Probably many of you do not know that this village community was first settled by 11 black men who had arrived as indentured servants in what was then the small settlement of New Amsterdam, in 1626. Eighteen years later these servants demanded manumission. All of the men had taken wives by that time and so they were families. In 1644 the Dutch settlers granted these blacks’ request, but made them move to the outskirts of the settlement in a “tangled swamp” known later as Greenwich Village. The Village was the earliest community in New York city...
The Village was the center of New York’s black community until just before the civil war when Irish immigrants and other poor whites, egged on by northern merchants who were in sympathy with the south because the south owed them money, set fire to the black community including the black orphan asylum. This was in July 1863, over 1000 people were killed and wounded. This was the end of the black community in the village.
It was as though... after indescribable effort, after grim years of fasting and prayer, after the loss of all he had, and after having been promised of the almighty that he had paid the price, and no more would be demanded of his soul, which was harbored now. It was as though in the midst of his joyful feasting and dancing, crowned and robed, a messenger arrived to tell him that a great error had been made, and that it was all to be done again.
Aminata is the female of Ameen. Ameen is the name of Amun, Amen, it’s the last part of Tutankhamun’s name. It’s an ancient African name. The great hidden God.
But many of us feel that since we are “Anti-Establishment” that makes us heroes. Nonsense. Most such anti-establishmentarianism is just petit bourgeois anarchism and failure to take up the responsibility intellectuals better understand they have, to actually help make life better for all of us.
You still got the on and off switch. You still have the option of turning it on or turning it off, you have the option to buy this and to not buy that, you have the option to listen to good music or to shit you don’t wanna hear. Those things are still within your power.