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🧵 During the antebellum period in the United States, free Black people were required to carry official documents known as Certificates of Freedom, or “Freedom papers". (cont)

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#USDemocracy
#Voices4Victory

briscoecenter.org/exhibitions/fr… These documents verified their status. The documents were typically issued by local courts and included identifying details such as name, age, physical description, and the date of emancipation or birth into freedom. Free Black individuals had to (cont)

hub.jhu.edu/2018/02/02/fre…

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🧵 As a response to the 1967 Detroit Riot, a controversial police unit known as STRESS (Stop the Robberies Engage Safe Streets) was establised that targeted Black people.(cont)

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#USDemocracy
#Voices4Victory

newrepublic.com/article/141701… This plainclothes unit was infamous for employing aggressive tactics aimed at crime prevention. Its methods often involved confrontations that escalated into deadly encounters. From its formation in 1971 to 1974, STRESS officers were linked to the deaths of 17 Black people,(cont)

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🧵 The lynching of Claude Neal took place on October 26, 1934, in Marianna, Florida. Neal was accused of raping and murdering a 20-year-old white woman named Lola Cannady. (cont)

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#USDemocracy
#Voices4Victory

blackhistory.rodneysykes.com/2023/01/in-193… Despite a lack of direct evidence linking him to the crime, Neal was taken into custody and moved between multiple jails to protect him from lynch mobs. However, a group of about 100 White men from Jackson County tracked him down to the county (cont)

pbs.org/wgbh/frontline…

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🧵Did you know that Black, Puerto Rican, and Japanese American soldiers were subjected to painful secret mustard gas experiments during World War II?

White men were used as the control group. They were not subjected to the mustard gas.

grunge.com/465535/the-us-… The US military conducted secret mustard gas experiments on approximately 60,000 soldiers during World War II, with a specific focus on testing the effects on different racial groups. These experiments were based on the assumption that various (cont)

pbs.org/newshour/show/…

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🧵 Many of you remember the 1967 Detriot riots. One of the most disturbing cases of police brutality in history took place that resulted in the murder of 3 Black teenagers. (cont)
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#USDemocracy
#Voices4Victory
apnews.com/article/detroi… During the 1967 Detroit riot, on July 25-26, a police task force raided the Algiers Motel after reports of sniper fire, where three unarmed Black teens—Carl Cooper (17), Aubrey Pollard (19), and Fred Temple (18) were found in the motel annex and assumed to be the snipers. (cont)

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🧵 During the Vietnam War, the Department of Defense (DoD) lowered its standards to enlist and draft the most vunerable and disenfranchised Americans for the war effort. (cont)

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#Voices4Victory

warhistoryonline.com/instant-articl… "Project 100,000" was a controversial program initiated by the DoD in October 1966, under the leadership of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. Its primary purpose was to recruit soldiers who would previously have been deemed unfit for military (cont)

historynet.com/mcnamaras-boys/

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🧵 We see people doing it everyday. Many people do it, but are unaware of its origin.

You've done it!

One of the things that came out of the Vietnam War was "The Dap". (cont)
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#ResistanceRoots
#USDemocracy
#Voices4Victory

nmaahc.si.edu/explore/storie… The Dap (Dignity &Pride) handshake is a complex and meaningful gesture that originated in Black American communities, particularly among soldiers during the Vietnam War. It's a dynamic and nuanced form of nonverbal communication that conveys solidarity, respect, and unity. (cont)

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🧵 Yesterday, was the 53rd anniversary of a race riot that took place on the USS Kitty Hawk on Oct 12, 1972. Would you believe me if I told you it started over a sandwich?

Yep.

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#Voices4Victory

navytimes.com/military-honor… The day before, there were fights between Black & White sailors during a port visit to Subic Bay in the Philipines. A ship search occurred on when the captain ordered the master-at-arms to inspect Black sailors' berthing areas for weapons. Tensions (cont)

wearethemighty.com/articles/that-…

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🧵 Many of you never knew of a prison riot that took place in Vietnam. It involved incarcerated U.S. soldiers, most of whom were Black.

Pull up a seat and bring a drink.(cont)
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#USDemocracy
#Voices4Victory

historynet.com/long-binh-jail… The Long Bính Jail ("LBJ"as it was called) was a U.S. military prison in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War that opened in 1966. It housed soldiers for offenses like AWOL or drug use. On August 29, 1968, an uprising occurred due to overcrowding, (cont)

zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/pris…

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🧵 Bessie Stringfield, born Bessie Beatrice White on February 9, 1911 (some records list March 5), in Edenton, North Carolina, to Maggie Cherry and James White. (cont)

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allthatsinteresting.com/bessie-stringf… Some accounts, including those Stringfield herself shared later in life, claimed she was born Betsy Leonora Ellis in Kingston, Jamaica.

However, family members like her niece Esther Bennett and public records confirm the North Carolina origins, suggesting Stringfield (cont)

🧵Someone said that I was not the creator of the #KeepItWoke hashtag. I asked @grok. Here's the answer:

Based on an analysis of @eddsmitty
's X posts, profile, and broader searches for the hashtag #KeepItWoke, it appears that yes, Eddie Smith (@eddsmitty) created it. (cont) He introduced and popularized the hashtag as part of his "WOKE CONTENT" thread series, which he explicitly brands himself as the creator of in his bio. The earliest documented uses tie directly to his threads dating back to at least mid-2023, where he defines (cont)

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🧵 There are many stories involving the Titanic; however, there are stories that remain untold. The story of Joseph Laroche deserves a movie of its own. He was the Titanic's only Black passenger.(cont)

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#Voices4Victory Joseph Philippe Lemercier Laroche was born in 1886 in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti. At 15, he moved to France to study engineering, graduating with honors. While in France, he married Juliette Lafargue in 1908; they had two daughters, Simonne and Louise. (cont)

thehistoryinsider.com/joseph-laroche/

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🧵 In 1964, the Civil Rights Act became law, but the fight for civil rights continued. It gave birth to radical groups that included White people.
Enter the White Panthers.(cont)
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allthatsinteresting.com/white-panther-… The White Panther Party was a radical political organization founded in 1968 in Detroit, Michigan. It emerged as a response to the civil rights movement and the activities of the Black Panther Party, aiming to address issues of racial injustice and promote social change (cont)

🧵 How many times have you heard "Blacks are 13% of the population and commit 50% of violent crime"?

Well, racists have been using the UCR wrong for their tired narrative. Let's set the record straight.

Pull up a 🪑

#ProudBlue
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#Voices4Victory The FBI crime statistics primarily tally arrests, not convictions. The data collected and reported in the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program includes information on the number of arrests made for various offenses, categorized by type of crime, demographic information (cont)

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🧵 The refusal of Jewish refugees by the United States primarily occurred during the 1930s and 1940s, particularly in the context of the Holocaust. Several key events and policies contributed to (cont)

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#Voices4Victory this refusal:

•The U.S. had strict immigration quotas established by the Immigration Act of 1924, which limited the number of immigrants from certain countries, particularly those in Eastern and Southern Europe where many Jewish refugees were fleeing from. These quotas (cont)

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🧵 Did you know there was never anything in writing that segregated professional baseball?

There was a "gentleman's agreement"; and it began with racist Hall of Famer Cap Anson.

Pull up a seat.(cont)

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#USDemocracy
#Voices4Victory Many point the finger at Chicago White Stockings (the modern day Cubs) star Cap Anson for leading the charge to exclude Black ballplayers. The story is, Anson refused to take the field in an exhibition game against the Toledo Blue Stockings because they had a Black (cont)

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🧵Today, racists would label him a DEI hire despite his vast education and skillset.

Meet James McCune Smith, the first Black American to practice medicine in the United States. (cont)

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blackpast.org/african-americ… Born a slave, Smith obtained his freedom in 1827, thanks to the Emancipation Act of the State of New York. He was also a prolific writer who made significant contributions to the abolitionist movement and the field of medicine. He was also the (cont)

smithsonianmag.com/history/james-…

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🧵On Mar. 19, 1969, hundreds of Black Medical College Hospital of South Carolina employees (mostly women) went on stike. The main reason was unequal pay and racial discrimination. (cont)

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blackpast.org/african-americ… Two days earlier, twelve Black employees met with hospital president William McCord to discuss their grievances. They briefly took over the McCord's office in protest. The twelve workers were accused of leaving their patients unattended and were terminated that day. (cont)

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🧵 On Dec. 24th, 1881, more than 5,000 Black people left a South Carolina town of in one of the largest post-Civil War migrations in US history.

This was the Edgefield Exodus of 1881. (cont)

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blackthen.com/december-24-ov… The Black people who took part in the exodus were driven in part by a wave of White violence and economic exploitation. They moved west and mostly resettled in Arkansas. The movement was also en­couraged by people like Benjamin "Pap" Singleton (below) who believed that (cont)

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🧵In late May of 1887, a gang of White horse thieves murdered up to 34 Chinese miners in what would become known as the Hells Canyon or Snake River Massacre. It was one of the most brutal(cont)

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history.com/topics/aapi/he… attacks on Chinese people in U.S. history. In late 1886, a group of Chinese men arrived in Oregon's Hells Canyon and began mining for gold along Snake River. They were employed by the Sam Yup Company located in San Francisco. The men set up camp (cont)

zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/mass…

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🧵Eleven years before Claudette Colvin & Rosa Parks, there was a badass woman named Irene Morgan. She was the first Black woman in to refuse to give up her seat on a bus in 1944. (cont)

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#ProudWokeHistory
#USDemocracy

blackpast.org/african-americ… On July 16, 1944, Morgan purchased a "colored" ticket for a Virginia-bound Greyhound bus from Maryland. She took a seat next to another Black woman on the back of the bus. Within 45 minutes into the trip, a White couple boarded the bus. The driver (cont)

theblacklibrary.org/stories/black-…