#THIS print, pattern, design. (Source: principlesofaesthetics) |
#This. The cut and silhouette of this pant is quite sickening. |
![Untitled [Senegal], Photograph By Mama Casset
You can see more Mama Casset’s photographs here:- Mama Casset and Precursors of African Photo in Saint-Louis, Senegal | REVUE NOIRE- Mama Casset - The Studio African Photo in Dakar | REVUE NOIRE- Mama Casset & The Studio Dream Factory | Another Africa- Mama Casset | Flores del Fango- Mama Casset | La Fabrica- Mama Casset, fotógrafo senegalés | El Mundo
#This. The cut and silhouette of this pant is quite sickening.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m42u41Pruj1qb5wbbo1_1280.jpg)
I absolutely live for this look… this state of being… |
Note to self: Any pattern one wants as a fabulous throw pillow will always make a bold shirt… (Source: unhelping) |
Two of my favorite #adinkra symbols (Nyame Nti and Adinkrahene) that I painted for my bedroom walls years ago. Changing things up. Not one to keep clutter; take a picture. #design #tcdinspiration (Taken with Instagram) |
This geometrically painted house in Burkina Faso is such an design and style inspiration! (Source: afrochicgist) |
While the physical sufferings of slavery were surely brutal, I contemplate the emotional torture experienced, and the perseverance required to survive.
I reflect on the story of my paternal great, great grandmother Lilly who was transported from Virginia to Louisiana when she just old enough to remember the warmth of her mother and sister, but too young to remember the names of her former owners—making it impossible to find them after emancipation.
I also think of the torment of my great, great, great grandfather Joseph Arsene Pelletier who was owned by his father, and how what ever minor privileges this afforded only operated as a cruel reminder of his station as chattel.
![I must honor the scholar and writer Alice Dunbar-Nelson, née Moore (1875-1935). Dunbar-Nelson is someone from whom I always draw strength. She is an illustrious alumna of Straight University (now Dillard University)—Class of 1892. While teaching public school in the 1890s, she published to collections of short stories—‘Violets and Other Tales’ and ‘The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories.’ After relocating from New Orleans to the East Coast, she became national literary figure, and is often considered a “grandmother” of the Harlem Renaissance and an early black feminist. Her female protagonists are often strong, deeply textured, and assertive when it comes to their fate, which clashed with the stereotypical “tragic mulatto/a” characters that peopled the popular texts of her day. She was an important participant within the women’s suffrage movement.Furthermore, Dunbar-Nelson did not shy away from controversy. In an 1917 article in ‘The Journal of Negro History’ she opens by exclaiming, “The title of a possible discussion of the Negro in Louisiana presents difficulties, for there is no such word as Negro permissible in speaking of this State [Louisiana].” While quite scandalous a statement, she undoubtedly attempted to provide a more complicated narrative of black history—one that was not nice, nor neat. Her writings on the “People of Color in Louisiana” were canonical for decades, since she was one of the first scholars of color to publish on this topic in english. She is also considered one of the earliest black writers depicting the complexities of race, gender, and queer sexualities within her fiction. And yes, she did biblically know the pleasures of women. LOL… which proves that the irony of “Straight University” and/or “Straight Hall” is at least a century old!](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4l9o72yZc1r2lnnro1_250.jpg)
Next, I honor a little known HBCU, Leland University, and one of her alumna, Zenobia Collins, my paternal great-grandmother. Whenever I feel weary about my doctoral stories, I often think of my grandfather’s stories of his mother who would drive over 100 miles to attend night classes at Leland—and this was before interstate highways. She used her training toteach elementary education back home in Terrebonne Parish.
Leland University was founded 1870 in New Orleans as by the American Baptist Home Missionary Society as an institution of higher education “open to all without distinction of sex or color” as per its charter. Leland had a system of affiliated preparatory schools throughout the state, which provide rigorous college prep for colored children and funneled these students into normal, collegiate, and theological programs at the university. It’s theological school was noteworthy, and was frequently praised in religious and Southern educational periodicals of the day. The campus was shuttered in 1915, because of a mysterious fire during the Hurricane of 1915 (storms were not named then). Instead of rebuilding, the mostly out-of-town Board of Trustees quickly sold the land, which was located on what had become the fashionable St. Charles Avenue where gated Newcomb Boulevard intersects. (I know right!) Due to the persistence of some of the state’s Black leadership, Leland reopened as Leland College in Baker, Louisiana just north of Baton Rouge in 1923. It was responsible for educating many church and educational leaders of Louisiana and the South until its official closure in the second half of the 20th century. Long-time and famed Grambling State University football coach Eddie Robinson was a proud alum of Leland.
