MeHarry Medical College. Oldest black medical and dental school in the country.
Essential The Official African American Thread#2
- Thread starter Rhapscallion Démone
- Start date
Bessie was fine as fukk!! and I mean that in the most respectful way possible
In 1921, Bessie Coleman
Black Lightning
Superstar
Andrea Motley Crabtree was the first female US Army deep sea diver, at dive school in Key West, Florida. 1982
Black Lightning
Superstar
Edith Sampson (1898-1979) was the first black US delegate appointed to the United Nations. She was also an attorney, having completed Law School with a special dean’s commendation, all while working full-time as a social worker.
In 1924 she opened a law office that served the African-American community of Chicago. In 1943 she became a member of the National Association of Women Lawyers, one of the first WOC to do so. She was elected by President Truman to serve on the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee of the UN in 1950, and 11 years later she became the USA’s first black representative for NATO.
Black Lightning
Superstar
Members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the first all-African-American, all-female unit to serve overseas in World War II, take part in a parade ceremony in honor of Joan d'Arc at the marketplace where she was burned at the stake. Rouen, France. May 27, 1945.
Black Lightning
Superstar
Silent Protest parade on Fifth Avenue, New York City, July 28, 1917, in response to the East St. Louis race riot. In front row are James Weldon Johnson (far right), W. E. B. DuBois (2nd from right), Rev. Hutchens Chew Bishop, rector of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church (Harlem) and realtor John E. Nail.
A brief history of black mens fashions over the years.....I don't know about how accurate it is about the 2000s though lmao!
Why do you think Angola/Kongo is on the map?
This is a long video but it is very interesting. It is an old HBO special that features different black actors/celebrities reading slave narratives.
Black History Facts - Black History - HISTORY.com
BLACK HISTORY FACTS
INTRODUCTION
Black History Month honors the contributions of African Americans to United States history. Did you know that Madam CJ Walker was America’s first self-made woman to become a millionaire or that George Washington Carver was able to derive nearly 300 products from peanuts? Get the story of the creation of the NAACP, famous firsts in African American history and other black history facts.
BLACK HISTORY FACTS
INTRODUCTION
Black History Month honors the contributions of African Americans to United States history. Did you know that Madam CJ Walker was America’s first self-made woman to become a millionaire or that George Washington Carver was able to derive nearly 300 products from peanuts? Get the story of the creation of the NAACP, famous firsts in African American history and other black history facts.
- Black History Month began as “Negro History Week,” which was created in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson, a noted African American historian, scholar, educator, and publisher. It became a month-long celebration in 1976. The month of February was chosen to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
- On February 12, 2009, the NAACP marked its 100th anniversary. Spurred by growing racial violence in the early twentieth century, and particularly by race riots in Springfield Illinois in 1908, a group of African American leaders joined together to form a new permanent civil rights organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). February 12, 1909 was chosen because it was the centennial anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
- Jack Johnson became the first African-American man to hold the World Heavyweight Champion boxing title in 1908. He held on to the belt until 1915.
- John Mercer Langston was the first black man to become a lawyer in Ohio when he passed the Bar in 1854. When he was elected to the post of Town Clerk for Brownhelm, Ohio in 1855 Langston became one of the first African Americans ever elected to public office in America. John Mercer Langston was also the great-uncle of Langston Hughes, famed poet of the Harlem Renaissance.
- Thurgood Marshall was the first African American ever appointed to the United States Supreme Court. He was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and served on the Supreme Court from 1967 to 1991.
- George Washington Carver developed 300 derivative products from peanuts among them cheese, milk, coffee, flour, ink, dyes, plastics, wood stains, soap, linoleum, medicinal oils and cosmetics.
- Hiram Rhodes Revels was the first African American ever elected to the United States Senate. He represented the state of Mississippi from February 1870 to March 1871.
- Shirley Chisholm was the first African American woman elected to the House of Representatives. She was elected in 1968 and represented the state of New York. She broke ground again four years later in 1972 when she was the first major party African-American candidate and the first female candidate for president of the United States.
- The black population of the United States in 1870 was 4.8 million; in 2007, the number of black residents of the United States, including those of more than one race, was 40.7 million.
- In 1940, Hattie McDaniel was the first African-American performer to win an Academy Award (the film industry`s highest honor) for her portrayal of a loyal slave governess in Gone With the Wind.
- In 1992, Dr. Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to go into space aboard the space shuttle Endeavor. During her 8-day mission she worked with U.S. and Japanese researchers, and was a co-investigator on a bone cell experiment.
IllmaticDelta
Veteran
Julian Francis Abele
Meet the Black Architect Who Designed Duke University 37 Years Before He Could Have Attended It
Drawing of Duke University campus courtesy of UPenn
In 1902, when Julian F. Abele graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in architecture, he was the school's first-ever black graduate. The debonair Philadelphia-born architect went on to design hundreds of elegant public institutions, Gilded Age mansions, and huge swathes of a prestigious then-whites-only university's campus. Yet the fact that an African-American architect worked on so many significant Beaux Arts-inspired buildings along the East Coast was virtually unknown until a political protest at Duke, the very university whose gracious campus he largely designed, was held in 1986.
Abele's contributions were not exactly hidden—during that era it was not customary to sign one's own designs— but neither were they publicized. When he died in 1950, after more than four decades as the chief designer at the prolific Philadelphia-based firm of Horace Trumbauer, very few people outside of local architectural circles were familiar with his name or his work. In 1942, when the long-practicing architect finally gained entry to the American Institute of Architects, the director of Philadelphia's Museum of Art, a building which Abele helped conceive in a classical Greek style, called him "one of the most sensitive designers anywhere in America."
The protests at Duke that ended up reviving his reputation had nothing to do with Abele's undeserved obscurity; they were protests against the racist regime in apartheid South Africa. Duke students were infuriated by the school's investments in the country, and built shanties in front of the university's winsome stone chapel, which was modeled after England's Canterbury Cathedral. One student (perhaps majoring in missing the point) wrote an editorial for the college paper complaining about the shacks, which she said violated "our rights as students to a beautiful campus."
Unbeknownst to even the university's administrators, Julian F. Abele's great-grandniece was a sophomore at the college in Durham, North Carolina. Knowing full well that her relative had designed the institution's neo-Gothic west campus and unified its Georgian east campus, Susan Cook wrote into the student newspaper contending that Abele would have supported the divestment rally in front of his beautiful chapel. Her great grand-uncle, who in addition to the chapel designed Duke's library, football stadium, gym, medical school, religion school, hospital, and faculty houses, "was a victim of apartheid in this country" yet the university itself was an example "of what a black man can create given the opportunity," she wrote. Cook asserted that Abele had created their splendid campus, but had never set foot on it due to the Jim Crow laws of the segregated South.
This was the first time that Abele's role in designing Duke, a whites-only university until 1961, had been acknowledged so publicly. Many school administrators were hearing about him for the very first time. Cook's claim that Abele had never even seen his masterwork up close was devastating. (Accounts differ, however. In 1989, Abele's closest friend from UPenn, the Hungarian Jewish architect Louis Magaziner, recalled being told by Abele that a Durham hotel had refused him a room when he was visiting the university. A prominent local businessman also remembered Abele coming to town).
Either way, the fact that by the 1980s most people had never even heard of the history-making architect, who designed an estimated 250 buildings while working at the well-known Trumbauer firm, including Harvard University's Widener Memorial library and Philadelphia's Free Library, was even more shocking. Cook's letter led to something of a reckoning. Today, there's a portrait of Abele hanging up at Duke, and the university is currently celebrating the 75th anniversary of the basketball arena he designed, the Cameron Indoor Stadium, which opened this week in 1940.
Raised in Philadelphia as the youngest of eight children of an accomplished family, Abele had excelled in school since early childhood, once winning $15 for his mathematical prowess. But Abele's years at UPenn—first as an undergraduate and then as the school's first black architecture student—took place in a climate that, while not as restrictive as the Jim Crow South, was still very racist. In addition to segregated seating in theaters and on transport, most campus gathering spots and sports teams were closed to African-Americans, and the dining hall and nearby restaurants refused to serve them.
It was an isolating atmosphere, and friendships could be hard to come by. "You spoke perfect English but no one spoke to you," wrote a woman of color who graduated from UPenn nearly two decades after Abele did. Yet, during his senior year at the university, Abele was elected president of the school's Architectural Society, and he also won student awards for his designs for a post office and a botany museum. His professors evidently thought highly of him: five years after Abele graduated, the head of the school's architecture program tried to lure him away from his firm for a job in California.
Abele's employer at that time, Horace Trumbauer, refused to let him go. He had become invaluable. Trumbauer had hired Abele in 1906 to be the assistant to the Philadelphia firm's chief designer, Frank Seeburger. When Seeburger departed in 1909, Abele ascended to his position. The young architect worked well with Trumbauer, who was self-conscious about his own lack of formal education—he learned the craft of architecture through apprenticeships and avid reading—and who built his firm by hiring very competent underlings.
Abele, a serious man who dressed in impeccable suits, spoke French fluently, and reveled in classical music, was exactly the technically gifted architect, proficient in Beaux Arts building styles, that Trumbauer needed for his team. "I, of course, would not want to lose Mr. Abele," Trumbauer brusquely replied when he was asked, in 1907, to release Abele from his contract. Many accounts describe the firm's artistic vision as Abele's, although dealing with clients and bringing in commissions fell to Trumbauer.
One such client was James Buchanan Duke, the tobacco millionaire who commissioned the Trumbauer firm to design vast residences in New York City and in Somerville, New Jersey for his family (and their 14 servants). The white-marble mansion in Manhattan was modeled on a 17th-century French château, and when it was completed in 1912, the New York Times declared it the "costliest home" on Fifth Avenue. By 1924, the Trumbauer firm was hired to transform and expand an existing college in Durham, North Carolina into a well-endowed university named after its patron.
Abele would spend the next two decades creating a magisterial campus for a university that he was not even allowed to attend. All his creations were done under the name of the firm. "The lines are all Mr. Trumbauer's," Abele once said. "But the shadows are all mine." But after his boss died of cirrhosis in 1938, the talented architect signed his name to one of his own designs for the very first time. It was for Duke's chapel, the same structure that played a part in reviving his reputation 48 years later.
Meet the Black Architect Who Designed Duke University 37 Years Before He Could Have Attended It
Deeper Than Rap: The Black Influence on All of American Music
JUNE 27, 2011 · 3 COMMENTS
CULTURE · TAGGED: BLUES, CHUCK BERRY, COUNTRY, JESSICA BENNETT, RAP, RAY CHARLES, ROCK N ROLL, SOUL
Considering the past 30 years, it is safe to say that hip-hop has taken over as the dominant musical genre of expressing African-American views. R&B and soul music also carry on the tradition, with a wide range of artists dedicated to keeping the old school feeling of rhythm & blues alive. That being said, it is easy to forget how much African Americans have influenced other genres, such as rock ‘n roll, country and others, since there are so few well known artists of color in those genres today. The Black influence on American music is greatly underappreciated, and for Black Music Month, it should be brought to light just how much African-Americans have contributed.
When we look at and listen to rock stars today, we tend to see slim, white guys with ripped jeans and long hair, wailing barely audible lyrics over a thrashing guitar riff. It may not be everyone’s taste, but it does have its place, and can be a very lively and fun experience. With artists varying from The Beatles to Bruce Springsteen, from Nirvana to Marilyn Mansion, we rarely see the link to Black folks within the context of modern rock. But as many know, the so called “King of Rock ‘N Roll” Elvis Presley owes a great deal to the life of several Black artists, namely Chuck Berry, who for many is the real King of Rock. Artists such as Berry, Ike Turner and Little Richard were producing the kind of music Elvis, The Rolling Stones and other rock heavyweights mimicked for years to come. It indeed grew and changed from its original incarnation as it spread throughout the country and around the world, but the southern black roots of rock ‘n roll cannot be denied.
Similarly, today’s country music today is associated with white southerners equipped with a cowboy hat and an acoustic guitar. Yes, there are many folk artists that were indeed white and helped in the development of what country has become, but it should also be made clear that country has strong roots in blues music, especially in the storytelling/lyrical aspect of things. As the legendary Etta James once said, “The blues and country are cousins,” and that is easy to believe when you listen to a masterful artist such as Ray Charles who navigated through several genres seamlessly, and whose music greatly influenced how country grew and developed throughout the years.
African-Americans have left their mark on every form of American music, so why is it so difficult for us to expand beyond hip-hop and R&B in today’s cultural landscape, when we had such a hand in other genres those many years ago? One answer could simply be the expectations and limitations we place on ourselves. At every major awards show focused on African-Americans, is there ever a best country category? Best Rock? Best Electronica? No, there isn’t. Why? It isn’t because there aren’t any Black people who fit the category, it’s because we tend to limit our thinking to what the majority deems successful, instead of acknowledging our full selves as artists. In today’s music industry, there could be a possible shift in this mentality. With the melding of multiple genres, it feels as if all races could get away with doing whatever kind of music they choose. A white, female rapper? Sure. A Black guy from the projects doing house music? Why not? We’ve come too far to limit ourselves, and it’s about time we embrace all of what the arts have to offer, especially when our people worked so hard to build it.
– Jessica Bennett
* * * *
Jessica Bennett is a freelance music journalist who also goes by “Compton” and “Soulfullyreal.” All three of them are Hip Hop Heads with a column entitled “Welcome to Compton”. For daily musings, check her out at @soulfullyreal.
Deeper Than Rap: The Black Influence on All of American Music - Soul Train
JUNE 27, 2011 · 3 COMMENTS
CULTURE · TAGGED: BLUES, CHUCK BERRY, COUNTRY, JESSICA BENNETT, RAP, RAY CHARLES, ROCK N ROLL, SOUL
Considering the past 30 years, it is safe to say that hip-hop has taken over as the dominant musical genre of expressing African-American views. R&B and soul music also carry on the tradition, with a wide range of artists dedicated to keeping the old school feeling of rhythm & blues alive. That being said, it is easy to forget how much African Americans have influenced other genres, such as rock ‘n roll, country and others, since there are so few well known artists of color in those genres today. The Black influence on American music is greatly underappreciated, and for Black Music Month, it should be brought to light just how much African-Americans have contributed.
When we look at and listen to rock stars today, we tend to see slim, white guys with ripped jeans and long hair, wailing barely audible lyrics over a thrashing guitar riff. It may not be everyone’s taste, but it does have its place, and can be a very lively and fun experience. With artists varying from The Beatles to Bruce Springsteen, from Nirvana to Marilyn Mansion, we rarely see the link to Black folks within the context of modern rock. But as many know, the so called “King of Rock ‘N Roll” Elvis Presley owes a great deal to the life of several Black artists, namely Chuck Berry, who for many is the real King of Rock. Artists such as Berry, Ike Turner and Little Richard were producing the kind of music Elvis, The Rolling Stones and other rock heavyweights mimicked for years to come. It indeed grew and changed from its original incarnation as it spread throughout the country and around the world, but the southern black roots of rock ‘n roll cannot be denied.
Similarly, today’s country music today is associated with white southerners equipped with a cowboy hat and an acoustic guitar. Yes, there are many folk artists that were indeed white and helped in the development of what country has become, but it should also be made clear that country has strong roots in blues music, especially in the storytelling/lyrical aspect of things. As the legendary Etta James once said, “The blues and country are cousins,” and that is easy to believe when you listen to a masterful artist such as Ray Charles who navigated through several genres seamlessly, and whose music greatly influenced how country grew and developed throughout the years.
African-Americans have left their mark on every form of American music, so why is it so difficult for us to expand beyond hip-hop and R&B in today’s cultural landscape, when we had such a hand in other genres those many years ago? One answer could simply be the expectations and limitations we place on ourselves. At every major awards show focused on African-Americans, is there ever a best country category? Best Rock? Best Electronica? No, there isn’t. Why? It isn’t because there aren’t any Black people who fit the category, it’s because we tend to limit our thinking to what the majority deems successful, instead of acknowledging our full selves as artists. In today’s music industry, there could be a possible shift in this mentality. With the melding of multiple genres, it feels as if all races could get away with doing whatever kind of music they choose. A white, female rapper? Sure. A Black guy from the projects doing house music? Why not? We’ve come too far to limit ourselves, and it’s about time we embrace all of what the arts have to offer, especially when our people worked so hard to build it.
– Jessica Bennett
* * * *
Jessica Bennett is a freelance music journalist who also goes by “Compton” and “Soulfullyreal.” All three of them are Hip Hop Heads with a column entitled “Welcome to Compton”. For daily musings, check her out at @soulfullyreal.
Deeper Than Rap: The Black Influence on All of American Music - Soul Train
Little Known Black History Fact: Church Hats
Little Known Black History Fact: Church Hats
Posted 4 years ago.
Erica Taylor, The Tom Joyner Morning Show
650324
The earliest known traditional hats in history were worn in thebes and seen on ancient Egyptian murals. Next there were Phrygian caps that were worn by the freed slaves in Rome, signifying their independence. As the centuries went by, the traditional use of hats worn by women in church is said to originate from the Apostle Paul’s words in 1st Corinthians 11:15, which says that women should cover their heads during worship. Black women have since embraced those words with elaborate church hats.
During and after slavery, black women who worked as maids and servants broke away from their uniforms on Sunday and wore decorated hats to service. The hat, no matter what material it was made from, was adorned with ribbons, bows and flowers. It was the black woman’s one day of individualism. Since then, church hats have gotten bigger and bolder.
One of America’s most famous milliners, or hat maker, is remembered in a new permanent collection by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American Culture. The work of Mae Reeves, a milliner to the elite black women of the past, will have her shop re-created in the museum. During the 1940’s and 50’s, Mae Reeves supplied original hat creations to Lena Horne, Ella Fitgerald, Eartha Kitt and Marian Anderson. Reeves is now 99 years old and her granddaughter, Donna Limerick, carries on the memory of her grandmother’s legacy by putting Reeve’s hats on display.
Women such as Vanilla Beane, age 94 and another East Coast milliner, kept her shop doors open for decades, Bené Millinery on Third Street NW. One of her most famous clients was the late Dr. Dorothy Height.
Black women and church hats were celebrated in the book “Crowns” (2000) by Michael Cunningham and Craig Murberry. The book tells the stories behind black women and their hats,
Excerpt from Crowns:
Don’t wear a hat wider than your shoulders. Don’t wear a hat that is darker than your shoes. If your hat has feathers, make sure they are never bent or broken. Sequins don’t look good in the daytime. Easter hats should be white, cream or pastel — even if it’s still cold outside. For a look that is both elaborate and demure, try a chapel veil.
In 2002, an off-Broadway production of the book was released by playwright Regina Taylor. The gospel musical celebrates the role of hats in black southern culture.
Erica Taylor, The Tom Joyner Morning Show
Crowning Glory: A Look at Fabulous Hats[/paste:font]
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Little Known Black History Fact: Church Hats
Posted 4 years ago.
Erica Taylor, The Tom Joyner Morning Show
650324
The earliest known traditional hats in history were worn in thebes and seen on ancient Egyptian murals. Next there were Phrygian caps that were worn by the freed slaves in Rome, signifying their independence. As the centuries went by, the traditional use of hats worn by women in church is said to originate from the Apostle Paul’s words in 1st Corinthians 11:15, which says that women should cover their heads during worship. Black women have since embraced those words with elaborate church hats.
During and after slavery, black women who worked as maids and servants broke away from their uniforms on Sunday and wore decorated hats to service. The hat, no matter what material it was made from, was adorned with ribbons, bows and flowers. It was the black woman’s one day of individualism. Since then, church hats have gotten bigger and bolder.
One of America’s most famous milliners, or hat maker, is remembered in a new permanent collection by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American Culture. The work of Mae Reeves, a milliner to the elite black women of the past, will have her shop re-created in the museum. During the 1940’s and 50’s, Mae Reeves supplied original hat creations to Lena Horne, Ella Fitgerald, Eartha Kitt and Marian Anderson. Reeves is now 99 years old and her granddaughter, Donna Limerick, carries on the memory of her grandmother’s legacy by putting Reeve’s hats on display.
Women such as Vanilla Beane, age 94 and another East Coast milliner, kept her shop doors open for decades, Bené Millinery on Third Street NW. One of her most famous clients was the late Dr. Dorothy Height.
Black women and church hats were celebrated in the book “Crowns” (2000) by Michael Cunningham and Craig Murberry. The book tells the stories behind black women and their hats,
Excerpt from Crowns:
Don’t wear a hat wider than your shoulders. Don’t wear a hat that is darker than your shoes. If your hat has feathers, make sure they are never bent or broken. Sequins don’t look good in the daytime. Easter hats should be white, cream or pastel — even if it’s still cold outside. For a look that is both elaborate and demure, try a chapel veil.
In 2002, an off-Broadway production of the book was released by playwright Regina Taylor. The gospel musical celebrates the role of hats in black southern culture.
Erica Taylor, The Tom Joyner Morning Show
Crowning Glory: A Look at Fabulous Hats[/paste:font]
This guy needs his own movie ASAP!!!!
Gullah Jack: "The Little Man Who Can't Be Killed"
Gullah Jack (died July 12, 1822), also known as Couter Jack and sometimes referred to as “Gullah” Jack Pritchard, was an African conjurer, who is historically known for aiding Denmark Vesey in planning a large Maafa (slavery) rebellion that would become known as Denmark Vesey Conspiracy of 1822.
Gullah Jack was African born and purchased as a prisoner of war at Zanguebar (later Zaanzibar) on Africa’s eastern shores by Zephaniah Kinsley in the early nineteenth century. Gullah Jack was allowed to take a bag aboard ship which he always kept with him. Approximately forty people escaped or were taken prisoners in the 1812 Seminole raid on the Kinsley plantation where Gullah Jack was enslaved. He was among the group that eventually ended up in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1821, Paul Pritchard purchased him there.
A short man with bushy side whiskers who acted ‘artful’ for whytes, Gullah Jack had perfected the ‘shuck-and-jive’ persona. He was a member of the AME church that Denmark Vesey attended. Just after Christmas 1821, Vesey recruited Gullah Jack to be one of his lieutenants. Gullah Jack was a conjurer and known among Blacks as “the little man who can’t be killed.” He had a reputation as a powerful root doctor who was skilled in the uses of herbs for medicine or poison and able to create powerful protective amulets against evil. He also represented an Angolan company called the “Gullah Company” or the “Gullah Society.”
Gullah Jack was instrumental in spreading the message of Denmark’s plan to seize the city of Charleston, kill most of the whytes, and, if necessary, escape to the Caribbean, supposedly, to Haiti. He recruited African-born men as soldiers for the revolution and gave the recruits African religious symbols to guarantee victory against the “buckra” (whytes). He instructed his faithful to only eat parched corn and ground nuts on the day of the attack and gave them crab claws to hold in their mouths as they attacked, to keep them from being wounded. He is also said to have used his spiritual powers to terrify others into keeping silent about the conspiracy. Historians believe Jack’s strong African culture, contrasted against Vesey’s preaching, helped attract many of the enslaved that joined the revolt.
The plan was betrayed and Gullah Jack was captured on July 5, 1822. At his trial Gullah Jack played the fool so much that some of the judges could not believe he was part of the rebellion. However, as the trial progressed and six witnessed testified against him, Jack’s demeanor changed. He scowled and gave his accusers hard looks. He made motions and designs with his fingers until the judges admonished him for trying to bewitch the witnesses. Testimony from his trial mention that he requested an extension on his life for one or two weeks. However, he was condemned to death and hung on July 12, 1822. He is still remembered and admired in the Gullah/Geechee nation.
Source:
Gullah Jack - Wikipedia
Wicked Charleston: The Dark Side of the Holy City by Mark R. Jones
Slavery in the United States…by Junius P. Rodriguez
Gullah Jack: "The Little Man Who Can't Be Killed"
Gullah Jack (died July 12, 1822), also known as Couter Jack and sometimes referred to as “Gullah” Jack Pritchard, was an African conjurer, who is historically known for aiding Denmark Vesey in planning a large Maafa (slavery) rebellion that would become known as Denmark Vesey Conspiracy of 1822.
Gullah Jack was African born and purchased as a prisoner of war at Zanguebar (later Zaanzibar) on Africa’s eastern shores by Zephaniah Kinsley in the early nineteenth century. Gullah Jack was allowed to take a bag aboard ship which he always kept with him. Approximately forty people escaped or were taken prisoners in the 1812 Seminole raid on the Kinsley plantation where Gullah Jack was enslaved. He was among the group that eventually ended up in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1821, Paul Pritchard purchased him there.
A short man with bushy side whiskers who acted ‘artful’ for whytes, Gullah Jack had perfected the ‘shuck-and-jive’ persona. He was a member of the AME church that Denmark Vesey attended. Just after Christmas 1821, Vesey recruited Gullah Jack to be one of his lieutenants. Gullah Jack was a conjurer and known among Blacks as “the little man who can’t be killed.” He had a reputation as a powerful root doctor who was skilled in the uses of herbs for medicine or poison and able to create powerful protective amulets against evil. He also represented an Angolan company called the “Gullah Company” or the “Gullah Society.”
Gullah Jack was instrumental in spreading the message of Denmark’s plan to seize the city of Charleston, kill most of the whytes, and, if necessary, escape to the Caribbean, supposedly, to Haiti. He recruited African-born men as soldiers for the revolution and gave the recruits African religious symbols to guarantee victory against the “buckra” (whytes). He instructed his faithful to only eat parched corn and ground nuts on the day of the attack and gave them crab claws to hold in their mouths as they attacked, to keep them from being wounded. He is also said to have used his spiritual powers to terrify others into keeping silent about the conspiracy. Historians believe Jack’s strong African culture, contrasted against Vesey’s preaching, helped attract many of the enslaved that joined the revolt.
The plan was betrayed and Gullah Jack was captured on July 5, 1822. At his trial Gullah Jack played the fool so much that some of the judges could not believe he was part of the rebellion. However, as the trial progressed and six witnessed testified against him, Jack’s demeanor changed. He scowled and gave his accusers hard looks. He made motions and designs with his fingers until the judges admonished him for trying to bewitch the witnesses. Testimony from his trial mention that he requested an extension on his life for one or two weeks. However, he was condemned to death and hung on July 12, 1822. He is still remembered and admired in the Gullah/Geechee nation.
Source:
Gullah Jack - Wikipedia
Wicked Charleston: The Dark Side of the Holy City by Mark R. Jones
Slavery in the United States…by Junius P. Rodriguez
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