Celebrate Black History Month

[Poetic_Princess]

This is the time of Month where everyone should celebrate Black History Month but not only in this Month only but Everyday from the great giants on wallstreet to the poor man on the street.
Celebrate the great black leaders who have gone before us and paved a way for us today from the great Martin Luther King Jr., Marcus Garvey, Rosa Parks and so many others which one can mention.I urge you in this month take some timeout to at least reasearch 1 or 2 of the great black leaders.
You will earn a great benefit from doing it.

Blessings in the Most High

[Poetic_Princess]

Greetings and Blessings one more as you all will notice it is Black History Month once again and as I urged you last year to research 1 or 2 great black leaders because the benefit from it will be priceless.

Freedom is never given it is won - A.Philip Randolph

Here are a few of these Great Black Leaders hope it is worth some value to you all.

Mary Eliza Church Terrell

civil rights and women's rights activist
Born: 9/23/1863
Birthplace: Memphis, Tenn.
Although Church Terrell's parents had been born slaves, they eventually became wealthy through business and real estate dealings and provided their daughter with the best education available to women at that time. She attended Oberlin College in Ohio, earning a bachelor's degree in 1884 and a master's degree in 1888. After a two-year tour of Europe, Church Terrell settled in Washington, DC, and became active in the suffragist movement, founding the Colored Women's League in 1892. In 1896 this club merged with the National Federation of Afro-American Women to become the National Federation of Colored Women, and Church Terrell was elected its first president. In 1895 she became the first African American woman appointed to the District of Columbia Board of Education. A charter member of the NAACP, she was a popular lecturer on equal rights for women and blacks and served as a delegate at various international women's rights congresses. She was also a prolific writer on social issues and the recipient of honorary doctorates from Howard University and Wilberforce and Oberlin colleges.
Died: 7/24/1954

Sojourner Truth    
(~1797-November 26, 1883)
The woman we know as Sojourner Truth was born into slavery in New York as Isabella Baumfree (after her father's owner, Baumfree). She was sold several times, and while owned by the John Dumont family in Ulster County, married Thomas, another of Dumont's slaves. She had five children with Thomas. In 1827, New York law emancipated all slaves, but Isabella had already left her husband and run away, with her youngest child.  She went to work for the family of Isaac Van Wagenen.

While working for the Van Wagenen's -- whose name she used briefly -- she discovered that a member of the Dumont family had sold one of her children to slavery in Alabama.  Since this son had been emancipated under New York Law, Isabella sued in court and won his return.

Isabella experienced a religious conversion, moved to New York City and to a Methodist perfectionist commune, and there came under the influence of a religious prophet named Mathias. The commune fell apart a few years later, with allegations of sexual improprieties and even murder. Isabella herself was accused of poisoning, and sued successfully for libel.  She continued as well during that time to work as a household servant.

In 1843, she took the name Sojourner Truth, believing this to be on the instructions of the Holy Spirit and became a traveling preacher (the meaning of her new name). In the late 1840s she connected with the abolitionist movement, becoming a popular speaker. In 1850, she also began speaking on woman suffrage.  Her most famous speech, Ain't I a Woman?, was presented in 1851 at a women's rights convention in Ohio. She met Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote about her for Atlantic Monthly and wrote a new introduction to The Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Sojourner Truth moved to Michigan and joined yet another religious commune, this one associated with the Friends. She was at one point friendly with Millerites, a religious movement that grew out of Methodism and became the Seventh Day Adventists.

During the Civil War Sojourner Truth raised food and clothing contributions for black regiments, and met Abraham Lincoln at the White House in 1864. While there, she tried to challenge the discrimination that segregated street cars by race.

After the War ended, Sojourner Truth again spoke widely, advocating for some time a "Negro State" in the west. She spoke mainly to white audiences, and mostly on religion, "Negro" and women's rights, and on temperance, though immediately after the Civil War she tried to organize efforts to provide jobs for black refugees from the war.

Active until 1875, when her grandson and companion fell ill, Sojourner Truth returned to Michigan where she died in 1883 and was buried in Battle Creek, Michigan.




Martin Luther King, Jr.

(1929-1968 )
Religious leader; civil rights/human rights activist; author/poet; labor activist; organization executive/founder; minister; antiwar activist

Any number of historic moments in the civil rights struggle have been used to identify Martin Luther King, Jr. — prime mover of the Montgomery bus boycott (1956), keynote speaker at the March on Washington (1963), youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1964). But in retrospect, single events are less important than the fact that King, and his policy of nonviolent protest, was the dominant force in the civil rights movement during its decade of greatest achievement, from 1957 to 1968.

King was born Michael Luther King in Atlanta on January 15, 1929 — one of the three children of Martin Luther King, Sr., pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, and Alberta (Williams) King, a former schoolteacher. (He did not receive the name of "Martin" until he was about six years of age.) After attending grammar and high schools locally, King enrolled in Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1944. At this time he was not inclined to enter the ministry, but while there he came under the influence of Dr. Benjamin Mays, a scholar whose manner and bearing convinced him that a religious career could have its intellectual satisfactions as well. After receiving his B.A. in 1948, King attended Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, winning the Plafker Award as the outstanding student of the graduating class, and the J. Lewis Crozer Fellowship as well. King completed the course work for his doctorate in 1953, and was granted the degree two years later upon completion of his dissertation.

Married by then, King returned South, accepting the pastorate of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. It was here that he made his first mark on the civil rights movement, by mobilizing the black community during a 382-day boycott of the city's bus lines. Working through the Montgomery Improvement Association, King overcame arrest and other violent harassment, including the bombing of his home. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Alabama laws requiring bus segregation unconstitutional, with the result that blacks were allowed to ride Montgomery buses on equal footing with whites.

A national hero and a civil rights figure of growing importance, King summoned together a number of black leaders in 1957 and laid the groundwork for the organization now known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Elected its president, he soon sought to assist other communities in the organization of protest campaigns against discrimination, and in voter-registration activities as well.

After completing his first book and making a trip to India, King returned to the United States in 1960 to become co-pastor, with his father, of Ebenezer Baptist Church. Three years later, in 1963, King's nonviolent tactics were put to their most severe test in Birmingham, Alabama during a mass protest for fair hiring practices, the establishment of a biracial committee, and the desegregation of department-store facilities. Police brutality used against the marchers dramatized the plight of blacks to the nation at large with enormous impact. King was arrested, but his voice was not silenced as he issued his classic "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" to refute his critics.

Later that year King was a principal speaker at the historic March on Washington, where he delivered one of the most passionate addresses of his career. At the beginning of the next year Time magazine designated him as its Man of the Year for 1963. A few months later he was named recipient of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. Upon his return from Oslo, where he had gone to accept the award, King entered a new battle, in Selma, Alabama, where he led a voter-registration campaign which culminated in the Selma-to-Montgomery Freedom March. King next brought his crusade to Chicago where he launched a slum-rehabilitation and open-housing program.


 

Garvey, Marcus, 1887–1940, American proponent of black nationalism, b. Jamaica. At the age of 14, Garvey went to work as a printer's apprentice. After leading (1907) an unsuccessful printers' strike in Jamaica, he edited several newspapers in Costa Rica and Panama. During a period in London he became interested in African history and black nationalism. His concern for the problems of blacks led him to found (1914) the Universal Negro Improvement Association and in 1916 he moved to New York City and opened a branch in Harlem. The UNIA was an organization designed “to promote the spirit of race pride.” Broadly, its goals were to foster worldwide unity among all blacks and to establish the greatness of the African heritage. Garvey addressed himself to the lowest classes of blacks and rejected any notion of integration. Convinced that blacks could not secure their rights in countries where they were a minority race, he urged a “back to Africa” movement. In Africa, an autonomous black state could be established, possessing its own culture and civilization, free from the domination of whites. Garvey was the most influential black leader of the early 1920s. His brilliant oratory and his newspaper, Negro World, brought him millions of followers. His importance declined, however, when his misuse of funds intended to establish a steamship company, the Black Star Line, resulted in a mail fraud conviction. He entered jail in 1925 and was deported to Jamaica two years later. From this time on his influence decreased, and he died in relative obscurity.



Hughes, Langston (James Langston Hughes), 1902–67, American poet and central figure of the Harlem Renaissance, b. Joplin, Mo., grad. Lincoln Univ., 1929. He worked at a variety of jobs and lived in several countries, including Mexico and France, before Vachel Lindsay discovered his poetry in 1925. The publication of The Weary Blues (1926), his first volume of poetry, enabled Hughes to attend Lincoln Univ. in Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1929. His writing, which often uses dialect and jazz rhythms, is largely concerned with depicting African American life, particularly the experience of the urban African American. Among his later collections of poetry are Shakespeare in Harlem (1942), One-Way Ticket (1949), and Selected Poems (1959). Hughes's numerous other works include several plays, notably Mulatto (1935); books for children, such as The First Book of Negroes (1952); and novels, including Not Without Laughter (1930). His newspaper sketches about Jesse B. Simple were collected in The Best of Simple (1961).

[Bantu_Kelani]

Good posts sister Poetic_Princess Black History Month is very much needed everyday for black awareness, and should be going on across the world. It is time for the community to honor its glory every day, come together, be proud, and celebrate! Let us make many plans for this Black History in celebration of black peoples !

B.K

[Poetic_Princess]

Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz )
(1925-1965)
Black Nationalist

Malcolm X was one of the most fiery and controversial people of the 20th century.

Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska on May 19, 1925, Malcolm was the son of a Baptist minister, who was an avid supporter of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association. While living in Omaha, the family was often harassed — at one point the family's house was set afire. In 1929 the family moved to Lansing, Michigan. While in Michigan, Malcolm's father was killed; his body severed in two by a streetcar and his head smashed. In his autobiography, written with Alex Haley, Malcolm asserted that his father may have been killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. His mother, stricken by the death of her husband and the demands of providing for the family, was committed to a mental institution.

Leaving school after the eighth grade, Malcolm made his way to New York, working for a time as a waiter at Smalls Paradise in Harlem. Malcolm began selling and using drugs, turned to burglary, and, in 1946, was sentenced to a ten-year prison term on burglary charges.

While in prison Malcolm became acquainted with the Black Muslim sect, headed by Elijah Muhammad, and was quickly converted. Following his parole in 1952, he soon became an outspoken defender of Muslim doctrines, accepting the basic argument that evil was an inherent characteristic of the "white man's Christian world."

Unlike Muhammad, Malcolm sought publicity, making provocative and inflammatory statements to predominantly white civic groups and college campus audiences. Branding white people "devils," he spoke bitterly of a philosophy of vengeance and "an eye for an eye." When, in 1963, he characterized the Kennedy assassination as a case of "chickens coming home to roost," he was suspended from the Black Muslim movement by Elijah Muhammad.

Disillusioned with Elijah Muhammad's teachings, Malcolm formed his own organizations, the Organization of Afro-American Unity and the Muslim Mosque Inc. In 1964 he made a pilgrimage to Islam's holy city, Mecca, and adopted the name El-Hajj Malik El Shabazz. He also adopted views that were not popular with other black nationalists, including the idea that not all whites were evil and that blacks could make gains by working through established channels.

As a result of Malcolm's new views, he became the victim of death threats. On February 14, 1965, his home was firebombed; his wife and children escaped unharmed. A week later, on the 21st, Malcolm was shot and killed at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, while preparing to speak. Three of the men arrested were later identified as members of the Nation of Islam.

Malcolm X had a profound influence on both blacks and whites. Many blacks responded to a feeling that he was a man of the people, experienced in the ways of the street rather than the pulpit or the college campus, which traditionally had provided the preponderance of black leaders. Many young whites responded to Malcolm's blunt, colorful language and unwillingness to retreat in the face of hostility.

The memory and image of Malcolm X has changed as much after his death as his own philosophies changed during his life. At first thought to be a violent fanatic, he is now understood as an advocate of self-help, self-defense, and education; as a philosopher and pedagogue, he succeeded in integrating history, religion, and mythology to establish a framework for his ultimate belief in world brotherhood and in human justice. Faith, in his view, was a prelude to action; ideas were feckless without policy. At least three books published since his death effectively present his most enduring thoughts. In 1992, a monumental film by Spike Lee based on his autobiography, renewed interest and understanding in the meaning of the life and death of Malcolm X.

[Poetic_Princess]

Blessings to jah and Rest in Peace to Ossie Davis who died.



Ossie Davis, known as well for his acting as for his civil rights work and professional partnership with wife Ruby Dee, was found dead on Friday in a Miami motel room at the age of 87.

Davis performed on Broadway as well as in feature films such as Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever,” “School Daze” and “Get on the Bus.” Davis’ career as an actor began in 1939, after graduating from Howard University, when he joined an acting troupe in Harlem. Davis garnered attention as an actor in the 1955 made-for-TV production “The Emperor Jones.”  

Davis and wife, actress Ruby Dee, starred in several movies together, including “Do the Right Thing,” and the critically acclaimed mini-series “Roots.” They also wrote screenplays and directed, often as a team. In 1998, the two published a dual autobiography, titled “In This Life Together.” The couple received a Life Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in 2001, an NAACP Hall of Fame Image Award in 1989 and honors from the Kennedy Center in 2004.

Off stage, the Davis and Dee remained steadfast in their efforts to stamp our racial injustice. The two, who served as masters of ceremony during the 1963 March on Washington, were vital at the advent of the Civil Rights Movement, suing for Black voting rights; in 1999 they were arrested in New York for their involvement in a protest over the killing of a Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo.

Davis and Dee celebrated their 50th anniversary in 1998. The couple has three children.

[Poetic_Princess]

Blessings and Once More Again

It is BLACK HISTORY MONTH by now i guess you guys have realized I love Black history month and as i urge you to live it all year around and not just for the month.

And again I urge everyone research some great black man or wombman who helped paved the way for us.

HOTEP

[c0cc0]

Marcus Garvey is my role model. I am going to try to see what he did and how he made so many black businesses. I, of course, will also have to make sure that I have sucessors so they don't collapse.
 Dude, isn't this great, check this out:

-I decided that I would dedicate myself to raising the black revenue last Sunday. I am going to major in business. I decided, finally.
-I am on my way to becoming proficient in Spanish and French (I'm better at French right now)
-Portuguese will be much easier to learn as a result (for communicating in Brazil)
-I am in Florida
-There are lots of people from the islands like Jamaica, Haiti, Martinique, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico (there are black hispanics, tu sabes) here and in Key West, especially
-I found the FBBIB (Florida Black Business Investment Board) online just minutes after I made my decision, and Florida A&M, a HBC, will be working with it. Oh, it's perfect. So perfect.
I think I'm going to cry, this series of events is so beautiful. 

[Ras_Nevoe]

The facts of his life are well known. Haile Selassie's influence on the world is his most enduring legacy. Born Tafari Makonnen in 1891, Haile Selassie came to be identified inextricably with Ethiopia. Only rarely in the modern world does the story of a man become so closely linked to the story of a nation. It is said that great events beget great men, but they beget failures as well, and the boundary between the two is often defined by singular acts of courage. These the Ethiopian Emperor did not lack.

Not surprisingly, the fortitude of the man sometimes referred to as "The Lion" inspired Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and even Malcom X, each of whom corresponded with Haile Selassie --who advocated civil disobedience when it was necessary to remedy fundamental social injustice or restore freedom to the oppressed. The Emperor's presence at President Kennedy's funeral is still remembered. It seems somehow appropriate that the motion picture Born Free was filmed in Ethiopia during Haile Selassie's reign.

One speaks of leaders of men as though their public lives were completely divorced from their private ones. For a hereditary monarch, this should not be the case. What his children think of him is as important as what everybody else thinks. Haile Selassie was a devoted husband and father. His wife, Empress Menen, died in 1962. His sons, Sahle Selassie, Makonnen, and Asfa Wossen, had a great sense of duty to their father and to their people. Of his daughters, Princess Tenagne, in particular, excercised various official duties.

Haile Selassie ascended the throne in the era of polar exploration and slow communication. Africa's oldest nation was little more than a footnote to the great stories of the day --something that Americans and Brits read about in the pages of the National Geographic. Some people still called the country Abyssinia. In certain countries far beyond Ethiopia's borders, segregation and apartheid were long established and little questioned. Most other African "nations" were colonies. Even at home, slavery was technically still legal.

In such an era, words like "pan-Africanism" and "civil rights" were little more than esoteric philosophical notions entertained by an enlightened few. That a country as backward as Italy, whose widespread poverty prompted the emigration of millions, would seek to devour a nation like Ethiopia, was an irony too subtle to raise eyebrows outside the most sophisticated intellectual circles. With British backing, Haile Selassie returned to defeat the Italian army which, in the event, the Allies never viewed as much more than a nuisance. The British themselves considered the Ethiopian campaign in its strategic context --as a way to free the Red Sea from possible Axis control-- as much as the liberation of a sovereign nation. To the Ethiopians, it was as much a moral victory as a military one.

The Emperor's speech to the League of Nations denouncing the Italian invasion is remembered more than the aggression itself. It prompted essentially ineffectual international trade sanctions against a European nation but, like the Battle of Adwa four decades earlier, represented in a tangible way one of the few occasions in the modern era that an African nation defied the arrogance of a European one.

There were very few world leaders of the post-war era who had actually led troops in combat. Haile Selassie and Dwight Eisenhower were exceptional in this respect, which partially accounts for their close friendship.

Even when the foe is truly formidable, courage has a psychological side that has little to do with combat or physical victory. One may seem defeated materially without being defeated morally. Perhaps it's a question of confidence, values or knowledge. Haile Selassie's greatest strength was as a builder of bridges --across rivers but also between cultures. His travels took him to many countries, and he became one of the most popular heads of state, and one of the most decorated men in the world.

It was during one such voyage, in 1960, that he had to rush home to confront an attempted overthrow of the existing order. This perhaps served as a reminder that the most dangerous revolutions are found in one's own house. The sovereign who was once known as a reformer now found himself resented by many members of the very social class his economic and educational policies had helped to create. Internationally, however, his prestige did not suffer. The Emperor established the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, with a headquarters in Addis Ababa.

The revolution of 1974 was supported by outside forces, and while its roots were domestic, its covert objectives cannot be said to have been supported by more than a small fraction of Ethiopians. Truth be told, administrative practices which worked well in 1950 were terribly inefficient by the 1970s, and a series of problems were cited as a pretext for a full scale coup d'etat. Ethiopia's pre-industrial economy was no better prepared for Marxism than Russia's had been in 1917. Communism's ultimate social and economic failure, in Ethiopia as well as in Russia, certainly indicates democracy's superiority, whether that democracy is embodied by a republic or a constitutional monarchy. The Derg's alliance with the Soviet Union made Ethiopia the instrument of a foreign power, precisely the thing Haile Selassie resisted.

[Still_an_Empress]

General Buddhoe Liberator of The Virgin Islands

ST. CROIX - Thousands of slaves put their lives on the line 157 years ago to fight for freedom in a well-planned rebellion that would change the course of history for the Virgin Islands, then known as the Danish West Indies.

On July 3, 1848, slaves carefully executed a yearlong plan to demand their freedom on the streets of Frederiksted town - and won.

Much of what has been written about Moses "Buddhoe" Gottlieb, the free black who led the 1848 slave rebellion on St. Croix, is shrouded in controversy, but historians agree the Emancipation Proclamation that followed stands as a seminal point in Virgin Islands history.

According to historical accounts, the uprising by St. Croix slaves, particularly on the western end of the island, began on the evening of July 2, 1848, with hundreds of slaves assembling outside Fort Frederik, Frederiksted. The slaves declared they would not be working the next day and shouted for their freedom.

By the next morning thousands of slaves had gathered. Some 2,000 of them marched into Frederiksted from the northwest and north coast estates, joining others from Ham's Bluff and other estates along Centerline Road. According to historical accounts, by 10 a.m. about 8,000 slaves had gathered in front of the fort demanding their freedom.

Shortly after 1 p.m. on July 3, a message from the fort commander in Frederiksted reached Gov. Gen. Peter von Scholten. It read: "All the Negroes in this part of the country are in revolt; all over, bells are ringing."

It is not known if the bells and blowing of conch shells signaled for more slaves to gather or if planters were warning others of the uprising. Many West End plantation owners fled their estates for the security of the fort.
During the uprising, there were few reports of violence, thanks to Buddhoe, who stopped the slaves from rioting and kept them focused on obtaining their freedom.

Messages were sent from Danish authorities to von Scholten, begging him to come to Frederiksted since it was clear that if the slaves became hostile, they would burn the town and kill every white person within reach.

The whipping post, a device used to beat slaves within an inch of their lives, was torn from the ground and the slaves carried it to the wharf, throwing it as far out to sea as possible.

Black slave women were seen dragging sugar cane tops near the fort in preparation to burn the fort and town if any shots were fired from the fort or if they did not receive their freedom.

The slaves gave von Scholten a 4 p.m. deadline to liberate them. Realizing that the slaves were serious and not just venting frustration, he ordered that his horse-driven carriage be made ready and he set sail for Frederiksted.

One historical account states that once von Scholten arrived in Frederiksted, he immediately went into the fort to be briefed on the events. He looked outside the fort and saw more than 8,000 slaves silently awaiting his decision.

Von Scholten had no choice. Any refusal or delay would mean destruction of the towns and plantations and many would be killed. He walked to a commanding post, which is now the clock area, and announced: "Alle unfrie paa de Danske Vestindiske oer ere fra dags dato frigivne."

National Park Service historian William Cissel said another version used by historians states that upon von Scholten's arrival at the fort, his carriage was surrounded by slaves and he could not move.

He stood up or stepped down from the carriage and gave his Proclamation of Emancipation - "All unfree in the Danish West Indies are from today free."

As the word "freedom" rang through the air, the former slaves rejoiced. Pandemonium broke out and there was singing and dancing in the streets and countryside.

Cissel said Buddhoe's attempts to help calm the slaves took tremendous courage.

"Once emancipation is achieved, Buddhoe went along with Danish authorities to help extinguish any rioting and violence in the estates," Cissel said. "He was a remarkable man. Natural born leaders will surface when the time is right and it is how you use or misuse your opportunity for leadership that defines your character."

Slaves in Christiansted had not heard that they had been freed, but they heard of the Frederiksted rebellion and decided to rebel also. The Danish militia tried to quell blossoming riots there and eventually received orders to fire a cannon filled with shrapnel into a crowd gathered at Bassin Triangle, located west of Christiansted. The crowd was threatening to storm Christiansted. A number of slaves were killed and injured.

By the time von Scholten arrived in Christiansted the evening of July 3, 1848, the town was in chaos. The former slaves were determined to get revenge for the massacre at Bassin Triangle and set fires. White citizens, angry that their infrastructure was falling apart, filled government house. The night, however, passed without further incident.

Cissel said there are conflicting stories of Buddhoe's life and what happened to him after Emancipation. He said according to records of the 1841 and 1846 Danish census, Buddhoe's real name was John Gottliff. The last name translated into Danish and German is "Gottlieb," meaning "God's love."

He said there were other leaders in the rebellion. Among them were Moses Roberts of Estate Sprat Hall and Martin "Admiral" King of Estate Slob. King referred to his followers as "the fleet."

"It is likely that over time, people began to think of John Gottlieb and Moses Roberts as the same person, hence the name Moses Gottlieb," Cissel said.

Most historians believe Buddhoe was born in Estate La Grange and was a free black and skilled sugar boiler, which gave him freedom to come and go as he pleased.

At the time of Emancipation, it is estimated that Buddhoe was about 28 years old.

Cissel said that after the slaves were liberated, Buddhoe was jailed at Fort Christiansvaern in Christiansted for about six months and then exiled to Trinidad, where accounts of his life become very unclear. Buddhoe was told if he ever returned to the Danish West Indies, he would be executed.

Cissel said there are stories of Buddhoe being robbed and forced to work on the ship and some historians argue that he was taken to Trinidad without incident and later left for the United States. Some say he died in Grenada.

Today, the events of July 3, 1848, are commemorated as Emancipation Day. This year will mark the 159th anniversary of the proclamation.

Cissel said the 1848 rebellion paved the way for struggles that followed - the 1878 Labor Riot or Fireburn and David Hamilton Jackson's fight for freedom of the press and the establishment of the first labor union in 1915.

"Buddhoe's achievement with emancipation is a pivotal event in Virgin Islands history and was a significant milestone along the way for the struggle over freedom and labor rights," Cissel said.

KNOW EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR HISTORY

http://www.snwmf.com/phorum/read.php?f=1&i=87859&t=87859&v=f

[siger]

Wole Soyinka.

[siger]

Born Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka, Wole Soyinka is the epitome of the stobborn persistence of a positive cause.
An accomplishhed writer, Elder Soyinka has held the bitter torch that illuminates Africa's corrupted-cobbled alleys for the rest of us.
He is my choice for this year's Black History Month; at a time when more of his writings are starting to make sense to me.

Born to a Headteacher and a respected "political" shop-keeper, Elder Soyinka was not so badly off in his early life. His family had a radio, and electricity, and the respect of the community.
Through-out his school life, he was noted as a fine writer, and eventually attended the University of Ibadan.
Two years later, he left for the University of Leeds, U.K. where he obtained an degree in English (1959). He then proceeded to write, achieving in his golden career many applaudes and even more gaudings.

I was told, early in life, that the mark of great men is in the use of their best resource to better the lives of others. Wole Soyinka was not a general, nor a wealthy banker to support rebellions; but whenever the fate-shifters of Africa are mentioned, Elder Soyinka will always merit his place.

With over 19 plays, 5 novels, 5 poetry collections and a horde of essays, Wole Soyinka succeeded in the portayal of the social injustices of African dictatorships, the tired nature of governance and the lack of respite in the woes of the ordinary African.
His works are widely read, and he plants seed in the mind of all those who read them.

His is not a rosy story. It was not beyond him to act out of accord when the desperation of situations was upon him.
Take, for instance, his "take-over" of the Ibadan radio. After a fraudulent election of the premeir of the Western Region, a much younger Soyinka, armed with naught but a gun and his manhood, entered the Ibadan broadcasting studios; he played a tape with his own convictions on the elections, instead of the victory speech of the "premier-elect".
He also took a personal initiative to broker peace between the then government and the Baifra rebels; an act that had him labelled as a traitor.
From 1967-1969, Wole Soyinka was imprisoned. Regardless, he continued to write, his most notable work, Live Burial.

Later in life, Wole Soyinka would be showered with honours, including a Noble Prize in Literature, 1986. I want to believe, that more than these honours, Elder Soyinka has been an inspiration to many Africans; at least to those blessed enough to have read his works.

[Ras_Nevoe]

Huey P. Newton

Huey P. Newton (1942-1989) founded the Afro-American Society and was a co-founder of the Black Panther Party, serving as its minister of defense during much of the 1960s. Later he turned to community service for the poor.

Huey P. Newton was born February 17, 1942, in Monroe, Louisiana. The youngest of seven children, Huey was named for former Louisiana governor Huey Pierce Long. The Newton family moved to Oakland, California, in 1945 to take advantage of the job opportunities created by World War II wartime industries. In Oakland the family moved often, and in one house Huey was compelled to sleep in the kitchen. Even though the Newton's were poor and victims of discrimination and segregation, Huey contends that he never felt deprived as a child and that he never went hungry.

Huey attended the Oakland public schools where, he claimed, he was made to feel "uncomfortable and ashamed of being black." He responded by constantly and consistently defying authority, which resulted in frequent suspensions. At the age of 14, he was arrested for gun possession and vandalism. In his autobiography, Revolutionary Suicide, Newton wrote, "during those long years in the Oakland public schools, I did not have one teacher who taught me anything relevant to my own life or experience. Not one instructor ever awoke in me a desire to learn more or to question or explore the worlds of literature, science, and history. All they did was try to rob me of the sense of my own uniqueness and worth, and in the process they nearly killed my urge to inquire."

According to Newton, he did not learn to read well until he had finished high school. "I actually learned to read--really read more than just 'dog' and 'cat,' which was about all I could do when I left high school--by listening to records of Vincent Price reading great poetry, and then looking up the poems to see how the words looked." In order to prove that high school counselors were wrong in saying he was not college material, Newton attended Merritt College intermittently, eventually earning an Associate of Arts degree. He also studied law at Oakland City College and at San Francisco Law School.

Newton claimed he studied law to become a better burglar. He was arrested several times for minor offenses while still a teenager and he supported himself in college by burglarizing homes in the Oakland and Berkeley Hills area and running the "short change" game. In 1964, at age 22, he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to six months in the Alameda County jail. Newton spent most of this sentence in solitary confinement, including the "soul breaker"--extreme solitary confinement.

While at Oakland City College, Newton had become politically oriented and socially conscious. He joined the Afro-American Association and played a role in getting the first black history course adopted as part of the college's curriculum. He read the works of Frantz Fanon, Malcolm X, Chairman Mao Tse-tung, and Che Guevara. A child of the ghetto and a victim of discrimination and the "system," Newton was very much aware of the plight of Oakland's African-American community. Realizing that there were few organizations to speak for or represent lower class African-Americans, Newton along with Bobby Seale organized the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in October 1966, with Seale as chairman and Newton as minister of defense. Like a wary panther that would not attack unless attacked, so too was the organization regarded.

Cop-haters since childhood, Newton and Seale decided the police must be stopped from harassing Oakland's African-Americans; in other words, to "defend the community against the aggression of the power structure, including the military and the armed might of the police." Newton was familiar with the California penal code and the state's law regarding weapons and was thus able to convince a number of African-Americans of their right to bear arms. Members of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense began patrolling the Oakland police. Guns were the essential ingredient on these patrols. Newton and other Black Panther members observed police procedure, ensured that African-American citizens were not abused, advised African-Americans of their rights, and posted bail for those arrested. In addition to patrolling the police, Newton and Seale were responsible for writing the Black Panther Party Platform and Program, which called for freedom, full employment, decent housing, education, and military exemption for African-Americans. But there was a darker side to the group, described in Former Panther Earl Anthony's book, Spitting in the Winds a party created with the goal to organize America for armed revolution. Moreover, Washington, D.C., intelligence spent many years trying to bring down what they believed to be "the most violence-prone of all the extremist groups."

Huey Newton proved to be as violent as the party he helped to create when he was thrust into the national limelight in October 1967; accused of murdering Oakland police officer John Frey. In September 1968 Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to two to 15 years in prison. In May 1970 the California Appellate Court reversed Newton's conviction and ordered a new trial. After two more trials the State of California dropped its case against Newton, citing technicalities including the judge's failure to relay proper instructions to the jury.

After his release from prison Newton overhauled the Black Panther Party, revised its program, and changed its rhetoric. While he had been imprisoned, party membership had decreased significantly in several cities, and the FBI had started a campaign to disrupt and eventually bring down the Black Panthers. Abandoning its Marxist-Leninist ideology, Newton now concentrated on community survival programs. The Black Panthers sponsored a free breakfast program for children, sickle-cell anemia tests, free food and shoes, and a school, the Samuel Napier Intercommunal Youth Institute. However, as before, the Black Panthers were not without controversy. Funding for several of their programs were raised as the result of the co-operation of drug dealers and prostitution rings.

Newton tried to shed his image as a firebreathing revolutionary, but he continued to have difficulty with the police. In 1974 several assault charges were filed against him, and he was also accused of murdering a 17-year-old prostitute, Kathleen Smith. Newton failed to make his court appearance. His bail was revoked, a bench warrant issued, and his name added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's most wanted list. Newton had jumped bail and escaped to Cuba, where he spent three years in exile. In Cuba he worked as a machinist and teacher. He returned home in 1977 to face murder charges because, he said, the climate in the United States had changed and he believed he could get a fair trial. He was acquitted of the murder of Kathleen Smith after two juries were deadlocked.

In addition to organizing the Black Panther Party and serving as its minister of defense, Newton unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party in 1968. In 1971, between his second and third trials for the murder of John Frey, he visited China for ten days, where he met with Premier Chou En-lai and Chiang Ch'ing, the wife of Chairman Mao Tse-tung. While there he was offered political asylum. Newton studied for a Ph.D. in the history of social consciousness at the University of California in 1978. In 1985 the 43-year-old Newton was arrested for embezzling state and federal funds from the Black Panthers' community education and nutrition programs. In 1989 he was convicted of embezzling funds from a school run by the Black Panthers. By this time the Panthers had turned to less violent activism. On August 22, 1989, Newton was gunned down, ironically in the same city streets of Oakland that saw the rise of the Black Panthers 23 years ago. Bill Turque in Newsweek described a sad but appropriate farewell: "A small florist's card, resting with bouquets of red gladiolus's and white dahlias on a chain-link fence near the shooting scene, summed it up: 'Huey: for the early years.'"


PEACE!

Ras Nevoe
Da Prophet