The Big Isms

Beloved community,

The night before he was brutally shot down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached “Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point...either we go up together or we go down together.” Fifty two years later, in the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic and the poverty that preceded it, and is now deepening and spreading because of it, the truth of this statement still reverberates.
Epidemics emerge along the fissures of our society, reflecting not only the biology of the infectious agent, but patterns of marginalization, exclusion and discrimination. We are seeing that our society is only as healthy as our sickest person, our country is only as secure as the least secure homeless family, low-wage worker, indebted student, or uninsured person. Times such as these require that we come together in bold, new ways and build a moral fusion movement that has everybody in, nobody out.
Exactly one …

'Remarkable' woman discovered as last known survivor of transatlantic slave trade
Jack Guy, March 26, 2020, CNN



(CNN) — A woman who was taken from Africa when she was just two years old has been identified as the last known survivor of the transatlantic slave trade.

Matilda McCrear was taken from West Africa to Mobile, Alabama, on board the last slave transport ship, the Clotilda, in July 1860, a UK researcher has discovered, uncovering the life of a remarkable woman.

McCrear was transported alongside her mother Gracie, three older sisters, and a man who became her stepfather, according to a press release from Newcastle University. Her two brothers were left in West Africa.

McCrear, her mother and one sister were bought by the same slaveowner, while the other two siblings were never seen again.

She died in 1940 when she was 81 or 82. McCrear's grandson, Johnny Crear, now 83 years old, said he had "no idea" she had been on the Clotilda and said the new infor…

A History of Giving and Receiving (audio)
Joanne Freeman talks with Richard Newman about Philadelphia’s African American communities response to the yellow fever epidemic of 1793.
December 13, 2019, BackStory

In 1793, Philadelphia was struck by a debilitating yellow fever epidemic. With the leadership of Bishop Richard Allen, the African-American community decided to help with the relief effort and give aid to infected folks throughout the city. But in the wake of the epidemic, white residents falsely accused African-American helpers of theft and exploitation.
Joanne talks with scholar Rich Newman about the generosity of Bishop Richard Allen and his fight to disseminate the true story about the African-American aid.

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Bishop Richard Allen’s account,  A NARRATIVE of the proceedings of the Coloured People during the awful calamity in Philadelphia, in the year 1793; and a refutation of some censures thrown upon them in some publications, is available on the Documenting the…