The African Diaspora thru Picture - Page 6

Mr. Equanimity · (#126 (**permalink**))

Hurricane Dean, Guadaloupe

Mr. Equanimity · (#127 (**permalink**))

Costa Rica

Breadfruit · (#128 (**permalink**))

Havana, Cuba. December 2006

Breadfruit · (#129 (**permalink**))

Cuba, 1859

Breadfruit · (#130 (**permalink**))

We Remember!!

On 18 January 1981, fourteen young people died in a fire which broke out at a house party in New Cross, south east London. In the immediate aftermath there was much speculation that racists were responsible for the fire, as many of the victims were African British. After more than 20 years, the cause of the fire remains a mystery.

In May 2004, an open verdict was recorded and a bid to challenge the verdict of this inquest was rejected in March 2005 despite forensic scientists stating that they fire was "most probably started deliberately". At the time of the incident, thousands turned out to demonstrate their anger at the institutional and media indifference to the young African Britons who died in the fire.

Ligali.org

blessingfromgod · (#131 (**permalink**))

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breadfruit

Trinidad, West Indies

---------------------------
Trinidad! Reminds me of backhome Naija

blessingfromgod · (#132 (**permalink**))

Remembering Stephen Lawrence - RIP

Picture still manages to bring tears.

Mr. Equanimity · (#133 (**permalink**))

Charles C. Seifert

"Seifert was born in Barbados, as a young boy he received schooling in carpentry and other construction skills. He was educated by the Christian Brethren as a religious lecturer, but developed an interest in Africa due to reading books owned by his father (a plantation overseer). Because these books were written prior to slavery they were more objective and leaned to showcasing a truer history of Africa. In 1910, he decided to devote his life to African-American history.

He worked in the contracting business in New York, as he prospered he bought books, manuscripts, maps, and African art. As the material began to number in the thousands, he purchased a building for them at 313 West 137th street where he established the Ethiopian School of Research History. Sometimes called “Professor,” Seifert was a requested speaker at many New York High Schools and for many African-American groups. "

Mr. Equanimity · (#134 (**permalink**))

Mayra Santos-Febres - Puerto Rican writer

"I don't know what it means to be a Black woman in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. I know how it feels. It feels as if you exist in virtal reality, as a symbol of 'our shared African heritage', as if you passed out of an episode of 'Roots' and started roaming around the island without any connection whatsoever to the transformations that you see unravelling in front of your eyes. You are the past.

In our island nations, the future is not Black. Nor is the present. Each of the contemporary manifestations of race in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Cuba is criminalised or brushed away as fashion, assimilation, or plain craziness. Rap, for instance, international hip-hop culture, Afro-Antillean religion. All of these manifestations of race become domesticated through the rhetoric of the nation. Merengue and Bachata become Dominican, and since Dominicans are not Black, according to the nation's rhetoric, then the genre miracurously becomes White. The same goes for the rumba and salsa. But something weird happens when the genres are needed to attract tourism. In such cases, the nation folklorises the musical expressions, dresses Black musicians and dancers in funny costumes, and Voila! The origins become theatricalised and blackness becomes a performance from the distant past."

Mr. Equanimity · (#135 (**permalink**))

Georgina Herrera - Cuban writer

"Once, I was with Rogelio [Martinez-Fure] looking at a book. We started laughing at the very old images that looked like us. And then he said, 'Look at those Black people - what serenity! But they are the same people who were beaten; that's why their looks have changed. It's the way they have been treated'. We saw a terra cotta mask that was about two thousand years old, and I said, 'Rogelio, look how it resembles me!' I was looking at it and I was so astonished at that moment, because I was fully aware that I accepted myself as I was. I always liked being Black, having this tranquility. I was proud of our large mouths and our wide noses."

Mr. Equanimity · (#136 (**permalink**))

Salvador Carnival, Brazil

Maat · (#137 (**permalink**))

McSmith, Blanche (1920-2006)

One of the most remarkable black leaders was Blanche Louise Preston McSmith, a native of Marshall, Texas, who, like the majority of African Americans residents, migrated to Alaska to seek greater economic opportunity.

Maat · (#138 (**permalink**))

Baroness Valerie Amos

First black woman cabinet minister and joint first black woman peer and recently appointed Leader of the House of Lords, the third woman in history to lead the upper house of Parliament