MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. CALLED FOR REPARATIONS

“It is impossible to create a formula for the future which does not take into account that our society has been doing something special against the Negro for hundreds of years. How then can he be absorbed into the mainstream of American life if we do not do something special for him now, in order to balance the equation and equip him to compete on a just and equal basis? What will it profit him to be able to send his children to an integrated school if the family income is insufficient to buy them school clothes? What will he gain by being permitted to move into an integrated neighborhood if he cannot afford to do so because he is unemployed or has a low-paying job with no future? In asking for something special, the Negro is not seeking charity. He does not want to languish on welfare rolls any more than the next man. He does not want to be given a job he cannot handle. Neither, however, does he want to be told that there is no place where he can be trained to handle it. Few people consider the fact that, in addition to being enslaved for two centuries, the Negro was, during all those years, robbed of the wages of his toil. No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries. Not all the wealth of this affluent society could meet the bill. Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages.”

From "Why We Can't Wait" by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., published 1964

Dr. King's birthday will be recognized with a National Holiday on Monday, January 20, 2014. On Monday, January 20, 1986 the first Martin Luther King Jr., day was officially recognized as a National Holiday. Dr. King is the only person who was never an American President to have a National Holiday named in his honour. It is an honour which he richly deserves since he put his life (and the lives of his family) on the line to fight for change to the brutal oppression of living in a White supremacist society. At that time African Americans (the descendants of the enslaved Africans whose unpaid labour built America) were relegated to living on the periphery of American society. They were third class citizens in the country of their birth. Dr. King was the face and body of the Civil Rights Movement, an easy target of the White supremacist American government and society. Dr. King was the target of a relentless campaign organized by the government carried out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under the leadership of John Edgar Hoover. Hoover had a long history of tormenting African American leaders beginning with his targeting of the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey who he hounded for five years (1919 to 1924) until he railroaded Garvey into jail. Hoover described Garvey (one of our most recognized freedom fighters) as a "notorious negro agitator" who he was determined to destroy. Decades later, Hoover would use the same methods of harassment he practiced on Garvey against other African American leaders including Dr. King, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz and members of the Black Panther Party. The Schomburg Centre for Research in Black Culture has a list of many of the African Americans who were targeted by Hoover: (http://schomburgcenter.tumblr.com/post/12293288481/j-edgar-from-garvey-to-gaye)

As the recognized leader of the Civil Rights Movement and the target of the FBI, Dr. King was arrested 30 times. On one of those occasions when he was incarcerated Dr. King wrote his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail." He wrote the letter in response to an open letter written by a group of White (8 Christian and Jewish) religious leaders (published April 12, 1963) who expressed concern that the “Negroes” wanted too much too quickly. In his reply to the good White religious leaders Dr. King wrote in part: “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied. We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society …. when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"; then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.” The book "Why We Cant' Wait" began as "Letter from Birmingham Jail" written April 16, 1963 as Dr. King responded to the open letter written by 8 White religious leaders. The letter (http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html) was written on scraps of paper while Dr. King was in jail for demonstrating without a permit (which the court refused to grant.) Dr. King and 50 others were arrested as they peacefully demonstrated on Good Friday, April 12, 1963. In his book “Why We Can’t Wait” Dr. King described the writing of the letter: “Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps of writing paper supplied by a friendly black trusty, and concluded on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me.” The letter was reprinted several times including the August 1963 edition of “Ebony Magazine on pages 23 to 32 entitled “A Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Dr. King was born on January 15, 1929 and assassinated on April 4, 1968. In his 39 years he achieved more than many people who lived twice as long as he did. He was just 25 years old in 1954 when he became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama and at 26 accepted the leadership of the Montgomery Improvement Association eventually becoming the recognized leader of the Civil Rights Movement. As leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association Dr. King spearheaded the Montgomery bus boycott which lasted from December 1, 1955 to December 21, 1956. During the boycott Dr. King was arrested, his home was bombed and he was subjected to the wrath of the White supremacist system. In 1963 Dr. King was named Man of the Year by “Time” magazine and in 1964 became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The recognition of Martin Luther King Jr., Day came after a long struggle beginning in 1968 the year in which he was assassinated when Congressman John Conyers, Democrat from Michigan, first introduced legislation for a commemorative holiday four days after King was assassinated. The bill was stalled until petitions endorsing the holiday containing six million names was submitted to Congress. Conyers and Representative Shirley Chisholm, Democrat from New York, resubmitted King Holiday legislation each subsequent legislative session. Public pressure for the holiday mounted during the 1982 and 1983 Civil Rights marches in Washington. Congress passed the holiday legislation in 1983 and Martin Luther King Jr., Day has been a National Holiday in the USA since then. The holiday is recognized on the third Monday in January and this year on Monday, January 20 Dr. King will be remembered across the USA with a National Holiday.

Dr. King supported Affirmative Action and Reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans. Reparations have been on the minds of Africans since slavery was abolished. In America there was the idea of 40 acres and a mule for African Americans which was never realised. Africans in the Caribbean have also sought Reparations. In 2013, a National Reparations Committee was established by the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) with the intent of pursuing the issue of Reparations from the former slave owning European nations that benefited from the unpaid labour of enslaved Africans. Dr. King (as we remember him on what would have been his 85th birthday) would have supported his Caribbean brothers and sisters (14 Caribbean countries including Haiti and Suriname) as they seek Reparations from Britain, France and the Netherlands.

ADA LOIS SIPUEL FISHER

African Americans have traditionally been subjected to prejudice and bigotry. We have been stereotyped as Aunt Jemima, Sapphire, Uncle Tom and Sambo. We have sat at the back of buses and up front in curtained-off cubbyholes in trains. We have climbed stairs to the balcony in theatres. We have cleaned, cooked and entertained in clubs and restaurants in which we could not be served. We fought to defend our country and make the world safe for democracy in a segregated army.

From the 1996 published book “A Matter of Black and White: The Autobiography of Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher” written by Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher

On January 14, 1946, the University of Oklahoma Law School rejected an application for admission made byAda Lois Sipuel Fisher, a highly qualified young African American woman. Born Ada Lois Sipuel on February 8, 1924 in Chickasha, Oklahoma to Bishop Travis Sipuel and his wife Martha Bell Smith Sipuel she was an excellent student and graduated from Lincoln High School in 1941 as valedictorian. On March 3, 1944, she married Warren Fisher and on May 21, 1945, Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher graduated from Langston University (the only one of the 125 Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the United States that exists in the state of Oklahoma) with honours. Sipuel Fisher’s parents along with hundreds of other African Americans had been forced to flee Tulsa, Oklahomain 1921. This is acknowledged in the introduction/foreword of “A Matter of Black and White: The Autobiography of Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher” written by Robert Henry: “Racial tension reached its zenith in 1921 in Tulsa. The Greenwood area of Tulsa about two square miles of thriving property owned by African Americans was left a smoking rubble. Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher knew this and more. Her parentsleft Tulsa as a consequence of the riot, one of the worst in American history. They moved to Chickasha, a more bucolic setting, but still a place shadowed by racism. After all the Ku Klux Klan was the dominaant power in Oklahoma in the 1920s.” It was in this White supremacist culture of 1946 Oklahoma that a brave 21 year old African American woman recently married and pregnant with her first child decided to challenge the Jim Crow laws that prevented highly qualified African Americans from attending law schools. These government funded law schools benefitted from the tax dollars of the oppressed African American citizens who were relegated to low wage jobs and lives of poverty.

African Americans before Sipuel Fisher had challenged the segregation laws which prevented them from entering law schools with disastrous results. One of the more famous cases is that of Lloyd Lionel Gaines who mysteriously disappeared on March 19, 1939 and whose body was never found after that night. Gaines had successfully challenged the University of Missouri Law School’s refusal to admit him as a student. According to an article published in “The New York Times” on July 11, 2009, entitled “A Supreme Triumph, Then Into the Shadows” written by David Stout: “On Dec. 12, 1938, the Supreme Court ruled that the segregated University of Missouri Law School had to admit Lloyd Lionel Gainess, who was qualified except for the color of his skin, if there was no comparable legal education available to him within Missouri — and there was not.”Sipuel Fisher eminently qualified to enter the Oklahoma Law School volunteered to be the person to challenge the segregation law of the time. Sipuel Fisher challenged the legal fiction of "separate but equal" with the support of the NationalAssociation for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a team of lawyers led by famous African American lawyer Thurgood Marshall. The team filed a lawsuit alleging that the failure of the state of Oklahoma to provide a comparable law school for African American students required that Sipuel Fisher be admitted to the University of Oklahoma College of Law.

In her autobiography “A Matter of Black and White” Sipuel Fisher described the January 14, 1946 morning when she ventured out to apply for admission to the University of Oklahoma College of Law. “The day to apply for admission to the law school in order to initiate the legal battle finally arrived. The day, January 14, 1946, was a cold one. While I expected to be rejected, I did not expect a hostile mob awaiting us or that officials would be insulting in any way. We were making a dignified request, and I expected we would be received in a dignified way. I did not know how people would react in the town or around the state. I did not anticipate they would be happy about it, but I was not dealing with them that day.” On January 14, 1946 Sipuel Fisher was refused admission to the University of Oklahoma College of Law even though after reviewing her credentials, the president of the university acknowledged that there was no academic reason to reject her application for admission. However the Oklahoma statutes prohibited Whites and African Americans from attending classes together. It would take a three year legal battle before Sipuel Fisher was admitted to the University Oklahoma College of Law. Following the rejection of Sipuel Fisher’s application for admission to the College of Law the SIPUEL v. BOARD OF REGENTS OF UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA et al, 332 U. S. 631- law suit was launched. The case was settled in the United States Supreme Court after the plaintiffs lost in state courts. Thurgood Marshall argued Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma before the United States Supreme Court that the state law school must open its doors to Sipuel, because it offered no comparable facility and that the entire doctrine of "separate but equal" should be abandoned. On January 12, 1948, the United States Supreme Court ruledd that Sipuel was entitled to a legal education and that Oklahoma must provide instruction for African Americans equal to that of White Americans http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/332/631.

Following the successful challenge at the United States Supreme Court level Oklahoma state officials quickly constructed “Langston University School of Law”a makeshift “law school” in room 428 of the state capitol building in an effort to continue denying Sipuel Fisher entry to the University of Oklahoma. Further litigation was necessary to prove that this law school was inferior to the University of Oklahoma law school. Before a lawsuit challenging “Langston University School of Law” was resolved, the law school ran out of funds. The “Langston University School of Law” closed in 1949. The president of the University of Oklahoma law school finally admitted Sipuel Fisher on June 18, 1949, making her the first African American woman to attend an all white law school in the Southern US. That was not the end of her challenges. Inside the law school classroom Sipuel Fisher was forced to sit in a segregated seat at the back of the class marked” “colored” that was roped off from the rest of the class. She also had to eat in a separate chained-off guarded area of the law school cafeteria. She stayed the course and graduated in 1951 with a law degree from the University of Oklahoma. After passing the bar, Sipuel practiced law until 1956, when she left legal practice to work as the public relations director for her alma mater Langston University. In 1981, the Smithsonian Institution designated Sipuel Fisher as one of the 150 outstanding Black Women Who Have Had the Most Impact on The Course of American History. Ironically in 1991, the University of Oklahoma honoured her with an Honorary Doctorate and in 1992, she was appointed to the University Of Oklahoma Board Of Regents.

Fourteen years into the 21st century Africans in North America (Canada and the USA) continue to face challenges living in a White Supremacist culture dealing with racial profiling on many levels. We may no longer be “stereotyped as Aunt Jemima, Sapphire, Uncle Tom and Sambo” but we continue to struggle against the negative images that lead to racial profiling. The brave stance of the Black Action Defence Committee (BADC) filing law suits against police forces in Ontario that have engaged in racial profiling must be commended and supported as we go forward in this new year.

ON HER OWN GROUND: MADAM C. J. WALKER

I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. From there I was promoted to the washtub. From there I was promoted to the cook kitchen. And from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations. I have built my own factory on my own ground.

Quote attributed to Sarah Breedlove McWilliams Walker (Madam C. J. Walker) from the 2002 published book “On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker” written by A’Lelia Bundles

Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867 two years after slavery was abolished in the USA. She was born in Delta, Louisiana to Owen and Minerva Breedlove and was the first freeborn person in her family as her parents and older siblings had been enslaved until 1865. Madam C. J. Walker as she came to be known after her third marriage to Charles Joseph Walker on January 4, 1906 is acknowledged as the first African American woman millionaire. Her story is one of “rags to riches” by dint of hard work and entrepreneurship. Her parents who lived and worked on the plantation where they had been enslaved both transitioned before she was 7 years old leaving her and her siblings orphans. The uncertainty of being shuttled between relatives after losing her parents is speculated as the reason Sarah Breedlove married Moses McWilliams in 1881 when she was only 14 years old. Four years later she gave birth to her only child, a daughter A’Lelia McWilliams and two years later at 20 years old Sarah Breedlove McWilliams was a widow and her two year old daughter fatherless.

Several sources claim that Moses McWilliams was lynched by a white mob in 1887. In her 2002 published book “On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker” author A’Lelia Bundles who is Walker’s great, great grand daughter writes: “With no death certificate and no dependable oral history from Sarah Breedlove herself, it is unlikely that anyone will ever know whether Moses McWilliams was one of the ninety-five people whose lynchings were documented in 1888.”The fact that Breedlove was never recorded speaking about her husband being lynched is hardly surprising. If she had witnessed the lynching she may have been so traumatized that she could not speak of the horror of witnessing such an event. The absence of a death certificate for an African American lynched by a white mob is hardly likely to have concerned the white supremacist government. In January 1892 the Chicago Tribune published a list of the numbers of African Americans who had been lynched from 1882 to 1891 and 70 African Americans had been lynched in 1887. Whatever tragedy led to Breedlove McWilliams being widowed in 1887 she and her two year old child were left without a husband and father and she had to provide clothing, food and shelter for herself and her child. She moved to St Louis, Missouri where she worked as a washerwoman to support her family of two. Following a second marriage to John Davis (August 11, 1894) where she was subjected to domestic violence she fled and eventually married her third husband Charles Joseph Walker on January 4, 1906 and changed her name to Madam C. J. Walker.

In 1906 Walker founded the “Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company” in Denver and her first two products were “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower”and a vegetable-based shampoo. She traveled across the USA, the Caribbean and Latin America marketing and promoting “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower” eventually establishing Lelia College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which trained women to sell her products door-to-door and provide hair-care for African American women. By 1910 she had more than 1,000 sales agents and had moved to Indianapolis where she established the headquarters of “Madame C. J. Walker Laboratories” to manufacture cosmetics and opened another training school to train her salespeople. As a pioneer of the modern cosmetics industry and an advocate of women's economic independence she provided above average wages for thousands of African American women who otherwise would have been relegated to working as farm labourers and domestic labourers.

Walker is known as the woman who made a fortune encouraging African American women to straighten their hair. In “On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker”: Bundles writes: “It would be years before I would learn that her Walker System was intended to treat the scalp disease that was so rampant in the early 1900s, when many women washed their hair only once a month. "Right here let me correct the erroneous impression held by some that I claim to straighten hair," she told a reporter in 1918 after she had been called the "de-kink queen" by a white newspaper. "I deplore such an impression because I have always held myself out as a hair culturist. I grow hair." Walker was also a philanthropist who gave back to her community including $1,000 in 1911 to build a new YMCA in Indianapolis for African Americans. Shortly after moving to Harlem in 1916 she contributed $5,000 to the NAACP’s anti-lynching movement. As a political activist, in July 1917 when a white mob massacred African Americans in East St. Louis, Illinois, Walker joined a group of Harlem leaders who visited the White House to present a petition advocating federal anti-lynching legislation. At her “Madam C. J. Walker Hair Culturists Union of America convention” in Philadelphia in 1917 considered one of the first national meetings of businesswomen Walker reportedly said to the gathering: “This is the greatest country under the sun, but we must not let our love of country, our patriotic loyalty cause us to abate one whit in our protest against wrong and injustice. We should protest until the American sense of justice is so aroused that such affairs as the East St. Louis riot be forever impossible.” The story of Madam C.J. Walker finding fame and fortune with a business plan encouraging African American women to straighten their hair began more than a hundred years ago when we felt compelled to confirm to a European standard of beauty. Not much about our hair experience has changed since then. In the 2001 published book “Tenderheaded” bell hooks, one of the contributing writers reminds us: “Despite many changes in racial politics, black women continue to obsess about their hair, and straightening hair continues to be serious business. Individual preferences (whether rooted in self-hate or not) cannot negate the reality that our collective obsession with hair straightening reflects the psychology of oppression and the impact of racist colonization.” Even in 2013 there have been various stories in the media about African American women and girls who have experienced negative reactions when they choose to wear their natural hair. The most recent is the story of Melphine Evans, an African American woman who was reportedly told that she should warn her colleagues whenever she planned to wear her hair in braids because: “You intimidate and make your colleagues uncomfortable by wearing ethnic clothing and ethnic hairstyles” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2519858/Senior-BP-executive-told-braided-hair-African-dress-staff-feel-uncomfortable-save-Black-History-Month.html) Evans who worked for British Petroleum (BP) in an executive position was fired and has filed a law suit against BP: “According to the suit, filed with the Orange County Superior Court this week, Evans says that her supervisors told her that her dashiki and braided hair made other employees 'uncomfortable.” Celebrate Madam C.J. Walker’s birthday and in recognition of her entrepreneurial spirit and her success in business support African Canadian businesses in the spirit of the Kwanzaa principle Ujamaa (Co-operative economics.)

CELEBRATION TIME COME ON!!

O come all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant, O come ye, o come ye to Bethlehem; Come and behold him Born, the King of angels: O come let us adore him Christ the Lord. Adeste Fideles laeti triumphantes, Venite, venite in Bethlehem. Natum videte, Regem Angelorum; Venite adoremus, Dominum!

Excerpt from "Oh Come All Ye Faithful"

"Oh Come All Ye Faithful" is one of the older and popular carols that are sung by the faithful at Christmas time. The Latin version of the carol "Adeste Fideles" is said to have been written by a music teacher John Francis Wade and first published in 1760. The English translation was done by Frederick Oakley and William Brooke in 1841. The history of this carol has been disputed with various other people named as composer including a Portuguese monarch. The origin of "Adeste Fideles/Oh come all ye faithful" has evolved over the centuries like the occasion for which it was composed. Christmas is supposed to be about the birth of Jesus the founder of Christianity but the celebration has evolved over the centuries to today where for some people it is a time to spend more than they can really afford. With the commercialization of Christmas and the various pagan symbols the true meaning of Christmas seems to have been lost. Christmas now is more about Santa Claus and the gifts he will bring for “good little boys and girls.” The celebration of Christmas has been adapted and shaped by various communities and cultures. The Christmas tree (originally German) which is now an established part of Christmas celebrations was introduced and became popular in the former British Empire (which included Canada and the Caribbean islands) during the reign of Victoria when Britannia ruled the waves. In 1846 an illustration of the British royal family Victoria, her German husband Albert and their children appeared in the “Illustrated London News” standing around a decorated Christmas tree. The fashion caught on not only in Britain and the British Empire but also in the United States of America. In many homes today, a decorated tree is an essential part of the Christmas celebration.

Santa Claus in America, Canada and elsewhere, Father Christmas in Britain and many former British colonies is also established figures in the celebration of Christmas. However, the jolly, white haired, bearded figure with the hearty laugh is mostly an American invention. Although legends abound from Turkey and various European countries of Saint Nicholas/St Nick, Kris Kringle and Sinterklaas, the modern version was popularised by Coca-Cola in the 1930s to boost sales of their product. Since the days of the popularised Coca-Cola image of Santa Claus the celebration of Christmas has become less a religious observance/holiday and more a secular and highly commercial celebration/holiday. Christmas as a secular and commercial celebration is celebrated worldwide even in countries where the main religion is not Christianity. Christmas, many centuries old has moved from its supposed roots (many pagan rituals are included) of the celebration of the birth of Christ.

In the Caribbean islands that were colonized by the British and in Guyana, the Christmas celebrations were at one time patterned after the colonizer but over time the celebration has become uniquely Caribbean with decorations, food and music. Steel pan music as accompaniment to the traditional carols, calypso, reggae and soca versions of those carols and Caribbean composed songs to celebrate Christmas including the spirited and popular “Drink a rum” by Lord Kitchener and “listen mama I want you to tell Santa Claus” by Nat Hepburn. A Guyanese Christmas is not complete without a pepperpot (made with casareep from the cassava root) breakfast.

Recently there has been some controversy about the Dutch celebration of Christmas which includes White men in “blackface” cavorting with “Sinterklaas.”While the British and American “Father Christmas/Santa Claus” is accompanied by little elves as helpers “Sinterklaas” is accompanied by “Zwarte Pieten or Black Petes.” These characters dress in Dutch colonial costumes and are “made up” with black faces and big red lips which they top off with afro wigs and gold earrings. Apparently this is a treasured part of the Dutch celebration of Christmas where leading up to Christmas, White people in the Netherlands paint their faces black and dress up to enact “Zwarte Piet” to“entertain the children.”

Ignoring the white supremacist image of White people dressed to caricaturize the people their ancestors held in slavery for centuries this spectacle is used for the entertainment of the Dutch. These “Zwarte Pieten/Black Petes” which are now touted as “entertainment” were historically used as figures to scare “disobedient” White children in the days leading up to Christmas. Reportedly for the past 10 years at least (since 2003) there have been active attempts by African, Surinamese and Antillean communities who joined forces to demand that the House of Representatives take action against this White supremacist characterization of Africans. With the commercialization of Christmas and the mostly lost reason for the celebration some people choose not to celebrate Christmas with all the pagan trappings. They attend church and spend quiet times with their relatives and friends. Others choose to celebrate Kwanzaa which at 47 years old is still true to its roots as a Pan-African seven day celebration from December 26th to January 1st. Kwanzaa serves as a means of reconnecting Africans to their roots and celebrates family, community and culture. Kwanzaa is a celebration for all Africans regardless of their religion or country of birth. It is a time to celebrate our culture, learn about our history, honour African ancestors and traditions, spend time with family and friends and look to our future as a people. Africans of all beliefs, faiths, religions or lack of celebrate this cultural reconnecting event.

The Kwanzaa celebration inspires racial pride in Africans whose ancestors had been brainwashed into thinking that European culture was superior. The values articulated in the seven Kwanzaa principles “Nguzo saba” resonate with Africans and the celebration which began with a few people in the USA in 1966 is now an international celebration. In 1998 it was estimated that Kwanzaa was celebrated by 18 million Africans worldwide.

The Nguzo Saba (seven principles) are Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity) and Imani (Faith). Each principle is represented by a candle (mshumaa). The colours used during Kwanzaa (red, black and green) are the Pan-African colours chosen by the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Black represents the African people; red represents the blood shed in our struggle for freedom and green is the symbol of our future and the richness of the African continent.

Celebrating Kwanzaa encourages making or buying educational African centred zawadi (gifts) for children to practice Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) ensuring that money circulates in the community at least seven times. There are excellent books written for African children about heroes and sheroes who can serve as inspiration and role models. Mathieu DaCosta by Itah Sadu; The Kids Book of Black Canadian History by Rosemary Sadlier; To Be a Drum by Evelyn Coleman, The Sound that Jazz Makes by Carole Boston Weatherford; In Daddy's Arms I Am Tall by Javaka Steptoe; Jambo Means Hello: Swahili Alphabet Book by Muriel Feelings; The Friendship, Song of the Trees, Mississippi Bridge and The Well by Mildred D. Taylor are all excellent Kwanzaa zawadi for children. The decorations for the Kwanzaa table, including a beautifully carved wooden kinara (candle holder), kikombe cha Umoja (unity cup) and kente cloth can all be found at African Canadian owned stores. The seven principles can serve as a guide throughout the year and do not have to be relegated to the Kwanzaa celebration from December 26th to January 1st.

An important part of the Kwanzaa celebration is the recognition of those who went before us, remembering those who paved the way for us, those on whose shoulders we stand because they never stopped striving for their freedom. Those freedom fighting ancestors include Kofi (Guyana’s National Hero who led the Berbice Revolution of 1763) Nanny (Jamaica’s lone female National Hero) Nana Yaa Asantewa (who led the last Ashante battle against the British in Ghana) Queen Nzingha (who battled the Portuguese in Angola) Mbuya Nehanda (who led the Shona resistance against the British in Zimbabwe) Viola Desmond who defied Canadian segregation practices and was arrested on November 8, 1946 for sitting in the white section of a New Glasgow, Nova Scotia cinema and Carrie Best who publicized and supported Viola Desmond’s fight. Regardless of your choice of celebration for this time of year, enjoy!! Kwanzaa yenu iwe na heri! May your Kwanzaa be happy!! Merry Christmas!!

FIFTY YEARS OF KENYAN INDEPENDENCE 2013

On December 12, 1963 Kenya gained its political independence from Great Britain. Jomo Kenyatta (bornKamau wa Ngengi) led the fight for independence and was elected the first Prime Minister of the independent nation. The Kenyans gained their independence after years of bloody struggle during which they were brutalized by the White people who had invaded and stolen their land. Following the European “Scramble for Africa” (Berlin Conference of 1884-1885) the British moved into Kenya, occupied the most fertile land and forced the Africans off the land. They passed laws that disenfranchised Africans, even forbidding them ownership of land in certain parts of the country. With the White interlopers occupying what they dubbed the "White Highlands" of Kenya, the Africans were displaced and some were forced unto reserves. With the fertile land in Kenya reserved for White people and Africans forced to subsist on mostly infertile land, the White settlers became increasingly wealthy while the Africans lived in poverty. The White farmers needed cheap labour for the large scale farming that enriched the minority White population but the Africans refused to work on the farms. To ensure that Africans were a cheap source of labour for the White colonial settler population of Kenya, the British government passed laws which forced the Africans to work for the White people who now occupied their land. The British army was on hand to ensure that White farmers and the stolen African land they occupied were protected. The passing and enforcing of the “Masters and Servants Act” (1906) ensured that a caste system of all White people as masters and all Africans as servants was firmly in place.

The history of the area was re-written by the White interlopers who to rationalize their immoral seizure of African land and exploitation of the rightful owners of the land portrayed the Africans in decidedly unflattering terms. After all there were these good Christian White people who left Europe and travelled for miles to the African continent to enrich themselves at the expense of Africans who they mercilessly, savagely and brutally exploited. Because of what psychologists term cognitive dissonance the White Christians had to find a way to justify/rationalize their covetousness and theft of the Africans' land and their savagely brutal exploitation of the labour of the Africans. There were claims that they were there to Christianize the Africans, that the Africans had never really settled on the land but lived a nomadic life, that White people were a civilizing force. They convinced themselves that they were somehow superior beings based on the colour of their skin so had a God given right to the land. They even pretended that they had"discovered" the land. Today in the 21st century it has been recognized that there was a "doctrine of discovery" during the European colonization of the lands of racialized people when the "Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues" issued this statement as part of its report on May 8, 2012: "The Doctrine of Discovery had been used for centuries to expropriate indigenous lands and facilitate their transfer to colonizing or dominating nations, speakers in the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues stressed today, urging the expert body to study the creation of a special mechanism, under United Nations auspices, to investigate historical land claims." Meanwhile in the 19th and20thcenturies the exploitation of the Africans in Kenya and elsewhere on the continent went full force ahead with the blessing of the British (and other European tribes) crown and government. There were even books written by some of the "famous" British writers whose propaganda helped quiet the cognitive dissonance that must surely have raged in the minds of the Europeans who continued to live and grow rich on stolen African land.

The history of Kenya however began long before the first European arrived in the area in the 1840s. In the 1981 published book "Kenya’s Past: An Introduction to Historical Method in Africa" Thomas Spear writes “The history of eastern and central Kenya stretches more than two million years from the initial emergence of mankind itself to the present. The archaeological record of mankind in Kenya is the oldest in the world, stretching back some four to five million years to the earliest men and women and their immediate forebears living on the shores of Lake Turkana.” The White colonists/occupiers of African land destroyed and displaced the indigenous African communities in Kenya and occupied the land of well-established African communities which included, farmers, fishermen, hunters and ironworkers who supported the economy with agriculture, fishing, metal production and trade with other countries. Mombasa (Kenya’s capital) was the major port city of Kenya in the Middle Ages from where ships left to trade with other countries. In the 16th century, Duarte Barbosa a Portuguese writer and trader visited several countries bordering the Indian Ocean and documented his findings in “The Book of Duarte Barbosa: An Account of the Countries Bordering on the Indian Ocean and Their Inhabitants” which was published in 1518. Of his visit to Mombasa, Barbosa wrote, “This is a place of great traffic and has a good harbour in which there are always moored small craft of many kinds and also great ships, both of those which come from Sofala and those which go thither, and others which come from the great kingdom Cambaya and from Melinde and others which sail to the island of Zanzibar.”

For centuries beginning with the slave trade the British among other European tribes systematically stigmatized Africa as the‘dark continent’ in need of enlightenment as they rationalized/justified the theft of natural and human resources. The savage brutality of the occupying British forces and the British civilians is well documented and was well hidden (some documents destroyed by the Colonial powers) until the 21st century. Last year a group of elderly Kenyans who had been brutalized by the representatives of the British crown and government successfully brought a law suit (to the British High Court) against the British government and won millions of dollars in compensation. Their suit was supported by documents that survived the destruction order (http://rt.com/news/british-colonies-documents-destruction-512/) of the British government. As Kenya recognizes the 50th anniversary of their political independence some 5,228 victims of the British occupational torture will receive a total of £19.9 million. In June 2013 the British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in the British House of Commons: "I would like to make clear now, and for the first time, on behalf of Her Majesty's government, that we understand the pain and grievance felt by those who were involved in the events of the emergency in Kenya. The British government recognises that Kenyans were subject to torture and other forms of ill-treatment at the hands of the colonial administration. The British government sincerely regrets that these abuses took place and that they marred Kenya's progress towards independence."

HERI ZA KWANZAA 2013!!

Sisi ni watu wa Afrika Sisi ni watu wa Afrika Penda Afrika Tunai penda Afrika We are an Afrikan people We are an Afrikan people Love Afrika We love Afrika

From “Penda Afrika”composed by Charles Roach and sung at several Kwanzaa celebrations in Toronto

It’s beginning to look a lot like Kwanzaa! Yes African people it is that time of year again. Time to celebrate, celebrate, celebrate Kwanzaa! I was very fortunate to celebrate Kwanzaa in Georgetown, Guyana in December 2011 and December 2012. This year I find myself without the prospect of visiting Guyana to celebrate Kwanzaa. In 2011 while visiting relatives and friends and reacquainting myself with the country of my birth I was pleasantly surprised to find a group of African Guyanese who celebrate Kwanzaa. The African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA) hosts an annual Kwanzaa event on December 26 (the first day of Kwanzaa to observe Umoja “Unity”) at its Thomas Lands, Georgetown headquarters. So during my visit to Guyana in 2012 I knew exactly where and when the Kwanzaa celebration was happening. If you are planning to visit Guyana in December get some information about the ACDA Kwanzaa celebrations and attend.

Kwanzaa is a Pan African celebration of African culture and history, commemoration of African achievement, recognition of African ancestors and a time for us to gather, reflect on the past year and look forward to the future. Kwanzaa comes from the Kiswahili phrase “matunda ya kwanza” which means “first fruits.” An extra “a”was added to the end of the word to make it a seven letter word since the number seven is repeated in the theme surrounding the celebration. During the celebration of Kwanzaa, we can take the first step to learn the Kiswahili words that are used during the celebration of Kwanzaa. Kiswahili is the most widely spoken African language just as English is the most widely spoken European language. As African people in the Diaspora we should strive to at least know the words of an African language since most of us only speak European languages.

The Kwanzaa celebration lasts seven days during which seven principles are observed. During the celebration seven symbols are prominent on a decorated table. The seven symbols are the mkeka (mat,) kinara (candle holder,) mishumaa saba (seven candles,) mazao (crops/fruits and vegetables,) muhindi (ears of corn,) kikombe cha umoja (unity cup) and zawadi (gifts.) The seven symbols are laid out on the Kwanzaa table with the mkeka (mat) as the base. The other six symbols are placed on the mkeka. The kinara (candle holder) is placed in the middle of the mkeka and the mishumaa saba (seven candles) are placed in the kinara. The black candle is placed in the middle of the kinara with the three red candles to the left and the three green candles to the right. The muhindi (ears of corn) represents the children of the family or the children of the community. One ear of corn for each child in the family is placed on the mkeka and if there are no children in the home two ears of corn are used in a symbolic representation of the African proverb “it takes a village to raise a child.” Children play an important role in the Kwanzaa celebration and here an amazingly articulate group of African American children explain Kwanzaa at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqzh8bDPfec&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWPrJG7Cei4&NR=1 The kikombe cha umoja, mazao and zawadi are added to complete the Kwanzaa table setting. Zawadi (gifts) are given to the children on January 1st when the seventh Kwanzaa principle Imani is celebrated. Zawadi given to children for Kwanzaa are usually books and heritage symbols. Handmade gifts are recommended to avoid the commercialization of the holiday. Appropriate gifts for the Kwanzaa celebration are also available at several stores in the community including A Different Booklist, Nile Valley Bookstore, Accents on Eglinton Bookstore and Knowledge Bookstore.

The celebration of Kwanzaa is a time of ingathering and unity for Africans who celebrate Kwanzaa. It is a time for us to realize that we can achieve much when we are united. This is an African tradition as illustrated by the Ethiopian proverb: “When spiders’webs unite they can tie up a lion.” There are numerous examples of united Africans’ achievement even during their enslavement. The various Maroon societies established throughout the Diaspora (including Brazil, Guyana, Jamaica and Suriname) established by Africans who escaped their enslavement is proof of this.

On December 26the first day of Kwanzaa the principle Umoja (unity) is recognized by lighting the black candle. On December 27 the second principle which is Kujichagulia (Self-determination) is recognized by lighting the red candle next to the black candle. On December 28 the third principle Ujima (Collective work and responsibility) is recognized by lighting the green candle next to the black candle. On December 29 the fourth principle Ujamaa (Co-operative economics) is recognized by lighting the second red candle. On December 30 the fifth principle Nia (Purpose) is recognized by lighting the second green candle. On December 31 the sixth principle Kuumba (Creativity) is recognized by lighting the third red candle. On January 1st which is the last day of the Kwanzaa celebration the seventh principle Imani (Faith) is recognized by lighting the third green candle.

During community Kwanzaa celebrations all the candles are lit on whichever day the event happens but for those of us who celebrate Kwanzaa in our homes, the candles are lit one day at a time. On the final day of Kwanzaa January 1 when we celebrate Imani, all the candles are lit. On December 31st a Karamu or feast is usually part of the celebration for Kuumba. Celebrations include pouring of libation to honour and remember those who have transitioned to be with our ancestors. The celebration closes with a unity circle and chanting of harambee (let us all pull together) seven times.

During the Kwanzaa celebrations I attended in Guyana in 2011 and 2012 the community spirit was evident with the sharing of groceries donated by various African Guyanese businesses and individuals. The skilled drumming led to an impromptu kwe-kwe session where the uniquely Guyanese pre-wedding ceremony songs and dances ruled for more than an hour. The young, not so young and young at heart put there best feet forward and it was truly an African celebration by the descendants of those who were kidnapped, separated and enslaved. As a people who were torn away from their language, their culture, their belief systems it is truly amazing that we have survived. The celebration of Kwanzaa is proof that we have managed to re-group and in many cases prosper. We are an African people, we are a talented people we are a creative people. Yes indeed, we are all that! Kwanzaa yenu iwe na heri! Heri za Kwanzaa!

SHIRLEY ANITA ST HILL CHISHOLM

Shirley Anita St. Hill was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 30, 1924 to immigrant parents a Guyanese father and Barbadian mother. She spent her formative years from 3 to 10 living in Barbados with her maternal grandmother while her parents worked in New York City without having to worry about childcare. Chisholm would eventually become an Early Childhood Educator before entering politics. In her autobiography “Unbought and Unbossed”published in 1970 she wrote: "Years later I would know what an important gift my parents had given me by seeing to it that I had my early education in the strict, traditional, British-style schools of Barbados. If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason." Chisholm attended Vauxhall Primary School in Christ Church, Barbados while she lived with her grandmother. In New York City she attended Girls' High Schooland later Brooklyn Collegewhere she earned her BA in 1946. She continued her education at Columbia Universitywhere she earned her MAin elementary education in 1952. She was director of the Hamilton-Madison Child Care Center in New York City from 1953 to 1959 and educational consultant for the Division of Day Care from 1959 to 1964.

While she was pursuing higher education Chisholm was involved in politics as a young adult. She worked for the Assembly District Democratic Club and the Bedford-Stuyvesant Political League during the 1940s and 50s. In 1964 Chisholm began her political career when she was elected to the New York State Legislature. In 1968, she ran as the Democratic candidate for New York's 12th District congressional seat and was elected to the House of Representatives defeating Republican candidate James Farmer. On November 5, 1968 Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm became the first African American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives. She served 7 terms (re-elected 6 times) until 1982 when she retired. In 1971 she was one of the founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

As the first African American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives Chisholm experienced sexism and racism. During a speech at the Conference on Women’s Employment Hearings before the Special Subcommittee on Education of the Committee of Education and Labor, House of Representatives, 91st Congress 2nd session Chisholm is recorded as saying: “I am, as it is obvious, both black and a woman. And that is a good vantage point from which to view at least two elements of what is becoming a social revolution: the American black revolution and the women's liberation movement. But it is also a horrible disadvantage. It is a disadvantage because America as a nation is both racist and anti-feminist. Racism and anti-feminism are two of the prime traditions of this country. For any individual, breaking with social tradition is a giant step -- a giant step because there are no social traditions which do not have corresponding social sanctions -- the sole purpose of which are to protect the sanctity of those traditions.” Her speech can be read in “The Columbia Documentary History of American Women Since 1941” published 2007, edited by Harriet Sigerman.

Shirley Chisholm opened the door for the eventual election of America’s first African American President when she made a bid to run for the position of President of the United States in 1972, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjIzxFL98Hg) becoming the first African American to do so. At the time Chisholm said: “The United States was said not to be ready to elect a Catholic to the Presidency when Al Smith ran in the 1920's. But Smith's nomination may have helped pave the way for the successful campaign John F. Kennedy waged in 1960. Who can tell? What I hope most is that now there will be others who will feel themselves as capable of running for high political office as any wealthy, good-looking white male.” And several African American men followed her example including Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Barack Obama who in 2008 walked through that door Chisholm had opened in 1972.

Even with the election of the first African American President the racism to which Chisholm referred in her speech more than 40 years ago is still rampant in the USA. The murder of 17 year old Trayvon Martin where his killer was set free is so similar to the murder of 14 year old Emmett Till in 1955 it is as if time stood still. The recent expose by the American news program “Democracy Now”about the overwhelming number of African Americans serving life sentences without parole for non-violent crime is reminiscent of the 1930s and the infamous Scottsboro Boys case. (http://www.democracynow.org/2013/11/15/jailed_for_life_for_stealing_a) On November 15, the Democracy Now program included this description:“A shocking new study by the American Civil Liberties Union has found that more than 3,200 people nationwide are serving life terms without parole for nonviolent offenses. Of those prisoners, 80 percent are behind bars for drug-related convictions. Sixty-five percent are African-American, 18 percent are white, and 16 percent are Latino — evidence of what the ACLU calls "extreme racial disparities." The crimes that led to life sentences include stealing gas from a truck, shoplifting, possessing a crack pipe, facilitating a $10 sale of marijuana, and attempting to cash a stolen check.” The Scottsboro Boys were wrongfully accused of rape in 1931 but were eventually exonerated (http://sharenews.com/archives/opinion20111202sometimes-all-it-takes-one-person-act/)

Meanwhile here in Toronto the recent shenanigans of the Mayor of Toronto show that White skin privilege is alive and well in the Great White North. If any African Canadian male was seen doing even some of the things the police have alleged that Rob Ford was seen doing over the past year that African Canadian male would be arrested, charged, dragged through the courts and jailed. The Black Action Defence Committee (BADC) has recently filed a class action law suit against the Toronto Police for racial profiling of African Canadians after decades of this mistreatment. The racial profiling of African Canadians is well known and well documented it is about time that those who engage in that vile practice were held accountable.