Racist US military police attacked black US troops on British soil.
US military authorities demanded the town’s pubs impose a colour bar, the local landlords responded with signs that read “Black Troops Only” which pissed them off.
A THREAD
In 1943 Black American soldiers faced off with white American Military police during World War 2 on British soil. Black American soldiers had to fight their own white American soldiers, while in England, where they were fighting the world war.
Why? Because the town, Bamber Bridge in Lancashire wasnt segregated so they treated the black soldiers like all other races, BUT back in America segregation still existed so essentially the American army went to someone else’s country & demanded they adopt their racist practices
So when the American Military police found out that their own black soldiers were drinking at the same pubs as white people, they went in to arrest them. The people in the town got mad about that treatment and decided to then turn their pubs into “BLACKS ONLY DRINKING PUBS”
This pissed off the American military so guns went blazing & when word spread back at camp that black soldiers had been shot, scores of men formed a crowd, some carrying rifles and by midnight more American military police arrived with a machine gun-equipped vehicle.
The black soldiers also had no choice but to get rifles from British stores while others barricaded themselves back on base, so now it was American white soldiers verzuz American black soldiers
This lead to the death of 1 solider, injury of 7, and 32 convictions.
Back in America the battle was hushed up because they didn’t want the country to find out that they were fighting their own soldiers which would anger the black population and weaken the morale in the country.
you may read about the ill treatment of black American soldiers by their own army in the book FORGOTTEN.
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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.
Today we honour the memories of all the lives lost on this day in 1960, when white police in apartheid South Africa killed over 80 black people and wounded 186 on what is known as the Sharpville Massacre.
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The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on 21st March, 1960, in the township of Sharpeville, South Africa. It resulted in the largest number of South African deaths(up to that point) in a protest against apartheid.
Sharpeville, a black suburb outside of Vereeniging (about 50 miles south of Johannesburg), was untouched by anti-apartheid demonstrations that occurred in surrounding towns throughout the 1950s. By 1960, however, anti-apartheid activism reached the town.
35 years ago today, Latasha Harlins, 15, was fatally shot by a Korean shop owner, Soon Ja Du, over a bottle of orange juice, it became a major spark for the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.
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On March 16, 1991 Latasha Harlin’s short life came to a violent end in the midst of racial tensions in Los Angeles, California, and became a major spark for the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.
By the late 1980s, racial tensions were high in South Los Angeles, and especially between Korean storeowners and Black American residents of the city.
"I do not want to miss a good chance of getting us a slice of this magnificent African cake." —Leopold II of Belgium
Before Hitler killed 6 million Jews.…. Leopold Il of Belgium killed over 10 million Africans in Congo and amputated the arms of countless others.
A THREAD
After the Berlin conference of 1884-1885 ( conference where European nations established the 'legal' claim that all of Africa could be occupied by whomever could take it), different European nations set out to mount their flags all over Africa.
The nations set out murdering africans, and then taking their wealth to make Europe wealthier.
King Leopold II set out for the Congo and declared it his territory proclaiming it his property, the people and the land, quickly turning the land into a money-making enterprise.
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.