On March 21, 1960 a group of Africans in Sharpeville, South Africa were peacefully demonstrating against the white supremacist apartheid "pass laws" when they were murdered by white police. The Sharpeville Massacre where 69 Africans were killed and almost 300 wounded (shot in the back as they fled the murderous police gunfire) led to worldwide condemnation of the white minority who had seized power in the African nation. The government in South Africa at the time was in power because Africans were denied the vote in their own country. In the wake of the Sharpeville Massacre where the white minority government declared a state of emergency and arrested more than 18 000 people even the very conservative United Nations (UN) was forced to take a stand and condemn the action of the state sanctioned massacre of peacefully protesting Africans.
In 1966 the General Assembly of the UN proclaimed March 21, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The UN called on the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination. The Canadian government and various institutions in Canada including Carleton University and the University of Toronto, colluded with the white supremacist apartheid government of South Africa by refusing to divest and continuing to trade with the government and South African companies.
In 1985 Glen Babb the South African Ambassador to Canada was invited to speak at both Carleton University and the University of Toronto. In spite of massive student protests Babb spoke at both universities. As late as 1985 (25 years after the Sharpeville Massacre) Canada was still doing business with the apartheid government as then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and External Affairs Minister Joe Clark flip flopped on the issue of sanctions against South Africa http://archives.cbc.ca/politics/international_politics/clips/4123/
Grass roots organizing, protests and demonstrations eventually forced the Mulroney government and institutions like Carleton University and the University of Toronto to halt their support of the apartheid system by divesting and ceasing trade with South Africa.
In 1989, the Department of Canadian Heritage launched an annual March 21 Campaign Against Racism. In 1996, another government sanctioned initiative, the Racism. Stop It! National Video Competition was launched.
This competition is open to youth between the ages of 12 and 20 years old where they are encouraged to create videos about their thoughts on eliminating racism. Each year ten videos are chosen and shown on national television. The youth creators of the chosen videos receive an all expenses paid trip to an awards ceremony in Ottawa hosted by the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. The chosen videos (http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/multiculturalism/march21/video/2009-eng.asp) chosen from the 2009 competition illustrate that the youth involved have not been educated about racism.
Racism does not result because people lack information about each others culture. Racism is a result of one group of people having power and privilege because of the colour of their skin and their unwillingness to share that power and privilege. In 1998 Peggy McIntosh a white professor wrote and published an essay on white skin privilege entitled "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” where she lists the unearned privileges of simply being born a white person. http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf
Anti-African racism in Canada manifests itself in the racial profiling of African Canadians regardless of their age or place of birth being stopped and searched by police in so-called random checks. African Canadians whose families have been living in this country since the 1600s are as Canadian as any white Canadian so the whole argument about not knowing very much about the person’s culture or religion is false. There is a history of white supremacist behaviour in this country since Europeans settled here and began a systematic destruction of the First Nations people and their culture. From stealing their land to scooping up their children who were then imprisoned in residential schools where they were stripped of their language and culture and suffered physical and sexual abuse.
The Canadian government apologized to the community on June 11, 2008. Other racialized communities suffered including the Japanese, many of whom were born in this country but incarcerated in concentration camps beginning in December 1941. Then Prime Minister Mulroney apologized to the Japanese on September 22, 1988 and they received compensation. On June 22, 2006, in the House of Commons, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology to Chinese Canadians for the head tax that was charged to members of the community between 1885 and 1923. Compensation was paid beginning in October 2006. On the 94th anniversary of the shameful Komagata Maru incident in British Columbia (BC) where 376 people were refused entry into Canada because they were not white, the provincial government apologized to the South Asian community. On February 24, 2010 Peter Kelly, the Mayor of Halifax, Nova Scotia apologized to the African Canadian community for the city government’s destruction of the African Canadian community of Africville. The historic community which had been established by African Canadians in the 1800s was bulldozed out of existence by the city of Halifax in the 1960s. The members of the community, forced to relocate were scattered and their land became Seaview Park. The Premier of Nova Scotia is thinking about granting Viola Desmond a pardon for her arrest and conviction of sitting in the white section of a cinema on November 8, 1946. The Canadian government has not yet apologized to Africans for the centuries long enslavement (1628-1834) of Africans in this country. Systemic racism continues into the 21st century because there is a refusal to acknowledge its existence even in the face of overwhelming evidence. The many studies done and books written (including Racial Profiling in Canada: Challenging the Myth of "a Few Bad Apples by Carol Tator and Frances Henry, Canada's Economic Apartheid: The Social Exclusion of Racialized Groups in the New Century by Grace-Edward Galabuzi, Discourses of Domination: Racial Bias in the Canadian English-Language Press by Frances Henry and Carol Tator, Reconstructing Drop-Out: A Critical Ethnography of the Dynamics of Black Students' Disengagement from School by George Sefa Dei) prove that white supremacy manifests itself in the education system, policing, the media etc. March 21 the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is a day on which we can renew our efforts to continue the fight against and remember those who have been on the front lines of the fight against racism locally and internationally.
Saturday, March 22, 2025
MUSINGS: DR MARTIN LUTHER KING JR REPARATIONS
On January 1st 1863 when U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s (written on 22nd September 1862) Emancipation proclamation became official it was not meant to free all enslaved Africans in America. The language of the proclamation specified freedom for all “slaves” residing in states that were considered rebel states by the federal government. The rebel states named in the proclamation were Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. This Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to enslaved Africans who were toiling in states that were loyal to the Federal government. If the leaders of those ten states named in the Emancipation Proclamation had not rebelled against the Federal government, Lincoln would not have signed that proclamation and perhaps another generation of Africans in America may have had to endure the brutality of chattel slavery. All enslaved Africans in America were finally freed when the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was passed on December 18, 1865
On January 2nd, 1863, one day after Lincoln’s proclamation, a male child was born to Willis and Lucretia Williams, an enslaved African couple in Georgia. According to the Federal government, this child had been born free because he lived in one of the rebel states. So depending on whose laws are used, the maternal grandfather of Martin Luther King Jr. was the first of his (MLK’s) ancestors born in America who was a free person or he was the last to be born a “slave.” Adam Daniel Williams the maternal grandfather of Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 2nd 1863 in Penfield, Greene County, Georgia and lived until March 21st 1931.
Martin Luther King Jr. is recognized as one of the leaders of the modern Civil Rights movement. The third Monday of January is recognized by law in the USA as Martin Luther King Jr. Day or Martinsday. Martin Luther King Jr Day is recognized by many people internationally even though the country in which they live might not legally endorse the day. The stories of Dr. King’s non-violent response to the terrorism and violence of white southerners determined to deny African Americans equal rights, are legendary. King did not come by his oratorical skills, his activism, or his dedication to working for the freedom of his people, accidentally. His maternal great grandfather (Willis Williams) although born during the time Africans were enslaved in American, was a preacher to other enslaved Africans in Georgia. Following in the footsteps of his father, Adam Daniel Williams, (King’s grandfather) became a preacher also. He left Greene County, Georgia and traveled to Atlanta in 1893, 28 years after the abolition of slavery in the USA. When Williams arrived in Atlanta in 1893, he became a minister at Ebenezer Baptist church. The congregation of the church was 13 members strong. Using the pulpit to preach the gospel as well as collective work and responsibility and cooperative economics, the Reverend Williams increased the membership of Ebenezer Baptist church to 750 by 1913. Williams expanded his advocacy and activism in September 1895 when he became a delegate, joining two thousand other delegates who met at Atlanta's Friendship Baptist Church when three groups united to organize the National Baptist Convention of the United States of America, considered one of the largest African American religious organizations. In February 1906, A.D. Williams took the lead (in response to W. E. B. Du Bois' call for civil rights activism) by joining five hundred other African Americans in Georgia to form the Georgia Equal Rights League. In 1917, Williams became one of the founders of the Atlanta branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). On becoming the second president of the local chapter of the NAACP in 1918, he mobilized a voter registration campaign to register African American voters (a dangerous undertaking in 1918). The membership of the local NAACP grew to 1400 members within five months under his leadership. In a speech to the NAACP national convention the following year, he convinced the delegates to meet in Atlanta in 1920, the first national NAACP convention to meet in a Southern state. Williams’ activism and leadership led to the city eventually building the Booker T. Washington High School, a secondary school for African American students which Martin Luther King Jr. attended.
Given his ancestry, it is not surprising that Martin Luther King Jr. graduated from high school when he was 15 years old, an age when most students are entering their second year of secondary school. He graduated from Morehouse College at age 19 in 1948 (his grandfather A.D. Williams had attended Morehouse). Morehouse College, founded more than 140 years ago is one the many Historically Black Colleges and Universities that still exist today. It is unique in that the student body is all male and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the many prominent African American men who have been educated at Morehouse. Black Enterprise Magazine has ranked Morehouse as the best school for African Americans for undergraduate study and its prestigious standing has led to its favourable comparison to Harvard. King came to national attention as the young minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama who was elected leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). As leader of the MIA, King was also leader of the Montgomery bus boycott which not only brought him international attention but endangered his life and the life of his family. King’s life work reflected the work of many of our ancestors who risked their lives for their community. King recognized the role of ancestors like the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey as pioneers in the struggle for African human rights. In June 1965 he visited Garvey’s grave, laid a wreath and spoke of Garvey’s activism which gave Africans a "sense of personhood, a sense of manhood, a sense of somebodiness.” On December 10, 1968 King was the posthumous recipient of the first Marcus Garvey Prize for Human Rights issued by the Jamaican Government.
In the tradition of Garvey and other freedom fighters, King was harassed and even imprisoned for his work on behalf of his people. In the same tradition, he refused to be silenced. When he was imprisoned in Birmingham in April, 1963 he wrote his famous “Letter from a Birmingham jail” in response to criticism from a group of white religious leaders (Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray. the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and the Reverend Earl Stallings) who thought that African Americans should “wait” and not be in such a hurry to have their human rights recognized. Dr King’s letter to the group of white religious leaders detailed why African Americans could not continue to “wait.”
Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 while he was in Memphis Tennessee to support striking African American sanitation workers. His life ended while he was working to improve the lives of his people. On Monday, January 21st, America will observe a public holiday to celebrate the life of Dr. King. Many of us here in Canada will celebrate Dr. King’s life in various ways. We can all observe that day by reading some of his words, especially his thoughts on reparations. In his book, “Why we can’t wait” published in 1964, Dr. King writes; “No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries. Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages. The ancient common law has always provided a remedy for the appropriation of the labor of one human being by another. This law should be made to apply for American Negroes. The payment should be in the form of a massive program by the government of special, compensatory measures which could be regarded as a settlement in accordance with the accepted practice of common law.” Keep in mind that Africans were also enslaved in Canada.
Written January 2008
On January 2nd, 1863, one day after Lincoln’s proclamation, a male child was born to Willis and Lucretia Williams, an enslaved African couple in Georgia. According to the Federal government, this child had been born free because he lived in one of the rebel states. So depending on whose laws are used, the maternal grandfather of Martin Luther King Jr. was the first of his (MLK’s) ancestors born in America who was a free person or he was the last to be born a “slave.” Adam Daniel Williams the maternal grandfather of Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 2nd 1863 in Penfield, Greene County, Georgia and lived until March 21st 1931.
Martin Luther King Jr. is recognized as one of the leaders of the modern Civil Rights movement. The third Monday of January is recognized by law in the USA as Martin Luther King Jr. Day or Martinsday. Martin Luther King Jr Day is recognized by many people internationally even though the country in which they live might not legally endorse the day. The stories of Dr. King’s non-violent response to the terrorism and violence of white southerners determined to deny African Americans equal rights, are legendary. King did not come by his oratorical skills, his activism, or his dedication to working for the freedom of his people, accidentally. His maternal great grandfather (Willis Williams) although born during the time Africans were enslaved in American, was a preacher to other enslaved Africans in Georgia. Following in the footsteps of his father, Adam Daniel Williams, (King’s grandfather) became a preacher also. He left Greene County, Georgia and traveled to Atlanta in 1893, 28 years after the abolition of slavery in the USA. When Williams arrived in Atlanta in 1893, he became a minister at Ebenezer Baptist church. The congregation of the church was 13 members strong. Using the pulpit to preach the gospel as well as collective work and responsibility and cooperative economics, the Reverend Williams increased the membership of Ebenezer Baptist church to 750 by 1913. Williams expanded his advocacy and activism in September 1895 when he became a delegate, joining two thousand other delegates who met at Atlanta's Friendship Baptist Church when three groups united to organize the National Baptist Convention of the United States of America, considered one of the largest African American religious organizations. In February 1906, A.D. Williams took the lead (in response to W. E. B. Du Bois' call for civil rights activism) by joining five hundred other African Americans in Georgia to form the Georgia Equal Rights League. In 1917, Williams became one of the founders of the Atlanta branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). On becoming the second president of the local chapter of the NAACP in 1918, he mobilized a voter registration campaign to register African American voters (a dangerous undertaking in 1918). The membership of the local NAACP grew to 1400 members within five months under his leadership. In a speech to the NAACP national convention the following year, he convinced the delegates to meet in Atlanta in 1920, the first national NAACP convention to meet in a Southern state. Williams’ activism and leadership led to the city eventually building the Booker T. Washington High School, a secondary school for African American students which Martin Luther King Jr. attended.
Given his ancestry, it is not surprising that Martin Luther King Jr. graduated from high school when he was 15 years old, an age when most students are entering their second year of secondary school. He graduated from Morehouse College at age 19 in 1948 (his grandfather A.D. Williams had attended Morehouse). Morehouse College, founded more than 140 years ago is one the many Historically Black Colleges and Universities that still exist today. It is unique in that the student body is all male and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the many prominent African American men who have been educated at Morehouse. Black Enterprise Magazine has ranked Morehouse as the best school for African Americans for undergraduate study and its prestigious standing has led to its favourable comparison to Harvard. King came to national attention as the young minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama who was elected leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). As leader of the MIA, King was also leader of the Montgomery bus boycott which not only brought him international attention but endangered his life and the life of his family. King’s life work reflected the work of many of our ancestors who risked their lives for their community. King recognized the role of ancestors like the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey as pioneers in the struggle for African human rights. In June 1965 he visited Garvey’s grave, laid a wreath and spoke of Garvey’s activism which gave Africans a "sense of personhood, a sense of manhood, a sense of somebodiness.” On December 10, 1968 King was the posthumous recipient of the first Marcus Garvey Prize for Human Rights issued by the Jamaican Government.
In the tradition of Garvey and other freedom fighters, King was harassed and even imprisoned for his work on behalf of his people. In the same tradition, he refused to be silenced. When he was imprisoned in Birmingham in April, 1963 he wrote his famous “Letter from a Birmingham jail” in response to criticism from a group of white religious leaders (Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray. the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and the Reverend Earl Stallings) who thought that African Americans should “wait” and not be in such a hurry to have their human rights recognized. Dr King’s letter to the group of white religious leaders detailed why African Americans could not continue to “wait.”
Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 while he was in Memphis Tennessee to support striking African American sanitation workers. His life ended while he was working to improve the lives of his people. On Monday, January 21st, America will observe a public holiday to celebrate the life of Dr. King. Many of us here in Canada will celebrate Dr. King’s life in various ways. We can all observe that day by reading some of his words, especially his thoughts on reparations. In his book, “Why we can’t wait” published in 1964, Dr. King writes; “No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries. Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages. The ancient common law has always provided a remedy for the appropriation of the labor of one human being by another. This law should be made to apply for American Negroes. The payment should be in the form of a massive program by the government of special, compensatory measures which could be regarded as a settlement in accordance with the accepted practice of common law.” Keep in mind that Africans were also enslaved in Canada.
Written January 2008
IF WE MUST DIE JULY 1919 BY CLAUDE MCKAY
Poem “If we must die” by Claude McKay originally published in the July 1919 edition of the “The Liberator”
Festus Claudius McKay was born on September 15, 1889 in Nairne Castle, Clarendon, Jamaica. He was the last of 11 children born to Thomas Francis McKay and Hannah Ann Elizabeth Edwards. McKay was educated by his older school teacher brother Uriah Theophilus McKay. Between the ages of 17 and 22 (when he immigrated to the US) McKay worked as a carriage and cabinet maker and as a member of the Jamaican Constabulary. In 1912 he published two volumes of poetry written in Jamaican patois: “Songs of Jamaica” and “Constab Ballads” considered the first poems written in the Jamaican language. That same year (1912) McKay immigrated to the US and entered Tuskegee University in Alabama. Tuskegee University was founded in 1881 by Booker T. Washington to educate African Americans who were refused entry into White post-secondary institutions and today remains one of the 105 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the USA. The rabid racism he encountered in the southern United States including the segregated facilities and other Jim Crow laws (don’t look white people in the eyes and step off the sidewalk to let them pass) were too much for the proud Jamaican. McKay left and enrolled at Kansas State University, Kansas being a state where there supposedly were no signs or sight of Jim Crow. Kansas had entered the Union as a free state (no slavery) and after the American Civil War there was an exodus of African Americans from the southern US to Kansas; so many of them that they were called the “Exodusters.” McKay was definitely following in their footsteps. In 1914 he was on the move again, this time to New York where he spent most of his American sojourn.
McKay wrote “If We Must Die” amid the violence and bloodshed of 1919, encouraging his community to fight back against the oppression (76 African Americans were lynched in 1919) they suffered at the hands of white Americans. The so-called “race riots” of 1919 involved the brutalization and murder of African Americans by white Americans in several cities including Chicago, Omaha and Washington. African Americans had returned from fighting in Europe (1914-1918) to preserve “freedom” but nothing had changed for them or their communities, they were third class citizens in their country of birth, subject to lynching at the hands of their white compatriots. McKay left the USA in 1919 and until 1934 lived in Africa, Europe and Russia. In 1922 he published a book of poetry “Harlem Shadows” which included the poem “The Lynching”
His Spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven.
His father, by the cruelest way of pain,
Had bidden him to his bosom once again;
The awful sin remained still unforgiven.
All night a bright and solitary star
(Perchance the one that ever guided him,
Yet gave him up at last to Fate's wild whim)
Hung pitifully o'er the swinging char.
Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view
The ghastly body swaying in the sun
The women thronged to look, but never a one
Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue;
And little lads, lynchers that were to be,
Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.
In “The Lynching” McKay captures the emotions, the nuances of the lynching of African Americans by white Americans. America is supposedly a “Christian” nation where white Christians murder and terrorise African American Christians. The image at the beginning of the poem of the lynched African American in a Christlike manner being gathered up to heaven into the bosom of the “father” is a very powerful symbol of the crucifixion of African Americans. Another powerful image in the poem is that of the white women showing no sorrow in their “eyes of steely blue” as they thronged to look at “The ghastly body swaying in the sun.” This image is very reminiscent of the women who lined up every day to howl and shriek with rage, swear, threaten death and throw objects at six year old Ruby Nell Bridges as she bravely integrated the William Frantz Elementary School at 3811 North Galvez Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. A truly heartbreaking sight captured for posterity in the Norman Rockwell portrait The Problem We All Live With http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=48904 With mothers like those as role models no wonder there were: “little lads, lynchers that were to be” who “danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.”
It is indeed ironic that the Rockwell painting The Problem We All Live With
is on display at White House where the first African American President and his family live. When McKay wrote his poem “The White House” in 1919 when 76 African Americans were reported lynched by their white compatriots, (that number was most likely very conservative) such a scenario was unthinkable almost in the realm of science fiction.
THE WHITE HOUSE by Claude McKay published 1919
Your door is shut against my tightened face,
And I am sharp as steel with discontent;
But I possess the courage and the grace
To bear my anger proudly and unbent.
The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,
A chafing savage, down the decent street;
And passion rends my vitals as I pass,
Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.
Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,
Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,
And find in it the superhuman power
To hold me to the letter of your law!
Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate
Against the potent poison of your hate.
McKay also published America in 1919
AMERICA
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
This poem demonstrates his feelings of ambivalence living in this totally white supremacist culture yet with the optimism and vigor of youth intending to remain and fight the good fight for equality and equity. However even youthful vigor can become depleted in what was seemingly a never ending tide of attack on the personhood and humanity of African Americans. No wonder McKay fled the USA in 1922 and did not return until 12 years later.
McKay returned to the USA in 1934 and continued to write poetry and prose addressing the plight of Africans from the continent and in the Diaspora. In the 2000 published “A Fierce Hatred of Injustice: Claude McKay’s Jamaica and his poetry of rebellion” author Winston James writes: “Just as McKay hated to see misery and oppression, so did he hate cruelty. His extraordinary sensitivity and aversion to suffering and cruelty were important impulses that led to his deepening radicalization over time. Class, color, gender and racial oppression in Jamaica started him on his socialist journey while, more than anything else, while the gigantic horrors of racism in the United States – especially lynching – deepened his Black nationalism.” In his first autobiography “A Long Way from Home” published in 1937 McKay wrote about the inspiration for his composing “If we must die.” At the time he wrote the poem (1919) he was working as a railroad porter one of the few jobs available to African American men. “The World War had ended. But its end was a signal for the outbreak of little wars between labor and capital and, like a plague breaking out in sore places, between colored folk and white. Our Negro newspapers were morbid, full of details of clashes between colored and white, murderous shootings and hangings. Traveling from city to city and unable to gauge the attitude and temper of each one, we Negro railroad men were nervous. We were less light-hearted. We did not separate from one another gaily to spend ourselves in speakeasies and gambling joints. We stuck together, some of us armed, going from the railroad station to our quarters. We stayed in our quarters all through the dreary ominous nights, for we never knew what was going to happen. It was during those days that the sonnet, "If We Must Die," exploded out of me.” McKay also addressed the subject of “Belonging to a minority group” in “A Long Way from Home” as he contemplated the attitude of the White “liberals” he encountered: “It is hell to belong to a suppressed minority and outcast group. For to most members of a powerful majority, you are not a person; you are a problem. And every crusading crank imagines he knows how to solve your problem. I think I am a rebel mainly from psychological reasons, which have always been more important to me than economic. As a member of a weak minority, you are not supposed to criticize your friends of the strong majority. You will be damned mean and ungrateful. Therefore you and your group must be content with lower critical standards.”
McKay is acknowledged as one of the giants of the Harlem Renaissance and his work is considered to have been a great influence on Senegalese poet Leopold Sedar Senghor and Martiniquais poet Amiee Cesaire who pioneered the Negritude Literary Movement. The term Negritude was reportedly coined by Cesaire who defined it as: “the simple recognition of the fact that one is Black, the acceptance of this fact and of our destiny as Blacks, of our history and culture.” McKay’s work also influenced African American poets including Langston Hughes who wrote “My People.”
Although he never returned to Jamaica, McKay’s second autobiography which was published posthumously in 1979 was entitled “My Green Hills Of Jamaica” where he reminisces about his childhood and youth in Jamaica. He transitioned on May 1948 while he lived in Chicago. McKay is buried in Calvary Cemetery Woodside in Queens, New York. Inscribed on his headstone are the words “Peace O My rebel heart”
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE USA
The most recent fight on President Obama’s hands is with the Republican dominated House of Representatives. The Democrats control the Senate. As a Democrat President Obama has faced stiff resistance from the Republican dominated House of Representatives. Now President Obama is fighting to ensure that the woman who he is planning to nominate for the position of Secretary of State after Hillary Clinton resigns does not suffer the same fate as a few other African Americans who he had appointed to positions in his Cabinet. There was the resignation of Anthony Kapel "Van" Jones the president’s special advisor on the environment, the resignation of Shirley Sherrod the Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the United States Department of Agriculture and the passing of a “contempt” vote in the House against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. In this his second term as President, Obama will have to deal with a divided Congress which has bedevilled his efforts to pass laws such as health care reform and tax reform. It has come to a point where the prospective nominee’s (Susan Rice for Secretary of State) qualifications are being questioned by the Republicans and the Democrats including President Obama are put in the position of defending her.
In March 2009 Anthony Kapel "Van" Jones was appointed by President Obama to the newly created position of Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where he worked with various "agencies and departments to advance the administration's climate and energy initiatives, with a special focus on improving vulnerable communities. Jones is an African American lawyer and also described as an environmental advocate and civil rights activist. By September 2009 he was forced to resign from the position after a concerted attack from right wing Republican politicians and conservative Fox News commentator Glen Beck. In his resignation comments Jones said: “I am resigning my post at the Council on Environmental Quality, effective today. On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.”
Shirley Sherrod was another African American appointed by the Obama administration who suffered from a Republican smear campaign and was forced to resign. Sherrod was appointed Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the United States Department of Agriculture on July 25, 2009. Sherrod was targeted by a White supremacist blogger who posted edited pieces of a speech she gave at an NAACP event which made it seem as if she used her position to seek revenge on White farmers for the racism her family had suffered when she was a child. Before viewing the entire video the NAACP and government officials publicly condemned Sherrod and demanded that she resign her position. She resigned on July 19, 2010. However when the entire unedited video was reviewed the NAACP, White House officials and Tom Vilsack, the United States Secretary of Agriculture, apologized for the firing and Sherrod was offered a full-time, high-level internal advocacy position with the USDA. She refused to accept the new position and sued the man who posted the edited version and caused the controversy which led to her being forced to resign as Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the United States Department of Agriculture.
The Republican House has also been hard at work trying to get rid of the first African American Attorney General of the USA, Eric Himpton Holder Jr who was appointed by President Obama in February 2009. Holder whose father was born in Barbados and whose mother’s parents were also born in Barbados is also the first American Attorney General with Caribbean connections. From October 2011 to September 2012 members of the Republican dominated House of Representatives were snapping at Holder’s heels in a concerted effort to boot him out of office. They have not been successful and he remains the 82nd United States Attorney General.
Now it is Susan Rice’s turn in the hot seat as the Republicans train their malevolent sights on her. The Republicans are fighting tooth and nail in an all-out effort to ensure that this Rice (no relation to Republican former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) does not become US Secretary of State. Susan Rice if she is successful in dodging the Republican attack and becomes Secretary of State will not be the first African American or even the first female African American in that position. Condoleezza Rice was the first female African American secretary of state, the second African American in the position (after Colin Powell) and the second woman (after Madeleine Albright.) However Susan Rice would be the first female African American Secretary of State with Caribbean connections. According to Susan Rice her maternal grandparents immigrated to Maine, Portland from Jamaica in 1912. In a speech she gave at Howard University’s 145thconvocation on September 28, 2012 (http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/198422.htm) Rice reportedly said: “In 1912, my mother’s parents emigrated from Jamaica to Portland, Maine. With little formal education, my grandfather took the best job he could get - as a janitor. My grandmother was a maid and a seamstress. But my grandparents managed to scrape and save to send all five of their children to college - four sons to Bowdoin and my mom, Lois, to Harvard-Radcliffe where she was student government president. Mom, in turn, devoted her distinguished career to making higher education more accessible to all.”
Rice is the current United States Ambassador to the United Nations. She served on the staff of the National Security Council and as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during President Bill Clinton’s second term. Rice was confirmed as UN Ambassador by the U.S. Senate by unanimous consent on January 22, 2009 and is the first African American woman in that position.
The reasons the Republicans are touting for opposing Rice’s appointment as Secretary of State are laughingly hypocritical because Republicans issued similar statements since they all had the same information at that time. Rice is being pilloried by the Republicans because she spoke publicly about a protest outside the Benghazi mission citing an anti-Islam video as a motivating factor. Subsequent information was that the Benghazi attack had been planned and was not related to a protest. Senator John McCain a Republican from Arizona and one of those vehemently against Rice’s appointment, on September 14, three days after the attacks in Benghazi, told reporters at a press conference that there had been “demonstrations” at the mission in Benghazi and that extremists had “seized this opportunity to attack our consulate.” This is the same information that was available at the time and that Rice used in her address on September 16 when she said: “Based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is as of the present is in fact what began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy - sparked by this hateful video. But soon after that spontaneous protest began outside of our consulate in Benghazi, we believe that it looks like extremist elements, individuals, joined in that - in that effort with heavy weapons of the sort that are, unfortunately, readily now available in Libya post-revolution. And that it spun from there into something much, much more violent.”
Many people have identified racism as a factor in the Republican resistance to Rice’s appointment as Secretary of State. It will be interesting to see how far the Obama administration is willing to go to defend Rice and whether or not she will become the first female African American Secretary of State with Caribbean connections. Colin Powell was the first African American Secretary of State with Caribbean connections (his parents were born in Jamaica.)
BERBICE UPRISING FEBRUARY 23-1763
On February 23, 1763 a group of enslaved Africans in Berbice, Guyana seized their freedom from the Dutch men and women who for more than a century had kept them enslaved as an unpaid workforce. At the time Guyana was a Dutch colony occupied by men and women from the Netherlands who bought, sold and brutalized enslaved Africans. As a child growing up in Berbice, Guyana I heard stories from my elders about the brutality and barbarism of the Dutch slaveholders who they deemed worse than the British. Not that the British were not brutal and barbaric in their treatment of enslaved Africans but the elders were unanimous in their condemnation of the Dutch as worse. From the pen of the Dutch governor of Berbice Wolfert Simon van Hoogenheim: “On 14 April 1764 Rebel Pikenini captured I listened in the greatest astonishment as his captors explained why his back had been cut up hanging in pieces. They stated that just to amuse themselves they had cut his back up with a saw.” George Pinckard a doctor visiting Demerara in 1796 described his observation of a Dutch woman brutalising an enslaved African man: “We suddenly heard the loud cries of a Negro smarting under the whip. Mrs ____ expressed surprise on observing me shudder at his shrieks and you will believe that I was in utter astonishment to find her treat his sufferings as matter of amusement.”
It is not surprising given the barbarity of the slaveholders that the enslaved Africans in Berbice decided as a group to seize their freedom. The story as told in many history books identifies the Africans as “rebels” instead of freedom fighters and their struggle as a “rebellion” instead of a revolution. It is interesting to note the words used by Henry G. Dalton, a British author who, in 1855, published two volumes of “The History of British Guiana, Comprising General Description of the Colony.” Writing of the Berbice Revolution, which started on February 23, 1763 and lasted until March 1764, Dalton notes: “1763, a terrible insurrection burst out, which convulsed the whole colony, and threatened its very existence.” Some writers have tried to position the freedom fighters of the Berbice Revolution as a group of disorganized Africans who were forever squabbling with each other. However, even Dalton in his telling of the story acknowledges that “the Negroes had organized themselves into a regular government, had established a complete system of military discipline, and had chosen Cuffy, a young slave of courage and judgment, as their governor.” Kofi whose name has been distorted and Anglicized as “Cuffy” for generations was an Akan man from the area of modern day Ghana. His name identifies him as an Akan male who was born on a Friday. He was chosen as the leader of the revolution and the African governor of Berbice on par with the Dutch governor van Hoogenheim with whom he corresponded during negotiations for the freedom of the enslaved Africans. This correspondence was one of the reasons the Africans were not successful in gaining their complete freedom. While Kofi was negotiating with van Hoogenheim in good faith, the Dutch governor was biding his time until he could gain reinforcements to destroy the Revolution and the Africans.
The Africans were superior in numbers and could have crushed the Dutch and either driven them out of what is now Guyana or exterminated the lot of them. The Dutch did not hesitate to brutally supress the Revolution and displayed extreme barbarity in destroying the revolutionaries when their reinforcements arrived in the region. At the time of the Revolution on February 23, 1763 there were in the entire colony of Berbice (which at the time was separate from Demerara and Essequibo) 346 White residents and 3,833 enslaved Africans. Imagine if those Africans had done to the Whites what the White population eventually did to the Africans. Africans in Guyana would have been completely free since 1763. At least by the end of April 1763 the colony would have been free of the White enslavers. However while the Africans were negotiating in good faith, the Europeans were marking time until troops from neighbouring French, Dutch and British colonies arrived. Once reinforcement arrived in the colony and the Europeans regained control of Berbice many of the Africans were brutally killed as a warning. Forty were hanged, 24 broken on the wheel and 24 were burned to death. Some fled to neighbouring Suriname while others were re-enslaved, but Kofi was never captured. Many of the Africans preferred to die fighting, rather than surrender and become re-enslaved.
The occupation and settlement of Guiana began in earnest with the founding of the Dutch West India Company which was chartered in 1621and through this company the Dutch were encouraged to settle in numbers first in Essequibo, Guyana. There were Dutch settlers in the region before the founding of the Dutch West India Company. For instance in 1613 a group of Spaniards surprised the members of a Dutch settlement on the Courentyne in Berbice and destroyed that settlement. To ensure the successful operation of their plantations the Dutch were involved in the kidnapping and transporting of enslaved Africans to their colonies in the New World which included Guiana. The Dutch had been involved in the trading of Africans for a few years before they established the colony in Guiana. In 1598, the Dutch began building forts along the West African coast in competition with the Portuguese. In 1637, they captured ElMina from the Portuguese. Members of other European tribes including the Danes, English, Spanish and Swedes, also became involved in the exploitation of Africa and Africans. It eventually became a free-for-all with the Europeans fighting each other for the opportunity to make their fortunes on the backs of Africans.
The Africans resisted their enslavement in various ways from the time they were captured on the African continent and continuing with struggles on board several slave ships. Once they were transported to the plantations they continued the struggle for freedom including fleeing the plantations and establishing Maroon communities. The Dutch expeditions to capture the members of these Maroon communities were also exercises in displaying the barbarity of the White colonisers. A visitor to Guiana in 1796 wrote of witnessing the capture and destruction of some of the Maroons in what is now the capital city Georgetown: “Most of the ringleaders were taken and brought to Stabroek, where they were afterwards tried and executed. One in particular Amsterdam was subjected to the most shocking torture, in the hope of compelling him to give information but in vain. He was sentenced to be burnt alive, first having his flesh torn from his limbs with red hot pincers; and in order to render his punishment still more terrible, he was compelled to sit by and see thirteen others broken upon the wheel and hung and then, in being conducted to execution, was made to walk over the thirteen dead bodies of his comrades. Being fastened to an iron stake to be burnt alive. When the destructive pile was set in flames, his body spun round the iron stake with mouth open, until his head fell back, life extinguished.”
In spite of the White slaveholders’ attempts to keep enslaved Africans docile and oppressed through such barbaric acts the Africans continued to resist. Although the Revolution which began on February 23, 1763 in Berbice is the most well-known because of its extent and the longevity it was by no means the sole attempt by Africans in Guiana to seize their freedom. There were actions in Demerara and Essequibo by Africans determined to be free of chattel slavery. Today Guyana is a Republic having gained its political independence from Britain on Thursday, May 26, 1966 under the leadership of then Prime Minister the Honourable Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham. The country which encompasses the former Dutch colonies of Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo later (taken from the Dutch 1814 became one colony in 1831) the British colony of British Guiana became the Co-operative Republic of Guyana on February 23, 1970 on the 207th anniversary of the Berbice Revolution.
Guyana which is located on the northeast of the South American continent is the only South American country where English is the official language. Slavery was abolished on August 1, 1834 but after four years of “apprenticeship” the Africans were finally free on August 1, 1838. Guyana is known as the Land of Six Peoples which includes Africans (kidnapped, enslaved and taken to Guyana by the Dutch beginning in the 1600s) Amerindians (the native people of Guyana) Chinese (immigrated as indentured labourers from January 12, 1853 aboard the SS Glentanner) East Indians (immigrated as indentured labourers from May 1, 1838 aboard SS Whitby and SS Hesperus) Europeans (first the Dutch1600s, then the British seized the territory 1800s) Portuguese (immigrated as indentured labourers from May 3, 1835 aboard SS Louisa Baillie.) The nation celebrates February 23 Republic Day with a Mashramani celebration reminiscent of Trinidad’s Carnival and Toronto’s Caribana. It would be helpful if the Berbice Revolution was also recognized on that day.
“The Vodun ceremony of Bois-Caiman on August 14, 1791, conducted by Boukman Dutty and a female priest, was attended by 200 people and led to the general insurrection of August 22. Like his predecessor, Plymouth, Boukman had been born in Jamaica. After the death of Boukman, his principal lieutenants, Jean-Francois, Jeannot, Biassou and Toussaint L’Ouverture crossed into Spanish-held Santo Domingo to continue the struggle.”From “Haiti: the Breached Citadel” published in 1990, written by Dr. Patrick Bellegarde-Smith professor of Africology at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
The Haitian Revolution which began on August 22, 1791 created the second independent nation in the Americas after the United States became independent in 1783. The enslaved Africans in Haiti rose up against the White people who had brutalized and worked many Africans to death. Writing of the brutality to which the enslaved Africans were subjected by the plantation owners and their White employees, Bellegarde-Smith noted: “At the bottom of the pyramid were the slaves who were continually being imported to make up for the high slave mortality rate and brutal efficiency of the plantation system. Between 1697 and 1791, the slave population of Sainte Domingue grew from 5,000 to about 500,000, a hundredfold increase. The fact that more than half of the slaves at the time of independence had been born in Africa indicates that ill treatment and early death of slaves were very common. From the moment of capture, the life expectancy of a slave was only seven years.” The “brutal efficiency of the plantation system” to which Bellegarde-Smith refers led to the French colony of Saint Domingue (Haiti) becoming known as the “pearl of the Antilles.” At its height of production as a “slave society” the coerced unpaid labour provided by enslaved Africans from Saint Domingue contributed to the extraordinary wealth of the French, especially the monarchy and aristocracy. The brutality of the White plantation owners also led to the enslaved Africans rising up and seizing their freedom. The struggle for freedom on the island the liberated Africans renamed Haiti lasted several years. The Boukman-led rebellion where 50,000 enslaved Africans seized their freedom was the beginning of the end of slavery in Sainte Domingue. According to Bellegarde-Smith, “One-third of the 30,000 Whites in Saint-Domingue fled to the United States, where they settled permanently and later worked against an independent Haiti.”The government of the United States (a slave owning nation until January 1, 1865) refused to recognize the new republic. Ironically, Haitian soldiers had contributed to the freedom of America in its fight against Britain during the American rebellion (1775-1783). Haitian soldiers took part in one of the bloodiest battles when Americans were fighting to be free of British rule. More than 500 members of “Les Chasseurs Volontaires De Saint Domingue” including a 12-year-old drummer boy named Henri Christophe who became one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution and eventually ruler of Haiti, fought in the Battle of Savannah on October 9, 1779. The ungrateful Americans invaded and occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934, unleashing a reign of terror that incited Haitian resistance which was brutally suppressed. White American professor Mary A. Renda in her 2001 published book “Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940” writes about the American invasion and 25 year occupation of Haiti: “The United States invaded Haiti in July 1915 and subsequently held the second oldest independent nation in the Western Hemisphere under military occupation for nineteen years. While in Haiti, marines installed a puppet president, dissolved the legislature at gunpoint, denied freedom of speech, and forced a new constitution on the Caribbean nation - one more favorable to foreign investment. With the help of the marines, U.S. officials seized the customshouses, took control of Haitian finances, and imposed their own standards of efficiency on the administration of Haitian debt. Meanwhile, marines waged war against insurgents (called Cacos) who for several years maintained an armed resistance in the countryside, and imposed a brutal system of forced labor that engendered even more fierce Haitian resistance. By official U.S. estimates, more than 3,000 Haitians were killed during this period; a more thorough accounting reveals that the death toll may have reached 11,500. The occupation also reorganized and strengthened the Haitian military. Now called the Gendarmerie, the new military organization was officered by marines and molded in the image of the Marine Corps.” The Africans who were taken to what was then Sainte Domingue by the French beginning in the early 1600s, were kidnapped from various nations including Ashanti, Igbo, Mandingo and Yoruba. Africans from these nations were taken to colonies owned by other Europeans which meant that Africans enslaved by the British, French, Spanish, etc., shared kinship, so it is not surprising that Boukman a recognized leader of the Haitian Revolution was born in Jamaica which had been colonized by the Spanish, followed by the British. Africans were sold to various Europeans across national borders e.g., Marie Joseph Angelique (who was accused of burning down half of Montreal and hanged in 1734) was sold by a Portuguese slave holder from Portugal to America and then across the border from America to Canada by a Flemish American to a French Canadian. From its inception, the Haitian republic had to deal with invasions and occupations by Europeans. The Africans in Haiti after their initial bid for freedom on August 22, 1791 were compelled to resist re-enslavement from a Spanish invasion in 1792, a British invasion in 1793 and “the little Corsican” Napoleon sending a force of 86 ships carrying 22,000 French soldiers in 1802. Napoleon’s army was defeated but the then leader of the Haitian revolution, Toussaint L’Ouverture, was captured through trickery and treachery of the French government. L’Ouverture was taken to France and imprisoned in the Jura Mountains where he transitioned on April 7, 1803. On May 18, 1803, the Haitian flag was created and on January 1, 1804, the Africans were finally free from chattel slavery. The Africans living in Haiti became the first group (and are the only group of formerly enslaved people) to successfully overthrow their enslavers and establish a republic. Gaining their freedom from slavery did not free the Haitians from European oppression. The French demanded that the fledgling nation pay reparations for the loss of French property (the property being the Africans themselves.) The final payment of 60 million francs (estimated at $22 billion in modern U.S. currency) was made in 1922. This extortion, the cost of France recognizing Haiti as a nation, was supported by other European nations who also refused to recognize or trade with Haiti and has contributed to the impoverishment of the nation. The earthquake on January 12, 2010 gave European nations and the American government the perfect opportunity to once again invade and occupy under the guise of helping the Haitian people cope with the devastation of their country. Ironically just a few days after the 2010 earthquake the French government accused the American government of “occupying” Haiti (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/haiti/7020735/Haiti-earthquake-US-denies-occupying-the-country.html.) Three years after the devastating earthquake the people of Haiti are recovering not only from the effects of the earthquake but also from a cholera epidemic which allegedly came from a group of United Nations (UN) “peacekeepers.” So far the UN has refused to recognize that they have “legal and moral obligations to remedy this harm.” Researchers at Yale Law School and the Yale School of Public Health have authored a new report “Peacekeeping Without Accountability - The United Nations’ Responsibility for the Haitian Cholera Epidemic” (http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Clinics/Haiti_TDC_Final_Report.pdf ) which addresses the harm of the cholera epidemic that has “killed more than 8,000 people and sickened more than 600,000 since it began in 2010.” The report states that: “In October 2010 only months after the country was devastated by massive earthquake, Haiti was afflicted with another human tragedy; the outbreak of a cholera epidemic, now the largest in the world, which has killed more than 8,000 people, sickened more than 600,000, and promises more infections for a decade or more. Tragically, the cholera outbreak – the first in modern Haitian history – was caused by United Nations peacekeeping troops who inadvertently carried the disease from Nepal to the Haitian town of Méyè.” The UN is responsible for the cholera outbreak and in shirking its responsibility “has failed to uphold its duties under international human rights law.” In November 2011 Haitian and American human rights organizations filed a complaint with the UN on behalf of over 5,000 victims of the epidemic, alleging that the UN was responsible for the outbreak and demanding reparations for the victims. Not surprisingly in February 2013 the UN invoking the Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations summarily dismissed the victims’ claims. The people of Haiti, the descendants of Africans who seized their freedom from their enslavers, established a republic and whose actions were the catalyst of the eventual freedom of all enslaved Africans deserve the support of us all as they struggle to recover and hold the UN accountable for the killer cholera epidemic.
BERBICE REVOLUTION FEBRUARY 23 - 1763
“On the 4th July 1762, the Dutch slave-ship de Eenigheyt slipped over the bar at the entrance to the Berbice River, and taking the deeper eastern channel past Crab Island, dropped anchor in front of Post St. Andries. Among the two hundred and eighty-six slaves packed in her reeking hold was a young man named Atta, who was destined to become one of the great leaders of the 1763 Uprising. Chained near to him was his ship-brother Quabi, who was to follow him loyally to the end of his life. At this point, Atta had less than two years to live, but before he met his death, he and others would rock the Dutch plantation system in the Guianas to its very foundations. Before the Dutch would be able to reassert control over their colony, they would have been forced to mount the most massive military expedition against their former slaves ever seen in that part of the hemisphere. Never again until 1791 would any European nation come so close to losing an entire colony to its slaves.”Excerpt from “The Berbice Uprising 1763” by A. J. McR Cameron published in 2013 On Wednesday, February 23, 1763 a group of Africans who had been enslaved by Dutch men and women in the country now known as Guyana struck a blow for freedom that is remembered in 2014, more than 250 years later. Articles and books have been written about the freedom fighting Africans who seized their freedom from the Dutch and became the first revolutionaries in the Americas. These Berbice revolutionaries made their bid for freedom before the American revolutionaries (1775–1783) or the Haitian revolutionaries (1791 - 1804.) Led by Kofi an Akan man kidnapped from present day Ghana who was enslaved on Plantation Lilienburg up the Canje Creek the Africans held the colony of Berbice for more than a year. In 1762, the population of the Dutch colony of Berbice included 3,833 enslaved Africans, 244 Amerindians and 346 Europeans. The Dutch apparently kept meticulous records of the numbers in the colony. In the 1888 published “History of the Colonies Essequebo, Demerary and Berbice; From the Dutch Establishment to the Present Day” the author Pieter Marinus Netscher writes of the numbers occupying Berbice: “Thus the total population amounted to; 346 whites, 244 Indians and 3,833 negroes or 4423 souls.” With the numbers at their disposal compared to the number of White people in the colony complete victory of the African revolutionaries was possible. However the Africans showed human compassion and instead tried to negotiate a settlement of sharing the land with their White enslavers. The Dutch like the proverbial fox were cunning and crafty luring the Africans into a false sense of security as they pretended to negotiate. The Dutch were actually waiting for reinforcements to arrive from other European colonies in the area as well as from Europe. When those reinforcements arrived in the persons of European soldiers the Africans were hunted, rounded up and put to death in the most horrifically barbaric manner. In “History of the Colonies Essequebo, Demerary and Berbice; From the Dutch Establishment to the Present Day” the author Pieter Marinus Netscher writes about what happened on April 28, 1764: “Next day the abominable execution took place: 17 of them were hanged, 8 broken on the wheel and 9 burnt, seven of them by slow fire. These last and most painful punishments which were inflicted on the rebel leaders displayed an ingenuity of cruelty which shows that in this respect the administration of criminal justice in 1764 since the execution of Balthazar Gerards had not become much milder. Almost all the negroes without a scream or groan suffered their punishment with steadfastness and really showed more dignity than some of the white spectators flocking to the execution.” The most recent published book about the freedom fighting Africans in Berbice was written by White British author A.J. McR Cameron as a text book for secondary school students taking the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) examination. In her 2013 published book “The Berbice Uprising 1763” Cameron gives some reasons for the Africans decision to make a bid for their freedom: “Perhaps the most important single factor was the breakdown of Dutch authority, and the loss of administrative confidence which accompanied it. From 1762, the planters were nervous and panicky, seeing the shadow of revolt in every slave movement and whispered conversation. They were firmly convinced their slaves were on the brink of revolt and, in the end, their expectations were not disappointed. Their almost fatalistic attitude is illustrated by Burgher-Captain Kunckler, who fled immediately on receipt of the news of the 1763 Uprising, saying to his neighbour: “my dear neighbour, it is over for us and the Colony.” In “The Berbice Uprising 1763” A.J. McR Cameron continues: “The second reason the slaves gave for the Uprising was the cruelty of particular planters whom they named. These included Anthonij Barkeij and his overseer of Lelienburg; Widow Janssen of Nieuw Caraques, Van Staden of Elisabeth & Alexandria, Gysbert De Graef of Hoogstraaten, Burgher-CaptainVan Lentzing of Margaretha, Christina and Johan Dell of Juliana.” In the 2007 published book “Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion, Volume 1” edited by White American history professor Junius P. Rodriguez the beginning of the Berbice Revolution is described: “At the start of the revolt in February 1763, the Cuffy-led rebels captured several plantations, among which were Magdalenenburg, Juliana, Mon Repos, Essendam, Lilienburg, Elizabeth and Alexandra, Hollandia and Zeelandia and Fort Nassau. On March 3, 1763, the rebels took over Perboom.” In “Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion, Volume 1” reasons why the enslaved Africans attempted to seize their freedom are also explained: “Some claim the revolt was a direct result of harsh and inhumane treatment of the enslaved but historians of the slavery period see this revolt as one element of the endemic nature of protest against slavery using violence, the highest form of protest.” The thought that no human being would willingly submit to enslavement regardless of how “good” the enslaver treated them does not seem to enter the minds of White historians. Resisting enslavement is a natural human reaction. Although at one point in the United States any enslaved African who resisted their enslavement was diagnosed as suffering from a mental illness known as “drapetomania.” In 1851 a White physician Samuel Adolphus Cartwright wrote an article entitled “Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race” where he explained that “the Bible calls for a slave to be submissive to his master, and by doing so, the slave will have no desire to run away.” In Cartwright’s estimation any enslaved African who refused this “natural condition” of being enslaved by a White man or woman was suffering from the mental illness “drapetomania.” The thousands of Africans who rose up against the Dutch enslavers in Berbice would have been considered to be suffering from mass drapetomania. The Africans in Berbice in February 1763 began a movement that culminated in the eventual abolition of slavery in Guyana. Although the majority of those freedom fighters were eventually captured and cruelly executed the spirit of freedom seeking was not extinguished. There were several resistance efforts made by individual Africans and one major resistance from August 18 to 20, 1823 by enslaved Africans in Demerara. The spark lit by Kofi and his followers as freedom fighters who inspired Guyanese to struggle for freedom from colonization was recognized with a public holiday to commemorate February 23, 1763. Republic Day is celebrated in Guyana on February 23, the day chosen by the former President of Guyana, Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham. On February 23, 1970, the 207th anniversary of the beginning of the Berbice Revolution the former British Guiana became the Cooperative Republic of Guyana. Burnham also honoured the memory of Kofi and the freedom fighting Africans of the Berbice Revolution with a monument. The 1763 monument is located at Square of the Revolution in Guyana’s capital city Georgetown, stands 15 feet tall and weighs two and a half tons. Kofi (Cuffy) the leader of the Berbice Revolution was also enshrined as Guyana’s National Hero by then President Burnham.
MARCH 25-1807 ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE ACT
Tomorrow, Thursday, March 25, 2021 will mark 214 years since the British government passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act on March 25, 1807. The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act received its royal assent, abolishing the slave trade in the British colonies and making it illegal to carry Africans from the African continent in British ships to be enslaved elsewhere, but did not abolish slavery. The enslavement of Africans in the British Empire was abolished 27 years later, on August 1, 1834. For 400 years, Europeans from various countries forced Africans onto slave ships and transported them across the Atlantic Ocean. The first European nation to engage in the Transatlantic Slave Trade was Portugal in the mid to late 1400's. British captain John Hawkins made the first known English slaving voyage to Africa, in 1562, during the reign of the British monarch Elizabeth 1. Hawkins made three such journeys over a period of six years. He captured over 1200 Africans and sold them as goods in the Spanish colonies in the Americas. At first, British traders supplied Africans to the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Americas and the Caribbean islands. However, as British settlements in the Americas and the Caribbean islands were established, often through wars with European countries such as Holland, Spain and France, British slave traders increasingly supplied British colonies with captured Africans. The exact number of British ships that took part in the Slave Trade is not known, however, in the 245 years between Hawkins’ first voyage and the abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807, there were approximately 10,000 voyages from Britain to Africa for the express purpose of capturing and trading in African men, women and children to enslave. It is estimated that “entrepreneurs” from other parts of the British Empire (including British North America/Canada) perhaps fitted out a further 1,150 voyages. In the 1660s, the number of Africans taken from the African continent in British ships averaged 6,700 per year. By the 1760s, Britain was the foremost European country engaged in the Slave Trade. Of the 80,000 Africans chained and shackled and transported across to the Americas each year, 42,000 were carried by British slave ships. Reportedly, only the Portuguese, who carried on the trade for almost 50 years after Britain had abolished its Slave Trade, carried more enslaved Africans to the Americas than the British. White British historian, Professor David Richardson, (the UK’s expert on the slave trade) has calculated that British ships carried 3.4 million or more enslaved Africans to the Americas. Based on records of voyages in the archives of port customs and maritime insurance records, it is estimated that the total number of Africans transported and enslaved by European traders, was at least 12 million people. The first record of enslaved Africans being landed in the British colony of Virginia was 1619. Barbados was the first British settlement in the Caribbean in 1625 and the British took control of Jamaica in 1655. The establishment of the Royal African Company in 1672 formalised the Slave Trade under a royal charter and gave a monopoly to the port of London. The ports of Bristol and Liverpool, lobbied to have the charter changed and, in 1698, the monopoly was taken away.
The profits gained from chattel slavery helped to finance the Industrial Revolution and the Caribbean islands became the hub of the British Empire. The sugar colonies were Britain's most valuable colonies. By the end of the eighteenth century, four million pounds came into Britain from its Caribbean island plantations, compared with one million from the rest of the British Empire. The ports of Bristol and Liverpool in the UK became major ports through fitting out slave ships and handling the cargoes they brought back. Between 1700 and 1800, Liverpool's population rose from 5000 to 78,000. The Transatlantic Slave Trade provided many jobs for white people back in Britain. Every white person in Britain benefitted from the enslavement of Africans and their coerced, unpaid labour. Some worked in factories that had been set up with money made from the Slave Trade. Many trades-people bought a share in a slave ship. The coerced, unpaid labour of enslaved Africans also made goods, such as sugar, more affordable for people living in Britain.
When the Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle spoke of her experience with racism in the now famous interview of March 7, 2021, she was vilified by many who doubted her lived experience as “woman of colour” in the UK. Perhaps those people do not know the history of the British monarchy’s involvement with the enslavement of millions of men, women and children who looked like Meghan Markle (enslaved people who were the products of African women and white men.) Perhaps those people do not know of the more recent (20th and 21st centuries) New Cross House Fire in southeast London on Sunday January 18, 1981, Brixton Riots of April 1981 brought about as resistance to the racist sus laws, the murder of Stephen Lawrence on April 22, 1993 or the Windrush Scandal of 2018.
Murphy Browne © Tuesday, December 29, 2009
CMAST
Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned; until the colour of a man's skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes; until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained; until all Africans stand and speak as free beings, equal in the eyes of all men, as they are in the eyes of Heaven; until that day, the African continent will not know peace. We Africans will fight, if necessary and we know that we shall win, as we are confident in the victory of good over evil.
Excerpt from His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie I’s address to the United Nations in October 1963 (used by Bob Marley in his 1973 song “War”)
When His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I spoke those now famous words immortalized in song by the Honourable Robert “Bob” Nesta Marley he was calling for world peace. We enter the year 2008 with some African nations destabilized by the machinations of greedy and unconscionable people who are not African but in many cases these non- Africans have manipulated and bolstered the regime of puppet leaders they have foisted on the people. These short sighted “leaders” do not seem to care that they are being used, as non- Africans loot and rape the resources of their countries in a manner reminiscent of years of the brutal slave trade when Africans were dragged out of the continent in shackles in the holds of filthy slave ships. The words of Selassie I still ring with confidence in our will to survive. We can take hope “that we shall win, as we are confident in the victory of good over evil.” As we enter this new year we can also take hope because our ancestors survived the middle passage and four hundred years of brutal enslavement. We are here as testament to their will to survive. During the year 2007 we commemorated the bicentenary of the abolition of the British Trans Atlantic slave trade. During the year of commemoration we were not surprised when the Canadian government ignored the bicentenary. We were not surprised that the British government tried to make the year a celebration of white so called abolitionists. We were ecstatic and proud when on March 27th in Westminster Abbey, our brother Toyin Agbetu called a halt to the British monarchy and government’s attempt to shirk their responsibility for the hundreds of years of brutal enslavement of Africans. He made them face their hypocrisy of celebrating their ancestors who had benefitted from the horrific slave trade as they refused to acknowledge the role that African freedom fighters played in the abolition of the slave trade. He was celebrated across the Pan-African world. Agbetu spoke out, in the spirit of freedom fighters like Nanny of the Maroons, Nana Yaa Asantewa of the Ashanti, Queen Nzingha of Angola and Kofi, Guyana’s National Hero who led the Berbice Revolution of 1763. During the year of commemoration our community in Toronto with the leadership of Dr. Afua Cooper and the members of the Committee to Commemorate and Memorialize the Abolition of the Slave Trade (CMAST) recognized the role of the freedom fighters of Haiti in the British decision to end the slave trade and eventually slavery.
On January 1st 1804, formerly enslaved Africans living and toiling under French brutality in Haiti surprised the European world by defeating the combined armies of the USA several European nations and seizing their freedom. They became the first group of enslaved Africans to successfully overthrow their European enslavers. They founded an independent African controlled nation after a 13 year war in which several European nations and the USA tried to keep them enslaved. From 1791 to 1804, the Africans in Haiti united to launch such a massive, brilliantly executed war of liberation that the armies of France, Spain, England and the United States of America failed to defeat them. The Europeans were desperate to prevent the Africans from gaining their freedom and taking possession of the island where they (the Africans) had toiled to make it one of the most prized and coveted European possessions. Haiti at that time was the most prosperous colonial possession of any European power. The unpaid coerced labour of enslaved Africans had made France the envy of Europe. Famous for its prosperous plantations, by 1750 Haiti (Saint-Domingue) was the largest sugar producer in the world. Coffee, cotton, indigo, cocoa and ebony were also grown with slave labour and added to the profits the French used to build their elegant and extravagant palaces, chateaus and townhouses in France. The lucrative sugar cane industry also helped to make France the envy of other white nations and Haiti became the target of warring colonizing nations (Spain, France and Britain) who fought to own and control this “Pearl of the Antilles.” The enslaved Africans had been subjected to horrific unspeakable acts of terror and torture as France filled its coffers at the expense of African lives. The enslaved Africans were worked to their physical limit, literally worked to death, quickly replaced by other African bodies that would, in turn, be worked to death in an endless cycle of violence to body and spirit. It was because of these horrific and barbaric conditions that the Africans planned and executed the revolution which ended in success on January 1st 1804.
The government of the United States of America, in 1804 the only other independent nation in this hemisphere and one of the most notorious of the slave owning countries, refused to recognize the new nation of Haiti believing that recognizing Haiti's independence would threaten its own inhumane system of slavery. Regardless, the success of the Haitian revolution caused shock waves across the white world and was the beginning of the end of the enslavement of Africans. Fearing similar scenarios in their colonies, the British ended their Trans Atlantic slave trade in 1807 and the Americans in 1808. The end of the Trans Atlantic slave trade did not bring an immediate end to the enslavement of Africans in America, Canada or the Caribbean. Slavery in Canada ended on August 1st 1834, in the Caribbean on August 1, 1838 and in the USA on January 1st 1863.
We are free people because many of our ancestors never gave up the struggle to be free during four hundred years of brutal and horrific chattel slavery. We can never understand what they endured regardless of how many books we read about their experience as enslaved people. Sitting in a cramped seat during an 11 hour flight across the Atlantic I thought about what my ancestors endured in the filthy holds of slave ships (for weeks and sometimes months) to satisfy the greed of Europeans and realized that we have a duty to continue fighting white supremacy and racism wherever it rears it ugly head. We owe this to the memory of our ancestors and the future of our people. As we continue the battle for the right to have our children educated in African centred schools we must keep in mind the struggles our ancestors waged to ensure our future. We have a responsibility to secure the future of our children by any means necessary including the right to attend schools where they can thrive in a culturally appropriate environment. We must not be silenced.
In a 1944 book edited by African American historian and Pan-African activist Rayford W. Logan, Mary McLeod Bethune is quoted: "If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves and allow those responsible to salve their conscience by believing that they have our acceptance and concurrence. We should, therefore, protest openly everything...that smacks of discrimination or slander."
(Mary McLeod Bethune, African American educator and activist, 1875 - 1955)
Murphy Browne © Tuesday, December 29, 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpypYcMe16I THE GREAT INSURRECTION
Linton Kwesi Johnson: The Great Insurrection
The Brixton Riots - bring it on!
www.youtube.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuwxZSIS__4 ELECTRIC AVENUE
Eddy Grant-Electric Avenue
another song form pineapple express
www.youtube.com
CHLOE COOLEY MARCH 14-1793 CANADA
CHLOE COOLEY MARCH 14-1793 CANADA
On March 14, 1793, Chloe Cooley an enslaved African woman made history when she fought for her freedom. Cooley was being sold once again (she had been sold at least twice before) and she vigorously resisted one more indignity to her sense of self, her humanity. She struggled against being tied up and sold, one more incident in a lifetime of indignities against her personhood.
The result of Chloe Cooley’s struggle is responsible for the acclamation that John Graves Simcoe receives on the first weekend of August. When we celebrate Simcoe Day, we need to also remember Chloe Cooley whose valiant struggle to gain her freedom led to Simcoe’s effort to limit slavery in Upper Canada in 1793. On Wednesday, March 21st, 1793, Peter Martin appeared before members of the Executive Council of Upper Canada. Martin informed the Council that a violent outrage had occurred to an enslaved African woman named Chloe Cooley. Peter Martin was a member of the Black Loyalists who had moved to Canada after fighting on the side of the British during the American War of Independence (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783.) Martin had witnessed William Vrooman, who “owned,” Chloe Cooley trying to sell her to someone in New York State. She resisted, (three white men armed with ropes had to wrestle her into a boat) and Vrooman forcibly transported her across the Niagara River to her new owner. Martin said he knew of other enslaved Africans who had suffered a similar fate and he reported hearing that several other slave owners in the area intended doing the same thing with their slaves. Simcoe tried unsuccessfully to pass a law to end slavery in Upper Canada/Ontario. He was unsuccessful because 12 of the 25 members of Upper Canada's Executive Council, either owned slaves or had family members who were slave owners.
Cooley’s struggle for her freedom gave the lie to the myth of the happy slave. During the four hundred years enslavement of Africans by Europeans there was a concerted effort to portray enslaved Africans as being happy with their lot. The image of the fat, always grinning “Mammy,” who loved the White family of her enslavers more than she loved her own life was used by White people to rationalize the inhumanity of slavery. To deal with the cognitive dissonance of holding other humans in captivity and exploiting their labour enslavers had to convince themselves that enslaved Africans enjoyed being enslaved and loved the people who enslaved them. Members of White families would brutalize enslaved Africans daily and then on Sunday attend church, so they had to convince themselves that as good Christians the brutality they meted out to the Africans they enslaved was justified.
Slavery was a brutal institution that dehumanized a race of people. Female slave bondage was different from that of men. It was not less severe, but it was different. Sexual abuse, childbearing, and childcare responsibilities affected enslaved females’ pattern of resistance and how they conducted their lives. Women were less able to leave their chains and children behind. Deborah Gray White in her book "Aren't I a Woman?" wrote; "for those fugitive women who left children in slavery, the physical relief which freedom brought was limited compensation for the anguish they suffered."
It is important for us as African people to recognize and celebrate the women in our community and ensure that “ourstory” includes the achievement of all people from our community regardless of gender. On March 8 we celebrated “International Women’s Day” and many of us took the opportunity to recognize and celebrate African women who went before us regardless of where they were born, when they lived or where they lived. We know the names of many African women who sacrificed much to move us forward as a people. Sometimes we forget what they endured and how they resisted. Some of us believing that the rights we have today were given to us. Whatever “rights,” we have access to in 2025 did not come easily. We need to pause and think about those women who went before us and the sacrifices they made to get us to where we are today.
Chloe Cooley, Peggy Pompadour, Marie Joseph Angelique and many other enslaved African women whose names we do not know risked their lives in resisting their enslavement by any means necessary. The enslavement of Africans would have lasted much longer if women had not resisted in their own way. We must continue to tell the stories of our sheroes who resisted slavery and colonization.
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY MARCH 8-2025
Saturday March 8 will be celebrated internationally as International Women’s Day (IWD.) The day was first recognised by the United Nations (UN) in 1977 following a resolution calling for member states to proclaim a day for women’s rights and international peace. In adopting its resolution, the UN General Assembly recognized the role of women in peace efforts and development and urged an end to discrimination and an increase of support for women's full and equal participation. The theme for IWD 2025 is “For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality.” International Women's Day is a time to honour and celebrate the achievements of women. To raise awareness of the work that needs to be done to ensure the full participation of women and girls and to celebrate the progress that has been made.
Women across the globe, in various societies, have had to struggle for progress. Racialized women living in European dominated societies have had to struggle against sexism and racism. On April 7, 1973, at the National Congress of Black Women in Canada, Rosemary Brown said: "To be black and female in a society which is both racist and sexist is to be in the unique position of having nowhere to go but up." Rosemary Brown was the first African Canadian woman elected to any provincial legislative assembly in Canada, on August 30th 1972 in British Columbia.
Rosemary Brown is one of many African women in the Diaspora who have achieved against great odds and whose names are not widely known. The African Proverb: “Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter” makes a profound statement about the lack of widespread knowledge of our African sheroes. In 2025, we do have historians who have documented some of the stories of the lives of pioneering African women on the continent and in the Diaspora. As a Pan-Africanist, the lives of African women globally have been of interest since childhood.
As we approach IWD 2025 I think about the numerous African women who have inspired change. The history of those women has been researched and documented by our historians including Dr. Afua Cooper who published “The Hanging of Angelique,” in 2006) and Dr. Natasha Henry who published an article about Chloe Cooley (http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/chloe-cooley-and-the-act-to-limit-slavery-in-upper-canada/) Books about other African Canadian women who inspired change include “Sister to Courage” about Viola Desmond published in 2010 by Wanda Robson, the 1998 published “Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century” by Jane Rhodes and “Sylvia Stark: A Pioneer” by Alfred Ernest Jones, Torie Scott and Karen Lewis published in 1991.
Some African women in the Diaspora and from the continent who inspired change in their communities during slavery and colonization did so in groups. They took collective action in sisterhood.
During every struggle for equality and freedom from enslavement, colonization and occupation by foreign entities, women have participated. The women of Buxton Village on the East Coast of Demerara in Guyana and the Igbo and Ibibio women of Calabar and Owerri in southeastern Nigeria, resisted unfair tax laws imposed by British colonizers.
Following the August 1, 1838, end of the “Apprenticeship system” in Guyana, groups of formerly enslaved Africans pooled their money together, bought abandoned plantations and established villages throughout the Guyanese coastland during the “African Village Movement.” Of the more than 100 villages established by Africans in Guyana, Buxton Village on the East Coast of Demerara is the most well-known. With the establishment of Buxton Village, there was resistance from the British colonizers who had formerly dictated every area of the lives of Africans. The former enslavers tried sabotaging the growth of the recently established village. The Buxtonians survived the deliberate flooding of their farms and other attempts to dislodge them from their homes. The final straw was an unfair taxation of their land by the colonial government. Several attempts to dialogue with the British governor were rebuffed. When the villagers heard that the governor would be passing by their village as he inspected the recently laid train tracks, it was an ideal opportunity to dialogue with the governor. As the train approached Buxton, the women of Buxton strode onto the train tracks putting their lives on the line. The men followed when the train was forced to stop and supported the women in immobilizing the train by applying chains and locks to its wheels. The Governor was forced to meet with the villagers who demanded that he repeal the exorbitant, unfair taxation of their land. Following that impromptu meeting at the train line, surprisingly, the governor did repeal the tax law. Buxtonians are famous throughout Guyana for their resistance to British colonization; every Guyanese knows that “Buxton women stop train.”
In the Calabar and Owerri provinces in southeastern Nigeria, thousands of Igbo and Ibibio women organized in 1929, to resist the policies imposed by British colonial administrators. The women called their campaign the Ogu Umunwanye (Women’s War) and forced the colonial authorities to drop their plans to impose a tax on women. The “Women’s War” in Nigeria was considered the most serious challenge to British rule in the history of colonized Nigeria. It took months (November and December 1929,) for the British colonizers to suppress the “Women’s War.” British police and military were sent out to deal with the protesters and reportedly killed 100 women. The “Women’s War” sparked changes beyond the rescinding of unfair tax laws; it inspired the tax protests of 1938, the Oil Mill Protests of the 1940s and the Tax revolt of 1956.
On Saturday, March 8, a group of African Canadian women will launch their recently published book “Reflections on Sisterhood: Voices from Black Canada,” at 1553 Eglinton Avenue West from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.
AFRICAN HERITAGE MONTH FEBRUARY 2025
African American scholar/historian, Carter Godwin Woodson was the founder of Negro History Week in 1926 which eventually became Black History Month and now African Heritage Month, African Liberation Month etc. As we express our Kujichagulia/Self-Determination we name the month of February as we see fit and tell our story. The African proverb “Until the lion has its own historian, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter” comes to mind during this month. Our history has been ignored and even distorted for centuries, since the enslavement of our ancestors. Mutabaruka, an African Jamaican Rastafari dub poet, musician, actor, educator, and talk-show host, has famously said: “Slavery isn’t African history. It Interrupted African history.” Although slavery is not the entirety of African history or the history of the descendants of enslaved Africans, it has had a profound effect on us as a people. The enslavement of Africans whose descendants live in every corner of the earth are affected by the 400 years enslavement of their ancestors.
Carter Godwin Woodson was an African American historian, author and journalist. He was one of the first scholars to study African American history. He founded the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) on September 9, 1915, to address the lack of information on the history, culture and accomplishments of African Americans. The effects of 400 years enslavement still haunt us almost 115 years after Woodson launched the ASALH. Woodson made the documentation and promotion of the history of Africans his life’s work. He wrote and published 19 books about African history and culture. His most popular book is “The Mis-education of the Negro,” which was published in 1933 where he addresses a problem that plagues our community to this day: "When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary."
Woodson was also a regular contributor to the publication of another African descendant who was very passionate about educating Africans about their history. Woodson frequently wrote articles for the weekly publication "Negro World" which was owned by The Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. The two men shared similar values and thoughts on the condition of and how to improve the lot of Africans, “at home and abroad.” Woodson launched Negro History Week during the second week of February 1926, to honour Frederick Douglass.
The history of Africans in Canada has been recognized and celebrated since the 1950s when the Canadian Negro Women's Association began the celebration of the community’s history in Canada. This work was continued by the efforts of Stan Grizzle and the Ontario Black History Society (OBHS) which led to the recognition province wide in 1979 of February as Black History Month. In December 1995, Canada's federal parliament officially recognized February as Black History Month. The motion, which was initiated by then Member of Parliament Jean Augustine, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, received unanimous approval. Dr. Augustine is the first African Canadian woman elected, 1993, to the Canadian Federal Parliament in its then 126-year history (established July 1, 1867.) The first national observation of February as Black History Month in Canada was February 1996. The Canadian government unveiled the theme for 2025 Black History Month on January 21st, Lincoln Alexander Day. The theme is: “Black Legacy and Leadership: Celebrating Canadian History and Uplifting Future Generations.”
There has been an African Presence (enslaved and free) in Canada even before the country was named Canada. The first documented person of African descent to arrive in Canada is Mathieu DaCosta, in the 1600s. He was part of the 1603 expedition of French explorer Samuel de Champlain, as an interpreter for the French with the Mi'kmaq people. First launched in 1996, the “Mathieu Da Costa Challenge,” is a national contest for youth ages 9 to 18. The history of the enslavement of Africans in this country began in 1628 with the documented sale of six-year-old Olivier LeJeune in Quebec and ended on August 1, 1834, when slavery was abolished. The child who was sold in Quebec and given the name Olivier LeJeune was an African child who was kidnapped from the African continent. He was sold by David Kirke who was one of the English privateering Kirke brothers. During his life of enslavement in Quebec Olivier LeJeune was sold several times. He was buried on May 10, 1654, when he was approximately 32 years old. Enslaved Africans were not known for their longevity.
We have come a long way since the days when Dr. Woodson established “Negro History Week.” During this month whether we name it Black History Month, African History Month or African Liberation Month we need to recognize and commemorate the global history of Africans. The theme for Black History Month 2025 is: “Black Legacy and Leadership: Celebrating Canadian History and Uplifting Future Generations.” Let us do that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)