The Gist of Freedom Preserving American History through Black Literature . . .

Join Sherrie Tolliver as she shares her mother's artifacts and stories from her involvement in The Black Women's Club Movement.  Jane Edna Hunter  (1882-1971) –  Activist With the help of other women and $1,500, Jane Edna Hunter  opened the Working Girls Home Association, a boarding home for 10 women on East 40th, north of Central Avenue. The purpose of this voluntary association was to build a safe residence for the homeless, unprotected, newly arriving African American women and working women like herself. The purpose of the Department was to build a national network of Phyllis Wheatley Associations to house self-supporting, self-respecting African American women and girls and  provide a meeting place for club women. Hunter acquired a 2-story building and the name changed to the Phillis Wheatley Association, in honor of the late 18th-century Boston slavery survivor considered the first African American poet. The number of residents soon strained the capacity of the 23-room house. By 1919 the association purchased a 3-story building and An adjoining building,   The PWA was one of the first institutions designed to meet the needs of African American  social services  in Cleveland. Hunter wrote an autobiography, “A Nickel and a Prayer,” in 1940.

Congratulating Harvard for appointing a Black President! Tamara Lanier is suing Harvard for perpetuating a eugenics racist experiement involving horrific dehumanizing nude images of her enslaved ancestors. Although enslaved Papa Renty was a self-taught literate patriarch Harvard purports his intelligence was equal to a 5 month old fetus. With unshakable faith and hope he educated his family and distant kindred. Once free Renty’s descendants overcame insurmountable challenges and accomplished miraculous success. Tamara Lanier and her stark resemblance to her Papa Renty is living proof of his level of intelligence and resilience. Renty’s children established and self-governed their very own towns. Books and movies continue to document Renty’s inspirational legacy. In spite of the voluminous wealth of documentation. Harvard refuses to acknowledge these facts because Renty and Tamara’s spiritual and physical bond are diametrically opposed to the images and the racist pseudo science they perpetrated.  In 2016, President Obama signed the Holocaust Expropriation Art Recovery Act - HEAR Act; introduced, 2016 by Senators Cronyn, Cruz, Schumer, and Blumenthal. “ Nations and civil society groups expressed a renewed interest in addressing the restitution of art lost in the Holocaust. The United States led these efforts. In 1998, 43 nations met and addressed the restitution of art lost in the Holocaust. They unanimously approved the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, which declared that Holocaust victims & their heirs "should come forward and make known their claims to art that was confiscated restituted".

Before there was Sesame Street or Sesame Place, there was Coney Island,  “Granville’s Island”!  Granville T. Woods Known as the “Black Thomas Edison” was an engineer who invented and patented the electric roller coaster, which he introduced in the summer of 1909 at Coney Island. He developed dozens of innovative mass transit improvements.    ****** Join David Head  Edison sued Woods charging that he (Edison) was the first to invent the multiplex telegraph. After a costly court battle, Woods won the case. But even after losing to Woods, Edison remained so impressed with him that he offered the Black genius a partnership in one of his companies Woods was inducted into the Coney Island Hall of Fame, and an adja­cent street was renamed Granville T. Woods Way.Woods was inducted into the Coney Island Hall of Fame, and an adja­cent street was renamed Granville T. Woods Way.  List of BLACK RESORTS 1. Highland Beach, Maryland 2. Gulfside Assembly, Waveland, Mississippi 3. American Beach, Florida 4. Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts 5. Idlewild, Michigan . 6. Freeman Beach, Wilmington, North Carolina 7. Sag Harbor, New York 8. Bruce’s Beach, near Los Angeles, California 9. Buckroe Beach, Bay Shore and Mark Haven, Virginia 10. Gullah Sea Islands, Coast of Georgia and South Carolina The Idlewild Club House, Idlewild, Mich., September 1938.     ********* #sesamePlace #GranvilleTwoods  #GranvilleTWoodsPlace #GranvilleIsland’s #coneyisland

Join The Gist of Freedom as we welcome Miss Penny Beckham, the volunteer director of The Plate of Love Soup Kitchen located at State Tabernacle Church of God in Christ in Buffalo.    Beckham recalled many times seeing one of the victims of the massacre, Deacon Hayward Patterson take soup kitchen patrons aside while they waited for their food and give them needed encouragement. "If you were down, he’d always say something to encourage you or lift your spirits," she said. "He was one of those people who’d build you up. Even if you didn’t think you did much, he’d make you feel like you did." ******* Coordinator ...Missionary Laura Beckham Chefs: Jeffrey Peace & Terry Wideman Soup Kitchen Hours of operation: Saturday, 10am-12noon Wednesday, 12noon State Tabernacle, in the spirit of love, serves dozens in the community and those in need of a hot meal. The number of people served continues to grow and include not only individuals but entire families. It is set apart from many other soup kitchens in that we offer breakfast meal on Saturday when most other serve lunch. State Tabernacle partners with WNY food bank and generous donors to bring this much needed service to a community with high unemployment, low income families and a growing homeless population. We are expanding. Various individuals, ministries or auxiliary of the church assist in operation of the soup kitchen. Volunteers are Welcome

Join Kimberly L. Simmons as she lectures on the Detroit River Project and the Vigilance Cmmittee.

The Life of Black Abolitionist Mary Ann Shadd as told by her descendant Scholar Irene Moore Davis! A ceremony unveiling the statue of Mary Ann Shadd took place Thursday, May 12, 2022, at Windsor University in Canada.  Sculpted by local artist Donna Mayne. Watch it on the University of Windsor'sYouTube channel. Shadd a black abolitionist was one of the first Black female newspaper publishers and female journalists in Canada. Shadd founded The Provincial Freeman in 1853.  Shadd also helped her cousin, Osborne Perry Anderson pen the book “Sole Survivor, A Voice From Harper's Ferry” which is an account of his extraordinary and courageous role in John Brown’s Harper’s Ferry Raid! The event was live-streamed from the University of Windsor's downtown campus for the greater community.

Buffalo Massacre Dr. Manisha Sinha’s Monthly  Black History University Recap! ****** In honor of one of the ten victims, Ms. Pearly Young we ask that you donate food to your local food bank. Mrs. Young ran a food pantry and every saturday, for 25 years she donated food. *********** R.I.P #BuffaloSaints~ NY state abolished slavery in 1827, but Black people remained in danger of enslavement & kidnappings. In 1835, to fight back, Black abolitionist David Ruggles helped to found the N.Y. Committee of Vigilance an hybrid of the Black Panther Party & The NAACP. Black New Yorkers remained in danger of enslavement or re-enslavement through widespread kidnappings. Black sailors would go missing from ports. Children would disappear on their way home from school. In 1835, to fight back against the onslaught of oppression, Black abolitionist and businessman David Ruggles helped to found the New York Committee of Vigilance (NYCV), a multi-racial organization a hybrid of the Black Panther Party and The NAACP, would defend Black New Yorkers from predatory whites.  Jamila Brathwaite, authored “The Black Vigilance Movement in Nineteenth Century New York City,” writes, Ruggles fearlessly boarded ships in the New York harbor in search of Black captives or for signs of participants in the illegal slave trade. He published a list bounty hunters kidnappers and the free black traitors who aided them. His work would not have been possible without the efforts of the Black community and leaders like William Wells Brown, a promenient Black Aboltitionist from Buffalo. Brown along with unnamed black people passed along intelligence, fed, clothed, and sheltered fugitives. They also noted suspicious activities and people. Ruggles’ bookstore on Lespenard Street. It is the first known Black-owned bookstore in the United States.

Listen to Grady Lewis's in depth interview on the Gist of Freedom. Grady bought a drink for the mass shooter, in the Buffalo area shooting, one day before the allegedl gunman from Conklin, NY opened fire and live streamed the shooting of ten Black People at the supermarket in a predominantly black neighborhood. ******* A Saint who cared for people in the community was one of the victims of the Buffalo mass shooting. Pearly Young, 77, ran a food pantry in the Central Park neighborhood for 25 years, feeding people every Saturday. Young was killed Saturday while shopping for groceries. She loved singing and dancing. ****** New Zealand took 3 days to ban assault rifles after the mass shooting that inspired the Buffalo shooter. ******* Lewis said he and the shooter discussed "theories" like Time Machines, Critical Race Theory (CRT) and  black holes just hours before the alleged shooter opened fire in the parking lot, which left 10 people dead and three wounded. “I’m wondering, could I have talked to him and said, ‘Hey, we’re all one," Lewis told ABC News. He came back here to the same spot where I bought him something to drink and shot people that looked like me and would’ve shot me if I was standing near.” ******* In 1835, to fight back against the onslaught of oppression, Black abolitionist and businessman David Ruggles helped to found the The New York Community of Vigilance (NYCV), a multi-racial organization that would defend Black New Yorkers from predatory whites. Jamila Shabazz Brathwaite authored “The Black Vigilance Movement in Nineteenth Century New York City,”

Black History University Monthly Recap, April 2022  with Dr. Manisha Sinha! Easter, Black Abolitionists, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. In a rare occurrence on Good Friday, April 14, 2022 Christianity, Islam and Judaism was observed: Good Friday,Ramadan, and Passover. Passover, Easter, Ramadan 2022 fall simultaneously In a rare conjunction, three major holidays of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam How Survivors of Slavery escaped with the help of the people of faith.Slavery Survivors conversion Society propagation of the gospel.John Wesley MethodistGeorge FoxAME church Bishop Richard AllenLawsuit against the AMEs Hush HarborsWatch NightGeorge Leile founder of The African First Baptist 1773  Politics Corey Booker & Kentanji Brown

Black History University Monthly Recap w/ Dr.Sinha! March 2022 Black Abolitionism During Queen Charlotte's Reign,  America's Last Queen Who is also of African Descent. 1. James Somerset (c. 1741 – after 1772) was an African man and the plaintiff in a pivotal court case that was widely reported as outlawing slavery in Britain 2.   Judge Mansfield raised his Black niece as his daughter, ruled against slavers in Somerset's Case, and Zong Case. 3. Famous Official paintings by abolitionist Allan Ramsay proudly features Queen Charlotte's African Features in her Coronation Portrait, he also painted a popular image of Judge Mansfield's black and white daughter playing together carefree. 4. Sojourner Truth sues and wins her son's freedom. 5. Bishop Richard Allen founder of Mutual Aid Society and African Methodist Episcopal Church  6. Black Loyalist Harry Wahington successfully eludes capture from Geo. Washington leads a revolution in Africa after serving in the Revolutionary War. 7. Phyllis Wheatley pens a poem a tribute to Christopher Snieder, a child killed leading up to the Revolutionary War, although Crispus Attucks is credited for being the first martyr.  8. Black Revolutionary Era Authors: Lucy Prince and Lemuel Hayes Queen Charlotte, Queen City Charlotte N.C.,  Harriet Dred, wife Dred Scott Sojourner  Truth Sued For her son's freedom

The Russian Invasion of Ukraine with history Professor Dr. Manisha Sinha! The Global display of support for Ukraine, prayers and protests.

Stephanie Gilbert discusses the importance of identifying, documenting, preserving, and sharing artifacts from the history of African American families. The Fugitive Slavery AdsMary Church Terrell's Inscribed Book "A Colored Woman in a White World" Rescuing the Family's Underground Memoir The Coin Collection Mary Church Terrell’s Story Mary Church Terrell was born to slavery surviors. Her father owned several successful businesses, and was one of the first Black millionaires in the South. Church Terrell attended Oberlin College, in 1888,  She studied  in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany.  She married Robert Terrell an African American federal judge.  In 1892, Church Terrell’s childhood friend Thomas Moss was lynched. She along with her journalist friend Ida B. Wells, became one of the first people to speak out publicly about lynching. In 1894, Terrell founded the Colored Women’s League with Anna Julia Cooper. The League merged with other organizations to form the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) in 1896, Terrell served on the Washington, D.C. school board for over a decade, beginning in 1895, and became the first Black woman to serve on a board of education in the United States.  Terrell was also a founding member of the (NAACP) in 1909. She marched for voting rights  at the 1913 Suffrage Parade, and helped to organize the 1922 Silent March, to pressure Congress to pass anti-lynching legislation.  In 1925, Mary Church Terrell began writing her memoir, A Colored Woman in a White World, which she was unable to sell to publishers, and self-published in 1940.

Black History Monthly Recap with Professor Manisha Sinha on Black History University! Topics of Discussion 1~Seneca Village, eminent domain and Central Park 2~ NY orders Depositions for Trump and two Trump children  3~ Mardi Gras is March 1st,   NEW ORLEANS—In the early 1780s, Juan Maló escaped from a plantation fifty miles upriver from New Orleans. Spain had acquired the colony from France two decades earlier, and Spanish authorities designated Maló maroon, a fugitive slave. Eluding capture, he traveled about 100 miles south of the city into a sprawling marshland area—what is today St. Bernard Parish. Little is known of his origins, but enslaved people idolized him as “San Maló”—St. Maló in official documents—after he established a maroon compound writes Gwendolyn Midlo Hall in Africans in Colonial Louisiana.

From 1968 through 1983, Shindana Toys designed and manufactured dolls that looked like real black people. Their motto was: Dolls Made by a Dream. Shindana, which means competitor in Swahili, trained and employed doll makers and became the nation’s largest manufacturer of black dolls and games. Operation Bootstrap (OB) was formed in 1965 by two African American gentlemen. In an attempt to build the community, provide job training, and jobs for community residents, Louis Smith and Robert Hall are said to have organized OB with a $1,000 loan from an AA businessman. ********* My name is Louis Shelton Smith III, my Father Louis S Smith II, was co-founder of Operation Bootstrap along with his partner Robert Hall. He "talked" the owners of Mattel, out of $200,000, to start Shindana Toys, because he thought Black kids needed a positive self image. The 1st doll they made, Baby Nancy, was selected for admission to the Toy Hall Of Fame last year. Oh, the stories I could tell you!!!!! ****

Black History Monthly Recap with Professor Manisha Sinha on Black History University.com, powered by The Gist of Freedom!  -Reconstruction Black Senators & HBCUs  -Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King & Voting Rights, Sanitation Strike, Poor People's Campaign -Louisiana Black Delegation, led by E. Arnold Bertonneau and Jean-Baptiste Roudanez, visit President Lincoln to discuss voting rights! Dr. James Edward Shepard founded North Carolina College for Blacks in Durham, North Carolina.  He used a section of land on the edge of Durham, to establish the National Religious Training School. The school served as an institution “for the colored race” and initially held classes for ministers and teachers.   In 1898 Shepard along with John Merrick established North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company in Durham.  Eventually, Shepard founded Farmers and Mechanics Bank in Durham as well. Images: Ida B Well Barbie doll, John Brown Cave, Nat Turner Cave, Rosenwald School, Howard law students

Christmas & Abolitionism With Professor Sinha on Black History University, powered by The Gist Of Freedom.  The story of “The Christmas Escape 1854" begins on Christmas Eve, when Tubman arrived on Poplar Neck to lead her brothers Ben, Robert, and Henry Ross to freedom. They were scheduled to be sold on the auction block the day after Christmas. ~ Artist Mark Priest  Gerrit Smith, who spoke before the Vigilance Association of New York, relayed this advice, "When you are escaping take all along your route, in the free as well as the enslaved states, so long as it is absolutely essential to your escape; the horse, the boat, the food, the clothing you require, and feel no compunction for the justifiable appropriation than does the drowning man for possessing himself a plank that floats his way."  Henrietta Buckmaster "Let My People Go" --------- According to William Still, this was Harriet Tubman’s last trip south. WILMINGTON, 12th mo., 1st, 1860. RESPECTED FRIEND, WILLIAM STILL:— I write to let thee know that Harriet Tubman is again in these parts. She arrived last evening from one of her trips of mercy to God’s poor, bringing two men with her as far as New Castle [Delaware]. I agreed to pay a man last evening, to pilot them on their way to Chester county; the wife of one of the men, with two or three children, was left some thirty miles below, and  I gave Harriet ten dollars, to hire a man with carriage, to take them to Chester county. She said a man had offered [his services] for that sum...... Thy Friend, THOMAS GARRETT. N.B. We hope all will be in Chester county to-morrow.

Black History Monthly Review with University of Conneticut Prof. Manisha Sinha on Black History University powered by The Gist of Freedom! Black Japanese Generals celebrating their victory over Russia in 1907.  They are of Ainu ancestry. The Ainu were the Africoid/ African descent people who settled ancient Japan.   It is often told in history about how Japan defeated Russia in a  brilliant naval / military campaign at Port Arthur.  1. The Jacob Blake  shooting Protest, Kenosha Verdict, Abolitionists Elijah Lovejoy 2. Election Day,Primary Elections, Black Men Voted during the War; Abolitionist Gerritt Smith  @12 minutes 3. Veterans Day Grand Army of The Republic GAR, Integrated Veteran Organization;      Gen Powell, Buffalo Soldiers @14 minute 4. D-Day Pearl Harbor Afro- Japanese soldiers @19 minutes  5.Thanksgiving~ Abraham Lincoln @22 minutes 6. President Biden Bill Back America Bill Passes ~ @24 minute 7. January 6th failed Coup, leader arrested for contempt @27 minute  8. Black Exodusters, Pioneers in the Midwest, Stage Coach Mary@30 minute    The Botched Boley Robbery V. The Harder They Fall..... Boley Was The Black Town That Couldn't Be Robbed, by Betty DeRamus ON NOVEMBER 23, 1932, three members of “Pretty Boy” Floyd’s Depression-era gang made the worst mistake of their lives. They tried to rob the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Boley, Oklahoma, an all-black town of proud-walking pioneers.  UP TO that point, the Floyd gang had been robbing an average of a bank a week, usually without any resistance. But Boley’s bank was the state’s first nationally chartered black-owned bank, and residents had vowed it would never be robbed. As the gang would soon discover, folks in Boley meant what they said.

Professor Sinha, Black History University  1. Christopher Columbus; Commemorate 17th Century Black abolitionist De Silva Mendoca 2. Cori Bush Protest Homelessness Abolitionist  3. Congressman Quincy Adams, anti-slavery abolitionists, gag rule 4. President Obama's Presidential Library Grounding Breaking, Chicago Founder, Jean Baptiste Pointe DaSable 5. Dismal Swamp and Florida Young man captures Alligator in Trash can, Cuffeytown  6. The Banning of author  Toni Morrison, Critical Race Theory ******** Abolitionist De Silva Mendonca African American's involvement in the abolition of slavery is often confined to sporadic cases namely those of 'shipboard revolts', 'maroon communities', and 'household revolts',ignoring, the highly-organised, international-scale legal liberation headed by Mendonça in the Vatican on the 6th of March 1684. The court case presented by Mendonça on the abolition of slavery included different organizations, brotherhoods of Black people, and interest groups of 'men', 'women' and 'young people' of African descent in Spain, Portugal, Brazil and Africa.

Author and Professor Manisha Sinha's Monthly Recap and Black Historic Perspective! October is Black History Month in the U.K. And Miss Ireland is Black! Join us today at www.blackhistoryUniversity.com

Christmas, Celebrity Bible Readings, Blair Underwood