#africans unite

[acepumpkinpatrick]

Hello everyone, I wanna highlight this Sudanese family's campaign.

It is only 5k! and they're half way there but haven't gotten any new donations in 4 days! So please Donate & share, let's help this lovely family out 🫶

For more information and Sudanese fund campaigns to support, kindly check this list

Update:

As of Aug. 30th the goal has been extended to $7k. I would like to remind everyone that this campaign feeds 20 ppl and it has been up for 4 months now and the situation has only gotten worse in Sudan, what with the current destructive floodings and heavy rain.

I ask of you to please continue sharing and donating, while I will focus on other Sudanese campaigns 🙏 thank you all.

Sorry for the tags ♡

@magnus-rhymes-with-swagness @appsa @blackfilmmakers @decolonize-the-everything @lesbianmaxevans @parab0mb @goodguydotmp3

[sitting-on-me-bum]

The African wild ass foal was born at Marwell Zoo in the U.K. on Aug. 20. 

(Image credit: Marwell Zoo)

[reasonsforhope]

"South Carolina is preparing to put up its first individual statue for an African American on its Statehouse lawn, honoring a man who put on Confederate clothes in order to steal a slaveholder’s ship and sail his family and a dozen others to freedom during the Civil War.

But Robert Smalls isn’t just being honored for his audacious escape. He spent a decade in the US House, helped rewrite South Carolina’s constitution to allow Black men equality after the Civil War and then put up a valiant but doomed fight when racists returned to power and eliminated nearly all of the gains Smalls fought for.

State Rep. Jermaine Johnson can’t wait to bring his children to the Statehouse to finally see someone who is Black like them being honored.

“The man has done so many great things, it’s just a travesty he has not been honored until now. Heck, it’s also a travesty there isn’t some big Hollywood movie out there about his life,” said Johnson, a Democrat from a district just a few miles from the Statehouse.

The idea for a statue to Smalls has been percolating for years. But there was always quiet opposition preventing a bill from getting a hearing. That changed in 2024 as the proposal made it unanimously through the state House and Senate on the back of Republican Rep. Brandon Cox of Goose Creek.

“South Carolina is a great state. We’ve got a lot of history, good and bad. This is our good history,” Cox said.

What will the Robert Smalls memorial look like?

The bill created a special committee that has until January 15 to come up with a design, a location on the Statehouse lawn and the money to pay for whatever memorial they choose.

But supporters face a challenging question: What best honors Smalls?

If it’s just one statue, is it best to honor the steel-nerved ship pilot who waited for all the white crew to leave, then mimicked hand signals and whistle toots to get through Confederate checkpoints, while hoping Confederate soldiers didn’t notice a Black man under the hat in the pale moonlight in May 1862?

Or would a more fitting tribute to Smalls be to recognize the statesman who served in the South Carolina House and Senate and the US House after the Civil War? Smalls bought his master’s house in Beaufort in part with money made for turning the Confederate ship over to Union forces, then allowed the man’s penniless wife to live there when she was widowed.

Or is the elder Smalls who fought for education for all and to keep the gains African Americans made during the Civil War the man most worth publicly memorializing? Smalls would see a new constitution in 1895 wipe out African Americans’ right to vote. He was fired from his federal customs collector job in 1913 when then President Woodrow Wilson purged a large number of Black men out of government jobs.

Or would it be best to combine them all in some way? That’s how Republican Rep. Chip Campsen, an occasional ship pilot himself, sees honoring one of his favorite South Carolinians.

“The best way to sum up Robert Smalls’ life is it was a fight for freedom as a slave, as a pilot and as a statesman,” Campsen said."

-via AP, Octtober 23, 2024

[nickysfacts]

This makes Tiana the Princess of Creole Cuisine!

🍽️👩🏾‍🦱👑

[kemetic-dreams]

Anti-literacy laws in many slave states before and during the American Civil War affected slaves, freedmen, and in some cases all people of color. Some laws arose from concerns that literate slaves could forge the documents required to escape to a free state. According to William M. Banks, "Many slaves who learned to write did indeed achieve freedom by this method. The wanted posters for runaways often mentioned whether the escapee could write." Anti-literacy laws also arose from fears of slave insurrection, particularly around the time of abolitionist David Walker's 1829 publication of Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, which openly advocated rebellion, and Nat Turner's Rebellion of 1831.

The United States is the only country known to have had anti-literacy laws.

Significant anti-African laws include:

1829, Georgia: Prohibited teaching Africans to read, punished by fine and imprisonment

1830, Louisiana, North Carolina: passes law punishing anyone teaching Africans to read with fines, imprisonment or floggings 

1832, Alabama and Virginia: Prohibited Europeans from teaching Africans to read or write, punished by fines and floggings

1833, Georgia: Prohibited Africans from working in reading or writing jobs (via an employment law), and prohibited teaching Africans, punished by fines and whippings (via an anti-literacy law)

1847, Missouri: Prohibited assembling or teaching slaves to read or write

Mississippi state law required a white person to serve up to a year in prison as "penalty for teaching a slave to read."

A 19th-century Virginia law specified: "[E]very assemblage of negroes for the purpose of instruction in reading or writing, or in the night time for any purpose, shall be an unlawful assembly. Any justice may issue his warrant to any office or other person, requiring him to enter any place where such assemblage may be, and seize any negro therein; and he, or any other justice, may order such negro to be punished with stripes."

In North Carolina, African people who disobeyed the law were sentenced to whipping while whites received a fine, jail time, or both.

AME Bishop William Henry Heard remembered from his enslaved childhood in Georgia that any slave caught writing "suffered the penalty of having his forefinger cut from his right hand." Other formerly enslaved people had similar memories of disfigurement and severe punishments for reading and writing.

Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee were the only three slave states that did not enact a legal prohibition on educating slaves.

It is estimated that only 5% to 10% of enslaved African Americans became literate, to some degree, before the American Civil War

[fashionsfromhistory]

Wedding Dress of Lollaretta Pemberton Allen 

Pictured with her groom, Grover Allen

1939

National Museum of African American History & Culture

[ongawdclub]

Y a r a

S h a h i d i

[tabney2023]

Michelle Obama and her daughters, Sasha & Malia.

[kaapstadgirly]

Yesterday, here on tumblr, someone reached out to me, seeking help. And now I am here seeking yours. I don't care about your opinions and views. The matter of the fact is that everyone deserves to be treated as human beings, and they deserve the rights of human beings as we all do.

Right now, we have a violation of the LGBTQ+ community in Uganda after its government passed one of the harshest anti-gay laws, which includes punishment by death.

Here are two Al Jazeera articles on this:

1. Displaced twice: Gay Ugandans on the run face upheaval in Kenya

2. Ugandas anti lgbtq law causing wave of rights abuses activists say

Yesterday, @annoyingpaintertragedy (please take a look at their blog) reached out to me regarding this. They mentioned that many of Ugandas lgbtq civilians were forced to flee Uganda to neighboring Kenya. But situations are just as bad in Kenya. They spoke of the Kakuma refugee camps where they now live along with many other refugees.

I myself am just now learning of this. But if you have any information or links of organizations that may help regarding this situation, please send them to me or add them to the reblogs.

[troythecatfish]

Human zoos in the West were a feature of colonialism. They fed a fascination for exotic lands and a grotesque pseudo-science that focussed on the physiology of so-called 'savages.

Africans were exhibited in primitive settings for the enjoyment of spectators at trade fairs and travelling shows, helping legitimise the domination of 'lesser' beings by supposedly 'superior' Western civilisations.

One famous 'exhibit' was Saartjie Baartman, who was also known as Sarah Bartmann. She was a South African woman who attracted crowds due to a genetic condition (steatopygia), resulting in a highly protruded posterior. She was shipped to London in 1810 and spent most of her life on display. In 2002, her remains were repatriated and buried in South Africa. Another infamous exhibition was unveiled at the 1958 World Expo in Brussels, Belgium. It featured Congolese people in their mocked-up 'village' at the venue.

Awareness of the foul, dehumanising practice is slowly being raised. A Paris exhibition in 2011 called

"Inventing the Savage" showed how human zoos laid the foundations for racism against Africans. It was the brainchild of the former French footballer, Liliane Thuram, whose Caribbean family suffered under slavery. Though human zoos do not exist anymore, the effects of colonisation and exploitation of coloured people persist to this day. That's why we'll keep posting about them.

[yearningforunity]

Haitian American girls poke their head out of a car window for a photo in Miami in the 1980s.

Photo by Carl Juste.

[folkfashion]

Mardi Gras carnivaler, Mystic Medecine Man, United States of America, by Danielle C. Miles

[nickysfacts]

The Wash and Go hairstyles are so simple, yet so beautiful and empowering!

👩🏽‍🦱💜👩🏿‍🦱

[kemetic-dreams]

The American English expression "fried chicken" was first recorded in the 1830s, and frequently appears in American cookbooks of the 1860s and 1870s. The origin of fried chicken in the southern states of America has been traced to precedents in Scottish and West African cuisine. Scottish fried chicken was cooked in fat, and West African fried chicken added different seasonings,and was battered and cooked in palm oil. Scottish frying techniques and African seasoning techniques were used in the American South by enslaved Africans

Fried chicken provided some means of an independent economy for enslaved and segregated African-American women, who became noted sellers of poultry (live or cooked) as early as the 1730s.Because of the expensive nature of the ingredients, it was, despite popular belief, a rare dish in the African-American community reserved (as in Africa) for special occasions.When it was introduced to the American South, fried chicken became a common staple. Later, as the slave trade led to Africans being brought to work on southern plantations, the enslaved people who became cooks incorporated seasonings and spices that were absent in traditional Scottish cuisine, enriching the flavor. Since most enslaved people were unable to raise expensive meats, but were generally allowed to keep chickens, frying chicken on special occasions continued in the African-American communities of the South, especially in the periods of segregationthat closed off most restaurants to the African population

American-style fried chicken gradually passed into everyday use as a general Southern dish, especially after the abolition of slavery, and its popularity spread. Since fried chicken traveled well in hot weather before refrigeration was commonplace and industry growth reduced its cost, it gained further favor across the South. Fried chicken continues to be among this region's top choices for "Sunday dinner". Holidays such as Independence Day and other gatherings often feature this dish. During the 20th century, chain restaurants focused on fried chicken began among the boom in the fast food industry. Brands such as Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) and Popeyes expanded in the United States and across the world.