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  The myth of “shared suffering” in Vicksburg turned history into faith—and faith into amnesia---for although the first war ended in 1865; the second one still shapes how Southerners see suffering, loss, freedom, sacrifice—and the redemptive struggle for truth. 1/20 Image: Confederate General Lloyd Tilghman dies with flair. Monument at Vicksburg National Military Park, Vicksburg, MS. Source: RoadsideAmerica. #history #Histodons #CivilWar #Mississippi #BlackMastodon #Photography #BlackAndWhite

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  Although Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal,” he could believe there was no contradiction because he had already narrowed who counted as “men.” In Notes on the State of Virginia, he cast Black people as inferior in body, mind, beauty, reason, and imagination—outside the circle of equality. He was not alone among the Founders. Image: Jefferson and Shannon LaNier,, his 6th great grandson. Artists: Rembrandt Peale (Jefferson) and Drew Gardner (LaNier). https://www.smithsonianmag.com/hi...

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  In 1866, a remarkable movement swept across the South. Thousands of formerly enslaved Black men and women appeared before Freedmen’s Bureau officials to legally register marriages that had often existed for years—-or even decades. It was one of the largest acts of family recognition in American history, yet few Americans know the story today. Image: Soldier and Companion. United States, ca. 1861–1865. Quarter-plate tintype. Unknown photographer. Jackie Napoleon Wilson Collection. 1/9

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  In 1865, the guns of the Civil War fell silent. Many Northerners believed the nation had been remade. Good over evil. Right over wrong. But they underestimated the determination of those who had lost. The Civil War ended 161 years ago. Yet Americans are still arguing over the same questions: who counts as a citizen, who can vote, and whose America this is. 1/14 Image: Two Black American Union soldiers, Gladstone Collection of African American Photographs, cia 1860s. Universal History Archive.

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  On “Freedom’s Eve,” Dec 1, 1863, the 1st Watch Night services took place as Americans waited news of the Emancipation Proclamation. At 12 AM, unrestrained joy erupted—3.5 million enslaved souls were “thenceforward, and forever free!" Union soldiers rushed to spread news, but not all gained freedom. It took 2.5 years—June 19, 1865—JUNETEENTH—-for over 250,000 Black Americans still held in bondage in TX to taste freedom. 1/16 #Juneteenth @blackmastodon@a.gup.pe
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  Black folks hear this all the time in the physical & virtual world. “Maybe, you’re not the right fit.” Decentralization isn’t the panacea for our social media woes if places like #Mastodon can’t incorporate #diversity & #inclusion. It’ll be just another white~dominated space where the far right, white supremos, & other agents of intolerance rule the roost while the good white folks put their heads in the sand and pretend like they’re not the problem.. #BlackTwitter #In...

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  On June 2, 1863, 160 years ago today, Harriet Tubman commanded 300 Black soldiers in the audacious Raid on Combahee Ferry. With the Union Army backing her up, The General, as she was called, liberated 800 people, destroyed supplies, and struck a blow against the Confederacy. She became the FIRST woman in U.S. history to plan and execute an armed expedition, inspiring joy and freedom among over 800 enslaved people. 1/3 
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  This is Black Thunder, a Sioux man taken around 1908. Across the 18th and 19th centuries, boundaries between Black and Native worlds were not fixed but lived through enslavement, escape, intermarriage, alliance, and shared confrontation with a nation expanding over both. Yet records rarely capture that complexity. The portrait names him but does not explain. A man made visible, a history only partially told. Library of Congress. Source: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3c07322/ #histor...

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  102 years ago, on June 15, 1921, Bessie Coleman achieved a significant milestone as the FIRST Black woman in history to earn a pilot's license, 2 years before Amelia Earhart. With great courage and determination, “Brave Bessie,” as she would later be called, pursued her own path, striving always to fulfill her mother's aspiration for her children to “amount to something.” https://youtu.be/wckEiKzCBqc 1/8 #BlackHistory @blackmastodon@a.gup.pe
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  In February 2004, American aircraft landed in Port-au-Prince and, by morning, Haiti’s elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was gone. Haiti isn’t t an exception. It’s part of a longer history of the U.S. removing democratically elected governments when they conflict with U.S. strategic or economic interests. #history 1/11 Image: Jean-Bertrand Aristide celebrates inauguration as Haiti’s first democratically elected president in decades, Port-au-Prince, 1991. Photo: Associated Press.

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  In August 1863, Frederick Douglass stopped recruiting Black soldiers. He forced the Union to confront its contradictions: unequal pay, denied rank…violence against Black troops. He walked into the WH, challenged Abraham Lincoln directly, and left unconvinced by policy but clear about power. He resumed speaking not because justice had been secured, but because pressure, not faith, is what moves a nation forward. 1/10 Image: Recruiting broadside endorsed by Douglass (Gilder Lehrman). #history

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  The G.I. Bill created the prosperity & laid the groundwork for the American superpower. But the postwar boom stopped at the color line. Black American frustration at discriminatory distribution of G.I. benefits would soon erupt into the modern Civil Rights Movement. These discriminatory practices and systemic barriers faced by Black-American veterans under the G.I. Bill had far-reaching consequences that persist today. 1/ @blackmastodon@a.gup.pe @BlackMastodon@chirp.social #BlackMasto...

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  Both the United States and Israel were shaped by political systems built alongside racial hierarchy and contested citizenship. Each proclaimed democratic ideals while simultaneously managing populations excluded from the full promise of those ideals. They are both profoundly unfree and racially riven societies.. That shared history matters. 1/14 #iran #history #histodons #israel #blackmastodon Image: Benjamin Netanyahu hugs Joe Biden at Ben Guirion Airport on October 18, 2023. AFP.

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  March 31, 1870, the morning after the 15th Amendment became law, Thomas Mundy Peterson (1824-1904) entered a polling place in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and cast a ballot, the first Black American to vote under its authority, while the nation barely noticed. In this unremarkable setting an ordinary act of governance, a single vote in a small city, federal citizenship met local power and the meaning of political inclusion was tested in practice rather than proclaimed in theory. #history #ice 1/2

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  Silverio Villegas González…shot in the neck … murdered by ICE 5 months ago in Chicago at a traffic stop after dropping his children off at school. A man is dead and his family is forever changed. He was a human being. #ICE