In 1862, Robert Smalls stole a Confederate Ship and sailed it to Freedom disguised as a captain, freeing his crew and their families.

A THREAD! In 1862, Robert Smalls was serving as the pilot of a steam powered, Confederate ship, The CSS Planter. It was transporting large guns out of Charleston Harbor and deliver them to Union Navy forces on blockade duty

The black history of Miami, Florida.

A THREAD!

Bahamians were among the first settlers in Miami. The first name on the city charter in 1896, when the city was incorporated, was a Black man named Silas Austin. Out of 368 men who voted to incorporate Miami,162 of them were Black. In 1896 Florida had a state law that required a minimum number of registered voters to incorporate. 368 voters signed to incorporate Miami.

Black people mostly occupied Overtown and Coconut Grove, which is also the oldest inhabited neighborhood in Miami.

102 years ago, in 1923, a lie by a white woman that she’d been sexually assaulted by a black man, led to the destruction of the predominantly African American town of Rosewood, Florida, thus the Rosewood Massacre.

A THREAD Rosewood was a quiet, self-sufficient town in Florida. By 1900 the population in Rosewood had become predominantly African-American. Some people farmed or worked in local businesses, including a sawmill in nearby predominantly white town.

History of the New Year’s Watch Night Service.

The Watch Night Services in Black communities can be traced back to gatherings on December 31, 1862, also known as “Freedom’s Eve.”

THREAD On that night, black people came together in churches and private homes all across the nation, anxiously awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation actually had become law.

The Baptist War: The Christmas Rebellion.

On this day in 1831, Over 60,000 enslaved Jamaicans, led by one man, Baptist preacher, Samuel Sharpe, went on to carry out one of the largest Slave Rebellions in West Indian history.

A THREAD

So who was the Baptist preacher, Samuel Sharpe?

He was a baptist deacon and the leader of the native Baptists in Montego Bay. Also he was an avid follower of the growing abolitionist movement in London.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

On this day in 1969, activist and chairman of the Black Panther Party Fred Hampton, 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.

Did you know that a black enslaved man was responsible for introducing innoculation (vaccination) to America?

Onesimus, introduced the idea of vaccination based upon the African practice of inoculation in Libya,to help mitigate spread of smallpox thus saving lives

💉THREAD💉
Onesimus was an enslaved African who introduced the concept of inoculation to America and helped save hundreds of Bostonians from smallpox in 1721. But his role has hardly been told.

In 1959, 69 black boys were padlocked in their dormitory at school and it was then set on fire.

21 burnt to death while 48 managed to escape.

A THREAD. On March 5th, 1959, 69 African American boys, ages 13 to 17, were padlocked in their dormitory for the night at the Negro Boys Industrial School in Wrightsville. Around 4 a.m., a fire mysteriously ignited, forcing the boys to fight and claw their way out of the burning building.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Did you know that James Hemings, is the reason macaroni and cheese made it to America.  

The Chef de cuisine was the first American to train as a chef in France. He was enslaved by Thomas Jefferson at 8.

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.

“fuck it, i’ll do it!” —black women

Black women are routinely erased from public memory and historical narratives of resistance.

Black women powered the civil rights movement, but rarely became its stars.

A THREAD! Aunt Polly Jackson, was an escaped slave who worked as an agent on the Underground Railroad helping others escape.

She was known for fighting off slave catchers with a butcher knife and a kettle of boiling water

These are actresses from the 1950s. Hollywood started to adapt to the changing times and social narratives, and Black actors were earning better roles than the stereotypical ones that plagued them in previous decades.

A THREAD Eartha Kitt started appearing in movies in the late 40s but earned her first significant role in "Mark of the Hawk" (1957). Throughout the 50s, she appeared on several TV shows as a specialty act and starred in her first leading role in "Anna Lucasta" (1958).

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.

140 years ago today, the Berlin Conference opened.

It was a conference where European nations established the 'legal' claim that all of Africa could be occupied by whomever could take it.

They set out murdering africans and taking their wealth to make Europe wealthier.

THREAD
After slavery, Berlin conference was the second declaration of war against Africa.
At the Berlin Conference, Congo was handed to a charity run by King Leopold under the pretext of “stopping slavery” and he named it the “Congo Free State.”

Inventions that wouldnt exist without Black Women.

—THREAD—

Valerie Thomas, NASA physicist, invented 3D Movies

In 1977, she developed the illusion transmitter, the 1st mechanism that allowed images to be viewed in 3D using concave mirrors & light rays. Dr. Shirley Jackson research paved the way for numerous developments in telecommunication including the Touch-Tone Telephone, the Portable Fax, Caller ID & Call Waiting.

She was the first black woman to ever earn a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

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.