Black Inventor - Granville Woods

[Misscutiecutie]

Re: Black Inventor - Granville Woods

That is true babydoll [img]/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Remember the movie *Roots*?? I can't tell the last time I saw that movie [img]/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] It was sad, but still apart of our history.

[Dr.Dudd]

Re: Black Inventor - Granville Woods

Blacks In The Revolution

Blacks, who understood the literal meaning of patriot rhetoric, eagerly took up the cause of American freedom, fighting bravely in the early confrontations with the British. Though the revolution freed some blacks and set the country on a course toward the abolition of slavery, political accommodation to plantation owners forestalled emancipation for many blacks in the south for 90 more years.

A black man was one of the first martyrs of the patriot cause. Crispus Attucks, apparently a slave who had run away from his owner 20 years before, died in the Boston Massacre in 1770. Though facts were disputed at trials then as now, witnesses said Attucks hit a British officer with a large piece of firewood, grabbed a bayonet and urged the crowd to attack just before the British fired. Attucks and two others were killed while eight were wounded, two mortally.

Blacks served at the battles of Lexington and Concord. Peter Salem, a freed slave, stood on the green at Lexington facing the British when the first battle broke out with the shot that was heard around the world. One of the last men wounded in the battle as the British escaped to Boston was Prince Estabrook, a black man from West Lexington.

At least 20 blacks, including Peter Salem, were in the ranks two months later when the British attacked an American position outside Boston in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Salem has been honored for firing the shot that killed Major John Pitcairn, the British officer who led the Redcoats when they had attacked his small unit at Lexington.

Unable to venture outside Boston and then threatened with cannon surrounding the city, the British left Boston for New York. As the war changed from a Massachusetts endeavor to a broader conflict throughout the colonies, the politics of race changed dramatically.

Blacks had been welcomed in the New England militia, but Congress initially decided against having them in the Continental army. Congress needed support from the South if all the colonies were to win their independence from England. Since southern plantation owners wanted to keep their slaves, they were afraid to give guns to blacks.

Congress ordered all blacks removed from the army, but black veterans appealed directly to George Washington, who took up their cause with John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress. Blacks serving in the army were allowed to stay, but new enlistments were forbidden.

Though the Declaration of Independence declared that "all men were created equal," many blacks soon saw more opportunity on the British side. The British governor of Virginia promised immediate freedom and wages to any slave who would join the King’s army. Hundreds flocked to the standard of the governor, Lord Dunmore, but he was denied a base on the land by the American forces and many of the blacks who joined him died of smallpox on overcrowded ships.

The loyalties of blacks was a serious issue for the American leaders because blacks made up one-fifth of the two million people in the colonies. With the British soldiers already outnumbering the American troops, and recruitment difficult for the patriots, the northern colonies soon again began to enlist blacks. Rhode Island made up a regiment almost entirely of blacks. As the war continued, colonies as far south as Maryland and Virginia were recruiting free blacks for the American cause.

As the war spread into the South, Congress found it needed to recruit slaves. It offered to pay South Carolina slave owners $1,000 for able-bodied male slaves. The slaves would receive no pay, but would be given $50 and their freedom at the end of the war if they served "well and faithfully." The South Carolina Assembly threatened to leave the war, dooming the plan in the southernmost colonies.

Recruitment of blacks to the American cause continued further north, but the patriots had less success than the British. The offer of immediate freedom extended by Virginia’s unfortunate loyalist governor was eventually made by the British throughout the colonies. Slaves joined the British by the tens of thousands.

The fate of the loyalist blacks varied considerably. Some were captured by Americans and either returned to their masters or treated as war loot and sold back into slavery. Approximately 20,000 were with the British at the end of the war, taken to Canada or the Caribbean. Some became the founders of the British colony of Sierra Leone in West Africa.

Even though the British offered slaves a better deal, many blacks served on the American side. They made up a sizeable share of the men in the Continental navy, state navies and the large force of American privateers. Blacks had long been in the labor force on ships and at seaports. On the water, then as now, skill counted for more than politics.

Among the blacks fighting on the American side were a large number of troops brought to the continent by the French. These included Henri Christophe, a 12-year-old who was wounded in the fight before Savannah. He later become the liberator and then king of Haiti. Other blacks in the French force who would later gain fame included Martial Besse, who was promoted to general by the French, and Jean-Baptiste Mars Belley, another government leader in Haiti.

The precise role of blacks in the revolution is difficult to quantify. Blacks in those days, generally did not write. The people who did write early histories of the revolution were whites and concentrated on the efforts of white men. Also, many participants in the revolution were not specifically identified by race in the documents of the time and historians now have no way of knowing whether they were black. The owner of Fraunces Tavern was known as "Black Sam," but no one has been able to establish whether he was a black man or whether the nickname was given to him for other reasons.

When blacks were allowed to serve in the American military, they often did work as laborers, sometimes in addition to regular soldier duties. Usually they were privates, though a few rose to command small groups of men.

The words of the Declaration of Independence were taken literally by blacks and some whites. In, 1780, Pennsylvania became the first colony to pass a law phasing out slavery. Children born to slaves after that date were granted their freedom when they reached 28. Other northern states followed. The Superior Court of Massachusetts held in 1783 that slavery violated the state constitution, and New Hampshire also ended slavery by a court ruling. Vermont outlawed slavery and Connecticut and Rhode Island passed gradual emancipation laws. New York outlawed slavery in 1799 and New Jersey followed in 1804. The international slave trade was outlawed in 1808.

Progress then came to a stop. A boom in cotton production spread the slave economy into the lower Mississippi Valley. Slave states were careful to control at least half the political power in the federal government, blocking any national movement against slavery until the Civil War.

Of the blacks who fought in the Revolution, a number of stories of individual heroism have survived. Here are some of them:

JAMES ARMISTEAD LAFAYETTE was an American black who first volunteered to spy on the traitor Benedict Arnold then-serving as a British general. When Arnold left Virginia, Armistead moved to the personal staff of the British general, Lord Cornwallis. Armistead sent a steady stream of intelligence to the Marquis de Lafayette, helping Lafayette to keep Cornwallis bottled up at Yorktown until Washington and the French fleet could arrive to capture the British army and win the war. He was freed and took Lafayette’s name for his own after the war.

LAMBERT LATHAM was present as a tiny American fort near Groton, Conn., was overrun by the British. After the American commander surrendered, he was murdered by a British officer. Latham killed the British officer and was in turn killed as the British stabbed him 33 times with their bayonets.

PRINCE WHIPPLE, a black man shown in famous pictures of Washington crossing the Delaware, was the son of a wealthy family in Africa and had been sent to America to get an education. He was enslaved by a dishonest sea captain. In addition to crossing the Delaware with Washington, Whipple successfully fought off two robbers while carrying a large sum of money from Salem to Portsmouth. He was given his freedom after the war.

WILLIAM FLORA, a black freeman, was with a small American force holding Great Bridge near Norfolk. He gained fame for standing his ground and firing eight times as the British overwhelmed the position. Long after the other Americans had fled, Flora made his retreat. He became a leading businessman in Portsmouth after the war.

JAMES FORTEN, a 15-year-old free black, served as a powder boy on the Royal Louis, preying on British shipping. On his second cruise, his ship was battered by three British naval vessels and forced to surrender. As a prisoner, Forten struck up a friendship with the British captain’s son, who persuaded his father to offer the captured teen-ager a life of ease in England. Forten refused, declaring he would not be a traitor to his country. He was held with 1,000 other prisoners in the ship Jersey anchored near New York. Several prisoners died every day from the horrible conditions. Forten was offered a chance to escape in a chest when an American officer was exchanged for a British prisoner. He gave up his place to allow a younger white boy to escape. After seven months Forten was set free in an exchange of prisoners and walked home to Philadelphia. He became a successful businessman and a leader of the abolition movement.

[dre4792]

Re: Black Inventor - Granville Woods

This is a great thread..well done!!

xxbig

[babydoll]

Re: Black Inventor - Granville Woods

Originally posted by Misscutiecutie:
[qb]That is true babydoll [img]/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Remember the movie *Roots*?? I can't tell the last time I saw that movie [img]/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] It was sad, but still apart of our history.[/qb]

girl, oh yes, and last night on Howard University TV, the guy who was the man in the movie "To Sir w/ Love" remember that one w/ Sidney Potier, I couldn't tell the last time I saw one of his movies on tv. *sigh*

[Misscutiecutie]

Re: Black Inventor - Granville Woods

babydoll...girl I know [img]/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] It's sad

Very great read Dr. Dudd

[Dr.Dudd]

Re: Black Inventor - Granville Woods

Reconstruction

"The 'Strong' Government, the 'Weak' Government," cartoon comparing the Reconstruction policies of President Ulysses S. Grant and President Rutherford B. Hayes, 1880
The Granger Collection, New York City
(1865-77) , in U.S. history, period during and after the American Civil War in which attempts were made to solve the political, social, and economic problems arising from the readmission to the Union of the 11 Confederate states that had seceded at or before the outbreak of war.
As early as 1862, Pres. Abraham Lincoln had appointed provisional military governors for Louisiana, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The following year, initial steps were taken to reestablish governments in newly occupied states in which at least 10 percent of the voting population had taken the prescribed oath of allegiance. Aware that the presidential plan omitted any provision for social or economic reconstruction, the Radical Republicans in Congress resented such a lenient political arrangement under solely executive jurisdiction. As a result, the stricter Wade-Davis Bill (q.v.) was passed in 1864 but pocket vetoed by the President.

After Lincoln's assassination (April 1865), Pres. Andrew Johnson further alienated Congress by continuing Lincoln's moderate policies. The Fourteenth Amendment, defining national citizenship so as to include blacks, passed Congress in June 1866 and was ratified, despite rejection by most Southern states (July 28, 1868). In response to Johnson's intemperate outbursts against the opposition as well as to several reactionary developments in the South (e.g., race riots and passage of the repugnant black codes severely restricting rights of blacks), the North gave a smashing victory to the Radical Republicans in the 1866 congressional election.

That victory launched the era of congressional Reconstruction (usually called Radical Reconstruction), which lasted 10 years starting with the Reconstruction Acts of 1867. Under that legislation, the 10 remaining Southern states (Tennessee had been readmitted to the Union in 1866) were divided into five military districts; and, under supervision of the U.S. Army, all were readmitted between 1868 and 1870. Each state had to accept the Fourteenth or, if readmitted after its passage, the Fifteenth Constitutional Amendment, intended to ensure civil rights of the freedmen. The newly created state governments were generally Republican in character and were governed by political coalitions of blacks, carpetbaggers (Northerners who had gone into the South), and scalawags (Southerners who collaborated with the blacks and carpetbaggers). The Republican governments of the former Confederate states were seen by most Southern whites as artificial creations imposed from without, and the conservative element in the region remained hostile to them. Southerners particularly resented the activities of the Freedmen's Bureau (q.v.), which Congress had established to feed, protect, and help educate the newly emancipated blacks. This resentment led to formation of secret terroristic organizations, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the White Camelia. The use of fraud, violence, and intimidation helped Southern conservatives regain control of their state governments, and, by the time the last Federal troops had been withdrawn in 1877, the Democratic Party was back in power.

About 1900, many U.S. historians espoused a theory of racial inferiority of blacks. The Reconstruction governments were viewed as an abyss of corruption resulting from Northern vindictiveness and the desire for political and economic domination. Later, revisionist historians noted that not only was public and private dishonesty widespread in all regions of the country at that time but also that a number of constructive reforms actually were introduced into the South during that period: courts were reorganized, judicial procedures improved, public-school systems established, and more feasible methods of taxation devised. Many provisions of the state constitutions adopted during the postwar years have continued in existence.

The Reconstruction experience led to an increase in sectional bitterness, an intensification of the racial issue, and the development of one-party politics in the South. Scholarship has suggested that the most fundamental failure of Reconstruction was in not effecting a distribution of land in the South that would have offered an economic base to support the newly won political rights of black citizens.

[Dr.Dudd]

Re: Black Inventor - Granville Woods

Dudd:For those who did not know that blacks were elected to congress more than 100 years ago.
So that they realize that where we are it is possible to looses all our rights,because in 1868 we had much more,but it was taken from us,by fraud on the parts of the racists and our failure to act before it is too late.
This was taken frpm the Republican Party's web page.

Leading the way on the issues

Some people have argued that Republicans fought to give blacks equal rights and then the vote as a way of wresting control of the South away from the Democrats. While it is true that almost all blacks voted Republican, these were very dangerous and controversial issues at the time. For whatever reason, many Republican politicians risked their careers on that period's "third rail" of politics and managed to not only abolish slavery, but eventually even established a black's right to vote as well. In fact, many blacks even held elected office and were influential in state legislatures. And, in 1869, the first blacks entered Congress as members of the Republican Party, establishing a trend that was not broken until 1935 when the first black Democrat finally was elected to Congress

[Dr.Dudd]

Re: Black Inventor - Granville Woods

Dudd:More about our lossescaused by ignorimg the early signs until it's too late then we start to march and sing

SIGNIFICANT DATES ON
BLACK LAND LOSS
1861 Civil War begins.

1862 Congress creates the US Department of Agriculture.

1862 Congress passes the Morrill Act (or Land Grant Act) to create white land grant colleges for agriculture and mechanical arts.

1865 (January) Congress adopts the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to abolish slavery.

1865 (March) Congress establishes the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (Freedmen’s Bureau) providing for the allocation of “unoccupied land” to freedmen (not to exceed 40 acres) - rather than 40 acres as requested, Congress allowed the Freedmen’s Bureau to sell only 5 to 10 acre tracts of land to freed slaves.

1865 (April 9) Civil War ends.

1865 (April 14 ) Republican President Abraham Lincoln assassinated and succeeded by Vice President Andrew Johnson (former U.S. Senator from Tennessee).

1865 (May) President Johnson announces his Reconstruction Plan. The plan calls for the Southern States to abolish slavery but does not offer a role for Blacks in Reconstruction. The southern states are to determine the role of Blacks themselves.

1866 Congress passes the first Civil Rights Act over a presidential veto - Johnson opposed federal protection of the rights of Blacks.

1866 Congress adopts the 14th amendment giving citizenship to Blacks.

1867 Congress passes a series of Reconstruction Acts abolishing Southern State governments under Johnson’s plan. Election boards in each state required to register all adult Black males and all qualified adult white males. Johnson vetoes these acts and Congress easily overrides the veto.

1868 Congress attempts to impeach President Johnson which is defeated by one vote.

1869 Congress adopts the 15th Amendment making it illegal to deny males the right to vote because of their race.

1877 Reconstruction ends with Democratic control of the South and laws are passed throughout the south denying Blacks the right to vote.

1890 Congress passes the second Morrill Act to create land grant colleges for Blacks.

1890’s The “Colored Farmers National Club and Cooperative Union of the United States” is created in Arkansas.

1896 U.S. Supreme Court passes Plessy v. Ferguson legalizing separate but equal facilities for whites and Blacks which supports the “Jim Crow” laws passed in the South denying Blacks their rights.

1910 peak of land ownership for blacks. Collectively blacks own 15 million acres of land of which 218,000 black farmers are full or part owners. A steady decline of landownership begins after 1910.

1946 congress creates the Farmers Home Administration (FMHA) to offer credit designed to improve the income of the small farm owner often known as the “lender of last resort”.

1967 Federation of Southern Cooperatives founded to assist in the economic development of black farmers and the rural poor.

1969 James Forman releases "black manifesto' In Detroit calling for $200 million for a southern land bank.

1973 "only six million acres" published by Black Economic Research Center under leadership of Bob Browne.

1973 Emergency Land Fund (ELF) formally organized to address the issue of black land loss.

1982 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights reports one of the primary reasons blacks lose land is because of discrimination from the USDA.

1985 ELF merges with the federation to become the Federation Of Southern Cooperatives /Land Assistance Fund.

1990 Federation/LAF successfully leads efforts to pass the first "Minority Farmers Rights Bill" (section 2501 ) to provide technical assistance to black farmers.

1990 The first law suit filed against the federal government on behalf of all black farmers by the Farmers Legal Action Group with the assistance of the Federation/LAF.

1992 the US Census Of Agriculture reports there are 18,000 black farmers left owning 2.3 million acres.

1992 the Federation/LAF leads the first black farmer "caravan to Washington" to address the plight of black and other minority farmers.

1997 USDA holds listening, forums to hear from minority farmers.

1997 USDA’s Civil Rights Action Team develops 92 recommendations to end discrimination within USDA.

1997 second law suit on behalf of black farmers' filed against the federal government.

1998 Coordinating Council of Black Farm Groups created.

1998 (October 9) U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman designates Pigford V. Glickman as a “class”.

1999 (January 5) Consent decree arranged between attorneys for farmers and USDA attorneys - attorneys agree to settlement in class action suit filed by farmers.

1999 (March 2) U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman holds fairness hearing on Consent Decree in the U.S. Discrict Court.

[Misscutiecutie]

Re: Black Inventor - Granville Woods

wow [img]/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]