Month: April 2018

During the time Kathleen Cleaver came to talk to us about the Black Panther movement, she mentioned a lot of different people who had a great impact at the time of the movement. She talked about Aldridge Cleaver, who was one of the leaders, her husband and the father of her children. She included Bobby Hutton who was also one of the first men to be recruited into the movement. When describing Bobby, she talked about how quiet he was and that he didn’t want the things he did to be publicized for the media to be asking him too many questions. Ms. Cleaver included some stories involving shootouts between members and the police, how people would tell on the group members that were hiding, and also the role different women had in the group.

After hearing these stories, it surprised me that she still remembered everything just like it was yesterday. After a while, someone asked her how she felt about “The New Black Panther” and she they were illegitimate. She said that with power, because she believed they were just copying the name but wasn’t doing the things The Original Black Panther was doing for the black community. Overall, it was a good discussion and I would recommend her to comeback and speak again.

I found Du Bois’s article “African Roots of War” to be very interesting because it makes you think about the domino effect that sometimes occurs in history that gets skimmed over easily. The idea that the scramble for Africa and the rush to harvest the continent’s natural resources was one of the leading causes for the spread of colonialism is an idea that I never really thought about. When I was taught WWI in high school, we mostly focused on the problems between the European superpowers, but never really how these problems were grown. The scramble for Africa was taught, but not in the same context. We were taught how it was bad for the Africans at the time, but not on a larger scale. I think that this idea probably gets glossed over a lot because we still don’t think of African history as relevant to the rest of the world, and we still see it as just an area to grab resources from. The idea that the source of a major conflict can be traced back to an event at the beginning of the century is fascinating to me because it creates the sense that much of history is connected in some way, and that every world event can have a lasting impact on the future.

Currently I am in two history classes (three if you count art history), and one of them is about world history in the year 1900. One of my favorite books we’ve read was King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. The book follows the story of the Belgium King and American explorers conquering the Congo during the scramble for Africa, and how that event led to one of the first international human rights campaigns. The author, Adam Hochschild, had a journalism background and told the story in a very engaging narrative. However, one of the shortcomings of the book was the lack of speaking from an African perspective, which the author himself regrets not being able to do. Regardless, I thought I’d share two of the non-white voices he was able to talk about in detail, two African Americans visiting the Congo, George Washington Williams and William Sheppard.

George Washington Williams was born in Pennsylvania in 1849. He joined the army, fighting in the Civil War and other events. He went to college at Howard University, (which he usually referenced as sounding a bit like “Harvard”), and in a few short years he went from not being able to spell to “compose fluently in the rolling cadences of a 19th century pulpit.” He became a pastor, a journalist, a lawyer, politician, and historian, not staying in any profession for very long. He received praise from prominent people like Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Dubois. After a series of other accomplishments, he decided to go to a Congo as a part of a program that recruited black Americans to work there. Getting there was not without trouble, but since he decided that’s what he wanted, he did so anyway, even when King Leopold himself (knowing the human rights violations happening) tried to keep him away. And, when he finally got there in 1890, he was “disenchanted, disappointed,

and disheartened” in his open letter to the King about the situation in the Congo. In fact, he said Leopold’s Congo state was guilty of “crimes against humanity,” a phrase 50 years ahead of its time and at least 10 years before the rest of the world was aware of what was happening in the Congo.

Another interesting figure, William Shepard, was born in Virginia in 1865. He was able to go to the Congo as a missionary and also with the help of white supremacist Alabama Senator John Tyler Morgan, who was hoping other African Americans would emigrate there. One of the main differences between Shepard and the other missionaries was that he treated the native population with more respect, like learning their language, even if he didn’t have a completely open mind with some of their religious practices, as he himself was an evangelical

christian. He truly enjoyed his experience in Africa, at least compared to many of the other missionaries. In 1892, Sheppard became the first foreigner to reach the town of Ifuca.

More information on both of these men and others can be found in King Leopold’s Ghost. 

This article I feels still relevant today and that there is a higher standard for African Americans and other minorities than the majority. They must work twice as hard as there white contemporaries in order be successful or viewed as talented. Those sentiments I feel are echoed by Langston Hughes, but he goes more in depth to address how some may goes far to stray from being themselves to be accepted and there work as well. He says some will goes as far as to not identify with their blackness to be accepted. I think this effort to falsify who they are is a fear of rejection of being themselves, which is being black because especially at that time it’s not accepted when one embraces his/her blackness while trying climb the ladder of success. Langston Hughes message is to go against the grain and don’t conform to critics and to be yourself when striving to be successful, it is the most wholesome feeling.

Last Thursday, Dr. Kathleen Cleaver, a prominent member of the Black Panther party, came to speak to students. However, another really powerful speaker came to McGaw Chapel to talk.   A local Ohioan, Elaine Richardson, is a professor of literacy at The Ohio State University. She also helps at a local Cleveland public school mentoring young black girls and showing them the importance of education. Her presentation was that of a performance.  She got on stage and began to tell her story from her perspective, but she told the story from the point of view of the age she was. From childhood to teenage years to adulthood, she would replay some of the best, and worst memories, of her life.  On top of this, she would sing some of her favorite songs. Her gorgeous voice echoed through the chapel and everyone was completely astonished. Her story talked about how she feel into sex work and drug addiction, but through the power of education and persistence (with a little help) she now has a Ph.D from Michigan State University. What she was getting across is how young black women can fall into sex work in multiple ways and people see it as their choice, but what they don’t know is that most of the time something traumatic causes these girls to make that choice. Dr.Richardson has also published a book  called Ph.D(Po H# on Dope) to Ph.D,  telling her story on paper. I also had the privilege of having dinner her and never had I met such a down to Earth person. It was incredible talk and hope she speaks more as I continue through college.