Follow-up on Thursday Thirteen—Black History

One of the Thursday Thirteen I wrote this week was the percentage of European heritage among American blacks.  The assumption I’d had (or read) was that the owner/master was the ancestor of mixed race African Americans.  Apparently not.  There’s an interesting photo archive available on the internet providing a photo genealogy, and a number of the families were descended from a black man and white woman, the man being a free black or a freed slave and a white servant. In that case, I’m assuming the children of the marriage or relationship were free born blacks (over 13% of the African American population by 1830).

“The Gowen family descend from Michael Gowen a "negro" servant who was free in Virginia in 1657.”

The Becketts are descendants of a  “Virginia slave named Peter Beckett who married a white servant woman named Sarah Dawson in 1680.”

“The Maclin family were free African American members of Bruton Parish, James City County in the 1740s and owned land in Wake County in the eighteenth century.”

“The Okey family was free in Delaware about 1680 and owned land in Granville County in the eighteenth century.”

“There were also Granville County marriages between Pettifords and Durhams in 1813 and 1822. The Durhams were free in Delaware about 1690.”  There is a photo of  Narcissa Pettiford Rattley, a white woman (1829-1914) and her black husband, Jesse Rattley whose children married Durhams.

“The Leviner family descends from Jean Lovina, a Norfolk County slave, whose master, Major John Nichols, freed her children, John and Sarah, and left them 350 acres of land in Norfolk County, Virginia in 1697.”

Alfred Burdine “was probably related to David Burdine who was a "free colored" head of a Pendleton District, South Carolina household with one slave in 1820.” (i.e., he was a free black who owned a slave)

“The Banks family descends from Elizabeth Banks, a white servant, who had a child by a slave in York County, Virginia in 1683, and the Hammond family descends from Margaret Hammond, a white servant, who had a child by slave in Northampton County, Virginia in 1689.”

“The Dungey family descends from Frances Dungey, a servant woman who had mixed-race children in Brunswick County, Virginia, in the 1720s.”

It’s a fascinating photo record.  Take a look.

The Pompey family descend from John and Ann Pompey who were free in Brunswick County, Virginia in the 1730s. Photo from c. 1900.

Love at first sight

Does love at first sight exist? (Question at Fox and Friends this morning) My husband told me on our first date he was going to marry me. Not exactly first sight, since we had met a few weeks before, but close. I just thought he was being silly. But married people are healthier and financially more secure, even if their eye sight and heart aren't linked. Single men have mortality rates that are 250% higher than married men. Single women have mortality rates that are 50% higher than married women. Based on life expectancies, nine of ten married men and women alive at age 48 are alive at 65, while only six of ten single men and eight of ten single women make it to 65. And of course, children raised by married parents have only an 8% chance of growing up in poverty, so that statistic transfers to parents. Also, and I know you've been waiting for this, married couples have more sex than unmarried couples living together. Living together before marriage decreases the chances of a strong, healthy marriage and increases the chance of divorce.

 

The case for marriage

Love is

Valentinus (St. Valentine) was condemned to be beaten with clubs, then beheaded, February 14, 269 A.D. His crime? He was conducting weddings and marriages in secret in defiance of the emperor's decree. He was declared a saint in 496. Feb. 14 was chosen for his execution because it was a festival day for a Roman goddess. According to tradition, Valentine sent love letters to his parishioners from prison.

Thursday thirteen -- Black history month

       

Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating black history.

1.  In 1934, Joel Augustus Rogers, a highly regarded journalist in the black press, published a little book of 51 pages titled 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof: A Short Cut to the World History of the Negro.  Some of my 13 facts come from this source, further researched and written up by Prof. Louis Gates, and some from Wikipedia. http://libguides.lib.msu.edu/content.php?pid=63292&sid=3467995

                    

2.  10.7 million Africans survived the passage from Africa directly to the Americas, but only about 388,000 landed in what is now the United States.  The rest went to the Caribbean and South America, particularly Brazil. The death rate was very high in those countries, and there were fewer women so the birth rate was low compared to the U.S.

3.  Africans arrived in North America more than a century before both the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock and the Jamestown settlement. Juan Garrido was born in West Africa around 1480, lived in Portugal and Spain, and he joined the earliest conquistadors to the New World. He was a free man. He came seeking wealth and fortune and lived his final days in Mexico.

    

4.  Perhaps you’ve noticed that most African Americans are lighter skinned than Nigerians or Haitians. Our president himself had a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya and has no family heritage to American blacks at all. Based on the companies that do DNA studies, exactly how mixed race are Black Americans? (Louis Gates article)

* According to Ancestry.com, the average African American is 65 percent sub-Saharan African, 29 percent European and 2 percent Native American.
* According to 23andme.com, the average African American is 75 percent sub-Saharan African, 22 percent European and only 0.6 percent Native American.
* According to Family Tree DNA.com, the average African American is 72.95 percent sub-Saharan African, 22.83 percent European and 1.7 percent Native American.
* According to National Geographic's Genographic Project, the average African American is 80 percent sub-Saharan African, 19 percent European and 1 percent Native American.
* According to AfricanDNA, the average African American is 79 percent sub-Saharan African, 19 percent European and 2 percent Native American.

5.  Obviously,  Elizabeth Warren isn’t the only American, black or white, to claim native American ancestry where there is none. (I do a lot of genealogy, and everyone’s family tree whether Irish, black or English, seems to have a Cherokee grandmother). Many American blacks claim native American ancestry, but the DNA studies show it is very small.

6.  First African American woman multi-millionaire was not Oprah, but Madam C.J. Walker, born Sarah Breedlove in 1867 (Walker was the name of her 3rd husband), who made a fortune in hair products for black women.

7.  Yes, free American black citizens owned slaves in the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1830, the year most carefully studied by Carter G. Woodson, about 13.7 percent (319,599) of the black population was free. Of these, 3,776 free Negroes owned 12,907 slaves, out of a total of 2,009,043 slaves owned in the entire United States. (Louis Gates article) The percentage of free black slave owners as the total number of free black heads of families was quite high in several states, namely 43 percent in South Carolina, 40 percent in Louisiana, 26 percent in Mississippi, 25 percent in Alabama and 20 percent in Georgia, higher than for white heads of households.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/03/black_slave_owners_did_they_exist.2.html

8.  As of 2013, there have been 1,949 members of the United States Senate, but only nine have been African American. The first two in the 19th century were Republicans (Hiram Revels, Blanche Bruce) as was one in the 20th (Edward Brooke, III, longest, 12 years), and one in the 21st (Tim Scott). Of the 5 Democrats, 3 were elected and 2 appointed.

                        

9. Most famous African American political and media leaders of national fame whose names I would recognize have been Republicans--Martin Luther King, Jr., James Weldon Johnson, Edward Brooke, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Clarence Thomas, Booker T. Washington, Walter E. Williams, Sojourner Truth, Jackie Robinson, and Eldridge Cleaver, to name a few. Frederick Douglass was the first African American to have his name on a national party nomination (Republican) in 1888.

10. Most gun laws in the United States were originally designed to prohibit blacks from owning guns, first as slaves before emancipation and then in special state codes after the 14th amendment.  http://www.old-yankee.com/rkba/racial_laws.html

11.  Although Abraham Lincoln is called the great emancipator, his Emancipation Proclamation didn’t really free the slaves. Rather, it “freed” any slave in the Confederate states who could manage to flee her or his owner and make their way to Union lines. It didn’t free slaves who lived in the North. The 13th amendment abolished slavery. The body guard of Lincoln named his baby daughter Emancipation Proclamation Coggeshall.  She’s buried in Green Lawn Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio.

12. The first people of European ancestry to settle in Chicago and Manhattan were  mixed race free black men from what is now Dominican Republic.  One with a French father and Haitian Mother (Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable) in Chicago in 1779, and one with a Portuguese father and African mother, Juan Rodriguez in 1613 on Manhattan Island.

                             

13. The Swiss resort town of St. Moritz is named for the first black saint, Maurice, born in Thebes in Upper Egypt. Maurice was martyred in what is today Switzerland for refusing to massacre Christians for the Roman Empire.

Where do rights come from? God.

“The tradition of American civil rights is a noble — and fragile — enterprise grounded in the belief that all people have inherent rights. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…" Truths? Created? Creator? Almost makes you think the American Founders believed that God exists and that rights flowed from Him.

This declaration is a moral precept grounded in centuries of Western history. But as the Founders and countless others understood, any claim of rights must have at their source the belief that man indeed possesses "inalienable rights." Religion, in other words, is the wellspring of the morality that shapes and guides the culture. In our world, Christianity (and Judaism through it) is that wellspring.

Human rights then, depend on a religion that serves as the source of a shared moral tradition and shapes a consensus on basic matters of right and wrong. If that tradition is abandoned the consensus shatters, and our ideas of what constitutes a human right are shorn from their moral moorings. (Think a moral tradition doesn't matter? Reflect on Islam and see how its notions of rights differ from ours. Not religious? Think of the blood spilled over Nazism, Marxism, and other utopian replacements.)”

This quote is from this article.

Photo ID

I volunteer on the west side of Columbus. It's not a "bad" area, but a little seedy. Yesterday I parked so I could make it through the snow, and noticed a sign on the door of an employment agency. Not one, but two, forms of ID were required to apply for a job. Must be a racist organization, although I'm pretty sure it was a government contractor.

On Monday I picked up my list of prescription charges from the pharmacy for our taxes.  My husband is not allowed to pick up the list.  I’m there a lot; they know me.  After giving them my name and birthdate, and they brought up the record on the computer, they asked for a photo ID.

In Illinois, the president’s home state, there is a new law that took effect on January 1, 2012  requiring all people who purchase drain cleaners or any caustic substances to provide a government issued photo ID. This happened because someone back in 2008 used a caustic substance to hurt someone.

North Carolinians marching to protest voter-ID laws had to present a valid photo ID to participate in an NAACP-hosted protest against voter-ID laws in Raleigh last Saturday.

And yet the Democrats claim that there is very little voter fraud.  How would they know? And how much is a little? And why don’t they want people to have identification for cashing checks, or picking up prescriptions, or applying for jobs?  So they can keep them helpless victims, dependent on politicians?

Enough already

Are we done with the hoopla about athletes coming out of the closet, or do we have to have the golfers, equestrians and bowlers now? Really. This last one is so over done. What is so brave and worthy when Ellen did it 15 years ago, and musicians and artists came out 50-100 years ago? If 1.7% of the population are gay (based on 5 studies by sex researchers), it stands to reason some will be in sports. So, could we keep the media attention at about 2-3%, please.

Military deaths in Afghanistan under 2 presidents

Snow has closed or cancelled much in the DC region

“Snow totals varied considerably, but most residents reported significantly more of the white stuff — between eight and 15 inches — than they had seen since the Snowmageddon winter four years ago. The National Weather Service reported 11 inches of snow in Rockville and 12 in Kensington as of 6 a.m. There were about six inches of snow at Ronald Reagan National Airport, 9.5 inches in Arlington, 11 inches in Herndon, 14 inches at Fairfax Station and 12.5 inches in Rockville.” Washington Post.

My niece Karen has posted some great snow photos on FB.

She says she’s the only one in her complex who has shoveled out her car—can tell she’s from Mt. Morris—no snow sissies there.

BFF for 94 years!

Their opinions on Pop Culture

Democrats recruit voters through “welfare” programs

http://rare.us/story/81-of-people-receiving-public-housing-benefits-vote-democratic-and-thats-just-the-tip-of-the-handout-iceberg/

Not a smidgen

The memory of the media

                    

Perhaps not many noticed (it seems a record low are watching), but NBC in the Sochi opening glossed over the 70 years of hell of the USSR, as a "pivotal experiment." 62 million of their citizens were killed by the government in that "experiment?" Want fairness? No one was missed. Young, old, male, female, sick, healthy, all sorts of ethnic groups as well as Russians, rich, poor, powerful, weak, Christians, Jews and Muslims. They were equal opportunity monsters. If this was an experiment, the U.S. didn't learn the lesson if such a stupid statement could be made to please the left.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.CHAP.1.HTM

http://washingtonexaminer.com/soviet-hammer-and-sickle-symbols-featured-at-sochi-olympic-opening-ceremonies-in-russia/article/2543661

Rolling in the deep by Adele

Best scorned lover song of all time, cross overs galore--blues, pop, disco--including the ocean from England to U.S. Such a talented singer/song writer.

And a darn good cover by this little gal and her mother.

Fizzled after great anticipation

Freedom of religion of all Americans is under attack

Can you tell me another country in the world that has the tradition of freedom of religion (not worship, that's different) written into its constitution by Christians who offered this to all, even those they didn't like? Christians who didn't want to be ruled by the crown or the church wrote a Bill of Rights to protect themselves from both.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I know many Protestants who do not agree with Catholic teaching, but they need to be reminded that Roman Catholics, the largest Christian group in the world, are the ones being targeted by the Obama Administration. Recognizing the divisions among Christians (the infighting is recorded in the book of Acts, so it's nothing new), they are hoping we'll all stand by in silence while the largest and most powerful among us, the mother church of all Christians, is brought to her knees and assaulted through laws, regulations, in house squabbles, and gossip. If you say nothing, or do nothing, your denomination, house group, temple, or humanist non-profit for good works will be next. All religions are a threat to the crown, and our founders knew that.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was gullible and they were lied to.  Because the Roman Catholic church is the largest non-government social agency in the country, they were scammed and snookered by people much more clever. But fortunately, they have come out of their long liberal sleep.

This is not about birth control or health insurance for employees.  This is about the power of the federal government to determine how Christians practice their religion.

http://www.catholicleague.org/hhs-mandate-targets-catholics/

Who didn’t love her?

Why he continues to rewrite the health insurance law (Obamacare, aka ACA)

There’s no one to stop him.

Monday Memories—My own picture book

Thursday evening we attended the opening of the Toulouse Lautrec show at the Columbus Museum of Art.  As well as drawings and posters by Toulouse Lautrec, there were interesting pieces by avant-garde artists in Paris around the turn of the twentieth century. . .  “paintings, watercolors and drawings; rare zinc shadow puppet silhouettes; illustrated programs for the famous Chat Noir cabaret shadow theater; and key ephemera for Parisian theaters, circuses, cabarets and café-concerts which document the activities of artists during this rich period.”

           

This painting of  trees along a canal reminded me of a painting I’d learned about in elementary school. The next day I dug around in my bookshelves and found “My Own Picture Book” book 4 and 5, by Theodora Pottle.

Forreston was a very small town and we didn’t have art instruction, however, looking through these two books—there are eight in the series—if the teacher followed the instructions and plans, children would get a good overview of “interpretations of masterpieces.” 

Each book had 36 pages, and they were published by Johnson-Randolph Company of Champaign, Illinois.  Although I can remember working in the books, I don’t believe we were graded, and the excellent art instruction in the back of each book probably wasn’t used. By fifth grade, we cut the color reproductions with our scissors, but for the earlier grades they were included in an envelope in the back of the book.

The page on the left (black and white) includes some historical background about Holland, then describes what are the most important features of the painting, then a discussion of perspective, and finally a paragraph about the artist, Meindert Hobbema. The other nine masterpieces in book 5 have similar layouts.  Then the page on the right  has a color representation to paste in place, with questions and activities. There is a referral to p. 36 where one point perspective is explained. Looking through the two books I have, I became curious about the person who put together such a delightful set of learning tools—although I didn’t appreciate it in 1949 like I do in 2014.

Her name is Theodora Pottle, and she taught art at Macomb State Teachers College (now Western Illinois University). According to the website, she “received both her B.A. and M.A. from the University of Chicago; however, she also studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia University, the University of Colorado, the University of Arizona, and even the Ransom Studios in Paris, France. By the time she came to Western Illinois University in 1928, . . . as an instructor and head of the art department, she had already taught music and art in Duluth, Tucson, Ludington, Traverse City in Michigan, and the University High School in Chicago. She had also traveled to forty-eight states, Canada, Mexico, and had made frequent trips to Europe .

                       

During her career, she published a number of children’s art textbooks called “My Own Picture Book Series.” These were designed to be used in elementary schools to generate an enthusiasm for the arts in young children.”

She retired in 1958 and never married or had any children, although certainly she must have influenced thousands of children over the years as well as the many students in her art classes who went on to teach others.

http://iwa.bradley.edu/essays/TheodoraPottle

When Ms. Pottle was a child, her parents had a theater company and she also performed with them. (Find a grave, Adelaide Eunice Goodrich Pottle)

The papers of Diane Blair, best friend of Hillary Clinton

Strong and ruthless.  No surprise there.  You’d have to be strong to put up with Bill’s philandering so he could be your stepping stone to power.

“. . . previously unpublished documents contained in the archive of one of Hillary Clinton’s best friends and advisers, documents that portray the former first lady, secretary of State, and potential 2016 presidential candidate as a strong, ambitious, and ruthless Democratic operative.”

“The full contents of the archive, which before 2010 was closed to the public, have not previously been reported on and shed new light on Clinton’s three decades in public life. The records paint a complex portrait of Hillary Clinton, revealing her to be a loyal friend, devoted mother, and a cutthroat strategist who relished revenge against her adversaries and complained in private that nobody in the White House was “tough and mean enough.””

http://freebeacon.com/the-hillary-papers/

There is a link in this article to 40 pages of Blair’s notes, thoughts and memos.