Black History Month

Virginia retires state song glorifying slaver(1997)

Virginia's House of Delegates votes unanimously to retire the state song, "Carry me back to old virginia" which glorifies slavery.

Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Carry Me Back to Old Virginny"
Song
Writer James A. Bland

"Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" is a song which was written by James A. Bland (1854–1911), an African American minstrel who wrote over 700 songs. It is an adaption by Bland of the traditional "Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny" popular since the 1840s and frequently sung by Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. Bland's version, the best known, was adapted in 1878 when many of the newly freed slaves were struggling to find work. The song has become controversial in modern times.

A third reworded version was Virginia's state song from 1940 until 1997, using the word "Virginia" instead of "Virginny." In 1997, it was retired on the grounds that the lyrics were considered offensive to African Americans. On January 28, 1997, the Virginia Senate voted to designate "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia" as state song emeritus and a study committee initiated a contest for writing a new state song.

In January 2006, a state Senate panel voted to designate "Shenandoah" as the "interim official state song." On March 1, 2006, the House Rules Committee of the General Assembly voted down bill SB682, which would have made "Shenandoah" the official state song.

Lyrics (Bland's 1878 version)

Carry me back to old Virginny.
There's where the cotton and corn and taters grow.
There's where the birds warble sweet in the spring-time.
There's where this old darkey's heart am long'd to go.

There's where I labored so hard for old Massa,
Day after day in the field of yellow corn;
No place on earth do I love more sincerely
Than old Virginny, the state where I was born.

Carry me back to old Virginny.
There's where the cotton and the corn and taters grow;
There's where the birds warble sweet in the spring-time.
There's where this old darkey's heart am long'd to go.

Carry me back to old Virginny,
There let me live till I wither and decay.
Long by the old Dismal Swamp have I wandered,
There's where this old darkey's life will pass away.

Massa and Missis have long since gone before me,
Soon we will meet on that bright and golden shore.
There we'll be happy and free from all sorrow,
There's where we'll meet and we'll never part no more.

Carry me back to old Virginny.
There's where the cotton and the corn and taters grow;
There's where the birds warble sweet in the spring-time.
There's where this old darkey's heart am long'd to go.

This is an entirely different song from "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny", with a different melody and chord structure. This song may have suggested lyrics to Bland, but there is no proof of this.
Lyrics (version dating from the 1840s and commonly sung by Virginia Confederate soldiers)

On de floating scow ob ole Virginny,
I've worked from day to day,
Raking among de oyster beds,
To me it was but play;
But now I'm old and feeble,
An' my bones are getting sore,
Den carry me back to ole Virginny
To ole Virginny shore.

CHORUS: Den carry me back to ole Virginny
To ole Virginny shore,
Oh, carry me back to ole Virginny,
To ole Virginny shore.

Oh, I wish dat I was young again,
Den I'd lead a different life,
I'd save my money and buy a farm,
And take Dinah for my wife;
But now old age, he holds me tight,
And I cannot love any more,
Oh, carry me back to ole Virginny,
To ole Virginny shore.

When I am dead and gone to roost,
Lay de old tambo by my side,
Let de possum and coon to my funeral go,
For dey are my only pride;
Den in soft repose, I'll take my sleep,
An' I'll dream for ever more,
Dat you're carrying me back to ole Virginny,
To ole Virginny shore.

As an agnostic non-Christian I found this story fascinating. Perhaps you will also:
http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=1312

The Story About the Song 'Amazing Grace'
"At Carnegie Hall, gospel singer Wintley Phipps delivers perhaps the most powerful rendition of Amazing Grace ever recorded. He says, "A lot of people don't realize that just about all Negro spirituals are written on the black notes of the piano. Probably the most famous on this slave scale was written by John Newton, who used to be the captain of a slave ship, and many believe he heard this melody that sounds very much like a West African sorrow chant. And it has a haunting, haunting plaintive quality to it that reaches past your arrogance, past your pride, and it speaks to that part of you that's in bondage. And we feel it. We feel it. It's just one of the most amazing melodies in all of human history." After sharing the noteworthy history of the song, Mr. Phipps delivers a stirring performance that brings the audience to its feet!"

[Keepers of history: Music that tells the African-American story]

Brooksie Harrington is a collector of songs -- songs that tell the stories of African-American history. The spirituals, the work songs, the jazz. "I don't want the story to be lost," he said.
Harrington is an associate professor at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina, where he teaches a course he designed called The Aesthetics of Gospel.
“Teaching here, in these courses,” he said, “it is most appropriate that I talk about the evolution of spirituals, the culmination of the spiritual and literature. It is impossible to teach African-American literature without including music. It’s impossible.”
This is one of four profiles by The Fayetteville Observer on residents who are keepers of black history.
Video by Raul R. Rubiera and Abbi O'Leary

I think we need more black playwrights.

White men getting an education and staying out of prison would help loads.

Racist.

What would really help is black men getting a publisher or a theatre prepared to stage one of their plays.

Absolutely.

The Washington Post published once, a comparison between two workers making the same salary doing the same job in a notable business corporation.

One worker was White, the another was Black.

The quest showed that the White worker had a huge house, used to travel to other states or around the world with his wife and children for vacations. He drove a luxury car, and was member of a high class club.

On the other hand, the Black worker had an average size house, it traveled to visit the family or no further than Disney World for vacations, driving a standard car and hanging out with family or friends/neighbors.

The research showed that while the Black worker obtained what he had in life by his work and effort, on the other side, the White worker received the house from his parents as his wedding gift, the car as a birthday gift, and so forth.

The difference was not in their current job positions, but in what they had for inheritance.

For this reason, I truly admire when Black people succeed and is capable to reach wealth enough to be even compared with the wealth mostly inherited by White people.

By historical fact, the best way to get richness is by having slaves. When I see the descendants of the slaves reaching prosperity, it is something to be honored and encouraged.

Congratulations to all Black people who can make it, it is hard work, but you are proving to be people with strength and having the right vision.

Your little anecdote is at best specious and at worst laughable.

goeychin - so's your face.

It’s 2015 and I’m watching an African-American gangsta rapper-turned-gangsta CEO shoot his best friend in the head on primetime TV. At one point, a black son calls his ex-con mom a bitch, so the mother beats said son with a broom. There’s a club shooting, scantily-clad women grinding on each other, drug use, hot tub fornication, implied sex in a club bathroom.

The show is called Empire, and it’s not the kind of Cosby-sweater, warm-and-fuzzy TV I was raised to watch.


Empire is my guilty Wednesday night pleasure, and a runaway hit that’s redefining TV. It’s just the latest of many cultural signs that the old way of thinking—for better for worse—is dead.

“Black respectability politics” describes African-Americans’ self-policing morality and propriety in order to better reflect themselves to the white mainstream. I would be lying if I said I didn’t benefit from the cultural gymnastics of learning and adapting to mainstream etiquette, values, dress codes, hairstyles and preferred media. This is how most people, regardless of race and class, try to live. There is nothing wrong with self-improvement, dressing well and speaking proper English.

But black respectability politics is more than self-help and discipline. It’s like living your life as a job interview. Forever. It is a state of always striving to impress and never arriving at the promised land of equality. It’s a mindfuck, because in order to be “equal” to whiteness, I have to take it upon myself to do more, to counteract the feeling that I am less.

Black respectability politics is like living your life as a job interview. Forever.
When some of us fail at this task, we chastise our own as “bringing down the race.” NBA analyst and Hall of Fame Basketball player Charles Barkley said as much in October amid protests against police murders: “It’s a dirty dark secret in the black community, one of the reasons we’re never going to be successful as a whole is because of other black people.”

These statements have been a long-held Black Respectability Political party line among African-American community leaders, politicians and media barons. But hip hop, the black community’s widening generational gap, and now Cosby’s very public demise may have killed BRP for good.




Just as blaxploitation had been a reaction to the previous decade of buttoned-up civil rights leaders, the 1980s backlash morphed into BRP. As opposed to using suits and ties as a weapon in the fight for civil rights, black respectability says that systemic oppression can be overcome if we’re clean, mild, moderate, and economically successful enough. It’s about keeping up with the Joneses, about outward displays of social improvement. And as the 1970s had Superfly, the 1980s and my childhood had The Cosby Show, The Facts of Life and Diff’rent Strokes.

These shows reflected how black leaders hoped we would be seen. If any TV show, book, movie or distributed media diverged from this script, there would protests, boycotts and a demand for respect. Mainstream media and corporations usually backed down, not wanting to be perceived as racist.

To wit: In 1985 The Color Purple hit screens to protests from the black intelligentsia. They felt the film portrayed African-American culture at its worst with sex, cursing, domestic violence, regular old violence, homosexuality, abusive men and brazen women. It didn’t matter that the material was adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and had director Steven Spielberg on board. Black television host Tony Brown called it “the most racist depiction of black men since Birth of a Nation.” The Hollywood NAACP and other chapters protested the movie. (A few months later, of course, they were protesting the Oscars for not giving The Color Purple any awards.)

After The Cosby Show was over, I’d lie in my bed and listen to the sounds of assault weapons.
Respectability politics weren’t just media posturing; for some, they were a way of life. Growing up during peak BRP, I was a poster child for the movement. Every morning before school my mother would help me tie my shoes as I practiced my spelling and multiplication tables. I had perfect attendance and conduct grades, which my parents tirelessly encouraged. I would often attend school even when I was sick to show I was twice as good as the other honors students. Malcolm X was not a part of my family’s dinner discussion. There were no black power salutes when I was tucked into bed at night. Instead, Ronald Reagan was on our TV. A lot. I remember saying one day “thank God President Reagan is protecting us.”

And, of course, we all watched and loved The Cosby Show.

Bill Cosby was the most popular BRP representative. At its apex The Cosby Show pulled in 30 million viewers every week. It was the first show with an African-American cast that was ranked number one for five consecutive years (only two shows have done that in the entire history of TV). Cosby had the perfect résumé to assume his cultural responsibility: He was a noted civil rights activist, contributor to many African-American organizations and America’s most popular dad armed with G-rated jokes on parenting, getting good grades and staying drug-free.

The backdrop of South Florida injected irony into the Cosby-watching experience. Long after the show was over, I’d lie in my bed and listen to the sounds of assault weapons as a cocaine war raged on outside. Police helicopter lights swooped through my bedroom window, crack addict prostitutes showed up at our doorsteps begging for food. And by the morning, I was singing the theme song to The Facts of Life on the way to school in a perfectly tailored outfit. This was my schizophrenic normal.



As we moved into the 1990s, I began to doubt that being “respectable” was enough to lift my community into Cosby heaven. It seemed like many of these goals and requirements came out of a sense of not feeling worthy. We internalized the racism we feared and then used it to castigate the people in the community who had less. There was a growing tension between the expanding black middle class and lower-class blacks who were living in areas ravaged by crime and crack-cocaine. The first major blow to 1980s BRP happened toward the end of the decade with the explosion of gangsta rap music.

Rap music was the unruly child that would not cooperate with BRP parenting. For an older generation of African-American leaders, it was blaxploitation on steroids. These weren’t just Hollywood actors running around playing pimps and drug dealers. These were, in many cases, the real pushers and street hustlers. This time, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton couldn’t just call up Sony Music and threaten boycotts. The music was reaching its target market.

Even as it became co-opted, commodified and watered down, hip hop crippled BRP forever. The cultural change didn’t come from Harvard MBAs and Georgetown political science majors; it came from the streets, from hustlers who were operating on the simple economics of supply and demand.

“Respectabilility” reads as hollow and manipulative to a new generation.
Black television has struck a blow to BRP, too. In the 1990s, white showrunners earned millions for The Wire and The Sopranos, and African-American artists had to make an uncomfortable choice: try to compete with prestige pieces in an increasingly shrinking market, or jump into the cultural stew. They chose option B. Movies like Menace II Society and Boyz N The Hood helped to lay the groundwork for tales like Hustle & Flow, which in turn paved the way for Power and Empire. These shows are run by black storytellers retaking the African-American narrative. Like hip hop artists, they’ve sacrificed some cultural respectability in exchange for commercial success and professional viability.

In 2014, BRP just may have died of its wounds. From the diminishment of its main spokesman Bill Cosby, to the wholesale discrediting of police murders where BRP buzzwords like “thug” were lobbed at black victims, to even President Obama’s gradual abandonment of lecture-y speeches directed at the black community, “respectabilility” reads as hollow and manipulative to a new generation.

President Obama has come a long way from the days of scolding black families for feeding their kids a cold Popeye’s dinner. Six years ago, he was the Platonic ideal of a BRP candidate. He was clean, articulate and uncorrupted. He even weathered attempts to associate him with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the radical, evil, crazy Negro. For a second there, it seemed like respectability politics could work if all blacks just kept a pristine record, graduated from Harvard, lead a quiet life, came from a biracial background, had beautiful kids and a dynamic wife, said all the right things, made all the right moves. Perhaps Obama would singlehandedly be able to overcome 400 years of America’s intractable execration of the black body and mind by just being…perfect.

We all know how this hypothesis has played out. Despite the brilliant speeches, the painstaking compromises, foreign policy successes, legislative achievements and, to some, being one of the most objectively successful presidents in America’s history, he is still unpopular with vast sections of white America. If a black man like Obama is still hated by almost half the population, then what hope is there for the average middle class family, a single mother, the teenage kid with a hoodie, the creative artist who likes to provoke, or the philosopher who proposes change? What hope is there for me?

In this game of respect, maybe I’ve been playing it all wrong. Maybe we all have.

Aurin Squire is a freelance journalist who lives in New York City. In addition to being a playwriting fellow at The Juilliard School, he has writing commissions and residencies at the Dramatists Guild of America, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and National Black Theatre.

I didn't grow up in the poor side of the city, but I had my Black girlfriend right in a building complex across the street of a Public Housing complex in Washington DC SE.

In those years, some Public Housing complexes were practically untouchables, police didn't even bother to get inside those buildings.

As far as I remember, there were always groups of guys outside until late selling drugs. They knew me, they saw me living with the girl and her daughter, they never caused me any problems. Even more, the first days I was worried because my new car was parked in the street. I saw them hanging over there, even seating around or leaning on my car.

No scratches or anything was in my car the next day.

I never stayed with them more than a few seconds, but they show me friendship and I returned the same.

Months passed by, and I even joked with them when my girlfriend asked me sometimes to knock the door of her friend to borrow some music discs. I used to knock very hard and scream "Open the door! FBI!!

Another door opened in the hallway and an afraid face looked at me, and the dude laughed. "Oh, it's him again", and closed his door. I was practically one of them, they joked on me sometimes as well, but never in aggressive way.

In my job, my coworkers didn't believe me when they heard my joke about the FBI thing. They told me I should have been killed long ago by one of those guys.

I have watched a gang group coming from the "other side of the street" with heavy guns, forcing the dudes of "our" street to undress and show that they have no drugs with them, and saw them leaving shooting walls and windows. I was right there, a few feet from them, they didn't even bother to ask me anything, they knew me too. Police showed up 15 minutes later... one car only... and literally passed by in silence and run away as soon crossed the limits of the complex.

I have entered houses where guns and drugs were over the table, I never stop and look what they have, they never bother of my presence as well. It was the code of silence, and I kept it very well and saved my life.

I met a White police man once in the street, For him, it was weird to see me walking in that area like nothing because I was not Black.He was asking me questions. We went to a carry out, because I wanted to buy me a cheeseburger. Inside the store was an old Black man drinking coffee and he said something to the police man, I didn't get what he said, but he knew that the White guy was a police officer even when he was dressed as a civilian.

What the police officer answered didn't offend me, but it caused me a disturb.

-Do your daughter has cashed her welfare check already?
-Yes, say the old man very angry
-Do your daughter has received her food stamps?
-Yes, said again the old man
-Do you and your daughter still living in your Section 8 apartment?
-Yes, said the old man again.

The police man saw me going away and he left the store, not without saying to the old fella.
-Then, enjoy your coffee.

I didn't want to talk with that officer anymore. To me, what he was trying to show is how society can contain poor people by making them dependents.

I didn't like that.

After a year and a half, something that I didn't know happened. The father of my girlfriend's daughter came out of jail. The neighbors told me that for me should be better to leave her alone, because the ex is out and I should leave now.

And such is what I did. I returned back to my apartment, which was with full furniture but almost empty the whole year. That woman called me 15 years later. I was very glad to heard from her.

I learned to live with all kind of people, and I can tell that society has in many occasions a wrong impression about poor people.

It is true the drinking problems, the aggressive behavior, the drugs, the violence, etc... but I know better than many that they are human beings exactly like the rest of society, and that, in their limited capability to obtain a better education, many, many of them know what honor is about -something that many school students never learn and live, that they master the little what they know and learn to survive very well with that.

Their life is miserable because the system makes them dependent of others.

I'm not joking when I say that I admire every person who inherited nothing and with study and hard work reaches success. I was a visitor in that complex for poor people, but a year and a half over there taught me a lot, taught me to have great respect towards them.

I'm glad I have experienced it, and one of these days I will buy me fried chicken, purple soda, pull down from some old music from the attic, and relax and remember that I was happy in those days, trying hard to sleep because the tenant in the apartment below always turned his radio loud all night long... screams in the hallway at three o'clock in the morning... shootings far away in the street... smell of beer and pee when one is coming out of the building... but, who cared? My girl was so good... and nothing else matters... yes sir!

Yea!

Maya Angelou gets (forever) stamp of approval

10 Little-Known Black History Figures Who Made A Big Change

Just a few I picked from the link above.

A. Philip Randolph was an important leader in the civil rights movement. His concerns were with the common man as he fought to represent black laborers. His efforts saw the banning of discrimination in defense industries during WWII and the ending of segregation in armed services in 1948.



Althea Gibson was the first African American tennis player to find international success. After breaking down color barriers here in America, she went on to win both Wimbledon and French Open titles abroad. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971.



Percy Julian — born in Montgomery, Alabama — escaped the dangerous Jim Crow culture of the South and went on to become a chemist. Lauded for his work with human hormone synthesis, Julian set the stage for steroidal drug production (including cortisone and birth control pills).



Lewis Latimer was an inventor who is credited for greatly improving the filament in Thomas Edison’s lightbulb, helping it to last much longer than Edison’s original design. Additionally, Latimer was very involved in the design for the original telephone, working with Alexander Graham Bell to help draft a patent.



Edward Bouchet (son of a former slave) was born in Connecticut. His family members were big participants in their town’s abolitionist movement, and Edward followed suit by becoming the first African American to graduate from Yale College. He dedicated his post-graduate life to educating students in physics.

Robert Smalls was an ex-slave and naval hero who went on to become a congressional representative for North Carolina. In 1862, he freed himself and his crew from slavery by commandeering a Confederate ship and sailing it to freedom. His tenacity is considered to have been a chief influence in the administration’s decision to accept African Americans into the U.S. Army.

Five African-American Geeks Who Made History

Comedian Chris Rock famously joked that in many schools, African-American history is often limited to the study of Martin Luther King. Although his statement was part of a stand-up comedy act, a 2014 episode of Jeopardy added a hint of truth to that idea when contestants attempted every question in every other category before attempting a single question in the “African-American History” category. With African-American History Month coming to an end, GeekDad wants to highlight five slightly lesser-known African-American geeks that have made enormous contributions to society. One amazing thing to keep in mind is that most of these men and women were geeks at a time when most Blacks in the US didn’t even have access to education.

Benjamin Banneker, Astronomy Geek (1731-1806). Benjamin Banneker was born a free Black man in Maryland. His father was a freed slave from Guinea, and his mother was the daughter of a former slave and an English dairy maid who was an indentured servant. Banneker became slightly obsessed with math and mechanics at an early age, building a working clock almost entirely out of wood at the age of 22. In 1791, he was hired by Major Andrew Ellicot to assist in the survey of the land that would eventually become the District of Columbia. Banneker is probably most famous for the six almanacs he published (in 28 editions) from 1792 to 1797.



Lewis Latimer, Engineering Geek (1848-1928). Lewis Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts to two escaped slaves from Virginia. His father was actually captured in Boston, and was legally defended by Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. Lying about his age, Lewis Latimer enlisted in the US Navy at the age of 16 during the Civil War. After the war, he taught himself mechanical drawing and drafting, and he helped Alexander Graham Bell draft the patent for his design of the telephone. And while Thomas Edison is credited with inventing the light bulb, he had a lot of help from Latimer. Latimer holds the patents for the electric lamp and the process of manufacturing carbon filaments used in incandescent bulbs. Those patents were issued in 1881 and 1882. Edison was trying to use paper filaments that quickly burned out. Edison hired Latimer in 1884 and took advantage of his expertise. Some argue that Latimer had much more to do with the invention of the light bulb than he actually gets credit for.

George Washington Carver, Peanut Geek (c. 1864-1943). George Washington Carver was born into slavery in Diamond, Missouri during the Civil War. After the end of the war and after the abolition of slavery, he remained at the house of his owners, as most of the rest of his family had been kidnapped by slave raiders and sold in Kentucky. He was considered too frail for field work, so his owner, Susan Carver, actually did something almost unthinkable at the time–she taught him to read and write. He ultimately left the Carver home and attended a school for Black children. He conducted biological experiments on plants and studied art on his own until he found a university that would admit a Black student. Carver began his post-secondary studies at Simpson College in Iowa, but ultimately ended up studying botany at Iowa State, where he became the university’s first Black student. After graduation, he was hired to lead the Tuskegee Institute’s agricultural department. While there, he engaged in research and teaching that greatly helped struggling sharecroppers in the American South. He even created a mobile classroom, known as the Jessup wagon, to train farmers around the country. And while Carver pioneered research on new uses for soybean, pecan, and sweet potato crops, he is most famous for his work with the peanut. He used these crops to invent everything from plastics to gasoline. Carver gained international fame, becoming a member of the British Royal Society of Arts. He even advised President Theodore Roosevelt on issues related to agriculture in the US.

Bessie Coleman, Aviator Geek (1892-1926). Bessie Coleman was born in Atlanta, Texas, near the Arkansas and Louisiana borders. At the age of 23, she left the poverty and racism of East Texas and moved north to Chicago, where she still encountered racism, but was at least able to find work and accumulate a modest savings. Coleman decided that she wanted to learn how to fly when she heard stories from pilots who returned from World War I. When she was unable to find a flight school in the US that would admit a Black woman, she decided to go learn to fly in Europe. With the financial help of two prominent African-American entrepreneurs, Coleman was able to travel to France where she learned to fly in seven months. When she returned to the US in 1921, she was treated as a celebrity. At that time, very few women of any race had a pilot’s license, let alone an African-American woman. Over the next five years, she performed in numerous air shows, doing amazing stunts. Tragically, Coleman died while practicing for an air show in 1926.

Dr. Mae Jemison, Space Geek (1956-). Mae C. Jemison was born in Decatur, Georgia, but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. Jemison is an all-around, super-bad, class A geek. She has undergraduate degrees in chemical engineering and African/Afro-American studies from Stanford, as well as an MD from Cornell. As if that wasn’t enough, she is an accomplished dancer, and she has studied Russian, Swahili, and Japanese. She also served as a Peace Corps Medical Officer in Liberia and Sierra Leone from 1983 to 1985. In 1987, Jemison was selected for the NASA astronaut program. In September of 1992, Jemison became the first African-American female in space, when she served as the science mission specialist on STS-47 Spacelab-J, a cooperative mission between the United States and Japan. After leaving NASA in 1993, Jemison continued teaching at the university level. She continues to promote the advancement of science and technology, and she is a strong advocate for science education.

http://geekdad.com/2015/02/african-american-geeks/

More interesting facts about Robert Smalls.

From a bio I found online.

Josephine Baker (1906 – 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer, and actress who came to be known in various circles as the "Black Pearl," "Bronze Venus" and even the "Creole Goddess".

Born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, Josephine Baker became a citizen of France in 1937. She was fluent in both English and French.

Baker was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, Zouzou (1934), or to become a world-famous entertainer. Baker refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States and is noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement.

She was also known for assisting the French Resistance during World War II,[5] and received the French military honor, the Croix de guerre and was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by General Charles de Gaulle.

Black History Month photo of the day from faeebook.