Black books, African heritage books, mind/body/spirit, The Ancestral Energies Blog by Zhana, author of Success Strategies for Black People and Black Success Stories. African diasporic healing, health and wellness, and success.
Timuel Black grew up in Chicago's "Black Belt". His family moved to Chicago during the "Great Migration", in 1919. (Mine migrated in 1920.)
African Americans left the South in order to have a better life and a better future for themselves and their families. They often settled in large cities including Chicago, Cleveland and New York, where they formed their own communities during segregation.
Black lists the reasons why his parents decided to move North.
Unfortunately, many of these prosperous, thriving Black communities were destroyed by white supremacists. See also:
Why are we only just now starting to hear about these thriving Black communities - and the demise of many of them? Please comment below and please share. Thanks.
We keep learning about massacres in which thriving, prosperous African American communities, such as the Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma were destroyed by white supremacists. So many of these massacres have been forgotten, lost to history, but they are being recalled and their history restored. The destruction of Rosewood in Gainesville, Florida is one such event.
How can we learn from this history to create a better future? Please comment below and please share.
What can we learn from Black history and how can we use this to create a better future? Please post your answers below and please share this with your networks. Thanks.
Two weeks ago marked the 100th Anniversary of Black Wall Street.
This documentary by the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), The Legacy of Black Wall Street, concentrates on the years leading up to the destruction and the massacre which accompanied it.
Historically, enslaved Black people migrated to the Oklahoma territory in the company of their American Indian owners, as part of the Trail of Tears. As the land was owned by the Native People, after the Civil War, African Americans were allowed to buy it. They set about building a Black community, Greenwood,Tulsa Oklahoma.
When oil was discovered, Tulsa became a boom town. Black people employed by white Oklahomans became wealthy, and their community thrived. Doctors, lawyers and millionaires settled there. Notably, Black male and female entrepreneurs with vision also settled in Greenwood. They arrived, not just to make money, but to help Black people to build their own businesses, providing advice and support to budding entrepreneurs. They were the embodiment of Ujaama - co-operative economics.
Then, on the 31st of March, 1921, a Black man, Dick Rowland, who went by the name of "Diamond Dick" rode the elevator, just as he had done every day for years. But on that particular day, the white female elevator operator accused him of assault. As usual, the alleged assault was used as a pretext for violence. See also: White Women's Role in White Supremacy.
Diamond Dick was arrested and imprisoned prior to standing trial. A white mob gathered, and we know the rest. 100 years later, this is no less shocking, And the residents and business owners never received compensation.
The Legacy of Black Wall Street describes the beauty of Black Wall Street, with its first-class hotel, cinemas screening Black films, and more. This just goes to show how much was lost. Black Wall Street gave people hope that things could improve. It proved to Black people that they could aim high. Similarly to such great figures as Harriet Tubman, it represented Black people's dreams, ambitions and aspirations, and proved that they were possible to achieve. Thus, it was a threat to white supremacists, who wanted only to keep Black people down.
We know now that many other thriving Black communities were similarly attacked and destroyed by white supremacists. Go here for Rosewood.
Do you think this kind of destruction could still happen today? And what can we do to prevent this from happening? What solutions should we employ? Please leave your comments below and please share this with your networks. Thanks.
I am posting links to the stories below as further documentaton of the global nature of racist police violence and brutality. Athough this incident occurred nearly a year ago, this story is all over the Australian press and international press today as the officer has just been charged. You may have seen the viral video (above).
As you will know if you follow my blogs, I often state that racist
police violence against Black communities is a global problem. It is not
something that is confined to a particular group, community, country or
society. It happens in every country where Europeans are the dominant
group.
As I often say, and have posted many times as part of the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence, we need to find solutions to this ongoing problem. And I believe NVC (Nonviolent Communication) is one such solution.
What do you think will resolve this ongoing issue? Please leave your comments below and please share this with your networks. Thanks.
Content Warning: This post contains adult content and is not suitable for children.
In 1931, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, nine Black teenagers, known as the Scottsboro Nine, were convicted of raping two white women. The men were completely innocent of this crime. It took just four days for an all-white jury to convict them.
As Paul Gardullo, a curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, states, there existed "a myth of black predation on white women when the reality was the polar opposite". In slavery, Black women were routinely raped and Black men, women and children were exploited and brutalised.
Ida B. Wells, a tireless anti-lyching campaigner, produced the Red Record, having systematically researched accounts of lynchings which were based on the fallacy of Black men raping white women. Wells proved that these accounts were wholly false.
Black women in the UK are more likely to be spoken about than to be spoken to. This is just one of the findings of Stylist’s Black British Women’s Census. Go here to read more.
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I don't often blog specifically about white supremacy, as I think it is important to focus on the positive. However, white supremacy is all around us - and inside of us - and we need to understand it.
After the Civil War, white women joined, and were active in, the Ku Klux Klan. And, of course, Birth of a Nation contributed to the mythology of the Klan as a necessary protection of white women from Black men who were keen, and naturally inclined, to attack them sexually. In the film Freedom Riders, some of the participants speak of the involvement of white women in assaulting the riders.
According to this article, white women also played an active role in the recent storming of the Capitol building, in which five people died, and they are active, and play key roles, in white supremacist organisations.
What are your thoughts about the role of white women in white supremacy? Please leave your comments below and please share this with your networks. Thanks.
I've been enjoying looking at pictures of Black ballerinas. This is Michaela DePrince, a ballerina from Sierra Leone. Doesn't she look amazing? Look at those legs. Those feet.
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How did you survive and thrive in 2020? And what strategies are you using to survive and thrive in 2021? Please leave your comments below and please share. Thanks.
A little something to make you smile on these very cold days. Black Jeopardy with T'Challah, Black Panther's late Chadwick Boseman. It doesn't matter how bad things get, we can still laugh.
This makes Trump the "President" to order the most Federal executions in over 130 years. The Republican administration had not ordered any executions for 17 years - until July of this year.
According to a recent report by the Death Penalty Information Center, there is a history of racism in the criminal injustice system which dates back to slavery, lynching and segregation. Well, we already knew that, but it's still useful to hear it.
See also: 83 Days, about George Stinney, who was executed at the age of 14.
See also: New Revelations about Emmett Till, who was murdered at the age of 14. "The system rested on violence, and America let that happen." The murder of Emmett Till galvanised people to fight racial injustice and ultimately led to the Civil Rights movement. But today, this racism and criminal injustice continues.
As I said in my previous post, why was this child arrested? What could she possibly have done to warrant her being taken out of her classroom and led away in handcuffs?
Did she kill somebody?
Links to resources are below. My work is about solutions, so please do check out the resources below.
I
have now watched the full video - apparently, the child threw a temper
tantrum. A TEMPER TANTRUM, Y'ALL!!! The teacher thought the appropriate thing to do in this
situation was to call the cops. The cops came and arrested this
six-year-old girl, and as far as I can tell, did not even read her her
rights or tell her the charges against her.
Another question: Why did they arrest her before her grandmother arrived? There are a lot of child protection issues and safeguarding issues here. Could this really not have waited until her grandmother was able to get there, to talk to the child, to ride with her in the police car, to be there with her when she was arrested?
And another: what kind of psychological scarring has she been left with? She is going to make some therapist very wealthy one day.
I have now learned about another handcuffing incident. Honestie Hodges, 11 years of age when she was arrested and handcuffed AT GUNPOINT, has now sadly died of covid-19 at the age of 14. George Stinney was the same age when he was executed.
Apparently, the police mistook Honestie for a middle-aged white woman who was a suspect in a stabbing.
Again, I have questions about the type of psychological damage she will have suffered. We may never know the answers in Honestie's case.
I'm so upset about these incidents, both recent and historic, and I'm sure you are, too. To see young lives cut short by the criminal injustice system is just heartbreaking.
I saw this on this article from The Root: White Couple Lose Jobs and Face Eviction. This white couple decided to verbally abuse a Lyft driver, repeatedly calling him a "sand n-word" because he insisted that they wear face masks while he drove them during the pandemic. The woman RECORDED THE INCIDENT on her phone.
As a result, the couple have lost their jobs and are facing eviction from their home.
I am wondering, how can we get other white people to record their own racist and abusive behaviour?
My heart is breaking. My tears are flowing. No, hang on, wait a minute, those tears are for all the Black people who have lost their jobs, been denied opportunities, been unlawfully detained, been falsely convicted of crimes and been killed in officer-related incidents.
The government have told us to wear face masks in order to avoid infecting others with covid-19. If the covid restrictions are getting you down, check out my Coronavirus Resources.
Imagine you are sitting in a local Caribbean cafe, enjoying a meal with your friends and loved ones, and the police come in and smash the place up. I heard about the Mangrove many years ago.
This is the first of four films which The BBC will be screening on the BBC under the heading of "Small Axe".
These films by Steve McQueen, who directed Twelve Years a Slave, will explore the experience of Black people in Britain.
All the proprietor, Frank Crichlow, wanted was to run a Caribbean restaurant which reflected his culture and that of his local community. But the racism of the police turned it into a battleground. They are shown brutally trying to close down the Mangrove and even assaulting Frank Crichlow in the courtroom.
This film, The Mangrove, is still available on iplayer. This article about the Mangrove and the Mangrove Nine contains footage of the events described. It also gives background information, including the fact that drugs, which apparently came from a police lab, were found on the premises.
Black activists, including Darcus Howe, got involved in the struggle around the Mangrove. This was an education for many people, not least Frank Crichlow.
If you have not seen this film, you definitely need to see it. I hope it will be shown internationally.
At the time of recording, the result of the U.S. election had just been announced - a few minutes before we went on air, we found out Joe Biden was the new President, with Kamala Harris his new VP. Listen below for more.
What do you think about this? What prospects does a Biden Presidency
hold for our communities?
Meanwhile, here in the UK, we are back in lockdown due to the
coronavirus covid-19. How do you feel about this? Will it work to stem
the rise of covid-19? And what will it do to the economy?
My guest on the most recent edition of my Success Strategies online radio show was Ken Fero, the director of Injustice. You have probably heard of, or seen, Injustice, Fero's film about seven UK families that are still fighting for justice after a family member died in police custody. The police tried to ban this film - every time a cinema was scheduled to screen it, the police would phone them 15 minutes beforehand and tell them not to show it.
Ken Fero spoke to me about the fact that the police are, in his words, "killing Black people", and that this must stop.
Some people believe the "Black Lives Matter" movement only pertains to the U.S. Ken Fero talked with me about filming the experience of Black people and other migrant communities in many places, including the UK, Germany and France. Go here to listen.
He also spoke about his new film, Ultraviolence, and the fact that deaths in police custody are just "the tip of the iceberg".
