Michael Harris

Higher education leader | Ed.D. | Researching reparative justice & Black Male Studies | Student-athlete advocate | ΩΨΦ | ✝️ | Husband & Father | Views my own

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@jemelehill Is America a nation or a marketplace? Affirmative Action exists in India as a means to address the brutal caste system that has existed within Indian society?

This the begs the question as to what caste he belongs and how it shapes his views on remediation for inequality.

[Black Enterprise @blackenterprise]

Dr. Myron L. Rolle, former NFL safety and pediatric neurosurgeon, has joined the NFL as a strategic advisor on player health, brain safety, and preventive care, according to a June... https://t.co/MSAU8CwJN6

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@ados_strong @RepJackKimble He has to be exhausted, because this is like the 2nd or 3rd 45 minute conversation he had today…

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@raphousetv2 RQQ to the Good Bruh!

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@jgatzme I believe only 2 of 16 SEC schools even have a Men’s Soccer program.

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@jamaalwvetose The benevolent sexism that occurs in our community does a disservice to our children and communities.

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@StephenStorey Tod Hamilton in “Immigration and The Reshaping of Black America” explains why this is an inexact comparison.

Due to selective migration, this compares African and Caribbean elites (Top 10%) who have the ambition to move for opportunities, against the entirety of native BAs.

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@AnthonyGSupreme @SteveWallaceSr I find it interesting that the same political class that finds Black inherited-intergenerational experience i.e lineage-based advocacy objectionable has no problem with such black advocacy when based solely on gender.

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@empeejohnson Being politically conscious as a Black American in 2026 requires an honest engagement with the content produced by Antonio Moore and Yvette Carnell.

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@didleybo57 @batbglobal Two artist had a song titled W.A.P.. They were both asked to perform at national political party events.

At some point, we have to hold accountable the black intellectuals and political class who co-sign degeneracy as black authenticity.

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@Rddixcrypt Let’s not forget the Black American inventors, scientists, architects, and scholars.

There is a level of ingenuity forged by being relegated to the bottom that can’t be replicated under other conditions.

This week exposed the folly of ignoring “true” Black Studies and CRT.

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@livebitez Art is propaganda sometimes used to justify stereotypes and genocide. We must decide if we want maladaptive behaviors to represent the totality of our existence and cultural identity.

[Hojo67🇺🇸 @ados_strong]

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY

Crispus Attucks

Crispus Attucks, a sailor of mixed African and Indigenous ancestry, died in Boston on March 5, 1770 after British soldiers fired two musket balls into his chest.1 His death and that of four other men at the hands of the 29th Regiment became known as the Boston Massacre. Death instantly transformed Attucks from an anonymous sailor into a martyr for a burgeoning revolutionary cause.

The life of Crispus Attucks is far less documented than his death. Early coverage and investigations into the details of the Massacre refer to Attucks as Michael Johnson,2 a name he may have used as an intentional alias. After uncovering his actual name, newspapers published a few details about his life, notably his profession, a sailor; his birth in Framingham, Massachusetts; his current residence of New Providence in the Bahamas; and his ship's destination of North Carolina.3 His last name, "Attucks," is of Indigenous origin, deriving from the Natick word for "deer."4 Witness testimony during the Massacre trial interchangeably used "mulatto" or "Indian" to describe Attucks, indicating his mixed African and Indigenous birth.5

His first name reflects the trend in the colonial era of enslavers forcing an Ancient Roman name onto their enslaved people.6 Attucks shares the name "Crispus" with the son of Emperor Constantine.7 He also appears in a 1750 advertisement in the Boston Gazette. William Brown of Framingham placed an advertisement to call for the return of a twenty-seven year old escaped enslaved man named "Crispas," described as a six foot two inch "mulatto."8 Contemporary sources at the time of his death do not identify Attucks as enslaved or formerly enslaved. How and when he gained his freedom is unknown, but it is possible that Attucks used the name Michael Johnson to protect himself from a return to slavery.

On March 5, 1770, witnesses placed Attucks at the head of a group of sailors brandishing clubs and marching toward King Street. A crowd formed around a small group of British soldiers, hurling snowballs, ice balls, and insults at the men. Observers noted Attucks leaned his tall frame on his cordwood club.9 Amid the chaos, Private Montgomery and the rest of the soldiers fired into the crowd. Two musket balls ripped through Attucks' chest, killing him instantly.10 In the following days, the people of Boston held a funeral procession for the victims of the massacre. Because Attucks and fellow victim and sailor James Caldwell had no family or home in Boston, their bodies lay in state at Faneuil Hall.11

Defending the soldiers in the subsequent trial, John Adams painted Attucks and the rest of those killed as aggressors to justify the killing. He played to the jury's prejudices about race and class, describing those in the crowd as "a motley rabble of saucy boys, Negroes, and mulattos, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tars."12 In other words, those in the crowd were young, lower-class, Black, Irish, or sailors from out of town. Adams' argument led to an acquittal for the Captain and all but two of the soldiers.

Town officials buried the victims of the Massacre in the Granary Burying Ground. Today, they share a headstone facing toward Tremont Street.

In the 1800s, abolitionists in Boston, led by William Cooper Nell, held up the death of Attucks as the first martyr of the American Revolution. Nell's seminal work, The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, fought the erasure of Black people from the story of the American Revolution. Nell led this work with the story of Crispus Attucks, highlighting his death as the first in the cause for liberty.13 Though Black Bostonians have commemorated the anniversary of Attucks' death since at least the 1850s,14 it took until the early twentieth century when activists, including William Monroe Trotter, pushed the city of Boston to officially recognize March 5 as Crispus Attucks Day,15 a tradition which continues to the present day.

https://t.co/yz9gxy0cKh

[David Sirota @davidsirota]

If the average voter supported firing their do-nothing incumbent politician as quickly as they support firing their local football coach during a losing season, democracy would be a lot healthier.

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@ados_strong Her concurrence seemingly conflates Black pleas for humanity w/ universalist policy advocacy w/o primary concern for self. Furthermore, she ignores the tensions btw slavery, the formerly enslaved and immigration, which contributed to westward expansion and eventual Civil War.

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@ados_strong Wilkerson is best read alongside Sidanius, DuBois, & D. Bell. The aftermath of the 14th Amendment ultimately enshrined a racialized caste that cannot be remedied w/ universal policies and blindness to slavery and the Reconstruction Amendments centering the formerly enslaved.

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@RakeemShabazz I’m curious as to why Garvey would supplant Frederick Douglass and Rev. John Chavis, black intellectuals of that day who rejected the Jamaican Garvey’s position of Black resettlement as a solution. Is there any valid reason?

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@layxsnv In those days your cousins were like your siblings.

[Michael Harris @MHarris_26]

@2StripesCPD We thought we had the game won when Brandon Steeter went out of the game, only for us to give birth to Woody Dantzler….Those were crazy times in 1999.

[Stef. | Content + Marketing Director 👨🏾‍💻🛠 @STEFisDOPE]

Great men aren’t born.

They’re built.

Brick by brick.

Day by day.

FATHERS.