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Afropunk Festival 2020 Sweepstakes – Enter To Win A Trip For Four

Afropunk Festival 2020 Sweepstakes is open to legal residents of the United States, who are at least 18 years of age or older at the time of entry. The contest will end on September 9, 2019. Winner will get a trip to one of the six 2020 Afropunk Music Festivals. Candidates who are willing to take part have to submit their entry before deadline.

Sweepstakes Entry Page Sweepstakes Rules

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Rare historical photo

"Father stares at the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old, Belgian Congo, 1904

Europeans often whitewash the history of colonialism under the guise of wanting to “spread their culture” or “promote progress” when in reality, they inflicted torture on natives for the sake of economic gain. Much of the collective Black conscious centers itself around the atrocities of slavery in the Americas by the British, French, and Spanish. But on the continent, Belgian colonizers took delight in the mutilation of slaves on conquered land in ways unimaginable. In hopes to introduce the continent to civilization, King Leopold II thought it best to use brute force. The picture above displays, “A Congolese man looking at the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter who was killed, and allegedly cannibalized, by the members of Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company militia.” Does this seem civilized to anyone? 

Rare Historical Photos, the website from which this photograph was obtained, displays a quote from a Danish missionary present during this era. “In Forbath’s words: The baskets of severed hands, set down at the feet of the European post commanders, became the symbol of the Congo Free State…. The collection of hands became an end in itself. Force Publique soldiers brought them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber… They became a sort of currency. They came to be used to make up for shortfalls in rubber quotas, to replace… the people who were demanded for the forced labor gangs; and the Force Publique soldiers were paid their bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected.” Is it any question that the barbaric nature of this violence still echoes in the heart of the continent today? The nations of Central Africa (in historical Congo) are still rebounding from the violence and exploitation several centuries ago, and conversations centering the revival and development of the continent must reckon with the horrors of the past. By T. McLendon, AFROPUNK Contributor”

FEATURE: Harlem, in retrospect – the work of Carl Van Vechten

Explore the work of artistic photographer Carl Van Vechten (June 17, 1880 – December 21, 1964). After moving to New York in 1906, Vechten (originally from the midwest and White) took a job as a music and dance critic for the New York Times and was instantly drawn to the nightclubs of Harlem – leading to a keen interest in the African American community and later his patronage of the Harlem…