Welcome

Please allow me to welcome you to our humble abode in this backwater of cyberspace. We have called this blog "A Man and a Movement" because our new media project that the National Black Programming Consortium was so graciously able to fund, is largely about just that: A Man and a Movement. Through this blog you will be able to accompany us through all the phases of production and get insights on the thoughts and feelings of the creators of this project while we write to summarize, reflect, and communicate the events and ideas associated with this effort.
First, allow me to introduce the subject. Mukasa Dada, or Willie Ricks was involved in the SNCC movement here in Atlanta in 60's. The Black students of the historically black consortium of schools, the Atlanta University Center, were a primary driving force for the social change. As the movement started to evolve and become associated with more militancy so did he. In fact, Mukasa is credited as creating the phrase "Black Power" which Stokely Carmichael went on to popularize. All the while, Mukasa kept the AUC as a strategic focus, considering the political and socioeconomic power and potential change that students have. However, unlike Mukasa's passion, the climate on the campuses did not remain consistent. As a result, many students today not only do not know the story of Mukasa but at best regard him a relic of bygone political philosophies that have no place in today's commercial climate.
With Mukasa, we really see more than just one man, but really an entire movement. Moreover, we get to see how students really think and feel about then and now. This project will not only tell a story that has seldom been told, but it will force the community from which it sprang to do some genuine soul searching and require that that community make some key decisions about its past and its future.
-W. Hassan Marsh