Primary Sources, Black History

The Gist of Freedom is pleased to present to The African Burial Ground Lower Manhattan, Playwright, Judy Tate!  Judy is the Producing Artistic Director of The American Slavery Project, a theatrical response to revisionism in this country's discourse around slavery, the Civil War and Jim Crow.    She is a playwright and 4 time Emmy award winning writer and the creator of "Unheard Voices" a monologue play with music collectively written for the unknown men, women and 

Free Blacks, formerly kidnapped and Enslaved-Sued their Captors! Click and Listen tonight at 8pm ET- The Gist of Freedom welcomes Clayton Adams Solomon Northup's descendant. Clayton Adams and Preston Washington, The Gist of Freedom's host will discuss the film 12 Years A Slave! The Film 12 Years A Slave is an extraordinary true story based on Solomon Northup's autobiography. Mr.Northup a free black man from upstate New York, is kidnapped and sold into slavery.

September 15th is the 50th Anniversary of the "Four Little Girls" Church Bombing-  Join The Gist  "Gist of Freedom"  host Preston Washington and Historian Leslye Joy Allen as they have a disscussion about "The Four Little Girls". I urge you to pay particular attention to the first 20 minutes of this interview where Fate Morris (brother of Cynthia Diane Morris aka Cynthia D. Wesley) called in and spoke about how his sister's name has been recorded in error; along with his moving testimony of what he remembered and discovered on the morning of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on September 15, 1963. This is a long discussion, but one that reveals information and history that is long overdue.   Also watch the live steam of the stage play Four Little Girls on September 15 at 6pm ET 

Russell Simmons' Apology and Redemption after uploading a "Harriet Tubman Sex Tape".. Produce a film on the life and times of Harriet Tubman with her Descendants? “The last few days I have been speaking to some of the direct descendants of Harriet Tubman,”  -Simmons tweeted. “ They have not only accepted my apology but we agree that we should begin immediately to develop the story of Harriet Tubman.”  -------------- Harriet Tubman's Niece's Letter (Judith G. Bryant)  "Your disgusting portrayal of one of America's most beloved heroines is simply inexplicable.Unforgivable. And you thought this was funny? No excuses possible. Your insolent apologies are embarrassing.  For all your millions, you are worth zero to me.  Please, don't use any of them in connection with her name ever again." -------------- Join The Gist of Freedom, on WWW.BuriedBlackHistory.com as we continue this discussion with Dr. Kaye Whitehead, Loyola University Maryland  

The Christiana deadly Rescue...The Slaver demanded Parker to turn over his “property” meaning the two African Men he was hunting. Parker, a successful escapee himself, told him he had no “property” and commanded the slaver leave his door. Parker and the two courageous black men who successfully escaped from the slaver's plantation refused to come down from their stronghold on the second floor, and instead summoned help from the neighborhood by sounding a horn. -------------------- Watching Now ... Actress Zoey Deschanel connected to The Underground Railroad on TLC Who Do You Think You Are?.....   The William Parker Rescue mission, known as the Christiana Rescue Mission/Riot.   In September 1851, Maryland planter Edward Gorsuch was killed by a group of African-Americans after he tried to take possession of three slaves who had previously escaped from his plantation.   http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/who-do-you-think-you-are/videos/zooey-deschanel-.htm ----------------------------  Tonight Click to listen to Historian Dwight Thompson?, discuss the Christiana Rescue & The Personal Liberty Law. These laws were used to successfully defend the black and white abolitionists.   www.blackhistoryUNIVERSITY.com   Personal liberty laws were extant in New England and in some other northern states prior to the Civil War to prevent runaway slaves from being kidnapped by slave catchers and taken back to southern bondage.   

Harriet Tubman Sex Tape - a discussion with Attorney & Hip Hop Historian Joseph Haynes Davis!

The Gist of Music-The Sampled Oldies

Abolitionist David Walker's Appeal " I will Stand My Ground"   "I will stand my ground"        "I will stand my ground. Somebody must die in this cause. I may be doomed to the stake and the fire, or to the scaffold tree, but it is not in me to falter if I can promote the work of emancipation."   --------- David Walker    In September of 1829 he published his Appeal. To reach his primary audience -- the enslaved men and women of the South -- Walker relied on sailors and ship's officers sympathetic to the cause who could transfer the pamphlet to southern ports.    Walker even employed his used clothing business which, being located close to the waterfront, served sailors who bought clothing for upcoming voyages.    He sewed copies of his pamphlet into the lining of sailors' clothing. Once the pamphlets reached the South, they could be distributed throughout the region.   The Appeal made a great impression to the slaves the words were inspiring and instilled a sense of pride and hope.    Horrified whites, initiated laws that forbade blacks to learn to read and banned the distribution of antislavery literature.    They offered a $3,000 reward for Walker's head, and $10,000 to anyone who could bring him to the South alive.    Friends concerned about his safety implored him to flee to Canada......    A devout Christian, he believed that abolition was a "glorious and heavenly cause."   http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2930.html

First Black Church, Mother Bethel 1700's Won Reverse Affirmative Action Supreme Court Decision,    In 1816, after a 20 year legal battle,  the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that, the defendant, Mother Bethel and The Free African Mutual Aid Society was legally independent, and free to self govern and control its own affairs.       Richard Allen established  Mother Bethel AME, an Underground Railroad Sanctuary, as an autonomous black church under which led to a 20-year struggle with white Methodists who attempted to control the congregation's doctrines and property. Now African Americans could develop their own version of Christianity while employing the resources of a united, autonomous church to develop their own community, including schools and mutual aid societies, and to work in the emerging Black Abolitionist Movement.   Join the Gist of Freedom and Historian Terry Buckalew discuss his most fascinating discovery, Mother Bethel's Cemetery!    The untold story of how the Black Church formed Mutual Aid Societies to establish self-help institutions and how they fought the government to remain separate from the Church and State.  Ironically in 1954 African Americans won the battle to integrate, consequently abandoning the institutions founded and established by and for blacks via the Black Church and their Mutual Aid Socities.   

Jeremy Williams is the author of recent book Detroit: The Black Bottom Community. In his spare time he writes (often under the pen name Push Nevahda) for his blog @ pushnevahda.com. He has written for several newspapers, and he recently completed a book review of George Henderson's 'Race and the University, a memoir', and Melissa F. Weiner's 'Power, Protest, and the Public Schools: Jewish and African American Struggles in New York City', both for Howard University's Journal of Negro History. He recently published a book review of Sara Hoffman's novel 'So Much Pretty' @ The Hollins Critic.Williams currently teaches at Detroit's Wayne County Community College. His hobbies include recording music, watching reruns of Sanford & Son, and traveling. He is a member of the Detroit Writer's Guild. His recently finished play, Presumed Incompetent, is currently in production for October 5-6 at Detroit's International Center. Link: http://pushnevahda.com/

Closing Arguments: On Zimmerman & Cochran v. Fuhrman

Zimmerman's Murder Trial, Trayon B. Martin

Click to Listen To The Gist of Freedom tonight at 8pm    On Christmas Eve 1855, Barnaby Grigsby and his Mary Elizabeth, took the slaver's best team of horses and his carriage, packed it knives and guns, and fled slavery. Grigsby and Elizabeth were married.    Tonight on The Gist of Freedom join us as Historian Erik Estep talks with host Preston Washington about the courageous "Runaway Slaves" chronicled in William Still's book, The Underground Railroad.    William Still was the Black abolitionist from Philadelphia who was described by the New York Times as "The Father of the Underground Railroad". He commissioned Harriet Tubman's rescue missions. This famous abolitionist literally wrote the Underground Railroad book. The book which explained the story, narratives often in the words of the participants in the effort to escape slavery. It provided intimate detail on the workings of conductors like himself but it also provided numerous letters and testimonials from fugitive slaves to Still either requesting assistance or thanking him for his efforts. Even today, The Underground Railroad remains a major source for understanding thi

Courageous Freedom Seekers were said to have contracted a disease...  Drapetomania!   Drapetomania was a purported mental illness that caused enslaved black  to flee captivity, described by American doctor Samuel Cartwright, in 1851.    -------- Click & Listen to William Katz, author "Breaking The Chains"  Thursday at 8pm WWW.BlogTalkRadio.com/BlackHistory --------   According to Cartwright, the illness resulted from masters who “made themselves too familiar with [slaves], treating them as equals” and prescribed “whipping the devil out of them” as a “preventative measure.” In his work, Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race, Cartwright’s justification for drapetomania is primarily Biblical, citing the idea that slaves must obey their masters.   The title of the exhibition is taken from an article in the monthly Southern journal entitled The Georgia Blister and Critic, v. 1, #7 (Sept. 1854), p. 156 (exhibit #20). The journal dealt with the “diseases and physical peculiarities of the Negro race.” In the article, the word drapetomania was created by the noted    Louisiana surgeon and psychologist Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright by combining the Greek words for runaway slave andmad or crazy.    It was used to describe the mental disease that “induces the negro to run away from service, [and] is as much a disease of the mind as any other species of mental alienation, and much more curable, as a general rule.”     Click & Listen Thursday @ 8pm ~ William Katz?, author, Breaking The Chains!"

Join The Gist of Freedom as we welcome and Congratulate Autum Ashante - who is enrolling in medical school after graduating this summer in the top 15% of her class!  Autumn needs your support! http://www.gofundme.com/343hwg As a 7-year-old prodigy Autum unleashed a firestorm when she recited a poem she wrote comparing Christopher Columbus and Charles Darwin to "pirates" and "vampires" who robbed blacks of their identities and human rights