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

[cole phelps]

continued

The independence struggle
Once back in Havana, Gómez met José Martí in 1878, beginning a long friendship founded on shared ideals that united the revolutionary action of both.[5] In that year, he and Martí began conspiring together in preparation for a new uprising; both men were appointed secretary of various revolutionary groups in Havana. Also In 1879, Gómez started the pro-racial justice newspaper The Brotherhood, but its publication was interrupted when he was deported to Spain along with other plotters of the Little War.[5] After arriving in Spain, he spent ten years in Madrid, and wrote for many publications, including Tribuna, El Pueblo, El Progreso[4]–each organs of the Spanish republican movement,[6] and other journals, such as Abolitionism.[5]
After Juan Gualberto Gómez returned to Cuba in 1890,[5] Martí hatched the plot for the opening moves of the revolt and assigned Gómez his deputy to prepare for the upcoming uprising in the La Habana province[1] (which was significantly larger then) and he was able to orchestrate the war preparations right under the noses of the relatively unconcerned Spanish authorities.[7] Martí gave the order for armed uprising on February 24, 1895, and Gómez helped lead the failed uprising of Ibarra, Matanzas.[4] Initial attempts at insurrection fell flat, "mainly because the call to revolution received no immediate, spontaneous support from the masses."[8] The rebellion had yet to gain much momentum in early 1895. "The Province of Puerto Principe, for example, remained so quiet that the Spanish waited until June to declare martial law there."[8]
On February 28, Spanish forces captured Gómez.[9] He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in the dungeons of Ceuta and Valencia but only spent three years in prison. After being released, Gómez moved to New York City where he continued to work with fellow revolutionaries.[5] In December 1898, he accompanied Major General Calixto Garcia to Washington, D.C as a member of the commission sent to negotiate for the funds necessary for the Cuban Liberation Army and recognition of the rebels.[5]
During the second U.S. military intervention (1906–1909) he was a member of the Committee of Consultations, the Advisory Committee charged with amending the Cuban constitution,[4][5] and a prominent speaker for the anti-U.S. faction. He famously said, "the Platt Amendment has reduced the independence and sovereignty of the Cuban Republic to a myth."[10] He held seats in the Cuban House of Representatives (1914–1917) and Senate (1917–1925), from the province of Havana. He always campaigned to defend Afro-Cubans from discrimination, oppression, and violence.[4][5]

 

[cole phelps]

Fighting for racial equality
Throughout the Ten Years War, and after, "Spain sought, with considerable success, to divide Cubans along racial lines by portraying itself as the defender of white 'civilization'"[11] against blacks who would plunge Cuba into a Haiti-type slave revolt and "Africanize" the island if not suppressed.[11] Colonial authorities fanned the flames of racial fear so widely that the United States, under President Franklin Pierce, threatened to intervene[12] (See also: Ostend Manifesto). Since his formative years were spent involved in, then fleeing from, the Ten Years War, Juan Gualberto knew that one of the most important issues that Cubans had to resolve in order to unite and earn their independence from Spain was the problem of racism on the island. It was not enough to have abolished slavery, pro-independence groups also must abolish prejudice and conspicuous public discrimination if they wanted to unite Afro-Cubans behind the cause of independence.[5]
Upon his 1877 return to Havana, Juan Gualberto began his life as a grassroots activist in earnest, fighting not only for Cuban independence, but racial equality. In April 1879, his newspaper The Brotherhood debuted with the banner "General Journal for the defense of the colored race in Cuba."[5] Through The Brotherhood he presented examples and pleas against the abuses and discrimination suffered by blacks and mulattos. In one 1888 article, it reminded its readers that "yesterday we were slaves, today we are free, we want to participate in life, claim our rights, we want consideration and respect."[2] The Brotherhood reported on living conditions: the main concerns and worries of the black population; even publishing the letters of people of color who wrote in about their misfortunes and experiences. The Brotherhood won Juan Gualberto more followers across the island; as he was recognized as Cuba's first true spokesman and defender of black people.[5]
Juan Gualberto was also a prominent advocate for black veterans of the War of Independence, and fought for them to get public benefits and recognition. The experience of combat service in Cuba's founding war for independence offered Afro-Cubans "a new and distinct form of claiming the rights of citizenship."[13] Through the advocacy of groups like the "Committee of Veterans and Association of the Colored Race," black veterans of the Cuban Liberation Army, decorated war heroes and inconspicuous rank and file troops alike, invoked their status as freedom fighters and citizen-soldiers in demanding voting rights, anti-discrimination measures, and civil service jobs in the new government. Defending the Committee of Veterans, Juan Gualberto urged opponents to yield to their demands for compensation and just treatment, "so that we do not forget the sacrifices of the petitioners in the very recent revolutionary past, a time when skin color was of no importance, but quality and individual virtues were of great importance."[14]
"Gómez had become the most notable Afro-Cuban leader in the island by the 1890s, when he presided over the Directorio Central de Sociedades de la Raza de Color (Central Directorate of Societies of the Colored Race) and began publishing the newspaper La Igualidad."[1] The Central Directorate, which brought together roughly 100 black organizations, waged a successful civil rights campaign,[1] gaining Spanish colonial[15] edicts "outlawing restrictions on interracial marriage"[11] as well as ending government segregation of schools and other public facilities.[11] The Central Directorate's pivotal role in the fight for racial equality is "widely acknowledged,"[1] and it also gained Afro-Cuban activists important organizational and political experience, tools that facilitated black political involvement and influence for a generation.[16] Unfortunately, edicts from Spanish authorities on the island ending state-sponsored segregation had little real impact, with many towns and villages only opening public parks to blacks in subdivided "separate but equal" areas, and numerous businesses and storefronts were still labeled "whites only."[17] "As a result, most politically active Afro-Cubans remained committed" to breaking away from the Spanish government.[17] When the third war for independence erupted in 1895, the bulk of the activist groups under the Directorate's umbrella shut their doors, their members having taken up arms for the revolution and left their communities.[17]
Even after Cuban independence was secured, however, anti-discrimination progress was more symbolic than real, and pressure grew to start an independent political party for Afro-Cubans. Juan Gualberto was always opposed to the formation of a black party, a position he held throughout his political life, despite this stance becoming increasingly controversial. On this issue he was severely criticized and lost popularity among fellow Afro-Cubans, especially in the years following independence.[5] After the first years of the republic passed with nothing done to promote integration or end discrimination, and the August elections of 1908 closed and not one "black candidate from the two traditional political parties was elected to office,"[18] political discontent among blacks and mulattos peaked. "Following years of agitation and political upsets, it was clear that black Cubans could not depend on the existing party apparatus. As a result, prominent Afro-Cubans banded together to form the first black political party in Cuba, the Partido Independiente de Color (PIC),"[18] or Independent Colored Party, without Gómez.
"Juan Gualberto Gómez and Martín Morúa Delgado, the two most prominent black Cuban congressmen at the time, opposed the movement from the beginning and used Cuba’s supposed history of racial harmony as a justification to put down the Independientes." Most established Cuban politicians of Juan Gualberto's era, both black and white, opposed the development of the PIC, anxious that it would "erode some of their power and popular base" and upset the balance they had spent years building.[19]

 

[cole phelps]

Advocacy in the early days of the republic
After Cuba was declared a republic May 20, 1901, Juan Gualberto Gómez, writing under the pseudonym "G," was a skillful fighter against Tomas Estrada Palma, Cuba's first president, and the Platt Amendment, which he thought turned Cuba into almost a colony of the United States. His articles attacking chronic graft and subservient, pro-annexation politicians kneeling before U.S. power and influence highlighted the righteousness of those who stayed true to José Martí's legacy.[5]

Death
Juan Gualberto Gómez died March 5, 1933, at 78 years old. In his honor, the Union of Journalists of Cuba established the annual prize that bears his name.[5]
The Varadero international airport (VRN) is named the Juan Gualberto Gómez Airport in his honor.

 

[cole phelps]

 

[cole phelps]

 

[cole phelps]

http://www.thecoli.com/threads/the-red-summer-of-1919-the-forgotten-race-war.190896/

 

[Milk N Cookies]

All this time I thought Madame CJ Walker invented the pressing comb

 

[cole phelps]

All this time I thought Madame CJ Walker invented the pressing comb

that's why this thread was made for ya b to learn something new

 

[cole phelps]

The Nok culture appeared in Nigeria around 1000 BC and vanished under unknown circumstances around 300 AD in the region of West Africa. This region lies in modern Nigeria. Its social system is thought to have been highly advanced. The Nok culture was considered to be the earliest sub-Saharan producer of life-sized Terracotta.
[1] [2]
The refinement of this culture is attested to by the image of a Nok dignitary at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The dignitary is portrayed wearing a "crooked baton" ([3], [4]). The dignitary is also portrayed sitting with flared nostrils, and an open mouth suggesting performance. Other images show figures on horseback, indicating that the Nok culture possessed the horse.
Iron use, in smelting and forging for tools, appears in Nok culture in Africa at least by 550 BC and possibly earlier. Christopher Ehret has suggested that iron smelting was independently discovered in the region prior to 1000 BC[DOUBLEPOST=1397644254][/DOUBLEPOST]


Their function is still unknown, but scientific field work has started in 2005 to systematically investigate the archaeological sites.[6] For the most part, the terracotta is preserved in the form of scattered fragments. That is why Nok art is well known today only for the heads, both male and female, whose hairstyles are particularly detailed and refined. The statues are in fragments because the discoveries are usually made from alluvial mud, in terrain made by the erosion of water. The terracotta statues found there are hidden, rolled, polished, and broken. Rarely are works of great size conserved intact making them highly valued on the international art market.
The terracotta figures are hollow, coil built, nearly life sized human heads and bodies that are depicted with highly stylized features, abundant jewellery, and varied postures.
Little is known of the original function of the pieces, but theories include ancestor portrayal, grave markers, and charms to prevent crop failure, infertility, and illness. Also, based on the dome-shaped bases found on several figures, they could have been used as finials for the roofs of ancient structures.
Margaret Young-Sanchez, Associate Curator of Art of the Americas, Africa, and Oceania in The Cleveland Museum of Art, explains that most Nok ceramics were shaped by hand from coarse-grained clay and subtractively sculpted in a manner that suggests an influence from wood carving. After some drying, the sculptures were covered with slip and burnished to produce a smooth, glossy surface. The figures are hollow, with several openings to facilitate thorough drying and firing. The firing process most likely resembled that used today in Nigeria, in which the pieces are covered with grass, twigs, and leaves and burned for several hours.


Female Statue
48 cm tall
Age: 900 to 1,500 years

In 1928, the first find was accidentally unearthed at a level of 24 feet in an alluvial tin mine in the vicinity of the village of Nok near the Jos Plateau region of Nigeria (Folorunso 32). As a result of natural erosion and deposition, Nok terracottas were scattered at various depths throughout the Sahel grasslands, causing difficulty in the dating and classification of the mysterious artifacts.
Luckily, two archaeological sites, Samun Dukiya and Taruga, were found containing Nok art that had remained unmoved. Radiocarbon and thermo-luminescence tests narrowed the sculptures’ age down to between 2,000 and 2,500 years ago, making them some of the oldest in West Africa.
Because of the similarities between the two sites, archaeologist Graham Connah believes that "Nok artwork represents a style that was adopted by a range of iron-using farming societies of varying cultures, rather than being the diagnostic feature of a particular human group as has often been claimed."[DOUBLEPOST=1397644355][/DOUBLEPOST]Discovery


Nok rider and horse
53 cm tall
Age: 1,400 to 2,000 years

The Nok culture was discovered in 1928 on the Jos Plateau during tin mining.[7]
Lt-Colonel john Dent-Young, an Englishman, was leading mining operations in the Nigerian village of Nok. During these operations, one of the miners found a small terracotta of a monkey head. Other finds included a terracotta human head and a foot. The colonel, at a later date, had these artifacts placed in a museum in Jos.[8][9]
In 1932, a group of 11 statues in perfect condition were discovered near the city of Sokoto. Since that time, statues coming from the city of Katsina were brought to light. Although there are similarities to the classical Nok style, the connection between them is not clear yet.
Later still, in 1943, near the village of Nok, in the center of Nigeria, a new series of clay figurines were discovered by accident while mining tin. A worker had found a head and had taken it back to his home for use as a scarecrow, a role that it filled (successfully) for a year in a yam field. It then drew the attention of the director of the mine who bought it. He brought it to the city of Jos and showed it to the trainee civil administrator, Bernard Fagg, an archaeologist who immediately understood its importance. He asked all of the miners to inform him of all of their discoveries and was able to amass more than 150 pieces. Afterwards, Bernard and Angela Fagg ordered systematic excavations that revealed many more profitable lucky finds dispersed over a vast area, much larger than the original site. In 1977, the number of terra cotta objects discovered in the course of the mining excavation amounted to 153 units, mostly from secondary deposits (the statuettes had been carted by floods near the valleys) situated in dried-up riverbeds in savannahs in Northern and Central Nigeria (the Southwestern portion of the Jos Plateau).
The archaeologist Bernard Fagg, in his studies on the Nok culture, identified the Nok culture with central Nigerian groups such as the Ham (Jaba) ethnic group of Southern Kaduna State, based on similarities between some of the cultural practices and dressing of those modern central Nigerian groups and the figures depicted in the Nok art.

Repatriation
In February 2013, Daily Trust reported that the Nigerian Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and National Orientation repossessed five Nok statuettes looted by a French thief in August 2010. The pieces had been seized by French customs agents, and were repatriated following a Nigerian government Directive. Antiquities analysts estimated the sculptures to be between 2,700 and 3,400 years old.[10]

 

[cole phelps]

The Kingdom of Nri (Igbo: Ọ̀ràézè Ǹrì) (948—1911) was the West African medieval state of the Nri-Igbo, a subgroup of the Igbo people. The Kingdom of Nri was unusual in the history of world government in that its leader exercised no military power over his subjects. The kingdom existed as a sphere of religious and political influence over much of Igboland, and was administered by a priest-king called the eze Nri. The eze Nri managed trade and diplomacy on behalf of the Igbo people, and possessed divine authority in religious matters.
The kingdom was a safe haven for all those who had been rejected in their communities and also a place where slaves were set free from their bondage. Nri expanded through converts gaining neighboring communities' allegiance, not by force. Nri's royal founder, Eri, is said to be a 'sky being' that came down to earth and then established civilization. One of the better-known remnants of the Nri civilization is its art, as manifested in the Igbo Ukwu bronze items.
Nri's culture had permanently influenced all of Igbo culture, especially through religion and taboos. It brought new advanced concepts of the creator, Chineke, and of the universe in general. British colonialism, as well as the Atlantic slave trade, contributed to the decline of the Nri Kingdom. The Nri Kingdom is presently going through a cultural revival


History
The Nri kingdom is considered to be a center of Igbo culture.[2] Nri and Aguleri, where the Igbo creation myth originates, are in the territory of the Umeuri clan, who trace their lineages back to the patriarchal king-figure, Eri.[3] Eri's origins are unclear, though he has been described as a "sky being"[3] sent by Chukwu (God).[4] He is credited with first giving societal order to the people of Anambra.[4] Nri history may be divided into six main periods: the pre-Eri period (before 948 CE), the Eri period (948—1041 CE), migration and unification (1042—1252 CE), the heyday of Nri hegemony (1253—1679 CE), hegemony decline and collapse (1677—1936 CE) and the Socio-culture Revival (1974—Present).[5]

Foundation


Eastern Hemisphere at the end of the 9th century AD showing Nri and other civilizations.

Archaeological evidence suggests that Nri hegemony in Igboland may go back as far as the 9th century,[6] and royal burials have been unearthed dating to at least the 10th century. Eri, the god-like founder of Nri, is believed to have settled the region around 948, with other related Igbo cultures following after in the 13th century.[7][8] The first eze Nri (King of Nri), Ìfikuánim, follows directly after him. According to Igbo oral tradition, his reign started in 1043.[8] At least one historian puts Ìfikuánim's reign much later, around 1225 AD.[9]
In 1911, the names of 19 eze Nri were recorded, but the list is not easily converted into chronological terms because of long interregnums between installations.[3] Tradition held that at least seven years would pass upon the death of the eze Nri before a successor could be determined; the interregnum served as a period of divination of signs from the deceased eze Nri, who would communicate his choice of successor from beyond the grave in the seven or more years ensuing upon his death. Regardless of the actual date, this period marks the beginning of Nri kingship as a centralized institution.

 

[Dreamestorical]

Nok culture is very exciting. The sad thing about it is that most of these artifacts are on display in Europe and have never been on display in Nigeria. They were smuggled out of the country by the German archaeologists hired to assist with the excavations. Whats funny is when Nigerian archaeologists asked some of the German archaeologists why they had taken the artifacts out of the country,they replied that they had done so to repair damages on the artifacts.

As a Nigerian It really angers me with the way the Nigerian government and her citizens don't show any pride towards our own history. All they seem to care about is religion, politics and money. It is no wonder many Nigerians seem to exhibit c00n like behavior.

 

[Akata Man Bromo]

I forgot about this thread subz for later

 

[4fossa]

at this thread.


too bad lots of blacks around the world has been brainwashed by the white propaganda.

 

[Neil Tyson]

Mods sticky this.

 

[Y2Dre]

great thread