Pan African Revolutionary Comrade Freedom Fighter.

Pan-Africanism is a worldwide intellectual movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all people of African descent. Based upon a common fate going back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement extends beyond continental Africans, with a substantial support base amongst the African diaspora in the Caribbean and the United States.[1] It is based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social, and political progress and aims to “unify and uplift” people of African descent.[2] The ideology asserts that the fate of all African peoples and countries are intertwined. At its core Pan-Africanism is “a belief that African peoples, both on the continent and in the diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny”.[3]
The Organization of African Unity (now the African Union) was established in 1963 to safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its Member States and to promote global relations within the framework of the United Nations.[4] The African Union Commission has its seat in Addis Ababa and the Pan-African Parliament has its seat in Johannesburg and Midrand.
As a philosophy, Pan-Africanism represents the aggregation of the historical, cultural, spiritual, artistic, scientific, and philosophical legacies of Africans from past times to the present. Pan-Africanism as an ethical system traces its origins from ancient times, and promotes values that are the product of the African civilizations and the struggles against slavery, racism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism.[6]
Alongside a large number of slave insurrections, by the end of the 18th century a political movement developed across the Americas, Europe and Africa that sought to weld these disparate movements into a network of solidarity putting an end to this oppression. Another important political form of a religious Pan-Africanist worldview appeared in the form of Ethiopianism.[10] In London, the Sons of Africa was a political group addressed by Quobna Ottobah Cugoano in the 1791 edition of his book Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery. The group addressed meetings and organised letter-writing campaigns, published campaigning material and visited parliament. They wrote to figures such as Granville Sharp, William Pitt and other members of the white abolition movement, as well as King George III and the Prince of Wales, the future George IV.
Modern Pan-Africanism began around the start of the 20th century. The African Association, later renamed the Pan-African Association, was established around 1897 by Henry Sylvester-Williams, who organized the First Pan-African Conference in London in 1900.[11][12][13]
With the independence of Ghana in March 1957, Kwame Nkrumah was elected as the first Prime Minister and President of the State.[14] Nkrumah emerged as a major advocate for the unity of Independent Africa. The Ghanaian President embodied a political activist approach to pan-Africanism as he championed the “quest for regional integration of the whole of the African continent”.[15] This period represented a “Golden Age of high pan-African ambitions”; the Continent had experienced revolution and decolonization from Western powers and the narrative of rebirth and solidarity had gained momentum within the pan-African movement.[15] Nkrumah’s pan-African principles, intended for a union between the Independent African states, upon a recognition their commonality; suppression under imperialism. Pan-Africanism under Nkrumah evolved past the assumptions of a racially exclusive movement, associated with black Africa and had adopted a political discourse, of regional unity [16]
In April 1958, Nkrumah hosted the first All-African People’s Conference (AAPC) in Accra, Ghana. The Conference invited delegates of political movements and major political leaders. With the exception of South Africa, all Independent States of the Continent attended: Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Sudan.[16] The Conference signified a monumental event in the pan-African movement, as it revealed a political and social union between the those considered Arabic states and the black African regions. Further, the Conference espoused a common African Nationalist identity, among the States, of unity and anti-Imperialism. Frantz Fanon, journalist, freedom fighter and a member of the Algerian, FLN Party attended the conference as a delegate for Algeria.[17] Considering the armed struggle of the FLN against French colonial rule, the attendees of the Conference agreed to support the struggle of those States under colonial oppression. This encouraged the commitment of direct involvement in the “emancipation of the Continent; thus, a fight against colonial pressures on South Africa was declared and the full support of the FLN struggle in Algeria, against French colonial rule”.[18] The years following 1958, Accra Conference also marked the establishment of a new foreign policy of non-alignment as between the US and USSR and the will to found an “African Identity” in global affairs by advocating a unity between the African States on international relations. “This would be based on the Bandung Declaration, the Charter of the UN and on loyalty to UN decisions”.[18]
In 1959, Nkrumah, President Sékou Touré of Guinea and President William Tubman of Liberia met at Sanniquellie and signed the Sanniquellie Declaration outlining the principles for the achievement of the unity of Independent African States whilst maintaining a national identity and autonomous constitutional structure.[19][20] The Declaration called for a revised understanding of pan-Africanism and the uniting of the Independent States. In 1960, the second All-African People’s Conference was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.[21] The membership of the All-African People’s Organisation (AAPO) had increased with the inclusion of the “Algerian Provisional Government (as they had not yet won independence), Cameroun, Guinea, Nigeria, Somalia and the United Arab Republic”.[22] The Conference highlighted diverging ideologies within the movement, as Nkrumah’s call for a political and economic union between the Independent African States gained little agreement. The disagreements following 1960 gave rise to two rival factions within the pan-African movement: the Casablanca Bloc and the Brazzaville Bloc.[23]
In 1962, Algeria gained independence from French colonial rule and Ahmed Ben Bella assumed Presidency. Ben Bella was a strong advocate for pan-Africanism and an African Unity. Following the FLN’s armed struggle for liberation, Ben Bella spoke at the UN and espoused for Independent Africa’s role in providing military and financial support to the African liberation movements opposing apartheid and fighting Portuguese colonialism.[24] In search of a united voice, in 1963 at an African Summit conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 32 African States met and established the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The creation of the OAU Charter took place at this Summit and defines a coordinated “effort to raise the standard of living of member States and defend their sovereignty” by supporting freedom fighters and decolonisation.[25] Thus, was the formation of the African Liberation Committee (ALC), during the 1963 Summit. Championing the support of liberation movements, was Algeria’s President Ben Bella, immediately “donated 100 million francs to its finances and was one of the first countries, of the Organisation to boycott Portuguese and South African goods”.[26]
In 1969, Algiers hosted the Pan-African Cultural Festival, on July 21 and it continued for 10 days.[27] The festival attracted thousands from African states and the African Diaspora, including the Black Panthers. It symbolised the new pan-African identity, of regions with a shared experience of colonisation. The Festival further strengthened Algeria’s President, Boumediene’s standing in Africa and the Third World.[28]
After the death of Kwame Nkrumah in 1972, Muammar Qaddafi assumed the mantle of leader of the Pan-Africanist movement and became the most outspoken advocate of African Unity, consistently calling – like Nkrumah before him – for the advent of a “United States of Africa”.[29]
In the United States, the term is closely associated with Afrocentrism, an ideology of African-American identity politics that emerged during the civil rights movement of the 1960s to 1970s.[30]
As originally conceived by Henry Sylvester-Williams (note: some history books credit this idea to Edward Wilmot Blyden), Pan-Africanism referred to the unity of all continental Africa.[31]
During apartheid South Africa there was a Pan Africanist Congress that dealt with the oppression of Africans in South Africa under Apartheid rule. Other pan-Africanist organizations include Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association-African Communities League, TransAfrica and the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement.
Additionally, Pan-Africanism is seen as an endeavor to return to what are deemed by its proponents singular, traditional African concepts about culture, society, and values. Examples of this include Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Négritude movement, and Mobutu Sese Seko’s view of Authenticité.
An important theme running through much pan-Africanist literature concerns the historical links between different countries on the continent, and the benefits of cooperation as a way of resisting imperialism and colonialism.
In the 21st century, some Pan-Africanists aim to address globalisation and the problems of environmental justice. For instance, at the conference “Pan-Africanism for a New Generation”[32] held at the University of Oxford, June 2011, Ledum Mittee, the current president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), argued that environmental justice movements across the African continent should create horizontal linkages in order to better protect the interests of threatened peoples and the ecological systems in which they are embedded, and upon which their survival depends.
Some universities went as far as creating “Departments of Pan-African Studies” in the late 1960s. This includes the California State University, where that department was founded in 1969 as a direct reaction to the civil rights movement, and is today dedicated to “teaching students about the African World Experience”, to “demonstrate to the campus and the community the richness, vibrance, diversity, and vitality of African, African American, and Caribbean cultures” and to “presenting students and the community with an Afrocentric analysis” of anti-black racism.[33] Syracuse University also offers a master’s degree in “Pan African Studies”.[34]
The Pan-African flag, also known as the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) flag, is a tri-color flag consisting of three equal horizontal bands of (from top down) red, black and green. The UNIA formally adopted it on August 13, 1920,[35] during its month-long convention at Madison Square Garden in New York.[36][37]
Variations of the flag have been used in various countries and territories in Africa and the Americas to represent Pan-Africanist ideologies. Among these are the flags of Malawi, Kenya and Saint Kitts and Nevis. Several Pan-African organizations and movements have also often employed the emblematic red, black and green tri-color scheme in variety of contexts.
Additionally, the flags of a number of nations in Africa and of Pan-African groups use green, yellow and red. This color combination was originally adopted from the 1897 flag of Ethiopia, and was inspired by the fact that Ethiopia is the continent’s oldest independent nation.[38]
Maafa studies
Maafa is an aspect of Pan-African studies. The term collectively refers to 500 years of suffering (including the present) of people of African heritage through slavery, imperialism, colonialism, and other forms of oppression.[39][40] In this area of study, both the actual history and the legacy of that history are studied as a single discourse. The emphasis in the historical narrative is on African agents, as opposed to non-African agents.[citation needed]
Maafa is an aspect of Pan-African studies. The term collectively refers to 500 years of suffering (including the present) of people of African heritage through slavery, imperialism, colonialism, and other forms of oppression.[39][40] In this area of study, both the actual history and the legacy of that history are studied as a single discourse. The emphasis in the historical narrative is on African agents, as opposed to non-African agents.[citation needed]
Political parties and organizations 

Muammar Gaddafi at the first Africa-Latin America summit in 2006 in Abuja, Nigeria.

In Africa:

Organisation of African Unity, succeeded by the African Union

African Unification Front

Rassemblement Démocratique Africain

All-African People’s Revolutionary Party

Convention People’s Party (Ghana)

Pan-African Renaissance[41]

Economic Freedom Fighters (South Africa)

Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (South Africa)

In the Caribbean:

The Pan-African Affairs Commission for Pan-African Affairs, a unit within the Office of the Prime Minister of Barbados.[42]

African Society for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa (Guyana)

Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement (Antigua and Barbuda)

Clement Payne Movement (Barbados)

Marcus Garvey People’s Political Party (Jamaica)

In the United Kingdom.

In the United States :

The Council on African Affairs (CAA): founded in 1937 by Max Yergan and Paul Robeson, the CAA was the first major U.S. organization whose focus was on providing pertinent and up-to-date information about Pan-Africanism across the United States, particularly to African Americans. Probably the most successful campaign of the Council was for South African famine relief in 1946. The CAA was hopeful that, following World War II, there would be a move towards Third World independence under the trusteeship of the United Nations.[43] To the CAA’s dismay, the proposals introduced by the U.S. government to the conference in April/May 1945 set no clear limits on the duration of colonialism and no motions towards allowing territorial possessions to move towards self-government.[43] Liberal supporters abandoned the CAA, and the federal government cracked down on its operations. In 1953 the CAA was charged with subversion under the McCarran Act. Its principal leaders, including Robeson, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Alphaeus Hunton (1903–70), were subjected to harassment, indictments, and in the case of Hunton, imprisonment. Under the weight of internal disputes, government repression, and financial hardships, the Council on African Affairs disbanded in 1955.[44]
The US Organization was founded in 1965 by Maulana Karenga, following the Watts riots. It is based on the synthetic African philosophy of kawaida, and is perhaps best known for creating Kwaanza and the Nguzo Saba (“seven principles”). In the words of its founder and chair, Karenga, “the essential task of our organization Us has been and remains to provide a philosophy, a set of principles and a program which inspires a personal and social practice that not only satisfies human need but transforms people in the process, making them self-conscious agents of their own life and liberation”.[45]

Pan-African concepts and philosophies.

Afrocentric Pan-Africanism 

Afrocentric Pan-Africanism is espoused by Kwabena Faheem Ashanti in his book The Psychotechnology of Brainwashing: Crucifying Willie Lynch. Another newer movement that has evolved from the early Afrocentric school is the Afrisecal movement or Afrisecaism of Francis Ohanyido, a Nigerian philosopher-poet.[46] Black Nationalism is sometimes associated with this form of pan-Africanism; a representative of Afrocentric Pan-Africanism in the Spanish-speaking world is Antumi Toasijé.
Kawaida 

Main article: African philosophy § Kawaida

Hip Hop

During the past three decades hip hop has emerged as a powerful force that has partly shaped black identity worldwide. In his 2005 article “Hip-hop Turns 30: Whatcha Celebratin’ For?”, Greg Tate describes hip-hop culture as the product of a Pan-African state of mind.[47] It is an “ethnic enclave/empowerment zone that has served as a foothold for the poorest among us to get a grip on the land of the prosperous”.[47] Hip-hop unifies those of African descent globally in its movement towards greater economic, social and political power. Andreana Clay in her article “Keepin’ it Real: Black Youth, Hip-Hop Culture, and Black Identity” states that hip-hop provides the world with “vivid illustrations of Black lived experience”, creating bonds of black identity across the globe.[48] Hip hop authenticates a black identity, and in doing so, creates a unifying uplifting force among Africans as Pan-Africanism sets out to achieve.

This Information Is And Was Published By

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-Africanism

Civil Rights Activists Daisy Lee Gatson Bates

Meet Daisy Lee Gatson Bates

(November 11, 1914 – November 4, 1999)

She was a American civil rights activist, publisher, journalist, and lecturer who played a leading role in the Little Rock Integration Crisis of 1957.

Newspaper publisher Daisy Lee Gatson Bates as a civil rights activist was influential in the integration of the Little Rock Nine into Little Rock, Arkansas’ Central High School in 1957. She was born Daisy Lee Gatson on November 11, 1914 in Huttig, Arkansas. Her mother Millie Riley was killed by three white men when Daisy was an infant. Out of fear, her father John Gatson fled town and left his daughter in the care of friends, Orlee and Susie Smith. Gaston attended the local segregated schools in her youth.

In 1928 when she was 15, she met Lucius Christopher Bates, a traveling salesman based in Memphis, Tennessee. Together they moved to Little Rock, Arkansas in 1941 and were married on March 4, 1942. The couple established The Arkansas State Press, a weekly statewide newspaper which advocated civil rights for black Arkansas residents. Bates also joined the Little Rock National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) branch and was elected President of the Arkansas Conference of Branches in 1952. She remained active and a member of the National NAACP Board for the next twenty years.

Bates and her husband chronicled the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education case which led to the lower court decision to integrate Little Rock Central High School. Her home, not far from Central High, became the organizing and strategy center for nine African American students selected to desegregate the school in 1957. Bates walked into the schools daily with the children for an entire school year (1957-58). She received numerous death threats and she and her husband were forced to close The Arkansas State Press.

She was named Woman of the Year by the National Council of Negro Women in 1957. Along with the Little Rock Nine, Bates received the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP’s highest award, in 1958. Bates later wrote about her struggles in a memoir titled The Long Shadow of Little Rock, published in 1962. The introduction was written by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

During the year-long struggle in Little Rock, Bates also became the friend of Dr. Martin Luther King. He invited her to be the Women’s Day speaker at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in 1958. She was subsequently elected to the executive committee of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Bates spoke at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

In 1964 Bates moved to Washington D.C., to work for the Democratic National Committee. She also served briefly in the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, working on anti-poverty programs. After suffering a stroke in 1965, she returned to Little Rock, Arkansas but in 1968 she and Lucius moved to the small rural African American community of Mitchellville in Desha County where she established and became Director of the Mitchellville Office of Equal Opportunity Self Help, a program responsible for a water and new sewer systems, a community center and paved streets.

Bates returned to Little Rock after the death of her husband in 1980 and revived The Arkansas State Press. In 1984, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and named an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. The university press republished her memoir in 1986 and it became the first reprinted edition to receive an American Book Award. In 1987, she sold The Press, but continued to act as a consultant for several years. Also in 1987 the Daisy Bates Elementary School was dedicated in Little Rock, and the state named the third Monday in February George Washington’s Birthday and Daisy Gatson Bates Day. Bates carried the Torch for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.

Daisy Lee Gatson Bates died of a heart attack in Little Rock on November 4, 1999. She was the first African American to rest “In State” in the Arkansas State Capitol Building. The Congressional Gold Medal was posthumously awarded to her by President Bill Clinton, and a documentary entitled “Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock” aired on PBS in February of 2012.

Sources:

Daisy Bates, The Long Shadow of Little Rock: A memoir (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2014); Steven Kasher, The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954-68 (New York: Abbeville Press, 1996); David Bradley, The Encyclopedia of Civil Rights In America (Armonk, NY: Routledge, 1998)

Queen Nzingha

Meet Nzingha

Nzingha, also known as Ann Nzingha, is the great national figure of precolonical Angola. The extraordinary scholar John Henrik Clarke referenced her as the “greatest military strategist that ever confronted the armed forces of Portugal.” Nzingha was born in Central Africa around 1582 and her brilliance was recognized early on. The fact that she was a woman was not an impediment to her ability to lead. Toward the middle of her life, she became increasingly aggressive in her desire to maintain the power and dignity of the people of Central Africa. Indeed, her military campaigns kept the Portuguese in Africa at bay for more than four decades. Her goal was the final and complete eradication of the Portuguese capture and enslavement of African people.

Nzingha sent ambassadors and representatives throughout West and Central Africa with the goal of building a massive coalition of Africans to eject the Portuguese.

Nzingha died fighting for her people in 1663 at the ripe old age of 81.

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977)

Meet Fannie Lou Hamer Townsend;

(October 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977)

She was a civil rights activist whose passionate depiction of her own suffering in a racist society helped focus attention on the plight of African-Americans throughout the South. In 1964, working with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Hamer helped organize the 1964 Freedom Summer African-American voter registration drive in her native Mississippi. At the Democratic National Convention later that year, she was part of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, an integrated group of activists who openly challenged the legality of Mississippi’s all-white, segregated delegation.

Born Fannie Lou Townsend on October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi. The daughter of sharecroppers, Hamer began working the fields at an early age. Her family struggled financially, and often went hungry.

Married to Perry “Pap” Hamer in 1944, Fannie Lou continued to work hard just to get by. In the summer of 1962, however, she made a life-changing decision to attend a protest meeting. She met civil rights activists there who were there to encourage African Americans to register to vote. Hamer became active in helping with the voter registration efforts.

Hamer dedicated her life to the fight for civil rights, working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This organization was comprised mostly of African American students who engaged in acts of civil disobedience to fight racial segregation and injustice in the South. These acts often were met with violent responses by angry whites. During the course of her activist career, Hamer was threatened, arrested, beaten, and shot at. But none of these things ever deterred her from her work.In 1964, Hamer helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which was established in opposition to her state’s all-white delegation to that year’s Democratic convention.

She brought the civil rights struggle in Mississippi to the attention of the entire nation during a televised session at the convention. The next year, Hamer ran for Congress in Mississippi, but she was unsuccessful in her bid.Along with her political activism, Hamer worked to help the poor and families in need in her Mississippi community.

She also set up organizations to increase business opportunities for minorities and to provide childcare and other family services. Hamer died of cancer on March 14, 1977, in Mound Bayou, Mississippi.

Did You Know?

Fannie Lou Hamer’s tombstone in her hometown of Ruleville, Mississippi is enscribed with her famous quote, “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

Biography courtesy of BIO.com

Bernard Powell

Meet Bernard Powell

(Bernard Powell was born on March 5, 1947. He was an African-American Civil Rights Activist, from Kansas City.)

Bernard Powell was a considered a frontline activist from Kansas City. At a very young age, he became interested in civil rights, and by the age of 13, he joined the NAACP. Powell became a regional director of the Congress of Racial Equality in the mid-1960s.

Powell was born a twin, five minutes apart from his brother, Burnele. After graduating Central High School in 1965, he turned his interest in civil rights work and the March to Selma in Alabama.

In October of 1968, Powell and others formed the Social Action Committee of 20 (SAC-20). SAC-20’s early efforts were aimed at teaching leadership and job training skills to Black youth. During this time, Powell began wearing his trademark SAC-20 black beret bearing a five-pointed star, which quickly branded him, in the eyes of some, as a militant.

During his lifetime, Powell received many accolades, including “Outstanding Man of the Year” by the National Junior Chamber of Commerce and the National Jefferson Award for public service. He was appointed to several state committees, including the Governor’s Advisory Council on Comprehensive Health Planning for Missouri and the Human Resources Corporation.

He hoped to some day become Missouri’s first Black governor, but his dream was cut short at the age of 32. He was shot to death. He is remembered as a man who worked tirelessly for civil rights.

sources:

blackmissouri.com/digest/bernard-powell-kansas-city-african-american-civil-rights-activist.html

John Gibbs St. Clair Drake

Meet John Gibbs St. Clair Drake

January 2, 1911 – June 15, 1990

John Gibbs St. Clair Drake was an American anthropologist and sociologist and the founding Director of Stanford University’s African and African American Studies Department in 1968. Drake was born in Suffolk, Virginia on January 2, 1911. Drake’s father immigrated to the United States from the Barbados in 1904, and studied at the Virginia Theological Seminary and College in Lynchburg, and upon graduation became a Baptist Preacher. Drake’s mother, Bessie, was a devout churchwoman born in Virginia. When his parents divorced Drake moved to live with his father in Staunton, Virginia. A few years later Drake accompanied his father to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1916 when the Rev. Drake continued ministering to his African American congregants who migrated north. Drake later returned to Staunton, Virginia to live with his mother, who had separated and later divorced his father in 1924.

In Virginia Drake began to experience racial segregation. He attended segregated Booker T. Washington High School in Staunton and in 1927 enrolled at the Hampton Institute. At Hampton Drake met William Allison Davis, who had recently earned an M.A. in English from Harvard University in Massachusetts and who was teaching literature at the Institute. Davis became Drake’s mentor and the two remained professional colleagues and personal friends for decades. Drake graduated from Hampton in 1931 with a degree in biology and after graduation he received a one-year scholarship to study peace and race relations at the Quaker Graduate School at Pendle Hill in Pennsylvania.

In 1935, Allison Davis asked Drake to work in Natchez, Mississippi, as an interviewer for the research project he and Burleigh and Mary Gardner were working on for their book Deep South. Drake interviewed lower class black residents in Mississippi while Davis and his wife concentrated on the black upper classes in Natchez. This research encouraged Drake’s later work in Chicago, Illinois’s black community.

In 1935, Drake began teaching anthropology at Dillard University and divided his time between teaching and interviewing in Natchez. Realizing that he required more intensive training in anthropology Drake entered the graduate program at the University of Chicago. Drake’s attendance at the University of Chicago was interrupted by his enlistment in the U.S. Merchant Marines in 1939. In 1942 Drake married Elizabeth Johns, a sociologist. He served in the Merchant Marines throughout the duration of the war and was discharged in 1945. He returned to the University of Chicago and completed his Ph.D. in 1953.

Drake’s other works included Churches and Voluntary Associations among Negroes in Chicago (1940) and Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City. Black Metropolis (1945) was co-authored with Horace R. Cayton. The latter study received the Ainsfiled-Wolf award in 1945 as one of the years’ two best books on race relations in an American city.

In 1946 St. Clair Drake received a tenured teaching appointment at Roosevelt College (now university). While at Roosevelt he helped create their African American Studies program. Drake remained at Roosevelt until 1968. Later that year he was asked to lead the development for an Afro American studies program at Stanford University. While at Stanford, he published Black Folk Here and There (2 vols. 1987-1990) an exhaustive and detailed accounting of white racism in world history. Drake was also a poet and actor and served as an advisor to President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. St. Clair Drake died at the age of 79 in Palo Alto, California on June 21, 1990.

Sources:

George Clement Bond, “A Social Portrait of John Gibbs St. Clair Drake: An American Anthropologist,” American Ethnologist (November 1988); Fourteenth Census of the United States, Schedule No. 1.; Kwame Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African & African American Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

Who Was David Walker And The David Walker’s Appeal?

Meet David Walker

(September 28, 1796 – August 6, 1830)

He was an African-American abolitionist, writer and anti-slavery activist. Though his father was a slave, his mother was free so therefore he was free. In 1829, while living in Boston, Massachusetts, he published An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, a call for black unity and self-help in the fight against oppression and injustice.

David Walker’s objective was nothing short of revolutionary. He would arouse slaves of the South into rebelling against their master. His tool would be his own pamphlet, David Walker’s Appeal. . . , a document that has been described as “for a brief and terrifying moment. . ., the most notorious document in America.”

The son of a slave father and a free black mother, David Walker was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, perhaps in 1796 or 1797. In accordance with existing laws, since his mother was a free black, David Walker was also free. This freedom, however, did not shield him from witnessing firsthand the degradations and injustices of slavery. He witnessed much misery in his youth, including one disturbing episode of a son who was forced to whip his mother until she died. Walker travelled throughout the country, eventually settling in Boston. But even in that free northern city, with its prevalent discrimination, life was less than ideal for its black residents. Still, Walker apparently fared well, setting up a used clothing store during the 1820s.

In Boston, Walker began to associate with prominent black activists. He joined institutions that denounced slavery in the South and discrimination in the North. He became involved with the nation’s first African American newspaper, the Freedom’s Journal out of New York City, to which he frequently contributed. By the end of 1828, he had become Boston’s leading spokesman against slavery.

In September of 1829 he published his Appeal. To reach his primary audience — the enslaved men and women of the South — Walker relied on sailors and ship’s officers sympathetic to the cause who could transfer the pamphlet to southern ports. Walker even employed his used clothing business which, being located close to the waterfront, served sailors who bought clothing for upcoming voyages. He sewed copies of his pamphlet into the lining of sailors’ clothing. Once the pamphlets reached the South, they could be distributed throughout the region. Walker also sought the aid of of various contacts in the South who were also sympathetic to the cause.

The Appeal made a great impression in the South, with both slaves and slaveholders. To the slaves the words were inspiring and instilled a sense of pride and hope. Horrified whites, on the other hand, initiated laws that forbade blacks to learn to read and banned the distribution of antislavery literature. They offered a $3,000 reward for Walker’s head, and $10,000 to anyone who could bring him to the South alive. Friends concerned about his safety implored him to flee to Canada. Walker responded that he would stand his ground. “Somebody must die in this cause,” he added. “I may be doomed to the stake and the fire, or to the scaffold tree, but it is not in me to falter if I can promote the work of emancipation.” A devout Christian, he believed that abolition was a “glorious and heavenly cause.”

David Walker published a third edition of his Appeal in June of 1830. Two months later he was found dead in his home. Although there was no evidence supporting the allegation, many believed that he had been poisoned. Later scholarship suggests he died of tuberculosis, the same disease that killed his daughter.

David Walker’s Appeal, arguably the most radical of all anti-slavery documents, caused a great stir when it was published in September of 1829 with its call for slaves to revolt against their masters. David Walker, a free black originally from the South wrote, “. . .they want us for their slaves, and think nothing of murdering us. . . therefore, if there is an attempt made by us, kill or be killed. . . and believe this, that it is no more harm for you to kill a man who is trying to kill you, than it is for you to take a drink of water when thirsty.” Even the outspoken William Lloyd Garrison objected to Walker’s approach in an editorial about the Appeal.

The goal of the Appeal was to instill pride in its black readers and give hope that change would someday come. It spoke out against colonization, a popular movement that sought to move free blacks to a colony in Africa. America, Walker believed, belonged to all who helped build it. He went even further, stating, “America is more our country than it is the whites — we have enriched it with our blood and tears.” He then asked, “will they drive us from our property and homes, which we have earned with our blood?”

Copies of the Appeal were discovered in Savannah, Georgia, within weeks of its publication. Within several months copies were found from Virginia to Louisiana. Walker revised his Appeal. He died in August of 1830, shortly after publishing the third edition.

Excerpts from the Appeal

My dearly beloved Brethren and Fellow Citizens.

Having travelled over a considerable portion of these United States, and having, in the course of my travels, taken the most accurate observations of things as they exist — the result of my observations has warranted the full and unshaken conviction, that we, (coloured people of these United States,) are the most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began; and I pray God that none like us ever may live again until time shall be no more. They tell us of the Israelites in Egypt, the Helots in Sparta, and of the Roman Slaves, which last were made up from almost every nation under heaven, whose sufferings under those ancient and heathen nations, were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened and Christian nation, no more than a cypher — or, in other words, those heathen nations of antiquity, had but little more among them than the name and form of slavery; while wretchedness and endless miseries were reserved, apparently in a phial, to be poured out upon, our fathers ourselves and our children, by Christian Americans!

…

… I call upon the professing Christians, I call upon the philanthropist, I call upon the very tyrant himself, to show me a page of history, either sacred or profane, on which a verse can be found, which maintains, that the Egyptians heaped the insupportable insult upon the children of Israel, by telling them that they were not of the human family. Can the whites deny this charge? Have they not, after having reduced us to the deplorable condition of slaves under their feet, held us up as descending originally from the tribes of Monkeys or Orang-Outangs? O! my God! I appeal to every man of feeling-is not this insupportable? Is it not heaping the most gross insult upon our miseries, because they have got us under their feet and we cannot help ourselves? Oh! pity us we pray thee, Lord Jesus, Master. — Has Mr. Jefferson declared to the world, that we are inferior to the whites, both in the endowments of our bodies and our minds? It is indeed surprising, that a man of such great learning, combined with such excellent natural parts, should speak so of a set of men in chains. I do not know what to compare it to, unless, like putting one wild deer in an iron cage, where it will be secured, and hold another by the side of the same, then let it go, and expect the one in the cage to run as fast as the one at liberty. So far, my brethren, were the Egyptians from heaping these insults upon their slaves, that Pharaoh’s daughter took Moses, a son of Israel for her own, as will appear by the following.

…

The world knows, that slavery as it existed was, mans, (which was the primary cause of their destruction) was, comparatively speaking, no more than a cypher, when compared with ours under the Americans. Indeed I should not have noticed the Roman slaves, had not the very learned and penetrating Mr. Jefferson said, “when a master was murdered, all his slaves in the same house, or within hearing, were condemned to death.” — Here let me ask Mr. Jefferson, (but he is gone to answer at the bar of God, for the deeds done in his body while living,) I therefore ask the whole American people, had I not rather die, or be put to death, than to be a slave to any tyrant, who takes not only my own, but my wife and children’s lives by the inches? Yea, would I meet death with avidity far! far!! in preference to such servile submission to the murderous hands of tyrants. Mr. Jefferson’s very severe remarks on us have been so extensively argued upon by men whose attainments in literature, I shall never be able to reach, that I would not have meddled with it, were it not to solicit each of my brethren, who has the spirit of a man, to buy a copy of Mr. Jefferson’s “Notes on Virginia,” and put it in the hand of his son.

…

But let us review Mr. Jefferson’s remarks respecting us some further. Comparing our miserable fathers, with the learned philosophers of Greece, he says: “Yet notwithstanding these and other discouraging circumstances among the Romans, their slaves were often their rarest artists. They excelled too, in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their master’s children; Epictetus, Terence and Phaedrus, were slaves, — but they were of the race of whites. It is not their condition then, but nature, which has produced the distinction.” See this, my brethren! ! Do you believe that this assertion is swallowed by millions of the whites? Do you know that Mr. Jefferson was one of as great characters as ever lived among the whites? See his writings for the world, and public labours for the United States of America. Do you believe that the assertions of such a man, will pass away into oblivion unobserved by this people and the world? If you do you are much mistaken-See how the American people treat us — have we souls in our bodies? Are we men who have any spirits at all? I know that there are many swell-bellied fellows among us, whose greatest object is to fill their stomachs. Such I do not mean — I am after those who know and feel, that we are MEN, as well as other people; to them, I say, that unless we try to refute Mr. Jefferson’s arguments respecting us, we will only establish them.

…

…I must observe to my brethren that at the close of the first Revolution in this country, with Great Britain, there were but thirteen States in the Union, now there are twenty-four, most of which are slave-holding States, and the whites are dragging us around in chains and in handcuffs, to their new States and Territories to work their mines and farms, to enrich them and their children-and millions of them believing firmly that we being a little darker than they, were made by our Creator to be an inheritance to them and their children for ever-the same as a parcel of brutes.

Are we MEN! ! — I ask you, 0 my brethren I are we MEN? Did our Creator make us to be slaves to dust and ashes like ourselves? Are they not dying worms as well as we? Have they not to make their appearance before the tribunal of Heaven, to answer for the deeds done in the body, as well as we? Have we any other Master but Jesus Christ alone? Is he not their Master as well as ours? — What right then, have we to obey and call any other Master, but Himself? How we could be so submissive to a gang of men, whom we cannot tell whether they are as good as ourselves or not, I never could conceive. However, this is shut up with the Lord, and we cannot precisely tell — but I declare, we judge men by their works.

The whites have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and blood-thirsty set of beings, always seeking after power and authority.

…

…to my no ordinary astonishment, [a] Reverend gentleman got up and told us (coloured people) that slaves must be obedient to their masters — must do their duty to their masters or be whipped — the whip was made for the backs of fools, &c. Here I pause for a moment, to give the world time to consider what was my surprise, to hear such preaching from a minister of my Master, whose very gospel is that of peace and not of blood and whips, as this pretended preacher tried to make us believe. What the American preachers can think of us, I aver this day before my God, I have never been able to define. They have newspapers and monthly periodicals, which they receive in continual succession, but on the pages of which, you will scarcely ever find a paragraph respecting slavery, which is ten thousand times more injurious to this country than all the other evils put together; and which will be the final overthrow of its government, unless something is very speedily done; for their cup is nearly full.-Perhaps they will laugh at or make light of this; but I tell you Americans! that unless you speedily alter your course, you and your Country are gone! ! ! ! !

…

If any of us see fit to go away, go to those who have been for many years, and are now our greatest earthly friends and benefactors — the English. If not so, go to our brethren, the Haytians, who, according to their word, are bound to protect and comfort us. The Americans say, that we are ungrateful-but I ask them for heaven’s sake, what should we be grateful to them for — for murdering our fathers and mothers ? — Or do they wish us to return thanks to them for chaining and handcuffing us, branding us, cramming fire down our throats, or for keeping us in slavery, and beating us nearly or quite to death to make us work in ignorance and miseries, to support them and their families. They certainly think that we are a gang of fools. Those among them, who have volunteered their services for our redemption, though we are unable to compensate them for their labours, we nevertheless thank them from the bottom of our hearts, and have our eyes steadfastly fixed upon them, and their labours of love for God and man. — But do slave-holders think that we thank them for keeping us in miseries, and taking our lives by the inches?

…

Let no man of us budge one step, and let slave-holders come to beat us from our country. America is more our country, than it is the whites-we have enriched it with our blood and tears. The greatest riches in all America have arisen from our blood and tears: — and will they drive us from our property and homes, which we have earned with our blood? They must look sharp or this very thing will bring swift destruction upon them. The Americans have got so fat on our blood and groans, that they have almost forgotten the God of armies. But let the go on.

…

Do the colonizationists think to send us off without first being reconciled to us? Do they think to bundle us up like brutes and send us off, as they did our brethren of the State of Ohio? Have they not to be reconciled to us, or reconcile us to them, for the cruelties with which they have afflicted our fathers and us? Methinks colonizationists think they have a set of brutes to deal with, sure enough. Do they think to drive us from our country and homes, after having enriched it with our blood and tears, and keep back millions of our dear brethren, sunk in the most barbarous wretchedness, to dig up gold and silver for them and their children? Surely, the Americans must think that we are brutes, as some of them have represented us to be. They think that we do not feel for our brethren, whom they are murdering by the inches, but they are dreadfully deceived.

…

What nation under heaven, will be able to do any thing with us, unless God gives us up into its hand? But Americans. I declare to you, while you keep us and our children in bondage, and treat us like brutes, to make us support you and your families, we cannot be your friends. You do not look for it do you? Treat us then like men, and we will be your friends. And there is not a doubt in my mind, but that the whole of the past will be sunk into oblivion, and we yet, under God, will become a united and happy people. The whites may say it is impossible, but remember that nothing is impossible with God.

…

I count my life not dear unto me, but I am ready to be offered at any moment, For what is the use of living, when in fact I am dead. But remember, Americans, that as miserable, wretched, degraded and abject as you have made us in preceding, and in this generation, to support you and your families, that some of you, (whites) on the continent of America, will yet curse the day that you ever were born. You want slaves, and want us for your slaves ! ! ! My colour will yet, root some of you out of the very face of the earth ! ! ! ! ! ! You may doubt it if you please. I know that thousands will doubt-they think they have us so well secured in wretchedness, to them and their children, that it is impossible for such things to occur.

…

See your Declaration Americans! ! ! Do you understand your won language? Hear your languages, proclaimed to the world, July 4th, 1776 — “We hold these truths to be self evident — that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL! ! that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! !” Compare your own language above, extracted from your Declaration of Independence, with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and yourselves on our fathers and on us — men who have never given your fathers or you the least provocation! ! ! ! ! !

David Walker’s Appeal, In Four Articles: Together With A Preamble To The Coloured Citizens Of The World, But In Particular, And Very Expressly, To Those Of The United States Of America, revised Edition with an Introduction by Sean Wilentz

Hill and Wang, New York, 1995

A Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Sources

Wikipedia

PBS

Definition Of Kiss

Definition of kiss
transitive verb

1 :to touch with the lips especially as a mark of affection or greeting kissed his wife goodbye

2 :to touch gently or lightly wind gently kissing the trees  

intransitive verb

1 :to salute or caress one another with the lips

2 :to come in gentle contact

Meet Frida The Rescue Dog In Mexico Saved 52 People And Everyone Is In Love.

Meet Frida The Rescue Dog In Mexico Saved 52 People And Everyone Is In Love. 

This rescue dog in Mexico saved 52 people and everyone is in love.

After a dangerous 7.1 earthquake hit Mexico earlier this week, thousands of emergency responders, military soldiers and civilians mobilized to search through the rubble — all to keep from adding to the death count, which included at least 21 children.

Among these are a 6-year-old rescue dog, Frida, part of the Mexican navy. She has saved 52 people serving in such locales as Honduras, Ecuador and Haiti.

Frida looks cute, with her booties and goggles, but the clothes have a purpose. The boots protect her feet while she digs and walks on rough terrain, and the goggles protect her eyes from smoke and debris.

The Internet fell in love with Frida, who not only loved her good looks and cute gear, but her heroism.

Many noted what a ‘good dog’ Frida was, as shared images demonstrated her gentle yet dogged determination as she went about her job.

Frida developed such a fanbase in a short amount of time that some even made fan art of her.

During such a difficult time and struggle, Frida has become a symbol of hope for a country determined to save what it can after disaster.

Many People Are Asking: What’s The Definition Of Genocide?

Many People Are Asking:What’s The Definition Of Genocide?

Definition Of Genocide:

1. “Genocide,” a term used to describe violence against members of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group with the intent to destroy the entire group, came into general usage only after World War II, when the full extent of the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime against the Jews of Europe during that conflict became known. In 1948, the United Nations declared genocide to be an international crime; the term would later be applied to the horrific acts of violence committed during conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and in the African country of Rwanda in the 1990s. An international treaty signed by some 120 countries in 1998 established the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has jurisdiction to prosecute crimes of genocide.

2. Genocide is intentional action to destroy a people (usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group) in whole or in part. The hybrid word “genocide” is a combination of the Greek word génos (“race, people”) and the Latin suffix -cide (“act of killing”). The United Nations Genocide Convention, which was established in 1948, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.

MEET MS. WANGARI MAATHAI, Activist, Environmental Activist, Women’s Rights Activist, Government Official (1940-2011)

MEET MS. WANGARI MAATHAI, Activist Environmental Activist, Women’s Rights Activist, Government Official (1940-2011)

Wangari Maathai was a Kenyan political and environmental activist and her country’s assistant minister of environment, natural resources and wildlife.

In 1971, Wangari Maathai received a Ph.D., effectively becoming the first woman in either East or Central Africa to earn a doctorate. She was elected to Kenya’s National Assembly in 2002 and has written several books and scholarly articles. She won the Nobel Peace Prize for her “holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights, and women’s rights in particular.” Maathai died of cancer on September 25, 2011, in Nairobi, Kenya.

Early Life and Education

Born on April 1, 1940, in Nyeri, Kenya, environmental activist Wangari Maathai grew up in a small village. Her father supported the family working as a tenant farmer. At this time, Kenya was still a British colony. Maathai’s family decided to send her to school, which was uncommon for girls to be educated at this time. She started at a local primary school when she was 8 years old.

An excellent student, Maathai was able to continue her education at the Loreto Girls’ High School. She won a scholarship in 1960 to go to college in the United States. Maathai attended Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1964. Two years later, she completed a master’s degree in biological sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Maathai would later draw inspiration by the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements in the United States.

Returning to Kenya, Maathai studied veterinary anatomy at the University of Nairobi. She made history in 1971, becoming the first woman in East Africa to earn a doctorate degree. Maathai joined the university’s faculty and became the first woman to chair a university department in the region in 1976.

Green Belt Movement

Maathai sought to end the devastation of Kenya’s forests and lands caused by development and remedy the negative impact that this development had on the country’s environment. In 1977, she launched the Green Belt Movement to reforest her beloved country while helping the nation’s women. “Women needed income and they needed resources because theirs were being depleted,” Maathai explained to People magazine. “So we decided to solve both problems together.”

Proving to be very successful, the movement is responsible for the planting of more than 30 million trees in Kenya and providing roughly 30,000 women with new skills and opportunities. Maathai also challenged the government on its development plans and its handling of the country’s land. An outspoken critic of dictator Daniel arap Moi, she was beaten and arrested numerous times. One of her most famous actions was in 1989. Maathai and her organization staged a protest in Nairobi’s Uhuru Park to prevent the construction of a skyscraper. Her campaign drew international attention, and the project was eventually dropped. The place in the park where she demonstrated became known as “Freedom Corner.”

The following year, Maathai was beaten and badly injured at another protest in “Freedom Corner.” She was calling for the release of political prisoners. What had started out as an environmental movement quickly became a political effort as well. “Nobody would have bothered me if all I did was to encourage women to plant trees,” she later said, according to The Economist. But I started seeing the linkages between the problems that we were dealing with and the root causes of environmental degradation. And one of those root causes was misgovernance.”

Internationally Acclaimed Activist

Maathai remained a vocal opponent of the Kenyan government until Moi’s political party lost control in 2002. After several failed attempts, she finally earned a seat in the country’s parliament that same year. Maathai soon was appointed assistant minister of environment, natural resources and wildlife. In 2004, she received a remarkable honor. Maathai was given the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace,” according to the Nobel Foundation website.

In her Nobel speech, Maathai said that picking her for the renowned peace prize “challenged the world to broaden the understanding of peace: There can be no peace without equitable development; and there can be no development without sustainable management of the environment in a democratic and peaceful space.” She also called for the release of fellow activist Aung San Suu Kyi in her talk.

Later Years

Maathai shared her amazing life story with the world in the 2006 memoir Unbowed. In her final years, she battled ovarian cancer. She died on September 25, 2011, at the age of 71 years old. Maathai was survived by her three children: Waweru, Wanjira and Muta.

Former U.S. vice president and fellow environmentalist Al Gore was among those who offered remembrances of Maathai. “Wangari overcame incredible obstacles to devote her life to service—service to her children, to her constituents, to the women, and indeed all the people of Kenya—and to the world as a whole,” according to The New York Times. She remains a potent example of how one person can be a force for change. As Maathai once wrote in her memoir, “What people see as fearlessness is really persistence.”

Citation Information

Article Title

Wangari Maathai

Author

Biography.com Editors

Website Name

The Biography.com website

URL

https://www.biography.com/people/wangari-maathai-13704918

Access Date

September 18, 2017

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

April 2, 2014

Original Published Date

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