I recently wrote about the controversy swirling around black female cadets graduating from West Point, in Much ado about raised fists. While researching their story, I grew interested in the history of the first black graduate from West Point, Henry Ossian Flipper.
That Flipper made it to West Point at all is an amazing story, and if not for the brief Reconstruction period when blacks gained some political power, and were able to attend college it probably would not have happened.
The shunning of Flipper did not prevent his graduation, and he was sent to several western postings in the next few years. In 1877 Flipper was assigned to Fort Sill and then to Fort Concho where he served under Captain Nicholas M. Nolan. Nolan got into trouble for allowing Flipper to eat in his tent while Nolan's white daughter was present. The next year Captain Nolan, a widower, remarried and his wife's sister, Mollie Dwyer became friends with Flipper. They often went riding together, and exchanged letters. This set off a wave of hatred against Flipper. His last post was at Fort Davis where he became the post quartermaster.
Though his life after the military was full of achievement, he died unvindicated.
THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release February 19, 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT CEREMONY IN HONOR OF LT. HENRY O. FLIPPER
The Roosevelt Room 6:33 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: First of all, I'd like to welcome this distinguished assemblage here -- Dr. King and the members of the Flipper family, and your friends; Secretary West, Congressman Clyburn, General Powell, Deputy Secretary Hamry, Under Secretary de Leon, General Ross and General Reimer, Secretary Caldera. I understand we're joined by Clarence Davenport, the 6th African American graduate of West Point; other distinguished West Point graduates who are here. Welcome to all of you. There's one person who could not be here today -- Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, I'm glad to see you -- the one person who could not be here today I want to acknowledge, and that is Senator Max Cleland from Georgia, who has done a lot to make this day possible. We thank him in his absence.
I welcome you all to an event that is 117 years overdue. Here in America's House of liberty, we celebrate ideas like freedom, equality, our indivisibility as one people. Great leaders lived here -- people like Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Lincoln, the Roosevelts, after whom this room is named. All of them deepened the meaning of those words while they lived here. But we must be candid and say that the special quality of American freedom is not always extended to all Americans. A word like "freedom," to be more than a slogan, requires us to acknowledge that our "more perfect union" was created by imperfect human beings, people who did not always define freedom in the ways that we would, and in ways that they knew they should. For this word to live for ourselves and our children, we must recognize it represents a difficult goal that must be struggled with every day in order to be realized.
Today's ceremony is about a moment in 1882, when our government did not do all it could do to protect an individual American's freedom. It is about a moment in 1999 when we correct the error and resolve to do even better in the future. The man we honor today was an extraordinary American. Henry Flipper did all his country asked him to do. Though born a slave in Georgia, he was proud to serve America: the first African American graduate of West Point; the first African American commissioned officer in the regular United States Army. He showed brilliant promise and joined the 10th Cavalry. While stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, he perfected a drainage system that eliminated the stagnant water, and malaria, plaguing the fort. Still known as "Flipper's Ditch," it became a national landmark in 1977. He distinguished himself in combat on the frontier, and then was transferred to run a commissary at Fort Davis in Texas. In 1881, Lt. Flipper was accused by his commanding officer of improperly accounting for the funds entrusted to him. A later Army review suggested he had been singled out for his race, but at the time there wasn't much justice available for a young African American soldier. In December, a court-martial acquitted him of embezzlement, but convicted him of conduct unbecoming an officer. President Chester A. Arthur declined to overturn the sentence, and in June of 1882, Lt. Flipper was dishonorably discharged. His life continued. He became a civil and mining engineer out West. He worked in many capacities for the government, as special agent for the Department of Justice; as an expert on Mexico for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; as a special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior. He died in 1940, at the age of 84. But even after his death, this stain of dishonor remained. One hundred and seventeen years have now elapsed since his discharge. That's a long time, even more than the span of his long life. More than half the history of the White House, indeed, of the United States itself. And too long to let an injustice lie uncorrected.
The army exonerated him in 1976, changed his discharge to honorable and reburied him with full honors. But one thing remained to be done, and now it will be. With great pleasure and humility, I now offer a full pardon to Lt. Henry Ossian Flipper of the United States Army. This good man now has completely recovered his good name. It has been a trying thing for the family to fight this long battle, to confront delays and bureaucratic indifference, but this is a day of affirmation. It teaches us that, although the wheels of justice turn slowly at times, still they turn. It teaches that time can heal old wounds and redemption comes to those who persist in a righteous cause. Most of all, it teaches us -- Lt. Flipper's family teaches us -- that we must never give up the fight to make our country live up to its highest ideals. Outside of this room Henry Flipper is not known to most Americans. All the more reason to remember him today. His remarkable life story is important to us, terribly important, as we continue to work -- on the edge of a new century and a new millennium -- on deepening the meaning of freedom at home, and working to expand democracy and freedom around the world, to give new life to the great experiment begun in 1776. This is work Henry Flipper would have been proud of. Each of you who worked so hard for this day is a living chapter in the story of Lt. Flipper. I thank you for your devotion, your courage, your persistence, your unshakable commitment. I thank you for believing, and proving, that challenges never disappear, but in the long run, freedom comes to those who persevere.
Thank you very, very much. (Applause.)
You can read more about Flipper through his own words.
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When foreigners think of the country of Colombia, usually visions of drug-cartel bosses and Latin beauty queens with olive skin come to mind. Few foreigners know just how multicultural, and black, the country is. Colombia has the second-largest population of people of African descent in the [Latin America] after Brazil—at least 5 million, according to the country’s census, but likely a far higher number.
“We all come on that same boat,” says Edwin Salcedo, an Afro-Colombian activist and communications consultant. Salcedo is referring to the hundreds of boats that carried at least 1 million captured Africans from the West Coast of Africa to the Colombian city of Cartagena—the largest slave port in the Spanish colonial empire.
Today Cartagena is a majority-black city with a population of more than 800,000 people. But this isn’t reflected in the census. The city is at least 75 percent Afro-Colombian, but only 35 percent of that group self-identifies as Afro-Colombian, Salcedo says. It is commonly believed that at least 25 percent of Colombia’s 48 million people are of African descent, but the census reflects only about 10 percent, or 5 million.
“The question is why? It’s because people don’t want to be treated as black because being black in Cartagena and Colombia at large also means that you are low-income, poor and have poor education,” Salcedo says.
And it also usually doesn’t mean beautiful.
“People often use examples based on black physical appearance to say that something is bad, but if it’s good, it’s an exception, such as, ‘She is black, but she is beautiful,’” says Andry González, a 24-year-old consultant who lives in Cartegena. “It means if you are black, you should be ugly.”
South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko popularized the phrase “Black is beautiful” in the 1960s, and then it spread to the U.S. and finally reached Brazil in the ’70s as Ser negro é bonito. Now Salcedo is doing everything in his power to make sure Afro-Colombians claim their blackness and embrace the philosophy of Ser negro es hermoso—“Black is beautiful” in Spanish. Last year he spearheaded the launch of a unique visual and social media campaign—#SerNegroEsHermoso—that included 15 artistic portraits of Afro-Colombians, men and women, posted throughout Cartagena.
“We are in the beginning stage of a self-recognizing society. I thought to have a campaign like this, it would push forward self-recognition and self-esteem and a different aesthetic of being black,” Salcedo says. “It’s a campaign for our own people and the society at large for people to open our minds past stereotypes that are rooted in society.”
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A former CIA spy has revealed his key role in the arrest of Nelson Mandela, which led to the future South African president’s trial and imprisonment for almost 28 years.
The bombshell disclosure led yesterday to a demand for the CIA to come clean about putting behind bars a figure who became one of the world’s most revered statesmen.
A veteran political associate of Mandela called it a “shameful act of betrayal” that “hindered the struggle against apartheid”.
The former CIA operative, Donald Rickard, was unrepentant, saying that when arrested in 1962 Mandela was “the world’s most dangerous communist outside of the Soviet Union.”
Rickard claims he found out that Mandela would be traveling from Durban to Johannesburg and told police authorities so they could set up a roadblock. When Mandela’s car was stopped, agents immediately recognized the most wanted man in the country and took him into custody. "I found out when he was coming down and how he was coming ... that's where I was involved and that's where Mandela was caught," Rickard said. The former agent didn’t reveal how he received the information but said he firmly believed Mandela was “completely under the control of the Soviet Union, a toy of the communists.”
The interview appears to confirm suspicions that the CIA was tracking Mandela,according to the BBC. The report is likely to increase pressure on the U.S. intelligence agency to release documents that could help clarify its role in Mandela’s arrest. Mandela’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party was quick to react to the news, saying it puts in evidence a pattern of Washington involvement in the country’s politics. “That revelation confirms what we have always known, that they are working against [us], even today,” ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa said. "It's not thumb sucked, it's not a conspiracy [theory]. It is now confirmed that it did not only start now, there is a pattern in history.”
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Uganda, in East Africa, is home to 37 million people and one of the poorest countries in the world. It’s perhaps best known for the dictator Idi Amin, who came to power in 1971 and murdered 300,000 of his countrymen during an eight-year reign. Although the country borders tumultuous South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda today is an island of relative political stability. The economy hums. Shopping malls bloom around the capital. Its people, to generalize, are deeply religious, family-oriented, and averse to profanity. Winston Churchill dubbed Uganda the Pearl of Africa in part for its friendly people.
It’s also one of the leading providers of mercenaries—or “private military contractors,” as the security industry prefers to call them. They are at once everywhere and nowhere. On TV, a company called Middle East Consultants runs advertisements looking for able-bodied young men to send to Dubai. Talk to taxi drivers as you bump along dirt roads in the capital, Kampala, and each has a friend or cousin or neighbor who raves about the fortune he’s made guarding some embassy or joining the war in Iraq. But official numbers and interviews with the kind of multinational companies that go to countries such as Uganda to find soldiers are hard to come by.
In Iraq, Ugandans protect U.S. diplomats in Baghdad and Basra. They also guard businessmen and aid workers in Afghanistan and Somalia. They patrol government installations in Qatar and will likely stand watch when the country hosts the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Some recruits have drilled at an elite counterterrorism training center in Jordan funded by the Pentagon. Others are sent abroad with virtually no training at all, just a requirement that they stand at least 5-foot-7.
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A member of Alpha Phi Alpha, argues Black fraternities and sororities need to be more welcoming to potential members from the LGBTQ community. Ebony: Black, Greek, and Gay? It's Time For Organizations to Fall In Line.
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A few weeks ago, I had the honor of speaking on a panel entitled “Out and Greek, For Historically Black Fraternities & Sororities: A Conversation about Race, Greek, and all things Queer.” As I walked up the grand staircase at the University of Maryland to take my seat on the stage, I wasn’t sure what to expect. As a member of Alpha Phi Alpha for more than 10 years, I have had my fair share of peaks and valleys when it came to dealing with others’ reactions to my gender and sexuality expression. To my surprise, though, there was nothing to worry about that night. The main reason? Over 95 percent of the audience was non-Black. Rather than wallow in disappointment about the lack of Black Greeks interested in the topic, I used the event as yet another opportunity to tell my truth and share some of the encounters other LGBTQ people in the Black Greek community have experienced.
The event spoke to a problem that is much larger than the lack of support from fellow Black Greeks at a panel discussion. For years, I struggled with reconciling how openly queer I am with how to also showcase the love I have for my fraternity. Most recently, this came to a head when I switched my Facebook profile picture to an image of myself dressed in a mesh bathing suit and a “feminine” sun hat, while a picture of my line brothers served as the background image on my page. Within minutes of sharing, I was contacted by several Alphas from across the nation who felt my beach-ready pic had crossed that invisible line called “masculinity,” which it seemed I had somehow threatened by dressing in such a way.
I won’t lie, I was shocked. Although I have been an out brother for years, fighting for the rights of the Black LGBTQ community, I was never that concerned over how my two worlds intersected within my own lived experiences.
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On the penultimate episode of this season’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” the last four contestants gathered backstage, waiting to find out who would be eliminated from the competition to be named “America’s Next Drag Superstar.” As they sat in the “untuck” lounge, they made lighthearted small talk, trading compliments and good-natured shade.
The conversation turned, suddenly, to activism. Chi Chi DeVayne, a sweet Louisiana queen with a thick, country-fried accent, praised Bob the Drag Queen, a gifted, tenderhearted New York comedian, on her work in support of marriage equality.
“I wish that I had the guts to stand up for gay rights,” she said wistfully (the contestants often use male and female pronouns interchangeably).
Bob smiled and replied, “Go do it, you can start anytime.”
Ms. DeVayne, dazzling in full makeup and a fuchsia ball gown, shook her head firmly. “You can’t do it in Shreveport,” she replied. “They’ll blow your head off.”
That exchange reflected the cultural significance of “Drag Race,” for this particular moment in time.
Queer and gay culture has been so widely co-opted and incorporated into mainstream popular culture that it can feel commonplace, embraced by default. On the surface, that feels like a positive thing — queer narratives, like those featured in “Carol,” “The Danish Girl,” “Modern Family” and “Transparent” go a long way toward humanizing difference. We may live in troubled times, but this visibility suggests people are finding their way.
Yet, pop culture has barely started grappling with more complex and ugly contemporary narratives, ones that make clear that universal acceptance is still a fantasy — like North Carolina’s law limiting bathroom access to transgender people. This is what makes “Drag Race,” which airs its Season 8 finale on Monday night, so valuable.
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In just a few weeks, June 15–19, in South Beach Miami, Florida, content creators, executives, actors, filmmakers, and game changers will gather for five days of entertainment content made by and about people of African descent at the 2016 American Black Film Festival.
The festival is considered the nation’s largest gathering of black film and TV enthusiasts; drawing an attendance of approximately 13,000 in 2015 with expectations to exceed that number in 2016.
Sponsored by HBO, ABFF presents over 30 exciting events and networking activities designed to educate, nurture career development, and inspire festival attendees.
This year’s sessions include:
- Actors Boot Camp with Master Class Instructor, Bill Duke
- A Conversation with Common, ABFF 2016 Brand Ambassador
- The Art of Storytelling Through Costume Design
- Virtual Reality & Immersive Storytelling
- Black Women in Hollywood: The Future Looks Bright
- Writing for Television
- TV Production the HBO Way
- The Black Superhero
- HBO Short Film Competition
- TV One Celebrity Scene Stealers
- Akil Productions Seminar featuring Mara Brock-Akil and Salim Akil
…and the schedule just continues on.
This is all in addition, of course, to the screening of films, documentaries, shorts and Web originals. Please be on the lookout, as the festival’s selections for this year’s screenings will be announced May 16.
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Voices and Soul
by
Justice Putnam
Black Kos Poetry Editor
I purchased and built my first crystal radio with an ear-set with funds gifted to me on my birthday in March of 1963. I was eight years old. It took a couple of weeks before the components arrived in the mail; and I set out to put the thing together. The radio was small and fit in the pocket of my coveralls, while a thin cord snaked its way to my left ear. We lived on the farm in Philomouth outside of Corvallis and I had many chores to do before the bus picked me up for school. That radio kept me linked to the world while I milked the farm's only cow, slopped slop for the pigs, fed the geese and chickens, collected eggs and churned butter from the cream of that only cow.
The strongest frequency the radio picked up during those early morning duties was a station that broadcast local news, early morning weather and farm reports; and the conservative, baritone intonations of Paul Harvey("... this is Paul Harvey... good day!"). I attended Saint Mary's Catholic School in Corvallis; and like many Catholics of the day ( and even now, not so surprisingly), photographs of JFK were prominent at home and school.
There was something about Harvey that bugged me as an eight year old. His halting, yet dulcet vocal delivery were pleasant enough, but the content of his broadcasts grated. Later that year, after the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four young school girls; Harvey attempted to diminish the tragedy by explaining that no matter how brutal the murders were, they were to be expected.
Murdering four black school girls was an expectation in America? Even as an eight year old, I knew that wasn't and shouldn't be correct.
A year later, a Great Uncle helped install the antennae for the short wave radio he gave me. I could now listen to the BBC, music from Paris and New York and I discovered Studs Terkel in Chicago.
Though both Terkel and Harvey broadcast from Chicago, they were worlds apart. Terkel's interviews with Bob Dylan and Mahalia Jackson still resonate in a deep seated radio tape loop in the middle of my cerebelum.
We never owned a television in Oregon, reception being poor or non-existent where we lived. When we moved to Southern California in the summer of 1965, when my father began a 35 year professorship at Cal State Fullerton, we purchased a television shortly after settling in. Later, we purchased one of the first generations of color televisions. I would match the news from the three broadcast networks with that of the BBC, that I listened to on the short wave radio, (it was a big argument about dismantling and moving the antennae from Oregon to California, but my dad prevailed on my mom that is was a good idea). I began to triangulate information before I even knew the word. It just seemed the prudent thing to do.
As a child, I couldn't get enough information. It remains the same today. With each new technological advancement, the ability to gather information increases and I anticipate it strongly. With events unfolding in Syria, the Balkans and elsewhere, with social networks in the forefront, it is proved that change need not be exacted by the barrel of a gun, but by the wide distribution of information.
“This bubble had to be burst, & the only way to do it was
to go right into the heart of the Arab world
& smash something.” The hotel heiress, snapped
flashing her bum in a Bahamas club.
To go right into the heart of the Arab world,
they claim their device can trigger an orgasm:
flashing her bum in a Bahamas club
on a boozy date with her new bloke, Nick Carter.
They claim their device can trigger an orgasm.
American officials who spoke on condition of anonymity
on a boozy date with her new bloke, Nick Carter,
say he confessed under torture in Syria.
American officials who spoke on condition of anonymity
without touching a women’s genital area
say he confessed under torture in Syria.
“There’s no explanation why. We’re just not saying anything.”
Without touching a women’s genital area,
I take it all seriously. I am withdrawing from all representation.
There’s no explanation why. We’re just not saying anything
to make this objective absolutely clear.
I take it all seriously. I am withdrawing from all representation,
but he was in the special removal unit.
To make this objective absolutely clear,
the development of counterterrorism technologies—
but he was in the special removal unit.
This had profoundly shocked the commission,
the development of counterterrorism technologies
with the flick of a switch. Women get turned on.
This had profoundly shocked the commission.
No one detected any radical political views.
With the flick of a switch, women get turned on
to a new business model that only pretends
no one detected any radical political views.
I take it all seriously. I am withdrawing from all representation
to a new business model that only pretends
to give consumers more control. In fact,
I take it all seriously. I am withdrawing from all representation
that she refused to be photographed in body paint
to give consumers more control. In fact,
he was handcuffed and beaten repeatedly.
That she refused to be photographed in body paint
constitutes an integral goal of the IOA.
He was handcuffed and beaten repeatedly.
There’s no explanation why. An information whiteout
constitutes an integral goal of IOA
while Justice turns to Syria’s secret police.
There’s no explanation why. An information whiteout.
Forebodings of disaster enter into box scores
while Justice turns to Syria’s secret police,
constructing systems to counter asymmetric threats.
Forebodings of disaster enter into box scores
to achieve total information awareness,
constructing systems to counter asymmetric threats.
This bubble had to be burst, and the only way to do it was
to achieve total information awareness
& smash something. The hotel heiress snapped.
-- John Beer
“Total Information Awareness”
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WELCOME TO THE TUESDAY’S PORCH