Black History

Biden acknowledged America’s ‘Original Sin of Slavery,’ Pledged Infrastructure Dollars and Long-Term Financial Aid

“Our people lie at the heart of a deep and profound connection that forever binds Africa and the United States together. We remember the stolen men and women and children who were brought to our shores in chains and subjected to unimaginable cruelty,” Biden said in remarks at the National Museum of Slavery, which is built near the chapel where enslaved individuals were forcibly baptized before being sent to America. The museum was built on the property of Álvaro de Carvalho Matoso, one of the largest slave traders on the African coast.

Published

5 months ago

December 8, 2024

Oakland Post

President Biden met today with President João Lourenço to highlight the transformation of the U.S.-Angolan relationship and reaffirm our joint commitment to continue working together to address global challenges.

President Biden met with President João Lourenço to highlight the transformation of the U.S.-Angolan relationship and reaffirm our joint commitment to continue working together to address global challenges.

Will Biden’s aid for an above-the-ground Railroad help ease the pain for the African Americans’ Underground Railroad?

By Post Staff
And news dispatches from the Guardian, CNN and AP

When President Joe Biden went to Angola this week the purpose was ostensibly to advance the Lobito Corridor, an unfinished 800-mile railway project meant to facilitate the transfer of critical minerals from interior countries to western ports for exports.

But in a visit to the country’s slave museum, he acknowledged America’s dark past and its connection to Angola in the presence of three descendants of the first captives who arrived in Virginia from Angola in 1619.

The child of two of those captives — Antony and Isabella — was William Tucker, born around 1623. Three of his descendants were present when Biden spoke at the country’s slave museum and humbly acknowledged how the horrific history of slavery has connected the United States and Angola.

“While history can be hidden, it cannot and should not be erased. It should be faced. It’s our duty to face our history,” he said. “The good, the bad and the ugly. The whole truth. That’s what great nations do,” he said.

“It was the beginning of slavery in the United States. Cruel. Brutal. Dehumanizing. Our nation’s original sin. Original sin. One that’s haunted America and cast a long shadow ever since,” Biden spoke as he honored the Tucker family.

After introducing Wanda Tucker, Vincent Tucker and Carlita Tucker, he delivered a hopeful vision for the future in a major speech from the country that was the point of departure for millions of enslaved Africans.

(Wanda Tucker now serves as the faculty chair of psychology, philosophy and religious studies at Rio Salado College in Arizona.)

The museum was built on the property of Álvaro de Carvalho Matoso, one of the largest slave traders on the African coast.

Biden told the attendees that he’s proud to be the first president to visit Angola and that he’s “deeply optimistic” about the future relationship between the nation and the US.

“The story of Angola and the United States holds a lesson for the world. Two nations with a shared history, an evil of human bondage,” Biden said. “Two nations on the opposite sides of the Cold War, the defining struggle of the late part of the 20th century. And now, two nations standing shoulder to shoulder working together every day. It’s a reminder that no nation need be permanently the adversary of another.”

Biden’s trip aimed to highlight U.S. investments in Angola and the continent in the face of deepening Chinese influence in the region, as Beijing has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into Africa through its Belt and Road Initiative.

Biden took a swipe at China’s moves, without calling out the country by name, and argued the US presents a better alternative.

“The United States understands how we invest in Africa is as important as how much we invest,” Biden said.

“In too many places, 10 years after the so-called investment was made, workers are still coming home on a dirt road and without electricity, a village without a school, a city without a hospital, a country under crushing debt. We seek a better way, transparent, high standard, open access to investment that protects workers and the rule of law and the environment. It can be done and will be done,” the president said.

Biden’s speech comes during what likely could be his last trip abroad as president and as he seeks to deepen relationships with Angola and other African nations at a time when China has made significant inroads in the continent with hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure investments, far outpacing the U.S.

During his remarks, Biden touted U.S. efforts to expand its relationships across Africa, including billions of dollars in investments in Angola.

He also announced over $1 billion in new US humanitarian assistance for Africans who have been displaced by historic droughts across the continent.

“But we know African leaders and citizens are seeking more than just aid. You seek investment.

So, the United States is expanding its relationships all across Africa,” Biden said, adding later: “Moving from patrons to partners.”

Ahead of his remarks, the president also met with Angolan leaders, including young people at the museum.

Biden started his day with a bilateral meeting with Angolan President João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço at the presidential palace in Luanda.

The two men discussed trade and infrastructure, including the US and Europe’s investment in the railroad. They also discussed mutual security interests as Angola has played a key mediating role in the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In November, Angola announced their Incremental Production Decree of fiscal terms designed to enhance the commercial viability of developing oil and gas fields. The decree enhances the commercial viability of developing fields in mature blocks, underexplored areas and stranded resources, while encouraging exploration near existing infrastructure. The US Railroad infrastructure investments could play a major role in enabling increased recovery from producing fields and extending the lifespan of critical infrastructure, the decree is set to generate billions in offshore investments, create jobs and drive economic growth, solidifying Angola’s position as a leading oil and gas producer.

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Activism

Four Bills Focus on Financial Compensation for Descendants of Enslaved People

This week, CBM examines four more bills in the package — each offering ways for Black Californians to receive restitution for past injustices — from housing assistance and reclamation of loss property to fairer pay and the establishment of a state agency charged with determining eligibility for reparations.

Published

9 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

Edward Henderson
California Black Media

Last week, California Black Media (CBM) provided an update on four bills in the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC) 2025 Road to Repair package.

The 16 bills in the Black Caucus’s 2025 “Road to Repair” package focus on “repairing the generational harms caused by the cruel treatment of African American slaves in the United States and decades of systemic deprivation and injustice inflicted upon Black Californians,” said the CLBC in a release.

This week, CBM examines four more bills in the package — each offering ways for Black Californians to receive restitution for past injustices — from housing assistance and reclamation of lost property to fairer pay and the establishment of a state agency charged with determining eligibility for reparations.

Here are summaries of these bills, information about their authors, and updates on how far each one has advanced in the legislative process.

Assembly Bill (AB) 57

AB 57, introduced by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), would require that at least 10% of the monies in the state’s home purchase assistance fund be made available to applicants who meet the requirements for a loan under the home purchase assistance program and are descendants of formerly enslaved people.

The Assembly Judiciary Committee is currently reviewing the legislation.

Assembly Bill (AB) 62

AB 62, also introduced by McKinnor, would require the Office of Legal Affairs to review, investigate, and make specific determinations regarding applications from people who claim they are the dispossessed owners of property seized from them because of racially motivated eminent domain. The bill would define “racially motivated eminent domain” to mean when the state acquires private property for public use and does not provide just compensation to the owner, due in whole or in part, to the owner’s race.

AB 62 is currently under review in the Judiciary Committee.

Senate Bill (SB) 464

SB 464, introduced by Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles), aims to strengthen the existing civil rights laws in California concerning employer pay data reporting. The bill mandates that private employers with 100 or more employees submit annual pay data reports to the Civil Rights Department. These reports must include detailed demographic information — including race, ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation — pertaining to their workforce distribution and compensation across different job categories. Furthermore, beginning in 2027, public employers will also be required to comply with these reporting requirements.

The Senate Committee on Labor, Public Employment, and Rules is currently reviewing SB 464. A hearing is expected to be held on April 23.

Senate Bill (SB) 518

SB 518, introduced by Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson (D-San Diego), establishes the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery to address and remedy the lasting harms of slavery and the Jim Crow laws suffered by Black Californians.

SB 518 is under review in the Senate Judiciary Committee. A hearing is expected to be held on April 22.

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

10 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

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Activism

Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

Published

10 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing, just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.