Tale of Angola: Free Blacks, Red Stick Creeks, and International Intrigue in Spanish Southwest Florida, 1812-1821.…
“Ordinarily, if someone has a theory which involves radical departure from what the experts have professed, he is expected to defend his position by providing evidence in its support.” Professor Mary Lefkowitz makes this statement in her book Not Out of Africa, a response to Martin Bernal’s Black Athena. Bernal’s book argues that Ancient Egypt along with other civilizations “… played fundamental roles in the formation of Ancient Greece.” Lefkowitz, being a classical scholar disagrees with Bernal as well as Dr. Yosef A. A. ben-Jochannan’s claim that Aristotle stole his philosophy from the Library of Alexandria and the notion that Socrates was black. Although Lefkowitz attempts to refute these arguments, the evidence she uses to support her claims are very weak and, as a result, detrimental to her argument.…
Blacks and Indians that fought for their freedom in Florida only to be forgotten are the Tales of Angola. 1812 a free black community and called Angola grew along the Manatee River, the residents of the community were free blacks, runaway slaves and soldiers from the war. As the small community grew hate also grew a led to “the largest slave rebellion in the United States history” 1.…
Eboe (Nigerian) born Olaudah Equiano was kidnapped as a child and sold to slave traders going to the West Indies, where after that he spent most of his life on ships serving the captains of slave ships and other navy vessels, presenting a more accurate insight into the importance of the slave trade to modernity. He was fortunate to save enough money to buy his freedom in 1766,also providing the idea of a lack of sailors if the risk was too high, as many seamen and sailors would die at sea due to the poor living conditions, allowing black men to earn some money during treacherous voyages. Equiano views each voyage as "an opportunity of getting a sum large enough to purchase" his liberty through his own trades. When Equiano eventually acquires…
The emancipation of the African slave who was now disconnected from their traditions and way of life after nearly 300 years, is seemingly a great gush from the dam to the ebbs and flows of the struggle. The end of slavery as we know it, presented a ball of mixed emotions among the nation; North and SOUTH. Some slaves were grossly ecstatic to be free. For example, when a slave girl named Caddy, from Goodman, Mississippi found she was free, went to her mistress, flipped up her dress and told her "Kiss my ass!" On the contrary, some slaves were apprehensive of being free. For example, one elderly slave woman reportedly said, "I ain' no free nigger! I is got a marster and mistiss! Dee right dar in de great house. Ef you don' believe me, you go dar an' see." Though most slaves were detached from their families, many managed to regroup and find their love ones after their emancipation and constructed close knit families. Land was an viable means of survival in the minds of newly freedmen and the government was eager to deem lands to the ex-slaves . On January 16, 1865, General William T. Sherman told the freedmen that they will receive the land they were in search of. They were granted the head of each family would receive "possessory title" to forty acres of land. Sherman also gave the use of Army mules, thus giving rise to the slogan, "Forty acres and a mule." Similarly in 1862 the Union military set aside land in Port Royal, South Carolina, which became known as the Port Royal experiment. The freedmen bureau was created to aid newly freed slaves in the transition from bondage to freedom in 1865. After Lincoln's assassination the succession of his Vice president, Andrew Johnson, to the presidency meant that the white owners of the lands, that were given to the freedmen, would be returned. Sharecropping became a sort of ebb in the…
To change is to transform, to undergo metamorphosis. It is essential and unavoidable in life. In black and white' by Eleni Fourtouni and My brother' by Bruce Dawe attempt to encapsulate the essence of change and demonstrate its complexity. The poets create this imagery and make their point through techniques and structure.…
Robert M. Franklin in his adoring and avid book Crisis in the Village presents in first-person advice and constructive criticism as he identifies issues within the African-American church. Black churches face a "mission crisis" as they struggle to serve their upwardly mobile and/or established middle class "paying customers" alongside the poorest of the poor. Dr. Franklin wrote this controversial book with great scholarship as a means to awakening the state of Black American; however the question of the missions of the black church have been discussed, debated, and denied by theologians for years.…
Change. It is a concept often discussed as being an inevitable part of human life, something people has experienced numerous of times, and will continue to experience throughout their lives. Change comes in many forms and has a range of effects, which are either negative or positive on those who experience it and respond to it. Change, particularly in relation to the topic ¡°Changing perspective creates awakening¡±, is a view that is repeatedly explored and been written in poem/film by thousands of composers.…
Change does not occur easily or without conflict. Change does not occur quickly nor smoothly. Many characters go through change in a novel, like Edna from The Awakening. Edna lives as a simple mother-woman and follows the general rules of society. She later experiences new bearings which lead to her self-discovery toward a better life. Edna kills herself at the end of the novel and frees herself from the social confinements.…
In my opinion, African Diaspora has multiple definitions but all of them sum up into one only. All in the end, African Diaspora is expected in different ways that in one point started everything else. The Diaspora took place when the Africans were relocated in the regions of the Americas, causing them to bring their culture, society, traditions with them. With these elements and time going by, have created new ones. Not only have they created these new elements but also, it has led to creating new various of people of African descent. How I see the African Diaspora is, the African ancestry has been spread almost all over the world. The fact it has, makes the African ancestry to grow even bigger and some do not realize it. That little bit of African ancestry, plays a role in our lives. It affects the way we talk to one another and on our beliefs. We are who are from…
Like most industries in the United States, the film industry is dominated and controlled by profit. Throughout history, this greed and desire for monetary gain by Hollywood producers, directors, and screenwriters has often come at the expense of African American males, and how they are portrayed and represented in films. One of the earliest examples of this trend was initiated by W.F. Griffith’s A Birth of A Nation. It later perpetuated with films like The Color Purple, She’s Gotta Have It, and Waiting to Exhale. Through these films, the image of black males in the media has been hyper masculated, and in many ways tarnished. A prime example of this may be demonstrated in Byron Hurt’s Beyond Beats and Rhymes.…
Support or refute the contention that Booker T. Washington refuses to verify slavery as a brutal and evil institution.…
We are originally children of Africa with no Neanderthals or island-dwelling "hobbits" in our family tree. The first humans migrated out of Africa into Asia probably between 2 million and 1.8 million years ago. Then they entered Europe some time later, between 1.5 million and 1 million years. The modern humans’ species populated many parts of the world much later. For example, the first people came to Australia probably in the past 60,000 years and to the Americas sometime in the past 30,000 years. The beginning of agriculture and the rise of the first civilizations happened in the past 12,000 years.…
When first thinking of Africa not many people think of the great ancient African civilizations that shaped our world today. The movie the Wonders of the African World opened up my eyes to the amazing Black Kingdoms that were built in Africa and their advanced civilizations. The histories of these kingdoms have been ignored by many, for example the Nubian people had built great pyramids just as Egypt did and yet these people didn’t get the recognition for it. In fact, in ancient times these people were the most intelligent civilizations in the world, they even had universities in Meroe the capital of ancient Nubia along with huge temples and their own form of writing. The saddest part of all this is that there were many intelligent and sophisticated black rulers of ancient Africa and people are reluctant to accept this because of the great surge of racism.…
I grew up in Istanbul, the most cosmopolitan city in Turkey and a place where the west meets the east. I lived there until I was 14. Although Turkey is a nation state, I was very fortunate to interact with people of different ethnicities and faiths than mine. While the current political climate in Turkey is way more divisive, it was not like that when I was living there.…