RBG Black History Month

24 / 7 / 365 Wikizine-2011

Visit the RBG DR. JOHN HENRIK CLARKE STUDIES COLLECTION

Dr. John Henrik Clarke was a Black Nationalist Pan-Afrikanist warrior scholar, historian, prolific writer, educator and mentor of international proportions. His Education towards Afrikan Liberation paradigm and praxis has inspired for generations past and will continue to inspire for generations to come. Although he was Professor of African World History that in 1969 became the founding chairman of the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York, we must remember, he was one of our last self-taught scholars. He was the Carter G. Woodson Distinguished Visiting Professor of African History at Cornell University’s Africana Studies and Research Center. And in 1968 Dr. Clarke founded the African Heritage Studies Association. And with all that high–powered accomplishment, all that scholarship at his command; I can still vividly recall Dr. Clarke once saying “my greatest hour in education is not as a Chairman, not as Assist Dean, but in that classroom watching those eyes come alive as I pour out information and make it significant to them, so they could become different and better human being; giving them the strength to challenge that world out there.” From: Dr. John Henrik Clarke's Impact on the Hip Hop Generation, by RBG Street Scholar

CLICK HERE TO READ/DOWNLOAD THE e-Book

RBG DR. JOHN HENRIK CLARKE COLLECTION

Dr. John Henrik Clarke (1915-1998).

Dr. Clarke is RBG's Dean of Africana and Black Studies. He is one of our greatest African-American historian, scholar and Pan-Afrikan activist. In the Communiversity our point of entry into Dr. Clarke's gifts left to us is the documentary by Wesely Snipes, A Great and Mighty Walk is both a biography of Dr. Clarke himself and an overview of 5,000 years of African history, the film offers a provocative look at the past through the eyes of a leading proponent of an Afrocentric view of history. From ancient Egypt and Africa's other great empires, Dr. Clarke moves through Mediterranean borrowings, the Atlantic slave trade, European colonization, the development of the Pan-African movement, and present-day African-American history.

500 Years Later : documentary film directed by Owen 'Alik Shahadah,

written by M.K. Asante, Jr.

American Slave Narratives-A RBG Blakademics 2011

 Black History Month Special

RBG Blakademics Minister Malcolm X Studies Portal Guide

 

The History of Slavery in America-A RBG Black History Month Multi-media Special-CLICK TO DOWNLOAD

A Black Perspective of American History- An e-Book for Download

FILM DESCRIPTION: "They were stolen from their homes, locked in chains and taken across an ocean. And for more than 200 years, their blood and sweat would help to build the richest and most powerful nation the world has ever known. But when slavery ended, their wme was over. America's wealthy elite had decided it was time for them to disappear and they were not particular about how it might be done. What you are about to see is that the plan these people set in motion 150 years ago is still being carried out today. So don't think that this is history. Is not. It is happening right here, and it's happening right now."

SOURCE: http://www.maafa21.com/

See Intro to RBG Street Scholars Think Tank Multi Media e-Journal: "History is a Weapon in Taking Off the White Mask"

Is this your first time visiting us or would you like to get deeper into how the communiversity works ? Then check out

RBG Street Scholars Think Tank Rules of Engagement .

Check Out the Full RBG Black History Wikizine/ PictureTrail /e-Journal (Online Multimedia Book) Series

Martin Luther King - Black And Proud

From Before the Maafa to Dred Scott to the Patroit Act

Dred Scott Decision: The Lawsuit That Started The Civil War

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants — whether or not they were slaves — could never be citizens of the United States, and that the United States Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. The Court also ruled that slaves could not sue in court, and that slaves — as chattel or private property — could not be taken away from their owners without due process. The Court in the Dred Scott decision sided with border ruffians in the Bleeding Kansas dispute who were afraid a free Kansas would be a haven for runaway slaves from Missouri. The Supreme Court's decision was written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney... Learn more Franz Fanon Say:

"Racism is one of the most sick and twisted manifestations of White/European people’s oppression, exploitation and domination of humanity...although not all White/European people are racist, they benefit from it in one way or another and knowingly allow racism to exist…its reach is international in scope and transcends economic, political, social and spiritual belief systems...it is an evil and violent social construct used to justify White/European people’s crimes against humanity and to breed inferiority, fear and disunity among Black, Brown, Red and Yellow people...It has been the cause of untold pain and suffering to People of Color around the world…it is the single greatest problem humanity faces today…if we are ever to rise as the HUMAN RACE every one of us must defeat racism in all its shapes and forms (individual, institutional and cultural)…the struggle to end racism must be a collective one that begins in our hearts and minds…we must rise above our dependency on White/European systems and societies and connect with the creator and each other…our struggle against racism will be measured by how we think, feel and act towards ourselves, our marriages, our families and our communities in Africa and around the world...independent of White/European ideas, values, morals and paradigms."

RBG Introduction to Frantz Fanon Studies

Dr. Ivan Van Sertima

 Dr. Ivan Van Sertima is a literary critic, linguist, anthropologist, and writer. In 1977 he wrote They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, now in its sixteenth printing, for which he won the Clarence L. Holte Prize for excellence in literature and the humanities relating to the cultural heritage of Africa. He is the editor of the Journal of African Civilizations, and has edited numerous recent books including African Presence in Early America, Great African Thinkers, and Great Black Leaders: Ancient and Modern.
He has defended this highly "controversial" thesis before the Smithsonian, which has recently published his address.

They Came before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America

With the skill of a novelist, Ivan Van Sertima reveals to readers compelling, dramatic, and superbly detailed documentation of the presence and legacy of Black Africans in ancient America. It is the marriage of twin crafts--the artist's and the scholar's--in a book that makes it possible to see clearly the unmistakable face and handprint of Black Africans in Pre-Columbian America, and their overwhelming impact on the civilization they found here.

Link to the Video Learning Series:

Further Reading: A History Of The African-Olmecs

Medical Apartheid
Medical Ethicist Harriet Washington Documents How Blacks Still Suffer at the Hands of Medicine


Medical ethicist Harriet A. Washington Random House

"The fear of medicine is based on real events. And real events go way beyond -- way before and way after -- Tuskegee," says Harriet Washington. "There are things that are happening now that will keep [African Americans] from going to the hospital."

We've all heard of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and how black men were allowed to languish and spread this fatal disease in the name of medical research -- without their knowledge or permission.

In her recently released book, 'Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present,' Harriet A. Washington painstakingly documents how blacks -- whether it's slave women unwillingly having gynecological experiments done on them or artificial blood being used in inner city hospitals -- have been dehumanized and often brutalized by a profession which takes an oath to heal.

Unfortunately, Tuskegee was not an anomaly.

It's no coincidence, Washington explains, that blacks do not seek medical care until "the pain is too much" often forsaking preventative care because of stories like these or blatant disrespect at the hands of doctors...Read More

Tuskegee Syphilis Study

 

Vanessa Northington Gamble, M.D., Ph.D., is Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University, and is an internationally recognized expert on ... all » the history of race and racism in American medicine, cultural competence, and diversity. She discusses the enduring causes and consequences of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Series: "LeNoir/NMA Memorial Lecture"

Click here for IVMSTuskegee Experiment Video Enhanced Slide Presentation

No Struggle No Progress by Frederick Douglass, 1857

The whole history of progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle there is no progress.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning, they want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted. . .

Frederick Douglass (1857)

RBG Street Scholar "Black History"
Picture Collage Summaries Notepad

In Princeton, New Jersey on April 9, 1898, Paul Robeson was born to a former slave, the Rev. William Robeson. His mother, a teacher, died shortly thereafter when he was only five years old. Three years later, the Robeson family moved to Westfield, New Jersey. In 1910, Robeson's father became pastor of St.Thomas A.M.E. Zion Church and the Robeson family moved to Somerville, New Jersey. Paul Robeson attended Somerville High School. There, Robeson excelled in sports, drama, singing, academics, and debating. He graduated from Somerville High School in 1915.

Robeson was awarded a four year academic scholarship to Rutgers University in 1915, the third black student in the history of the institution. Despite the openly racist and violent opposition he faced, Robeson became a twelve letter athlete excelling in baseball, basketball, football, and track. He was named to the All American Football team on two occasions. In addition to his athletic talents, Robeson was named a Phi Beta Kappa scholar, belonged to the Cap & Skull Honor Society, and graduated valedictorian of his class in 1919.

He went on to study law at Columbia in New York and received his degree in 1923. There he met and married Eslanda Cardozo Goode, who was the first black woman to head a pathology laboratory. Robeson worked as a law clerk in New York, but once again faced discrimination and soon left the practice because a white secretary refused to take dictation from him...Read More

RBG Street Scholar "Black History"
Picture Collage Summaries Notepad

Martin Luther King Jr.On America and War

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy.
Martin Luther King, Jr., The Measures of Man, 1959

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Wall Street Journal, November 13, 1962.

RBG MLK Classroom / In His Own Words
"He Explains How He Entered The Civil Rights Movement"

  http://rbgnation.ning.com/xn/detail/u_RBGBLKPANTHA

The Black Panther Party (originally called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was an African American organization founded to promote civil rights and self-defense. It was active within the United States in the late 1960s into the 1970s.

Black Panthers (1968) part 1

Founded in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in October 1966, the organization initially espoused a doctrine calling for armed resistance to societal oppression in the interest of African American justice, though its objectives and philosophy changed radically throughout the party's existence. While the organization's leaders passionately espoused socialist doctrine, the party's black nationalist reputation attracted an ideologically diverse membership base, such that ideological consensus within the party was difficult to derive, and differing perspectives within the party base often clashed conspicuously with those of its leadership.
www.itsabouttimebpp.com/

The group was founded on the principles of its Ten-Point Program, a document that called for "Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice And Peace," as well

as exemption from military service that would utilize African Americans to "fight and kill for other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the White racist government of America."

Link to RBG Full Historical Tour / Annoted Pictures Lecture

Chairman Fred & BPP Min of Culture Emory Douglas 6/12/07

Chairman Fred Hampton Jr of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee will be having a open public discussion wit' Black Panther Party Minister of Culture Emory Douglas about revolutionary art, the counter-intelligence program, and the history and legacy of the Black Panther Party and how it relates to the work of the POCC today. This event will take place on Tuesday, June 12th at 7pm at the Black New World, 836 Pine St., in the Bottoms of West Oakland. No one will be turned away because of lack of funds.

For background study see:
Emory Douglas Revolutionary Art

Link to RBGz BPP Classroom:

Black August originated in the concentration camps of California to honor fallen Freedom Fighters, Jonathan Jackson, George Jackson, William Christmas, James McClain and Khatari Gaulden. Jonathan Jackson was gunned down outside the Marin County California courthouse on August 7, 1970 as he attempted to liberate three imprisoned Black Liberation Fighters: James McClain, William Christmas and Ruchell Magee.

These six brothers became known as the San Quentin Six. To honor these fallen soldiers the brothers who participated in the collective founding of Black August wore black armbands on their left arm and studied revolutionary works, focusing on the works of George Jackson...Learn More

Black August 2006 (part 1)

Also See:

George Jackson: Black Revolutionary & Spark for the Modern Day Anti-Prison Movement

The August 7, 1970 Marin County Courthouse Slave Rebellion

RBG Freedom Fighter Tribute: Feat, A Brief History of the New Afrikan Prison Struggle

RBG Who, What, Why and How Alphabet

Liberation is impossible if we fail to see ourselves in more positive terms. For without a change of vision, we are slaves to the oppressor's ideas and values --ideas and values that finally attack the very core of our existence. Therefore, we must see the world in terms of our own realities."Larry Neal, "Black Art and Black Liberation," 1969

NATIONBUILDING IS THE STANDARD /CLASSIC /MOST DEFINITIVE DISCOURSE--Review #3

BEST DEFINITION OF AFRICAN CENTERED EDUCATION MY RESEARCH HAS TURNED UP:

African Centered Education is a system of sequentially planned educational opportunities provided for African heritage children, youth and young adults to develop the necessary and required skills to participate in the global marketplace with specific interest on the upliftment and empowerment of their African-American communities and the total development and growth of the African continent.

Dr. E. Curtis Alexander

Professor Jacob H. Carruthers /Jedi Shemsu Jehewty

(February 15, 1930 - January 4, 2004)

(Click this photo for Dr.Carruthers on Africentric Education)

For those who would like to get deeper into RBG Street Scholars Think Tank Dr.Carruthers' essay on Africentric Education is highly recommended as it puts you smack dab into the middle of our scholarly education cipher and discourse. Professor Jacob H. Carruthers (RIU) was a founding director of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC) and a member of its national board of directors. He is a founding member of both the Kemetic Institute of Chicago and the Temple of the African Community of Chicago. He was also the acting director of the Center for Inner City Studies, Northeastern Illinois University, where he also served as a professor. He is the author of Science and Oppression, The Irritated Genie, and Mdw Ntr Divine Speech.

The Connection The current day Africentric-education movement, where Dr. Carruthers is one of our foremost authorities, is an outgrowth of the 1960s Black Studies Movement that we will be studying in the body of this curriculum.

Education Research, Background and Reference Resources that went into the building of our communiversity.

 

1. African Centered Education: Its Value, Importance, and Necessity in the Development of Black Children Haki R. Madhubuti
This book legitimizes the need for African-centered education at an early age in child development.

2. Afrocentric Idea by Molefi Kete Asante
This new edition of THE AFROCENTRIC IDEA boldly confronts the contemporary challenges that have been launched against Molefi Kete Asante's philosophical, social, and cultural theory. Expanding on his core ideas, Asante recasts his original ideas in the tradition of provocative critiques of the established social order. This is a fresh and dynamic location of culture within the context of social change. 256 p.

3. Nationbuilding: Theory and practice in Afrikan-centered education
Kwame Agyei Akoto
Improving Schools for African American Students: A Reader for Educational Leaders provides education leaders with access to critical ideas, research, andknowledge across a broad range of educational issues that affect the successfulschooling of African American children and youth. The articles that make up this book discuss generic education issues such as policy reform, the importance of high-quality teaching, and the improvement of schools from the perspective of the academic achievement of African American students. They explore the need to identify and redress policies and practices that hinder African American student achievement. They discuss effective teacher training programs, both pre-service and in-service, that focus on the academic and the ethical, social, political, and cultural dimensions of teaching African American students. These articles explore educational programs that build on the strengths that African American students bring to school, as well as how to create these programs in a widevariety of school settings, ranging from schools that serve predominantly African American students to schools in which African American students are a small percentage of the total school population... Read/Download the Full Document-pdf