Jacquelyn Marie Burge, Independent thinker

A memorial to Jacquelyn Marie Burge By Paul Lee Special to the Michigan Citizen On Feb. 4, 2008, Mrs. Jacquelyn Marie (Bradley) Burge of Rochester Hills, Mich., passed away at the age of 76. The facts of her biography don’t seem particularly outstanding, not even to her family. They are as follows: Mrs. Burge was born at Battle Creek, Mich., on Nov. 7, 1931, the only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lowell R. Bradley, and had four brothers. Her family helped found the venerable Messiah Baptist church at nearby Grand Rapids, Mich. She graduated from Battle Creek Central High School, studied at a business school at Ann Arbor, and worked at the U. S. Army’s old Percy Jones General Hospital at Battle Creek and the Veterans Administration Hospital. Her son Robin, also known as Che after the famous Argentine-Cuban revolutionary Ernesto (Che) Guevara, recalls she was lively, and danced the can-can in the VA’s annual follies. During the 1960s, she was the secretary of the Grand Rapids branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation’s oldest civil-rights organization. She leaves behind to cherish her memory her husband of 45 years, Otis Burge; two sons, Robin D. and Gary L., and their wives, Melba and Mona, respectively; three daughters, Elaine Lee, Adrienne Robinson and Suzanne Taylor; a son-in-law, Suzanne’s husband, Sean; eight grandchildren, Christopher, Alexander, Nicholas, Hope, Aaron Melanie, Chana and Devin; eight great-grandchildren; and a host of relatives and friends. A veiled life I was privileged to know Mrs. Burge through her daughter Adrienne, one of my dearest friends. Mrs. Burge’s warm embrace of me made her “Mom” during our first meeting. I was struck by her keen, subtle and richly cultivated intelligence. Adrienne recalls her as a voracious reader, and it showed. This was true not only in her exceptionally insightful comments about politics, history or whatever else was under discussion, but also in what she noticed — which seemed to be everything. Like Adrienne, or Red, as I began calling her soon after we met because of the striking color of her hair, Mom was a strikingly beautiful woman who had to contend with assumptions based on her looks rather than what was in and on her vigorous mind — which was a lot. I learned a great deal from our talks, but they were notable for what was omitted: her history. Mom was apt to open up everything under the sun, except herself. Ironically, it was my profession as a historian that allowed me to pierce a small corner of the veil she draped over her life. Mom?! In 2001, while conducting research on Malcolm X at the old Grand Rapids Public Library, I was startled to find a letter by one Jacquelyn M. Burge to The Grand Rapids Press, apparently written when she was the local NAACP secretary. It was published on Feb 25, 1965, four days after the African-American Muslim and nationalist leader’s assassination. At first, I wasn’t sure if Mom wrote the letter because she’d never mentioned it to me, or Che, or Red. This surprised me because Mom and I discussed at some length Malcolm X, whose life and legacy I’ve studied since 1974. However, the letter’s precise and forceful use of words, sharp perceptiveness and swelling passion convinced me — yep, Mom wrote it. It should be clear by now that I loved and admired her, so it would be fair to question my judgment on this, but I believe that she wrote one of the finest defenses of Malcolm X ever published. Ever. (Her complete letter is printed separately.) Of course, the next time that Red took me to visit Mom in Rochester Hills, I asked about the letter. She confirmed that she wrote it and accepted my praise. An exceptionally regal woman, she, like the sovereigns of old, acknowledged appreciation with reserved grace — a simple nod, in this case. But she had nothing more to offer about the letter’s genesis or its affect upon her locally, if any. I knew better than to delve further. Standing, walking and writing for freedom I reflected then, as I did again when I learned of her passing, how remarkable it was for a member of the NAACP to publicly embrace and even defend Malcolm X, who had been demonized in the white and black news media as a racist, an anti-Semite and a promoter of violence. By doing so, she not only tilted against The Grand Rapids Press, but also against the NAACP’s leadership. However, I recently learned from Che that she had a track record for standing up for her beliefs, and also walking for them. Two years earlier, on June 23, 1963, Mom, with 14-year-old Che in tow, joined with hundreds of thousands of others in Detroit’s historic “Walk To Freedom,” led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., down Woodward Avenue, the city’s main thoroughfare. The march ended in a rally at the old Cobo Arena, along Detroit’s waterfront, where Dr. King delivered a version of his now world-famous “I Have a Dream” speech. ‘Grand Rapids Press’ and Malcolm X On Feb., 23, 1965, The Grand Rapids Press headlined its editorial on Malcolm X’s assassination “He Reaped the Whirlwind.” Apparently, the paper’s first direct contact with him had occurred four years earlier. On May 30, 1961, Malcolm X stopped by The Grand Rapids Press for a mostly fair, in-depth interview conducted by reporter Charles H. Moore. Malcolm X’s elder brother Philbert X (later Abdul Aziz Omar) and two local followers accompanied him. On Feb. 7, 1962, The Grand Rapids Press announced that Malcolm X would return to Grand Rapids on Monday, Feb. 12, 1962, to address a public meeting at the Fountain Street Baptist church on “Segregation, Separation, and Integration.” According to The Grand Rapids Press report on Feb. 18, 1962, Malcolm X addressed “More than 350 persons, black and white,” at Fountain Street Baptist Church. “Malcolm was in Grand Rapids recruiting, for the second time in a little more than six months,” it noted. Stereotypes Unlike Charles Moore’s interview, the report of Malcolm X’s speech was more editorial opinion than objective journalism, concluding with undocumented inferences that associated the NOI with violence and Adolph Hitler: “There are overtones to the movement which are a matter of concern to leading Negro integrationist leaders and law enforcement officers throughout the country.” “One branch of the organization, the para-military Fruit of Islam unit, acts independently of local temple activity and is clothed in such secrecy that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is reportedly keeping a close watch on its activities. “On a large scale, authorities are concerned about the possibility that the movement could lead to violence. In its exhortation of racial superiority, Black Muslimism has been compared to the German Third Reich.” (The reporter was Kurt Luedtke, who would later win the 1986 best screenplay Oscar award for his adaptation of the novel Out of Africa.) Following Malcolm X’s assassination, the paper’s stereotyping of him only increased. Wholly ignoring his well-publicized post-NOI rejection of racism and distorting by omission his advocacy of self-defense against attacks by racists, the editorial dismissed the value of his life and legacy in the first two sentences: “Malcolm X preached hate against all white men. He advocated violence and had nothing but contempt for Negro leaders who refused to resort to it in their struggle for civil rights.” Offering not a single incident of violence either promoted or conducted by Malcolm X, the editorial nevertheless managed to associate him with violence by citing three examples in which he was the target or victim. “A former leader of the Black Muslims recently declared in a national magazine that the organization is a fraud. … He discloses that an attempt was planned on Malcolm’s life last summer. It failed because Malcolm X didn’t appear for a scheduled speech. On Sunday, Feb., 14, three gasoline bombs were hurled into Malcolm’s house, though no one was injured. But when his enemies went after him last Sunday at the Audubon Ballroom in upper Manhattan they made sure they would get him.” The formula “Violence invariably begets violence,” the editorial preached, while apparently exempting from this immutable formula the U. S. government, and the escalating violence in its undeclared war against African-Americans. Recognizing he had no evidence of violent acts to associate with Malcolm X, the editor implicitly amended the formula to mean that defense against violence begets violence: “Malcolm X sought to arouse the hatred and anger of Negroes against whites,” he charged, ignoring the racist and violent attitudes and actions of whites against blacks. “Whether he realized that he was about to reap the whirlwind of the wind he had sown is now beside the point so far as he is concerned,” he continued, with no expression of sympathy for the victim or his family. “But his fate should awaken in all those who are inclined to listen to the prophets of hate an awareness of the futility of violence. Malcolm X died for a false cause. He accomplished nothing worthwhile for his people,” it concluded with one of the unkindest cuts made by any publication that ever essayed his life. Rising to his defense Contrary to NAACP leadership and much of the membership, Mom, in spare, pointed prose, deftly defended Malcolm X’s call for black pride and self-defense in a letter to The Grand Rapids Press. Contrasting Malcolm X’s stress on “racial” dignity with the portrayal of “Jim,” a slave character in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, during a period when “Negro history” was not being taught in schools, she argued that misrepresentations of African Americans could only be countered by “independent reading.” She ripped the “multitudinous references to Malcolm X as “‘a man of violence,’” such as appeared in The Grand Rapids Press editorial. “Is there a man anywhere who does not believe he has the right to protect his home and family, if threatened?” she asked. Paraphrasing Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, she continued: “What fools you mortals be if you believe that preaching self-defense is synonymous with advocating aggressive behavior. Negroes have too long accepted the violence and degradation which others have chosen to heap upon them.” Moreover, she directly contradicted its dismissive assessment of the man and his contributions, concluding, “…we cannot help… but mourn the loss of a man who dedicated his life to a just cause — exhorting us to hold our heads high that we might take our place in the sun.” Sleep well, Mom, and thank you. Copyright © 2008 by Paul Lee Jacquelyn M. Burge to The Grand Rapid Press Feb. 25, 1965 Mourns Loss of Malcolm X. Editor of The Press: I feel compelled to protest the multitudinous references to Malcolm X as “a man of violence.” Is there a man anywhere who does not believe he has the right to protect his home and family, if threatened? What fools you mortals be if you believe that preaching self-defense is synonymous with advocating aggressive behavior. Negroes have too long accepted the violence and degradation which others have chosen to heap upon them. We have been encouraged too long to believe that being savages, just out of the jungle, we deserve no better. Malcolm X’s speech on a Grand Rapids radio station some time ago inspired me to believe that Negroes do have more of a right to their place in the sun than some people would have us believe. Required reading in a 10th grad class at the [Ottawa Hills] high school which my son [Robin Parker] attends is “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” which would cause any Negro teenager to hang his head in shame. In our education, we have been denied the opportunity to study Negro history, and only in independent reading do we learn of the many, many things of which we can be proud. In being denied the right to have the same strivings, the same morals, and the same intelligence as other human beings, we cannot help them [then] but mourn the loss of a man who dedicated his life to a just cause — exhorting us to hold our heads high that we might take our place in the sun. Mrs. Jacquelyn M. Burge

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KWASI Akyeampong May 18, 2008 at 2:22pm

The following are two comments from The Michigan Citizen:

Reader Opinions

Larry Crowe •
MAR 05 • I was enriched by Paul Lee's article commemorating Jacqueline Burge as an informed independent thinker. We need more people like her. It seems that we have more independent action than thought these days.

Kwasi Akwamu
MAR 03 • As always, Paul Lee proves himself very adept at highlighting the least noticeable qualities of those living among us and who have gone before us. He has given much life to the spirit of the late Mrs. Burge, whom i've never known til now. She will be remembered!

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TRIBUTES: Homage and Praises

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