Juneteenth

Juneteenth has been a holiday since about 2021 and it was in the wake of the unrest and pandemic of 2020.

Juneteenth is a day June 19th that reputedly celebrates the day that slaves were freed in the state of Texas in 1865. It's considered America's 2nd Independence Day.

Here's a quick story from CBS News with regards to today's holiday. Showing how communities around America celebrates this holiday [VIDEO]

UsefulCharts: Which DNA test is best for African-Americans?

 

[VIDEO] I'm going through this now taking both DNA tests for MyHeritage & Ancestry. Hopefully next month I may well know what my admixture is. Admixture is basically what your DNA says about your ethnicity if you're descended from African, European, etc.

I would very much recommend taking the DNA test through Ancestry. I feel as if they have a much better website to build out your family tree and hopefully make the right connects with distant relatives. MyHeritage is OK, I might recommend that because you take a cotton swab sample as opposed to spitting in a tube with Ancestry. Both companies are offering autosomal DNA which basically looks at the DNA inherited from both your father & mother.

For this the subject of this video Jabari Walker who also runs the YouTube channel From Nothing - you may have seen a video from him on this blog recently - takes five different DNA tests. Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, LivingDNA, and African Ancestry.

African Ancestry is most expensive and what is good about them is through the use of Y-chromosome testing & X-Chromosome (mitochondrial) testing they are able to identify which African ethnicity from which you are descended. Of course what they have to be sure of is that your distant ancestor is in fact African because it is possible your earliest male or female ancestor could be European for example. 

However, if you want those results through your paternal line - basically your father and his father and so-on or your maternal line - your mother and her mother and so-on there are far more inexpensive options for that. However, they may not necessarily point to a specific African ethnicity.

As for my own DNA tests I plan to release my own video about that in the near future.

Black History Month: IL's class III U.S. Senate seat

For Black History Month I wanted to further reference this "long story" that was noted in a post about Rod Blagojevich who served as Governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009 the first and only governor of this state to have been impeached and removed from office. Also another in a line of governors who have ran afoul of the law and to have served time in prison.

However before talking about this long story I have to start with the U.S. Senate. The seat currently held by Tammy Duckworth who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016 defeating the Republican incumbent Mark Kirk is considered a class III senate seat. The U.S. Constitution sets up senate elections in three classes and every two years each class will have their seats up for election every year. For example class I was elected in 2018, class II was elected in 2020, and finally class three is up this year 2022.

So Duckworth's class III senate seat is an historic one since three of her predecessors were Black. And to discuss this we must go back all the way to 1992 which was when the first Black woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate - Carol Moseley Braun. I believe 1992 was called the year of the woman when a number of women got elected to the U.S. Senate at that point of time and she was one of them. 

U.S. Senate

"The Current War"

Often when I see period pieces such as The Current War I will be surrounded by the elderly. They seem more interested in historic films such as this which is basically a story of the competition between Thomas Edison and his direct current vs. George Westinghouse and his alternating current.

It's amazing to know the history of how homes and businesses receive their electricity. While it's noted that Thomas Edison had invented the light bulb (most of us may remember this from school hopefully), it was essentially Westinghouse who may not be as well known aside from a company that bore his name who won this "current war" with his DC power.

And I was somewhat bothered by the three or so Black men in the movie. One was a reporter, another was portrayed a wealthy man, and the last one worked for Edison. Upon checking out the wiki page the Black man working for Edison is a Black inventor named Lewis Latimer. And somehow I believed he belonged there, the other two perhaps it was just Hollywood being very inclusive in a period movie where Blacks just weren't yet treated as equals.

I shouldn't forget the contribution of one Nicola Tesla. He was portrayed in this film as one odd character. I'm sure he was a genius who made the difference in the competition between DC and AC. Sorry to know that he never profited from his contributions.

A Chicago connection in this film is Samuel Insull who worked for Edison who undeniably resembles Peter Parker as Spider-Man 😛. Insull had some holdings in a few Chicago-area utilities such as People's Gas and Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) and he definitely had some local transportation interests that includes the South Shore interurban and a predecessor to the Chicago Transit Authority. Alas he was another who ultimately died penniless.

I remember seeing trailers for this film over two years ago and had little idea it got caught up in that scandal involving Harvey Weinstein. I'm glad another company picked this film up and redistributed it. I'm glad to have seen this film depicting one of the great achievements of the late 19th century. It was great to see how the world we we knew it a century later came to be. [VIDEO]

Footage of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma #BlackHistoryMonth

[VIDEO] If I had known the success and unfortunate tragedy of Tulsa, Oklahoma's "Black Wall Street" who knows if I would've appreciated knowing this history. It's great to see this wonderful colorized footage of Tulsa's Greenwood community during the course of the 1920s.

And thanks to the late pastor Solomon Sir Jones who shot his film with the then new 16-mm cameras. Most of those films were shot in black & white - although what you see above is colorized. It definitely shows what any Black community anywhere could become. Perhaps an early version of the "Wakanda" we could create.

Anyway while this footage aired on the Smithsonian channel the prints are actually owned by the Yale University Library. And his films - 29 of them over 355 minutes of footage - were selected by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". So aside from what you see above feel free to gain access to these films and see some aspects of Black history come alive.

Happy Memorial Day

On this occassion we'll honor the Buffalo Soldiers who are members of the US Army's 9th & 10th Cavalries. This unit was active from roughly the end of the Civil War all the way through the second World War. They were given the names by the various Native American tribes of the west as a term of respect comparing their courage with the fighting spirit of the buffalo.

Some of this information and the above painting was retrieved from the Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club of Delaware.

Pullman to become a national monument

Via The Chicago Neighborhoods

Great news for the south side, hopefully the surrounding areas will reap the benefits. And just in time for Black History Month, we also learn the pivotal role of Pullman for Black history via Chicago Tribune. Especially since Pullman's main employer was a manufacturer of rail cars that had been staffed with blacks once these cars were on the rails.

Of course let's not forget labor history. Pullman was a site of a major strike once that saw federal troops intervene. Also the mainly Black Pullman porters agitated successfully for a union even if most of them didn't call Pullman home.

I forgot to note that next week, Pullman will be declared a national monument. I'd be excited to see what this development will bring! :)

Black History Month 2015

Originally written over at The Sixth Ward in February 2014. It sums up most of my current feelings regarding Black History Month (BHM).
 
You know, I don't recall if there has ever been a dedicated acknowledgement of Black History Month here on this blog. The audience for this blog and the areas we hope to cover are predominantly Black and hopefully if we ever did BHM themed posts it would be appreciated.

On RAGE's FB page they asked whether or not BHM is still relevant. It's relevant in more ways than one and knowing history is very important.

I've simply come to a conclusion that Black history isn't merely reciting one-minute facts about many of the people in Black history. In addition we're also making history everyday. It's for that reason that I hope to start reading more for BHM.

There are some books on my reading list that would be considered must reads in February. For example, many of us mourned the death of South African President Nelson Mandela in 2013. How many of us has read his book The Long Walk to Freedom. While it's a book from a different country it's still a relatable story.

There is also Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave written by Frederick Douglass himself. Who here has read this book starting at least in elementary school as I did? If only I was actually willing to read back in those days. And now since it's a public domain book there's really no excuse to not read it at all!

Another book, that I started reading recently but have yet to finish is Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington. If you don't know who that is he's especially known for founding Tuskegee University, an HBCU located in Alabama. It's another autobiography worth reading about someone who was also born into slavery or at least born immediately after slavery's abolition. This book is also available in the public domain, so again no excuse to not read it.

Of course there are other books worth reading if you're into local focus. Perhaps you could read Jahmal Cole's book - The Torch of Decency - which is about Chicago's Chatham Community. There's also the late Dempsey Travis' book An Autobiography of Black Chicago & An Autobiography of Black Politics. And those aren't the only books worth reading from Dempsey Travis either.

What are you doing to mark Black History Month? Do you have any books to recommend reading for Black History Month? What would you do to make history yourself?

Black World Cinema program for February

Every February Black World Cinema has a program commemorating Black History Month. Normally they screen a film the first Thursday every month. During Black History Month a film is screened every Thursday. We just received this email in time for next month's events:

Black World Cinema is now in it’s 10th year at SMG Chatham 14 Theaters and in February will present the BLACK FUTURE MONTH film series.

Black Future Month will explore AfroFuturism through real science documentary, the science of the imagination in drama, animation, comic books and the experimental ideas of Black Radical Imagination.

The 4 week series will take place at Chatham 14 Theaters, 210 W 87th St, every Thursday at 7pm. General dmission is $6 per ticket. Every week we will feature someone from the science or creative community to engage the audience with lively discussion about the exciting films being screened during February.

Please share this email with friends, educators, film fans and kids(not for the Feb 5 program). If you have marketing ideas for this program, places we should contact, please email floydwebb @ gmail.com with your suggestions. Thanks, hope to see you in February.

Every week I do plan to advertise the week's movies during Black History Month or for BWC Black Future Month. This looks very interesting and hopefully I can catch one of these films if not all of them.

Students at an NYC public school not allowed to do assignment on Malcolm X

[VIDEO] This story out of New York City. A technology teacher tells 4th grade students that they can't write about Black leader Malcolm X. He was considered anything from a bad guy to a violent guy. I'm sure people still associate him as a member of the Nation of Islam from whom he broke away not long before his assassination.

Back in elementary school, The Autobiography of Malcolm X was one of the books that was assigned in the 8th grade. And like the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave it was also one of those books I wouldn't read. Shame!

But unlike back in the day when it was assigned I wouldn't read it, there are those who wish to suppress Malcolm X's impact on Black History at least. Now the video you see above is certainly racially tinged because they've made an issue of race in who doesn't want anyone doing an assignment on Macolm. In my case it was a white teacher who assigned us Malcolm X's autobiography.

In any case it's good to know that our young people still look to Malcolm X as a person to look up to! Perhaps in addition to watching Spike Lee well-known biopic, we should also read Malcolm's autobiography as well.

BTW, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is available in the public domain. Therefore that means you don't necessarily have to buy it, you can always find it online and read it that way if you so choose. Or I'm sure if you have a printing press you can make your own copy of his book. What it also means is that there's no excuse not to be able to read his book!