❧❧❧ Whatever you can do or dream, you can BEGIN IT. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Goethe ❧❧❧
❧❧❧ You were born whole, not broken. Sandra Hammel ❧❧❧
I wrote about slavery where I live - What We Are Is Who We Were - and tonight the special television documentary about a local family with ancestors who bought and sold people to make their livelihood is airing. It will also air tomorrow night. PBS is offering this Point Of View documentary - Traces of the Trade.
We don't like to be around people who point out our flaws, our mistakes and our bad behavior. We don't like to feel uncomfortable. An honest look at our past, acceptance of the truth and courage to be better human beings would do wonders to heal our own emotional wounds. And also would go leap years toward healing humankind's wounds.
P.O.V. Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North
First-time filmmaker Katrina Browne makes a troubling discovery — her New England ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in US history. She and nine fellow descendants set off to retrace the Triangle Trade: from their old hometown in Rhode Island to slave forts in Ghana to sugar plantation ruins in Cuba. Step by step, they uncover the extent of Northern complicity in slavery while stumbling through the minefield of contemporary race relations. In this bicentennial year of the abolition of the US slave trade, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North offers powerful new perspectives on the black/white divide. An official selection of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
Katrina Browne spent two years fine-tuning this documentary as a WGBH filmmaker in residence. Providing a supportive workspace and editorial and production resources through our Filmmakers in Residence program is just one of the missions of the WGBH Lab.
What do you know about slavery in the United States of America? Did you learn anything about slavery history in your classrooms? I didn’t.
When I was in school, the USA spoke of the propaganda that the Soviet Union, Russia, used as their truth, their history. The USA history that I was taught in my education was propaganda. I was not taught anything about the history of the Native American Indians or the Black slavery. I was not taught anything about the internment camps of the Japanese. Where did I learn about these things? On PBS television shows.
When I was in my all white high school in the 1960s, I found a book in my school library, Black Like Me. I read it with much interest.
Slavery By Another Name by Douglas Blackmon is a book that reveals that once slavery was outlawed, slavery was given another name. I have heard the author twice now speak and just Friday, June 20th, Douglas Blackmon was on Bill Moyer’s Journal. In the 1930’s until World War II, slavery existed.
From the transcript of this segment of Bill Moyer’s Journal, June 20th, 2008 with Douglas Blackmon:
BILL MOYERS: How is it, you and I both Southerners, how is it we could grow up right after this era, and be so unaware of what had just happened to our part of the country?
DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Well, I think there are a lot of explanations for that. The biggest one is simply that this is a history that we haven't wanted to know as a country. We've engaged in a in a kind of collective amnesia about this, particularly about the severity of it.
And the official history of this time, the conventional history tended to minimize the severity of the things that were done again and again and again, and to focus instead, on the idea, on a lot of false mythologies. Like, this idea that freed slaves after emancipation became lawless and sort of went wild, and thievery, and all sorts of crimes being committed by African-Americans right after the Civil War and during Reconstruction. But when you go back, as I did, and look at the arrest records from that period of time, there's just no foundation for that. And the reality was there was hardly any crime at all. And huge numbers of people were being arrested on these specious charges, so they could be forced back into labor.
I live in Newport County in Rhode Island, USA. Amistad the movie was shot here. My favorite scene in the movie is of the argument before the Supreme Court by John Adams. Personal note: My friend made Adams bedroom canopy and bedding, which is in the scene just before the Supreme Court ruling.
I learned tonight while googling Slavery in Rhode Island that the founder, William Ellery Channing, of the Unitarian Church where I go, if I go to church, had a slave in his household. I had already known that slaves were auctioned off 12 minutes from where my house is from a previous google search. This place is in downtown Newport, Rhode Island. And that households here were typical if they owned slaves.
The following excerpt is taken from www.eyesofglory.com “Black History Here in Newport, Rhode Island we have several physical ‘touch stones’ to remind us of the legacy left by those Africans and later African Americans who graced our city with their presence. From 1696 when the first documented slave ship, the ‘Sea Flower’, touched our shores, to the present, African Americans have worked, raised their families and prospered in the city by the sea.
The American Slave Trade and Newport share similar origins. Newport, the most prosperous of colonial American ports, saw unprecedented growth throughout the 18th century; mostly from the export and trade of rum, spermaceti candles and slaves. By 1784, the fledgling state government abolished slavery.
Many of the slaves that came to Newport’s shore would arrive, like most goods, at the Long Wharf. These slaves would be auctioned off to the highest bidders at the Granary (market), which is today known as the Brick Market at the foot of Washington Square.”
Brick Market is in the central tourist area of Newport, today.
Bristol, Rhode Island is a small quaint town just over the Bristol Bridge from my hometown of Portsmouth. Bristol has a Fourth of July parade, which it boasts is the longest running Fourth of July parade in the country.
The PBS television channel will be airing in June 2008, P.O.V.’s TRACES OF THE TRADE: A STORY OF THE DEEP NORTH told by Katrina Browne, whose family is from Bristol, Rhode Island. This is the bicentennial year of the U.S. abolition of the slave trade. Katrina Browne discovered that her slave-trading ancestors from Bristol, Rhode Island were not an aberration, but rather, they were just the most prominent actors in the North's vast complicity in slavery, buried in myths of Northern innocence.
Katrina Browne — a direct descendant of Mark Anthony DeWolf, the first slaver in the family — took the unusual step of writing to 200 descendants. She invited them to journey with her from Rhode Island to Ghana to Cuba and back, retracing the Triangle Trade that made the DeWolfs the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. Nine relatives signed up. TRACES OF THE TRADE: A STORY FROM THE DEEP NORTH is Browne's account of the journey.
From the transcript of Bill Moyer’s Journal, June 20th, 2008:
KATRINA BROWNE: My DeWolf ancestors were known as the "Great Folk" in Bristol. There were professors and writers, artists and architects, and many Episcopal ministers. I was proud to be related to them. It never occurred to me to ask how we got so established.
What no one in my family realized was that the DeWolfs were the largest slave-trading family in US history. They brought over 10,000 Africans to the Americas in chains. Half a million of their descendants could be alive today.
The slave trade was illegal for most of the time the DeWolfs were practicing it. To maneuver around the law, they secured a political favor from none other than President Thomas Jefferson, whose campaign they'd supported. Jefferson appointed their brother-in-law as Bristol's customs official. This man always happened to be looking the other way as DeWolf ships went in and out of harbor.
…At the Bristol Historical Society, tucked away in a corner on the second floor, there was a file cabinet, full of DeWolf papers. These eerie records revealed the details of the logical economic model that the DeWolfs developed from 1769 to 1820. Here's how they made it work.
First they got the financing together. They recruited fellow townspeople to buy shares in their voyages and eventually started their own bank. They also started an insurance company to cover the risk. Rum was the prime currency of the slave trade, so James acquired a distillery from his father-in-law. The DeWolfs also purchased ships, mostly from builders in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The ships took rum to the Guinea Coast to trade for Africans. "July 4th, 1795, bought nine prime slaves, one woman and eight men and paid for them tobacco, rum, hats, bread, mackerel." Many of the enslaved Africans were brought to work on plantations that the DeWolfs established in Cuba. These plantations supplied sugar and molasses needed to make the rum back in Bristol. They also served as holding places for Africans while the DeWolfs waited for slave prices to go up at auction. "Havana, Sept. 11, 1806, John DeWolf of Bristol, Sale of 121 Negroes." Total income: 36,300 dollars, which today equals 553,000 dollars.
The largest number of slaves were sold in Havana and Charleston. But Rhode Island slavers did business in more than 40 markets in the West Indies, North and South America. Rhode Island became the state most complicit in the American slave trade. Rum, Africans, sugar, rum. The efficient wheels of the Triangle Trade were set in motion again and again.
Full transcript with Katrina Browne on Bill Moyer’s Journal:
Watch a portion of the video "Traces of the Trade" which airs on P.O.V. soon, Katrina Browne. Where I live in Rhode Island, it airs (90 minutes): June 24, 2008, 10:00 p.m. Channel 44, Boston June 26, 2008, 3:00 a.m. Channel 44, Boston June 29, 2008, 9:00 p.m. Channel 44, Boston June 30, 2008, 10:00 p.m. Channel 2, Boston July 3, 2008, 9:00 p.m. Channel 36, Providence July 5, 1:30 a.m. Channel 36, Providence Source: www.pbs.org/pov
Check out: Rhode Island’s Slave History -The Unrighteous Traffic 7 part series “The traffic was so lucrative that nearly half the ships that sailed to Africa (from Newport, Rhode Island) did so after 1787 - the year Rhode Island outlawed the trade.” Source: Rhode Island's Slave History
If you suspect an existing case of human trafficking today, call the national human trafficking hotline 1-888-373 -7888
The movie Amazing Grace is the first film I have seen with Ioan Gruffudd in it. I first became introduced to Ioan Gruffudd through my interest in Matthew Rhys, who plays Kevin Walker on my favorite TV show, Brothers and Sisters. Ioan and Matthew both grew up in the capital of Wales, Cardiff and knew each other in childhood. They both attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, as well as owning a home together at one time for ten years.
Currently, Ioan is starring as William Wilberforce in the inspirational film, Amazing Grace. April 6, he can be seen in the movie, The TV Set.
Here are select photos which were downloaded from www.ioanonline.com which is great source for Ioan Gruffudd admirers.
It’s March Madness for college boys and girls basketball.I LOVE IT!To me, there is no sport (keep in mind, I am from the USA and don’t know soccer) like the sport of basketball.It takes athleticism, but it is full of artistic grace, the movement is poetic all done with the impromptu of the improvisation of jazz music.Technically, the moves and plays are by design and come more naturally to some, but practice makes it all work like a well-oiled machine.But to have the instinct of what to do in split second and hair-raising times is just special and art in motion.Not to mention the mind’s quick wit and cleverness that is so beautiful and enjoyed by the spectator.To be able to see the floor, the players’ in their places and know where they will move in an instant is just a blast.
My love of this game, called basketball may have something to do with the fact that I grew up in Indiana, where basketball is admittedly a passion.We call it “Hoosier Hysteria”.The “Hoosier” part is what anyone from Indiana is called.What else would you call us, “Indianaians”?Doesn’t work, does it?The “Hysteria” part comes from our spirited passion and love of this art called game.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoosier_Hysteria
My father also was my high school’s basketball coach.We were the Golden Eagles.
School colors: maroon and gold.My dad, Coach Hammel, was highly respected for his coaching, as well as for his humanity.Dad was friends with Bobby Knight and as I said n an earlier post, in the summertime my dad had a business where he sanded, finished and painted the logos on the gym floors, around the state, including IndianaUniversity, Notre Dame, Purdue Univsersity and many others.
“H –H-Ham, M-M-Mel, Hammel, Hammel, Hammel” was one of the cheers.We even had cheer block practice where we sat in the bleachers and practiced cheers and card turning.In junior high, I was cheerleader.That was fun.Really.I always felt kind of special, going to all of the high school basketball games and getting certain privileges being the coach’s daughter.But one of the drawbacks was being the daughter of my father, the basketball coach.He had rules for the boys.And one was that the boys had dating restrictions during basketball season.So, of the bb boys, who in their right mind would go out with the coach’s daughter?None of them.Imagine my surprise when I went off to live on campus in college and I was highly sought after by the males who were highly respected on campus.
Also, there were disadvantages because when the team lost, the house was a “suck-the-life-right-out-of-you place.When we lost to my dad’s alma mater, we didn’t go to church because dad would get ribbed by his uncles mercilessly.The pressures of being the losing team was felt personally through a kind of osmosis.
Anyway, we are in the middle of March Madness right now here in the States.And granted the boys’play gets all the hype and attention and the girls’ play gets relegated to a footnote, even though today the girls can play just as well as any of these boys and they have the moves, the grace ant the skills equal to the shining stars of the boys’ teams.Geez, when I was in high school we had “girls’ basketball rules” – some silly half court play…And girls that I saw play shot the ball with some two-handed grip that looked silly.I always gripped the ball like the boys.Now – that would be no distinction.
Over the years, the shorts have gotten to be baggy knee pants.It’s strange to see the clips of years ago, when the shorts were really shorts.And back then there weren’t the tattoos we so often see scar the beautiful godly skin of these beautiful athletic bodies.But still, these guys are not only beautiful to watch for their art, grace of movement, beauty of their plays and improvisational dance-like moves, but they are also beautiful to look at because the body is a beautiful thing.
Georgetown's Jeff Green puts a nifty move on Vanderbilt ... (AP)
Joakim Noah and Taurean Green survive another close call. (AP)
Save your tears boys, you had your chance to win the game. (AP)
Oregon's Tajuan Porter whispers sweet nothings to Wink Adams. (AP)
... and hits the game winner for an Elite 8 berth. (Getty Images)
This are not my captions, but the ones from the website:
Doing It One State at A Time Left: Xay Khamsyvoravong, Deputy Chief of Staff General Treasurer's Office
Scott Warren Brown University Student Standnow leader Sudan Divestment Rhode Island leader
Isabella, Sajel, Sandra (ilovemylife), & ErinRhode Island Senate Only 35 members present this day.
Sitting in the gallery waiting for the vote Forefront Pawtucket Times Staff Photographer, Butch Adams
Standing: Scott Warren, the leader of the Darfur Activists for the Divestment Bill
Leaving after the vote was taken 33 - 0 with 2 abstaining
March 20, Tuesday, the Rhode Island Senate passed Senate Bill 87 - "Engagement and Targeted Divestment from Sudan", 33 to 0 with 35 Senators present. Senator Rhoda Perry, the bill's primary sponsor, spoke about the need to understand the genocide in Darfur, Sudan and take responsible action with the RI Pension Funds and divest from Sudan. Senator Perry thanked BrownUniversity student Scott Warren, who is an activist with standnow.org and sudandivestment.org in regards to the four year old Darfur genocide, for his part in educating herself and other Senate members on this human dignity and human rights issue of genocide. Rhode Island General Treasurer Frank Caprio and the Senate Finance Committee were recognized as important supporters of this bill. Senator Gallo thanked the BrownUniversity students for their concerted and diligent efforts in conjunction with bringing this needed action to the Senate members' attention and helping move this bill forward in their capacity as human rights champions.
Twenty Brown Universtiy students, plus three www.savedarfur.org RI constituents (I was one of the constituents) gathered at the State Capitol building at 3:00 p.m to prepare for lobbying the senators on Senate Bill 87, then sat in the gallery to watch the vote. The students meet weekly to discuss and plan their actions to end the Darfur genocide. April 23-29 are the dates of "Global Days for Darfur" with events to take place throughout the United States as well as around the world to keep Darfur front and center in our conscience and move our governments' actions and the international community into a more proactive gear. Amnesty International (www.amnestyusa.org) is asking citizens to lobby U.S. Senators and Representatives regarding the Darfur genocide during the week of April 9 - 13.
The next step in Rhode Island in regards to RI state pension funds and Sudan divestment is for the sister bill, House Bill 5142 to be voted upon. Following the potential passage of RI H 5142, Governor Donald L. Carcieri would have the option to sign the bill and have Rhode Island join the other states that have already moved on Sudanese targeted divestment in their states. States that have passed Sudan divestment bills are California, New Jersey, Oregon, Maine, Connecticutt and Vermont. The "targeted" model of divestment from Sudan, recently passed by California, is the model being considered in over 20 states, as well as dozens of universities and cities in the U.S. and abroad.
Of the 400+ international companies operating in Sudan, about two dozen are currently considered the "worst offending". Mainly these companies deal in oil, telecommunications or weapons industries. Seventy per cent of the Sudanese government's oil revenues are spent on defense. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch report that these funds have been used to purchase expensive military equipment like the bombers and helicopters used against the civilians in Darfur over the last four years.
Many U.S. corporations, mutual funds and individuals are invested in foreign companies that operate in Sudan. The website www.sudandivestment.org/rhodeisland will email you a list of the "worst offending" companies and help those who don't want to aid the genocide by unknowingly fund the very crime against humanity that we have continually said these two words about: "Never Again".
Pick one of these and give a minimum of 10 minutes a week
I love my life. I love where I live. And I am passionate about my passions. I love to dance. Necessary to live: music, piano, singing, writing, acting, painting.
I have been fighting for and supporting the arts all my adult life. Since 2004, I have been working with other activists to end the Darfur genocide.
I have traveled to Europe many times since my early twenties. Places I have been: many USA states including Hawaii, Montreal, Canada, Barbados, France, Spain, Luxembourg, England, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Greece and Germany - and have wonderful memories.
My last trip was in May - June 2013 to Spain.
I would like to travel to Europe and Kyoto, Japan.
I love the southwest where I have visited Hopi, Navajo, Zia and San Idlefonso potters.
Life is exciting and I intend to live it full-out to the end.
B.S. and M.M., both in music
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Khartoum, Sudan Stop Genocide Time
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Spain Time
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Melbourne Time
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Hawaii Time
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RAFA NADAL -BRING BACK LONG PANTS - SLEEVELESS TOPS
Double Click on Videos to Enlarge
Darfur - The Abandoned Genocide - a video by Sandra Hammel
Want to help? Call 1~800~GENOCIDE
"May I Suggest" by Susan Werner
Satchita - Playing for Change
Stand By Me ~ Playing for Change
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Genocide is not only a word,
it is crying of the whole human race.
There is nothing redeeming about being silent
when speaking up is the humane thing to do.
The honor and integrity of the human race is at stake.
