100 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT THE NEGRO by LOUIS HENRY GATES JR. : MORE EXCERPTS! LET'S KEEP LEARNING!

More Excerpts! :

Chapter 22 : Did black people own slaves? If so, why?

Excerpt page 60 : One of the most vexing paradoxes in African-American history Is that free black people in the county bought and sold other black people starting at least in 1654 and continued to do so through the Civil War ..... Historians have been arguing for some time over whether free blacks purchased family members as slaves in order to protect them - motivated by benevolence and philanthropy.... or whether they purchased other black people primarily to exploit their free labor for profit, just as white slave owners did. ....

In 1830 about 13% (319,599) of the black population was free. Of these free Negroes, 3,776 owned 12,907 slaves, out of a total of 2,009,043 slaves owned in the United States...

(Citing Historian Thomas J. Pressly....) About 1 percent of these black slave owners in 1830 owned between 20 and 84 slaves; 172 (about 4 percent) owned between 10 and 19 slaves; and 3, 550 (about 94 percent) each owned between 1 an 9 slaves. Crucially 42 percent owned just 1 slave.

Chapter 40 "Before Emancipation, didn't most free blacks live in the northern half of America?

Excerpt page 140: (Referencing a book published in 1974 called "Slaves without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South: by Ira Berlin)

In 1860, that raging year of Lincoln's reelection and southern secession, a total of 488,070 free blacks lived in the United States, about 10 percent of the Black population  Of those 226, 152 lived in the North and 2651,918 in the South.  (But Delaware and Maryland are considered the south)

A few months before the Confederacy was born, there were 35,766 more free black people living in the slave-owning South than the North. And they stayed there during the Civil War.

***

NOTE : Manumissions are formal acts of emancipation by slave owners.

I'm always interested in learning more niche-specific history and these stats certainly challenged my understanding that far fewer blacks had the status of freemen so early.

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100 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT THE NEGRO by LOUIS HENRY GATES JR. : ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY BOOK REVIEW and EXCERPTS!

This book is based on a formerly published book as retold through the research of Henry Louis Gates Jr., the famous Black historian and genealogist. There are a hundred profiles of famous Negro people and unfortunately for the original author and Gates, very very few were female.

What I find most valuable in the book is the information that may sway us to facing reality while researching family. I take an interest in ALL U.S. research (i.e. American History and Genealogy) and that, of course, includes the ancestry of present day Americans who consider themselves Black or think or know they have some Black ancestry. I'm also interested in busting myths because untruths often mean a lot of frustration and wasted time.

Some interesting excerpts:

Chapter 2 : How many Africans were taken to the United States during the entire history of the slave trade?

Excerpt page 9 :  The most comprehensive analysis of shipping records over the course of the slave trade is the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.  While the editors are careful to say that all their figures are estimates, they are the proverbial gold standard in the study of the slave trade.  According to the database, between 1525 and 1866, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World.  Some 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean, and South American.

How many of these 10.7 million Africans were shipped directly to North American? Only about 388,000 ...

Chapter 13: Where was the first black town in what is now the United States?

Excerpt page 10 : In the late 1600's, Spanish Florida exercised a powerful draw on the collective imagination of slaves to the north in Carolina.  It was their first Promised Land. At east since 1687, if slaves made it down to Florida and professed believe in "the True Faith " - Roman Catholicism - they were declared to be free.  News of this haven spread through the slave grapevine.

 

Sometime between March and November 1738, Spanish settlers in Florida formed a town named Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, two miles to the north of St. Augustine...  (It got to be called Fort Mose.)

Chapter 16 : Where was the first underground railroad?  (Spanish American history here!)

Excerpt page 44 : After 1830 slaves in the southern states fled north to gain their freedom. (After previously fleeing south.)

Excerpt cage 45 : .... in 1693, the Spanish King, Charles II, attempting to systematically undermine the economy of the Carolinas, decreed that Florida would be a religious sanctuary for fugitive slaves seeking "the true faith."....(men and women slaves included).

Chapter 19 "How much African ancestry does the average African American have?  (autosomal DNA tests)

Excerpt pages 52-53 : ... According to 23and Me.com the average African American is 73.2 percent sub-Saharan African 24 percent European, and only 0.8 percent Native American.

For African American males, still another astonishing fact ha been revealed about their paternal ancestry - their father's father's father's line through their Y-DNA: a whopping 35 percent of all African- American men descend from a white male ancestor who fathered a mulatto child sometime in the slavery era,...

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Lets go to the FORT MOSE HISTORICAL SITE!

https://www.floridastateparks.org/learn/history-fort-mose

 

BOOK LOVE

 

25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 9/11 TERROR ATTACKS ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTER IN NEW YORK CITY

THE FIGHTER PILOT SENT TO RAN INTO UNITED 93  Survivors' 9/11 stories

  

From the ITV News YouTube Station : Janice Brooks worked on the 84th floor of the South Tower. She was in the building when the second plane hit. Heather ‘Lucky’ Penney was a fighter pilot. She was sent on a suicide mission to intercept Flight 93, which was heading towards Washington DC. George Campbell worked in the New York City Fire Department. He was a first responder on 9/11. With thanks to Janice Brooks, Heather Penney and George Campbell. Produced by Josh Brooks, edited by Adam Blair, shot by Tamuka Walker and Tony Day.

*** ********* ***

My memory of this day:  I liked to listen to KFI in the morning at the time and Bill Handel (who is still on the air at age 75.)  Bill has/d a sense of humor that could be dry and sarcastic. He could even be rude and crude at times (but not as extreme as Howard Stern) such as the time he gave a blow by blow account of a man being executed in the electric chair. So when I heard him broadcasting about a plane hitting into the World Trade Center I wasn't sure I should believe him. Maybe it was just too much to believe.  

From https://www.iheart.com/podcast/85-the-bill-handel-show-25012129/episode/handels-9112001-broadcast-343691985?viewTranscription=true

Excerpt:

Speaker 6 A plane crash into a New York landmark. I'm Ken Gallagher.
Smoke is pouring from the upper floors of the north
building of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
And then we have reports now that a second plane
has struck the other tower. We'll have confirmation on those
details just as soon as we can.

Speaker 1
It's fairly obvious now, Ken, that a second plane has,
in fact, struck the tower.

Speaker 4
You can see that now. We now have both buildings
on fire.

Speaker 1
And it's hard to say at this point, but that
cannot be an accident. And I think it's safe to
say that we've got a situation going on where we've
got a terrorist attack upon the World Trade Center. They're
looking at a lot of damage and probably a lot
of people being killed. Both airplanes are being reported as
hijacked by the FBI. If this is the case, we've got an extraordinary,
extraordinary criminal act going on.

Speaker 4
This is out of a movie. The airplane was aimed
for and was.

Speaker 1
Timed to do the maximum amount of damage and to
hurt and kill and maim the most number of people. ...

*** ********* ***

I turned on the television and the second plane had hit and I knew it was. Of all people I called first, it was my apartment building manager. He didn't believe me. But within the hour a group of us tenants were standing outside in the parking lot together talking. We definitely thought our country was being attacked and suspected War would be declared. 

(I believe war should always be called war and declared officially as is supposed to happen with the approval of Congress  https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/declarations-of-war.htm )

Excerpt: The Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war. Congress has declared war on 11 occasions, including its first declaration of war with Great Britain in 1812. Congress approved its last formal declaration of war during World War II. Since that time it has agreed to resolutions authorizing the use of military force and continues to shape U.S. military policy through appropriations and oversight.

We listened to Tony Blair, the Prime Minster of Great Britain's speech which was eloquent and forthright. I recall wishing our politicians could be like him.  (According to Google AI, "Speaking from Downing Street just hours after the attacks, Blair expressed total solidarity with the United States, famously declaring that Britain stood "shoulder to shoulder" with the American people."  I definitely thought he was pledging to the American people that if we went to war we could count on Great Britain to fight with us.

I was one of many who felt depressed and frightened. 

Today I also think of all the people in this world who find themselves living with military violence in their country - in their town - and how traumatic that is - how it will effect the generations. It seems our exposure to violence has increased tremendously, even when watching a YouTube video that is interruptive and presents some drama, even an ad for a video game that I would rather not see...

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LABOR DAY

 

This picture is attributed to Linnaea Mallette. 

I wish I knew the origin of it.

Notice that child laborers are included.

VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY : SOCIAL WELFARE HISTORY PROJECT : CHILD LABOR

Excerpt: Child Labor Defined: Historically, “child labor” is defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. However, not all work done by children should be classified as child labor. Children or adolescents’ participation in work that does not affect their health and personal development or interfere with their schooling is generally regarded as being something positive. This includes activities such as helping their parents around the home, assisting in a family business or earning pocket money outside school hours and during school holidays.

BLACK COWBOYS - MORE THAN A MYTH : EXHIBIT AT THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTER in LONG BEACH CALIFORNIA

 A few photos from my recent visit to 

THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTER 

LONG BEACH (LOS ANGELES) CALIFORNIA

A small beautiful museum always worth a visit,

 I was really impressed with this exhibit.

 Sharon Diggs - Jackson - Curator partnered with the Autry Museum of the American West, sponsored by Josephine S. Gumbinger Foundation and the Port of Long Beach.

Should you wish to venture out to see this exhibit, The Cultural Center is inside a building called Expo Center, which is the scene of art exhibits and events in the Bixby area of Long Beach.  In walking distance or a short drive there are many eateries - coffee - ice cream - Mexican - German - beer and wine. There are also some very nice boutique type shops. You really can make an afternoon of it.

https://aacclb.org/

Photos taken by permission of the African American Cultural Center

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Ancestry Worship - Genealogy