My Mother, Marilyn Jean Ohlemiller Lampkin, has been an Ancestor for 30 years – her date of departure was July 20, 1996. One day after the opening ceremonies of the Atlanta Olympics…with Muhammad Ali lighting the ceremonial Olympic flame. The tears that I cried watching Ali, arms trembling from the effects of Parkinson’s Syndrome, would be a prelude to the tears that would flow from my heart and soul less than 12 hours later.

I often think of her as these yet-to-be-United States of America is unwilling to impeach and remove Donald Trump from the Presidency. I imagine how frustrated and angry she would be, at the level of ignorance, bigotry and hatred that she fought against 60 years ago…only to see it unapologetically boasting of the need to protect a “whites only” system of governance. A system that exiled her from everything she knew…even family, because she dared to fall in love with a Black man and carry his child.

That child, Mark E. Lampkin, would always be a warrior who fought against a system that sought to punish me, and those who were in my community, for something that we had no control over – the pigmentation of our skin. How insidious it was, and still is, to advertise oneself as the global bastion of democracy and freedom, while shunning those very people who literally built this nation. American hypocrisy at its finest.

I witnessed my mother, a White woman who lived less than 10 minutes from where she was raised and went to school, build a life and fight the battles against what she’d believed was the American dream. Until it wasn’t. Until she ran headfirst into the wall of hatred and bigotry that was not taught in school, but learned at countless kitchen tables and barber shops. Her beautiful brown babies would never know any of those people whose DNA they shared. It has been their loss.

Our family genealogist, my recently deceased sister Michele, did extensive research a few years ago and she discovered newspaper articles in the Peoria Journal Star that showed our mother being actively involved with the Peoria NAACP and fair housing organizations, which had, as a matter of practice, discriminated against Black people. Funny thing, she’d been asked to leave a house that she’d just begun renting when the owner discovered she had Black children. Just to be clear, that house was not in some prestigious neighborhood; it was on Fourth Street near Sheridan, across from the original Mt. Zion Baptist Church.

Eventually, my mother grew weary of the constant grind and the pain that was a constant reminder that the people who should have been walking through life’s challenges with her were nowhere to be found. Broken, she never quit. Never walked away. Never turned on the gas in the oven and told us that all was well. She believed that one day her children would thrive and thus prove that her quiet act of resistance was the correct one.

Have Michele, Marvin and I built lives that honored her sacrifice? I leave that to others and the Almighty to decide. I choose to believe that she would be more than proud of the families we have built, careers we have enjoyed, and communities that we have become a part of. Success is not measured by one’s bank account, for there are countless people who have millions of dollars of net worth but have no relationship with the people who should matter more than that bank balance.

For those of you who still have a mother who is alive, cherish her. Honor her. Love her. She has sacrificed more than you know for you to be a person who can thrive in these auspicious times in a nation that is determined to go backwards. A collapsing white supremacist platform that is gasping for oxygen, on it’s veritable last-dying-breath. I, for one, am here to pull the plug. For what it did to the woman who birthed me and created the man who is forever fueled to resist and refuse to succumb to its narrow-minded mindset.

Happy Mother’s Day in Heaven…Marilyn Jean Ohlemiller Lampkin

We have recently passed the holiest week of the Christian and Jewish faiths: Easter and Passover. The times where we are called to remember the sacrifices made by a brown-skinned Hebrew who sought to teach a new way of living to those who had been burdened by those who wielded Power. The Jews of two millennia ago knew what torment and mistreatment felt like daily. They annually vow to never forget how they made it over.

Somehow, both factions have become that which their ancestors fought to oppose. Oppressive. Punitive and drunk with power. Illogically committed to using violence and terror to suppress any resistance against their maniacal thirst for power.

In those societies we read about, they

believed that violence and oppression were a justifiable means to an end. Survival of the fittest. A zero-sum game that requires me to take what I want and let you deal with the fallout from my insatiable thirst for more.

And so, we are now at another crossroad as a society; one that should cause us to ask the question, “how much more madness must we accept?” Less than one hundred years ago German society allowed one madman to convince them that Jewish people, who had lived among them for decades, were the reason for their societal difficulties. The Christian right(?) were gullible and ignorant to what was happening. A sociopath was using fear to justify his desire to be the new King of the World. Madness without constraint leads to genocide. Sound familiar? It’s déjà vu all over again.

The Israeli Prime Minister and the U.S. President are engaging in violent acts of terror upon a people and region that can NEVER bring peace nor prosperity. When land, resources and exploitation are the underpinning elements used to remain in control, there will always be blowback. Taking natural resources from a people and land without a fair and equitable sharing of the financial gains are not going to work anymore. The Global South is NOT going along with that level of disrespect. The alignment of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) is setting the stage for a new way to do business. The Unites States, and the Dollar that it controls, is no longer the only method of exchange for commerce.

As we seek to understand what Trump and his band of sycophants will do next, we MUST know that there is a MAJOR shift in what will take place in the halls of power. Educate yourself and your family to understand that the “old ways” are soon to be replaced by a more inclusive

Colonizers like Israel and the US cannot expect people to continue to be abused and murdered without consequences. Nature requires balance. Our collective Souls should be screaming for sanity and civility as the cornerstone of the New World Order. I’ll end with a quote from Frantz Fanon, “Colonialism was never about civilization. It was never about progress. It was about violence, organized, justified and repeated until it looked normal.”

Peace.

As much as we may want to think otherwise, none of us are going to live forever. However you may interpret the Bible and its naming Moses and Methuselah as people who lived multiple centuries, what we know is that at some point our bodies will decay and require us to “give up the ghost.” We all gonna die.

Using that as a premise and foundation, how we live each day, week, month and years is the recipe for creating a meaningful and legacy-filled life. A life that others can use as a blueprint and model when the storms and strife show up – and we all know that they will show up.

I was blessed to work as a Marketing Director/Community Educator with Pathways Hospice and Home Health from 1995 through December 1999. It may have been the most impactful 5 years of service to the Bay Area community that I could have imagined. Having conversations with the caregivers, nurses, therapists, Medical Director/Physician, and Volunteers empowered me to go out and share the amazing services that hospice care provides.

It was my goal to educate and empower as many families as possible to what was at their disposal, should the need for such services be required. Only over the past 50 years have we gone from a society that dies at home with familiar surroundings and family, to being hooked up to machines in brightly lit rooms that are not peaceful nor welcoming in such a profound moment of one’s final days. And we won’t even mention the exorbitant costs associated with the acute care hospital experiences. Looking at the bill for service might bring on a cardiac arrest.

Possibly the most invaluable lessons that I learned during that tenured employment were the importance of making peace with your loved ones before they make transition, and that many terminally diagnosed people will hold on to living, or delay dying, until they are given permission to “let go.” That letting go may require an estranged son/daughter/sibling to show up and make peace with the person who wishes to “have closure” before departing this life. Those hospice professionals told me of numerous occasions where, once that broken connection had been repaired, the loved one passed within hours. That is really DEEP stuff.

My sister and lifetime best-friend, Michele Yvonne Watson, made her transition Friday, March 6. We gathered prior to that time to let her know how much her life, and her example of honesty, integrity, perseverance and generosity has meant to us all. For those family members who have known of the impending transition and chosen to remain disconnected, that is something they will have to make peace with the Creator about. I hold no judgments nor any grudges. Choices have consequences. Love has only peace and personal growth as its offering. Being in the room as she made transition is one of the most important moments of my life…PROFOUND!

I now contemplate what life will feel like without the one person who I knew loved me unwaveringly. The one person that I trusted without question. The one person who could put me in check – and accept that her correction came from loving me, not from ego or envy. From our walking to Irving, Washington, and Douglas elementary schools together as kids to sharing our thoughts about the state of the Nation and World as adults…I am ever grateful that we never allowed any differences we may have had about anything to come between the LOVE we had for each other.

Take the time TODAY to let your loved ones know that you LOVE THEM. You may think that you have all the time to do the repair work, but NONE of us know the day or time of our departure. Make use of this day and do the WORK.

In Memory of Michele Yvonne Watson (Lampkin)

Peace.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

The bell tolls not for the billionaires, but for the millions left behind in the shadows of greed. In a stunning move cloaked in rhetoric of "growth" and "freedom," the Republican Party has passed a sweeping billionaire tax break bill—an act that not only deepens the chasm of inequality but brutally slices through the very lifelines of everyday Americans. This isn't just bad policy. It's a moral betrayal. And unless we, the people, demand courage from our elected officials, we are careening toward a social and environmental collapse that will spare no one.

The legislation, while handing the ultra-rich billions in tax relief, comes at a cost that’s unconscionable. Deep cuts to Medicaid, the gutting of food assistance programs, and environmental rollbacks that invite disaster. For the single mother who depends on Medicaid to treat her child's asthma, for the elderly man who stretches food stamps to survive on one meal a day, and for the working families who now breathe air dirtier and pay more for energy—it is a punch to the gut. We have allowed power to be handed to those who see compassion as weakness and profits as sacred.

Be certain that what we are facing today is not a recent phenomenon. Nah. Every U.S. President since Jimmy Carter has been whittling away at the “Great Society” foundation that was created by the President least likely to do it, Lyndon B. Johnson. Nixon started the war on Blacks using poverty and drugs as his tool of division. Reagan slashed the corporate tax rates and began taxing Social Security benefits. Both Bushes, Clinton, Obama and Trump…have done nothing to offset the rising wealth inequality that has our Nation at the tipping point.

The rollback of environmental protections is perhaps the most chilling consequence. At a time when wildfires rage, floods displace, and heatwaves kill, this legislation weakens our ability to respond, adapt, and survive. By prioritizing oil profits over climate action, the government has traded our children’s future for a quarterly earnings report. This isn’t just policy malpractice—it’s environmental suicide.

The bell tolls, and it’s tolling louder each day—for the nurse working three jobs, for the family evicted after losing housing subsidies, and for the veterans whose mental health programs vanish into budget cuts. All the while, the ultra-wealthy reap windfalls they’ll never spend, hoarding wealth in a nation that can no longer afford to feed its hungry or care for its sick.

This crisis demands more than outrage. It demands courage. Courage from voters to reject party loyalty in favor of moral clarity. Courage from lawmakers to stand against corporate puppetry. And courage from communities to organize, speak truth to power, and demand a new contract—one where economic dignity, health, and sustainability are the birthrights of all, not the privileges of a few.

Will White Americans of this generation reject the cognitive dissonance that their ancestors accepted as reality, that Black and Brown people just need to work harder, play by the rules, and trust Jesus…and all will be right for you in AmeriKKKa. If the last five years are not enough to move them from passive progressive politics to actively rejecting all that resides in the Project 2025 manifesto, then we are all DOOMED to the despair that accompanies failed empires.

If we remain silent, we become complicit. If we normalize cruelty as governance, we sanction our own demise. But if we rise, if we challenge the architecture of greed and reclaim our moral compass, then perhaps the tolling bell can become a rallying cry instead of a death knell.

Because in the end, the bell tolls for us all. The question is—will we hear it in time?

Exploitation: By Any Means Necessary

Imagine living in a society where you are expected to be productive from an early age until the age of 65. Or worse, until you drop dead. We know that was the perilous life Africans who were enslaved for over 300 years experienced on the shores of this yet-developing Nation. Children were born, reared and died without ever knowing the taste of freedom. Generation after generation.

The wealth of these United States was built directly from single-purchased humans who were forced to breed more humans into the chattel form of slavery that this nation was proud of. It was barbaric, cruel and exploitative. The system of unsatiated capitalism was born. Fortunes were made in the tobacco and cotton industries by people who never were included in the financial spoils of such success. Exploitation at its ugliest.

Fast-forward to today: debt is normalized. The average American carries credit card, mortgage, and student loan debt. Predatory lending, high-interest rates, and limited financial literacy trap people—especially minorities and the working class—in cycles of repayment. Like past systems, today’s debt structures disproportionately impact marginalized groups, limiting mobility and independence. Just as slaves worked for free under coercion and the threat of violence, many now labor primarily to repay debts.

Consider the “public services” that have been privatized over the past 40 years: health care, sports/arts/music in public education, television programming, post-secondary college, the taxing of Social Security benefits. Today we are subscribed to Netflix, iTunes/Apple music, Hulu and more just to be informed and entertained. Internet services have us “captured” to the tune of between $29 to $75 per month. A monthly Cell phone service is costing most people at least $80 per month. And that is for a single phone.

Think for a minute about how the “owners” of enslaved persons never actually worked. No long, grueling days in the hot sun. No aching back, sore feet, or busted fingers. They grew their wealth by exploiting the labor of multitudes of people over decades, and passed along that system, and wealth, to their family. Generational wealth now had a blueprint. Inherited wealth, power and access to capital was now provided with a silver spoon.

I make that distinction because it is directly responsible for the insane wealth inequality that allows multi-billionaires of 2025 to be considered self-made. Yet, hard-working Americans are struggling to support their families while working multiple jobs. Most of those jobs are not full-time and thus have no benefits. Many people are sleeping in their vehicles or in tents while working for companies tout their “stock prices” as the barometer of capitalistic achievement. Shareholder value is tantamount while the once “valued employee” is an easily replaced commodity, often afraid to speak out against the injustice they are subjected to each day/week/year. Work. Retire. Die. Repeat. The Stock market just reached a new high…and Congress is cutting food benefits to millions.

Yet, the only method these companies have found to make their quarterly-profit numbers is to lay off low-to-mid level employees. No new ground-breaking product lines. No quality-of-service improvements that can be expanded upon. Collapse the workforce. Wall Street celebrates while families are now scrambling to replace that income to keep their lifestyle intact. Single-family homes and many apartment buildings are empty because they are owned by Vanguard, Blackrock and similar hedge funds. They purchased entire blocks of real estate when the Recession of 2008-09 gutted the US market. It’s insane. It’s Capitalism. The so-called “free market” at work.

There is no easy fix to this decades-long race to the bottom. We’ve believed that electing people to a local, statewide or national office would be the answer. Neither fiscally responsible Republicans nor progressive Democrats has the courage to refute the donors who write the BIG checks for their election campaigns. What we are witnessing today is proof that they not only aren’t going to do anything, but they also now see this as their “golden ticket” to wealth and power. They forget the needs of their constituents once they get that “access-key” to the penthouse suite.

This unspoken “caste” system must be dismantled. It is unsustainable. Are those who have achieved the American Dream of earning money while sleeping willing to roll back their “hard-earned” success? Not a chance. And so, the cycle continues. UNLESS…

WE STAND UP! WE BOYCOTT! WE RESIST!

The Knockout Blow?

“Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!”

These words are etched forever in the minds and memories of those who heard them spoken by sportscaster Howard Cosell on the night of January 22, 1973, when George Foreman defeated Heavyweight Champion Joe Frazier. Though Foreman had methodically destroyed everyone he’d faced leading to that night, he came into the fight as a four-to-one underdog, largely due to Frazier being the undefeated heavyweight champ. Things went bad towards the end of round one and only got worse during the second round for Frazier before the referee mercifully stopped the fight.

During interviews before the fight, Foreman told reporters that if Frazier tried to fight him in the same manner that he (Frazier) had fought Muhammad Ali in their second fight, Frazier would surely get knocked out. And as we all know, Joe Frazier knew how to fight one way – straight forward. He would be an easy target for Foreman, who’d previously knocked out 34 of the 37 boxers he’d defeated. Maybe, just maybe, Joe and his team should have used a different strategy. Something that might offset the obvious advantage that Foreman possessed. Nope. Yank Durham, a well-respected trainer knew only that his fighter, Frazier, was undefeated and the Champion of the World. The rest, as they say, is history.

I bring up this story for two reasons. First, to give George Foreman his respect, as he recently joined the ancestors. And second, because George proved to himself and the world what was possible when he walked away from boxing for 10 years, returned a different, and BETTER man, and won not only the heavyweight crown at age 45, but also the hearts of everyone. All because he did the difficult soul work while no one was watching.

By the time this article is published the United States will likely be in a free-fall towards a Recession. An economic knockdown that could have been avoided, had the voters in this once-proud-Nation taken heed to the advice of the 34-count convicted Donald Trump; that he was going to be a dictator from Day One. Donald Trump told us that he was going to disregard the rule of law and the sanctity of the Office of the President for personal gain.

If only the voters had seriously understood that this man had destroyed multiple businesses along the path to his first Presidency, because he has no financial acumen nor does he take advice from people who are wiser than he. Like Joe Frazier’s trainers, who never considered that Joe might need a new strategy for Big George on that January night in Jamaica.

If only We the People would

RISE UP and say to those we’ve elected to the House of Representatives and the Senate, halting this madman from making us his next victim of ignorance allied with power. New Jersey Senator Corey Booker stood on the Senate floor for five hours and five minutes on Tuesday, April 2^nd calling attention to what we all see in front of us but are unwilling to confront. That we have allowed this madness to go on far too long and the time to put aside partisan politics is here, staring at us like Joe Frazier, with glazed eyes and a brave but overmatched heart. Who will be our referee and say, “no more?”

The World is watching and waiting. The demise of every empire in history was fueled by greed and the refusal of those in power to change their behavior. Shall we learn from the history of Frazier vs Foreman or remain on this course of certain demise? We shall see.

Peace.

It is a segment from a Ted Talk given by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.  Look it up.  Watch.  Listen.  Understand that what we have been programmed to believe as “reality” in the United States is so despicably narrow and impressionable.  Many of us are “mature” enough to recall our early days of watching TV and seeing only people who did not look like us, did not talk like us and yet, we were expected to find no fault with these images.  They were to be idolized.

This Nation has created “single Stories” for most people whose skin has Melanin.  Stories that patronize us.  Minimize us.  Convince us that we are less than.  Mentally deficient.  Emotionally fragile.  Needy.  Criminal.  Poor.   See the pattern?

Our elected officials pride themselves on being smart, well-intentioned and even, wise to the needs of their constituents.  Yet, once elected they rarely hold public forums or town hall meetings to “listen” to what is needed at the grass-roots level.  They have a story already made up in their heads.  They have bought into the stories they have been told about “those people.”

What we are witnessing in Florida and other states regarding the banning of books, educational materials that share the “true” history of this Nation, and other “stories” that are outside of their single-story narrative, is a tipping point that our country needs; but is deathly afraid of.  For to tell the “rest of the story”, as Paul Harvey used to quote, would reveal that the stories that they made up to feel superior, are now poked full of holes. They would now be reduced to mingling among us regular folks…who knew all along that most of it was just a fable.  Just like in the movies.

I made a comment this week on my social media pages about the movie The Little Mermaid.  We all know it is a Disney character who’d been created by White storytellers, artists, and animators to fit the narrative of White people always being cast in a positive light.  And now that the main character is a Black girl, AGGGGHH.  The sky is falling.  

My comment was aimed at Walt Disney himself, who allowed such racist and narrow storytelling for so long that it fomented the obtuse viewpoints that are now being upended.  It is just a make-believe character, after all.   But it is a link in the chain - of the Single Story repeated too many times in this Nation.   Walt could have been a true trailblazer 50 years ago, making that character anything but White, and this would be a non-issue today.

Pull up the Danger of a Single Story on YouTube and listen.  Then ask yourself when you have been guilty of such a thing.  We all have likely been a few times if we are honest.

And the best way to offset any “single story” from becoming a truth…is to tell your story!

Peace.

The initial premise of this article was intended to shed light upon the lunacy that has become the daily output of a handful of the Republican Party in our Nation, and our need to face the crisis that is growing more dangerous by the day.  However, over the past few days, it has morphed into a more personal, and painful, matter for me.   This article may offend some of you, and although that is not my intention, I am banking on two things for this to resonate, and I hope, to spur you toward deep reflection.

First, is my hope that you will trust that what I am going to share is neither hyperbole nor hysteria.

Second, I am prayerful that you are aware of the need for us, as Black Americans, to honestly assess, and when necessary, hold accountable, the organizations that for too long we have allowed to become museums of the past…and not arbiters of the future we deserve.

I have been a rather socially conscious person for most of my life.  My heroes as a young person were Muhammad Ali, for his courage in refusing to go to fight an unjust war.  His giving up his livelihood as the Heavyweight Boxing Champion was unheard of in a capitalist society.

Another man whose life I learned about only after reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X in 1971, again grasping his willingness to become a fearless fighter for justice and equality, against a bigoted and brazen society determined to keep Black people fearful and “in their place.” 

The other icon who showed courage against the moral hypocrisy of the United States recently made his transition a week ago, Mr. Harry Belafonte.  A man who was unapologetically Black, and smart, and outspoken, and honorable.  An ICON.

My first exposure to the NAACP came in 1968 when then Peoria Chapter President John Gwynn led a boycott of the Montgomery Wards department store in downtown Peoria.  Wards, like many of the stores in most cities, had refused to hire Blacks.   As a 13-year-old I was not yet cognizant of what the NAACP was and their history of fighting the injustices that were baked into this Nation’s history. 

Yet, I felt drawn to see what it meant to bring people together under a common cause, and effect change.   It was a powerful sight to witness men and women picketing outside the popular store for three days.  The store management relented and hired a Black person to work on the sales floor.  One of my best friends, Alan Nelson, was hired during that Christmas shopping season.  A proud moment for us all.

I needed to share all of this to establish the context for what I am facing currently, as a duly elected Vice President of the Vallejo, California Chapter of the NAACP.   After having been aware of the local chapter and some of the out-of-touch leadership, I decided it was time last November to get more involved and run for one of the VP executive committee seats. 

Several persons were elected, and others appointed, to executive committee positions, many of which had been vacant for years due to the inept branch leadership.  This was going to be an NAACP like the John Gwynn-led one that I knew of.  New people. Fresh ideas. A forward-thinking perspective.  I was proud to be part of what was to come.

Fast-forward to today, where after a couple of my social media videos challenging the outdated, and even obtuse, bylaws relative to NAACP elections, I have received a cease-and-desist letter from their general counsel.  It seems they do not appreciate my asking for an investigation regarding the election process.  Not that I want to be anything else, other than a VP, but our Chapter has undergone a coup d’état.  And it is tearing apart our Black community.

At some point, we all know that organizations, just like people, are resistant to change.  No one likes the feeling of being out of touch, and even, obsolete. Yet, we all understand that each new generation is smarter, and quicker, and desire to have a voice in how their lives are being shaped. Those of us who are of the “old guard” must be willing to listen, modify, and even step aside.

Thus, the photo above. Many of us have seen these in buildings, where we either see fire or smell smoke.  And it is our responsibility to become engaged and alert others of the danger that is present.  Getting everyone to safety is our primary objective.  Not becoming a target of derision.

Our communities are seeking to rebuild and become viable and safe for the children who are facing bigotry, racism, and gun violence at every turn.  Our civil rights organizations MUST be willing to see a new way, one which may initially feel uncomfortable.  Yet will be inclusive.  It must be the voice of that which is coming…not just what is behind us.

I ask that we all challenge our status quo - the future requires progress, not another museum.  And, if necessary, Break the Glass.  Our collective future depends upon us being alerted to the danger of what, and wh

o is seeking to return us to a dark and dangerous past.

Peace.

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