Learning from Our Past

by Errington C. Thompson, MD –

In July 2014, a 43-year-old guy was barely making it.

He was one of those black men who didn’t have a regular job. He had been arrested multiple times by the New York Police Department for various offences. He was married and had six children. His body was falling apart. He was morbidly obese. His breathing was terrible.

In order to make a little money, he sold loosies (single cigarettes) on the streets of New York. The New York police spotted him. He was confronted. One of the police officers put Eric Garner in an illegal chokehold. Mr. Garner died on the streets of New York on that day.

A viral video circulated on social media, causing outrage, protests, and talk of national police reform.

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was outside a Cup Foods grocery store. Floyd was a 46-year-old Black man who was struggling in America, much like Eric Garner. Mr. Floyd had been arrested and convicted multiple times. A store clerk called the police because he thought Mr. Floyd had passed a counterfeit $20 bill. The police found Mr. Floyd sitting on a car that was not far from the Cup Foods store. Floyd was wrestled to the ground, where Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes. An eyewitness filmed the whole incident.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of protests erupted across the United States and worldwide. There was a huge international response to the killing of George Floyd. Chauvin was tried and convicted of second-degree and third-degree murder as well as second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to twenty-two-and-a-half years in jail. The Justice Department launched a wide-ranging investigation into dozens of police departments across the US. (The Trump administration has just shut down all of these investigations.)

The question remains: What should we do with the impromptu memorial that sprang up on that street corner in Minneapolis? Do we make it a permanent memorial? Or do we simply tear it down? Personally, I would like to see one of those street circles that you see so often in Washington, DC. In the middle of the circle, I would like to see a statue that signifies the community’s unity. There should be something that represents the police department and something that represents George Floyd and/or the whole community uniting in peace, harmony, and love.

Teaching History

It’s more important than ever that we teach American history. We need to teach not some whitewashed version of American history in which America always makes the right decisions, but instead we need to teach the critical events that make the United States unique.

Recently, while testifying on Capitol Hill, Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, was asked to define habeas corpus. She failed miserably. Habeas corpus is one of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution. It comes directly from the Magna Carta. No person can be arrested or imprisoned unless brought before a court to determine if the arrest or imprisonment was lawful. We should have learned this in eighth-grade civics, but unfortunately, civics isn’t taught anymore.

Forty years ago, in Philadelphia, the mayor and the police were focused on a black liberation organization called MOVE. MOVE had relocated to a rowhouse in West Philadelphia. The neighbors had complained about constant confrontations with MOVE members. Neighbors also complained about trash being piled around the house. The police decided to arrest several prominent members. What happened next is nearly unimaginable.

The police cleared out residents on either side of this rowhouse. Almost 500 police officers descended on this one house. After MOVE members did not respond to commands to come out peacefully, the basement of the house was flooded, the house was tear-gassed, and 90 minutes of semiautomatic and automatic firearms were fired into the house. Then, the decision was made to bomb the house. Yes, bomb!

The subsequent fire destroyed the block. 11 MOVE members were killed including several children. There were only two survivors. Sixty-one of the neighboring homes were destroyed in the fire. You can’t tell this story without some context.

In 1978, the Philadelphia police wanted MOVE to vacate a different property in Philadelphia after multiple complaints from surrounding neighbors. The Philadelphia police waited nearly a year after the MOVE members stated that they were going to vacate the property and surrender their weapons. When the police entered the house to serve the warrant, gunfire erupted. Sixteen police officers and firefighters were injured. Several MOVE members were killed.

Several white Americans were essential figures in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Viola Liuzzo saw the Bloody Sunday event on TV and drove to Selma to help. She drove volunteers back and forth. She was forced off the road by the Ku Klux Klan and killed.

Reverend James Reeb answered King’s call for people of faith. A group of white men attacked him. He was stuck in his head. His transport from Selma to Birmingham was delayed because the white ambulance service would not take him to Birmingham. He died in a Birmingham hospital from his head injury.

Finally, Jack Greenberg was the NAACP lawyer who succeeded Thurgood Marshall as the leader of the Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He led the fight for voting rights, school desegregation, and against Housing discrimination. He played a key role in developing arguments in Brown v. Board of Education.

The first real ambulance service was started in Pittsburgh in 1967. Dr. Peter Safar, the father of CPR, had recently moved to Pittsburgh. He and others saw a need to transport sick patients from the Hill District, a Black neighborhood, to the hospital. Safar and Dr. Nancy Caroline trained twenty Black men in what was the first EMT class in the country. This ambulance service was to be called Freedom House Ambulance Service. These men were taught how to start IVs and how to intubate a patient.

This was really revolutionary. No one was intubating patients in the prehospital setting in 1967. They were taught how to perform EKGs and how to read them in the field. This was early cardiac care. Of course, this program was a tremendous success. Before Freedom House, residents would have to call the police to get someone transported to the hospital. The police could decide not to transport that patient for whatever reason.

Freedom House was the model that was taught throughout the country. Before long, rich folks on the other side of Pittsburgh wanted to know why they weren’t getting the same excellent care that Black folks from the Hill District were getting. This spelled the beginning of the end for Freedom House. The mayor started a city-wide ambulance service and killed the funding for Freedom House. For eight years, Freedom House delivered cutting-edge prehospital care that changed emergency medicine forever.

American history isn’t Black history or White history. It is our shared history. Oh, and don’t get me started on Wounded Knee. We should all be able to discuss Wounded Knee just as we can discuss the events of Pearl Harbor. Native American history is American history, also.

New Budget

It is hard to describe how hurtful, mean, shortsighted, and painful the House Budget Bill is. Republicans, who are supposed to stand for fiscal responsibility, want to make Donald Trump’s tax cuts from 2017 permanent. This is a $3.5 trillion giveaway to the rich. If the budget was balanced and we were doing a great job of taking care of the poor and the needy, and we had a surplus of funds, giving tax cuts to the rich may make some sense. Unfortunately, none of those things are happening. Giving tax cuts to the rich and worsening our budget deficit makes absolutely no sense.

To avoid tanking the economy immediately, the Republicans tried to offset this giveaway by cutting spending. They want to cut $800 billion from Medicaid and $300 billion from SNAP. Republicans say that they are cutting waste and fraud, but they are cutting benefits to the poor and most needy Americans. They are taking healthcare away from Americans.

In feeding hungry children, SNAP has been proven to be beneficial. Kids have improved their test scores because they are no longer hungry and can focus on their studies. As a matter of fact, SNAP goes a little bit further. SNAP encourages healthy eating. It invests in local farms to provide fresh, nutritious food to local schools. These investments in local farms have been called part of Biden’s “woke” agenda and have been canceled. This move hurts farmers. It makes school food less healthy.

Nope, None for You

Since January 2025, Governor Stein has been seeking additional funding to support cleanup and rebuilding efforts in North Carolina. In January, he requested $19 billion, a comprehensive package designed to help the people of western North Carolina recover and get back on their feet. The Trump administration denied this. In May, he requested $891 million to support infrastructure, housing, waterway rehabilitation, agricultural land rehabilitation, food for food banks, and Disaster Response and recovery funds. This additional request was also denied.

Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina. Traditionally, the federal government comes in to help. Under the Biden administration, the federal government sent billions of dollars to WNC. Now, under the Trump administration, it appears that no more help is coming from the federal government. I am not sure that the state of North Carolina has the resources to rebuild this area quickly.

DOGE

It has been a couple of weeks since DOGE has crossed the headlines. What’s going on? Has it been tied up in legal battles? Did Musk simply award himself whatever contracts he wanted, and is now out of the picture? Is anything that DOGE did legal without the approval of Congress?

Once again, I’m asking you to take a deep breath. Don’t let anything Trump says or does affect your spirit. We are in a fight for the soul of America. Are we going to embrace love for our fellow Americans or hate? Are we going to support policies that strengthen the middle class? Do we have the right leadership in place? I don’t know. If we focus on the middle class, we will win in November 2026. That is the prize. That is our focus.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed here, as well as assertions of facts, are those of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Urban News.