Sundiata Acoli, a former Black Panther member who was convicted of murder in 1974 and has been denied parole multiple times, will now be released from prison. The New Jersey supreme court has granted parole to Acoli, ruling that he was no longer a threat to the public.
85-year-old Acoli has been serving a life sentence for the 1973 murder of a New Jersey state trooper during a shootout in which Assata Shakur, the self-exiled aunt of Tupac Shakur, was also arrested. Shakur escaped in 1979 and fled to Cuba, where she was granted political asylum. Acoli had been eligible for parole since 1992 but had been denied so many times.
In the 1970s when the Black liberation fighters’ struggle was at its peak in the United States, it gave birth to militant groups like Philadelphia-based MOVE founded by John Africa in 1972 and the Black Panther Party founded in late October 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The Black Panthers’ militant wing was called the Black Liberation Army.
Acoli, a member of the Black Liberation Army, was on May 2, 1973, driving just after midnight when a state trooper, James Harper, stopped him for a “defective taillight”. Acoli was then in the vehicle with two others — Assata Shakur and Zayd Malik Shakur — who were also members of the Black Liberation Army. Harper was joined by another trooper, Werner Foerster, at the scene. Foerster then found an ammunition magazine for an automatic pistol on Acoli. A shootout ensued; Foerster died in the process and Harper was wounded.
Assata Shakur was arrested while Zayd Malik Shakur was found dead near the car. Acoli fled but was caught some hours later. Acoli and Assata Shakur were convicted of the murder of Foerster in separate trials. Acoli said he did not remember what happened as he passed out after being hit by a bullet. In 1974, Acoli was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 25 years. Acoli became eligible for parole in 1992 but was not allowed to take part in his own parole hearing.
All in all, he has been denied parole eight times. His lawyer, Bruce Afran, said each time he is denied, the reason given is the same — “he hasn’t done enough psychological counseling; he doesn’t fully admit to his crime, or he hasn’t adequately apologized for it,” according to the Post. In 2014, a state appellate panel ruled that Acoli should be released, citing good behavior since 1996. The state Attorney General’s office however contested and the case was sent back to the board. Again, it denied Acoli’s request. Acoli started appealing that decision.
After being repeatedly denied parole, New Jersey’s Supreme Court has now voted 3-2 to overturn a parole board ruling, according to BBC. Acoli’s prison record has been “exemplary”, the judges said, adding that he had completed 120 courses while in prison, received positive evaluations from prison officials, and participated in counseling. The parole board had “lost sight that its mission largely was to determine the man Acoli had become”, the judges said.
Activists now hope that Acoli’s release would bring attention to other elderly members of the Black Panthers who are still imprisoned in the U.S
New Jersey’s highest court on Tuesday ordered the parole of one of New Jersey’s most high-profile prisoners, Sundiata Acoli, the Black Liberation Army activist convicted for the 1973 murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster.
In a narrow 3-2 vote, the state Supreme Court reversed a decision by the state parole board denying Acoli parole, ruling there was not “substantial credible evidence” to support the board’s findings that his release presented a danger to the public.
“In light of Acoli’s verbal renunciation of violence as an acceptable way to achieve social change; more than two decades infraction-free in the federal prison system; the multitude of programs and counseling sessions he completed; his honor status as an inmate; his acquisition of vocational skills; and his advanced age, it is difficult to imagine what else might have persuaded the board that Acoli did not present a substantial likelihood to reoffend,” Justice Barry Albin wrote for the majority.
The gun battle on the New Jersey Turnpike in which Foerster was killed remains one of the most infamous cases in the Garden State over the last half century and Acoli’s parole petition has been closely monitored by both the law enforcement community and a network of supporters who say Acoli has repaid his debt to society.
The state had denied parole eight times over the course of decades, finding Acoli lacked remorse for the killing because, under questioning at his last hearing, Acoli posited that Foerster could have been killed by “friendly fire” in a lengthy interview.
Acoli’s supporters said he’s an 85-year-old grandfather with dementia, a “model prisoner” who poses no risk to the public.
While he has apologized for his role in Foerster’s murder, Acoli, formerly known as Clark Edward Squire, has claimed he was grazed by a bullet and blacked out during the shootout, and couldn’t remember the exact sequence of events.
It remains an open question who actually fired upon the trooper.
Acoli was in a car with Assata Shakur, then known Joanne Chesimard, when they and another passenger, James Costen, were pulled over for a busted taillight in 1973. Somehow, the routine stop turned into a gunfight that left Costen and Foerster dead and another state trooper, James Harper, wounded.
Shakur and Acoli were both convicted for Foerster’s murder, although Shakur escaped to Cuba, where she remains one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives to this day. Acoli, meanwhile, has served the intervening decades in prison.
“He has lived in one of the worst environments in the world for 40 years without a single offense,” Bruce Afran, a civil rights lawyer who has taken up Acoli’s cause, said during oral arguments in January.
The state Attorney General’s Office had opposed Acoli’s release, saying he has not demonstrated remorse.
“Despite him saying he’d accepted responsibility and understanding, when pushed with what happens, he goes to blaming the victims here, the officers,” assistant attorney general Stephanie Cohen said during oral arguments earlier this year.
Advocates said Acoli, who first became eligible for parole in 1993, has been repeatedly denied parole because he was convicted of murdering a state trooper, which tarred his efforts at parole.
Under the law that was in effect when Acoli was sentenced, he is technically eligible for parole, but the state parole board ruled in 2017 that he showed a lack of remorse and remained too dangerous for release.
New Jersey State Police Trooper Werner Foerster’s funeral in 1973.
A Harvard researcher has declared that Africans are the only race that has 100 percent human DNA while the rest have Neanderthal DNA in them. While this seems controversial another separate study colludes with the Harvard study.
Dr. David Emil Reich, a genetics professor at Harvard, and his colleagues analyzed the genetic variants of 846 non-African people, 175 people who live in the sub-Saharan region of Africa, and a 50,000-year-old Neanderthal man.
They have found out that nine genetic variants found in humans are associated with specific traits that can be found in Neanderthals. The same genetic variants are the same ones responsible for such diseases, such as Type-2 diabetes, Crohn’s disease, lupus, optic disk size, and biliary cirrhosis.
The Harvard researcher and his team also found that this Neanderthal DNA affects how keratin filaments developed. As opposed to humans, Neanderthals have more keratin filaments than humans making their skin tougher. This allows them to survive in harsh, cold, climates. That DNA was beneficial to the human survival in such climates.
A separate study conducted by Dr. Benjamin Vernot and Dr. Joshua Akey from the University of Washington yielded the same conclusion after the scientists analyzed the genetic makeup of 286 East Asians and 379 Europeans.
According to the duo, Neanderthal skin genes are present in Europeans and East Asians. On the other hand, the rest of the genes are not compatible with the human genome and they most probably become extinct. One area of the human genome where the Neanderthal DNA is absent is that which affects human language and speech.
Harvard researcher DR. Reich said that the goal of the study is to understand how this DNA impact the biological impact of how human and Neanderthal DNA flow. It will also show the scientists what genes have been preserved and which ones have been rejected through the process of natural selection.
If AFRICOM’s mission is to fight terrorism, then why have terror attacks increased five-fold since the US began its military occupation of the continent?
“Entities that threaten a liberated, autonomous Africa are the real terrorists, and the United States is the biggest terrorist in the world.”
While politicians of both the Republican and Democratic parties allege that the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) is leading the fight against terrorism on the African continent, U.S. military operations in Africa have fostered the rise of terrorist activity.
Data from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland shows that attacks have spiked since AFRICOM was established. In 2007, just before it became a command, there were fewer than 400 such incidents annually in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2016, the number reached nearly 2,000. By AFRICOM’s own official standards, this is a massive failure, but AFRICOM’s true purpose is not fighting terrorism.
General Stephen Townsend, head of AFRICOM, said “the growing threat in Africa from terrorist networks is significant and impacts not only Africans but also the U.S. and our international allies.” But militant groups like Al-Shabaab, ISIS, and Al-Qaeda are actually products of the destabilization caused by U.S. wars and occupation in Africa and the so-called Middle East, and U.S. military activities continue to grow the numbers of those groups. This pushes African countries to rely on the U.S. military to support a fight against growing terrorist threats. Through this process the U.S. creates a “desire” for AFRICOM by African compradors.
“AFRICOM’s true purpose is not fighting terrorism.”
In the eyes of the U.S. ruling class, entities are classified as terrorists based on how they relate to U.S. empire. Entities that threaten a liberated, autonomous Africa are the real terrorists, and the United States is the biggest terrorist in the world. U.S. military activity has killed more people than the terrorist groups that they are supposedly fighting against combined.
The occupation of foreign countries and devastating bombings that the United States has used to achieve its goals in Africa are acts of terror. The U.S. also leverages economic terrorism with the World Bank and IMF to transfer wealth and force austerity measures, and it enforces murderous sanctions on African countries. Al-Shabaab, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and their counterparts cannot come close to the kind of death, destruction, and destabilization that the U.S. has brought about in Africa.
“Counter-terrorism” is a pretense that the United States utilizes to re-colonize Africa as China, Russia, and others challenge their dominance on the continent. Yet China has only one base in Djibouti, and Russia does not yet have military bases in Africa, while the U.S. has 46 military bases on the continent and military to military relations with 53 out of 54 African countries.
China, especially, has been lessening the dependence of African countries on U.S. and Western economic influence, though, like any country, China has its own motivations that are not in service of African liberation. When, in the past, African leaders would be forced to accept predatory loans from the World Bank and IMF, they can now turn to China for investment. According to the China-Africa Research Initiative at John Hopkins University, Chinese investment in Africa has risen steadily since 2003 while U.S. foreign direct investment in Africa has declined. China’s signature ‘One Belt One Road’ policy – to which President Xi Jinping has pledged $124 billion to create global trade routes designed to facilitate $2 trillion worth of annual trade – will also improve African links with China.
“Chinese investment in Africa has risen steadily since 2003 while U.S. foreign direct investment in Africa has declined.”
The U.S. response to growing Chinese economic influence has been focused on military operations to promote endless war and instability in Africa. U.S. militarism in Africa is not new, and the U.S. has waged war against African liberation movements since the 1950s – in Angola, the DRC, Somalia, the Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Morocco, Libya, and Djibouti, to name a few countries. In some countries they used U.S. troops, but in most cases the U.S. financed, armed, and supervised the support of other forces.
The war in the DR Congo is an illustrative example. The U.S. initially worked with Belgium to assassinate the first Prime Minister of the newly independent Democratic Republic of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, because of the threat his leadership posed to U.S. and Western control of strategic raw materials in the DRC. The U.S. also worked with Paul Kagame’s forces to win a coup in Rwanda. Then, in 1996, the U.S. supported the Rwandan and Ugandan invasion of the DRC, which resulted in the deadliest war since World War II with over 6 million deaths, half of those killed were children under the age of five.
According to a U.S. Congressional Research Service study, Washington has dispatched combat troops, fighter planes, and warships to buttress client dictatorships or to unseat adversarial regimes in dozens of countries, on almost a yearly basis.
Conflict Armament Research, a UK organization that monitors armament transfers and supply chains, published an important report in late 2016, confirming that a flow of weapons from the government led by Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi after the U.S. and NATO successfully waged war on that country played a major role in the rise of terrorism in Mali, Niger, and the Sahel.
The Trump administration has laid bare many of the motives of U.S. domestic and foreign policy, and AFRICOM’s purpose in furthering U.S. geopolitical, economic, and military interests has also been exposed. Their primary motives are colonizing the continent and winning the New Scramble for Africa, which resembles the scramble of the 1800s. AFRICOM works to prevent the rise of any autonomous forces on the continent.
Like the Obama administration before it, the Trump administration has increased the number of drone attacks and decreased restrictions on rules of engagement, which has increased the number of those killed. He has also significantly decreased aid to Africa since the U.S. is losing to China in that area.
“The New Scramble for Africa resembles the scramble of the 1800s.”
Kwame Nkrumah, the first Prime Minister and President of Ghana, addressed foreign military intervention in Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism. He warned instructively that “military aid … marks the last stage of neo-colonialism and its effect is self-destructive.”
As Dr. Ama Biney writes in The Political and Social Thought of Kwame Nkrumah, the former President is the ideological originator of the Africa High Command, which was intended to create an environment of peace in an autonomous, unified Africa. The question she asks in light of the twisted U.S. version of Nkrumah’s idea is “whose interests will AFRICOM genuinely serve in the medium to long term? The interests of ordinary African people are unlikely to be served by AFRICOM.”
AFRICOM is a deadly tool used to further U.S. interests in Africa, and Kwame Nkrumah would be vehemently opposed to the co-optation of his ideas in service of the re-colonization of Africa by the U.S. empire.
Terrorism is a useful pretext for the U.S. to assert its power, and the lives of millions of African people are bargaining chips that are played by the United States in the New Scramble for Africa. In that sense, the War on Terror has been a success. The United States has vastly expanded its power and influence on the continent through AFRICOM as it vies for full spectrum global dominance over competitors like China and Russia. If the goal is to fight and end terrorism, AFRICOM is a woeful failure.
Terrorism is a by-product of imperialism, and claims of fighting against it are used for public relations purposes. Ending terrorism and liberating Africa from the clutches of U.S. imperialism means shutting down AFRICOM and removing all U.S. forces from the continent and world. That is why we say U.S. Out of Africa!
Kidnapped. Beaten. Sold. So traumatized she forgot her own name. This is the horrifying beginning of the story of St. Josephine Bakhita.
Despite years of being enslaved and abused, St. Josephine’s story ends in life-giving hope. Her recovery is a testimony to the role that believing in God’s love can play in helping victims of enslavement survive. St. Josephine came to believe that God loved her and called her by name. Canonized in 2000, she offers hope to those seeking to reclaim their dignity as God’s beloved children. She has become the patron saint for all victims of trafficking. An annual day of prayer and awareness against human trafficking is observed on her feast day, Feb. 8.
Born around 1869, the child later named Bakhita led a carefree life as a member of the Daju people of Sudan. Life drastically changed when Arab slave traders murdered her parents and kidnapped her. She was forced to walk over 600 miles barefoot and sold 5 times over the next 12 years in the slave markets of Sudan.
After being sold to an Italian merchant, she came to be cared for by the Canossian Sisters in Italy, and this is when Bakhita learned who she really was. Drawn to Jesus on the cross, she learned of a God “she had experienced in her heart, without knowing who he was” since she was a child. In the words of Pope Benedict, “She came to know that this Lord even knew her, that he had created her – that he actually loved her.”
Refusing to leave the sisters when her master returned, Bakhita won freedom in 1889 when an Italian court ruled that she had never legally been a slave. In control of her life for the first time, Bakhita joined the sisters. Baptized Josephine Margaret and Fortunata, she professed her vows in 1896 and called others to love God while serving as a cook, sacristan and doorkeeper at Schio for 42 years. Beloved by the residents of Venice for her hopeful presence and joyful smile, this sister they fondly called Sor Moretta (“little brown sister”) or Madre Moretta (“black mother”), was a special source of inspiration.
Though she endured much physical pain in her final years, she died smiling in 1947, calling out to Our Lady. In her biography, she reveals that she had transcended her suffering to forgive her captors, “If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands. For, if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian and a religious today.”
Abuna Yemata Guh is a church that has been described as the world’s most perilous church. It sits so high up perching 650 feet above a steep cliff in the Hawzen Woreda of the Tigray Region, Ethiopia. Its architecture, dome and wall paintings date back to the 5th Century.
Named after its founder and builder, father Yemata in the fifth century, it takes visitors 45 minutes to climb up the cliff face in order to access it. The trek up to the church is dangerous, but families still manage to attend Sunday services there.
The church is perched on the cliff-side and to reach it, you must scale a sheer wall of rock and inch along a swift ledge bare footed since it is considered a holy ground. It has 20 clergymen and is managed by Gebre Rufael Asresseha, a priest, who has lived there for over 47 years and makes the trek daily.
“When they see it from afar, They get scared thinking they would fall, but then we encourage them. We tell them ‘grab here, step on there’, and they feel encouraged; and they will climb it, and they won’t turn back,” Asresseha explained.
It is situated at a height of 2,580 metres and according to lonely planet, the first 45 minutes of the climb is mildly challenging, with a couple of tricky sheer sections requiring toehold action; guides carry ropes (Birr150) for the final push. The last two minutes require nerves of steel to make the final scramble and precarious ledge walk over a 200m drop.
The views from the baptism chamber are reportedly astounding with carefully preserved wall-paintings on the domes and walls. “Inside is beautiful and well-preserved frescoes that adorn two cupolas, while the bones of monks from the open-air tombs lie around”.
The Abuna Yemata Guh church has a local guide and vanguards at every step of the climb, making sure you know which foothold to take and rock to climb and helping out with the ropes. Visitors are advised to start on the trek early in the morning.
According to a report, most of the climb is simple, except for the last 7-metre stretch that navigates a sheer cliff face. “The first part of the climb is a half-hour trek up a steep incline, but doable. This is followed by the tough part, inching up the sheer cliff”.
The church is active with churchgoers climbing up the cliffs several times a week including mothers with their children on their back, pregnant women, babies and old people to attend services and reportedly, no one has ever fallen. Some people call it “The climb of faith.”
Learn more about the church and its beautiful architecture in this video:
A skull analyzed in the new study, along with tubes for genetic and isotope testing.
Image: Rodrigo Barquera
Three skeletons belonging to African individuals have been uncovered at a mass grave in Mexico City. They represent some of the first African people to arrive into slavery in the New World. An interdisciplinary analysis of these remains is shedding new light on this grim period of history and the harsh conditions endured by the first wave of enslaved Africans in the Americas.
“To the best of our knowledge, they are the earliest genetically identified first-generation Africans in the Americas,” according to the authors of a new paper, published today in Current Biology.
Found in Mexico City, the three skeletons were buried in a mass grave near the former site of the Hospital Real de San José de los Naturales. This early hospital dates back to the early colonial period of New Spain and was primarily used to treat indigenous peoples. All three skeletons date back to this early colonial period in the 16th century, which means these individuals were among the first wave of Africans to be kidnapped and brought to the Americas via the transatlantic slave trade.
An interdisciplinary analysis of these remains paints a bleak picture of their lives, showing evidence of forged migration, physical abuse, and exposure to infectious diseases.
“By investigating the origin and disease experience of these individuals through molecular methods and evaluating the skeleton[s] for signs of life experience and cultural affinity, we illuminate, in some measure, the identity, culture, and life of these people whose history has largely been lost,” wrote the authors in the new study, co-authored by Johannes Krause from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
The origin of this story goes back to 1518, when Charles I of Spain authorized the transfer of enslaved Africans to the Viceroyalty of New Spain, which at the time included most of what is now Mexico, the Caribbean, and parts of the U.S. and Canada. By 1779, an estimated 130,000 to 150,000 Africans had been forcibly relocated to the Viceroyalty, according to the researchers. Of these, some 70,000 arrived between 1600 and 1640. Writing in the new paper, the authors explained the sudden increase in relocation of enslaved individuals:
…in part due to a reduction in the indigenous labor force that resulted from both casualties in the many conflicts during the European conquest and from diseases (among them, small-pox, measles, and typhoid fever) that devastated nearly 90% of the native population. Creoles, Africans, mulattoes, and other African-descended groups were thought to have higher resistance to these diseases compared to Indigenous Americans and Europeans making them desirable assets. Further to this, Las Leyes Nuevas (The New Laws) of 1542 prohibited the use of Native American labor as slaves in New Spain.
To analyze the three skeletons, the authors combined genetic and isotopic evidence, along with physical evidence gleaned from the remains.
Proof that these people came from Africa came from multiple sources. First, their upper teeth showed evidence of decorative filing, a known cultural practice of some African tribes. Second, these three individuals shared a Y-chromosome lineage that is strongly correlated to people from sub-Saharan Africa and is now the most common genetic lineage among living African Americans. And thirdly, dental isotopes extracted from their teeth showed that the individuals were born outside of Mexico, having spent their entire youth in Africa, according to the research.
Skulls and dental decoration patterns observed on the skeletal remains.
Image: Collection of San José de los Naturales, Osteology Laboratory, (ENAH), Mexico City, Mexico. Photo: R. Barquera & N. Bernal
Analysis of the skeletons suggests these people were subjected to physical abuse and intense manual labor, such as muscle-derived patterns on bones and signs of hernia on vertebrae. Other evidence pointed to “nutritionally inadequate diets, anemia, parasitic infectious diseases, and blood loss,” wrote the authors.
These enslaved Africans were also victims of extreme violence. One skeleton had five copper buckshots fired from a gun, while another showed signs of skull and leg fractures. None of these injuries resulted in their deaths, but all three died prematurely.
“And since they were found in this mass burial site, these individuals likely died in one of the first epidemic events in Mexico City,” explained Rodrigo Barquera, the first author of the study and a graduate student at MPI SHH, in a press release. “[We] can tell they survived the maltreatment that they received. Their story is one of difficulty but also strength, because although they suffered a lot, they persevered and were resistant to the changes forced upon them.”
The analysis also resulted in the detection of two known pathogens, namely the virus responsible for Hepatitis B virus (HBV) and the bacterium responsible for yaws (Treponema pallidum pertenue), which causes symptoms similar to syphilis. Importantly, this is the earliest evidence of HBV and yaws in the Americas.
Joint and bone damage found on the skeletal remains: (A) extensive bone wear, (B) signs of hernia on a vertebrae, (C and D) greenish coloration as evidence of a copper bullet.
Image: Collection of San José de los Naturales, Osteology Laboratory, (ENAH), Mexico City, Mexico. Photo: R. Barquera & N. Bernal
“Although we have no indication that the HBV lineage we found established itself in Mexico, this is the first direct evidence of HBV introduction as the result of the transatlantic slave trade,” said Denise Kühnert, a co-author of the study and an expert in infectious diseases at MPI SHH. “This provides novel insight into the… history of the pathogen.”
The same could hold true for yaws, which was common in the Americas during the colonial period. Prior to the new study, however, the oldest genetic evidence of yaws came from a 17th-century European colonist.
“It is plausible that yaws was not only brought into the Americas through the transatlantic slave trade but may subsequently have had a considerable impact on the disease dynamics in Latin America,” added Kühnert.
Needless to say, this is among the trickier aspects of the new study; linking the presence of HBV and yaws in these individuals to the spread of diseases from Africa to the Americas is a precarious proposition at best. Future research is needed.
The new paper presents a devastating snapshot of life during the early colonial period and the tremendous hardships endured by the tens of thousands of people abducted from Africa.
Although famed writers James Baldwin never wrote a book entirely about Africa in his long career, his later works show him awakening to “the potential of Black internationalism” with the decolonization of the continent, according to Dagmawi Woubshet, professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. “The early Baldwin is concerned about the kinship between white and Black America,” said Woubshet,
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States of America. He is one of the founding fathers of America and the author of the Declaration of Independence. He believed that Black people were inferior to White people.
Hotep (Peace)!!!
Take notes!!!!!!!
Brother Malcolm X (Omawele El Hajj Malik El Shabazz), the Black nationalist freedom fighter and human rights leader of the 1950s and 1960s, said that the oppression of Black people and people of color are due to a world-wide conspiracy of White supremacy. I have spent almost a year preparing to go back to college to finish my masters and PhD graduate studies in history. Because of Malcolm X’s lucid critiques of the world’s movement to dominate and subjugate Black people, and people of color, I want to compete my studies and research on the ideological creation of White supremacy in America and in the world. I will also centered my studies and research on Black people’s reaction to White supremacy in America and in the world to fight against White hegemony. White supremacy is the idea that White people, and their culture, religion, language, philosophy, mores, norms,values, names, economic systems, and history; are inherently superior to all Black people and all people of color. This concept of White supremacy develops as White people began to establish capitalism, exploit cheap labor in Afrika, and acquire indigenous people’s land in the Western Hemisphere of the world. Consequently, the system of racism, a falsified concept of Whiteness, colorism, Europeanization of the Black mind, destabilization of Afrikan countries, the capitalist exploitation of Afrika and Black people, mass incarceration, the oppression of people of color, biological warfare, the neutralization of Black leaders, the disaccreditation of Black nationalism, and Black self- hatred have its foundations rooted in White supremacy. The philosophy of White supremacy was used to justify the European Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the holocaust of the enslavement of Black people (Maafa), the Arab Slave Trade, European colonialism in Afrika, US Cointelpro (the United States Counter intelligence program), racial violence toward Black people, police violence in the Black community, institutional racism, apartheid, the sexual exploitation of Black Women, the emasculation of Blackmen, the creation of the n-word, White cultural domination of Black people, and segregation. Over the centuries, White supremacy has targeted Black people, and Afrika, to point of creating the conditions for us to be the victims of social and economic disparities for generations. The authors of White supremacy come from from all walks of life in Europe and America, particularly from professional fields, such as intellectuals, political leaders, judges, lawyers, scientists, Professors, educators, historians, theologians, and philosophers.
Let me give you some example of Whites supremacist books and authors I have collected in my research.
One of the White intellectuals that contributed to the ideology of White supremacy is named Dr. George Botsford. He was a Oxford trained Professor at Columbia University. He wrote a book called-A History of the Ancient World. His book was published in 1914 by the McMillan Publishing Company. By the way, the McMillan Publishing Company is still in existence today. The McMillan Publishing Company has produced millions of books used in public schools across the United States of America for the decades.
Dr. Botsford writes, “From the point of view of color three groups may be distinguished. The FIRST is the Black or Negro race of Central and Southern Africa. THEY ARE THE LOWEST IN INTELLIGENCE, AND HAVE CONTRIBUTED PRACTICALLY NOTHING TO THE PROGRESS OF THE WORLD. THE SECOND IS THE YELLOW OR MONGOLIAN RACE OF ASIA. THEY INCLUDE THE CHINESE AND JAPANESE, WHO HAVE LONG BEEN CIVILIZED, AND THE NOMADS, OR WANDERING PEOPLE, OF CENTRAL ASIA. SOME EUROPEANS, AS THE TURKS, HUNGARIANS, AND FINNS, BELONG TO THE SAME RACE. THE AMERICAN INDIANS ARE GROUPED WITH THEM BY SOME SCHOLARS; BY OTHERS THEY ARE REGARDED AS A DISTINCT RACE. THE THIRD AND HISTORICALLY MOST IMPORTANT GROUP IS THE WHITE OR CAUCASIAN RACE. TO THE WHITE RACE ARE DUE PRACTICALLY ALL IMPROVEMENTS OF THE PAST SEVEN THOUSAND YEARS. THE WHITE RACE IS TERMED CAUCASIAN BECAUSE SCHOLARS ONCE BELIEVED THAT ITS HIGHEST PHYSICAL PERFECTION COULD BE FOUND AMONG THE MOUNTAINEERS OF CAUCAS. THEY COMPRISED OF THE EGYPTIANS AND LIBYANS. THEY WERE THE CREATORS OF THE FIRST CIVILIZATION.”
However, on the same page of his book, he argues that Kemet (Egypt) was once the greatest and the most important civilization in the world. But he only sees Kemet primarily and totally as a White civilization. He does not accept the fact that Kemet was a Black autochthonous civilization in Afrika. Dr. Botsford writes, “so far as our knowledge goes the Egyptians were the first civilized people. They invented a system of writing as early as the fifth millennium (5000-4000 BC). We may say then, that the history of the world begins at this time.”
Unfortunately, America’s premier Egyptologist James Breasted in 1944 would continue a White supremacist argument that that Kemetic (Egyptian) people, and the inhabitants of the Nile Valley, were White people, not Black people. He writes in his book called, Ancient Times, on page 12, that they “were dark-skinned, but nevertheless physically they belong to the great White race.”
Years later, during the movements for Black liberation around the world, White supremacists were still fighting to maintain White hegemony on the earth. In 1965, Oxford University history professor and scholar, Hugh Trevor- Roper, wrote in his book, The Rise of Christian Europe in page 9, “undergraduates demand that they should be taught the history of black Africa. Perhaps in the future, there will prove to be some African history to teach. But, at present there is none, or very little; there is only the history of Europeans in Africa.”
But before Dr. George Botsford and James Breasted entered the picture to discredit the Black origins of Kemet and Nile Valley civilizations, White supremacists were already working to remove Black people from the annals of history, particularly Afrikan History. In their book, Types of Mankind: Ethnological Research, social scientists J. C Nott and George R. Giddon present a White supremacist argument that Kemet and the Nile Valley were products of White people. In 1971 on page 77, they write, “both in Egypt and in Nubia, was originally populated by a branch of the Caucasian race.”
Some of my research has brought me to some of the world’s most famous leaders and thinkers of European descent. Unfortunately, they helped to create White supremacist ideology that will work to prevent the world from seeing and treating Black people as human beings.
For instance, during his famous debates with incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas for the US Senator seat in Illinois. Candidate Abraham Lincoln, by 1860 he will become the sixteenth US President, explained to the crowd: “I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races … I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”
Legally, Black people had no protections of constitutional freedoms or rights in the courts of America. Roger B. Taney, a Chief Justice in the US Supreme Court ruled on the famous Dred Scott case of March 1857, saying “They [Black people] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the White race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics.” Since Dred Scott was taken to two freed states (e.g. Wisconsin and Illinois), he sued for his freedom in the US Supreme Court. Unfortunately, he lost his case. The US Supreme Court ruled against him. Powerful White people on the benches of the US Supreme Court did see Black people as human beings. The case was dismissed and Dred Scott was returned to enslavement. Later in that same year, Scott’s previous owners bought him and set him free.
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, one of the founding fathers of America and US democracy, wrote that “all men are created equal,” and yet enslaved more than six-hundred Black people over the course of his life. Although he made some legislative attempts against American slavery, and at times bemoaned its existence. He also profited greatly and directly from the institution of slavery. In fact, he helped to write the language of the US constitution that protected slavery until 1865. Reading his writings, Thomas Jefferson did not view Black people as equals. He wrote that Black people are inferior to white people in his book called-Notes on the State of Virginia. He writes, “Comparing them [Black people] by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid: and that in imagination they [Black people] are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.”
George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), German European philosopher and political theorist, wrote in his book called, Philosophy of History, “Africans have no conception of God or of a higher level of consciousness other than mere flesh.”
Reverend Buchner H. Payne, an American theologian, said in the 1867, “God is light, and in him was no darkness at all…. And if God could not be the father of the Blacks, because he was White, how could our Savior, being the express image of God’s person….carry such a demand of color into heaven, where all are White, much less to the throne.” As quoted by John G. Jackson in his book called-Ages of Gold and Silver page 218.
Reverend Dr. Henri Junod, a Swiss Protestant missionary, wrote in 1931 that Black people, “are an inferior race, a race made to serve.” As quoted by J.C. DeGraft-Johnson, in his book called-African Glory page 51-52.
Arnold Toynbee, Oxford trained historian, wrote in his book, A Study of History in 1947, “the Black races alone have not contributed positively to any civilization.”
Cecil Rhodes, British imperialist, creator of the Rhodes Scholarship, and founder of the De Beers diamond company, believed that Black people were inferior to White people. His White supremacist movements led to the colonization of South Afrika by Europeans. Whites took the lands and resources of Black people. Europeans began renaming parts of Southern Afrika Rhodesia. But Black people fought back European hegemony in Afrika. Black liberation movements rose up on the continent to free Black people from European colonialism. When Black people came to political power, they began renaming Rhodesia to Zimbabwe and Zambia. But before the liberation of Southern Afrika, Cecil Rhodes was the dominating force in that area of the world. He once said, “the native [Black people] is to be treated as a child and denied franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism, such as works in India, in our relations with the barbarism of South Africa.” (Magubane Bernard M. The Making of a Racist State: British Imperialism and the Union of South Africa, 1875–1910. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press.)
Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States. He served in the White House from 1913 to 1921. But before becoming the President of the United States, he was once the 34th Governor of New Jersey and the former President of Princeton University. President Wilson was a politician, lawyer, and an academic. He once said, “[Reconstruction government was detested] not because the Republican Party was dreaded but because the dominance of an ignorant and inferior race was justly dreaded.”
I must stop there folks. Unfortunately, there is more on the history of White supremacy. I plan to write and lecture extensively about this subject.
However, I must state as a side bar note, there are many White intellectuals and scientists that presented the real facts on Black people, Afrikan History, Afrikan culture, and Afrikan spirituality, European History, world history, and American History. White scholars such as Herodotus, JeanFrancois Champollion, Basil Davidson, Count C.F. Volney, Charles Darwin, Dr. Louis S. B. Leaky, Dr. Donald Johanson, E. A. Wallis-Budge, Gerald Massey, and Leo Frobenius, to name a few. Unfortunately, their works are not presented in the main stream.
For example, Count C.F. Volney went to Kemet (Egypt) with Napoleon Bonaparte’s team of European scholarly professionals in 1798. At this this time Napoleon was the Empire of France, but he had an interest in the ancient world. They discovered that Kemet was a great Black civilization in Afrika and that she influenced the world. Volney writes in his book, Voyages on Syrie Et En Egypt on pages 74-77, “all have a bloated face, puffed up eyes, flat nose, thick lips; in word, the true face of the mulatto. I was tempted to attributed it to the climate, but when I visited the Sphinx, its appearance gave me the key the riddle. On seeing that head, typically Negro in all its features, I remember the remarkable passages where Herodotus says: “as for me, I judge the Colchians to be a colony of the Egyptians because, like them, they are Black with wooly hair……” In other words, the ancient Egyptians were true Negroes of the same type as all native-born Africans. That being so, we can see how their blood, mixed for several centuries with that of the Romans and Greeks must have lost the intensity of its original colour, while retaining nonetheless the imprint of its original mould. We can even state as a general principle that the face is a kind monument able, in many cases, to attest or shed light on historical evidence on the origins of peoples…..But returning to Egypt, the lesson she teaches history contains many reflections for philosophy. What a subject for meditation, to see the present barbarism and ignorance of the Copts, descendants of the alliance between the profound genius of the Egyptians and the brilliant minds of Greeks! Just think that the race of Black men, today our slaves and the object of our scorn, is the very race to which we owe our arts, sciences, and even the use of speech. Just imagine, finally, that it is in the midst of peoples who call themselves the greatest friends of liberty and humanity that one has approved the most barbarous slavery and questions whether Blackmen have the same kind of intelligence as Whites!”
But in conclusion, White supremacy did not come out of osmosis. White supremacist ideology was create by “credible” White intellectuals and leaders. White supremacy laid the foundation for today’s system of racism, a falsified concept of Whiteness, colorism, the Europeanization of the Black mind, the destabilization of Afrikan countries, the neutralization of Afrikan centered Black leaders, the capitalist exploitation of Afrika and Black people, mass incarceration, the oppression of people of color, biological warfare the disaccreditation of Black nationalism, and Black self-hatred in entire countries, in human beings, in Universities, in Colleges, in Egyptologists, in anthropology, in public schools, in private schools, in theology, in philosophy, in history, in literature, in western religions, in politics, in the Democratic Party, in the Republican Party, in slavery, in US reconstruction, in segregation, in government, in medicine, in European colonialism, and in science. White supremacy has created social and economic disparities within the Black community, and within the world Afrikan community, for generations past and present. This is why in Afrikan History, Black people began to justifiable fight back through Afrikan centric scholarship, Afrikan centered organizations (i.e. the Universal Negro Improvement Association, the Moorish Science Temples of America, the Nation of Islam, the Organization of Afrikan Unity, the Organization of Afro-American Unity, the Us Organization, the Original Black Panther Party, the Republic of New Afrika, Congress of Afrikan People, the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations, the New Black Panther Party, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, Black Lives Matter, etc) Pan-Afrikanism, Black nationalism, Civil Rights, and Black Power. White supremacy is why we as Black people are still locked into a struggle for freedom, justice, equality, reparations, and a Black agenda in America and in the world.
-Bashir Muhammad Akinyele is a History Teacher, Black Studies Teacher, Community Actvist, Chairperson of Weequahic High School’s Black History Month Committee in Newark, NJ, commentary writer, and Co-Producer and Co-Host of the All Politics Are Local, the number #1 political Hip Hip radio show in America.
Note: Spelling Afrika with a k is not a typo. Using the k in Afrika is the Kiswahili way of writing Africa. Kiswahili is a Pan -Afrikan language. It is spoken in many countries in Afrika. Kiswahili is the language used in Kwanzaa. The holiday of Kwanzaa is celebrated from December 26 to January
1.
#Hotep
#afrocentricity
#nationofislam
#kemet
#blackthelogy
#kwanzaa
#blackstudies
“The ancestors of the Blacks, who today live mainly in Black Africa, were the first to invent civilization.” -Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop
Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop was a world renowned Senegalese Continental Afrikan scientist. He lived from December 29, 1923 to February 7, 1986.Hotep (Peace)!!!
Take notes!!!!!!!!!!
Hip Hop artist Jay Electronica just debuted his new album called-A Written Testimony. The album’s music is inspire by Jay Electronica’s Black liberation Muslim teachers-the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. Jay-Z is the guest emcee on many of the tracks on the album. On the track called Universal Soldier, Jay-Z spits one of the greatest bars in Hip Hop history. Jay-Z is quoted on Jay Electronica’s Universal Soldier track saying, “growing up he knew less about Chesimar all about Pablo Escobar.” This track is one of many socially conscious selections on the album. Chesimar is Assata Olugbala Shakur-the legendary Original Black Panther Party / Black Liberation Army freedom fighter. Escobar was Columbia’s Pablo Escobar-one of the world’s most notorious cocaine drug dealers from the 1970s and the 1980s. This line speaks to the generations of Black people intentionally miseducated on Afrikan History, spirituality, and culture.
Like Jay-Z, many of us Black folks, grew up in the post Civil Rights and Black Power era. The Civil Rights and the Black Power movements were missing in the Black community. With many Black leaders and Black organizations either coopted or violently repressed by US government, the Black liberation movement in the form of Civil Rights and Black Power was gone on a mass level. In the 1970s and 1980s, consequently Black people, particularly Black youth, had no pro-Black movements to gravitate to for Afrikan centered Black consciousness.
During this time, the streets, the drugs, the drug game, the gangs, the guns, American individualism, poverty pimping, clubbing, Pop music, House music, and Hip Hop became the new movements in the Black community. This was all by design from White hegemony.
With the Black liberation movement destroyed, White supremacy and the system of racism now had a free pass to continuously oppressed and miseducate our people on our own history, culture, and spirituality every day. However, by the late 1980s and 1990s, this will change. Afrikan centered Movements, like the Nation of Islam and Afrikan centricity, survived the onslaught of White domination to push forward organizing our people to challenge White oppression. But most importantly, the Nation of Islam and Afrikan centricity challenge our European centered consciousness to help us develop an Afrikan centered Black consciousness. These movements formed organically out of Black oppression. Therefore, they did not wait for the US government, a 501c3, the public school system, the charter school system, the private school system, or an elected official to give them permission to reeducate our people on the factual knowledge of Afrikan History, culture, and spirituality, especially on the history of the original Black man and Blackwoman, Afrika being the birthplace of humanity, the Afrikan origins of the world’s civilizations, and the Afrikan origins of western religions.
The Nation of Islam has been in existence for over 90 years. It draws its teachings from Al-Islam and Black nationalism. The Nation of Islam was founded on July 4, 1930 in Detroit, Michigan by Master Fard Muhammad and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. At the death of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad in 1975, his seventh son, Warith Deen Mohammad (formerly name Wallace Muhammad) took over the leadership of the mighty Nation of Islam. In three years, the Nation of Islam, the largest Afrikan centered Black Islamic organization in the world was dismantled. There was no more Nation of Islam. It was replaced by Sunni Al-Islam. All of the Nation of Islam’s Mosques were closed for public meetings that were at one time used as a platform for organizing Muslims and Black people for liberation struggles. They were turned into a masjid (Arabic word for mosque) now just used for salaat (Arabic word for prayer). The Fruit of Islam (F.O.I) and Muslim Girls Training-General Civilization Class (MGT-GCC), the weekly military training of Muslims, Blackmen and Blackwomen,were abolished. Its’ Afrikan centered Black liberation theology on Al-Islam was replaced by a more moderate American, and some aspects Arabic centered theology. However, after three years,the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, who join the Nation of Islam under the most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X leadership, could not take the destruction of Nation of Islam moving forward. He left Imam Warth Deen Mohammad’s leadership. He believed that the fall of the Nation of Islam help set the Black community back deeper under the yoke of oppression in America. Therefore, he went on to rebuild the work of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam to fight against White domination and Black oppression. He reestablished the F.O.I and MGT-GCC for the training of Muslims,Blackmen, and Blackwomen to help empower Muslims, oppressed people, Blackmen, and Blackwomen.
Afrikan centricity is an Afrikan centered intellectual movement challenging White supremacist and racist notions about Afrika, Afrikan History, Afrikan culture, Afrikan spirituality, Black people, World History, Caribbean History, western religions, and American History. Some of Its leaders consists of the following scholars: Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, Dr. John Henrick Clarke, Dr. Yosef Ben Jochannan, Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, Dr. Asa Hilliard, Professor Jacob Carruthers, Professor Ashra Kwesi, Tony Browder, Professor Dr. Runoko Rashidi, Professor James Smalls, Dr. Naim Akbar, Dr. Lenard Jeffries, Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, Dr. Marimba Ani, Dr. Charshee McIntyre, Dr. Amos Wilson, Dr. Maulana Karenga, and Dr. Molefe Kete Asante
Their efforts woke up many of us, including myself. I am now 51 years old. However, in my late teens and early twenties, the Nation of Islam and Afrikan centricity helped to shape my Afrikan centered world view. The same situation happened to many of us in Black neighborhoods in America. Some of us became respected leaders in the Black community, in the government, in the schools, in religions, and in Hip Hop. Unfortunately, by the start of the new millennium, many of us Afrikan centered Black folks began to turned away from Afrikan centered Black consciousness and the movement for Black liberation. This is why very few of us are not “doing it for the culture” anymore in the Black community.
Now, a whole new generation of today’s Black community, particularly Black youth, are again unfamiliar with their our Afrikan History, culture, and spirituality. Today’s Blackman and Blackwoman are not learning Afrikan centered Blackness on an independent mass level. As a consequence, today’s Black youth are very miseducated on the “the culture.” And what is equally disturbing is White hegemony is using our misinformed Black youth to get them to equate Afrikan centered Black consciousness, and anything pro-Black, with reverse racism. For example, Hotep, the Afrikan Kemetic (Egyptian) word for peace, and a word used as a greeting by Afrikan centered Black people, is being equated with homophobia, sexism, and anti-Whiteness. Hotep is the oldest written word for peace in human history. But if you are Afrikan centered, our youth will call you a Hotep. Calling a Afrikan centered Black person a Hotep is utterly disrespectful to the “the culture.”
In conclusion, movements like the Nation of Islam and Afrikan centricity are still important to the masses of Black people, especially Black youth today. These movements are still independently teaching the significance of Blackness despite the opposition of White supremacy and the system of racism. But most importantly, these movements are necessary because they are helping Black people develop an Afrikan centered world view needed for Black empowerment and Black liberation in the new millennium in America and in the world.
-Bashir Muhammad Akinyele is a History Teacher, Black Studies Teacher, Community Actvist, Chairperson of Weequahic High School’s Black History Month Committee in Newark, NJ, commentary writer, and Co-Producer and Co-Host of the All Politics Are Local, the number #1 political Hip Hip radio show in America.
Note: Spelling Afrika with a k is not a typo. Using the k in Afrika is the Kiswahili way of writing Africa. Kiswahili is a Pan -Afrikan language. It is spoken in many countries in Afrika. Kiswahili is the language used in Kwanzaa. The holiday of Kwanzaa is celebrated from December 26 to January
1.
#Hotep
#afrocentricity
#nationofislam
#kemet
#blackthelogy
#kwanzaa
#blackstudies
Mosi-Blog 