Tag: Leon
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Black History SPOTLIGHT: Dutty Boukman
Black History Spotlight: Dutty Boukman
By: Leon Kwasi Kuntuo-Asare
Early Life
Dutty Boukman (year unknown) born in Senegambia (now the nations of Gambia and Senegal).Before,he was captured in his homeland,he had built a reputation as a respected Muslim cleric. While in Senegambia he would eventually get kidnapped by slavers and transported to the slave colonies in the Caribbean to forcibly work as a slave. He would first be taken to Jamaica, and then to Saint-Dominque (modern-day) Haiti.
Life As A Slave
Once in Haiti, Boukman would risk his life by attempting to teach other slaves how to read, and he would also combine his Quranic knowledge and his knowledge of traditional African religion to become a Haitian vodou priest. Some historians believe the French name of Boukman, derived from his English nickname of “book man”, as in “man of the book”, a term used in many Muslim countries.
Revolutionary Leader
Boukman would eventually be sold to a French plantation owner, who would first select him to be a commadeur (slave driver), he would later transitioned to being a coach driver. According to many scholars, Boukman and a Haitian woman named Cecile Fatiman) a vodou priestess would perform a religious ceremony at Bois Caiman, in August 1791. This ceremony would led to the 1791 Haitian slave uprising, which many historians consider to be the beginning of the Haitian revolution. Boukman would use his charismatic personality and leadership skills to help lead the slave revolt in the Le Cap-Francais region in the north of the French colony. Sadly, he would be killed by French colonial troops and planters, only a few months into the slave revolt. The French would decapitate Boukman and display the fallen freedom fighter’s head in an attempt to intimidate revolters by showing them the head of their messianic leader. The tactic would ultimately, fail and Haiti would become the only successful self-liberated slave rebellion in the world, when they defeated the powerful Napoleonic French empire in 1804. Since, Haiti was a very rich colony for the French, that defeat would force the now economically-struggling French to sell its massive amounts of land to the United States, this would be known as the Louisiana purchase.
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BLACK HISTORY SPOTLIGHT: GARRETT MORGAN
By: Leon kwasi Kuntuo-Asare
Garret Augustus Morgan, was born o March 4, 1877 in Claysville, Kentucky. His father a man named Sydney Morgan was a freed-slave, and the son of confederate colonel John H. Morgan, his mother was a slave woman named Elizabeth Reed. At the age of 14, having only a 6th grade education, he would move to Cincinnati,Ohio to look for work. Morgan would eventually gain employment as a handyman for a Cincinnati landowner. In his free-time, he would further his knowledge by studying with a tutor he hired. In 1895, Morgan would move to Cleveland, Ohio, where heee found work as a sewing machine repairman for a clothing maker. The skills he required as a repairman would ultimately send him on the journey of becoming an inventor. He would invent a belt fastener for sewiing machines, and in 1912 he would get his first patent.
when he was not working or inventing, Morgan became interested in his own Black American heritage and the plight of his fellow Black American people, in 1908, he would co-found the Cleveland Association of Colored Men, which was a group dedicated to improving the social and economic situation for Black people. The group would later merge with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Morgan would move his activities beyond entrepreneurship, inventing and activism and would become a philanthropist, giving his own money to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to help educate his people.
As a businessman, Morgan would eventually open his own sewing business. In 1909, Morgan and his wife Mary Anne expanded their small and growing business empire by opening a clothing store called Morgan’s Cut Rate Ladies Clothing Store. Where he would employee his own people and at one time his store employed 32 people.
As an inventor he would go on to invent Black hair products, the stoplight and the smokehood (a precursor to the gas mask).
He would die on July 27, 1963, in Cleveland, Ohio after living to the ripe age of 86.
