The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

What up World!!! Today I will like to share with you a paragraph out of James Weldon Johnson famous novel “The Autobiography Of An Ex-Colored Man”. While on a train he encounters a racist Texan who believes The Anglo-Saxon race has always been the masters of the world. Read how this Texan gets put in his place by a white northerner.

“Can you name a single one of the great fundamental and original intellectual achievements which have raised man in the scale of civilization that may be credited to the Anglo-Saxon? The art of letters, of poetry, of music, of sculpture, of paintings, of the drama, of architecture; the science of mathematics, of astronomy, of philosophy, of logic, of physics, of chemistry, the use of the metals, and the principles of mechanics, were all invented or discovered by darker and what we now call inferior races and nations. We have carried many of these to their highest point of perfection, but the foundation was laid by others. Do you know the only original contribution to civilization we can claim is what we have done in steam and electricity and in making implements of war more deadly? And there we worked largely on principles which we did not discover. Why, we didn’t even originate the religion we use. We are a great race, the greatest in the world today, but we ought to remember that we are standing on a pile of past races, and enjoy our position with a little less show of arrogance. We are simply having our turn at the game, and we were a long time getting to it. After all, racial supremacy is merely a matter of dates in history. The man here who belongs to what is, all in all, the greatest race the world ever produced, is almost ashamed to own it. If the Anglo-Saxon is the source of everything good and great in the human race from the beginning, why wasn’t the German forest the birthplace of civilization, rather than the valley of the Nile?” [1]

References

[1] Gates Jr. Henry L., and Nelie Y Mckay. eds. "African American Literature" 2nd ed. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2004.



The Souls of Black Folk



What up World!!!! Today I want to share with you a couple of paragraphs out of W.E.B Du Bois famous novel” The Souls of Black Folk”, describing what the function of college should be for us African American males.

 “The function of the Negro college, then, is clear: it must maintain the standards of popular education, it must seek the social regeneration of the Negro, and it must help in the solution of problems of race contact and co-operation. And finally, beyond all this, it must develop men. Above our modern socialism, and out the worship of the mass, must persist and evolve that higher individualism which the centres of culture protect; there must come a loftier respect for the sovereign human soul that seek s to know itself and the world about it; that seeks a freedom for expansion and self-development; that will love and hate and labor in its own way, untrammeled alike by old and new. Such souls aforetime have inspired and guided worlds, and if we be not wholly bewitched by our Rhine-gold, they shall again.
Herein the longing of black men must have respect: the rich and bitter depth of their experience, the unknown treasures of their inner life, the strange rendings of nature they have seen, may give the world new points of view and make their loving, living, and doing precious to all human hearts. And to themselves in these the days that try their souls, the chance to soar in the dim blue air above the smoke is to their finer spirits boon and guerdon for what they lose on earth by being black. I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension.  So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America?  Is this the life you long to change into the dull red hideous of Georgia? Are you so afraid lest peering from this high Pisgah, between Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the promised land?” [1]

References

[1] Gates Jr. Henry L., and Nelie Y Mckay. eds. "African American Literature" 2nd ed. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2004.





Book of the Month

What up World!!!! Today I want to share with you a book I believe is inspiring. This book is the tale of how our African brothers and sisters resilience and determination to stand for a cause could not be broken. In a time we live in now where us as African Americans are facing some of the most disastrous situations, let this book inspire you and let you know that if we come together we cannot be stopped. Sembene Ousmane wrote a masterpiece that should be passed on from generation to generation.

  

 Sembene Ousmane

Black Art

Amiri Baraka

What up World!!!!! Today I have an interesting poem I want to share with you by Amiri Baraka, titled "Black Art". I hope you enjoy

 

Black Art

                            By Amiri Baraka

Poems are bullshit unless they are

teeth or trees or lemons piled

on a step. Or black ladies dying

of men leaving nickel hearts

beating them down. Fuck poems

and they are useful, wd they shoot

come at you, love what you are,

breathe like wrestlers, or shudder

strangely after pissing. We want live

words of the hip world live flesh &

coursing blood. Hearts Brains

Souls splintering fire. We want poems

like fists beating niggers out of Jocks

or dagger poems in the slimy bellies

of the owner-jews. Black poems to

smear on girdlemamma mulatto bitches

whose brains are red jelly stuck

between 'lizabeth taylor's toes. Stinking

Whores! we want "poems that kill."

Assassin poems, Poems that shoot

guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys

and take their weapons leaving them dead

with tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland. Knockoff

poems for dope selling wops or slick halfwhite

politicians Airplane poems, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . .tuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuh

. . .rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . Setting fire and death to

whities ass. Look at the Liberal

Spokesman for the jews clutch his throat

& puke himself into eternity . . . rrrrrrrr

There's a negroleader pinned to

a bar stool in Sardi's eyeballs melting

in hot flame Another negroleader

on the steps of the white house one

kneeling between the sheriff's thighs

negotiating coolly for his people.

Aggh . . . stumbles across the room . . .

Put it on him, poem. Strip him naked

to the world! Another bad poem cracking

steel knuckles in a jewlady's mouth

Poem scream poison gas on beasts in green berets

Clean out the world for virtue and love,

Let there be no love poems written

until love can exist freely and

cleanly. Let Black people understand

that they are the lovers and the sons

of warriors and sons

of warriors Are poems & poets &

all the loveliness here in the world

We want a black poem. And a 

Black World.

Let the world be a Black Poem

And Let All Black People Speak This Poem

Silently

or LOUD

Source: Selected Poetry of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones (1979)

Olaudah Equiano

                            Olaudah Equiano (1745 - 31 March 1797)

What up World!!!! Today I want to talk about an African American man who is widely regarded as the creator of the prototype slave narrative. “Equiano was not the first African-born former slave to recount his experience in bondage and freedom. But he was the first to write the story of his life himself, without the aid or direction of white ghostwriters or editors, such as predecessors in the slave narrative relied on. Equiano’s independence in this regard may be one reason why his story places much more emphasis on the atrocities of slavery and pleads more insistently for its total and immediate abolition than any previous slave narrative. Most slave narrators of Equiano’s era impressed their white sponsors with their piety and their willingness to forgive those who had once oppressed and exploited them. Although Equiano made much of his conversion to Christianity, he made clear his dedication to social change by venting his moral outrage toward slavery and by structuring his story so that freedom, not the consolations of religion, emerges as the top priority of his life in slavery.”[1]

 

References

[1] Gates Jr. Henry L., and Nelie Y Mckay. eds. "African American Literature" 2nd ed. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2004.

                                                                            

Jean Michel Basquiat

Jean Michel Basquiat ( December 22 1960 - August 12, 1988)

What up world!!!!  I know, I know, I’ve been gone for a while, but now I’m back. Today I want to inform you about a great African American artist who was never appreciated until his death. The record price for a Basquiat painting was made on May 15, 2007, when an untitled Basquiat work from 1981 sold at Sotheby's in New York for US$14.6 million. His artwork truly represented his heritage at a time when nobody wanted to accept a black artist. Take a look at a few of his masterpieces.

Fallen Angel 1981

Desmond

Unquiet Mind





Afro-American Fragment

Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

What up world!! Today I have a great poem to share with you by Langston Hughes titled, “Afro- American Fragment.”

Afro-American Fragment

So long,
So far away
Is Africa.
Not even memories alive
Save those that history books create,
Save those that songs
Beat back into the blood-
Beat out of blood with words sad-sung
In strange un-Negro tongue -
So long,
So far away
Is Africa.

Subdued and time-lost
Are the  drums – and yet
Through some vast mist of race
There comes this song
I do not understand
This song of atavistic land,
Of bitter yearning lost
Without a place -
So long,
So far away
Is Africa’s
Dark face.
Langston Hughes

Kwame Nkrumah

The first president of Ghana.



What up world!!! Today I’m going to inform you about a radical African who led the Gold Coast’s drive for independence from Britain and presided over its emergence as the new nation of Ghana. “When elections were held in 1951, Nkrumah’s CPP won almost all the seats open to direct election to the new Legislative Assembly.  Dr. Nkrumah proved not only to be an effective grass-root organizer, but was also able to work effectively with the Gold Coast Governor, Sir Charles Arden-Clarke to form the structural basis of the new nation of Ghana that became independent in 1957. Ghana’s emergence as a member of the United Nations, the first Sub-Saharan African independent nation-state, was to open the flood gates. In the next decade most African colonies followed in her footsteps to independence.” [1] He was the first president of Ghana and the first prime minister of Ghana.

Ghana Flag

Kwame Nkrumah & John F. Kennedy

References

[1] Mendosa, Eugene L. "West Africa: An Introduction To Its History, Civilization and Contemporary Situation." Durham: Academic Press, 2002.

 



Ode to Ethiopia

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

What up world!! I read a remarkable poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar titled, “Ode to Ethiopia.” I thought I share it with you.

Ode to Ethiopia

O Mother Race! to thee I bring
This pledge of faith unwavering,
This tribute to thy glory.
I know the pangs which thou didst feel,
When Slavery crushed thee with its heel,
With thy dear blood all gory.

Sad days were those -- ah, sad indeed!
But through the land the fruitful seed
Of better times was growing.
The plant of freedom upward sprung,
And spread its leaves so fresh and young --
Its blossoms now are blowing.

On every hand in this fair land,
proud Ethiope's swarthy children stand
Beside their fairer neighbor;
The forests flee before their stroke,
Their hammers ring, their forges smoke,
They stir in honest labour.

They tread the fields where honour calls;
Their voices sound through senate halls
In majesty and power.
To right they cling; the hymns they sing
Up to the skies in beauty ring,
And bolder grow each hour.

Be proud, my Race, in mind and soul;
Thy name is writ on Glory's scroll
In characters of fire.
High 'mid the clouds of Fame's bright sky
Thy banner's blazoned folds now fly,
And truth shall lift them higher.

Thou hast the right to noble pride,
Whose spotless robes were purified
By blood's severe baptism.
Upon thy brow the cross was laid,
And labour's painful sweat-beads made
A consecrating chrism.

No other race, or white or black,
When bound as thou wert, to the rack,
So seldom stooped to grieving;
No other race, when free again,
Forgot the past and proved them men
So noble in forgiving.

Go on and up! Our souls and eyes
Shall follow thy continuous rise;
Our ears shall list thy story
From bards who from thy root shall spring,
And proudly tune their lyres to sing
Of Ethiopia's glory.

Written by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

 

Damnation of Woman

W.E.B Du Bois (1868-1963)



What up world!! W.E.B Du Bois was a brilliant African American. In his essay the "Damnation of women he showed much love to our African American women.This quote from the essay is dedicated to all my beautiful African American and African sisters.

"For this, their promise, and for their hard past, I honor the women of my race. Their beauty,-their dark and mysterious beauty of midnight eyes, crumpled hair, and soft, full-featured faces-is perhaps more to me than to you, because I was born to its warm and subtle spell; but their worth is yours as well as mine. No other women on earth could have emerged from the hell of force and temptation which once engulfed and still surrounds black women in America with half the modesty and womanliness that they retain. I have always felt like bowing myself before them in all abasement, searching to bring some tribute to these long suffering victims, these burdened sisters of mine, whom the world, the wise, white world, loves to affront and ridicule and wantonly to insult. I have known the women of many lands and nations,-I have known and seen and lived beside them, but none have I known more sweetly feminine, more unswervingly loyal, more desperately earnest, and more instinctively pure in body and in soul than the daughters of my black mothers. This, then,-a little thing-to their memory and inspiration." [1]   1920

References

[1]  Gates Jr. Henry L., and Nelie Y Mckay. eds. "African American Literature" 2nd ed. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2004.

Asante Empire

Flag of the Asante People



What up World!!! Today I'm going to promote an empire never talked about much, but nevertheless just as important as any other empire in world history. "The Asante ultimately became the most powerful empire in West Africa ruling over 3 million subjects, at its height in the 19th century. By the time the Asante were conquered by the British, the Asantehene could expect tributary payments from 40 neighboring kingdoms, and the Europeans had to pay him rent and customs duties to live and trade along the coast south of the Asante heartland."[1]

The current Asantehene, Osei Tutu II

The Golden Stool

"The stool is the symbol of political authority in the forest kingdom. When Osei Tutu assumed rule, he required that subaltern political leaders bury their stools. No better example exists of the symbolic connection of a ruler with the divine. This stool, which was later to be coveted by the British, became the symbol of the new nation of Asante, and the priests of court maintained that it contained the very soul and substance of the Asante Union." [1]

Asante Woman

References

[1] Mendosa, Eugene L. "West Africa: An Introduction To Its History, Civilization and Contemporary Situation." Durham: Academic Press, 2002.















Igbos

Eastern Nigeria

What up world!! I discovered an interesting fact while reading my West African History book. The author states,"The largest Delta state was Bonny where 20,000 slaves a year passed on their fateful journey to the New World. Davidson estimates that 16,000 of those were Igbos, so it can be easily computed that very many African-Americans and residents of Brazil and the Caribbean can trace their ancestry back to Eastern Nigeria." [1]

Igbo people of Eastern Nigeria

References

[1] Mendonsa, Eugene L. "West Africa: An Introduction To Its History, Civilization and Contemporary Situation." Durham: Academic Press, 2002.

Book of the month

Welcome ladies and gentleman to my fresh new and exciting blog dedicated to the uplifting of African American males. My very first post for this blog I thought should set the tone.  I thought no better way to set the tone than my book of the month, Segu. Segu is a very excellent book displaying the beauty of West Africa and the rich culture while major changes were on the horizon. Maryse Conde’ masterfully guides you through West Africa and unveils the true story of the changing African culture.  I really love this book and feel this is the best book to begin to understand how our African culture was destroyed. Please send me comments and let me know what you thought.