MARCUS MOSIAH GARVEY AUGUST 17-1887 TO JUNE 10-1940

Old pirates, yes, they rob I. Sold I to the merchant ships Minutes after they took I from the bottomless pit. But my hand was made strong by the hand of the Almighty. We forward in this generation. Triumphantly! Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds. Have no fear for atomic energy, 'Cause none of them can stop the time. How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look? Some say it's just a part of it we've got to fullfil the book. Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom? 'Cause all I ever have: Redemption songs!

From “Redemption Song” by Bob Marley released in 1980 on the Bob Marley and the Wailers “Uprising” album.

Marcus Mosiah Garvey born on August 17, 1887 is considered the father of the modern Pan-African movement. Garvey was a man before his time who urged Africans worldwide to be proud of their skin colour, the texture of their hair, the fullness of their lips, the shape of their noses, bodies and everything about their perfectly made selves as Africans. He urged Africans to see themselves through their own “spectacles” made in the image of the God they worshipped. In one of the numerous speeches Garvey made urging Africans to have pride in their Africanness he said: “If Negroes are created in God's image, and Negroes are Black, then God must, in some sense, be Black. If the White man has the idea of a white God, let him worship his God as he desires. We have found a new ideal. Because once our God has no color, and yet it is human to see everything through ones own spectacles, and since the White people have seen their God through their white spectacles, we have only now started to see our God through our own spectacles. But we believe in the God of Ethiopia, the everlasting God, God the father, God the son, God the Holy Ghost, the one God of all the ages. That is the God in whom we believe, but we shall worship him through the spectacles of Ethiopia. For two hundred and fifty years we have struggled under the burden and rigors of slavery. We were maimed, we were brutalized, we were ravaged in every way. We are men, we have hopes, we have passions, we have feelings, we have desires just like any other race.”

Garvey recognized the importance of images not only in the worship of a divine being in whose image we are made but also the effect on the psyche of an oppressed people. He urged African Americans to give their children dolls made in their image so they could recognize their worthiness as human beings. In the 1987 published book “Marcus Garvey Life and Lessons: A Centennial Companion to the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers” written by Marcus Garvey and edited by Robert A. Hill and Barbara Blair Garvey is quoted: “Never allow your children to play with or to have white dolls. Give them the dolls of their own race to play with and they will grow up with the idea of race love and race purity.” With a scarcity of African American dolls Garvey established a doll making factory in New York City to make those dolls. As part of his vision to make African Americans financially independent he established the Negro Factories Corporation and through that corporation established several businesses including restaurants, grocery stores, laundries, a hat factory, printing press, tailoring establishment, a trucking business and a hotel.

Garvey understood the value of Africans seeing themselves as the equal of all other human beings and not inferior as they had been taught for generations by a White supremacist culture. Many Africans had internalised those lessons and regarded White as superior because of the propaganda which began as a White rationalization for the evil and brutal system of chattel slavery. Quoted in “Marcus Garvey Life and Lessons” Garvey urged his followers to: “Tear from your walls, all pictures that glorify other races. Tear up and burn every bit of propaganda that does not carry your idea of things. Treat them as trash. When you go to the cinema and you see the glorification of others in the pictures don't accept it; don't believe it to be true. Instead, visualize yourself achieving whatever is presented, and if possible, organize your propaganda to that effect. You should always match propaganda with propaganda. Have your own newspapers, your own artists, your own sculptors, your own pulpits, your own platforms, print your own books and show your own motion pictures and sculpture your own subjects. Never accept your subjects as of another race, but glorify all the good in yourselves. Keep your home free and clear of alien objects, on other races of glorification, otherwise your children will grow up to adore and glorify other people. Put in the place of others the heroes and noble characters of your own race.”

Garvey’s words, thoughts and philosophies have influenced generations of Pan-Africanists including leaders like El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X,) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael,) Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Jomo Kenyatta, Alhaji Ahmed Sekou Toure and Patrice Lumumba. Garvey also influenced artists including Bob Marley, Burning Spear, Max Romeo, Stevie Wonder, Paul Robeson and Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Garvey, Burning Spear (Winston Rodney) and Bob Marley share a connection because of their birthplace, St Ann Parish in Jamaica. Marley and Rodney have both paid tribute to Garvey in their work. The lyrics of Marley’s “Redemption Song” come from a speech Garvey gave in Nova Scotia, Canada on October 1, 1937. The speech was published in Garvey’s “Black Man” magazine, Vol. 3, no. 10 (July 1938.) “We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind to good advantage.”

Garvey the first of Jamaica’s seven National Heroes is admired and has been honoured in other countries. A statue of Garvey is located on the Harris Promenade, San Fernando, Trinidad and a bust of Garvey is housed in the Organization of American States' Hall of Heroes in Washington, D.C. Nkrumah who led Ghana to independence from Britain in 1957 named the national shipping line of Ghana the “Black Star Line” in honour of the shipping line Garvey established as part of his plan to make Africans financially independent. The national flag of Kenya sports the colours (black, red and green) chosen by Garvey as the flag of his United Negro Improvement Association and African Communities (Imperial) League(UNIA-ACL.) Garvey influenced the Rastafari movement and the establishment of the Kwanzaa celebration. The 1960s Black Power and Civil Rights movements with the rise of groups like the Black Panther Party and African Americans who were “Black and Proud” owe much to the Garvey philosophies and his UNIA-ACL which was established in 1914.

Garvey was a threat to worldwide White supremacist culture and the White supremacist US government was bent on destroying him and his positive international influence on Africans. That coveted job fell to an enthusiastic young John Edgar Hoover whose notoriety was built on the destruction of Garvey’s life. As he would do with successive generations of African American leaders, Hoover hounded Garvey manufacturing “evidence” that eventually led to the waning of the influential UNIA-ACL and the destruction of Garvey’s plans for an economically self-sufficient African American population. In “Redemption Song” Marley asks “How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?” It has been 73 years since Garvey transitioned on June 10, 1940 due in no small part to the machinations of Hoover and the US government body that would eventually become the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI.) Hoover began targeting Garvey since at least October 11, 1919 as shown in correspondence that can be read at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/garvey/filmmore/ps_fbi.html or in the 1983 published book “The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Volume II, 27 August 1919 - 31 August 1920.”

Burning Spear (Rodney) released in 1975 “Old Marcus Garvey” with these lyrics reminding us never to forget Garvey: “Children, children, children, children Humble yourself and become one day somehow You will remember him you will”

In 2013 we have to remain vigilant to counter the continued White supremacist propaganda that seeks to kill our prophets and set up their false prophets to lead us astray into the land of self-hate.

CARIBANA 2013

“Black people in Toronto celebrated the liberation of enslaved Africans throughout the Americas before the first mas band ever jumped in 1967. In the west end of Toronto in the old fashion district, black people celebrated the Emancipation Day Parade marking the 1838 liberation of slaves throughout the British Americas. Archival newspaper photos from the Toronto Telegram indicate that the parade occurred around the same time period as the CANEWA Calypso Carnivals, 1952 - 1964. The Emancipation Day Parade was the most visible black event in the city. This role was eventually relinquished to Caribana. Contemporary Caribana organizers forget the importance of the Emancipation Day parade. The Eamcipation Day Parade and Caribana suggest the historical complexity of black expressive arts.”

Excerpted from “Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of a Transnational Festival” published in 2007 edited by Garth L. Green and Philip W. Scher

The 2013 Caribana has come and gone and as usual the City of Toronto was awash with tourists who came here just to experience the Caribbean culture and to see the largest Caribbean festival in North America. The hotels, the restaurants, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) even the police benefited from the tourist dollars as they have all done for the decades that the Caribbean community has volunteered its labour to make Caribana a reality. Tourists were awed by the elaborately lavish costumes designed and crafted by Caribbean people as those costumes were pulled and pushed by the volunteers along the area where the festival has been contained and constrained for the past 12 years. I chatted with several people some who were visiting Canada for the first time. A few of them had read about Caribana in an Essence Magazine article in 2010 but only made it here this year while others had heard about the spectacular sights and sounds from relatives and friends who had attended the festival in previous years.

Visitors to our fair city could be excused for thinking that Caribana and by extension the Caribbean culture is all about gyrating to music while dressed in as little as possible. I was very pleased to overhear a young African Canadian woman educating visitors to Toronto about the history of Caribana. On the crowded Bathurst streetcar as we were travelling from the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) grounds back to Bathurst subway station the young woman was explaining Caribana’s connection to Emancipation Day. She told the visitors about Caribana’s beginning as the Caribbean community’s gift to Canada for its 100th birthday celebration in 1967. She told them about slavery in Canada and the emancipation of enslaved Africans in Canada on August 1, 1834. There was a further four years of “apprenticeship” for those Africans who had been enslaved in the British colonized Caribbean islands (except Antigua and the Bahamas) and British Guiana on the South American continent.

Caribana began as the Caribbean community’s contribution to Canada as it celebrated 100 years of nationhood. The 1967 gift from the Caribbean community in 1967 has become the City of Toronto’s top grossing festival. An Ipsos Reid Economic Impact Study released in April showed that Caribana brought $438 million to Ontario’s economy in 2009 with approximately $200 million going to the government in tax revenues. The money came mostly from the 1.2 million people who attended Caribana in 2009 with 170,000 visiting from the United States and a further 130,000 came from overseas. Caribana has even been described as the “crown jewel” of Toronto’s tourist attractions. The other festivals (including Toronto International Film Festival, Luminato and Pride Week) which receive much government funding do not attract the visitors and money to this city that Caribana does.

Caribana in spite of the money and visitors it brings to our fair city has been disrespected by the wider White community. Over the years there have been derogatory remarks made by White people at least one infamously caught accidentally on an open microphone. There has also been blatant disrespect of the community by politicians who have grabbed this “cash cow” away from the people who originated the celebration and it is now a government and corporate creature. There is a cash grab in making the festival inaccessible to people who do not have the money to pay to enter the CNE grounds where the festival is now contained.

The costumes worn by the people “playing mas” for the most part were simply panties (in some cases thongs) and brassieres in bright colours topped by feathers and in many cases lacked imagination. Many of the costumes could be interchangeable year after year with just a change of colour. Caribana which is supposed to be modelled on Trinidad’s Carnival is more than exposing flesh for an audience to ogle or be scandalised. The beginning of Carnival in Trinidad was the freed Africans’ opportunity once a year to dress up and mock the people who oppressed them year round. The costumes are supposed to tell a story. Trinidadian born Michael La Rose who is Chair of the George Padmore Institute in the United Kingdom (UK) writes: “The Caribbean Carnival consists of masquerade, dance, music and song. It is unique as a festival as it incorporates the fine arts, street theatre, artistic and musical social organisation, spectator participation, political commentary, spectacle and fantasy. We are all familiar with images of Notting Hill Carnival in London. They are of masquerade (costumes), music, dancing and happy people. But what is behind the masquerade? There is a rich history, culture, language and a lot of hard work and struggle. The Caribbean Carnival described here is a celebration of the end of slavery as well as an affirmation of survival. Carnival is where Africa and Europe met in the cauldron of the Caribbean slave system to produce a new festival for the world. The four elements of Carnival are song, music, costume and dance, which translate as calypso/soca, steelpan, mas (masquerade), and 'wine' (dance) in the Caribbean Carnival. Trinidad is the island in the Caribbean with the most developed and well-known Carnival. Wherever the Trinidadians go they transplant their Carnival culture.”

This year’s Caribana did get some of the elements of the carnival right. There was the “calypso/soca, steelpan and 'wine' (dance).” The “wining/dancing” part of the Caribana festival provided much hilarity for me and some other Caribbean people as we watched some of the costumed people playing mas and attempting to dance to the music. It boggles the mind that the music that can be felt in every part of your body could not move some people to dance in tune. It was hilarious watching some rhythmically challenged people of all races as they tried to move to the beat of soca and calypso music with Machel Mantano encouraging them to “Make that thing just wiggle wiggle. Left to right gyul make it giggle. Bounce it round and make it swiggle” while JW and Blaze encouraged “palancing.”

I live in hope that next year the people who design the costumes for the “mas” players will go back to their roots and design costumes that do not all look alike with bikinis and bare skin topped by feathers. There are sites online including http://www.tntisland.com/carnivalcharacters.html with examples of traditional costumes there is no need for everyone to dress the same except for a difference in the colour of the costumes.

CARIBANA AND EMANCIPATION DAY IN CANADA

On August 1, 1834 enslaved Africans in Canada and elsewhere in the British Empire were freed from chattel slavery. While the Africans in Canada, Antigua and the Bahamas were immediately freed on August 1, 1834 the Africans in the other British colonised Caribbean islands and British Guiana on the South American continent were informed that they had to endure up to a further six years (domestic workers 4 years and field workers 6) of semi-slavery before they would finally be free. Instead of complete freedom the Africans were in effect indentured labourers tied to their former owners. They were compelled to provide 40 hours a week of unpaid labour on the plantations where they had been enslaved. Any work after the 40 hours was supposed to be paid labour but who was there on the plantations to ensure that this was done? The British government called the system an apprenticeship. In theory the apprenticeship period was a time for the Africans to be “trained” for a life of freedom. In reality it was a system rife with abuse of the Africans and more exploitation of their labour. The terms of apprenticeship was made for the planters which included the fact the plantation owners had no responsibility to provide the “apprentices” with food, clothes, medical care and housing. The Africans were compelled to pay rent for the inadequate housing on the plantations and feed and clothe themselves and their families from the pittance they were paid for work over 40 hours per week. Naturally the plantation owners ensured that the work to run the plantation was done during that 40 hours so not much paid work was available. The Africans resisted and eventually the six years apprenticeship was reduced to four years and they were finally freed on August 1, 1838. One of my favourite stories of resistance starting on August 1st 1834 is the resistance of enslaved Africans in Trinidad.

On Friday August 1, 1834 a group of Africans gathered at Government House in Port of Spain to listen to the British governor George Fitzgerald Hill proclaim their freedom. Instead the Africans were told that they were obliged by law to serve as “apprentices” for up to six more years living on the estates and plantations where they were enslaved. The Africans were not amused and loudly voiced their displeasure and disagreement with being subjected to six years of “apprenticeship.” Fitzgerald Hill sent the militia out to intimidate the group but the furious Africans stood their ground recognizing that the“apprenticeship” system was a scam used by the white plantation owners and the government representatives in the Caribbean to use free African labour for a further 6 years. In spite of the presence of the militia, the protest continued until nightfall when the protesters strategically withdrew because they were not allowed to be in the town during the night. On Saturday August 2nd, when the group of protesters returned to Government House, Hill gave the order to arrest them. There were scuffles with the militia and some of the protesting Africans were arrested, tried, sentenced to “hard labour and flogging” and taken to the Royal Jail. Their incensed compatriots were forced to flee but returned on the Monday to continue the protest. The numbers had swollen by Monday and there were more clashes with the militia. Some of those who were arrested on the Monday were publicly flogged in Marine Square. The protests continued the entire week before it was quelled, but several of the Africans refused to return to the plantations and instead “squatted” in districts known today as Belmont and East Dry River. It was such protests that forced the British to abandon their plan to coerce the Africans who had worked in the fields to endure 6 years of apprenticeship. Africans throughout the region protested their continued enslavement under the Apprenticeship system and on August 1, 1838 slavery was abolished in all the British colonies. On July 25th, 1838, Governor Hill called an emergency session of the Council of Government to seek approval of a special proclamation he had drafted which ended the apprenticeship period for Africans in Trinidad on August 1, 1838 whether they worked in the fields, homes or were skilled workers. The plantation owners received reparations for the loss of their property due to emancipation. The British government paid the plantation owners 20 million pounds an amount which is estimated to be the equivalent of 200 billion pounds today. A report from a recent gathering of Caribbean countries (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/25/slavery-reparations-caribbean-nations_n_3654231.html) where “Reparations” was the topic includes this quote: “Caribbean officials have not mentioned a specific monetary figure but Gonsalves and Verene Shepherd, chairwoman of the national reparations commission in Jamaica, both mentioned the fact that Britain at the time of emancipation in 1834 paid 20 million pounds to British planters in the Caribbean, the equivalent of 200 billion pounds today.” Dr. Verene A. Shepherd is Professor of Social History and University Director of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the University of the West Indies and Chair of the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (WGPAD.) Ralph Gonsalves is prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

The British government has resisted calls for reparations to be made to the descendants of enslaved Africans whose ancestors’ blood, sweat, tears and unpaid labour enriched generations of White people who continue to enjoy those riches into the 21st century. The evidence is there that the British and other European tribes benefited financially from the slave trade. Although the British did not begin the trade in Africans (the Portuguese began this barbaric trade, quickly followed by the Spanish and other European tribes) it was the British who almost monopolized this dreadful system for centuries supported by the British monarchy. Guyanese historian, Dr. Walter Rodney, has powerfully portrayed this in his 1973 published book, “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” where he has written: “Some attempts have been made to try and quantify the actual monetary profits made by Europeans from engaging in the slave trade. The actual dimensions are not easy to fix, but the profits were fabulous. John Hawkins made three trips to West Africa in the 1560s, and stole Africans whom he sold to the Spanish in America. On returning to England after the first trip, his profit was so handsome that Queen Elizabeth I became interested in directly participating in his next venture and she provided for that purpose a ship named the Jesus. Hawkins left with the Jesus to steal some more Africans, and he returned to England with such dividends that Queen Elizabeth made him a knight. Hawkins chose as his coat of arms the representation of an African in chains.”

In Canada where slavery was abolished on August 1, 1834 there is a lack of recognition that Africans were enslaved here. Many Canadians are ignorant of the fact that Africans were enslaved in Canada beginning in 1628 with the sale of a 6 year old African child who was given the name Olivier LeJeune by his enslavers. The lives of enslaved Africans are not well documented but we do know about Peggy Pompadour and her children Amy, Jupiter and Milly who were owned by Peter Russell (acting Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada 1796–1799) and his sister Elizabeth. Marie Joseph Angelique who was hanged in Montreal on June 21, 1739 is probably the most well known because of the work of Dr. Afua Cooper who brought Angelique’s story to life in her 2006 published book “The Hanging of Angelique.” Africans were enslaved throughout this land and the many advertisements for buying and selling Africans as well as for their capture and return to their “owners” are documented in the Canadian newspapers of the time.

August 1, Emancipation Day was the end of chattel slavery for Africans in Canada and the day has been celebrated for more than a century here in Canada as well as in other former British colonies. Not many books have been published about that history; however for those people interested in learning about this history one of the more recently published books (2010) is “Emancipation Day: Celebrating Freedom in Canada” by author Natasha Henry which documents the celebration of August 1st in Canada.

THE TUSKEGEE EXPERIMENT 1932-1972

“The eight men who are survivors of the syphilis study at Tuskegee are a living link to a time not so very long ago that many Americans would prefer not to remember, but we dare not forget. It is not only in remembering that shameful past that we can make amends and repair our nation, but it is in remembering that past that we can build a better present and a better future. And without remembering it, we cannot make amends and we cannot go forward. So today America does remember the hundreds of men used in research without their knowledge and consent. Men who were poor and African American, without resources and with few alternatives, they believed they had found hope when they were offered free medical care by the United States Public Health Service. They were betrayed. To the survivors, to the wives and family members, the children and the grandchildren, I say what you know: No power on Earth can give you back the lives lost, the pain suffered, the years of internal torment and anguish. What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people, what the United States government did was shameful, and I am sorry. I apologize and I am sorry that this apology has been so long in coming.”

Excerpt from official apology made by US President Bill Clinton on May 16, 1997 about the 40 year syphilis experiment (1932-1972) on African Americans in Macon County, Alabama.

On Tuesday, July 25, 1972 the “Washington Star” carried the headline "Syphilis victims in U.S. Study Went Untreated for 40 Years" and Americans learned that their government had been using African American families in Macon County, Alabama as guinea pigs. The infamous and racist “study” of the effect of untreated syphilis in African American men was exposed on July 25, 1972 after 40 years of torture for hundreds of African American men. This “study” affected the men, their community, their partners/wives/lovers and their children. It is one of the many shameful stories of the American government’s ill will towards African Americans. The experiment may very well have continued into the 21st century if a young employee had not become a “whistleblower” in 1972. According to information in the book “Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment” written by White author James H. Jones (published 1993) Peter Buxtun was a 27 year old employee of the United States Public Health System (USPHS) when in 1966 he discovered that African Americans in Macon County, Alabama were being used as guinea pigs by the American government. Buxtun wrote a letter to Dr. William J. Brown director of the Division of Venereal Diseases "expressing grave moral concerns about the experiment." Buxtun was told that the affected African Americans would not receive any treatment to cure them of the disease or even to alleviate their suffering. Even worse they would not be told that they had syphilis but their lives would be followed by the medical personnel using them as guinea pigs until they died and their bodies autopsied. Their partners/wives/lovers were infected with the sexually transmitted disease and many of their children were born with congenital syphilis which led to blindness, deformities, developmental delays, damage to bones, teeth, eyes, ears and brain. The untreated syphilis also caused miscarriages, premature births, stillbirths and death of newborn babies.

In November 1966 Buxtun filed an official protest with the United States Center for Disease Control (CDC) but the National Medical Association and the American Medical Association agreed with the CDC and Brown that the subjects of the study should not receive treatment but left to deteriorate and eventually die of syphilis and their bodies used for further experimentation. The medical authorities recruited the African American men for this horrific “study” by promising them free medical care. None of the men knew that they were infected with the potentially deadly sexually transmitted disease. Penicillin (a cure for syphilis) had been discovered in 1928, three years before the government began their experiment but the authorities refused to allow the African American men to receive penicillin. By the 1940s penicillin was being widely used and even available in Macon County, Alabama but the authorities were determined that the African American men who were part of their “study” would remain untreated. During World War II, 250 of the men registered for the draft (to join the military) and would have received treatment for syphilis but the USPHS successfully attained exemption for those men. They were not allowed to join the military and did not receive treatment that would have cured them of syphilis.

The experiment continued in spite of the Henderson Act (1943) a public health law requiring testing and treatment for venereal disease and in spite of the Declaration of Helsinki (1964) by the World Health Organization which specified that “informed consent” was needed for experiments involving human beings. The Declaration of Helsinki was a follow up to the Nuremberg Code which was intended to prevent mistreatment of research subjects such as had been practised by Nazi physicians. The USPHS was therefore treating the African American subjects of their experiment in the same manner as the Nazi doctors who experimented on those they considered inferior during the Nazi reign of terror in Germany during World War II and in Namibia from 1904 to 1908. Even the Surgeon General of the United States was involved in this horrific and inhumane experiment encouraging the men to remain part of the experiment by sending them certificates of appreciation after 25 years in the “study.” By 1969 (after 37 years of the experiment) 128 of the African American men were dead from syphilis and its complications (which included tumors, heart disease, paralysis, blindness and insanity) 40 of their wives had been infected and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis.

Buxtun the eventual “whistleblower” of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment resigned from the USPHS in 1967 and in 1968 filed another protest with the CDC. The authorities at the CDC ignored his concerns and continued their experiment. In 1972 Buxtun spoke to Edith Lederer a reporter from the Associated Press and on Tuesday, July 25, 1972 the story appeared on the front page of the “Washington Star” written by Jean Heller. The following day July 26, 1972 the story was published on the front page of the New York Times. The following day an official from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) held a press conference where he expressed regret about the length of the experiment. On August 24, 1972 HEW Assistant Secretary Merlin K. DuVal announced the appointment of the Tuskegee Syphilis Ad Hoc Advisory Panel to investigate the horrific experiment. The advisory panel decided that the Tuskegee Study was "ethically unjustified" and on October 25, 1972 the panel advised that the experiment end. On November 16, 1972 DuVal announced the end of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. In the summer of 1973 Fred D. Gray an African American Civil Rights lawyer and author of “The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The Real Story and Beyond” (published 1998) filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the African American men and their families who had been duped into becoming experimental “guinea pigs.” In 1975 the law suit was settled for $10 million dollars. As part of the settlement, the U.S. government promised to give lifetime medical benefits and burial services to all living participants. The Tuskegee Health Benefit Program (THBP) was established to provide these services and in 1975 wives, widows and offspring were added to the program.

Following much advocacy and agitation by the African American community including the Congressional Black Caucus US President Clinton agreed to issue an official apology for the racist and inhumane Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. During his apology speech on May 16, 1997 Clinton acknowledged that the experiment was racist: “To our African American citizens, I am sorry that your federal government orchestrated a study so clearly racist. That can never be allowed to happen again. It is against everything our country stands for and what we must stand against is what it was.” After 65 years the American government finally offered some measure of closure for the African American families who were affected by the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. With the seemingly heartfelt apology from Clinton in 1997 there was hope that nothing like the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment would happen again. The recent scandalous story reported in the “Daily Mail” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2358065/Nearly-250-women-California-prisons-pressured-sterilization-surgeries-took-place-2010.html of women prisoners being coerced into undergoing surgery to prevent them bearing children is proof that not much has changed since July 25, 1972 when the story of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was made public.

NO JUSTICE YET FOR TRAYVON IN FLORIDA

The photographs were always horrifying: shirtless black victims, their bodies bloodied, eyes bulging from their sockets. Of all the lynching photos Marshall had seen, though, it was the image of Rubin Stacy strung up by his neck in a Florida pine tree that haunted him most when he traveled at night into the south. It wasn’t the indentation of the rope that had cut into the flesh below the dead man’s chin, or even the bullet holes riddling his body, that caused Marshall, drenched now in sweat, to stir in his sleep. It was the virtually angelic faces of the white children, all of them dressed in their Sunday clothes, as they posed, grinning and smiling, in a semicircle around Rubin Stacy’s dangling corpse. In that horrid indifference to human suffering lay the legacy of another generation of white children, who, in turn, would, without conscience prolong the agony of an entire other race.

Excerpt from the prologue of “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America” written by Gilbert King published in 2013

On July 16, 1949 in Groveland, Florida, four African American men were falsely accused of raping a White woman. Gilbert King is a White author who wrote about the miscarriage of justice that led to the murder of three of those young men (one of them just 16 years old) in “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America.” Groveland, Florida is a half an hour drive away from Sanford, Florida where 17 year old Trayvon Benjamin Martin was gunned down by Neighbourhood Watch volunteer “wannabe cop” George Zimmerman. Even though over the past year Zimmerman and his family have tried to make him non-White, claiming all kinds of racially diverse backgrounds, he obviously enjoyed White skin privilege all his life. This was an attempt to nullify the “racial undertones” of the killing of the young Martin. Watching and listening to Zimmerman’s brother as he was interviewed several times before and after the verdict made that very clear to me.

Zimmerman was found not-guilty of the second degree murder charge and the hastily offered last minute manslaughter charge which the prosecution offered on Friday July 12 when they closed their arguments against Zimmerman. He was found not-guilty by a jury of his peers, five White women and one Hispanic woman. None of the jurors were the peers of the 17 year old African American who was killed by Zimmerman on February 26, 2012. The events of February 26, 2012 are very clear; Zimmerman stalked unarmed Martin and shot him dead with a gun that was prepared to kill with a bullet ready to be fired in its chamber. One has to wonder how much has changed in Florida since members of the “Groveland Four” were lynched by White men in the 20th century to the killing of Martin in the 21st century. Although Zimmerman was tried in a court of law for the murder of Martin, he was found not guilty even of manslaughter by a jury of five White women and one Hispanic woman. Many of us were stunned at the verdict. However we should not have even been surprised given the history of violence against African American men throughout North America and specifically in Florida. In the 2013 published book “The Beast in Florida: A History of Anti-Black Violence” African American author Marvin Dunn writes: “A black male unwise – uppity - enough to believe, or even appear as if he believed, that he was more than a second-class citizen and had improved his prior station as ‘three-fifths of a person’ lived in mortal danger from the Beast of racism – a beast that was to prowl Florida for nearly a century.” Is that what Zimmerman saw when Martin dared to walk through that Sanford neighbourhood which Zimmerman seemed to consider his turf? Did Zimmerman consider Martin “uppity” or “three-fifths of a person” and thought killing him would carry no consequences? If so he was partly correct in his assumptions because he suffered no consequences except for a few inconvenient months of scrutiny while Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton will never again see or hold their child.

I have spent the last two weeks immersed in the Zimmerman trial for the second degree murder of Trayvon Benjamin Martin. Zimmerman was found not-guilty but definitely he is not innocent of the killing of Martin. Many questions remain in spite of the verdict rendered by the jury of five White women and one Hispanic woman. The choice of the jury members in itself was stunning and raised red flags for many of us who were watching or reading about the upcoming trial which to my mind was a travesty. How could the jury not understand that Zimmerman had no right to stop and question the 17 year old African American who was walking to the home where he was visiting with his father? How could the jury not understand that Zimmerman who is not a member of any law enforcement organization put himself above the law and in direct counter to instructions (from the authorities) not to follow the African American youth did just that and ended up killing the child? Why could the members of the jury not empathise with the prosecutor’s appeal/question that: “Isn't that every child's worst nightmare, to be followed on the way home in the dark by a stranger? Isn't that every child's worst fear?" Why did that heartfelt appeal not resonate with those five mothers? Many people have asked why those six women (five of them mothers) could not put themselves in the place of a grieving mother who merely sought justice for her dead child killed by a vigilante Neighbourhood Watch volunteer. Maybe they could not because their children are not African American and the victim was. And this state of mind most likely goes back to that quote from Gilbert King’s Pulitzer Prize winning “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America” when he wrote: “In that horrid indifference to human suffering lay the legacy of another generation of white children, who, in turn, would, without conscience prolong the agony of an entire other race.”

The jury has been praised by the two White men who defended Zimmerman because they rendered a verdict favourable to their client. Zimmerman’s lawyers declared that Zimmerman at no point showed ill will, hatred or spite during his confrontation with Martin. They ignored the fact that Zimmerman killed the unarmed 17 year old. Don West one of Zimmerman’s lawyers said: “The prosecution of George Zimmerman was a disgrace.” However those two men did not stop there they vilified the prosecution and in one instance the African American community. Mark O’Mara declared that if his client was African American he would not have been charged. I had to wonder what world O’Mara was living in. Does he really think that if a 28 year old African American man had followed a 17 year old White male and shot and killed him he would not have been arrested? Zimmerman appointed himself judge, jury and executioner of an unarmed African American youth. Zimmerman violated the rules of what a Neighbourhood Watch volunteer should do which is observe (watch and listen) and call the police not act out as a vigilante and accost and kill someone after racially profiling that person.

All the evidence in the case pointed to the fact that there was a dead child who was unarmed when he was confronted and killed by a man armed with a gun. Zimmerman killed Martin and he has been freed. Zimmerman can again carry a concealed weapon. With Zimmerman’s acquittal, what message does this send? The verdict rendered by the jury seems to suggest that killing an unarmed African American has no consequences. Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin sat through the nightmare of listening to and watching the trial of the man who killed their child. They were dignified throughout that ordeal of the cameras capturing almost every moment of their grief as they heard two White men defend the indefensible and inexcusable actions of another who killed their unarmed child. They listened as their child’s terrified screams for help was played repeatedly. They listened as a doctor explained that their child suffered indescribable pain for possibly ten minutes as the blood drained from his heart until there was no life left in his body. Those two parents never verbalized their pain, their grief, their understandable anger as they sat through the testimony of dozens of witnesses.

Now this family (including Trayvon Martin’s older brother) is left with the memories of their loved one who is no longer with them and the fact that there has been no justice for Trayvon Martin in the Florida justice system.

DRAFT RIOTS NEW YORK JULY 11 - 1863

On Saturday July 11, 1863 the government of US President Abraham Lincoln initiated a policy of draft conscription for white males living in New York City. This was at the height of the American Civil War and followed the passage of the nation’s first military draft act in March 1863. In New York City the draft law allowed any of these white men to buy their way out of military service by paying a fee of $300 (approximately $5,500 in today’s money.) African Americans were exempted from the draft (African Americans voluntarily served throughout the Civil War) as they were not considered American citizens. Hundreds of thousands of African American men and women served in every section of the military during the Civil War. Harriet Tubman was one of the more famous names who served as a nurse and an undercover agent during that war. She is credited with leading the famous Combahee River expedition (June 2, 1863) which saved more than 700 enslaved Africans from chattel slavery when she led an expedition of 150 men in three gunboats “up the Combahee River, the object of the expedition being to take up the torpedoes placed by the rebels in the river, to destroy railroads and bridges, and to cut off supplies from the rebel troops.” On Friday, July 10, 1863 (ironically just 3 days before the murderous rampage against African Americans in New York City) on the front page of a Boston newspaper “The Commonwealth,” a report of the successful Combahee River Expedition appeared which read in part: “Col. Montgomery and his gallant band of 300 black soldiers, under the guidance of a black woman, dashed into the enemy’s country, struck a bold and effective blow, destroying millions of dollars worth of commissary stores, cotton and lordly dwellings, and striking terror into the heart of rebeldom, brought off near 800 slaves and thousands of dollars worth of property, without losing a man or receiving a scratch. It was a glorious consummation.”

Meanwhile in New York City the mostly Irish immigrant working class population was against the Civil War and by extension against the draft. They also resented the fact that African American men in New York City competed with them for jobs. Ignoring the fact that African American men living in New York City were the descendants of enslaved Africans (some of them had probably escaped slavery from others states and made their way to New York City) who had paid their dues in blood, sweat and tears and had a right to paid employment the Irish men refused to work alongside African American men. Not caring that their oppressors were other White men who owned the businesses in which they laboured the Irish immigrants (men and women) violently targeted African American men, women and children. The Conscription Act which was so hated by the Irish immigrants required all White males between the ages of 20 and 35 and all unmarried White men between 20 and 45 to serve in the military except if they paid the $300.00 dollars or could hire someone to serve in their stead. Obviously the enemies of those Whites who lived in poverty in New York City and could not afford to buy their way out of the draft were not African Americans but rich White people who could buy their way out of serving in the military. The racial violence did not begin with the Conscription/Draft Act but it was used by the White men and women in New York City to visit extreme brutality on African American men, women and children. Even before they had the excuse of being drafted into the military the Irish regularly attacked African Americans in New York City. In his 2002 published book “Ear Inn Virons: History of the New York City Landmark - James Brown House and West Soho Neighborhood” author Andrew Coe writes about an Irish gang called the “Spring Street Fencibles” who were known for “knocking down black females.” It is not clear if the Irish gang members were too cowardly to confront African American men or if the phrase “knocking down black females” has something more sinister to its meaning besides the brutality of “knocking down black females.”

On the first day of the draft Saturday, July 11, 1863 all seemed to be orderly as the implementation of the Conscription/Draft Law began in New York City. For 24 hours after (Sunday July 12) all was quiet but it was the lull before the storm. In the 2004 published book “In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863” author Leslie M. Harris writes: “On Saturday, July 11, 1863, the first lottery of the conscription law was held. For twenty-four hours the city remained quiet. On Monday, July 13, 1863, between 6 and 7 A.M., the five days of mayhem and bloodshed that would be known as the Civil War Draft Riots began. The rioters' targets initially included only military and governmental buildings, symbols of the unfairness of the draft. Mobs attacked only those individuals who interfered with their actions. But by afternoon of the first day, some of the rioters had turned to attacks on black people, and on things symbolic of black political, economic, and social power. Rioters attacked a black fruit vendor and a nine-year-old boy at the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street before moving to the Colored Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue between Forty-Third and Forty-Fourth Streets.” It seems that the White mob was envious of the 233 homeless and orphaned African American children housed in the “Colored Orphan Asylum” because at 4:00 p.m. on Monday July 13 on the first day of the riots they attacked the building. The White mob looted the building of “bedding, clothing, food, and other transportable articles” before setting the building on fire and watching it burn to the ground. http://history1800s.about.com/od/civilwar/ig/New-York-City-Draft-Riots/Burning-the-Orphan-s-Asylum.htm The firefighters (all White men) were apparently not able to save the building which was completely destroyed within 20 minutes. Harris writes in his “In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863” that: “John Decker, chief engineer of the fire department, was on hand, but firefighters were unable to save the building. The destruction took twenty minutes.”

The mostly Irish mob (there were some German immigrants in the mix) went on a five day rampage attacking and murdering African Americans and destroying their homes and businesses. Leslie M. Harris writes of the barbarity of the attacks in “In the Shadow of Slavery”: “In July 1863, white longshoremen took advantage of the chaos of the Draft Riots to attempt to remove all evidence of a black and interracial social life from area near the docks. Black men and black women were attacked, but the rioters singled out the men for special violence. On the waterfront, they hanged William Jones and then burned his body. White dock workers also beat and nearly drowned Charles Jackson, and they beat Jeremiah Robinson to death and threw his body in the river. Rioters also made a sport of mutilating the black men's bodies, sometimes sexually. A group of white men and boys mortally attacked black sailor William Williams—jumping on his chest, plunging a knife into him, smashing his body with stones—while a crowd of men, women, and children watched. None intervened, and when the mob was done with Williams, they cheered, pledging "vengeance on every nigger in New York." A white laborer, George Glass, rousted black coachman Abraham Franklin from his apartment and dragged him through the streets. A crowd gathered and hanged Franklin from a lamppost as they cheered for Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president. After the mob pulled Franklin's body from the lamppost, a sixteen-year-old Irish man, Patrick Butler, dragged the body through the streets by its genitals. Black men who tried to defend themselves fared no better. The crowds were pitiless. After James Costello shot at and fled from a white attacker, six white men beat, stomped, kicked, and stoned him before hanging him from a lamppost.”

In July 2013 there may not be an enactment of July 13-17, 1863 but African American men remain the target of white men whether they are wearing police uniforms in New York City practicing the infamous “stop and frisk” law or they are in Florida shooting unarmed teenagers under the infamous “stand your ground” law.

AFROFEST IN TORONTO 2013

It is that time of year again when we can experience Africa in Toronto by riding, walking, driving or taking the TTC to Woodbine Park. For more than two decades in early July, Queens Park was the place to experience African culture at Afrofest. For two days Queens Park was transformed into an African meeting place. The festival was moved to Woodbine Park last year and “Afrofest 2013” is on July 6 and 7 as Music Africa presents its 25th Afrofest in Toronto. From 1:00p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on both days we can experience African culture, listen to African music, chat, dance, drum and eat. On their website Music Africa describes Afrofest as a: “celebration of African culture and diversity centered on the non-stop music and dance taking place on two outdoor stages as well as at the Drum Zone. Afrofest features world-renowned African music acts, as well as dozens of highly-rated African musical groups based in Canada. With a bustling African marketplace, food and craft vendors, artistic displays, a Children’s Creative Village, a drum area, music workshops, and organized fun and educational activities for youth and children, Afrofest provides guaranteed fun for the whole family.” This is an opportunity for those of us who were not born on the African continent to experience some of Africa in Toronto. Afrofest is a free event; however you will need money because there is much on sale to tempt you to buy something.

Over the years as I have attended Afrofest and immersed myself in the sights and sounds (the drumming, books, clothes and jewelry on sale and the camaraderie and goodwill of attendees) I usually think of how different the lives of Africans would be today if Europeans had not greedily descended on the African continent, enslaving and colonizing Africans (Ethiopia is the sole African country that was never colonized by a European tribe.) Without that period of slavery which affected generations of Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora our lives would not be affected by internalized racism. This blight where many of us view ourselves through European eyes is a direct result of the four hundred years enslavement of our ancestors.

The repercussions of European enslavement and colonization of Africans are felt in the 21st century. There are many of us who continue to suffer from what Dr. Joy DeGruy Leary describes as Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. In her 2005 published book “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome” Dr. DeGruy Leary describes Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS) as “a condition that exists when a population has experienced multigenerational trauma resulting from centuries of slavery and continues to experience oppression and institutionalized racism today. Added to this condition is a belief (real or imagined) that the benefits of the society in which they live are not accessible to them.” There are various manifestations of PTSS including self hatred and internalized racism where some of us apply harmful chemicals to bleach our skin. Based on the White supremacist culture in which we live the belief is that achieving a European “look” is the ideal. This can be attributed to our continued struggle to define ourselves without viewing ourselves through the eyes of White society. DeGruy Leary defines this as a legacy of slavery: “Today the legacy of slavery and oppression remains etched in our souls. The impacts of our history can be witnessed daily in our struggle to understand who and what we are, and in our jaundiced vision of who and what we can become. Taking on the negative stereotype as our identity; developing low expectations for ourselves, our families and our community; assuming that we will fail in most things that we set out to achieve; losing the critical respect for ourselves and thus diminishing others like us; perpetually trying to outrun the demon of shame by amassing material things in exchange for our dignity; forgetting how to love ourselves and each other: These are some of the ways the vacant esteem of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome is manifested today."

The many centuries of European enslavement and dispersal of Africans and the subsequent carving up of the continent has done untold harm to Africa and Africans. The young and productive members of various African communities were kidnapped and scattered to provide coerced, unpaid labour that enriched Europe, Europeans and their descendants in the Americas and elsewhere. Guyanese historian Dr. Walter Rodney in his 1973 published “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” states: “The massive loss to the African labour force was made more critical because it was composed of able-bodied young men and young women. Slave buyers preferred their victims between the ages of 15 and 35, and preferably in the early twenties; the sex ratio being about two men to one woman. Europeans often accepted younger children, but rarely any older person. They shipped the most healthy wherever possible, taking the trouble to get those who had already survived an attack of smallpox, and who were therefore immune from further attacks of that disease, which was then one of the world’s great killer diseases.”

While African communities were devastated by the attacks, Europeans in contrast could concentrate on inventions that would make their conquest of Africa that much easier. Rodney addressed this in “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” when he wrote: “the same technological changes which created the need to penetrate Africa also created the power to conquer Africa. The firearms of the imperialist epoch marked a qualitative leap forward. Breech loading rifles and machine guns were a far cry from the smooth-bored muzzle loaders and flintlocks of the previous era. European imperialists in Africa boasted that what counted was the fact that they had the Maxim machine gun and Africans did not.”

The inhumane slavery to which Africans were subjected is sometimes trivialized when people speak about working for “slave wages” or describe working conditions as “slave labour.” Granted that there are various sectors of workers who are exploited, their experiences cannot and should not be likened to the horror that Africans experienced during the enslavement period where they were bought and sold, their children were sold away from them, they were denied even the very basic human rights. Enslaved Africans were denied the right to speak their language, practice their religions and beliefs and name themselves and their children. Many were beaten to death and even worked to death and their “owners” were never held accountable.

Even though European enslavement of Africans on the continent was not on the same scale as the enslavement of Africans in the Americas, Africans on the continent did not fare much better. Africans colonized by Europeans continue to suffer as the Europeans never completely surrendered their stranglehold on their former colonies even after “independence.” Today there is a new scramble for Africa with powerful corporations operating in mineral rich African countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC.) The ghost of Leopold (the Belgian monarch who visited unspeakably vile abuse on the Congolese from 1884 to 1908) is alive and well in the form of international mining companies that have been accused of fomenting war to exploit the Congolese people and gain control of minerals like coltan or columbite-tantalite (an essential part of our cell phones, DVD players etc.,)

There is great irony in the similarities between what happened to our ancestors during slavery and what is happening to the Congolese today. During the enslavement of our ancestors Europeans did not think about the suffering of enslaved Africans as they spooned sugar into their tea every morning. Similarly, most of us while using our cell phones, DVD players, computers, flat screen televisions and other electronic equipment, do not think about the people who are displaced, killed, raped and maimed as the war for coltan rages.

For two days this weekend many of us will hike down to Woodbine Park to socialize, dance, eat etc., in an atmosphere of African culture. As we enjoy the great summer weather this weekend at Afrofest imagine the lives Africans would live now if there had been no enslavement or colonization of Africa and Africans. What if those tens or hundreds of millions in their most productive years had not been removed from the African continent over a period of half a millennium? As Africans from an extremely rich continent (whose riches are continually looted by others) we would be on an equal footing with people from other continents with the accompanying respect. We would not have to deal with racial profiling by the descendants of those who enslaved our ancestors and colonized the African continent. This is a daily reality for many in our community. Gathering and celebrating our culture helps many of us cope with racial profiling. Dr. De Gruy Leary suggests: "Telling our stories can be redemptive. Telling our stories can free us. Telling our stories can help lift others up. I believe an integral part of racial socialization is learning the histories of those in our family and community. Story telling is an important part of our education; it strengthens us and helps us build resilience. It helps us put things in the proper perspective." Let us find time, place and space to gather, tell those stories and strategize!!