COUNTRY MUSIC WAS INFLUENCED BY AFRICAN MUSIC

COUNTRY MUSIC WAS INFLUENCED BY AFRICAN MUSIC Murphy Browne © May 10-2024 “I was wondering about our yesterdays, and starting digging through the rubble and to say, at least somebody went through a hell of a lot of trouble to make sure that when we looked things up we wouldn't fare too well and that we would come up with totally unreliable portraits of ourselves. But I compiled what few facts I could, I mean, such as they are to see if we could shed a little bit of light and this is what I got so far: First, white folks discovered Africa and they claimed it fair and square. Cecil Rhodes couldn't have been robbing nobody 'cause he said there was nobody there.” Excerpt from Black History/The World by Gil Scott-Heron In 1980, African American jazz poet, singer, musician, author and spoken-word artist Gilbert Scott-Heron released “Black History/The World” on the album: “Moving Target.” Gil Scott-Heron deconstructed colonialism, racism, and African history as told and documented by people who were not African. Those “historians” told their version of our story. In “Black History/The World,” Gil Scot Heron illuminated the African proverb: “Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.” Similarly, until the Africans from the African continent and in the Diaspora began documenting their own stories, everyone else told and wrote their version of African stories. Gilbert Scott-Heron wrote and performed “Black History/The World” in 1980. In 2024, several decades later some people who do not know the African stories are telling their version. I was reminded of Gil Scott-Heron’s “Black History/The World,” when I read about Asa Blanton, a white Indiana State University nursing student who said Beyoncé is "not country" because Beyoncé is not white. Blanton said in a video shared on TikTok: “I’m sorry, but if you’re Black, you’re not country. I don’t care, I wish I meant that in the nicest way, but babe, I know you were raised in the country or your grandparents were … but they was picking, OK? They wasn’t planting. Just keep that in mind. They wasn’t making money. They were getting sold for money. You ain’t country.” Asa Blanton and many others like her do not know of the historical African influence on country music, even during the enslavement of Africans. "In reality, just like most popular music genres, country music in the U.S. began with Black People.” The story of country music begins with the banjo. The modern-day banjo is a descendant of a West African instrument, made from gourds, called the Akonting. When Africans were taken from Africa and enslaved in America, the knowledge of making their instruments were with them. Enslaved Africans created their own music, hymns, spirituals, and field songs—all with roots in African music. The banjo was seen as an exclusively African American instrument. White people did not play the banjo during that time. In the 1850s, minstrel shows became popular with the racist satirical form of entertainment where white performers in Blackface mockingly used the banjo as a musical instrument as they imitated the music and dance of enslaved Africans. The minstrel shows brought the banjo to white audiences and gave rise to hillbilly music during the 1920s. Hillbilly music was renamed country and was claimed as the music of the south. The performers drew inspiration from slave spirituals, field songs, hymns, and the blues, which were African American music. In the 1920s and 30s, despite segregation, some white hillbilly performers collaborated with African American artists to record music. Patrick Huber, a White history professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology acknowledges, “Nearly 50 African-American singers and musicians appeared on commercial hillbilly records between those years — because the music was not a white agrarian tradition, but a fluid phenomenon passed back and forth between the races.” In 1778, James A. Bland, an African American from New York wrote “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” which became the official state song of Virginia in 1940. An African American minister wrote a hymn “When the World is On Fire.” That hymn became a 1928 hit “Little Darling, Pal of Mine” by “The Carter Family,” a White family of musicians. That song inspired “This Land is Your Land” sung by White performer, Woody Guthrie. In Nova Scotia Canada on May 12, 1785, under the heading "Negro Frolicks" Prohibited: “Officials in Nova Scotia ordered "50 Handbills [to] be immediately printed forbidding Negro Dances & Negro Frolicks in [the] town of Shelburne." “Libya and Egypt used to be in Africa, but they've been moved to the 'middle east'. There are examples galore I assure you, but if interpreting was left up to me I'd be sure every time folks knew this version wasn't mine which is why it is called 'His story.'” Excerpt from Black History/The World by Gil Scott-Heron Murphy Browne © May 10-2024

TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE MAY 20-1743

Murphy Browne © May 20-2023 TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE MAY 20-1743 I send you with this letter a declaration which will acquaint you with the unity that exists between the proprietors of San Domingo who are in France, those in the United States, and those who serve under the English banner. You will see there a resolution, unequivocal and carefully constructed, for the restoration of slavery; you will see there that their determination to succeed has led them to envelop themselves in the mantle of liberty in order to strike it more deadly blows. You will see that they are counting heavily on my complacency in lending myself to their perfidious views by my fear for my children. It is not astonishing that these men who sacrifice their country to their interests are unable to conceive how many sacrifices a true love of country can support in a better father than they, since I unhesitatingly base the happiness of my children on that of my country, which they and they alone wish to destroy. Blind as they are! They cannot see how this odious conduct on their part can become the signal of new disasters and irreparable misfortunes, and that far from making them regain what in their eyes liberty for all has made them lose, they expose themselves to a total ruin and the colony to its inevitable destruction. Do they think that men who have been able to enjoy the blessing of liberty will calmly see it snatched away? They supported their chains only so long as they did not know any condition of life more happy than that of slavery. But to-day when they have left it, if they had a thousand lives they would sacrifice them all rather than be forced into slavery again. Excerpt from Toussaint L’Ouverture’s Letter to the Directory, November 5, 1797, published in The Black Jacobins by C. L. R. James 1963 François Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture was an enslaved African born on May 20, 1743, two hundred and eighty years ago, on the Caribbean island of Saint Domingue (Haiti.) He is recognized as one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution. The Africans who were enslaved in Haiti by a group of French men and women are the only group of Africans who seized and maintained their freedom from chattel slavery. They declared their independence on January 1, 1804, after years of armed struggle against European forces beginning in August 1891. L’Ouverture chose his last name sometime in 1793. He used the last name L’Ouverture for the first time when he wrote a letter dated August 29, 1793, in which he encouraged enslaved Africans to unite: “Brothers and friends, I am Toussaint Louverture; perhaps my name has made itself known to you. I have undertaken vengeance. I want Liberty and Equality to reign in St Domingue. I am working to make that happen. Unite yourselves to us, brothers, and fight with us for the same cause. Your very humble and obedient servant, Toussaint L'Ouverture.” He had carried the last name Breda at birth because like enslaved Africans everywhere he was given the name of his enslavers. His enslavers owned the Breda plantation where he was born. In 1797 when he wrote his Letter to the Directory L’Ouverture was 54 years old and had been free for about 4 years. For a man who had been enslaved for most of his life it was an extraordinary achievement to be able to read and write. In every society where Africans were enslaved by White men and women literacy was not encouraged for the enslaved Africans and in some places (USA) being literate was a death sentence for an enslaved African. L’Ouverture’s letter referred to the people who were determined to re-enslave the Africans in Haiti who had been freed by the French Revolutionary government on February 4, 1794. This declaration on paper that the enslaved Africans on plantations owned by French men and women were free did not happen because White people suddenly had an epiphany that enslaving other humans was wrong. They were forced to declare an abolition of slavery because the Africans in Haiti had seized their freedom three years earlier in 1791. In 1789 when the revolutionaries in France proclaimed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen they did not care about the freedom or rights of enslaved Africans whose coerced labour made France one of the richest European countries of the time. Haiti was France’s Pearl of the Antilles. The late African Guyanese scholar and historian Walter Rodney in his 1973 published book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa included a quote from a presentation made in 1791 by Cardinal Maury, a member of the French National Assembly who urged the French National Assembly to maintain slavery in the French colonies: “If you were to lose each year more than 200 million livres that you now get from your colonies; if you had not the exclusive trade with your colonies to feed your manufactures, to maintain your navy, to keep your agriculture going, to repay for your imports, to provide for your luxury needs, to advantageously balance your trade with Europe and Asia, then I say it clearly, the kingdom would be irretrievably lost. Bishop Maury (of France): Argument against France’s ending the slave trade and giving freedom to its slave colonies. Presented in the French National Assembly, 1791.” The French Revolutionary government seized power from the French monarchy and the aristocracy and declared France a republic in September 1792, murdering their king the following year. After a blood bath popularly known as the Reign of Terror (September 5, 1793 – July 28, 1794) where French men and women marched their fellow citizens to the guillotine to be slaughtered by the tens of thousands, the bloodthirsty citizens settled down and turned their attention once again to the colonies. With the fighting and killing in France, White people did not have time to take care of business in the colonies, but they had no intention of losing all that unpaid labour that was provided by Africans. After dispatching tens of thousands of their tribe via the guillotine the French led by a Corsican (Napoleon Bonaparte) once more turned their covetous eyes to the riches of Haiti. Bonaparte drunk with power after defeating much of Europe declared himself Emperor of France even though he was not French. He then tried to retake Haiti from the Africans who had taken their freedom and established their independence as a nation. The French had reneged on their declaration of freedom for enslaved Africans and had re-enslaved Africans in their colonies. Under Napoleon’s rule the French passed a law on May 20, 1802, revoking the law passed on February 4, 1794, which had abolished slavery in the French colonies. On June 7, 1802, Bonaparte’s general LeClerc captured L’Ouverture after deceiving him by inviting him to a meeting with an offering to negotiate. Le Clerc realizing that he could not defeat the Africans led by L’Ouverture pretended to be willing to negotiate with L’Overture as the leader of his people. On June 15, 1802, the kidnapped L’Overture and his family were transported to France on board the French ship Le Heros. On his arrival in France L’Overture was imprisoned and on April 7, 1803, he transitioned to the ancestor realm, a victim of his belief in the non-existent honour of Bonaparte and the French. In 2023, the name Toussaint L’Ouverture is well known as Haiti’s liberator. Toussaint L’Ouverture was born 280 years ago on May 20, 1743. Murphy Browne © May 20-2023

JOSIAH HENSON AND NANCY HENSON OCTOBER 28-1830

Murphy Browne © October 26, 2021 “I was born June 15th, 1789, in Charles County, Maryland, on a farm belonging to Mr. Francis N, about a mile from Port Tobacco. My mother was the property of Dr. Josiah McP, but was hired by Mr. N to whom my father belonged. The only incident I can remember which occurred while my mother continued on Mr. N's farm, was the appearance one day of my father with his head bloody and his back lacerated.” From The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself by Josiah Henson published 1849. Josiah Henson was an enslaved African man who fled slavery in the USA and arrived in Canada 191 years ago, on October 28, 1830. Henson with his wife and four children arrived in Canada four years before slavery was abolished in Canada on August 1, 1834. In his 1849 published Narrative about his life, Henson documented the horror of living as an enslaved African man, including his only memory of his father (Henson was 3 or 4 years old) who was maimed as punishment for defending his wife against a White rapist. “His right ear was cut off close to his head and he had received a hundred lashes on his back. He had beaten the overseer for a brutal assault on my mother and this was his punishment. And though it was all a mystery to me at the age of three or four years, it was explained at a later period, and I understood that he had been suffering the cruel penalty of the Maryland law for beating a white man.” Henson would later describe in grim detail how his father was punished. “The day for the execution of the penalty was appointed. The Negroes from the neighboring plantations were summoned, for their moral improvement, to witness the scene. A powerful blacksmith named Hewes laid on the stripes. Fifty were given, during which the cries of my father might be heard a mile, and then a pause ensued. True, he had struck a white man, but as valuable property he must not be damaged. Judicious men felt his pulse. Oh! he could stand the whole. Again and again the thong fell on his lacerated back. His cries grew fainter and fainter, till a feeble groan was the only response to his final blows. His head was then thrust against the post, and his right ear fastened to it with a tack; a swift pass of a knife, and the bleeding member was left sticking to the place.” Henson’s father was eventually sold and he never saw his father again. Describing the last time he saw his father, Henson remembered “He was beside himself with mingled rage and suffering.” Henson could not remember much about his father before the horrific maiming, but he later learned that “Previous to this affair my father, from all I can learn, had been a good- humored and light- hearted man, the ringleader in all fun at corn- huskings and Christmas buffoonery. His banjo was the life of the farm, and all night long at a merry- making would he play on it while the other Negroes danced. But from this hour he became utterly changed. Sullen, morose, and dogged, nothing could be done with him. The milk of human kindness in his heart was turned to gall. He brooded over his wrongs. No fear or threats of being sold to the far south- - the greatest of all terrors to the Maryland slave- - would render him tractable. So off he was sent to Alabama. What was his fate neither my mother nor I have ever learned.” Years later Henson detailed the reason his father had been brutally punished, maimed and then sold away from his family. “The explanation I picked up from the conversation of others only partially explained the matter to my mind; but as I grew older I understood it all. It seemed the overseer had sent my mother away from the other field hands to a retired place, and after trying persuasion in vain, had resorted to force to accomplish a brutal purpose. Her screams aroused my father at his distant work, and running up, he found his wife struggling with the man. Furious at the sight, he sprung upon him like a tiger. In a moment the overseer was down, and, mastered by rage, my father would have killed him but for the entreaties of my mother, and the overseer's own promise that nothing should ever be said of the matter. The promise was kept- - like most promises of the cowardly and debased- - as long as the danger lasted.” While Henson was still a small child his enslaver Dr. Josiah McPherson, died and Henson, his mother and siblings were sold at auction. “My brothers and sisters were bid off one by one while my mother holding my hand looked on in an agony of grief, the cause of which I but ill understood at first, but which dawned on my mind, with dreadful clearness as the sale proceeded.” Henson as a 5- or 6-year-old became so ill after his mother was sold that he was eventually sold to his mother’s new enslaver Isaac Riley, “at such a trifling rate that it could not be refused.” Henson married Nancy, an enslaved African woman when he was 22 years old and the couple eventually had 12 children. When Henson was 36 years old his enslaver Isaac Riley, the man to who Henson and his mother had been sold, found himself in financial difficulties and to hide his “assets,” persuaded Henson to take 18 enslaved Africans (including Henson, his wife and their children) from Maryland to his brother Amos Riley’s plantation in Kentucky. The group of 18 enslaved Africans led by Henson, left Maryland in February 1825. While passing through the free state of Ohio, "colored people gathered round us, and urged us with much importunity to remain with them." Henson refused to remain a free man in Ohio, considering that it was more important to keep the promise made to his enslaver than to free himself, his wife, his children and the other enslaved Africans. Years later, as a free man living in Canada, Henson lamented that decision "I have often had painful doubts as to the propriety of my carrying so many other individuals into slavery again, and my consoling reflection has been, that I acted as I thought at the time was best. In the 1973 published Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films African American film historian and author Donald Bogle writes: “Always as toms are chased, harassed, hounded, flogged, enslaved, and insulted, they keep the faith, n'er turn against their white massas, and remain hearty, submissive, stoic, generous, selfless, and oh-so-very kind. Thus they endear themselves to white audiences and emerge as heroes of sorts.” Josiah Henson eventually made the decision to flee from enslavement on the Isaac Riley plantation in Kentucky and arrived in Canada on October 28, 1830. Henson did not make the journey to freedom alone. He brought his wife and the four children that they had at time, to Canada. The Henson family travelled on foot by night and hid in the woods by day. After a long and dangerous six-week journey, the Hensons arrived in Upper Canada/Ontario on the morning of October 28, 1830. In 1830, (Upper Canada) Ontario had become a refuge for enslaved Africans (beginning in 1793) who had escaped from the United States, even though slavery was practiced in the province and throughout Canada until August 1, 1834. In 1793, Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe passed An Act to prevent the further introduction of Slaves, and limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude within this Province. That law was enacted because of the resistance of Chloe Cooley, an enslaved African woman in Upper Canada/Ontario. On March 14, 1793, Chloe Cooley, an enslaved African woman in Queenston, was beaten, bound, thrown in a boat and sold across the river to a new owner in the United States. Her screams and violent resistance was brought to the attention of Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe by Peter Martin, a free African man living in Canada who had been a soldier in Butler's Rangers, and had witnessed the outrage. Simcoe tried to abolish slavery in the province. He was met with opposition in the House of Assembly, some of whose members were enslavers. A compromise was reached and on July 9, 1793, An Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude within this Province was passed that prevented the further introduction of slaves into Upper Canada and allowed for the gradual abolition of slavery although no slaves already living in Upper Canada/Ontario were freed. It was the first legislation that limited slavery and led to a freedom movement of enslaved Africans from the USA, that became known as the Underground Railroad. The Act did not prevent the buying and selling of enslaved Africans in the province as evidenced by the infamous advertisement on February 10, 1806, where Peter Russell, a member of the House of Assembly was selling Peggy Pompadour and her 15-year-old son Jupiter. The legislation did not end slavery in Canada or even in Ontario, but it did prevent the importation of enslaved Africans. This meant that any enslaved African who fled slavery in the USA and arrived in Upper Canada/Ontario was free. When the Henson family arrived on October 28, 1830, others had already made Upper Canada/Ontario their home, including Black Loyalists from the American Revolution and many other freedom seekers from the War of 1812. Henson became a leader in the community. In 1841, Henson and a group of abolitionists bought 200 acres of land southwest of the Town of Dresden and established Dawn, an African Canadian community where other enslaved Africans who fled slavery in the USA could settle. At its height, the Dawn settlement had approximately 500 residents, but many members returned to the USA in the 1860s after slavery was abolished there. Henson chose to remain in Canada and he and his wife supposedly spent the remainder of their lives in the two-storey house which today is on the Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site in Dresden, Ontario. The site was acquired by the Ontario Heritage Trust in February 2005, ironically, 180 years after Henson began that ill-fated journey (February 1825) from Maryland to Kentucky. Henson transitioned to the ancestral realm on May 5, 1883, at almost 94 years old. Murphy Browne © October 26, 2021

AFRICAN HERITAGE MONTH 2021

AFRICAN HERITAGE MONTH 2021 Ninety-five years ago, during the second week of February 1926, African American scholar/historian, Carter Godwin Woodson launched "Negro History Week." Since 1976 it was expanded from a one-week recognition of African history to a one-month recognition. This one-month celebration/recognition of our history began in February 1926 when African American historian Carter Godwin Woodson took the initiative to educate Americans about the history and achievements of Africans. At that time, many Americans (and others) mistakenly thought that Africans had no history beyond enslavement and colonization by Europeans. This is not surprising because during the four hundred years enslavement of Africans, their white enslavers made a concerted effort to strip Africans of all memory of their culture, language and history. Using savagely brutal means, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMPFQo5V-lA) the slave holders succeeded in wiping almost all knowledge of African languages, culture and history from the memory of many enslaved Africans and their descendants. Vestiges of the languages, culture and history survived in fragments in every enslaved community. We managed to salvage remnants of our culture, languages and history in whatever European language we were forced to survive. Our African culture survived whether we were forced to speak English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, German or any other European language. In the lyrics of his song “Survival,” Bob Marley sang, “We're the survivors, like Daniel out of the lions’ den (Black survivors.)” Although you might hear someone grumble that “they” gave us the coldest month of the year, by now most of us know that the second week of February was chosen by Woodson in 1926 to honour Frederick Douglass who chose February 14 as his birthday. Douglass had to choose a birthday because like many enslaved Africans he had no written record of his date of birth. He did remember that his mother would refer to him as her “little Valentine” so he surmised he was born on February 14. In February schools, business places and community organizations usually plan at least one activity to acknowledge the history and culture of Africans. Most of these events are nothing more than an excuse to trot out some Africans in African attire, sample some African food, drum and dance. We need to ensure that any event in our schools or the places where we are employed do more than provide entertainment in recognition of the month. At the very least include the history of Africans in Canada with a display of books and posters. There are bookstores in the city owned by African Canadians where the owners are extremely knowledgeable about appropriate books for a display. During Black History Month, African Heritage Month/African Liberation Month (whatever we chose to name it as we exercise our Kujichagulia/Self-determination,) do more to spread the knowledge. Read a book about African history, read to your children, buy a book for your children or other people’s children. Starting now! Murphy Browne © February 2009 AFRICAN HERITAGE MONTH What's in a name? Shakespeare wrote that a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. He could afford to think, write and even say those words. He was a White male who had power and privilege bestowed on him because of the colour of his skin. His parents probably named him; he was not given a name by people from another culture who had stolen his name and language from him. For enslaved Africans who did not have a choice in naming themselves it is a very different matter. Europeans re-named us. Under pain of death we were not permitted to use our own names or speak our mother tongue. Africans in the Diaspora are the only group of people who do not collectively know who they are. There are individuals and groups who will acknowledge that they are African, but as a people we do not yet know and take pride in who we are. Other groups whose ancestors left their places of origin many years ago are proud of who they are. There is a reason for this difference in attitudes. Our ancestors did not choose to leave; they were kidnapped, dragged out of their countries, out of the continent in chains and held captive their entire lives. Were it not for the 400-year enslavement of Africans we would all know that we are Africans and our names would reflect this knowledge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUBdBaJA03Q Deliberate, strategic methods were used to alienate Africans from tradition and from each other, and to teach African inferiority and European superiority. Europeans first attacked African culture; then they denied that African culture ever existed. Stripped of their names and identities, our ancestors were no longer Africans; they were made "Negro" by White slavers. The names many of us carry today reflect the nationality of the Europeans who enslaved our ancestors. Had this not been the case, my great grandfather's name would not have been Kelly Murphy Jonas. His name would probably have been Kofi. Kofi is the Akan name given to a male born on Friday. My name would have been Abena, because I was born on Tuesday. My childhood friends Staye and Faye Daniels would probably have been Taiwo and Kehinde because they are twins. Taiwo and Kehinde are the Yoruba names given to twins. Africans in the Diaspora cannot claim one particular country as the country of their ancestors either; our history of enslavement with the accompanying destruction of family units makes it impossible. Since everyone has two biological parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents and so on, it is possible that one person can have ancestors from more than eight different African groups. European slavers knew that divided we were vulnerable. They designed a system to make us lose the basis of our collective identity. We were separated, and then our names, our language, our stories, our songs, our family structures, even our understanding of God -- the things that bound us together -- were beaten out of us. Then, they had to make us believe in, protect and even demand White supremacy. We had to be taught to love and revere Europe and European culture more than life itself. We were also taught that Africans had contributed nothing to the world. There has been continued African resistance to this attack on our sense of self since the first Africans were kidnapped and enslaved. There were always people who resisted. Some of these freedom fighters are well known; many others are not. In 1971, Richard B. Moore wrote in an "Open Letter on Our People's Name" to Bayard Rustin, Executive Director of the Asa Phillip Randolph Institute: "This term 'Negro' has long been a synonym for slave, loaded continuously with scorn and hostility, and still linked in the public mind generally with a vile and repulsive image." Born in Barbados on August 9, 1885, Moore moved to New York as a young man. In the 1960s he created the "Committee to present the truth about the Name Negro". He also published the book, The Name Negro, Its Origin and Evil Use, as part of his campaign to encourage Africans to reclaim their names. He made the connection between the use of the word "Negro" and the beginning of the African slave trade. He proved Europeans used it in their attempt to instill an inferiority complex within Africans. Moore died in Barbados in 1978, but his work and his words live on. Carter G. Woodson initiated the celebration of Negro History Week in February 1926. Woodson chose February to honour the memory of Frederick Douglass. At the time when Woodson started the recognition of African heritage and history as a public entity, African Americans still used the name they had been given by Europeans. During the 1960s and '70s the "Negroes" and "Coloureds" of the U.S. renamed themselves Black. It was the time of being "Black and Proud." In 1976, as part of the American bicentennial celebrations, "Negro History Week" became Black History Month. Since then, we have been expressing our kujichagulia (self-determination) by naming our celebration Black History Month, African Heritage Month or African Liberation Month. In Canada, the Canadian Negro Women's Association pioneered the celebration of Black history in the 1950s. The Ontario Black History Society was instrumental in the recognition of Black History Month as a citywide celebration in 1979. In 1993, the celebration gained province-wide recognition. In 1996, due to the intervention of MP Jean Augustine in December of 1995, Black History Month became a nationally recognized celebration in Canada. Whatever you are comfortable naming yourself, educate yourself about your history. Murphy Browne © February 2009

EL HAJJ MALIK EL SHABAZZ MAY 19-1925

Murphy Browne © May 19-2020 EL HAJJ MALIK EL SHABAZZ El Hajj Malik El Shabazz was born on May 19th, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska and transitioned to the ancestral realm on February 21st, 1965 in the Audubon Ballroom, Manhattan, New York. Shabazz was born into a home of Pan-African activist parents who as Garveyites adhered to the philosophy of the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Garvey, born in St Ann, Jamaica, was the leader of the Pan-African movement and founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL.) The philosophy of Garvey’s UNIA-ACL provided the blueprint for several African centred movements that served to educate Africans in the Diaspora about their history. Ilyasah Shabazz, daughter of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz who spoke at the University of Toronto (OISE) on Monday, February 4-2008, reminded us that her father’s parents met at a UNIA convention in Montreal. Ilyasah Shabazz, her parents’ third child, was almost three years old (born July 22, 1962) and her mother Dr. Betty Shabazz was pregnant with twins, Malaak and Malikah when El Hajj Malik El Shabazz was assassinated on February 21st, 1965. When Ossie Davis eulogized Shabazz on February 27th 1965; he said in part “Here - at this final hour, in this quiet place - Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest hopes -extinguished now, and gone from us forever. Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man - but a seed - which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us. And we will know him then for what he was and is - a Prince - our own black shining Prince! - who didn't hesitate to die, because he loved us so." Even though there were approximately 400 people in the Audubon Ballroom on the night of Shabazz’s assassination, there is still confusion about the identity of Shabazz’s assassins. () There has been speculation that the American government was involved, since the Shabazz family had been under constant surveillance by the CIA and FBI, including having their telephone wiretapped. Fifty-five years later, there are many unanswered questions about the role of the US government in the assassination of Shabazz. It has been reported that the carefully orchestrated “confusion” began when two men began loudly arguing with each other just moments after Shabazz stood at the podium to begin his speech on February 21st, 1965. As his body guards approached the two men there was another distraction when a smoke bomb was detonated at the back of the room. The assassins chose those moments of confusion to attack and when the smoke cleared another one of our freedom fighters was gone. In “Redemption song,” Bob Marley asks, “How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?” Today character assassination is more in line with the neo-conservative agenda of white supremacy in our midst. John Edgar Hoover, who was Director of the FBI in 1965 when Shabazz was assassinated, began his more than five decades (1917 to 1972) long career in the FBI by harassing the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Hoover hired his first “Negro” operative in the FBI to sabotage the work of the UNIA-ACL and destroy Garvey’s life. He continued his dedicated harassment of and quest to destroy African freedom fighters including Shabazz, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Black Panther Party, Paul Robeson and the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In the 1960’s at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Hoover is credited with writing an FBI memo that directed “We must stop the rise of a black messiah.” The white power structure was mightily afraid that the “Negroes” would rally around a charismatic leader like Shabazz who was forcing white America to realize that the group of people who they had oppressed for generations would not ask but would rise up and seize their civil and human rights. Hoover established the infamous COINTELPRO, the counter intelligence program of the FBI which was successful in sabotaging the work of individuals and groups that sought to end white supremacy in the USA and secure the civil and human rights and equality for racialised communities. The FBI did not pursue white supremacist groups or individuals that slaughtered African Americans and worked to deny racialized people their civil and human rights. Three African American men were convicted of assassinating Shabazz but there remain questions about the role of the FBI which fostered a climate of distrust in much of the African American activist community with surveillance, including bugs, wiretaps, cameras, spies and agent provocateurs. To the government of the USA, Shabazz was a danger because he planned to take a petition that documented human rights violations and acts of genocide against African Americans to the United Nations. Shabazz was assassinated on February 21st, 1965 but the work he did during his lifetime was not in vain. His advocacy, unswerving dedication to improving the life condition of Africans and internationalizing the human rights violations against Africans made him a target. Although Shabazz did not have the opportunity to present his case to the United Nations, a spark was lit. In the first decade of the 21st century, 36 years after Shabazz was assassinated, at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism (August 31st to September 7th 2001) the issue of slavery, racism and reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans was addressed. It was recognized that: “Africans and African Descendants share a common history shaped by the slave trade, slavery, conquest, colonization and apartheid, all of which constitute crimes against humanity, and a common experience of anti-Black racism. We acknowledge that people of African descent live all over the world, although in many instances they have been renamed, suppressed and marginalized. On every continent African and African Descendants continue to suffer from racism. We affirm that the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the enslavement of Africans and African Descendants was a crime against humanity and a unique tragedy in the history of humanity, and that its roots and bases were economic, institutional, systemic and transnational in dimension.” Since 2001 there have been several cases where Africans in the Diaspora have launched law suits (claiming reparations) against companies that were involved in the enslavement of Africans. The Reparations Coordinating Committee (RCC) and the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA), working on behalf of 35 million American descendants of enslaved Africans, was preparing to file class action lawsuits against agencies of the federal and state governments. Reparations litigation against private corporations alleged to have profited from slavery has already begun. On March 25, 2002, in a U.S. district court in Brooklyn, Deadria Farmer-Paellmann and other plaintiffs filed suit against Aetna Life Insurance Corporation, FleetBoston Financial Services, and CSX Incorporated, a railroad giant, on the grounds that they "knowingly benefited from a system that enslaved, tortured, starved and exploited human beings." In 2002, the Canadian National Railway was also one of those companies named by a group of African Americans who sued for reparations in a Federal Court in Chicago, Illinois. The plaintiffs led by Deadria Farmer-Paellmann demanded that a humanitarian trust fund be created rather than individual payments. In Canada, no lawsuits have been filed although the issue of African centred schools as part of reparations to address the anti-African racism that leads to the inordinately high number of our youth not graduating from secondary school, might be a good place to start. On December 18, 2009, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly proclaimed the year beginning on 1 January 2011 the International Year for People of African Descent (IYPAD). On December 23, 2013, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution that stated: “The International Decade for People of African Descent will take place from January 1, 2015, through Dec. 31, 2024, and will include celebrations throughout the world." On Monday, February 4th, 2008, Ilyasah Shabazz shared with us the importance of learning about our history, which her mother ensured was a part of the Shabazz children’s education. This is especially important since our history is distorted, marginalized or ignored in the Eurocentric education system. As we deal with the continued racism in the education system including acknowledgement of systemic racism at the Peel Board of education, () we need to remember the words of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, one of our greatest freedom fighters, and learn from that history as we strategically continue the struggle. Shabazz said: “A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation.” Shabazz would have been 95 years old today, May 19-2020 Murphy Browne © May 19-2020

KWANZAA 2019

Murphy Browne © December 19-2019 Someday at Christmas men won't be boys Playing with bombs like kids play with toys One warm December our hearts will see A world where men are free Someday at Christmas there'll be no wars When we have learned what Christmas is for When we have found what life's really worth There'll be peace on earth Someday all our dreams will come to be Someday in a world where men are free Maybe not in time for you and me But someday at Christmastime Someday at Christmas we'll see No hungry children, no empty hand One happy morning people will share Our world where people care Someday at Christmas there'll be no tears All men are equal and no men have fears Excerpt from “Someday at Christmas” by Stevie Wonder Many people will be celebrating Christmas and Kwanzaa in the next few weeks. While the celebration of Christmas has evolved over many centuries, the celebration of Kwanzaa is relatively new at 53 years old. The celebration of Christmas has been adapted and shaped by various communities and cultures. The Christmas tree (originally German) which is now an established part of Christmas celebrations was introduced and became popular in the former British Empire during the reign of Victoria. Early Germanic people decorated trees with fruit and candles in honour of the god, Odin as they celebrated the winter solstice. In 1846 an illustration of the British royal family, Victoria, her German husband Albert and their children appeared in the “Illustrated London News,” standing around a decorated Christmas tree. The fashion caught on not only in Britain and the British Empire but also in the United States of America. In many homes today, a decorated tree is an essential part of the Christmas celebration. In the Caribbean islands that were colonized by the British and in Guyana, South America, the Christmas celebrations were at first patterned after the colonizer. Later, the celebration became uniquely Caribbean, with decorations, food and music. This includes steel pan music as accompaniment to traditional Christmas carols, calypso, reggae and soca versions of the carols and even Caribbean composed songs to celebrate Christmas including the spirited and popular https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKnlQ6HCXKA “Drink a rum” by Lord Kitchener, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C_Ah-W_weE “Listen mama I want you to tell Santa Claus” by Nat Hepburn and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ztSuUb3aLg RAPAPAM Ruff & Reddy Band (Little Drummer Boy) Old Christmas Soca Parang. A Guyanese Christmas is not complete without a pepperpot (made with casareep) breakfast. While there are Christians who attend church on Christmas day, many others view the day as one in which to indulge in merry making. Christmas, many centuries old has moved from its supposed roots of the celebration of the birth of Christ, (many pagan rituals were included over the centuries.) The inclusion of mistletoe, the yule log, were all part of the winter solstice observances that were incorporated into celebrating Christmas. Even gift-giving has its roots in pagan rituals which were held during the winter solstice celebrations. Santa Claus is an established figure in the celebration of Christmas, with no connection to Christ. The jolly, white haired, bearded figure with the hearty laugh is mostly an American invention which was popularised by Coca-Cola in the 1930s to boost sales of their product. Kwanzaa at 53 years old is still true to its roots as a Pan-African seven-day celebration from December-26 to January-1. The creation of Kwanzaa served to reconnect African Americans to African culture and to celebrate family, community, history and culture. Kwanzaa is a celebration for all Africans regardless of their religion or country of birth. It is a time to celebrate our culture, learn about our history, recognize and honour African ancestors and traditions, spend time with family and friends and look to our future as a people. The Kwanzaa celebration inspired racial pride in African Americans who, like other Africans in the Diaspora had been brainwashed into thinking that European culture was superior. The values articulated in the seven Kwanzaa principles “Nguzo saba” resonate with Africans and the celebration which began with a few people in the USA in 1966 is now an international celebration. Kiswahili, the most widely spoken African language is used during the celebration of Kwanzaa which comes from "matunda ya kwanza" meaning "first fruits of the harvest.” The seven symbols on a Kwanzaa table are: the mkeka (mat,) the foundation on which the other symbols are placed, the kinara (candle holder) holds the mishumaa saba (seven candles,) the kikombe cha umoja (unity cup,) mazao (fruits and vegetables,) muhindi/vibunzi (corn) and zawadi (gifts.) To the greeting/question, “Habari gani?” the answer is the principle of the day. The Nguzo Saba (seven principles) are Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-Determination,) Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility,) Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity) and Imani (Faith.) Each principle is represented by a candle (mshumaa). The colours used during Kwanzaa (red, black and green) are the Pan-African colours chosen by the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. This includes the red, black and green bendera (flag.) Black represents the African people; red represents the blood that was shed in our struggle for freedom and green is the symbol of our future and the richness of the African continent. The first day of Kwanzaa is celebrated on December 26 when the first candle (the black candle) is lit to recognize Umoja/Unity. The second day of Kwanzaa is celebrated on December 27 when the first red candle nearest/next to the black is lit to recognize Kujichagulia/Self-Determination. The third day of Kwanzaa is celebrated on December 28 when the first green candle nearest/next to the black is lit to recognize Ujima/Collective Work & Responsibility. The fourth day of Kwanzaa is celebrated on December 29 when the second red candle is lit to recognize Ujamaa/Co-operative Economics. The fifth day of Kwanzaa is celebrated on December 30 when the second green candle is lit to recognize Nia/Purpose. The sixth day of Kwanzaa is celebrated on December 31 when the third/end/last red candle is lit to recognize Kuumba/Creativity. The seventh/final day of Kwanzaa is celebrated on January 1 when the third/end/last green candle is lit to recognize Imani/Faith. Kwanzaa yenu iwe na heri!! Happy Kwanzaa!! Whether you are celebrating Christmas, Kwanzaa or both, Kwanzaa yenu iwe na heri! May your Kwanzaa be happy! Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Murphy Browne © December 19-2019

AFRICAN JAMAICANS IN NOVA SCOTIA

Murphy Browne © July 21-2019 On July 21 and 22-1796, three ships docked at the Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia carrying between 550 and 600 African Jamaican men, women and children. The three ships, the Ann, the Dover and the Mary had sailed from Port Royal Harbour, Jamaica on June 26-1796, and arrived in Canada almost one month later in July 1796. The passengers on the three ships had been forced to leave their homes in Jamaica, by the colonizing British. The group known as “Maroons” were the descendants of enslaved Africans who had seized their freedom when the British ousted the Spanish from Jamaica in 1655. This group of freedom fighters whose ancestors had fled slavery when the Spanish were forced to flee Jamaica had been fighting to remain free of enslavement attempts by the British, for more than 100 years. The group repeatedly defeated the British attempts to capture and re-enslave them. The group of Africans who arrived in Nova Scotia in July 1796 were also known as the Jamaican Maroons. They were Africans whose ancestors had been enslaved by the Spanish before the British colonized the island. On May 10-1655, during the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604,) the British invaded the Spanish colonized island and the Spaniards fled leaving behind the Africans they had enslaved, who seized the opportunity to head for the mountains and freedom. The Africans who escaped from slavery on the island of Jamaica established free communities in the mountainous interior and waged battles with the British who tried to re-enslave them. The British, who invaded the island in 1655, also enslaved Africans to support their extensive development of sugar-cane plantations. The enslaved Africans in Jamaica continually resisted and some of them escaped from the British to join the Maroon communities established in the mountains. The armed conflicts between the British and the Africans led to the “First Maroon War” between the warring groups in 1728. The British were unsuccessful in defeating the Maroons because the Africans were fearless, fighting for their freedom and led by military tacticians who knew the lay of the land. The Africans, using guerrilla warfare in the densely forested area of the Cockpit Country were at a distinct advantage against the heavily armed and unsuitably dressed British. The war ended with signing of treaties between the British and the Maroons which not surprisingly benefitted the British, even though they did not win the war. The language of the signed treaties was written in English which gave the British colonizers a distinct advantage. In 1795 tensions between the Maroons of Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town) and the British erupted into the Second Maroon War. This second “Maroon War” which began in July 1795, lasted 8 months until March, 1796. Although the British with 5,000 troops and militia outnumbered the Maroons ten to one, the mountainous and forested area where the war was waged proved ideal for guerilla warfare. The British, however, with more fighting men than the Maroons, also had 100 bloodhounds and their handlers imported from Cuba. This gave the British a distinct advantage in many ways. The Cudjoe's Town/Trelawny Town) Maroons who were not supported by other Maroon communities in this war, decided to surrender rather than suffer a defeat. In March, 1796 the Maroons agreed to accept open discussions with the British. The British colonial governor in Jamaica had promised leniency if the Maroons surrendered. He reneged and instead, captured and deported (to Nova Scotia) the entire Cudjoe's Town/Trelawny Town Maroon community. These proud African Jamican freedom fighters who had managed to evade enslavement were forced to board three ships which sailed from Port Royal Harbour, Jamaica on June 26-1796, and arrived in Canada almost one month later on July 21 and 22-1796. The deported Maroons were unhappy with conditions in Canada, and in 1800, the majority left to travel to the British colony of Sierra Leone in West Africa. In 1800 they were back on the continent from where their ancestors had been kidnapped even though it was at that time (1800) a British colony. Some descendants of the Jamaican Maroon community remained in Nova Scotia. Some who were taken to Sierra Leone, returned to Jamaica. There were “Maroon” communities in every country where Africans were enslaved by Europeans including Brazil, Suriname and Mexico. In the English speaking Caribbean, the Jamaican Maroons are the most well known as we were taught about these freedom fighters at home and in school. Murphy Browne © July 21-2019