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Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Prospect Hill's history of rebellion and freedom
JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – A piece of Mississippi's complex past is on display at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. At first glance, it's just an elegant 19th century carriage. But behind the artifact lies a story of rebellion, freedom and a family torn between continents. 'This is a carriage that was owned by Isaac Ross Wade, who lived at Prospect Hill,' said Nan Prince, with the Two Mississippi Museums. Prospect Hill was a massive cotton plantation in Jefferson County. It was founded in 1808 by Isaac Ross, a Revolutionary War veteran who brought enslaved people with him to Mississippi. 'As part of his will, he stipulated that any slave who wanted to be freed could be freed, and any slave that wanted to stay at Prospect Hill would be sold with the plantation,' said Prince. Freedom came at a cost. Those who chose it were to be sent to Liberia, a place they had never known. 'It was founded by the American Colonization Society as a way to send freed slaves, 'Back to Africa,' even though they had never actually lived there in the first place,' Prince explained. Ross's grandson, Isaac Ross Wade, inherited the plantation and fought to keep it and the people enslaved there. 'The will was held up in court. That same year, there was a slave uprising at Prospect Hill, and the house was burned and a small child was killed. Several of the slaves who were suspected were lynched,' said Prince. Eventually, the court upheld the will. About 300 people were sent to Liberia. 'Isaac Wade purchased the property back and built a house to replace the one that burned down in 1854. And that house is still standing on the property,' stated Prince. Prospect Hill is now owned by the Archaeological Conservancy, which has helped connect descendants from all sides of this history. 'They have brought descendants from the Ross family, and the slaves that moved to Liberia, and the slaves that stayed in Jefferson County. Cousins get to know each other. It's really interesting to watch,' said Prince. She said while Ross' will did offer freedom, it came with limits and reflected a troubling mindset of the time. 'It wasn't strictly a compassionate move. It was an underline[d] racist move. It wasn't an option to just be free in America. You're either going to be free in Africa, or you're going to be enslaved in America,' Prince said. Artifacts like the carriage help paint the picture of who held power and what it cost. From tools made by enslaved hands to reunions brining descendants back together, Prospect Hill's legacy continues to unfold. 'We have a cotton scraper made by an enslaved individual. It would have been over probably 500 enslaved individuals on Prospect Hill,' said Prince. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Forbes
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
Unlocking Liberia's Sustainable Development Potential
Billboards for donor-driven sustainable development projects are ubiquitous in Liberia's capital ... More Monrovia The West African nation of Liberia stands out as a remarkable example of human resilience but also a somber warning regarding the fragility of development outcomes. As the first independent democracy on the African continent, the Liberian flag has one star but is otherwise reminiscent of the American Stars and Stripes banner. Established in 1847 as a project of the 'American Colonization Society,' the country had at once a promising yet pernicious founding objective to repatriate freed American slaves to their continent of origin. The 'Americo-Liberians' developed their own ruling elite class in comparison with the local population that saw them as culturally removed and this tension simmered for generations. Yet during the Cold War, Liberia's alliance with the United States and the West was amply rewarded with investment and Monrovia became a garden capital of West Africa with excellent infrastructure. When I visited Monrovia last month, my hosts took me to the ruins of the Ducor Hotel, which had been celebrated as the first five-star hotel in West Africa when it opened in 1967. Designed by a Romanian-Israeli architect Moshe Mayer, the opening ceremony was attended by the Israeli Prime Minister at the time, Golda Meir. The 1960s were the heyday of Liberia and even Queen Elizabeth visited the capital along with the Duke of Edinburgh. Yet the festering rivalries between the indigenous population and the Americo-Liberian settlers eventually led a dreadful series of civil wars in the 1990s that left the country devastated with almost 5% of population of just over 5 million killed and a generation of child-soldiers who were permanently disabled. Just as the economy was recovering the Ebola epidemic struck the country in 2014 that further eviscerated the economic progress that had been made over the past decade. Liberia is now at an important inflection point where political stability has been well-established thanks to strong grassroots and national leadership, exemplified by the Nobel-prize winning work of former president Ellen Johnston Sirleaf and activists such as Leymah Gbowee. Last year, the country had another peaceful transition of power from the populist government of football star George Weah to the current President Joseph Boakai. Yet, this calm will only hold if the population sees the dividends of democracy in terms of long-term sustainable development. The country has immense potential in terms of its minerals, timber and opportunities to rekindle the flame of tourism through revitalization of infrastructure which was the pride of the region in the 1960s. The United States has a particular responsibility for the country's future and there are win-win prospects for development. Liberia has massive mineral reserves including iron ores deposits that are currently being operated inter-alia by the Indo-European conglomerate Arcelor-Mittal, with further investments from Turkish, Russian and Chinese interests as well. During my conversations with the mining ministry, I also learned of concerns that exploration licenses were being used to start initial operations without proper operational licensing in remote parts of the country. The United States has an opportunity to strike more responsible minerals deals with Liberia, particularly around critical mineral deposits which are naturally washed through alluvial sands that reach the Atlantic coast. The need for American reengagement in Liberia's future has become even more urgent since the U.S. Government announced the dismantling of the Millenium Challenge Corporation that has been a major source of support of the country's fledgling Green investment sector. The United States also has some leverage in neighboring Guinea, despite the country's move away from democratic rule. Guinea is developing one of the world's largest iron ore deposits in the Simandou region bordering Liberia and the most cost-effective transit route for the ore would have been through Liberia to the coast. The Australian-British company Rio Tinto is the operating owner and had preferred transit through Liberia but resource nationalism and geopolitics led to a more complex transit route, entirely through Guinea's mountainous region. There may still be an opportunity for the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia to negotiate some regional transit support through Liberia for mutual gain of both countries. With a relatively small population, immense natural resources and strategic access to the Atlantic coast, Liberia is poised for a developmental transformation. Yet this development should also consider the environmental value of the forested ecosystems of the country, which have great potential for attracting high end conservation tourism to view charismatic endangered species such as the pygmy hippopotamus. Only around 2000 of these animals remain in the wild and most are found in Liberia. The large diaspora of Liberians living in the United States could be important investors in the service sector part of the Liberian economy to promote ecotourism alongside an extractive economy if properly managed. Liberia can learn from countries like Botswana and Namibia who have been able to maintain the coexistence of both extractive and tourist economies. Liberia is also bidding to be a member of the United Nations Security Council in the upcoming cycle which would give it further international recognition. At this pivotal moment, the world needs to pay more attention this resilient country as a beacon of Africa development potential.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Philadelphia continues long history of Black-led protest meetings aimed at fighting racial inequity and prejudice
A meeting in Philadelphia, held at a senior center on a bitter cold Saturday afternoon in late January 2025, drew nearly 300 people. They came for two key reasons. One was to voice outrage at the upsurge in policies and proposals nationwide that attack the advances of African Americans – many of which were secured in part through 1960s-era civil rights protests. The other was to begin to develop a 'Black agenda' to counter those attacks in Philadelphia. In gathering communally to voice their concerns, attendees continued a legacy of Black-led protest meetings that spans over two centuries in the city. I am a professor of journalism at Temple University and a reporter who has covered racial inequities in America and abroad for 50 years. I was invited to attend the Philadelphia meeting to talk about the history of protest meetings in the city. That's a history of successes and shortfalls that helped shape both Philadelphia and the nation. Over 200 years ago, what is considered the first mass protest meeting ever held in the United States by African Americans took place in Philadelphia. That little-known meeting, held in January 1817, drew 3,000 African Americans to Philadelphia's historic Mother Bethel AME Church. The attendees came to denounce efforts by the American Colonization Society to relocate free Black Americans to a colony in West Africa. That group, with a predominately white membership that included prominent politicians and preachers, believed free Blacks could not be integrated into white America. The attendees at Mother Bethel in 1817 saw relocation as a forced removal of Black Americans from the homeland they supported as patriotically as white Americans. The unanimous opposition that attendees expressed helped change the stance of local Black leaders, such as Mother Bethel founder Richard Allen, from lukewarm supporters of relocation to opponents. The tradition of mass meetings to address the adversity impacting Philadelphia's African American community continued from the 19th century into the 20th and now the 21st century. The results have been mixed. For example, after members of the Pennsylvania state legislature proposed inserting a white-males-only voting restriction into the state's constitution in 1838, denying voting rights for free Black men, Black Philadelphians held mass meetings to demand the provision be deleted. But those demands failed. Pennsylvania restricted voting to white men until 1870 when ratification of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted African American men the right to vote. However, mass meetings during the 1860s that had an agenda to desegregate trolleys in Philadelphia were successful. A law signed in 1867 banned segregated seating on public transit statewide. Renowned scholar and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois credited 'public meetings and repeated agitation' for that statewide ban in his seminal 1899 book 'The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study.' Demands to end police brutality have been the focus of mass meetings in the city at least since the 1918 formation of Philadelphia's now-defunct Association for the Protection of Colored People. Abusive policing practices that continue in Philadelphia to this day point to a shortfall in fulfilling those demands. And yet, momentum from the key agenda item of mass meetings in the early 1970s – to increase political power – ultimately led to the election of the city's first Black mayor, Wilson Goode, in 1983. Since 1817, Black-led protest meetings in Philadelphia have sought to end discrimination against African Americans. That consistent goal remains unrealized. The first national political conventions that African Americans staged in the U.S., beginning in September 1830, castigated discrimination. Convention attendees in 1831 sought an end to cruel and oppressive laws devised to disadvantage free Blacks. Nearly 150 years later, the 'Human Rights Agenda' developed during a Philadelphia mass meeting in December 1978 and later the report from Philadelphia's 2015 Black Political Summit Coalition both decried racial prejudice against African Americans. An observation that Du Bois made in 'The Philadelphia Negro' about discrimination against African Americans in the so-called City of Brotherly Love retains contemporary relevance. Race prejudice 'is a far more powerful social force than most Philadelphians realize,' Du Bois wrote. Most white Philadelphians, he noted, 'are quite unconscious' regarding the prejudice that impacts Black residents. Their impulse is emphatically to deny such discrimination. Such denial allowed prejudice to persist then – and today. To begin to develop a new Black agenda, the organizers of the meeting at the senior center collected suggestions that attendees filed on note cards. They promised to publicly announce an action plan that is expected to involve economic boycotts and actions to strengthen the economic infrastructure in Philadelphia's African American community. Defending rights and progress aroused attendees at that January meeting in 2025 as strongly as denouncing forced colonization aroused attendees at the mass meeting 208 years earlier. Read more of our stories about Philadelphia. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Linn Washington, Jr., Temple University Read more: W.E.B. Du Bois' study 'The Philadelphia Negro' at 125 still explains roots of the urban Black experience – sociologist Elijah Anderson tells why it should be on more reading lists Philly's Chinatown has a rich tradition of activism – the Sixers arena fight was just one of many to preserve the neighborhood We interviewed 30 Black public school teachers in Philadelphia to understand why so many are leaving the profession Linn Washington, Jr. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
