Chocó general strike reaps results By Karen Juanita Carrillo
A Chocó general strike that took place on February 19, 2009 has reaped results.
Some twenty thousand Chocóanos took part
in a Feb. 19 general strike against the government.
Following a massive 24-hour general protest the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe Vélez has
signed an agreement and claims it will begin paving the Quibdó-Medellín road immediately with the funds it currently
has at its disposal. By April, the government also plans to ask for bids from companies who wish to complete the roads’
pavement. The terms of the agreement can be read online at the website, Chocó 7 días.
Barbara Starr and Bill Mears write about a man in the United States, who was one of many
enslaved Africans to work as a spy against the Southern Confederacy:
"William
Jackson was a slave in the home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis during the Civil War. It turns out he was also a
spy for the Union Army, providing key secrets to the North about the Confederacy.
"Jackson
was Davis' house servant and personal coachman. He learned high-level details about Confederate battle plans and movements
because Davis saw him as a 'piece of furniture' -- not a human, according to Ken Dagler, author of Black Dispatches,
which explores espionage by America's slaves.
"If there is one thing that
unites Latinos — regardless of the color of their skin — it is the language," Maria
Elena Salinas notes in "A double minority," an article that talks about Afro Latino identity. "Angie, who was born in Santo
Domingo and raised in Venezuela, married a U.S.-born Black man of Dominican descent who did not speak Spanish. She says at
first she did not identify with her husband’s family because of the language barrier.
"For Carmen, it
was somewhat of a relief to see that in her daughters’ school, there was a choice between 'ethnic origin' and
'race' to identify the children, which allowed them to be both Hispanic and Black. Now they can celebrate Black History
Month as well as Hispanic Heritage Month."
Visit www.afropresencia.com to find listings and links to areas where you can find out
about upcoming events, as well as links to articles, photos and videos on Life in the Black Americas.
The Sound of My Footsteps: Narratives of Migratory Jamaican immigrants
Interviews with over 30 Jamaican immigrants on their
pre-migratory perceptions of New York and England
The Afro-Latin@ Reader:
History and Culture in the United States
The Afro-Latin@ Reader focuses attention on a large, vibrant, yet oddly invisible community
in the United States: people of African descent from Latin America and the Caribbean. The presence of Afro-Latin@s
in the United States (and throughout the Americas) belies the notion that Blacks and Latin@s are two distinct categories
or cultures. Afro-Latin@s are uniquely situated to bridge the widening social divide between Latin@s and African
Americans. At the same time, their experiences reveal pervasive racism among Latin@s and ethnocentrism among African
Americans. Offering insight into Afro-Latin@ life and new ways to understand culture, ethnicity, nation, identity,
and antiracist politics, The Afro-Latin@ Reader presents a kaleidoscopic view of Black Latin@s in the United
States. It addresses history, music, gender, class, and media representations in more than sixty selections, including
scholarly essays, memoirs, newspaper and magazine articles, poetry, short stories, and interviews.
African American History Day by Day: A Reference Guide to Events
by Karen Juanita Carrillo
The proof
of any group's importance to history is in the detail, a fact made plain by this informative book's day-by-day documentation
of the impact of African Americans on life in the United States. One of the easiest ways to grasp any aspect of history
is to look at it as a continuum. African American History Day by Day: A Reference Guide to Events provides just
such an opportunity.
The
View from Chocó: The Afro-Colombian past, their lives in the present, and their hopes for the future
by Karen Juanita Carrillo
The View from Chocó: The Afro-Colombian past, their lives in the
present, and their hopes for the future is an introduction to the lives of Blacks in Colombia. Afro-Colombians
live in a resource-rich yet remote region of Colombia. They only recently won recognition as one of that nation's
distinct ethnic groups. But Colombia's on-going civil war has led many Afro-Colombians to reach even farther than
their nation's borders for recognition: many have made their way to the United States as refugees and as political
activists working for peace in their homeland. The View from Chocó introduces the lives and struggles of a too-long neglected community of Colombian Blacks.
Raise Your Brown Black Fist is a collection of essays
written by Kevin Alberto Sabio during his time as a Contributing Writer for an online magazine.
The book combines his two article series, "Black
vs Brown" and "Black Thoughts: A Political Ideological Perspective
for Afrolatinos" into one volume, plus three other miscellaneous entries.The bookis currently available through his publisher, AuthorHouse.
Click
the logo above to view and purchase the book.
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