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Teeyon Winfree, or best known as Vado, is an American rapper from Harlem, New York City.

Biography[link]

Teeyon Winfree was born on March 13, 1985. He was raised in Harlem and grew up on 144th and Lenox and is of Jamaican, St. Vincent, and African American descent. Winfree first started writing at 16 and was influenced by his famous Jazz singing grandmother, June Tyson. At the age of 19, Vado appeared on a public access television show named "Mad Ciphas." In 2008, he released tracks with childhood friend, Jae Millz. Winfree's original stage name was MOVADO but later was shortened to VADO.

Career[link]

Vado is best known for his association with Cameron "Cam'ron" Giles, and their Hip Hop group called The U.N. Vado officially released his long-awaited debut mixtape Slime Flu on October 12, 2010 under Diplomat Records/E1 Music.

Vado is featured on the DJ Khaled track "Future" with rappers Ace Hood, Wale, Meek Mill and Big Sean, produced by Boi-1da, from Khaled's fifth studio album We the Best Forever. In 2010, Vado's mentor and friend Cam'ron introduced him to Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Dame Dash, and Cam'ron and Dame were in talks of The U.N. signing to the newly re-launched Roc-A-Fella. Dame saw a raw talent in Vado that reminded him of Jay-Z in his early stages, and Vado signed with Dame's subsidiary record label of Roc-A-Fella under DD172 named BluRoc. The U.N. would also sign to BluRoc instead of Roc-A-Fella.

Discography[link]

Collaboration albums[link]

Mixtapes[link]

• 2009: Boss of All Bosses (with Cam'ron)
• 2010: Slime Flu
• 2010: Boss of All Bosses 2 (with Cam'ron)
• 2010: Boss of All Bosses 2.5 (with Cam'ron)
• 2011: Boss of All Bosses 2.8 (with Cam'ron)
• 2011: Boss of All Bosses 3 (with Cam'ron)
• 2011: Slime Flu 2
• 2012: UNLostFiles (with Cam'ron)

Collaborative singles[link]

References[link]

http://www.champmag.com/2010/11/20/video-vado-exclusive-interview-w-champ-mag-talks-slime-flu-lost-tapes-luu-breeze-collab-rugby dos-donts/

http://www.champmag.com/2010/10/28/vado-exclusive-interview-w-champ-mag-on-slime-flu/

http://www.sohh.com/2010/10/camron_vados_gunz_n_butta_release_date_s.html

D'Juan Hart (born January 15, 1979), better known by his stage name Young Dro, is an American Southern rap artist from Atlanta, Georgia. Young Dro's major label debut Best Thang Smokin' was released in August 2006.^[1]

Discography[link]

Studio albums

• Best Thang Smokin' (2006)
• P.O.L.O. (Players Only Live Once) (2012)

Independent albums

• I Got That Dro (2001)

Mixtapes

• Day One (2006)
• I Am Legend (2008)
• R.I.P. (I Killed That Shit) (2009)
• Black Boy Swag, White Boy Tags with Yung LA (2009)
• Equestrian Dro (2011)
• I Co-Sign Myself (Hosted by DJ Dro) (2011)
• Drocabulary (Hosted by DJ Smallz) (2011)
• We Outchea (Hosted by Bigga Rankin) (2012)

Compilation albums

• Grand Hustle Presents: In da Streetz Volume 4 (with Grand Hustle Records) (2006)

Singles[link]

Featured singles[link]

Awards and nominations[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website

Jim Jones
Born	James W. Jones (1931-05-13)May 13, 1931 Randolph County, Indiana, U.S.
Died	November 18, 1978(1978-11-18) (aged 47) Jonestown, Guyana
Occupation	Religious leader
Religion	Agnostic/Atheist[1]
Spouse	Marceline Baldwin Jones (1927 - 1978)
Children	Agnes Paulette Jones (1943 - 1978) Suzanne Jones Cartmell (1953 - 2006) Stephanie Jones (1954 - 1959) Lew Eric Jones (1956 - 1978) Jim Jon Prokes (1975 - 1978) Stephan Gandhi Jones (1958- ) James Warren Jones, Jr. (1961-)
Parents	James Thurman Jones (1887 - 1951) Lynetta Putnam Jones (1902 - 1977)

Reverend James Warren "Jim" Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 mass suicide of 909 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the killings of five other people at a nearby airstrip. Over 200 children were murdered at Jonestown, almost all of whom were forcibly made to ingest cyanide by the elite Temple members.

Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple in that state in the 1950s. Jones and the Temple later moved to California, and both gained notoriety with the move of the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco in the mid-1970s.

The incident in Guyana ranks among the largest mass suicides in history, though most likely it involved forced suicide and/or murder, and was the single greatest loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the events of September 11, 2001. Among the dead was Leo Ryan, who remains the only Congressman assassinated in the line of duty as a Congressman in the history of the United States.^[2]

Early life[link]

Jim Jones was born in a rural area of Randolph County near the Ohio border,^[3] to James Thurman Jones (May 31, 1887 – May 29, 1951), a World War I veteran, and Lynetta Putnam (April 16, 1902 – December 11, 1977).^[4] He was of Irish and Welsh descent.^[5] Jones would later claim partial Cherokee ancestry through his mother, though this was likely false according to his maternal second cousin Barbara Shaffer.^{[5][note 1]} Economic difficulties during the Great Depression necessitated that Jones' family move to nearby Lynn, Indiana, in 1934.^[6] Jim Jones and a childhood friend both claimed that Jones' father was associated with the Ku Klux Klan.^[6]

In interviews for the 2006 documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, childhood acquaintances recalled Jones as being a "really weird kid" who was "obsessed with religion ... obsessed with death". They alleged that as a child, Jones frequently held funerals for small animals and had reportedly stabbed a cat to death.^[7]

Jones was a voracious reader as a child and studied Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler carefully,^[8] noting each of their strengths and weaknesses.^[8] After Jones' parents separated, he moved with his mother to Richmond, Indiana.^[9] He graduated from Richmond High School early and with honors in December 1948.^[10]

Jones married nurse Marceline Baldwin in 1949, and moved to Bloomington, Indiana.^[11] He attended Indiana University at Bloomington, where a speech by Eleanor Roosevelt about the plight of African Americans impressed him.^[11] Jones' sympathetic statements about communism offended Marceline's grandmother.^[11] In 1951, Jones moved to Indianapolis, where he attended night school at Butler University, earning a degree in secondary education in 1961.^[12]

Building the Temple[link]

Jim Jones' first church in Indianapolis, Indiana

Indiana beginnings[link]

In 1951, Jones became a member of the Communist Party USA, and began attending meetings and rallies in Indianapolis.^[13] He became flustered with harassment he received during the McCarthy Hearings,^[13] particularly regarding an event he attended with his mother focusing on Paul Robeson, after which she was harassed by the FBI in front of her co-workers for attending.^[14] He also became frustrated with ostracism of open communists in the United States, especially during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.^[15] This frustration, among other things, provoked a seminal moment for Jones in which he asked himself "how can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."^[13][14]

Jones' interest in religion began during his childhood, primarily because he found making friends difficult, though initially he vacillated on his church of choice.^[5] Jones was surprised when a Methodist superintendent helped him to get a start in the church even though he knew Jones to be a communist and Jones did not meet him through the Communist Party.^[15] In 1952, Jones became a student pastor in Sommerset Southside Methodist Church, but claims he left that church because its leaders barred him from integrating blacks into his congregation.^[13] Around this time, Jones witnessed a faith-healing service at the Seventh Day Baptist Church.^[13] He observed that it attracted people and their money and concluded that, with financial resources from such healings, he could help accomplish his social goals.^[13]

Jones then began his own church, which changed names until it became the Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel.^[13] The People's Temple was initially made as an inter-racial mission.

Jones moved away from the Communist Party and Maoists when CPUSA members and Mao Zedong became critical of some of the policies of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.^[15]

Integrationist[link]

In 1960, Indianapolis Democratic Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the Human Rights Commission.^[16] Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs.^[16] When the mayor and other commissioners asked Jones to curtail his public actions, he resisted and was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, and climaxed with "Let my people go!"^[17]

During this time, Jones also helped to integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital.^[13] After swastikas were painted on the homes of two African American families, Jones personally walked the neighborhood comforting African Americans and counseling white families not to move, in order to prevent white flight.^[18] He also set up stings to catch restaurants refusing to serve African American customers^[18] and wrote to American Nazi leaders then leaked their responses to the media.^[19] When Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, he refused to be moved and began to make the beds, and empty the bed pans of black patients.^[20] Political pressures resulting from Jones' actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.^[20]

Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views.^[13] White-owned businesses and locals were critical of him.^[18] A swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones' house after a threatening phone call.^[19] Other incidents occurred, though some suspect that Jones himself may have been involved in at least some of them.^[19]

Jones' "Rainbow Family"[link]

Brochure of the Peoples Temple, portraying leader Jim Jones as the father of the "Rainbow Family"

Jim and Marceline Jones adopted several children of at least partial non-Caucasian ancestry; he referred to the clan as his "rainbow family,"^[21] and stated: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future."^[22] Jones portrayed the Temple overall as a "rainbow family."

The couple adopted three children of Korean-American ancestry: Lew, Suzanne and Stephanie. Jones had been encouraging Temple members to adopt orphans from war ravaged Korea.^[23] Jones had long been critical of the United States' opposition to communist leader Kim Il-Sung's 1950 invasion of South Korea, calling it the "war of liberation" and stating that "the south is a living example of all that socialism in the north has overcome."^[24] In 1954, he and his wife also adopted Agnes Jones, who was partly of Native American descent.^[22][25] Agnes was 11 at the time of her adoption.^[26] Suzanne Jones was adopted at the age of six in 1959.^[26] In June 1959, the couple had their only biological child, Stephan Gandhi Jones.^[25]

Two years later, in 1961, the Joneses became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, James Warren Jones, Jr.^[27] Marceline was once spat upon while she carried Jim Jr.^[19]

The couple also adopted another son, who was white, named Tim.^[25] Tim Jones, whose birth mother was a member of the Peoples Temple, was originally named Timothy Glen Tupper.^[22]

Asylum[link]

Belo Horizonte

Rio de Janeiro

Jones' Brazilian locations

After a 1961 Temple speech about nuclear apocalypse,^[20] and a January 1962 Esquire Magazine article listing Belo Horizonte, Brazil, as a safe place in a nuclear war, Jones traveled with his family to the Brazilian city with the idea of setting up a new Temple location.^[28]

On his way to Brazil, Jones made his first trip into Guyana.^[29] After arriving in Belo Horizonte, the Joneses rented a modest three bedroom home.^[30] Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, though language remained a barrier.^[31] Jones was careful not to portray himself as a communist in a foreign territory, and spoke of an apostolic communal lifestyle rather than of Castro or Marx.^[32]

After becoming frustrated with the lack of resources in the locale, in mid-1963, the Joneses moved to Rio de Janeiro.^[33] There, they worked with the poor in Rio's slums.^[33] Jones also explored local Brazilian religion.^[34]

Jones was plagued by guilt for leaving behind the Indiana civil rights struggle and possibly losing what he had struggled to build there.^[33] When Jones' associate preachers in Indiana told him that the Temple was about to collapse without him, Jones returned.^[35]

California Eden[link]

Los Angeles

San Francisco

Ukiah

Bakersfield

Fresno

Sacramento

Santa Rosa

Some of the Peoples Temple's California locations

After Jones' return to Indiana from Brazil, in 1965, Jones claimed that the world would be engulfed in a nuclear war on July 15, 1967, that would then create a new socialist Eden on earth, and that the Temple must move to Northern California for safety.^[13][36] Accordingly, the Temple began moving to Redwood Valley, California, near Ukiah.^[13]

While Jones always spoke of the social gospel's virtues, before the late 1960s Jones chose to conceal that his gospel was actually communism.^[13] By the late 1960s, Jones began at least partially openly revealing in Temple sermons his "Apostolic Socialism" concept.^[13] Specifically, "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment — socialism."^[37] Jones often mixed those concepts, such as preaching that "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin."^[38]

By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion," rejecting the Bible as being white men’s justification to subordinate women and subjugate people of color and stating that it spoke of a "Sky God" who was no God at all.^[13] Jones authored a booklet titled "The Letter Killeth," criticizing the King James Bible.^[39] Jones also began preaching that he was the reincarnation of Jesus of Nazareth, Mahatma Gandhi, Buddha, Vladimir Lenin, and Father Divine. In the documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, former Temple member Hue Fortson, Jr. quoted Jones as saying, "What you need to believe in is what you can see ... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father ... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God."^[7]

By the spring of 1976, Jones began openly admitting even to outsiders that he was an atheist.^[40] Despite the Temple's fear that the IRS was investigating its religious tax exemption, by 1977 Marceline Jones admitted to the New York Times that, as early as age 18 when he watched his then idol Mao Zedong overthrow the Chinese government, Jim Jones realized that the way to achieve social change through Marxism in the United States was to mobilize people through religion.^[36] She stated that "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion," and had slammed the Bible on the table yelling "I've got to destroy this paper idol!"^[36] In one sermon, Jones said that, "You're gonna help yourself, or you'll get no help! There's only one hope of glory; that's within you! Nobody's gonna come out of the sky! There's no heaven up there! We'll have to make heaven down here!"^[7]

Move to San Francisco[link]

The move of Peoples Temple headquarters to San Francisco in 1975 invigorated Jones' political career. After the Temple served an important role in the mayoral election victory of George Moscone in 1975, Moscone appointed Jones as the Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission.^[41]

Unlike most other figures deemed as cult leaders, Jones was able to gain public support and contact with prominent local and national United States politicians. For example, Jones and Moscone met privately with vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale on his campaign plane days before the 1976 election and Mondale publicly praised the Temple.^[42][43] First Lady Rosalynn Carter also personally met with Jones on multiple occasions, corresponded with him about Cuba, and spoke with him at the grand opening of the San Francisco Democratic Party Headquarters where Jones garnered louder applause than Mrs. Carter.^[42][44][45]

In September 1976, Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally and other political figures.^[46] At that dinner, while introducing Jones, Willie Brown stated "Let me present to you what you should see every day when you look in the mirror in the early morning hours.... Let me present to you a combination of Martin King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein... Chairman Mao."^[47] Harvey Milk, who spoke at political rallies at the Temple,^[48] and wrote to Jones after a visit to the Temple: "Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave."^[49][50]

In his San Francisco Temple apartment, Jones hosted San Francisco radical political figures such as Angela Davis for discussions.^[51] He spoke with friend and San Francisco Sun-Reporter publisher Dr. Carlton Goodlett about Jones' remorse regarding not being able to travel to socialist countries such as Peoples Republic of China and the Soviet Union, speculating that he could be Chief Dairyman of the Soviet Union.^[52] After his criticisms caused increased tensions with the Nation of Islam, Jones spoke at a huge rally healing the rift between the two groups in the Los Angeles Convention Center attended by many of Jones' closest political acquaintances.^[53] Jones also enjoyed a favorable relationship with Warith Deen Mohammed, son of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad.^{[citation needed]}

While Jones forged media alliances with key columnists and others at the San Francisco Chronicle and other media outlets,^[54] the move to San Francisco also brought increasing media scrutiny. After Chronicle reporter Marshall Kilduff encountered resistance to publishing an exposé, he brought his story to New West Magazine.^[55] In the summer of 1977, Jones and several hundred Temple members moved to the Temple's "Agricultural Project" in Guyana after they learned of the contents of Kilduff's article to be published in which former Temple members claimed they were physically, emotionally, and sexually abused.^[45][56] Jones named the settlement Jonestown after himself.

Jonestown's formation and operation[link]

Jonestown

Georgetown

Kaituma

Peoples Temple Agricultural Project ("Jonestown", Guyana)

Jones had first started building Jonestown in 1970 as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from the media scrutiny which had started in 1972.^[57] Here they also established a cooperative called the "People's Temple Agricultural Project". Regarding the former goal, Jones purported to establish Jonestown as a benevolent model communist community stating, "I believe we’re the purest communists there are."^[58] In that regard, like the restrictive emigration policies of the then Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and other communist states, Jones did not permit members to leave Jonestown.^[59]

Religious scholar Mary McCormick Maaga argues that Jones' authority decreased after he moved to the isolated commune, because he was not needed for recruitment and he could not hide his drug addiction from rank and file members.^[60] In spite of the allegations prior to Jones' departure to Jonestown, the leader was still respected by some for setting up a racially mixed church which helped the disadvantaged; 68 percent of Jonestown's residents were black.^[61] Jonestown was where Jones began his belief called "Translation" where he and his followers would all die together and move to another planet and live blissfully.

New children[link]

Jim Jones claimed that he was the biological father of John Victor Stoen, although the birth certificate lists Grace and Timothy Stoen as the parents of the boy.^[62] The Temple repeatedly claimed that Jones fathered the child when, in 1971, Temple member Tim Stoen had requested that Jones have sex with Grace Stoen to keep her from defecting.^[63] After Grace Stoen later defected in 1976 and began divorce proceedings against Tim Stoen in 1977, in order to avoid potentially giving up the boy in a custody dispute with Grace, Jones ordered Tim to take John to Guyana in February 1977.^[64]

After purported father Tim Stoen defected from the Temple in June 1977, the Temple kept John Stoen in Jonestown.^[65] The custody dispute over John Stoen would become a linchpin of several battles between the Temple and the Concerned Relatives.^[66]

Jim Jones also fathered a son, Jim Jon (Kimo), with Carolyn Louise Moore Layton, a Temple member.^[67]

Pressure and waning political support[link]

Congressional Pictorial of Leo Ryan

While most of Jones' political allies broke ties after Jones' departure,^[68] some did not. As a show of support, Willie Brown spoke out against enemies at a rally at the Peoples Temple, also attended by Harvey Milk and Art Agnos.^[69] Most importantly for Jones and the Temple, Moscone's office shortly thereafter issued a press release saying that Jones had broken no laws.^[70]

In the Fall of 1977, Tim Stoen and other relatives in Jonestown formed a "Concerned Relatives" group.^[71] Stoen traveled to Washington D.C. in January 1978 to visit with Congressmen, including Leo Ryan and State Department officials, and wrote a "white paper" to Congress detailing the dispute and pressing for Congressional correspondence.^[72] Stoen's efforts aroused the curiosity of Ryan, who wrote a letter on Stoen's behalf to Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.^[73]

Amidst growing pressure in the United States to investigate the Temple, on February 19, 1978, Harvey Milk wrote a letter of support for the Peoples Temple to President Jimmy Carter.^[74][75][76] Therein, Milk wrote that Jones was known "as a man of the highest character."^[76] Regarding the leader of those attempting to extricate relatives from Jonestown, Milk wrote he was "attempting to damage Rev. Jones reputation" with "apparent bold-faced lies."^[76]

On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, including letters and affidavits, that they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones" to the Peoples Temple, members of the press and members of Congress.^[77] In June 1978, escaped Temple member Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing alleged crimes by the Peoples Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown.^[78]

Facing increasing scrutiny, in the summer of 1978, Jones also hired noted JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" by intelligence agencies against the Peoples Temple.^[79] Jones told Lane he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver", referring to a fugitive Black Panther who was able to return to the United States after repairing his reputation.^[79]

Visit by Congressman Ryan, murders[link]

In November 1978, U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human rights abuses.^[80] Ryan's delegation included relatives of Temple members, Don Harris, an NBC network news reporter, an NBC cameraman and reporters for various newspapers.^[81] The group arrived in Georgetown on November 15.^[80] On November 17, Ryan's delegation traveled by airplane to Jonestown.^[82] The delegation left hurriedly the afternoon of November 18 after Temple member Don Sly attacked Ryan with a knife.^[83] The attack was thwarted, bringing the visit to an abrupt end.^[83] Congressman Ryan and his people succeeded in taking with them fifteen People's Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave.^[84] At that time, Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure.^[85]

Port Kaituma Airstrip shootings[link]

As members of Ryan's delegation boarded two planes at the airstrip, Jones' "Red Brigade" armed guards arrived in a tractor-pulled trailer and began shooting at the delegation.^[86] The guards killed Congressman Ryan and four others near a twin engine Otter aircraft.^[87] At the same time, one of the supposed defectors, Larry Layton, drew a weapon and began firing on members of the party that had already boarded a small Cessna.^[88] An NBC cameraman was able to capture footage of the first few seconds of the shooting at the Otter.^[87] The five killed at the airstrip were Congressman Ryan; Don Harris, a reporter from NBC; Bob Brown, a cameraman from NBC; San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson; and Temple member Patricia Parks.^[87] Surviving the attack were future Congresswoman Jackie Speier, then a staff member for Ryan; Richard Dwyer, the Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S. Embassy at Georgetown; Bob Flick, a producer for NBC News; Steve Sung, an NBC sound engineer; Tim Reiterman, a San Francisco Examiner reporter; Ron Javers, a San Francisco Chronicle reporter; Charles Krause, a Washington Post reporter; and several defecting Temple members.^[87]

Deaths in Jonestown[link]

Later that same day, 909 inhabitants of Jonestown,^[89] 303 of them children, died of apparent cyanide poisoning, mostly in and around a pavilion.^[90] This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the September 11, 2001 attacks.^[91] No video was taken during the mass suicide, though the FBI did recover a 45 minute audio recording of the suicide in progress.^[92]

On that tape, Jones tells Temple members that the Soviet Union, with whom the Temple had been negotiating a potential exodus for months, would not take them after the Temple had murdered Ryan and four others at a nearby airstrip.^[92] The reason given by Jones to commit suicide was consistent with his previously stated conspiracy theories of intelligence organizations allegedly conspiring against the Temple, that men would "parachute in here on us," "shoot some of our innocent babies" and "they'll torture our children, they'll torture some of our people here, they'll torture our seniors."^[92] Parroting Jones' prior statements that hostile forces would convert captured children to fascism, one temple member states "the ones that they take captured, they're gonna just let them grow up and be dummies."^[92]

Given that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape flavored Flavor Aid (not Kool-Aid despite the popular phrase). However, later released video made to show the best of Jonestown shows Jones opening a storage container full of Kool-Aid in large quantities. This may have been what was used to mix the "potion" (as was referred to in several statements obtained by the FBI in the final tape recordings) along with a sedative.^[92] One member, Christine Miller, dissents toward the beginning of the tape.^[92] When members apparently cried, Jones counseled, "Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are Socialists or Communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity."^[92] Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die," that death is "just stepping over into another plane" and that it's "a friend."^[92] At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."^[92] According to escaping Temple members, children were given the drink first and families were told to lie down together.^[93] Mass suicide had been previously discussed in simulated events called "White Nights" on a regular basis.^[78][94] During at least one such prior White Night, members drank liquid that Jones falsely told them was poison.^[78][94]

Jones was found dead in a deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head that Guyanese coroner Cyrill Mootoo stated was consistent with a self-inflicted gun wound.^[95] However, Jones' son Stephan believes his father may have directed someone else to shoot him.^[96] An autopsy of Jones' body also showed levels of the barbiturate Pentobarbital which may have been lethal to humans who had not developed physiological tolerance.^[97] Jones' drug usage (including LSD and marijuana) was confirmed by his son, Stephan, and Jones' doctor in San Francisco.

Other issues[link]

On December 13, 1973, Jones was arrested and charged with soliciting a man for sex in a movie theater bathroom known for homosexual activity, in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles.^[98] The man was an undercover Los Angeles Police Department vice officer. Jones is on record as later telling his followers that he was "the only true heterosexual", but at least one account exists of his sexual abuse of a male member of his congregation in front of the followers, ostensibly to prove the man's own homosexual tendencies.^[98]

While Jones banned sex among Temple members outside of marriage, he himself voraciously engaged in sexual relations with both male and female Temple members.^[99][100] Jones, however, claimed that he detested engaging in homosexual activity and did so only for the male temple adherents' own good, purportedly to connect them symbolically with him (Jones).^[99]

One of Jones' sources of inspiration was the controversial International Peace Mission movement leader Father Divine.^[101] Jones had borrowed the term "revolutionary suicide"^[102] from Black Panther leader and Peoples Temple supporter Huey Newton who had argued "the slow suicide of life in the ghetto" ought to be replaced by revolutionary struggle that would end only in victory (socialism and self determination) or revolutionary suicide (death).^{[citation needed]}

Family aftermath[link]

Marceline

Jim Jones' wife, Marceline, was found poisoned at the pavilion.^[103] On the final morning of Ryan's visit, Marceline had taken reporters on a tour of Jonestown.^[104]

Stephan, Jim Jr. and Tim Jones

Stephan, Jim Jr., and Tim Jones did not take part in the mass suicide because they were playing with the Peoples Temple basketball team against the Guyanese national team in Georgetown.^[25][102] At the time of events in Jonestown, Stephan and Tim were both nineteen and Jim Jones Jr. was eighteen.^[105] Tim's biological family, the Tuppers, which consisted of his three biological sisters,^{[106][107][108]} biological brother,^[109] and biological mother,^[110] all died at Jonestown. Three days before the tragedy, Stephan Jones refused, over the radio, to comply with an order by his father to return the team to Jonestown for Ryan's visit.^[111]

During the events at Jonestown, Stephan, Tim, and Jim Jones Jr. drove to the American Embassy in Guyana in an attempt to receive help. The Guyanese soldiers guarding the embassy refused to let them in after hearing about the shootings at the Port Kaituma airstrip.^[112] Later, the three returned to the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown to find the bodies of Sharon Amos and her three children.^[112] Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown.^[112] Stephan Jones was accused of being involved in the Georgetown deaths, and was placed in a Guyanese prison for three months.^[112] Tim Jones and Johnny Cobb, another member of the Peoples Temple basketball team, were asked to go to Jonestown and help identify the bodies of people who had died.^[112] After returning to the United States, Jim Jones Jr. was placed under police surveillance for several months while he lived with his older sister, Suzanne, who had previously turned against the Temple.^[112]

When Jonestown was first being established, Stephan Jones had originally avoided two attempts by his father to relocate to the settlement. He eventually moved to Jonestown after a third and final attempt. He has since said that he gave into his father's wishes to move to Jonestown because of his mother.^[113] Stephan Jones is now a businessman, and married with three daughters. He appeared in the documentary Jonestown: Paradise Lost which aired on the History Channel and Discovery Channel. He stated he will not watch the documentary and has never grieved for his father.^[114] Jim Jones Jr., who lost his wife and unborn child at Jonestown, returned to San Francisco. He remarried and has three sons from this marriage,^[102] including Rob Jones, a high-school basketball star who went on to play for the University of San Diego before transferring to Saint Mary's College of California.^[115]

Lew, Agnes and Suzanne Jones

Lew and Agnes Jones both died at Jonestown. Agnes Jones was thirty-five years old at the time of her death.^[116] Her husband^[117] and four children^{[118][119][120][121]} all died at Jonestown. Lew Jones, who was twenty-one years old at the time of his death, died alongside his wife Terry and son Chaeoke.^{[122][123][124]} Stephanie Jones had died at age five in a car accident.^[25]

Suzanne Jones married Mike Cartmell; both turned against the Temple and were not in Jonestown on November 18, 1978. After this decision to abandon the Temple, Jones referred to Suzanne openly as "my goddamned, no good for nothing daughter" and stated that she was not to be trusted.^[125] In a signed note found at the time of her death, Marceline Jones directed that the Jones' funds were to be given to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and specified: "I especially request that none of these are allowed to get into the hands of my adopted daughter, Suzanne Jones Cartmell."^[126] Cartmell had two children and died of colon cancer in November 2006.^[127][128] Found near Marceline Jones' body was a signed and witnessed will leaving all bank accounts "in my name" to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and writing that Suzanne Jones Cartmell should receive no assets.^[129]

John Stoen and Kimo

Specific references to Tim Stoen, the father of John Stoen, including the logistics of possibly murdering him, are made on the Temple's final "death tape," as well as a discussion over whether the Temple should include John Stoen among those committing "revolutionary suicide."^[92] At Jonestown, John Stoen was found poisoned in Jim Jones' cabin.^[130]

Both Jim Jon (Kimo) and his mother, Carolyn Louise Moore Layton, died during the events at Jonestown.^[131]

See also[link]

• Cult suicide
• Doomsday cult
• List of people who have claimed to be Jesus
• List of Buddha claimants

References[link]

Explanatory notes

Citations

Bibliography

• Chidester, David, Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, the People's Temple and Jonestown (Religion in North America), 2nd rev.ed., Indiana University Press, 2004. ISBN 978-0-253-21632-8
• Klineman, George and Sherman Butler. The Cult That Died. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1980. ISBN 0-399-12540-X.
• Layton, Deborah. Seductive Poison. Anchor Books, 1999. ISBN 0-385-48984-6.
• Maaga, Mary McCormick. Hearing the voices of Jonestown. Syracuse University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8156-0515-3.
• Naipaul, Shiva. Black & White. Hamish Hamilton, London, 1980. ISBN 0-241-10337-1.
• Reiterman, Tim and John Jacobs (1982). Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton. ISBN 0-525-24136-1. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jim Jones

• The Jonestown Institute
• FBI No. Q 042 The "Jonestown Death Tape", Recorded 18 November 1978 (Internet Archive)
• Transcript of Jones' final speech, just before the mass suicide
• The first part of a series of articles about Jim Jones published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1972.
• History Channel Video and Stills
• Isaacson, Barry. From Silver Lake to Suicide: One Family's Secret History of the Jonestown Massacre
• Mass Suicide at Jonestown: 30 Years Later, Time magazine
• Jonestown 30 Years Later photo gallery published Friday, October 17, 2008.
• Rapaport, Richard. Jonestown and City Hall slayings eerily linked in time and memory Both events continue to haunt city a quarter century later
• Nakao, Annie.The ghastly Peoples Temple deaths shocked the world. Berkeley Rep takes on the challenge of coming to terms with it.
• American Experience documentary, "Jonestown: The Life And Death Of Peoples Temple", shown on PBS
• Jonestown: 25 Years Later How spiritual journey ended in destruction: Jim Jones led his flock to death in jungle by Michael Taylor, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Published Thursday, November 12, 1998.
• Utopian nightmare Jonestown: What did we learn? Larry D. Hatfield, of The Examiner staff, Gregory Lewis and Eric Brazil of The Examiner staff and Examiner Librarian Judy Canter contributed to this report. Published Sunday, November 8, 1998.
• Jones Captivated S.F.'s Liberal Elite: They were late to discover how cunningly he curried favor by Michael Taylor, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. And [Haunted by Memories of Hell ] by Kevin Fagan, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Published Thursday, November 12, 1998. Both stories were included in the first of a two-part series.
• The End To Innocent Acceptance Of Sects Sharper scrutiny is Jonestown legacy by Don Lattin, San Francisco Chronicle religion writer. And Most Peoples Temple Documents Still Sealed by Michael Taylor and Don Lattin, San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. And Surviving the Heart of Darkness: Twenty years later, Jackie Speier remembers how her companions and rum helped her endure the night of the Jonestown massacre by Maitland Zane, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Published Friday, November 13, 1998. All stories were included in the second part of a two-part series.
• Inside Peoples Temple Marshall Kilduff and Phil Tracy, Used by permission of authors for the San Francisco Chronicle. Published Monday, August 1, 1977.

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (August 2009)

Durrell Mohammad, also known as Hell Rell, is an American rap artist and a member of rap group The Diplomats. In 2007, he signed with Koch Records and began working on his debut album, For the Hell of It. The album reached #5 on both the Billboard Top Independent Albums and Top Rap Albums chart, and #10 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.^[1]

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• 2007: For the Hell of It
• 2008: Black Mask, Black Gloves
• 2009: Get in Line or get Lined Up
• 2009: Hard as Hell

Other Albums[link]

• 2009: Live from Hell
• 2009: Hell Up in the Bronx
• 2010: Yuckface criminal
• 2011: "Back like I left a million"

Collaboration Mixtapes[link]

• 2007: Double Trouble (with J.R. Writer)
• 2009: Year of the Gun (with 40 Cal.)
• 2011: Gun Clap (with J.R. Writer)
• 2011: Guilty by Association (with J. Stalin & Lord Geez)

Solo Mixtapes[link]

• 2005: Streets Wanna Know
• 2006: New Gun in Town
• 2007: Eat with Me or Eat a Box of Bullets
• 2008: Top Gunna: The Ruga Edition
• 2009: Straight Outta Harlem (The Ultimate Uptown Collection)
• 2009: The Extermination: Return to the Grind
• 2010: Bullpen Therapy
• 2010: You need People like Me: The Return of the Black Mask
• 2010: Black Masks Black Gloves: Ruga Edition
• 2011: Million Dollar Dreams Federal Nightmares
• 2011: The Black Cloud

References[link]

External links[link]

• Hell Rell at Billboard
• Hell Rell on Myspace
• Hell Rell interview with hiphopgame.com
• Hell Rell Interivew, Dec 30, 2009

This biographical article related to hip hop music is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

The term black people is used in some socially-based systems of racial classification for humans of a dark-skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups represented in a particular social context. Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class and socio-economic status also play a role, so that relatively dark-skinned people can be classified as white if they fulfill other social criteria of "whiteness" and relatively light-skinned people can be classified as black if they fulfill the social criteria for "blackness" in a particular setting.^[1]

As a biological phenotype being "black" is often associated with the very dark skin colors of some people who are classified as "black". But, particularly in the United States, the racial or ethnic classification also refers to people with all possible kinds of skin pigmentation from the darkest through to the very lightest skin colors, including albinos, if they are believed by others to have African ancestry, or to exhibit cultural traits associated with being "African-American". As a result, in the United States the term "black people" is not an indicator of skin color but of socially based racial classification.^[2]

Some definitions of the term include only people of relatively recent Sub-Saharan African descent (see African diaspora). Among the members of this group, dark skin is most often accompanied by the expression of natural afro-hair texture. Other definitions of the term "black people" extend to other populations characterized by dark skin, sometimes including people indigenous to Oceania.^[3][4]

Physiological traits[link]

Dark skin[link]

Map of indigenous skin color distribution in the world based on Von Luschan's chromatic scale.

The evolution of dark skin is linked intrinsically to the loss of body hair in humans. By 1.2 million years ago, all people having descendants today had the same receptor protein of today's Africans; their skin was dark, and the intense sun lowered the chance of survival of those with lighter skin that resulted from mutational variation in the receptor protein.^[5] This is significantly earlier than the speciation of Homo sapiens from Homo erectus some 250,000 years ago.

Skin cancer as a result of ultraviolet light radiation causing mutations in the skin is less common among people with dark skin than it is among those with light skin.^[6][7] Dark skin prevents an essential B vitamin, folate, from being destroyed. In the absence of modern medicine and diet, a person with dark skin in the tropics would live longer, be healthier and more likely to reproduce than a person with light skin. As evidence of this expectation of adverse effects of light skin in the tropics, White South Africans ^[8] and white Australians have some of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world.^[9]

Conversely, as dark skin prevents sunlight from penetrating the skin, it hinders the production of vitamin D₃. When humans migrated to less sun-intensive regions in the north, low vitamin D₃ levels became a problem, and humans with lighter skin were more successful in reproducing. White people of Europe, who have low levels of melanin, naturally have an almost colorless skin pigmentation, especially when untanned. This low level of pigmentation allows the blood vessels to become visible, which gives the characteristic pale pink color of white people. The loss of melanin in white people is thought to have been caused by a mutation in one letter out of 3.1 billion letters of DNA.^[10]

The genetic mutations leading to light skin, though different among East Asians and Europeans,^[11] suggest the two groups experienced a similar selective pressure due to settlement in northern latitudes.^[12]

Black skin pigmentation has been linked to a number of other properties, including tactile characteristics, and slower and less pronounced development of wrinkles.^[13]

Hair[link]

The texture of hair in people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry is noticeably different from that of European and Asian populations. Herodotus described the peoples of Libya (the "western Ethiopians") as woolly-haired.

Such "afro-hair" texture is denser than its straight counterparts. Due to this, it is often referred to as "coily", "thick", "nappy", "bushy", or "woolly". For several reasons, possibly including its relatively flat cross section (among other factors^[14]), this hair type conveys a dry or matte appearance.^[15][16] Its unique shape renders it prone to breakage when combed or brushed.^[16]

The specific characteristics of the natural afro-hair form are unique among all mammals.^{[clarification needed][dubious – discuss][17]} The texture likely predates the evolution of dark skin. It evolved when, as pre-human australopithecines lost most of their fur to enable perspiration, the need to protect the newly exposed pale skin underneath this body hair was crucial (see^[18] in light of Rogers and others., 2004 and Harding and others., 2000). The trait ceased to be essential to survival at the equator upon the evolution of hairless dark skin. Yet it has continued to be expressed vestigially among most Melanesians, Andaman Islanders, and sub-Saharan Africans.

Sub-Saharan Africa[link]

A black woman and her albino son from Tanzania

Sub-Saharan Africa is a common, if imprecise term that encompasses African countries located south of the Sahara Desert. It is commonly used to differentiate the region culturally, ecologically, politically and, more controversially, racially, from North Africa, which has historically been considered part of the Mediterranean sphere and whose residents are primarily of Arab ethnicity.

Because the indigenous people of this region are primarily dark-skinned, it is alternatively called "Black Africa".^[19] However the terminology Black Africa and Sub-Sahara Africa is considered by some as a pejorative term and a vestige of colonialism, which divided Africa into European terms of homogeneity.^[20] Some criticize the use of the term, because, as it has become in many quarters synonymous with Black Africa, people may not realize that there are also indigenous black populations in North Africa. In addition, the Sahara cuts across countries such as Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Chad, leaving some parts of them in North Africa and some in sub-Saharan Africa.

Some black Africans prefer to be culturally distinguished from those who live in the north of the continent.^[21]

Cultural ideas of a black race[link]

South Africa[link]

A Khoisan man, an ethnic group in South Africa.

In South Africa during the apartheid era, the population was classified into four main racial groups: Black, White, Asian (mostly Indian), and Coloured. The Coloured group included people of mixed Bantu, Khoisan, and European descent (with some Malay ancestry, especially in the Western Cape). The Coloured definition occupied an intermediary position between the Black and White definitions in South Africa.

The apartheid bureaucracy devised complex (and often arbitrary) criteria in the Population Registration Act to determine who belonged in which group. Minor officials administered tests to enforce the classifications. When it was unclear from a person's physical appearance whether a person was to be considered Colored or Black, the "pencil test" was employed. This involved inserting a pencil in a person's hair to determine if the hair was kinky enough for the pencil to get stuck.^[22]

During the apartheid era, those classed as "Coloured" were oppressed and discriminated against. But, they had limited rights and overall had slightly better socioeconomic conditions than those classed as "Black".

In the post-apartheid era, the ANC government's laws in support of their affirmative action policies define "Black" people to include "Africans", "Coloureds" and "Asians". Their affirmative action policies have also favored "Africans" over "Coloureds". Some South Africans categorized as "African Black" openly state that "Coloureds" did not suffer as much as they did during apartheid. The popular saying by "Coloured" South Africans to illustrate their dilemma is:

We were not white enough under apartheid, and we are not black enough under the ANC (African National Congress)

In 2008, the High Court in South Africa ruled that Chinese South Africans who were residents during the apartheid era (and their descendents) are to be reclassified as "Black people" solely for the purposes of accessing affirmative action benefits, because they were also "disadvantaged" by racial discrimination. Chinese people who arrived in the country after the end of apartheid do not qualify.^[23]

Other than by appearance, "Coloureds" can usually be distinguished from "Blacks" by language. Most speak Afrikaans or English as a first language, as opposed to Bantu languages such as Zulu or Xhosa. They also tend to have more European-sounding names than Bantu names.^[24]

In the Middle East[link]

Near East and North Africa[link]

Black African and Near Eastern peoples have interacted since prehistoric times.^[25][26] Some historians estimate that as many as 14 million black slaves were transported across the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert in the Arab slave trade from 650 to 1900 CE.^[27][28] The Moroccan Sultan Moulay Ismail "the Bloodthirsty" (1672–1727) raised a corps of 150,000 black slaves, called his Black Guard, who coerced the country into submission.^[29][30]

13th century slave market in Yemen. Yemen officially abolished slavery in 1962.^[31]

In more recent times, about 1000 CE, interactions between black people and Arabs resulted in the incorporation of extensive Arabic vocabulary into Swahili, which became a useful lingua franca for merchants. Some of this linguistic exchange occurred as part of the slave trade; the history of Islam and slavery shows that the major juristic schools traditionally accepted the institution of slavery.^[32] As a result, Arab influence spread along the east coast of Africa and to some extent into the interior (see Swahili people). Timbuktu was a trading outpost that linked West Africa with Berber, Arab, and Jewish traders throughout the Arab World. As a result of these interactions, some female-mediated gene flow into the Middle East from Sub-Saharan Africa can be observed in certain populations.^[33]

According to Dr. Carlos Moore, resident scholar at Brazil's University of the state of Bahia, Afro-multiracials in the Arab world self-identify in ways that resemble Latin America. He claims that black-looking Arabs, much like black-looking Latin Americans, consider themselves white because they have some distant white ancestry.^[34]

Soldiers of the Free Arabian Legion in Greece, September 1943.

Moore also claims that a film about Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had to be canceled when Sadat discovered that an African-American had been cast to play him. In fact, the 1983 television movie Sadat, starring Louis Gossett, Jr., was not canceled. The Egyptian government refused to let the drama air in Egypt, partially on the grounds of the casting of Gossett.^[35]

Sadat's mother was a dark-skinned Sudanese woman and his father was a lighter-skinned Egyptian. In response to an advertisement for an acting position he remarked, "I am not white but I am not exactly black either. My blackness is tending to reddish".^[36]

Fathia Nkrumah was another Egyptian with ties to Black Africa. She was the late wife of Ghanaian revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah, whose marriage was seen as helping plant the seeds of cooperation between Egypt and other African countries as they struggled for independence from European colonization. This helped advance the formation of the African Union.^[37]

Bashi-bazouk of the Ottoman Empire by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1869

Because of the patriarchal nature of Arab society, Arab men enslaved more black women than men, and used more black female slaves than males. The men interpreted the Qur'an to permit sexual relations between a male master and his female slave outside of marriage,^[38][39] leading to many mixed-race children. When an enslaved woman became pregnant with her Arab master's child, she became umm walad or “mother of a child”, a status that granted her privileged rights. The child was allowed to prosper from the wealth of the father and was given rights of inheritance.^[40] Because the society was patrilineal, the children took their fathers' status at birth and were born free. Some succeeded their fathers as rulers, as was the case with Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur, who ruled Morocco from 1578 to 1608. His mother was a Fulani concubine of his father.

Such tolerance, however, was not extended to wholly black persons, even when technically "free." Arabs commonly believed that blacks were slaves.^[41] The term "abd", (Arabic: عبد‎,) "slave," remains a common term for black people in the Middle East, and, depending on the context, usually though not always derogatory.^[42]

Turkey[link]

Beginning several centuries ago, a number of sub-Saharan Africans were brought by slave traders during the Ottoman Empire to plantations between Antalya and Istanbul in modern-day Turkey.^[43] Some of their descendants remain, mixed with the rest of the population in these areas, and many migrated to larger cities. Some came from the island of Crete following the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923.^[44]

Israel[link]

An African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem child in Dimona.

About 150,000 black people live in Israel, amounting to just over 2% of the nation's population. The vast majority of these, some 120,000, are Beta Israel,^[45] most of whom came during the 1980s and 1990s from Ethiopia.^[46] In addition, Israel is home to over 5,000 members of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem movement, who reside mainly in a distinct neighborhood in the Negev town of Dimona. Unknown numbers of black converts to Judaism reside in Israel, most of them converts from the UK, Canada, and the United States. Thousands of mixed-race individuals with non-black Jewish relatives also live in Israel.

In the Americas[link]

Approximately 12 million Africans were shipped to the Americas during the Atlantic slave trade from 1492 to 1888. Today their descendants number approximately 150 million,^[47] most of whom live in the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America. Most notably Brazil has the largest population in the world, aside from Nigeria, of individuals of at least partial African descent. Many have a multiracial background of African, Amerindian, European and Asian ancestry. The various regions developed complex social conventions with which their multi-ethnic populations were classified.

United States[link]

Harriet Tubman, an African-American abolitionist and conductor of the Underground Railroad.

In the first 200 years that black people were in the United States, they commonly referred to themselves as Africans. In Africa, people primarily identified themselves by ethnic group (closely allied to language) and not by skin color. Individuals would be Ashanti, Igbo, Bakongo or Wolof. But when Africans were brought to the Americas, they were forced to give up their ethnic affiliations when they were combined with other groups from Africa. In areas of the Upper South, different ethnic groups were brought together. This is significant as Africans came from a vast geographic region, the West African coastline stretching from Senegal to Angola and in some cases from the south east coast such as Mozambique. A new identity and culture was born that incorporated elements of the various ethnic groups and of European cultural heritage, resulting in fusions such as the Black church and Black English. This new identity was based on African ancestry and slave status rather than any one ethnic group.^[48]

In March 1807, Britain, which largely controlled the Atlantic, declared the trans-atlantic slave trade illegal, as did the United States. (The latter prohibition took effect January 1, 1808, the earliest date on which Congress had the power to do so under Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution.)

By that time, the majority of black people were U.S.-born, so use of the term "African" became problematic. Though initially a source of pride, many blacks feared the use of African as an identity would be a hindrance to their fight for full citizenship in the US. They also felt that it would give ammunition to those who were advocating repatriating black people back to Africa. In 1835 black leaders called upon black Americans to remove the title of "African" from their institutions and replace it with "Negro" or "Colored American". A few institutions chose to keep their historic names, such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church. "Negro" and "colored" remained the popular terms until the late 1960s.^[49]

The term black was used throughout but not frequently as it carried a certain stigma. In his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech,^[50] Martin Luther King, Jr. uses the terms negro fifteen times and black four times. Each time he uses black it is in parallel construction with white, for example, "black men and white men".^[51]

With the successes of the civil rights movement, a new term was needed to break from the past and help shed the reminders of legalized discrimination. In place of Negro, activists promoted the use of black as standing for racial pride, militancy and power. Some of the turning points included the use of the term "Black Power" by Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael) and the release of James Brown's song "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud".

African-American Michael Jordan, considered by many the greatest basketball player in history.

In 1988 Jesse Jackson urged Americans to use the term African American because the term has a historical cultural base. Since then African-American and black have essentially a coequal status. Controversy continues over which term is more appropriate. Some such as Maulana Karenga and Owen Alik Shahadah argue African-American is more appropriate because it accurately articulates geography and historical origin.^[48] Others have argued that "black" is a better term because "African" suggests foreignness, despite the long presence of black people in the US.^[52] Still others believe the term black is inaccurate because African Americans have a variety of skin tones.^{[citation needed]} Surveys show that the majority of black Americans have no preference for "African American" or "Black,"^[53] although they have a slight preference for "black" in personal settings and "African-American" in more formal settings.^[54] Increases in the number of immigrants to the United States from Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America have brought up questions about who uses the term African-American. The more recent African immigrants may sometimes view themselves, and be viewed, as culturally distinct from native-born people who are descendants of African slaves.^[55]

The U.S. census race definitions says a black is a person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro," or who provide written entries such as African-American, Afro-American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian. However, the Census Bureau notes that these classifications are socio-political constructs and should not be interpreted as scientific or anthropological.^[56]

A black Gl and a Chinese soldier place the flag of their ally on the front of their jeep, truck convoy on the Stilwell Road, Burma, 1945

A considerable portion of the U.S. population identified as black also has some Native American or European ancestry. For instance, genetic studies of African-American people show an ancestry that is on average 17–18% European.^[57]

One-drop rule[link]

Since the late nineteenth century, the South used a colloquial term, the one-drop rule, to classify as black a person of any known African ancestry. This practice of hypodescent was not put into law until the early twentieth century.^[58] Legally the definition varied from state to state, and was more flexible in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before the American Civil War. For instance, Thomas Jefferson held persons who were legally white (less than 25% Black) according to Virginia law at the time, but, because they were born to slave mothers, they were born into slavery, according to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, which Virginia adopted into law in 1662.

Outside of the US, some other countries have adopted the one-drop rule, but the definition of who is black and the extent to which the one-drop "rule" applies varies greatly from country to country.

The one-drop rule may have originated as a means of increasing the number of black slaves^[59] and been maintained as an attempt to keep the white race pure.^[60] One of the results of the one-drop rule was uniting the African-American community.^[58] Some of the most prominent civil-rights activists were multiracial, and advocated equality for all.^{[citation needed]}

Blackness[link]

Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, was throughout his campaign criticized as being either "too black" or "not black enough".^[61][62][63]

The concept of blackness in the United States has been described^{[by whom?]} as the degree to which one associates themselves with mainstream African-American culture and values. To a certain extent, this concept is not so much about race but more about culture and behavior. Blackness can be contrasted with "acting white," where black Americans are said to behave with assumed characteristics of stereotypical white Americans, with regard to fashion, dialect, taste in music,^[64] and possibly, from the perspective of a significant number of black youth, academic achievement.^[65]

The notion of blackness can also be extended to non-black people. Toni Morrison once described Bill Clinton as the first black president,^[66] because of his warm relations with African Americans, his poor upbringing and also because he is a jazz musician. Christopher Hitchens was offended by the notion of Clinton as the first black president noting "we can still define blackness by the following symptoms: alcoholic mothers, under-the-bridge habits...the tendency to sexual predation and shameless perjury about the same". Some black activists were also offended, claiming Clinton used his knowledge of black culture to exploit black people like no other president before^[67] for political gain, while not serving black interests. They note his lack of action during the Rwanda genocide^[68] and his welfare reform which some claim led to the worst child poverty since the 1960s^[69] along with the fact that the number of black people in jail increased during his administration.^[70]

The question of blackness also arose in Democrat Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Commentators have questioned whether Obama, who was elected the first black President of the United States, is black enough, as his mother was white American, and his father was a black Kenyan immigrant.^[61][63] Obama refers to himself interchangeably as black and African-American.^[71] "Is Barack Obama the first black President of the United States?"^[72]

Brazil[link]

The topic of race in Brazil is a complex and diverse one.^{[citation needed]} A Brazilian child was never automatically identified with the racial type of one or both parents, nor were there only two categories to choose from. Between a pure black and a very light mulatto over a dozen racial categories would be recognized in conformity with the combinations of hair color, hair texture, eye color, and skin color. These types grade into each other like the colors of the spectrum, and no one category stands significantly isolated from the rest. That is, race referred to appearance, not heredity.^[73]

Jongo, a Brazilian dance of African origin, c. 1822

There is some disagreement among scholars over the effects of social status on racial classifications in Brazil. It is generally believed that upward mobility and education results in reclassification of individuals into lighter skinned categories. The popular claim is that in Brazil poor whites are considered black and wealthy blacks are considered white. Some scholars disagree arguing that whitening of one's social status may be open to people of mixed race, but a typically black person will consistently be identified as black regardless of wealth or social status.^[74][75] Multiracial persons can even reappreciate their African heritage and start to declare themselves as black persons with increasings of social status and education.

Statistics[link]

From the year 1500 to 1850 an estimated 3.5 million Africans were forcibly shipped to Brazil.^[74] It is estimated that more than half of the Brazilian population is at least in part descendants of these Africans. Brazil has the largest population of Afro-descendants outside of Africa. In contrast to the US there were no segregation or anti-miscegenation laws in Brazil and as a result intermarriage has affected a large majority of the Brazilian population. Even much of the white/Asian population has either African or Amerindian blood. According to the last census of the twentieth century 54% identified themselves as white, 6.2% identified themselves as black and 39.5% identified themselves as Pardo (brown) — a broad multiracial category.^[77]

A philosophy of whitening emerged in Brazil in the nineteenth century. Until recently the government did not keep data on race. However, statisticians estimate that in 1835 half the population was black, one fifth was Pardo (brown) and one fourth white. By 2000 the black population had fallen to only 6.2% and the Pardo had increased to 40% and white to 55%. Essentially most of the black population was absorbed into the multiracial category by intermixing.^[73] A recent study found that at least 29% of the middle class white Brazilian population had some recent African ancestry.^[78]

Race relations in Brazil[link]

Afro-Brazilian women during a Candomblé ceremony.

Because of the ideology of miscegenation, Brazil has avoided the polarization of society into black and white. The bitter and sometimes violent racial tensions that divide the US are notably absent in Brazil. According to the census, 6.7% of Brazilians said they were black, compared with 6.2% in 2000, and 43.1% said they were mixed race, up from 38.5%. According to Brazil's minister for racial equality, Elio Ferreira de Araujo, attributed the change to growing pride among his country's black and indigenous communities.^[79]

However, the philosophy of the racial democracy in Brazil has drawn criticism from some quarters. Brazil has one of the largest gaps in income distribution in the world. The richest 10% of the population earn 28 times the average income of the bottom 40%. The richest 10 percent is almost exclusively white. One-third of the population lives under the poverty line, with blacks and other non-whites accounting for 70 percent of the poor.^[80]

Fruit sellers in Rio de Janeiro c. 1820

In the US, black people earn 75% of what white people earn.^[81] In Brazil, non-whites earn less than 50% of what whites earn. Some have posited that Brazil does in fact practice the one-drop rule when social economic factors are considered. This is because the gap in income between blacks and other non-whites is relatively small compared to the large gap between whites and non-whites. Other factors such as illiteracy and education level show the same patterns.^[82] Unlike in the US where African Americans were united in the civil-rights struggle, in Brazil the philosophy of whitening has helped divide blacks from other non-whites and prevented a more active civil rights movement.

Though Brazilians of African heritage make up a large percentage ^[83] the population there are very few black politicians. The city of Salvador, Bahia, for instance, is 80% Afro-Brazilian but has never had a black mayor. Critics indicate that US cities that have a black majority, such as Detroit and New Orleans, have never had white mayors since first electing black mayors in the 1970s.^[79][84]

Black people in Brazil c. 1821

Non-white people also have limited media visibility. The Latin American media, in particular the Brazilian media, has been accused of hiding its Black, Indigenous, Multiracial and East Asian population. For example the telenovelas or soaps are said to be a hotbed of largely light-eyed white and light-skinned mulattoes and mestizos (often deemed as white persons in Brazil if achieving the middle class or higher social status) actors. Most rare empowered persons of color represented in Latin American media possess typically Caucasian features due to a mix of racist standards of beauty, colourism and lookism. Nevertheless, in the last years, the number of empowered afrodescendants (either economically or by other ways) increased in Brazilian media coverage. Despite Brazil also possessing criminal black man stereotypes, it is considered a huge prejudice and mostly not used in a disordered way by the media, in spite of sometimes common "humouristic" sexist jokes and LGBT stereotyping ^[85] and as such lack of politically correctness in native race issues is not a major problem (there are way more stereotypes of Asian people, Europeans or U.S. Americans, for example).

These patterns of discrimination against non-whites have led some to advocate for the use of the Portuguese term 'negro' to encompass non-whites so as to renew a black consciousness and identity, in effect an African descent rule.^[86] It generates criticism since Pardo, or Brown people, is intended to include caboclos (mestizos), assimilated Amerindians and tri-racials, not only afrodescendants — thus Brazilian of some or no recent African descent, as most White Brazilians, become 60–70% of the population, breaking the argument of possible Brazilian one-drop rule since real noticeable mulattoes, cafuzos (zambos) and black persons are a minority and the Brazilian poor represents larger percents in Brazil. As one would expect from an underdeveloped country, there are pockets of poverty in White-majority and Japanese Brazilian-majority areas, rarer in urban developments but common in rural areas. They are even more common among Mestizo-majority areas, and Amerindian communities.

In Asia and Australasia[link]

Siddi folk dancers performing at Devaliya Naka, Sasan Gir, Gujarat.

China[link]

As of August, 2008, The Migration Information Source article noted that "A Nigerian Embassy spokesman estimated that Nigerians possibly make up the largest group of Black Africans in China, with about 2,000 to 3,000 Nigerians in Guangdong in 2006. Most businessmen only stay temporarily."^[87][88]

An ethnic Ati woman of the Philippines. The Negritos were the earliest inhabitants of Southeast Asia.

India and Southeast Asia[link]

The Great Andamanese are one of five Negrito ethnic groups (Adivasi or tribal) native to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; they are among the first inhabitants of what is now India, arriving over 70,000 years ago. They are facing extinction.^[89] The other four ethnic groups are the Jangil, Jarawa, Onge and Sentinelese. By their external physical appearance (phenotype) such people resemble Black Africans with dark skin and sometimes tightly coiled hair. There have been suggestions of a Black African origin. However, in the case of the Andamanese people, a study conducted by the NCBI indicated that the Andamanese people possessed closer affinities with the Southeast Asian population than with the Black African population.^[90]

In South India there are also several communities of Black African descent, such as the Sheedis/Siddis, specifically the Siddis of Karnataka, who descend from Black African slaves. In Pakistan, these descendants are known as the Makrani.

Other black people of Southeast Asia, collectively known as Negritos, include the Semang peoples of Malaysia, the Mani of Thailand the Aeta of Luzon and the Ati of Panay in the Philippines.^[91]

Melanesia[link]

There are several groups of dark-skinned people who live in various parts of Asia, Australia and Oceania who sometimes are referred to as black people. They include the Indigenous Australians, the Melanesians (now divided into Austronesian-speaking populations and Papuans, and including the great genetic diversity of New Guinea), the Semang people of the Malay peninsula, and indigenous first nation Fijians. They are as genetically, anthropologically and culturally related to Africans only as much as all other non-Africans are related to Africans, and because of this it has been deemed controversial to label them black people in the sense of some relation to the native African peoples and the African diaspora that is not similarly present in other Asian, Oceanic or European populations.

In Europe[link]

Portrait of a black woman, Katherine, in Antwerp, 1521, by Albrecht Dürer.

United Kingdom[link]

According to the Office for National Statistics, as of the 2001 census, there are over a million black people in the United Kingdom; 1% of the total population describe themselves as "Black Caribbean", 0.8% as "Black African", and 0.2% as "Black other".^[92] Britain encouraged the immigration of workers from the Caribbean after World War II; the first symbolic movement was those who came on the ship the Empire Windrush. The preferred official umbrella term is "black and minority ethnic" (BME), but sometimes the term "black" is used on its own, to express unified opposition to racism, as in the Southall Black Sisters, which started with a mainly British Asian constituency, and the National Black Police Association, which has a membership of "African, African-Caribbean and Asian origin".^[93]

France[link]

The pioneering Chadian-French rapper MC Solaar.

While census collection of ethnic background is illegal in France, it is estimated that there are about 2.5 – 5 million black people residing there.^[94][95]

Balkans[link]

Due to the Ottoman slave trade that had flourished in the Balkans, the coastal town of Ulcinj in Montenegro had its own black community.^[96] As a consequence of the slave trade and privateer activity, a considerable number of Ulcinj inhabitants until 1878 were black.^[97] The Ottoman Army also sent an estimated 30,000 Black African troops and cavalrymen to its expedition in Hungary during the Austro-Turkish War of 1716–18.^[98]

Eastern Europe[link]

As African states became independent in the 1960s, the Soviet Union offered many of their citizens the chance to study in Russia. Over a period of 40 years, about 400,000 African students from various countries moved to Russia to pursue higher studies, including many Black Africans.^[99][100] This extended beyond the Soviet Union to many countries of the Eastern bloc.

A cultural classification of people as "black" exists in Russia. Certain groups of people who are ethnically different, and generally darker than ethnic Russians are pejoratively referred to as "blacks" (chernye), and face specific sorts of social exclusion (see Racism in Russia). Roma, Georgians, and Tatars fall into this category.^[101] Those referred to as "black" are from the former Soviet republics, predominantly peoples of the Caucasus, for example, Chechens.^[102] Although "Caucasian" is used in American English to mean "white people", in Russian – and most other varieties of English – it only refers to the Caucasus, not European people in general.

See also[link]

Footnotes[link]