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Originally posted by Blackstar*
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Put that into perspective.... I believe there were a couple women on Nelson ship at Trafalgar... And a couple Laskars, a couple black guys and a French man! -
this article is why i detest Black History Month... it is a regurgitation of lists rather than developmental aproach. This is the kind of stuff that should be evolving..n...
The prisoners of war who grew 33,000 lettuces
By Stephen EvansBBC News, Berlin
Continue reading the main storyIn today's Magazine
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When thousands of British men were interned in Germany at the start of World War One, they rolled up their sleeves and made the best of it. In their prison camp on the River Spree in Berlin, they built a Little Britain - using the barbed wire as a trellis on which a thousand flowers bloomed.
More than 5,000 British civilians found themselves caught in Germany when war broke out.
They were rounded up and held captive for the duration of hostilities in sheds and stables on a racetrack at Ruhleben, on the western outskirts of Berlin.
Unlike prisoner of war camps, Ruhleben was not a labour camp. These were interned civilians and the over-riding obligation imposed was not to escape. There were 200 German guards but they stayed on the perimeter, allowing the prisoners "home rule".
Accordingly, the inmates selected "captains" for each block, with a "captains' committee" running the camp, and sub-committees organising everything from the camp's own postage stamps to a police service.
The result was a version of the homeland in the heart of enemy territory. Streets and squares in the camp were named Trafalgar Square, Bond Street and Marble Arch. But the captains also created a mini-British Colony, with all the class distinctions and racial prejudices of the era.
Black seamen caught on British ships at the start of the war were not allowed to have a black leader of their group - it had to be a white "captain".
At least one Jewish inmate said there was anti-Semitism. There were rich and poor within the camp. The toffs employed the proles to work.
A Jewish viewIn 1917, inmate Israel Cohen wrote down his impressions of the camp in which he was interned: "On the seventh day of our internment (on Thursday morning, November 12th, 1914, to be exact) we were summoned by the alarm-bell, which was vigorously struck by one of the guards, to line up in front of our barracks, and we awaited impatiently the new order that was to be promulgated."
Jews were identified and then marched off to another, far worse, camp. As they marched out, German guards and what Israel describes as "un-English Englishmen" jeered at them. Eventually, they were allowed back into the main camp after the American ambassador to Germany intervened.
Ruhleben prison camp record
On the plus side, the inmates created the sporting and recreational associations you might find in any respectable Home Counties town. The inmates built a five-hole golf course and established an Association Football Club, a Cricket Association, a Rugby Football Club, a Lawn Tennis Association, a Hockey Club and a Boxing Club.
There were classes with 200 teachers drawn from among the internees and a library with 2,000 books. There was an orchestra of inmates which gave its first concert on 6 December 1914. It performed Gilbert and Sullivan and some demanding classics. On 2 May 1915, for example, a "Grand Concert" consisted of the Grieg Piano Concerto in A Minor, soloist William Lindsay.
There was also a Ruhleben Song, sung heartily by the inmates:
"So line up boys and sing this chorus, shout this chorus all you can.
We want the people there, to hear in Leicester Square,
That we're the boys that never get downhearted.
Back, back, back again in England, then we'll fill the flowing cup,
And tell them clear and loud, of that Ruhleben crowd,
That always kept their pecker up."
There was also a Horticultural Association affiliated to the Royal Horticultural Society in London, though the inmates did not do the sort of gardening you might expect in a place where food was scarce. In the bleak world of the war-time camp, the standard diet was no more than black bread and turnip soup - but, at least to begin with, the British gardeners opted for flowers to hide the barbed wire rather than vegetables to fill their stomachs.
The internees were a varied crowd, but not a cross-section of British society - they were men, aged from 17 to 55, who either lived and worked in Germany, or happened to have been there when war broke out. Many were seamen on ships caught in Hamburg but there were also musicians who played in the Wagner Festival at Bayreuth. There were professional soccer players and British and Irish jockeys, all having to make a life together.
Continue reading the main storyFind out more
Listen to Stephen Evans' full report on Ruhleben on the World Tonight, on Tuesday 29 July on BBC Radio 4 at 22:00 BST
Initially, many were held near where they were captured so sailors in Hamburg were kept in floating hulks on the Elbe. But by November 1914, the old racetrack at Ruhleben on the banks of the Spree had been identified as a central internment camp.
Prisoners were held in the stables. Each block contained an average of 27 stalls designed for horses but now inhabited by men. Each was about 10 sq ft, in which six men lived. But this was much better than the lofts above which housed 200 men per block. Privacy did not exist.
The accommodation was primitive but the internees improved it by building chairs and tables.
By spring 1915, at the end of the camp's first winter, the the rains had turned much of it into a mud pool, so interned engineers built drains and elevated pathways over the mud between buildings. In June 1915, new latrines were built and showers constructed so that warm showers were available once a week and cold showers all the time.
Escape and suicide"Several men gave up the struggle of trying to reconcile themselves to their lot: they attempted either to escape or to commit suicide, or they became victims of mental derangement. The number of attempts at escape was comparatively small, and the successes were fewer still.
"In July, 1915, Messrs. Edward Falk and Geoffrey Pyke escaped one night from the Camp. Two months later Mr. Alfred Delbosq, who had a week's furlough, escaped. And in April, 1916, Messrs. Gaunt and Colston also escaped.
"The first attempt at suicide was made early one morning in March, 1915, by a prisoner with a razor, who was not stopped until he had inflicted a gash in his throat; and one or two attempts were made in the following summer. Cases of mental derangement were unfortunately more frequent."
Israel Cohen - inmate
But it was the gardening that really stands out. Fiona Davison, head of Libraries and Exhibitions at the Royal Horticultural Society, says it started in a small way, with inmates growing flowers in biscuit tins.
"It gradually grew, and being proper English gentlemen, they decided that they should have a horticultural society, and they contacted us, the Royal Horticultural Society, to ask if they could become an affiliated society - which meant that we would send them instructions on how to run a flower show.
Extract from a letter sent by internee T Howat to the Royal Horticultural Society
"The RHS got very excited about it and put out an appeal to nurseries across the country to provide seeds and bulbs and we sent them out in Red Cross parcels throughout the war on quite a large scale.
"We sent out boxes and boxes and at its peak the Ruhleben horticultural society was producing 33,000 lettuces, 18,000 bunches of radishes. They grew 83 varieties of sweet pea, dahlias, chrysanthemums. It was not just hobby gardening, it was large-scale horticulture with hot houses and nurseries… They used it to supplement their diet."
But that was by the end. Initially, the focus was on flowers. Nobody quite knows why but there is a theory - the captive gentlemen of leisure could afford to buy food, either from guards or from home as food parcels or other prisoners so they wanted flowers, particularly English climbing plants which would disguise the barbed wire.
Doreen Black's grandfather, David McKay Tulloch was at the camp for four years and four months. He was a Scottish merchant seaman who was trapped in Hamburg when war broke out, and he kept a diary which Doreen still has.
"There certainly was a Gentlemen's Club in the camp where other prisoners served the gentlemen tea," she says. "It may explain the contentious decision not to grow vegetables. It wasn't until 1917 that they grew vegetables, and they ended up selling their produce to Berlin, and the proceeds helped their destitute wives at home."
McKay Tulloch returned to Scotland at the end of the war and lived the rest of his life near Aberdeen, where he drew on his Ruhleben experience to teach Doreen gardening. When she picked strawberries he asked her to whistle, so that he could be sure she wasn't eating them.
In many ways, despite the scarcities and privations, the men of the camp were not badly off. The Little Britain they created was far from the trenches of Flanders or the gunsights of a U-boat on the high seas. And they were better fed than the people of Berlin who, because of the tight British naval blockade of Germany, often starved. While the inmates at Ruhleben rejoiced in the size of their marrows, the citizenry of the city around them were so hungry that if a horse dropped dead in the street, crowds scurried forward to butcher it.
There were certainly worse places to spend the Great War than in Little Britain by the Spree, particularly if you played football, golf, rugby, cricket or billiards. Or liked music or wanted to read and learn.
Or if you fancied a bit of gardening.Last edited by Wahalla; 07-29-2014, 07:58 AM.Comment
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Congress and the president righting a century-old racial wrong done to New Yorker Henry Johnson
The stage is set for America to meet a long-overdue national obligation now that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has recommended New Yorker Henry Johnson for the Medal of Honor.
Ninety-six years ago, during World War I, Johnson almost single-handedly repelled an assault by as many as 24 German soldiers on his post in France. He fought with rifle, knife and bare fists, suffering grievous injury while saving the life of his trenchmate.
The U.S. refused to recognize Johnson’s valor. The military denied him both the Purple Heart and a disability pension, despite his loss of a shinbone and most of the bones in one foot.
All because Henry Johnson of Albany was black.
Hagel endorsed Johnson for the nation’s highest accolade at the urging of Sen. Chuck Schumer, who has pressed the issue for 15 years and who two years ago submitted voluminous documentation of Johnson’s heroism.
That record met the Pentagon’s high standards of proof, satisfying Hagel, and before him U.S. Army Secretary John McHugh, that Johnson’s incredible exploits were, beyond all doubt, true.
Schumer must now win passage of legislation authorizing a Medal of Honor in connection with events that took place more than five years ago, the traditional time limit for the award. Washington’s gridlock must not stand in the way. Assuming success, the application would then go to President Obama for final review and determination.
A railroad station redcap when the U.S. entered the war, Johnson became one of 2,000 African Americans who enlisted in a newly formed, all-black National Guard unit that drilled with broomsticks in Harlem because the Army had no interest in equipping the men with rifles.
At the time, most black soldiers were limited to supply roles. Johnson’s unit, which came to be known as the Harlem Hellfighters, insisted on going into combat. With white Americans refusing to serve beside black Americans, the brass placed the men under French command.
So, after midnight on May 15, 1918, Johnson was isolated at the front with Needham Roberts, a teenager from Trenton. Germans came out of the darkness, firing their weapons and throwing grenades. Johnson took hits, then came to his feet fighting.
After emptying his rifle magazine, he engaged in hand-to-hand combat as he was hit by gunfire. When two Germans began to haul Roberts away, Johnson plunged an 8-inch knife into one man's skull, stabbed a second and disemboweled a third. Then he forced the attackers to retreat under a bombardment of grenades.
In the day, the episode became known as “The Battle of Henry Johnson.” The French awarded him the high honor of their Croix de Guerre avec Palme. New York greeted him and the Hellfighters with a raucous parade on their return.
And the U.S. sent Johnson into oblivion.
Penniless and struggling with alcohol, he died at the age of 32 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. In 1996, the U.S. awarded him a posthumous Purple Heart and added the Distinguished Service Cross in 2002, finding insufficient historical documentation to support the Medal of Honor.
Hagel and McHugh are now satisfied on that score. Congress must authorize Obama to consider Johnson for the Medal of Honor, so the President can right a racial wrong done almost a century ago.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/d...#ixzz3C48lUeY6
The medals and recognition are great, but I wonder if his family will get his pension and other benefits too.Comment
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Dr. Joy Degruy on Black History
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Saartje (Sara) Baartman
(1789-1816)
When Saartje (Sara) Baartman left the shores of Africa, little did she know that her body parts would be returned to her home land 187 years later and that she would fuel the racist notions of black inferiority and black female sexuality in Europe. Dubbed "The Hottentot Venus," she was exhibited as a freak and, in the process, juxtaposed against white ideals of superiority and sexuality. Initially, she was paraded naked at different venues around London and due to agitation by anti-slavery advocates, was taken to Paris. Saartje's predicament embodied issues of racism, sexism and colonialism.
Born in 1789 in the Eastern Cape of present-day South Africa, Saartje was a member of the Khoisan group, the original inhabitants of southern Africa. The Khoisan, pejoratively referred to as the Hottentots, are honey-colored and steatopygic—that is, fat is stored in their buttocks. Europeans viewed the latter feature to be an abnormality and an attestation of racial inferiority.
While in her teens, Saartje migrated to an area near Cape Town, where she was a farmer's slave until she was bought in Cape Town by William Dunlop, a doctor on a British ship. At age 20, Saartje headed for London with Dr. Dunlop where, it was agreed, that they would get rich by displaying her body to Europeans, catering to Europeans' sexual fascination with aboriginal peoples.
Prancing in the nude, with her jutting posterior and extraordinary genitals, she provided the foundation for racist and pseudo-scientific theories regarding black inferiority and black female sexuality. The shows involved Saartje being "led by her keeper and exhibited like a wild beast, being obliged to walk, stand or sit as ordered." Saartje's predicament drew the attention of a young Jamaican, Robert Wedderburn, who agitated against slavery and racism. Subsequently, his group pressured the attorney general to stop this circus. Losing the case on a technicality, Saartje spent four years in London and then went to Paris where she was exhibited in a travelling circus, and seen frequently controlled by an animal trainer in the show.
It was here that she crossed paths with George Cuvier, Napoleon's surgeon-general, who was also considered to be the dean of comparative anatomy. In his capacity of social anthropologist, he arrogantly and erroneously concluded that she was the missing link. She turned to prostitution and when she died poor in 1816, almost immediately Cuvier had her body cast in wax, dissected and the skeleton articulated. Her organs, including her genitals and brains, were preserved in bottles of formaldehyde. Her remains were displayed at the Musée de L'Homme in Paris until 1974.
In post-apartheid South Africa, efforts were made to retrieve Saartje's remains. In 1994, then-President Nelson Mandela appealed to his French counterpart, but it was not until 2002 that the French Senate approved a bill for repatriation of Saartje's remains to South Africa. In May 2002, her remains were brought home to South Africa after nearly 200 years of humiliation and abuse. In August 2002, she was finally laid to rest in the Eastern Cape.Comment
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Otis Boykin
(1920-1982)
Born in 1920 in Dallas, Texas, Otis Boykin attended Fisk University and Illinois Institute of Technology, where he started his career as a laboratory assistant testing automatic controls for aircraft. He then directed his efforts toward inventing, ultimately developing more than 25 electronic devices.
One of his early inventions was an improved electrical resistor for computers, radios, televisions and an assortment of other electronic devices. Other notable inventions include a variable resistor used in guided missiles and small component thick-film resistors for computers. These innovations in resistor design contributed to significant cost reductions in electronic components for both military and commercial applications.
Thirty seven derivative products from these inventions have been manufactured in Paris and distributed throughout Western Europe. From 1964, Boykin worked as a consultant to several American and European firms.
Boykin's most outstanding invention was the control unit for the pacemaker—the device uses electrical impulses to maintain a steady heartbeat. In an ironic twist of fate, Otis Boykin died of heart failure in 1982.Comment
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King Jaja of Opobo
(1821-1891)
Born in Igboland and sold as a slave to a Bonny trader at the age of twelve, he was named Jubo Jubogha by his first master. He was later sold to Chief Alali, the head of the Opubo Annie Pepple Royal House. Called Jaja by the British, this gifted and enterprising individual eventually became one of the most powerful men in the eastern Niger Delta.
The Niger Delta, where the Niger empties itself into the Gulf of Guinea in a system of intricate waterways, was the site of unique settlements called city-states.
From the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, Bonny, like the other city-states, gained its wealth from the profits of the slave trade. Here, an individual could attain prestige and power through success in business and, as in the case of Jaja, a slave could work his way up to head of state. The House was a socio-political institution and was the basic unit of the city-state.
In the nineteenth century—after the abolition of the slave trade in 1807—the trade in slaves was supplanted by the trade in palm oil, which was so vibrant that the region was named the Oil Rivers area.
The Houses in Bonny and other city-states controlled both the internal and external palm oil trade because the producers in the hinterland were forbidden to trade directly with the Europeans on the coast; the Europeans never left the coast for fear of malaria.
Astute in business and politics, Jaja became the head of the Anna Pepple House, extending its activities and influence by absorbing other houses, increasing operations in the hinterland and augmenting the number of European contacts. A power struggle ensued among rival factions in the houses at Bonny leading to the breakaway of the faction led by Jaja. He established a new settlement, which he named Opobo. He became King Jaja of Opobo and declared himself independent of Bonny.
Strategically located between Bonny and the production areas of the hinterland, King Jaja controlled trade and politics in the delta. In so doing, he curtailed trade at Bonny and fourteen of the eighteen Bonny houses moved to Opobo.
In a few years, he had become so wealthy that he was shipping palm oil directly to Liverpool. The British consul could not tolerate this situation. Jaja was offered a treaty of "protection", in return for which the chiefs usually surrendered their sovereignty. After Jaja's initial opposition, he was reassured, in vague terms, that neither his authority nor the sovereignty of Opobo would be threatened.
Jaja continued to regulate trade and levy duties on British traders, to the point where he ordered a cessation of trade on the river until one British firm agreed to pay duties. Jaja refused to comply with the consul's order to terminate these activities, despite British threats to bombard Opobo. Unknown to Jaja, the Scramble for Africa had taken place and Opobo was part of the territories allocated to Great Britain. This was the era of gunboat diplomacy, where Great Britain used her naval power to negotiate conditions favorable to the British.
Lured into a meeting with the British consul aboard a warship, Jaja was arrested and sent to Accra, where he was summarily tried and found guilty of "treaty breaking" and "blocking the highways of trade".
He was deported to St. Vincent, West Indies and four years later, he died en route to Nigeria after he was permitted to return.
Ironically, Jaja's dogged insistence on African independence and effective resistance exposed British imperialism and made him the first victim of foreign territorial intrusion in West Africa. The fate of Jaja reverberated through the entire Niger delta. Amazed at this turn of events, the other delta chiefs quickly capitulated.
In addition, the discovery of quinine as the cure for malaria enabled the British traders to bypass the middlemen and deal directly with the palm oil producers, thus precipitating the decline of the city-states.
King Jaja's downfall ensured a victory for British supremacy, paving the way for the eventual imposition of the colonial system in this region by the end of the century.Comment
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Candace of Meroe
(3rd century BCE-2nd Century CE)
In the kingdom of Kush (called Ethiopia by classical authors), particularly during the Meroitic period, women played prominent roles in affairs of the state, occupying positions of power and prestige, the natural outgrowth of which was the development of a line of queens. Unlike the queens of Egypt who derived power from their husbands, the Queens of Kush were independent rulers, to the extent that it was often thought that Meroe never had a king. Four of these queens—Amanerinas, Amanishakhete, Nawidemak and Maleqereabar—became distinctively known as Candaces, a corruption of the word Kentake.
The word is a transcription of the Meroitic ktke or kdke, which means "queen mother. " All royal consorts were by definition Kdkes. The queen mother played two important roles, which ensured the line of succession and also consolidated her power. She played a prominent role in the choice and coronation of the new king and, unique to Meroitic society, she officially adopted her daughter-in-law. Basically, some of the traits of the matriarchs of Meroe correspond to those of the queen mother in matrilineal societies in other parts of Africa.
What little is known of the Candaces was learned primarily from Roman sources and more recently from excavations, iconography, and inscriptions on monuments. Classical writers have attested to their power and leadership. One of them is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (8:28-39) where, on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, Philip converted "an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, that is, the queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury..." Pliny, who provided valuable details of the great city of Meroe, which have been borne out by subsequent excavations, states that, "The queens of the country bore the name Candace, a title that had passed from queen to queen for many years."
The Candaces have repeatedly appeared in the writings of classical authors. Pseudo-Callisthenes recounted that Alexander visited Candace, Queen of Meroe. Legend has it that she would not let him enter Ethiopia and warned him not to despise them because they were black for "We are whiter and brighter in our souls than the whitest of you." Strabo, in his report of the military clash between the Romans and the Ethiopians, describes a Candace, probably Amanerinas, as "a masculine sort of woman, blind in one eye." This incident purportedly brought Kush onto the stage of world history: After Petronius' punitive invasion of Napata, the Candace waited until most of his troops went off to another campaign and attacked the Romans. Petronius returned and a standoff ensued between the two armies until the Ethiopian ambassadors were allowed to negotiate a peace treaty with Augustus Caesar. The tribute exacted from the Meroites was renounced and a border was demarcated between Roman territory and the kingdom of Kush.
We know that, for a period of 1250 years (ending in 350 CE), the kingdom of Kush flourished as a unique civilization which, beneath an Egyptian façade, remained profoundly African; and that the title of Candace existed for 500 years. However, without a concerted effort in archaeology and a breakthrough in deciphering the Meroitic script, the world will never know the true glory of the kingdom of Kush and the magnificence of the Candaces.Comment
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wow betty boops based pon a blakk ooman juss like da statue aff liberteeOriginally posted by Blackstar* View PostComment
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The Scramble for Africa
The Scramble for Africa was powered not so much by conditions in Africa, but by the economic, social and political conditions in Europe during the second half of the nineteenth century. In economic terms, it was "not so much as an overproduction of ... goods in Europe as an undersupply of raw materials".
The scramble was fierce by July 1884 as France, Britain, Germany and Portugal had all staked claims on African territory within the previous five years.
From November 15, 1884 to January 20th, 1885, The Berlin Conference, under the chairmanship of Bismark, was convened to set up the rules of the Scramble. On February 26, 1885, the decision had been made:
Any sovereign power which wanted to claim any territory should inform the other powers "in order to ... make good any claim of their own".
Any such annexation should be validated by effective occupation.
Treaties with African rulers were to be considered a valid title to sovereignty.
In addition, the powers were free to navigate the Congo and Niger Rivers.
There was no precedent in world history to justify one continent boldly talking about the distribution and occupation of the territory of another continent.Comment
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Originally posted by blugiant View Post
The last statement is not true... there was president... the Treaty of Tordisillas, which every Jamaican is taught, The Treat of Breda, Treat of Ultret and literally every european peace treaty after 1492 had a colonial distrtibutive element... and the Balfour accords, the treaty of Versilles in the last centuary....Comment
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Slavery Fact Sheets
Geography
1. Enslaved Africans came primarily from a region stretching from the Senegal River in northern Africa to Angola in the South.
2. Europeans divided this stretch of land into five coasts:
Upper Guinea Coast: The area delineated by the Senegal and Gambia Rivers
Ivory (or Kwa Kwa or Windward) Coast:Central Liberia
Lower Guinea Coast: Divided into the Gold Coast on the west (Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana), the Slave Coast (Togo, Benin, and western Nigeria), and the Bight of Benin (Nigeria and Cameroon)
Gabon
Angola
3. The Angolan coast supplied nearly half the slaves sent to the Americas.
Organization
1. The notion of ethnic groups, combing a common language and customs with a political structure is mistaken. Atlantic Africa was divided into states (political units) and nations (cultural units). Slavery was a royal enterprise; the European kings sponsored slavery and issued assientos, royal slaving permits. These were sold to the elite merchants of the day and become items of value like stocks and shares today. Ovando, the Spanish governor of Hispaniola complained not to export anymore Africans as they were aggressive and reinforcing the ranks of resistance among the Native-Americans. These early imported Muslim Africans were proving hard to handle but as labor shortage got critical due to the waning of the indigenous population, Ovando reassessed the situation and demanded that Africans be sent. Royal decree targeted the Guinea coast in a mandate, which was to avoid the Islamic African influence. However, over the duration of the trade approximately 30% of those sent to the New World were Muslims
2. While some states were quite large, others were quite modest in size and many were tiny, consisting of a capital town of a few thousand people and a dozen villages under its control.
3. In the 17th century, 70 percent of the people lived in states with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants.
4. Private wealth usually derived from control of dependents--clients, pawns, wives in polygynous households, and indentured servants.Comment
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