P. Djéli Clark | The Disgruntled Haradrim
@pdjeliclark
Historian. Writer. Jumbie & Duppy Conqueror. Rambler of Things. Doer of Stuff. Brotha From Another Planet | pdjeliclark.com
Clearing out old comics at my parents house, and selling em’ .50 cents a piece. Someone yanked this from the stack—and I had to snatch it back. Nah, not this one.
Okay. Officially my fave character in Widow’s Bay. Because that’s how you handle that situation.
On July 2, 1917 white mobs in East St Louis began a “race riot” that left 50 to 200 Black people dead; 6000 more fled the city. On July 28 the NAACP led a Silent Parade on Fifth Avenue in New York City, in protest. One sign evoked Crispus Attucks, and his role in the paradox of American liberty.
“But in recent years, it has occurred to me from time to time that it might have made for an interesting twist if instead I had made the dragonlords of Valyria… and therefore the Targaryens… black. Maybe I could have kept the silver hair too….”— George RR Martin, 2013
My first introduction to Mel Brooks as a kid. Still say this line at least once a week…
On that last post: while this "Nubian king" in 13th c. Constantinople is hard to verify (there's one quote) the mention likely represents long diplomatic ties between Christian East Africa and the Byzantine world. A tradition carried on by medieval Christian Ethiopia. Lots of fodder for Prester John
Team Black looking at Sheepstealer at Battle of the Gullet.
20/ By the 21st century, Juneteenth was one of the few Freedom Days left standing for Black communities eager to commemorate emancipation. Long championed by the Fort Worth educator Opal Lee, Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021. Img: Ms. Opal Lee | Vanity Fair
The last posts 16/ Some Freedom Days held on. One was June 19, called Juneteenth by the 1880s. It’s hard to say exactly why it survived. But former slaves thought the day so important they raised $1000 in 1872 to buy land for their commemoration—Emancipation Park. Img: 1880s Emancipation Park | HPL
11/ And there were local traditions. Like April 16 in DC and Juneteenth in TX, Baltimore celebrated Nov 1, the end of slavery in MD in 1864. Between May and Oct 1901, Buffalo, NY commemorated Jan 1, July 5th, and August First. Many more existed across the US, in cities and towns. Img: NYSM, 1901
9/ But many wanted a National Freedom Day. January 1 for the Emancipation Proclamation seemed a good choice. In NC Jan 1 was celebrated with military parades. In Charleston hundreds watched marchers and brass bands. In Chicago Jan 1 included picnics and processions in the city. Img: Charleston 1877
8/ Black Richmonders held Freedom Day on April 3 and also April 9, the day Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Parades for DC Emancipation were held in mid-April by 1866. And in Houston, Texans began celebrating June 19. Img: DC Emancipation 1866 | NMAAHC
1/ Ok Got food. Got drink. Round 2. On Dec 31 1862, the enslaved in Union held territory, free Blacks, and their allies all waited for the Emancipation Proclamation to take effect. Watch Night became a common celebration. Freedom Days quickly followed. Img: Freedom Day Richmond VA April 3 1905 | LOC
16/ Like past Freedom Days, August First faced violence. In 1842 Philadelphia, a Black August First march was attacked by Irish working-class mobs. When the marchers fought back, the mobs burned and looted the Black community in three days of rioting. Image: Lombard Riots Marker, PA
12/ August First drew crowds in the thousands, using emancipation in the British Caribbean to argue for abolition in America. Speakers included Frederick Douglass, the Liberator editor William Lloyd Garrison, the Black writer and suffragist Frances EW Harper and Ralph Waldo Emerson. | Image, 1857
Let's keep going. 10/ The most prominent Black Freedom Day in early America was August First—commemorating the end of slavery in the British Caribbean in 1834. Black Americans and their allies made this “borrowed day of Jubilee” their own, using it as a model for “peaceful” emancipation in America
9/ Black celebrants in Boston also had to contend with racist broadsides, termed “Bobalition,” mocking Freedom Days in gross caricatures, vicious stereotypes, and unintelligible speech. Worse still, the broadsides were reprinted in newspapers as authentic accounts. Image c. 1823: Brown University.
1/ Happy Juneteenth! How a Texas emancipation commemoration spread across the US is an amazing story. But Juneteenth wasn’t the first Black Freedom Day in America—or the only one of its day. So, let’s talk about em’. Pictured: Martha Yates Jones and Pinkie V Yates, Houston Juneteenth, 1908 | HPL
What’s today?” cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes. “Today?” replied the boy. “Why, it’s Paperback Book Release Day sir!” ABENI AND THE KINGDOM OF GOLD | Out today in paperback | Tor Starscape | 4•28•26