Toussaint Louverture led a slave rebellion that eventually overthrew French colonization in what was then Saint-Domingue and what became the independent nation of Haiti. The revolution had a profound effect…
The 1831 narrative by Omar ibn Said is the only known surviving slave account of its kind. By Michael E. Ruane, The Washington Post — As a slave, he was…
RECORDED 1/21/19 — Dr. Ron Daniels (President, IBW21) talks with callers and guest Rev. Dennis Dillon (Senior Pastor, The Rise Church, Brooklyn NY) about Dr. Martin Luther King, King’s vision, Economic Justice, the African Diaspora and the Year of the Return to Africa on this Martin Luther King Day edition of Vantage Point Radio.
Vantage Point by Dr. Ron Daniels — This year, 2019 marks the 400th year since the Dutch ship White Lion arrived in Jamestown in the British Colony that was to become the Commonwealth of Virginia with “20 and odd Negroes” from Africa. The arrival of these indentured enslaved Africans was the opening chapter in one of the most horrific events in human history, the holocaust of African enslavement, the MAAFA via the European slave trade. Proud African men and women from highly civilized…
By David Love, Atlanta Black Star — Even as those who oppose reparations argue it is unfeasible or too costly, one British university is proving that it is both possible and necessary to make amends for the enslavement and genocide of African people. While the steps made so far may not seem so substantial, this institution could provide a model for others to follow. The University of Glasgow made £200…
Illustration by azzeazy Just as sleep deprivation was used as a means to control slaves, the modern-day “sleep gap” weighs down many Black people today. By Janine Francois, Broadly —…
Oh, do you hear me? I cannot rest in peace… Through eons and centuries, I have cried out, “Oh, why do you not honor my suffering?” Oh, why do you not raise your voices in unison to decry the pain and struggles of your ancestors; those who came before? In your reticent reaction to my cries and pain…
And how black people in Indian Territory were denied their rights even after their emancipation. By Alaina E Roberts, Al Jazeera — Last week marked the 153rd anniversary of the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1865. Rightly celebrated as a milestone for the black American community, the 13th Amendment led to the eventual liberation of all African Americans enslaved in the United States of the late…
Slavery and the Legacy of White Supremacy. By Annette Gordon-Reed, Foreign Affairs — The documents most closely associated with the creation of the United States—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—present a problem with which Americans have been contending from the country’s beginning: how to reconcile the values espoused in those texts with the United States’ original sin of slavery, the flaw that marred the country’s creation, warped its prospects, and eventually…
By Eugene Mason, PBS — The United States owes African-Americans reparations for slavery, a recent report by a United Nations-affiliated group said. The UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said that compensation is necessary to combat the disadvantages caused by 245 years of legally allowing the sale of people based on the color of their skin. The U.N. group warned that the U.S. has not confronted its legacy of “racial terrorism.”…
By Marisa Iati, The Washington Post — More than two decades after the Southern Baptist Convention — the country’s second-largest faith group — apologized to African Americans for its active defense of slavery in the 1800s, its flagship seminary on Wednesday released a stark report further delineating its ties to institutionalized racism. The year-long study by the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary found that all four founding faculty members owned slaves…