Dante's Inferno & Uncle Tom's Cabin

For those of you who have been following this,
you know I've been into Harriet Beecher Stowe and uncle tom's cabin for a while.
I've read the book twice and am finishing my 4th book of essays on the subject as well as the author.

I had the strange idea that the plot was very similar to several classics.
it predates two of them, and was written after the third.

The first, is Frank Baum's 1900 classic, The Wizard of Oz.
It's not a stretch to liken Alice's flight from oppression and search for a wizard to bring her back home to George, Eliza and Uncle Tom's flight towards their own forms of utopia.
Along the way, there are numerous cowardly lions, tin men and scarecrows, as well as the silent lurking pursuer of racism and devilish intent.

The second novel, is the 1865 take, by Charles Dodgson, Alice In Wonderland.
Somehow blacks fell into the rabbit hole, which represents the middle passage.
They emerge into a world that is both wondrous and also bizarrely askew.
Nothing seems possible, or real.
Characters are capricious, disconnected, unfeeling and baffling in their logic and justification for the world they live in, and the lives that they lead.
In the end, tom and Eva awaken in heaven, while George, Jim and Eliza find a very real, and free reality.

The final classic, was written around 1306, and this one is Dante's inferno.
Dante's journey through the levels of hell, represent both George and Eliza's flight north,
and Uncle Tom's descent south.
Virgil in this case is represented by Christ for Tom, and the Quakers for George, Jim and Eliza.

Uncle Tom's Cabin was published first in 1852 as a serialized novel in an abolitionist newspaper, The New Era.

In reading one of the essays in one of the four books I've recently read, another author also likened the tale to Dante's Inferno.
Thus, this blog.
So perhaps my idea is not quite the leap of imagination it seemed at first.
It's hard to not think of other stories that combine the unreal, the surreal, and bizarre with a journey along a precipitous path along the razors edge of good or the sane, an evil or insanity.

Black History: The Bad and the Ugly: Nicky Barnes, Mr. Untouchable

>Mr. Untouchable is the name of a documentary DVD on the life of Nicky Barnes, a huge heroin dealer in all 5 boroughs of new york. His criminal enterprise had an estimated net gross of $72,000,000 a year in the 70's. He was one of the only black drug king pins who had direct dealings with the mafia. He and his 6 partners formed 'the council' that ruled his empire like a fortune 500 company.
Mr. Untouchable is a charming, intelligent, articulate, well-read, philosophical, charismatic as well as mesmerizing, loquacious and hypnotic speaker. What is most notable about Mr. Barnes, was that a few years into his sentence, he turned states evidence and provided direct testimony that lead to the convictions of 75 individuals, most or all of which received sentences of 15 years to life in prison.
Mr. Untouchable has no compunction about his testimony. Nor does he have any particular feelings about the effect of the all of the drugs in the community and the lives that were ruined.
In any event, the DVD is a fascinating watch. like a train wreck. I found it enlightening, in hardly any way, but fascinating all the same. it was also disgusting in many ways and sickening to not only view the glorification of a drug lord, but to also, have no ability to not also be in awe of the individual known as 'The Black Godfather'
When asked why he snitched, which is the cardinal sin of all criminals, Mr. Untouchable says, "What good is a rule, if it isn't a jewel, that's fit for the crown of a King? If you gonna take the rule, and just use it for bling and you gonna say, 'fuck the king', then the King gonna sing."

William Still. The Father of the Underground Railroad: Black History Month, February 2010

Well, it's still black history month. I'm off to a rousing start. over a week ago, I put up three and a half posters of black history profiles. But, despite that, I still feel that something is missing.

I was re-introduced to the incredible life of william still.

william still was a black man, and perhaps the most prolific, well-documented conductor on the underground railroad that ever lived.

Not only did he assist an estimated 2,700 african-americans to freedom, but he also dictated over 600 of their personal stories. this rich treasure trove of names, incidents, dates of arrival, means of travel and geneologies, forms one of the richest cultural artifacts of the entire underground railroad.

Still maintained a network of abolitionist and conductors ranging from horse drawn carts, ship captains, safe-houses and helpful families further north who were ready to ease the transition from slave to free.

individuals such as william still, can never be over-estimated for their importance, not only to the underground movement, but to the human ideals of freedom, self-sacrifice, charity and compassion.

god truly blessed him and us with his appointed task in life. he worked tirelessly as his life's work, like an angel, or better yet a god, transforming and changing lives that were wrecked, made desolate and hopeless by the 400 year legacy of slavery that was sealed by our fate, by the forefather's that drew up the documents of incorporation for the united states of america.

Click HERE for a link to William Still's site on the internet.

WILLIAM STILL (1821-1902), abolitionist, writer, and businessman.

Often called "The Father of the Underground Railroad," Still helped as many as 60 slaves a month escape to freedom, interviewing each person and keeping careful records, including a brief biography and the destination of each person, along with any alias that they adopted, though he kept his records carefully hidden. He is one of the many who helped slaves escape from the United States. During one interview of an escapee, he discovered that the man, Peter Still, was his own brother. They had been separated since childhood, and his brother knew little about the rest of his family. Still later published The Underground Rail Road Records, which chronicles the stories and methods of 649 slaves who escaped to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Peter Still later collaborated on a book detailing his experiences.

Still was born near Medford, in Burlington County, N.J. His father, Levin Steel, was a former slave who had purchased his own freedom and changed his name to Still to protect his wife Sidney, who had escaped from slavery in Maryland. After her first escape attempt had failed she ran to her husband with two of their four children and changed her name to Charity. Their son William was the youngest of eighteen children. From early boyhood he worked on his father's farm and as a woodcutter. He had little formal schooling, but read what was available and studied grammar on his own. He left home when he was twenty, finding employment with neighboring farmers. In 1844 he went to Philadelphia, where he worked at various jobs, including handyman in several households.

In 1847 he married Letitia George, who became the mother of his four children. The year of his marriage, Still found employment in the office of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. His duties were janitorial and clerical, but he soon became involved with aiding fugitives from slavery. He was in a unique position to provide board and room for many of the fugitives who rested in Philadelphia before resuming their journey to Canada. One of those former slaves turned out to he his own brother, Peter Still, left in bondage by his mother when she had escaped forty years earlier. William Still later reported that finding his brother led him to preserve the careful records concerning former slaves which provided valuable source material for his book The Underground Railroad (1872)(View Excerpts).

When Philadelphia abolitionists organized a vigilance committee to assist the large numbers of fugitives going through the city after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, they named William Still chairman. John Brown's wife stayed with the Still family for a time following the Harpers Ferry raid, and several of Brown's accomplices received aid from Still. Although he concluded his work in the antislavery office in 1861, Still continued his association with the society, serving for eight years as vice-president and president from 1896 to 1901.

While working for the abolition society Still began purchasing real estate. During the Civil War he opened a store handling new and used stoves, and later established a very successful coal business. In 1864 he came to Camp William Penn, where Negro soldiers were stationed.

William Still's book on the Underground Railroad was an important addition to the literature of the antislavery movement. One of the small number of postwar accounts written or compiled by Negro authors, it provided a much-needed corrective to the memoirs of white abolitionists. Still recognized the many contributions of white abolitionists, but he also pictured the fugitives themselves as courageous individuals, struggling for their own freedom, rather than as helpless or passive passengers on a white Underground Railroad. His journals were the only day-to-day record of vigilance committee activity covering a prolonged period. In addition to the accounts of the fugitives, he included excerpts from newspapers. legal documents, letters from abolitionists and former slaves, and biographical sketches.

Although the executive committee of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery had asked Still to write his book, the work and its publication and distribution were a product of his own effort. His stated purpose was to "encourage the race in efforts of self elevation" He believed that the most eloquent advocates of Negroes were Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, and other self-emancipated champions. It was his mission as a Negro to record their heroic deeds and he hoped the book would serve as additional testimony to the intellectual capacity of his race. "We very much need works on various topics from the pens of colored men to represent the race intellectually.' He told one of his sales agents. Still's book went into three editions and became the most widely circulated work on the Underground Railroad. He proudly exhibited it at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, a powerful reminder of the condition of Negroes slavery.

Still worked in other ways to improve the status of Negroes. In 1855 he traveled to Canada to visit communities where refugees from United States slavery settled. His positive reports counteracted some of the criticism of Negroes in Canada then in circulation. Five years later he cited the examples of successful Negroes in Canada to argue for the emancipation of all slaves. In 1859, he started a campaign to end racial discrimination on Philadelphia railroad cars by exposing the injustice in a letter to the press. Eight years later the campaign ended successfully when the Pennsylvania legislature passed a law forbidding such discrimination. In 1861 Still helped organize and finance a social, civil, and statistical association to collect data about Negroes. When some Philadelphia colored citizens opposed Still's crusade for equal service on the streetcars, he wrote A Brief Narrative of the Struggle for the Rights of the Colored People of Philadelphia in the City Railway Cars (1867).

In 1874 Still was again involved in the controversy when he openly supported a reform candidate for the mayor of Philadelphia. To explain his repudiation of the Republican candidate, Still spoke to a public meeting and later published a pamphlet entitled An Address on Voting and Laboring(1874). As an active member of the Presbyterian church he helped found a Mission School in North Philadelphia. He also organized in 1880 one of the early YMCAs for Negro youth, served in the Freedmen's Aid Commission, and was a member of the Philadelphia Board of Trade. He helped manage homes for aged Negroes and destitute Negro children, as well as an orphan asylum for the for the children of soldiers and sailors.

He died of heart trouble caused by Bright's disease, and was survived by his widow, two daughters, and a son.

*Dictionary of American Negro Biography-1972-Larry Gara