Joe Mozingo had always been told that his family name was "maybe Italian." In a
three-part article in the L.A. Times, the "blue-eyed, surfing son of a dentist" journalist discovers that the Mozingo name actually traces back to an African slave freed in 1672.
[more inside]
posted by infinitywaltz
on May 19, 2010 -
41 comments
Following the end of the Civil War, Congress enacted “An Act to Increase and Fix the Military Peace Establishment of the United States”, which … included the establishment of two regiments of cavalry and four regiments of infantry to be composed of “colored men”. For the first time in the United States history
black men had a place in the regular army. [more inside]
posted by serazin
on Jan 16, 2010 -
11 comments
There was a historic music festival in the summer of 1969. But it's not the one that took place in Bethel, NY. The
Harlem Cultural Festival ran from
June 29 to August 24 that summer, presenting a concert every Sunday afternoon in
Mount Morris Park (known today as Marcus Garvey Park).
Three hundred thousand people turned out for the
six free concerts, hearing acts like
Nina Simone , Sly & the Family Stone (the only act to play both Woodstock and the "black Woodstock"), Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, The 5th Dimension, Moms Mabley and. Speakers included Jesse Jackson and "blue-eyed soul brother" Mayor John Lindsay. Security was courtesy of the
Black Panthers, since the NYC police refused to provide it. Filmmaker Hal Tulchin recorded
over 50 hours of concert footage, which has remained unreleased.
Historic Films seems to hold the footage; it was supposed to be made into a movie to
premiere at Sundance 2007, but its
release seems to be continually delayed for reasons unclear.
[more inside]
posted by Miko
on Aug 20, 2009 -
19 comments
Currie Ballard, a historian in Oklahoma, has just made what he calls “the find of a lifetime”—33 cans of motion picture film dating from the 1920s that reveal the daily lives of some remarkably successful black communities.
A Find of a LifetimeTwelve different short excerpts of the film are linked
posted by y2karl
on Sep 16, 2006 -
20 comments
Otis Granville Clark is a wonder. At 102, the former butler of Joan Crawford - who served Clark Gable and Charlie Chaplin - still drives, lives on his own and twice a week attends church in his home city of Tulsa, Oklahoma... Today his blue eyes have gone milky but they still sparkle, his wiry frame remains agile, and his most painful memories are still fresh - even after 83 years. Coiled on the edge of an understuffed sofa, Clark leans back and screws his eyes tight to summon up "that day". It remains the most vivid of his life... Historians call the firestorm that convulsed Tulsa from the evening of May 31 into the afternoon of June 1 the single worst event in the history of American race relations. To most Tulsans it is simply "the riot". But the carnage had nothing in common with the mass protests of Chicago, Detroit and Newark in the 1960s or the urban violence that laid siege to Los Angeles in 1992 after the white police officers who assaulted Rodney King were acquitted. The 1921 Tulsa race riot owes its name to an older American tradition, to the days when white mobs, with the consent of local authorities, dared to rid themselves of their black neighbours. The endeavour was an opportunity "to run the Negro out of Tulsa". Burnt Offerings .See also The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 or the tale of the lost city or another The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. See also Frequently Asked Questions from the Tulsa Reparations Coalition. Previous post by
allaboutgeorge re: Tulsa Race Riot Reparations on March 1, 2001 .
posted by y2karl
on Feb 22, 2005 -
172 comments
June 8: The forgotten holiday of Pinkster. At first celebrated among the Dutch communities of New York and New Jersey, by the 19th century the holiday of Pinkster was heavily
African-American, and cross-culturally infused. In Albany, the week-long observance began the seventh Sunday after Easter at Pentecost, corresponding with the Episcopal Whitsunday, by raising a large camp of temporary shelters at "Pinkster Hill." Crowds of blacks and whites would mass, waiting for the appearance of King Charles, "the chief character in a ceremony on a Dutch Holiday in America[...,] an African-born black wearing a British brigadier's jacket of scarlet, a tricornered cocked hat, and yellow buckskins." Successive nights included food, drink, sports and Toto, the Guinea dance, which included the "most lewd and indecent gesticulation, at the crisis of which the parties meet and embrace in a kind of amorous Indian hug, terminating in a sort of masquerade capture, which must cover even a harlot with blushes to describe."
posted by Mo Nickels
on Apr 20, 2003 -
4 comments
