pub- lished today by the Association for the Study of African-Amer- ican Life and History (ASALH).
Thus, January 1st is a mem- orable day in the lives of Black Americans and Africans. This coming year, let us as Black Americans unite and pledge to love and respect each other more as brothers and sisters because we will face great chal- lenges in the year ahead of us.
Harambe.
Winter Earth Alert
ere you unusually warm this Christmas? A New
York resident who spent her first Christmas in Florida said she found it hard to get used to the tempera- ture being 86 degrees on Christmas Day.
We all will have to get used to record-breaking Christ- mas heat and record warming Decembers in the South- east. In fact, at least 850 cities experienced record December temperatures. Such weather is linked to global warming and will likely continue unless drastic cuts in the world’s carbon emissions take place.
Citing climate change as “the greatest challenge of our time,” the co-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change endorsed placing a limit on the amount of the primary greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide that can be produced by industrial activities and the clear- ing of forests” more than three years ago.
Yet, president-elect Trump and his Republican hench- men plan on silencing and rescinding protective regula- tions of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as soon as he takes office. Of course, the coal and oil industry (one of the biggest polluters) were large supporters of the Trump candidacy.
Meanwhile, residents of Miami Beach are left to grap- ple with street flooding during high tides and hurricanes. There is no doubt that rapidly melting ice caps are con-
tributing to Miami‘s eroding beach and flooding. Already, five Pacific islands (Solomon Island chains) have lost large swaths of coastlines and villages, all but disappearing due to rising seas levels.
Currently, “the Polynesians living in very low-lying island countries such as Kiribati are beginning to search for new homelands due to the rising seas. Climate change de- niers, therefore, ought to be required to live on these islands just to see if they continue to believe climate change is a hoax. But sometimes, not even seeing is believing.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 2017 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY PAGE 5
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