In memory of those who chose the sea.. —The "Igbo Landing" story —
In an act of mass resistance against slavery, a group of slaves revolted, took control of the slave ship grounded it on an island & rather than submit to slavery, proceeded to march into water & drown.
THREAD!
Igbo Landing is the location of a mass suicide of Igbo slaves that occurred in 1803 on St. Simons Island, GA.
A group of Igbo slaves revolted & rather than submit to slavery, marched into the water while singing in Igbo, drowning themselves in. The slaves had been chained and put aboard a small ship to be transported to their destinations.
During this voyage, they took control of the ship and grounded it, drowning their captors in the process. The sequence of actual events is unclear as most of the historical incidence was passed down by oral tradition.
A common version is that once ashore, walked into the creek in unison, singing & chanting in Igbo under the direction of someone who seemed to be like a high priest among them. This mutiny has been referred to in some quarters as the first major freedom march in America's history
Ghanaian artist Kwame Atoko-Bamfo created several sculptures in a lake to remember our ancestors who drowned as they were transported through the Atlantic Sea during slavery.
Beyonce's "Love Drought" video was based on the "Igbo Landing" story
If you love my content, You can support my history page/project here through donations/tips to keep up on: ko-fi.com/africanarchives
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Happy 77th birthday to Revolutionary Assata Shakur!
In 1979, she escaped from U.S prison later received asylum in Cuba.
“I saw this as a necessary step, not only because I was innocent..but because I knew that in the racist legal system, I would receive no justice”
A THREAD
Who is Assata Shakur?
Assata Shakur, also known as Joanne Chesimard, was a black activist, a member of the Black Liberation Army & the Black Panthers. She is the godmother of hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur.
On May 2nd, 1973, she was unfairly convicted of shooting and murdering State Trooper Werner Foester in New Jersey.
A formerly enslaved woman, Mary Lumpkin, liberated a slave jail known as ‘The Devil’s Half Acre’ and turned it into an HBCU. #WomensHistoryMonth
A THREAD
Mary was sold to a man named Robert Lumpkin at the age of around 13 and was forced to bear children for him & help him run a slave jail in Richmond, Virginia. It was known as Lumpkin’s jail.
Slave jails were sites of confinement & torture for enslaved men, women and children who tried to escape from slavery to free states or who were waiting to be sold.
A sundown or sunset town was a town, city, or neighborhood in the US that excluded non-whites after dark.
The term sundown came from the signs that were posted stating that people of color had to leave the town by sundown.
A THREAD!
In most cases, signs were placed at the town's borders which read: “Stranger/Negro, Don't Let the Sun Set On You Here." The exclusion was official town policy or through restrictive covenants agreed to by the real estate agents of the community.
The policy was usually enforced through intimidation. This intimidation could occur in a number of ways, including harassment by police officers or neighbors and in some circumstances violence.
On this day in 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted, recognizing newly freed enslaved people as U.S. Citizens.
THREAD
The Amendment has 3 clauses:
-the Citizenship Clause
-the Due Process Clause
-the Equal Protection Clause
The Citizenship Clause overruled the previous Dred Scott v Sandford Supreme Court ruling which stated that African Americans could not be citizens of the United States.
Sarah Rector became a multi-millionare oil baron and the richest black child at just 12 years old.
She was so rich that Oklahoma legislature legally declared her to be a white person.
A THREAD!
Sarah Rector was born in 1902 in Oklahoma to Joseph Rector & Rose McQueen. They were African descendants of the Creek Nation Creek Indians before the Civil war which became part of the Creek Nation after the Treaty of 1866.
As such, they and their descendants were listed as freedmen thus entitled to land allotments under the Treaty of 1866 made by the United States with the Five Civilized Tribes.
On this day in 1947, Activist & member of the Black Panther Party Mark Clark was born.
He was assassinated together with Fred Hampton by Chicago police & FBI, both at 21 years Old.
William O'Neal, an FBI informant, infiltrated the Panthers & set up them up for $300
A THREAD
In Illinois, where Fred Hampton was born, Black communities faced relentless police harassment and systemic barriers to essential services like housing and education in predominantly Black areas.
The Black Panther party, a creation of Huey Newton and fellow student Bobby Seale, insisted on black nationalist response to racial discrimination. The party’s Illinois chapter was opened in 1967 and Hampton joined in 1968, aged just 20.