Host Haywood Fennell encourages listeners to contact their elected officials about veterans' concerns & needs. He gives updates on the The Oscar Micheaux Family Theater Program Company, concerns with the Department of Education, the Triad Veterans League Commemorative Stamp Series, housing for homeless veterans, & more.
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The following commentary does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff and management of WBCA or the Boston Neighborhood Network. If you would like to express another opinion, you can address your comments to Boston Neighborhood Network, 302-5 Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02119. To arrange a time for your own commentary, you can call WBCA at 617-708-3215 or email radio@bnnmedia.org. [Music] Good afternoon and welcome to the other page of radio brought to you by Triad Veterans League in association with BNN Media Services. My name is Hayward Fennell. We're here on WBCA LP, 102.9 FM Boston. You can let your friends know that we are here on WBCA LP, 102.9 FM Boston. Tell your friends, you can tell your friends to listen to what's going on for the veterans in our community. Folks, you know, we're going to start off talking about what we are looking forward to as we move towards the end of the year. Triad Veterans League represents the veteran and we advocate for veterans about the issues that we feel are important and are not being addressed by the city of Boston or elected officials on all three levels, federal, state, and city. Veterans are not being respected in the manner that they should. You can call your elected officials and just ask the question. You can ask them about housing for veterans. You can ask them about mental health treatment for veterans. You can ask them, "What are you doing for the veterans and their families?" You can do that. We can encourage you to do that because we are Triad Veterans League and we have been working in the city of Boston, trying to get them to understand that when you serve and raise your hand to die for this country and you come home, you are to be respected, not rejected as it's been happening so many times. You can make a difference. You can call your elected officials. You can go online and see where they are and call them and let them know that you are calling because you can do that. They are supposed to be representing the interests of the veterans but they are not and you can let them know what you would like for them to do. The BBC ALP 102.9 FM Boston, we're going to be with you for a little while today and we just want to start off with a, "Please take care of our veterans." You know I got to say one thing about the Oscar Michelle Family Theater program company also known simply as the company funded in 1997. Since that time we have been involved in performing, teaching, reaching and empowering people using American history around the time of what is now known as the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was an explosive movement that seemed to come together all over the United States of America in black communities fighting for social justice and fighting to go on the stages at the theaters and perform. They didn't want us to perform but we wanted to perform because we knew we had talent. We could write, we could sing, we could intellectualize, we could do all the things in theater but Jim Crow laws in place would try to better our desire, our plan, our goal to achieve manifest destiny. It was meant for the black theater movement now known as the Harlem Renaissance to come forth and bring forth, a talent like an explosion all over the world, it happened. They say Harlem simply because Harlem had the largest concentration of African Americans but, but, wait a minute, all up, Charlotte North Carolina, Kansas City, Kansas, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, they too were involved in this movement. Many places, many places, many people championed this movement and at the same time, just a little before that, the Niagara Falls movement came into existence. The Niagara Falls movement was the first name of the NAACP, they were our champs and they still are. It's a little bit of history today that we're going to mix up in our program because that's what we do. Not completing high school is more of a social thing than it was an academic thing. In all these years, I've passed, I still had that longing to have my diploma. At age 30, Carissa finished her high school diploma. If you're even considering getting your high school diploma, you can do it. No one gets a diploma alone. If you're thinking of finishing your high school diploma, you have help. Find free adult education classes near you at finishyourdiploma.org. That's finishyourdiploma.org, brought to you by the Dollar General Literacy Foundation and the Ad Council. One of the things that we do here at the other page, radio, is that we give out information that we think that could help you and help our community. Folks, there's been a pushback. You know it. I know it. You see it. I see it. We see it. How are we going to deal with a future administration that's coming in and saying, "Listen, folks, these people are very serious, dismantling the education department." They are actually stating that they are going to dismantle the Department of Education and put some people who have not been confirmed. Everybody is concerned about their credentials, their behaviors, and some of them are going to be sitting and talking about getting rid of the Department of Education. What are you going to do? You can consider organizing and making sure that we have programs in place. You can do this. You can consider this going into some of these churches and some of these organizations that have space and set up and develop a curriculum for our young people to know their history. It's not a mystery. Triad Veterans League is proud of its commitment to education and cultural values. And when I say that, I'm talking about the Oscar Michaud family theater program company and I mentioned them earlier in our program because they are going to be in Sharon Mass on November 30 at 3.30 and it's going to be at 4 North Main Street. Sharon Massachusis, folks, will be hosting the Oscar Michaud family theater program who will perform legacy, the Harlem Renaissance, the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, and the descendants of the Harlem Renaissance movement will be the cast. You can call 857-204-5312 for further information. Again, here's that song again for the hundredth time today. Here's that song again. It's going to be stuck in your head all day. Here's that song again. It will make you cray-cray. You love your kids enough to watch that TV show a bajillion times. Love them enough to make sure they're in the right car seat for their age and size. Show them you love them. Keep them safe. Visit NHTSA.gov/therightseat, brought to you by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Ad Council. Not completing high school is more of a social thing than it was an academic thing. Even though all these years have passed, I still had that longing to have my diploma. At age 30, Carissa finished her high school diploma. If you're even considering getting your high school diploma, you can do it. No one gets a diploma alone. If you are thinking of finishing your high school diploma, you have help. Find free adult education classes near you at finishyourdiploma.org. That's finishyourdiploma.org, brought to you by the Dollar General Literacy Foundation and the Ad Council. That's what I'm talking about. See, I had to get that in there again. Because you can finish your high school online, you can finish your high school a lot of different ways. But what happens to learning when you destroy the Department of Education, how do we learn? How will we learn? So we got now a president coming in who tries to ridicule our veterans by calling them suckers and losers. And then when you look at the January 6th insurrection, and I mean that insurrection, you see movements, group movements of people moving like military people do, scaling walls, strategic movements, weapons. These are veterans. They're not wearing the uniform, but you know the moves. And here's a man that said that those people that wear the uniforms or wore the uniforms, they looses. They suckers. Yet we had these people, male and female, attacking the capital, voting for, and that's their right, that's their right, that's their right, can't argue with that now. But what you can do, you can thank for yourself, are you a sucker, are you a veteran, are you a loser, ask yourself that question, you know, I've been around a little while. And I remember my uncles who were in the military to them. And the military at their time was segregated, and they performed and they served the country and they got out, but one uncle stayed in for 30 years, maybe 28, I don't know, they served this country. So I want to talk a little bit about pushback again. We need to understand that the services for the United States military and the freedom of America started the American Revolution. You hear terms like no taxation without representation, you know, British were in control and the United States came together, George Washington, Hamilton, and a few other people, Benjamin Franklin included. And they said, we're going to fight for our independence. And they did. And they won their independence. There was some casualties there. And throughout the history of the United States and its wars and other countries, bringing freedom to other countries, African American men and women were there dying, not lying like some people we know. And so Triad Veterans League, a little over 10 years ago, sort of need to put together something that would show periods and people, African Americans, because I don't know if Latinos was involved, but we do have a Latino in the art exhibit that came out called The Hidden Legends of Military Victories, something like that. And we took that exhibit of 13 paintings and got the help of Steven Hamilton, master artist over there at Harvard now. At that time, he was an artist for humanity in South Boston, some young kids that I came in and talked with about the African American experience in the United States military. And they decided what they were going to draw and render. You can't see it. We have 13 pictures and two that we highlight are Christmas addicts, who was the first casualty in Boston fighting the British, she was killed downtown. Later, we had the 54th volunteer regiment doing the Civil War that was all black with a white commanding officer, and they fought gallantly, and they died gallantly. And a lot of things that happen in the military, we're trying to bring back the consciousness of the people and the public. If we've been working on the project, when I say we up to my tribe, veterans, these and those people that are friendly to this strategy of creating a United States commemorated stamp series. If you're interested and want to know more about this strategic effort to push back on those that would try to just disfigure the military contributions of African American military folks, you can call 857-204-5312 if you want to know you can get the information to be a supporter. We are planning to take our proposal to the United States Postal Service, the special section that deals with commemorated stamps, etc. in February 2025. We have been busy collecting signatures and getting the support for our documentary from B&N Media Services up in Studio A. We have a documentary, me talking about the project, the importance of the project, we have a bunch of signatures, we can do a PSA of one or two with the young people. Want to build this momentum with your help. You can't help. You don't have to be a veteran to help a veteran. This is WBCALP 102.9 FM Boston. This is the other page, not the back page, not the front page, but the other page. We are talking right now about the United States commemorated postal stamp series that we intend to apply for our veterans, for our history, for teaching and reaching and building pride and empowering people on the truth we served. We deserve to be served. How is it do you ever, ever think that America would have homeless veterans? How did that happen? How is it that you can, meaning the United States government, can spend billions of dollars to sustain war efforts, but you can't spend billions of dollars on the veterans that serve and have no place to stay? What are you going to do about it? Are you not a veteran? You don't have any veteran friends, or you don't have any relatives that were veterans, no cousins, no uncles, no nieces. We fall in the pieces when it comes to our veterans. We can do better than that. You can call your elected officials, go online. You can go online if you don't have their numbers. You can start dialing. You can ask all the questions you want because somebody got to have some answers. I'm going to fight for veterans to the day I die. When you say my name, you know my game is veterans. I'm not one to play, shuck and jive, play around like I don't know what's happening. WBCALP 102.9 FM Boston, this is a happening program right here. You can get all the information if you want it. You can't hear it from me when it comes to veterans. I raised my hand and I'm not going to put my hand down until we get some respect. I'm not looking for no money because you can't buy dignity and respect with money. You can only confuse the situation. You're getting ready to witness one of the, "Oh my goodness, it's going to be like Dante's Inferno." You can see all the greedy people come out. Forget about our veterans and a lot of the people that are going to be very dismayed when they find out that what was promised is not going to happen. I didn't believe them. No. I know that I'm not a sucker and I know that my uncles and my brother were not losers for serving and wearing a uniform with two of them being in the wartime situation. I know that a lot of African-American brothers and sisters died. I know that a lot of African-American brothers and sisters are dealing with mental health and stress and hard to cope situations. I know that the United States government can do better. It's been $50 billion and you can't spend $50 billion in your own country for the people that fought for this country. There's something terribly wrong with that picture. You got to say that to the people because they need to know that we're not complacent, that we put together a plan and a demand for dignity and respect for our veterans. I'm here in Boston, but I know that this problem is across the nation. I don't need anybody to smile at me and then walk away and don't do nothing. Some of them try to do that with haywood, you know, so I got to tell them. To be a good example of what I'm talking about on Veterans Day a couple of weeks ago, Triad Veterans League was at the general Edward O. Gordin, G-O-U-R-D-I-N, African-American Veterans Memorial Park for the first Veterans Day celebration in Roxbury. The other Veterans Day celebration in our area would be the one that's down in the South Inn. A lot of people were there, I'm told, and we had a nice crowd. We had the mayor, President of Boston City Council, Secretary of the Commission of Veterans Affairs for City of Boston and some veterans that we had. The blue wall, the blue wall was there, the Boston Police Department representatives that our veterans came and showed up and took some pictures. Thanks Kevin Fisher for donating your time and services and providing us the prints that you provided us that we're going to bring up a little later on in a book. So, when I say book, I want you to listen real good. The outcome of this strategy to present to the United States Postal Service for the creation of the commemorated stamp series, it also includes a strategy to create a digital ties guide on African-American veterans and their contributions to the United States of America. We will do that. Triad Veterans League is no joke. We have been in existence in this city since 1993. I am a veteran, I am an American citizen, and my family are American citizens and members of my family's service country. You now have, coming in, a president, a commander-in-chief with none of his family members. Ever when a United States uniform, not the Navy, not the Army, not the Marine Corps, not the Air Force, not the National Guard, none of that. He calls military men and women losers and suckers. Get to that. What are you thinking? Can we make America great again? America has always been great. We fought for America to be great, he didn't. He didn't fight for America, none of his family fought for America, and they are making noise. Well, you know to say the empty wagon makes the most noise. If you think that America is not great, you don't know what you're talking about. You've got to go to some of them other countries, see how they live, before you agree with that. Well, you put that red cap on here, take it off, take it off. I raised my hand like a lot of other people did, and in the other hand, a lot of people got a gun. I didn't get a gun. I got a camera. I got an opportunity to work as an information specialist writing. I'm non-combat, I'm non-combat, but they could have called me like they called them other ones when they wanted to, if they wanted to, but they didn't. I'm proud of my service in the United States military, six years to be exact. I don't need anybody to tell me that I'm a fool and I'm a sucker that never wore a uniform. You just need to think about that, you know, you don't run around here talking about this and talking about that, and you didn't serve. You can't say that. You can't open your mouth to a private, because yourself a commanding chief, you ought to be shaming yourself. We died, we didn't lie. A lot of people, they don't support the veterans, because I remember when the Vietnam War was going on, a lot of veterans came back and they was calling them child killers, baby killers, and these men were just parliament artists, and the other people were fighting for their country. So, they were called communist and democracy, they were still doing it today. Put the guns down, keep them down. People make money when wars are going on. The project that I told you about commemorated stamp project, is supported by the William Joiner Institute, that UMass Boston, where I graduated from, I'm a UMass Boston alumni. Thank you so much for your support, I want to get that in, because we've got some people that try to politicize and not support that our elected officials, and I don't have no time to deal with other kinds of stuff. Outdid line for getting our proposal for the United States Postal Service Special Department February 25, about three, four months off, we're going to get it there. I want to thank some of the people, veterans, Will Skinner, you know, for being there helping us out, I want to thank, you know, so many people that can't name them all, Vivian Rogers, Maddie Dee with the collecting signatures, part of the project, Frederico M. Williams Footier Street, CEO, they have a program there for veterans that don't want to go to the VA, they're sensitive to the needs of our veterans, and then there's Catherine King up there on Harvard Street in Blue Hill Avenue, and they're building on the corner there. They have a strong veterans program there, they say, "Two's is to give breakfasts." You can go there if you're a veteran on Tuesday mornings, I guess, to probably want to know how to tell you something like that, get yourself a hot meal and do a little socializing. If you need anything done, you can get it done. And get it done, we must folks, and get it done, we will veterans, because we're not chumps. We're not losers. We're not suckers. Imagine that. Can you imagine that, though? He would get in your face and say that, and know he's not a veteran and know he's wrong. I'm not going to tell you what to do if you ever have the opportunity to speak about that. I'm not going to tell you what to do. You can do what you have to do, because you raise your hand, you raise your hand. Some of you came back home with a dull look in your eye like a fish on ice in a fish market, couldn't talk about where you've been, didn't know where you were going, you were just showing up defeated, but you didn't leave that way, you was bright-eyed, going to do your duty. What you said you were going to do when you raised your hand. Now look, you're in the street, you're strung out like a research monkey off them drugs or alcohol, you're trying to heal yourself, they don't want to get you no place to stay with accommodating services, because if they give you some place to stay, just the room, they become attuned because you're not getting treatment for your PTSD and the other mental health anguishes that you're going through, with your family codependent on what's happening to you and they don't know what to do. What do you do? What will you do? What must you do? We must come together and respect those that gave their lives and those that almost gave their lives, those that are scarred forever, don't talk to us in any way, respect us when you talk to a veteran. We're not beggars, we're none of that negative stuff, certainly not suckers and losers. I can't get over that, I really can't. You know, we got to stand up together or fall together, but we got to be together. This is the other page, radio, my name is Heywood Fennell, senior and WBCA-LP102.9 FM Boston. We're going to move away for the veterans right now, and we're going to go to World AIDS Day, some of the second I believe, it's the day that they declared that one of the most painful times in my life occurred when my son passed from HIV. I didn't know the severity of it. I got an opportunity to learn as an outreach educator at the Multicultural AIDS Coalition Incorporated on Tremont Street, now they've moved to Palm Street here in Boston. And I learned, and I'm still learning, that HIV/AIDS is on an incline, not a decline. And all the other things that's associated with it, all the other illnesses, but we got to find some hope. I want to thank Spoke, the program Spoke, and Multicultural AIDS Coalition Incorporated. They were my guests early on my television shows, the other page TV, we do that every other week, the next time we do it will be December the 11th, and we try to keep people aware and not to be aware. We try to build people, removing the fear with information that they can handle and deal with because deal with us. Big brothers, big sisters of Eastern Massachusetts, works to transform communities by empowering, defending, and igniting the potential of youth across Eastern Massachusetts, ensuring every child has the support from caring adults that they need for healthy development and success in life. Big brothers, big sisters, fosters one-to-one mentoring relationships between child and adult, helping the youth in our communities achieve their fullest potential. But at any given moment, there are hundreds of children in our region in need of a caring adult full model. Do you have what it takes to become a defender of potential? You can learn more at Mass Bay, Big Stewart. Like I said, we want to get you all the information we think that you need to get things done. It's just the other page, "Radio, My Name is Hable from Now." I'm a veteran and I'm concerned about welfare of our veterans, and we work real hard in a project we call "Beyond the Uniform," where we try to get volunteers, veterans or not, to work with us in our program to deal with literacy, culture, values, and advocating for veterans. You know, we're simply trying to make a difference. We're not trying to blow no smoke, we're trying to remove the smoke and the smokers. We tell lies when we try to be better, we say that, "Oh, no, you can't change. No, you got to stay using drugs. You know, you got to, you can't change, but we do change. We will change. We must change." You know, don't give up on yourself, folks. I'm the epitome of one who did not give up on oneself. I use drugs, or drugs use me. I went to jails, and bales, and bales, and family losses, and now I've got my family back with me, and I haven't lost anything for almost 30 years that I've been in recovery. I just want to say, don't judge me, don't judge nobody. Look at yourself and try to make the correction that you need, but if you need help, if you need help, like, ACLP calls somebody. You can do that. You can call a friend. You can go to a meeting, or you can stay on the beating. You can't use them when. You can only use and lose. I want to get back to the conversation that I was making about the commemorative stamp in the art. I was talking to a friend of mine, a young lady, and she's an artist, and I was talking to another person, and she's a veteran, and I'm going to try to see if we can't put together a veteran's art program, where the veterans can, you know, spend some time doing their art, and then we can show it. I'm going to be talking to some folks about that, and I'm going to keep you posted, and I want you to know that veterans are not Vegas. Don't push us on the side, because we need help, help us, and you know what? You got a lot of people that are veterans that act like they don't know veterans need help. You know, you got some of them people that went on to school, on the GI Bill, and got a first degree, and then they went on and got an advanced degree, and then some of them come up with Ph.D.'s and they on their knees. You see what I said? You can't accommodate wrong by doing wrong on a continuous basis. You got to change your thinking or stay stinking. You can do that, too, but we need you. You ever see that graphic, or the guy with a high hat on, with the red, white, and the blue for on the spinger, and saying, "We want you," it was an Uncle Sam graphic. When I'm pulling my finger at the veterans and saying, "We need you. We don't want you. We need you to be involved with the veteran's strategy to improve ourselves and to raise our standards, because these guys, they don't get it, man. We're not suckers and fools, sir, you didn't serve. You don't deserve what you did. We've been everywhere all over the world fighting the fight, everywhere, for a freedom that we don't even have as a people. You got a lot of nerve hiding up there, "Tell me something wrong with your feet." Oh, it's more wrong with your head, and how you got people thinking, and you know you ain't doing nothing but setting them up. It's like when we was on the rightful range, we'd be waiting for the target. And then you hit somebody and say, "Toggets, the target's going to appear," and you start shooting at the targets. The targets are getting ready to appear next year, and the wrong people are going to fall, but they fell for anything, and now they've got to reap what they sow. And when they just sit in there, there's a Bible statement, "Reep what you sow." I used to wonder what they meant by that, and I found out, and I found out. We may be down, but we ain't out. I'll tell you that, most of the betterments may be down, but we're not out. We're coming back. Believe that. You're going to give us our respect, and that's what we deserve. Don't do me no favor. I earned this, I earned this space, this place, because otherwise I'd be displaced, I'd be out of it. I want to thank the people at the VA Hospital in the Deeds House almost 30 years ago to help me get clean and to become mean. I hear from them often, because like I said, I'm involved in the community. I go to the prisons, and I talk to them, I tell them what I'm doing, I don't be talking about the other stuff, because I want them to change their thinking so I don't have to go back up in them prisons, and he's got them label coming out, returning citizens. They were never citizens, people found a way to make money off our backs, no, no, we got to stop that, that's displacing the values. We deserve to be treated better, because we earned it. Everybody's giving us anything, we earned it folks, www.veteransinc, www.veteransinc, meaning you can go to their website, but anyway, we wrapping up now, don't run, don't go running out the door, unless you're going to tell somebody what we talked about today, we talked about veterans, we talked about the commemorated stamp series, we talked about housing, we talked about you can call, you can call, folks that are in elected office positions, and you can thank some of the veterans that are doing the work in the community that's trying to make some sense of this mess, causing this stress, talking about taking down the Department of Education, whoever heard of such thoughts, what did we as veterans fight for the right to learn, the right to be better, and now we have some people that's coming up talking about, we are going to get rid of the education system in the United States of America. So what is my question? Are you crazy, you don't have to answer that, you don't have to answer that. This has been a day of retribution, not reparation. We don't need reparation, we need retribution, you can look up in the dictionary what the difference is, when we come back we have a calling number for you, you'll be able to communicate to all our listeners the difference between reparation and retribution. He was away from our homes, I remember being in a tank on God duty in Okinawa as a young man, and it was a Friday night, and I said, "Oh, they partying back on." And people had forgot all about me, out of sight, out of mind, but veterans are in sight, and people still are trying to act like they are out of sight, that they don't see them, that we are not visible, well, you're going to see something, you're going to see how the country out of greed, not knee is going to fold, veterans stand to demand. We are worthy because we have served, no other way, nobody's giving you anything. You can call, you can go to the veterans, people, you make a plane, or you could go downtown the city hall, but you can't do that. You're not doing anything but helping yourself. Don't let them take us for granted. We serve, and we deserve to be served. It's been a great program today. I'm so grateful that you can call me at 857-204-5312. If you need to know what to do, I'm available because people like Ron Armstead, a veteran historian, help me understand that you can't get to a good place by yourself. You got to ask for help. And I don't have any problem doing that, and you shouldn't either. We're here to help you, not hinder you. You deserve housing. You deserve a job. You deserve to be able to go into a detox with treatment on demand in play. They forgot about treatment on demand, and they got the veterans in the jail, in the prison, and you're not working with them. The experiences of the veterans that charge cause them to go to jail or prison, they need help. They don't need to be laying around in the cells, not doing anything, playing cards, and then send back into the community the same way that they went in. That won't work, my friend. That will not work. Prior Veterans' Leagues, WBCALP 102.9 FM Boston, we were having it up, folks. But we want to thank you for listening. We hope you got some information as you can use. You can share it with your friends. You can share it with your friends. We'll be back next time. God bless you, and take care of yourself. Love to the veterans. Love to the veterans. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Following commentary does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff and management of WBCA or the Boston Neighborhood Network. If you would like to express another opinion, you can address your comments to Boston Neighborhood Network, 302-5 Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02119. To arrange a time for your own commentary, you can call WBCA at 617-708-3215 or email radio at BNNMedia.org. 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