BAVUAL The African Heritage Magazine Summer 2024

HARVEST ISSUE

THE AFRICAN HERITAGE MAGAZINE

BAVUAL

BLACK FARMERS THEY FEED THE WORLD INSIDE THE

WNBA

BLACK AND MAGA BUT WHY? SUMMER 2024

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THE O.G. MOBSTERS’ ALL-TIME HITS

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IN THIS ISSUE

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My Take Why it is vitally important to adhere to one’s principles in the midst of peer pressure - especially if they are just.

The Drift BAVUAL opposes the genocide in Gaza and urges a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement with Hamas.

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True Grit

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Famous Summers

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America’s brave college student protesters continue their parents’ and grandparents’ activism on 1960s campuses and like them discover the costs of causing what John Lewis called “good trouble”

July 4, 1910: The bout between Jack Johnson, first black heavyweight champ, and white boxer James J. Jeffries in the first “Fight of the Century”

The Times O.J. Simpson, 1947-2024; one year after being shot by a racist profiler, Ralph Yarl is steadily recovering (thank God); update on Haiti’s collapse

The Culture Jeffrey Wright’s Long Road to Stardom. Film: The American Society Of Magical Negroes. TV: Ruskin.

Destinations Exploring the path of the Underground Railroad

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72 86 Saint Bavual’s Return

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COVER: Black Farmers - They Feed The World

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Educate Yourself

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Bavual Adisa saw the ruined state of the world from paradise in 2044 and returns to Earth 20 years back to try to prevent it, by getting involved The importance of the black farmer to feeding the world for over 11,000 years - and why the black farm is facing extinction Why a rising number of black Americans - especially black men - find conservatism and the Republican Party controlled by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement so appealing; understanding “sovereign citizen”

The Hustle

Original Gangsta: the 10 most notorious black mobsters of all time

Jocks The WNBA finally gets its shot - sistas are doing it for themselves; NCAA makes the Big Payout

Roll of Honor 8 honored men and women, bright lights in summer

Benediction “I Lost White Friends When I Finally Spoke Out” by LeRon L. Barton

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BAVUAL

THE AFRICAN HERITAGE MAGAZINE

Bavual Vol. 3 Issue 3 Summer 2024

Editorial Earl A. Birkett Editor Stephen G. Hall, PhD, Special Editor Associate Editor Kristen Jones

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BAVUAL: Swahili for "power, strength, force" ADISA: Yoruba for "one who is clear"

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My Take When in Doubt

Stick to Your Principles* “To thine own self be true.”

- William Shakespeare in Hamlet When you sought that grade, award, or job you thought you earned but didn’t get, how often did you hear your family, spouse, friends or colleagues admonish you by saying, ‘you have to learn to compromise your principles, to play the game”? And then you see others around you who bend and fold their principles by kissing up or towing the line get rewarded - at times extremely rewarded - for it, and think, “maybe they’re right, why should I be a schmuck and play by the rules. It sure hasn’t gotten me anywhere.”

Well, I’m here to tell you that is exactly not the attitude you should take and there are several reasons for it.

First, you are not a schmuck for having integrity and playing by the rules. Those who bare these indomitable qualities are living a life free of guilt or self-doubt. They know right from wrong and how important they are to maintaining stability and values in a chaotic and amoral society. Without you, civilization would collapse and descend into eternal civil war. The descent into a Mad Max/Road Warrior-type existence would justify those who say that humankind is by nature rotten to the core, always was and always will be. History and logic tells us that this is definitely not the case, that a moral compass can overcome amoral rot.

Having principles not only makes you proud and guilt-free but it shows the world who is the stronger person. You are neither a coward nor a moral appeaser who will be whipsawed by the latest trend that sounds plausible on the surface to someone who was never taught certain immutable values and deems a false doctrine fun because the crowd goes along with it and you don’t want to be the oddball. Liars are often more entertaining than truthtellers, too.

and the Branch Davidians and Marshall Applewhite and Heaven’s Gate in the 1990s and, since 2015, Donald Trump and Make America Great Again. (I leave out religious cults like the Moonies and Scientologists because they represent a less intense threat due to their diluted influence over the years.) I have seen politicians, the ones chosen for wise and honorable leadership, lie prostrate at the feet of Donald Trump - a man whom they despise and are on record denouncing him - throw their principles and dignity in the trash just to please one very treacherous man. Not only can you say you are not like them but you can take solace in knowing that they try to hurt you because your existence convicts them of their cowardice and shames them as your moral inferiors.

There is, however, one qualification: don’t let standing by your principles turn to stubbornness when you happen to be wrong. That makes you equal to or greater than what you oppose. And never make opposition personal, they are still your roomies on this small planet.

In sum, fear no person and do what’s right. The first rule of life is still the best: treat others as you would treat yourself.

However, when fun and games are over and harsh reality sets in and the followers start their gnashing of teeth, suddenly your eccentricity becomes prophesy.

The current appeal of authoritarianism, the gateway ideology to pure fascism, reminds me of all the cults that I have followed in the news going all the way back to Charles Manson and his Family in the 1960s, followed up

by Jim Jones and Jonestown in the 1970s, David Koresh *with a major qualification

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The Drift AN ISRAELI WAVES A PALESTINIAN FLAG

End the Gaza Genocide AND The War

NOT IN OUR NAME As a people who have faced colonization, enslavement and genocide over hundreds of years, all Africans, including Americans of African descent, have a natural comradery with people of other races and ethnic groups who have faced similar travails - most recently the Palestinians in Israel’s Gaza Strip and, to a lesser extent, the West Bank.

The atrocities visited upon the Palestinians in Gaza ever since Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) unleashed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are not only disproportionate to Hamas’ initial attack but constitute crimes against humanity, compounded by the fact that President Biden is one of the few democratic leaders to back Netanyahu’s brutality, though to his credit with reservations.

Neither leader has the high ground when it comes to Gaza.

Netanyahu bares complicity in the Hamas strike for two reasons: 1) he allowed Qatar to send billions of dollars in aid to Hamas for roughly a decade, in essence hoping to buy peace from Gaza’s governing group, and 2) he knew of Hamas’ detailed battle plans more than a year before the attack but dismissed them as aspirational rather than workable and therefore not a threat. (Obviously, Hamas was fatally underestimated.) Due to his personal inclination and the influence of the Israeli lobby in the U.S., Biden’s first response was to back Israel to the hilt, intermittently bothered by the growing body count among innocent Gazans - now a staggering 186,000, or over 8 percent of the population - but not enough so to deny them military aid, which after Congress’ approval of $14 billion in April 2024, the president has provided in fits and starts. Most distressing has been Biden’s resistance on calling the IDF’s barbarism in Gaza for what it is, a genocide, and his support of Netanyahu against imminent charges by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes, both of which Biden calls “outrageous.’

From the beginning of the war, there have been universal pleas for a ceasefire and a negotiated end to the conflict as well as renewed calls to re-start talks for a Palestinian state.

No one, not the Americans nor even the Israeli people themselves, wants the blood of innocent Palestinian men, women and children to be on their hands. As of this writing, the IDF has conducted its war in Gaza for nine months, with no sign of an end. Netanyahu has been obstinate about keeping a lopsided and senseless war going despite the fact that few Hamas terrorists have been killed, Israeli and American hostages are still held by Hamas, and Israel’s treasury and credibility (as well as America’s) on the world stage are badly weakened. War cabinet members are resigning and Netanyahu is deeply unpopular among Israelis. He only maintains support among the rightwing faction that keeps him in power and whose retrograde policies he subscribes to.

What needs to happen now?

As almost all reasonably informed people agree, the first step should be the removal of Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister of Israel and replacing him with a leader who is willing to negotiate for peace and a permanent solution of coexistence with the Palestinians. Israel’s government has been admonished for war crimes against Palestinians going back two decades and an arrest warrant is imminent for Netanyahu.

The people of Israeli and the entire world finds his rule repugnant and, along with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he remains the greatest threat to the peace and security of the world.

Once Netanyahu is removed from the picture, true negotiations to release all the hostages, enact a permanent ceasefire, end the genocide and the war itself, and re-ignite the effort to find a two-state solution can seriously begin.

Hamas wants it, the U.S. wants it, the world want is and the residents of Gaza definitely want it. Let’s do it.

BAVUAL SUMMER 2024 | 9

True Grit Activist College Students Give America

A Lesson in “Good Trouble”

By Stephen G. Hall, PhD and Earl A. Birkett By early 1968, the two seminal issues of the 1960s - the Civil Rights Movement and its moral leader, Martin Luther King Jr., and the War in Vietnam - had become unpopular and popular, respectively. Fifty-six years later, King’s birthday is a national holiday and Vietnam is a key importer of cheap goods to the U.S. and a favored tourist destination, known for its great surfing. Memories of it as a communist threat to capitalist hegemony are are an ironic joke.

It is useful to remember that the hot passions of the moment, where the first reaction is to ridicule those - normally the young - who protest as naive at best and traitorous at worst.

Today the eye of the storm is centered around college students who wage campus protests against Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza under the guise that it is fighting the brutal terrorist attack inflicted on it by Hamas, which politically controls Gaza, on October 7, 2023.

The ongoing war has had chilling outcomes around the world. Daily we witness shocking images of bombed out neighborhoods and hospitals in Gaza. We see millions of Palestinians, innocent civilians driven from their homes becoming overnight refugees.

Humanitarian organizations struggle to feed swelling refugee populations. Israelis have taken to the streets of Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem calling for the return of the October 7th hostages and an end to the conflict.

In the United States, we have watched student protests engulf college campuses from Columbia in New York to UCLA on the West Coast and virtually everywhere in between.

Images of peaceful encampments set upon by police in riot gear. Students dragged from encampments, faculty members manhandled, and tossed around like rag dolls, arrested and detained.

What should we make of these developments?

How should we think about student protest: as

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an expression of the 1st Amendment or as a disruption of law and order ? Should we see these protests as spontaneous outbursts by an uninformed mob or demonstrations of civil disobedience?

Answers can be found in the past, as recent as 60 years ago. Protests for civil rights and against the Vietnam war, mainly initiated by college students, were at first met with derision, even hatred. Non-violent sit-ins and marches were often broken up with bloody beatings by angry mobs and even the police, all condoned and encouraged by a bigoted and entrenched power structure. Who can forget the near-death beating of John Lewis, co-founder and head of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965? Today’s protestors have been inspired by the incident and Lewis’ call to “never be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Campus protestors in the 1960s were viewed by authorities and much of the public in much the same way as their 2020s counterparts. Student takeovers of buildings at Columbia, Northwestern and Berkeley drew widespread attention and condemnation. Student protestors were arrested, removed from campus and suspended or expelled from school.

The right to protest grievances is as old as the U.S. itself. After all, the Revolutionary War between British rulers and the colonialists over excessive taxation with representation was sparked in part by students at Yale and King’s College (now Columbia) with names like Nathan Hale and Alexander Hamilton.

Like today’s campus protestors, students were often vilified as communist dupes of outside agitators and Cold War adversaries like the USSR, Cuba and China and seen by many as traitors to America. Their tactics were equally deplored. Campus buildings were private property. King was criticized for using children

during the protests in Birmingham, Alabama, that met with fire hoses and church bombings.

Then as now, language has been weaponized.

Students protestors over Gaza have been dubbed as anti-semitic toward their fellow Jewish classmates and Israel, overlooking the fact that campus groups like Jews for Palestine and Jews for Peace also oppose the war and the policies of the rightwing Israeli government. It is possible separate political protest from overall hatred of Jews and Israelis.

The protests of the 1960’s also had similar issues regarding language. Students often painted administrators and the police in colorful ways.

Calling administrators “overlords” or “pawns of the capitalist system’ or referring to the police as “pigs” drew the ire of the conservative right.

As seen, the student movement for Palestinians and Gaza is part of America’s finest traditions, rooted in and influenced by the black freedom struggle and earlier student movements for liberty and true democracy. It uses the nation’s most vibrant intellectual spaces, colleges and universities, to critique the ills of society: poverty, militarism, social and economic exclusion and violations of civil and human rights. Rather than lambasting and marginalizing these movements, one would do well to embrace them. Given the times we live in, they may be the last best hope in preserving our democracy.

“NEVER, EVER BE AFRAID TO MAKE SOME NOISE AND GET IN GOOD TROUBLE, NECESSARY REP. JOHN LEWIS TROUBLE." 1940-2020

2024

Add a little bit of body text

1965

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Famous Summers

July 4, 1910

Jack Johnson Does Battle in

The Fight of the Century

By Kristen Jones

Jack Johnson was a phenom from his upbringing in Galveston, Texas on March 31, 1878, until his demise on June 10, 1946 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Reaching his height in the “Jim Crow” era, he became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion of all time.

Growing up the third child of nine to Henry and Tina Johnson he faced hard times and struggles.

Located in the poor “12th Ward” area of the city, he often played with kids who were white and saw them as equals. With everyone around him suffering the same daily travail, he never saw whites as being superior to him. He often ate at the same tables as his white friends, played with

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the same toys, and even slept in the same beds.

Childhood proved to be cruel to young Jack. He was often bullied by his classmates, resulting in numerous altercations. His mother remedied this situation by instilling fear in him, hoping that it would cause him to protect himself and not be afraid. She told him if he lost another fight at school she would give him a worse fate once he returned home. Johnson never again lost a fight at school. He eventually dropped out in the fifth grade, and began looking for odd jobs to support himself and his family. He was eventually employed with a carriage painter - a job which sparked his love for boxing after watching sparring matches with his employer.

Johnson fought professionally from 1897 to 1928 and engaged in exhibition matches as late as 1945. Making his debut as a professional boxer on November 1, 1898, in Galveston, he knocked out Charley Brooks in the second round of a 15-round bout, billed as "The Texas State Middleweight” title. Jack won the World Heavyweight Championship title - the first time ever for a black fighter - by knocking out former champion Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia, on December 26, 1908, and lost it on a knockout by Jess Willard in 26 rounds in Havana on April 5, 1915. Until he fought Burns, racial discrimination had limited most of Johnson’s opportunities. His two marriages to white women only gained him more enemies. He was seen as too flashy by the press and became a constant target for white supremacists. His constant arrests over the years for violating the Mann Act of 1910, which deemed the transporting of white women across state lines to be “kidnapping” and therefore illegal - despite the relationships being consensual gave him a reputation frowned upon by most Americans. (Johnson fled the country and fought boxing matches abroad for seven years until 1920, when he served his sentence at the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth. President Trump, persuaded largely by actor Sylvester Stallone, pardoned him in 2018.) He was seen as a rebel, and therefore someone who had to be dealt with.

Dubbed “The Fight of the Century '' because it was promoted as the ultimate showdown for racial superiority between the white man and the black man, the contest for the heavyweight title between Johnson and James “Jim” Jeffries - the most important opponent of his boxing career - took place on July 4, 1910, in Reno, Nevada. Jeffries, the former heavyweight champ, emerged from retirement to, in his words, “show that without a doubt a white boxer is better than a black one”. He would go on to eat those words as Johnson defeated him flawlessly with a knockout uppercut punch to the face in the 15th round. Although it gained national attention, the fight also caused severe unrest and bloodshed throughout the country. Riots broke out in New York, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Atlanta, St. Louis, Little Rock and Houston. Jeffries admitted that he “never in 1,000 years could have beaten Jack Johnson,” he was far too quick and a much better conditioned athlete. Nationwide celebrations were held by blacks, but many were interrupted with riots and 20 people died as a result.

The fight against Jeffries led to a film career for Johnson as a film was made immediately after the legendary bout. Titled The Johnson-Jeffries Fight, it received more attention than any other film until Birth of a Nation was released in 1915. Censorship by whites followed the Johnson film’s release; it ended up being legally banned and by choice among whites,

many of whom were still upset that Johnson won the bout, in several cities and states across the United States. Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt, a boxing fan, wrote an article in which he supported banning not just moving pictures of boxing matches, but a complete ban on all prize fights in the US. Throughout his career, Johnson built a unique fighting style of his own, which was not customary in boxing during this time. Striking first, he fought defensively, waiting for his opponents to tire out, becoming more aggressive as the rounds went on.

After losing his world heavyweight championship, Johnson never again fought for the world or colored heavyweight crowns. His career was lightly fictionalized in the 1969 film The Great White Hope starring James Earl Jones as Johnson, and he was an initial inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.

Jack Johnson, in semi-retirement as a boxer, exploited his popularity as a successful restaurateur, recording artist and commercial pitchman, the profits from which allowing him to indulge an expensive lifestyle of automobile racing, tailored clothing, and the purchasing of jewelry and furs for his wives. He died at age 68 in a self-inflicted car crash prompted by a racist incident.

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The Times WAS JUSTICE SERVED OR CHEATED? THE FALL FROM GRACE: O.J. SIMPSON, 1947-2024 Dead men tell no tales Some events in history are meant to forever remain a mystery. Whatever happened to the Johnstown settlement of 1607, the Amelia Earhart round-the-world flight in 1937 and Jimmy Hoffa in 1975, all of which disappeared without a trace, although one suspects the outcome of each was grim. We know what happened in other events - Lee Harvey Oswald did indeed fatally shoot President Kennedy in 1963, but the unanswered question remains: why did he do it?

The Oswald mystery especially applies to the case of one Orenthal James Simpson on the night of June 12, 1994.

O.J. Simpson’s initial claim to fame was admirable. He was the Juice, a legendary football running back whose record of dashing 2,003 yards (in the snow!) in the 1973 season - when the NFL still played 14 games - will forever remain a record under the pre-1978 schedule, when the season changed to 16 games. Not only that, Simpson, the college Heisman Trophy winner who rose from the means streets of San Francisco to become a 1970s icon and aspirational model to a generation of young black males (exemplified in rap culture), parlayed his fame into a second career in the 1980s and early 90s as a movie star, featured in the Naked Gun film series. He was even considered for the cyborg role in 1984's The Terminator.

Even disassociating himself from his fellow blacks, who still adored him, preferring instead to embrace his elite white friends - right down to divorcing his black wife Marguerite Whitley and 14 | BAVUAL SUMMER 2024

“IF THE GLOVES DON’T FIT YOU MUST ACQUIT”

OJ SHOWS THE EXONERATING ” EVIDENCE” TO THE JURY:

remarrying to a white woman, Nicole Brown - did not tarnish his public halo.

So the Oswald question remains: why did the football Hall of Famer give up all of this for a life of ruin and eternal disgrace?

There were warning signs before June 12; the abuse of his first wife, the beatings of Nicole, who were divorced at the time of her brutal murder and that of Ron Goldstein, who had the misfortune of just being there at the wrong time that fateful night.

What followed was surprise - the awkward answers to police questioning, the damning circumstantial evidence and finally the network televised slow escort by police of the white Ford Bronco driven by his protege Al Cowlings down a California freeway, O.J. all the while holding a loaded revolver to his head - followed by high drama: an eightmonth murder “Trial of the Century” that rivaled any soap opera, right down to the plot twist ending. It was a perfect storm of the best defense team that Simpson’s then immense fortune could buy, headed by the legendary Johnny Cochrane; screw-ups by

the bumbling prosecutors and police detectives; a star-struck judge who lost control of his courtroom; and a media frenzy that turned the trial into a symbol of the ageold racial divide between blacks and whites over the fairness of the criminal justice system and society itself. It even affected the jurors, who needed one excuse to acquit Simpson, and got in a pair of ill-fitting leather gloves that the prosecutors maintained were used in the murders and that Cochrane cleverly dismissed with the line, “if the gloves don’t fit you must acquit.”

The Not Guilty verdict, rendered on November 15, 1995, left white America crying and black America cheering, revealing that the nation’s Original Sin was far from forgiven.

Simpson eventually was found liable for the murders in a 1997 civil suit for which the plaintiffs , the Brown and Goldman families, were awarded $33.5 million (which he never paid) and served nine years in a Nevada prison on an unrelated Las Vegas robbery charge, but he went to his grave keeping his biggest secret.

RACISM BE NOT PROUD: RALPH YARL GETS THE FINAL VICTORY Young black teen triumphs over being shot by a bigot Ralph Yarl, the black teenager who survived being shot in the head after he rang the wrong doorbell nearly a year ago, is only now coming to grips with how the shooting has affected him.

Sometimes, Yarl, 17, turns inward, ignoring phone calls and texts from loved ones. He skipped senior prom because he was afraid people would ask him about the shooting and he wasn’t sure how he would respond. And he acknowledges that his brain doesn’t process dense information the way it once did.

Yarl, who was shot in the head last April 13, when he went to the wrong house in Kansas City to pick up his two younger brothers, has struggled with a seesaw of emotions since that fateful day: anger, hope for the future, sadness and compassion.

“It’s definitely a bumpy journey,” Yarl said in his first in-depth interview about how the shooting has affected him one year later. “Whenever there’s something that goes on that reminds me of what happened ... I just have, like, such a negative wave of emotions, like anger, like disgust. It’s always a mix of good and bad days. And I feel like the good days are when I’m able to be around people that help me build myself up.”

Family members said Yarl — who still bears an uneven scar on his forehead from the bullet that grazed his skull and left him with a traumatic brain injury — has struggled to reckon with what happened to him. “Ralph minimized it as if nothing happened,” said his mother, Cleo Nagbe.

“But the thing with trauma is that the body will process it when it’s ready. I knew it was coming.”

RALPH YARL AT HOME WITH HIS MOTHER CLEO NAGBE AND FATHER PAUL YARL

“At times, he wants to disappear,” she said.

Yarl has mentally struggled to recover from the shooting. Nagbe said her son suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, which she believes played a role in his totaling two vehicles in the past three months. In one of the accidents, he crashed into a tree.

Yarl said surviving the shooting has forced him to tend to his mental health. “It is a constant uphill battle,” he said.

A year ago, he was trying to pick up his siblings when he mistakenly went to the wrong house.

When Yarl rang the doorbell, the white homeowner, Andrew Lester, 85, fired multiple shots from a handgun, grazing Yarl in the head and striking him in the arm. Lester called police, telling them he fired because he was scared.

Yarl’s shooting sparked protests around the country and demands for Lester’s immediate arrest. Lester surrendered to police days later after having been charged with first-degree assault, a felony, and armed criminal action.

He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial is scheduled to start Oct. 7.Yarl said that the shooting has changed how he interacts with strangers and that he now second-guesses ringing doorbells of houses of people he doesn’t know. Random encounters often make him feel scared and wary even if people are being courteous.

said. But somewhere in his subconscious, “there’s always a part of me that says that person could potentially” be dangerous, he said. Yarl’s shooting sparked protests around the country and demands for Lester’s immediate arrest. Lester surrendered to police days later after having been charged with first-degree assault, a felony, and armed criminal action. He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial is scheduled to start Oct. 7. Yarl said that the shooting has changed how he interacts with strangers and that he now second-guesses ringing doorbells of houses of people he doesn’t know. Random encounters often make him feel scared and wary even if people are being courteous.

“If someone approaches me with kindness, of course, I’m going to be friendly with them,” he said. But somewhere in his subconscious, “there’s always a part of me that says that person could potentially” be dangerous, he said.

ANDREW LESTER

“If someone approaches me with kindness, of course, I’m going to be friendly with them,” he

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THE WORLD IGNORES HAITI’S COLLAPSE INTO ENDLESS MAYHEM Deadly roving gangs now control the troubled Caribbean nation Surging violence in Haiti from clashes with armed gangs since March has displaced nearly 580,000 people, according to a new report from the U.N. migration agency, a sobering figure that underscores the magnitude of the Caribbean nation's crisis.

Haiti has long faced unrest but at the end of February, gangs unleashed coordinated attacks with gunmen taking control of police stations, opening fire on the main international airport that remained closed for nearly three months and stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons.

A report released on Tuesday by the International Organization for Migration said the displacement of more than half a million is mainly due to people fleeing the capital of Port-au-Prince for other provinces, which lack the resources to support them.

In March, the agency reported more than 362,000 internally displaced people in Haiti. Since then, the violence has more than doubled the number of internally displaced in the southern region — already ravaged by a 2021 earthquake — from 116,000 to 270,000.

“Nearly all those internally displaced are currently hosted by communities already struggling with overburdened social services and poor infrastructure, raising further concerns about tensions with the potential to spark further violence,” the report said.

With more than 2,500 people killed or injured across Haiti in the first three months of the year, Haiti’s National Police, understaffed and overwhelmed by gangs with powerful arsenals, has been unable to bring the situation under control.

Marie Jean, 49, and her two children were displaced from their Port-au-Prince home 16 | BAVUAL SUMMER 2024

THE CHAOS OVERTAKING HAITI HAS BEEN BUBBLING FOR MORE THAN A YEAR, WITH VIOLENCE CENTERED ON THE CAPITAL, PORT-AU-PRINCE

after her husband was killed by a gang in February. She’s now sheltered with her children at a public school.

“I lived in a comfortable home that my husband worked hard to build,” Jean told The Associated Press. “Now I’m living in a situation that’s inhuman.”

Juste Dorvile, 39, is also staying at a public school with her 12-year-old daughter and boyfriend as gunshots are heard constantly in the area. “Everyday we're hoping that we survive,” she said.

With the gangs in control of at least 80% of Port-au-Prince and key roads leading to the rest of the country, many are living in makeshift shelters, including schools and learning institutions that are now hosting more than 60,000 people.

The gangs have also been charging fees for those wanting to use the highways or blackmailing drivers to get their hijacked JIMMY CHERIZIER, KNOWN BY THE NICKNAME "BARBECUE," HEADS THE ARMED GROUP G-9.

trucks back on the roads, where police presence is scarce.

Haiti's new acting prime minister, Garry Conille, who was appointed last month along with a Cabinet, attended a ceremony on Tuesday where over 400 officers graduated from the police academy, with the expectation that they will help curb gang violence in Haiti.

He reminded the graduates that the people count on their dedication to combat insecurity.

“You need to know that you are not alone,” Conille said. “You are the hope of the population at this crucial moment in our history.”

Violence is also on the rise outside Haiti’s capital. Last week, armed gangs attacked families located in Terre-Neuve, a village in northern Haiti, forcing more than 1,000 people to flee their homes to safer areas.

Murphy Marcos, abcnews.com June 19, 2024

The Culture

Jeffrey Wright

The Making of a Modern Superstar 18 | BAVUAL SUMMER 2024

By Kristen Jones Jeffrey Wright has established himself as one of the most respected and versatile character actors of his generation. Equally at home on the stage or on screen, he has performed in roles ranging from mobster to artist to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Wright is an American actor who ranks among the most compelling performers to grace our screens. Over three decades, Wright has mastered his craft by working with the film industry’s most respected names. Hollywood’s biggest directors trust him. Actors love working with him. He magnetizes audiences. Wright has starred in Hollywood’s biggest franchises. He’s worked on independent films and done quirky collaborations with Wes Anderson and Jim Jarmusch. Jeffrey Wright films carry a mark of excellence. Whether it’s on TV, stage, the silver screen or even video games, Wright leaves his mark wherever he goes.

Wright was born December 7, 1965, in Washington, D.C. His father died when he was a child, thus he was raised by his mother, a lawyer, now retired from the U.S. Customs Department, and his aunt, a former nurse.

Jeffrey was married to Carmen Ejogo (the couple later divorced), his co-star in the civil rights-era film Boycott (2001), and the two share a son and a daughter together.

The future star graduated from St. Albans School and attended Amherst College, where he earned a bachelor's degree in political science. Wright originally planned to attend law school but chose instead to study acting. After attending the Master of Fine Arts acting program at New York University ‘s Tisch School of the Arts for two months in 1988, he left to appear in the play Les Blancs at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. before transferring with it to the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston. At this point he had decided to be an actor fulltime.

Wright began appearing off-Broadway in New York City and Washington, D.C. It was astruggle at first; he supported himself as a bicycle messenger while pursuing acting roles.. He also appeared in various productions at the Arena and at Yale

Repertory Theater, honing his skills in everything from Shakespeare to modern drama. Joe Dowling, who worked with Wright during this period and is now artistic director of Minneapolis's Guthrie Theater, told Hoban that "the word 'star' is overused, but from the first day I met him that's what I saw." In 1990 Wright was cast in his first film role, playing a minor part in the movie Presumed Innocent. With career prospects dim, he moved briefly to Los Angeles looking for more film work. Soon after returning to New York he landed his first major part in 1994 as Roy Cohn's nurse, Belize, in Angels in America: Perestroika. The play was a huge success, and Wright won Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards for his performance.

died at 27. Wright prepared intensely for the role and often disagreed with the director, Julian Schnabel on how to play particular scenes. But the end result was a memorable performance. Since that role, Wright has earned parts in several major films, including the gravedigger in Hamlet opposite Ethan Hawke, a Puerto Rican gangster in Shaft (both in 2000), the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the made-for-cable movie Boycott, and an emotionally-scarred Desert Storm veteran in the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate. His acting resume further grew with major roles in Syriana (2005), The Hunger Games series beginning in 2013, the James Bond movies Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and No Time To Die, and the HBO series Boardwalk Empire.

The young actor gained his first starring role in 1996 playing famed painter Jean-Michel Basquiat in Basquiat. He exposed audiences to the complicated, brilliant, and tragic life of the highly esteemed artist who tragically

Wright made his Broadway debut in 1993 in the landmark play Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, playing three parts.

He returned to his roles in the continuation

THE FIRST BLACK FELIX LEITER, 007’S CIA ALLY* Perhaps James Bond’s best friend in a profession - espionage - where nobody is your friend, American CIA Agent Felix Leiter stood beside British Agent 007 to save the world through many adventures in the iconic Ian Fleming novels and the offshoot 62-year-old film series.

Several white actors have previously given their own interpretation of the character, who was jovial in the novels but mostly bland on screen: Jack Lord (Dr. No), Cec Linder (Goldfinger), David Hedison (Live And Let Die, Licence To Kill), Norman Burton (Diamonds Are Forever), John Terry (The Living Daylights).

Wright was given the time-honored role when the series was rebooted in 2006, with a new actor, Daniel Craig, chosen to play a more serious Bond in Casino Royale. In this movie and two follow-ups, Quantum Of Solace (2008) and No Time To Die (2021), Wright was allowed to play Leiter as a colleague every bit as suave, sophisticated and tactically adroit as Bond himself, a nod to more inclusive times where blacks and other minorities are given more significant roles in and out of cinema.

Leiter was killed off in the last Bond film, but Wright the actor is alive and well with a bright future ahead.

*HE WAS THE FIRST IN THE OFFICIAL EON FILMS. BERNIE CASEY PLAYED LEITER IN THE NON-EON NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN (1983)

WRIGHT (LEITER) AND DANIEL CRAIG (JAMES BOND) IN CASINO ROYALE (2006)

BAVUAL SUMMER 2024 | 19

of the story, the career-making Angels in America: Perestroika. Ten years later, Wright became the only original member of the Broadway cast to star in the HBO adaptation of Angels in America,” for which he won Golden Globe and Emmy Awards. His recent projects include lead roles in Netflix’s Hold the Dark and HBO’s O.G., which premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, where he won the award for Best Actor in a U.S. Narrative Feature Film and in 2019 and the lead role of ‘Hobie’ in Warner Brothers’ The Goldfinch and the Sundance darling All Rise (formerly Monster) in 2019.

In 2004, Wright was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor for his role as Thelonious "Monk" Ellison in 2003's American Fiction.

(Unfortunately, he did not win.) The film is about Monk, a frustrated novelist and professor fed up with the literary world profiting from stereotypical stories about

black people. To prove his point, Monk uses a pen name and writes a book that leans on all stereotypes. Ironically, he's offered a huge advance, making him the very kind of author he's tried to avoid becoming. Cord Jefferson adapts and directs the film and is based on the novel "Erasure," by Percival Everett.

In many ways, Wright is a shapeshifter, stepping into a diverse range of characters’ shoes, none of which are the same. He has earned a reputation as the Rolls-Royce of supporting actors, rubbing shoulders with Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Anthony Hopkins and a long list of the industry’s greats. Wright is a thoughtful and immensely talented actor who makes it a point to find roles that are meaningful.

His roles often speak to social and political issues.

Beyond the screen, Wright is deliberate in his political and social activism. He has used his voice to speak out against injustice and help others.

Wright is chairman and co-founder of Taia, LLC and Taia Peace Foundation and Vice Chairman of Taia Lion Resources, Inc, a goldexploration company looking to create a conflict-free gold mining operation in Sierra Leone.

All of which is not too shabby for a self described “city boy with a little bit of country in him.” In a sense, Jeffrey Wright has taken the lessons learned in childhood and applied them to his extensive career. Known to have said, “The roles that strike me and compel me are roles that have some kind of relevance beyond entertainment…. I want my work to mean something,” he has proven to do just that.

Highlights of The Long March to Stardom Shaft In his breakthrough role, Wright portrayed Peoples Hernandez, a lowlevel drug dealer in Spanish Harlem with big ambitions who matches wits with the title’s John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson), private eye nephew of his legendary detective namesake (Richard Rountree) in a memorable 2000 remake of the groundbreaking 1971 black cinema classic of the same name.

Wright’s all-around menacing performance as Hernandez, opposite two acting heavyweights Jackson and Christian Bale displayed his vast talent for portraying diverse ethnic and socioeconomic characters.

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Westworld In more recent years, Wright gained notice as one of the all-star lead actors in Westworld (2016-2022), an HBO series based on the 1973 Michael Crichton movie of the same title. Similar to the movie, with depicted an adult amusement park where visitors can act out their fantasies of living

in the Old West, including the killing of cyborg outlaws, until technical glitches turn the fantasy become a deadly nightmare, the new version allows its rich visitors to live out their illicit fantasies through artificial consciousness without limits or consequences. Wright played two roles, as Bernard Lowe, Westworld's Head of the Programming Division (Behavior) and programmer of artificial people's software, and Arnold Weber (seasons 1–2), the co-founder of Westworld.

American Fiction Wright’s most celebrated film performance to date, which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for 2023, was his starring role in American Fiction, wherein he played Monk, a frustrated novelist who's fed up with the establishment profiting from "black" entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes. To prove his point, Monk uses a pen name to write an outlandish "black" book of his own, a book that propels him to the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain. Adam Graham, film reviewer for the Detroit News, said of Wright: “[he] is magnetic in the lead role: commanding, flawed, vulnerable, relatable. American Fiction is his movie...”

The Reviews Are In SOURCE: RottenTomatoes.com

Despite a valiant effort from Justice Smith, the satire in The American Society of Magical Negroes feels aimless, scattered across a story that struggles to pick a meaningful direction. Kambole Campbell, Empire Magazine So many disparate ideas and tones are being mashed up here, and none of them gel. - Aisha Harris, NPR AUDIENCE The movie overall had some great moments and even greater potential. This film needed a longer run time to flesh out more characters and focus in on its narrative direction. There were too many alright/good ideas to make any one of them great.

-Little Big C It's just... a terribly written film. Like someone plugged the Key & Peele sketch into an AI prompt and this movie is what it spit out. - JN

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAGICAL NEGROES Released March 15, 2024 (screen), April 2, 2024 (streaming) by Focus Pictures . Directed by Kobi Libii. Running time 104 minutes The film is a fresh, satirical comedy inspired by the "magical negro" cinematic trope popularized in American cinema and television throughout the 20th Century and first named and criticized by filmmaker Spike Lee. Flipping the trope on its head, it follows a young man, Aren (played by Justice Smith), who is recruited into a secret society of magical black people who dedicate their lives to a cause of utmost importance: making white people more comfortable. Although initially enamored with his new powers, Aren begins to question the value of using supernatural means to do the very thing he's felt obligated to do his whole life.

SELECTED REVIEWS CRITICS Smith’s nimble performance is such a pleasure to watch that it almost doesn’t matter, but it’s fair to say that this film could have gone even further with its bold scenario. - Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times Though it’s clear that first-time director Libii was intending for the joke to be on white people, the Black characters are drawn with so much misery and self-loathing that the humor rarely lands. Jourdain Searles, Hollywood Reporter

Rustin shines a long overdue spotlight on the extraordinary man who, alongside giants like the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and Ella Baker, dared to imagine a different world, and inspired a movement in a march toward freedom.

SELECTED REVIEWS CRITICS It's an important work of historical storytelling that functions just as well as a compelling character study. - Robert Levin, Newsday This welcome spotlight on a lesser-known civil rights hero doesn’t escape the usual biopic clichés — but Colman Domingo’s impressive, deeply layered performance does this corner of history justice. - John Nugent, Empire Magazine All in all, one walks away from Rustin enchanted with Domingo’s performance, while feeling that a character as larger than life and momentous as Bayard Rustin surely deserves a film less dutiful and more inspired. - Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture If Rustin only gives you a slice of a story -- you could make seven different films out of his life and achievements -- it assures you walk away knowing who Bayard Rustin was. The same can be said for Colman Domingo. Attention must be paid a hundredfold. - David Fear, Rolling Stone Rustin’s victories were harder won, and his losses more bitter and more numerous, than Rustin is willing to acknowledge. Hope is vital, but for hope to feel real, we need to acknowledge a Rustin who was more acquainted with despair. - Noah Berlatsky, Chicago Reader

RUSTIN Released November 3, 2024 (limited screen), November 17, 2024 (streaming) by Netflix.

Directed by George C. Wolfe. Running time 108 minutes The architect of 1963's momentous March on Washington, Bayard Rustin was one of the greatest activists and organizers the world has ever known.

He challenged authority, never apologized for who he was, what he believed, or who he desired.

And he did not back down. He made history, and in turn, he was forgotten. Directed by DGA Award and five-time Tony Award winner George C. Wolfe and starring Emmy Award winner Colman Domingo,

ou want to change the world? Gather some likeminded souls, roll up your sleeves and dream. It might, this optimistic film posits, come true. Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times AUDIENCE Coleman Domingo is a revelation as Rustin. We celebrated MLK holiday watching this movie and it didnt fail to inspire and touch us with its power and beauty. - Artdoggie Colman Domingo's performance was wonderful.

The movie sheds light on what happened in the weeks leading up to the March on Washington. It showed how people working together can make anything happen. - Sherry B

BAVUAL SUMMER 2024 | 21

Destinations Re-tracing

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

The exact dates of its existence are not known, but it operated from the late 18th century to the Civil War, at which point its efforts continued to undermine the Confederacy in a less-secretive fashion.

The earliest mention of the Underground Railroad came in 1831 when enslaved man Tice Davids escaped from Kentucky into Ohio and his owner blamed an “underground railroad” for helping Davids to freedom.

By Kristen Jones One would not normally think about touring a place like the “Underground Railroad” in the past, but in this day and time such an experience is possible.

The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and from there to Canada.

The network, primarily the work of free African Americans (and some whites as well), was assisted by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees. The slaves who risked capture and those who aided them are also collectively referred to as the passengers and conductors of the Railroad, respectively. Various other routes led to Mexico, where slavery had been abolished, and to islands in the Caribbean that were not part of the slave trade. It developed as a convergence of several different clandestine efforts.

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In 1839, a Washington newspaper reported an escaped enslaved man named Jim had revealed, under torture, his plan to go north following an “underground railroad to Boston.”

The operators of the Underground Railroad were abolitionists, or people who opposed slavery. Many were members of organized groups that helped runaways, such as the Quaker religion and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Often called “agents,” these operators used their homes, churches, barns, and schoolhouses as “stations.” There, fugitives could stop and receive shelter, food, clothing, protection, and money until they were ready to move to the next station. Using ingenuity, freedom seekers drew on courage and intelligence to concoct disguises, forgeries and other strategies.

Slave catchers and enslavers watched for runaways on the expected routes of escape and used the stimulus of advertised rewards to encourage public complicity in apprehension. The Underground Railroad was secret.

Nothing was written down about where to go or who would help.

The Underground Railroad was not underground, and it wasn’t an actual train. It was a network of people, both whites and free Blacks, who worked together to help runaways from slaveholding states travel to states in the North and to the country of Canada, where slavery was illegal. Most Underground Railroad operators were ordinary people, farmers and business owners, and ministers. Some wealthy people were involved, such as Gerrit Smith, a millionaire who twice ran for president. In 1841, Smith purchased an entire family of enslaved people from Kentucky and set them free.

One of the earliest known people to help fugitive enslaved people was Levi Coffin, a Quaker from North Carolina. He started around 1813 when he was 15 years old.

LEVI COFFIN

Other key figures that helped out in this effort were abolitionist John Brown who was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, during which period he established the League of Gileadites, devoted to helping fugitive enslaved people get to Canada.

(Brown was also a catalyst to the Civil War, as his thwarted raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, on October 16-18, 1959, in order to seize weapons for a slave revolt, dramatically increased tensions between North and South.)

JOHN BROWN

World renowned Harriet Tubman was known for her involvement in the Underground Railroad and her countless efforts to help those in need. A worker on the Railroad, Tubman made 13 trips to the South, helping to free over 70 people. She led people to the Northern free states and Canada. This helped Harriet Tubman gain the name "Moses of Her People".

Born an enslaved woman named Araminta Ross, she took the name Harriet (Tubman was her married name) when, in 1849, she escaped a plantation in Maryland with two of her brothers. They returned a couple of weeks later, but Tubman left again on her own shortly after, making her way to Pennsylvania. Tubman later returned to the plantation several times to save family members and others. On her third trip, she tried to rescue her husband, but he had remarried and refused to leave. Distraught, Tubman reported a vision of God, after which she joined the Underground Railroad in 1849 and began guiding other escaped slaves to Maryland. Tubman regularly took groups of escapees to Canada, distrusting the United States to treat them well. She is known as saying, “I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”

The Underground Railroad ceased operations about 1863, during the Civil War. In reality, its work moved above ground as part of the Union war effort against the Confederacy. Harriet Tubman once again played a significant part by leading intelligence operations and fulfilling a command role in Union Army operations to rescue the emancipated enslaved people.

The decision to assist a freedom seeker may have been spontaneous at first, but in some places, especially after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the Underground Railroad was deliberate and organized. Freedom seekers went in many directions – Canada, Mexico, Spanish Florida, Indian territory, the West, Caribbean islands and Europe. Wherever there were enslaved African Americans, there were people eager to escape. There was slavery in all original thirteen colonies, in Spanish California, Louisiana, and Florida;

Central and South America; and on all of the Caribbean islands until the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) and British abolition of slavery (1834). It is the stories of freedom seekers who bravely escaped enslavement, and their allies who defended their right to freedom, that make up the heart of Underground Railroad History.

Guides for profit and non-profit offer tours of northern stops along the Underground Railroad on a regular basis. The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center in Churck Creek, Maryland,, on the Eastern Shore, is a crown jewel in the Network to Freedom program of the U.S. National Park Service. The center offers exhibits and driving tours and walking tours of historic Railroad sites wherein visitors are able to explore the experience of those who sought their freedom and appreciate those who helped them.

Visitors can also celebrate the contributions of African-Americans who sought freedom for all. Maryland itself has been called “The Most Powerful Underground Railroad Storytelling Destination in the World”.

Through permanent and traveling exhibits, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, shares the stories of freedom’s heroes, from the era of the Underground Railroad to contemporary times, challenging and inspiring all visitors.

Visitors should not miss the newly-launched trail "Travel with Tubman", a National Parks Service initiative that guides visitors through eight states and 13 historic Harriet Tubman sites of significance, including six New York State historic sites.

Highly secretive and illegal during its era, there are very few remnants of the Underground Railroad in North Carolina.

However, if you're looking to find clues to its past, one of the best places to begin is by following the state's major rivers. During the Railroad’s era, major rivers were known as "Freedom Roads," and if you explore the Roanoke River in Halifax County, you'll find pieces of the Underground Railroad's history still standing today.

JOHN BROWN

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HARRIET TUBMAN, MOTHER OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD C. MARCH 1822 – MARCH 10, 1913 CALLED THE “MOSES OF HER PEOPLE”

WHEN WILL SHE BE ON THE $20 BILL? The effort to put the first woman and first non-white person on paper currency, replacing President Andrew Jackson, who owned enslaved people and forcibly relocated Native Americans, has been stalled by government red tape since 2016 and probably will not happen before the end of the decade, if ever.

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KEY PENNSYLVANIA STOPS ALONG THE RAILROAD

By Robin O’Neal Smith from TravelAwaits.com, February 18, 2021 When my husband and I traveled to New Hope this past summer, we stayed at the Wedgwood Inn. In talking with the innkeeper, I learned that New Hope was a frequent stop on the underground railroad. I was amazed by this information and decided to dig a bit deeper to learn more about the path to freedom in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania was a major thoroughfare for freedom-seeking enslaved people. Once enslaved people crossed the Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia (Now West Virginia) borders into Pennsylvania, there were many abolitionists ready to help them. The Keystone State played a massive role for enslaved people seeking freedom. As the first free state north of the Mason-Dixon line, Pennsylvania provided numerous entry points to freedom and stops along the Underground Railroad.

Philadelphia As the Quaker abolitionist movement’s center and the city where Harriet Tubman found freedom, Philadelphia played a critical role in the Underground Railroad. Below are some of the key sites connected with the Underground Railroad you won’t want to miss when you visit. Depending on how many places you visit and other activities you choose to do, you could make Philadelphia your home base for several days.

The original owner of the Belmont Mansion was a judge who used his attic to hide freedom seekers. He was also known to purchase enslaved people so he could set them free. Currently, an Underground Railroad Museum is located on the site.

Afterward, view the secret hiding spots, including a trap door, in the Johnson House Historic Site attic. Initially owned by Samuel and Jennett Johnson, they housed freedom seekers while waiting to move on towards freedom.

The Kennett Underground Railroad Center helps you imagine the journey taken by freedom seekers. Learn about the 16 sites around the town where freedom seekers lived.

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New Hope and Bucks County Just outside of Philadelphia, you will find churches, farms, taverns, and other sites in Bucks County that were part of the Underground Railroad. Towns like Bristol, Doylestown, Yardley, and New Hope have Underground Railroad sites that are open to the public for visits. You could remain in Philadelphia when you visit this area or stay in one of the quaint towns.

We stayed at the 1870 Wedgwood Inn Bed and Breakfast when we visited New Hope. It is a Victorian bed and breakfast with a cellar under the original structure believed to have been a hiding place along the Underground Railroad. In the side-yard sits a gazebo with a hatch door leading down to the tunnel system used to get to the canal and continue across the Delaware River on their journey north.

If you visit New Hope, plan to spend some extra time enjoying the unique shops and world-class dining. It’s featured on our list of quaint eastern Pennsylvania towns you must visit.

Another stop in Bucks County to visit is the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Bensalem. It served as an Underground Railroad safe station. Freedom seekers were brought up the Delaware River from Philadelphia by Robert Purvis to the church and farm for refuge. It is estimated that some 9,000 people escaped slavery thanks to his help.

Known as the Continental Hotel in the 1800s, the Continental Tavern in Yardley was connected to the underground tunnel system. An entrance to the tunnel system was found in their cellar. You can check out this video that shows you where freedom seekers hid and the tunnel entrance. The part about the basement room starts at the 4:38 point in the video. The tavern is full of historical memorabilia. While you are there, enjoy a great lunch or dinner.

A must-see along the waterfront in Bristol is The Harriet Ross Tubman Memorial statue. Harriet called the area her home, and she was one of the conductors for the Underground Railroad, dedicating her life to ending slavery. She risked her life numerous times before the Civil War to assist nearly 70 freedom seekers north.

There are other locations in the Bucks County area, and you can use these driving directions for sites in Upper and Central Bucks County.

Follow these driving directions in Lower Bucks County.

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Christiana Here is where it all began. View for yourself the evidence of the rebellion of enslaved people, known as the Christiana Resistance, that fired up a nation that was divided over slavery. The Christiana Underground Railroad Center at Historic Zercher’s Hotel hosts a self-guided tour. Through informative and easy-to-follow maps, narratives, and photographs, you can trace historic steps.

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Gettysburg Gettysburg is filled with Civil War History, and a site you don’t want to miss is the Dobbin House Tavern, a former Underground Railroad safe house. It is currently a restaurant and tavern that serves elegant meals with an option to spend the night in the bed and breakfast. This fascinating site allows viewing of where freedom seekers hid, and one of the suites overlooks where President Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address. Gettysburg is excellent for a day visit or, better yet, spending a couple of days checking out all the Civil War sites in the area.

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Allegheny Portage Railroad The Pennsylvania Main Line Canal and the Allegheny Portage Railroad played a part in the Underground Railroad history.

The Allegheny Portage Railroad was a connection to the canal from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. It consisted of inclined planes that took the boats up and down the mountain connecting Hollidaysburg and Johnstown.

While the canals and railroad ran east to west, instead of the desired south-to-north direction for freedom seekers to take, the system provided freedom-seekers the opportunity to keep moving. There were a variety of hiding places among the freight containers. There is evidence of secret compartments in boats and railroad cars.

Once they arrived in Pittsburgh, there were more people available to aid them on their trip north.

The Allegheny Portage Railroad park is a National Park Service Underground Railroad Network to Freedom designated site. The park is beautiful, with hiking trails, boardwalk trails that are accessible, and exhibits. Plan a half-day visit.

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Blairsville and Indiana County The Blairsville Underground Railroad History Center serves as an educational facility. Housed in the Second Baptist Church building, there are tours of various sites related to the Underground Railroad. From there, you can take a three-hour self-guided tour to explore freedom’s path through Indiana County. The Indiana County Underground Railroad Driving Tour will take you to several prominent attractions, such as the McCune Store, which had a “safe room” in the store’s basement used to shield those seeking freedom till they could move again. Another stop is the Myers’ House, where freedom seekers were rescued and nourished.

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh will be our final city, and it has many places related to the Underground Railroad to visit. Pittsburgh is a lively city with many other activities and sites to enjoy; you could spend a day or a week depending on your time available.

One of the first places to visit is the Heinz History Center to view the From Slavery to Freedom exhibition, which explores the anti-slavery movement, the Underground Railroad, and more than 250 years of African American history. It will give you a complete overview of the part Pittsburgh played during that time in history.

The Freedom Road Cemetery is located across from the main gate at Stoneboro Fairgrounds. It is all that remains of a black refugee town, Liberia. This community offered sanctuary to weary former slaves on their way to freedom. Many raids by slave catchers happened here as well.

Built in 1857, the St. Matthew’s A.M.E. Church in Sewickley was part of the Underground Railroad. Conductors were said to dress as hunters at night with a game bag. The bag was filled with food for freedom seekers.

An adventure along the routes of Pennsylvania’s Underground Railroad satisfies both the craving for adventure and the quest to learn more about America’s past. The Keystone State boasts at least one Underground Railroad stopover in every county. No matter where you roam in Pennsylvania, you can find landmarks, history, and artifacts from the journeys taken in the name of freedom for all.

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YOUR AD SHOULD BE HERE CONTACT EARL A. BIRKETT 212-419-5831 eab@bavual.com

Saint Bavual’s Return Saint Bavual Adisa was so upset when he travelled to 2044 and discovered that Earth had become a vast wasteland from a decades-long war brought about by right-wing evangelical “Christian” extremists that he returned to 2024 America to try to set things right.

BACK TO 2024 FROM 2044, IT’S TIME FOR HIM TO CHANGE THE COURSE OF HISTORY

Only one question remained:

WHERE DOES HE BEGIN? “i MUST FIND MY PURPOSE IN THIS TIME.”

BAVUAL SUMMER 2024 | 33

WAR POVERTY GREED RACISM IGNORANCE Bavual identified the source of the dystopia that would lead to the source of the future dystopian nightmare:

THE U.S. CAPITOL

“THIS IS WHERE THE CHAOS BEGAN.”

AT THE SEAT OF CHANGE 34 | BAVUAL SUMMER 2024

“THIS PLACE MUST CHANGE TO INCLUDE THE PEOPLE.”

IT’S TIME FOR RESPONSIBLE GOVERNING TO INTERVENE To assist in that change, Saint Bavual made a momentous decision:

HE WOULD RUN FOR CONGRESS

TO BE CONTINUED...

BAVUAL SUMMER 2024 | 35

The Critical Importance of

The Black Farmer To be a farmer in the U.S. is to be part of an aging but crucial industry. Black farmers, especially, have seen their numbers plummet from nearly 1 million at the turn of the 20th century to only about 50,000 today, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While the reasons are complex, they ultimately come down to economics, migration -- mainly to northern urban areas -- and discrimination and racism, according to the Duke Sanford World Food Policy Center.

In 2017, Black farmers were older than the overall population of U.S. farmers, according to the 2017 agricultural census, which said that their farms were smaller and the value of their agricultural sales were less than 1% of the U.S. total. Due to more complete data collection, the census found that the number of Black producers was 5% higher than in 2012, but the number of Black-operated farms dropped by 3%. In all, 57% of Black-operated farms had sales and government payments of less than $5,000 per year, according to the census, while 7% percent had sales and payments of $50,000 or more when compared with 25% of all farms.

A rich history of farming Black people have a rich history in farming predating slavery. Leah Penniman, co-director of Soul Fire Farm in Petersburg, New York, said that the Mende and Wolof people of West Africa were expert rice farmers kidnapped from their homes and taken to the Carolinas.

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“Our ancestral grandmothers had the courageous audacity to braid seeds into their hair,” Penniman told ABC News, adding that they were transported in slave ships with okra, cowpea, egusi melon, sorghum, millet and eggplant seeds.

Hundreds of years later, when enslaved people were given freedom, they were also promised no more than 40 acres of Confederate land along the Atlantic coast, a plan from the federal government that came to be known widely by the phrase “40 acres and a mule.”

The government’s promise was broken soon after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, when his successor, Andrew Johnson, overturned the order and the land was given back to its original owners.

“If ‘40 acres and a mule’ had been a promise kept, that [land] would be worth almost $7 trillion today,” Penniman said.

Many of the former slaves became sharecroppers, often renting land from their former owners.

“It didn’t just stop when we were freed,” said Boyd. “Where were we free to go? We didn’t have any money. We didn’t have any resources. So, many Blacks stayed on these farms like my forefathers. … That’s how Blacks got land in the first place.”

'It's about fairness' Veteran black farmer and advocate John Boyd Jr. said the challenge for Black farmers has been holding onto the land and believes the federal government has failed to adequately support farmers of color.

“The last plantation,” as he calls the USDA, is “the very agency that’s supposed to be lending me a hand up, [and it is] the very agency putting Black farmers out of business.”

Boyd said that even up until the 1980s, he would see the word “negro” on USDA applications and that at his area’s USDA office, the only day they would see Black farmers was on Wednesdays.

“We named it Black Wednesday,” he said.

The USDA said in a statement to ABC News that it did include the word "negro" on the application Boyd referenced until at least 1988 and that it used the terms "Black" or "African American" since then. It also said the "scenario" Boyd recalled with regard to Wednesdays "is a reprehensible one, but we have no information to support the claim."

"It is clear that for much of the history of the USDA, Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian American and other minority farmers have faced discrimination -- sometimes overt and sometimes through deeply embedded rules and policies -that have prevented them from achieving as much as their counterparts who do not face these documented acts of

By Earl A. Birkett from Multiple Sources

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discrimination," the USDA said in its statement. "We are committed to building a different USDA, one that is committed to equality and justice, celebrates diversity and is inclusive of all customers."

Boyd said that since 1995, “a halftrillion dollars -- with a ‘T’ -- have been paid out to large-scale farmers in this country in the form of just subsidies” by the USDA. "That doesn’t include farm ownership loans, farm equipment loans, any of those things, and little to none has went to Black farmers," he said.

In 1999, the USDA settled the class action lawsuit Pigford v.

Glickman, and eventually paid more than $1 billion to Black farmers, who claimed they were unfairly denied loans and other government assistance.

“It’s about fairness,” Boyd said.

“It’s about dignity and respect.”

Signs of turning tide For Black farmers, the tide is showing signs of turning. In March, President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act, a nearly $2 trillion law that directed $5 billion to farmers of color. Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, cosponsored the bill, which is meant to provide additional relief to Americans impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The COVID-19 pandemic both illuminated and exacerbated longstanding health disparities and economic disparities,” Warnock told ABC News.

said, could help jumpstart his stewards of the land and business after a difficult year living contributors to agriculture and the through the COVID-19 pandemic. fruit base in this country. That’s what my fight is all about.”

Bonner said he thought he would have the money by now “so I could get a crop in the ground this year,” he told ABC News.

As part of the American Rescue Plan Act, the USDA had set up a loan forgiveness program that would have helped Bonner pay off his outstanding loans, as well as pay for supplies and equipment to help him continue farming. But this month, a federal judge in Wisconsin ordered the government agency to stop forgiving loans, saying the program unconstitutionally uses race as a factor in determining who is eligible.

Penniman says her organization’s mission is to help Black farmers hold onto their land, as well as to introduce young Black potential farmers to the occupation (the average age of Black farmers is over 60).

“We have between one and 2,000 folks who come through for these courses every single year at the farm to learn everything from taking care of the soil to planting a seed,” she said.

Penniman said that many important agricultural techniques, including many of the practices in organic farming, like raised beds, composting and cover-cropping “come out of an Afro-indigenous tradition.”

JOHN BOYD JR.: THE BLACK FARMER’S BEST ADVOCATE John Boyd Jr., a fourth-generation farmer, grew up close to his 1,000-acre farm in southern Virginia where he now grows soybeans, wheat and livestock.

Boyd, of Baskerville, Virginia, is also the founder of the non-profit National Black Farmers Association, which educates and advocates for Black farmers’ civil rights, land retention and access to public and private loans, among other initiatives.

Boyd and his father farmed together for 30 years and his grandparents were sharecroppers after the abolition of slavery in 1865.

“I know there were slaves and sharecroppers that helped build these barns here,” Boyd told ABC News. “You can see the logs were hand-carved by wooden axes. … Just looking at that reminds me of history, where I came from and where we have to go in this country.”

As part of his efforts with the NBFA, Boyd has worked to attract more Black people who are interested in farming, as well as to protect their rights and their land, even riding a mule-drawn wagon and driving a tractor to Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress.

Boyd, for his part, said he’s “proud and excited to see young people” Lestor Bonner, a Vietnam War “The most powerful tool you can possess, taking an interest in land veteran and fifth-generation farm only secondary to Jesus Christ, is land owner, said that in 1893, his great- ownership and farming. ownership,” he said. grandfather bought the farm that “There’s a new generation of Black he now works on. He said there’s Monica DelaRosa, Alison Lynn, and farmers. I love that win,” he said. only 136 acres left and that he Anthony Rivas “So, I welcome them to the SCIENTIFIC DEPICTION OF JESUS THROUGH THEfight USE OF MACHINES.; ACCEPTED AS abcnews.go.com needs $20,000 to saveA it from Posted on and welcome them asOF farmers and June 18, 2021 foreclosure. The relief money, he THE 'REAL' LOOK JESUS CHRIST.

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A TRADE LEARNED IN MOTHER AFRICA CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN FARMERS TILLING THE LAND ON THE MOTHER CONTINENT. Farming in Africa began around 3000 BCE in West Africa, south of the desert123. They grew millet, sorghum, and a special strain of rice native to Africa, as well as TUBERS, YAMS, COWPEAS AND OIL PALMS.

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Agriculture: why wasn’t Africa first?

As long as humans have existed, some of them have always called Africa their home. We evolved in Africa from a long lineage. Homo erectus, Homo habilis, and Australopithecus are just a few milestones over the past 3.5 million years – many times longer than Homo sapiens have existed (approximately 200,000 to 250,000 years). Africa is the cradle of our species, and our first home. In fact, we are a very closely related family, much more than usual in nature. DNA testing tells us that a disaster 74,000 years ago, which many think was the super-eruption of Mount Toba, reduced the hu- man population to a few thousand.

That was 10,000 years before the biggest human migration out of Africa. As a result, there is more genetic diversity between two different groups of chimpanzees separated by a few hundred miles than there is in the entire human species now spread across Earth.

With humans having spent such a long time in Africa, and with such a “recent migration” out, why didn’t something like agriculture evolve there first?

there some sort of “failure” in the collective learning of the people there? Why didn’t the first farms, the first cities, and the first empires emerge in sub-Saharan Africa, where our ancestors had roamed and innovated for hundreds of thousands of years?

The Fertile Crescent developed agriculture first, about 9000 BCE. On the other side of the world, China and New Guinea followed in 7000 BCE. For thousands of years, the only part of Africa to have agriculture was Egypt, interacting closely with Southwest Asia. All of Africa below the Sahara practiced hunting and gathering until approximately 3000 BCE. Why did sub-Saharan Africa lag behind the Fertile Crescent by 6,000 years, despite the fact that hu- mans had lived there for about 200,000 years?

Was there some sort of disaster hat wiped out earlier attempts at farming without a trace? Was

African “fine-tuning” In fact, Africa developed agriculture a little later because it was the cradle of our species.

Humans evolved in Africa, alongside the many other animals there. That meant that for millions of years, these animals had evolved to cope with Homo habilis, Homo erectus, the Neanderthals, Homo sapiens, and many others in their environment.

It is the same reason why tons of megafauna still exist in Africa, whereas much of it was wiped out in Australia and the Americas when humans arrived there.

Animals need generations to adapt their instincts to humans.

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GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

African animals had a lot of time for that adaptation so it was much more difficult for humans to domesticate a wide variety of animals, and that domestication is one of the first crucial steps for farming.

It also works the opposite way.

Humans had evolved in Africa as foragers. In fact, earlier human species foraged for millions of years. This was our way of life for most of our history, and for people in Africa, for the longest time it was the best way of life.

Over many generations, humans were keenly adapted to their environment, forming an intricate part of the ecosystem there. This was very different from many other regions of the world, where humans suddenly cannonballed in, creating all sorts of ecological ripples and facing environmental challenges to which they were not naturally well adapted. Over long stretches of evolutionary time,

humans had learned to live with Africa and Africa had learned to live with humans.

SAN GATHERERS AND HUNTERS IN THE CENTRAL KALAHARI BUSH, METSEAMONONG, BOTSWANA. THE EARLIEST SUBSAHARAN AFRICANS WERE HUNTER-GATHERERS RATHER THAN FARMERS BECAUSE THEY HAD TO SHARE THE LAND WITH ANIMALS.

“Gardens of Eden” and the “Trap of Sedentism” Life as an early farmer was an ugly deal. It was one that humans tried to avoid if they could. It was usually only with a “trap of sedentism” that humans abandoned foraging and started to farm. As farmers, humans had to spend more time actually working (one estimate is 9.5 hours a day as a farmer; 6 hours a day as a forager). The result of early farming was more disease, worse nutrition, worse health, and greater vulnerability to climate and ecological disasters. For instance, we know that for the longest time, foraging communities in the Kalahari Desert in Southwest Africa knew about farming but didn’t adopt it.

Why would anyone adopt a way of life that was far less healthy, far more work, and generally much more miserable than foraging?

Africa is a beautiful and diverse continent, but it also contains many challenging environments.

The north has the deadly and harsh Sahara, which makes a transition to agriculture unlikely.

It also cuts off a lot of communication with earlier agricultural societies, and in fact sub-Saharan Africa had to come up with farming independently, in West Africa, below the desert.

Also, there are many dense malarial forests that would be very difficult for foragers to clear, settle, and farm, even if they wanted to. Finally, diseases also had evolved alongside humans in Africa, and there were many tropical diseases that made it a good idea for humans to keep moving rather than settle down.

Another factor contributing to the long absence of agriculture in Africa is the lack of so-called “Gardens of Eden,” regions so lush and abundant with life that foragers would settle there and no longer need to travel for a generation or so. Eventually, they would exhaust the land and fall into the “trap of sedentism.” This may have happened with the Natufians in the Fertile Crescent.

In Africa, there weren’t many, if any, “Gardens of Eden.” Humans had roamed from region to region as foragers for hundreds of thousands of years, entering one area, feasting on the resources, then moving on to another region while the old one naturally

replenished itself over several years. Sub- Saharan Africa simply did not have many (or any) of those tempting “traps” to force humans into early farming.

The independent origin of African agriculture However, farming did eventually emerge independently in West Africa in about 3000 BCE (some estimates state even a little earlier), in the fairly lush and habitable savanna on the border between present-day Nigeria and Cameroon. It is possible there finally was a “Garden of Eden” there to “trap” people into early farming. However, many scholars argue that even here, farming

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began as a way to support the development of animal husbandry rather than to meet a demand for food. West Africans had begun to domesticate wild cattle several thousand years before they started to farm. The advantage of herding cattle to a group that was on the move, foraging from place to place, is obvious. You can take your food source with you. If you can breed your food, you’ve got a renewable supply of meat. If you can grow a bit of food when you’re foraging in an area for a few months, you can sustain your animals on simple grains while you forage for more nutritious food sources.

It seems pretty clear that the beginnings of West African plant domestication were fairly piecemeal. Eventually, however, West Africans began to settle and grow their food full-time. From 3000 BCE to 1000 BCE, the practice of farming spread across West Africa. They grew millet and sorghum (plants used for grain and fodder), and later began growing a special strain of rice native to Africa. They also grew tubers (root vegetables), yams, cowpeas, and oil palms, and began mass producing all sorts of succulent melons and fruits.

Because early West African farming methods are unique in a lot of ways and they made use of many crops only native to Africa, scholars have determined that farming in West Africa was not derived from Egypt or the Fertile Crescent. It would appear West Africa is another one of those regions that mysteriously started farming independently. In fact, West Africa started this whole process around the same time it had begun in the Americas, and before it had begun in many other regions of the world.

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The spread of African agriculture (1000 bce-500 CE) Sorghum and millet were the number one crops of West Africans, and they continued to put a lot of emphasis on cattle herding as well. This played a role in a great migration of farmers out of West Africa starting approximately 1000 BCE. These migrants were the Bantu people, who spread farming across the rest of the continent.

Some of them traveled along the verdant grasslands of the Sahel, a strip of land just below the Sahara.

This was a corridor to East Africa, where the Bantu arrived around 1000 BCE, bringing their farming methods with them. The East Africans had already domesticated a few plants, such as enset (a kind of banana).

Around this time, the Africans had adopted the use of iron technology, producing useful weapons and sturdier farming tools, particularly from the major iron production sites near Lake Chad just to the northeast below the Sahara, and Lake Victoria, in the lush regions of East Africa.

Meanwhile, other Bantu wandered out of West Africa and headed south, and by 500 BCE had reached the Congo region. Finally, the Bantu in East Africa migrated south all the way to the end of Africa, arriving in Natal, the lands of the Zulu, by 500 CE. By that time, farming had spread all over the continent, except to the harshest environments and densest forests. Most foraging communities became absorbed by these herding/ farming peoples.

It’s interesting to note that the Efik origin story, which you read in Unit 1, talks about people defying the gods and beginning to farm exactly in the region where farming did begin. Also, the Zulu origin story speaks of a long journey south from the “reed” lands to the north, when their people did indeed migrate down from East Africa.

BUNCHES OF SORGHUM (BOTTOM) AND PEARL MILLET (TOP RIGHT), ANNUAL GRASSES GROWN AS GRAIN IN THE SAHEL DESERT, MALI, AND WEST AFRICA.

The spread of agriculture across sub-Saharan Africa is reflected in the sudden jump in population around this time. West Africa remained the most populous, thanks to its early start, and it remains so today. In 500 BCE, it is estimated sub-Saharan Africa had a population of only 7 million. This is quite low and is due to the fact that foragers need a lot of land to support themselves because they stay on the move, searching for food sources, rather than intensifying the output of a single stretch of land. By 500 CE — in the space of just a thousand years — this number had nearly tripled to 20 million.

“Late” African regions, c.1000 BCE-500 CE Sub-Saharan Africa enjoyed the advantages of foraging for a very long time. Even so, West Africa was one of the first regions of the world, after the Fertile Crescent and East Asia, to develop agriculture — and independently at that. However, there was a huge gap of about 2,000 years before farming spread into the rest of Africa. Only from 1000 BCE to

500 CE did the peoples of most regions in sub-Saharan Africa start farming. This is considerably later than some of the other regions of the world. Also, it takes time after the start of agriculture in a region before agrarian civilizations begin. You need time to build up your population. You need time to build up “agricultural sur- plus” to feed cities.

The timeline of Africa’s journey into the agrarian era is a mixture of pros and cons. On the one hand, some regions of Africa were at a disadvantage when they encountered European and Islamic cultures in the Common Era. On the other hand, the late start of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa was a blessing for many people for thousands upon thousands of years. They enjoyed healthier lifestyles and a generally higher standard of living as foragers for much longer than the people of the Fertile Crescent or East Asia. Even after farming was introduced, large regions of Africa escaped the rigid hierarchies, the rule of despotic monarchs, and the widening gap between the rich and poor that characterize agrarian civilizations. A case could be made that between for- aging and modernity, the standard of living for most people got worse.

In that sense, Africa enjoyed the advantages of foraging for a long time. Its challenge today is to fully enter and enjoy the advantages of modernity. As the African population continues to rapidly grow, this is a challenge that concerns the entire world as it becomes increasingly interwoven in a single global system.

TROPICAL RAINFORESTS LIKE THIS ONE IN EQUATORIAL AFRICA WERE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH FARMING, WHICH DELAYED THE WIDESPREAD AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT UNTIL THE PERIOD BETWEEN 1000 BCE AND 500 CE.

David Baker, Adapted By Newsela Published at khanacademy.org WEST AFRICA, WITH ITS LUSH, FERTILE, LARGELY TREE-LESS LAND, WAS THE FIRST SUBSAHARN REGION TO DEVELOP FARMING. AROUND 3000 BCE.

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FEEDING SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: A TOP PRIORITY Agricultural productivity across Sub-Saharan Africa needs to improve to reduce hunger, poverty, and the destruction of biodiversity.

Rates of extreme poverty across SubSaharan Africa are still very high. While it has made progress in recent decades, 40% of the population still live below the international poverty line of 1.90 international-dollars per day. This is a very low poverty line, used to identify those in the deepest poverty.

Much of this is explained by the fact that more than half of the labor force work in agriculture, and labor productivity in the sector is poor. Most of the region’s poorest people are farmers: the majority (82%) of those in extreme poverty live in rural areas, and more than three-quarters (76%) of working adults in extreme poverty are employed in agriculture..

These farmers are both producers and consumers. Poverty means that there are not only barriers in food supply, but also in the demand for agricultural products.

Farmers need access to local markets where others can afford to buy from them.

If that market does not exist, or farmers lack road infrastructure to get there – as has been the case in many African countries – there is less of an incentive for productivity to improve.

This is also due to rich countries’ policies towards Africa. Trade policies in other regions have made this even more challenging for African farmers. The EU’s agricultural policies, in particular, have received criticism for their impact on global markets. It developed strong trade agreements between EU countries, and at the same time limited export markets for other regions, including Africa.

We see just how low the productivity is in the chart which compares the amount of agricultural ‘value added’ per person working in agriculture.

The amount of ‘value added’ per worker in Sub-Saharan Africa is less than half the global average, and more than 50-times lower than in the countries in which farmers are most productive.

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Some countries within Sub-Saharan Africa generate as little as half of this regional average. This makes it impossible for families to escape poverty. Most are smallholder farms.6 They need family members to work and contribute. They also often cannot afford to invest in education or other opportunities that might allow them to move into industries with higher wages.

Without increasing labor productivity, most of the population will have to continue working in agriculture.

Improvements in yields in other regions meant that they could grow much more food without taking over natural ecosystems.

Because Africa did not increase yields, increased food production came at the cost of turning natural habitats into agricultural land.

Progress on poverty will be slow – much of its population will continue working in agriculture, and will earn very little in return.

Africa will also need to grow a lot more food.

First, because undernourishment rates are The other – strongly-related – problem is that high. That food gap needs to be filled to end most countries across the region have very hunger. Second, its population will grow a lot low crop yields. Growing food in this way over the coming decades. If yields do not means using a lot of land; land that would increase, the continent will need to use more otherwise be habitat for wildlife. Africa’s and more of its land for agriculture. yields have lagged behind most of the world as countries have achieved a significant rise Crop yields might seem like an odd choice to since 1961. But across much of Africa, yields pick as one of the world’s most pressing have stagnated. As a consequence the global problems. But, if yields and labor inequality in yields has increased. productivity do not increase it will have farreaching consequences for global poverty, There is an environmental cost to these low and protection of the environment. For yields. people and planet, it’s one of our most important problems to work on.

This is because there are two ways to Hannah Ritchie increase food production: one can either ourworldindata.org increase yields or one has to use more land.

April 4, 2022

WORKING IN A PLANTATION FIELD

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THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS - THE OLDEST BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT OF THE HEBREW BIBLE - WERE DISCOVERED IN 1947 IN THE CAVES OF QUMRAN, IN ISRAEL’S WEST BANK Origins of the plantation The term plantation arose as settlements in the southern United States, originally linked with colonial expansion, came to revolve around the production of agriculture. The word plantation first appeared in English in the 15th century. Originally, the word “plantation” was a verb that meant “to plant.” However, what came to be known as plantations became the center of large-scale enslaved labor operations in the Western Hemisphere. Historians Peter H. Wood and Edward Baptist advocate for calling these places “labor camps” or “slave labor camps” rather than “plantations,” in order to avoid hiding the truth of what really happened in these agricultural operations using forced labor.

The plantation system came to dominate the culture of the South, and it was rife with inequity from the time it was established. In 1606, King James I formed the Virginia Company of London to establish colonies in North America, but when the British arrived, they faced a harsh and foreboding wilderness, and their lives became little more than a struggle for survival. So, to make settling the land more attractive, the Virginia Company offered any adult man with the means to travel to America 50 acres of land.

At the encouragement of the Company, many of the settlers banded together and created large settlements, called hundreds, as they were intended to support 100 individuals, usually men who led a household.

The hundreds were run as private plantations intent on making a profit from the cultivation of crops, which the economy of the South depended on. The plantation system was an early capitalist venture. Unlike small

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PHOTOGRAPH OF FORMERLY ENSLAVED SOUTH CAROLINIANS PREPARING TO LEAVE THE PLANTATION AFTER THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION, 1862.

subsistence farms, plantations were created to grow cash crops for sale on the market. Tobacco and cotton proved to be exceptionally profitable.

Cheap labor was used to cut production costs and maximize profits. Initially, the land was worked by indentured servants, who were mostly from England (and sometimes from Africa), and enslaved African and (less often) Indigenous people. Indentured servants were contracted to work four- to seven-year terms without pay for passage to the colony, room, and board. After completing the term, they were often given land, clothes, and provisions.

The plantation system created a society sharply divided along class lines. In the colonies south of Pennsylvania and east of the Delaware River, a few wealthy, white landowners owned the bulk of the land, while the majority of the population was made up of poor farmers, indentured servants, and the enslaved.

Plantation labor shifted away from indentured servitude and

more toward slavery by the late 1600s, in part because obtaining indentured servants became more difficult as more economic opportunities became available to them. Wealthy landowners also made purchasing land more difficult for former indentured servants. This sharpened class divisions, as a small number of people owned larger and larger plantations. Wealthy landowners got wealthier, and the use of slave labor increased. This led to uprisings and skirmishes with impoverished Black and white people joining forces against the wealthy.

In response, customs changed and laws were passed to elevate the status of poor white people above all Black people. This new class acted as a buffer to protect the wealthy, and Black people in the British American colonies were further oppressed. Thus, people of African descent were forced into a permanent underclass.

The United States wasn’t the only participant in the transatlantic slave trade. Throughout the Western Hemisphere, the

plantation served as an institution in itself, characterized by social and political inequality, racial conflict, and domination by plantation owners, known as the planter class. In the Caribbean, as well as in the slave states, the shift from small-scale farming to industrial agriculture transformed the culture of these societies, as their economic prosperity depended on the plantation. Until the transatlantic slave trade was abolished in 1807, over 12 million Africans were transported to the “New World,” and over 90 percent of them were sent to the Caribbean and South America to work on sugar plantations.

Life on the plantation In the early 19th century, most enslaved people in the US South performed primarily agricultural work. By 1850, only 400,000 enslaved people lived in urban areas—where many engaged in skilled labor such as carpentry, blacksmithing, and pottery. Almost three million worked on farms and plantations. Because most of the agricultural output of the South was produced on large plantations, more than half of all enslaved men and women lived on plantations that had more than 20 enslaved laborers; about a quarter lived on plantations that had more than 50.

Large plantations had field hands and house servants. House servants performed tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and driving, while the field hands labored for up to 20 hours a day clearing land, planting seed, and harvesting crops. Although enslaved men and women sometimes were able to exercise a degree of autonomy in their work—such as on rice plantations in South Carolina—field hands typically worked in a ganglabor system, under which large

groups of enslaved laborers toiled under the supervision of an overseer.

The division of labor on most plantations was gender-based, with women typically in charge of duties such as sewing, cooking, quilting, cleaning the house, supervising the children, and serving as midwives—though many enslaved women worked in the fields as well.

Brutality and resistance Life for most enslaved men and women was brutal and harsh.

They were frequently separated from their family members because most slaveowners had no compunction about splitting up families in order to improve their own financial situation.

Moreover, as slavery expanded in the Lower South in the early 19th century, legal codes governing the behavior of enslaved men and women became more harsh.

Enslaved people were not allowed to defend themselves against violence from whites, nor did they have any legal standing in the courts. They were not allowed to testify, unless it was against another enslaved person or a free black person. They could not enter into contracts, nor could they own property; they were not allowed to leave their owner’s property without express permission.

Punishments for infractions were severe. Whipping was prescribed for minor offenses, and branding, mutilation, and even death were employed as punishment for more serious transgressions. Slave patrols—basically militias of free white men—were created to oversee and enforce the slave codes. Such strict racial policing

was designed partly to ensure that enslaved people would never be able to revolt against those who held them in bondage.

Resistance to slavery did not just manifest in organized plots and rebellions. Enslaved men and women engaged in acts of everyday resistance, such as stealing food to supplement their meager rations or feigning illness to get out of working. Slaves also performed acts of sabotage, such as breaking farm tools or purposely destroying crops.

Sometimes they went so far as to injure, maim, or even kill themselves in order to escape the brutal reality of a life of forced servitude. Others simply fled the plantation, seeking to escape to freedom in the North.

Religion and slave culture Religion played a big role in the lives of many enslaved men and women. Slaveholders often encouraged, condoned, or turned a blind eye to religious activity and worship among their slaves. In some cities of the South, slaves formed their own congregations with their own preachers and religious services. The biblical story of the exodus, during which Moses led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt, held special resonance for enslaved people.

Slave culture in the US South drew on influences other than Christianity. West African spiritual traditions and beliefs were a huge part of the culture of enslaved men and women. Some of these traditions included the belief in the power of totems and protective charms, and the practice of conjuring—predicting the future. Enslaved people held their own gatherings and celebrations where they danced, sang, and told folktales.

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Field Life As An Enslaved Woman The majority of Lowcountry enslaved women worked as field hands on plantations. In the South Carolina Lowcountry, rice was the original cash crop but by the nineteenth century a particularly valuable variety of cotton—sea island cotton—accompanied rice as the ruling crop on the plantations these women worked.

In Georgia, rice and indigo were common plantation cash crops along the coast. On smaller slaveholdings, women often had to move between house and field labor as their enslavers dictated.

Enslaved women’s field labor regularly took place while they were pregnant because slaveholders expected that women would bear children and work simultaneously. They assumed women of African descent were physically, stronger than white women and that they were well-placed to cope with their dual exploitation as workers and as reproducers. Susan Matthews of Georgia reflected on the work her mother completed through working in the fields and bearing children: "My ma, she done the cooking and the washing fer the family and she could work in the fields jes lak a man. She could pick her three hundred pounds of cotton or pull as much fodder as any man. She wuz strong an she had a new baby mos’ ev’y year. My marster and mistis liked for [her] to have a lot of chillen ‘cause that helped ter make ‘em richer…"

Susan Matthews, interview with Federal Writers' Project, Georgia, circa 1936.

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CARTE-DE-VISITE OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN A COTTON FIELD, CIRCA 1860S, COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE.

Regionally specific to the the year. Laboring under the task Lowcountry, slaveholders’ use of system still put enslaved people the "task system" as the system of at risk of regular physical violence labor among the enslaved. Most from enslavers who might deem enslaved people in the US worked their work "unsatisfactory." under the "gang system" whereby Reflecting how violence was used slaveowners forced them to labor under the gang system, enslavers from "sunup to sundown." Black operating under the task system drivers or white overseer still used violence towards some supervised the enslaved under enslaved as a threat of violence the gang system, using their whip towards all, an important method to inflict violence on anyone they of controlling behavior for whites suspected of neglect of work. This who were extremely outnumbered violence was also used to by enslaved people in the terrorize and control all who Lowcountry. This system witnessed whippings. In contrast, permitted enslaved people less the task system permitted intense supervision and more enslaved people more autonomy autonomy in their work lives. because slaveholders allocated However, because women spent them a specific "task" or amount much of this "free" time of work to complete each day, and completing domestic labor for thereafter their time (if any their families, the system did not remained) was their own. result in shorter workdays for Lowcountry slaveholders hence Lowcountry enslaved women hoped the task system would compared to those enslaved incentivize their enslaved people elsewhere in the United States. to work harder, and the regime Workload was categorized as full, was also suited to the agricultural three-quarter, and half task. tasks of rice-growing, which varied Enslavers determined a task considerably over the course of amount for each enslaved person

AFRICAN AMERICANS CARRYING SHEAVES OF RICE, SOUTH CAROLINA, 1895, COURTESY OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY.

based on age, gender, strength, and health. The task assignment changed depending on the season and prerogative of the enslaver.

For example, a task in summer on a rice plantation could be to weed a certain acreage of rice field while during harvest season it would switch to pounding a certain amount of rice.

Charles Ball described in his autobiography how working under the task system enabled enslaved families the time to grow food in their own small gardens or patches of land, which was important in supplementing the sometimes-meagre rations of enslavers. Some enslaved people bartered or exchanged goods, as he explained, below: "We were supplied with an abundance of bread, for a peck of corn is as much as a man can consume in a week, if he has other vegetables with it; but we were obliged to provide ourselves with the other articles necessary for subsistence. Nero had corn in his patch…and my friend Lydia had beans in her garden. We

exchanged corn for beans, and had a good supply of both."

recalled field work on the plantation he worked on:

Charles Ball, Fifty Years in Chains; Or, The Life of an American Slave (New York: Dover), 1858

“There were 75 plow hands alone, excluding those who were required to do the hoeing. Women as well as men worked in the fields. Isaiah Green declares that his mother could plow as well as any man.”

Characterized by its arduousness and monotony, the physical intensity of field labor exposed slaveholders’ defeminizing and dehumanizing attitudes towards enslaved women when compared with their white counterparts.

Women in the Southern states tended to work separately from enslaved men in sex-segregated gangs except for during the harvest season when both genders worked alongside each other to bring in the crops. In the Lowcountry, the task system meant people worked more autonomously and independently, but women often labored at a similar intensity as men, while racism meant that enslavers regarded their female slaves as having greater physical strength and resilience than white women and had high expectations of women’s fieldwork. Sometimes women’s strength was a source of pride for family members.

Enslaved in Georgia, Isiah Green

Isaiah Green’s recollection paraphrased by Federal Writers' Project interviewer, Greensboro, Georgia, 1937

TWO AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN WINNOWING RICE, SAPELO ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA, CIRCA 1900, COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.

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Despite the hardships caused by this enforced agricultural labor, enslaved women found within fieldwork various opportunities for gendered camaraderie, including the opportunity to talk to their peers, share their stories, and sing while they worked.

Women relied on each other for help and support, and agricultural labor, especially under the task system with more minimal supervision, permitted women time to talk as they labored, to share their problems and issues, and offer mutual support to those in need.

Bonded women were integral to the productions of Carolina gold rice and sea island cotton, the two

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major cash crops of colonial and antebellum Lowcountry. During the colonial period, rice dominated the landscape, and slaveholders increased the demand for enslaved Africans used to carry out the labor. In rice-growing regions of West Africa, women managed rice agriculture from cultivation to cooking, and women were also well-used in rice agriculture in the Lowcountry. By the early nineteenth century, however, rice exports stagnated as the market became more competitive, and many Lowcountry plantation owners switched from growing rice to sea island cotton. Like rice, the economic success of sea island cotton resulted in wealthy Lowcountry enslavers and a high enslaved population. With shortstaple cotton grown in the South Carolina backcountry and sea island cotton along the coast, the state’s economy was heavily dependent upon cotton by 1830.

South Carolina’s economic success, therefore, was the direct result of enslaved women and men’s labor. Rice was still culturally significant and continued to be grown, particularly for subsistence, but it

did not maintain its economic dominance. Therefore, in the early nineteenth century, South Carolina grew the largest percentage of rice exports in the United States compared to other states, but cotton became king.

Swampy landscapes, harsh field labor demands, and the pressure to bear more children all challanged enslaved women working in rice and cotton fields.

Mothers additionally faced the burden of meeting harsh labor demands with the needs of their infants for food and nuture.

Women also regularly struggled to become pregnant and then to sustain their pregnancies. Infant mortality was high in the Lowcountry. Historian William Dusinberre’s research into Lowcountry slavery on the Manigault family plantations suggests that on their Gowrie plantation, twice as many slaves died as were born between the years of 1833-1861. Moreover, between 1833 and 1864, a staggering 90 per cent of children (to age sixteen) died at Gowrie, an horrific figure, to which Dusinberre notes that stillbirths and miscarriages also need to be added, though are harder to quantify from surviving evidence.

He estimates stillbirths constituted about five percent of all births at Gowrie. Therefore, while fieldwork under the task system often offered women more time away from slaveholders and more opportunities to create gendered networks than did domestic labor, a combination of the forced labor of slavery and the unhealthy Lowcountry plantations resulted in poor health conditions that could kill them and increased the risk that accompanied pregnancy and birth, including neonatal tetanus, intestinal illnesses and water borne infections, for example.

THE EARLY TILLERS OF THE LAND SHARECROPPER COUPLE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

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On December 6, 1865, the United States ratified the Thirteenth Amendment: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

With this Amendment, the economic slave-based system of the South was deemed unconstitutional. The South’s GDP, which was largely based in slave ownership and trade, disappeared as African Americans ceased to be property and were acknowledged as human beings.

Plantation owners with large patches of land found themselves with no workers nor funds to pay for labor. Newly freed African Americans were able to enjoy freedom for the first time but had no property nor money in order to make a living. In order to remedy the precarious economic system in the South, sharecropping was introduced.

After the Civil War, the Freedmen’s Bureau, formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was established. The Bureau was created by the government in order to allocate resources, such as food and medical supplies to newly freed slaves. In addition, the Bureau could organize the reallocation of confiscated land

by Confederates to freed people and assist freed people in earning a living after the war. Because of its temporal status and budget constraints, the Bureau’s reach and control were limited.

Originally, the Bureau suggested forming freedmen into groups and creating a gang-labor system to amend the economic problems in the South. This labor formed

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freedmen into multiple groups, or gangs, and assigned each gang a different task. These gangs were managed by one field manager or a group of field managers. Gangs were paid by the field managers when their assigned tasks were completed. Many freed people did not want to partake in this system. This type of labor gave the manager or managers complete control over the gang with little oversite. It was also commonly used, and abused, by plantation owners on plantations to force field slaves to work long hours with physical punishments if they didn’t complete their tasks.

Because of these complaints, sharecropping was adopted by the Bureau instead of gang-labor.

of land. In addition to this land, sharecroppers rented supplies and equipment from the farmer to work the land. Usually, cash crops, like tobacco and cotton, were grown. Depending on the contract, the sharecropper gave half of their harvest or half of the proceeds from selling their harvest to the farmer in lieu of rent. From the remaining proceeds, the sharecropper paid back the sum of the rented supplies and equipment, usually with interest. Any leftover income was kept by the sharecropper. The benefits of this system were that a farmer without disposable wealth, which could be used to buy farmland or equipment, could still become a farmer and make a living. In addition, a farm owner Sharecropping was an economic could gain income from farmland system that existed before the he did not have the time or the Civil War and throughout the income to farm themselves. world. Both white and African Ideally, the sharecropper could Americans became earn enough income each year to sharecroppers. This system was save a percentage until they could comprised of sharecroppers buy their own land. In addition, renting farmable land from the sharecropper had the farmers, such as plantation freedom to decide when they owners, who owned large patches wanted to work, how long they

AN 1866 POSTER ATTACKING THE FREEDMEN’S BUREAU BEGAN THE IRACIST STEREOTYPE OF BLACKS BEING LAZY “WELFARE” RECIPIENTS

SHARECROPPER’S CHILDREN, MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA, 1937. THE EXPLOITATIVE SYSTEM OF SHARECROPPING TRAPPED MANY BLACK PEOPLE IN POVERTY FOR GENERATIONS AFTER THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.

wanted to work, and what crops they wanted to plant.

Ideally, sharecroppers were able to become share-tenants and cash-tenants. Share tenants rented land from a large-scale farm, just like sharecroppers.

However, share-tenants owned their own equipment and supplies or were able to buy their own equipment and supplies.

Depending on their contract, share-tenants gave one-half to one-third of their harvest or onehalf to one-third of the proceeds from selling their harvest to the farmer they rented land from in lieu of rent. The remaining proceeds were kept by the sharetenant. Generally, share-tenants made more profit than

sharecroppers since they did not have to pay interest on supplies or equipment rentals. Cashtenants were like share-tenants, except cash-tenants paid a monetary amount of rent for the property annually instead of giving one-half of the harvest in lieu of rent. This system allowed the tenant to keep the entirety of their crop and could reap higher rewards, or financial burdens, in the marketplace when they sold their crops.

However, the system became exploitative to sharecroppers.

Farmers with large patches of land, such as old plantation farmers, established a “Plantation Store” on their property. These farmers required all

sharecroppers farming on their land to use their store for farming equipment and personal shopping.

Prices in these stores were highly inflated. Stores encouraged sharecroppers to buy items with “credit.” In this system, called “crop lien,” the stores charged excessive interest rates on items bought with credit, which could be as high as 15% interest per month.

Since many sharecroppers did not have enough disposable income to purchase items during the year, many used this credit extensively.

Because of these high interest rates, many did not have disposable income after they paid off their credit line. If the harvest was poor, some sharecroppers remained in debt to the store until the next year.

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With these exploitative stores, many sharecroppers couldn’t become fully “free” in this system.

With mounting debts, farmers prioritized cash crops and could not spend time planting personal gardens for daily food consumption. Since these cash crops were time-intensive, sharecroppers’ children were pulled from schools and were unable to access an education.

Because of poor harvests, farmers could not make enough income to buy their own land or start a savings account. Eventually, this type of situation was labeled “wage slavery.” “Wage slavery” is a term that refers to individuals who are only earning subsistence wages, which means their wages only cover their basic needs. This term was used in future labor protests throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century protests.

MELROSE, NATCHITOCHES PARISH, LOUISIANA. OLD COTTON PLANTATION STORE AT DERRY PLANTATION. JUNE 1940.

devout time away from fields and crop cultivation. Schools and communities were established near dense clusters of sharecroppers for educational and social enrichment. Ideally, Sharecropping began to wean as a sharecropping was a beneficial labor-system in the 1930s. Once labor system that could create large-scale automation was upward mobility for newly freed introduced to farming, farmers African Americans. In reality, the could plant and harvest larger sharecropping system was the patches of land for less money in site of exploitation and economic less time. Buying machines stagnation that only benefited became a more profitable venture few. than paying sharecroppers to farm smaller plots of land by Nevertheless, the Freedmen’s hand. In addition, decades of poor Bureau was successful in planting labor practices left thousands of the roots of a black farm acres of land inhospitable to ownership class thatthrived from farming. These practices led the end of the Civil War until the natural disasters, such as the Dust 1920s. African ex-slaves acquired Bowl, that scattered dust property atan astounding rate. throughout the Great Plains, destroyed plant and animal life, By 1890, about 20 percent of and made the area uninhabitable. black farm families owned their Some sharecroppers did benefit land, and by 1910 that figure had from this labor system. Farmers reached 25 percent. Even as white were able to dictate their own creditors cheated them, white hours, what to plant and where to planters worked them ragged, plant their crops. Women were white politicians disenfranchised able to play a more active role in them, and white mobs targeted the home since they were able to them with arsons and lynchings,

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over 425,000 Black families were able to save enough to purchase almost 20 million acres in the Jim Crow South. The number of people in these families roughly numbered the total African Americans who migrated north in the first Great Migration, and the acreage they owned approached the size of South Carolina.

This rural black middle class was the hope of a generation. W.E.B. DuBois—who completed several extensive studies of black farmers in the early twentieth century— numbered 200,000 farmers among 250,000 black “independents” in America, sonamed for their economic power.

“Landowning farmers and entrepreneurs,” writes historian Debra Reid, “reorganized rural society by founding fraternal societies and building schools, churches, and businesses to cater to a black clientele.” With prosperity came political power, which would be used effectually in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Carver Conquers The Peanut (Plus So Much More) Few famous Americans enjoy a status as mythic as that of George Washington Carver, a man whose life as a botanist, agronomist, chemist and inventor earned him a lasting place in the history books.

GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

Nicknamed the "Black Leonardo" by TIME Magazine in 1941, Carver is one of the most revered figures in early 20th century black American history, and his work at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama is considered instrumental in changing Southern approaches to agriculture.

His brilliance offered a fresh perspective on agriculture and also paved the way for sustainable farming practices and economic uplift for countless farmers.

Life And Career Carver was born around 1864 near Diamond Grove, Missouri, under conditions of servitude. As a young boy, he had a deep fascination with plants and spent a lot of his time studying and experimenting with them.

He developed a reputation in his local community for his ability to diagnose and treat plant diseases, which led to him being called "The Plant Doctor."

After earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agricultural science at Iowa State Agricultural College (now known as Iowa State University) in Ames , Carter -the first black American student to enroll there -went on to establish himself as a pioneering black American scientist at the school. While he is widely celebrated for his groundbreaking work with peanuts, Carver's research extended to other crops like soybeans and sweet potatoes.

In 1896, Carver was hired to lead the Agriculture Department at the recently formed Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, by founder and president Booker T. Washington himself. Carter would remain at Tuskegee teaching and conducting laboratory tests of crop varieties and fertilizers - for most of his life.

He wrote bulletins offering insights and advice for farmers; his writings showed a keen understanding of the challenges local farmers faced. He sought to discover and propagate sustainable agricultural practices. Under his stewardship, the Tuskegee Institute's agricultural initiatives flourished, becoming a beacon of innovation and knowledge for the broader farming community.

Since his death in 1943, Carver has been dubbed "the father of chemurgy" (more commonly known as biochemical engineering today), a type of chemistry that takes agricultural raw materials and converts them into nonfood industrial and consumer products. The word was coined in the 1930s, soon after Carver's rise to national and international fame.

Even in his day, Carver recognized the limits of petroleum and the value of producing industrial products from renewable resources.

Death and Legacy Carver died on Jan. 5, 1943, his life marked by relentless dedication to agricultural innovation and education. In honor of his immense contributions, the George Washington Carver National Monument was established near Diamond Grove, Missouri.

It stands as the first national monument dedicated to a Black American and nonpresident, encompassing the farm where he was born, a nature trail and a visitor center highlighting his myriad achievements in science and agriculture.

Mark Boyer Published at science.howstuffworks.com October 26, 2023

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Racism On The Farm

For a once-enslaved people forced to work the land of their oppressors, landownership has always symbolized freedom. Black farm owners argue that possessing land enables them to be their own boss, grow their own food, and live on property they control. Historically, farming catapulted some African Americans squarely into the middle class, including jazz legend Miles Davis, a farmer’s son. And during the civil rights movement, Black farm owners allowed activists to use their properties to organize; they often fought for racial equality themselves.

Today, achieving autonomy though farmland acquisition is an experience familiar to few African Americans. White landowners possess 98 percent of all farmland, and 95 percent of farmers are white, according to a report from the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC). The events of the past year have only made things more difficult.

Through 2020, Black farmers have fought to retain their farmland amid discrimination from the federal government, mass commercialization of agriculture, racial violence, economic instability, and, now, a pandemic.

For a once-enslaved people forced to work the land of their oppressors, landownership has always symbolized freedom. Black farm owners argue that possessing land enables them to be their own boss, grow their own food, and live on property they control. Historically, farming catapulted some African Americans squarely into the middle class, including jazz legend Miles Davis, a farmer’s son. And during the civil rights movement, Black farm owners allowed activists to use their properties to

56 | BAVUAL SUMMER 2024

organize; they often fought for racial equality themselves.

Today, achieving autonomy though farmland acquisition is an experience familiar to few African Americans. White landowners possess 98 percent of all farmland, and 95 percent of farmers are white, according to a report from the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC). The events of the past year have only made things more difficult.

Through 2020, Black farmers have fought to retain their farmland amid discrimination from the federal government, mass commercialization of agriculture, racial violence, economic instability, and, now, a pandemic.

At the start of 2020, the United States agriculture industry was still reeling from the effects of former President Donald Trump’s 2018 trade war with China. After Trump raised tariffs on Chinese imports, China responded with retaliatory tariffs on the U.S.’s agricultural exports, which caused the cost of American agricultural commodities to drop and led to a decline in soybeans and other exports. These developments, along with higher farm machinery costs as equipment grows larger and more technologically advanced, reduced net farm income by 16 percent during the trade war’s first year.

All kinds of American farmers felt the impact of the revenge tariffs, but when the pandemic hit — causing global shutdowns that evaporated consumer bases and disrupting the food supply chain — Black farmers in particular lacked a safety net. According to a report from the Counter, white business owners received 99.5 percent of the subsidies designed to help farmers survive the trade war. And although Trump handed

out record subsidies to help farmers rebound from COVID-19, African Americans in agriculture largely didn’t receive these monies. For the most part, Black farmers did not obtain federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) aid designed to help businesses weather the pandemic.

Fortunately, there has been some redress since 2021. As of June 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said it received 58,000 applications for Discrimination Financial Assistance Program payments from farmers, ranchers and forest landowners who believe they experienced discrimination in its lending programs prior to 2021.

Signup for the program, which is slated to provide $2.2 billion to producers who were able to demonstrate financial loss due to discriminatory lending practices

by USDA ended on January 17, 2024. A spokesperson for USDA said the department plans to make payments under the program in summer 2024.

ASAUD FRAZIER’S FAMILY SPENT YEARS TRYING TO PROVE THEY WERE THE RIGHTFUL HEIRS TO THEIR LAND.

THE LIFE OF A FARMER

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By Grace Kelly Posted on ecori.org, August 13, 2020

Around the chicken coop, a farm is in resplendent bloom: yellow squashes sit fat beneath wide leaves; cucumbers poke through chicken wire; rows of tomatoes stand like sentinels beneath the plastic dome of the hoop house; beans dangle like wind chimes from the vine. In the middle of it all, Quatia Osorio unravels lines of drip tape, puncturing them and poking in a connector screw with an ease that belies the difficulty of the task.

“I’m making it up as I go,” she said, standing up to view her handiwork.

I’m here volunteering, work that involves wrangling prickly cucumbers, pulling up weeds, and keeping an eye out for hornets. It’s hard work, but the dirt that sticks under your fingernails is grounding and the conversation with Osorio carries us through the hours.

Here on Quaintly Farm on Chatham Street — and a few blocks away on her second plot, Journey Farm — Osorio is taking food justice and equity into her own green-thumbed hands.

Her journey to farm ownership began in 2017, when she attended an event coordinated by Urban FACTS, a local organization that hosts food and agricultural talks for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Communities (BIPOC).

“They had this guy from the USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] speaking, and the presentation was about what it means to be a USDA-registered farm, what does the landscape look like in Rhode Island as far as Black farmers,” Osorio recalled. “During that meeting, at the time we found out that there were nine black farmers in the state. That number was so dismal, and it just was so frustrating and infuriating.”

That single-digit number is part of a larger, disturbing trend in the United States that has its roots in slavery and the oppression of Black people.

The story of farming in the United States — and in Rhode Island — was built on the forced labor and agricultural knowledge of Africans. It traces its bloody roots to what today are Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau. To Mali, Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Gabon. To Charlestown, S.C., where women with rice woven into their hair were sold to plantation owners looking for forced labor and free farming.

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QUATIA OSORIO IS ONE OF RHODE ISLAND’S FEW BLACK FARMERS.

To Rhode Island, where slave-produced sugar and molasses were made into rum, and the money landed in white palms.

“It’s not like when they went to Africa, they just stole regular people,” Osorio said. “It took months of observation to figure out who were the best people to bring to this country so that when they were brought here, they could grow the agricultural industry.”

And these Africans, in return for their knowledge of growing rice, corn, potatoes, benne, and greens, were stripped of land and opportunity not just during their enslavement, but up to the present day.

In 1920, 14 percent of U.S. farm workers were Black, and they held 15 million acres of farmland. Today, a mere 1 percent of U.S. farmland is owned by Black farmers, and in Rhode Island, as of 2017, that number is even lower, at 0.7 percent, according to the latest Rhode Island Census of Agriculture.

So, when Osorio heard that single-digit number on that fateful day, it lit a fire in her.

“I had all these questions going through my head, like what constitutes a USDA commercial farmer?

How did people get access to the land? And to unpack that you have to go through all the systematic racism, the land grabbing by white people, the government … all of that you have to unpack to get to where we are today,” she said. “And so just knowing what that history was, I was like what

would it take for someone to become a Black farmer?”

Osorio decided to find out.

“I remember thinking, ‘Well, I could become a Black urban farmer,’” she said. “And now, here we are.”

She dove into learning about USDA rules and regulations, attended Leah Penniman’s Soul Fire Farm in Petersburg, N.Y., for training and, after returning, set out to prove that Black people farming and providing for their communities isn’t something new — and there’s no white savior necessary.

(Penniman gave a presentation in Rhode Island in 2018 about discriminatory practices at farms that stem from centuries of institutionalized farming and discriminatory land-ownership practices.)

“People seem to think that urban farming is something new,” Osorio said. “But Black people have been having farms and growing for years. Everyone has a grandmother or aunt or uncle who has a garden. You know someone in your family who farms or who gardens.”

Osorio grew up on the city’s South Side, in a sort of urban Eden overflowing with grapevines and cherry trees.

“I’ve been a Providence resident all my life. We grew up with chickens and roosters in our neighborhood; we walked past houses that had large, large gardens

growing all over their yards,” she said. “My Portuguese neighbor had grapevines flowing over the fences. We grew up in communities where you knew who had peach trees and who had cherry trees. Foraging in the community to eat was natural to us.”

Her family’s roots in agriculture go even deeper, touching back in time to the blood-soaked plantations of South Carolina.

“I am a direct descendant of slaves,” Osorio said.

“My family genealogy starts down at the plantations, to the boat we came off in South Carolina. So just knowing that my history has always been tied to the land, it just felt natural. It wasn’t traumatizing, and I realized I didn’t have to feel like I was toiling and slaving under the sun for anyone.”

Quaintly Farm was born in 2018, birthed at the hands Osorio, who is also a doula, on land that she owns.

“I was intentional about growing on land that I owned in the inner city and making sure that it was connected to other communities of color,” she said.

“I don’t need to go to the farmers market. … Why would I go anywhere other than where I’m already at to serve my people? And that was what I did. I set up shop and everything; did the farming; registered as a USDA-registered farmer, so that number could finally be in the double digits.”

OSORIO FARMS TWO PIECES OF PROPERTY SHE OWNS IN PROVIDENCE. GROWING FOOD AND COMMUNITY IS A FAMILY TRADITION.

CHARLES PRICE “C.P.” JONES

CHARLES OCTAVIUS BOOTHE

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One farm eventually grew to two, and today, Osorio sells grab bags of produce at reasonable prices to people in her community.

We quickly fall into a rhythm: weeding; talking about car troubles; giant sunflower plants; and odd bugs, and wiping the sweat off our brows.

“Wow, look at these tomatoes!” a volunteer said as she walked over to join Osorio and me, as we prune the tomatoes’ fuzzy stems.

“I just make it up as I go,” Osorio said. It’s become her motto of sorts, though as kale and cabbage and corn burst forth from the soil, it seems that Osorio was meant to do this work, weaving plant magic to nourish herself and her community.

It’s a sunny Thursday morning on Journey Farm, and Osorio digs in the dirt with a spade, uprooting weeds and trimming plants.

“I know right! We’re just getting some of the extra tomato branches and plants up, one of my friends came the other day but felt bad pulling up the smaller plants,” Osorio said, laughing.

“When I decided to farm, what I was doing was nourishing and restoring and rejuvenating myself, and through that, I was gonna grow vegetables that would then do the same thing for people in my community,” she said. “And that felt right, and that felt good.”

THE VIEW AMONG BLACK OKLAHOMA FARMERS

the injustices they have faced and the solutions moving forward.

RANCHER WILLIE WILLIAMS SURVEYS HIS CATTLE OPERATION ON HIS PROPERTY IN BOLEY, OKLAHOMA.

Golden hour light pours over a boy as he races across the open field on a Shetland pony.

Photographer Nicol Ragland said the moment happened in a flash as she swung her camera to document the shirtless child riding the pony without a saddle and staring straight ahead in the distance.

“It just looks like freedom to me,” Ragland said of the image. “No fear.”

As the number of Black-owned farms and ranches dwindles across the country, Ragland has partnered with several organizations to help record not only the struggles of keeping this way of life alive but also the resilience and joy of Black Oklahomans who live and work on the land.

Ragland said she believes by sharing Black farmers’ stories she can help draw attention to

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“It’s to honor a community and place, honor of a particular history that deserves to shine and that deserves land,” she said. “They deserve every right to work that land and be productive and economically viable on that land.”

For one of her photography projects, Ragland spent time in Boley, Oklahoma, one of 13 remaining all-Black towns in a state that had more than 50 a century ago. It was there that she met lifelong residents such as Henrietta Hicks and Theola Jones, as well as ranchers Willie Williams and Nathan Bradford, and began to photograph their daily lives.

Ragland spent days with Bradford on his ranch just outside Boley, observing his cow/calf operation and the work he and his family put in to sustain it. Bradford wants nothing more than to be a rancher, but has to work two additional jobs just to keep his ranching dreams afloat.

Ragland, who now lives in Oklahoma City, spoke with the PBS NewsHour about why she continues to document stories of Black farming in Oklahoma and solutions towards equity, including the C.A.R.E program.

Here are some of her answer to that interview:

How did you become interested in the intersection of agriculture and the environment?

I studied environmental science in college, and I got my last few credits while working for the World Wildlife Fund in Nepal. I went there for three months and recieved my credits through a program called the Wildlands Studies. That really woke me up to taking, shooting and telling stories around the environment much more seriously than studying tree diversity and seed dispersal and tourist impacts.

That’s really what moved me into farming and understanding more of our crazy food supply.

Watching people get sick all around me from kids, friends my age, to my parents’ — it just felt all connected. Telling so many different stories on the environment, it felt as though regenerative agriculture was the answer to 99 of 100 problems.

How did growing up in Oklahoma affect your career focus?

I’d say [my work] tapped into somewhat of a cellular memory of being an Okie. Agriculture is such a huge part of this state, and recognizing that we’re losing land and the fact that we can actually change the story, we can change the narrative and how people relate to land. Learning how centralized our food system is and that it doesn’t support family farms nor the growing of clean food, this took the lead within my own storyline and my own passion of health and autonomy with land and replenishing watersheds and sequestering carbon. That also led to [learning about] diversity and lack of diversity within farming practices. Often times, I think the concentration of power comes in the form of a monoculture. Both within our agricultural system as well as producers who are able to work the land. As humans, we thrive on diversity, below ground and above.

You’ve said you like exploring cultures to understand them or to share them with people is a passion of yours. What was it like to share this cowboy/cowgirl culture of Black people in America?

It was really special. I was honored to be part of it. I spent a lot of time in Kenya and Rwanda and Tanzania, but coming home to Oklahoma and learning Black history in Oklahoma for the first time well into my 40s is ridiculous. Growing up here in the ’80s and not learning about the Tulsa Race Massacre; not learning that we had 50 Black towns here and that the Civilized Tribes were only called civilized by virtue of them owning slaves. [That education] predominantly happened in Boley, which

was just a wonderful invitation. It’s a crime that we don’t learn this history as kids.

Would you say your work is a form of advocacy?

Yeah, for sure. All my work is in relation to the environment and culture and place. I think there’s so many issues in this country, but I think the one major issue is a disconnection from ourselves — when we really know ourselves, we know our sense of place and our relationship to land and relationship to history.

That was another takeaway from my time in Boley was this incredible sense of pride. Boley was established before Oklahoma was a state and they just hold that pride close to their heart. They carry it.

They carry it in the way that they tell stories, and they carry it in the way that they hold their land.

They want to nurture that land. They want to create family farms and markets. I think I’m an advocate for our truest selves as human animals, our deep history and that our healthy inner ecosystems are reliant on outer ecosystems.

Why is diversity important in farming and ranching?

We’re losing our food supply chain. I just learned that 2023 is the first year we buy more food from overseas than we sell from our own country. This is a dangerous crossing and a matter of homeland security. This means our food prices will be set from abroad. That trickles down to family farms. Like the main term within regenerative agriculture is diversity. We’re talking about diversity in the soil.

We’re mixing it up and enhancing mycorrhizal fungi and all that’s necessary to create healthy soil. But we should also consider diversity within our farmers because we’ve got an atrocious level of racism that goes back within the farming world. It’s painful to hear, and it’s incredibly surprising to hear in 2023 that it’s still happening. But we have to acknowledge it. And, you know, at some point, be accountable [for] it.

Why was photography the right medium to tell this story?

I love challenging my own unconscious bias. I think we all have it, and I love going into other people’s worlds and other people’s stories that are so different than mine and having a preconceived idea and then being challenged and have it completely detour and moving in a different direction. I have no idea what it’s like to be a black farmer. .. what it’s like to be a black citizen in this country. But the best I can do is get myself and my own experience out of the way and go into theirs and really listen.

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THE SHRINKING BLACK FARM LAND Black owned farms make up less than 2 percent of all farms in the United States.

According to a recent report, black farmers lost 80 percent of their farmland from 1910 to 2007, often because they lacked access to loans or insurance needed to sustain their businesses. As of 2017 there were 48,697 producers who identified as black, either alone or in combination with another race. They accounted for 1.4 percent of the country’s 3.4 million producers, and they lived and farmed primarily in southeastern and mid-Atlantic states.

The report mentions the “long and well-documented history of discrimination against Black farmers by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture).”

It goes on to state that “The unequal administration of government farm support programs, crucial to protecting farmers from an inherently risky enterprise, has had a profound impact on rural communities of color.”

It is clear that that black farmers need help now more than ever. We also need fresh produce they provide.

Who Represents Black Farmers The National Black Farmers Association (NBFA) is a non-profit organization representing African American farmers and their families in the United States. As an association, it serves tens of thousands of members nationwide.

It was founded in February 1995 in Baskerville, Virginia by John W. Boyd, Jr., a fourth generation farmer who is determined to hold on to his heritage, and to save his farm and others from foreclosure caused by racial discrimination under the United States Department of Agriculture. The NBFA encourages the participation of small & underserved farmers in gaining access to resources of state and federal programs administered by the United States Department of Agriculture, while communicating and educating our community through effective outreach and technical assistance.

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Anthony Johnson, “SlaveTurned-Slavemaster”

It is not entirely accurate but it is fundamentally true: the first documented “slave” to own a farm in colonial America was also the first owner of a fellow enslaved African male.

Anthony Johnson (c. 1600 – 1670) , has been referred to as "'the black patriarch' of the first community of Negro property owners in America". An Angolan-born man who achieved wealth as a property owner in the early 17th-century Colony of Virginia, was held as an indentured servant in 1621, but earned his freedom after several years and was granted land by the colony.

Johnson’s memory is scarred by the fact that he also owned John Casor, a black indentured servant who sued for his transfer to a white owner, Robert Parker, and eventually lost. The case would be one of the last times when white property owners shared a kinship with black owners over the sanctity of property before race became the ultimate determinant, thus leading to the tragic institution of African enslavement. It would also be used by white supremacists to justify slavery as being coequal, a dramatic oversimplification.

As racist white attitudes of Africans as being an inferior race took hold by the end of the century, Johnson’s property was eventually seized.

FARMING’S DESTINY

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By Todd Post Posted on bread.org, February 17, 2021 Land is a precious asset to farmers—and, of course, it is essential to producing crops and raising livestock. Land is also wealth for farmers to pass on to their heirs, and it may make up most or all of a farmer’s estate.

Decisions about the distribution of land at the end of the Civil War were critically important, particularly because most Blacks and a significant number of whites worked as farmers. The U.S. government had promised formerly enslaved people land—as just mentioned, land is essential to growing food to eat and to sell to pay for necessities.

But the government did not honor its pledge. Instead, large plantations were given back to their former owners—secessionist whites—while the people who had been enslaved got nothing. This was not the last time the U.S. government failed Black farmers.

Bread for the World Institute has emphasized the connection between hunger and the U.S. racial wealth gap for several years. The denial of land ownership after the Civil War set the stage for the disproportionate rates of hunger in Black communities today. The median wealth of a typical Black family is 12 cents for every dollar held by a white family, according to recent data.

Wealth means options to invest in the future and break out of the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck. Without wealth, even a small savings account, any loss of family income can lead directly to inability to buy groceries.

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More recently, Black farmers continued to be stripped of wealth by being deliberately excluded, through discriminatory policies, from federally secured loans and other government assistance available to white farmers. As recently as the 1990s, they were routinely denied loans for which they qualified or subjected to lengthy processing delays that made it impossible to get their crops planted on time.

A class action lawsuit, Pigford v.

Glickman, was finally settled in 2010. The U.S. government made a perfunctory effort to compensate Black farmers who had been subjected to discrimination or their heirs, but many claimants were denied compensation or awarded sums that did not make them whole.

The delays and the inadequate compensation amounts meant that by the time the suit was settled, many had lost their land, livelihood, and legacy.

Now, more than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, the agricultural landscape for Black farmers may be about to change.

In 2020, as the 116th Congress was drawing to a close, Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Kirsten Gillibrand (DNY) introduced the Justice for Black Farmers Act, designed “to address the history of discrimination against Black farmers and ranchers, to require reforms within the Department of Agriculture to prevent future discrimination.”

One of the provisions of the law would help restore the land base that Black farmers lost over centuries of discrimination by providing land grants of up to 160 acres to eligible Black farmers and Black aspiring farmers at no cost to them.

In addition, the act would create a Civil Rights Oversight board in the U.S. Department of Agriculture to prevent further discrimination of the kinds that denied Black farmers access to credit and other forms of assistance, making it impossible for them to farm successfully.

The 116th Congress ended without holding any hearings for the Justice for Black Farmers Act. But Booker, Warren, and Gillibrand reintroduced the act in the new 117th Congress. The proposal will also undoubtedly inform the content of the next farm bill. The farm bill is not due to be reauthorized until 2023, but hearings are held well in advance and could begin as early as 2021.

It is rare that a major change in the structure of U.S. farm policy would be made in any legislation, so the three senators may have introduced their bill early to get out in front of the farm bill debate.

The farm bill is always a major focus of Bread for the World’s advocacy, and we also pay attention to legislation that would provide reparations or compensation to Americans who are descended from enslaved people.

Racism is so deeply ingrained in the fabric of U.S. society that no single piece of legislation can respond to all the dimensions of the damage it has caused. But as a way to begin trying to compensate for the theft and denial of Black wealth, the Justice for Black Farmers Act would be a very good place to start. UPDATE: The JBF Act, re-introduced on February 24, 2023, has yet to pass nor does it seem that there is any progress toward passage.

Educate Yourself

BLACK AND MAGA BUT WHY?

The Complex Answer Goes Beyond Race and Predates America SEN. TIM SCOTT’S OBSEQUIOUS ENDORSEMENT OF DONALD TRUMP IS CONSIDERED A SOURCE OF EMBARRASSMENT TO AMERICANS, ESPECIALLY MOST BLACK AMERICANS

By Stephen G. Hall PhD Ever since Donald Trump stepped off that golden elevator at New York’s Trump Tower hurling racist epithets at non-whites, his cultish Make America Great Again (MAGA) phenomenon has taken the nation by storm.

Unexpectedly elected the nation’s 45th president in 2016 by narrowly winning the Electoral College (with suspected help from the FBI and Russian interference), Trump entered the White House after telling his white non-college working-class voters, lagging behind a booming economy under President Barack Obama, an “elitist” black man, that he would “drain the swamp” and “make Washington work again.”

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At first, Trump followed Reagan’s script by highlighting rightwing propaganda about America’s perceived decline, as reflected in his mind by the welfare state, America’s neglected defense and police, globalism and military intervention, its open southern border, and imposition of woke grooming, only drastically amplifying it to dangerously bombastic and demagogic Trumpian levels. The connection was made obvious by his appropriation of Reagan’s 1980 campaign theme: Let’s Make America Great Again.

The MAGA coalition consists of a number of strange bedfellows, ranging from

legislators in Congress (House and Senate), rappers, athletes, a number of highly visible African American conservatives, and an assortment of ordinary people.

Black participation in MAGA is not new.

Indeed, the mindset that produced such seemingly illogical support - Trump’s life and career as well as the mission of his white supporters embodies pursuit of their perceived intellectual, historical, moral and religious supremacy over non-white people, especially black people - has its roots in colonial slavery. In order to preserve acquiescence among slaves, white plantation owners cleverly divided

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them into two groups: those who picked crops in the field and lived in dilapidated shacks and those who lived with master in the Big House as servants. Theywere treated better than the field slaves and came to accept and like and accept their lot, making them least likely to rebel or escape. This hierarchy caused mutual resentment (each group called each other “field nigger” and “house nigger”). After the Civil War, this dualism among blacks continued into segregation, the civil rights movement and black life today. A small but significant minority of African Americans have come to both hate and accept their origin as slaves and, much like Stockholm Syndrome, now see white people as their betters and seek to identify with them in every way. highly visible African American conservatives, and an assortment of ordinary people.

Black participation in MAGA is not new.

Indeed, the mindset that produced such seemingly illogical support - Trump’s life and career as well as the mission of his white supporters embodies pursuit of their perceived intellectual, historical, moral and religious supremacy over non-white people, especially black people - has its roots in colonial slavery. In order to preserve acquiescence among slaves, white plantation owners cleverly divided them into two groups: those who picked crops in the field and lived in dilapidated shacks and those who lived with master in the Big House as servants. Theywere treated better than the field slaves and came to accept and like and accept their lot, making them least likely to rebel or escape. This hierarchy caused mutual resentment (each group called each other “field nigger” and “house nigger”). After the Civil War, this dualism among blacks continued into segregation, the civil rights movement and black life today. A small but significant minority of African Americans have come to both hate and accept their origin as slaves and, much like Stockholm Syndrome, now see white people as their betters and seek to identify with them in every way.

Perhaps the most interesting black MAGAs and among the first to sign on to what has become widely considered to be a cult of Trump, were sisters Ineitha Hardaway and

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Herneitha Richardson aka Diamond and Silk, two colorful but ultimately vacuous individuals, who served as spokespersons for Trump’s outreach to African Americans during the first campaign and administration.

Some Black women have continued to support Trump. One of the most vocal is Candace Owen. A purveyor of conspiracy theories and misinformation, she is currently making the rounds on Tik Tok along with Black conservatives Glenn Loury and Robert Woodson, critiquing the shortcomings of the welfare state and trumpeting individual responsibility as a panacea for structural racism. Another supporter is Kimberly Klacik, a former candidate for Congress in Maryland’s 7th congressional district in 2020 who is running again in 2024. She touted Trump’s support for HBCUs, the First Step Act that cuts federal sentences and improves prison conditions, and investments in urban opportunity zones, all three of which have proven to be highly misleading. Other supporters are more direct. Michaelah Montgomery, the city director for Blexit, the same conservative organization Candace Owen founded, orchestrated a photo- op for Trump during his 2024 re-election campaign at a midtown Atlanta Chick-fil-A. She recruited students from local HBCUs to cheer for Trump. After they received milkshakes from the former president, Montgomery hugged Trump and loudly proclaimed: “I don’t care what the media tells you, Mr Trump. We support you.” It should be noted that many photos showing Trump to be warmly greeted by blacks have proven to be A.I. fakes.

While some black women have been highly visible in Trump’s campaign, MAGA’s most vocal participants appear to be black males. On Capitol Hill, Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina and Byran Donalds, a member of the House of Representatives from Florida, are vocal supporters of Trump.

Outside of the legislative arena, black men seem attracted to Trump’s patriarchal posturing fueled by a contemporary men’s movement determined to recapture the TRUMP TRIES TO RELATE TO BLACK VOTERS WITH FAKE A.I. PHOTOS, AND BY IDENTIFYING WITH THEM AS A FELLOW FELON, SELLING THEM FAKE GOLD SNEAKERS AND APPEALING TO THE MACHISMO AND MATERIALISM OF SOME BLACK MALES

DIAMOND AND SILK

traditional place of men as leaders of the household and the dominant breadwinner in the home. These black men are drawn to Trump like a moth to flame, despite the fact that he is an admitted sexual predator who has twice been found liable in civil court for the de facto rape and defamation of E. Jean Carroll and ordered to pay her $88.3 million. (The judgment is currently on appeal.)The reasons for the Trump attraction vary. Some erroneously attribute the stimulus payments to individuals and companies during the first year of COVID-19 to Trump. Still others point to the flurry of felony criminal indictments and civil judgments that Trump is fighting in various courts. They argue that Trump’s run-ins with the justice system mirror those of black men (none of which is true). During Trump’s recent hush money trial in New York, rapper Fifty Cent, who was visiting the White House with Ben Crump to discuss black involvement in the liquor industry, remarked that black men identify with Trump because they also face RICO charges. (This comment was no doubt a veiled reference to fellow rapper Young Thug’s RICO trial in Atlanta.) At a rally in Las Vegas, former NFL running back Lawrence Taylor expressed praise for Trump’s agenda and his vision for America.

Another expression of black MAGA is a musical anthem. Rapper Forgiato Blow, who has dubbed himself “Mayor of Magaville.” posted a song titled “Black MAGA” on his YouTube

Channel. The song criticizes Democrats on inflation, gay rights, the welfare state and gun violence. Verse two of the song appears below: I know your mama can't barely buy groceries They pushing genders on our kids not rosaries You get a Glock in these streets before you learn to read You get some [?] like some weed before a damn degree Next day you know you going fed in the GED I swear we fed the whole Hood with the p, p, p's Rappers pushing P but I'm pushing knowledge They hooked on EBT but I was hooked on phonics They wouldn't be so terrified of Donald Trump if Biden actually received 81 million votes You know that boy capping all aboard the Trump Train November 5th every nigga in America voting for Trump The song features a chorus stating, “Donald Trump yeah that’s my president/Donald Trump the first Black President”.

It is not known to what extent younger black males have knowledge of fascism or past dictators like Adolf Hitler. There is a strain of anti-semitism that still exists in a small segment of the black community, due to memories of exploitation and humiliation by Jewish shopkeepers of the past. Some black men seem to think (falsely) that they will be among those who will dominate society if Trump should return to power.

Social media like Twitter/X, Instagram and Tiktok and cable TV shows , especially Fox News, are successful in spreading rightwing talking points which all MAGA, including black MAGA, regurgitate without any thought. Black MAGA media propagandists Candace Owen, Jason Whitlock and Larry Elder have been especially effective. Even highly regarded conservative thinker Thomas Sowell, who in 2016 called Trump a “dangerous choice for president” and questioned whether he had "any principles at all, other than promoting Donald Trump?" (curiously, Sowell would urge voters to vote for Trump over Hillary Clinton two weeks

THOMAS SOWELL

CANDACE OWEN

JASON WHITLOCK

LARRY ELDER

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN REAGANISM AND MAGA WAS MADE OBVIOUS BY TRUMP’S APPROPRIATION OF REAGAN’S 1980 CAMPAIGN THEME: “LET’S MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

before the election) , is now a fan, coming out of retirement to praise him as a “strong American” leader after the assassination attempt.

There is no denying that Trump wields a strange charisma reminiscent of past dictators like Hitler and Benito Mussolini that draws both uneducated and highly educated to him. Many people in the working and lower class, including blacks, who aspire to break out of their seemingly hopeless economic status, see Trump as this rich, powerful and admired manipulator that they dream of becoming while the wealthy enjoy his tax cuts only for them and hands-off approach to business corruption, not to mention that many of them are likeminded narcissists and oligarchs. The memory among blacks that Trump was the leading instigator behind the “birther” movement that questioned President Barack Obama’s native U.S. citizenship by claiming that he was born in Kenya appears to be long forgotten.

How popular is Donald Trump among blacks? It is difficult to say. In 2016, Trump received eight percent of the black vote according to the exit polls, the highest level of support by black voters for any Republican since George Bush in 2000. By

the 2020 U.S. presidential election, support for Trump among black voters had surged to 12 percent. (Trump has never won the popular vote in either election election and won the Electoral College only once.} While current opinion polls vary, a March 2024 survey from GenForward shows that if the election was held at that time, 17 percent of black voters would vote for Donald Trump while 20 percent said they would vote for someone other than Trump or President Joe Biden (who dropped out of the race in July).

While it is very hard to pin down support for Trump, it is clear something exists, even if its just perception. At a rally held at Crotona Park in New York City’s South Bronx, Trump stated his goal was to conduct outreach to black and latino voters. Trump quipped, “African Americans are getting slaughtered, Hispanic Americans are getting slaughtered.” Here he was referencing Biden’s border policies, which Trump argues are reducing the number of available “black” jobs for African Americans and latinos, which has since become a point of derision by many blacks.

Now that Vice President Kamala Harris has replaced President Biden as the Democratic nominee in the November 5th election, blacks’ loyalty to the Democratic party will be conflicted and challenged as never before.

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NORTH CAROLINA’S MINI-TRUMP ON THE BALLOT Mark Robinson’s dark quest to be elected MAGA governor He proudly hates the way Donald Trump hates and he lies the way Trump lies.

The Republican Party under Trump, which in recent years has fielded extreme right-wing candidates so slavishly devoted to their leader that they even dress like him and parrot his every bigoted, mal-informed word, outdid themselves when the North Carolina GOP nominated Mark Robinson, the state’s one-term lieutenant governor, for governor in the March primary. He faces Attorney General Josh Stein, who won the Democratic primary. Two face it each other in the November election.

Robinson’s list of people he despises is a long and esteemed one and includes everyone from Michelle Obama to the survivors of the Parkland school shooting. He’s called the LGBTQ community “filth.” He threatened to use his AR-15 against the government if it “gets too big for its britches,” and he wants to outlaw all abortions as well as return to a time when women couldn’t vote. He’s also ridiculed the Me Too movement, women generally, and climate change.

It seems Robinson is willing to entertain all manner of conspiracy theories, too. He’s a Holocaust denier and has a history of antisemitic remarks. He’s suggested that the 1969 moon landing might have been fake, that 9/11 was an “inside job,” that the music industry is run

by Satan, and that billionaire Democratic donor George Soros orchestrated the Boko Haram kidnappings of school girls in 2014.

But in spite of all of this, Robinson has not only been able to win his party’s nomination for the state’s most powerful position, but he did so by a margin of more than 45 percent over his rivals. The other Republican candidates, trial lawyer Bill Graham and state treasurer Dale Folwell, raised concerns about Robinson’s electability, but ultimately neither could compete with his name recognition nor his MAGA bona fides in a state that twice voted for Trump.

North Carolina has seen a politician like Robinson before: Jesse Helms, the deceased former Republican senator and culture warrior before the term existed, whose deeply conservative beliefs put him outside of the broader American mainstream. Helms was known for his staunch opposition to civil rights initiatives — including the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and affirmative action policies — as well as abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and international aid programs, which he maligned during his time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as “pouring money down foreign rat holes.”

Democrats are hoping to capitalize on Robinson’s extremism, much as they did in 2022 when they defeated a slate of extreme right-wing candidates across the country.

Robinson’s nomination suggests that GOP primary voters have no interest in kowtowing to electability concerns in a battleground state that is narrowly split by party affiliation.

Morgan Jackson, a Democratic strategist based in North Carolina who is advising the Stein campaign, acknowledged that it will likely be a tough election given how closely divided the state is between the two parties.

However, he also argued that the voters who are likely to swing the election aren’t interested in engaging in culture wars and chasing conspiracy theories, but rather in issues such as jobs, education, and keeping communities safe.

“[Robinson’s] views are inconsistent with mainstream voters,” said Paul Shumaker, a GOP strategist based in North Carolina. “General elections are won in the middle in [North Carolina] and he will not be able to capture that group. I expect him to be an island to himself by the time November rolls around.”

In that sense, Robinson might function as an ideal foil for Democrats — not just in the governor’s race, but also in the presidential and down-ballot races. Robinson, the poster boy for contemporary MAGA craziness, may yet be the Democrats‘ ace in the hole, both in North Carolina and nationwide.

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THE UNIVERSAL APPEAL - AND DANGER - OF “SOVEREIGN CITIZEN”

An Illegal, False and Kooky Subsection of MAGA

By Christine Sarteschi Reprinted from TheConversation.com, June 17, 2024 In May 2024, an Oklahoma man was arrested and charged with kidnapping and murdering two women, becoming the fifth member of an antigovernment group called “God’s Misfits” to face such charges.

With the investigation still underway, details about God’s Misfits remain scarce. The group’s members may be part of the so-called “sovereign citizen” movement – people who believe they owe no allegiance to any government and are not required to obey laws.

My research into sovereign citizens has found they have long been active in the U.S. and other countries. At the core of their beliefs is the denial of the government’s legitimacy. They commonly do not register their vehicles, acquire driver’s licenses or car insurance, or pay taxes. And they pose a significant threat to the public.

Harassment and abuse One threat they pose is “paper terrorism,” which involves harassing public officials with legal threats to intimidate them. Sometimes officials are targeted because they arrested or prosecuted someone from the movement.

This method involves filing fake deeds and liens against public officials the sovereign citizens think wronged them. County recorders are sounding the alarm.

This type of act – a form of fraud that can be illegal – is rare nationwide but common in some places, local and federal officials have said.

For instance, in 2023, a New Mexico man allegedly filed a US$20 million lien against property owned by federal employees he believed were connected with the termination of his Social Security benefits. All told, he has allegedly filed $1 billion in false liens against federal employees.

Federal prosecutors have charged him with retaliating against a federal employee by making a false claim. Court documents identify the man as a sovereign citizen who describes himself as a “private attorney general.” He is awaiting trial.

More violent threats The FBI considers sovereign citizens a domestic terrorism threat.

In April 2024, a Utah man was charged in federal court with stalking after allegedly telling staff at the Salt Lake County Recorder’s Office that they had committed treason and the penalty was death.

Court documents show that the man has identified himself as a “sovereign citizen” and made quasi-legal claims that prosecutors characterize as arguments commonly used by sovereign citizens – claims that were dismissed by a judge as “frivolous and without merit.” Trial is set to begin July 1, 2024.

Killings Sovereign citizens have killed police officers and civilians. Darrell Brooks, who represented himself in court as a sovereign citizen, was found guilty in October 2022 of killing six people when he drove an SUV through a Christmas parade.

In April 2024, two police officers in Florida investigated a report of a man in a vehicle in a public park after the park’s closing time. The person identified himself as a “Moorish sovereign citizen,” a type of sovereign citizen who claims that people of African American descent are not subject to U.S. law because of a 1787 treaty between the U.S. and Morocco, which says nothing of the sort.

During the confrontation that ensued, the man allegedly shot and wounded the officers before being killed by police.

A new subgroup Over the past several years, a new variation of sovereign citizens has emerged, known as American State Nationals. In my research, I learned that they have been congregating on social media and gathering at seminars.

Their leaders teach traditional sovereign citizen ideology along with new methods that supposedly let them live outside the law.

For instance, leaders teach their followers that driver’s licenses, marriage licenses, Social Security cards, car registrations and voter registrations are “contracts with the government,” which to them form the basis for requirements that they obey laws.

American State Nationals are urged to cancel or rescind these documents by filling out a set of forms, which are sold by the seminar leaders for about $250, in addition to the $150 seminar fee. Then they are told to submit the documents to county recorders and even the U.S. State Department. They are told that doing so will remove them from the reach of the U.S. government.

Paul Grice, the fifth member of God’s Misfits to be arrested in that Oklahoma kidnapping and murder case, reportedly sent his packet of paperwork by certified mail to Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state.

Perhaps paradoxically, American State Nationals are also told to acquire a federal document that group members call a “noncitizen national passport.”

They believe this document gives them many special privileges, including no longer being a U.S. citizen and having immunity from U.S. laws. They believe this even though U.S. law applies to everyone within the borders of the U.S. In reality, this document does none of what they think it does. The document, officially called a “Certificate of Non Citizen Nationality,” is really for use by people born in one of several U.S. possessions, such as American Samoa.

Directly contrary to what sovereign citizens think, the document certifies that its bearer does “owe permanent allegiance to the United States.”

Sovereign citizens’ beliefs have yet to hold up in any court of law in the U.S. or overseas. As an Australian law school lecturer said of a case involving a sovereign citizen in Australia, “No court in Australia, no court in the U.S., Canada, anywhere that I’ve seen, has ever accepted the legal arguments raised by sovereign citizens.”

Dejaune Anderson, a self-declared sovereign citizen, is accused of neglecting her 5-year-old son so badly that he died of dehydration. Her trial is pending.

Traffic stops can be especially dangerous for police because sovereign citizens often will not comply with officers’ basic commands. At times, this tendency can lead to violence.

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The Hustle

Original Gangstas

The Most Notorious Black Mobsters of All Time The history of black organized crime in the United States goes back as far as the 1920s, and perhaps a bit further than that on closer inspection. Names like the Harlem numbers racket, Chicago Outfit, Madame Stephanie St.Clair, Bumpy Johnson, Black Mafia, and others mentioned in the article are just but a few notable marks of the rise of illegal, organized activity in America in the early 20th Century. Cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit received a significant number of black people during the Great Migration, and would soon become some of the most notorious crimefilled cities.

Numerous factors have often been cited as contributors to the rise of black organized crime. These include economic disparity, unemployment, poverty, and the resultant desire to acquire a better life at any cost. It’s hard to point to one specific definitive cause. Nonetheless, these events remain a critical part of history. Here are the 10 things to know about Black organized crime from the 1920s until now.

1. Millions of African Americans moved from the rural South to cities during the Great Migration Considered one of the largest in American history, the Great Migration (1910-1970) saw the movement of approximately six million African Americans from the rural South to cities in the North and Midwest. Several factors played a role in this, including the increased demand for industrial labor in the cities during World War I, and the deeply rooted, legalized racism in the South. The latter had enacted the repressive Jim Crow segregationist laws, and historians have alluded that Blacks were also fleeing from this. Although racism was not legalized in the North, it was still prevalent in daily interactions. Settlement in cities amidst all

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these difficulties set the stage for the emergence of organized crime in the search for a better life.

2. The Prohibition era contributed to the rise of illegal activity A prohibitionist movement rose in the early 19th century, and at the center of this was a call to illegalize alcohol.

Prohibitionists, led by pietistic Protestants believed that it was critical to salvaging a society ridden with alcohol-related problems. In 1919, the 18th amendment was passed, and the Volstead Act was enacted, effectively banning alcoholic drinks. From 1920 until its repeal in 1933, the policy was in effect. Interestingly, however, illegal production and sale of alcohol thrived during that period.

People still wanted to take alcohol, the prohibition notwithstanding. This demand created fertile ground for bootlegging, which is the smuggling of alcohol, and speakeasies, which were illegal businesses dealing with alcohol. The Blacks equally engaged in these lucrative activities. They were however just the beginning of the rise of more complex, organized crime groups that would diversify illegal activities.

3. Organized crime groups soon emerged in major cities The cities of New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia received a significant increase in the Black population.

Segregation persisted in most neighborhoods, creating tightly-knit Black communities. In Harlem, New York, for example, the settlement of Blacks and the moving away of a good number of whites effectively made the area a Black community neighborhood. Soon enough, illegal gambling, in addition to bootlegging and speakeasies became a

means of earning a livelihood. Organized crime groups, consequently emerged.

4. The numbers racket became popular among Black and Italian communities The numbers game was a type of illegal gambling in which players would select three random digits and winning would depend on whether the digits matched those randomly drawn the next day. It spread like wildfire in the early 1920s and 1930s, especially among relatively poor neighborhoods. Enterprises running the numbers rackets emerged in major cities such as Chicago, New York, and Detroit. In New York, Harlem, which had become one of the most African American populated areas, was the hub of the numbers racket. It goes without saying that those in charge of the game included Blacks, with some of the big names being Stephanie St. Clair and Ellsworth ‘Bumpy’ Johnson.

5. The Harlem numbers racket was one of the biggest Black organized illegal enterprises There were about thirty policy banks in Harlem by 1925, as recorded in Francis A. Ianni’s book, ‘Black Mafia: Ethnic Succession in Organized Crime. Independent policy bankers such as Stephanie St. Clair (Queen of the Policy Rackets) and Casper Holstein largely oversaw the running of the numbers rackets in Harlem. St. Clair is considered one of the most successful numbers game operators in Harlem at the time, and her resilience against Mafia control is notable.

She ran a number of those, and the Harlem numbers racket was one of the most successful Black organized illegal enterprises.

6. Forms of crime diversified in the 1960s The emergence of gangs such as the Black Mafia in Philadelphia followed the expansion of illegal activity into drug trafficking, extortion, and prostitution. This was during

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the early 1960s, and the drug trade was booming. The use of intimidation and violence to instill fear and compliance by extortionist groups became the norm.

7. The crack epidemic led to an increase in violent gangs A heroin epidemic in the 1970s saw the rise of gangs who dealt in the illegal smuggling and trafficking of the drug. At the same time, the rivalry between gangs fighting for control over territories intensified. Gangs like Crips and Bloods were known for their ruthless manner of operation, and violence associated with the drug trade.

8. Narcotic empires grew massively in the 1970s Black drug lords and kingpins such as Frank Matthews (Black Caesar) and Frank Lucas rose quickly from the criminal underworld, establishing million-dollar drug empires.

The level of organization was not only largescale but also impressively coordinated across and within borders. Numerous black

youths worked in these rings for the drug lords, and equally, many were trapped in drug abuse as well.

9. The Black Mafia was one of the most notorious gangs in Philadelphia This was one of the biggest crime syndicates involved in drug trafficking in Philadelphia.

At its peak in the 1970s, its operations cut across South Jersey, Chester, Delaware, and Wilmington. It was involved in drug trafficking, particularly heroin, armed robbery, extortion, prostitution, racketeering, gambling, and other illegal activities. Its alleged founder, Samuel Christian, was a former Black Panther Party member. The gang used violence and intimidation to prevent people from reporting its activities to the police.

It is recorded to have carried out over 40 murders and other infamous crimes. One of the most infamous, well-known acts of violence by the Black Mafia is the 1973 Hanafi Muslim Massacre, in which the gang

murdered 7 Sunni Muslims, 5 of whom were children. At the time, the mafia was affiliated with the Nation of Islam, and the target of the attack was Hamaas Abdul, who had called their leader, Elijah Muhammad, a false prophet.

10. Law enforcement officers have often been accused of racial profiling and unwarranted violence in combating crime Major crackdowns by law enforcement officers have been undertaken over the years in a bid to terminate the operation of organized criminal cartels and gangsters. Some of the approaches taken such as the use of intense violence and procedures taken in combating black organized crime have been marred with controversy. Issues such as racial profiling, and the incarceration of innocent black youths in such crackdowns have been a persistent concern to date. However, black organized crime has relatively reduced over the years as compared to its emergence in the early 19th century.

From Purity, posted on discoverwalks.com March 26, 2023

STEPHANIE ST. CLAIR

STEPHANIE ST. CLAIR (LEFT), A RARE FEMALE GANGSTER WHO ROSE TO THE TOP OF ORGANIZED CRIME, WAS KNOWN AS THE “QUEEN OF THE POLICY RACKETS” FOR HER CONTROL OF THE LUCRATIVE NUMBERS GAMES IN HARLEM. THE PROLIFICATION OF HIGH CALIBER HANDGUNS LIKE THE GLOCK (TOP) ADDED TO THE ILLEGAL MASS PRODUCTION OF CRACK COCAINE (BOTTOM) MADE THE 1980S A PARTICULARLY BLOODY DECADE FOR URBAN GANG VIOLENCE WHICH SUBSEQUENTLY CAME TO THE SUBURBS.

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THE BIG BAD TEN

Originally published by Purity on March 2023 and Updated by Beatrice J on March 2024

The criminal underworld of America’s notorious crime cities in the 1960s and ’70s saw the rise of some of the most notorious gangsters of all time. New York, Detroit, Chicago, and Philadelphia are some of the most cited cities when it comes to the history of Black organized crime.

Syndicates such as The Council, headed by Nicky Barnes, and Philadelphia’s Black Mafia, led by Samuel Christian were involved in illegal activities such as drug trafficking and illegal gambling, just to mention a few. Black gangsters ran these enterprises, while others operated majorly as independent associates in the world of crime.

Known for their often under-handed tactics, violence, and use of control to effectively operate in their territories, and flashy lifestyles for some, history takes note of these 10 most famous Black gangsters of all time.

10. Raymond Washington Raymond was a crime boss in South Los Angeles, and co-founder of the Crips gang, alongside ‘Tookie’ Williams. As a kid, he is said to have had an affinity for fist-fighting, and he was being expelled from schools frequently. As youth crime intensified in most of South Central neighborhoods in the late 1960s, many young teens ganged up to form affiliations such as the Chain Gang and Acey Ducey.

Washington joined The Avenues but would soon leave it after a confrontation with its leader to form his own. In 1971, having heard of Tookie’s reputation as a vicious street fighter in South Central, he proposed that they unify all small gangs in the area, an idea that culminated in the formation of the Crips.

The Crips soon became the largest street gang around, and a rival gang comprising the rest that wouldn’t join them formed the Bloods. This rivalry was soon out of control, leading to a surge in violent crime. It only got worse when their leadership fell away, with Washington’s imprisonment for robbery in 1974, and Tookie’s drug addiction making him lose effective control over the gang.

Released on parole in 1976, Washington realized that he had lost his influence over the Crips, and resolved to distance himself. He was shot in a driveby shooting 3 years later on August 9, 1979. His murder remains unsolved.

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9. Samuel Christian

Samuel Christian, also known as Suleiman Bey, was born in Philadelphia on March 20, 1939. He is known as the founder of the notorious Philadelphia Black Mafia, a crime syndicate that was involved in drug trafficking, armed robbery, illegal gambling, racketeering, and several murders.

It is estimated that Christian formed the group in 1968, and by the early 1970s, the Black Mafia was largely operating the heroin trade throughout Philadelphia. He was a former Black Panther Party member, and he changed his name after joining the Nation of Islam, a religious, political, and

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‘black nationalist’ organization formed in 1930 by Wallace Fard Muhammad.

Many of the members of the Black Mafia soon joined and converted to Islam, giving the gang the nickname, ‘the Muslim Mob’. It is regarded as one of the most ruthless, and violent crime organizations for its coldblooded manner of operations in keeping civilians in check. Christian was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, being a suspect in the 1972 murder of Tyrone Palmer, and Major Coxson in 1973. He was however not convicted for lack of evidence. He died on March 6, 2016.

8. Ellsworth ‘Bumpy’ Johnson Born in 1905, in Charleston, South Carolina, he was one of the main crime bosses in Harlem, New York. Bumpy is the nickname he earned from a bump on the back of his head.

From a tender age, he is said to have had bitterness and hatred against whites, especially after his brother was accused of killing a white man.

Lynching in the South was not uncommon at the time, and his mum, afraid of such occurrence raised some money and sent him to live with his sister in Harlem, in 1919.

Having dropped out of high school, he began working shady deals, and soon, gangster William Hewett took note of him.

Johnson would soon get swallowed up in the world of crime, having begun working for him.

By 1930, he was a master player in the numbers racket in Harlem, becoming a principal associate of the ‘Numbers Queen’, Madame Stephanie St. Clair. When a rival war flared up between them and another crime boss in New York at the time, Dutch Schultz, things got quite messy.

More than 40 were killed, and several kidnappings were done. In 1952, Johnson was convicted of a drug conspiracy related to heroin. He was to serve 15 years, the majority of which he spent in Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay. He was released in 1963 on parole and died of heart failure in 1968.

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7. Big Meech Demetrius Flenory, widely known as “Big Meech,” etched his name into the annals of American crime history as the co-founder of the Black Mafia Family (BMF), a notorious drug trafficking organization that rose to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Born in 1968, Meech and his brother Terry Flenory built BMF into a sprawling criminal empire, establishing influence not only in their hometown of Detroit but also reaching into other major cities across the United States.

Under Big Meech’s leadership, BMF gained notoriety for its extravagant lifestyle, marked by flashy cars, luxury properties, and connections to the music industry. The organization was implicated in large-scale drug distribution, money laundering, and racketeering activities. The Flenory brothers’ ability to blend street operations with an ostentatious display of wealth made BMF a unique and influential force in the world of organized crime.

Under Big Meech’s leadership, BMF gained notoriety for its extravagant lifestyle, marked by flashy cars, luxury properties, and connections to the music industry. The organization was implicated in large-scale drug distribution, money laundering, and racketeering activities. The Flenory brothers’ ability to blend street operations with an ostentatious display of wealth made BMF a unique and influential force in the world of organized crime.

In 2008, the empire crumbled when both Big Meech and Terry were convicted on federal charges related to drug trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering. Big Meech is currently serving his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Sheridan in Oregon.

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6. Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams is perhaps one of the most infamous gangsters in America, associated with intense violence, spree killing, and terrorizing tactics. Together with Raymond Washington, he co-founded the notorious Crips gang in Los Angeles, the first major Black street gang in America. Born and raised in South Central, Williams grew up in a crime-filled environment.

He easily began to engage in street fights as a child, watching adults abuse drugs, gamble and bet on such fights. He became a famous, cold-blooded street fighter by the time he was a teen, gaining a reputation in the neighborhood. After several counts of juvenile crime and serving time in prison, Williams was approached by Raymond Washington, and the two ended up forming the Crips.

They assimilated smaller gangs, and those who refused to give up their independence soon formed the Bloods. The latter became their biggest rival. Although Williams’ intention, as he later stated, was to ‘cleanse the neighborhood by taking out gangs’, he would soon be proved wrong following the ugly rival gang violence that ensued.

The Crips had become the very devil he had sought to eliminate. Williams was convicted in 1981 of murder and robbery, and sentenced to death. Up to his execution, he appealed and maintained his innocence to no avail. The fairness of the trial is controverted, and it spurred quite a debate about the death penalty. Williams was executed by lethal injection on December 13, 2005. He was 52 years old.

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5. Jeff Fort Jeff Fort, a name synonymous with the tumultuous underbelly of Chicago , emerged as a notorious figure in the realm of organized crime during the latter half of the 20th century. Born in 1947, Fort founded the Black P. Stones gang in the early 1960s, establishing a formidable presence on the streets of Chicago’s South Side. His early life in poverty and a turbulent environment became the crucible for the creation of a gang that would leave an indelible mark on the city.

Under Fort’s leadership, the Black P. Stones evolved into a powerful force involved in a spectrum of criminal activities, including drug trafficking, racketeering, and acts of violence. The gang’s influence extended beyond Chicago, reaching other major cities, cementing Fort’s status as a significant player in the national landscape of organized crime.

Fort’s notoriety took a darker turn when he became entangled in political intrigue. In the 1980s, he was convicted on federal charges related to conspiring with Libya to perform acts of domestic terrorism, a shocking revelation that highlighted the intersection of street gangs and international politics.

Fort was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to 80 years in prison. He was later convicted of ordering a murder and sentenced to an additional 75 years in prison. Fort is currently serving his sentence at the ADX Florence, a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

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4. Larry Hoover

Larry Hoover, born in 1950 on the South Side of Chicago, gained notoriety as the founder and leader of the Gangster Disciples, a major street gang in the city. The gang emerged from the merging of two different Chicagobased gangs: the Black Disciples and the Supreme Gangsters. Under his leadership, the gang expanded its influence and engaged in various criminal activities, including drug trafficking, extortion, and violence.

Hoover’s influence extended beyond typical gang dynamics. While presenting a hardened image as a criminal mastermind, he also portrayed himself as a community organizer, working to provide social programs within the Gangster Disciples. This duality added complexity to his public image. Moreover, Hoover played a pivotal role in the formation of the Folk Nation alliance, uniting various street gangs under common symbols and ideologies, demonstrating his strategic vision and influence in shaping the gang landscape.

Despite his imprisonment in 1973 on murder charges, Larry Hoover continued to exert control over the Gangster Disciples from behind bars, highlighting the enduring impact of his criminal enterprise. In 1997, Hoover faced federal charges, including conspiracy to engage in racketeering.

The charges accused him of running the Gangster Disciples from prison and participating in illegal activities. As a result, he was sentenced to an extended period of incarceration in the supermax prison, ADX Florence, known for housing high-profile and dangerous criminals. His attempts to appeal have been unsuccessful.

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3. Leroy “Nicky” Barnes/ Guy Thomas Fisher In prison, he turned informant, claiming that he had discovered that The Council was mismanaging his assets and that Guy Fisher, one of his men, was having an affair with his mistress. Barnes implicated about 109 names, including all the Council members. He was taken under the Witness Protection Program and died in 2012 from cancer.

Fisher was born on July 21, 1947, in The Bronx, New York. He was part of The Council, an organized crime syndicate headed by Nicky Barnes. The operation handled most of the heroin trafficking in Harlem, New York City from 1972 to 1983. The trade brought in millions of dollars, and Fisher even purchased the Apollo Theater in 1977, becoming the first black man to own and run it.

When Nicky Barnes was convicted in 1978, he became a federal informant, implicating his associates and partners, which led to multiple convictions. Guy Fisher was one of them. He was charged with drug trafficking, murder, criminal conspiracy, and racketeering, and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1984. He was however released from federal conspiracy on a medical pardon on October 28, 2020.

Founder of The Council, a Black organized Gallo taught him the trade of trafficking. crime syndicate, Nicky Barnes has been nicknamed ‘The Untouchable’ for his sneaky Once released, Barnes started recruiting his tactics in evading arrests and defeating personnel for the packaging and sale of charges on numerous occasions. His heroin. In 1972, he formed the Council, which operation was involved in an international was made up of 7 men, including Guy Fisher drug trafficking ring, and he had partnershipsand Wallace Rice. Four years later, Barnes’s with the Italian-American Mafia. Majorly operation had spread into Pennsylvania and based and active in New York City, Barnes is Canada. To launder money, he set up front considered to have been a dominant drug companies such as car dealerships. lord in Harlem, where he was born.

His extravagant spending is evidenced by the At a young age, he left home, escaping his over $7 million worth of clothing that he abusive alcoholic father, and eventually owned, according to a New York Times article. turning to drug dealing to sustain himself. He When Barnes finally got indicted and was imprisoned in 1965 for drugs, and in convicted in 1978 on drug-related charges, prison, he met ‘Crazy’ Joe Gallo, a member of things would take quite a turn. the Colombo crime family. It is alleged that

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2. Frank Lucas Frank Lucas was one of the main crime bosses in Harlem, New York in the late 1960s, also dealing in the heroin trafficking business. He started interacting with petty crimes at a young age, setting an establishment on fire at one time. This event necessitated his escape from his home in La Grange, North Carolina to New York City, in fear of imprisonment or a lynching. In the city, he continued a life of crime and soon realized that to become filthy rich, he would have to cut off the middlemen and break the monopoly of the Italian mafia in New York over the heroin trade.

Lucas met his soon-to-be associate, former U.S. Army sergeant Leslie Ike Atkinson on a visit to Bangkok. The two smuggled drugs in furniture directly from Asia, and Lucas is said to have made about $52 million. He bought numerous properties all over the country and owned expensive clothing, cars, and homes.

He was indicted in 1976, and sentenced to 70 years. He later agreed to be an informant and was placed in the Witness Protection Program. The 2007 movie, American Gangster, is loosely based on his life, and he is portrayed by Denzel Washington.

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1. Frank Matthews

Sometimes referred to as ‘Black Caesar’ or ‘Pee Wee’, Frank Matthews is one of the most famous Black gangsters in America. He was involved in the large-scale heroin and cocaine drug trade from 1965 until his disappearance in 1973. Spotting an extravagant lifestyle in his prime, he is estimated to have had $20 million in savings at the time of his disappearance. Born in Durham, North Carolina in 1944, Frank lost his mother at age 4 and went on to live with his aunt.

He left school in 7th grade and by age 14 he was already leading a gang of his teenage friends in chicken theft. He later moved to Philadelphia, earning a living as a ‘numbers’ writer. It was in Philadelphia that he made contacts such as Major Coxson and some of the members of the Black Mafia, who would later become his drug connections in the city.

Determined to make more money, and tired of the numbers gambling games, he started dealing heroin around 1965. At the time, the American Mafia controlled the main heroin supply. Frank began a business relationship with a Cuban Mafia boss, Rolando Gonzalez, who operated mostly in New York. Gonzalez would send him cocaine and heroin from South America for sale in Miami, New York, and New Jersey.

When Gonzalez retired from the business and later died in 1992, Frank took it all up and expanded his networks with such incredible prowess and speed that by the early 1970s, his operation was handling millions of dollars in loads of heroin. He had two vast drug mills in Brooklyn; the Ponderosa and the OK Corral.

The Drug Enforcement Administration affirmed that Frank’s operation handled everything heroin in all major cities on the East Coast. He was finally indicted in December 1972 and charged with tax evasion and the distribution of heroin. Expected to show up in court on July 2, 1973, Frank never did. To this date, nothing about his whereabouts has been conclusively confirmed.

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Jocks sistas are doing it for themselves

The WNBA Finally Gets Its Shot

By Kristen Jones The WNBA has become a household name in this day and age. Some may even say a “roar”.

Crazy to believe that until fairly recently it was so unheard of that it wasn't even a whisper.

The Women's National Basketball Association, founded April 24, 1996, is based in New York City . The league is composed of 12 teams, with 13 teams being projected for 2025 and 14 teams in 2026. Formed as the counterpart to the men’s National Basketball Association, the regular season goes from May until September. (By comparison, the regular NBA season lasts for six months, running ftom late October to mid-April.) The new league first tipped off in 1997. It started out with eight teams, and after going through a lot of upheavals including relocations, it currently has 12. The leagues All Star game is played midway through the season in July (except in Olympic years) and the WNBA Finals begin at the end of September and last until the beginning of October. At the initial announcement of the league’s formation, the press conference was attended by the WNBA’s founding players, Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie, and Sheryl Swoopes.

The new WNBA initially had to compete with the recently formed American Basketball League (ABL), another professional women's basketball league that began play in the fall of 1996 but would cease operation during its 1998–99 season. The WNBA began with eight teams: the Charlotte Sting, Cleveland Rockers, Houston Comets, and New York Liberty in the Eastern Conference; and the Los Angeles Sparks, Phoenix Mercury, Sacramento Monarchs, and Utah Starzz in the Western Conference.

National Team at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, the WNBA began its first season on June 21, 1997. The first WNBA game featured the New York Liberty facing the Los Angeles Sparks in Los Angeles. The Liberty beat the Sparks, 67-57. Penny Toler scored the league's first point.

The game was televised nationally in the United States on the NBC television network. At the start of the 1997 season, the WNBA had television deals in place with NBC, the Walt Disney Company and Hearst Corporation’s joint venture channels, ESPN and Lifetime Television Network. The current network rights holder to WNBA games includes Disney, Amazon Prime Video, and NBCUniversal. Disney now owns ABC and ESPN, and will show games on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and stream them on ESPN's upcoming direct-to-consumer service.

Amazon Prime Video will broadcast nearly two dozen WNBA games in the United States every season. The WNBA is also in negotiations with other potential media rights holders.

As of 2023, the NBA owns 50% of the WNBA, while the 12 WNBA teams collectively own the other 50%. This shared ownership underscores the NBA’s commitment to women’s basketball.

The league celebrated its 28th year in 2024 and in that time it has created some of the most memorable moments in women’s basketball history. Houston was able to sink the league’s first four championships thanks to the “Big Three”, Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes, and Tina Thompson. The Comets then went on to gain a 98-24 regular season record and 16-2 playoff record. After failing to win over Houston in the playoffs, On the heels of a much-publicized gold medal the Los Angeles Sparks emerged victorious winning back to back titles led by MVP Lisa run by the 1996 USA Basketball Women's

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Leslie with help from other plsyers.

In 2003 the Detroit Shock became the first team in American pro sports to go from having the worst record in the league, winning only nine out of 23 games, to becoming league champions the following year. Sacramento Monarchs won its first and only WNBA title in franchise history in 2005 thanks to the playing of their MVP Yolanda Griffith. That was also the year that the best of five format for the Finals was started with the Monarchs beating the Connecticut Sun three games to one. Four teams have gone on to win three titles utilizing the pivotal skills of Diana Taurasi, Cappie Pondexter and Britney Griner.

Throughout it’s history, the WNBA has drafted, created, and bred legendary league players.

The list of top WNBA players off all time includes current and former players. Current iconic players include Sue Bird, Tina Charles, Elena Delle Donne, Sylvia Fowles, Brittney Griner, Angel McCoughtry, Nneka Ogwumike, Candace Parker, Breanna Stewart and Diana Taurasi. The retired players who made the list are Seimone Augustus, Swin Cash, Tamika Catchings, Cynthia Cooper, Yolanda Griffith, Becky Hammon, Lauren Jackson, Lisa Leslie, Maya Moore, Ticha Penicheiro, Cappie Pondexter, Katie Smith, Sheryl Swoopes, Tina Thompson and Lindsay Whalen. These BRITNEY GRINER phenomenal women are each influential in their own right and have continued to strive for greatness. They comprise the 15 best and most influential players of the first fifteen years of the WNBA, on the basis of sportsmanship, community service, leadership and contribution to the growth of women's basketball.

The 2024 season of the sport has captivated audiences nationwide with the addition of standout college athletes like Angel Reese,

BEST PLAYERS IN THE LEAGUE, 2022* BREANNA STEWART

JONQUEL JONES

A’JA WILSON

*AS RANKED BY CBS SPORTS

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Caitlin Clark, Rickea Jackson, Aaliyah Edwards, and Cameron Brink. This year’s class came with much-deserved buzz, sparking excitement around the basketball community and standing as a testament to the growth and advancement of women’s basketball.

Even with there being an Olympic break this year as the U.S. women’s basketball team chases its eighth straight gold medal in Paris, ladies are putting up numbers that are better or more comparable to their male counterparts. After a thrilling and historic women’s college basketball season, the WNBA was poised and ready to carry the momentum and unprecedented hype around the sport to new levels.

Heading into the WNBA draft, Rickea Jackson was labeled as the most pro-ready prospect in this year’s draft class and has played a big role this season with the Los Angeles Sparks.

There were a lot of unknowns about how the Chicago Sky would look at full strength under coach Teresa Witherspoon, but after drafting Reese and Cardoso, the future is bright for the Windy City. Angel Reese has been pitched as the “rival” of Iowa’s Caitlin Clark who was the league’s first round draft pick. Reese, a native of Maryland has continued to be a LISA LESLIE powerhouse in the sport from her LSU days to now in Chicago. Reese was the seventh player drafted to the WNBA. Throughout her career, Reese’s boastful play has created controversy. Her different style of play has brought more attention to the game. (She has become a mentee of Shaquille “Shaq” O’Neal, a known powerhouse in the NBA after he attended an American Football game at LSU.) The two have gone head to head in matchups that rival the likes of Earvin “Magic” Johnson (LA Lakers) and Larry Bird (Boston Celtics) or Shaquille “Shaq” O’Neal (LA Lakers) and Tim Duncan (San Antonio Spurs).

The top five players this season are Aja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces, Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones of the New York Liberty, Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun and Naphessa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx.

Women’s basketball is more popular than ever, shattering records with the highest viewership numbers for the 2024 WNBA draft and selling more tickets for regular season

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games than ever before. Following the first full month of the 2024 season, the WNBA announced that games on ANBC, ESPN, ESPN2, CBS, ION and NBA TV averaged 1.32 million viewers, almost tripling the totals from the 2023 season. With growing media coverage and fan engagement, the excitement around the WNBA continues to reach new heights.

You can watch the WNBA on several different channels and streaming platforms. If you’re having trouble streaming a specific game it’s because the game is probably blacked out in your region.

The future and growth of the league have been front and center with a new franchise reportedly coming to Toronto in 2026, following the new expansion team coming to the Bay Area in 2025. When it comes to revenue, the WNBA has recently raised $75 million in capital. Talks of contract increases are in the works and for now the league is definitely BIG business.

Many sports enthusiasts have come to see the value in women’s pro basketball; with that has grown a genuine love for its players overall. There's just so much excitement and so much to look forward to that this is going to be an incredible opportunity for women's basketball fans to really see this league play some of the best games they have ever seen.

On National Girls and Women in Sports Day, February 7, 2024, the WNBA is announced a formal partnership with Strack’s organization. As part of this partnership, 12 WNBA players will serve as VOICEINSPORT mentors, and over 50,000 girls from around the world will have free access to mentorship services. Keeping girls in sports is critical, not just because its promotes both physical and mental health benefits, but also due to the correlation between participation in sports and longer-term career success.

The 2024 draftees have broken records, garnished media attention and changed the way people think about women’s basketball. These ladies are holding their own on and off the court and showing the world that they are more than ready for the action of the league. They have positioned themselves to be seen as a force to be

reckoned with. They have arrived. They are prepared. And they are here to represent for the Ladies.

The sports world needs more visibility for professional women athletes. They are diverse women in the workforce. We want to make sure we are empowering them every step of the way.

THE WNBA LEAGUE Each WNBA team has a minimum roster size of 11 players and a maximum roster size of 12 players

Year of league championship win in parentheses EASTERN Atlanta Dream Chicago Sky (2021) Connecticut Sun Indiana Fever (2012) New York Liberty Washington Mystics (2019) WESTERN Dallas Wings (as Detroit Shock 2003, 2006, 2008) Las Vegas Aces (2022, 2023) Los Angeles Sparks (2001, 2002, 2016) Minnesota Lynx (2011, 2013, 2015, 2017) Phoenix Mercury (2007, 2009, 2014) Seattle Storm (2004, 2010, 2018, 2020) DEFUNCT Houston Comets (1997-2000) Sacramento Monarchs (2005) Miami Sol Cleveland Rockers Charlotte Sting Portland Fire

LISA LESLIE: THE WNBA’S FOUNDING MOTHER

Lisa Leslie’s impact extends beyond the court, inspiring generations of basketball enthusiasts and leaving an indelible mark on the sport.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS WNBA legend Lisa Deshaun Leslie was the number-seven pick in the inaugural WNBA draft IN 1997.

She joined the Los Angeles Sparks, where she played from 1997 to 2009.

Over her 11-season WNBA career, Leslie achieved: Three WNBA MVP titles.

Eight WNBA All-Star selections.

Two WNBA championships with the Sparks (2001, 2002).

The distinction of being the first player to dunk during a WNBA game in 2002.

ESPN ranked her fifth on their list of the greatest WNBA players of all time in 2021.

International Success: Leslie represented USA Basketball in international competition: She won four Olympic gold medals (1996, 2000, 2004, 2008).

She also secured two FIBA World Championships (1998, 2002).

LEGACY AND RECOGNITION Fans voted her as one of the Top 15 players in WNBA history in 2011.

ESPN further recognized her brilliance by naming her one of the top 100 greatest athletes of the 21st century.

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Big Payday For NCAA Players They Finally Got A Piece Of The Pie

A major change could be coming for college athletes — they may soon start getting paid.

A tentative agreement announced Thursday by the NCAA and the country’s five biggest conferences to a series of antitrust lawsuits could direct millions of dollars directly to athletes as soon as fall 2025.

The nearly $2.8 billion settlement, which would be paid out over the next decade to 14,000 former and current student-athletes, “is an important step in the continuing reform of college sports that will provide benefits to student-athletes and provide clarity in college athletics across all divisions for years to come,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said in a joint statement Thursday night with the commissioners of the ACC, the Big 10, the Big 12, the Pac-12 and the SEC. The federal judge overseeing the case must still sign off on the agreement, but if it is approved, it would signal a major shift in college sports in which students would play for compensation, not just scholarships, exposure and opportunities.

“This landmark settlement will bring college sports into the 21st century, with college athletes finally able to receive a fair share of the billions of dollars of revenue that they generate for their schools,” said Steve Berman, one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs.

“Our clients are the bedrock of the NCAA’s multibilliondollar business and finally can be compensated in an

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equitable and just manner for their extraordinary athletic talents.”

The NCAA and power conferences called the settlement a “road map” that would allow the uniquely American institution to provide unmatched opportunity for millions of students and write the “next chapter of college sports.”

The case, which was set to go to trial early next year, was brought by a former and a current college athlete who said the NCAA and the five wealthiest conferences improperly barred athletes from earning endorsement money. Former Arizona State swimmer Grant House and Sedona Prince, a former Oregon and current TCU basketball player, also contended in their suit that athletes were entitled to a piece of the billions of dollars the NCAA and those conferences earn from media rights agreements with television networks.

Michael McCann, a legal analyst and sports reporter at Sportico, told NBC News in an interview on Top Story with Tom Llamas the case has two components that “move away from amateurism” — one that deals with how players are paid for the past loss of earnings, including money they could have made for name, image and likeness.

From The Associated Press and NBC News, May 23, 2024

Roll of Honor

DO YOU HAVE A NOMINEE FOR THE ROLL OF HONOR? LET US KNOW: EAB@BAVUAL.COM

Dedicated to the Memory of Earl Birkett, 1922-2014 Queenie Birkett, 1923-2023

Bright Lights Dimmed in 2023 Richard Roundtree

RICHARD ARNOLD ROUNDTREE (1942-2023) Actor, Model and Movie Star / USA

ACHIEVEMENTS Portrayed private detective John Shaft in Shaft (1971), Shaft's Big Score! (1972), Shaft in Africa (1973),its 2000 and 2019 sequels as well as the television series (1973–1974).

Also known for featuring in several TV series, including Roots, Generations, and Desperate Housewives.

Considered the 1st black action hero.

His portrayal of Shaft as a bold, confident, and charismatic figure opened doors for black leading men and influenced cinematic depictions of black men and black masculinity, a contrast to black men in films prior to Shaft having often been portrayed as mild-mannered or servile.[ BACKGROUND Born in New Rochelle, New York Attended Southern Illinois University but did not raduate Began his career as a fashion model and Off-Broadway actor

Lorenzo “Lo” Jelks LORENZO “LO” JELKS (1939-2023) Pioneering Atlanta TV News Reporter / USA ACHIEVEMENTS Hired by WSB-TV in 1967 as the 1st black TV reporter in Atlanta, Georgia. For the first year, he was not actually seen on air. Instead, viewers saw the words "Lorenzo Jelks reporting" over a black screen.

During his tenure, which ended in 1976, Jelks notably interviewed former President Jimmy Carter during his 1970 gubernatorial run, which he won, and interviewed Ku Klux Klan leaders before a rally.

Returned to radio by creating WAUC-AM, a station committed to showcasing Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and The AUC Digest, a newspaper serving the Atlanta University Center.

BACKGROUND Started out in radio when he was in high school, hosting a weekly music show in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Graduated Clark College (now known as Clark Atlanta University) and was working as an operations manager at an Atlanta music station when he was contacted by WSB-TV to be a reporter. Station managers told him he was given the job in part because the station needed a black reporter, but that he would not strictly be covering stories related to the black community.

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Hughes Van Ellis

HUGHES VAN ELLIS (2021-2023) Tulsa Race Massacre Survivor / USA

As an infant in 1921 he survived the destruction of Greenwood, a district that was once known as Black Wall Street north of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. Mobs of white people waged a 2-day all-out assault that wiped out the black community.Tulsa was the site of the bloodiest race massacre in U.S. history.

He was one of the last known living survivors until his death at 102.

Known as “Uncle Redd,” he (along with his sister Viola and Lessie Benningfield Randle) spent decades seeking compensation for the massacre — for himself, his family and his community.

Ellis’ plea to "please do not let me leave this earth without justice," did not come to pass: the survivors' lawsuit for reparations was dismissed in 2023 and is currently under review by the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

"We were shown that in the United States, not all men were equal under the law," Ellis said of the legal setbacks. "We were shown that when black voices called out for justice, no one cared."

BACKGROUND Fought for the United States in World War II, serving in an anti-aircraft unit in a segregated U.S. Army.

"We were an all-Black battalion," Ellis said in 2021. "I fought for freedom abroad, even though it was ripped away from me at home, even after my home and my community were destroyed. I did it because I believed, in the end, America would get it right."

Charles Ogletree

CHARLES JAMES OGLETREE JR. (1952-2023) Legal Scholar / USA

ACHIEVEMENTS Served as the Jesse Climenko Professor at Harvard Law School, where he was the founder of the school's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. His area of specialization was clinical legal practice, including "the role of public defenders in society."

Taught both Barack and Michelle Obama at Harvard; he remained close to Barack Obama throughout his political career.

Often appeared on TV news shows and public forums for his vast legal expertise.

Author of books on legal topics.

BACKGROUND Born on in Merced, California, to parents who were farm workers.

Eearned both his BA (1974, with distinction) and MA (1975) in political science from Stanford University and his JD from Harvard Law School in 1978.

While in law school he became president of the Black American Law Students Association (later known as the National Black Law Students Association).

Worked as a public defender in Washington, D.C. As an attorney, he represented such notable figures as Tupac Shakur and Anita Hill.

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Zandra Flemister

ZANDRA IONA FLEMISTER (1951 – 2023) Diplomat and Secret Service Agent / USA

ACHIEVEMENTS Joined the Secret Service in 1974, becoming the first African American woman to serve as an agent. protected the daughters of two U.S. presidents: Susan Ford and Amy Carter.

Experienced intense racial discrimination from fellow agents and supervisors and resigned from the agency in June 1978 to join the United States Foreign Service, retiring in 2011. (The agency settled a class-action racial discrimination lawsuit, based in part on her testimony, for $24 million in 2017.)

Rose to the post of Consul General in Pakistan and represented the State Department in liaison with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Terrorist Screening Center in Washington, D.C. Achieved promotion to the Senior Foreign Service in 2006.

BACKGROUND Born in Frankfurt, Germany, to American parents (her father was in the U.S. Army).

Raised in Connecticut Earned earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Northeastern University in 1973.

Earned a master's degree in national security logistics from the National Defense University in 2003..

Wayne Shorter WAYNE SHORTER (1933-2023) Jazz Saxophonist, Composer and Bandleader / USA ACHIEVEMENTS Came to mainstream prominence in 1959 upon joining Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, for whom he eventually became the primary composer.

In 1964 he joined Miles Davis' Second Great Quintet.

Co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report in 1970.

Recorded more than 20 albums as a bandleader.

Composed the jazz standard Footprints, released in 1966.

Many other compositions have also become jazz standards. His music has earned worldwide recognition, critical praise, universal commendation, and 12 Grammy Awards.

Acclaimed for his mastery of the soprano saxophone.

BACKGROUND Born in Newark, New Jersey.

Graduated from Newark Arts High School in 1952.

Loved comic books and science fiction as well as music while growing up.

Encouraged by his parents to take clarinet lessons at age 16 .

Switched to tenor saxophone prior to enrolling at New York University in 1952.

Graduated from New York University with a degree in music education in 1956, Spent two years in the U.S. Army, during which time he played briefly with Horace Silver. After his discharge, he played with Maynard Ferguson.

In his youth, Shorter had acquired the nickname "Mr. Gone", which later became an album title for Weather Report.

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Roslyn Pope

ROSLYN POPE (1938-2023 Civil Rights Activist and Academic / USA

ACHIEVEMENTS Best remembered as an author of “An Appeal for Human Rights” while the president of the student government at Spelman College. The document launched a nonviolent campaign of boycotts and sit-ins by black college students protesting discrimination not just in voting but in education, jobs, housing, hospitals, movies, concerts, restaurants and law enforcement. The Appeal was first published as a paid advertisement in the Atlanta Constitution in March 1960.

Received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Spelman College in 2013 for her years of service as a civil rights activist and educator.

BACKGROUND Born in Atlanta, Georgia.

Belonged to an all-Black Girl Scout troop and was sent as Georgia's representative to a national camp in Cody, Wyoming, that no black Scout had attended before.

Elected student body president at her segregated Booker T. Washington high school and at college.

Her piano playing at Friendship Baptist Church led to a performance with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and later, a Merrill scholarship to study music during her junior year in Paris, which she says changed her life.

Otis Taylor

OTIS TAYLOR (1942-2023) Pro Football Wide Receiver / USA

ACHIEVEMENTS Wide receiver who played in the American Football League (AFL).

Drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in the fourth round (29th overall) of the 1965 AFL Draft. He was also selected in the 15th round (203rd overall) of the 1965 NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles, but he chose to play in the AFL for the Chiefs where he would spend his entire career, which ended in 1975.

Voted First-team All-AFL and was selected for the 1966 AFL All-Star team. Taylor led the AFL in receiving touchdowns in 1967 and led the NFL in receiving yards in 1971. He made the AFC-NFC Pro Bowl twice and in 1971 was named Consensus All-Pro by the Associated Press (AP), the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), the Pro Football Writers Association (PFWA) and Pro Football Weekly. The PFWA also named him First-team All-Pro for the 1972 season. Taylor ranks in the Chiefs' all-time list in receptions (6th, 410), receiving yards (3rd, 7,306), receiving touchdowns (3rd, 57), and 100-yard games (20).

Most memorable highlight came in the fourth and final AFL-NFL World Championship Game on January 11, 1970. After the Vikings made it a 16–7 game, Taylor caught a quick pass from Len Dawson, escaped a tackle attempt by Earsell Mackbee and ran down the sidelines for a 46yard touchdown to close out the scoring with 82 seconds remaining in the third quarter. The Chiefs won a 23–7 upset over the NFL champion Minnesota Vikings which, prior to Super Bowl IV, had been dubbed by some as "the greatest team in pro football history".

BACKGROUND Born in Houston, Texas.

Played college football for Prairie View A&M University’s Panthers.

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Benediction

I Lost White Friends When I Finally Spoke Out

By LeRon L. Barton

Published in Newsweek, July 26, 2023

Having friendships with different types of people is a wonderful concept. To learn, trade ideas, have great experiences, and grow with folks from all kinds of backgrounds is a goal that I have always wanted to achieve.

As someone who loves gaining knowledge and immersing myself in various customs, it's essential for me to expand my social circle. I have friends who are Black like myself, Chinese, Filipino, Mexican, Italian, Salvadoran, Irish, Indigenous, and Arab. We discuss politics, food, sports, music, traveling, film, and life. I love having a wealth of friends that will bring different perspectives in life, and that I can impart wisdom to as well.

However, race and racism have always been difficult to discuss with white people due to the possibility that they may deflect, or be in denial—which is why the subject of race has been the hardest to broach.

Remembering back as a young kid, my family did not have a lot of white friends. It is not because they didn't like them; my cousin married a white woman. It's just that in Kansas City, Missouri, our social circles did not cross.

My grandparents, mother, and father instilled a lot of Black pride in us. We were taught that everyone is the same, but also that Black is beautiful. For me, that was necessary living in a time that told you that you were the opposite.

My brother and I went to a predominately white school and mostly played with Black kids. Still, like many AfricanAmericans, we welcomed white people and held no malice toward them.

I did not make any white friends until my junior year in high school. We all played sports together, listened to hip-hop, and ate the same food. Plenty of friend groups were integrated, including mine. We had Black, white, Asian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Indigenous folks in our clique.

It was dope to be able to learn, build, and enjoy other cultures.

However, I always noticed there was a difference in how people of color interacted with each other and how my white friends did. There was a warmth in how we hung out. My family

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welcomed them and vice versa.

But when it came to my white friends, I felt there was a ceiling, a stopping point. A lot of the interactions were surface-level and not deep.

I was always race conscious; being in Kansas City does that to you. It was, and continues to be, a very segregated city. Still, I would try to laugh off racist jokes I heard at work and amongst people in social situations.

I can recall during an offsite lunch event, police entered the restaurant and a coworker joked: "Oh they must be looking for you LeRon." They all laughed, and me being the only Black person at the table, brushed it off and tried to laugh along with it.

My white friends and associates would ask me things like: "Do you play basketball? Do you know anyone that sells drugs? Have you ever been in a gang?"

And they even asked if it was okay for them to say the N-word in a rap song.

These were my day-to-day interactions with white people. I am not trying to paint them all as being harmful and bad, but I have to be honest.

Things began to change for me in 2012. Trayvon Martin was murdered and there was this national conversation about race.

Many people had been arguing both sides of the incident.

When I would talk to my white friends about the shooting, the protests, and the uprisings that followed, they would say things

like: "What was he doing out there that late? Do we know for sure if he attacked Zimmerman? Why protest and destroy property?"

It was almost as if the rose-colored glasses I had were flung off.

When unarmed Black men such as Mike Brown and Alton Sterling were killed by the police, I would see negative comments on social media from friends.

Someone that I had known for years had complained about the protests destroying their quiet neighborhood. Other folks would say "All Lives Matter" or "What about Black-on-Black crime?"

These were the same people that loved Michael Jordan, listened to Snoop Dogg, and cheered Ray Lewis as they watched the Super Bowl. It was as if they only consumed Blackness as entertainment, not as people.

Soon after, I began to write about being Black in America. I would call out racism and white supremacy, while explicitly highlighting the inequities of police arrests and shootings, employment, health disparities, and home ownership.

Some white friends noticed my shift in tone and faded away. My televised interviews and podcast appearances became too much for some. I was known as "militant" to a few folks and angry to others.

One friend in particular could not understand why I was so mad. I explained to him it was because as a Black man, if I scare a white woman or make a white law enforcement officer nervous, that could be my life.

He then said: "I don't see you as Black, just as a man." I replied: "That is the problem, you don't want to acknowledge the issue here, racism." He and I stopped talking shortly after.

I was the cool guy when we were going drinking, clubbing, and talking about non-serious things, but when I discuss "The Talk", a conversation that Black parents have with their children on how to survive when they reach a certain age, I am too serious or divisive.

out with Black people?" The young man laughs and says: "I don't have to worry about them being racist." I think about that sometimes.

Today, I have a few white friends that are "grandfathered" in.

Seriously, they are people, such as one of my best friends "Frosty," that I can have serious discussions about racism and how we can change the system. New friends are "vetted."

Writing and discussing race is a very important part of my life. If I have to argue with you about why we are upset when another unarmed Black man is shot by the police, this is not going to work. If I have to explain to you why saying the "N-word" is wrong, cultural appropriation is bad, something innocuous as the slogan "Black Lives Matter" is a positive thing, or why Malcolm X is my personal hero, then this friendship will not work out. I am not teaching "Intro to Blackness 101."

Some reading this may say: "Well LeRon, what if people don't know?

We have to teach them."

To that, I say no.

I believe that Black people live in a country that constantly tries to strangle every bit of self-respect, pride, individuality, love, and life out of them. It is an everyday challenge for us to maintain our mental health.

I ask white people who are well-meaning to practice selfreflection. Interrogate your racist blind spots. Educate yourselves. Fight against the system that oppresses us and others.

Black people do not have enough time in the day to survive and help you become not racist. Being a friend is about accountability and work.

About the Author

LeRon L. Barton is a writer, author, and speaker.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

I realized the ceiling I have with many white people and have accepted it.

I've met other Black people that do not have white friends. While I do not subscribe to nor agree with that thought, I do not judge them.

Being Black, or being any racialized person in a world that tells you you are less than, is hard. Having to justify your existence every day to people you are close to is even harder.

I think back to this quote I read from Stud Terkel's masterful book Race. Terkel is interviewing a young African-American man who does not have white friends. He asks the guy: "Why do you only hang

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