tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23669295289645838832024-03-05T06:36:25.973-08:00BERBICIANGRIOTABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.comBlogger369125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-55923685929960797972023-05-20T12:19:00.001-07:002023-05-20T12:19:09.166-07:00 TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE MAY 20-1743
Murphy Browne © May 20-2023
TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE MAY 20-1743
I send you with this letter a declaration which will acquaint you with the unity that exists between the proprietors of San Domingo who are in France, those in the United States, and those who serve under the English banner. You will see there a resolution, unequivocal and carefully constructed, for the restoration of slavery; you will see there that their determination to succeed has led them to envelop themselves in the mantle of liberty in order to strike it more deadly blows. You will see that they are counting heavily on my complacency in lending myself to their perfidious views by my fear for my children. It is not astonishing that these men who sacrifice their country to their interests are unable to conceive how many sacrifices a true love of country can support in a better father than they, since I unhesitatingly base the happiness of my children on that of my country, which they and they alone wish to destroy. Blind as they are! They cannot see how this odious conduct on their part can become the signal of new disasters and irreparable misfortunes, and that far from making them regain what in their eyes liberty for all has made them lose, they expose themselves to a total ruin and the colony to its inevitable destruction. Do they think that men who have been able to enjoy the blessing of liberty will calmly see it snatched away? They supported their chains only so long as they did not know any condition of life more happy than that of slavery. But to-day when they have left it, if they had a thousand lives they would sacrifice them all rather than be forced into slavery again.
Excerpt from Toussaint L’Ouverture’s Letter to the Directory, November 5, 1797, published in The Black Jacobins by C. L. R. James 1963
François Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture was an enslaved African born on May 20, 1743, two hundred and eighty years ago, on the Caribbean island of Saint Domingue (Haiti.) He is recognized as one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution. The Africans who were enslaved in Haiti by a group of French men and women are the only group of Africans who seized and maintained their freedom from chattel slavery. They declared their independence on January 1, 1804, after years of armed struggle against European forces beginning in August 1891. L’Ouverture chose his last name sometime in 1793. He used the last name L’Ouverture for the first time when he wrote a letter dated August 29, 1793, in which he encouraged enslaved Africans to unite: “Brothers and friends, I am Toussaint Louverture; perhaps my name has made itself known to you. I have undertaken vengeance. I want Liberty and Equality to reign in St Domingue. I am working to make that happen. Unite yourselves to us, brothers, and fight with us for the same cause. Your very humble and obedient servant, Toussaint L'Ouverture.” He had carried the last name Breda at birth because like enslaved Africans everywhere he was given the name of his enslavers. His enslavers owned the Breda plantation where he was born.
In 1797 when he wrote his Letter to the Directory L’Ouverture was 54 years old and had been free for about 4 years. For a man who had been enslaved for most of his life it was an extraordinary achievement to be able to read and write. In every society where Africans were enslaved by White men and women literacy was not encouraged for the enslaved Africans and in some places (USA) being literate was a death sentence for an enslaved African. L’Ouverture’s letter referred to the people who were determined to re-enslave the Africans in Haiti who had been freed by the French Revolutionary government on February 4, 1794. This declaration on paper that the enslaved Africans on plantations owned by French men and women were free did not happen because White people suddenly had an epiphany that enslaving other humans was wrong. They were forced to declare an abolition of slavery because the Africans in Haiti had seized their freedom three years earlier in 1791.
In 1789 when the revolutionaries in France proclaimed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen they did not care about the freedom or rights of enslaved Africans whose coerced labour made France one of the richest European countries of the time. Haiti was France’s Pearl of the Antilles. The late African Guyanese scholar and historian Walter Rodney in his 1973 published book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa included a quote from a presentation made in 1791 by Cardinal Maury, a member of the French National Assembly who urged the French National Assembly to maintain slavery in the French colonies: “If you were to lose each year more than 200 million livres that you now get from your colonies; if you had not the exclusive trade with your colonies to feed your manufactures, to maintain your navy, to keep your agriculture going, to repay for your imports, to provide for your luxury needs, to advantageously balance your trade with Europe and Asia, then I say it clearly, the kingdom would be irretrievably lost. Bishop Maury (of France): Argument against France’s ending the slave trade and giving freedom to its slave colonies. Presented in the French National Assembly, 1791.”
The French Revolutionary government seized power from the French monarchy and the aristocracy and declared France a republic in September 1792, murdering their king the following year. After a blood bath popularly known as the Reign of Terror (September 5, 1793 – July 28, 1794) where French men and women marched their fellow citizens to the guillotine to be slaughtered by the tens of thousands, the bloodthirsty citizens settled down and turned their attention once again to the colonies. With the fighting and killing in France, White people did not have time to take care of business in the colonies, but they had no intention of losing all that unpaid labour that was provided by Africans. After dispatching tens of thousands of their tribe via the guillotine the French led by a Corsican (Napoleon Bonaparte) once more turned their covetous eyes to the riches of Haiti.
Bonaparte drunk with power after defeating much of Europe declared himself Emperor of France even though he was not French. He then tried to retake Haiti from the Africans who had taken their freedom and established their independence as a nation. The French had reneged on their declaration of freedom for enslaved Africans and had re-enslaved Africans in their colonies. Under Napoleon’s rule the French passed a law on May 20, 1802, revoking the law passed on February 4, 1794, which had abolished slavery in the French colonies. On June 7, 1802, Bonaparte’s general LeClerc captured L’Ouverture after deceiving him by inviting him to a meeting with an offering to negotiate. Le Clerc realizing that he could not defeat the Africans led by L’Ouverture pretended to be willing to negotiate with L’Overture as the leader of his people. On June 15, 1802, the kidnapped L’Overture and his family were transported to France on board the French ship Le Heros. On his arrival in France L’Overture was imprisoned and on April 7, 1803, he transitioned to the ancestor realm, a victim of his belief in the non-existent honour of Bonaparte and the French. In 2023, the name Toussaint L’Ouverture is well known as Haiti’s liberator. Toussaint L’Ouverture was born 280 years ago on May 20, 1743.
Murphy Browne © May 20-2023ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-25949029711039429502021-10-28T21:25:00.003-07:002021-10-28T21:27:04.563-07:00JOSIAH HENSON AND NANCY HENSON OCTOBER 28-1830Murphy Browne © October 26, 2021
“I was born June 15th, 1789, in Charles County, Maryland, on a farm belonging to Mr. Francis N, about a mile from Port Tobacco. My mother was the property of Dr. Josiah McP, but was hired by Mr. N to whom my father belonged. The only incident I can remember which occurred while my mother continued on Mr. N's farm, was the appearance one day of my father with his head bloody and his back lacerated.”
From The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself by Josiah Henson published 1849.
Josiah Henson was an enslaved African man who fled slavery in the USA and arrived in Canada 191 years ago, on October 28, 1830. Henson with his wife and four children arrived in Canada four years before slavery was abolished in Canada on August 1, 1834. In his 1849 published Narrative about his life, Henson documented the horror of living as an enslaved African man, including his only memory of his father (Henson was 3 or 4 years old) who was maimed as punishment
for defending his wife against a White rapist. “His right ear was cut off close to his head and he had received a hundred lashes on his back. He had beaten the overseer for a brutal assault on my mother and this was his punishment. And though it was all a mystery to me at the age of three or four years, it was explained at a later period, and I understood that he had been suffering the cruel penalty of the Maryland law for beating a white man.” Henson would later describe in grim detail how his father was punished. “The day for the execution of the penalty was appointed. The Negroes from the neighboring plantations were summoned, for their moral improvement, to witness the scene. A powerful blacksmith named Hewes laid on the stripes. Fifty were given, during which the cries of my father might be heard a mile, and then a pause ensued. True, he had struck a white man, but as valuable property he must not be damaged. Judicious men felt his pulse. Oh! he could stand the whole. Again and again the thong fell on his lacerated back. His cries grew fainter and fainter, till a feeble groan was the only response to his final blows. His head was then thrust against the post, and his right ear fastened to it with a tack; a swift pass of a knife, and the bleeding member was left sticking to the place.”
Henson’s father was eventually sold and he never saw his father again. Describing the last time he saw his father, Henson remembered “He was beside himself with mingled rage and suffering.” Henson could not remember much about his father before the horrific maiming, but he later learned that “Previous to this affair my father, from all I can learn, had been a good- humored and light- hearted man, the ringleader in all fun at corn- huskings and Christmas buffoonery. His banjo was the life of the farm, and all night long at a merry- making would he play on it while the other Negroes danced. But from this hour he became utterly changed. Sullen, morose, and dogged, nothing could be done with him. The milk of human kindness in his heart was turned to gall. He brooded over his wrongs. No fear or threats of being sold to the far south- - the greatest of all terrors to the Maryland slave- - would render him tractable. So off he was sent to Alabama. What was his fate neither my mother nor I have ever learned.” Years later Henson detailed the reason his father had been brutally punished, maimed and then sold away from his family. “The explanation I picked up from the conversation of others only partially explained the matter to my mind; but as I grew older I understood it all. It seemed the overseer had sent my mother away from the other field hands to a retired place, and after trying persuasion in vain, had resorted to force to accomplish a brutal purpose. Her screams aroused my father at his distant work, and running up, he found his wife struggling with the man. Furious at the sight, he sprung upon him like a tiger. In a moment the overseer was down, and, mastered by rage, my father would have killed him but for the entreaties of my mother, and the overseer's own promise that nothing should ever be said of the matter. The promise was kept- - like most promises of the cowardly and debased- - as long as the danger lasted.”
While Henson was still a small child his enslaver Dr. Josiah McPherson, died and Henson, his mother and siblings were sold at auction. “My brothers and sisters were bid off one by one while my mother holding my hand looked on in an agony of grief, the cause of which I but ill understood at first, but which dawned on my mind, with dreadful clearness as the sale proceeded.” Henson as a 5- or 6-year-old became so ill after his mother was sold that he was eventually sold to his mother’s new enslaver Isaac Riley, “at such a trifling rate that it could not be refused.”
Henson married Nancy, an enslaved African woman when he was 22 years old and the couple eventually had 12 children. When Henson was 36 years old his enslaver Isaac Riley, the man to who Henson and his mother had been sold, found himself in financial difficulties and to hide his “assets,” persuaded Henson to take 18 enslaved Africans (including Henson, his wife and their children) from Maryland to his brother Amos Riley’s plantation in Kentucky. The group of 18 enslaved Africans led by Henson, left Maryland in February 1825. While passing through the free state of Ohio, "colored people gathered round us, and urged us with much importunity to remain with them." Henson refused to remain a free man in Ohio, considering that it was more important to keep the promise made to his enslaver than to free himself, his wife, his children and the other enslaved Africans. Years later, as a free man living in Canada, Henson lamented that decision "I have often had painful doubts as to the propriety of my carrying so many other individuals into slavery again, and my consoling reflection has been, that I acted as I thought at the time was best. In the 1973 published Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films African American film historian and author Donald Bogle writes: “Always as toms are chased, harassed, hounded, flogged, enslaved, and insulted, they keep the faith, n'er turn against their white massas, and remain hearty, submissive, stoic, generous, selfless, and oh-so-very kind. Thus they endear themselves to white audiences and emerge as heroes of sorts.”
Josiah Henson eventually made the decision to flee from enslavement on the Isaac Riley plantation in Kentucky and arrived in Canada on October 28, 1830. Henson did not make the journey to freedom alone. He brought his wife and the four children that they had at time, to Canada. The Henson family travelled on foot by night and hid in the woods by day. After a long and dangerous six-week journey, the Hensons arrived in Upper Canada/Ontario on the morning of October 28, 1830. In 1830, (Upper Canada) Ontario had become a refuge for enslaved Africans (beginning in 1793) who had escaped from the United States, even though slavery was practiced in the province and throughout Canada until August 1, 1834.
In 1793, Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe passed An Act to prevent the further introduction of Slaves, and limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude within this Province. That law was enacted because of the resistance of Chloe Cooley, an enslaved African woman in Upper Canada/Ontario. On March 14, 1793, Chloe Cooley, an enslaved African woman in Queenston, was beaten, bound, thrown in a boat and sold across the river to a new owner in the United States. Her screams and violent resistance was brought to the attention of Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe by Peter Martin, a free African man living in Canada who had been a soldier in Butler's Rangers, and had witnessed the outrage. Simcoe tried to abolish slavery in the province. He was met with opposition in the House of Assembly, some of whose members were enslavers. A compromise was reached and on July 9, 1793, An Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude within this Province was passed that prevented the further introduction of slaves into Upper Canada and allowed for the gradual abolition of slavery although no slaves already living in Upper Canada/Ontario were freed. It was the first legislation that limited slavery and led to a freedom movement of enslaved Africans from the USA, that became known as the Underground Railroad. The Act did not prevent the buying and selling of enslaved Africans in the province as evidenced by the infamous advertisement on February 10, 1806, where Peter Russell, a member of the House of Assembly was selling Peggy Pompadour and her 15-year-old son Jupiter.
The legislation did not end slavery in Canada or even in Ontario, but it did prevent the importation of enslaved Africans. This meant that any enslaved African who fled slavery in the USA and arrived in Upper Canada/Ontario was free. When the Henson family arrived on October 28, 1830, others had already made Upper Canada/Ontario their home, including Black Loyalists from the American Revolution and many other freedom seekers from the War of 1812. Henson became a leader in the community. In 1841, Henson and a group of abolitionists bought 200 acres of land southwest of the Town of Dresden and established Dawn, an African Canadian community where other enslaved Africans who fled slavery in the USA could settle. At its height, the Dawn settlement had
approximately 500 residents, but many members returned to the USA in the 1860s after slavery was abolished there. Henson chose to remain in Canada and he and his wife supposedly spent the remainder of their lives in the two-storey house which today is on the Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site in Dresden, Ontario. The site was acquired by the Ontario Heritage Trust in February 2005, ironically, 180 years after Henson began that ill-fated journey (February 1825) from Maryland to Kentucky. Henson transitioned to the ancestral realm on May 5, 1883, at almost 94 years old.
Murphy Browne © October 26, 2021
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-43757560643153728332021-01-31T21:21:00.000-08:002021-01-31T21:21:23.159-08:00AFRICAN HERITAGE MONTH 2021AFRICAN HERITAGE MONTH 2021
Ninety-five years ago, during the second week of February 1926, African American scholar/historian, Carter Godwin Woodson launched "Negro History Week." Since 1976 it was expanded from a one-week recognition of African history to a one-month recognition. This one-month celebration/recognition of our history began in February 1926 when African American historian Carter Godwin Woodson took the initiative to educate Americans about the history and achievements of Africans. At that time, many Americans (and others) mistakenly thought that Africans had no history beyond enslavement and colonization by Europeans. This is not surprising because during the four hundred years enslavement of Africans, their white enslavers made a concerted effort to strip Africans of all memory of their culture, language and history. Using savagely brutal means, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMPFQo5V-lA) the slave holders succeeded in wiping almost all knowledge of African languages, culture and history from the memory of many enslaved Africans and their descendants. Vestiges of the languages, culture and history survived in fragments in every enslaved community. We managed to salvage remnants of our culture, languages and history in whatever European language we were forced to survive. Our African culture survived whether we were forced to speak English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, German or any other European language. In the lyrics of his song “Survival,” Bob Marley sang, “We're the survivors, like Daniel out of the lions’ den (Black survivors.)”
Although you might hear someone grumble that “they” gave us the coldest month of the year, by now most of us know that the second week of February was chosen by Woodson in 1926 to honour Frederick Douglass who chose February 14 as his birthday. Douglass had to choose a birthday because like many enslaved Africans he had no written record of his date of birth. He did remember that his mother would refer to him as her “little Valentine” so he surmised he was born on February 14. In February schools, business places and community organizations usually plan at least one activity to acknowledge the history and culture of Africans. Most of these events are nothing more than an excuse to trot out some Africans in African attire, sample some African food, drum and dance. We need to ensure that any event in our schools or the places where we are employed do more than provide entertainment in recognition of the month. At the very least include the history of Africans in Canada with a display of books and posters. There are bookstores in the city owned by African Canadians where the owners are extremely knowledgeable about appropriate books for a display. During Black History Month, African Heritage Month/African Liberation Month (whatever we chose to name it as we exercise our Kujichagulia/Self-determination,) do more to spread the knowledge. Read a book about African history, read to your children, buy a book for your children or other people’s children. Starting now!
Murphy Browne © February 2009
AFRICAN HERITAGE MONTH
What's in a name? Shakespeare wrote that a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. He could afford to think, write and even say those words. He was a White male who had power and privilege bestowed on him because of the colour of his skin. His parents probably named him; he was not given a name by people from another culture who had stolen his name and language from him. For enslaved Africans who did not have a choice in naming themselves it is a very different matter. Europeans re-named us. Under pain of death we were not permitted to use our own names or speak our mother tongue. Africans in the Diaspora are the only group of people who do not collectively know who they are. There are individuals and groups who will acknowledge that they are African, but as a people we do not yet know and take pride in who we are. Other groups whose ancestors left their places of origin many years ago are proud of who they are. There is a reason for this difference in attitudes. Our ancestors did not choose to leave; they were kidnapped, dragged out of their countries, out of the continent in chains and held captive their entire lives. Were it not for the 400-year enslavement of Africans we would all know that we are Africans and our names would reflect this knowledge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUBdBaJA03Q
Deliberate, strategic methods were used to alienate Africans from tradition and from each other, and to teach African inferiority and European superiority. Europeans first attacked African culture; then they denied that African culture ever existed. Stripped of their names and identities, our ancestors were no longer Africans; they were made "Negro" by White slavers. The names many of us carry today reflect the nationality of the Europeans who enslaved our ancestors. Had this not been the case, my great grandfather's name would not have been Kelly Murphy Jonas. His name would probably have been Kofi. Kofi is the Akan name given to a male born on Friday. My name would have been Abena, because I was born on Tuesday. My childhood friends Staye and Faye Daniels would probably have been Taiwo and Kehinde because they are twins. Taiwo and Kehinde are the Yoruba names given to twins. Africans in the Diaspora cannot claim one particular country as the country of their ancestors either; our history of enslavement with the accompanying destruction of family units makes it impossible. Since everyone has two biological parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents and so on, it is possible that one person can have ancestors from more than eight different African groups. European slavers knew that divided we were vulnerable. They designed a system to make us lose the basis of our collective identity. We were separated, and then our names, our language, our stories, our songs, our family structures, even our understanding of God -- the things that bound us together -- were beaten out of us. Then, they had to make us believe in, protect and even demand White supremacy. We had to be taught to love and revere Europe and European culture more than life itself. We were also taught that Africans had contributed nothing to the world.
There has been continued African resistance to this attack on our sense of self since the first Africans were kidnapped and enslaved. There were always people who resisted. Some of these freedom fighters are well known; many others are not. In 1971, Richard B. Moore wrote in an "Open Letter on Our People's Name" to Bayard Rustin, Executive Director of the Asa Phillip Randolph Institute: "This term 'Negro' has long been a synonym for slave, loaded continuously with scorn and hostility, and still linked in the public mind generally with a vile and repulsive image." Born in Barbados on August 9, 1885, Moore moved to New York as a young man. In the 1960s he created the "Committee to present the truth about the Name Negro". He also published the book, The Name Negro, Its Origin and Evil Use, as part of his campaign to encourage Africans to reclaim their names. He made the connection between the use of the word "Negro" and the beginning of the African slave trade. He proved Europeans used it in their attempt to instill an inferiority complex within Africans. Moore died in Barbados in 1978, but his work and his words live on. Carter G. Woodson initiated the celebration of Negro History Week in February 1926. Woodson chose
February to honour the memory of Frederick Douglass. At the time when Woodson started the recognition of African heritage and history as a public entity, African Americans still used the name they had been given by Europeans. During the 1960s and '70s the "Negroes" and "Coloureds" of the U.S. renamed themselves Black. It was the time of being "Black and Proud."
In 1976, as part of the American bicentennial celebrations, "Negro History Week" became Black History Month. Since then, we have been expressing our kujichagulia (self-determination) by naming our celebration Black History Month, African Heritage Month or African Liberation Month. In Canada, the Canadian Negro Women's Association pioneered the celebration of Black history in the 1950s. The Ontario Black History Society was instrumental in the recognition of Black History Month as a citywide celebration in 1979. In 1993, the celebration gained province-wide recognition. In 1996, due to the intervention of MP Jean Augustine in December of 1995, Black History Month became a nationally recognized celebration in Canada.
Whatever you are comfortable naming yourself, educate yourself about your history.
Murphy Browne © February 2009
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-12992057521344277592019-07-23T14:10:00.000-07:002019-07-23T14:10:59.416-07:00AFRICAN JAMAICANS IN NOVA SCOTIA<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipLYMMqfL2itYP4o1rZueta0UCScCOKJzHew8LNK0PxYWqmAOa-5Cbwb0dr8-xC-utrRant6olFcvkX7eL10h6S72UYTeWLVVX796zC_n3OeTZkGfuquB1MoIi1zP5_c8gY6zCKLfyre9E/s1600/JAMAICAN+MAROONS+IN+NOVA+SCOTIA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipLYMMqfL2itYP4o1rZueta0UCScCOKJzHew8LNK0PxYWqmAOa-5Cbwb0dr8-xC-utrRant6olFcvkX7eL10h6S72UYTeWLVVX796zC_n3OeTZkGfuquB1MoIi1zP5_c8gY6zCKLfyre9E/s320/JAMAICAN+MAROONS+IN+NOVA+SCOTIA.jpg" width="210" height="320" data-original-width="328" data-original-height="500" /></a></div>
Murphy Browne © July 21-2019
On July 21 and 22-1796, three ships docked at the Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia carrying between 550 and 600 African Jamaican men, women and children. The three ships, the Ann, the Dover and the Mary had sailed from Port Royal Harbour, Jamaica on June 26-1796, and arrived in Canada almost one month later in July 1796. The passengers on the three ships had been forced to leave their homes in Jamaica, by the colonizing British. The group known as “Maroons” were the descendants of enslaved Africans who had seized their freedom when the British ousted the Spanish from Jamaica in 1655. This group of freedom fighters whose ancestors had fled slavery when the Spanish were forced to flee Jamaica had been fighting to remain free of enslavement attempts by the British, for more than 100 years. The group repeatedly defeated the British attempts to capture and re-enslave them.
The group of Africans who arrived in Nova Scotia in July 1796 were also known as the Jamaican Maroons. They were Africans whose ancestors had been enslaved by the Spanish before the British colonized the island. On May 10-1655, during the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604,) the British invaded the Spanish colonized island and the Spaniards fled leaving behind the Africans they had enslaved, who seized the opportunity to head for the mountains and freedom. The Africans who escaped from slavery on the island of Jamaica established free communities in the mountainous interior and waged battles with the British who tried to re-enslave them.
The British, who invaded the island in 1655, also enslaved Africans to support their extensive development of sugar-cane plantations. The enslaved Africans in Jamaica continually resisted and some of them escaped from the British to join the Maroon communities established in the mountains.
The armed conflicts between the British and the Africans led to the “First Maroon War” between the warring groups in 1728. The British were unsuccessful in defeating the Maroons because the Africans were fearless, fighting for their freedom and led by military tacticians who knew the lay of the land. The Africans, using guerrilla warfare in the densely forested area of the Cockpit Country were at a distinct advantage against the heavily armed and unsuitably dressed British. The war ended with signing of treaties between the British and the Maroons which not surprisingly benefitted the British, even though they did not win the war. The language of the signed treaties was written in English which gave the British colonizers a distinct advantage.
In 1795 tensions between the Maroons of Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town) and the British erupted into the Second Maroon War. This second “Maroon War” which began in July 1795, lasted 8 months until March, 1796. Although the British with 5,000 troops and militia outnumbered the Maroons ten to one, the mountainous and forested area where the war was waged proved ideal for guerilla warfare. The British, however, with more fighting men than the Maroons, also had 100 bloodhounds and their handlers imported from Cuba. This gave the British a distinct advantage in many ways. The Cudjoe's Town/Trelawny Town) Maroons who were not supported by other Maroon communities in this war, decided to surrender rather than suffer a defeat.
In March, 1796 the Maroons agreed to accept open discussions with the British. The British colonial governor in Jamaica had promised leniency if the Maroons surrendered. He reneged and instead, captured and deported (to Nova Scotia) the entire Cudjoe's Town/Trelawny Town Maroon community. These proud African Jamican freedom fighters who had managed to evade enslavement were forced to board three ships which sailed from Port Royal Harbour, Jamaica on June 26-1796, and arrived in Canada almost one month later on July 21 and 22-1796.
The deported Maroons were unhappy with conditions in Canada, and in 1800, the majority left to travel to the British colony of Sierra Leone in West Africa. In 1800 they were back on the continent from where their ancestors had been kidnapped even though it was at that time (1800) a British colony.
Some descendants of the Jamaican Maroon community remained in Nova Scotia. Some who were taken to Sierra Leone, returned to Jamaica.
There were “Maroon” communities in every country where Africans were enslaved by Europeans including Brazil, Suriname and Mexico. In the English speaking Caribbean, the Jamaican Maroons are the most well known as we were taught about these freedom fighters at home and in school.
Murphy Browne © July 21-2019
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-20291393625066443792018-07-04T10:22:00.000-07:002018-07-04T10:22:24.582-07:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhVBrMqWzECmuG0HTH6l_JLPotH2jvh9HykjkFVs-3fYn-W7gT43pqcgyLFbfuMwIMbaW7crWADbP939mb3_JyHTNU5KUAQKcCle6bKGDakHBk_y8P_pNnwk8dyQ3FWximnXwr1eMyKSq8/s1600/ABOLITIONIST+FREDERICK+DOUGLASS+1852+SPEECH.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhVBrMqWzECmuG0HTH6l_JLPotH2jvh9HykjkFVs-3fYn-W7gT43pqcgyLFbfuMwIMbaW7crWADbP939mb3_JyHTNU5KUAQKcCle6bKGDakHBk_y8P_pNnwk8dyQ3FWximnXwr1eMyKSq8/s320/ABOLITIONIST+FREDERICK+DOUGLASS+1852+SPEECH.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="480" data-original-height="360" /></a>
In 1852 while Africans in America were held in slavery, African American abolitionist/activist Frederick Douglass was invited to speak at a July 4, 1852, celebration in Rochester, N.Y. As the keynote speaker for the American Independence Day celebration Frederick Douglass famously asked the white audience: “Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?” He bravely and honestly informed them: “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”
Murphy Browne © Monday, February 17, 2014
<b>ABOLITIONIST FREDERICK DOUGLASS FEBRUARY 14, 1818 - FEBRUARY 20, 1895</b>
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”
Excerpt from speech given by Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852, Douglass gave a speech at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence held at Rochester's Corinthian Hall.
In his 2010 published book “The State of the American Mind: Stupor and Pathetic Docility Volume II” African professor Amechi Okolo has included this information about Douglass’ July 5, 1852 speech: “On July 5, 1852, Douglass gave a speech at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence, held at Rochester's Corinthian Hall. It was biting oratory, in which the speaker told his audience, "This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn." And he asked them, "Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?"”
During this month of February when many acknowledge/celebrate the contributions, culture and history of Africans there are several events around and about the city, the province and the country. At these events oftentimes Africans are invited to speak. I say “oftentimes” because even though this is supposed to be Black History Month/African History Month/African Liberation Month you will find that sometimes the speaker can by no stretch of the imagination be described as African or Black. Take for instance Tim Wise a White man who is considered an authority on anti-racism and is invited to speak at Black History Month events. On such occasions I am reminded of Fredrick Douglass’ July 5, 1852 speech. In that speech Douglass took to task the White people who were so insensitive as to invite a formerly enslaved African to hopefully give a glowing speech in praise of American Independence when slavery as an institution was very much a part of the American society. Similarly it is at least insensitive to invite a White person who would never have experienced what it is to be an African living in a White supremacist culture to speak at a Black History Month event.
Black History Month/African History Month/African Liberation Month began as Negro History Week in 1926. This month was chosen by Carter Godwin Woodson because he wanted to honour Frederick Douglass who chose February 14 as his birth date. Douglass like many other enslaved Africans did not have their birth date documented. Douglass chose February 14 because he remembered his mother referring to him as her little “Valentine.” Douglass thought that he was born on February 14, 1818 but there is no documentation of his birth. In his autobiography Douglass wrote: “I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time.” Douglass wrote in his autobiography that he only saw his mother about four or five times in his life before she transitioned when he was 7 years old. She was sold when he was an infant and would walk about 12 miles to see her child because she was sold to people who lived in the same area. Many enslaved Africans never saw their children or other relatives once they were sold. In “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself” which was first published in 1845 Douglass wrote: “It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor.”
In his autobiography Douglass wrote about the horrors of slavery he had witnessed as a child as an adult. Douglass wrote about witnessing his aunt being brutalized by the White man who enslaved many of his relatives: “He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin.” Douglass’ autobiography was used by abolitionists and the anti-slavery movement in which he was very actively involved. He is credited with playing a major role in the eventual abolition of slavery in the USA.
Douglass (February 14, 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an abolitionist, human rights and women’s rights advocate. He was definitely a man before his time. When the history of the abolition movement is written the heroes are invariably White. Not surprising as Chinua Achebe, the late Igbo author is famous for this quote: “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” Fortunately Douglass wrote his autobiography and much of his work is archived at the American Library of Congress. It is important for us to know our history not only during February but very day. Because our names and languages were taken away from us during the centuries of enslavement many Africans in the Diaspora are lost and disconnected. Now is a good time to start reconnecting. Attend African History events and read, read, read!!
Murphy Browne © Monday, February 17, 2014
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-52615160908357034572016-11-14T16:16:00.001-08:002016-11-14T16:24:33.126-08:00MADISON WASHINGTON AND THE SEIZING OF THE CREOLE<blockquote>On the night of November 7, 1841, Madison Washington a 22 year old enslaved African man seized control of the slave ship “Creole” which was transporting him and 134 other enslaved Africans from Virginia to be sold in New Orleans. Washington led a group of 18 other enslaved Africans in seizing control from the White captain and crew of the “Creole.” Washington first demanded that they sail to Liberia then changed that plan to Nassau, Bahamas. </blockquote>
The British had colonized the Bahamas in 1649 and made it a British Crown colony in 1718. Following the successful American rebellion against British rule (1765-1783) some of the British Loyalists had fled to the Bahamas taking the Africans they had enslaved in the USA. Britain abolished slavery on August 1, 1838 after a four year “apprenticeship” for the Africans from August 1, 1834. On November 7, 1841 when the Africans on board the “Creole” seized control of the vessel they first demanded to be taken to Liberia in West Africa. Liberia had been developed as a colony in 1821 by the American Colonization Society to settle formerly enslaved Africans. The American Colonization Society was a group of White people who did not want to share space with Africans who were not enslaved. They felt that all freed Africans should leave the USA and be taken to Africa even though they were born in America as were their ancestors for several generations. Liberia, West Africa was the first choice of resettlement for Madison Washington after seizing control of the “Creole.” Some of the other Africans on board wanted to try for the Bahamas which was much closer. They had heard about the slave ship “Hermosa” which had been shipwrecked in the Bahamas in 1840 and that the enslaved Africans onboard had been set free. On October 22, 1840 the American slave ship “Hermosa” was towed to Nassau, Bahamas with 38 enslaved Africans on board. The Africans were freed once they landed in Nassau because slavery had been abolished by the British six years before.
<blockquote>When the “Creole” landed in Nassau, Washington and his 18 co-conspirators were jailed because they were accused of killing a White man during their bid for freedom on the “Creole.” Inexplicably, of the 135 enslaved Africans on the “Creole” three women, a boy and a girl choose to remain onboard to return to slavery in New Orleans. Several of the people from the “Creole” who escaped slavery choose resettlement in Jamaica. Washington and the 18 people he led during the uprising on the “Creole” were tried and found not guilty. The Admiralty Court of Nassau held a special session in April 1842 to consider the charges. The Court ruled that the men had been illegally held in slavery and had the right to use force to gain their freedom. They were released on April 16, 1842 and disappeared into history. Madison Washington is said to have escaped slavery two years before the “Creole” incident but was recaptured when he returned to the USA to rescue his wife. It has also been said that Washington was reunited with his wife, who according to legend was on the “Creole.” Perhaps Washington and his wife settled in the Bahamas after he was released because there was a substantial free African community in the Bahamas. This free African community had grown after the British abolished the international slave trade in 1807. Thousands of Africans liberated from slave ships by the British Royal Navy were resettled in New Providence, Grand Bahama, Exuma, Abaco, Inagua and other islands in the Bahamas.</blockquote>
The incident of enslaved Africans who rose up and seized their freedom on the “Creole” is regarded as one of the most successful “slave revolts” in American history. Enslaved Africans resisted their enslavement by any means necessary wherever they were enslaved. Africans were enslaved by Europeans in every country in the Americas (Central, North and South) and on the Caribbean islands. Their resistance included sabotage, such as breaking tools or setting fire to buildings and/or crops. They sometimes pretended to be too sick to work, worked as slowly as they could or pretended not to understand instructions. Some enslaved Africans poisoned their enslavers. There were some cases of enslaved Africans accused of poisoning their owners, who were tried and executed. In 1755, a group of enslaved Africans were accused of killing their owner. Phillis an enslaved African woman in Cambridge, Massachusetts was accused of poisoning her owner and executed by being “burned at the stake.” Mark an enslaved African man who was accused of conspiring with Phillis was hanged and his body gibbeted (left on display.) An article published in the September 25, 1755 issue of the “Boston News-Letter” described their execution: "Thursday last were executed at Cambridge, pursuant to their sentences, Mark and Phillis, two Negro Servants belonging to the late Captain John Codman of Charlestown, for poysoning their said Master: They were both drawn from the Prison to the Place of Execution, attended by the greatest Number of Spectators ever known on such an Occasion; where the former was hanged by the Neck until dead, after which the body was Gibbeted; and the latter was burned to Death." In 1681, an enslaved African woman named Maria tried to kill her owner by setting his house on fire. She was convicted of arson and burned at the stake in Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts. An enslaved African man named Jack, convicted in a separate arson case, was hanged at a nearby gallows and his body was thrown in the fire with Maria’s body as she was burned at the stake.
<blockquote>Slavery in Canada was abolished on August 1, 1834 as elsewhere in British colonized countries at the time. There was no “apprenticeship” period to be served by the emancipated Africans in Canada unlike in the Caribbean. Slavery in the USA was abolished 31 years later in 1865. The history of enslaved Africans is rife with examples of African resistance which led to the end of the practice of enslaving Africans by Europeans. There are many stories naming White abolitionists and hardly is credit given to the Africans who resisted in various ways including armed struggle like the Africans on the “Creole.” The African struggle to end their enslavement is often ignored, underestimated or forgotten. African resistance was documented by Europeans only when there was substantial damage to European interests such as uprisings on slave ships and arson.</blockquote>
The African resistance movement included fleeing plantations and establishing maroon communities (Brazil, Jamaica, Suriname etc.,) from where war was often waged against the Europeans. In Europe, African abolitionists launched or participated in civic movements to end enslavement of Africans. They delivered speeches, provided information, wrote newspaper articles and books. Using various means Africans in Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas and Europe were consistently involved in the struggle to end the slave trade and slavery. The abolition of slavery was very much the result of African resistance and incidents such as the uprising on the “Creole” hastened the end of slavery.
<blockquote>The descendants of those enslaved Africans continue to struggle against the White supremacist cultures in the Americas and Europe. Racial profiling exists in workplaces, educational institutions, housing, policing etc. The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has recognized that: “As racial stereotyping and discrimination exists in society, it also exists in institutions such as law enforcement agencies, the education system, the criminal justice system etc., which are a microcosm of broader society.” Madison Washington and the other freedom fighters from the “Creole” are lost in history, seldom remembered. There are names of our freedom fighters (including Charles Roach, Dudley Laws, Sherona Hall) that must not be lost, who we must never forget as we continue the struggle.</blockquote>
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-30126686207355640922016-11-14T16:06:00.003-08:002016-11-14T16:06:45.607-08:00DEFRAUDING THE ELDERLY IS ELDER ABUSE <blockquote>Research has shown that the sound of a baby crying triggers certain physical reactions including activating parts of the brain involved in fight-or-flight responses. Scientists have found that our brains are hard-wired to respond to the sound of a crying baby making us more attentive and priming our bodies to help whenever we hear it. Reading about the abuse of children can send some people into a frenzy accompanied by thoughts of revenge on the perpetrator as evidenced by some of the posts found on the internet. Children are defenceless, helpless and vulnerable in a society ruled by adults. Many countries have laws in place to protect children and their rights are recognized by the United Nations. On 20 November 1959, the Declaration of the Rights of the Child was adopted unanimously by all 78 Member States of the United Nations General Assembly in Resolution 1386 (XIV). Article # 9 reads that children have: “The right to protection against all forms of neglect, cruelty and exploitation.” Over the decades there has been much progress in detecting and addressing the issue of child abuse.</blockquote>
Children are not the only group in our society that is vulnerable to abuse. The elderly are also defenceless, helpless and vulnerable in many cases even though they are adults. In spite of the fact that many elderly are almost as helpless as children, progress in all areas of research, causes, consequences and interventions of elder abuse has been very slow. According to information on the Canadian (<a href="http://www.seniors.gc.ca/eng/pie/eaa/elderabuse.shtml">http://www.seniors.gc.ca/eng/pie/eaa/elderabuse.shtml</a>) government website: “One in five Canadians believes they know of a senior who might be experiencing some form of abuse. Seniors from all walks of life are vulnerable to elder abuse and it is happening in communities across Canada.” The website defines elder abuse as: “Elder abuse is any action by someone in a relationship of trust that results in harm or distress to an older person. Neglect is a lack of action by that person in a relationship of trust with the same result. Commonly recognized types of elder abuse include physical, psychological and financial. Often, more than one type of abuse occurs at the same time. Abuse can be a single incident or a repeated pattern of behaviour. Financial abuse is the most commonly reported type of elder abuse.” A few months ago a friend who is a social worker raised the alarm as she told me that elder abuse was on the rise with many elderly people being defrauded of their property and life savings by relatives or people who pretended to be relatives. At the time I thought it was an interesting subject but there were many other interesting subjects to write about. More recently my siblings and I have had to actively deal with that subject as our elderly father was defrauded of his house and land in Guyana by a triumvirate of two women and a man who slithered their way into our father’s life.
<blockquote>Our first inkling that all was not well was a desperate message from my father’s nurse (in Guyana) that an eviction notice on my father’s house and property had been served by a man who lives in New York City. My father had suffered a stroke in 2012 and had made great progress over more than a year of therapy. He travelled back and forth from Canada to Guyana where he has/had a house that was supposed to be a place where he could enjoy months away from the winter each year following his retirement. A nurse lived in my father’s house in Guyana to take care of my father. It was with great shock that we realised that Compton Scipio, a man who lives in New York along with his sister Carlotta Scipio Bowman who lives in Toronto under the alias Carlotta Caesar and her daughter Tamara Bowman who lives in Guyana had colluded to defraud my elderly and vulnerable father of the proceeds of his hard earned life’s work.
We could not believe how easily these people had gained possession of my father’s documents including his Canadian passport. The passport was not difficult to recover because after the woman in Guyana refused to return my father’s passport we contacted the Canadian government representative in Guyana who demanded that she surrender the passport to the Canadian embassy or face the consequences. </blockquote>
At first there was denial/disbelief: "You could not just take someone's house; that is impossible!" However, there it was in the Official Gazette of Guyana in black and white; this man who lives in New York City had gained possession of my father's house, his name was on the transport and the date he gained possession, October 10th 2015. I stared in disbelief at the words that meant all the hard work and sacrifices my father had made working his entire youth and adult life to secure his future and his old age had been wiped out by a crooked family. The date now seems to be seared into my memory; this man had fraudulently gained ownership of my elderly father's property (56/57 Atlantic Ville, East Coast Demerara, Guyana) on October 10th 2015.
<blockquote>I was in shock, still am. There have been sleepless nights and tears hoping to wake up from this nightmare. My emotions have vacillated between grief and anger. Various thoughts race through my mind including: How did this happen? It could not be true. Surely no one could be this wicked, this evil to rob an elderly man of the results of years of hard work. Surely Guyana has laws against this kind of fraud/elder abuse. Papa used to be a police officer surely there would be help from a fraud squad. This cannot be happening to my Papa who worked so hard to make provision to ensure comfort in his old age!</blockquote>
Over the past few months I have found that the sound of my elderly father crying triggers certain physical reactions including activating parts of my brain involved in fight responses. I have found that the sound of my elderly father crying triggers thoughts of revenge against the trio who defrauded him of his house. I had seen my father cry twice before; when his mother transitioned (he was her last child and they had a special bond) and when my mother transitioned. This is different, now Papa is defenceless, helpless and vulnerable in a society that does not seem to care about the vulnerability of the elderly.
<blockquote>As of August 31, 2016 my elderly, vulnerable father had to be removed from his house which had been fraudulently obtained by a man who lives in New York City and whose niece and her children now occupy my father's house. It is distressing when he does not sometimes understand that he cannot go back to his house because someone else is living there. I am here in Toronto feeling helpless and just hoping that I do not ever run into the third party of the triumvirate (who lives in Toronto) who stole my father's house. I am not sure I would be able to quietly watch her and not publicly expose her perfidy! I have to hold on to the good thought that “justice will prevail!!”</blockquote>
My father did not survive the shock of having to be moved from his home and one month later he transitioned. He was distressed and I hold Compton Scipio of Far Rockaway New York, Carlotta Scipio Bowman alias Carlotta Caesar of Toronto and Tamara Bowman who now lives in my father's house at 56/57 Atlantic Ville on the East Coast, Demerara, Guyana directly responsible for my father no longer being alive. They stole his house and his life.ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-19445593019622926012016-11-14T15:43:00.000-08:002016-11-14T15:47:11.068-08:00MY FATHER LAID TO REST<blockquote> “United Nation General Assembly designated October 1, as the International Day of older persons; Guyana has opted the entire month to celebrate and recognise the elderly. The theme this year is ‘Take a stand against ageism.’ According to the World Health Organization (WHO), ageism is stereotyping and discriminating on the basis of person’s age. Ageism is widespread; it is a negative practice which has harmful effects on the health of older adults. The WHO has also posited that older people who feel they are a burden may also perceive their lives to be less valuable, often putting them at risk of depression and social isolation.”</blockquote>
Excerpt from an article entitled “Guyana observes month of the elderly” published in the Guyana daily newspaper “Kaieteur News”
<blockquote>It is ironic that during this Guyanese “Month of the elderly” my elderly father who was a victim of elder abuse and fraud succumbed to the stress and distress of losing his home. My father was in his eighties when he succumbed to the effects of months of distress after being defrauded of his house and land at 56/57 Atlantic Ville, East Coast Demerara. My parents were married when my mother was in her late teens and my father in his early 20s. My mother transitioned many years ago so my siblings and I only had one parent since we were all very young. </blockquote>
My father had worked since he was a teenager; he joined the Guyana Police force in the 1950s where he served on the coastland and in the Rupununi. He resigned from the force and moved to Canada where he returned to school to attain Canadian qualifications. My father worked for decades in Canada planning to retire and divide his time between Canada and Guyana. To that end he saved his money and built a house at Atlantic Ville on the East Coast of Demerara. He rented out his house at Atlantic Ville while living in Canada. Upon retirement he divided his time between his home in Atlantic Ville and Canada. In March 2012 my father suffered a massive stroke which left him incapacitated. He spent eight months in hospital in Canada recovering which included speech therapy and physical therapy. He made tremendous progress and within a year was walking but never regained all his faculties. Papa had excellent penmanship which I always admired but could never imitate try as I might. Following the stroke he could no longer write legibly and his speech deteriorated because there was no speech therapy follow up while he was in Guyana.
<blockquote>My father was at his house in Guyana when disaster as we could not even imagine struck in the form of Compton Scipio who lives in Far Rockaway, New York, Scipio’s sister Carlotta Scipio Bowman (who lives in Toronto under the assumed name Carlotta Caesar) and her daughter Tamara Bowman who lives in Guyana. In August 2015 Compton Scipio (who had several aliases when he lived in Guyana) traveled to Guyana and somehow obtained what he alleges is my father’s thumbprint on a document transferring ownership of my father’s house and land at 56-57 Atlantic Ville to Scipio. By some devious sleight of hand Scipio became the proud owner of 56-57 Atlantic Ville on October 10, 2015. A mere two months passed between August 2015 when Scipio visited Guyana and bamboozled my elderly, vulnerable father and October 2015 when Scipio’s name was registered in the Guyana Gazette as the owner of 56-57 Atlantic Ville. Sometime between August 2015 and December 2015 Scipio’s niece Tamara Bowman who lived at Martin Luther King Housing Scheme in Berbice was in possession of my father’s Canadian passport and his pension book. She was using these documents to gain possession of my father’s pension and doling out groceries at her whim to feed my father. While we waited to sort out this catastrophic situation my siblings and I had to financially support our father. We had to contact the Canadian government authorities in Guyana to recover my father’s Canadian passport from Bowman. To add insult to injury my father was no longer allowed to live in his house as of August 31, 2016. As of September 1, 2016 Tamara Bowman, Scipio’s niece and her brood of four children have been occupying my father’s house at 56-57 Atlantic Ville while my father lived in my brother’s house (his eldest son) in Berbice. </blockquote>
During this Guyanese “Month of the elderly” my siblings and I travelled to Guyana to lay our father to rest. We are left to mourn Papa. As I shared my memories of my father in the eulogy I had prepared I looked across the podium into the eyes of Carlotta Scipio Bowman alias Carlotta Caesar who lives under an assumed name in Toronto, Canada. We had heard rumours that the woman was in the country; then there were reports of sightings of this woman in Berbice. I could not fathom that she would be so disrespectful and presumptuous as to crash my father’s funeral. Yet there she was where she had positioned herself to ensure that she was highly visible surrounded by the father of her children and her daughter Tamara Bowman who now occupies my father’s house at 56-57 Atlantic Ville with her brood. Summoning almost superhuman self-control I shared with the mourners in the church my memories of my father and controlled the impulse to sob out my anger and frustration at the sight of two of the three people I hold responsible for my father’s passing. There was some drama after the church service and I am forever grateful to my youngest sibling Ingvar who “had my back” during that trying time. He was beside me, his arm around me ready to take on anyone in my defence. I firmly believe my father had many more years to live if he was not distressed and stressed by members of an evil notorious (Scipio) family who defrauded him of his hard earned livelihood. My father comes from a family known for longevity. His grandfather Kelly Murphy Jonas (after whom my father and I are named) was over a hundred years old when he transitioned. Some of my father’s relatives are still going strong in their 90s.
<blockquote>I spoke about Papa’s love of storytelling, his artistic bent, his effervescent personality. Papa was an extravagantly handsome, charming man who would light up a room with his laughter. He was always impressively, immaculately dressed (pants creased sharply, shoes with mirror like shine) He had a wonderful singing voice but would frequently forget the words of songs; he would never let that stop him from singing! As a child I thought the sun rose and set in my Papa. I could hardly contain myself as my brothers and nephews laid his casket into the tomb. I knew he was gone; I had seen him at the mortuary as they were transferring him to the funeral home. As I talked to him and touched him he was so cold that I lost control of my usual calm. At the cemetery as he was laid to rest amidst his ancestors, his siblings and various other relatives I felt some comfort that he was in a familiar place. There are generations of Papa’s family throughout the cemetery in the village where he was born on the Corentyne Coast. The village was established by Africans after slavery in Guyana was abolished through a four year process from August 1, 1834 to August 1, 1838. I had heard stories from Papa about his grandfather who is still famously remembered as “Pa Kelly/Big Jonas.” I will ensure that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren know about my Papa who is gone but will never be forgotten. </blockquote>
We left Papa peacefully laying with his “generation.” My father was the youngest of his parents’ children and the last to transition. I read some of the tombstones, sometimes surprised at familiar names and dates of birth. I am back in Toronto occasionally weepy, numb, distracted, distraught, moody, angry, missing the first important man in my life, my father, my Papa.
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-55794598951239898012015-01-22T06:09:00.001-08:002015-01-22T06:10:19.049-08:00AFRICAN LIBERATION MONTH 2015As the end of January approaches it is time to begin thinking about February when we recognize and celebrate African history. Whether we name our celebration/recognition “African Heritage Month,” “African Liberation Month” or “Black History Month” it is our choice. We learn about our heroes and sheroes. We learn about events in our history that makes us aware that we as a people have achieved much under very trying circumstances. We also learn or reiterate that our history did not begin with slavery. Yet those of us in the Diaspora know that the enslavement of our ancestors has an enormous effect on how we are treated today. We know that because of the enslavement of our ancestors and the stripping of our names, languages etc., many of us (even today) continue searching for an identity. We do not know who we are because many of the names that were forced on us have been accepted by many of us. Viewing the scene from the 1977 miniseries “Roots” where the enslaved African Kunta Kinte is beaten almost to death until he answers to the name “Toby” gives some idea of how our African names were stolen and replaced by European names. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByhFz5e5Tno">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByhFz5e5Tno</a>
<blockquote>There was always African resistance to enslavement. From the moment they were captured on the African continent; while they were being transported to the “slave dungeons,” while they were being loaded onto those filthy disease ridden ships, as they stood on auction blocks, as they were forced to work from sun-up to sun down, Africans resisted in various ways. Even those Africans born into the condition of slavery on the various plantations owned by members of the various White tribes, resisted. As they were sold from plantation to plantation, from country to country they resisted. They resisted by burning crops, by destroying property, by malingering, by learning to read and write, by fleeing to freedom, by assisting other enslaved Africans to flee slavery. Some of these heroes and sheroes are well known. Countless others are not as well known. Some of these freedom fighters remain nameless. However we have an obligation to “dig up the past” as Carter Godwin Woodson urged. In his 1933 book “The Mis-education of the Negro” Woodson wrote: “Truth must be dug up from the past and presented to the circle of scholastics in scientific form and then through stories and dramatizations that will permeate our educational system.” Woodson established “Negro History Week” during the second week of February in 1926 and the week was later expanded to include the entire month. The month was first known as “Black History Month” but over many years and Africans expressing their Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) it has evolved into “African Heritage Month” and even “African Liberation Month.” One of the many examples of Africans liberating themselves from slavery, gaining wealth through entrepreneurship and using that wealth to support the fight to liberate enslaved Africans was Barney Launcelot Ford.</blockquote>
Barney Launcelot Ford was born on January 22, 1822 to an enslaved African woman and a White plantation owner. He was given one name “Barney” his other names he chose later in life. The children of enslaved African women inherited their mother's status so Ford became the property of his mother's owner. His mother Phoebe wanted her child to escape slavery. She was determined that her child should learn to read and live as a free person. Phoebe was determined that her child would learn to read even at the risk of both their lives. According to information from the “Encyclopedia of African American Business, Volume 1” published in 2006, edited by African American historian Jessie Carney Smith: “Phoebe longed for her son to become free and live to do good for other people. She knew that young Barney must learn to read and write, and she wanted him to learn every word in the dictionary she borrowed. So in the evenings she took him to a fellow slave who taught him to read words from a ‘spelling book.’”
<blockquote>After the death of the plantation owner and the owner's widow attempting to engage Barney as a "house slave" his mother planned his escape. In attempting to find a way for her son to escape slavery Phoebe was found frozen to death. Barney was sold soon after his mother froze to death. Information from the “Encyclopedia of African American Business, Volume 1” documents that: “Friends found Phoebe frozen in the river one night soon thereafter, having attempted to find a way for Ford to escape. The day after his mother's funeral, Ford was sold.” Barney was hired out to work on a Mississippi River Boat by his new owner. When he was 25 years old in 1847 Barney escaped slavery. Seizing the opportunity to walk off while the Mississippi River Boat was docked at Quincy, Illinois he made his way to Chicago with support from members of the Underground Railroad. While living as a free man Barney decided to claim a middle and last names. He took his middle and last names (Launcelot Ford) from a steam locomotive in Chicago. In Chicago he worked as a barber. He met his wife, Julia Lyoni, in Chicago and they were married in 1848. The Fords left the USA for Nicaragua and between 1850 and 1885 Ford used money that he earned as a prospector for gold in Colorado to build several successful businesses. While prospecting in Colorado the hill where he supposedly “struck it rich” was given the dubious honour of being named “Ni--er Hill” a name it retained for approximately 100 years until 1964 when it was renamed “Barney Ford Hill.” In the 2006 published book “Hiking Colorado's Summit County Area: A Guide to the Best Hikes In And Around Summit County” White American author Maryann Gaug describing the area where Ford worked as a prospector writes: “Locals called the area ‘Ni--er Gulch’ and ‘Ni--er Hill.’ In 1964 the names were changed to ‘Ford Gulch’ and ‘Barney Ford Hill.’”</blockquote>
Ford and his wife used the money they earned from their barbershops, hotels and restaurants to support Africans fleeing slavery. Following the abolition of slavery in the USA Ford used his money to establish the first adult education classes (1871) for African Americans in Colorado. He was a Civil Rights activist who lobbied for African Americans to have the right to vote in Colorado. Today Ford is recognized in Colorado as an abolitionist and a Civil Rights activist.
<blockquote>
During February it is important that we do more than share food, dance and provide entertainment. We must return to the true purpose for which Woodson established the one week recognition of our history. In his 1933 published book “The Mis-education of the Negro” Woodson wrote: “Philosophers have long conceded, however, that every man has two educators: 'that which is given to him, and the other that which he gives himself. Of the two kinds the latter is by far the more desirable. Indeed all that is most worthy in man he must work out and conquer for himself. It is that which constitutes our real and best nourishment. What we are merely taught seldom nourishes the mind like that which we teach ourselves.” We need to make the month an opportunity to educate ourselves about ourstory. It will be a great start to the decade declared by the United Nations as the “International Decade for People of African Descent.”</blockquote>
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-30970945530760377522015-01-22T06:05:00.000-08:002015-01-22T06:05:15.841-08:00SELMA AND BLOODY SUNDAY <blockquote>"I know you are asking today, 'How long will it take?' I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to earth will rise again. I know you are asking today, 'How long will it take? How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne? When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men? When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?' I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because 'truth crushed to earth will rise again.' How long? Not long, because 'no lie can live forever.' How long? Not long, because 'you shall reap what you sow.' How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."</blockquote>
Excerpt from “How long, Not long” speech made by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on March 25, 1965 on the steps of the capitol building in Montgomery, Alabama
<blockquote>Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., made his famous “How long, Not long” speech on the steps of the state capitol building in Montgomery, Alabama on the completion of the 54 mile long Selma to Montgomery march to petition for African American right to vote. On Sunday, March 21, 1965 approximately 8,000 people assembled at Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Selma, Alabama in preparation for the to 54 mile walk to Montgomery, the state capital. On March 25 a group of approximately 25,000 people gathered to listen to Dr. King speak after the completion of the 4 day, 54 mile walk
Although Dr. King was the recognized leader of that 3rd attempt during March 1965 to make the journey from Selma to Montgomery, there were many African Americans in Alabama and specifically Selma who had worked for years advocating for African American right to vote. The movie “Selma” which is in the theatres in time for Martin Luther King Jr., Day 2015 pays tribute to some of those activists. The movie “Selma” brings to life on “the big screen” the story of the African American struggle during March 1965 to gain what is the right of every citizen (the right to elect our government representatives.) African Americans in the southern US states were denied that right even though they and their ancestors built the US economy with their blood, sweat, tears and (during slavery) unpaid labour. </blockquote>
Reading and even writing about “Bloody Sunday” the first attempt on March 7, 1965 to walk from Selma to Montgomery did not prepare me for the sight of that fateful day acted out on screen “in living colour.” I re-read John Lewis’ 1998 published book “Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement” on the January 3-4 weekend and then went to see the movie “Selma” on Thursday, January 8. Even with Lewis’ description of police using “rubber hose wrapped with barbed wire” to brutally beat peaceful African Americans I was not prepared for the sights on the screen as I watched “Selma.” In his description of March 7, 1965 Lewis writes: “I was bleeding badly. My head was exploding with pain. There was mayhem all around me. I could see a young kid – a teenaged boy- sitting on the ground with a gaping cut in his head, the blood just gushing out. Several women, including Mrs. Boynton, were lying on the pavement and the grass median. People were weeping. Some were vomiting from the tear gas. Men on horses were moving in all directions, purposely riding over the top of fallen people, bringing their animals’ hooves down on shoulders, stomachs and legs.” Lewis suffered a fractured skull from the vicious police attack on March 7, 1965 and he carries the scars from that “Bloody Sunday” of 50 years ago.
<blockquote>The movie “Selma” presents the brutal facts of “Bloody Sunday” and many of those who laid their lives on the line are portrayed. The Mrs. Boynton that Lewis refers in his book is Amelia Boynton Robinson (born on August 18, 1911) who was a 54 year old Civil Rights activist in 1965. In December 2014, Boynton Robinson now 103 years old was interviewed by the New York Post and spoke of being savagely beaten by White police who then pumped tear gas into the unconscious woman’s throat leaving her for dead. Boynton Robinson recovered and photographs of her unconscious on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965 remain as evidence of that horrific day. She plans to attend the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in March 2015. In “Selma” Boynton Robinson is portrayed by African Trinidad actress Lorraine Toussaint who visited Boynton Robinson when she was researching the role.</blockquote>
Following the savage and vicious beating and other brutality visited upon peaceful African Americans by White police in Selma, caught on camera for the world to witness, American President Johnson was shamed into signing the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965. The signing of the Voting Rights Act did not change the attitude of White people in the South and especially did not affect the behaviour of those who were in power. From the history channel website: “Although the Voting Rights Act passed, state and local enforcement of the law was weak and it was often outright ignored, mainly in the South and in areas where the proportion of blacks in the population was high and their vote threatened the political status quo.” In the movie “Selma” President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act in the presence of Dr. King and other Civil Rights activists.
<blockquote>Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., would have been 86 years old on Thursday, January 15, 2015 if he had survived the single (.30-06 bullet) fired from a Remington Model 760 that entered through his right cheek, breaking his jaw and several vertebrae as it traveled down his spinal cord, severing his jugular vein and major arteries before lodging in his shoulder on April 4, 1968 at 6:01 p.m. After viewing “Selma” I have to wonder what Dr. King would say of the recent spate of White police killing African American men, women and children. Would he still say: “Not long, because 'you shall reap what you sow.' How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice?" Since 1965 “Not long” seems like a very long time!</blockquote>ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-43024399740994387752015-01-22T06:01:00.002-08:002015-01-22T06:01:28.107-08:00DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST!<blockquote>"At the very same time that America refused to give the Negro any land, through an act of Congress, our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the West and the mid-West, which meant that it was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor. But not only did they give the land, they built land grant colleges with government money to teach them how to farm. Not only that, they provided county agents to further their expertise in farming. Not only that, they provided low interest rates in order that they could mechanize their farms. Not only that, today many of these people are receiving millions of dollars in federal subsidies not to farm. And they are the very people telling the Black man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. And this is what we are faced with. Now this is the reality. Now when we come to Washington, in this campaign, we are coming to get our check."</blockquote>
Excerpt from a speech made by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968.
<blockquote>Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was born Michael King Jr., on January 15, 1929 to the Reverend Michael King and Alberta Williams King. King senior later changed his name and his son’s name (reportedly in 1934) to Martin Luther King and Martin Luther King Jr., respectively. The speech quoted above was made when Dr. King visited rural African American communities in the southern states in a bid to gain support for his planned “Poor People’s Campaign.” In this video (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Doi_U0f8OA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Doi_U0f8OA</a>) Dr. King is seen and heard speaking with members of an African American community in Mississippi who spoke passionately about the level of poverty in the African American community. Dr. King commiserated and empathized and then spoke about the American government’s policy of giving land to White people and training them to farm the land by building special colleges for this purpose. At the time White people were receiving these special favours (1850s) African Americans remained enslaved. The idea of publicly funded agricultural and technical educational institutions in the USA was brought forward by Jonathan Baldwin Turner as early as the 1830s. In the 2001 published book “Together We Can: Pathways to Collective Leadership in Agriculture at Texas A&M” White American authors Steven Lee Bosserman and Edward Allan Hiler write: “In the 1830s, 1840s, and 850s Jonathan Baldwin Turner developed and tirelessly promoted a plan to achieve universal education for those who did not normally have the opportunity to pursue it – the sons and daughters of what he called the working class.” This brilliant idea of course did not include African Americans who were enslaved and whose unpaid labour would underwrite the education of the White “working class.” During slavery it was illegal for African Americans to read and write and any enslaved African who was literate was risking their life. The first land-grant bill was introduced in Congress by Representative Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont in 1857 and became law in 1862. Africans in America gained their freedom in 1865 and have never been compensated, never received reparations. The 40 acres and a mule they were each supposed to receive never materialised. However every White person (even those who never owned a “slave”) benefited from the coerced labour of enslaved Africans. This is put in perspective by T. D. Allman a White American historian in his 2013 published book “Finding Florida: The True History of the Sunshine State” where he writes: “In America, Irishmen, Jews, Russians, Italians even Turks and Arabs could be Americanized. Even as they were devastating native Americans and enslaving black people, Americans were announcing to the world that the ‘wretched refuse of your teeming shore’ was welcome, but it had to be white.”</blockquote>
Dr. King’s words of encouragement to the group of African Americans gathered in that church just a few weeks before he was assassinated probably caused much alarm to the American government who preferred the August 28, 1963 “dreamer.” A King speaking about reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans was a threat. A King speaking about the extreme poverty of African Americans and linking that to the advantage (including unearned privilege) that was handed to white skin people regardless of when they arrived in the USA was threatening to White America.
<blockquote>To this day, in the 21st century Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech is co-opted by the most dreadful racist White supremacists. Not the entire speech but these 35 words: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” </blockquote>
As we approach January 15, the date that would have been Dr. King’s 85th birthday, Dr. King has been reduced to a dreamer whose words are frequently used to justify White supremacist/racist rhetoric. The Dr. King who wrote in his 1964 published “Why We Can’t Wait” seems to have been forgotten: “Whenever this issue of compensatory or preferential treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree, but he should ask for nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic. For it is obvious that if a man enters the starting line of a race three hundred years after another man, the first would have to perform some incredible feat in order to catch up.” In an interview with Alex Haley (author of Roots) which was published in the January 1965 issue of “Playboy Magazine” Dr. King is quoted: “Can any fair-minded citizen deny that the Negro has been deprived? Few people reflect that for two centuries the Negro was enslaved, and robbed of any wages—potential accrued wealth which would have been the legacy of his descendants. All of America's wealth today could not adequately compensate its Negroes for his centuries of exploitation and humiliation.” These are not the words of the dreamer whose birthday has been observed with a National holiday on the 3rd Monday of January since 1986. Some states including Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, Virginia, Wyoming and New Hampshire resisted observing the holiday to honour Dr. King until (New Hampshire) 2000.
<blockquote>The 29th official Martin Luther King Jr., Day will be observed on January 19, 2015 throughout the USA with a holiday when Americans are expected to honour the life and legacy of Dr. King. The day is usually spent exploring the life of Dr. King, his contribution to the Civil Rights movement and the Civil Rights movement. With the research and the availability of books written about the Civil Rights movement and Dr. King’s life hopefully there will be more than his “I Have A Dream” speech featured in newspaper articles and other media. On May 8, 1967 approximately 11 months before he was assassinated Dr. King said in an interview: “I must confess that that dream I had that day in many points turned into a nightmare.” (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHhJYKPWb8k">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHhJYKPWb8k</a>) The nightmare continues with the constant instances of African American men, women and children killed by White police who suffer no consequences. During this United Nations (UN) declared “International Decade for People of African Descent” beginning in 2015 we can work to ensure Reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans become a reality. We can shine the light on the continued and sustained abuse of Africans in North America. Shining a light on these abuses may help to make the perpetrators scatter like so many dangerous rodents and other pests.</blockquote>ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-27071793526890843582015-01-02T22:41:00.000-08:002015-01-02T22:41:00.504-08:00IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR ALMOST!<blockquote>
When he was seventeen
It was a very good year for small town girls
And soft summer nights
They would hide from the lights
On the village green
that's when he was seventeen
When he was twenty-one
It was a very good year for big city girls
Who lived up the stairs
With all that perfumed hair
And it came undone
that's When he was twenty-one
When he was thirty-five
It was a very good year for blue-blooded girls
with independent means
they would ride in the limousines
that was when chauffeurs would drive
But now the days grow short
he's in the autumn of his years
And now he thinks of his life as vintage wine
from fine old kegs
from the brim to the dregs
it poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year</blockquote>
Excerpt from “It Was A Very Good Year” sung by Lou Rawls on his 1966 album “Soulin'”
<blockquote>Lou Rawls (December 1, 1933 – January 6, 2006) was almost 33 years old when he released “Soulin’” with “It Was A Very Good Year” as one of the 14 songs featured on the album. The title of this song came to mind as I planned to write about the year 2014 which is almost gone. In some ways it was a very good year for me. I have come to realise that when unpleasant events and/or people enter your life you mostly only have control over your own emotions and reactions to circumstances. I came to this realization by actively engaging in social media beginning in September 2014. Following my decision to become a candidate in the October 27, 2014 Municipal Election I became active on some social media including Twitter, Facebook, Google plus, Flickr and LinkedIn. It has been a learning experience! I also made the decision (after years of considering) to publish a book. On December 5, 2014 my book “Berbician Griot” was published. I am delighted to share that many of my acquaintances, friends and relatives have been very supportive and I have sold several copies of my book. There will be an official launch of “Berbician Griot” in 2015 and everyone is invited as soon as date and location are finalised!</blockquote>
The year 2014 has not been a very good year for everyone, including the relatives, friends and supporters of the many African American men, women and children who have been brutalized, maimed and/or killed by police. We in Canada have not been immune to the sting of anti-African racism, racial profiling or White supremacist culture. The new Mayor of Toronto when asked about White skin privilege was very cavalier (or maybe clueless) in his reply. In spite of being faced with this phenomenon during the campaign period, the man who for the next 4 years will be in charge of policies that govern how we are treated by police, transit workers, housing staff etc., thinks White skin privilege does not exist. He did not see White skin privilege when Mayoral candidates Dionne Renee and Dewitt Lee were not invited to speak during Mayoral debates but Ari Goldkind was invited. He did not see White skin privilege when Olivia Chow was racially attacked and harassed at Mayoral debates. White skin privilege has nothing to do with religion or class. It is based on the unearned privileges bestowed on White people based on the colour of their skin regardless of their religious beliefs or their economic status. Examples of this proliferate in this city of ours where the motto is: “Diversity Our Strength.”
<blockquote>Yes it has been a very good year because I choose to ignore anyone and anything that would “steal my joy.” Each time I log onto Facebook there are negative and positive images. I choose how I react to each one. I will continue to “comment” “tweet” and “share” and I will ignore any and all negativity as my good friend (and fellow Guyanese) Rita has been advising me for years. The year 2015 will be a very good year because whatever enters my life I will choose how to respond so that I am not emotionally or psychologically harmed. The next decade from 2015 to 2025 has been designated the decade for African people! By the time we get to 2025 many of us will be as Lou Rawls sang “in the autumn of our years” and can then think of our lives as “vintage wine from fine old kegs from the brim to the dregs pouring sweet and clear” and know that it will be “a very good year.” Meanwhile we have 10 years from 2015 to 2025 to address the negative effects of anti-African racism on our emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual well being. The United Nations (UN) has designated 2015-2024 the “International Decade for People of African Descent.” On the UN website <a href="http://www.un.org/en/events/africandescentdecade/">http://www.un.org/en/events/africandescentdecade/</a> the title: “A Decade Dedicated to People of African Descent: Recognition, Justice and Development” is accompanied by this explanation: “In proclaiming this Decade, the international community is recognizing that people of African descent represent a distinct group whose human rights must be promoted and protected. Around 200 million people identifying themselves as being of African descent live in the Americas. Many millions more live in other parts of the world, outside of the African continent.” There is also a quote from Ban Ki-moon the United Nations Secretary-General: "We must remember that people of African descent are among those most affected by racism. Too often, they face denial of basic rights such as access to quality health services and education."</blockquote>
As we move towards the year 2015 and the beginning of the UN declared “International Decade for People of African Descent” this is an opportunity for us to engage in dialogue and action to repair the damage to African lives. Here is an opportunity to educate people about “White skin privilege” as the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) tried to do in 2014 which caused a furor in several daily White newspapers. The articles published in those newspapers and the comments made by their readers prove that neither the writers of the articles nor their readers have any understanding of their privilege. If they do they are desperately trying to ensure that their privilege continues. It is way past time that the mindset that allows racial profiling to flourish, that allows White police to kill racialized people with impunity knowing that they will be supported by the majority is exposed, dissected and corrected. As we approach 2015 I wish everyone a Happy New Year and with sincere hope that each person can think of some experience that made them think even for a moment that 2014 was “A Very Good Year!” The image of the mythic Sankofa bird from the Ghanaian Akan culture comes to mind as we move forward but not forget and learn from the past.
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-12662518726477584712015-01-02T22:33:00.001-08:002015-01-02T22:33:08.187-08:00KWANZAA 2014!<blockquote>
Here's to this flag of mine
The Red, Black and Green
Hopes in its future bright
Africa has seen.
Here's to the Red of it,
Great nations shall know of it
Red blood shall flow of it,
Historians shall write of it,
Great flag of mine.
Here's to the Black of it
Four hundred millions back of it,
Whose destiny depends on it
The RED, BLACK and GREEN of it,
Here's to the Green of it
Young men shall dream of it,
Thank God for giving it
Great Flag of Mine. </blockquote>
Excerpt from “THIS FLAG OF MINE” composed by Amy Jacques Garvey
<blockquote>
The red, black and green flag was adopted by the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) on August 13, 1920 during the organization’s month long convention in New York City. The UNIA-ACL was an organization founded in 1914 in Jamaica by the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. The UNIA-ACL did not enjoy much success in Jamaica and only became a force for change when Garvey moved to the USA (March 24, 1916) where he founded a branch of the organization (May 1917) and incorporated the organization in New York State on June 17, 1919. The Black Star Line Inc., (Garvey’s shipping company) was incorporated in Delaware on June 27, 1919 with a value of $500,000 dollars (half a million dollars.) In 1920 Garvey incorporated the Negro Factories Corporation which owned and operated several businesses that employed African Americans. African Jamaican history professor at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Robert A. Hill in his 1990 published book “The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Volume 7” has listed the names and locations of the businesses that were owned by the UNIA-ACL. The organization owned several grocery stores, a fleet of trucks, a millinery store (making hats,) a bakery, a steam laundry, tailoring and dressmaking store, office buildings, restaurants, hotels, a printing company, publishing company, Liberty Hall and Lafayette Hall. Garvey was a man before his time who organized successful and thriving businesses owned by a group of united African Americans. The organization he founded had within 4 years of operation (1916-1920) an international membership of millions on every continent, in every country where Africans lived. </blockquote>
Garvey’s philosophies included the intent of unifying all Africans as expressed in Bob Marley’s popular “Africa Unite” released in 1979 on the “Survival” album. Garvey is considered the father of the modern Pan-African movement. His philosophy has greatly influenced Kwanzaa the 7 day celebration of African culture and history from December 26 to January 1 which is 48 years old in 2014. Garvey was a visionary, a man before his time and such people are mostly vilified during their lifetime because they espouse ideas and views which are too advanced for that period in history.
<blockquote>During the Kwanzaa celebration the 7 principles (Nguzo Saba) reflect Garvey’s expressed and documented philosophies. The first Kwanzaa principle is Umoja which is observed by lighting of the black candle which represents Africans everywhere of every religion and belief. Garvey’s vision of unity (Umoja) was expressed as article 1 of the “Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World” on August 13, 1920 at the first convention of the UNIA: “Be it known to all men that whereas, all men are created equal and entitled to the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and because of this we, the duly elected representatives of the Negro peoples of the world, invoking the aid of the just and Almighty God do declare all men, women and children of our blood throughout the world free citizens, and do claim them as free citizens of Africa, the Motherland of all Negroes.” </blockquote>
The second Kwanzaa principle is Kujichagulia which is observed by lighting the first red candle placed to the left of the black candle. Garvey’s vision of Self-determination (Kujichagulia) was expressed when he urged Africans to see their God through African “spectacles.” In “The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers” Hill has documented several of Garvey’s speeches including a speech he made urging his followers to worship the “God of Ethiopia” from which this quote is taken: “Since the white people have seen their God through white spectacles, we only now started out (late though it be) to see our God through our own spectacles. The God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. We Negroes believe in the God of Ethiopia, the everlasting God - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, the One God of all ages. That is the God in whom we believe, but we shall worship Him through the spectacles of Ethiopia.” Garvey also encouraged his followers to give their children dolls that looked like them instead of White dolls.
<blockquote>Garvey’s efforts to build sustainable businesses to provide employment for African Americans brilliantly expressed Ujima and Ujamaa the third and fourth Kwanzaa principles. Collective work and responsibility (Ujima) and Cooperatvie Economics (Ujamaa) were at the heart of Garvey’s establishment of the “Negro Factories Corporation.” </blockquote>
Garvey’s entire life was lived with Nia the fifth Kwanzaa principle. Garvey’s life was one of purpose (Nia) and it was purposeful that he used propaganda to strategically move his people towards self awareness. His messages urging African Americans and other Africans to be proud of the colour of their skin, to learn their history, to see themselves as the equal of all other human beings were purpose driven. From “The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey: Africa for the Africans” edited by Amy Jacques Garvey in 1977 come these purposeful words of warning from Garvey: “Propaganda has done more to defeat the good intentions of races and nations than even open warfare. Propaganda is a method or medium used by organized peoples to convert others against their will. We of the Negro race are suffering more than any other race in the world from propaganda - Propaganda to destroy our hopes, our ambitions and our confidence in self.” Garvey therefore advised his followers to “emancipate” themselves from “mental slavery” in a speech he made in Sydney, Nova Scotia in Menelik Hall during his visit on October 1, 1937. Quoted from “The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers” Garvey told his followers: “We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign.”
<blockquote>
Garvey’s Kuumba has given us one of the Kwanzaa symbols that has even been used by several African nations when they gained independence from their colonizers. Using his creativity (Kuumba) Garvey designed the “red, black and green” flag “bendera” that is used during the Kwanzaa celebrations and the colours are also used in the Mishuuma saba (7 candles) that are lit as part of the observances. The now recognized Pan-African flag was formally adopted on August 13, 1920 in Article 39 of the Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World during the first convention in New York City. Article 39 states: “That the colors, Red Black and Green, be the colors of the Negro race.” In her 2012 published book “Literary and Sociopolitical Writings of the Black Diaspora in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries” Haitian born African American professor Kersuze Simeon-Jones has written about the importance of the flag: “The U.N.I.A’s most significant emblem of nationhood was its flag. The Declaration of Rights of 1920 proclaimed the adoption of the red, black and green flag, as the official colors of this race. Such proclamation was also of paramount importance, for a flag is the ultimate symbol of nationhood.”</blockquote>
The 7th and final Kwanzaa principle is Imani and Garvey had to have much faith (Imani) in himself, in his people in the God that he worshipped to step out on faith and achieve so much that his name, his words, his ideas and philosophies live on 74 years (June 10, 1940) after he joined the ancestors.
<blockquote>As we look forward to the celebration of Kwanzaa within the next few days the principles which are based on the philosophies of Garvey should guide us throughout the 365 days of every year. This is especially relevant as we read about or experience the daily oppression of living in a culture where we are suspected of wrongdoing based on the colour of our skin. The stories are myriad including the recent story of an African Canadian man who was arrested when he attempted to deposit a cheque for 9,000 dollars into his Bank of Nova Scotia account. The Haitian born Canadian was handcuffed and marched through the crowded with Christmas shoppers Scarborough Town Centre. Ironically the Bank of Nova Scotia which has branded and renamed our festival which we named “Caribana” has also made a fortune on the backs of African Caribbean people beginning with their establishment of a branch in Jamaica in 1889, almost a decade before opening a branch in Toronto. In his 24 pages long poem “The Tragedy of White Injustice” Garvey includes this bit about banks: “The bankers employ men to shoot and kill,
When we interfere with their august will;
They take the savings of deaf, dumb and poor,
Gamble with it here and on foreign shore:
In oil, gold, rum, rubber they speculate,
Then bring their foreign troubles upon the State:
Friends in Government they control at will;
War they make, for others, our sons to kill.”</blockquote>
As we celebrate Kwanzaa in our homes and at community events and light the “red, black and green” candles we also remember those who went before us. We remember those ancestors on whose shoulders we stand on whose backs we have crossed over!
Heri za Kwanzaa! Kwanzaa yenu iwe na heri! Happy Kwanzaa!
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-81156722756944719252015-01-02T22:24:00.002-08:002015-01-02T22:24:38.069-08:00REMEMERING CHRISTMASES OF LONG, LONG AGO!<blockquote>
It's the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids jingle belling
And everyone telling you 'be of good cheer'
It's the most wonderful time of the year
There'll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting
And carolling out in the snow
There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories
Of Christmases long, long ago
It's the most wonderful time of the year
There'll be much mistletoeing and hearts will be glowing
When loved ones are near
It's the most wonderful time of the year</blockquote>
Excerpt from "It's the Most Wonderful time of the year" composed in 1963 by Edward Pola and George Wyle. Recorded by Johnny Mathis on his 1986 released album "Christmas Eve with Johnny Mathis"
<blockquote>
On Saturday, December 13, 2014 while desperately trying to find a pair of winter boots in a Toronto mall I heard Johnny Mathis singing the popular song "It's the Most Wonderful time of the year." I immediately lost that tense, desperate feeling that I was never going to find a pair of winter boots that I liked, that would last the entire winter and that I could afford. It is truly amazing how a song can affect your mood especially a song associated with beautiful memories. Although the Johnny Mathis version of the song "Most Wonderful time of the year" is not the song I remember from my youth it is the one I prefer. At this time of the year many of the songs that are played on the radio, in advertisements and in the malls remind us that Christmas is near. Christmas was indeed one of the most wonderful times of the year when I was a child. We listened to songs with catchy melodies and lyrics that made no sense because we had never seen many of the things mentioned in popular Christmas songs. We had never seen snow or "a winter wonderland," we had never seen reindeer or "a one horse open sleigh."</blockquote>
It was not the words of the songs that made Christmas in Guyana magical and "the most wonderful time of the year," the music was a backdrop to the Christmas experience. And a Guyanese Christmas is an "experience" that everyone must have at least once in their life. Ask any Guyanese living outside of Guyana about their Christmases "long, long ago" and you might have to buy them a box of Kleenex especially if they have not been "home" in years to celebrate Christmas.
<blockquote>Even though it was recognized that Christmas was about the celebration of the birth of "baby Jesus" and several churches would have a crèche (nativity scene) displayed to remind the faithful of the reason for the celebration there were Guyanese of other religions who celebrated Christmas. Guyanese of various religious beliefs celebrated Christmas as a secular holiday because there were mandated holidays on December 25 and 26 and January 1. All government offices and private sector businesses (except rum shops and cake shops) closed on those 3 days while all schools closed for 3 weeks during the Christmas holidays.</blockquote>
In the Guyana of my childhood Christmas Day preparations began in one form or another several months before December. Christmas Day celebrations in any Guyanese household would be incomplete without “black cake.” Various dried fruits (raisins, currants, prunes etc.,) would be ground, mixed and then stored in a container of rum for weeks (sometimes months) to “cure” the fruits. This method of “setting” the fruits preferably in a covered glass container varies from family to family. The excitement increased as December approached with adults preparing for and children anticipating the great day.
<blockquote>A few days before Christmas Day the house would be unrecognizable with most of the wooden furniture stripped of their year old varnish. The furniture would be sanded and polished mostly by the men of the family with the reluctant help of the children. At this time of the year many young adults were hired to help sand and polish floors and furniture. New coverings for chair cushions together with sheets and pillow cases were bought or sewn.</blockquote>
A flurry of activity in the kitchen would herald preparations for making “black cake” with children commandeered to “cream” butter and sugar (mix until all the sugar melted into the butter) which I always tried to avoid! The more adults in the house (hired help or relatives on holiday) the better chance children had of escaping the tasks of helping to sand furniture or “cream” butter and sugar! The hustle and bustle in the kitchen increased the night before Christmas when the black cakes were already baked and left to “cool off” and the feast was being prepared. The ham had to be prepared (I admit I ate ham then) the chickens and ducks had to be prepared. All that work was accomplished overnight. On Christmas Eve night we all went to bed in new night gowns or pyjamas. The beds with new mattresses (or new covers on the mattresses) were covered with new sheets, pillows and pillow cases. The adults worked through the night and on Christmas morning the children awoke to an entirely new house! The walls looked different with new paint and decorations. The “new” furniture in their gleaming wooden glory was unveiled and the gifts under the tree tempted us to open them. The rule was breakfast first then presents could be opened.
<blockquote>The smell of “pepperpot” drew us to the table on Christmas morning. There is no Guyanese Christmas morning without “pepperpot” and homemade bread. Whatever else is on the table takes second place to “pepperpot” and plait bread. The main ingredients in Guyanese pepperpot are cassareep (made from boiled cassava juice) and meat. Various spices are added to the thick brown liquid cassareep (an Amerindian creation) which preserves the meat for days. After breakfast and exclamations over how different everything looked on Christmas morning (including the artificial snow on the artificial Christmas tree) it was time to open the gifts. We were excited to see our presents that “Father Christmas” had brought for us while we were sleeping. Santa Claus was non-existent in the Guyana of my childhood. There would be books and new clothes for everyone, cap guns and holsters were a staple, dolls, beautifully decorated doll size teapots, teacups and saucers, water guns, whistles, jacks sets and dolls’ clothes. There were cricket sets, child size sewing machines and ovens but the toys that were most used on Christmas Day by everyone were the cap guns and water guns. We were all “cowboys” male and female, for some reason we never thought about playing “cowgirls.”</blockquote>
The smell of Christmas Day in Guyana cannot be replicated anywhere else. The smell of polished furniture and floor, together with new linoleum strategically placed to protect the polished floor, smell of new fabric from curtains billowing at the windows and of course the food!! The table groaned on Christmas Day with the black cakes, baked ham, roasted and curried chicken and duck, chow mein, patties, pine tarts, cheese rolls, pickled onions, dahl puri, roti, various kinds of rice, salads and casseroles. The drinks were on a separate table because women and children did not drink the liquor and there was much liquor for the men. Rum, highwine, brandy and various other “hard stuff” were the drinks of choice for the men of the family and male guests. Most women and the children drank mauby, cider, ginger beer, sorrel, Cidrax and Peardrax. On Christmas Day the food was shared with relatives, friends, neighbours and strangers who visited. Everyone was welcome and invited to eat, drink and take food home when they visited on Christmas Day and the drinks flowed freely.
<blockquote>All this Christmas Day feasting and excitement took place to a backdrop of music, including calypsos, carols and other Christmas songs. The traditional Masquerade bands were an integral part of Christmas Day with “Mother Sally” and the “Mad Cow.” Well I always thought the cow was mad because it charged at everyone watching the masqueraders dance! It was not a real cow but a man in a cow costume who accompanied “Mother Sally” (a man on stilts dressed as a woman.) The masqueraders would move energetically to the music of fife and drums. When money was thrown in their path the masqueraders would “flounce” as they danced low to the ground to retrieve the money. As a child I was very afraid of “Mother Sally” and the “Mad Cow” so although the music was lovely I much preferred to listen to Christmas records played on the “radiogram.” On Saturday December 13 I did not get the winter boots I wanted but I left the mall with the sound of Johnny Mathis reminding me that this is “The most wonderful time of the year” and I remembered “the glories of Christmases long, long ago” when I was a child in Guyana!!</blockquote>
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-55667630346757075042015-01-02T22:14:00.001-08:002015-01-02T22:42:21.764-08:00ELLA JOSEPHINE BAKER (DECEMBER 13-1903 - DECEMBER 13-1986) UNSUNG SHERO<blockquote>“Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers’ sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a White mother’s son, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens.”</blockquote>
Quote from Ella Josephine Baker in August, 1964 during her speech as the keynote speaker of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Convention
<blockquote>Ella Josephine Baker was born on December 13, 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia the middle child of the 3 children of Blake Baker and Georgiana Ross Baker. Baker made the above statement shortly after the bodies of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were discovered in a river in Philadelphia, Mississippi on August 4, 1964. Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were civil rights volunteers who had been missing since June 21, 1964. They were murdered by a group of White men who were virulently opposed to African Americans having any rights including the right to vote. During the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey as a founding member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Ella Baker spoke about the search for the missing civil rights workers. Two of the civil rights workers (Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner) were White men from New York while James Chaney was African American from Mississippi. During the search for the bodies of the 3 missing men, several African Americans who had been lynched by White men were discovered in the Mississippi river. The African American lives were not considered valuable enough to warrant a search by the authorities. In the 1998 published book "Black Women Film and Video Artists" African American professor Jacqueline Bobo writes: "Many Black people were aware that as the authorities searched for the missing workers, they found bodies of murdered Black men in the rivers of Mississippi that no one had previously investigated because they had not been killed along with white men." Baker was one of the architects of the Civil Rights Movement working mostly with the youth as a grassroots organizer. She like Fannie Lou Hamer is one of many unsung sheroes who worked tirelessly in the movement. Baker was an outspoken social justice activist and advocate and worked in several organizations that addressed the injustices faced by African Americans. She worked as a field organizer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) beginning in 1938. As a field organizer with the NAACP Baker traveled to various southern cities and townsestablishing NAACP chapters, recruiting new members and raising money. As one of the contributors to the 1980 book “Moving the Mountain: Women Working for Social Change 1980” Baker expressed her philosophy of organizing: “You start where the people are.” This philosophy helped to make Baker an effective and successful organizer because she could communicate with African Americans living in poverty working as tenant farmers (sharecroppers)as well as middle-class, educated African Americans. In her 2003 published book “Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision” African American professor Barbara Ransby wrote about Baker:“her primary base of knowledge came from grassroots communities and from lived experience, not from formal study. She was a partisan intellectual, never feigning a bloodless objectivity, but always insisting that ideas should be employed in the service of oppressed people and toward the goal of justice.”</blockquote>
In 1942 Baker became the director of the NAACP responsible for the NAACP branches throughout the USA. She left the NAACP in 1948 to raise her pre-teen niece who she had adopted and returned in 1954 as president of the New York City branch of the NAACP. In 1955 Baker became involved in the effort to integrate New York City’s public schools when she was asked by the mayor of New York City to be a member of the Commission on School Integration. The Commission delivered its report in 1957 and one of the recommendations suggested by Baker was to allow children to attend schools outside of their own neighbourhoods. The Open Enrollment Program which was established in 1961 was the result of that recommendation. The Open Enrollment Program provided free transportation to elementary students on school buses while secondary school students were given special passes to be used on subway and buses.
<blockquote>
Baker was also involved in other civil rights activism. On January 5, 1956, one month after Rosa Parks was tried and found guilty of breaking the White supremacist segregation law and African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama began the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Ella Baker and other activists in New York City founded the organization “In Friendship.” During its three years of operation “In Friendship” contributed thousands of dollars to support the work of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and its campaign to desegregate public transportation. With the successful integration of the Montgomery public transportation system African American activists including Baker co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in February 1957. Baker moved to Atlanta in 1958 to help with organizing membership in the SCLC and she also ran Crusade for Citizenship a voter registration campaign.</blockquote>
Baker was instrumental in founding the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which grew out of the peaceful African American student sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters in department stores. On Monday, February 1, 1960 a group of African American students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University - one of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the USA - refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina where they had been denied service. This sparked a wave of other sit-ins in college towns across the South. The SNCC was co-founded by Baker in April 1960 on the campus of Shaw University (an HBCU) in Raleigh, North Carolina to coordinate and support the sit-ins. In “Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement” Ransby describes the beginnings of Baker’s activism: “nurtured, educated and challenged by a community of strong, hard-working, deeply religious people—most of them women—who celebrated their accomplishments and recognized their class advantage, but who also pledged themselves to serve and uplift those less fortunate.” Ransby also recognizes Baker’s contribution to the movement throughout her years of activism and advocacy: “From her tenure as field secretary and later director of branches for the NAACP during the 1940s through her role as political godmother to young activists in the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Baker insisted that democratic struggles be guided by an internally democratic process of open debate, deliberation and equal participation for all regardless of gender, income, education or status.”
<blockquote>Ella Baker's words from 50 years ago urging that “the killing of Black men, Black mothers’ sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a White mother’s son” are still not a reality today in 2014 with the recent “Grand Jury” refusal to indict the White men who killed Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Those words immortalized in song “Ella’s Song” by the African American group Sweet Honey in the Rock composed in 1998 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Uus--gFrc">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Uus--gFrc</a> are almost heart breaking in today’s toxic environment where “Breathing While Black” seems to be a criminal offence. The words of “Ella’s Song” which were spoken by Baker in 1964 are poignant as we witness the almost daily extrajudicial killing of unarmed African Americans as young as 12 years old.</blockquote>
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-89854919622944226002014-12-06T22:37:00.000-08:002014-12-06T22:37:16.060-08:00MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT DECEMBER 5 - 1955<blockquote>“The Women’s Political Council will not wait for Mrs Parks’s consent to call for a boycott of city buses. On Friday December, 2, 1955, the women of Montgomery will call for a boycott to take place on Monday, December 5.”</blockquote>
From “Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson” by Jo Ann Gibson Robinson published 1987
<blockquote>On Monday, December 5, 1955 Rosa Parks an African American woman who had been arrested on Thursday, December 1, 1955 was put on trial for refusing to give up her seat in the “Colored” section of a Montgomery City bus to a White man. The White supremacist Jim Crow law demanded that African Americans give up their seats in the “Colored” section of buses to White passengers if there were no vacant seats in the “White” section of buses. When a White man could not find a seat in the “White” section of the bus the driver insisted that Parks and the other 3 African American passengers give up their seats for the White man. The other 3 gave up their seats (at that point the White man had his choice of 3 seats) and Parks refused. The police were called and Parks was arrested. The arrest of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) secretary Rosa Parks was the "last straw" and time for African Americans to demand better treatment from bus drivers in Montgomery, Alabama. Parks was the third African American woman arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on the Montgomery bus. On March 2, 1955 Claudette Colvin a 15 year old African American was dragged out of a Montgomery city bus and arrested for refusing to give up her seat in the "Colored" section of the bus to a White man who could not find a seat in the crowded "White" section of the bus. On October 21, 1955 an 18 year African American woman Louise Smith suffered a similar fate. Some concerns expressed by some of the religious and respectable members of the African American leadership about supporting the 2 young African American women. It was discovered that the teenage Colvin was pregnant and not married and it was mentioned by one of the fine upstanding religious African American leaders that Smith’s father had been seen in a drunken state in his front yard. In chapter 3 of the 1999 published “Gender in the Civil Rights Movement” addressing “Respectability, class and gender in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Early Civil Rights Movement” there is this quote about the decision not to support 18 year old Louise Smith: “When E.D. Nixon went to her house he reputedly ‘found her daddy in front of his shack barefoot and drunk.’ Nixon duly rejected Smith, not simply for her actual lower-class background, but because of her links, in Nixon’s view, with all manner of dissolute lower-class black stereotypes - a drunken father, an unkempt house.” E.D. Nixon born Edgar Daniel Nixon on July 12, 1899 was the President of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and Rosa Parks was the secretary. When Parks was arrested the leaders of the African American community thought she was the ideal person to support in their fight to demand better treatment on the Montgomery City buses. Parks was middle aged, employed, educated and married, there were no skeletons in her closet that the White media could use to criticize/denigrate the campaign.</blockquote>
On August 12, 1950 Hilliard Brooks a 23 year old African American who had served in the US army during WWII boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, paid at the front of the bus. Instead of disembarking and entering through the back door Brooks bravely walked through the "whites only" section of the bus to the "colored" section of the bus. The bus driver demanded that Brooks get off the bus for breaking the law which demanded that African Americans enter through the back door. Brooks refused to leave the bus until the bus driver returned his fare. The bus driver refused to return Brooks bus fare and instead called the police who kicked Brooks off the bus and when Brooks did not stay down the police M.E. Mills shot him dead on the spot. The police board found that Mills had acted in "self-defence" when he killed the unarmed 23 year old African American veteran. The board in its ruling stated: "We cannot say the police officer
acted other than in sell defense
when he fired his weapon after the
unprovoked assault upon him and
after his warning to the deceased
not to advance further had been
ignored." This was the reality for African Americans who used the bus in Montgomery, Alabama and this was the toxic environment which eventually pushed the African American community of Montgomery, Alabama to support the bus boycott after the arrest of Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955 and her trial on December 5, 1955.
<blockquote>Following Parks’ arrest the Women’s Political Council (WPC) decided that they would organize a one day boycott of the Montgomery city buses. The WPC included African American women who were professors at the African American Alabama State College and some African American public school teachers. The WPC was founded in 1946 and the members had been involved in voter registration and lobbying city officials on issues affecting African Americans. The group had met with city officials to complain about the ill treatment of African Americans on city buses including: “Continuous discourtesies with obscene language, especially name calling in addressing black patrons. Bus drivers’ requirement that Negro passengers pay fares at the front of the bus, then step down off and walk to the back door to board the bus. In many instances the driver drove away before the patrons who had paid at the front could board the bus from the rear.” On Friday, December 2, 1955 Jo Ann Gibson Robinson the President of the WPC drafted a flyer to distribute to the African American community which read: “Another Negro woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down. It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing. This has to be stopped. Negroes have rights, too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negroes, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother. This woman’s case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don’t ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday. You can afford to stay out of school for one day if you have no other way to go except by bus. You can also afford to stay out of town for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don’t ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off all buses Monday.” There were 52,500 flyers made by 8:00 a.m. on Friday December 2 to be distributed to African Americans in Montgomery. To ensure that as many people as possible received the information the WPC members had to get the religious leaders on board. In “Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It” Robinson writes: “On Friday morning December 2, 1955, a goodly number of Montgomery’s black clergymen happened to be meeting at the Hilliard Chapel AME Zion Church on Highland Avenue. When the Women’s Political Council officers learned that the ministers were assembled in that meeting, we felt that God was on our side. It was easy for my two students and me to leave a handful of our circulars at the church. Many of the ministers received their notices of the boycott at the same time, in the same place.”</blockquote>
On Sunday, December 4, 1955 African Americans who had not received a flyer on Friday received notice of the planned boycott as they attended church. On Monday, December 5, 1955 the day of Rosa Parks’ trial the Montgomery Bus Boycott began. Rosa Parks was tried, convicted and ordered to pay a fine. African Americans were united in their determination to stay off the city buses in protest. All day the buses were empty of African Americans who made up approximately 75% of the passengers. In “Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It” Robinson writes: “Before Monday was half gone Negroes had made history. Never before had they united in such a manner.” On Monday, December 5, 1955 a meeting was held at Holt Street Baptist Church the largest African American church in Montgomery. Approximately 6,000 African Americans attended that meeting to decide the next step after a very successful one day boycott. “Six thousand black people along with local reporters packed Holt Street Baptist Church that night December 5, 1955 for the first mass meeting of the bus boycott. Before the meeting adjourned the masses organized themselves into a new association.” That night Martin Luther King Jr. the 26 year old African American minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church was elected as President of the newly founded Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA.) King successfully led the Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasted for more than a year. At that time no one could have imagined the impact of that decision on the history of the USA and the Civil Rights Movement. In spite of arrests and many cases of police brutality and physical injuries by White people who were determined to undermine the boycott African Americans stayed off the buses. King as leader of the boycott had his home firebombed but resisted the intimidation tactics.
<blockquote>The boycott ended successfully because the bus company was on the verge of bankruptcy. In his 2007 published book: “Let My People Go!: The Miracle of the Montgomery Bus Boycott” African American professor Robert J. Walker wrote: “The African American community was literally keeping the bus company in business and paying the salaries of bus drivers who were treating them as less than human.” On December 20, 1956, the US Supreme Court ordered an end to segregation on city buses and on December 21, 1956, the buses of Montgomery, Alabama were officially desegregated.</blockquote>ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-28935595818987216672014-11-28T19:42:00.000-08:002014-11-28T19:42:39.963-08:00ENSLAVEMENT OF AFRICANS CONTINUE IN MAURITANIA!!<blockquote>Mauritania is a country on the African continent which gained its independence from France on November 28, 1960. The French colonized Mauritania in 1850 when Louis Faidherbe the leader of the French military presence in Senegal decided to expand France's occupation of land in Africa. France had long coveted territory on the African continent and at one point colonized/occupied territory in Central, East, North and West Africa. The French colonization/occupation of the African continent began when the French invaded Algeria (North Africa) in 1830. According to White American Professor John Douglas Ruedy writing in his 1992 published book "Modern Algeria: the origins and development of a nation" about the aftermath of the French conquest of Algeria: "A French commission in 1833 wrote that "we have sent to their deaths on simple suspicion and without trial people whose guilt was always doubtful ... we massacred people carrying safe conducts ... we have outdone in barbarity the barbarians." The French and other European tribes seized the opportunity to continue exploiting Africa and Africans after slavery by holding a 3 month long meeting to formalize the thievery of African land. The White men had been stumbling over each other in their covetous rush to claim African land which sometimes led to physical confrontations with each other so they decided to meet and agree on who should control what part of Africa. That first "Scramble for Africa" where several White men representing 14 countries spent 3 months (November 15, 1884- February 26, 1885) carving up the African continent and sharing it amongst members of European tribes which led to years of occupation by Europeans of every part of Africa except Ethiopia. In his 2010 published book "From African Foreign Policy and Diplomacy from Antiquity to the 21st Century" African Professor Daniel Don Nanjira a member of the Luhya from Kenya wrote: "Europe's interest in Africa was prompted by the dictates of the new imperialism. The Berlin Conference on the Partition of Africa (November 15, 1884-February 26, 1885) mainly was held to create international guidelines for territorial acquisitions, control, exploration, and administration. It was not for the good of the colonized Africans, but was intended to protect the interests of the home countries in Europe."</blockquote>
In that first "Scramble for Africa" at the "Berlin Conference" White men from 14 countries spent 3 months drawing random borders with no consideration for the African people they would inconvenience or traumatize. These White men greedily divided the African continent among themselves because they were seeking wealth for their countries. With the strength of their armies and the recently invented machine gun White men and women occupied the best parts (most fertile and mineral rich land) in every African territory they invaded. In many cases they first sent in their missionaries like so many "Trojan horses" to "Christianize" the Africans in a devious "divide and conquer" strategy. When the European armies descended on these newly created "countries" there were Africans who had already succumbed, been brainwashed or coerced into accepting the new religion and were used to spread dissension among their people. Many of these Africans had been convinced of the "superiority" of the Europeans and were very susceptible to accepting without question the "rights" of the conquering hordes. Any Africans who resisted the European occupation/thievery of their land were barbarously and cruelly dispatched by the "superior" weapons used by the European occupying armies. In every case the Europeans claimed the best land, displacing the Africans and forcing them to become a cheap source of labour whose work was exploited to enrich the Europeans. This quote from the 1997 published book "Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts" by H.J. de Blij and Peter O. Muller sums up the aftermath of the Berlin Conference: "The Berlin Conference was Africa's undoing in more ways than one. The colonial powers superimposed their domains on the African continent. By the time independence returned to Africa in 1950, the realm had acquired a legacy of political fragmentation that could neither be eliminated nor made to operate satisfactorily." It is no coincidence that this outright greedy grab for African land was formalised by White men after the invention of “machine guns” the Gatling gun in 1861 and the Maxim gun in 1883. Armed with the Maxim which could fire 600 rounds per minute the African resisters of colonization hardly stood a chance.
<blockquote>Mauritania was not only colonized by the French but had also been occupied and colonized by Arabs before the advent of the Europeans. The indigenous Africans were first enslaved by the Arabs who claimed the land in modern day Mauritania and even after the French colonized the country the practice of enslaving Africans continued. The French although they had abolished slavery in their Caribbean colonies since 1848 obviously turned a blind eye to the continued Arab enslavement of Africans in Mauritania during the colonial period. The last two countries to abolish slavery in the west were Cuba (1886) and Brazil (1888.) Although Mauritania gained its independence from France on November 28, 1960 the institution of slavery (enslavement of Africans) was not legally abolished until 1981. However it was not a crime to enslave Africans until a new law criminalising the practice of enslaving Africans was adopted by the Mauritanian Parliament in August 2007.</blockquote>
In spite of the law criminalising the practice of enslaving Africans in Mauritania the practice continues in 2014. In his 2012 published book “Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy” White American author Kevin Bales writes: “As in the nineteenth-century American South, in Mauritania race matters intensely. Racism is the motor that drives Mauritanian society. White Moors generally disdain their black slaves and regard them as inferior beings. The ruling White Moors’ deep cultural and economic vested interest in slavery makes them as ready to fight for this privilege as the southern states of the United States fought for theirs.”
<blockquote>
In Mauritania an African country where Africans are in the majority, a minority group (30%) of non-Indigenous people who call themselves “White Moors” hold (40%) of people who are identified as “Black Moors” in slavery. This “Moor” designation seems to come from the fact that both groups are members of the same religion, Islam. The “Black Moors” have traditionally “belonged” to the “White Moors” so this designation continues into the 21st century and change is fiercely resisted by the “White Moors.” The remaining 30% of the population are Africans (many are Christians) who are not members of the dominant religion of Mauritania and have never been enslaved. One would think it would be so easy for a “Black Moor” to escape their enslavement and pretend to be a free African but that is not the case. The majority of “Black Moors” have been conditioned to believe that it is their natural state to be “slaves” to the “White Moors” who physically, emotionally, spiritually and sexually abuse them and their children. These enslaved people work from dawn to dusk in the homes and businesses of their enslavers and are never paid. In some cases their children are given away as gifts to other enslaver families very reminiscent of the experiences of Africans who were enslaved by White people in this part of the world (the Caribbean, Europe, Central, North and South America) up to the 1880s.</blockquote>
There are a few brave souls who put their lives on the line in an effort to end the enslavement of those unfortunate Africans who are enslaved in Mauritania. Mr. Biram Dah Abeid (a descendant of the so-called “Black Moors”) is the president of the IRA (Initiative pour la Resurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste) and representative to the “Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization” which is an international organization that facilitates the voices of unrepresented and marginalized nations and peoples worldwide. Dah Abeid has been beaten, imprisoned and was sentenced to death by the Mauritanian government because of his activism. As a peaceful advocate for the formal abolition of slavery in Mauritania Dah Abeid has been likened to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. One of the biggest threats to the Mauritanian authorities is Dah Abeid’s efforts to unite the “Black Moors” and other African communities in Mauritania (<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/08/freedom-fighter">http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/08/freedom-fighter</a>.) His non-violent activities, challenging the Mauritanian authorities to enforce the anti-slavery legislation in the country have been met with violence. It is ironic that a group of people “White Moors” who invaded and occupied African land advocated for their independence from the colonizing French yet continue to enslave the majority of people who are indigenous to Mauritania and Africa. This is very similar to the minority White population of South Africa who kept Africans in abject poverty and refused them basic human rights for decades. On November 28th when Mauritanians are celebrating 54 years of independence and freedom from French colonization unfortunately not every Mauritanian will be celebrating freedom.
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-53814731625686984072014-11-20T07:21:00.001-08:002014-11-20T07:21:58.827-08:00BLACK AWARENESS DAY (DIA DA CONSCIENCIA NEGRA) IN BRAZIL<blockquote>
Angola, Congo, Benguela
Monjolo, Cabinda, Mina
Quiloa, Rebolo
Here where the men are
There’s a big auction
They say that in the auction,
There’s a princess for sale
Who came, together with her subjects
Chained on an oxcart
To one side, sugarcane
To the other side, the coffee plantation
In the middle, seated gentlemen
Watching the cotton crop, so white
Being picked by black hands
When Zumbi arrives
What will happen
Zumbi is a warlord
A lord of demands
When Zumbi arrives, Zumbi
Is the one who gives orders</blockquote>
Excerpt from "Zumbi" composed and sung by African Brazilian singer Jorge Ben released in 1974
<blockquote>“Black November” is celebrated in the city of Salvador in the Brazilian state of Bahia which has the largest number of African Brazilians. Black Awareness Day ("Dia da Consciência Negra") has been celebrated in Brazil every year on November 20, since 1960. On November 20 the enslavement of Africans and other injustices since the abolition of slavery are discussed and the contributions of African Brazilians are recognized and celebrated. November 20 was chosen as Dia da Consciência Negra/Black Awareness Day to remember the transition of Zumbi a famous Brazilian Maroon leader. Zumbi dos Palmares (1655-1695) the last leader of the famous Palmares Quilombo was beheaded on November 20, 1695 by the Portuguese and his head publicly displayed both as a warning to enslaved Africans and proof that Zubmbi was not immortal. In 2011 Dilma Rousseff the President of Brazil signed into law a bill that makes November 20 a Brazilian National Holiday although many Brazilian states had previously recognized November 20 with a public holiday. </blockquote>
Zumbi who posthumously has risen to the status of National Hero to many Brazilians and even has a Brazilian airport (Zumbi dos Palmares International Airport) named in his honour and a postage stamp (2008) commemorating his memory was once the bane of the Portuguese colonizers/enslavers in Brazil. Zumbi was born a free African in the community of Palmares where Africans had established a free Maroon community (quilombo) in 1594. Palmares was the most successful community of quilombos established by Africans who fled enslavement in Brazil and survived and thrived for 100 years. Combined forces of Dutch and Portuguese attacked the Palmares community as the presence of Africans living free in a country where White people enslaved millions was a beacon of hope to enslaved Africans. During one of these attacks 6 year old Zumbi was kidnapped by a group of Portuguese who sold him to a Catholic priest. When he was 15 years old Zumbi escaped and returned to Palmares where by the time he was in his early 20s he was a respected military strategist and a leader in the community. In 1678, the Portuguese governor negotiated a deal with the leader of Palmares. The deal was a cessation of hostilities between the White inhabitants and the people of Palmares if they would agree to move from the location they had settled since 1594 and that they would capture and return any enslaved Africans who fled to their community seeking freedom. The leader of Palmares agreed but Zumbi wisely refused to agree to those terms. The Portuguese proved to be deceitful and enslaved the Africans who believed their promises and left the safety of Palmares. Mary Karasch a White American historian wrote in her article “Zumbi of Palmares: Challenging the Portuguese Colonial Order” published 2013 in "In The Human Tradition in Colonial Latin America" edited by Kenneth J. Andrien: “The Portuguese were not to be trusted, and to live in peace with them would only lead to reenslavement. To preserve their freedom they had to resist and fight for their people and their own way of life.”
<blockquote>With Zumbi’s refusal to leave Palmares (where Africans had lived as free people for more than 80 years) and his supporters’ determination to defend their territory and their freedom the Portuguese renewed their attacks on Palmares. Zumbi as the new leader of Palmares led the fight against the Portuguese. In her 2013 published article “Zumbi of Palmares: Challenging the Portuguese Colonial Order” Mary Karasch also wrote “What is clear from the documentation is that a newly unified and revived Palmares under the leadership of Zumbi took the offensive. One wonders if the particularly raided plantations where their former comrades had been reenslaved. For a period of thirteen years (1680-1693) Luso-Brazilian expeditions were ineffectual in stopping Palmarino attacks.”</blockquote>
On January 6, 1694 Palmares suffered a surprise attack because of a careless sentry who failed to warn Zumbi of an approaching army of Portuguese. Although Zumbi and his followers from Palmares fought valiantly, they were surrounded and outnumbered. The Portuguese destroyed the Palmares Quilombo, captured 510 Africans and sold them in Bahia.
<blockquote>
Zumbi and a few men escaped and continued the fight. Zumbi was eventually betrayed by one of his trusted men who bargained Zumbi’s life for his own with the Portuguese. Zumbi was killed in the ensuing fight on November 20, 1695 and his body was delivered to the officials of the city council of Porto Calvo. In her “Zumbi of Palmares: Challenging the Portuguese Colonial Order” Mary Karasch writes: “An examination revealed fifteen gunshot wounds and innumerable blows from other weapons; after his death he had been castrated and mutilated. The last degradation by his enemies occurred in a public ceremony in Porto Calvo, in which his head was cut off and taken to Recife, where the governor had it displayed on a pole in a public place. His objective was to destroy the belief that Zumbi was immortal.”</blockquote>
Although Palmares was one of several quilombos established by Africans in Brazil, the Quilombo of Palmares was the largest with a population of 30,000 and lasted longer than any other (100 years) from 1594 to 1694. Some of Zumbi’s followers who escaped the carnage visited upon them by the Portuguese attack on Palmares escaped to live in other quilombos and enslaved Africans also continued to flee until slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888. Some of the quilombos were so well hidden that they were never discovered by the Portuguese and the inhabitants lived in freedom and seclusion. In one case the inhabitants of a quilombo (Remanso, Bahia) were unaware until they were discovered in the 1960s that slavery had been abolished for more than 80 years! Since 1988, the quilombos have received protective status under Brazil’s constitution in an attempt to maintain the distinctive culture, history and language developed by these communities.
<blockquote>During the November 20 recognition of Zumbi’s contribution to Brazilian culture and history many events take place at Zumbia National Park which has a monument created in his honour. In spite of the special day to honour Zumbi and the recognition of his place in Brazil’s history, African Brazilians continue to experience oppression in a White supremacist culture.</blockquote>
In his 1989 published book “Brazil, Mixture Or Massacre?: Essays in the Genocide of a Black People” African Brazilian scholar and historian Abdias do Nascimento wrote: “On the whole in this pretentious concept of ‘racial democracy,’ there lies deliberately buried the true face of Brazilian society: only one of the racial elements has any rights or power – whites. They control the means of dissemination of information, educational curriculum and institutions, conceptual definitions, aesthetic norms and all other forms of social/cultural values.” Nascimento who transitioned on May 23, 2011 was a Pan-Africanist who played a significant role in raising awareness among African Brazilians and also wrote "Racial Democracy in Brazil, Myth or Reality?: A Dossier of Brazilian Racism" (1977), "Race and ethnicity in Latin America – African culture in Brazilian art" (1994), "Orixás: os deuses vivos da Africa" (Orishas: the living gods of Africa in Brazil) (1995) and "Africans in Brazil: a Pan-African perspective" (1997.) Recognition of Zumbi would not be complete without recognition of Nascimento as the African Brazilian activist scholar who has been described as a “militant Pan-Africanist” and spent his life raising awareness of the struggle of African Brazilians to navigate a White supremacist culture/system.
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-46450093783713824372014-11-14T21:02:00.001-08:002014-11-14T21:04:49.548-08:00CHINUA ACHEBE NOVEMBER 16, 1930 - MARCH 21, 2013<blockquote>People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about it, not when it's around your neck. The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and Africans in very lurid terms. The reason for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery.</blockquote>
Quotes from Chinua Achebe Nigerian (Igbo) author of the classic novel "Things Fall Apart" published 1958
<blockquote>Chinualumogu Achebe was born on November 16, 1930 in Ogidi, Nigeria. He was the fifth of 6 children born to Janet Anaenechi Iloegbunam and Isaiah Okafo Achebe. The name "Chinualumogu" means "God will fight on my behalf" and since Achebe was born during the British colonization of Nigeria his parents probably thought their child would need the intervention of the Almighty to survive the imposition of a foreign power in their land. Achebe who transitioned on March 21, 2013 was an acclaimed novelist who published several books about the negative effects of European colonization, domination and exploitation of Africans.</blockquote>
In his first book "Things Fall Apart" published in 1958 Achebe introduced Okonkwo the Igbo leader whose life and the lives of his people are devastated by the arrival of the Europeans and the destruction of the traditional way of life. In chapter 7 of "Things Fall Apart" in this allegory of the arrival of the colonizers from Britain, Achebe writes: "And at last the locusts did descend. They settled on every tree and on every blade of grass; they settled on the roofs and covered the bare ground. Mighty tree branches broke away under them." At the end of "Things Fall Apart" as "things are falling apart" for the Igbo leaders facing the domination of the White colonizers, 2 of the central characters (Obierika and Okonkwo) have this conversation: "“Does the white man understand our custom about land?” “How can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are bad; and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us? The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”"
<blockquote>Achebe's depictions of the social and psychological damage that accompanied the imposition of Western customs and values upon traditional African society are probably the reason he was never awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature. When asked by Onuora Udenwa of "Quality Weekly" how he felt about never winning a Nobel Prize, he reportedly replied: “My position is that the Nobel Prize is important. But it is a European prize. It’s not an African prize. It’s not a Nigerian prize. Those who give it, Europeans who give it are not responsible to us. They have their reasons for setting it up. They have their rules for determining who should get it. Literature is not a heavyweight championship.”</blockquote>
Achebe was uncompromising in his stance on challenging conventional Western perceptions of Africans and provided alternatives to the negative stereotypical images of Africa constructed by European authors. On February 18, 1975 while he was a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Achebe presented a Chancellor’s Lecture at Amherst entitled “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’” where he deconstructed the racism in Conrad’s novel and described Conrad as “a thoroughgoing racist” (<a href="http://kirbyk.net/hod/image.of.africa.html">http://kirbyk.net/hod/image.of.africa.html</a>) That lecture has been described as “one of the most important and influential treatises in post-colonial literary discourse.” In "Things Fall Apart" Achebe describes in vivid language through various characters the damaging and ruinous effects of European imposition on African culture, civilization and society which continued in the 1960 sequel "No Longer at Ease." In his 1964 published book "Arrow of God" Achebe also wrote about traditional Igbo culture clashing with European Christian missionaries and colonial government policies as the British Empire prevailed in Africa. "A Man of the People" published in 1966 and "Anthills of the Savannah" published in 1987 are also powerful stories told by an African about Africans and African culture. In one of his essays published in "Morning Yet on Creation Day" in 1975, Achebe explained in "The Novelist As Teacher": “I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past – with all its imperfections – was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them.” Achebe also wrote in an essay entitled "The Role of the Writer in a New Nation" which was published in "Morning Yet on Creation Day" in 1975: "The worst thing that can happen to any people is the loss of their dignity and self-respect. The writer's duty is to help them regain it by showing them in human terms what happened to them, what they lost. There is a saying in Ibo that a man who can't tell where the rain began to beat him cannot know where he dried his body. The writer can tell the people where the rain began to beat them"
<blockquote>With the publication of “Things Fall Apart” in 1958, Achebe revolutionized the telling of African stories and set the standard for successive generations of African authors/writers, including Buchi Emecheta and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Achebe was the founding editor of the "Heinemann African Writers Series" (established in 1962) which provided a forum for many African writers who came of age after their countries’ independence from European colonizers. His collection of poems "Beware Soul Brother" was published in 1972 and won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize.</blockquote>
Achebe born on November 16, 1930 was born during a time when Africans were agitating for their independence from European colonization. Nigeria had been occupied by Britain since the arrival of the “Royal Niger Company” which was founded by a group of White men in 1879 as the “United African Company” renamed the “National African Company” in 1881 and then the “Royal Niger Company” in 1886. Whatever name the group gave themselves their purpose was always to exploit the Africans and the resources. On January 1, 1900, the “Royal Niger Company” transferred the territories it occupied to the British Government and was paid £865,000. No Africans were consulted during the transaction.
In the 1920s several Nigerians joined other Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora began organizing in a Pan-African movement to liberate Africans from European domination and the attendant racism to which Africans were subjected in White supremacist cultures. The Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey founded the “Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League” (UNIA-ACL) in 1914 in Jamaica and expanded the organization after immigrating to the USA in 1916. The influence of Garveyism with his (Garvey’s) philosophy of “Africa for Africans at home and abroad” galvanized the Pan-African movement and influenced generations of African and Caribbean leaders. In 1923 Olayinka Herbert Samuel Heelas Badmus Macaulay established the Nigerian National Democratic Party (Nigeria’s first political party) which successfully contested three Lagos seats in the Legislative Council. Macaulay came to be regarded as the “father of modern Nigerian nationalism" in spite of the British colonialist efforts to suppress the movement. Macaulay was jailed twice by the British as he agitated for African self-rule in Nigeria. Macaulay led protests in Lagos over water rates, land issues and exposed British corruption of their “mishandling” of railway finances. In 1918 Macaulay successfully handled the cases of chiefs whose land had been taken by the British in front of the Privy Council in London. As a result of his campaigning, the colonial government was forced to pay compensation to the chiefs. On June 23, 1923 he established Nigeria’s first political party the “Nigerian National Democratic Party.” Macaulay like many other African leaders who campaigned for independence from European domination was a Pan-Africanist.
<blockquote>In a letter to Garvey in June 1919 (<a href="http://wyatt.elasticbeanstalk.com/mep/MG/xml/mg080008.html">http://wyatt.elasticbeanstalk.com/mep/MG/xml/mg080008.html</a>) expressed his support of Garvey’s initiative to establish a shipping company “The Black Star Line.” Macaulay ended his letter to Garvey with these words: "With the most heartfelt prayer for the success of "The Black Star Line," and in the fervent hope that the undertaking will be conducted upon lines based on strict moral rectitude, fair and healthy competition qualified by the most scrupulous and resolute Self-determination, I remain Your Fellowman of the Negro Race, H. Macaulay"</blockquote>
Although he was not a politician Achebe was as much an activist as the people who agitated for African freedom from colonization. He used his talent as a writer to educate and agitate and his work has been recognized by universities in Britain, Canada, Nigeria and the United States with honorary degrees.
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-71691379958877293172014-11-08T20:43:00.000-08:002014-11-08T20:43:40.832-08:00VIOLA DESMOND NOVEMBER 8 -1 946
<blockquote>“The province has granted an official apology and free pardon to the late Viola Desmond. Mrs. Desmond, of Halifax, was an African Canadian wrongfully jailed and fined in 1946 for sitting in the white peoples’ section of a New Glasgow movie theatre. Mrs. Desmond passed away in 1965. On the advice of the Executive Council, the lieutenant governor has exercised the Royal Prerogative of Mercy to grant a Free Pardon. A free pardon is based on innocence and recognizes that a conviction was in error. A free pardon is an extraordinary remedy and is considered only in the rarest of circumstances. This is the first time a free pardon has been posthumously granted in Canada.”</blockquote>
Excerpt from “Late Viola Desmond Granted Apology, Free Pardon” a press release from the office of the Premier of Nova Scotia on April 15, 2010
<blockquote>Most Canadians know the names of African American Civil Rights activists like Angela Davis, Mohamed Ali, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. Not too many know the name Viola Desmond. Viola Davis Desmond was an African Canadian Civil Rights activist. On November 8, 1946 Davis a 32-year-old African Canadian businesswoman was arrested at the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia for refusing to move from the “white section.” While White Canadians pride themselves on being different from their American counterparts and proudly proclaim Canada’s “multiculturalism” the treatment of African Canadians and other racialized people is very similar to those who live in the USA. The White supremacist culture of the USA is well documented and displayed but the White supremacist culture of Canada is well hidden. Canadian students can pass through the education system from elementary school through post-secondary without learning about the enslavement of Africans, the internment of Japanese Canadian families, the exclusionary Chinese head tax or the capture and abuse of First Nations children in residential schools. I was extremely surprised while attending a class at a post-secondary institution where the lecturer during a discussion of “Components of Racial Discrimination in Immigration” had no knowledge of the incident involving the racist treatment of the passengers of the Komagata Maru in August 1914. To survive at post-secondary institutions sometimes racialized students have to “bite their tongues” or risk victimization and unnecessary extra stress.</blockquote>
On November 8, 1946, Desmond was traveling on business from her Halifax, Nova Scotia home when she experienced car trouble in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. After taking her car to a garage and having to wait for her car to be repaired she decided to pass the time at the Roseland Theatre. She bought a ticket for the main floor of the theatre as she was unaware of the theatre’s policy that the main floor was a “Whites only” seating area. Desmond did not know that African Canadians were relegated to the balcony at the Roseland Theatre because unlike the blatant White supremacist Jim Crow laws of the U.S.A there were no “Whites” and “Coloured” signs. To this day many White Canadians practice a subtle/polite kind of racism where they can pretend/proclaim that their target was mistaken, that their actions were “taken out of context” or misunderstood. It is not surprising that Toronto’s recently elected Mayor declared that White skin privilege does not exist. It will be interesting to witness how he deals with the racial profiling to which African Canadians and other racialized Torontonians are daily subjected within our fair city.
<blockquote>On November 8, 1946 when Desmond was ordered to vacate her seat and move to the balcony she refused. She was after all a Canadian whose ancestors had lived here for generations why should she be treated differently because of her race? She was a successful business owner a respectable hardworking woman who had paid her hard earned money for a seat on the main floor and she was not going to move. Although she explained that she could not see from the balcony and that she had paid to sit on the main floor the manager insisted that she move. Following that stand off the manager left the theatre and returned with police force. The slim, 4’11” Desmond was unceremoniously lifted out of her seat by the two burly White men and dragged out of the cinema. Desmond suffered hip and knee injuries while being dragged out of the cinema. She was taken to jail, arrested and charged with attempting to defraud the provincial government of a one cent amusement tax. After spending an uncomfortable and terrifying night in jail with no opportunity to contact relatives or even a lawyer, at the trial next day Desmond was found guilty and ordered to pay a fine or spend more time in jail. She paid the fine but determined to fight to clear her name and change the segregationist law.</blockquote>
Desmond was supported in her fight by the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NSAACP) which raised money for her cause. Desmond also received support from Carrie Best, African Canadian journalist and founder of “The Clarion.” In 1942 Best and her son Calbert were arrested and charged with disturbing the peace for sitting in the "white section" of the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow. They were convicted and fined with no mention that their crime was sitting in the “white section” of the cinema (that subtle underhanded version of Canadian racism at work.) Best had unsuccessfully filed a civil suit against the management of the Roseland Theatre. She supported Desmond throughout her fight using the newspaper “The Clarion” (founded in 1946) to publicize the case. The two African Canadian women (Best and Desmond) working together organized other African Canadians to lobby the Nova Scotia government which finally 8 years after the November 8, 1946 incident repealed the segregation law of Nova Scotia in 1954 one year before Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama.
<blockquote>It is important to note that on December 1, 1955 when Parks was arrested on the Montgomery city bus she was sitting in the first set of seats at the back of the bus that were designated for “colored” people. Over the years there have been erroneous accounts that she was sitting in the “white section” and refused to move. No! Rosa Parks refused to move further back when a White man could not find a seat in the “white section” of the bus and the driver demanded that she and 3 other African Americans find seats further back or stand. Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat at the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama and the subsequent year long boycott (December 5, 1955 - December 20, 1956) saw the end of segregation on public transportation in Montgomery. Viola Desmond’s battle to bring an end to segregation in Nova Scotia took a 9 year fight.</blockquote>
At the time that Desmond, Best and other African Canadians in Nova Scotia were fighting to end segregation, African Canadians had recently returned to Canada from fighting in Europe in what was described as the second World War which was supposedly fought to bring freedom to the world. Canada at that time was a dominion of the British Empire whose Prime Minister Winston Churchill made his famous “Finest Hour” speech on June 18, 1940 which included these words: "Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire." Obviously Churchill’s “Christian civilization” did not include White Canadians being “civil” to African Canadians or considering their “Civil Rights” of any importance. After all their “war efforts” African Canadians in 1946 did not have the “freedom” to sit where they wanted in a cinema. The men who came back from Europe after fighting for “freedom” could only expect to get “good” jobs as sleeping car porters. African Canadian author Stanley Grizzle wrote about his experiences as a soldier in the Canadian armed forces and as a porter on the Canadian railroad in his 1998 published book “My name's not George: The story of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters : personal reminiscences of Stanley G. Grizzle.” On May 18, 1945 the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in Canada signed an agreement that represented the first unionized agreement for African Canadian workers with an employer. The men were porters working with the Canadian Pacific and the Northern Alberta Railway. The May 18, 1945 unionization meant that for the first time African Canadian Sleeping Car Porters could bargain for better wages and working conditions and lobby federal and provincial governments to create legislation prohibiting discrimination in employment and housing. It was not until 1964 that African Canadian porters were finally employed in other positions at the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railways (CPR and CNR.)
<blockquote>Viola Desmond was honoured with a Canadian postage stamp in February 2012 but her status as a Canadian Civil Rights activist is still not widely recognized.</blockquote>
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-14898570620868098442014-10-31T08:37:00.000-07:002014-10-31T08:37:40.875-07:00MARGARET BURROUGHS - DUSABLE MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY<blockquote>
What shall I tell my children who are black
Of what it means to be a captive in this dark skin?
What shall I tell my dear one, fruit of my womb,
of how beautiful they are when everywhere they turn
they are faced with abhorrence of everything that is black.
What can I do to give him strength
That he may come through life's adversities
As a whole human being unwarped and human in a world
Of biased laws and inhuman practices, that he might
Survive. And survive he must! For who knows?
Perhaps this black child here bears the genius
To discover the cure for... cancer
Or to chart the course for exploration of the universe.
So, he must survive for the good of all humanity.
He must and will survive.
I have drunk deeply of late from the fountain
of my black culture, sat at the knee of and learned
from mother Africa, discovered the truth of my heritage.
The truth, so often obscured and omitted.
And I find I have much to say to my black children.
I will lift up their heads in proud blackness
with the story of their fathers and their father’s fathers.
And I shall take them into a way back time
of kings and queens who ruled the Nile,
and measured the stars and discovered the laws of mathematics.
I will tell him this and more.
And knowledge of his heritage shall be his weapon and his armor;
It will make him strong enough to win any battle he may face.
And since this story is so often obscured,
I must sacrifice to find it for my children,
even as I sacrifice to feed, clothe and shelter them.
So this I will do for them if I love them.
None will do it for me.
I must find the truth of heritage for myself and pass it on to them. For it is the truth that will make us free!</blockquote>
Excerpt from the poem “What shall I tell my children who are Black” by Dr. Margaret Burroughs published 1992
<blockquote>The woman who would eventually become Dr. Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs and establish the “DuSable Museum of African American History” was born Margaret Taylor on November 1, 1917 in St. Rose, Louisiana. In 1922 when she was 5 years old her family moved north to Chicago as millions of African Americans from southern states were doing at the time. In the case of the Taylor family they fled after a relative was kidnapped and murdered by a gang of White men. Known as “The Great Migration” the period between 1910 and 1960 saw a mass movement of African Americans from Jim Crow southern states to northern states. In the southern states where Jim Crow laws ruled and segregation was a fact of life African Americans could not vote, were forced to accept menial jobs working for White people and were at risk of being brutalized, maimed or killed if they did not “know their place.” African American children were forced to attend schools that were housed in little more than tumbledown shacks and accept third and fourth hand school books after the books had been used and abused by White students in well kept schools. Many African American children in those southern states were forced to leave school for many months of the year to help their families pick cotton to sustain their livelihood as tenant farmers (sharecroppers) where they dwelled on land owned by White farmers.</blockquote>
Two White American professors in the 2011 published book “The Muse in Bronzeville: African American Creative Expression in Chicago” write about Burroughs’ early life: “Educational opportunities were scant, as black children missed large parts of each school year to pick cotton or chop cane. In 1922, sometime after a gang of whites kidnapped and murdered a family member, the Taylors moved to Chicago. They moved many times always searching for better living conditions. Moving up meant moving south as the Black Belt expanded slowly, block by block, into formerly all-white neighborhoods. When the family moved into a house on Sixtieth Street, a transitional area, racial taunts were hurled, bricks were thrown through windows and finally their front porch was firebombed.” Obviously it was not a “bed of roses” for African Americans even in northern cities like Chicago but at least they did not have to live legally segregated lives.
<blockquote>In her 2003 published autobiography “Life with Margaret: The Autobiography of Dr Margaret Burroughs” Burroughs remarked that although she attended an integrated school in the northern city of Chicago the lack of information about Africans in the curriculum negatively affected her academic achievement. Burroughs wrote that while she attended “Englewood High School” she would doze off in class until the teacher mentioned something about African Americans and she would become fully alert when there were discussions about the accomplishments or failures of African American women.
After graduating from Englewood High School in 1933 Burroughs attended the Chicago Normal College (now the Chicago State University) where she earned a teaching certificate in 1937 and in 1939 an upper-grade art certificate. In 1939 Burroughs co-founded the South Side Community Arts Center to serve as a social center, gallery and studio to display the work of African American artists. She also married the artist Bernard Goss in 1939 and they divorced in 1947. In 1946 Burroughs earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Master of Arts degree in Art Education in 1948. In 1949 she married Charles Gordon Burroughs and in 1961 they co-founded the “Ebony Museum of Negro History and Art” in their home at 3806 South Michigan Avenue. The historic building had at one time served as a boarding house for African American Pullman porters and other African American railroad workers. </blockquote>
“Ebony Museum of Negro History and Art” was the first of its kind; an African American self-governing museum designated to collect, interpret and preserve the achievements, experiences and history of African Americans. In 1973 the museum moved to its new home at the former South Park Commission headquarters in Washington Park at 740 East 56th Place. The museum also acquired a new name with the move; it was renamed the “DuSable Museum of African American History.” The name DuSable chosen to honour the African American Haitian born Jean Baptiste Point DuSable who is recognized as the founder of Chicago when he settled there in the 1760s. This information about DuSable was published in the March 18, 1996 edition of the Chicago based African American Jet Magazine: "Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable was born in San Marc, Haiti, in 1745. His mother, an enslaved African woman, was killed when he was about ten years old. His father, who was his mother's 'owner', sent Du Sable to be educated in France, then later employed him as a seaman. Du Sable was 20 years old when he was shipwrecked near New Orleans and had to go into hiding for fear of being enslaved on U.S. soil. He eventually made his way to the area now known as Chicago and was the first African settler as well as the first 'non-native' settler in that area."
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The museum which appropriately bears DuSable’s name remains the only independent institution in Chicago established to collect, interpret and preserve the achievements, experiences and history of African Americans. The museum became a center and resource for teaching about the African Diaspora as well as African American history and culture. African American communities and groups in the USA (including Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia and Los Angeles) have replicated its model. The museum expanded in 1993 with a 28,000 square foot addition named after late Mayor Harold Washington (he became the first African American Mayor of Chicago in 1983) featuring new galleries and a 450-seat auditorium. On its website at <a href="http://www.dusablemuseum.org/about/history">http://www.dusablemuseum.org/about/history</a> the description of the museum includes: “The DuSable Museum is proud of its diverse holdings that number more than 15,000 pieces and include paintings, sculpture, print works and historical memorabilia. Special exhibitions, workshops and lectures are featured to highlight works by specific artists, historic events or collections on loan from individuals or institutions.” </blockquote>
Dr. Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs who transitioned on November 21, 2011 achieved what she wrote in her poem “What shall I tell my children who are Black” she wanted to: “find the truth of heritage for myself and pass it on to them. For it is the truth that will make us free!”
tiakoma@hotmail.com
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-76206012406316347022014-10-23T21:00:00.001-07:002014-10-23T21:00:37.940-07:00ZAMBIA CELEBRATES 50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE!
<blockquote>“Zambia will be celebrating its 50th Anniversary on 24th October, 2014 enjoying 50 years of Peace, Stability and Prosperity.”</blockquote>
From the website of the “High Commission of the Republic of Zambia in Canada”
<blockquote>On Saturday October 24, 1964 Zambia became an independent country. Zambia today with a population of over 15 million is a landlocked country in Southern Africa with the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south and Angola to the west. Between Zambia and Zimbabwe is the Zambezi River from which the country is named. The “Mosi-oa-Tunya” meaning “The Smoke that Thunders” (Victoria Falls) is part of the Zambezi River. The Zambezi River is the fourth longest river in Africa, after the Nile, Congo, and Niger Rivers. It is the longest east flowing river in Africa flowing 2,700 kilometres through six countries from its source in northwestern Zambia to the Indian Ocean. The "Mosi-oa-Tunya" Falls are considered the boundary between the upper and middle Zambezi.</blockquote>
The history of Zambia goes back to the beginning of humanity with evidence of human habitation in the country presented by archaeologists. Information from the "Encyclopedia of African History and Culture: Ancient Africa (Prehistory to 500 CE), vol. 1." states that: “Archaeologists trace the origins of humanity to the Great Rift Valley, which extends to the Lower Zambezi River, in southern Zambia. Artifacts unearthed at sites in Zambia suggest that early humans lived there between 1 and 2 million years ago. The most significant of these sites are at Kalambo Falls in the north and "Mosi-oa-Tunya" Falls in the south. At Kabwe, north of Lusaka (the capital city of Zambia) archaeologists have found evidence of activities by humans that dates back 100,000 years. Early Iron Age peoples settled in the region with their agriculture and domestic animals about 2,000 years ago. By 350, copper came into use both for currency and for adornment. The Bantu-speaking ancestors of the present-day Tonga people reached the region between 800 and 1000 CE. These newcomers kept cattle, made pottery and metalwork, and lived in lathe and plaster houses.”
<blockquote>There are several ethnic groups living together in Zambia today because of the European colonization of the continent with arbitrary assignment of borders. The main ethnic groups are Bemba, Kaonde, Lozi, Luvale, Ngoni, and the Tonga with the Bemba the largest ethnic group in the country. Present day Zambia was colonized by the British beginning in 1840 when missionaries (including David Livingstone) descended quickly followed by colonizers (including Cecil Rhodes.) The countries that are now Zambia and Zimbabwe were at the time governed by the “British South Africa Company” which was owned by Rhodes. The White colonizers/settlers who accompanied the “British South Africa Company” took the best land and became farmers. Any African who protested the stealing of their land by the White colonizers/settlers were brutalized or killed by the “British South Africa Company” police. The stolen lands were named Southern and Northern Rhodesia to honour Rhodes. Today these countries are Zimbabwe and Zambia. In 1923 the British government took control of the territory. The administration of Northern Rhodesia was transferred to the British colonial office in 1924 as a protectorate. A legislative council was established with 5 members elected by the 4,000 White people while no African was consulted or had a vote.</blockquote>
During the 1920s and 1930s the discovery of copper saw the arrival of more Europeans in the area. By 1938 the mining of copper in the area produced 13% of the world's copper. Two large companies monopolized the industry the South African Anglo American Corporation (AAC, North-American) and the Rhodesian Selection Trust (RST, South African) with predominantly American shareholders; both controlled the sector un-till independence.
<blockquote>In 1953 Southern and Northern Rhodesia were combined with Nyasaland (now Malawi) to form the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Africans had resisted European colonization and after two wars (1914-1918 and 1939 to 1945) where Africans had been conscripted into fighting or at least fetching baggage and ammunition for White military personnel, White men no longer seemed invincible even with their “superior” weapons. They were just men some brave some cowardly and they died from bayonet wounds and gunshots. Africans began armed resistance in some instances and they also were demanding a say in the governing of their countries.</blockquote>
In 1955 Kenneth Kaunda and Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula who were leaders in the independence struggle in Zambia were imprisoned for two months with hard labour for distributing “subversive literature.” They were both members of the African National Congress (ANC) but Kaunda broke from the ANC and formed the Zambian African National Congress (ZANC) in October 1958. The ANC was willing to negotiate with the White minority on the issue of African majority rule. The White minority were advocating that only educated Africans who owned property should be allowed to vote instead of one man/woman one vote.
Kaunda’s ZANC was banned in March 1959 by the British colonial regime.
<blockquote>In June 1959 Kaunda was sentenced to 9 months in prison. On February 3, 1960 British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan made his famous "There is a wind of change blowing through Africa" speech in South Africa. Speaking in the Houses of Parliament in Cape Town Macmillan said: “In the twentieth century, and especially since the end of the war, the processes which gave birth to the nation states of Europe have been repeated all over the world. We have seen the awakening of national consciousness in peoples who have for centuries lived in dependence upon some other power. Fifteen years ago this movement spread through Asia. Many countries there, of different races and civilisations, pressed their claim to an independent national life. Today the same thing is happening in Africa, and the most striking of all the impressions I have formed since I left London a month ago is of the strength of this African national consciousness. In different places it takes different forms, but it is happening everywhere. The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it.” On December 31, 1963, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was dissolved and Northern Rhodesia became the Republic of Zambia on October 24, 1964. Kenneth Kaunda became the country’s first president.</blockquote>
On Friday October 24, 2014 Zambians will be celebrating 50 years of independence from British colonial rule. The Zambian Canadian Association in Toronto is hosting a 50th Independence celebration on October 25th, 2014 at the North York Memorial Community Hall at 5110 Yonge Street. Tickets are $35 for adults and $10 for children. For more information contact the organization at zamcan.association@gmail.com or 416-880-6758 or visit their website at www.zamcan.ca Happy 50th year of independence to all Zambians as they celebrate 50 years of peace, stability and prosperity!!
ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-18294508279764671772014-10-17T08:55:00.000-07:002014-10-17T08:55:54.201-07:00JOHN CARLOS AND TOMMIE SMITH OCTOBER 16-1968
On Wednesday October 16, 1968 two African American athletes raised their fists in the Black Power salute as they stood on the podium to accept their Olympic medals and they remain icons of the Civil Rights struggle. The action of then 23 year old John Wesley Carlos and Tommie Smith then 24 years old was a protest against the oppression of African Americans who had been struggling to claim their rights as American citizens since the abolition of slavery in 1865. It is surprising that there were any African American athletes representing their country at the Olympics in Mexico City in 1968. The Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) organized by a then 25 year old African American professor Harry Edwards (now Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley) advocated a boycott by African American athletes of the 1968 Summer Olympics if the “Whites only” athletic teams from the White supremacist controlled African countries South Africa and Rhodesia were allowed to participate at the Olympics. The OPHR had four demands: “withdrawal of South Africa and Rhodesia from the games, restoration of Muhammad Ali’s world heavyweight boxing title, Avery Brundage to step down as president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the hiring of more African American assistant coaches.” After the IOC strategically withdrew invitations for South Africa and Rhodesia to attend games the boycott failed to achieve widespread support. However Carlos and Smith as members of the OPHR decided to stage a protest when they received medals. Many years later when asked if they had planned the protest at the 1968 Summer Olympic Games Tommie Smith reportedly replied: "It was in my head the whole year. We first tried to have a boycott but not everyone was down with that plan. A lot of athletes thought that winning medals would supercede or protect them from racism. But even if you won the medal, it ain't going to save your momma. It ain't going to save your sister or children. It might give you fifteen minutes of fame, but what about the rest of your life? I'm not saying that they didn't have the right to follow their dreams, but to me the medal was nothing but the carrot on a stick."
<blockquote>There was no doubt that these two athletes would be successful at the Olympic Games since Tommie Smith was one of the greatest sprinters in the world in 1968 (he is the only man in the history of track and field to hold 11 world records simultaneously and had equalled or broken 13 world records) and at the 1968 Olympic Trials, John Carlos won the 200-meter dash in 19.92 seconds surpassing the world-record of Tommie Smith by 0.3 seconds. </blockquote>
After finishing first (Smith) and third (Carlos) in the 200 meter dash at the Mexico City Olympics the two African American athletes chose to put their lives and livelihood on the line to make a profound political statement. Smith adorned with his gold medal and Carlos with his bronze medal bravely bowed their heads as the American national anthem played. Both African American athletes were shoeless as they stood on the podium only wearing black socks to represent the economic disadvantage of African Americans. The athletes also wore one black glove each; Smith wore his on his right hand, Carlos wore his on his left hand. Smith later said that his right handed demonstration was meant to represent Black Power in America while the glove on the left hand of Carlos represented unity among African Americans. After the protest there were boos and racist name calling from the White American spectators. When asked for a reaction to the abuse Carlos said: "When we arrived at the award stand there was a lot of applause. When we left there were many boos and thumbs down. Well, John Carlos and Tommie Smith want the people who booed to know that black people are not lower animals like roaches and rats. ... We're not like some sort of a show horse who does its job and then had some peanuts tossed at it. We'd like to tell all white people that if they don't care for things black people do, they should not go see black people perform." Speaking of the treatment they received during the 1968 Olympics Smith said: "It is very discouraging to be in a team with white athletes. On the track you are Tommie Smith, the fastest man in the world, but once you are in the dressing rooms you are nothing more than a dirty Negro.”
<blockquote>Avery Brundage got his revenge on the two athletes who were members of the movement (OPHR) that had called for his removal as president of the IOC. The IOC decided to strip the 2 African American athletes of their medals and expel them from the Olympic village. As president of the IOC Brundage issued this statement: "The basic principle of the Olympic Games is that politics plays no part whatsoever in them. US athletes violated this universally accepted principle....to advertise domestic political views." Carlos and Smith were suspended by the American Olympic Committee and ordered to leave Mexico City. </blockquote>
When questioned during an interview about their reason for not wearing shoes when they stood on the podium to receive their medals on October 16, 1968 Carlos said: "We wanted the world to know that in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, South Central Los Angeles, Chicago, that people were still walking back and forth in poverty without even the necessary clothes to live." Carlos speaking on the significance of the beads that were worn said: “The beads were for those individuals that were lynched, or killed that no-one said a prayer for, that were hung and tarred. It was for those thrown off the side of the boats in the middle passage. We were trying to wake the country up and wake the world up to.”
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Their principled stance on October 16, 1968 in Mexico City took a toll on the lives of both Carlos and Smith. In his 2011 published book “The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World” Carlos writes about leaving the podium: “I was ready to get off that track, proud that we’d said our piece. But I had no idea the moment on the medal stand would be frozen for all time. I had no idea what we’d face. I didn’t know or appreciate at that precise moment, that the entire trajectory of our young lives had just irrevocably changed.” The abuse they had experienced in Mexico was nothing compared to what awaited them on their return to America. In the 2005 published book "What's My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the United States" White American sports writer David Zirin interviewed Carlos who spoke of the negative effect of the racist backlash on his and his family’s life which he partly blames for his wife’s suicide in 1977. Speaking of his struggle to support his family following the 1968 protest Carlos said: “We were under tremendous economic stress. I took any job I could find. I wasn't too proud. Menial jobs, security jobs, gardener, caretaker, whatever I could do to try to make ends meet. We had four children and some nights I would have to chop up our furniture and make a fire in the middle of our room just to stay warm.” His family was subjected to abuse from the CIA and the FBI including surveillance and emotional harassment. In an October 2011 interview with Amy Goodman of “Democracy Now” Carlos spoke of his phone being tapped, he, his wife and children followed by members of the FBI and CIA. His wife was sent anonymous letters accusing her husband of various types of misconduct until she suffered a breakdown and eventually committed suicide.</blockquote>
Both men survived the attacks and today Carlos and Smith are recognized as heroes of the Civil Rights movement and both have written autobiographies: “The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World” published 2011 and “Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith” published 2008.
Unfortunately you would have to search far and wide to find an African American athlete who would be willing to speak out or stand up against the abuse of fellow African Americans today. African American sports writer Shaun Powell addresses this in his 2007 published book: “Souled Out? How Blacks Are Winning and Losing in Sports” where he writes: “Every once in a while a lonely cry in the wilderness from the rare black athlete who chooses to speak out on issues. Otherwise muffled by wealth and softened by a fawning society black athletes today share a common role model and mentor. They’d rather not be like Tommie Smith and John Carlos. They’d rather be like Mike.”ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-55617017508806848102014-10-07T09:23:00.002-07:002014-10-08T07:58:07.724-07:00BLACK HISTORY MONTH IN BRITAIN 2014<blockquote>October is Black History Month in the United Kingdom. There has been an African Presence in Britain for centuries although we are led to believe that Africans arrived in Britain as enslaved people during the dreadful Maafa when millions were kidnapped and dragged out of the African continent. Guyanese historian Dr. Ivan Van Sertima and African American historian Dr. Runoko Rashidi published "African Presence in Early Europe" in 1985. </blockquote>
The documented African presence in Britain according to White British author Peter Fryer goes back to the year 210. In his 1984 published book “Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain” Fryer wrote: “There were Africans in Britain before the English came here. They were soldiers in the Roman imperial army that occupied the southern part of our island for three and a half centuries. Though the earliest attested date for this unit’s presence here is 253-8, an African soldier is reputed to have reached Britain by the year 210.” African historian and anthropologist Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop in his 1974 published book “The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality” wrote about the megalithic culture of Africans which can be found replicated in Britain proving the presence of Africans in ancient Britain. Writing of the construction of megalithic structures Diop states: "These are found only in lands inhabited by Negroes or Negroids, or in places that they have frequented, the area that Speiser calls “the great megalithic civilization,” which extends from Africa to India, Australia, South America, Spain and Brittany. That megalithic civilization in Brittany belongs to the second millennium, the period when the Phoenicians frequented those regions. This combination of facts should leave no doubt on the southern and Negro origin of the megaliths in Brittany."
<blockquote>Anthony Richard Birley a White British historian has written about the African presence in ancient Britain in his 1971 published book “Septimius Severus: The African Emperor.” Britain had been invaded, conquered and was part of the Roman Empire from 54 BC to AD 409. Britain was part of the Roman Empire when the African Emperor Septimius Severus was in power (AD 193 to 211) and there were Africans living in Britain. Information from the UK National Archives state: “In Roman times, Black troops were sent to the remote and barbaric province of Britannia, and some of them stayed when the Roman legions left Britain. Africans have been present in Europe from classical times. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries Roman soldiers of African origin served in Britain, and some stayed after their military service ended.”</blockquote>
The 2012 published book “Black Salt: Seafarers of African Descent on British Ships” by Black British historian Dr. Ray Costello is a source of information about this group: “In this fascinating work, Dr. Ray Costello examines the work and experience of seamen of African descent in Britain's navy, from impressed slaves to free Africans, British West Indians, and British-born Black sailors. Seamen from the Caribbean and directly from Africa have contributed to both the British Royal Navy and Merchant Marine from at least the Tudor period and by the end of the period of the British Slave Trade at least three per-cent of all crewmen were black mariners. Black sailors signed off in British ports helped the steady growth of a black population.” In spite of such information about the African presence in Britain most of what is acknowledged when the history of Africans in Britain is recognized is the British enslavement of Africans and the aftermath of emancipation. The most recognized, acknowledged and documented group of Africans in Britain are the descendants of enslaved Africans from the Caribbean who immigrated to Britain on the MV Windrush (June 22, 1948) known as “The Windrush Generation.” According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) “The arrival of the SS Empire Windrush in June 1948 at Tilbury Dock, Essex, in England, marked the beginning of post-war mass migration. The ship had made an 8,000 mile journey from the Caribbean to London with 492 passengers on board from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and other islands. Most of the passengers were ex-servicemen seeking work. This marked the beginning of post-war mass migration. When they walked down the gangplank onto British soil they could not have imagined that their journey would begin an important landmark in the history of London and the rest of country. The passengers on board the Windrush were invited to come to Britain after World War Two, to assist with labour shortages. Many of the passengers had fought for Britain during the war. They later became known as the 'Windrush Generation.’”
<blockquote>Jamaican poet and educator Louise Simone Bennett-Coverley (Miss Lou) immortalized that experience in her poem Colonization in Reverse <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hmi-UXZ_tN8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hmi-UXZ_tN8</a> In his poem Inglan is a Bitch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq9OpJYck7Y">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq9OpJYck7Y</a>. UK based Jamaican dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson has addressed the plight of the Windrush Generation and those who followed.</blockquote>
Even though there has been an African presence in Britain for these many centuries there still remains a need for a British “Black History Month” because the history is not part of the curriculum and many British are not aware of that history.ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2366929528964583883.post-11655245399232195642014-10-06T20:59:00.001-07:002014-10-06T21:02:42.982-07:00CUBANA AIRLINE FLIGHT 455 ON OCTOBER 6 - 1976 <blockquote>On October 6, 1976 thirty eight years ago 11 Guyanese lost their lives in an act of terror committed by a United States trained agent Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles. On October 6, 1976 Guyana lost several potential doctors, all of them 18 year olds on their way to Cuba on scholarship to pursue medical studies. The bombing of Cubana flight 455 on October 6, 1976 remains the worst act of terrorism aboard a commercial airline in the Americas in the 20th century. It was historically the worst act of terrorism aboard a commercial airline in the Americas until the plane that brought down the twin towers on September 11, 2001.</blockquote>
The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) trained the terrorist Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles who planted two toothpaste bombs on Cubana flight 455 which carried 78 people (73 passengers and 5 crew members) all of whom perished in the blast. Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles who lives in Miami, Florida is the notorious terrorist who is responsible for the bombing of the Cubana Airlines Flight 455 in which 78 people including 11 Guyanese were killed on October 6, 1976.
<blockquote>With the USA declared "war on terror" which George W. Bush declared with much fanfare on September 20, 2001 one has to wonder why the American government is harbouring a known terrorist who is feted in the Miami Cuban community. In a speech on September 20, 2001, Bush said: “And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”
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Yet on October 6, 2014 thirty eight years since the CIA terrorist Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles destroyed the lives, the promising futures of 78 people including 11 Guyanese (several 18 year old potential doctors, a 9 year old and a young mother who left her 2 month old baby with the grandmother) there has been no offer of compensation to the families who lost their loved ones in what has been recognized as the most deadly terrorist airline attack in the western hemisphere in the 20th century.
<blockquote>On October 6, 1976 with the bombing of Cubana flight 455 irreparable damage was done to the people of Guyana by a terrorist trained by and harboured by the American government. Should Guyanese demand compensation from the American government for this act of terrorism? Guyana cannot kidnap the CIA trained terrorist Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles from American soil and put him on trial for the brutal assassination of 11 Guyanese. Guyana cannot invade America for harbouring terrorists.</blockquote>ABIOYEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162997479595996712noreply@blogger.com0