Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born July 18th 1918.
He was a former president of South Africa. Who spent 27 years in prison for pioneering the struggle against apartheid (a system of legalised racial segregation enforced by the National Party (NP) South Africa government between 1948 and 1994).
He was released from prison in 1990, he has received over one hundred awards, but the m ost important one would have to be the Nobel Peace Prize which he received in 1993.

Nelson was the first in his familly to attend school, where he was given the name Nelson by his teacher ( Horatio Nelson) who had trouble pronouncing his name ( Rolihlahla, which means “to pull a branch of of a tree” or more particularly “troublemaker”)
At the age of ninteen Nelson took up a hobby in running and boxing.

On August 5th 1962 Mandela was arested after living on the run for 17 months and was sent to prison in the Johannesburg Fort. The CIA was said to have tipped off the police to his whereabouts and his disguise. He was sent to prison her 5 years.

During his 27 years in prison Nelson Mandela received a degree of Bachelors of Law. On february 2nd 1990 Mandela was released , the event was broadcasted all over the world.
Nelson Mandela made a huge impact on peoples life, he tried to make it better for all the blacks in the world. His 27 years in prison made people in the world angree, he stayed in prison while murderes and drug dealers were let free, he fought for his freedom and the freedom of everyother black person.

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to the struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Malcolm X

Malcolm X
May 19th 1925 –February 21st 1965

Malcolm X was an American Black Muslim. Three of his father’s brothers died violently at the hand of white men and one of his uncles was lynched (the practice of humiliating and killing black people by mobs of white people acting outside the law. These murders, most of them unpunished, often were hanging and burning after the white mobs tortured the victim by cutting off the victim's body parts).

Malcolm X had 7 other brothers and sisters, where he had the lightest skin out of all of them. He felt his fathered favored him more because of his complexion and his mother treated him like a step child for the same reason.

In 1931, Malcolms father ( Earl Little) was found dead, ran over by a car. The authorities said his death was considered a suicide. This cause of death was disputed within the black community and his family found themselves the target of harassement by the Black Legion; an organisation within the Klu Klux Klan, that his father acused them of burning down their home in 1929. After the death of his father, his mother (Louise Little) had a nervous breakdown and was considered ilegally insane in 1938. Malcolm and his seven other siblings were split up and sent to different foster homes. Louise Little was sent to the state mental hospital in Michigan where she stayed there, untill Malcolm and his sibling released her 26 years later.

Malcolm graduated at the top of his class, but soon droped out when a teacher told him his goal of being a lawyer were “no realistic goal for a nigger”. After moving from foster home to foster home and going to live in a detention center he moved to Boston with his older half sister. After some time in Harlem, Malcolm became involved with dealing drugs, gambling, robery, blackmail and even prostituting himself.

Malcolm was sentenced to jail plenty of times, for burglary, possessing firearms, breaking and entering. On janurary 12th 1946, he was arrested and senteced to 8 to 10 years in prison in Massachusetts State Prison.

Malcolm decided to change his last name to “X”, which means it’s a symbole for replacing slave names. The “X” is also the brand that many slaves had on their upper arms. Malcolm intented on making blacks the top of the social order. He became a leader, he was seen to be the second most influential leader of the movement after Elijah Muhammed.

On February 14th 1965, Malcolms house was burned to the ground, him and his familly had survived and no one was charged with any crime. On February 21st 1965 in Manhattan, Malcolm just started to give a speech when a disturbance broke out in the crowd of 400. A man yelled, "Get your hand outta my pocket! Don't be messin' with my pockets!", Malcolm and his body guards moved to quiet the disturbance, a man rushed forward and shot Malcolm in the chest with a shotgun. Two other men came on the stage and started to fire handguns are Malcolm. He was shot
16 times, angry people in the crowd caught and beat the assassins as they tried to leave the ballroom. He was pronounced dead at New Yorks Hospital.

"Malcolm was murdered because he fought for freedom and equal rights."

Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr.
(January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968)

This blog is to inform you everything crucial that Martin Luther King Jr. did during his lifetime and how his acts changed the way we live today.

He attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen. He received a B. A Degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a Negro institution of Atlanta from which his father and grandfather both graduated from. He met and married his wife, Coretta Scott. They had two sons and two daughters together.

In 1955, he accepted the role as leader of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration which started the bus boycott. The boycott lasted 382 days, on Decemeber 21st 1956 in front of the supreme court, blacks and whites rode the buses as equals. During the time of the boycott, Martin Luther King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was harrassed and still he became a Negro leader of the first rank.

From 1957 to 1968, King travelled all over the world and spole over twenty five hundred times, whenever there was injustive, protest and action, and meanwhile he wrote five books as well a many articles. During this time he also lead a huge protest in Birmingham, Alabama, which caught the attention of the whole world. He was in charge of the marth on Washington DC, where there was 250 000 people to whom he addressed the famous speech “ I Have a Dream”.

Martin Luther King was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963, he became a world figure and a symbolice leader of blacks. At the age of thirty five he was the youngest man to have received a Nobel Peace Prize, he turned over the money, $54 123 to the civil rights movement.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated. That was one of the most horrific days in history, the public did not take that action to kindly. Martin Luther King Jr. was a monument for the black community, he will never be forgotten, he contributed to so much of this world today.

"I HAVE A DREAM" speech
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

Rosa Parks

Have you ever had to be told to move to the back of the bus because of your race?
Well plenty of African Americans have. There has been only one woman in history that finally said no, refused to give her seat up and that was none other than Rosa Louise Parks.

December 1st, 1955, was the day that Rosa Parks became famous for not giving her seat up to allow a white passenger to sit. All she was, was tired from a hard day of work and just wanted to rest. This act of civil disobedience (the refusal to obey certain laws or demands of the government or someone with a higher power without resorting to physical violence) started the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was one of the largest movements of racial segregation (separation of different races in an everyday life).

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political protest trying to oppose the city’s policy of race on the public transit. It lasted 381 days (December 5th, 1955, to December 20th, 1956). The boycott resulted in the U.S civil rights movement (movements in the United States which are aimed at the abolishment of racial discrimination). Ninety percent of African Americans in Montgomery took part of the boycott, which reduced the bus revenues 60%.

On the night of Rosa Parks' arrest, Jo Ann Robinson, head of the Women's Political Council printed and circulated a flyer throughout Montgomery's black community which read as follows:
"Another woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down. It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing. This has to be stopped. Negroes have rights too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negro, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother. This woman's case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don't ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday. You can afford to stay out of school for one day if you have no other way to go except by bus. You can also afford to stay out of town for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off all buses Monday."

Rosa Parks was a very important person in the changing of the respect for blacks; her bravery left us one step closer to being completely free of racial differences.
Rosa Parks lived a wonderful long life, passing away October 24th 2005, her remembrance and works to make this world a better place will live on forever.

Roots

For this blog I am going to talk to you about the mini TV series Roots. Roots was developed in 1977 and was based on the book by Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Roots was a groundbreaking event in the television history in the USA. Roots received 37 Emmy Award nominations, with a total of 9 Emmys and a Golden Globe.

Roots is discussing a baby boy borned named Kunta Kinte, who when reaches the age of 15 is sent with a bunch of other teenage boys, to a ceremony where they become men.
A ship full of white men come and take a whole bunch of men to become slaves. After several weeks the ship finally lands in America, all the Africans are sold as slaves.
Kunta Kinte struggles for survival trying to escape several times and never succeeds. He finally gets adapted to his new lifestyle on a plantation.

The whole series is about the struggles slaves had, and how they fought and fought to stay alive. Roots went back to where it all started, how sudden everything happened. How we were stolen from our homes and made slaves out of men. Roots shows us how the white men did not care about us, we were inferior to them even to their dogs.

Roots was a mini TV series, it is now a DVD series, it is also a novel, if you want to know the pain and suffering we went through I recommend watch it or even read it. They are amazing. In the movie, the slaves are talking English, but no one can understand them cause they are really supposed to be talking in their native tongue, it is just so we can obviously understand them.

Roots is very deep and makes you think how horrible people were actually treated, the novel and TV series, changed the way people thought about us. Roots made an impact and was a great deal in the American television history.

Underground Railroad

(Harriet Tubman (far left) standing with a group of slaves whose escape she assisted)

In this blog, I am going to talk about the Underground Railroad; without the help of some very kindhearted white people, we would not have the freedom we have today.

The Underground Railroad was the term used to transport fugitive slaves to Canada, underground without anyone knowing. The Underground Railroad became a network where men and woman would set aside assumptions about the other race and work together as a unit.

The Underground Railroad was very similar to an actual railroad, even though a railroad was never used. The terms used to transport a slave were the same terms used during a railroad journey; the routes from safe house to safe house where fugitive slaves were kept were called ‘lines’, stopping places were called ‘stations’, those who helped with the fugitive slaves were called ‘conductors’ and the fugitives themselves were called ‘cargo’.

The process of escaping takes a lot of time and planning. You have to be strong hearted and you have to want it very badly, that you would do anything to reach your destiny. It all starts when you decide to run away from your plantation with the help of a white ‘conductor’ or a former slave who got his freedom, came back, and pretended he was a slave so he could help other slaves get away. They will tell you where to go, what to do, whom to trust and from there, it is up to you. There is a very high risk of being caught and killed from the bounty hunters.

You are forced to run in the woods, move at night and hide during the day, you can barely stay in one place long enough to get comfortable, you are always on the go. There is bloodhounds tracking you if they catch you, you are finished. When you reach a safe house there is a lit lantern in the front lawn, all you have to do is trust the white home owners with your life. If you trust them enough to knock on their door, awaiting you is food and warm clothes. They are breaking the law, hiding fugitives in their house. When people come knocking on doors, you are forced to hide, and they will protect you as best as they can.

You were not always on your feet running, you were hidden underneath wagons or carts with false bottoms. Most of the time when you were being transported you were not comfortable, there could be up to five people hiding with you in the same spot. Stations were usually about 20 miles apart.

The Underground Railroad went through Kentucky and Virginia and across Ohio and Indiana. It went through Maryland and across Pennsylvania and then into New York and through New England. The best-known conductors that helped along the way were: William Still, Gerrit Smith, Salmon Chase, David Ruggle, Thomas Garrett, William Purvis, Jane Grey Swisshelm, William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, Lucretia Mott, Charles Langston, Levin Coffin, Calvin Fairbank and Susan B. Anthony.

Plantation owners were getting angry and concerned with all the runaway slaves going to the north, so in 1850 they managed to sway Congress to create the ‘Fugitive Slave Act’. In the future any marshal that didn’t arrest a runaway slave would be fined $1, 000 and any one that was helping the fugitives were liable to six months in prison and a fine of $1,000. The ‘Fugitive Slave Act’ did not stop the Underground Railroad, Thomas Garrett, the Delaware station master, paid more than $8,000 in fines and Calvin Fairbank served over 17 years in prison for his anti-slavery actions. John Fairfield was known as one of the best white conductors and he was killed working for the Underground Railroad.

Even blacks that made it to Canada would help with the transport of fugitives, Harriet Tubman was a former slave who ran away from a plantation in 1849, but returned to help in the escape of many former slaves. She has never lost a passenger and she helped in saving many slaves. She made 19 secret trips to the South, which she led 300 slaves to freedom. She was a major threat to the slave system that plantation owners offered a $40,000 reward for her capture.

There were approximately 70,000 slaves who escaped to freedom with the help of the movement of the Underground Railroad. It was a major act against slavery and in the end it worked out for the best. There is a book called, Underground to Canada, by Barbara Smucker, which is an amazing novel, I believe you should read it if you fully want to understand how the Underground Railroad functioned.

La Amistad

Some of you might have heard of what I am going to talk to you about. La Amistad was originally named Friendship in Spanish, but then was renamed when it was bought by Spain. La Amistad helped the abolishment of slavery in 1839. La Amistad was used as a slave ship to transport Africans from Africa.

The story commences with the kidnapping of 53 people from Africa. They were sold in the transatlantic slave trade and transported to Havana, Cuba by the slave vessel Tecora. In Cuba they were falsely classified as Cuban born slaves.

The now called slaves, were illegally bought by Spaniards, they were now transported in La Amistad. The journey was awful, the captives were treated horribly, they were all handcuff in the basement, they were not able to go to the bathroom, everyday some one would come down and poor food in open hands, if your hands were not there you did not get anything to eat. They had to sleep on wood, if someone died beside you in the bed, they were not disposed of, and you had to sleep with the dead body. The women were thrown over board, all handcuffed together with a bag of bricks on the other end. The men that were old and weak would be thrown over also, most of which could not swim.

About 3 days after they left Cuba, the Africans took over the ship, killing everyone else on the ship. After 63 days, La Amistad was taken by the United States Naval Cutter USS Washington near New York. The ship was then towed to Connecticut harbor.

The Africans were help in jail in New Haven with charges of insubordination and murder. The case acquired a high profile when the President, John Quincy Adams argued in front of the United States Court on behalf of the Africans. After the hearing, it because a historical U.S Supreme Court ruling, which the captives won their freedom. In 1841 the 35 surviving Africans returned back to their homes in Africa.

La Amistad was one of the most important stories in black history. In the summer of 2006, they had a model ship of La Amistad at the Halifax harbor. You were able to walk on the ship to see how small it was underneath. It was very interesting; I was able to go underneath in the slave hold to see how you could not even stand up straight because the roof was so low. There is also a movie based on the story, the movie is very disturbing to watch, it is very sad and it makes you think about how we were treated back in the day. It was a horrible event and I am thankful that they were sent back to their homes. I have some ancestors who were brought over by ships also, it is not a great experience for them, but I guess if it was not for them being brought to Canada, I would not be alive today.