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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Thursday, August 03, 2006 - 11:34 am
i am so on that...
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Grooch
Member
06-16-2006
| Thursday, August 03, 2006 - 11:48 am
I lived in Miami for over 10 years. I always wondered the same thing also. Esp since we had our troops in their to protect the new govt and keep it stabilized, and we took our troops out to soon which help lead the country where it is now. (Staying away from the immigration thread, if I can help it. )
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Thursday, August 03, 2006 - 11:57 am

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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Friday, August 04, 2006 - 8:47 am
There was a discussion on another board on how to prepare your children for their first encounter/many encounters of racism. A point was made to teach our sons how to act/react to a traffic stop by the police. That is sooo true and unfortunately still in this day and age.
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Friday, August 04, 2006 - 12:41 pm
yep, but it is so necessary. my #2 son was driving my car one day and was stopped for DWB and got a bogus ticket that the judge threw out when he went to court.
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Tuesday, August 08, 2006 - 11:14 am
City teen's film shows racial rift BY ERIN EINHORN DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER The camera zooms in on a sweet-faced Harlem girl, about 5 years old with her tightly braided hair pulled back, as she's asked to identify "the doll that looks bad." She examines the white doll and black doll in front of her - identical except for their color - and tentatively chooses the black doll. It's bad, she says, "because this is black." The "nice" doll is nice "because she's white," the black girl says. And which doll, she is asked, is the doll that looks like you? The camera then settles on her young, serious face as she slowly slides the black doll forward. "People are just amazed," said Kiri Davis, 17, the Manhattan public school student whose powerful short film about race, self-esteem and cultural identity has stunned audiences and educators, and won the hearts of film festival judges around the nation. "Even at 4 and 5, you can still tell what America values and what it doesn't." Fifteen of the 21 black children in a Harlem day care center who take the "doll test" in Davis' seven-minute film choose the white doll over the black one. The film - "A Girl Like Me" - re-creates Kenneth Clark's 1940s doll test that was used to fight school segregation in the landmark Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education. In Clark's studies, he and his wife, Mamie Clark, found that the majority of black children they tested chose white dolls over black dolls and ascribed negative attributes to black dolls. Five decades later, Davis, a senior at Manhattan's Urban Academy High School, assumed things had improved - especially in black cultural meccas like Harlem. But her film, punctuated with black teen girls discussing their relationships with their skin, their hair and their community, illustrates how the converse is true. Her study was conducted in 2005. "You can tell someone all you want about standards of beauty and how they're affecting someone's self esteem and yada yada yada," Davis said. "But until you figure out a way to actually show someone, that's when I think people really get the message." A "Girl Like Me" was produced through Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, a nonprofit organization based in Brooklyn's Prospect Park YMCA that paired Davis with a mentor, taught her basic skills and then helped her to market her film. The driven filmmaker made a splash this summer at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film also won the audience award at the Silverdocs festival in Silver Spring, Md., and the Diversity Award from Media that Matters, a nonprofit Internet and traveling festival that screens films about social issues. The film has made a mark in the educational world where it has been shown to grad students at the Bank Street College of Education and to administrators in the city Education Department. It may have had its most significant effect at Boys and Girls Harbor, the organization that granted Davis access to kids in Harlem. There, teachers are rethinking their curriculum and educational approach. When Bernadette Wallace, the director of pre- and after-school services, screened the film for her staff, she said, "Some of my teachers had tears in their eyes. They couldn't believe it." Originally published on August 6, 2006 link
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Ginger1218
Member
08-31-2001
| Tuesday, August 08, 2006 - 11:20 am
Mocha, when I was a little girl my parents took me to the toy store for my birthday in Upstate New York and let me pick out whichever doll I wanted. I fell in love with a little black baby doll. I remember my mother asking me why I wanted that doll and I said because she is beautiful, and she shrugged her shoulders and they bought it for me. I named her Liza. She was my all time favorite doll.
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 5:55 am

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Jan
Moderator
08-01-2000
| Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 6:04 am
Rebuilding a part of black history Loyalist society raises funds after `suspicious' fire at Nova Scotia heritage site Aug. 9, 2006. 01:00 AM EMILY BOWERS SPECIAL TO THE STAR BIRCHTOWN, N.S.—The night of the fire, it took only a few minutes before word spread and everyone showed up. All the members of the Black Loyalist Heritage Society, as many as 20 of them, were there to watch in shock as their office went up in flames. "It just burned," said founding member Elizabeth Cromwell. "There wasn't anything anybody could do." The fire in late March destroyed the office of the heritage society, which has been researching and promoting the history of the freed slaves who settled in this part of rural southwestern Nova Scotia. Birchtown, in Shelburne County, was the largest settlement of free blacks anywhere outside of Africa in the late 1700s. In recent years the area has become a tourist attraction, especially for people researching their roots, Cromwell said. Now in Birchtown, there are only a handful of black families in the small community, although more are living in the nearby town of Shelburne. An RCMP spokesperson said they are still investigating the fire and are treating it as suspicious. No arrests have been made but for the society members who watched it burn, there's little doubt that racism was the motive. "What else could it be?" said society member Richard Gallion. "We're not hurting anybody." Cromwell said there had been incidents before, some vandalism and graffiti. As the members of the 20-year-old society watched it burn and mourned the loss, they started making their plans for another, bigger office. "We decided that we would make a statement that we would rebuild as quickly as possible," said Cromwell. While many artefacts and photos were lost, some of the computer equipment was saved, and some research done by the society's genealogist has been restored by a Montreal company. Society members have cleared away the rubble and opened up a bank account for donations. They estimate they've received about $20,000 so far from community groups. As the summer's gone on, they have held several fundraising and community events, and they plan to begin building next year. Fundraising music shows also have been held in Shelburne and Halifax. "The response of the community was very overwhelming," said Cromwell. Wayn Hamilton, CEO of the provincial government's Office of African Nova Scotia Affairs, has helped society members organize and promote some of the fundraisers. "It's part of the whole Canadian fabric when you talk about Canadian pioneers," he said. "Trying to uncover that gives us a glimpse of what life was like back in that time." The heritage society, which has a small museum, has been gathering research about the Black Loyalists — a group of about 3,500 — many given freedom in exchange for fighting for the British in the American Revolution in the late 1700s. Birchtown was home to about half of them. But there had been little to commemorate the history of the area until recently. "It's almost like we dropped out of the sky," said Gallion, a former Ontario Provincial Police officer who grew up in Shelburne. "The old people didn't talk about this stuff." At the museum, a recreation of a pit house that was used for shelter by the early settlers stands nearby. Their shelter was a hole in the ground with a roof of small logs. Gallion said he knows rebuilding the office is necessary after he looks at the pit house and sees the way earlier settlers struggled to survive. "Our ancestors survived here over all the centuries and all the racism," he said. "If we don't rebuild then we've been defeated, and we're definitely not going to let that happen." Toronto star
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 6:20 am
Adven is Wayn Hamilton you? Wow. I was informed a couple of years ago that there was a sizeable black community in NS. I would love to visit this museum. I hope they catch the perps and I just hope it wasn't a race related crime. Hope.
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Jan
Moderator
08-01-2000
| Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 7:42 am
your comments re "sizeable black community in NS" got me looking and I just found an interesting Wikipedia site for stats re black population in Canada: For instance, among the many things I did not know: Statistics * Seventy per cent of all Blacks in Canada immigrated from the Caribbean and Bermuda. * Sixty four per cent of all Blacks (two out of three) are under the age of 35. * Close to 90 per cent of Canada's Blacks were not in the country 25 years ago. * There are 20,000 more Black women than Black men in Canada. * Seventy percent of all Blacks live in Toronto and Montreal (The number of Blacks in Montreal was tagged at 101,390 and in Toronto at 240,940.) The sad story of Africville NS can also be found at Wikipedia at this location but the real answer to your thoughts re Nova Scotia's black community can best be found HERE i think - a site dedicated to remembering black loyalist settlements in nova scotia.
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 8:09 am
Kool Jan thx for the info.
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 8:14 am
Mary Postell Mary Postell, Birchtown, was the slave of a wealthy South Carolina planter when the war began. She managed to get herself and her children away from him, and they claimed freedom behind the British lines. Her certificate of freedom was taken from her, however, by a White person who pretended he wanted to see her papers. When Charleston surrendered to the Americans, she went to St. Augustine, Florida, with her husband and family, as servants to Jesse Gray. There, Gray claimed she was legally his slave, and sold her to his brother Samuel. Samuel and Jesse Gray emigrated to Nova Scotia, taking Mary and her daughters along. At some point, Samuel sold Mary back to Jesse. She became very afraid that Jesse Gray would sell her away from her children. One night, she escaped with them from his house. Gray went to court to prove he owned her; then, to punish her, he took her down the coast to Argyle, where he sold her to William Maugham for one hundred bushels of potatoes. Ignoring Mary's desperation and heartbreak, he sold her daughter Flora to John Henderson, keeping another daughter, Nell, as his own property. Such was the terrible reality of slavery in Nova Scotia.
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 8:21 am
In May 2005, New Democratic Party of Nova Scotia Member of the Legislative Assembly Maureen MacDonald introduced a bill in the provincial legislature called the Africville Act. The bill calls for a formal apology from the Nova Scotia government, a series of public hearings on the destruction of Africville, and the establishment of a development fund to go towards historical preservation of Africville lands and social development in benefit of former residents and their descendants. Halifax mayor Peter Kelly has offered land, some money and various other services for a replica of the Seaview African United Baptist Church. After the offer was originally made in 2002, the Africville Genealogy Society requested some alterations to the Halifax offer, including additional land and the possibility of building affordable housing near the site. The Africville site has been declared a national historic site.
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Jan
Moderator
08-01-2000
| Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 8:58 am
wow life was sure wickedly hard  - thank God, i believe (well almost) in reincarnation and have hope that people whose lives were such hell had the karma to have much better lives the next time around
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Wednesday, August 09, 2006 - 10:15 am
ditto
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 2:05 pm
First Black Female POW Tells Her Story Former Iraq prisoner of war Shoshana Johnson has signed a deal with Dafina Books to publish One Wrong Turn, The Story Of Shoshana Johnson, The First American Woman Of Color To Be Taken Prisoner Of War. Shoshana was one of five soldiers in the 507th Maintenance Company captured when the caravan of armored vehicles in which she was traveling made a wrong turn into a deadly ambush by Iraqi insurgents that killed nine members of her unit in March 2003. Two other female soldiers also were captured, Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch and Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa, who did not survive her injuries. In One Wrong Turn, Shoshana will share details of her life—her young adulthood, the ambush, her captivity and her injuries, her disability, her ongoing emotional trauma, her post-Iraq day-to-day life and the latest about her family. “We couldn’t be happier than to have Shoshana’s inspirational and intensely moving story as part of our Dafina list,” Laurie Parkin, vice president and publisher of Kensington Books, said in a statement last week. “It’s an account of true heroism from a remarkable woman, and a testament to the power and endurance of the human spirit.” link
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Tishala
Member
08-01-2000
| Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 12:01 pm
Adams, active in Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, dies link
“I'm choosing to stay here and fight for the opportunity to be able to live in Mississippi as well as I can anywhere else.” Victoria Gray Adams, who helped open Freedom Schools that pushed for civil rights in Mississippi in 1964 and became a founding member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, died Saturday at her home in Petersburg, Va. She was 73. Adams was a Hattiesburg, Miss. native. Along with Fannie Lou Hamer and others, she attempted to unseat the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party delegation during the 1964 Democratic National Convention at Atlantic City, N.J. While they did not replace the all-white group, the Freedom Democrats brought national attention to Mississippi's racial and political divisions. "We will miss her wisdom, her caring spirit and her courage that sparked the change in civil and human rights in our country," said Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree, who's now the first black mayor of the majority-white south Mississippi city. In 2004, Adams and others who formed the party were recognized at the Democratic convention in Boston for their trailblazing role. During a celebration two years ago for Adams, a marker was unveiled identifying St. John United Methodist Church as the birthplace of the civil rights movement in Hattiesburg and Forrest County. The celebration drew dozens of out-of-town visitors including Stan Zibulsky of New York, who taught at St. John during summer 1964. [...]
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 5:47 pm
RIP
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Tuesday, August 22, 2006 - 12:25 pm
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) From Jessica McElrath At first, a northern and mostly white middle class organization, the Congress of Racial Equality later expanded its focus to the South, and became involved in some of the civil rights movement’s most important events. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded by an interracial group of students, including James Farmer, in 1942 on the campus of the University of Chicago. CORE was an outgrowth of the Gandhi inspired organization, Fellowship of Reconciliation. CORE was predominantly a northern organization composed of mostly white middle class members who believed that change could be achieved through nonviolence. In February 1953, James Farmer, former race-relations secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, became the first National Director of CORE. Years earlier CORE had began working in the South, so it was prepared when it began organizing the 1961 Freedom Rides to desegregate interstate buses. CORE tackled another issue. Southern blacks were being intimidated at the polls. CORE began voter registration drives in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Other civil rights projects CORE was involved in included the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, the 1963 March on Washington, and Freedom Summer As violent attacks on civil rights workers increased, some CORE members began to move away from the vision of integration, and shifted its focus to black separatism. In 1966, black separatist, Floyd McKissick replaced Farmer as National Director. CORE membership also shifted from primarily white to mostly black. In 1968, Roy Innis became the National Director. CORE still exists today, and has its headquarters in New York City. http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/congressofracialequality/a/core.htm
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Wednesday, August 23, 2006 - 4:56 pm
Slave Narratives This screenshot elegant site from the Museum of the African Diaspora presents audio performances of nine slave narratives. Maya Angelou delivers the closing and opening remarks, and introduces each tale. Her precise, gravelly voice joins the others collected here. Permeated with emotion, each voice recounts a story as individual "as a fingerprint," plucked from across time and around the globe. Tempe Hendon Durham, who lived to the age of 103 in North Carolina, describes her wedding to Exter, another slave. The Cuban poet Juan Francisco Manzano recounts four decades of harsh servitude. And Francis Bok, who lives today in Boston, delivers a 21st-century tale of capture and 10-year enslavement in Sudan. Each narrative includes the sound presentation, its transcript, and a brief biography.
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Thursday, August 24, 2006 - 5:20 pm
Thx for posting that Ladyt. I have no words...
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 8:39 am
First Online Library for African-American Political History Launches Today WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 6, 2006--The first virtual and most comprehensive library on the political history and legislative legacy of African-Americans in the shaping of the nation's democracy was unveiled today during the Annual Legislative Conference of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF). Called Avoice, or African-American Voices in Congress, www.avoiceonline.org, is the product of a collaborative partnership among CBCF, The University of Texas at Austin, Howard University and Dell (NASDAQ:DELL). The online educational portal provides a central source of information about historical and contemporary African-American policy issues important to many Americans, and of particular interest to researchers, educators and students. "Avoice represents the official history of the Congressional Black Caucus and much more," said U.S. Rep. Kendrick B. Meek (D-Fla.), chair of the CBCF. "We believe that Avoice will promote civic engagement among youth through its rich content and interactive learning tools. In doing so, the Avoice site will benefit all Americans." "Dell's sponsorship of this milestone project reflects our commitment to diversity and it is a unique opportunity to help educate the public about the contributions of African-Americans to our nation's history," said Dell CEO Kevin Rollins, who introduced the new site during the event. "We are privileged to be a part of Avoice and will continue to support it with technology that can enrich the site content." Avoice offers a unique collection of original Congressional and political papers from African-American legislators. Initial content also includes exhibits on the Voting Rights Act, the Martin Luther King Jr. National Holiday Bill, the anti-apartheid movement and a history of the Congressional Black Caucus. The CBCF's Annual Legislative Conference provides a national forum to develop strategies and solutions to public policy issues facing Black America. "It is most appropriate that we launch Avoice during this conference," said U.S. Rep. Kendrick B. Meek. "Our conference theme this year is 'Changing Course, Confronting Crises, Continuing the Legacy.' Avoice's historical content will certainly help advance our shared goal of continuing the legacy." Today, African-Americans represent 13.4 percent of the U.S. population(a); 60 percent of black citizens age 18 and older voted in the 2004 presidential election, up three percent from the previous election. African-Americans had the highest turnout rate of any minority group in 2004. Link to story African-American Voices in Congress
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 8:48 am
Oh kool.
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Twinkie
Member
09-24-2002
| Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 1:32 pm
I wasn't sure where to put this so I decided on here. It took 2 years to finally put up a headstone but its up and here in Buffalo, where he is from and his family still lives.

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