Did you know the upper-class European bustle is rooted in the exploitation of black women? Specifically Saartjie Baartman. A South African woman from the Khoikhoi tribe. God rest her soul. Baartman was forced by William Dunlop and Henrik Cesars to work as a slave. She was put on display at “freak shows” across Paris and London. Later in life, she became associated with an animal exhibitor, who forced Baartman into prostitution. At the age of twenty-six, Baartman died due to an inflammatory disease believed to be syphilis. Now, the Baartman-inspired bustle replaced the hoop skirt to provide wealthy women with a desirable figure that exaggerated the curvature of their butt. If you’re not figuratively blind you might see the newer versions and variations of how this still happens today.
Black History 365 | # 110 Nathan "Uncle Nearest" Green
Did you know Nathan Nearest Green was the first known black master distiller? He specialized in a process that gave whiskey a unique smoothness, known as sugar maple charcoal filtering. It’s a process that has been brought in by slaves who were already using charcoal to filter their water and purify their foods in west Africa. In Lynchburg Tennessee where Green operated as a slave and master distiller he met a young white boy who he taught everything he knew about whiskey. He taught him how to make Tennessee Whiskey. He went on to be known as one of the most famous whiskey makers in the world. His legal name was Jasper Newton. Those in Lynchburg know him as Uncle Jack. The world knows him as Jack Daniels. In 2016, the owners of the Jack Daniels distillery made the decision to finally embrace Green’s legacy and emphasize Nathan Green’s foundational role in their success. Cheers 🥃 .
Black History 365 | # 108 Richard Aoki
Have you heard of Richard Aoki? He was best known as an early member of the Black Panther Party. He was close to Huey P Newton and Bobby Seale and was eventually promoted to the position of Field Marshal. A Japanese man, Aoki was one of several Asian Americans in the Black Panther Party, but the only one to have a formal leadership position. Following Aoki’s death, the FBI’s records on him were obtained showing that over a period of 15 years, he had been an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The records show “that at various points, he provided information that was ‘unique’ and of ‘extreme value.’ He also supplied the Black Panther their first guns. Woy 🤦🏾♂️. In August 1967 the FBI instructed its program “COINTELPRO” to neutralize what they had identified as black nationalist hate groups. And in September 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the Black Panthers as “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” The FBI’s escalating campaign against the Black Panthers culminated in December 1969. That month a police raid in Chicago resulted in the brutal murder of local Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton and a fellow Panther, Mark Clark. They were met with ninety bullets in his apartment while he laid asleep next to his nine-month pregnant wife. Several days later there was a five-hour police shoot-out at the party’s Southern California headquarters. The measures employed by the FBI were so extreme that the director of the agency later apologized for “wrongful uses of power.” No sh*t. It was originally reported that Aoki died at his home in Berkeley from dialysis complications. Nearly a year later, it was revealed that he had died of suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Black History 365 | # 109 Ida B. Wells
What do you know about Ida B. Wells? Where do we start? She was a journalist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the US in the 1890s. And is the founder of the NAACP. She became disenchanted with the organization’s white and elite black leadership and distanced herself from the organization. She then founded and became the first president of the Negro Fellowship League which sided newly arrived migrants from the south. When she was just 14 years old she began teaching at a country school. Very gifted early on!
Black History 365 | # 107 Claudette Colvin
This is Claudette Colvin. Did you know at age 15, on March 2nd, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, she refused to give up her seat to a white woman? Colvin was motivated by what she had been learning in school about African American history and the U.S. Constitution. Note that this action took place just days after Negro History Week. This was 9 months before Rosa Parks in December, but because of respectability politics and Ms. Parks complexion white media outlets made a concerted effort to credit Rosa Parks as the mother of the civil rights movement. This is no fault of Ms. Rosa Parks, but this is the world we live in. And this is our history. Did you know a day after her arrest they staged a photoshoot where she is sitting in front of a white man on a bus? There are some protests and protesters deemed more acceptable by the powers that be I guess. And one could surmise that psychologically seeing a 15-year-old child refusing this “law” might be too inspiring for the civil rights movement youth. But I digress…Mary Louise Smith, a darker complected teenager at 18 also did the same a 40 days before Ms. Parks in October. Let’s put in context the torture, mutilation, and murder of a 14 year old Emmitt Till also happened in that same year in August 1955. You might see a pattern of history still repeating itself.