Before the now famous "... Dark clouds on the horizon... strike, strike, & strike again," chant, Moses General Miles, a 1941 alumnus, rallied the Rattler faithful with this:
Let us join together
With all our might to see that
FAMU moves upwardly and onwardly
For academic excellence with caring.
If any one-Be he or she great or small,
Governor or legislator; administrator or faculty,
Staff or student, Alumni, friend or foe
Endeavor to do anything to keep FAMU from
Moving upwardly and onwardly
Toward achieving true greatness, let his or her
Right hand forget its cunning
And his or her tongue
Cleave to the roof of his mouth
For FAMU must live on!
Rev. Miles, a baptist minister, was a long time Dean of Men at FAMU and served two terms as the President of the FAMU National Alumni Association.
balance your books, quit taking money from the universtiy, and stop playing the race card when people demand accountability. will famu live on? funding will take a hit this year. why? famu has no budget controls.
ReplyDelete3/25/2007 1:58 AM
ReplyDeleteYou use the term YOUR which is an indication you are NOT a FAMUAN. Again, you people are always in FAMU's business. Stop, please. Just stop.
For you people to have such a low opinion of FAMU, you people always seem to be in OUR business.
Leave us and OUR problems and go worship the white man's university.
Rev. M. G. Miles understood that there are many people out there who would destroy FAMU because it is predominantly black. We have not come far from Rev. Miles days. The Financial mistakes at FAMU are a cover for the real reason many people would destroy FAMU. After FAMU fixes its financial problems, many people will still call for its destruction. Race is a factor; because the same people, calling for FAMU’s destruction, would never call for the destruction of FSU or UF no matter how bad their financial problems are.
ReplyDeleteRev. Miles's statement is a public curse, suitable perhaps for a prophet in 800 B.C. When people at FAMU talk like that, it's ridiculous to most folks, including many black folks.
ReplyDeleteIf FAMU does not become a great university, it will be nobody's fault but our own (whether or not our tongues cleave to the roofs of our mouths for our failures).
Perhaps we should think less about the Old Testament prophets and more about current accountability, of what use we have made of the Talent given us.
Preaching and threats made to outsiders won't help balance budgets, fix procedures, get our people paid on time.
FAMU ain't a church.
Rev. Miles words were propethic and warned agains internal and external forces. He for saw evil wenches like Cast-hell and warned the FAMU family that we must beat them back also.
ReplyDeleteRight on MGM!
Therfore, if you simply would read the book, The History of FAMU you would know that this is nothing new and so I will enlighten a few of my ignorant Rattlers and Outsiders who wish to read this blog and make simple comments which are baseless and factless. What you are about to read is one of the most amazing things I have ever read in my life a Black MAN standing up to the Powers of Racsim in the deepest south in 1923 and this is any "talk" this is a President of a State University telling what the Gov. and others were trying to do with FAMU 84 years ago and it is so interesting that in 84 years nothing has changed. Except that black folk are more worst off than ever before.
ReplyDeleteThis is an excerpt from the Crisis in 1923 concerning the resignation of the President of FAMC, President Young and he gave the following answere:
"I am retiring from the presidency of the Florida A.and M. College after twent-two golden years of service, and that too far for an appreciative people.I am leaving them not on theirs nor my own. I have become a "persona non grata",because, forsooth, I refused to snezze when the Federal Vocational agents took snuff. I refused to endorse their program for this college. They assisted by the GOVERNOR of the STATE, undertook, to redirect the activities of the College, to give it a more industrial trend. When it came to a showdown, however, they found that their policy could not be legally carried out, that the academic status of this College could not be changed by a resolution of the State Board of Education. I had anticipated this very thing, and, consequently, kept the growth of the College well within the law.
Having failed to accomplish their purpose by the use of direct methods, they resorted to indirect, political methods to secure another man to head up this enterprise, in the hope,evidently, of FINDING A MAN WHOM THEY COULD CONTROL.
THIS IS THE WAY THE SOUTH TREATS NEGROES WHOA ARE MEN ONCE IT GETS THEM IN ITS POWER. THERE ARE FEW COLORED STATE SCHOOLS LEFT IN THE SOUTH WHOS PRESIDENTS DARE TO CALL THEIR SOULS THIER OWN.
Read this and then fill in the blanks over the past five years. That is not conspriacy that is FACT.
FAMU has no accountability. this is not white, black, brown, yellow, red.........this is GREEN!
ReplyDelete50 million off the books people. This is not race, this is UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!!
FAMU's business, because it is taxpayer funded university is the public's business.
FIX YOUR BOOKS AND QUIT STEALING!!!!
Receipts?
DeleteFAMU we live in the 21st century. That quote is fit for an Evangelist and his flock, not an institution of higher education.
ReplyDeleteAnon. 3/25/2007 12:33 PM
ReplyDelete50 million off the books people. This is not race, this is UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!!
FIX YOUR BOOKS AND QUIT STEALING!!!!
When the books are FIXED, the $50M will be easily explained. There is no evidence of STEALING at FAMU, but that is the first assumption of a racist about blacks. A lot of STEALING occurs at FSU and UF, but you ignore that!
Hello, remember the ghost employees. Please tell me that is not stealing. If you have read any of the articles with regard to this you just might be better informed, before trying to deflect criticism, by saying this that and the other, and the best one, that FSU and UF are doing it. FAMU lacks accountablility and respect.
ReplyDeleteExcuses Excuses Excuses
ReplyDeleteIt is excruciatingly difficult to get anything done at FAMU. Every little purchase order has to be signed by the president herself. The PeopleSoft system is labyrinthine: Nobody is accountable for it. People don't get paid. FAMU fails to pay health insurance premiums. People get hired without following required regulations and without having the needed qualifications -- just because of their connections.
ReplyDeleteProcedures are being updated, yes, but, Lord!--there are so many loose links in every FAMU chain of processes. Chaos at every level.
There are so many people on campus who HAVE jobs rather than DO jobs. You send a fax. Then you phone to verify that they received the fax. Then you phone to verify that they acted on the fax. Except in a few units, you can't count on follow-through.
Or, you send a fax requesting some action. That office replies, but they reply to someone else in your unit -- the secretary that secretary happens to know, not to you. You may or may not get the message. Problems like this go on and on and on.
There is so little accountability throughout the bureaucracy, so many from-the-hip decisions (the kind Dr. Bryant is famous for).
Yes, yes, I realize every large institution has problems. But FAMU has created far more problems than an institution this size can absorb.
Something has got to change, if FAMU is ever going to administer itself well enough to stay alive.
1:58--how in the world can you determine whether or not a blogger's allegience based on the use of ONE word. I'm sure the writer was being generic in terms of the use of the word "your." Then, your remaining comments are just plain ignorant. Your use of the word "you" can be deemed generic as well, if critiqued by an outsider not associated with FAMU. And finally, what's this mess about "the white man's university"? Jesus Christ! Just because someone uses "you" you have concluded that they should stick with that "other" university?? How doggone shallow can you be? For the record, before you sound off another stupid comment, I'm a graduate of FAMU and do dearly love the university. You need to engage in a bit more open-mindedness. You seem, um, how shall I say this...
ReplyDeleteWell, you sound rather "limited" and I'm speaking euphemistically.
Rev. Miles is long dead. Let that man rest in peace. Good gracious. Now, folks trying to dig up dead folks with our present misdeeds.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteFAMU has no accountability. this is not white, black, brown, yellow, red.........this is GREEN!
50 million off the books people. This is not race, this is UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!!
FAMU's business, because it is taxpayer funded university is the public's business.
FIX YOUR BOOKS AND QUIT STEALING!!!!
3/25/2007 12:33 PM
As I've instructed you people in the past, I'll say it again....GO HANG YOURSELF!!!
Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete1:58--how in the world can you determine whether or not a blogger's allegience based on the use of ONE word. I'm sure the writer was being generic in terms of the use of the word "your." Then, your remaining comments are just plain ignorant. Your use of the word "you" can be deemed generic as well, if critiqued by an outsider not associated with FAMU. And finally, what's this mess about "the white man's university"? Jesus Christ! Just because someone uses "you" you have concluded that they should stick with that "other" university?? How doggone shallow can you be? For the record, before you sound off another stupid comment, I'm a graduate of FAMU and do dearly love the university. You need to engage in a bit more open-mindedness. You seem, um, how shall I say this...
Well, you sound rather "limited" and I'm speaking euphemistically.
3/25/2007 6:25 PM
I could care less what I seem to you.
Dang, RN this brought tears to my eyes. I loved to hear Rev. Miles speak this truth.
ReplyDeleteWhere is the outrage for the mess George W. Bush has put us in? Are you posters implying that the US is facing one of the worst financial mismanagement of public funds.
ReplyDeleteGive me a break with the double-standards, will ya?
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteHello, remember the ghost employees. Please tell me that is not stealing. If you have read any of the articles with regard to this you just might be better informed, before trying to deflect criticism, by saying this that and the other, and the best one, that FSU and UF are doing it. FAMU lacks accountablility and respect.
3/25/2007 5:32 PM
Hello, Castell, Liz and Allen reported a month ago the operation "Ghost Employees" did not reap one Ghost Employee and that the State was unable to prosecute Cunningham, because Gainous signed the damn contract.
No put that in your pipe and smoke it. People are just high on Castell's lies, accusations, and smear campaign. She ain't done shutt that has turned up criminal activities.
But now the light is on her arse and she's trying to get out of dodge like a hooker on street corner raided by the police.
There were indeed Ghost Employees. I know of one example where an employee was receiving 3 bi-weekly paychecks illegally.
ReplyDeleteWho LL?
ReplyDeleteAs another user stated, let Rev. Miles rest in peace. As his oldest granddaughter, I must ask for you to have respect for this man. He fought for FAMU with every breath in his body, you can't hate him for that.
ReplyDelete