People, Locations, Episodes

The St. Jean Bosco Church massacre occurs

*The St. Jean Bosco Church massacre took place in Haiti on this date in 1988.   Close to 50 people were killed and around 80 wounded in a three-hour assault in Port-au-Prince, which saw the church burned down.   The structure was the parish of future President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, then a liberation theology Roman Catholic priest of the Salesians of Don Bosco order and had been packed […]

The African Diaspora, a story

*On this date from 900 AD, the African Diaspora is briefly defined.  The African Diaspora is of the worldwide demographic of indigenous communities descended from native sub-Saharan Africans or people from Sub-Saharan Africa, primarily in the Americas. Historically, ethnographers, historians, politicians, and writers have used the term particularly to refer to the “Middle Passage” descendants of the West and Central Africans.   These people were enslaved and shipped to the […]

The Moors Community, a story

*The Moors community is celebrated on this date c 200.  They were Muslims from the medieval era in Northwest Africa and the Iberian Peninsula.  This included present-day Spain and Portugal as well as the Maghreb and western Africa, whose culture is often called Moorish.  Christian Europeans first used Moor to designate Muslims during the Middle […]

The Bantu People of Africa, a story

*Bantu people of Africa are affirmed on this date in 1000 BCE.  They are Black African speakers of Bantu languages of several hundred indigenous ethnic groups.   The Bantu live in sub-Saharan Africa, spread over a vast area from Central Africa across the African Great Lakes to Southern Africa.  Linguistically, these languages belong to the Southern Bantoid branch of Benue Congo, one of the language families grouped within the Niger-Congo phylum.  It is generally accepted that the […]

The Ghana Empire, a story

*The Ghana Empire is celebrated on this date in 830. Known as Wagadou (Ghana being the title of its ruler) Empire, it was a West African kingdom located in present-day southeastern Mauritania and western Mali. The origins of the Ghana Empire have been disputed between ethnohistoric accounts and archaeological interpretations. The earliest discussions of its origins are found in the […]

The Yoruba People, a story

*On this date from 1200, the Yoruba people are briefly affirmed.  They are an African ethnic group that lives in western Africa.   October 1st was chosen to coincide the article with Nigeria’s independence. Documented since 1200, the Yoruba are mainly Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, and Benin. The Yoruba constitute about 44 million people in total. The vast majority of this population is from Nigeria, where the Yoruba make […]

The Mali Empire, a story

*The Mali Empire is celebrated on this date in 1235. Historically referred to as the Manden Kurufaba, it was an empire in West Africa from c. 1235 to 1670. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita and became renowned for the wealth of its rulers, especially Mansa Musa (Musa Keita). The Manding languages were spoken in the […]

Black History in India, a story

*Republic Day in India is on this date from 1950. Many people throughout this country celebrate and affirm when India’s constitution came into force completing the country’s transition toward becoming an independent republic.

The First African Voyage To The Americas, a story

*On this date in 1312, we celebrate the first African voyage to the Americas. This episode though unproven, is worth contemplation and this article. History Mansa Musa, the 9th ruler of the Mali Empire, stayed in Cairo for three months in 1324 while en route to Mecca for the hajj. While there, he befriended an emir named […]

The ‘Middle Passage’ (The Transatlantic Slave Trade), a story

*On this date in 1440, the Middle Passage is briefly described.  The Middle Passage was the stage of the white-organized triangular trade in which millions of Black Africans were kidnapped and transported to the New World.   Sometimes referred to as the Atlantic Slave Trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people.  Ships departed […]

Goree Island, ‘The Door of No Return,’ a story

The date remembers Goree Island. This land mass played an important part in the early days of African American history. Goree Island is a small 45-acre island located off the coast of Senegal. Goree Island was developed as a center of the expanding European slave trade.

The African Slave Port of Elmina is Built

*The Port city of Elmina in West Africa is recognized on this date in 1441.  Elmina was one of many transport locations from the African continent used in the Middle Passage slave trade.   Before the arrival of the Portuguese, the town was called Anomansah in Ghana from its position on the peninsula and the […]

Black History in Europe, a story

*African (Black) history in Europe from 1400 is briefly recalled on this dates Registry.

To address the story of black people in Europe, certainly addresses the history of slavery and the history of European colonialism. The relationship between the two continents began with mutual respect and curiosity. For the last 600 years Africans, African Americans, African-Europeans, Europeans, and European-Americans are still paying for the results. The history begins, as so much in the modern world, with the business expansion of European culture.

Robben Island, South African Prison, a story

*Robben Island is affirmed on this date in 1448. Robben Island is a roughly oval landmass in Table Bay, 4.3 mi west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, north of Cape Town, South Africa. It is former maximum-security prison used by Dutch and British colonizers during the apartheid regime. It takes its name from the Dutch […]

Cape Verde, West Africa is Founded

*On this date in c 1456, Cape Verde is celebrated.  Cape Verde is an archipelago and island country in the central Atlantic Ocean near West Africa.   Officially the Republic of Cabo Verde consists of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about 1,557 sq mi.  Before the arrival of whites, the Cape Verde Islands […]