Imagine a country without self hatred, excessive greed, Jim Crow or Racism?

Imagine if you will

• What businesses that would have existed?
• What congress would look like today?
• The innovations that never saw the light of day?
• The institutions that never were founded?
• Imagine the colleges and universities that would exist now?
• If the Indians were never persecuted and forced onto reservations?
• If the Japanese were never forced to live in internment camps?

Starting to get the idea

 

This is not another discussion about the stereotypical rights and wrongs of slavery and this is not about perpetuating the myths but examining the institution of an economic standpoint.

What made the controls used to perpetuate slavery so effective?

• Combining people from various tribes who did not speak same languages or share common traditions
• Identifying a group of people with a visible difference and creating a culture where arbitrary and often false characteristics ranging from intelligence to hygiene were assigned
• Deconstructing the identity of the ethnic group using many of the same processes used on many prostitutes today as well as physiological conditioning

Through these a cheap labor class was created. What they do not talk about in the history books is that slavery was not a southern issue is was a country wide issue and its sole purpose and driving factor was economics – cheap labor. In the southern states you had a hand full of people who owned large amounts of slave but the average slave owner across the country north and south owned 1-2. They typically lived in the house with the family and were the skilled labor. The brick mason, field hands, construction workers, black smiths, laundry workers, seamstresses, etc.

When the emancipation proclamation was passed the freed slaved who had the skills and actually did the work and operations were the skilled labor able to generate income and the former owners whose ability primarily was that of administrator lost their revenue base and further was put in a position to have to compete against their former labor. As overhead with little to no hands on experience and not a great amount of work ethic am imbalance was created and it was deemed a truly level playing field was not advantageous to the people used to being in control. Since it was impossible to restore slavery something had to be done to retard things to allow the former masters time to catch up hence jim crow laws. Allow me to interject a little logic – if freed former slaves were simply a southern problem then why did the laws exist in almost every state except Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico?

 

Origins of Jim Crow

During the Reconstruction period of 1865–1877 in the defeated South (the Confederacy), federal law protected the civil rights of "freedmen" — the liberated African slaves. In the 1870s, white Democrats gradually returned to power in southern states, sometimes as a result of elections in which paramilitary groups intimidated opponents, attacking blacks or preventing them from voting. Gubernatorial elections were close and disputed in Louisiana for years, with extreme violence unleashed during the campaign. In 1877 a national compromise to gain southern support in the presidential election resulted in the last of the federal troops being withdrawn from the South. White Democrats had taken back power in every Southern state.^[4] The white, Democratic Party Redeemer government that followed the troop withdrawal legislated Jim Crow laws segregating black people from the state's white population.

Blacks were still elected to local offices in the 1880s, but the establishment Democrats were passing laws to make voter registration and elections more restrictive, with the result that participation by most blacks and many poor whites began to decrease. Starting with Mississippi in 1890, through 1910 the former Confederate states passed new constitutions or amendments that effectively disfranchised most blacks and tens of thousands of poor whites through a combination of poll taxes, literacy and comprehension tests, and residency and record-keeping requirements. Grandfather clauses temporarily permitted some illiterate whites to vote. Voter turnout dropped drastically through the South as a result of such measures.

Denied the ability to vote, blacks and poor whites could not serve on juries or in local office. They could not influence the state legislatures, and, predictably, their interests were overlooked. While public schools had been established by Reconstruction legislatures, those for black children were consistently underfunded, even within the strained finances of the South. The decreasing price of cotton kept the agricultural economy at a low.

In some cases Progressive measures to reduce election fraud acted against black and poor white voters who were illiterate. While the separation of African Americans from the general population was becoming legalized and formalized in the Progressive Era (1890s–1920s), it was also becoming customary. Even in cases in which Jim Crow laws did not expressly forbid black people to participate, for instance, in sports or recreation or church services, the laws shaped a segregated culture.^[2]

In the Jim Crow context, the presidential election of 1912 was steeply slanted against the interests of Black Americans. Most blacks were still in the South, where they had been effectively disfranchised, so they could not vote at all. Poll taxes and literacy requirements banned many Americans from voting, yet, said requirements had loopholes exempting White Americans from paying the poll tax or knowing how to read. For example, in Oklahoma, anyone qualified to vote before 1866, or who is related to someone qualified to vote before 1866, was exempted from the literacy requirement; the only Americans who could vote before 1866 were, of course, White Americans, so White Americans were exempted from the literacy requirement, while all Black Americans were segregated by law. ^[5]

Woodrow Wilson, a southern Democrat and the first southern-born president of the postwar period, appointed southerners to his cabinet. Some quickly began to press for segregated work places, although Washington, DC and federal offices had been integrated since after the Civil War. In 1913, for instance, the acting Secretary of the Treasury—an appointee of the President—was heard to express his consternation at black and white women working together in one government office: "I feel sure that this must go against the grain of the white women. Is there any reason why the white women should not have only white women working across from them on the machines?"^[6]

President Woodrow Wilson, introduced segregation in Federal offices, despite much protest. ^[7] Mr. Wilson appointed Southern politicians who were segregationists, because of his firm belief that racial segregation was in the best interest of Black Americans and White Americans alike.^[7] At Gettysburg on 4 July 1913, the semi-centennial of Abraham Lincoln's declaration that "all men are created equal", Wilson addressed the crowd:

How complete the union has become and how dear to all of us, how unquestioned, how benign and majestic, as state after state has been added to this, our great family of free men!

—      ^[8]

A Washington Bee editorial wondered if the "reunion" of 1913 was a reunion of those who fought for "the extinction of slavery" or a reunion of those who fought to "perpetuate slavery and who are now employing every artifice and argument known to deceit" to present emancipation as a failed venture. ^[8] One historian notes that the "Peace Jubilee" at which Wilson presided at Gettysburg in 1913 "was a Jim Crow reunion, and white supremacy might be said to have been the silent, invisible master of ceremonies."^[8]

 

Many people misquote or misunderstand what I am about to write next and that is that the former slaves had a strong work ethic. This is why there was a problem once they were freed. The slaves who lacked a work ethic were often left to die so you worked or else. When slavery ended that work ethic still existed it was required to survive so you had the former masters who were not used to actually having to do any hands on work nor compete in a fair environment and the former slaves who knew how to work hard but were not allowed to receive the fruits of their labor who now could as a result based solely on merit we all know what happens when someone consistently out performs the other.

 

Consider this simple question – especially in light of our current economic crisis – if we were truly a country that lived up to our own governing documents?

 

Greenwood is a neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As one of the most successful and wealthiest African American communities in the United Stated during the early 20th Century, it was popularly known as America's "Black Wall Street" until the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. The riot was one of the most devastating race riots in history and it destroyed the once thriving Greenwood community. Greenwood is still being rebuilt today because of the destruction over 80 years ag

 

Finding Florida’s Lost Settlement
A six-member team is searching for evidence of a community of former African slaves and American Indians.

The sound waves bouncing back to the underwater sonar device revealed a massive object laying at the murky bottom of the Manatee River, near East Bradenton, Fla. While the indistinct image could have been nothing more than normal debris, the six-member team of marine archaeologists, divers and volunteers hoped they’d discovered physical evidence of a “maroon” community of former African slaves and Seminole Indians. The object, they thought, could be a wharf used by British ships bringing supplies to the community.

Two divers from the Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium, an independent marine laboratory in Sarasota, Fla., recently took to the water to find out.

The Rosewood massacre was an incident of racially motivated violence that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural Levy County, Florida. Six blacks and two whites were killed, and the town of Rosewood was abandoned and destroyed during what was characterized as a race riot. Racial disturbances were common during the early 20th century in the United States, reflecting the nation's rapid social changes. Florida had an especially high number of lynchings in the years before the massacre, including a well-publicized incident in December 1922.

Charleston Black Heritage

South Carolina – African American History and Resources

In New Orleans, Once Again, the Irony of Southern History

By Christopher Morris

Mr. Morris is a historian at the University of Texas at Arlington, and the author of books and articles on the history of the South. He is completing a book on the environmental and social history of the Lower Mississippi Valley, including New Orleans.

Once again the entire country is confronted with the legacy of Reconstruction.

It is too simple to chalk the tragedy that continues to unfold in New Orleans to the force of nature, or to an unfathomable God. Hurricanes, like earthquakes, tornadoes, eruptions, and tsunamis, do come, but who or what sends them is only half the story. Such disasters whatever their origin smash into worlds of our making. What they do when they make landfall, what they meet when they reach the coast, is largely up to us. In the case of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina hit a city of intractable poverty, in which the most desperately poor are African American. It also hit a city that was largely defenseless precisely because it is black and poor. And because its once powerful white citizenry has largely vanished.

 

African American History Across North Carolina

 North Carolina's African American heritage is rich and diverse. In slavery and in freedom, black residents shaped state politics and institutions, literary traditions, religious practice, and the lives of their fellow North Carolinians. The African American struggle for civil rights and equality touched all regions of the state, and the following is a listing, grouped by region, of some important dates for African American history in North Carolina.

The Coast

1806   Thomas H. Jones was born on a plantation near Wilmington but was eventually sold to a shopkeeper who taught him reading, writing, and basic arithmetic. Jones escaped slavery in 1849 by hiding on a ship bound for New York. In the North, he worked for the abolitionist cause and published three narratives: Experience and Personal Narrative of Uncle Tom Jones; Who Was for Forty Years a Slave. Also the Surprising Adventures of Wild Tom, of the Island Retreat, a Fugitive Negro from South Carolina (1850s), The Experience of Thomas H. Jones, Who Was a Slave for Forty-Three Years (1862), and The Experience of Rev. Thomas H. Jones, Who Was a Slave for Forty-Three Years. Written by a Friend, as Related to Him by Brother Jones (1885).

1829   The fiery Appeal of Wilmington native David Walker was printed in Boston and made its way to North Carolina, stirring the fears and suspicions of white slaveholders and legislators. David Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America was eventually banned in North Carolina and other Southern states, but two more editions were printed before Walker's mysterious death in 1830.

1849   London R. Ferebee was born to enslaved parents in Currituck County. His master, Edwin Cowles, took Ferebee away from his family to work with his boating crew, and in 1861, Ferebee was living with his master's family in Still Town, a village outside of Elizabeth City. In August of that year, Ferebee ran away to Shiloh, North Carolina, to seek protection with the Northern army. He records these events and other adventures in his 1882 narrative A Brief History of the Slave Life of Rev. L. R. Ferebee, and the Battles of Life, and Four Years of His Ministerial Life. Written from Memory.

1898   The Wilmington race riots erupted. On November 10 and 11 a white militia headed by local Democratic leaders terrorized the black community, killing and wounding dozens, banishing much of the city's black leadership, and burning the offices of several black businesses, including Wilmington's black newspaper, the Record. David Bryant Fulton's Hanover (1900) and Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901) are both thinly fictionalized accounts of the massacre. J. Allen Kirk, a black minister in Wilmington, details his experience in A Statement of Facts Concerning the Bloody Riot in Wilmington, N.C. Of Interest to Every Citizen of the United States (1898).

The Coastal Plain

1790   Henry Evans, a Virginia-born shoemaker, organized Evans Chapel (now The Evans Metropolitan AME Zion Church) in Fayetteville. Evans was headed for Charleston when he stopped in Fayetteville and felt called by God to stay and help reform the residents there. Rosser H. Taylor's The Free Negro in North Carolina (1920) and Carter Godwin Woodson's The History of the Negro Church (1921) both refer to Evans' work.

1813   Harriet Jacobs, America's most famous female slave narrator, was born in Edenton. Jacobs escaped from her cruel master Dr. James Norcom and hid in a tiny attic room for seven years before fleeing to the North. Her 1861 narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, records her experiences in both slavery and freedom.

1823   Joseph Baysmore, elder of the First Colored Baptist Church of Weldon, was born in Bertie County. Baysmore become an ordained minister in 1866, and in 1887, upon leaving Weldon to minister in Halifax County, he published a brief autobiographical sketch accompanied by four of his sermons.

1880   The first patient was admitted to the North Carolina Asylum for the Colored Insane (now Cherry Hospital) in Goldsboro. The state officially established the hospital in 1877, more than two decades after opening the first white asylum. By 1884, the hospital was serving more than 150 patients according to its annual report from that year.

The Piedmont

1832   John Chavis, a Revolutionary War veteran and prominent Presbyterian minister in Orange County and the surrounding areas, was forced to cease his public sermons when the General Assembly forbade African American preaching after Nat Turner's 1831 slave insurrection. Steven B. Weeks celebrates Chavis's accomplishments in a 1914 profile published in The Southern Workman.

1868   The Colored Orphanage of North Carolina was mandated by the revised state constitution. However, the facility was not established until the 1880s, over a decade after the state created its first white orphanage. Though it was a non-profit private institution, the orphanage was required to make an annual report (such as this one from 1940) to the people of North Carolina since the children at the home were wards of state sent to the facility by county welfare departments.

1883   Gaston County Commissioners suggested a vote on a proposition that would tax black and white citizens at different rates for each race's segregated schools. The court later ruled this proposition, and all race-based taxation for public schools, unconstitutional, and Superintendent of Public Instruction Charles Harden reprinted the court's opinions in his biennial report for 1898-1900.

1890   The General Assembly approved plans to create North Carolina Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes (now North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University) in Greensboro. In the early 1900s, the college held farmers' institutes, through which the university sought to aid North Carolina's agricultural development by educating African American farmers on more efficient practices and other pertinent issues. For more on the college's status in the early 20th century, see its 1903 and 1904 annual reports.

1898   John Merrick founded the North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association in Durham. The company grew to become the United States' largest and most successful black-owned business, with over $1.6 million in revenues upon Merrick's death in 1919. Robert McCants Andrews chronicles Merrick's life and the rise of North Carolina Mutual in John Merrick: A Biographical Sketch (1920), and W.E.B. DuBois briefly profiles the company in his 1912 article "The Upbuilding of Black Durham: The Success of the Negroes and their Value to a Tolerant and Helpful Southern City."

The Mountains

1875   A sketch of a Waynesville African American carpenter by J. Wells Champney appeared as part of a series of illustrations depicting life in this small western North Carolina town. The series of sketches accompanies Edward King's description of his travels there and throughout the southern United States in The Great South; A Record of Journeys in Louisiana, Texas, the Indian Territory, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland.

1893   African American craftsmen working on Biltmore Estate gathered at the Asheville Young Man's Institute, an organization commissioned by Biltmore owner George Vanderbilt. Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted also worked on the Biltmore mansion and had traveled throughout the South. Among other observations from his journey, Olmsted recorded his impressions of race relations and the black community in A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States; With Remarks on Their Economy (1856).

Jennifer L. Larson

Politics

1851-1877

February 25, 1870
First African American Senator

On February 25, 1870, visitors in the Senate galleries burst into applause as Mississippi senator-elect Hiram Revels of Mississippi entered the chamber to take his oath of office. Those present knew that they were witnessing an event of great historical significance. Revels was about to become the first African American to serve in the Senate.

Born 42 years earlier to free black parents in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Revels became an educator and minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. During the Civil War, he helped form regiments of African American soldiers and established schools for freed slaves. After the war, Revels moved to Mississippi, where he won election to the state senate. In recognition of his hard work and leadership skills, his legislative colleagues elected him to one of Mississippi's vacant U.S. Senate seats as that state prepared to rejoin the Union.

Revels' credentials arrived in the Senate on February 23, 1870, and were immediately blocked by a few members who had no desire to see a black man serve in Congress. Masking their racist views, they argued that Revels had not been a U.S. citizen for the nine years required of all senators. In their distorted interpretation, black Americans had only become citizens with the passage of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, just four years earlier. Revels' supporters dismissed that statement, pointing out that he had been a voter many years earlier in Ohio and was therefore certainly a citizen.

Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner brought the debate to an end with a stirring speech. "The time has passed for argument. Nothing more need be said. For a long time it has been clear that colored persons must be senators." Then, by an overwhelming margin, the Senate voted 48 to 8 to seat Revels.

Three weeks later, the Senate galleries again filled to capacity as Hiram Revels rose to make his first formal speech. Seeing himself as a representative of African American interests throughout the nation, he spoke—unsuccessfully as it turned out—against a provision included in legislation readmitting Georgia to the Union. He correctly predicted that the provision would be used to prohibit blacks from holding office in that state.

When Hiram Revels' brief term ended on March 3, 1871, he returned to Mississippi, where he later became president of Alcorn College.

 

List of African Americans in the United States Congress

United States Senate

In Reconstruction era

Senator	Party	State	Term	Lifespan	Former slave
Hiram Revels	Republican	Mississippi	1870-1871	1822-1901	No
Blanche Bruce	Republican	Mississippi	1875-1881	1841-1898	Yes

 

In modern era

Senator	Party	State	Term	Lifespan
Edward Brooke	Republican	Massachusetts	1967-1979	1919-
Carol Moseley Braun	Democrat	Illinois	1993-1999	1947-
Barack Obama	Democrat	Illinois	2005-2008	1961-
Roland Burris	Democrat	Illinois	2009 -	1937-

 

United States House of Representatives

In Reconstruction era

Representative	Party	State	Term	Lifespan
John Willis Menard[1]	Republican	Louisiana	1868	1838-1893
Joseph Rainey	Republican	South Carolina	1870-1879	1832-1887
Jefferson F. Long	Republican	Georgia	1870-1871	1836-1901
Robert C. De Large	Republican	South Carolina	1871-1873	1842-1874
Robert B. Elliott	Republican	South Carolina	1871-1874	1842-1884
Benjamin S. Turner	Republican	Alabama	1871-1873	1825-1894
Josiah T. Walls	Republican	Florida	1871-1873, 1873-1875, 1875-1876	1842-1905
Richard H. Cain	Republican	South Carolina	1873-1875, 1877-1879	1825-1887
John R. Lynch	Republican	Mississippi	1873-1877, 1882-1883	1847-1939
James T. Rapier	Republican	Alabama	1873-1875	1837-1883
Alonzo J. Ransier	Republican	South Carolina	1873-1875	1834-1882
Jeremiah Haralson	Republican	Alabama	1875-1877	1846-1916
John Adams Hyman	Republican	North Carolina	1875-1877	1840-1891
Charles E. Nash	Republican	Louisiana	1875-1877	1844-1913
Robert Smalls	Republican	South Carolina	1875-1879, 1882-1883, 1884-1887	1839-1915
James E. O'Hara	Republican	North Carolina	1883-1887	1844-1905
Henry P. Cheatham	Republican	North Carolina	1889-1893	1857-1935
John Mercer Langston	Republican	Virginia	1890-1891	1829-1897
Thomas E. Miller	Republican	South Carolina	1890-1891	1849-1938
George W. Murray	Republican	South Carolina	1893-1895, 1896-1897	1853-1926
George Henry White	Republican	North Carolina	1897-1901	1852-1918

In modern era

Representative	Party	State	Term	Lifespan
Oscar Stanton De Priest	Republican	Illinois	1929-1935	1871-1951
Arthur W. Mitchell	Democrat	Illinois	1935-1943	1883-1968
William L. Dawson	Democrat	Illinois	1943-1970	1886-1970
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.	Democrat	New York	1945-1967, 1967-1971	1908-1972
Charles Diggs	Democrat	Michigan	1955-1980	1922-1998
Robert N.C. Nix, Sr.	Democrat	Pennsylvania	1958-1979	1898-1987
Augustus F. Hawkins	Democrat	California	1963-1991	1907-2007
John Conyers	Democrat	Michigan	1965-present	1929-
Bill Clay	Democrat	Missouri	1969-2001	1931-
Louis Stokes	Democrat	Ohio	1969-1999	1925-
Shirley Chisholm	Democrat	New York	1969-1983	1924-2005
George W. Collins	Democrat	Illinois	1970-1972	1925-1972
Ron Dellums	Democrat	California	1971-1998	1935-
Ralph Metcalfe	Democrat	Illinois	1971-1978	1910-1978
Parren Mitchell	Democrat	Maryland	1971-1987	1922-2007
Charles B. Rangel	Democrat	New York	1971-present	1930-
Yvonne Brathwaite Burke	Democrat	California	1973-1979	1932-
Cardiss Collins	Democrat	Illinois	1973-1997	1931-
Barbara Jordan	Democrat	Texas	1973-1979	1936-1996
Andrew Young	Democrat	Georgia	1973-1977	1932-
Harold Ford, Sr.	Democrat	Tennessee	1975-1997	1945-
Julian C. Dixon	Democrat	California	1979-2000	1934-2000
William H. Gray, III	Democrat	Pennsylvania	1979-1991	1941-
Mickey Leland	Democrat	Texas	1979-1989	1944-1989
Bennett M. Stewart	Democrat	Illinois	1979-1981	1912-1988
George W. Crockett, Jr.	Democrat	Michigan	1980-1991	1909-1997
Mervyn M. Dymally	Democrat	California	1981-1993	1926-
Gus Savage	Democrat	Illinois	1981-1993	1925-
Harold Washington	Democrat	Illinois	1981-1983	1922-1987
Katie Hall	Democrat	Indiana	1982-1985	1938-
Major Owens	Democrat	New York	1983-2007	1936-
Ed Towns	Democrat	New York	1983-present	1934-
Alan Wheat	Democrat	Missouri	1983-1995	1951-
Charles Hayes	Democrat	Illinois	1983-1993	1918-1997
Alton R. Waldon, Jr.	Democrat	New York	1986-1987	1936-
Mike Espy	Democrat	Mississippi	1987-1993	1953-
Floyd H. Flake	Democrat	New York	1987-1998	1945-
John Lewis	Democrat	Georgia	1987-present	1940-
Kweisi Mfume	Democrat	Maryland	1987-1996	1948-
Donald M. Payne	Democrat	New Jersey	1989-present	1934-
Craig Anthony Washington	Democrat	Texas	1989-1995	1941-
Barbara-Rose Collins	Democrat	Michigan	1991-1997	1939-
Gary Franks	Republican	Connecticut	1991-1997	1953-
William J. Jefferson	Democrat	Louisiana	1991-2009	1947-
Maxine Waters	Democrat	California	1991-present	1938-
Lucien E. Blackwell	Democrat	Pennsylvania	1991-1995	1931-2003
Eva M. Clayton	Democrat	North Carolina	1992-2003	1934-
Sanford Bishop	Democrat	Georgia	1993-present	1947-
Corrine Brown	Democrat	Florida	1993-present	1946-
Jim Clyburn	Democrat	South Carolina	1993-present	1940-
Cleo Fields	Democrat	Louisiana	1993-1997	1962-
Alcee Hastings	Democrat	Florida	1993-present	1936-
Earl Hilliard	Democrat	Alabama	1993-2003	1942-
Eddie Bernice Johnson	Democrat	Texas	1993-present	1935-
Cynthia McKinney	Democrat	Georgia	1993-2003, 2005-2007	1955-
Carrie P. Meek	Democrat	Florida	1993-2003	1926-
Mel Reynolds	Democrat	Illinois	1993-1995	1952-
Bobby Rush	Democrat	Illinois	1993-present	1946-
Robert C. Scott	Democrat	Virginia	1993-present	1947-
Walter Tucker	Democrat	California	1993-1995	1957-
Mel Watt	Democrat	North Carolina	1993-present	1945-
Albert Wynn	Democrat	Maryland	1993-2008	1951-
Bennie Thompson	Democrat	Mississippi	1993-present	1948-
Chaka Fattah	Democrat	Pennsylvania	1995-present	1956-
Sheila Jackson-Lee	Democrat	Texas	1995-present	1950-
J. C. Watts	Republican	Oklahoma	1995-2003	1957-
Jesse Jackson, Jr.	Democrat	Illinois	1995-present	1965-
Juanita Millender-McDonald	Democrat	California	1996-2007	1938-2007
Elijah Cummings	Democrat	Maryland	1996-present	1951-
Julia Carson	Democrat	Indiana	1997-2007	1938-2007
Danny K. Davis	Democrat	Illinois	1997-present	1941-
Harold Ford, Jr.	Democrat	Tennessee	1997-2007	1970-
Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick	Democrat	Michigan	1997-present	1945-
Gregory W. Meeks	Democrat	New York	1998-present	1953-
Barbara Lee	Democrat	California	1998-present	1946-
Stephanie Tubbs Jones	Democrat	Ohio	1999-2008	1949-2008
William Lacy Clay, Jr.	Democrat	Missouri	2001-present	1956-
Diane Watson	Democrat	California	2001-present	1933-
Frank Ballance	Democrat	North Carolina	2003-2004	1942-
Artur Davis	Democrat	Alabama	2003-present	1967-
Denise Majette	Democrat	Georgia	2003-2005	1955-
Kendrick Meek	Democrat	Florida	2003-present	1966-
David Scott	Democrat	Georgia	2003-present	1946-
G. K. Butterfield	Democrat	North Carolina	2004-present	1947-
Emanuel Cleaver	Democrat	Missouri	2005-present	1944-
Al Green	Democrat	Texas	2005-present	1947-
Gwen Moore	Democrat	Wisconsin	2005-present	1951-
Yvette D. Clarke	Democrat	New York	2007-present	1964-
Keith Ellison	Democrat	Minnesota	2007-present	1963-
Hank Johnson	Democrat	Georgia	2007-present	1954-
Laura Richardson	Democrat	California	2007-present	1962-
André Carson	Democrat	Indiana	2008-present	1974-
Donna Edwards	Democrat	Maryland	2008-present	1958-
Marcia Fudge	Democrat	Ohio	2008-present	1952-

 

 

Delegates

Delegate	Party	State	Term	Lifespan
Walter E. Fauntroy	Democrat	District of Columbia	1971-1991	1933-
Melvin H. Evans	Republican	Virgin Islands	1979-1981	1917-1984
Eleanor Holmes Norton	Democrat	District of Columbia	1991-present	1937-
Victor O. Frazer	Independent	Virgin Islands	1995-1997	1943-
Donna Christian-Christensen	Democrat	Virgin Islands	1997-present	1945-

 

Scientists and inventors

A

George Alcorn -Nathaniel Alexander -Virgie Ammons

B

Benjamin Banneker - Janet Emerson Bashen -Patricia Bath - Andrew Jackson Beard - Miriam E. Benjamin - Edmond Berger - Henry Blair - Bessie Blount - Sarah Boone - Otis Boykin - Charles Brooks- Phil Brooks - Henry Brown - Marie Brown - Robert Bryant - John Albert Burr

C

George Washington Carver - George Carruthers -Benjamin S. Carson - Emmett W. Chappelle - John Christian - Donald Cotton - David Crosthwait

D

Mark Dean - Ronald Demon - Joseph Hunter Dickinson - Clatonia Joaquin Dorticus -Charles Richard Drew

E

Thomas Elkins - Philip Emeagwali

F

G

Sarah E. Goode - Meredith C. Gourdine - George Grant

H, I

Lloyd Augustus Hall - Joycelyn Harrison

J

Augustus Jackson - Thomas L. Jennings - Jack Johnson - Lonnie Johnson - Willis JohnsonFrederick Jones - Marjorie Stewart Joyner - Percy Lavon Julian - Everett Just

K

Roscoe Koontz

L

Lewis Howard Latimer - Joseph Lee -John Lee Love

M

Jan Ernst Matzeliger - Elijah McCoy - Alexander Miles - Ruth Miro - Garrett Morgan

N, O

Lyda Newman

P, Q

Alice Parker - Traverse Benjamin Pinn - Willam Purvis

R

Lloyd P Ray - Cordell Reed - Louis Roberts - Norbert Rillieux

S

Walter Sammons - Henry Sampson - Jerry Shelby - Richard Spikes - John Standard -Thomas Stewart - Rufus Stokes

T, U, V

Lewis Temple Valerie Thomas -John Henry Thompson

W, X, Y, Z

Madame Walker - James Edward West -John Thomas White - Doctor Daniel Hale Williams - Paul E. Williams - Joseph Winters - Granville Woods - Stanley Woodard - Kevin Woolfolk

 

Black Inventors - Database

An extensive list of black inventors holding patents listed by name, patent number, and date - hundreds of black inventors listed, however, without the biographical information of the listings above.

 

Colors of Innovation - Black Inventors - Written For Students

Many familiar black inventors are highlighted in this article along with a background history on the struggles of black inventors.

 

Inventors Trivia Quiz

Test your knowledge about black inventors history with this trivia quiz.

 

Let me further twist this plot

 

The First Black Americans

A group of enslaved Africans changed Jamestown and the future of a nation

By Tim Hashaw

Posted 1/21/07

Everyone knows the tales of America's founding: John Smith, Pocahontas, and Jamestown. Yet buried by almost four centuries of history is the tale of the first African-Americans.

Under a mid-July sky in 1619, two pirate ships sailing between Cuba and the Yucatán Peninsula sighted a slow-moving Spanish frigate named the San Juan Bautista. Hoping the frigate carried gold and silver, the White Lion and the Treasurer gave chase, trapping the Spanish ship in the Bay of Campeche. After hours of cannon fire, the Spanish captain surrendered. The pirates boarded and discovered that instead of treasure, they had won a cargo of enslaved Africans being shipped from Luanda, Angola, to Vera Cruz, Mexico.

The Africans—350 men, women, and children—had been captured four months earlier when an army of Portuguese and African allies seeking silver mines invaded the Bantu-speaking kingdom of Ndongo on the Kwanza River in north central Angola. Ndongo at the time was one of several sophisticated Iron Age states in Angola—a bustling kingdom of settled farmers, craftsmen, and cattle-herders. Angolans had embraced Christianity and were trading with Europe. Among the captives on the Bautista were several second- and third-generation Christians with Latin names such as Antonio, Maria, Isabell, and Francisco.

The captains of the White Lion and the Treasurer divided 60 of the Bautista's healthiest men, women, and children between them and sailed for the new English colony of Jamestown—a struggling settlement in dire need of manpower. As recorded by John Rolfe, husband of Pocahontas, the pirates arrived in the Chesapeake at the end of August. Of the Bautista's captives, 32 (17 females and 15 males) were purchased by Jamestown settlers.

From Jamestown, both corsairs sailed for Bermuda, where they traded their remaining Bautista captives. Over the next four years, a half dozen of these Africans were sent back to Jamestown. Names of Bautista Africans first appear in the 1625 Jamestown census, and from the faceless anonymity of Rolfe's 1619 general description of "Negroes" emerge John Pedro, Anthony and Mary Johnson, and Antonio and Isabell Tucker and their young child, William, along with John Graweere, Margaret Cornish, and others.

Plantations. Having been taken from a flourishing country of a quarter-million inhabitants, the Africans were shocked by the appalling conditions of tiny, death-haunted Jamestown.

In the beginning, the first group of Africans was split up and sent to a handful of tobacco plantations along the James River. They were put to work mostly planting and harvesting tobacco, but records show they also raised cattle and acted as traders, selling produce to Indians and to European ships arriving in Jamestown.

During the next two decades, some were permitted to raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom. They married, sometimes to their fellow Africans and sometimes to English settlers, and they raised families. By the 1640s and 1650s, a handful of families from the Bautista bought their own farms around Jamestown.

Slavery would not become fully institutionalized in Virginia until 1705, and, free to prosper, some of the Bautista captives in Virginia even acquired white servants to raise their tobacco in the 1650s. A few, like the Johnson family, became wealthy by colonial standards, even though others of their compatriots remained enslaved. Jamestown was the cradle of two African Americas—one free and one slave. In time, John Graweere became a respected officer of the Jamestown court. Margaret Cornish charmed the son of a Jamestown legislator. John Pedro became a member of the militia.

However, in 1691, Jamestown outlawed freeing slaves unless the slaveholder transported them out of the colony. In 1705, the legislature refused to let slaves raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom. Free African-Americans who were descendants of the first founders from the Bautista were stripped of many of their rights. In less than one century, the promising dawn had faded from memory, and the long night of slavery had begun.

Tim Hashaw is the author of The Birth of Black America: The First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown.

This story appears in the January 29, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.

 

“one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all” or “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

 

• Imagine if we truly lived up to and honored these simple words what our country would look like today?

 

As you can see I hope this is not a post about slavery but about dreams and imagination. It is inspired by so many of the efforts of late to dismantle affirmative action which to me is a carry over of Jim Crow. Why – Rhetoric aside Equal Employment = Affirmative action. Employing or contracting with the best people regardless.

I am sorry as long as I see things like what I am about to show below demonstrating albeit in a humorous way how ethnic minorities are perceived we still are not there





As with all of my posts – what do you think? Also research and ask the questions of yourself – do your own research and ask your own questions – make up your own mind but be h