All posts by The Griot

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 13 — The 1878 Fireburn Queens

February 13, 2022 The Griot 1 Comment

By the time the United States purchased the Virgin Islands in 1917, slavery had technically been abolished in most of the colonized world.

But freedom had not come easily to the Virgin Islands, and the United States was buying one of only two territories in the Caribbean that had won that freedom through a fight. It all started when the enslaved people of Frederiksted, one of St. Croix’s most significant cities, got sick and tired of being sick and tired.

In 1847, Danish Governor Peter von Scholten put their freedom on a timetable, presenting a twelve-year plan to give every Crucian (the people of St. Croix) their independence.

Nobody was having that.

Sugar cane was one of the island’s primary exports, and without it, a whole lot of (white) people would go bankrupt. On the other hand, the enslaved saw no reason to wait for what was rightfully theirs.

The Høgensborg Plantation on St. Croix, Danish West Indies drawn by Frederik von Scholten, June 1838.

A stand-off was brewing on St. Croix. After the Haitian Revolution in the early 1800s claimed nearly 500,000 lives, required a military response from Britain, France and Spain, and brought Haitian slave labor to an end, rebellion lingered in the Caribbean air.

The first match lit in St. Croix was struck just a year after the governor’s abolition law.

St. Croix’s enslaved already had a few key learnings on uprising strategy in the islands. First, as they were expected to provide every bit of labor, they far outnumbered those who kept them in chains. Second, though they’re surrounded by water, islands are particularly vulnerable to fire. And third, any help to quell an uprising would have to come from miles, if not, entire oceans away.

A bust of John Gottlieb (known to locals as “Buddhoe”) stands in Frederiksted.

With that knowledge, and led by skilled worker John Gottlieb, 8,000 Black Crucians stormed Fort Frederik, and demanded their freedom that day, else they’d set all this stuff on fire.

And they got it.

After the 1848 rebellion, Governor Peter von Scholten issued a decree abolishing slavery immediately, not in 12 years after all.

Sort of. Upon receiving the governor’s abolition law, the plantation owners got busy finding loopholes, and they were ready. They presented these newly freed people with contracts, a reasonable expectation upon being freed, right? Except that per these contracts, a worker and their family were obligated to work the plantation they’d signed with for one year. During that year, they could make no complaint on wages, treatment, working conditions or any other labor concern, until “Contract Day.” On that day, and only that day, could contracts be amended.

And had everything been on the up and up, it probably would have been a pretty decent outcome.

But everything was not on the up and up. You’d think the Danes would have learned.

Their newly contracted labor force was not paid a living wage, and most found themselves in worse condition than they had been as slaves. Because the workers were no longer their property, the plantation owners had no interest in ensuring their well-being. Without money for the basic necessities or even medical treatment, Black citizens suffered, but were still expected to serve as the backbone of the labor force. Black women in particular were bearing the full weight of an unjust society. They worked brutal jobs and long hours for insufficient wages, cared for sick and injured husbands and children, foraged food to feed their families, and so many more hardships exacerbated by Danish oppression that they had finally had enough.

So, on Contract Day – October 1, 1878 – THIRTY whole years after the abolition law that was supposed to make them fully free, WOMEN led Black Crucians to demand their grievances be heard.

They were not.

A Frederiksted fountain of Queens Mary, Agnes, and Mathilda. Each carries a symbol of their resistance: a lantern, a cane knife, and torches. The fountain was erected before Susanna’s involvement was fully discovered.

Instead, Danish troops escalated the situation by firing on the crowd. But still massively outnumbered, they were forced to retreat into the walls of the very same fort they’d defended 3 decades before.

With Danish troops self-barricaded and all other Danish colonialists too afraid to intervene, Mary Thomas, Agnes Salomon, Mathilda McBean and Susanna Abrahamson made good on the Black Crucians’ original threat.

Cane fields, plantations, mills, corrupt government buildings… nothing was spared the torch. When the smoke cleared, only 2 soldiers, 1 plantation owner, and less than 100 Black Crucians were dead. 400 were arrested. But nearly 900 acres of Frederiksted had burned to ash.

A November 1878 illustration depicts the moment the Fireburn erupted. You can see women in the illustration’s foreground.

12 people were sentenced to death for their part in the 1878 St. Croix uprising known to the locals as the Fyah Bun. But Queens Mary, Agnes, Mathilda, and Susanna were not among them. Executing them as martyrs might have incited another uprising, but imprisoning them on the island was equally dangerous and unpredictable. Instead, all four women were extradited to Denmark, and sentenced to life in a hard labor prison.

A news article details the property damage done in the uprising.

It wasn’t immediate, but the Black Crucians DID get true freedom, and the scars they left in their fight for it are still visible all over Frederiksted.

“The young [Danish] people ask ‘Why don’t you take care of the ruins? You should rebuild some of the places. There’s so much lost history,’” Crucian historian Frandelle Gerard recalls. “I say to them, ‘Honey, they were burned on purpose! And they will never be rebuilt!’”

But in 2018, something else was. In Copenhagen. Artists La Vaughn Belle and Jeannette Ehlers, Black women from St. Croix and Denmark respectively, erected their massive 23 foot statue, “I Am Queen Mary,” not far from where its subject was imprisoned and just outside the Danish West Indian Warehouse where imported sugar and rum produced by enslaved people was stored. “Queen Mary” is Copenhagen’s first public monument to a Black woman. She’s fashioned after a seated photograph of Black Panther Huey P. Newton, holding her torch and cane knife fast at hand, and serving as a towering reminder of Huey’s words “You can jail the revolutionary, but you can’t jail the revolution.”

“Queen Mary” standing before the Danish West Indian Warehouse. Read more about her and the artists who created here at Vice. Or visit her at her dedicated website here.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

Take an even closer look at Queen Mary and hear more from her creators here.

The anniversary of John Gottlieb’s uprising is known as Freedom Day in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Read all about it on St. Croix’s tourism website.

Black Danes are preserving the history of the Fireburn and you can view their archive and more history of the Danish slave trade here.

Learn more about slavery in Danish Colonies like St. Croix at the Danish National Museum’s website.

There’s a documentary on the Fireburn! Watch the trailer here, and keep an eye out for its global availability on Instagram.

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 12 — Elizabeth Keckly

February 12, 2022 The Griot

“Slavery” is a cold, factual word that tidily boxes up millions of personal indignities repeated over and over again.

“Freedom” is usually considered its opposite, but I’d propose another: “agency.”

Elizabeth Keckly, in her prime. She came to be known as Madame Keckly among Washington D.C.’s high society.

Everything about the antebellum Virginia world Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly was born into was designed to deprive her of agency. She lived to take it back.

Elizabeth’s mother Aggy wasn’t as fortunate. Her daughter’s father wasn’t her husband George, but her owner Armistead Burwell. She’d attempted to claim what little agency she could in the circumstances by rejecting her enslaver/rapist’s last name in favor of her husband’s: Hobbs. Aggy didn’t share that truth with her daughter until her deathbed. Perhaps it brought back too many bad memories, like how Burwell gave the Hobbs family two hours notice before selling George to a slaver in the West. Elizabeth recalled their collective helplessness in her autobiography: “I can remember the scene as if it were but yesterday;–how my father cried out against the cruel separation; his last kiss; his wild straining of my mother to his bosom; the solemn prayer to Heaven; the tears and sobs–the fearful anguish of broken hearts… the last good-by; and he, my father, was gone, gone forever.”

Prized by the Burwells for her many talents, especially the seamstress skills that she was expected to teach her daughter, Aggy was kept. But Aggy could also read and write, and likely taught her daughter those skills as well. Instead of the domestication expected of her, Elizabeth eventually wielded her needle and pen as silent weapons of subversion instead.

That subversive streak simmered early on. As a teenager, she was sent to North Carolina to work in the service of her (then unknown) half-brother Robert. Perhaps because Robert’s wife Margaret easily guessed the source of Elizabeth’s light skin and wanted to punish her for it, or perhaps simply because she was cruel, Margaret enlisted the help of a neighbor to “break” Elizabeth. When the neighbor summoned Elizabeth, demanding that she strip down for her first humiliating beating, she replied, “You shall not whip me unless you prove the stronger. Nobody has a right to whip me but my own master, and nobody shall do so if I can prevent it.” She could not. Week after week, Elizabeth was beaten until her abuser was too exhausted to continue. Week after week, “I did not scream; I was too proud to let my tormentor know what I was suffering,” she wrote. Eventually, it was he who “burst into tears, and declared that it would be a sin” to continue inflicting such harm upon an innocent human being.

But her torment did not end, and a new owner inflicted a different physical punishment on Elizabeth. “For four years, a white man—I will spare the world his name—had base designs upon me. I do not care to dwell upon the subject, for it is one that is fraught with pain. Suffice it to say that he persecuted me for four years, and I… I became a mother,” she wrote.

Then and now, there is no greater personal indignity, but Elizabeth’s despair over that act went deeper: “I could not bear the thought of bringing children into slavery — of adding one single recruit to the millions bound in hopeless servitude.”

When Armistead Burwell died, Elizabeth returned to Virginia to care for his heirs, then accompanied them to St. Louis. That’s where she began stitching her terrible circumstances into gold.

By then, the family had grown to 17 members, and without a patriarch and his estate, they were destitute. Elizabeth was the only one among them with employable skills, and she was hired out to sew for other families, eventually growing that casual business arrangement into an actual business that single-handedly supported all 17 people.

Seeing her true value, Elizabeth made an offer to her owner. She would buy her freedom and her son’s for $1200. At first, he refused. Then he tried to trick her, saying he would accept no payment, but offering to pay her passage on the ferry across the Mississippi. She was smart enough to know that the Fugitive Slave Act meant she could be returned to her owner anytime, and she refused. In 1855, she finally gained her independence and made her first fateful decision. Elizabeth took her talents to the nation’s capital, where they caught the eye of a very important lady: Mary Todd Lincoln.

Mary Todd Lincoln in the gown Elizabeth made for the President’s inauguration ball.

Under the First Lady’s employ, Elizabeth flourished. In a single season she fashioned almost 20 dresses, many of which were complimented by the President himself. In Mrs. Lincoln, Elizabeth also found a timely friend. Elizabeth and Mary both lost sons in 1861 and 1862, respectively. That experience reshaped their very personal business relationship into a friendship. “Lizabeth, you are my best and kindest friend, and I love you,” Mrs. Lincoln once wrote. Best of all, she put her money where her mouth was.

One of the winter dresses Elizabeth made for Mary. See more of her collection in FIT’s digital collection.

Elizabeth was in high demand among D.C.’s high society women, even the wives of Confederacy President Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee. And in true subversive fashion, she used their old southern money to employ more Black women in her shop and create the Contraband Relief Association, an organization that provided support, relief and assistance to formerly enslaved people.

The First Lady’s letter to the President requesting funds on Elizabeth’s behalf.

Mrs. Lincoln regularly donated to the Contraband Relief Association, and requested that her husband do the same. “Elizabeth Keckley, who is with me and is working for the Contraband Association, at Wash[ington]–is authorized…to collect anything for them here that she can….Out of the $1000 fund deposited with you by Gen Corcoran, I have given her the privilege of investing $200 her.. Please send check for $200…she will bring you on the bill,” she wrote to President Lincoln.

A quilt Elizabeth Keckly fashioned from Mary Todd’s discarded dresses.

But alas, everyone reading knows what came soon enough. President Lincoln was assassinated, and with his death, public opinion of Mary and the ladies’ friendship unraveled. Elizabeth published her autobiography, believing it would salvage both and bolster her income, but her good intentions backfired.

Elizabeth’s autobiography, *Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House*.

“Readers in her day, white readers — they took it as an audacious tell-all,” Jennifer Fleischner, author of “Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly” said. “You know, ‘How dare she’? There were two categories: the faithful Negro servant or the angry Negro servant. Keckly was neither servant, nor faithful, nor angry. She presented herself, the White House and Mary Lincoln as she saw and knew them. And that didn’t work.”

Even the *New York Times* published a scathing review of Elizabeth’s book.

Mary was devastated by the personal revelations Elizabeth included, society women found it distasteful and didn’t want to appear in the pages of a book themselves, politicians spun it as reasons African-Americans shouldn’t be able to read, write or integrate with regular society, and that was that for Elizabeth. She died in her sleep in 1907, at a home for poor women & children that the Contraband Relief Association had founded.

But her story didn’t end there. Though it was suppressed upon its initial publication, Elizabeth’s biography is in print once again, and considered one of the most substantial documentations of the Lincoln White House surviving today, and proof of the value in owning your own story.

*Ed. Note: I’ve spelled Elizabeth’s last name as “Keckly” because that’s how she spelled it. She was historically recorded as “Keckley” and that spelling has persisted.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

The Smithsonian National Museum of American History details how Elizabeth put her money to work for the people.

The New York Times featured Elizabeth’s biography in their “Overlooked” series that runs modern-day obituaries of famous contributors to American history that their paper overlooked at the time.

The White House Historical Association has thoroughly documented Elizabeth’s life from her autobiography and their own records as part of their “Slavery in the President’s Neighborhood” initiative.

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 11 — Jessica Watkins

February 11, 2022 The Griot

As a fifth grader at Sally Ride Elementary School, Jessica Watkins daydreamed about life on Mars.

Little did she know that life could be her own.

But first, a few small steps…

Like becoming the first Black woman to live aboard the International Space Station.

And then, the first to live on the moon.

Mae Jemison, first Black woman in space.

Jessica is one of 18 astronauts selected for the 2024 Artemis Mission that will return humans to the moon for the first time in 50 years, and our first long-term lunar stay. She’ll become just the 5th African-American woman in space while being accompanied by the second, Stephanie Wilson, who’s spent more time in space than any woman at 42 days, and also served as the voice of mission control during NASA’s first all-female spacewalk. (Jessica Meir and Christina Koch, the spacewalkers, will join Watkins and Wilson on the Artemis Mission.)

NASA is quick to note that they aren’t fully orchestrating all the diversity aboard these recent and upcoming missions, but that it’s a sign of the times: Meir & Koch’s fellow graduating astronaut candidates were 50% women.

But none have been quite like Jessica Watkins.

All of her life experiences—short as it’s been at just 33 years—have led up to this moment.

She describes herself as a “rock nerd,” but she also played rugby for Stanford.

Her PhD in planetary geology is one of many academic reasons she was selected for Artemis, and is a prime candidate for that mission’s post-moon Mars exploration: Jessica was an instrumental member of the science team for the Mars Curiosity Rover Program. She’s one of the mere mortals who knows its surface best. She’s also extensively studied Earth’s changing landscape from deserts, volcanoes, and underwater, as well as the ripple effects of those shifts. The lady knows millions of miles of rocks everywhere.

Jessica’s trained on a simulated lunar landscape and in real underwater “spacewalk.”

Her eclectic existence is precisely why Jessica sees so much possibility in space.

“There was something that always pulled me towards space — the idea of exploration, of wanting to push boundaries and capabilities, both technically and physically, but also mentally and spiritually. I kind of stumbled into geology and fell in love with that,” she said. “And then the stars aligned for me to end up here.”

And from the stars, she’ll continue her research.

Jessica joins seasoned astronauts Kjell Lindgren and Robert Hines (NASA) and Samantha Cristoforetti (ESA) as members of SpaceX’s Crew-4.

In April, Jessica boards SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule to depart for the International Space Station, where she’ll spend 6 months studying earth and space science, biological science, and observing and photographing the geological changes on Earth.

But her mission will still be undeniably human.

Despite global tensions between the two countries peaking at home, the U.S. and Russian segments of the ISS are still docked together. And Jessica, already making so much global history, will add her name as only the 8th African-American to board the station among 250, so few to serve as our ambassadors to the rest of the world.

A NASA map diagrams the global visitors to the International Space Station. See the detailed list of ISS guests, some of whom have been many times, here.

She credits all of her stellar accomplishments and tremendous firsts to being a girl who daydreamed and simply never stopped.

“A dream feels like a big, faraway goal that is going to be difficult to achieve, and something that you might achieve much later in life,” she said. “But in reality, what a dream is — or a dream realized is — is just putting one foot in front of the other on a daily basis. And if you put enough of those footprints together, eventually they become a path towards your dreams.”

In that path toward her dreams, Jessica’s following in some legendary footsteps and taking giant leaps toward a world that looks like home for us all.

Jessica takes the stage for the first time as an official Artemis astronaut.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

Spend a few minutes learning more about Jessica in her official Artemis press video here.

The Artemis mission is scheduled to launch in 2023. Read more about it at its NASA-dedicated landing page.

Follow Jessica’s journey across the stars on her Instagram.

Read over Jessica’s official NASA astronaut bio, including her full list of qualifications and accomplishments.

Jessica speaks for herself in an interview with NPR about her research and the significance of her inclusion in the Artemis mission.

Learn more about Jessica and the (brief) history of African-Americans in space at the New York Times.

(NASA has further detail on those African-Americans here.)

Scientific-American writes about how “African-American astronauts have been another group of hidden figures in the U.S. space program”.

Marie Claire wonders “Why is Space Still So White?”

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 10 — The Harlem Hellfighters

February 10, 2022 The Griot

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln wrote:

“I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.”

Having finally received “unalienable” rights and having witnessed the admiration bestowed upon white soldiers over the course of 4 separate wars, many African-American men were hopeful that enlisting and serving the United States by choice would force Americans to think better of the whole race.

But the words of the Emancipation Proclamation couldn’t sway the hearts and minds of men, especially when those words were undermined by another sitting president.

When the Buffalo Soldiers, went to battle on behalf of the U.S. Army in the Spanish-American War, Rough Rider Frank Knox said, “I never saw braver men anywhere.” Lieutenant John J. Pershing wrote, “They fought their way into the hearts of the American people.” President Teddy Roosevelt went on record saying “Negro troops were shirkers in their duties and would only go as far as they were led by white officers.”

Less than a decade later, the Harlem Hellfighters would make him eat crow.

When the United States joined the war against Germany, they did so woefully underprepared. American military forces had never gone to battle overseas before, and the Army’s ranks of a mere 126,000 men wasn’t going to cut it. Of the Armed Forces that existed at the time, only the Army allowed African-Americans to enlist for combat, even though it was hardly on an equitable basis. There were only 4 “colored regiments” and once their ranks were filled, the rest of the Black applicants who’d lined up for service were turned away. When Selective Service began in 1917, men of color were told to tear a corner of their draft card away so they could be easily identified and assigned. In the thick of World War I with the Central Powers devastating Allied forces in Europe, U.S. draft boards used those torn corners to send as many Black men to the front lines as they could.

The men of the 369th Regiment however, scrubbed toilets stateside when they first enlisted, relegated to menial and filthy tasks like slaves, even though they’d volunteered for service. But when the war demanded more soldiers, the 369th went from toilets to trenches , being upgraded to Infantry, and shipped off to France for three weeks of combat training before being stationed on the war’s front lines.

But even there, they weren’t considered “soldiers.” White Col. William Heyward begged that the 369th be allowed to actually serve on the battlefield, rather than dig trenches, unload ships, and other manual labor they’d been assigned to, as if nothing had changed at all. Army command compromised, assigning the 369th to the French Army instead.

When it came to the 369th and many other all-Black regiments, the Army didn’t send soldiers or reinforcements, they sent human shields expected to die. They never dreamed that the 369th would gain the respect of the French, who’d nickname them “Hommes de Bronze,” or come to be feared by the German Army who first dubbed the 369th as Hollenkampfer (“Hellfighters”). The Army most certainly didn’t expect that the 369th Regiment would be the very first Allied force to breach Germany’s borders.

The Croix de Guerre awarded to Lawrence McVey, a Harlem Hellfighter from Flatonia, TX.

But the Army wasn’t entirely wrong. The Hellfighters spent 191 days in combat, more than any other unit in the war and suffered losses to match, with hundreds dead and thousands wounded over the course of their deployment. Those losses were deeply felt by Captain Arthur Little who wrote, “What have I done this afternoon? Lost half my battalion—driven hundreds of innocent men to their death.” Those who survived fought their way to becoming some of the most decorated American soldiers in history… by another nation. The entire 369th Regiment was awarded the Croix de Guerre, the French Medal of Honor, and over 170 of its servicemen were honored individually. The Hellfighters Band was even honored, being largely credited as Europe’s first introduction to jazz.

The Harlem Hellfighters were so much more than infantry. Their ranks included skilled musicians like James Reese Europe and jazz legend Eubie Blake. Read more about the Harlem Hellfighters Regimental Band here.

Sgt. Henry “Black Death” Johnson earned a personal mention in the war dispatches of Gen. John J. Pershing, commander of the entire American Expeditionary Forces and the same man who, in the words of Col. Heyward, “simply put the black orphan in a basket, set it on the doorstep of the French, pulled the bell, and went away.” With only a bolo, 5-foot-4, 130 pound Sgt. Johnson single-handedly defended himself and his wounded partner against armed German soldiers who raided an Allied outpost. President Roosevelt would later name him as one of the “five bravest Americans” of World War I.

Thousands of New Yorkers welcomed the veterans of the Hellfighters home.

“Up the wide avenue they swung. Their smiles outshone the golden sunlight. In every line proud chests expanded beneath the medals valor had won. The impassioned cheering of the crowds massed along the way drowned the blaring cadence of their former jazz band. The old 15th was on parade and New York turned out to tender its dark-skinned heroes a New York welcome,” the *New York Tribune* wrote of the Hellfighters’ homecoming parade down Fifth Avenue. See more beautiful newspaper spreads and historic news accounts of that day at the Library of Congress digital archives.

And then forgot them altogether.

Lawrence McVey’s service photo, preserved by the Smithsonian, inscribed “hero.”

In the best cases, the Hellfighters drifted back into their lives, and lived in relative anonymity. In the worst cases, like those of Lawrence Leslie McVey, their remarkable service earned them a death by beating in the streets of New York.

Despite all of those medals abroad and the pretty words spoken, the United States didn’t award the 369th Regiment anything until 2015. By then, no one survived to accept the Congressional Medal of Honor awarded to Sgt. “Black Death” Johnson who was injured in combat 21 times. On August 21, 2021, the entire unit was finally recognized posthumously with a Congressional Gold Medal, awarded since the American Revolution as the country’s “highest expression of national appreciation.”

In addition to *World War Z*, Max Brooks also wrote *The Harlem Hellfighters*.

Tomorrow, February 11 will be the anniversary of the Hellfighters’ return to the States. The 3,000 men who marched Fifth Avenue that day were only a small portion of the “25 percent of Americans fighting in France [as] hyphenated Americans,” according to Lt. Col. ML Cavanaugh and Max Brooks (yes, World War Z Max Brooks), fellows at West Point’s Modern War Institute. Those other 25% included Choctaw code-talkers whose language was unbreakable abroad, Chinese Americans, Latinos like “Pvt. Marcelino Serna, a Mexican American who migrated to El Paso before the war, took out an enemy machine gun, a sniper, and an entire German platoon on his own, becoming the most decorated Texan of World War I,” and so many more who’ve been forgotten.

I hope you’ll spend the day paying tribute to those Americans who didn’t let the hyphens and racism visited upon them by others stand in the way of sacrifice and the fight for their own unrealized freedom.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

Read the National Museum of the United States Army account of the wars the Harlem Hellfighters fought at home and abroad.

Smithsonian Magazine features more personal details of the lives, accomplishments and times of the Harlem Hellfighters.

Browse the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture’s “Double Victory: the African-American Military Experience” here.

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 9 — Ezekiel Mitchell

February 9, 2022 The Griot

Babies and cowboys have a reputation for being hard-headed.

So Ezekiel Mitchell’s mother was out of luck from the start when her baby quit football for the rodeo instead. Sorry, Waylon & Willie, you tried.

Most kids hop on YouTube to search for how to change a tire, or build a computer, or use chopsticks. Meanwhile, teenage Zeke used the platform to learn how to ride a bull. He even built his own mechanical practice bull right in the yard of his parents Texas home. His mother was NOT pleased.

His parents offered up roping and even bronc riding as alternatives, but Zeke was set on the rush of bull riding.

“It’s like driving a truck off a cliff and then trying to steer it down. I love taking that complete and utter chaos and being able to control it for once. For those eight seconds at a time.”

Those 8 seconds of chaos are a lot of pressure for anyone, but especially when you’re driving change as the only Black rider in the room.

In fact, Zeke Mitchell is the ONLY African-American rider at the elite level on the entire Professional Bull Riders circuit.

“The truth is there are people who hate me because I’m Black, but times change and they have to accept it. Y’all can hate all you want. I don’t care. I’m going to be me. I’m here to ride bull and that’s about it.”

Because regardless of the eyes on him, Zeke’s only got eyes for one thing: the PBR championship title. And he’s ranked as high as second in his race for it.

Charlie Sampson, the first and only African-American professional bull riding world champion.

But when he set that goal, even he didn’t know he was shooting for something historic. 1982 was the first and only year in professional bull riding’s history that a World Championship winner was African-American. Charlie Sampson is a recipient of the PBR Ring of Honor, the highest award a rider can receive.

Though Zeke, Charlie and others like them are anomalies today, that wasn’t always the case: at one point, at least 25% of cowboys were Black.

As it was furthest from Union troops, Texas was slavery’s final stronghold, and nearly 90,000 Texans enlisted in the Confederate Army. In their absence, those they were fighting to keep enslaved tended to the state’s ranches, farms and other agricultural businesses. Though their war was lost, Texans still in need of skilled labor were willing to pay for it rather than see their family ranches fall into disrepair. But take a look at any piece of cowboy lore, cinema, or ephemera, and aside from Bass Reeves, Nat Love, and Bill Pickett, you’ll find a distinct lack of color.

A Black cowboy who is neither Bass Reeves, Nat Love, or Bill Pickett. Amazing. Read more about the lesser known history of Black cowboys at Smithsonian Magazine.

“Cowboy” Mike Searles, a professor emeritus at Augusta State University puts it well. “If something is not in the popular imagination, it does not exist,” he says. In recent years, movies and documentaries like Posse, Django Unchained, Concrete Cowboy, and the Harder They Fall have begun to tell those stories. But why weren’t those stories included in the great American narrative sooner? “The West was where white men were able to show their courage. But if a black man could be heroic and have all the attributes that you give to the best qualities in men, then how was it possible to treat a black man as subservient or as a non-person?”

On a very small level, Denard Butler, another Black rodeo competitor, can relate to the treatment those early cowboys must have received. “When you’re black and competing in places like San Juan Capistrano, California; Price, Utah; and Prescott, Arizona… you will hear the N-word. A lot. I use it for power. I feed off it. I tell myself, ‘You’re going to read about me. You’re going to get sick of seeing me.’ I want it more than most, and so I use it as fuel.”

Zeke takes the arena amid fireworks, and brings his own flash too.

Zeke embraces his differences too. “I don’t fit the mold, but you don’t have to fit the mold,” he says. In fact, he’s intent on breaking it. Zeke Mitchell wears flashy riding gear, cares about growing his social following (he even has a 10-part Snapchat series), and hopes not only that he’ll win a title, but that he’ll become a star doing it, simply for the sake of bringing more people like him into the sport.

That infectious spirit and star power even brought his most reluctant supporter back into the fold: his mother Janie. “Every time I talk to Zeke, I tell him, ‘I’m proud of you, and you didn’t let anyone stop you, not even your mama.’

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

Walk a day in Ezekiel Mitchell’s boots with Gear Patrol.

Watch Zeke’s 10-episode long exclusive Snapchat series, “Life By the Horns”

Zeke’s got such a high profile in riding that even GQ Magazine’s done a great feature on him.

If you’re interested in more modern day representations of Black cowboys, I recommend following eightsecs on Instagram.

Even UK outlets like The Guardian recognizes that Black cowboys in the States have an untold legacy.

The Guardian also creates a detailed timeline of Black cowboys’ cinematic representations.

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 8 — Kendall Jackson

February 8, 2022 The Griot

Scouting is in Kendall Jackson’s blood.

Her mother, Kellauna Mack, is a scoutmaster, an assistant scoutmaster, and an executive with the Scouts’ Pathway to Adventure Council.

Kendall’s brother Kenneth earned the rank of Eagle Scout way back in 2011.

The Girl Scouts Gold Award is their organization’s equivalent to Eagle Scout, and many say its requirements are actually more difficult to meet.

But I bet you still didn’t know what it was called until you read it just now.

The rank of Eagle Scout is recognized by most Americans as one of the highest honors a minor can receive. In 2019, only 8% of eligible scouts earned Eagle, and since the inception of the Eagle Scout badge in 1912, only around 2% of scouts in Boy Scouts of America history have earned it.

It’s kind of a big deal.

And until February 1, 2019, it was a big deal Kendall Jackson wouldn’t get to have a part in.

But that was the day the Boy Scouts of America became Scouts BSA, opening its ranks to girls. Kendall was 15, and most Boy Scouts join their troops at around 10 or 11, earning their Eagle by 18. Eagle Scout badges are designed to be a process, requiring 7 ranks, 21 merit badges, an Eagle Service Project, demonstration of leadership within one’s troop, participate in a Scoutmaster conference and complete a board of review. Kendall had a lot of catching up to do, and wasted no time doing it.

To be fair, she did have a bit of a leg up. “I had picked up certain skills, like learning the Scout Oath and the Scout Law, I had been saying it since I could talk,” she said.

Seems that it all stuck because in 2021, just two years after the Boy Scouts of America admitted girls, Kendall was among their inaugural class of 1,000 earning the title of Eagle Scout. But that’s not all. She also earned the honor of becoming the United States FIRST African-American Eagle Scout, among 21 other African-American girls in the thousand.

Kendall poses for her official Eagle Scout photo.

Needless to say, Kellauna was over the moon. And probably all of her ancestors with her.

Backpacker Magazine says that “When the BSA began allowing young women to join its programs, it faced criticism from those who believed that girls like Jackson would be better served by girls-specific programs and that the organization was not equipped to accommodate female scouts.”

That language sounds familiar.

Though the first African-American troops were formed in the early 1910s, due to segregation, it wasn’t until the 1920’s, that the Boy Scouts established “Project Outreach” as a recruitment effort. Project Outreach split its non-traditional (read: non-suburban, non-white) troops into categories: “feeble-minded, orphanages, settlements, and delinquent areas.” But let’s not mince words. The Boy Scouts of America categorized being Native, African, or Latino American alongside mental deficiency and homelessness.

That’s not necessarily a surprise if you know that one of the biggest financial supporters of the Boy Scouts was the Ku Klux Klan. When the Boy Scouts began to allow integration, but ultimately left those decisions up to the troops themselves, the KKK was so furious, they began attacking scouts of color.

The Sept. 4, 1921 Houston Post recognizes facilities donated to local Boy Scouts by the KKK. Read the page in full here.

The Girl Scouts didn’t make any landmark strides in integration either, according to Stacy A. Cordery, author of Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of the Girl Scouts. “Daisy Low had proclaimed in 1912 that she had ‘something important for the girls of Savannah and all America. […] It is safe to say that in 1912, at a time of virulent racism, neither Daisy Low nor those who authorized the constitution considered African-American girls to be part of the ‘all,'” she writes.

Of course, the BSA has had lots of very public struggles with inclusion, none more public than their 2000 Supreme Court case upholding their right to exclude LGBTQ scouts, a decision the Scout Council rescinded just 5 years later. The inclusion of women, especially Black women, as recipients of their highest award is monumental progress.

“I don’t think any of us really thought this day would come. To say I have made Black history is a blessing. It is very humbling,” Kendall said. “For me to be a part of that first class and say that I did it, I’m really proud of myself.”

Proud and prepared, that is.

All of Kendall’s badges, earned just 2 years after she was admitted to Scouts BSA.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

Get a few more details of Kendall’s amazing story at the Chicago Tribune.

Kurt Banas of Wake Forest University writes for the the African-American Registry about what it meant to minorities to become a scout.

Scouting Magazine begins a conversation about the first Black troops and what they overcame to be included in an organization of distinction.

The Smithsonian Magazine details a short history of integration in the Girl Scouts and the African-American women who made it happen.

Browse the issue of Scout Life Magazine celebrating the journeys of BSA’s brand new Female Eagles.

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 7 — Willi Ninja

February 7, 2022 The Griot

Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Joe DiMaggio, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Grace Kelly, Jean Harlow, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Rita Hayworth, Lauren Bacall, Katherine Hepburn, Lana Turner, and Bette Davis.

Notice anyone missing?

(Aside from a single Black person? I digress.)

If there’s one name that unequivocally belongs among those listed in Madonna’s “Vogue,” it’s Willi Ninja.

He’s frequently described as “the Godfather of vogueing,” but I’m not sure he’d care for that title because Willi Ninja was a mother, honey.

And he got it from his own.

If you recall from Marie Van Britten Brown’s post, being a mother in Queens where Willi was born in 1961, was a tough gig. The borough was in the thick of a heroin epidemic, civil rights protests, and turmoil over the Vietnam War. Hardly what we’d call a “safe” neighborhood for raising children, but Ms. Esther Leake did her best. That included recognizing when her son (then known by William Roscoe Leake), who was a brilliantly budding dancer, was also quietly but deeply struggling with being “different” than the other boys on the block.

Willi never exactly “came out” to his mother. She coaxed him out, and not only supported his pursuits of dance and fashion, but encouraged them. Willi developed his own approach to voguing, the Harlem gay underground’s preeminent dance form, closely studying the movements of dancers like Michael Jackson and Fred Astaire, Olympic gymnasts, Asian martial artists, and the figures drawn in Kemetic hieroglyphics. (“Kemetic” refers to ancient Egypt, known as Kemet, or “black land”) And then he perfected it, diving headfirst into gay dance communities popping up around New York’s famous queer outdoor gathering places like Christopher Street Pier.

So many iconic moves in just one GIF.

Those spaces became the forerunners and foundations of New York’s LGBTQ ballroom culture. Technically, ballroom culture has existed globally for centuries, but its earliest appearances in New York were to flout laws against wearing “clothes associated with the opposite gender.” Though those early balls were integrated, the judge’s panels were all-white, driving African- and Latino-American dancers back to Harlem’s underground in the 60s and 70s where they established their own balls . Fresh off the heels of Marsha P. Johnson’s stand-off at Stonewall, New York’s gay culture had been empowered to stand its ground, and ballroom culture let them claim space where gender, race, sexuality, and class had no place to define them.

Having always known acceptance, thanks to his mother, in the ballrooms, Willi danced with a freedom and confidence unlike anyone else in the scene, and those iconic moves made him a fixture of New York ballroom culture. But the society Willi and his fellow pioneers rejoined outside of the balls cast all the glam and good vibes they celebrated inside into stark contrast.

There, LGBTQ teenagers outcast from their families after coming out or running away had nowhere else to go but the streets. Gentrification was beginning to push lower-income families in Brooklyn and Manhattan out of their homes already. Non-profit organizations and shelters in the midst of a Reaganomics depression had less to go around than ever. Unemployment was at an all-time high. If that New York was unsafe and uncertain for everyone, it was especially so for a 16-year-old transgender person.

From those circumstances, houses were born. Each “house” specializes in an aspect of ballroom culture. They’re headed by a mother or father, and its children are cared for with food, shelter, clothing, or simply love and encouragement, by all their brothers and sisters. And the House of Ninja grew to become one of the most long-lasting and well-respected of them all. Willi welcomed people from all walks of life into his house, becoming “mother” to one of the most inclusive houses in ballroom culture, even as it endures today. That influence Willi brought to ballroom is also reflected today in long-running and tremendously diverse TV representations of LGBTQ characters like those in “Pose,” “Ru-Paul’s Drag Race,” and “Queer Eye.”

As the ranks of his house expanded, so did Willi’s own dance skills, becoming so absolutely flawless and otherworldly that even mainstream entertainment took notice. Willi danced alongside Janet Jackson in two of her Rhythm Nation videos, walked runways for couturiers Thierry Mugler and Jean-Paul Gaultier, and even taught supermodels like Iman and Naomi Campbell how to own a catwalk in ways only he could.

Of course, all of that was behind the scenes. If you’ve ever heard Willi Ninja’s name before, it is almost undoubtedly associated with the landmark documentary “Paris is Burning.” The film, preserved by the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry, is compiled from six years of study, interviews, first-person footage, and immersion into the African-American, Latino-American, gay and transgender communities forming New York ballroom culture. The filmmaker Jennie Livingston describes it not as a dance documentary, but a tale of “people who have a lot of prejudices against them and who have learned to survive with wit, dignity and energy.”

But not all did survive. Willi’s endlessly shooting star was snuffed out by yet another American social ill: the AIDS epidemic. In his 45 short years, Willi Ninja was instrumental in launching vogue and ballroom culture into the global phenomenon it is today, and brought the community, the triumphs and the plights of Black and Latino LGBTQ faces to the forefront of mainstream culture. Willi died on September 2, 2006 from AIDS-related heart failure, giving everything he had for his children, right down to the last beat. As family does, the House of Ninja returned that love, using their ballroom winnings to care for Willi’s mother in his absence.

All no thanks to Madonna.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

If you’ve never seen “Paris is Burning,” have a look at the trailer where you’ll see a few of Willi’s moves & a bit of his personality.

French photographer Chantal Regnault spent 3 years photographing Willi & the Harlem ballroom scene. This post’s cover photo is from her series, and accompanies Chantal’s first-person account of her ballroom experience, which you can read here.

TIME Magazine recognizes the history of voguing and the importance its culture still holds for marginalized people today.

Even the Financial Times has in-depth articles on “how the mainstream discovered voguing.” My how far we’ve come.

One last look as Vox spends a few minutes with a member of a house to dive into ballroom’s past, present and future.

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 6 — Kadir Nelson

February 6, 2022 The Griot 1 Comment

There’s a not-so-secret slander running through the undercurrent of American history & media. It’s fairly obvious if you know what to look for… or if you’re a Black American.

For example, Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” is one of the earliest pieces of African-American literature introduced in elementary & middle-school curriculums. Most famously appearing in an April 1863 issue of the New York Independent, transcribed by Ms. Frances Gage (an associate of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton) twelve years after the speech was delivered, “Ain’t I A Woman” is written in thick southern colloquialisms and the supposed vernacular of an enslaved person,

But journalist Marius Robinson published the same speech on June 21, 1851 in The Anti-Slavery Bugle, and not only is it written in clearly decipherable King’s English, the words “ain’t I a woman?” NEVER appear in that version, approved for print by Sojourner Truth herself.

Compare journalist Marius Robinson’s transcription of Sojourner Truth’s speech to suffragette Frances Gage’s version of the same at The Sojourner Truth Project.

Not convinced? Think she pulled a favor from a friend? Think again. Sojourner Truth’s first language wasn’t English or an African language, but Dutch. She was born in Swartekill, NY. The only evidence that Sojourner would have spoken as presented in “Ain’t I A Woman?” is Frances’ Gage’s account itself, appearing second in historical records and over a decade later.

For a more visual representation, consider another of the few African-American figures who frequents American history books: Frederick Douglass. There are 160 known photographs of Frederick Douglass, more even than President Abraham Lincoln. And yet, the image of Mr. Douglass we know best is most likely that of a stern-faced, graying, relatively unapproachable man. No one ever sees the young Frederick Douglass, proud, handsome, full of personality.

LEFT: A generous version of the Frederick Douglass we know.
RIGHT: the Frederick Douglass we COULD know.
Frederick Douglass was the most photographed person in his lifetime, and though he rarely smiled because he didn’t want to be seen or represented as a “happy slave,” why do we only see the harshest version of him when so many exist?

Even today, media representations of African-Americans tend toward extremes. Criminals or memes. Rappers or impoverished. Jezebel, Mammy. Sapphire.

In this historical context, Kadir Nelson is more than an illustrator. He’s the hand holding a mirror to the truth.

Through Kadir’s paintings and illustrations, we see Black people from all over the world represented through eyes that adore them, not by those who would use them for their own gains, those who would undermine their credibility, or those who’d keep them out of positions of power.

But Kadir’s artistic vision wasn’t always so clear. As a child, his mother, who didn’t pursue her own passions for art, highly encouraged his. Nevertheless, he attended the illustrious Pratt Institute as an architecture major for the age-old reason: money. Despite the idealized “starving artist” archetype, the “unemployed, impoverished and Black” stereotype deters so many African-American creatives from pursuing their true calling. Luckily, only a year in, Kadir couldn’t resist his, changing his major to illustration instead.

“I have taken on the responsibility of creating artwork that speaks to the strength and inner beauty and outer beauty of people from all over the world,” Kadir said. “I like to create paintings of people who have overcome adversity but by being excellent or being strong or intelligent or having big hearts to remind people that they share those same qualities. When they see the paintings and feel the spirit of the people I am depicting, they are reminded of that within themselves. It all speaks to the story of the triumph and the hero that lives in all of us. If people take anything away from my work, that’s what I hope they take away from it.”

They most certainly did. Kadir’s first job was as a concept artist for the critically acclaimed film, Amistad. Since then, his work has lived in The National Baseball Hall of Fame, the US House of Representatives, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and many, many more.

But Kadir’s work isn’t out to glorify the myth of Black exceptionalism. He recalls a moment of everyday Blackness as inspiration he holds onto still. “My family was piling into my grandmother’s white Cadillac and I stood and waited for everyone to get inside. It was cold and breezy, and warm streetlights reflected off the shiny bluish sidewalk. I stood there feeling warm, wrapped up in my heavy winter coat, enjoying the breeze and the scenery. I remember thinking to myself, ‘This is beautiful.’ I was a six-year-old kid savoring the moment. It felt pretty special to me.”

Life’s littlest moments always are the most special, and those moments are so rarely seen occupied by Black faces. While validation from the mainstream was never necessary, the wider world has definitely taken notice of Kadir’s celebration of authentic Blackness as well. His art has been commissioned by HBO, Nike, Coca-Cola, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, and the list goes on and on.

The illustration work that he’s personally published or collaborated on outnumbers everything I’ve mentioned so far. His book illustrations have won too many awards to count from names like Caldecott, Scholastic, New York Times, and more authorities in the field. Kadir’s paintings also hang for purchase in high-end galleries, grace an assortment of music album covers, and have even appeared on USPS stamps. He might well be one of the most saturated African-American visual artists of the 21st Century, if not all the centuries. Perhaps because the truth resonates.

“I feel that art’s highest function is that of a mirror, reflecting the innermost beauty and divinity of the human spirit; and is most effective when it calls the viewer to remember one’s highest self… as it relates to the personal and collective stories of people,” he says.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, Kadir’s speak volumes upon volumes.

Frederick Douglass through the eyes and hands of Kadir Nelson.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

Kwame Alexander’s “The Undefeated,” illustrated by Kadir Nelson, is one of the most decorated picture books of all time. Take a peek inside here.

Browse Kadir’s portfolio of illustrations and commissions, and shop his gorgeous prints at his website.

Keep Kadir’s beautiful representations of Blackness and other Americana close at hand with a follow on Instagram.

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 5 — June Bacon-Bercey

February 5, 2022 The Griot

June Bacon-Bercey was called by a lot of things, but there was one she simply could not abide: weather girl.

“My mom was always about definitions. When she was called a weather girl, she would smile and say how proud she was to be a meteorologist,” her daughter Dail St. Claire says.

June Bacon-Bercey, proud meteorologist. NOT a weather girl.

After all, June earned it. Because June Bacon-Bercey was the first African-American woman to graduate with a degree in meteorology, and the first female broadcast meteorologist in the United States.

Dianne White, the first African-American “weather girl”

Words matter here because June wasn’t the first African-American woman to present the weather on broadcast TV. That designation belongs to Dianne White Clatto, an Avon saleswoman whose poise and beauty earned her a spot in front of the camera, even though she had no idea what to do. “‘When those two red lights come on, start talking.’ And I said, ‘About what?’,” she recounted. “And they said, ‘Preferably something about the weather.’ ”

But June’s fascination with the weather was spurred by much higher stakes. Just a child when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, she wondered what effects nuclear fallout might have on the global atmosphere.

That curiosity propelled her through earning one math degree (with honors) in Kansas before transferring to UCLA for her 4-year degree in atmospheric sciences, where she was highly encouraged to seek another field.

“When I chose my major, [they] advised me to go into home economics… I got a D in home economics and an A in thermodynamics.”

Earning that degree despite her naysayers, June immediately put it to work at the National Meteorological Center (now the National Oceanic Aviation Administration), then at tech/aerospace corporation Sperry Rand (now Unisys), and at the United States Atomic Energy Commission (now the U.S. Department of Energy) while earning a journalism degree at night school, before finally joining a Buffalo NBC affiliate in 1970 as their science broadcast reporter. It didn’t take long for June to gain national exposure thanks to her coverage of the Attica prison uprising in 1971.

June, reporting live with WGR-TV 2 (now WGRZ) in Buffalo, NY

But why not the weather? All of her training was PRECISELY why June was adamantly against broadcasting the weather. Before women broke into the field of atmospheric science, news stations hired “weather girls” like Dianne to broadcast the day’s highs and lows. These women weren’t actually expected to know anything about the weather, and in the worst cases, were trotted out in swimsuits to sensationalize summer segments. June found it wholly demeaning, and she soundly refused. Until the day that her station’s weatherman got caught up in a scandal, and the station manager, knowing June’s wide-ranging talents and skilled background, begged her to step in.

June, stepping in as on-set meteorologist. Clearly the star of the show.

“All hell broke loose at the station when our weather guy robbed the bank, and they needed someone who was there to fill in for the day,” she recounted. “I already knew from my calculations that there was going to be a heat wave. When the heat wave hit the next day, the job was mine.”

The AMS Seal of Approval launched in 1957, recognizing on-air meteorologists for sound delivery of the weather to the public.

Little did her station manager know that June’s forecasted heat wave would usher in a whole new era of equality for women—especially Black women and other women of color on broadcast television. By 1972, June was honored as both the first female and African-American recipient of the American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval for Excellence in Television Weathercasting.

4 years after a chance occurrence found her breaking weather barriers on TV, June thirsted for more science, and took her talents back to the NOAA. But her passion for paving the way persisted.

A capture from broadcast footage shows June in action, predicting a wet winter for the greater Buffalo area.

She became a contestant on a game show called “The $128,000 Question,” winning $64,000 after correctly answering a series of questions about John Philip Souza, her favorite composer. June studied ruthlessly with the goal of using her prize money to establish a scholarship fund for women of color studying meteorology. “That was my plan at the beginning, and it’s still my plan,” she told the Washington Post after her win. “I was discouraged (from becoming a meteorologist), and other women were discouraged. If they feel they’ve got some money behind them, it might be better.”

Applications for the June Bacon-Bercey Scholarship in Atmospheric Sciences for Women opens in TWO days, on February 7, 2022!

With that seed money, The June Bacon-Bercey Scholarship In Atmospheric Sciences For Women was established. Working into her 80s, June never ceased earning awards and degrees, serving her country in meteorology, and creating ways for more underrepresented faces to be seen in the atmospheric sciences. “She made personal sacrifices for those who would come after her to give them a fighting chance at success in her field,” Dorothy Tucker, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, said. Her trail blazed so brightly in fact, that just last year, the American Meteorological Society officially renamed their most prestigious and coveted Broadcaster of the Year award to the June Bacon-Bercey Award for Broadcast Meteorology in recognition of her impact on the field.

June passed away in 2019, leaving a stunning legacy as proof of her dedication to making science more equitable, but even she acknowledged that one person can only do so much. “Society, too, has a moral obligation to put aside the past myths about black Americans not only in the meteorological field but in all of the technical fields.”

Until that day is fully realized, her daughter Dail continues sharing June’s story saying, “Her legacy serves as inspiration for all and is a powerful example of our limitless capability and strength.”

Of that, there is a 100% chance.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

June’s daughter Dail St. Claire spoke with The Weather Channel about her mother’s legacy in meteorology and broadcast television.

Visit AccuWeather for “the untold story of the 1st American woman to become a TV meteorologist.”

EOS, the American Geophysical Union‘s news site, thoroughly details of June’s life and accomplishments.

Between 1978 and 1990, 13 women received funding for their studies in atmospheric science. It was June’s dying wish that her scholarship be reinstated. Donate now, or apply starting February 7, 2022.

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 4 — Kimberly & Jehvan Crompton

February 4, 2022 The Griot

To an outsider, Kimberly and Jehvan Crompton seem like your run-of-the-mill mother and son. Jehvan is 15, introverted and loves science, English and video games. His mom describes herself as a “mommypreneur steady grinding.” Jehvan lives with his mom, sister and brother, and stays up too late. The Cromptons’ lives look pretty ordinary.

And until late 2019, they would have thought so too.

But that was the year that routine blood work Jehvan had done ahead of a foot surgery revealed news no mother with a symptom-free child is prepared for: his results showed Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML).

CML is a cancer that starts in blood-forming cells of the bone marrow. It almost always occurs in adults, but Jehvan was that 1 in millions. And even worse, no one in his family was a full match.

As rare as childhood CML is, turns out Jehvan’s story isn’t very out of the ordinary at all.

“Right now, the make-up of the registry, it’s just overwhelmingly white,” according to reps at Be the Match, the national marrow registry. While 77% of all white patients find a match within its records, only 23% of Black patients ever do. (Notice that number adds up to 100%, so donor rates from other racial segments–along with the likelihood of donees finding a match–is infinitesimal.)

Aside from the many structural and social obstacles preventing Black patients from finding a match, there’s a genetic variable too. “Overall, blood cancers tend to be less common among African-American populations, but distinctly, multiple myeloma is the one blood cancer that’s seen at two times as high a rate in African Americans compared to other ethnicities,” Dr. Adrienne Phillips, medical oncologist at Weill Cornell Medicine says. Other blood diseases like sickle-cell also disproportionately affect Black and Hispanic patients, too often resulting in preventable deaths simply because these patients don’t have the same visibility and their cancers don’t have the same awareness or organizational support as the other 77%.

So instead of waiting for the odds to fall in Jehvan’s favor, Kimberly decided to put her own numbers up against CML. “I believe this was God’s plan. But I have to do my work,” she said.

Her goal was 200. If she could get just 200 more Black donors on the Be The Match registry, her son’s chances of matching one would increase dramatically.

As of January 2021, Kimberly’s campaign alone has brought 13,000 fully registered donors to Be The Match. That number has no doubtedly continued to skyrocket.

I know Kimberly’s numbers have kept going up because Jehvan’s targeted ad came up multiple times for me as I researched this post. I’ve linked it with his affiliate code, just as Be the Match did elsewhere.

Thousands, but still no match for the one patient who mattered most.

But Jehvan was already prepared for that outcome: “Even if I don’t get a match out of the 13,000 or more that come up, it’ll just be great to see that everyone else got a match,”

Her son’s optimism and selflessness only made the doctors’ next call that much harder to hear: Jehvan’s leukemia had become resistant to chemotherapy, the cancer cells were multiplying and a blood stem-cell transplant was his only hope.

“It’s like getting hit by a dump truck and then that dump truck hitting you again and going back over you again,” Kimberly said.

The news forced them to resort to a half-match, which was just as likely to lead to Jehvan’s death as it was to his cure. The closest half-match doctors could find turned out to be Jehvan’s adult half brother, with whom he “didn’t have much of a relationship before this happened,” Jehvan said.

“This” is a successful transplant in March 2021, leaving Jehvan cancer-free.

He says his relationship with his brother is “getting better and better by the day,” especially now that he has so many more ahead.

And 13,000 more people of color on the bone marrow registry are getting that same opportunity now, all thanks to one “ordinary” little boy.

Kimberly, Jehvan and Patrick Crompton continuing to raise awareness about Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

“At first I didn’t think my story was so much different than anyone else’s, but apparently people think otherwise. So, I guess I’m very special,” Jehvan said.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

Read more of Kimberly & Jehvan’s story and the science about how race affects blood cancers at SurvivorNet.

Bakersfield news station 23ABC followed Jehvan from half-match to cancer-free, and as its the most visible and vulnerable I’ve seen a Black family fighting cancer represented in the media in some time, I found both articles worthy of sharing.