Happy Black History Month!

We do not have a Black History month but we do have a very large Black population here in Paris and in all of France.  I think mostly from Africa and the Carribean.  Also, there are many expats like myslef, although I am only a temporary one.  

  Surprisingly, there are thousands of decendents of American slaves living here.  The history is that most of their predecessors  were the children of slave owners and their slaves.  Of these, most were from Louisiana where French was spoken anyway at one time.  I was told that these children were sent to Euope to be educated because they were not allowed a proper education in the States at that time in history.  Their wealthy fathers acknowledged them and provided for them.  Most of them remained here in France where they had greater opportunities and were treated more fairly.  Many of their decendants can trace their lineage quite well.  So there is a very long African American history here in France just like there is in the USA.  Although it is not as tragic or brutal as that of the US.

The author, Anne Rice, wrote a very good novel about the lives and social customs of Mulatto (mixed black and white) during the early 1800's in New Orleans.  It is called 'The Feast of All Saints.'  I highly recommend it since it is about a much neglected part of American and world history.  Historical novels representing this subject matter are rare.

Roya,

I am an Anne Rice fan but I never got around to reading that particular book. Books-A-Million closes at 11:00 so I'm on my way. Thanks.

just curious is there a White history month???

Hi janey2,

I never heard of White history month: My belief is that, all the history in the books was always about "contributions" of white people, and very little was known and seldom ever written, so this is how this came about---so people every where would be aware of the "contributions' that were made in this life by Black People.

Any body else know somthing about this---Help!!!

Linda C

Just a few thoughts on one of my heroes, the biologist Ernest Everett Just:

Here's a link to a recent story about him from his alma mater, Dartmouth:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dartlife/archives/18-6/just.html

And his Wikipedia page, which also tells of the achievements of his mother, Mary Just, who was born before the end of the Civil War, and became a teacher, and founded the town of Maryville, SC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Everett_Just

Dr. Just studied embryology -- especially, the fertilization and embryonic development of sea urchin eggs. He was working at a time when a "split" occurred between scientists who believed that genes and the nucleus of the cell totally directed everything that happened in the cell, and those like Just who believed that genes interacted with the rest of the cell in a kind of feedback cycle of influence.  Some opposing scientists of the time judged him harshly ("ignorant, incompetent, conceited") but when the Human Genome Project was first published in 2004 with "far fewer genes than expected" it became clear that Just was correct, and "ahead of his time" -- as spelled out in this scientific paper (that link might only work for subscribers, so if anyone wants me to email them a copy, just PM me).  Anyway, here's a quote:

"He shared an organicist view of the developing embryo, believing it to be a holistic system that is more than the sum of its parts. In this respect, he was like other traditional embryologists of his day. But, unlike others, he was intimately familiar with the natural history of the marine organisms whose eggs he studied. He knew the natural setting of the fertilization process. He also understood what constituted a normal egg and was absolutely insistent that the egg under study in the laboratory be as identical as possible to the one in nature. This appreciation of the egg in its natural environment led him to believe that the cytoplasm and its periphery - the ectoplasm - played a critical role in life processes. It caused him to clash with prominent scientists of his day...  Only today, with powerful tools such as low-light, high-contrast optical-sectioning microscopy, are we beginning to noninvasively image molecular activities and other events inside cells as they occur during development. E. E. Just understood, long before such technologies were available, that treating the cell as a holistic system necessitates using methods that do not destroy its integrity."

I know this is a long post!  But, for me, one of the functions of Black History Month (and Women's History Month, coming up in March!) is to keep alive contributions to humanity that may have been overlooked, either innocently because they were "ahead of their time" or less innocently because the discoverers were not respected in their time -- but in any case, these contributions are of value to us now.

Janey2, I tend to agree with ILinda regarding history having been largely taught from the Caucasian perspective......at least in American schools.  So little was written from the Black or Asian historical perspectives.  I was educated in the US and to this day I know very little about many cultures and histories of various races such as those of China, India, South Africa etc. because they just were not taught.  Perhaps this was because there were so many more Americans of European descent when I was growing up in the US.  I don't know why this was.

I hope that someday this situation evens out and that we will even celebrate Caucasian history month as well.  There is much to be learned and appreciated from each race and culture.  Bias is not healthy from any point of view.

When I think about it, we can't just say Black history or White history without getting technical. 

There is French Black history, North American Black history, German Black history, South American, African......etc.  The history of Blacks in each country is very very different.  Then  each Asian country and each South American country etc. has a different history for each race.  This subject is so broad that we could spend an eternity learning about.......and celebrating various racial histories..........OMG,  there are not enough months in the year for them all !!!!