Primary Sources, Black History

Slavery Survivors' Descendants Own Nat Turner Plantation! Turner Family offer Nat Turner's Cave, to be part of driving tour | http://bit.ly/NatTurnerTour The Turner descendants gained a piece of history when they inherited his two farms. Nat Turner was an enslaved African American who led a rebellion of enslaved and free black men in Southampton County, Virginia on August 21, 1831, that resulted in the deaths of 55 to 65 white people. He used a cave for his refuge . It was in that cave that Nat Turner was discovered. The Turner Family hope to have the location of the cave added as a part of a proposed driving tour — backed by the Southampton County Historical Society — that would follow the journey of Nat Turner and the rebellion. “We feel that it is our duty to our grandfather, Sidney, to pass on the history of our land, and that it is our purpose to keep that history alive for future generations,” Hawkins said.

Marlene Rivero portrays York's mother, whose son was the African-American Guide on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The painting is a self portrait as York's Mother Rose.Marlene Rivero developed her character in response to a Need to tell York's Story in 2003. The National Park Service first saw the program in Cairo, Illionois, and it has been seen by thosands of people between 2003-2006. It received honorable mention at the St louis, Mo. Marlene draws from the notes, songs, Costumes & spoken words she discovered while researching to tell of York's role in the L & C Exp. York was Clark’s childhood companion. He was enslaved. He was devoted to William Clark. He was a guide on the expedition. York had a great time on the expedition. He had, had his own rifle. He got to vote. He was a full member of the expedition. He had a, the Indians loved him.

Join The Gist of Freedom, www.blackhistoryblog.com, as we welcome William Lambert's descendant Christina Streety-Napier! Lambert was a friend of radical abolitionist John Brown and, like the more militant abolitionist leader Henry Highland Garnet, Lambert called for the slaves to rise up against their masters. At times Lambert very publicly helped fugitive slaves escape to Windsor, Canada, which was just across the Detroit River from the city of Detroit. Lambert’s most famous incident occurred in 1847, when he had the owner of fugitive slave Robert Cromwell thrown in jail so that Cromwell could escape to Canada by boat. Abolitionist and civil rights activist William Lambert was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1817, the son of a manumitted father and a freeborn mother. As a young man Lambert was educated by abolitionist Quakers. Twenty-three year old Lambert arrived in Detroit, Michigan in 1840 as a cabin boy on a steamboat, and eventually started a profitable tailoring and dry cleaning business. Upon his death Lambert left behind an estate estimated at $100,000. Lambert was also a founder of the St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church and served as one of its wardens. I

The Ebola outbreak, please Join The Gist of Freedom, The Black History Internet Radio show in welcoming Sierra Leonean Hindowa Saidu! "On Thursday the World Health Organization said that more than 1,900 people have died in West Africa Ebola out break. There have been 3,500 confirmed probable cases in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. More than 40 percent of death have occurred in the last three weeks, the W.H.O. said, suggesting that the epidemic is fast out pacing effort to control it, In spite of all of these development Sierra Leoneans in the state of Massachusetts in America in few hours time will be taking on the principal streets of Boston in a walk against the Ebola out break in their country and region. This is to draw the attention of the American public and the rest of the world to the suffering of our people as international press houses have been invited to fully cover the event. May God cause his face to shine on the land that we love Sierra Leone." ~ Hindowa Saidu

Oberlin College In 1835 became the first predominately white collegiate institution to admit African American male students and two years later it opened its doors to all women, becoming the first coeducational college in the country. In 1862, Mary J Patterson earned a B.A. becoming the first African American woman to earn a degree from an American college. Other black women had graduated earlier but did not receive the collegiate degree (BA). As part of the Underground Railroad, Oberlin’s intricate network of back road routes and safe houses, the college and town provided refuge for fugitive slaves bound for Canada. In 1858, students, faculty, and residents of Oberlin and nearby Wellington, Ohio rescued a runaway slave John Price from U.S. marshals, and transported him to freedom in Canada. One year later three African American residents of the town of Oberlin, Shields Green, Lewis Sheridan Leary, and John Anthony Copeland, participated in John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry. Unfortunately recently, Classes were canceled after a report of someone wearing what looked like a Ku Klux Klan-type hooded robe on campus. A police report has also detailed the defacement of Black History Month posters with the N-word, a "whites only" sign written above a water fountain, a swastika drawn on a science center window and a student knocked to the ground by a person making a derogatory comment about ethnicity. Two students are being investigated for possible involvement in the graffiti. The students have responded by organizing rallies of solidarity to show their disdain for the cowards who committed the racists acts! Click and Listen to Kimberly Simmons, a descendant of Abolitionists Oberlin Graduates as she speaks on these disturbing incidents from a historical perspective with The Gist of Freedom host Preston Washington www.BlogTalkRadio.com/BlackHistory