Tag: Black History

The Death Of Malcolm X

On 21Feb1965 Black leader Malcolm X was assassinated in NYC……..

In New York City, Malcolm X, an African American nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights.

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/142725

The question still remains……why was he killed?

Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, born Malcolm Little) was an influential and inspirational figure to the Afro-Americans in the United States.  A powerful orator, excellent debater and willing to preach “The price of freedom is death,” led for his personality and teachings to be printed across the U.S. and the world.

There are three possible answers.  Three—because each on its own isn’t satisfactory.  Examining the motives behind the killing inevitably leads for more questions to be asked and before you know it, you’re in too deep.

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/142725

Many people do not like Malcolm X because of his supposed hate for white people….some of that is warranted but after he returned from the Hajj his tone changed for the better to include all people…….

I offer a few videos for those interested…..

https://youtu.be/iAgNk4LzbIw

This video is a long piece but should be seen to understand the man and the movement he inspired……

https://youtu.be/i7klC1zR60M

This one is a short video that was made for children to acquaint them with the man…..

https://youtu.be/lERbO006Ppk

Malcolm X was more than the negativity that is always bought up when his name is mentioned…….he should be required for any history of America.

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Black Face–Another Sad Chapter

We are still hearing about the use of black face by white people to depict a black person…..why?

Virginia is in the news and black face is also…..but what of black face?  It is the 21st century and we are still talking about this act of bigotry.

Yes, there is a long disgusting history of its use in the US…..

Once called the “king of performers,” Al Jolson was famous in the 1920s for his portrayal of blackface.

It’s ironic on the first day of Black History Month a raging controversy erupted in America that recalls one of the more demeaning chapters, that of ‘blackface’, of American Black History.

The controversy prevailed after pages from the 1984 year-book of Virginia Governor Ralph Norton’s tenure at medical school was made public showing individuals dressed in blackface, and a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) uniform, hood and all.

The gravity of the situation not recognized

As the controversy rage, with calls for Northam to resign over his association with the blatant racist images, which he denies involves him, some people within the Caribbean American community failed to recognize the gravity of the situation. Some wondered why should the government pay a price for behavior as a young man of 25, some 35 years ago?

It’s not surprising this question would be asked. As has been seen in the past, several Caribbean Americans, although they are of the black race don’t fully comprehend, or appreciate some of the significance, especially the more negative aspects, of American Black history.

https://caribbeantimesnyc.com/2019/02/blackface-a-sorry-aspect-of-black-history/

I think it is sad that since this situation is a dire need of a solution that I had to find this article in the Caribbean Times…..

Now I ask….are we truly having a conversation on this situation or we just throwing diatribes at it?

I grew up in the racist South of the 50s and 60s and I do not see this as something that we should avoid….we need to air all the

Further Reading……..arguments and not the platitudes.

https://www.black-face.com/

https://www.vox.com/2014/10/29/7089591/why-is-blackface-offensive-halloween-costume

Lincoln And The Emancipation

As a history buff I am always looking for stuff that the normal person may not be aware of or did not learn while in school…..the major event in American history that gets a lot of attention is the “emancipation” but is it all that we think we know about it?

John Brown was executed by the state of Virginia with the approval of the national government. It was the national government which, while weakly enforcing the law ending the slave trade, sternly enforced the laws providing for the return of fugitives to slavery. It was the national government that, in Andrew Jackson’s administration, collaborated with the South to keep abolitionist literature out of the mails in the southern states. It was the Supreme Court of the United States that declared in 1857 that the slave Dred Scott could not sue for his freedom because he was not a person, but property.

Such a national government would never accept an end to slavery by rebellion. It would end slavery only under conditions controlled by whites, and only when required by the political and economic needs of the business elite of the North. It was Abraham Lincoln who combined perfectly the needs of business, the political ambition of the new Republican party, and the rhetoric of humanitarianism. He would keep the abolition of slavery not at the top of his list of priorities, but close enough to the top so it could be pushed there temporarily by abolitionist pressures and by practical political advantage.

Lincoln could skillfully blend the interests of the very rich and the interests of the black at a moment in history when these interests met. And he could link these two with a growing section of Americans, the white, up-and-coming, economically ambitious, politically active middle class. As Richard Hofstadter puts it:

https://libcom.org/history/lincoln-emancipation-howard-zinn

I like Zinn and may I suggest that his book “A People’s History Of The United States”….. a long read but well worth the time to do so.

Learn Stuff!

The more you learn the more you know……how’s that for a profound statement?

Class Dismissed!

Ever Hear Of The “Harlem Hellfighters”?

Sunday and I must get off my butt and start getting the garden ready for the crops of the year…..but before that I need to offer up another history lesson….(I hear those heavy sighs)…..

I have been writing and trying to get more Americans to pay attention to World War One……it was century ago and while American troops were only there for about a year and actually fought for about 6 months we still lost about 116,000 troops……in case you cannot feel the size of that…we lost 53,000 in Vietnam in ten years….

There were and are many stories of the units that fought in this war and one of those units is the Harlem Hellfighters……

A century ago, on Feb. 17, 1919, the US Army’s 369th Infantry Regiment, nearly 3,000 African American soldiers and known as the Harlem Hellfighters, returned from World War I and marched up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan before hundreds of thousands of cheering New Yorkers. The Harlem Hellfighters weren’t supposed to be heroes, but they were among the “hyphenated” troops whose accomplishments demonstrate that the United States’ asymmetric advantage, in war as well as in peace, is diversity.

The 369th Infantry Regiment was part of the Army’s Rainbow Division, 27,000 troops from across the country quickly mustered after the US entered World War I in April 1917. Most of the division shipped out to Europe in August of that year; the Hellfighters didn’t arrive in France until late December. They had not been allowed to march off to war with the rest of their Rainbow Division because “black is not a color of the rainbow.”

American military leaders expected the troops of the 369th to be terrible soldiers. Like most black recruits in World War I, they weren’t intended to fight but to be manual laborers at the front. They were issued inferior uniforms and weapons, and then, in an emergency, they were transferred to the French army, whose officers were explicitly told to treat them as second-class soldiers.

Despite the discrimination and the disadvantages, the men of the 369th became one of the war’s most decorated and celebrated units.

Read the full piece in the Los Angeles Times.

That is my offerings for the day……

Go! Learn Stuff!

Have a great day……I shall be back in full force come Monday…..

Closing Thought–19Jun18

Today is Juneteenth……and most Americans this means nothing to them other than another day in June …..but this day is full of history……I guess it could be billed as the Black Independence Day……

June 19 is just another day, and another insignificant day on the calendar. However, for those who are direct descendants of former slaves, the day holds a much bigger significance, as it is the oldest known celebration to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States.

According to Juneteenth.com, June 19, 1865 was the date that Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas and brought the news that the Civil War was officially over and those who had previously been enslaved were not free men and women. The website notes how important that is in relation to President Abraham Lincoln’s famous Emancipation Proclamation, which had become official two and a half years earlier, on January 1, 1863.

“The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive Order,” the website states. “However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865 and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.”

http://www.ibtimes.com/what-juneteenth-why-it-celebrated-2553731

For more information in case you missed it……

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States.  Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation – which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive Order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.

http://www.juneteenth.com/history.htm

Hopefully you learned something today…..peace out my friends….chuq

Closing Thought–19May17

Remembering Malcolm X

On this day, 19May, in 1925 a great American civil rights activist was born…..

African-American leader and prominent figure in the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X articulated concepts of race pride and black nationalism in the 1950s and ’60s.

Born on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, Malcolm X was a prominent black nationalist leader who served as a spokesman for the Nation of Islam during the 1950s and ’60s. Due largely to his efforts, the Nation of Islam grew from a mere 400 members at the time he was released from prison in 1952 to 40,000 members by 1960. Articulate, passionate and a naturally gifted and inspirational orator, Malcolm X exhorted blacks to cast off the shackles of racism “by any means necessary,” including violence. The fiery civil rights leader broke with the group shortly before his assassination on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan, where he had been preparing to deliver a speech.

Source: Malcolm X – Civil Rights Activist, Minister – Biography.com

A short vid about Malcolm’s last years……

Source: X: Malcolm’s Final Years

This country is a better place when we have people like Malcolm fighting for our rights……we need more Malcolms and less d/bags….

That ends my week……I will start my weekend with a smile and a song….

Jackson State: The Other “Kent State”

Closing Thought–15May17

Today in History

1820–the US Congress designates the slave trade as a form of piracy…..

1970–year of student deaths…….

We were recently reminded about the deaths among the protesting students at Kent State…..but why is that news and a couple a weeks later students were killed at a prominently black university in Mississippi, Jackson State?

Yep, another history lesson is on the way…..

In the Spring of 1970, campus communities across this country were characterized by a chorus of protests and demonstrations. The issues were the escalation of the war in Vietnam and the U.S. invasion of Cambodia; the ecology; racism and repression; and the inclusion of the experiences of women and minorities in the educational system. No institution of higher education was left untouched by confrontations and continuous calls for change.

On May 14-15, 1970, Jackson State students were protesting these issues as well as the May 4, 1970 tragedy at Kent State University in Ohio. Four Kent State students — Alison Krause, Sandra Scheuer, Jeffrey Glenn Miller and William K. Schroeder — were killed by Ohio National Guardsmen.

According to reports, the riot began around 9:30 p.m., May 14, when rumors were spread that Fayette, Mississippi mayor Charles Evers (brother of slain Civil Rights activist Medgar Evers) and his wife had been shot and killed. Upon hearing this rumor, a small group of students rioted.

Source: The Jackson State shootings, 1970

Neither at the time, nor 45 years later did the Jackson State killings have the same effect on people that Kent state did. (Not that middle America was terribly worried about the Kent State killing either, since 58 percent of them decided the students were to blame.) Perhaps they simply were overpowered by the loudness of Kent state, and a similar incident with a smaller body count was doomed to appear as just aftershocks. Yet, it seems unjust to forget one and sing about the other.

Source: Jackson State and Forgotten History by — Antiwar.com

It is sad that this incident is basically forgotten in the annals of history……