The Mission of Greater Diversity News – GDN Exclusive – Part I

by Peter Grear, Co-Publisher 04/24/2023

Peter Grear, Co-Publisher

Since 1987, when we began this work to inform our community by publishing the latest experiences of Black people, I recognized the need to harness students’ energy, just as I experienced during the 1960s. As a young man at Fayetteville State [College] (FSU), I arrived on campus with a strong desire to change the World I left behind in Wilmington, North Carolina.

While never in a leadership role, I participated in the Student Movement in support roles that sought to impact the injustices our leaders framed as worthwhile efforts to target. What I knew was the experiences I lived in Wilmington had to change for my Family, friends, and neighbors, and I was determined to be a part of remedying those conditions. It was an exciting time filled with great hope and promises.

Eventually, I taught high school in Craven County for a few years before moving on to Law School during the 1970s. I have come to understand a great deal through my life experiences and a lifetime of wanting to make a difference.

Looking back with so many years behind me today, I recognize the limited perspective on the larger World I held at that time and the tremendous societal forces at work to limit my understanding. I also remember the shortcomings of not institutionalizing the student-led initiatives we worked so hard to formulate to change the injustices back then.

As I began to explore the country beyond where I was born, I recognized similar hardships, exploitation, and dysfunction in Black communities wherever I went. The more I experienced, the more I learned, the more I studied, and the more I knew the connections went more profound than I believed as a student back at FSU.

The Promised Land Media, Inc

With the birth of our parent organization, “The Promised Land Media, Inc,” thirty-six (36) years ago, we began to publish those experiences and insights gleaned, as well as the vast reports from across the Black diaspora in America. Greater exploration into our collective history led to connections with the past in ways we were never taught back in Wilmington and revealed more of the patterns of our exploitation, especially on the economic front.

As time flowed, I continued to explore our conditions, sought teachers who have made understanding this travesty ever more transparent, and used this publication to channel more excellent knowledge, understanding, and insights gained to the GDN audience.

What has become most striking in all the lessons learned over the years I’ve been studying the causes of the Local conditions is the vivid connections of what we experience here across our Nation is directly connected to the Global exploitation of the African Continent.

We have had great thinkers like WEB DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. (to name a few), all of whom recognize the connections. Each has offered various explanations, insights, and courses of action to remedy the dire circumstances imposed on Black people worldwide. Just spending a little time with any of their work respectively, on this subject reveals significant pathways toward their critical thought and their wisdom. We must tap into their knowledge!

Thinking back to my youthful ignorance of those leaders’ global work connecting our plight here to Africa, when I began this journey, has been a prime focus for me over the past few years. Though I heard of each of them, thinking I knew it all, my understanding could have been more extensive. And dialoguing with others similarly situated in thought, lacking a clear understanding of the global connections to our local conditions has hurt and is a significant problem.

This recognition is at the heart of our initiative to remedy this deficit, provoking us to launch “It’s a Family Affair!”

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The Mission of Greater Diversity News (GDN) A GDN Exclusive – Part II