KING MANSA MUSA OF OLD MALI EMPIRE - ONE OF THE RICHEST MEN WHO EVER LIVED

TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

Celebrating our African historical personalities, discoveries, achievements and eras as proud people with rich culture, traditions and enlightenment spanning many years.

Thursday, July 26, 2012
KING MANSA MUSA OF OLD MALI EMPIRE - ONE OF THE RICHEST MEN WHO EVER LIVED

Mansa Kankan Musa

Mansa Kankan Musa(1312-1337 AD) , ‘The Lion of Mali’ was the tenth mansa, better known as “king of kings” or “emperor”, of the Malian Empire of Mali West Africa. He became one of the most powerful and wealthiest leaders of his time. He made Mali’s name renowned in the imaginations of European and Islamic countries In the 14^th century.
The wealth he commanded, social customs and grandeur of his court, led to the kingdom of Mali being internationally revered (Cheney 2004)


He is most noted for his pilgrimage to Mecca which put Mali on the map, Degraft-Johnson (1998) noted, ‘It was in 1324 … that the world awoke to the splendour and grandeur of Mali. There across the African desert, and making its way to Mecca, was a caravan of a size which had never before been seen, a caravan consisting of 60,000 men. They were Mansa Musa’s men, and Mansa Musa was with them. He was not going to war: he was merely going to worship at Mecca. The huge caravan included a personal retinue of 12,000 servants, all dressed in brocade and Persian silk. Mansa Musa himself rode on horseback, and directly preceding him were 500 servants, each carrying a staff of gold weighing about six pounds (500 mitkal). In Egypt, Musa spent so much money in gold that he devastated that nation’s economy. For years after Mansa Musa’s visit, ordinary people in the streets of Cairo, Mecca, and Baghdad talked about this wonderful pilgrimage - a pilgrimage which led to the devaluation of gold in the Middle East for several years.”

HUEY P. NEWTON, FOUNDER OF AFRO=AMERICAN SOCIETY AND CO=FOUNDER OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY

TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

Celebrating our African historical personalities, discoveries, achievements and eras as proud people with rich culture, traditions and enlightenment spanning many years.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

HUEY P. NEWTON, THE GREAT CIVIL RIGHT ACTIVIST, FOUNDER OF AFRO=AMERICAN SOCIETY AND CO=FOUNDER OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY

‘My parents taught me to be unafraid of life and therefore unafraid of death.’

Huey P. Newton (1942-1989) founded the Afro-American Society and was a co-founder of the Black Panther Party, serving as its minister of defense during much of the 1960s. Later he turned to community service for the poor.

Huey P. Newton was born February 17, 1942, in Monroe, Louisiana. The youngest of seven children, Huey was named for former Louisiana governor Huey Pierce Long. The Newton family moved to Oakland, California, in 1945 to take advantage of the job opportunities created by World War II wartime industries.

Huey attended the Oakland public schools where, he claimed, he was made to feel “uncomfortable and ashamed of being black.” He responded by constantly and consistently defying authority, which resulted in frequent suspensions. At the age of 14, he was arrested for gun possession and vandalism. In his autobiography, Revolutionary Suicide, Newton wrote, “during those long years in the Oakland public schools, I did not have one teacher who taught me anything relevant to my own life or experience. Not one instructor ever awoke in me a desire to learn more or to question or explore the worlds of literature, science, and history. All they did was try to rob me of the sense of my own uniqueness and worth, and in the process they nearly killed my urge to inquire.”

ALEXANDER PUSHKIN -- RUSSIA`S GREATEST POET

TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

Celebrating our African historical personalities, discoveries, achievements and eras as proud people with rich culture, traditions and enlightenment spanning many years.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

ALEXANDER PUSHKIN (6 June 1799 – 10 February 1837), 

THE BLACK RUSSIAN WHO DEVELOPED RUSSIAN LITERATURE AND RUSSIA`S GREATEST POET

Alexander Pushkin (6 June 1799 – 10 February 1837)

Alexander Pushkin is usually credited with developing Russian literature and is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet. 

Pushkin was notoriously touchy about his honor and fought 29 duels. This may have been due to that fact that Pushkin’s Grand Father, Abram Petrovich Gannibal was an African possibly from Eritrea. He was ransomed and sent to Russia at the request of Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy, the Grandfather of another prominent Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Abram Petrovich Gannibal. initially, he was presented as a gift to Peter the Great who came to respect and admire Gannibal as a child and adopted him as his son. As a result, Gannibal was raised as a philosopher, scientist and military general

 

Although the vast majority of African Americans are unfamiliar with Pushkin's monumental works, most students of literature are at least aware of his "Blackamoor of Peter the Great," an unfinished romance which relates the biographical data of the poet's great-grandfather, Ibrahim Petrovitch Gannibal his black great-grandfather. 

Some early critics wrongly suspected that Pushkin attempted to aggrandize the African lineage of this black forebear by playing up the family tradition that he was an Ethiopian princeling. However, Pushkin certainly did not need to embellish his ancestor's own personal history. For the accomplishments of Ibrahim Petrovitch Gannibal are proof of what any man - despite his colour - could rise to, given the opportunity. Ibrahim was treated as no less than a member of the royal family at court and, in the biographical notes on him written either by his wife or by someone in her family shortly after his death, the following statement is made: 

"....he (Peter) wished to make examples of them and put (Russians) to shame by convincing them that out of every people and even from among wild men - such as Negroes, whom our civilized nations assign exclusively to the class of slave, there can be formed men who by dint of application can obtain knowledge and learning and thus become helpful to their monarch."

To a divine rights monarch like Peter whose relationship to a nation of serfs was entirely paternalistic, a child as a personal gift or possession could only be regarded as one of his own kith and kin. Indeed, at the eight-year old Ibrahim's baptism, the Emperor himself was his godfather, while his godmother was the Queen of Poland.

EMPEROR MANELIK II, THE ETHIOPIAN KING WHO DEFEATED THE ITALIANS IN THE BATTLE OF ADWA

TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

Celebrating our African historical personalities, discoveries, achievements and eras as proud people with rich culture, traditions and enlightenment spanning many years.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

EMPEROR MANELIK II, THE ETHIOPIAN KING WHO DEFEATED THE ITALIANS IN THE BATTLE OF ADWA

                                EMPEROR MANELIK II

                                                          (1844-1913)

‘Enemies have now come upon us to ruin our country and to change our religion. Our enemies have begun the affair by advancing and digging into the country like moles. With the help of God I will not deliver my country to them. Today, you who are strong, give me your strength, and you who are weak, help me by prayer.’

—Menelik II, Mobilization Proclamation

Born in 1844, Menelik II was one of the most celebrated of Ethiopia’s rulers, and led the most successful campaign of African resistance to repel the onslaught of European colonialism. 

Ethiopia has had a monarchy for most of its history, and the Ethiopian dynasty can trace its roots to the 2nd century BC. Ethiopia is also one of the oldest sites of human existence known to scientists today, having yielded some of humanity’s oldest traces. Ethiopia is the worlds second oldest christian country.

Menelik’s reign (1889-1913) coincided with the European Scramble for Africa. After serving as governor of Shoa for twenty-five years, Menelik became emperor in 1889. During his reign, he doubled the area he inherited, incorporating vast areas of southern Ethiopia into his domain, mainly through conquest.

Always eager to embrace new technology in his quest to modernize ancient Ethiopia, Menelik’s innovations were unprecedented in Ethiopian history. Among these were first and foremost the creation of the capital, Addis Ababa, in the mid 1880s; construction of modern bridges and telegraph lines; concession for a railroad; establishment of the bank of Abyssinia, the first hotel, hospitals, and schools; national currency; mint; a postal system and national newspaper.

Italy, with a colony already established in Eritrea, had designs on Ethiopia. In 1889, Ethiopia and Italy negotiated the Treaty of Wuchale. Written in Amharic and Italian, the most significant article of the treaty was viewed differently by both parties. The Amharic text stated that Italy’s services were available to the emperor for all communications with foreign powers, while the Italian text made this compulsory.

Famous Historical Muslims of African/Black Origin

TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

Celebrating our African historical personalities, discoveries, achievements and eras as proud people with rich culture, traditions and enlightenment spanning many years.

Famous Historical Muslims of African/Black Origin

Islamic civilization currently encompasses every culture, ethnicity, race, and language on the planet. The pages of Islamic history are filled with the emergence of many different ethno-linguistic groups, from regions as far apart as West Africa and Central Asia, as important political and cultural forces, which greatly impacted the direction of Islamic civilization. Unfortunately, despite this reality, Muslim history has often been presented as a series of accomplishments revolving around Arabs, Persians, and Turks, to the exclusion of all other groups. The rich histories of hundreds of Muslim ethnic, racial, and linguistic groups have too often been overlooked or overshadowed by this mistaken approach towards Muslim history and expropriated by the master narrative which seeks to identify Muslim history with a very specific cultural and geographic context. 

The marginalization of the historical legacy of African Muslims needs to be understood within this broader context.  Black Muslims, or Muslims of African origin, have played—and continue to play— a particularly important role in Islamic civilization as ascetics, reformers, leaders, revolutionaries, and scholars. In many ways, the egalitarian and diverse spirit of Islam is most clearly manifested in this history, the impact of which extended far beyond Africa and the influence of which has left a significant historical legacy. Yet, many Muslims are ignorant of this rich history. How many Muslim youths are familiar with the story of Usāma ibn Zayd? When we speak of revolution and justice, who today speaks of the Zanj rebellion, an ultimately unsuccessful struggle, colored by messianic tendencies, waged by African Muslims in order to transform an unjust social and political order? Moreover, in theological circles, while we examine the works of Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Ghazālī, and Ibn Arabī—volumes of which have been translated and are readily available—the reformist thought of Usmān dan Fodio, Nānā Asmā’u and Amadou Bamba remains a mystery to most Muslims, many of whom have scarcely heard the names of these great scholars from West Africa. It is important for many Muslims to reclaim this history, which has too often been forgotten or marginalized. This process of reclamation begins with the recognition of those individuals who shaped this history and who contributed to Islamic civilization. Among the most important of these men and women are:

Sumayya b. Khayyāṭ (d. 615). Sumayya was one of the first women to embrace Islam during the Meccan period, shortly after the declaration of the Prophet’s mission in 610 A.D. She was the wife of Yāsir b. ‘Āmir and mother to ‘Ammār b. Yāsir. Originally a slave, she was later freed following the birth of her son. Sumayya, her husband, and her son were the first instance in the history of the faith of an entire family embracing Islam. Due to the staunch opposition of the Quraysh tribe of Mecca to the new faith, however, Sumayya and her family (lacking tribal protection, since they were of humble origins) bore the brunt of the persecution of the Meccans as they attempted to destroy the nascent Islamic faith. Due to their refusal to abandon their new faith, both Sumayya and Yāsir were publicly tortured before being executed (in front of their son, ‘Ammār) by the Qurashi tribal chieftain Abū Jahl ‘Amr b. Hishām in 615 A.D. As such, Sumayya is considered to be the first martyr in Islam according to Muslim tradition.

ELLA FITZGERALD -- THE FIRST LADY OF JAZZ

TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

Celebrating our African historical personalities, discoveries, achievements and eras as proud people with rich culture, traditions and enlightenment spanning many years.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

ELLA THE FIRST LADY OF JAZZ

Ella Jane Fitzgerald ((April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella") ca. Sept. 1947, 
Ella fitzgerald,Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Brown, Milt Jackson, and Timmie Rosenkrantz, Downbeat, New York, N.Y., 


It isn't where you came from, its where you're going that counts.
– Ella Fitzgerald

Known as the "First Lady of Jazz" singer Ella Fitzgerald was born April 25, 1917, in Newport News, Virginia. From rather humble beginnings Fitzgerald and her smooth,silky voice climbed to the top of the jazz world. During her long career she worked with greats from Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong to Dizzy Gillespie and Frank Sinatra. In all Ella recorded over 200 albums and around 2,000 songs in her lifetime. She died on June 15, 1996.

Early Years

Singer. Born Ella Jane Fitzgerald on April 25, 1917, in Newport News, Virginia, Fitzgerald was the product of a common-law marriage between William Fitzgerald and Temperance Williams Fitzgerald. Ella experienced a troubled childhood that began with her parents separating just a month after her birth.

With her mother, Ella moved to Yonkers, New York. In 1932 Ella's mother died unexpectedly, forcing Fitzgerald to move in with an aunt. These were difficult years for Ella. While she dreamed of being a dancer or making it as a singer, Ella spent a good deal of her time "running numbers" and acting as a lookout for a brothel.

She eventually dropped out of high school, and after being picked up by police found a new home at a reform school, where it's suspected she was abused.

In the autumn of 1934 Ella ran away from the reform school and started living on the streets. Still harboring dreams of becoming a singer, she entered an amateur contest at Harlem's Apollo Theater on November 21, 1934. She sang two songs that night, "The Object of My Affection" and "Judy", to win a $25 first place prize and eventually, capture the attention of renowned band leader and drummer, Chick Webb.

"I thought my singing was pretty much hollering, but Webb didn't," Fitzgerald would later recall.

Commercial Success

That unexpected performance at the Apollo set Fitzgerald's career in motion. In 1935 she recorded "Love and Kisses" with Webb and in 1938 she put out her first hit, "A-Tisket A-Tasket," which she co-wrote. Later that year Ella recorded her second hit, "I Found My Yellow Basket," which climbed to No. 3 on the charts.

Following Webb's death in 1939, Ella became the leader of the band, which was renamed Ella Fitzgerald and her Famous Orchestra.

Over the next six decades, Ella Fitzgerald sat atop the jazz world. She performed with fellow musical giants such as Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie and Frank Sinatra. She even earned the moniker "The First Lady of Jazz" for her mainstream popularity and unparalleled vocal talents. Her unique ability to mimicking instrumental sounds helped popularize the vocal improvisation of "scatting" which became her signature technique.

While some critics complained that her style and voice lacked the depth of some her more bluesy counterparts, her success and the respect she garnered from the biggest names in the music industry showed that Fitzgerald was in a class all her own.

In all Fitzgerald recorded more than 200 albums and some 2,000 songs in her lifetime. Her total record sales exceeded 40 million. Her many accolades included 13 Grammy Awards, the NAACP Image Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Later Years

Over the final two decades of her life, Ella's recordings marked a decline in her voice due to complications from diabetes. The disease left her blind, and she had both legs amputated in 1994. She made her last recording in 1989 and her last public performance in 1991 at New York's Carnegie Hall. Ella Fitzgerald died on June 15, 1996, at her home in Beverly Hills.

Fitzgerald was briefly married to Benny Kornegay, a convicted drug dealer and hustler, in 1941. She was married to bass player Ray Brown from 1947 to 1952; they adopted a child born to Fitzgerald's half-sister whom they christened Ray Brown, Jr. Fitzgerald.

In 2007 the United States Postal Service honored the late singer with an Ella Fitzgerald Commemorative Stamp.

EMPEROR LUCIUS SEPTIMUS SEVERUS: FOUNDER OF THE AFRICAN DYNASTY OF ROMAN EMPERORS AND YORK BASED 3RD CENTURY BLACK ROMAN EMPEROR

TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

Celebrating our African historical personalities, discoveries, achievements and eras as proud people with rich culture, traditions and enlightenment spanning many years.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

EMPEROR LUCIUS SEPTIMUS SEVERUS: FOUNDER OF THE AFRICAN DYNASTY OF ROMAN EMPERORS AND YORK BASED 3RD CENTURY BLACK ROMAN EMPEROR

Septimius Severus (b. at Leptis Magna inAfrica, 11 April, 146; d. at York, England, 4 February, 211.)

Severus came from a family that had become Roman citizens. In his career as an official at Rome and in the provinces he had been favored by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. In the reign of Commodus he was appointed legate of the fourth legion on the Euphrates; this gave him the opportunity to become acquainted with affairs in the East. He married Julia Domna, a member of a priestly family of Emesa, who was the mother of Caracalla and Geta.

      Julia Domna, wife of African roman emperor Lucius Severus