Elinor Elizabeth Powell (my mother’s maiden name is Powell, this lady could have been a cousin!) was one of the few black nurses who was able to serve during the war, and discrimination and segregation of blacks meant that black nurses got the least desirable assignments. Elinor got the job of tending to German prisoners of war, which is where she met Frederick Albert. According to Chris Albert, their son (59), here’s what he said to her as soon as he set eyes upon her: “It was in the officers’ mess hall, and my father was working in the kitchen. He kind of boldly made his way straight for my mother and said: ‘You should know my name. I’m the man who’s going to marry you.’”

Can you imagine the boldness of that statement, and how freaking HOT that is?!  Now that’s a MAN.

This couple when through many hardships to stay together, beginning with Frederick being beaten by American soldiers upon them finding out he and Elinor were in love. A product of their affair produced a son, and this MAN came back from Germany upon his release to MARRY the mother of HIS child.

Their unlikely romance resulted in Stephen’s [their oldest son] birth in December 1946. After Frederick was able to return to the United States, he and Elinor married on June 26, 1947, in Manhattan.

You absolutely must read this story in it’s entirety. It is just about the most romantic thing I’ve read in a long time. Ladies, let this be a lesson for you–marry the man who will swim through shark-infested waters, do battle with Jim Crow, and denounce Hitler for you.

I read *poof* (…now you’re gone…mentally but keep reading anyway)

I tune folks out like Grandma Hill would as a million crazy things went on around her involving several toddlers and a German Shepard.

I would stand at her knee and watch as she dramatically flipped each huge page over to continue following along with the long rows of shapes and columns consisting of news.

Newspapers contained information, I figured that out relatively early in life, Grandma would mention a piece of news over her shoulder, towards my mother, if she thought it worthy to share.

I wanted to know ‘news’, and after pestering my Grandmother enough, she began teaching me to read, using our local town newspaper, at the age of three.

Reading newspapers became, and still are, a favorite hobby of mine. Though now I prefer to flip through the local newspaper while out on vacation. You can learn so much by reading what the writers and editors find to be  useful information for their consumers. Sometimes the language is different, dialect and sentence structure slightly different then from where I’m used to…?

Better grammar? Worse grammar? Am I imagining things? Who cares….. I’m a geek.

Microfiche, if you know how to look, and what to look for, can take you back in time. The first time I successfully located and pulled up a newspaper on film, my eyes bulged and darted at the image as if I was looking at a kaleidoscopic.

But since folks are kind these days, you don’t have to travel to the local archive library to feast your eyes on the Freedom’s Journal.

What is the Freedom’s Journal you ask?

Well, its the nations first African American owned and operated newspaper. Duh!?

The entire archive of every issue is available online here.

Published from 1827-1829, the State Historical Society of Wisconsin Library has digitized each publication into PDF for you to view for free.

Peep this:

there are five hundred thousand freed persons of color, one half of whom might peruse and the whole benefit  from the journal….no publication of yet, has been dedicated exclusively to their improvement

I’m so not as organized and fabulous as Swirl Girl, but I thought the Blerds would enjoy this, because it made me quite happy.

Until next time….

There are several books and museum exibits on Casta paintings in Spanish Colonial America. Most of the pics were found on the Contructing Race with Images page from the Race in Colonial Mexico Collection (and European Collections).

Enjoy!

Christian Protten (1715-1769) and Rebecca (1718-1780) an ex-slave and Moravian convert were married in Germany in 1740; shown also is their child, Anna Maria Protten.  Christian is the child of a Danish father and African mother.  He as born in Denmark.  This gem was found at The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life of the America’s page website.  They have many priceless portraits.

1725

1725

 De español y mulata, morisca by Miguel Cabrea, 1763.

bw-wm Casta painting by José de Alcíbar, 1760-1770

José Joaquin Magon Casta Paintings

José Joaquin Magon Casta Paintings

This is a more comical one of Casta paintings of Spanish and Negra producing Mulatta.  Looks like she is trying to box his ears.

A Redenção de Cam (The Redemption of Ham)

Andrés de Islas, 1774

Note: I notice there are several of the couples fighting. 

Could this be depicting everyday, normal life or contributing to stereotypes?

Andrés de Islas, 1774

Andrés de Islas, 1774

 Andrés de Islas, 1774

Andrés de Islas, 1774

 José de Paez

Weren’t they a lovely couple?  Stephen Fratallone, writing for”Jazz Connection Magazine” quotes Louie on racial incidents during their marriage.

“Because Pearl was the kind of lady she was, there were many people who by-passed that,” Bellson said. “She was one of those people everyone loved. We had a few incidents over the years, but not many. I received a letter when we first got married that was very derogatory, very racial. We didn’t think anything of it, but rather, we felt sorry for the person who wrote the letter.”

A great way to look at it then, a great way to look at it now.   Photo – Jet Magazine Jan. 27, 1955

Pearl Bailey’s brother in law (brother of Louis Bellson) also marries a black woman named Lucille Dabney.

Jet Magazine Jan 10, 1957.

October 16 1965  -  The Pratts’ wedding day.  Leslie is seen here with hubby and her father.

Leslie Uggams Crayne and hubby of 47 years Grahame Pratt.  Way to go Mr. & Mrs. Pratt!  What wonderful role models of successful and enduring marriage.  She is gorgeous and still going strong.

Wife of Briggs Heir Alberta Sheffield Briggs Returns to Barmaid Job – Jet Magazine, May 28, 1953

White Bronco Buster Robert Yunker Weds Negro Rodeo Starlet Eleanor Bohannon – Jet Magazine, August 7, 1952.

  Wow a Cowgirl!

Interracial Couple Snubbed in London – Jet Magazine, January 20, 1955  Tony & Sylvia Overman.

Interracial Couple Sgt. William Rhein and Annie Allen Can’t Marry in Louisiana and Chooses Minn -

Jet Magazine June 25, 1953

 Interracial Marriage, Your Job Can Lead to Interracial Wedlock – Brown Magazine, April, 1954
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vieilles_annonces/3690383884/sizes/l/

Interracial Marriage Upsets Bermudans – Jet Magazine February 9, 1956

 Marlon Brando &  Barbara Roberts on Beach – Jet Magazine, August 18, 1955

William Kappelhoff and Luwenia Williams Bennet (Father of actress/singer Doris Day).  Jet Magazine June 8, 1961

Opera Singer Adele Addison and hubby Norman Berger Jet Magazine, July 17, 1958

Dorothy Dandridge and onetime boyfriend Peter Lawford.  He could not take the social pressure of the time

and ended the relationship.  He was weak.

Briton Hemish Miller Craig Marries African Princess – Jet Magazine, May 21, 1953.

Earlham College Ousts White Student Robert McAllester Engaged to Negro Grace Cunningham -

Jet Magazine, May 15, 1952

Anta Majigeen Ndiaye or Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley was not always the free Senegalese woman who eventually became a plantation and slave owner.  At 18 years old, her owner Zephaniah Kingsley, one of the most powerful men in Florida freed the 18 year-old woman mother of his 3 children and married her.  As Florida was under Spanish colonial rule where manumission laws were more liberal than American.  Her husband saw slavery as a temporary condition related to economics more than race.  Anna learned to operate the plantations as effective as Zephaniah.  As a free woman, she petitioned the Spanish government and was granted land across from her husband’s plantations in what is now Jacksonville, Florida.

Sessesion, the Civil War and US rule brought problems for Anna and her children.  She and her husband had grown prosperous.  I did not read accounts of how she treated her slaves.  She would burn her own home down to prevent the looting and comandeering by troops of property and goods, although Anna sided with Union.  Anna and her then 4 children under 7 years old escaped to Haiti where she and her husband built a new home.  When Zephaniah died, his white relatives contested his will and tried to keep Anna and her children from their rightful property.  It didn’t work.  The courts recognized her right and she moved back to Florida and lived until she died in 1884 at 77 years old.

Read the account of Anna’s life via the National Park Service who maintain the Kingsley Plantation as a National Historic Landmark.  There are no known images of Anna but she did have decendants three of whom are shown below.

Maria Perez Kingsley, great-granddaughter of Zephaniah and Anna Kingsley

 Sandra Lebron, great-great granddaughter of Anna Kingsley and her son Manuel in Santo Domingo

Resources

Admiration for a former slave’s self-disciplined, tenacious life (Fascinating account of Anna’s capture, sale and family life).

Latin American Studies

Images of the Zephaniah Kingsley Plantations

Wikipedia

The Shield

Some of you may remember Peter Finch’s awesome performance in that scene from “Network” that won him the Oscar. This scene has influenced a bevy of imitators one being the JG Wentworth commercials: “It’s my money, and I want it now!”

Mahala Lynch Davis, married her former slave owner Isaac P. Davis in 1857.  On the right is their daughter Martha Davis Wilson (b. 1848) holding her baby Julia Wilson (Car).  Davis freed Mahala and then married her moving from his former Virginia plantation to Chilicothe, southern Ohio.  Many free blacks, former plantation owners, and former slaves including two of Thomas Jefferson’s mulatto children moved to towns in southern Ohio in antebellum times. Facinating coordination by Beverly Gray Coordinator, Southern Region Ohio Underground Railroad Association

Story of a Trinidadian (Black) Hakka Chinese, and French Creole Family

Eugene and Agatha Chen both born in 1878 married in 1899 and had four children.  Agatha Alphosin Ganteaume was born in Trinidad of a white man and an African servant.  Although she was considered an illegitimate or bastard child, her father Alphonse Ganteaume obviously treated Agatha like the rest of his white children. When you look at the pictures of Eugene and Agatha you will see a Chinese family in Trinidad, a marriage of a Chinese son to a biracial daughter (referred to as a bastard child in the estate records of the Ganteaume family whose french ancestry is evident to one of whom was an official in Napoleon’s Navy).  You will see four children of this marriage whose ambitions took them to China, Russia, the UK, back to Trinidad and the US. You will read about desertion, Russian and Chinese governments and revolution, various officials, military careers, multiple marriages and other things. Each picture takes you further into the very complex but fascinating story.

Eugene and Agatha Chen

The Chen children in 1920s Moscow Percy, Sylvia (Silan), Yolanda (Yulen), & Jack.  Percy, Sylvia and Jack became authors.

 Jay Chen, grandson of Eugene and Agatha and son of Jack Chen and website owner Yuan Tsung Chen.  Jay has gone through great lengths to find his relatives who are all a variety of nationalities and races, found on several continents.

Albert (1858-1887) and Lucy Parsons (1853-1942 were from Texas where Lucy Eldine Gonzalez Parsons was born into slavery.  She met Albert and they married.  They moved to Chicago due to threats from the KKK during Reconstruction.  Albert was a former Confederate soldier who later fought on behalf of former slaves’ rights. Albert & Lucy were extreme radical anarchists.  Lucy became a labor organizer, feminist, socialist, and communist.  Lucy was considered dangerous by the authorities as they hated communists and “troublemakers” in general.  When she died of a house fire in Chicago, the police rushed in to get all of Lucy Parso’s papers and literature.  Most of it mysteriously disappeared.

Parsons and  a flyer of a speech she was due to give in support of her husband Albert who was soon to be executed by the State of Illinois for an act of terrorism of which Albert & Lucy claimed no knowledge.

There has been lots of feminist talk on BB&W and discussions of white women versus black ideas on this issue.  Lucy had her share of white women (and male) detractors too so the concept is not new.  Lucy had one particular thorn in her side – a rival named Emma Goldman.  Lucy Parsons was outspoken and true to her cause until the day she died.

There is supposed to be a movie in development about Lucy Parson’s life.  The beauty portraying Lucy Parsons is Judi Shekoni shown with Noam Gonick at the 1886 screenplay reading at Villa Aurora in Pacific Palisades, September 2012.   The owner of this Pinterest site suggests a few actress to play the fiery Lucy Parsons; and they include actresses like Zoe Saldana, Kerry Washington and Halle Berry.

Judi Shekoni and Noam Gonick

Wikipedia