AFRIKAN LIBERATION DAY!

The time has come for the African to forget and cast behind him his hero worship and adoration of other races, and to start out immediately, to create and emulate heroes of his own. We must inspire a literature and promulgate a doctrine of our own without any apologies to the powers that be. We are entitled to our own opinions and not obligated to or bound by the opinions of others. The world today is indebted to us for the benefits of civilization. They stole our arts and sciences from Africa. Their modern improvements are but duplicates of a grander civilization that we reflected thousands of years ago. Let no voice but your own speak to you from the depths. Let no influence but your own raise you in time of peace and time of war. Hear all, but attend only that which concerns you. Your first allegiance shall be to your God, then to your family, race and country. God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own creative genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law. Let the sky and God be our limit, and Eternity our measurement. There is no height to which we cannot climb by using the active intelligence of our own minds.

Excerpt from the Philosophy of the Universal Negro Improvement Association-African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) The Universal Negro Improvement Association-African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) was founded by the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey in 1914. Garvey who was born in St Ann’s Bay, Jamaica on August 17, 1887 is considered the Father of the modern Pan-African movement and his philosophies are the foundation of that movement. Garvey and the philosophies of the UNIA have influenced countless Africans including leaders and followers of powerful movements as varied as Rastafari, the Nation of Islam and the Independence movement of several colonized African and Caribbean countries. Garvey’s influence extended to African American leaders including El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X whose parents were followers of Garvey) and Martin Luther King Jr. On June 20, 1965 during a trip to Jamaica, King and his wife visited the Marcus Garvey Memorial at National Hero’s Park in Kingston, Jamaica and laid a wreath. In a speech King told the audience that Garvey was:

the first man of color in the history of the United States to lead and develop a mass movement. He was the first man on a mass scale and level to give millions of Negroes a sense of dignity and destiny and make the Negro feel he was somebody.

On December 10, 1968 King was the recipient of the first Marcus Garvey Prize for Human Rights presented posthumously (King was assassinated April 4, 1968) to King's widow by the Jamaican Government. One of the many African leaders influenced by Garvey’s Pan-Africanist ideas was Kwame Nkrumah who became the first Prime Minister of independent Ghana on March 6, 1957. Nkrumah is considered a pioneering advocate of Pan-Africanism on the African continent. He inspired and encouraged Pan-Africanism among several leaders of other African independence movements and was influential in the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU.) The OAU founded on May 25, 1963 in Addis Ababa, capital city of Ethiopia was an organization founded by the leaders of 32 African nations. The OAU pledged to rid the continent of all forms of colonialism, to free those Africans who were suffering under White rule on the African continent. At the time White men and women in Angola, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe were keeping the African majority in those countries in distressingly subservient roles in their own countries. Other aims of the AOU were:

to promote the unity and solidarity of the African States; to co-ordinate and intensify their cooperation and efforts to achieve a better life for the peoples of Africa; to defend their sovereignty, their territorial integrity and independence; and to promote international cooperation, having due regard to the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The advocacy of the members of the OAU contributed to the following:

In Guinea: where Portugal's last ditch attempt at colonial reconquest failed. In the wake of this aggression OAU‘s offer of financial and military aid to Guinea, along with its declared war on mercenaries in Africa and the successful information campaign it waged to alert international opinion were all evidence of the usefulness OAU has in facing outside aggression and the outside world. Apartheid South Africa has been forced out of the Commonwealth and a number of specialized institutions of the United Nations family. In world sports, Apartheid South Africa has been barred from the Olympic Games and from International Tennis Tournaments.

The OAU also staged promotions of African culture including the 1st All African Cultural Festival (Algiers August 1969) and the First Workshop on African Folklore, Dance and Music (Somalia October 1970.) Together with encouraging and actively participating in the founding of the OAU, Nkrumah was responsible for the founding of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) with the goal of:

creating and managing the political and economic conditions necessary in the struggle against settler colonialism, Zionism, neo-colonialism, imperialism and all other forms of capitalist oppression and exploitation.

The A-APRP still exists in the 21st century, based out of Ghana, but with branches in many countries around Africa, the Caribbean, North America and Europe. Literature from the Toronto branch of the organization distributed at its May 19th observation of African Liberation Day stated that:

It is an integral part of the Pan-African and world socialist revolution, recognizes that African people born and living in 113 countries are one People, with one identity, one history, one culture, one nation and one destiny.” Citing the enemy of African people as imperialism, Zionism, racism and neocolonialism The A-APRP identifies that we as African people suffer from disunity, disorganization and ideological confusion it recommends “one scientific and correct solution, Pan-Africanism: the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism.

The theme for this year, the 54th observance of African Liberation Day is “African Youth: Get Up! Stand Up! Organize!” The struggle of African youth against oppression was recognized especially the youth who organized against apartheid in South Africa, against segregation in the southern United States and against oppression in Europe (Britain and France.) African Liberation Day will be observed on May 25 by the Network for Pan-Afrikan Solidarity (NPAS) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) 5th floor at 252 Bloor Street West (beginning at 7:00 p.m.) with a documentary and discussion about the “Scramble for Africa.” This will be an important learning event for all but especially for Africans wherever they were born. Nkrumah the man who is considered the ultimate Pan-African leader on the African continent and follower of Garvey is credited with this quote:

“All people of African descent, whether they live in North or South America, the Caribbean, or in any part of the world are Africans and belong to the African nation.”

Tuesdays from 7:00 to 7:30 p.m. and Thursdays from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. throughout the summer listen to www.radioregent.com

EL HAJJ MALIK EL SHABAZZ HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST

El Hajj Malik El Shabazz was born Malcolm Little on May 19th 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. He is seriously underrated as an influential figure in African American history. Shabazz worked tirelessly and was uncompromisingly committed to the liberation of Africans. He was a Pan-Africanist whose philosophy was based on that of the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Garvey’s influence on Shabazz is not surprising because his parents were members of Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) an organization whose founder/leader openly declared war against imperialism, colonialism and white supremacy. Shabazz’s parents Earl and Louise Langdon Little met at a UNIA Convention in Montreal, Canada and were married on May 10, 1919. Like Garvey Shabazz was an icon for the African Diaspora and oppressed people worldwide. As well as being a Pan-Africanist Shabazz was a dedicated Muslim and Human Rights activist and advocate. He chastized any individual, institution, organization or government body that worked against the interest of the suffering African Americans. He fearlessly went right to the heart of the matter and made no apologies while doing so. This quote from the Autobiography of Malcolm X is a case in point:

“I can't turn around without hearing about some 'civil rights advance'! White people seem to think the black man ought to be shouting 'hallelujah'! Four hundred years the white man has had his foot-long knife in the black man's back - and now the white man starts to wiggle the knife out, maybe six inches! The black man's supposed to be grateful? Why, if the white man jerked the knife out, it's still going to leave a scar!"

Again with his “take no prisoners” style Shabazz addressed the white supremacy practiced in Christian churches during his famous ”Ballot or the Bullet” speech:

“Don't join a church where White Nationalism is preached. Now you can go to a Negro church and be exposed to White Nationalism, 'cause you are -- when you walk in a Negro church and a White Mary and some White angels -- that Negro church is preaching White Nationalism. But when you go to a church and you see the pastor of that church with a philosophy and a program that's designed to bring Black people together and elevate Black people -- join that church. Join that church. If you see where the NAACP is preaching and practicing that which is designed to make Black Nationalism materialize -- join the NAACP. Join any kind of organization -- civic, religious, fraternal, political, or otherwise that's based on lifting the Black man up and making him master of his own community.”

Shabazz also spoke about the importance of names. In an interview he addressed the issue of Africans in the Diaspora, the descendants of enslaved Africans being stripped of their African names and saddled with the names of the white people who enslaved their ancestors. In this quote he addressed the reaction of white people to Africans from the continent who were not stripped of their names:

“When I'm traveling around the country, I use my real Muslim name, Malik Shabazz. I make my hotel reservations under that name, and I always see the same thing I've just been telling you. I come to the desk and always see that 'here-comes-a-Negro' look. It's kind of a reserved, coldly tolerant cordiality. But when I say 'Malik Shabazz,' their whole attitude changes: they snap to respect. They think I'm an African. People say what's in a name? There's a whole lot in a name. The American black man is seeing the African respected as a human being. The African gets respect because he has an identity and cultural roots. But most of all because the African owns some land. For these reasons he has his human rights recognized, and that makes his civil rights automatic."

Shabazz was a man before his time because while the majority of African American political figures of his era sought freedom and liberation through social inclusion within the United States he sought Human Rights on an international level. On July 17, 1963 he addressed the members of the “African Summit” the second meeting of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which had been founded in 1963 to bring about joint action by the independent African governments. The OAU conference was held in Cairo (Egyptian capital city) July 17–21, and was attended by nearly all the leaders of the thirty-four member states. During His presentation he appealed to the African leaders to support their brethren suffering in America:

“We beseech the independent African states to help us bring our problem before the United Nations, on the grounds that the United States government is morally incapable of protecting the lives and the property of 22 million African-Americans. And on the grounds that our deteriorating plight is definitely becoming a threat to world peace. Out of frustration and hopelessness our young people have reached the point of no return. We no longer endorse patience and turning-the-other-cheek. We assert the right of self-defense by whatever means necessary, and reserve the right of maximum retaliation against our racist oppressors, no matter what the odds against us are. From here on in, if we must die anyway, we will die fighting back and we will not die alone. We intend to see that our racist oppressors also get a taste of death. We are well aware that our future efforts to defend ourselves by retaliating—by meeting violence with violence, eye for eye and tooth for tooth—could create the type of racial conflict in America that could easily escalate into a violent, world-wide, bloody race war. In the interests of world peace and security, we beseech the heads of the independent African states to recommend an immediate investigation into our problem by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzjn11OGBK8 On a recent visit to New York City I was saddened and shocked when at the Countee Cullen Library there was no evidence on the eve of this great man’s birthday that there is recognition of his contributions to the advancement of Human Rights for racialised people, Africans and specifically African Americans. The library is located in Harlem where Shabazz did most of his advocacy and even more ironic it is at the corner of Malcolm X Boulevard and West 135th Street. Surrounded by streets with names such as Dr Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard, Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard it is indeed a great shame that the powers that be at this branch could not find the time to at least mount a display to honour this African American revolutionary and Human Rights activist. Speaking with staff members at the library I was directed to various shelves which contained a total of two titles about the life and work of Shabazz. I needed help to find them. After unsuccessfully searching the shelves to which I was directed, a staff member eventually located a single copy of Malcolm X for beginners by Doctor Bernard Aquina published 1992 and on the 3rd floor there were five copies of The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley published 1992. Although I was bitterly disappointed at the lack of information and lack of enthusiasm at that library I live in hope that my enquiries about books on the life of this great man will have moved the staff to at least mount a display of books that they may have to borrow from other branches of the New York Public Library system. The man loved books he was extremely well read and viewing some of the interviews he did where he confounded White journalists it so evident. This from one of his reportedly famous quotes: “My alma mater was books, a good library.... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity." The life work of Shabazz (short as it was, he was 39 when he was assassinated) has had a profound impact on the lives of millions even though much of what he did is still misunderstood. While he was alive the impact was not recognized, he was vilified by White media and even some of his own people but much has changed for the betterment of racialised people because of Shabazz’s life work which has benefited more than African Americans. Maybe 50 years from now when many of us have transitioned and not here to read it someone will write: “Can you imagine how differently everything would have turned out with the Trayvon Martin case, the laws that would have remained unchanged if the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jessie Jackson had not become involved?”

NELSON MANDELA MAY 10, 1994

On May 10, 1994 Nelson Mandela became South Africa 's first legitimate democratically elected President after more than three centuries of White minority misrule. Born Nkosi Rolihlala Dalibhunga Mandela on July 18, 1918 he was assigned the European name “Nelson” on his first day of school when he was 7 years old. Renaming racialised people is a common practice of European colonizer culture. Mandela was born a member of the royal family of the Thembu in the small village Mvezo in the district of Mthatha which was the capital of the former Transkei (one of the several “homelands” established by a White supremacist settler society) and now part of the Eastern Cape Province. In his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom published in 1994 Mandela gives a history of the Thembu and his life including his place in the royal household. A dispute with a white official stripped Mandela’s father of his title, status and ability to maintain a reasonably comfortable standard of living and part of the family was forced to relocate to a larger village Qunu where Mandela lived for much of his childhood. That was an early lesson on the power the whites had seized from the Africans on African land. The whites who meandered onto African land after they fled the tribalism (white men in Europe were constantly at each others throats fighting like cats and dogs over disputed territory) of Europe beginning in the 17th century in short order stole African land savagely murdering those Africans who resisted. Reading the history of the covetousness and bold face thievery of the white men and women who left Europe to “settle” on African land is fascinating in a horrified “I cannot believe they did that!” manner. Although this bunch of refugees/opportunists sometimes included “religious” personnel who made a show of being concerned about the “immortal souls” of Africans and wanting to convert them to a European version of Christianity somehow that concern never seemed to include the “immortal souls” of their thieving and murdering white kin. Those Africans who converted were afforded some degree of privilege by the whites who really used this tried and true European colonizer method to divide and conquer the Africans. There were many hold outs including Mandela’s father. In Long Walk to Freedom Mandela described his father’s strong belief in his traditional African faith: “My father remained aloof from Christianity and instead reserved his own faith for the great spirit of the Xhosas, Qamata, the God of his fathers.” The education system the Europeans forced on the Africans was also a means to ensure that “educated” Africans learned that they and their culture were inferior and the culture of their colonizers was superior. Writing of this perception of education Mandela states: “The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British institutions, were automatically assumed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture.” For three hundred years white people in the country they seized from Africans and named South Africa (the British wrested control of the country from the Dutch in 1902 and named it the Union of South Africa in 1910) employed a method of violent repression to control the Africans. Mandela who would eventually become President of the nation was one of millions of Africans who struggled (some spent their entire lives in the struggle) to untie the stranglehold of European domination and repression of the rightful owners of the land. Africans resisted White domination in South Africa from the moment they realised that this was not just a group of interesting visitors to their land but instead a group intent on disinheriting Africans and stealing their land. African people consistently resisted their dispossession by the white interlopers. In Every Step of the Way: The Journey to Freedom in South Africa, Cape Town commissioned by the South African Ministry of Education, published in 2004, excerpt from the notes of Dutch colonizer Jan Van Riebeeck made during the series of meetings April 5 and 6, 1660 between the Dutch and the Khoisan leaders is reproduced: “They (the Khoekhoe leaders) strongly insisted that we had been appropriating more and more of their land which had been theirs all these centuries... They asked if they would be allowed to do such a thing supposing they went to Holland, and they added: 'It would be of little consequence if you people stayed at the fort, but you come right into the interior and select the best land for yourselves, without even asking whether we mind or whether it will cause us any inconvenience.’ At first we argued against this saying that there was not enough grass for their cattle as well as ours, to which they replied: ‘Have we then no reason to prevent you from getting cattle, since if you have a large number, you will take up all our grazing grounds with them? As for your claim that the land is not big enough for us both, who should rather in justice give way, the rightful owner or the foreign intruder?’” Van Riebeeck very shortly disabused the Khoisan leaders of the idea that the Dutch who had stolen their land had any intention of sharing with the rightful owners. The Africans had been trying to dialogue/negotiate with people who they thought might be reasonable but they unfortunately had no idea who they were dealing with. These were not reasonable people these were covetous thieving parasites who were bent on destroying the host on which they fed. By the time Mandela was born in 1918 the pattern of white repression of Africans as the author of Every Step of the Way describes:(The repression was a raw, daily experience, and there was no mistaking it for less than systematic brutality) was well established. Africans were forced to live on “reservations” while the white interlopers commandeered the best land of the Africans for their exclusive use. Describing his childhood in Long Walk to Freedom Mandela writes of one of the methods that was employed by Africans to keep their history alive and combat/resist white domination. Storytelling by elders to combat the pervasive miseducation of their children was one such method: “Chief Joyi railed against the white man, who he believed had deliberately sundered the Xhosa tribe, dividing brother from brother. The white man had told the Thembus that their true chief was the great white queen across the oceans and that they were her subjects. But the white queen brought nothing but misery and perfidy to the black people, and if she was a chief she was an evil chief. Once, he said, the Thembu, the Mpondo, the Xhosa, and the Zulu were all children of one father, and lived as brothers. The white man shattered the ‘abantu,’ the fellowship, of the various tribes. The white man was hungry and greedy for land, and the black man shared the land with him as they shared the air and water; land was not for man to possess. But the white man took the land as you might seize another man’s horse.” The young Mandela listening to Chief Joyi’s stories felt: “angry and cheated, as though I had already been robbed of my own birthright.” It is little wonder that the child listening to his elders recount this history understood his role of defender, freedom fighter and eventually leader of his people. On Tuesday, May 10, 1994, (30 years after being sentenced to life imprisonment) when Mandela was sworn in as President of South Africa he had suffered 27 years of imprisonment and had been refused the right to attend the funerals of his mother and his eldest son in 1968. His life story is told in several books including: I am prepared to die, 1979; Long Walk to Freedom, 1994; The Struggle Is My Life, 1990; A Prisoner In The Garden, 2006 and Conversations with Myself, 2010.

TRAYVON MARTIN LIFE IMITATES ART

In the 1975 released movie Cornbread, Earl and Me the young basketball player was slain by police who proceeded to ensure a massive cover-up of their crime. The story is about a young African American male killed by police who proceed to engender a massive campaign of intimidation to silence the witnesses to their crime. They even manufacture a criminal record for the murdered African American youth. The aspiring basketball star was leaving a store where he had bought a “soda pop,” it was raining and he was wearing what is now popularly known as a “hoodie” when he was shot and killed by police who assumed he was a criminal. The police attempt to escape justice was almost successful because the entire African American community was cowed/intimidated (with the exception of an African American mother and her teenage son) by the might of white supremacy. The “me” in the title of the movie Cornbread, Earl and Me was teenager Wilford Robinson (brilliantly portrayed by a then 12 year old Laurence Fishburne http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q30iJPz5yOQ&feature=related ) who courageously testified in court shaming all the cowardly adults who were too terrified to speak the truth even under oath afraid of the power of the police force and other White power structure. Fast forward to February 26, 2012 some 37 years later where life imitates art and a 17 year old African American male is killed by a White man with delusions of being a police officer who is not a member of any police force but seems to fancy himself in that role. In a gated community in Stanford, Florida 17 year old Trayvon Martin was returning from buying candy and a can of iced tea when he was shot and killed by a White man imbued with the White skin privilege bestowed upon him by a White supremacist culture felt entitled to confront, challenge and end the life of an African American. Racial profiling, the White man’s sense of entitlement and a rush to judgment resulted in the murder of yet another African American. Zimmerman was not arrested after killing the unarmed teenager. In spite of the sense of entitlement exhibited by George Zimmerman and other white Americans the history of African Americans in Florida and most likely Trayvon Martin’s family goes back many generations to at least the 1500s. The recorded history of Africans in Florida begins with the arrival of Estivanico the Black an enslaved African in April, 1528 who was a member of the expedition to North America led by Panfilo de Narvaez and Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca. The enslavement of Africans in Florida was sanctioned by the Spanish monarch Philip when he gave permission in 1565 to Pedro Menendez de Aviles to import 500 enslaved Africans to St Augustine in Florida. St Augustine is supposedly the first European colony in North America established by the Spanish in Florida on September 8, 1565. There has been a history of violence against African Americans by white Americans since the first enslaved Africans were taken by force to America. The ill treatment of African Americans in Florida is just one of many examples of this scourge. One of the earliest examples after slavery was abolished in the USA is the massacre of an entire African American community on January 1, 1923. From January 1st to January 6, 1923 white men roamed the African American town of Rosewood in central Florida raping and murdering African American men, women and children. They destroyed the entire town including the animals that belonged to the African American families who even though some tried to defend their homes were vastly outnumbered and outgunned by the whites. Some African American women and children managed to hide and fled to Gainesville and eventually made their way to Northern states where they were so traumatized they never spoke of that dreadful time for decades. In 1994 the Florida Legislature passed the Rosewood Bill and the nine survivors of the Rosewood Massacre received $150,000 each which was hardly any kind of compensation for the trauma and horror they experienced. Unlike the majority of adults in the movie Cornbread, Earl and Me who were cowed and intimidated by the white power structure when Cornbread was murdered it is heartening to note that Trayvon Martin’s parents have refused to remain silent about their child’s murder. With the support of the African American community and many allies they have kept the attention of the world on the fact that there was no justice for their slain child. The overwhelming support for this grieving couple has come from as far away as London, England when the parents of Stephen Lawrence (the Black British 18 year old who was murdered by 5 White youth on April 22, 1993) reached out to offer support. On Thursday April 19 the National Bar Association hosted a town hall meeting where Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton (Trayvon Martin’s parents) were in attendance. The National Bar Association is the largest national network of predominantly African-American attorneys and judges. Many supporters at the town hall meeting received posters that read I am Trayvon Martin, arrest the man who murdered me. No Justice no peace which we displayed in support of the family. Even though Zimmerman has now been charged it is not the end of this family’s struggle for justice. Benjamin Crump the attorney representing the family of Trayvon Martin, Clinton Paris of the Tampa Organization of Black Affairs; state Senator Chris Smith from Fort Lauderdale, Carolyn Collins with the NAACP-Hillsborough County, Tanya Clay House, of the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law were among the panelists at the town hall meeting who explained the origins of the "stand your ground" law and discussed the status of the case and the likely next steps in the legal proceedings against Zimmerman. The town hall meeting and a subsequent press conference were held at the Beulah Baptist Church in Tampa , Florida where more than 400 supporters gathered to stand in solidarity with the couple. Beulah Baptist Church is Tampa ’s oldest African American Baptist church founded in 1894 and the members including the relatives of Sybrina Fulton (Trayvon’s mother) were very welcoming. I spoke with several members of the family who are devastated that their young relative was killed but relieved that the killer has been arrested and charged. Although the powers that be have denied it, it is obvious that the outpouring of support internationally has played a part in the decision to charge Zimmerman with a criminal offence. It was the day before their child’s killer would appear for a bond hearing and we were told that Zimmerman had requested a private meeting with Trayvon’s parents. His request was refused because it was felt that the request was self serving. It was after all almost two months since he had killed their child and not once before then had he apologized or even acknowledged the parents of the youth he had shot and killed. It is extremely important that supporters of Trayvon Martin’s family keep informed about the case, if not this case will disappear into nothingness and become yesterday’s news. If we do not want this to become another case like that of Stephen Lawrence where it took almost 20 years for his parents to see some of his killers sentenced we must stay informed. This is not just a matter of justice for an African American family because it has gained international attention. Zimmerman although charged with second degree murder has been released on $150,000 bail and the world continues to watch as this case unfolds.

AFRICANS IN THE WAR OF 1812

Under the heading “Harper Government Boosts Tourism by Investing in War of 1812 Commemorations in Ontario” and dated March 19, 2012 the Canadian government sent out a press release that read in part: "The War of 1812 represents an essential yet lesser-known chapter in Canadian history, and we are proud to bring the events, personalities, and significance of this conflict to Canadians through dynamic programming. The Government of Canada has provided total funding of $2,132,946 through Canadian Heritage’s War of 1812 Commemoration Fund and Canadian Studies Program. The War of 1812 Commemoration Fund supports community-based projects to foster greater awareness and understanding among Canadians of the importance of this moment in our history.” After reading such interesting and historic information I decided to investigate the names of the organizations that will receive some of that $2,132,946 to “foster greater awareness and understanding among Canadians of the importance of this moment in our history.” Not surprisingly there was not a single African Canadian organization listed as a beneficiary of the government’s generosity in providing funds in its effort to educate Canadians about our glorious war history. As quiet as it is kept there was a significant African Canadian contribution to the British victory/success in the War of 1812. There are also “events and personalities” that should be recognized to “foster greater awareness and understanding among Canadians” of the importance of the contributions of African Canadians to the culture and history of this Great White North where we all dwell. There are many Canadians as well as recent immigrants who have no idea that Africans have been living in Canada at least since the 1600s. The education system does not make it a priority to teach our children about any history other than white history. While the Canadian government is commemorating the War of 1812 there seems to be a lack of recognition that some of the “personalities” of that war includes Richard Pierpoint who was the force behind the recruitment and organizing of the Coloured Corps. It is documented that the Coloured Corps saw action in several of the battles fought between Britain and America during the three year war from 1812 to 1815. They are credited and recognized with a plaque for fighting at Queenston Heights in October 1812 and at the siege of Fort George in May 1813. The plaque which is located at Niagara-on-the-Lake does not mention that the members of the Coloured Corps built Fort Mississauga while under attack from American military forces and since the Corps was active from 1812 to 1815 they would have seen action in more than two instances. Richard Pierpoint who was born in Senegal in 1744 was kidnapped and enslaved when he was 16 years old in 1760. He was taken to America where he was sold to a British military officer. He was given the name Richard Pierpoint at some time during his enslavement and there is no record of his African name. When the Americans were at war with the British from 1776 to 1783 (American War of Independence) Pierpoint like many other enslaved Africans took the opportunity offered to enslaved Africans of enlisting in the British forces and gaining their freedom. Those enslaved Africans who were enslaved by British families did not gain their freedom at the end of that war. They arrived in Canada as the property of the British families who were their enslavers in America. Those who escaped American masters to fight on the side of the British were given their freedom and entered Canada as free people and members of the United Empire Loyalists. Pierpoint was fortunate that even though he escaped from a British officer he gained passage to Canada as a member of the United Empire Loyalists. Pierpoint was a pioneer member of Butler’s Rangers. Butler's Rangers (1777–1784) was a British provincial regiment composed of Loyalists (men loyal to the British crown) in the American War of Independence under the command of John Butler. By 1780 Pierpoint was stationed with Butler's Rangers in the Niagara region of Quebec. On July 20, 1784 his name appeared among those of disbanded Rangers on a list of people who intended to settle in that area. African members of the United Empire Loyalists in theory were entitled to the same proportion of land as the White loyalists but that was in theory, the reality was very different. In 1788 Pierpoint was granted 200 acres of land on Twelve Mile Creek, in what later became Grantham Township. By and large the land granted to the Africans was not land that they could productively farm. In addition many of the African men had no families with them (they were forced to leave their families behind) and therefore did not have help to farm any piece of land they might have been granted unlike the White men who brought their families to Canada with them. Unlike the Africans from the USA who supported the British during the War of 1812 and were granted land in Trinidad those who came to Canada did not fare well. The formerly enslaved Africans from the Chesapeake Bay area who supported the British government during the War of 1812 were members of the Corps of Colonial Marines. After the War of 1812 with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent (December 24, 1814) the members of the Corps of Colonial Marines were garrisoned for 14 months at the new Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda and then disbanded in Trinidad in 1816. This group of Africans were given land as a community in five Company Villages located in the south of the island around the Mission of Savanna Grande, now Princes Town, mostly within the area known since then as The Company Villages and they and their descendants were known locally as “The Merikens” a distortion of “The Americans.” Many of their descendants still own the land their ancestors were awarded for their service to the British during the War of 1812. Pierpoint and the Africans who lived in Canada had a very different experience. On 29 June 1794 Pierpoint had been one of 19 signatories to a petition of “Free Negroes” to Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe requesting permission to allow them “a Tract of Country” to settle on, separate from the white settlers. The group consisted of veterans of the “late War,” and “others who were born free with a few who have come, into Canada since the peace.” Landless and socially isolated for the most part, they were “desirous of settling adjacent to each other in order that they may be enabled to give assistance (in work) to those amongst them who may most want it.” On July 8, 1794 the petitioners received the unwelcome news that a decision had been made by a committee of the Executive Council that permission was not granted. The minute-book of the committee suggests the petition’s emphasis on land separate from whites as the most likely explanation for the refusal, which was highly hypocritical since the men obviously needed the support of each other if they were to enjoy any success at farming the land grudgingly doled out to them. It would have made sense for these men to be given land together so that they could support each other. Instead of which they were scattered and could not work their land individually unlike the white farmers who had family members to help. These African men eventually became a cheap source of labour for the white farmers. Between 1806 and the War of 1812 Pierpoint resided in Grantham Township, earning his living as a labourer. When America declared war on Britain in 1812 Pierpoint “proposed to raise a Corps of Men of Colour on the Niagara Frontier” to fight alongside the British during the war. Major-General Sir Isaac Brock turned down his offer at first. By late August 1812, permission was granted to recruit a Coloured Corps but instead of Pierpoint with his experience being put in command that position was given to a local white officer, Captain Robert Runchey. Characterised as a “black sheep” and a “worthless, troublesome malcontent,” Runchey fulfilled his reputation for poor leadership by segregating “his nigros” from other militiamen, and in some cases hired them out to officers as domestic servants. The then 68 year old Pierpoint who should have been a leader of the group instead volunteered immediately, serving as a private from 1 Sept. 1812 to 24 March 1815. A company of about 40 men from the Niagara and York districts mustered under white officers. Pierpoint served as a private in the Corps and served on active duty throughout the conflict, including the Battle of Queenston Heights on October 13, 1812 when the corps was mentioned in dispatches as having played a key role in that British victory. The Coloured Corps saw action not only at the battle of Queenston Heights on 13 Oct. 1812 but was involved in heavy fighting during the siege of Fort George (Niagara-on-the-Lake) on 27 May 1813. The corps remained with Brigadier-General John Vincent’s army on the retreat west to the head of Burlington Bay (Hamilton Harbour) and then followed it east again after the battle of Stoney Creek on 6 June 1813. For the remainder of the war the members of the Coloured Corps were used for labour or garrison duty, stationed either at Fort Mississauga (Niagara-on-the-Lake) or Fort George and then seeing action at Lundy’s Lane on 25 July 1814. When the corps was disbanded in 1815 Pierpoint who was in his 70s returned to the life of a labourer in the Grantham area. During this promotion of the bicentennial of the War of 1812, where the federal government is placing even more emphasis on military history by designating a number of sites, events and groups as historic there has not been any mention of Richard Pierpoint and the Coloured Corps of Upper Canada. The Coloured Corps of Upper Canada served with distinction at the Battle of Queenston Heights, the siege of Fort George and the Battle of Lundy's Lane as well as other engagements during the War of 1812. On 21 July 1821 Pierpoint, then a resident of Niagara (Niagara-on-the-Lake), petitioned Lieutenant Governor Sir Peregrine Maitland for aid since he was finding it “difficult to obtain a livelihood by his labor” and was “above all things desirous to return to his native country.” His wish to return to the West African country he had left in the hold of a slave-ship more than 60 years earlier was not granted. This man who lived most of his life serving the interests of white people from the time he was 15 years old and kidnapped from his home in West Africa, was not granted his wish to return to his African homeland in his old age. He transitioned in 1837 and no one is quite sure where he is buried. Pierpoint and the members of the Coloured Corps deserve to be recognized during this federal government recognition of the bicentennial of the War of 1812.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST

Black America still wears chains. The finest Negro is at the mercy of the meanest white man. Even winners of our highest honors face the class color bar. With their right hand they raise to high places the great who have dark skins, and with their left, they slap us down to keep us in "our places." "Yes, America you have stripped me of my garments, you have robbed me of my precious endowment." We cannot have an enlightened democracy with one great group living in ignorance. We cannot have a nation orderly and sound with one group so ground down and thwarted that it is almost forced into unsocial attitudes and crime. We cannot be truly Christian people so long as we flaunt the central teachings of Jesus: brotherly love and the Golden Rule. So as we gird ourselves to defend democracy from foreign attack, let us see to it that increasingly at home we give fair play and free opportunity for all people. Excerpt from speech “The Negro and the Constitution” by then 15 year old Martin Luther King Jr delivered in April 1944 at First Baptist Church in Dublin, Georgia, USA. Dr Martin Luther King Jr gave several speeches during his short time on earth (assassinated on April 4, 1968 at 39 years old) “The Negro and the Constitution” delivered in April 1944 when he was 15 years old is recognized as his first public speech. Not surprisingly in September of that year (1944) the 15 year old entered university. He began his post-secondary education at Morehouse College one of the 105 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the USA. Although King was at least three years younger than his classmates when he entered university, according to the authors of “The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr” (published 1992): “King was socially active. Not only was he president of the sociology club and a member of the debating team, student council, glee club and minister’s union, but he also joined the Morehouse chapter of the NAACP and played on the Butler Street YMCA basketball team.” This side of King has become lost over the years to where he is now mostly considered a one dimensional dreamer only identified with his “I Have A Dream” speech which he delivered on August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. As African American author Jake Lamar wrote in his article “King, Minus Sentimental Goo: A Bold, Dangerous Radical” published December 20, 1999: Is there any 20th-century American icon who has been more banalized, neutralized and homogenized by mythology than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? From the day he was martyred in 1968, the civil rights crusader has been enshrined as a romantic visionary: the healing, nonviolent, nonthreatening integrationist. Honored as a national holiday, King’s birthday gives Americans, black and white, conservative and liberal alike, the annual opportunity to appropriate his legacy and slather it with sentimental goo, to squeeze the complex ideas of a true revolutionary into four wistful words: ‘I Have a Dream.’ Reading his several speeches it is obvious that King was a revolutionary freedom fighter and an activist who used his eloquence to define and defend the cause for which he eventually paid the supreme sacrifice. In his speech The Death of Evil upon the Seashore which he first delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in 1954 when he was 25 years old and then on May 17, 1956 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, in an ecumenical program commemorating the second anniversary of the Supreme Court's school desegregation decision in “Brown v. Board of Education” King indicted the American power structure as evil similar to the Pharoahs of ancient Egypt as told in the Bible: In our own struggle for freedom and justice in this country we have gradually seen the death of evil. Many years ago the Negro was thrown into the Egypt of segregation, and his great struggle has been to free himself from the crippling restrictions and paralizing effects of this vicious system. For years it looked like he would never get out of this Egypt. The closed Red Sea always stood before him with discouraging dimensions. There were always those Pharoahs with hardened hearts, who, despite the cries of many a Moses, refused to let these people go. As we look back we see segregation caught in the rushing waters of historical necessity. Evil in the form of injustice and exploitation cannot survive. There is a Red Sea in history that ultimately comes to carry the forces of goodness to victory, and that same Red Sea closes in to bring doom and destruction to the forces of evil. Many viewed King’s criticism of America’s white leaders and government policies and practices as radical. On Good Friday, 12 April, 1963 King was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting the white supremacist segregation laws of the city and was kept in solitary confinement. The city government had obtained a state circuit court injunction against African American protesters on 10 April. After much discussion with other African American leaders King decided to disobey the court order declaring: We cannot in all good conscience obey such an injunction which is an unjust, undemocratic and unconstitutional misuse of the legal process.’ While King was in jail he wrote Letter from a Birmingham Jail in response to an open letter written by 8 White religious leaders (Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray, the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and the Reverend Earl Stallings) which was published on April 12, 1963 after King was arrested. These 8 white religious leaders had in their open letter condemned King’s activism and leadership role in the Civil Rights struggle. King wrote in part: You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative. We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society - then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. These are not the words of a man who was merely a dreamer waiting for the benevolence of white people for rescue from the nightmare of living as an African American in the southern USA. King willingly put his life on the line to spend time in a southern jail especially when there were no funds for bail. Unfortunately King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail as eloquent as it was did not influence the good Christian white people of Birmingham to turn away from their wickedness, instead the abuse of African Americans escalated to include the murder of children. Determined to keep African Americans “in their place” white Americans in Birmingham unleashed a vicious campaign of violence. The violence did not lessen even after the September 15, 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church where four African American girls were killed. In his final speech on April 3, 1968 the day before he was assassinated King seemed to have a premonition that his end was near. He had criticized the government for being involved in the Vietnam War, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was monitoring his every move and some African Americans were becoming disenchanted with his “turn the other cheek” non-violence philosophy. In that final speech King urged African Americans to strive for unity, practice self determination and co-operative economics. Martin Luther King Jr deserves to be remembered as a drum major for justice not merely a dreamer.

NANA YAA ASANTEWA

Now I have seen that some of you fear to go forward to fight for our king. If it were in the brave days, the days of Osei Tutu, Okomfo Anokye, and Opoku Ware, chiefs would not sit down to see their king taken away without firing a shot. No white man could have dared to speak to a chief of the Ashanti in the way the Governor spoke to you chiefs this morning. Is it true that the bravery of the Ashanti is no more? I cannot believe it. It cannot be! I must say this, if you, the men of Ashanti, will not go forward, then we will. We, the women, will. I shall call upon my fellow women. We will fight the white men. We will fight till the last of us falls in the battlefields.

Excerpt from speech by Nana Yaa Asantewaa Queen Mother of Ejisu, Ashanti Empire, Ghana April 1900

Nana Yaa Asantewa is credited with rousing the traditional leaders of the Ashanti people to do battle with the British in what was the final Ashanti-British War. In his 2003 published book Yaa Asantewaa and the Asante-British War of 1900-1 A. Adu Boahen, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Ghana asserts that it was Nana Yaa Asantewaa who rallied Asante resistance with “her fiery and provocative speeches and gender-conscious challenges.” The war that lasted a year from 1900 to 1901 is sometimes called the Yaa Asantewaa War in honour of this uncompromisingly brave woman who was in her 60s when she rallied her people into taking up arms against the arrogant White men who sought to subjugate the proud Ashanti. For almost the entire 19th century the covetous British interlopers had been trying to gain dominance over the Ashanti Empire. There were several wars and minor skirmishes between the two nations, some the Ashanti won and others the British won. The British and other White people were seeking to exploit the richness of the African continent and after witnessing the extraordinary wealth of the Ashanti Empire there was no stopping the rapacious horde of British in their determination to possess that wealth. In his 1995 published book The Fall of the Asante Empire: The Hundred Year War for Africa’s Gold Coast Robert G. Edgerton a white anthropology professor who has written several books on African history described the impetus for the expression of British greed. “In 1817, the first British envoy to meet the king of the Asante of West Africa was dazzled by his reception. A group of 5,000 Asante soldiers, many wearing immense caps topped with three foot eagle feathers and gold ram's horns, engulfed him with a ‘zeal bordering on phrensy,’ shooting muskets into the air. The envoy was escorted, as no fewer than 100 bands played, to the Asante king's palace and greeted by a tremendous throng of 30,000 noblemen and soldiers, bedecked with so much gold that his party had to avert their eyes to avoid the blinding glare. Some Asante elders wore gold ornaments so massive they had to be supported by attendants. This first encounter set the stage for one of the longest and fiercest wars in all the European conquest of Africa. At its height, the Asante empire, on the Gold Coast of Africa in present-day Ghana, comprised three million people and had its own highly sophisticated social, political, and military institutions.”

From 1823 with the first Ashanti-British War which lasted 8 years until 1831 it was on! There were victories and defeat on both sides during the 8 years and in 1831 a treaty was signed which resulted in a 30 year period of peace. In 1863 war broke out again between the two nations and lasted for a year during which the British were soundly thrashed by the Ashanti. The third Ashanti-British War also lasted a year from 1873 to 1874 during which British armament manufacturers did brisk trade with the Ashanti and the British. The Africans were not sold the same weapons as the British so the victory went to the British in that round of fighting. It says a lot for the bravery and tenacity of the Ashanti that they could withstand the constant aggression of the White men whose country enjoying relative peace and prosperity could afford to keep sending young and healthy men into battle. The Africans on the other hand had to deal with the White men who occupied their land and the constant harassment of these avaricious alien people. This unsettled environment would of course affect the entire community and especially the men who had to keep defending their land. The fact that the Ashanti continued to resist British domination for close to 100 years is a testament to their fortitude. The fourth period of British aggression against the Ashanti lasted from December 1895 to February 1896. It is said that the Asantehene (king) ordered the Ashanti not to resist when the British forces arrived in Kumasi (the capital) in 1896. The Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I was enstooled (crowned) in 1888 when he was 16 years old and was only 23 years old when the British attacked in 1895. In 1896 the British kidnapped the young Asantehene, his parents, younger brother and several members of his court and exiled them to the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.

The insult to the Ashanti people which led to the last Ashanti-British hostilities in April 1900 was the British demand to own the sacred Golden Stool of the Ashanti. The arrogant white man who represented the British government in Ghana met with the leaders of the Ashanti in April 1900, four years after the exile of the Ashanti royal family during which the British had provoked the proud Ashanti people by heaping untold assaults on their dignity. At that meeting he told them that the Asantehene would not be returned to Ghana the British intended to hold him hostage forever and that the Golden Stool sacred to the Ashanti rightfully belonged to Victoria the British monarch. In The Fall of the Asante Empire Edgerton explains the British government representative’s attitude: He firmly believed that only if the Asante knew their king would never return and the Queen of England possessed the Golden Stool would they submit to British rule. But because he had no understanding of the meaning of the Golden Stool for the Asante, his tough talk would start a war. When the Ashanti leaders met in secret following their meeting with the representative of the British government Nana Yaa Asantewa made her now famous speech and the battle was on! Several books have been written about Yaa Asantewa by Africans including The struggle between two great queens, 1900-1901 : Yaa Asantewaa of Edweso, Asante and Victoria of Great Britain by Asirifi-Danquah published 2007, Yaa Asantewaa : an African queen who led an army to fight the British by Asirifi-Danquah published 2002 and Yaa Asantewaa : the heroism of an African queen by Ivor Agyeman-Duah published 1999. Many of the books available from the Toronto Public Library system written about Africa and Africans were not written by Africans so it is important when reading to keep in mind the African proverb: Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.