This is Eric Garner. Remember Eric Garner? July 2014, Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Black man was killed by New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers, including Daniel Pantaleo, who applied a chokehold to the neck of Eric Garner. Before dying, Mr. Garner was able to say 11 times that he could not breathe. His death was one of several fatal encounters that catalyzed the Black Lives Matter movement. The police officers there including the one who killed him suspected that he was selling loose, untaxed cigarettes on the street. Mr. Garner is one of the approximately 1,000 men, women, and children killed by police violence each year, and a disproportionate number of victims of police violence are Black. Rest in peace Eric Garner. May God watch over us all.
Black History 365 | # 176 Aaron McGruder
We know Aaron McGruder, if not we know The Boondocks…if not, you’re out for sure. Aaron McGruder is an illustrator, cartoonist, & writer from Chicago, Illinois May 29th, 1974 whose creation The Boondocks started off as a webcomic in 1996. Within six months of being part of the Universal Press Syndicate family, the comic strip was being distributed to more than 200 publications including, The New York Times. Known for its socialpolitical satire and main character Huey, it was a cult classic. Fastforward to 2005 the cartoon series premiered on Adult Swim. Now, before the fourth season of the TV show Aaron McGruder pulled out as the showrunner. His absence was felt. It wasn’t without its funny moments, but it lost its nuance that Aaron McGruder brought to it. He announced that he would be returning for season 5, but it was cancelled? Weird. Anyway, peace to Aaron McGruder and his contributions to entertainment.
Black History 365 | # 174 Ryan Gainer
Ryan Gainer was a 15 year old teenage-boy diagnosed with autism, shot and killed by two deputies, Wyatt Eisenbrey and Brandon Clancy during a mental episode where he was reported to harm his sister as well as breaking a window, with problems escalating this caused his mother to call 911. He was known as the sweetest soul to ones that knew him, he would help family and even would come home having skipped lunch at school to help a kid with work from class. Rest in peace, Ryan.
Black History 365 | # 173 The South Asian & African Connection
The widely accessible research to support connections from Asia to Africa are immediately linked to African slaves. “Movement of Africans to South Asia was fuelled by the slave trade. An estimated 12.5 million Africans were moved across the Sahara, Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to unfamiliar lands where they were re-rooted. But this movement was over a millennium, from 900 AD to 1900 AD” or “A few present-day populations in South Asia, including the Siddis from western India and the Makranis from Pakistan, are considered to descend from African slaves.” The scientific research to support connections from Africa to Asia shows up as convoluted and an offshoot of a debated ‘Out of Africa’ theory which is that Homo sapiens developed first in Africa and then spread around the world between 100 and 200,000 years ago, superseding all other hominid species. The implication of this argument is that all modern people are ultimately of African descent. The articles that support this are offset with jarring imagery and portrayals of Neanderthals as well as evolution involving animals. The simplified version that explains an hypothesis of connection of South Asian and African genetics that pre-date African slaves is from The National Library of Medicine, “the most reasonable scenario for the peopling of South Asia is an Upper Paleolithic event (i.e., the major expansion of modern humans out of Africa through the Levant [Lahr and Foley 1994]), from which the current Indian gene pool is derived.” Still, it is concluded that there is not convincing genetic evidence that supports this. In conclusion, for now…is what unites South Asian & African genetically is, slavery? Keep researching.
Black History 365 | # 172 Marcellus Williams
Marcellus Williams, whose murder conviction was questioned by a prosecutor, died by lethal injection September 24, 2024 in Missouri after the US Supreme Court denied a stay. Williams’ attorneys had filed a flurry of appeal efforts based on what they described as new evidence – including alleged bias in jury selection and contamination of the murder weapon prior to trial. The victim’s family had asked the inmate be spared death. The St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which handled the trial against Williams, argued in the motion that DNA testing of the knife used in the killing might suggest Williams was not Gayle’s killer. Missouri executed Marcellus Williams despite prosecutors and the victim’s family asking that he be spared.