Til Death OR DISTANCE Do You Part

"Lewis Hayden remained the property of the Warner family throughout the 1830s.  During this period he was allowed to marry Esther Harvey, a slave owned by a Lexington merchant, Joseph Harvey.  While Lewis and Esther considered themselves married, slave owners only recognized their relationship as a union of convenience.  If slave owners allowed a wedding ceremony, they often used the phrase "till death or distance do you part."  In other words, the couple were married until the owner decided to sell one or the other to a new owner who did not live in the area.  As with many slave couples, Esther and Lewis also had to overcome the barrier of being owned by separate masters.  Whether the slave husband and the slave wife lived together, or whether they even got to see one another, was entirely a decision of their owners."

…Lewis and Esther had a son who was added to Harvey's property.  When Harvey's business failed, his slaves and his other property were sold at auction to pay his creditors.  Esther and her child were purchased by Henry Clay.   …While Clay's slave, Esther gave birth to a second child, but the baby died soon thereafter.  About a month after this, Esther ran crying to her husband.  Clay had sold her and their surviving son to one of the hated slave traders.  Hayden was powerless to stop the sale and could only watch as his wife and child were dragged away, never to be seen again.

   When Hayden asked Clay for a reason for selling Esther and the boy, Clay replied haughtily that "he had bought them and had sold them."  Hayden was devastated.  Slave sales had separated him from his mother, his brothers and sisters, and now from his wife and child.  Years later he wrote, "I have one child who is buried in Kentucky and that grave is pleasant to think of.  I've got another that is sold nobody knows where, and that I can never bear to think of."

~Joel Strangis, Lewis Hayden and the War Against Slavery

Lamentations (Happy)

Happ.  He taught me how to make a frame from scratch...to sit and listen and where necessary gently even humorously bring in the history of a thing to the learning...to accept those younger than me...to respect those older and wiser than me.  He taught me to walk up and look...to laugh softly but in freedom.  He taught me that sometimes You must swim, and keep swimming and to remember where I came from.  He taught me how to tell a story...how to hold space for, ready that African/Native-point of emphasis; the learning-moment-of-say.  He taught me how to take curiosity of life and how to give it back.  Thank you grandfather.  Love and Peace.


Yes Jerusalem is lonely.

Mi Hija: May You Understand

 "The road will never swallow you. The river of destiny will always overcome evil. May you understand your fate. Suffering will never destroy you, but will make you stronger. Success will never confuse you of scatter your spirit, but will make you fly higher into the good sunlight. Your life will always surprise you." 
~Ben Okri, The Famished Road

Haley's Ancestral Environment, Virginia & Modern Chaos Design

CAPTURE

"In 1976, the African-American writer Alex Haley traced the story of his black family in the popular book Roots.  He discovered that his "furthest-back-person" in america was Kunta Kinte, a Gambian who had been brought in chains from West Africa to Annapolis, Maryland, in the 1760s aboard the English slave ship Lord Ligonier.  Haley (who also wrote the powerful Autobiography of Malcolm X) was fortunate in knowing the name of his first American forebear and in being able to locate the exact ship on which he arrived.  But the facts themselves are remarkably typical.  On average, the furthest- back New World ancestor for any African American today would have reached these shores shortly before the American Revolution, just as Kunta Kinte did.  (By comparison, the largest migrations of Europeans and asians to the United states began in the late 19th century and grew larger in the twentieth century.  So the average white resident of the United States has a far shorter American ancestry, as does the average Asian-American citizen)."

~To Make Our World Anew, by Robin D.G. Kelley, Earl Lewis

Ise MASSA'S FIDDLA

At minute 3:55 Fiddler tells sets about convincing an Afrikan that he is a nigger.  “Yo name is Toby!”  But Kunta (intact yut) stands up and prioritizes his real name.  

The Last Word

"...jessie (little doe) and her husband, Jason Baird, who also is fluent, are raising their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Mae Alice, entirely in Wampanoag. She is the first native speaker in seven generations. Six or seven other Wampanoag community members also have attained conversational fluency and are working towards total mastery. Some 50 people, from small children to elders, and 6 teachers attended a recent immersion camp at which only Wampanoag was spoken." (more).

Idren met (now 5 year old) Mae Alice earlier this month at the Mashpee Wampanoag 'Wow.  Remarkable.  Indeed, ini N8V African & N8V American haffi much to teach one a neddy, o?

Idren: Be Careful With Each Other

Na Womb of Laboratory - ἐλαία: fi cycle-break awo

Blessing likkle Olivia pon wi first born day. Fi neba dem play u, ndi neba dem game u: Nia[h] CAAN.

hurt nigiro U.

Happy Black Love Day

ini heart pa'da Black Womanmanfamilyracecommunityspirit&Uself (smile).
_

U make ini feel good all over, good all over ..yaaeeiiyeh

Much love fiMi bruddah/sista dem Camolas & Nubian Writers eh? (smile). Give thanks.

Marlena I Want

Marlena I Want...
I want my people to be happy I told my little neice
But not Obama change happy
I mean truly happy
Not happy to be able to have the chance to finally get the opportunity to try to see the happiness on the horizon.
I mean not having your breast fondled during an arrest happy
I mean not having to teach the same brother every day who comes to you for you to have something for him because he is sick happy
I mean not having to teach black boys and girls that they are african and that is a good thing happy.
I want my people to be happy Marlena.
I want you to be happy chicken.
December 25, 2008

Livicate to Ant Martha - Quiet Music of an Intact African N8V R.I.P.P

Play:

“The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, strategems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted.” – Shakespeare

Idren miss this boy :)

Jeda jeda. RAAASSStafari (smile)

Happy Black Love Day

ini heart to the black woman/man, family, race, community, spirit & Uself.

Pass Me Over - Anthony Hamilton

For Hap, Doug & Paula. ;)

Loaf of Bread - Mas Bueno Que El Pan

Livicated to Les.