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Sunday, September 15, 2013

 
 
 
On This Day In TCXPI History

The 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE 16TH STREET BOMBING, BIRMINGHAM, AL.
 
We Remember Denise McNair (11), Carole Robertson (14), Addie Mae Collins (14), and Cynthia Wesley (14), who on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963 at 10:22 a.m. were killed by a bomb planted by Ku Klux Klan members at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL. This senseless, murderous, and cowardice act would shock the nation and galvanize the Civil Rights movement.
  
For Further Reading:
 
 
 
 

Two more African American youths were killed that day. Johnnie Robinson (16), was shot by police for throwing stones at moving cars. Virgil Ware (13), on a bicycle, was shot by a white man on a motor scooter.
For Further Reading:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Tuesday, August 20, 2013

The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, UNIA Leader and Pan Africanist Leader

Marcus Mosiah Garvey was born on this day
 in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.


Marcus Mosiah Garvey creates "The Negro World" newspaper as the official organ of the Universal Negro Improvement (UNIA).


 

 

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Fruitvale Station

Tuesday night. I was honor to  attend a pre-release viewing of "Fruitvale Station" in DC with my son, who attended St. Mary's with  film writer/producer Ryan Coogler.  An amazing movie - Ryan did an excellent job bringing Oscar Grant's story to the big screen. As a native of Oakland, it brought back heartfelt memories of his tragic death and the impact it had on the entire Oakland community. I feel that this movie will touch you in a different way if you - First, are from Oakland and you see all  the familiarity; Second, if you are Black and understand his family and cultural dynamics; Third, if you are fully aware of his tragic and senseless murder; and Fourth, if you are a Mother to a Black male in the Black community.  It was so welcoming to see what a big heart and personality he had, as well as a deep love for his family. I didn't find it "laugh out loud" funny, and kind of took offense to those that did. I teared up and cried mostly. For me it was like going to a funeral - reliving 2009 New Year's Day all over again. Oscar Grant's Life represents many of our young Black men all over the world, who desire to walk a straight path, no matter how many obstacles and challenges are presented. I hope Oscar's story will touch the lives of others who face these same struggles. Michael B, Jordan, Octavia Spencer, and the entire cast were excellent! Job well done!
 

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

JUNETEENTH 2013

On This Day In TCXPI History - Celebrating Juneteenth!

 
JUNETEENTH. On June 19 ("Juneteenth"), 1865, Union general Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and issued General Order Number 3, which read in part, "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor." The tidings of freedom reached the approximately 250,000 slaves in Texas gradually as individual plantation owners informed their bondsmen over the months following the end of the war. The news elicited an array of personal celebrations, some of which have been described in The Slave Narratives of Texas (1974). The first broader celebrations of Juneteenth were used as political rallies and to teach freed African American about their voting rights. Within a short time, however, Juneteenth was marked by festivities throughout the state, some of which were organized by official Juneteenth committees.
 
The day has been celebrated through formal thanksgiving ceremonies at which the hymn "Lift Every Voice" furnished the opening. In addition, public entertainment, picnics, and family reunions have often featured dramatic readings, pageants, parades, barbecues, and ball games. Blues festivals have also shaped the Juneteenth remembrance. In Limestone County, celebrants gather for a three-day reunion organized by the Nineteenth of June Organization. Some of the early emancipation festivities were relegated by city authorities to a town's outskirts; in time, however, black groups collected funds to purchase tracts of land for their celebrations, including Juneteenth. A common name for these sites was Emancipation Park. In Houston, for instance, a deed for a ten-acre site was signed in 1872, and in Austin the Travis County Emancipation Celebration Association acquired land for its Emancipation Park in the early 1900s; the Juneteenth event was later moved to Rosewood Park. In Limestone County the Nineteenth of June Association acquired thirty acres, which has since been reduced to twenty acres by the rising of Lake Mexia.
 
Particular celebrations of Juneteenth have had unique beginnings or aspects. In the state capital Juneteenth was first celebrated in 1867 under the direction of the Freedmen's Bureau and became part of the calendar of public events by 1872. Juneteenth in Limestone County has gathered "thousands" to be with families and friends. At one time 30,000 blacks gathered at Booker T. Washington Park, known more popularly as Comanche Crossing, for the event. One of the most important parts of the Limestone celebration is the recollection of family history, both under slavery and since. Another of the state's memorable celebrations of Juneteenth occurred in Brenham, where large, racially mixed crowds witness the annual promenade through town. In Beeville, black, white, and brown residents have also joined together to commemorate the day with barbecue, picnics, and other festivities.
 
Juneteenth declined in popularity in the early 1960s, when the civil-rights movement, with its push for integration, diminished interest in the event. In the 1970s African Americans' renewed interest in celebrating their cultural heritage led to the revitalization of the holiday throughout the state. At the end of the decade Representative Al Edwards, a Democrat from Houston, introduced a bill calling for Juneteenth to become a state holiday. The legislature passed the act in 1979, and Governor William P. Clements, Jr., signed it into law. The first state-sponsored Juneteenth celebration took place in 1980.
 
Juneteenth has also had an impact outside the state. Black Texans who moved to Louisiana and Oklahoma have taken the celebration with them. In 1991 the Anacostia Museum of the Smithsonian Institution sponsored "Juneteenth '91, Freedom Revisited," featuring public speeches, African-American arts and crafts, and other cultural programs. There, as in Texas, the state of its origin, Juneteenth has provided the public the opportunity to recall the milestone in human rights the day represents for African Americans.
 
 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY: 
Randolph B. Campbell, "The End of Slavery in Texas: A Research Note," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 88 (July 1984). Gregg Cantrell and Elizabeth Hayes Turner, eds., Lone Star Pasts: Memory and History in Texas (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007). Doris Hollis Pemberton, Juneteenth at Comanche Crossing (Austin: Eakin Press, 1983). Vertical Files, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. William H. Wiggins, Jr., O Freedom! Afro-American Emancipation Celebrations (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987). David A. Williams, The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the Emancipation Proclamation, Texas Style (June 19, 1865) (Austin: Williams Independent Research Enterprises, 1979).


Monday, June 10, 2013

On This Day In History - Remembering The Honorable Marcus Garvey.

Marcus Garvey was born in St Ann's Bay, Jamaica on 17 August 1887, the youngest of 11 children. He inherited a keen interest in books from his father, a mason and made full use of the extensive family library. At the age of 14 he left school and became a printer's apprentice where he led a strike for higher wages. From 1910 to 1912, Garvey travelled in South and Central America and also visited London.
He returned to Jamaica in 1914 and founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). In 1916, Garvey moved to Harlem in New York where UNIA thrived. By now a formidable public speaker, Garvey spoke across America. He urged African-Americans to be proud of their race and return to Africa, their ancestral homeland and attracted thousands of supporters.

To facilitate the return to Africa that he advocated, in 1919 Garvey founded the Black Star Line, to provide transportation to Africa, and the Negro Factories Corporation to encourage black economic independence. Garvey also unsuccessfully tried to persuade the government of Liberia in west Africa to grant land on which black people from America could settle.

In 1922, Garvey was arrested for mail fraud in connection with the sale of stock in the Black Star Line, which had now failed. Although there were irregularities connected to the business, the prosecution was probably politically motivated, as Garvey's activities had attracted considerable government attention. Garvey was sent to prison and later deported to Jamaica. In 1935, he moved permanently to London where he died on 10 June 1940. In 1964, his body was returned to Jamaica where he was declared the country's first national hero.

Credit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/garvey_marcus.shtml

Monday, May 27, 2013

HOW MEMORIAL DAY WAS STRIPPED OF ITS AFRICAN-AMERICAN ROOTS



Company E, 4th USCT

How Memorial Day Was Stripped of Its African-American Roots
Excerpts Written by: Ben Becker

What we now know as Memorial Day began as “Decoration Day” in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. Civil War. It was a tradition initiated by former slaves to celebrate emancipation and commemorate those who died for that cause. The spirit of the first Decoration Day—the struggle for Black liberation and the fight against racism—has unfortunately been whitewashed from the modern Memorial Day.

These days, Memorial Day is arranged as a day “without politics”—a general patriotic celebration of all soldiers and veterans, regardless of the nature of the wars in which they participated. This is the opposite of how the day emerged, with explicitly partisan motivations, to celebrate those who fought for justice and liberation.

The concept that the population must “remember the sacrifice” of U.S. service members, without a critical reflection on the wars themselves, did not emerge by accident. It came about in the Jim Crow period as the Northern and Southern ruling classes sought to reunite the country around apolitical mourning, which required erasing the “divisive” issues of slavery and Black citizenship. These issues had been at the heart of the struggles of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

To truly honor Memorial Day means putting the politics back in. It means reviving the visions of emancipation and liberation that animated the first Decoration Days. It means celebrating those who have fought for justice, while exposing the cruel manipulation of hundreds of thousands of U.S. service members who have been sent to fight and die in wars for conquest and empire.