The Random stories of Black History thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Hollande and Senegalese president Macky Sall in 2012. EPA

There is no evidence that there was an armed mutiny: there is a record of the tirailleurs expressing their anger in no uncertain terms, but there was no organised violence. On the other hand, there is clear evidence of premeditation on the part of the French army, which arrived at the camp heavily armed to impose “order” on its “mutineers” – whose only weapons were knives and clubs.

It is also likely that the number of victims has been drastically underestimated. Mabon has identified a discrepancy of 300-400 between the lists of those said to have boarded a ship from Brittany bound for Dakar and those who landed. Given the heavy weaponry used, a death toll of 300-400 does not seem improbable. The men were buried in a mass grave that has yet to be located.

Reparation and justice
At a recent conference in Lorient, academics, writers, cultural groups and activists gathered to discuss the relationship between archives, fiction and the truth behind various colonial massacres. Needless to say, Thiaroye was at the centre of the discussion. The most moving contributions came from the children of Antoine Abibou and Doudou Diallo, two of the men convicted as ringleaders after the massacre.

Although both were amnestied in 1947, along with the other surviving prisoners (many had died while in prison), their convictions weren’t overturned and Abibou was forbidden from remaining in Africa and effectively exiled to France for the remainder of his life.

His son Yves Abibou told the audience that he had spent most of his life trying to flee his father’s past. That is, until Mabon tracked him down and told him what she knew about Thiaroye.

He doesn’t want an apology from the French state. What he wants now is recognition of the truth and justice in the form of a full pardon for his father. That is what all the men of Thiaroye and their descendants deserve.

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Thiaroye massacre - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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On this day
December 16, 1945

Black Family Killed After Refusing to Leave White Neighbourhood in California

On December 16, 1945, the Fontana, California, home of the Short family erupted in flames, killing Helen Short and her two children, Barry, 9, and Carol Ann, 7. Husband and father O'Day H. Short initially survived the explosion and fire but stayed in critical condition at a nearby hospital for several weeks until he also succumbed to his injuries. Until their deaths, the Shorts were the first and only Black family living in their neighborhood.

Initially organized as a collection of chicken farms and citrus groves in the early 20th century, by the early 1940s, the small San Bernardino County town of Fontana had been transformed by the opening of a wartime steel mill into an industrial center. As the community grew and became more diverse, strict segregation lines emerged: Black families moving out of the overcrowded Los Angeles area were relegated to living in the rocky plains of “North Fontana” and working in the dirtiest departments of the mill. Ku Klux Klan activity also surged throughout Southern California during this time period, with white supremacists poised to terrorize Black and Chicano veterans of WWII returning with ideas of racial equality.

This was the reality in the fall of 1945, when Mr. Short—a Mississippi native and Los Angeles civil rights activist—purchased a tract of Fontana land in the white section of town and made arrangements to move there with his family. As the Shorts built their modest home and prepared to live in it full-time, local forces of all kinds tried to stop them. In early December 1945, “vigilantes” visited Mr. Short and ordered him to move or risk harm to his family; he refused and reported the threats to the FBI and local sheriff. Sheriff’s deputies did not offer protection and instead reiterated the warning that Mr. Short should leave before his family was harmed. Soon after, members of the Fontana Chamber of Commerce visited the home, encouraging Mr. Short to move to the North Fontana area and offering to buy his home. He refused.

Just days later, an explosion “of unusual intensity” destroyed the home, killing Mrs. Short and the family's children. Mr. Short survived for two weeks, shielded from the knowledge of the other deaths, but died in January 1946 after the local D.A. bluntly informed him of his family’s fate during an investigative interview.

Local officials initially concluded that the fire was an accident, caused by Mr. Short’s own lighting of an outdoor lamp. After relatives of the Shorts, the Black press, and the Los Angeles NAACP protested, a formal inquest was held, at which an independent arson investigator obtained by the NAACP testified that the fire had clearly been intentionally set. Despite this testimony and evidence of the harassment the Short family had endured in the weeks leading up to the fire, local officials again concluded the explosion was an accident and closed the case. No criminal investigation was ever opened, no arrests or prosecutions were made, and residential segregation persisted in Fontana for over 25 more years.

 

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James H. Meredith, in 1962, became the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi.

A former serviceman in the U.S. Air Force, Meredith applied and was accepted to the University of Mississippi in 1962, but his admission was revoked when the registrar learned of his race.

A federal court ordered "Ole Miss" to admit him, but when he tried to register on September 20, 1962, he found the entrance to the office blocked by Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett.


On September 28, the governor was found guilty of civil contempt and was ordered to cease his interference with desegregation at the university or face arrest and a fine of $10,000 a day. Two days later, Meredith was escorted onto the Ole Miss campus by U.S. Marshals — setting off riots that resulted in the deaths of two students. He returned the next day and began classes.

In 1963, Meredith, who was a transfer student from all-black Jackson State College, graduated with a degree in political science.

Three years later, Meredith returned to the public eye when he began his March Against Fear. On June 6, just one day into the march, he was sent to a hospital by a sniper's bullet. Other civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., and Stokely Carmichael, arrived to continue the march on his behalf.


It was during the March Against Fear that Carmichael, who was leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, first spoke publicly of "Black Power" — his concept of militant African American nationalism.

James Meredith later recovered and rejoined the march he had originated, and on June 26 the marchers successfully reached Jackson, Mississippi.

 

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Lajuanda Street Harley who was enrolled in 1957 at Glenn Elementary School of Nashville, Tennessee. Her early days of first grade had angry parents present in the classroom. Her participation was part of the district's response to the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, with a plan to desegregate schools one grade per year starting with first grade.


In 1957, Nashville's all-white Hattie Cotton Elementary School was destroyed by dynamite blast when black kids integrated the school.

 

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I did not know that

 

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On this day
February 13, 1960

Nashville Students Launch Protest; Face Violence and Jail Time

In February 1960, hundreds of volunteers—primarily Black college students—huddled into the basement of First Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, for what became the first mass meeting of the sit-in movement. The students planned a series of sit-ins designed to challenge racial segregation at lunch counters.

On February 13, 1960, 500 students from Nashville’s four Black colleges—Fisk University, Tennessee State, Meharry Medical, and the Baptist Seminary—filed into downtown stores to request service at segregated establishments. White merchants refused to serve the Black students and petitioned the police to arrest them for “trespassing” and “disorderly conduct.” On February 26, the chief of police warned student demonstrators that their “grace period” was over and threatened legal retaliation. The demonstrators were not dissuaded.

The next morning, scores of students marched downtown silently to stage sit-ins at their designated stores. As they passed, white teenagers gathered to scream racial epithets and hurl rocks and lit cigarettes at them. Instead of intervening to prevent the assaults and harassment, police arrested 77 African American student demonstrators and five white students who had joined their protest.

The 82 arrested activists were tried and convicted in a consolidated one-day trial on February 29. Afterward, they were given a “choice” between jail time and a monetary fine. A 22-year-old Fisk University student named Diane Nash informed the judge that 14 of the convicted demonstrators had chosen jail. Standing in open court, she explained that paying the fine “would be contributing to and supporting the injustice and immoral practices that have been performed in the arrest and conviction of the defendants.” Ms. Nash’s speech persuaded more than 60 of the convicted demonstrators to change their minds and also serve jail time rather than pay the fine.

The sight of dozens of Black college students being carted off to jail convinced the mayor of Nashville to release the students and appoint a biracial committee to make recommendations for desegregating downtown stores. The success of the Nashville sit-ins quickly made them a model for other segregated Southern communities to emulate. By the end of February, sit-in campaigns were underway in 31 Southern cities across eight states.

As a result of her persistence and bravery, Diane Nash emerged as a civil rights leader. She joined the Freedom Rides in 1961 and helped achieve the desegregation of interstate buses and facilities.

 

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