Lets Explore Various African and African Diaspora History/culture VOL.1

[cole phelps]

A form known as novelty piano (or novelty ragtime) emerged as the traditional rag was fading in popularity. Where traditional ragtime depended on amateur pianists and sheet music sales, the novelty rag took advantage of new advances in piano-roll technology and the phonograph record to permit a more complex, pyrotechnic, performance-oriented style of rag to be heard. Chief among the novelty rag composers is Zez Confrey, whose "Kitten on the Keys" popularized the style in 1921.
Ragtime also served as the roots for stride piano, a more improvisational piano style popular in the 1920s and 1930s. Elements of ragtime found their way into much of the American popular music of the early 20th century. It also played a central role in the development of the musical style later referred to as Piedmont blues; indeed, much of the music played by such artists of the genre as Reverend Gary Davis, Blind Boy Fuller, Elizabeth Cotten, and Etta Baker could be referred to as "ragtime guitar."[17]
Although most ragtime was composed for piano, transcriptions for other instruments and ensembles are common, notably including Gunther Schuller's arrangements of Joplin's rags. Ragtime guitar continued to be popular into the 1930s, usually in the form of songs accompanied by skilled guitar work. Numerous records emanated from several labels, performed by Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Lemon Jefferson, and others. Occasionally ragtime was scored for ensembles (particularly dance bands and brass bands) similar to those of James Reese Europe, or as songs like those written by Irving Berlin. Joplin had long-standing ambitions of synthesizing the worlds of ragtime and opera, to which end the opera Treemonisha was written. However its first performance, poorly staged with Joplin accompanying on the piano, was "disastrous" and it was never to be fully performed again in Joplin's lifetime.[18] In fact the score was lost for decades, then rediscovered in 1970, and a fully orchestrated and staged performance took place in 1972.[19] An earlier opera by Joplin, A Guest of Honor, has been lost

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

lol, a few days early..

Assata Shakur: Exile since 1979On May 2 1973, Black Panther activist Assata Olugbala Shakur (fsn) Joanne Deborah Chesimard, was pulled over by the New Jersey State Police, shot twice and then charged with murder of a police officer. Assata spent six and a half years in prison under brutal circumstances before escaping out of the maximum security wing of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey in 1979 and moving to Cuba.

Assata: In her own words
My name is Assata ("she who struggles") Olugbala ( "for the people" ) Shakur ("the thankful one"), and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government's policy towards people of color. I am an ex political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984. I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO program. because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it "greatest threat to the internal security of the country" and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.

Tupac auntie, no wonder he was so crazy.

Her autobiography is wild as hell, great great read.

OP's Yanga story made me think of another slave rebellion leader...

Tula (executed October 3, 1795) was a slave on Curaçao and a leader of a 1795 slave revolt that convulsed the island for more than a month. He is revered on Curaçao today as a fighter for human rights and independence.



Contents
[hide]

• 1 The revolt
• 2 The Response
• 3 The Consequences
• 4 See also
• 5 References
• 6 External links

The revolt[edit]
Bandabou had between 4,000 and 5,000 inhabitants in 1795, mostly enslaved. Tula had been preparing the insurrection for some weeks. On the morning of August 17, 1795, at the Knip plantation of Caspar Lodewijk van Uytrecht at Bandabou, Curaçao, Tula led an uprising of 40 to 50 slaves. The enslaved met on the square of the plantation and informed van Uytrecht they would no longer work for him. He told them to present their complaints to the lieutenant governor at Fort Amsterdam. They left and went from Knip to Lagun, where they freed 22 slaves from jail.

From Lagun, the rebels went to the sugar plantation of Saint Kruis, where they were joined by more rebels under Bastian Karpata. Tula then led the escaped slaves from farm to farm, freeing more slaves.

The slave owners had now retreated to the city, leaving their plantations unprotected. At the same time, a confederate French slave, Louis Mercier, led another group of freed slaves to Saint Kruis, where he took the commandant, van der Grijp, and ten of his mulattos prisoner. Mercier also attacked Knip, where he freed more slaves and took some weapons. He then rejoined Tula, locating him by following the trail of destruction Tula had left behind.

The Response[edit]
Van Uytrecht in the meantime had sent his son on horseback with a note to the governor, and at 7 p.m., the council met to prepare a defense of the colony. Governor Johannes de Veer ordered Commander Wierts of the navy ship Medea, which was in port at the time, to defend Fort Amsterdam. Sixty-seven men, both white and black, under the command of Lieutenant R.G. Plegher were sent against the rebels. They went by boat to Boca San Michiel from Willemstad, and from there on foot to Portomari, where Tula and his followers were camping. When the Dutch military arrived there on August 19, they attacked Tula's group, but were defeated.

At the plantation of Fontein, Pedro Wakao killed the Dutch owner, Sabel, who became the first white victim of the rebellion. Wakao also found more weapons at Fontein.

The governor was notified of Plegher's defeat, and the rebellion was now considered a serious threat to the white community. The governor and the slave owners had raised a force of 60 well-armed horsemen under the command of Captain Baron van Westerholt to renew the attack. Westerholt had orders to offer leniency to the rebels if they would surrender. Among this party wasJacobus Schink, a Franciscan priest who served as negotiator and attempted to prevent bloodshed.

Tula was aware of the revolution that had resulted in freedom for the enslaved in Haiti. Tula argued that, since the Netherlands were now captured by the French, they should get their freedom as well. The three demands of Tula were: an end to collective punishment, an end to labor on Sunday and the freedom to buy clothes and goods from others than their own masters. There were two attempts at negotiating with the enslaved. The first one carried out by Father Schink. When Father Schink spoke with Tula, he refused to accept anything less than freedom. Schink reported back to Baron Westerholt, the latter decided to get more reinforcements and attack. He attempted a last negotiation, but when he was turned down by the rebels, he ordered that any slave with a weapon be shot. In the ensuing fight, the rebels were defeated. Ten to twenty of them were killed, and the rest escaped.

The Consequences[edit]
The rebels began a guerrilla campaign, poisoning wells and stealing food. On September 19, Tula and Karpata were betrayed by a slave. They were taken prisoner, and the war was effectively over. (Louis Mercier had already been caught at Knip.) After Tula was captured, he was publicly tortured to death on October 3, 1795, almost seven weeks after the revolt began. Karpata, Louis Mercier and Pedro Wakao were also executed. In addition, many slaves had been massacred in the earlier repression. After the revolt had been crushed the Curaçao government formulated rules that defined the rights of slaves on the island.

At the height of the insurrection, there were probably 1,000 rebels. August 17 is still celebrated in Curaçao to commemorate the beginning of a long fight for freedom. When slavery was finally abolished on the island in 1863, there were fewer than 7,000 slaves. There is a monument to Tula and the rebel slaves on the south coast of Curaçao, near the Holiday Beach Hotel. This is the site where Tula was executed.

 

[cole phelps]

ragtime continue

Musical form


The first page of "The Easy Winners" by Scott Joplin, showing ragtime rhythms and syncopated melodies.
The rag was a modification of the march made popular by John Philip Sousa, with additional polyrhythms coming from African music.[5] It was usually written in 2/4 or 4/4 time with a predominant left-hand pattern of bass notes on strong beats (beats 1 and 3) and chords on weak beats (beat 2 and 4) accompanying a syncopated melody in the right hand. According to some sources the name "ragtime" may come from the "ragged or syncopated rhythm" of the right hand.[2] A rag written in 3/4 time is a "ragtime waltz."
Ragtime is not a "time" (meter) in the same sense that march time is 2/4 meter and waltz time is 3/4 meter; it is rather a musical genre that uses an effect that can be applied to any meter. The defining characteristic of ragtime music is a specific type of syncopation in which melodic accents occur between metrical beats. This results in a melody that seems to be avoiding some metrical beats of the accompaniment by emphasizing notes that either anticipate or follow the beat ("a rhythmic base of metric affirmation, and a melody of metric denial"[21]). The ultimate (and intended) effect on the listener is actually to accentuate the beat, thereby inducing the listener to move to the music. Scott Joplin, the composer/pianist known as the "King of Ragtime", called the effect "weird and intoxicating." He also used the term "swing" in describing how to play ragtime music: "Play slowly until you catch the swing...".[22] The name swing later came to be applied to an early genre of jazz that developed from ragtime. Converting a non-ragtime piece of music into ragtime by changing the time values of melody notes is known as "ragging" the piece. Original ragtime pieces usually contain several distinct themes, four being the most common number. These themes were typically 16 bars, each theme divided into periods of four four-bar phrases and arranged in patterns of repeats and reprises. Typical patterns were AABBACCC′, AABBACCDD and AABBCCA, with the first two strains in the tonic key and the following strains in the subdominant. Sometimes rags would include introductions of four bars or bridges, between themes, of anywhere between four and 24 bars.[2]

 

[cole phelps]

Influence on European composers


European Classical composers were influenced by the form. The first contact with ragtime was probably at the Paris Exposition in 1900, one of the stages of the European tour of John Philip Sousa. The first notable classical composer to take a serious interest in ragtime was Anton Dvoràk.[23] French composer Claude Debussy emulated ragtime in three pieces for piano. The best-known remains the Golliwog's Cake Walk (from the 1908 Piano Suite Children's Corner). He later returned to the style with two preludes for piano: Minstrels, (1910) and General Lavine-excentric (from his 1913 Preludes),[11] which was inspired by a Médrano circus clown.


James Scott's 1904 "On the Pike", which refers to the midway of the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904.
Erik Satie, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud and the other members of The Group of Six in Paris never made any secret of their sympathy for ragtime, which is sometimes evident in their works. Consider, in particular, the ballet of Satie, Parade (Ragtime du Paquebot), (1917) and La Mort de Monsieur Mouche, an overture for piano for a drama in three acts, composed in the early 1900s in memory of his friend J.P. Contamine de Latour. In 1902 the American cakewalk was very popular in Paris and Satie two years later wrote two rags, La Diva de l'empire and Piccadilly. Despite the two Anglo-Saxon settings, the tracks appear American-inspired. La Diva de l'empire, a march for piano soloist, was written for Paulette Darty and initially bore the title Stand-Walk Marche; it was later subtitled Intermezzo Americain when Rouarts-Lerolle reprinted it in 1919. Piccadilly, another march, was initially titled The Transatlantique; it presented a stereotypical wealthy American heir sailing on an ocean liner on the New York–Europe route, going to trade his fortune for an aristocratic title in Europe.[24] There is a similar influence in Milhaud's ballets Le boeuf sur le toite and Creation du Monde, which he wrote after a trip to Harlem during his trip in 1922. Even the Swiss composer Honegger wrote works in which the influence of African American music is pretty obvious. Examples include Pacific 231, Prélude et Blues and especially the Concertino for piano and orchestra.
Igor Stravinsky wrote a solo piano work called Piano-Rag-Music in 1919 and also included a rag in his theater piece L'histoire du soldat (1918).[25]
Maurice Ravel is said to have heard Jimmy Noone and his group perform in Chicago. Despite the imprecise anecdote, Ravel's involvement with jazz is unquestionable, as it influenced many of his important works, for example the fox-trot of L'enfant et les sortilèges, the blues of the Sonata for violin and piano, Concerto in G and the Concerto for the left hand, both composed for piano in 1931.

 

[Blackking]

Might be the first person in history to say the word crakker. Defiantly was one of the first black Americans to have confidence on another level. The way he spit in mainstream Amerikkas face during the time frame that he did it in is just insane.

Jack Johnson--

Jack Johnson was born in Galveston, Texas, in 1878. In 1908 he became the first African-American to win the world heavyweight crown when he knocked out the reigning champ, Tommy Burns. The fast living Johnson held on to the title until 1915 and continued to box until he was 50. He died in an automobile accident in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1946.
The first black heavyweight champion, John Arthur "Jack" Johnson was born on March 31, 1878, in Galveston, Texas. The son of ex-slaves and the third of nine children, Johnson possessed an air of confidence and drive to exceed beyond the hardscrabble life his parents had known.

From there, Johnson continued his calls for Jeffries to step into the ring with him. On July 4, 1910, he finally did. Dubbed the "Fight of the Century," more than 22,000 eager fans turned out for the bout, held in Reno, Nevada. After 15 rounds, Johnson came away victorious, affirming his domain over boxing and further angering white boxing fans who hated seeing a black man sit atop the sport.

Jeffries was humbled by the loss and what he'd seen of his opponent. "I could never have whipped Johnson at my best," Jeffries said. "I couldn't have hit him. No, I couldn't have reached him in 1,000 years."

As Johnson became a bigger name in the sport of boxing, he also became a bigger target for a white America that longed to see him ruined. For his part, Johnson loved to brandish his wealth and his disdain for racial rules.


He dated white women, drove lavish cars and spent money freely. But trouble was always lurking. In 1912, he was convicted of violating the Mann Act for bringing his white girlfriend across state lines before their marriage. Sentenced to prison, he fled to Europe, remaining there as a fugitive for seven years. He returned to the United States in 1920 and ultimately served out his sentence.

His life came to an unfortunate end on June 10, 1946 when he died in an automobile accident in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Since his death, Johnson's life and career have undergone a major rehabilitation. His alleged crimes are now seen as the result of racial bias in law enforcement. In 1990 he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame and his life was the subject of the acclaimed Ken Burns’ documentary Unforgivable Blackness.

 

[Lavish]

Under the section titled "Web Sites of Interest" a link is given to the inventor of the traffic light, Mr. Garrett Morgan.

Viewers might also be interested in a write-up by the Ohio Motorists Association (Ohio Motorist, Vol 85, No 1, February, 1993, pg 4). Because of its human interest the article will be quoted in its entirety. It was published in the Editor's Corner, titled "Cleveland's Edison: Garrett Morgan, traffic light inventor." The article is as follows:
"February is Black History Month. And our vote for the top salute in the Cleveland area goes to Garrett A. Morgan.

"Surely, few other figures in the black, white or any community's history can match the amazing story of Cleveland's version of Tom Edison. Yet Morgan is not well known.
"Drivers may fuss and cuss at the nameless inventor of the traffic signal when they hit a red light on a lonely road at 2 a. m. Even in more thoughtful moments—when a motorist realizes how utterly impossible it would be to move tens of thousands of cars through a busy city at the same time without traffic lights—the image of an inventor of the device remains a blur.
"Let's try to fill in the picture.

* * *"On March 4, 1877, Garrett Augustus Morgan was born in Paris, Kentucky, to a mother who had once been a slave. But even as a youth he displayed the unique blend of imagination and perspiration that marks genius. Although he had only six years of education when he left home at age 14, he found work in Cincinnati and actually hired a tutor with his meager wages so he could continue his education.


"Arriving in Cleveland in 1895, Morgan got a job maintaining sewing machines for a clothing manufacturer. But a dozen years later, he went into business for himself, selling and repairing sewing machines. Always curious, Morgan experimented with various solutions to reduce friction in the operation of sewing machine needles—and by accident discovered a hair-straightening solution. So he went into business making and marketing hair care products—that is, shortly after he had also developed a tailoring shop—with 32 employees—to manufacture suits, dresses and coats.

"By 1915, Garrett Morgan had several diverse inventions to his credit, such as a woman's hat fastener, an automobile clutch and a "breathing device" which became the gas mask used by soldiers in World War I. * * *"When the tunnel for a water intake pipe was being dug out under Lake Erie, a gas explosion occurred in July, 1916.

"After two rescue parties failed to reach the stricken sandhogs, Garrett and his brother Frank and two others donned Morgan's breathing devices, worked their way through the gas and debris-filled tunnel, and brought out the survivors.
"In November 1923, Garrett A. Morgan patented a unique set of 'stop' and 'go' lights with a third cautionary signal in-between when the lights were about to change. He sold his traffic light to the General Electric Co. for $40,000—then a princely sum. * * *Morgan was a leader in the black community, serving as an officer in several organizations and establishing in 1920 the Cleveland call, a forerunner of the Cleveland Call & Post newspaper.

"Although he developed glaucoma in the 1940s and gradually lost his vision, Morgan kept designing new products and inventing new things almost until his death on July 27, 1963.
"If you happen to be driving west on the Shoreway in Cleveland, notice the sign on that red brick building near the lake. It proclaims the 'Garrett A. Morgan Water Plant' in honor of the heroic genius of Cleveland who saved the lives of so many people here and around the world with his 'breathing device' and saved the time of so many drivers everywhere by helping to create an orderly flow of vehicles with his traffic light.—F.J.T."

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

Lets get on our Lumumba/Congo shyt.

 

[Lavish]

@flea

you call yourself a "real n!gga" right? have anything you wanna add CAC?

 

[WaveGang]

EVERYDAY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH
How the fukk, they give you a month dedicated to your history. While our future generations of black peoples are stuck in a classroom compulsory learning theirs throughout the year

 

[Lavish]

Meredith, James
civil-rights leader, author
Born: 6/25/33
Birthplace: Kosciusko, Miss.
James Meredith was one of the pioneers of the civil rights movement. In 1962 he became the first black student to successfully enroll at the University of Mississippi. The state's governor, Ross Barnett, vociferously opposed his enrollment, and the violence and rioting surrounding the incident caused President Kennedy to send 5,000 federal troops to restore the peace. Meredith graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1963 (he had entered the university as a transfer student from an all-black college). For a number of years, Meredith continued to work as a civil rights activist, most notably by leading the March Against Fear in 1966, a protest against voter registration intimidation. During the march, which began in Memphis, Tenn., and ended in Jackson, Miss., Meredith was shot and wounded, hospitalized, and then rejoined the march in its last days. He enrolled in Columbia University, where he received a law degree in 1968, and worked as a stock broker. At some point, his politics took a sharp swing to the right, and Meredith renounced his role in the civil rights movement, opposed the holiday honoring Martin Luther King, and staunchly opposed affirmative action. From 1989 to 1991, he became an adviser to southern conservative Senator Jesse Helms.



Read more: Meredith, James | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0930434.html#ixzz2riiylPJc

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

Thomas Sankara


Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (December 21, 1949 – October 15, 1987) was a Burkinabé military captain, Marxist revolutionary, Pan-Africanisttheorist, and President of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987.[1][2] Viewed by some as a charismatic and iconic figure of revolution, he is commonly referred to as "Africa's Che Guevara".[1][3][4]

Sankara seized power in a 1983 popularly supported coup at the age of 33, with the goal of eliminating corruption and the dominance of the formerFrench colonial power.[1][5] He immediately launched one of the most ambitious programmes for social and economic change ever attempted on theAfrican continent.[5] To symbolize this new autonomy and rebirth, he even renamed the country from the French colonial Upper Volta to Burkina Faso("Land of Upright Men").[5] His foreign policies were centered on anti-imperialism, with his government eschewing all foreign aid, pushing for odious debt reduction, nationalizing all land and mineral wealth, and averting the power and influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform, prioritizing education with a nation-wide literacy campaign, and promoting public health by vaccinating 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles.[6] Other components of his national agenda included planting over ten million trees to halt the growing desertification of the Sahel, doubling wheat production by redistributing land from feudal landlords to peasants, suspending rural poll taxes and domestic rents, and establishing an ambitious road and rail construction program to "tie the nation together".[5] On the localized level Sankara also called on every village to build a medical dispensary and had over 350 communities construct schools with their own labour. Moreover, his commitment to women's rights led him to outlaw female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy, while appointing females to high governmental positions and encouraging them to work outside the home and stay in school even if pregnant.[5]

In order to achieve this radical transformation of society, he increasingly exerted authoritarian control over the nation, eventually banning unions and a free press, which he believed could stand in the way of his plans.[5] To counter his opposition in towns and workplaces around the country, he also tried corrupt officials, "counter-revolutionaries" and "lazy workers" in peoples revolutionary tribunals.[5] Additionally, as an admirer of Fidel Castro'sCuban Revolution, Sankara set up Cuban-style Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs).[1]

His revolutionary programs for African self-reliance made him an icon to many of Africa's poor.[5] Sankara remained popular with most of his country's impoverished citizens. However his policies alienated and antagonised the vested interests of an array of groups, which included the small but powerful Burkinabé middle class, the tribal leaders whom he stripped of the long-held traditional right to forced labour and tribute payments, andFrance and its ally the Ivory Coast.[1][7] As a result, he was overthrown and assassinated in a coup d'état led by the French-backed Blaise Compaoréon October 15, 1987. A week before his murder, he declared: "While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas."[1]

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

Early life[edit]




Thomas Sankara was the son of Marguerite Sankara (died March 6, 2000) and Sambo Joseph Sankara (1919 – August 4, 2006), a gendarme.[8] Born into a Roman Catholic family, "Thom'Sank" was a Silmi-Mossi, an ethnic group that originated with marriage between Mossi men and women of the pastoralistFulani people. The Silmi-Mossi are among the least advantaged in the Mossi caste system. He attended primary school in Gaoua and high school in Bobo-Dioulasso, the country's second city.

His father fought in the French army during World War II and was detained by the Nazis. Sankara's family wanted him to become a Catholic priest. Fittingly for a country with a large Muslim population, he was also familiar with the Qur'an. He was born in Yako.

Military career[edit]
After basic military training in secondary school in 1966, Sankara began his military career at the age of 19, and a year later was sent to Madagascar for officer training at Antsirabe where he witnessed popular uprisings in 1971 and 1972 against the government of Philibert Tsiranana and first read the works ofKarl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, profoundly influencing his political views for the rest of his life.[9] Returning to Upper Volta in 1972, by 1974 he fought in a border war between Upper Volta and Mali. He earned fame for his heroic performance in the border war with Mali, but years later would renounce the war as "useless and unjust", a reflection of his growing political consciousness.[10] He also became a popular figure in the capital of Ouagadougou. The fact that he was a decent guitarist (he played in a band named "Tout-à-Coup Jazz") and rode a motorcycle may have contributed to his charismatic public images.

In 1976 he became commander of the Commando Training Centre in Pô. In the same year he met Blaise Compaoré in Morocco. During the presidency of Colonel Saye Zerbo a group of young officers formed a secret organisation "Communist Officers' Group" (Regroupement des officiers communistes, or ROC) the best-known members being Henri Zongo, Jean-Baptiste Boukary Lingani, Blaise Compaoré and Sankara.

Government posts[edit]
Sankara was appointed Secretary of State for Information in the military government in September 1981, journeying to his first cabinet meeting on a bicycle, but he resigned on April 21, 1982 in opposition to what he saw as the regime's anti-labour drift, declaring "Misfortune to those who gag the people!" ("Malheur à ceux qui bâillonnent le peuple!")

After another coup (November 7, 1982) brought to power Major-Doctor Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, Sankara became prime minister in January 1983, but he was dismissed (May 17) and placed under house arrest after a visit by the French president's son and African affairs adviser Jean-Christophe Mitterrand. Henri Zongo and Jean-Baptiste Boukary Lingani were also placed under arrest; this caused a popular uprising.

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

President[edit]
“Our revolution in Burkina Faso draws on the totality of man's experiences since the first breath of humanity. We wish to be the heirs of all the revolutions of the world, of all the liberation struggles of the peoples of the Third World. We draw the lessons of the American revolution. The French revolution taught us the rights of man. The great October revolution brought victory to the proletariat and made possible the realization of the Paris Commune's dreams of justice.”

— Thomas Sankara, October 1984 [11]
A coup d'état organised by Blaise Compaoré made Sankara President on August 4, 1983,[12] at the age of 33. The coup d'état was supported by Libya which was, at the time, on the verge of war with France in Chad[13] (see History of Chad).

Sankara saw himself as a revolutionary and was inspired by the examples of Cuba's Fidel Castro and Che Guevara and Ghana's military leader Jerry Rawlings. As President, he promoted the "Democratic and Popular Revolution" (Révolution démocratique et populaire, or RDP). The ideology of the Revolution was defined by Sankara as anti-imperialist in a speech of October 2, 1983, the Discours d'orientation politique (DOP), written by his close associate Valère Somé. His policy was oriented toward fighting corruption, promoting reforestation, averting famine, and making education and health real priorities.

Abolition of chiefs' privileges[edit]
The government suppressed many of the powers held by tribal chiefs such as their right to receive tribute payment and obligatory labour. The CDRs (Comités de Défense de la Révolution) were formed as mass organizations and armed. Sankara's government also initiated a form of military conscription with the SERNAPO (Service National et Populaire). Both were a counterweight to the power of the army.

In 1984, on the first anniversary of his accession, he renamed the country Burkina Faso, meaning "the land of upright people" in Moré and Djula, the two major languages of the country. He also gave it a new flag and wrote a new national anthem (Une Seule Nuit).

Women's rights and AIDS[edit]
“The revolution and women’s liberation go together. We do not talk of women’s emancipation as an act of charity or because of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the triumph of the revolution. Women hold up the other half of the sky.”

— Thomas Sankara [14]
Improving women's status was one of Sankara's explicit goals, and his government included a large number of women, an unprecedented policy priority in West Africa. His government bannedfemale genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy; while appointing females to high governmental positions and encouraging them to work outside the home and stay in school even if pregnant.[5] Sankara also promoted contraception and encouraged husbands to go to market and prepare meals to experience for themselves the conditions faced by women. Furthermore, Sankara was the first African leader to appoint women to major cabinet positions and to recruit them actively for the military.[5]

Sankara's administration was also the first African government to publicly recognize the AIDS epidemic as a major threat to Africa.[15]

 

[cole phelps]

African slaves first began being imported into Colombia by the Spaniards in the first decade of the 16th century. By the 1520s, Africans were being imported into Colombia steadily to replace the rapidly declining native American population. Africans were forced to work in gold mines, on sugar cane plantations, cattle ranches, and large haciendas. African labor was essential in all the regions of Colombia, even until modern times. African workers pioneered the extracting of alluvial gold deposits and the growing of sugar cane in the areas that correspond to the modern day departments of Chocó, Antioquia, Cauca, Valle del Cauca, and Nariño in western Colombia.[citation needed]
In eastern Colombia, near the cities of Vélez, Cúcuta, Socorro, and Tunja, Africans manufactured textiles in commercial mills. Emerald mines, outside Bogotá, were wholly dependent upon African laborers. Also, other sectors of the Colombian economy like tobacco, cotton, artisanry and domestic work would have been impossible without African labor. In pre-abolition Colombian society, many Afro-Colombian slaves fought for their freedom as soon as they arrived in Colombia. It is clear that there were strong free Black African towns called palenques, where Africans could live as cimarrones, that is, they who escaped from their oppressors. Afro Panamanians are also related to Afro Colombians, some historians consider that Chocó was a very big palenque, with a large population of cimarrones, especially in the areas of the Baudó River. Very popular cimarrón leaders like Benkos Biojó and Barule fought for freedom. African people played key roles in the independence struggle against Spain. Historians note that three of every five soldiers in Simon Bolívar's army were African. Not only that, Afro-Colombians also participated at all levels of military and political life.


Slavery was not abolished until 1851, and even after emancipation, the life of the African Colombians was very difficult. African Colombians were forced to live in jungle areas as a mechanism of self-protection. There, they learned to have a harmonious relationship with the jungle environment and to share the territory with Colombia's indigenous.
From 1851, the Colombian State promoted the ideology of mestizaje, or miscegenation. This whitening of the African population was an attempt by the Colombian government to minimize or, if possible, totally eliminate any traces of Black African or indigenous descent among the Criollos. So in order to maintain their cultural traditions, many Africans and indigenous peoples went deep into the isolated jungles. Afro-Colombians and indigenous people were, and continue to be, the targets of the armed actors who want to displace them in order to take their lands for sugar cane plantations, for coffee and banana plantations, for mining and wood exploitation.
In 1945 the department of El Chocó was created; it was the first predominantly African political-administrative division. El Chocó gave African people the possibility of building an African territorial identity and some autonomous decision-making power.[2]

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

Second Agacher strip war[edit]
In 1985, Burkina Faso organised a general population census. During the census, some Fula camps in Mali were visited by mistake by Burkinabé census agents.[16] The Malian government claimed that the act was a violation of its sovereignty on the Agacher strip. Following efforts by Mali asking African leaders to pressure Sankara,[16] tensions erupted on Christmas Day 1985 in a war that lasted five days and killed about 100 people (most victims were civilians killed by a bomb dropped on the marketplace in Ouahigouya by a Malian MiG plane). The conflict is known as the "Christmas war" in Burkina Faso.



Personal image and popularity[edit]


The coat of arms of Burkina Faso under Sankara from 1984-87, featuring a crossedmattock and AK-47 (an allusion to theHammer and Sickle) with the motto "La Patrie ou la Mort, nous vaincrons" (English: "Fatherland or death, we will win").


Accompanying his personal charisma, Sankara had an array of original initiatives that contributed to his popularity and brought some international media attention to his government:

Solidarity[edit]

• He sold off the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers.
• He reduced the salaries of well-off public servants, including his own, and forbade the use of government chauffeurs and 1st class airline tickets.
  • He redistributed land from the feudal landlords to the peasants. Wheat production increased from 1700 kg per hectare to 3800 kg per hectare, making the country food self-sufficient.[5]
• He opposed foreign aid, saying that "he who feeds you, controls you."[5]
• He spoke in forums like the Organization of African Unity against what he described as neo-colonialist penetration of Africa through Western trade and finance.[5]
• He called for a united front of African nations to repudiate their foreign debt. He argued that the poor and exploited did not have an obligation to repay money to the rich and exploiting.[5]

"Thomas knew how to show his people that they could become dignified and proud through will power, courage, honesty and work. What remains above all of my husband is his integrity."

— Mariam Sankara, Thomas' widow [1]

• In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army's provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).[1]
• He forced well-off civil servants to pay one month's salary to public projects.[1]
• He refused to use the air conditioning in his office on the grounds that such luxury was not available to anyone but a handful of Burkinabes.[6]
• As President, he lowered his salary to $450 a month and limited his possessions to a car, four bikes, three guitars, a fridge and a broken freezer.[6]

Style[edit]

• A motorcyclist himself, he formed an all-women motorcycle personal guard.
• He required public servants to wear a traditional tunic, woven from Burkinabe cotton and sewn by Burkinabe craftsmen.[5]
• He was known for jogging unaccompanied through Ouagadougou in his track suit and posing in his tailored military fatigues, with his mother-of-pearl pistol.[1]
• When asked why he didn't want his portrait hung in public places, as was the norm for other African leaders, Sankara replied "There are seven million Thomas Sankaras."[6]
• An accomplished guitarist, he wrote the new national anthem himself.[1]