Did you know that an entire Manhattan village owned by black people was destroyed to build Central Park.
The community was called Seneca Village. It spanned from 82nd Street to 89th Street.
Blackdom, New Mexico
It was founded by Frank Boyer and Ella Louise McGruder and it was the first black town in New Mexico. It was a safe haven for our people. It had a population of 300 residents by 1908.
In 1919, the town struck oil!
The residents then created the Blackdom Oil Company, and they became set for generations of wealth but tragedy struck too…
The town suffered a drought and became uninhabitable. Families left and by the end of World War I, it was essentially a ghost town.
Freedman’s Village, Virginia
A place for Free Men, Women, and children. The U.S. government established the Freedman’s Village in May of 1863. It was created to address the rise in number of Black Americans who escaped slavery in the South during the Civil War.
Freedman’s Village goal was to house, train and educate freedmen, women and their children and provide food, job training, church services and medical care.
Freedman’s Village was razed to build Arlington National Cemetery.
Greenwood, Tulsa Oklahoma
Ottawa W. Gurley created the Black Wall Street, an affluent black community in Greenwood in Tulsa.
In 1906 Gurley purchased over 40 acres of land sold exclusively to "coloreds only” in Tulsa. He created an economically independent black township.
Footage of the Prosperous Greenwood, The Black Wallstreet, before the Tulsa Race Riot.
In 1921, The Tulsa Race Massacre happened. White supremacists killed more than 300 African Americans. They looted and burned to ground black homes and businesses in Greenwood.
Glenarden, Maryland
Glenarden got its start in 1910 when a Black man named W.R. Smith purchased multiple tracts of land and founded a residential community about 10 miles from Washington D.C and developed into a middle-class suburban neighborhood.
It was the third predominately African-American organized town in the state of Maryland. The town and its businesses grew over time. Its name was also changed from the Town of Glenarden to the City of Glenarden in 1994
Weeksville, New York
The town was formed by a black freedman named James Week after purchasing a large tract of land in Brooklyn The town was formed after the state of New York abolished slavery in 1827. It was a self-supporting community of African American Freedman.
It had the highest rate of property and business ownership in any black urban community at the time. The town also had an independent newspaper called The Freedman’s Torch, one of African-American first newspapers and the first integrated school in Brooklyn, Colored School No. 2
Mound Bayou, Mississippi
The all-black town, Mound Bayou which was started in 1887 by Isaiah Montgomery and his cousin Benjamin T. Green. They bought land for 7$ per acre, a total of 840 acres and grew it into the largest all black town in the nation!
40 businesses, 6 churches, 3 schools, a bank, hospital, etc. They transformed a swamp into a thriving community.
Fort Mose, Florida
It was the earliest town where enslaved Africans were considered free. Most of the people who lived there were escaped slaves primarily from plantations. It was established in 1738 when Florida was a Spanish colony.
Many were skilled workers, blacksmiths, carpenters, cattlemen, boatmen, and farmers. With accompanying women and children, they created a colony of freed people that ultimately attracted other fugitive slaves.
North Brentwood, Maryland
The Town of North Brentwood, incorporated in 1924, is the oldest incorporated African-American municipality in Prince George’s County. It was a politically and economically sufficient town had its own government and businesses flourished in the town.
One in every four cowboys was believed to be a Black man released from slavery despite the stories told in popular books and movies although the most famous cowboys of the old west were white.
Some notable cowboys!
A THREAD
Many of the enslaved african men were familiar with cattle herding from Africa.
a highlight of some famous black cowboys:
Bill Pickett (1871-1932), rodeo performer.
World famous black cowboy Bill Pickett "Dusky Demon" invented the rodeo sport, bulldogging (steer wrestling). In 1989 was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame.
Joseph Phillipe Lemercier Laroche and his children were the only black passengers on RMS Titanic.
A THREAD
Joseph Phillipe Lemercier Laroche was the son of a white French army captain and a Haitian woman who was a descendant of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the first ruler of independent Haiti.
Laroche’s uncle, Dessalines M. Cincinnatus, was president of Haiti from 1911 to 1912.
German colonizers in Namibia, due to their interest in evolutionary theory & missing links executed inmates and decapitated them.
Herero women were required to remove all flesh from the heads to create clean skulls suitable for shipment for study in German Institutes.
A THREAD
The German missionaries began working in Southern Africa in the late 1820s and experienced significant success in evangelizing and educating their converts. But toward the end of the 19th century, a new ‘gospel’ was increasingly introduced to Africa.
Germans, many indoctrinated in Social Darwinian ideas, colonized South West Africa (Namibia) in the 1880s.
They generally regarded the Herero people as primitive and frequently referred to them as 'subhuman' and 'baboons!'
The Banyole of the ancient kingdom Of Uganda practiced and perfected C-Section long before the Europeans.
While Europeans mainly concentrated on saving the baby, the ugandans were performing the operation successfully saving both.
A THREAD
Caesarean section was considered a life-threatening procedure in England that was only to be undertaken in the direst of circumstances and facing the decision on whether to save the life of the mother or baby.
The first successful C-section done in Africa ("success" defined as both surviving) is usually credited to Irish surgeon James Barry (Margaret Ann Bulkley), who performed the operation in Cape Town, South Africa.
In 1939 Billie Holiday recorded the first great protest song of the Civil Rights Movement, 'Strange Fruit’
The Chilling Story of Strange Fruit and Billie Holiday.
A THREAD!
"Strange Fruit" was originally a poem written by Jewish-American writer, teacher and songwriter Abel Meeropol, under his pseudonym Lewis Allan, as a protest against lynchings and later set it to music.
The song soon came to Billie Holiday's attention & after so many frequent requests of that song, she closed out EVERY performance with it. The waiters would stop serving ahead of time for complete silence, the room would darken, a spotlight would shine on Holiday's face…
On this day in 1865, the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution is ratified, abolishing slavery.
This picture is 25 years after the end of slavery.
How Slavery continued after the 13th amendment ‘abolished slavery’
A THREAD
In 1866, a year after the amendment was ratified, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina began to lease out convicts for labor.
This made the business of arresting black people very lucrative, thus hundreds of white men were hired by these states as police officers.
Their primary responsibility being to search out and arrest black peoples who were in violation of ‘Black Codes’