Tag: history

Lost to History – Unfamiliar Faces: Latasha Harlins and Deadwyler

Rodney King. It is a name that rings all too familiar in the history of Black America. Latasha Harlins however, is a not so familiar face.

Latasha Harlins

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Latasha Harlins died 13 days after the beating of Rodney King on March 16, 1991 at The Empire Liquor Market in South-Central Los Angeles with two dollars in her hand. After attempting to purchase a bottle of Orange Juice, Latasha and Korean Store Owner Ja Du got into a verbal and physical altercation. Du thought Latasha was trying to steal the $1.79 drink, which lead to a fight. Latasha struck Du and the two mouthed words before Harlins turned to walk out the door but it was too late. Ja Du pulled the handgun from behind the counter and shot the teen in the head. The entire ordeal was caught on tape and Latasha died instantly. She was 15 years old. November of that year, a judge sentenced Du to five years of probation, 400 hours of community service, and a $500 fine. Tupac’s “Keep Your Head Up” was dedicated to Latasha Harlins.

The Deadwyler Case

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Johnny Cochrane is another prominent name in the black community. Modeling his career from the inspiration of Thurgood Marshall, Cochrane was born in Shreveport LA and gained his fame after defending such big names as Micheal Jackson and O.J. Simpson. An unfamiliar face however lies in the name of a man whose death is responsible for launching Johnny’s reputation: Leonard Deadwyler. Deadwyler’s death galvanized protests and activism that lead to the Martin Luther King Jr. and the adjoining Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. While speeding through several red lights, Leonard Deadwyler raced in an attempt to get his pregnant wife, now in labor, to the hospital. Due to the lack of a black hospital near by, the Deadwhyler’s had to attend a facility 20 miles away. On the way, Leonard was stopped by police and a confrontation erupted which resulted in the shooting death of Leonard who was shot and killed in front of his pregnant wife. Police said the ordeal was the result of a drunken Leonard to the debate of his wife who remembered no such account. Blacks in South Central protested that Deadwyler would not have been speeding, and thus not shot and killed if there was a hospital near by. Leonard’s wife sued with a young Johnny Cochrane as her lawyer who filed a Civil Suit on behalf of the Deadwyler family. They lost the case, but Cochrane had already set himself apart as a talented lawyer as it pertained to Civil Rights, police abuse cases.

Unfamiliar Faces – Lost to History: Before Parks

“They said they didn’t want to use a pregnant teenager because it would be controversial and the people would talk about the pregnancy more than the boycott,” Colvin says.

– https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-43171799

Was Rosa Parks the only woman to refuse to give up her seat on a segregated bus? Below are a few of the women left out of the history books. 

Irene Morgan – We have all heard of Rosa Parks, but there were at least three women who refused to give up their seats on the bus in the Jim Crow south throughout history. Eleven years before Parks, Irene Morgan, later known as Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, a black woman, was arrested in Middlesex County, Virginia, in 1944 for refusing to give up her seat on an interstate bus according to a state law on segregation. The Irene Morgan Decision inspired the men and women of CORE to create a nationwide protest movement called “The Journey of Reconciliation” when groups of civil rights activists rode buses and trains across states in the South in 1947, a precursor to The Freedom Rides of 1961.

The Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia, handed down a landmark decision on June 3, 1946, when they agreed that segregation violated the Constitution’s protection of interstate commerce. Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth catalyzed further court rulings and the Civil Rights movement. Eight years later, the Supreme Court decided in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation violated Equal Rights Protection.

Irene Morgan died on August 10, 2007.

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Claudette Colvin – Born on September 5, 1939, in Montgomery, Alabama, Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat to a white passenger months before Rosa Parks on March 2, 1955. Colvin was only 15 years old but she was poor. She didn’t have the NAACP or the connections Parks had. As a result, little is know of her. The NAACP considered using Claudette but they said she was too young. They also looked away because she was pregnant and they did not want to represent a young, unwed mother and bring about negative attention to the movement. They thought Colvin’s condition would make blacks look bad. Colvin went on to serve as a plaintiff in the landmark legal case Browder v. Gayle, which helped end the practice of segregation on Montgomery public buses. Today, Claudette Colvin is still not a name you hear very often concerning bus desegregation, even though she was there before Parks.

“Whenever people ask me: ‘Why didn’t you get up when the bus driver asked you?’ I say it felt as though Harriet Tubman’s hands were pushing me down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth’s hands were pushing me down on the other shoulder. I felt inspired by these women because my teacher taught us about them in so much detail,” she says.

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Aurelia Browder – After Colvin, Aurelia Browder followed suit and was arrested on April 19, 1955, for refusing to give up her seat. Browder was born on January 29, 1919. She joined the NAACP, SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), the Women’s Political Council (WPC), and the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). Aurelia could join all the organizations she wanted but with six children and no husband, her refusal to give up her seat on a bus did not stick, even though she was before Parks.

Mary Louise Smith – Mary was born in 1937, in Montgomery, Alabama. She attended and graduated from St. Jude Educational Institute. On October 21, 1955, at the age of 18, Mary was returning home on the Montgomery city bus. At a stop after Mary had boarded and seated, a white passenger boarded. There was no place for the white passenger to sit and Mary was ordered to give up her seat. She refused. Mary was arrested and charged with failure to obey segregation orders and given a nine dollar fine, which her father paid.

Irene, Claudette, Aurelia, and Mary Louise was followed by Susie McDonald, and Jeanetta Reese, all had been arrested and charged with violating various policies regarding segregated seating on city buses.

Discover more Black History Fun Facts and Lost to History Facts HERE.

Tales of African American History Found in DNA

Very interesting article. Check it out:

“The history of African Americans poses special challenges for geneticists. During the slave trade, their ancestors were captured from genetically diverse populations across a portion of West Africa. Adding to the complexity is the fact that living African Americans also may trace some of their ancestry to Europeans and Native Americans.”

Black History Fun Fact Friday – Timbuktu

2344_1timbuktu_060Timbuktu is a city in the West African nation of Mali, situated north of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. Founded by nomads, it is most known as “The City of Gold.” While some scholars and proposed travelers attempt to debunk the “myth” (claiming to have reached the city where the homes are made of mud bricks), Timbuktu was one of the most important centers of trade and intellectual life in West Africa, flourishing through participation in long-distance trade networks directed north across the Sahara. The city is known as having traded goods that flowed through the center including salt, ivory, and gold. One of the reasons for Timbuktu’s wealth is the water supply. There are many wells containing sweet water in Timbuktu, where the Niger in flood canals delivers the water to the city. Grain and animals are abundant, so that much milk and butter is consumed.

A picture from a medieval atlas, drawn in modern day Spain. It shows the King of Mali, Mansa Musa, who reigned between 1312 and 132, wearing a Gold Crown, Gold Ingot, and Gold Scepter.
A picture from a medieval atlas, drawn in modern day Spain. It shows the King of Mali, Mansa Musa, who reigned between 1312 and 132, wearing a Gold Crown, Gold Ingot, and Gold Scepter.

During the fourteenth century, the story of Timbuktu as a rich cultural center spread throughout the world. The beginnings of which can be traced to 1324, when the Emperor of Mali made his pilgrimage to Mecca via Cairo. In Cairo, the merchants and traders were impressed by the amount of gold carried by the emperor, who stated that the gold was from Timbuktu. Furthermore, in 1354 the explorer Ibn Batuta wrote of his visit to Timbuktu and told of the wealth and gold of the region. Thus, Timbuktu became renowned as an African El Dorado, a city made of gold.

A great book to read is “From Babylon to Timbuktu” by Rudolph R. Windsor:

61nHWsjEGjL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_“Until comparatively recent times, knowledge that black Africa was the seat of highly evolved civilizations and cultures during a time when Europe stagnated was limited to a small group of scholars. That great empires, such as Ghana, and later, Mali flourished for centuries while Europe slept through its Dark Ages almost has been ignored by historians. Thousands of years before that, civilization began with the black races of Africa and Asia, including the Hebrews, who were jet black. Because of the scarce literature on the contributions of blacks to world civilization, most people today hold the erroneous opinion that the black races have little real history. It was not known, for instance, that the ancient Hebrews, Mesopotamians, Phoenicians, and Egyptians were black. Now, a growing body of literature is presenting the illustrious history of blacks and their enormous contributions.”

And that’s it for this week’s episode of Black History Fun Facts. Below is last weeks episode in case you missed it:

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Week #7:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

 

 

Why I Go #UNDERGROUND

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If you could go back to Harriet Tubman’s days and with what you know now, help her to free more slaves based on your knowledge of the future, would you be able to help her? With what you know about history today, would you be able to assist her in carrying more people to freedom? With all of the technology and historical knowledge and books and slave narratives and everything you’ve stored away to this point, could you honestly say that you could help her? Many of us don’t even know what direction the sun rises and sets in, let alone navigate without GPS. This is why I watch shows such as #Underground.

What amazes me is that when a Tyler Perry movie comes out, we don’t hear nothing about how we’re tired of seeing black men in dresses. I don’t hear anything about how we’re tired of seeing black men and women run around joking all the time about nothing. We make excuses for that. We don’t hear nothing about Fifty Shades of Black, Get Hard, or throwbacks like Don’t Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood. When Noah and Gods of Egypt came out, I didn’t hear nothing about all the biblical inaccuracies that can be proven just by reading the first few chapters of Genesis. But when it comes to a show comprised of information we need to know, now we’re tired of slave movies even though many of our brothers and sisters don’t even know what the half of slavery was really about and the psychological trauma it still holds today.

I’m still hearing people say that the light skin slaves were house slaves but this is not historically correct. The Mulatto was the first to be sold because the mistress did not want to look at the proof of her husbands infidelity with the “niggers” every time she looked at those children. Not that mulattoes were not in the house, but the point is they were “field niggas” too. There was a ranking system based on skill and worth and it didn’t matter what color you were a slave was a slave. Whether in house or in the field none of it was esteemed over the other you was still a slave. Some of us still think Rosa Parks was the first to refuse to give up her seat on a bus. She was not, but that’s the point. There’s still lots of people who don’t know. We don’t know what Reconstruction was about. We don’t know what Jim Crow was about. We don’t know what The Harlem Renaissance was about, or for a more earlier term, The New Negro Movement. We don’t know what The Civil Rights Movement was about. We don’t even know who The Black Panthers truly were aside from the hateful militia group people tell us they were. Prince just died and they say he had no will. Prince was a man who sued people all the time in regard to the legalities of his career. He’s not the kind of man who would not have a will but this is what they tell us. The point is that we don’t know half of the black history that we think we know and even what we think we know, we don’t really know. What Harriet Tubman and the many others had to endure, I had to endure too. For we are all connected, the human family. We are the bloodline and the experiences of our ancestors  still runs through our veins. They say that if you don’t know your history, that you are bound to repeat it.  This is why I go #Underground.

Two More Reviews Are In – 5 Stars for The Road to Freedom

Below are excerpts of the two newest reviews for Joseph’s Story: The Road to Freedom:

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5star

Siyah says:

“Wow this was a Great Read!!

The road to Freedom: Joseph’s story, may be set In the time frame of the early 60’s but it’s contents is very relevant to today’s current events. 

The writer takes you on a journey through the eyes of a young man named Joseph. He and his friends begin down a road with only the hope of wanting to somehow help the fight for equality of African Americans and to stop the mistreatment they suffered under segregation and Jim Crow laws. They realize that the task would be harder than they imagined. As they travel down the road of reality, they find that the segregated world they live in has been paved with cruelty, injustice, and was blinded by hatred and strong resistance to even the notion of change. Joseph and his friends encountered first hand the mistreatment and persecution of the African American people and those that helped them.”

Constance Says:

“In the book Stella: A Road to Freedom #3 Joseph’s story. In this 3rd installment of the series this book told the story of Joseph’s journey in finding himself. The truths that he faced were an eye opener for him. Joseph and his friends, all young, embark on this journey to fight for equality and freedom. In their journey they learn just how much racial inequality there is. They learn that even the friends that they that choose to align themselves with can possibly get them killed. Their alliances with one another in this fight showed just how unaware of the seriousness of the road they were traveling. This book  was well written. I was worried for them being young and traveling across the country to fight for the freedoms of integration. I love the history that is told in this book and when it comes to telling this story through Joseph’s eyes, you have to question whether or not we as a society today are still traveling this same road to freedom and if we will ever find it.  The characters in this book are relatable and the writer continues to leave readers wanting to take a look back into history. This series should be required reading in middle schools and high schools around the country…its just that good!”

Black Slaves, Native Masters

“I got Indian in my family.”

Is something I hear often among the black community. Even in my own family, my mom talks of how her dad was 100% Cherokee Indian and how our family were cow slaughters which explains my maiden last name which is Hereford, a kind of cow.

Black Slaves, Native Masters

However, while many black families are proud to proclaim their Native Heritage, what is rarely passed around our dinner tables is an important fact in American History. This fact being that even the 5 Civilized Indian Tribes held slaves. A lot of black people jump at the chance to proclaim the above statement because oppressed people typically wants to identify with other oppressed people but the truth is stranger than fiction. Native Americans were oppressed by Europeans but they both had black slaves. In fact, Native Americans knew the layout of the land better than anyone else and it was they who taught the Europeans how to track and to capture slaves. (This is why in last weeks Underground Episode the little boy asked the black slave, “You used to live with the Indians didn’t you? And you taught my daddy how to track.” He used to live with the Indians because he was their slave same as he is the slave to the little boys father. Underground is a very well written TV show).

“Though the harsh treatment of enslaved Africans largely paled in comparison to that of white slaveholders, Blacks still were treated as an underclass among Native Americas. The Five Civilized Tribes even established slave codes that protected owners’ property rights and restricted the rights of Blacks.”

(Barbara-Shae Jackson, The Atlanta Black Star)

What’s deep about my family history is this:

Cherokee is one of the tribes who took part in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (along with Chickasaw and others). In addition, the term “Cow-Boy” is also derivative of slavery. The slave boys who handled the cows were called cow boys. So when you watch Quentin Tarantino’s Django the content is actually not out of context far as the cow boy theme is concerned and my maiden name is potentially much more deep than we know.