Black Heritage Amsterdam Tours

The Black Heritage Amsterdam Tour informs, inspires and educates, whether you are a descendant of former enslaved, an educator, or a visitor who is interested in learning more about the contributions of the African Diaspora to Dutch society from the 16th century to the present. 

Black Brazilian women protest against racist hair ad

Hair product Cadiveu Brasil launched a controversial campaign were various white people were photographed using huge afro wigs and holding a sign that says “eu preciso de Cadiveu (I need Cadiveu)”. Check the whole story at www.blackwomenofbrazil.co 

Hans Massaquoi - Ebony editor who grew up black in Nazi Germany dies

Ebony — Hans Massaquoi, the former managing editor of Ebony magazine who wrote the  distinctive memoir "Destined to Witness: Growing up Black in Nazi Germany", has died. 

Michelle Obama attends abolition of slavery commemoration in Amsterdam?

Amsterdam Mayor Eberhard van der Laan has sent an invitation to the First Lady of the United States to come to Amsterdam and speech during the ceremony of the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, according to Het Parool.   

Video: "Ebony Towers" - Black academia versus authentic street black in US and UK

Photo: Black American academic Cornel West

"You can can get more love and consideration in black culture by going out of prison and being a recent ex convict than you can by getting a master's degree," says African-American academic Eric Dyson in the BBC documentary "Ebony Towers: The New Black Intelligentsia" by David Olusoga. A documentary which compares the state of black academia in the US and the UK and its relationship with the young urban Hip Hop generation. Update: According to AfricansArise, who uploaded the documentary in 2009, the documentary was actually produced in around 2003-2004, hence the lack of Obama.

Video: UK singer Laura Mvula - "Green Garden"

London singer songwriter Laura Mvula has debuted her new video, "Green Garden". The single is taken from her forthcoming album, "Sing To The Moon".

Video: Documentary "Black Russians - The Red Experience"

Shadow and act profiled the documentary "Black Russians - The Red Experience". A story of the lives and experiences of the black Americans who went to the Soviet Union during the Stalinist era in search of an ideal life. Escaping from racism and the Great Depression, they dove into new lives, having “nothing to lose” and no reason to turn back. Did they find what they were looking for? Their descendants who live in Russia and America today will share a story of their ancestors as well as their own.

The subjects include Wayland Rudd Jr., a Moscow-based singer and the son of an African-American actor who moved to the Soviet Union in the 1930s, and Russian TV personality Yelena Khanga, granddaughter of a Mississippi cotton farmer and a Polish-Jewish American woman who relocated to then Soviet Uzbekistan, the cradle of the country’s cotton industry, around the same time.  See video below.

Video: Protest against removal of Black British heroes from school National Curriculum

Over 40 leading British trade unionists and personalities want the Education Secretary to rethink his proposals to axe Crimean war heroine Mary Seacole and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano as required study in UK schools.

Book: "The Black Russian" - The story of Frederick Bruce Thomas

The Black Russian is the incredible story of black American Frederick Bruce Thomas, born in 1872 to former slaves who became prosperous farmers in Mississippi.  A rich white planter’s attempt to steal their land forced them to flee to Memphis, where Frederick’s father was brutally murdered.

After leaving the South and working as a waiter and valet in Chicago and Brooklyn, Frederick sought greater freedom in London, then crisscrossed Europe, and—in a highly unusual choice for a black American at the time—went to Russia in 1899.  Because he found no color line there, Frederick made Moscow his home. He renamed himself Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas, married twice, acquired a mistress, and took Russian citizenship.

16th-Century painting hints at ties between Blacks and Jews

Blacks and Jews: Jewish police officers haul away a black man in this anonymous depiction of a Lisbon street scene

According to the Jewish Daily Forward,  both groups lived near gritty Portugal port in 16th Century. In the painting "Netherlandish" Blacks and Jews are depicted in a 16th century urban scene. 

Video: Esperanza Spalding - I know You know (Live) - Nobel concert

It was great that Esperanza Spalding did a benefit concert for Free the Slaves last year.

MY 2012: Black children inspired by brothers and sisters in Renaissance Europe

It's my picture of 2012, the drawing "Renaissance City" by Harlem Part Elementary/Middle School Students in US.  They made the drawing after a visit from a museum educator, who introduced them to work of the exhibition Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe of the Walter Art Museum. Students were asked to bring the portraits to life and give them a voice.

Video: Afro Diasporic French Identities

Via Mahogany
The documentary "Afro Diasporic French Identities" of Afro French writer and professor Nathalie Etoke is the result of a research project she began in 2010 in which she studied the relationship between race and citizenship in the specifically French sociopolitical context. She interviewed writers, artists, professors and community organisers who investigate the issue of race and identity in France.