Justice For All

Instead of a call for assimilation or acclimation, we would rather acknowledge the unique differences that make us who we are. FOLLOW US! Justiceforall36 is on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram

[writingaboutmyrapists]

Say Her Name

Korryn Gaines

Renisha McBride

Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones

Miriam Carey

Messy Mya

Sandra Bland

Shelly Frey

Shelley Amos

Cheryl Blount-Burton

Dawn Cameron

Sandra Bee Wilson

Juliette Alexander

Alberta Spruill

Latanya Haggerty

Annette Green

Lenties White

Tameka Evette Anthony

Octavia Suydan

Andrena Kitt

Marcella Byrd

Emma Mae Horton

Angel Chiwengo

Guanda Denise Turner

Andrea Nicole Reedy

U’Kendra Johnson

Annie Holiday

Shonda Mikelson

LaVeta Jackson

Mary Williams

Tesha Reena Collins

Darneisha Harris

Nuwnah Laroche

Clanesha Rayuna Shaqwanda Hickmon

Ciara Lee

Dijon Senay Jackson

Denise Michelle Washinton

Keara Crowder

Tyra Hunter

Clara Fay Morris

Stacey Blount

Tanisha Anderson

Gabriella Monique Nevarez

Keisha Redding

Kendra Diggs

Laquisha Turner

Keoshia L. Hill

Kindra Chapman

Audwyn Fitzgerald Ball

Rosette Samuel

Makiah Jackson

Demetria Dorsey

Jameela Yasmeen Arshad

Joyce Quaweay

Mariah Woods

Jameela Cecila Barnette

Raynetta Turner

Bianca Davis

Patricia Hartley

Martha Regina Donald

Eulia Love

Sophia King

Joyce Curnell

Redel Jones

Tessa “Teesee” Hardeman

Tamara Seidle

Alicia Griffin

Shulena Weldon

Gina Rosario

Remedy Smith

Emily Marie Delafield

Jacqueline Culp

Delois Epps

Jacqueline Nichols

Queniya Tykia Shelton

Latoya Smith

Jacqueline Reynolds

Makayla Ross

LaTricka Sloan

Ralkina Jones

Elaine Coleman

Iretha Lilly

Gynnya McMillen

Malissa Williams

Janisha Fonville

Mya Hall

Patricia Thompson

Michelle Cusseaux

Janet Wilson

Latandra Ellington

Aubrey Zoe Brown

Terry Pittman

Carulus Hines

Lana Morris

Dominique Hurtt

Michelle “Vash” Payne

Tiffini Kuuipo Tobe

Yvette Henderson

Yuvette Henderson

Tameka Huston

Leronda Sweatt

Kisha Michael

Portia Southern

Kisha Arrone

Jessica Williams

Jessica Nelson-Williams

Vernicia Woodward

Alexia Christian

Tyisha Miller

Kourtney Hahn

Lamia Beard

Perlie Golden

Megan Holladay

Tarkia Wilson

Deshanda “Ta-Ta” Sanchez

Sharon Rebecca McDowell

Ricky Shawatza Hall

Glenda Moore

Danette Daniels

Shontel Edwards

Sharmel Edwards

Lashonda Ruth Belk

Zoraida Reyes

Islan Nettles

Avra Rosser

Natasha Renee Osby

Kathryn Johnson

Rekha Kalawattie Budhai

Natasha McKenna

Shontel Davis

Nizah Morris

Duanna Johnson

Asia Roundtree

Darnisha Harris

Shereese Francis

Alesia Thomas

Tracy A. Wade

Yvette Smith

Lnaaar Edwards

Gabrielle Lane

Varez Michelle Cusseaux

Taneisha Anderson

Aura Rosser

Raynette Turner

Tarika Wilson

Eleanor Bumpurs

Kendra James

Ahjah Dixon

Shantel Davis

Alberta Pruill

Marjorie Domingue

Bessie Louise Stovall

Margaret Mitchell

Darnesha Harris

Frankie Perkins

Monique Deckard

Kayla Moore

Queonna Zophia Edmonds

Sheneque Proctor

Kyam Livingston

Wanda Jean Allen

Kimberly McCarthy

Meagan Hockaday

Litvishma Millerr

Summer Marie Lane

Antoinette Griffin

Desseria Whitmore

Adebusola Tairu

Erica Stevenson

Halley Simone Lee

Erika Tyrone or Erica Rhena Tyrone

Lanaka Lucas

Breeonna Mobley

Antonia Martines Lagares

Delicia C. Myers

Tameika Carter

Dana Larkin

Kassandra Perkins

Rekia Boyd

Stacey Wright

Dorothy Smith Wright

BreeAnne Green

Adaisha Miller

Bettie Jones

Catrell Ford

India Kager

Deresha Armstrong

Chanda White (Pickney)

Sahlah Ridgeway

Marlene Rivera

Lashondria Rice

Brandy Martell

Marquesha McMillan

India Beaty

Chandra Weaver

Teikeia Dorsey

Deanna Cook Patrick

Ashley Sinclair

Zella Ziona

Tiara Thomas

Papi Edwards

India Clarke

Constance Graham

Shade Schurer

Erica Collins

Rosann Miller

Lonfon Chanel

Sonji Taylor

Malaika Brooks

Ashton O’Hara

Vida DeShondrell Byrd

Maria Tripp

Eveline Barros-Cepeda

Rosa Flores Lopez

Sarah Ann Riggins

Ty Underwood

Yazmin Vash Payne

Kandis Capri

Elisha Walker

Keonna Redmond

Rikessa La’Shae Lee

Charquissa Johnson

Fatou-Mata Ntiamoah

MOVE bombing victims

Kristina Grant Infiniti

Ariel Levy

Yolanda Thomas

Marquita Bosley

Barbara Lassere

Taja Gabrielle DeJesus

Tamara Dominguez

Vionique Valnord

Linda Yancey

Penny Proud

Amber Monroe

Brianna Elaine Carmina Ford

Kendrinka T. Williams

Arabella Bradford

Loretta Gerard

Hanna Abukar

Talana Salissa Cain

Diane Kemp

Amber Nashay Carter

Pearlie Golden

Brenda Williams

Catawaba Tequila Howard

Beverly Kirk

Tamu Malika Bouldin

Denise Gay

Anita Gay

Laura Felder

Alice Faye DeFlanders Clausell

Uteva Monique Woods Wilson

Mrnell Robertson Villarreal

K.C. Haggard

Derrinesha Clay

Milinda Clark

Angela Beatrice Randolph

Denise Nicole Glasco

Mercedes Williamson

Dominique Battle

Demetra Boyd

Francine Sonnier

Angelique Styles

Linda Joyce Friday

Shari Bethel Cartmell

Ashaunti Butler

Laniya Miller

[86thatshit]

I was scrolling and expected the names to stop….but they just kept going…and going…

[goodluckrob-deactivated20221110]

Exactly why it needs to be reblogged. Shit is crazy.

[rock2106]

😢 All I can say is the senseless, needless, racial based, profiled killing needs to STOP. 😡

[fooledmethric3]

And all the other ones who are unknown.

[audrey-hepbae]

A reminder that the “Say her name” slogan is for Black women victims.

[feedsfairy]

SOLANGE / ALMEDA

[odinsblog]

Vincent Winslow, a black man, sold $20 of marijuana and received life imprisonment with hard labor, without the possibility of parole.

Paul Manifort, a wealthy white man, guilty of $55 million dollars worth of fraud, who repeatedly perjured himself, and lied to Congress, was sentenced to only 47 months.

“Paul Manafort’s lenient 4-year sentence — far below the recommended 20 years despite extensive felonies and post-conviction obstruction — is a reminder of the blatant inequities in our justice system that we all know about, because they reoccur every week in courts across America.”

[yayfeminism]

source

[thechanelmuse]

Empire

So Jamal Lyon was strolling down a Chicago street on January 29, 2019 at 2 a.m. to get a Subway sandwich only to find himself being brutally attacked by two white men in ski masks who tossed a white, noose-like clothesline rope around his neck, cracked his ribs, and poured bleach on him from a hot sauce bootle while declaring, “This is MAGA country, you f-ggot Empire n-gger!” The hate crime news took the world by storm. Many sent love Jamal’s way and started public discussions. Luscious and Cookie broke their silence and showed support for their son. Cookie took to her social media and told supporters to stream her baby’s song, “FUW,” and make it go triple platinum for its strong message in that timely moment. 

“And scene.”

The plot began to thicken like roux. 

Jamal released a photo from his hospital bed to let everyone know that he was fine. Social media began to show skepticism after learning about Jamal’s few facial scratches and Chicago’s bone-chilling, polar vortex weather making it colder than Antartica, Alaska, and the North Pole. Street meat, catfish, tinder, homeless, gay lover feud rumors began to run rampant on social media. Jamal won’t turn over his phone to the authorities to corroborate his story. There’s no surveillance evidence that backs up Jamal’s story. 

Is Jamal lying? Where are the attackers? Is Subway open at 2 am? Will this tarnish the Lyon legacy? Find out next week on Empire.

Jamal Lyon has finally broke his silence by doing a one-on-one interview with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts, giving a timeline of the situation he experienced that late, frigid morning. The story changed. Turns out Jamal was actually on his way to Walgreens while talking to his manager on the phone when he was attacked by one man and kicked by another causing a tussle by icy stairs as one tossed the noose around his neck and the other poured bleach on him. “I know what bleach smells like!” 

The plot gets peanut butter thick. 

After the attack, Jamal walked back to his home, waited for the police to arrive with the noose-like rope still around his neck, filed a police report, drove himself to and from the hospital, and delivered a high energy, dance-filled performance for his fans a few days later despite his bruised ribs and clavicle bone injury. Viewers took to social media. Where is the video evidence? Is it all a hoax to promote Empire and Jamal’s music? Where is Hakeem and Andre? Why did Jamal give investigators a condensed phone record? Is he hiding something? The police released a message: “While we haven’t found any video documenting the alleged attack, there is also no evidence to say that this is a hoax.“ Authorities are still hard at work to discover the truth and feel they have finally made a crack in the case with two persons of interest. Cliffhanger.

The authorities have arrested two Nigerian brothers—Black actors hired by Lee Daniels and affiliated with Empire who workout with Jamal—as the noose tossing, bleach pouring, MAGA, racial and homophobic hate crime attackers. 

If this ain’t the most annoying ass, janky ass, dumb ass Empire storyline…

[swxxp]

Didn’t he say during the performance that Frank Gatson drove him to the hospital?

[thechanelmuse]

Shit. You right. Them Lee Daniels montages be fast.

Let’s rewind a bit.

Frank Gatson had a few cameos. HE was the one who was on the phone with Jamal the whole time during the racial, homophobic tussling attack and met up with Jamal in Jamal’s apartment shortly after and advised Jamal, who still had the noose-like clothesline rope around his neck, to call the police before Jamal AND Frank drove Jamal to the hospital in a student driver car with two steering wheels.

At least that part makes sense.

[thechanelmuse]

In a recent turn of events, it appears that the plot is now thicker than a bowl of oatmeal.

After two days of interrogation, the police released the two Nigerian brothers without filing charges. They are still thumbtacking scenarios to their board trying to piece together whether the racial, homophobic hate crime attack against Jamal is linked to the ”You will die, black f-g” MAGA letter that was dropped off at Empire headquarters by a postal worker the same day as the attack. All of the goose chase information that Jamal’s provided for the police doesn’t appear to add up to them and now they plan to bring Jamal in for questioning.

Authorities are beginning to wonder if this was all a scheme that Jamal set up for the ski mask wearing Nigerian brothers to engage in the tussle with him by icy stairs in below 19 degrees polar vortex weather while they were prompted when to toss the noose-like clothesline rope around Jamal’s neck and pour bleach on Jamal from a hot sauce bottle simply to promote Jamal’s upcoming album set to drop in March and elevate the Lyon legacy.

Are there more twists to come? Did Jamal himself mail the envelope as same day delivery to Empire headquarters in between his route to the hospital for his minor facial bruises? Will it finally all end with Jamal in handcuffs? Does Cookie have a plan to save her baby?

Find out next season on Empire.

[thechanelmuse]

Dammit man. I keep missing the little details 🙄. The two Nigerian brothers were released from custody after they informed police that they were paid $3500 by Jamal to perform the Jamal orchestrated attack before leaving for Nigeria and were promised an additional $500 upon their return. The brothers were the ones who purchased the clothesline rope. Were they the ones who also purchased the bleach and poured it into a hot sauce bottle or was it done by Jamal himself? 🤔

[cherimarshall]

what. the hell.

[thechanelmuse]

Chiiile. Don’t even try to make sense of it. It’s the most outlandish, confusing, disturbing, entertaining, heavily-detailed rollercoaster of a story ever. I wonder what the next scene will be.

[thechanelmuse]

Jamal Lyon is somewhere currently rewatching that restaurant scene from Four Brothers wondering where he went wrong:

“Out-of-town shooters. That’s what l said. l remember hearing myself saying, ‘Out-of-town shooters.’ You know what? You don’t pay a ho to fuck you. You pay her to leave. What you pay out-of-town shooters to do? You pay them to get the hell back out of town. That’s why l asked for out-of-town shooters. What’d l get? ln-town shooters. Someone decided to hire in-town shooters. You know what else l got for my money? ln-town police. ln-town trouble.”

Jamal hired out-of-town workers who wanted to stay in town.

[thechanelmuse]

And the rollercoaster continues. 

I’ve been mentally trying to piece together the truth about this whole shit show. Since Lee Daniels is a filmmaker who strays away from well-thought out, complex storylines in favor of weak, predictable ones, I figured that the fake hate crime attack was a simple plan that was executed sloppily. They prob didn’t even rehearse the shit that much. 

Here’s my assumption:

People Involved: 

Lee Daniels is the mastermind behind the scheme. Jussie, Jussie’s manager, Abimbola “Abel” Osundairo and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundair—the two Nigerian brothers, who were extras on Empire—are co-conspirators. Ola is the one, who is pictured with Lee Daniels as an extra on the set of Empire. Abel, the one in the hoodie, is Jussie’s trainer.

Jussie gave the brothers money to purchase the rope. The brothers were offered $4000 to do the deed. Lee Daniels probably offered them potential acting gigs on top of that. Police tracked the brothers from that “attack” area through surveillance cameras and ride-share records, and found red hats, bleach and magazines with torn out pages in the brothers apartment. 

I don’t put anything past anyone. Taraji and Terrence had to be knowledgeable about it all. The fact that their responses in support for Jussie sounded like it was lifted from an Empire script:

Taraji: “I wish what happened to my baby was just one big bad joke but it wasn’t and we all feel his pain right now. My baby is resilient and love still lives in him. The devil and his minions are very busy right now but one thing is for sure and two things are for certain #GODIS and that is all I know. This song [’FUW’ by Jussie Smollett] needs to be downloaded until it goes triple platinum because the message is NEEDED.“

Terrence: “Jaws dropped to the ground, and then when we learned that there had been letters that had been sent to Fox as threats about the potential of something like this, then we became much more frightened. They were all in shock that our family, the Fox family, the Empire family, the Lyon family was attacked by a bunch of hyenas today.”

There’s most likely more involved. 

The scheme: 

To fake a racial, homophobic, brutal hate crime attack against a Black gay man, who happens to be an actor on a primetime tv series, by unidentifiable assailants near a surveillance camera as the only eyewitness and not in front of actual people so no one can intervene and mess up the plan. For that reason, this shit needs to go down in the cold. Enter the polar vortex.

Why: 

More fame and viral sympathy. A celeb victim in a high-profile crime creates increased popularity and support their way. Too much confusion and missing pieces in a case creates a dead end, a dead end with no loose ends in a scheme leads to a dropped case…but sustained sympathy and fame. Think: unsolved mysteries. 

Money. Because investigations take time, there needs to be a nice gap between the fake attack (Jan. 29, 2019) and the return of Empire (March 28, 2019). Empire ratings aren’t that much in jeopardy, but they aren’t anywhere close to what they used to be. The show has def taken dip over the years. For that reason, a successful scheme masked as a brutal, hate crime incites anger and fear that translates into support = dollars.

More Trump controversy. They justifiably hate y’alls president and don’t want him reelected. As do I. But I’ll be damned if I fake some wild shit just to bring forth chaos and confusion that bites me in my own ass. 

To fit the climate. Brutally attacking someone in the LGBT community, regardless of their race, brings large-scale outrage. Notice how people walked on eggshells about the incident. Questioning if the attack was fake when the news first broke with those head-scratching details would automatically cause a person to be mislabeled as homophobic. (I would insert tweets here, but it appears that everyone has done a mass delete lol.) Brutally attacking a Black person and attempting to lynch them…chiiiile. Do I even need to expound on history? Anywho, the rumor that’s going around is that Kamala Harris and Cory Booker—who Lee Daniels, Jussie Smollett, and Taraji support for the presidency run—were finally able to get their Anti-Lynching Bill passed because of Jussie’s “attack.” 

Cory Booker Points To Jussie Smollet’s Attack For Why Congress Must Pass Anti-Lynching Law

More than 4,700 people were lynched between the years 1882 and 1968. New Jersey’s Democratic Sen. Cory Booker has pointed to the racist and homophobic attack on actor Jussie Smollet to show the necessity for Congress to finally pass an anti-lynching law, which cleared a key hurdle Thursday as it winds its way through the legislative process. The U.S. Senate passed an anti-lynching bill on Thursday, which was announced Sen. Kamala Harris, one of the three senators who introduced the measure in 2018. (Source)

It took this long and this fake incident to make lynching a federal crime…..

The benefits of succeeding in the scheme: 

The political shit is covered.

Jussie’s stardom would rise and he’d finally be given a chance as a singer by masses.

Lee Daniels wouldn’t have to worry about Empire being on the chopping block. Supposedly, in order for a show to be considered for consideration, it needs to have at least 88 episodes. Empire returns in March. When the second half of the 5th season concludes, the show will only have 84 episodes. If Fox renews the show for its sixth season, the upcoming spin-off series hits tv quickly, and Lee Daniels will get his hand in syndication, you know what that means:

But now, ain’t no telling what’ll happen.

What now:

Police are preparing to issue a warrant for Jussie’s arrest and the case is now going to grand jury. Bitch, everybody going to prison. 

[thechanelmuse]

This shit is pure insanity. 🙄 

So the role-playing Nigerian brothers want y’all to know: "We are not racist. We are not homophobic and we are not anti-Trump. We were born and raised in Chicago and are American citizens.“ (Source)

The brothers told police that that racist, homophobic MAGA letter was mailed to Empire studios by Jussie his damn self and when it didn’t get traction in the news, they staged the hate crime a week later. Out of all news media, a music blog called thatgrapejuice.net was the first one to break the news about that letter, as told by TMZ. How son?…

The letter was laced with a powdery substance probably thought to have been anthrax at time. It was later discovered to be crushed-up Tylenol. 

Now in addition to the 12 investigators assigned to this case, the damn FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service is now probing whether Jussie sent it or not. All these damn people for this goose chase case… Grand jury has been put on hold for now unless Jussie refuses to cooperate and be questioned again by authorities. How you want justice but you deliberately didn’t cooperate and work with authorities from the jump to get that justice and told the police to turn off their body cameras when they went to the apartment and Jussie filed that police report? 

He got his family out here looking delusional, posting Malcolm X captions about the media making their brother look like a criminal and not the victim. Now Jurnee’s name is always gonna be associated with this shit 🙄 

Rewind. Shortly before the hate crime attack, one of Jussie’s neighbors, who was walking her dogs in -19 degrees weather, said she spotted a suspicious white man loitering nearby. 

“The unidentified woman spoke with TMZ, informing them she saw a man she describes as a ‘redneck’ outside of the building she shares with Smollett at around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday pacing back-and-forth between the parking garage and entrance, smoking a cigarette with an agitated demeanor. He was also apparently staring at another man approximately 300 feet away, standing near another entrance.

“’He looked out of place,” she said, noting she returned to the building after being “creeped out” by the man. She described the man as white with facial scruff, wearing a blue winter beanie, a blue zip-up hoodie sweatshirt, too-short blue jeans that exposed his “thick, grey hunting socks,” and camel-colored dress shoes.” (Source)

Why hasn’t Jussie brought this up? Where is the lady at? Does she still live in the building?

The police also got a tip that on the night Jussie reported being attacked, he was in an elevator of his apartment building with the two Nigerian brothers. The police later dismissed the tip as not credible based on video evidence.

At this rate, everybody is lying. I have never trusted cops in my damn life. Still don’t. But this case is so damn see through.

SN: Did anyone else spot that Jussie was wearing Black Lives Matter and LGBT pins in his GMA interview? All of this shit feels calculated 🙄 

Maybe we’re all just in an episode of Black Mirror or some shit 🤷🏾‍♀️

[thechanelmuse]

Welp. That’s the end of Empire. This is the series finale.

It’s hard for a rational brain to think irrationally about a situation as delicate as a hate crime involving a noose. So people resort to “waiting for all the facts to come out” even tho that’s already clear and crisp as fuck out there. It’s more comfortable in being delusional than believing a Black person would do something so evil as this for fame and money. Like I said before, I don’t put anything past anyone. 

I’m sure you have all heard that Jamal…I mean Jussie has turned himself in and has been charged with staging that hate crime against himself because he was “dissatisfied with his salary.” He made $65,000 per episode. Empire has 18 episodes a season. Imagine being so mad that you only make $1.1 million a year so you resort to an evil deed of planing an attack to be a career booster and it crumbles into career suicide. I still believe the rabbit hole goes deeper than this tho, but Jussie isn’t gonna blame the mastermind and bite the only hand in Hollywood that fed him (Lee Daniels).

The part that pisses me off the most about this whole thing is the noose shit. Black people are still being hung today and you consciously use that as a ploy for sympathy, fame, and money?! Pure insanity.

Jussie’s most likely gonna do prison time (1 to 3 years for filing a false police report) because he’s Black and how viral the story became and lasted. They’re also making him pay for wasted money used to investigate this case. Nobody told them to assign 12 fucking investigators to this goose chase case, as well as the FBI and NY Postal Inspection Service. That’s their fault. Never mind that locals are saying this is the fastest crime Chicago police has solved…

Now that that’s out the way:

So are they gonna finally start charging, convicting, and correctly sentence and fine white people for their yearly false police reports on Black people or no?….

[thechanelmuse]

Okay, Okay Okay.

One more thing and I promise I’ll shut up about this case…maybe lol.

It’s been revealed that Jussie’s scar on his face was most likely self-inflicted. But get this: Jussie’s dumb ass paid them Nigerian brothers $3500 by check. A fucking CHECK.

Whose mans is this?!?! He left a fucking paper trail.

[thechanelmuse]

Oh bitch you thought this was the end end? 

Empire is back with a new episode.

So did Jamal’s dumb ass really pay his hired attackers by check? Did he mail that homophobic MAGA letter addressed to his damn self to Empire headquarters? Turns out the check was for their “5 week Nutrition/Workout program Don’t Go,“ as specified on the memo line and in text messages. Jamal wanted to bulk up and go shirtless for his music video, “Don’t Go.”As for the letter: The Feds said Jamal may not have sent it, creating holes in the narrative created and controlled by Chicago PD to save face and come off as thorough and dependable by the public for actually “solving” the case. 

The grand jury ain’t tryna hear none of that as they hit Jamal with 16 felony counts adding up to 64 years in prison if convicted for all of them and given the maximum sentences. 

Jamal is chill about it all as he still maintains his innocence and strolls into court looking dapper, while his hired hoax brothers send messages through their lawyer about feeling betrayed by Jamal…for making them trust him and putting them in the position to rat on him???…

Will Jamal blow the lid off this shit and turn on Lee Daniels, the mastermind behind it all?

Or will Cookie step in to save her baby leaving a few crumbs behind?

Find out next time on Empire.

SN: Now apparently the Empire cast and crew are pissed that Jussie could be the reason why the show hasn’t been renewed yet for its sixth season. 

Like I told y’all a few posts above about the reason for the scheming. Lee Daniels sneaky ass was tryna get this show in syndication and have a spin-off simultaneously to keep them coins rolling in. Now look. “Oh when it all, it all falls down.”

[thechanelmuse]

An Open Secret: An Enslaved Black Man Taught Jack Daniel How to Make Whiskey

LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — Every year, about 275,000 people tour the Jack Daniel’s distillery here, and as they stroll through its brick buildings nestled in a tree-shaded hollow, they hear a story like this: Sometime in the 1850s, when Daniel was a boy, he went to work for a preacher, grocer and distiller named Dan Call. The preacher was a busy man, and when he saw promise in young Jack, he taught him how to run his whiskey still — and the rest is history.

This year (2016) is the 150th anniversary of Jack Daniel’s, and the distillery, home to one of the world’s best-selling whiskeys, is using the occasion to tell a different, more complicated tale. Daniel, the company now says, didn’t learn distilling from Dan Call, but from a man named Nearis Green — one of Call’s slaves.

This version of the story was never a secret, but it is one that the distillery has only recently begun to embrace, tentatively, in some of its tours, and in a social media and marketing campaign this summer.

Frontier history is a gauzy and unreliable pursuit, and Nearis Green’s story — built on oral history and the thinnest of archival trails — may never be definitively proved. Still, the decision to tell it resonates far beyond this small city.

For years, the prevailing history of American whiskey has been framed as a lily-white affair, centered on German and Scots-Irish settlers who distilled their surplus grains into whiskey and sent it to far-off markets, eventually creating a $2.9 billion industry and a product equally beloved by Kentucky colonels and Brooklyn hipsters.

In a photo in Jack Daniel’s old office, Daniel, with mustache and white hat, is shown at his distillery in Tennessee in the late 1800s. The man to his right could be a son of Nearis Green, a slave who helped teach Daniel how to make whiskey.

Left out of that account were men like Nearis Green. Slavery and whiskey, far from being two separate strands of Southern history, were inextricably entwined. Enslaved men not only made up the bulk of the distilling labor force, but they often played crucial skilled roles in the whiskey-making process. In the same way that white cookbook authors often appropriated recipes from their black cooks, white distillery owners took credit for the whiskey.

Jack Daniel’s says it simply wants to set the record straight. The Green story has been known to historians and locals for decades, even as the distillery officially ignored it.

Claude Eady, far left, a retired distillery employee who is a descendant of Nearis Green, with Nelson Eddy, Jack Daniel’s in-house historian, at the distillery in Lynchburg, Tenn.

According to a 1967 biography, “Jack Daniel’s Legacy,” by Ben A. Green (no relation to Nearis), Call told his slave to teach Daniel everything he knew. “Uncle Nearest is the best whiskey maker that I know of,” the book quotes Call as saying.

Slavery ended with ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865, and Daniel opened his distillery a year later, employing two of Green’s sons. […] But corporate history-keeping was a rare practice in those days, and over time memories of Green and his sons faded.

“I don’t think it was ever a conscious decision” to leave the Greens out of the company’s story, said Phil Epps, the global brand director for Jack Daniel’s at Brown-Forman, which has owned the distillery for 60 years. Still, it is unlikely that anyone in the Jim Crow South thought a whiskey marketed to whites should emphasize its black roots.

A business built on slave help may not seem like a selling point, which may explain why Jack Daniel’s is taking things slowly. The Green story is an optional part of the distillery tour, left to the tour guide’s discretion, and the company is still considering whether it will flesh out the story in new displays at its visitors center.

An exhibit on George Washington and slavery opening this fall at the first president’s Northern Virginia home, Mount Vernon, documents how he relied on six slaves (and two Scottish foremen) to run his rye whiskey distillery, one of the largest on the East Coast.

“They were key to the operation in making whiskey,” said Steve Bashore, who helps run a working replica of Washington’s distillery. “In the ledgers, the slaves are actually listed as distillers.”

Slavery accompanied distilling as it moved inland in the late 18th century, to the newly settled regions that would become Tennessee and Kentucky. Though slave owning was nowhere near as common there as it was farther south, by the 1800s many successful farmers had at least a few slaves, who tended to be closely involved with whiskey production.

Some of the earliest prominent Kentucky distillers, like Elijah Craig, Henry McKenna and Jacob Spears, relied on slaves to run their operations. (Craig and McKenna’s names are now on whiskeys made by Heaven Hill Brands, but those were created long after slavery was abolished.)

Washington wasn’t the only president to use slaves in his distillery. In an 1805 advertisement, Andrew Jackson offered a bounty for a runaway slave named George, whom he identified as “a good distiller.”

Databases of ads for slave sales, as well as runaway slaves, are full of references to slaves as skilled whiskey distillers. In 1794, a Richmond, Va., man placed a $20 bounty on a slave named Will, who “has a large scar on his right side just below his ribs” and “understands making of whiskey.”

Slaves did more than just provide physical labor. If Green taught Daniel to distill, said Michael Twitty, a food historian, he probably would have drawn on generations of liquor-making skills: American slaves had their own traditions of alcohol production, going back to the corn beer and fruit spirits of West Africa, and many Africans made alcohol illicitly while in slavery. 

Another aspect of the Jack Daniel’s tradition that is being reassessed is the so-called Lincoln County process, in which unaged whiskey is passed through several feet of maple charcoal, which removes impurities and imparts a slight sweetness.

According to legend, the process was invented in 1825 by a white Tennessean named Alfred Eaton. But Mr. Eddy, the Jack Daniel’s historian, and others now say it’s just as likely that the practice evolved from slave distilling traditions, in which charcoal helped remove some of the sting from illicitly made alcohol.

Source

SN: Nearis is sometimes referred to as “Nearest” in other articles.

Oh and there’s more… Did Jack Daniel’s distillery keep their word? 🤔

Below is an excerpt from a 2017 NY Times article:

When Jack Daniel’s Failed to Honor An Enlaved Black Man, an Author Rewrote History

Fawn Weaver was on vacation in Singapore last summer when she first read about Nearest Green, the Tennessee slave who taught Jack Daniel how to make whiskey.

Green’s existence had long been an open secret, but in 2016 Brown-Forman, the company that owns the Jack Daniel Distillery here, made international headlines with its decision to finally embrace Green’s legacy and significantly change its tours to emphasize his role.

“It was jarring that arguably one of the most well-known brands in the world was created, in part, by a slave,” said Ms. Weaver, 40, an African-American real estate investor and author.

Determined to see the changes herself, she was soon on a plane from her home in Los Angeles to Nashville. 

But when she got to Lynchburg, she found no trace of Green. “I went on three tours of the distillery, and nothing, not a mention of him,” she said.

Rather than leave, Ms. Weaver dug in, determined to uncover more about Green and persuade Brown-Forman to follow through on its promise to recognize his role in creating America’s most famous whiskey.

She rented a house in downtown Lynchburg, and began contacting Green’s descendants, dozens of whom still live in the area.

Scouring archives in Tennessee, Georgia and Washington, D.C., she created a timeline of Green’s relationship with Daniel, showing how Green had not only taught the whiskey baron how to distill, but had also gone to work for him after the Civil War, becoming what Ms. Weaver believes is the first black master distiller in America. By her count, she has collected 10,000 documents and artifacts related to Daniel and Green, much of which she has agreed to donate to the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington.

The company’s decision to recognize its debt to a slave, first reported last year by The New York Times, is a momentous turn in the history of Southern foodways. Even as black innovators in Southern cooking and agriculture are beginning to get their due, the tale of American whiskey is still told as a whites-only affair, about Scots-Irish settlers who brought Old World distilling knowledge to the frontier states of Tennessee and Kentucky.

Read more

[wheeloffortune-design]

I want to apologise to

- Britney for making fun of her when she had her breakdown

- Monica Lewinski for judging her when she was a 22year old temp sexually assaulted by the most powerful man in the world

- Ke$ha for ever thinking she was trashy when all she wanted to do was make party music

- Kristen Stewart for ever thinking she was dumb when she’s actually one of the coolest people ever

- Megan Fox for ever thinking she was just a slut when actually she was an actress being harassed by her employer. 

- Hating all the women who made a career out of having a hot body. Being is shape is hard, beauty is a weapon and auto promotion is hard work. 

- All the Mary-Sues, who exist because young girls everywhere want to be part of a story they love so much

- All the female characters I ever snobbed because they got in the way of my ship.

- Hating the color pink during my teenage years, when it’s actually a lovely color and what I resented was society’s pressure to perform femininity. 

[residentgoodgirl]

I feel like people don’t want women to see a man like russell treat a woman like ciara well cause it teaches bw to have standards. they’d rather live in a world where jay-zs, waka flockas, gucci manes and offsets are prospering, cause that means they can mess up, cheat and disrespect their women and prosper too

[residentgoodgirl]

kings, i’m here to tell you, you don’t have to be scared of black women having standards… you don’t have to be a kevin hart, you too can be a russell, a steph curry or a sterling k brown… open your third eye and unlock your true potential 👁 👑

[yuricema-deactivated20230814]

100%

[okayysophia]

‼️‼️‼️‼️

[profeminist]

“lucy liu is really out there creating stunning lesbian art huh…. we stan we stan we stan”

-  @lesbianelsa

Inside Lucy Liu’s Art Studio and Exploring “What We Choose Not to See"

[prominent-afro-history]

“Joshua Beckford learned to read fluently by the time he was two and a half and taught himself to touch-type on a computer before he could write using a pencil. He can speak Japanese, practices medical surgery on a computer simulator and has completed more than 1,000 maths problems.”

[blackgirlsprettythings]

Can we please reblog our children!!!

[scorpioqueenphoenix]

HOW THOUGH??? HOW IS THIS AMAZINGNESS POSSIBLE. 

[talesofthestarshipregeneration]

resources

[trapcard]

Black. Excellence.

[gehayi]

This amazing little boy who plans to be a neurosurgeon and an astronaut, the youngest person to ever attend Oxford University, is ”the face of the National Autistic Society’s Black and Minority (BME) campaign.“ (And his father and he discuss what it’s like to living with autism [or with an autistic kid]).

[thehmn]

For a moment I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.

[melredcap]

YOU FOUND A GOOD ONE

HANG ON TO THAT DOCTOR

[silverblaze85]

I found a doctor like this… and I almost cried… my “bad” cholesterol was 2 points above “perfect”, otherwise 100% healthy on the tests, and she said “body size doesn’t indicate health. There are large people that are unhealthy, there are large people who are perfectly healthy. There are small people that are unhealthy, and there are small people who are perfectly healthy. Healthy isn’t a specific body size.” I love her. 

[talesofthestarshipregeneration]

where can i find a doctor like that?

[tpfnewsdesk-deactivated20181216]

The True Trayvon Martin

He didn’t eat pork bc his father didn’t. Once his uncle fixed pork chops; they smelled so good,he called them “beef chops” & ate 1. #Trayvon

He was passionate about aviation. #Trayvon

When he volunteered at a soup kitchen for. The first time, he was astounded by the US hunger crisis. #Trayvon

He loved his little cousins birthday parties. Even as a teen, he wasn’t too cool for Chuck E. Cheese. #Trayvon

He was modest about saving his father from dying in a house fire. His father called him his best friend bc of it. #Trayvon

Hoodies made *him* feel safe. Like so many teens (and adults), he wore them as a protective shell, a security garment. #Trayvon

He called his dad, “My ol’ boy.” Lord, how he loved his dad. #Trayvon

When folks wanted to tease him, they said, “Boy, you too skinny to take a breath.” And he’d just smile. #Trayvon

If he wanted to hang out with his cousins and they had chores, he helped so they could finish faster. #Trayvon

His uncle said they never had to ask him to do something twice. #Trayvon

At 17, he was still into BMX bikes. He could cat-walk wheelie. #Trayvon

The tattoo on his wrist read, “Sybrina.” #Trayvon

The tattoo on his chest read, “Cora” — his grandmother’s name. #Trayvon

I’m going to stop here. But just claim one of these memories I tweeted. Carry part of this boy with you, write him on your heart. #Trayvon

Write the beautiful details of all the black children you meet on your heart. That’s where they’ll be safest. #Trayvon

I feel like this stuff is important. #Trayvon

All facts about Trayvon are from this Esquire article.

[fullpraxisnow]

Today marks 7 years.

[mediamattersforamerica]

On Monday, The Washington Post reported on a former Trump campaign staffer who says Trump forcibly kissed her during his 2016 campaign. While MSNBC discussed the story for 25 minutes on Monday, Fox News devoted less than one minute of coverage to the allegations, and CNN ignored the story altogether. ⁣⁣

Such a report would be a major story if made against any other president, but cable news’ decision to ignore the story is just another example of the media’s normalization of Trump’s conduct in office.

[profeminist]

Emma Thompson writes to the producers of “Luck” re their hiring of John Lasseter, who recently left Disney/Pixar following multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-mn-emma-thompson-john-lasseter-skydance-20190226-story.html …

Emma Thompson’s letter to Skydance: Why I can’t work for John Lasseter

“As you know, I have pulled out of the production of “Luck” — to be directed by the very wonderful Alessandro Carloni. It feels very odd to me that you and your company would consider hiring someone with Mr. Lasseter’s pattern of misconduct given the present climate in which people with the kind of power that you have can reasonably be expected to step up to the plate.

I realise that the situation — involving as it does many human beings — is complicated. However these are the questions I would like to ask:

If a man has been touching women inappropriately for decades, why would a woman want to work for him if the only reason he’s not touching them inappropriately now is that it says in his contract that he must behave “professionally”?

If a man has made women at his companies feel undervalued and disrespected for decades, why should the women at his new company think that any respect he shows them is anything other than an act that he’s required to perform by his coach, his therapist and his employment agreement? The message seems to be, “I am learning to feel respect for women so please be patient while I work on it. It’s not easy.”

Much has been said about giving John Lasseter a “second chance.” But he is presumably being paid millions of dollars to receive that second chance. How much money are the employees at Skydance being paid to GIVE him that second chance?

If John Lasseter started his own company, then every employee would have been given the opportunity to choose whether or not to give him a second chance. But any Skydance employees who don’t want to give him a second chance have to stay and be uncomfortable or lose their jobs. Shouldn’t it be John Lasseter who has to lose HIS job if the employees don’t want to give him a second chance?

Skydance has revealed that no women received settlements from Pixar or Disney as a result of being harassed by John Lasseter. But given all the abuse that’s been heaped on women who have come forward to make accusations against powerful men, do we really think that no settlements means that there was no harassment or no hostile work environment? Are we supposed to feel comforted that women who feel that their careers were derailed by working for Lasseter DIDN’T receive money?

I hope these queries make the level of my discomfort understandable. I regret having to step away because I love Alessandro so much and think he is an incredibly creative director. But I can only do what feels right during these difficult times of transition and collective consciousness raising.

I am well aware that centuries of entitlement to women’s bodies whether they like it or not is not going to change overnight. Or in a year. But I am also aware that if people who have spoken out — like me — do not take this sort of a stand then things are very unlikely to change at anything like the pace required to protect my daughter’s generation.

Yours most sincerely,

Emma Thompson”

Tweet source

[chrissongzzz]

[odditymall]

The Leatherdos is a hair clip that doubles as a multi-tool that combines 5 different tools in a tiny hair clip: screw-drivers, a wrench, a trolley coin, a ruler, and a cutting edge.

—->http://odditymall.com/leatherdos-is-a-hair-clip-multi-tool

[captcreate-deactivated20251226]

This some of that James Bond shit.

[justsomefuckingguy]

Swiss Army Hairclip

[grandenchanterfiona]

Imagine you get kidnapped or some shit, how useful that might be?

[fallen-angel-nightshade]

FINALLY!!!

[naamahdarling]

Lightly hot glue a flower to it and you could make it cute and frilly without sacrificing functionality. Low temp hot glue pops right off.

[fearlessjones]

this is some Kingsman shit right here

[mageofcolors]

@mysterysolver

[literalbirdperson]

Fun story: I have one of these, and wore it every day while working as a vet assistant at a pet clinic. One day a kitten comes in with a cord knotted around her neck, and everyone’s trying to get it unknotted before she heads in for her spay.

I just whip off the hair clip, grab the cord, and slice through it in one go. Everyone stood there, surprised, and stared at the cord in my hand that I just sawed through with a hair clip. 

This would be AMAZING if you got kidnapped, or, in this case, a pet gets tangled in something. It’s very light and flexible, but the insides of the teeth are sharp enough to get the job done.

[aerois]

Y’all are close, but not quite there. This isn’t James Bond, this isn’t Kingsman; this is some Totally Spies shit we’re looking at, and it’s glorious

[astrodidact]