#givewefree

[blackhalee]

“I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”

– Frederick Douglass reflecting on his use of the High John root to gain freedom from enslavement. #HoodooHistoryMonth

[blackhalee]

WILLIS, “UNCLE” WALLACE AND “AUNT” MINERVA.

“Composers of spirituals, “Uncle Wallace” and “Aunt Minerva” Willis were enslaved in the old Choctaw Nation area of Oklahoma during the mid-nineteenth century. A Choctaw named Britt Willis owned them. In addition to the usual chores done for the family, Willis hired them periodically to Spencer Academy, a Choctaw boys’ school, to help with the work there. They were great favorites of the students during these periods because of the songs they sang while they worked. Wallace composed “plantation songs” as he worked in the fields. Minerva would sing along with him when they were asked to perform the songs for the students in the evenings. The songs composed by Wallace Willis became well-known “spirituals.” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Roll, Jordan, Roll,” “Steal Away to Jesus,” “I’m A-Rollin’, I’m A-Rollin’,” and “The Angels Are A-Comin’” are among the most popular and best loved.”

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

Willis, “Uncle” Wallace and “Aunt” Minerva | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

Willis, “Uncle” Wallace and “Aunt” Minerva | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

First recording of Swing Low Sweet Chariot

[blackhalee]

241K views · 11K reactions | Assata Shakur is an African American activist and former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Libera

Assata Shakur is an African American activist and former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. She was born on Ju

Happy HooDoo Heritage Month 🙏🏿🖤🙏🏿

[blackhalee]

Closing Words for Hoodoo Heritage Month

By His Eminence, Baba Siete Saudades

The Keeper of the Black Throne and the Two Swords. Son of the Drowned Ones. Son of the Leopard.

Hoodoo is not a relic. It is a nation in spirit, a sovereign ethnoreligion born from the genius of an unbroken people. It is not simply folklore, not superstition, or only mere craft. It is the law of our survival, the court of our ancestors, and the architecture of Black divinity in motion.

Through centuries of theft, erasure, and commodification, Hoodoo endured not as an imitation of power, but as power itself—indigenous to the descendants of the enslaved, carried in the blood and memory of those who crossed the Kalunga and lived.

We assert that Hoodoo is not an appendage of Christianity, nor a hobby for those who would borrow our gods without our consent. Hoodoo is a jurisdiction — a living cosmology with its own moral law, ritual authority, and sacred governance.

As this month closes, we speak of preservation, and of sovereignty. Hoodoo stands as a free religion of a free people—self-defining, self-determining, and self-crowned. Its temples are our bodies. Its scriptures are being written.

Our future is not up for debate. We, the children of Nsambi-a-Kalunga, rise forth.

🖤🤎🖤

The Endless One decrees it so.

[blackhalee]

2.5K views · 53 reactions | Deep in the Great Dismal Swamp, thousands of Black people created a hidden free society, one that defied slavery

Deep in the Great Dismal Swamp, thousands of Black people created a hidden free society, one that defied slavery for centuries. This is the

💜💙🩶

[blackhalee]

Happy Nat Turner Day!

HOODOO HERITAGE MONTH!

Light a candle for Rev. Nat Turner today.

Nat Turner was a preacher who led the slave rebellion in 1831 known as the Southampton Insurrection. He was said to have visions, ears that could hear (would hear divine voices), and powerful foretelling dreams. Nat grew up very religious, fasting and praying, and was said to have the gift of prophecy. He conducted services with the Bible and was considered to be a great prophet. Turner knew that he "was ordained for some great purpose in the hands of the Almighty" according to literature, "Gray, Thomas Ruffin (1831). The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Leader of the Late Insurrections in Southampton, Va. Baltimore, Maryland: Lucas & Deaver."

During a solar eclipse in February 1831, Nat Turner had a vision of a drop of blood landing on corn, and he saw white spirits and black spirits contending in the skies. This was a sign that he should move on with the rebellion, a slave revolt that was the deadliest in U.S. history. This is just one of the recorded 250 uprisings held in North America against enslavement by African Americans between the 17th and 19th centuries.

Nat Turner met and married his wife on the plantation. They left behind a speculated 2-3 children. Mr. Turner's legacy will live on through his descendants and his bravery. It's stated by Lonnie Bunch of the National Museum of African American History and Culture that, "The Nat Turner rebellion is probably the most significant uprising in American history."

Nat was caught, tried, and charged with "conspiring to rebel and making insurrection"; it's reported that when asked if he had any regret, he responded, "Was Christ not crucified?" Turner was sentenced to death, executed via beheading, dismembered, and skinned. His skin was created into purses, bones supposedly sold for science, his skull recovered, and DNA tested to be positively his.

Nat Turner's skull was returned to his descendants as of 2016, and Turner was given a respected service.

It is speculated by others that Nat Turner's flesh was also consumed after being flayed by the people who executed him. Capturing, skinning, dismembering, and eating powerful enslaved Africans in the U.S. was a known practice in efforts to consume the enslaved's spiritual power.

Did you know the dirt, bones, or items from the grave of a powerful conjurer or powerful person are said to increase the power of a person or working and even worn as charms like a rabbit's foot? As a result, many legends' graves were destroyed by the public and robbed. It's said because of this, other hoodoo workers requested that the location of their real grave not be disclosed, and only a select few knew about it.

Please click the link for footage of Nat Turner's skull returned to his family.

https://youtu.be/9SobJftnGJU?si=gUZS4G-Pd9QXHLZZ

I can see his descendants have his eyes.

Nat Turner's description:

5 feet 6 or 8 inches [168–173 cm] high, weighs between 150 and 160 pounds [68–73 kg], rather "bright" [light-colored] complexion, but not a mulatto, broad shoulders, larger flat nose, large eyes, broad flat feet, rather knocked [sic], walks brisk and active, hair on the top of the head very thin, no beard, except on the upper lip and the top of the chin, a scar on one of his temples, also one on the back of his neck, a large knot on one of the bones of his right arm, near the wrist, produced by a blow.

~

Via reward notice Washington National Intelligencer on September 24th 1931

#hoodooheritagemonth