THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY- 1st part of a three part series



El Mina Castle- El Mina, Ghana (photo credit S Shaw)



The GOOD-
This is the start of a three part series dealing with just a few things that is good, bad and ugly within African and African American History.  Not just the things blacks have done to and for themselves, but the hurts and harms slung against the backs of them as a people.  For the Good, lets start where the journey for many black slaves to the Americas began- in Africa in the country of  Ghana. 
During the Transatlantic Slave Trade the ports of Ghana played a major role in the embarkation of slaves to the Americas. Elmina and Cape Coast Castles were key trading post in timber, gold and slaves- first with the Portuguese, then Dutch finally the British.

So why is Ghana and slavery the first posting in the series, and why is it under The Good? Well through all of the bad of the slave trade and slavery and Ghana’s role in it, there is a lot of beauty and grace and hope in Ghana.  The area around Cape Coast and El Mina Castles are bustling with tourism, the colorful boats of local fisherman and Ghanaians going about their daily lives. There is too much Good here, not to start here in Ghana and on the continent from which the African Diaspora started.


Since the 1960's Ghana has opened it's heart and doors to African Americans wanting to visit the land of their ancestors and many African Americans have traveled there and some even now call Ghana home. Ghana is a mix of modern and traditional, the two being found side by side even in the biggest citites, and its people have been called the friendliest on the continent.  Ghana is a beautiful country- it's people and scenery.  From Accra, to Cape Coast, to Legon and the Kakum National Park region vitality and a sense of life abounds.  Below find a few photos of Ghana and a list of books on the country.

Door to Slave Pen at Em Mina Castle (S Shaw)

Fishing Boats El Mina, Ghana (S Shaw)

                   

School Kid Kokrobitey, Ghana (S Shaw)

School Kids Kokrobitey, Ghana (S Shaw)



Old Fashioned Barber Sign Accra, Ghana
(S Shaw)



T-Shirts with pictures of President Barack Obama being made for a rally in Accra
(S Shaw)



LIST OF TITLES ON GHANA:

Ghana

Utley, Ian

916.6704 Ut4g

Culture and Customs of Ghana

Falola, Toyin

966.7 Sa351c

History of West Africa

966 H6297

Historical Dictionary of Ghana

Owusu-Ansah, David

966.7003 Ow72h

A Child's day in a Ghanaian City

Provencal, Francis

j966.7009 Prov

Ghana

Blauer, Ettagale

J966.7 Blau

The word poetry comes from the Greek poiesis meaning a making, a forming, creating.  Poets create worlds for the reader to inhabit, but for me as a lover of poetry, the poet has to not only speak to the intellect but the heart and soul as well.  A turn of phrase is nice, connecting the infinitesimal to the  universal is key, but hitting me in the emotional center is where I connect with poetry. 

Poet L. Lamar Wilson is a poet that writes with emotion and from personal spaces.  His work is personal and poetic testimony.  He brings the reader into and engages him on a most visceral level- the level of feelings.  Be the poems persona poems or biographical you feel for the voices within and share the joys and pain. 

photo credit Rachel Eliza Griffiths

L. LAMAR WILSON, a Cave Canem fellow, has poetry in Callaloo, Rattle, Crab Orchard Review, Obsidian and Tidal Basin Review as well as in Mighty Real: An Anthology of African American Same Gender Loving Writing, edited by R. Bryant Smith and Darius Omar Williams.  He also has a poem featured in the new book The 100 Best African American Poets, edited by Nikki Giovanni.  He is a PhD Student at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

 It Could Happen to Anyone, or a Letter to the BoyL. Lamar Wilson

The man in the shack on the corner wants
to kiss you. He remembers when you jump-roped
better than most of the girls & prayed without
manly pretense, remembers how you mimicked
the church mothers—knees & body bowed, Lawd
—your genuine contrition for being broken
& breakable still. You always was too pretty
to be a boy. Come gimme some sugar, he says
& reaches out to kiss you on your cheek, but
his lips are thistles, his face a cavern of bones.
It’s World AIDS Day, & you are here to chronicle
his free-fall from engineer to blind man leading
the myope, to fevers that flash on & off like a switch
spooked by the God he calls great & merciful
with a smile. Your mother says his songs tore up
church services all over town like hurricanes
had done Old U.S. Road: dogwoods splayed,
naked limbs convulsing, rapt in holy water,
like the saints slain by the spirits he conjured.
You don’t remember him, so busy kneeling
at the altar of this you the mothers & sanctified brothers
could praise, who loved Shirts Against Skins
more than Bible study, loved tackling the most buff Skin
on the field, who always held you on top of him long
enough for you to feel him hardening against you
hardening. Gimme some skin, nigga, he’d say
& grin, as you pulled away, then reached to pull
him to his feet. This man doesn’t know the you
who dreamed of kissing the lead tuba player
but was too much of a punk or a saint or both
to follow his leer from the dais to the bathroom stall.
It could happen to anyone, he says, especially
when you love somebody. Make sure
you write that down. You don’t. Too
sentimental, you think, for a hard
news story, so you dig for the grit, for the who
who branded him untouchable. He smiles,
places one hand on his chest, gropes the table
for yours. You using protection with these boys?
His scaly palm grazes your keloid knuckles.
I haven’t, you know, yet, you mumble, happy
for once to be numb, glad you can’t feel the heat.

previously published on No Tell Motel http://www.notellmotel.org/

reprinted with permission from the poet.

DREAMBOYS
L. Lamar Wilson

My nephew waltzes beside his father,
The man who was the boy who made Faggot!
A reason not to flinch. His neck a merry-

Go-round, our boy rears back, waves
His pointer in my face, jabs his other fist
Into his hip & wails: Watch yo’ mouth!

Watch yo’ mouth, Miss Effie White! ’Cause I
Don’t take no mess from no second-rate diva
Who can’t sustain! In my brother’s eyes, I see

The pain of remembering when I crooned—Don’t

Tell me not to live. Just sit & putter. Life’s candy
& the sun’s a ball of butter—& made him grimace.

I scan the wall of plaques in Mama’s den,
The remnants of home runs & aces that gave
Him hope then, all dusty now. Teeth clenched,

He smiles at his dreamboy & nods in disbelief.
Harrumphs. Lashes flittering, he offers me
The only penance he can: a sheepish grin.

We applaud & feign heartened laughter.
My nephew sees beyond the veil shrouding
His father’s eyes. Realizes this isn’t

How brown boys win favor. Searches
My eyes for answers. Mirrors
A sadness no song can shake.

–from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
Tribute to African American Poets

http://rattle.com/blog/2010/02/dreamboys-by-l-lamar-wilson/

reprinted with permission from poet

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH 2011

In an attempt to highlight, if even a small way, poetry and the world as seen through the eyes of blacks throughout the African Diaspora, I will post a few poems by different poets.  Poetry has the ability to be at once seditious and tractable, , impersonal and personal; it moves mountains, soothes nerves, and can just puts the reader in a feel good "yeah, I know that" mode and does it better than most other written mediums. 

The first poet is Kola Boof. Kola Boof (born Naima Bint Harith) is an Egyptian-Sudanese American raised novelist and poet, once called "the African Garbo" by The New York Times and noted for the works Flesh and the Devil, Long Train to the Redeeming Sin and Nile River Woman. Boof is an activist and writer whose writing has been declared obscene in Morocco and whose life has been threatened more than once due to the nature of her writing and her provocative words. For a more information on Boof : http://aalbc.com/authors/kola_boof.htm

Black Beauty’s Totem


I wish to find the swell
of constant waters

…and the death of the locust night

I wish to find the anguished heart
of the blue blackened earthquake
and lay my monkish head against his
armoured chest.

To bless him with full, swollen lips
and behold his darkened portholes
drinking my softened flesh…oh, but yes

I wish to die as spirits then…

droplets

lost and swishing forever
deep within my purple folds
sweet

like birth and no regret



-Kola Boof, from Nile River Woman

BLACK HISTORY MONTH CELEBRATION

On 2/3/2011 the African American Center in conjunction with the San Francisco African American Hisotrical and Cultural Society (SFAAHCS), put on the Annual Black History Month Kickoff at City Hall.  SFAAHCS have been putting together this event and this was another wonderful event. 

Watch the event in its entirety by clicking the link below. 

Enjoy

http://sanfrancisco.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=90&clip_id=11540

AINT NO HALF STEPPING- EXHIBIT

The idea for the Aint No Half Stepping exhibit came about when photographer Joanne Bealy and writer Evelyn C White stopped by the library and invited the library to be a witness to the cultural life and landscape that makes up Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. Bealy and White had so eloquently written about and photographed this region in their new book Every Goodbye Aint Gone: a photo narrative of Black Heritage in salt Spring Island and asked if we would like to do an exhibition based around it. Of course we jumped at the idea to collaborate with them on this project.  

What made this such an enticing subject for the library, was that 153 years ago a group of 800 blacks from all over California came together and migrated from San Francisco up to Canada. This exhibit strives to honor those émigrés and put into context their lives both here and in Canada and speak to what the current political landscape was like here in the 1850’s California that drove them far from their homes. The African American Center is always looking for exhibits that connect the past and the future, the local and the global. This exhibit perfectly does both.

Blacks have long held claims to the land and soul of California, with some of the earliest settlers of the state being of African origin.  Of the 44 original settlers of present day Los Angeles, 26 were either of full African ancestry or of mix blood- Spanish and black.  Even with this said, California has long had a conflicted and sometimes rocky relationship with blacks.  In 1852 blacks in California had doubled in number, “and their material possession in property and businesses had improved at a rate far exceeding that of blacks in the eastern states.”
 
Enjoy the exhibit-
 

BLACK HISTORY FACTS

FACT:
Both the British and the Americans enlisted African Americans during the Revolutionary War. American military leaders were reluctant to allow black men to join their armed forces on a permanent basis, even though black men had fought with the Continental Army since the earliest battles of the war at Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill. The British encouraged runaways--male and female--to join their ranks. This work provides excellent documentation of the variety of roles African Americans played during the war when they were finally and officially allowed to join the ranks of the Continental Army.


FACT:
Haiti was founded after a slave revolt started in 1791, led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, toppled the government of the French colony of St. Domingue.
 
FACT:
The Pobladores ("townspeople") of Los Angeles refers to the 44 original settlers who founded city of Los Angeles, California in 1781.
Of the 22 children who contributed to the settlement, 16 were of African ancestry and would be considered "black" by present-day American standards of racial classification.

FACT:
On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman issued two executive orders. One instituted fair employment practices in the civilian agencies of the federal government; the other provided for "equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion,or national origin."

This was a major victory for civil rights advocates in the quest for full citizenship.

FACT:
"Jim Crow" laws mandated that blacks have separate facilities for travel, lodging, eating and drinking, schooling, worship, housing, and other aspects of social and economic life.

RAILROADS IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

The railroad and trains have long held a sacred space in the minds of African Americans in both a literal and metaphorical way. From the times of slavery there was Harriet Tubman a leader and head conductor on the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad represented freedom, the hope for a better future to enslaved Africans. Tubman, or the Moses of her people as she was referred to, led those enslaved out of the bondage using an informal series of safe houses and secret routes that led to free states and Canada. The Underground Railroad, although without wheels and rails or the physical trappings of a traditional train, was no less a journey for those who undertook the trip.

The railway is also deeply embedded in African American folklore in two different and distinct ways. First with the legendary folk hero John Henry- a mythical figure that was born with a hammer in his hand. John Henry is notable for having raced against a steam powered hammer and won, only to die in victory with his 20 pound hammer still in his hand. “Henry represents the worker and serves as a folk hero for all American working-class people, representing their marginalization during changes entering the modern age in America.”

Although the legend of John Henry was said to be based on some factual evidence, more to the truth is that many African American men and women were John Henry and helped build the railways as it made its way across the American landscape.  From the early days of passenger trains African Americans have served as servants on trains; slave labor, both male and female, was utilized in some capacity. For years the railroads have been a means of employment for black communities- first the use of slave labor as maids and servants, water carriers on the early trains and later for men who worked as Pullman Porters.

The book Railroads in the African American Experience, a reviewer writes “Kornweibel presents a detailed history of the African American connection with railroads from the days of slavery through the Civil Rights Movement. He explains that railroads were one of the few sources of comparatively decent-paying employment for African Americans. Working for the railroads nonetheless meant coping with exploitation, discrimination, and even violence. Kornweibel devotes entire chapters to various railroad occupations, such as fireman, porter, and cook. He also explains how railroad work permeated African American society and culture. He supplements his text with hundreds of period photos and illustrations of African Americans in railroad settings. This wonderful book dealing forthrightly with one aspect of past racism would be an excellent source for readers interested in either African American or railroad labor history.” Copyright 2010. Library Journals

RAILROADS IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE