So on July 27, 1816, The U.S. Army & Navy surrounded-then launched an assault on Fort Negro. The first attack failed. But the second attack led to an explosion of the fort's Ammunition storage. An estimated 270 Fort Negro soldiers were killed & buried in a mass grave. Only sixty four of the inhabiting soldiers survived. On three of the sixty four escaped injury. The fort's leader Garcia was executed, and the rest were sent back into slavery. Fort Negro, along with nearby Fort Mose stand as little known moments in the struggle against the oppressive & violent occupation of this land, by invading European forces.
Pretty much everyone knows a little about The "Underground Railroad." But how many have heard of "Fort Negro." Abandoned by fleeing British soldiers, after The War of 1812, Fort Negro served as a rendezvous point for fugitive slaves from the Southern states in the early 1800's. Led by a man simply known as Garcia, the heavily armed fort was occupied by more than 300 Black and Native Americans. Built on the banks of the Apalachicola River in Florida, Fort Negro became a focal point of General andrew Jackson-set for destruction as part to upholding American claims to a land that was not theirs. So on July 27, 1816, The U.S. Army & Navy surrounded-then launched an assault on Fort Negro. The first attack failed. But the second attack led to an explosion of the fort's Ammunition storage. An estimated 270 Fort Negro soldiers were killed & buried in a mass grave. Only sixty four of the inhabiting soldiers survived. On three of the sixty four escaped injury. The fort's leader Garcia was executed, and the rest were sent back into slavery. Fort Negro, along with nearby Fort Mose stand as little known moments in the struggle against the oppressive & violent occupation of this land, by invading European forces.
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They say that his last words were "Organize, Organize..." Brother Stokely Carmichael aka Kwame Ture stands out as being more Serious & intellectually unique than probably every other Black Leader in history (with the exception of Malcolm X aka El Hajj Malik el Shabazz). He was willing to work with any group that sought to fight for an end to European & American Imperialism. If one approach ceased to be effective, he regrouped & moved forward. always pushing for the establishment of A Black United Front, Kwame Ture fought closely at the side of Dr. Martin Luther King-before holding leadership positions with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, The Black Panther Party, and The All African People's Revolutionary Party. He was ALWAYS On The FRONT-LINES. He was ALWAYS Honest. And he ALWAYS gave off the impression of a Cool Genius-Always Thinking. Look at the pictures... Perhaps it is his willingness to step outside of the parameters of what other leaders deemed to be appropriate that made him great. Upon being appointed Chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, his first act was to visit The Honorable Elijah Muhammad of the Nation Of Islam. back in that time, other organizations went out of their way to distance themselves from the more radical NOI. But the Union between The NOI & Brother Kwame ture continued, from 1966, through his transition to Africa, & right on up to his death in 1998. Inevitably his evolving stance on what was required to achieve the goals of attaining Freedom, Justice & Equality, Kwame Ture moved from SNCC to The Black Panther Party. From there alliances would be formed with a host of African and Latin Revolutionaries. After working his way up through the ranks of CORE & SNCC, and Actively participating in events such as The "Freedom Summer," young Stokely Carmichael learned that Non-Violent Resistance to Violent Oppression would NEVER work. From then on, Kwame Ture would spend the next 30 years teaching, Organizing, Uniting & FIGHTING for an End To Imperialism. He was the FIRST to Publicly State the Term "BLACK POWER;" and in 1969 he moved his base of operations to Guinea, Africa-where he remained until his death in 1998. He IS, WAS, & ALWAYS WILL BE an Outstanding Example of what we should be aspiring to Evolve into. Happy BornDay Kwame ture 6/29/1941-11/15/1998 The job of a revolutionary is, of course, to overthrow unjust systems and replace them with just systems because a revolutionary understands this can only be done by the masses of the people. So, the task of the revolutionary is to organize the masses of the people, given the conditions of the Africans around the world who are disorganized, consequently all my efforts are going to organizing people.” Freedom, Equal Access to Proper Housing, Proper Educational & Employment Opportunities, Payment of The Previously Promised Reparations for The Atrocities Committed During The African Holocaust, The Right To Be Free From Persecution, and An End To The Exploitative & Disproportionate Drafting of Black Soldiers in Foreign Wars are all conditions that most would expect to be a given in a civilized society. But for many of the Black, Brown, red & Yellow Populations of America, this has not always been the case. For many still today, this is STILL NOT THE CASE. Can one with any real sense of what goes on in society deny that these same principles, laid out in the Black Panther Party's Social/Political Platform written in 1966, are still absent from the fabric of American Society forty years later? Be honest. While some individuals have hit Moonshot goals in Politics & Business, that success has never had any real impact for the masses of America's citizens of Color. In fact, due to the ever-expanding Greedy Giant of Capitalism, many of the jobs that one could count on in decades past have moved to cheap international markets overseas. Add in the drug scourge, and decimated of funding for Educational & Social Programs, and we see a once promising society on the edge of ruin. Not to say that every single point to the BPP's Ten Point Program had a realistic path toward changing society; but the fact that the majority of its pieces are still hotly debated principles forty years later speaks volumes. The fact that many of these principles were carried out, ALL ACROSS THE NATION, in the form of Black Panther Party Survival Programs shows that the core goals were certainly practical & attainable. For they were able to do it on a "shoe-string budget," and in the midst of the most extreme repression seen in 20th Century America. The BPP Survival Programs were designed to show the masses an alternative to their current existence; and would later become the framework for so many other social programs-including the School Breakfast Programs that we take for granted every day. #KnowYourHistory #StudyAndBecomeAware The Ten Point Plan
1. WE WANT FREEDOM. WE WANT POWER TO DETERMINE THE DESTINY OF OUR BLACK AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES. We believe that Black and oppressed people will not be free until we are able to determine our destinies in our own communities ourselves, by fully controlling all the institutions which exist in our communities. 2. WE WANT FULL EMPLOYMENT FOR OUR PEOPLE. We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every person employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the American businessmen will not give full employment, then the technology and means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living. 3. WE WANT AN END TO THE ROBBERY BY THE CAPITALISTS OF OUR BLACK AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES. we believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of our fifty million Black people. Therefore, we feel this is a modest demand that we make. 4. WE WANT DECENT HOUSING, FIT FOR THE SHELTER OF HUMAN BEINGS. We believe that if the landlords will not give decent housing to our Black and oppressed communities, then housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that the people in our communities, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for the people. 5. WE WANT DECENT EDUCATION FOR OUR PEOPLE THAT EXPOSES THE TRUE NATURE OF THIS DECADENT AMERICAN SOCIETY. WE WANT EDUCATION THAT TEACHES US OUR TRUE HISTORY AND OUR ROLE IN THE PRESENT-DAY SOCIETY. We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of the self. If you do not have knowledge of yourself and your position in the society and in the world, then you will have little chance to know anything else. 6. WE WANT COMPLETELY FREE HEALTH CARE FOR All BLACK AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE. We believe that the government must provide, free of charge, for the people, health facilities which will not only treat our illnesses, most of which have come about as a result of our oppression, but which will also develop preventive medical programs to guarantee our future survival. We believe that mass health education and research programs must be developed to give all Black and oppressed people access to advanced scientific and medical information, so we may provide our selves with proper medical attention and care. 7. WE WANT AN IMMEDIATE END TO POLICE BRUTALITY AND MURDER OF BLACK PEOPLE, OTHER PEOPLE OF COLOR, All OPPRESSED PEOPLE INSIDE THE UNITED STATES. We believe that the racist and fascist government of the United States uses its domestic enforcement agencies to carry out its program of oppression against black people, other people of color and poor people inside the united States. We believe it is our right, therefore, to defend ourselves against such armed forces and that all Black and oppressed people should be armed for self defense of our homes and communities against these fascist police forces. 8. WE WANT AN IMMEDIATE END TO ALL WARS OF AGGRESSION. We believe that the various conflicts which exist around the world stem directly from the aggressive desire of the United States ruling circle and government to force its domination upon the oppressed people of the world. We believe that if the United States government or its lackeys do not cease these aggressive wars it is the right of the people to defend themselves by any means necessary against their aggressors. 9. WE WANT FREEDOM FOR ALL BLACK AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE NOW HELD IN U. S. FEDERAL, STATE, COUNTY, CITY AND MILITARY PRISONS AND JAILS. WE WANT TRIALS BY A JURY OF PEERS FOR All PERSONS CHARGED WITH SO-CALLED CRIMES UNDER THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY. We believe that the many Black and poor oppressed people now held in United States prisons and jails have not received fair and impartial trials under a racist and fascist judicial system and should be free from incarceration. We believe in the ultimate elimination of all wretched, inhuman penal institutions, because the masses of men and women imprisoned inside the United States or by the United States military are the victims of oppressive conditions which are the real cause of their imprisonment. We believe that when persons are brought to trial they must be guaranteed, by the United States, juries of their peers, attorneys of their choice and freedom from imprisonment while awaiting trial. 10. WE WANT LAND, BREAD, HOUSING, EDUCATION, CLOTHING, JUSTICE, PEACE AND PEOPLE'S COMMUNITY CONTROL OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY. When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. *** We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are most disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpation, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Many of us our familiar with the calls for Reparations made by Black Luminaries such as Dr. Ray winbush, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, The Minister Louis Farrakhan, The Republic Of New Afrika, and others. But how many know about Mrs. Callie House? Based out of Nashville, Tennessee & Rutherford County, House launched the The National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief Bounty and Pension Association in 1897. Seventy years before the Civil Rights organizations we all know about fought against Southern Jim Crow Laws, Callie House set up a nationwide network of former slaves demanding Reparations for services rendered over the course of 250+ Years of slavery. What's unique here, is that the Reparations would be structured out in the form of pensions for aging individuals formerly held in slavery, their surviving spouses, caregivers, and heirs-similar to the pension plans set up for former Union Army Soldiers. House traveled across the southern states building up support for the movement, and setting up Local Chapters in multiple cities & towns. it is unclear how many people actually joined the movement; but it was clearly large enough that she would soon draw the ire of the U.S. Government. Much like Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, once the government realized how strong the movement was, she was accused of Mail Fraud & sent to Prison. The charge was "justified" based off of the assertion that she was using the mail to send off pamphlets of information pertaining to something that the Federal Government would never do. After serving approximately one year in prison, Callie House returned to her life as a Wash-Woman in South Nashville-where she remained-until her death in 1928. Many of her followers would be absorbed into Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association. Among those followers was Queen Mother Moore, one of the most famous fighters in the cause for reparations (payment for the forced labor under american Chattel slavery). For more information on Callie House, peep the link & video below: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/OBITUARIES/2009-06/1246061818 Beatriz Nascimento (1942-1995) was an Intellectual Militant, Poet, Teacher, Researcher, and Historian in Brazil. An Authority on All Things Black History & Culture, Nascimento helped found Grupo de Trabalho André Rebouças (André Rebouças Working Group) A Student Movement designed to address Racial Issues from an Academic Perspective. Between 1974 & 1995, Beatriz Nascimento became increasingly well known for for her lectures, Research Projects, and Documentary Work ("ORI" 1989). Her writings on the history of The "Quilombo," (people of African origin, Quilombolas, Maroons, etc) & her Ideas in regard to the experiences of Blacks in the Diaspora "Trans-Atlanticity" became highly touted works of intellectual & Revolutionary Genius. She was the face of Brazil’s "Movimento Negro" or black movement & was also well-known for her poetry-which was said to have had a very sensitive & unique take on the life of a Black Woman. On January 28th 1995, Beatriz Nascimento was killed in Rio de Janeiro after intervening on behalf of a friend in a violent relationship. She was shot five times. While her ending seemed to have more with Brazil's notorious culture of Domestic Violence, one must note that four other members of the Movimento Negro to be killed that year. Her assasination would have been the fifth.
#SaluteToAllFreedomfighters |
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