Posts Tagged ‘Black History’

Call for Papers for 2012 Conference Deadline Extended

Black German Cultural Society of New Jersey
2012 Annual Convention

Call For Proposals 2012

Building on the success of the inaugural 2011 conference, the second annual convention of the Black German Cultural Society of New Jersey (BGCSNJ) will be held at Barnard College in New York City on August 10-11, 2012.  This year’s convention will focus on the theme of “What Is the Black German Experience?” The conference will feature a keynote address by Yara Colette Lemke Muniz de Faria, screenings of the films “Hope in My Heart: The May Ayim Story” and “Audre Lorde – The Berlin Years 1984-1992,” and readings by Black German poet-performers Olumide Popoola and Philipp Kabo Köpsell.

In response to recent interest, the BGCSNJ Review Committee has expanded the scope of the conference and invites proposals for papers that engage the diverse histories, experiences and cultural productions of Blacks of German heritage and blackness in Germany and Europe more broadly. We welcome submissions for twenty-minute presentations on three academic panels. Additionally, two panels will be devoted to life writing, oral history and memoir. These two panels will provide a forum for the work of collecting individual accounts and reflections, as well as raising awareness on the overlooked life histories of blacks of Germany heritage and blackness in a wider European context.

We encourage submissions from both academics of all disciplines, as well as non-academics interested in sharing their work.. To participate please send a one-page abstract and a CV or short biographical statement to: bgcsinc@gmail.com. Deadline for proposals: April 15, 2012

 

Toxi: Film Now Available for Purchase

Synopsis:

Toxi

A five-year-old girl suddenly appears on the doorstep of a well-to-do Hamburg family. The members of the multi-generational, white household react differently to the arrival of Toxi, who is black, the daughter of an African-American G.I. and a white German woman who has died. Eventually Toxi works her way into the hearts of this German family, but then her father returns, hoping to take Toxi back to America with him.

At the time of the film’s release in 1952, there were between 3,000 and 5,000 children of Allied paternity born since WWII living in West Germany. Toxi was the first feature-length film to explore the subject of “black occupation children” in postwar Germany and premiered when the first generation of these children began entering German schools, creating a public awareness of this situation. Robert A. Stemmle, one of the most popular West German directors and known for his unique blend of social realism and melodrama, brought together an exceptionally renowned set of classic German actors with diverse experiences of the Nazi era, including Paul Bildt, Johanna Hofer and Elisabeth Flickenschildt.

PURCHASE ONLINE AT DEFA

 

First Annual Convention Report & Keynote Lecture

Noah Sow

We are tremendously grateful to Priscilla Layne, S. Marina Jones and Noah Sow for providing us with a formal conference report of the First Annual Convention and the complete text of the keynote lecture.

Our inaugural convention was a great success and we are currently very busy making arrangements for the Second Annual Convention. Please stay tuned for details. We promise not to disappoint.

Thank you again for all who were in attendance and supported us in this endeavor. We look forward to seeing all of you again soon! Plan to bring a friend.

DOWNLOAD FULL  CONVENTION REPORT

VIDEO: NOAH’S KEYNOTE LECTURE

CONVENTION 2011 WEBSITE

 

Witnessed… the Series!

Find out how you can support and be part of this important project HERE!

 

GO-BAMA: Between Hope & Dreams

 

Ich lass mich nicht verjagen!” – Farbige Deutsche und ihre schwierige Heimat

 

YES I AM!

 

Afro-Auschwitz/Buchenwald

 

Africans Fought for Kaiser and Germany in World War I

Black Soldier who fought for Germany in WWI

German African askaris served nobly under General von Lettow-Vorbeck in German East Africa during WWI. Africans also served in the Kaiser’s Army in Europe.

The Colonial Army (Schutztruppe) of the German Empire employed native troops–called askaris–led by German officers and NCOs. The highest concentration of such locally recruited troops was in German East Africa (now Tanzania). The first askaris in German East Africa were organized by the German East Africa Company around 1888. It was during the First World War, however, that the Askaris became the pride of the short-lived German empire.

Askaris were harshly disciplined and well paid

Harshly disciplined–as were all German troops of that time–and well paid–askaris received double the pay of their British counterparts in the King’s African Rifles, and received specialized training from German officers who were themselves subject to an extremely rigorous selection process. Before the onset of war in 1914, the basic Schutztruppe unit in Southeast Africa was the feldkompagnie comprised of seven or eight German officers and NCOs with around 160 askaris, including two machine gun teams. Such small independent commands were often supplemented by tribal irregulars or ruga-ruga.

The well-trained askaris in German East Africa commanded by Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck managed to resist numerically superior British, Portuguese and Belgian colonial forces from 1914 until the end of World War I in 1918.

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and his askaris‘ exploits in Africa during World War I

General von Lettow-Vorbeck is possibly the most successful guerrilla commander in military history. He and his native askaris are famous for their exploits in German East Africa during World War I. Lettow-Vorbeck was fluent in Swahili, which earned the respect and admiration of his African soldiers. Appointing black officers, he said with conviction, “we are all Africans here.” Lettow-Vorbeck greatly admired his askaris, who displayed a fanatic loyalty in return. He treated them with fairness and shared their hardships.

Read more at Suite101: Africans Fought for Kaiser and Germany in World War I

 

Hitler’s Forgotten Holocaust Victims

Afro German girl in the 1930s

Like many West European nations, Germany established colonies in Africa in the late 1800s in what later became Togo, Cameroon, Namibia, and Tanzania.

German genetic experiments began there, most notably involving prisoners taken from the 1904 Heroro Massacre that left 60,000 Africans dead, following a 4-year revolt against German colonisation. After the crushing defeat Germany received in World War I, it was stripped of its African colonies in 1918.

As a spoil of war, the French were allowed to occupy Germany in the Rhineland – a bitter fought piece of land that has gone back and forth between the two nations for centuries. The French willfully deployed their own colonised African soldiers as the occupying force.

Germans viewed this as the final insult of World War I, and, soon thereafter, 92% of them voted in the Nazi party.

Hundreds of the African Rhineland-based soldiers intermarried with German women and raised their children as Black Germans. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote about his plans for these “Rhineland Bastards”. When he came to power, one of his first directives was aimed at these mixed-race children.

Underscoring Hitler’s obsession with racial purity, by 1937, every identified mixed-race child in the Rhineland had been forcibly sterilized, in order to prevent further “race polluting”, as Hitler termed it. Read Full Article Here…

 

Black Women in Europe: Power List 2010

Black Women in Europe: Power List 2010

For Further Details Visit:

Black Women in Europe™ Blog

Other Sites of Interest:

BlackExpat.com

Women of the African Diaspora

 

AFRO Deutsch; Afro German 4 BEGINNERS


 

Thomas Usleber

Portrait von Thomas Usleber

»Kultur darf nicht auf die Sprache oder die Religion reduziert werden, denn dadurch wird nur das Trennende hervorgehoben.«

»Ich bin ein Deutscher. Bin ich es? Woran wird „Deutschsein“ erkennbar? Woran erkennen Menschen, dass ein anderer ein Deutscher ist oder eben keiner? Am Pass? An der Sprache? Am Namen? Am Aussehen?«

Mit seinen autobiografischen Aufzeichnungen »Die Farben unter meiner Haut« meldete sich 2002 erstmals ein schwarzer, deutscher Mann zu Wort. Der 1960 geborene Thomas Usleber erzählt vom Aufwachsen in der westdeutschen Provinz, wo er mit seiner weißen Mutter und einem schwarzen Bruder lebte. Auch wenn Rassismus seine Erfahrung von Ausgrenzung am stärksten prägt, gesellt sich bei ihm noch ein weiterer Aspekt dazu: Die Armut seiner Familie. […] Usleber arrangiert sich damit, als Schwarzer nicht deutsch sein zu können. Um dennoch in einer Gesellschaft (über)leben zu können, die ihn offensichtlich ausgrenzt, wählt er die Strategie der Assimilation, nimmt die Rolle des Vermittlers ein und leistet Bewusstseinsarbeit in der Mehrheitsgesellschaft, um “Toleranz” für nicht-weiße Deutsche oder anderweitig Ausgegrenzte zu schaffen. © Ekpenyong Ani

In seinem Buch zeichnet Usleber die erschütternde Geschichte eines Deutschen auf, der im eigenen Land als Fremder gesehen wird, aber mit Konsequenz und einem unbeirrbaren Glauben dokumentiert, dass nicht die Hautfarbe eines Menschen entscheidend ist, sondern seine Willenskraft und individuelle Persönlichkeit. AUDIO & MEHR….

 

Jamal Makes A BIG Decision!

 

Book Review & Synopsis: A Breath of Freedom: The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany

“By honoring the service of African American soldiers and their families, this powerful and comprehensive book successfully shines a spotlight on the historic intersection between the struggle against Nazism and the emergence of the civil rights movement in the United States. Honest and straightforward in describing the circumstances under which these GIs volunteered to serve, Höhn and Klimke meticulously document their sacrifices and contributions at a pivotal time in history. Acknowledging the present day challenges that remain with respect to racial prejudice and discrimination on both sides of the Atlantic, the book is an important reference and required reading for students, scholars, and the many veterans and families who share their personal experiences.”—Rosemarie Peña, President, Black German Cultural Society.

Synopsis:

Based on the award-winning international research project and photo exhibition “The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany” (www.aacvr-germany.org), this poignant and beautifully illustrated book examines the experiences of African American GIs in Germany and the unique insights they provide into the civil rights struggle at home and abroad. Thanks in large part to its military occupation of Germany after World War II, America?s unresolved civil rights agenda was exposed to worldwide scrutiny as never before.

At the same time, the ambitious U.S. efforts to democratize German society after the defeat of Nazism meant that West Germany encountered American ideas of freedom and democracy to a much larger degree than many other countries. As African American GIs became increasingly politicized, they took on a particular significance for the Civil Rights Movement in light of Germany?s central role in the Cold War. While the effects of the Civil Rights Movement reverberated across the globe, Germany represents a special case that illuminates a remarkable period in American and world history.

The book is based on a joint research initiative of the German Historical Institute, Vassar College, and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies at the University of Heidelberg, which has been honored by the NAACP in 2009 with the Julius E. Williams Distinguished Community Service Award.

MARIA HÖHN teaches German History at Vassar College, USA and is an established scholar of the American military presence in Germany.

MARTIN KLIMKE is a research fellow at the German Historical Institute (GHI), Washington, DC and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA) at the University of Heidelberg.

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