Olympics media village built on ‘sacred’ mass grave of African slaves

(Photo: Brazilian slave traders inspect a group of Africans shipped into the country for sale. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Journalists covering the Olympic Games may find themselves caught up in a row over one of the darkest periods of Brazilian history, following claims that part of the media village has been built on a mass grave of African slaves.

A community of descendants of runaway slaves, known as a quilombo, has said the site of the Barra Media Village 3, close to the Olympic Park, was built on land where their ancestors were buried – and which they consider sacred.

Adilson Batista Almeida, the leader of Camorim Quilombo, accuses developers of riding roughshod over the history of slavery in the area by destroying archaeological remains at the site of an old sugar mill, and depriving the community of a public space for cultural activities that celebrate its Afro-Brazilian heritage.

“One Sunday morning a chainsaw came and devastated everything including century-old trees,” Almeida said. “I regard the ground as sacred because it is where my ancestors were buried.”

Many in Brazil would rather forget the country’s record as the biggest importer of slaves in the world – and the last to abolish the practice. By the end of the trade in 1888, somewhere between four and five million Africans had been sent to this South American nation. (Read more)


Documentary: “Olympic pride, American Prejudice” — Jesse Owens was brave, so were these 17 other black Olympians

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Left to right rear: Dave Albritton and Cornelius Johnson, record high jumpers; Tidye Pickett, track star; Ralph Metcalfe, sprinter; Jimmy Clark, boxer; Matthew “Mack” Robinson, sprinter. In front are John Terry (left), weight lifter and John Brooks, broadjumper.

From Huffington Post: People often remember the 1936 Olympics in Berlin for track and field legend Jesse Owens taking home four gold medals, essentially triumphing over Adolf Hitler’s hateful ideologies in his own backyard. At the time, Americans considered Owens to be representative of how the mighty U.S.A. was superior to Hitler and Germany.

But Owens was just one of 18 black athletes on the U.S. Olympic team brave enough to attend the games in Nazi Germany. This summer marks the 80th anniversary of those games, and the athletes’ accomplishments are perhaps even more significant all these years later.

In “Olympic Pride, American Prejudice,” a documentary set to premiere later this year, writer and director Deborah Riley Draper tells the story of these athletes who found success despite competing in a country with the world’s most extreme Aryan supremacy and facing discrimination under Jim Crow laws at home.

Read more and view trailer for the film.

 


Clarksville and Wheatville were not Austin’s only freedmen towns

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Thomas Kincheon, namesake for Kincheonville, a freedmen community now part of Southwest Austin.

Austin American-Statesman: Even Austin newcomers will recognize the name Wheatville, if only because of Wheatsville, the food market that bears the ever-so-proximate name.

Others can quickly tell you, too, that Clarksville is a mostly residential area west of downtown, although long-timers often argue about its exact boundaries.

Some locals can explain that Wheatville and Clarksville were once freedmen’s communities, established by former slaves after the Civil War.

How many, though, can name and locate the 13 other freedmen’s communities now within Austin’s city limits? Or know which of them faded away after a 1928 city plan encouraged blacks to move to a single section of town?

To understand these settlements — some rural, some urban — the essential text is archivist Michelle Mears’ impeccable 2009 book, “And Grace Will Lead Me Home: African American Freedmen Communities of Austin, Texas, 1865-1928.”

In general, she writes, these communities consisted of small, substandard houses on unpaved streets that lacked transportation, streetlights, electricity, indoor plumbing and garbage pickup. Often situated along creeks, they were anchored by self-help organizations, schools and, especially, churches. A dozen or so of those congregations still exist today. (Read more)


TIPHC Bookshelf

Otis Taylor_The Need To WinPublished scholarship on black history in Texas is growing and we’d like to share with you some suggested readings, both current and past, from some of the preeminent history scholars in Texas and beyond. We invite you to take a look at our bookshelf page — including a featured selection — and check back as the list grows. A different selection will be featured each week. We welcome suggestions and reviews. This week, we offer, “Otis Taylor, The Need to Win,” by Otis Taylor.

The former Prairie View great tells his life story, with an insider’s look at the AFL/NFL player wars, racism in sports and America, and his place in football history. Starting from the projects of Houston, Taylor fist starred for Prairie View before bursting onto the American Football League scene with the Kansas City Chiefs in 1965. By the early 1970s, he was widely considered one of the game’s finest receivers.


This Week In Texas Black History, Aug. 7-13

alfreeman9 – Al Freeman, actor, died on this day in 2012 at age 78 in Washington, D.C. A San Antonio native, Freeman starred on Broadway in the 1960s in productions such as “Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright” and in plays by James Baldwin and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), including “Blues  for Mister Charlie.” In 1979, Freeman became the first African American to receive a Daytime Emmy for a soap opera for his role as a police  captain on “One Life to Live.” He also drew critical acclaim for his portrayal of Malcolm X in the mini-series “Roots: The Next Generations,” and in 1991 played Elijah Muhammad in the Spike Lee movie “Malcolm X.”

 

 

RufusFHardinSchool29 – This day marks the death, in 1912, of George Smith, founder and first principal of the first school for African Americans in Brownwood. Smith was a teacher, former Buffalo Soldier (10th Cavalry), and an elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He had been born into slavery in Virgina in 1847. After his military service ended at Fort Concho in San Angelo, he was recruited by AME Bishop Richad H. Cain to organize AME churches in communities where there were none. Smith traveled 100 miles northeast to Brownwood, where he found one AME church, but no school for black children. He organized and taught classes at various locations in the town, including the AME church. Five years after Smith’s death, a four-room stone facility was built for the school and, in 1934, was named in honor of former principal Rufus F. Hardin.

acobb10 – On this day in 1918, jazz saxophonist Arnett Cobb was born in Houston. He was exposed to music at an early age; his grandmother taught him to play the piano when he was about 10 years old. He soon picked up the violin. As the only violin in an 80-piece brass band at Phillis Wheatley High School, he switched to saxophone in order to be heard. Known as the “Wild Man of the Tenor Sax,” Cobb made his professional debut with Frank Davis in 1933. Cobb played with Chester Boone from 1934-1936 and with Milt Larkin from 1936-1942. In 1942, he replaced Illinois Jacquet in Lionel Hampton’s band, where he remained until 1947 when he left to form his own band. Serious injuries resulting from being hit by a car when he was 10 and an automobile accident in 1951 plagued him throughout his career, but never prevented Cobb from helping to shape and define what become known as the
Texas-tenor sound.

miles211 – On this date in 1922, Negro Leagues star and Tuskegee Airman John “Mule” Miles was born in San Antonio. Miles attended Phillis Wheatley High School, then served as a mechanic for the 99th Pursuit Squadron. After that, Miles played for the Chicago American Giants from 1946 to 1949 and in 1947 hit 11 home runs in 11 straight games, a feat that has never been equaled. He played alongside such greats as Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks and Satchel Paige. Giants’ manager Candy Jim Taylor, gave Miles his nickname saying that he “hit like a mule kicks.” Among his many honors, Miles was inducted into the Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame in 2000, to the San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame in 2003, to the Texas Aviation Hall of Fame in 2009, and to the Prairie View Interscholastic League Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2010.

otis taylor11 – Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Otis Taylor was born on this day in 1942 in Houston. Taylor attended E.E. Worthing HS where he starred in football and basketball. At Prairie View A&M, Taylor was a member of the Panthers’ 1963 and 1964 Black College National Championship teams. He was a fourth round draft pick of the Chiefs where Taylor would spend his entire AFL/NFL career (1965-1974). He remains the Chiefs second-leading receiver in career touchdowns (57) and is No. 4 on their list for all-time receiving yards (7,306). He scored a dynamic catch-and-run touchdown in Kansas City’s 23-7 upset win over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV. Taylor was twice named an All-Pro.

 

rosenwald12 — In 1862, Julius Rosenwald was born in Springfield, Ill. In 1917, as president of Sears and Roebuck, he established the Julius Rosenwald Fund to support educating black children. His belief was that America could not prosper “if any large segment of its people were left behind.” His fund paid for the construction of more than 5,000 schools (“Rosenwald Schools”) in 15 southern states to educate blacks, including 464 schools in Texas that impacted 57,330 students.

 

 

 


Blog: Ron Goodwin, author, PVAMU history professor

Ron Good goodwinwin’s bi-weekly blog appears exclusively for TIPHC/TBHPP. Goodwin is a San Antonio native and Air Force veteran. Generally, his column will address contemporary issues in the black community and how they relate to black history. He and the TIPHC/TBHPP staff welcome your comments. His latest blog is, “Who speaks for us? Read it

 

 


Submissions Wanted

Historians, scholars, students, lend us your…writings. Help us produce the most comprehensive documentation ever undertaken for the African American experience in Texas. We encourage you to contribute items about people, places, events, issues, politics/legislation, sports, entertainment, religion, etc., as general entries or essays. Our documentation is wide-ranging and diverse, and you may research and write about the subject of your interest or, to start, please consult our list of suggested biographical entries and see submission guidelines. However, all topics must be approved by TIPHC/TBHPP editors before beginning your research/writing.

We welcome your questions or comments via email or telephone – mdhurd@pvamu.edu.