The knowledge of a people's history impacts the growth, pride and cultural understanding of their place in a civilized society, without it the people are like a tree torn asunder and deprived of the nutritional value of its roots.
On the fateful morning of April 15, 1912, the RMS Titanic
sank into the icy waters of the North Atlantic Ocean after it collided with an iceberg.
On its maiden voyage the Titanic carried 2,224 passengers, over 1,500 perished.
One of those passengers was Joseph Philippe Lemercier
Laroche, a Paris-educated Haitian engineer; accompanying him was his French wife
and two daughters, they were on their way to Haiti. Laroche was the only known
passenger of African descent on board.
At 15, he traveled to Beauvais, France to study and after
graduating with an engineering degree in 1907, he soon met his wife, Juliette
Lafargue and they were married. Even with his advanced education Laroche was
unable to find unemployment because of his racial background and the lack of
matching qualifications. Growing weary of the struggle he decided to take his
family and return to Haiti.
The Laroches exchanged their tickets for second-class passage
aboard the Titanic and on April 10, 1912, they began their voyage. At 11:40
pm, the Titanic was struck by the iceberg and Joseph woke up his family and he
informed Juliette what happened. They gathered their belongings stuffing his
pockets with his valuables and money then carried their daughters to the deck
of the ship where the crew were preparing the lifeboats to abandoned the Titanic. Women and children were put into the lifeboats first. Joseph wraps
his coat around his wife telling her,
"Here, take this, you are going to need it. I'll get another boat. God
be with you.I'll see you in New
York."
He helped his family down into the lifeboat and climbed back onto the ship.
Joseph Laroche went down with the Titanic and his body was never recovered.
Juliette Lafargue returned to Villejuif, France and gave birth to her son.
She gave him the name Joseph, after her husband.
Joseph Laroche's youngest daughter Louise Laroche died on January 28, 1998.She was one of the last remaining survivors of
the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912.
*Note
Joseph Philippe Lemercier Laroche was born on May 26, 1889 in Cap Haiten,
Haiti.He was the son of a white French
army captain and a Haitian woman who was a descendant of Jean-Jacques
Dessalines, the first ruler of independent Haiti.Laroche's uncle, Dessalines M. Cincinnatus,
was president of Haiti from 1911 to 1912. - http://www.blackpast.org
This is why learning about true African American history
is so important, so we will rise above the demoralization, mental
neutralization and lies that were indoctrinated in us through public education
and slavery. The false narratives about our history and deprogramming us of our
culture is what keeps us in denial, subjugation and asleep.
As slavery ended and Jim Crow swept across the nation,
another form of ridicule becomes popular to further dehumanize African
Americans. It was perpetuated in minstrel and song; it was a genre of music
that came into popularity in the United States as well as around the world from
1880 to 1920, although the earliest such songs date from minstrel shows as far
back as 1848. Coon songs were performed by white musical entertainers or groups
that dressed up in blackened faces and from their distorted stereotypical
viewpoint they jokingly portrayed African Americans as buffoons.
From Wikipedia:
By the mid-1880s, coon songs were a national craze; over
600 such songs were published in the 1890s. The most successful songs sold
millions of copies. To take advantage of the fad, composers "add words
typical of coon songs to previously published songs and rags" At the height of
their popularity, "just about every songwriter in the country" was
writing coon songs "to fill the seemingly insatiable demand. "Writers
of coon songs included some of the most important Tin Pan Alley composers,
including Gus Edwards, Fred Fisher (who wrote the 1905 "If the Man in the
Moon Were a Coon", which sold three million copies), and Irving Berlin.
Even one of John Philip Sousa's assistants, Arthur Pryor,
composed coon songs. (This was meant to ensure a steady supply to Sousa's band,
which performed the songs and popularized several coon song melodies. The songs
showed the social threats that whites believed were posed by blacks. Passing
was a common theme, and blacks were portrayed as seeking the status of whites,
through education and money.However,
blacks rarely, except during dream sequences, actually succeeded at appearing
white; they only aspired to do so.
The purpose of these songs and the performance were to
demoralize and diminish the intellect and character of African Americans. From
the standpoint of the performers it was meant to be funny by using caricature
images of African Americans eating watermelon and chicken, as babbling idiots,
dishonest, hustlers, drunkards and gamblers without ambition and much, much worst.
However, the minstrel genre also included a few blacks
who decided to join the minstrel circuit; they put on a "blackface"
as well to perform.
Billy Kersands (1842-1915), James A. Bland (1854-1911),
Master Juba (1825-1852), Sam Lucas (1850-1916), Thomas Dilworth (1840-1902).
One of the performers commented about why they do it:
"If they wanted to be popular, they had no choice
but to imitate the white minstrels' imitation of blacks."
*From wikipedia:
After the turn of the century, coon songs began to
receive criticism for their racist content. In 1905, Bob Cole, an
African-American composer who had gained fame largely by writing coon songs,
made somewhat unprecedented remarks about the genre. When asked in an interview
about the name of his earlier comedy A Trip to Coontown, he replied, "That
day has passed with the softly flowing tide of revelations." Cole's
comments may have been influential, and (following further criticism) the use
of "coon" in song titles greatly decreased after 1910.
The popular opinion of some people and other information
sources is to believe the “coon song” circuit decreased in 1910.Minstrel shows are still being performed by
African Americans on TV, as comedians and in most popular rap music without the
blackened face. Racist white people are choosing to inflict this distorted
stereotype of their ancestors and they believe it is still humorous to
demoralize African Americans in this manner. The attitudes, practices and
mindset are still very much alive today across the United States and the world.
Robert Allen “Bob” Cole, (on the left, who is sitting)
with his partner, J. Rosamond Johnson in the picture of black minstrels) was a
composer, actor, playwright, stage producer and director. Cole and Johnson
featured classical piano and refined musicals which did not have the usual
stereotypes like hot-mamas or watermelon when he first became successful. In
time, their success allowed them to tour in America and Europe. In 1896, Cole
joined Black Patti’s Troubadours, an American vaudeville group that performed
blackface minstrel songs and coon songs. It also featured acrobats and
comedians.
The talented team of Bob Cole and Rosamond Johnsons’
success came from Johnson’s training in music and his creative ability on the
keyboard and Cole’s lyrical talent in composing original pieces. Eventually,
together the men were instrumental in altering the perception and interest in
African America music. Through their collaborative efforts they sought to
educate the public through their music and sway the concept of “coon songs” as
a degrading and contemptible genre.
From wikipedia:
By 1902, Cole gained
ultimate success, financially, and wrote the article “The Negro and the Stage”
for the Colored American Magazine. In it, he reveals his concerns toward the
crippling imaged placed on African-American performers; for instance, he is
disgruntled by the use of the African-American villains in black entertainment,
for it demeaned African Americans and fueled the racial stereotypes of the
typical violent black man. He denounces the adaptations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
that used African-American stereotypes. Although, in the article, he criticizes
the conventional use of the aggressive black man (which in turn enforced a
disreputable image on the black actors themselves) incorporated in most black
entertainment of the day, he ends the article with a positive note of a bright
future for black performers, where stereotyping and racism would be nullified
and African Americans would eventually revolutionize the entertainment world.
Cole was a revolutionary figure who contributed to the movement in eliminating
the degrading, social characterizations of the black performer, thus, forcing
the path of black entertainment towards a more respectable and dignified
future.
Tragically, Cole committed suicide by drowning himself in
a creek in the Catskills in 1911 after a nervous breakdown and period of
clinical depression that worsened in 1910.
After fighting to eliminate the psychological effects of
the minstrel shows on African Americans, Bob Cole was asked about his
performance from an earlier time in his career when he participated in the
minstrel and coon song circuits,...he replied...
"That day has passed with the softly flowing tide of
revelations."
Definition of revelation:
something revealed or
disclosed, especially a striking disclosure, as of something not before
realized
