Sarah Saartjie Baartman was cruelly exploited in Europe by being exhibited as a freak show attraction because of her protruding butt. After her death, her body was displayed in a Paris museum for over 100yrs.
The exploitation of Sarah Baartman.
A THREAD!
SARAH "Saarjte" Baartman of the khoikhoi people of South Africa was born in 1789 and was one of 2 women put on display as a "FREAK SHOW" act in England and then later France.
The men who promised her a life of pride in sharing her culture with the World tricked her, and though she was given pay she often was at the expense of verbal, sexual, and physical abuse.
You see the HOTTENTOT VENUS (Hottentot is very derogatory) had a very distinct look, because the women of her people had extremely large buttocks, and an abnormally elongated labia.
Nude photos of khoikhoi women with steatopygia were collected by white colonialists. Steatopygia is the accumulation of large amounts of fat on the buttocks, especially as a normal condition in the Khoikhoi of Southern Africa.
She was made to wear a coloured skin tight outfit revealing what was to be a naked black woman for the paying public to inspect, view, and allegedly at times for extra coin... have a "Private Showing".
When sold to another manager, she was taken to France where she was forced to perform at private parties in homes of the most affluent and wealthy, with the final act being an invitation to the party attendees to approach, touch, feel, and inspect a laid down SARAH'S GENITALS
She was to be later handed off to medical professionals who drew the details of her body. She died penniless from diseases in Paris, as a sex slave in 1815.
Her body had a molded cast made, her brain & pelvic bone put in PRESERVING JARS with her flesh & corpse being discarded.
Her remains were finally reclaimed by South Africa, and was given a ceremonial burial in 2002 (187 years later after her death). SARAH never saw her homeland again... Only parts of her body in death
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Happy birthday to activist and chairman of the Black Panther Party Fred Hampton.
He was assassinated by Chicago police and the FBI at just 21 years old.
William O'Neal, an FBI informant, infiltrated the Black Panthers and set up Fred Hampton for $300.
A THREAD
In Illinois, where Fred Hampton was born, the police constantly harassed black people. Access to social goods too was made difficult, if not curtailed, in the areas with heavy black populations.
The 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.
Sally Hemings, the woman Thomas Jefferson enslaved.
She was called his "mistress," but how can you be a mistress when you were enslaved, a child, and could not consent? Had absolutely no choice?
A THREAD
Sally Hemings was born into slavery in Virginia. After the death of their master, Hemings family was inherited by the daughter of their master, Martha, who had married Thomas Jefferson and lived in Monticello.
When Jefferson’s went to Paris, France on diplomatic service in 1784, Sally also went there 3 years later as a companion and maid to Jefferson’s eight-year-old daughter Maria.
James Hemings, brother to Sally Hemings was the first American to train as a chef in France. He was enslaved by Thomas Jefferson at 8.
The Chef de cuisine is the reason macaroni and cheese made it to America.
A THREAD!
James Hemings was born in 1765 into slavery and lived much of his life enslaved. He was among the many enslaved people who came into Thomas Jefferson's possession through his wife's inheritance.
In May 1784, Hemings received a summons to join Jefferson in Philadelphia. From there they travelled to Paris where he was trained in the art of French cooking. At a time when illiteracy was imposed on all African people, he was not only literate but fluent in English and French.
Did you know Sesame Street was originally created for black and brown inner city kids?
A THREAD
Children usually spend a lot of time watching a lot tv and technically it was sort of a babysitter. It was even worse for inner city children whose parents spent endless hours at work, thus their kids were usually exposed to long hours of mindless programs.
Lloyd Morrisett, regarded as the father of Sesame Street and vice-president of the Carnegie Corporation with a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Yale University developed
a special interest in children's education.
A formerly enslaved woman, Mary Lumpkin, liberated a slave jail known as ‘The Devil’s Half Acre’ and turned it into an HBCU.
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.