My two guests were:
Dr. Stephanie Myers, who is one of the founders of Black Women for Positive Change, who hold the annual Month of Nonviolence.
Please share this with your networks. Thanks!
That was in 1960. In this NPR piece, Bridges describes the loneliness she experienced because she never saw another child in the school. She found out later that the white children were being hidden. She also talks about her white teacher, Mrs. Henry, who advocated for her. Go here to listen.
Go here for lots more Black history blogs.
How much do you know about Ruby Bridges and/or desegregation? Please leave your comments below.
I have attended these talks for many years and I was very excited to learn that Black History Walks in London Volume I had been published. Holding it is like holding history in my hand. This is a very strong experience.
If you are a parent, a teacher or educator, a Black history buff or just someone who wants to increase your knowledge about Black history, you need this book. And Brother Tony’s work makes it clear that Black history is world history.
Go here to buy it on Amazon.co.uk
Go here to buy it on Amazon.com
If you buy it from one of these links, I will gain a small commission.
In addition to the many Black history talks by Brother Tony Warner which I have attended over the years, I have also attended many of the African Odysseys films he helps to curate at London’s Southbank Centre. I have thoroughly enjoyed loads of them, although some were very challenging because of the subject matter.
Brother Tony's presentations are always packed full of useful and intriguing factual information. He is making Black history accessible to us through his detailed research and his presentations, which are always very engaging. His work, although London-based, gives a global perspective on Black history.
Go here for my recent conversation with Brother Tony Warner.
Like his talks, Black History Walks in London Volume I very much reflects Brother Tony’s ongoing commitment to seeking out, researching and sharing detailed Black history information. In other words, he is a griot.
Brother Tony’s work deals with slavery, pre-slavery and post-slavery issues in Africa, the Caribbean, and all of the Americas, as well as London, Britain and Europe.
Of particular interest is his section on the Second World War, which he covers from several angles. Again, it contains loads of useful and fascinating factual information.
For
example, did you know that.during the Second World War, German submarines targeted the waters
around the Caribbean? Or that Trinidad was home to the largest oil refinery in the British Empire?
Or that, during the First World War, Black troops from the Caribbean were put into cold accommodation and made to stack boxes, while German POWs - the enemy - were housed in heated rooms?
Or that, in 1919, Black troops in Washington, D.C. fought against mobs of racist white sailors who were attacking Black people?
If you want to know more, buy the book today. It will also make a great present for the holidays or anytime. As we know, every month is Black History Month. Bring your copy along to the next Black history walk or talk and get it signed by the author (he has already signed mine).
Go here to buy it on Amazon.co.uk
Go here to buy it on Amazon.com
Go here for my blog post about Black soldiers in the First World War.
Go here for lots more Black history blog posts.
What interests you the most about Black history? Please comment below and please share this blog post with your networks. Thanks for your help.
If this is of interest to you, go here for my conversation with Steve Mosley. Not just a tax consulltant, Steve is offering loads of services that can help your business. He can help you raise finance.
And go here for my conversation with business expert Stacey Wilkinson. Again, she can help you to raise finance for your business.
For more about how you can grow your business, my Kindle ebook Affirmations for Business can help. It includes an interview with Stacey. You can download it from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. And if you are an Amazon Associate, you can sell it to earn a litle money.
Here are some more of my Amazon Kindle books which you can sell.
Have a great day! Please leave your comments and questions below. Thanks. What is your best strategy for building your business?
My Buddhist teacher, the Venerable Urgyen Sangharakshita, has said that anyone can be friends with anyone, that this is his religion and that he would rather die than give it up.
This may well be true, but I don'r necessarily think this is a good thing. I have strong feelings about explaining racism to white people. And yet, I find this story very inspiring. This is challenging some of my opinions, assumptions and views.
An African American man by the name of Daryl Davis decided he wanted to go along to Klan rallies and meetings, befriend Klan members and teach them not to be racist. So he did.
Unlike Ron Stallworth, the person Spike Lee focused on in his film BlackkKlansman, it was not his job. He was not an undercover police officer. He was just someone who wanted to make a difference.
I personally would not have seen the point in doing this. But Davis states that 200 Klan members have left the Klan as a direct result of his befriending them. Food for thought. As I say, I find this truly inspiring.
This just goes to show that anyone can make a difference. One person can make a huge difference.
It's amazing what communication can do. Go here for more about Nonviolent Communication (NVC). This is not to say that Daryl Davis uses NVC. But what he is doing clearly works.
What are your thoughts? Please post below.
See also: The Black Man Who Attends Klan Rallies.
My guests on today's show were Dr. Lynne Muhammad, founder of the STREAM Labs, and Pastor Charetta Hodge, who is on the ministerial staff of Christhood International Ministries of St. Louis. Both of my guests attended the recent HWPL Peace Summit in South Korea, as did my Executive Producer Naimah Latif.
TRIGGER WARNING: We talked about two extremely violent incidents which recently occurred in South London, and strategies for preventing these types of attacks in future.
To correct what was said there, 15-year-old Elianne Andam was killed when she intervened in an attack on a friend of hers by the friend's ex.
Go here for a blog post on domestic violence.
Go here for my conversation with Mercy Makinde on her experience of escapiing domestic violence.
Go here for more from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2023.
October is Black History Month here in the UK. And it is also the annual Month of Nonviolence which is held by Black Women for Positive Change, and is open to EVERYONE. And that means this is month is the annual Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence. So stay tuned for all the blogs I’ll be publishing this month. The link for the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2023 is above.
What are your thoughts? Please share this with your networks and please comment below.
According to this short film, the Ku Klux Klan have infiltrated all areas of public life in Colorado, including politics, education and health. This has been going on for many years. Who knew?
Far-right white supremacist groups are on the rise in the U.S.A.
While it is important to be aware of this, it is more important for us to dwell on the positives. The Law of Increase states that whatever we dwell on increases. Whatever we focus on expands. Therefore, we need to focus on our own power.
Those of us who are conscious frequently dwell on the negatives, on our history, which is full of trauma and has been for the past 500 years. But we are a glorious people. Our history need not define us or our future.
The world reflects our thoughts, feelings and emotions. If we dwell on the positives and what we are striving to achieve, nothing and no one can hold us back.
See also: How to Get the Results We Want.
Please share this with your networks.
What are you focusing on right now - the negatives or the positives? Please post below.
The recent film Oppenheimer is guilty of one crucial omission: the involvement of people of the Congo in the development of the atomic bomb.
As is well known, the Congolese were forced to harvest rubber after the country was made the private estate of King Leopold of Belgium. They were subjected to amputations if they failed to meet their quotas, as well as other horrific punishments. I talked about this history here.
What is probably less known is that the Congolese were also used to mine the uranium which Oppenheimer used to create the first atomic bombs. The highest quality uranium in the world came from Congo. This was a top-secret operations in which the workers were exploited.
As the author says, "I kept seeing what was missing: Black miners hauling earth and stone to sort piles of radioactive ore by hand". Go here to read more.
Go here for more African history blog posts.
Were you aware of the role Congo played in the creation of the atomic first bomb? Please comment below, and please share this with your networks. Thanks.
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| African American Freedom Fighters |
I am delighted that Brother Tony Warner of London Black History Walks will be joining me as my guest on my Success Strategies podcast/online radio show on 4th March. Please join us for this show, as I am sure he will be dropping many, many fascinating Black history facts and telling us about his new book, Black History Walks in London Volume 1.
Plus go here for loads more Black history blog posts.
See also: The Breathtaking Courage of Harriet Tubman.
See also: The Legacy of Violence of the British Empire.
Please share this with your networks.
What was your most surprising or unusual Black history fact? Please comment below.
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| Queen Elizabeth II in Nigeria |
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One important question which arises at this time is, how much did the late monarch actually know about what went on? Churchill is quoted as saying, in the early 20th century, that it was a good thing the House of Commons don't know what they were doing [in Kenya]. "If they did, our East Africa programme would be under a cloud".
Kenyans had written to Parliament many times, but received no response. For more about this, see the documentary, Kenya, White Man's Country.
Here are two more documentaries on this subject:
WARNING: All of these documentaries contain disturbing images and information.
On at least one occasion, it is known that Her Majesty was lied to about this situation.
I have blogged about the role of the Empire in Kenya, where thousands of Kenya were killed during the "Emergency".
For more about this, see: The First Grader.
Go here for an article on the Empire and how it is still impacting on African people today.
Go here for more blogs about African history.
Go here for more blogs about Black history.
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| Wangari Maathi |
At that time, girls were rarely educated, but Maathi's mother made sure she got an education.
I found this piece very inspiring, and I trust that you will, too.
Trees connect us to something elemental in nature, and to our own elemental nature.
What is your relationship with trees like? Please post your answer below and please share this with your networks. Thanks.
Go here for Coronavirus Resources.
Above is a
very interesting panel discussion about how we are being lied to by
the media and the government, this film has a very strong unity
message. We are being turned against each other – those who have
chosen to have the jab and those of us who have not. We need to show
unity within our community. Even though we have made different
choices, that is not a reason to fall out. We still need to have
unity.
Dr. Christina Parks, a cellular and molecular biologist, says that a lot of information is being censored. The science is not being allowed to be shared.
Go here for my previous blog about her: What the Media Won’t Tell You. She is showing amazing courage, knowledge and understanding. That video was taken down, as YouTube claimed that Dr Boyce Watkins and Dr. Parks were disseminating false medical information. But when Dr. Watkins explained to them that Dr. Parks is a cellular and molecular biologist, they put the video back up.
Other panellists include Maj Toure, Jay Morrison and Tee Khaaliq.
The points made by the panel members are in bold below. The non-emboldened comments are my own. I have not recorded every comment here.
Point 1: Dr. Parks says the cancelling and the censoring tells us everything. See below for Point 3: Media manipulation.
Point 2: Dr. Parks says the vaccine does NOT prevent transmission. You can still have a high viral load and still be spreading it after being vaccinated. You can still have the virus and have no symptoms
Point 3: Dr. Parks says natural immunity is much better than a vaccine because it creates a response to the whole of the virus, so the immune system recognises the virus when it mutates and creates more variants. The immune system recognises this, whereas the vaccine only recognises part of the virus [i.e., the spike protein]. The immune system gives a fuller, more robust response than the vaccine does.
She has testified before the Michigan House of Representatives, where she quoted the Director of the CDC in saying that these vaccines do not prevent transmission of the virus.
What she does not mention in this video is that the way we get natural immunity is to catch the virus, and the virus is killing people. So this is a risky strategy. Not arguing with the factual information, however.
Point 4: Media manipulation: anyone who speaks against the mainstream narrative is censored. Isn’t censorship illegal in the U.S.? Doesn’t the Constitution guarantee freedom of expression? Apparently not.
Point 5: Tee Khaaliq says: This situation is creating unnecessary division among Black people. There is a lot of shaming of other African Americans who speak out against the jab (as we can no longer use the v-word). See censorship above. We need to be bringing on the dissenters and the dissenting views.
Point 6: Dr. Parks says: Black people produce twice as many antibodies as white people in response to RNA viruses as well as certain jabs that contain the RNA.
The vaccine induces a hyper-inflammatory response. In Africa, as it is a very sunny climate, the sun killed all the RNA viruses, so we did not need the same type of defences as Europeans. We can take care of the co-morbidity. A drug can control metabolic syndrome in Black people and has been used as an anti-malarial for 70 years. Inflammation can be caused by metabolic syndrome. This drug can control metabolic syndrome. Obesity can be driven by inflammation. This biochemistry needs to be addressed.
Michael Jackson said it: They don’t really care about us.
This drug would reduce the underlying predisposition to the inflammation of Covid in our communities. Yet, we are being told it is unsafe. But they have been giving it out in Africa for 70 years.
Dr. Parks is banned from most media. She is dropping science, but most people don’t get to hear it because she is being heavily censored.
This was an absolutely fascinating discussion. Dr. Parks has given us a lot of technical information. It might be a little hard to follow, but this is information we need to address serious health issues in our communities.
See also: This scientist believes that the virus originated in the market at Wuhan, NOT in the lab. There is more and more evidence for this theory.
Go here for Coronavirus Resources: relaxation, music, humour and more.
How can we stop conflict with each other and maintain unity, harmony and peace? Comment below and please share this post. Thanks.
Whether you are celebrating Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's or Kwanzaa, you will most likely be dealing with holiday stress.
This episode was so much fun to do! The Three Black Moms are sisters - literally, as they have the same parents. Their focus is on family and the warmth of their connection shines through.
Three Black Moms dish the dirt on how to find a balance between doing what needs to be done, and staying relaxed and calm. And what happens when children are in the mix?
Or go here to watch on Facebook.
Go here for some great holiday gift ideas.
What are your top tips for dealing with holiday stress? Please comment below and please share this with your networks. Thanks!
As I have said previously, Harriet Tubman has always been an inspiration for me, from the time my mother first told me about her when I was a little girl.
The above film gives us a glimpse of how amazing and remarkable she was.
For wisdom from Harriet Tubman, go here for Geniuses of Transformation: Wisdom from Harriet Tubman, and go here to see my short film, Harriet. Her courage was truly breathtaking.
For more uplifting and inspiring quotes, go here to download Treasures of the Geniuses of Transformation.
Go here for more Black history blog posts.
What do you find inspiring about Harriet Tubman? Please leave your comments below and please share this with your networks. Thanks.
Mercy Makinde was married in Nigeria at 17 to a man older than her own father. She eventually managed to escape from her abusive marriage. Mercy then founded her charity, The Amazing Amazon Initiative, which helps other women in similar situations to build new lives.
Go here for my conversation with Mercy.
Go here for readings from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence.
Go here for more from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2021.
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| Naimah Latif |
In today's blog post, Naimah Latif, Executive Producer of The Female Solution worldwide radio and TV network and the ON AIR worldwide radio and TV network, talks about her response to violence towards children. I found this post very moving. Go here to watch it.
This is a very controversial subject. How do you feel about violence against children? Do you "spare the rod"? Or do you think this will "spoil the child"? Please leave your comments below and please share this with your networks. Thanks.
Go here for readings from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence.
Go here for more from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2021.
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This is the take on the same story from the Atlanta Black Star: Should Not Be Policing the Streets.
The long and the short of it is this: A white, male police officer has been filmed manhandling Nikkita Brown, a Black woman, late at night while she was walking her dog.
The officer has not been named, but has been put on administrative leave. As stated in the headline above, this is by no means the first such incident involving this officer.
This is so disgusting. And if you ever wanted to know why I hold the annual Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence, this is a clear example.
We must learn to speak to each other and listen to each other with respect and empathy. Empathy can prevent this kind of incident from occurring - when we have the skills.
Plus check this out: You about to Lose Yo Job. This always tickles me.
Go here for more blog posts from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2021.
Go here for readings from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence.
What practical methods can you suggest for preventing violent incidents? Please comment below and please share this post with your networks.
Lama Rangdrol is one of just a handful of Black/African American Tibetan lamas. In his film, Festival Cancelled due to Heavy Rain (see below), he speaks about growing up in the 'hood during the 1960s, where as a young Black man he was hunted, and his pilgrimage to Cambodia, where, at Angkor Wat, he found ancient African images that remain undamaged.
The tiny Buddhist country of Cambodia was heavily bombed during the Vietnam War - a war in which the front line was called "Soulville" because there were so many young Black men fighting there.
I was very privileged to speak with Lama Rangdrol, and he explained more here.
Lama Rangdrol and his friends in the U.S., young Black men and women, faced a long list of seemingly insurmountable problems in what he terms the "urban killing zone". He managed to escape; his friends all ended up dead or incarcerated.
Go here to watch Lama Rangdrol's film Festival Cancelled due to Heavy Rain.
What are your thoughts? How long have young Black men been hunted by the police? And why? Please leave your answers below and please share this with your networks. Thanks.
Go here for readings from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence.
Go here for more from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2021.
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| Olaseni Lewis |
100 Years Since the Destruction of Black Wall Street.
66 Years Since the Murder of Emmett Till. July would have marked his 80th birthday.
Meanwhile, this horrific roll call continues:
Deaths of Olaseni Lewis and Sean Rigg. Olaseni died in the UK in 2010, the same way as George Floyd, begging police officers to let him breathe. Sean Rigg also died in London, in 2008.
Go here for my show in which we asked: Do Black Lives Really Matter?
28 years since the death of Joy Gardner in London, UK.
And these deaths keeps rolling on, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Cressida Dick, Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, states that "no one is above the law". Really? Really, Cressida?
According to Wikipedia, Cressida Dick held senior roles in the force's diversity directorate, in anti-gang and
anti-gun crime operations, and in counterterrorism operations before becoming Commissioner. She was a Met Police officer at the time of the death of Joy Gardner. The documentary-maker Ken Fero called for her resignation with regard to the death of Joy Gardner.
We live in a world in which MP Dawn Butler was racially profiled and stopped by the police because they thought her car was registered outside London (which has yet to be made a criminal offence).
We live in a world in which a Black mother states that it is "not hunting season" on Black people (again - really?).
Last year (2020), a Metropolitan Police Officer was the subject of a criminal investigation after kneeling on Marcus Coutain's neck during a stop-and-search operation. The officer will not face charges, nor will he face disciplinary action.
Yet, as reported in the Guardian, Cressida Dick has said that the Met has transformed and is no longer institutionally racist. (Say it with me: really, Cressida? Really????)
We need to realise and understand that this is not just a problem in the U.S. This is not just an American problem. Black deaths in police custody are happening all over the world. Black men, women and children are dying in police custody and those responsible are not facing justice.
We MUST find solutions. Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is one such solution.
I have blogged about this issue many times, and I shall continue to do so. Our communities need to be armed with the skills of NVC, which can help to PREVENT these types of crimes.
Go her for more Black history blogs.
Go here for Zhana's conversation with Ken Fero, the director of Injustice.
Go here for Nonviolence and NVC Resources.
What do you think is a possible solution? Please comment below and please share. Thanks.
Go here for my show in which we asked: Do Black Lives Really Matter?
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| Joy Gardner |
Earlier this year, a vigil for Sarah was broken up by the police in a very heavy-handed way. People, particularly women, are justifiably angered and appalled and Harriet Harmon MP has called for Cressida Dick's resignation.
It's 28 years since Joy Gardner died in the custody of police and immigration officers. But those involved in her death have never been prosecuted. And nobody has held a vigil for Joy. The documentary-maker Ken Fero called for Cressida Dick's resignation over the death of Joy Gardner. Go here for my conversation with Ken.
One rule for us, another rule for them. We discussed this on my recent show, Success Strategies with Zhana: Do Black Lives Really Matter?
PLUS:
Go here for Black history blogs.
Go here for African history blogs.
This month marks the 10th anniversary of Black Cinema Club and they are showing loads of films to celebrate. Go here for a list of the film screenings this month.
Do you believe Black lives really matter? Please comment below and please share this blog with your networks. Thanks.
