A girlfriend last year around in the end of school year, so it must have been May or June. Her son came her grandson came home and said to her, have you ever heard of Black Wall Street? And she was like no I never heard of Black Wall Street. So he was telling her about it. And she said oh she called me up because they always called me up with something of history and said want to know more about Black Wall Street.
I said well you do realize that people say Black Wall Street and only mean one thing and that's Tulsa. But technically there's numerous Black Wall Streets. Black Wall Streets were just the communities that were thriving. They had made their own way without the help of anybody. The ones that had their own doctors, their own lawyers, their own morticians, I mean anything you can think of.
The teachers, they had them. The banks, they had them. So they didn't need any help from anybody. And we're going to go deeper into that. But I always like to start any black program, history program with where we came from.
So we're going to do a little journey. We're going to start with some African roots of our African roots. We're going to move into New England because there was black wealth in New England way back when. So we wanted to let everybody know this is not a new thing. This is not something that was given to us.
This is something that we earned. This is something that we need to stand up and make sure that not only people outside our race but our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren know. And your friends know because my friend I told her wait a minute now you're almost 70 years old. You don't know. What do mean you haven't heard of it?
But I'm glad that we talked about it and I got her a lot of books and she read it and she's just passing it on and I appreciate that because that's what we have to do because we got to stop letting people tell us our history. You know, we got to stop letting somebody else be the expert on our history. We need to be telling our own stories. We need to be telling them from our heart, our souls. And we need to make sure that we know so that we can tell.
So you're never too old to pick up a book because now they got the ones that talk to you. You don't even have to look at the page. So please whatever you do after this, if you hear something that's new to you, go get a book on it. Learn a little bit more about it and then pass that information on. We're gonna start our program like we should always start any black program with a song of our national black national anthem and we're gonna ask mix Elite G to come up and sing.
Okay. So, thank you to the city council for having me. It's an honor to be here and I sing this song with so much gratitude for my ancestors, my not so distant relatives, and for all of you with whom we are creating history right now, because we all have a purpose and a God given gift of, adding to this legacy of perseverance, of growth and of excellence.
Okay. Lift every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring. Ring with the harmonies of liberty. Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies. Let it resound loud as the rolling seas.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us. Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us facing the rising sun of a new day begun. Let us march on till victory is wine.
Thank you. I heard us sing at a Christmas program and I was like okay, there's the one. You know, so like I said, we're going to talk about that thing but that's one thing that we have to acknowledge. Another one of our icons died last month and we were going to talk about him if we had gotten a chance to. And I know when I say this we all want to know who he is.
I am somebody. So who was he? I'm listening. I know you all know who said thank you. I told you I don't like people just sitting around this this this is give and take.
You have to be part of this, you know. As you know Jesse Jackson made that a mind a mantra for us but he wasn't the one that wrote that. It did not come from him. It came from Reverend William Harold Borders, Holmes Borders from a church in Atlanta. And the thing was after I heard him say that speech, I happened to be watching Sesame Street one day.
And guess who was on there saying this saying this poem? Jesse Jackson on Sesame Street. I was like wow this is cool. This is really cool, you know. So I snatched my kids up because by the time I got them to get in front of the TV, it was over but I bragged about it.
You know, another thing you should look up. So we, you know, we are losing icons. We are losing them slowly but surely but they're getting up in age like myself, you know. But we are making so many more. There are a lot of young ones that are coming up that's just as fiery, that are just the same.
They are still out there trying to seek justice. They're still out there trying to get the knowledge out to our people. So we need to support them whenever we can. So without before we go any further, I would like to also look over here to my right and introduce you to our president. She's gonna come up and give us a few words.
you so much councilwoman Graves and thank you for bringing us all together tonight. And thanks to everyone for coming back despite the snow and the delay. I feel like we get slightly closer to celebrating Black History Month three hundred and sixty five days a year by moving it into women's month. So thank you all for coming back and celebrating tonight. I'm really excited about the program tonight.
I just wanna share two quick thoughts on it as we celebrate. One, we're gonna be celebrating trailblazers. Right? People who made up the forgotten Black Wall Streets and so many other things. People who were told again and again and again where the limit was.
Right? Where the wall was and knew what they needed to do no matter what. Right? Just didn't Just wasn't gonna let that wall turn back. Their drive, their spirit, their passion.
And two, when we talk about Black History Month, we are forever talking about those same trailblazers who move forward for themselves, but also were constantly reaching a hand back for the community that came behind them. And, that is all all of us. Right? We last downstairs heard very beautifully, Black History Month is all of our history and that is true. But, more uniquely, the trailblazing, the victories have impacted our lives in so many fundamental and beautiful ways.
So thank you for celebrating Black History Month with us here tonight, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the program.
Okay. Thank you to our president who has also been out there in the streets fighting for our rights not just for black folks of course but for everybody. So thank you. The next thing I would like to do because we're kind of rushed because we're starting a little bit late But I'm not going to rush our speakers. I want them to give all of their knowledge that they want to give to us.
So I'm going to jump right in and say that I am thrilled to welcome our Rhode Island historian Keith Stokes and here are his remarks. Nope. Did I jump over in there? Okay. Okay.
I thought I was doing it right but I just want to make sure you know. Okay. And if you could give him a round of applause because he didn't have to come out here tonight but he did.
Thank thank you, councilperson. Thank you for bringing me back to Providence and City Hall. I'm gonna do 400 of history in five minutes. So I'm gonna focus on three events and dates that we get wrong in black history that centers on the beginnings, the origins, the most important contributions to black history in America is as much associated with Providence, Rhode Island as anywhere else in the nation. The first date, 07/04/1776, the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
That might have been the beginning of the birth of a free nation, but it is actually 11/10/1780 when a group of African tradesmen in Newport, Rhode Island came together in the home of Abraham Casey, a tradesman. These are Africans, African born, not African Americans. They come together, and they form for the first time in world history, the free African Union society. We know this because the record still exists within the state of Rhode Island. And over the next six years, these African men would reach out to African free tradesmen, businessmen in Boston, Philadelphia, and in Providence, Rhode Island.
And by 1789 in Providence, Rhode Island, the free African society is born. And these free African tradesmen, we have their records, they are operating businesses across Providence, particularly centered in the first black Wall Street, not Tulsa, Oklahoma, but South Main, North Main Street, Market Square, the first great collection of black entrepreneurs. This is the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century. This is not 1921. The first collection are situated along South And North Main Street, Market Square, and many of those men, women, and families are living, working, and worshiping of what today we call College Hill.
And when they came together, they would express for the first time in American history that we are free, we have an African identity, and we will build life and intergenerational wealth by building businesses within our community. So these first free African communities in America starting after 1776 and accelerating in places like Providence, Boston, Philadelphia, and Newport into the early nineteenth century are in places called College Hill Providence. Boston, it's Beacon Hill. In Newport, it's Historic Hill, Bellevue Avenue. And in Philadelphia, the Historic 7 Ward.
And each and every one of these black communities are interacting. They're talking. They're sharing letters and notes. And what these early black entrepreneurs, because they're creating wealth, they use that wealth to begin to invest in their community, their African community. And one of the first actions they take is they help to assemble and evolve their African societies into the first free black churches.
In Providence, Rhode Island, the African society becomes the African meeting house and school house on Cotton Street. And then by 1819, they dedicate what becomes the Cotton Street Baptist Church, the fur one of the first free black churches in America and the first in Rhode Island. And that church, like similar churches in Newport, Providence, Philadelphia, not only become places of worship, it's places to organize. It's places to build businesses. It's places to begin to accelerate African identity in America, free Africans in America.
And this is happening in the seventeen nineties and eighteen tens where millions of other African Americans are still enslaved in the American South. The second great embellishment where we get history wrong, and I kinda hinted about black Wall Street, is that one hundred years before the 1921 horrific Tulsa race riots that devastated black men and women in families' homes, places of business and worship, one hundred years before we have the hardscrabble riot in 1824 in Providence. Hardscrabble would be today very close to the south lawn of the State House where the train station is and then running down along the river. That riot, which was an organized racial riot, was to dislodge successful black owned businesses and homes and places of worship. And they literally tore down homes, burned down homes, destroyed properties, and literally pushed the free African heritage community further out of town and further up the hill.
And in 1831, they're not done. In 1831, the African heritage community where there are businesses and activities and worship going on in a location called Snowtown or Only's Lane. Today, that's recognized as a large part of what is Only Street and bounded by South Main. And more importantly, today, it's recognized as one of the earliest free black communities. And in 1831, a second riot further dislodge, further disrupt because they were recognizing that the time has come for us to take this land and take these enterprises and dislocate free African people.
This is eighteen twenty four, eighteen thirty one. It's not 1921. It's not 1924. So very the first black Wall Street is along South Main and North Main Street in the Market Square. And we have in the collections of Rhode Island Historical Society, the Providence City archives, the work that Caleb's doing, the Rhode Island Black Heron Society.
We have the primary original documents and evidence of this history that's just waiting to be unveiled a part of curriculums, a part of history, and a part of our community. Now the third embellishment, Juneteenth. Juneteenth is an incredibly important event, and it's important that we recognize the struggle of freedom post the American Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. But what very few people get, and it's important that you recognize, is that before Juneteenth, before anything going on in South Carolina or Texas, Providence, Rhode Island, and those other early free African communities, Boston, New York, Newport, they're all celebrating Emancipation Day on August 1. They are celebrating the British emancipation and the end of the abolition of slavery in the British holdings of the West Indies.
So starting in the eighteen thirties, it's abolished by 1831. The next several years, province becomes one of the first African heritage communities that celebrates August 1 as African Emancipation Day. In fact, we have records that thousands of African Americans in the eighteen forties and fifties were at Roger Williams Park on August 1 celebrating that event, and that went on well into the present day. In fact, if you're black and there are few people here that know it and it was August 1 at Emancipation Day, you were either at Roger Williams Park, Rocky Point, Miantonome Park, you were somewhere within the state celebrating our emancipation. So what I'm trying to do in its four and a half minutes is tell you our history is deep, it's rich, it's documented, but it's still largely unknown.
And it's simply unknown because we're not making the proper investments in allowing our city and state archives and historical institutions to take these records, digitize them, and present them for public record, for school curriculum, or for public enjoyment. The one thing I can guarantee you, Rhode Island, particularly in Providence, Bristol, and Newport, have some of the deepest, largest, and most relevant early African heritage history and records as compared to anywhere in the country. Not New York, not Boston, not Philadelphia, Rhode Island. And here in our capital city, we're very much at the center of that history. So this celebration today should be a starting point.
It should be a starting point that each and every day, 365 of the year, we should be celebrating black history. Why? Because black history is American history, and without black history, there's no American history. So thank you. I hit five minutes, and thank you for having me here.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I have to give it to him. I didn't think he would get all that in in five minutes but he definitely did. And it's wonderful that we can sit here and say you know it started here. It spread all over but it started here.
We should be proud of that. We should be proud of a lot of things that little Rody has done. There's been a lot of things that were but we're here. One of the other things before we jump to Mania who is going to give us a little bit of the African flavor. There's another person that died and because we're talking about you know the Black Wall Street, Viola Fletcher died last November.
She was one of two of the people that were left for the Tulsa massacre or the Black Wall Street per se massacre. And she was a 111 years old And she fought all those years to try to make sure that something was done for her community and her city. They took it to the courts. They took it to the high courts to try to get reparation and everything else. They did get reparation.
And some of the things that they got I just want to let you know these old ladies and men because they were old when they got there. They were able to get $24,000,000 for housing. $60,000,000 for cultural preservation. $21,000,000 for land and small black businesses development. They fought hard.
We could we should be fighting too considering we're the original, you know. So I just think that we can do better than what we got in the reparation package the last time that nobody I haven't seen. I haven't seen really the profits of it. And so I think we need to start fighting a little bit harder and make sure that people know that there are things that you can do. You know, there are things that you can instead of telling what is wrong with a group of people Tell us what is good about them and how you can correct the wrongs that you did to them.
That's what I want to hear. So with doubt, now I have to say the next person used to be my boss. Yeah, him and his lovely wife. But the next person that we're going to brought this is artist, Meniere Deshine Deshine. I know, Mohammed.
He's more than an artist. He is a wealth of knowledge. He is a person that kids love to go because he teaches them art. He shows them what the talents that they have. He helps them to develop their talents.
You know, I've seen some people that were really, really timid that would not come out of a show, but they blossomed under him. You know any person that can just by a stroke of a paintbrush bring out that essence in a child is fabulous. And I've seen I've seen him first hand do that. And you know I am very proud to call him up so that he can give us a little bit more on this Black History Month.
Thank you. Thank you. I thank you for the opportunity to stand here to share something with you. Okay, to share something with you. I wrote everything down because a lot of what I'm gonna talk about is much more like an oral history.
And, I just want you to know that Keith is amazing. The stories that we hear from him is something that you have to be someone of knowledge to be able to do that. I'm not a speaker, but let me share with you about a history that a lot of people don't know. I want you to travel with me back in the history before the Transatlantic slave trade. Before that, the Portuguese were the first people to land in Ghana or the Gold Coast before it was known as Ghana.
