"The real resolution should be to get and remain healthy because studies have shown that financial concerns increase stress, which affects overall health. In case a refresher is needed on basic financial health, here are some things to keep in mind:" - Black EnterpriseWait 'Til I Get My Money Right: Top Money Resolutions for 2013
"The enterprising duo, along with their team of dedicated staffers, not only have a vision for rebranding the negative perceptions of Africa—of which they became all too familiar with as youth criticized and taunted—but one that will connect two communities that have historically been at odds. Highlighting stories of triumph, expansion, ingenuity and unity, Appiah and Boateng, both natives of Ghana, are spearheading a dynamic and much-needed shift toward positive coverage of the continent and leading a diasporic movement to reconnect with it—one story at a time." - Black EnterpriseYoung Innovators Bringing Diaspora 'Face2Face' with Africa
"Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he said, "If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now," said he, "if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy." These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty—to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it. Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I had gained from my master. Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read. The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and determination to learn. In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both." - The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Narrative of the Life of FrederickDouglass, by Frederick Douglass
"layered beneath the substantial accomplishment of re-electing Barack Obama -- which serves as a symbol of so many other goals fought for and gained over the last century and a half -- there are other deeply disturbing realities of black life in America that challenge us not to be complacent, not to be satisfied with what we have achieved." - The RootInsanity - doing the same thing expecting a different result.
"... slaves, when inquired of as to their condition and the character of their masters, almost universally say they are contented, and that their masters are kind. The slaveholders have been known to send in spies among their slaves, to ascertain their views and feelings in regard to their condition. The frequency of this has had the effect to establish among the slaves the maxim, that a still tongue makes a wise head. They suppress the truth rather than take the consequences of telling it, and in so doing prove themselves a part of the human family. If they have any thing to say of their masters, it is generally in their masters' favor, especially when speaking to an untried man. I have been frequently asked, when a slave, if I had a kind master, and do not remember ever to have given a negative answer; nor did I, in pursuing this course, consider myself as uttering what was absolutely false; for I always measured the kindness of my master by the standard of kindness set up among slaveholders around us. Moreover, slaves are like other people, and imbibe prejudices quite common to others. They think their own better than that of others. Many, under the influence of this prejudice, think their own masters are better than the masters of other slaves; and this, too, in some cases, when the very reverse is true. Indeed, it is not uncommon for slaves even to fall out and quarrel among themselves about the relative goodness of their masters, each contending for the superior goodness of his own over that of the others. At the very same time, they mutually execrate their masters when viewed separately. It was so on our plantation. When Colonel Lloyd's slaves met the slaves of Jacob Jepson, they seldom parted without a quarrel about their masters; Colonel Lloyd's slaves contending that he was the richest, and Mr. Jepson's slaves that he was the smartest, and most of a man. Colonel Lloyd's slaves would boast his ability to buy and sell Jacob Jepson. Mr. Jepson's slaves would boast his ability to whip Colonel Lloyd. These quarrels would almost always end in a fight between the parties, and those that whipped were supposed to have gained the point at issue. They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves. It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave; but to be a poor man's slave was deemed a disgrace indeed!" - The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Narrative of the Life of FrederickDouglass, by Frederick Douglass
"Actually, the very first slaves in what is now the United States fled to their freedom by running south, not north. ... How could this have been possible? The answer has to do with the early Colonial rivalry for territory, manpower and resources between Spain and England.
Unlike the English settlement at Charleston, the Spanish settlement in Florida included some free blacks and mulattoes. ... the Spanish governor, ... armed them to fight, forming a black militia at St. Augustine in 1683. In 1686, this militia formed part of a Spanish force that began to raid the Carolinians' territory. The presence of black soldiers among the Spanish forces must have astonished the Carolina slaves. And just a year later, the first documented group of black slaves -- eight men, two women and a nursing child -- managed to escape south from Charleston to St. Augustine, covering the 277 miles or so in astolen[i prefer commandeered] canoe. The Spanish refused to return them to the English, and granted them their freedom. (Landers gives a riveting account of the black presence in Spanish Colonial Florida in her book, Black Society in Spanish Florida: Blacks in the New World.)
... the truth is also that Spain was seeking to weaken the colonies of their British rivals. By encouraging slaves to run away south to Florida, Spain was aiming at the heart of British power in the colonies.
... by 1738 that Spain founded the all-black fort and settlement of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, just two miles north of St. Augustine. It was known as Fort Mose. And for several decades it bravely stood as the first line of defense between the Spanish settlers and their enemies, the English colonists from the north." -The Root