Entries Tagged 'History' ↓

Most of us associate the holiday with happy Pilgrims and Indians sitting down to a big feast. And that did happen – once.

The story began in 1614 when a band of English explorers sailed home to England with a ship full of Patuxet Indians bound for slavery. They left behind smallpox which virtually wiped out those who had escaped. By the time the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts Bay they found only one living Patuxet Indian, a man named Squanto who had survived slavery in England and knew their language. He taught them to grow corn and to fish, and negotiated a peace treaty between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Nation. At the end of their first year, the Pilgrims held a great feast honoring Squanto and the Wampanoags.

But as word spread in England about the paradise to be found in the new world, religious zealots called Puritans began arriving by the boat load. Finding no fences around the land, they considered it to be in the public domain. Joined by other British settlers, they seized land, capturing strong young Natives for slaves and killing the rest. But the Pequot Nation had not agreed to the peace treaty Squanto had negotiated and they fought back. The Pequot War was one of the bloodiest Indian wars ever fought.

Read the rest here.

Some brothas and sistahs down in Atlanta are trying to light a fire under this year�s Black History Month commemorations. Or should that be Phyre?

Phyre�s vision is to expressly add that our history is rich because of contributions from African-American persons who among them are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT). In the words of Alice Walker, �We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.� The Phyre project aims to ensure that the truth about African-American LGBT persons is known, understood, and celebrated. As the truths become more and more evident, America and all her children will be free.

To kick off their efforts there will be events in Atlanta during the week of February 18-24, as well as a public awareness campaign by Black LGBT bloggers all across the Internet.

In adding my voice to the chorus, I would like to draw your attention to two articles I wrote more than a decade ago while living in upstate New York, that I think are still relevant. Some of us recognized the exclusion of Black lesbian and gay people from the entire discussion of overall Black history years ago.

Reflections On Black History (1996) LINK

Links to the Past: Black Gays and Lesbians in the Civil Rights Era (1997) LINK

Additionally, you should know about this bit of research. The BlackList is a directory of known Black gay and lesbian persons, from the past and present, with references to sites that verify the information. No names have been listed without proof, so the naysayers can take their denial elsewhere. Unfortunately, this directory is no longer being regularly updated, but the information is still quite significant.

The Blacklist LINK

The history books will continue to be incomplete unless we fill in the missing pages.

This is the first year that I have been able to deal with the tragedy that occurred on September 11, 2001 and its aftermath. A combination of time and a pre-occupation with other personal issues since then and currently, have given me either perspective on that event or forced me to divert my energy to more pressing needs. In any event I am ready to face the anniversary and all the media attention it will generate and then move beyond it.

On the first anniversary I was not in a stable frame of mind. I took my vacation in Toronto that year, not only wanting to leave New York City, but get out of the country altogether, although Canada being close by I was unable to fully escape the news coverage. A year after 9/11, I was still having nightmares. Now I am better, but I have by no means returned to being the person I was on September 10, 2001.

It strikes me that, like a pebble cast upon the water forming ripples that radiate outward, the impact of 9/11 really depends on how close to ground zero you were. With that comes varying degrees of physical and psychological after-effects, the full impact of which may not be fully known for years to come.

This past week, congressional leaders held hearings to get testimony from ground zero rescue workers and their families who are now suffering the physical effects of being exposed to airborne contaminants raised up by the dust and rubble of the collapsed World Trade Center. An alarming number have grown sick or have already died from various forms of upper respiratory diseases or cancers and are seeking compensation to deal with sky-high medical bills.

At the time of the attack rescue workers treated the scene much the way an earthquake is handled, looking for possible survivors first, worrying about their own personal safety second. Because there were two 110 story structures that had crumbled to the ground, this was an around the clock effort that took months. What people may not know or recall was that fires were smoldering underneath that rubble for about five months after the attack, burning toxic and hazardous materials that rescue workers were breathing in the whole time.

But it wasn�t just rescue workers exposed to these pollutants. The Environmental Protection Agency proclaimed the area around lower Manhattan safe for residents to return before it really was. I live almost 200 blocks north of ground zero and remember how thick the air was in my neighborhood on September 12 and for several weeks afterward. Dust clouds extended miles into the sky and blew all across the tri-state area. There is no telling how many of us have breathed in particles that will ultimately make us sick or eventually kill us. Future medical researchers may need to track where we were on and around that date and how we later died in order to get the full head count on the deaths caused by 9/11.

And then there are the psychological effects. The same rescue workers report high rates of stress and depression from spending days and weeks looking for survivors. I saw a news interview with one man who recounted the horror of finding a woman�s hand among the rubble and curled in the palm, the hand of a small child. He was indelibly scarred by that experience.

I am fortunate not to have known anyone personally who was lost in the terrorist attack because I am sure surviving family and friends have a perspective on this day that none of us can fully comprehend. But I did witness the collapse of the north tower with my own eyes from the corner of 26th Street and 6th Avenue. That horribly surreal image replayed like a tape recorder over and over in my mind every night for a year. I was among the millions of New Yorkers who walked home in confusion and fear that day, not knowing what was going on, cut off from phone service and communication with family. I remember vividly the gut-wrenching �Have You Seen�� flyers that went up on every blank wall in the city by those hoping in vain that their loved ones had survived the towers.

Like many New Yorkers I am changed in ways in which I am not even aware. I am more reclusive than I have ever been in my life. I suffer bouts of depression that take me lower than in the past and last longer. Are they the direct result of 9/11? I don�t know, but I can�t completely discount that possibility.

The on-going mess created in Iraq that had nothing to do with capturing those responsible, shows no signs of ending and creates another reason to detach and disengage. For the millions of people directly and indirectly impacted by 9/11, there is still no closure.

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The Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York has conducted the widest review of health problems related to 9/11, releasing its report last week. Seventy percent of the 10,000 Ground Zero workers the center tested between 2002 and 2004 reported respiratory problems while working at the site. Of those, 60 percent have had persistent respiratory problems.

The full report is available here as a PDF.

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Other Reflections on Sept. 11

Noctuary Five Years Later… Link
The Republic of T Gay Americans & 9/11 Link
Prometheus 6 (See several articles under “The Path from 9/11″) Link

Gordon Parks, the first black American photojournalist for Life magazine and the first leading black filmmaker with movies such as The Learning Tree and Shaft, died Tuesday at his home in New York. He was 93.

Social Critic Was Armed With Lens (Chicago Tribune)

Gordon Parks, A Master of the Camera, Dies at 93 (New York Times)

Photographer Documented Poverty’s Toll (Los Angeles Times)

The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY announced the selection of 18 former players and executives, including 17 from the Negro Leagues and pre-Negro League era, as this year�s class of inductees. Included in the group is the Hall�s first female inductee, Effa Manley, a White woman who passed as Black, and who along with Black husband Abe, owned the Newark Eagles franchise in the Negro Leagues.

This is the largest group of inductees in any single year, and also includes relief pitcher Bruce Sutter of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Baseball Hall of Fame Elects First Woman (ABC News)

Negro Leaguers called to Hall (Philadelphia Daily News)

Baseball Hall of Fame Inductees (Kansas City Star)

The Kid�s in the Hall (Bejata.com)