MySpur Essay Competition (Nigeria)

 

Deadline: 21 March 2012

Do you consider yourself a great writer? Here is a golden opportunity for you to express yourself. Spur magazine is glad to announce the commencement of an Essay Competition. This will be the first of the series of My Spur Essay Competitions. This series is geared towards discussing issues that affect the Nigerian learning community and leadership.

Title : Stemming the tide of massive Examination Failure in Nigeria: How?

Guildline:

• The essay competition is open to all.

• All entry should be between 1,200 – 1,500 words.

• The deadline for the submission of the entries is March 21, 2012.

• All entries should be sent electronically to info@spurmag.com

• All entries should be in Microsoft word format (PDF format are not allowed)

• All entries should contain the following information: Full Name, Phone Number, Email Address, Current Status (Student or Worker), How you heard about the essay competition?

NB: The information should be below your entry in one document.

The final winner will be announced in first week of April.

• The prize for the winner is a Nokia Phone

• Prize for the first runner up is N3,000 worth of airtime

• Prize for the second runner up is N1,500 worth of airtime.

The winning Essay will also been published in the April Edition of Spur magazine.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For inquiries: info@spurmag.com

For submissions: info@spurmag.com

Website: http://spurmag.com

 

2012 Family Circle Fiction Contest Rules

OFFICIAL CONTEST RULES

Contest begins March 1, 2012, and ends September 7, 2012. Entries must be postmarked on or before September 7, 2012, and received by September 14, 2012. Entries will not be acknowledged or returned. Sponsor: Meredith Corporation, 1716 Locust St., Des Moines, Iowa. Sponsor assumes no responsibility for illegible, lost, late, misdirected, incomplete, or stolen entries or mail.

ENTRY: Submit an original (written by entrant), fiction short story of no more than 2,500 words, typed, double-spaced and page numbered on 8-1/2x11paper. Entries must be unpublished and may not have won any prize or award. Include your name, address, daytime telephone number and e-mail address (optional) on each page and send to: Family Circle Fiction Contest, c/o Family Circle Magazine, 805 Third Avenue, 22nd Floor, New York, NY 10022.

LIMIT: Up to two (2) entries per person will be accepted but each entry must be a unique short story. No group entries. Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to reject, disqualify, modify, edit, and revise any entries, subjects, stories, or related materials that Sponsor deems to be nude, obscene, defamatory, profane, offensive, lewd, pornographic, false, misleading, deceptive, or otherwise inconsistent with its editorial standards, audience expectations, or reputational interests or that Sponsor believes may violate any applicable law or regulation or the rights of any third party. By entering this contest, entrants consent to a background check, and Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to verify any element of any entry or related materials and to disqualify any entrant whose participation may subject the contest, Sponsor, or Sponsor's advertisers, clients, or customers to controversy, negative publicity, scorn, or ridicule.

ELIGIBILITY: Legal residents of the 50 United States, and the District of Columbia, 21 years of age or older are eligible to enter, except employees of Sponsor, and any other organizations affiliated with the sponsorship, fulfillment, administration, prize support, advertisement or promotion of the contest and/or their respective agents, affiliates, subsidiaries, and members of their immediate families or persons residing at the same address.

WINNER SELECTION: On or about October 15, 2012, a qualified panel of judges will judge eligible entries equally on the basis of sustained writing ability (25%), topic creativity (25%), originality (25%), and overall excellence (25%). One (1) grand prize winner and two (2) runners-up will be selected. In the event of a tie, a qualified panel of judges will determine the winner based on the criterion of overall excellence. Sponsor reserves the right to choose fewer than two runners-up if, in its sole discretion, it does not receive a sufficient number of eligible and qualified entries. Potential winners will be notified by phone and/or mail and the prizes delivered on or about November 30, 2012. Decisions of judges are final and binding in all respects.

PRIZING: One (1) Grand Prize winner will receive a prize package including a check for $750.00, a gift certificate to one (1) mediabistro.com course of his or her choice, up to a value of $610.00, one (1) year mediabistro.com AvantGuild membership valued at $55.00, and a one (1) year mediabistro.com How-to Video membership valued at $99.00. Total approximate retail value of grand prize package $1,514.00. One (1) Second Place winner will receive a check for $250.00, a one (1) year mediabistro.com AvantGuild membership valued at $55.00, and a one (1) year mediabistro.com How-to Video membership valued at $99.00. Total retail value (RV) of second place prize package $404.00. One (1) Third Place winner will receive a check for $250.00 and a one (1) year mediabistro.com AvantGuild membership valued at $55.00. Total RV of third place prize package $305.00. One (1) prize per household. Prizes may not be assigned, transferred, or changed, except at the sole discretion of Sponsor. The awarding of any prize is contingent upon full compliance with these Official Rules. The Grand Prize winner's story may, in the sole discretion of Sponsor, be published in a future issue of Family Circle magazine. Runner up stories may, in the sole discretion of Sponsor, appear on the Family Circle website, currently located at www.familycircle.com. Publication of winning entries is not guaranteed, and has no retail value.

CONDITIONS/WARRANTIES: Entrants agree to be bound by Official Rules and agree that if any winner fails to provide proof of identity, refuses to provide documentation, is found to have violated the Official Rules or otherwise does not meet eligibility criteria, prize will be forfeited and awarded to an alternate winner with the next highest score. Entrants understand that Sponsor is not liable for injuries, losses or damages of any kind arising from participation in this promotion and acceptance, possession and use of prize. Sponsor is not responsible for any typographical or other error in the printing of the offer, administration of the contest or in the announcement of the prize. Decisions of Sponsor are final and binding in all respects.

RELEASES: By participating in this contest and accepting any prize that they may win, entrants agree to release Sponsor, its parent, subsidiary, affiliated and successor companies, advertising and promotion agencies and prize suppliers, and each of their respective officers, directors, agents, representatives and employees, as well as each of their respective successors, representatives and assigns (collectively, the "Released Parties") from any and all actions, claims, injury, loss or damage arising in any manner, directly or indirectly, from participation in this contest and/or acceptance or use of the prize.

Entrants authorize the Released Parties to use their name, voice, likeness, biographical data, city and state of residence and entry materials in all media now known or hereafter discovered, for any purpose, including without limitation, in connection with, and to promote, market or advertise, the contest, in whole or in part, without review, approval, credit or attribution, notification or payment from or to entrant or any person or entity, worldwide, in perpetuity, or on a winner's list, if applicable, unless prohibited by law. Sponsor is not obligated to use any of the above-mentioned information or materials, but may do so and may edit such information or materials, at Sponsor's sole discretion, without further obligation or compensation.

By submitting entry materials, entrants certify that such materials are original and created by entrant, that entrants have the necessary rights, permission and authority to submit such materials, and, if applicable, that entrants maintain a valid copyright in the materials.

PRIVACY: By entering and providing the required entry information, you acknowledge that Sponsor may also send you information, samples or special offers it believes may be of interest to you about its publications or other complementary goods offered by Sponsor. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO SHARE YOUR INFORMATION, PLEASE DO NOT ENTER THIS PROMOTION.

DISPUTE RESOLUTION: Except where prohibited, by participating Contest entrants agree that: All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of these Official Rules, or the rights and obligations of participants and Sponsor and its agents shall be governed by and construed exclusively in accordance with the laws of the State of New York without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law of any jurisdiction. Entrant agrees that any action at law or in equity arising out of or relating to this Contest, or awarding of the prizes, shall be filed only in the state or federal courts located in the State of New York and entrant hereby consents and submits to the personal jurisdiction of such courts for the purposes of litigating any such action. Except where prohibited, by participating in this Contest, entrant agrees that: (a) any and all disputes, claims, and causes of action arising out of or connected with this Contest, or awarding of the prizes, shall be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action; and (b) any and all claims, judgments and awards shall be limited to actual out-of-pocket costs incurred, including costs associated with participating in this Contest but in no event attorneys' fees; and (c) under no circumstances will any participant be permitted to obtain awards for and hereby waives all rights to claim punitive, incidental and consequential damages and any other damages, other than for actual out-of-pocket expenses, and any and all rights to have damages multiplied or otherwise increased. Some jurisdictions do not allow the limitations or exclusion of liability for incidental or consequential damages, so the above may not apply to you.

GENERAL: Except where prohibited by law, potential winners may be required to complete and return an Affidavit of Eligibility/Ownership/Liability Release, Publicity Release and License of Pre-Existing Work within ten (10) days of notification or the entry with the next highest score may become an alternate winner. If winner notification is returned as undeliverable, the entry with the next highest score may become an alternate winner. Subject to all U.S. federal, state and local laws and regulations. Void where prohibited. Taxes on prize are the sole responsibility of winners. Grand prize winner will be issued an IRS 1099 tax form in the amount of the actual retail value of the prize. For winners' list, available after December 15, 2012, send a separate, self-addressed, stamped envelope to Winners' List/Fiction Writing Contest, Family Circle Magazine, 805 Third Avenue, 22nd Floor, New York, NY 10022.

Copyright © 2012 Meredith Corporation.

Littworld Writing Contest 2012:

Blogging for Global Impact

(Kenya / worldwide)

 

Deadline: 29 June 2012

These are the official rules for the LittWorld 2012 Writing Contest, “Blogging for Global Impact.”

WRITING PROMPTS

Write a short blog article that responds to one of these five writing prompts:

• If Jesus were to write a letter to the church in your country, what would He say?

• What is one thing the church in your country has learned that believers elsewhere could benefit from?

• Tell how someone you know in your country was spiritually transformed by the written word.

• Why is it important that more Christian authors in your country write and get published?

• What is your dream for the future of Christian publishing in your country?

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

To enter the contest, complete the submission form: Submit an Article.

• Each blog article must be 300 words or less.

• You may submit up to three different articles during the competition.

• Articles may be submitted in English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Kiswahili and Mandarin. If accepted for the contest, the article will be published on LittWorld Online in its original language accompanied by an English translation.

• Articles must be received on or before Friday, June 29, 2012.

• MAI will select the top 25 blog entries for final judging in the awards competition. Any non-English entries in the top 20 will be translated into English for the final evaluation by judges.

• MAI’s contest judges reserve the right to determine, in their sole and binding discretion, whether articles submitted meet minimum standards of quality for the contest.

• By submitting an article, you affirm that the article is your original work and that MAI, in its sole discretion, reserves the right to use or not use your article in the writing contest.

• You grant MAI nonexclusive permission to publish this article on LittWorld Online and in other websites and printed materials. You retain the right to publish this article on your own blog.

• Articles published on LittWorld Online will include the author’s name and country unless the author asks MAI to withhold this information.

AWARDS

First-place and honorable-mention awards will be presented for the best blog article. Judges appointed by MAI will evaluate blog articles on the basis of content, writing quality, creativity and impact. One first-place Best Blog Article winner will receive US $300. One honorable-mention Best Blog winner will receive US $150.

Winners will be announced on LittWorld Online on August 1, 2012.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For inquiries: mai@littworld.org

For submissions: submit online here

Website: http://www.littworldonline.org

 

Shuga:

Love, Sex, Money

- Episode 4

by mtv staying alive

BIG ARAIA 

By Araia Tesfamariam

ABOUT THE DOCUMENTARY:

BIG ARAIA is a reclamation of a lost connection with a very personal history. For most of my life, I only knew my father's name and the country he came from. I searched for information about my father for over a decade without any success, until an unexpected phone call from an old acquaintance opened a door that had been closed to me since birth.  In this documentary, you will see me return to my father's home, meet his family and begin to fill in the missing puzzle pieces of his past. It's more than a personal narrative, it also symbolizes the yearning many African-Americans have to reconnect with their African roots.

"You look Habesha!" I have always found this comment interesting. As you can see, my mother, who is African-American, and I look very much alike. But for most of my adult life, when ever someone who was Eritrean or Ethiopian would see me on the street or in some other public place they would aways stare at me for about 5 min and then ask me what my name was. And that would, of course, turn the light bulb on in their minds, "Ah yes you look habesha, it's in the blood!" Airports in DC and Atlanta are always fun because they are practically run by habesha so when they see my ID they start speaking Tigrinya to me. That's always a weird moment for me. Their reaction always is, " What? You don't speak? Why not?", as if I have insulted them, like it is logically impossible for me not to speak. And that reaction really does happen all the time. In most instances I don't have time to tell them the whole story, so I just say, "It's complicated." But the feeling is always the same, like I am some lost child in the mall and everyone is asking, "Where are your parents?". And it won't stop happening until I learn the language, it's in the blood I guess.

WHY I WANT TO MAKE THIS PROJECT:

This is a film about the diaspora. It's bigger than just going to a new country to meet new people, this is the realization of a dream many African-Americans have. To find their roots and hold history in their own hands. I am lucky enough to get an opportunity to make that dream a reality, and it is an experience that is meant to be shared. Eritrea is a country few people know about. The small East African nation holds within it a people and culture that has survived an epic war and built a brighter future in its short, but extraordinary  existence.

HOW YOUR CONTRIBUTION WILL BE USED:

I am raising funds to hire a film crew to go with me on this journey and to cover the cost of post production. Principle photography for BIG ARAIA will take place during my first trip to my father's birthplace, Eritrea. It will feature my interactions with new-found family members, the Eritrean people, culture, and the natural environment. The first person narrative will be blended with interviews with American and Eritrean family members recounting stories and details relevant to my genealogical walkabout. The soundtrack for the film will be mostly provided by Eritrean musicians to help share my full immersion into the culture with the audience. This money is strictly for production purposes (crew, equipment, transport on location, edit suite rentals, etc.), and I have to reach my fund raising goal or all money is returned to the backers of the project in the exact amount they donated.

CONTACT ME!

Please feel free to contact me at araia1906@gmail.com with any questions or details you want to know more about. I have been working in production for 12 years and have experience shooting in Africa. But this is my first trip home, my first time meeting relatives in Africa, and my first chance to get to know more about a man who was no more than a ghost story for 33 years.

Note:  For my Eritrean brothers and sisters, where this page lists "Location" as "Asmera, Eritrea", please note that is the spelling the preset choice on this website has for Asmara, I cannot change it even though it's not the correct spelling. 

Music for the promo provided by Kevin MacLeod.

Reclaiming Africa’s History

from the West

History is one of the most powerful tools a people can utilize in building a sense of national identity and pride, towards social, cultural and economic advancement.  A people without a true sense of their history lack a clear direction for the future.  The foundations of Africa’s history as it is today researched and disseminated, for the most part, was built on the works of American and British anthropologists, missionaries and colonial administrators. These groups of people, published millions of  essays, articles and books on the “primitive tribes” from the “dark continent. “ These works were initially published for the benefit of the colonial government, to assist in determining the governance processes and systems to be employed in administering the natives. The aim was to ensure the uninterrupted flow of natural resources from the African hinterlands to the imperial metropolis.

In the early 1960s, the much respected Regius professor of History at Oxford University, Hugh Trevor Roper, made a statement, which summarized the existing persuasion of most contemporary scholars of his time. African history, Professor Roper said, is nothing but “the unedifying gyrations of barbarous tribes in picturesque, but irrelevant corners of the globe… There is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness and darkness is not a subject of history.”

Professor Roper’s statement was made, despite the fact that acclaimed novelist Chinua Achebe had written Things Fall Apart in 1959, a book which among other achievements, sought to tell the African story from an African perspective. Perhaps, Professor Roper, dismissed Achebe’s book as the mere  fantasies of a desperate mind, disillusioned at the non-achievement and darkness that characterizes his predecessors.

One must not be tempted to question the intellectual depth of the acclaimed Regius professor as at the time he uttered the accredited words. Instead, the aim should rather be to examine the circumstances and academic materials he was exposed to,  which led him to confidently make such ignorance steeped statement, without fear of contradiction or of falling into academic disrepute.

Much of what today is studied as African history is the protégé of the racist ideology that viewed the black man as a little above an ape in terms of human intelligence. The earliest times of anthropological sojourn in sub-Saharan Africa coincided with the rise of pervasive racism in Great Britain. The early Victorian science which was birthed at this period was preoccupied with determining human intelligence through a study of “cranial capacity and comparative head shapes.” The publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species which explained the evolutionary process of human development, using such terms as “natural selection” and “ascent from lower species” lent credence to the argument of the racial superiority of the Caucasian.

Several reports of positive achievements from Africa, filed by scholars in the field was regarded as not worth the while; it did not conform with the stereotypical racist views held by the Europeans about Africans. Robert Felkin, famed medical missionary in East Africa in the later part of the 19^th century, recorded a successful Caesarean section he witnessed, as it was being carried out by the natives of Kahura in Uganda in 1879. According to Felkin’s accounts, Banana wine served as both anesthetic and disinfectant,  while a hot red iron was used to check bleeding. An incision was skillfully made by the native surgeon in the mid section, and the baby was brought out alive, while the wound was closed with some herbal leaves and thin sharpened iron nails. The patient did not utter a sigh of pain during the course of the surgery. Felkin stayed back to observe her heal, and in a space of eleven days she was able to commence the breastfeeding of her baby, shortly after the pins were removed. American anthropologists Erwin Ackerknecht, reporting  Felkin’s observations in the article “Primitive Surgery,” delivered as a paper in 1946, noted; “unfortunately, I feel unable to explain why in 1879 there existed in Kahura in Uganda, a black surgeon performing the Caesarean section safely and, in some respects, better than many of his contemporary white colleagues.” Ackerknecht’s statement shows the contempt to which the black man’s intelligence is held.  This version of authentic African history never found its way into the history or medical science curriculum provided by the colonial masters to the African pupils and students.

Several years after the end of formal colonial rule, African teachers still teach their students  dusted off colonial history curriculum. In the medical sciences, students in Africa are still taught the colonial history and practice of medicine, and no mention is made of Africa’s achievements in this area. The medical student in Africa graduates with a sense of inferiority complex and awe for the White man who invented everything he had learnt in school. The African tertiary graduate despises his roots, hates himself and whatever he represents, and makes no effort to study what is left of the indigenous knowledge of medicine held by his grandfathers and elders in the villages.

 

In the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire,  rightly notes that education has been used for the maintenance of the oppressive status quo; “knowledge  is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry.”

If Paolo Freire’s words are anything to go by, then Africa is lacking in what true knowledge represents. What exists on the continent today remain archetypical remains of the oppressive colonial knowledge, aimed at fostering ignorance of the African’s self worth and knowledge, forcing him instead to strive – unsuccessfully, of course – to take on the very being and image of the erstwhile colonizers.

Africans are forever trying to be like the West; talk, dress, think, organize their political, social and economic systems  like the West. Ngugi Wa Thiongo aptly captures this in a speech delivered at the Fourth Steve Biko Annual Memorial Lecture. Colonialism, Wa Thiongo notes, “subjects the colonized to its own memory, making the colonized see themselves through the hegemonic memory of the colonizing centre. Put another way, the colonizing presence tried to mutilate the memory of the colonized and where that failed, it dismembered it, and tried to re-member it to the coloniser’s memory.”

Even when the Westerners travel to the deep interiors of African villages to gather indigenous pharmaceutical knowledge – in the case of the Hoodia, for instance –  and return to patent and sell it as their own, Africans keep  quiet, afraid of “biting the finger that feeds them.”  Little wonder, it is on the lips of other races, even though not often verbalized, that the African has not made any meaningful contribution to modern civilization. 

Fifty years after Independence, Africans have refused to deconstruct and reconstruct the foundations of its colonially bequeathed knowledge. There is no one for Africans to blame, but themselves. The blame goes to African intellectuals who would rather write in ways that would please the West. To African medical doctors who despise indigenous medicine and healing systems, opting completely for Western medical knowledge –  the origins of acupuncture, yoga and other acclaimed Eastern medical practices notwithstanding. To African historians bent on analyzing and presenting African history to their students from the Euro-American point of view. To African graduate students unconcerned with applying themselves to objective and critical studies and research on African issues. To  African parents who refuse to speak their native languages to their wards, constricting their children’s world, their  thoughts  and their expressions to the limited vocabulary of the English language. To African religious leaders who have not espoused Africans to  love themselves as Africans, before loving their European and American neighbors, just as the Holy book admonishes. Yes, all Africans are to blame for the situation of Africa today. Not one person is exempt, not one.

Kony 2012:

Fresh Uganda Oil Find

‘Africa’s Biggest’ »

dank-potion:

stay-human:

What a motherfucking coincidence.

Posted 16/10/2011

14 Jan 2009 “The Times” - -Heritage Oil announced details of a large oil discovery in Uganda yesterday, which the company claimed could be the largest onshore discovery in sub-Saharan Africa.

Heritage said that its latest discovery – Giraffe1 – in the Lake Albert region, could total at least 400 million barrels of oil.

However, Paul Atherton, chief financial officer, told The Times that the wider field it was developing, dubbed Buffalo-Giraffe, had several “billions of barrels of oil in place”, although it was unclear how much of this would be recoverable.

He said that the field, which is 9,000 square kilometers in size – or six times the size of Greater London – was unquestionably the largest onshore discovery made in sub-Saharan Africa in at least 20 years, possibly ever.

Mr Atherton said that of the 18 wells the company had drilled in the basin so far, all had produced oil. “Clearly the entire basin is full of oil,” he said. “It’s a world-class discovery, the most exciting new basin in Africa in decades.”

Previously, the largest onshore fields discovered in sub-Saharan Africa were at Rabi-Kounga in Gabon, where 900 million barrels were found in 1985, and at Kome in Chad, where 485 million barrels were found in 1977.

Mr Atherton said that it would take at least another three years to start commercial production.[this was posted in 2009, do the math] The crude could be exported by road or rail, he said, but analysts believe that the most practical solution would be to build an 806-mile pipeline to take it to Kampala, Uganda’s capital, and then the Kenyan coast. The pipeline would need to be heated and designed to traverse swampy and mountainous land. It would cost an estimated $1.5 billion (£1 billion) to complete.

Heritage and its partner Tullow Oil, which also has a 50 per cent equity stake in the project, would need to demonstrate that the field could produce at least 400 million barrels of oil to justify the cost of building such a pipeline. Richard Griffith, an Evolution Securities analyst, said the latest discovery “thrashed” this commerciality threshold.

See Also - Uganda : Pressure Mounts To Make Public Oil Agreements:Uganda’s oil discovery is already attracting major players like Italian oil giant Eni Spa, U.S. Exxon Mobil, France’s Total and of recent the China National Offshore Oil Company. The country does not have the funds to finance the production of oil and instead signed agreements with oil giants spelling out how the revenue will be shared with investors willing to fund the production phase. The companies will build an oil refinery in Uganda and an oil pipeline to the Indian Ocean. This will enable the landlocked country to sell its estimated two billion barrels of crude oil internationally

Uganda’s oil contracts leaked - a bad deal made worse: The repeated claims by the Ugandan government and the oil companies that Uganda has received a very good deal and the best in the region are not only a fiction, but were reliant on the real terms of the contracts being kept secret. While the contracts will deliver vast profits to Tullow Oil and Heritage Oil, the contracts will prevent the Ugandan people from receiving their due benefits.

Oil extraction and the potential for domestic instability in Uganda: The paper identifies and discusses in detail three sources of domestic volatility that may arise as a result of oil development.

Uganda: Oil could cause war : The attacks are by armed gangs suspected to be rebels of the FDLR, LRA, and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). In the ongoing campaign in DR Congo, President Joseph Kabila is being criticised for failing to restore peace in this vital area.

This hurts my soul so much. It’s the same exploitative manipulative bullshit over and over again. I’m so fucking mad. I hate the American government. I hate capitalism. I hate these soulless, sociopathic, animalistic, bastardized scumfucks. These motherfuckers are never satisfied. They’ve robbed African people of basic resources for 500 fucking years, deprived entire nations of their livelihoods and still aren’t fucking satisfied./endrant

^^^^^^

Reblogged 1 day ago from dank-potion (Originally from stay-human)

234 notes

 

Life At Jefferson's Monticello,

As His Slaves Saw It

 

by Karen Grigsby Bates

March 11, 2012

 

Monticello, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Inc.

A new exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., explores life at Monticello from the perspectives of the men, women and children owned by Thomas Jefferson. During his lifetime, he kept more than 600 slaves at Monticello.

 

Special Collections, University of Virginia Library

Isaac Granger was an enslaved blacksmith at Monticello. Jefferson made Granger's father, George Granger Sr., Monticello's overseer, the only enslaved man to rise to that position and to receive an annual wage.

 

Thomas Jefferson's very existence was shaped and enabled by slavery. Slaves placed newborn Thomas in his cradle, and slaves comforted the former president on his deathbed.

People often wonder aloud how a man who dedicated his life to liberty on the one hand could hold slaves close to him with the other, says Rex Ellis, an associate director with the Museum of African American History and Culture. The museum, which looks at American history from a black perspective, has created a new exhibition, housed at the Museum of American History, called "Slavery at Jefferson's Monticello: Paradox of Liberty."

"Throughout [Jefferson's] lifetime, he owned 607 enslaved men, women and children," says Ellis. "That paradox is what we hope to discuss, talk about and help visitors understand."

I think we're ready to move on from the obsession with [Thomas Jefferson's] sex life, to get over the shock and horror that he was a slave owner, and try to make sense of him in his own time and place.

- Peter Onuf, history professor at the University of Virginia

Just beyond the entrance to the exhibition, a large bronze statue of Jefferson stands before a backdrop of hundreds of names. These names, Ellis says, belong to almost every slave who worked and lived at Monticello.

As a short video on black life at Monticello plays in the background, Ellis walks past scores of artifacts made on the premises by six enslaved families. Farm tools, wooden barrels, furniture and other implements were crafted by the Gillettes, the Herns, the Fossetts, the Grangers, the Hubbards and the Hemingses. The Hemings family is perhaps the best known of the black Monticellans, because most historians now believe there is a high probability that Jefferson fathered at least one of Sally Hemings' children.

It's a point that still sparks heated dissent from a vocal minority, especially the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, which has been active in refuting the majority view. Indeed, the subject is so touchy, this exhibition might not have been possible even 20 years ago.

"Considering that there are those who have problems with this exhibition in 2012, I'd say that 15 years ago, it would have been pretty difficult to do something like this," says Ellis.

Massachusetts Historical Society

Jefferson kept the names of all of the 600-plus slaves he owned through the years in the Farm Book. This is one page of that book.

 

In the past two decades, he adds, interest in enslaved communities has grown by leaps and bounds — researchers are curious, and so are the descendants of slaves.

New Yorker Charles Shorter has come to the museum looking for his ancestors, who are descendants of the Hemings clan.

"This is really great," he says. "The family's been talking about the Shorters this and that, and I'm walking, and I say, 'God, I can't find anything!' And then I see Elizabeth Hemings, and I see her descendants and the ones who fought in the Civil War. And there is the picture of my great-great uncle and my great-grandfather."

Shorter says he possesses several family documents handed down from the first Charles Shorter, for whom he is named, that mention the Shorter-Hemings connection.

"The family gave it all to me," he says. "We didn't believe, though, that the Shorters were descended from the Hemings [family]. That was, you know, apocryphal. 'Isn't it nice? That's a great story.' And then we find out it's true."

African-American Families At Monticello

Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello/YouTube

The Getting Word oral history project started at Monticello in 1993 to preserve the stories of black families there. You can hear more stories and explore family trees at the Getting Word website.

Explore The Exhibition: Slavery At Jefferson's Monticello

 

"I'm bursting," Shorter adds, "because it validates everything that I had been told, and now it's been documented."

Peter Onuf, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia, says the exhibition's emphasis on Jefferson's relationship to his slaves is an important addition.

"I'm not a Jefferson critic — obviously, I make a living doing Jefferson studies — but I think a balanced view of Jefferson is long overdue," Onuf says. "And I think we're ready to move on from the obsession with his sex life, to get over the shock and horror that he was a slave owner, and try to make sense of him in his own time and place."

Which is exactly what Rex Ellis is trying to do.

"We are looking at Jefferson, but, more importantly to me, we are somehow acknowledging the 600 men, women and children who also were a part of Jefferson's life," Ellis says.

Men, women and children who, in fact, made Jefferson's life possible — which, in turn, gave them a part in shaping early American history.

Louis Moholo’s drum

March 10, 2012 By Sean Jacobs 

On a recent trip to London I was hoping to catch a performance by Cape Town drummer Louis Moholo Moholo, the last surviving member of the famed jazz bands, The Blue Notes and The Brotherhood of Breath. Especially with the release of “Before the Wind Changes,” a live recording of The Blue Notes on tour in Belgium in 1979. For the uninitiated, The Blue Notes, along with Abdullah Ibrahim and Hugh Masekela, defined South African jazz internationally for much of the period between 1960 and 1980. The band consisted of Chris McGregor on piano, Moholo-Moholo, Dudu Pukwana on alto sax and Johnny Dyani on bass. They left South Africa in the early 1960s after being invited to a jazz festival in France and became key players in Britain’s jazz scene. Too bad I missed out. Meanwhile, while I am trying to get my hands on “Before the Wind Changes,” I’ll mine my iTunes library and substitute the real thing with Youtube videos like the 5-minute video above. It is footage of Moholo-Moholo (close to the camera on the right) and his quintet playing in London last year. Below is another video — 9 minutes long — filmed at a festival in London in 2010. Moholo (at the back on the left) with Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith and Steve Noble:

 

Finally, there’s this interview filmed at the 2011 Pan African Space Station music festival in Cape Town with musician and composer, Neo Muyanga:

From the Click in Xhosa,

to the Pulse in House

My dearest Chicago, you are the architect for the house that jack built, but did you have any idea that your music was fueling the rage and resistance against apartheid? Did you know that this electronic music created in your mama’s basement would become a part of the cultural fabric of one of the most historically complex places on earth? That house music is a part of the Mandelas’ (both Winnie and Nelson’s) cultural vocabulary?

Many a house head in the U.S. would like to believe we “discovered” house music in South Africa, when the truth is that house has had a home in South Africa long before we tuned in. Sort of like the pre-existing civilizations that Sertima suggested  Came Before Columbus. But let’s be clear, it wasn’t that we didn’t care. We can use this moment in electronic music history to admit that not enough of us in the States received a reliable education about the contemporary cultural developments of Africa. And at the risk of sounding like an Intro to Afro-centric Studies course, we’ve learned a great deal about Africa through the lens of the white supremacists who sought the resources of Africa (both human and natural) to help institutionalize their superiority. But today, we need to know better.

 

Women's Rights Peace Party, South Africa. Photo taken by dj lynnee denise.

 

Granted, heads were busy with our own developments, blending music that Traxx Records, Paradise Garage and Mr. Fingers gave us. Not to mention what The Warehouse, West End Records and Steve “Silk” Hurley offered. We had our hands full and our dance floors powdered. We had no idea that the migration of this electronic cultural product called house was traveling beyond our housing projects, ghettos and boroughs and settling in the South African township. How could we know? There is not a single network I can think of that broadcasts music, videos or favorable images of modern Africa. National Geographic doesn’t count.

House music in South Africa did not start with the hyper-talented and contemporary Black Coffee, Culoe de Song and Soulistic crew; in fact, house in South Africa has roots almost as long as hip-hop’s golden era in the Boogie Down Bronx. DJ Clive Bean of Soul Candi Records remembers hearing Chicago’s Frankie Knuckles in 1987 at a local stockvel – the South African equivalent of a Harlem speakeasy:

We listened to this sound that we called international music, and thought, this is hardcore music, different from the bubble gum artists like Brenda Fassie most of us were listening to at the time.

Clive shared that house music went hand in hand with Pantsula dancing, a local and traditional dance that came to life in the townships, primarily in the 80s and gained momentum with the dismantling of the apartheid regime. South African musician/musicologist Thokozani Mhlambi talks about house music in the post democracy context:

House music is the same age as our democratic dispensation in South Africa [18 years old]. The increase in access to overseas sound material in the early 1990s led to house music’s growth locally.

With the support of a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study grant, I paid a visit to South Africa, determined to understand The Afro Digital Migration: House Music in Post Apartheid South Africa. I wanted to explore how house music took root in South Africa and shaped its national identity. The impetus for this research was my belief that electronic music in the African diaspora is an under-explored cultural product. As a DJ, I was driven by the clean production and seamless mixes I heard; as a dancer, I wanted to witness the intricate body movement inspired by house; and as a scholar, I wanted to figure out how, in the face of state sanctioned surveillance and harassment, the music flourished.

Most of the DJs, musicians and producers I connected with in Joburg, Cape Town, Newcastle and Durban, mentioned Frankie Knuckles as being their introduction to house music in the late 80s/early 90s. Clive Bean adds, “We were listening to this music at the height of [apartheid] resistance.” House music was a part of the soundtrack of social change and was the underground answer to the chains of restriction imposed by the Dutch/British minority who occupied South Africa through the system of apartheid. In fact, the Bronx, The South Side of Chicago and South Africa were all united by the stank of disenfranchisement and the electronic music inspired by the lived reality of people in all three places amplified the inequalities that connected black people around the world.

To understand the context of South African house, Mhlambi places it at the center of a generational response to freedom (real or perceived), and a new access to technology:

House music grapples with the difficult issues we have been unable to resolve in our material reality. In house music we see the co-mingling of ambiguities within the post-Apartheid scenario… house music conflates these issues in a dynamic and experiential way, addressing precisely that which we have been unable to speak in words.

South African house is characterized by the bass heavy, churchified synthesized sound of classic Chicago house and some of the Euro-techy sounds heard coming out of Germany and England. It incorporates syncopated, repetitive rhythms, traditional African instruments and sounds and lyrics sung in South African languages, mainly Xhosa and Zulu. Prior to the South African “invasion” that we have come to know through DJs/producers like Kent or Black Motion, pioneers of the sound like DJ Oskido and Arthur Mafokate, took this township electro funk, slowed down our beloved 120bpm groove to about 90bpm, added social context and vocals and gave birth to a sub genre of house unique to South Africa called Kwaito music. While Kwaito never made it into the hands of the global house community, a sign of gross negligence on the part of the industry, it demanded the collective attention of South Africa as nation and provided fertile ground for what was to come.

South African graffiti. Photo taken by dj lynnee denise.

 

The feeling that came over me in South Africa spoke to a larger point that I had never really considered; deep house is healing. It makes sense that a place still haunted by the ghosts of apartheid would make house music the sound of daily living. I heard house music played everywhere in South Africa; in the clubs, in the taxis, in the elevators, at the airport and in the stores. There was even a religious segment of house heads that played house for Christ. Thanks to Kaya FM (Johannesburg) and Metro FM (national), I heard hours of house on commercial radio during prime time slots, which is different from U.S. college or community radio stations where house music is played stingily at best. I witnessed Soweto swingers, rambunctious teenagers, grandmothers, former activists, struggling students, teachers, waiters and doctors bouncing to house. So it didn’t surprise me when I came across a little known fact that explains it all; South Africa has been dubbed the world’s biggest house music market per capita. And to be clear, the love and creation of house doesn’t stop at South African borders, it can be heard in neighboring countries Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Beyonce was on to something when she recruited Batswana dancers Tofo Tofo to help choreograph the “Run the World (Girls)” video. The power of that collaboration was critical for the exposure it provided to the millions of people who follow her.

I will always love Atjazz, MAW and Osunlade, but my ears, my feet and my Afro Digital lens have been permanently changed and expanded by the South African house music experience. There is a dangerous, and at this point, boring focus on Black American music as being the sound of the African Diaspora. To learn more about black American music, we must reach into the soul of it. There, we’ll discover Brazil, Ghana, Jamaica and a host of other global influences. We’re a multi-dimensional people and our music reflects the true meaning of Diaspora. Who’s to say what ancestor used you as a vessel to create your sound. Let’s share the bass that unites us.

by dj lynnee denise

dj lynnee denise uses turntables and conscious event planning to create forums exploring and celebrating Afro-Diasporic music. Her work is informed, inspired and elevated by social and political movements, global travel, and personal identity. Lynnee is the founder of WildSeed Cultural Group – a New York City based organization whose mission, “entertainment with a thesis,” is driven by a desire to incorporate the nontraditional elements of literature, cultural criticism and ethnomusicology into the New York, Atlanta and South African music scene. In 2010, dj lynnee denise designed a one year independent artist in residency program in the city of Atlanta, Georgia. Here she produced a body of mixes that reflected the range of her extensive music library and musical interests. She holds a BA in Sociology from Fisk University and an MA in Ethnic Studies from San Francisco State University. Like her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter @wildseedgroup and listen to her podcast.

__________________________

The Afro Digital Migration:

House Music in

Post Apartheid South Africa

The moment I finished this mix, I put my headphones on and danced...to the entire thing.

South Africa moves me.

There cannot be a separation between the music, the history and the people.

Layers.

With the support of a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study grant, I paid a visit to South Africa, determined to understand The Afro Digital Migration: House Music in Post Apartheid South Africa. I wanted to explore how house music took root in South Africa and shaped its national identity. The impetus for this research was my belief that electronic music in the African Diaspora is an under-explored cultural product. As a DJ, I was driven by the clean production and seamless mixes I heard; as a dancer, I wanted to witness the intricate body movement inspired by house; and as a scholar, I wanted to figure out how, in the face of state-sanctioned surveillance and harassment, the music flourished.

Special thanks and love to Clive Bean (Soul Candi) and Thokazani Mhlambi (Umtshakadulo) for answering my questions and arranging gigs for me to have a platform to express my Black American house experience and pay respect to the South African sound on the decks.

Love to Paris Hatcher for hitting the streets of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Newcastle, East London and Coffee Bay with me. Transformative and Inspiring.

This mix is dedicated to Winnie Mandela, Busi Mhlongo and Miriam Makeba, three women who looked white supremacy and patriarchy in the eye and danced. Power is always subjective, never absolute. All Freedom Fighters come through the bodies of women.

Every single song selected was created by a South African producer/DJ. I've also featured the remixes of some of my favorite producers from the US (Spinna, Abicah Soul and Rocco).

1. Eish Anganzi-- Master Lucra (Johannesburg)