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BLACK HISTORY SPOTLIGHT: CATHAY WILLIAMS-THE BLACK AMERICAN JOAN OF ARC ❤💛💚

By: Leon Kwasi Kuntuo-Asare

EARLY LIFE

Cathay Williams was ironically born in Independence, Missouri, sometime around September 1844. She was the daughter of a Black freedman and an enslaved Black woman, therefore making her a slave. Williams worked as a house slave on the Johnson plantation, which was located on the edges of Jefferson City, Missouri, until the early phases of the civil war, when Union troops occupied Jefferson City in 1861 and captured enslaved Black people, who were then labeled as “contraband” and forced to serve as soldiers or military support staff.

Soldier’s Life

Some people claim that Cathay Willaims may have served in the Battle of Pea Ridge and the Red River campaign. Women weren’t allowed to participate in combat service, so historians believe she may have enlisted as a man under the name of Finis Cathay. As Finis Cathay she would of enlisted in the 32nd Missouri infantry in 1862 and would have particpated in many vital campaigns, including: The Siege of Vicksburg and Sherman’s March to the Sea, before fighting to force Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederate army surrender in North Carolina. On November 15, 1866 Williams would again sign-up for military service. This time under the name of William Cathay (since women were still prohibited from combat military service). Williams would be assigned to the 38th United States Infantry regiment (Buffalo Soldiers). Unfortunately, soon after her enlistment (or better yet re-enlistment), Williams would contract smallpox. After she recovered, she rejoined her unit, but would have to be repeatedly hospitalized, possibly due to the effects caused by small pox, combined with the extreme heat of the New Mexico desert, where her team was posted. Eventually, the post surgeon would discover her “feminine secret”, and informed her post commander. This led to her being discharged by the United States Army, by her commanding officer, Captain Charles E. Clarke, on October 14, 1868.

Post Military Life

In Fort Union, New Mexico, Williams would be employed as a cook. Williams would eventually move to Pueblo, Colorado and would get married. The marriage wouldn’t last long, her untrustworthy husband would steal her money and several of her horses. She would have him arrested and then moved to Trinidad, Colorado, where she worked as seamstress, and may have even owned a boarding house. Sometime around late 1889 or early 1890, Williams would enter a hospital, there she would attempt to physically recover from her bad heath issues she was suffering from at the time (her exact illness is unknown). In June of 1891, Williams would apply for disability pension because of her past military service. At the time there was a precedent for granting a military pension to a woman soldier. By 1816 Anna Maria Lane, Mary Hayes McCauley (better-known-As Molly Pitcher) and Deborah Sampson all received pensions for their service in the American Revolutionary War of Independence. Despite her military service, and the fact that she suffered from neuralgia,diabetes and had toes amputated and had to walk with a crutch; despite her injuries and health issues, Williams would be denied disability payments. It is believed that Williams died sometime around 1893 (shortly after being denied a military pension for her service). Her exact resting place is unknown.

External Education Resources



By LEON KWASI CHRONICLES Posted on

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BLACK HISTORY SPOTLIGHT:✊🏿🌍 DENMARK VESEY

Black History Spotlight:Denmark Vesey

By: Leon Kwasi Kuntuo-Asare

Early Life

Denmark Vesey is believed to of been born in 1767 in St.Thomas,West Indies. He was the slave of captain Vesey,who was a slave trader and planter from Charleston, South Carolina. He spent at least two decades sailing with his slave master.

Freedom

In 1800 Vesey was able to purchase his freedom from his master, after he allegedly won a local lottery. Vesey would go into the trade of carpentry, and would become relatively successful.

Legacy

In 1818 Vesey would become a powerful speaker and preacher, he would travel to slave plantations in his local area. Vesey would preach to his fellow black people, (who were suffering horribly in forced bondage), that they would fight for and gain their liberation like the ancient Israelites of the Holy Bible. Vesey, Allegedly held meetings at his home, where he would also collect firearms and other weapons that he intended to use to arm 9000 black people in South Carolina. Unfortunately, Vesey would be betrayed like Jesus Christ, by some of his own people that he intended to free, when some black slaves fearful of white retribution, informed the white authorities. Vesey, would defend himself well in court, but would ultimately be sentenced by a white supremacist jury to be hanged to death. 35 other blacks would be sentenced to hang too, and 35 others would be sold to brutal (even by American standards) West Indian plantations. If not for the betrayal of a few black Judas’s, his rebellion would of been the largest slave revolt in U.S. history. The white fear that was caused because of the failed revolt caused harsher and more punitive laws to be passed to control and dominate black people. In Hampton Park in Charleston, South Carolina, there is a statue dedicated to the memory and legacy of the black freedom fighter.

For more information on Demark Vesey, please use this link

For even more information on Denmark Vesey, please use this 2nd link

By LEON KWASI CHRONICLES Posted on

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WHITE MAN WHO TERRORIZED BLACK FAMILY WITH BURNING CROSS IN FRONT OF THEIR HOME GETS 11 YEARS IN PRISON

By: Leon Kwasi Kuntuo-Asare

On Tuesday, a White supremacist man from Mississippi was sentenced to 11 years in prison, because he and a friend burned a cross in front of the house of a Black family to racially intimidate them.

Months ago Louis Revette, a 38-year-old man and his co-conspirator pleaded guilty to performing the crimes they were charged with, which included the federal felonies of using fire in the commission of a federal felony, interference with housing rights and a federal civil rights violation from the incident that happened in October 2017.

“I want everyone to know I’m not proud of what happened,” he told people in the court. “I hate what I did. I cannot even believe I did that. I’ve never done anything like that before in my life.”

“Those who instill fear and terror into our neighbors and our fellow citizens because of the color of their skin will face the full weight and force of the law from the U.S. attorney’s office,’ Mike Hurst, the U.S. attorney for Southern Mississippi, said in a statement from the Justice Department. “There is absolutely no place in our society or our country for this type of behavior, and we will do all that we can to prevent these racist acts and bring to justice those who are intent on committing these crimes.”

Revette’s co-conspirator, Graham Williams is scheduled to sentenced on November, 5 2019, and he could face up to 30 years in prison.

For additional information use the link below:

https://atlantablackstar.com/2019/09/11/mississippi-man-burns-crosses-outside-black-familys-home-slapped-with-11-years-in-prison/

By LEON KWASI CHRONICLES Posted on

african diaspora 3

BLACK HISTORY SPOTLIGHT: THE FORMER SLAVE CALLIE HOUSE AND HER FIGHT FOR REPARATIONS

By: Leon Kwasi Kuntuo-Asare

Callie House was born a slave in Rutherford, County, not too far from Nashville, Tennessee . House would get married at the young age of 22. Callie and her husband William House would have six children together, but only 5 of those children would survive. After Callie’s husband William House died, she would financially support herself and her family by being a washerwoman.

Later in life, House and a man named Isaiah H. Dickerson would travel through the former Confederate states that formerly sanctioned the ownership of them and their fellow Black people to gain support for the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association (MRB&PA).

They would have their gatherings in Black churches, because that was one of the only places Black people could somewhat safely come together without being threatened and harrassed by the White supremacist public.

The objective of the organization, which at its peak had hundreds of thousands of members was to provide compensation, mutual aid and to assist in burial costs of those Black people who were formerly enslaved.

The Federal Post Office Department, despite not having any proof would often accuse reparation organizations like the MRB&PA of committing fraud against its members in an effort to discredit the movement and sabotage their progress.

The Department of Justice would open an investigation on the MRB&PA, and they would eventually be forbidden from sending mail or money orders. In 1901, Dickerson would be found guilty of “swindling”, but the conviction would eventually be overturned. When Dickerson died in 1909, House would become the sole-leader of the MRB&PA. Despite interference and harrassment by the federal government and the Post Office Department the MRB&PA would go on for a while. Eventually though, trumped-up charges or not the Federal government would convict House in 1918, effectively ending the MRB&PA and their fight for reparations.

House would die in 1928 at the age of 66 or 67.

Years later her courage would be remembered and honored when in 2015 the African American and Diaspora Program at Vanderbilt University renamed their research center the Callie House Research Center for the Study of Black Cultures and Politics.

For additional information use the link below:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callie_House

By LEON KWASI CHRONICLES Posted on

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BLACK WOMAN AWARDED $1 MILLION DOLLARS IN RACIAL AND GENDER DISCRIMINATION CASE AGAINST THE STATE OF ARIZONA

By: Leon Kwasi Kuntuo-Asare

Talonya Adams, a Black woman who was an Arizona Senate staffer was awarded one million dollars in damages by a federal judge who sided with her in her case against the state of Arizona.

According to the suit, Adams was fired as a policy adviser to the Senate’s Democratic caucus in 2015, when she started to question her heavy workload and relatively low salary.

Adams, represented herself in the case, and was able to prove that she was paid a lot less than her White Male co-workers, who performed the same job, she also mentioned the differences in the amount of leave she was allowed to take versus the amount of leave her White male counterparts were allowed to take.

For additional information use the link below:

https://atlantablackstar.com/2019/07/16/former-arizona-senate-staffer-represents-herself-in-court-scores-1m-award-in-racial-and-gender-discrimination-case/

By LEON KWASI CHRONICLES Posted on

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TENNESSEE GOVERNOR BILL LEE SIGNED A PROCLAMATION GIVING WHITE SUPREMACIST CONFEDERATE, KKK LEADER HIS OWN HOLIDAY

By: Leon Kwasi Kuntuo-Asare

Tennessee governor, Bill Lee signed a proclamation that declared July 13, as Nathan Bedford Forest Day.

Who was Nathan Bedford Forest you ask? Well, he was a treacherous and treasonous American who betrayed his country to fight for the treasonous Confederate army.

He was also a slave trader, the first Grand Wizard of the KKK, and he was responsible for the Fort Pillow Massacre, which occurred after the Battle of Fort Pillow, when General Forest and his troops massacred Black Union soldiers and their White officers, who were attempting to surrender at the time.

According to CBS NEWS:

According to the Tennessee code, the governor must declare January 19 as “Robert E. Lee Day”; February 12 as “Abraham Lincoln Day”; March 15 as “Andrew Jackson Day”; June 3 as “Memorial or Confederate Decoration Day”; July 13 as “Nathan Bedford Forrest Day”; and November 11, as “Veterans’ Day.”

“I signed the bill because the law requires that I do that and I haven’t looked at changing that law,” Lee said Thursday.

That being said there have been governors in the past who refused to sign proclamations, like Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, who refused to sign a proclamation for the book “This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm,” which is about farming and family because he believed the author and journalist Ted Genoways, was too critical of President Donald Trump.

For additional information use the links below:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theroot.com/tennessee-gov-declares-day-honoring-slave-trader-and-e-1836335192/amp

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/424354-gop-nebraska-governor-refuses-to-sign-proclamation-honoring-author-who%3famp

By LEON KWASI CHRONICLES Posted on

african diaspora 0

AMERICA’S LAST SLAVE DIED IN 1971

By: Leon Kwasi Kuntuo-Asare

With all the talk about reparations for the descendants of American slaves currently going on around the country, anti-reparation people would have you believe that slavery was so long ago, it wasn’t.

The last surviving person born a slave in the antebellum south was a man named, John Magee. Magee was born in North Carolina in 1841.
Magee’s parents Jeanette and Ephraim were slaves on the J.J. Shanks plantation.

Magee told people that before the Civil War he was sold to a plantation owner by the name of Hugh Magee, at a slave market in Enterprise, Mississippi.

Some say that Magee was later sold to Victory Steen, who ran a slave plantation near Florence, Mississippi. Magee would claim that in 1863 he escaped the bondage of the Steen plantation and enlisted in the Union Army, reportedly he was part of an assault on Vicksburg in Mississippi.

Magee would later get wounded at both Vicksburg and Champion Hill. After the end of the war, Magee returned to his life, but this time as a “free man”, he would begin farming near Columbia, Mississippi with a White mam named, Tom Mix.

In the early 1990’s, Magee would move to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, before later returning to Columbia, Mississippi, to work for a sawmill operator named, Richard Davis. Magee, was trusted and respected enough to supervise the mill when, Davis was away.

Magee would die on October 15, 1971.

For additional information use the link below:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Magee

By LEON KWASI CHRONICLES Posted on