Black History Heroes

Rev. Glenwood Paris Roane Sr., Esquire

2012-01-05T18:57:00.000-08:00

Photo: Rev. Glenwood Paris Roane Sr., Esquire,
Pastor of Second Congregational United Church of Christ holds Bible,
with former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton and other Memphis elders to his left.

Rev. Glenwood Paris Roane Sr., Esquire, Pastor of Second Congregational United Church of Christ, departed this life on December 30, 2011, at the age of 81, following a long illness. He is survived by his devoted wife of 41 years, Lucie Porter Roane; a son, Glenwood P. Roane Jr.; two daughters, Dr. Karen Roane Jones (Dr. Mark) and Rosemary Ly Kallaur (Daniel); six grandchildren; two brothers, Gerald Roane (Barbara), and Russell Roane (Marie); a brother-in-law, Douglas T. Porter (Dr. Jean Butcher); and a host of nephews, nieces and cousins.

A native Virginian and the seventh of ten children, he was born to the late Ruby Richardson and James Randolph Roane in Westmoreland County VA. Glen graduated from A.T. Johnson High School and went on to receive a BS degree in Agronomy and was honored as a “Distinguished Military Graduate” from Virginia State University in 1952.

Image: Glenwood P. Roane,
Attorney at Law

He received his Juris Doctor from Howard University School of Law in 1957. He did graduate work at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University in 1970-71, and at Georgetown University in 1990. Glen loved the law and was a proud member of the bar in Washington, D.C., Virginia and Tennessee. He was a career Diplomat with the U.S. Department of State / U.S. Agency for International Development for 26 1/2 years. He served in Kenya, Egypt, Liberia, Ghana, Vietnam, and the Far East as a Foreign Service Officer. Throughout his distinguished career, he was the recipient of numerous awards.

He holds a life membership in the NAACP and a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. The family will receive friends on Friday, January 6, 2012, from 4-7 p.m. at Second Congregational United Church of Christ, 764 Walker Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee. The funeral service will be held on Saturday, January 7, at 11 a.m. at Metropolitan Baptist Church, 767 Walker Avenue. Burial will take place on Saturday, January 14, 2012 at Galilee Baptist Church, Montross, VA.

The family wishes to express sincere thanks for the care and support given by the staff on 3 West at Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown Hospital and Methodist Alliance Hospice Residence. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that memorial contributions be made to the “Building Fund” at Second Congregational United Church of Christ. Memorial Park Funeral Home, "Behind the stone wall", 901-767-8930. Condolences may be offered at www.MemorialParkOnline.com.

Submitted by attorney Roane's former law clerk and associate, Vanessa M. Cross, J.D., LL.M.

THE DOGON: From the Nile Valley of East Africa to the Kingdom of Mali in West Africa

2011-10-12T12:38:00.000-07:00

The Dogon of Africa.

The Dogon, an ancient people in Africa, are mainly populated in the modern nations of Mali and Burkino Faso in West Africa, the epicenter of the historical medieval Mali Empire. When western anthropologists first began to study Dogon culture they were baffled at the group's advanced knowledge of the universe. They were specifically astonished at their intricate understanding of the Sirius planetary system (Alpha Canis Majoris).

Historical commentators believe that the Dogon's cosmological lore goes back thousands of years to at least 3200 BC, during the pre-dynastic age of ancient Egypt. The Dogon's oral history also includes an eastern migration story. The Dogon are recorded to have settled in the Bandiagara Plateau, at the Southern edge of the Sahara desert between the 13th and 16th centuries.

Dogon Astronomy and Cosmology

Sirius B circles Sirius A like the
Earth circles the Sun.

Sigi Tolo is the name the Dogon give to the distant star Sirius, also referred to as Sirius A. Po Tolo is the name given to its smaller companion star, Sirius B. According to French anthropologist Marcel Graiule, author of Conversations With Ogotemmeli, Dogon priests have kept a precise reading of the ebbs and flow of Canis Major planetary bodies. Cosmological and astronomical knowledge are both retained in every aspect of their communal lives. In the 1960s, when Graiule studied the Dogon, he found a social order void of murder and theft. It included an elder mediation process that resolved the disputes that did arise within Dogon communities, such as who has liability for damages when a man's goat destroys property belonging to his neighbor.

For thousands of years, Dogon social and cultural systems were designed to recall this knowledge that had been obtained without any known physical telescopes. From documentary footage about the Dogon, it appears that they dwell among the cliffs and use the peaks of mountain and hill tops to anchor and measure planetary movements, aided by our pattern of rotation around the sun.

Youth viewing Dogon rock drawings.

For the Dogon, patterns and symbols related to planetary knowledge is embedded in rituals, architecture, sand drawings, etc. The Dogon are aware that Po Tolo (Sirius B) has a 50-year elliptical orbit around the super dense Sigi Tolo (Sirius A). Knowledge of Sirius B was not discovered by western astronomers until 1970 when photographed by Irving Lindenblad of the U.S. Naval Observatory.

The Nile Valley and the Sirius Connection

Seen clearly in Africa, the Canis Major
is one of Orion's great hunting dogs
(See also Canis Minor).

The Kmt story of Osiris and Isis were developed and recalled by other Nile valley civilizations such as Nubia and Kush -- all of which identify the Sirius constellation system as the dog star (Canis Major), a manifestation of Anubu (aka Upuaut or "Opener of the Ways"; Greek: Anubis). In Nile valley creation stories, Anubu is a central actor. He is probably best known for his role in the battle between the brothers Set and Osiris. When Set disassembles the body of his brother Osiris, Isis reassembles the body pieces and delivers them to Anubu who performs embalming rites that bring Osiris back to life. Anubu is also associated with Osiris as his son -- making him the brother of Horus.

Anubu is also known within Nile valley civilization populations as the one who protects and guides the spirits of the dead across the waters (Nun) of the underworld (Duat or the Hall of Two Truths). Anubu reigned over the process of mummification and embalming, leading the souls of the dead to the Hall of Two Truths for the declaration of the 42 Laws of Maat and the weighing of the heart by the goddess of law and justice, Maat.

Ancient image representing Anubu (greek: Anubis).

Image: Ancient Kmt image representing Anubu / Anubis (right).

Nommo Cosmology and the Dogon Creation Story

An unusual graffiti photographed by Scotch Mist in
Edinburgh, Scotland (Creative Commons/Flickr).

The Dogon's creation story has its origin on Po Tolo (Sirius B). According to the Dogon, Nommo came from the Sirius star system,, which is some 8.7 light years away but still bright in our night sky. According to the creation story, the Nommo traveled to Earth by ark and, upon arrival, morphed into the eight mythical human ancestors -- 4 male and 4 female (See also Tehuti (aka Thoth), Ogdoad, Rebirth, Golden Age). Over time, the first human ancestors mated and birthed all of humanity. Even today, the Dogon pray to Nommo for rain, a prayer they say was taught to them by the Nommo. The Dogon rain dance is similar to that of the Native American and involve raising of hands, chanting and making offerings.

Susana Baca: Ambassador of Afro-Peruvian Music Becomes Peru's First Black Cabinet Minister

2011-10-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

Photo: Peru's Cultural Minister Susana Baca.
Creative Commons/Wikipedia

In July 2011, Susana Baca accepted Peru's President Ollanta Humala's invitation to join his administration to become the first Peruvian cabinet minister of African descent. On accepting the post of cultural minister, Baca says that one of her goals is to combat discrimination against Peru's African and indigenous populations.

"I am the symbol of inclusion," said Baca to school students in her hometown of San Luis de Canete, reported the Associated Press. "I don't hate the people who segregated us, who punished us, who hurt us. I just don't want anyone else in our country to go through what I did."

Baca has an approval rating of 62 percent in Peru, making her the country's most popular cabinet minister, according to an 2011 Ipsos Apoyo poll. Baca is best known as a musical performer and musical anthropologist of Afro-Peruvian music. She is also known as an out-spoken advocate for human rights and equality for decades.

Africans in Peru

In 1527, Africans arrived in the modern nation of Peru as a result of the European slave trade to the west coast of Latin America. (But see also Olmec). Spain financed the establishment of sugar cane plantations using slave labor in the river valley region of San Luis de Canete. It was more than 300 years later, in 1854, that Peru finally abolished slavery in the region. San Luis de Canete continued as a booming mill town.

Today, approximately 10 percent of Peru's 29 million people are of African descent, many of which have migrated to cities such as Lima for work opportunities, as reported by The World Summit of Afro-Descendants. At one point in its history, the capital of Lima was considered a majority Black capital because its citizens were approximately 40 percent of African descent.

According to the World Summit's report, Africans in Peru have a high rate of joblessness and work in low-income sectors. Baca is among the 2 percent of Afro-Peruvians who have earned a post-secondary education. Her work through the Peruvian government may have a favorable impact on laws and policies impacting African and indigenous people in the country.

In August 2011, The World Summit of Afro-Descendants conference was held at the National University of La Ceiba in Honoduras, sponsored in part by the United Nations, to examine the African diaspora -- including the estimated 150 to 200 million Latin Americans of African descent.

References: African Diplomacy: World Summit of African Descendants in Honduras Demands Reparations; Associated Press; Peru's First Black Minister: Barefoot Singer; Frank Bajak; Sept. 2011

African Nova Scotian: Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia

2011-09-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

BLACK CULTURAL CENTRE FOR NOVA SCOTIA -- If you find yourself in Nova Scotia, make sure you visit the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia. On December 17, 2011, the Black Cultural Centre will host its Annual Christmas Concert.

Location: 10 Cherrybrook Road, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
Phone: (902) 434-6223 or (800) 465-0767
Fax: (902) 465-0767
Website: bccns.com
Hours of Operation: Open year-around: Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.; Saturday, 10:00 a.m. - 3 p.m., June-September
Admission: Adults $6, seniors & students $4, family $20.

Photo: Portrait of a Nova Scotian of African descent attributed
to Lady Falkland, 1845. Source: Library and Archives Canada

The Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia recently completed its 2011 Museum Renovation Initiative. Located in the oldest Black community in the Halifx metro area, the center includes exhibit rooms, auditorium, library, picnic area and a gift shop. The center's staff also offers bus tours of the local history of blacks in Nova Scotia, dating back to the 1600s. Programs highlight themes related to community life, religious life, military service and migration.

From Nova Scotia, Canada to Sierra Leone, Africa

In addition to the Black Cultural Centre's resources, the local government has also digitized select records of African settlement patterns in Nova Scotia and made them available through a searchable online archive.

The digitized documents available from the Nova Scotia government were originally assembled by the late Records Commission, T.B. Akins, around the theme "Refugee Negroes". Spanning from 1791-1839, the earliest documents relate to the emigration of 1200 free Africans in the eastern region of Canada to Sierra Leone. The group of Africans who left Nova Scotia originally immigrated after the American Revolutionary War, in 1783, as part of the British Loyalist migration.

The documents available from these government archives are great for African diaspora genealogist because they include the individual names of African refugees from the passenger lists of British ships landing at Beechville, Hammonds Plains, Preston and other locations. Documents also include correspondence and petitions to the government by white Nova Scotian citizens expressing concern for the difficult conditions faced by the African refugees.

Black Nova Scotian Refugees from the War of 1812

The Canadian digital archives also include information regarding the settlement of 2000 African refugees in Nova Scotia from September 1813 to August 1815. This migration was a direct result of the British military's War of 1812 proclamation that offered Americans who deserted to the British side free settlement in any of the British colonies if the efforts were unsuccessful.

Unlike the early emigrants to Sierra Leone, the African refugees of the War of 1812 remained, in great part, in Nova Scotia. In 1820, the British colonial government offered to emigrate them to Trinidad. Archive records indicate that 95 Africans chose to leave for Trinidad. The record also indicates that others feared migrating to Trinidad would lead to a return to slavery.

Searchable archive records of African settlement in the Nova Scotia and emigration to West Africa and the Caribbean are at Nova Scotia Archives, available HERE.

Here's a sample of the youth music out of Nova Scotia.

Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter. - African Proverb

Dr. Wangari Maathai: African Environmentalist and Nobel Laureate

2011-09-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

Photo: Dr. Wangari Maathai. Creative Commons: Center for Neighborhood Technology/Flickr

Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai died September 25, 2011. The first African woman and environmentalist bestowed with the Nobel Peace Prize was described by Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a leading voice in Africa. "Professor Maathai introduced the idea of women planting trees in Kenya to reduce poverty and conserve the environment," said the Archbishop in an official statement. Founder of the Green Belt Movement, Dr. Maathai mobilized women to plant more than 40 million trees in Africa, championed environmental sustainability as a direct link to human sustainability and a tool against poverty.

"[Maathai] will be remembered as a committed champion of the environment, sustainable development, womens' rights, and democracy," stated former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Atta Annan. "Her contribution to all these causes will forever be celebrated and honored."

"Rest in peace Dr. Wangari Maathai. A great woman, an inspiration for many women across Africa, a magnificent visionary and embodiment of courage," stated Tanzania's President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete from his Twitter account.

Early Life in Kenya in East Africa

On April 1, 1940, Wangari Muta was born to Muta Njugi, her father, and Wanjiru Kibicho, her mother -- a Kikuyu farming family from the Nyeri District of Kenya, in the village of Ihithe. She is noted as saying that her parents gave her an early respect for the soil and its bounty. Her first formal studies in Kenya began at the age of eight at the Ihithe Primary School and late at St. Cecilia's Intermediate Primary School in Nyeri and Loreto High School Limuru.

In 1959, at the end of British rule in East Africa, Maathi left Kenya to study in the U.S. at Benedictine College (then Mount St. Scholastica College) in the state of Kansas. Studying on scholarship, she earned a Bachelors of Science in 1964 and would go on to earn a Master's of Science in Biological Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. She would also later study at university in Germany.

Photo: Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai. Creative Commons/Wikipedia

In 1966, Maathai returned to Kenya where she was appointed research assistant to a zoology professor at University College of Nairobi and opened a family-run general store in Nairobi. In Kenya, she would marry Mwangi Mathai and have three children: Bangari Maathai, Sangari Maathai and Mangari Maathai. After an embattled divorce from Mathai, she succeeded in retaining the family name by adding an "a": Maathai.

In 1971, Maathai became the first Eastern African woman to earn a Ph.D. when she was awarded a Doctorate of Anatomy. She became a senior lecturer, associate professor and chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy at the University of Nairobi. It was at the university that Maathai began campaigning for equal benefits for women working at the university.

Green Belt Movement

To honor Nairobi's community leaders, the first "Green Belt" tree was planted in the city's Kamukunji park in 1977. Maathai encouraged Kenyan women to plant native tree nurseries throughout Kenya, agreeing to pay them stipends for each seedling found in a native forest and planted elsewhere.

Maathai became an active environmentalist, voice for women and for African self-sufficiency. In 2009, she authored the book "The Challenge for Africa." In the epilogue to her book, "Unbound: A Memoir", Dr. Maathai writes:

Trees have been an essential part of my life and have provided me with many lessons. Trees are living symbols of peace and hope. A tree has roots in the soil yet reaches to the sky. It tells us that in order to aspire we need to be grounded, and that no matter how high we go it is from our roots that we draw sustenance. It is a reminder to all of us who have had success that we cannot forget where we came from. It signifies that no matter how powerful we become in government or how many awards we receive, our power and strength and our ability to reach our goals depend on the people, those whose work remains unseen, who are the soil out of which we grow, the shoulders on which we stand.

Charles F. Bolden, Jr.: First African American NASA Administrator

2011-05-29T08:37:00.000-07:00

Photo of Charles F. Bolden Jr., NASA Administrator
(Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

In May 2009, Charles F. Bolden, Jr. (Major General, USMC Ret.) was appointed by U.S. President Barack Obama as the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the head post at the U.S. space exploration agency.

Born August 19, 1946 in Columbia, South Carolina to Charles Bolden, Sr., an educator and head H.S. football coach, and Ethel Bolden, an educator and librarian whose works included establishing libraries in Columbia's black elementary schools.

In 1964, Bolden graduated from C.A. Johnson High School. In 1968, he earned a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy, joining the U.S. Marine Corps the same year. In 1977, he earned a M.S. degree in Systems Management from the University of Southern California and two years later graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School.

The first black administrator of NASA, Bolden was inspired by the late Ronald E. McNair, the African American astronaut that died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986. "It was Ron who inspired me to submit my application to the space program," said Bolden to The State, a South Carolina homepage.

Photo of Major General Charles F. Bolden, Jr.

In 1980, Bolden was selected to join NASA as an astronaut. He traveled to orbit four times. He flew in four space shuttle missions, including piloting the Space Shuttle Columbia and deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope. Bolden served 34 years in the military before retiring in 2003 as the Commanding General of the Third Marine Aircraft Wing.

Bolden is married to the former Alexis "Jackie" Walker. They have two children, Kelly Michelle, a plastic surgeon, and Anthony Che, a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps.

Gaspar Yanga and Blacks in Mexico: 1570 African Slave Revolt in Veracruz

2011-05-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

Photo: Image of Statue of Gasper Yanga (aka El Yanga and Negro Yanga) of Yanga, Veracruz, Mexico

The heritage of Africans in Mexico after Christopher Columbus is a rarely explored topic in the history books of the Americas. Gasper Yanga is one of the neglected figures within African history in the Americas. He was the founder of the town Yanga, located in the Veracruz region of Mexico, between the Port of Veracruz and Córdoba. It is among the first free African settlements in the Americas after the start of the European slave trade.

While the available official reports regarding the history of Gasper Yanga is sorely lacking, local lore reports that Yanga escaped slavery from the region of the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion plantation in 1570. Regional lore also provides that Yanga was a prince stolen from a royal family of Gabon, Africa. The word "Yanga" has origins in many regions of West and Central Africa, including the Yoruba regions in Nigeria where the word means "pride".

Between 1570 and 1609, Yanga led his followers into the mountains located in the vicinity of Pico de Orizaba (Citlaltépetl, or "star mountain", the highest mountain in Mexico), the Cofre de Perote, Zongolica and Olmec regions. By 1600, it is reported that the Yanga maroon settlement, or palenques, was joined by Francisco de la Matosa and his group of African maroons. All of this occurred before the independence of Mexico from the Spanish crown.

Map of Yanga, Veracruz region along the eastern coast of Mexico

Yanga's early palenques would turn into decades-long resistance against colonial Spain. In 1609, Spain's viceroy of New Spain (the colonial name of Mexico) was Luis de Velasco, Marquis of Salinas. That year, Velasco sent Captain Pedro González on a military expedition against the Yanga palenques. The battle came to a head at the Rio Blanco and resulted in major losses on both sides. By 1631, viceroy of New Spain Rodrigo Pacheco began negotiations with the Gaspar Yanga resistance. Yanga struck an agreement with the colonial leader respecting Spain's recognition of an autonomous region for the African community. The first official name was San Lorenzo de los Negros (aka San Lorenzo de Cerralvo), near Córdova. Since 1932, the Mexican town has bore the name of its liberator Gasper Yanga.

''Yanga is important to the people of Mexico and America," said Gordillo Jaime Trujullo, who along with his wife Maria Dolores Flores promotes the town's history. "It is a great deal and has not been taken into account. This town is the birthplace of freedom. The most important legacy of black Yanga is freedom. Freedom is what we appreciate most in this community."

Like his birth, no definitive records are available regarding Yanga's date of death. There is said to be a great deal of information in the national archives of Mexico and the archives of Spain, according to historian and anthropologist Antonio García de León. The first information about Yanga arose in the second half of the nineteenth century by the historian and military-man Vicente Riva Palacio, grandson of Mexico's first black president, Vicente Guerrero.

Today, the town reportedly hosts the "Carnival of Negritude" every August 10th in honor of Gasper Yanga. The town reports approximately 20,000 citizens that is now primarily considered mestizo, Spanish for "mixed heritage".

The inscription under Gaspar Yanga's statue reads: "Negro Africano precusor de la libertao de los negros esclavos fundo este pueblo de san lorenzo de cerralvo (hoy yanga) por acordado del virrey de nueva espana Don Rodrigo Osorio Marzuez de cerralvo el dia tres de octubre del ano de 1631 por mandato del virrey trazo el pueblo el Capitan Hernando de Castro Espinosa H. Ayuntamento Constl. 1973-1976". English translation: African Black liberator and precursor of the black slaves who founded the town of San Lorenzo de Cerralvo (now Yanga) by agreement of the viceroy of New Spain, Rodrigo Pacheco, on the third day of October 1631 by order of the viceroy's pen.Village Captain Hernando of Castro Espinosa H. Ayuntamento Constl. 1973-1976."

Video footage of an African American exploratory group's trip to Yanga, Veracruz, Mexico

Reference: Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity, and Regional Development, by Patrick J. Carroll (2001)

Queen Ana de Sousa Nzinga Mbande of Ndongo (Angola)

2011-03-13T16:28:00.000-07:00

Image: Queen Nzinga of Angola (circa b: 1581 - d. Dec. 17, 1663)

A brief account of the life and times of one of the earliest recorded African warrior queens, Queen Nzinga (aka Nzinga; Dona Ana de Sousa; Ana de Souza; Zhinga; N'Zhinga; Jinga; Ngola Ana Nzinga Mbande), renowned for her strategic military tactics and political and diplomatic intelligence.

Born as Princess Nzinga among the Mbundu (Ambundu) group of the Ndongo Kingdom in the central west Africa region now known as Angola. Her father was Ngola Kilajua, the word 'Ngola' referring to the title of the ruling chief, which later developed into the national name for the region. Her mother reportedly had no blood ties to the royal family within the landed chieftain system. Nzinga had one brother, Ngola Mbandi, and two sisters, Kifunji and Mukambu. Though she resisted Portuguese colonial occupation of central west Africa for over four decades, she officially ruled Ndongo from 1624-1626 and 1657-1663.

The earliest European record of Nzinga was a report of her inclusion in her brother's envoy to an 1622 peace conference before the Portuguese's Luanda governor João Correia de Sousa. Luanda is an Atlantic coastal city, the largest city in Angola and the country's capital. An historical account of the conference includes the famous tale of Correia de Sousa's not offering Nzinga a chair, instead placing a floor mat before her to sit. In an 1690 book, the Italian priest Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi, in attendance at the court, memorialized the scene in an engraving whereby Nzinga asserts her status by sitting on the back of a maid servant within her royal envoy during the course of the negotiations.

Image: Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi, Istorica Descrizione de' Tre Regni Congo, Matamba, et Angola (Milan, 1690), p. 437 Cavazzi writes the Queen's name as 'Zingha'. (Copy in the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University)

Though a treaty was signed with the Portuguese at this peace conference it was never honored by them. They soon hired the Imbangala (aka Mbangala) to fight against the Ndongo Kingdom as they pushed to capture slaves to further their national slave trading export interests to the so-called New World. Prior to Nzinga's birth, the Portuguese had settled along the southern part of the Congo River and began moving up the Kwanza River Valley in search of slaves and gold. According to historical reports, the Imbangala in the 17th century mostly comprised bands of pillaging warriors native to this regions, founders of the kingdom of Kasanje. They aided the Portuguese colonial campaigns as early as those of Luis Mendes de Vasconcelos in 1618. The Imbangala's historical marauding customs were reportedly abandoned by the late seventeenth century.

Map: main region of military battles between Kingdom of Ndongo and Portuguese in Angola

The Mbundu tradition prohibited women rulers, so upon Nzinga's brother's death she became regent to his son Kiza, but soon convinced the Portuguese to support her bid to the throne. In 1622, she was baptized and took the Christian name Ana, the surname of the Luanda governor de Sousa and the Portuguese title Dona. Hence Princess Nzinga became known as Dona Ana de Sousa in a political move to help secure her succession to the Ndongo Kingdom throne.

The Portuguese began negotiating directly with Nzinga. The arrival of Fernão de Sousa in 1624 started with discussions with her, but because she was not submissive to the Portuguese ended with her ouster from Kidonga. That same year she is reported to refer to herself as "Rainha de Andongo" (Queen of Andongo). After the Portuguese ouster, Nzinga continued fighting against the Portguese while in exile. She fled east but reclaimed the island in 1627. She was again driven out by the Portuguese in 1629, the year her sister was captured by their military forces.

By 1641, Nzinga had entered into was is noted by commentors as the first African-European alliance against another European nations when she entered into negotiations with the Dutch. In 1646 her army defeated the Portuguese at Davanga, but her other sister was captured. By 1647 her alliance with the Dutch was fruitful in the seizure of Masangano from the Portuguese. In 1648 her army retreated to Matamba, a pre-colonial African Kingdom located in what is now the Baixa de Cassange region of Malanje Province of modern day Angola.

Photo: Statue of Queen Nzinga in Luanda, Angola on the Kinaxixi Square

In an 1657 speech, Queen Nzinga reportedly stated to her army that an alliance with the Imbangala was then a necessary evil in the military war against the Portuguese. In the same year, however, she signed a peace treaty with the Portuguese. She had fought against the their colonial and slave raiding attacks for decades. Queen Nzinga died on December 17, 1663 at the age of 80. Unfortunately, her death accelerated Portuguese colonial occupation, as well as their Atlanta slave trade activities in central west Africa.

Photo: modern day aerial view of Luanda, Angola

Abd al Rahman Ibrahima Ibn Sori: From Guinea to the Mississippi Delta

2011-03-07T14:04:00.000-08:00

Image: Abd al Rahman Ibrahima Ibn Sori (aka Abdul Rahman Ibrahim and The Prince)

(Born: 1762 - Died: 1829)

In 1762, Abd al Rahman Ibrahima Ibn Sori was born within a royal family, son of King Sori, in the village of Timbo in what is today known as the Republic of Guinea in the region of Fouta Djallon (aka Futa Jalon, lit. "the land of the Fulbe and Jalunke"). Ibrahima was born among the Fulbe (aka Fulani, Fula, Fullah, Foulah, sing. Poulas, Peul, Pullo) of the Timbo region. The Fulbe were primarily muslim cattle herders in this West African mountainous region where the Niger river rises and runs eastward. In fact, Guinea's mountains are the source of the Niger, Gambia and Senegal rivers, with its highest point at Mount Nimba.

Today the cool, mountainous Fouta Djallon region runs roughly

north-south through the middle of the Republic of Guinea.

According to the book Prince Among Slaves, written by Professor Terry Alford, the non-muslim Jalunke was the majority tribal group within the region where Ibrahima was born. According to Prof. Alford, conflict within the ethnically pluralistic Fulbe-Jalunke society occurred when the Jalunke leadership announced a declaration forbidding public prayer. Karamoko Alfa, the leading Fulbe cleric, declared jihad against the Jalunke for what was deemed a direct afront to Islam. A ceremonial slashing open of the Fulbe farmer's drums marked the beginning of this great West African war.

From Fouta Djallon to the Mississippi Delta

By 1788, at the age of 26, Ibrahima was a military leader within the Fulbe army when he was reportedly ambushed, captured and sold to slave traders. Ibrahima was shipped to the United States where he was eventually sold to a Natchez, Mississippi slaver by the name of Thomas Foster. Ibrahima's knowledge of agriculture operations and his leadership skills made him a central figure on Foster's cotton plantation. By 1794, Ibrahima married Isabella, also enslaved on the Foster plantation and would have five sons and four daughters.

As the story goes, one day Ibrahima was recognized by an Irish surgeon, Dr. John Cox, who had traveled to Timbo during his shipping ventures with an English ship. Cox was aided by Ibrahima's family for six months when he was stranded and fell ill in the Fouta Djallon region. Cox asked Foster to sell Ibrahima to him so that he could free him for return to his West African homeland. Mr. Foster refused. Cox petitioned vigorously on Ibrahima's behalf until his dead in 1816.

In 1826, a letter Ibrahima wrote in Arabic addressed to his family in West Africa was picked up by Andrew Marschalk, a local newsman who sent a copy to the federal capital in Washington D.C., to the attention of U.S. Senator Thomas Reed. Reed forwarded the correspondence to the U.S. Consulate in Morocco, assuming that Ibrahima was a Moor. Though Ibrahima was not a Moroccan citizen, Sultan of Morocco Abderrahmane was touched by his story and petitioned U.S. President John Quincy Adams to release Ibrahima from the institution of slavery.

The Prince Among Slaves Returns to West Africa

In 1828, Henry Clay, then U.S. Secretary of State, interceded on behalf of "The Prince", the name given Ibrahima by Natchez, Mississippi residents. Foster stipulated that he would grant Ibrahima's legal release from slavery only if he left without his family and returned to Africa. Despite the Ibrahimas' public speaking efforts to raise enough money to purchase freedom for their nine children before leaving for Africa, they raised only half of the money Foster required for the purchase.

At age 66, after 40 years in slavery, Ibrahima sailed to Monrovia, Liberia in 1828. He caught a fever and died at the age of 67, never making it to his native village in the Fouta Djallon. His wife Isabella was reunited with two sons and their families whose freedom and transport was financed by the Ibrahimas' funds. The remaining family in Mississippi was inherited by Foster's heirs and scattered across the South before further efforts could be made on their behalf. To his legacy, Ibrahima left behind the narrative of his full story, a rare gem within the legacy of the early colonial history of Africans in America.

For further references:

Black History Network Mixer in Los Angeles

2011-02-25T11:31:00.000-08:00

The 2011 Black History Network Mixer was held on February 24, 2011 at the Cicada Club, the historic 1928 art deco James Oviatt Building, an architectural design gem in downtown L.A. (entrance shown).

L.A.'s Black History Network Mixer was the co-sponsored event of the following five organizations:

During the course of the evening, the mixer drew a huge turn out among LA.'s black professionals. Attendees included Langston Bar Association President Gilda Clift Breland, Esq. The Langston Bar Association's 2011 theme under Breland's leadership is timely described as "Advocating for Citizens of the World."

Linda R. Roseborough, president of the California Association of Black Lawyers (CABL), was also in attendance at the mixer. Roseborough spread the word regarding CABL's 34th Annual Conference that will be held Thursday, April 28th through Sunday, May 1st, 2011 at the Omni Hotel in downtown L.A. Many of the attorneys in attendance were excited that this annual conference of the state's black lawyers will be hosted in Los Angeles, California.

Prof. George Wilberforce Kakoma: Development of the Uganda National Anthem

2011-02-20T13:05:00.000-08:00

Prof. George Wilberforce Kakoma, musical composer of Uganda's national anthem

The exact date of George Wilberforce Kakoma's birth is not clear, but it’s believed that he was born between 1923 and 1925 in the Southern District of Masaka in Uganda and is a Muganda by tribe. Kakoma is credited with composing the national anthem of the Republic of Uganda.

There is something to be said about the role of a national anthem in galvanizing the spirit of a people newly formed as a nation. This is especially true for African nations during the period of rapid European decolonization. Kakoma's work is an example of the powerful role of music in developing national traditions and creating a sense of unity among people from diverse cultural backgrounds.

From 1894 to 1962, Uganda was ruled by Britain, which means it used to hoist the British Union Jack and used to sing the British National Anthem. As the struggle for independence intensified in Uganda, it became clear that the country was going to attain independence from the British Colonial masters and would need both a national anthem or a national flag that embodied its independence.

Image of national flag of Uganda

Prior to independence, a subcommittee for the creation of national anthem was set up. It was one of the three sub-committees established to deal with Uganda’s national symbols.

Professor Senteza Kajubi was the chairman of the committees. The sub-committee organized a country-wide publicity campaign for original compositions. Ugandans were encouraged to submit their pieces.

“The compositions had to be short, original, solemn, praising and looking forward to the future,” said Professor Kajubi.

Many people participated in the music competition but the committee was not satisfied. Prof. Kajubi decided to seek help from George Wilberforce Kakoma, then a renowned inspector of schools and a music teacher in Masaka District to “save” the committee because they did not have a national anthem.

Photo: Professor George Wilberforce Kakoma

According to Kakoma, a strange tune rang continuously in his head at night, disrupting his sleep. He decided to wake up and put pen to paper.

“I sat down and looked through what I had ciphered during the night hours. I worked on those ideas till midday.”

The events leading to the composition of the anthem were summarized in the 2008 case filed by Prof George William Kakoma, then a graduate of Trinity College of Music and professor at the Durham University in London, Prof. George W. Kakoma v. The Attorney General (Civil Suit No.197 Of 2008) [2010] UGHC 40 (30 July 2010). Kakoma sued the government of Uganda for not rewarding his efforts up to the time of the case filing and the non payment of royalties arising from the playing of the national anthem. The case in part provided the following:

That early in 1962 an open competition for the composing of our National Anthem was advertised.
That no conditions were attached to the would-be winning entry.
That his was declared the winner.
That he was given a token of Shs.2,000/= as a mark of appreciation.
That a year or two later, the government realizing this was copyright material, wrote asking him to surrender his copyright to them.
That he referred the matter to his lawyers who responded and wrote back to the Government demanding a fee of 5000 only before he could sign off his copyright. That the political turmoil that followed left the matter unsettled until Idi Amin’s regime came to power.
That in January 1975 he went into self-exile with his family and taught at Kenyatta University until NRA government came to power in 1986, when there was the chance to have the matter raised again.
That the Ministry of Justice took up the matter and presented a Cabinet Memo which was turned down on a flimsy ground that compensating him would create a precedent.

The melody was composed by Prof. Kakoma but the lyrics (or words) were composed by Peter Wyngard, Kakoma’s personal friend and a lecturer at Makerere Institute of Education.

The development and resolution of this legal case in Uganda's courts also demonstrates important developments of the application of the rule of law generally, and the recognition of intellectual property rights specifically, in Uganda.

The National Anthem of Uganda

Oh Uganda may God uphold thee,

We lay our future in thy hand,
United free for liberty
Together we’ll always stand.

Oh Uganda the land of freedom,
Our love and labour we give,
And with neighbours all,
At our country’s call
In peace and friendship we’ll live

Oh Uganda the land that feeds us,
By sun and fertile soil grown,
For our own dear land,
We shall always stand,
The pearl of Africa’s crown.

With special thanks, this post has been prepared in great part by Moses G. Byaruhanga, Esq., Advocate/Attorney at Bar, Shonubi, Musoke & Co. Advocates in Uganda.

Henri Christophe of Haiti: King of the First Black Republic in the West

2011-02-09T15:06:00.000-08:00

Painting of Henri Christophe, First King of the Republic of Haiti
(b. October 8, 1767 – d. October 8, 1820).

Little is known about Henri Christophe's (English: Henry Christopher ) boyhood. A great number of commentators report that he was born on Grenada island, a small nation in the Caribbean’s Lesser Antilles, and was the son of a freeman. His father, also named Christophe, was reportedly transported from West African or Central West Africa to Saint Domingue, the former French colony now known as Haiti.

The Early Adult Life of Henri Christophe

In 1779, Christophe served with the Franch Forces as a drummer boy with a regiment described as gens de couleur (English: people of color or color people) in the American Revolution. The gens de couleur regiment fought at the Siege of Savannah at what is now the State of Georgia. Nine years later, in 1788, Georgia would become the fourth State admitted into the original thirteen colonies of the United States of America. France had lent troop assistance to the revolutionaries against England during the American Revolution.

After the American Revolution, Christophe returned to Saint Domingue where he is reported to have worked as a billiard-maker, mason, sailor, stable-hand and waiter. He also managed a hotel restaurant in Cap-Français, then the capital of Saint-Domingue, that served the wealthy French slave-holders from the surrounding plantations.

Enslaved Africans at Saint Domingue Defeat France’s Napoleon Bonaparte

Image of Brigadier General Henri Christophe of Haiti

By August 1791, the Africans at Saint Domingue had rebelled against their condition under France's tyranny of chattel slavery. The name they would adopt for their new nation would be "Haiti", a word translated from the language of the native inhabitants as "land of mountains".

Christophe distinguished himself in the Haitian Revolution. While not as widely known as François-Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture -- the great military leader that secured native control over Saint-Domingue from the France by 1797 -- Henri Christophe had distinguished himself by 1802 to become L'Ouverture's brigadier general.

Christophe fought alongside L'Ouverture in the north against the French. This included fighting against Spanish, British and French troops, all of whom had a strong interest in suppressing an uprising on the vast slave plantations established by the European colonialist over the Americas and Caribbean.

By June 1802, L'Ouverture was captured by agents of Napoleon Bonaparte for France. He was deported from the island to France. The revolution continued, however. After 13 years of military battle between the French colony, the Africans would win their independence in the year 1804. They distinguished themselves in history as the first independent black republic in the West.

The North-South Civil War in Haiti: Alexandre Pétion and Henri Christophe

In 1806, Christophe and the Haitian general Alexandre Pétion overthrew Jean Jacques Dessalines. Subsequently, a short civil war broke out between Christophe and Pétion. By February 1807, Haiti was divided between Christophe whom had clear charge over the North, and Alexander Pétion who led the South of the new country.

Christophe was elected president and served in that capacity from 1807 to 1811. On March 26, 1811, Henri proclaimed Haiti a republic nation and himself King, securing the title of Henri I. He served as Haiti's king from 1811 to 1820.

Citadelle Laferrière: The Grand Fortress near Cap-Haïtien

Aerial Image of La Citadelle La Ferriere in Haiti. A legacy of King Henri I of Haiti.
Some pictures are worth more than a thousand words.

Henri Christophe is noted for his policy of construction and economic development in Haiti. Christophe was charged with transforming a slave-based economy into an effective and productive economy of a nation of newly freed people. While he improved the nations' infrastructure he is noted by some of the commentators for his labor policies which involved harsh work conditions and a transfer of a great amount of the wealth being controlled by the republic.

Photo of the Palace of Sans Souci in Haiti, commissioned by Henry Christophe in 1810 and completed in 1813.

A trained mason, Christophe is noted for the construction of Sans Souci Palace and the fortress near Cap-Haïtien called Citadelle Laferrière. He also built six notable châteaux and eight palaces in the region. The Citadelle Laferrière is described as one of the great construction wonders of the era. In 1842, a major earthquake destroyed part of the fortress.

By 1820, an insurrection had broken out in the northern region of Haiti and Christophe suffered an incapacitating stroke and reportedly shot himself.

Statue of Christophe Henri, King Henri I of Haiti, at Champs de Mars in Port-au-Prince

Today, Christophe is revered as a hero among the Haitians and many within the African diaspora. Christophe's statue was raised at Champs de Mars in Port-au-Prince.

Sojourner Truth: Slavery Abolitionist and Women's Suffragist

2011-02-04T08:20:00.000-08:00

Image of Pamphlet Poster of a Sojourner Truth Lecture
(aka as Isabella Baumfree, Isabella Bomefree)

(Born: cir. 1797 - Died: November 26, 1883)

The exact date of her birth was not recorded. We only know that in the year 1797, among Dutch immigrants settled in the region now known as Ulster County, New York, an African child was born on the estate of Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh. One of 13 children born to Elizabeth and James Baumfree, she was given the name Isabella Baumfree. As the story goes, this name gave her no hint of her mission so years later she renamed herself Sojourner Truth. Her life was a testament to this mission as a truth-teller.

Early Life of Sojourner Truth among the Hardenberg Dutch Settlers

Sojourner Truth's parents, the Baumfrees, were African slaves on the Hardenbergh plantation in Swartekill, New York. She spoke only Dutch until age nine when she was sold from her parents care to one Englishman named John Neely. The harshness of both her Dutch and English slave-masters would be told by Truth in many of her later anti-slavery speeches across the new nation. She underwent a number of transfers between slave-owners and suffered what she described as cruelties that one dare not imagine against a young African girl child enslaved in America.

Sojourner Truth and Slave Life in New York

In 1815, Truth said she fell in love with Robert, enslaved on a different plantation. The relationship was forbidden by both slavers. The two stole away visits despite the demands that they do no see each other. Robert's slave-master, aided by his son, followed Robert on one visit to see Truth. She reported that Robert sustained "bruising and mangling [of] his head and face" and was dragged away. Truth had a daughter that she named Diane soon thereafter.

By 1817, Sojourner Truth had been sold to John Dumont of New Paltz, New York. she was forced to marry an older African named Thomas. They had four children: Peter (1822), James (who died young), Elizabeth (1825), and Sophia (1826). Truth said that she continued working for Dumont until she felt she had completed any obligation she may have had to him.

Photo of Sojourner Truth

"I did not run off, for I thought that wicked," said Sojourner Truth, describing her leaving with her youngest daughter Sophia from the Dumont plantation in New York , "but I walked off, believing that to be all right."

She soon set plans to secure her youngest son Peter who had been loaned by Dumont to another slaver who had then sold the five-year-old child to slave-owners in the State of Alabama. With the help of the anti-slavery Quakers, Truth filed a court petition in the State of New York pleading with the court to grant the return of her son. There was great anti-slavery in New York at the time, as the state legislation was passed in 1827 legally abolishing slavery.

Sojourner Truth won and her son Peter was soon returned to New York.

Sojourner Truth, Free Woman of Color in America: Abolitionist and Suffragist

Pamphlet Card with Sojourner Truth Photo

While living in the home of Isaac and Maria Van Wagenens, Truth had a life-changing religious experience. She started to speak in public assemblies. She became known as a gifted preacher. She joined the Progressive Friends, an organization established by the Quakers, which pressed forward the cause of abolishing slavery throughout America. Truth also became active in the Union's efforts during the Civil War. She helped enlist black troops. Her grandson James Caldwell served in the 54th Regiment, Massachusetts.

"In 1864, she worked among freed slaves at a government refugee camp on an island in Virginia and was employed by the National Freedman's Relief Association in Washington, D.C.," according to Women in History: Living vignettes of notable women from U.S. history. "In 1863, Harriet Beecher Stowe's article "The Libyan Sibyl" appeared in the Atlantic Monthly; a romanticized description of Sojourner."

At the end of the Civil War, Truth worked on behalf of the Freedman's Hospital in Washington through the Freedman's Relief Association.

In 1867, she moved to Battle Creek, Michigan. While unsuccessful in her efforts, for several years she lobbyed the U.S. federal government land in the Western states for former African slaves. Illness began to reduce her speaking tours. In 1879, she spent a year in Kansas city to help settling African migrants she called "Exodusters". In addition to racial and gender equality issues, Truth campaigned against capital punishment and called for temperance.

Image of Sojourner Truth

On November 26, 1883, Sojourner Truth was surrounded by her family at her death bed. She was 86 years old when she died surrounded by her family in Battle Creek, Michigan. She was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, next to her grandson's gravesite. More than 200 years later, her legacy as a truth-keeper continues to ignite the imagination of the new nation for which she found herself in service. Soujourner Truth lived during times of great change.

Image of observers at the Sojourner Truth statute in

Battle Creek, Michigan, USA

(Photo: Marydell/Flickr)

Photo: U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama applauds on April 28, 2009

at the unveiling of the Sojourner Truth bronze bust in Emancipation Hall in Washingtno D.C.

(Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP)

"I hope that Sojourner Truth would be proud to see me, a descendant of slaves, serving as the first lady of the United States of America," said Michelle Obama at the April 28, 2009 commemorative ceremony unveiling the Sojourner Truth bronze bust by sculptor Artis Lane. "Now many young boys and girls, like my own daughters, will come to Emancipation Hall and see the face of a woman who looks like them."

Sojourner Truth's Famous Oration: "Ain't I a Woman?"

In 1851, Sojourner Truth gave her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech before the Women's Rights Convention held in Akron, Ohio. Several ministers were in attendance. Truth rose from her seat and spoke the following words before the audience:

"Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman?

Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say."

George Washington Carver Exhibit Opens at Pink Palace Museum March 12, 2011

2011-02-03T20:34:00.000-08:00

Museum Volunteers Wanted for the Upcoming

George Washington Carver Exhibit in Memphis

Volunteers who participate in the “George Washington Carver” Exhibit that will run March 12, 2011 - July 4, 2011 at the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis, Tennessee can share information on the life and work of an extraordinary man. Born into slavery, George Washington Carver used his gifts to become a groundbreaking scientist, educator and humanitarian. Volunteers will talk to students and visitors about crop rotation, organic farming, plant-based fuels, medicines and everyday products. They will broaden their own knowledge and be a part of making history, science and nature come alive for our visitors and the wide variety of students that come to the Museum.

Those wanting to make a difference supporting educational opportunities with children and families in the Mid-South are only required to volunteer two 3 ½ hour shifts each month during the George Washington Carver exhibit run, March 12 - July 4, 2011. We offer weekday or weekend volunteer opportunities. Volunteers can train on either Thursday, March 10 or Saturday, March 12 from 9 a.m. – 12 noon. To sign up as a volunteer, please email diane.mckinna@memphistn.gov or call 320-6438 by March 1, 2011. To obtain a volunteer application or get further information go to our website: http://www.memphismuseums.org/.

Patrice Lumumba: First Prime Minister of the Congo

2011-02-02T04:56:00.000-08:00

Photo of Patrice Émery Lumumba

(July 2, 1925– January 17, 1961)

Patrice Émery Lumumba (aka Patrice Hemery Lumumba) was born July 2, 1925 in Onalua, Katakokombe, Kasai Province in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One of four sons, Lumumba was a member of the Tetela tribal group. His education included missionary school training. After completing his education, he passed the postal clerk exam and began to work in Kinshasa (then Léopoldville). In 1951, Lumumba married Pauline Opangu and they would go on to have five children: François, Patrice Junior, Julienne, Roland and Guy-Patrice Lumumba.

Photo of a youthful Patrice Lumumba in the Belgian-Congo

By 1955, Lumumba began to enter political life. He became a regional leader for the Cercles of Stanleyville and joined the Liberal Party of Belgium where he served as editor and distributor of information. While traveling in Belgium that same year, Lumumba was arrested by the colonial government police and charged with embezzling post office funds. In July 1956, Lumumba was released after serving 12 months of a two-year sentence.

By 1958, Lumumba had re-entered political life and began to organize for Mouvement National Congolais (MNC). In December 1958, he represented the MNC as president at the All-African Peoples' Conference held in Accra, Ghana, hosted by Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah.

Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the Republic of the Congo

By October 1959, Lumumba was again arrested by the Belgian colonial government on charges of inciting anti-colonial riots in Stanleyville. He was sentenced to six months in prison for his anti-colonial activism. While in Lumumba was in prison, the MNC participated as a political party in the Belgian-Congo elections held in December of 1959. Lumumba was released before the MNC won the May 1960 election.

Lumumba, age 34 years old, was announced as the Belgian Congo's first prime minister. Joseph Kasa-Vubu was named president. On June 30, 1960, the country’s new leadership declared independence from the Belgian colonial rule. In an Independence Day ceremony for the newly named Republic of the Congo, King Baudouin spoke first, urging the Congolese to remain under the leadership of Belgium. Lumumba responded, in part, in his speech as follows:

"For this independence of the Congo, even as it is celebrated today with Belgium, a friendly country with whom we deal as equal to equal, no Congolese worthy of the name will ever be able to forget that it was by fighting that it has been won, a day-to-day fight, an ardent and idealistic fight, a fight in which we were spared neither privation nor suffering, and for which we gave our strength and our blood. We are proud of this struggle, of tears, of fire, and of blood, to the depths of our being, for it was a noble and just struggle, and indispensable to put an end to the humiliating slavery which was imposed upon us by force."

Unrest in the New Republic

Photo of Patrice Lumumba

Lumumba's speech became a media sensation in the West. Dissent within the army arose soon after Reports arose about military unrest, looting and European flight. By July 11, 1960, Moïse Tshombe declared himself the regional premier of the Katanga province. Tshombe was supported by the Belgian government and European mining firms with interest in rubber, copper and other minerals.

UN troops arrived, but did not move to suppress the Katanga rebellion. Lumumba soon sought Soviet military aid. President Kasa-Vubu, however, wanted a more moderate political approach and sought to remove Lumumba as prime minister. Lumumba declared the Presidential act illegal and sought Senate and Parliament action to declare President Kasa-Vubu‘s removal. The country was torn over the warring Kasa-Vubu and Lumumba political faction.

Joseph Mobutu’s Rise to Power and the Murder of Lumumba

Photo: A young Joseph Désiré Mobutu rolls up his sleeves

during a speech in December 1965 in Leopoldville, Congo

On September 14, 1960, Lieutenant General Joseph Désiré Mobutu (later known as Mobutu Sese Seko) organized a coup that deposed the divided nation. Lumumba was placed under house arrest, but he soon stole away to Stanleyville, organizing among his Haut-Congo supporters. On December 1, 1960, Lumumba was captured in Port Francqui by Mobutu’s troops and flown to Kinshasa (then Leopoldville).

The Soviet Union demanded his release and called upon the U.N. Security Council to act. U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld called for due process of law; on December 14, 1960, however, in a 8-2 vote, the Soviet Union's resolution was defeated. Lumumba was transferred to the Katanga Province under Mobutu‘s leadership.

On January 17, 1961, Lumumba was restrained and flown to Lubumbashi (then Elizabethville). That same day, Patrice Lumumba, Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito were reportedly lined before a firing squad, according to Belgian reports. No due process was afforded those executed. While various accounts are reported, the true nature and facilitators of his murder, however, have never been definitively explained.

Photo of Congo leader Mobutu Sese Seko conversing with U.S. President Richard Nixon

In February 2002, the Belgian government released an official apology to the Congolese people. In a thousand page report, the government admitted to failure of a "moral responsibility" and "an irrefutable portion of responsibility in the events that led to the death of Lumumba."

Lumumba’s Murder Leads to International Protests in Europe

After Patrice Lumumba's assassination, protestors clashed with Belgian embassies and local police in Belgrade, Yugoslavia and at Trafalgar Square in London, UK. Prior to Lumumba's imprisonment, he had arranged for his wife, Pauline, and their children to move to Egypt.

“ We must move forward, striking out tirelessly against imperialism," said Che Guevara in 1964, reflecting on the life of Lumumba. "From all over the world we have to learn lessons which events afford. Lumumba’s murder should be a lesson for all of us.”

That same year, Malcolm X declared Patrice Lumumba "the greatest black man who ever walked the African continent."

African Freedom Fighter and Pan Africanist

The heroism of Patrice Lumumba is embraced as a symbol of African independence efforts. In the 2006 election, a number of the running parties affiliated themselves with Lumumba's political philosophy. This includes the Unified Lumumbist Party (Parti Lumumbiste Unifié (PALU)), Mouvement Lumumbiste (MLP) and Mouvement National Congolais-Lumumba (MNC-L). The MNC-L is lead by Lumumba's eldest son, François Lumumba, who obtained a doctorate in political economics in Hungary before returning to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1992 to oppose Mobutu Sese Seko‘s rule of the country then known as Zaire.

In Kampala, Uganda, "Lumumba Hall" of Residence at Makerere University continues to carry the name of Patrice Lumumba.

Did You Know? The various formal official country names

for the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Congo Free State (État indépendant du Congo): 1885 to 1908. Belgian King Leopold II claimed personal ownership over the land
Belgian Congo (Congo Belge): 1908 - 1960. King Leopold II's formal transfer of property ownership to the state of Belgium
Republic of the Congo or Congo-Léopoldville: 1960 - 1964. Distinguish from its western neighbor in the Republic of the Congo, formerly French Congo
Republic of the Congo or Congo-Kinshasa (1964-1971)
Zaire (Zaïre): 1971-1997
Democratic Republic of the Congo: 1997 to Present

Books for further reading:

African American Artist: Charles W. White, Jr.

2011-02-01T06:42:00.000-08:00

Charles Wilbert White, Jr. (born April 2, 1918 – died October 3, 1979)

Charles White, Jr. was born on April 2, 1918 to Ethel Gary and Charles White Sr. on the South Side of Chicago. He discovered at an early age that he could draw. Often described as a Social Realist artist, White’s works are largely devoted to monumental prints and murals eloquently documenting the universality of humanity through the portrayal of Black America.

Coming home from school one day, White discovered students from The Art Institute of Chicago painting in a nearby park. One student explained how to mix paint and turpentine and stretch canvas. She also advised him that the class would be working there for a week. The next day after school, White raced there with an oil set his mother had previously bought him. Using a window blind as his canvas, he painted a landscape. Although initially angered by his destruction of the blind, his mother treasured this painting until her death in 1977.

Harvest Talk, Charles White. Charcoal, pencil and graphite, with stamping and erasing on ivory wood-pulp laminate body (1953)

Frustrated by the education system’s omission of Black contributions to American society, White, out of this frustration, began to skip school. At age 14, he worked as a sign letterer for the Regal Theater, where he began meeting other Black artists. He worked with George E. Neal, a Black artist, who while supporting himself by lettering and illustrating small Black publications, studied at the Art Institute. White’s drawings won a competition, permitting him to attend a Saturday “honors” class at the Art Institute. Artists Charles Sebree and Margaret Burroughs also attended this class.

“He was a particularly inspiring teacher,” said White, referring to Neal. “We used to have classes in his home. Elzier Cortor, Charles Sebree, and Frank Neal, who wasn’t related to him, as well as me, were all influenced by George. He made us conscious of the craft aspect of painting technique. He made us conscious of the beauty of those beat-up old shacks. He made us conscious of the beauty of Black people.”

Image of Awaken from the Unknowing, Charles White. Ink and Wolff crayon on paper (1961)

When he was 16-years-old, White attended a Saturday night party at the studio of Katherine Dunham, then a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Chicago and developing her dance career. There he met poet Gwendolyn Brooks, author Margaret Walker, Richard Wright and Willard Motley; sociologist Horace Cayton; and many other artists and intellectuals gathering on Chicago’s South Side. He was exposed to many new ideas. They could be described as Alain Locke’s “New Negro,” a philosophy that would have a great impact on White.

White won a scholarship to study at the Art Institute full-time. He also began to work as a Works in Progress (WPA) artist and became a member of the Arts and Crafts Guilds. At the Art Institute, White was introduced to the Mexican muralists who used art to educate the masses. This concept greatly excited White, as it would excite the artist Elizabeth Catlett, whom he would later marry. He wanted his art to speak to Black people, instilling and reaffirming confidence and pride.

Frederick Douglass Lives Again (The Ghost of Frederick Douglass). Charles White. Pen and ink drawing (1949)

White met and married talented sculptor Elizabeth Catlett, who then taught at Dillard University in New Orleans and was taking the summer to study at the Art Institute. He had won two scholarships, one to the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and the Frederic Mizes Academy of Arts, both of which were withdrawn upon the discovery that White was actually Black.

White would later win a Julius Rosenwald Foundation study grant to do research in the South. In the South, White began to understand the beauty of the “Negro” speech, folklore and poetry, dance and music. The music especially moved him -- the spirituals, blues, ballads, the work songs. This music had a very profound meaning for White and his work.

Two racially motivated events, to occur later, would also have profound effect on White. First, he was severely beaten for entering a restaurant in New Orleans. Secondly, in Hampton, Virginia, a conductor forced White to the rear of a streetcar at gunpoint. Over the course of 15 years, he would learn of the lynching of three uncles and two cousins. White developed an anger against injustice that deepened.

Charles White participated in the civil rights movement through his art, creating strong, expressive figures depicting the plight of African Americans. Sounds of Silence 11, Charles White. Lithograph ( 1971)

White and Catlett would eventually moved to New York, where the painter Ernest Crichlow introduced them to Black artists and intellectuals. Catlett began studies with the Cubist-influenced sculpture Ossip Zadkine. White studied with Harry Sternberg, a leading instructor of etching and lithography at the Art Student League.
White and Catlett would leave New York to teach at Hampton Institute in Virginia until White was drafted in 1943. Soon after, White developed tuberculosis. He spent three years in a Veterans hospital in Beacon, New York. White did not paint during this time. He devised his own therapy. He reread all that he had read during his adolescence.

Upon recovery, he returned to New York and created. He had a one man show at the American Contemporary Artists (ACA) Gallery in September 1947. That fall, White and Catlett went to Mexico at the invitation of the famous muralist David Siquerios. They studied and worked at Mexico’s famous graphic workshop Taller de Grafica Popular for nearly a year.

“I saw artists working to create an art about and for the people,” said White of his Mexican experience. “This has been the strongest influence in my whole approach. It clarified the direction in which I wanted to move.”

His marriage to Catlett ended soon after his travels to Mexico. His health began to deteriorate again. He was hospitalized for a year in New York where he was to undergo lung surgery. White’s art began to gradually shift from historical figures to ordinary common Black folks, always maintaining the same dignity. His work became more rhythmic and fluid, realistic and humanistic.

Image of Untitled, Charles White, ink and graphite on paper (1950)

In 1950, White married Frances Barrett. They honeymooned in Europe and were delighted to find that White’s lithographs received high recognition. Portfolios of his work could be found throughout Europe. Upon returning to the U.S., White’s failing health prompted the newlyweds to move to California for the weather. In California, he gradually regained his health.

White’s works were being discovered by the Black Consciousness movement of the 1960s. Black colleges anxiously sought his exhibitions. The socially conscious artists of the 1930s were finding new eyes in the 1960s.

Charles White, Jr. died in 1980. It was he who best articulated his art. “I use Negro subject matter because Negroes are closest to me. But I am trying to express a universal feeling through them, a meaning for all men… All my life, I’ve been painting a simple painting. This does not mean that I am a man without anger -- I’ve had my work in museum’s where I wasn’t allowed to see it. But what I pour into my work is the challenge of how beautiful life can be.”

Adapted from article originally published in "Afrique"; Charles White: The Art of a Chicago Son Beautifies Experiences of Common Black Folk; Cross, Vanessa; June 1996

Cairo Museum's Ancient Egyptian Artifacts Victim of Egypt's State of Mass Protest

2011-01-31T16:47:00.000-08:00

The Wall Street Journal reported today that when Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, came to work at the Egyptian Museum on Saturday, January 29, 2011, he discovered that looters had "broken in and beheaded two mummies—possibly Tutankhamun's grandparents—and looted the ticket booth."

The Egyptian tourism police, military and citizens soon secured the museum after the discovery. It is reported that other antiquity museums, archaeological sites and storehouses have also seen looted. These disturbing developments place the rich history of some of Africa's oldest remaining antiquities at the crossfire of unrest of the modern-day state of Egypt.

National Association of Black Journalists

2011-01-30T14:35:00.000-08:00

The NABJ rolled out its red carpet on January 27, 2011 at Washington D.C.'s Newseum, inducting five legendary journalists into the 2011 Hall of Fame and presenting the Ida B. Wells Award Recipient.

NABJ Hall of Fame Inductees

& Ida B. Wells Award Recipient

Ed Bradley – CBS News ‘60 Minutes’

Before his passing in 2006, Bradley spent nearly his entire 39-year career with CBS News. At CBS, the man once described as "the coolest guy in the business” rose to the pinnacle of journalistic achievement.

Merri Dee – WGN-TV Chicago

Dee’s 30-year career in Chicago broadcasting and her charitable efforts on behalf of children and victims’ rights make her a standout honoree.

JC Hayward – WUSA-TV Washington

Hayward, reporter and anchor of 39 years at Washington, D.C.'s WUSA-TV holds the national record for a woman anchoring the same evening newscast at the same station.

Eugene Robinson – The Washington Post

Robinson is a columnist and former assistant managing editor at The Washington Post who won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2009. He won for a selection of columns on the 2008 presidential campaign, and also serves as political analyst for MSNBC.

Ray Taliaferro – KGO Newstalk 810, San Francisco

Ray was the first black talk show host on a major market radio station in the country. Taliaferro has literally owned the Bay Area's overnight radio listening audience since 1986 when his talk show moved to the 1 to 5 a.m. time slot.

IDA B. WELLS AWARD RECIPIENT:

Walterene Swanston – National Public Radio (NPR)

The annual Ida B. Wells Award honor highlights the achievement of a media executive who has demonstrated a commitment to diversifying the nation's newsrooms and improving the coverage of people and communities of color. Walterene Swanston is the NABJ's 2011 Ida B. Wells Award Recipient. Swanston is a diversity consultant and a retired director of diversity management for National Public Radio. Swanston has a decades-long professional track record as a champion of media diversity. For more than 25 years, she has worked with newspapers, television and radio stations to recruit, promote, train and retain people of color and women.

Information source: Nabj.org

February's Black History Month in the United States

2011-01-29T16:40:00.000-08:00

Photo: Black History Heroes Jack Johnson T-Shirt Design

As Black History Month in the United States gets underway, expect more frequent posts during the month of February. We will highlight the life and times of some of our favorite public heroes like Toussaint L'Ouverture, Marie Da Silva, Julius Kmbarage Nyerere and Sojourner Truth. Become a subscribers to the BHH blog and receive free notices of new blog posts during February. For teachers, use theses blogs for ideas to help you develop engaging Black history school projects and programs.

The blog recently underwent some major design changes to increase its readibility and navigational ease. Hope that you find the changes refreshing. Also, we have partnered with Zazzle.com to bring you quality Black History Heroes t-shirt designs. Check out the first BHH t-shirt design which features Jack Johnson. T-shirt designs are available in both men and women styles. Order one today!

Happy Black History Month 2011!

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - Atlanta Speech

2011-01-17T13:45:00.000-08:00

The public address by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., reprinted here, was made to the Tenth Anniversary Convention of the S.C.L.C. in Atlanta, Georgia on August 16, 1967.

'Where Do We Go From Here'

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
(born: January 15, 1929 – died: April 4, 1968)

N ow, in order to answer the question, "Where do we go from here?" which is our theme, we must first honestly recognize where we are now. When the Constitution was written, a strange formula to determine taxes and representation declared that the Negro was 60 percent of a person. Today another curious formula seems to declare he is 50 percent of a person. Of the good things in life, the Negro has approximately one half those of whites. Of the bad things of life, he has twice those of whites. Thus half of all Negroes live in substandard housing. And Negroes have half the income of whites. When we view the negative experiences of life, the Negro has a double share. There are twice as many unemployed. The rate of infant mortality among Negroes is double that of whites and there are twice as many Negroes dying in Vietnam as whites in proportion to their size in the population.

In other spheres, the figures are equally alarming. In elementary schools, Negroes lag one to three years behind whites, and their segregated schools receive substantially less money per student than the white schools. One twentieth as many Negroes as whites attend college. Of employed Negroes, 75 percent hold menial jobs.

This is where we are. Where do we go from here? First, we must massively assert our dignity and worth. We must stand up amidst a system that still oppresses us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values. We must no longer be ashamed of being black. The job of arousing manhood within a people that have been taught for so many centuries that they are nobody is not easy.

DEPICTION OF BLACKNESS AND NEGRO CONTRIBUTIONS

Photo of Martn Luther King, Jr.

Even semantics have conspired to make that which is black seem ugly and degrading. In Roget's Thesaurus there are 120 synonyms for blackness and at least 60 of them are offensive, as for example, blot, soot, grim, devil and foul. And there are some 134 synonyms for whiteness and all are favorable, expressed in such words as purity, cleanliness, chastity and innocence. A white lie is better than a black lie. The most degenerate member of a family is a "black sheep." Ossie Davis has suggested that maybe the English language should be reconstructed so that teachers will not be forced to teach the Negro child 60 ways to despise himself, and thereby perpetuate his false sense of inferiority, and the white child 134 ways to adore himself, and thereby perpetuate his false sense of superiority.

The tendency to ignore the Negro's contribution to American life and to strip him of his personhood, is as old as the earliest history books and as contemporary as the morning's newspaper. To upset this cultural homicide, the Negro must rise up with an affirmation of his own Olympian manhood. Any movement for the Negro's freedom that overlooks this necessity is only waiting to be buried. As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery. No Lincolnian Emancipation Proclamation or Johnsonian Civil Rights Bill can totally bring this kind of freedom. The Negro will only be free when he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being and signs with the pen and ink of assertive manhood his own Emancipation Proclamation. And, with a spirit straining toward true self-esteem, the Negro must boldly throw off the manacles of self-abnegation and say to himself and to the world, "I am somebody. I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. I have a rich and noble history. How painful and exploited that history has been. Yes, I was a slave through my foreparents and I am not ashamed of that. I'm ashamed of the people who were so sinful to make me a slave." Yes, we must stand up and say, "I'm black and I'm beautiful," and this self-affirmation is the black man's need, made compelling by the white man's crimes against him.

BASIC CHALLENGES

Another basic challenge is to discover how to organize our strength in terms of economic and political power. No one can deny that the Negro is in dire need of this kind of legitimate power. Indeed, one of the great problems that the Negro confronts is his lack of power. From old plantations of the South to newer ghettos of the North, the Negro has been confined to a life of voicelessness and powerlessness. Stripped of the right to make decisions concerning his life and destiny he has been subject to the authoritarian and sometimes whimsical decisions of this white power structure. The plantation and ghetto were created by those who had power, both to confine those who had no power and to perpetuate their powerlessness. The problem of transforming the ghetto, therefore, is a problem of power--confrontation of the forces of power demanding change and the forces of power dedicated to the preserving of the status quo. Now power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change. Walter Reuther defined power one day. He said, "Power is the ability of a labor union like the U.A.W. to make the most powerful corporation in the world, General Motors, say 'Yes' when it wants to say 'No.' That's power."

Now a lot of us are preachers, and all of us have our moral convictions and concerns, and so often have problems with power. There is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly. You see, what happened is that some of our philosophers got off base. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites - polar opposites, so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love.

It was this misinterpretation that caused Nietzsche, who was a philosopher of the will to power, to reject the Christian concept of love. It was this same misinterpretation which induced Christian theologians to reject the Nietzschean philosophy of the will to power in the name of the Christian idea of love. Now, we've got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. And this is what we must see as we move on. What has happened is that we have had it wrong and confused in our own country, and this has led Negro Americans in the past to seek their goals through power devoid of love and conscience.

This is leading a few extremists today to advocate for Negroes the same destructive and conscienceless power that they have justly abhorred in whites. It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our times.

DEVELOPING A PROGRAM?

We must develop a program that will drive the nation to a guaranteed annual income. Now, early in this century this proposal would have been greeted with ridicule and denunciation, as destructive of initiative and responsibility. At that time economic status was considered the measure of the individual's ability and talents. And, in the thinking of that day, the absence of worldly goods indicated a want of industrious habits and moral fiber. We've come a long way in our understanding of human motivation and of the blind operation of our economic system. Now we realize that dislocations in the market operations of our economy and the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. Today the poor are less often dismissed, I hope, from our consciences by being branded as inferior or incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not eliminate all poverty.

The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold. We must create full employment or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this position we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available. In I879 Henry George anticipated this state of affairs when he wrote in Progress and Poverty:

"The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is not the work of slaves driven to their tasks either by the task, by the taskmaster, or by animal necessity. It is the work of men who somehow find a form of work that brings a security for its own sake and a state of society where want is abolished."

Work of this sort could be enormously increased, and we are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished. The poor transformed into purchasers will do a great deal on their own to alter housing decay. Negroes who have a double disability will have a greater effect on discrimination when they have the additional weapon of cash to use in their struggle.

Beyond these advantages, a host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security. The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts among husbands, wives and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on the scale of dollars is eliminated.

Now our country can do this. John Kenneth Galbraith said that a guaranteed annual income could be done for about twenty billion dollars a year. And I say to you today, that if our nation can spend thirty-five billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God's children on their own two feet right here on earth.

COMMITMENT TO NONVIOLENCE?

Now, let me say briefly that we must reaffirm our commitment to nonviolence. I want to stress this. The futility of violence in the struggle for racial justice has been tragically etched in all the recent Negro riots. Yesterday, I tried to analyze the riots and deal with their causes. Today I want to give the other side. There is certainly something painfully sad about a riot. One sees screaming youngsters and angry adults fighting hopelessly and aimlessly against impossible odds. And deep down within them, you can even see a desire for self-destruction, a kind of suicidal longing.

Occasionally Negroes contend that the 1965 Watts riot and the other riots in various cities represented effective civil rights action. But those who express this view always end up with stumbling words when asked what concrete gains have been won as a result. At best, the riots have produced a little additional antipoverty money allotted by frightened government officials, and a few water-sprinklers to cool the children of the ghettos. It is something like improving the food in the prison while the people remain securely incarcerated behind bars. Nowhere have the riots won any concrete improvement such as have the organized protest demonstrations. When one tries to pin down advocates of violence as to what acts would be effective, the answers are blatantly illogical. Sometimes they talk of overthrowing racist state and local governments and they talk about guerrilla warfare. They fail to see that no internal revolution has ever succeeded in overthrowing a government by violence unless the government had already lost the allegiance and effective control of its armed forces. Anyone in his right mind knows that this will not happen in the United States. In a violent racial situation, the power structure has the local police, the state troopers, the National Guard and, finally, the Army to call on all of which are predominantly white. Furthermore, few if any violent revolutions have been successful unless the violent minority had the sympathy and support of the nonresistant majority. Castro may have had only a few Cubans actually fighting with him up in the hills, but he could never have overthrown the Batista regime unless he had the sympathy of the vast majority of Cuban people.

It is perfectly clear that a violent revolution on the part of American blacks would find no sympathy and support from the white population and very little from the majority of the Negroes themselves. This is no time for romantic illusions and empty philosophical debates about freedom. This is a time for action. What is needed is a strategy for change, a tactical program that will bring the Negro into the mainstream of American life as quickly as possible. So far, this has only been offered by the nonviolent movement. Without recognizing this we will end up with solutions that don't solve, answers that don't answer and explanations that don't explain.

And so I say to you today that I still stand by nonviolence. And I am still convinced that it is the most potent weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for justice in this country. And the other thing is that I am concerned about a better world. I'm concerned about justice. I'm concerned about brotherhood. I'm concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about these, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer but you can't murder. Through violence you may murder a liar but you can't establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that.

And I say to you, I have also decided to stick to love. For I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems. And I'm going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn't popular to talk about it in some circles today. I'm not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love, I'm talking about a strong, demanding love. And I have seen too much hate. I've seen too much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. I've seen hate on the faces of too many Klansmen and too many White Citizens Councilors in the South to want to hate myself, because every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we are moving against wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who has love has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.

I want to say to you as I move to my conclusion, as we talk about "Where do we go from here," that we honestly face the fact that the Movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. There are forty million poor people here. And one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?" And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I'm simply saying that more and more, we've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's market place. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. You see, my friends, when you deal with this, you begin to ask the question, "Who owns the oil?" You begin to ask the question, "Who owns the iron ore?" You begin to ask the question, "Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two thirds water?" These are questions that must be asked.

ABOUT COMMUNISM

Now, don't think that you have me in a "bind" today. I'm not talking about Communism.

What I'm saying to you this morning is that Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the Kingdom of Brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of Communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both. Now, when I say question the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.

If you will let me be a preacher just a little bit - One night, a juror came to Jesus and he wanted to know what he could do to be saved. Jesus didn't get bogged down in the kind of isolated approach of what he shouldn't do. Jesus didn't say, "Now Nicodemus, you must stop lying." HE didn't say, "Nicodemus, you must stop cheating if you are doing that." He didn't say, "Nicodemus, you must not commit adultery." He didn't say, "Nicodemus, now you must stop drinking liquor if you are doing that excessively." He said something altogether different, because Jesus realized something basic - that if a man will lie, he will steal. And if a man will steal, he will kill. So instead of just getting bogged down in one thing, Jesus looked at him and said, "Nicodemus, you must be born again."

He said, in other words, "Your whole structure must be changed." A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will "thingify" them - make them things. Therefore they will exploit them, and poor people generally, economically. And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these problems are tied together. What I am saying today is that we must go from this convention and say, "America, you must be born again!"

CONCLUSION

So, I conclude by saying again today that we have a task and let us go out with a "divine dissatisfaction." Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort and the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice. [,et us be dissatisfied until those that live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security. Let us be dissatisfied until slums are cast into the junk heaps of history, and every family is living in a decent sanitary home. Let us be dissatisfied until the dark yesterdays of segregated schools will be transformed into bright tomorrows of quality, integrated education. Let us be dissatisfied until integration is not seen as a problem but as an opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity. Let us be dissatisfied until men and women, however black they may be, will be judged on the basis of the content of their character and not on the basis of the color of their skin. Let us be dissatisfied. Let us be dissatisfied until every state capitol houses a governor who will do justly, who will love mercy and who will walk humbly with his God. Let us be dissatisfied until from every city hall, justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. Let us be dissatisfied until that day when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together. and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid. Let us be dissatisfied. And men will recognize that out of one blood God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth. Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout "White Power!" - when nobody will shout "Black Power!" - but everybody will talk about God's power and human power.

I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will still be rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again with tear-drenched eyes have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil-rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. And as we continue our charted course, we may gain consolation in the words so nobly left by that great black bard who was also a great freedom fighter of yesterday, James Weldon Johnson:

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod
Felt in the days
When hope unborn had died.
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place
For which our fathers sighed?
We have come over the way
That with tears hath been watered.
We have come treading our paths
Through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the bright gleam
Of our bright star is cast.

Let this affirmation be our ringing cry. It will give us the courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

Let us realize that William Cullen Bryant is right: "Truth crushed to earth will rise again." Let us go out realizing that the Bible is right: "Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." This is our hope for the future, and with this faith we will be able to sing in some not too distant tomorrow with a cosmic past tense, "We have overcome, we have overcome, deep in my heart, I did believe we would overcome."

World Music: African Soul Compilation

2011-01-16T13:18:00.000-08:00

African Soul Compilation
including music of Wanda Gimbya-Bobotie of Namibia

Further references:

Black Music of Two Worlds: African, Caribbean, Latin, and African-American Traditions

World Music: African

Black Women in Europe: Power List 2010

2010-12-09T12:57:00.001-08:00

Courtesy of Adrianne George, Integrated Marketing Communications Consultant at AG Communications Group (Stockholm, Sweden)

Black Women in Europe: Power List 2010

View more presentations from Adrianne George.

Annie Turnbo Malone: A Black Philanthropist and Entrepreneur

2010-10-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

Photo of Annie Turnbo Malone (1869-1957)

Before Oprah Winfrey and Madame C.J. Walker, there was Annie Turnbo Malone (aka Annie Minerva Turnbo Pope Malone and Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone), an African American entrepreneur and philanthropist during the early 20th century. Malone is recorded as the U.S.'s first black female millionaire based on reports of $14 million in assets held in 1920 from her beauty and cosmetic enterprises, headquartered in St. Louis and Chicago.

Early Life of Annie Turnbo

On August 9, 1869, Robert Turnbo and Isabella Cook became parents to Annie in Metropolis, Illinois. Annie attended school in Illinois where she apprentenced with her sister as a hairdresser. By 1889, Malone had developed her own scalp and hair products that she demonstrated and sold from a buggy throughout Illinois.

Launches the "Poro" Brand in St. Louis, MO

Image of Poro College, St. Louis

By 1902, Malone's business growth led her to St. Louis, Missouri, which at the time held the fourth largest population of African Americans. In St. Louis she copyrighted her Poro brand beauty products. In 1914, in a St. Louis wedding, Malone married the school principal Aaron Eugene Malon.

Photo of Poro College Administrative Building

By 1917, Malone opened the doors of Poro College, a beauty college which was later attended by Madam C.J. Walker. The school reportedly graduated about 75,000 agents world-wide, including the Caribbean. By 1930, the first full year of the Great Depression, Malone had moved from Missouri after divorcing her second husband and settled on Chicago's South Side.

The Black Philanthropist

From 1919 to 1943, Malone served as board president of the St. Louis Colored Orphan's Home. She had donated the first $10,000 to build the orphanage's new building in 1919. During the 1920s, Malone's philanthropy included financing the education of two full-time students in every historically black college and university. Her $25,000 donation to Howard University was among the largest gifts the university had received by a private donor of African descent.

Photo of Annie Turnbo Malone

On May 10, 1957, Annie Turnbo Malone was treated for a stroke at Provident Hospital in Chicago where she died. At the time of her death Poro beauty colleges were in operation in more than thirty U.S. cities.

St. Louis honors her memory with the Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center whose mission is "is to improve the quality of life for children, families, elderly and the community by providing social services, educational programs, advocacy and entrepreneurship."

Further reference: Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center: www.anniemalone.com/about-us.html

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela: First Black President of South Africa

2010-09-18T10:34:00.000-07:00

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was the first black president of the
Republic of South Africa, serving from 1994 to 1999

On July 18, 1918, Mandela was born along the Mbashe River in the village of Mvezo, in the Umtata district. AllAfrica.com and the BBC both report that Mandela was "born Rolihlahla Dalibhunga." Mandela explains in his 1994 autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, that he was given the English name "Nelson" by his teacher Miss Mdingane on his first day at school, which he explains was a common practice within white South African institutions, where whites were unable or unwilling to pronounce African names.

In Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela writes that "[a]part from life, a strong constitution, and an abiding connection to the Thembu royal house, the only thing my father bestowed upon me at birth was a name, Rolihlahla. In Xhosa, Rolihlahla literally means 'pulling the branch of a tree,' but its colloquial meaning more accurately would be 'troublemaker.'"

Mandela's father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, was chief of Mvezo in the Transkeiean territories, and from the African indigenous Thembu royal family line. His mother was Nosekeni Fanny, the third of his father's four wives. Mandela was one of thirteen children and had three older brothers.

The Education of Nelson Mandela

In 1930, when Mandela was nine years old, his father died. He was adopted by the paramount chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo. Under the Regent Jongintaba's guardianship, Mandela attended Wesleyan Mission School, where he was trained for leadership. He also studied at Clarkebury Boarding Institute and Wesleyan College. He also studied at Fort Hare University before he and Oliver Tambo were expelled in 1940 after boycotting against university policies. In a turn of history, the University of Hare would later establish the Nelson R. Mandela School of Law.

Mandela began his law studies at the University of Witwatersrand, but would earn his law degree in 1942 from the University of South Africa. Mandela's political activism made his legal studies a challenge; he initially failed the exams required for his LLB law degree in 1948. This was the same year the apartheid promoting National Party won its political victory. Along with Sisulu, Tambo, and others, Mandela organized the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) in Johannesburg.

By 1952, Mandela opened his law office, teaming up with Oliver Tambo to create the first black legal practice in South Africa. Mandela became the ANCYL's deputy national president. Here, he challenged institutional apartheid and fought for civil rights through land redistribution, trade union rights, and free and compulsory education for all children. The same year, the apartheid government banned Mandela's attendance at any political meetings or from holding an office within the ANC under the Suppression of Communism Act. In response, Mandela and Tambo initiated the M-plan (M for Mandela), which broke the ANC down into cells that could operate underground if necessary.

The Treason Trial and the Start of an Armed Struggle

On December 5, 1956, in response to the adoption of the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People, Nelson Mandela and Chief Albert Luthuli, then ANC President, were among the 156 people arrested and charged with high treason for their political activism. Punishment for high treason was death. Those arrested included most of the leadership of the ANC, Southern African Indian Congress, Coloured People's Congress, Congress of Democrats, and the South African Congress of Trade Unions, known collectively as the Congress Alliance. Eventually acquitted, during the treason trial Nelson Mandela met and eventually married his second wife Nomzamo Winnie Madikizela (aka Winnie Mandela, Winnie Madikizela Mandea and Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela). She would be his champion during his 27 years of incarceration as a political prisoner.

Photo of Nelson Mandela with Winnie Mandela

South African Apartheid and the Sharpeville Massacre

While Mandela was formerly committed to non-violent protest, he began to believe that armed struggle was the only way to achieve change. He co-founded Umkhonto we Sizwe, also known as MK, an offshoot of the ANC dedicated to an armed struggle, including sabotage and guerrilla war tactics to end apartheid. By 1959, however, the ANC lost much of its militant support when the Africanists broke away to form the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).

On March 21, 1960, 69 black Africans were killed and about 180 were injured when the South African police opened fire on demonstrators at Sharpeville. This transformed the ANC's strategy from a nonviolent movement using civil unrest techniques such as boycott, strike, civil disobedience and non-cooperation, to that of an armed struggle using guerrilla warfare against the apartheid regime.

As a brief history of European settlement, the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was among the first Europeans to reach the region in 1487. The two major groups were the Xhosa and Zulu peoples at the time of European contact in Southern Africa. By 1652, Dutchman Jan van Riebeeck established a settlement at the Cape of Good Hope at Cape Town on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. Dutch is the primary origin of the Afrikaan language, with an estimated 90 to 95 percent of Afrikaans vocabulary being of Dutch origin.

South Africa commemorates the 50th Anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre

Nelson Mandela: From Prison to Presidency

In 1964, Mandela was arrested again, this time on a charge of sabotage. This time, however, he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was incarcerated on Robben Island, near Cape Town, as prisoner 46664 for 18 of his 27 years in prison. Mandela imprisonment became a symbol of black oppression and a world-wide symbol of the resistance to racism. It sparked Pan Africanist responses from the Americas through support of organizations like TransAfrica under the efforts of the African American lawyer Randall Robinson. Mandela gained world-wide support, even from Europe. He was allowed to study for a Bachelor of Laws through a University of London correspondence program.

Mandela may have become the most revered prisoner in modern history. He would indeed be the trouble-maker, using his life to help dismantle apartheid to form a new multiracial democracy. In 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison under then leadership of his country's president Frederik Willem de Klerk. By July 1991, he was elected president of the ANC. In 1993, Mandela and de Klerk were both awarded Nobel Peace Prizes.

Photo of Nelson Mandela and Frederik de Klerk at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 1992

On May 10, 1994, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was elected the first black South African president as a result of its first multiracial elections. The same year he married Evelyn Mase, Walter Sisulu's cousin. He served as president until 1999 before retiring from active politics. He maintained a busy schedule of fund-raising for his Mandela Foundation, which aims to build schools and medical clinics in South Africa’s rural regions. In 2001, he was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer. June 2004, at age 85, he announced his formal retirement from public life.

Photo of Nelson Mandela in his native South Africa

Kwame Nkrumah: Ghanaian Pan Africanist

2010-09-07T10:08:00.000-07:00

Photo of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah (born: September 21, 1909 - died: April 27, 1972).

First President of Ghana and a founding member of the Organization of African Unity.

Kwame Nkrumah was born September 21, 1909 at Nkroful, Gold Coast (now Ghana). He was originally named after Francis Nwia-Kofi, an honored family personality. Son of goldsmith Kofi Ngonloma of the Asona Clan and Elizabeth Nyanibah of the Anona Clan, Nkrumah showed an early thirst for education. In 1930, Nkrumah completed studies at the acclaimed Prince of Wales’ Achimota School in Accra. Dr. Kwegyir Aggrey, Assistant Vice Principal and the first African staff member at the college, became his mentor.

Kwame Nkrumah U.S. Studies

By 1935, Nkrumah undertook advance studies in the United States at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. In 1939, he earned an BA in Economics and Sociology. By 1942, he earned an BA in Theology. By 1943, Nkrumah had earned an M.Sc. (Education), an MA (Philosophy), and completed course work for a Ph. D. degree at the University of Pennsylvania.

During his U.S. undergraduate studies, Nkrumah also pledged the predominately African-American Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, an academic honor society. He is said to have introduced African traditional steps to the fraternity's stepping tradition, including cane stepping.

Kwame Nkrumah Organizes Pan-Africans in Europe

Arriving in London in May of 1945, Nkrumah organized the 5th Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England and began networking through organizations like the West African Students' Union, where he served as vice-president. This same year he officially changed his name from Francis Nwia-Kofi to Kwame Nkrumah.

Image of the West African nation of Ghana

By December 1947, Nkrumah had returned to his homeland as a teacher, scholar, and political activist. He became General Secretary of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), which explored strategies for gaining independence from colonial England. Under Nkrumah's leadership, the UGCC attracted local political support from farmers and women. Women did not have the right to vote in many traditional patriarchial societies and farmers who were not land-owners also did not have the suffrage. In 1948, Accra, Kumasi, and other areas of the Gold Coast were experiencing general social unrest, which the British colonial government accredited to the UGCC. By 1949, Nkrumah had galvanized wide support and reorganized his efforts under the Convention People's Party (CPP).

Nkrumah advocated for constitutional changes. This included self-government, universal franchise without property qualifications, and a separate house of chiefs. Jailed by the colonial administration in 1950 for his political activism, the CPP's 1951 election sweep was followed by Nkrumah's release. Ghana was declared an independent state on March 6, 1957.

Photo of Kwame Nkrumah and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A devout Pan-Africanist, Nkrumah supported African federation under the auspices of the United States of African. He also had meaningful dialogue with African intellectuals from the diaspora, including W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Marcus Mosiah Garvey. He also corresponded with Trinidadian C.L.R. James, whom he credited with teaching him how an "underground movement worked." Nkrumah played a pivotal role in developing the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, the same year he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize.

Photo of Nkrumah Hall at the University of Dar es Salaam

in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

President of Ghana in West Africa

By 1964, Ghana was operating as a one-party state with Nkrumah as life president. Often criticized for developing non-participatory governance, by 1966 the Ghanaian military overthrew Nkrumah's administration. Nkrumah died in exile on April 27, 1972 in Bucharest, Romania. Nkrumah authored over 20 books and publications. For further references, Panaf Books has a list of Nkrumah's writings at their on-line website.

Photo of Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum and Memorial Park is located

in downtown Accra, the capital of Ghana

Here is a video dedicated to Kwame Nkrumah by Ghana's very own musician Obrafour: