joneson/dead bird site survivor.

Color photograph of bell hooks sitting on a red couch in a warmly lit home, holding a book and smiling gently at the camera. Below the image is a red textured banner with the quote, “What we do is more important than what we say or what we say we believe.” — bell hooks.

bell hooks taught that justice is not an idea you admire. It is a practice you live.

Writer. Scholar. Cultural critic who reshaped how we understand feminism, love, power, and liberation.

Her work still confronts us today. Our actions are the truth.

Black History. Always. 🖤

#SheShed #V4V

🤬

#ONEV1
#Pinks 🌸
#Voices4Victory

🚨🚨🚨 THIS IS NOT NORMAL 🚨🚨🚨

The people pictured here, in Dunlap, Kansas, were probably born enslaved in Tennessee and moved to Kansas because of Pap Singleton. Photo credit: Kansas Historical Society.

Side note: The Exodus of 1879 drained the South of a cheap, compliant labor force and highly skilled workers. It was economically devastating. Some whites sought to curb the exodus by offering better labor contracts, but many responded by further oppressing the remaining African Americans.

Map showing some of the cities and towns in Kansas and Oklahoma where the Exodusters settled. Image credit: Atlas of African American History.

The Exodus of 1879 was the first major general migration of Black people following the Civil War and the end of Reconstruction. The movement set the stage for the Great Migration of the early 20th century and established independent Black communities in Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado. /end

An early photo of Nicodemus, Kan.

The first Kindergarten in Tennessee Town, Kan. Today it is a historic, primarily residential neighborhood in Topeka. Photo credit: Kansas Historical Society.

The Exodusters were largely composed of individuals seeking to own land, establish businesses and educate their children. While some struggled as farmers, others found success in urban centers like Topeka. Nicodemus, Kan., became the most successful all-Black town established by Exodusters. /7

Refugees on Levee, 1897. "Exodusters waiting for a steamboat to carry them westward in the late 1870s." Photo credit: Carroll's Art Gallery. Photomural from gelatin-silver print Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

Many arrived destitute and faced harsh Great Plains winters, unsuitable land and racial prejudice from white settlers. The exodus also included many of the most skilled and experienced farmers, agricultural workers and laborers, along with activists and ministers who advocated for Black rights. /6

Benjamin “Pap” Singleton. He was born into slavery in Middle Tennessee in 1809 and escaped to the North when he was 37 years old. He returned to Tennessee and went to work as a cabinet and coffin maker. By the mid-1870s, he became convinced that black people would never receive fair treatment in the South.

Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, a formerly enslaved man known as the “Father of the Exodus,” promoted Kansas as a “holy land” due to its history and association with abolitionist John Brown. Between 1870 and 1880, the Black population in Kansas jumped from approximately 16,250 to more than 43,000. /5

"Ho For Kansas!" handbill announcing that the Real Estate and Homestead Association planned to leave Nashville, Tenn., on April 15, 1878, and head for Kansas. The handbill gives the name and address of Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, a formerly enslaved man who was the biggest booster of the westward migration. Image credit: Historic American Building Survey Field Records, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

The term “Exodusters” was inspired by the biblical Book of Exodus, where Moses leads the Israelites out of slavery. Roughly 25,000 to 40,000 migrants took heed and moved west during the “Great Exodus,” attracted by the Homestead Act of 1862, which offered 160 acres of public land to settlers. /4

Sharecropper tilling a field in Montgomery County, Alabama, in 1937.

The Black Codes were particularly oppressive. Passed immediately after the Civil War, these laws restricted the freedom of African Americans and forced them into slavery-like conditions. They maintained white supremacy by limiting Black rights, restricting mobility and requiring labor contracts. /3

Illustration in the May 1, 1881, issue of Harper's Weekly depicting the Exodusters with an inset showing an enslaved person wading though a swamp in his quest for freedom. The caption reads: "The Negro Exodus - the Old Style and the New."

African Americans who had gained their freedom after the Civil War found themselves in a new sort of bondage created by Jim Crow laws, economic oppression and racial violence. Freedmen moved west to escape the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the White League, sharecropping and debt peonage. /2

These four people moved from Tennessee to Kansas as part of the Exodusters movement. Photo credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.

#ResistanceRoots
#BlackHistoryMonth

In 1879, tens of thousands of African Americans moved from the South to the West, primarily Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado. The “Exodusters” sought safety, voting rights and land, viewing Kansas as a promised land due to its history as a free state. /1

YouTube video by LBC Instant reaction: Ayatollah of Iran killed in bombings, say Israel

🚨 Israel and the US launched 'coordinated' strikes on Iran - as the Iranian regime countered with retaliatory strikes across the Middle East.

@simonmarksfsn.bsky.social joins @natashadevon.bsky.social on @lbc.co.uk.
youtu.be/9PmApxj7MLc?...

Putin fears another coup as Russia finally begins to buckle Panic in the Kremlin as it runs out of cards to play just as Trump turns the screws

‼️ 'According to the FSB, the committee, which was created to oppose Russia’s war in Ukraine (Russian Anti-War Committee), is vying for “the violent seizure of power and overthrow of the constitutional order in the Russian Federation”.'

Lies of course.
Gift link: www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a877885...

Mikhail Khodorkovsky: How Do You Slay a Dragon? - Mikhail Khodorkovsky “When regime change becomes possible, the country will need a …

‼️ “When regime change becomes possible, the country will need a ready-made plan of action. In my book How Do You Slay a Dragon? I offer this plan – a detailed breakdown of the steps that can lead us to that bright future.”
khodorkovsky.com/resources/mi...

Screenshot of The Telegraph Mikhail Khodorkovsky Putin’s time is nearly up Russian dictators don’t last long past the incumbent’s age of 73. Whether by age, incapacitation or insurrection, he will soon be gone

‼️ 'What he and his cronies are worried about now, is that the anti-war Russians in exile are getting united and are seen by the Western powers as legitimate alternative to Putin’s regime.'

How to Slay a Dragon - a political manifesto @khodorkovsky.com
Gift link: www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a69c12c...

Candidate Bio - Rebecca Bennett — Leadership Now Project

Uniter
Roxbury is “represented” by ICE-supporting Billionaire Sycophant Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R NJ-07)

We deserve Navy/Air Force vet @rebeccabennettforcongress.com to fight to keep out DHS Forever Detention Camp out of #NJ7.

Let’s go, Rebecca Bennett!
www.leadershipnowproject.org/candidate-bi...

Screenshot of The Telegraph ‘This is a very dangerous moment for Putin’: ex-Army chief Former head of the British Army says Russia is facing ‘huge’ pressure on fourth anniversary of full-scale Ukraine invasion

‼️ Vladimir Putin is facing a potentially extremely “dangerous moment” amid a perfect storm of sanctions, economic headwinds and growing battlefield losses.

Gift link:
www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/9108fcf...

That’s wonderful!

Screenshot of The Telegraph The kill ratio that can sink Putin’s war Four years on, Moscow’s loss of 40,000 soldiers a month may yet force the Kremlin to settle for less Photo caption- In the bloodiest sections around Pokrovsk, Kyiv’s army is eliminating 25 Russians for each comrade they loseCredit: AFP

‼️ “Objectively, it’s pure mathematics,” explains the chief of staff of the Dovbush Hornets, a drone battalion in the 68th Infantry Brigade. Russia cannot sustain an invasion at this rate.

Gift link: www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/dc41992...

Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is killed in Israeli strike, ending 36-year iron rule — NPR Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's second supreme leader, has been killed. He had held power since 1989, guiding Iran through difficult times — and overseeing the violent suppression of dissent.

Appears to be true.

Live updates: Iran’s supreme leader killed in strike, Israeli officials say The U.S. military hit Iran’s missile sites, air defense systems, and command and control centers for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran’s main intelligence agency was targeted, an official sa...

Iran's leader has apparently been killed in the strikes.
They WILL retaliate.
Waiting for the fatwa...
#USDemocracy #Voices4Victory

Integrity Index F rating for Thomas Kean Jr (R) in NJ 7th District.

Divider
Gottheimer used to be my Congressman

Now I’m represented by an even worse F thanks to NJ gerrymandering.

Divider
@waltermasterson.bsky.social: “AIPAC took a candidate that was mildly critical of Benjamin Netanyahu and wound up electing a candidate who is fiercely critical of Israel.

“Amazing job, AIPAC! Please do this through the Midterms.”
#DV1 #ResistanceUnited #ProudBlue #Voices4Victory

Relax and enjoy

#Caturday

Our first in a while without new snow

At 45° 😻

In Congress, GOP leaders support Trump strikes on Iran but Democrats seek vote — USA TODAY Congress divided along party lines to the strikes on Iran, with Republicans largely supporting Trump and Democrats calling for an authorization vote.

I remember Trump’s promise not to start any wars. So far he has: -bombed boats claiming they were drug transporters
-attacked Venezuela
-choked off Cuba
-supported Putin
-attacked Iran after he killed the nuclear deal
There are more wars now than before.
#ProudBlue#Voices4Victory
#OneV1
apple.news

A lawless country.

Call Congress NOW! All this is done in our name, on our dime, by our family & community members--making them war criminals.

Congress must end this NOW!

THE CONSTITUTION IS NOT A SUGGESTION!

(202) 224-3121
5calls.org
@resist.bot

#Voices4Victory
#usDemocracy

Attacks on Iran are being carried out without Congressional authorization, or even their knowledge.
Stop Trump NOW.He is a war criminal.
#USDemocracy #Voices4Victory

Retaliatory attack on Israel, by Iran.
Great job, MAGA. What did you think would happen?
Not to mention that the US involvement was without the knowledge or approval of Congress.
#USDemocracy #Voices4Victory

#BlueskyResistance #Voices4Victory #ProudBlue
Hey, Iranian hackers:
Stop VOWING to release videos of trump with minors.
DO IT already.
He has committed our country to a war that neither Congress nor the American People authorized.

DO. IT.