Black As A Mug

07/25/2021

The founder of San Francisco was a wealthy Black Man.
William A. Leidesdorff Jr 1810-1848
America's First Black Millionaire - Founder of San Francisco

Born to an African Cuban mother and Danish father, William was a maritime ship captain who sailed and owned land in NY, Hawaii, Louisiana, Alaska, and California.

He left the Virgin Islands as a youth, journeying to New Orleans, to engage in maritime trade. With time, his fortunes increasing, he became a master of vessels, sailing between New Orleans and New York. However, he soon felt the lure of the West and bought the 106-ton schooner, “Julia Ann,” in which he would make the now famous trading voyage to the Pacific. After long months in passage he brought his vessel into San Francisco Bay, landing at the point known as Yerba Buena Cove.

Leidesdorff came ashore and the little town was never the same In 1841 he settled in Yerba Buena (San Francisco), CA. He built the city's first hotel at Clay and Kearny Streets, he opened the city's first shipping warehouse, was the owner of the first steamship to sail on San Francisco Bay, he opened the city's first general store, he opened the city's first lumberyard and shipyard, he was San Francisco’s first Treasurer, and donated land for its 1st public school as the 1st President of the School Board. He was also the U.S. Vice Consul to Mexican California.

Leidesdorff opened a mercantile business and developed a profitable export-import trade route between San Francisco and Honolulu and was the city's first shipbuilder and lumberyard owner.
He did all this by the age of 35. The man was a master businessman.
In 1842 he received 35,500 acres of land from Mexico and built a ranch in today's Folsom, California. His steamship, The Sitka, is on the California State Seal. The Declaration of Independence was read for the first time in California on the veranda at his home in July 1846.

After commissioning a survey of his land, he died mysteriously at age 38, just 1 day before a public announcement of gold on his property. More info in the comments….

09/29/2020

Mustang Horses were first brought to North America by Don Juan de Ońate the conquistador. This breed of horse originated in Central Asia and then migrated to North Africa. The Moors of North Africa brought the horse to Spain and the Spaniards brought them to America to the plains of Texas.

The Apache were the first indigenous tribe to learn how to ride but the science of riding, breeding and breaking horses was perfected by the Comanche who are said to be the greatest horsemen ever.

On slave plantations the enslaved African was usually in charge of the maintenance of horses which included feeding, breaking, and in some cases breeding which gave them the ability to be master riders themselves.

After the civil war freed Africans began to move west. Of the 35,000 Cowboys in the west, more than 35% were black. Some had already began to move west before the civil war in search of making a fortune and the horse was an important part of the transportation and trade.

During the Spanish-Indian wars and the American - Indian wars, several thousand horses were captured by each side and some of them escaped into the wild. In the plains of the west, 30,000 of these horses are still living in the wild.

The direct descendants of the horses that came from North Africa to Spain through the Moors and to Spain to America with the Spanish.

06/20/2020

Here’s some history you may not have known:

Juneteenth is recognized as the day the last enslaved people learned of the Emancipation proclamation. It is important to recognize, however, that our criminal legal system has been used since to continue forced labor. Here is a slice of that history shared by a friend that you should know and understand: “In 1866, one year after the 13th Amendment was ratified (the amendment that ended slavery), Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina began to lease out convicts for labor (peonage). This made the business of arresting Blacks very lucrative, which is why hundreds of White men were hired by these states as police officers. Their primary responsibility was to search out and arrest Blacks who were in violation of Black Codes [Virginia also had Black Codes that made certain conduct criminal only for Black people.]. Once arrested, these men, women, and children would be leased to plantations where they would harvest cotton, to***co, sugar cane. Or they would be leased to work at coal mines or railroad companies. The owners of these businesses would pay the state for every prisoner who worked for them; prison labor.

It is believed that after the passing of the 13th Amendment, more than 800,000 Blacks were part of the system of peonage, or re-enslavement through the prison system. Peonage didn’t end until after World War II began, around 1940.

This is how it happened.

The 13th Amendment declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." (Ratified in 1865)

Did you catch that? It says, “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude could occur except as a punishment for a crime". Lawmakers used this phrase to make petty offenses crimes. When Blacks were found guilty of committing these crimes, they were imprisoned and then leased out to the same businesses that lost slaves after the passing of the 13th Amendment. This system of convict labor is called peonage.

The majority of White Southern farmers and business owners hated the 13th Amendment because it took away slave labor. As a way to appease them, the federal government turned a blind eye when southern states used this clause in the 13th Amendment to establish laws called Black Codes. Here are some examples of Black Codes:

In Louisiana, it was illegal for a Black man to preach to Black congregations without special permission in writing from the president of the police. If caught, he could be arrested and fined. If he could not pay the fines, which were unbelievably high, he would be forced to work for an individual or go to jail or prison where he would work until his debt was paid off.

If a Black person did not have a job, he or she could be arrested and imprisoned on the charge of vagrancy or loitering.

This next Black Code will make you cringe. In South Carolina, if the parent of a Black child was considered vagrant, the judicial system allowed the police and/or other government agencies to “apprentice” the child to an "employer". Males could be held until the age of 21, and females could be held until they were 18. Their owner had the legal right to inflict punishment on the child for disobedience and to recapture them if they ran away.

This (peonage) is an example of systemic racism - Racism established and perpetuated by government systems. Slavery was made legal by the U.S. Government. Segregation, Black Codes, Jim Crow, and peonage were all made legal by the government, and upheld by the judicial system. These acts of racism were built into the system, which is where the term “Systemic Racism” is derived.

This is the part of "Black History" that most of us were never told about."

(Copied and pasted from a friend. Please feel free to do the same!)”

06/10/2020

May 13th marked 35 years since the Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on a West Philly neighborhood, specifically on the house of a Black liberation group called MOVE, killing 11 members, including 5 children, destroying 61 homes and leaving 250 people homeless.

On the day of the bombing, the police were sent to the MOVE house to execute arrest warrants for several members. When those inside the house refused to respond, the authorities decided to take extreme measures. They somehow justified the use of military grade weapons, despite their knowledge of children on the premises.

500 police officers shot 10,000 rounds of ammo with automatic weapons at the house. The police commissioner then ordered to bomb the house, with a helicopter dropping a satchel bomb, a demolition device typically used in combat, onto the roof. After detonation, officials let the fire spread throughout the neighborhood.

Despite this event being the only account of an aerial bombing of US citizens on US soil no one was ever prosecuted.

06/09/2018

06/01/2018

The pen is mightier than the sword. Sometimes....

Lucy Parsons didn't need any weapons to strike fear in the eyes of the FBI, she only needed her pen. She was an advocate for the poor, but the FBI feared her prolific writing could fuel a revolution.

04/10/2018

To answer them: Hell ta than Naw!

During the middle of the 1800s, cotton became the world’s largest commodity. The cheapest and best cotton came from the southern United States. Edward Baptist argues in his new book, “The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism,” that the forced migration and su...

03/20/2018

Feed your mind with knowledge.

Hunger was Douglass' constant companion as a boy. As a young man, he escaped slavery and became a heroic abolitionist who revealed how food was a key tool in the immoral mechanics of slavery.

02/03/2018

Happy Black History Month!

11/01/2017

Let em Know!

Descendants of Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist and orator, responded on Tuesday to the praise White House Chief of Staff John Kelly bestowed upon Confederate General Robert E. Lee, telling …

10/28/2017

The is almost complete! Some minor changes but I'm happy with the results. What do you think?

09/15/2017

The home going services for will be streaming tomorrow September 16th on starting at 3 pm.