FRIEND OF THE FORKS OF THE ROADS SOCIETY INC. PROUDLY OFFERS FOR YOUR USE BASED UPON AVAILABILITY ITS EDUCATIONAL TRAVELING EXHIBIT:

THE AFRICAN--EUROPEAN ROOTS OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD 

Arabic and Old European World Desperation, Arabic and European Invasions of Africa, European New World (Americas) Invasions, Arabic and European War, Seduction, Captivity, Enslavement in Africa, African Peoples’ Resistance, Defiance, Gold, Ivory, Raw Materials, Relentless Freedom Struggles, Civil Rights Movements, Reparations Demands: 

Our exhibit’s story is designed to show that the underlying reasons for African peoples’ resistance to and relentless freedom struggles against foreign invasions in Africa and forced captivity, enslavement, colonization, cultural genocide, apartheid and racial discrimination in the Diaspora and the America(s) is rooted in their traditional human freedom and independence before outsiders invaded Africa. Viewers will understand that human rights and freedom were traditional ways of life in Africa before Arabs and Europeans invasions. African people always had the means to be independent and self-sufficient within Africa itself. 

Our educational exhibit challenges viewers to look beyond the conventional historical notion that the advent of enslavement rebellions, revolts and uprisings, Underground Railroad escapes, abolitionism, Black Civil War participation, Juneteenth and civil rights movements were not in and of themselves the reason for relentless resistance, defiance and freedom struggles by African descendants in the Americas. 

The Exhibit teaches that Africans’ resistance to and struggles against Europeans and other foreigner’s oppressions, captivity, and enslavement, as well as their ongoing defiance against racism and white supremacy domination originated in Africa. “Black” African descendants’ struggle for freedom, independence and resistance to captivity in America(s) originated in Africa. This struggle in the America(s) came about with the first Africans transported in captivity through the “Horrible Middle Passage,” and setting foot in the new European America(s) world. One of the most dramatic North American expressions of African peoples’ struggle for freedom is the human rights saga of the Underground Railroad story, and “the struggle continues.” 

The African/European Roots of the Underground Railroad Traveling Exhibit vividly raises viewers’ understanding of Africans in the Americas/Diaspora freedom struggles to a new level. 

DESCRIPTION OF EXHIBIT’S CONTENTS IS AS FOLLOWS:

INTRODUCTION PANEL TOP:

AFRICAN--EUROPEAN ROOTS OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD    

IMAGES:

Collage image poster of African postage stamps issued mainly during the period of European colonial rule. Several stamps of historical persons issued by the United States are included. Images on African issued stamps reflect a variety of traditional music, dance, industry, governments and personalities.

INTRODUCTION PANEL BOTTOM:

CORRESPONDING TEXT:

“Africa is the American Negro land of origin” said Martin L. King, Jr. in a speech against apartheid in South Africa at Hunter College in New York City on Dec. 10, 1966. Africa is also the land of origin for those African descendants who were involved in the Underground Railroad. The African-European Roots of the Underground Railroad Exhibit was designed to help us visually comprehend how African humans were force-brought from Africa to America in captivity and enslaved and how they resisted captivity and “chattel slavery” in pursuit of freedom in America. This freedom struggle was transported over the "horrible Middle Passage” to the Americas. One of the most dramatic expressions of African people's struggle for freedom can be seen in the Underground Railroad story. “And the struggle continues.” "The current task is not simply to identify places where fugitive slaves stayed while en route to freedom, but rather to find and interpret evidence of the complex story of slavery and resistance in American history.” “Black” African descendants’ struggle for freedom, independence and resistance to captivity originated in Africa. One of the first recorded incidents occurred in 1441, when two shiploads of marauding Portuguese raiders led by commanders Antam Concalves and Nuno Tristao, wantonly attacked two groups of African people near what is now Morocco, North Africa. Some of the African men defended their people until death while many of the women and children ran away. These Portuguese raiders captured 12 African men, women and children, and carried them to Portugal. In this battle until death, we see the defiant and inherent resistance by Africans in a struggle with European invaders that was imported into the Americas.

 Panel A Top:

THE AFRICANS’ TRADITIONAL INDEPENDENCE AND FREEDOM

IMAGES:

1. Map of A. D. Kingdoms, Queendoms, Empires and some

B. C. Dynastic Gnomes

2. Kano Nigeria Urban City
3. Timbuktu Urban City

PANEL A BOTTOM:

CORRESPONDING TEXT

African Royal Kingdoms and Queendoms such as Ghana, Mali, Kanem-Bornu and Zimbabwe, institutions of self-government, spiritual science, cultural developments, and their traditional independence and freedom that was observed and recorded by European foreigners, were a continuation of centuries-old institutions developed by Black African Nile Valley Civilizations such as Kush, Ethiopia, and Ancient Egypt that sprang up throughout the African continent. Thousands of years before the Atlantic Enslavement traffic, Africans developed the tenets of civilization in the form of geometry, art, astronomy, mathematics, architecture, metallurgy, agriculture and much more. “There a people now forgotten discovered while others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences, a race of men now rejected for their sable skin and frizzled hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature, those civil and religious systems which still govern the universe." Count C.F. Voluney, Ruins of Empire, 1789, (preface of 1st edition)

 PANEL B TOP:

EUROPEAN INVASION AND THE WAR FOR AFRICA'S GOLD

IMAGES:

1. Portuguese Gold Coast Fort Ghana West Africa
2. Portuguese using European created bible as an instrument of seduction in Africa presents it to the Ganda people’s king
3. Spanish flag representing Spain’s role
4. Traditional African plantation farm adopted by Europeans for creation of plantations exported to the America(s)
5. Dutch Fort Orange Ghana West African

 PANEL B BOTTOM:

CORRESPONDING TEXT

The King of Mali, Mansa Kankan Mussa (1312-1337) exposed to the world the vast wealth of West Africa when he paid in gold for a caravan of some “72,000 people” to visit Mecca. Finally expelling African "Black-a-moors” after nearly 800 years of occupying Spain & Portugal, 15th Century Portugal was first to go for the gold of Africa. Intentionally invading North Africa in the 1440s, the Portuguese learned first- hand of African gold and wealth not available in an Europe that was not yet economically self sufficient. Carrying out Prince Henry's plan of invasion, war and conquest of Africa, Portuguese military units inched along the African coast to the "Gold Coast” (Ghana) where they built El Mina Fort (the gold mines) in 1482. Several years after Vasco da Gama notified his countrymen of the African wealth he saw on his way to the Far East, Spain expelled the "Black-a-Moors" and followed the Portuguese to the islands off northwest Africa. Here, they and the Portuguese began researching Africa's plant domestication systems (plant plantations) and later exported the newly learned plantation systems of agriculture to the Americas. Other European countries were soon attracted by the wealth the Portuguese militarily took out of Africa. In 1637, the Dutch violently ousted the Portuguese from their 150-year monopoly operations in northwest Africa and established their joint stock company venture capitalist headquarters at Cape Coast Fort in Ghana West Africa. The Portuguese simply moved on down and captured other areas of the West Coast and East Coast of Africa. 

PANEL C TOP:

GOLD, HUMANS & RAW MATERIALS

IMAGES:

1.    French traveling deep into the African interior on River Niger

2. Portuguese, Dutch and English Cape Coast Fort Ghana West Africa
3. Dutch defeat Portuguese in 1637 capture Cape Coast Fort
4. Arabic indoctrinated Africans and mulattoes working with British traffickers
5. “One gun for one African” Europeans bringing guns to Africans
6. Underground dungeon of Cape Coast Fort

PANEL C BOTTOM:

CORRESPONDING TEXT

In 1664, the English violently ousted the Dutch from their West African headquarters at Cape Coast Fort and captured many other Dutch forts. Cape Coast Fort served as the English joint-stock corporate headquarters until 1877. Cape Coast dungeons held up to 1700 males and females in captivity. On average they were 12 to 25 years of age. With African gold financing their developing national treasuries and their occupations of “Native" Americans” land, Spain, Portugal and Holland were among the first Europeans to force-bring African humans (Black Gold) in captivity for enslavement in the Americas. The Dutch brought a shipment of African captives to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. From the early 17th Century on a flood of Africans in captivity were being force-brought to the Americas as follows: By Portugal to Brazil, by Spain to Florida, Mexico and Central and South America, by Holland to New Amsterdam (New York), by England to the Thirteen Colonies, Barbados, Bermuda and St. Christopher, by France to Canada, Louisiana, Mississippi, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Martinique and Nova Scotia and by Denmark to St. Thomas and so on.  

PANEL D TOP:

AFRICANS WITH AGRICULTURAL SKILLS

IMAGES:

1. Trails of No Return Ghana West Africa Connection
2. Bunce Island Grain Coast (Rice growing) Sierra Leone West Africa
3. Bunce Island may have La Amistad revolt connection
4. English and French flags on small boats in Africa’s interior
5. Goree` Island Forts Senegal West Africa (Presidents Clinton and Bush went there)
6. House of the Enslaved Goree` Island   

PANEL D BOTTOM:

CORRESPONDING TEXT

Imitating the Dutch joint-stock venture capital model, the English Royal African Company brought thousands of Africans in captivity to the colonies they occupied in America. Bunce’s Island English Fort on the "Grain Coast" was one of two-forts in Sierra Leone, West Africa from which the rice agriculturalists Gullah and Geeche people were shipped to South Carolina and Georgia. In 1678, the French captured Goree Island in Senegal, West Africa, from the Dutch, who had taken it from the Portuguese in 1657. The French named it Goree and made it their joint-stock venture capital corporate headquarters. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall in her book Africans in Colonial Louisiana, the Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century, reports that the French enslavement ship La Venus departed from Goree Island for Louisiana on April 16,1729. After landing in New Orleans, thirty of the La Venus's African “captifs" were shipped to Natchez, Mississippi. In 1982, a tourist information document posted on the wall of Maison De' Esclaves De Captifs “(House of the slaves)” listed the departure of six hundred and eighty six (686) foreign ships from Goree Island from 1776 to 1815.

 PANEL E TOP: 

ENSLAVEMENT DEALING IN EAST AFRICA AND AFRICAN PEOPLE RESISTANCE

IMAGES: 

1.     Arabs & “Blacks Arabs” raiding from northeast to southeast Africa

2.     Zanzibar Island East Africa’s Indian Ocean trafficking base of Arabs

3.     Under the stairs dungeon Goree` Island Senegal West Africa

4.     “White” prisoners brought before King of Benin and hung for trafficking in Africa

5.     Africans chasing away Europeans, Arabs and other African collaborators

6.     Africans turning the gun on European gun bringers 

PANEL E BOTTOM:

CORRESPONDING TEXT

In addition to the Portuguese, the Spanish, Dutch, English and French, the Germans, Swedes and Danes also trafficked in Africa's humans, gold and other raw materials. A. W. Lawrence, considered the authority on European forts in West Africa, lists in his book Trade Castles & Forts Of West Africa the following number of principal European forts in West Africa: Portuguese 6. Dutch 17. English 19. French 5. German, Brandenburgers 5. Danish 5 and Spanish 1 for a total of 43 (eliminating double counting for forts held by more than one European country). African people resisted losing their traditional freedom, independence, human and material resources. Queen Nzingha fought the Portuguese to a military standstill for thirty years in the Kongo area of Central Africa as an example. 

PANEL F TOP:

THE EUROPEAN’S AFRICAN DOORS OF NO RETURN AND

THE HORRIBLE MIDDLE PASSAGE TO THE AMERICAS 

IMAGES:

1. Secondary Doors of “No Return” Cape Coast Fort Ghana
2. “Door of No Return” House of the Enslaved Goree` Island
3. Branding European ownership tattoos on African captives on beachhead
4. Resistance on a “Middle Passage” ship
5. Arrival in the America(s)

PANEL F BOTTOM:

CORRESPONDING TEXT

The Portuguese, Arabs, French, Brazilians and European Americans all trafficked in African human captives from East Africa. Zanzibar Islands and the Port of Kilwa in the Indian Ocean were major staging areas and markets for force-shipping African captives to Europe, Arabia, India, North, Central and South America. Even though the United States had abolished the importation of people from Africa, Africans were continuously brought from Africa in captivity for enslavement in the United States until the "Civil War!” Force-driven into captivity through the "Doors of No Return" of North, West, South, and East Africa, Africans were tragically separated from their land of origin, cultural and royal government institutions and families. 

PANEL G TOP:

AFRICAN CAPTIVES ENSLAVED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

IMAGES:

1.     Captured Africans arrive at America’s ports (Sullivan’s Island South Carolina)

2.     English , Dutch, French, Spanish and some Native Americans Nations enslaved Africans in America(s)

3.     America’s “Domestic” enslavement trafficking from upper south to lower southwest

4.     King-pin enslavement dealers Franklin and Armfield extant building 1315 Duke Street Alexandria Virginia

5.     Franklin and Armfield enslavement pen jail

6.     Extant “Old Slave Mart” building Charleston South Carolina

PANEL G BOTTOM:

CORRESPONDING TEXT

Africans resisted enslavement, fought against captivity and the loss of their traditional independence and freedom beginning with the Portuguese invasions in Africa. They continued their resistance through the "Doors of No Return" all over Africa and on board the "horrible middle passages" to the Americas. Once the first African captives set foot in the Americas, the stage was set for their fight for freedom and resistance against enslavement, captivity, racism and the elimination of the ongoing effects of two centuries of dehumanizing life as enslaved people in America.

Reparations Right Now! 

PANEL H TOP:

UNITED STATES “DOMESTIC” ENSLAVEMENT TRAFFICKING:

THE OVERGROUND RAILROAD SOUTH

IMAGES:

1. Africans in America forced walked from upper south to lower southwest
2. “Coffle” of captives camped near New River
3. Many captive African descendants dies and were left by the wayside going south
4. Probable Overground Railroad trails of Sorrow going south
5. New Orleans enslavement markets were the Deep Southwest’s largest
6. Natchez Mississippi’s Forks of the Road enslavement selling markets

PANEL H BOTTOM:

CORRESPONDING TEXT

Enslaved Africans passed on their traditional values of freedom and independence to generations of their descendants in America including those of the Underground Railroad story. As European Americans expanded Westward and Southward, they brought their many enslaved African descendants with them. New territories were taken from the "Native Americans" and enslaved people cleared the land and raised cotton, rice and sugar cane cash crops for their enslavers. The 1808 U. S. prohibition of the importation of people directly from Africa coupled with the huge profits to be made due the mechanization of cotton and sugar cane processing resulted in thousands of enslaved Africans descendants being sold to the Lower South from the Upper South. Speculator and professional dealers took them in captivity from the Upper South on the Overground Railroad to the Lower South. This name refers to land and water-routes over which African descendants were force-shipped or walked in chains from Maryland, Washington D. C., the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida and “human breeding” states of Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee to the Lower South 

PANEL I TOP:

THE DEEP SOUTH’S UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE AND

MILITARY STRUGGLE OF SELF-EMANCIPATION

IMAGES:

1. Forks of the Road historic marker
2. Sale ads advertising enslaved captives from Kentucky at Forks of the Road
3. Members of Mississippi-Louisiana Grand Army of the Republic Civil War’s U. S. Colored Troops Veterans
4. National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program’s logo reflecting Forks of the Road juncture as one of its historic sites

PANEL I BOTTOM:

CORRESPONDING TEXT

The resistance to enslavement known as the Underground Railroad coincided with America’s domestic enslavement trafficking to the Mid-western Upper South and the Lower South. Such trafficking greatly contributed to the African descendants presence in the Mid-west and lower South. Therefore, being “sold down the river” was a significant impetus for the existence of the Deep South’s Underground Railroad and flights of the Northern Underground Railroad stories. Separation from family, friends, and associates, the threat of separation, fear of being “sold down de ribber and worked to death in 7 years,” the horrors of enslavement and desire for traditional African freedom heritage all fueled the efforts to resist enslavement by running away to the north as far as Canada and southeast and southwest as far as the Caribbean and Mexico. Some even escaped to Europe.The Mississippi River functioned as one of the major escape routes for freedom. To make it to the River was a major step in breaking for freedom. The Mississippi River* inspired hundreds and perhaps thousands of enslaved people in the lower South to escape and think about escaping. Finally, hundreds of thousands of enslaved men, women and children deliberately ran away to freedom from their places of enslavement just before and during the Civil War. In a successful effort of self-emancipation and of maintaining their freedom, more than two hundred thousand “Black” men joined the Union Army as Freedom Fighters. They and the thousands of women, children and elderly men who supported the Union Army in non-soldiers capacity achieved the double victory of self-emancipation and helped preserve the United States as a nation. Juneteenth and Constitutional Amendments mass Freedom and Civil Rights for African descendants in America of the Nineteenth Century was made possible by these Greatest Generations of enslaved and non-enslaved Freedom Fighters. 

END PANEL TOP: 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

NO IMAGES: 

TEXT ONLY 

END PANEL BOTTOM: 

CORRESPONDING SPECIAL THANKS TEXT 

Since 2003 my person, Ser Seshs Ab Heter-Clifford M. Boxley has researched and compiled information and data on the Mississippi River as a major Underground Railroad Uhuru (Freedom) route from Memphis to the Gulf of Mexico. As of December 2005 my person had compiled over one thousand (1000) pages. Now compiled 1123 pages by 2008 

(C) Copyright Ser Seshs Ab Heter- Clifford M. Boxley, 2001 

Exhibit is constructed on alumlite material and comes in panel form not free standing. There are top panels (ones with picture images) and bottom panels (ones with narrative writing only). Each panel with narrative writing only matches a panel with pictures in the following manner: Introduction Top, Introduction Bottom, Panel A Top, Panel A Bottom and so on through Panel I and the panels marked End Top, End Bottom. These are labeled on the backside of each panel with such markings.

Their dimensions are as follows: Tops: 48” tall by 35 ¼” wide. Bottoms: 34 ½” tall by 33 ½” wide. There are 22 panels in all. 

Exhibit Availability for your use: 

This availibity information is subject to change from time to time. 

Currently there are two original copies of the exhibit. 

One copy is located in Cambria Heights New York and will remain on the east coast for use by various sources and venues along the east coast pending availability, Friends of the Forks of the Roads Society Inc (FRSI) and the east coast borrowing agent approval. 

One copy is located in Zanesville Ohio and will remain in the Midwest region for use by various sources and venues in the Midwest Region pending availability, Friends of the Forks of the Roads Society Inc and the Midwest borrowing agent approval. 

Contact Person Regarding Exhibit’s Availability Processing: 

Ser Seshs Ab Heter-CM Boxley, Coordinator, FRSI

P. O. Box 2188 Natchez, Ms. 39121

Phone: 601-442-4719 Email: forksyaroads@aol.com 

Showing of Exhibit Since Its Development: 

Louisiana African American Museum St. Augustine Catholic Church New Orleans 

Jean Lefitte National Park Service New Orleans Louisiana 

Odella Williams Now and Then African American Museum Baton Rouge Louisiana. 

Bound For Glory on Bayou Gathering Baton Rouge Louisiana 

AMSouth Bank Natchez Mississippi 

Assoc. Study of African American History and Life 91^st Convention Atlanta Georgia 

River Road African American Museum’s Juneteenth Donaldsonville Louisiana 

Higgins Middle School McComb Mississippi 

 Apex Museum Atlanta, Georgia 

Serena Wilson’s Underground Railroad Quilt Exhibition Underground Shopping Mall Atlanta Georgia 

Banneker Douglass Museum Annapolis Maryland 

Copiah-Lincoln Community College Natchez 

Mississippi Welcome Center Natchez (Repeat) 

Silas Hunt Community Development Center Texarkana Arkansas

Currently Until Change: With Interfaith Metaphysical Fellowship c/o Ellen Jacobs Founder and Director Cambria Heights New York 

Currently Until Change: With Denver Norman Zanesville Ohio 

Select Exhibit Viewers Comments and Borrowing Agents Assessments 

“Your display was very helpful and resourceful to the Mississippi Welcome Center here in Natchez in that it helped and aided us in spreading the history of African American Culture not only here in Natchez, but throughout America and the entire world.”…April 9, 2008 

“An exciting and educational exhibit, a must see especially for African American Children across the United States.

Several participants stated that this was a very informative exhibit. They did not know much about the Underground Railroad.

Very educational, African American children really need to be taught Black History in the schools of Arkansas. Silas H. Hunt Community Development Corporation, Inc Texarkana Ark…January 2008 

“As agents, we intend to have the exhibit housed at different venues that will be accessible to school children and the general public. We will share the exhibit with organizations, agencies, festivals, conference etc.

As educators, we plan to develop our own attachments to the exhibit that will include, but is not limited to, K-12 curricula, professional development guide, audio, an introduction, and additional information to augment the exhibit. We also plan t develop a website and a brochure.” Ellen Jacobs Founder and Director of Interfaith Metaphysical Fellowship Cambia Heights New York...January 23, 2007 

“This letter is to summarize the use of 22 exhibit panels used by the Banneker-Douglas Museum Maryland Department of Planning, in conjunction with our temporary exhibition entitled Secrets: Viewpoint of the Underground Railroad. This exhibition was displayed in Welcome Gallery from May, 2004 until February, 2005.

The panels gave the locally based exhibition a national viewpoint, which was a wonderful addition to the information that was given to our museum visitors. During the 10 months on display, some 10,000 visitors viewed this exhibition. Another 1,200 students on class tours also saw the exhibit, and participated in our educational programming.” Wendi Perry, Museum Director…August 1, 2006 

“The panels added flavor and knowledge to each visitor who came into the museum. The graphic of the capture of Africans fit well into our display of the Continent of Africa and will be gravely missed.

My greatest joy was to share this historical data with Katrina evacuees from the New Orleans area who came to our museum for a Cultural and Spiritual Festival. The satisfaction gained from this total visit will be an everlasting flame in the hearts of the attendees.” Sadie Roberts-Joseph Odell S. Williams Now & Then Museum of African American History Baton Rouge Louisiana…May 2006 

“As you are aware, your exhibit was loaned to us in September 2002, and remained in our custody until May 2004. It has been an exciting journey for us inasmuch as your exhibit served as a premier piece in the preview opening of the museum in October 2002 and grand opening in February 2003.

Although the museum is currently opened only two days a week (Saturday and Sunday), schools visit us during the week by appointment. In reviewing our visitor guest book and our group appointments book, over, 1,100 guests have visited us and reviewed your exhibit. About 30% of these were elementary and high school students. We would like to share some of the written comments that visitors have left with us.” 

An Elementary Student Comment 

“The Underground Railroad exhibit was real interesting. This is a good place for history. I really learned more about history”---Darrinisha Gray (Harry S. Truman Middle School, Westwego, La.) 

A Local Visitor Comment 

“It seemed to send chills down my spine but was also inspirational. I am a painter and illustrator, so that means a lot to me.”—Jamar Pierre (Artist, New Orleans, La.)

 A National Visitor Comment

“Wonderful exhibit—many facts I had never known before. Keep up the good work of finding the truth and telling it---especially to young people. Also, when was the photo of the slave sale taken?”—Patrice White (Harvard, Massachusetts) 

A Visitor From Another Country 

“I have learned so much from the exhibits here. I have only been here for 4 days and I am told by the hotel people to stay out of the black areas or neighborhoods. Can you tell me why so many white people hate the black people?”—Ng Lai Fong (Hong Kong, China) 

“Mr. Boxley, we of the Louisiana Museum of African American History wish to extend our appreciation again to your excellent educational instrument. The design of this exhibit as a visual tool shaped as a pinball machine, whose content is substantiated with hidden history, proved to be an effective learning instrument, especially for our youth.” Leon Waters Board Chairperson….July 2, 2004 

“The APEX Museum extends many thanks to you for allowing us to make use of such a fine exhibition during Black History Month, February 2003 and The Mall West End April 2004. It was also displayed in conjunction with our ongoing program, APEX Edutainment Center, at the famous Underground Atlanta as well.

Our records indicate that there were thousands of visitors to the museum and these satellite locations, and the overall response was one of amazement and gratitude for the exhibit and its contents. Dan Moore Jr. Director….June 29, 2004