The C.I.A. Honors America's Black Spies During Slavery

Will someone, please, make a serious movie of this woman's life?

During the war, African-Americans received recognition for their contributions through articles in the press. However, after the war, the recognition died off. Racial prejudice and a lack of official records of intelligence activities were factors in the lack of acknowledgment.

In honor of Black History Month and in an effort to give these brave black Americans the recognition they deserve, here are a few of their amazing stories… 

The Perfect Spy

African-Americans played an important role in the outcome of the Civil War. Slaves and freed African-Americans were an invaluable resource to the Union, providing information on the Confederate forces. This became known as the “black dispatches.”

The dispatches were most commonly obtained from debriefing slaves—either runaways or those who had come under Union control. And a few brave black Americans learned important intelligence about Confederate plans through behind-the-lines missions or by serving as an agent-in-place,...

Complicated

This is one of those headlines that should've earned a "No shit, Sherlock" from the editorial peanut gallery: 

  Descendants of former slaves keep black history alive 

 Next week: 

 Who's descendants are trying to kill it - and why?

 

A Black History Month Rap From A Cute 4 Year Old Kid

 O.K., so he's 4 and I can barely tell what the fuck he's saying. Still, it's kinda alright:

Even if he IS being manipulated,…

 

It's Knowing (The Difference Between Seal And A Seal)

“I think setting aside a special month takes away from the fact that we should be acknowledging black people all throughout the year; there is no white history month. But I do think it is a positive thing.

We get a lot from our parents, but white people don’t get (black history) from their family.. I feel it’s most beneficial in that way, that it’s a time for white people to learn black history, because they don’t learn it on their own,…"

Jeopardy Shows Us How To Know Your School Sucks

Last night, there was an all-white College Jeopardy panel who studiously avoided one category - "African-American History." How difficult did they think this subject was? They first tackled five other categories that included "International Cinema Showcase," "Weather Verbs," and "Kiwi Fauna". 

Black History Month is definitely my favorite,...

 

Late Night

Get More: Charlamagne & Friends, MTV

A Deliberate And Highly Effective Ignorance Of Attack

Whites Did More (Than Break-In And Take Your Stereo)

Consolidated and I released this album in 1992 and it's still true:

Because - like NewAge - racism so rarely changes:

Invariably, around February of each year, coinciding with Black History Month, you’ll hear people asking, “Why isn’t there a White history month?”


Do these people mean we should condense all the American history centering around white people to just one month and devote the other 11 to Black people? Of course not.

It’s readily accepted that White history is taught, year-round, to the exclusion of Black history. But the literal history of Whiteness — how and when and why what it means to be White was formulated — is always neglected. The construction of the White identity is a brilliant piece of evil social engineering,...

Now known as Gone With The Wind.

 

Stay gone,...

San Francisco's Been A Big Liberal Hell Hole For Blacks

See the word "Bro's" at the top of this map? That's San Francisco's ghetto, which no one white ever sees:

For years, I've actively discouraged the smart, ambitious African Americans I know from moving to San Francisco. This may come as a surprise to many local residents, most of whom are possessed of the unshakable belief in the superiority of the city above all others, but not everyone thinks so - and that includes many well-educated African Americans.

"Oh, I totally see what you mean," they tell me, after spending as little as a weekend here. "I'll be taking that job offer in New York/Washington, D.C./Chicago/London."

Some disregard my advice, make the big move, and then invite me to their farewell brunch a year later.


"Well, you were right," they say as we clink glasses. "This place is not for us. You'll be coming to visit me, won't you?"

While city officials claim to wring their hands over San Francisco's shrinking black population (6 percent in 2012 and dropping like a stone), obvious steps to mitigate the decline go unnoticed and unheeded,...Would it really be that hard for San Francisco to acknowledge its black history?


We met at the Martin Luther King Jr. waterfall in the Yerba Buena Gardens. As we shook hands and said hello, I mentioned my surprise at the historical displays of the Bay Area's civil rights movement, which are hidden behind the waterfall.


"I've walked by this a million times, and I never knew that this information was here. I didn't even know that the waterfall was named after Dr. King," I said.


Templeton heaved a deep sigh. "You're not the only one," he said. "It's impossible to tell that this waterfall has anything to do with Martin Luther King, and that makes it completely indicative of how this city views African Americans - it's a population that's hidden, that the city is embarrassed by, that officials are ignorant of in terms of their importance and their role in the city's history."


Over the course of our walk, I came to realize that Templeton was right. The waterfall was the right place to begin exploring his thesis. If you want to look at the displays, you have to walk behind the waterfall. It is cold, dark and damp, and no one will spend that much time there. It certainly doesn't feel as if the city believes that it's an important place.

SNL Black History (28 Reasons To Give Blacks A Hug)

Also:

10 things my White friends can't do on social media during Black History Month

OMG (It Makes Logical Sense After All)

“On a February day in 1926 Washington, DC, Carter Woodson, one of the first historians to focus on people of African descent in the United States, announced the inaugural 'Negro History Week.' Woodson chose that first wintery week because it marked both Abraham Lincoln’s and Frederick Douglass’s birthdays,...”