Necklace Beads of African Slaves 17-18th
European slave-traders paid African middle-men to bring native men and women to the atlantic ports. In the case of Senegambia there is an island in the middle of the River Gambia on which a small fort was built, called Fort James where the potential slaves were held before being loaded onto the slave ships for the journey to the “New World”. When they arrived at Fort James, soldiers tore the bead necklaces from their necks, thereby robbing them of their identities of family, tribe and culture. They became “non-people”, only a potential resource to work. The necklaces were thrown by the soldiers from the windows of Fort James, falling on the surrounding beaches. The island was low-lying and much of it has been eroded over the centuries. These beads were recovered by my father from the beach beneath Fort James in 1987.
first picture: Negro nuns at a Negro Catholic church service on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, 1942
second: Sisters of the Holy Family, New Orleans, La, 1899
with history like this i’m always fascinated by the fixation on Black Baptists being the sole way African Americans experience religion….
“Uhura” comes from the Swahili word UHURU meaning “freedom”. Uhura was pretty much the first ever black main character on American television who was not a maid or a domestic servant in 1966. TV network NBC refused to let Nichelle Nichols be a regular, claiming Deep South affiliates would be angered, so Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry hired her as a “day worker,” but still included her in almost every episode. She actually made more money than any of the other actors through this workaround, and it was kept secret from the other actors, but it was still a humiliating second-class status. The network people made life hard for Nichols, constantly trying to pare down her screen time, purposefully dropping racist comments in her presence and even withholding her fan mail from her.This deplorable state of affairs led Nichols to make the decision to quit after the 1st season, but then she happened to meet the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. who pleaded with her to stick with the show because as a Black woman she was portraying the first non-stereotypical role on television.
Can someone please provide the date and names of these musicians.
(Source: theeducatedfieldnegro)
The story behind Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”
There are graphic pictures and descriptions of lynchings. Proceed with caution.
Who was Thomas Sankara?
Thomas Sankara, often referred to as “Africa’s Che Guevara” was the president of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987. He seized power in a 1983 popularly supported coup, with the goal of eliminating corruption and the dominance of the former French colonial power.
Sankara’s foreign policies were centered around anti-imperialism, with his government eschewing all foreign aid because, as he often said, “he who feeds you, controls you.” He pushed for debt reduction and nationalized all land and mineral wealth, averting the power and influence of the IMF and World Bank.
His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform, prioritizing education with a nation-wide literacy campaign, and promoting public health by vaccinating 2.5 million children. And his was the first African government to publicly recognize the AIDS epidemic as a major threat to Africa.
Thomas Sankara was an extraordinary man.
- He outlawed female genital mutilation, forced marriages, and polygamy and was the first African leader to appoint women to major cabinet positions and actively recruit them for the military. A motorcyclist himself, he formed an all-woman motorcycle personal guard.
- He encouraged women to work outside the home and stay in school even if pregnant.
- He launched a nation-wide public health ‘Vaccination Commando’ a state run program that in a period of only 15 days in early November 1984, completed the immunization of 2.5 million children against meningitis (a world record), yellow fever and measles. This operation was so successful in that children in neighbouring countries like the Ivory Coast and Mali were sent to Burkina Faso for free immunization that helped curtail high rates of infant and child mortality.
- He sold off the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers. He lowered his salary, as President, to only $450 a month and limited his possessions to a car, four bikes, three guitars, and a refrigerator.
- He planted over ten million trees to halt the growing desertification of the Sahel and established an ambitious road and rail construction program to “tie the nation together.”
- He was known for jogging unaccompanied through the capital city in his track suit and posing in his tailored military fatigues with his mother-of-pearl pistol. And when asked why he didn’t want his portrait hung in public places, as was the norm for other African leaders, he said ”there are seven million Thomas Sankaras.”
Sankara’s revolutionary policies for self-reliance and defiance against the neoliberal development strategies imposed by the West made him an icon to many supporters of African liberation. But his policies alienated and antagonized the vested interests of the small but powerful Burkinabe middle class, the tribal leaders who he stripped of the traditional right to forced labor and tribute payments, and the foreign financial interests in France and their ally Ivory Coast.
Compaore and Sankara
On October 15, 1987 Sankara was killed by an armed militia of twelve officials in a coup d’état organized by Compaore. Sankara’s body was dismembered and buried in an unmarked grave. Compaore immediately took power, overturning most of Sankara’s policies. Compaore reportedly ousted Sankara because he believed that his revolutionary policies were jeopardizing Burkina Faso’s relationship with France and Ivory Coast. Sankara and Compaore were not only colleagues, they were childhood friends.
This is why ‘Bad Karma’ should be Blaise Compaore’s middle name. He is a ruthless man who orchestrated the brutal assassination of his best friend.
Yet he is the man routinely designated by the international community to act as a ’mediator’ to help resolve African conflicts… smdhThis has got to be one of the most remarkable men I’ve ever read about. Why don’t they teach this at our schools?… I have an answer coldly lingering in the back of my head right now…
African Queens
Exert from Max Dashu’s Women’s Power dvd, from the suppressed Histories Archives
Africa is rich in positive female history and famous for its queens.
Queen Yaa Asantewaa, Queen Nzingha, Queen Hapersheput, Queen Nefetari and Queen Cleopatra.
adapted from a post originally from afrodesiac:
(Source: suppressedhistories.net)
Soweto Pride. 2011 (by Lauren Barkume)
We remembered Tupac’s death. Somebody’s gotta remember these 4 little girls. Be mindful.
In addition to the friends & families who have never forgotten them, Spike Lee’s first full-length documentary, Four Little Girls (1997) (watch it via GoogleVideo here) focuses on the tragically too-short lives of Cynthia, Addie Mae, Denise, & Carole who were blown up while waiting for Sunday School to start in the basement of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. It is excellent.
(Also, Angela Y Davis, a native of Birmingham & resident of Dynamite Hill talks in her autobiography about going to school with 3 of the young ladies who died that day, why she happened to not be in Sunday School that morning, and how that particular terrorist’s act shaped her life going forward. (Davis et al., 1974, p.184)
watching the documentary now
