One raining Sunday in October 2020 as the Black lives matter was wreaking havoc in Seattle I sat at the computer amazed at the scenes before me. It Made no sense. At some point I came upon a video of an interview with Thomas Sowell and remembered reading about him a couple of years before.
In searching the internet I found he was born in 1930 in North Carolina when the Great Depression was in its early stages. His father died before he was born and his mother died a few years later. When he was eight, he went to live with his great aunt and her adult children in Harlem, NYC. They were not well educated but he credited them saying they cared about him and he was fortunate to live with them..
He had a friend named Eddie Mapp whose family was well educated and they encouraged Eddie to mentor Thomas. He brought Tommy to the public library and taught him how to use it. Sowell said of this friendship that, “If I had not encountered him the entire rest of the story would not have been the way it was.” Eddie also informed Thomas that he could choose to enter another better junior high than the one assigned to him.
You may wonder why I kept this post as a draft for so long after writing the short opening paragraph. It was because I devoured so many of his video interviews and articles written by him, it overwhelmed me. His approach as an intellectual was unhampered by going along with the general intelligentsia; his discernment of actual facts in all he did and the ability to explain his conclusions to the general public was just too much to include in a blog.
I have decided to introduce you to this prolific writer, economist, philosopher, historian, photographer, etc and let you explore, perhaps more about Thomas Sowell than I have. You may begin with the following interview and commentary, a 57 min. video about his life and work: Thomas Sowell: Common Sense in a Senseless World and also, a Naples Times article written by Sowell: Closing One Door Opening Another for Christian Conservatives.
Note: Sowell does not claim to be a Christian (but sounds like one) and he is black in color and belongs to the Human Race. He believes the greatest path for black people is educating them well not in public schools but in private, charter. religious schools of parental choice. He is entertaining, honest, unafraid to express his own deductions, and probably a genius!
DJ Pasternak, Author 