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Category Archives: American legal system
Birth of a Nation: Another Creation Angle
From time to time those of us working with the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project (MPCPMP) find ourselves re-emphasizing several points about U.S. history as the country addresses the day’s pertinent issues. These themes bear repeating: The nation’s … Continue reading
Posted in American legal system, American politics, descendants of slaves, ethnic studies, gun control, weapons
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Black Enslavement and Emancipation – How Long
In an address given on August 23, 2015, to an audience gathered at Faneuil Hall in Boston, Massachusetts, for an ancestral remembrance ceremony to commemorate enslaved Africans, Massachusetts State Representative Byron Rushing made a remark that struck a chord – … Continue reading
Posted in African American History, American legal system, American politics, descendants of slaves, reparations, slavery
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Fantasy
If I am not who you say I am then you are not who you think you are. Whenever observance for July 4th approaches, historical reflection is appropriate. This year, 2015, has been a time when chickens came home to … Continue reading
Posted in African American History, African American literature, American legal system, American politics, ancestors, captured Africans, descendants of slaves, Slave economy, slavery, Uncategorized
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Protest, Image, Black Struggle and Legacy
All black progress in the United States has begun with confrontation and resistance. This is a basic fact of American life and the only way to understand the current protest focused on police violence. As the black abolitionist Frederick Douglass … Continue reading
Posted in African American History, American legal system, American politics, slavery
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Here We Go Again
Over Thanksgiving weekend in Jacksonville, Florida, Jordan Russell Davis, a seventeen year old black male, was shot by Michael David Dunn, a white man. This time the young person’s death was triggered because he and his friends were, allegedly, playing … Continue reading
Posted in American legal system
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The First and the Forced
Over the last two weeks, the issues of law and race surfaced while board members were traveling in the Deep South (Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi). Previously these states were frontier regions, territories exchanged frequently among European nations, and heavily populated … Continue reading
Posted in African American History, American legal system, ethnic studies, Native Americans
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Now or Never
Recently, during a conversation about the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project, someone stated that we must move as quickly as possible to conduct memorial services for our ancestors and place markers at Middle Passage port sites, or their … Continue reading
Posted in African American History, African Diaspora, African ethnic groups, American legal system, American politics, ancestors, descendants of slaves, slave ports, slavery, transatlantic slave trade
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Source Documents for Blog Posts (May-August, 2012)
Text: A Forgotten History: The Slave Trade and Slavery in New England, Choices for the 21st Century Education Program, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, (2008). This work provides an overview of enslavement and the human trade of Africans … Continue reading
Posted in African American History, African American literature, African Diaspora, American legal system, American politics, descendants of slaves, slavery, transatlantic slave trade
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Strong People: The Evolution of Anti-Slavery and Emancipation
Enslavement has been called the “peculiar institution.” As a practice that is as old as mankind, its very longevity was an argument supporting continued acceptance. We realize that enslavement is based upon the exercise of power, and everything else is … Continue reading
Posted in African American History, African Diaspora, Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Latinos, American legal system, American politics, Central America, descendants of slaves, slavery, transatlantic slave trade
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The Black Vote: Old Wine, New Bottles – More than a Vote for President
Last week the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People announced that it is currently fighting suppression of the African American vote in this year’s Presidential election. The NAACP and other groups have renewed the struggle for the right … Continue reading
Posted in African American History, American legal system, American politics
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