RBG Afrikan- Centered Cultural Development and Education

RBG Street Scholars Think Tank's Purpose:
This Educational Program and Research Project is Dedicated to Further Building the Hip Hop--Black Liberation Movement Connection by Integrating Conscious Digital Edutainment with A Scholarly Self Directed Learning Environment.

Welcome to one of the baddest EduTainment Resources on the Web. A one-stop-shop for education,consciousness raising, entertainment and liberation. And the nicest thing about it is that you can become a contributor. Just start out by reading this overview and learning how things work. You can play a video right within this start page and even browse to it's music. Or turn on an audio playlist to facilitate your browsing. Tons of other options, too numerous to mention here are also right at you finger tips. Ride it however you like, it's all good. Once you get going, check out a Multi-Media Article that interests you and make a comment. I, RBG Street Scholar-Your Zine author, editor and guru will respond. The aforementioned approach is a kol gateway to doing bigger and better things in and with the Communiversity.

WHAT IS RBG STREET SCHOLARS THINK TANK AT ZIMBIO ALL ABOUT?

It's about creating and maintaining the best "Afri-Conscious Cyber EduTainment Portal / Communiversity on the Web".

It's about saving time doing study, learning / teaching together and having madd fun doing it.
The merticulously researched choice of links can be thought of as our votes in the popularity contest that is the "Best of the Best in Black Internet" . The intention is to provide a diverse and concise starting point for you to begin your quest for whatever information you are looking for from a progressive/radical/revolutionary Black perspective . As most of these sites have vast links sections of their own, so do the sites they link to, and so on, and so forth—starting from these links, you can delve further into whatever area interests you.

You got a myspace, youtube, odeo, website etc.
Add your Stuff Folx--and let's learn from each other, build together and teach the world

Our Zines are intended to help us develop and maintain a resource for scholarly research, build together and learn about any subject / topic related to what we're already about: Namely, the "Africentric Idea of Education" let's take the learner from G.E.D. to Ph.D in the contemporary liberal arts and sciences;

Including:
> computers & information technology,
> history and cultural development,
> religion and spirituality,
> sociology,
> political science,
> creative productions/ entertainment,
> education,
> health promotion and disease prevention
> economics and
> psychology
A one stop shop using all forms of media to interactively showcase our ideas of relavent education, unification, collectivity and self definition.

They say " Black Folx Can't Unite, I say they're a lie" Let's show the world our truth and culture; all under the umbrella of Black Nationalism> PanAfrikanism> Scientific Socialism> Revolutionary Change>Afrikan Internationalism.

Browse existing content in any of our four Zines and you will discover that they are all concentricly integrated, thus providing you with a most rich and wholesome interactive learning experience.

Help RBG Street Scholar, your Resident Guru, build our school with your good works.

Rate each others work as to keep us on point.

I'VE STARTED US OUT WITH SOME SOLID CONTENT. NOW WE MUST CONTINUE BY BUILDING TOGETHER. A GOOD WAY TO START IS BY FIRST SIGNING UP AND THEN BROWSING EACH FIELD IN THE TABLE OF CONTENTS PANE TO THE LEFT AS TO GET QUICKLY ORIENTED. A LINK BELOW TO "RBG STREET SCHOLARS THINK TANK RULES OF ENGAGEMENT" WILL TAKE YOU DEEPER STILL.

THE FOLLOWING IS A GUIDING SYNOSIS TAKEN FROM THE COMMUNIVERSITY PROPER:
With strick attention to developing our student’s basic education skills in the context of the highest standards of academic excellence, suitable for one to confidently sit for high stake exams(ie. SAT/ACT and MCATs, LSATs), we simutaneously advance the psycho-emotional healing and spiritual upliftment of our people by providing KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM AND OVERSTANDING of the historo-cultural, socio-political and psycho-educational experiences of Africans in America in away that RADICALLY REAPPRAISES EDUCATION from the pained and angry perspective of the oppressed black community.

WHY WE NEED TO DO THIS:
With the present day high rates of Black on Black homicide, suicide, and imprisonment and a rise in single-parent homes, rampant police brutality, unprecedented unemployment, and Blacks use of popular (ENEMY) culture (through music, video games and popular movies) to celebrate "anti-intellectualism, ignorance, irresponsible parenthood, drunkenness, dope dealing, weed smoking, cocaine, x-pills, loose sexual behavior and criminal lifestyles / thuggism"; we have chose to design a curriculum that, rather than getting caught up in the entertainment / BLACKPLOTATION aspects of hip hop/rap, will use hip hop/rap within a historo-cultural, socio-political and psycho-educational framework to address these various death walks forthrightly. Our new methodological style is intended to get our young people to begin to think critically about themselves, their world and their role as people of Afrikan descent.

WHERE WE ARE AND WHERE WE WANNA GO:
This work is a comprehensive (but only a core framework) sequenced survey of subjects and topics that have confronted Afrikans in America throughout our 246 years of chattel slavery, 100 years of aparthied and only “one generation of freedom” here in America. I like to describe the school as a “cultural development and leadership training communiversity”. From our research, we have determined that the idea of Sankofa, which means "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today", really encompasses the whole Afrikan-centered ideal. Nonetheless, as this is a work in evolution and always under construction, we have chosen to focus our teaching/learning journey most directly on the past 45 years of our struggle for human and civil rights—

THE THEME “THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THINGS STAY THE SAME, WE NEED A REVOLUTION, THE SYSTEM AIN’T GONA CHANGE UNLESS WE MAKE IT CHANGE”.

The content and character of the curriculum is Afrikan-centered and the goal is academic excellence in persuit of black power. We tease out the social, political, economic and moral imparatives of black power in the 21st century by zooming in on two povital questions throughout our course of study:

“WHAT IS BLACK OPPRESSION IN AMERICA AND WHAT IS AFRIKAN LIBERATION.”

RSS

More for Black History Month; Black Caribbean Sailors serving in the Union Navy during the Civil War.

Written by Ensayn1 on

From: ensaynreality.squarespace.com

As I said on a previous post, Black History Month should be about more than recycling the same stories over and over, and we should endeavor to present new or little known information.

On many occasions I have made it known that I believe the original people of the Americas, are who would be described today as Black people. There is much evidence to support this, and even a bit of rumination on the words used at the time of the European voyages which occurred before, and after the voyage of Christopher Columbus will help to reveal such. One main point to consider is the use of the word Indian. During the time of the European voyages west, the people encountered were described as Indians. Not withstanding, that in 1492 there was no place in the world named India. Yet, Christopher Columbus is alleged to have written in a letter that he had Indios with him on his return from the Lucayos. This dispells the tale that he was looking for a western route to India.

Thus, during the time of Columbus, the word Indian did not refer to place called India. The place we call India today was then called Hindustan, and the use of the term Indians for the people of the americas didn’t come into fashion until around 1553. Columbus also writes of the people of the Guanahani Islands (now the Bahamas) as “…not Black, but the color of the inhabitants of the Canaries (islands off the west coast of Africa), use your imagination concerning the race of the people that inhabited islands off Africa's west coast.

Its imperative that we understand that when Columbus says they are not black, he is not referring to race but, only to skin color. This doesn‘t indicate the people of the Americas are not Negroid/Africoid people, only that they are not as dark complected as other Moors he had encountered.

Later, during the time of the Underground Railroad, many escape routes lead from the Carolinas south through Georgia, Florida into the Caribbean on to the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, the islands that are in the closest proximity to the U.S. With that said I would like to present a post found on Black Food Culture shop and bookstore, written by Charo R. Walker on Afro Bahamians in the Union Navy during the Civil War. There were over 18,000 Black people in the Union Navy comprised of Black people of the U.S., Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados. Think of the deeply rooted connection of our ancestors that we have somehow allowed ourselves to forget. Surely our ancestors didn't.

Historical Society Talk on Afro-Bahamian Sailors in the U.S. Civil War.

By Charo R. Walker
BlackFood News Reporter

LAST Thursday The Bahamas Historical Society hosted a talk by Dr. Peter T. Dalleo entitled, ‘That Boasted Land of Negro Liberty’: Afro-Bahamian Sailors and the Union Navy During the U.S. Civil War.

The event, which was attended by about 30 persons, proved to be very thought provoking.

Dr. Dalleo holds a PhD in African History and is a former lecturer at The College of The Bahamas. Apart from his educational background, he acknowledges that working in Kenya and Ethiopia strengthened his knowledge of Africa. He also credits his time spent in The Bahamas with enhancing his understanding of the African Diaspora in the Caribbean.

In his most recent work, which spans from 1861 to 1865, he looks at the intersection of American and Bahamian history from an African perspective.

His research profiles 62 Afro-Bahamian sailors who served in the Union Navy during the U.S. Civil War. Dr. Dalleo’s proof of the nationality of these sailors rests on enlistment papers that he accessed which lists Nassau, New Providence as the birthplace of the sailors.

According to Dr. Dalleo, most of the sailors were in their mid-twenties, with the youngest being 19 and the eldest 47.

The sailors, for the most part, enlisted in the navy yards or military shipyards on the East Coast of the United States; mainly in New York. There were also some instances in which Afro-Bahamian sailors signed up outside the U.S.

Dr. Dalleo posited that those sailors who signed up in the U.S. were probably working there before the war began and had considerable maritime experience given the strong maritime tradition in The Bahamas. As a result, 39 of the Afro-Bahamian sailors had a rating of seaman or ordinary seaman as opposed to being cooks or being assigned other menial tasks.

He also told the audience that Afro-Bahamian sailors served on 52 different vessels, including supply ships and gun boats. Dr. Dalleo highlighted Dover Edwards, in particular, as an Afro-Bahamian sailor who saw “action” during the War.

Of the 90,000 sailors who enlisted in the Union Navy 18,000 were of African descent. Additionally, the Afro-Bahamian sailors were part of a larger Afro-Caribbean presence in the Union Navy; as sailors of African descent also came from Jamaica, Trinidad, the Turks, and Barbados.

The talk ended with Dr. Dalleo offering speculations on why the sailors enlisted in the Union Navy. He stated that the navy offered good pay, there were prize awards for capturing Confederacy vessels, there was predictability of punishment in the face of discrimination, and there was racial tolerance though there was personal racism.

Perhaps, the biggest pull, which Dr. Dalleo also mentioned, was that they knew they were fighting for the freedom of their brothers and sisters in America.

Though Dr. Dalleo admitted that his work was incomplete and lacked all of the answers just yet his efforts so far are commendable.

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