readabookson:

https://anonfiles.com/file/21aa65b38fe05e251e3820a2344f1e6a

(via cultureofresistance)

Melissa V. Harris-Perry, Sister Citizen

This reminded me of that picture of a slave woman breastfeeding a white baby that was circulation a little while ago.

(via distractedandclueless)

(via commiekinkshamer)

mehreenkasana:

1. Slavery laid the foundation for the modern international economic system.

2. Africans’ economic skills were a leading reason for their enslavement.

3. African know-how transformed slave economies into some of the wealthiest on the planet.

4. Until it was destroyed by the Civil War, slavery made the American South the richest and most powerful region in America.

5. Defense of slavery, more than taxes, was pivotal to America’s declaration of independence.

6. The brutalization and psychological torture of slaves was designed to ensure that plantations stayed in the black financially.

7. The economic success of former slaves during Reconstruction led to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.

8. The desire to maintain economic oppression is why the South was one of the most anti-tax regions of the nation.

9. Many firms on Wall Street made fortunes from funding the slave trade.

10. The wealth gap between whites and blacks, the result of slavery, has yet to be closed.

One of Federick Douglass’s most famous quotes is “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” But for the life of me, I just can’t seem to track down this quote’s source, so I can’t share it in its full context (and now I’m questioning if he even said it). However, I DO remember a pretty moving passage in his “Narrative,” which is where I’m guessing this notquote originates from:

“Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he said, “If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.” These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty—to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.”

“His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine… Mine was as the taper light; his was as the burning sun. I could live for the slave; John Brown could die for him.”

Frederick Douglass

readabookson:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/xytywf

Great book.

(via cultureofresistance)

Born into slavery, Harriet Tubman escaped to the North in 1849. But she returned into slave territory at least 13 times, escorting dozens of escaped slaves to freedom. She was known for being tough: She carried a revolver not only to ward off dogs and slave owners, but also to threaten frightened fugitives with should they lose their nerve. According to one tale, she once held at gunpoint a man threatening to turn back, telling him, “You go on or die.”She supported women’s suffrage and donated land to a church for a home for the elderly and indigent.

gunsandposes:

A banner of the 22nd Regiment of the United States Colored Troops, featuring the motto “Sic semper tyrannis” with the image of an African-American trooper bayoneting a Confederate. Sic semper tyrannis, indeed.

politics-war:

One of today’s biggest human rights crises is the international trafficking of women and girls (and, to a lesser extent, boys) into sex slavery. Human trafficking is the third largest criminal industry in the world, outranked only by arms and drug dealing. The United Nations estimates that trafficking in persons generates $7 to $10 billion annually for traffickers.

How Does Human Trafficking Take Place?

Traffickers acquire their victims primarily from developing countries where poverty is rampant, commonly through some means of force or deception. Victims are typically very young, most ranging in age from eight to 18 years old. Some are as young as four or five years old. A common scenario involves a poor Asian or Eastern European girl who is offered a “better life” as a housemaid, restaurant server or dancer in a wealthy country such as the United States, Great Britain, or Italy. When she arrives at her destination, her passport is taken away, she is physically and sexually abused, and she is forced into prostitution in a country where she neither speaks the language nor has any friends, relatives or means of support. She is forced to service 8-15 clients a day and does not receive any pay. Rather, the money is used to pay off her “debt” to the trafficker and brothel owners for transportation, food, lodging and so on. After some period of time, she will be resold to another brothel owner, often in another country, and the cycle will continue all over again. She is likely to acquire HIV/AIDS, and to pass it on to her clients and their wives, all around the world. She has a greater chance than most of dying early, and is certain to live a horrible existence in whatever short years she has. Even if she is eventually rescued and repatriated to her country and community, she is likely to be ostracized as a result of her involvement in prostitution.

Government and police corruption, primarily in under-developed countries, play a large role in the perpetuation of the sex slave industry, with blind-eyes being turned toward openly active brothels and payoffs being accepted by those officials charged with the enforcement of national and international laws prohibiting trafficking, prostitution and child sexual exploitation.

Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War

According to the history books, the Civil War officially ended in 1865 with the surrender of General Robert E. Lee and his Confederate army. But on the streets of a newly reunited nation, another fierce battle was just beginning.

In 1866, the year immediately following the end of the war, America was supposed to be reuniting, healing its wounds, and moving past years of civil unrest. However, a closer look into this historic time reveals a sinister snapshot of a discordant nation caught in the midst of deadly race riots and angry insurgencies. In this compelling program, THE HISTORY CHANNEL examines the disturbing reality behind the murder, terrorism, and chaos that marked the uncertain period of Reconstruction in America. While a new government struggled to gain control, the subjugation of “free” black men and women continued in the former Confederate states - terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan were formed, and widespread riots in Memphis and New Orleans left hundreds dead.

AFTERSHOCK: BEYOND THE CIVIL WAR provides a revealing look into the true horror of the Civil War aftermath - a story which, until now, has gone largely untold.

Elon James White, Chris Rock ‘White People’s Day’ July 4th Tweet Sparks Controversy, Huffington Post. (via tenementhalls)

The controversial tweet: “Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren’t free but I’m sure they enjoyed fireworks”

I like how nobody is pointing out that escaped slave Frederick Douglass literally said the exact same thing in a speech given on Independence Day.

(via tenementhalls)

(via mechanicalstevie)

wretchedoftheearth:

siddharthasmama:

amidnightmarauder:

Sick and Tired by Shihan.

agreed.

Does that put it into perspective for you?

Seriously. I always have to try to put this into perspective for people. People act like slavery was so distant. My mom is older in relation to my age (she had me at 43), and her father was older when she was born (in his early 50’s) and was born in the late 1800’s. One of his PARENTS was born into slavery. For people like my mom, this isn’t the least bit distant. My mom grew up in the Jim Crow south. History is so depersonalized that people can act like slavery, Jim Crow, and blatantly racist institutions existed in 1800 BC

(via loveisforthebourgeoisie-deactiv)

thespunkywallflower:

J. Marion Sims is called “the Father of Gynecology” due to his experiments on enslaved women in Alabama who were often submitted as guinea pigs by their plantation owners who could not use them for sexual pleasure. 

He kept seven women as subjects for four years, but left a trail of death and permanently traumatized black women. 

Anarcha was one of the women Sims experimented upon. A detailed history of this monster is in Harriet Washington’s book, Medical Apartheid.

Sims believed that Africans were numb to pain and operated on the women without anesthesia or antiseptic. The procedures usually happened this way. 

Black female slaves who were guinea pigs would hold one subject down as Sims performed hysterectomies, tubal ligation, and other procedures to examine various female disorders.

Sims also performed a host of operations on other slave populations. The following excerpt details his “practice” on enslaved infants.

Sims began to exercise his freedom to experiment on his captives. He took custody of slave infants and, with a shoemaker’s awl, tried to pry the bones of their skulls into proper alignment.

 

There’s a statue of this fucker in Central Park.

(via eckleburgs-eyes)

You will then know how to talke to me

In September of 1864, as the American Civil War approached its conclusion, a slave-turned-soldier named Spotswood Rice wrote the following furious letter to his former owner, Katherine Diggs, and sternly warned her that she would soon be seeing him again — he was returning to Missouri, together with a thousand-strong army of black soldiers, to rescue his still-enslaved children. His anger is almost palpable.

Indeed, Spotswood Rice was reunited with his family some months later, although it’s unknown whether a showdown with Diggs occurred. Interestingly, Mary, the daughter mentioned in the letter, was interviewed as part of the Federal Writers’ Project in 1937.

Transcript follows.

September 3, 1864

Spotswood Rice to Kittey Diggs

I received a leteter from Cariline telling me that you say I tried to steal to plunder my child away from you now I want you to understand that mary is my Child and she is a God given rite of my own and you may hold on to hear as long as you can but I want you to remembor this one thing that the longor you keep my Child from me the longor you will have to burn in hell and the qwicer youll get their for we are now makeing up a bout one thoughsand blacke troops to Come up tharough and wont to come through Glasgow and when we come wo be to Copperhood rabbels and to the Slaveholding rebbels for we dont expect to leave them there root near branch but we thinke how ever that we that have Children in the hands of you devels we will trie your vertues the day that we enter Glasgow I want you to understand kittey diggs that where ever you and I meets we are enmays to each orthere I offered once to pay you forty dollers for my own Child but I am glad now that you did not accept it Just hold on now as long as you can and the worse it will be for you you never in you life befor I came down hear did you give Children any thing not eny thing whatever not even a dollers worth of expencs now you call my children your pro[per]ty not so with me my Children is my own and I expect to get them and when I get ready to come after mary I will have bout a powrer and autherity to bring hear away and to exacute vengencens on them that holds my Child you will then know how to talke to me I will assure that and you will know how to talk rite too I want you now to just hold on to hear if you want to iff your conchosence tells thats the road go that road and what it will brig you to kittey diggs I have no fears about geting mary out of your hands this whole Government gives chear to me and you cannot help your self