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| Harold was a Christmas week baby born in generation #65 about eleven years after his father returned from serving in the United States Army during World War I that raged from years 1914 to 1919, ... and a year after the economic depression began in 1929. Harold's life was about body and soul, something most men like Colman Hawkins seldom, if ever, talked about but let audiences see and believe they held such beliefs. Coleman Hawkins - Body & Soul - YouTube Harold's birth, life and times like that of the Kennedy brothers and sisters, ... raises the question as to how and why does goodness come into existence? The pursuit of goodness as we have come to believe it, ... has now spanned sixty-seven generations of human beings encompassing more than two millennium, twenty-one centuries, two thousand years, 24,000 months, etc. It is a long time for gifted and talented youth to think about themselves ,as part of something greater ,beyond what is easily seen and heard. Furthermore, It is our theme that we hope youth generations will incorporate to their souls (really keeping it real). Lewis Marshall Robinson Martin, born abt 1895 Rose Alice Wilkerson Lowry, born abt 1903
The real life story of Harold Martin, Sr. affords our site an opportunity to make references to the virtues and values of many other people who fought the good fight in trying to live a useful and productive life that benefits "the least of us." In the real world of free-will to choose or reject, ... Harold had the wisdom to find and hold dear a believer wife Barbara Holmes a minister's grand-daughter for living (not imitating) a life in pursuit of goodness and happiness. He surrounded himself with other people in pursuit of goodness, not simply money, ... of which he earned plenty, by being the the best that he could be as a son, brother, student, athlete, friend, craftsman, soldier, husband, father, citizen, entrepreneur, neighbor and all the functional matters of life in the pursuit of goodness (not to be confused with all to common rituals and rites of passage to nothingness). Spiritually speaking, many enlightened and educated folks believe, ... Harold inherited his moral worth at the moment of conception through birth, nurture, inspiration, motivation, education and training in a family of believers. Most believe their past, present and future family values are more or less like a finely tuned watch: intelligent design by a "hidden hand" resting firmly on Harold's shoulder and their own. Like many other successful African American men, Harold learned to use his hands long before his teen age years age in an environment where boys were encouraged and expected to physically exert themselves, for not only a sense of self-worth ,but also a common good. The boy Harold came to be a man who did not shy away from learning and working with his hands and mind, ... becoming a watch maker in NYC.
He is an American success story for youth generations to appreciate what the ingredients are, that comprise champions, "love ye one another" in facing life's challenges. Silly Sally and Simple Simon talk about role models for boys or girls of African heritage without factual based stories of men and women who mattered, (in pursuit of goodness) is a fallacy born of ignorance. Harold is a role model for children. His story is the personification of the pursuit of goodness by a boy who became a man seeking to live a useful life. His youthful attitudes about himself and others molded behaviors that distinguished him not only as a man of property, but integrity as well. He was well prepared to acquire, have and use his "goodness" to help raise up a new and better generation of believers. Not only did he remember his ancestry, but honored them daily by embracing their offspring as he would his own. Harold is not the first or last man of achievement to internalize sounds of his father in the mind coupled with tunes of New York City (where Lewis Martin died). How do we measure success? We would argue that in the case of Harold Martin, like many other men who have earned a lot of money, ... the best measure is how they have honored their fathers and mothers by loving their offspring, but also extended family. Attitudes and cultural values of children (inclusive of music) are very much molded by what they see and hear in environments inclusive of grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, mothers, siblings, geography, working people, sports, schools, coaching and perhaps ancestral spirits in the context of believing themselves to be born of something greater than themselves. In a real way, success as achieved by Harold is a continuation of unseen roots (including sailors, soldiers, machine operators, metal workers, migrants, miners, mule-skinners, and many other men of courageous and/or skilled means) ... in a tree of life generating new lives including those gifted and talented enough to help themselves and others. Harold's family tree is linked to trees of other believers like his grandfather Lee Lowry, born 1863 a general merchant and commercial land-owner pursuing goodness the old fashioned way of dedication to learning and working hard for many hours, days, weeks, months, years and decades for better years ahead: In a long story about Harold before he came into being and inspiration, motivation, education and training to pursue goodness. Harold was an African-American entrepreneur with the analytical abilities and foresight to generate short-term gains by functional labor for others, while aspiring for mid-term benefits to help his family and at the same time investing and planning for long-term ownership and use of real property (improved and unimproved real estate).For the benefitof those who come after him.
Most people think in terms of annuals (one year spurts of hopes and expectations) while more enlightened souls often are able to envision several years ahead in providing for their families. Rare indeed are those minds of men and women gifted and determined enough to acquire real properties that yield long-term benefits such as Harold did in the New Jersey Meadowlands. Indeed, he turned a short-term garbage dump of other men into a long-term treasure trove. It is our intention to inspire urban fiction writers and actors to know that legitimate wealth creation by men of African heritage includes more than entertainment enterprises. Incidentally, It is a matter of fact the prosperous funeral industry disposing of African-American remains is in effect part of the waste disposal industry.) A.G. Gaston, in the picture (above right) was born in 1892 within the first totally freeborn generation of African-Americans since beginning of the Civil War and great march toward emancipation from slavery. Like Harold , A.G. was a prosperous businessman in the sense that he earned a lot of wealth, but more importantly he aided Dr. King and other civil rights leaders at the times and places when they needed money to carry on in the pursuit of goodness. A.G. was definitely a gifted child in our eyes with the kind of characteristics exhibited by Harold Martin enlightened in the value of gaining superior information for use in pursuing goodness in the real and spiritual sense.
About two percent of babies born can be classified as gifted and an additional eight percent in the IQ categories of above average potentials for helping in the uplift of others to the universal cause of goodness. Without them, "the least of us" anywhere on earth or of any color and faith, ... have no history of ever conceptualizing, such as planning or programming the pursuit of goodness. We define goodness as functional families, highways, clean water, waste disposal, factories, communities and thousands of other enterprises including hospitals and schools. Long-term extraordinary achievement can only be claimed by gifted and talented births among "the least of us". As a matter of fact, gifted and talented African Americans (Dr. Dubois talented tenth) youth like Harold, are still being born. Among African-Americans the vast majority (unlike Harold's applications of talent) ... are being wasted devoting their life's energy to the pursuit of nothingness. A related Christmas story for believers is that in year 1930, Professor John Maynard Keynes published his great "Treatise on Money" which afforded the philosophical economic rationale that market forces which lowered wage rates would not cure economic depressions, instead rather production and investment would only increase if spending by consumers, business, and government went up. A premise that still holds true today, and still rejected by many folks opposed to government spending. Keynes theory greatly influenced future businessmen like Harold Martin in enterprise endeavors that avoided embracing pre-depression era ideology that set forth under-paying and exploiting employees such as his father and uncles was somehow good for business and therefore good for the country. Harold's birth in the generation of babies born during years 1920-1949 helped form the grassroots of changed attitudes among businessmen and women that emerged in the 1940s-1970s, ... prior to old ideologies that reemerged in the 1980s, as a man of considerable property wealth accumulated by his generation by legitimate methods and means that did not hurt anybody. Harold is a success story that urban fiction writers have rarely, if ever chosen to write about in the accumulation of wealth. We are concerned that unless stories such as Harold's are told and written about, men of African heritage who earned fortunes by production of goods and services of functional value, ... urban fiction writers and actors will continue indoctrinating Black youth and their equally uneducated mothers and fathers with the propositions that men like Harold do not now or have ever existed in the world of industrial entrepreneurs.
Harold's father, Lewis Martin, was a coal miner by profession in a long line of unheralded African-Americans pre-dating the American Revolution and even the French and Indian War when men of means in Maryland and Virginia dared to send and take men of African heritage underground to find energy to burn. As with everyman ever born of woman, ... Harold's story cannot be, except by way of the father and mother who made him so. In that very realistic sense, unlike Hollywood projections of successful men of color here, there and everywhere, ... Harold never imagined himself to be a self-made man and the phenomenal success achieved in business ventures left him humble in thoughts that "except for them, I would not have been born." Our research about Harold Martin led us to examine the roots from which he emerged and the great cause of enterprising aspirations held by his relatives such as Dudley Fuqua, born abt 1870 who married his Aunt Georgia Wilkerson and established a prosperous business enterprise (waste disposal) in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.
Uncle Dud provided employment opportunities for a lot of people from Virginia and other places. Like Harold's, his life's story is yet to be written by one of you who will someday be writers that want to help the least of us gain insight into how to be healthy, happy and prosperous without disappointing or hurting others. One of the most salient points we can make about Harold Martin's march to success is that his marching did not begin with Dr. King, nor with the Christian Leadership gathering at the Washington Mall in 1963, ... nor even the beginning of potential marchers witnessed and praised by Marcus Garvey in 1919 following the ending of World War I. Like many young men and women of his generation, Harold marched to ascertain his sense of self-worth by integrating the functions of a great society, ... not avoiding the challenges (such as military service) faced by previous generations of young men including his father and brothers. He and his brothers were, like the Kennedy brothers, ... their own fathers' sons, not to be confused with the make-believe urban fiction characterizations and raps that bombard so many millions of youth. The notions of a self-made man or woman in pursuit of goodness is a myth Earthly fathers matter more in generating blessings than do most preachers ever care to preach. One can only achieve greatness by resting on the shoulders of those who came before.
Harold and his brothers, like millions of other men, such as the Kennedy brothers, ... were blessed to have and know a father, grandfather, uncles, and cousins to fill his mind with details about being and living as an enlightened man laboring to not only earn a living, but also to raise up a new generation in context of the good news. He could not have become as successful as accomplished without indoctrinated attitudes about good behavior for a greater purpose than one's self. In other words, he saw and heard what good men did and listened to them about their perceptions of goodness such as laboring to earn and learn to be healthy, wealthy and wise. After all is said and done, what good is wealth for entertainers, rockers and rappers like Sam Cooke, Jimmy Hendricks and Tupac Shapur who earned millions of dollars and perished from the earth without generating lasting goodness, ... not because they died young but rather due to the pursuit of folly. Indeed, Harold's family, especially it's female members, like the Kennedy women, ... did not tolerate foolishness in nurturing boys to men who someday would likely become someone's husband, father, and perhaps uncle.
But, even so the men such as those below, by their attitudes and behaviors in France, ... helped open the doors of opportunities for artists like Josephine Baker among post-World War I Paris audiences who remembered and appreciated contributions of the Black Hell Fighters from Harlem, and Senegal too. Like Harold Martin, Bojangles emerged from a long line of energetic and enterprising Robinsons dating back to the Civil War and all that came after them up to him and his time in the sun. Their great pride found in Robinson-Martin Generations was not about simply being good church-goers but rather having the courage and integrity to do good in competition with others. Indeed, Bill Robinson allegedly could run faster backwards than most men could run forward! Robinson characteristics included athletic competitiveness.
Harold's Other Robinson Cousin From Past Generations It is important to understand that Harold's sense of moral worth included volunteering to serve in the historic 369th Regiment (approximately 1500 young men of African heritage including Bill (Bojangles) Robinson) of the New York National Guard. Millions of African-Americans such as Marcus Garvey viewed as sources of young Black men capable of exemplary attitudes and behaviors in the uplift of "the least of us." We want youth to understand that at the time of post World War II tensions between the United States, Western Europe and the East European allies of the Soviet Union, ran high.... Leaders reasoned into existence the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to facilitate, a planned use of upwards of ten million or more young men like Harold if war ever erupted with the Soviet Union. The plan carried out for about forty years was to have approximately half in regular full-time military units and a second half organized as reserve forces. So, Harold was one of many millions of volunteers in the one-half of America's force structure of approximately 5.3 million young men maintained during the Cold War along with a similar combined total in other NATO nations including Canada, United Kingdom, and West Germany. Though he was born and raised up to age of puberty in Grindstone, his roots were generated in the soil and toil of West Virginia wherein his father Lewis Marshall Robinson Martin, born abt 1895 was born, and western Virginia down into Bedford County wherein his mother Rose Alice Wilkerson Lowry, born abt 1903 was born. His genetic heritage included African, European and Native American ancestry dating back several known generations of enslaved Africans, displaced Native Americans and Anglo-Saxon Whites descended from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In fact, Harold's ancestry and offspring of him and his siblings are about as American as any person can be with all the characteristics and traits in the pursuit of goodness ever espoused by scholars. He and they did it their way forever remembering "Love ye one another."
At the time of his birth with five older sisters and brothers: Emma Louise Lowry Martin, born May 1918 Alphonzo Lowry Martin, born abt 1919 Leoma Myrtle Lowry Martin, born abt 1922 Album (Buster) Lowry Martin, born abt 1923 Lewis Emmet Lowry Robinson- Martin, born abt 1924 Harold clearly had the advantage of older siblings and cousins in pursuit of goodness. In the Christian context of family, he was never poor even though the family had to struggle to make ends meet. It is a no-brainer for pundits in the process of rationalizing nothingness to suggest role models for boys are matters for mothers or others to choose and pick in molding attitudes and behaviors of children in impoverished environments and situations. Almost without exception, men like Harold Martin, and Jackie Robinson before him in talking about his brother Mack Robinson, ... found precious and dear the blessings of having older siblings who loved and inspired them to pursue goodness. We suggest that Harold's family, like the Kennedys, were rich long before erection of mansions on earth. It is still a matter of philosophical differences as to how believers interpret the parable of Jesus: "In my father's house, there are many mansions." And such being the case, ... foundations in many places were laid long before Harold was born.
Harold's father Lewis Martin was employed as a coal miner in Grindstone, Pennsylvania in the five county Pittsburgh Metro Region Geographic Areas 4 Lewis Martin had the most critical credentials necessary to be a coal miner: courage, faith and hope and he learned and earned Pennsylvania State certification mining papers that allowed him to work in an environment wherein all men are coal-dust colored and necessarily judged by the contents of their outputs. Anyone who thinks it was easy to be a miner, in any country, place or time, ... little about mining . A very small percentage of men have what it takes in addition to strength and stamina to overcome.unforeseen obstacles. True, a lot of men can enter beneath the surface, but not for very long by themselves, since the nature of coal mines requires men able and willing to integrate with others in a common cause of producing energy of value to all. Coal Mining Generations of Memories
The depression had less effect on the employment of coal miners since coal was the most critical source of energy, for not only factories made idle by the depression but more importantly homes, mills, railways and ocean going vessels. In addition, men like Lewis up from rural life experiences and training in places like Virginia and West Virginia were also fairly good farmers. Survival skills included knowing how to raise most of their own food including fruits, vegetables, hogs, chickens coupled with children to help them. Harold and his family were multi-tasking long before the term came fashionable.; He learned early on in his life that hard-work included the energies associated with movement, lifting, stamina and sobriety. When his father suffered a serious back injury working in Grinestone coal mines (see red circle) not far from Brownsville( reflected on map above) Dangerous Work, ... the entire family of father, mother and eight children departed the small town of Grinestone, Pennsylvania and moved to New York City. Work was available for the mother as a seamstress; while, Harold and his siblings were able to obtain a good education pursuant inspiration and motivation in their home. His older brothers had served honorably in the military service during World War II and did what they could to support th family. They also aspired for opportunities to overcome adversaries and obstacles in pursuit of happiness.
Harold Martin came of age in New York City at a time in the annals of human history that millions of inhabitants finally agreed,( after the horrors revealed during and after World War II,) ... that racism was not goodness, and thus was nothing of humor for entertainers to get rich. Black face comedy was over and done with, and young men of color were to be viewed differently than existed before the war. At least that is what some like Harold hoped to become reality. For him and many others like Percy Sutton and a lot of folks from the Caribbean to Harlem and the Bronx, ... keeping one's eyes on the prize of prosperity was more than about making money but also integrating the culture and society that provided it. Participation led to integration, which in turn led to connections to move on and up in the great city setting atop the world. Harold's earliest training and work in the "Big Apple" was that of a watch-maker demonstrating his great insight and analytical abilities. He was the product of motivation by a father indoctrinated in the teachings of Booker T. Washington who urged Black men to learn and master a skill of monetary value that would afford them to be independent. Booker T. Washington differed from Dr. DuBois only in the sense that while DuBois wanted concentration on the gifted and talented ten percent (and so do we) African-American births, ... Booker T. was clever enough to avoid such terminology in former rebel states that had deliberately sought by murder and terrorism to prevent emergence of such youth. Yet, he was able to convey the necessity of young men seeking and gaining mechanical skills demanded by the market placein order to raise up new and better families. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker Harold, like his father, brothers and friends in post WWII New York City, ... did not shy away from work with his hands and mind in generating values in the cause of goodness. For him , education mattered, but was of minimal importance if not coupled with prerequisite enlightenment about industries and enterprises within them. Indeed, New York City during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s even into the declines of the 1960s was the economic opportunity gem for people of African heritage everywhere because they loved to learn; and, worked longer and harder than people anywhere on earth. It is regrettable that the majority of African American writers for the last few decades have chosen to highlight entertainer and gangster mentalities in Harlem, rather than focus on the many men like General Colin Powell, Adam Clayton Powell, who emerged victorious over adversities encountered there. New York City Roots and Memories Gifted and talented men and women of their generation learned early on in their New York City lives that racial integration was the best course for penetration in the society necessary to acquire connections for obtaining opportunities to achieve goodness in the pursuit of happiness. For many such men, it was clear even then that a greater society was a better society for uplifting the aspirations, ambitions and determinations of most (not all) African-Americans. Harold used his connections to learn and earn for himself and family, friends and "the least of us" in Newark, New Jersey who needed and appreciated being employed to make plastic products; and receive a living wages and benefits such as health care.
The plastics extrusion industry is 100 percent about intelligent design of what is desired as a product. Requirements in each step of a process are both exacting and no tolerance for mistakes. He observed, inquired, researched, invested, learned and mastered the plastics extrusion process for manufacture of products sought by the growing American market place. His connections into the industry included men who were knowledgeable about functional matters of labor, materials and money in addition to customer potentials. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastics_extrusion The company was founded by Harold Martin at a time and place wherein his New York-New Jersey connections afforded him superior knowledge to succeed in the plastics industry. Still yet, in addition to investing capital to begin he had to devote long hours, weeks, days, months and years to make it all work for the goodness he aspired. Those close to him can say with clarity that he devoted all of his non-business time to family matters including offspring of his siblings and cousins. He certainly has tried to nurture, inspire, motivate and educate all to pursue useful lives. Husband: Harold Martin Born 1: 28 Dec 1930 in: Grindstone, Pennsylvania Married: in: Died: in: Burial: Father: Lewis Marshal Martin Mother: Rose Alice Lowry Other Spouses: Barbara Wife: Barbara Born: 14 Nov 1932 in:
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In our long march up from slavery and denigration, these men of their generation were much more important to us than the Harlem Renaissance imagined by actors, writers, artists and musicians with lifestyles and values that generated good feelings but bad health. They generated little wealth that helped anyone other than themselves. 
