Black History Month Facts Compiled by Lawrence Yzhak Braithwaite

A Collection of Black History Facts and Information in celebration of Black History Month.   
 
1812 and Black US Immigration
Today the majority of Black Canadians are recent immigrants who have come 
from either the Caribbean or Africa. These immigrants far outnumber those who  have come from the U.S. However, the U.S. immigrants formed Canada's earliest Black communities and closely link the histories of the two countries. Though Blacks have immigrated to Canada from the U.S. since the time of the earliest European settlements up until the present, the majority of the early Black immigrants came as a result of three significant American historical events: the American Revolution (1775-1783), the War of 1812 (1812-1814), and the Underground Railway movement (1830-1865). A total of over 35,000 Blacks immigrated during these three periods: approximately 5,500 came during the American Revolution; 2,000 during the War of 1812; and over 30,000 when the Underground Railway was in operation.

Viola Desmond and Canada's "Whites Only Law"
You may have heard of Rosa Parks, the American woman who was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white person in Alabama, triggering a nation-wide protest & demand for reform. Canada has its own Rosa, a woman by the name of Viola Desmond. Her crime was this: when stopping in a town unknown to her, she mistakenly sat in the locally known "whites only" section of a theatre. Although she offered to pay the difference in ticket price so as to be able to remain in her seat, she was arrested & fined. Carrie Best, the founder of Nova Scotia's first newspaper for blacks, heard of the story & wrote about it. This happened in 1946, nine years before Rosa Park's own brave act. Viola and Carrie organized other blacks to lobby the Nova Scotia government, which finally repealed the law of segregation in 1954. Meet Carrie Best, still working in her community at the age of 94.

Black Panthers
The Black Panther Party (BPP) was founded in Oakland, California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in October 1966. Newton became the party's defense minister, and Seale its chairman. The BPP advocated black self-defense and restructuring American society to make it more politically, economically, and socially equal.  Newton and Seale articulated their goals in a ten-point platform that demanded, among other items, full employment, exemption of black men from military 
service, and an end to police brutality. They summarized their demands in the final point: "We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace." They adopted the black panther symbol from an independent political party 
established the previous year by black residents of Lowndes County, Alabama. http://www.africana.com/Articles/tt_031.htm

Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka, who gave a brief but poignant performance as the soothsayer in the controversial race-relations film "Bulworth," lectured earlier this month to an audience of University of Southern California students about the 
necessity of a revolution to overcome racism. During his lecture, the former Black Panther suggested that oppressed 
minorities turn exclusively to alternative movie theaters and other media to meet their needs and interests. Baraka read two scenes from his past plays, "The Great Goodness of Life: A Coon Show" and his 1964 Obie-Award winning 
work, "The Dutchman." The veteran playwright, activist, author and poet concluded the evening with readings from some of his poetry. Baraka appeared in a "Funklore" presentation called "Black History Music"  with the performance group Blue Ark: The World Ship at the University of Michigan's Rackham Theater. The event combined blues, jazz and gospel accompanied by Baraka's spoken word. Baraka is Professor Emeritus of Africana Studies at SUNY Stony Brook. His most recent book is a 1997 revised edition of "The Autobiography of Leroi Jones," originally published in 1984.  

UK to Return Ethiopian Relic

Reuters) - A sacred Ethiopian artifact plundered by British troops 134 years ago will be handed back to a member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Scotland on Sunday, the government said on Saturday. Archbishop Isaias, a member of the Holy Synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, has traveled to Britain to receive the historic wooden block at a ceremony to be held at the Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist in Edinburgh, a government statement said. The Reverend John McLuckie from the Edinburgh church discovered the intricately carved tablet in a battered leather box while looking for a communion set last year. The tablet, officially called a tabot, bears a picture of the Ark of the Covenant which the Israelites used to house the Ten Commandments as they made their way to the Promised Land. Tabots, traditionally wrapped in cloths, form the centerpiece of the country's Orthodox religion and are kept in almost every Ethiopian church to symbolize the biblical ark. The tabot was originally seized when an expeditionary force of British soldiers arrived in Ethiopia in 1868 to avenge the imprisonment of a number of British citizens by Emperor Tewodros. The troops stormed Tewodros's fortress at Maqdala and then loaded up 15 elephants and 200 mules with looted goods, according to a report written by an American journalist at the time. The emperor committed suicide rather than fall into British hands. The tabot was bought by a military officer from Edinburgh who set it on a plinth and presented it to his home church. Much of the rest of the hoard, including more than 1,000 sacred manuscripts, gold crowns belonging to the emperor and processional crosses, ended up in London's British and Victoria & Albert museums, the British Library, and the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, according to the historians. Britain returned part of the treasure when King George V presented Empress Zawditu with a crown during a visit by Ethiopian Regent Haile Selassieto London in 1924. The Association for the Return of the Maqdala Ethiopian Treasures accused the British government last year of ignoring its appeal to return the treasures. The association, a group of historians and academics, plans to ask the Ethiopian parliament to issue a formal request to the British government to return the valuables. Ethiopia has campaigned for decades for European countries to return stolen artifacts. One of the most prominent campaigns is for the return from Italy of a 3,000-year-old obelisk looted from the holy city of Axum in 1937. 

What are the three "secrets" of African American history?

The great book collector of black history was Arthur Schomburg. He was a Puerto Rican of African descent, whose assemblage of books, manuscripts, and art form the basis of what is now the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, part of the New York Public Library, the world's largest collection of its kind. Schomburg's collecting was not merely a hobby. He set out to prove through the documentation of the past that much of what we think of as black history has in fact been ignored, forgotten, or even deliberately distorted. After a lifetime of gathering material, Schomburg said that there are three important things that he had learned, that there are three secrets which the study of black history and culture reveal.  
http://www.africana.com/Facts/bl_fact_94.htm.


What African American woman led a regiment of U.S. troops?

Harriet Tubman is best known as the leading conductor on the Underground Railroad, the clandestine network that helped enslaved African Americans escape to the North. An ex-slave herself with a huge price on her head, Tubman slipped into the plantation South over and over again to bring people out to freedom. Tubman's role in the Civil War is little known, but when hostilities started, she again went South to work as a cook, spy, and scout with Union troops. Her most brilliant exploit was the Combahee Raid of June 2, 1863 when she teamed up with a white officer, Col. James Montgomery, to lead 300 black troops into enemy territory in South Carolina. They destroyed millions of dollars worth of crops, food supplies that would have gone to the Confederate army. The amazing achievement of the raid, however, was the liberation of nearly 800 black
men, women, and children, whom they brought back to the safety and freedom of the Union army lines. 

Who Were “The Secret Six”?

On October 16, 1859, the revolutionary white abolitionist John Brown led an attack on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). His plan was to ignite a massive slave rebellion throughout the South whereby self-liberated African Americans would carry on guerilla warfare against the Slave Power. Brown and his plan were supported, in principle and financially, by a secret committee of six northern white anti-slavery men. "The Secret Six" were Thomas Wentworth Higginson, friend of Emily Dickson, minister of a free church in Worcester, Massachusetts, and later commander of black troops in the Civil War; Samuel Gridley Howe, the physician who founded Perkins’ School for the Blind and whose wife Julia wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic;" Theodore Parker, the country’s leading Unitarian minister; Franklin Sanborn, secretary of the Massachusetts Kansas Committee; George Luther Stearns of the Emigrant Aid Society; and Gerrit Smith, a wealthy New York State landowner and reformer.