On This Day In TCXPI History

Kwame Nkrumah, Prime Minister and the First President of Ghana, was born in Nkroful, Gold Coast (now Ghana) on September 21, 1909.

In 1935, Kwame Nkrumah came to the United States to further his education, earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1939 and his Bachelor of Sacred Theology degree in 1942 from Lincoln University and his Master of Science degree in 1942 and his Masters of Arts degree in philosophy in 1943 from the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1947, Kwame Nkrumah returned to the Gold Coast and became the leader of the United Gold Coast Convention which was working on independence from the British.

In 1950, the colonial administration arrested and sentenced Kwame Nkrumah to three years in jail for his political activities. As the result of international protests and internal resistance, he was released from jail in 1951 and elected Prime Minister of the Gold Coast in 1952.

On March 6, 1957, Nkrumah declared Ghana independent and in 1960 he was elected president.

In February, 1966, Nkrumah’s government was overthrown in a military coup which was backed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency and he went into exile in Guinea.

Kwame Nkrumah died April 27, 1972.

Kwame Nkrumah is best remembered for his strong commitment to and promotion of Pan-Africanism and his significant influence in the founding of the Organization of African Unity. In 2000, he was voted Arica’s Man of the Millennium by listeners of the BBC World Service. He was a prolific author and published his autobiography, “Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah,” in 1957. His other works include “Africa Must Unite” (1963), “Dark Days in Ghana” (1968), and “Revolutionary Path,” published posthumously in 1973.

Sources:

http://thewright.org/explore/blog/entry/today-in-black-history-9212012

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/people/person.php?ID=177

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‘WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS YOUR FOURTH OF JULY?’

Occasion: Meeting sponsored by the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, Rochester Hall, Rochester, N.Y. To illustrate the full shame of slavery, Douglass delivered a speech that took aim at the pieties of the nation -- the cherished memories of its revolution, its principles of liberty, and its moral and religious foundation. The Fourth of July, a day celebrating freedom, was used by Douglass to remind his audience of liberty’s unfinished business.

What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
...“What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?”

Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?...

...But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!...

The speech was originally published as a pamphlet. It can be located in James M. Gregory’s, Frederick Douglass, the Orator (1893). More recent publications of the speech include Philip Foner’s, The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass (1950) and The Frederick Douglass Papers (1982), edited by John W. Blassingame.

Full Text: Manhood, Race, and Culture - http://www.manhoodraceculture.com/2014/07/04/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july-frederick-douglass-speaks/ Accessed on 07/04/2014.

Ancient African Civilization

I AM AN AFRICAN QUEEN

International Day of Remembrance of the Victim

International Day of Remembrance of the Victims

of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade 

2014 Theme: “Victory over Slavery: Haiti and Beyond”

For over 400 years, more than 15 million men, women and children were the victims of the tragic Transatlantic Slave Trade, one of the darkest chapters in human history.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was the largest forced migration in history, and undeniably one of the most inhumane. the extensive exodus of Africans spread to many areas of the world over this 400-year period and was unprecedented in the annals of recorded human history.

As a direct result of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the greatest movement of Africans was to the Americas - with 96 per cent of the captives from the African coasts arriving on cramped slave ships at posts in South America and the Caribbean Islands.

From 1501 to 1830, four Enslaved Africans crossed the Atlantic for every one european, making the demographics of the Americas in that era more of an extension of the African diaspora than a european one. The legacy of this migration is still evident today, with large populations of people of African descent living throughout the Americas.

Every year on 25 March, the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade offers the opportunity to honour and remember those who suffered and died at the hands of the brutal slavery system. The International Day also aims at raising awareness about the dangers of racism and prejudice today.

Sources:

http://www.un.org/en/events/slaveryremembranceday/

http://www.unric.org/en/latest-un-buzz/29115-remember-honour-and-seek-change

On This Day In TCXPI History – We Must Never Forget! February 7, 1926 - Black History Week

 

 

February 7, 1926 The First Day of Negro History Week, originated by Historian Carter G. Woodson.

Woodson chose the second week of February because it marked the birthdays of former President Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The week was later expanded and renamed Black History Month to celebrate important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. It is celebrated annually in February in the United States and Canada and in October in the United Kingdom.

As early as 1920, Woodson urged black civic organizations to promote the achievements that researchers were uncovering.  A graduate member of Omega Psi Phi, he urged his fraternity brothers to take up the work. In 1924, they responded with the creation of Negro History and Literature Week, which they renamed Negro Achievement Week.  Their outreach was significant, but Woodson desired greater impact.  As he told an audience of Hampton Institute students, “We are going back to that beautiful history and it is going to inspire us to greater achievements.” 

In 1925, he decided that the Association had to shoulder the responsibility.  Going forward it would both create and popularize knowledge about the black past. He sent out a press release announcing Negro History Week in February, 1926.

Woodson chose February for reasons of tradition and reform.  It is commonly said that Woodson selected February to encompass the birthdays of two great Americans who played a prominent role in shaping black history, namely Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, whose birthdays are the 12th and the 14th, respectively. More importantly, he chose them for reasons of tradition.  Since Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, the black community, along with other Republicans, had been celebrating the fallen President’s birthday. And since the late 1890s, black communities across the country had been celebrating Douglass’.

Well aware of the pre-existing celebrations, Woodson built Negro History Week around traditional days of commemorating the black past.  He was asking the public to extend their study of black history, not to create a new tradition.  In doing so, he increased his chances for success.
Yet Woodson was up to something more than building on tradition. Without saying so, he aimed to reform it from the study of two great men to a great race.

Though he admired both men, Woodson had never been fond of the celebrations held in their honor. He railed against the “ignorant spellbinders” who addressed large, convivial gatherings and displayed their lack of knowledge about the men and their contributions to history.  More importantly, Woodson believed that history was made by the people, not simply or primarily by great men.

He envisioned the study and celebration of the Negro as a race, not simply as the producers of a great man. And Lincoln, however great, had not freed the slaves—the Union Army, including hundreds of thousands of black soldiers and sailors, had done that. Rather than focusing on two men, the black community, he believed, should focus on the countless black men and women who had contributed to the advance of human civilization.
Source: http://www.asalh.org/blackhistorymonthorigins.html