Poem for Voice Over: Adapted to suit piece by Tonia Shepherd

My status as a woman alone in the evening/alone on the streets/alone not being the point/the point being that I can’t do what I want to do with my own body because I am the wrong sex the wrong age and I have the wrong skin!

Ripped away from my home land and dragged into a world of
Hate. Deprived of my dignity, my self worth.
Deprived of my innocence.

Do I deserve the beatings? Is my skin not black enough without the bruises?
Don’t I service you in every way possible?

in France they say if the guy penetrates but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me and if after stabbing him if after screams if after begging the bastard and if even after smashing hammer to his head if even after that if he and his slave master friends fuck me then I consented and there was no rape because finally you understand

Finally you understand!
I have no voice!

I am forced to do things that make me feel sordid,
Things that make me feel unclean.
Contaminated! I scream but I am not heard.
I cry but nobody takes heed of me.

No where does it talk about the pain and suffering I have been through
No where does it educate others of my experience
No where does it identify the sisters who conceived through rape
No where does it state the statistics.

I have been the meaning of rape I have been the problem everyone seeks to eliminate by forced penetration with or without the evidence.
I have had my vocal cords tied and my voice silenced

Why is finding information so hard??

Having tried to figure out why the information i required is so hard to find, i come to the conclusion that the information is not available because slave rape was not UN-common.



Slaves were the property of the Slave-Masters therefore permitting the Slave-Masters to subject the slaves to daily torture. Slaves were not seen as human beings, instead they were deemed objects. Even animals were given more respect.



Although the raping of slaves was illegal, Slave-Masters were in charge of their slaves they did anything they pleased, whether that meant starvation, whipping, selling, raping or KILLING them.



I may have to approach this project differently.

Harriet Tubman: Bio

HARRIET ROSS TUBMAN LIFE:Tubman, Harriet Ross (1822-1913). Born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Tubman gained international acclaim as an Underground Railroad operator, abolitionist, Civil War spy and nurse, suffragist, and humanitarian. After escaping from enslavement in 1849, Tubman dedicated herself to fighting for freedom, equality, and justice for the remainder of her long life, earning her the biblical name "Moses" and a place among the nation's most famous historical figures.Originally named Araminta, or "Minty," Harriet Tubman was born in early 1822 on the plantation of Anthony Thompson, south of Madison in Dorchester County, Maryland. Tubman was the fifth of nine children of Harriet "Rit" Green and Benjamin Ross, both slaves. Edward Brodess, the stepson of Anthony Thompson, claimed ownership of Rit and her children through his mother Mary Pattison Brodess Thompson. Ben Ross, the slave of Anthony Thompson, was a timber inspector who supervised and managed a vast timbering operation on Thompson's land. The Ross's relatively stable family life on Thompson's plantation came to abrupt end sometime in late 1823 or early 1824 when Edward Brodess took Rit and her then five children, including Tubman, to his own farm in Bucktown, a small agricultural village ten miles to the east. Brodess often hired Tubman out to temporary masters, some who were cruel and negligent, while selling other members of her family illegally to out of state buyers, permanently fracturing her family.Working as a field hand while a young teen, Tubman was nearly killed by a blow to her head from an iron weight, thrown by an angry overseer at another fleeing slave. The severe injury left her suffering from headaches, seizures and sleeping spells that plagued her for the rest of her life. During the late 1830s and early 1840s, Tubman worked for John T. Stewart, a Madison merchant and shipbuilder, bringing her back to the familial and social community near where her father lived and where she had been born. About 1844 she married a local free black named John Tubman, shedding her childhood name Minty in favor of Harriet.

On March 7, 1849, Edward Brodess died on his farm at Bucktown at the age of 47, leaving Tubman and her family at risk of being sold to settle Brodess's debts. In the late fall of 1849 Tubman took her own liberty. She tapped into an Underground Railroad that was already functioning well on the Eastern Shore: traveling by night, using the North Star and instructions from white and black helpers, she found her way to Philadelphia. She sought work as a domestic, saving her money to help the rest of her family escape. From 1850 to 1860, Tubman conducted between eleven and thirteen escape missions, bringing away approximately seventy individuals, including her brothers, parents, and other family and friends, while also giving instructions to approximately fifty more who found their way to freedom independently.The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 left most refugee slaves vulnerable to recapture, and many fled to the safety and protection of Canada. Indeed, Tubman brought many of her charges to St. Catharines, Ontario, where they settled into a growing community of freedom seekers. Her dangerous missions won the admiration of black and white abolitionists throughout the North who provided her with funds to continue her activities. In 1858, Tubman met with the legendary freedom fighter, John Brown, in her North Street home in St. Catharines. Impressed by his passion for ending slavery, she committed herself to helping him recruit former slaves to join him on his planned raid at Harper's Ferry, Va. Though she hoped to be at his side when the raid took place in October 1859, illness may have prevented her from joining him. In 1859, William Henry Seward, Lincoln's future Secretary of State, sold Tubman a home on the outskirts of Auburn, New York, where she eventually settled her aged parents and other family members. On her way to Boston in April 1860, Tubman became the heroine of the day when she helped rescue a fugitive slave, Charles Nalle, from the custody of United States Marshals charged with returning him to his Virginia master.In early 1862, Tubman joined Northern abolitionists in support of Union activities at Port Royal, South Carolina. Throughout the Civil War she provided badly needed nursing care to black soldiers and hundreds of newly liberated slaves who crowded Union camps. Tubman's military service expanded to include spying and scouting behind Confederate lines. In early June 1863, she became the first woman to command an armed military raid when she guided Col. James Montgomery and his 2nd South Carolina black regiment up the Combahee River, routing out Confederate outposts, destroying stockpiles of cotton, food and weapons, and liberating over 700 slaves.After the war, Tubman returned to Auburn, New York. There she began another career as a community activist, humanitarian, and suffragist. In 1869, Sarah Bradford published a short biography of Tubman called "Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman," bringing brief fame and financial relief to Tubman and her family. She married Nelson Davis, a veteran, that same year; her husband John Tubman had been killed in 1867 in Dorchester County, Maryland. She struggled financially the rest of her life, however. Denied her own military pension, she eventually received a widow's pension as the wife of Nelson Davis, and, later, a Civil War nurse's pension.Her humanitarian work triumphed with the opening of the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, located on land abutting her own property in Auburn, which she successfully purchased by mortgage and then transferred to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1903. Active in the suffrage movement since 1860, Tubman continued to appear at local and national suffrage conventions until the early 1900s. She died at the age of 91 on March 10, 1913 in Auburn, New York.

http://www.harriettubmanbiography.com/

Edited documentary on Harriet Tubman, her contribution,with real interviews to bring Black history, slavery and Harriet Tubmans contributions updated

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ2Kbk4QTGU

Slave Song: by Slade

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym5zjRRTqU0

Sade Slave Song lyrics

I see them gathered, see them on the shoreI turned to look once more And he who knows me notTakes me to the belly of darkness The tears run swift and hard And when they fall Even, even the comfort of a stone Would be a gain There was a time when I thought I would have to give up But I'm thankful that I'm Strong as I am and I'll Try to do the best I can1 - Tears will run swift And tears will come that fall like rain I pray that it's swift though Tears will fall as cold as pain I pray to the almighty Let me not to him do As he has unto me Teach my beloved children Who have been enslaved To reach for the light continually So many times I prayed So many times I've prayed for you Prayed for you The tears run swift and hard and cold as pain Even, even the comfort of a stone would be a gain Had I not had the strength and wisdom of a warriorI would have to give up But I'm thankful that I'mStrong as I am and I'll Try to do the best I can Repeat 1 I pray to the almighty Let us not do as he has unto usTeach my beloved children I've been a slave But reach for the light continually Wisdom is the flameWisdom is the brave warrior Who will carry us into the sunI pray that it's swift thoughTears will come that fall like rain So many times, so many times,

Latino students recount the history of slavery in the United States and the importance of songs as a way for slaves to communicate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAs_ZmtuKOg

The History of Slavery In America

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc1RbUxQv4E

Why is finding information so hard??

What i fail to understand is: Why finding relevent information relating to slave rape is so hard.
considering how long black people were enslaved for the availability of information is ridiculous.

Why is it that the information i require so hard to find?

Why when i look up black women raped by white man does it only show results showing white women raped by BLACK man???

It is only early stages into research for my Live Art piece but already i have stumbled across a set back. lets hope that other sources are not as vivid as the Internet!

Slave Housekeepers

Naked Slave: Painted by Frank Buchser 1828-1890

My Status: Race Rape Victim Poem

My status as a woman alone in the evening/
alone on the streets/alone not being the point/
the point being that I can’t do what I want
to do with my own body because I am the wrong
sex the wrong age the wrong skin
and in France they say if the guy penetrates
but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me
and if after stabbing him if after screams if
after begging the bastard and if even after smashing
a hammer to his head if even after that if he
and his buddies fuck me
then I consented and there was
no rape because finally you understand finally
they fucked me over because I was wrong I was
wrong again to be me being me where I was/wrong
to be who I am
Pretoria ejaculates what will the evidence look like the
proof of the monster jackboot ejaculation on Blackland
and if
after Namibia and if after Angola and if after Zimbabwe
and if after all of my kinsmen and women resist even to
self-immolation of the villages and if after that
we lose nevertheless what will the big boys say will they
claim my consent:
Do You Follow Me: We are the wrong people
I am the history of rape
I am the history of the rejection of who I am
I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of
myself
I am the history of battery assault and limitless
armies against whatever I want to do with my mind
and my body and my soul and
whether it’s about walking out at night
or whether it’s about the love that I feel or
whether it’s about the sanctity of my vagina or
the sanctity of my national boundaries
or the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity
of each and every desire
I have been raped
be-
cause I have been wrong the wrong sex the wrong age
the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the
wrong need the wrong dream the wrong geographic
the wrong sartorial I
I have been the meaning of rape
I have been the problem everyone seeks to
eliminate by forced
penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/
the wrong skin on the wrong continent