Preface to Eyes of a Poet

By Kalb Faouly Attimn Tshamba

My first name is Kaleb, "kah-leb," the first name of my father. Kaleb is an ancient name, regional and a biblical name from North Africa with several meanings, such as "he who is capable, he who is faithful, he who enters into the land of Canaan." In ancient Assyria, Kaleb means "a loyal servant of a messenger." Kaleb is a name for an Ethiopian male, and means "He who is born to challenge, or defy." It is a warrior's name meaning, "fearless, bold, brave." Kaleb was Emperor of the Christian kingdom of Axum (now northern Ethiopia) from 514-542 A.D.

So what's in your name? Do you know what you name means? If your name has no meaning, then your name is not a word, nor is it an idea. It is just a hollow vibration of sound spoken and received by your ears to get your attention, like the nature sound of falling rain, or a gust of wind before the storm, nature sound that exists only to get one's attention.

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The early years of my life were spent living in the Westport Housing project, which is located in South Baltimore. In 1956, we became the first Afrikan Amerikans to move on Maisel Court. The public housing project where we lived was a predominantly poor, lower-class white community.

When I was ten years old, I became a victim of racial violence. I was attacked by a neighborhood gang of White youths, and while defending myself I was hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat. I still carry that scar. At Westport Elementary School #225, I was called names like buckwheat, midnight, monkey, ink spot, darky, spade, blacky, black boogey, tar baby, koon, and nigger.

I have witnessed police brutality by racist cops and their unprovoked attacks on Afrikan-Amerikan men with my own eyes. I myself was once a victim of a crude game of Russian roulette, was threatened and called a nigger by two white police officers who had picked me up from the Carroll Park Golf Course. I still can remember those wooden telephone poles on Annapolis Road with homemade mannequin models of Afrikan-Amerikan men hanging from a rope tied around their necks, and at night in Westport's big park there were cross burnings.

These events and images didn't make much sense to me at that particular time. They didn't cause me to dislike or hate White people. In stead they helped me to be more aware of and mistrusting of that kind of behavior and attitude expressed by some Whites Whites that I felt were not civil or humane. These past events and mental images were embedded deep inside my memory many years ago. I hadn't even thought about them until now, after being advised that I should say something in this book about my own evolution as a man and a social conscious, political poet.

I am a product of those dreadful times, but I really believe that the late sixties and the early seventies affected me the most. I think my evolution as a social conscious person began with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On April 4, 1968, the riots and revolts followed. I was in my last year of high school and i had a job working at a paper factory after school. i graduated from Edmondson High School on June 17, 1968.

The country was in a turmoil with a national debate on the Vietnam War. The written songs and the music had a common theme based on love, peace, freedom, solidarity, self-pride, political protest, and social awareness. there was a whirlwind of political events, social activities, and street protest demonstrations that had sprung from the Civil Rights Movement into a movement of movements. There were the anti-war movement, the black-power movement, the women liberation movement, the student movement, and so on.

On February 10, 1969, I was hired by Carr Lowrey Glass Company in Westport. My employer informed me about a labor union for white employees and a labor union for black employees. And asked if I wanted to work, I would have to join GPPAW Local #33, the black union. I wasn't thinking about the economic inequity experienced by people of color in segregated labor unions at that time. I wasn't concerned about the social ills of this society, nor the political events that were taking place in the streets.

I was a young male full of fun still in my teens, in the years to come. It wouldn't be until the seventies that political education began May 11, 1969, when I was drafted into the Vietnam war. My tour of active duty was in the U.s. Navy. It is where I learned about a code of conduct and the most powerful meaning of words such as pride, courage, loyalty, honor, self-discipline, respect, justice, equality, and inclusion.

I learned that the military will transform boys into men and make followers into leaders. It was in the military that I obtained manhood. My military experience gave me something to believe in, something to fight for and something to die for. My tour of duty in the United States military had indeed made me more aware and strengthened me.

My travels to far distant lands, meeting with people of different cultures was an eye-opening experience. These experiences shaped my perception of how other people live, how they worship their God, and it gave me a new perception about the world we live in. It transformed and made me more conscious of the social and political condition of Afrikan-Amerikan people, and how Amerikans view people of other nations.

As a result of my political education and experiences, I obtained in the U.S. military I received an Afrkan last name. I had a goal, a mission, a new attitude, and I was forever changed. After being discharged from active service on may 11, 1971, I came home to the State of Maryland, back to Baltimore City, a stronger, a wiser and a more conscious person than when I left. I didn't know then, but I would later be applying those values gain in the U.S. military to my own experience in the struggle for the upliftment of my own people.

I sought employment at my former job, Carr Lowrey Glass Company under the Veteran's Reemployment Rights Act. As I re-entered Carr Lowrey's workforce, i noticed that the company was still behind the times and was unlike the U.S. military which had ended the practice of segregating members by race. Carr Lowrey was still a predominantly white company that openly practiced and engaged in acts that were racist and discriminatory. It was common knowledge that Carr Lowrey did knowingly encourage and maintain segregated labor unions, departments, and bathrooms.

Unlike the military, Carr Lowrey had a practice of excluding Afrikan Amerikans from promotion opportunities. the company had a special test only for Afrikan Amerikans. I became a victim of the company's racist testing policies. It was later revealed that this test was illegal and not supposed to have been given to anyone in the State of Maryland. Unlike the military, where Afrikan Amerikan men were addressed by their names, Carr Lowrey's management and staff called Afrkan Amerikan men "boy."

It had been a few months since my separation from the Vietnam conflict and now I was about to enter another type of conflict, except this was more personal. i felt that it was my duty as a man to get involved in this struggle, to fight for equal rights and social justice on the job and off the job. i had now become a labor activist, agitator, and union organizer.

On June 30, 1975, the Court certified Car Lowrey's Black employees as a class. On November 15, 1981, in the Court Order consent Decree Settlement of this class action lawsuit, Carr Lowrey Glass Company agreed to the terms of this settlement that Black employees who applied for and were denied promotion to craft positions were to receive backpay and a promotion to craft positions which they were previously denied, and to reinstate fifteen black employees who were discharged and to distribute backpay to fifty present and former employees.

The company also agreed to "provide equal employment opportunities to all regardless of race or color in their recruitment, hiring, promotion, testing, job assignment, job classification, job qualification, discharge and discipline, practices, policies, and system and other terms, conditions and privileges of employment would be maintained and conducted in a manner that does not discriminate on the basis of race in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act."

My participation as a union activist on my job in this struggle for justice and equality prepared me to engage and speak out against other social ills of society. Seeing people every day crippled by addiction, unemployment, racial discrimination and poverty, I supported and helped my own neighborhood of Westport. I started a community-based information and educational grocery store in Westport, which I named Umoja Harambee Community Grocery Store. I joined and got involved with the different religious, political, cultural, and community-based organizations in Baltimore City and I supported the struggle of those Afrikan liberation movement abroad.

I became a social conscious, political activist, a community organizer and trade unionist. It was my involvement in these combined struggles of promoting human rights, and social justice for all people that led me to enroll in college. My related college experience as an undergraduate student, majoring in political science at Morgan  and Coppin State between 1977-1981, provided me with the knowledge and training that eventually led me to evolve into a full-fledged social conscious, political poet.

Through my poetry I began expressing my activism and my protest. i have been invited to perform at numerous protest demonstrations outside the prisons, at City Hall, the State House, at recreation centers and parks, at colleges and universities, and a large number of churches and radio stations throughout Baltimore City by reading my political poetry. . . . Poetry can be used to educate as well as entertain the listener or the reader. . . . To understand me is to understand my story. These poems are part of my story and my evolution.