Good Morning POU! This week we'll look at the politics of our hair. The history and economy associated with the hair of African Americans is almost immeasurable. However, its not just the "hair" that we will discuss, but the importance of the hair maintenance community. The roles of barbers and beauticians in the Underground Railroad to the Civil Rights Movement to their roles … [Read more...] about Monday Open Thread: The Politics of African American Hair
The Underground Railroad
Saturday Open Thread: The Underground Railroad
Good Morning POU! Happy Saturday! I've noticed that there has been a "movement" of sorts in the last 5 years, to either downplay or outright deny the masterful and unbelievable cleverness of using symbols in quilts as a guide by slaves using the Underground Railroad. There has been a drumbeat to refute this when oral history and simply studying the patterns surely point to … [Read more...] about Saturday Open Thread: The Underground Railroad
Friday Open Thread: The Underground Railroad
Incident in Troy, New York In the spring of 1860, Harriet Tubman was requested by Mr. Gerrit Smith to go to Boston to attend a large Anti-Slavery meeting. On her way, she stopped at Troy to visit a cousin, and while there the colored people were one day startled with the intelligence that a fugitive slave, by the name of Charles Nalle, had been followed by his master (who was … [Read more...] about Friday Open Thread: The Underground Railroad
Thursday Open Thread: The Underground Railroad
Goof Morning POU! Today we look feature another conductor of The Underground Railroad. As an 8-year-old slave, John P. Parker was taken from his mother and chained to an elderly African-American man. The man and the boy were forced to walk about 100 miles in 1835 from Norfolk, Va., to Richmond, where their new owners lived. Not long after that, Parker learned that the old … [Read more...] about Thursday Open Thread: The Underground Railroad
Wednesday Open Thread: The Underground Railroad
Happy Hump Day POU! Today's post is not so much about the Underground Railroad, as it is about the Underground Postal Service. This is truly a story that deserves the big screen. Henry "Box" Brown (c.1816–after 1889) was a 19th-century Virginia slave who escaped to freedom by arranging to have himself mailed to Philadelphia abolitionists in a wooden crate after 33 years of … [Read more...] about Wednesday Open Thread: The Underground Railroad