Black History Educators Remembered

I do my best to educate people. This one here is why history is so important. As a filmmaker, I love period material. My writing, as you can see, allows me to connect and share with people who want to be informed and educated.

Louisiana Moving Full Steam in Reverse?
By Larry Syid Wright

Louisiana's House Bill 211, known as the "Streets to Success Act," would make sleeping or camping in unauthorized public areas a crime statewide. Supporters say the bill is intended to address homelessness and improve public safety. Critics argue that it risks criminalizing poverty instead of solving it.

When I hear proposals that punish people for being homeless, I cannot help but think about some of the darkest chapters in Southern history. After the Civil War, Black Americans often faced laws that turned poverty into a crime. Vagrancy laws, convict leasing, and forced labor systems were used to control people who had only recently gained their freedom.

Today, Louisiana's Black population is approximately 31% of the state's residents. If enforcement of homelessness laws falls disproportionately on poor communities, it is reasonable to ask who will be most affected. History teaches us that laws written in neutral language do not always produce neutral outcomes.

The question is not whether communities should address homelessness. The question is how. Do we invest in housing, mental health services, addiction treatment, and job opportunities? Or do we rely on citations, arrests, and jail cells?

I compare these policies to historical injustices such as the Devil's Punchbowl refugee camp in Natchez, Mississippi, where formerly enslaved people suffered from disease, starvation, and neglect during and after the Civil War. While history should not be used carelessly or exaggerated, it should remind us what can happen when governments treat vulnerable populations as problems to be managed rather than human beings to be helped.

A society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable people. If homelessness is a crisis, then the solution should be assistance, opportunity, and dignity—not simply making it a crime to exist in public when you have nowhere else to go.

Louisiana must decide whether it wants to move forward by addressing the causes of homelessness or backward by criminalizing those who are already struggling.

Larry "Syid" Wright is an independent filmmaker, screenwriter, and the founder of Pitchvine Entertainment. His work focuses on historical realism, economic literacy, and structural equity in American media and industry

Part 1 of a 2-part Opinion Political The Series

Financial Revolution vs. The Black Revolution
The verdict is in. Chow was found not guilty. For many, that decision brought disappointment, frustration, and questions about justice.
But if there is to be a revolution, it should not be one of violence. It should be a financial revolution. For generations, Black communities have often paid the highest price in physical confrontations and emotional battles. History has shown that violence rarely produces lasting victories. Economic power, however, can reshape institutions, influence policies, and build independent futures.
A financial revolution means being intentional about where we spend our dollars. It means supporting businesses that respect our communities, investing in Black-owned enterprises, creating jobs, building wealth, and teaching the next generation the value of ownership. It means using our voices, our wallets, and our collective influence to demand accountability, not through threats or intimidation, but through organization, discipline, and economic self-determination.
The greatest show on earth is not conflict. It is watching people discover their economic power and use it to build something that cannot be ignored. The challenge before us is simple: turn frustration into strategy, anger into action, and disappointment into determination.
The revolution begins when we understand the value of our dollar and the power of our unity

Shame, Shame, Shame

A young life is gone. A young Black man was chased down by two adults and shot in the back over a one-dollar bottle of water. Let that sink in. One dollar.
We watched a legal process unfold that felt more like a setup than a pursuit of justice. We watched a defense team play on the jurors' emotions, twisting testimonies and weaponizing different versions of the story to demonize a young man whose only crime in that moment was being terrified. He ran because he was scared. Anyone would. Yet, the courtroom became a place where his fear was twisted into guilt, and the disproportionate, fatal actions of two adults were excused.

To the jurors who allowed this to happen: human courts may have given you an exit, but the moral weight of this decision does not vanish with a verdict.
True conviction does not always come from a judge's gavel. It comes from the streets we walk every day. To those responsible, and to those who enabled this injustice: your conviction will be the heavy silence that follows you. It will be the unmistakable look of shame and disgust from your neighbors every single time you step out of your house. It will be the community holding up a mirror to what you allowed.

No one truly escapes accountability. While the system may have failed to deliver justice, the community will not forget. Sleep well, my friend. Your life mattered, and the truth runs deep.

In solidarity and sorrow,
Larry Syid Wright /The Voice of the Community

An Open Letter to Pharrell Williams
Dear Pharrell,

You have earned tremendous success through your talent, creativity, work ethic, and vision. No one can take that away from you. But when speaking about diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, I believe it is important to recognize the reality that many Black Americans continue to face.
Most of us would love to live in a world where every job, promotion, college admission, and opportunity is based solely on merit. The problem is that history and experience tell us that the playing field has never been completely level.

Black Americans often compete under a different set of circumstances. We may be on the same field as everyone else, but the rules have not always been applied equally. Access, opportunity, networking, wealth, and influence have often been distributed unevenly for generations. You are an extraordinary success story, but you are also an exception. Society often makes room for exceptional individuals when they possess something people admire, need, or can profit from. That doesn't mean the barriers disappear for everyone else.

When people hear you criticize DEI efforts, some hear a message that ignores the obstacles many still face. They hear someone who made it through talent and determination, but who may underestimate how many doors remain closed to others with equal talent and determination.

Consider this: if America truly operated without exceptions, we would see leadership at every level naturally reflecting the diversity of the nation. Yet many institutions still struggle with representation. Even in politics, business, and entertainment, exceptions are often celebrated while broader access remains limited.

This is why your words carry weight. Millions listen to you, not only because of your success, but because of what your journey represents. That is why choosing your words carefully matters. Conversations about DEI are not simply about lowering standards; they are about ensuring that qualified people have a fair opportunity to demonstrate their abilities.
No one is asking for charity. People are asking for access, fairness, and the chance to compete without invisible barriers.

You have inspired generations through your music, entrepreneurship, and innovation. I hope that you continue to use that influence to acknowledge both individual achievement and the systemic challenges that many people still face.

Respectfully,
Larry "Syid" Wright

Shot our last film in 2024. Now we’re back with War Room.
She walks in with one mission: fix what can still be saved.
But the people under her have other plans. Secrets. Betrayal. Power moves. Latonya Simms and Sarah Olsen are going all in on this one.
War Room: Loyalty is temporary; power is everything.

The more people attack Democrats. This is what Republicans are doing behind the scenes, trying to cash in on what critics call an illegal slush fund tied to those involved in the attack on the White House and democracy itself.
This is no different from the insider trading accusations and backroom deals people say are happening throughout government right now. Politicians continue telling everyday Americans to sacrifice, while some in power appear focused on protecting themselves and finding ways to profit from the very system they control

America
Under Trump, it would be fair to say that, to many Americans, the American flag now feels closer to a symbol of Confederacy than the Confederate flag itself. True or not, we were taught that the Confederate flag represented racial hate, exclusion, and segregation. Under this administration, I see the comparison more clearly than ever.
The Confederate flag represented the South. The American flag represents the entire country. But when laws are passed that limit Black voting power, and Southern politicians are given the authority to redraw democracy in their image, the American flag is just blowing in the win losing what little respect it had.
History taught us that Southern states once defied elections, resisted federal authority when equality was demanded, and pushed systems designed to silence Black voices. Today, when states like Texas and others attempt to shape election outcomes through aggressive voting laws and political control, the echoes are impossible to ignore.
Our President. Your President. The President of the United States has made it difficult for me to stand proudly beside a flag that, under these actions, increasingly resembles what we were told the Confederacy stood for, power without equality, patriotism without inclusion, and freedom that does not reach everyone equally.
That may make people uncomfortable. But discomfort does not erase the question: What does a flag truly represent if the people beneath it do not all experience the same democracy?

Whites are sold the illusion that systemic racism make them superior, while that same system is quietly destroying their factories, farms, families, and futures.
By Larry “Syid” Wright
The fate of the Black revolution has too often been left in the hands of White America and the institutions built to protect its power. The Supreme Court has metaphorically put Rosa Parks back on the back of the bus. Bull Connors would be laughing. Dr. King would still be telling us to be patient, while Malcolm would remind us there is no such thing as a bloodless revolution.
America is entering a dangerous period. A White civil war is brewing beneath the surface because White America itself is losing patience with the very system it once benefited from. Many poor and working-class Whites were sold the illusion that systemic racism made them superior, while the same system quietly destroyed their factories, farms, families, and futures.
Look at the Midwest. Look at the farms. Government shutdowns stop USDA subsidies, foreclosures rise, and promised tariff bailouts disappear. In places like Mississippi, White South Africans are being brought in for farm labor while immigrant raids mysteriously avoid major farming operations. Why? Because the system protects profit before people.
And once again, as long as Black people appear to be losing more, struggling more, suffering more, many Whites who are hurting too will still cling to the illusion that they are winning. That is the sickness of racism: it convinces poor people that being above Blacks is worth more than having dignity, stability, or freedom themselves.
The tragedy is this: the same system crushing Black communities is now consuming large parts of White America too. But instead of uniting against the corruption, many would rather protect the myth of racial superiority while the country burns around them. See less