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.

On this day In 1841, Madison Washington led The Creole Rebellion: One of the Most Successful Slave Revolts in History.

A THREAD When it comes to how the United States of America portrays slavery it depicts that slaves were very docile and didn’t fight back. However, this was not the case and there were numerous slave rebellions, but they are not usually taught in school or displayed on TV/movies.

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.

On this day In 1979, the Revolutionary Assata Shakur escaped from U.S prison and later received asylum in Cuba.

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.

Successful black communities and towns. A THREAD!

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!

In 1847, Missouri banned education for black people.

John Berry Meachum went ahead and equipped a steamboat with a library, desks, chairs and opened a 'Floating Freedom School'.

A THREAD! John Berry Meachum was born into slavery in Virginia in 1789 but by the age of 21 he had earned enough money doing carpentry work to purchase his own freedom and then his father’s.