Nyabinghi..... Jah In Rasta speech, this term is used as a synonym for Emperor Haile Selassie as the manifestation of the Godhead. The term derives from the Old Testament where it appears as an archaic form of "Jehovah" (see Psalm 68:4).
Maroons A term derived from the Spanish word cimarron, meaning wild or unruly, used to refer to runaway slaves in various parts of the Caribbean. In Jamaica, Maroon settlements formed in the island's mountainous interior as early as the mid-16th century. While small in number compared to the overall population in Jamaica, Maroons retained strong African-derived traditions and remained proud of their cultural heritage. In the 20th century, Rastafari culture has continued to carry forward this African pride in Jamaica and other parts of the Black Diaspora.
Nyabinghi (Ni-uh-bin-gee) This term has a series of overlapping meanings within the contemporary Rastafari Movement. It refers variously to the island-wide religious gatherings of Rasta brethren and sistren at which communicants "praise Jah" and "chant down Babylon," to the three-part drum ensemble on which chants are composed, to the African-derived dance-drumming style performed at these events, and to the corpus of chants themselves. It also refers to the most orthodox organization within the broader Rasta movement variously known as the House of Nyabinghi or the Theocratic Government of Emperor Haile Selassie I. The term Nyabinghi entered the movement in late 1935 during the Italian Invasion of Ethiopia and is actually derived from an African secret society which operated in the Congo and Ruwanda during the last quarter of the 19th century.
Ras Tafari the pre-coronation name of Emperor Haile Selassie I. Ras is an Amharic term equivalent to duke or lord. And Tafari Makonnen was the family name of Emperor Selassie. Rastafari is the same name taken by members of the Rastafari movement who regard the Ethiopian Emperor as the reincarnation of Christ as well as the embodiment of the Godhead.
Reggae Sometimes called "the King's music" or "roots music", reggae is the Rasta-inspired music of black protest which emerged in Jamaica during the late 1960s. Reggae reflects the basic rhythmic influences of Nyabinghi drumming as well as that of other African Jamaican musical traditions. During the 1970s, Rastafari-inspired reggae themes became central to the emergent national consciousness of Jamaicans, both Rastafari and non-Rastafari alike. During this same period, the music developed an international following in Europe, the United States, and on the African continent.
West Indian The term used to refer to the peoples and cultures of the Caribbean archipelago and parts of the Circum-Caribbean rimlands from present-day Belize to Jamaica in the Greater Antilles to Trinidad and Barbados in the Lesser Antilles. Hence, Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Antiguans, and others are often referred to collectively as West Indians. This is a problematic term since it does not refer to a single ethnic, linguistic, or national background. West Indian reflects the multicultural and migrant backgrounds of the populations that comprise the Caribbean as a cultural area.
Zion From a Rasta perspective, Zion refers broadly to Africa and more specifically to Ethiopia as the ancestral homeland of all black peoples. The symbols of Rastafari culture identify with this domain in its various spiritual, cultural, and political connotations.
Slavery had long been practiced in Africa Between the 7th and 20th centuries, Arab slave trade (also known as slavery in the East) took 18 million slaves from Africa via trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean routes. Between the 15th and the 19th centuries (500 years), the Atlantic slave trade took an estimated 7–12 million slaves to the New World In West Africa, the decline of the Atlantic slave trade in the 1820s caused dramatic economic shifts in local polities. The gradual decline of slave-trading, prompted by a lack of demand for slaves in the New World, increasing anti-slavery legislation in Europe and America, and the British Royal Navy's increasing presence off the West African coast, obliged African states to adopt new economies. Between 1808 and 1860, the British West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboardAction was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against "the usurping King of Lagos", deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers. The largest powers of West Africa (the Asante Confederacy, the Kingdom of Dahomey, and the Oyo Empire) adopted different ways of adapting to the shift. Asante and Dahomey concentrated on the development of "legitimate commerce" in the form of palm oil, cocoa, timber and gold, forming the bedrock of West Africa's modern export trade. The Oyo Empire, unable to adapt, collapsed into civil warsIn the late 19th century, the European imperial powers engaged in a major territorial scramble and occupied most of the continent, creating many colonial territories, and leaving only two fully independent states: Ethiopia (known to Europeans as "Abyssinia"), and Liberia. Egypt and Sudan were never formally incorporated into any European colonial empire; however, after the British occupation of 1882, Egypt was effectively under British administration until 1922.
" PRAY OF RASTAFRI Princes and princesses shall come forth out of Egypt, Ethiopia now stretch forth her hands before Jah. O Thou God of Ethiopia, Thou God of Thy Divine Majesty, Thy Spirit come into our hearts, to dwell in the paths of righteousness. Lead and help I and I to forgive, that InI may be forgiven. Teach I and I Love and loyalty on earth as it is in Zion, Endow us with Thy wisemind, knowledge and Overstanding to do thy will, thy blessings to us, that the hungry might be fed, the sick nourished, the aged protected, the naked clothed and the infants cared for. Deliver I and I from the hands of our enemy, that I and I may prove fruitful in these Last Days, when our enemy have passed and decayed in the depths of the sea, in the depths of the earth, or in the belly of a beast. O give us a place in Thy Kingdom forever and ever, so we hail our majesty Haile Selassie I, Jehovah God, Rastafari, Almighty God, Rastafari, great and powerful God Jah, Rastafari. Who sitteth and reigneth in the heart of man and woman, hear us and bless us and sanctify us, and cause Thy loving Face to shine upon us thy children, that we may be saved, Selah."Some important dates when groundations may take place are:
January 7 – Ethiopian Orthodox Christmas
March 25 – The birthday of Empress Menen
April 21 – The anniversary of Haile Selassie's visit to Jamaica. Also known as Grounation Day.
May 25 – African Liberation Day
July 23 – The birthday of Emperor Haile Selassie
August 17 – The birthday of Marcus Garvey
September 11 – Ethiopian New Year
November 2 – The coronation of Haile Selassie
Steel Pulse was formed in 1975 in Birmingham, England, specifically the inner city area of Handsworth. The founding members were schoolmates David Hinds (the primary songwriter as well as the lead singer and guitarist), Basil Gabbidon (guitar), and Ronnie "Stepper" McQueen (bass). All of them came from working class West Indian immigrant families, and none had much musical experience. They took some time to improve their technical proficiency, often on Roots inspired material by the Wailers, Burning Spear and several other prominent Jamaican artists. McQueen suggested the group name, after a racehorse, and they soon fleshed out the lineup with drummer Steve "Grizzly" Nisbett, keyboardist/vocalist Selwyn "Bumbo" Brown, percussionist/vocalist Alphonso "Fonso" Martin, and vocalist Michael Riley.
Steel Pulse initially had difficulty finding live gigs, as club owners were reluctant to give them a platform for their "subversive" Rastafarian politics. Luckily, the punk movement was opening up new avenues for music all over Britain, and also finding a spiritual kinship with protest reggae. Thus, the group wound up as an opening act for punk and new wave bands like the Clash, the Stranglers, Generation X, the Police, and XTC, and built a broad-based audience in the process. In keeping with the spirit of the times, Steel Pulse developed a theatrical stage show that leavened their social commentary with satirical humor; many of the members dressed in costumes that mocked traditional British archetypes (Riley was a vicar, McQueen a bowler-wearing aristocrat, Martin a coach footman, etc.). The band issued two singles -- "Kibudu, Mansetta and Abuku" and "Nyah Love" -- on small independent labels, when they then came to the attention of Island Records after opening for Burning Spear.
Steel Pulse's first single for Island was the classic "Ku Klux Klan," which happened to lend itself well to the band's highly visual, costume-heavy concerts. It appeared on their 1978 debut album, Handsworth Revolution, which was soon hailed as a classic of British reggae by many fans and critics, thanks to songs like the title track, "Macka Splaff," "Prodigal Son," and "Soldiers." Riley departed before the follow-up, 1979's Tribute to the Martyrs, which featured other key early singles in "Sound System" and "Babylon Makes the Rules," and solidified the band's reputation for uncompromising political ferocity. That reputation went out the window on 1980's Caught You, a more pop-oriented set devoted to dance tracks and lovers rock. By that point, Steel Pulse was keen on trying to crack the American market, and went on tour over Island's objections. Caught You was issued in the States as Reggae Fever, but failed to break the group, and they soon parted ways with Island.
Steel Pulse moved on to Elektra/Asylum, which released an LP version of their headlining set at the 1981 Reggae Sunsplash Festival. Their studio debut was 1982's True Democracy, a generally acclaimed set that balanced bright, accessible production with a return to social consciousness. It became their first charting LP in America, making both the pop and R&B listings. The slicker follow-up, Earth Crisis, was released in 1984 and featured producer Jimmy "Senyah" Haynes subbing on guitar and bass for founding members Gabbidon and McQueen, both of whom left the group by the end of the recording sessions. They were replaced by guitarist Carlton Bryan and bassist Alvin Ewen for 1986's Babylon the Bandit, another Haynes-produced effort that ranked as the group's most polished, synth-centered record to date. It featured the powerful "Not King James Version" and won a Grammy for Best Reggae Album.
In 1988, Steel Pulse released State of Emergency, their most explicitly crossover-oriented album yet. They also contributed the track "Can't Stand It" to the soundtrack of Spike Lee's classic Do the Right Thing. In 1991, they released another heavily commercial album, the Grammy-nominated Victims, which featured the single "Taxi Driver." Backing up the song's views, Steel Pulse filed a class-action lawsuit against the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, charging that drivers discriminated against blacks and particularly Rastafarians. Founding member Fonso Martin left that year, reducing Steel Pulse to a core trio of Hinds, Nisbett, and Brown. Their backing band still featured Ewen and was elsewhere anchored by guitarist Clifford "Moonie" Pusey, keyboardist Sidney Mills, trumpeter Kevin Batchelor, Saxophonist Jerry Johnson and Trombonist Clark Gayton.
The 1992 live album Rastafari Centennial marked the beginning of a return to the group's musical roots, and earned another Grammy nomination. The following year, they performed at Bill Clinton's inaugural celebration, the first reggae band to appear at such an event. 1994's studio album Vex completed Steel Pulse's re-embrace of classic roots reggae, though it also nodded to contemporary dancehall with several guest toasters and a digital-flavored production. 1997's Rage and Fury continued in a similar vein, and was nominated for a Grammy. In 1999, the group released another collection of live performances, Living Legacy.
Fast forward a long seven years since their previous album, Rage and Fury, Steel Pulse would return yet again, this time with African Holocaust, and yet again have their ranks dwindled. Core members David Hinds (vocals, rhythm guitar) and Selwyn Brown (keyboards, backing vocals) are the only ones to remain from the band's original line-up, but they more than hold their own and they're joined by a deep roster of supporting musicians, a list too long to list. As always, the music is what's most important, and on that count, this Steel Pulse lineup indeed makes the mark. Granted, it did take them seven years to get the album out, but still it won a Grammy Awards Nomination for Best Reggae Album of the year. There's really not too much else to say about African Holocaust. Longtime fans will know what to expect. Newcomers should know a few things: above all, Steel Pulse are known for performing well-written, Afrocentric songs that are rebellious without being negative or inflammatory, and though the band membership has changed over the years, the type of songs hasn't, nor has the steady move away from dancehall that was apparent on the band's previous album. the message and music remain true to the band's principles and vision.
Steel Pulse is one of Britain's greatest reggae bands, in terms of creative and commercial success. Steel Pulse started out playing authentic roots reggae with touches of jazz and Latin music, and earned a substantial audience worldwide. Their 1978 debut, Handsworth Revolution, is still regarded by many critics as a landmark and a high point of British reggae. By the late '80s, Steel Pulse had won a Grammy and were working full-fledged crossover territory. They subsequently returned to a tough-minded, rootsy sound and have added touches of dancehall and hip-hop along the way.
Jamaica, the 3rd largest Caribbean island, was inhabited by Arawak natives when it was first sighted by the 2nd voyage of Christopher Colombus on 5th May 1494. Columbus himself was stranded on Jamaica from 1503 to 1504 during his 4th voyage. The Spanish settled Jamaica in 1509 and held the island against many privateer raids from their main city, now called Spanish Town, which served as capital of Jamaica from its founding in 1534 until 1872. In 1655 Jamaica was conquered by the English, although the Spanish did not relinquish their claim to the island until 1670.
Jamaica became a base of operations for privateers, including Captain Henry Morgan, operating from the main English settlement Port Royal. In return these privateers kept the other colonial powers from attacking the island. Following the destruction of Port Royal in the great earthquake of 1692 refugees settled across the bay in Kingston which by 1716 had become the biggest town in Jamaica and became the capital city in 1872. Until the early nineteenth century Africans were captured, kidnapped, and forced into slavery to work on plantations when sugarcane became the most important export of the island.
Many slaves arrived in Jamaica via the Atlantic slave trade during the same time enslaved Africans arrived in North America. During this time there were many racial tensions, and Jamaica had one of the highest instances of slave uprisings of any Caribbean island.[1] After the British crown abolished slavery in 1834, the Jamaicans began working toward independence. Since independence in 1962 there have been political and economic disturbances, as well as a number of strong political leaders.The first Spanish settlement was founded in 1509 near St Annes Bay and named Seville. In 1534 the settlers moved to a new healthier site they named Villa de la Vega, which the English renamed Spanish Town when they conquered the island in 1655. This settlement served as the capital of both Spanish and English Jamaica from its foundation in 1534 until 1872 after which the capital was moved to Kingston. In the 1640s many people were attracted to Jamaica, which had a reputation for stunning beauty, not only when referring to the island but also to the natives. In fact, pirates were known to desert their raiding parties and stay on the island. Spanish Jamaica was subject to many privateer attacks, before the final conquest of the island by the English in 1655. The English were subject to several unsuccessful Spanish counter-attacks after they occupied the island.
The 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia states, "A review of the period of Spanish occupation is one which reflects very little credit on Spanish colonial administration in those days. Their treatment of the aboriginal inhabitants, whom they are accused of having practically exterminated, Morales PadrónSpanish resistance continued for some years thereafter, in some cases with the help of the maroons, but Spain never succeeded in retaking the island. Under early English rule Jamaica became a haven of privateers, buccaneers, and occasionally outright pirates: Christopher Myngs, Edward Mansvelt, and most famously, Henry Morgan.
The English established their capital at Port Royal and by 1659, two hundred houses, shops, and warehouses surrounded the fort. The town was destroyed by an earthquake in 1692, after which Spanish Town became the focal settlement.
The cultivation of sugar cane and coffee by African slave labour made Jamaica one of the most valuable possessions in the world for more than 150 years. The colony's slaves, who outnumbered their white masters by a ratio of 20:1 in 1800, mounted over a dozen major slave conspiracies (the majority of which were organized by Coromantins), and uprisings during the 18th century, including Tacky's revolt in 1760. Escaped slaves known as Maroons established independent communities in the mountainous interior that the British were unable to suppress, despite major attempts in the 1730s and 1790s. One Maroon community was expelled from the island after the Second Maroon War in the 1790s, and those Maroons eventually became part of the core of the Creole community of Sierra Leone. The colonial government enlisted the Maroons in capturing escaped plantation slaves. The British also used Jamaica's free people of color, 10,000 strong by 1800, to keep the enslaved population in check. During the Christmas holiday of 1831, a large scale slave revolt known as the Baptist War broke. It was organised originally as a peaceful strike by Samuel Sharpe. The rebellion was suppressed by the militia of the Jamaican plantocracy and the British garrison ten days later in early 1832.
Because the loss of property and life in the 1831 rebellion, the British Parliament held two inquiries. The results of these inquiries contributed greatly to the abolition of slavery as of August 1, 1834 throughout the British Empire. However the Jamaican slaves remained bound to their former owners' service, albeit with a guarantee of rights, until 1838 under what was called the Apprenticeship System. The freed population still faced significant hardships, marked by the October 1865 Morant Bay rebellion led by and Paul Bogle. It was brutally repressed. George William Gordon, a friend of Paul Bogle, was hanged because he was thought to have contributed to the riot even though he was not a part of its organization or execution. The sugar crop was declining in importance in the late 19th century and the colony diversified into bananas.
In 1866 the Jamaican legislature renounced its powers, and the country became a crown colony.
In 1872 the capital was moved to Kingston, as the port city had far outstripped the inland Spanish Town in size and sophistication.
Some measure of self-government was restored in the 1880s, when islanders gained the right to elect nine members of a legislative council.
The establishment of Crown Colony rule resulted over the next few decades in the growth of a middle class of low-level public officials and police officers drawn from the mass of the population whose social and political advancement was blocked by the colonial authorities.
The Great Depression had a serious impact both on the emergent middle class and the working class of the 1930s. In the spring of 1938 sugar and dock workers around the island rose in revolt. Although the revolt was suppressed it led to significant changes including the emergence of an organized labour movement and a competitive party system.
Jamaica gained a degree of local political control in the mid-1940s. The People's National Party (PNP) was founded in 1938. Its main rival, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) was established five years later. The first elections under universal adult suffrage were held in 1944. Jamaica joined nine other UK territories in the Federation of the West Indies in 1958 but withdrew after Jamaican voters rejected membership in 1961. Jamaica gained independence on August 6, 1962, remaining a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The first prime minister was Alexander Bustamante of the Jamaica Labour Party.
Initially, power swapped between the People's National Party and the Jamaican Labour Party regularly. Michael Manley was the first PNP prime minister in 1972 and he introduced socialist policies and relations with Cuba. His second term elections marked the start of repeated political violence. When the PNP lost power in 1980 Edward Seaga immediately began to reverse the policies of his predecessor, bringing in privatization and seeking closer ties with the USA. When the PNP and Manley returned to power in 1989 they continued the more moderate policies and were returned in the elections of 1993 and 1998. Manley resigned for health reasons in 1992 and was succeeded as leader of the PNP by Percival Patterson.
Historically, Jamaican emigration has been heavy. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, many Jamaicans migrated to Central America, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic to work in the banana and canefields. In the 1950s the primary destination was to the United Kingdom; but since the United Kingdom restricted emigration in 1962, major flow has been to the United States and Canada. The heaviest flow of emigration particularly to New York, and Miami occurred during the 1990s and continues to the present day due to high economical crisis. About 20,000 Jamaicans emigrate to the United States each year; another 200,000 visit annually. New York, Hartford, CT, Miami, and Fort Lauderdale are among the U.S. cities with the largest Jamaican population. In New York, over half of Jamaican expatriates reside in Brooklyn. Remittances from the expatriate communities in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada make increasingly significant contributions to Jamaica's economy.
Lion of Judah in Ethiopia In,,,, [[Rastafari movement|Rastafari]], "The Lion of Judah" represents Emperor [[Haile Selassie I]] of Ethiopia, crowned November 2, 1930 with the titles King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God and Power of the Trinity. Rastas hold that Selassie is a direct descendant of the Israelite Tribe of Judah through the lineage of [[King David]] and Solomon, and that he is also the Lion of Judah mentioned in the Book of Revelation.{(Revelations 5:5)}.....In Rastafari, "The Lion of Judah" represents Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, crowned November 2, 1930 with the titles King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God and Power of the Trinity. Rastas hold that Selassie is a direct descendant of the Israelite Tribe of Judah through the lineage of King David and Solomon, and that he is also the Lion of Judah mentioned in the Book of Revelation.{(Revelations 5:5)}.....Lion of Judah in Christianity
n Christian tradition, the Lion of Judah represents Jesus. Many Christian organizations and ministries use the lion of Judah as their emblem or even their name.
The phrase appears in the New Testament Book of Revelation 5:5; "And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof."
The use in C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia of a lion named Aslan is known to be part of a supposition, rather than a commonly supposed allegory, thereby depicting the life of Jesus Christ through a fantasy novel medium ...Lion of Judah and Judaism
Within Judaism, the Biblical Judah (in Hebrew: Yehuda) is the original name of the Tribe of Judah - traditionally symbolized by a lion. In Genesis, the patriarch Jacob ("Israel") refers to his son Judah as a Gur Aryeh גּוּר אַרְיֵה יְהוּדָה , a "Young Lion" (Genesis 49:9) when blessing him.[1] In Jewish naming tradition the Hebrew name and the substitute name are often combined as a pair, as in this case.
The facts of his life are well known. Haile Selassie's influence on the world is his most enduring legacy. Born Tafari Makonnen in 1891, Haile Selassie came to be identified inextricably with Ethiopia. Only rarely in the modern world does the story of a man become so closely linked to the story of a nation. It is said that great events beget great men, but they beget failures as well, and the boundary between the two is often defined by singular acts of courage. These the Ethiopian Emperor did not lack.
Not surprisingly, the fortitude of the man sometimes referred to as "The Lion" inspired Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and even Malcom X, each of whom corresponded with Haile Selassie --who advocated civil disobedience when it was necessary to remedy fundamental social injustice or restore freedom to the oppressed. The Emperor's presence at President Kennedy's funeral is still remembered. It seems somehow appropriate that the motion picture Born Free was filmed in Ethiopia during Haile Selassie's reign.
One speaks of leaders of men as though their public lives were completely divorced from their private ones. For a hereditary monarch, this should not be the case. What his children think of him is as important as what everybody else thinks. Haile Selassie was a devoted husband and father. His wife, Empress Menen, died in 1962. His sons, Sahle Selassie, Makonnen, and Asfa Wossen, had a great sense of duty to their father and to their people. Of his daughters, Princess Tenagne, in particular, excercised various official duties.
Haile Selassie ascended the throne in the era of polar exploration and slow communication. Africa's oldest nation was little more than a footnote to the great stories of the day --something that Americans and Brits read about in the pages of the National Geographic. Some people still called the country Abyssinia. In certain countries far beyond Ethiopia's borders, segregation and apartheid were long established and little questioned. Most other African "nations" were colonies. Even at home, slavery was technically still legal.
In such an era, words like "pan-Africanism" and "civil rights" were little more than esoteric philosophical notions entertained by an enlightened few. That a country as backward as Italy, whose widespread poverty prompted the emigration of millions, would seek to devour a nation like Ethiopia, was an irony too subtle to raise eyebrows outside the most sophisticated intellectual circles. With British backing, Haile Selassie returned to defeat the Italian army which, in the event, the Allies never viewed as much more than a nuisance. The British themselves considered the Ethiopian campaign in its strategic context --as a way to free the Red Sea from possible Axis control-- as much as the liberation of a sovereign nation. To the Ethiopians, it was as much a moral victory as a military one.
The Emperor's speech to the League of Nations denouncing the Italian invasion is remembered more than the aggression itself. It prompted essentially ineffectual international trade sanctions against a European nation but, like the Battle of Adwa four decades earlier, represented in a tangible way one of the few occasions in the modern era that an African nation defied the arrogance of a European one.
There were very few world leaders of the post-war era who had actually led troops in combat. Haile Selassie and Dwight Eisenhower were exceptional in this respect, which partially accounts for their close friendship.
Even when the foe is truly formidable, courage has a psychological side that has little to do with combat or physical victory. One may seem defeated materially without being defeated morally. Perhaps it's a question of confidence, values or knowledge. Haile Selassie's greatest strength was as a builder of bridges --across rivers but also between cultures. His travels took him to many countries, and he became one of the most popular heads of state, and one of the most decorated men in the world.
It was during one such voyage, in 1960, that he had to rush home to confront an attempted overthrow of the existing order. This perhaps served as a reminder that the most dangerous revolutions are found in one's own house. The sovereign who was once known as a reformer now found himself resented by many members of the very social class his economic and educational policies had helped to create. Internationally, however, his prestige did not suffer. The Emperor established the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, with a headquarters in Addis Ababa.
The revolution of 1974 was supported by outside forces, and while its roots were domestic, its covert objectives cannot be said to have been supported by more than a small fraction of Ethiopians. Truth be told, administrative practices which worked well in 1950 were terribly inefficient by the 1970s, and a series of problems were cited as a pretext for a full scale coup d'etat. Ethiopia's pre-industrial economy was no better prepared for Marxism than Russia's had been in 1917. Communism's ultimate social and economic failure, in Ethiopia as well as in Russia, certainly indicates democracy's superiority, whether that democracy is embodied by a republic or a constitutional monarchy. The Derg's alliance with the Soviet Union made Ethiopia the instrument of a foreign power, precisely the thing Haile Selassie resisted.
He had a Solomonic pedigree, but Haile Selassie was a man of the people. Perhaps that's how he should be remembered.
( On His Majestic arrival in Addis Abeba on Liberation Liberation Day "No human lips can express the gratitude which I feel to the merciful God who has enabled me to stand in your midst on this day, of which the angels in heaven and creatures on earth could neither have thought of nor known about. Before everything else, I want to tell you and to make you understand that this ... is a day on which a fresh chapter of history of the New Ethiopia begins. In this new era, new work is commencing, which is the duty of all of us to perform.
"As We remember the affliction which befell Ethiopia, which had preserved her independence for many thousand years, was attacked in 1888 E.C. (1895-6) by Italy, which had harbored aggressive designs against her for many years and intended to destroy her freedom, her brave sons fought at Adwa and she retained her independence. The Treaty of Wuchale was not the only cause of the battle that was fought at Adwa. It was only a pretext for the ongoing aim that Italy had of ruling Ethiopia. Although the Great European War interrupted her plans for a time, notwithstanding her outward pretensions of friendship, Italy made preparations to invade Ethiopia. Since her defeat at Adwa, she had been irate that justice prevailed against her.
"When Italy began to wage a war of aggression against Ethiopia, although We knew We were not so well armed as she was, We countered with what strength We could muster, because it was Our duty to resist an enemy that had come to seize Our country. But as it was apparent that she was bent on exterminating Our people with poison gas, the use of which was prohibited by international law, We went to appeal to the League of Nations and claim justice. As it was feared that the hostility started by Italy might spread all over the world, and as it was a period when all those who were charged with the responsibility of government were trying to save the world for the catastrophe which has since befallen it, the [leaders] worked to bring about understanding in the world to prevent the spread of the conflagration. At the time our true friend, Great Britain, received Us with sympathy. I remained there working, but in spirit was constantly with my countrymen, whose blood was pointlessly and ruthlessly shed at the hands of the Italians; with the monasteries and churches that were being burned down; with those forced to take refuge in foreign lands; and with those suffering and being afflicted in the wilderness, in the caves and in the forests of their native land.
"How many are the young men, the priests and monks whom the Italians pitilessly massacred during these years? You know that in Addis Abeba alone many thousands perished during the three days following St Michael's day on Yekatit 12, 1929 [Feb. 19, 1937]. The blood and bones of those who were killed with spades and pickaxes, of those who were split with axes and hammered to death, pierced with bayonets, clubbed and stoned, of those who were burned alive in their homes with their little children, of those who perished of hunger and thirst in prison, have been crying for justice. Everybody knows that this act of barbarism and cruelty was not perpetrated in Addis Abeba alone, but [also] in the provinces of Ethiopia. There is hardly anyone who has not been caught and beaten, kicked, humiliated and imprisoned.
"Now We shall pass on to the new history that is before Us. five years ago on this day the fascist forces entered Our capital city. Then Mussolini announced to the world that he had established a Roman Empire in Our country, Ethiopia. He believed that the land he declared conquered would forever be in his hands. The gallantry of the Ethiopia people is recorded in history. But as We had no ports through which to import armaments necessary for people, we were unable to obtain them. Fifty-two nations condemned Mussolini for his actions. But he boasted of his violent deeds and took no heed of their condemnation. The past five years have been years of darkness for you, my people. But you never lost hope, and in the Ethiopian hills you gradually grew [strong]. The enemy never ventured to come near the mountains on which you were, because, enduring every hardship and affliction, you, the warriors of Ethiopia, safeguarded your freedom during the past five years. But in spite of the fact that he could not conquer the country, he spent many thousands of millions of lire, saying that he was civilizing what he could hold. He spent all that money not because he desired to improve the conditions of the oppressed Ethiopian people or to mitigate the injustice he had done. It was because he wanted to plant a fascist colony in Our sacred land of Ethiopia and to impose on her the rule of oppression which he had planned. He tried to exterminate the Ethiopian race and did not even entertain the idea of giving her the administration of either a mandate or a protectorate, which, in any case, would have been considered a heavy yoke for Our people. But all the money that could be counted by the thousands of millions and all the prepared armaments served a purpose which Mussolini never intended. At the time when Italy revealed her intentions of entering the war in order to be able to snatch from a defeated France as much as she could, the number of soldiers, the amount of money and the armaments she had sent to Ethiopia were enormous. The regular troops she deployed were not less that 250 000, she also had amassed provisions to last many years in case she was encircled. Trusting in, and bragging of , the invincibility of this military force, the fascist government proceeded with implanting dictatorial rule in Our country. But something happened which the fascist government did not take into account--the fighting morale, essential in modern war, demonstrated by you.
"You were able to destroy the enemy who were superior to you in numbers and equipment, because you are a people of bravery and mercy and because you cooperated and knew the strategy of war. The British troops, who were fighting for human rights on other fronts...needed time to get ready to come to the assistance of Ethiopia. and free her. But you, warriors of Ethiopia, harassed the enemy by cutting his communications [and] by restricting him to his fortifications. In spite of the great numbers of troops in which he put his trust, he realized that the Ethiopian people from one end [of the country] to the other hated him and his rule. He understood also that it was impossible for him to live in such a country and in the midst of such a people. Even by using poison gas and bombs and by [committing] atrocities. he could no longer hope to enjoy overlordship in a country where he was terrible undermined. He realized that the soldiers who surrounded him were adversaries more powerful than he was. He spent his daring and money to meet his adversaries. Then he looked around, if perchance he could find somewhere where he could take shelter in Ethiopia, but he could not find even one place.
"When the time came, Our great ally, the British Government prepared to launch a proper attack against Our enemy. As soon as I knew this, I left for the distant land of the Sudan, which borders us the west, and entered central Gojam. In Gojam Our enemy had strong fortified positions, powerful troops, airplanes, and artillery. On comparing the number of Our soldiers with those of the enemy, We found that We had one soldier for every 20 of his. Moreover, We had no artillery or aircraft at Our disposal. The fact that I was found in the midst of my warriors at once attracted many thousands of men. And the fear and anxiety of Our enemy increased. While my soldiers were harassing and cutting off the enemy's communications and , after having driven his troops across the Abay river, were pursuing them towards Shewa and Begemdir, I heard the good news that British Imperial troops had, with incomparable speed, retaken Our capital city and were pushing towards Dese in the north and Jima in the south. In the same way, the troops who started from the Sudan destroyed the fortress at Keren with brilliant force and utterly defeated the enemy. And as the time came for my return to my capital, I mustered my soldiers who were scattered in every direction in pursuit of the enemy... I am exceedingly happy that I have been able to arrive here at the head of my soldiers, the enemy who was found on my path having been defeated, and to break the power of the common foe. I am deeply thankful to Almighty God that I stand today in your midst in my Palace, from which the fascist government has fled.
People of my country, Ethiopia!
Today is a day in which Ethiopia is stretching her hands to God in joy and thanksgiving and revealing her happiness to her children.
"This day , on which the people of Ethiopia are freed from the oppressive foreign yoke and eternal servitude and on which I am enabled to rejoin my people, whom I love and have yearned for, will be honored as a holiday to be commemorated annually as a Great Ethiopian Anniversary. On this day we shall remember those heroic warriors who, determined not to surrender the great charge passed on to them by their fathers, became martyrs, shedding their blood and breaking their bones for the freedom of the land they loved and for the honor of the Emperor and their flag. Their heroic deeds will remain recorded in Ethiopian history.
"The tribulations and afflictions, which befell us during the past five years and which cannot be recounted and enumerated in detail, will be a great lesson to us all and, with industry, unity, cooperation and love engraved in your hearts, will be a great incentive to your to be my helpers in the construction of the Ethiopia which I have in mind. In the New Ethiopia I want you to be a people undivided and endowed with freedom and equality before the law.
"You will have to join me in my efforts for the prosperity of the country, for the riches of the people, for the development of agriculture, commerce, education, learning, for the protection of the life and resources of Our people, and for the perfection, on modern lines, of the country's administration.
"It is my firm wish and purpose to merit the blessing with which God in His mercy has visited on Us, first, by showing Our gratitude to Our allies, the British, by the release of the Imperial troops to fight the common enemy on other fronts, and by supplying them with troops whenever they may be needed; secondly, to do work beneficial to the people and the country by establishing in Our Ethiopia a government which will protect Our nation and make it respectable by guaranteeing the liberty of the people and freedom of conscience.
"What I would finally announce to you, my people, is that today is a day of rejoicing for us all. Today is the day on which we defeated our enemy. We shall see that our enemies are disarmed and sent out the same way they came. As St George who killed the dragon is the Patron Saint of our army as well as of our allies, let us unite with our allies in everlasting friendship and amity in order to be able to stand against the godless and cruel dragon which has newly risen and which is oppressing mankind. I charge you to consider [our allies] as brothers and friends [and] show them kindness and consideration."
Africa Day 1963 "It has been five years since every year this day of April 15, was decreed to be celebrated as Africa's Independence Day. This day is celebrated throughout Africa. It reminds Us of the struggles for independence during the last twelve months and of our African brothers that are still engaged in the fight for freedom.
"For several years in the past, as must be remembered, a large part of the African continent was under colonial rule. In the course of that time, colonialists have stripped the Africans of their freedom and natural rights, and used their resources for the benefit and prosperity of their own country. Even today, colonial masters speak ill of Africans by exaggerating their poverty in the press. Africans are also blamed for the aid they receive. This aid cannot fill the needs of their peoples overnight. From under such humiliation, Africans rose up to safeguard their right and started to struggle to obtain their independence. This struggle began to bear fruit after World War II.
"The first African Independent States Conference was held in Africa in 1958. The independent states at that time were only eight. Nevertheless, the freedom fight in Africa continued with more vigour and fervour and today the number of independent states has reached 32. This is four times the size of those independent countries which participated in the Accra Conference. Last year alone Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and Algeria achieved their independence and became members of the Independent African states. Although it had been duly extended at the appropriate time, we will again venture to express our congratulations to these friendly countries.
"In our neighbour country, Kenya, a new political trend is taking shape and elections are expected to be held soon. It is our earnest wish that Kenya achieves independence immediately after the conclusion of a successful election. That Kenya obtains her independence without the dismemberment of her regions is the policy that Ethiopia strongly supports. Ethiopia opposes all those who try to dismember Kenya under the claim of tribalism.
"Congo has been in turmoil after independence. It has been gratifying to Us to see Katanga reintegrated last year into the central government to form a united Congo Republic. We are especially pleased, because Ethiopia has sent her troops to Congo in the name of the United Nations and made substantial contribution to the unity of that country.
"In Central Africa too, political movement is quite encouraging. Under the eminent leadership of Dr. Kamuza Banda, Nyasaland achieved local government under its nationals and the day of her independence is anxiously being awaited in the very near future. It has also been made clear in a recent London Conference that Northern Rhodesia has secured its right of secession from the colonialist-run Federation, and it is fast marching towards independence.
"Meanwhile, the fate of Africans in Southern Rhodesia is in a precarious situation. Many Africans and their leaders are found arbitrarily imprisoned and consequently, the country is in chaos, We will not hesitate to remind the British Government to make use of its responsibility to hand over authority to the African majority so that Southern Rhodesia will also be independent. Until now the British Government has shown wisdom and sound judgment in providing independence for Africans, in a manner constructive and objective.
"The South African racial government apartheid policy has deteriorated instead of effecting leniency and improvement. A large number of Africans, fighting for their freedom, are from day-to-day hauled into jails without due process of law, and are made to suffer under severe conditions. Defying world opinion, breaking international laws and disrespecting the United Nations Charter, the South African government continues practicing its atrocious and odious policy. Nevertheless, Ethiopia will not deny assistance to our brother Africans who live in that unfortunate country.
"We shall not pass without expressing our regret to the Portuguese Government, that the fate of Africans in its colonies has not been up to now improved so as to have prepared them for independence. What We would again remind the Portuguese Government, is to prepare Africans in its colonial territories for self-government in order to curtail heavy blood-shed. Ethiopia will not refrain from endeavouring to assist in finding solutions by which Africans under Portuguese colonies will obtain independence.
"In general, We extend our good will greetings to all our African brethren who are still under the yoke of foreign rule, and wish that their struggle for freedom will bear fruit so that they would be masters of their own fate. Our help will also reach them.
"Finally, We would like to speak about the May Conference of African Heads of State to be held here in Addis Ababa. All the 32 heads of state in the entire continent have accepted our invitation and expressed their willingness to participate in the Conference. We are specially pleased by the response and co-operation shown by our neighbour sister, Somalia, for her reconsideration to take part in the conference following our recommendation and advice.
"The purpose of this conference is to strengthen African unity. Since Ethiopia's hospitality is historically known, it is the voluntary duty of every individual Ethiopian to extend the usual courtesies to our distinguished guests who will come for the conference. We entrust, therefore, to you all that each one of you extend the best reception to our honourable guests.
"Let Almighty God help us in the fulfillment of our wishes."
We welcome to Ethiopia in Our name and in the name of the Ethiopian Government and people, the Heads of State and Government of independent African nations who are today assembled in solemn conclave in Ethiopia's capital city. This conference without parallel in history, is an impressive testimonial to the devotion and dedication of which we all partake in the cause of our mother continent and that of her sons and daughters. This is indeed a momentous and historic day for Africa and for all Africans.
"We stand today on the stage of world affairs, before the audience of world opinion. We have come together to assert our role in the direction of world affairs and to discharge our duty to the great continent whose two hundred and fifty million people we lead. Africa is today at mid-course, in transition from the Africa of yesterday to the Africa of tomorrow. Even as we stand here we move from the past into the future. The task on which we have embarked, the making of Africa will not wait. We must act, to shape and mould the future and leave our imprint on events as they pass into history.
"We seek, at this meeting, to determine whither we are going and to chart the course of our destiny. It is no less important that we know whence we came. An awareness of our past is essential to the establishment of our personality and our identity as Africans.
"This world was not created piecemeal. Africa was born no later and no earlier than any other geographical area on this globe. Africans, no more and no less than other men, possess all human attributes, talents and deficiencies, virtues and faults. Thousands of years ago, civilisations flourished in Africa which suffer not at all by comparison with those of other continents. In those centuries, Africans were politically free and economically independent. Their social patterns were their own and their cultures truly indigenous.
"The obscurity which enshrouds the centuries which elapsed between those earliest days and the rediscovery of Africa are being gradually dispersed. What is certain is that during those long years Africans were born, lived and died. Men on other parts of this earth occupied themselves with their own concerns and, in their conceit, proclaimed that the world began and ended at their horizons. All unknown to them, Africa developed in its own pattern, growing in its own life and, in the Nineteenth Century, finally re-emerged into the world's consciousness.
"The events of the past hundred and fifty years require no extended recitation from Us. The period of colonialism into which we were plunged culminated with our continent fettered and bound, with our once proud and free peoples reduced to humiliation and slavery; with Africa's terrain cross-batched and checker-boarded by artificial and arbitrary boundaries. Many of us, during those bitter years, were overwhelmed in battle, and those who escaped conquest did so at the cost of desperate resistance and bloodshed. Others were sold into bondage as the price extracted by the colonialists for the "protection" which they extended and the possession of which they disposed. Africa was a physical resource to be exploited an Africans were chattels to be purchased bodily or, at best, peoples to be reduced to vassalage and lackeyhood. Africa was the market for the produce of other nations and the source of the raw materials with which their factories were fed.
"Today, Africa has emerged from this dark passage. Our Armageddon is past. Africa has been reborn as a free continent and Africans have been reborn as free men. The blood that was shed and the sufferings that were endured are today Africa's advocates for freedom and unity. Those men who refused to accept the judgment passed upon them by the colonies, who held unswervingly through the darkest hours to a vision of an Africa emancipated from political, economic and spiritual domination, will be remembered and revered wherever Africans meet. Many of them never set foot on this continent. Others were born and died here. What we may utter today can add little to the heroic struggle of those who, by their example, have shown us how precious are freedom and human dignity and of how little value is life without them. Their deeds are written in history.
Areas of Resistance
"Africa's victory, although proclaimed, is not yet total and areas of resistance still remain. We name as our first great task the final liberating of those Africans still dominated by foreign exploitation and control. With the goal in sight, and unqualified triumph within our grasp, let us not now falter of lag or relax. We must make one final supreme effort, when so much has been won that the thrilling sense of achievement has brought us near satiation. Our liberty is meaningless unless all Africans are free. Our brothers in the Rhodesias, in Mozambique, in Angola, in South Africa cry out in anguish for our support and assistance. We must urge on their behalf their peaceful accession to independence. We must align and identify ourselves with all aspects of their struggle. It would be betrayal were we to pay only lip-service to the cause of their liberation and fail to back our words with action. To them we say, your pleas shall not go unheeded. The resources of Africa and of all freedom-loving nations are marshaled in your service. Be of good cheer, for your deliverance is at hand.
"As we renew our vow that all of Africa shall be free, let us also resolve that old wounds shall be healed and past scars forgotten. It was thus that Ethiopia treated the invader nearly twenty-five years ago, and Ethiopians found peace with honour in this course. Memories of past injustice should not divert us from the more pressing business at hand. We must live in peace with our former colonisers, shunning recrimination and bitterness and forswearing the luxury of vengeance and retaliation, lest the acid of hatred erode our souls and poison our hearts. Let us act as befits the dignity which we claim for ourselves as Africans, proud of our special qualities, distinctions and abilities. Our efforts as free men must be to establish new relationships, devoid of any resentment and hostility, restored to our belief and faith in ourselves as individuals, dealing on a basis of equality with other equally free peoples.
"Today, we look to the future calmly, confidently and courageously. We look to the vision of an Africa not merely free but united. In facing this new challenge, we can take comfort and encouragement form the lessons of the past. We know that there are differences among us. Africans enjoy different cultures, distinctive values, special attributes. But we also know that unity can be and has been attained among men of the most disparate origins, that differences of race, of religion, of culture, of tradition, are no insuperable obstacles to the coming together of peoples. History teaches us that unity is strength and cautions us to submerge and overcome our differences in the quest for common goals, to strive with all our combined strength, for the path to true African brotherhood and unity.
"There are those who claim that African unity is impossible, that the forces that pull us, some in this direction, others in that, are too strong to be overcome. Around us there is no lack of doubt and pessimism, no absence of critics and criticism. These speak of Africa, of Africa's future and of her position in the Twentieth Century in sepulchral tones. They predict dissention and disintegration among Africans and internecine strife and chaos on our continent. Let us confound these and, by our deeds, disperse them in confusion. There are others whose hopes for Africa are bright, who stand with faces upturned in wonder and awe at the creation of a new and happier life, who have dedicated themselves to its realisation and are spurred on by the example of their brothers to whom they owe the achievements of Africa's past. Let us reward their trust and merit their approval.
"The road of African unity is already lined with landmarks. The last years are crowded with meetings, with conferences, with declarations and pronouncements. Regional organisations have been established. Local groupings based on common interests, backgrounds and traditions have been created."
Horace Andy (born Horace Hinds, February 19, 1951, Kingston, Jamaica),[1] is a roots reggae songwriter and singer, known for his distinctive vocals and hit songs such as "Government Land", "Angel", "Five Man Army" and a cover version of "Ain't No Sunshine".
Early Days
Hinds recorded his first single in 1967 for producer Phil Pratt.[1] "This is a Black Man's Country" failed to make an impact, and it wouldn't be until 1970 that he achieved a breakthrough. After unsuccessfully auditioning at Coxsone Dodd's Studio One as a duo along with Frank Melody, he successfully auditioned on his own a few days later.[1] Dodd decided Hinds should record as Horace Andy, partly to capitalize on the popularity of Bob Andy, and partly to avoid comparisons with his cousin, Justin Hinds, with whom his singing style at the time showed a resemblance.[1] "Got To Be Sure", the song he had auditioned with, became his first release for Studio One. The following two years saw the release of further singles such as "See a Man's Face", "Night Owl", "Fever", and "Mr. Bassie". One of Andy's most enduring songs, "Skylarking", first appeared on Dodd's Jamaica Today compilation album, but after proving a sound system success, it was released as a single, going on to top the Jamaican chart.[1] The next few years saw Andy regularly in the reggae charts with further singles for Dodd such as "Something on My Mind", "Love of a Woman", "Just Say Who", and "Every Tongue Shall Tell", as well as singles for other producers such as "Lonely Woman" (for Derrick Harriott), "Girl I Love You" (Ernest and Joseph Hoo Kim), "Love You to Want Me" and "Delilah" (Gussie Clarke), and "Get Wise", "Feel Good", and "Money Is The Root of All Evil" for Phil Pratt. Andy had a second Jamaican number one single in 1973 with "Children of Israel".[1] Andy's most successful association with a producer, however, was with Bunny Lee in the middle part of the 1970s. This era produced a series of singles now regarded as classics such as a re-recorded "Skylarking", "Just Say Who", "Don't Try To Use Me", "You Are My Angel", "Zion Gate", "I've Got to Get Away", and a new version of "Something on My Mind".[1]
In 1977, Andy moved to Hartford, Connecticut, with his first wife, Claudette, where he recorded for Everton DaSilva, including the In The Light album and its associated dub album, and singles such as "Do You Love My Music" and "Government Land".[2] Andy set up his own Rhythm label, which became an outlet for his work with DaSilva. The association with the producer was brought to an abrupt end when DaSilva was murdered in 1979.[1] Andy's 1978 album Pure Ranking had anticipated the rise of dancehall reggae, and he was a key figure in the early development of the genre, confirmed by 1982's Dance Hall Style album.[1] Andy continued to record with a variety of producers in the first half of the 1980s. In 1985, with his second wife Caroline, he relocated to Ladbroke Grove, London, and he recorded in the United Kingdom as well as regularly visiting Jamaica for further recording work.
[edit]Mainstream success with Massive Attack
1990 saw Andy's profile further raised when he began collaborating with Bristol trip hop pioneers Massive Attack, going on to contribute to all five of their albums (the only artist to do so), most notably with "Angel" (a new version of "You are My Angel") released on their third album, Mezzanine and most recently on their 2010 release Heligoland, on the tracks "Splitting the Atom" and "Girl I Love You." In the mid-1990s he also worked with Mad Professor, releasing the albums Life Is For Living and Roots and Branches. He continues to record new music, with the Living in the Flood album released in 1999 on Massive Attack's Melankolic record label, and Mek It Bun in 2002. He also featured on the world music project, 1 Giant Leap, and on the Easy Star All-Stars 2006 album, Radiodread.
He is a Rastafarian. Some of his lyrics on the subject of homosexuality have been considered controversial. Andy stated that Trojan Records only agreed to release his album On Tour after removing a track containing the lyrics, "The Father never make Adam and Steve, he make Adam and Eve"
]Albums
Skylarking (1972) Studio One
You Are My Angel (1973) Trojan
Earth Must Be Hell (1974) Atra (with Winston Jarrett) aka The Kingston Rock
Earth Must Be Hell - Dub (1974) Atra (with Winston Jarrett)
In The Light (1977) Hungry Town
In The Light Dub (1977) Hungry Town
Pure Ranking (1978) Clocktower
Bim Sherman Meets Horace Andy and U Black Inna Rub a Dub Style (1980) Yard International (with Bim Sherman and U Black)
Natty Dread a Weh She Want (1980) New Star
Unity Showcase (1981) Pre (with Errol Scorcher)
Dance Hall Style (1982) Wackies aka Exclusively (1982) Solid Groove
Showcase (1984) Vista Sounds
Confusion (1984) Music Hawk
Sings For You and I (1985) Striker Lee
Clash of the Andy's (1985) Thunderbolt (with Patrick Andy)
Elementary (1985) Rough Trade
Reggae Superstars Meet (1986) Striker Lee (with Dennis Brown)
From One Extreme To Another (1986) Beta (with John Holt)
Haul & Jack Up (1987) Live & Love
Fresh (1988) Island In The Sun
Shame and Scandal (1988)
Everyday People (1988) Wackies
Rude Boy (1993) Shanachie
Jah Shaka Meets Horace Andy (1994) Jah Shaka Music
Dub Salute 1 Featuring Horace Andy (1994) Jah Shaka Music
Seek and You Will Find (1995) Blackamix International
Seek and You Will Find - The Dub Pieces (1995) Blackamix International
Life Is For Living (1995) Ariwa
Roots and Branches (1997) Ariwa
See and Blind (1998) Heartbeat
Living In The Flood (1999) Melankolic
Mek It Bun (2002) Wrasse
From the Roots: Horace Andy Meets Mad Professor RAS
This World (2005) Attack
Livin' It Up (2007) Medium (with Sly & Robbie)
On Tour (2008) Sanctuary
Two Phazed People (2009) dontTouch (with Alpha)
Serious Times (2010)
WAR is a state of armed and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties[1][2] typified by extreme aggression, societal disruption, and high mortality.[1] As a behavior pattern, warlike tendencies are found in many primate species,[3] including humans, and also found in many ant species.[4][5][6] The set of techniques used by a group to carry out war is known as warfare. An absence of war is usually called peace.
War generally involves two or more organized groups or parties. Such a conflict is always an attempt at altering either the psychological or material hierarchy of domination or equality between such groups. In all cases, at least one participant (group) in the conflict perceives the need to either psychologically or materially dominate the other participant.
In all wars, the group(s) experiencing the need to dominate other group(s) are unable and unwilling to accept or permit the possibility of a relationship of fundamental equality to exist between the groups who have opted for group violence (war). The aspect of domination that is a precipitating factor in all wars, i.e. one group wishing to dominate another, is also often a precipitating factor in individual one-on-one violence outside of the context of war, i.e. one individual wishing to dominate another.[7]
In 2003, Nobel Laureate Richard E. Smalley identified war as the sixth (of ten) biggest problems facing the society of mankind for the next fifty years.[8] In the 1832 book "On War", by Prussian military general and theoretician Carl Von Clausewitz, the author refers to war as the "continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means."[9] War is an interaction in which two or more opposing forces have a “struggle of wills”.[10] The term is also used as a metaphor for non-military conflict, such as class war.
War is a seemingly inescapable and integral aspect of human culture. Its practice is not linked to any single type of political organization or society. Rather, as discussed by John Keegan in his History Of Warfare, war is a universal phenomenon whose form and scope is defined by the society that wages it.[11] The conduct of war extends along a continuum, from the almost universal primitive endemic warfare that began well before recorded human history, to advanced nuclear warfare between global alliances, with the recently developed ultimate potential for human extinction.From late Old English (c.1050), wyrre, werre, from Old North French werre "war" (Fr. guerre), from Frankish *werra, from Proto-Germanic *werso (Compare with Old Saxon werran, Old high German werran, German verwirren "to confuse, perplex.") Cognates suggest the original sense was "to bring into confusion."[12]. It is also possible that the term is also related with Old-Greec word Barbaros, Old-Persian Varhara and Sanscrit Varvar/Barbara.
There was no common modern huththige puthala Germanic word for "war" at the dawn of historical times. Spanish, Portuguese, Italian guerra are from the same source; Romanic peoples turned to Germanic for a word to avoid Latin "bellum" because its form tended to merge with bello- "beautiful."[13]
In an organized military sense, a group of combatants and their support is called an army on land, a navy at sea, and an air force in the air. Wars may be conducted simultaneously in one or more different theaters. Within each theater, there may be one or more consecutive military campaigns. A military campaign includes not only fighting but also intelligence, troop movements, supplies, propaganda, and other components. A period of continuous intense conflict is traditionally called a battle, although this terminology is not always applied to conflicts involving aircraft, missiles or bombs alone, in the absence of ground troops or naval forces. Also many other actions may be undertaken by military forces during a war, this could include weapons research, prison internment, assassination, occupation, and in some cases genocide may occur.
A civil war is a war between factions of citizens of one country (such as in the English Civil War), or else a dispute between two nations that were created out of one formerly-united country. A proxy war is a war that results when two powers use third parties as substitutes for fighting each other directlyBefore the dawn of civilization, war likely consisted of small-scale raiding. One half of the people found in a Nubian cemetery dating to as early as 12,000 years ago had died of violence.[14] Since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago,[15] military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare. According to Conway W. Henderson, "One source claims 14,500 wars have taken place between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, costing 3.5 billion lives, leaving only 300 years of peace (Beer 1981: 20)."[16]
In War Before Civilization, Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor at the University of Illinois, says that approximately 90–95% of known societies throughout history engaged in at least occasional warfare,[17] and many fought constantly.[18] For instance, between 1801 and 1840, Māoris engaged in 633 recorded intertribal battles.[19]
According to William D. Rubinstein, "Pre-literate societies, even those organised in a relatively advanced way, were renowned for their studied cruelty....in 1826 Shaka and an army of 50,000 literally destroyed the Ndwandwe, a rival tribe. This report stated that the Ndwandwe numbered at least 40,000: 'they were all put to death'".[20] Historically, more than a third of the Yanomamö males, on average, died from warfare.[21] American anthropologist Chagnon claimed that men who participated in killings had more wives and children than those who did not.[22]
In Western Europe, since the late 18th century, more than 150 conflicts and about 600 battles have taken place.[23]
The Human Security Report 2005 documented a significant decline in the number and severity of armed conflicts since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. However, the evidence examined in the 2008 edition of the Center for International Development and Conflict Management's "Peace and Conflict" study indicated that the overall decline in conflicts had stalled.[24]
Recent rapid increases in the technologies of war, and therefore in its destructiveness (see Mutual assured destruction), have caused widespread public concern, and have in all probability forestalled, and may hopefully altogether prevent the outbreak of a nuclear World War III. At the end of each of the last two World Wars, concerted and popular efforts were made to come to a greater understanding of the underlying dynamics of war and to thereby hopefully reduce or even eliminate it all together. These efforts materialized in the forms of the League of Nations, and its successor, the United Nations.
Shortly after World War II, as a token of support for this concept, most nations joined the United Nations. During this same post-war period, with the aim of further delegitimizing war as an acceptable and logical extension of foreign policy[citation needed], most national governments also renamed their Ministries or Departments of War as their Ministries or Departments of Defense, for example, the former US Department of War was renamed as the US Department of Defense .
In 1947, in view of the rapidly increasingly destructive consequences of modern warfare, and with a particular concern for the consequences and costs of the newly developed atom bomb, the initial developer of the concept of this bomb, Albert Einstein famously stated, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."[25] Fortunately, the anticipated costs of a possible third world war are currently no longer deemed as acceptable by most, thus little motivation currently seems to exist on an international level for such a war.
Still since the close of World War II, limited non-nuclear conflicts continue, and surprisingly enough, some outspoken celebrities and politicians have even advocated for the proclamation of another world war.[26] Mao Zedong urged the socialist camp not to fear nuclear war with the United States since, even if 'half of mankind died, the other half would remain while imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist'Motivations
World War I, sequences from Romania
Motivations for war may be different for those ordering the war than for those undertaking the war. For a state to prosecute a war it must have the support of its leadership, its military forces, and its people. For example, in the Third Punic War, Rome's leaders may have wished to make war with Carthage for the purpose of eliminating a resurgent rival, while the individual soldiers may have been motivated by a wish to make money. Since many people are involved, a war may acquire a life of its own from the confluence of many different motivations.
The Jewish Talmud describes in the BeReshit Rabbah commentary on the fight between Cain and Abel (Parashot BeReshit XXII:7) that there are three universal reasons for wars: A) Economic, B) Ideological/religious, and C) Power/pride/love (personal).[28]
In Why Nations Go to War, by John G. Stoessinger, the author points out that both sides will claim that morality justifies their fight. He also states that the rationale for beginning a war depends on an overly optimistic assessment of the outcome of hostilities (casualties and costs), and on misperceptions of the enemy's intentions.
As the strategic and tactical aspects of warfare are always changing, theories and doctrines relating to warfare are often reformulated before, during, and after every major war. Carl Von Clausewitz said, 'Every age had its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions, and its own peculiar preconceptions.'.[29] The one constant factor is war’s employment of organized violence and the resultant destruction of property and/ or lives that necessarily follows.Marxist theories
The Marxist theory of war is quasi-economic in that it states that all modern wars are caused by competition for resources and markets between great (imperialist) powers, claiming these wars are a natural result of the free market and class system. Part of the theory is that war will only disappear once a world revolution, over-throwing free markets and class systems, has occurred. German Communist Rosa Luxembourg theorized that imperialism was the result of capitalist countries needing new markets. Expansion of the means of production is only possible if there is a corresponding growth in consumer demand. Since the workers in a capitalist economy would be unable to fill the demand, producers must expand into non-capitalist markets to find consumers for their goods, hence driving imperialism.[30]
[edit]Evolutionary psychology
A distinct branch of the psychological theories of war are the arguments based on evolutionary psychology. This school tends to see war as an extension of animal behavior, such as territoriality and competition. Animals are naturally aggressive, and in humans this aggression manifests itself as warfare. However, while war has a natural cause, the development of technology has accelerated human destructiveness to a level that is irrational and damaging to the species. The earliest advocate of this theory was Konrad Lorenz.[31]
Biologists studying primate behavior have also added to the debate. Jane Goodall in 1974 documented what she called a war between groups of chimpanzees in the Gombe National Park of Tanzania.[32]
BBC narrator Sir David Attenborough mentioned a 'raid into the territory of their neighbors' by a group of Chimps in the series Planet Earth.[33]
These theories have been criticized by scholars such as John G. Kennedy, who argue that the organized, sustained war of humans differs more than just technologically from the territorial fights between non-human animals. Ashley Montagu strongly denies such universalistic instinctual arguments, pointing out that social factors and childhood socialization are important in determining the nature and presence of warfare. Thus while human aggression may be a universal occurrence, warfare is not, and would appear to have been a historical invention, associated with certain types of human societies.[34]
[edit]Behavioral theories
Some psychologists such as E.F.M. Durban and John Bowlby have argued that human beings are inherently violent.[35] This aggressiveness is fueled by displacement and projection where a person transfers their grievances into bias and hatred against other races, religions, nations or ideologies. By this theory the nation state preserves order in the local society while creating an outlet for aggression through warfare. If war is innate to human nature, as is presupposed and predetermined by many psychological theories, then there is little hope of ever escaping it[citation needed].
The Italian psychoanalyst Franco Fornari, a follower of Melanie Klein, thought that war was the paranoid or projective “elaboration” of mourning.[36] Fornari thought that war and violence develop out of our “love need”: our wish to preserve and defend the sacred object to which we are attached, namely our early mother and our fusion with her. For the adult, nations are the sacred objects that generate warfare. Fornari focused upon sacrifice as the essence of war: the astonishing willingness of human beings to die for their country, to give over their bodies to their nation.
While these theories may have some general explanatory value about why war exists, they do not explain when or how they occur. Nor do they explain the existence of certain human cultures completely devoid of war.[37] If the innate psychology of the human mind is unchanging, these variations are inconsistent. A solution adapted to this problem by certain thinkers such as the psychologist, Franz Alexander is that peace does not really exist. Periods that are seen as peaceful are actually periods of preparation for a later war or when war is suppressed by a state of great power, such as the Pax Britannica.[38]
An additional problem with theories that rest on the will of the general population, is that in history only a tiny fraction of wars have originated from a desire for war from the general populace.[39] Far more often the general population has been reluctantly drawn into war by its rulers. One psychological theory that looks at the leaders is advanced by Maurice Walsh.[40] He argues that the general populace is more neutral towards war and that wars only occur when leaders with a psychologically abnormal disregard for human life are placed into power. War is caused by leaders that seek war such as Napoleon and Hitler. Such leaders most often come to power in times of crisis when the populace opts for a decisive leader, who then leads the nation to war.
[edit]Demographic theories
Gari Melchers, Mural of War, 1896.
Demographic theories can be grouped into two classes, Malthusian theories and youth bulge theories.
The pan is a chromatically pitched percussion instrument (although some toy or novelty steelpans are tuned diatonically), made from 55 gallon drums that usually store oil. In fact, drum refers to the steel drum containers from which the pans are made; the steeldrum is correctly called a steel pan or pan as it falls into the idiophone family of instruments, and is not technically regarded as a drum or membranophone. The pan is struck by a pair of straight sticks tipped with rubber; the size and type of rubber tip is unique to the class of pan being played. Some musicians use four pansticks, holding two in each hand. This skill and performance has been conclusively shown to have grown out of Trinidad and Tobago's early 20th century Carnival percussion groups known as Tamboo Bamboo. The pan is the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago. Since Pythagoras calculated the formula for the musical cycle of fourths and fifths, Steel Pans are the only instruments made to follow this configuration.Drumming was used as a form of communication among the enslaved Africans and was subsequently outlawed by the British colonial government in 1783. African slaves also performed during Mardi Gras celebrations, joining the French that had brought the tradition to the island. The two most important influences were the drumming traditions of both Africa and India. The instrument's invention was therefore a specific cultural response to the conditions present on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago.
The first instruments developed in the evolution of steelpan were Tamboo-Bamboos, tunable sticks made of bamboo wood. These were hit onto the ground and with other sticks in order to produce sound. Tamboo-Bamboo bands also included percussion of a (gin) bottle and spoon. By the mid-1930s, bits of metal percussion were being used in the tamboo bamboo bands, the first probably being either the automobile brake hub "iron" or the biscuit drum "boom". The former replaced the gin bottle-and-spoon, and the latter the "bass" bamboo that was pounded on the ground. By the late 1930s their occasional all-steel bands were seen at Carnival and by 1940 it had become the preferred Carnival accompaniment of young underprivileged men. The 55-gallon oil drum was used to make lead steelpans from around 1947. The Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra (TASPO), formed to attend the Festival of Britain in 1951, was the first steelband whose instruments were all made from oil drums. Members of TASPO included Ellie Mannette and Winston "Spree" Simon. Hugh Borde also led the National Steel Band of Trinidad & Tobago at the Commonwealth Arts Festival in England, as well as the Esso Tripoli Steel Band, who played at the World’s Fair in Montreal, Canada, and later toured with Liberace and were also featured on an album with him.Construction
Steelpans are built using sheet metal with a thickness between 0.8 mm and 1.5 mm. Traditionally, steelpans have been built from used oil barrels. Nowadays, many instrument makers do not rely on used steel containers and get the resonance bodies manufactured according to their preferences and technical specifications. In a first step, the sheet metal is stretched into a bowl-like shape (this is commonly known as 'sinking'). This process is usually done with several hammers, manually or with the help of air pressure. The note pattern is then marked onto the surface, and the notes of different sizes are shaped and molded into the surface. After the tempering, the notes have to be softened and tuned (initial tuning). The softening is part of this initial tuning process. The technician will use the best possible tuning device to correctly tune the steelpan's playing areas to the desired pitch. Often they will use an electronic tuner called a Strobe tuner to assist the tuning of the steelpan.
The note's size corresponds to the pitch—the larger the oval, the lower the tone. The size of the instrument varies from one pan to another. It may have almost all of the "skirt" (the cylindrical part of the oil drum) cut off and around 30 soprano-range notes. It may use the entire drum with only three bass notes per pan, in which case one person may play six such pans. The length of the skirt generally corresponds to the tessitura (high or low range) of the drum. The pans are usually either painted or chromed. Other processes such as nickel plating, powdercoating or hardening can also be applied as a finish.
Despite being a relatively new member of the percussion family, steelpan tuning techniques have advanced rapidly. Because of the short "voice" of the pan, needle/LED display type tuners cannot track the signal to identify a tone. Strobe tuners are real-time tuners, ideally suited for the task. The need to see the first few overtones further makes a strobe tuner a necessity for steelpan tuning. Steelpan makers have used strobe tuners since it was discovered that, by adjusting the overtones (1st (fundamental), 2nd and third partial), the pan's sound seemed to sparkle in a way that it did not previously.
There are several ways in which a steelpan may become out of tune (most commonly this is caused by playing the steelpan with excessive force and incorrect handling) and it is quite common that steelbands arrange to have their instruments tuned once or twice a year. A tuner must have great skill in his/her work to manage to make the notes sound both good and at the correct pitch. Much of the tuning work is performed using hammers.Evolution and developments
Anthony Williams designed the "Fourths and Fifths" arrangement of notes, known as the cycle of fifths. This has become the standard form of note placement for lead pans. Other important developments include the tuning of harmonic overtones in individual notes, developed simultaneously and independently by Bertie Marshall and Alan Gervais.[citation needed]
The Caribbean Research Institute CARIRI investigated possibilities to mass produce raw forms with the use of pressing machines in the 1970s. Much of this project took place in Sweden in collaboration with the Saab Company. Although first results were promising, the project has been abandoned due to lack of finances and support by local pan tuners in Trinidad. Another method of shaping the pan was attempted: by spinning. The pan was spun on a lathe-like device, and a roller on the end of a bar was used to sink the pan. While this did create pre sunk pans, a problem was that there would often be scratches and grooves in the steel.
Since the steel is stretched pretty thin, any scratch will expand and can crack. Often drums have lettering stamped into the bottom. If done carefully, these can sometimes be stretched without breaking, but cracks around lettering on some drums is common. To avoid this problem, makers position the inner notes to avoid most of the letters. Brazing over the holes and grinding, will often fix the problems, without damaging the sound, but it has to be done nearly at the end of the sinking process, and well before any final shaping.
A Swiss steel pan manufacturer (PANArt) researched the field of fine-grain sheet steel and developed a deep drawn raw form which was additionally hardened by nitriding. This process, and the instruments they called Pang, were presented at the International Conference of Steel pan and Science in Port-of-Spain in 2000.
Electronic steel pans have also been developed. One such version is the e-pan, invented by Salmon Cupid. Another is the Percussive Harmonic Instrument (PHI), which is patented in international domains.The repertoire of the steelband is extensive. Steelbands in Trinidad have a tradition of re-interpreting the current year's calypsos for Carnival performance; rarely will a calypso from a previous year be heard at Carnival or Panorama. Bands that perform all year round (both in Trinidad and in the so-called 'pan diaspora') have long prided themselves on being able to perform many types of music, particularly Latin and jazz numbers, film music and other popular tunes. Pan-men also have a tradition of performing classical music on pan which dates back to 1946, both in calypso tempo (known as "The Bomb") and straight (generally in concert or music festival contexts). In these contexts, accuracy and faithfulness to the original are highly prized. While many American and British audiences demand to hear Harry Belafonte songs on pan, these are generally inauthentic to the Trinidadian tradition.
For many years now there have been attempts to use the steelpan in various contexts other than those with which it is stereotypically associated. The first known use of steelband in a theatrical performance (outside of Trinidad and Tobago) was in Harold Arlen's 1954 Broadway musical The House of Flowers, in which Enid Mosier's Trinidad Steel Band performed in several songs. British composer Daphne Oram was the first composer to electronically manipulate the sound of the steelpan after recording a band (probably Russell Henderson's Steelband) in 1960. The first use of pan in a commercial pop record was by The Hollies in 1967 with "Carrie Anne".[15]
An international festival, the World Steelband Music Festival, has been held intermittently in Trinidad since 1964, where steelbands perform in a concert-style ambiance a test piece (sometimes specially composed, or a selected calypso) a piece of choice (very often a "classic" or European art-music work) and calypso of choice. Panorama, the largest steelband contest in the world, occurs during Carnival celebrations in Trinidad.
Steelpans have recently been introduced to the genre of Jazz Fusion by players such as Othello Molineaux in the 1980's and Jonathan Scales in the 2000's. The sound of the steelpans adds a pleasant and accessible sound to an otherwise complex musical style.
Instrument Pitch Inventor
Soprano, Lead, or Tenor Soprano Winston "Spree" Simon
Double Tenor Mezzosoprano Bertie Marshall
Double Second Alto Sonny Roach
Double Guitar Baritone Joshua Francis
Quadrophonic (four pans) Baritone Rudolph Charles
Triple Guitar Baritone
Cello Baritone
Six Pan Baritone
Tenor Bass Bass Nadia Ramlochan and the Faheezy Band
Six Bass Bass
Nine Bass Bass Rudolph Charles
Twelve Bass Bass Rudolph Charles
Nyabinghi drumming is a style of ritual drumming performed as a communal meditative practice in the Rastafarian religion in Jamaica. Like many facets of Rastafarianism, it takes its name from an Eastern African root; in this case, the name of a goddess, and also the cult that worshiped her. A strict sect of Rastafarianism took the name Nyabinghi, and the name of the drumming style came from that, though not all Nyabinghi drummers are members of the Nyabinghi sect.
Nyabinghi drumming is performed on three main drums, the bass (the lowest drum), the funde (a middle-pitched drum), and the akete (the highest-pitched drum). The bass strikes the first and third beats, the funde plays a one-two beat, and the akete plays syncopated, improvised rhythms, generally with multiple drummers playing "conversationally" between themselves. These rhythms match up with the basic rhythms of ska and reggae music, and not by coincidence - early ska visionaries, such as The Skatalites, were influenced by the sounds of nyabinghi drumming.
Pronunciation: NYE-uh-BIN-gee (with a hard "g")
Alternate Spellings: nyabingi, nyahbingi
The gospel revival and doo-wop merged into the great season of soul music. Soul music was enabled by the commercial boom of "race" music, that had led to the creation of channels and infrastructures run by black enterpreneurs for black artists. This class of black enterpreneurs hired and trained a generation of session musicians, producers and arrangers (not to mention songwriters) who were specifically meant to serve the needs of black music.
Sould music was also enabled by an unstoppable trend towards black and white integration, as more and more white folks accepted the idea that black culture was not evil or degrading, simply different (African instead of European). The sociopolitical inroads made by jazz also helped legitimize black pop music with the white masses.
Soul music was also, indirectly, helped by rock music, precisely because rock music made white pop music sound so obsolete. Rock music buried white pop music but did not quite offer an alternative. On the other hand, rock music legitimized black pop music (rock music was basically a white version of rhythm'n'blues), and black pop music did offer an anternative to the Italian crooners and the likes.
As the civil rights movement staged bigger and bigger demonstrations and increased African-American pride, soul music became more than party music for young blacks: it became a rallying flag for the black nationalist movement. While never truly political in nature, soul music's ascent in the pop charts came to represent one of the first (and most visible) successes of the civil-rights movement.
Soul music was born thanks to the innovations of a generation of post-war musicians who, essentially, turned gospel music into a secular form of art.
Los Angeles-based vocalist (inspired by Charles Brown and therefore Nat King Cole) and pianist Ray Charles Robinson, soon to become the most famous blind person in America, succeeded by setting mundane lyrics to gospel tunes, famously in I Got A Woman (1955), and coined a hybrid blues-jazz-gospel group sound with the lengthy What'd I Say (1959), before turning into one of the first crossover black artists with Hoagy Carmichael's Georgia On My Mind (1960), Percy Mayfield's Hit The Road Jack (1961), Don Gibson's I Can't Stop Loving You (1962), Fred Rose's Take These Chains From My Heart (1963), an ideological turn illustrated by the best-selling album Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music (1962).
Georgia's vocalist James Brown and his band (featuring Jimmy Nolen on guitar, the inventor of the 16-note strumming style that defined funk music once and for all, Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis on alto sax, Maceo Parker on tenor sax, Fred Wesley on trombone, and, in the 1970s, William "Bootsy" Collins on bass), clarified the relation between sexual lust and religious fervor via Please Please Please (1956), Try Me (1958) and I'll Go Crazy (1960). It took several years for the rest of soul music to catch up with his intuition, but eventually his monotonous and anti-virtuoso style created a new kind of music. Brown coined a frenzied style of choppy rhythms and jazzy horns, coupled with stage histrionics and a grotesquely choreographed show, first documented on Live At The Apollo (1962). At the same time, his visceral falsetto shrieks amid guttural lascivious wails (and lyrics full of sexual innuendos) invented a new narrative form. With Out Of Sight (1964), Papa's Got A Brand New Bag (1965), I Got You (1965) and Cold Sweat (1967), Brown coined a purely-percussive style of soul, the predecessor of "funk". and associated himself with black nationalism starting with Say It Aloud I'm Black and Proud (1968). The novelties Give It Up (1969), Mother Popcorn (1969) and Superbad (1970) further streamlined the idea and led to the quintessential Brown-ian funk songs, Sex Machine (1970), with Bootsy Collins on bass (and a piano figure that virtually invented house-music), and King Heroin (1972). The deadly combination of psychotic falsetto, metallic guitar strumming, fractured bass lines, noisy horn section and pulsing polyrhythm was dance-music to the square.
Chicago-raised Sam Cooke, who had already contributed Be With Me Jesus (1955) and Touch the Hem Of His Garment (1956) to the Soul Stirrers, used his crisp melismatic tenor to deliver Bumps Blackwell's You Send Me (1957), one of the biggest hits of the era, and some of the most imitated ballads of the pop-soul genre: Lou Adler's Only Sixteen (1959), Lou Adler's Wonderful World (1960), and then, after producers Hugo (Peretti) & Luigi (Creatore) adopted him, Twistin' The Night Away (1961), Cupid (1961), Bring It On Home To Me (1962), Another Saturday Night (1963), the prophetic A Change Is Gonna Come (1964).
Detroit-born Jackie Wilson, McPhatter's substitute in the Dominoes and perhaps the greatest vocal gymnast of the era, benefited from three Berry Gordy compositions, Reet Petite (1957), To Be Loved (1958) and especially Lonely Teardrops (1958), that formed the model for lavishly arranged melodramatic ballads exuding his sexual charisma such as A Woman A Lover A Friend (1960), Doggin' Around (1960), Baby Workout (1963) and the acrobatic, multi-octave Danny Boy (1965).
Brown and Charles (the two sound stylists) were raised in the South, whereas Cooke and Wilson (the two vocal virtuosi) were fully urban.
Another of the soul pioneers, Detroit-based vocalist "Little Willie John" Woods introduced the quavering gospel falsetto (that James Brown learned from him). The melancholy of Need Your Love So Bad (1956), perhaps his most intense performance, and Sufferin' With The Blues (1956) established the quintessential soul mood, while his versions of Otis Blackwell's Fever (1956) and of Titus Turner's All Around The World (1958) created an even more passionate style of singing.
The Slave Years Frederick Baily was born a slave in February 1818 on Holmes Hill Farm, near the town of Easton on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The farm was part of an estate owned by Aaron Anthony, who also managed the plantations of Edward Lloyd V, one of the wealthiest men in Maryland. The main Lloyd Plantation was near the eastern side of Chesapeake Bay, 12 miles from Holmes Hill Farm, in a home Anthony had built near the Lloyd mansion, was where Frederick's first master lived.
Frederick's mother, Harriet Baily, worked the cornfields surrounding Holmes Hill. He knew little of his father except that the man was white. As a child, he had heard rumors that the master, Aaron Anthony, had sired him. Because Harriet Baily was required to work long hours in the fields, Frederick had been sent to live with his grandmother, Betsey Baily. Betsy Baily lived in a cabin a short distance from Holmes Hill Farm. Her job was to look after Harriet's children until they were old enough to work. Frederick's mother visited him when she could, but he had only a hazy memory of her. He spent his childhood playing in the woods near his grandmother's cabin. He did not think of himself as a slave during these years. Only gradually did Frederick learn about a person his grandmother would refer to as Old Master and when she spoke of Old Master it was with certain fear.
At age 6, Frederick's grandmother had told him that they were taking a long journey. They set out westward, with Frederick clinging to his grandmother's skirt with fear and uncertainty They had approached a large elegant home, the Lloyd Plantation, where several children were playing on the grounds. Betsy Baily had pointed out 3 children which were his brother Perry, and his sisters Sara and Eliza. His grandmother had told him to join his siblings and he did so reluctantly. After a while one of the children yelled out to Frederick that his grandmother was gone. Frederick fell to the ground and wept, he was about to learn the harsh realities of the slave system.
The slave children of Aaron Anthony's were fed cornmeal mush that was placed in a trough, to which they were called. Frederick later wrote "like so many pigs." The children made homemade spoons from oyster shells to eat with and competed with each other for every last bite of food. The only clothing that they were provided with was one linen shirt which hung to their knees. The children were provided no beds or warm blankets. On cold winter nights they would huddle together in the kitchen of the Anthony house to keep each other warm.
One night Frederick was awakened by a woman's screams. He peered through a crack in the wall of the kitchen only to see Aaron Anthony lashing the bare back of a woman, who was his aunt, Hester Baily. Frederick was terrified, but forced himself to watch the entire ordeal. This would not be the first whipping he would see, occasionally he himself would be the victim. He would learn that Aaron Anthony would brutally beat his slaves if they did not obey orders quickly enough.
Frederick's mother was rarely able to visit her children due to the distance between Holmes Hill Farm and the Lloyd plantation. Frederick last saw his mother when he was seven years old. He remembered his mother giving a severe scolding to the household cook who disliked Frederick and gave him very little food. A few months after this visit, Harriet Baily died, but Frederick did not learn of this until much later.
Because Frederick had a natural charm that many people found engaging, he was chosen to be the companion of Daniel Lloyd, the youngest son of the plantation's owner. Frederick's chief friend and protector was Lucretia Auld, Aaron Anthony's daughter, who was recently married to a ship's captain named Thomas Auld. One day in 1826 Lucretia told Frederick that he was being sent to live with her brother-in-law, Hugh Auld, who managed a ship building firm in Baltimore, Maryland. She told him that if he scrubbed himself clean, she would give him a pair of pants to wear to Baltimore. Frederick was elated at this chance to escape the life of a field hand. He cleaned himself up and received his first pair of pants. Within three days he was on his way to Baltimore.
Upon Frederick's arrival at the Auld Home, his only duties were to run errands and care for the Auld's infant son, Tommy. Frederick enjoyed the work and grew to love the child. Sophia Auld was a religious woman and frequently read aloud from the Bible. Frederick asked his mistress to teach him to read and she readily consented. He soon learned the alphabet and a few simple words. Sophia Auld was very excited about Fredericks progress and told her husband what she had done. Hugh Auld became furious at this because it was unlawful to teach a slave to read. Hugh Auld believed that if a slave knew how to read and write that it would make him unfit for a slave. A slave that could read and write would no longer obey his master without question or thought, or even worse could forge papers that said he was free and thus escape to a northern state where slavery was outlawed. Hugh Auld then instructed Sophia to stop the lessons at once!
Frederick learned from Hugh Auld's outburst that if learning how to read and write was his pathway to freedom, then gaining this knowledge was to become his goal. Frederick gained command of the alphabet on his own and made friends with poor white children he met on errands and used them as teachers. He paid for his reading lessons with pieces of bread. At home Frederick read parts of books and newspapers when he could, but he had to constantly be on guard against his mistress. Sophia Auld screamed whenever she caught Frederick reading. Sophia Auld's attitude toward Frederick had changed, she no longer regarded him as any other child, but as a piece of property. However, Frederick gradually learned to read and write. With a little money he had earned doing errands, he bought a copy of The Columbian Orator, a collection of speeches and essays dealing with liberty, democracy, and courage.
Frederick was greatly affected by the speeches on freedom in The Columbian Orator, and so began reading local newspapers and began to learn about abolitionists. Not quite 13 years old but enlightened with new ideas that both tormented and inspired him. Frederick began to detest slavery. His dreams of emancipation were encouraged by the example of other blacks in Baltimore, most of whom were free. But new laws passed by southern state legislators made it increasingly difficult for owners to free their slaves.
During this time, Aaron Anthony died, and his property went to his two sons and his daughter, Lucretia Auld. Frederick remained a part of the Anthony estate and was sent back to the Lloyd plantation to be a part of the division of property. Frederick was chosen by Thomas and Lucretia Auld and was sent back to Hugh and Sophia Auld in Baltimore. Seeing his family being devided up increased his hatred of slavery, however, he was hurt the most that his grandmother, considered too old for any work, was evicted from her cabin and sent into the woods to die. Within a year of Frederick's return to Baltimore, Lucretia Auld died. The two Auld brothers then got into a dispute, and Thomas wrote to Hugh and demanded the return of his late wife's property, which included Frederick.
Frederick was sorry to leave Baltimore because he had recently become a teacher to a group of other young blacks. In addition, a black preacher named Charles Lawson had taken Frederick under his wing and adopted him as his spiritual son. In March of 1833, the 15 year old Frederick was sent to live at Thomas Auld's new farm near the town of Saint Michaels, a few miles from the Lloyd plantation.
Frederick was again put to work as a field hand and was extremely unhappy about his situation. Thomas Auld starved his slaves, and they had to steal food from neighboring farms to survive. Frederick received many beatings and saw worse ones given to others. He then organized a Sunday religious service for the slaves which met in near by Saint Michaels. The services were soon stopped by a mob led by Thomas Auld. Thomas Auld had found Frederick especially difficult to control so he decided to have someone tame his unruly slave.
In January 1834, Frederick was sent to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had gained a reputation around Saint Michaels for being and expert "slave breaker". Frederick was not too displeased with this arrangement because Covey fed his slaves better than Auld did. The slaves on Covey's farm worked from dawn until after nightfall, plowing, hoeing, and picking corn. Although the men were given plenty of food, they had very little time allotted to eat before they were sent back to work. Covey hid in bushes and spied on the slaves as they worked, if he caught one of them resting he would beat him with thick branches.
After being on the farm for one week, Frederick was given a serious beating for letting an oxen team run wild. During the months to follow, he was continually whipped until he began to feel that he was "broken". On one hot August afternoon his strength failed him and he collapsed in the field. Covey kicked and beat Frederick to no avail and finally walked away in disgust. Frederick mustered the strength to get up and walk to the Auld farm, where he pleaded with his master to let him stay. Auld had little sympathy for him and sent him back to Covey. Beaten down as Frederick was, he found the strength to rebel when Covey began tying him to a post in preparation for a whipping. "At that moment - from whence came the spirit I don't know - I resolved to fight," Frederick wrote. "I seized Covey hard by the throat, and as I did so, I rose." Covey and Frederick fought for almost two hours until Covey finally gave up telling Frederick that his beating would have been less severe had he not resisted. "The truth was," said Frederick, "that he had not whipped me at all." Frederick had discovered an important truth: "Men are whipped oftenist who are whipped easiest." He was lucky, legally, a slave could be killed for resisting his master. But Covey had a reputation to protect and did not want it known that he could not control a 16 year old boy.
After working for Covey for a year, Frederick was sent to work for a farmer named William Freeland, who was a relatively kind master. But by now, Frederick did not care about having a kind master. All Frederick wanted was his freedom. He started an illegal school for blacks in the area that secretly met at night and on Sundays, and with five other slaves he began to plan his escape to the North. A year had passed since Frederick began working for William Freeland and his plan of escape had been completed. His group planned to steal a boat, row to the northern tip of Chesapeake Bay, and then flee on foot to the free state of Pennsylvania. The escape was supposed to take place just before the Easter holiday in 1836, but one of Frederick's associates had exposed the plot and a group of armed white men captured the slaves and put them in jail.
Frederick was in jail for about a week. While imprisoned, he was inspected by slave traders, and he fully expected that he would be sold to "a life of living death" in the Deep South. To his surprise, Thomas Auld came and released him. Then Frederick's master sent him back to Hugh Auld in Baltimore. The two brothers had finally settled their dispute. Frederick was now 18 years old, 6 feet tall and very strong from his work in the fields. Hugh Auld decided that Frederick should work as a caulker (a man who forced sealing matter into the seams in a boat's hull to make it water tight) to earn his keep. He was hired out to a local shipbuilder so that he could learn the trade. While apprenticing at the shipyard, Frederick was harassed by white workers who did not want blacks, slaves or free, competing with them for jobs. One afternoon, a group of white apprentices beat up Frederick and nearly took out one of his eyes. Hugh Auld was angry when he saw what had happened and attempted to press charges against the assailants. However, none of the shipyard's white employees would step forward to testify about the beating. Free blacks had little hope of obtaining justice through the southern court system, which refused to accept a black person's testimony against a white person. Therefore, the case had to be dropped.
After Frederick recovered from his injuries, he began apprenticing at the shipyard where Hugh Auld worked. Within a year, he was an experienced caulker and was being paid the highest wages possible for a tradesman at his level. He was allowed to seek his own employment and collect his own pay, and at the end of each week he gave all his earnings to Hugh Auld. Sometimes he was allowed to keep a little money for himself. But as time passed, he became resentful of having to give up his hard earned pay.
In Frederick's spare time he met with a group of educated free blacks and indulged in the luxury of being a student again. Some of the free blacks formed an educational association called the East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society, which Frederick had been admitted to. This is where Frederick learned his debating skills. At one of the society's meetings, Frederick met a free black woman named Anna Murray. Anna was a few years older than Frederick and was a servant for a wealthy Baltimore family. Although Anna was a plain, uneducated woman, Frederick admired her qualities of thriftiness, industriousness and religiousness. Anna and Frederick were soon in love and in 1838 they were engaged.
Love and courtship increased Frederick's discontent with his status. After Frederick's escape attempt, Thomas Auld had promised him that if he worked hard he would be freed when he turned 25. But Frederick did not trust his master, and he resolved to escape. However, escaping would be very difficult due to professional slave catchers patrolling the boarders between slave states and free states, and free blacks traveling by train or steamboat had to carry official papers listing their name, age, height, skin color, and other distinguishing features. In order to escape, Frederick needed money to pay for traveling expenses. Frederick arranged with Hugh Auld to hire out his time, that is, Frederick would take care of his own room and board and pay his master a set amount each week, keeping any extra money for himself. This also gave him the opportunity to see what it was like living on his own.
This arrangement had been working out quite well until Frederick returned home late one night and failed to pay Hugh Auld on time. Auld was furious and revoked his hiring-out privilege. Frederick was so enraged over this that he refused to work for a week. He finally gave in to Auld's threats, but he also made a resolution that in three weeks, on September 3, 1838, he would be on a northbound train. Escaping was a difficult decision for Frederick. He would be leaving his friends and his fairly comfortable life in Baltimore forever. he did not know when and if he would see Anna Murray again. Furthermore, if he was caught during his escape, he was sure that he would be either killed or sold to slave traders. Taking all of this into consideration, Frederick was resolved to escape to freedom.
With money that he borrowed from Anna, Frederick bought a ticket to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He also had a friend's "sailor's protection," a document that certified that the person named on it was a free seaman. Dressed in a sailor's red shirt and black cravat, Frederick boarded the train. Frederick reached northern Maryland before the conductor made it to the "Negro car" to collect tickets and examine papers. Frederick became very tense when the conductor approached him to look at his papers because he did not fit the description on them. But with only a quick glance, the conductor walked on, and the relieved Frederick sank back in his seat. On a couple of occasions, he thought that he had been recognized by other passengers from Baltimore, but if so they did not turn him in to the authorities.
Upon arriving in Wilmington, Delaware, Frederick then boarded a steamboat to Philadelphia. Even after stepping on Pennsylvania's free soil, he knew he was not yet safe from slave catchers. He immediately asked directions to New York City, and that night he took another train north. On September 4, 1838, Frederick arrived in New York City. Frederick could not find the words to express his feelings of leaving behind his life in slavery. He later wrote, "A new world had opened upon me." "Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be depicted, but gladness and joy, like the rainbow,.........The Civil War Years - The Fight For Emancipation
The election year of 1860 produced many candidates. The Democrats had split into factions; those who were proslavery supported Vice President John Breckinridge, while moderates in the North favored the Illinois senator Stephen Douglas. Abraham Lincoln was the candidate of the Republicans, who were opposed to the spread of slavery into new territories. The candidate from the newly formed Constitutional Union Party, Gerrit Smith, was running on a strong antislavery platform.
At first, Douglass campaigned for Smith. However, a few months before the election, Douglass decided that Smith had no chance of winning and chose instead to back Lincoln. The two Democratic candidates received far more votes than anyone else did, but the division in the party gave the presidency to Lincoln. South Carolina, unwilling to accept the results of the election, seceded from the Union in December 1860. Abolitionists became the targets of angry mobs in the North, which blamed them for dividing the nation. Northern attempts to win back the South were to no avail. In February 1861, six more southern states - Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas seceded and established a separate government under the name of the Confederate States of America.
The country waited for Lincoln to respond to the crisis. The president's address in March was disappointing to Douglass because Lincoln promised to uphold the fugitive slave laws and not interfere with slavery in the states where it was already established. His first priority was to restore the Union, not to end slavery. On April 12, 1861, Confederate troops bombarded Fort Sumter, a federal installation in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. The fort surrendered a day later. Lincoln then called for 75,000 troops to be formed and sent to the South to stop the rebellion. Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas immediately joined the Confederacy. The four other slave states - Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky, remained in the Union. The two sides prepared for battle, the North with its 23 states and population of 22 million against the South's 11 states and 9 million people, including 3 and a half million slaves.
The North was fighting to preserve the Union; the South was fighting for the right to secede and establish a nation that guaranteed a person's right to own slaves. For Frederick Douglass and the abolitionists, the war was a battle to end slavery. Douglass's response to the surrender of Fort Sumter was one of thanksgiving. As the Civil War got under way, Douglass marked out two goals for which he would fight: emancipation for all slaves in the Confederacy and the Union border states, and the right of blacks to enlist in the armies of the North. As the war progressed, more and more people in the North would come to agree with these aims. While battles raged throughout the South, Douglass traveled on the lecture circuit, calling for Lincoln to grant slaves their freedom. On April 16, 1862, the president signed a bill outlawing slavery in Washington, D.C., but he was slow to approve congressional measures confiscating slaves in captured areas of the South. Lincoln believed that if he passed laws that emancipated the slaves, the Union's border states might rebel and join the Confederacy.
Douglass continued to insist in his speeches and newspaper editorials that the aim of the war must be to abolish slavery and that blacks must be allowed to join in the battle for their freedom. Battlefield casualties were frighteningly high, and antidraft riots erupted in northern cities. Gradually, as the costly war dragged on, with no final victory in sight for the North, Lincoln began to realize that stronger actions needed to be taken against the Confederacy. In the summer of 1862, Lincoln read to his cabinet a draft of an order that would emancipate slaves in the Confederate states. He decided to issue the proclamation as soon as the North won a major battle. In September, Lincoln got his victory when northern troops pushed back a Confederate army at the bloody battle of Antietam in Maryland. On the night of December 31, 1862, the president issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that as of the next day all slaves in areas not held by Union troops were free. Slavery was not abolished in the border states or in already captured areas of the South. Nevertheless, Lincoln's act freed millions of blacks, who fled from their masters and took "freedom's road" to areas controlled by Union forces.
In Boston on the night that the proclamation was announced, Douglass wrote of the spirit of those who had gathered with him at the telegraph office to witness slavery's death: "We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky...we were watching...by the dim light of the stars for the dawn of a new day...we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries." The crowds cheered. The end of slavery was in sight. Douglass next turned his attention to the struggle of blacks to be allowed to fight for their freedom. In 1863, Congress authorized black enlistment in the Union army. The Massachusetts 54th Regimate was the first black unit to be formed, and the governor of the state asked Douglass to help in the recruitment. Douglass agreed and wrote an editorial that was published in the local newspapers. "Men of Color, to Arms," he urged blacks to "end in a day the bondage of centuries" and to earn their equality and show their patriotism by fighting in the Union cause. His sons Lewis and Charles were among the first to enlist.
Douglass's recruitment speeches promised black soldiers equality in the Union army, unfortunately they were not treated equally. They were paid 1/2 of what the white soldiers received and were given inferior weapons and inadequate training. Blacks were not allowed to become officers. Worst of all, black soldiers who were captured by Confederate troops were often shot. Douglass stopped his recruitment efforts when he learned of these conditions. Douglass published his complaints and then requested to meet with the president. His request was granted in the summer of 1863 and Douglass expressed his concerns about the way black soldiers were being treated by Union officers and Confederate captors. President Lincoln did give Douglass some encouragement that changes might be made in the future. Although Douglass was not entirely satisfied with Lincoln's response, he decided to begin recruiting again. Shortly after the meeting, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton offered Douglass a commission on the staff of General Lorenzo Thomas. Douglass accepted the offer and returned to Rochester, where he published the last issue of his newspaper. He waited at home for notice of his commission as an officer, but it never arrived. Apparently, Stanton decided that Douglass would never be accepted by other officers. Douglass was extremely disappointed that the commission fell through, but he continued his recruiting work. By now, Frederick, Jr., had joined his brothers in the Union lines. More than 200,000 blacks enlisted in the Union army and 38,000 were killed or wounded in Civil War battles. Comprising about 10 percent of the North's troops, the black soldiers made their numbers felt on the battlefields and distinguished themselves in many engagements. By mid 1864, with the help of the spirited black troops, the war was slowly turning in favor of the North.
In 1864, Douglass was becoming concerned about the fate of black Americans once they were all free. Douglass not only wanted liberation of the slaves, he wanted equality for his people as well. In the North, discrimination against black soldiers and civilians continued. In May 1864, with the presidential elections approaching, Douglass attended a convention of abolitionists and antislavery members of the Republican party, who were known as radical Republicans. The delegates nominated the former Free Soil party candidate and Union general John C. Fremont for president. The Democrats selected the popular general George McClellan to run against Lincoln on a Copperhead platform. Copperhead was the derogatory name used to refer to anyone who favored making immediate peace with the South and leaving slaves in bondage. Worried that McClellan might win the election, Douglass and other Fremont supporters decided to back Lincoln.
Douglass and Lincoln had a second meeting in August 1864. The president had begun to doubt that the war could be won, and he was worried that he might have to sign a peace with the Confederacy that would leave slavery intact. Lincoln asked Douglass to draw up plans for leading slaves out of the South in the event that a Union victory seemed impossible. Douglass left the interview convinced that the president was a friend of blacks. The president's policies were hated not only by the South but by many people in the North who had grown tired of war. The evacuation plan that Douglass sent to Lincoln never had to be used. In the summer of 1864, General William T. Sherman and his Union troops left a path of destruction as they marched through the heart of the South. In September, Sherman entered Atlanta, the capital of Georgia, burned the city to the ground and left a path of destruction as he headed on to Savannah. The victories gave the North renewed heart and helped Lincoln win easy reelection in November.
By the end of 1864, the South was hungry and bankrupt. As the Confederate armies retreated before their better-supplied opponents, Douglass took the occasion to visit Maryland and Union - controlled areas of Virginia. He lectured in his old home town of Baltimore. On this trip, he was reunited with his sister Eliza, whom he had not seen in 30 years. He was very proud of his sister, who through her own hard work had managed to buy the freedom of herself and her nine children. Back in the North, Douglass attended Lincoln's second inaugural address. Standing among crowds gathered in the nation's capital, Douglass felt himself to be "a man among men." As though to prick that bubble, government officials refused to allow Douglass or any other black to attend the evening reception in the White House. But when Douglass sent word of this refusal to the president, he was quickly ushered in to the ceremony. Lincoln personally greeted him with the words, "Here comes my friend Douglass."
In the beginning of April, the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, was captured. A few days later, the commander of the Confederate forces, General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to the Union commander, Ulysses S. Grant, at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. On April 9, 1865, the Civil War was over. To the horror of the newly reunited nation, President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, while attending a play at Ford's Theater in Washington on April 14. He died the next day. With the rest of the country, Douglass mourned the man he had grown to respect. No sadness could completely overshadow Douglass's joy at this time, however. A single, glorious fact remained: the war to end slavery had been won.
( Life cycle Human genetics ) Brothas treat your Queen with the love & respect due her b/c there is always a rastaman holding avibes in the cut ready to show you how.
Humans are a eukaryotic species. Each diploid cell has two sets of 23 chromosomes, each set received from one parent. There are 22 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. By present estimates, humans have approximately 20,000–25,000 genes. Like other mammals, humans have an XY sex-determination system, so that females have the sex chromosomes XX and males have XY. The X chromosome carries many genes not on the Y chromosome, which means that recessive diseases associated with X-linked genes, such as haemophilia, affect men more often than women.
Life cycle
A 10 mm human embryo at 5 weeks
The human life cycle is similar to that of other placental mammals. The zygote divides inside the female's uterus to become an embryo, which over a period of thirty-eight weeks (9 months) of gestation becomes a fetus. After this span of time, the fully grown fetus is birthed from the woman's body and breathes independently as an infant for the first time. At this point, most modern cultures recognize the baby as a person entitled to the full protection of the law, though some jurisdictions extend various levels of personhood earlier to human fetuses while they remain in the uterus.
Compared with other species, human childbirth is dangerous. Painful labors lasting twenty-four hours or more are not uncommon and sometimes leads to the death of the mother, or the child.[63] This is because of both the relatively large fetal head circumference (for housing the brain) and the mother's relatively narrow pelvis (a trait required for successful bipedalism, by way of natural selection).[64][65] The chances of a successful labor increased significantly during the 20th century in wealthier countries with the advent of new medical technologies. In contrast, pregnancy and natural childbirth remain hazardous ordeals in developing regions of the world, with maternal death rates approximately 100 times more common than in developed countries.[66]
In developed countries, infants are typically 3–4 kg (6–9 pounds) in weight and 50–60 cm (20–24 inches) in height at birth.[67] However, low birth weight is common in developing countries, and contributes to the high levels of infant mortality in these regions.[68] Helpless at birth, humans continue to grow for some years, typically reaching sexual maturity at 12 to 15 years of age. Females continue to develop physically until around the age of 18, whereas male development continues until around age 21. The human life span can be split into a number of stages: infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood and old age. The lengths of these stages, however, have varied across cultures and time periods. Compared to other primates, humans experience an unusually rapid growth spurt during adolescence, where the body grows 25% in size. Chimpanzees, for example, grow only 14%, with no pronounced spurt.[69] The presence of the growth spurt is probably necessary to keep children physically small until they are psychologically mature. Humans are one of the few species in which females undergo menopause. It has been proposed that menopause increases a woman's overall reproductive success by allowing her to invest more time and resources in her existing offspring and/or their children (the grandmother hypothesis), rather than by continuing to bear children into old age.
There are significant differences in life expectancy around the world. The developed world is generally aging, with the median age around 40 years. In the developing world the median age is between 15 and 20 years. Life expectancy at birth in Hong Kong is 84.8 years for a female and 78.9 for a male, while in Swaziland, primarily because of AIDS, it is 31.3 years for both sexes. While one in five Europeans is 60 years of age or older, only one in twenty Africans is 60 years of age or older.[73] The number of centenarians (humans of age 100 years or older) in the world was estimated by the United Nations at 210,000 in 2002.[74] At least one person, Jeanne Calment, is known to have reached the age of 122 years; higher ages have been claimed but they are not well substantiated. Worldwide, there are 81 men aged 60 or older for every 100 women of that age group, and among the oldest, there are 53 men for every 100 women.
Earth (or the Earth) is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred to as the World, the Blue Planet, or by its Latin name, Terra.
Home to millions of species including humans, Earth is currently the only place where life is known to exist. The planet formed 4.54 billion years ago, and life appeared on its surface within a billion years. Earth's biosphere has significantly altered the atmosphere and other abiotic conditions on the planet, enabling the proliferation of aerobic organisms as well as the formation of the ozone layer which, together with Earth's magnetic field, blocks harmful solar radiation, permitting life on land. The physical properties of the Earth, as well as its geological history and orbit, have allowed life to persist during this period. The planet is expected to continue supporting life for at least another 500 million years.
Earth's outer surface is divided into several rigid segments, or tectonic plates, that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of the surface is covered with salt water oceans, the remainder consisting of continents and islands which together have many lakes and other sources of water contributing to the hydrosphere. Liquid water, necessary for all known life, is not known to exist in equilibrium on any other planet's surface. Earth's poles are mostly covered with solid ice (Antarctic ice sheet) or sea ice (Arctic ice cap). The planet's interior remains active, with a thick layer of relatively solid mantle, a liquid outer core that generates a magnetic field, and a solid iron inner core.
Earth interacts with other objects in space, especially the Sun and the Moon. At present, Earth orbits the Sun once for every roughly 366.26 times it rotates about its axis, which is equal to 365.26 solar days, or one sidereal year. The Earth's axis of rotation is tilted 23.4° away from the perpendicular to its orbital plane, producing seasonal variations on the planet's surface with a period of one tropical year (365.24 solar days). Earth's only known natural satellite, the Moon, which began orbiting it about 4.53 billion years ago, provides ocean tides, stabilizes the axial tilt and gradually slows the planet's rotation. Between approximately 3.8 billion and 4.1 billion years ago, numerous asteroid impacts during the Late Heavy Bombardment caused significant changes to the greater surface environment.
Both the mineral resources of the planet, as well as the products of the biosphere, contribute resources that are used to support a global human population. These inhabitants are grouped into about 200 independent sovereign states, which interact through diplomacy, travel, trade, and military action. Human cultures have developed many views of the planet, including personification as a deity, a belief in a flat Earth or in the Earth as the center of the universe, and a modern perspective of the world as an integrated environment that requires stewardship.
Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. His mother, Louis Norton Little, was a homemaker occupied with the family's eight children. His father, Earl Little, was an outspoken Baptist minister and avid supporter of Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. Earl's civil rights activism prompted death threats from the white supremacist organization Black Legion, forcing the family to relocate twice before Malcolm's fourth birthday. Regardless of the Little's efforts to elude the Legion, in 1929 their Lansing, Michigan home was burned to the ground, and two years later Earl's mutilated body was found lying across the town's trolley tracks. Police ruled both accidents, but the Little's were certain that members of the Black Legion were responsible. Louise had an emotional breakdown several years after the death of her husband and was committed to a mental institution. Her children were split up amongst various foster homes and orphanages.
Malcolm was a smart, focused student and graduated from junior high at the top of his class. However, when a favorite teacher told Malcolm his dream of becoming a lawyer was "no realistic goal for a nigger," Malcolm lost interest in school. He dropped out, spent some time in Boston, Massachusetts working various odd jobs, and then traveled to Harlem, New York where he committed petty crimes. By 1942 Malcolm was coordinating various narcotic, prostitution and gambling rings.
Eventually Malcolm and his buddy, Malcolm "Shorty" Jarvis, moved back to Boston, where they were arrested and convicted on burglary charges in 1946. Malcolm placated himself by using the seven-year prison sentence to further his education. It was during this period of self-enlightenment that Malcolm's brother Reginald visited and discussed his recent conversion to the Muslim religious organization the Nation of Islam. Intrigued, Malcolm studied the teachings of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. Muhammad taught that white society actively worked to keep African-Americans from empowering themselves and achieving political, economic and social success. Among other goals, the Nation of Islam fought for a state of their own, separate from one inhabited by white people. By the time he was paroled in 1952, Malcolm was a devoted follower with the new surname "X." He considered "Little" a slave name and chose the "X" to signify his lost tribal name.
Feb. 18, 1965
Photo by Robert L. HagginsIntelligent and articulate, Malcolm was appointed a minister and national spokesman for the Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad also charged him with establishing new mosques in cities such as Detroit, Michigan and Harlem, New York. Malcolm utilized newspaper columns, radio and television to communicate the Nation of Islam's message across the United States. His charisma, drive and conviction attracted an astounding number of new members. Malcolm was largely credited with increasing membership in the Nation of Islam from 500 in 1952 to 30,000 in 1963.
The crowds and controversy surrounding Malcolm made him a media magnet. He was featured in a week-long television special with Mike Wallace in 1959, The Hate That Hate Produced, that explored fundamentals of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm's emergence as one of its most important leaders. After the special, Malcolm was faced with the uncomfortable reality that his fame had eclipsed that of his mentor Elijah Muhammad.
Racial tensions ran increasingly high during the early 1960s. In addition to the media, Malcolm's vivid personality had captured the government's attention. As membership in the Nation of Islam continued to grow, FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) agents infiltrated the organization (one even acted at Malcolm's bodyguard) and secretly placed bugs, wiretaps and cameras surveillance equipment to monitor the group's activities.
Malcolm's faith was dealt a crushing blow at the height of the civil rights movement in 1963. He learned that Elijah Muhammad was secretly having relations with as many as six women in the Nation of Islam, some of which had resulted in children. Since his conversion Malcolm had strictly adhered to the teachings of Muhammad, including remaining celibate until his marriage to Betty Shabazz in 1958. Malcolm refused Muhammad's request to keep the matter quiet. He was deeply hurt by the deception of Muhammad, whom he had considered a prophet, and felt guilty about the masses he had lead into what he now felt was a fraudulent organization.
Cairo mosque, Sept. 1964
Photo by John Launois/Black Star
When Malcolm received criticism after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy for saying, "[Kennedy] never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon," Muhammad "silenced" him for 90 days. Malcolm suspected he was silenced for another reason. In March 1964 he terminated his relationship with the Nation of Islam and founded the Muslim Mosque, Inc.
That same year, Malcolm went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The trip proved life altering, as Malcolm met "blonde-haired, blued-eyed men I could call my brothers." He returned to the United States with a new outlook on integration. This time, instead of just preaching to African-Americans, he had a message for all races.
Relations between Malcolm and the Nation of Islam had become volatile after he renounced Elijah Muhammad. Informants working in the Nation of Islam warned that Malcolm had been marked for assassination (one man had even been ordered to help plant a bomb in his car). After repeated attempts on his life, Malcolm rarely traveled anywhere without bodyguards. On February 14, 1965 the home where Malcolm, Betty and their four daughters lived in East Elmhurst, New York was firebombed (the family escaped physical injury).
At a speaking engagement in the Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965 three gunmen rushed Malcolm onstage and shot him 15 times at close range. The 39-year-old was pronounced dead on arrival at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Fifteen hundred people attended Malcolm's funeral in Harlem at the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ on February 27, 1965. After the ceremony, friends took the shovels from the gravediggers and buried Malcolm themselves. Later that year, Betty gave birth to their twin daughters.
Malcolm's assassins, Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson were convicted of first-degree murder in March 1966. The three men were all members of the Nation of Islam.
The legacy of Malcolm X has moved through generations as the subject of numerous documentaries, books and movies. A tremendous resurgence of interest occurred in 1992 when director Spike Lee released the acclaimed Malcolm X movie. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Actor (Denzel Washington) and Best Costume Design.
Malcolm X is buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.
Stephen Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977)[1] was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the anti-apartheid movement.[4] While living, his writings and activism attempted to empower black people, and he was famous for his slogan "black is beautiful", which he described as meaning: "man, you are okay as you are, begin to look upon yourself as a human being".[5] Despite friction between the African National Congress and Biko throughout the 1970s[Need quotation to verify] the ANC has included Biko in the pantheon of struggle heroes, going as far as using his image for campaign posters in South Africa's first non-racial elections in 1994.[6]Medical School. Biko was a Xhosa. In addition to Xhosa, he spoke fluent English and fairly fluent Afrikaans.
Apartheid in South Africa
Events and Projects
Sharpeville massacre
Soweto uprising · Treason Trial
Rivonia Trial
Church Street bombing · CODESA
St James Church massacre
Cape Town peace march
Organisations
ANC · IFP · AWB · Black Sash · CCB
Conservative Party · ECC · PP · RP
PFP · HNP · MK · PAC · SACP · UDF
Broederbond · National Party
COSATU · SADF · SAP
People
P. W. Botha · D. F. Malan
Nelson Mandela
Desmond Tutu · F. W. de Klerk
Walter Sisulu · Helen Suzman
Harry Schwarz · Andries Treurnicht
H. F. Verwoerd ·Sheena Duncan
Oliver Tambo
B. J. Vorster · Kaiser Matanzima
Jimmy Kruger · Steve Biko
Mahatma Gandhi · Joe Slovo
Trevor Huddleston · Hector Pieterson
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
Mangosuthu Buthelezi
Places
Bantustan · District Six · Robben Island
Sophiatown · South-West Africa
Soweto · Sun City · Vlakplaas
Other aspects
Afrikaner nationalism
Apartheid laws · Freedom Charter
Sullivan Principles · Kairos Document
Disinvestment campaign
South African Police · Popular culture
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He was initially involved with the multiracial National Union of South African Students, but after he became convinced that Black, Indian and Coloured students needed an organization of their own, he helped found the South African Students' Organisation (SASO), whose agenda included political self-reliance and the unification of university students in a "black consciousness."[7] In 1968 Biko was elected its first president. SASO evolved into the influential Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). Biko was also involved with the World Student Christian Federation.
Biko married Ntsiki Mashalaba in 1970.[8] They had two children together: Nkosinathi, born in 1971, and Samora. He also had two children with Dr Mamphela Ramphele (a prominent activist within the BCM): a daughter, Lerato, born in 1974, who died of pneumonia when she was only two months old, and a son, Hlumelo, who was born in 1978, after Biko's death.[2] Biko also had a daughter with Lorraine Tabane, named Motlatsi, born in May 1977.[citation needed]
In 1972, Biko was expelled from the University of Natal because of his political activities[7] and he became honorary president of the Black People's Convention. He was banned by the apartheid regime in February 1973,[9] meaning that he was not allowed to speak to more than one person at a time nor to speak in public, was restricted to the King William's Town magisterial district, and could not write publicly or speak with the media.[7] It was also forbidden to quote anything he said, including speeches or simple conversations.
When Biko was banned, his movement within the country was restricted to the Eastern Cape, where he was born. After returning there, he formed a number of grassroots organizations based on the notion of self-reliance: Zanempilo, the Zimele Trust Fund (which helped support former political prisoners and their families), Njwaxa Leather-Works Project and the Ginsberg Education Fund.
In spite of the repression of the apartheid government, Biko and the BCM played a significant role in organising the protests which culminated in the Soweto Uprising of 16 June 1976. In the aftermath of the uprising, which was crushed by heavily armed police shooting school children protesting, the authorities began to target Biko further.
Death and aftermath
The Rand Daily Mail story, authored by Zille, that exposed the cover-up of anti-apartheid activist Biko's death in police custody.
On the 18th of August, 1977, Biko was arrested at a police roadblock under the Terrorism Act No 83 of 1967 and interrogated by officers of the Port Elizabeth security police including Harold Snyman and Gideon Nieuwoudt. This interrogation took place in the Police Room 619 (sometimes numbered as 6-1-9). The interrogation lasted twenty-two hours and included torture and beatings resulting in a coma.[7] He suffered a major head injury while in police custody, and was chained to a window grille for a day.
On 11 September 1977, police loaded him in the back of a Land Rover, naked and restrained in manacles, and began the 1100 km drive to Pretoria to take him to a prison with hospital facilities. However, he was nearly dead owing to the previous injuries.[10] He died shortly after arrival at the Pretoria prison, on 12 September. The police claimed his death was the result of an extended hunger strike, but an autopsy revealed multiple bruises and abraisions and that he ultimately succumbed to a brain hemorrhage from the massive injuries to the head,[7] which many saw as strong evidence that he had been brutally clubbed by his captors. Then journalist and now political leader, Helen Zille, along with Donald Woods, another journalist, editor and close friend of Biko's, exposed the truth behind Biko's death.[11]
Because of his high profile, news of Biko's death spread quickly, opening many eyes around the world to the brutality of the apartheid regime. His funeral was attended by over 10,000 people, including numerous ambassadors and other diplomats from the United States and Western Europe. The liberal white South African journalist Donald Woods, a personal friend of Biko, photographed his injuries in the morgue. Woods was later forced to flee South Africa for England. Donald Woods later campaigned against apartheid and further publicised Biko's life and death, writing many newspaper articles and authoring the book, Biko.[12] Speaking at a National Party conference following the news of Biko's death then-minister of police, Jimmy Kruger said, "I am not glad and I am not sorry about Mr. Biko. It leaves me cold (Dit laat my koud). I can say nothing to you....Any person who dies....I shall also be sorry if I die."
The following year, on 2 February 1978, the Attorney General of the Eastern Cape stated that he would not prosecute any police officers involved in the arrest and detention of Biko. During the trial, it was claimed that Biko's head injuries were the result of a self-inflicted suicide attempt, not those of any beatings.
The judge ultimately ruled that a murder charge could not be supported partly because there were no witnesses to the killing. Charges of culpable homicide and assault were also considered, but because the killing occurred in 1977, the time limit for prosecution had expired.[13] On 7 October 2003 the South African Justice Ministry officials announced that the five policemen accused of killing Biko would not be prosecuted, because there was insufficient evidence, and because the time limit for prosecution had elapsed.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was created following the end of minority rule and the apartheid system, reported in 1997 that five former members of the South African security forces who had admitted to killing Biko were applying for amnesty. Their application was rejected.
Stephen Biko authored a book titled: I Write What I Like.
Influences and formation of ideology
Like Frantz Fanon, Biko originally studied medicine, and, like Fanon, Biko developed an intense concern for the development of black consciousness as a solution to the existential struggles which shape existence, both as a human and as an African (see Négritude). Biko can thus be seen as a follower of Fanon and Aimé Césaire, in contrast to more multi-racialist ANC leaders such as Nelson Mandela after his imprisonment at Robben Island, and Albert Luthuli who were first disciples of Gandhi.[14][15][16][17]
Biko saw the struggle to restore African consciousness as having two stages, "Psychological liberation" and "Physical liberation". The nonviolent influence of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. upon Biko is then suspect, as Biko knew that for his struggle to give rise to physical liberation, it was necessary that it exist within the political realities of the apartheid regime, and Biko's nonviolence may be seen more as a tactic than a personal conviction.[18]
Biko's relevance in the present
In the present post-Apartheid South Africa, Biko is now revered across the political spectrum despite obvious ideological differences. Many of these people see Biko's philosophy as irrelevant after 1994. However, in 2004, he was voted 13th in the SABC3's Great South Africans.
However, many present-day social movements, activists, and academics continue to stress the relevance of Biko's black consciousness. This includes a strong critique of voting by academic Andile Mngxitama who has said that if Biko were alive today, he would not be supporting any political party, would not even vote, but would be marching with the social movements against government.[19] [20] [21]
Tributes
Apart from Donald Woods' book called Biko, his name has been honoured at several universities. Locally, the main Student Union buildings of the University of Cape Town are named in his honour and each year a commemorative Steve Biko lecture, open to all students, is delivered on the anniversary of his death. Internationally, the University of Manchester's student union, the Steve Biko Building, on the Oxford road campus, is named in his honour. Ruskin College, Oxford has a Biko House student accommodation. The bar at the University of Bradford was named after Biko until its closure in 2005. Numerous other venues in Students Unions around the United Kingdom also bear his name. The Santa Barbara Student Housing Cooperative has a house named after Steve Biko, themed to provide a safe, respectful space for people of colour. A street in Hounslow, West London, is named "Steve Biko Way". At the University of California, Santa Cruz, there is a section of dormitories named "Biko House" located in the Oakes College Multicultural Theme Housing. The Steve Biko Institute was founded in Salvador, Brazil to support the education and pride of Black Brazilians.[22] The Pretoria Academic Hospital was renamed the Steve Biko Academic Hospital[23] in 2008. Durban University of Technology has acknowledged Steve Biko’s contribution to South African Society by naming its largest campus after him. A bronze bust of Steve Biko was unveiled in Freedom Square on this campus as a tribute to him. Peter Gabriel and the Hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest each named a song after him in his honour.
References in the arts
Literature
Benjamin Zephaniah wrote a poem titled "Biko The Greatness", included in Zephaniah's 2001 collection, Too Black, Too Strong.
"The Compound Arcane" is a poem written in 1975 by Jack Hirschman, subtitled Hommage to Steve Biko, which is published in The Arcanes. This poem is notable by the fact that it was composed prior to Biko's death, yet already the poet was inspired enough by Biko's life to recognize him as a martyr.
"In Detention" by Chris van Wyk (b. 1957)
Theatre, film and television
In 1978, Malcolm Clarke[24] recounted Biko's story in a documentary called, The Life and Death of Steve Biko.
1979 play titled The Biko Inquest, written by Norman Fenton and Jon Blair. In 1985, a television adaptation of the original stage play was created, directed by Albert Finney and originally aired in the US through HBO in 1985.[25]
In 1987, Richard Attenborough directed the movie Cry Freedom, a biographical drama about Biko starring Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline.
In the Disney channel movie The Color of Friendship, Biko's death is used as a plot turner in breaking the two teens apart.
In Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights, while Brian Potter is on Crimetime and is grabbed by a following interviewee he makes a reference to Biko.
Within the Star Trek canon, the USS Biko is named in his honour.
In the manga and anime Planetes, a presumably co-lateral descendant, James Biko, is the navigator of the Werner von Braun Jupiter Explorer.
Music
Biko has been the subject of many tributes in many different genres of music, including rap, hip hop, jazz, reggae and rock
In 1978, Peter Hammill on his album: The future Now in the song : A motor bike in Afrika was the first to mention Biko (after his death) in England.
South African improviser, composer, and bandleader Johnny Dyani (Johnny Mbizo Dyani) recorded an album titled Song for Biko, featuring a composition (written by Dyani) of the same name.
Tom Paxton released the song, "The Death of Stephen Biko", on his 1978 album, Heroes.
born 1894, Ichaweri, British East Africa [now in Kenya]—died August 22, 1978, Mombasa, Kenya) African statesman and nationalist, the first prime minister (1963–64) and then the first president (1964–78) of independent Kenya.
Early life
Kenyatta was born as Kamau, son of Ngengi, at Ichaweri, southwest of Mount Kenya in the East African highlands. His father was a leader of a small Kikuyu agricultural settlement. About age 10 Kamau became seriously ill with jigger infections in his feet and one leg, and he underwent successful surgery at a newly established Church of Scotland mission. This was his initial contact with Europeans. Fascinated with what he had seen during his recuperation, Kamau ran away from home to become a resident pupil at the mission. He studied the Bible, English, mathematics, and carpentry and paid his fees by working as a houseboy and cook for a European settler. In August 1914 he was baptized with the name Johnstone Kamau. He was one of the earliest of the Kikuyu to leave the confines of his own culture. And, like many others, Kamau soon left the mission life for the urban attractions of Nairobi.
There he secured a job as a clerk in the Public Works Department, and he also adopted the name Kenyatta, the Kikuyu term for a fancy belt that he wore. After serving briefly as an interpreter in the High Court, Kenyatta transferred to a post with the Nairobi Town Council. About this time he married and began to raise a family.
The first African political protest movement in Kenya against a white-settler-dominated government began in 1921—the East Africa Association (EAA), led by an educated young Kikuyu named Harry Thuku. Kenyatta joined the following year. One of the EAA's main purposes was to recover Kikuyu lands lost when Kenya became a British crown colony (1920). The Africans were dispossessed, leaseholds of land were restricted to white settlers, and native reservations were established. In 1925 the EAA disbanded as a result of government pressures, and its members re-formed as the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA). Three years later Kenyatta became this organization's general secretary, though he had to give up his municipal job as a consequence.
Entrance into full-time politics
In May 1928 Kenyatta launched a monthly Kikuyu-language newspaper called Mwigithania (“He Who Brings Together”), aimed at gaining support from all sections of the Kikuyu. The paper was mild in tone, preaching self-improvement, and was tolerated by the government. But soon a new challenge appeared. A British commission recommended a closer union of the three East African territories (Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika). British settler leaders supported the proposal, expecting that internal self-government might follow. To the KCA such a prospect looked disastrous for Kikuyu interests; in February 1929 Kenyatta went to London to testify against the scheme, but in London the secretary of state for colonies refused to meet with him. In March 1930 Kenyatta wrote an eloquent letter in The Times of London setting out five issues championed by the KCA: (1) security of land tenure and the return of lands allotted to European settlers, (2) increased educational facilities, (3) repeal of hut taxes on women, which forced some to earn money by prostitution, (4) African representation in the Legislative Council, and (5) noninterference with traditional customs. He concluded by saying that the lack of these measures “must inevitably result in a dangerous explosion—the one thing all sane men wish to avoid.”Again in 1931 Kenyatta's testimony on the issue of closer union of the three colonies was refused, despite the help of liberals in the House of Commons. In the end, however, the government temporarily abandoned its plan for union. Kenyatta did manage to testify on behalf of Kikuyu land claims in 1932 at hearings of the Carter Land Commission. The commission decided to offer compensation for some appropriated territories but maintained the “white highlands” policy, which restricted the Kikuyu to overcrowded reserves. Kenyatta subsequently visited the Soviet Union (he spent two years at Moscow State University) and traveled extensively through Europe; on his return to England he studied anthropology under Bronisaw Malinowski at the London School of Economics. His thesis was revised and published in 1938 as Facing Mount Kenya, a study of the traditional life of the Kikuyu characterized by both insight and a tinge of romanticism. This book signaled another name change, to Jomo (“Burning Spear”) Kenyatta.
During the 1930s Kenyatta briefly joined the Communist Party, met other black nationalists and writers, and organized protests against the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. The onset of World War II temporarily cut him off from the KCA, which was banned by the Kenya authorities as potentially subversive. Kenyatta maintained himself in England by lecturing and working as a farm labourer, and he continued to produce political pamphlets publicizing the Kikuyu cause.
Kenyatta helped organize the fifth Pan-African Congress, which met in Manchester, England, on October 15–18, 1945, with W.E.B. Du Bois of the United States in the chair; Kwame Nkrumah, the future leader of Ghana, was also present. Resolutions were passed and plans discussed for mass nationalist movements to demand independence from colonial rule.
Return to Kenya
Kenyatta returned to Kenya in September 1946 to take up leadership of the newly formed Kenya African Union, of which he was elected president in June 1947. From the Kenya African Teachers College, which he directed as an alternative to government educational institutions, Kenyatta organized a mass nationalist party. But he had to produce tangible results in return for the allegiance of his followers, and the colonial government in Kenya was still dominated by unyielding settler interests. The “dangerous explosion” among the Kikuyu that he had predicted in 1930 erupted as the Mau Mau rebellion of 1952, which was directed against the presence of European settlers in Kenya and their ownership of land. On October 21, 1952, Kenyatta was arrested on charges of having directed the Mau Mau movement. Despite government efforts to portray Kenyatta's trial as a criminal case, it received worldwide publicity as a political proceeding. In April 1953 Kenyatta was sentenced to a seven-year imprisonment for “managing the Mau Mau terrorist organization.” He denied the charge then and afterward, maintaining that the Kenya African Union's political activities were not directly associated with Mau Mau violence.he British government responded to African demands by gradually steering the country toward African majority rule. In 1960 the principle of one man, one vote was conceded. Kenyan nationalist leaders such as Tom Mboya and Oginga Odinga organized the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and elected Kenyatta (still in detention despite having completed his sentence) president in absentia; they refused to cooperate with the British while Kenyatta was detained. In a press conference Kenyatta promised that “Europeans would find a place in the future Kenya provided they took their place as ordinary citizens.”
Kenyatta was released in August 1961, and, at the London Conference early in 1962, he negotiated the constitutional terms leading to Kenya's independence. KANU won the preindependence election in May 1963, forming a provisional government, and Kenya celebrated its independence on December 12, 1963, with Kenyatta as prime minister. A year later Kenya became a one-party republic when the main opposition party went into voluntary liquidation. At the same time, Kenyatta became the first president of Kenya under a new constitutional amendment. In this office he headed a strong central government, and successive constitutional amendments increased his authority, giving him, for instance, the power to arrest political opponents and detain them without trial if he considered them dangerous to public order—a power he used effectively though infrequently. To forestall any tribally based opposition, Kenyatta consistently appointed members of different ethnic groups to his government, though he relied most heavily on his fellow Kikuyu. In general, Kenya enjoyed remarkable political stability under Kenyatta's rule, though conflicts within KANU's political leadership did occasionally break out because of ideological differences and tribal rivalries.
Kenyatta early on rejected socialist calls for the nationalization of property and instead preached a doctrine of personal and entrepreneurial effort, symbolized by his slogan “Harambee,” or “Pulling together.” Besides relying heavily on a free-market economy, he encouraged foreign investment from Western and other countries. Largely as a result of his policies, Kenya's gross national product grew almost fivefold from 1971 to 1981, and its rate of economic growth was among the highest on the continent in the first two decades after independence. But though economic growth benefited large numbers of people, it also led to tremendous disparities of wealth, much of which was in the hands of Kenyatta's family and close associates. This concentration of wealth, along with an extremely high rate of population growth, meant that most Kenyans did not realize a correspondingly large increase in their living standards under Kenyatta's leadership.
In foreign policy, Kenyatta's government was consistently friendly toward the West. Always—in spite of his imprisonment by the British authorities—one of the more pro-British of African leaders, Kenyatta made Kenya the most stable black African country and one of the most economically dynamic. After his death at Mombasa in 1978, Kenyatta was succeeded by Daniel arap Moi, who continued most of his policies.
( black people )
The term black people usually refers to a racial classification of humans. Although the classification is primarily associated with the very dark skin colors of some people who are classified as 'black', the classification itself, particularly in the United States, also refers to people with all possible kinds of skin pigmentation from the darkest through to the very lightest skin colors, including albinos. Therefore, the term 'black people' is not an indicator of skin color but of racial classification. It is also used to categorize a number of diverse populations together based on historical and prehistorical ancestral relationships. Some definitions of the term include only people of relatively recent Sub Saharan African descent (see African diaspora). Among the members of this group, dark skin is most often accompanied by the expression of natural afro-hair texture (although a recent scientific study notes that human skin color diversity is highest in sub-Saharan African populations).[1] Other definitions of the term "black people" extend to other populations characterized by dark skin, including some Dark skin
Further information: Human skin color
Map of indigenous skin color distribution in the world based on Von Luschan's chromatic scale.
Map showing Sub-Saharan Africa colored green and North Africa colored gray.
The evolution of dark skin is linked intrinsically to the loss of body hair in humans. By 1.2 million years ago, all people having descendants today had the same receptor protein of today's Africans; their skin was dark, and the intense sun killed off the progeny with any lighter skin that resulted from mutational variation in the receptor protein.[4] This is significantly earlier than the speciation of Homo sapiens from Homo erectus some 250,000 years ago.
Skin cancer as a result of ultraviolet light radiation causing mutations in the skin is less common among people with dark skin than it is among those with light skin.[5][6] Furthermore, dark skin prevents an essential B vitamin, folate, from being destroyed. Therefore, in the absence of modern medicine and diet, a person with dark skin in the tropics would live longer, be healthier and more likely to reproduce than a person with light skin. White Australians have some of the highest rates of skin cancer as evidence of this expectation.[7] Conversely, as dark skin prevents sunlight from penetrating the skin it hinders the production of vitamin D3. Hence when humans migrated to less sun-intensive regions in the north, low vitamin D3 levels became a problem and lighter skin colors started appearing. White people of Europe, who have low levels of melanin, naturally have an almost colorless skin pigmentation, especially when untanned. This low level of pigmentation allows the blood vessels to become visible which gives the characteristic pale pink color of white people. The loss of melanin in white people is now thought to have been caused by a mutation in just one letter out of 3.1 billion letters of DNA.[8]
Hair
Main article: Natural afro-hair
The texture of hair in people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry is noticeably different from that of Eurasian populations, as was already noted by Herodotus, who described the peoples of Libya (the "western Ethiopians") as wooly-haired.
Such "afro-hair" texture is denser than its straight counterparts. Due to this, it is often referred to as 'thick', 'bushy', or 'woolly'. For several reasons, possibly including its relatively flat cross section (among other factors[9]), this hair type conveys a dry or matte appearance.[10][11] It is also very coarse,[10] and its unique shape renders it very prone to breakage when combed or brushed.[11]
The specific characteristics of the natural afro-hair form are unique among all mammals.[clarification needed][dubious – discuss][12] The texture likely predates the evolution of dark skin. It evolved when, as pre-human Australopithecines lost most of their fur to enable perspiration, the need to protect the newly exposed pale skin underneath this body hair was crucial (see[13] in light of Rogers et al., 2004 and Harding et al., 2000). The trait ceased to be essential to survival at the equator upon the evolution of hairless dark skin. Yet it has continued to be expressed vestigially among most Melanesians, Andaman Islanders, and sub-Saharan Africans.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Further information: Demographics of Africa
A black woman and her albino son from Tanzania
Sub-Saharan Africa is a common, if imprecise term that encompasses African countries located south of the Sahara Desert. It is commonly used to differentiate the region culturally, ecologically, politically and, more controversially, racially, from North Africa, which has historically been part of the Mediterranean sphere. Because the indigenous people of this region are primarily dark-skinned, it is alternatively called "Black Africa".[14] Some criticize the use of the term, because, having become in many quarters synonymous with Black Africa, it can leave the mistaken impression that there are not indigenous Black populations in North Africa. Furthermore, the Sahara cuts across countries such as Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Sudan, leaving some parts of them in North Africa and some in sub-Saharan Africa.
Owen 'Alik Shahadah argues that the term sub-Saharan Africa has racist overtones:
Sub-Saharan Africa is a racist byword for "primitive", a place which has escaped advancement. Hence, we see statements like “no written languages exist in Sub-Saharan Africa.” “Ancient Egypt was not a Sub-Saharan African civilization.” Sub-Sahara serves as an exclusion, which moves, jumps and slides around to suit negative generalization of Africa.[15]
However, some Black Africans prefer to be culturally distinguished from those who live in the north of the continent.[16]
Cultural ideas of a black race
Chronology Of The History Of Slavery: 1619-1789
The other crucial event that would play a role in the development of America was the arrival of Africans to Jamestown. A Dutch slave trader exchanged his cargo of Africans for food in 1619. The Africans became indentured servants, similar in legal position to many poor Englishmen who traded several years labor in exchange for passage to America. The popular conception of a racial-based slave system did not develop until the 1680's. (A Brief History of Jamestown, The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, Richmond, VA 23220, email: apva@apva.org, Web published February, 2000)
The legend has been repeated endlessly that the first blacks in Virginia were "indentured servants," but there is no hint of this in the records. The legend grew up because the word slave did not appear in Virginia records until 1656, and statutes defining the status of blacks began to appear casually in the 1660s. The inference was then made that blacks called servants must have had approximately the same status as white indentured servants. Such reasoning failed to notice that Englishmen, in the early seventeenth century, used the work servant when they meant slave in our sense, and, indeed, white Southerners invariably used servant until 1865 and beyond. Slave entered the Southern vocabulary as a technical word in trade, law and politics. (Robert McColley in Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, Edited by Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, Greenwood Press, 1988 pp 281)
Jamestown had exported 10 tons of tobacco to Europe and was a boomtown. The export business was going so well the colonists were able to afford two imports which would greatly contribute to their productivity and quality of life. 20 Blacks from Africa and 90 women from England. The Africans were paid for in food; each woman cost 120 pounds of tobacco. The Blacks were bought as indentured servants from a passing Dutch ship low on food, and the women were supplied by a private English company. Those who married the women had to pay their passage--120 pounds of tobacco. (Gene Barios, Tobacco BBS: tobacco news )
With the success of tobacco planting, African Slavery was legalized in Virginia and Maryland, becoming the foundation of the Southern agrarian economy. (The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, 1995 by Columbia University Press from MS Bookshelf.)
Although the number of African American slaves grew slowly at first, by the 1680s they had become essential to the economy of Virginia. During the 17th and 18th centuries, African American slaves lived in all of England’s North American colonies. Before Great Britain prohibited its subjects from participating in the slave trade, between 600,000 and 650,000 Africans had been forcibly transported to North America. ("Immigration," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation.)
Following the arrival of twenty Africans aboard a Dutch man-of-war in Virginia in 1619, the face of American slavery began to change from the "tawny" Indian to the "blackamoor" African in the years between 1650 and 1750. Though the issue is complex, the unsuitability of Native Americans for the labor intensive agricultural practices, their susceptibility to European diseases, the proximity of avenues of escape for Native Americans, and the lucrative nature of the African slave trade led to a transition to an African based institution of slavery. During this period of transition, however, the colonial "wars" against the Pequots, the Tuscaroras, the Yamasees, and numerous other Indian nations led to the enslavement and relocation of tens of thousands of Native Americans. In the early years of the eighteenth century, the number of Native American slaves in areas such as the Carolinas may have been as much as half of the African slave population. During this transitional period, Africans and Native Americans shared the common experience of enslavement. In addition to working together in the fields, they lived together in communal living quarters, produced collective recipes for food and herbal remedies, shared myths and legends, and ultimately became lovers. The intermarriage of Africans and Native Americans was facilitated by the disproportionality of African male slaves to females (3 to 1) and the decimation of Native American males by disease, enslavement, and prolonged wars with the colonists.
As Native American societies in the Southeast were primarily matrilineal, African males who married Native American women often became members of the wife's clan and citizens of the respective nation. As relationships grew, the lines of distinction began to blur. The evolution of red-black people began to pursue its own course; many of the people who came to be known as slaves, free people of color, Africans, or Indians were most often the product of integrating cultures. In areas such as Southeastern Virginia, The Low Country of the Carolinas, and Silver Bluff, S.C., communities of Afro-Indians began to spring up. The depth and complexity of this intermixture is revealed in a 1740 slave code in South Carolina: all Negroes and Indians, (free Indians in amity with this government, and Negroes, mulattos, and mustezoes, who are now free, excepted) mulattos or mustezoes who are now, or shall hereafter be in this province, and all their issue and offspring...shall be and they are hereby declared to be, and remain hereafter absolute slaves. (Patrick Minges, Beneath the Underdog: Race, Religion and the "Trail of Tears" Union Seminary Quarterly Review Email: pm47@columbia.edu Union Theological Seminary, New York )
Millions of Native Americans were also enslaved, particularly in South America. In the American colonies in 1730, nearly 25 percent of the slaves in the Carolinas were Cherokee, Creek, or other Native Americans. From the 1500s through the early 1700s, small numbers of white people were also enslaved by kidnapping, or for crimes or debts. SUGGESTED READINGS: Herbert Klein's, African Slavery in Latin American and the Caribbean (1986); Ramon Gutierrez's When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico 1500-1846 (1991); Great Documents in American Indian History (1995), edited by Wayne Moquin; J. McIver Weatherford's Native Roots: How the Indians Enriched America (1991); Native Heritage: Personal Accounts by American Indians 1790-Present (1995), edited by Arlene Hirschfelder; Robert Edgar Conrad's Children of God's Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil (1983); and Sidney Mintz's and Richard Price's An Anthropological Approach to the Afro-American Past: A Caribbean Perspective (1981). (Ten Myths, Half-truths and Misunderstandings about Black History, Ethnic NewsWatch SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT) ( For more information about the history of the contact between Native Americans, Africans and Americans of African descent, see the work done by Patrick Minges, Union Theological Seminary )
Also see: Winthrop Jordan's White Over Black_ (see the index to find the relevant pages), and in an old publication by Almon Wheeler Lauber called Indian Slavery in Colonial Times within the Present Limits of the United States, Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, Columbia University, 1913
In the Americas, there were added dimensions to this resistance, especially reactions to the racial characteristics of chattel slavery. This fundamental difference from the condition of slaves in Africa emerged gradually, although the roots of racial categories were established early. Acts of resistance that combined indentured Irish workers, African slaves, and Amer-Indian prisoners did occur, although in the end these alliances disintegrated. Furthermore, slaves did not consolidate ethnic identifications on the basis of color, but it was widely understood that most blacks were slaves and no slaves were white. Although there were black, mulatto and American-born slave owners in some colonies in the Americas, and many whites did not own slaves, chattel slavery was fundamentally different in the Americas from other parts of the world because of the racial dimension. (Hilary McD. Beckles, "The Colors of Property: Brown, white and Black Chattels and their Responses to the Colonial Frontier", Slavery and Abolition, 15, 2 (1994), 36-51. Cited by Paul E. Lovejoy in "The African Diaspora: Revisionist Interpretations of Ethnicity, Culture and Religion under Slavery" . Studies in the World History of Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation, II, 1 (1997))
Tobacco was considered powerful medicine by native Americans. Cigarettes of today have been adulterated to enhance their addictive properties. Though ritual varied, "Smoking [by native Americans] was chiefly done after the evening meal, in the sweathouse, before going to sleep. It was a social ritual, and the pipes were passed around the group. A man never let his pipe out of his sight. Occasionally he would stop for a smoke when on a journey or when meeting someone on the trail." (Early Uses of Indian Tobacco in California, California Natural History Guides: 10, Early Uses Of California Plants, By Edward K. Balls, University Of California Press, Copyright 1962 by the Regents of the University of California ISBN: 0-520-00072-2 )
In fact, the first twenty "Negar" slaves had arrived from the West Indies in a Dutch vessel and were sold to the governor and a merchant in Jamestown in late August of 1619, as reported by John Rolfe to John Smith back in London. (Robinson, Donald L. Slavery and the Structure of American Politics, 1765 - 1820. NY: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1971) By 1625, ten slaves were listed in the first census of Jamestown. The first public slave auction of 23 individuals, disgracefully, was held in Jamestown square itself in 1638. What were to become the parameters and properties of the "peculiar institution" were defined in the Virginia General Assembly from about 1640 onwards. Negro indenture, then, appears to have been no more than a legal fiction of brief duration in Virginia. Black freedmen would live in a legal limbo until the general emancipation in 1864, unable to stand witness in their own defense against the testimony of any Euro-American. The General Court dispositions that appear after 1640 seem to support this contention. Barbados was the first British possession to enact restrictive legislation governing slaves in 1644, and other colonial administrations, especially Virginia and Maryland, quickly adopted similar rules modeled on it. Whipping and branding, borrowed from Roman practice via the Iberian-American colonies, appeared early and with vicious audacity.
One Virginian slave, named Emanuel, was convicted of trying to escape in July, 1640, and was condemned to thirty stripes, with the letter "R" for "runaway" branded on his cheek and "work in a shackle one year or more as his master shall see cause." . (Robinson, Donald L. Slavery and the Structure of American Politics, 1765 - 1820. NY: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1971) Shades of Rome! This was most certainly not a contractually obligated indentured servant, however oppressed but consistent with English common law, that could expect release from his contract after a time. Rather, this was an abject slave, subject to the court's definition of him as mercantable and movable "property," as chattel or res, and to his master's virtual whim. Indeed, the general assembly of Virginia in 1662 passed an act which directly and consciously invoked Justinian code: partvs seqvitvr ventram, whereby a child born of a slave mother was also held to be a slave, regardless of its father's legal status. (Greene, Lorenzo Johnston. The Negro in Colonial New England. NY: Athaneum Press, 1971) A few years later, the population of Africans in bondage in Virginia reached about 2,000, and another statute (1667) established compulsory life servitude, de addictio according to Roman code, for Negroes ... slavery had become an official institution. (Whitefield, Theodore Marshall. Slavery Agitation in Virginia, 1829 - 1832. NY : Negro Universities Press, 1930 Securing the Leg Irons: Restriction of Legal Rights for Slaves in Virginia and Maryland, 1625 - 1791. Slavery In Early America's Colonies-- Seeds of Servitude Rooted in The Civil Law of Rome by Charles P.M. Outwin)
1620
The Pilgrims settled at Plymouth Massachusetts. ". Plymouth, for the most part, had servants and not slaves, meaning that most black servants were given their freedom after turning 25 years old--under similar contractual arrangement as English apprenticeships." (Were there any blacks on the Mayflower? By Caleb Johnson member of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants)
1624
New Amsterdam- The Dutch, who had entered the slave trade in 1621 with the formation of the Dutch West Indies Co., import blacks to serve on Hudson Valley farms. According to Dutch law, the children of manumitted (freed) slaves are bound to slavery. (Chronology: A Historical Review, Major Events in Black History 1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and Wanda Neal-Davis)
1638
The price tag for an African male was around $27, while the salary of a European laborer was about seventy cents per day. (Willie F. Page. _The Dutch Triangle: The Netherlands and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1621-1664_. Studies in African American History and Culture. New York: Garland Publishing, 1997. xxxv + 262 pp. Bibliographical referen1ces and index. $66.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8153-2881-8. Reviewed for H-Review by Dennis R. Hidalgo , Central Michigan University)
1640
Whipping and branding, borrowed from Roman practice via the Iberian-American colonies, appeared early and with vicious audacity. One Virginian slave, named Emanuel, was convicted of trying to escape in July, 1640, and was condemned to thirty stripes, with the letter "R" for "runaway" branded on his cheek and "work in a shackle one year or more as his master shall see cause." Charles P.M. Outwin, Securing the Leg Irons: Restriction of Legal Rights for Slaves in Virginia and Maryland, 1625 – 1791, footnote taken from Catterall, Helen Honor Tunnicliff. Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro, vol. I, Cases from the Courts of England, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky, and vol. IV, Cases from the Courts of New England, the Middle States, and the District of Columbia. Washington, D. C., Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1926 & 1936. Page 77)
1642
Virginia colony enacts law to fine those who harbor or assist runaway slaves. (Underground Railroad Chronology, National Park Service). The Virginia law, penalizes people sheltering runaways 20 pounds worth of tobacco for each night of refuge granted. Slaves are branded after a second escape attempt. (African American History, Chronology: A Historical Review Major Events in Black History 1492 thru 1953 )
1649
Black laborers in the Virginia colony still number only 300 (see 1619; 1671). (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf)
Tobacco exports bring prosperity to the Virginia colony.(The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf)
1650 For centuries the issue of equal rights presented a major challenge to the state. Virginia, after all, had been the primary site for the development of black slavery in the Americas. By the 1650s some of the indentured servants had earned their freedom. Because replacements, whether black or white, were in limited supply and more costly, the Virginia plantation owners considered the advantages of the "perpetual servitude" policy exercised by Caribbean landowners. Following the lead of Massachusetts and Connecticut, Virginia legalized slavery in 1661. In 1672 the king of England chartered the Royal African Company to bring the shiploads of slaves into trading centers like Jamestown, Hampton, and Yorktown. (Compton's Encyclopedia Online. http://www.comptons.com/encyclopedia/)
1650
For centuries the issue of equal rights presented a major challenge to the state. Virginia, after all, had been the primary site for the development of black slavery in the Americas. By the 1650s some of the indentured servants had earned their freedom. Because replacements, whether black or white, were in limited supply and more costly, the Virginia plantation owners considered the advantages of the "perpetual servitude" policy exercised by Caribbean landowners. Following the lead of Massachusetts and Connecticut, Virginia legalized slavery in 1661. In 1672 the king of England chartered the Royal African Company to bring the shiploads of slaves into trading centers like Jamestown, Hampton, and Yorktown. (Compton's Encyclopedia Online.)
1650
World population estimated 500 million. (GENERAL CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 1994/1995 Leading Edge Research Group)
1651
Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan, argued from a mechanistic theory that man is a selfishly individualistic animal at constant war with others. In the state of nature, life is "nasty, brutish, and short." (www.sciencetimeline.net presents, marks in the evolution of western thinking about nature, Assembled by David Lee, http://www.sciencetimeline.net/1651.htm)
1660
Slavery spread quickly in the American colonies. At first the legal status of Africans in America was poorly defined, and some, like European indentured servants, managed to become free after several years of service. From the 1660s, however, the colonies began enacting laws that defined and regulated slave relations. Central to these laws was the provision that black slaves, and the children of slave women, would serve for life. This premise, combined with the natural population growth among the slaves, meant that slavery could survive and grow…("Slavery in the United States," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation.)
The continuing demand for African slaves' labor arose from the development of plantation agriculture, the long-term rise in prices and consumption of sugar, and the demand for miners. Not only did Africans represent skilled laborers, but they were also experts in tropical agriculture. Consequently, they were well-suited for plantation agriculture. The high immunity of Africans to malaria and yellow fever compared with Europeans and the indigenous peoples made them more suitable for tropical labor. While white and red labor were used initially, Africans were the final solution to the acute labor problem in the New World. (The Economics of the African Slave Trade, By Anika Francis, The March 1995 Issue of The Vision Online, http://dolphin.upenn.edu/~vision/vis/Mar-95/5284.html)
Slaves were mostly for sugar plantations, diamond mines in Brazil, house servants, on tobacco farms in Virginia, in gold mines in Hispaniola and later the cotton industry in the Southern States of the USA. "The hybridization of sugar cane between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century made increasingly large harvests possible." M.E. Descoutilz: Flore pittoresque et medicale des Antilles. (Vol.4. Paris, 1883) (KURA HULANDA Museum, Curaçao, http://www.kurahulanda.com/site/museum/museum.html))
Despite this growth in tobacco production, problems in price-stability and quality existed. In 1660, when the English markets became glutted with tobacco, prices fell so low that the colonists were barely able to survive. In response to this, planters began mixing other organic material, such as leaves and the sweepings from their homes, in with the tobacco, as an attempt to make up by quantity what they lost by low prices. The exporting of this trash tobacco solved the colonists' immediate cash flow problems, but accentuated the problems of overproduction and deterioration of quality.[8] As the reputation of colonial tobacco declined, reducing European demand for it, colonial authorities stepped in to take corrective measures. During the next fifty years they came up with three solutions. First, they reduced the amount of tobacco produced; second, they regularized the trade by fixing the size of the tobacco hogshead and prohibiting shipments of bulk tobacco; finally, they improved quality by preventing the exportation of trash tobacco. These solutions soon fell through because there was no practical way to enforce the law. It was not until 1730, when the Virginia Inspection Acts were passed, that tobacco trade laws were fully enforced (Middleton, Arthur Pierce. Tobacco Coast. Newport News, Virginia: Mariners' Museum, 1953.. P. 112-116, Finlayson, Ann. Colonial Maryland. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Inc. 1974. P. 66-679. From Economic Aspects of Tobacco during the Colonial Period 1612-1776, On line at http://tobacco.org)
1661
A reference to slavery entered into Virginia law, and this law was directed at white servants -- at those who ran away with a black servant. The following year, the colony went one step further by stating that children born would be bonded or free according to the status of the mother. (Timeline from the PBS series Africans In America)
1661
Virginia authorities noted that indentured servants were planning a rebellion and Maryland officials faced a strike (1663). (Mark Lause American Labor History)
After 1691, freed black slaves were banished from Virginia. (How the Cradle of Liberty Became a Slave-Owning Nation. By Susan DeFord, Special to The Washington Post Wednesday, December 10, 1997; Page H01 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/contents/))
1662
A Virginia law assumed Africans would remain servants for life. ." (Slavery in America Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1995)
Citing 1662 Virginia statute providing that "[c]hildren got by an Englishman upon a Negro woman shall be bond or free according to the condition of the mother". Throughout the late 17th and early 18th century, several colonial legislatures adopted similar rules which reversed the usual common law presumptions that the status of the child was determined by the father. (See id. at 128 (citing 1706 New York statute); id. at 252 (citing a 1755 Georgia Law)). These laws facilitated the breeding of slaves through Black women's bodies and allowed for slaveholders to reproduce their own labor force. (See PAULA GIDDINGS, WHEN AND WHERE I ENTER: THE IMPACT OF BLACK WOMEN ON RACE AND SEX IN AMERICA 37 (1984) (noting that "a master could save the cost of buying new slaves by impregnating his own slave, or for that matter, having anyone impregnate her"). For a discussion of Race and Gender see Cheryl I. Harris, Myths of Race and Gender in the Trials of O.J. Simpson and Susan Smith -- Spectacles of Our Times)
It was conventional wisdom in the South that the best way to get a good house servant was to raise one. Often, children were taken from their parents to sleep in the Big House as well as to eat, work and play there. Their families were replaced by the families of their owners, with their position in those families clearly defined. ("A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women In America", by Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson p 70, cited in TheBlackMarket.com FAQ)
The Laws of Virginia (1662, 1691, 1705) These statutes chart the development of regulations on the sexual and reproductive lives of indentured servants and slaves, the growing institutionalization of slavery, and the construction of racism. Note the increasingly harsh penalties and how punishments differed by gender. (To view the laws visit America Past and Present On Line)
The first known Virginia statute punishing interracial sexual relations was enacted in 1662. Act XII, 2 Laws of Va. 170, 170 (Hening 1823) (enacted 1662), cited in, Leon Higginbotham, Jr. and Barbara K. Kopytoff, Racial Purity and Interracial Sex in the Law of Colonial and Antebellum Virginia, 77 Geo. L.J. 1967 (1989); supra, at 1993. As early as 1691, Virginia had enacted a statute punishing interracial marriage. Act XVI, Laws of Va. 86, 86-87 (Hening 1812) (enacted 1691), cited in, Higginbotham, supra, at 1995. The antimiscegenation laws and prohibitions were the legal manifestations of an often violently enforced taboo against sexual relations between white women and black men. The punishment in 1691 for marriage between an English or white individual and a black, mulatto, or Indian was banishment and removal from Virginia forever. Id. (The last antimiscegenation laws in Virginia were overturned in 1967). (UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v. NORWOOD W. BARBER, (CR-92-30024) Decided: April 5, 1996)
Slavery in the United States was governed by an extensive body of law developed from the 1660s to the 1860s. Every slave state had its own slave code and body of court decisions. All slave codes made slavery a permanent condition, inherited through the mother, and defined slaves as property, usually in the same terms as those applied to real estate. Slaves, being property, could not own property or be a party to a contract. Since marriage is a form of a contract, no slave marriage had any legal standing. All codes also had sections regulating free blacks, who were still subject to controls on their movements and employment and were often required to leave the state after emancipation. (American Treasures of the Library of Congress: MEMORY, Slavery in the Capitol, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm009.html)
Slaves charged with crimes in Virginia were tried in special non-jury courts created in 1692. The purpose of the courts was not to guarantee due process but to set an example speedily. "Those slaves who attacked white people or property usually acted with a purpose and not just on impulse," wrote Philip J. Schwarz, a Virginia Commonwealth University professor who has studied slave courts. "Many killings, poisonings, thefts, uses of arson and attempts to rebel were efforts to oppose the means of maintaining slavery." The courts could resort to hideous punishments to reassert white authority. Offending slaves were hung, burned at the stake, dismembered, castrated and branded in addition to the usual whippings. White fear of black rebellion was a constant undercurrent. (How the Cradle of Liberty Became a Slave-Owning Nation. By Susan DeFord, Special to The Washington Post Wednesday, December 10, 1997; Page H01 http://www.washingtonpost.com)
1663
Maryland Settlers pass law stipulating that all imported blacks are to be given the status of slaves. Free white women who marry black slaves are to be slaves during the lives of their spouses, Ironically, children born of white servant women and blacks are regarded as free by a 1681 law. (The Negro Almanac a reference work on the Afro American, compiled and edited by harry A Ploski, and Warren Marr, II. Third Edition 1978 Bellwether Publishing)
1663/09/13
First serious recorded slave conspiracy in Colonial America takes place in Virginia. A servant betrayed plot of white servants and Negro slaves in Gloucester County, Virginia. (Major Revolts and Escapes, Lerone Bennett, Before the Mayflower, http://www.afroam.org/history/slavery/revolts.html)
1664
Slavery sanctioned by law; slaves to serve for life. (MD info from Maryland A Chronology & Documentary Handbook, 1978 Oceana Publications, Inc. And Maryland Historical Chronology )
1664
Maryland passes a law making lifelong servitude for black slaves mandatory to prevent them from taking advantage of legal precedents established in England which grant freedom under certain conditions, such as conversion to Christianity. Similar laws are later passed in New York, New Jersey, the Carolinas and Virginia. (The History Place, Early Colonial Era Beginnings to 1700 Chronology)
1664
Slavery introduced into law in Maryland, the law also prohibited marriage between white women and black men. This particular act remained in effect for over 300 years, and between 1935 and 1967 the law was extended to forbid the marriage of Malaysians with blacks or whites. The law was finally repealed in 1967. (Maryland State Archive, THE ARCHIVISTS' Record Series of the Week, Phebe Jacobsen "Colonial Marriage Records" Bulldog Vol. 2, No. 26 18 July 1988)
There had been a number of marriages between white women and slaves by 1664 when Maryland passed a law which made them and their mixed-race children slaves for life, noting that "divers freeborne English women forgettfull of their free Condicon and to the disgrace of our Nation doe intermarry with Negro Slaves" [Archives of Maryland, 1:533-34]. (FREE AFRICAN AMERICANS OF MARYLAND AND DELAWAREINTRODUCTION By Paul Heinegg, p.heinegg@worldnet.att.net This is the history of the free African American communities of Maryland and Delaware during the colonial period as told through their family histories. http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Intro_md.htm) Also see 1681.
Throughout most of the colonial period, opposition to slavery among white Americans was virtually nonexistent. Settlers in the 17th and early 18th centuries came from sharply stratified societies in which the wealthy savagely exploited members of the lower classes. Lacking a later generation's belief in natural human equality, they saw little reason to question the enslavement of Africans. As they sought to mold a docile labor force, planters resorted to harsh, repressive measures that included liberal use of whipping and branding. ("Slavery in the United States," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation.)
One characteristic which set American slavery apart was its racial basis. In America, with only a few early and insignificant exceptions, all slaves were Africans, and almost all Africans were slaves. This placed the label of inferiority on black skin and on African culture. In other societies, it had been possible for a slave who obtained his freedom to take his place in his society with relative ease. In America, however, when a slave became free, he was still obviously an African. The taint of inferiority clung to him. Not only did white America become convinced of white superiority and black inferiority, but it strove to impose these racial beliefs on the Africans themselves. Slave masters gave a great deal of attention to the education and training of the ideal slave, In general, there were five steps in molding the character of such a slave: strict discipline, a sense of his own inferiority, belief in the master's superior power, acceptance of the master's standards, and, finally, a deep sense of his own helplessness and dependence. At every point this education was built on the belief in white superiority and black inferiority. Besides teaching the slave to despise his own history and culture, the master strove to inculcate his own value system into the African's outlook. The white man's belief in the African's inferiority paralleled African self hate. (Norman Coombs, The Immigrant Heritage of America, Twayne Press, 1972. CHAPTER 3, CHAPTER 3, The Shape of American Slavery).
The psychological impact on the individual of slavery contrasted to that of individuals who survived the Nazi holocaust, In Stanley M. Elkins thinking, the concentration camps were a modern example of a rigid system controlling mass behavior. Because some of those who experienced them were social scientists trained in the skills of observation and analysis, they provide a basis for insights into the way in which a particular social system can influence mass character. While there is also much literature about American slavery written both by slaves and masters, none of it was written from the viewpoint of modern social sciences. However, Elkins postulates that a slave type must have existed as the result of the attempt to control mass behavior, and he believes that this type probably bore a marked resemblance to the literary stereotype of "Sambo." Studying concentration camps and their impact on personality provides a tool for new insights into the working of slavery, but, warns Elkins, the comparison can only be used for limited purposes. Although slavery was not unlike the concentration camp in many respects, the concentration camp can be viewed as a highly perverted form of slavery, and both systems were ways of controlling mass behavior
)
Gregory Anthony Isaacs (15 July 1951 – 25 October 2010)[1] was a Jamaican reggae musician. Milo Miles, writing in the New York Times, described Isaacs as "the most exquisite vocalist in reggae".[2] His nicknames include Cool Ruler[3] and Lonely Lover.
In his teens, Isaacs became a veteran of the talent contests that regularly took place in Jamaica. In 1968, he made his recording debut with a duet with Winston Sinclair, "Another Heartache", recorded for producer Byron Lee.[1] The single sold poorly and Isaacs went on to team up with two other vocalists (Penroe and Bramwell) in the short-lived trio The Concords, recording for Rupie Edwards and Prince Buster.[1] The trio split up in 1970 and Isaacs launched his solo career, initially self-producing recordings and also recording further for Edwards.[1] In 1973 he teamed up with another young singer, Errol Dunkley to start the African Museum record label and shop, and soon had a massive hit with "My Only Lover", credited as the first lovers rock record ever made.[1] He recorded for other producers to finance further African Museum recordings, having a string of hits in the three years that followed, ranging from ballads to roots reggae, including "All I Have Is Love", "Lonely Soldier", "Black a Kill Black", "Extra Classic" and his cover version of Dobby Dobson's "Loving Pauper".[1] In 1974 he began working with producer Alvin Ranglin, and that year he had his first Jamaican number one single with "Love Is Overdue".[1] Isaacs recorded for many of Jamaica's top producers during the 1970s, including Winston "Niney" Holness, Gussie Clarke ("My Time"), Lloyd Campbell ("Slavemaster"), Glen Brown ("One One Cocoa Fill Basket"), Harry Mudie, Roy Cousins, Sidney Crooks and Lee "Scratch" Perry ("Mr. Cop").[4] By the late 1970s, Isaacs was one of the biggest reggae performers in the world, regularly touring the US and the UK, and only challenged by Dennis Brown and Bob Marley.[4][5] Between 1977 and 1978, Isaacs again teamed up with Alvin Ranglin, recording a string of hits including "Border" and "Number One" for Ranglin's GG's label.
International stardom seemed assured in 1978 when Isaacs signed to the Virgin Records offshoot Front Line Records, and appeared in the film Rockers, in which he performed "Slavemaster".[4] The Cool Ruler (which became one of his nicknames) and Soon Forward albums, however, failed to sell as well as expected,[4] although they are now considered among his best work.[6] In 1981, he made his first appearance at the Reggae Sunsplash festival (returning annually until 1991), and he moved on to the Charisma Records offshoot Pre, who released his The Lonely Lover (another nickname that stuck) and More Gregory albums along with a string of increasingly successful singles including "Tune In", "Permanent Lover", "Wailing Rudy" and "Tribute to Waddy".[7] He signed to Island Records and released the record that finally saw him break through to a wider audience, "Night Nurse", the title track from his first album for the label (Night Nurse (1982)).[7] Although "Night Nurse" was not a chart hit in either the UK or US, it was hugely popular in clubs and received heavy radio play, and the album reached #32 in the UK.[8] This success for Isaacs coincided with drug problems with cocaine which saw him serve a six-month prison sentence in Kingston in 1982 for possession of unlicensed firearms.[7][9] Isaacs claimed that he had the weapons only for protection, but it emerged that this was his 27th arrest and that Isaacs had become involved in drug dealing and had become addicted to crack cocaine.[9] He celebrated his release from prison with his second album for Island, Out Deh! (1983).[7] Isaacs was featured in the 1982 documentary Land of Look Behind.
When his contract with Island ended, Isaacs returned in 1984 with the "Kool Ruler Come Again" single, and began a period of prolific recording, working with producers including Prince Jammy, Hugh "Redman" James, Bobby Digital, Tad Dawkins and Steely & Clevie, maintaining a consistent standard despite the volume of work produced.[5][7] Isaacs then built a strong relationship with Gussie Clarke of the Music Works label. They began with Isaacs' 1985 album Private Beach Party, and had a massive hit with "Rumours" in 1988, which was followed by further popular singles including "Mind Yu Dis", "Rough Neck", "Too Good To Be True" and "Report to Me".[7] The association with Clarke continued into the early 1990s, teaming up with singers including Freddie McGregor, Ninjaman and JC Lodge.[7] He dueted with Beres Hammond on the 1993 Philip "Fatis" Burrell-produced "One Good Turn", Burrell also producing Isaacs' 1994 album Midnight Confidential.[7]
In the 1990s the African Museum label continued to release all of Isaacs' music, and that of artists he produced. In 1997 Simply Red covered "Night Nurse" and had a hit with it. Isaacs continued to record and perform live in the 2000s. In 2005 Lady Saw produced another version of "Night Nurse" with her toasting over the original lyrics.
Isaacs' drug addiction had a major impact on his voice, with most of his teeth falling out as a result.[9] Isaacs said of his addiction in 2007: "Drugs are a debasing weapon. It was the greatest college ever, but the most expensive school fee ever paid – the Cocaine High School. I learnt everything, and now I've put it on the side."[9]
He also performed at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 Inauguration at Jamaica.
In 2007 he collaborated with the Spanish rap group Flowklorikos / Rafael Lechowski album Donde Duele Inspira.
In 2008, after some 40 years as a recording artist, Isaacs released a new studio album Brand New Me, which was nominated for the Grammy Awards for 2010. The album received positive reviews from critics, such as this review from Reggae Vibes: "Gregory is back, and how! 'Brand New Me' is a very suitable album title for the cool ruler's new album. He is back in a different style, more or less like we were used to from this great 'lovers & roots' artist"[10] This was followed in 2009 by the album My Kind Of Lady.
In 2010, Gregory Isaacs put out the last of his albums to be released while he was still living; Isaacs Meets Isaac, with Zimbabwean reggae singer, King Isaac. In November 2010, Isaacs Meets Isaacs was nominated for Best Reggae Album for the 2011 Grammy Awards, giving Gregory Isaacs his fourth Grammy Nomination, and Zimbabwe's King Isaac, his first.
An advertisement for a Gregory Isaacs concert in Negril Death
After a long battle with lung cancer, Isaacs died on 25 October 2010 at his home in south London[11] A memorial service was held on 20 November at Kingston's National Indoor Sports Centre, including a musical tribute from artists including Lloyd Parks and We the People Band, Ken Boothe, Freddie McGregor, Mavado, The Tamlins and Bongo Herman, before his remains were interred at the Dovecot Cemetery.[12]
Discography
More than 500 Gregory Isaacs albums have been released during his career, many being compilations. Studio albums of original material are listed below:
In Person (1975) Trojan
All I Have Is Love (1976) Trojan
The Best Of Vol. 1 (1977) GG's
Extra Classic (1977) African Museum
Mr Isaacs (1977) DEB
Cool Ruler (1978) Front Line
Soon Forward (1979) Front Line
Slum (Gregory Isaacs in Dub) (1978) Burning Sounds
Gregory Isaacs Meets Ronnie Davis (1979) Plant (with Ronnie Davis)
Showcase (1980) Taxi
Lonely Lover (1980) Pre
More Gregory (1981) Pre
The Best Of Vol. 2 (1981) GG's
Night Nurse (1982) Island/Mango
Out Deh! (1983) Island/Mango
Let's Go Dancing (1984)
Judge Not (1985) Greensleeves (with Dennis Brown)
Private Beach Party (1985) Greensleeves & RAS
Easy (1985) Tad's
Double Dose (1986) Blue Trac (with Sugar Minott)
All I Have is Love Love Love (1987) Tad's
Victim (1987) VP
Watchman of the City (1987) Rohit
Come Along (1988), Live & Love
Red Rose for Gregory (1988) Greensleeves & RAS
Warning (1989) Firehouse
Feature Attraction (1989) VP for Mixing Lab records
No Contest (1989) Greensleeves & VP (with Dennis Brown)
I.O.U. (1989) Greensleeves & RAS
On The Dance Floor (1990) Heartbeat
Call Me Collect (1990) RAS
Set Me Free (1991) VP, Digital B & Vine Yard
No Intention (1991) VP
Boom Shot (1991) Shanachie
State of Shock (1991) RAS
Past and Future (1991) VP
Pardon Me! (1992) RAS
Cooyah! (1992) Label Unknown...
Can't Stay Away (1992) VP & Xterminator
Rudie Boo (1992) Star Trail
Unattended // Absent (1993) Pow Wow & Greensleeves
Unlocked (1993) RAS
Midnight Confidential (1994) Greensleeves for Xterminator records
Dreaming (1995) Heartbeat
Not a One Man Thing (1995) RAS
Private Lesson (1996) Heartbeat
Mr. Cool (1996) VP
Maximum Respect (1996) House of Reggae
Hold Tight (1997) Heartbeat
Hardcore Hits (1997) Ikus
Dance Curfew (1997), Acid Jazz – with Dread Flimstone
Kingston 14 Denham Town (1998) Jamaican Vibes
Do Lord (1998) Xterminator
New Dance (1999) Prestige
Turn Down The Lights (1999) Artists Only
So Much Love (2000) Joe Gibbs Music
Future Attraction (2000) VP
Father & Son (2000), 2B1 – Gregory Isaacs & Son
It Go Now (2002), 2B1
Life's Lonely Road (2004)
Give It All Up (2004) Heartbeat
Rat Patrol (2004) African Museum
Masterclass (2004) Greensleeves for Blacker Dread records
Revenge (2005) P.O.T.
Substance Free (2005) Vizion Sounds
Come take my hand (2006) Mun Mun
Hold Tight (2008) Mafia & Fluxy
Brand New Me (2008) African Museum
My Kind Of Lady (2009) Rude Productions
Isaacs Meets Isaac with King Isaac (2010) King Isaac Music
Dennis Emmanuel Brown (February 1, 1957 – July 1, 1999) was a Jamaican reggae singer. During his prolific career, which began in the late 1960s when he was aged eleven, he recorded more than 75 albums and was one of the major stars of lovers rock, a sub-genre of reggae. Bob Marley cited Brown as his favourite singer dubbing him "The Crown Prince of Reggae", and Brown would prove hugely influential on future generations of reggae singers.Dennis Brown was born on 1 February 1957 at Jubilee Hospital in Kingston, Jamaica. His father Arthur was a scriptwriter, actor, and journalist, and he grew up in a large tenement yard between North Street and King Street in Kingston with his parents, three elder brothers and a sister, although his mother died in the 1960s. He attended Central Branch Primary School and later St. Stephens College. He began his singing career at the age of nine, while still at junior school, with an end-of-term concert the first time he performed in public, although he had been keen on music from an even earlier age, and as a youngster was a keen fan of American balladeers such as Brook Benton, Sam Cooke, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin. He cited Nat King Cole as one of his greatest early influences. He regularly hung around JJ's record store on Orange Street in the rocksteady era and his relatives and neighbours would often throw Brown pennies to hear him sing in their yard Brown's first professional appearance came at the age of eleven, when he visited a local club where his brother Basil was performing a comedy routine, and where he made a guest appearance with the club's resident group, the Fabulous Falcons (a group which included Cynthia Richards, David "Scotty" Scott, and Noel Brown). On the strength of this performance he was asked to join the group as a featured vocalist. When the group performed at a JLP conference at the National Arena, Brown sang two songs - Desmond Dekker's "Unity" and Johnnie Taylor's "Ain't That Loving You" - and after the audience showered the stage with money, he was able to buy his first suit with the proceeds. Bandleader Byron Lee performed on the same bill, and was sufficiently impressed with Brown to book him to perform on package shows featuring visiting US artists, where he was billed as the "Boy Wonder". As a young singer he was influenced by older contemporaries such as Delroy Wilson (who he later cited as the single greatest influence on his style of singing), Errol Dunkley, John Holt, Ken Boothe, and Bob Andy. Brown's first recording was an original song called "Lips of Wine" for producer Derrick Harriott, but when this was not released, he recorded for Clement "Coxsone" Dodd's Studio One label, and his first session yielded the single "No Man is an Island", recorded when Brown was aged twelve and released in late 1969. The single received steadily increasing airplay for almost a year before becoming a huge hit throughout Jamaica. Brown recorded up to a dozen sessions for Dodd, amounting to around thirty songs, and also worked as a backing singer on sessions by other artists, including providing harmonies along with Horace Andy and Larry Marshall on Alton Ellis's Sunday Coming album. Brown was advised by fellow Studio One artist Ellis to learn guitar to help with his songwriting, and after convincing Dodd to buy him an instrument, was taught the basics by Ellis. These Studio One recordings were collected on two albums, No Man is an Island and If I Follow my Heart (the title track penned by Alton Ellis), although Brown had left Studio One before either was released He went on to record for several producers including Lloyd Daley ("Baby Don't Do It" and "Things in Life"), Prince Buster ("One Day Soon" and "If I Had the World"), and Phil Pratt ("Black Magic Woman", "Let Love In", and "What About the Half"), before returning to work with Derrick Harriott, recording a string of popular singles including "Silhouettes", "Concentration", "He Can't Spell", and "Musical Heatwave", with the pick of these tracks collected on the Super Reggae and Soul Hits album in 1973. Brown also recorded for Vincent "Randy" Chin ("Cheater"), Dennis Alcapone ("I Was Lonely"), and Herman Chin Loy ("It's Too Late" and "Song My Mother Used to Sing") among others, with Brown still at school at this stage of his career.
Death
In the late 1990s, Brown's health began to deteriorate, with longstanding respiratory problems exacerbated by cocaine use leading to him being taken ill in May 1999, after touring in Brazil with other reggae singers, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. After returning to Kingston, Jamaica, on the evening of June 30, 1999, he was rushed to Kingston's University Hospital, suffering from cardiac arrest.[43] Brown died the next day, and the official cause of his death was a collapsed lung, although his cocaine habit was considered a contributing factor. Sitting Jamaican Prime Minister P. J. Patterson and former prime minister, serving at the time as opposition leader, Edward Seaga of the Jamaica Labour Party both spoke at Brown's funeral, which was held on July 17, 1999 in Kingston. The service, which lasted for three hours, also featured live performances by Maxi Priest, Shaggy, and five of Brown's sons. Brown was then buried at Kingston's National Heroes Park. Brown was survived by his wife Yvonne and thirteen children. Jamaica's Prime Minister P. J. Patterson paid tribute to Brown, saying "Over the years, Dennis Brown has distinguished himself as one of the finest and most talented musicians of our time. The Crown Prince of Reggae as he was commonly called has left us with a vast repertoire of songs which will continue to satisfy the hearts and minds of Jamaicans for generations to come."
Legacy
Dennis Brown was an inspiration and influence for many reggae singers from the late 1970s through to the 2000s, including Barrington Levy, Junior Reid, Frankie Paul, Luciano, Bushman, and Richie Stephens. In July 1999, a group of UK-based musicians and more than fifty vocalists working under the collective name The British Reggae All Stars (including Mafia & Fluxy, Carlton "Bubblers" Ogilvie, Peter Hunnigale, Louisa Mark, Nerious Joseph, and Sylvia Tella) recorded "Tribute Song", a medley of six of Brown's best-known songs, in memory of Brown.
He was honoured on the first anniversary of his death by a massive memorial concert in Brooklyn, which featured performances from Johnny Osbourne, Micky Jarrett, Delano Tucker, and Half Pint. In 2001, a charitable trust was set up in Brown's name. The Dennis Emanuel Brown Trust works to educate youngsters, maintain and advance the memory of Dennis Brown, and help to provide youngsters with musical instruments. The trust awards the Dennis Emanuel Brown (DEB) bursary for educational achievement each year to students between the ages of 10–12 years. In 2005, George Nooks, who had worked with Brown in the mid-1970s in his deejay guise as Prince Mohamed, released an album of Brown covers, George Nooks Sings Dennis Brown: The Voice Lives On, with Nooks stating "I was always inspired by his talent and I used to sing like him. Dennis had a whole heap of influence on me. To me he was the greatest. He was my number one singer." In the same year, Gregory Isaacs paid a similar tribute with the album Gregory Isaacs Sings Dennis Brown. In February 2007, a series of events were staged in Jamaica in celebration of the lives of both Brown and Marley (both would have had birthdays that month). In 2008, the Dennis Brown Trust announced a new internet radio station, dedicated solely to the music of Dennis Brown, and in the same month a tribute concert was staged by the Jamaican Association of Vintage Artistes and Affiliates (JAVAA) featuring Dwight Pinkney, Derrick Harriott, Sugar Minott, George Nooks, and John Holt.
Songs about or dedicated to Brown include "Song for Dennis Brown" by The Mountain Goats, "If This World Were Mine" by Slightly Stoopid, "Drive" by Pepper (band), and Whitney Houston's "Whitney Houston Dub Plate" on The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book album by Wyclef Jean.
On Monday April 26, 2010, Dennis Brown was featured on NPR Morning Edition news program as one of the 50 Great Voices - The stories of awe-inspiring voices from around the world and across time. The NPR 50 Great Voices list includes legendary artists such as Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Mahalia Jackson and Jackie Wilson among others.
Studio albums
1970 - No Man is an Island (Studio One)
1971 - If I Follow My Heart (Studio One)
1972 - Super Reggae & Soul Hits (Crystal/Trojan)
1974 - The Best of Dennis Brown (Joe Gibbs) aka Best of Part 1 (1979, Joe Gibbs)
1975 - Deep Down (Observer), reissued in 1979 as So Long Rastafari (Harry J)
1975 - Just Dennis (Observer/Trojan)
1977 - Superstar (Micron)
1977 - Wolf & Leopards (DEB/Weed Beat)
1977 - Dennis Brown Meets Harry Hippy (Pioneer)(with Harry Hippy)
1978 - Westbound Train (Third World), aka Africa (Celluloid)
1978 - Visions of Dennis Brown (Joe Gibbs)
1979 - Joseph's Coat Of Many Colors (DEB)
1979 - Words of Wisdom (Joe Gibbs/Atlantic)
1980 - Spellbound (Joe Gibbs/Laser)
1981 - Money In My Pocket (Trojan)
1981 - Foul Play (Joe Gibbs/A&M)
1982 - Best Of Part 2 (Joe Gibbs)
1982 - Love Has Found Its Way (Joe Gibbs/A&M) (UK #72)[55]
1982 - More (Yvonne's Special)
1982 - Stage Coach Showcase (Yvonne's Special)
1982 - Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow (Joe Gibbs)
1983 - Satisfaction Feeling (Yvonne's Special/Tad's)
1983 - The Prophet Rides Again (A&M)
1984 - Judge Not (with Gregory Isaacs) (Music Works/Greensleeves)
1984 - Two Bad Superstars (with Gregory Isaacs) (Burning Sounds)
1984 - Love's Got A Hold On Me (Joe Gibbs)
1984 - Revolution (Taxi/Yvonne's Special)
1984 - Reggae Super Stars Meet (with Horace Andy) (Striker Lee)
1985 - Slow Down (Music Works/Greensleeves)
1985 - Wake Up (Natty Congo)
1985 - Wild Fire (with John Holt) (Natty Congo)
1986 - Brown Sugar (Taxi)
1986 - Baalgad (with Enos McLeod) (Goodies)
1986 - History (Live & Love)
1986 - Hold Tight (Live & learn)
1986 - The Exit (Jammy's)
1987 - So Amazing (with Janet Kay) (Trojan)
1988 - Inseparable (WKS)
1989 - No Contest (with Gregory Isaacs) (Music Works/Greensleeves)
1989 - Death Before Dishonour (Tappa)
1989 - Good Vibrations (Yvonne's Special)
1990 - Over Proof (Greensleeves)
1990 - Unchallenged (Music Works/Greensleeves)
1990 - Reggae Giants (with Freddie McGregor) (Rocky One)
1990 - Sarge (Yvonne's Special)
1991 - Victory is Mine (Legga/RAS)
1992 - Another Day in Paradise (Trojan)
1992 - Beautiful Morning (World Record)
1992 - Blazing (Two Friends/Shanachie/Greensleeves)
1992 - Friends For Life (Black Scorpio/Shanachie)
1992 - Limited Edition (Artistic/VP/Greensleeves)
1992 - If I Didn't Love You
1992 - Cosmic (Observer)
1993 - Cosmic Force (Heartbeat)
1993 - The General (VP)
1993 - Legit (with Freddie McGregor & Cocoa Tea) (Greensleeves/Shanachie)
1993 - Rare Grooves Reggae Rhythm & Blues (Body Music/Yvonne's Special)
199? - Rare Grooves Reggae Rhythm & Blues vol. 2 (Yvonne's Special)
1993 - Songs of Emanuel (Yvonne's Special/Sonic Sounds)
1993 - Unforgettable (Jammy's)
1993 - Hotter Flames (with Frankie Paul) (VP)
1993 - Give Praises (Tappa)
1993 - It's The Right Time
1994 - 3 Against War (with Triston Palmer & Beenie Man) (VP)
1994 - Blood Brothers (with Gregory Isaacs) (RAS)
1994 - Light My Fire (Heartbeat)
1994 - Nothing Like This (Greensleeves/RAS)
1994 - Party Time (with John Holt) (Sonic Sounds)
1994 - Vision of the Reggae King (Gold Mine/VP)
1995 - I Don't Know (Grapevine/Dynamite)
1995 - Temperature Rising (Trojan)
1995 - Dennis Brown and Friends (with Sugar Minott & Justin Hinds) (Jamaican Authentic Classics)
1995 - The Facts of Life (Diamond Rush)
1995 - You Got the Best of Me (Saxon)
1996 - Could It Be (VP)
1996 - Lovers Paradise (House of Reggae)
1996 - Milk & Honey (RAS)
1997 - Meet at the Penthouse (with Leroy Smart) (Rhino)
1998 - One of a Kind (Imaj)
1999 - Believe in Yourself (Don One/TP)
1999 - Bless Me Jah (RAS/Charm)
1999 - Generosity (Gator)
Posthumous releases and compilations
1983 - The Best of Dennis Brown (Blue Moon)
1987 - Greatest Hits (Rohit)
1987 - My Time (Rohit)
1990 - Go Now (Rohit)
1991 - Classic Gold (Rocky One)
1992 - Kollection (Gong Sounds)
1992 - Some Like It Hot (Heartbeat)
1992 - Classic Hits (Sonic Sounds)
1993 - Best Of - Musical Heatwave 1972-75 (Trojan)
1993 - 20 Magnificent Hits (Thunderbolt)
1993 - It's the Right Time (Rhino)
1994 - The Prime of Dennis Brown (Music Club)
1994 - Early Days (Sonic Sounds)
1995 - Africa - the Best of Dennis Brown vol. 1 (Esoldun)
1995 - Travelling Man - the Best of Dennis Brown vol. 2 (Esoldun)
1995 - Open The Gate - Greatest Hits Volume II (Heartbeat)
1995 - Joy in the Morning (Lagoon)
1996 - Hit After Hit (Rocky One)
1996 - The Very Best of Dennis Brown (Rhino)
1996 - Love & Hate: The Best of Dennis Brown (VP)
1996 - The Crown Prince (World Records)
1997 - Money in My Pocket (Delta Music)
1997 - Maximum Replay (Gone Clear)
1997 - Ras Portraits (RAS)
1997 - Reggae Max (Jet Star)
1998 - The Prime of Dennis Brown (Music Club)
1998 - Watch This Sound (Jamaican Gold)
1998 - Lovers Paradise (Time Music)
1998 - Tracks of Life (Snapper)
1999 - The Godlike Genius of Dennis Brown (Dressed to Kill)
1999 - Reggae Legends vol. 2 (Artists Only)
1999 - In the Mood (Charly)
1999 - Greatest Hits (Charly)
1999 - Love is So True (Prism)
1999 - Stone Cold World (VP)
1999 - Ready We Ready (Super Power)
1999 - Tribulation (PDG/Heartbeat)
1999 - The Great Mr Brown
2000 - May Your Food Basket Never Empty (RAS)
2000 - Reggae Trilogy (with Glen Washington & Gregory Isaacs) (J&D)
2000 - We are all One (J&D)
2000 - The Crown Prince (Metro)
2000 - Let Me be the One (VP)
2001 - Cassandra (Starburst)
2001 - Love's Got a Hold on You (Artists Only)
2001 - Money in My Pocket: Anthology (Trojan)
2001 - Any Day Now (Heartbeat)
2001 - Essential (Next Music)
2001 - Archives (Trojan)
2001 - The Prime of Dennis Brown (Music Club)
2002 - Dennis Brown In Dub (with Niney the Observer) (Rounder/Heartbeat)
2002 - You Satisfy My Soul (Fat Man)
2002 - Memorial: Featuring John Holt (Jetstar)
2002 - The Promised Land 1977-79 (Blood & Fire)
2002 - Winning Combinations (with Bunny Wailer) (Universal)
2002 - Memorial (Jetstar)
2002 - Forever Dennis (Jetstar/Reggae Road)
2003 - The Complete A&M Years (A&M)
2003 - Dennis Brown Sings Gregory Isaacs (RAS)
2003 - Crown Prince (Trojan)
2004 - Dennis Brown Conqueror: An Essential Collection (Burning Bush)
2005 - Money in My Pocket: The Definitive Collection (Trojan)
2005 - Sings Revival Classics (Cousins)
2005 - At the Foot of the Mountain (Charm)
2006 - Sledgehammer Special (with King Tubby)
2006 - Taxi 3 Trio (with Gregory Isaacs & Sugar Minott) (Taxi)
2008 - A Little Bit More: Joe Gibbs 12" Selection 1978-1983 (VP)
Live albums
1979 - Live at Montreux (Laser/Joe Gibbs)
1987 - In Concert (Ayeola)
1992 - Live in Montego Bay (Sonic Sounds)
2000 - Academy (Orange Street)
2001 - Best of Reggae Live (Innerbeat)
2001 - Best of Reggae Live vol. 2 (Innerbeat)
2003 - Live in New York (Ital International)
DVD & Video
The Living Legend (VHS; Keeling Videos)
Rock Steady Roll Call (VHS; Ruff Neck)
Stars in the East (with John Holt) (VHS/DVD; Ruff Neck)
Inseparable volumes 1-4 (4 VHS volumes (199?)/2 DVD volumes (2004); Ruff Neck)
Live at Montreux (1996; DVD; Synergie)
Hits After Hits (2001; DVD; Keeling Videos)
Live at Reggae Ganfest (2003; DVD; Contreband)
Productions of other artists
1977 - Various Artists - Black Echoes
1978 - The DEB Music Players - Umoja
1978 - The DEB Music Players - 20th Century DEB-Wise
1979 - The DEB Music Players - DJ Tracking
1979 - Junior Delgado - Effort
1979 - Junior Delgado - Taste of the Young Heart
1981 - Junior Delgado - More She Love It
1982 - Junior Delgado - Bush Master Revolution
1985 - Various Artists - 4 Star Showcase
199? - Various Artists - Return to Umoja
[edit]International hit singles
"Money In My Pocket" (1977) - UK No. 14
"Love Has Found Its Way" (1982) - UK No. 47
"Halfway Up Halfway Down" (1982) - UK No. 56
"Senorita" (1988) - UK No. 95
Dinka is an ethnic group inhabiting the Bahr el Ghazal region of the Nile basin, Jonglei and parts of southern Kordufan and Upper Nile regions. They are mainly agro-pastoral people, relying on cattle herding at riverside camps in the dry season and growing millet (Awuou) and other varieties of grains (rap) in fixed settlements during the rainy season. They number around 1.5 million people, constituting about 10% of the population [1] of the entire country, and constitute the largest ethnic tribe in South Sudan. Dinka, or as they refer to themselves, Muonyjang (singular) and jieng (plural), are one of the branches of the River Lake Nilotes (mainly sedentary agri-pastoral peoples of East Africa who speak Nilotic languages, including the Nuer and Luo) [2]. Dinka are sometimes noted for their height. With the Tutsi of Rwanda, they are believed to be the tallest people in Africa [2].However, the popular belief that Dinka "often" reach more than seven feet finds no support in scientific literature. An anthropometric survey of Dinka men published in 1995 found a mean height of 176.4cm, or roughly 5 ft 9.45 in the Ethiopian Medical Journal.[3]
The Dinka have no centralised political authority, instead comprising many independent but interlinked clans. Certain of those clans traditionally provide ritual chiefs, known as the "masters of the fishing spear" or "beny bith" [4], who provide leadership for the entire people and appear to be at least in part hereditary.
Their language called Dinka as well as "thuɔŋjäŋ (thuongjang)" is one of the Nilotic family of languages, belonging to the Chari-Nile branch of the Nilo-Saharan family. The name means "people" in the Dinka language. It is written using the Latin alphabet with a few additions.
Southern Sudan has been described as “a large basin gently sloping northward (Roth 2003),” through which flow the Bahr el Jebel River, the (White Nile), the Bahr el Ghazal (Nam) River and its tributaries, and the Sobat, all merging into a vast barrier swamp
Vast Sudanese oil areas to the south and east are part of the flood plain, a basin in the southern Sudan into which the rivers of Congo, Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia drain off from an ironstone plateau that belts the regions of Bahr El Ghazal and Upper Nile
The terrain can be divided into four land classes:
An example of rainy season temporary settlements. Note the stilts upon which the huts are built to protect against periodic flooding of the region.
Highlands—higher than the surrounding plains by only a few centimeters; are the sites for “permanent settlements.” Vegetation consists of open thorn woodland and/or open mixed woodland with grasses
Intermediate Lands—lie slightly below the highlands, commonly subject to flooding from heavy rainfall in the Ethiopian and East/Central African highlands; Vegetation is mostly open perennial grassland with some acacia woodland and other sparsely distributed trees
Toic—land seasonally inundated or saturated by the main rivers and inland water-courses, retaining enough moisture throughout the dry season to support cattle grazing
Sudd—permanent swampland below the level of the toic; covers a substantial part of the floodplain in which the Dinka reside; provides good fishing but is not available for livestock; historically it has been a physical barrier to outsiders’ penetration
Ecology of large basin is unique; until recently, wild animals and birds flourished, hunted rarely by the agro-pastoralists (Roth 2003).
An example of a cattle byre.
The Dinka tribe (or Jieng) has ten subdivisions: Atuot, Aliab, Bor, Chiej, Agar, Gok, Rek, Twij, Malual, and Ngok. Malual is the largest of those groups, numbering over a million people. The Dinka's migrations are determined by the local climate, their agro-pastoral lifestyle responding to the periodic flooding and dryness of the area in which they live. They begin moving around May-June at the onset of the rainy season to their “permanent settlements” of mud and thatch housing above flood level, where they plant their crops of millet and other grain products.
These rainy season settlements usually contain other permanent structures such as cattle byres (luaak) and granaries. During dry season (beginning about December-January), everyone except the aged, ill, and nursing mothers migrate to semi-permanent dwellings in the toic for cattle grazing. The cultivation of sorghum, millet, and other crops begins in the highlands in the early rainy season and the harvest of crops begins when the rains are heavy in June-August. Cattle are driven to the toic in September and November when the rainfall drops off; allowed to graze on harvested stalks of the crops [5].
[edit]Cultural and religious beliefs
The Dinka's pastoral lifestyle is also reflected in their religious beliefs and practices, which are not animist in character. They have one God, Nhialic, who speaks through spirits that take temporary possession of individuals in order to speak through them. The sacrificing of oxen by the "masters of the fishing spear" is a central component of the Dinka. Age is an important factor in Dinka culture, with young men being inducted into adulthood through an initiation ordeal which includes marking the forehead with a sharp object. Also during this ceremony they acquire a second cow-colour name.
Following the war, Christianity predominated over Dinka religious practices, being introduced to the region by British missionaries in the 19th century and during the civil war.
[edit]War with the North and status as refugees
The Dinka's religions, beliefs and lifestyle have led to conflict with the government in Khartoum. The Sudan People's Liberation Army, led by late Dr. John Garang De Mabior, a Dinka, took arms against the government in 1983. During the subsequent 21-year civil war, many thousands of Dinka, along with fellow non-Dinka southerners, were massacred by government forces. The Dinka have also engaged in a separate civil war with the Nuer.
In November 15, 1991 the Bor Massacre took place in Southern Sudan, triggered by a coup declaration against the then SPLM chairman, the late Dr. John Garang, on August 28, 1991 by the current vice president of the government of Southern Sudan, Dr. Riek Machar. Dr. Machar's forces killed 500 civilians in Bor and wounded the same number in the course of two months. Immediately after came famine since Machar forces looted and burned villages and raided cattle. Another 25,000 people died as a result, according to Amnesty International. Dr. Riek described the incident as "propaganda" and "myth" despite horrific evidence of mass killing shown by bones and corpses in the aftermath of the massacre.
Sizable groups of Dinka refugees may be found in distant lands, including Jacksonville, Florida and Clarkston, a working-class suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, as well as Edmonton in Canada.
The experience of Dinka refugees was portrayed in the documentary movies Lost Boys of Sudan by Megan Mylan and Jon Shenk and God Grew Tired Of Us, Joan Hechts' book The Journey of the Lost Boys and the fictionalized autobiography of a Dinka refugee, Dave Eggers' What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng. Other books on and by the Lost Boys include The Lost Boys of Sudan by Mark Bixler, God Grew Tired of Us by John Bul Dau, and They Poured Fire On Us From The Sky by Alephonsion Deng, Benson Deng, and Benjamin Ajak. In 2004 the first volume of the graphic novel 'Echoes of the Lost Boys of Sudan'[6] was released in Dallas, Texas, United States, chronicling in art and dialogue four lost boys' escapes from the destruction of their hometowns in Southern Sudan. The Florida ska punk group, Against All Authority refers to the Dinka clan in the song "Dinkas When I Close My Eyes" from their album 24 Hour Roadside Resistance.
[edit]Notable Dinka
Among well-known Dinka are:
William Deng Nhial (Dengdit), Founder of Sudan African National Union (SANU), Leading figure during the 1st liberation war against the Khartoum government.
Abel Alier Kuai (Wal Kuai), Sudanese vice president in the government of the republic of the Sudan in the seventies and eighties.
John Garang, Former First Vice President of Sudan and President of South Sudan, Commander in Chief of Sudan People's Liberation Army and Chairman of Sudan People's Liberation Movement.
Lt. General Dominic Dim Deng, South Sudan's first political officer of SPLA, Minister for SPLA Affairs.
James Aguer Alic, activist who liberated thousands of enslaved children from Arab masters.
Lt. General Salva Kiir Mayardit, Dr. Garang's successor as First Vice President of Sudan and President of South Sudan, Commander in Chief of Sudan People's Liberation Army and Chairman of Sudan People's Liberation Movement.
Martin Majier Gai Ayuel Lawyer/politician and SPLM chairman, as one of the founders of Sudan People Liberation SPLA/SPLM.
Victoria Yar Arol, (?-1980) Politician, Member of Parliament, Woman Activist and first Southern Sudanese woman to graduate from University.
Alek Wek, a notable fashion model
Manute Bol, Former NBA player. one of the two tallest players in the league's history
Luol Deng, current NBA player
Francis Deng, author, SAIS Research Professor
Valentino Achak Deng, a former Lost Boy and subject of What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, a biographical novel written by Dave Eggers.
John Bul Dau, one of the "Lost Boys of Sudan", author of God Grew Tired of Us, his autobiography, and subject of the documentary of the same title.
Majak Daw, the first Sudanese Australian to be drafted by a senior Australian Football League club. Daw selected with pick 9 in the rookie draft by the North Melbourne Football Club on December 15, 2009. Daw's achievement is all the more notable given he has only been playing the game for four years.[7]
Kwame Nkrumah (21 September 1909 - 27 April 1972)[1] was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966. He was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana. An influential 20th century advocate of Pan-Africanism, he was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity and was the winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1963
In 1909, Kwame Nkrumah was born to Madam Nyaniba[2][3] in Nkroful, Gold Coast.[4] Nkrumah graduated from the prestigious Achimota School in Accra in 1930,[1] studied at a Roman Catholic Seminary, and taught at a Catholic school in Axim. In 1935 he left Ghana for the United States, receiving a BA from Lincoln University, Pennsylvania in 1939, where he pledged the Mu Chapter of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., and received an STB (Bachelor of Sacred Theology) in 1942. Nkrumah earned a Master of Science in education from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942, and a Master of Arts in philosophy the following year. While lecturing in political science at Lincoln he was elected president of the African Students Organization of America and Canada. As an undergraduate at Lincoln he participated in at least one student theater production and published an essay on European government in Africa in the student newspaper, The Lincolnian.[5]
During his time in the United States, Nkrumah preached at black Presbyterian Churches in Philadelphia and New York City.[citation needed] He read books about politics and divinity, and tutored students in philosophy. Nkrumah encountered the ideas of Marcus Garvey, and in 1943 met and began a lengthy correspondence with Trinidadian Marxist C.L.R. James, Russian expatriate Raya Dunayevskaya, and Chinese-American Grace Lee Boggs, all of whom were members of a US based Trotskyist intellectual cohort. Nkrumah later credited James with teaching him 'how an underground movement worked'.
He arrived in London in May 1945 intending to study at the LSE.[citation needed] After meeting with George Padmore, he helped organize the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England. Then he founded the West African National Secretariat to work for the decolonization of Africa. Nkrumah served as Vice-President of the West African Students' Union (WASU).
Over his lifetime, Nkrumah was awarded honorary doctorates by Lincoln University, Moscow State University; Cairo University in Cairo, Egypt; Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland; Humboldt University in the former East Berlin; and many other universities.[citation needed]
[edit]Return to the Gold Coast
In the autumn of 1947, Nkrumah was invited to serve as the General Secretary to the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) under Joseph B. Danquah. This political convention was exploring paths to independence. Nkrumah accepted the position and sailed for the Gold Coast. After brief stops in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Ivory Coast, he arrived in the Gold Coast in December 1947.
In February 1948, police fired on African ex-servicemen protesting the rising cost of living. The shooting spurred riots in Accra, Kumasi, and elsewhere. The government suspected the UGCC was behind the protests and arrested Nkrumah and other party leaders. Realizing their error, the British soon released the convention leaders. After his imprisonment by the colonial government, Nkrumah emerged as the leader of the youth movement in 1948.
After his release, Nkrumah hitchhiked around the country. He proclaimed that the Gold Coast needed "self-government now", and built a large power base. Cocoa farmers rallied to his cause because they disagreed with British policy to contain swollen shoot disease. He invited women to participate in the political process at a time when women's suffrage was new to Africa. The trade unions also allied with his movement. By 1949, he organized these groups into a new political party: The Convention People's Party.
The British convened a selected commission of middle class Africans to draft a new constitution that would give Ghana more self-government. Under the new constitution, only those with sufficient wage and property would be allowed to vote. Nkrumah organized a "People's Assembly" with CPP party members, youth, trade unionists, farmers, and veterans. They called for universal franchise without property qualifications, a separate house of chiefs, and self-governing status under the Statute of Westminster. These amendments, known as the Constitutional Proposals of October 1949, were rejected by the colonial administration.
When the colonial administration rejected the People's Assembly's recommendations, Nkrumah organized a "Positive Action" campaign in January 1950, including civil disobedience, non-cooperation, boycotts, and strikes. The colonial administration arrested Nkrumah and many CPP supporters, and he was sentenced to three years in prison.
Facing international protests and internal resistance, the British decided to leave the Gold Coast. Britain organized the first general election to be held under universal franchise on 5–10 February 1951. Though in jail, Nkrumah's CPP was elected by a landslide taking 34 out of 38 elected seats in the Legislative Assembly. Nkrumah was released from prison on 12 February, and summoned by the British Governor Charles Arden-Clarke, and asked to form a government on the 13th. The new Legislative Assembly met on 20 February, with Nkrumah as Leader of Government Business, and E.C. Quist as President of the Assembly. A year later, the constitution was amended to provide for a Prime Minister on 10 March 1952, and Nkrumah was elected to that post by a secret ballot in the Assembly, 45 to 31, with eight abstentions on 21 March. He presented his "Motion of Destiny" to the Assembly, requesting independence within the British Commonwealth "as soon as the necessary constitutional arrangements are made" on 10 July 1953, and that body approved iT Return to the Gold Coast
In the autumn of 1947, Nkrumah was invited to serve as the General Secretary to the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) under Joseph B. Danquah. This political convention was exploring paths to independence. Nkrumah accepted the position and sailed for the Gold Coast. After brief stops in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Ivory Coast, he arrived in the Gold Coast in December 1947.
In February 1948, police fired on African ex-servicemen protesting the rising cost of living. The shooting spurred riots in Accra, Kumasi, and elsewhere. The government suspected the UGCC was behind the protests and arrested Nkrumah and other party leaders. Realizing their error, the British soon released the convention leaders. After his imprisonment by the colonial government, Nkrumah emerged as the leader of the youth movement in 1948.
After his release, Nkrumah hitchhiked around the country. He proclaimed that the Gold Coast needed "self-government now", and built a large power base. Cocoa farmers rallied to his cause because they disagreed with British policy to contain swollen shoot disease. He invited women to participate in the political process at a time when women's suffrage was new to Africa. The trade unions also allied with his movement. By 1949, he organized these groups into a new political party: The Convention People's Party.
The British convened a selected commission of middle class Africans to draft a new constitution that would give Ghana more self-government. Under the new constitution, only those with sufficient wage and property would be allowed to vote. Nkrumah organized a "People's Assembly" with CPP party members, youth, trade unionists, farmers, and veterans. They called for universal franchise without property qualifications, a separate house of chiefs, and self-governing status under the Statute of Westminster. These amendments, known as the Constitutional Proposals of October 1949, were rejected by the colonial administration.
When the colonial administration rejected the People's Assembly's recommendations, Nkrumah organized a "Positive Action" campaign in January 1950, including civil disobedience, non-cooperation, boycotts, and strikes. The colonial administration arrested Nkrumah and many CPP supporters, and he was sentenced to three years in prison.
Facing international protests and internal resistance, the British decided to leave the Gold Coast. Britain organized the first general election to be held under universal franchise on 5–10 February 1951. Though in jail, Nkrumah's CPP was elected by a landslide taking 34 out of 38 elected seats in the Legislative Assembly. Nkrumah was released from prison on 12 February, and summoned by the British Governor Charles Arden-Clarke, and asked to form a government on the 13th. The new Legislative Assembly met on 20 February, with Nkrumah as Leader of Government Business, and E.C. Quist as President of the Assembly. A year later, the constitution was amended to provide for a Prime Minister on 10 March 1952, and Nkrumah was elected to that post by a secret ballot in the Assembly, 45 to 31, with eight abstentions on 21 March. He presented his "Motion of Destiny" to the Assembly, requesting independence within the British Commonwealth "as soon as the necessary constitutional arrangements are made" on 10 July 1953, and that body approved it.
[edit]Independence
Nkrumah and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
As a leader of this government, Nkrumah faced three serious challenges: first, to learn to govern; second, to unify the nation of Ghana from the four territories of the Gold Coast; third, to win his nation’s complete independence from the United Kingdom. Nkrumah was successful at all three goals. Within six years of his release from prison, he was the leader of an independent nation.
At 12 a.m. on 6 March 1957, Nkrumah declared Ghana independent. He was hailed as the Osagyefo - which means "redeemer" in the Twi language.[6]
On 6 March 1960, Nkrumah announced plans for a new constitution which would make Ghana a republic. The draft included a provision to surrender Ghanaian sovereignty to a union of African states. On 19, 23, and 27 April 1960 a presidential election and plebiscite on the constitution were held. The constitution was ratified and Nkrumah was elected president over J. B. Danquah, the UP candidate, 1,016,076 to 124,623.
In 1961, Nkrumah laid the first stones in the foundation of the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute created to train Ghanaian civil servants as well as promote Pan-Africanism. In 1964, all students entering college in Ghana were required to attend a two-week "ideological orientation" at the Institute[7]. Nkrumah remarked that "trainees should be made to realize the party's ideology is religion, and should be practiced faithfully and fervently." [8]
In 1963, Nkrumah was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union. Ghana became a charter member of the Organization of African Unity in 1963.
The Gold Coast had been among the wealthiest and most socially advanced areas in Africa, with schools, railways, hospitals, social security and an advanced economy. Under Nkrumah’s leadership, Ghana adopted some socialist policies and practices. Nkrumah created a welfare system, started various community programs, and established schools.
[edit]Politics
He generally took a non-aligned Marxist perspective on economics, and believed capitalism had malignant effects that were going to stay with Africa for a long time. Although he was clear on distancing himself from the African socialism of many of his contemporaries; Nkrumah argued that socialism was the system that would best accommodate the changes that capitalism had brought, while still respecting African values. He specifically addresses these issues and his politics in a 1967 essay entitled "African Socialism Revisited":
Billboard in Zambia with Nkrumah's non-alignment quote: "We face neither East nor West; We face forward" (Taken in May 2005)
"We know that the traditional African society was founded on principles of egalitarianism. In its actual workings, however, it had various shortcomings. Its humanist impulse, nevertheless, is something that continues to urge us towards our all-African socialist reconstruction. We postulate each man to be an end in himself, not merely a means; and we accept the necessity of guaranteeing each man equal opportunities for his development. The implications of this for socio-political practice have to be worked out scientifically, and the necessary social and economic policies pursued with resolution. Any meaningful humanism must begin from egalitarianism and must lead to objectively chosen policies for safeguarding and sustaining egalitarianism. Hence, socialism. Hence, also, scientific socialism."[9]
Nkrumah was also perhaps best known politically for his strong commitment to and promotion of Pan-Africanism. Having been inspired by the writings and his relationships with black intellectuals like Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois, and George Padmore. With perhaps Nkrumah's biggest success in this area coming with his significant influence in the founding of the Organization of African Unity
SOUTH AFRICA HISTORY The San people were the first settlers; the Khoikhoi and Bantu-speaking tribes followed. The Dutch East India Company landed the first European settlers on the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, launching a colony that by the end of the 18th century numbered only about 15,000. Known as Boers or Afrikaners, and speaking a Dutch dialect known as Afrikaans, the settlers as early as 1795 tried to establish an independent republic.
After occupying the Cape Colony in that year, Britain took permanent possession in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, bringing in 5,000 settlers. Anglicization of government and the freeing of slaves in 1833 drove about 12,000 Afrikaners to make the “great trek” north and east into African tribal territory, where they established the republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold nine years later brought an influx of “outlanders” into the republics and spurred Cape Colony prime minister Cecil Rhodes to plot annexation. Rhodes's scheme of sparking an “outlander” rebellion, to which an armed party under Leander Starr Jameson would ride to the rescue, misfired in 1895, forcing Rhodes to resign. What British expansionists called the “inevitable” war with the Boers broke out on Oct. 11, 1899. The defeat of the Boers in 1902 led in 1910 to the Union of South Africa, composed of four provinces, the two former republics, and the old Cape and Natal colonies. Louis Botha, a Boer, became the first prime minister. Organized political activity among Africans started with the establishment of the African National Congress in 1912.
Geography
South Africa, on the continent's southern tip, is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west and by the Indian Ocean on the south and east. Its neighbors are Namibia in the northwest, Zimbabwe and Botswana in the north, and Mozambique and Swaziland in the northeast. The kingdom of Lesotho forms an enclave within the southeast part of South Africa, which occupies an area nearly three times that of California.
The southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas, located in the Western Cape Province about 100 mi (161 km) southeast of the Cape of Good Hope
Apartheid is Abolished; Mandela Becomes President
In 1991, a multiracial forum led by de Klerk and Mandela, the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA), began working on a new constitution. In 1993, an interim constitution was passed, which dismantled apartheid and provided for a multiracial democracy with majority rule. The peaceful transition of South Africa from one of the world's most repressive societies into a democracy is one of the 20th century's most remarkable success stories. Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
The 1994 election, the country's first multiracial one, resulted in a massive victory for Mandela and his ANC. The new government included six ministers from the National Party and three from the Inkatha Freedom Party. A new national constitution was approved and adopted in May 1996.
In 1997 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Desmond Tutu, began hearings regarding human rights violations between 1960 and 1993. The commission promised amnesty to those who confessed their crimes under the apartheid system. In 1998, F. W. de Klerk, P.W. Botha, and leaders of the ANC appeared before the commission, and the nation continued to grapple with its enlightened but often painful and divisive process of national recovery.
"As Sunday, November 2, dawned clear, all in Addis Ababa began to prepare for the impressive event of the morning. The Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah and his Empress have just completed a night of prayer and devotion at the most high altar within. Through the early morning the chanting of praises continued, accompanied by the dancing of the priests with their great pulsating drums, the whole suggestive of the Ancient Jewish rites which were in use at the time of King David danced before the Ark of the Covenant.
"Proceeded by waving incense burners, His Imperial Majesty, attired in white silk communion robes, entered the ceremonial hall with an escort of aides and clergy, and took his place upon the Throne. The thrilling but solemn silence gently breaks to the throaty voice of his holiness the Abuna Kyrillos:
"Ye princes and ministers, ye nobles and chiefs of the army, ye soldiers and people of Ethiopia, and ye doctors and chiefs of the clergy, ye professors and priests, look ye upon our Emperor Haile Selassie the First, descended from the dynasty of Menelik the First, who was born of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, a dynasty perpetuated without interruption from the time of King Sehale to our times."
"Forty nine bishops and priests of this ancient Christian country, in groups of seven, have held place for seven days and nights in the seven corners of the National Cathedral to chant without ceasing nine Psalms of David. They are now joined by hundreds more. The established Coptic Church is revered and all-powerful in Ethiopia. This is a day when it may and does show its impressive might and splendor.
"The Emperor, whose name is Anglicized as Power of the Holy Trinity, before the questioning of the Abuna gives his sacred pledge to uphold the Orthodox religion of the Church, to support and administer the laws of the country for the betterment of the people, to maintain the integrity of Ethiopia, and to found schools for developing the Spiritual and Material welfare of her subjects.
"Chanting and prayers to the God of Gods rise from a multitude of priestly throats and reverberate from the lofty ceiling of the Cathedral. One by one with the solemn rites and blessings of the high Ethiopian clergy, He received the Gold-Embroidered Scarlet Robes, the Jeweled Sword, Imperial Gold Scepter, the Orb, the Diamond Encrusted Ring, and two Gold Filigree Lances in token of His position and responsibility. Following ancient customs, as when Samuel anointed David, and Zadok and Nathan anointed Solomon, so the Abuna anointed His Majesty's head with oil. Seven differently scented ointments of ancient prescription are received on the Imperial head, brow, and shoulders. He then concluded with the words:
"That God make this Crown a Crown of Glory. That, by the Grace and the blessing which we have given, you may have an Unshaken Faith and a Pure Heart, in order that you may inherit the Crown Eternal. So be it."
The centuries seemed to have slipped suddenly backwards into Biblical ritual.
"The assembly applauded their greeting, and the visiting naval band played the National Anthem, while outside cannons roared a salute of 101 guns, and cheer after cheer came from thousands of subjects massed in the vicinity of the Cathedral."
His Majesty speaks on leadership
"We all know that the need for good leadership in every walk of life is much greater today than ever before. Every aspect of living demands guiding hands, business, the professions, fine arts, the mechanical arts. And all of you young people who have been given the opportunity of an advanced education will in the future be called upon to shoulder, in varying degrees, the responsibilities to leading and serving the nation.
"It is important however to remember that leadership does not mean domination. The world is always well supplied with people who wish to rule and dominate others. The true leader is of a different sort. He seeks effective activity which has a truly beneficent purpose. He inspires others to follow in his wake, and holding aloft the torch of wisdom leads the way for society to realize its genuinely great aspirations.
"You have learnt from your study of history that the story of nations is often told in terms of the accomplishment of individuals. In every significant event in history you will find a courageous and determined leader, an inspiring goal or objective, and an adversary who sought to spoil his efforts.
"In any normal society everyone has some opportunity to show himself as a leader, Even the mechanic or clerk who has an assistant assigned to him, not to speak of the doctor with all his helpers the officer who commands his troops, is a leader. Within his own sphere each has the same opportunity for showing ability and the same potential satisfactions as has the leader of a Government. The leader is marked out by his individual craftsmanship, his sensibility and insight, his initiative and energy.
"Leaders are people who raise the standards by which they judge themselves, and by which they are willing to be judged. The goal chosen, the objective selected, the requirements imposed are not merely for their followers alone. They develop with consummate energy and devotion their own skill and knowledge in order to reach the standards they themselves have set. This wholehearted acceptance of the demands imposed by ever-higher standards is the basis of all human progress. A love of high quality we must remember is essential in a leader.
"Dependability is another requirement in a leader. To be dependable is to be willing to accept the responsibility and to carry it out faithfully. A leader will always be willing to take counsel from his people. But will have to often act on what his own mind tells him is right. This demands that the leader has trained himself out of any inordinate fear of making mistakes.
"To embark successfully in a career involving leadership demands a courageous and determined spirit. Once a person has decided upon his life's work and is assured that in doing the work for which he is best endowed and equipped he is filling a vital need, what he then needs is faith and integrity, coupled with a courageous spirit so that no longer preferring himself to the fulfillment of his task he may address himself to the problems he must solve in order to be effective. "One mark of the great leader is that he feels sufficiently secure to devote his thought and attention to the well being of his subordinates and the perfection of his task, rather than being constantly worried about the approval of disapproval of others.
"He who would be a leader must pay the price in self-discipline and moral restraint. This entails the correction and improvement of personal character, the checking of passions and desires, and an exemplary control of one's bodily needs and drives.
"Leaders have to submit themselves to a stricter self-discipline, and develop a more exemplary moral character than is expected of others. To be first in place one must be first in merit as well.
"It should not surprise us then to find that the greater number of acknowledged leaders have been people who trained themselves in the art of discipline and obedience. He who has not learned to render prompt and willing service to others will find it difficult to win and keep the goodwill and co-operation of his subordinates.
"Further a leader must possess initiative which is the creative ability to think in new ways and do new things. The leader has always to stay ahead. He cannot afford to set up a procedure and then fold his hands and linger lazily watching it work. He cannot be content merely to see new trends and take advantage of them. He must keep his imagination vividly alive so as to originate ideas and start trends.
"A word of warning is in order here. To help one's subordinates or dependents at the cost of harm to the public is tantamount to sacrilege and blasphemy. It is unfortunate that many in positions of leadership both great and small have been found guilty of such practices.
"A good leader is devoted to his work and will willingly forego even the demands of sleep to see its accomplishment. This does not mean that he is impetuous. On the other hand, he maintains a balance between emotional drive and sound thinking.
"His labors, which sometimes appear excessive, derive from his firm realization that unless a man undertakes more than he can possibly do he will never be able to do all he can do. It is his enthusiasm that stimulates his energy.
No matter what our point of departure in speaking of leadership we reach the inescapable conclusion that the art of leadership consists in the ability to make people want to work for you when they are really under no obligation to do so.
The true leader is one who realizes by faith that he is an instrument in the hands of God and educates himself to be a guide and inspirer of the nobler sentiments and aspirations to the people. He will kindle interest, teach, aid, correct and inspire. Those whom he leads will co-operate with him in maintaining discipline for the good of the group. He will instruct his followers in the goals towards which to strive, and create in them a sense of mutual effort for attaining the goal."
The Zulu warriors emerged as one the most formidable warrior people in South Africa because of their sophisticated weapons and tactics.
The Zulu warriors emerged as one the most formidable warrior people in South Africa because of their large shields, clubs, and stabbing spears as well as their sophisticated military strategy, tactics, and operations. The Zulu warriors evolved into a significant fighting force in the early 19th century under their charismatic and powerful military commander King Shaka, who skillfully reorganized and strengthened the Zulu Army with new weapons and battle tactics.
King Shaka
Tall, majestic, brilliant, and cruel, King Shaka made the Zulu people powerful. Born sometime in 1787, he was the son of a Zulu chief who rejected him; therefore, he grew up with a neighboring tribe. When his father died, he returned home to become chief of the Zulus. He increased Zulu power by conquering local tribes and taking their defeated soldiers into the Zulu Army. By transforming the Zulu Army into an effective fighting machine, King Shaka made the Zulu Army the dominant native power in the region and laid the military foundation for building future Zulu armies and commanders. The Zulu people eventually began to hate King Shaka because of his extreme cruelty, and they assassinated him in 1828.
The Zulu Army
Although Zulu warriors were not professional soldiers, they were thoroughly educated and trained in the art and science of warfare from the time of their late teens where they could be called up to fight when necessary. By the time of the war against the British in 1878, the Zulu Army consisted of several regiments made up of men of the same age group. While living mostly off the land, the Zulu Army had extreme mobility and agility when they were traveling long distances to fight their enemy. Before a battle, Zuku warriors would carefully examine the landscape for the high grounds, the cover offered by hills, and the long grass to hide their fighting men. Commanders would then orchestrate attacks through hand signals. The Zulu Army employed a traditional and effective battle formation designed to envelope their enemy. This battlefield formation was known as the beast’s horns.
The Beast’s Horns
The “beast’s horns” consisted of a strong central body of experienced fighters forming the “chest,” while younger, faster warriors formed the “horns”. The warriors in the horns would attempt to rapidly surround the enemy, while warriors in the “chest” would execute the main fighting. Later, a reserve warrior force, the “lions”, waited behind the chest to inflict a final and crushing blow on the enemy.
Zulu Weapons
Zulu weapons were simple, but deadly killing tools. The IKLWA was a lethal stabbing spear designed with a broad, 45 centimeter blade and a meter long handle. A longer spear, about two meters long, was used for throwing to soften up enemy formations before the Zulus attack with their beast’s horn formation. The KNOBKERRIE was a deadly club made up of a mixture of wood and metallic elements with a spherical knob designed to smash open a person’s skull. The Zulu had a few guns, but these weapons were outdated and unreliable. Therefore, when fighting his enemy, a Zulu warrior employed an upward thrusting motion, aiming for his opponent’s stomach while blocking his opponent’s strikes with his shield.
For protection, the Zulus used tall, oval shaped, cowhide shields. The colors varied according to the regiment: younger units had mainly black shields; more experienced regiments were equipped with white shields. One of the many Zulu tactics was the hook maneuver where a warrior would hook his shield inside his opponent’s shield to sweep it to the left where the opponent’s side was exposed for a spear thrust.
Read on
Shaka's Military Reforms
The Battle of Isandhlwana
The Battle of Khambula
The Battle of Isandlwana
On 22 January 1879, the Zulus’ achieved their greatest military victory against a British Army in the Battle of Isandlwana. The Anglo-Zulu War had begun as British colonization spread across southern Africa. A British force of about 1,200 infantrymen invaded Zululand and created a military camp at Isandlwana. The British sent out patrols to look for their enemy, but the Zulus, with about 20,000 warriors strong, had advanced undetected before attacking the British Army with their horns of the beast military formation. The British Army was spread too thinly to fight effectively. When the British Army ran out of ammunition, the Zulu warriors killed off most of the British forces and only a few soldiers escaped the massacre.
The Zulu warriors were able to defeat a few European Armies equipped with guns because of their lighting fast attacks. However, when gunpowder technology evolved along with the invention of the Gatling gun, the Zulus were eventually killed in large numbers because of superior western gunpowder technology.
References:
Read more at Suite101: The Zulu Warriors and King Shaka: The 19th Century Zulu
In the 1920’s, the people living in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica had little to celebrate or look forward to. They lived in grinding poverty and felt that their culture was being destroyed by white imperialism. A man named Marcus Garvey changed that when he began to preach a new philosophy called “Back to Africa.” This black self-empowerment movement taught that all blacks should move back to the home of their ancestors—Africa, but even more specifically, Ethiopa. “Look to Africa,” Garvey proclaimed in 1920, “where a black man shall be crowned king, for the day of deliverance is at hand!”
His prophetic statement resonated with Jamaicans when, in 1930, a black African named Ras Tafari Makonnen was named Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopa. His followers in Jamaica proclaimed themselves “Rastafarians” and Selassie the “Conquering Lion of the tribe of Judah.” Rastafarians believe themselves to be one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Haile Selassie claimed to be a direct descendant of King David, and as time went on, he came to be regarded by Rastafarians as a manifestation of God, or “Jah” as they call him, on earth. In Rastafarianism, there is no afterlife, and so the Kingdom on earth becomes very important.
In the beginning, Rastafarianism was much more radical than it is today. Early Rastas despised white people and taught that their culture was “Babylon”—impure, greedy, and avaricious. However, in later years, the prophet Gad, with his Twelve Tribes of Israel movement, included all men, of whatever race, in salvation. Whites can never be Rasta leaders, though, because the divine lineage comes down through the Ethiopian Monarchy: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from beneath his feet, until Shiloh comes and unto him will be the gathering of the people.”
The death of Haile Selassie in 1974 shook the Rasta world. How could Jah on earth die? Some were shaken in their beliefs, while many others, especially the elderly, refused to believe his death at all and insisted it was a white media conspiracy.
Rasta culture has only grown stronger in the years since Selassie’s death, however. A major proponent of Rastafarianism in the Sixties and Seventies was Bob Marley. First with his band the Wailers and then in his solo career, this talented musician became for many the voice of Jamaica and was the first Jamaican superstar. The music of Rastafarianism was at first ska, which then mutated into reggae. Reggae music has been used for the last four decades to express the joy of Jah and Rasta and also to protest the injustices the Jamaican people have had to endure.
The average Rastafarian eats a diet of I-tal food. I-tal food is natural food that has not been preserved or chemically altered in any way. Most Rastafarians are vegetarians, though they do eat fish. Even those who do eat meat never touch pork. Alcohol is forbidden, and coffee and salt are strongly discouraged. A diet of vegetables, fruits, and seeds is considered one that will keep impurities out of the body and ward off sickness.
The most controversial aspect of Rastafarianism is probably the fact that its adherents smoke “ganga” for religious purposes. The “herb” that they smoke is an Indian strain of hemp, as opposed to the Mexican variety that is familiar in the United States. This Indian strain is much stronger, causing hallucinations and spiritual visions, and Rastafarians believe that they become one with Jah when they smoke it. This habit has always caused a lot of friction between Jamaican authorities and the followers of Rasta.
Some Rastafarians can be recognized by the long “dreadlocks” they sport. These dreadlocks represent the Lion of Judah, or Rastafarian manhood. They also speak a distinct form of the English language. Instead of saying, “you and I,” a Rastafarian will often say, “I and I,” for he truly believes that all men are one.
Gentlemen. I greet you here on the bank of the James River in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve. First, I shall thank you, the gentlemen of the Colony of Virginia, for bringing me here. I am here to help you solve some of your problems with slaves. Your invitation reached me on my modest plantation in the West Indies, where I have experimented with some of the newest, and still the oldest, methods for control of slaves. Ancient Rome would envy us if my program is implemented. As our boat sailed south on the James River, named for our illustrious King, whose version of the Bible we cherish, I saw enough to know that your problem is not unique. While Rome used cords of wood as crosses for standing human bodies along its highways in great numbers, you are here using the tree and the rope on occasions. I caught the whiff of a dead slave hanging from a tree, a couple miles back. You are not only losing valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, slaves are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profit, you suffer occasional fires, your animals are killed. Gentlemen, you know what your problems are; I do not need to elaborate. I am not here to enumerate your problems, I am here to introduce you to a method of solving them. In my bag here, I HAVE A FULL PROOF METHOD FOR CONTROLLING YOUR BLACK SLAVES. I guarantee every one of you that, if installed correctly, IT WILL CONTROL THE SLAVES FOR AT LEAST 300 HUNDREDS YEARS. My method is simple. Any member of your family or your overseer can use it. I HAVE OUTLINED A NUMBER OF DIFFERENCES AMONG THE SLAVES; AND I TAKE THESE DIFFERENCES AND MAKE THEM BIGGER. I USE FEAR, DISTRUST AND ENVY FOR CONTROL PURPOSES. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies and it will work throughout the South. Take this simple little list of differences and think about them. On top of my list is “AGE,” but it’s there only because it starts with an “a.” The second is “COLOR” or shade. There is INTELLIGENCE, SIZE, SEX, SIZES OF PLANTATIONS, STATUS on plantations, ATTITUDE of owners, whether the slaves live in the valley, on a hill, East, West, North, South, have fine hair, course hair, or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of differences, I shall give you an outline of action, but before that, I shall assure you that DISTRUST IS STRONGER THAN TRUST AND ENVY STRONGER THAN ADULATION, RESPECT OR ADMIRATION. The Black slaves after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self-refueling and self-generating for HUNDREDS of years, maybe THOUSANDS. Don’t forget, you must pitch the OLD black male vs. the YOUNG black male, and the YOUNG black male against the OLD black male. You must use the DARK skin slaves vs. the LIGHT skin slaves, and the LIGHT skin slaves vs. the DARK skin slaves. You must use the FEMALE vs. the MALE, and the MALE vs. the FEMALE. You must also have white servants and overseers [who] distrust all Blacks. But it is NECESSARY THAT YOUR SLAVES TRUST AND DEPEND ON US. THEY MUST LOVE, RESPECT AND TRUST ONLY US. Gentlemen, these kits are your keys to control. Use them. Have your wives and children use them, never miss an opportunity. IF USED INTENSELY FOR ONE YEAR, THE SLAVES THEMSELVES WILL REMAIN PERPETUALLY DISTRUSTFUL. Thank you gentlemen.”
LET’S MAKE A SLAVE
It was the interest and business of slave holders to study human nature, and the slave nature in particular, with a view to practical results. I and many of them attained astonishing proficiency in this direction. They had to deal not with earth, wood and stone, but with men and, by every regard, they had for their own safety and prosperity they needed to know the material on which they were to work, conscious of the injustice and wrong they were every hour perpetuating and knowing what they themselves would do. Were they the victims of such wrongs? They were constantly looking for the first signs of the dreaded retribution. They watched therefore with skilled and practiced eyes, and learned to read with great accuracy, the state of mind and heart of the slave, through his sable face. Unusual sobriety, apparent abstractions, sullenness and indifference indeed, any mood out of the common was afforded ground for suspicion and inquiry. Frederick Douglas LET’S MAKE A SLAVE is a study of the scientific process of man-breaking and slave-making. It describes the rationale and results of the Anglo Saxons’ ideas and methods of insuring the master/slave relationship. LET’S MAKE A SLAVE “The Original and Development of a Social Being Called ‘The Negro.’” Let us make a slave. What do we need? First of all, we need a black nigger man, a pregnant nigger woman and her baby nigger boy. Second, we will use the same basic principle that we use in breaking a horse, combined with some more sustaining factors. What we do with horses is that we break them from one form of life to another; that is, we reduce them from their natural state in nature. Whereas nature provides them with the natural capacity to take care of their offspring, we break that natural string of independence from them and thereby create a dependency status, so that we may be able to get from them useful production for our business and pleasure.
CARDINAL PRINCIPLES FOR MAKING A NEGRO
For fear that our future generations may not understand the principles of breaking both of the beast together, the nigger and the horse. We understand that short range planning economics results in periodic economic chaos; so that to avoid turmoil in the economy, it requires us to have breadth and depth in long range comprehensive planning, articulating both skill sharp perceptions. We lay down the following principles for long range comprehensive economic planning. Both horse and niggers [are] no good to the economy in the wild or natural state. Both must be BROKEN and TIED together for orderly production. For orderly future, special and particular attention must be paid to the FEMALE and the YOUNGEST offspring. Both must be CROSSBRED to produce a variety and division of labor. Both must be taught to respond to a peculiar new LANGUAGE. Psychological and physical instruction of CONTAINMENT must be created for both. We hold the six cardinal principles as truth to be self-evident, based upon following the discourse concerning the economics of breaking and tying the horse and the nigger together, all inclusive of the six principles laid down above. NOTE: Neither principle alone will suffice for good economics. All principles must be employed for orderly good of the nation. Accordingly, both a wild horse and a wild or natur[al] nigger is dangerous even if captured, for they will have the tendency to seek their customary freedom and, in doing so, might kill you in your sleep. You cannot rest. They sleep while you are awake, and are awake while you are asleep. They are DANGEROUS near the family house and it requires too much labor to watch them away from the house. Above all, you cannot get them to work in this natural state. Hence, both the horse and the nigger must be broken; that is breaking them from one form of mental life to another. KEEP THE BODY, TAKE THE MIND! In other words, break the will to resist. Now the breaking process is the same for both the horse and the nigger, only slightly varying in degrees. But, as we said before, there is an art in long range economic planning. YOU MUST KEEP YOUR EYE AND THOUGHTS ON THE FEMALE and the OFFSPRING of the horse and the nigger. A brief discourse in offspring development will shed light on the key to sound economic principles. Pay little attention to the generation of original breaking, but CONCENTRATE ON FUTURE GENERATION. Therefore, if you break the FEMALE mother, she will BREAK the offspring in its early years of development; and when the offspring is old enough to work, she will deliver it up to you, for her normal female protective tendencies will have been lost in the original breaking process. For example, take the case of the wild stud horse, a female horse and an already infant horse and compare the breaking process with two captured nigger males in their natural state, a pregnant nigger woman with her infant offspring. Take the stud horse, break him for limited containment. Completely break the female horse until she becomes very gentle, whereas you or anybody can ride her in her comfort. Breed the mare and the stud until you have the desired offspring. Then, you can turn the stud to freedom until you need him again. Train the female horse whereby she will eat out of your hand, and she will in turn train the infant horse to eat out of your hand, also. When it comes to breaking the uncivilized nigger, use the same process, but vary the degree and step up the pressure, so as to do a complete reversal of the mind. Take the meanest and most restless nigger, strip him of his clothes in front of the remaining male niggers, the female, and the nigger infant, tar and feather him, tie each leg to a different horse faced in opposite directions, set him afire and beat both horses to pull him apart in front of the remaining niggers. The next step is to take a bullwhip and beat the remaining nigger males to the point of death, in front of the female and the infant. Don’t kill him, but PUT THE FEAR OF GOD IN HIM, for he can be useful for future breeding.
The word Ghana means Warrior King and was the title accorded to the kings of the medieval West African Ghana Empire.[10] Geographically, the Ghana Empire was approximately 500 miles (800 km) north and west of modern Ghana, and it ruled territories in the area of the Sénégal River and east towards the Niger River, in modern Senegal, Mauritania and Mali.
Ghana was adopted as the legal name for the Gold Coast combined with British Togoland upon gaining autonomy on March 6, 1957. It was not until July 1, 1960, however, that Ghana asserted its complete independence from Britain and became known as the Republic of Ghana.
[edit]History
History of Ghana
There is archaeological evidence which shows that humans have lived in what is present day Ghana from about 1500 BC.[11] Nonetheless, there is no proof that those early dwellers are related to the current inhabitants of the area. Oral tradition has it that many of Ghana's current ethnic groups such as the multi-ethnic Akan, the Ga and the Ewe arrived around the 13th Century AD. However, the Dagomba are believed to be the first settlers, having been fully established by 1210 AD, before the arrival of the other ethnic groups.
Ashanti yam ceremony, 19th century by Thomas E. Bowdich
Cape Coast Castle
Modern Ghanaian territory includes what was the Empire of Ashanti, one of the most influential states in sub-Saharan Africa before colonial rule. Akan migrants moved southward and founded several nation-states including the first great Akan empire of the Bono, which is now known as the Brong-Ahafo region in Ghana. Much of the area of modern day south central Ghana was united under the Empire of Ashanti of the Ashanti people, a branch of the Akan people by the 16th century.
The Ashanti government operated first as a loose network and eventually as a centralized kingdom with an advanced, highly specialized bureaucracy centered in Kumasi. It is said that at its peak, the Asantehene could field 500,000 troops and had some degree of military influence over all of its neighbors. The Ga people developed an effective unit around 1500 [12] and the Gonja, Dagomba and Mamprusi also fought for political power in the 1620s.[12]
Early European contact by the Portuguese, who came to Ghana in the 15th century, focused on the extensive availability of gold. The Portuguese first landed at a coastal city inhabited by the Fante nation-state and they named the place Elmina, which means "the mine" in Portuguese. In 1481, King John II of Portugal commissioned Diogo d'Azambuja to build Elmina Castle, which was completed in 3 years. Their aim was to trade in gold, ivory and slaves, consolidating their burgeoning political and economic power in the region.
By 1548, the Dutch had joined them, and built forts at Komenda and Kormantsi. In 1617, they captured the Olnini Castle from the Portuguese and Axim in 1642 (Fort St Anthony). Other European traders joined in by the mid 17th century, largely English, Danes and Swedes. British merchants, impressed with the gold resources in the area, named it the Gold Coast, while French merchants, impressed with the trinkets worn by the coastal people, named the area to the west "Côte d'Ivoire", or Ivory Coast.
Elmina Castle
More than thirty forts and castles were built by the Portuguese, Dutch, British and Spanish merchants. The Gold Coast was known for centuries as 'The White Man's Grave' because many of the Europeans who went there died of malaria and other tropical diseases.[13] After the Dutch withdrew in 1874, Britain made the Gold Coast a protectorate. Following conquest by the British in 1896, until independence in March 1957, the territory of modern Ghana excluding the Volta Region (British Togoland), was known as the Gold Coast.
Many wars occurred between the colonial powers and the various nation-states in the area including the 1806 Ashanti-Fante War and the continuous struggle by the Ashanti against the British, which ended in 1901 with the Third Ashanti-British War (1900–1901).[14] Even under colonial rule the chiefs and people often resisted the policies of the British; however, moves toward de-colonization intensified after World War II. In 1947 the newly formed United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) called for "self-government within the shortest possible time."[15] After rioting increased in 1948, the members of the United Gold Coast Convention were arrested, including future Prime Minister and President, Kwame Nkrumah. Later Nkrumah formed his own party, the Convention People's Party (CPP) with the motto "self government now." He began a 'Positive Action' campaign and gained the support of rural and working class people.[14]
Once again he was imprisoned for being the leader of a party that caused boycotts, strikes and other forms of civil disobedience. After winning a majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly in 1952; however, Kwame Nkrumah was released and appointed Leader of Government Business. After further negotiations with Britain finally on March 6, 1957 at 12 a.m. Kwame Nkrumah declared Ghana "free forever".[14]
The flag which consists of the colours red, gold, green and the black star became the new flag in 1957. Designed by Theodosia Salome Okoh, the red represents the blood that was shed towards independence, the gold represents the mineral wealth of Ghana, the green symbolises the rich agriculture and the black star is the symbol of African emancipation.[16]
Formed from the merger of the Gold Coast and British Togoland by a United Nations sponsored plebiscite in 1956, Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African country to gain its independence in 1957.
Kwame Nkrumah, first Prime Minister and then President of the modern Ghanaian state, was not only an African anti-colonial leader but also one with a dream of a united Africa which would not drift into neo-colonialism. He was the first African head of state to promote Pan-Africanism, an idea he came into contact with during his studies at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (United States), at the time when Marcus Garvey was becoming famous for his "Back to Africa Movement." He merged the dreams of both Marcus Garvey and the celebrated African-American scholar W. E. B. Du Bois into the formation of the modern day Ghana. Ghana's principles of freedom and justice, equity and free education for all, irrespective of ethnic background, religion or creed, borrow from Kwame Nkrumah's implementation of Pan-Africanism.
Independence Arch, Ghana
Although his goal of African unity never realised, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, as he is now known, played an instrumental part in the founding of the Organisation of African Unity, which was succeeded in 2002 by the African Union. His achievements were recognised by Ghanaians during his Centenary birthday celebrations and the day instituted as a public holiday in Ghana. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's government was subsequently overthrown by the military while abroad in February 1966. It has been demonstrated that the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had an effective hand in forcing the coup, and this has been substantiated by the testimonies of former CIA officers (CIA-backed coup)[17]. Documents, declassified in 1999, only recently made public, reveal that then-US Secretary of State Dean Rusk and then-CIA director John McCone had met and shared secret correspondence with General J.A. Ankrah, and had specified that he would be the man to lead Ghana after the coup.[18]
A series of subsequent coups from 1966 to 1981 ended with the ascension to power of Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings in 1981. These changes resulted in the suspension of the constitution in 1981 and the banning of political parties. The economy suffered a severe decline soon after, and many Ghanaians migrated to other countries. Although most migrating Ghanaians went to Nigeria, the Nigerian government deported about a million Ghanaians back to Ghana in 1983.[19]
President of Ghana, John Atta Mills with Nigerian Prophet T.B. Joshua, January 2009
Jerry Rawlings soon negotiated a structural adjustment plan with the International Monetary Fund and changed many old economic policies and the economy soon began to recover. A new constitution restoring multi-party politics was promulgated in 1992, and Rawlings was elected as president then and again in 1996. The Constitution of 1992 prohibited him from running for a third term, so his party, the National Democratic Congress, chose his Vice President, John Atta Mills, to run against the opposition parties. Winning the 2000 elections, John Kufuor of the New Patriotic Party was sworn into office as President in January 2001, and beat Mills again in 2004; thus, also serving two terms as President.
Since 2008 Ghana have had several issues with its taxing and income of most of its workers. It has had several issues with ongoing security which has led to a major decrease in the country's overall wealth. As well as this the next president (see below) promised to build more tarmac roads as he commented on its major lack of them.
In 2009, John Atta Mills took office as president with a difference of about 40,000 votes (0.46%) [20] between his party, the National Democratic Congress, and the New Patriotic Party, marking the second time that power had been transferred from one legitimately elected leader to another, and securing Ghana's status as a stable democracy
Stokely Carmichael was born in the Port of Spain, Trinidad, on 29th June, 1941. Carmichael moved to the United States in 1952 and attended high school in New York City. He entered Howard University in 1960 and soon afterwards joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
In 1961 Carmichael became a member of the Freedom Riders. After training in non-violent techniques, black and white volunteers sat next to each other as they travelled through the Deep South. Local police were unwilling to protect these passengers and in several places they were beaten up by white mobs. In Jackson, Mississippi, Carmichael was arrested and jailed for 49 days in Parchman Penitentiary. Carmichael also worked on the Freedom Summer project and in 1966 became chairman of SNCC.
On 5th June, 1966, James Meredith started a solitary March Against Fear from Memphis to Jackson, to protest against racism. Soon after starting his march he was shot by sniper. When they heard the news, other civil rights campaigners, including Carmichael, Martin Luther King and Floyd McKissick, decided to continue the march in Meredith's name.
When the marchers got to Greenwood, Mississippi, Carmichael and some of the other marchers were arrested by the police. It was the 27th time that Carmichael had been arrested and on his release on 16th June, he made his famous Black Power speech. Carmichael called for "black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, and to build a sense of community". He also advocated that African Americans should form and lead their own organizations and urged a complete rejection of the values of American society.
The following year Carmichael joined with Charles Hamilton to write the book, Black Power (1967). Some leaders of civil rights groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), rejected Carmichael's ideas and accused him of black racism.
Carmichael also adopted the slogan of "Black is Beautiful" and advocated a mood of black pride and a rejection of white values of style and appearance. This included adopting Afro hairstyles and African forms of dress. Carmichael began to criticize Martin Luther King and his ideology of nonviolence. He eventually joined the Black Panther Party where he became "honorary prime minister".
When Carmichael denounced United States involvement in the Vietnam War, his passport was confiscated and held for ten months. When his passport was returned, he moved with his wife, Miriam Makeba, to Guinea, West Africa, where he wrote the book, Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism (1971).
Carmichael, who adopted the name, Kwame Ture, also helped to establish the All-African People's Revolutionary Party and worked as an aide to Guinea's prime minister, Sekou Toure. After the death of Toure in 1984 Carmichael was arrested by the new military regime and charged with trying to overthrow the government. However, he only spent three days in prison before being released. Stokely Carmichael died on cancer on 15th November, 1998.
GREETINGS BROTHERS AND SISTERS historyMidnite is a roots reggae band hailing from St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.
The band's music follows in tradition with the roots reggae bands of 1970s Jamaica. The lyrical portions of Midnite's compositions are characterized as the "chant and call" style which gives their music a spiritually intense and overtly Rastafarian feel. The lyrics are centrally focused on the plights of the oppressed, the inherent faults of the current political, economic and social settings on a global scale, and the redemption available to mankind through a life dedicated to Jah.
[edit] History
The band was started by brothers Vaughn (vocals) and Ron (keyboard, but later switched to bass) Benjamin, and has been playing since 1989. They recorded Ras Mek Peace (Before Reverb and Without Delay) while living in Washington, D.C. during the mid-90s. The album was named so, because it was reportedly recorded live in one room with only two microphones. Its clarity and full sound is thus remarkable. Later, they returned home to St. Croix in the late '90s to play with local musicians and record at their music studio, African Roots Lab.
Midnite frequently collaborates with new artists and has played as the back-up band on a number of African Roots Lab artists' releases, such as Dezarie's Fya and Gracious Mama Africa and Ikahba's Trodding to Zion.
Since returning to the U.S. Virgin Islands, the name Midnite has become mostly associated with singer Vaughn Benjamin and the band seldom records as a unit. Most releases feature Vaughn on vocals and an evolving group of collaborators performing or programming the back-up.
An interview found from the on-line edition of the Virgin Island newspaper, the St. Croix Source, dated 3 December 2006, Phil Merchant, a drummer and bass-player, suggested that Midnite as a collective unit has broken up, since he has formed a new band with other former Midnite players, now called: D.A.P.P.
Releases
Momentum Midnite/Fifth Son (2010)
What Makes A King? Midnite (2010)
Ark A Law Midnite/Lion I (2010)
Frontline Midnite/Various (2009)
Kings Of Kush Midnite/Rastar Mix (2009)
To Mene Midnite/Rastar (2009)
Ina Now Midnite/Rastar (2009)
Defender Of The Faith Midnite/Various (2009)
New Name Midnite/Various (2009)
Infinite Dub Lustre Kings (2008)
For All with Youssoupha Sidibe (2008)
Supplication To H.I.M. with Rastar (2008)
Standing Ground with Lion Tribe (2008)
Live 94117 (2008)
KayaMagan with Desmond Williams (Released 2008 but recorded in 1999)
Maschaana with Natural Vibes (2008)
Bless Go Roun with Higher Bound Productions (2007)
Infinite Quality with Lustre Kings (2007)
Better World Rasta with Rastar 2007
Rule the Time with I Grade (2007)
Suns of Atom with Lion Tribe (2006)
New1000 with Mystic Vision (2006)
Thru & True with Ras L (2006)
Current with Mystic Vision (2006)
Jah Grid with I Grade (2006)
Let Live with I Grade (2004)
Ainshant Maps (2004)
Full Cup with Ras L (2004)
Scheme a Things (2004)
Project III" with Branch I (2004)
He is Jah with Branch I (2003)
Geoman" with Branch I (2003)
Vijan with I Grade (2003)
Intense Pressure (2003)
Cipheraw with Branch I (2003)
Assini with I Grade (2002)
Seek Knowledge Before Vengeance (2002)
Jubilees of Zion (2002)
Nemozian Rasta with Dezarie and I Grade (2001)
Ras Mek Peace (1999)
Unpolished (1997 contact jahsonsworks@msn.com give thanks
GREETINGS BROTHERS AND SISTER historyIsrael Vibration is a reggae harmony trio, originating from Kingston, Jamaica. Lascelle "Wiss" Bulgin, Albert "Apple Gabriel" Craig, and Cecil "Skeleton" Spence all overcame childhood polio and went on to be one of the most successful roots groups to form in Jamaica in the late 1970s. The trio initially met as children at a rehabilitation center.
After going their separate ways, and each converting to the Rastafari movement, they reunited in Kingston and formed a vocal group. Funding for their first album came in the form of a grant from the Twelve Tribes of Israel branch of Rastafari after Hugh Booth, a member of the Twelve Tribes, had overheard the three men singing in a wooded area outside Kingston. Apple and Wiss were living in the area, which they had converted into a home.
After releasing a single called Why Worry in 1977 Israel Vibration recorded three albums; The Same Song, Unconquered People, and Why You So Craven before temporarily disbanding in 1981 after recording sessions for the latter were left incomplete. The three men moved to the United States to seek professional health care and escape the growing Dancehall movement in Jamaica. In 1988, Gary "Dr. Dread" Himmelfarb, founder of RAS Records, urged the trio to reunite and record an album. Skelly, Apple, and Wiss were flown to Washington, D.C. to record a new album at Lion and Fox Recording Studios in College Park Maryland. "Strength of my Life", the group's fourth album and first of 18 CD releases on the RAS label, was met with great praise and is considered one of the few post-golden era touchstones of the roots reggae genre.
In 1997, as Dr. Dread tells it, Apple Gabriel left the group to pursue a solo career. Skelly and Wiss continue to record albums and tour the world as Israel Vibration, backed by longtime associates Roots Radics.
[edit] Discography
The Same Song (1978)
Unconquered People (1979)
Why You So Craven (1981)
Strength of My Life (1988)
Praises (1990)
Dub Vibration: Israel Vibration in Dub (1990)
Forever (1991)
Vibes Alive (1992)
IV (1993)
I.V.D.U.B. (1994)
On the Rock (1995)
Dub the Rock (1995)
Israel Dub (1996)
Free to Move (1996)
Live Again! (1997)
Pay the Piper (1999)
Jericho (2000)
Dub Combo (2001)
Fighting Soldiers (2003)
Live & Jammin (2003)
Stamina (2007)CONTACT jahsonsworks@msn.com and rember we have drummers for hire so link up
GREETINGS BROTHERS AND SISTERS HOPE ALL IS BLESS THIS SHOW IS PT.3 featuring garnet silk. Garnet Silk's long awaited and highly anticipated album release for Atlantic Records reaches us almost exactly 6 years after his untimely death. It brings back memories of those unforgettable moments of listening pleasure, excitement and gooseflesh while playing a brandnew Garnet Silk release... and again we ask ourselves "What if?", knowing we will never get an answer, but again.."What if?". So, let's take time for the definitive story of his short yet illustrious career.
Garnet Silk, born Garnet Damion Smith in Bromelia, in the parish of Manchester, Jamaica, on the second day of April 1966, became one of reggae's most promising cultural artists from the moment this singer turned deejay made a serious impact with his debut album "It's Growing" and his first major hit "Hello Africa".
At a very young age - when he was still in elementary school - Garnet dreamed of becoming an entertainer. Family and friends encouraged him and at the tender age of 12 Garnet Silk entered music business when he started deejaying as Little Bimbo with a local sound system called Soul Remembrance. Thus this youth discovered an outlet for his thought-provoking lyrics, an audience outside of his schoolmates and family, and there was no turning back. In the years that followed he got involved with other sound systems like Destiny Outernational, Pepper's Disco and Stereophonic. While working with these sounds Garnet developed his vocal and lyrical delivery further. Drawing inspiration from the words and music of Bob Marley and Burning Spear he started his recording career in 1985. It was actually dub poet Yasus Afari who hooked up Garnet with Delroy "Callo" Collins who produced his first single, "Problem Everywhere", then still under the name of Bimbo.
The single didn't make any impact, mainly because at that time the almshouse tunes were heavily in fashion and a tune like "Problem Everywhere" just did not suit the taste of the record buyers. After this experience Garnet more and more started to concentrate on singing rather than deejaying. Then a young, rather inexperienced and very shy Garnet Silk moved from the hills of Manchester in central Jamaica to the capital city of Kingston where he first teamed up with Sugar Minott's Youth Promotion label, for which he recorded "No Disrespect" (featured on the Easy Star compilation set "Hidden Treasures Vol. 1" from 1999). Furthermore he did recording sessions for the late King Tubby, King Jammy and Donovan Germain. Also in Kingston he met producers Steely & Clevie and spent many days hanging out with them at the renown Mixing Lab Studios. It was Steely who immediately recognised Garnet's potential as a singer and appropiately named him Garnet Silk, thus matching the texture of his voice better. He signed his first recording contract with Steely & Clevie Productions and commenced recording his first album in 1990. From the recording sessions with this producers duo only one song - a combination tune with Chevelle Franklin entitled "We Could Be Together" - was released. It was obvious Garnet Silk didn't encounter the success he was longing for and returned to the countryside. There he took time to concentrate on writing new songs, often in the company of his childhood friend Anthony Rochester. The year 1992 proved very successful for Garnet Silk.
Photos : M. Peggy Quatro & Kariang Productions Ltd"
In February he was introduced on stage by Tony Rebel, a popular cultural deejay and close friend, at a White River Reggae Bash in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Tony Rebel as well as the aforementioned dub poet Yasus Afari not only played an important role regarding his musical career, but were also responsible for introducing Garnet to the teachings of Rastafari, a discovery that altered his life forever. While in Ocho Rios Tony Rebel introduced Garnet Silk to producer Courtney Cole, whose Roof International Studio - based in this small town on Jamaica's north coast - provided a refreshing alternative to the Kingston mainstream. From then and there Garnet Silk started to get notable success with singles like "Nothing Can Divide Us", "Mama" "Seven Spanish Angels" and the popular combination tune with Yasus Afari entitled "I Can See Clearly Now". One day Bobby "Digital" Dixon was in Ocho Rios and when he heard Garnet Silk singing he got so impressed that he invited him to come to Kingston. During 1992 he spent some time at the Digital B Studio and voiced his first output for Bobby Digital, which finally led to the release of Garnet Silk's debut album "It's Growing". This album brought Garnet Silk international recognition and established him as one of the prime stylists that emerged in the early nineties. The release of this album had a serious impact and, together with returning to consciousness by such popular deejays as Buju Banton and Capleton, marked a turning point in dancehall music. Revealing a singer/songwriter of rare depth and originality, "It's Growing" was hailed as a masterpiece of modern roots music by both reggae fans and critics. Comparisons were inevitable drawn with the late Bob Marley, and some even called him "the next Bob Marley," but Garnet Silk was the first to shun the title. "I see Bob as the king of Reggae and a brother," Garnet said in a January 1994 Reggae Report interview. "Bob has done his work and now Jah appoints me to do mine, just like Bob."
With the Richard Bell produced single "Hello Africa" - released on the Star Trail label - Garnet Silk scored his first international major hit as it reached number 1 in the UK reggae charts and held the position for several consecutive weeks. To this day, "Hello Africa" proves the most popular song worldwide in Garnet’s list of recordings. Other hits such as "Place in Your Heart", "Fill Us Up With Your Mercy", "Zion In A Vision", "Kingly Character", "Jah Jah Is The Ruler", Singing For The People and "Splashing Dashing" followed and made the young singer the reigning star in Reggae music. During the time that Garnet Silk dominated the charts, he uplifted Reggae with cultural messages and Roots Rasta music. Due to his huge success Garnet Silk recorded continuously and toured extensively, filling clubs and concert halls wherever he performed. The pace was so grueling that early in 1993, when he had to leave the stage during a performance at the Ritz in New York City, he went under doctor’s orders to take a rest. Diagnosed with low blood pressure and exhaustion, Garnet Silk was forced to retreat from the limelight.
By the beginning of 1994, Garnet Silk was rested and ready to continue his musical quest. He signed with Ocho Rios-based Kariang Productions and also secured his first major label deal with Big Beat/Atlantic. The release of the Steely & Clevie produced album "Love Is The Answer" featuring the 1990 recordings and single releases like "Harder", "Complaint" and "Fight Back", a combination tune with good friend Richie Stephens, soon put Garnet Silk back on the international Reggae charts. His triumphant return was highlighted at Jamaica’s two premier international festivals in the summer of 1994. Reggae Sunsplash and Reggae SumFest were charged with emotional energy during Garnet Silk’s mesmerizing musical display. Garnet’s final performance was at the Mirage nightclub in Kingston where he was part of Richie Stephens’ birthday celebration on the Tuesday night before the tragedy took place. Garnet Silk was staying at his sister's house, together with his wife - who was six months pregnant - and his three children, when he left to see his mother. From this point there's no-one to tell exactly what happened on that night as all the survivors were sleeping and woke up only with the explosion which occurred at his mother’s one-room wooden house around midnight. It is told that a friend was showing Garnet how to use a shotgun when it accidentally went off, striking a nearby cooking gas cylinder. Along with his growing fame, Garnet had become increasingly concerned about security at the house - though he was a true novice when it came to firearms. That night, the errant gun blast ignited the gas cylinder, effectively giving rise to a lethal blowtorch. Garnet Silk, his two brothers and two friends managed to escape. However, when Garnet realized his mother was still trapped inside, he re-entered the inferno. Neither of them survived.
On Saturday, December 10th 1994, while waiting for Belgian reggae band Panache Culture to take the stage, we were told that reliable sources in Jamaica had reported that Garnet Silk had passed away. At first we wouldn't believe it, thought of a sick joke, but when we realized it was really true it was as if we heard of the lost of a close friend, although we never had the pleasure to meet Garnet. We will never forget that moment as we will never forget how important Garnet Silk's music was, for us in particular and for reggae music in general. Although sorely missed Garnet Silk will live forever through his music and message!
Rodney was born in Saint Ann's Bay, Saint Ann, Jamaica, as were reggae singer Bob Marley and political activist Marcus Garvey who both had a great influence on Rodney's life: Garvey in his philosophy, which Burning Spear greatly took to, and Marley in directly helping Burning Spear get started in the music industry (by some accounts) by introducing him to Clement Dodd.[1] Rodney met Marley at the latter's farm in 1969, and having told him that he wanted to get into the music business, Marley advised him to start at Dodd's Studio One label.[1][3] Reggae singer Larry Marshall claimed that it was he, while visiting St. Ann's Bay with Jackie Mittoo, who was approached by Rodney, and gave him this advice, and arranged the introduction.[4]
Burning Spear was originally Rodney's group, named after Jomo Kenyatta, the first Prime Minister and President of an independent Kenya,[5] and initially including bass singer Rupert Willington, and it was this duo that auditioned for Dodd in 1969, and recorded the debut single "Door Peep".[1] They were soon joined by tenor Delroy Hinds (brother of Justin Hinds).[1] The trio recorded several more singles for Dodd, and two albums, before they moved on to work with Jack Ruby in 1975.[1] Their first recording with Ruby, "Marcus Garvey", was initially intended only as an exclusive track for Ruby's Ocho Rios-based Hi-Power sound system, but was released as a single by popular demand, giving them an immediate hit, and was followed by the similarly successful "Slavery Days".[1] These recordings featured the backing band The Black Disciples, which included Earl "Chinna" Smith, Valentine Chin, Robbie Shakespeare and Leroy Wallace.[1] The group worked with Ruby on their third album, Marcus Garvey (1976), which was immediately successful and led to a deal with Island Records to give the album a wider release.[1] Island remixed and altered the speed of some of the tracks, much to the annoyance of fans and the group,[6] leading Rodney to set up his own Spear label for future releases where he would have full control, although further releases followed on Island including a dub album (Garvey's Ghost) and the Man in the Hills album.[1] In late 1976, Rodney split from both Ruby and group members Willington and Hinds, and from that point on used the name Burning Spear for himself alone. Dry and Heavy followed in 1977, self-produced but still on Island, and with a sizeable following by now in the United Kingdom,[6] he performed in London that year with members of Aswad acting as his backing band for a sold-out show at the Rainbow Theatre, which was recorded and released as Live!.[1] Aswad also provided backing on his next studio album, Social Living (1978), which also featured Sly Dunbar and Rico Rodriguez.[1] A dub version of the album, Living Dub (1979), was mixed by Sylvan Morris.[1] His profile was raised further by an appearance in the film Rockers, performing "Jah no Dead".[6]
In 1980, Rodney left Island Records, and set up the Burning Spear label, which he signed to EMI,[6] debuting on the label with Hail H.I.M., recorded at Marley's Tuff Gong studio and co-produced by Aston Barrett.[1] A Sylvan Morris dub version followed in the form of Living Dub Volume Two.[1] In 1982, Rodney signed with Heartbeat Records with a series of well-received albums following, including the 1985 Grammy-nominated Resistance.[1] He returned to Island in the early 1990s, releasing two albums before rejoining Heartbeat.
Burning Spear has continued to tour extensively, and several live albums have been issued. His 1999 album, Calling Rastafari brought his first Grammy Award in 2000,[5] a feat which he repeated with Jah Is Real in 2009.[7]
In the mid 1990s, he set up the Burning Music Production company, handling his own bookings, and in 2002, he and his wife, Sonia Rodney who has produced a number of his albums, restarted Burning Spear Records, giving him a greater degree of artistic control.[3][8][9] He signed a distribution deal for the label with MRI/Ryko.[10] Since the mid-1990s, he has been based in Queens, New York.[11]
Burning Spear was awarded the Order of Distinction in the rank of Officer on October 15, 2007.[12]
The Track "We Are Going" was featured in cycling documentary "Roam" by The Collective.
[edit] Discography
Main article: Burning Spear discography
[edit] Awards
Burning Spear has won two Grammy Awards for Best Reggae Album; one at the 42nd Grammy Awards in 2000 for Calling Rastafari, and one for 2009's Jah Is Real. He has been nominated for a total of 12 Grammy Awards.[9][13]
Nominations for Best Reggae Album
1986 Resistance
1988 People of the World
1990 Live in Paris Zenith '88
1991 Mek We Dweet
1994 The World Should Know
1996 Rasta Business
1998 Appointment with His Majesty
2000 Calling Rastafari
2004 Free Man
2005 Our Music
2008 The Burning Spear Experience
2008 Jah Is Real
Garvey was born in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica to Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Sr., JB a mason, and Sarah Jane Richards, a domestic worker and farmer. Of eleven siblings, only Marcus and his sister Indiana reached maturity.[4] Garvey's father was known to have a large library, and it was from his father that Marcus gained his love for reading.[2][5] Sometime in the year 1900, Garvey entered into an apprenticeship with his uncle, Alfred Burrowes. Like Garvey Sr., Burrowes had an extensive library, of which young Garvey made good use.[6][7] Garvey attended elementary and middle school until he was about fourteen, he left St. Ann's Bay for Kingston, where he found employment as a compositor in the printing house of P. A. Benjamin, Limited. He was a master printer and foreman at Benjamin when, in November 1907, he was elected vice-president of the Kingston Union. However, he was fired when he joined a strike by printers in late 1908. Having been blacklisted for his stance in the strike, he later found work at the Government Printing Office. In 1909, his newspaper The Watchman began publication, but it only lasted for three issues.
In 1910 Garvey left Jamaica and began traveling throughout the Central American region. He lived in Costa Rica for several months, where he worked as a time-keeper on a banana plantation. He began work as editor for a daily newspaper titled La Nacionale in 1911. Later that year, he moved to Colón, Panama, where he edited a biweekly newspaper before returning to Jamaica in 1912.
After years of working on the Caribbean, Garvey left Jamaica to live in London from 1912 to 1914, where he attended Birkbeck College, worked for the African Times and Orient Review, published by Dusé Mohamed Ali, and sometimes spoke at Hyde Park's Speakers' Corner.
[edit] Founding and Projects of the UNIA-ACL
During his travels, Garvey became convinced that uniting Blacks was the only way to improve their condition. Towards that end, he departed England on 14 June 1914 aboard the S.S. Trent, reaching Jamaica on 15 July 1914. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in August 1914 as a means of uniting all of Africa and its diaspora into "one grand racial hierarchy." Amy Ashwood, who would later be Garvey's first wife, was among the founders. As the group's first President-General, Garvey's goal was "to unite all people of African ancestry of the world to one great body to establish a country and absolute government of their own."[8]
Following much reflection the following day and night about what he learned, he named the organization the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities (Imperial) League."[9]
After corresponding with Booker T. Washington, Garvey arrived in the U.S. on 23 March 1916 aboard the S.S. Tallac to give a lecture tour and to raise funds to establish a school in Jamaica modeled after Washington's Tuskegee Institute. Garvey visited Tuskegee, and afterward, visited with a number of Black leaders. After moving to New York, he found work as a printer by day. He was influenced by Hubert Harrison. At night he would speak on street corners, much like he did in London's Hyde Park. It was then that Garvey perceived a leadership vacuum among people of African ancestry. On 9 May 1916, he held his first public lecture in New York City at St Mark's Church in-the-Bowery and undertook a 38-state speaking tour.
In May 1917, Garvey and thirteen others formed the first UNIA division outside Jamaica and began advancing ideas to promote social, political, and economic freedom for Blacks. On 2 July, the East St. Louis riots broke out. On July 8, Garvey delivered an address, titled "The Conspiracy of the East St. Louis Riots," at Lafayette Hall in Harlem. During the speech, he declared the riot was "one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind." By October, rancor within the UNIA had begun to set in. A split occurred in the Harlem division, with Garvey enlisted to become its leader; although he technically held the same position in Jamaica.
Garvey next set about the business of developing a program to improve the conditions of those of African ancestry "at home and abroad" under UNIA auspices. On 17 August 1918, publication of the widely distributed Negro World newspaper began. Garvey worked as an editor without pay until November 1920. By June 1919 the membership of the organization had grown to over two million.
On 27 June 1919, the Black Star Line of Delaware was incorporated by the members of the UNIA, with Garvey as President. By September, it obtained its first ship. Much fanfare surrounded the inspection of the S.S. Yarmouth and its rechristening as the S.S. Frederick Douglass on 14 September 1919. Such a rapid accomplishment garnered attention from many.
One person who noticed was Edwin P. Kilroe, Assistant District Attorney in the District Attorney's office of the County of New York. Kilroe began an investigation into the activities of the UNIA, without finding any evidence of wrongdoing or mismanagement. After being called to Kilroe's office numerous times, Garvey wrote an editorial on Kilroe's activities for the Negro World. Garvey was arrested and indicted for criminal libel in relation to the article, but charges were dismissed after Garvey published a retraction.
While in his Harlem office at 56 West 156th Street on 14 October 1919, Garvey received a visit from George Tyler, who told him that Kilroe "had sent him" to get Garvey. Tyler then pulled a .38-caliber revolver and fired four shots, wounding Garvey in the right leg and scalp. Garvey was taken to the hospital and Tyler arrested. The next day, it was let out that Tyler had committed suicide by leaping from the third tier of the Harlem jail as he was being taken to his arraignment.
By August 1920, the UNIA claimed four million members. That month, the International Convention of the UNIA was held. With delegates from all over the world in attendance, over 25,000 people filled Madison Square Garden on 1 August to hear Garvey speak.
Another of Garvey's ventures was the Negro Factories Corporation. His plan called for creating the infrastructure to manufacture every marketable commodity in every big U.S. industrial center, as well as in Central America, the West Indies, and Africa. Related endeavors included a grocery chain, restaurant, publishing house, and other businesses.
"Explanation of the Objects of the Universal Negro Improvement Association"
Convinced that Blacks should have a permanent homeland in Africa, Garvey sought to develop Liberia.
The Liberia program, launched in 1920, was intended to build colleges, universities, industrial plants, and railroads as part of an industrial base from which to operate. However, it was abandoned in the mid-1920s after much opposition from European powers with interests in Liberia. In response to suggestions that he wanted to take all Americans of African ancestry back to Africa, he wrote, "We do not want all the Negroes in Africa. Some are no good here, and naturally will be no good there."[10]
Garvey has been credited with creating the biggest movement of people of African descent. This movement that took place in the 1920s is said to have had more participation from people of African descent than the Civil Rights Movement. In essence the UNIA was the largest Pan-African movement.
[edit] Charge of mail fraud
In a memorandum dated 11 October 1919[11], J. Edgar Hoover, special assistant to the Attorney General and head of the General Intelligence Division (or "anti-radical division") [12] of The Bureau of Investigation or BOI (after 1935, the Federal Bureau of Investigation),[13] wrote a memorandum to Special Agent Ridgely regarding Marcus Garvey. In the memo, Hoover wrote that:
“ Unfortunately, however, he [Garvey] has not as yet violated any federal law whereby he could be proceeded against on the grounds of being an undesirable alien, from the point of view of deportation.[14][15] ”
Sometime around November 1919 an investigation by the BOI was begun into the activities of Garvey and the UNIA. Toward this end, the BOI hired James Edward Amos, Arthur Lowell Brent, Thomas Leon Jefferson, James Wormley Jones, and Earl E. Titus as its first five African-American agents. Although initial efforts by the BOI were to find grounds upon which to deport Garvey as "an undesirable alien", a charge of mail fraud was brought against Garvey in connection with stock sales of the Black Star Line after the U.S. Post Office and the Attorney General joined the investigation.[15]
The accusation centered on the fact that the corporation had not yet purchased a ship with the name "Phyllis Wheatley".[clarification needed] Although one was pictured with that name emblazoned on its bow on one of the company's stock brochures, it had not actually been purchased by the BSL and still had the name "Orion". The prosecution produced as evidence a single empty envelope which it claimed contained the brochure. During the trial, a man by the name of Benny Dancy testified that he didn't remember what was in the envelope, although he regularly received brochures from the Black Star Line. Another witness for the prosecution, Schuyler Cargill, perjured himself after admitting[16] to having been told to mention certain dates in his testimony by Chief Prosecutor Maxwell S. Mattuck. Furthermore, he admitted that he could not remember the names of any coworkers in the office, including the timekeeper who punched employees' time cards. Ultimately, he acknowledged being told to lie by Postal Inspector F.E. Shea.[17] He said Shea told him to state that he mailed letters containing the purportedly fraudulent brochures. The Black Star Line did own and operate several ships over the course of its history and was in the process of negotiating for the disputed ship at the time the charges were brought. Assistant District Attorney, Leo H. Healy, who was, before he became a District Attorney, attorney for Harris McGill and Co., the sellers of the first ship, the S. S. Yarmouth, to the Black Star Line Inc., was also a key witness for the government during the trial.[18]
Of the four Black Star Line officers charged in connection with the enterprise, only Garvey was found guilty of using the mail service to defraud. His supporters called the trial fraudulent. While there were serious accounting irregularities within the Black Star Line and the claims he used to sell Black Star Line stock could be considered misleading, Garvey's supporters still contest that the prosecution was a politically motivated miscarriage of justice, given the above-mentioned false statement testimony and Hoover's explicit regret that Garvey had committed no crimes.
When the trial ended on 23 June 1923, Garvey had been sentenced to five years in prison. Garvey blamed Jewish and Roman Catholic jurors and federal judge Julian Mack, a former president of the Zionist Organization of America, for his conviction.[19] He felt they had been biased because of their political objections to his meeting with the acting imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan the year before.[19] In 1928, Garvey told a journalist: "When they wanted to get me they had a Jewish judge try me, and a Jewish prosecutor. I would have been freed but two Jews on the jury held out against me ten hours and succeeded in convicting me, whereupon the Jewish judge gave me the maximum penalty."[19]
He initially spent three months in the Tombs Jail awaiting approval of bail. While on bail, he continued to maintain his innocence, travel, speak and organize the UNIA. After numerous attempts at appeal were unsuccessful, he was taken into custody and began serving his sentence at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary on 8 February 1925.[20] Two days later, he penned his well known "First Message to the Negroes of the World From Atlanta Prison" wherein he makes his famous proclamation:
“ Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm, look for me all around you, for, with God's grace, I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have died in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for Liberty, Freedom and Life.[21] ”
Professor Judith Stein has stated, “his politics were on trial.”[22]
Garvey's sentence was eventually commuted by President Calvin Coolidge. Upon his release in November 1927, Garvey was deported via New Orleans to Jamaica, where a large crowd met him at Orrett's Wharf in Kingston. A huge procession and band converged on UNIA headquarters.
[edit] Criticism
On October 4, 1916, the Daily Gleaner newspaper in Kingston published a letter written by the Very Rev. Fr. Raphael Morgan, a Jamaican-American priest of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, together with over a dozen other like-minded Jamaican-Americans, who wrote in to protest Garvey's lectures.[23] Garvey's views on Jamaica, they felt, were damaging to both the reputation of their homeland and its people, enumerating several objections to Garvey's stated preference for the prejudice of the American whites over that of English whites.[24] Garvey's response was published a month later, in which he called the letter a conspiratorial fabrication meant to undermine the success and favour he had gained while in Jamaica and in the United States.[25]
While W. E. B. Du Bois felt that the Black Star Line was “original and promising,”[26] he added that “Marcus Garvey is, without doubt, the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America and in the world. He is either a lunatic or a traitor.”[27] Du Bois feared that Garvey's activities would undermine his efforts toward black rights.[citation needed]
Garvey suspected Du Bois was prejudiced against him because he was a Caribbean native with darker skin. Du Bois once described Marcus Garvey as "a little, fat black man; ugly, but with intelligent eyes and a big head."[28] Garvey called Du Bois “purely and simply a white man's nigger" and "a little Dutch, a little French, a little Negro … a mulatto … a monstrosity.” This led to an acrimonious relationship between Garvey and the NAACP.[29] Garvey accused Du Bois of paying conspirators to sabotage the Black Star Line to destroy his reputation.[30]
At the National Conference of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1921 a Los Angeles delegate Noah Thompson spoke on the floor complaining on the lack of transparency in the group's financial accounts. When accounts were prepared Thompson highlighted several sections with what he felt were irregularities.
Garvey recognized the influence of the Ku Klux Klan, and in early 1922, he went to Atlanta, Georgia, for a conference with KKK imperial giant Edward Young Clarke.
According to Garvey, “I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and White American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together. I like honesty and fair play. You may call me a Klansman if you will, but, potentially, every white man is a Klansman, as far as the Negro in competition with whites socially, economically and politically is concerned, and there is no use lying.”[31] Leo H. Healy publicly accused Garvey of being a member of the Ku Klux Klan in his testimony during the mail fraud trial.[18]
After Garvey's entente with the Ku Klux Klan, a number of African American leaders appealed to U.S. Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty to have Garvey incarcerated.[32]
[edit] Later years
In 1928, Garvey travelled to Geneva to present the Petition of the Negro Race. This petition outlined the worldwide abuse of Africans to the League of Nations. In September 1929, he founded the People's Political Party (PPP), Jamaica's first modern political party, which focused on workers' rights, education, and aid to the poor.
Also in 1929, Garvey was elected councilor for the Allman Town Division of the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC). However, he lost his seat because of having to serve a prison sentence for contempt of court. But, in 1930, Garvey was re-elected, unopposed, along with two other PPP candidates.
In April 1931, Garvey launched the Edelweiss Amusement Company. He set the company up to help artists earn their livelihood from their craft. Several Jamaican entertainers — Kidd Harold, Ernest Cupidon, Bim & Bam, and Ranny Williams — went on to become popular after receiving initial exposure that the company gave them.
In 1935, Garvey left Jamaica for London. He lived and worked in London until his death in 1940. During these last five years, Garvey remained active and in touch with events in war-torn Ethiopia (then known as Abyssinia) and in the West Indies. In 1937, he wrote the poem Ras Nasibu Of Ogaden[33] in honor of Ethiopian Army Commander (Ras) Nasibu Emmanual. In 1938, he gave evidence before the West Indian Royal Commission on conditions there. Also in 1938 he set up the School of African Philosophy in Toronto to train UNIA leaders. He continued to work on the magazine The Black Man.
In 1937, a group of Garvey's American supporters called the Peace Movement of Ethiopia openly collaborated with Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo in the promotion of a repatriation scheme introduced in the US Congress as the Greater Liberia Act. In the Senate, Bilbo was a supporter of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Bilbo was an outspoken supporter of segregation and white supremacy and, attracted by the ideas of Black separatists like Garvey, Bilbo proposed an amendment to the federal work-relief bill on 6 June 1938, proposing to deport 12 million black Americans to Liberia at federal expense to relieve unemployment.[34] He took the time to write a book titled Take Your Choice, Separation or Mongrelization, advocating the idea. Garvey praised him in return, saying that Bilbo had "done wonderfully well for the Negro".[35]
During this period, Evangeline Rondon Paterson the grandmother of the current (55th) Governor of New York, David Paterson served as his secretary.
[edit] Death
See also: List of premature obituaries
On 10 June 1940, Garvey died after two strokes, putatively after reading a mistaken, and negative, obituary of himself in the Chicago Defender which stated, in part, that Garvey died "broke, alone and unpopular".[36] Because of travel conditions during World War II, he was interred at Kensal Green Cemetery in London. Rumours claimed that Garvey was in fact poisoned on a boat on which he was travelling and that was where and how he actually died.
In 1964, his remains were exhumed and taken to Jamaica. On 15 November 1964, the government of Jamaica, having proclaimed him Jamaica's first national hero, re-interred him at a shrine in National Heroes Park.
[edit] Personal life
Marcus Garvey was married twice: to the Jamaican Pan-African activist Amy Ashwood (married 1919, divorced 1922), who worked with him in the early years of UNIA; then to the journalist and publisher Amy Jacques (married 1922). The latter was mother to his two sons, Marcus III (born 17 September 1930) and Julius.
[edit] Influence
The UNIA flag uses three colors: red, black and green.Garvey's memory has been kept alive. Schools, colleges, highways, and buildings in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States have been named in his honor. The UNIA red, black, and green flag has been adopted as the Black Liberation Flag. Since 1980, Garvey's bust has been housed in the Organization of American States' Hall of Heroes in Washington, D.C.
Malcolm X's parents, Earl and Louise Little, met at a UNIA convention in Montreal. Earl was the president of the UNIA division in Omaha, Nebraska and sold the Negro World newspaper, for which Louise covered UNIA activities.[37]
Kwame Nkrumah named the national shipping line of Ghana the Black Star Line in honor of Garvey and the UNIA. Nkrumah also named the national soccer team the Black Stars as well. The black star at the center of Ghana's flag is also inspired by the Black Star Line.
Flag of GhanaDuring a trip to Jamaica, Martin Luther King and his wife Coretta Scott King visited the shrine of Marcus Garvey on 20 June 1965 and laid a wreath.[38] In a speech he told the audience that Garvey "was the first man of color 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."[39]
King was also the posthumous recipient of the first Marcus Garvey Prize for Human Rights on 10 December 1968 issued by the Jamaican Government and presented to King's widow.
The United States of Africa first saw light in a 1924 poem by Garvey and is still discussed.
There have been pop culture references to Marcus Garvey since he first came on the international scene. Garvey is cited repeatedly in a diverse variety of books, songs and films. He is mentioned particularly frequently in blues, reggae, jazz and hip hop music.
In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Marcus Garvey on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.[40]
[edit] Rastafari and Garvey
Rastafarians consider Garvey a religious prophet, and sometimes even the reincarnation of Saint John the Baptist. This is partly because of his frequent statements uttered in speeches throughout the 1920s, usually along the lines of "Look to Africa, when a black king shall be crowned for the day of deliverance is at hand!"[41]
His beliefs deeply influenced the Rastafari, who took his statements as a prophecy of the crowning of Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. Early Rastas were associated with his Back-to-Africa movement in Jamaica. This early Rastafari movement was also influenced by a separate, proto-Rasta movement known as the Afro-Athlican Church that was outlined in a religious text known as the Holy Piby — where Garvey was proclaimed to be a prophet as well. Thus, the Rastafari movement can be seen as an offshoot of Garveyite philosophy. As his beliefs have greatly influenced Rastafari, he is often mentioned in reggae music.
Garvey himself never identified with the Rastafari movement, and was, in fact, raised as a Methodist who went on to become a Catholic
Early life
Lucky Dube was born in Ermelo, formerly of the Eastern Transvaal, now of Mpumalanga, on August 3, 1964. His parents separated before his birth and he was raised by his mother, Sarah, who named him because she considered his birth fortunate after a number of failed pregnancies. Along with his two siblings, Thandi and Patrick, Dube spent much of his childhood with his grandmother, while his mother relocated to work. In a 1999 interview he described his grandmother as "his greatest love" who "multiplied many things to bring up this responsible individual that I am today."
Beginning of his musical career
As a child Dube worked as a gardener but, as he matured, realizing that he wasn't earning enough to feed his family, he began to attend school. There he joined a choir and, with some friends, formed his first musical ensemble, called The Skyway Band. While at school he discovered the Rastafari movement. At the age of 18 Dube joined his cousin's band, The Love Brothers, playing Zulu pop music known as mbaqanga whilst funding his lifestyle by working for Hole and Cooke as a security guard at the car auctions in Midrand. The band signed with Teal Record Company, under Richard Siluma (Teal was later incorporated into Gallo Record Company). Though Dube was still at school, the band recorded material in Johannesburg during his school holidays. The resultant album was released under the name Lucky Dube and the Supersoul. The second album was released soon afterwards, and this time Dube wrote some of the lyrics in addition to singing. It was around this same time when he began to learn English.
Moving into reggae
On the release of his fifth Mbaqanga album, Dave Segal (who became Dube's sound engineer) encouraged him to drop the "Supersoul" element of the name. All subsequent albums were recorded as Lucky Dube. At this time Dube began to note fans were responding positively to some reggae songs he played during live concerts. Drawing inspiration from Jimmy Cliff and Peter Tosh, he felt the socio-political messages associated with Jamaican reggae were relevant to a South African audience in an institutionally racist society.
He decided to try the new musical genre and in 1984, released the mini album Rastas Never Die. The record sold poorly - around 4000 units - in comparison to the 30,000 units his mbaqanga records would sell. Keen to suppress anti-apartheid activism, the apartheid regime banned the album in 1985. However, he was not discouraged and continued to perform the reggae tracks live and wrote and produced a second reggae album. Think About The Children (1985). It achieved platinum sales status and established Dube as a popular reggae artist in South Africa, in addition to attracting attention outside his homeland.
Commercial and critical success
Dube continued to release commercially successful albums. In 1989 he won four OKTV Awards for Prisoner, won another for Captured Live the following year and yet another two for House Of Exile the year after.[11] His 1993 album, Victims sold over one million copies worldwide. In 1995 he earned a worldwide recording contract with Motown. His album Trinity was the first release on Tabu Records after Motown's acquisition of the label.
In 1996 he released a compilation album, Serious Reggae Business, which led to him being named the "Best Selling African Recording Artist" at the World Music Awards and the "International Artist Of The Year" at the Ghana Music Awards. His next three albums each won South African Music Awards. His most recent album, Respect, earned a European release through a deal with Warner Music. Dube toured internationally, sharing stages with artists such as Sinéad O'Connor, Peter Gabriel and Sting. He appeared at the 1991 Reggae Sunsplash (uniquely that year, was invited back on stage for a 25 minute long encore) and the 2005 Live 8 event in Johannesburg.]
In addition to performing music Dube was a sometime actor, appearing in the feature films Voice In The Dark, Getting Lucky and Lucky Strikes Back.
Death
On October 18, 2007, Lucky Dube was killed in the Johannesburg suburb of Rosettenville shortly after dropping two of his seven children off at their uncle's house. Dube was driving his Chrysler 300C which the assailants were apparently after. Police reports suggest he was shot dead by carjackers. Five men have been arrested in connection with the murder. Three men were tried and found guilty on March 31, 2009; two of the men attempted to escape and were caught. The men were sentenced to life in prison.
He is survived by his wife, Zanele, and his seven children.
Legacy
On October 21, 2008, Rykodisc released a compilation album entitled Retrospective, which featured many of Dube's most influential songs as well as previously unreleased tracks in the United States. The album celebrated Dube's music and honored the contributions he made to South Africa.
Discography
Mbaqanga
Lengane Ngeyethu (1981)
Kudala Ngikuncenga (1982)
Kukuwe (1983)
Abathakathi (1984)
Ngikwethembe Na? (1985)
Umadakeni (1987)
Afrikaans
My Krap (1986)
Reggae
Rastas Never Die (1984)
Think About The Children (1985)
Slave (1987)
Together As One (1988)
Prisoner (1989)
Captured Live (1990)
House of Exile (1991)
Victims (1993)
Trinity (1995)
Serious Reggae Business (1996)
Tax man (1997)
The Way It Is (1999)
The Rough Guide To Lucky Dube (compilation) (2001)
Soul Taker (2001)
The Other Side (2003)
Respect(2006)
Compilation
Lucky Dube Live In Uganda (2008)
Retrospective (2008)
Live in Jamaica (2000)
GREETINGS BROTHERS AND SISTERS READ THIS HISTORYThe first Jamaican recording studio opened in 1951 and recorded "mento" music, a fusion of European and African folk dance music. The island was awash in rhythm'n'blues records imported by the so called "sound systems", eccentric traveling dance-halls run by no less eccentric disc-jockeys such as Clement Dodd (the "Downbeat") and Duke Reid (the "Trojan"). The poor people of the Jamaican ghettos, who could not afford to hire a band for their parties, had to content themselves with these "sound systems". The "selectors", the Jamaican disc-jockeys who operated those sound systems, became the real entertainers. The selector would spin the records and would "toast" over them. The art of "toasting", that usually consisted in rhyming vocal patterns and soon evolved in social commentary, became as important as the music that was being played.
In 1954 Ken Khouri started Jamaica's first record label, "Federal Records". He inspired Reid and Dodd, who began to record local artists for their sound system. Towards the end of the 1950s, amateurs began to form bands that played Caribbean music and New Orleans' rhythm'n'blues, besides the local mento. This led to the "bluebeat" groups, which basically were Jamaica's version of the New Orleans sound. They usually featured saxophone, trumpet, trombone, piano, drums and bass.
Soon the bass became the dominant instrument, and the sound evolved into the "ska". The "ska" beat had actually been invented by Roscoe Gordon, a Memphis pianist, with No More Doggin' (1951). Ska songs boasted an upbeat tempo, a horn section, Afro-American vocal harmonies, jazzy riffs and staccato guitar notes.
Theophilus Beckford cut the first "ska" record, Easy Snapping, in 1959, but Prince Buster (Cecil Campbell), owner of the sound system "Voice of the People", was the one who, around 1961, defined ska's somatic traits once and forever (he and his guitarist Jah Jerry).
The Wailers, featuring the young Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston, slowed down the beat in Simmer Down (1963). Millie Small's My Boy Lollipop (1964) was the first worldwide ska hit. The charismatic leaders of the ska movement were the Skatalites, a group of veteran ex-jazzmen led by saxophonist Tommy McCook and featuring virtuoso trombonist Don Drummond and tenor saxophonist Rolando Alphonso, that formally existed only between 1964 and 1965 (Ball O' Fire, 1965; Phoenix City, 1966; the instrumental Guns Of Navarone, 1967), but ska's star was Desmond Dekker (Dacres), whose Israelites (1968) launched the even faster "poppa-top", and whose 007 Shanty Town (1967) and Rude Boy Train fueled the mythology of the "rude boy". Ska music was relatively serene and optimist, a natural soundtrack to that age of peace and wealth, somewhat akin to the music of the "swinging London".
Jamaica had become an independent country in 1962, but social problems had multiplied. During the mid Sixties, ska music evolved into "rock steady", a languid style, named after Alton Ellis' hit Rock Steady (1966), that emphasized sociopolitical themes, adopted electric instruments, replaced the horns with the guitars, and promoted the bass to lead instrument (virtually obliterating the drums). In other words, ska mutated under the influence of soul music. Rock steady was identified with the crowd of young delinquents (the "rude boys") who mimicked the British "mods" and the American "punks". Its generational anthems were Judge Dread (1967) by Prince Buster, John Holt's The Tide Is High (1966) by the Paragons, Rivers Of Babylon (1969) by the Melodians. The music took the back seat to the vocal harmonies. This helped bring about the supremacy of vocal groups: Wailers, Paragons, Maytals (the new name of the Vikings of the ska hit Halleluja, 1963), Pioneers, Melodians, Heptones, etc. CONTACT jahsonsworks@msn.com
>GREETINGS BROTHERS AND SISTERS READ THIS HISTORYThe word "reggae" was coined around 1960 in Jamaica to identify a "ragged" style of dance music, that still had its roots in New Orleans rhythm'n'blues. However, reggae soon acquired the lament-like style of chanting and emphasized the syncopated beat. It also made explicit the relationship with the underworld of the "Rastafarians" (adepts of a millenary African faith, revived Marcus Garvey who advocated a mass emigration back to Africa), both in the lyrics and in the appropriation of the African nyah-bingi drumming style (a style that mimicks the heartbeat with its pattern of "thump-thump, pause, thump-thump"). Compared with rock music, reggae music basically inverted the role of bass and guitar: the former was the lead, the latter beat the typical hiccupping pattern. The paradox of reggae, of course, is that this music "unique to Jamaica" is actually not Jamaican at all, having its foundations in the USA and Africa.
An independent label, Island, distributed Jamaican records in the UK throughout the 1960s, but reggae became popular in the UK only when Prince Buster's Al Capone (1967) started a brief "dance craze". Jamaican music was very much a ghetto phenomenon, associated with gang-style violence, but Jimmy Cliff's Wonderful World Beautiful People (1969) wed reggae with the "peace and love" philosophy of the hippies, an association that would not die away. In the USA, Neil Diamond's Red Red Wine (1967) was the first reggae hit by a pop musician. Shortly afterwards, Johnny Nash's Hold Me Tight (1968) propelled reggae onto the charts. Do The Reggay (1968) by Toots (Hibbert) And The Maytals was the record that gave the music its name. Fredrick Toots Hibbert's vocal style was actually closer to gospel, as proved by their other hits (54-46, 1967; Monkey Man, 1969; Pressure Drop, 1970).
A little noticed event would have far-reaching consequences: in 1967, the Jamaican disc-jockey Rudolph "Ruddy" Redwood had begun recording instrumental versions of reggae hits. The success of his dance club was entirely due to that idea. Duke Reid, who was now the owner of the Trojan label, was the first one to capitalize on the idea: he began releasing singles with two sides: the original song and, on the back, the instrumental remix. This phenomenon elevated the status of dozens of recording engineers.
Reggae music was mainly popularized by Bob Marley (1), first as the co-leader of the Wailers, the band that promoted the image of the urban guerrilla with Rude Boy (1966) and that cut the first album of reggae music, Best Of The Wailers (1970); and later as the political and religious (rasta) guru of the movement, a stance that would transform him into a star, particularly after his conversion to pop-soul melody with ballads such as Stir It Up (1972), I Shot The Sheriff (1973) and No Woman No Cry (1974).
Among the reggae vocal groups, the Abyssinians' Satta Massa Gana (1971) is representative of the mood of the era.
In 1972 reggae became a staple of western radio stations thanks to the film The Harder They Come.
More and more studio engineers were re-mixing B-sides of reggae 45 RPM singles, dropping out the vocals and emphasizing the instrumental texture of the song. The purpose was to allow disc-jockeys to "toast" over the record. Engineers became more and more skilled at refining the instrumental textures, especially when they began to employ sophisticated studio devices. Eventually, "dub" became an art on its own. The first dub singles appeared in 1971, but the man generally credited with "inventing" the genre is Osbourne Ruddock, better known as King Tubby (2), a recording engineer who in 1970 had accidentally discovered the appeal of stripping a song of its vocal track, and who engineered the first dub record, Carl Patterson's Psalm Of Dub (1971). When he got together with producer Lee "Scratch" Perry, Blackboard Jungle (1973) was born: the first stereo "dub" album. It was a Copernican revolution: the engineer and the producer had become more important than the composer. It also marked the terminal point of the "slowing down" of Jamaican music, a process that had led from ska to reggae to rock steady. Compared with the original, dub was like a slow-motion version. a collaboration with melodica player Augustus Pablo led to another seminal work, King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown (1976).
Rainford Hugh Perry, better known as Lee "Scratch" Perry (3), who had nursed the Wailers, pretty much set the reference standard for generations to come with Double Seven (1974), the first reggae album that overdubbed synthesizers, Revolution Dub (1975) and Super Ape (1976), one of the genre's masterpieces.
Melodica virtuoso Augustus Pablo (2), aka Horace Swaby, penned the instrumental albums This Is Augustus Pablo (1973) and East of the River Nile (1977), two of the most atmospheric works of the genre.
"Rapping" originated from the complementary tradition of the "talk-over". The disc-jockeys of the sound systems used to accompany the dance tracks with impromptu melodic and spoken-word vocals, often simply to add enthusiasm to the dance. This eventually became an art in itself. U-Roy (Edwart Beckford) was possibly the first great talk-over artist, the man who turned dub into a highly-effective vehicle for agit-prop messages (Dynamic Fashion Way, 1969; Runaway Girl, 1976; Wake the Town, Wear You to the Ball). Other pioneers of rapping were Dennis "Alcapone" Smith, with Forever Version (1971), Prince Jazzbo and I Roy. Big Youth (Manley Buchanan) upped the ante with his wild sociopolitical raps (S-90 Skank, 1972; The Killer, 1973; House Of Dread Locks, 1975; Every Nigger Is A Star, 1976), most effectively on Dreadlocks Dread (1975). Originally, the technique of these "toaster" consisted in remixing other people's songs, removing the original vocals, emphasizing the rhythmic base, and overdubbing their own rhyming stories on the resulting track.
As reggae became a world attraction, styles multiplied and inbred with the American genres.
Burning Spear (1), the project of Rastafarian visionary Winston Rodney, unleashed the supercharged Marcus Garvey (1976), perhaps the highest artistic achievements of reggae music.
Joseph Hill's vocal trio Culture were equally passionate, and the title-track from Two Sevens Clash (1977) became the anthem of the rasta-punks and coined "rockers reggae".
Ijahman Levi (Trevor Sutherland) was perhaps the most spiritual vocalist of his generation. His songs were religious hymns (Jah Heavy Lord, 1975; I'm A Levi, 1978; Are We A Warrior, 1978).
Ex-Wailers Peter Tosh, or Winston Hubert McIntosh, crossed over into rock territory with Legalize It (1976).
Other popular classics include Junior Marvin's Police And Thieves (1976) and Gregory Isaacs' Love Is Overdue (1974
CONTACT jahsonsworks@msn.com
GREETINGS BROTHER'S AND SISTER'S FOR BOOKINGS FEEL FREE TO LINK US @ jahsonsworks@msn.com or jahsonsworks@yahoo.com we have drummer's for hire craftmen herblist organic farmer's african art and caribbean art all can be ship or deliverd give thank's & thanks for all your support . the movement of jah people has begun jah bless jahman
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