NEWS

The University of Louisville Minority Teacher Recruitment Project and  American Slaves, Inc. hosted the Black High School Educational Summit, May 15 & 16, 2009, on the U of L Campus. Subject matter of the summit embraced concepts from America’s Little Black Book.

To read a report on the event in the Sunday, May 17, edition of The Courier-Journal, click here or on the photo just below:

Three dozen photos are available here:.    

Check back in a few days for more photos from the Summit.

NEWS

NEWS

American Slaves, Inc., a Louisville-based grass-roots organization that addresses the continuing struggles of Descendants of American Slaves, held an Alley Cleanup on Saturday, September 13, in the heart of Louisville’s West End. Volunteers assembled at 9 a.m. at the intersection of Stone Alley and Dr. W. J. Hodge St. (formerly 21^st St.). (Stone Alley runs between, and parallel to, W. Muhammad Ali Blvd. and Madison St.)

	Click on photo to see the full challenge!

Organizers say the community effort was a festive event. Hot dogs and refreshments were provided free of charge. Skits and other acts were performed by locally known performance artists. The event was intended as a working, fun-filled, kick-off for the American Slave Movement. Participation was free and open to the public.

“We need to get back to basics,” says Virgil Boyd, executive director of ASI and coordinator of the community event. “Our group is results-oriented, and our strong desire at ASI is to work together to bridge the racial gap in America by bringing about real change, not merely talking our problems to death.”

Boyd says that at midday, “Our Descendants of American Slaves’ Advancement Plan was unveiled.” He reports that, by the end of the day, “We all witnessed a definite, evident difference in Stone Alley, and the people who participated in the effort shared a feeling of accomplishment.

“It’s high time,” continues Boyd, “ that Descendants of American Slaves, whites and other American cultures focus on our real problems and learn how to work together to achieve measurable results, rather than simply give lip service to the high-flung agendas of diverse organizations that, however well-intended, often have us at cross-purposes.”  

No stones were left unturned on Stone Alley and no mind was left untouched says Norris Shelton, a community businessman and founder of American Slaves, Inc. “I’m out here every day cleaning up my own lot,” says Shelton, “and it’s truly mind-refreshing. This time, though, our neighbors joined with other ASI supporters, and we pushed on down the way. It was a concerted, community effort. ”

It’s much more than a clean-up, spruce-up event: “Our purpose,” continues Shelton, “is to demonstrate that small steps can lead to giant strides if we work in unison. This is a reawakening of a people who have lost the sense of direction we once had when Dr. King led our marches. We are attempting to reassemble those American born and bred blacks who trace their ancestry back to American slavery.

“Saturday, September 13, we kicked off the “Descendants of American Slaves Movement” by initiating a neighborhood cleanup effort that will have far-flung, racial impact.” Commencing at the junction of Stone Alley and Dr. W. J. Hodge Street, “We worked Westward down the alley as far as time, equipment and manpower permitted, with a common purpose in mind. This small effort was symbolic of the day when diverse racial groups, descendants of slaves, whites, and immigrants alike can move forward as a united people.”   

Shelton, author of America’s Little Black Book, is working to bring descendants of slaves into the socioeconomic mainstream of America. Many have heard the Louisville businessman speak of slaves and slavery and declare that he is a descendant of slaves, and that he does not accept the misleading “African American” label. His findings, conclusions and recommendations are spelled out in the first of his four published books, America’s Little Black Book (ISBN: 0‑9765417‑1‑8). All four of Shelton’s books were written to document events that led to Shelton discovering his true racial identity and sharing his findings.   

To learn more about American Slaves, Inc., and the American Slave Movement,  browse to the website:  WWW.SlavesUSA.com.

To arrange a personal interview with American Slaves, Inc., founder Norris E. Shelton, please call him directly at (502) 939-6688. ASI executive director Virgil Boyd is at (502) 386-4585. Additional information also may be found at www.SlavesUSA.com.

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Please don’t miss the message! Descendants of slaves’ cultural potential is being wasted because we simply don’t know who we are! The only common denominator that links all descendants of slaves together and makes us who we are is slavery in America — not thinking we’re Africans! Now it’s time for our resolve to be tested. We must not be too ignorant to realize who we are. We must not be too ashamed to accept who we are. We must learn to love who we are. Then we must cast aside inherited fear, stand boldly and proclaim to the world who we are! The purest essence of love starts within female descendants of slaves! You can no longer sit idly by while our young men are dying by the masses. Wake up! Stand up! Then speak up, with conviction! You have been suppressed far too long! Let the world know that you are the mothers of our culture, and you’ve had enough of your men being submerged in ignorance, dying from violence, waiting for welfare, and learning only disrespect! You are so powerful and so beautiful. It’s time to embrace your true culture. Your help is desperately needed to help turn our people around!

If we pull together, we could be so much more than mere second-class citizens. American Slaves, Inc. is our support. America’s Little Black Book is our guide. We must learn to work together for the common good. Our culture has been wittingly lulled to sleep. It’s time to wake up! Do not miss our racial “awakening!”

NEWS

For Immediate Release
Jim Reed

"Alley Rat" reminds us of the deep human need for a sense of place ...

... no matter how dire the circumstances

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them,” wrote Henry David Thoreau in “Walden.” There are others, however, who virtually scream aloud as they speed down life’s emergency lane, oblivious as to where they are headed, but in a reckless, all-fired hurry to get there, all the same. Most of us, comfortably or not, fall somewhere in between, but Norris Shelton is a genuine screamer. “Alley Rat” is his story.

Born in Tallapoosa, Georgia, in the late ’30s, the author was part of a large colored family. His parents were poor and uneducated yet convinced there were better times ahead and were determined to seek a better life for their brood. To break away from the insufferable conditions they live under in the Deep South, the family stealthily flees their rural subsistence in search of a quite modest American dream: to live and let live. As migrants often do, the Sheltons gravitate to the back streets of the slums, not by choice, but because that’s where they find the only affordable housing for the almost penniless clan. Yes, there will be much more opportunity in the city of Louisville, Kentucky — a real chance for success, but also for collapse.

Inheriting a legacy of poverty and perplexity, and often on the wrong side of the law, the author, a self-proclaimed alley rat, starts out not believing in much of anything; he has little hope for a bright future, and, predictably, stumbles into and out of trouble, at home and abroad.

Living under cover with the police never far behind, eventually he evades civilian authorities by enlisting in the Army. For more than two years, he blunders into and out of trouble, loan-sharking, bootlegging, getting into fistfights, going AWOL, drinking too much, and raising all kinds of off-duty hell. At his post, though, he is the model enlistee, emerging as a highly-skilled American soldier. He learns to love the Army, but the Army views him as a seething, die-hard rebel.

During a tour overseas, he initiates an escapade he deems to be a just crusade for racial equality: He instigates a race riot that results in all military personnel throughout Germany being restricted to base for weeks. When restrictions are ultimately lifted, Shelton and his sidekick — still under suspicion for being ring leaders of the turmoil — are denied passes. Defiant and emboldened, they go AWOL and start an altercation that escalates into pandemonium and leads to a nightclub being burned down. Both cool their heels a long spell in the stockade. Ultimately, even the Army has had enough and drums him out with a court-martial. While this run is over, an old chase resumes.

Back in civilian life in his hometown, the author begins singing for a local band in popular Louisville area bars. Now in the spotlight, he is surrounded by women, and the chase is on again — but with a mind-boggling twist: Forever the aggressor, he discovers he’s now the prey! Becoming the hunted, not the hunter, he learns, is a startling role reversal. Nonetheless, it’s a wake-up call that leads him to taking time for introspection.

As the story rumbles along, Shelton experiences an epiphany about his “Alley Rat” mentality. In due course, he is arrested on the long-standing, attempted murder charges. Has he come full circle, or is this just another of the countless laps of the extended rat race? To fully understand what the author sees when, at long last, he takes a profound personal look in the mirror, we need to jog alongside this intractable runner as he retraces his life through the pages of “Alley Rat.”