I guess Django was more interesting? Yeah, right.
Bass Reeves, one of the first African Americans to become a Deputy U.S. Marshal west of the Mississippi River. He was born a slave, arrested 3,000 felons, killed 14 men and was never shot throughout his 32-year career as a federal lawman. Reeves procured his own land in Van Buren, Arkansas, where he married his wife, Nellie Jennie, built an eight-room house with his bare hands, and raised ten children as the first black settler in the region.
Under President Ulysses S. Grant, Parker appointed Confederate Army General James Fagan a U.S. Marshal and ordered him to hire 200 deputies. Fagan knew of the former slave, his ability to negotiate Indian Territory and his ability to speak their languages, and so Reeves was named the first black Deputy Marshal west of the Mississippi.
In that role he was authorized to arrest both black and white outlaws.
Reeves later became became an officer of the Muskogee, Oklahoma, police department at the age of 68. He died of Bright’s disease on January 12, 1910, at the age of 72.
‘Bass Reeves’, a fictionalized film of the lawman’s life and military career was produced and released by Ponderous Productions of San Antonio, Texas, in 2010.
Actor Morgan Freeman has spent more than five years attempting to get the story of Reeves to the big screen.
I want to watch a movie about this guy, and I want to watch a movie about Stagecoach Mary, and I don’t understand why it’s so hard to get movies made about badass people from the olden days other than, you know, racism.
They’re still playing the racism thing because as long as Black people don’t see themselves in a positive light reflected in media or society in general, we’ll never have the motivation to rise above what we’ve been allotted by our oppressors.
IF MORGAN FREEMAN CAN’T GET A FUCKING MOVIE STARTED
WHAT CHANCE DOES DANNY GLOVER HAVE?
And Freeman is their magic Negro. I wonder what Freeman thinks is stopping him from getting his movie made. It must be puzzling him to death. He doesn’t talk about racism, so it can’t be that, can it?
(via karnythia)
True.
Progress way closer to the wall than the first time I tried feb to may progression of handstand soon ill be able to bust these out lots! #crossfit #progress #excited #trainmean #handstand #strong #power #weightloss #sohappy #love
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cultural genocide in North America
This, this right here, this is why “white people” cannot wear our things, cannot appropriate our customs or languages. Because y’all did this. y’all continue to do this too.
(via raizinbran)
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A young and intense Phylicia Rashad in a still from a Negro Ensemble Company production.
(Source: theblacksophisticate, via zenjamaican)
“
Stand naked in front of a mirror for a long time, under unflattering light if possible. Trace the rises and falls of the little ripples on your skin — the scars, the dimples, the cellulite — and think about how much you try to hide these things in your day-to-day. Wonder why you hate them so much, and if this hate stems from somewhere within yourself, or as a result of being told all your life that it’s wrong to have physical flaws. Wonder what you would think of your body if you never looked at a magazine, if you never thought about celebrities and models, if you never had to wonder where someone would rate you on a scale of 10. Look at yourself until the initial recoil softens, and you can consider your features in a more forgiving frame of mind.
Listen to the music which makes you want to both sob and dance with uninhibited joy, and allow yourself to repeat any song you want as many times as your heart desires. Think of the person you are when you have your favorite song in your headphones and are walking down a street you feel you own completely, swaying your hips and smiling for no good reason — remember how many things you love about yourself during those moments, how much you are willing to forgive in yourself, how confident you are for no good reason. Try to think of confidence as a gift you give yourself when you need it, instead of something you have to siphon from every unreliable source in your life. Dance because the music makes you remember how much you love yourself, not because it allows you to forget the fact that you don’t.
Write a list of all the things you like about yourself, even if you think it’s a self-indulgent and narcissistic activity. Start as early as you like in your life — put down that time you won a trophy playing little league soccer when you were eight and then got an extra-large shake at the DQ on the way home, and don’t feel silly for remembering it. Try to understand how many sources in your life happiness can come from, how many things you could be proud of if you chose to. Ask yourself why you so tightly limit the things you take pride in, why you set your own hurdles for happiness and fulfillment so much higher than you do with anyone else in your life. Let your list go on for pages and pages if you want it to.
Touch and care for yourself with the attention and the patience that you would someone you loved more than life itself. Rub lotion in small circles on your elbows and hands when it is cold and your skin is dry and cracked. Make soup for yourself when your nose is running and curl up, with your favorite movie, in a pile of expertly-stacked pillows. Light a few candles and let their glow flicker against your body. Admire how gentle they are, how delicately their warmth touches you — wonder why you don’t let yourself do the same. Soak your feet in warm water at the end of a long day, until they have forgiven you for walking on them for so long without so much as a “thank you.” Listen to your body when it aches to be touched, and don’t be afraid to give it every orgasm that you may have been too ashamed to ask for in someone else’s bed.
Be patient with yourself, and don’t worry if a switch doesn’t flip in you which abruptly takes you from “crippling self-doubt” to “uncompromising self-love.” Allow yourself all the trepidation and clumsy, uneven infatuation that you would with a promising stranger. Try only to be kinder, to be softer, and to remember all of the things within you which are worth loving. Listen to the voice in the back of your head which tells you, as much out of sadness as anger, “You are ugly. You are stupid. You are boring.” Give it the fleeting moment of attention it so craves, and then remind it, “Even if that were true, I’d still be worth loving.”
” —Chelsea Fagan, How To Fall In Love With Yourself
(via elle-emeno-pee)
Worth reblogging again.
(via rawwomen)
(Source: larmoyante, via dopegirlfresh)
iconic
So doing this.
Eh wha….cool!
(Source: brendachong, via thegoddamazon)