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The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African American Slaves in the White House (January 1, 2016)

by Jesse J. Holland

The Invisibles: Slavery Inside The White House and How It Helped Shape America is the first book to tell the story of the executive mansion’s most unexpected residents, the African American slaves who lived with the U.S. presidents who owned them.  [LINK]

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Deep in the Swamps, Archaeologists Are Finding How Fugitive Slaves Kept Their Freedom

The Great Dismal Swamp was once a thriving refuge for runaways

By Richard Grant; Photographs by Allison Shelley

The worse it gets, as I wade and stumble through the Great Dismal Swamp, the better I understand its history as a place of refuge. Each ripping thorn and sucking mudhole makes it clearer. It was the dense, tangled hostility of the swamp and its enormous size that enabled hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of escaped slaves to live here in freedom.

We don’t know much about them, but thanks to the archaeologist hacking through the mire ahead of me, we know they were out here, subsisting in hidden communities, and using almost nothing from the outside world until the 19th century[…]

[Continue reading article at The Smithsonian.]

Of additional interest:

A Desolate Place for a Defiant People: The Archaeology of Maroons, Indigenous Americans, and Enslaved Laborers in the Great Dismal Swamp by Daniel O. Sayers [LINK]

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THIS IS REAL FOLKS - IF YOU ARE ARRESTED DURING A PEACEFUL PROTEST, CALL 1-866-459-1220 FOR LEGAL REPRESENTATION

PUT THIS # IN YOUR PHONE AND SHARE!!!

Source

Here are 15 things your city can do right now to better promote justice in policing

30+ Resources to Help White Americans Learn About Race and Racism

Update: great commenter suggestion below!

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The New York Times surveyed 170 political scientists and found that President Trump is currently ranked as the worst U.S. president in history.

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African - American Police Officers were not allowed to carry guns or arrest white people. New York City 1916.

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Frederick Douglass On How Slave Owners Used Food As A Weapon Of Control

By Nina Martyris 

President Trump recently described Frederick Douglass as “an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.” The president’s muddled tense – it came out sounding as if the 19th-century abolitionist were alive with a galloping Twitter following – provoked some mirth on social media. But the spotlight on one of America’s great moral heroes is a welcome one.

Douglass was born on a plantation in Eastern Maryland in 1817 or 1818 – he did not know his birthday, much less have a long-form birth certificate – to a black mother (from whom he was separated as a boy) and a white father (whom he never knew and who was likely the “master” of the house). He was parceled out to serve different members of the family. His childhood was marked by hunger and cold, and his teen years passed in one long stretch of hard labor, coma-like fatigue, routine floggings, hunger, and other commonplace tortures from the slavery handbook[…]

Read complete story at “The Salt,” NPR.org.

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#blackpatentproject

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In 2017, American film researchers recovered “Something Good – Negro Kiss,” a short film depicting a playful kiss between a Black couple which had not seen the light of day for more than a century. A long-forgotten artifact from the earliest years of American film, the sweet, humanizing vignette, produced by the Selig Polyscope Company, makes a startling contrast to the overwhelmingly racist and blackface-ridden contempory portrayals of African Americans. Four years later in 2021, archivists in Norway, halfway across the world, identified a sister short in their collections—an extended alternate cut which reveals more of Chicago stage performers Gertie Brown and Saint Suttle’s vaudeville-like routine, a theatrical, hot-and-cold romantic dynamic between two lovers which parodies the popular and controversial short “The Kiss” (1896). Both films, which had previously been lost, were known from entries in old motion picture catalogs but had been assumed to be era-typical, anti-Black “race films” until their rediscovery in the 21st century. Together with its more famous sibling, which has since been inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, this alternate version of “Something Good” represents the first-known instance of Black intimacy ever captured on-screen.

SOMETHING GOOD [Alternate Version] (1898) Directed by William Selig

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It’s only right since I did the “She get it from her mama” edition.

Daddies need love too.

1. Michael and James Jordan Sr.

2. Nas and Olu Dara

3. Idris Elba and Winston Elba

4. Blair and Frank  Underwood, Sr.

5. Dwayne Wade and Dwayne Wade Sr.

6.Ludacris and Wayne Bridges

7. Kanye and Ray West

8. Big Sean and his dad

(sorry I can’t find his name anywhere)

9. Drake and Dennis Graham

10. Will & Jaden Smith

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FATHERING WHILE BLACK

Part 1 – Reimagining the Singularity of Media Representations of Black Fatherhood

by Zun Lee

Black fathers continue to be profiled in the media, and not just by the usual suspects. Why a broader perspective on representations of Black fatherhood remains largely outside of the public realm and what role visual storytelling could play to change that.

Black father absence is a contentiously debated social issue in the US and other countries. Too many Black men, so the argument goes, are missing, irresponsible, selfish, not stepping up to the plate. Visuals of deadbeat, absent Black fathers abound in mainstream media, often intended to sensationalize and ridicule rather than to raise awareness.

For example, consider this nugget of a “newsworthy” story – Orlando Shaw of Nashville, TN, father of 22 children by 14 women, sued for unpaid child support. This local blurb was featured in the week leading up to Father’s Day 2013, and went viral nationally in the US. A month later, there was even talk of the possibility of Mr. Shaw getting his own reality TV show.

The number of inspirational stories of everyday Black fatherhood receiving equal national attention around the same time period: zero. And just to reiterate, we’re talking about Father’s Day coverage!

Several complex factors contribute to Black father absence. While the statistics are daunting, the numbers too often lead to the simplistic interpretation that many Black fathers are absent deadbeats. Pundits across the political spectrum root this issue in a decline of morals, dissolution of family structures and a lack of personal responsibility. If we encouraged a return to “traditional family values” and promoted marriage, if Black men would “stop acting like boys” and “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”, so the recommendations claim, we could reverse the “epidemic” and make our communities vibrant again.  [Continue reading article in its entirety at Media Diversified.]

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PAINTING POSSIBILITIES:

ST. LOUIS ARTIST DEPICTS AFRICAN AMERICAN FATHERS WITH THEIR CHILDREN

For the past year, artist and businessman Cbabi Bayoc has attempted to create a portrait a day of a father interacting with his kid.

The resulting project, titled “365 Days With Dad,” goes beyond showing fathers who go through the motions of parenthood, and shows engaging and teachable moments.

Originally from O’Fallon, Illinois Bayoc began this project as a means of stability, but over the course of a year it morphed into a means of preserving memories and encouraging parents to be their best selves when with their kids.  [Continue to view all 365 days of Bayoc’s ouevre and support his effort by ordering prints.]

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💙

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Serena Page & Kordell Beckham for Cosmopolitan US (Spring 2025)

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Fans of Muhammad Ali at the Ali-Bonavena fight at Madison Square Garden in New York City on December 7, 1970.

Photos by Bill Ray for LIFE magazine

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A group of Freedmen by a canal in Richmond, Virginia, 1865