User:Johnny Duncan

Johnny Duncan, born December 31, 1952 in York, Alabama. Duncan grew up in and around Amite,Louisiana. He attended Louisiana State University upon graduating ffrom Amite High School in 1970. He majored in American History (Civil War & Reconstruction under T. Harry Williams) and English (Creative Writing).

After receiving a masters and enrolling in the PhD program in 1975, he returned to Alabama and worked as a cirriculum developer for the Consortium for the Development of the Rural Southeast (CDRS) in Epes, Ala. He left there and taught history at Alabama State University in Montgomery and at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. In 1977 he returned to LSU to continue graduate work under Dr. Williams.

Outraged over the alleged racism and discrimination of History professor Ann Loveland, another Williams' protege, Duncan returned to Greene County in 1978. He worked for the Voters Education Project, the Greene County Board of Education and Miles College (Eutaw Campus). He worked with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organizing poor people along with the likes of Mr. Spiver Gordon. Disgusted with the progress and the lack of entusiasm and honesty of some of his co-workers, Duncan enlisted in the Army as a Yorktown Cohort in 1981. Vice President George W. Bush swore in Duncan and the Yorktown Cohorts at the Yorktown Battlefield in 1981, to commemorate the 200 year anniversary of Cornwallis' surrender.

During training at Ft.Benning in 1981, Duncan saw a sign that read: "The last four letters of American spell I can." He finished basic training, and attended Officer Candidate School. After commissioning as a second lieutenant, Duncan did a tour of duty in the Federal Republic of Germany. He received an overseas discharge on October 31, 1985. It was then that he began work on THE 1986 BLACK HISTORY CALENDAR. Hepublished and copyrighted the calender in 1986. The copyright Registration Number is TX 1 929 242.

Duncan returned to the United States in February 1986. He rode the Greyhound Bus from South Carolina to Colorado Springs, Colorado. In Colorado he began preparing material for the 1987 Black History Calendar. It was at this time that he remembered message on the sign from Ft. Benning six years earlier. He began to compose a poem by the name of "I Can", a literary work to champion the American spirit and attitude. While writing the poem, providence intervened, and for the first time, Duncan realized that African and American had the same suffix of "ican". This realization inspired him to refer to his African hertiage and "i canism" throughout the work. And, in line twenty-five, he boasted:

"The last four letter of my [African] Heritage and my [American] Creed spell I Can."

This line singled handedly created the term Afr-i-can Amer-i-can. Duncan used "I Can" as a trademark by publishing it on the inside cover of each edition of THE BLACK HISTORY CALENDAR in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1993. Duncan defined Afr-i-can Amer-i-can as the descendants of the children of the African Diaspora who inhabit the Americas.

Duncan asked Mrs. Coretta King to send him a picture and some biographical information for the 1989 Black History Calendar. She complied. In return he sent her a dozen or so complimnetary copies of The 1989 Black History Calendar. It was then that Jesse Jackson read "I Can" and came across the "Afr-i-can Amer-i-can ideas that Duncan had originated years earlier. Shortly thereafter, Jackson gives a speech in New Orleans and used the term African American.  The rest is history.

Johnny "i can" Duncan