Happy Juneteenth! -- Celebration of Emancipation

[omega minimo]

Dream-singers,
Story-tellers,
Dancers,
Loud laughers in the hands of Fate—
My people.
—Langston Hughes, “Laughers”

"As for me, I raced around the dumpsters collecting discarded "White" and "Colored" signs,
thinking they would be some interest to posterity in a Museum of Horrors." --Stetson Kennedy



Juneteenth -- Celebration of Emancipation
http://www.juneteenth.com/

From its Galveston, Texas origin in 1865, the observance of June 19th as the African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond.
<snip>
One of General Granger’s first orders of business was to read to the people of Texas, General Order Number 3 which began most significantly with:

"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 rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer."

The reactions to this profound news ranged from pure shock to immediate jubilation. While many lingered to learn of this new employer to employee relationship, many left before these offers were completely off the lips of their former 'masters' - attesting to the varying conditions on the plantations and the realization of freedom.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

-- Lewis Allen


Independent Lens - Strange Fruit
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/strangefruit/



Black Laughter and the Harlem Renaissance
http://americanliterature.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/80/1/57.pdf

It is indeed tempting to begin a history of African American laughter with the Emancipation Proclamation—a date celebrated with “whooping and laughing” on the part of freed slaves. Toni Morrison imagines a similar correspondence of freedom and laughter in Beloved, where Baby Suggs expresses her feeling of being free for the first time by exclaiming: “These hands belong to me. These my hands” and by laughing “out loud” so much that she has to “cover her mouth to keep from laughing too loud.”

Until this freedom, Mark Smith argues, the conditions of slavery and its extremely close regulation of slave noises would have made it impossible for the black laugh to be heard in any substantial expressive or public way, as the social order of the Southern soundscape was purchased by the enforced silence or careful supervision of slave noise—music, work, eating, conversation, religion, and other noises of daily life. “Evidence suggests,” Smith writes, “that some white southerners racialized the acoustic and constructed blacks as innately noisy, especially sensitive to the acoustemological environment” and thus in need of constant acoustic discipline and management to produce what Baker has called “reassuring sounds from the black quarters” signifying that “there can be no worry that the Negro is getting ‘out of hand.’ ”



http://www.history.org/history/teaching/slavelaw.cfm
SLAVE LAWS PASSED IN VIRGINIA:
1640-1660: The Critical Period: Custom to Law when Status Changed to "Servant for Life"
• 1639/40 -- Blacks excluded from the requirement of possessing arms.
• 1642 -- Black women counted as tithables (taxable).
• 1662 -- Possibility of life servitude for Blacks.
1660-1680: Slave Laws Further Restrict Freedom of Blacks and Legalize Different Treatment for Blacks and Whites
• 1667 -- Baptism does not bring freedom to Blacks.
• 1669 -- An about the "casual killing of slaves" establishing that "if any slave resist his master and by the extremity of the correction should chance to die, that his death not be accompted Felony."
• 1670 -- Servant for life: the "normal" condition judged for Blacks.
• 1670 -- Forbade free Blacks and Native Americans, "though baptised," to own Christian servants.
1680-1705: Slave Laws Reflect racism and the Deliberate Separation of Blacks and Whites. Color becomes the Determining Factor. Conscious Efforts to Police Slave Conduct Rigidly.
• 1680 -- Prescription of thirty lashes on the bare back "if any negroe or other slave shall presume to lift up his hand against any Christian."
• 1680's -- Development of a separate legal code providing distinct trial procedures and harsher punishments for negroes.
• 1680's -- Status of the child is determined by the status or condition of the mother.
• 1680's -- Severe punishment for slaves who leave their master's property or for hiding or resisting capture.
• 1691 -- Banishment for any white person married to a negroe or mulatto and approved a systematic plan to capture "outlying slaves."
• 1705 -- All negroe, mulatto, and Indian slaves shall be held, taken, and adjudged to be real estate.
• 1705 -- Dismemberment of unruly slaves was made legal.



Slave Codes (Laws) In America
http://www.cr.nps.gov/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/histCo...

Initially, North American colonies were not slave societies in the strictest sense. African servants and slaves arriving in the 16th and 17th centuries had opportunities to become free, some legal rights and considerable control over their day to day lives. The economic, environmental and social conditions in a colony and the nationality and class makeup of the European settlers all influenced the kinds of laws passed and the degree to which they were enforced. Legislation along with evolving social customs focused on protection of property rights, decreasing the costs of acquiring and maintaining a labor supply, increasing economic profits and maintaining political control of a colony.

For example, in order to protect property and increase the size of the slave population, almost all colonies developed laws and/or social custom that defined the slaveholder as owner of children born to enslaved women. Fear of social and political alliances between European indentured servants and Africans led to the passage of laws designed to decrease sexual liaisons or legally binding sexual relationships between Africans and Europeans, either free or bound. Anti-miscegenation laws like these continued in Virginia well into the 20th century.



www.jimcrowhistory.org - The History of Jim Crow: An in-depth site covering the history of Jim Crow.
www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/ - The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Jim Crow Museum - http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/menu.htm

"Our mission is to promote racial tolerance by helping people understand
the historical and contemporary expressions of intolerance."

Who was Jim Crow? - http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/who.htm
What was Jim Crow? - http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/what.htm

Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-Black laws. It was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens. Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-Black racism. Many Christian ministers and theologians taught that Whites were the Chosen people, Blacks were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation.

The Jim Crow system was undergirded by the following beliefs or rationalizations: Whites were superior to Blacks in all important ways, including but not limited to intelligence, morality, and civilized behavior; sexual relations between Blacks and Whites would produce a mongrel race which would destroy America; treating Blacks as equals would encourage interracial sexual unions; any activity which suggested social equality encouraged interracial sexual relations; if necessary, violence must be used to keep Blacks at the bottom of the racial hierarchy.



Jim Crow laws touched every aspect of everyday life. For example, in 1935, Oklahoma prohibited Blacks and Whites from boating together. Boating implied social equality. In 1905, Georgia established separate parks for Blacks and Whites. In 1930, Birmingham, Alabama, made it illegal for Blacks and Whites to play checkers or dominoes together. Here are some of the typical Jim Crow laws, as compiled by the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site Interpretive Staff:

• Barbers. No colored barber shall serve as a barber (to) white girls or women (Georgia).
• Blind Wards. The board of trustees shall...maintain a separate building...on separate ground for the admission, care, instruction, and support of all blind persons of the colored or black race (Louisiana).
• Burial. The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons (Georgia).
• Buses. All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races (Alabama).
• Child Custody. It shall be unlawful for any parent, relative, or other white person in this State, having the control or custody of any white child, by right of guardianship, natural or acquired, or otherwise, to dispose of, give or surrender such white child permanently into the custody, control, maintenance, or support, of a negro (South Carolina).
• Education. The schools for white children and the schools for negro children shall be conducted separately (Florida).
• Libraries. The state librarian is directed to fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of the colored people who may come to the library for the purpose of reading books or periodicals (North Carolina).
• Mental Hospitals. The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct apartments are arranged for said patients, so that in no case shall Negroes and white persons be together (Georgia).
• Militia. The white and colored militia shall be separately enrolled, and shall never be compelled to serve in the same organization. No organization of colored troops shall be permitted where white troops are available and where whites are permitted to be organized, colored troops shall be under the command of white officers (North Carolina).
• Nurses. No person or corporation shall require any White female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed (Alabama).
• Prisons. The warden shall see that the white convicts shall have separate apartments for both eating and sleeping from the negro convicts (Mississippi).
• Reform Schools. The children of white and colored races committed to the houses of reform shall be kept entirely separate from each other (Kentucky).
• Teaching. Any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution where members of the white and colored race are received and enrolled as pupils for instruction shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined... (Oklahoma).
• Wine and Beer. All persons licensed to conduct the business of selling beer or wine...shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room at any time (Georgia).

The Jim Crow laws and system of etiquette were undergirded by violence, real and threatened. Blacks who violated Jim Crow norms, for example, drinking from the White water fountain or trying to vote, risked their homes, their jobs, even their lives. Whites could physically beat Blacks with impunity. Blacks had little legal recourse against these assaults because the Jim Crow criminal justice system was all-White: police, prosecutors, judges, juries, and prison officials. Violence was instrumental for Jim Crow. It was a method of social control. The most extreme forms of Jim Crow violence were lynchings.

Lynchings were public, often sadistic, murders carried out by mobs. Between 1882, when the first reliable data were collected, and 1968, when lynchings had become rare, there were 4,730 known lynchings, including 3,440 Black men and women. Most of the victims of Lynch-Law were hanged or shot, but some were burned at the stake, castrated, beaten with clubs, or dismembered. In the mid-1800s, Whites constituted the majority of victims (and perpetrators); however, by the period of Radical Reconstruction, Blacks became the most frequent lynching victims. This is an early indication that lynching was used as an intimidation tool to keep Blacks, in this case the newly-freedmen, "in their places."



The Garbage Man: Why I Collect Racist Objects
by David Pilgrim, Curator, Jim Crow Museum

http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/collect/

I am a garbage collector, racist garbage. For three decades I have collected items that defame and belittle Africans and their American descendants. I have a parlor game, "72 Pictured Party Stunts," from the 1930s. One of the game's cards instructs players to, "Go through the motions of a colored boy eating watermelon." The card shows a dark black boy, with bulging eyes and blood red lips, eating a watermelon as large as he is. The card offends me, but I collected it and 4,000 similar items that portray blacks as Coons, Toms, Sambos, Mammies, Picaninnies, and other dehumanizing racial caricatures. I collect this garbage because I believe, and know to be true, that items of intolerance can be used to teach tolerance.



I have a 1916 magazine advertisement that shows a little black boy, softly caricatured, drinking from an ink bottle. The bottom caption reads, "Nigger Milk." I bought the print in 1988 from an antique store in LaPorte, Indiana. It was framed and offered for sale at $20. The salesclerk wrote, "Black Print," on the receipt. I told her to write, "Nigger Milk Print."

"If you are going to sell it, call it by its name," I told her. She refused. We argued. I bought the print and left. That was my last argument with a dealer or sales clerk; today, I purchase the items and leave with little conversation.

The Mammy saltshaker and the "Nigger Milk" print are not the most offensive items that I have seen. In 1874, McLoughlin Brothers of New York manufactured a puzzle game called "Chopped Up Niggers." Today, the game is a prized collectible. I have twice seen the game for sale; neither time did I have the $3,000 necessary to purchase it. There are postcards from the first half of the 20th century that show blacks being whipped, or worse, hanging dead from trees, or lying on the ground burned beyond recognition. Postcards and photographs of lynched blacks sell for /Users/davidb/Desktop/Old Soul Alley Parking Batch May 3, 2009 2around $400 each on eBay and other Internet auction houses. I can afford to buy one, but I am not ready, not yet.

"Darkie is now Darlie"

All racial groups have been caricatured in this country, but none have been caricatured as often or in as many ways as have black Americans. Blacks have been portrayed in popular culture as pitiable exotics, cannibalistic savages, hypersexual deviants, childlike buffoons, obedient servants, self-loathing victims, and menaces to society. These anti-black depictions were routinely manifested in or on material objects: ashtrays, drinking glasses, banks, games, fishing lures, detergent boxes, and other everyday items. These objects, with racist representations, both reflected and shaped attitudes towards African Americans. Robbin Henderson, director of the Berkeley Art Center, said, "derogatory imagery enables people to absorb stereotypes; which in turn allows them to ignore and condone injustice, discrimination, segregation, and racism." She was right. Racist imagery is propaganda and that propaganda was used to support Jim Crow laws and customs.



http://www.wvu.edu/~lawfac/jscully/Race/links.htm
This website is designed as a companion to both the undergraduate and law school course Race, Racism, & the Law at West Virginia University, taught by Professor Judith Scully. This website is also designed to aide the public, scholars, and other students in finding resources for information, theories, and discussions of many issues involving Race, Racism, & American Law including: the social construction of race, white privilege, slavery, reconstruction, jim crow, the civil rights era, Brown v. Board of Education, criminal justice, the war on drugs, and health care.
Race, Racism & American  xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/wpahome.html –American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology

xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/index.html –slave narratives
www.antislavery.org
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html
http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery/
http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/aaslavry.htm - The African American –A Journey From Slavery to Freedom
http://nbjcoalition.org/news/civil-rights-belong-to-every.html National Black Justice Coalition

http://www.nps.gov/history/ethnography/index.htm
Park Ethnography Program
National Parks Associated with African Americans: An Ethnographic Perspective is an interactive map that links to some of the many national parks commemorating the African American story in our nation's culture, heritage, and history. It also includes links to parks having less well known or only recently uncovered associations with African Americans. Learn from individual and everyday people's lives, defining historical moments, and the ethnography that brings these stories to life.

[rcrush]

1. I hope TBS doesnt decide to do a House of Payne marathon that day.

[EFerrari]

2. A friend of ours who was moving came over with a box of things

he didn't want to move and that we might want. One of the items in the box was what we'd now call a "completer set" -- S&P, sugar bowl, cream pitcher and an ashtray in the style of the S&P set you have posted in your OP except these were minstrels. Our friend said, "You're going to love this or you're going to hate it". The ashtray is basically a wide open mouth.

[omega minimo]

3. I posted here about

consulting for framing a "2nd largest in the US" collection of these things in the early 80's. I had no idea. The stuff has been mostly scrubbed from public awareness. It used to be as pervasive as described by the museum creator at the end of OP -- and has been mostly "disappeared." Into collections and museums and thrift stores...

A very cool artist, Raymond Saunders, and others, include it in their artwork/commentary. :thumbsup:

I remember a show with a piece by him with the "Darkie Toothpaste" box. Unbefuckinglievable.

Maybe some eyes will open now, as mine were opened regarding how public awareness can be propagandized and UNpropagandized so completely.

:pals:

[EFerrari]

6. Do you think Mrs. Butterworth's pancake syrup was the last

mass marketed item? Fascinating. And remember the pancake house chain, Sambo's? They were as big as Denny's around here. Well into the 70s and maybe a little later.

What we know and don't know is amazing. :hi:

[omega minimo]

9. Yup, Aunt Jemima is gone and Sambo's too.

[old mark]

11. Don't forget Uncle Ben's rice......

Have a great holiday!

:hi:

mark

[EFerrari]

30. That's right!

[omega minimo]

103. Zataran's!!

[Terran]

90. Is Aunt Jemima actually gone?

I remember they updated her image to that of a kindly middle-class looking middle-aged woman, but there's still that name...

[omega minimo]

100. "Aunt Jemima was also the advertising world's first living trademark...."

http://www.auntjemima.com/aj_history/
"Aunt Jemima's Historical Timeline"
Aunt Jemima has a rich history spanning over 115 years.


Original "Aunt Jemima"


Current "Aunt Jemima"

"The Woman Behind Aunt Jemima"
http://scoop.diamondgalleries.com/public/default.asp?t=1&m=1&c=34&s=264&ai=42091&ssd=11/9/2002&arch=y

She was not only one of the greatest advertising icons of all time, but Aunt Jemima was also the advertising world's first living trademark. And, as with any such icon, she's had her fair share of controversy. But did you know who the real Aunt Jemima was? 



Born into slavery in 1834, the woman who would become known to millions as Aunt Jemima was really named Nancy Green. She was a warm, friendly woman who also happened to be an excellent cook (though, interestingly enough, the famous Aunt Jemima pancake recipe wasn't hers. It belonged to a company called the Pearl Milling Company). And it was in 1893 that she was discovered in Chicago, at the age of 59, by one R.T. Davis.


Head of the R.T. Davis Milling Company, Davis bought the pancake formula from Chris Rutt and Charles Underwood when the Pearl Milling Company went bankrupt. And though it was Rutt and Underwood who came up with the name "Aunt Jemima," it was Davis who decided to use a living person to endorse it.


History was made that year at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the very first time Nancy Green went public. It was there that she, with her charming and animated personality, engaged the crowds and supplied them with thousands of pancakes. In fact, she was such a sensation that police had to be assigned to keep the crowds moving!



The rest of the story made marketing history. Soon, Nancy Green signed a lifetime contract with Davis, and her image was on billboards and advertisements all over the world. Davis was up to his eyeballs in pancake orders, and flour sales skyrocketed. Even after the Davis Company had to sell years later, Nancy Green remained the "pancake queen."

It wasn't until 1923 when her legacy as a living trademark ended - when she was tragically struck and killed by a car in downtown Chicago. Two years later, the Aunt Jemima Mills were purchased by the Quaker Oats Company.

The famous image of Aunt Jemima was based on the real image of Nancy Green, an original painting of which recently sold for $9,030 at MastroNet.

This painting was rendered by A.B. Frost, now regarded as one of the great illustrators of the Golden Age of American Illustration. 

Aunt Jemima's image, however, has been modified since the days of Nancy Green and A.B. Frost. As social climates started to change and the 20th century wore on, many became offended by Aunt Jemima's image and felt that it was an outdated and negative portrayal of an African-American woman.

If you take a look at today's Aunt Jemima, you'll notice that her kerchief is gone and her hair is styled. She wears earrings, and appears slimmer and younger. She does, however, have the same warm and inviting smile that she's always had.

[Terran]

107. I hope she made some big money off of all that.

They certainly owed her that! Very interesting.

[omega minimo]

108. It makes it sound like she did. Ya know this is the beginning of using celebrity to sell stuff

"Real people" as brand name/faces and meet and greet photo ops -- if she was the first to be marketed like this -- led to today's celebrity crazed and corporate branded "culture."

[spoony]

4. Truly a lot to process, thank you

for putting this all together. Happy Juneteenth!

[omega minimo]

10. Happy Juneteenth, Spoony.

:toast:

[SeattleGirl]

5. Bookmarking

Looks like you've got a lot of great information here. Thanks!

[bridgit]

7. Sunni Patterson

Sunni Patterson

[omega minimo]

8. Do tell

:applause: THANK YOU!!

[omega minimo]

110. Have people been checking out this powerful performance that bridgit posted?

[malaise]

12. Nice post

Bookmarked to read in detail tonight

[omega minimo]

26. Also check out

link below to thread with all sorts of missing AA history. :thumbsup:

Good to see you, malaise. :hi:

[Number23]

13. Not just kicked and rec'd. STOMPED and rec'd. Bookmarked too

Happy Juneteenth, everyone.

[Karenina]

19. +1

[omega minimo]

21. LOL

Thanks Number23 :hug: Here's to freedom and justice for all :toast:

[bliss_eternal]

37. Happy Juneteenth...!

:hi:

[Brewman_Jax]

14. Merry Juneteenth!

K&R for history almost not known and rarely talked about. :kick:

[omega minimo]

22. Link to stunning "Black history that doesn't make it into the history books"

With your kind permission, here is a link to your thread in the African American Group, with many many links and unknown history provided. Thank you.:grouphug:

Black history that doesn't make it into the history books
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=258&topic_id=2983&mesg_id=2983

[Political Tiger]

15. K & R !!!!!

:kick:

[Bluerthanblue]

16. Excellent Post!

thank you for this.

k&r

[HamdenRice]

17. I hope that at least a few DUers will take the time to learn actual history from this very rich post

Very impressive collection.

I might add that there is a certain special poignancy and irony about this being emancipation day, which may have been overlooked in even your extensive collection of links.

Notice the date -- June 1865.

The Civil War had ended several months earlier, on April 9, 1865.

The Emancipation Proclamation had been issued over two years earlier, on September 22, 1862.

As the Union forces invaded and defeated the South, slaves had been progressively liberated. Moreover, as news of the emancipation and approaching northern armies spread through the south, and southern state enforcement of slavery collapsed, slaves had been escaping and deserting by the hundreds of thousands throughout the war.

The slaves in Texas who celebrated Juneteenth, therefore, were among the very last slaves to learn of the news.

It was as though they had been freed years earlier but were just learning about it. That's how long it took for news to get to rural Texas, which was still "frontier" country despite being a state.

That's really why it took off as a holiday.

It reminds me of two stories I heard about rural South Africa in the mid 1980s when I was living there in the late 1980s, from urban activists doing rural outreach work.

In one story, an activist goes to talk to some of the most exploited black farm tenants of a white farmer, living virtually as slaves, and is telling them about the "big picture" of the anti-apartheid movement, and the black farm workers ask, "but my child, what is this thing, 'apartheid'?" They had never heard the name of the system they were living under.

The other was a similar situation and the outreach worker was talking about government reforms including abolition of the pass laws which had taken place two years earlier. The farm worker didn't know that the pass laws had been abolished and that he was free to leave the white farm.

[bliss_eternal]

42. talk about rich posts...

...so much (frequently overlooked)information in one post, thanks hamdenrice!

[omega minimo]

53. Very important aspect the OP did not include. Thank you HamdenRice

And very powerful moments in the Juneteenth story and the two you shared. :toast:

[Number23]

64. Hamden, posts like this are why you need your star back and to post again in AAIG!

Very good stuff here, thanks for posting.

[omega minimo]

84. Thank you HamdenRice, here is more detail of the story of how the news reached Texas SO LATE!!!

http://www.juneteenth.com/history.htm

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States.  Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation - which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.

Later attempts to explain this two and a half year delay in the receipt of this important news have yielded several versions that have been handed down through the years. Often told is the story of a messenger who was murdered on his way to Texas with the news of freedom. Another, is that the news was deliberately withheld by the enslavers to maintain the labor force on the plantations. And still another, is that federal troops actually waited for the slave owners to reap the benefits of one last cotton harvest before going to Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. All or none of them could be true. For whatever the reason, conditions in Texas remained status quo well beyond what was statutory.

General Order Number 3

One of General Granger’s first orders of business was to read to the people of Texas, General Order Number 3 which began most significantly with:

"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 rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer."

The reactions to this profound news ranged from pure shock to immediate jubilation. While many lingered to learn of this new employer to employee relationship, many left before these offers were completely off the lips of their former 'masters' - attesting to the varying conditions on the plantations and the realization of freedom. Even with nowhere to go, many felt that leaving the plantation would be their first grasp of freedom. North was a logical destination and for many it represented true freedom, while the desire to reach family members in neighboring states drove the some into Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Settling into these new areas as free men and women brought on new realities and the challenges of establishing a heretofore non-existent status for black people in America. Recounting the memories of that great day in June of 1865 and its festivities would serve as motivation as well as a release from the growing pressures encountered in their new territory. The celebration of June 19th was coined "Juneteenth" and grew with more participation from descendants. The Juneteenth celebration was a time for reassuring each other, for praying and for gathering remaining family members. Juneteenth continued to be highly revered in Texas decades later, with many former slaves and descendants making an annual pilgrimage back to Galveston on this date.
Juneteenth Festivities and Food

A range of activities were provided to entertain the masses, many of which continue in tradition today. Rodeos, fishing, barbecuing and baseball are just a few of the typical Juneteenth activities you may witness today. Juneteenth almost always focused on education and self improvement. Thus often guest speakers are brought in and the elders are called upon to recount the events of the past. Prayer services were also a major part of these celebrations.

Certain foods became popular and subsequently synonymous with Juneteenth celebrations such as strawberry soda-pop. More traditional and just as popular was the barbecuing, through which Juneteenth participants could share in the spirit and aromas that their ancestors - the newly emancipated African Americans, would have experienced during their ceremonies. Hence, the barbecue pit is often established as the center of attention at Juneteenth celebrations.

Food was abundant because everyone prepared a special dish. Meats such as lamb, pork and beef which not available everyday were brought on this special occasion. A true Juneteenth celebrations left visitors well satisfied and with enough conversation to last until the next.
Dress was also an important element in early Juneteenth customs and is often still taken seriously, particularly by the direct descendants who can make the connection to this tradition's roots. During slavery there were laws on the books in many areas that prohibited or limited the dressing of the enslaved. During the initial days of the emancipation celebrations, there are accounts of   former slaves tossing their ragged garments into the creeks and rivers to adorn clothing taken from the plantations belonging to their former 'masters'.
Juneteenth and Society

In the early years, little interest existed outside the African American community in participation in the celebrations. In some cases, there was outwardly exhibited resistance by barring the use of public property for the festivities. Most of the festivities found themselves out in rural areas around rivers and creeks that could provide for additional activities such as fishing, horseback riding and barbecues. Often the church grounds was the site for such activities. Eventually, as African Americans became land owners, land was donated and dedicated for these festivities. One of the earliest documented land purchases in the name of Juneteenth was organized by Rev. Jack Yates. This fund-raising effort yielded $1000 and the purchase of Emancipation Park in Houston, Texas. In Mexia, the local Juneteenth organization purchased Booker T. Washington Park, which had become the Juneteenth celebration site in 1898. There are accounts of Juneteenth activities being interrupted and halted by white landowners demanding that their laborers return to work. However, it seems most allowed their workers the day off and some even made donations of food and money. For decades these annual celebrations flourished, growing continuously with each passing year. In Booker T. Washington Park, as many as 20,000 African Americans once flowed through during the course of a week, making the celebration one of the state’s largest.

[rurallib]

18. that recent 'portrait of the Presidents' that a Tennessee GOoPer

emailed around proves that the old beliefs die hard. That would be a very fitting addition to your collection

[omega minimo]

25. Not familiar

You might link here unless it's really ugly. I tried to arrange the OP to inform (graphically) and not offend.

:thumbsup:

[rurallib]

59. I tried to find it but only had a few minutes

let me see if I can find it:


found it on Kos with a diary here
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/15/154037/436

[omega minimo]

62. I was afraid of that.

The gasp I just made clicking on that was "Aaah" an intake of breath and disbelief. Too ugly to bear and that's what we're talking about here. And folks need to know the AA struggle didn't end on Juneteenth or in the 60's or on Nov. 4, 2008.

Okay. Thanks, I think. :cry:



edit:

DAMN THEIR EVIL

[Fire1]

20. Bookmarked & rec'd. Good info for starters. Unbeknownst

to many, AA's were also enslaved by Native Americans. Yet another chapter in this tragedy.

[omega minimo]

29. Never knew that. Lots we don't know.

[Terran]

32. That is true; but

from what I've read, that was a *very* different situation and institution. Black slaves owned by Native Americans were often treated as family members, even marrying into NA families (which is why so many African Americans have NA ancestors). So, if you're offering that bit of information in an effort to spread the guilt around, it doesn't really fly all that well.

Edit:

For an authority on the subject of slavery among Native Americans, see:

http://www.williamlkatz.com/index.php
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Indians-William-Loren-Katz/dp/0689809018

[Fire1]

36. I didn't intend for it to 'fly.' I am well aware of this aspect of

history and I have my own personal references, thank you very much.

[Terran]

86. No offense intended

It's just that every time slavery is discussed in a DU thread, the apologists come out in force. They're usually very eager to supply information about how Africans themselves were involved in the slave trade, and the agenda is always quite clear.

I do apologize for a clear violation of the spirit of this thread.

[omega minimo]

96. Yes, we're trying to spread KNOWLEDGE around, not guilt

:toast: in the hopes it might help with problematic discussions.....

And to celebrate! I think it's damn cool we have an African-American President and First Family this Juneteenth. Maybe there's some hope for this criminally corrupt nation, after all. He was actually ELECTED, even!! :hi:

[omega minimo]

44. the spirit of the thread and the information is the opposite of "spread the guilt around"

The history in the OP is for informational background and the celebration is of Juneteenth! :toast:

Thanks for the links.

[myrna minx]

23. Thank you . K&R and bookmarking. n/t

[Catherine Vincent]

24. ...

:kick:

[Uzybone]

27. KnR, well done

its rare to see this aspect of American life talked about on DU.

[omega minimo]

28. Many great links

and one in the thread to another collection of links....

In the hope we "see this aspect of American life talked about on DU" in a open and informed way.

:thumbsup:

[Terran]

31. Well done. The collector of "garbage" is very interesting.

Happy Juneteenth to anyone here who knows and loves it. It's not a public celebration in my town, where unfortunately blacks and whites pretty much ignore each other politely. I miss Juneteenth in Oakland...now that's a party!

[omega minimo]

34. Well worth reading the whole essay and visiting the museum site.

Oakland CA? Where do they hold it? :toast:

[Terran]

85. Sorry for the delayed response

Back when I lived there it was at Lake Merritt Park, downtown. That was back in like 1986 though.

[omega minimo]

97. Did you go, or meet the founder. Seems like a very interesting person.

[AnneD]

33. Being native Texan....

Juneteenth has always been on the calander more or less. While not an official holiday, absences on that day were not really noted by the smarter bosses. One interesting thing that I didn't see noted was the Louisanna term of Quadroon and Octadroons. You could write an entire book on that.

http://creoleneworleans.typepad.com/creole_folks/2007/01/passing_for_cre.html


Edited to add: Brothers most cherished childhood book was Little Black Sambo-because he loved pancakes so much and really identified with the clever little boy that bested the tiger and brought butter home to his mom. Of course, in the time since-the book was loved to pieces and went out of print (the Golden Book)and became politically incorrect. Two years ago, on his birthday, Mom suprised him with another copy (costing far more than the origional quarter). He teared up and was speechless for some time. All he could do was look at the pages of his favourite childhood friend. We were all glad his old friend was home again.

[omega minimo]

35. I remember the book. The artwork in the OP may be from the Golden Book version

makes him look like he's from India.... the book made the story very sweet. I never new the background of the story or the other references.

I remember when Sambo's restaurants went away. A lot of the older stuff I never saw until a client brought a collection to me. It was shocking. I felt ill. Partly b/c it HAD been disappeared and I was unaware that it ever was that bad, that blatant.

[AnneD]

39. My Hubby is from southern India....

and is very dark skinned-so a setting in India would have been apropos. The folks in southern India are closer to the Aborigines of Australia if I remember my genetics.

I use to work at Sambo's in the 70's. I had happy memories of the book and thought it and the restaurant got a bad rap-but I could understand folks being sensitive about it. The food was good and I had great bosses. It was a lot better than Dingies (Denny's) and cheaper than IHOP.

Being married to Hubby has opened my eyes-even today there is much prejudice. The worst case-We were discriminated against when I tried to get custody of my daughter from my ex. I thought I was imagining it until my Mom said to me as we left the court room (and I had lost custody), that the ad lit em attorney (the one looking out for the child's best interest) was racist and that is the only reason she sided with the ex. But we get it in little ways on a daily basis. I hang around with the Indian community a lot anymore unless they are older friend or hubby's students.

[omega minimo]

43. Looking for the Golden Book

Yes, there are similar features there, aren't there? Never noticed the Australia connection. All our human ancestors moved outward from Africa. My Punjbabi friend talks about the Indian Aryans (and languages) moving outward from India and becoming... all of us. I learned about the Indians who moved to Fiji. Very interesting features.

I'm sorry you have to go through that experience of racism.

Re: the book, I guess "Little Black" should have been a clue. A child doesn't notice it and accepts the lyrical "Little Black Sambo" as innocuous.

[AnneD]

49. That was my brother....

It was just a story about a clever little boy that outsmarted a tiger, turned him into butter and brought the butter home for his mother to make pancakes from. And my brother can STILL eat his weight in pancakes. We never read more into it than that. We also love the Uncle Remus stories (the Aesop's fables of the South). Again, they were just clever stories for children and we loved the dialect they were written in (Mom was a great story teller and did voices).

[omega minimo]

50. I was wrong about the art in the OP.

That's from Sambo's restaurant!

Can't find the version that I remember. The Golden Book seems different.

Thanks for your stories. :hi:

[kskiska]

78. Little Black Sambo IS about an Indian boy. There are NO tigers in Africa.

(snip)

The Story of Little Black Sambo, a children's book by Helen Bannerman, a Scot who lived for 30 years in Madras in southern India, was first published in London in 1899. (An American edition of the book was illustrated by Florence White Williams.) In the tale, an Indian boy named Sambo prevails over a group of hungry tigers. The little boy has to give his colourful new clothes, shoes, and umbrella to four tigers so they will not eat him. Sambo recovers the clothes when the jealous, conceited tigers chase each other around a tree until they are reduced to a pool of delicious melted butter. The story was a children's favourite for half a century, but then became controversial due to the use of the word sambo, a racial slur in some countries<1>, and the illustrations, which are reminiscent of "darky iconography".

The book has a controversial history. The original illustrations by Bannerman showed a caricatured Southern Indian or Tamil child. The story may have contributed to the use of the word "sambo" as a racial slur. The book's success led to many pirated, inexpensive, widely available versions that incorporated popular stereotypes of "black" people. In 1932 Langston Hughes criticised Little Black Sambo as a typical "pickaninny" storybook which was hurtful to black children, and gradually the book disappeared from lists of recommended stories for children.<2>

more…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Black_Sambo

[omega minimo]

79. That's right. Thank you. Did some searching yesterday, looking for the version I remember

[AnneD]

82. Hubby is from Hydrabad......

and when we visited his family, we traveled to Madras via train and through "jungle". I have to admit-I thought about the story more than one time and smiling to myself. Thanks for the link. I hate to see good stories fall from favour because of such silliness, but I understand the sensitivity. I want to look for the newer version for my brother. He'll love them too.

[omega minimo]

128. "Little Black Sambo"

Little Black Sambo

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17824/17824-h/17824-h.htm



ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Helen Watson was the daughter of an army chaplain whose work took his family to many parts of the British Empire.  Born in Edinburgh in the 1860's, Helen went to live in Madeira when she was two, was taught by her father until age ten, and then sent back to Scotland to be educated.  In 1889 Helen Watson married William Bannerman, a surgeon in the Indian medical service of the British army, with whom she she lived in India for the next 30 years. In 1898 after a trip to visit her two daughters being educated in Scotland, she wrote a "picture letter"  to her daughters to while away the tedium of the journey and, as she said, to comfort herself for the absence of her family.  Friends persuaded her to have the story published.  Small in size, "because as a child,  she had always wanted a book she could hold in her own tiny hands," Little Black Sambo has remained popular ever since.  She was about 83 when she died on October 13, 1946.





The story of empire, in India, the British.....

[bliss_eternal]

38. wow...

...blown away by this, (and all the work that had to go into this)amazing post!
thanks so much for sharing!

[omega minimo]

40. Thanks Bliss!

A labor of love. Trying to shed some light on the Big Picture.......... :grouphug:

[reflection]

41. Great thread and wonderful read. Thanks. n/t

[omega minimo]

45. Much obliged

If you have time, do check out the full essay on collecting and the Jim Crow Museum.

[Recursion]

46. I grew up with Juneteenth

It's still quite a celebration in TX, LA, and MS. Thanks for reminding me.

[omega minimo]

48. What's this about red soda pop? Sounds good!

[omega minimo]

47. Another cool essay: "Juneteenth: Real History" by a native of Galveston

Juneteenth: Real History
by Aussie Meyer
http://www.spectacle.org/798/aussie.html

One of the great truisms of my hometown of Galveston is "Never underestimate the power of historical little old ladies." The joint is a tourist town, an island with beaches, and a long and rowdy history. Our old ladies did us a boon by turning a district of ratty old waterfront warehouses into a pretty impressive historical district, with festivals and chi-chi little hotels and restaurants to draw a winter tourist trade. It's quite major, as one of our homeboys is a billionaire who's appeared in the Fortune magazine rankings for top rich boy a number of times, and historical Galveston is his particular pet.

The big historical district is called The Strand. At the heart of it, at 22nd & Strand, there's a number of museums in various restored buildings, surrounded by restaurants and shops. Tens of thousands of tourists stroll by in the course of a year, maybe more. It's got just about everything, but what it doesn't have is a historical marker saying:

"On June 19, 1865, Union General Granger delivered General Order #3 on this spot, declaring:

'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 laborer.'"

It doesn't have a marker like that because nobody in Galveston knows that, or if they know it, they don't talk about it. Black folks in Texas know that June 19th is the day, though, because they've always had a barbecue picnic on that day. It's called Juneteenth. In 1980, Juneteenth became an official state holiday - so State employees get off, but not too many other employers recognize it. That doesn't stop black people from missing work and having a barbecue picnic. In 133 years, nothing much has stopped black folks in Texas from missing work and having a barbecue picnic on Juneteenth...

...except urbanization and integration into a mainstream workplace and all that. I've heard urban, sophisticated African-Americans say that Juneteenth is foolishness, a "made-up" holiday. They're embarassed by the funny name, the tradition of drinking red soda pop, and so on. It's that awful watermelon stigma that taints all things that are simple and fun; and a yearning to forget the slavery thing.

But time goes by, and as the media treats Juneteenth as more of a serious event each year, fewer people make light of it. As people outside of Texas begin to recognize Juneteenth, people in Texas begin to value it more.

Heaven knows, it's not made up, and the reason for the funny name, "Juneteenth", is serious. Juneteenth was the celebration of former slaves who'd been denied the tools of literacy; "Juneteenth" helped them remember the day in oral history. It was a day of overwhelming importance to the freedmen. They spent their little money to buy common grounds to hold their Juneteenth celebrations on, "emancipation grounds". Emancipation Park in Houston was bought in 1872. Other communities across the state have similar spots.

There's a neighborhood in Houston's Fourth Ward named "Freedmen's Town", with narrow, brick-paved streets, and people still living in shotgun shacks. Shotgun houses were actually an architectural innovation brought to America from Africa via Haiti and New Orleans, although I don't suppose the people who have to live in them know that.

So what's real history? The "Dickens on the Strand" festival that brings my hometown tourist bucks each winter, the locals in period drag, like Wiliamsburg, pretending to be Oliver Twists and Artful Dodgers? Or Juneteenth? I'm going down to the island on June 19th, and I'm going to go stand on the corner at 22nd & Strand, and close my eyes and see if I can see it. One third of the people in Texas were slaves; hell, Galveston was probably the last slave port, the last slave market in America. There were black faces in that crowd, listening to the news, dropping their burdens, hugging each other.

I'll probably be the only person on that corner thinking about it, though. The Juneteenth celebration will be elsewhere, Galveston has a black majority now, I'm sure it'll be a good one.

But I'm going to stand there and visualize a big future monument, a freedom arch, something beautiful: "Slavery in Texas ended here." There's a good possibility that slavery in America ended there, but I can't verify it. I feel the need to tell somebody, to tell a lot of people. One way or another, in the next few years, I will.

[DKRC]

51. Great post! K&R!

:yourock:

[omega minimo]

54. LOL

:yourock: :grouphug:

[Horse with no Name]

52. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. K&R

I am trying to remember what movie had the song "Strange Fruit". It haunted me when I first heard it...and haunts me still.
This is one of the best threads ever on this website. Excellent job!

[omega minimo]

55. Much obliged, Horse with no Name

It's Omega 2.0 :spray:

Movie? Hmmmmm dunno. Did the Googling and the YouTubing..... it might show up there on a search. Was it recent?

If you watch the video, it's BH in later years singing on camera, "rare footage." Beautiful.

:toast: Happy Juneteenth.

[Horse with no Name]

56. I'm wrong--I sat and thought about it and it was actually an episode of Cold Case

I love this show and this one was excellent.
http://www.tv.com/cold-case/strange-fruit/episode/402046/summary.html

Happy Juneteenth, indeed, you inspired me to write of something that happened the year I graduated from High School.

[omega minimo]

60. Wonderful. Wanna share it or is it on DU?

:popcorn:

[Horse with no Name]

61. It sunk like a rock

Feel free to add it to your essay. It is very important.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5871383&mesg_id=5871383

[omega minimo]

63. Thank you! Need to read later. Thanks for linking.

:hi:

[omega minimo]

112. That story is very dramatic

and cinematic. What a film that would make. Although there is no "happy ending......."

Is that your writing? I wasn't sure. Love the way it was presented. :thumbsup:

[Horse with no Name]

113. I wish!

Johnathan Coleman from the Texas Observer wrote it. The story is very compelling. You could easily call it "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap".:(

[omega minimo]

114. With a "Deliverance" style banjo version of the AC/DC song....................

:thumbsdown: bastards

[Horse with no Name]

121. Mexia is a cesspool

if I never see that place again as long as I live, it will be too soon.
I have a fetish for Arts and Crafts homes...I want one more than anything...but haven't found the right one yet.
One of my relatives had one in Mexia. It had a total bathroom and kitchen remodel done. Newly painted and repaired on the outside.
Cute cute house. They owed $10k on it. Said if I wanted to pay the payments of $120 a month, I could assume the payments and it would be mine.
That wasn't even enough to get me to live in that hellhole.:(

[omega minimo]

122. Good call.

Never heard of the place before.

[Horse with no Name]

123. Sure you have

it is the home of Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken...you remember, the place where Anna Nicole Smith (may she rest in peace) was discovered.

[omega minimo]

124. OH!! THAT Mexia!

:blush: :spray:

[Number23]

65. "This is one of the best threads ever on this website."

I could not agree more. Omega has done herself mighty proud.

[omega minimo]

74. I'm honored

Proof that community and generosity provide rewards that resonate back and forth.


With a special shout out to my Pay It Forward Angel, who shall remain unnamed...... :grouphug:

[psychmommy]

57. this was great. thanks for the work you put in.

bookmarked forever.

[fishwax]

58. k/r and bookmarked

!

[EFerrari]

66. Kick

[omega minimo]

68. Hey I saw you hanging out on the Imbeach!

Googling and came across the aerial view. You might like what I was working on. One person did. :spray:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5864151

[EFerrari]

69. I was there, lol!

[Horse with no Name]

67. You have inspired me to find more. There needs to be a complete collection

http://www.slate.com/id/2164062/slideshow/2164626/fs/0//entry/2164635/
http://pzrservices.typepad.com/vintageadvertising/vintage_racist_advertising/

[omega minimo]

70. Yeah and some of the artwork (those examples)

is so beautiful of an ugly subject. They editorialize with the imagery. Which is why as the essay said, racist imagery is propaganda.

Out of respect for our AA community and in the celebratory mode of the OP, I tried to keep imagery --- respectful. Showed a painting of "Strange Fruit" rather than the photo. Who knows? Some need to see the photo to believe, while I'm shocked by the racist poster some braindead legislator of TODAY created.

The devastating shot of the man's scarred back is posed and photographed very artfully.

So many ways to send messages.

Now we have an African American president!! And thank gawd we will never hear him utter the words,

"Mexed missages."

[omega minimo]

71. HAPPY JUNETEENTH, MR. PRESIDENT!!!!!!

:cry: :toast: :loveya: :patriot:

[EFerrari]

72. (I wish I was still in Berkeley because on this day, there are all kinds

of food stands that go with the celebration.) I knew nada, NADA, about Juneteenth before I moved to Berkeley. And now, I'll have to go stand out on the deck and try to pick up a whiff of real celebration.

:toast:

:kick:

[omega minimo]

76. Someone mentioned Oakland, too.

At an annual local music fest with multiple stages, each dedicated to a style of music, the rockinest spot IMHO was the Gospel Tent. The best party!

Tell us about East Bay Juneteenth if you're not busy sitting in sandy letters or slaying morons. :toast: We're keeping this kicked through the 19th. And until our first African American President sees it :spray:

[omega minimo]

131. Happy Juneteenth

[kwassa]

73. Fantastic OP

Thank you very much for all the work that you put into it.

[omega minimo]

75. My pleasure

Another subject that the more you know, the more there is to know.

[omega minimo]

77. Juneteenth: In Remembrance of Carl Baker, Steve Booker, and Anthony Freeman

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5862109&mesg_id=5872627

[omega minimo]

80. 31 States recognize Juneteenth as a State Holiday

http://www.juneteenth.us/

[Terran]

87. I had no idea

I live in Missouri and I see it on the list, but I have to say it doesn't get a lot of notice where I live...maybe in KC and St. Louis, I hope. It's not a State Holiday in the sense that anyone gets it off.

I seriously agree it should be a national holiday, maybe even more so than Dr. King's birthday. The profound meaning of Juneteenth is made for that level of observance.

[noiretextatique]

81. this is possibly the best thread i've ever seen on DU

one of the continuing tragedies of racial relations in this country is that much of this history is denied. the people who deny it are the same people who are killing doctors and sending racist emails about the obamas. those are the blatant deniers...the people who would lynch black people today if they could. these days they can just shoot us, like they did outside New Orleans during the Katrina disaster, or in a museum.
but the denial is also mainstream, and even liberal.
post a reparations thread here and you will witness the denial it all its ugly glory. this denial is the same as the denial of the holocaust.
this is *one* of the american holocausts.

our history is denied:
we are denied
nothing has really changed
not in the fetid underbelly
of america
there are people who would lynch me
right now
there are people who deny my intelligence
right now
and it's NOT "the same" THING
for you
as it is for me
no amount of privilege
can silence the wails
of the six million africans
lost in the atlantic
we were (are) hated people
perceived as animals
and inferiors
by people who are not superior

when i think of my sweet, gracious
grandmother being
disrespected...as a human being...
perhaps you can understand
some of my rage
my great grandparents, driven from
THEIR land by an angry, white, legal
lynch mob
who owns that land now, i wonder sometimes
is it a an office building, or a swanky
condominium complex or a lakeside mansion
or a university?
who benefited from this long ago armed robbery?

when random internet posters tell me
to get an education...usually in
some "bill cosby is right" thread...
i wonder if i should list by lettters
of if i should ask them to list theirs?

right now, i am working for a person
who admires hitler's management ability
she is the HEAD of the company
she hired a token black in HR
and a token asian in finance
both men who do her bidding
and she brought in her SS enforcer
as her executive assistant
last week, she and her henchmen
ganged up on a 20 year old woman
and forced her to resign
so she can't get unemployment
i am told they practice
"values-based management"
i wonder if she is building
and oven when our new site
is constructed...it was sooooo efficient!

i felt like a free write :7

[omega minimo]

83. Awesome freewrite!

Beautiful. Absolutely. :yourock:

"post a reparations thread here and you will witness the denial it all its ugly glory"

As with women's issues (I will make this comparison) one would hope to be able to simply HOLD the discussion without it being abused and flamed out. No one expects all to agree on ANYTHING but at least have the decency to let a discussion happen and a topic be explored.

:thumbsup:

[noiretextatique]

91. "at least have the decency to let a discussion happen"

:thumbsup: why can't that happen...with
race
gender
rape
crime
etc, etc, etc
it's sad, really.
:hug: thanks for the compliment...and thanks again for an AMAZING thread.

[Terran]

88. So right about reparations threads...

That has pissed me off untold times over the years. :grr:

But I digress from the spirit of the thread. O8)

Did you used to be noiretblue, by any chance?

[noiretextatique]

89. i still am noiretblu

:hi: i just adopted a more upbeat screen name

[Terran]

92. Ah, ok!

:hi: fom a long-time ally and admirer.

[noiretextatique]

93. likewise, Terran

:loveya:

[Number23]

119. I know. I told Terran about a month ago that I heart him too.

Both of you are amazing.

[Terran]

140. Ok, I love you both. Will you have my children?

(j/k) :grouphug: :loveya:

[Number23]

146. lol You'll have to talk to my husband about that!

:rofl:
:hi:

[bliss_eternal]

95. blown away by your free write...

...gave me chills.

:applause:

[Number23]

116. Me too! Noire is a treasure.

It's times like this that you remember why you signed up to be here in the first place, eh Bliss?? :)

[noiretextatique]

133. thanks, bliss

i get so wound up about these things...i need to release.

[Fire1]

98. Good job!

:hi:

[noiretextatique]

132. thank you

:hi: it's good that i released some anger. these images make me so :grr:

[Kajsa]

102. And this is possibly the best free write I've ever seen.

Thank you,noiretextatique.

Please, please save this.

I have already bookmarked it.

Excellent!!

:)

[noiretextatique]

134. thanks, kajsa...perhaps i'll start my "DU PPoetry Slam" again

i used to do that in the lounge. i will work on these snippets and develop some coherent pieces.

[Kajsa]

136. I hope you do,noiretextatique.

Please let me know.

:)

[noiretextatique]

137. will do eom

[omega minimo]

138. Did you check out this video?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5866170#5866207

Please let me know if you do more poetry here. It's inspiring! Great work. :toast:

[Number23]

115. I'm kicking this fabulous thread again just because of this post

Fantastic. Thank you, Noire.

[noiretextatique]

135. thanks, 23

thank you. i will work on developing these ideas.

[Terran]

94. Does everyone know of the work of the late Marlon Riggs?

http://newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0026

His documentary "Ethnic Notions" is an excellent intro to some of the topics discussed by the OP. He was a brilliant documentary film maker who died much too young in 1994.

I highly recommend his work, especially the above and "also Tongues Untied", which deals with gayness in the African American community.

[omega minimo]

99. Thanks for linking that, Terran.

New to me.

[noiretextatique]

144. i know his work well

my very dear friend eric gupton worked with marlon riggs. he was in rigg's documentary, Black is...Black ain;t.
eric was also a member of Pomo Afro Homos, sadly eric passed away a couple of years ago :cry:
Eric Gupton

1960-2003

Performer

Eric Gupton was a flamboyant warrior. As a founding member of Pomo Afro Homos, the audacious black theater troupe that blazed a broad-spectrum view of homosexuality in the 1990s, he stood in a singular bright light with his stage cohorts. Gupton did it as a performer who was by turns funny, wrathful and tender and always fearless wherever he and his material went.

In "Fierce Love: Stories From Black Gay Life," the company's breakthrough first show, he left a memorable imprint in a sketch called "Good Hands," set in the erotically heated backroom of a club. In "Dark Fruit" he played a timid office temp who gets lured into a relationship with a power-wielding boss. Another sketch from that show cast Gupton as a black student who is caught in the arms of a white boy and suffers by far the harsher fate.

"As we announce so clearly in our shows," Gupton said in a 1994 interview with the Los Angeles Times, "these are just some of the stories. We merely present the mirror, the community at large with all its flaws. What it should do is empower people to say you have value in your life. It may not be reflected in a sitcom, but you should honor it."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/02/18/DD9NV17R7.DTL&type=printable

[Terran]

145. That's so cool; I'm sorry he's gone.

I'd heard of Pomo Afro Homos, but not of Eric Gupton. I saw Marlon Riggs in person in the San Francisco, around '89 or '90, something promotional for one of his works. He seemed like such a brilliant mind to me, I was really drawn, and not just in an intellectual way (he was such a cute guy too!).

So many many brilliant men lost to the plague... ;(

[ismnotwasm]

101. This is incredible

I've bookmarked it to go through it all. Thank you so much, I'm--really speechless. One of the most informative threads I've seen in a long time.

[omega minimo]

104. Thanks. Lots of great things being linked and added too.

Don't miss Brewman_Jax history thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5866170&mesg_id=5868000


:grouphug:



cuz of your screenname, want to show you this
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5850969

[ismnotwasm]

126. LOL

Oh my, "Shouldacouldawouldasms" Made me laugh. 'Nite


;-)

[omega minimo]

127. Sleep tight

:D

[Kajsa]

105. Thank You!

What an excellent thread, Omega minimo!

I've bookmarked this for future reference.

My students would learn so much from this.
There is so much history here, it must be
taught so we don't forget this horrid chapter
of the past.

For me, the Civil Rights Movement was just starting
when I was eleven years old. I remember all of it!

Thanks, again.

:)

[omega minimo]

109. Womderful.

That's great you're teaching history. It hasn't gone completely down the Memory Hole.... I've learned so much from doing this -- and so much more to learn about, so much never made "common knowledge."

I remember too as a kid. Kids of that time, many of us were imprinted with the events of the times. How could we NOT be?

Thank YOU. :toast:

[tammywammy]

106. What a great post. Bookmarked

I'd like to really read all the links you've provided.

Oh and I would recommend but I got this "Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours"

I read an interesting book a few years ago on the slave trade "Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World". http://www.amazon.com/Inhuman-Bondage-Rise-Slavery-World/dp/0195339444/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245369577&sr=8-1

[omega minimo]

111. "this impressive and sprawling history of "human attempts to dehumanize other people" "

Pulitzer Prize-winner Davis follows Challenging the Boundaries of Slavery with this impressive and sprawling history of "human attempts to dehumanize other people" that focuses extensively on slave rebellions. These counter-attempts, Davis argues, are what form the base of the identities and communities of the descendants of New World slaves. In charting the evolution of slavery and societies' responses to it from 71 BCE to 1948, Davis author shows how ancient slavery practices mirrored the process of animal domestication, explores the moral conflicts the United States faced during the American Revolution and how the Haitian revolutions disrupted the class system. A lengthy and especially informative study of British and American abolitionist movements paves the way for a concise breakdown of American slavery politics during the Civil War and reconstruction. Davis's account is rich in detail, and his voice is clear enough to coax even casual readers through this dense history.

:thumbsup: Happy Juneteenth, tammywammy.

[tammywammy]

117. Thanks

I fully admit I truly do not know my history as I should, and when I saw that at the bookstore I immediately picked it up. I highly recommend the book, it really opened up my eyes to a lot that I just didn't know/realize.

[havocmom]

118. One of the things I miss most about Tucson....

Juneteenth Celebrations!

[omega minimo]

120. All right

:yourock:

[omega minimo]

125. "Laughters" by Langston Hughes or "Laughers"?

Found only this one full version online, on a blog, "From NCTE book"



Laughters
by Langston Hughes

Dream-singers,
Story-tellers,
Dancers,
Loud laughters in the hands of Fate--
My people.
Dish-washers
Elevator-boys,
Ladies' maids,
Crap-shooters,
Cooks,
Waiters,
Jazzers,
Nurses of babies,
Loaders of ships,
Rounders,
Number writers,
Comedians in vaudeville
And band-men in circuses--
Dream-singers all, --
My People.
Story-tellers all,--
My people.
Dancers--
God! What dancers!
Singers--
God! What singers!
Singers and Dancers
Dancers and laughters
Laughters?
Yes, laughters...laughters...laughters--
Loud-mouthed laughters in the hands
Of fate.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

129. Thanks, Omega!!

This native Texan will be having a barbecue to feed my AA friends.

[omega minimo]

130. Cool. It's officially the day now. I'm hoping we can kick it with some links to various parties

Feel free! :toast:

[ismnotwasm]

139. Needs a kick

here.

[omega minimo]

141. Here and now

:spray: :toast:

[underpants]

142. Indeed Happy Juneteenth to us all

I was just about to start a Juneteenth thread myself

Thanks

[omega minimo]

143. Add to this one if you like

:toast: :party:

[omega minimo]

147. Thanks to all who participated and to DU's generous African American community

AND HAPPY JUNETEENTH OBAMA FAMILY!! :yourock:

[EFerrari]

148. Kick!

[omega minimo]

149. The Civil Rights Era and the African American experience and history that led up to it is unique

in the ongoing struggle for human rights, civil rights and justice for all.