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What could the Boule offer America's Blacks in the early 20th century? Joining the exclusive secret society offered advancement and perks to select Blacks in return for loyalty to its objectives.
The upper tenth of Blacks started to live the good life as Boule members, while the majority of ordinary Blacks were disenfranchised. But what were the Boule's objectives?
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SMACK/ URL recently held "Summer Madness 2"; their marquee event for the second year in a row. Thousands attended to see the worlds best battle MC's go against one another for three rounds of verbal combat. The event brought out celebrities and music legends such as P. Diddy, Busta Rhymes, Q-Tip, Llloyd Banks and more. This match up is between Smack DVD battle legend's Murda Mook and Iron Solomon.
Paul Bogle, a Baptist Deacon is remembered for his role in the Morant Bay rebellion. His date of birth has been estimated between 1815 an 1822. He lived in Stony Gut in St. Thomas, just north of Morant Bay, whilst many people in the area were small farmers and labourers, he was successful, well educated and owned about 500 acres of land. He was also eligible to vote at a time when there were only 104 voters in the parish of St. Thomas, due in part to the large voting fee, in order to participate.
He became a supporter of landowner and politician and fellow Baptist George William Gordon. In 1864, Gordon made Bogle a deacon in the Baptist church. As social injustices and peoples grievances grew Bogle led a group of small farmers 45 miles to discuss their grievances with Governor Eyre in Spanish Town, but they were denied an audience. This left the people of Stony Gut with a lack of confidence, and distrust for the Government, and Bogle's supporters grew in number.
The beginnings of the Morant Bay Rebellion first started on October 7th, 1865 when Bogle and his supporters, attended a trial for two men from Stony Gut, a black man was put on trial and imprisoned for trespassing on a long abandoned plantation. One member of Bogle's group protested in the court, over the unjust arrest and was immediately arrested, angering the crowd further. He was rescued moments later, when Bogle and his men took to the market square, and retaliated. The police were severely beaten and forced to retreat that day.
On Monday, the 9th, warrants were issued against Bogle and a number of others for riot and assault. The police arrived in Stony Gut to arrest Bogle but met with stiff resistance from the residents. They fought the police, again forcing them to retreat to Morant Bay.
A few days later on October 11th 1865 there was a vestry meeting in the Court House. Bogle and his followers armed with sticks and machetes went to the Court House. The authorities were shaken, and a few people in the crowd threw stones at the volunteer militia who fired into the crowd killing seven people. The crowd retaliated, and set fire to the Court House and nearby buildings. When the officials tried to leave the burning building they were killed by the irate crowd outside.
The reprisals came quickly, the troops destroyed Stony Gut, and Paul Bogle's chapel, Bogle was captured by the Maroon militia, and taken to Morant Bay where he was put on trial and hung at the burnt-out courthouse. Gordon was taken by boat to Morant Bay where he was tried for conspiracy and hung on October 23. In total over 400 Black residents were killed and many more flogged.
Back in Britain there was public outcry, there was increased opposition from liberals against Eyre's handling of the situation, and by the end of 1865 the 'Governor Eyre Case' had become the subject of national debate. In January 1866, a Royal Commission was sent to investigate the events. Governor Eyre was suspended and recalled to England and eventually dismissed. Jamaica became a Crown Colony, being governed directly from England. The 'Eyre Controversy' turned into a long and increasingly public concern, dividing well known figures of the day, and possibly contributing to the fall of the government of Lord John Russell in 1866.
The Morant Bay rebellion turned out to be one of the defining points in Jamaica's struggle for both political and economical enhancement. Bogle's demonstration ultimately achieved its objectives and paved the way for the new attitudes.
In 1969 the Right Excellent Paul Bogle was named a National Hero along with George William Gordon, Marcus Garvey, Sir Alexander Bustamante and Norman Washington Manley.
Dr. John Henrik Clarke was born January 1, 1915 in Union Springs, Alabama and died July 16, 1998 in New York City. His family came from a long line of sharecroppers.
Clarke noticed that although many bible stories "unfolded in Africa...I saw no African people in the printed and illustrated Sunday school lessons," he wrote in 1985. "I began to suspect at this early age that someone had distorted the image of my people. My long search for the true history of African people the world over began."
That search took him to libraries, museums, attics, archives and collections in Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America and Africa.
What he found was that the history of black people is worldwide; that "the first light of human consciousness and the world's first civilizations were in Africa"; that the so called Dark Ages were dark only for Europe and that some African nations at the time were larger than any in Europe; that as Africa sends its children to Europe to study because that is where the best universities are, early Greece once sent its children to Africa to study because that was where the best universities were; and that slavery, although devastating was neither the beginning nor the end of Black people's impact on the world.
Clarke gathered his findings into books on such figures as the early 20th century mass movement leader Marcus Garvey, into articles with titles like "Africa in the Conquest of Spain" and "Harlem as mecca and New Jerusalem," and many books including American Heritage's two volume "History of Africa."
While he was teaching at Hunter College in New York and at Cornell University in the 1980's, Clarke's lesson plans became well known for their thoroughness. They are so filled with references and details that the Schomburg Library in Harlem asked for copies. Clarke plans to provide them, he said, "so that 50 years from now, when people have a hard time locating my grave, they won't have a hard time locating my lessons."
In 1985, the year of his retirement, the newest branch of the Cornell University Library- a 60 seat, 9,000 volume facility- was named the "John Henrik Clarke Africana Library."
Ivan Van Sertima was born in Guyana, South America. He was educated at the School of Oriental and African Studies (London University) and the Rutgers Graduate School and holds degrees in African Studies and Anthropology. From 1957-1959 he served as a Press and Broadcasting Officer in the Guyana Information Services. During the decade of the 1960s he broadcast weekly from Britain to Africa and the Caribbean.
He is a literary critic, a linguist, an anthropologist and has made a name in all three fields.
As a literary critic, he is the author of Caribbean Writers, a collection of critical essays on the Caribbean novel. He is also the author of several major literary reviews published in Denmark, India, Britain and the United States. He was honored for his work in this field by being asked by the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy to nominate candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature from 1976-1980. He has also been honored as an historian of world repute by being asked to join UNESCO's International Commission for Rewriting the Scientific and Cultural History of Mankind.
As a linguist, he has published essays on the dialect of the Sea Islands off the Georgia Coast. He is also the compiler of the Swahili Dictionary of Legal Terms, based on his field work in Tanzania, East Africa, in 1967.
He is the author of They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, which was published by Random House in 1977 and is presently in its twenty-ninth printing. It was published in French in 1981 and in the same year, was awarded the Clarence L. Holte Prize, a prize awarded every two years "for a work of excellence in literature and the humanities relating to the cultural heritage of Africa and the African diaspora."
He also authored Early America Revisited, a book that has enriched the study of a wide range of subjects, from archaeology to anthropology, and has resulted in profound changes in the reordering of historical priorities and pedagogy.
Professor of African Studies at Rutgers University, Dr. Van Sertima was also Visiting Professor at Princeton University. He is the Editor of the Journal of African Civilizations, which he founded in 1979 and has published several major anthologies which have influenced the development of multicultural curriculum in the United States. These anthologies include Blacks in Science: ancient and modern, Black Women in Antiquity, Egypt Revisited, Egypt: Child of Africa, Nile Valley Civilizations (out of print), African Presence in the Art of the Americas (due 2007), African Presence in Early Asia (co-edited with Runoko Rashidi), African Presence in Early Europe, African Presence in Early America, Great African Thinkers, Great Black Leaders: ancient and modern and Golden Age of the Moor.
As an acclaimed poet, his work graces the pages of River and the Wall, 1953 and has been published in English and German. As an essayist, his major pieces were published in Talk That Talk, 1989, Future Directions for African and African American Content in the School Curriculum, 1986, Enigma of Values, 1979, and in Black Life and Culture in the United States, 1971.
Dr. Van Sertima has lectured at more than 100 universities in the United States and has also lectured in Canada, the Caribbean, South America and Europe. In 1991 Dr. Van Sertima defended his highly controversial thesis on the African presence in pre-Columbian America before the Smithsonian. In 1994 they published his address in Race, Discourse and the Origin of the Americas: A New World View of 1492.
He also appeared before a Congressional Committee on July 7, 1987 to challenge the Columbus myth. This landmark presentation before Congress was illuminating and brilliantly presented in the name of all peoples of color across the world.
