Black Jesus.com

How Important Is Black History Month?

Most students, black and white go through 12 years of school learning very little about Black History beyond the fact that we were slaves. Students know little of the significant political, social and scientific contributions African Americans have made in the building of America. This lack of knowledge leads most whites to a false sense of superiority and black children to a sense of inferiority. Black History is American history and until it is incorporated in all American History classes for all grade levels, we will continue to have a lack of understanding and respect of African Americans. What do you think?

Thank You Coretta Scott King. You will be greatly missed.

Behind every great man is truly a great women.  She carried on the torch of freedom for Black people and all people.  She was not content to be the widow of one the greatest men history has ever known. She knew it was her responsibility to carry on and that she did with dignity and strength. If you need to be reminded of just how great she was, please visit and listen to this page.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5180053

Life Without Black People

I had a friend of mine sent me this excellent piece of prose about Black History for me to share:

LIFE WITHOUT BLACK PEOPLE
A very humorous and revealing story is told about a
group of white people who were fed up with African-
Americans, so they joined together and wished
them away. They passed through a deep dark
tunnel and emerged in sort of a twilight zone where
there is an America without black people.

At first these white people breathed a sigh of relief.
At last, they said, no more crime, drugs, violence and
welfare. All of the blacks have gone!

Then suddenly, reality set in. The "NEW AMERICA" is
Not America at all--only a barren land.

1. There are very few crops that have flourished
Because the nation was built on a slave-supported
system.

2. There are no cities with tall skyscrapers because
Alexander Mils, a black man, invented the elevator,
And without it, one finds great difficulty reaching
higher floors.

3. There are few if any cars because Richard Spikes, a
Black man, invented the automatic gearshift, Joseph
Gambol, also black, invented the Super Charge System
for Internal Combustion Engines, and Garrett A.
Morgan, a black man, invented the traffic signals.

4. Furthermore, one could not use the rapid transit
system because its predecessor was the electric
trolley,
which was invented by another black man, Albert R.
Robinson.

5. Even if there were streets on which cars and a
rapid transit system could operate, they were
cluttered with paper because an African American,
Charles Brooks invented the street sweeper.

6. There were few if any newspapers, magazines and
books because John Love invented the pencil sharpener,
William Purveys invented the fountain pen and Lee
Barrage invented the Type Writing Machine and W. A.
Love invented the Advanced Printing Press. They were
all, you guessed it, Black.

7. Even if Americans could write their letters,
articles and books, they would not have been
transported by mail because William Barry invented the
Postmarking and Canceling Machine, William Purveys
invented the Hand Stamp and Philip Downing invented
the Letter Drop.

8. The lawns were brown and wilted because Joseph
Smith invented the Lawn Sprinkler and John Burr the
Lawn Mower.

9. When they entered their homes, they found them to
be poorly ventilated and poorly heated. You see,
Frederick Jones invented the Air Conditioner and Alice
Parker the Heating Furnace. Their homes were also dim.
But of course, Lewis Later invented the Electric Lamp,
Michael Harvey invented the lantern and Granville T.
Woods invented the Automatic Cut off Switch. Their
homes were also filthy because Thomas W. Steward
invented the Mop & Lloyd P. Ray the Dust Pan.

10. Their children met them at the door--barefooted,
Shabby, motley and unkempt. But what could one expect?
Jan E. Matzelinger invented the Shoe Lasting Machine,
Walter Sammons Invented the Comb, Sarah Boone
invented the Ironing Board and George T. Samon
invented the Clothes Dryer.

11. Finally, they were resigned to at least have
dinner amidst all of this turmoil. But here again, the
food had spoiled because another Black man, John
Standard invented the refrigerator.

Now, isn't that something? What would this country be
like without the contributions of Blacks, as

African-Americans?

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "By the time we leave
for work, Americans have depended on the inventions
from the minds of Blacks."

Black history includes more than just slavery,
Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm
X, and Marcus Garvey & W.E.B. Dubois.

What do you think..........

Prince Among Slaves

PRINCE AMONG SLAVES: The Amazing True Story of an African Prince Enslaved in the American South- A Documentary Film by Unity Productions Foundation Narrated by Mos Def Michael Wolfe and Alex Kronemer, Executive Producers Prince Among Slaves follows the true life story of Abdul-Rahman Ibrahima Sori, the Prince of a large African Kingdom and Captain of his father's armies who was captured in a battle in 1788 and sold into the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. After enduring the brutal Middle Passage, he eventually ended up in Mississippi at the birth of the U.S., where he remained enslaved for almost 40 years. Amazing circumstances finally led to his release, but not his freedom, nor the freedom of his large family. Defying the command that he return immediately to Africa and still technically a slave, Abdul-Rahman set out on a quest to raise enough money to purchase his family's freedom. Widely written about and sought after for public events, he became the most famous African in America, meeting with President John Quincy Adams and other leaders of the day. Prince Among Slaves paints a vivid picture of the extraordinary times in which this remarkable man lived, interweaving the universal themes of bondage and deliverance, privation and perseverance, to tell a story of survival of the human spirit about a person who endured the humiliation of slavery without ever losing his dignity or his hope for freedom.

Black Pharoahs- National Geographic

The ancient world was devoid of racism. At the time of Piye’s historic conquest, the fact that his skin was dark was irrelevant. Artwork from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome shows a clear awareness of racial features and skin tone, but there is little evidence that darker skin was seen as a sign of inferiority. Only after the European powers colonized Africa in the 19th century did Western scholars pay attention to the color of the Nubians’ skin, to uncharitable effect.

Even famed Harvard Egyptologist George Reisner—whose discoveries between 1916 and 1919 offered the first archaeological evidence of Nubian kings who ruled over Egypt—besmirched his own findings by insisting that black Africans could not possibly have constructed the monuments he was excavating. He believed that Nubia’s leaders, including Piye, were light-skinned Egypto-Libyans who ruled over the primitive Africans. That their moment of greatness was so fleeting, he suggested, must be a consequence of the same leaders intermarrying with the “negroid elements.”

These are just two paragraphs of this must read untold story in this month's National Geographic below............

By Robert Draper	Photographs by Kenneth Garrett
For 75 years Nubian kings ruled over ancient Egypt, reunifying the country and building an empire. Until recently, theirs was a chapter of history lost in the shadows.

In the year 730 B.C., a man by the name of Piye decided the only way to save Egypt from itself was to invade it. Things would get bloody before the salvation came. “Harness the best steeds of your stable,” he ordered his commanders. The magnificent civilization that had built the great pyramids had lost its way, torn apart by petty warlords. For two decades Piye had ruled over his own kingdom in Nubia, a swath of Africa located mostly in present-day Sudan. But he considered himself the true ruler of Egypt as well, the rightful heir to the spiritual traditions practiced by pharaohs such as Ramses II and Thutmose III. Since Piye had probably never actually visited Lower Egypt, some did not take his boast seriously. Now Piye would witness the subjugation of decadent Egypt firsthand—“I shall let Lower Egypt taste the taste of my fingers,” he would later write. North on the Nile River his soldiers sailed. At Thebes, the capital of Upper Egypt, they disembarked. Believing there was a proper way to wage holy wars, Piye instructed his soldiers to purify themselves before combat by bathing in the Nile, dressing themselves in fine linen, and sprinkling their bodies with water from the temple at Karnak, a site holy to the ram-headed sun god Amun, whom Piye identified as his own personal deity. Piye himself feasted and offered sacrifices to Amun. Thus sanctified, the commander and his men commenced to do battle with every army in their path. By the end of a yearlong campaign, every leader in Egypt had capitulated—including the powerful delta warlord Tefnakht, who sent a messenger to tell Piye, “Be gracious! I cannot see your face in the days of shame; I cannot stand before your flame, I dread your grandeur.” In exchange for their lives, the vanquished urged Piye to worship at their temples, pocket their finest jewels, and claim their best horses. He obliged them. And then, with his vassals trembling before him, the newly anointed Lord of the Two Lands did something extraordinary: He loaded up his army and his war booty, and sailed southward to his home in Nubia, never to return to Egypt again. When Piye died at the end of his 35-year reign in 715 B.C., his subjects honored his wishes by burying him in an Egyptian-style pyramid, with four of his beloved horses nearby. He was the first pharaoh to receive such entombment in more than 500 years. A pity, then, that the great Nubian who accomplished these feats is literally faceless to us. Images of Piye on the elaborate granite slabs, or stelae, memorializing his conquest of Egypt have long since been chiseled away. On a relief in the temple at the Nubian capital of Napata, only Piye’s legs remain. We are left with a single physical detail of the man—namely, that his skin was dark. Piye was the first of the so-called black pharaohs—a series of Nubian kings who ruled over all of Egypt for three-quarters of a century as that country’s 25th dynasty. Through inscriptions carved on stelae by both the Nubians and their enemies, it is possible to map out these rulers’ vast footprint on the continent. The black pharaohs reunified a tattered Egypt and filled its landscape with glorious monuments, creating an empire that stretched from the southern border at present-day Khartoum all the way north to the Mediterranean Sea. They stood up to the bloodthirsty Assyrians, perhaps saving Jerusalem in the process. Continue reading at National Geographic.

Slavery In America: Bush's Long-Held 'Family Secret'

By Jennifer Millman.

Date Posted: February 20, 2008

The Bush family owned about 30 slaves 175 years ago in Maryland, reports Edward Ball, author of Slaves in the Family, on TheRoot.com. Is it fair to bring up family connections to slave owners so many years later? Tell us what you think. President Bush is in the midst of a six-day tour of Africa, his second visit to the continent, which includes stops in countries such as Benin, Ghana and Liberia, places from which the United States received hundreds of thousands of slaves. Smack in the middle of the trip fell President's Day, which honors George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and all other men who have served our country as president. Read about your five Black presidents to remember.

Will Bush take the opportunity to talk about his ancestors' ties to slavery? Probably not, writes Ball, considering the matter is a long-held "family secret," according to The Bush Tragedy, a new book by Jacob Weisberg, which barely mentioned the Bush family's longstanding involvement in the slave trade. But in April 2007, the secrets started to leak out. A historian named Robert Hughes discovered census records that revealed five householders of the Walker family, related to Bush through his father's mother, were slaveholding farmers during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, reports Ball. \

Bush has talked about slavery on several occasions, including in a 2003 speech on Gorée Island, from which young West African children were shipped to the United States to be enslaved. At the time, he called slavery "one of the greatest crimes of history." But Bush didn't mention that his ancestors--up to his father's great-great-great grandparents, who owned two slaves--participated in it. Why? It's a touchy subject, one that often fuels defensiveness around the issue of reparations. Here's what the White Guy says white people need to know about reparations. About 15 million white Americans today have slave-owning ancestors, according to Ball, who adds that while many may not talk about this family history, most of them know it exists.

It's unclear how much Bush's ties to slavery have influenced his family's political dynasty. No records about the slaves they owned survived, and the evidence available provides no indication the Bush family owned slaves after 1838, which is when the Walker family declared bankruptcy and moved to southern Illinois. How'd the family get the money to start over? They most likely sold their slaves at an auction, but as far as the records indicate, the money trails ends there, writes Ball. But the history remains. The Bush Tragedy quotes a letter from David Walker, one of the later heads of the current Bush family and a self-proclaimed "believer in eugenics and the 'unwritten law' of lynching," published in the St. Louis Republic in 1914. Walker wrote that Blacks were "more insidious than prostitution and 'all the other evils combined,'" reports Ball.

In 1930, President Bush's great-grandfather bought an old cotton plantation in South Carolina for use as a vacation and hunting getaway where the current president's father, George Herbert Walker Bush, would play as a youth, pampered and waited on by "teams of Black cooks, valets and drivers," according to Ball. While Ball acknowledges that heirs of slave owners are not necessarily responsible for their past, he says they should be accountable for it. That includes President Bush. But as the Bush political dynasty ends with one of the worst approval ratings in presidential history amid an unsettled immigration melee, disastrous war and tumultuous economy, no one is surprised he's left it off his agenda while touring Africa.

How Many U.S. Presidents Owned Slaves? Of our first 18 U.S. presidents, 13 owned slaves, reports UnderstandingPrejudice.org.

Which president owned the most slaves?

Here's a list by number of slaves owned: George Washington: 317 Thomas Jefferson: 237 Andrew Jackson: 200 Zachary Taylor: 145 James Madison: 118 James Monroe: 75 John Tyler: 70 James Knox Polk: 24 William Harrison: 11 Andrew Johnson: 8 Ulysses S. Grant: 5 James Buchanan: 2 Martin Van Buren: 1 John Adams: 0 John Quincy Adams: 0 Millard Fillmore: 0 Franklin Pierce: 0 Abraham Lincoln: 0

Is it fair to bring up family connections to slave owners so many years later? Tell us what you think?

Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination- 40th Anniversary

Like Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr. Gave His Life To Free All Of God's People.

MLK Virtual Tour
by BuildTheDream

MLK Day Of Service

In 1994 Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act, designating the King Holiday as a national day of volunteer service. Instead of a day off from work or school, Congress asked Americans of all backgrounds and ages to celebrate Dr. King's legacy by turning community concerns into citizen action. The King Day of Service brings together people who might not ordinarily meet, breaks down barriers that have divided us in the past, leads to better understanding and ongoing relationships, and is an opportunity to recruit new volunteers for your ongoing work.

Participation in the King Day of Service has grown steadily over the past decade, with hundreds of thousands of Americans each year engaging in projects such as tutoring and mentoring children, painting schools and senior centers, delivering meals, building homes, and reflecting on Dr. King's life and teachings. Many of the projects started on King Day continue to engage volunteers beyond the holiday and impact the community year-round.

Although the scope of the event grows every year, many people still are not aware of the service component of the holiday. By encouraging the participation of as many organizations as possible, we hope to make next year's King Day of Service the biggest and best ever, engaging more people in service that honors Dr. King's life and teachings.

Slavery Timeline :African Americans From Emancipation to the 1990's By USC Professor Litwack

In this presentation from the Legacy of Slavery series, UC Berkeley Professor and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Leon Litwack, deals with "Trouble in Mind: African Americans From Emancipation to the 1990's." Litwack talks about the racist treatment of African Americans using examples from the Roaring 20's with lynching occurring weekly to World War II where German soldiers caught by allied troops were treated better than American black soldiers to the Civil Rights' movement of Post World II. His oratory and facts are truly excellent.

Black Veterans - African Americans Have Always Served In The Face Of Racism

Fighting on Two Fronts:

The African American Experience of World War II presented by the Amistad Research Center.

More than one million African Americans served in the United States armed services in World War II and even more worked at home to help ensure victory. It is in recognition of the importance of the African American contribution in World War II that the Amistad Research Center of Tulane University, The Center for African and African American Studies at Southern University at New Orleans, The Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans and The National D-Day Museum host Double V-Fighting on Two Fronts: The African American Experience of World War II.