Labor Day’s African American Roots, African Slave Labor, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

all right how's everybody doing today hotep hey this is Michael M hotep founder of the African history Network host of the African history Network show I'm a talk show host researcher lecture writer and historian so it is Sunday September 4th 2023 and we are live it is uh Labor Day hope everybody has a safe uh Labor Day weekend we're going to deal with um the we're going to deal with the African-American roots of Labor Day this is a deep historical conversation it gets into the history of uh slavery the Industrial Revolution um the pman uh worker strike of 1894 it gets into uh understanding the history of the panic of 1893 which was a a a a huge depression in the United States this leads to that Pullman worker strike in 1894 and it also uh involves racism because the pulman porters who we hear so much about were not allowed to strike uh because they were not allowed to join the union the white Union because because of racism Okay so uh I did this presentation in what 2019 and 2021 and uh I've expounded on I was reviewing my notes today so I have a ton of information so uh bear with me when I did this uh broadcast when I did this presentation in 2021 it was 2 hours and 43 minutes uh I don't want to do two hours and 43 minutes today but we'll see okay so I have a lot of information uh to share with you okay give us a thumbs up give us a like uh on this broadcast share this broadcast on your social media platforms invite your friends to tune in also um and uh I'm Michael Li hotep founder of the African history Network host of the African history Network show all right so the uh the African-American origins of uh Labor Day the African-American origins of Labor Day and uh you could uh you can also um listen to already show Sundays 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time We broadcast on our social media platforms we were on 9:10 a.m. superstation wfdf but they've done a uh a format change so we're not on there anymore but doesn't stop uh us getting the information out all right now anytime I do a presentation I know I may say some things that are outside this the coverage of some people's awareness and um I usually have people put their fingers together to form a circle I usually say something like this the space inside this circle represents my realm of knowledge everything thing that I think I know about whatever I think I know is represented within the circumference of this circle I'm must keep in mind that there are still things to know that exist outside out outside of the circumference of my own awareness so the reason why I say this and I start out my presentations with this is because uh often times when people hear something that contradicts what they've been taught what they believe or what they think they know they automatically reject it without doing any research to determine the validity of the new information that they're learning and at the same time they usually don't use that same level of scrutiny to analyze the critique or evaluate the new information that they're learning so just because you know everything that you know about what you know does not mean you know everything that is to know about what you know there's still things that exist outside the circumference of your own awareness and I learned this one of my teachers uh Dr Ray Hagen of the African village okay was in St Louis now in Atlanta Georgia the headquarters all right now let's uh jump into this and I'm going to refer to my notes as well I have 10 pages of notes uh I have 10 pages of notes on uh this topic notes that I've compiled uh over the years and then I also have this PowerPoint presentation as well and some articles we're going to reference also all right so what is Labor Day what is Labor Day uh Labor Day 2023 falls on September 4th uh Labor Day pays tribute to the contributions and achievements of American workers and is um the achievement of uh uh American workers and is traditionally observed on the first Monday in September traditionally observed on the first Monday in September it was created uh by the uh labor movement in the late 19th century and became a Federal holiday in 1894 uh Labor Day weekend also symbolizes the end of summer for many Americans and is celebrated with parties Street parades and athletic events so we know in in a lot of cities uh the day after Labor Day summer vacation ends for uh scho uh school children they go back to school things like this so it's The Unofficial end of summer now we know summer summer officially ends around September 20th or 20 first which is the automo Equinox is based upon astronomy when summer ends not a date chosen on a calendar based upon a law that was passed in 1894 signing the law by uh president Stephan Grover Cleveland okay that's not what determines when summer ends but this is The Unofficial uh end of summer all right now when we look at the uh what precedes Labor Day and preced sees that federal holiday coming into existence in 1894 as a way to appease uh striking uh union workers uh those those uh union workers who worked for George Pullman we have to look at what's known as the Panic of 1893 the Panic of 1893 and this was a huge depression in the United States um I'm not sure if this was a bigger depression than the depression we know of known as the Great Depression of 1929 after the stock market crash in October 1929 but at at this point in time this was the worst uh depression in the history of this country so the Panic of 1893 was one of the most severe Financial crisises um in the history of the United States the crisis started with banks in the interior of the country instability arose for two key reason reasons first gold reserves maintained by the US Treasury fa to about $100 million from 190 million dollar in 1890 at the time the United States was on the gold standard which meant the notes issued by the treasury the US Treasury Department could be redeemed for a fixed amount of gold could be redeemed for a fixed amount of gold now the Fallen gold reserves raised concerns at home and abroad okay um you know outside the United States internationally that the United States might be forced to suspend the convertibility of treasury notes which may have prompted depositors to withdraw Bank notes and convert their wealth into gold the second source of the instability which leads to this Panic of 1893 this Great Depression was that economic activity slowed prior to the Panic of 1893 the recession uh or depression raised rates of defaults on loans which weakened Banks uh balance sheets fearing for the safety of their deposits men and women began to withdraw funds from Banks fear spread and withdrawals accelerated leading to widespread runs on banks so federalreserve history.org federalreserve history.org has a article uh banking panics of the guilded age 1863 to 1913 where they deal with they go in depth and look at the Panic of 1893 that's one of the sources this is one of the many sources I looked at for this also encyclopedia.com has some really good information from different uh online encyclopedias dealing with the uh Panic of 1893 so here's what we see that took place in 1893 by the end of 1893 we saw 642 banks that collapsed wiping out their depositors savings we saw 16,000 individual businesses failed in 1893 one in five people in a working population of 15 million were without a job the unemployment rate in the United States exceeded 10% the railroad sector was hit very hard as well railroad sectors uh uh you had over 150 uh railroad companies holding more than 30 miles of railroad track and were worth about $2.5 billion doar you have 150 railro companies that go bankrupt uh in in 1893 as well okay this worsens this financial crisis so that means they're going to uh have to lay off employees this has a ripple effect they can't buy the iron or steel from the uh manufacturers of the metals so this has a ripple effect throughout the economy okay but it gets worse it wasn't just that now in 1873 the US Congress stops making silver dollars and America is placed on the gold standard all right so because they sto making silver dollars this decreased the demand for uh silver but the Silver Mines are still going to be mining Silver at the same time okay which then uh causes a surplus of silver which drives down the price of silver in this country we're also going to see falling prices or values of gold in the United States as well now strikes at Silver labor strikes at Silver Mines in the San Juan mountains of Colorado and nearby regions began in 1875 and continued through the 1880s causing the price of silver to fall even more silvermine workers uh wages are going to be cut as the as the value of silver drops also you have a devastating on Farmers as well now farmers were going through uh were going further into debt okay right around this time right around 1893 and a little before as prices per bushel of crops declined quickly due to increased foreign competition and Supply so we see International factors we see domestic factors that lead to what's known as the Panic of 18 93 which was a huge uh depression in this country now gold reserves dropped below $100 million from 190 million dollar weakening an already unstead unsteady trust in the federal government the gold standard meant that uh treasury notes issued by the US Treasury could be redeemed for a fixed amount of gold the falling gold reserves raised concerns at home and abroad that the United States might be for to suspend the convertibility of notes which may have prompted depositors to withdraw Bank notes and convert their wealth into gold okay so we see all this taking place uh around the same time now um okay so these are some of the things that lead to the uh Panic of 1893 okay which is a huge depression in this country and in 1894 we're going to see the Pullman worker strike that t that takes place and out of this Pullman worker strike we're going to see um uh president Stephen Grover Cleveland signing to law Labor Day as a as a Federal holiday okay we're going to get to that here in just a minute all right now I want to go back to uh my notes here as well all right so you have to I'm going to switch but between the uh PowerPoint presentation here uh and my notes because I had like 10 pages of notes that goes deep into this history so the labor movement fought for uh Fair wages and to improve working conditions at the labor movement uh their fight for fair wages and to improve working conditions uh is well known but it was it but it was its political efforts it was the labor movement political efforts that did nothing less than transform American society organized labor was critical in the fight against child labor and for the uh eight-hour workday and the New Deal okay the New Deal during President Franklin Delano Roosevelt uh during the during the Great Depression uh the New Deal uh which and the New Deal gives us the Social Security uh Administration and the social Act of 1935 it gives us unemployment insurance uh the New Deal gives us uh the minimum wage Act of of 1935 as well we know uh that the um uh servicemen adjustment act which is known as the GI bill of 1944 was the last uh bill of the uh New Deal okay all right so union workers sacrificed in America's historic production uh union workers sacrific in America's historic production effort in World War II and pushed for Great Society legislation in the 1960s now there's a good article from uh the atlantic.com theatlantic.com uh called what Labor Day meant when Labor Day meant something when Labor Day meant something by Michael Patrick and Michael Patrick is a former local machine president from gillsburg Illinois uh I'm sorry the the the article is by let me see who is the article by let me pull this up we have this here the article is by Chad broen I should say the article is by Chad broen and he is talking about a former local machinist named Michael Patrick okay so this is an article from the atlantic.com called when Labor Day meant something when Labor Day meant something and uh Chad broen uh said he said Michael Patrick a former local machinist president from gillsburg Illinois where I've done research cites his Union support for Medicare and the Civil Rights Act Now celebrating his 50th Anniversary as among his uh locals uh his local Union's proudest moments and this article is from uh September 1st 2014 September 1st 2014 now those shared victories came at a cost those shared victories came at a cost agitation for Anti-Trust legislation shter work days and work weeks and the right to organize was often portrayed as unamerican and violently repressed so it was the shed of Blood by the labor Movement by white Americans African-Americans Latinos Etc that is going to um that that is rooted in this celebration of Labor Day and we see the Industrial Revolution play a part of this and at the foundation of the Industrial Revolution is the labor of enslaved African people I'm going to come to that in just a minute now now I I I talked about uh child labor laws or the lack of child labor laws here in the late 1800s and there was no eight day work week uh most Americans work 12 hours a day a lot of them seven days a week things like this you did not have these uh laws that protected the rights of workers and protected the safety of workers Etc okay the label movement is going to force these laws to come into existence now in 1914 John Kirby was president of the National Association of Manufacturers called the Trade union movement quote an unamerican illegal and Infamous conspiracy an unamerican illegal and Infamous conspiracy anti-labor employers fought against what they saw as incipient communism incipient communism with strip breaking blacklisting vigilante violence and by enlisting government Force to their side so when you when you go study this labor movement you see corporations exploiting the labor of white people exploiting the labor of white immigrants coming to this country and definitely exploiting the labor of African people as you know and what white supremacy does is it pits groups of oppressed people against each other to fight one another you seen some you've seen some of my my presentations dealing with the um Bacon's Rebellion the 1775 uh 1675 and 1676 which helps to lay the foundation of um racial classification in this country look at Bacon's Rebellion b a o n apostrophe s Bacon's Rebellion in the county of Virginia where you have it Daniel bacon who was a wealthy uh Plantation owner who leads this rebellion of uh enslaved Africans uh White indented servants uh free African-Americans uh poor white people Etc and they are they realized that they had a common enemy in the wealthy uh plantation owners in the county of Virginia and they lead a rebellion against them to overthrow the count and in 1676 they're going to burn down the town of Jamestown Virginia okay this is Bacon's rebellion and it's going to be after Bacon's Rebellion right around 1681 that the Virginia colony and then the other colonies are going to adopt in widespread usage the term white to uh put to to classify all the people coming from Europe who we would classify as white to put them all on to put them in one category regardless of how much money they had how much land they owned or status to separate them from the uh African people who they were uniting with because they they realized that this minority uh wealthy the minority wealthy plantation owners had a problem with the masses uniting against them so they had to separate the masses so they created these classific all right now anti-labor movements anti-labor employers fought against what they saw as incipient communism incipient communism okay uh with strikebreaking blacklisting vigilante violence and enlisting and by enlisting government Force to their side during the Red Scare of 1919 to 1921 now this is during the same time of the uh uh Spanish Flu pandemic of uh 1918 1919 1920 right around that time uh and this is at the end of the year after World War I ends World War I ends in 1918 we know 1919 is also called the red summer the Red summer of 1919 when you had um uh about 25 major race rides all across this country and the streets of America were flowing with blood that's the red summer of uh of 1919 okay and it was named the red Summer by James Wen Johnson who wrote lift every voice and sing and he said the streets of America were flowing with blood okay so uh Red Scare 1919 1921 many states passed blanket sedition laws against radical speech and banned the flying of the red flag okay so this is the Red Scare of 1919 all right so what what was the Red Scare okay and and and what a sedition okay now you've heard of uh sedition and dealing with charges brought against Donald Trump um uh as well dealing with um uh Mar Lago and the uh well that's dealing with the uh um uh conspiracy that's dealing with the uh Espionage Act Espionage Act I think of 1917 okay uh dealing with Donald Trump but what is seditious conspiracy okay there's a good article from The Washington Post that deals with this called what is sedition the charge is defi the charge of seditious conspiracy is is defined in the federal criminal code section 2384 as an effort as an effort um by two uh or more people to quote conspire to overthrow put down or to or to destroy by force the government of the United States okay an effort by two or more people to quote conspire to overthrow uh conspire to uh to overthrow the government of the United States or to Levy war against them or to Levy war against them or to oppose by force the authority thereof or by force to prevent hinder or delay the execution of any law of the United States or by force to seize take or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years or both so check out uh the article this is just an excerpt of the article from Washington Post washingtonpost.com what is sedition what is sedition this is from January 13 uh 2022 okay so when we look at the Red Scare of 1919 to 1921 what what is the Red Scare the Red Scare was hysteria over the perceived Threat by Communists in the United States during the Cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States between the Soviet Union and the United States which intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s Communists were often referred to as Reds Reds Reds for their allegiance to the red Soviet flag the Red Scare led to a range of actions that had a profound and enduring effect on the US government and US Society federal employees were analyzed to determine whether they were sufficiently loyal to the US government and the house unamerican Activities Committee as well as US senator Joseph R McCarthy investigated Al allegations of diversive elements in the US federal government and in the Hollywood film industry the climate of fear and repression linked to the Red Scare finally began to ease in the late 1950s okay and here's senator Joseph McCarthy was a republican from Wisconsin he was in the US Senate 1947 to 1957 okay and there was a a Red Scare from about uh say 1917 1920 that period of time uh the first Red Scare occurred in the wake of World War I the Russian Revolution in 1917 saw the bolix led by Vladimir lenen toppled the Romanov Dynasty kicking off the rise of the Communist party and inspiring International fear of bolix and anarchists in the United States labor strikes were on the rise and the and the US press the the the media the press the newspapers sensationalized them as being caused by immigrants bent on bringing down the American way of life the Sedition Act uh so it's like some Republicans today talk about an invasion of immigrants and things like this and they're going to change American way of life Etc you know and you have the fear of the Browning of America that by 2043 the M uh major white people will no longer be the majority population in this country some white people fear this others don't a lot of Republicans do okay uh so we see history may not exactly repeat itself but it definitely Rhymes the Sedition Act of uh 1918 targeted people who criticized the US federal government monitoring radicals and labor union leaders with the threat of deportation okay so we we see this anti-government uh approach to unions okay because the the government is going to be pretty Pro Corporation so the you know Labor Day commemorates you you have parades and cookouts things like this there was also Bloodshed for unions to exist there was blood shed for labor rights that exist today some of that blood was by African-Americans but we also have to keep in mind and what gets left out a lot of these Labor Day commemorations and celebrations things like this what gets left out uh by a lot of these celebrations is that the foundation of the Industrial Revolution and the labor movement comes about as a result of the Industrial Revolution trying to get labor laws put in place to protect workers that are working in factories that have that that are po that have poor sanitation poor ventilation uh no rights to protect children you have children as young as five and six working along with their parents and in in these factories and getting a fraction of what the adults are getting a fraction and pay what the adults are getting the foundation of the Industrial Revolution was the enslavement of African people and the Industrial Revolution is going to begin in uh the 1790s in Manchester England and the the crop that's the foundation of the Des Revolution is cotton the production of content and most of that content was produced by enslaved African people okay now now uh Kev Butterfield um said here I love it when uh uninformed ignorant people post here on my page and I make them black famous so look look Kev you're gonna become black famous Kev Nance I think we need a white American history Network you have one it's called The History Channel he must not have cable it's called The History Channel I love it when I see I just let stupid people talk I love it when they say stupid things like that it's called The History Channel go to history.com official website of the History Channel you got one so he must not have cable all right let's continue here uh oh Simple Simon ass people all right now uh let's continue okay so we have all these different things taking place at the same time the Red Scare uh uh Sedition Act of 1918 history.com speaking of the White History Channel Uh Kevin um read the article here redcare history.com okay the Sedition Act of 198 targeted people who criticized the government monitoring radicals and labor union leaders with the threat of deportation now Labor Day began not as a national holiday day but in the streets of America when on September 5th 1882 thousands of Brick Layers printers blacksmiths railroad men cigar makers and others took a day off and marched in New York City eight hours for work eight hours for rest eight hours for what we will read one sign that the protesters were carrying a plard in the following years parade read we must crush the monopolies lest they crush us we must crush the monopolies lest they crush us now the movement for the holiday of Labor Day grew City by city and eventually the state and federal authorities made it official okay so read this article here uh from the atlantic.com when Labor Day meant something this is written by Chad broen this is from uh September uh 2014 okay all right now let's continue so why do we celebrate Labor Day why do we celebrate Labor Day Labor Day as I said is an annual celebration of workers and their achievements origin ated during one of American labor history's most dismal chapters in the late 1800s at the height of the Industrial Revolution as I stated and we're going to get into this as well the Industrial Revolution is tied to slavery the foundation of the Industrial Revolution comes from uh the products produced by enslaved Africans in the late 1800s at the height of the Industrial Revolution in the United States the average American worked 12-hour days and seven day weeks in order to eek out a basic living despite restrictions in some states despite restrictions in some states children as young as five or six years old uh toiled in in meals and factories and and Minds across the country earning a fraction of their adult counterpart adult counterparts wages people of all ages particularly the uh very poor and recent immigrants to the United States often faced extremely unsafe working conditions with insufficient access to Fresh Air sanitary facilities and work breaks lunch breaks bathroom breaks Etc so what was the Industrial Revolution so the Industrial Revolution marked a period of development in the latter half of the 18th Century the 1700s that transformed largely rural agrarian Societies in Europe and America into industrialized Urban ones so they're shifting from an agricultural basis to an industrialized basis where you have factories things like this and what and what happens is is because of the transatlantic slave trade because of and then the the um colonization of Africa with the Berlin Conference of 1884 in 1885 where uh it's it takes place in Berlin Germany it's presided over by German Chancellor OV Von bismar and these European nations have been fighting and killing each other for hundreds of years uh even before the transatlantic slave trade starts when they were uh classified as barbarians the the uh lumbars the jutes the anglos the Saxons the PS the the Franks things like this right um so the fighting and killing each other for uh hundreds of years they're known collectively as barbarians they organized themselves in the kingdoms those kingdoms organize themselves into two nation states and then uh and you have the transatlantic slave trade and they're fighting and killing each other over the mineral wealth and the natural resources that are in Africa uh and they realize that Africa is large enough for them to carve up Africa into colonies and they don't have to keep killing each other uh over uh The Riches of Africa okay so you have the Berlin Conference of uh 1884 1885 and what happens is because of the almost um unlimited natural resources in Africa this is going to really fuel the Industrial Revolution okay because now you you found an almost unlimited sorts of the rubber and uh Timber and all different types of things uh like this and then you have the production of cotton as well um in England and we're going to see the Industrial Revolution uh is going to uh begin in the 1790s in the oh damn in in the 1790s in the Manchester England area if we look at this article here from thought. co.uk k um this deals with the Berlin Conference you can read this so on my online history classes uh we get deep into this information if you haven't registered for my online history classes you definitely want to do that uh I teach one on Saturdays usually 2: P p.m. to 4 pm. East of Standard Time ancient Kemet one of the original names for Egypt ancient Kemet the Moors and the maaa understanding the transatlantic slave trade what they didn't teach you in school and we deal with thousands of years of History what leads to the transatlantic slave trade taking place that's uh visit our website the africanis network.com uh you can register for that class but this article here the berin conference to divide Africa the colonization of the continent by European powers okay and it goes through and breaks down a Berlin Conference and it also shows you um the different areas of Africa that were colonized by the respective European countries okay the Berlin conference was Africa's undoing in more ways than one the colonial Powers superimposed their domains on the African continent by the time Independence returned to Africa in 1950 the realm had acquired a legacy of political fragmentation that could neither be eliminated nor made to operate satisfactorily end quote and 1884 at the request of Portugal now the transatlantic slave trade begins in 14 41 with the Portuguese going into antam Gonzalez going into what is modern day uh the area is modern day marania okay it starts with the Portuguese and the Spanish are right behind uh getting involved in the transatlantic slave trade in 1884 at the request of Portugal German Chancellor adov van bismar called together the major Western powers of the world to negotiate questions and in confusion over the control of Africa negotiate questions and in confusion over the control of Africa okay this is all about power and being able to exploit the natural resources of Africa German Chancellor Adavan bismar appreciated the opportunity to expand Germany's sphere of influence over Africa and hope to force Germany's Rivals to struggle with one another for a territory at the time of the conference 80% of of Africa remained under traditional and local control what ultimately results what what ultimately resulted was a hodg podge of geometric boundaries that divided Africa into 50 irregular countries now we know we have 50 African 50 countries in Africa okay but you have this H podge of geometric boundaries that divides Africa in 50 irregular countries this new map of the continent of Africa was super superimposed on 1,000 indigenous African cultures and regions the new countries lacked rhyme a reason and divided coherent groups of people and merged together desparate groups who really did not get along okay so the most of the geographical boundaries that we see in Africa today are the result of this Berlin Conference of 1884 in 1885 and we see Great Britain got a a ton of Land from the Berlin Conference um the countries represented at the time uh included Austria Hungary Belgium Denmark France Germany Great Britain uh Italy uh the Netherlands Portugal Russia Spain Sweden Norway uh turkey and the United States of America of the 14 Nations that were at the Berlin Conference France Germany Great Britain and Portugal were the major players in the conference controlling most of colonial Africa at the time okay there was no African representation at the berin conference all right so check out the rest of this article here from thought uh. uh thoughtco.com thoughtco.com dealing with the Berlin Conference of uh 1884 1885 so as we go through and look at this history and my approach to dealing with this history is understanding it chronologically understanding cause and effect as a historian my my approach to this is different than a uh two-minute segment on MSNBC you may see I saw some uh some segments that dealt with the history of it they they didn't go they're not digging into this light like I am and once again the foundation of the Industrial Revolution is the enslavement of African people okay give us a thumbs up give us a like give us a heart on this broadcast to visit our website africanis network.com africanis network.com register for the online history classes that I teach on Saturdays and Sundays register for the online history classes that I teach on Saturdays and Sundays uh Sundays is black resistance movements uh from Christopher Columbus to the Haitian revolution and the black power movement 1492 to 1968 this is a 10we online course and we go through and look at history leading up to the Civil War we look at hundreds of years of history and look at uh what happens to us after slavery ends and we look at the Jim Crow era uh reconstruction Civil Rights Movement Black Power movement Great Migration and um and look at history look at the laws and policies put in place that brought us to where we are today to understand where we need to go from here okay and then the first class that I teach and I teach this teach this one on Saturdays is ancient Kim the Moors and the maafa understanding the transatlantic slave trade what they didn't teach you in school now this class we deal with thousands of years of history and what leads up to the transatlantic slave trade taking place this a 12we online course for both of these classes we do the sessions live all the all the classes are archived and recorded you can go back and watch it any time I have my class lesson plan here so it walks you through each uh the the topics for each class you can uh each class session you can download the class lesson plan here also okay so the classes are on sale right now $80 regularly $130 we have a bundle pack where you get both uh courses for $120 as soon as you register you can start watching the content now okay and if you want to support the African history network uh also in another way you can do so through cash app D sign the Ahn show through cash app and through PayPal paypal. meth Ahn show we have the information right on the homepage of our website this says us keep doing the research stay on the air keep broadcasting uh broadcast uh our Sunday night show Etc um pay some of the bills so you can support us there dollar sign the Ahn show through cash app through PayPal paypal.me thee Ahn show through cash app it when you go to it it'll say Michael it may show my picture there but we have the information on the homepage of our website because some unscrupulous people set up fake African history network uh cash app accounts and they've been stealing money from us so I'm still trying to get those uh shut down all right let's continue here okay let's go back to the PowerPoint presentation here all right now um hold on let skipped ah head for some reason okay so then uh what was the Industrial Revolution so the Industrial Revolution marked uh a period of development in the latter half of the 18th century that transformed largely rural agrarian agrarian Societies in Europe and America into industrialized Urban ones Goods that had once been painstakingly crafted by hand started to be produced in mass quantities by machines and factories thanks to the introduction of uh new machines and techniques in textiles iron making and other Industries other Industries so because of the um Industrial Revolution now you can Mass produce um these products because you found an almost uh unlimited amount of raw materials and because you've built uh factories and you have machinery and factories to mass produce um these products okay and then at the same time you have the development of um uh late 1800s or so you're going to have the development of um department stores you can you have mass advertising so you can Market all this through um newspapers magazines things of this nature okay so all this comes together uh at the same time all right okay let's continue okay so we have the uh uh Goods Goods that had once been painstakingly crafted by hand started to be produced in mass quantities fueled by the gamechanging use of steam power the Industrial Revolution began in Britain and spread to the rest of the world including the United States by the 1830s and 1840s modern historians often refer to this period as the first Industrial Revolution to set it apart from a second period of industrialization that took place from the late 19th century the late 1800 to early 20th centuries and saw rapid advances in the steel electric and automobile Industries uh so read the article history.com official website of the History Channel has a good article called industrial revolution industrial revolution now also more efficient mechanized production uh meant Britain's new textile and Factory new textile factories could meet the growing demand for cloth both at home and abroad where the nation's many overseas colonies provided a captive market for its goods okay in addition to textiles the British iron industry also adopted new innovation so you're dealing with British colonialism you're dealing with a demand a demand for these products in British colonies so let's look at slavery and the industrial re and the Industrial Revolution okay slavery and the Industrial Revolution and there's a really good uh article with a number of slides in it from bbc.com British Broadcasting Company bbc.com called slave trade and the British economy slave trade and the British economy so from the 1750s onward a new industry emerged in Britain the production of cotton cloth the production of cotton cloth wool production had previously been Britain's major industry but conton had one key Advantage Machinery could process cotton fibers better than wool so we know wool comes from sheep okay and you're going to have um the uh demand for cotton production of cotton and a lot of this cotton is going to be produced by enslaved Africans but then also in 1793 in the US you're going to have the cotton gen uh that's going to be created by Eli Whitney and the cotton gen was a device that picked the seeds out of cotton you're going to have the cotton gen and you're going to have copies of the cotton gen as well and this is going to greatly reduce the cost of producing cotton and drive up the sales of cotton and drive up the value of cotton D drive up the sales of cotton and the demand for cotton and the value of it as well okay as a result it was in content production that the Industrial Revolution began as a result it was in content production that the Industrial Revolution began particularly in and around Manchester England the continent Ed was mostly imported from slave plantations slavery provided the raw material for industrial change and growth okay so this is from bbc.co.uk um the British Broadcasting Company BBC this article is called slave trade and the British economy and what's interesting in a lot of the coverage that I saw dealing with um Labor Day this week again did not make the connection between uh slavery and the Industrial Revolution and Labor Day I just find that I just find that very interesting okay now let's look at uh let's go to this article here from the BBC this is called slave trade and the British economy there's a couple things I want to highlight here because they have some slides here we're not going to go through the entire article but I want to highlight uh slide one and slide four slave trade in the British economy British profits were made from exporting manufactured goods to Africa and importing products of enslaved labor such as sugar and we know sugar grows in tropical climates which is which is why uh one of the plantations that the Spanish are setting up especially Christopher Columbus when he goes into the Bahamas and Jamaica and in Hispanola or what became known as ATI or Haiti uh Cuba Puerto Rico Honduras Panama they're setting up sugar cane plantations because sugar cane grows in warmer climates ports such as glass style Uh Glascow um in England Brit Bristol and Liverpool propo prospered as a result of the slave trade prospered as a result of the slave trade now Liverpool England is where the Beatles are from so I learned about Liverpool from the Beatles you know when I was younger and you know I lived before I started studying history I learned about Liverpool from the because that's where the Beatles are from the slave trade and the British economy today we view the history of slavery in terms of its horrific human impact but in the 18th and 19th century the 1700s and 1800s Financial considerations dominated the interest of those involved in the slave trade so they a care about the humanity of people because they didn't think African people were human in the first place it was all about the Benjamins okay is or or the or the pounds okay it's all about the pounds okay so it was all about money they didn't care about the humanity because they didn't think African people were human in the first first place enslaved African people were seen as property and their experience as humans as human beings was not considered to understand the extent to which Great Britain has been shaped by the slave trade it is important to consider the scale and bread of slavery's impact on the British economy okay so we look in the 1700s Bristol we look at these these Graphics here uh Bristol Liverpool Glasgow are small ports okay in in England 80% of British exports go to Europe okay like wool and then later cotton 1711 South Sea South Sea company is set up 1733 the uh molasses uh Molasses Act Bans import of foreign sugar to North America 1750 cotton production emerges as major as a major British industry 1760 Glasgow England uh becomes main UK tobacco importer 1800 60% of British exports go to Africa and America Bristol Liverpool Glasgow are major cities okay the British economy was transformed by the transatlantic slave trade the British economy was transformed by the transatlantic slave trade now this is this is example why on May 19 2018 which was Queen charotte Sophia's birthday but also Malcolm X's birthday when Megan Marco marry Prince Harry and um and you had a lot of African-Americans who who watched The Royal Wedding and got Tey and said they're in love and all this stuff I said what the hell does love have to do with it I said Megan marle is marrying into a family of colonizers I didn't I didn't call them colonizers because they're white I call I call them colonizers because Great Britain at one time uh colonized one of the world's population and we know in 1952 when Elizabeth became became uh Queen because her her father died 1952 we know at that period at that point in time that's right around the time that the Mal M Rebellion begins 1952 to 1956 um about a little more than 25% of the world's population lived under British rule they were colonies of Great Britain so she she married into a family of colonizers okay then some people took exception what I said things like that but the history proved it true the history proved true what I was talking about and all you have to do also is uh go watch my broadcast I did when Queen Elizabeth II died because we got deep into that history once again read that article I just showed you about the Berlin Conference of 1884 and 1885 and you see I was absolutely correct now in 1700 80% of British trade went to Europe from ports on the east and south coast in 1700 okay 8 80% of British trade went to Europe from ports on the east and south coast but by 1800 60% of British trade went to Africa and America by 1800 60% of British trade went to Africa and America sailing from the three main West Coast port Glasgow Liverpool and Bristol so 1700 what we call the United States of America doesn't exist you have colonies the American Revolution is 16 uh75 to 1683 okay so you don't even have a United States of America in 1700 all right now ports such as uh London England Bristol and Liverpool prospered as a direct result of involvement in the transatlantic slave trade other ports such as glasow profited from the tobacco trade thousands of jobs were created in Britain supplying goods and services to slave Traders so this is one of the many examples of how the transatlantic slave trade fueled wealth in Britain and what I was explaining to people who were uh teed and distracted by all the opulent and weth when Megan Mar Prince Harry is I said a good portion of the billions of dollars that Great Britain produced off of the slave trade I mean the the the the the the a good portion of the wealth that Great Britain produced from uh trading goods and and things like this but the opulence that we saw the gold and all the all the costumes all the regalia all that stuff that stuff was profited from paid for by the blood and the sweat and the labor of enslaved African people thousands of jobs were created in Britain supplying goods and services to slave traders in a period that saw Britain industrialized profits could be made by exporting manufactured goods to Africa and then further profits accured from imported products made using enslaved labor imported products made using enslaved labor such as sugar which became very fashionable with British people because in Britain England they're known for drinking what tea tea drinking tea right like like you had the the Boston Tea Party here in the colonies revolting against the high prices and the taxation on tea and this start out as British colonies right United States what do you put in tea to sweeten it sugar the slave trade was important in the development of The Wider economy wi d r The Wider economy Financial Commercial Legal and insurance institutions all emerged to support the activities of the slave trade now I just want people to understand this is not from like an African centered Source this is from the BBC telling you this the British Broadcasting Company they they they have very they very well documented the transatlantic slave trade and what happened so they're they're explaining all this to you they're not hiding this some Merchants became bankers and many new business were financed by profits made from slave trading the slave trade played an important role in providing uh the British industry with access to raw materials okay and a lot of these raw materials are coming from Africa this the the transatlantic slave trade played an important role in providing British industry with access to raw materials this contributed to the increased production of manufactured goods the graphic below shows the parts of Britain's economy that benefited from the slave trade so you have the Industrial Revolution so you so what you do you have a circle okay you this is cyclical you have the Industrial Revolution you have London and finance you have the you have the banks that are financing the expansion of of of the factories buying more equipment things of this nature buying raw materials you have wealth and income produced this wealth and income produced and the the need for more more raw materials Etc to produce more products increases the need for enslaved African labor and and the products that the Africans the crops that Africans uh produce especially continent you have shipping and ports this increases the activity increases the demand for the production of ships also workers at the Docks to unload the ships you have exports and Manufacturing that increases as demand increases so you have this cycle all right now I want to go to slide four that was slide one I'm going to go to slide four slave trade and the British economy this is from the BBC so this isn't from Dr ysf B Yak this isn't Dr ysf Ben yakan and this isn't Dr John her Clark this isn't Dr lyard Jeff this isn't who's one of my teachers this is from Professor James small this isn't from Professor kabah W kame or Dr male kante or Tony BR this is from the BBC so if you got a problem with this go argue with them because they kept very well documented records on what they did manufacturing this is what I wanted to focus on economic growth and the Industrial Revolution now for all those watching and you saw coverage on Labor Day and you saw the parades take place and you you saw the unions give speeches and things like this did anybody deal with how the labor movement came out of the Industrial Revolution and the Industrial Revolution came about by the enslavement of African people and the that African people produced somehow that history gets left out of the conversation I'm not sure how it gets I don't I'm not I can't put my finger on I'm not sure if they're doing it on purpose I I don't understand how this just gets totally left out of the conversation I I just don't all right [Laughter] now okay so economic growth and Industrial Revolution many historians describe the Industrial Revolution as a process rather than an event the part that exports played can be shown as a virtuous circle the part that exports played can be shown as a virtuous circle you have the growth of exports you have the industry growing you have business owners invest and look for better machines so you have the development of better machinery going to factories expansion of factories building more factories machines get better they produce they can they can produce uh products at a cheaper cost produce them more efficiently you're going to have the increase for uh labor the to hire more people and as you're producing more products as you can drive down the price of products as well and and also you have people who have jobs so they can afford to buy a little something as well so this also increased a demand for these products so exports grow you have exports being you have products being exported internationally but you also have the consumption of products domestically okay so we see this cycle all right now cotton from 1750 onwards a new industry emerged in Britain the production of cotton cloth the production of cotton cloth wool production had previously uh been Britain's major industry but cotton but cotton had previous uh wool production had previously been Britain's major industry but contton had one key Advantage Machinery could produce cotton fibers better than wool like I said wool comes from sheep as a result it was content production that the industrial Revol that began the Industrial Revolution as as a result it was in content production that the Industrial Revolution began particularly in and around Manchester England the continent used was mostly imported from slave plantations slavery provided the raw material for IND industrial change and growth so you can't talk about the labor movement you can't talk about Labor Day and Labor Day comes as a result of the labor movement and Labor Day becomes a Federal holiday in 1894 and the reason why you have uh a labor movement is because of the Industrial Revolution and the unsanitary and unsafe conditions in those factories and the labor movement is fighting for regulation of the Industrial Revolution but the Industrial Revolution comes about specifically because of the transatlantic slave trade and the products that African people were creating you can't talk about Labor day without talking about the enslavement of African people but somehow people find a way to do that the continent use was mostly imported from slave plantations slavery provided the Raw material for industrial change and growth the growth of the Atlantic economy was an integral part of the growth of exports for example manufactured cotton manufactured cotton cloth was exported to Africa the Atlantic economy can be seen as the spark for the biggest change in modern economic history the Atlantic economy in the 1700s was founded on slave labor once again I want everybody to understand this is not me saying this this is not Dr lyard Jeff this is not Professor James small Professor kahay wat K this is not African Senate Scholars this this is the be this is the British broadcast that coming this is the BBC telling you this because they kept thorough records of what they did so I just want everybody to to to understand this because you always have people why you bringing up old stuff why you talking about history oh this is racist well racism is a system of advantage and privilege distributed based upon race which comes out of the ideology of European white supremacy for the purpose of preserving genetic white Survival on the planet is less than 10% European this does deal with racism you're absolutely correct but this deals with history key features of the Industrial Revolution introduction of factories introduction of conton increasing productivity use of machines water and steam power and falling prices okay key features of the Industrial Revolution included products were made in factories instead of at home workers used machines instead of working by hand the machines were driven by water or steam one worker could produce much more each day for example a cotton spinner could spend 200 times as much uh coton in the year 1800 compared to 1700 cotton becomes Britain's greatest export industry okay so check out uh the rest of this here and this is some of the information we get deep into in uh my online history classes so if you haven't registered for those uh be sure to register for those at our it the africanist network.com uh Thea africanist network.com and we'll post the link here as well um we do that on Saturdays 2 p pm. to 4 P pm. Eastern Standard Time as soon as you register you can start watching the content we have the information right on the homepage of our website all right let's continue here so how do you all like this type of information are you all learning anything the history of Labor Day and I've researched this history thoroughly the history of Labor Day is much deeper than what you see on TV with the parades speeches things like this and the roots of Labor Day go into the transatlantic slave trade all right let's go back to the PowerPoint presentation here um okay slave slavery and the Industrial Revolution okay we did that and let me get uh okay go back to my notes okay so then we're going to have the US Civil Wars 1861 1865 and uh Civil War in the United States begins in 1861 April 12 1861 with an attack on Fort Sumpter South Carolina becomes the first state to seced from the union December 20th 1860 about 6 weeks after Abraham Lincoln becomes president-elect uh South Carolina and other Southern States fear that Lincoln is going to free the enslaved Africans uh they seced from the union set up the Confederate States of America around February of 1861 you're going to have 11 states that are going to be part of the Confederate States of America they set up their own government their own Constitution their own monetary system uh the Civil War in the United States begins in 1861 after after Decades of simmering tensions between north and Southern States over slavery states rights and Westward Expansion slavery states rights and Westward Expansion the election of Abraham Lincoln in uh November 1860 caused seven southern states to secede from the union and form the Confederate States of America the CSA four more States uh soon joined the war between the states as the Civil War was was also known ended in Confederate surrender in 1865 so April 9th 1865 um General Robert El Lee surrenders to General ulyses S Grant at appam Mattis courthouse in Virginia and this is looked at as the end of the Civil War for all practical purposes but it the Civil War is going to go on for about another 16 months or so until August of 1866 because even though General Robert Lee's army was the largest Confederate Army was not the only Confederate Army there were smaller Confederate armies like General Joseph E Johnson's Confederate Army of Tennessee or uh that uh staunch white supremist Nathan bford Forest his Confederate Army and when you study the port phillow Fort Pillow Massacre of 1864 uh during the Civil War Nathan Beford Forest had about 200 um African-American Union Soldiers executed many of them shot point blank in the head this is a staunch white supremist he goes on to be become the first Grand wizard of the klutch clan in 1867 and to a lot of people he's a national hero uh in Tennessee okay because because remember it wasn't until about 2021 that they removed the bust of Nathan bford forest from the state capital in Tennessee all right so when you study the history of Tennessee and you look at the persecution of the two African-American uh men in the uh uh State Legislature there in Tennessee Justin uh Justin uh Johnson I think it is and Justin Pearson you see the persecution of them you see the suppression of African-Americans in Tennessee all you have to do is study their history this former Confederate State and you see a direct line all this stuff starts to make sense this is why we have to understand politics is the legal distribution of scarce wealth power and resources the legal distribution of scarce wealth Pond resources and the writing of laws statutes ordinances amendments and treaties adoption interpretation and enforcement so we have to vote strategically and we have to vote these people out of office who are doing us harm who are passing laws to do us harm this is this is this is very this is all you have to if you watch the content that we have on the African history Network you watch the Articles WE Post you watch me on Roland Martin and filtered as well we go through and break this down okay uh so and understanding the history of reconstruction the Reconstruction Era 1865 to 1877 and the Reconstruction Era leads to the Jim Crow era it leads to these white supremist taking back control of the state legislatures um and opposing segregation we look in uh Tennessee uh 1881 Tennessee State Legislature they passed segregation laws dealing with public transportation and street cars we look at uh uh Florida 1889 Florida uh uh passes probably the first pole taxes in the history of this country then Mississippi is going to do the same thing in 1890 when Mississippi uh writes their state constitution and they write their state constitution when you when you go re research the writing of these state constitutions um 1890 Mississippi uh 1895 South Carolina 1898 Louisiana 1901 Alabama Etc Georgia Oklahoma they're doing this to preserve white supremacy and in in the many of their uh state constitutions they're telling you this and they're they they are passing uh voter suppression laws they're passing laws to uh legalized pole taxes and literacy tests uh property ownership requirements Etc when it comes to voting and they're doing this to uh supress the africanamerican vote because in many of these states we were the majority of the population okay so your understanding of history is directly related your understanding of politics is directly related to your understanding of history when you understand this history then you understand why they work so hard to suppress our vote why Governor Ronda santz submitted a um u a congressional map in uh Florida okay that would uh Jerry Mander districts to lock to to reduce the voting power of African-Americans you you'll understand now not to make this a long explanation because I I go deep into this we talked about this in one of my classes a couple weeks ago and in one of uh our show one of our Sunday night shows we dealt with this um section 241 of the Mississippi state constitution the Mississippi state constitution in 1890 consists of something like about 250 um it's about 250 uh sections all right this article just to give you a quick example this article from The Washington Post deals with the Mississippi State Convention of 1890 where they rewrote the state constitution to impose pole taxes literacy tests and property ownership requirements but they also instituted a felony disenfranchisement law African-Americans were the majority of the population uh of the state of Mississippi in 1890 as a legacy of slavery and we were the majority of the voters the name of this article is the Mississippi plan the Mississippi plan to keep blacks from voting in 1890 quote we came here to exclude the Negro we came here to exclude the Negro okay now this is an excellent article by Ronald G schaer he's a white man May 1st 2021 it it talks about Solomon saladine khoun Solomon saladine coun was the White County Judge who presided over the Mississippi State Convention of 1890 in Jackson Mississippi which is the capital and he said let's tell the truth if it burst the bottom of the universe he said we came here to exclude the Negro nothing short of this will answer this was why they had the Mississippi State Convention to suppress the African-American vote delegates eventually adopted a literacy test and pole tax a pole tax meant you had to pay a tax to register to vote a pole tax gear to suppress the black vote in a state with a black majority Mississippi the Mississippi plan became became the model throughout the South part of a Wrath of racially oppressive Jim Crow laws that ended segregation so all the other southern states are going to adopt similar state constitutions okay to suppress the African-American vote all right and they're trying to find ways to get around the 15th Amendment of 1870 which guaranteed the right to vote for African-American men it's G it's not going to be until the 19 19th amendment of 1920 where uh women can vote but we know that in the South a lot of African-American women not going to be able to vote and that's why you needed a Voting Rights Act of 1965 because of what happens with uh these state constitutions and the impediments to the 15th Amendment um this is why you needed a Voting Rights Act of 1965 all right now very quickly here uh there's an article that I'm looking for I think this is it right here the US Supreme Court recently in June of 2023 the US Supreme Court uh refused to hear a challenge to the section 241 of the Mississippi state constitution of 1890 and the reason why I'm bringing this up because I hear all these black conserv running around saying slavery was a long time ago Jim Crow ER was a long time ago that doesn't have anything to do with today that's a lot those are people that don't study history or they do study history and they're trying to deceive people that's an absolute blatant lie a lot of those laws and policies are still in effect and they're shaping policy today or if you look at something like the Lost Cause the Lost Cause which comes about shortly after the Civil War ends and the Lost Cause was a revisionist history taught by the south that the Civil War was about states rights it was not about slavery that the slaves were happy slaves that the the that the institution of slavery benefited everybody okay and the slaves were too ignorant to take care of themselves therefore they had to be taken care of by benevolent Masters this is called The Lost Cause go research the Lost CS okay this article right here from Mississippi uh Mississippi free press.org Mississippi free press.org Mississippi Jim Crow felony voting law will remain after Supreme Court denies appeal this is from June 30th 2023 this stuff is not ancient history okay we we're seeing how the laws and policies of the past shape the present and the future this deals with Section 241 of the Mississippi state constitution of 18 90 of 1890 and the US Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to this felony disenfranchisement law that goes back to 1890 at the Mississippi State Convention and just katoni Brown Jackson wrote a scathing dissension to the Supreme Court refusing to hear this case Mississippi's Jim Crow era prohibitions on allowing people convicted of certain crimes to vote will remain after the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in the case today the fifth circuit uh the the the fifth Us Secret court of appeals ruled in favor of upholding the law uh last year in harness versus Watson so that's 2022 harness versus Watson Mississippi's white supremist leaders adopted it in 18 1990 in an attempt to disen disenfranchise Black residents for Life disenfranchise black residents for life so if you convicted of certain uh crimes murder things like this rap in Mississippi you lost your right to vote for life it was designed to Target African-Americans to reduce the number of us who could vote white lawmakers designated certain crimes that they believed that they believed black people were more likely to commit as lifelong disenfranchising crimes the law disproportionately disenfranchises black mississippians at at a higher rate than white residents US Supreme Court Justice uh Judge kagi Brown Jackson recounted the laws history today in a descent against the Court's refusal to take up the case Justice Sonia SOI or joined her just kangi Brown Jackson in her descent uh said uh quote the president of the 1890 Mississippi Constitutional Convention said it plain let us quote let us tell the truth if it burst to the bottom of the universe we came here to exclude the Negro nothing short of this will answer end quote to further that agenda the convention placed nine crimes in section 241 of the Mississippi State constit as basis for disenfranchisement as basis for disenfranchisement believing that more black people believing that more black people would be convicted of those crimes than white people end quote Judge katangi Brown Jackson wrote she went on to say quote eight of those crimes have remained in section 241 since 1890 without interruption thus the conventions AOW goes continue to be realized via its chosen mechanism today just as in the conventions aftermath thousands of black mississippians cannot vote due to section 241 operation end quote read the rest of this article here okay this is just this is just an example of this history and how it is still impacting us today all right okay so read that okay let's get back to this everybody doing also once again if you like this type of information you can support the African history Network dollar sign the Ahn show through cash app dollar sign the Ahn show through cash app also through PayPal paypal.me thee Ahn show ass keep doing the research stay on the air uh keep broadcasting and we have the information on the homepage of our website as well when you scroll down past the information about our classes we have the uh PayPal cash app information here this is our official cash app account dollar sign the Ahn show sh when you go to it it'll say Michael these other ones are fake African history Network cash app accounts so that's why I put the tag here when you click here it it takes you to our QR code okay and we have our link for PayPal here as well all right let's continue and we have the link here in the uh thread of the broadcast all right let's go back to the uh PowerPoint presentation so we have the US Civil War uh 620,000 Americans die uh you have about close to 200,000 African-Americans who fight in the US Civil War including Harriet Tubman uh the conflict was the ciest and deadliest war ever fought on American soil with some 620,000 of the 2.4 million soldiers killed Millions more injured and much of the South was left and ruined read the article from history.com American Civil War then we have the Reconstruction Era for a uh 14-year period the US government took steps to try to integrate uh the nation's newly freed uh African-American population into society between 1863 and 1877 the US government uh under now some sources will say it's a 12-y year period of time uh 1865 to 1877 but the US government undertook the task of integrating nearly 4 million ion formerly enslaved uh people into society after the Civil War bitterly divided the country over the issue of slavery a white slave holding South that had built its economy and culture on slave labor was now forced by its defeat in a war that claimed 620,000 lives to change its economic political and social relations with African-Americans all right now uh let's look at this here so we have the creation of labor unions which we're going to see really comes into existence after the Civil War ends like the National Labor Union is going to be founded in 1866 um the year after the Civil War ends and the year after child slavery ends okay child slavery ends um December 6 1865 when Georgia rap I the 13th Amendment you're going to have Labor smaller labor unions that exist they come about somewhere around the 1840s but we're really going to see uh an explosion of them after slavery ends many labor unions were created largely to lock out African-Americans so after the Civil War ends in 1865 you're going to have a lot of your large labor unions founded the National Labor Union uh nlu was founded in 1866 other labor unions like the uh American Federation of Labor uh AFL with Samuel gers are founded after slaver y That's right around 1875 or so it was the enslaved Africans who had the majority of the skills in the United States there were at least 262 skills trades and crafts that African people had in this country from 1619 to 1865 and we were largely working for free a lot of these skills trades and cfts we brought with us from Africa a lot of these skills trades and cfts we brought with us from Africa and we've talked about this um in in our coverage dealing with what's going on in Florida and the suppression of the teaching of African-American history in Florida by the Florida Department of Education and and Governor Ron the santis uh we talked about these new social studies standards coming out of Florida which it uh teach to middle school students that in some cases uh enslaved Africans were able to use skill trades that they use that they learn to their benefit but we didn't have to be put into an apprenticeship program we didn't have to be kidnapped in an enslaved to be put into an apprenticeship program as this article and numerous other articles and historical information shows this piece here from The Washington Post by Jillian brockel July 24th 2023 as this details name of the article note to Florida and DeSantis enslaved Africans were already skilled African people brought when we came here we brought skills with us now it's also important to note yes African people are the original people in North Central and South America you read uh the book the first Americans Africans documented evidence but Dr David M hotep who's a friend of mine I've interviewed him about 13 times his his book fairly documents this we deal with this in our classes also we were in this land before Native Americans even came into existence in the quisan who come from Southern Africa who have the oldest DNA on the planet the short statute Africans we know the quisan we're here going back at least 5 before they were enslaved and in some cases enslaver sought and purchased people coming from uh uh coming from specific African societies based on skills common in those societies Decades of research slave ship manifest Plantation ledgers newspaper articles letters journals and archa and archaeological digs by dozens of Scholars support this much of it compiled in the 2022 to book African Founders how enslaved people expanded African Freedom by P a prize winning historian David hacket fiser transatlantic slavery was an economic model proposing that skilled laborers who were benefiting themselves and their communities be abducted transported and forced to use those skills to benefit others other skills such as literacy Ministry and music making were often banned because they did not benefit and even threaten the enslaver um hacket fiser uh this is yeah David hacket fiser explains how in the mid 1700s the mid 1700s enslaving colonists in the low country of the Carolinas Georgia and Florida okay Florida once again enslaving colonists in the low country of the Carolinas Georgia and Florida targeted people from the windward coast of West Africa where rice had be had been cultivated for thousands of years where rice had been cultivated for thousands of years in the Low Country enslaved African people then built complex systems of canals levies floodgates and Fields just as they had in West Africa providing the region with its first massive cash crop because we came from very sophisticated civilizations and we used our skills trades and crafts that we had on those civilizations to build those civilizations then we used them here to build America but there were African people already here when the Spanish come in 1513 when the English come in uh 16007 so they were already African people here in New England the Puritans targeted a kaneing people from the Gold Coast or Ghana what we call Ghana who had a long military tradition emphasizing discipline and quick thinking emphasizing discipline and quick thinking also an enslaver named onesimus I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce the name one onesimus o s us taught Puritan leader Kon ma a technique for small pox inoculation which he said was common in African Homeland now history.com has an article dealing with this because we were inoculating ourselves from small poox in West Africa all right read the rest of this article here note to Florida and the an enslaved Africans were already skilled enslaved Africans were already skilled okay let's go back quickly here to the PowerPoint presentation so how you how you all like this type of information hopefully you learning a lot because this is this is a lot of research I got 10 pages of notes PowerPoint presentation there's a lot of research to put this together so we have U labor unions being created largely to lock African-Americans out of the jobs we were doing for free and a lot of these jobs are going to go to White immigrants coming to this country and white people who are already here um it was the enslaved Africans who had the majority of the skills in this country there were at least 262 skills trades and crafts that we had in this country from 1619 to 1865 and we were largely working for free now the book by James Newton and Ronald uh Lewis which came out 1978 called the other slaves the other slaves mechanics uh the other slaves mechanics Artisans and Craftsmen it details at least 262 skills trades and crafts that uh we had in this country from 1619 to 1865 all right and I I saw now I read different sort that had a portion of these skills trades and crafts but at the Charles H W Museum of African-American history there's a um when you go through the main display called instill rise there's a uh when you come out on the other side of it there's a uh display and it shows uh it's a display on the wall and it shows these different skills trades and crafts that we had okay okay and I saw it some years ago this is probably about 10 years ago now that I saw it and there's a sign there that says um you can't take pictures okay so I went home got a pin and Pad went back and spent an hour writing them down and I numbered them so that's how I know that they're 262 of them because they weren't numbered um in the display and I have the handwritten uh copy of it somewhere here in my notes and all my copies of the different indictments against Donald Trump and the timeline of history that we use in my Saturday class I've got the uh where was that we have it here somewhere where I got binders full of um the articles that we use in the class so I don't know where the heck it is now I had it here hold on where the hell is that I had it recently it was I got to find it I don't know where it is it's somewhere around here got to clean up the office uh what is this here is this that's not it well it'll turn up see is okay but anyway let's continue because this is going longer than I I wanted to go but anyway it's around here somewhere um okay this is all stuff on reconstruction and stuff from the Sunday class all right but we were anchor makers we were artists Bakers uh brick makers Barrel makers bartenders basket makers beer makers blacksmiths uh Brick Layers brick makers cabinet makers cigar makers Etc hemp Baggers a lot of these skills we brought with us from Africa we were jockeys as well because um we were jockeys during slavery and then after slavery ends we're going to dominate the Kentucky Derby we're gonna dominate horse racing the first Kentucky Derby ran in uh 1875 and it was won by a former slave named Oliver Lewis he was 19 years old okay when the first Kentucky Derby ran how many people notice okay so this is this is some deep history that is often times left out of the history books um this is so 13 of the 15 jockeys in the first Kentucky Derby where African-American man I did a I did a lecture back in 2019 called uh when black men dominated horse racing when black men dominated horse racing and let's see here I'm just going to show you something quickly here from the uh presentation because it's dealing with this period of History here okay so this is this is Oliver Lewis so wh why were horse racing was a was a a Pastime for wealthy white people usually poor white men weren't in the horse racing they weren't gambling on horse racing things like this right they didn't own they didn't own horses they didn't own their breads poor white men so why did African why did African-American slaves become jockeys African-American jockey dominance in the world of racing is a history nearly forgot to today their participation dates back to Colonial times when the British brought their love of horse racing to the new world founding fathers or as Dr Francis Chris wisson called them the fondling fathers uh George Washington and Thomas Jefferson frequented frequented the track and when President Andrew Jackson who who's huge white supremist who's the favorite President of another white supremist president named Donald John Trump former president um uh indicted co-conspirator Donald John Trump um when President Andrew Jackson moved into the White House in 1829 he brought along with him his best therough Breads and his black jockeys so Andrew Jackson hated African people but he liked us enough he was nice enough to let us race his horses for him because racing was tremendously popular in the South it is not surprising that the first uh black jockeys were slaves now the uh this this is a picture of Oliver Lewis here but when the first Kentucky Derby ran in uh 1875 May 17th 1875 13 of the 15 jockeys were African-Americans among the first 28 Kentucky Derby winners 15 of them were African-American jockeys African-American jockeys excelled in the sport of horse racing in the late 1800s but by 1921 they had disappeared from the Kentucky track and would not return until Marlon St Julian rode in the 2000 race so the last the last um African-American jockey to win a Kentucky Derby was Jimmy wink Winfield In 1902 he won it in 1901 and 1902 this is Oliver Lewis Oliver Lewis won the uh first Kentucky Derby 18 1975 okay he was 19 years old he was a former slave and his horse trainer's name was anel Williams I think it was anel Williams and he was an older African-American man and a former slave also Oliver Lewis won the very first Kentucky Derby in 1875 aboard uh aristes the horse arist in addition to this famous first Oliver Lewis became an analyzer of racing data his work became very influential in the the forming of modern race charts so the uh Derby museum.org has a lot ofal historical information this is Jimmy wink Winfield uh he he's a two-time Kentucky Derby racer uh 1901 at age 19 Jimmy wink week field captured his first Kentucky Derby title uh a stride a horse named Eminence he went on to win 160 races that year 161 races Jimmy wink Wingfield won in 1901 including ke victories in the uh lonia Derby on Hernando and Tennessee Derby where he rode Royal Victor okay and he's going to go on to race internationally win a lot of the top races in Europe um so he he won the he was the last African-American jockey to win a Kentucky Derby in that was in 1902 you have William Walker um he was a Kentucky Derby winner as well and turns pro at uh 17 I think he was 17 years old when he turns Pro uh he went to Kentucky Derby in 1877 uh you have Isaac Murphy Isaac Murphy uh won the Kentucky Derby three times 1884 1890 and 1891 okay so there's a whole deep rich history of African-American jockeys that is is largely forgotten is largely forgotten all right now um let's go back to this one here main presentation let's close out this one here on jockey let's go back to this one here [Music] all right now so skilled trades the lab let's look at the labor union of the late 1800s and there's a um a book that I'm referencing also called how white folks got so rich the untold story of American white supremacy uh the Third Edition how white folks got so rich the untold story of American white supremacy check out this book it's a small but powerful book and it's similar to Black labor white wealth by Dr Claude Anderson who one of my teachers also Dr Claude Anderson so the labor union movement of the late 1800s has arguably done more to destroy black progress than any other known action of white people besides slavery after slavery yet it is almost totally invisible in African-American history the union movement was specifically designed to do number one do two main things number one remove African-Americans from their jobs in the skill trades which we dominated which we dominated number two installing those jobs the European immigrants uh who were flooding uh into America by the millions okay and these European immigrants also are going to be exploited by these corporations in these factories now Scholars uh attribute the rapid SU ESS of immigrant groups directly to these advantages they receive through their membership in the American Trade unions in the American Trade unions read pages 37 through 38 of how white folks got so rich the untold story of American white supremacy the Third Edition and let's see here um want make sure I cover all this here I have we have this here okay so from let me see where we want to pick this up here I'm looking at my notes uh okay let me go to my notes Here for this just bear with me because I'm switching between articles notes and some other stuff here okay so I'll show you my notes here because I have 10 pages of notes but we'll go to it here on the screen share right here this is what I want to go to after slavery ends so after slavery in were going to see a lot of these large uh labor unions created and they were created to protect jobs for white men to keep African-Americans uh out of these unions and they're going to have they're going to have contracts with various Industries and let me try to blow this up some more they're going to have contracts with various industries that you can only hire white men uh that belong to these unions then and this is to lock African-Americans out of these jobs then from about 1866 to 1880 we're going to see about 12 million European immigrants come to the United States okay and a lot of the jobs that they got should have gone to African-Americans because we were the ones doing the work but the other thing was uh is that even though they got these jobs their labor is going to be largely exploited so even though these these these European immigrants get these jobs the labor is going to be largely exploited and they're going to be paid very low wages they're going to work in unsanitary conditions Etc okay so uh I'm not against unions I'm not against unions I'm against racism in labor unions okay uh once African-Americans are able to get into labor unions Fight Against Racism to various degrees labor unions are going to help to create an African-American middle class but it was a hard it was a hard fight okay um labor unions have done a lot of good things but when we uh look at the origins of a lot of these labor unions it comes out of white supremacy and racism and it comes out of a need to lock African-Americans out of these opportunities okay so uh read uh how white folks got so rich the unto story of American white supremacy this is from the Nation of Islam research group and it's very well documented that they talk about how the labor union movement of the late 1880s has arguably done more to destroy black progress than any other known Act of white people outside of slavery but this is largely left out of History okay now the okay so we talked about that um while historians have misrepresented blacks and slavery as being mere field hands uh African-Americans held a virtual monopoly on almost all skilled and unskilled labor okay we were the engine ship Builders tailor shoe makers Carpenters Etc uh let's see here okay so we covered that pretty much already the origins of Labor Day Industrial Revolution uh 1790s we did that so as manufacturing increasingly replaces an agricultural basis as the Wellspring of American employment labor unions which had first appeared in the late 18th century which is uh the late 1700s we're going to first see uh we we are going to first see labor unions going we're going to see a lot of uh small labor unions then they're going to grow more prominent after slavery ends and uh they become more vocal because you have a because you're replacing a agricultural basis with a manufacturing basis all right let's see uh okay you have an industrial revolution here in the US and the 1880s uh and you have labor unions began organizing labor strikes and rallies to protest poor conditions and compel workers to compel employers to renegotiate um hours in Pay many of these events turned violent During the period of time including the infamous hey Hay Market uh uh Riot of 1886 in which several Chicago policemen and workers were killed others gave rise other protests and Strikes gave rise to long-standing traditions on September 5th 1882 uh 10,000 workers took unpaid time off uh from work to march from uh City Hall in Union Square in New York City holding the first Labor Day Parade in US history now the idea of a working man's holiday celebrated on the uh first Monday in September caught on in other industrial centers across the country and many states passed legislation recognizing it Congress would not legalize the holiday until 12 years later uh in 1884 when a watershed moment in American labor history brought workers rights squarely into Public's View okay and this was the uh pman Palace car company strike by the Pullman workers okay uh now the Pullman Porters who were African-American the pman porters were not allowed to strike because they were not allowed to join the union when we look at George Pullman and this history on George Pullman is is fascinating and this is going to be uh this ties into the Panic of 1893 which we talked about in the beginning of this presentation so George Pullman founds the Pullman Palace car company in Chicago in 1867 he's also going to actually found a town called Pullman Illinois where his workers are going to live and he's going to found a bank in Pullman Illinois as well so George Pullman is going to cut wages as rents continue during the Panic of 1893 cuts to wages and and rents endure despite growing tensions among George Pullman's workers George Pullman's vision of a paternalistic community organized around a factory fascinated the American public for a Time when Chicago hosted the colia EXP uh the Colombian Exposition Exposition uh the World's Fair of 1893 International visitors flocked to see the Model Town created by George Pullman so his workers lived in quarters that George Pullman owned rent was taken directly out of their paychecks okay things changed dramatically with the Panic of 1893 which was a severe Financial depression that affected the American economy George Pullman is going to cut the wages of his workers by onethird but he refused to lower the rent of his workers in the company housing that he owned he cuts wages by 33% but he did not cut their rent so the depression set off by the Panic of 1893 was the greatest depression uh America had known and was only surpassed by the Great Depression of the 1930s in early May 1893 the New York Stock Market dropped sharply and in late June Panic selling caused the uh stock market to crash a severe credit crisis resulted in more than 16,000 businesses failed by the end of 1893 uh including uh and it it also included the uh the failed businesses of about 156 railroad companies and nearly 500 Banks okay unemployment spread until one in six American men lost their jobs uh thought. co.uk I'm sorry thought uh thoughtco.com has an article Financial panics of the 19th century okay so check out that article now the town just outside of Chicago have been built as a utopian for George Pullman's workers and I'm going to go back to my notes for this here okay how you doing trise uh um let's see here let's flip over to this okay the inventor of the Pullman car right here okay so George Pullman who is the inventor of the Pullman car which was a um a sleeping car on railroads that um you know cuz people are traveling across the country they're not flying at this time they're traveling across the country by railroad okay he was born in 1831 in Upstate New York he was the son of a carpenter he learned carpentry himself and moved to Chicago Illinois in the late 1850s during the Civil War George pman began building a new kind of Railroad passenger car A new kind of Railroad passeng passenger car which had births for passengers to sleep Pullman's cars became popular with the railroads and in 1867 he formed the Pullman Palace car company the Pullman Palace car company okay he was the creator of the uh railroad sleeping car and he's going to found a town in Pullman Illinois for his uh he's going to found a town in Illinois called Pullman Illinois he founded this town for his employees the town just outside of Chicago had been built as a utopian home for George Pullman's workers but the Utopia was designed to serve George Pullman above all others according to PBS.org public broadcasting system quote it's residents all worked for the uh Pullman company PBS notes quote their paychecks drawn from Pullman bank because he owned a bank and their rent set by George pman deducted automatically from their weekly paychecks end quote from 1880 to 1893 all seemed well in Pullman town until an economic depression prompted George Pullman to cut his employees wages even though their rents remained the same the workers walked out in solidarity members of the American Railway Union founded by a fiery socialist Eugene Debs Eugene Debs according to Time Magazine the American Railway Railway company took up the cuse of the George Pullman workers who are striking and the 150,000 members of the American Railway Union refus refus to work on trains carrying George Pullman's sleeping cars prompting a nationwide Transportation nightmare prompting a nationwide Transportation nightmare now you may have heard the name Eugene Debs recently in the media behind the indictments of Donald Trump because um people are saying Eugene people are saying that Donald Trump can still run for president from prison and a precedence for this would be when Eugene Debs ran for president of the so he ran for United States President representing the Socialist Party and he ran for president from prison so when you hear about Eugene Debs the Socialist running for president from prison this is who they're talking about Eugene devs was the president of the American Railway Union who joined in 189 3 joined alone uh his Union joined alone with the Pullman uh uh the Pullman worker Strikers in this strike against George Pullman all right let's go back to my notes we're gonna wrap up this here in a few minutes hopefully in the early 1880s as his company prospered and his factories grew pman be began uh planting a town okay he be uh so he built the town uh he had a theater in the town Etc saloons dance halls and other establishments that would have been frequented frequented by working class Americans of that time were not allowed in in the city limits of uh of Pullman Pullman Illinois and it was widely believe that company spies kept a watchful eye on the workers during their hours off the job the intrusiveness of management in the private lives of workers naturally became a source of resentment okay now uh okay so we have this Panic 1893 read the article Financial panics of the 19th century from thoughtco.com orders for railroad sleeping cars declined and George Pullman was forced to lay off hundreds of employees those who remained endured wage Cuts even while rents in George Pullman uh in Pullman Town Pullman Illinois remained consistent take on paychecks plummeted and so the employees walked out demanding lower rents and higher pay the American Railway Union led by uh socialist Eugene V Debs came to the cause of the Striking workers and railroad workers Across the Nation boycotted trains carrying George Pullman's cars rioting pillaging and burning of railroad cars soon ensued mobs of nonunion workers joined in okay uh so the pman worker strike spreads Nationwide outraged by the strike at his factories George Pullman closed the plant determined to wait out the workers determined to wait out the workers Pullman's stubborn strategy uh might have worked except for the American uh Railroad Union Railway union members uh who who joined in in the strike now the Striking the strike instantly became a national issue and president Grover Cleveland who won the presidential election who just been elected uh president again because he's the only president to win two non- consecutive terms uh Benjamin Harrison was the president 1893 then uh Grover Cleveland Stephan Grover Cleveland wins the election becomes president again president Stephan Grover Cleveland faced with nervous railroads faced with nervous railroads railroad Executives and interrupted mail trains declared to strike a federal crime and deploy 12,000 troops to break the strike violence erupted and two men were killed when us Deputy Marshals fired on protesters in Kensington uh Illinois near Chicago cono but the strike but the strike was doomed on May 11th 1894 employees of the pman palace car company in Chicago went on strike to protest wage cuts and the firing of Union Representatives okay uh okay then on then on June 26 1894 the American railroad uh or Railway Union led by Eugene Debs called for the boycott of pman Railway cars crippling ra railroad traffic Nationwide to break the Pullman Strike the federal government dispatched uh troops to Chicago 12,000 uh uh US troops unleashing a wave of riots that resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen workers okay so there was Bloodshed in the streets behind this uh strike this Nationwide strike so people still ask the question of who created Labor Day we don't know exactly who created Labor Day we do know on uh June 28th 1894 president Grover Cleveland signed labor dat into law in the wake of this massive unrest and in an attempt in an attempt to repair ties with American workers Congress passed an act making Labor Day a legal holiday in the district of Colombia and uh US territories on June 28th 1894 president Stephan Grover Cleveland signed this act into law more than a century later the true founder of Labor Day has yet to be identified many credit Peter J Maguire co-founder of the am American Federation of Labor While others have suggested that Matthew Maguire M AI e m AI e a secretary of the central labor union with uh first proposing the holiday uh okay so there's an article from atlantic.com on this also read that and there's a good article from Time magazine called how a bloody railro Railroad Strike paved the way for the first Labor Day how a bloody Railroad Strike pav the way for the first Labor Day now when we look more at um African-American roots of Labor Day we deal with George pman and the pman palace car uh company and the fact that the African-American Pullman Porters who many of them were former slaves were not able to participate in this strike when a Pullman car was leased to a railroad it was equipped with highly trained Porters to serve uh the tri these cars were staffed with recently freed slaves who George Pullman judged to be skilled in service and willing to work for low wages soon the pman rail company the pman rail car company was the largest employer of African-Americans in the country with the greatest concentration of pman Porters living on Chicago's South Side so Labor Day was uh nationally established after the pman strike of 1894 when President uh Stephen Grover Cleveland sought to win political points by honoring dissatisfied ra railroad workers this strike did not include uh African-American Pullman Porters or conductors on trains but for the black Porters racism fueled part of the workers's dissatisfaction and was never addressed okay so it's going to be after the uh Brotherhood of sleeping car Porters is founded by A Philip Randolph in uh 1925 it's going to be after that that these workers are going to be able to go on strike okay so uh Philip Randolph and uh president of the Brotherhood of sleeping car Porters Brotherhood of sleeping car Porters also called Brotherhood of sleeping car Porters and Maids ma Maids was the first African-American labor union to be affiliated with the American Federation of Labor it was founded in 1925 by labor organizer and civil rights activist A Philip Randolph who's also a member of f Beta Sigma fraternity Incorporated my fraternity you heard me uh mention that on Rand Martin filtered when we talked about the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington and I didn't agree with ailer Randol on everything I disagree with him on the uh Marcus Garvey musg go campaign but other things I agreed with him on uh the the Brotherhood of sleeping car Porters aimed to improve the working conditions and treatment of African-American railroad Porters and Maids employed by the Pullman Company by George Pullman a manufacturer and operator of railroad cards the bscp Brotherhood of sleeping car Porters embodied AER randol's belief that segregation and racism were linked to the unfair distribution of wealth the unfair distribution of wealth and power that condemned tens of millions of African-American and white Americans to Chronic misery britannica.com Encyclopedia Britannica has a good write up on uh the Brotherhood of car Porters you can check that out at uh britannica.com now in their home neighborhoods uh to be a Pullman Porter was considered a prestigious position the job offered a steady income a opportunity um a steady income a and an opportunity to travel across America and a life largely free of heavy physical labor which was rare for African-Americans in that era historian TAMU black recounts they were goodlooking clean and Immaculate in their dress their style was quite manly their language was very carefully crafted so that they had a sense of intelligence about them they were good role models for young men and I remember there was a documentary in the last few years about the Pullman Porters also these African-American men uh but the porters were also mistreated underpaid and subjected to countless IND indignities on the job a p quote a Pullman Porter was really kind of a glorified Hotel made and bellhop in what George Pullman called a hotel on Wheels and what George Pullman called a hotel on Wheels explains Forman former Pullman Porter and historian Greg looy uh read the article from blackpast.org called Brotherhood of sleeping carp Porters Brotherhood of sleeping carp Porters that breaks down this uh history in blackpast.org they have about 6,000 pages of Articles dealing with African history and African-American history so uh that's one of the sources I use uh in my classes if you go back to my notes Here quickly this is on page seven of my notes uh let's see where are we here the Pullman company I want to go to this citation here where we right here okay so the Pullman company just thought of the porters as a piece of equipment just like another button on a panel the same as a light switch or a fan switch the same as a light switch or a fan switch and let's see here I'm going to pull up this article blackp pass.org okay this piece right here let's go to this Brotherhood of sleeping car Porters uh 1925 to 1978 this from blackpast.org all right this is a mass meeting of the Brotherhood of sleeping car Porters in 1933 uh let's see I want want where is that okay uh I'm not sure what that is okay check out this article here I'm just going to go back to my notes trying to show you the actual article but uh car Porters is that the same thing okay I'll just go back to my notes on this oh say Okay so the Pullman company just thought of the Pullman Porters as a piece of equipment just like another button on a panel the same as a light switch or a fan switch end quote George pman demanded 400 hours a month or 11,000 miles okay 400 hours a month or 11,000 miles from his Pullman Porters sometimes as much as 20 hours U at a stretch and pay and he paid them ridiculously low wages so in 1926 in average uh they were paid an average of $810 a year in 1926 that's about $7,500 in today's dollars quote it did not pay a livable wage but they made a living with tips uh that they got because the salary was nothing says Lyn Hughes of the A Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum the A Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum the company expected its employees to pay for their own meals Supply their own uniforms and Supply their own shoe polish and allow them only short naps on couches in the smoking car disg grunted Pullman Porters began to question the situation and decided to uh take on the enormously powerful company in 1925 the pman the uh pman Porters formed a union called the Brotherhood of sleeping car Porters this marked the beginning of a 12year struggle a 12E struggle for dignity better working conditions and fair pay its leaders were uh carismatic black activist A Philip Randolph and former uh Pullman Porter Milton Webster head of the Chicago Union Local their eventual Triumph marked the first time in American history that a black Union forced a powerful Corporation to the to the negotiation table it was a significant step forward for black equality it was a significant step forward for black equality and let me see here just say me I'm looking at this article here just bear with me because I have a ton of information here okay that's that's from a different article uh oh I think this had to be the article from public broadcasting system from pbs.org that's what that is uh that was uh TAMU black so that was sleepy okay this is one of these articles but we' got the uh I've got the notes here so that's fine we'll just roll with that okay let's continue their eventual Triumph marked the first time in American history that a black Union forced a powerful Corporation to the negotiation table it was a significant step uh forward for black equality the union members learned how to organize they uh discovered that even in a time of great Prejudice in America blacks could affect change if they stood together okay so this is this was like something like really really important that I gathered from this and researching this history back when I um originally did this presentation like in 2019 I was research in all this history this is an example of African-Americans working together for an extended period of time this is before the modern day Civil Rights Movement the modern day Civil Rights Movement partly has its roots in the Brotherhood of sleeping car porters the organization and their uh 12year strike that they had okay that 12year fight that they had they would later apply these techniques to the Civil Rights Movement they would later apply these techniques to the Civil Rights Movement we know that A Philip Randolph is going to become instrumental in the uh modern civil rights movement and he was uh looked at as one of the big six negro leaders so uh negro leaders also so the union members of the Brotherhood of sleeping car Porter learn how to organize and negotiate and I'm G try to pull something else up as well okay all right okay so they learn how to negotiate uh learn how to organize and negotiate as well and let me pull this up here okay we'll go back to that just give me a minute all right okay so we know that A Philip Randolph becomes one of what's known as the big six negro leaders uh big six African-American leaders during the uh modern day Civil Rights Movement he's one of the architects of the March on Washington and these African-American men discovered that even in a time of great Prejudice in America uh African-Americans could affect change could bring about change if they stood together and persevered once again um it's important to understand that these these African-Americans organized and they they formed this organization and they realized even that a time of racial Prejudice and racism in America in the late 1920s and 30s they realized that they could bring about change if they stood together and persevere now these tactics were later applied to the Civil Rights Movement the modern day Civil Rights Movement so even though we look at the modern day Civil Rights Movement starting in December of 1955 with the Montgomery Bus Boycott which started Monday morning December 5th 1955 um or some people take it back to the lynching of imit August 28th 1955 and what takes afterwards the the the effort to uh force a trial to gather information on the killers of imtil and the support given to imel's family and the international attention on this lynching uh or this 14year old boy uh his cousin Sim and we know his cousin Simeon passed away in September 2017 okay but we we're but we see the seeds of the modern day civil rights movement in uh the fight of the Brotherhood of sleeping car porters the root.com had a uh good article in the video clip from September 4th 2017 called America's racist history of Labor America's racist history history of Labor um so you can check that out also America's racist history of labor now you also have uh Isaac Meyers Isaac Meyers is the let's see here let's go back over to the PowerPoint presentation Isaac Meyers was the president of the colored National Labor Union in um 1869 color color L colored National Labor Union so Isaac Myers was a a a Mason Brick Mason uh labor leader born in Baltimore January 13th 1835 he was the son of uh free African-American parents but grew up in a slave state of Maryland um Isaac Meyers received his Early Education from a private Day School of a local clergyman named Reverend uh John fory since the state of Maryland provided no public education uh for uh African-American children at the time at age 16 Isaac Myers became an apprentice to James Jackson who was a prominent African-American uh Baltimore ship caer four years later Isaac Myers was Supervisor was supervising the caulking of clipper ships operating out of Baltimore the newly created Union um now now during the Civil War Isaac Myers worked as a porter and shipping clerk for a grocer and then returned to his original profession as a Caulker soon after the war ended the civil war ends in 1865 Isaac Myers found himself unexpectedly unemployed when a group of white caers a group of white caulkers protested the employment of black cers caulkers and uh long long Horman long shoran I should say long long shoran in response to the strike Isaac Meyers proposed the creation of a union of black caers CAA CA l k RS the newly created Union called the colored caers Trade Union society the colored caers Trade Union society this decided to form a Cooperative company that would own a shipyard and railroad okay and we have a deep rich history of cooperatives Cooperative economics Dr Jessica Gordon MH Hart's book Collective courage breaks down this history this is one of the books that we use uh in uh my online history classes also uh this book here Collective courage a history of AC African-American Cooperative economic thought and practice Collective courage a history of Cooperative economic thought and uh economic thought and practice by Jessica Gordon nard in the concept of the cooperatives these were principles that we brought with us from Africa all now the so he forms the colored caers Trade Union society it was and they decided to form a Cooperative company that would own a shipyard and railroad pulling their resources the workers issued stock and quickly raised $10,000 in subscriptions among black Baltimore res residents they also borrowed another $30,000 and on February 12th 1866 they purchased a shipyard and Railway which they named the Chesapeake Marine Railway the Chesapeake Marine Railway which was a and dry doc company okay so they they did this in 1866 all right uh black pass.org has a good article on uh Isaac Meyers and I'm GNA go to that here pull this up so when we study you know how we using the Cooperative system done presentations on this in the past and we deal with th this is how we engaged in economics a lot of these economic empowerment gurus out here that are preaching white capitalism and black people investing green dollars in the white owned stock market and trying to pass that off as economic empowerment because it's not you can create wealth for economic empowerment and wealth creation are not the same thing you got a lot of these economic empowerment gurus out here using the term economic empowerment and wealth creation interchangeably they're not the same thing economic empowerment occurs when we control the economics in our community we own the land we own the majority of the businesses we own the gas stations radio stations grocery stores dry cleaners multi-story buildings Etc on the newspapers the media in our community that's economic empowerment you we could all have stock portfolios let me let me I want to make sure everybody understands this we could all have stock portfolios value at $5 million and we can still spend 97% of our dollars with people that don't look like us you have wealth creation you don't have economic empowerment and there a lot of economic artment gurus or whatever they want to call themselves out here using the terms interchangeably they're not the same thing I'm not against wealth creation but we have to be clear on what we're doing black people investing green dollars in white owned corporations is not economic empowerment you can create wealth now you can take that wealth and you can use that to buy up the land buy up houses on grocery stores on radio stations TV stations you can use that wealth to buy Assets in our community so we can control the economics and control the politicians in our communities but we cannot confuse wealth creation with economic empowerment those are two entirely different things they come from two different mindsets when you understand history you deal you understand what Isaac Myers was doing and others they're talking about economic empowerment and controlling the economics in their own communities and being able to employ their own people that's a different mindset than just creating wealth so they also borrowed another $30,000 and on February 12th 1866 one year after slavery ended they purchased a shipyard and Railway which they named the Chesapeake Marine Railway and dry do company within months within months The Cooperative The Cooperative employed 300 black ckers and received several government contracts this is in 1866 not 1966 1866 the year after the Civil War ended in child slavery ended ultimately it employed a number of white workers as well the success of um the success of Isaac Meers Union in Baltimore encouraged black caulkers in other Seaport cities to organized it also caught the attention of the National Labor Union executive committee the national liban which was founded in 1866 largely to lock African-Americans out of the jobs of we been doing for free in 1869 the National Labor Union invited invited Isaac Meers colored caulkers Trade Union society to its annual convention meeting in Philadelphia the National Labor Union declared it would welcome African-American unions to its Federation meanwhile Isaac Meyers elected uh was elected president of the color National Labor Union the color National Labor Union the first organization of his type in US history Isaac Meyers appealed to Black workers to join unions and called on white unions to accept them as full members expecting the full support of the National Labor Union he soon learned that the predominantly white organization insisted that black union members abandon the Republican party and joy the labor reform party so at this time the Republican party was largely the party of African-Americans because they were the party of Lincoln okay this is before reconstruction this is before the Republicans betrayed African-Americans with the compromise of 1877 that most of these black conservatives out here don't want to talk about okay and uh they agreed to uh that rer B Hayes who was the Republican candidate for president in the 1876 presidential election they agreed that um he would remove move the remaining Union troops out of the South to allow the uh Democrats and the white supremacist to take back full control of uh the state governments in the South okay this is the Compromise of uh 1877 all right now when black union members led by Isaac Meers refused to abandon the Republican party they were not invited back back to the National Labor Union with no allies among the large labor movement the colored National Labor Union soon found itself isolated it collapsed by 1871 Isaac Meers held a variety of other positions but his years of prominence were over uh he worked as a detective for the Baltimore post office between 1872 and 1879 between 1872 1879 and 1882 he operated the small Baltimore more uh coal yard c a l all right read the rest of this uh about Isaac Myers uh at blackpast.org and the uh color cers uh Trade Union society the colored caers Trade Union society now uh Frederick Douglas was uh vice president of a colored um of a colored labor union where is that right here um the uh colored National Labor Union 1872 uh he's going to become president he was vice president of uh color uh labor union and becomes president of one Al becomes president of one as well uh so blackp pass.org has some information on that and I had a what was that article I had the some information on that deal with Frederick Douglas also there is a good article from newsone.com that deals with uh where is oh it's uh five five black Le labor unions that pav the way for black workers rights there five black Le labor unions that paav the way for black workers rights so check this out from uh newsone.com this a good article so for the sake of time I'm not going to go through this this is from September 5th 2022 five black labor unions that pave the way for black workers rights and um I'm G to close out this ad they talk about the uh let's see here Brotherhood of sleeping car Porters um talk about the Brotherhood of sleeping car porters the colored National Labor Union colored National Labor Union waiting for this to keep loading okay uh color National Labor Union they talk about the uh Coalition of black trade unionists the National Domestic workers union and the American League of colored laborers the American League of colored laborers okay led by Frederick Douglas uh created in 1850 the American League of colored laborers okay so you can check that out as well five black Le labor unions that have paved the way for black workers rights okay so I think that's everything I know I had a lot of information this it's it's a deep history and a lot of this history does not get covered in especially mainstream media when they talk when they talk about Labor Day and even if they mention African-Americans a lot of this stuff does not get covered so since I have my own platform and I'm a historian I want to make sure we covered it uh here today so hopefully you learned a lot uh if you like this type of information you support the African history Network as well register for the online history classes that I teach on Saturdays and Sundays have the information at our website the African history network.com the africanis network.com to uh visit our website African history network.com africanist network.com register for the online history classes that I teach on Saturdays and Sundays register for the online history classes that I teach on Saturdays and Sundays uh Sundays is black resistance movements uh from Christopher Columbus to the Haitian revolution and the black power movement 1492 to 1968 this is a 10-week online course and we go through and look at history leading up to the Civil War we look at hundreds of years of history and we look at uh what happens to us after slavery ends and we look at the Jim Crow era uh reconstruction Civil Rights Movement Black Power movement Great Migration and um and look at history look at the laws and policies put in place that brought us to where we are today to understand where we need to go from here okay and then the first class that I teach and I teach this teach this one on Saturdays is ancient kimet the Moors and the maaa understanding the transatlantic slave trade what they didn't teach you in school now this class we do a thousand of years of history and what leads up to the transatlantic slave trade taking place this is a 12we online course for both of these classes we do the sessions live all the all the classes are archived and recorded you can go back and watch it anytime I have my class lesson plan here so it walks you through each uh the the topics for each class you can uh each class session you can download the class lesson plan here also okay so the classes are on sale right now $80 regularly $130 we have a bundle pack where you get both uh uh courses for for $120 as soon as you register you can start watching the content now okay as soon as you register you can start watching the content now you don't have to be present in class you can just watch it uh at your own pace and even after the course is over with you can uh go back and you'll still have full access you can watch it any time the content is PG-13 so you can use this with your children it's not uh uh I don't do a lot of cursing or anything like that it's not overly vulgar it's very VIs ual there are 80 to 100 articles that we go through and look at there are over 200 slides uh in my class there uh 15 book references as well and usually I show you the books on on the screen the the the book references on the screen uh also I show you excerpts of interviews are done with some of our Scholars like Professor Jane small uh Professor kabah K uh Anthony Browder Tony Browder Roku rashidi and others okay so I've been teaching this class on and on since 2017 aent Kim the mo is and the ma ala understanding the transatlantic slave trade I developed both of these classes I'm a historian I've been studying 34 years um so you're you're never going to look at history the same way your understanding of politics is directly related to your understanding of History so this information is going to totally blow you away you can support us also through uh so registering for the classes that supports us that helps us to financially financially support us to help us keep doing the research stay on the air keep broadcasting pay the bills Etc you can also support us through cash app and PayPal because all this stuff does not happen for free uh you can support us through cash app or PayPal dollar sign the Ahn show through cash app dollar sign the Ahn show through cash app um and that's our official cash app account now the these are these are some fake African history Network cash app accounts I've identified five of them out here they've been steing money from us I'm still trying to get them shut down when you click on this link here it takes you to our QR code for the African history Network as well for uh for cash app okay and then here's our PayPal link right above that uh you can click on that also so if you want to support us 5 10 15 2550 $100 or more that defin definitely helps okay because it takes a lot to uh do the type of research that I do and pay for all these Services um listen to the African history Network show Sundays 9 p.m. to uh 11: p.m. Eastern Standard Time normally 9:00 p.m. 11:00 p.m. Eastern Standard time we did today earlier uh we'll do a rebroadcast at 9:00 P p.m today I did four hours of uh radio and Facebook live with WBLS today brother fatine Muhammad uh uh open lines uh we did that 8 AM to uh 100 PM Eastern standard time today okay 800 am to 1 pm. Eastern Standard Time the Facebook live is on our Facebook fan page the African history Network so I shared it there and we talked about the uh election uh KLA Harris versus Trump we got into a deep discussion about politics and history things of that nature so go check that out uh also all right follow us uh follow us on our Facebook fan page the African history Network the African history Network and uh my personal page mik Lim Hotel uh you can like our um posts share them post your comments as well as well as on our videos and subscribe to my YouTube Chann Channel Michael motep i m h o t p uh on YouTube Okay And subscribe there like our post comment as well all right look we have to get out of here remember at the African history Network we focus on educating empowering and inspiring people of African descent throughout the dipor and around the world because right now it's corrects wrong Behavior Uh watch me Friday 6 pm to 8:00 P p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Roland Martin unfiltered hopefully he'll stop interrupting me and uh hopefully on his win with black men call he'll get some sigas on there I've been telling Roland you got to get some sigas on there okay blue go mob right now this correct wrong behavior is not over till we win wakand of forever with