Terminology: Slave, Servant, Commodity, Property

African American History, African Diaspora, American legal system, captured Africans, descendants of slaves, slavery

Recently there has been an attempt to “soften” history as the story of African slavery is broadly re-told and shared. If left unchecked the transatlantic slave trade, at least in Texas, will be known as the ‘triangular trade.” Abraham Lincoln will have freed servants rather than slaves. We say, “Stop It!” Soft pedaling does not provide an accurate description of the facts. We find it offensive to rely on one Read More

One in Every Home: The African American Presence, a Measure of Success

African American History, African Diaspora, Slave economy, slavery

The pervasiveness of Africans and their enslavement in the Americas is not yet realized. We can present statistics such as seventy-seven percent of the immigrants to the “New World” were African until the 1820’s when European immigration began to be strongly encouraged but that still remains an abstraction. The reality of America does not conform to the myth of a majority European-predominant presence. The United States of American was not Read More

The Negro National Anthem–As You’ve Never Seen it Before…/ A Black History Moment

African American History, African American music, American politics, ancestors, descendants of slaves, music, slavery

Although February has been established as Black History Month the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project wishes to post this video on this first day of March. We acknowledge that our history spans every day of the year and we hope that you will keep that in mind as you visit our site and read the posts. Please remember all those whose shoulders and backs we stand upon today. Read More

Slavery by Another Name

African American History, American legal system, American politics, descendants of slaves, slavery

Months ago we published a post: Brown Trucks that reflected upon heightened awareness. The idea is that once someone becomes aware of something, evidence of it occurs more frequently. And so it is with the analogy of enslavement and imprisonment. Both restrict freedom, enable oppression and often are accompanied by dehumanization. In the United States of America, however, the elements of race, crime and punishment take peculiar twists and turns Read More

I’d Rather Die

African American History, descendants of slaves

At the height of the Jim Crow era in the United States something occurred on a train strikingly similar to the tone of today’s political discourse. According to the story, a White woman traveling on a train through the South suddenly became ill. A porter arrived and seeing the crisis, said he would call for a doctor. There was quite a commotion among the people on board as the conductor cleared Read More

Saltwater Africans

African American History, African Diaspora, captured Africans, Middle Passage, slave ports, slave ships, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

The term “saltwater African” is not familiar to many. It specifically refers to Africans who survived the Middle Passage. They had come across the ocean, the salt water. For the first two hundred years in the Americas there was a continuous supply of this population. Until Africans in the Diaspora were able to maintain fertility rates that lessened the demand to import, a majority of the black population, particularly in Read More

Source Documents for Blog Visitors, February 2012

African American History, African American music, African Diaspora, African ethnic groups, Afro-Latinos, burial ceremonies, captured Africans, descendants of slaves, enslaved women, ethnic studies, Mexican Americans, oral history, Slave economy, slave ships, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

This project is committed to getting out information to those who are interested. We pledged to provide readers quarterly with materials that we base the posts upon, so here are the second quarter’s materials as promised by category with annotation. Articles: African Burial Ground Project: paradigm for cooperation? by Michael Blakey (Museum International, UNESCO, 2010). Professor Blakey is on our project’s advisory board and worked continuously on the Manhattan African Burial Ground Project. Read More

Ethnic Studies: The Rest of the Story

African American History, ethnic studies, Mexican Americans

During the last week of December 2011, Arizona Administrative Law Judge Lewis Kowal ruled that the curriculum used in Tucson’s Mexican American studies programs was biased. Part of his decision stated: …However, teaching oppression objectively is quite different than actively presenting material in a biased, political, and emotionally charged manner, which is what occurred in MAS classes. Teaching in such a manner promotes social or political activism against the white Read More

African Americans: The Canary in the Mine

African American History, American legal system, American politics, ancestors, descendants of slaves, ethnic studies, slavery

Through conditioning and experience, especially after age 35, African Americans, almost to a person, understand the United States from a different perspective than other Americans. W.E.B. Du Bois described it as living in two worlds, having two voices. In The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois said that African Americans were neither African nor American, but both. That has held true throughout the history of the United States. For example, Black Read More

Minority Rules

African American History, American legal system, American politics

Have we been sold a bill of goods throughout US history? From affirmative action to one-man-one-vote, to waging war to make the world safe for democracy, and then examining the creation of the Electoral College, and the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence are there not some contradictions between national rhetoric and the historical record? More aggressive critics wonder whether citizens have been “hoodwinked, flimflammed, or bamboozled” when Read More