The exemplary courage, faith, hope and love by Mary of any other name or place matters more than any other factor in birthing, nurturing, inspiring, motivating and educating new generations for better and more fruitful lives. We believe and dare suggest the attributes of Mary among many mothers of African heritage is why so many African-Americans were able to persevere and overcome conditions and environments (including denigrated shelters and unhealthy diets) in which many other historically enslaved human groupings (such as Arwak natives that greeted Columbus) virtually perished. Artistic depiction on right by famed artist Alex Beujour is a reminder for us to remember the MOTHER and HIM that lifted us UP to generate goodness, not more famous fashions, foolishness and follies that denigrate rather than integrate humanity.
Our hope with this website is to encourage African American genealogical research of more courageous generations in family lineages such as (but not limited to) patriots in American Revolution for national independence and Civil War for personal liberty. And, yes for believers of African or any other heritage, … life, liberty and pursuit of happiness in Africa matters as a matter of our faith that whatever we do for “the least of us” we do unto the Christ we believe in. For non-believers, such beliefs and caring does not matter. As the wondrous self-conceived “Whoopie Goldberg” recently remarked, “I am only interested in what goes on in my house.” Yes, but Black men outside her house and trying to look into her soul might find it helpful to counsel regarding the inspirational biblical story about Esther that is applicable to not only enlightened, educated and privileged Jewish princesses born in New York City, but also Black women who admire and emulate them for their courage, … and superior knowledge.
By contrast, we believe purple people mentalities often exhibited for one-line laughs are not products of ignorance but rather a clear absence of the faith that some of us believe in. Whoopie is not hostile to the faithful, but simply keeps them at arms length away from her life. She is a very bright woman that might be helpful in telling White women admirers some daily truths many of them have never heard or considered such as Black men like Adam Clayton Powell insisting on inclusion of Title Nine in the U.S. Civil Rights Act that Barry Goldwater and most other conservatives voted against. Tell them what she saw and heard in the past two Olympic games with thousands of American women excelling because somebody cared 40 years ago. Dr. King loved sports but he did not live to see the outpouring of goodness by women of African, Asian and European heritage in the house that Jack Kennedy helped build. We believe the need for sites and topics such as this are needed because so many youth of African heritage are being bombarded with propaganda contrary to the facts of human history and experiences in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Caribbean and Europe. The airwaves of radio and television are increasingly filled with talking heads challenging given truths.
Famed talking head pundits like Sean Hannity possibly descended from or related to below Union Army veteran has been known to welcome unenlightened and uneducated pretentious African-Americans onto his show for one-line sound-bites such as: “I did not own any slaves, so why do poverty pimps like Conyers, Jackson and Sharpton think my tax dollars should be used to pay them reparations for people who died a long time ago.” As expected, his declarative statement of fact and fiction normally leaves most paid guests defenseless and speechless to respond. He then offers his opinion and ideology that America is a land of personal responsibility, free enterprise and opportunities, …and if anything is wrong it is a person’s own fault (citing Ronald Reagan that “it is not the responsibility of government to to ensure equal results).”
“Alright, I invited you on the show to give you a chance to explain why so many African-Americans pay attention to the poverty pimps talking about slavery in a country that is free, coast to coast and north to south?” And then based on that premise of legitimate discussion and more or less response that Jesse Jackson does not represent opinions of all Black folks, … Hannity initiates a negative opinion of African-Americans who dare speak ill about the legacy of slavery and those persons who did own or fight for the right to be owners of slaves as chattel property (such as his Alabama born wife’s ancestors. There were some 1164 rebel young men named Rhodes).
| 1 | Rhodes, | Confederate | Infantry | 22nd Regiment, Alabama Infantry |
Imagine what would happen if he said, “I did not kill any Jews, so why should my money be used to pay reparations for what Nazi murderers did?” Rather than such stupid bigotry, his fame is based on rebel rousing yelps about the “the least of us.”
After his disastrous attempt to ambush Reverend Jeremiah Wright, he is now enlightened enough to not try argue bible verses with an enlightened and educated Black preacher.Like most other fox hounds, Hannity never served in the military and did not know what happens when you initiate a camera ready firefight against a real marine-always a marine like Jeremiah Wright. Most African-Americans enlightened in the faith were not surprised by Wright’s right hooks that literally knocked Hannity out cold before rescue by his co-host for a more liberal point of questioning.
If Hannity expected to confront an ignorant Hollywood characterized ghetto preacher or pious mouthed Black imitator of Jesuit priests, … he obviously did not know very much about Black history, the Black church or its champions in the faith dating back long before Hannity’s ancestors got off the boat. Trick questions like do you want to go back to Africa would be answered “yes, have you been there? I have friends in Ghana and South Africa, and go often and try to spread the gospel as Christ asked us.” Africa is big continent, with a lot of nations, cities and towns and there is a lot to see and do there.
Hannity once had an African-American “wanabe” from Los Angeles who claimed to be a friend and owner of his own business, some sort of janitorial establishment that employs several inner city Blacks. Enough said, to make Hannity’s point that America is a land of opportunity without affirmative action but his lowly educated guest added the comment that caught Sean by surprise “Blacks should stop listening people like Jesse Jackson and trying to go to college but need to do like me in establishing their own business.” The self-same uneducated Black friend of Sean Hannity went on to explain that his hero was Booker T. Washington who believed the best opportunity for Black folks was by learning a trade and starting a business, not going to college. Hannity merely smiled.
The late Senator Patrick Moynihan once noted that “while all people are entitled to their own opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts.” Indeed, the world was recently stunned into near hysteria to hear Iranian President declare his ridiculous opinion that Nazi Germany did not murder millions of Jews in Europe (applicable to common factoring of lies such as that imposed by many bastions of historical bigotry). Other facts are the Jewish Holocaust occurred less than a generation after Ottoman Turks murdered at least a million Armenians; and two generations after Belgium and other capitalized colonials in the name of private enterprise virtually decimated the Congo population; and three generations after the KKK was organized in America to specifically murder and otherwise terrorize four million ex-slaves in the former confederate states. So, do facts matter in the formulation of public opinions and ideologies? You betcha! Facts do matter unless enlightened and educated people remain silent in the face of ideological attacks against TRUTH.
Who white-washes away facts and substitutes same with fallacies or make-believe views? Image below of chairperson of the Texas Board of Education exemplifies the battle still being waged by racist reasoning that slavery was not so big and bad as many of us seem to believe based on facts we have seen and heard. Yet, we must never forget that most people are influenced by beliefs, not facts.People believe what they want to believe about whoever it pleases them to dislike, distrust, disdain or even hate. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Persian: محمود احمدینژاد, Mahmūd Ahmadinezhād [mæhˈmuːd(-e)
Texas mentalities came into existence, not as commonwealth values like Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and most of the other original states (excepting South Carolina and Georgia), … but as a republic of privately owned empires in land, slaves cotton, and cattle guarded and protected by armed might paid for with bonuses, land, cotton and slaves, not taxes and tithes such as Virginia. Most of these men of military means and methods came from Louisiana and Tennessee such as Davy Crockett and were welcome and happy to be Mexicans until Mexico declared slavery illegal in 1834. Texans talked about it and by year 1836 were in full rebellion to stop Mexican nonsense about taking away their slaves. General Santa Anna’s attack on the Alamo to disarm and put down the rebellion killed Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and everyone else excepting the Black man enslaved to the rebel commander and allowed to quickly migrate further south into Mexico.
But, Texans were tough and under Sam Houston won the victory of rebellion, called themselves a tax-free republic until 1848 when Mexicans decided again to end the rebellion. Texans begged for help by interference of the United States government and President Polk with gold fever in California chose to annex California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and even the badlands of Oklahoma to keep them safe and sane. But, within five years of becoming an American state by affirmative action of the United States Government of the people, for the people and by the people, …
… the new Texas talk among slave owners was about the new republican party formed by Chicago big-shots suggesting slave-owners ought not be able to take slaves into California and other states west of the Mississippi River for mining gold, growing food or “king cotton”. African-Americans who were intelligent and close enough to overhear and understand the talk going on in Texas, … were generally pleased at the prospect of not being linked up again for a long march to California.
Many, if not most, Texas adult slaves in the 1850s had the very unpleasant experiences of being chained neck to neck in those long marches to Texas from places alike Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia and South Carolina, and even Georgia and Florida in the Seminole trail of tears that poured for years. The joke among many African-American men for a century afterwards was that of a deputy sheriff looking for runaway slaves in the north insisting his state’s right in northern courts pursuant the fugitive slave act for return of both slaves and shackle chains as valuable private property. Slave owners and their offspring before, during and after the Civil War firmly believed they had not only a God-given right pursuant the bible and even the Pope and King of England; but also a constitutional right beginning in 1785 to own inferior people as property classified as three-fifths of a person for purposes of affording them representation in the United States census and Congress. Any threats, promises or actions to change or challenge these state’s rights were both immoral and constitutionally illegal, in their view. The greatest orators in the U.S. Senate pronouncingr state’s rights to have and hold slaves (including expansion into non-slave territories of the west) were: South Carolina’s Senator John C. Calhoun, Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis and Louisiana Senator Judah P. Benjamin.
For rich men of the north without slaves, it was unfair competition to compete with another man using slaves for his labor and comfort. And, there were even a lot of poor White men in the south, such as future President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee who very much resented the unfair advantages held by owners (including cousins) of large tracts of land and slaves in Tennessee and Texas. A lot of preparatory talk occurred in Texas prior to the election and inauguration of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Talk had it that Lincoln wanted to take away their liberties as a White man to take his slaves wherever and whenever they wanted. Most though very rich were not well educated and articulate like Virginian and South Carolinians who argued about constitutional rights, and too arrogant for counsel by the aged Sam Houston to not rebel against the United States government. But, Texas did rebel and literally privatized and hired the pro-slavery Cherokee Indians like William Holland Thomas to do most of their fighting to defend their notional state’s rights to own slaves and to rebel.
Cherokee in the American Civil War
For the most recent example of Texas type talk and thoughts, … the slave trade should be taught to school children as the triangular trade albeit the facts that Great Britain embargoed it in year 1807, followed by the United States Congress and President Jefferson in 1808, and the rest of Europe soon after. Americans fought and lost a war at sea with Great Britain because of determined infractions by private enterprise slave runners to run the British blockade. Texas non-educators that dominate and determine which text-books children should be allowed to read Ignored facts that domestic slave breeding in states like Virginia for export to other states during period from 1808 to 1861, … far surpassed the numbers of slaves previously imported from Africa and Caribbean. To be sure about it, Texas was not a state long enough before the Civil War to be guilty of the most godless practice in the ante-bellum institution of chattel slavery, … induced, expanded and sustained by forced breeding of humans as was done with animals in the name of scientific agriculture. But, no doubt Texas slave-owners sought and bought big strong “bucks and bitches” from slave breeding states like Virginia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee and yes, Missouri to supplement their “negro stock.”
Many enslaved women were forced (studded) or otherwise encouraged by owners and overseers to have sex and baby slaves until unable to do so or early death whichever came first. Indeed, Black male slaves with desired characteristics of size, strength and obedience in the early 19th century were often chosen to be studs and given extra ordinary benefits, fancy clothing and privileges (light duties such as carriage drivers). And, generally speaking Black women did not love such men who impregnated them and vice-versa, and referred to such studs as “my baby’s father” a term still heard commonly among ghetto welfare mothers. The big musical hit of Porgy and Bess tells the tragedy of such events after slavery when the hapless Porgy is hauled off by a White sheriff, and she goes away with a stud named “Sportin Life.” So-called libertarians who complain about federal government interference have no idea as to extent of their state and local government interjection in the name of law into lives of “the least of us past.”
Even bigots ought to be able to read and understand census data confirming the numbers of slaves in the slave holding states at least tripled after the triangular trade was shut-down by American, British and European navies, and many Africans such as the Gold Coast Chiefs in the 1830s that signed agreements with the British describing such trade as “an abomination that ought not be tolerated.”
The Civil War was not about slavery but the Ten Commandments of State’s Rights?
1. Rights of states like Virginia to demand free states like Ohio allow bounty hunters to bear arms to find, kidnap and return fugitive slaves to slave states per fugitive slave act of 1791. Rights of Virginians to establish and expand slavery into new lands of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee. Rights of slave states to require annual registration and payment of related court fees by free colored persons or arrest and return to slave status. Conflict with personal liberty laws by states like Pennsylvania.
2. Rights of states like Alabama to continue importation into Mobile Bay of slaves from Africa and the Caribbean contrary to the British 1807 ban against the slave trade and U.S. law of 1808. Prompted War of 1812 between Great Britain and United States due British Navy consistent boarding of American ships at sea carrying embargoed cargo (slaves and enslaved seamen). Lincoln vowed to enforce embargo law and did so immediately upon election in 1860.
3. Rights of Tennessee and other immigrants in Texas to secede from Mexico after the government thereof under General Santa Anna abolished slavery in 1834. Mexican War Rights of slave-owners and traders to establish and expand slavery into new lands, territories and states such as New Mexico and California.
4. Rights of states like South Carolina to ignore federal laws not acceptable in a sovereign state such as South Carolina and the implied constitutional right to secede from the Union (John C. Calhoun). President Andrew Jackson vowed to hang for treason any legislature or governor that tried to do so.
5. Rights of states like North Carolina to demand northern free states enforcement of Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that required state and local law officials of all states to aid their “southern deputized regulators” in capture, arrest and return of fugitive slaves to slave state courts and owners. Over 50,000 slaves per year were escaping to free states and Canada often aided by Whites in the northern states including hundreds via the underground railroad.
6. Rights of states in rebellion such as Texas to have and hold human beings as chattel property contrary to the Emancipation Proclamation effective January 1, 1863. Texas forced to surrender on June 19, 1865 and slave owners forced by Union troops to release their slaves.
7. Rights of states like Tennessee to help organize and sponsor terrorism in 1866-1867 (murdered over 175,000 ex-slaves) led by former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest against mostly Union army veterans in the defeated confederacy who were emancipated from slavery. President Andrew Johnson ordered Union army to occupy states formerly in rebellion, protect ex-slaves and arrest of men engaged in terrorism.
8. Rights of states like Georgia by any means deemed necessary to disenfranchise ex-slaves as American voters. Voting registrars empowered to give literacy tests to illiterate ex-slaves and free-born offspring, and impose poll taxes on people of color with or without money for the privilege of registering to vote, … not vote dependent on aforementioned literacy tests that often included such questions as “reciting the ten commandments or paragraphs of the U.S. Constitution and names of confederate generals.”
9. Rights of states like Florida to re-enslave young Black men for construction of public roads and other purposes. Enactment of vagrancy laws required local law enforcement between 1876 and 1946 to arrest hundreds of thousands of unemployed young Black men and judges to impose fines and incarceration on those unable to pay their fines, and sheriffs to lease such prisoners to road contractors and farmers to recover the costs of court and unpaid fines.
10. Rights of states like Louisiana to legally segregate African-Americans from Whites in all public places including hospitals, churches, schools and transportation facilities not to exclude water drinking fountains. Rights of states like Mississippi to have and forever hold all-White police, courts and juries in the trials of Blacks.
This site includes beginning fallacies such as polygamy, breeding and ending results like defenseless matriarchal lifestyles that facilitated slavery and subsequent cries by millions of women for saviors in heaven and on earth to generate changes, more often than not, achieved by 18th, 19th and 20th century movements and wars (relative Armageddon’s for African-American and other young men who died for liberation of others and ought to at least be remembered by patriarchal generated genetic kin). There are still many writers indoctrinated in the ante-bellum mystique of imagined goodness of masters rooted in the very Roman slave-owning doctrine of Paul (not Jesus), … who would suggest that slavery was not so bad as Civil War veterans and agitating ministers of the gospel like Henry Hyland Garnett (below) believed it was?
Mind you very carefully to understand that slave owners and many others wanted a Roman Republic for America rather than a enlightened democracy of free men and women. Thomas Jefferson’s declared doctrine and ideals about democracy was not what rich men outside Virginia valued, … unless they happened to have been Virginia born and bred in milk of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. Indeed, without Virginia born brains and other resources, … the civil war would not have lasted more than 90 days, Rich cotton plantation owners who were not well born sought to imitate and exceed Virginia’s Randolph, Carter, Custiss and other aristocratic lineages. In fact, many men of ambition in Texas prior to the Civil War visited Monticello and Mount Vernon, but not to praise former occupants but rather to replicate and excel them in grandeur. Their hero in the American experiment at government was clearly Alexander Hamilton who in the federalist papers and as Secretary of the Treasury emphasized private property rights, … not George Washington who liberated his slaves upon death or Thomas Jefferson’s declaration that “all men are created equal.”
South Carolina was by far, followed by Louisiana, the worst bastion of pretentious aristocracy wherein only 10,000 white people were franchised to vote leaving such to the rich land and slaver owners. Like Rome, it had at least one slave for each two free residents and wealth was to had by plunder and enslavement of “the least of us.” Wade Hampton owned 1500 slaves and most Whites were too poor to own any but nevertheless as in the Roman Republic and Empire that followed, … they were superior persons because they were not slaves or women, always disposable if a man of means had a desire to do so. Slave owners saw themselves as Roman patriarchs, not American patriots that many of their offspring would now have us believe. Indeed, there was nothing patriotic about rebelling against the Mexican government and then doing the exact same thing against the United States government a generation later.
And, yes in New Orleans and a few other locations in the ante-bellum south there were mulatto offspring daughters of some slave owners given their freedom, land and slaves to own. But, in cotton production states where Roman mentalities that killed Christ and anyone else that opposed them, … slaves were viewed and treated as private property not subject to interference by government. Many White slave owners were comforted by testimonies and tales of endearment by well-fed and clothed plantation mammies and preachers, who persistently warned them about potential trouble-makers, … especially uninvited free-ministers preaching to young men. Indeed, as evidenced by the thousands of Black Church burnings and even bombings in places like Birmingham, Alabama during the 1960s, … freedom of assembly and religion was not freely given to African-Americans anywhere to care to learn.
For example, this site cites the plight of Fanny Fuqua born in year 1795 and apparently gave birth to 15 offspring per slave breeding quota goals of her owners. It was affirmative action of the worst kind, … to generate slaves, not Christian enlightenment or education. Eleven of her sons escaped their Bedford County Virginia enslavement to serve in the U.S. Colored Troops during Civil War.
Fanny’s grandson Dudley Fuqua, born in 1867 lived out his life as a survivor in legacy of change for “the least of us.” He died as a very rich man in Pittsburgh abt. 1941, … and much too soon for future playwright August Wilson to hear and write his story of tears and tribulations in the costs of liberty for the least of us. August Wilson did not know very much about Black men achieving and living outside his limited world view. In fact, most African-American writers do not seem to grasp the significance of contributions by African-American young men in paying the bills in blood, sweat and tears for what we now have.
Most of these young patriots for the least of us (including ingrates whose ancestors stayed put in place as cowardly slaves) were either killed during the war or hunted down and murdered by ex-confederates after war’s end (175,000 mostly USCT veterans) per official U.S. government report in 1866-67 submitted to President Andrew Johnson. The president expressed regret and authorized Union Army to continue occupation of ex-rebel states.
The rebels for all their bombastic proclamations had a difficult time even with conscription getting 650,000 plus young men under arms, mainly perhaps because without armed overseers the young Black bucks normally disappeared from the southern labor force and way of life. Black women could hoe, plant and pick as well as male slaves but could not plow and lift those heavy bails onto wagons and pole barges or drive mules to the rail-heads and markets. The Shenandoah Valley, the Confederate breadbasket quickly collapsed as Frederick Douglass had predicted it would without young Black men.
South Carolina was the richest rebel state, had most agitated for secession and began the war when its gaily uniformed militia barraged federal forces at Fort Sumter into surrender, … also later threatened secession from the confederacy if confederate troops recruited in South Carolina were taken out of the state wherein the aristocracy of nine thousand White voters were unanimous in their opinion their militia of poor landless armed young White males were most needed to keep Blacks toiling in the service of “King Cotton.” The richest aristocrat was Wade Hampton who owned several plantations in South Carolina and Mississippi and had over 1500 slaves, claimed he did not like slavery and not unlike titled European aristocrats, … he adorned himself in the uniform of a Confederate Lieutenant General as he paraded about balls and halls of glory in Charleston and Columbia before Union General William T. Sherman’s army moved in to burn it down as a lesson to ante-bellum traitors. Sherman was opposed to the recruitment and use of Black troops for combat, but did not hesitate to employ many thousands for the laborious tasks of destroying confederate capacity to wage war including rails, wagons, mules, cotton bales and crops.
Numbers of Union “Colored Troops” by state, North and South
| North | Number | South | Number |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connecticut | 1,764 | Alabama prime terrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 4,969 |
| Colorado Territory | 95 | Arkansas primeterrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 5,526 |
| Delaware | 954 | Florida prime terrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 1,044 |
| District of Columbia | 3,269 | Georgia prime terrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 3,486 |
| Illinois | 1,811 | Louisiana prime terrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 24,502 |
| Indiana | 1,597 | Mississippi prime terrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 17,869 |
| Iowa | 440 | North Carolina prime terrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 5,035 |
| Kansas prime terrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 2,080 | South Carolina prime terrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 5,462 |
| Kentucky prime terrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 23,703 | Tennessee prime terrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 20,133 |
| Maine | 104 | Texas prime terrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 47 |
| Maryland | 8,718 | Virginia prime terrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 5,723 |
| Massachusetts | 3,966 | ||
| Michigan | 1,387 | Total from the South prime terrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 93,796 |
| Minnesota | 104 | ||
| Missouri | 8,344 | At large | 733 |
| New Hampshire | 125 | Not accounted for prime terrorism targets by confederate vets-KKK | 5,083 |
| New Jersey | 1,185 | ||
| New York | 4,125 | ||
| Ohio | 5,092 | ||
| Pennsylvania | 8,612 | ||
| Rhode Island | 1,837 | ||
| Vermont | 120 | ||
| West Virginia | 196 | ||
| Wisconsin | 155 | ||
| Total from the North | 79,283 | ||
| + U.S. Navy + Civilian Labor Service for railways, telegraph, fortifications, mortuary, supply services, hospitals … Approx. 200,000 men | 30,000 | Total | 208,895 408,895 |
For people who understand human demographic norms of societies around the world in which approximately 10 percent are military age young men, it is still amazing that from a population density of 500,000 people of African heritage in the free states and four million enslaved in the slave states, … the Union was able to obtain over 408,000 young men volunteers (none conscripted). By any measure, it was the highest percentile (9 percent) of any demographic grouping both north and south, union and confederate.
Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, a self-professed libertarian with typical contempt for Black liberation history, last year made the startling response to an African-American caller to Larry King’s TV show that, “Civil War and loss of 650,000 lives could have been avoided if President Lincoln and Congress had simply purchased the slaves from slave owners and then released them!” Though nothing could be further from the realities and truth about slavery and the Civil War, the startled caller responded apologetically, “Oh, I hadn’t thought of it that way.” And Dr. Ron Paul smiled. He is not a bigot, but like many self-proclaimed libertarians have reasoned that unconstitutional government interference in private property matters took away personal liberty of citizens to own or free slaves. Indeed, the often astounding reasoning of the amazing Justice Clarence Thomas would most likely agree: the Civil War and Emancipation Proclamation were both unconstitutional.
This site is to help new generations reject information so very often misconstrued and reinterpreted such as blaming liberators like Douglass, Garnett and Lincoln, even runaway slaves for the Second American Revolution for liberty. Too many revisionists like Ron Paul still do not condemn the institution of slavery that within a generation after the triangular international trade in slaves was made illegal, the industry re-energized itself.
Powerful men in the name of free enterprise legally enacted laws and practices that quickly made domestic slave breeding the number one industry in States like Virginia for sale and shipment to new slave states like Mississippi and Texas, … wherein last futile battles of the Civil War were fought in June of 1865 nearly three months after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in April 1865. Texas slave owners ignored the Emancipation order issued in January 1863, cursed Lee for surrendering and did not free their slaves until June 19th when Union army troops literally forced them with bayonets at their throats to do so.
Yellow Rose of Texas Plus More
And, the rest of the most amazing twist in history ignored is that confederate division fighting in Texas was composed of and led by Cherokee Indians who believed in and owned a lot of slaves west of the Mississippi River. So, the Union generals sent a lot of U.S. Army Colored Troops to find and defeat them in memory of Cherokee atrocities against captured colored soldiers in Arkansas. More twists and turns in human realities is that many the U.S. Colored troops (including George Washington Williams) who went to Texas and later into Mexico to aid in the Mexican liberation struggle were offspring of the African-Cherokee-Seminole sexual unions in previous generations. Indeed, by time the Civil War ended there were a lot of Black Indian mulattoes, half-breeds, runaways and slaves living east and west of the Mississippi River.
Formation of the four Buffalo Soldier regiments by Congress after the Civil War enlisted many men of African heritage speaking several native American languages, and helping to open the west for history long denied by many preachers and politicians like Ron Paul who know little about liberation history beyond approved texts preached and taught in the public schools. Texans can tell tall tales that are almost laughable until one realizes that many truly believe what they are saying about government helping “the least of us” being socialism rather than Christianity such as exists when worthy people such as themselves are helped with highways, dams, rural electrification, farm subsidies, military bases, flood control, clean water, pest control, and millions of contracts to do this and that plus more. Jesus would likely be the first to acknowledge that no one on earth has received more government affirmative actions than the American south and southwest states for the sake of goodness. And African-Americans have never complained about Whites receiving benefits, but rather the challenge has always been to be included such as farm subsidies that were historically denied to Black farmers in Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee and other states by local White farm agents who graciously aided white farmers.
Does Dr. Ron Paul and his kind of libertarianism think African American offspring of slavery are not intelligent enough to analyze such realties they have seen and heard? It was affirmative action by the United States government that helped liberate African-Americans from not only slavery, but also state sponsored terrorism, persecution and segregation by the very segments of the population that now urge rejection of such in favor of enterprising spirits that enslaved, denied and and denigrated them. The American Civil War defined who we are and ought to be as a nation under God. For the educated and enlightened, … rejoice and be exceedingly glad the philosophy of life espoused in first century by first generation in Christ did not exclude “the least of us” from blessings of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, despite centuries of denigration even by many claiming to do so in HIS name.
Indeed, slavery in Africa, Asia or the Caribbean and Americas did not come into existence, … nor end without enabling theologies we ought not forget or allow to be modern minstrel “show and tell” entertainment. We are concerned that many pretentious pulpits have evolved a theology not rooted in gospels of functional change, … nor philosophy spanning generations of life before and after our own.
Rather far too many African-American youth are being lost to the faith via popular media trivia that has lessened knowledge and interests in functional faith and factors of survival and measurable goodness. We believe scholars have a particular calling to measure, not simply grade success or failures in human progress, such as educating preachers as Booker T. Washington tried to do, … teaching youth proper use of the bible. Yet, we know from knowledge of our history that pulpits and people united to save humanity such as demonstrated by Reverend Jesse (Robinson) Jackson in our lifetimes make a big difference in generating goodness for ourselves and others to be born again. The challenge is about attitudes and behaviors, … including past, present and future! Enlightened believers should tell “the least and most of us” what they have seen and heard. Jesus suggested that believers do so!
We believe older generations of enlightened and educated African-Americans have a moral obligation and opportunity via the internet to tell youth what they have seen and heard in their life-times inclusive of stories received from parents, grand-parents and even great-grandparents and relative ancestors who were enslaved or engaged in ending enslavement of “the least of us.” One cannot legitimately tell youth that past generations were unimportant to know about, and concurrently preach to them about the spirit and philosophy of Jesus given 67 generations ago. Perhaps we have found the enemy to be us who say little about what matters to new generations who might embrace the faith if we explain how and why before we mount our death beds.
“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard” [Luke]
Site is about energetic and enterprising ancestors and others of faith rooted in philosophy of Jesus, declaration of Thomas Jefferson, and visions of Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr. We hope our topics listed on left below will help enlighten and motivate parents, preachers, teachers, students and writers who profess knowledge about “the least of us.” We want gifted youth in particular to take time out for meditation, not medication, to hear better angels of their nature. Maybe care about heritage, explore DNA linkages and contemplate how so many souls got over to a better life? Have enough curiosity and respect to try and understand, rather than judge the faith of men and women who had very little else to have and hold close such as music.
New generations of curious mothers like Dr. Laura Kathleen Hemings Lee Brady Sullivan (below), a living descendent of functional Christian caring, …. still look to us for information about the past and want to know how they are daughters of the American Revolution, not simply a descendent of Sarah (Sally) Hemings and Thomas Jefferson or other celebrated persons. As a scientist, she does not need a DNA test to ascertain her ancestry, but rather affirmation in the body and spirit of Jesus Christ that spanned generations of goodness for revolutionary change to achieve “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”
The facts of human matter are that Americans from the beginning of English and even French and Spanish explorations and settlements in the early through late 16th and 17th centuries procreated hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of offspring by concubines of African and Native American heritage. Whether called mulatto or Indian, successive generations procreated often blurred color distinctions to the point that many women married as white women by early colonists had both European and African heritage in their DNA trace. Sizeable numbers of European origin women, excepting Puritans and Quakers, did not accompany husbands or emigrate in significant numbers, even as criminals and indentured servants, until the beginning of the 18th century.
Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of North America as it was, not the way most historians choose to remember it, … were centuries of mighty men who conquered the geography and all within it including the weather and women of all colors, class and caste. Offspring of unions between men and women ought not be a mystery to minds otherwise intelligent enough to accept facts evidenced in human DNA sequences. Many thousands of African-Americans from the very earliest years of European colonization, including English, French, Spanish and Dutch, … were of mixed heritage including Native Americans.
George Washington knew the heritage of William Lee via his father Colonel John Lee, and was not surprised by William’s courage and mastery of equestrian skills. This trait also extended down to women like his descendent Betty Lee Thornhill, a former beauty queen in the 1940s, and who always cared about her heritage of caring for others, … generations after the death of Frank and William Lee at Mount Vernon.
She was born of a father Temple J Lee & Irene Jackson up from Virginia that helped hundreds of migrant Blacks from behind the cotton curtain and many White immigrants from Eastern Europe gain employment in the Pittsburgh coal industry wherein he established and operated a prosperous coal transport business (mules and trucks) for mine owners as his customers. And, his family owned and loved riding horses. Without men like him, it is unlikely that so many miners from Alabama and Georgia would have known about and come to Pittsburgh region for jobs that paid well.
Gaining the knowledge and access to jobs as coal miners was never easy for anyone, especially African-Americans located hundreds of miles away from people with power to hire. So it was that men like the Lee family founders of Sunrise Baptist Church in a small coal mining town went out of their way to help generate knowledge and access (including mining licenses that by State law required 18 months of apprenticeship). For a would-be miner to get a job in the mines of Pennsylvania, he had to have contact with someone who wanted to afford him a helping hand to meet the man that would take him in under their wings of care that often involved risks and a loss of production pay for goodness sake. Selfish men never did or would be helpful.
D & A evidence now confirms what many African-Americans like Lee descendents (Betty Lee Thornhill and daughter Irene Thornhill Stuart) on far right have known or at least believed for eight Christian generations since that of William Lee who died in 1828 and is buried in an unmarked grave at Mount Vernon, not far from the tomb of George Washington. Finding William Lee, digging up his remains and testing his DNA along with that of Black and White Lee males buried across Virginia might prove interesting but not useful to us.
We are seeking to comprehend and imagine the spirit that was within the man, not simply his flesh. We believe there are many thousands of Lee descendents generated from seeds planted at Mount Vernon. William and his brother Frank in the 18th century sired many, if not most, of the African-Americans living today and using surname of Lee in virtually every state of the union. Many are dynamic & aggressive personalities like Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California, … and unique in adventurist and equestrian attributes. Indeed, who is Congresswoman Lee?
Congresswoman Barbara Lee
During visits to Mount Vernon by descendents, they know his remains are there and certainly by now, … he and his brother Frank’s spirits know Lee offspring visits occur because of caring about what they cared about. Yes, their lives were useful and helpful, not simply to George Washington and fellow slave owners. For sake of affirming their faith, … some Lee carriers of common genetic traits might argue the long-held supposition put forth by other ethnic and racial groups. Is it possible that certain sperm and eggs are chosen to generate thousands of souls (like our beloved Barbara Lee, daughter of a career military patriot) needed for liberation and salvation? Why do such people care about “the least of us.” Anthropology, Ideology, psychology, sociology, theology or more than that? Perhaps their DNA can help explain?
From the generation of two brothers fathered in mid 18th century by a English colonial militia officer emerged not only enslaved participants in the American Revolution for political and economic liberty championed by George Washington, … but also hundreds of descendent volunteers two generations later in Union Army and Navy to help end chattel slavery and foster human liberties expanded by Abraham Lincoln. Emancipation could not have occurred without them and their kind of young men who proved to be useful in their faith and functions. Their descendants ought to try and understand they too are sons and daughters of the American Revolution whether or not others embrace them.
Lee Patriots
We do know that daughters and sons of free men and women of color, as a result of sacrifices on their behalf, … were able to embrace conventional marriage in generation of goodness in life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for their offspring generations. Proof is depicted in below photograph taken in 1939 of Thomas Findley Lee great-great grand-son of William Lee and wife Mary Elizabeth Hemings great-great grand-daughter of Elizabeth (Betty) Hemings. Mary Elizabeth Hemings Butler Lee and her husband Thomas Findley Lee (retired livery business owner) in their garden on Monticello Street in Pittsburgh, PA.
Mary Elizabeth Hemings Butler, b. 1863
And, like it or not, Elizabeth (Betty) Hemings who died in 1807 is buried at Monticello in eyesight of Thomas Jefferson’s tomb. Indeed, death had no victory over them with literally hundreds of descendants who still name children in their honor. There are few officially census classified Black families or individuals in America with White ancestry.
Indeed, love of family relations, horses and helping others among generations of so-called Black Lee’s in Americans likely exceeds that of the other Lee descendants tracing their heritage back to England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, … wherein many Irish young women were taken as wives and concubines by conquering landlords from England, Scotland and Wales. Indeed, the game of “bridge” could only have been invented by the amazing British evolvement and conquests that included evolution of analogy and language of empowerment for all seasons and places far beyond the restraints of old world theologies and mysteries by robed men with minor league minds. Britannia ruled.
Queen Charlotte, Wife of King George
And, America and Europe have long had a lot more Whites with some African ancestry than care to recall it, including Queen Charlotte. Indeed, color has blinded many scholarly descendents of 20th century immigrants who do not know America’s Revolution of 1776-1783 also included many people of African heritage. So, … we have to seek through archives to enlighten! We do not deny that many mothers during and after slavery were untruthful and even unknowledgeable in the fatherhoods of their offspring. Genetically evil ones came from Africa along with the good. We have no illusions that all people sold into slavery were innocent victims.
But, a driving issue on this site is that most enslaved mothers of future goodness knew and cared who were the fathers of their children. Many were courageous in naming their children in knowledge of fathers in a dominant culture that legally sought to classify them as little more than breeding stock in the category of other farm animals rather than human beings. We believe a conscious effort in the spirit of Christ was evidently made by many mothers to name offspring with bloodline traces to their heritage, … Black, White and Native American, Males and Females.
And, then … ALONG CAME BETTY
Who are daughters and sons of America’s first and second revolutions and who has DNA links to:
and
(negatively depicted as a frightful turban wearing eunuch in portrait of fearless George Washington many years after Washington’s death in year 1799. Portrait was initiated and sponsored by lawyer/novelist Washington Irving (writer of Rip Van Winkle) whose extended family in America-England were “merchants” in the very lucrative golden triangle of denigration and death for least of us. And most lawyers reasoned it to be good.
His kind of intellectualism categorized and classified slaves as sub-human chattel not worthy of post-revolutionary war Christian compassion urged by believers like William Wilberforce in England. Anti-slavery activists were opposed by opportunist racist lawyers like Francis Scott Key in USA. Before death, Washington had publicly stated that slaves should be freed and trained to be useful: prompting lawyers like Irving to portray the well-known William Lee as a inferior being in order to argue slaves were like children who needed to be cared for and protected as useful servants/slaves, … not men of useful means.
The above portrait was commissioned and supervised by Washington himself with several sittings that included William Lee in a dignified pose, standing, not stooping, frightful, turban headed or dancing. Washington dictated who should be included in portrait of what he considered to be his closest family circle, … excluding his nephew Bushrod Washington and the body-servant of wife Martha. He specifically stated this was the picture he wanted posterity to remember him by.
By contrast the portrait commissioned by Washington Irving as a tribute to the man he did not know but claimed to admire was painted long after death of George Washington and quite opposite of the distinguished image of William Lee seen above. It is evidence of the power that artists and writers then and now are able to exert about people they have never seen. Images including Hollywood characterizations are products of attitudes, good and bad, and too often for purposes of denigrating “the least of us!”
