“…The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.” James Baldwin
“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” actress Karyn Parsons has come quite a ways since she was pardoning herself for being so attractive as a self-obsessed Hilary Banks.
But these days, she has a thing or two to teach us about black history.
In 2005, Parsons founded Sweet Blackberry, an organization that creates short animated films that present the stories of lesser-known black history figures. The films are played in libraries and schools nationwide, and can be streamed on Netflix….
She said the idea for Sweet Blackberry stemmed from learning about Henry “Box” Brown from her mother. Brown was a former slave who mailed his way to freedom by hiding in a box to be shipped from Virginia to Philadelphia.
“I couldn’t get over the fact that I never heard that story,” she said.
Parsons said in addition to not being able to get Brown’s legacy off her mind, she was pregnant with her first child and began to think about the knowledge she’d pass on to her daughter….
Of course, Sweet Blackberry’s first animated short would be “The Journey of Henry ‘Box’ Brown,” narrated by Alfre Woodard. The film was met with rave reviews and even earned a Parent’s Choice award….
″[Black history] gives you a sense of strength ― knowing what people were able to do before you. I think of people like Bessie Coleman and it makes me feel stronger. I think of [Bessie’s] perseverance and what she was able to do,” Parsons said.
“A lot of us don’t have too many generations that we know about to go back to and call upon for the strength that we might be able to benefit from. And these people can be that,” she said.
An off-duty police officer who was just trying to help his colleagues after a car chase ended in a shootout near his home, ended up being shot by a fellow cop who did not recognize that they were on the same team.
According to the report, two officers initially encountered the armed, off-duty officer and ordered him to the ground. The off-duty officer complied, but the other officers soon recognized him as one of their own and told him that he could stand up. Just then, however, another officer arrived on the scene, and saw the off-duty officer getting up and, not recognizing the man as an officer, fired his weapon, striking the off-duty officer in the arm.
The New York Daily News identifies the off-duty officer as black and the shooting officer as white.
The injured off-duty officer was treated at a hospital and released Thursday.
The 38-year-old officer who was injured has been with the St. Louis department for 11 years. The officer who shot him is 36, and had been with the department for just eight years. In total, seven officers who were involved with the incident were placed on administrative leave and the department’s Force Investigative Unit is looking into the incident.
Colorlines Screenshot of Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, taken from Twitter on June 14, 2017.
Smith earned a Pulitzer Prize for her 2011 outer space-inspired poetry collection, “Life on Mars.”
The Library of Congress announced Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and educator Tracy K. Smith‘s appointment as the U.S. poet laureate.
“Her work travels the world and takes on its voices; brings history and memory to life; calls on the power of literature as well as science, religion and pop culture,” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden says in a statement. “With directness and deftness, she contends with the heavens or plumbs our inner depths—all to better understand what makes us most human.”
“Her work travels the world and takes on its voices; brings history and memory to life; calls on the power of literature as well as science, religion and pop culture,” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden says in a statement….
Smith is the third Black woman to hold the position, after Natasha Trethewey and Rita Dove. She earned a 2012 Pulitzer Prize for her 2011 poetry collection, “Life on Mars,” which tackles human mortality in the age of space exploration. The collection paid tribute to her father, an engineer who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. Smith is currently on leave from her position as Princeton University’s director of creative writing.
Surely, with all of the camera surveillance as well as several branches of police (federal, local, military, etc.) patrolling one of the most tourist-laden places in these United States, one would think that there would be an arrest or some movement in this noose-hanging frenzy going on all over the National Mall….
Who’s on the case—Inspector Clouseau? Or maybe it’s just not a priority. Or maybe, for those more cynical, it’s an inside job?…
The continued placement of these terror symbols is a mar on the United States….
So far, there have been no arrests in connection with the four or five nooses placed on or near the National Mall and elsewhere in or around Washington, D.C., in the last few weeks, but police say they’re on it—and “investigating” this latest incident.
Colorlines Screenshot of an archival photo depicting a Juneteenth Celebration in Texas, 1900. Taken from the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Twitter on June 19, 2017.
Black Americans and community organizations across the country celebrate Juneteenth today (June 19) with events and actions that honor Black liberation’s past and future.
As the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) describes on its website, Juneteenth traces back to the June 19, 1865, arrival of Union troops in Galveston Bay, Texas, at the tail-end of the Civil War. It was nearly two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which technically freed Blacks in the South, but could not be legally enforced in areas under Confederate control….
Various groups are commemorating Juneteenth by honoring racial justice progress and contemporary activism in different ways.
The NMAAC livestreamed director Lonnie Bunch III’s tour of its “Slavery and Freedom” exhibit earlier today. Watch the tour below. It highlights several artifacts, including Nat Turner’s Bible and a cabin that housed escaped enslaved people.
The Movement for Black Lives is tackling one of emancipation’s failed promises—the guarantee of “40 acres and a mule”—with a nationwide day of direct actions to reclaim public and contested spaces for Black communities. The actions are part of the larger Black Land and Liberation Initiative, anchored by the BlackOUT Collective and Movement Generation, to coordinate land reclamation and reparations actions with local activism groups. Visit M4BL.net to find an action near you.
Elizabeth Meaders has been building her collection of 50,000 Black history items for years and now she’s ready to part with it.
“I’ve spent every penny I have, every penny I hope to have, every penny I ought to have,” the retired teacher from New York told NBC Nightly News Monday, May 29 . She collected the items from dealers and memorabilia shows over the past· five decades and admitted to having to refinance her home a few times in the process.
[Editor’s note:ABHM’s founder, Dr. James Cameron, also began collecting items relating to African American history in his Milwaukee home in the 1970-80s. In 1984 he began exhibiting them in a series of storefront museums, and in 1988, he opened America’s Black Holocaust in a large building, where they were housed for twenty years. Read more about this museum and its four themes, its founder and its future new home.]
Appraised at $10 million, [Ms. Meaders’] items spanning the plight of Black people in America — from enslavement to the civil rights movement — fill every room of her five-bedroom home.
“I come from a family where African-American history is very important,” she says, noting the last slave freed on Staten Island was her great-great grandfather. “And I hold it in a high place in my heart because I know the significance of this neglected history.”
The Butler Medal was awarded to gallantry of Black Troops during Civil War. It holds the distinction of being the only medal ever struck for black troops. Credit: Smithsonian Institution.
Meaders has loaned items to museums over the years but refused to sell items individually.
Now, that comes to an end.
“I’m ready to let go,” she says of the collection, which includes her favorite item: a rare Butler medal awarded to brave Black civil war soldiers by a white general.
“Because of my age and because of the times.…We’re in a turmoil in this country,” she explains.
Meaders hopes someone else can preserve her work and share it with the public.
The girls were sleeping when the invasion occurred. They woke to the sounds of gunshots and bombs. Pogu told People that men in uniforms stormed into their dorm and told them they were officers who were there to protect them. But the girls said they knew they weren’t real officers based on the way they described themselves….
She said they gave the girls an ultimatum: run away and die or get on a truck and leave with them.
People.com. Cousins Lydia, left, and Joy, right, pose for a portrait showing off their diplomas and university scholarships to Southeastern University in Florida .
Once the truck drove away with the girls on it, it created clouds of dust, making it difficult to see behind the truck. Girls began jumping from the truck and running away in different directions. Bishara and two other girls found each other in the bush and were able to stop a motorcyclist, who brought them back to Chibok.
Bishara and Pogu were able to return back to their families. In August of the same year, the duo and several other girls who escaped moved to the United States to complete school. With the help of a Christian nonprofit and a Nigerian activist group, they were able to attend boarding school in Virginia. Bishara and Pogu transferred their senior year and recently graduated from Canyonville Christian Academy. Both gave speeches at the ceremony.
They will be attending Southeastern University in Florida in the fall and have started a GoFundMe to help with their expenses.
Pearlie Mae Smith (far right) and her children won the Powerball jackpot.
We’ve all fantasized about what we’d do if a few million dollars just found its way into our lives. For the Smith family of Trenton, New Jersey, philanthropy was at the top of their list after they won a $429 million Powerball jackpot last year.
At a post-win press conference last May, the family, which consists of Pearlie Mae Smith and her seven children, said they planned to spend their earnings on their community ― and they meant it.
The eight-person Smith family chose to collect their winnings in a lump sum as opposed to yearly installments, with each receiving about $25 million after taxes. After paying off bills, student loans and taking care of other financial obligations, they invested their money in Trenton through the Smith Family Foundation.
“We want to fund programs that directly affect systems of poverty so we can help change the systems or change the dynamics that are causing people to be in poverty,” family member and foundation program manager Harold Smith told NJ.com.
GOOGLE/EJI. “Confronting the legacy of racial terror.”
The history of lynching and racial terror in America is the focus of an ambitious new project launched Tuesday by Google, in partnership with the Equal Justice Initiative.
Google has helped create a new interactive site titled “Lynching in America,”which is based on an 80-page publication by the EJI. Its research has been adapted into a powerful visual narrative about the horror and brutality that generations of black Americans have faced.
“Google has been able to take what we know about lynching, and what we have heard from the families, and what we have seen in the spaces and the communities where these acts of terror took place, and make that knowledge accessible to a lot more people,” said Bryan Stevenson, founder of EJI, in a press release. “To create a platform for hearing and understanding and seeing this world that we’ve lived through.”
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