Saturday, September 17, 2016
Marvin X monologue from his play One Day in the Life, a docudrama of his addiction and recovery from Crack--"It's the most powerful drama I've seen," said Ishmael Reed
On September 30 and October 1, 2016, Marvin X makes a rare return to the stage when he will perform the opening monologue in Donald Lacy's play Color Struck at the Laney College Theatre, where he taught drama in 1981 and produced his play In the Name of Love, a myth-ritual dance drama, featuring Ayodele Nzinga, Zahieb Mwongozi, Doris Knight, dancers Rahema, Yemanja, Johnsana and Gardenia, some of the finest dancers Oakland has produced, aside from the Queen Ruth Beckford, Ellendar Barnes, Devorah Vaughn, Linda Johnson, et al., not to mention dancers/choreographers Marvin X worked with such as Whisteria, Nisa Ra, Raymond Sawyer, Ed Mock,Raynetta Rayzetta (the master interpreter of his poetry) and Master musician/choreographer Sun Ra and his Arkestra. Sun Ra arranged the musical version of his BAM classic Flowers for the Trashman, renamed Take Care of Business. Marvin X produced a five hour performance of Take Care of Business at San Francisco's Harding Theatre on Divisadero Street, with a cast of fifty and without intermission. Choreographers were Ellendar Barnes and Raymond Sawyer. With their dancers, the Sun Ra Myth-Science Arkestra and the Black Educational Theatre actors, the cast was fifty performers. See the Sun Reporter archives for their review of this Marvin X production. The Bay Area will enjoy a rare performance by the Grand Master of the Black Arts Movement when Marvin X opens for Donald Lacy's Color Struck. Don't miss this show in the Laney College Theatre on September 30 and October 1.
Friday, September 16, 2016
Thursday, September 15, 2016
You invited to iN Ya FaCe Poetry Slam
Greetings,
You plus one guest are invited to the "iN Ya FaCe pOetry SLAM" on Sat., Sept. 24, 2016 at 8pm.
It will be held at the Fillmore Heritage Center located at 1330 Fillmore St. (formerly Yoshi’s SF)
This is a free community event sponsored by the SF Mayor's Office.
Space is limited, so you must RSVP to secure one (1) pair of tickets.
.
Let me know if your schedule will permit you to attend.
Thank you,
st
Gen. Colin Powell Unplugged
Chip East/Reuters
UNPLUGGED
Colin Powell Bombs Bill, Hillary, and Trump
Leaked emails reveal he thinks the ex-president is still ‘dicking bimbos,’ his wife ‘screws up’ everything, and her opponent is a racist.
You’ve never heard Colin Powell talk like this.
The former secretary of state and four-star Army general who has been in the national spotlight since he was Ronald Reagan’s national security advisor let loose on Hillary Clinton (“greedy, not transformational”), her husband Bill (still “dicking bimbos”), and Donald Trump (a “national disgrace”).
The frank, biting version of Powell made public is thanks to private emails that appeared on dcleaks.com, a mysterious repository for hacked information suspected to be of Russian origin. Powell’s office confirmed to The New York Times that the emails were genuine.
His criticism of Hillary Clinton, for example, reflects a skepticism that you would respect from a man who served in a Republican administration.
“Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris,” he wrote in one email.
Powell’s negative appraisal was also tempered by his personal relationship with the Democratic presidential nominee, whom he got to know when he served as Bill Clinton’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later when she served as his successor at the State Department.
“I would rather not have to vote for her,” Powell wrote in 2014, “although she is a friend I respect.”
play icon Greedy Or Pariah: Powell's Emails Don't Hold Back On Clinton Or Trump
Greedy Or Pariah: Powell's Emails Don't Hold Back On Clinton Or Trump
play icon Clinton Releases New Medical Information After Pneumonia Diagnosis
Clinton Releases New Medical Information After Pneumonia Diagnosis
play icon Trump Makes Moves Toward Transparency, But Are They Working?
Trump Makes Moves Toward Transparency, But Are They Working?
Powell’s assessment was that Clinton had a track record of “unbridled ambition.”
The leaked emails also reveal Powell’s attempts to avoid being blamed for Hillary Clinton’s controversial email server setup. In recent days Democrats have been trying to take the heat off Clinton’s arrangement by releasing an email showing Powell giving her advice on how to use email.
“Sad thing… HRC could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me into it,” Powell wrote in one email last month. “I told her staff three times not to try that gambit. I had to throw a mini tantrum at a Hamptons party to get their attention.”
Powell also had a harsh judgment of Bill Clinton, who he served under, as someone “still dicking bimbos at home.” Powell had served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the George H.W. Bush administration, and continued in that position for less than a year under Clinton’s administration.
It’s no surprise Powell doesn’t like Trump, but he’s kept that opinion to himself. In emails though, he was absolutely blistering about the Republican presidential nominee.
“He is at 1% black voters and will drop,” Powell wrote, citing the birther campaign Trump ran as a major reason. “He takes us for idiots.”
Of the birther movement, which Trump promoted, he expressed consternation that President Barack Obama was born a “secret Muslim.”
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“As I have said before, ‘What if he was?’ Muslims are born as Americans everyday,” Powell said, adding that he thought “the whole birther movement was racist.”
The email leaks also revealed a juicy tidbit from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who blasted former colleague Donald Rumsfeld for his handling of the Iraq war. Rice and Powell were discussing Rumsfeld’s assertion that he was always weary about establishing a democracy in Iraq
“First, we didn’t invade Iraq to bring democracy—but we overthrew Saddam, we had a view of what should follow,” Rice wrote to Powell. “If Don and the Pentagon had done their job (after claiming the right to lead post-war rebuilding—things might have turned out differently).” She later said Rumsfeld should “just stop talking” because he “puts his foot in his mouth every time.”
UNPLUGGED
Colin Powell Bombs Bill, Hillary, and Trump
Leaked emails reveal he thinks the ex-president is still ‘dicking bimbos,’ his wife ‘screws up’ everything, and her opponent is a racist.
You’ve never heard Colin Powell talk like this.
The former secretary of state and four-star Army general who has been in the national spotlight since he was Ronald Reagan’s national security advisor let loose on Hillary Clinton (“greedy, not transformational”), her husband Bill (still “dicking bimbos”), and Donald Trump (a “national disgrace”).
The frank, biting version of Powell made public is thanks to private emails that appeared on dcleaks.com, a mysterious repository for hacked information suspected to be of Russian origin. Powell’s office confirmed to The New York Times that the emails were genuine.
His criticism of Hillary Clinton, for example, reflects a skepticism that you would respect from a man who served in a Republican administration.
“Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris,” he wrote in one email.
Powell’s negative appraisal was also tempered by his personal relationship with the Democratic presidential nominee, whom he got to know when he served as Bill Clinton’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later when she served as his successor at the State Department.
“I would rather not have to vote for her,” Powell wrote in 2014, “although she is a friend I respect.”
play icon Greedy Or Pariah: Powell's Emails Don't Hold Back On Clinton Or Trump
Greedy Or Pariah: Powell's Emails Don't Hold Back On Clinton Or Trump
play icon Clinton Releases New Medical Information After Pneumonia Diagnosis
Clinton Releases New Medical Information After Pneumonia Diagnosis
play icon Trump Makes Moves Toward Transparency, But Are They Working?
Trump Makes Moves Toward Transparency, But Are They Working?
Powell’s assessment was that Clinton had a track record of “unbridled ambition.”
The leaked emails also reveal Powell’s attempts to avoid being blamed for Hillary Clinton’s controversial email server setup. In recent days Democrats have been trying to take the heat off Clinton’s arrangement by releasing an email showing Powell giving her advice on how to use email.
“Sad thing… HRC could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me into it,” Powell wrote in one email last month. “I told her staff three times not to try that gambit. I had to throw a mini tantrum at a Hamptons party to get their attention.”
Powell also had a harsh judgment of Bill Clinton, who he served under, as someone “still dicking bimbos at home.” Powell had served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the George H.W. Bush administration, and continued in that position for less than a year under Clinton’s administration.
It’s no surprise Powell doesn’t like Trump, but he’s kept that opinion to himself. In emails though, he was absolutely blistering about the Republican presidential nominee.
“He is at 1% black voters and will drop,” Powell wrote, citing the birther campaign Trump ran as a major reason. “He takes us for idiots.”
Of the birther movement, which Trump promoted, he expressed consternation that President Barack Obama was born a “secret Muslim.”
Get The Beast In Your Inbox!
Daily DigestStart and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast.
Cheat SheetA speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't).
By clicking "Subscribe," you agree to have read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
“As I have said before, ‘What if he was?’ Muslims are born as Americans everyday,” Powell said, adding that he thought “the whole birther movement was racist.”
The email leaks also revealed a juicy tidbit from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who blasted former colleague Donald Rumsfeld for his handling of the Iraq war. Rice and Powell were discussing Rumsfeld’s assertion that he was always weary about establishing a democracy in Iraq
“First, we didn’t invade Iraq to bring democracy—but we overthrew Saddam, we had a view of what should follow,” Rice wrote to Powell. “If Don and the Pentagon had done their job (after claiming the right to lead post-war rebuilding—things might have turned out differently).” She later said Rumsfeld should “just stop talking” because he “puts his foot in his mouth every time.”
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Marvin X on Sectarianism
Sectarianism
Marvin X
2006
2006
Black Arts Movement Poet, Marvin X
Syrian poet, novelist, professor Mohja Kahf and poet Marvin X. She considers Marvin X the father of Muslim American literature.
Sectarianism has been known to spark
religious violence throughout history. For many years we
saw the ugly head of sectarianism in the struggle
between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, the
constant bombings and killings.
In Africa violence between Muslims
and Christians in Nigeria has approached genocide. Iraq
is the latest hot spot of sectarian violence between
Sunni and Shia Muslims. For decades the Shia had been
oppressed by the Sunni minority, especially during the
regime of Saddam Hussein. When he was overthrown by the
US and the Shia majority took political power, naturally
the Sunnis were resentful, no one likes to lose power and
privilege. Because many Sunnis look upon Shia as
heretics, this justifies their sectarian cleansing, even
though there has been Sunni/Shia harmony, including
marriages throughout the years, but presently there is
migration of Shias from Sunni neighborhoods and towns
and visa versa. Very little of the refugee plight has
made news.
Of course the US is the cause when
she installed the Shia majority, even though majority
should rule, we are taught in American Democracy 101.
But the resulting violence was predictable and much of
it could have been prevented if the Americans had not
been the "peacemakers."
Now the violence is being instigated
by the insurgents who are directing their wrath against
the Shia as well as the Americans. And naturally the
Shia are taking revenge since they have political and
military power, including their own militias integrated
into the army and police but loyal to their sect leaders
and imams.
We must see the Sunni violence
against the Shia in the broader picture of regional
politics. The Sunni regimes in Saudia Arabia, Egypt,
Jordan, Sudan, the Gulf States and elsewhere have no
desire to see a Shia government in Iraq, however loosely
allied it may be with Shia Iran. The Sunni governments
have stated their opposition to a Shia expansion from
the Tigris/Euphrates to the Mediterranean, uniting with
the populations of Shia in Syria and Lebanon where the
Hezbollah fighters are a political and military force
supported by Iran.
Have no doubt that the regional Sunni
regimes support the insurgency in Iraq. These regimes
would rather have their young men leaving their nations
to commit suicide in Iraq rather than be part of the
opposition within their authoritarian regimes. Better
their sons fight the infidel Americans and heretic Shia.
Of course the historical dispute
between the Sunni and Shia began in 632AD upon the death
of prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Thus this Sunni/Shia
conflict is much more outstanding than colonialism,
including the neo-colonial Americans. There is no hatred
like religious hatred. We can see that violence between
Sunnis and Shia has surpassed that between Sunnis and
the Christian Americans, supposedly the enemy of all
Muslims. For sure, Americans were the catalyst, but the
roots of the present sectarian violence began over
succession to the prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
The Sunnis said the successor should
be selected from among the people, Abu Bakr. The Shia
said it should be from the prophet's bloodline, Ali. The
Sunnis won out and labeled the Shia heretics, especially
when they elevated the status of Imam Ali and future
Shia Imams to the level of the Caliphs or rulers after
the prophet, including veneration of their tombs in
various Shia holy cities such as Qum in Iran, Najaf and
Karbala in Iraq. Several Shia imams were assassinated,
including Ali and Hussein.
There are major Shia rituals that
celebrate the martyrdom of their imams. The Shia feeling of lost is similar
to the feeling of lost among Sunni Muslims in America
about Malcolm X allegedly being assassinated by the
Nation of Islam. This feeling of lost is shared by
much of the African American community.
Malcolm's death caused a great
division that has yet to heal and may never heal,
despite the unifying efforts of Farakhan with his
Million Man Marches and other efforts.
Perhaps we can understand the Sunni/Shia
struggle from this perspective. There are some Blacks
who hate other Blacks as a result of the Malcolm X
affair more than they hate the white man for all his
centuries of evil and wickedness against Blacks. For the
US government's role in the Malcolm affair—and
have no doubt about their involvement, they benefited by
divide and conquer, that classic Willie Lynch slave
master tricknology.
Sectarian violence in Iraq may
continue unabated, for it is beyond civil war, beyond
American occupation, but deeply rooted in religiosity,
myth and ritual. Even Sunni fear of Shia regional
expansion is rooted in Shia eschatology or end time.
This is evident in pronouncements from the Shia regime
in Iran, boldly determined to pursue a nuclear weapons
future and calling for the destruction of Israel,
motivated by their belief the time has arrived for Shia
geo-political and spiritual domination, and certainly
Iraq will play a role in this Shia myth-ritual drama.
This drama has implications far
beyond any American notion of installing democracy in
Iraq or anywhere else in the region, for people are
motivated by mythology and prophecy, political
aspirations being secondary. It is their spiritual
aspirations that are primary. Shia Iran appears prepared
to commit mass suicide challenging the Americans and
Europeans over nuclear technology, even though the
Iranians have every right to posses the Islamic bomb,
just as we have the Jewish bomb and the Christian bomb.
I say get rid of all the nuclear weapons or level the
playing field as in the wild wild west: let everybody
pack.
As per Iraq, it doesn't matter
whether the Americans stay or go, they have opened
Pandora's box and mean spirits are blowing in the desert
winds. Only Allah knows how these issues will be
resolved. Perhaps the Sunnis and Shias shall fight until
they tire of killing, then reconcile in the manner of
Isaiah, "Let us reason together."
Source:
Toward Radical Spirituality, Black Bird Press,
2007 (c) 2006 by Marvin X (El Muhajir)
*
* * * *
Marvin X has given permission to
Harvard University to publish his poem "For El Haji
Rasul Taifa" from Love and War: Poems by Marvin X
(1995). The poem will appear in The Encyclopedia of
Islam in America Volume II, Greenwood Press, edited
by Dr. Jocelyne Cesari of Harvard's Islam in the West
Program. Mr. X is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology
Muslim American Literature, University of
Arkansas Press, edited by Dr. Mojah Khaf. He is also in
the forthcoming Muslim American Drama, Temple
University.
from Chickenbones, posted 19 June 2006Saturday, September 7, 2013
Two Poems for Syria
by Marvin X and Mohja Kahf
how much water can run from rivers to sea
how much blood can soak the earth
the guns of tyrants know no end
a people awakened are bigger than bullets
there is no sleep in their eyes
no more stunted backs and fear of broken limbs
even men, women and children are humble with sacrifice
the old the young play their roles
with smiles they endure torture chambers
with laughs they submit to rape and mutilations
there is no victory for oppressors
whose days are numbered
as the clock ticks as the sun rises
let the people continue til victory
surely they smell it on their hands
taste it on lips
believe it in their hearts
know it in their minds
no more backwardness no fear
let there be resistance til victory.
--Marvin X/El Muhajir
Syrian poet/professor Dr. Mohja Kahf
Oh Marvin, how much blood can soak the earth?
The angels asked, “will you create a species who will shed blood
and overrun the earth with evil?”
And it turns out “rivers of blood” is no metaphor:
see the stones of narrow alleys in Duma
shiny with blood hissing from humans? Dark
and dazzling, it keeps pouring and pumping
from the inexhaustible soft flesh of Syrians,
and neither regime cluster bombs from the air,
nor rebel car bombs on the ground,
ask them their names before they die.
They are mowed down like wheat harvested by machine,
and every stalk has seven ears, and every ear a hundred grains.
They bleed like irrigation canals into the earth.
Even one little girl in Idlib with a carotid artery cut
becomes a river of blood. Who knew she could be a river
running all the way over the ocean, to you,
draining me of my heart? And God said to the angels,
“I know what you know not.” But right now,
the angels seem right. Cut the coyness, God;
learn the names of all the Syrians.
See what your species has done.
Michelle Obama as Gullah Negro, aka African
Dahleen Glanton and Stacy St. ClairTribune Reporters
GEORGETOWN, S.C.—Tiny wooden cabins line the dirt road once
known as Slave Street as it winds its way through Friendfield
Plantation.
More than 200 slaves lived in the whitewashed shacks in the early 1800s, and some of their descendants remained here for more than a century after the Civil War. The last tenants abandoned the hovels about three decades ago, and even they would have struggled to imagine a distant daughter of the plantation one day calling the White House home.
But a historical line can be drawn from these Low Country cabins to Michelle Obama, charting an American family's improbable journey through slavery, segregation, the civil rights movement and a historic presidential election.
Their documented passage begins with Jim Robinson, Obama's great-great-grandfather, who was born around 1850 and lived as a slave, at least until the Civil War, on the sprawling rice plantation. Records show he remained on the estate after the war, working as a sharecropper and living in the old slave quarters with his wife, Louiser, and their children. He could neither read nor write, according to the 1880 census.
More than 200 slaves lived in the whitewashed shacks in the early 1800s, and some of their descendants remained here for more than a century after the Civil War. The last tenants abandoned the hovels about three decades ago, and even they would have struggled to imagine a distant daughter of the plantation one day calling the White House home.
But a historical line can be drawn from these Low Country cabins to Michelle Obama, charting an American family's improbable journey through slavery, segregation, the civil rights movement and a historic presidential election.
Their documented passage begins with Jim Robinson, Obama's great-great-grandfather, who was born around 1850 and lived as a slave, at least until the Civil War, on the sprawling rice plantation. Records show he remained on the estate after the war, working as a sharecropper and living in the old slave quarters with his wife, Louiser, and their children. He could neither read nor write, according to the 1880 census.
Robinson would be the last illiterate branch of Michelle Obama's family tree.
Census records show each generation of Robinsons became more educated than the last, with Michelle Obama eventually earning degrees from Princeton University and Harvard Law School. Her older brother, Craig, also received an Ivy League education.
Barack Obama's campaign hired genealogists to research the family's roots at the onset of his presidential bid, but aides have largely kept the findings secret. Genealogists at Lowcountry Africana, a research center at the University of South Florida in Tampa, scoured documents to put together a 120-page report, according to project director Toni Carrier. She said the center signed a confidentiality agreement and is not allowed to disclose the findings publicly.
However, in his now-famous speech on race during the primary, Barack Obama stated he was "married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners."
Obama aides declined to discuss the report or allow Michelle Obama to be interviewed about her ancestry. She has said she knew little about her family tree before the campaign, but census reports, property records and other historical documents show that her paternal ancestors bore witness to one of the most shameful chapters in American history.
When Michelle Obama moves into the White House—a mansion built partially by slaves—she will embark upon a life her great-great-grandfather never could have envisioned for her. At antebellum estates such as Friendfield Planation, past sins are being revisited amid the celebration.
Frances Cheston Train, whose family bought the property in the 1930s and transformed it into a hunting preserve for wealthy Northerners, fights back tears as she reflects on how far the country has come since Robinson labored in the mosquito-infested rice fields along the Sampit River. Though her family never owned slaves, the 82-year-old heiress to the Drexel family banking fortune recalls the segregation laws that divided the Georgetown community.
"It's beyond healing," Train said of the Obamas' success. "What it has given everyone is a sense of pride that this amazing, intelligent and attractive couple could be connected to Friendfield."
Little is known about Robinson's life at the plantation, beyond that he worked in the riverfront rice fields after the Civil War. Local historians don't know how or when he came to Friendfield, but census records indicate that both his parents were born in South Carolina.
A map from the early 1870s, when Robinson was living on the plantation, shows three parallel rows of slave cabins, each with 10 to 13 buildings along Slave Street. But by 1911, only 14 were still standing.
Five single cabins remain today. With their massive fireplaces and wood plank walls, each tells a story about slave life on the plantation.
The small shacks, only 19 feet deep, housed several families at once, said Ed Carter, who now oversees the property. Large, stone fireplaces were used for cooking and heating. Attic space in the rafters beneath the gable roof offered a place for extra people to sleep.
The plantation's former owner, Francis Withers, built a "meeting house" for the slaves on the estate before 1841, and the South Carolina Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church assigned a preacher there. A fire destroyed the church in 1940, but a massive live oak still stands near the old site.
By the time Withers died in 1847, the family had expanded Friendfield to include six plantations and more than 500 slaves. At the height of the rice trade, Friendfield was one of the most lucrative plantations in the area, producing what was called Carolina Gold on more than 500 acres of rice fields, Carter said.
In his will, Withers, who was educated at Harvard University, provided for the care of his slaves, including the upkeep of the church and a salary for the preacher. He also requested that his slaves be treated with "great kindness and be fed and clothed." He bequeathed $50 a year to Charlotte Nelson, described as a "mulatto woman" who had been freed by his brother, for the rest of her life.
He left $10,000 to buy more slaves to work the plantation and provided financial incentives for his surviving relatives to retain his "Friendfield gang of slaves" as a group and not break up slave families.
The plantation's prosperity faded after the Civil War, and the family began selling off the property in 1879, according to land records. Robinson, like many former slaves, continued to live on the farm.
Census records show each generation of Robinsons became more educated than the last, with Michelle Obama eventually earning degrees from Princeton University and Harvard Law School. Her older brother, Craig, also received an Ivy League education.
Barack Obama's campaign hired genealogists to research the family's roots at the onset of his presidential bid, but aides have largely kept the findings secret. Genealogists at Lowcountry Africana, a research center at the University of South Florida in Tampa, scoured documents to put together a 120-page report, according to project director Toni Carrier. She said the center signed a confidentiality agreement and is not allowed to disclose the findings publicly.
However, in his now-famous speech on race during the primary, Barack Obama stated he was "married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners."
Obama aides declined to discuss the report or allow Michelle Obama to be interviewed about her ancestry. She has said she knew little about her family tree before the campaign, but census reports, property records and other historical documents show that her paternal ancestors bore witness to one of the most shameful chapters in American history.
When Michelle Obama moves into the White House—a mansion built partially by slaves—she will embark upon a life her great-great-grandfather never could have envisioned for her. At antebellum estates such as Friendfield Planation, past sins are being revisited amid the celebration.
Frances Cheston Train, whose family bought the property in the 1930s and transformed it into a hunting preserve for wealthy Northerners, fights back tears as she reflects on how far the country has come since Robinson labored in the mosquito-infested rice fields along the Sampit River. Though her family never owned slaves, the 82-year-old heiress to the Drexel family banking fortune recalls the segregation laws that divided the Georgetown community.
"It's beyond healing," Train said of the Obamas' success. "What it has given everyone is a sense of pride that this amazing, intelligent and attractive couple could be connected to Friendfield."
Little is known about Robinson's life at the plantation, beyond that he worked in the riverfront rice fields after the Civil War. Local historians don't know how or when he came to Friendfield, but census records indicate that both his parents were born in South Carolina.
A map from the early 1870s, when Robinson was living on the plantation, shows three parallel rows of slave cabins, each with 10 to 13 buildings along Slave Street. But by 1911, only 14 were still standing.
Five single cabins remain today. With their massive fireplaces and wood plank walls, each tells a story about slave life on the plantation.
The small shacks, only 19 feet deep, housed several families at once, said Ed Carter, who now oversees the property. Large, stone fireplaces were used for cooking and heating. Attic space in the rafters beneath the gable roof offered a place for extra people to sleep.
The plantation's former owner, Francis Withers, built a "meeting house" for the slaves on the estate before 1841, and the South Carolina Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church assigned a preacher there. A fire destroyed the church in 1940, but a massive live oak still stands near the old site.
By the time Withers died in 1847, the family had expanded Friendfield to include six plantations and more than 500 slaves. At the height of the rice trade, Friendfield was one of the most lucrative plantations in the area, producing what was called Carolina Gold on more than 500 acres of rice fields, Carter said.
In his will, Withers, who was educated at Harvard University, provided for the care of his slaves, including the upkeep of the church and a salary for the preacher. He also requested that his slaves be treated with "great kindness and be fed and clothed." He bequeathed $50 a year to Charlotte Nelson, described as a "mulatto woman" who had been freed by his brother, for the rest of her life.
He left $10,000 to buy more slaves to work the plantation and provided financial incentives for his surviving relatives to retain his "Friendfield gang of slaves" as a group and not break up slave families.
The plantation's prosperity faded after the Civil War, and the family began selling off the property in 1879, according to land records. Robinson, like many former slaves, continued to live on the farm.
It's unclear when Robinson died, but local
historians believe he is buried in an unmarked grave in a slave
cemetery that overlooks the old rice fields on the edges of Whites
Creek.
Among Robinson's surviving children was Fraser Robinson Sr., Michelle Obama's great-grandfather. Born in 1884, Fraser Sr. went to work as a houseboy for a local family before his 16th birthday. Census records show he was illiterate as a teen but had learned to read and write by the time he had his own children.
As an adult, Fraser Sr. worked as a lumber mill laborer, shoe repairman and newspaper salesman. He registered for the draft during World War I but was turned down because he had lost his left arm, military records show.
Fraser Sr. married a local woman named Rose Ella Cohen and had at least six children. Described by a family friend as an intelligent man who wanted his children to be well-read, Fraser Sr. always brought home his extra copies of the Palmetto Leader and Grit, a black newspaper that was popular in rural communities across the country.
"He used to make his children read those newspapers," said Margretta Dunmore Knox, who still lives in Georgetown and attended the same church as the Robinsons. "Maybe that's how they became so smart."
His eldest son, Fraser Jr., was born in 1912 and graduated from high school. Census records from 1930 show that 18-year-old Fraser Jr. was living at home and working at a sawmill after earning his degree.
At the time, Georgetown, a costal town about an hour's drive north of Charleston and the state's third-oldest city, was split along racial lines. The basic human rights that blacks had known after the Reconstruction era disappeared as the Deep South sank into the Depression and segregationist ways.
Train recalls playing with black children at Friendfield but not being allowed to go with them to the movies or the beach. She knew her playmates lived in cabins once inhabited by slaves, but no one ever broached the topic.
"It was a very painful memory," said Train, who still winters at the hunting preserve and has written a memoir about the estate titled "A Carolina Plantation Remembered: In Those Days." "It was not something we ever talked about."
As Georgetown's economy crumbled, Fraser Jr. headed north to Chicago in search of employment. Once there, he met and married LaVaughn Johnson.
Their son Fraser Robinson III—Michelle Obama's father—was born in 1935.
Though they never attended college, Fraser III and his wife, Marian, made education a top priority for their two children. Both would later attend Princeton and earn postgraduate degrees from prestigious universities.
Fraser Jr. and LaVaughn Robinson lived on the South Side for part of Michelle's childhood, before retiring and moving down South. After returning to Georgetown, the couple joined the Bethel AME Church, which was founded by freed slaves in 1865 and is the oldest black church in the city. The couple sang in the choir and built a large circle of friends, Knox said.
Michelle Obama returned to the same church in January while campaigning for her husband in the South Carolina primary.
Addressing a packed audience that included at least 30 descendants of Jim Robinson, Obama talked about the need for change in the confident voice of a distant daughter of slavery.
"Things get better when regular folks take action to make change happen from the bottom up," she said. "Every major historical moment in our time, it has been made by folks who said, 'Enough,' and they banded together to move this country forward—and now is one of those times."
dglanton@tribune.com
sstclair@tribune.com
Among Robinson's surviving children was Fraser Robinson Sr., Michelle Obama's great-grandfather. Born in 1884, Fraser Sr. went to work as a houseboy for a local family before his 16th birthday. Census records show he was illiterate as a teen but had learned to read and write by the time he had his own children.
As an adult, Fraser Sr. worked as a lumber mill laborer, shoe repairman and newspaper salesman. He registered for the draft during World War I but was turned down because he had lost his left arm, military records show.
Fraser Sr. married a local woman named Rose Ella Cohen and had at least six children. Described by a family friend as an intelligent man who wanted his children to be well-read, Fraser Sr. always brought home his extra copies of the Palmetto Leader and Grit, a black newspaper that was popular in rural communities across the country.
"He used to make his children read those newspapers," said Margretta Dunmore Knox, who still lives in Georgetown and attended the same church as the Robinsons. "Maybe that's how they became so smart."
His eldest son, Fraser Jr., was born in 1912 and graduated from high school. Census records from 1930 show that 18-year-old Fraser Jr. was living at home and working at a sawmill after earning his degree.
At the time, Georgetown, a costal town about an hour's drive north of Charleston and the state's third-oldest city, was split along racial lines. The basic human rights that blacks had known after the Reconstruction era disappeared as the Deep South sank into the Depression and segregationist ways.
Train recalls playing with black children at Friendfield but not being allowed to go with them to the movies or the beach. She knew her playmates lived in cabins once inhabited by slaves, but no one ever broached the topic.
"It was a very painful memory," said Train, who still winters at the hunting preserve and has written a memoir about the estate titled "A Carolina Plantation Remembered: In Those Days." "It was not something we ever talked about."
As Georgetown's economy crumbled, Fraser Jr. headed north to Chicago in search of employment. Once there, he met and married LaVaughn Johnson.
Their son Fraser Robinson III—Michelle Obama's father—was born in 1935.
Though they never attended college, Fraser III and his wife, Marian, made education a top priority for their two children. Both would later attend Princeton and earn postgraduate degrees from prestigious universities.
Fraser Jr. and LaVaughn Robinson lived on the South Side for part of Michelle's childhood, before retiring and moving down South. After returning to Georgetown, the couple joined the Bethel AME Church, which was founded by freed slaves in 1865 and is the oldest black church in the city. The couple sang in the choir and built a large circle of friends, Knox said.
Michelle Obama returned to the same church in January while campaigning for her husband in the South Carolina primary.
Addressing a packed audience that included at least 30 descendants of Jim Robinson, Obama talked about the need for change in the confident voice of a distant daughter of slavery.
"Things get better when regular folks take action to make change happen from the bottom up," she said. "Every major historical moment in our time, it has been made by folks who said, 'Enough,' and they banded together to move this country forward—and now is one of those times."
dglanton@tribune.com
sstclair@tribune.com
Copyright
© 2016, Chicago Tribune
The
Gullah and Geechee culture on the Sea Islands of Georgia has retained
ethnic traditions from West Africa since the mid-1700s. Although the
islands along the southeastern U.S. coast harbor the same collective of
West Africans, the name Gullah has come to be the accepted name of the islanders in South Carolina, while Geechee
refers to the islanders of Georgia. Modern-day researchers designate
the region stretching from Sandy Island, South Carolina, to Amelia
Island, Florida, as the Gullah Coast—the locale of the culture that
built some of the richest plantations in the South.
Many traditions of the Gullah and Geechee culture were passed from one generation to the next through language, agriculture,
and spirituality. The culture has been linked to specific West African
ethnic groups who were enslaved on island plantations to grow rice, indigo, and cotton starting in 1750, when antislavery laws ended in the Georgia colony.
Enslavement
A
Board of Trustees
established Georgia in 1732 with the primary purposes of settling
impoverished British citizens and creating a mercantile system that
would supply England with needed agricultural products. The colony
enacted a 1735 antislavery law, but the prohibition was lifted in 1750.
West Africans, the argument went, were far more able to cope with the
climatic conditions found in the South. And, as the growing wealth of
South Carolina's rice economy demonstrated, slaves were far more profitable than any other form of labor available to the colonists.
Rice plantations fostered Georgia's successful economic
competition with other slave-based rice economies along the eastern
seaboard. Coastal plantations invested primarily in rice, and plantation
owners sought out Africans from the Windward Coast of West Africa
(Senegambia [later Senegal and the Gambia], Sierra Leone, and Liberia),
where rice, indigo, and cotton were indigenous to the region. Over the
ensuing centuries, the isolation of the rice-growing ethnic groups, who
re-created their native cultures and traditions on the coastal Sea
Islands, led to the formation of an identity recognized as
Geechee/Gullah.
There is no single West African contribution to
Geechee/Gullah culture, although dominant cultural patterns often
correspond to various agricultural investments. For example, Africa's
Windward Coast was later commonly referred to as the Rice Coast in
recognition of the large numbers of Africans enslaved from that area who
worked on rice plantations in America.
Language
Most
anthropologists and historians speculate but have not confirmed that the term Gullah—deemed
the cultural name of the islanders—derived from any one of several
African ethnicities or specific locations in Angola and on the Windward
Coast. Other researchers speculate that Gullah and Geechee
are borrowed words from any number of ethnic groups along the Windward
Coast—such as Gola, Kissi, Mende, Temne, Twi, and Vai—that contributed
to the creolization of the coastal culture in Georgia and South
Carolina.
Gullah is thought to be a shortened form of Angola, the name of the group first imported to the Carolinas during the early colonial period. Geechee,
historically considered a negative word identifying Sea Islanders,
became an acceptable term in light of contemporary evidence linking it
to West Africa. Although the origins of the two words are not
definitive, some enslaved Africans along the coast had names that were
linked to the Kissi group, leading to speculation that the terms may
also derive from that particular culture.
Linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner researched and documented
spoken words on the coast during the 1930s, traced similarities to
ethnic groups in West Africa, then published the Gullah dialect lexicon,
Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect (1949). His research confirms
the evolution of a new language based on West African influences and
English. Many words in the coastal culture could be matched to ethnic
groups in West Africa, thereby linking the Geechee/Gullah people to
their origins. Margaret Washington Creel in A Peculiar People: Slave Religion and Community-Culture among the Gullahs
(1988) identifies cultural and spiritual habits that relate to similar
ethnic groups of West Africans who are linked by language. Her research
on the coastal culture complements Turner's findings that Africans on
the Sea Islands created a new identity despite the tragic conditions of slavery.
Cultural Heritage
Documentation of the developing culture on the Georgia
islands dates to the nineteenth century. By the late twentieth century,
researchers and scholars had confirmed a distinctive group and
identified specific commonalities with locations in West Africa. The
rice growers' cultural retention has been studied through language,
cultural habits, and spirituality. The research of Mary A. Twining and
Keith E. Baird in Sea Island Roots: African Presence in the Carolinas and Georgia (1991) investigates the common links of islanders to specific West African ethnicities.
The
enslaved rice growers from West Africa brought with them knowledge of
how to make tools needed for rice harvesting, including fanner baskets
for winnowing rice. The sweetgrass baskets found on the coastal islands
were made in the same styles as baskets found in the rice culture of
West Africa. Sweetgrass baskets also were used for carrying laundry and
storing food or firewood. Few present-day members of the Geechee/Gullah
culture remember how to select palmetto, sweetgrass, and pine straw to
create baskets, and the remaining weavers now make baskets as decorative
art, primarily for tourists.
Religious meetings in "praise houses" were the spiritual
outlet for enslaved Africans on the plantation. Fast-paced rhythmic hand
clapping accompanied ring shout (spiritual) songs while participants
moved counterclockwise in a circle, making certain never to cross their
feet. Some aspects of the ring shout are thought to be related to the
communal dances found in many West African traditions. The word shout is thought to be derived from saut, a West African word of Arabic origin that describes an Islamic religious movement performed to exhaustion. Since the Civil War
(1861-65), ring shouts have been held after Sunday church services and
on weeknights in community meeting houses. Few elders familiar with
shout songs and the body movements associated with the spiritual
practice are alive today, but the tradition is kept alive in Georgia
through the McIntosh County Shouters.
In the early 1930s Lorenzo Dow Turner recorded a song
that islander Amelia Dawley had been taught by her mother, Octavia
"Tawba" Shaw, who was born into slavery. Dawley taught the song to her
own daughter, Mary Moran, who became the last person in the United
States to know the song, which would link her to a small village in
Sierra Leone sixty years later. Anthropologist Joseph Opala,
ethnomusicologist
Cynthia Schmidt, and linguist Tazieff Koroma came across Turner's tape
recording in 1989 and began tracing its origin, not only to Moran, who
was living in Harris Neck, Georgia, but also to Bendu Jabati of Senehun
Ngola, Sierra Leone, who was the last person in her village with
knowledge of the song.
In 1997 the two women met in the African village to share
and reenact what was understood as a Mende funeral song, sung only by
the women of Jabati's family lineage, who conducted the funerals of the
village. Evidence suggests that a female member of Moran's family had
been forced into captivity from the village nearly 200 years before. The
return of the song and the visit from the Moran family led to a
countrywide celebration that can be viewed in the documentary The Language You Cry In
(1998). The discovery of the song and subsequent linguistic research
confirmed yet another link between the cultures of West Africa and the
Georgia coast.
Such corresponding practices as similar names, language structures, folktales,
kinship patterns, and spiritual transference are but a few areas that
suggest a particular link between the southeastern coastal culture of
the United States and Sierra Leone in West Africa.
Migration
Thousands of slaves from Georgia and South Carolina who remained loyal to the British at the end of the American Revolution
(1775-83) found safe haven in Nova Scotia in Canada and thus gained
their freedom. Many returned to Sierra Leone in 1791 and the following
year established Freetown, the capital city. Members of that group are
identified today as Krio.
Runaway slaves from the Sea Islands were harbored under Spanish protection in Florida prior to the Second Seminole War
(1835-42). Native American refugees from around the South formed an
alliance with African runaways to create the Seminole Nation. The name Seminole is from the Spanish word cimarrón,
meaning runaway. The 1842 agreement between the United States and
Spain, which ended the Seminole hold on Florida, caused a migration to
Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Some Seminoles followed Spanish
protectors to Cuba and to Andros Island in the Bahamas.
Aspects of West African heritage have survived at each
stage of the circle of migration, with rice, language, and spirituality
persisting as cultural threads into the twentieth century. The
Geechee/Gullah culture on the Sea Islands of Georgia has retained a
heritage that spans two continents.
At
the end of the Civil War, lands on the coastal islands were sold to the
newly freed Africans during the Port Royal Experiment, part of the U.S.
government's Reconstruction plan for the recovery of the South after the war.
During the 1900s, land on some of the islands—Cumberland, Jekyll, Ossabaw, Sapelo, and St. Simons
—became resort locations and reserves for natural resources. The
modern-day conflict over resort development on the islands presents yet
another survival test for the Geechee/Gullah culture, the most intact
West African culture in the United States. Efforts to educate the public
by surviving members of the Geechee/Gullah community, including Cornelia Bailey of Sapelo Island and the Georgia Sea Island Singers, help to maintain and protect the culture's unique heritage in the face of such challenges.
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Marvin has been ignored and silenced,like Malcolm would be ignored and silenced if he had lived on into the Now. He's one of the most extraordinary, exciting black intellectuals living today --Rudolph Lewis, Chickenbones.
Truth will not make you rich, but it will make you free.
--Francis Bacon
--Francis Bacon